Be a Digital Standout by Burns Marketing

Digital marketing is all you need* *So long as you do it right

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The 4 things you need to know to ensure breakthrough content www.burnsmarketing.com

Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s be honest here. If you think digital media campaigns alone are going to solve all your marketing challenges, you need to keep reading. Because while digital media can be quite effective, countless companies are wasting untold dollars on campaigns that were destined to fail from the outset.

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Digital marketing isn’t about the tools. It’s all about differentiating your brand. Listen. An email nurture campaign won’t ensure successful lead generation all by itself. Content marketing won’t effortlessly deliver qualified leads to your sales teams. And your website cannot turn customers into prospects just because you’ve posted a conversion form for a white paper on a landing page. In fact, you’re more likely to successfully climb Mount Everest than have a customer open one of your emails. So what do you do about it? For starters, you need to give people something worth paying attention to. It’s time to stand out by standing for something. Any number of experts are proclaiming nowadays that people no longer buy products. They buy purposes. Noted consultant Simon Sinek says, “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” Another leading expert says, “It’s not what you sell, it’s what you stand for.” Even in B-to-B markets, people don’t just buy your products or services

anymore. And they’re certainly not buying what the status quo is telling them. They buy the idea of what your brand stands for. And they’re using your brand to demonstrate their own values. Is your marketing delivering an invitation for them to join your purpose? What do their peers think when they tell them they’re using your company? Can your customers tell your story so that it sounds like you’re making a difference beyond just features and benefits? Are you inspiring your customers like no one else can? So ask yourself: Are you giving your customers something to stand for? Something to embrace when they buy your products or services? If not, a competitor can, and then you lose. Think standing for something doesn’t stand up to scrutiny? Think again. According to a study by Havas Media, meaningful brands outperform the stock markets by 120%. And in a startling finding, the same study also discovered that American customers wouldn’t care if 92% of brands disappeared.

Maybe profit isn’t a purpose for your business, but rather it’s a test of your validity. Thing is, people do still care about brands. Look at Apple®. You put their customers into an MRI and ask them questions about politics, religion, and personal computing, and the same areas of their brains trigger. And now look at NIKE. Why are people still paying $150 for shoes featuring the name of a basketball player who hasn’t played since 2003? The problem isn’t that people don’t want to care about your brand. It’s just that most brands aren’t worth caring about. So for you and your brands, it’s time to say something that’s worth listening to. Otherwise you’ll get lost in the noise and become one of the 92%. Don’t become a victim of that ambivalence by giving your customers digital campaigns that aren’t worth a moment of their time. Let’s live up to higher sales, more effective marketing, and being certain that your digital efforts are making a difference.

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Follow these four tips to increase the effectiveness of your digital efforts.

1. Be different. Really different. 2. Make it simple, stupid. 3. Cause happiness. 4. Shake shit up.

Customers know that there are more important things than money. In fact, Jim Collins, the author of Good to Great, says that purpose-driven companies outperform traditional companies by 7 to 1.

Be different. Not kind of. REALLY DIFFERENT. 6 | BE A DIGITAL STANDOUT

If you follow the leader, you’ll never be a leader. It’s hard enough for your customers to notice anything in today’s crowded world, much less pay attention to you. To stand out from the vast herds of similar businesses, you need to minimize the areas in which you are a commodity and make the most of the qualities that can make you a brand. There are hundreds of competitors nowadays in practically every market category. And you know what? Nearly every one of them sounds practically identical, a situation we call spectacular sameness. Every company in a market is trying so desperately to differentiate their product features that they’re relying on marginal benefits that don’t necessarily even amount to anything different. It’s like playing “me too” and saying that your socks are more fun. Take a look at nearly every market, and competitors are trying to stand out by promoting nuanced similarities that everyone else has and that don’t amount to anything really different. They’re 20% more colorful. They have even more outstanding customer service. They’re 8% lighter. And worst of all, they’re cheaper. Beyond the idea that you can never win a war on price, we’ll see in a minute here that cheapness isn’t something to stand

for. Customers are willing to pay more for experiences that solve real problems of theirs.

DON’T ASK FOR PERMISSION. JUST BE DIFFERENT. Remember, when you’re asking a prospect for their business, you’re asking new customers to make a change – or giving loyal customers a reason not to. Being different gives new customers something to remember, and your existing customers something to latch onto. When you sound like everyone else, you’re not going to achieve either goal.

BEING DIFFERENT IS A MINDSET AS MUCH AS A MARKETING STRATEGY. Clyde Fessler, the former vice president of business development at Harley-Davidson Motor Company, once famously declared, “If you do what you’ve always done, you’re going to get what you’ve always got.” He should know. He led the team that engineered the major turnaround that saved the Harley brand. Had they done what they’d always done, they would’ve declared bankruptcy long ago. Not many people know this, but Harley actually had the press

5 years That’s all it took for Chobani and their radically differentiated yogurt to become a $1 billion company.

release written and ready to send that the company had gone out of business. Harley had been bought by AMF – yes the bowling alley company. Quality concerns and bad operational effectiveness had eroded the brand to the point of its demise. But at that seeming point of no return, the Harley execs decided it was worth one more try to salvage the brand, so they devised a strategy to shift away from selling motorcycles toward selling experiences. Enabled by that strategy, they could sell a way of life that no competitor could match. And to this day, 30 years later, no one has. Of course, that one decision created one of the most iconic global brands the world has ever known.

GIVE PEOPLE A REASON TO GIVE YOU A TRY, NOT TO CHOOSE THE INDUSTRY LEADER. Meanwhile, though, let’s talk about being different for a moment and see how standing out in a crowded category is the only way to succeed. Have you paid attention to the yogurt aisle of your local grocery store lately? There are probably 50 yards of competing versions. Yoplait has 16 different products. Dannon® has 12 different brands. And that’s not even talking about the flavors and store brands.

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Given all this competition in a completely saturated market, who in their right mind would want to launch a new yogurt? A brand with a plan to be radically different. Enter Chobani®. They saw an opportunity to change the perception of the entire yogurt category by how they positioned their product. They recognized that yogurt had always been marketed as a replacement for treats and desserts. A compromise. So what would happen if they made the yogurt itself something to look forward to? Have it no longer be a substitute, but rather the sweet indulgence in and of itself? Turns out that was all the unique positioning they’d need to go from nothing to $1 billion in just five years. It’s important to note that Chobani was not the first Greek yogurt in the grocery store. Fage® was. But now, Chobani dominates the market, owning over 40% share of the Greek yogurt market while Fage is still stuck at around 15%. Chobani became a bit of a decadent, healthy treat everyone could afford – and they basically perfected a new category of dessert yogurt.

SECRET TO SUCCESS #1: Do things your competitors can’t do and say things they won’t say. Wondering how you can radically differentiate your product, service,

Make your product something that tells a better story – not just something with better features.

or company to stand out in your crowded industry segments? It’s not impossible – no matter what market you’re in. You just need to identify what makes your company, product, or service more meaningful than your competition. Feel like your product is too featureoriented to be different? Check out a cloud services provider named Rackspace. Markets don’t get much more competitive and feature-driven than data centers. Yet Rackspace has been able to create a thriving niche for themselves around “fanatical customer service.” If they can do it, you can, too – no matter how commoditized your industry might be.

Work with a small team to define three to five unique differentiators, and then develop marketing materials

that will help your sales team convey your competitive advantage to prospects. Here are a few questions that can guide this process. • Who are you being? • What are you committed to? • What can people count on you for? Ultimately, you want to be able to make the bold claim that your company, product, or service is the only one that provides _____ better than anyone else. If you feel a competitor could say something similar, start over. The goal of this process is total differentiability that you can use to ensure your digital marketing stands out. And don’t forget to ask customers why they chose you over your competition. You may be surprised and delighted at the results. 9

MAKE IT SIMPLE, stupid. 10 | BE A DIGITAL STANDOUT

Ask yourself something. “Would you buy your company’s product over one that simplifies everything into one clear experience?” There’s a common perception in marketing today that more is better. More features. More specifications. More words. More infographics. Etc., etc. After all, what customer wouldn’t want to learn about every last bit of the ingenuity and innovation in every product? The truth couldn’t be further from that reality. More isn’t better. Simpler is better. Your customers have a business challenge to solve, and they want an answer. Pretty straightforward. They also have the world of information at their fingertips – and they prefer to do their own unbiased research before they ever call anyone in your sales department. If they want to know how something works, they can have their answer in milliseconds with a simple search. Why would they want to be overwhelmed with long-winded marketing? They don’t. Instead, they want clear and easy experiences.

WHAT IF MICROSOFT DESIGNED THE APPLE iPOD PACKAGING? How much can we learn about simplicity from Microsoft™? Everything. Several years ago, a video surfaced called “Microsoft designs the iPod® package.” Allegedly created by an internal Microsoft team to illustrate Apple’s simplicity versus Microsoft’s complexity, the video shows what happens when a clean, simple Apple package gets inundated with requisite bulleted lists, slogans, humanexpressive imagery, starburst callouts, and so on. The result is a jumbled, hyper-confusing mess that says everything while simultaneously saying nothing at all. Unfortunately, most marketing efforts today suffer the same consequences – particularly in digital channels. Rather than offering clarity that can stand out against the abundance of complicated marketing clutter, marketers just add to the noise. The result is confounding and confusing messages despite a huge opportunity to earn greater customer loyalty by simplifying a customer’s decisionmaking experience.

How much more will customers pay for simplicity?

5.4%

and more

• retail – grocery • electronics • retail – fashion • fitness

4.8-5.3% more • appliances • automotive • retail – health and beauty • internet search • health insurance • retail – general • restaurants

4.5-4.7% more • social media • travel – hotels • telecom – cell phone • internet retail • travel – booking • travel – air • travel – train • travel/car rental

up to

4.4% more • banks/retail • shipping/mail • general

SIMPLY PUT, SIMPLICITY PAYS OFF. According to a study published in the Harvard Business Review, brands with greater “decision simplicity” are purchased 86% more often than more complicated brands. Additionally, those brands were 9% more likely to be repurchased, and 115% more likely to be referred to friends. Makes sense that people would also pay up to a 10% premium for products that offer increased simplicity, doesn’t it? And that companies like Virgin and LG earn significantly higher revenue than their complicated competitors, too?

SO EXACTLY WHAT IS ‘DECISION SIMPLICITY?’ Sounds abstract, but decision simplicity is actually quite direct. There are three criteria for defining whether a brand is giving customers an elegantly simple experience that will inspire lasting loyalty: • How easy it is for them to gather and understand information about a brand • How much they can trust that information • How readily they can weigh their options

insurance • utilities • media • telecom – cable

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The easier a brand makes these criteria, the higher that brand ranks with customers.

Want to translate those criteria into actionable insights you can use to improve your brand’s decision simplicity? • Minimize the number of information sources customers must navigate as they move toward a purchase • Increase the relevance and quality of the content you’re providing • Offer trustworthy sources of product information through recommendations and testimonials • Offer tools that let users weigh their options by identifying features relevant to them

AVOID INFORMATION OVERLOAD Information overload impairs purchase decision-making and causes customers to disappear, possibly for good. In a study a few years ago, a researcher put out a certain number of jars of jam on a supermarket table. The first test had 6 varieties, and about 30% of the people who were given these options bought some jam. A second test had 24 jars, and only 3% bought jam. The rest just walked away.

WARNING “Simple” doesn’t mean easy or simplistic.

SECRET TO SUCCESS #2 If you need to write more than a quick paragraph to explain something, it’s too damn complicated. It’s going to take some effort, here, to simplify your story and processes to give consumers what they’re looking for. But the results will be astounding. You’ll attract more customers and keep them coming back to enjoy the simplicity you offer

that others don’t. You’re helping them make sense of a complicated world, and they’ll pay a premium for that luxury.

Watch “Microsoft Designs iPod Package” vimeo.com/65449742

Cause HAPPINESS. 14 | BE A DIGITAL STANDOUT

How much is happiness worth to Amazon.com? About $600 million a year. We’ve all seen the press. Happy employees are the key to healthy, profitable companies. Studies show that happy employees are more creative, more productive, take fewer sick days, and produce more innovation.

But have you ever considered the effect your marketing can have on your customers’ levels of happiness? It can be profound. • Happy customers spend more. • They’re more loyal. • They’re more willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. • And so on, and so on. But what can you do to ensure that effect for your customers? It’s probably your best way to gain a huge advantage over your competitors. If you’re making your customers happy, they really don’t have any reason to abandon your company for another.

• The largest selection ever • Every possible convenient method of purchase • The lowest prices on the planet That company has since changed its name to Amazon and become the Internet’s largest retailer. And one of the keys to their growth was their free shipping. Executives estimate that while Amazon was becoming the Internet behemoth we know today, they were losing $600 million a year as foregone shipping revenue. Given that Jeff Bezos is now worth over $20 billion, do you think those millions were a shrewd business expense? Think it kept their customers happy, spending more, being more loyal, and willing to forgive a few bumps in the road like Amazon recently being profiled as having worse labor practices than Walmart? Absolutely.

SO WHAT IS HAPPINESS AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR Consider this. There once was this little YOUR DIGITAL MARKETING? startup called Cadabra that had one ambitious goal in mind for an online store: to make the customer happy. They set out to achieve this goal by living up to three simple promises:

So what is happiness? Modern science defines it as “the positive range of emotions that we feel when we are content or full of joy.” Sure, that’s kind of a circular definition. Either you have it or you don’t. But what’s more

important than the definition is this opportunity: as brands, we can have a significant impact on that happiness.

55% of all consumers would pay more for a better customer experience. (Defaqto Research)

And not just by delivering good customer service. That’s just one aspect of happiness. An important one, for sure, since about 70% of people who take their business elsewhere do so because of poor customer service and lack of human interaction. But nowadays, with everyone striving to deliver good customer service, anything short of exceptional service no longer stands out. So rather than focusing on improving a capability that will not likely enhance differentiation, brands can use effective digital marketing to literally have a positive effect on customers and improve the intensity of their positive experiences. We can help them overcome obstacles to them being happier. We can help them express their happiness in more fulfilling ways. And if we’re consistent in being happy ourselves, we can help them associate those experiences with our brands. For instance, if we can launch campaigns that help our customers prioritize their hectic lives, we will help them get greater control of their everyday activities – a key source of happiness. Let’s say we ask our customers a question: “If you could get 5% more done today, what would you achieve?” That simple question can

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help minimize a huge source of stress in their lives by asking them to ignore their huge pile of waiting tasks and instead focus on solving a single one. Happiness research shows that by tackling individual problems, people feel a sense of accomplishment that makes them happier than feeling overwhelmed by a giant heap of things that they’ll struggle to finish. Another way digital marketing can cause happiness is by asking your customers to identify something they’re grateful for. That’s another big key to the science of happiness. Studies show that when people express gratitude, they realize all the positive things they have in life, generally getting an uplift in their mood. (In fact, here’s a personal tip. If you thank people in your network for a different thing for 30 days in a row, you can potentially flip your outlook from negative to positive.) What does all this have in common? Celebrating experiences as opposed to promoting things and stuff by selling features and benefits. Material happiness is fleeting at best. Lasting happiness is all about the act of doing something. Of feeling good about what we’ve accomplished. Of finding a way to know that we’re feeling better because we’re doing something meaningful and purpose-driven.

“HAPPINESS LIES NOT IN MERE POSSESSION. IT LIES IN THE JOY OF ACHIEVEMENT, THE THRILL OF CREATIVE EFFORT.” –Franklin D. Roosevelt SECRET TO SUCCESS #3: FOCUS ON EXPERIENCES, NOT STUFF. While one-off events like a big purchase can produce a fair amount of happiness and satisfaction, these one-off events are short-lived. Huge buying decisions may take significant effort to achieve, but there’s always something else waiting and the happiness wears off remarkably fast – usually within three months.

Our memories keep an emotional photograph of the experience, whereas the material things don’t make as big an emotional imprint in our brains. So ditch the idea of trying to sell stuff – the features and benefits approach. That only creates artificial, temporary happiness. Use digital marketing to promote experiences and accomplishments, and you’ll inspire your customers to attach their aspirational ideals to your brand.

Instead, take a cue from people who spend their time and money doing things together – whether it be taking a vacation to someplace other than home or going on an all-day outing to the local zoo. They report higher levels of happiness than those who buy stuff: a bigger house, a more expensive car, or other material things. 17

Shake SHIT UP. 18 | BE A DIGITAL STANDOUT

Who says you can’t swear in marketing? Tell them to kiss your success. If there’s one hard and fast rule in marketing today, it’s that there are no rules. The goal is getting people to pay attention to what you’re saying. Achieving that objective is a free-forall, and it’s going to take a few leaps of faith. So buckle up, because things could get bumpy.

to be a little surprising. Unexpected. Disruptive. Because if we play by the traditional rules and processes, competitors who don’t are going to steal our customers. That simple.

Calculated risks have always been the common thread of epic advertising. Nowadays, however, being willing to gamble a little bit is a necessity for simply being heard. Safe, cautious messages merely blend into the rest of the clutter out there – especially when using digital media in crowded markets.

Here’s how it works. In traditional marketing, you develop products or services and then implement strategies to help attract new customers to your business. Works great – if you have the budget and patience to play by the rules. But what about those of us who are working with smaller budgets and need more immediate results? Enter some disruptiveness.

Just how important is disruption today? Consider that we each receive, on average, 3,500 marketing messages a day. To put that number in perspective, we see more ads in a year than our grandparents saw in a lifetime. Thing is, our brain can only process around 150 new stimuli per day – and that includes things like being hungry, answering emails, and watching TV.

In disruptive marketing, you design an advertising campaign with provocative messages that either challenge the conventional thinking in an existing market or speak to a new one. You need to know what your customers want and give them something they’re not getting from competitors. Maybe it’s irreverent messaging. Or maybe it’s a new business model.

To be certain that your digital marketing efforts command attention with that limited amount of opportunity, your campaigns need

After all, who says that your email subject lines have to be a complete sentence full of the latest jargon? Maybe they could get more clicks with

Disruptive irreverence was one of the biggest keys to JackThreads’ astronomical growth

JackThreads’ Membership Growth 6 ,5 0 0 ,0 0 0

5 ,5 0 0 ,0 0 0 4 ,5 0 0 ,0 0 0 3 ,5 0 0 ,0 0 0 2 ,5 0 0 ,0 0 0 1,50 0 ,00 0

5 0 0 ,0 0 0 0

May

2010

February

2011

August

2011

May

2012

provocative claims like “Booty call” or “Suits that don’t suck.”

MARKET TO THE BEAT OF YOUR OWN DRUMMER In 2010, JackThreads was a little, members-only online clothier that was purchased for less than $10 million in cash and stock by a web-based lifestyle community

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February

2013

May

2013

March

2014

called Thrillist. Think of Thrillist like an online Maxim magazine. JackThreads had a little over 500,000 members and nothing terribly unique about their marketing and messaging. Keep in mind that there are nearly 30 million Google results for the phrase “men’s online clothing.” That’s a lot of competition.

So how do you imagine this fairly inconsequential little online boutique launched a new marketing strategy in 2010 that helped them grow from $5 million in sales in 2010 to over $75 million nowadays? That’s right. They shook shit up. A particularly noteworthy email campaign of theirs featured emails and banner ads across social media promoting a week of significant discounts. The campaign theme? “EVERYTHING’S ON F*CKING SALE.” Some may find this admittedly profane phrase vulgar. Not the JackThreads target demographic, though – younger men looking for street, skate, surf, and contemporary fashion brands. To them it personified their need for rebelliousness even when shopping for suits and ties. Yes, JackThreads evolved their business model to maximize their data, and made decisions to support their customers exactly how they preferred to shop. They launched an app in 2012 because they saw that 50% of their customers shopped via mobile devices. But they also started making bold, aggressive marketing primarily through their biggest channel – email.

Here are some of their other notable email subject lines: • WATCH PORN – a sale dedicated to wristwatches • BOOTY CALL – that’s right, a sale on boots of all kinds • WE’RE DRUNK. YOU’RE WELCOME. – announcing a big sale • FARE THEE WELL, SWAMP ASS – an underwear sale • SHIRT HAPPENS: $18 BUTTONUPS + EXTRA 25% OFF LIGHTWEIGHT KNITS FOR SUMMER NIGHTS As far as provocative campaigns go, JackThreads’ efforts are certainly on the edge. But by being unapologetic about their personality, marketing campaigns, and overall tone, they grew their customer base by 1200% in just four years. That’s nothing to swear at.

GO BIG OR GET IGNORED We’ve all heard the tired marketing cliché that trying to market to everyone means you’re marketing to no one.

JackThreads has practically turned irreverent email into a profitable, bottomline-driven art form.

Just because it’s overused doesn’t mean it’s not still true. So stop looking for a common denominator among all customers, and focus your efforts on people who may be receptive to your marketing. 21

Face it. You’re never going to make everyone happy. 20% of Americans think it’s OK to beat children in public. You don’t want to make them happy, anyway. Instead, stick to the people you want as customers, and give them surprising, inspiring marketing that speaks directly to them. Do it right, and they’ll become even more passionate about believing in your brand.

SECRET TO SUCCESS #4: It’s OK to not be perfect. There are no best practices for doing what’s never been done. Just remember, it’s OK to alienate people with your marketing. In fact, by pissing off some people, you may just reinforce the loyalty you’ve created among your core customers. Additionally, being disruptive means your marketing is going to have some hits and misses. Maybe even some big misses. But when you’ve segmented your market well enough that you’re providing them with value they can’t find elsewhere, they’re going to tolerate a few missteps here and there. Want proof?

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There’s something called the Pratfall Effect that validates that occasional mistakes are not only acceptable, they may turn out to be beneficial. So long as the mistakes are not critical and making mistakes does not compound a reputation for being unliked, the occasional pratfall can come in very handy. In tests, subjects are played select recordings that include the sound of people knocking over a cup of coffee. When participants are later asked to rate the likability of everyone in the recordings, the people who spilled are the people who win. So go ahead. Pratfall away. The Pratfall Effect serves as a good reminder that all the cool people are fallible.

Let’s take your digital marketing to new levels. Today can be the day you break free from conventional thinking. The status quo is always the biggest threat to your success. Sure, best practices might provide a blueprint for getting started. However, by following approved processes and proven guidelines, you’re doing the same things as everyone else. That’s certainly not the best way to get attention and give your customers a unique purpose to believe in. The last thing you want is more ambivalence to your marketing. You need to inspire new believers and re-energize your loyal customers. Forget the rules that everyone else is using. It’s time to champion your own best practices and write your own success stories. Here are some industry-standard rates you can use to benchmark the effectiveness of your new efforts.

0.001%

Standard banner ad clickthrough

20%

Standard email open rate

2-4%

Standard email clickthrough rate

1-2%

Standard email bounce rate

Here’s another less empirical way to gauge your campaigns. If you’re like an average American, you receive about 150 emails per day and get served over 1,700 banner ads a month. You’re an expert in what you click and what you don’t. Would your digital marketing get through your filters? Pat Fallon, co-founder of renowned creative agency Fallon Worldwide, explains that “creativity is the last legal means of gaining an unfair advantage over your competitors.” That statement is more relevant now than ever. The question then becomes, what are you going to do to be creative and how are you going to do it? Embrace a little risk, and devise some ways that you can be a radically different, simple, and disruptive source of happiness for your customers.

30%

Standard opt-in conversion rate

4-15 characters Highest converting email subject lines

seconds

Average time spent on a website

$0.07-$0.08

Standard cost-per-view rate

CASE STUDY

Digital marketing in action The $1.3 billion Xerox Chief Optimist campaign Think your industry is crowded, and that you’ll have a daunting task trying to differentiate your solutions? Imagine being Xerox®. They’re still attempting to shed old perceptions that they’re just a document management company while at the same time entering the fray for big data analytics services. Throw in the fact that the buyers for analytics services are usually protected safe and sound behind an administrative gatekeeper, and Xerox faced some fairly significant problems to say the least.

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Equipped with an innovative approach to a multifaceted digital and traditional marketing campaign, Xerox made it look easy. THE CHALLENGES Every marketing effort has challenges, but Xerox faced two formidable obstacles to ensuring that their target market even noticed anything Xerox was trying to say.

• Making a commodity product sound powerfully unique. The competition for IT services and big data analytics is fierce and full of myriad options. Thing is, everyone sounds nearly the same. Even Xerox admitted, “In our space, we sound similar to our competitors. We all talk about how we can solve problems for our customer.” • Devising a campaign that could get their message past administrative assistants. The senior-level executives who have buying authority for costly analytics solutions are not just overworked and constantly juggling multiple tasks. Nearly all of them have administrative assistants who serve as their gatekeepers, filtering and prioritizing every message that reaches them.

As Jeannine Rossignol, VP – marketing communications, U.S. client operations at Xerox, told AdAge, “Often the admin goes through the executive’s mail first. Many direct mail pieces don’t make it to them.”

THE SOLUTION One key insight drove this entire campaign. Senior-level executives receive around 300 emails a day, and the vast majority of those messages come from someone who is complaining about something. Not only does this deluge of negativity get tiring, it was actually causing the target market to dread even opening their inbox. Here, Xerox saw a core opportunity. What if they switched the conversation from negative to positive? And what if they supported the conversation with a business publication that offered perceived value rather than another piece of sales collateral? And so, the “Get Optimistic” campaign was born, supported by a first-of-itskind business magazine called Chief Optimist, featuring relevant content through a partnership with Forbes.

RESULTS Indisputable, undeniable, unparalleled success – and arguably the most successful content marketing campaign ever. Xerox was able to schedule more than 1,500 sales appointments that have generated more than $1 billion into a pipeline with a 12-to-18-month sales cycle.

INSIDE THE CAMPAIGN How was Xerox able to realize this level of success? This one campaign capitalized on each of our four pillars for making breakthrough campaigns.

• Be radically different. Business babble is the vernacular of choice for most sales organizations throughout the IT services industry. So while everyone else was talking about how their big data solutions would leverage an optimized OPEX to increase ROI through decreased TCO, Xerox made a clear, conversational claim to their target market. By urging their customers to “get optimistic,” Xerox offered a refreshing alternative to ordinary sales cycles. • Be simple. Does it get any simpler than building a campaign around two words that encourage a busy, weary executive to have a more positive outlook on everything?

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Xerox avoided the trap of getting bogged down by technical minutiae and instead boldly proclaimed how their biggest benefit was a new, uplifting mindset. • Make happiness. By emphasizing a new tone and an exciting focus on positivity, Xerox launched perhaps the first major B-to-B campaign ever that was built exclusively to make senior IT executives happier. • Be disruptive. All right, so the Xerox campaign didn’t actually swear in the subject line of an email, but it was still quite disruptive in its own way. What other IT company is subscribing them to a sales magazine that doesn’t even emphasize the company behind it? It was a brandnew approach that earned the target market’s trust and reaped the benefits of that experience.

From traditional print to atypical landing pages, the â&#x20AC;&#x153;Get Optimisticâ&#x20AC;? campaign had it all.

WANT TO ENSURE YOUR CONTENT BREAKS THROUGH THE NOISE? Contact us at 970-203-9656. www.burnsmarketing.com

ÂŠ2015 Burns Marketing www.burnsmarketing.com Amazon.com is a registered trademark or trade dress of Amazon in the United States and/or other countries. Apple and iPod are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. Chobani is a registered trademark of Chobani, LLC. Dannon is a registered trademark of The Dannon Company, Inc. Fage is a registered trademark of FAGE International, S.A. JackThreads is a registered trademark of Thrillist Media Group. Microsoft is a trademark of the Microsoft group of companies. Xerox is a registered trademark of Xerox Corporation.