Thanks to the work of San Francisco-based Duncan/Channon agency, creativity and persuasion have come together in a rare pas de deux.

D/C took the time to really get to know Esurance.com and its strengths, then distilled them down into one strong, pointed message:

“Technology When You Want It… People When You Don’t.”

Sound familiar?

Below are three randomly picked ads from the series.  Viewers sense the distinct personalities of the “tech” department vs. the “people department,” both working toward the same end goal for one company.

The final message to the consumer is that there are some amazing tools on the website for you to use, but you can ALWAYS call their 24/7 support line to talk to a real person.

Strong messaging, creatively delivered.  You don’t see much of that these days.  I’m looking forward to watching Esurance’s revenue numbers climb over the next year.

While I could envision mothers bargaining with their kids over what they could and could not afford, I also pictured these same moms feeling slightly relieved to have a comprehensive list at their fingertips to make shopping easier.

Just about any business can do something similar:

• The garden center that offers lists of tools for beginning gardeners, best types of flowers for shaded patios, or step-by-step instructions on planting a shrub or tree.




• The home improvement store that features a list of everything you need (tools and parts) to fix that leaky toilet.




• The restaurant that showcases a “chef’s secret” takeaway recipe card in a holder on the table.




• The wine store with a beautiful wooden literature rack near the register that offers flyers on building your first wine collection, or how to figure out the quantity of wine you’ll need for a party.




• The bank that provides a checklist of the basic financial and personal documents or copies you should place in your safe deposit box.




• The sporting goods store that offers flyers on the equipment you need for cycling, camping or hiking.

The list for potential marketing opportunities is endless.

I wonder why more businesses don’t do this.

What business are YOU in?  What kind of lists could you offer customers to make their purchasing process easier (and maybe even get them to buy more than they originally came into your store for)?.

I’m kidding… sort of.  Holly Buchanan often makes a point of showing where financial planning companies fail in the commercials they create featuring  senior citizen couples.  The reality is that, at the end of their lives, many women are single, widowed, or divorced.

One of my favorite routines by Alan King, “He Is Survived By…” makes that very point.  Watch it to the very end for one of the best laughs of the week.

The company wanted help in creating more compelling content for their website, with the goal of converting more visitors into customers. At the time of our conference call, web stats showed that while visitors were steadily on the rise and that most people were following the content all the way through to the sign-up page, they bailed out about halfway through the sign-up process.

The CEO was flummoxed and frankly, so was I.  The company even offered a two-month free trial.

As we sat there talking, I kept flipping back and forth between the homepage and the sign-up page.

CEO: “I don’t get it.  Our service costs less than $35 a year, yet the process comes to a screeching halt when visitors have to sign up.  What’s the hang up?”

MM: “Well, your service is still a fairly new business model and perhaps with all that you’re promising, it seems too good to be true. I see that you guys offer a free trial.”

CEO: “We do… you can see it on the sign-up page. We give two months for free.”

MM: “That’s great – so why aren’t you advertising this on your homepage… heck, on every page of the website? Surely there are those folks who are a bit more impulsive and will want to check it out right away.”

CEO: “You’re right – we’ll get on that, first thing. Where do you think we should put the info about the $4.95 handling fee?”

Handling fee?  HANDLING FEE?!

In a world where individuals are barraged with advertising and special offers everyday, consumers are highly sensitized to hidden fees and obligations. The customer’s first reaction to a “free trial” with a $4.95 handling fee – especially when it’s buried in the middle of the sign-up process – is going to involve the click of a mouse away from your site (probably preceded by a phrase like, “Uh, screw that!”).

Hyped advertising or offers with strings attached, either intentional or unintentional, will do more harm than good.  In the case of this company, I recommended either offering a “two month trial for $4.95” or, better yet, removing the handling fee entirely, depending on what their marketing budget could handle.

Make sure that free is really free,  or don’t do it at all.

Between 2002 and 2007, the number of majority-owned (51%+), women-owned businesses rose by 20%, to 7.8 million.

If you’re interested, the ethnic breakdown looks like this:

• Caucasian:  50%
• African-American:  34%
• Latina:  9%
• Asian:  7%

While this report doesn’t account for the economic downturn of the past couple of years, the fact that women haven’t been as affected as heavily as men by job loss (combined with cultural shifts in which more women are choosing to work from home), is probably holding this number fairly steady.

Here’s what I find to be the most interesting part of the report: An economic impact study (in collaboration with WalMart), estimates that women-owned businesses contribute more than $3 trillion to the economy, even though only 20% of those businesses have employees.

That leaves 80% of women who have started their own businesses and work on their own.

That means you have a tremendous opportunity to position your product or service not only for consumers, but female business owners as well.

Take the garden center, which could easily create a corner display within the nursery to feature low maintenance plants that are perfect for the office.

Or the cleaning service that could offer a “Home Office Only” package.  A woman always thinks of cleaning the rest of the house for the family, but neglects her own office. It’s a great way to get your foot in the door to persuade her to hire you for the whole house.

How about a meal prep service that delivers a “Work From Home” series of healthy lunches once a week?  She can just pull one out of the freezer, pop it in the microwave, and then work while she eats.

I’ll bet you can come up with a half-dozen ideas on how your company can serve those women working on their own.

Let’s see… 80% of 7.8 million is 6.2 million women-owned businesses.

Is that enough customers for you?

Want to dive deeper into specific subjects like brand credibility, web marketing, and marketing to women?

If you do, you should check out On Your Market.

On Your Market is a collaborative effort from a small group of advertising and marketing consultants who share a common relationship through the Wizard of Ads.  The teachers include Dave Young of Branding Blog, Tom Wanek of Marketing Beyond Advertising, Craig Arthur of Wizard of Ads – Australia,  and yours truly.

The goal of this teaching site is to enable small business owners to find the help they need to establish their own plans for marketing their business.

The tools and methods taught at On Your Market were developed through decades of spending millions of dollars of other people’s money to find what works and what will never work.

Our suggestion: Do more of what works. Ditch the rest.

Many business owners simply aren’t big enough to hire consultants to manage these areas.  But at On Your Market, you can purchase a lifetime learning membership for less that what it would cost to take us out to dinner at a nice restaurant.

And right now, you can sign up for a FREE “sneak peek” at one of the most important classes on the site, “The 12 Most Common Mistakes In Advertising.” You’ll have lifetime access to that class, FREE.  We’re hoping that if you like what you see, you’ll purchase a lifetime membership and continue to grow along with us.  This soft launch of On Your Market contains more than 11 hours of classes (supplemented with learning materials), with many additional classes in the works for future upgrades.  You’ll never have to pay for the new material – once you’re in, you’re in for life.

Why not given On Your Market a try – it may just be the tool you’ve been looking for.

Somehow, I have a feeling Lady Gaga may have seen this at some point.

The comments of the narrator (ooooh, swish!) are truly entertaining.

And for you guys out there, you’re not left out.  Looks like the predictions were just a few years off with the MC Hammer pants, but they did get it right with all the pockets needed for tech gadgets (and candies for cuties!).

Have a great weekend, everyone.

I strongly encourage you to read the lengthy article (which you can do online), especially if you have daughters that will someday be entering the workforce.  But I thought I’d share some of statistics from the article that back up Ms. Rosin’s explanation of “how women got control – of everything.”

• In fertilization clinics, reports for “sperm selection to choose the sex of a child” (most still in clinical trials), runs 75% girls, 25% boys.
• A 2006 study measured the economic and political power of women in 162 countries.  In almost all cases, the greater the power of women, the greater the country’s economic success.
• In our current Great Recession, 75% of the 8 million jobs lost were those belonging to men.
• For every two men who receive a B.A. this year, three women will do the same.
• Of the 15 job categories projected to grow the most in the next decade, all but two are dominated by women.

Statistics like these, combined with the socio-economic and cultural shifts that trend toward a matriarchal society, mean that just about every tradition – from fatherhood to breadwinner to bill payer – is changing in a big way.

Just something to think about over your morning coffee… and something to start preparing for in planning ahead for the future of your business.

There is one sure-fire way to drive my husband nuts – ask him the following question:

“Do you smell that?”

He is instantly on alert, sniffing and scrambling like a Jack Russell Terrier on the hunt for a rawhide chewy.  He goes crazy trying to detect the smell while I describe the particular components of the odor.  “It’s like a fried egg with a hint of cinnamon, wrapped in a bouquet of kitchen cleanser.”  Inevitably, my husband gives up the chase, convinced that no such smell exists and I’m one cupcake shy of a full dozen.

Actually, I’m not (at least where smell is concerned).  Studies like a recent one conducted at Cardiff University report that when it comes to odor detection, women have a much more elaborate sense of smell thanks to elevated levels of estrogen in the body. And not only do women have a heightened sense of smell:  MRIs show that women link those smells to emotion, storing those feelings in the right brain of emotional and long-term memory.

What kind of smells does your retail location or office expend?

If it’s moldy, you’re in trouble; likewise, any one of myriad odors can trigger the “don’t feel good about this business” button in a female customer.  Realtors have known about the importance of smell for years – just visit any open house on a Sunday afternoon and you’re likely to encounter a warm batch of chocolate chip cookies on the kitchen counter.

Consider taking a group of women through your location and have them tell you what they smell (it won’t work to do it yourself, even if you’re a woman – your nose is too familiar what it encounters everyday).  Then, determine what you can do to improve it.  But be careful – don’t make things too “sterile.”  I once had a pet-store client that was so focused on the cleanliness of the store that it smelled like a medical facility.  We had to introduce a new smell (cedar) to subliminally change the customer’s perception.

The nose knows… what would her nose tell her about you?

The article doesn’t say a word about advertising.  It does, however, address how Ritz-Carlton maintains a freakishly high level of word-of-mouth reputation.

It’s not complicated, and it’s not a secret.

Anyone could do it.

But most don’t.

There are three basic elements to the Ritz-Carlton philosophy:

1)  Every employee lives and breathes VALUES and SERVICE. Walk up to a Ritz-Carlton employee and ask about the 12 Service Values, and they’ll likely whip out a small pocket accordion file that features each value, three points of service, and the company’s credo.

Value Number One is:  “I build strong relationships and create Ritz-Carlton guests for life.”  Whoa. Even if the other eleven Values are blank, that one alone should blow your hair back.

2)  Every employee has AUTHORITY and RESPONSBILITY. Every employee of Ritz-Carlton has automatic authority to spend up to $2,000 to help a guest resolve an issue.  That’s right – $2,000 per guest, without having to obtain permission.  There’s a built-in level of trust, but with that comes a great deal of responsibility.  Once an employee gets a complaint, they own that complaint. No passing it off to someone else – they can get help, but they have to see the resolution of the problem through to the end.

You may not be able to afford $2,000 per customer, but what if you gave your employees authority of even $25 per customer to resolve problems?  And what if you made your employees see the resolution of a problem through to the end?  Imagine what kind of trust and pride that would build.

3)  Values, Service, and Pride are re-visited each and every day. This is the kicker, and the one reason why Ritz-Carlton is a cult brand and you’re not.  They didn’t just make up the values and customer policies then let it ride.  The staffs of each hotel meet at 8 a.m. every single morning to review their mission, discuss issues, and often times hail an employee for a specific success.  Pride and teamwork are reinforced each and every day in order to maintain consistency and to grow the brand.

Are you committed enough to customer experience to meet with your staff every day for a review of the company’s values, highlight customer resolutions, ask for help resolving problems, and feature success stories?  Do you have the fortitude that it takes to do it every single morning?  Because that’s what it’s going to take if you want to take your business to the next level.

Brian Bennett, a regional director for Ritz-Carlton knows that marketing and advertising have limited effect.  “It’s the positive experience that will make a guest who visits us five times a year visit us six or seven times.  The experience is what triggers change in human behavior and that change is pure profit.”

The recovery of the economy is still further off than we’d like to acknowledge.  Businesses that survive, and then rise to the top when times get better, will be those that take the Ritz-Carlton methodology and apply it to their own situation.  It’s not easy, and probably means a complete “lifestyle change” for your entire business.  But trust me – you need to do it.

The question is:  Will you?