Differentiating is just as much about you as it is about your customer. You actually need to know yourself (your products/services) as well as you know your customer. Why? You need to be able to select just the right messages.

In the early ’90s I started to work with talk radio show producers. Early on, I had the opportunity to be at CBS National Radio headquarters in New York. The producer I was visiting had a desk that was literally stacked several feet high with press packs and releases.

It was in those CBS offices where I discovered why it was our fledgling PR firm was getting such great response from talk stations around the country: my headlines were concise and spoke to the need of  the producers. I knew my client’s subjects and I knew the mindset of the busy and overwhelmed producer and host.

Wading through the press materials from other firms and big publishing houses was …. well .. boring! Their headlines, written in 12 point, would often read something like:

John Doe Releases New Book About XXXX

Compare that with 36 point font headlines screaming a question, followed by smaller sub headlines, followed by short paragraphs that promised not to drone on.

I figured if I didn’t have ‘em after those three points .. it probably wasn’t a subject they’d be interested in anyway.

National Enquire-ish? Sure. Effective? You bet.

I KNEW the mindset of the talk show producer and host. I’d been a talk radio junkie in Boston since the early 80s and I listened to how subjects were introduced on the air.

Eventually, I applied the same principles to local tv. I watched how they introduced a story. What was the teaser? How did they talk to the audience? Once I understood that, writing to tv producers became equally as effective. They wanted to book our clients.

The same principles apply to your prospect. How do they want to be communicated to? Are you imposing what YOU believe to be interesting without really consulting their interests?

Know Yourself. Know Your Customer.

Get into their head. Imagine their mindset, their wants and frustrations.

Upcoming articles will delve into: The 3 Steps to Differentiating Yourself; How to Match Your Messages to Your Marketing; When Differentiation Matters Least; 5 Ways to Attract Your Prospect’s Attention, and How to Deploy Your Differentiation Strategy.

Lady Gaga Truthfulness Refreshing

Aaaaaah. The refreshingly sweet sound of candor. In today’s transparent, upload-to-You-Tube-in-Minutes World, candor will be your Best PR.

Take Lady Gaga’s admission to using marijuana when she writes. She could have avoided Anderson Cooper’s question about drugs in her recent 60 Minutes interview. She could have lied. She didn’t. She admitted what she did, while at the same time acknowledging that her only other response to the question would have been to lie: something she won’t do.

Applied on a business level, whether a mission statement, press releases, problem with clients or staff state clearly what you stand for: be authentic.

Manipulation is deeply rooted in Public Relations

Many PRs from the past were masters at deception.

Edward Bernays is considered the father of modern public relations and coined the term in the United States to replace “propaganda,” as that word had gained disrepute.

Bernays’ niece Anna described his philosophy as a sort of “enlightened despotism.”

Bernays wrote of his view in his 1947 essay The Engineering of Consent which he describes the art of manipulating the American people. The central idea is that the public should not be aware of the manipulation taking place. He felt this manipulation was necessary in society, which he regarded as irrational and operating on herd instinct.

Fast forward almost one hundred years and you have what you see today in modern public relations, advertising and marketing: an ongoing battle for your mind using spin.

Stated another way, Organic PR is: What the people you want to do business with say about you. If your organic PR turns off those whose support you, then it can be said to be “poor PR.” Conversely, if it gets them talking positively to others, you have “good PR.”

Good PR is something you can control.

When intelligent promotion is added to organically great PR, the word grows even faster. But a business with organically bad PR may get a momentary boost from some good promotion, but nothing lasting.

A triangle of organic PR elements is common to Lady Gaga, Groupon and other phenomenal succeses I’ve managed or observed. These are:

An Organic Message. Back in the mid 90s I hired a former editor in his sixties named Paul. Every good story, he explained, had to  pass the “Hey Martha” test, which was:

A man and his wife are married for forty years. Each night after work he has the same routine. He eats dinner, puts on his slippers and sits in his easy chair with the evening newspaper. His wife does the same. Once in a while he reads something that piques his interest. That is the only time he and his wife talk. The conversation starts with: “Hey Martha! Listen to this.” He then reads the story aloud.

The “Hey Martha” is your organic message. It takes observing who your market really is and what they respond to about you.

Marketing has a similar concept called the “Unique Selling Proposition” or “USP.” The organic pr message is different because it is who you are and understanding it actually helps you develop your USP. In short, developing a USP is a lot easier when you’ve isolated your Organic PR message.

Lady Gaga’s message “be yourself” sprang from her own self-image of an outcast growing up. She resonated with those who considered themselves “freaks” and other outcasts sensitive to ridicule. That message speaks to a wider segment than just those obviously out of the mainstream, so her organic message continues to spread. Meanwhile, of course her talent is exceptional.

Groupon’s organic message is that of offering local small businesses an opportunity for exposure to a massive number of qualified prospects looking for local deals that these businesses would never otherwise afford to reach.In exchange for the massive amount of exposure and new business, Groupon asks the business to offer a great deal to their subscribers.

In all of these there’s an organic message. Or, as Paul would call it: a “Hey Martha” story.

Connecting to Your Core Market with Authenticity. Don’t expect to get a big bang from generic promotion that doesn’t relate to the prospect and spouts trite messages that everyone else is saying. That’s called zero authenticity — no information go differentiates you.

What if you don’t know who your market is? What if you’re still finding out? By being authentically who you are, you’ll  attract those that are attracted to not only your service, but by who you naturally are.

Authenticity is being who you or your company actually are and not faking something you’re not because you think it’s cool.

Speaking to a core market. Organic PR is what the people you do business with say about you. That’s your core market. Build on that and don’t worry about speaking to everyone. Your sphere will widen if you keep speaking to your core.

What if you don’t know who your core market is? Starting a business often entails interacting with lots of different markets before you find the one that is a better “fit.” Keep your eyes open for it, while staying authentic and knowing your organic message. Deliver a great service, product, performance, etc all while observing who you attract.

Or, work it the other way: who do you feel most comfortable interacting with? Who do you know? What are they asking for?

“Message first — then mechanics” as I’ve said in the past. Meaning … know who you’re talking to and what to say before you invest a lot into direct mail, extensive copywriting, etc.

The Organic PR Triangle is a Journey, Not a Destination.

These elements described above work together as a triangle, with each element comprising a corner. As you better one aspect, you get more insight into the others. Pick one first and work on that and be aware of the other two aspects.

View developing the three aspects of Organic PR as a journey with no final destination. Don’t fret about getting all of these all “right” at one time. That’s a myth.

No two marketing approaches are the same.

No two shoe brands are the same.

No two individuals within the same profession will deliver the same service.

The ability to tell one from the other is the key to successful communicating.

When you’re communicating about yourself to a marketplace, your words need to resonate with your prospect. Your prospect needs to say “hey .. that’s for me!”

Whether you’re writing copy for a postcard or creating phrases for a Google Adword campaign, how do you verbalize what it is that your market is looking for that differentiates you?

A Gucci bag in the end isn’t much different in quality, design and construction than many other less expensive brands. It’s got a reputation. It’s got a “perceived value” over and above the mere materials and design.

Building your reputation is what differentiates you. It’s not an overnight process, but it doesn’t have to take long. Part of it is creating a “perceived value” over and above the actual service or product.

You want to be the Gucci or Nordstrom’s of your industry? Differentiate. It’s not complicated, nor does it require diabolical genius. It’s a process of examining what you do, analyzing what your customers have said about you, and your competition and identifying what’s different. The perceived value is often not something you might recognize yourself. Sometimes I discover it from reading testimonials or talking to my client’s customers.

When you differentiate, you lose a lot of concern over competition. Why? Because when you do it right and define how your company or product is different, and the value that’s perceived about you, you have a strength you can build on. You’re different.

Further, when you identify which market will appreciate and pay for your difference, you’re attracting the customers you want.

What makes one dentist a better service provider for a woman over fifty who needs rehabilitative work? When the dentist who has years of experience working with that exact demographic with rave results is being compared with a dentist just learning, there’s no contest. As long as she knows about the more experienced dentist, she’ll choose him, right? She’ll probably even fly across the country to get the experienced service provider.

Differentiate. Make it real. And then promote the heck out of it.

That’s personal branding.

With more people flocking to fast food restaurants during leaner economic times, my bet is KFC will win big and attract customers who normally wouldn’t patronize its stores. The company’s challenge is to “unthink KFC”. That’s’ right: forget what the “F” stands for and try it’s grilled chicken (which actually isn’t grilled, but baked in a convection oven and then stamped with grill marks.)

Pretty bold. But then again, what else do you do when the word “fried” is in your name that you’ve spent so much to advertise? Worth tracking this one to see how this experiment in altering your personal branding impacts the company’s revenues.

A business needs to be “pollinated” by the right kind of customer for that business. Even mundane products like bathroom tissue, still have certain customers “pollinating” their brand.

It’s called “niching” or “personal branding” or just “branding,” of course. But even within a niche, you have to attract the customers you want and who can pay for your services. You might be the Queen of Breeding Purple Orchids, but if the customer you attract loves purple orchids but can’t pay for them, you’re out of business.

In 1990, when my partner and I first started our PR firm, we discovered that authors and publishers of non-fiction were a great match for our services. At that time, we were one of the only firms booking guests on top talk radio shows, local tv and national tv. When we expanded our client base to include corporations, it no longer was quite the perfect match. So we developed new services more appropriate for that market.

Because we billed only on a results basis, we attracted all kinds of attention. A lot of it wasn’t right for our business model. Getting paid on results is the fastest path I know to finding out very quickly which type of customer you want to attract. There’s no benefit to telling a client you can help him if you really can’t.

That type of billing was unheard of in our industry at the time. It set us apart from other firms and, combined with the fact that we got results, helped earn us a listing in PR Week’s Top 100 PR Firms.

A service business can spin its wheels taking in the wrong type of customer because it needs the business. I believe that’s what makes business exhausting and arduous. By personal branding that allows your prospect to be very clear about what you do and your results, you’ll reduce the problematic clients.