Work Smart

Tonight we came to the conclusion that there are actually five stages to mastering the art of marketing:

• Level 1: You don't know about marketing. You are a happy marketing target.
• Level 2: You understand marketing. You're starting to think you'd better be marketing than being marketed at.
• Level 3: You master marketing. You realize you now have the power to manipulate people and they don't even complain about it (cf #1).
• Level 4: Steve Jobs.
• Level 5: Jesus.

This video shows the power of subliminal advertising...

Nope, this is not the usual funny YouTube video stuff.

Here you see how advertising professionals are themselves subject to subliminal advertising.

My take on the topic…

Why should a legitimate business need to worry about branding?

Well, if you wait long enough, any type of business is bound to be commoditized at some point. Actually, they even managed to commoditize artistic creation! They have reality TV shows to dig up disposable singers, don’t they?

How fast your business is going to be commoditized depends on how easy it is to replicate. But eventually, you’ll end up with serious and strong competitors. At that point, the only thing that will distinguish you from the competition is your brand!

Your brand is the ultimate point of differentiation that will allow you to charge a non commodity price for a commodity product or service.

Of course, the competition will work on their branding too. So, if you’re in the market for the long run, if you are a legitimate business, then you definitely need to worry about branding from day 1. The earlier you start, the more time you have to become the “number 1″ brand in your customers’ subconscious mind.

No matter how hard you try, your customers/clients will not remember a dozen facts about you. Maybe they’ll remember 1, or 2… or 3 if they are really paying attention! However, a catchy brand is one easy thing for them to remember. “Google” or “Yahoo” are perfect examples of this. (By the way: “Ask"… is probably not so good… since it doesn’t really differentiate from the surronding noise — in the search area, everyone is “asking” the engines…

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"Lists and types of bite sized content that offer immediate reward to an attention and time scare audience typically spread further than content which requires more attention. The attention deficit most of us live with is going to constrain the types of ideas that are profitable."
-Aaron Wall

Oh well... I think it's been too long since I last read some great wisdom like the one on Joel on Software.

I read this really insightful peace today about all the important things beyond just the actual software code.

Here's a funny quote:

Human emotions can be really, really superficial. In particular people ridiculously overvalue aesthetics and beauty when evaluating products. It's one of the reasons iPods, and, for that matter, Keanu Reeves, are so successful.

...but the whole article is definitely a must read!

Of course, this so much applies to b2evolution as well... :-/