The Bulls Roar » Online Marketing http://www.thezenbull.com/blog More Meat, less potatoes! Wed, 01 Dec 2010 02:58:44 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 Are You a Purple Cow or a Plain Brown One? http://www.thezenbull.com/blog/index.php/are-you-a-purple-cow-or-a-plain-brown-one/ http://www.thezenbull.com/blog/index.php/are-you-a-purple-cow-or-a-plain-brown-one/#comments Sat, 19 Dec 2009 02:03:17 +0000 AnnieInfinite http://www.thezenbull.com/blog/?p=60 Copyright © 2012 AnnieInfinite. Visit the original article at http://www.thezenbull.com/blog/index.php/are-you-a-purple-cow-or-a-plain-brown-one/.

One of the most influencial marketers for me I have to say is Seth Godin, his approach to marketing is no-nonsense while still being quirky and that so totally appeals to me. His book “Purple Cow” if you haven’t already heard of it is a book I can highly recommend, and it certainly gave me insights into marketing I never got out of a text book.

This one book I credit with changing my whole philosophy of marketing and I believe listening to Seth Godin via his concise yet remarkable blog posts a must for anyone in the marketing industry no matter how big or small your organisation is.

Here’s an exceprt from his book, “Purple Cow’ and what it means to be the purple cow in your industry or niche:

“You’re either a Purple Cow or you’re not. You’re either remarkable or invisible. Make your choice.
What do Starbucks, JetBlue, Krispy Kreme, Apple, Dutch Boy and Hard Candy have that you don’t? How do they continue to confound critics and achieve spectacular growth, leaving behind former tried-and true brands to gasp their last?

Face it, the checklist of tired ‘P’s marketers have used for decades to get their product noticed – Pricing, Promotion, Publicity, to name a few-aren’t working anymore. There’s an exceptionally important ‘P’ that has to be added to the list. It’s Purple Cow.

Cows, after you’ve seen one, or two, or ten, are boring. A Purple Cow, though…now that would be something. Purple Cow describes something phenomenal, something counterintuitive and exciting and flat out unbelievable. Every day, consumers come face to face with a lot of boring stuff-a lot of brown cows-but you can bet they won’t forget a Purple Cow. And it’s not a marketing function that you can slap on to your product or service. Purple Cow is inherent. It’s built right in, or it’s not there. Period.”

Godin writes that you should review all your P’s (product, price, promotion, positioning, etc.) and figure out where your edges (advantages) are and where the competition is located and go where they’re not. Godin uses Jet Blue as an example of getting over the edge of service and pricing. This airline company delivers what none of the competitors possess and manages to make a profit doing it.

Marketers are farmers on the “purple cow farm.” In order to create a cow, a marketer must be involved in the entire process. Godin writes that marketing is the “act of reinventing the product, the effort of designing it, the craft of producing it, the art of pricing it, and the technique of selling it.”

The whole theory of being a purple cow is summed up in this phrase, “the act of building things worth noticing right into your product or service. . . . If what you’re offering isn’t remarkable, it’s invisible.”

Now ask yourself, what’s remarkable about your business? What’s remarkable about you? Those are the things to build on, not fitting in, not making everyone else comfortable with who you are or what you represent – be bold, stand out!

Don’t be a brown cow – get purple-ised!

Now tell me how you’re going to do that in a comment on this post – I would love to hear your purple cow story :)

The Zen Bull

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]]> http://www.thezenbull.com/blog/index.php/are-you-a-purple-cow-or-a-plain-brown-one/feed/ 1 New Paradigm: Websites and Marketing with Heart http://www.thezenbull.com/blog/index.php/new-paradigm-websites-and-marketing-with-heart/ http://www.thezenbull.com/blog/index.php/new-paradigm-websites-and-marketing-with-heart/#comments Tue, 01 Dec 2009 03:08:16 +0000 AnnieInfinite http://www.thezenbull.com/blog/?p=3 Copyright © 2012 AnnieInfinite. Visit the original article at http://www.thezenbull.com/blog/index.php/new-paradigm-websites-and-marketing-with-heart/.

Most people have by now noticed that there is a shift happening on the internet, it can be seen in the New Media Marketing also known as Social Media Marketing, Conversational Marketing or Relationship Marketing, and now on the new websites that are making their appearance.

What is different about this new approach to internet marketing? The big difference is:  it is about making real relationships with real people in a virtual world. Gone are the days of marketers telling us a business cannot wear its heart on its sleeve, that marketing is all about numbers and trends and has nothing to do with heart and soul and I say thank goodness!

The world has spoken with one voice, one loud and insistent voice and the world has said, “NO more interminably long scrolling AD pages! We want a feeling of being heard, a feeling of being able to trust again, we want heart, we want to see who you are and we want to know you – before we purchase a product or service from you. Please do not shout at us in mile high red print! and most of all we want to go back to the days of feeling as if we are being heard by you, back to the days when your customers and clients recommended you to us, back to the days when we actually knew you well enough to trust you and well enough that you knew our needs and responded to them with honest recommendations suited to those needs.”

We hear you, I know long before the ‘new’ trend of Social Marketing I was telling my mentor there was another way, that this hype marketing that was being taught as internet marketing was not for me – it just didn’t sit right with me at all. Now I am no longer a maverick on the outer, I am suddenly in fashion one of the original social marketers, who’d have thought?

I am not alone, having gravitated towards people in the industry just like me, I have found some lovely heart centered people and together we are creating a new company, devoted to helping people just like us to create websites and market those websites using heart, showing honesty and most of all by creating trusted relationships with our clients, customers and hopefully new friends.

If you knew you could come to a person and talk to them about your vision for your business and website who understood your need to appear and present yourself as exactly who you are, no hype. If you could say to these people please teach me how to contact those people I know will enrich my life by allowing my services or products to help them. Wouldn’t that make a difference?

Would you want to know more about a company that could host, manage and help you plan your website, your business and your marketing with an approach like that? Who could create your online face and market it in line with your business and passion, true to your vision and purpose?

Stay tuned – the doors are open and we will be continuing to evolve over the next year!

The Zen Bull

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