2
· Business Builder
· Community Cause
· Featured Video
· First Looks
· FlashForward
· Lifestyle
· Talent Builder
· What's Hot
Tag Archive | "Hank Walshak"
The 6.5 Things Lady Gaga Has To Teach Us About Marketing
Posted on 22 July 2011. Tags: Hank Walshak, Lady Gaga
ByHank Walshak
She’s been called bawdy, bodacious, craven, obscene, outré, not to mention lewd, lascivious, unconscionable, and fame-seeking. To her fans–the little monsters–she’s Mother Monster, divine, heaven sent, never to be outdone, the love of their lives. But up to now,nobody has called Lady Gaga the marketing master mind that she is. So, I’ll do it. She’s a marketing mastermind.
Once you see beyond the zaniness and outrageous costumes like the meat dress and stage blood, the over-done make up and the bouffant, multi-colored hair,you’ll realize that the Gaga lays down her marketing genius with every performance she gives. She’s truly a stand-alone wizard. For starters, consider these 6.5 marketing lessons she teaches:
1. Occupy the scarce space in your prospects’ and clients’ perceptualmap: Moving in the scarce, conceptual space separates Lady Gaga from every other pop singer today. Nobody’s like her.
The marketing lesson: If you’re a business owner, entrepreneur, consultant, or coach and not moving in your scarce space, you’re either moving in someone else’s space or a commodity space. Aargh. That makes it difficult for customers, clients, or prospects to figure what makes you and your business different from your competition. If you’re in the kingdom of commodity, buyers can always get it for cheaper somewhere else.
2. “Step away from the formula”: These are Gaga’s words not mine.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, is formulaic about Lady Gaga, her voice, her songs, her costumes, and her acting. She never fails to step away from the formula.
The marketing lesson: If you use hand-me-down ways to describe what you do, you’ll sound like same-ol’ same ol. What’s the point of that? If your marketing reflects formulaic, ho-hum words and concepts, you’re well on the way to becoming well, too predictable. Walking down this path leads right to the like-everybody-else zone, also known as the zone of commodity.
3. Newness Is the new norm: This ties in closely with the last point. Lady Gaga
never fails to be a surprise in the making. Her fans never know when or how she’ll deliver something creatively new in her songs and concerts. As often as she can, she introduces a new wrinkle for her adoring fans.
The marketing lesson: Value, including the value we bring to our clients and customers, is time limited. Sooner or later, everything gets stale, outworn, dry, and yawnsville. Hence, the need to continually offer new, value-enhancing insights and services to clients and customers. In this world of instant communications, today’s new quickly morphs into tomorrow’s seen-it-all-before.
4. Stay close to your style: Lady Gaga has learned from others like Madonna, but today, the Gaga’s style is her own. She sings her own song and acts her own acts literatively and figuratively. Her style and the way she belts it out are her very own. That’s what makes her such a stand out.
The marketing lesson: Lady Gaga knows and exploits the spine of her style. She harbors no illusions about who she is and what works best for her and her devoted fans. Nor should we market under any self-delusion about what works best for us as we reach out to, and for, our clients and customers.
5.Tell your story over, and over, and over again any way you can:Gaga is on social media like Facebook Twitter, and YouTube. And you’ll see her in traditional media like Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and Us. Lady Gaga uses any and all media to communicate with her fans.
The marketing lesson: Tell the story of your expertise and your business over and over and over again in all the media available to you and your business. Have an integrated media plan to get the word out.
6.Stay close and be ultra-responsive to those who control your destiny.Gaga stays close to her fans. She works and sweats her heart out for them. They’re in her mind day in and day out. They’re her customers, never to be taken for granted.
The marketing lesson: Your clients and customers deserve and pay for you to keep them in your top-of-mind awareness. Stay close to them. Call them before they call you. Feed them creative ideas to improve their businesses and communications. If you’ve got a project going for a client or customer, keep them posted about it along the way. If a client or customer calls to ask about it before you call, know that you’re already too late.
6.5 Listen intently. Gaga does. She consistently listens to her fans. That’s how she knows what they need from her.
The marketing lesson: Listening intently is the hard part of doing business. But as business people, we need to listen intently not just to what our clients and customers say. We need to listen to what they don’t say. But the more you listen and the more questions you ask your clients and customers, the more open they’ll be and the more they’ll tell you what they would otherwise have left unsaid.
All of which points to a truism about Lady Gaga: She’s a paradox. The way she markets herself is new. But the core of her marketing isn’t new. It’s the stuff of all great marketers. It’s truly customer oriented and client oriented. And this is as traditional as you can get.