RIPPLE100 Micromarketing

How to word of mouth, or ripple? Get ideas here, then get started at Ripple100, where anyone can ripple anything, for any audience anywhere. Easy.

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Ah, retail. Just in time for the holidays. If you can buy things there, it’s retail. Stores online or off. Big malls, strip malls, outlet malls, boutiques, antiques, art galleries. Don’t forget catalogs.

Ripple your store if it’s so obviously unique.

If not, dig deeper and ripple that which makes you different. Different vs. other stores. Different where you are. Different today vs. yesterday vs. tomorrow (in other words, what’s new? launching anything? products? services? promos?). Different in ways that matter to us.

Like, as a store:

• Your merchandise.
• Your focus on just shoes.
• Or handbags.
• Or jewelries.
• Or men.
• Or women.
• Or kids.
• Or the great outdoors.
• Or great causes, or non-profits you support
• Or, back to your merchandise, the full variety of your offerings.
• Or where you offer them from.
• Maybe it’s a quaint little shop tucked in the cobbled streets of Amalfi.
• Or the trendiest avenue in New York.
• Or you’re multichannel.
• The fact that customers can browse and shop online.
• Or in-store.
• Or in 73 countries.
• Or via catalog.
• Or all of the above.
• And the fact that they can return no questions asked.
• Or free shipping.
• Or buy one take one, or any of its ingenious permutations.
• Your prices.
• Your holiday promos.
• Your people.
• Your stores.
• Your furniture, decor, or the 100 inch flat screens that adorn your walls.
• The music that blares, or hums, from your stores.
• The name of your store.
• Your history.
• Your service.
• Your happy customers.
• The other stores that make you worth the trip.
• Or the trip itself – maybe it’s the scenic drive, or British Airways’ fly now pay later promo.
• Or the town fair or fiesta or festival that marches right past your front doors.
• Or the al fresco dining place just 10 steps from your door.
• The free samples you’re giving out just this week.
• The free samples you gave out last week.
• Your after-sales service and warranties.
• You’re always over-stocked.
• Your clientele.
• Your personal shoppers.
• You’re bespoke only, nothing off-the shelf.
• Everything’s off-the-shelf.
• Your (gulp) liquidation sale.
• Your half off on everything this Tuesday only every Tuesday.
• Your “you’re going to love the way you look, I guarantee it” guarantee.

Look, consumers have so many options. But as you can see there’s even more ways you can ripple – ways you can tell us what makes you different, why it matters, and why we should buy from you.

Click on comments if you want to add to this list, or see what others added.

Remember: if it’s different, or if it matters, it’s worth a ripple.

How to word of mouth, or ripple. Get ideas here, then get started at Ripple100, where anyone can ripple anything, for any audience anywhere. Easy.

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Professional services. That’s you if you call us clients (not customers). And often we call you “firms”. Law firms. CPA firms. Consulting firms. Software firms. Marketing firms, or agencies, whether you do ads, PR, SEO, web development, graphic design, etc.

Ripple your firm if it’s so obviously unique.

If not, dig deeper and ripple that which makes you different. Different vs. other firms. Different where you are. Different today vs. yesterday vs. tomorrow (in other words, what’s new? launching anything? products? services? promos?). Different in ways that matter to us.

Like, as a firm:

• Your breadth – we’re a full service ________.
• Your depth – e.g., we only do IP law, and only for software.
• Your sweet spot – the mix of expertise, track record, and passion that few can match.
• Your reputation – what you’re know for.
• Or would like to be known for.
• Your big-time clientele (the best names trust you).
• Your small-town clientele (you make time for everyone).
• Your 75 years in the business (you’re tried and tested).
• Your 5 weeks in the business (you have fresh ideas).
• Case studies and/or work samples – show us, don’t just tell us.
• Your white papers, or PDFs.
• Or citations in the Wall Street Journal, or Main Street Herald.
• Or court testimonies you’ve given.
• Your typical engagement.
• Your 5-step process that begins with discovery and ends in measurement.
• The powerpoint of your 5-step process.
• The method to your madness.
• The madness in other firms’ methods.
• Your name.
• Your partners.
• Your partners’ partners.
• Your partners’ rolodex.
• Your partners’ schools and degrees.
• Your partners’ portraits, specially commissioned.
• Your culture.
• Your history.
• Your location.
• Your office.
• Your community – and how you’re a part of it.
• The cause, or nonprofit, you support.
• Your new service that you’re unveiling next month. Launches always make good ripples.
• Your fees.
• Your guarantees.
• Your quick turnaround times.
• Your non-billable hours.
• Your office hours.
• The art, decor or furniture that adorns your halls.
• Your dress code, or lack of it.
• Your movie – if your firm were a movie, or song, what would it be?
• The cappuccino or single malt you serve at your reception area.
• Your receptionist/s – (yup, we’ve seen this before).
• Your gray hair, or no hair, or too much hair.
• Your pet.
• Your food or drink or cigar of choice.
• Where you take clients for food or drink or cigars.

Basically, ripple anything that shows your personality. Because in professional services, unlike in products or even other types of services, we spend tons of face time with you. Makes it easier if we like you. You, not just what you do.

Click on comments if you want to add to this list, or see what others added.

Remember: if it’s different, or if it matters, it’s worth a ripple.

Coming out of a 5-week fix. Partly technology, mostly culture, the rest serendipity. Worked on how we work. Startup mistakes 327-341, check. Product and team, stronger. Timing and economy, better. Decision makers back from summer. More bandwidth, and more of it tuned into marketing. As managers zero in on the last quarter push, as black friday and holiday sales come into view, as 2009 annus horribilis comes to its suspenseful climax (will consumer confidence rebound? will there be enough deals to lure them back?) – Ripple100 just might be the difference.

Supposed to go down to the 50s later this week. Nice relief here in the US Northeast. The heat wave is over. The economy wants to turn. Michelle Obama wore shorts in 104 degree weather, while on vacation. Even my golf swing is in line – fine today, gone tomorrow. The world is right again. We just need to give consumers something to cheer.  

We’re (almost) on. The First 100 Ripples in 100 Metros worldwide. Do it yourself marketing, yours in a few days.

And yet in lieu of the much anticipated rush and panic, I’m looking at: Calm. Eerie, except it’s not just me. The whole team, calm. Amy, calm. David, calm. Abe, calm. Bob, Eric, calm. I, calm. Still lots to do for sure. But we’re executing (you know it’s good when you don’t need an adverb; you can just say period.). We’re navigating all the bumps and twists; somehow at every turn, we find among ourselves someone or another who is able to put the rest of us on their back. When that happens again and again and again you start knowing you’re going to get it done. 

So days from launch and I can rest at day’s end. I can sleep. I can be present at table. My 12 year old doesn’t have to rib me about my wandering thoughts while his mom nods her agreement. I can savor food; I can sip wine. I can even catch up on reading (Darwin’s Sacred Cause – How a Hatred of Slavery Shaped Darwin’s Views on Human Evolution). I can ponder the parallel stretch between that great scientific endeavor and this our startup endeavor. Not in terms of magnitude of result or impact, but in terms of the most sublime of stirrings that fuel and drive human endeavor. That stirring, for Darwin it turns out at least as it’s posited in the book, comes from a hatred of slavery, which in turn was premised on theory that white and black originated from and as such are different species. My stirring comes from hatred as well – of ads and technologies that perpetuate this species of spin, hype, duplicity, noise-mongering and outright lying. Instead of leveraging these same underlying technologies to give us something better. Something that makes us all better.  

Days from launch, and I am blogging again. Nobody’s perfect.

5 weeks to launch, designed as ante-launch (like ante-room, not antichrist):

• Spot the evolutionary tweak/s, still in experimental mode: “social software and metro-centric media for world of mouth campaigns”
• Screamed head-off at design – then gave it standing ovation, the kind Onassis might have given Callas at La Scala. That’s design. Method. Madness. Madness. Madness. Masterpiece. No rest until we have it.
• Added key layer and 2 major variables to database – central to world of mouth Ripple100 style.
• The Elements of launch: picked a date, interviewed our guru, added striptease, sharpened the story.
• R&D: (secret), (secret), (secret) and lifestreaming. You see, it’s not the tech we use, but how we use it. And way more than the tech lab, it’s the cultural canvass that MAKES Ripple100. 
• Amy really settling into Chief Blogger and Media Maven role. A star is born. 
• Dave (who caused a minor panic), Abe, Eric and Bob are the product dev hub – lab and canvass – we’ve struggled so hard to build. Thanks guys.
• Major decision Saturday. World of mouth. Location, location, location. 
• Quoted TR. Far better it is to dare mighty things than live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.

Jeremy Owyang, social media analyst at Forrester and web strategist par excellence, wrote on a topic I don’t see as often as I’d have expected in the blogosphere: How Brands Reach Gen X Using Social Media. Gen Y  yes of course, but not Gen X. This generation – I should say my generation – born 1961 to 1981 seems like an afterthought between the economically mightier generations that sandwich it, the boomers and boomlets, the present and future windfall segments of marketing convention.

Jeremy’s post struck me as another lens through which to look at our own blog, Brands That Ripple. Really, we’re attacking the same question from another angle. When we look at how brands use social media to engage kitchen table issues – personal finance, careers, healthcare, education, leisure are the 5 we’re looking at – what we’re really looking at is how brands use social media to engage various markets, including those we segment as generations. In this lens, these kitchen table issues touch Gen X in a unique and central way – precisely because we are sandwiched by boomers and boomlets. We are the ones at the peak of our careers, balancing personal finance, healthcare, education, and leisure worries as we take care of children ranging in age from toddlers to teens and young adults (the boomlets) and parents (boomers) who approach retirement in the middle of the greatest recession in 50 years.

Bottom line, for marketers Generation X is an interesting psychographic insofar as we’re bearing a heavy brunt of today’s kitchen table issues. Those brands who can use social media to engage our kitchen table issues have a great opportunity to engage us.

Mon to Wed  has been all product – tech, design, R&D benchmarking. And a new inkling we’ll keep pseudo-stealth for now. Let’s just say this: “Digg for ads”. More soon, as our favorite Upper Westsider always says.

Today’s calendar is all about biz dev – work sessions with key partners for metro launch. It’s become a habit to do these marketing meetings in IKEA’s New Haven Cafe. All that life and buzz, coming and going and weaving cross-sections of mainstream society, from super moms to overweight businessmen to leisurely boomers, intermingled with IKEA’s overhead exhortations to check out this or that scandinavian-named bed or lamp – it’s this brew that somehow always gets the right marketing neurons working. It’s my version of startup cafe, which itself harkens back to the good old days of the startup garage. 

It’s this mix of technology and art and people and metaphor and self-definition and perpetual re-invention that makes startup life so, what’s the word? 

Anyway, the news for now is Ripple100 in Digg-guise. Stay tuned. 6 weeks to launch.

This was the week we were to announce a JV for Ripple100. Instead, we’re looking back at the best thing that’s never happened to us. Right guys, wrong time. We walk away having made intimate connections, and friends, with a team we know will be good for many partnerships in the long road ahead. Dave, Pete: thank you and look forward to next time – the right time!

As every CEO knows, the worst part is not the deal that didn’t get done; it’s the wait-and-see distraction that got in the way of execution. In our case it was 6 weeks. But a well-invested 6 weeks. Now we know what we don’t know – and that is my sweet spot. In the 5 days since it clarified that un-JV was imminent, we’ve managed to fill 2 key gaps. The news broke Sunday night. Monday afternoon, Dave, Pete and I agreed to disagree and walk away with finality. Tuesday night, Amy and I sealed the deal that would fill one of the major infusions the JV would have brought, on the tech side. That discussion was only 1 week old. By end of business Friday, the other missing piece was accounted for – design. That was 2 days old.

When things are meant to be, they happen easy. Like magic, not at all by design. It’s a certified fluke, or miracle, that we’re where we are only 5 days since our 6-week JV blew up. But we kept on punching, we never hung our head. And what was meant to be has happened.

So now we’re in the homestretch. The cast is never complete when you’re a startup (not even when you’re GE). But as I look with excitement on our 5-person team, I know the cast is now complete that will get us to launch. We have 6 weeks. We know what we have to do, each one and as a team.

As CEO my job is to make it happen. Not by forcing the issue, as I could have with the JV, but by listening. To what the situation – life – is saying. And following. To lead, I must follow.

The best way I can explain is via Friday’s scripture. 2 Corinthians 4: 7-15, with my paraphrase. We hold this treasure in pots of earthenware, so that the immensity of the power is God’s and not our own. We are subjected to every kind of hardship, but never distressed; we see no way out but we never despair; we are pursued but never cut off; knocked down, but still have life in us. Indeed, while we are still alive we are continually being handed over to death…so that LIFE may be visible in us.

So far no one’s fallen below B+. We too nice?

• A for Southwest Nuts Blog
• A for New Hampshire Scavenger Hunt 
• A- for Lenny & Joe’s Charity Carousel
• B+ for Stop & Shop Free Drugs
• B+ for Atticus Recesion Coffee

The point of our 4-Way Test is to show what’s exemplary. What to do more so than what not to do. We’re interested in what brands are doing great, and thus what we might all emulate in terms of being:  authentic (vs. highly spun); inclusive (vs. one-way); constructive (vs. noise-mongering); and mutually beneficial (vs. imbalance between company and consumer). 

Naturally, you’ll read about the good apples, the As and Bs. But it’s the component grades that really matter, where we can draw the lessons. So, Stop & Shop got a B+ for giving away free antibiotics, but got a D for not being inclusive. you couldn’t find the consumer voice anywhere in their campaign. 

Occasionally, where there are great lessons to be learned, we’ll also write up F-grade campaigns. But as a rule our philosophy is: talk about what we can all emulate. What to do more than what not to do.

New Hampshire wants you to visit – and is luring you with a Dream Vacation Scavenger Hunt. There’s one grand prize winner and 12 sweepstakes winners, but the real prize may be sheer thrills. Entries accepted up to August 16, 2009. 

Here’s how I graded NH Dream Vacation on our 4-way test:

• A for Authenticity! NH knows what makes a genuinely great vacation. The promise, the idea, the images, the memories, the whole experience. They capture all that in a good old-fashioned game that’s a natural fit for the activities and itineraries you’d be doing anyway. Their scavenger hunt has you taking pictures at more than 50 points of interests all across NH. Submit your pics to the game site and get the public (your friends really) to vote. The top 25 go to a panel, which picks the winner based on creativity (50%), quality (25%) and originality (25%).  The prize is a $2500 vacation package covering lodging, dining, activities. Treat the family on a pretty luxe weekend. Very timely considering the bad economy (still), rising gas prices (again), and summer junkets (always!). But the $2500 prize is not mentioned at all in the marketing (only in the fine print). NH understands the prize is not the lure. It’s all abut the fun. 

• A for inclusiveness. This is where brands almost always fall short – and kill whatever inroads made on authenticity. Not NH. Where most brands advertise one-way messages (what the messager has to say about itself, obviously self-serving), NH says almost zero about itself. Instead, they give the stage to visitors – to showcase the best of NH. Where most brands don’t even use social media, NH shows them all up with savvy use of Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, mobile. In contrast, another New England State tourism site had that ca. 99 look, complete with the governor’s official pitch. Yuck. NH’s use of tech is light years away, and yet it isn’t just tech for the sake of. NH’s is a pretty ingenious word-of-pics campaign, where the state’s best sales pitch comes from the experience of its visitors as told in picutres. 

• A for constructive. They don’t just message you, they get you to do things! Even those nagging photo opps (curious source of tension in my family where the women want to take pictures at every turn and the men don’t) suddenly take on new meaning. Maybe it’s just what guys need to get the competitive juices flowing. Most important, NH gets you to get your friends in on the whole experience. Classic FGF (friend-get-friend) program, except there’s a natural impetus here to share your photos and get friends to vote you up.

• A for mutually rewarding. NH makes it fun, draws you in as an active participant, instead of just doling out hackneyed and self-serving spin. And when you’re there, it reshapes the experience – adds fun, competition and connectedness to the vacation experience. You won’t believe the price tag for NH. Almost zero. Total value of prizes is $3,100, most of which is subsidized by sponsors. Standing ovation on the cost-benefit when you consider the impact on visitor traffic and revenues! Bottom line, win for visitors; win for NH.

Only reason I’m not giving an A+ is I haven’t actually done this scavenger hunt and therefore can’t vouch that the doing will be as good as the idea. And I’m a sucker for classic New England seaside and NH has barely a coastline. But that’s not their fault. Bravissimo, NH!