One of the earliest lessons marketers learn is to focus on benefits, rather than features.  For example, Volvo focuses on safety, while Nordstrom focuses on service.   Apple lives, breathes, and personifies uber-cool, techno-zen mobile devices. I could care less how Apple’s iPad works.  But I do marvel that it delivers the world to me in a touch of my finger.

If you take the benefits-over-features mantra to the next level, you’ll arrive at where I think the marketing action really lives.  That is, with the client’s “pain.”

Over and over again, I ask clients: “Why are your clients searching for your services? Why are they visiting your website? Why, in the old days, would they pick up the Yellow Pages?

If they’re looking for a tutor, their “pain” may be a child who is struggling in a class.  If it’s for a family lawyer, their pain may be a failing marriage.  Perhaps they are tired of the pain of not managing their finances well, and are serious about aligning with a trusted financial advisor.

It’s savvy strategy for service providers to speak to this pain first, and to their capabilities, second.  But more often than not, I see companies lead with their process, systems, qualifications, and other factoids.

When you focus first on the clients’ issues,  they sense that you care and understand.  And who wouldn’t prefer to work with that kind of provider?

As 2011 winds down, it’s a good time to ask: Did our communications create value this year?  Did we engage meaningfully with clients, employees, and colleagues?  Are we stronger, clearer, more compelling than last year?

Social media reached new heights this past year.  Nevertheless, social media in its various forms is simply another platform.  No matter the channel, communications must be relevant to the audience. From in-person exchanges, to snail mail and mobile apps.

At the beginning of each new year, marketing departments decide how to allocate  resources. What is the mix between old and new media? Social media is a huge force that must be assimilated into virtually any situation.  But social media is not a magic pill.  The message must still be strategic, thoughtful, and respectful.  It must resonate with the receiver.

As you look to a new year, ask yourself, “How can our communications enlighten and enrich our target audiences?”  Once you determine that, you can decide which channels to use in sharing your message.

Warmest wishes for a joyful holiday season.

Digital is becoming more pervasive in every nook and cranny of our world. Yet many accomplished Baby Boomers are still, as the old song goes, “hoping, wishing, and praying” that the digital revolution will die a slow  death.  That’s not going to happen.  The flow of communications has radically and fundamentally shifted in the past three years.  It’s growing more dynamic and fungible by the week. So the question becomes: “What’s your digital vision?”

Every organization needs a vision to steer its digital ship by. How is your online presence supporting your company’s core mission and goals?  What client experiences are you delivering?  How are you integrating with more traditional initiatives?  What is your voice and focus?  Who’s in charge?

These are not easy questions.  It’s not a quick fix.  And it can get downright messy.

Many go astray by focusing too much on the medium (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc).  A better starting point is with the content and context of the engagement.  What value can you provide through online channels?  How do you carry through your brand promise, your uniqueness?

Marshall McLuhan was the sage of my college days in the School of Communication.  His famous quote, “The medium is the message” seemed radical at the time.  The digital age has expanded the mediums exponentially.  With respect to McLuhan, I believe that today, the message should dominant over the medium.  Without a focused, compelling message, the mediums don’t matter.  They just become more noise. You may be Tweeting, but you don’t know why.

A solid digital vision begins with understanding your substance.  Strong brands know who they are.  They prioritize how, when, and where to communicate their unique offerings. This is the best road to embark upon as you enter the digital forest.

In addition to crisp weather, baked apples, crimson foliage, and Halloween, October is  official poetry month.  October 6 is National Poetry Day.  Having loved poetry since childhood, I’m thrilled that we officially recognize the expressed stirrings of our souls once a year.

We all know that poetry ranges from the sublime to the ridiculous. “Ode to Advertising” is one of the sillier poems I have encountered through my work.  Yet it packs powerful insight:

“The codfish lays ten thousand eggs, the homely hen lays one;

The codfish never cackles, to tell you when she’s done.

And so we scorn the codfish, while the humble hen we prize.

Which only goes to show you, that it pays to advertise.”

The reason this poem has stuck with me is because it’s so true. I frequently meet  quality professionals who “lay ten thousand eggs,” but few know about it. I also encounter not-so-humble hens who make laying one egg sound like the most valuable skill set in the workplace.

What’s the difference?  In most cases, it’s under communicating. The great thing about today’s digital age is that anyone can connect directly with clients, colleagues, and centers of influence.  Expertise can be shared across a variety of platforms, for a fraction of what it once cost. Engagement has essentially eclipsed advertising in attracting and influencing others.

If you’re a high-achieving, under-communicating professional, you’re in luck. Never before have you had so many opportunities to engage.  Just a few of your options are relevant website content, blogs, email, video, and other social media tools.

October may be National Poetry Month.  But in today’s world, I believe that every month needs to be “Engagement Month.”

If you’re like most smart, highly educated professionals, you may not be aware that the front page of the Wall Street Journal is written at the ninth-grade level.  That’s right — high school.

What do the editors of the WSJ and other professional communicators know that you don’t?  Are CEOs, investors, lawyers, investment bankers, financial executives, and others that unsophisticated?  Of course not.  But effective communicators understand that readability is a highly desirable attribute, especially in today’s message-saturated market. Copy that is easy to read is easy to digest.  It’s read more thoroughly. And it’s read more often.

What makes content more readable? There are numerous readability indexes and formulas that measure this.  The two major factors are sentence length and word length.  The shorter, the better.  Why say “utilize” when “use” makes the same point?

For search engine optimization purposes, Google News loves headlines that are written with fewer than 65 characters.  Characters, not words.  Yet the majority of press release headlines far exceed that number.  SEO value is a very practical reason to sharpen prose and cut fluff.

Back in the dark ages, before PCs, faxes, and the Internet, my writing teachers drilled one thought into my head: Respect your reader. Don’t waste their time. Be a considerate writer. Get to the point. Cut any filler.

Aristotle would agree.  More than 2000 years ago, writing in Poetics, he argued: “. . .the most persuasive individuals use simple  everyday language, known to the common man.”  This “father of rhetoric” understood that simplifying a message did not dumb it down.  It amplified and fortified it.

With Google’s debut last week of its monster infant, Google+, I can’t help but think of Bette Davis’s famous movie line: “Hold on to your seats. It’s going to be a bumpy night.”

How fun is this? At last count, Facebook had upwards of 700 million users. The newborn, who weighs in at a cazillion gigabites give or take, has barely had its first nap. Yet already 10 million users have signed up. Coo coo.

So, what’s the difference? Who will prevail by next year?

David Williams, CEO of Blinq Media, offered some razor-sharp differentiation in the July 15 edition of Ad Age Digital. Mr. Williams works with brands including Baskin Robbins and Mentos. In his words, “Google has expertise in search . . .while Facebook knows who you are, Google knows what you want.”

Facebook knows our interests. But Google knows our intentions. Mr. Williams continued: “Google will have a tremendous amount of intent data that could allow them to create a better ad model for social than Facebook — a very, very powerful ad model.”

Is it fascinating, convenient, or creepy that these monolithic digital giants are dissecting us complicated human beings? I think it’s a bit of all three. What about you?

Happy July, and happy birthday America! As we celebrate the brilliant minds that formed our nation, the outspoken Founding Father, Patrick Henry, comes to mind. Henry was the first among his peers to call for revolution. The same fiery patriot who proclaimed, “. . .give me liberty, or give me death!” also championed the Bill of Rights. For more than 200 years, we’ve been guaranteed freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, and many other cherished liberties.

Fast forward from the spring of 1775 to July 2011. Thanks to advances in technology, we no longer have to gather on the town square before taking our message to the street. We can peacefully “assemble” on blogs, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, and a mushrooming array of virtual platforms. We can exchange, catalog, curate, facilitate, and distribute billions of bits of information in mere seconds. Digital Media is empowering the freedoms we hold dear like never before.

I have to believe that Patrick Henry, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, and many others would relish this democratization of communication.

Perhaps one of the best ways we can honor these liberties is to respect them. To use them wisely, both online and off. How do you think our predecessors would have leveraged today’s digital capabilities?

To its credit, the Public Relations Society of America (www.prsa.org) has a rigorous accreditation program for experienced PR practitioners who wish to earn the APR designation (Accredited in Public Relations).  Back when I was studying for the test, one of the topics we were expected to master was The “Seven C’s” of Communication.

The public relations and marketing world has changed dramatically since 1997.  Yet  the “Seven C’s” continue to guide communicators across all channels — from traditional print media to blogs and Linked In.  Here they are:

Credibility

There must exist a climate of belief built on past performance. The receiver must have confidence in the sender and high regard for the source’s competence on the subject.

Context

The message must square with the realities of the environment. Context must provide for participation and response, and must confirm, rather than contradict, the message. Effective communications require a supportive social environment.

Content

The message must be meaningful to the receiver.  Content determines the audience.

Clarity

The message must be put in simple terms.

Continuity and Consistency

Communications is an unending process.  It requires repetition to achieve penetration. The message/story must be consistent.

Channels

The receiver should respect the communication channel(s) used.  Different channels have different effects.  People assign different values to varying channels; this must be kept in mind.

Capability of the Audience

The capability of the audience must be addressed – from attitudes to education levels,  knowledge, and   prejudices. Communications are most effective when they require the least effort from the recipient.

In Gone With the Wind, Scarlett O’Hara’s frequent refrain was, “I can’t think about that now.  I’ll go crazy if I do.  I’ll think about that later.”

Georgia in the 1860s is a world away from today’s frenetic business environment. Yet Scarlett’s words ring truer than ever for modern, harried consumers.

We “can’t think about that now” for dozens of reasons.  General overload tops the list.  The messages that are most relevant to our immediate needs and circumstances will break through.

Amazon was among the first to train us to expect personalization.  For example, not long after we order a jazz collection or gardening book,  Amazon notifies us of new releases on similar topics. They do it infrequently and soft-sell enough, that most of us don’t mind the intrusion.  In fact, we sort of like it.

So in a relatively short time period, we have come to expect personalization. Now we’re hurtling toward the next level of consumer expectation: relevancy.

As our expectation for customization grows, it’s not about what we bought yesterday.  It’s about what are we buying today.  Now. This minute.

The savvy service provider recognizes what the client is buying in the moment.

On April 14, we’re not buying tax planning.  We’re buying a tax return.  When we’re in the final stages of financing a home or business, we’re not in the market for short-term CD’s.  We want our loan to fund.  Now that we’ve finally committed to updating our trust, we can’t focus on re-allocating our investments or buying annuities.

Relevancy is understanding our clients’ “pain du jour” and addressing only that.  This is not to say we ignore other needs they have, for later. It’s about answering their immediate need, with no strings attached.  Tomorrow is another day.  For today, let’s be so relevant, we can’t help but win their loyalty and affection.

This is the age of empowered consumers.  They can find you, critique you, and compare you with your competitors 24/7.  As a service provider, how are you adapting? Are you hiding out, or actively engaging with this dynamic business shift? If you haven’t begun the engagement process, here are a few tips to help you get started.

“Do no harm” is my number one rule for both traditional and Web 2.0 marketing.  Doing nothing is preferable to doing something poorly or worse, blowing the client’s confidence.  Developing a well-conceived plan is the best defense.  Your engagement  should center around your clients’ needs and building stronger relationships. It’s not a campaign about you.

Second, invest time in clarifying your personal brand. What makes you different?  Whom do you serve?  What are you passionate about? Is your style formal, informal, serious, or playful? Develop your brand voice, then let it permeate across every channel, from LinkedIn and blogs to expert articles and snail mail.

Third, listen and explore. Go online and see what others are doing and saying. Set up Google Alerts on subjects that interest you. If you don’t have one, set up a Twitter account.  Follow the conversations. Twitter made me crazy until I finally plunged in and started exploring.  You’ll be amazed at the depth of resources at your fingertips.  Everyday I benefit from valuable information shared by those I follow.  You can too.

Fourth, decide your level of commitment and engagement. Marketing, and especially Social Media, can consume a ton of time. It’s recommended that service professionals  invest at least 10 percent of the work week on business development, no matter how busy.  At the very least, create and maintain a robust LinkedIn profile. It’s free.  There are more than 80 million professionals on LinkedIn.  Set up a system for staying in touch with your clients and referral sources, and stick to it.  Like exercise, a modest effort is better than no effort at all.

Finally, be authentic and not self-serving.  Share your professional knowledge with honesty and humility.  Social Media is not the place to solicit work or promote yourself.  This is the age of two-way conversations.  More and more, those conversations are being initiated by empowered consumers.