August 2, 2024 • 43 mins
Let's be real. It's much easier to defend and raise your prices when strong marketing has your back. But often times, marketing and revenue growth teams work in silos. How can you as pricers deliver informed marketing feedback or suggestions for forward momentum to support your pricing initiatives, collaboratively? E.V.A.L.U.A.T.E.
Angie Jackson joined PPS as the Director of Marketing, Communications, and Key Accounts in 2021. Angie has nearly 20 years experience in sales, marketing, education, and project management both locally and internationally.
Prior to joining PPS, Angie served as a positioning strategist with CRANE Atlanta specializing in analyzing audience trends, managing creative teams, collaborating with clients, and developing innovative and integrated marketing strategies to distill clients’ unique value propositions.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
All right, hello, and thank you all once again for another
episode of the Professional Pricing Society podcast.
My name is Terrence and in today's discussion, we have a
very, very, very special guest with us and her name is Angie
Jackson. She is the Director of Key
Account and Marketing here at PPS and she is here with us
today to discuss how you all as pricers can deliver informed
(00:23):
marketing feedback or suggestions for forward momentum
to support your pricing initiatives.
Angie joined PPS back in 2021 and she has nearly 20 years of
experience in sales, marketing, education and project management
both locally and internationally.
And Prior to joining PPS, she served as a positioning
(00:45):
strategist with Crane Atlanta, specializing in analyzing
audience trends, managing creative teams, collaborating
with clients, and developing innovative and integrative
marketing strategies to distill clients unique value
propositions. Angie, how are we doing today?
Excellent. Hi, Terence.
I'm excited to be on our podcast.
(01:06):
Yes, it's a it's a pleasure to have you.
It's very, it's very nice to hear a very friendly face on
this podcast. So I'm glad to have you as well.
And you know, what we're talkingabout today is essentially the
bridge between pricing and marketing.
And what better person to spearhead this conversation than
someone who has been leading a career the past 20 years in
(01:29):
something as creative as as marketing and as sales and all
these different things that you have under your belt.
And so bringing it into the pricing world is, is super
necessary and we're glad to haveyou.
Thanks, Terence. So yes, pricing is AP of
marketing one of the PS and that's really as much as I knew
(01:50):
about pricing coming in. In my time at PPS, I've thought
about where are the intersections between pricing
and marketing and how do we sortof systematize some some of that
thinking so that we can be more collaborative.
You know, maybe as a price thereyou report to marketing.
How do you ensure that your marketing from a company wide
(02:12):
level supports what you're doingin pricing or really anything
that you're doing business wise?So I'm gonna look at this
through a pricing lens, but thisis applicable to other aspects
of businesses, you know, sales, any sort of management.
How do you provide informed feedback towards the end of
collaboration so that the marketing supports the decisions
(02:36):
and the choices that you need tomake for your business?
What's unique about being a marketer?
And Terrence, I think you'll, you'll understand this.
We've had conversations about this before.
It's, it's different from a lot of other jobs because everyone
encounters marketing, right? You, everybody shows TV ads,
those shoes that you searched for on Zappos.
(02:58):
Those start following you aroundwhen you're reading New York
Times articles. So we're, we're very used to
advertising as a form of marketing.
So what that sometimes empowers people to do is to give feedback
on marketing because they've encountered ads.
(03:20):
Sure, sure. And sometimes that marketing
isn't as informed or their feedback isn't as informed as it
could be. I have a lot of people who tell
me how to do my job because they've seen Super Bowl ads.
So, so that's to say a lot of marketing is subjective.
(03:40):
I don't care for The Color Purple personally.
That is my taste and that is notinformed by any best practice or
marketing strategy. That is just my taste.
So I want to encourage people toleave matters of taste aside as
we think about today a rubric where we can deliver informed
(04:02):
feedback. So what are some tried and true
benchmarks? And I've created a little
acronym based upon best practices and also my experience
in a previous life as an accountexecutive.
I received a lot of feedback anda lot of it was unhelpful
because it landed in that matterof taste.
But when we can deliver feedbackbased upon a shared rubric
(04:25):
that's evidence based, we're more likely to get traction and
collaboration amongst teams thatcan historically be relatively
siloed and get support for any change that we want to make in
price. You know, I'm glad also, Angie,
that you clarified what this conversation is all about
(04:46):
because you know, a lot of people, they do have their
opinions and, and they do have their preferences.
But like you said, there is a tried and true practice, a, a
template and a structure of sorts, if you will.
So that can lead to successful marketing, not just marketing,
but successful marketing that leads to change and
transformation within the business and, and revenue growth
(05:06):
and, and just a number of different aspects of the company
that can just continue to grow and increase.
This acronym that stands as a tried and true practice,
especially based off of your past 20 years of experience.
You know, it's, it's super helpful and it's, it's the word
evaluates and I want to kind of deep dive into each letter and
(05:28):
why each, each point of this acronym.
You know, it's super important as it pertains to marketing.
If it's OK, let's go ahead and dive into what E stands for end
to end, which essentially is thinking with the end in mind
before the process even begins. So let's kind of deep dive into
this where, where, where does the end to end?
You know, what are your thoughtsabout this first letter?
(05:50):
You've got it and and I'm going to model actually thinking about
the end to end right now. So let me unpack the entire
acronym before I dive in. So so again, begin with the end
in mind. So evaluate the acronym stands
for E end to end the value proposition.
(06:12):
A audience L lean you unexpecteda authentic T transform and E
experience. So they're nine points.
I talk fast and talk a lot. So in in order to not make this
(06:34):
a a full day workshop, I'm goingto roll pretty quick.
OK, so. Let's jump into.
End to end, as you said, we'll start with E and to end that you
begin with the end in mind. So you think through the entire
transformation that you're trying to have occur in an
audience member or the audience at large before you start with
(06:54):
with small things. So let's say we are, we are
providing feedback on a item, a piece of a piece of marketing,
right? So whether that be a piece or an
ad, is whatever you're evaluating strategic or merely
tactical? Are we able to take whatever
this piece is and move them froma cold audience, right, The
(07:15):
sales term, A cold audience member who is unknown or
unfamiliar with your product or service and move them to a
raving fan. That's typically difficult to do
in one transaction. But how are we sort of setting
the table and meeting the audience where they are along
their decision journey so that this marketing or communications
(07:35):
interaction will shepherd them to the next step with us?
So for example, when Kevin wouldask me to write a LinkedIn ad
for something I would personallywrite, which is a small, you
have like a teeny tiny copy count and you're doing 1 little
teeny tiny image. I would never do that first for
any item I was producing for PPS, because what I want to do
(07:57):
is think through the entire strategic arc of the
communications and solve the problem, the marketing problem
in its largest form first beforeI start going into any little
pieces. So what's the highest context
that we're going to be making the argument for whatever thing
it is, right? Let's say it's the, the, the Las
(08:18):
Vegas event that's coming up. I write the entire narrative arc
for that decision journey from amarketing perspective before I
write a teeny tiny ad. So something a predecessor, a
marketing mentor of mine would always say is get all of your
ingredients, your marketing ingredients out on the table
(08:38):
before you ever start cooking anything.
And she's right. So that includes visual
ingredients, strategic ingredients, tactical
ingredients, design ingredients,and many more.
I'm suggesting don't solve a marketing problem in its
smallest context. Solve it in the largest before
you begin because the ingredient, all of the
ingredients may teach you something.
(08:59):
Yes that you need to learn before you move on.
That's good. And it's kind of like building a
house. Yeah.
You wouldn't just start buildinga house without having all the
necessary equipment or pieces. And so I like what you said.
I think a lot of companies, maybe not companies, but a lot
of people in marketing may fall,I guess, victim to this as far
(09:20):
as not the thinking with the endin mind 1st and not seeing where
this whole picture, how this whole picture looks before just,
you know, putting together the pieces.
And so, yeah, this is a great point starting with the end in
mind so that you can actually piece together everything in a
more of a smoother way, be able to move on to your next point,
which is value proposition a little bit easier.
(09:42):
Yes, agree. So with the standing for value
proposition, I hope all the pricers ears perk up here
because that's essentially what PPS is seeking to do right to to
not only set prices that are scientifically and creatively
backed, but also making sure they are tied to the value that
we bring, right? Pricing is an exchange for
(10:04):
value. So before you share I my Angie
Jackson's recommendation is before you share a price for
anything, how is it tied to yourvalue proposition?
So value proposition from a marketing lens or what's is what
service or product do you and only you provide?
(10:25):
So this is backed by a branding term called the category one,
which says, you know, if if yourspace, your market is too
crowded, then create a category that you can be first in.
Cirque du Soleil is an excellentexample of that, right?
It's it's neither circus nor theater.
(10:45):
It's somewhere between both. As I was searching for who first
used the category of one term, Ididn't find it.
And I was highly distracted by the example of become the
Beyoncé of your space when I wasGoogling.
Right? Talk about pricing power.
Beyoncé can charge whatever. She wants right?
(11:06):
For her, for her concerts, because she she didn't follow
the mold and she created a category in which she can be
first in. It's only when you understand
your value can you communicate price.
Yeah, that's good. You want to know what you're
going to get for your book and you want to know how it's going
to benefit your life first. At least you should know that,
(11:26):
and that's fair. So attaching a value proposition
before any type of numbers are associated with anything is a
very strategic way of of moving in in the marketing world.
And, you know, it's been proven,tried and true to be successful
and have, you know, a higher success rates.
(11:47):
And so, yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that.
Now, also in this acronym, you have the letter A, which stands
for audience. Please shed some light on why
it's super important for everybody to kind of consider
their audience first when it comes to this bridge between
marketing and pricing. Sure thing.
So now that we've talked at the beginning of the end of of the
(12:09):
entire journey and we've talked about the value proposition, it
is mission critical to talk about audience.
Something that pricing and marketing both have in common is
that neither should start with those things.
It's to start with the audience.We don't get to price nor market
in a vacuum. Instead we are marketing to and
(12:31):
pricing for humans either collectively or individually.
So how do we think about those humans in A at least two pronged
approach? I can talk about audience all
day. When it comes to two pronged
approach, demographics have to be involved, right?
So demographics are things like where do they live?
(12:52):
How old are they? You know, just, you know, the,
the quantitative items that we can know about our audience
members. Then we move into the more
qualitative items or I would call psychographics.
What are their beliefs? What are their pain points?
What are their opinions, right, not based on facts?
What, what are their personalities like, habits,
(13:13):
lifestyle and probably most importantly, what's their value
system? Both those or all of those items
need to be taken into consideration when pricing to
them and to marketing to them. So anytime we're evaluating a
marketing piece, whether we're pricers or someone in a
marketing adjacent role or even just in a business role, we
(13:35):
think about who is the audience for this item and what do they
value? What do they care about?
What systems, thinking systems, feeling systems are they
bringing to the table when they engage with whatever this piece
is, you know, digital, print, whatever.
And how is this marketing responding appropriately to
them? If I were writing something or
(13:57):
designing something for a Bostoncop, let's say, who was nearing
retirement, that would look and sound wildly different than some
Atlanta millennial, you know, southern suburban baseball mom,
right? So I think about the archetype
of the human I'm trying to talk to when I write something or
design something. The strategy should be different
(14:19):
for those two people. And, you know, I know that's
super stereotypical. And please, I apologize for how
stereotypical that sounds, but we would give a very different
strategy or a very different message and probably meet them
at a very different medium than we would, you know, if we were
trying to talk to them both froman audience perspective.
(14:41):
Something I've learned in my career is that if you're trying
to talk to two very different audiences at once, you can't
talk to them both well. So you need to pick an audience
hierarchy. If I'm trying to speak to the
both those people, I need to begin with a message that would
appeal to them both and then pretty quickly bifurcate, which
is what it's amazing about AI technology and, you know, the
(15:05):
technologies that we have to be able to segment audiences, which
is the lever that we pull in pricing as well.
So how are we meeting our peopleclearly defined where they are
both physically, mentally and emotionally needs to be taken
into consideration. Yeah.
That's super important. Essentially, the audience is the
target and you need to know where the target is before you
(15:26):
shoot the arrow. And obviously you, you and I
both know that if we are marketing a service or product
to an audience that is in need of it or, or has a strong
interest in. And obviously we're going to
hold their attention for a lot longer than another audience who
may think it's cool, but they'renot necessarily in the need of
it or they may not even find it that interesting in the 1st
(15:48):
place. And so, yeah, knowing your
audience is super, super important.
Definitely the first step in thedirection of a successful
marketing campaign and a successful marketing strategy.
Just kind of have an idea and having an idea of knowing where
your target is. Some I'm super glad that you
kind of out lied demographics and especially psychographics,
(16:09):
because one of the things, especially in the marketing
world, as you already know, is emotion.
You know, and how a product or aservice makes someone feel.
And that alone can be enough to allow them to become a member or
to subscribe or to purchase a product or a service.
(16:30):
So this is great. We'll talk more about that when
I when I get to the end in experience.
But people don't remember what you say.
They remember how you made them feel.
Very, very true. OK, awesome.
Now, the arrow in this acronym stands for LEAN, and you know
this, I'll let you kind of coverthis ground as far as this LEAN
(16:51):
is concerned, but tell us about why it's important that we need
to become an editor. Yes, I get really excited about
this and I get very covetous or type messaging.
Concise gravity. If you can say it in five words,
you should, not ten. So L stands for lean.
You need an editor. Everybody needs an editor now
(17:13):
more than ever. Whether we like it or not, we
live in a TikTok world. Important data point.
I heard, I think it was last month, that people are 20% more
likely to engage in content the shorter it is.
Shorter better, man. Shorter is better.
If you're writing a web page, for example, and you have 251
words, that's too long. It needs to become two pages.
(17:36):
My rule about blogs, we just talked about this this morning.
If it's 501 words, it's too long.
It needs to become an article. We need to call the thing what
it is and have have the medium support that length.
If I go to YouTube and I see a video is 2 minutes and one
second long, I'm not watching it.
It's too long. I know that people spend 140%
(17:59):
longer on web pages with videos than without.
So it's a it's a video space. Short videos are king.
Short words are are also king. Now there is time and space for
long form. My husband, for example, will
listen to a three hour podcast. I am never going to listen to a
(18:22):
three hour ever. But my husband will cheerfully
do that. So some of this is a matter of
taste, right? Back to taste, but in order to
maximize your messages market share, leaner is better when in
doubt. Leaner is better if you have to
do something in long form, whichthere is time and space for.
(18:43):
I can't, for example, pretty quickly explain quantum physics.
You know, but. I need more than 250 words to do
that. If I can do that, which is
another another podcast. If you must do something in long
form, however you define that itis wise to leave bread crumbs
for folks so that if I'm going to encounter your long form
(19:07):
piece, I can engage in that piece either as so I'm going to
use a metaphor, a bite, a snack or a meal.
So let's let's take the Las Vegas brochure for example.
If if I am someone who is going to read that thing from
beginning to end and digest every world word, fantastic.
(19:32):
They are going to engage with that content as if it were a
meal. Now, as someone who creates this
brochure, I am fully aware that not everybody is going to read
that thing from beginning to endand engage with it as a meal.
So how am I leaving visual and editorial bread crumbs about
that piece so that if somebody wants to engage that as a snack
(19:55):
level, right? If they want to engage that with
that piece for a couple of minutes and not read every word,
how are they getting the most salient points at a browse
level? We do that with, you know,
headlines, colors, lots of different tools.
But I am fully aware that long form pieces will sometimes be
engaged with as a snack form. Same goes for bite form.
(20:19):
If someone is going to take thatbrochure and scan it, truly scan
it, flip it right, flip the flipbook, then how?
How am I leaving bread crumbs orvisual and editorial markers for
them so they can still take the salient points if they're going
to engage with it for 30 seconds?
So not only are we lean when possible, simple and concise,
(20:42):
but when we aren't, and when we shouldn't be and need to do
something in long form, are we mindful that the audience that
we just spoke about is able to engage with that content and
still see the most salient points brought to them very
transparently and easily? You know, as it pertains to just
being lean, you you talk about there's two things that I want
(21:05):
to kind of emphasize in this part of the acronym alone.
Bread crumbs, snacks and meals. It's one thing to be able to
leave. When you say bread crumbs, my
first thought goes to leaving a bread crumb that would make
somebody salivate at the mouth to want more.
So that's that's one way of looking at a breadcrumb.
(21:26):
Another way of looking at a breadcrumb is having the ability
to condense to that level to that's like small of a size to
where somebody can get what theyneed.
And then, you know, keep it moving on to the next piece of,
of, of media to, to, you know, consume.
And so, you know, we do live in a microwave world where if we
(21:50):
don't get what we want within two minutes, yeah, we're not
going to watch it at all. And so, and then some people,
they want to salivate at the mouth for more.
And so a snack bite or a snack will be exactly what they need
to keep them coming back. And so I think both should be
utilize as best as possible and as strategically as possible,
(22:12):
but it should also, this goes back to audience.
It's also important to know our audience as well to be able to
understand are they wanting moreand more or do they want, do
they want everything in in the snack or in a bite size or in a
home meal? Does that make sense?
Yeah, I love that it's it's Amazon Prime Day.
I want it is, and so does everybody else in the world.
(22:38):
It takes discipline. I can write 1000 words about
whatever, anything very quickly.Writing 150 words takes much
longer. Yeah, it does.
Which is some in some ways counterintuitive.
I don't need to tell the entire story because it doesn't always
(23:02):
speak to the audience's listen listening.
What are the most salient pointsthat move the per the person
that you're speaking with or move the people you are speaking
with to the next step along the decision journey?
That's the rubric and that's thediscipline we're trying to find.
That's good one. One more piece on this lane
before I move. Move on.
(23:23):
I have a friend who he and I watched similar Netflix shows
but I will consume every minute of every episode and he skims
the 1st 3 minutes the first 2-3 minutes of each episode to get
the gist of what's going to happen.
And if it isn't, if it doesn't get the gist and the 1st 2 two
to three minutes per episode, hesays it's not a good show.
(23:45):
And I'm over here like, well, you missed all this context, you
know, but that's what he's looking for.
And this is what I'm looking for.
It's it's so it's important to, you know, understand your
audiences in in that regard. As far as who's going to skim,
who's going to really consume everything.
I'm really glad you you brought this this lean point.
I want to go back to something you just said because it was
really important. Listen to how two people of
(24:07):
approximately the same age, right, probably approximately
the same demographics, would engage with the same content in
two very different ways. I think you and I have similar
demographics on a lot of levels.My rubric and the one in my
house is that you watch 3, threeepisodes of anything, you must
(24:29):
watch 3. Then you decide whether to
continue or to abort. You know, which is an entirely
different way of looking at it. So listen to how how that's very
different. Terrence is a meal guy.
I'm going to have an appetizer. I'm always going to have an
appetizer, but I don't know if I'm down for the whole meal and
(24:50):
and your buddy is is bite all the way.
He's a bite size. Yep, Yep.
And that's. Go ahead.
I'm sorry. Yeah.
It it just seems like it's a perfect example of what I'm
talking about, how people are going to engage with your
content. How are you thinking about those
meal, snack, bite or appetizer which would probably need to add
to this people very differently?Yeah, yeah.
(25:13):
And it's, it's also kind of speaks to why it's important to
put the, the meat and potatoes are things kind of in the front,
you know, versus at the end or even in the middle.
So we can explain the more important things up front for a
conference example. Hey, this is who's going to be
speaking. These are the topics we'll be
speaking on. These are the trending topics,
the hot topics. And you know, this is what the
(25:33):
benefit is that you can receive as a pricer.
And then the rest of everything else can us be explaining, you
know why this is important, the significance behind it, what it
can do for your, for your careerand your and your just general
knowledge as a pricer. Let's push the one, the metaphor
once further and then we'll let it go.
Because I don't want to overshoot the metaphor.
Think about you, your bike guy, and me.
(25:58):
You can have the most fantastic meat and potatoes and maybe
earth shattering dessert, but three of two of the three of us
are never going to make a dessert to dessert.
Never. You know.
So be careful about crushing theappetizer.
(26:20):
Yes. OK.
I like, that's good. That's good.
OK, now the unexpected what? What is so important and
significant about being aware and mindful of the unexpected as
it pertains to the bridge between pricers and and
marketing? I believe, and marketing best
practice would believe, that anytype of communication should
(26:43):
teach me something with all the information that's at my
fingertips that I can find. Anything that you're going to
feed me needs to teach me something new about you or your
company or your values. I'll push that one step further
and even better yet, not only teach me something, but make me
think. Marketing should meet the
(27:06):
audience at a space in which they are inquisitive about
something. We don't want to hammer home
facts and features, but instead a better lever is to pose
questions, to engage the inner discerner in the audience
member, Right? Engage the thinking, the
(27:27):
thinker, the feeler, and you do that through asking questions,
benefit statements, other communication tools, rather than
just listing facts. Communication should when it has
an element of surprise, it gets you out of the clutter, the
marketing clutter, and into hearts and minds.
(27:48):
So here's an example. For the rest of 24/20/24, I set
this own challenge for myself that anything I write to our
audience needs to include something new, something new
that they don't yet know. Not only does that push our
marketing forward, but it also pushes our company forward into
(28:12):
innovation and thinking. So some examples of that just,
you know, between I when I set that rule in June and now is
that we've included all breakoutpanels on Fridays for our Las
Vegas conference, right? Switching from Sage on a stage
engagements to on Friday, they're all breakout panels to
foster more discussions and collaboration and include more
(28:34):
thinking, more thinkers in the event, we added another day to
Europe, to our European and global event that's happening in
Berlin in November. So it's not a three day
conference, it's a four. Again, more thinking, more
thinkers and more collaboration by adding an entire day that way
our marketing isn't same old, same old.
(28:56):
Our events aren't same old, sameold, same old, same old because
we know now since the pandemic and, and more than ever that the
innovators are the ones that arewinning.
It's true when it comes to marketing, It's true when it
comes to programming. It's it's true when it comes to
product design and offering and it's true when it comes to
pricing. Innovators when companies don't
(29:16):
want to get left behind. As innovation continues,
companies continue to evolve. And if you're not keeping up
with the times, even even if it's not just keeping up with
the times, but even if, if you're not continuing to add a
new element in the mix, then people will lose interest.
So, and that is a very true and real thing.
And so I want to move on to authenticity.
(29:38):
This is, this might be my favorite point of your acronym.
Yeah, authenticity because it speaks to me And, and I, I think
that's in today's society, in today's world, when it comes to
marketing or when it comes to even influencing, you can kind
of sometimes spot out the fakersfrom those who are, you know,
(30:01):
legitimate and true and know what they're actually talking
about it. It kind of speaks to credibility
as well. And so if let's let's go ahead
and dive into authenticity or being authentic behind your
marketing if you want to kind oftake the reins on this.
I love what you said about beingable to sniff out something
that's inauthentic. I think that we all depending on
(30:24):
your personality and your, again, your tastes and
preferences, but everybody can smell something that's
inauthentic and you have a natural allergic reaction to
that. Authenticity leads to
credibility. Those those are tied hand in
hand. When I see something that seems
authentic, I'm more likely to deem that credible.
(30:48):
I'll talk about authenticity kind of on a baseline level and
then I'll talk about what I really mean by authenticity.
So as you said, it sort of goes without saying, but sometimes
you can't go without saying. Is your message true?
We don't put statements out there with promises we can't
keep. So I would define a marketing
problem by expectations set by communication, right?
(31:14):
Expectations set not matching the experience, the lived
experience of your product or service.
So by putting a statement out there with a promise I can't
keep, I am accidentally creatinga marketing problem or not
solving one that I already have.So expectations must that I set,
(31:34):
that we set as marketers must match the experience, the lived
experience of our audience through into our product.
So when you talk about authenticity more traditionally,
who are you and why should people do business with you?
People do businesses with people.
People don't do businesses with businesses.
(31:55):
I know AI is changing the game with that, but I know when I am
engaging with AI, I am not doingbusiness with the person.
When I am engaging with a business that is outside of that
construct, I anticipate engagingwith people.
So I would encourage anyone who is writing or designing on
(32:16):
behalf of an organization or giving feedback on writing or
design, to not be afraid to showsome personality to set you
apart. Setting yourself apart is the
element of differentiation, which is something we understand
as pricers and we understand as marketers.
That's a commonality, right? The way you can work towards
(32:39):
differentiation is not only the words you choose, but also the
tone and the voice through whichyou express those words and the
look and feel of the materials it needs to sound like you as an
institution. So when Lululemon is engaging
(33:00):
with their audience through editorial, that needs to look
and sound a lot different than Walmart because their audiences
are different and they should portray their differentiation in
the way that they speak and be authentically them.
The PPS voice, for example, is something that we've established
as being friendly, accessible, but smart and conversational.
(33:25):
So how do you hold those different values as an
institutional voice intention not only for one person who's
writing that, but also globally,anyone who's writing on behalf
of the organization? Yeah, that's.
Good differentiation is truly inthe nuances of word and.
Design, even with authenticity reviews can speak to this if you
(33:49):
want. My wife and I recently went to a
new restaurant, but one of the things she always does is she
looks at the reviews first. If she's buying something from
Amazon, which she does a lot, she looks at reviews first, you
know, and obviously not every company can have a system where
they just gather and accumulate reviews, But obviously reviews
can shed the, the true light of a company authenticity, being
(34:13):
able to kind of sniff out the fake, the frauds from those who
are legit and this giving the space to be relatable to a
consumer. And I'm, I'm, you know, super
glad that PPS kind of stands on the on one of the foundational
pieces of being authentic with, you know, their members as well
as their attendees at their conferences.
So the T in evaluates stands fortransform just like you did with
(34:40):
being authentic and all the other letters in this acronym
kind of elaborate and go in a bit more depth about what
transform means to this acronym evaluate and why it's super
important. Sure.
So transform takes the end to end that we started with and and
pushes it a little further. So let me establish a couple of
(35:03):
terms before I move forward. These are the definitions that
I've held on to about my career and I think they'll they'll use
they'll be useful as some table setting here.
Marketing is communication that's designed to sell.
OK. So it is that is different from
(35:24):
communication and that is different from selling.
It is communication that is designed to sell.
So a second definition we'll usehere is branding, how we define
branding. And that's the space you occupy
in somebody's mind. So when I say Nike, you think
of, you think of something, whether that's something
visually, a human being, emotionthat's evoked, you think of
(35:48):
something. And that space is the brand.
That's not the same as your logo.
I've been teaching this to people.
For. Years, right?
I'm sure you have two, Terence. So how do we use marketing and
branding to move people along the decision journey with you?
So for example, when I say can of Coke, you might think of soft
(36:09):
drinks. I'm going to use 2 examples from
Atlanta cuz we're here. Is that just a soft drink?
No, what they want you to think it's bubbly satisfaction with a
boost of joy and energy, right? So how is their messaging in
line with this is a soft drink, right?
A feature naming the thing. But instead this is bubbly
(36:32):
satisfaction with a boost of joyand energy.
How is it tying emotions, visuals, pictorial sensations?
Not only pictorial sensations, visual sensations, but when I
say bubbly satisfaction, you canstart getting taste and feeling
involved. It's trying to leverage all of
(36:53):
the senses. And how do you engage with the
product at more than a feature level?
So a Home Depot example, does Home Depot sell nails and wood?
Yeah, Yeah, they sell nails and wood.
That's a feature, right? Home Depot and Atlanta company.
But in their marketing communication designed to sell
(37:14):
as I just defined, and in their branding, the space that you
occupy in someone, someone's mind, they're more after that.
They are a solution to bring to life your dreams while you put
your own personal touches on your home, leaving your mark on
the place where you sleep and raise your family.
That's crazy, That's crazy. That's awesome.
(37:35):
Exactly. So how are we transforming and
transformative with our communication, with the
intention to sell and with the intention to truly occupy space
in somebody's mind, reach people's pain points, reach
people into people's dreams and values, and more closely tie my
(37:59):
communication to those things rather than the features of the
of the item? That's the magic sauce.
You've got it. Even even thinking about
Coca-Cola, I used to think aboutthose commercials, those Coke
commercials where, where you'll see somebody drinking a Coke and
the sun shines, you know, or, ora, a, a smile comes on their,
(38:20):
their face. Whatever the case is like they,
they allude to an experience youhave with that product.
They they really hammer down on painting this picture that your
experience here is going to be worth it.
And having wording, like you said before, communication is
one thing, but transforming yoursometimes the literal wording,
(38:44):
transforming your communication into this descriptive experience
that's going to leave you better, you know, leave you
stronger, leave you more equipped than you first walked
in the door with. You know, that's the whole name
of the game in in this regard, it sounds like.
Is that correct? Yes, you've got it.
(39:04):
We're we're changing hearts and minds in order to move people
along the decision journey with us, which is exactly what
communication designed to sell needs to do.
Which also kind of brings us to our last letter, which in this
acronym, which is E and it stands for experience, which
kind of alludes to, to transform, you know, feel free
(39:25):
to share a bit about experience and why it's such a pivotal
point and a great ending to this, to this word evaluate.
Sure. Thanks for hanging in here guys
with me on the nine step rubric.We're on the last step
experience. I get excited about marketing.
I could talk about this all day.So now more than ever, marketing
(39:46):
is about creating an experience.And we also talked earlier about
how we need to be lean in doing so.
So I would I would pose that thequickest and most compelling way
to engage an audience into an experience is to tell a story.
You hear a lot about storytelling and marketing from
(40:07):
where I sit, I think people leana little too heavily into it as
the as the strategic reason. However, it's very difficult to
communicate. Values tied to benefits and
outcomes without telling a story.
Just as you said earlier, we aretrying to create more networking
experiences, more community experiences.
(40:30):
Because I think that the pandemic more than anything
taught us that being in in isolation isn't awesome,
especially for two extroverts like Terrence and myself.
So So how do we engage and put proof in the pudding with with
our products and services? Testimonials are an incredible
(40:50):
lever and also telling our own stories.
Stories involve a narrative arc with a beginning, middle, climax
and resolution. And in doing so, how do we paint
a picture of what your product and service will do for your
defined audience? We drive what's in the
audience's mind, right when we talked about branding by
(41:10):
creating it that creating a picture of what our product and
service will do for folks and then sharing that.
So when thinking about branding and thinking about experience,
first you gain mind share, then you gain market share in
leveraging testimonials, just like you said with your wife and
the Amazon products. I'm much the same way.
(41:32):
I'm not going to go to a restaurant until I've read the
reviews, especially a nice one where the price is high, right
prices. I'm not going to purchase, you
know, Bose headphones again, it's Amazon Prime Day until I I
know that those are the those are highly reviewed receive high
reviews. Word of mouth is always your
best marketing. That has not changed in my time.
(41:52):
I don't see that changing anytime soon.
And that's been the tale as old as time.
Stories evoke emotion, and that's when you've got hearts
and minds to change. Transactional marketing leads to
transactional customers. I'm coming from to you.
I want your thing buy. Yes.
(42:13):
Right, that is not what creates long term buyers or raving fans.
Experience. Marketing creates experiences
for folks that are loyal and buymore.
Transactional marketing increasetransactional customers, man,
that's a, that's a nice quote right there, Ange.
(42:35):
Right. And experiential marketing
creates experiential customers. Yes, yes.
Awesome. OK, so the nine step process for
pricers to deliver informed marketing feedback or
suggestions for Intel to supporttheir pricing initiative
evaluate is the acronym. Angie Jackson, it was a pleasure
(42:56):
to speak with you today. We're going to see you again
this upcoming fall in Las Vegas and that is going to be at our
fall conference, obviously beingheld in October 22nd through the
25th at our fall pricing and workshop conference.
Super excited to see everyone who's going to be in attendance
there and you'll also see myselfas well as Angie there.
Angie, one more question to leave you with.
(43:18):
Where can listeners go to to learn more about you, what you
stand for, and more about PPS aswell?
Sure. Happy to engage in conversations
about marketing or about pricingor about anything really.
I love to talk about marketing. So send me a message and we can
keep the conversation going. angie@pricingsociety.com or on
(43:38):
LinkedIn. Angie Jackson, I'm a C P/E
Certificate of Pricing Educationon LinkedIn and looking forward
to hearing more and hearing how this is helpful and continuing
to push the conversation. Awesome.
Well, thank you so much once again.
And listeners, until next time, we'll see you then.
Have a good one. Bye bye.
All right, hello, and thank you all once again for another
episode of the Professional Pricing Society podcast.
My name is Terrence and in today's discussion, we have a
very, very, very special guest with us and her name is Angie
Jackson. She is the Director of Key
Account and Marketing here at PPS and she is here with us
today to discuss how you all as pricers can deliver informed
(00:23):
marketing feedback or suggestions for forward momentum
to support your pricing initiatives.
Angie joined PPS back in 2021 and she has nearly 20 years of
experience in sales, marketing, education and project management
both locally and internationally.
And Prior to joining PPS, she served as a positioning
(00:45):
strategist with Crane Atlanta, specializing in analyzing
audience trends, managing creative teams, collaborating
with clients, and developing innovative and integrative
marketing strategies to distill clients unique value
propositions. Angie, how are we doing today?
Excellent. Hi, Terence.
I'm excited to be on our podcast.
(01:06):
Yes, it's a it's a pleasure to have you.
It's very, it's very nice to hear a very friendly face on
this podcast. So I'm glad to have you as well.
And you know, what we're talkingabout today is essentially the
bridge between pricing and marketing.
And what better person to spearhead this conversation than
someone who has been leading a career the past 20 years in
(01:29):
something as creative as as marketing and as sales and all
these different things that you have under your belt.
And so bringing it into the pricing world is, is super
necessary and we're glad to haveyou.
Thanks, Terence. So yes, pricing is AP of
marketing one of the PS and that's really as much as I knew
(01:50):
about pricing coming in. In my time at PPS, I've thought
about where are the intersections between pricing
and marketing and how do we sortof systematize some some of that
thinking so that we can be more collaborative.
You know, maybe as a price thereyou report to marketing.
How do you ensure that your marketing from a company wide
(02:12):
level supports what you're doingin pricing or really anything
that you're doing business wise?So I'm gonna look at this
through a pricing lens, but thisis applicable to other aspects
of businesses, you know, sales, any sort of management.
How do you provide informed feedback towards the end of
collaboration so that the marketing supports the decisions
(02:36):
and the choices that you need tomake for your business?
What's unique about being a marketer?
And Terrence, I think you'll, you'll understand this.
We've had conversations about this before.
It's, it's different from a lot of other jobs because everyone
encounters marketing, right? You, everybody shows TV ads,
those shoes that you searched for on Zappos.
(02:58):
Those start following you aroundwhen you're reading New York
Times articles. So we're, we're very used to
advertising as a form of marketing.
So what that sometimes empowers people to do is to give feedback
on marketing because they've encountered ads.
(03:20):
Sure, sure. And sometimes that marketing
isn't as informed or their feedback isn't as informed as it
could be. I have a lot of people who tell
me how to do my job because they've seen Super Bowl ads.
So, so that's to say a lot of marketing is subjective.
(03:40):
I don't care for The Color Purple personally.
That is my taste and that is notinformed by any best practice or
marketing strategy. That is just my taste.
So I want to encourage people toleave matters of taste aside as
we think about today a rubric where we can deliver informed
(04:02):
feedback. So what are some tried and true
benchmarks? And I've created a little
acronym based upon best practices and also my experience
in a previous life as an accountexecutive.
I received a lot of feedback anda lot of it was unhelpful
because it landed in that matterof taste.
But when we can deliver feedbackbased upon a shared rubric
(04:25):
that's evidence based, we're more likely to get traction and
collaboration amongst teams thatcan historically be relatively
siloed and get support for any change that we want to make in
price. You know, I'm glad also, Angie,
that you clarified what this conversation is all about
(04:46):
because you know, a lot of people, they do have their
opinions and, and they do have their preferences.
But like you said, there is a tried and true practice, a, a
template and a structure of sorts, if you will.
So that can lead to successful marketing, not just marketing,
but successful marketing that leads to change and
transformation within the business and, and revenue growth
(05:06):
and, and just a number of different aspects of the company
that can just continue to grow and increase.
This acronym that stands as a tried and true practice,
especially based off of your past 20 years of experience.
You know, it's, it's super helpful and it's, it's the word
evaluates and I want to kind of deep dive into each letter and
(05:28):
why each, each point of this acronym.
You know, it's super important as it pertains to marketing.
If it's OK, let's go ahead and dive into what E stands for end
to end, which essentially is thinking with the end in mind
before the process even begins. So let's kind of deep dive into
this where, where, where does the end to end?
You know, what are your thoughtsabout this first letter?
(05:50):
You've got it and and I'm going to model actually thinking about
the end to end right now. So let me unpack the entire
acronym before I dive in. So so again, begin with the end
in mind. So evaluate the acronym stands
for E end to end the value proposition.
(06:12):
A audience L lean you unexpecteda authentic T transform and E
experience. So they're nine points.
I talk fast and talk a lot. So in in order to not make this
(06:34):
a a full day workshop, I'm goingto roll pretty quick.
OK, so. Let's jump into.
End to end, as you said, we'll start with E and to end that you
begin with the end in mind. So you think through the entire
transformation that you're trying to have occur in an
audience member or the audience at large before you start with
(06:54):
with small things. So let's say we are, we are
providing feedback on a item, a piece of a piece of marketing,
right? So whether that be a piece or an
ad, is whatever you're evaluating strategic or merely
tactical? Are we able to take whatever
this piece is and move them froma cold audience, right, The
(07:15):
sales term, A cold audience member who is unknown or
unfamiliar with your product or service and move them to a
raving fan. That's typically difficult to do
in one transaction. But how are we sort of setting
the table and meeting the audience where they are along
their decision journey so that this marketing or communications
(07:35):
interaction will shepherd them to the next step with us?
So for example, when Kevin wouldask me to write a LinkedIn ad
for something I would personallywrite, which is a small, you
have like a teeny tiny copy count and you're doing 1 little
teeny tiny image. I would never do that first for
any item I was producing for PPS, because what I want to do
(07:57):
is think through the entire strategic arc of the
communications and solve the problem, the marketing problem
in its largest form first beforeI start going into any little
pieces. So what's the highest context
that we're going to be making the argument for whatever thing
it is, right? Let's say it's the, the, the Las
(08:18):
Vegas event that's coming up. I write the entire narrative arc
for that decision journey from amarketing perspective before I
write a teeny tiny ad. So something a predecessor, a
marketing mentor of mine would always say is get all of your
ingredients, your marketing ingredients out on the table
(08:38):
before you ever start cooking anything.
And she's right. So that includes visual
ingredients, strategic ingredients, tactical
ingredients, design ingredients,and many more.
I'm suggesting don't solve a marketing problem in its
smallest context. Solve it in the largest before
you begin because the ingredient, all of the
ingredients may teach you something.
(08:59):
Yes that you need to learn before you move on.
That's good. And it's kind of like building a
house. Yeah.
You wouldn't just start buildinga house without having all the
necessary equipment or pieces. And so I like what you said.
I think a lot of companies, maybe not companies, but a lot
of people in marketing may fall,I guess, victim to this as far
(09:20):
as not the thinking with the endin mind 1st and not seeing where
this whole picture, how this whole picture looks before just,
you know, putting together the pieces.
And so, yeah, this is a great point starting with the end in
mind so that you can actually piece together everything in a
more of a smoother way, be able to move on to your next point,
which is value proposition a little bit easier.
(09:42):
Yes, agree. So with the standing for value
proposition, I hope all the pricers ears perk up here
because that's essentially what PPS is seeking to do right to to
not only set prices that are scientifically and creatively
backed, but also making sure they are tied to the value that
we bring, right? Pricing is an exchange for
(10:04):
value. So before you share I my Angie
Jackson's recommendation is before you share a price for
anything, how is it tied to yourvalue proposition?
So value proposition from a marketing lens or what's is what
service or product do you and only you provide?
(10:25):
So this is backed by a branding term called the category one,
which says, you know, if if yourspace, your market is too
crowded, then create a category that you can be first in.
Cirque du Soleil is an excellentexample of that, right?
It's it's neither circus nor theater.
(10:45):
It's somewhere between both. As I was searching for who first
used the category of one term, Ididn't find it.
And I was highly distracted by the example of become the
Beyoncé of your space when I wasGoogling.
Right? Talk about pricing power.
Beyoncé can charge whatever. She wants right?
(11:06):
For her, for her concerts, because she she didn't follow
the mold and she created a category in which she can be
first in. It's only when you understand
your value can you communicate price.
Yeah, that's good. You want to know what you're
going to get for your book and you want to know how it's going
to benefit your life first. At least you should know that,
(11:26):
and that's fair. So attaching a value proposition
before any type of numbers are associated with anything is a
very strategic way of of moving in in the marketing world.
And, you know, it's been proven,tried and true to be successful
and have, you know, a higher success rates.
(11:47):
And so, yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that.
Now, also in this acronym, you have the letter A, which stands
for audience. Please shed some light on why
it's super important for everybody to kind of consider
their audience first when it comes to this bridge between
marketing and pricing. Sure thing.
So now that we've talked at the beginning of the end of of the
(12:09):
entire journey and we've talked about the value proposition, it
is mission critical to talk about audience.
Something that pricing and marketing both have in common is
that neither should start with those things.
It's to start with the audience.We don't get to price nor market
in a vacuum. Instead we are marketing to and
(12:31):
pricing for humans either collectively or individually.
So how do we think about those humans in A at least two pronged
approach? I can talk about audience all
day. When it comes to two pronged
approach, demographics have to be involved, right?
So demographics are things like where do they live?
(12:52):
How old are they? You know, just, you know, the,
the quantitative items that we can know about our audience
members. Then we move into the more
qualitative items or I would call psychographics.
What are their beliefs? What are their pain points?
What are their opinions, right, not based on facts?
What, what are their personalities like, habits,
(13:13):
lifestyle and probably most importantly, what's their value
system? Both those or all of those items
need to be taken into consideration when pricing to
them and to marketing to them. So anytime we're evaluating a
marketing piece, whether we're pricers or someone in a
marketing adjacent role or even just in a business role, we
(13:35):
think about who is the audience for this item and what do they
value? What do they care about?
What systems, thinking systems, feeling systems are they
bringing to the table when they engage with whatever this piece
is, you know, digital, print, whatever.
And how is this marketing responding appropriately to
them? If I were writing something or
(13:57):
designing something for a Bostoncop, let's say, who was nearing
retirement, that would look and sound wildly different than some
Atlanta millennial, you know, southern suburban baseball mom,
right? So I think about the archetype
of the human I'm trying to talk to when I write something or
design something. The strategy should be different
(14:19):
for those two people. And, you know, I know that's
super stereotypical. And please, I apologize for how
stereotypical that sounds, but we would give a very different
strategy or a very different message and probably meet them
at a very different medium than we would, you know, if we were
trying to talk to them both froman audience perspective.
(14:41):
Something I've learned in my career is that if you're trying
to talk to two very different audiences at once, you can't
talk to them both well. So you need to pick an audience
hierarchy. If I'm trying to speak to the
both those people, I need to begin with a message that would
appeal to them both and then pretty quickly bifurcate, which
is what it's amazing about AI technology and, you know, the
(15:05):
technologies that we have to be able to segment audiences, which
is the lever that we pull in pricing as well.
So how are we meeting our peopleclearly defined where they are
both physically, mentally and emotionally needs to be taken
into consideration. Yeah.
That's super important. Essentially, the audience is the
target and you need to know where the target is before you
(15:26):
shoot the arrow. And obviously you, you and I
both know that if we are marketing a service or product
to an audience that is in need of it or, or has a strong
interest in. And obviously we're going to
hold their attention for a lot longer than another audience who
may think it's cool, but they'renot necessarily in the need of
it or they may not even find it that interesting in the 1st
(15:48):
place. And so, yeah, knowing your
audience is super, super important.
Definitely the first step in thedirection of a successful
marketing campaign and a successful marketing strategy.
Just kind of have an idea and having an idea of knowing where
your target is. Some I'm super glad that you
kind of out lied demographics and especially psychographics,
(16:09):
because one of the things, especially in the marketing
world, as you already know, is emotion.
You know, and how a product or aservice makes someone feel.
And that alone can be enough to allow them to become a member or
to subscribe or to purchase a product or a service.
(16:30):
So this is great. We'll talk more about that when
I when I get to the end in experience.
But people don't remember what you say.
They remember how you made them feel.
Very, very true. OK, awesome.
Now, the arrow in this acronym stands for LEAN, and you know
this, I'll let you kind of coverthis ground as far as this LEAN
(16:51):
is concerned, but tell us about why it's important that we need
to become an editor. Yes, I get really excited about
this and I get very covetous or type messaging.
Concise gravity. If you can say it in five words,
you should, not ten. So L stands for lean.
You need an editor. Everybody needs an editor now
(17:13):
more than ever. Whether we like it or not, we
live in a TikTok world. Important data point.
I heard, I think it was last month, that people are 20% more
likely to engage in content the shorter it is.
Shorter better, man. Shorter is better.
If you're writing a web page, for example, and you have 251
words, that's too long. It needs to become two pages.
(17:36):
My rule about blogs, we just talked about this this morning.
If it's 501 words, it's too long.
It needs to become an article. We need to call the thing what
it is and have have the medium support that length.
If I go to YouTube and I see a video is 2 minutes and one
second long, I'm not watching it.
It's too long. I know that people spend 140%
(17:59):
longer on web pages with videos than without.
So it's a it's a video space. Short videos are king.
Short words are are also king. Now there is time and space for
long form. My husband, for example, will
listen to a three hour podcast. I am never going to listen to a
(18:22):
three hour ever. But my husband will cheerfully
do that. So some of this is a matter of
taste, right? Back to taste, but in order to
maximize your messages market share, leaner is better when in
doubt. Leaner is better if you have to
do something in long form, whichthere is time and space for.
(18:43):
I can't, for example, pretty quickly explain quantum physics.
You know, but. I need more than 250 words to do
that. If I can do that, which is
another another podcast. If you must do something in long
form, however you define that itis wise to leave bread crumbs
for folks so that if I'm going to encounter your long form
(19:07):
piece, I can engage in that piece either as so I'm going to
use a metaphor, a bite, a snack or a meal.
So let's let's take the Las Vegas brochure for example.
If if I am someone who is going to read that thing from
beginning to end and digest every world word, fantastic.
(19:32):
They are going to engage with that content as if it were a
meal. Now, as someone who creates this
brochure, I am fully aware that not everybody is going to read
that thing from beginning to endand engage with it as a meal.
So how am I leaving visual and editorial bread crumbs about
that piece so that if somebody wants to engage that as a snack
(19:55):
level, right? If they want to engage that with
that piece for a couple of minutes and not read every word,
how are they getting the most salient points at a browse
level? We do that with, you know,
headlines, colors, lots of different tools.
But I am fully aware that long form pieces will sometimes be
engaged with as a snack form. Same goes for bite form.
(20:19):
If someone is going to take thatbrochure and scan it, truly scan
it, flip it right, flip the flipbook, then how?
How am I leaving bread crumbs orvisual and editorial markers for
them so they can still take the salient points if they're going
to engage with it for 30 seconds?
So not only are we lean when possible, simple and concise,
(20:42):
but when we aren't, and when we shouldn't be and need to do
something in long form, are we mindful that the audience that
we just spoke about is able to engage with that content and
still see the most salient points brought to them very
transparently and easily? You know, as it pertains to just
being lean, you you talk about there's two things that I want
(21:05):
to kind of emphasize in this part of the acronym alone.
Bread crumbs, snacks and meals. It's one thing to be able to
leave. When you say bread crumbs, my
first thought goes to leaving a bread crumb that would make
somebody salivate at the mouth to want more.
So that's that's one way of looking at a breadcrumb.
(21:26):
Another way of looking at a breadcrumb is having the ability
to condense to that level to that's like small of a size to
where somebody can get what theyneed.
And then, you know, keep it moving on to the next piece of,
of, of media to, to, you know, consume.
And so, you know, we do live in a microwave world where if we
(21:50):
don't get what we want within two minutes, yeah, we're not
going to watch it at all. And so, and then some people,
they want to salivate at the mouth for more.
And so a snack bite or a snack will be exactly what they need
to keep them coming back. And so I think both should be
utilize as best as possible and as strategically as possible,
(22:12):
but it should also, this goes back to audience.
It's also important to know our audience as well to be able to
understand are they wanting moreand more or do they want, do
they want everything in in the snack or in a bite size or in a
home meal? Does that make sense?
Yeah, I love that it's it's Amazon Prime Day.
I want it is, and so does everybody else in the world.
(22:38):
It takes discipline. I can write 1000 words about
whatever, anything very quickly.Writing 150 words takes much
longer. Yeah, it does.
Which is some in some ways counterintuitive.
I don't need to tell the entire story because it doesn't always
(23:02):
speak to the audience's listen listening.
What are the most salient pointsthat move the per the person
that you're speaking with or move the people you are speaking
with to the next step along the decision journey?
That's the rubric and that's thediscipline we're trying to find.
That's good one. One more piece on this lane
before I move. Move on.
(23:23):
I have a friend who he and I watched similar Netflix shows
but I will consume every minute of every episode and he skims
the 1st 3 minutes the first 2-3 minutes of each episode to get
the gist of what's going to happen.
And if it isn't, if it doesn't get the gist and the 1st 2 two
to three minutes per episode, hesays it's not a good show.
(23:45):
And I'm over here like, well, you missed all this context, you
know, but that's what he's looking for.
And this is what I'm looking for.
It's it's so it's important to, you know, understand your
audiences in in that regard. As far as who's going to skim,
who's going to really consume everything.
I'm really glad you you brought this this lean point.
I want to go back to something you just said because it was
really important. Listen to how two people of
(24:07):
approximately the same age, right, probably approximately
the same demographics, would engage with the same content in
two very different ways. I think you and I have similar
demographics on a lot of levels.My rubric and the one in my
house is that you watch 3, threeepisodes of anything, you must
(24:29):
watch 3. Then you decide whether to
continue or to abort. You know, which is an entirely
different way of looking at it. So listen to how how that's very
different. Terrence is a meal guy.
I'm going to have an appetizer. I'm always going to have an
appetizer, but I don't know if I'm down for the whole meal and
(24:50):
and your buddy is is bite all the way.
He's a bite size. Yep, Yep.
And that's. Go ahead.
I'm sorry. Yeah.
It it just seems like it's a perfect example of what I'm
talking about, how people are going to engage with your
content. How are you thinking about those
meal, snack, bite or appetizer which would probably need to add
to this people very differently?Yeah, yeah.
(25:13):
And it's, it's also kind of speaks to why it's important to
put the, the meat and potatoes are things kind of in the front,
you know, versus at the end or even in the middle.
So we can explain the more important things up front for a
conference example. Hey, this is who's going to be
speaking. These are the topics we'll be
speaking on. These are the trending topics,
the hot topics. And you know, this is what the
(25:33):
benefit is that you can receive as a pricer.
And then the rest of everything else can us be explaining, you
know why this is important, the significance behind it, what it
can do for your, for your careerand your and your just general
knowledge as a pricer. Let's push the one, the metaphor
once further and then we'll let it go.
Because I don't want to overshoot the metaphor.
Think about you, your bike guy, and me.
(25:58):
You can have the most fantastic meat and potatoes and maybe
earth shattering dessert, but three of two of the three of us
are never going to make a dessert to dessert.
Never. You know.
So be careful about crushing theappetizer.
(26:20):
Yes. OK.
I like, that's good. That's good.
OK, now the unexpected what? What is so important and
significant about being aware and mindful of the unexpected as
it pertains to the bridge between pricers and and
marketing? I believe, and marketing best
practice would believe, that anytype of communication should
(26:43):
teach me something with all the information that's at my
fingertips that I can find. Anything that you're going to
feed me needs to teach me something new about you or your
company or your values. I'll push that one step further
and even better yet, not only teach me something, but make me
think. Marketing should meet the
(27:06):
audience at a space in which they are inquisitive about
something. We don't want to hammer home
facts and features, but instead a better lever is to pose
questions, to engage the inner discerner in the audience
member, Right? Engage the thinking, the
(27:27):
thinker, the feeler, and you do that through asking questions,
benefit statements, other communication tools, rather than
just listing facts. Communication should when it has
an element of surprise, it gets you out of the clutter, the
marketing clutter, and into hearts and minds.
(27:48):
So here's an example. For the rest of 24/20/24, I set
this own challenge for myself that anything I write to our
audience needs to include something new, something new
that they don't yet know. Not only does that push our
marketing forward, but it also pushes our company forward into
(28:12):
innovation and thinking. So some examples of that just,
you know, between I when I set that rule in June and now is
that we've included all breakoutpanels on Fridays for our Las
Vegas conference, right? Switching from Sage on a stage
engagements to on Friday, they're all breakout panels to
foster more discussions and collaboration and include more
(28:34):
thinking, more thinkers in the event, we added another day to
Europe, to our European and global event that's happening in
Berlin in November. So it's not a three day
conference, it's a four. Again, more thinking, more
thinkers and more collaboration by adding an entire day that way
our marketing isn't same old, same old.
(28:56):
Our events aren't same old, sameold, same old, same old because
we know now since the pandemic and, and more than ever that the
innovators are the ones that arewinning.
It's true when it comes to marketing, It's true when it
comes to programming. It's it's true when it comes to
product design and offering and it's true when it comes to
pricing. Innovators when companies don't
(29:16):
want to get left behind. As innovation continues,
companies continue to evolve. And if you're not keeping up
with the times, even even if it's not just keeping up with
the times, but even if, if you're not continuing to add a
new element in the mix, then people will lose interest.
So, and that is a very true and real thing.
And so I want to move on to authenticity.
(29:38):
This is, this might be my favorite point of your acronym.
Yeah, authenticity because it speaks to me And, and I, I think
that's in today's society, in today's world, when it comes to
marketing or when it comes to even influencing, you can kind
of sometimes spot out the fakersfrom those who are, you know,
(30:01):
legitimate and true and know what they're actually talking
about it. It kind of speaks to credibility
as well. And so if let's let's go ahead
and dive into authenticity or being authentic behind your
marketing if you want to kind oftake the reins on this.
I love what you said about beingable to sniff out something
that's inauthentic. I think that we all depending on
(30:24):
your personality and your, again, your tastes and
preferences, but everybody can smell something that's
inauthentic and you have a natural allergic reaction to
that. Authenticity leads to
credibility. Those those are tied hand in
hand. When I see something that seems
authentic, I'm more likely to deem that credible.
(30:48):
I'll talk about authenticity kind of on a baseline level and
then I'll talk about what I really mean by authenticity.
So as you said, it sort of goes without saying, but sometimes
you can't go without saying. Is your message true?
We don't put statements out there with promises we can't
keep. So I would define a marketing
problem by expectations set by communication, right?
(31:14):
Expectations set not matching the experience, the lived
experience of your product or service.
So by putting a statement out there with a promise I can't
keep, I am accidentally creatinga marketing problem or not
solving one that I already have.So expectations must that I set,
(31:34):
that we set as marketers must match the experience, the lived
experience of our audience through into our product.
So when you talk about authenticity more traditionally,
who are you and why should people do business with you?
People do businesses with people.
People don't do businesses with businesses.
(31:55):
I know AI is changing the game with that, but I know when I am
engaging with AI, I am not doingbusiness with the person.
When I am engaging with a business that is outside of that
construct, I anticipate engagingwith people.
So I would encourage anyone who is writing or designing on
(32:16):
behalf of an organization or giving feedback on writing or
design, to not be afraid to showsome personality to set you
apart. Setting yourself apart is the
element of differentiation, which is something we understand
as pricers and we understand as marketers.
That's a commonality, right? The way you can work towards
(32:39):
differentiation is not only the words you choose, but also the
tone and the voice through whichyou express those words and the
look and feel of the materials it needs to sound like you as an
institution. So when Lululemon is engaging
(33:00):
with their audience through editorial, that needs to look
and sound a lot different than Walmart because their audiences
are different and they should portray their differentiation in
the way that they speak and be authentically them.
The PPS voice, for example, is something that we've established
as being friendly, accessible, but smart and conversational.
(33:25):
So how do you hold those different values as an
institutional voice intention not only for one person who's
writing that, but also globally,anyone who's writing on behalf
of the organization? Yeah, that's.
Good differentiation is truly inthe nuances of word and.
Design, even with authenticity reviews can speak to this if you
(33:49):
want. My wife and I recently went to a
new restaurant, but one of the things she always does is she
looks at the reviews first. If she's buying something from
Amazon, which she does a lot, she looks at reviews first, you
know, and obviously not every company can have a system where
they just gather and accumulate reviews, But obviously reviews
can shed the, the true light of a company authenticity, being
(34:13):
able to kind of sniff out the fake, the frauds from those who
are legit and this giving the space to be relatable to a
consumer. And I'm, I'm, you know, super
glad that PPS kind of stands on the on one of the foundational
pieces of being authentic with, you know, their members as well
as their attendees at their conferences.
So the T in evaluates stands fortransform just like you did with
(34:40):
being authentic and all the other letters in this acronym
kind of elaborate and go in a bit more depth about what
transform means to this acronym evaluate and why it's super
important. Sure.
So transform takes the end to end that we started with and and
pushes it a little further. So let me establish a couple of
(35:03):
terms before I move forward. These are the definitions that
I've held on to about my career and I think they'll they'll use
they'll be useful as some table setting here.
Marketing is communication that's designed to sell.
OK. So it is that is different from
(35:24):
communication and that is different from selling.
It is communication that is designed to sell.
So a second definition we'll usehere is branding, how we define
branding. And that's the space you occupy
in somebody's mind. So when I say Nike, you think
of, you think of something, whether that's something
visually, a human being, emotionthat's evoked, you think of
(35:48):
something. And that space is the brand.
That's not the same as your logo.
I've been teaching this to people.
For. Years, right?
I'm sure you have two, Terence. So how do we use marketing and
branding to move people along the decision journey with you?
So for example, when I say can of Coke, you might think of soft
(36:09):
drinks. I'm going to use 2 examples from
Atlanta cuz we're here. Is that just a soft drink?
No, what they want you to think it's bubbly satisfaction with a
boost of joy and energy, right? So how is their messaging in
line with this is a soft drink, right?
A feature naming the thing. But instead this is bubbly
(36:32):
satisfaction with a boost of joyand energy.
How is it tying emotions, visuals, pictorial sensations?
Not only pictorial sensations, visual sensations, but when I
say bubbly satisfaction, you canstart getting taste and feeling
involved. It's trying to leverage all of
(36:53):
the senses. And how do you engage with the
product at more than a feature level?
So a Home Depot example, does Home Depot sell nails and wood?
Yeah, Yeah, they sell nails and wood.
That's a feature, right? Home Depot and Atlanta company.
But in their marketing communication designed to sell
(37:14):
as I just defined, and in their branding, the space that you
occupy in someone, someone's mind, they're more after that.
They are a solution to bring to life your dreams while you put
your own personal touches on your home, leaving your mark on
the place where you sleep and raise your family.
That's crazy, That's crazy. That's awesome.
(37:35):
Exactly. So how are we transforming and
transformative with our communication, with the
intention to sell and with the intention to truly occupy space
in somebody's mind, reach people's pain points, reach
people into people's dreams and values, and more closely tie my
(37:59):
communication to those things rather than the features of the
of the item? That's the magic sauce.
You've got it. Even even thinking about
Coca-Cola, I used to think aboutthose commercials, those Coke
commercials where, where you'll see somebody drinking a Coke and
the sun shines, you know, or, ora, a, a smile comes on their,
(38:20):
their face. Whatever the case is like they,
they allude to an experience youhave with that product.
They they really hammer down on painting this picture that your
experience here is going to be worth it.
And having wording, like you said before, communication is
one thing, but transforming yoursometimes the literal wording,
(38:44):
transforming your communication into this descriptive experience
that's going to leave you better, you know, leave you
stronger, leave you more equipped than you first walked
in the door with. You know, that's the whole name
of the game in in this regard, it sounds like.
Is that correct? Yes, you've got it.
(39:04):
We're we're changing hearts and minds in order to move people
along the decision journey with us, which is exactly what
communication designed to sell needs to do.
Which also kind of brings us to our last letter, which in this
acronym, which is E and it stands for experience, which
kind of alludes to, to transform, you know, feel free
(39:25):
to share a bit about experience and why it's such a pivotal
point and a great ending to this, to this word evaluate.
Sure. Thanks for hanging in here guys
with me on the nine step rubric.We're on the last step
experience. I get excited about marketing.
I could talk about this all day.So now more than ever, marketing
(39:46):
is about creating an experience.And we also talked earlier about
how we need to be lean in doing so.
So I would I would pose that thequickest and most compelling way
to engage an audience into an experience is to tell a story.
You hear a lot about storytelling and marketing from
(40:07):
where I sit, I think people leana little too heavily into it as
the as the strategic reason. However, it's very difficult to
communicate. Values tied to benefits and
outcomes without telling a story.
Just as you said earlier, we aretrying to create more networking
experiences, more community experiences.
(40:30):
Because I think that the pandemic more than anything
taught us that being in in isolation isn't awesome,
especially for two extroverts like Terrence and myself.
So So how do we engage and put proof in the pudding with with
our products and services? Testimonials are an incredible
(40:50):
lever and also telling our own stories.
Stories involve a narrative arc with a beginning, middle, climax
and resolution. And in doing so, how do we paint
a picture of what your product and service will do for your
defined audience? We drive what's in the
audience's mind, right when we talked about branding by
(41:10):
creating it that creating a picture of what our product and
service will do for folks and then sharing that.
So when thinking about branding and thinking about experience,
first you gain mind share, then you gain market share in
leveraging testimonials, just like you said with your wife and
the Amazon products. I'm much the same way.
(41:32):
I'm not going to go to a restaurant until I've read the
reviews, especially a nice one where the price is high, right
prices. I'm not going to purchase, you
know, Bose headphones again, it's Amazon Prime Day until I I
know that those are the those are highly reviewed receive high
reviews. Word of mouth is always your
best marketing. That has not changed in my time.
(41:52):
I don't see that changing anytime soon.
And that's been the tale as old as time.
Stories evoke emotion, and that's when you've got hearts
and minds to change. Transactional marketing leads to
transactional customers. I'm coming from to you.
I want your thing buy. Yes.
(42:13):
Right, that is not what creates long term buyers or raving fans.
Experience. Marketing creates experiences
for folks that are loyal and buymore.
Transactional marketing increasetransactional customers, man,
that's a, that's a nice quote right there, Ange.
(42:35):
Right. And experiential marketing
creates experiential customers. Yes, yes.
Awesome. OK, so the nine step process for
pricers to deliver informed marketing feedback or
suggestions for Intel to supporttheir pricing initiative
evaluate is the acronym. Angie Jackson, it was a pleasure
(42:56):
to speak with you today. We're going to see you again
this upcoming fall in Las Vegas and that is going to be at our
fall conference, obviously beingheld in October 22nd through the
25th at our fall pricing and workshop conference.
Super excited to see everyone who's going to be in attendance
there and you'll also see myselfas well as Angie there.
Angie, one more question to leave you with.
(43:18):
Where can listeners go to to learn more about you, what you
stand for, and more about PPS aswell?
Sure. Happy to engage in conversations
about marketing or about pricingor about anything really.
I love to talk about marketing. So send me a message and we can
keep the conversation going. angie@pricingsociety.com or on
(43:38):
LinkedIn. Angie Jackson, I'm a C P/E
Certificate of Pricing Educationon LinkedIn and looking forward
to hearing more and hearing how this is helpful and continuing
to push the conversation. Awesome.
Well, thank you so much once again.
And listeners, until next time, we'll see you then.
Have a good one. Bye bye.
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