Blu Maya Digital Marketing Agency

I’m a gamer and can value a great game when I play one because a great game produces a craving that I must have it, own it, play it and talk about it. There are lessons we can take and apply in business..

What do you get when you mix a great storyline, great gameplay, great graphics, great game design with greek mythology? You get God of War.

Did you notice I used the word ‘great’ not ‘innovative’ to describe this game? Santa Monica Studios didn’t set out to reinvent the wheel with the recently released God of War 3, they used the same formula that worked before (story + design + lots of action!) and brought in bigger and badder opponents that are simply a joy to look at. Look at the video in HD!

It really is all about the experience

If there’s one word I would use to describe the God of War games is memorable because it truly makes you feel you’re in another world. Everything about these games is from another world! It doesn’t do anything fancy, it’s just great. The experience you feel is what truly sets it apart from other games!

Just like there are only a handful of businesses that I consider memorable, so it is with games. But what then makes them memorable? I think it’s a combination of identity, something otherworldly and authenticity.

Identity because it provokes your feelings and you can empathize with it (think Kiva). Otherworldly because the experience you get is beyond anything you’ve ever imagined (think Disneyland) and authenticity because it just feels real, you can talk to anyone about it and it’s real to them too (think Avatar).

Raise your hand if you know anyone setting out to create a business that’s memorable? A product? A service?

To focus on the overall experience people get when interacting with your business, ask yourself: How are we being memorable?

What makes something memorable? Would love to hear your thoughts.

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I’ve got a BIG smile on my face. I just got a refund of just over $130 from GoDaddy because I was paying for an SSL certificate that kept renewing itself since 2006 and I wasn’t aware of it much less using it. Yes you read that correctly, not just a refund for a recent renewal but for all of the past one’s!

I’m happy because I wasn’t expecting any type of refund and boy did I get a BIG surprise with no questions asked.

Thank you GoDaddy!

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Attention is scarce because trust is scarce. And why is trust scarce? Because everyone is out to maneuver people into attention by throwing as much content as possible at them without putting some thought into what their problems might be. Think about it, do you trust your friends to give you thoughtful advice? You probably do and that’s the key. As a brand, ‘friending’ your customers doesn’t mean you got the keys to the castle, it just means you have an opportunity to become a real friend. How you go about doing this is not that tricky…

So how do we go beyond attracting attention to building trust?

By changing from a consumption mindset to a take action mindset. We want people to consume our content (attention) but do we really care if they take action on it (share/implement it)?  To build trust we have to care what they do with our ideas, I think that’s the key. This takes time but then again Rome wasn’t built in a day and real relationships take months to build.

With some much content getting pushed out there we have to be mindful of people’s time, so the question is: are we doing enough to help them solve their problems?

Ask yourself: Would I trust myself?

What say you, are you out there to grab attention or build trust? Which comes first?

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What makes people go WOM (word of mouth)? Something that makes them go WOW!

Check out the video above where two young girls do some pretty remarkable things. It’s safe to say that the people who witnessed this event went home with a big smile on their face because they were entertained and now have something interesting to talk about!

The point is that actions speak louder than words and as these young ladies did, they let their actions speak for themselves.

What actions are you taking to make your customers go from WOW to WOM?

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Publish, publish, publish.

Nowadays everyone and anyone can create content and it seems to me like we’re in a race to see who publishes the most stuff without much thought into what happens with it afterwards. The name of the game is to out-publish yourself before your competitors do so, phew! Good luck with that!

Sure most people are trigger happy and look forward to clicking that big bold ‘publish’ button everyday with just about anything to create that habit and keep going, yes their ideas do get refined overtime because of all the practice but sooner than later what they publish has the same sound and voice as their competitors because they’re playing to the same audience and are looking at the same things.

Sound familiar?

Here’s a BIG idea:

It’s not what and how much you publish, it’s what people do with it that counts.

Be strategic and focus on what can distinguish you from others. Be like Picasso and publish things that have your signature all over it!
I’m not saying create art, I’m saying publish ideas that people can use, that can help them do something better than before.

Action not consumption

People have short attention spans, they get hit by thousands as messages that want their attention everyday (and so do you!) and anything that does get their attention better be ‘memorable and useful’ because this is your only chance to get them to share it with someone else and better yet to come back for more.

Seth Godin does this very well, all of his posts have some idea that is entirely obvious. Andy Sernovitz also does this, his posts are short and sweet and most of them have some action you can take immediately. Sean D’Souza from Psychotactics probably does this better than anyone I know, everything he writes has his signature all over it!

If you’ve done your homework and spent time with your customers you’ll have more than enough ideas to publish for them that will make their world a lot more interesting.

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