WhatisPinko


Pinko Strategies

 


 

Intro/Background

 

Sources

 

Idea for the paper

 

The agenda is prepare a white paper on the ;

 

Pinko Overview

 

Guides

 

A collection of radical thoughts that reflect a pinko style by Tom Peters

 

  1. Niche-aimed. (Never, ever “all things for all people,” a “mini-Wal*Mart.)
  2. Never attack the monsters head on! (Instead steal niche business and lukewarm customers.)
  3. “Dramatically Different” (La Difference ... within our community, our industry regionally, etc … is as obvious as the end of one’s nose!) (THIS IS WHERE MOST MIDGETS COME UP SHORT.)
  4. Compete on value/experience/intimacy, not price. (You ain’t gonna beat the behemoths on cost-price in 9.99 out of 10 cases.)
  5. Emotional bond with Clients, Vendors. (BEAT THE BIGGIES ON EMOTION/CONNECTION!!)
  6. Hands-on, emotional leadership. (“We are a great & cool & intimate & joyful & dramatically different team working to transform our Clients lives via Consistently Incredible Experiences!”)
  7. A community star! (“Sell” local-ness per se. Sell the hell out of it!)
  8. An incredible experience, from the first to last moment—and then in the follow-up! (“These guys are cool! They ‘get’ me! They love me!”)
  9. DESIGN DRIVEN! (“Design” is a premier weapon-in-pursuit-of-the sublime for small-ish
  10. Employer of choice. (A very cool, well-paid place to work/learning and growth experience in at least the short term … marked by notably progressive policies.) (THIS IS EMINENTLY DO-ABLE!!)
  11. Sophisticated use of information technology. (Small-“ish” is no excuse for “small aims”/execution in IS/IT!)
  12. Web-power! (The Web can make very small very big … if the product-service is super-cool and one purposefully masters buzz/viral marketing.)
  13. Innovative! (Must keep renewing and expanding and revising and re-imagining “the promise” to employees, the customer, the community.)
  14. Focus on women-as-clients. (Most don’t. How stupid.)
  15. Excellence! (A small player … per me … has no right or reason to exist unless they are in Relentless Pursuit of Excellence. One earns the right—one damn day and client experience at a time!—to beat the Big Guys in your chosen niche!)
  16. It’s always showtime. -Baby

 

 

Quoteables

"Instead of marketing campaigns, companies should just focus making their services, meeting the needs of users, and using nontraditional tools (blogs, podcasts, self-generated e-mails from the CEO when someone signs up for a beta, etc.) to build a community and create a brand." - Mark Evans

 

Some Tara Tactics

Authored by Tara

A couple of principles (or guidelines) to building strong community (principles that fit into, what I call today, Pinko Marketing):

1 )Stop all outgoing messages. Concentrate on ways to listen better. Open up the channels to incoming. You can't listen if you are yelling.

 

2) Be a community evangelist. It's not about 'creating customer evangelists', it's about advocating for your community. This is why it is important to have at least one person in-house that is focused on listening to the community. Even better is if everyone in-house is doing this. When developers and CEOs get busy, it is increasingly more important to listen to the community advocate.

 

3) Drop the crap. Don't think you are being clever in 'fooling' anyone to do your bidding. This is where 'crowdsourcing' really irks me. Anything less than 100% authenticity and ethics will be sniffed out. Trust is your greatest currency. You spend it and it is gone. It is a non-renewable resource.

 

4)Think small. Think niche. Forget the 'we're something for everyone' thing. Nobody is something for everyone. Even those who have grown to be something for a large number of people didn't start at mass level. (how to pick your niche: go through points on post Target Practice)

 

5)Employ open source principles like transparency, open sourcing your tools and getting your community involved in the actual development of your product early on.

 

The value in creating a strong community is clear and the steps are pretty simple. Now, I'd like to open up the floor to getting your thoughts, feedback and stories...