Care For Your Community: How To Beat The Winter Blues

Dear Reader,

Snow briefly dusted New York City today.

And there’s a feeling that a weight has been lifted off our shoulders.

Maybe it’s just that the slow retreat of winter’s darkness is visible. So each new day gets ever so slightly longer than the one before.

To combat the pandemic, the first public doses of COVID vaccines are making their way into people’s arms. So vaccinated family and friends proudly compare notes about how they:

Qualified to get this hard-to-qualify-for shot (at least in New York),
Snagged an appointment somewhere, and
Experienced getting pricked in the arm and how they felt afterwards.

The people I know who’ve been vaccinated report spending more time waiting in line and completing paperwork including online forms than actually getting the vaccine.

According to the CDC, in the US (as of January 26, 2021):

44,394,075 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine were distributed and
23,540,994 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine were administered.

COVID-19 Vaccinations in the United States

Caring for Adopted Children

Last week, I was overjoyed to see Facebook posts from two of my friends regarding their experiences adopting their children. (Since these posts involve children under 13, I’m not sharing them here.)

One friend shared her memories about what she calls “Adoption Day,” the day her baby daughter arrived.

She related how, after completing the formal paperwork and interview process to get approved to adopt a child, you can get a call at any time telling you that you’ll receive a child in a matter of hours. As a result, you may have no time to make sure you’ve got the basics like a crib and baby bottles.

Another friend posted about going to court to get custody for the child that he, his wife and natural daughter have loved and cared for an extended period of time. And, now they’re going through the legal adoption process.

What these friends don’t discuss on social media is the challenges parents who adopt a child face day in and day out.

Beyond being accountable to governmental social workers and others, ordinary tasks like getting prescription medicine for the child can require more effort since the child may be on Medicaid and not covered by the parents’ health insurance until the legal adoption process is finalized.

Subscribe to the AMG Newsletter

Can’t Buy Me Love: What Marketers Need To Know

AND money doesn’t necessarily translate to a home where children are loved and given the support they need.

Need an example?
Look at the unexpected hit television series, Schitt’s Creek.

This binge-worthy sitcom reveals what happens when an extremely rich but dysfunctional family literally loses all of its money. So they end up in a small town in the middle of nowhere. The self-involved parents are completely clueless about the lives of their Millennial children.

Personally, I consider myself to be extremely lucky to have had parents who wanted each of their three children. And my parents tried the best they could to treat us equally while meeting each child’s unique needs.

Why am I writing about this in a marketing newsletter?
Because responsibility for having and raising children disproportionately affects women in marketing and business more broadly.

Why?
Because research shows that being a mother often sidelines or changes a her career path. And, this holds true, even when the woman is the main or only breadwinner in a household.

Even worse, the concern about how they’ll be viewed in the workplace takes an emotional toll on working women. And this sentiment is stronger among women across minorities.

Further, when in terms of household responsibility, COVID has increased the divide between men and women. As a result, mothers are 3 times more likely to be responsible for most of the household labor. (20021 Women In the Workplace-McKinsey Research.)

Without childcare support and/or the need to provide school support during COVID, mothers are more likely to feel judged at work for these responsibilities than men.

As a result, of increased childcare and household responsibilities during COVID quarantines and social distancing:

1 in 5 women has left the workforce, at least short-term and
2 in 5 women have reduced their work hours or responsibilities.

This also happens with aging parents. Since the burden of caring for aging parents, especially those with health and/or other challenges, is both time consuming and emotionally difficult.

Like childcare, the burden of eldercare falls mainly on women.

I learned this from my mother. In the 1980s she started one of the first gerontology consultancies, Pathfinders Eldercare. Her firm’s goal was to help major corporations such as McGraw Hill to save money. Since employees handled these issues on company time.

What Is True In Families Is Also True In Business

On his blog, AVC, Fred Wilson, a partner at Union Square Ventures,
summarized the top CEO activities (Hat tip: Drift’s David Cancel.)

“A CEO does ONLY three things.

Sets the overall vision and strategy of the company and communicates it to all stakeholders.
Recruits, hires, and retains the very best talent for the company.
Makes sure there is always enough cash in the bank.”

What’s most important to achieving your business mission?
It’s how you treat your employees.

Why?
Because how you treat them affects how they treat your prospects and customers.

In turn, taking care of employees builds long-term relationships with customers that keeps them returning over time.

Don’t take my word for it, look at these local businesses in my New York City neighborhood. (And, yes, NYC neighborhoods are like small towns!)

Periyali Restaurant. This Flatiron District Greek restaurant has employees who have worked there for over 30 years.
Print Icon. This Chelsea-based full-service custom printing shop uses both heritage printing techniques and contemporary production methods. For over 35 years, Vahid Pourkay has built this business by developing personal relationships and delivering quality results.Like any smart entrepreneur, Pourkay extended the business into related products, namely LIQUIDCARDBOARD™. This video shows how these ecologically responsible, US-made products work.

Subscribe to the AMG Newsletter

Actionable Marketing Takeaways:

► Plan your marketing to get the maximum impact

Timing is the single biggest factor to capture the maximum cumulative results of your marketing and promotion success. So, schedule your marketing to coincide with holidays, industry and corporate events. Since it doesn’t cost you anything!

Want to see what not publishing your content at the optimal time looks like?

Check this Monday, June 26th 2017 BuzzSumo case study:

Published the week before both Canada Day and US Independence Day, “BuzzSumo Research: 100 Mil Headlines Analysis. Here’s What We Learned” was lucky that it was must-read content.

Because, after the double holiday weekend in the 2 biggest English speaking markets, the article’s long tail results crashed. BUT—Since BuzzSumo’s content was so amazing, it still yielded out-of the-park results.

100 Million Title Analysis: first Week traffic by Source

► Build trust by enlarging your business community and personal network

It’s as simple as knowing the people who live on your block or work for your company.

As Edelman’s 2021 Trust Barometer shows, people trust people they know personally.

Societal leaders not trusted to do what is right

So both for your marketing and your career:
The key to building a strong personal and professional network is diversity.

As research shows:
For your long-term career success, the larger your network, the higher your performance.

The simple variable that explains what really causes career success

So how do you build your business and personal networks?

Use every opportunity to build your audience across platforms and devices, both online and offline. Also include in-person retail and events and postal letter options.
Give the people you engage with a reason to reconnect and, more importantly, to share their email or contact information. Often, this translates to providing consistent content on a regular schedule.
Show up and engage with people where they spend time. To see how, go online every Tuesday at 12:00pm (EST) to participate in:
- Tutorial Tuesdays, run by Copyhackers’ Joanna Wiebe,
- #CMWorld Twitter chats, hosted by Content Marketing Institute’s Monina Wagner, and
- VoiceLunch, a lively Zoom group call hosted by Karol Stryja, Michal Stanislawek, Allen Firstenberg and Michael Novak.
Move relationships to other platforms and/or devices to get the real power of social media and community. Over the long-term, this yields measurable value to your bottom line. As Orbit Media’s Andy Crestodina says: “Social media is about building your tribe!”