Blog Archives
Bowling for Business: Armchair Figure Skater
This column first appeared on RIMOFTHEWORLD.net on February 8, 2010, in the Biz Press on March 4, 2010 and in the Press Enterprise on March 6, 2010.
Social Media success is more a marathon than a sprint.
I’ve never been much of an athlete. In fact, in kindergarten, I had such a difficult time climbing the thick, giant rope that dangled from the ceiling in our gym that, when I finally achieved the goal, my PE teacher invited me to perform at Parents’ Night. The other invitee was a sickly girl named Lisa who didn’t have eyebrows, skin pigmentation, or stamina.
My lack of athletic prowess is probably the reason I’m such a die-hard fan of figure skating. The polar opposite of me, figure skaters demonstrate power, artistry and precision in everything they do. I’ve been watching every televised figure skating event since Dorothy Hamill won gold at the 1976 Olympic Games in Innsbruck, Austria. I was one of the few who didn’t tire of endless news reports about Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding in 1994. And I’ll probably see every Olympic figure skating event held this year in Vancouver.
But, along with other Olympic fans, thanks to advances in technology, the way I watch the games this time will be different.
- TiVo—instead of enduring countless commercials, I’ll be using our DVR to tape events. If I watch any advertisements this time around, it will be because they catch my attention as I fast-forward.
- Website—rather than relying on NBC producers to spoon-feed me the information they believe most relevant, the Olympic website offers information, ad infinitum, about every athlete, venue, competition and affiliated sponsor.
- Interactivity—if I’m so inclined, I will be able to connect with the athletes by reading their Tweets, perusing their blogs or watching videos on YouTube. And I won’t be hampered by location or previous commitments since I can access it all, 24/7, on my Smartphone.
So what does any of this have to do with marketing small businesses and non-profit organizations? Just this. Contrary to our cultural training as consumers in a society that expects on-demand entertainment and instant access to anything and everything, when it comes to advertising in 2010, we have to be willing to wait.
Instead of blasting our message to a passive audience, we must recognize that we are on the supply side of the equation. To learn what our target market demands, we have to be willing to listen, engage in relevant conversations, and earn a share of the voice. Social media success is less a sprint than a marathon because social media is all about relationship. And, in the real world as well as Cyberspace, it takes time to build relationships.
For Free—
Ironically, when it comes to social media, the most important step is the one most often overlooked. Unless you take time to listen to what people are saying about your organization, you won’t know what you can offer to the conversation. To do this, do a keyword search for terms relative to your field. Then, when you find the sites where folks gather, put away your keyboard and read. Once you understand the neighborhood, resist the urge to lecture. Instead, engage and contribute so that you become a trusted member of the community.
On a Limited Budget—
If funds are tight, hire an intern or junior staff member to monitor social media conversations and report back to you. But save the heavy-hitting for the folks who understand your brand. To succeed in social media, you have to become an expert in sharing whatever interests your target market. So teach your employees how to take advantage of blogs, wikis, Facebook, or YouTube. A great resource for this is a social media book I’ve touted, before, Groundswell. In it, Forrester researchers Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff provide plenty of social media case studies, along with proof they work.
The Sky’s the Limit—
Instead of joining a social network community, start one yourself. One of the first high-profile companies to do this was Dell. In the early days of social media, Dell turned a deaf ear to complaints lobbed by a customer named Jeff Jarvis, who started blogging about “Dell Hell.” But Jarvis’ discontent struck a chord. Within months, the highest ranking Google search term for Dell was Dell Hell.
Eventually, Dell had no choice but to address the nightmare. Their solution was to create a social networking site called Idea Storm, where customers post ideas and vote on products. The transformation didn’t happen overnight. But, in time, Dell went from cautionary tale to the benchmark for successful business communication, proving that flexibility and persistence pay off for anyone trying to climb the corporate ladder (or a giant rope).
Until next week, I’ll be Bowling for Business.
Bowling for Business: Logo Motion
This column first appeared on RimoftheWorld.net on Nov. 9, 2009.
Because there were two girls named Kathy in Mrs. Dale’s kindergarten class, my mother agreed to let everyone call me Kathy Ann. The horror of it haunts me to this day.
Don’t get me wrong. Ann is a lovely name. Not only is it my middle name, but it’s the name of two of my favorite aunts. But my weak bladder, coupled with my classmates’ irritating ability to rhyme, produced a moniker that took me a long time to shake…Kathy Ann in the Can. In fact, the nickname stuck until we moved to another school district when I was in sixth grade.
When it comes to people and business, for better or worse, branding happens. And it doesn’t take much to get people to react to an organization’s emblem. Take the controversial 2012 Olympic logo, created at a staggering cost of 400,000 pounds. The image drew fire from a group called Epilepsy Action, which said that a video promoting the logo triggers migraines, epileptic fits and vomiting. The International Olympic Committee is set to investigate the logo which politicians say is childish and “looks like Boris Johnson’s hair.
Although causing people to puke is rarely the objective in professional trademark development, some believe there is no such thing as negative publicity. So, in that regard, the London Olympic logo designer’s efforts were successful.
A more conventional approach would be to create a logo that is:
- Simple
- Attractive
- Eye-catching
- Instantly recognizable
Some famous logos that fill the bill include Google, Starbucks, Coca-Cola, Fed-Ex, and McDonalds, whose images you most likely pictured even as you read their names. The reason you recognize these brands, however, isn’t just because their logos are great. Superior products, excellent service and aggressive marketing help. Let’s face it, if your company sucks, coming up with an amazing image for it is lipstick on a pig.
But for a credible organization, finding the right symbol can mean the difference between obscurity and notoriety. This is especially true in the Internet age, where deep pockets to pay for full-color brochures and slick press packets are no longer necessary. Anyone with a computer and a low resolution, jpeg version of their logo can upload it everywhere from A1-Webmarks to Zaadz.com.
But commissioning a classic design can come at a hefty price. So how do you to produce an iconic logo if you’re on a budget? Whatever the price point, you have several options.
- For Free—if you have no money with which to build your brand, proceed with caution. Like it or not, the logo you choose today will be with your firm for years to come. Also, unless your business is graphic design or fine art, don’t buy do-it-yourself logo software in an ill-fated attempt to craft your own. Having access to a logo program won’t make you an artist any more than owning a calculator will turn you into a mathematician.
When money is tight, less is more. So try to find a nice, clean, clear font for your company name and then quit while you’re ahead. Avoid the temptation to add clipart to the mix. Also, when choosing typeface, skip Script and Old English, unless you’re shooting for an Addams-Family vibe.
- On a Budget—while I generally caution clients against ordering logos online, some companies do a respectable job for under $200. The problem is that, when left to their own devices, many entrepreneurs will ask their Internet designer to place their company name inside a blue and red oval, without realizing they like the look because they’ve seen it on cans of Bud Lite.
- The Sky’s the Limit—if you are in the enviable position of actually having money in your marketing budget, don’t skimp on the cornerstone of business communication. Find someone you trust and let them do what they do best so you can do what you do best. The right professional can help you define your unique sales proposition so your logo not only looks great and conveys your message to the intended target, but does so without inducing nausea.
Bowling for Business: Click it Good
Click it Good: A guide to Internet Advertising
This column first appeared on RimoftheWorld.net on October 19, 2009
How to use pay per click, banner ads and email marketing to sell widgets
Several people have asked me if the ads that appear in orange boxes throughout my weekly ROTW columns have anything to do with my business and/or blogs.
The simple answer is, “No!”
The ads you see weaving in and out of my text are placed there by affiliate advertisers who want to capitalize on RIMOFTHEWORLD.net traffic to sell their products and services.
I take particular offense to the ad that so often pops up in my pieces, that says, “Lose embarrassing belly fat now.” Since advertisers generally try to place their online ads in places that make sense, I wonder if they checked out my head shot and figured, naturally, the best advertising marriage is weight loss.
Whatever their reasons for associating my writing with an intense desire to lose weight, promoters advertise on websites, search engines and blogs because they know that, despite all of the buzz about free advertising with social networking, in the final analysis, it still makes sense to ante up for business leads.
But what exactly is the payoff and how much do you have to invest in order to secure actual paying customers? The answer is as individual as your business budget. Before we get into specifics about costs and strategies, let’s discuss the three most popular forms of paid electronic advertising.
1. Pay Per Click
Advertisers pay their host only when words and word combinations they successfully bid for, are clicked. Internet searches produce two very different types of results:
Natural or organic results are determined by closely guarded algorithms that match Internet content with search terms.
Sponsored search engine services like Google Ad Words or Yahoo Search Marketing are results that advertisers pay for. These are included in the top two or three search results, as well as to the right of the search screen, inside a light pink box, or noted as “sponsored links.”
2. Display Advertising
This type of advertising is paid per click, per impression or per term. Display ads typically contain text, logos, photographs or other images, maps, and similar items, which appear on the same page as, or on the page adjacent to, general editorial content.
The text boxes that appear inside my columns fall into this category as does the http://mountainmarketinggroup.net ad at the top of the RIMOFTHEWORLD.net masthead. Display ads allow sponsors to effectively target their audience based on publication and website user-profiles.
Banner advertisers efficiently track and measure which websites, blogs or publications result in the highest number of direct responses, known as “click-through-rates.”
Affiliate marketers gain Internet real estate by offering click-through revenue to blog authors and webmasters. Successful Internet writers earn money by allowing affiliate advertising to run on their sites.
One of the reasons we advertise our agency on ROTW.net is because they charge by the month, which is easy on the budget, instead of by-impression, which is a bit unpredictable.
Despite being considered a bit passé in web 2.0, emails remain popular for targeting prospective customers.
At the risk of being blocked as “spammers,” email marketers continue to advertise using this method because it is inexpensive and targeted. Emailing to people who have voluntarily surrendered their email addresses assumes at least a passing interest in whatever product or service an advertiser wishes to promote.
So which method should you pursue? I suggest you choose a strategy based on which budget, below, reflects the amount you can afford to spend on advertising. Remember, before you decide, that most experts agree you should invest at least 4-8 percent of your previous year’s gross sales on marketing.
Tight (I can’t even afford to pay attention.)
When funds are scarce, the bottom line is that you have to advertise. Don’t wait until you no longer have a business to promote. Email marketing is probably your best bet.
- Gather business cards you collect at chamber mixers and networking events and enter email addresses into your contact list.
- Create a brief, straight-forward email, with an attention-grabbing subject line, that does not promote your product or service so much as it provides an answer to your end-users point of pain. Focus on what your customers need to hear, instead of on what you want to say.
- Give your recipients a reason to reply. The best way to do this is to offer a discount or giveaway.
- Send the emails.
- Measure your results.
- If your campaign didn’t work, change it up. Don’t give up until you find the secret sauce.
Limited (I have a few bucks to spend. But I have to be careful.)
- Find a website whose users match the profile of your customer-base and which provides banner advertising payable by term instead of by impression.
- Hire someone to design an ad that will produce a direct-response.
- Commit to the strategy for at least three months.
- Measure your results.
- If your ad doesn’t bring in revenue, alter one element of the ad, or its location, at a time.
- Use the revenue generated from your campaign to pursue a second form of Internet advertising.
The Sky’s the Limit (Money is no object. And, yes, believe it or not, some business owners fall into this category, even in this economy).
Experts agree that people need five touches with your organization or product before they will make the move from prospect to client. Since your advertising budget affords you the luxury to pursue all five at once, results will be swift. I suggest the following:
- Hire someone to develop an effective ad campaign.
- Buy associated ad words on Google or Yahoo.
- Send an email blast to introduce the campaign.
- Invest in Pay per Click display ads.
- Run banner ads on high-trafficked websites and blogs.
- Watch the money roll in.
Bowling for Business: About Face(book)
This column first appeared on RIMOFTHEWORLD.net on 9-28-09
Every September 24 since I could talk, I’ve told anyone within earshot that it was my birthday…family, friends, the Culligan Man. Typically, the polite, sometimes somewhat perplexed response was, “Well, then…Happy Birthday.” With that wish, I would merrily go on my way, eager to share the message with the rest of the world. In the early years, cashiers, waitresses, tax attorneys and used car salesmen would ask my age.
Thankfully, I no longer field that particular question…probably because I am old. But maybe it’s also because I no longer blurt out my birthday. This year, thanks to Facebook, I didn’t have to. When I booted up my laptop this September 24, I was greeted by dozens of well wishes from Facebook friends who responded to the Facebook-generated birthday notification. With that simple application, I became a bona-fide FB fan. (Admittedly, not everyone is a fan of this particular feature.)
According to the Facebook Factsheet, Facebook was founded in February 2004 as a “social utility designed to help people communicate more efficiently with their friends, family and coworkers…in a trusted environment.” Five years and more than 300 million active users later, Facebook is the second most-trafficked PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) site in the world, running thousands of databases and serving millions of queries a day. Also of note, the fastest growing FB demographic is people who are at least 35 years old.
The reason FB is popular is that it is exceedingly user-friendly. Anyone with even a cursory understanding of how to type on a keyboard and upload a photograph can use it. And, like all successful social networking websites, Facebook is free. Although it might have initially appealed mostly to people who wanted to reconnect with faraway friends, it has slowly emerged as one of the premiere ways for business men and women to exchange ideas and share information.
According to the Social Media Bible, the reason for the transition is all about networking, “By developing and cultivating networks, your organization can create an opportunity to develop the trust that may result in more sales.” Just like in the real world, relationships that start off social in Cyberspace sometimes lead to business deals.
Consider one of our clients at Mountain Marketing Group. He set up a Facebook account about a year ago, at the urging of a high school buddy. “At the time, I had no ulterior motive for setting up the account. But it was easy and free. So I figured, ‘Why not?’”
Initially adding people to his network only if he knew them in the real world, Dave eventually started broadening his horizons by including friends of friends. Within a few months, his network numbered in the hundreds. Since many of his Facebook friends have hair, they sometimes need cuts and color. By casually mentioning a fundraising cut-a-thon on one of his posts, he said the “accidental advertisement” convinced several people to make the leap from casual Facebook friend to real world hairstyling client. And Dave is hardly alone.
Consider the sitting president. Many pundits attribute the success of his campaign to the way he and his team leveraged social media. According to his publicists, “The goals of the campaign were to increase our number of Facebook fans; raise awareness of NYTimes.com as an interactive news center; and engage the Facebook community in a conversation about the election outcome.”
What’s more, Obama’s social media strategists said, “We increased our number of fans more than three times in just 24 hours — from 49,000 to 164,000 — and in the process far exceeded our 2008 goal of 100,000 fans. Possibly the greatest success of this campaign, however, is that our fans continue to rapidly grow…into a powerful, free word-of-mouth network that we will leverage for future marketing messages.”
Facebook has been equally effective for apolitical non-profits. According to a recent post by Rob Bergfeld’s SmartBlog on Social Media, the online director of the Lupus Foundation of America (LFA), Wick Davis, said that LFA’s Facebook strategy increased donations by 790 percent. Yes, you read that right…790%.
By setting up a simple Cause application, Davis said, “When I took over as the admin for the Lupus Foundation of America’s cause in Facebook in mid-January 2009, our cause had less than 3,000 members, and had raised $630. Since I had no idea when our Cause was created, I had no idea how long those figures had been at that level. I’m pleased to share that as of today (6 months later) LFA’s cause now has more than 21,200 members. And during that same 6-month timeframe, we’ve raised a total of more than $5,700. And those figures only represent LFA’s ‘official’ cause in Facebook.”
So, whether your goal is fund-raising, building a virtual farm, poking people just for the heck of it, generating traffic for an industry event, or announcing your birthday to the world, the answer is at your fingertips. Just do an About Face.
Until next week, I’ll be Bowling for Business.
Bowling for Business: Big Game Hunting
Small Scale Hunting
I’ve never been much of a hunter. I think the huge deer head that hung in our family room while I was growing up scared me. But, if I was a hunter, I would hire someone who knew what he was doing to show me when and where to score the big game. From what I’ve been told, rabbit hunters are able to go it alone, shooting scores of little bunnies without much effort. But if a bunny murderer wants to start scoring big game, he or she has to get help so he’ll know where to go.
Big Game Hunting
In much the same way, business owners who advertise their own products and services may experience success on a small scale. Creating their own logos, writing press releases, producing fliers and brochures using MS Publisher and the like, they might be able to generate a few leads. But folks who want to bag big game need to hire a professional.
Big Game Marketing
At Mountain Marketing Group, we help clients play on a large scale. We understand the tools of the trade and know how to point potential customers to our clients. We don’t just create a brochure. We don’t produce products. We focus on results. Instead of just writing media releases, we generate press interest. Rather than printing an ad, we develop a campaign.
Using the latest technology as well as tried and true methods, we promote clients in the following industries (to name a few):
- architecture
- automotive repair
- beauty
- bookkeeping
- business consulting
- carpet care
- church and para-church groups
- claims management
- computer technology
- construction
- education and e-training
- finance
- insurance
- law
- medicine
- pest control
- tax services
Timid?
While you may be overwhelmed with terms like social media marketing, blogs, DNS servers, content management systems, and the like, we get it. We know how to use these marketing tools and more to help our clients reach their target markets.
So, if you are content to kill rabbits, then go it alone. When you’re ready to bag the big game, remember Mountain Marketing Group.
I Blog, Therefore I Am?
So welcome to my very first blog entry. At my Lake Arrowhead advertising and public relations firm, Mountain Marketing Group, lately I’ve been the Pied Piper of social media, sharing the importance of setting up blogs and the like. But, like the cobbler’s kids who do not have shoes, I have failed to consistently create dynamic content of my own.
Aren’t you glad that is about to change? I’m sure I have lots of important ideas to share and links to provide. I just have to get the hang of this thing first.
In all honesty, this isn’t actually the first time I’ve tried to blog. I just didn’t realize, previously, that all of the great blogs I was writing on my own website were not being seen by anyone.
If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, did it really fall? So, sure, no one read what I wrote. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t valuable and important. Right?
Lately, with the economy in the toilet, the thing at the top of business owners’ minds is how to make a living. First, the good news. It is still possible to make money despite the economy. After all, it isn’t as if all of the cash in the universe spontaneously combusted. It’s just that no one knows exactly where it is. As a marketing and public relations professional, it’s my job to answer that question for my clients.
So my tip for the day is to encourage my clients to do as I do, not as I say. This message is for you:
Dave-Give us some tips to keep our hair under control in the wind.
David-You can’t find a photo of yourself smiling? Or at least not frowning?
Chris-Let us know how to put together a notebook with decorating ideas
Scott and Dave-You guys are already pros. But why not share some of your expertise with your client-base? Give us a boon.
Creating a blog is obviously quite easy. Even a marketing director can do it.
BUNCO to Blogging
So what marketing lessons can I pass on from the game of BUNCO I just played with my neighborhood friends?
Each month, about 16 of us get together to catch up on each other’s lives and to try to roll dice in order to win up to 50 whole dollars. I won last month and bought a Starbuck’s mug to commemorate the rare occurence. I’ve been playing for five years and that was the first time I won.
I think the whole idea of new media is that it is social…just like throwbacks including neighborhood BUNCO.
We all lead extremely busy lives and yearn for the old days when neighborhood get-togethers and BBQs were the order of the day. And we can achieve a similar feel with social networks. We can say “hi,” catch up on life, check in despite how busy our everyday lives are.
So even though the Internet is perceived by some to be impersonal, I think it’s actually allowing some of the intimacy that we used to enjoy when our lives were much less hectic and scattered. So if you can’t join a local BUNCO group, go online. Oh, right, you already are.
