marketing strategy (2)

Posts Tagged ‘marketing strategy’

No Headfirst Diving Allowed

Friday, April 2nd, 2010

If I’m a small business, I want to know about digital marketing.

Here’s why:

It’s cost effective. Most tools used for digital marketing are free or very inexpensive.
I can cater to my niche. The internet is a place best served by very specific content.
It’s growing. Most of my customers are already there.
I can create things quickly. Establishing a brand is a lot easier than it was in print.
I can listen. The Fortune 500 pays millions for market research that I can get just by tuning in.
I can measure everything. That way, I know what to change without shooting in the dark.

And on and on. There are countless reasons to care about digital marketing.

The one thing that I don’t want to do, if I’m a small business, is start a digital marketing campaign without learning about it.

Here’s why:

It’s cost effective. I can hire my nephew to do it. He knows about computers.
I can cater to my niche. If I only knew what that was.
It’s growing. I better get in there quick and DO something.
I can create things quickly. I don’t have time for a brand strategy.
I can listen. As soon as I hear someone talking about my vertical, I tell them about my sale.
I can measure everything. When I find out that direct sales aren’t taking off, I can write off digital marketing as a fad.

Tags: branding, content, Digital Marketing, marketing mindset, marketing strategy
Posted in Digital Marketing | 1 Comment »

Building In Glitches

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

For your web writing, I think you should build in some glitches.

A glitch is different than a mistake. A glitch breaks up the surface. A glitch makes people slow down. It’s a speed bump of text.

You can describe a writing glitch as anything that makes you human. I read a lot about transparency in web writing. I think those are glitches.

If your web writing is smooth and seamless, good luck. That type of copy has been written and distributed widely by the Fortune 500 for 70 years.

A better strategy is to break things up, give it a voice, and let the audience it speaks to find it.

To do that, you have to slow things down a bit.

Tags: blogs, content, content marketing, marketing strategy, web writing, writing
Posted in Digital Marketing | No Comments »

How To Make Great Marketing In One Easy Step

Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010

Care.

That’s it. If you care about your marketing, most of the labor is done. It’s what Seth Godin calls emotional labor, and in our economy, nothing means more.

If you care about your marketing, you’re necessarily going to manage the details. Caring creates more work, but if you really care, that’s what you’re looking for.

Your site is going to match your collateral pieces, because you cared enough to realize that design is your first impression. Your message will be the crux of who you are, because you hired a writer to help craft it. You cared enough to spend more time on your strategy than your tactics.

You blog because you care. You pile up your photostream because you care. You spend time using social media to connect people, not to sell, because you care.

In Gary Vaynerchuk’s presentation last week at SXSW, he cared enough to:

-Greet everyone coming into the auditorium at the door personally.

-Not use powerpoint.

-Call out a Johnson & Johnson marketer (in a friendly way) for having an agency tweet for them.

-End his presentation with some spontaneous rap and beat boxing at the Q and A microphones.

One point that really struck me about the emotional labor that Gary puts in was what he had to say about projects. He made the (totally believable in his case) point that once he decided to take on a project, he had already succeeded at it.

Not because everything always works out for Gary. Because he’s interested in the process. If you care enough about the process, the result is great marketing.

And we all know what the results of that are.

Tags: blogs, business relationships, business trust, content, content marketing, getting started in social media, marketing mindset, marketing strategy
Posted in Inspiration | No Comments »

Grab Ass With Gary Vaynerchuk

Friday, March 19th, 2010

Last week at South By Southwest, Gary Vaynerchuk, best selling author of “Crush It” and creator of Wine Library TV, grabbed my ass on stage in front of 1000 people.

I’m not sure how a feel about it yet. Excited? Shocked? Maybe a little dirty?

Actually, I feel pretty cool. Love him or hate him, anyone with half a brain needs to admit: Gary Vee walks the walk. He’s a loudmouth? So what? I’d rather do business with Gary than some unhappy hipster that’s too cool for me and everyone I know. In a second. The guy loves the Jets. Publicly.

I’ve had brushes with the internet famous before. In light of this last episode, it’s beginning to get a little strange. Here’s what I mean: I met Chris Brogan and Jay Berkowitz about 6 seconds into the first conference into the first conference I ever went to. They gave me restaurant recommendations. Two days later, I got lost in a cab with Guy Kawasaki. And now, several hundred people think I’m bi/curious because of Gary (actually happily married, thanks).

Wow, someone just dropped names all over the place. Sorry for that; I’m making a point.

The internet marketing famous and semi-famous, in my experience, are a really interesting, really accessible group of folks. You could be cynical and argue that it’s their job to be friendly. But you’d have it backwards. Those people start with friendly. The good ones have a desire to help people be motivated enough to do the things they imagine they can do, and make a business out of it.

Even when it goes wrong. If you were following some of the #SXSW drama last week, you may have caught a little drama concerning Peter Shankman and some conference volunteers with close ties to the creative locals in Austin. I think it’s a pretty good illustration of how people who have made big strides can get tripped up. Think of it this way: the first word in Shankman’s business is “Help”.

Nobody’s perfect, and I’m going on record as saying that the internet famous get a bad rap. Even if I don’t agree with what they’re doing (is Guy a spammer? Or are you signed up for it?), I’m slow to criticize anyone. It’s a lot more constructive to think of ways I can do a better job myself than to worry about how bad a job someone else is doing.

Think I’m just being soft? Why?

P.S. Thanks for the interesting presentation, Gary. I think : – )

Tags: blogs, business relationships, business trust, content, getting started in social media, marketing strategy, Social Media, sxsw
Posted in Digital Marketing | No Comments »

Who Gets To Say “I Don’t Get It” ?

Friday, March 5th, 2010

If your customer doesn’t get it, you have three options:

1. You can try to make them understand, and explain why they should be interested in you.

2. You can reshape your product to fit them.

3. You can write the customer off.

Number one can be done with a lot of work ahead of time. With a good content strategy and a clear idea of your vision, you’re heading off most of the problems at the gate.

Number two usually has the worst results. The customer is rarely satisfied if your product is changed, even at their request, and here’s why: You do it the way you do it for a reason. Because it’s the best. You’ve found the product that will deliver exactly what you propose to offer. When you change that around to fit everyone’s needs, an essential element of your business breaks down. It’s what made you you.

Number three should be done a lot more to avoid number two.

Tags: business relationships, business trust, content, content strategy, marketing strategy
Posted in Digital Marketing | 1 Comment »

How To Treat Your Fans

Wednesday, February 10th, 2010

I’m not a huge sports guy.

I like to catch games every once in a while. I know enough trivia to hold my own. But I don’t follow things day to day.

It was easier to be a fan in the 60′s. If I had been alive then, I’m pretty sure I’d have a team that I’d follow, and be one of those guys: “Well, our right tackle is out with a hangnail that’s hung around since last season, but I think he’ll end up playing through it in the post-season.”

Now the players move around, the money’s big, and it’s hard to look away from the business side of things. I’m not turning this into a post about free agency or anything else. I’m just saying that’s the landscape.

Still, there are fans. Huge fans. To me, it seems they get neglected in bad ways and in a lot of places.

So when you see something like Lombardi-gras, it really changes the focus. Yes, New Orleans deserved to have a big win. A big something for the city that needed it.

But if you know the story, you know that this had built up long before the playoffs got started. There was an investment by the team to reconnect with the fans, to make this about more than a trophy. This championship was about the fans, start to finish.

If you watch that video in the link above, you can see how excited the players are to be there. They’re sharing their moment. It was all about this time, from the start of the season. The team was the engine, but the fans were the spark.

What about your fans? When you do great work, is about the work, or is it about the people who set you up to do it?

Your co-workers. Your clients. Your social network. Your local businesses. Your sources of inspiration. Those are the people that deserve to get your light shined on them. They’re your fans.

What are you doing for them?

Tags: business relationships, business trust, content, marketing strategy
Posted in Partnership | No Comments »

Why I Hate RFP’s and Why You Should Too

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

The time-honored ‘Request for Proposal’ (RFP), or as we call here in the shop “The unexpected Word doc from Hell” has once again crossed my desk. I dislike them greatly.

Check that. I loathe them.

There are times when an RFP is the best tool for the job. Like if you’re a government agency and you need to buy 5 hammers, or 4,000 white toilet seats. However, in our world of digital marketing, if you’re sending out an RFP, you are seriously doing yourself a disservice.

Why a disservice? Well, simply put, if you knew so much about digital marketing or web development, why the hell would you send out an RFP in the first place? Fact is, folks that are involved in the digital space for a living are immersed in it. For quite a few of us, this isn’t our first rodeo, or Google Algorithm update, or new “gotta have it” marketing tool introduction.

The worst RFPs contain things like:

-”We want a website that loads fast, is search engine friendly” -> No kidding? Do you think people purposely build sites that load slow and are NOT search friendly?

-”Must include Social media integration” -> Ahhhh, love that good old social media blanket statement……

-”Search Engine Optimized for these 5 keywords” -> Really? Those keywords just might suck…

We’ve all seen those RFP’s. Every time one is sent out a kitten dies. So, please stop.

By sending an RFP for your digital marketing or web development project, you’re seriously limiting your potential for success. Why? Because without giving your potential providers the opportunity to ask questions, which determine the proposed digital marketing solution, you’re killing the prospect of break-through ideas which are often the result of an outside perspective.

As Roy H. Williams, The Wizard, has told us, it’s difficult to read the label from inside the bottle. Yes, you know your product, yes you (should) know your audience….however, allow your potential service providers to drill-down and help find the best possible solution for your digital marketing problem.

Tags: business relationships, Digital Marketing, marketing mindset, marketing strategy, Pat Strader
Posted in Digital Marketing, Web Development | No Comments »

Is Today Really “Anything Can Happen” Day?

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010

You do your best work when you’re inspired.

Doesn’t matter what. If you’re in love with selling vacuums, something about something will turn you on, and then you’ll turn that into declaration on pulling up dirt.

If I learned anything from the Mickey Mouse Club when I was a kid, it was that “Anything Can Happen” day is every single day. It’s only when we’re adults that we figure out that “anything” also includes “nothing”. Nothing can happen for a long, long time if you’re not careful.

That’s the thing about inspiration. You never know where it will come from, or when it will strike. One thing’s for sure: You can’t wait for it to find you.

But those people that say you have to make your own inspiration are only half right. There’s something untamed about inspiration that keeps it from being an “on demand” resource. Inspiration, like energy, is neither created nor destroyed. It just is.

The best you can do is increase your odds for having inspiration strike. To truly take advantage of Anything Can Happen day, you’ve got to be ready.

-Expose Yourself Be near ideas. Use a feed reader to keep in touch with whatever it is that gets your blood moving. Meet up with others in your field. The ideas are out there.

-Get Proficient You do what you do well, but you can do it better. But don’t strive toward perfection (a sure way to kill inspiration). Instead, just get good. Get miles. If you write more, you’ll get better at writing. If you train your dog more, you’ll have better walks.

-Love Something Doing what you love doesn’t necessarily mean do what you love for a living. But if you ignore your passion, you’ll find it hard to get inspired about anything. Remember that anything can be a source of the inspiration that will later go into your work. That’s a lot easier to find if you’re involved in something you can be passionate about.

For me, it’s being with my family, going outside to play, and writing, and reading good writing. Every time I’m doing one of those four things, the chances of me being inspired goes way, way up. It’s not going to happen every time, and I’m not looking for that, really (that would be waiting for perfection). But these things work.

Why? Because I’m opening myself to them. Because I’m good at them. And because I love doing them.

What about you? I want to know what you do to get inspired, if you want to share it.

Tags: business relationships, content, marketing strategy, writing
Posted in Inspiration | No Comments »

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