Archive for June, 2007
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, June 27th, 2007
My daughter who is in Grade 1 recently came home all demoralized: one of the kids in her class had written some negative comments about one of her stories and she felt bad about it. I explained to her that everyone is entitled to their opinion and that simply by having the nerve to write the story in the first place and let her friends read it made her brave and smart.
The whole episode got me thinking about blogging. When you blog, you must expect that not everyone who reads will agree with you. Prepare yourself for it – be brave! You’ll sometimes get negative comments but the simple act of blogging gives people the opportunity to learn from your insights and you can learn from them in turn. Fortunately for bloggers (unlike my daughters story episode), we can choose to read and review all comments prior to posting and root out those that contain spam or aren’t constructive or applicable but I always encourage people to post comments that have valuable counter arguments or added insight – even if its a post from the competition. In this way your blog will gain credibility with your audience, you will give readers the chance to see all sides of the equation and it will encourage more comments from interested parties.
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, June 25th, 2007
Every-time I read a newspaper these days there seems to be an article in there about Social Networking. Most of these talk about MySpace or Facebook in the personal context (keeping in touch with family, catching up with old friends etc) but few touch on the business implications of these new media technologies. I was pleased then to read last weeks post by One Degree – Move Over, Corporate Blogs – Make Way for Corporate Social Networks. The article discusses the collaborative aspects of these technologies and their business potential giving a great example from Specialised whose MySpace/Facebookesque page allows bikers to share stories/photos etc whilst further entrenching Specialised customer loyalty.
Social networking applications not only provide the opportunity for businesses to build loyalty, they also offer a great forum to attract new customers as witnessed in my recent lunch at Inifinity Dining here in Vancouver. I went to Infinity because the owner, Alex Rotherham, befriended me on MySpace and I was interested to find out more about their on-line efforts to develop business.
Alex told me that a whopping 75% of new business coming to the restaurant results from their on-line efforts and that they are using the MySpace application to really develop a true network of clients that they can promote events and new menus to. He found that Facebook didn’t offer the same functionality to truly reach the right network. Given that Alex, like any new proprietor, is operating on a shoestring – social networking has allowed him to easily spread the word with very little cash outlay.
“The key to MySpace marketing is having as many friends (in your targeted segment) as possible and that takes time”, said Alex in between greeting guests.
Every business new or established should seriously consider the value of social network and new media marketing not only because its more likely to hit the mark than traditional mass marketing efforts but it also costs less – way less.
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, June 20th, 2007
One of the objections to blogging that I regularly hear is that “it’s for a younger crowd”. Well, it turns out that the demographic landscape of the blogosphere is changing and companies should take note before the get left behind.
A recent survey conducted by TSN Canadian Facts into blogging, social networking and gaming trends found that 50% of Canadians on the Internet use blogs. Granted, most of those who have their own blogs are teenagers but I was happy to see that 38% of the over 50 wired crowd were actively reading or commenting on blogs (a percentage that grows steadily through the younger age brackets) and that only 9% of Canadians in Western Canada surveyed hadn’t heard of blogs.
These statistics suggest to me that blogging is quickly being accepted by the masses as a vital source of independent information. Companies take note the burgeoning demand across all age groups: if you don’t feed the need by blogging and prove your worth in this medium, you risk becoming dinosaurs – relics of an earlier age.
And what better a way to facilitate this than to take advantage of the fact that the majority (78%) of the incoming workforce are already using blogging technology socially and expect to use these professionally too – according to a recent article by Information week entitled Younger Workers Demanding Web 2.0 Tech on the Job.
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, June 18th, 2007
In the late nineties it was fashionable for internet sites not to include detailed contact information with phone numbers because at the time it was thought that this would lead to more unwanted telemarketing calls and would limit geographical reach. In reality, not including your contact information simply makes it harder for prospects to get in touch with you to do business.
Always reduce barriers like these by including detailed contact information so that prospects can easily contact you to do business. You don’t have to include a physical mail address: a contact number or e-mail will suffice. If you don’t want to list your phone number then consider setting up a Skype service or similar so that prospects can contact you using VoIP. When you list your email address on your web site, always ensure that you sift through the spam to identify genuine e-mails sent to that address. 9 out of 10 times when I send an e-mail requesting information from companies I have found on the web, I dont get any response at all. Why would a company bother having an info@ or sales@ e-mail listed on their website when they have no mechanisim to follow up? All this does is deter prospects from doing business with you…..
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, June 11th, 2007
When The Laws of Simplicity by John Maeda first landed on my doorstep, I was disappointed – surely a book dealing with the complex topic of simplicity would be much bigger? I wondered how such a vast subject could be compiled down into such a skinny book. Then the penny dropped simplicity shouldn’t, by its very nature, be complicated.
Like us all, I juggle work, personal and family responsibilities: sometimes its chaos. My growing business and the issue of how to design my new Out-Smarts website has been at the forefront of my mind. I didn’t realise when I bought this book that it would give me insights into ways I can simplify each of these.
Maeda states up front that the book is not a series of steps to guaranteed simplicity nor does he have all the answers but what he does do in the book is highlight 10 Laws of Simplicity and draw on his own life experiences to highlight these. The ten laws as he sees them (and his list is still growing as we speak at the Laws Of Simplicity website) are:
- Reduce – make things less complex;
- Organise – adopt a systematic approach to keeping things in order;
- Time – less time spent waiting makes life seem less frantic;
- Learn – knowing more about something makes it seem simpler;
- Differences – for something to appear simple, it benefits from having something complex to compare it with;
- Context – ask yourself: what’s really important and whats not;
- Emotion – to achieve simplicity, you must have an emotional attachment to the subject at hand;
- Trust – trust in technology and other means that aid simplicity;
- Failure – Its impossible to simplify everything
- The One – be careful to see the wood from the trees.
For me this book really did kill several birds with one stone. It gave me some clarity into the simplicity required to make my new website more effective, it gave me a grounding from which to approach my business processes and it reminded me of some of the techniques I can use to keep the everyday chaos at bay!
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, June 08th, 2007
I recently had the opportunity to spend some very valuable time with friends of mine from client PeopleMaps on their recent trip to North America. PeopleMaps provides personality profiling for employers and jobseekers around the world. During our strategising and ruminating sessions it became very apparent to me that PeopleMaps is a company that has really embraced the new media technology wave and has put the Internet to work for them to facilitate everything from marketing and customer service to the daily communication and processes of the organisation internally and they are really reaping the rewards. I asked them to write an article for this blog to share with you some of these benefits of utilising new media technologies to the max. Here is the article kindly contributed by Julie Anderson, Head of Marketing and Martin Gibbons CEO, at PeopleMaps:
New World Technologies In Action
Bringing on new members of staff is a big thing for a small company: there’s the briefing; the introduction of company culture; and of course, the product training to consider. You even have to tell them where the coffee is kept! Normally a new start sees a senior member of staff, usually the CEO, and spends the best part of a week being hand-held.
It is not usually the best time for the CEO and Head of Marketing head to the other side of the world – but that’s how it had to be at PeopleMaps last month. And you know what? – it wasn’t a problem, with the aid of new media technology.
PeopleMaps is a disparate company, with no ambitions to be anything else. All our employees work from home, not because they are forced to – but because they choose to. Geographical independence was always a dream of mine and I spent a long time trying to engineer a company that was completely independent of geography.
We managed to introduce two new staff members and have them up and running from the other side of the world using some basic tools.
PeopleMaps uses an online CRM system to manage all client and partner contact – so no data is held locally, making it easy for us to dip in and out of our systems from any PC anywhere. We use Skype and SkypeIn telephone numbers to give a local presence – and complete flexibility on managing incoming calls.
But the biggest revolution has been the introduction of wiki (we use PBwiki.com) technology a few months ago. Read more
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, June 06th, 2007
The bain of my life and perhaps of anyone attempting to conduct legitimate business using the Internet is spam. On a daily basis I receive literally hundreds of spam e-mails trying to sell me something or other that I don’t need. Like most people, I’ve installed an Internet security a application with a spam filter and yet it still gets through. On the day I published my first corporate blog, I was inundated with unwanted e-mail posted to my site most of it simply disgusting.
Luckily, there’s a lot you can do to arm yourself in the battle against this unwanted intrusion. I could live to regret this but I’d like to share with you some tools that you can use to help you reduce the amount of spam you (and your audience) have to see.
If you have a blog and have your blog page set up to receive comments, you’ll likely have been the recipient of unwanted comments and trackbacks from spammers. One of the best ways to deal with this is to set up your blog so that comments must be okayed prior to posting. Another essential tool is blog spam blockers. Akismet is at the forefront of this helping WordPress users to avoid spam by allowing them to easily download a plugin that filters and stops these messages. Other software such as Captcha protects against spam in many forms to protect blogs, wiki’s, feedback forms etc. Yet more applications and add-ins allow you to download and use spam blacklists to block them out such as Habeas.
If you have a blog or use a wiki, there are many sites out there dedicated to countering the efforts of spammers. One of my favourites is the SpamHuntress which has a running documentary of counter spam tips and real world experiences.
For more ways to protect yourself against general spam read: The Top 10 Most Popular Anti-Spam Tips, Tricks and Secrets by Heinz Tschabitscher.
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, June 04th, 2007
The Office Journal recently published a question of mine posed to Brian Scudamore in their 1-800-Got-Question? column. Brian, Founder and CEO of 1-800-GOT-JUNK? has grown the company to one world’s largest junk removal service companies since its inception in 1989. Much of this success has been due to word of mouth marketing so I asked for his advice in this area. His answer warmed my cockles as it were because it confirmed some of the benefits of new media marketing I have extolled myself in this very blog such as the fact that its costs less and is much easier than you think.
Here’s the question and Brian’s answer in full:
I have recently rejigged my sales and marketing consulting practice to help clients take advantage of new media marketing solutions such as blogging to help them extend their reach. Viral marketing has obviously played a big role in helping 1-800-GOT-JUNK? establish its brand and grow its customer base.
How much of that do you credit to technology and what would your advice be to a small organisation like mine that is looking to harness viral marketing to spread the good word?
Answer:
Hi Mhairi,
For the last few years, technology has certainly been 1-800-GOT-JUNK?s best friend to get the word out about our company and our services. The primary reason is that technology has drastically increased the speed at which we are now able to spread our message. The appealing factor of viral marketing through technology for a small business is that once you have a computer, the remaining costs of creating a viral campaign are minimal.
We have utilized several media to accomplish viral marketing, including youtube.com, where anyone can post videos. For us, we filmed a low budget commercial that was actually only run a few times on television. The success of our commercial was actually generated from The video, infamously known as our Rat Advertising Trial (R.A.T.), featured on TBS as one of the worlds funniest commercials and attracting more than one million computer viewers.
Another technological medium that we have found successful is our Business Smarts podcast that we are able to post on iTunes. Podcasting is not only low-cost, but very simple to do. The essential ingredient for a successful viral podcast, which your target audience will listen to, is creating a dynamic topic people will find interesting.
Thanks to Brian for your insights and to Office Journal for publishing the question.
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, June 01st, 2007
I recently read a great blog by Seth Godin “One, few, most or all”, that discussed the different marketing approaches companies should take depending on the size of the audience they are trying to market to: one person, a select few, most or all. The article points out that you should take use alternative atrategies to marketing to each and the same applies if you are marketing or selling anything on the Internet.
If you’re selling to one person, you need to hone in on that one individual. You don’t necessarily need to have a website (especially if it’s a one time transaction) but you should take advantage of the services out there such as eBay and Craigslist that allow you to advertise and sell items easily. Once contact is made a personalised approach is the best way to go to complete the deal.
If you’re selling to a select few you should use the tools available that allow you to hone in on that small target audience. Google AdWords is a great way to do this. Simply define the geography of the particular segment and the key words your audience associates with your offering and off you go. As Seth mentioned, blogging is another great way to attract the “few” it keeps your web site fresh and it enhances your appeal by adding value.
Its gets a bit more complicated for the next two audiences; especially if you’re working on a shoestring budget but the good news is Internet marketing is always less costly than traditional means so use it to the max where applicable. If you plan to sell to a mass audience, invest in full blown e-commerce applications to sell to both most and all: by fully automating the cycle you can deal with the sheer bulk of transactions likely to take place more easily than you would by taking a one by one approach. You should invest in web analytics like ClickTracks and datawarehousing solutions such as those offered by Microstrategy and Business Objects to fully understand the buying patterns of your audience so that you can market to them intuitively and increase your likelihood of success.
And finally, if your planning to sell to absolutely everyone on the planet: Seth’s all, you’ll have to consider using a mix of traditional marketing and distribution alongside mass Internet marketing. Take Amazon for example: in the markets where people have access to the Internet Amazon has used the technology available to grow to behemoth proportions but where they don’t have distribution arms or in countries where Internet access not ubiquitous, Amazon is barely known.
Understanding your customer/s is marketing 101 and Seth’s article helped re-entrench this for me – hopefully it will do the same for you.
