Out-Smarts Marketing Services

Last night the High Tech Communicator’s Exchange featured a great presentation by Darren Barefoot and Julie Szabo of Capulet Communications. They discussed the 7 risks you should be aware of when considering a social media campaign. Here they are in cryptic fashion. For more detail, you’ll just have to buy their ebook (or the soon to be released in paper version) - Getting to First Base.

1. Your efforts are just not interesting enough - so spice it up a little.
2. Blogger backlash - beware the prima donnas and know your blogetiquette.
3. Rejection or backlash - could haunt you forever.
4. Efforts die on the vine - because of improper resource allocation.
5. You have Cluetrain goggles - social media is another tool in your marketing arsenal not the be all and end all.
6. Too self absorbed - always blowing your own horn rather than adding real value to the audience.
7. Be Proactive - do your homework and be prepared.

I would add only one thing to this and that is the risk of missing the mark. When considering any marketing effort, its always important to put yourself in your audience’s shoes and determine which social media hubs you are most likely to reach them in i.e. which Internet networking hubs they hang out in. For example, if your target audience is educated professionals, a MySpace focus would be less appropriate than LinkedIn or even Facebook or if you plan a campaign to promote a hi-tech device to bloggers you should hone in on tech bloggers not knitting bloggers.

A recent article in the Canadian Marketing Association blog asks: Can direct mail be environmentally friendly?   Written by a direct marketer, the article claims that proper use of direct marketing is reducing the environmental impact in various ways including:

• clean mailing lists reduce the amount of undelivered or improperly addressed mail;
• providing and properly administering opt outs reduces the amount of paper required;
• house holding and list management can reduce the amount of duplicate mail.

These days I see a divide between marketers. There are 2 camps, the traditionalists and the technologists and rarely do the 2 meet, far less collaborate - which is a shame because a marketing project is much more likely to be a success if it blends the best of both to reach the intended audience.

Traditionalists tend to be of the opinion that tried and tested approaches to market are best. They eschew the Internet preferring to focus on tangible approaches within their comfort zones. They have been doing things their way for years, it has worked for them so why try anything new.

Technologists on the other hand scoff at traditional marketing pointing out that the Internet is more cost effective and highly targeted. They say that times have changed and no-one pays attention to traditional approaches anymore.

A good marketer should take a step back and consider who they are trying to reach. They should look at all of the options available to reach that audience and determine which will be the most effective. More often that not a blended approach to market, one where traditional marketing complements Internet or vice versa will deliver by far and away the best results.

A case in point this week at Steadyhand. Their blog, which already boasts very respectable traffic (and is an invaluable component of their marketing strategy), saw a huge spike in traffic to the site as a result of the blog being featured in a Globe and Mail article and poll. Traditional fed into Internet and the blended approach enabled them to build brand awareness with a wider audience.

Its called the marketing mix for a reason you know. By blending the best of traditional marketing strategies with new Internet approaches, your chance of nailing the target audience is greatly enhanced.

I’ve been Twittering for a while now and find it interesting to see how the way people use the micro blog has evolved. Here are a few different applications I have seen Twitter used for.

1. To establish expertise.

2. To spread the word about produtc and services offered.

2. To enhance customer service offerings.

3. To drive traffic to a blog post or web site.

4. To illicit feedback for product and market research.

5. To expand or reinforce your brand.

6. To collaborate with remote partners in short blasts.

7. To give product update and enhancement information.

8. To blatantly sell - I wouldn’t advise this but I have seen it done…..

9. To find the applicable business partners.

10. To keep up to date with goings on in your market.

Obviously all of these depend on your followers and following but once you have these in place, watch the Tweets and you will see for yourself some of the innovative ways people are using this tool.

Social media for marketing and business development is the hot topic on the networking circuit in Vancouver these days and today’s SMEI event was no exception. With expert panelists from BCIT and Oracle bringing their unique experiences in SM to the panel, the event proved to be insightful.

It started off with a brief intro to Web 2.0 described as being “Tech, Process and People - but most of all collaboration” then went on to a 101 of web 2.0 terms such as RSS, blogs, podcasts for the real newbies in the audience.

Once the panelists got started the true value of the event became apparent. Justin Kestelyn, Director of Development Programs at Oracle discussed their web 2.0 adoption and the benefits they have gained from using a more transparent strategy and involving their customers and partners more. He made a great point in that by involving their customers and allowing them to have a voice these invariably become evangelists at little or no cost to Oracle. He points out that Web 2.0 is an attitude, a new way of doing business and not just an Internet term.

Next up was Robert Duncan from BCIT whose presentation centred on LinkedIn as a means of developing relationships (a topic close to my heart). He focuses on LinkedIn in particular of the social networks available and has over 800 contacts that he uses extensively to spread awareness of what he is doing at BCIT and in his work with innovators. He pointed out that by joining groups in LinkedIn you have access to all other members of that group - a great way to extend your network further. Its easier to do business with people you already know something about.
The last panelist to get up was James Wells also from BCIT and a founder of Lendary Social Financing a company that uses web 2.0 technology to build trust online and to put investors in touch with entrepreneurs looking for money. “Word of mouth is vital to growing any business these days”, he pointed out - “go out and do it - if you fail you learn”.

The conclusion - if companies don’t embrace web 2.0 then they face failure or a steep catch up. It costs very little to adopt these technologies and the benefits in terms of buzz are profound.

Interesting to see Vancouver mega blogger Miss 604 there. I am looking forward to her take on proceedings too.

An article on Collective Thoughts about raising your Twitter profile got me thinking about the social media wave that is upon us. The article discusses why Twitter is a viable marketing tool and how the writer went about increasing his Twitter profile in 30 days. It has many valid points and yes Twitter can be a great marketing tool but so can blogging, social networking, wiki’ing and forums - to mention but a few. If you spend time marketing in each and everyone of these as the buzz out there would suggest, you would have very little time to spend on actual revenue generation or traditional marketing efforts (woe betide you would do those).

Its important (as with any marketing project) to do some research and planning up front when considering these new collaborative web 2.0 technologies. Don’t just rush out and start Twittering your head off just because its the latest in thing. Take time to consider your client and determine whether they are Twittering. If they are then its great to use Twitter as a marketing tool but schedule the time you spend Tweeting and set goals so that you can monitor the effectiveness of your efforts. Same goes for the other Internet networking hubs, always ask yourself first and foremost if your customer is active in these and how they are using these technologies. Plan your marketing campaign up front: time spent, strategy, goals and measures. Otherwise you might find that you get to the end of the day and Twitter has sucked up all your time and nothing else on your list has been done. Take it from me I am talking from experience!.

By this I mean Google juice and not pictures of hunky models. Here are 10 great ways you can easily improve your search engine positioning without putting your hands in your pocket and without having to be a SEO technodweeb.

1. Update your site regularly - this may seem obvious but many corporate sites rarely change.

2. Post a video - it can be short and sweet but has the added benefit of enhancing your image.

3. Add a podcast - we did it this week and you can too. Our traffic has gone up by about 50% since. Coincidence? I think not.

4. Label your images - most sites don’t bother but this is viable real estate on your site, use it. Image titles should relate back to your keywords and offering for maximum impact.

5. Use Google’s webmaster tools - make sure your site is crawled regularly, submit your sitemap (okay I concede you might need a technodweeb for that) and identify any problems so that you (or your technodweeb) can fix them.

6. Get bookmarks - book marks are like links the more you have the better. Hit on employees, partners and colleagues to bookmark your site.

7. Comment regularly on relevant blogs and always remember to insert your url correctly.

8. Spend some time developing a keyword map for your products and services so as to identify the most effective words to use and those to avoid.

9. Use bold and headings to identify key terms in your text.

10. This one should be first on the list but it seems so obvious I almost left it out. In case you haven’t done so, remember to submit your site to Google and other search engines otherwise there’s no hope whatsoever.

I had the pleasure this evening to present at an event co hosted by the Professional Women’s Network, the YWCA Mentoring Program and the Downtown Networking Association aimed at introducing mentors and mentees to professional growth strategies to help you realise career goals. My topic: “Building Valuable Business Relationships in the Virtual World”.

As promised, I am going to blog over the next few days about some of the issues I touched on at the event, the first of these being Internet networking hubs.

Internet networking hubs are great forums to expand your business network and extend your reach. Obviously those you use will depend on what it is you do. For example a photographer would likely use photo sites like Flickr to showcase their experience. Someone in the music industry is likely to benefit more from MySpace than Facebook. And a lawyer might is more likely to join a law forum than a web development forum. Its up to you which you choose but Internet networking hubs are great places to grow your on line network and in turn your business. Here the handout I gave out tonight:

Yesterday I read an article called the 90/10 marketing rule that talked about how businesses often focus most of their time on creating a product or service but give little time to marketing it effectively. It linked in to an article that pointed out that Internet marketing is no different - how true that is.

We regularly come across businesses that have gone about developing web sites without giving an iota of thought to who they are trying to attract or how they can go about doing so effectively and they come to us wondering why their site doesn’t get much traffic.

Marketing, in case you didn’t know is all about understanding the needs of the customer and developing offerings that meet those.

When considering your website the first thing you need to do is put yourself in the shoes of your customer, think about who they are - get inside their heads as well as their shoes! If that is a challenge then ask existing customers or people you know who fit the bill.

Once you have a feel for who the customer is, its easier to work out what makes them tick - what they like and don’t like, and why.  Ask yourself what attributes they have that make your offering compelling to them.

Finally use that information on your site to create a compelling environment that appeals to your niche. It should be clear and simple and obvious what your company does from the moment the page appears.

If you take time to do these simple marketing procedures before hiring that super duper web designer, your site will drive much more business - guaranteed!

In a world of never ending SPAM it’s a real challenge to create successful e-mail campaigns but its not impossible. Here are some pointers to bear in mind:

1. Avoid the hard sell - people get so much spam these days that if you try to sell to strangers via e, you’ll hit the junk file faster than you can say spam;
2. Better to use email to keep in touch with clients than to try to sell - newsletters are better than sales letters;
3. Use a call to action title - one that is brief, catchy, intelligent that will entice people to open the mail;
4. By adding an unsubscribe button, your mail is perceived as more professional - just remember to delete those who request it from your mailing lists - always;
5. Drive them back to your website by including a link - you can then easily track click throughs to make follow up calls more targeted;
6. Make it simple stupid - the old adage applies here too - don’t add too many fancy images or graphics - it will just clog people’s mail boxes;
7. The body of the text should include some incentive to act but don’t overdo it or you will raise reader suspicion;
8. War and Peace just isn’t appropriate in an e-mail. Keep it short and to the point if you want people to read;
9. Think outside the box- content and topic should unique and should tell them something they don’t know about your product service or offering - something that makes a difference to them;
10. Build your email list by encouraging visitors to subscribe online, and telling people about your newsletters in the real world;
11. Don’t SPAM ever, ever. Always use valid e-mails from people you have actually met or who have given you business cards at events and shows. If you don’t its the fastest way to get an unsubscribe.