The Top 10 Ways to Be a Good Marketer

1. Understand "the public" and marketing.
I imagine most of you reading this have heard of the field of coaching, yet when I spoke on a cruise, not one person in the audience had heard of it. It will always be "new" to someone.
2. Therefore: Marketing 101: By the time you're "sick and tired of it," the public is just beginning to hear about it.
3. Another reason you must repeat and repeat is that open rates are so low, and attention spans are so short.
The average "open" rate for eZines (according to Constant Contact, one supplier), is 48%. Half the people won't open any given thing you send them, so won't have heard your message at all. (Thus the "do it 7 times" rule.)
4. It can be the litmus test of your passion.
Think about your child. Did you ever once get tired of talking about your child, or run out of things to say? Your business must be like that, or else (1) move on, or (2) hire a marketing person to impart that enthusiasm.
5. Or take a vacation.
Getting refreshed and seeing new things breeds creativity. Get a good vacation and when you come back, everything looks new.

6. We create our enthusiasm by creating our enthusiasm.
It takes effort, intentionality and action. It takes discipline. Like love, enthusiasm is an act, not a feeling.
7. Schedule your marketing and sales time for when you're "in the mood."
Most good salespeople I know admit that sometimes they just don't have it, and sometimes -- well, when you're hot, you're hot.
8. Get inspired by reading other people's copy.
Peruse some large apparel merchant, and marvel at how many ways they find to describe -- A BLOUSE! Now, you can do that too! Regularly cycle through websites of competitors to see what's new. Terms, styles, vocabulary, pitches change.
9. Book a brainstorming session with a marketing coach when you get down and run out of ideas.
That's what we're here for. When you're doing it constantly, and for a variety of items, the pump is always primed. Get a website makeover. When the site looks new, so will the words.
10. Listen carefully when your satisfied customers describe your products and services, and, yes, write them down.

They will say things you could never have thought of in a million years, and in their own totally unique way. Testimonials are worth their weight in gold.

Social Media: 9 Questions To Ask Your Customers When Creating Content

So what are the three key components for content in a social media world?

1. Creating Content
2. Re-Purposing existing offline content for online
3. Promoting and Delivering the content

So in essence persona’s are  ”the short biography of a typical customer”. Which can be profiled by asking some questions.

1. Who are you selling to?
2. What are their goals and aspirations?
3. What are their problems?
4. What media do they rely upon for answers to their problems?
5. How can we reach them?
6. What things are important to them?
7. What words and phrases do they use?
8. What are they really buying from you?
9. What images and multi-media appeal to each persona?

So when you are writing , sourcing and creating content for your blog, website and social media channels you need to ”walk a mile in your customers shoes” and provide solutions in your content for their problems that they face every day in their business. You need to talk their language and you need to have their segmentation in fine enough detail that when they encounter your web content they will then say…”they understand what my problems are and they can help me solve them”

Funny Brilliant Print Ads

Rowenta: 2100 Watt Vacuum Cleaner

Fast-working laxatives

8in1 Dental Snacks: Bad dog breath

Hyundai Coupe. 0 to 100 km/h in 8.4 sec

No insects left

Suplicy

ReTweet

Many bloggers use Twitter as a platform to promote their own blog. That’s an easy concept, no need to waste our time there. Instead, lets focus on something that is under-utilized by most bloggers: promoting other blogger’s content by “retweeting.”

The art of “retweeting” is best described as taking a twitter message someone else has posted, and rebroadcasting that same message to your followers. When broadcasting this message, you should give credit to the original poster. While retweeting sounds great for the original tweeter (since there is usually a link involved), retweeting can actually benefit you just as much if not more.

The Retweet button can increase traffic to your blog by 55% by making it easy for people  to ReTweet your blog without cutting and pasting.

How to Properly Retweet

Before we get into the greatness of retweeting, it would probably be a good idea for you to understand how to properly retweet.

The common syntax starts off with the use of a label. My favorite label to use is “RT:” – the label “Retweeting:” and “Reading:” work as well.
Next comes the crediting. You can credit the original poster by simply using the @reply syntax, for example: “@originalPoster”.
Lastly, you should add the link along with a quick note about the link and why it is relevant. Here is a full example of retweeting:

RT: @originalPoster The 5 Best Blog Tips http://is.gd/56f – great tips

Now that you understand how to properly retweet, lets move on to some basic concepts of retweeting.

Retweeting is a great way to add quality and value to your Twitter. If used incorrectly retweeting can actually hurt your personal brand and future traffic. If done right, retweeting can help you educate your followers, build your personal brand, increase future traffic, and connect you to other bloggers / content creators in your niche.

5 Ways to turn your facebook 'Likes' into Marketing Results

More often than not, Facebook marketing is a numbers game and the goal is to get as many “Likes” as possible.  It’s human nature.  We always want more, and the same certainly applies to social media marketing.

However, the true value of social media is not about how many fans and followers you have—it’s about what you do with them.  Many tend to forget the “marketing” in social media marketing and think social media success is just about posting content and getting as many Likes as possible.  It’s not.

Marketers today need to go beyond just getting Likes and create real engagement opportunities that keep their business top of mind with their loyal customers and make it really easy for them to share with their networks and friends.  While an increased number of Likes leads to a bigger audience for you to market to on Facebook, it’s only the first step in deriving real value from your investment in social media marketing.

The following are five things you can do to help turn Likes into real results on Facebook.

1. Create a compelling offer

This may sound like a no-brainer, yet all too often campaigns miss the mark because they’re not aligned with the interests of customers. Before you send out that offer, put yourself in the customer’s shoes and ask yourself if you would act on it.

2. Build a full campaign plan

The most successful campaigns on Facebook span a two-to-three week period. During this time, there is a cadence that flows around publishing, promoting and driving action. Before you go live, consider how you’re going to sustain the momentum during those weeks and continue to drive traffic to your Facebook page.

3. Promote your offer across all of your communications channels

There’s no single method for promoting your campaign that guarantees results, so you’ll want to reach your audience where they’re most active and likely to engage—and in today’s world, that’s everywhere (look at all the options in #2 alone!). This can be in your email newsletters, other social media channels, your blog, or even in-person at an upcoming tradeshow.

4. Encourage fans to keep in touch

Getting fans to maintain contact after a campaign has ended is what sets great marketers apart from everyone else.  While you have their attention during a campaign, ask fans to join your email list or follow you on Twitter, for example, so you can keep in touch, keep a two-way conversation going, and begin building a long-term relationship.

5. Repeat successful results, not campaigns

You won’t want to do the same thing every time, but you will want to keep engaging your audience and encouraging them to share. You can do this by presenting new offers every month. These could be special deals for fans or exclusive content, for example. By mixing it up each time, you’ll increase responses while making campaigns more engaging.

The Anatomy of a Fan

Capturing fans for a brands Facebook page is the “new” social media marketing equivalent of building an email database. There are many ways to engage with fans on a company Facebook page such as ”Likes”, Shares and “Apps”

How Facebook Generates Business for Companies that Use It

It is always good to know what the competition is doing and this survey reveals how companies are using Facebook to market their business.What is revealing about this survey is

• Nearly 20% of companies had a Facebook page before they even had a website
• 23% of Companies hold contests and giveaways on Facebook

Five Questions and Answers for Facebook Marketing

There are many questions that are raised during planning your Facebook marketing campaign including:

• What is the best day to post an update on Facebook?
• What time should you post?
• What is the best type of content?

Twitter vs Facebook

The battle for the marketing dollar is dependent on many factors and this infographic looks at the factors that help drive those decisions such as.

• Gender
• Age distribution
• Sharing power

The Power of Twitter

The Marketing Secret About Twitter That Most People Don’t Know

Twitter is maybe the most misunderstood and under estimated social media marketing tool in the social media top 5 including Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn. Most people still think it is just about superficial conversations, insignificant daily events and news.

The reality is that it is a much sharper tool than Facebook in one very important area and that is creating a large database of followers (subscribers if you like) without having a large marketing budget.  On Facebook you have to drive people to your Facebook page to get them to “like” your page so that you can then provide updates that they will find interesting and engaging.

The Power of  Twitter
The power of Twitter is that you can “pull” people to follow you on Twitter by following them.
Why does this work? ..well there is a largely unknown secret Twitter rule or “etiquette” that most newbies don’t understand and that is when you follow someone that a certain percentage will follow you back. Now that percentage may be only 20%  or it may be 50% but once you have them following you on Twitter your updates will now appear in their Twitter “stream”.
If you follow 100 people then you will find next day or in few hours when you check your follower count that  you will have increased your followers by 20-30 people.

The Challenge
Now the challenge here is not just getting a large quantity of people to follow you whose interests are wide and diverse eg.. there is no reason people who are interested in “cars”  are going to want to read your updates on “wine” if you are a wine retailer or producer. You need to get followers who are interested in your topics and this is the “quality” targeted component of creating a following on Twitter.
So how can you as a businesses or personal brand attract followers that are interested  in your industry so that you can then amaze them with your unique and fascinating insights and news that is relevant to your industry and start engaging with them

The Twitter Tool To Gain Targeted Quality Followers
One Twitter tool that I have found useful is Twellow.com, a free tool which has 30.5 million  Twitter profiles in its database sorted into a vast range of categories.
Using Twellow you can
1. Search and then
2. Follow people

Twitter Tactic
This “following” tactic is based upon their interests in their Twitter profile. You can enter a key word such as “wine” and up will come companies and people with large Twitter followings that have indicated their interests when registering on Twitter in their Twitter profile, you can then follow them within the tool by clicking the blue “Follow” button.
This tactic will assist you in starting to build a targeted following on Twitter that is interested in your Tweets and content.
The thing to remember though is that once you have people following you that your tweeted “Headlines” and “links” to articles and YouTube videos needs to be interesting and topical to keep them clicking on those hyperlinks embedded in your Tweets. These links does not have to be only your own content but should also include other websites and links to content that add value and solves problems for your followers.
So start building a following that is interested in your topic of choice.

Top 10 Reasons Why Your Business Needs a Website

  1. Your Business is Open to the World 24/7, 365 Days a Year
Unlike your company's office that may be open from 8-5, Monday thru Friday, your company 's website is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. There are many different time zones that may affect your business, which is why being on the web makes it time convenient for everyone.

2. It's Your Online Brochure / Catalog That Can Be Changed at Anytime
A website is easier, cheaper and quicker to update than print material. Its' capacities are almost limitless which allow you to provide users with more comprehensive information. This will save you money on printing and distribution costs as well.

3. Reach New Markets with a Global Audience
On the Internet, you aren't that local little business anymore. You have the potential to be seen by millions across the globe. Did you ever think your company would have the possibility of doing business around the world? Well, now you can. Without a doubt, the Internet is the most cost effective way to trade nationally and internationally.

4. Improved Customer Service
By providing answers to questions on your website, sales and information requests can be processed automatically and immediately, whether someone is in the office or not. Online forms can be used to allow customers to request quotations or ask further information. Save costs by allowing users to download invoices, proposals and important documents.

5. Present a Professional Image
For a small business, a well-designed web site is a great way of instilling confidence and looking bigger than you actually are. In this day in age, customers assume that you already have a website. By now, your primary competitors probably already have a presence on the Internet. If they do, keep up with them and find ways to make yours better.

6. Sell Your Products
Why pay expensive rent, overhead, electric bills, and all the other costs that go along with owning a bricks-n-mortar business? Selling in cyberspace is much cheaper and a good way to supplement your offline business. Providing secure online ordering is very affordable for even the smallest businesses.

7. Promote Your Services
Lawyers, doctors, financial consultants, entertainers, realtors and all service oriented businesses should let customers know that they have a choice. Millions of users are referring to the web and are using company's websites to make major decisions when they need a specialized service.

8. Gather Information and Generate Valuable Leads
You can gather information about your customers and potential customers by using forms and surveys. Rather than going out and getting leads, let them come to you. This is a great tool for prospecting targeted customers looking to use your products and services.

9. Provides Instant Gratification
People are busy and don't like to wait for information. Give them what they want, when they want it. If your product is suitable, offer them free samples or trials to download. This includes pictures, brochures, software, videos, Power Point slides, music and more.

10. Great Recruiting Tool
Whether you are looking for talent or posting job opportunities with your company, your website is a great recruiting tool for building your business

The "F" Factor

THE F-FACTOR | Consumers are increasingly tapping into their networks of friends, fans, and followers to discover, discuss and purchase goods and services, in ever-more sophisticated ways. As a result, it's never been more important for brands to make sure they too have the F-FACTOR.


Why is the F-FACTOR important to consumers? It offers the promise of a consumption arena* that is more efficient, more relevant, and more interesting than before, where consumers either had to spend endless time and effort on trying to discover the best of the best, or had to rely on sources that were distant, unknown or untrusted (read: brand-driven), and therefore potentially unreliable or irrelevant.

Just a few recent stats demonstrating the reach and power of the F-FACTOR:

The F-FACTOR is currently dominated by Facebook, as over 500 million active users spend over 700 billion minutes a month on the site. (Source: Facebook, April 2011)

And its impact isn’t just on Facebook itself. Every month, more than 250 million people engage with Facebook across more than 2.5 million external websites. (Source: Facebook, April 2011)

The average user clicks the ‘Like’ button 9 times each month. (Source: Facebook, 2010)

And a couple of brand-related, F-FACTOR stats:

Three quarters of Facebook users have 'Liked' a brand. (Source: AdAge/ Ipsos, February 2011)

Over 50m users 'like' brands every day (Source: BrandRepublic, May 2011) 

Juicy Couture found that their product purchase conversion rate increased by 160% after installing social sharing features (Source: CreateTheGroup, February 2011)

Incipio Technologies, a gadget accessory retailer, found that referrals from Facebook had a conversion rate double the average (Source: Business Insider, March 2011)

But it’s not just about Facebook. Take for example the explosive rise of the daily deal site Groupon, which used referrals from friends and colleagues to drive sales of over 40 million deals in the two and a half years since it launched in November 2008, via email .

So, here are just five of the ways that the F-FACTOR influences consumption behavior:

1. F-DISCOVERY: How consumers discover new products and services by relying on their social networks.
2. F-RATED: How consumers will increasingly (and automatically) receive targeted ratings, recommendations and reviews from their social networks.
3. F-FEEDBACK: How consumers can ask their friends and followers to improve and validate their buying decisions.
4. F-TOGETHER: How shopping is becoming increasingly social, even when consumers and their peers are not physically together.
5. F-ME: How consumers’ social networks are literally turned into products and services

POINT & KNOW

2012 will see a mix of the known (Apps! Augmented Reality!) and the very known (QR codes!) bringing information about the objects (and even people) that consumers encounter in the real world instantly. And like some other trends, it’s the rise of the (always-in-my-pocket) smartphone that will fuel full-blown POINT & KNOW in the next 12 months. After all, the need and expectation for instant information and instant access to everything one wants to know, is already deeply ingrained in the SEE-HEAR-BUY consumer. Use POINT & KNOW in a practical fashion: adding depth of knowledge, communicating stories, origins, price comparisons, reviews, ecommerce and so on, or by all means, just have some fun with it!
Examples:

• Google Goggles is a free image recognition app which enables users to search based on photographs taken with a handheld device. By taking pictures of objects, places or product barcodes, users can find out further information.

• Released in November 2011, the Amazon Flow app enables users to access information about products– and purchase them– using image recognition. In addition to books, music and film, many household products can also be recognized.

• WeBIRD allows anyone with a smartphone to record a bird’s call, submit it wirelessly to a server and (after a few seconds) receive a positive ID on the species of bird. WeBIRD hopes to be available to the public in time for the spring migration in 2012.

• Created by Carnegie Mellon University, PittPatt is a facial recognition tool that enables users to find individuals from photographs or videos. The face detection software can locate human faces and match them up with photographs from Facebook and Google Images, identifying individuals in under 60 seconds. PittPatt, still in development, was acquired by Google in July 2011. Scary? Perhaps. Interesting? Definitely



5 Lessons from Coca Cola’s New Content Marketing Strategy

Coca Cola has been part of popular culture for over 100 years and has been called a “Vision Brand“.

Its mission is not about selling products but to create significant positive change in the world that makes the world a better place.

Coca Cola’s mission statement

• To refresh the world
• To inspire moments of optimism and happiness
• To create value and make a difference

Recently they have realised that their marketing strategy that has worked well for them for decades needed to evolve and as such they are moving from “Creative Excellence” to “Content  Excellence”

Creative excellence has always been at the heart of Coca Cola’s advertising and they have decided that content is now the key to marketing in the 21st century on a social web.
Content for Coca Cola is is now the “Matter” and “Substance” of “Brand Engagement.

So what can we learn from Coca Cola’s new marketing strategy?

Lesson 1: Create Liquid Content

The purpose of content excellence is to create “Ideas” so contagious that they cannot be controlled this is what is called “liquid content”.

On a social web people can easily share ideas, videos and photos on social networks such Facebook.

So create content that begs to be shared whether that be an image, a video or an article.

Lesson 2: Ensure your Content is Linked

The next part of the equation is to ensure that these ideas create content that is innately relevant to

• The business objectives of your company
• The brand
• Your customer interests

This is “Linked” content…. Content that is relevant and connected to the companies goals and brand.

Ensure that the content communicates your message that is congruent with your mission and values.

Lesson 3: Create Conversations

Coca Cola has realised that the consumer creates more stories and ideas than they do so the goal is provoke conversations and then “Act” and “React” to those conversations 365 days of the year.

The new “Distribution Technologies” of Twitter, YouTube and Facebook provide greater connectivity and consumer empowerment than ever before.

Don’t just publish but interact with your audience and tribe.

Lesson 4. Move onto Dynamic Story Telling

On traditional media in the past, story telling was static and a one way street. Television and newspapers shouted at you with no means of interaction.

Coca Cola has come the realisation that to grow their business on the social web they need to move on from “One Way Story Telling” to “Dynamic Story Telling”

This means you need to allow the story to evolve as you interact and converse with your customers. You need to converse with your customers in many media formats and social networks.

Storytelling has moved on from static and synchronous to multifaceted, engaged and spreadable.

Lesson 5: Be Brave and Creative with Your Content Creation

Part of the new Coca Cola content strategy is applying a 70/20/10 Investment principle to creating “Liquid content“.

• 70% of your content should be low risk. It pays the rent and is your bread and butter marketing (should be easy to do and only consumes 50% of your time)
• 20% of your content creation should innovate off what works.
• 10% of your content marketing is high risk ideas that will be tomorrows 70% or 20%…. be prepared to fail

This provides a blueprint regarding moving on from just developing white papers, to trying some content that is more visual, courageous and engaging in web world that has embraced multimedia and interactive content.

The 30 Second TV Ad is no Longer King

Coca Cola has come to the conclusion that the world has moved on from the 30 second TV ad. So has the the Old Spice brand and many other businesses who are embracing social media as part of their marketing strategy.

We need to move towards a genuine consumer collaboration model that builds buzz and adopts a more iterative approach to content creation.

Learning how to fuel the conversations, act and interact has never been more important.

Consumers ideas, creativity and conversations have been set free with the evolution of social networks, learning to leverage and wrangle those conversations to increase your brand visibility is now a vital part of your marketing.

What About You?

Do you create conversations with your marketing? How many people are talking about your stories on Facebook?

Is your content liquid, linked and multi-faceted?

Daily Comic

Top Ten Tips For a successful and sustainable web presence

Summary

A good website takes time and investment. Whether that investment is time or money depends on your level of in-house skills. Start small, be flexible and grow with your success.

Purpose

Websites are sales tools and need to offer value to your business. A good website offers a route to market for your information (and products) directly and quickly.

So, with that in mind, your website needs to be built for the user, but, with your clearly defined business goal in mind.

Usability

A website needs to be usable, not by you, but by your customer and every visitor to your website will be different.

If you pick up a book you start at page one. But you can not guarantee the entry page or the path through your website that a visitor will take, especially if the navigation is not logical and your purpose, is not clear for the user.

Design (goes hand-in-hand with function and content)

Not only design as in branding, but also design of your web interface. Your website needs to look good and be compelling.

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) enable us to have more control in the design of a website and help us apply styles and branding across every web page. This makes it consistent and leaves the visitor in no doubt which website they are on.

Web standards

Web standards allow for choice. Your can visit your website using different platforms (PC, Linux, Mac, mobile phones, Hand-Held Organisers, etc.).

Mix into that the different browsers available and you have thousands of combinations. This will only increase over time.

By sticking to web standards you can translate your message to more people, including disabled users.

Content is king

The Internet has billions of web pages of content, how can you compete for attention?

For a start, you must have a message worth reading. Not just what YOU think is great, but what an audience would regard as worth reading. Your page content needs to be compelling, offer value and it needs to offer a consistent message.

Search engine optimisation (SEO)

Search engine optimisation isn't a dark art. Stick to the basics. Start with quality content that is already compelling for your audience. Does it send a message? What is that message? More importantly, is the message consistent and specific?

What words are you using? Do they match up with what people may type into a search engine?

Search engines are getting cleverer and the rules keep changing so, just stick to creating clear content and make sure they understand what your page is about. SEO is just part of the story, it is not the "be-all-and-end-all" of your website.

Measurement

You could argue that a website has one statistic that matters - return. Is it making money, getting leads, etc.?

If not there may be a bottleneck, one page that restricts the next step in your process. That's why you need to measure your website traffic.

The better you become at measuring the right things, the more successful your website can be. You can measure traffic into your website but you also need to measure what happens when it gets there.

Online marketing

Marketing your business using the Internet is one of the most cost-effective ways of getting your message to your audience. Niche markets are becoming more effective because they are so specific. Your potential market could be fragmented but by applying all the other rules here you have a website that is findable and worth reading with specific content.

If you can truly engage your audience they will come back. Better still, they will tell other people about you. Blogs, Social Networking and Article Marketing can get you attention, but you have to work hard to keep that attention.

Flexibility

Your website, and your attitude towards it, needs to be flexible.

A good website needs to be updated regularly to attract attention so it needs to be easy for you to manage.

Return on investment

Running a website, even for a small business, can be a full-time job. Does your website merit that?

Does it drive enough business to pay for the investment as a marketing tool? It's actually a hard one to quantify but why spend more than you make, unless you have a longer-term plan?

Also, why put all your eggs in one basket? Experiment. What is your competition doing and why can't you do the opposite? It's a case of smarter spending of less money. But, if it works in a positive way, don't scrimp, run with it and invest; but be prepared to be flexible and switch if you need to.

Ten Points of Marketing

1. Pick up the phone. There is yet to be a better way of "marketing oneself" then speaking with a prospect on the phone -- it's way better than direct mailings and cheaper too.

2. Referrals. The best marketing plan is this: Friends telling friends of your services and products.

3. Identify your target customers. Create a three-tier or dartboard approach to profiling sales prospects. The top tier or bull's-eye of the dartboard represents the prime target audience. Spend the most time with the tier in the bull's-eye and the least amount of time with the third tier. The marketing strategy should focus on a message to address the needs of each group

4. Networking. Much of what we accomplish is by marketing and networking and these organizations offer great opportunities for us as financial professionals to meet more people and promote our services.

5. Speak the language. Poor communication leads to poor sales.

6. Use daily newspapers. Ask the publisher what day of the week most seniors read the paper. That's the day you want to advertise.

7. Find a niche and position yourself within it. If you know a lot about one thing compared to a little about a lot of things, you will be more focused and most likely, more successful.

8. Be creative! Your senior clients will remember the little things that you do if they are original and creative.

9. Review your sales call ... both good and bad. Too many times we play the "ones that got away" over and over in our minds. But what about the sales calls that go right? We can learn as much from them as from those unsuccessful calls.

10. Practice, practice, practice. After years in this business, it is easy to become complacent. Prepare your presentation, prepare your close and prepare your follow-up.