Jeff has taken a very innovative approach to marketing.  Applications like these are driving user adoption and demonstrating the value of  interactive mobile marketing. If you want to leverage this kind of technology in your business CONTACT US TODAY!

1)      Create more valuable content and leverage other people’s content

2)      Improve conversion rates by improving the design of web sites

3)      Find world-class strategic vendor-partners and leverage their resources

4)      Find resale partners who know our audience and give them tools to sell our products

5)      Evaluate new technology as it emerges

6)      Invest more time and resources on social media

7)      Utilize web video. It’s a cheap and fast way to deliver the message.

8)      Automate whenever and wherever possible

9)      Focus on solutions – not products and services

10)   Entertain, educate and inspire

What are your resolutions for this New Year? Share in the comments below.

Applications like these are driving adoption of interactive mobile marketing campaigns.  Need help implementing these kinds of campaigns for your business?  CONTACT US TODAY!

Scrubbing Bubbles Automatic Shower Cleaner using a QR code linking their packaging to a video that explains how to use the product.

A jewelry store uses text marketing as the call to action for their current contest.

The First Twitter Ad in Our Stream

A while back we reported that Twitter planned to roll out paid advertising.  Since then, they’ve quietly grown their workforce from 140 to 300 people with most of the new additions in sales.  Yesterday, AdAge reported and Twitter confirmed that advertising would begin with users of HootSuite, a growing third-party Twitter client.  According to AdAge, “Marketers have already been able to buy what is called a Promoted Tweet that appears at the top of searches on Twitter.com. But this new kind of paid ad would appear in a user’s Twitter stream regardless of whether they follow that advertiser or search for anything on Twitter.”

HootSuite has over 900,000 users and will get a share of the revenue.  “We look forward to working with Twitter to roll this program out and carefully gauge people’s reactions,” HootSuite CEO Ryan Holmes said. “With Twitter’s commitment to quality user experience and ad relevance, we’re confident these new types of tweets will be enjoyed by both users and advertisers.”

As marketers, we see some value in delivering targeted ads in user’s Twitter streams.  As HootSuite users we’re not so sure.  We just received our first ad and at first glance don’t find it particularly enjoyable or relevant.  What’s your take?  Do you see this as a new opportunity to market your product or service?  Or, has Twitter dropped the ball?

 

Scan with your smartphone to visit our mobile site.

Get Your MSG!

We’ve reorganized our site to reduce the clutter and put more focus on insightful content.  Hopefully you find it informative and and come back to visit regularly.  Our goal was to deliver everything in a clean format that’s easy to digest.  In addition to our new design, we’ve added other key features.  We now have a registration widget so you can sign up for our email newsletter and other promotions.  Also, the site automatically converts to a mobile version for smartphone users.

Want to share your ideas, thoughts and musings? We’re looking for contributors.  CONTACT US TODAY if you’re interested writing for our blog.  Don’t want to be the main writer but still want to contribute?  Everybody loves a critic! Share your comments on our articles.

Want to take advantage of the explosion in online video marketing? We’ll conduct a 5 in 5 Interview with you and place it on the web at no cost to you.  You approve the content and can link to it to your corporate and personal websites.  We’ll share the link with our entire network.  Great press is 5 minutes away!

Anybody using print, direct mail, promotional products, media advertising and other tactics knows that when used correctly, these tools can help build brand awareness, generate leads, and increase speed to close.

As Fields points out, the goal of using these traditional direct response tactics is to build a funnel.  At the top of the funnel are people who might be interested in what you have to offer.  As you continue to interact with them, they become more interested, and some eventually decide to buy.

Fields does a great job of describing that process:

• “Step one is you use a wide variety of strategies to find likeminded people who have a problem you can solve. You may buy lists, run ads, do JV (joint venture) promotions, reach out to people in communities and more
• Next, you drive people to a lead generation offer, you give away something with a high perceived value for free in exchange for joining your list.
• Then, you “warm” your list by sending out regular, non-monetized, high-value, offer-free messages. If you’re a really savvy marketer, you even promote other peoples’ non-commercial high-value content, solutions and ideas. (Just like I’m doing right here, right now!)
• Finally, every once in a while, you mix in a commercial offer.”

Social Media Funnel

While the methods may be different when using social media, the goal is the same.  Convert prospects into customers. As Fields points out, people who are successfully selling with Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms are using the same funnel concept:

• “First, they use a variety of strategies to get people to their twitter pages, blogs and facebook fan pages and become followers. Sometimes, they leverage content to attract folks or search for people with relevant interests and follow them. Local businesses are getting creative, some restaurants are adding calls to action on menus compelling diners to follow them (the direct response equivalent of finding a list of affinity buyers and emailing/mailing a lead-gen offer).
• More and more, local businesses and content creators are incentivizing the follow (on blogs and facebook fan pages, incentivizing subscriptions and fans is very common now)
• Then they mix in a healthy dose of non-commercial tweets, posts or updates (the functional equivalent of direct-response list warming).
• Finally, after building a bit of a relationship, showing a little personality, establishing value and spending a bit of time leveraging the reciprocity impulse, they then mix in…a purely commercial, response-driven offer.”

His point?  Social media makes it easier to interact, appear trustworthy and create conversations with your audience.  It’s hard to argue this is not the future of marketing.  The speed of innovation in this field is going to make it very difficult to market without interaction.

Text "SPEAKTOME" to 41411 to see text marketing in action.

Even traditional marketing tactics are becoming interactive.  Magazine ads and billboards now  allow viewers with smart phones to scan a QR code on the ad which takes them to a web page.  Direct mail pieces can include highly personalized web landing pages as the call to action.   Marketers are even creating promotional products such as t-shirts with text message short codes.

Once viewers respond, they’ve entered the funnel and the conversation begins.

Want to learn more about how to use new media to fill your sales funnel?  CONTACT US TODAY and we’ll help you develop a strategy to build awareness of your brand, generate more leads, and close business faster.

Grocery Stores Using Social Media

Pace Communications is a Greensboro, NC company that creates custom content programs including magazines and web sites for some of the world’s leading brands.  The firm has just released a new infographic which tracks the number of Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube followers by all major grocery chains.  Interesting stuff.

But why are grocery chains investing marketing resources in social media?

John Cass, Head of Digital Marketing at Pace Communications, suggests that “for national companies like Target, Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s and Walmart, there’s an understanding of the value of creating content on the Web and social networks for both their search engine rankings and customer engagement across the Web.”

Simply put, the more hits you have on your site, the more quickly you move to page one on search sites like Google and Bing.  Big, innovative retailers are giving away content (health information, recipes, etc.) that bring people to their site.

Beyond driving traffic, social media is also helping savvy retailers create customer evangelists.  If one of their followers likes their recipe for lasagna and shares it with friends, those friends may also become followers of the store.  Build your following, mix in some promotion, and you get more sales.  Sounds like a recipe for success, right?

This same strategy can help your business.  If you’d like to learn more about social media, or want help implementing a strategy for your brand, CONTACT US TODAY. We’ll help you build a plan to drive awareness, generate leads, and close more deals.

Blogs don’t have to make money online to have a big impact on your business.   They can drive traffic to your web site, build awareness for your firm and generate leads that you can convert to sales offline. Today I’m sharing a great article from Copyblogger.com that details how to generate leads using a blog, in four easy steps.

If you’re looking for ways to build awareness, generate leads, and close more deals CONTACT US TODAY.  We’ll help you develop a plan to leverage the latest web marketing tactics.  The costs are much lower than traditional advertising and the results speak for themselves.  We can implement the strategy on your behalf, or give you the tools to take control of your own marketing.

“Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two–and only two–basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs. Marketing is the distinguishing, unique function of the business.”

- Peter Drucker

Present your solution front and center on your web site's home page.

Do you want your website to help build awareness of your brand, generate leads, and help you close more business?  Who doesn’t, right?

I’ve worked with several “marketing communications companies” (what a lot of printers call themselves these days) who want to sell solutions to their clients.  I’m still amazed when I ask what they mean by “solution” and I get the deer-in-the-headlights look, followed by an overly complex answer.

Simply put, a solution is a unique combination of the products and services offered by your firm.  The best way to determine what solutions your customers will buy is to uncover their needs using a consultative sales process.

Rarely will a customer sit you down and tell you about their every requirement.  In many cases they don’t even realize there is a better way to build their mousetrap.  Their needs are implicit, not explicit and it’s your job to bring their pain to the surface.  Once you’ve done that, it’s time to present your solution!

But, how do you get customers interested enough to learn more about your solution?  You deliver a conceptual presentation, of course!  A conceptual presentation explains what your solution does, hammers home the benefits to your audience, and compels them to take the next step.

In the old days sharing a conceptual presentation meant building a PowerPoint presentation, lugging your equipment across town (or across the country) and delivering live, in person.  In addition to exposing your prospects to harmful rays from your projector, setting up these kind of meetings took time and they were generally uncomfortable for all involved.

Place your conceptual presentation video on a page dedicated to your solution.

Online video has changed all of that.  Today, you can develop your presentation, cut it to video, and upload it to your web site quickly and inexpensively.  So, instead of scheduling a meeting, you simply invite your prospect to view your presentation online.  This alone can cut weeks from your sales cycles!

Sell enough solutions and patterns start to develop.  For instance, web-to-print has become a popular solution offered by marketing communications companies.  After implementing several of these web portals, I’ve come to the conclusion that there are two distinct markets.

First, web-to-print can benefit organizations with distributed sales forces (sales reps, agents, distributors, and/or certain kinds of franchisees.)  Banks, real estate, and insurance companies are all great examples.  For the most part their people work remotely and need marketing collateral to help sell their product or service.  Users want to customize their materials and corporate marketing departments need to control brand identity.  Web-to-print can help these types of companies simplify the process, better manage budgets, and get reports that allow managers to inspect what they expect from their people.

The other opportunity for web-to-print is with consumer products companies and retailers.  They need to manage the often complex process of getting the correct advertising material to each brick & mortar location.  Point-of-purchase materials such as signage and displays are often tailored by location and store type.  Web-to-print can help retailers capture profiles of their store locations, better handle the order and fulfillment of marketing materials, manage customization, and track their spend by location.

Because the applications are so different, I’ve suggested that marketing communications companies produce conceptual videos to address each market separately.  If you’re the marketing director of a regional pizza chain, and you’re looking at a demo that’s geared towards realtors, you might have trouble seeing how the technology can benefit your business.  Likewise, if you’re the VP of Marketing for an insurance company, you might struggle to see how a demo focused on consumer products could apply to you.

While the example above is unique to marketing communications companies, the problem is germane to many types of businesses.  In the 1950’s renowned management consultant Peter Drucker was consulting to a tool company.  The management team told him that while the quality of the firm’s drill bits was going up and price was going down, sales were still declining.  Drucker came back to his client with the now famous statement that “customers don’t buy ¼ inch drill bits, they buy ¼ inch holes.”

Your marketing message should not focus on selling drill bits – it should focus on selling holes.

Too many companies spend way too much time talking about themselves and not nearly enough time talking about their customers. Do you honestly think buyers care how long you’ve been in business, how much equipment you have, or how pretty your building is? They don’t. Prospects want to know that you’ve got solutions to their business problems.

The reality of today’s Internet-enabled world is that your web site is probably the most important piece of real estate you own.  Regardless of industry, in both business and consumer-focused organizations, it’s where prospects go to learn, compare, and buy. Your web site has to focus on solutions if you really expect buyers to consider your business.

Want to start selling solutions on your web site? CONTACT US TODAY and we’ll help you get started right away!