Marketing by Design

7 Unwritten Rules Of Social Media

2012-02-03T08:37:00.001-05:00

Social media seems easy especially because the barrier to entry is low. You can be up and running on any social media platform in minutes, and usually for free. In reality, social media is hard for exactly the same reason. When the barrier to entry is low, the barrier to attention is high.

The fundamental path to succeeding with social media is to consistently contribute meaningfully—engaging with you should make the lives of those engaging more meaningful. The bonus would be to achieve this without adding costs to the others.

As you think through your social media strategy, here are seven unwritten rules of social media.

1. Connection does not imply permission
Many social networks make it easy for you to connect with anyone. You can follow someone on Twitter, Quora or Google Plus without needing their permission to do that. A small percentage of them might follow you back. If they do, you have a two-way connection. Don’t confuse the two-way connection as permission to interrupt them. You need to build a relationship and there is no shortcut for that.

2. Access does not imply entitlement
When you connect with someone on a social network and start engaging with them, you have access. Don’t assume that they owe you something because you are now engaging them on social media.

3. Activity is not productivity
The barrier to create content on a social network is virtually non-existent. This means that you can write whatever you want irrespective of whether it makes sense or not. You can get extremely busy with social media— trying to post anything and everything. In your enthusiasm to share, you might drop the quality of what you share and that’s when the problem starts—people will silently start to ignore you.

4. More is not better
When what you write about is a hit for some reason, you tend to end up doing more of it on social media forgetting that everything has a lifecycle of its own. What’s hot today may not stay hot tomorrow and what’s hot tomorrow may not stay hot. So trying to do more of what works does not guarantee success—you need to adapt all the time.

5. Reciprocation is optional
Don’t do anything with an expectation that someone will reciprocate back. Equal actions don’t create equal impact on social media. Say you have a 1,000 followers and you share something from another person who has 10,000 followers. Expecting him to share something from you would mean you are expecting someone to give back ten times of what you gave them.

6. Amplification without accomplishment is futile
Social media is a great amplifier. But fundamentals of mathematics are always at play. You can multiply zero with anything and the result will still be zero. You need relevant accomplishments as the foundation and social media can help amplify them. Sans accomplishments, it’s hard to amplify. Unless your business is to make money with social media, you have to get out of social media and spend time on building some meaningful accomplishments. Once you have them, you can use those to extend your influence using social media.

7. Engagement without enrichment is not effective
You are only as rich as the enrichment you bring to the world around you. When you enrich someone, you make their life more meaningful—at home or at work or in both places. Social media provides an excellent opportunity enrich people’s lives. Engagement for the sake of engagement can only make you get tired. Engage with an intention to enrich and you will not only win with social media but also makes this world a better place.

How do you contribute meaningfully to the social media-sphere?

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/

5 Simple Rules for Digital Marketers

2012-01-14T13:20:00.004-05:00

Listen, engage, and participate. Measure social media initiatives and tie these measurements back to business value, but keep in mind: it's not a one-way street.
Develop a mobile strategy, but realize that mobile is not a channel - it's a platform.
No mater the medium or technology, marketers still need to deliver relevant and engaging content to customers.
Heard the terms marketing and ROI used together lately? Take it to heart. With tight budgets, allocating spending and measuring its ROI will continue to be a running battle in marketing departments.
It's too tough out there to commit budgets without a clear return in sight. Being able to demonstrate value of marketing initiatives back to the overall business objectives is paramount (i.e. what the CEO cares about).

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
www.phantompower.co

Branded Content is King

2012-01-04T12:23:00.000-05:00

According to a recent study by the Custom Content Council and ContentWise, 78% of U.S. marketers plan to shift investments from traditional marketing to branded content marketing. More specifically, 62% are “moderately” making the shift, while 16% are pursuing it “aggressively.”

The study found that branded content marketing spending reached its highest level ever in 2011, just shy of $2 million per company. This accounted for 26% of overall marketing, advertising, and communications budgets for the year, and 30% of marketers expect their content budgets to increase in 2012.

Why content?

The top-ranked reasons are:

To educate customers (49%)
To retain customers (26%)
To increase brand loyalty (14%)

Similarly, marketers believe content marketing is more effective than:

Magazine ads (72%)
Public relations (69%)
Direct mail (69%)
Television ads (62%)

Is your brand pursuing a branded content marketing strategy?

PHANTOM POWER

Marketing by Design

www.phantompower.co

How to Raise Your Hourly Rates

2012-01-02T18:51:00.002-05:00

If you work as an independent professional or employee whereby you get paid by the hour, then your income depends heavily on your hourly rate. So obviously if you can raise your hourly rate, you can earn more money without working longer hours.

But when does it make sense to raise your hourly rate? How do you know if you’re charging a fair price for the service you provide?

When Not to Raise Your Rates

If you’re going to raise your rates, there should be solid business reasons for doing so. In the absence of such reasons, it makes no sense to raise your rates.
Because you feel like it is not a solid business reason.

Nor is the desire to earn more money. That’s a nice intention, but it’s not a justification for charging your clients more for the same service.

When to Raise Your Rates
Here are some cases where raising your rates may be a wise choice:

You’ve improved your service and/or skills If you’re able to provide more value to your clients in less time, then raising your rates to reflect your increased quality and efficiency is reasonable.
The supply-and-demand curve for your service has changed If you’re missing opportunities, becoming overbooked, or having to turn away clients because the demand for your service exceeds the supply, then it makes sense to raise your rates to bring supply and demand into better balance.
You want to work shorter hours If you want to reduce the number of hours you work with clients, you can raise your rates to reflect the scarcer supply.
You’re testing to gain more information Testing a higher rate is a perfectly valid business reason. However, before you test new rates, be sure to have a fallback plan in case the new rates meet with too much resistance.

You want to reposition yourself Positioning or branding are also valid business reasons for raising your rates. However, you’d better have the necessary skills and experience to back up your new positioning. If you want to be a high-priced consultant, be sure that you can consistently deliver high quality results. Otherwise if you charge premium prices for less-than-premium service, you’re essentially scamming people.

These are some of the most common business reasons for raising your rates, but there are others, many of which are field-specific.

Common Mistakes to Avoid
Here are some common mistakes people make when raising their rates:

Not raising rates at all, i.e. undercharging, is a common business mistake. This means leaving lots of money on the table and being paid signficantly less than you’re worth, especially as your skill increases. It’s a suboptimal way to run a business or build a career.
Not testing is another huge mistake. If you never test higher rates, you’ll never know how much potential income you may be leaving on the table. A good approach is to test higher rates with new clients first, but keep your existing clients at the old rates for a while. This way you don’t have to risk losing your old clients if a rate increase proves ineffective and you decide to return to the old rates.
Raising rates beyond what the supply-and-demand curve will bear is a common novice mistake. Some people want so much to be on the same level as the experts in their fields, but they haven’t yet acquired the skills to justify such high prices. It’s best to keep your rates reasonable (even low) until you’ve built up a decent client base. When you reach the point of having to turn away business because you’re getting overbooked, then it’s time to raise your rates. But if you overcharge right out the gate, many potential clients will know you aren’t worth as much as a seasoned expert, and they’ll avoid patronizing your business.
Changing rates too often is a less common mistake but still one to be avoided. If you’re changing your rates every season, you’re going to confuse your existing clients. Frequently changing your prices will make it hard for your clients to see how your services might fit into their budgets.

Don’t be surprised if you initially see a decrease in business whenever you raise your rates. If the rates are reasonable, business should pick up again within a few weeks.

How to Raise Your Rates
Here's some advice to help you get your hourly rate trending upward:

Invest in improving your service. Keep adding value; don’t get complacent. The more you improve your service and skills, the more you can charge. Note that more knowledge doesn’t always translate to better service. If you want to increase your rates, then focus on building skills with market demand. Don’t waste years learning how to do things that no one needs done (or that can be done at a lower hourly rate than what you’re already charging).

Over-deliver Provide such outstanding service that your clients feel compelled to talk about the great experiences they had. This will help your client base grow via word of mouth. Let a high quality of service be the central core of your marketing efforts. Violate your clients’ expectations in the best way possible.
Keep non-core work from becoming a distraction Take the time to establish and maintain good systems for invoicing clients, educating new clients, handling tax filings, etc. Put this type of detailed work on autopilot so it doesn’t become a distraction.
Collect testimonials When you do good work for a client, ask for a testimonial. Most satisfied clients will be happy to provide them. Then you can share the testimonials on your website or other marketing materials.
Ask for referrals Ask your clients for referrals to others they feel might benefit from your services. Some businesses even go so far as to “fire” clients who never provide any referrals because such clients are dead ends. If it seems reasonable to do so, formalize your referral program and offer referral incentives, such as by providing an affiliate program your clients can join.

Leverage your strengths If you do work that you’re especially good at, you’ll be able to raise your rates faster. Switch fields if necessary, but make sure you’re working in the sweet spot of your core talents and skills.
Care about your clients Treat your clients as real human beings, and they’ll be more likely to want to continue doing business with you — and to refer their friends, families, and co-workers to you. A business is built on relationships. If you treat your clients coldly, don’t be surprised when they respond coldly to your requests for referrals.
Keep in touch Don’t be a stranger Check in on your clients now and then. Let them know about meaningful improvements to your service. Don’t spam them with fluff, but do maintain the relationship you’ve built.

Reactivate dormant clients A client may go inactive for a variety of reasons, and many of those reasons have nothing to do with you. There’s a good chance that such clients can be reactivated, even after a year or more of inactivity. Maybe they had a bad year. Maybe there were some personal issues they had to attend to. Maybe there was a misunderstanding that can be remedied.
If you’re open to doing more business with this client, reach out and reconnect. The worst case is that they won’t do business with you again (which is no worse than the status quo), but the best case is that you reactivate a good client who continues doing business with you for years to come, and they may generate fresh referrals for you as well.
Embrace change The world is awash in change, and change represents opportunity. Don’t be a dinosaur. When you see industry-impacting changes occurring, jump to the front of the line, and look for ways to leverage those changes to provide new and better services. For example, what new technologies are becoming available that are causing surges in demand for software developers and consultants?

Be Patient

The best rates for your service will ultimately be determined by the marketplace. Sometimes you’ll be delighted by the results. Other times you won’t like the market’s verdict, especially when it tells you there are few people willing to pay you what you’d like to earn. Realize that this is only a reflection on the social value you’re currently producing; it doesn’t speak to your intrinsic value as a human being. Accept the market’s feedback for what it is, and use it to make better decisions as you move forward. Don’t try to argue with the market — you will lose!

The nice thing about setting your own rates is that the sky is the limit. You may not be able to control market forces, but you can control how you angle your virtual surfboard and ride those forces. Will you let them toss you to the sidelines, or will you ride them to the top?

Are you a service provider? Want to know a little bit more about the benefits of oursourced marketing? Download the PHANTOM POWER Whitepaper and apply some of these tips to your own business.

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
www.phantompower.co

How to Monetize Social Media

2011-11-16T11:43:00.006-05:00

As someone who provides Social Media Marketing solutions, both on behalf of employing organizations and clients, I am often asked... "OK, I am onboard, but how do you make money from all of this?"

I am a disciple of Inbound Marketing. I believe in this day and age this is a philosophy that works. It's simple in theory; create great content, promote that content via social media, attract qualified leads and convert those leads into customers. Many Marketers out there work in conjunction with sales. I personally have been in positions where the Marketers job ends at garnering qualified leads and passing those leads off to sales to close. But Marketers are often tested by sales... what am I supposed to do with this information. Marketers are often frustrated by sales when they don't jump on such qualified lead data... this is an age old quandry between the two departments and why I contend there must be a happy marriage between the two departments... but that is a story for another day.

Today's story... How Marketers can help themselves by helping sales monetize their social media efforts.

Companies are not only getting the word out about their brands using social media such as Facebook and Twitter but are also making money.

Many businesses have not found sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube useful in making money. Building genuine online relationships that are also good for the bottom line is not so easy. There is a lot of trial and error. But while monetizing social media is difficult it is not impossible. There are companies that are getting the word out about their brands using social media and are turning a profit.

Take The New York Jets. The NFL team launched their Ultimate Fan social game in September 2010, which was the first revenue generating Facebook app to be backed by a pro sports team. The application lets football fans do online what they would normally do at home and in stadiums—root for their favorite teams and players, predict game scores, and hold a virtual tailgate party with other fans from across the globe. Ultimate Fan has since lured four major sponsors integrating their brands: MetLife, Motorola, SNY and HotelPlanner.com.

The Jets also communicate regularly on Twitter. They even advertised a Twitter-based contest to win tickets to their 2011 AFC playoff championship game against the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Jets are able to engage with their fans and make them feel like they are part of the team. They are leveraging social medial to capitalize on their fans' passion for the team and their willingness to share that fervor.

Like many companies, your social media efforts have started small and grew organically. To capitalize on those efforts to generate sales and revenues you need to have a team of people dedicated to your social media presence. You also will need a deep understanding of your audience, a creative vision, and a way to measure results in order to execute a successful strategy.

Here are some ways your social media can be monetized…

How to Monetize Social Media: Build Brand Awareness

The first step is to use traditional media or word-of-mouth advertising to drive awareness and traffic to your Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube pages. Unless you already have a recognizable brand like Nike or Apple, your brand needs to develop social media magnetism before you can look to make any money. You also need to create circular momentum across many platforms when designing your social media campaign. By providing multiple channels for users to talk with you, you let customers choose the channel that they are most comfortable with, by doing this you increase the likelihood that they'll connect with your brand in any number of ways.

How to Monetize Social Media: Engage Your Audience

Social media is about having a dialogue. When you have a dialogue with a customer or prospect, the communication is much more fulfilling and much more profitable. The PETCO brand has developed a strong presence in social media. The pet store chain has a YouTube channel, its Facebook page generates a lot of discussions among pet owners, and there's lots of activity on its PETCO Scoop Blog, which has received hundreds of “Likes” and Comments. PETCO's customers are true pet lovers and treat their pets as part of the family. The company tries to keep conversation going by aiming Facebook and Twitter posts so that there's an explicit question to answer, or at least a specific piece of information to which people can react. You have to know your community and know how to take part within that community and through that create great content or conversation that will raise awareness and increase sales.

How to Monetize Social Media: Offer Special Promotions

Dell Computers exemplifies a company that is selling products using social media. Its Twitter page, @DellOutlet, offers discounts exclusively to followers. Dell might tweet 15 percent off any Dell Outlet laptop or desktop with a special coupon code entered at checkout so they'll know which tweet you are seeing. @DellOutlet also points you to a specific web page. There is some interaction in terms of chats with tweeters. @DellOutlet has garnered more than 1.6 million followers and generated more than $2 million in incremental revenues for Dell. Traditionally, Dell would have spent a lot of money running print ads. Today, they can write a 140-character promotion to reach customers.

PETCO is yet another example. The company provided a promo code to their customers for $40 in free shipping. The person who shared their code with the most people won a $500 PETCO gift card. About 40% of the sales that resulted from this promotional push came from new consumers. The desire to save a few bucks drove loyal PETCO customers to connect with the larger pet owner community and spread the word about the store via social media.

How to Monetize Social Media: Use Media Advertising

Many companies have used display advertising (banners) and contextual advertising such as Google AdWords. Many bloggers use Google Adsense to make money. There are plugins to help; you make money from clicks. There are also ad networks that you can join that pool several advertisers. You get a code and banner ads rotate from their network. This is an item that you will want to include in your advertising rate sheet. Major advertisers who buy display ads are finally beginning to figure out how to reach audiences through social networks, and have begun to shift significant dollars into Facebook.

Instead of a typical banner ad, consider offering a microsite, which would be equivalent to a paid supplement. For example, you could devote one page (a link on your website) specifically to an advertiser's products and services. Or you can become an affiliate. With affiliate marketing you get paid to refer people to another business.

Consider combining rich media advertising with display advertising. Video advertising and promotional material can be quickly and easily streamed to your social community. Another consideration is charging for sponsorship on a monthly, quarterly, or annual basis. Of course, attention needs to be paid between balancing the delivery of the rich media advertising against the comfort level of your customer base.

How to Monetize Social Media: Brand Within Applications

The best way to use apps is to create something that is functional such as a calculator, entertaining such as a game, or provides some sort of social connection such as an app just for your community. Your app can be fee based or you can give it away to build a relationship with customers. A number of well-known company brands use mobile apps to interact with their loyal customers, including Target, Coca-Cola, Nike and Gucci.

The fashion designer touts a luxury lifestyle application that is a quintessential example of branded mobile marketing. Through "Gucci Connect" users were able use their mobile devices, such as iPhone or iPad, for virtual access of a Milan fashion show, watch live runway and behind the scenes video coupled with live chat between virtual guests through Facebook and Twitter. Exclusive also to iPhone app subscribers are interactive games. The "Gucci Live" section features a music channel. Subscribers stay "in the know" with a calendar of upcoming brand events and feature articles. The Gucci "Little Black Book" provides recommendations to the hottest restaurants, nightclubs, and hotels in various cities throughout the world.

How to Monetize Social Media: Set Up Shop on Facebook

Facebook fan pages are another way to generate sales and enthusiasm especially if you have loyal fans that follow your updates. You can list your products on your Facebook page for fans to easily share with their own friends and essentially allow your product offerings to go viral.

Businesses are increasingly selling their goods on Facebook. There are various e-commerce solutions available. One is 8thBridge which is helping companies like 1-800-Flowers and HuateLook sell from Facebook. A special deal 8thBridge ran for the designer brands retailer HauteLook along with fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg generated more than $100,000 in sales in one day, 40 percent of which came from new customers. Users were given a $10 coupon for every new member that they brought in. Using 8thBridge, 1-800-Flowers is drawing people into buying flowers and other gifts for friends and family while they are already thinking about them on Facebook.

Payvment is another storefront option that provides online stores for companies to sell on Facebook. It has a network of more than 60,000 merchants using its self-serve technology. Payvment generally serves smaller clients while 8thBridge caters to small- and medium-sized businesses. According to a study released by Forrester Research, Facebook is more suitable for small retailers, niche products, or steeply discounted items. Most of the benefit that big retailers get from Facebook is branding their company but not actual purchases, Forrester further reports. Moreover, some products are inherently social such as books, DVDs, and event tickets, which have been successful because they are easy to buy and sell online.

How to Monetize Social Media: Use as a Retention Tool

Companies don't always need to use social media as a sales tool or to acquire news customers, they can use it as a customer retention tool. If someone likes or follows your business, it's because they're interested in hearing from you on some regular basis. It's important that you have a routine schedule for your blogs, tweets, and postings. Keeping your fans and followers up to date on what's new and happening with your business or industry will keep them engaged with you and keep your brand top-of-mind.

What have you done to monetize your social media marketing efforts?

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/

THIRD THURSDAY

2011-10-17T09:37:00.002-04:00

If you’re reading this I can assure you that you are one of the coolest people you know. THIRD THURSDAY, a promotion sponsored by PHANTOM POWER, is open to all Fans of PHANTOM POWER on Facebook and Followers of PHANTOM POWER on Twitter.

It’s called POINTS FOR PERKS and this is how you play… Each THIRD THURSDAY, PHANTOM POWER will offer up some extra pocket change, event tickets, music and sports memorabilia and more. On the THIRD THURSDAY of each month a prize will be posted via PHANTOM POWER’s social network’s and you’ll have 36 hours to cash in your points to collect!*

STEP 1
“Like” PHANTOM POWER on Facebook and/or
“Follow” PHANTOM POWER on Twitter.

STEP 2
Each time you “Share” or “Retweet” a message from PHANTOM POWER earn 1 point.
TIP! “Like” and “Follow” … The more shares and retweets, the more points.

STEP 3
Cash in your POINTS FOR PERKS!

*POINTS FOR PERKS giveaways are in limited quantity.
Winner(s) will be chosen at random and will be notified by the last day of each month.

**Points expire at 11:59PM each THIRD THURDAY of the month.
Participants can start earning points again the very next day!

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
www.phantompower.co

About PHANTOM POWER
PHANTOM POWER is a full-service marketing, interactive and public relations agency specializing in the arts, entertainment and small business solutions. We offer a full range of services traditionally performed by large advertising agencies or in-house marketing departments — all in a fraction of the time and at a fraction of the cost.

PHANTOM POWER distinguishes itself through its ability to consistently produce marketing campaigns that are inventive in form, sound in concept and return big business results at small business rates. Certified in the Client Needs Analysis process, PHANTOM POWER's Marketing by Design approach ensures customized service and personal attention to your needs. It is the foundation for designing an integrated marketing plan unique to your goals and objectives.

Established in 1999, PHANTOM POWER's roots are in music marketing and promotion. Since that time we have grown to successfully deliver marketing campaigns for over 100 clients; from entrepreneur through Fortune 500 brands. We are based in Highlands, NJ - where the Jersey Shore begins.

Greetings from Occupy Wall Street

2011-10-14T09:08:00.001-04:00

by Guest Blogger Linda Pricci

Once you visit Occupy Wall Street you can no longer pretend it isn’t there. I entered the encampment as a tourist—literally, as I was on my way to see the reflecting pools at Ground Zero—but quickly realized that a movement like this demanded respect. I decided to walk around this tent city located in a small New York sidewalk park about the size of a building plot—usually all concrete with the exception of sporadic trees and flower pots—to find that it’s now all tarps, drum circles, mattresses, folding tables reflecting any and all issues, and oh yeah, bodies.

I did what I normally do, which is to form an immediate opinion of the crowd in reaction to what I saw: homeless bohemians lying around in various states of inebriation. I thought, “Well, if you have to be homeless, why not make a party of it”. The whole thing felt convenient for some—a place to rest your head within a community of like-minded individuals. I understood why they were angry (mostly) and I got their anger, but I could not get over the whole “what’s the point” of the whole thing. I’ll admit I was intimidated because part of me felt like a fraud, with my good job, nice apartment, and new car. These people were not like me. I was on the outside of the barricade looking in.

As I walked around, I found myself acclimating to the spirit of the thing, allowing the energy to penetrate my walls. I stopped looking at people with pre-conceived notions and started to really want to know why they thought they were there. So I figured the only way to know what they were thinking was to ask.

I approached Paul with a rather silly “hi” wave and a “How long have you been here?” I immediately made my intentions clear (that this was a fact finding mission) because I figured the only way not to feel like a fraud was not to act like one. Paul explained that he has been homeless ever since he was discharged from the Iraq War, but with his baby face I almost couldn’t believe it. Since being sent home, the government no longer had any obligation to pay him the money he was promised as a veteran and now had to live on the streets. I felt comfortable enough to ask Paul why he was discharged, and he told me that 4 months before his tour was over he turned in all his ammo, refused to take part in storming civilian homes, and began to help the Iraqi people. This was treason.

I then opened up about my fears—the ones I felt I was too “privileged” to admit—and was met with something totally unexpected: empathy. I had just looked a homeless stranger in the eyes and confessed my fear that at any moment the life I have built for myself could crumble. I have no savings and work paycheck to paycheck. My parents will not be around forever and it feels like no matter how hard I work at my mid-level, modestly paying job, I will likely never own my own home. At 33-years-old, I now realize I never had a chance at the “American dream” of my parents’ youth. The moment I lose it all, I am no different than any of these people living on the street.

Paul explained that we (a phrase he used throughout) cannot sit idly by and watch as 1% of our country holds 100% of the cards. We have occupied Wall Street because we deserve to live in a house and know that the bank won’t use some small print in a contract to price us out of our homes; because we deserve to be educated and should not have to begin our lives saddled with student debt; because we should feel that working hard means that we can afford the basic essentials—and even some luxuries—without the fear of losing our life savings in a flash; because there is plenty of work, plenty of housing, and plenty of resources for us all to coexist; and because there are plenty of us to form a worldwide community to ensure each other’s survival. Sounds like utopian, hippy bullshit, doesn’t it? Well, that’s the real injustice.

What Paul made me realize is that people need to fundamentally shift their way of thinking. We can’t Occupy Wall Street fighting for a way to get everything we want. We need to change what we want. When people become comfortable with less, they will want less. When people want less, they will stop acquiring at the expense of others. The media likes to think that there is no real cause at Occupy Wall Street, but the truth is there are many. And no matter how disparate they may seem, they all can be traced to one deadly sin: Greed.

While talking to Paul, I pointed to a large building and said, “I feel like this building represents this fight. It’s huge and overwhelming and I know no matter how hard I try I will never be able to scale it. I will never be able to go through it. I will always have to reside to the fact that I must go around it”. And that’s when Paul looked up and said “Yes, but if you stand on all of our shoulders, we’ll get over it together”.

Occupy Wall Street
as reflected in the Freedom Tower

Even if the fight at Occupy Wall Street does not directly affect you, it does not mean it is not your fight. These injustices, previously left unchecked, have become acceptable to the point of slowly consuming us all. Like Paul said, he is willing to fight for the people who live in their comfortable homes and are unable or unwilling to engage. “I fight for them as much as I fight for myself because they are victims too. Even if they don’t know it.”

I entered Occupy Wall Street thinking, “What can one person do, really,” but what I learned is it’s not about one person changing the world. It’s about one person helping to change the voice of the silent majority. And as for the rich minority, I’ve learned that we’re not likely to change their way of thinking. We need to teach the masses to speak out and believe that change can happen, so that someday it’s one of our own on the ballot. This is evolution, not war.

View a complete Occupy Wall Street Photo Summary by Linda Pricci

Is the Secret to Twitter Success Link Sharing?

2011-10-01T07:48:00.000-04:00

When it comes to using Facebook to promote your business or blog, it seems pretty straightforward as to how exactly to use it. Sure, there are always things we can learn to help boost our Facebook fan numbers and interaction with them, but as far as structure goes, it’s pretty simple.

But what about Twitter? What’s the secret to Twitter success? According to this article, it’s link sharing. The article is rather long, but basically what it’s saying is that we have the same basic tool – 140 characters – but it’s exactly how you use those that counts.

A few interesting studies have been published lately that
all seem to point to the same conclusion –
the secret to Twitter success is driving links.

This infographic from Get Satisfaction shows the top reasons why people follow brands. For Twitter, it shows the third reason is interesting or entertaining content – so link sharing.

The article sums up Twitter success as seeing what works best for you. Do you get better results when you do one link a day, link to a video, say something before the link that grabs your followers’ attention?

What do you use Twitter for the most? Getting information, entertainment, interacting with your followers and do you think link sharing is the key to Twitter success?

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/

Why Musicians Should Consider Google Plus For Online Music Marketing

2011-09-26T14:48:00.005-04:00

At first thought Google+ looked like another take it or leave it ploy by Google to grab some attention away from the Facebooks and Twitters of the world. But after reading Chris Brogan’s Google Plus 50 post, I have changed my mind.

He goes through and points out how Google+ – along with some of the new features like Circles (more on that below) – will bring all of their stand alone tools like Picasa, Gchat, Gmail, etc together for a one stop social party. Which got even more weight a day later when Google announces is will rebrand Picasa and Blogger.

Add that to fact 400,000+ Android phones are being activate per day it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see Google might have something here that is useful for music promotion.

Here is the part of the Chris’s post that really perked my interest:

“How long before we see our first Hangout live music “jam?” That’s one record button away from being supercool. And one “name your price” Google Checkout tweak away from being instant micro content for sale.”

How cool would that be? Monetized (or not) push button live shows – with all the promotion tools included – at your finger tips. Almost makes sites like Ustream and StageIt sound complicated.

Circles

CDBaby also recognized the potential of the Google+ Circles feature in a post.

They bring up a great point:

Basically, you can put your friends into different categories and communicate with each of them separately. For most users, circles would probably include “family,” “close friends,” “acquaintances,” “work associates,” etc. But for musicians, this function could have some added benefits if account holders are allowed to create circles for in-town fans, fellow musicians, booking contacts, studio owners, journalists and bloggers, etc.

That will be pretty slick. How many times do you want to share links, vids or chit chat with other artists about music marketing on various social networks but don’t because you don’t want to share that conversation with your fans and vice-versa?

Being able to segment conversations means you may not have to have two Twitter accounts or multiple fanpages to log in and out of.

The Tip of The Iceberg

And really that is the tip of the iceberg. I can’t get in to try out Google+ at the moment to really poke and prod but you can bet I will be in there playing around the minute I get a chance. Stay tuned In the meantime, go check out Google+ for yourself. And I strongly encourage you to go and read Chris Brogan’s Google Plus 50 post and check out the conversation going on in the comments because he goes into way more depth than I have time or first hand knowledge to here.

Oh and as a side note, Google getting bigger and better is kind of freaky. Hell, between my email, my reader, my phone, etc, the conspiracy theorist in me knows they have a crap load of my information. But [fingers crossed] hopefully it is much ado about nothing and I can reap some time saving and fan finding benefits of pretty innovative thinking on their part.

What about you? Do you know something I don’t? Will you use Google Plus?

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/

6 Reasons Businesses Need to Blog

2011-09-23T09:07:00.001-04:00

A business blog is central to a successful inbound marketing strategy that will help you get found and generate more inbound leads online. Why? Here are 6 reasons your business needs to blog:

1. Build thought leadership by showing your expertise and becoming a go-to resource for prospects and media.

2. Get SEO value for each blog article. More content = more opportunities to get found online.

3. Engage in a dialogue with customers and prospects through blog comments. Host conversations and respond to issues or questions.

4. Attract social media followers. Businesses that blog enjoy more social media reach because they have content to share.

5. Generate more leads online. A HubSpot study found that businesses that blog generate more than 67% more leads online compared to businesses that don't blog.

6. Humanize your brand by giving your company a voice of the people behind your brand.

What benefits is your business seeing by blogging?

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/

Facebook to Roll Out Major Changes

2011-09-18T09:45:00.004-04:00

The Only Constant is Change

Facebook is driven by a single, unique goal. Its priority isn’t to gain more users (it already has 750 million of those), nor does it feel compelled to find stupid ways to increase pageviews. Its primary goal right now isn’t to increase revenue, either — that will come later.

No, Facebook’s goal is to become the social layer that supports, powers and connects every single piece of the web, no matter who or what it is or where it lives. On Thursday at its f8 conference in San Francisco, the world’s largest social network will take a giant leap toward accomplishing that goal.

I have seen what Facebook is launching on Thursday, and it’s going to change the world of social media. And while I won’t talk about the mind-boggling things Facebook will be launching, I will say this: The Facebook you know and (don’t) love will be forever transformed. The news that will come out of Facebook during the next few weeks will be the biggest things to come out of the company since the launch of the Facebook Platform.

For Facebook, it all boils down to one problem: emotion. Facebook has hundreds of millions of users and spectacular levels of engagement, but it is a platform that has lost its emotional resonance over the years. More and more people visit Facebook out of necessity rather than desire. It’s a platform people prefer to hate, but won’t leave simply because all their friends are there.

It’s a relationship gone stale. After years of dating, the magic between Facebook and its users has dissipated. It’s a natural evolution in any relationship, but now there is another suitor vying for Facebook’s users. And a lot of people think this suitor is easy on the eyes.

Watch Zuckerberg's Announcement at F8 2011

That’s why Facebook launched three recent changes: revamped Friend Lists, a real-time news ticker, and the subscribe button. Friend Lists lets you share content with just your closest friends (with whom you have the strongest emotional connection), and the ticker lets you have real-time conversations with your friends as soon as they do anything. Subscribe lets you fill your News Feed with people you admire and respect, fostering a different type of emotional connection.

But these changes are just the beginning. The changes Facebook will roll out on Thursday are designed to enhance the emotional connection its users have to each other through Facebook. These changes will make Facebook a place where nearly everything in your life is enhanced by your social graph. These changes will make it so you know your friends better than you ever thought you could.

On Thursday, developers will be elated, users will be shellshocked and the competition will look ancient. On Thursday, Facebook will be reborn. Prepare yourselves for the evolution of social networking.

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Designhttp://www.phantompower.co/

Preparing for Hurricane Irene

2011-08-25T15:53:00.002-04:00

An earthquake rattled the entire eastern seaboard for just a few moments this week. It gave no warning, absolutely no indication it would ever happen, and then in a matter of seconds, it disappeared. By late afternoon, everybody was back into the Manhattan groove – and whatever passes for it in Washington, Philadelphia and so on.

But the quake was only the lead paragraph on what will be a week-long weather story about another, more slowly approaching bit of tumult: Hurricane Irene.

Before the storm:

Listen to a NOAA Weather Radio for critical information from the National Weather Service.
Check your disaster supplies and replace or restock as needed.
Bring in anything that can be picked up by the wind (bicycles, lawn furniture).
Close windows, doors and hurricane shutters. If you do not have hurricane shutters, close and board up all windows and doors with plywood.
Turn the refrigerator and freezer to the coldest setting and keep them closed as much as possible so that food will last longer if the power goes out.
Turn off propane tanks and unplug small appliances.
Fill your car’s gas tank.
Talk with members of your household and create an evacuation plan. Planning and practicing your evacuation plan minimizes confusion and fear during the event.
Learn about your community’s hurricane response plan. Plan routes to local shelters, register family members with special medical needs as required and make plans for your pets to be cared for.
Evacuate if advised by authorities. Be careful to avoid flooded roads and washed out bridges.
Because standard homeowners insurance doesn’t cover flooding, it’s important to have protection from the floods associated with hurricanes, tropical storms, heavy rains and other conditions that impact the U.S. For more information on flood insurance, please visit the National Flood Insurance Program Web site at http://www.floodsmart.gov/.

During the storm supplies needed:

Water—at least a 3 day supply; one gallon per person per day
Food—at least a 3 day supply of non perishable, easy to¬ prepare food.
Flashlight
Battery powered or hand crank radio (NOAA Weather Radio, if possible)
Extra batteries
First aid kit
Medications (7 day supply) and medical items (hearing aids with extra batteries, glasses, contact lenses, syringes, cane)
Multi purpose tool
Sanitation and personal hygiene items
Copies of personal documents (medication list and pertinent medical information, proof of address, deed/lease to home, passports, birth certificates, insurance policies)
Cell phone with chargers
Family and emergency contact information
Extra cash
Emergency blanket
Map(s) of the area
Baby supplies (bottles, formula, baby food, diapers)
Pet supplies (collar, leash, ID, food, carrier, bowl)
Tools/supplies for securing your home
Extra set of car keys and house keys
Extra clothing, hat and sturdy shoes
Rain gear
Insect repellent and sunscreen
Camera for photos of damage

After the storm:

Continue listening to a NOAA Weather Radio or the local news for the latest updates.
Stay alert for extended rainfall and subsequent flooding even after the hurricane or tropical storm has ended.
If you evacuated, return home only when officials say it is safe.
Drive only if necessary and avoid flooded roads and washed out bridges.
Keep away from loose or dangling power lines and report them immediately to the power company.
Stay out of any building that has water around it.
Inspect your home for damage. Take pictures of damage, both of the building and its contents, for insurance purposes.
Use flashlights in the dark. Do NOT use candles.
Avoid drinking or preparing food with tap water until you are sure it’s not contaminated.
Check refrigerated food for spoilage. If in doubt, throw it out.
Wear protective clothing and be cautious when cleaning up to avoid injury.
Watch animals closely and keep them under your direct control.
Use the telephone only for emergency calls.

Tips for recover:

As you rebuild

Secure double entry doors at the top and the bottom.
Strengthen existing garage doors to improve the wind resistance, particularly double- wide garage doors.
Protect windows with permanent storm shutters or one-half inch marine plywood that is pre-cut to fit your doors and windows.
Clear loose and clogged rain gutters and downspouts to prevent flooding and unnecessary pressure on the awnings.
Select trees that are not as subject to uprooting to replace damaged ones. A gardening or landscaping professional can give you excellent advice.
Identify a place to store lawn furniture, toys, gardening tools and trash cans that is away from stairs and exits to prevent them from being moved by high winds and becoming missiles.

Ask a professional to

Ensure roof sheathing is properly installed.
Ensure end gables are securely fastened to the rest of the roof.
Fasten the roof to the walls with hurricane straps.
Elevate your home if it is near the coast and subject to flooding from storm surge.

A resource for hurricane readiness is http://www.ready.nj.gov/ or call 2-1-1. In the event of an emergency after business hours, dial (866) 413-9850 to reach a representative of Wentworth. Please note, an emergency is a situation involving imminent danger to property or individuals and which requires immediate attention.

How to Measure and Grow your Social Media Reach

2011-08-14T12:22:00.013-04:00

Social Reach is the total number of individuals across all social platforms you engage who actively follow (fans, followers, subscribers) your company. For example, a company with 10,000 Facebook fans, 5,000 Twitter followers and 1,000 YouTube subscribers has a total Social Reach of 16,000.

A company’s Social Reach drives the level of benefit for all social media efforts. Most companies are engaged on multiple social channels, but how many social channels are enough? There are no hard and fast rules, but the experts agree that companies should participate in as many social channels as possible - as long as their target customers can be found there and sufficient resources can be dedicated to ensure high-quality execution in all chosen channels.

Jason Falls, principal at Social Media Explorer, explains, “Companies need to prioritize social media channels by how extensively these channels are being used by a company’s target audience. Every company needs to grow their reach - this is the foundation on which to share content over time.”

Andrew Patterson, manager of new media at MLB Advanced Media, says that “the decision on number of social media channels for a company is contextual. What is important is how consistent you are with engaging in a social media channel. You can’t be there one day and gone the next. If you have the resources to be consistent across multiple channels, then by all means do it. But if you spread yourself too thin, you will end up disappointing your fans and followers and jeopardizing your social marketing initiative.”

Social Platforms of Choice

Facebook, Twitter, and the use of landing pages and company blogs are the leading platform choices for brands of all sizes, with a growing number of companies reporting planned integration of YouTube, SlideShare, Flickr and Foursquare in 2011.

Best-in-class companies use three to four social media platforms (e.g. Facebook, Twitter) vs. the average company, which is using less than two social media platforms. Best-in-class companies also have multiple channels within each social media platform as shown in the next two graphs.

Measuring Social Reach

To measure your company’s Social Reach, you need to measure the number of total social profiles you have accumulated across all of your social media platforms.

Use that initial Social Reach to measure your Social Reach Velocity – your Social Reach Velocity is your ability to grow your Social Reach with social marketing over time.

How are you measuring your social efforts? What platforms prove most effective for you? Have you ever considered Social Velocity?

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
www.phantompower.co

Why Musicians Should Consider Google+ For Online Music Marketing

2011-07-19T10:21:00.000-04:00

Marketing music online isn’t an easy job these days. There are many places to be and a gazillion tools to use. With all the learning and managing required your head can start spinning pretty quickly and your precious time can evaporate quicker than Windex on sun-drenched windshield. But I think Google+ might just help us with that.

Brogan Knows
At first thought Google+ looked like another take it or leave it ploy by Google to grab some attention away from the Facebooks and Twitters of the world. But after reading Chris Brogan’s Google+ 50 post, I have changed my mind.

He goes through and points out how Google+ – along with some of the new features like Circles (more on that below) – will bring all of their stand alone tools like Picasa, Gchat, Gmail, etc together for a one stop social party. Which got even more weight a day later when Google announces is will rebrand Picasa and Blogger.

Add that to fact 400,000+ Android phones are being activate per day it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see Google might have something here that is useful for music promotion.

Here is the part of the Chris’s post that really perked my interest...

“How long before we see our first Hangout live music “jam?” That’s one record button away from being supercool. And one “name your price” Google Checkout tweak away from being instant micro content for sale.”

How cool would that be? Monetized (or not) push button live shows – with all the promotion tools included – at your finger tips. Almost makes sites like Ustream and StageIt sound complicated.

Circles
CDBaby also recognized the potential of the Google+ Circles feature in a post . They bring up a great point:

Basically, you can put your friends into different categories and communicate with each of them separately. For most users, circles would probably include “family,” “close friends,” “acquaintances,” “work associates,” etc. But for musicians, this function could have some added benefits if account holders are allowed to create circles for in-town fans, fellow musicians, booking contacts, studio owners, journalists and bloggers, etc

That will be pretty slick. How many times do you want to share links, vids or chit chat with other artists about music marketing on various social networks but don’t because you don’t want to share that conversation with your fans and vice-versa?

Being able to segment conversations means you may not have to have two Twitter accounts or multiple fanpages to log in and out of.

The Tip of The Iceberg
And really that is the tip of the iceberg. I can’t get in to try out Google+ at the moment to really poke and prod but you can bet I will be in there playing around the minute I get a chance. Stay tuned

In the meantime, go check out Google Plus for yourself. And I strongly encourage you to go and read Chris Brogan’s Google+ 50 post and check out the conversation going on in the comments because he goes into way more depth than I have time or first hand knowledge to here.

Oh and as a side note, Google getting bigger and better is kind of freaky. Hell, between my email, my reader, my phone, etc, the conspiracy theorist in me knows they have a crap load of my information. But [fingers crossed] hopefully it is much ado about nothing and I can reap some time saving and fan finding benefits of pretty innovative thinking on their part.

What about you? Do you know something I don’t? Will you use Google Plus?

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/

Sell the HOLE – Not the DRILL

2011-07-15T15:10:00.006-04:00

"As much as creative marketing and promotions can help a product, service, or company stand out," writes Linda Ireland at the MarketingProfs Daily Fix blog, "it always comes down to a simple premise: Did you solve the need that triggered the customer to act in the first place?" In other words: You can surprise and delight customers all you like, but it won't matter if you don't fix what they asked you to fix.

So keep your focus on this goal with tips like these:

Do what you said you would do
You'll impress customers by providing the product or service you promised, on time and without any surprises along the way. It would seem self-evident, but this oft-forgotten concept forms the foundation for every positive customer experience.
Don't create more work for your customersThey're paying you to make a pain point go away—it won't seem that they've gotten their money's worth if they have to jump through hoops to get anything done.
Don't tout unnecessary benefitsA slew of new features won't excite a customer who doesn't need them; if you insist on discussing them, it'll start to feel like tiresome oversell. "Keep it simple," she says. "Fix their problem. Then stop. Then solve another one."
Don't forget the emotional aspect of customer experienceInspire loyalty and satisfaction by matching your actions to the way a customer should feel at each stage of the process.

The surest way to surprise and delight a customer is to roll up your sleeves and solve her problem.

Do you have a secret for identifying customer's problems so you can figure out how to solve them?

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/

10 Reasons Why Twitter Is So Popular

2011-06-26T15:02:00.005-04:00

I was pondering today why the social networking site Twitter is so incredibly popular. So I thought I would Google it and read what others are saying about Twitter. Surprisingly I couldn’t find much out there so I wrote down some thoughts and it wasn’t long before I came up with the following reasons for Twitter's popularity.

Everyone seems to love lists so here are my 10 reasons why I think Twitter is so popular.

Twitter is so darned easy to use - period. No further explanation is required.
It’s a lot easier to get Twitter followers than it is to get Blog newsfeed subscribers.
Twitter is a complete no-brainer. Absolutely no technical know-how is needed. Just open an account and start tweeting.
It’s an excuse for being a bad writer. Because of Twitter’s 140 character limitation you can be excused for bad judgement grammar and abusing abbreviations.
Twitter makes you feel like you are a part of something greater than yourself. You never have to feel alone again.
For the ‘always-connected’ generation Twitter keeps you in contact with all of your ‘friends’ no matter where you are. When you are mobile and on-the-go it’s like a free conference text-messaging service in your cell phone.
Having lots of so-called Twitter “friends” makes you feel you are popular. How else can you make a lot of friends as quickly? Where else can you find an audience interested in what you ate for dinner and threw up later?
Is there a better way to keep in touch with your favorite celebrities? Twitter is an instant social fan club. You can write to them and they (or their entourage) might respond. You can almost reach out and touch them. Do you feel the love?
Similarly, if you follow your favorite a-lister they will probably reciprocate and follow you back. Wow! Is Howard Stern really tweeting? He really is the King of All Media.
Twitter is a great way to pretend being someone’s friend so you can sell them something later. Backdoor marketing for the new media age.

Perhaps you have your own reasons for Twitter’s popularity. Did I miss anything?

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/

Do You Need a Facebook Fan Page?

2011-06-16T15:41:00.001-04:00

Cultivating a Facebook Fan following is a unique and powerful form of permission marketing, whereby your target audience have consented to your constant contact.

They’re yours to share your message with time and again.
They already like you.
They already stick around for the long haul.
They already care about what you have to say about your business.

But the profitable impact of Facebook goes much further than just a medium to contact customers.

What’s better than you being able to share your message every day to your target audience? Having them share your message for you, to every single one of their friends on Facebook!

When your customers take 1 second out of their busy schedule to hit "like‟ on your Fan page, a small easy step... it is a HUGE public commitment that they’re a fan of and recommend your business! They are publicly declaring themselves a fan of your business, a very powerful message to both themselves and their peers. It literally shows up as clear and direct as “Sally Buyer likes YOUR BUSINESS”.

Now consider that if your average customer has even 50 friends on Facebook, 10 "Likes‟ = 500 brand exposures for your business, with a cost of $0... Can you think of another way to get your customers to recommend your business to pretty much everyone they know, with 1 click, for free? A few of their friends will also hit „like‟ and so the profit virus spreads, without you having to do a thing.

Needless to say, these numbers are conservative given the dramatic adoption of Facebook among basically the entire developed world. Most of your customers will probably have over 100 friends... now that’s the kind of math we like! Of course as a business owner, you’re more than likely aware that “word of mouth” is the strongest form of marketing around. You’ve worked hard to make sure your customers have a great experience, but how many of them are really spreading the word? I bet it could be more. Don’t let that goodwill go to waste, let your customers share it on your Fan page!

With some clever marketing that relies on some basic principles of human behavior, you can build a following you can bank on in no time.

Here are some things you can do with a Facebook Fan Page:

Give your customers an incentive to like your page, i.e. a discount that reveals itself when they click that magic "Like‟ button.
Stay at the top of their mind so when they want something they think of your business.
Sell directly to your fan base with special sales.
Showcase new items.
Get rid of slow moving stock or fill your venue during off peak periods.
Run competitions that encourage your customers to spread the word about business.
Collect people’s email and mail addresses from your fan page to execute direct mail or email campaigns.
See who your customers are. Take the time to browse through a few of your customer’s profiles. Notice their age, their likes and interests, where they live, what engages them.

You’ll be getting access to market research that would have cost a small fortune not too long ago. The possibility of your business message going viral, your name spreading like wildfire and your customers raving are well worth pursuing when you think of the impact this can have on your bottom line.

Create A Facebook Fan Page

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/

101 Small Business Marketing Activities

2011-05-22T15:28:00.001-04:00

One universal small business goal is to sell the business's products and services. This is usually best accomplished by positioning the business in front of the target audience, and offering something they can't refuse or find elsewhere.

To this end, one of the smartest things a small business owner can do for their business is take the time to develop a small business marketing plan that will set them apart from the competition. A marketing plan clearly outlines how you will reach your ideal customers by effectively implementing your marketing strategy.

There are thousands of ways you can promote your small business. With the right mix of activities, you can identify and focus on the most effective marketing tactics for your small business. Here is a list of 101 small business marketing ideas to get you thinking about all of the different ways you can promote your business.

Do you have an idea of your own not listed here? Add it under Comments.

Marketing Planning

1. Update or create a marketing plan for your business.
2. Revisit or start your marketing research.
3. Conduct a focus group.
4. Write a unique selling proposition (USP).
5. Refine your target audience and niche.
6. Expand your product and service offerings.

Marketing Materials

7. Update your business cards.
8. Make your business card stand out from the rest.
9. Create or update your brochure.
10. Create a digital version of your brochure for your website.
11. Explore a website redesign.
12. Get creative with promotional products and give them away at the next networking event you attend.

In-Person Networking

13. Write an elevator pitch.
14. Register for a conference.
15. Introduce yourself to other local business owners.
16. Plan a local business workshop.
17. Join your local chamber of commerce.
18. Rent a booth at a trade show.

Direct Mail

19. Launch a multi-piece direct mail campaign.
20. Create multiple approaches, and split test your mailings to measure impact.
21. Include a clear and enticing call to action on every direct mail piece.
22. Use tear cards, inserts, props and attention-getting envelopes to make an impact with your mailings.
23. Send past customers free samples and other incentives to regain their business.

Advertising

24. Advertise on the radio.
25. Advertise in the Yellow Pages.
26. Advertise on a billboard.
27. Use stickers or magnets to advertise on your car.
28. Take out an ad in your local newspaper.
29. Advertise on a local cable TV station.
30. Advertise on Facebook.
31. Advertise on LinkedIn.
32. Buy ad space on a relevant website.
33. Use a sidewalk sign to promote your specials.

Social Media Marketing

34. Get started with social media for business.
35. Create a Facebook page.
36. Get a vanity URL or username for your Facebook page.
37. Create a Twitter account.
38. Reply or retweet someone else on Twitter.
39. Setup a Foursquare account for your business.
40. List your business on Google Places.
41. Start a business blog.
42. Write blog posts on a regular basis.
43. Start social bookmarking your online content.
44. Create a Groupon.

Internet Marketing

45. Start a Google Adwords pay-per-click campaign.
46. Start a Microsoft adCenter pay-per-click campaign.
47. Comment on a blog post.
48. Record a video blog post.
49. Upload a video to YouTube.
50. Check your online directory listings and get listed in desirable directories.
51. Set up Google Analytics on your website and blog.
52. Review and measure your Google Analytics statistics.
53. Register a new domain name for a marketing campaign or a new product or service.
54. Learn more about local search marketing.
55. Track your online reputation.
56. Sign up for the Help a Reporter Out (HARO) email list.

Email Marketing

57. Create an email opt-in on your website or blog.
58. Offer a free download or free gift to make people willing to add their email address to your list.
59. Send regular emails to your list.
60. Start a free monthly email newsletter.
61. Use A/B testing to measure the effectiveness of your email campaigns.
62. Perfect your email signature.
63. Add audio, video and social sharing functionality to your emails.

Contests, Coupons and Incentives

64. Start a contest.
65. Create a coupon.
66. Create a "frequent buyer" rewards program.
67. Start a client appreciation program.
68. Create a customer of the month program.
69. Give away a free sample.
70. Start an affiliate program.

Relationship Building

71. Send out a customer satisfaction survey.
72. Ask for referrals.
73. Make a referral.
74. Help promote or volunteer your time for a charity event.
75. Sponsor a local sports team.
76. Cross-promote your products and services with other local businesses.
77. Join a professional organization.
78. Plan your next holiday promotion.
79. Plan holiday gifts for your best customers.
80. Send birthday cards to your clients.
81. Approach a colleague about a collaboration.
82. Donate branded prizes for local fundraisers.
83. Become a mentor.

Marketing with Content

84. Plan a free teleconference or webinar.
85. Record a podcast.
86. Write a press release.
87. Submit your press release to various distribution channels.
88. Rewrite your sales copy with a storytelling spin.
89. Start writing a book.

Marketing Help

90. Hire a marketing consultant.
91. Hire a public relations professional.
92. Hire a professional copywriter.
93. Hire a search engine marketing firm.
94. Hire an intern to help with daily marketing tasks.
95. Hire a sales coach or salesperson.

Unique Marketing Ideas

96. Get a branded tattoo.
97. Create a business mascot to help promote your brand.
98. Take a controversial stance on a hot industry topic.
99. Pay for wearable advertising.
100. Get a full-body branded paint job done on your company vehicle.
101. Sign up for online business training to revamp, expand and fine tune all of your marketable skills.

There are many more than 101 small business marketing ideas. Do you have an idea not listed here? Add your small business marketing idea to the list.

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
www.phantompower.co

Contributions by Alyssa Gregory

10 Keys to More Effective Social Media Marketing

2011-05-22T10:50:00.002-04:00

A recent Econsultancy report revealed that 86% of more than 800 companies surveyed plan social media budget bumps in the coming year. Clearly, social media marketing (SMM) is working its way into company marketing plans more than ever. SMM is just as important to the smaller company looking rto market more on a shoestring as it is to a large one. SMM gives businesses of any size an equal voice (or at least the chance to compete equally), which is something that traditional marketing doesn’t offer.

Studies have shown that even more so than television, today’s consumers are turning to blogs and social networking sites for the latest news, reviews, and opinions. Your customers want to have a relationship with you. They’re blogging about their favorite products and live-tweeting customer service experiences, for better or worse.

10 Keys to More Effective Social Media Marketing:

1. Find out where your customers (and competitors) are and set up shop.

Odds are, your customers are already discussing your brand on social networks, whether you’re aware of it or not. Just do a few simple Google, Facebook, or Twitter searches on your brand or product names to find out who’s talking about it and where. Prioritize your social media efforts by giving the most attention to the places where buzz about your brand is the heaviest.

2. Build one-on-one relationships.

It’s a simple concept, but one many companies fail to grasp. By its very nature, social media marketing is about communicating and connecting with individual users, not one-way messaging to the masses. Marketing your brand takes the form of meaningful conversations, answering questions, sharing information, giving honest feedback, and reaching out to potential advocates.

3. Put a human face on it.

Social media is not about communicating behind a nameless, faceless logo. People want to know who they’re interacting with; that there’s a real person behind the wheel, flaws and all.

4. Engage through content.

If you plan to get serious about social media marketing, know that it requires constant care and feeding, and that feeding comes most often in the form of content: industry news, how-to videos, new product previews or reviews, unique offers, podcasts, tweets from conferences, and other brand-centric content that keeps followers interested.

5. Keep it current.

Though blog posts, videos, and other forms of content can have a long shelf life, social media marketing is very much about the here and now. What’s current? What are the issues facing your industry? What’s making news? Can you influence the news? What can we comment upon and answer questions about? The more in-the-moment you can engage, the higher your visibility is likely to be, and visibility is the flashy lure that attracts more fish.

6. Be realistic about resources.

Know that all of this content, care and feeding will require a lot of time and commitment. Don’t bit off more than you can chew. An untended social media effort feels half-baked to users and is almost worse than having none at all.

7. Set actionable goals and have a plan.

Regardless of who within your organization handles the day-to-day social media, their efforts should be led by specific goals. How much time will they commit to social media marketing? How often will they interact within each community or channel? What will it take to generate new content? Set objectives, develop action plans, and track milestones for measuring progress. We recently announced the launch of our new Social Media Strategy service, which helps brands do exactly that.

8. Proactively monitor reactions to your brand.

This kind of “reputation management” gives you a window into what people are saying about your company, your industry, your products, and even competitors. Monitoring can be as simple as setting up Google Alerts, and there are many free or low-cost social media monitoring tools. There’s no shortage of paid, more robust solutions, either, which are a must for big brands and large organizations.

9. Measure your efforts.

Yes, social media marketing can be measured! Start by looking at your web analytics and focusing on things like traffic from social media sources and engagement metrics. Once you have established goals, (see #7) you’ll know better what tools will help you measure those outcomes.

10. Learn from your experiences.

Social media marketing requires a lot of changing on the fly. Be prepared to adapt your action plan to the results you’re getting (or not getting). Don’t think of poor results as failure because with social media marketing, you need to be learning all the time—even when things don’t turn out exactly as you’d have liked them to.

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
www.phantompower.co

Source: Web Ad.vantage

New Product Launched in Collaboration With NAR to Manage Leads & Track Calls

2011-05-20T10:37:00.000-04:00

This new product is the first voice-marketing automation platform specifically tailored to members of the National Association of REALTORS® – it is called Ifbyphone®.

Ifbyphone®, a voice-based marketing automation platform, announced on Monday, the launch of its newest product, Ifbyphone® for REALTORS®.

Why is Ibyphone?

Ifbyphone frees agents and brokers from deskwork by automating voice-based marketing. According to their press release:

“Agents can then use Ifbyphone® for REALTORS® to connect with hot leads faster, optimize marketing spend, and most importantly, close more deals. The product was created in collaboration with NAR and offered through NAR’s REALTOR Benefits® Program.”

Ifbyphone® for REALTORS® is delivered as a suite of software-as-a-service voice applications that includes:

Call tracking
Dynamic inbound call forwarding
Outbound call automation
Virtual call center solutions

All are easily set up by the broker or agent, freeing up more time with clients and prospects.

“Using Ifbyphone® for REALTORS®, agents can focus on clients and prospects while Ifbyphone is handling the forwarding and tracking of leads,” said Irv Shapiro, CEO and founder of Ifbyphone®. “Real estate agents can spend the majority of their time in the field, responding to those leads, managing customer relations and working toward more sales, while maintaining a nimble virtual office with Ifbyphone®,” he added.

One of Ifbyphone’s powerful marketing tools, SourceTrak™ call tracking, provides agents and brokers access to comprehensive, real-time call reports. The automatically generated reports reveal exactly where marketing efforts are most effective. By tracking lists of unique phone numbers across online media, lawn signs, and print ads, Ifbyphone® records exactly where leads are originating. Agents and brokerages can then use the reports to more efficiently allocate marketing dollars.

Ifbyphone also turns “clickers into callers” by instantaneously calling the listing agent when a prospect submits a Web form. This “call form” then “whispers” to the agent the listing information and where the prospect saw the ad. If the agent is part of a listing team, Ifbyphone can dial each team member in sequence or all at once.

Other exclusive features of Ifbyphone® for REALTORS® include:

Forward calls to an individual agent or to an agent team
Leave client- or listing-specific memos, then review from anywhere
Qualify callers through voice response so the appropriate agent connects with the with the right person
Manage “floor time” remotely and free agents from the office by using an “on call” application with smart forwarding capabilities
Leverage lead measurement and reporting through Ifbyphone’s industry-leading SourceTrak™

The announcement of the new product comes four months after the National Association of REALTORS® invested in Ifbyphone through its strategic investment fund, Second Century Ventures. As part of the arrangement, the National Association of REALTORS® sought to collaborate with Ifbyphone® to develop solutions that enhance voice interactions for its 1.1 million members.

To learn more about Ifbyphone® for REALTORS®, visit the Ifbyphone® website or contact Ifbyphone® directly at (877) 295-5100.

What do you think? Is this a technology that you will use? I’d love your feedback, leave me a comment below!

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
www.phantompower.co

Source: Katie Lance, Social Media Director, Inman News

RIP Cold CallingSurvived by Social Networking

2011-05-14T12:06:00.000-04:00

Cold calling has been served notice, a new era beckons and with it an altogether different way of working. Social networking has arrived and will soon replace cold calling as the predominant method of prospecting in business.

I know many people will think that there is no replacement for activity, specifically picking up the phone. Yet, no matter how intelligent you are about cold calling, it is what it is – speculative, scatter gun selling, not to mention costly and increasingly ineffective.

Consider the following data I found online...

In a test which spent an equal amount of time cold calling and using social media (9 AM - 5:30 PM; M - F).

Cold Calling Results

Outbound calls made 325
Meaningful conversations (pitches) and brand touches 80
Meetings made 4
Sales made (as a direct result of cold calling) 0

These are average conversion ratios for time spent but it comes with much overhead.

Social Media Results

Inbound calls generated 8
Meetings as result of inbound calls 3
Sales as a result of inbound calls 2
Brand touches (from site statistics unique views of content) 422
Visitors to sales associate's blog Subscribers (RSS) to sales associate's content 27
People following sales associate's Twitter 12
New contacts 71 (on LinkedIn, Facebook, WeCanDo.BIZ, etc)
Listeners to sales associate's Podcast 83
Opportunities to sell found 21
Online conversations had 39
Warm call list (names generated expecting a call) 11

The cost of the social networking blitz to find new business opportunities, other than time and internet connection are small, if anything at all. Most importantly 2 sales were closed, covering any cost associated with the activity and generating a very healthy return.

The central question, however, is do modern-day sales people have the level of skill required to conduct a social media campaign individually? The simple answer is no. Not all salespeople will have the necessary skills, but having a skills gap is nothing new on the sales floor otherwise we wouldn’t have the multi-million pound training industry!

Can the skills be taught quickly and cost effectively? Yes. I have always taught people that sales is a process: follow steps one through five to achieve your aims. Social media networking can be processed as well, giving salespeople clear guidelines on the ‘how to’ and ‘how not to’. We spend millions every year teaching salespeople to cold call better, use the latest CRM (customer relationship management) system, be better team players and so on; and so it must come to pass that companies will need to train all staff to be ‘social media savvy’ as it extends far beyond just sales – marketing and service need to be in on the picture as well.

Naysayers?... Agreed, updating your Facebook page with pictures of the weekend, playing silly games, nudging or poking other people is not the best use of your company’s time. But creating engaging, thought-provoking, discussion-opening content, centred around your products or services is.

Social media networking will reduce dependence on cold calling. I am not saying it will eradicate the need for the telephone – that perhaps is to bold an idea. But I am certain it will become the first step in prospecting for new business.

What kind of results are you seeing when you pin Cold Calling vs. Social Networking?

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
www.phantompower.co

Become A RAINMAKER!

2011-04-11T13:18:00.000-04:00

Here is a FUN exercise that I have found successful in getting new business.

There are FOUR graduating steps that are part of every sale:

Get a lead, referral or introduction to a decision maker
Get an appointment with a decision maker
Complete a CNA with a decision maker
Get a comitment to a close or to an action that leads to a close (proposal/estimate)

Assign one point to Step 1, two to Step 2 and so on...

Work toward getting TWENTY POINTS a week in ANY combination.

On the top of your daily to-do list put GET 4 POINTS... don't wait until Friday to try and get 20.

If you tally 4 POINTS PER DAY you will never run out of prospects, your pipeline will always be full and you will become a RAINMAKER!

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/

Why Is It Important to Evaluate Your Competition?

2011-04-05T13:26:00.001-04:00

As simple as it sounds, competition is the key to short-term success, while innovation is the key to long-term success.

To succeed in today's marketplace, you must differentiate from the status quo by offering products or services that are more innovative or competitive in terms of quality, image or price.

It is important to seek information about your competitors and use to innovate. By doing so you will be able to:

Evaluate your own performance against others
Identify and exploit competitors weaknesses
Address competitor strengths
Get new ideas
Identify new prospects
Improve sales forecasting
Stay strategic

There are also other benefits, which are arguably more important, but difficult to measure.

Competitor intelligence helps you to:

Reduce complacency and improve discipline within your own business
Foster an acceptance of continuous change
Respect that other suppliers have satisfied customers and reasons for it
Create a recognition that the business must continually seek to improve

Here are some key questions you may want to begin with when analyzing your competition:

Who are your competitors? There’s a little more to this question than meets the eye. You may find that you compete with different suppliers in the different product/service areas or markets in which you operate.

What do they offer? Find out what makes up their entire product range or service portfolio. Of course you are more interested in the products and services that you compete with, but remember that they are making decisions about resource allocations to their entire portfolio.

What is their pricing policy? Customers will usually consider carefully the price of your products or services in relation to your competitors. It isn’t always good to have a lower price. For example, if your price is lower, is your quality or are your costs also lower? If the price of your products and services is higher than other suppliers, are you providing additional customer benefits? Do customers recognize and value these benefits?

Who are their customers? Consider the different types of customer groups that your competitors are supplying.

How do they promote themselves? How are they attracting new customers? How active is their marketing activity? What does their marketing mix consist of?

How financially secure are they? Company accounts can provide much useful information, and enable you to make direct comparisons.

What are their strengths and weaknesses? You have potentially collected a lot of information about your competitors. Listing their strengths and weaknesses is a good way to summarize this information in a meaningful and usable form. Perform a SWOT analysis on yourself and your competitors. See: How to Conduct a SWOT Analysis

What is their business strategy? If you understand your competitors, you will be able to predict what decision they are likely to make in a given set of circumstances. This insight is extremely valuable to you.

From all the information you have obtained, you can build a picture of the key characteristics of your main competitors that will enable you to make intelligent deductions about their overall business strategy. From their you can enhance your own offerings that are more innovative or competitive in terms of quality, image or price ultimately gaining marketshare.

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design

www.phantompower.co

Are You A Band Or Are You A Brand?Get Over Your Fear of Selling Out & Start Marketing

2011-04-02T17:18:00.002-04:00

Like any other profitable endeavor, music is a business. And as a musician, it's important to understand the basics of musician marketing if you want to be successful in this highly competitive industry. Start by developing a branded image, one that immediately tells your fans who you are and what you do. The following lays out the details on how you can develop a branded image that will help you take your music to the next level.

Importance of a branded image

In business, a branded image is your logo, tagline, colors, fonts/typesets and other attributes that visually represent one's company. In music, the same is true: Every band should develop at least a band logo to instantly gain recognition and set a mood for your audience. The more your audience sees your branded image, the more likely you are to gain credibility and earn fans... paying fans.

A branded image establishes you as a legitimate musician and makes it easier for your fans - or "customers" - to identify with you, and it presents upsell opportunities such as apparel, hats and other merchandise. Without a branded image, all you have is a name. With a branded image, you have a unique style that sets you apart from all other musicians.

How to identify your branded image

To identify your branded image, think about what genre of music you represent. Consider your fans, their likes and dislikes, their passions, and what they respond to. Research competitors to see what how they represent themselves - your most successful competition can lend great insight, indeed. Identify how you are different from your competition.

Next, list the results of all your research: Write down everything you know about who you are in a few words and phrases. Now, consider your own passions - what unique aspects you bring to the music world - and jot those down as well. Put everything together and come up with a preliminary tagline to describe yourself as a musician.

Finally, take your musician definition and consider creative ways to represent that in a word or two. Synonyms and rhyming dictionaries, historical texts, and other resources might be extremely beneficial. Come up with three potential concepts and choose the best - the one that resonates with you - as the name for your band or as a tagline for yourself as a solo artist.

Branding through design

Skilled graphic design can transform your musician's branded identity from a written concept to a visual motivator. This image is what the world will see, and the public will perceive the ideals and emotions that your image expresses.

Your logo doesn't have to be complicated - a simple text style or a few shapes will do. Consider Metallica's first logo (with the lightning bolt "M" and "A") or the Stone Temple Pilots' "STP" logos - they're both simple brand images for exceedingly popular bands. Though simple, when you see these logos you instantly know who they represent, what style of music they play, and whether you're a fan. When you achieve this, you've developed a powerful musician brand identity.

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
www.phantompower.co

Online Audience Development for Content Owners

2011-03-30T13:30:00.001-04:00

It is true when they say content is king. But "relevant" content is key to success. All publishers need to make sure they have the right content for the right people in their audience.

How is the online content consumed?

A pull strategy (bringing people to your online content) requires SEO/SEM or display advertising to acquire the audience. This can be expensive.

A push strategy (delivering content to the people) is likely going to be key in getting cost-effective results and ROI. The best way to do this is delivering relevant content in a timely manner via email. In this case content is targeted to individuals based on their preferences and behavior.

Here are some more on some /pull techniques:

Search engine optimization and search engine marketing Seems obvious, but how many publishers do this? If you publish media in a given space, the huge number of topics that your publication or Web site covers makes SEO/SEM a totally different challenge.
Co-registration This is easier said than done for publishers that sell advertising, but basically the idea is that anytime someone signs up for an e-newsletter subscription on another Web site that's topically related to your Web site, you negotiate a relationship whereby your newsletter subscription is offered as another checkbox on that other Web site's e-newsletter sign-up form. Not surprisingly, Marketing Sherpa uses this tactic on a lot of marketing vendor sites. One advantage: They have a paid content model, so there's no conflict of interest. I'd like to see an example of an ad-supported publisher doing this with suppliers in their space.
Landing page optimization I know most publishers aren't using this technique. The idea is that the very design and layout of the sign-up page (for our purposes, called the landing page, the place where the moment of truth occurs, when readers decide whether or not to opt in to your site, newsletter, magazine, advertiser white paper, etc.) greatly influences the number of readers who "convert" or complete the form. By testing different versions of the page, you can increase conversion by up to several hundred percent.
Tracking/Analytics This is the adroit use of Web analytics programs to give you feedback on metrics that are meaningful to publishers. How many people subscribed to which e-newsletter products, and which were the most effective sources of traffic, both internally and externally? If you're doing paid search, which keyword groups yielded the best ROI? Which should be scrapped? Anyone doing paid search without tying it to some ROI metric is throwing their money down the drain.

Do you have a system for determining the relevancy of your content?

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/

What Time of Day Are You Most Creative?

2011-03-21T12:18:00.002-04:00

One of the first lessons I learned in college was to learn what times of day you are personally most productive. It takes some time and discipline, to monitor one's own efficiency, but in the end, I do not believe there is ONE time of day that is best for everyone, I believe it is up to YOU to decide.

Unfortunately, professionally speaking, we often don't have the luxury to CHOOSE what time of day we want to brainstorm. As a marketer, I find "mind mapping" an extremely effective exercise to spark creativity.

Mind Mapping is a technique used to enhance thinking processes. Whether while taking notes during class, brainstorming a process or creatively collaborating on a project, it allows the user to record raw facts and pieces of information that fit together but that might not be noticed otherwise.

Starting a Mind Map is easy. Simply write the name of the subject you are interested in the center of a blank piece of paper and draw a circle around it. All further levels will work from this starting point.
Important facts or questions make up the second level. These are connected directly to the center point. For example, if using “Tell a Story” as the central idea, the second level could be the standard “Who, What , Where, When, How” questions.
Delve deeper for more information. From this second level, all additional levels are connected. For example, under the “Who” heading, there could be sub-levels of “Who are the characters” and “Who is the audience.” Additional levels and ideas are placed on the Mind Map making sure they connect somewhere to the diagram. Using colors coded to the levels you are working on can also assist with the visual information. If one part of your map connects to another, link them.

To get more information on Mind Mapping, there is a video on YouTube of Tony Buzan explaining the concept.

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/

Twitter... Are You Missing The Boat?

2011-03-17T14:12:00.000-04:00

If you tuned into The Apprentice Sunday, March 8, you would have watched the "boys and girls" come up with a new slogan for Zappos. The CEO of www.zappos.com was the judge and selected the "gals" proposal.

What stunned me, while watching the show, I happened to Tweet @zappos, and got a reply within 3 minutes. What I didn't realize at the time, that it was the CEO Tony Hsieh, sending me a message.

Whats remarkable, here is a CEO of a $1B company, watching with the rest of us, probably his biggest marketing exposure (and expense) on national TV and he is on Twitter, tweeting to anyone that sends a message.

How many CEO's of $1B companies do you know, that even know what a Tweet is, actually use it and are using it to their corporate advantage?

So are you missing the boat?

I became a fan of The Apprentice early on in the series. As a marketer I found it interesting to see so many promising young professional spread their marketing wings at the many tasks surrounding such high-end brands.

I saw the Zappos.com Celebrity Apprentice episode. I am struggling as a fan of the show with the Celebrity episodes as these individuals are not marketers and it is so painful to watch them fumble through fundamental marketing challenges.

I’ve seen Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com, featured many times before and find his business plan completely refreshing. It is no doubt that his emphasis on customer service and corporate culture is responsible for his huge success as a brand and, ultimately, their sales growth of 1.6M in 2000 to over $1 billion in 2008. I did find, however, that the show was either edited poorly or the part he played in the “RFP” process was below par. He did not discuss the target consumer at all, rather, broad stroking it; and, although he did mention customer service, I do not feel he placed appropriate emphasis on this core competency given its direct relationship to their success. (Note: I am a loyal Zappos consumer because of their customer service.)

Many companies are looking for guidance with branding on Twitter. To begin with, they need to know how to use Twitter, what it’s all about, who should handle Twitter (marketing sales, PR,) who to follow, etc.

Then to the question: Should the CEO or business owner also have a Twitter profile? This is a great question and one that takes some time and thought. Good social media consultants will tell you that social media marketing requires a strategy – and it’s not necessarily the type of “boiler plate” marketing strategy companies may be used to.

This key question – should the CEO (and other key management) have a Twitter profile to be part of the social media strategy?

Tony Hsieh is a highly visible CEO on Twitter right now (his profile is Zappos.com CEO.) This strategy blends the brand. This is definitely a trend we’ll be seeing more of. Tony even posted a Beginner’s Guide that can be helpful to business owners and entrepreneurs:

http://twitter.zappos.com/start

It is important to know that while good personal branding involves self-promotion, there’s more to it. The social media world is all about “Give to Get” and engaging in two-way conversations. The value comes from not what you are doing; rather it comes from what you are thinking and sharing. It is about conversations and building relationships; not hard sell marketing, broadcasting or ego-driven tweets.

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/

What is The Social Funnel?...

2011-02-12T10:50:00.006-05:00

And Why You Need to Build One.

Social media channels increasing the venues of choice for consumers to collect information and connect with brands, presents a strategic opportunity for companies to create a “Social Funnel” above the traditional marketing and sales funnel – where consumers take the lead in finding information and content that ultimately drives brand preference and sales.

In Winning the Consumer Decision Journey, McKinsey & Company’s David Court shares that, in the new social and digital age, “the path to purchase and loyalty is now complex, iterative, and dynamic.” In this new environment, creating a Social Funnel allows brands to identify and have access to buyers long before the buying process begins.

The Social Funnel Defined

The Social Funnel is a dynamic collection of consumer activity across social media channels, which sits on top of the traditional marketing and sales funnel. Developing a Social Funnel requires a systematic process of identifying and capturing consumer interactions across a variety of social media channels, aggregating this activity in a social customer relationship management (SCRM) infrastructure, and continually mining this insight to deliver relevant content to the right social profile at the right time. The chart below describes the Social Funnel and its tie to the traditional marketing and sales funnel:

To be effective, Social Funnels need to be tightly integrated with traditional customer relationship management (CRM) systems to create a 360-degree view of a prospect to allow marketers to nurture this relationship over time using a combination of social and traditional, experts agree that this integration holds a lot of potential. “Integrating social deeper into existing CRMs is going to be very popular in 2011 – we expect to see a growing number of brands tying customer records to public social profiles and bread crumbs”, says Nathaniel Perez, head of social experience at SapientNitro.

The integration of social media with the traditional funnel is one of the key priorities for brands in 2011. Although only 6% of companies today report that they fully integrate social with traditional marketing funnels

David Berkowitz, senior director of emerging media and innovation for digital marketing agency 360i, agrees but tempers things by saying that “we are still early in the process but tying social profiles to CRM systems will be big.”

We see a growing number of companies starting to tie social profiles to their CRM systems. As this process continues to evolve, we expect to see social media becoming more of a critical component throughout the entire customer lifecycle. Systems that support the integration of social with CRM will increase in adoption over the course of the next 12 to 18 months, giving organizations the ability to seamlessly combine data from multiple systems easily and efficiently.

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/

Source: MarketingSherpa Benchmark Report: 2011 Social Media Marketing

The Loyalists Shall Take You To The Promised Land

2011-02-01T13:42:00.000-05:00

Members pay an annual fee to belong to a retailer's loyalty program and they receive discounts on the retailer's most popular products, invitations to member-only events, and reward vouchers for reaching certain spending levels.

What other creative ways can this retailer reward its loyal customers?

Your customers are swimming in messages. And they’re being pursued by countless brands. How can you keep their attention, their time, and their dollar?

Gone are the days of a one-size-fits-all loyalty program. Building a creative campaign that your customers will respond to can only begin once you have a clear understanding of their buying motivations. By using real insights you can cultivate stronger relationships customers so your brand stands out. Ultimately your message motivates action… then your bottom line.

Depending on what inspires your customers craft programs which also meet your internal objectives along with actionable metrics for program refinement. More common loyalty program objectives include:

Stimulate sales and improve gross margins

Encourage purchase of new and better/best products
Establish competitive differentiation
Motivate employee performance
Boost retention of high-value customers
Build stronger long-term relationships
Drive key behaviors

To understand what your customers truly value, conduct focus groups, one-on-one interviews and quantitative research. From this, determine the core elements needed to create a lasting relationship with your customers.

The mandatory requirements for an effective loyalty program are – Creative Conceptualization, Feasible Program Development, Systematic and Time Bound Program Execution and Measurement.

Here are some proven loyalty concepts which can be customized to your customers buying motives:

Club Cards (pay for membership for regular discounts, points programs, reward vouchers)

Email Only Promotions
Premium Shipping Clubs (for ecommerce)
Subscriptions (asking customers to go steady and purchase product to be fulfilled at regular intervals)
Service Extensions
Recycling Programs
Loyalty Affiliates
Gift Reminder Service
Value Propositions (Not loyalty per se, but extremely successful in customer retainment; think Zappos.com and their exceptional customer service)

Marketers are racing to keep up with customer expectations for personalized services and wnhancements, and well-designed loyalty programs are a tremendous opportunity to communicate directly with enticing offers that will keep customers coming back.

"The dogs on Main Street howl
'cause they understand
If I could take one moment into my hands
Mister I ain't a boy, no I'm a man
And I believe in a promised land"

- Bruce Springsteen

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/

1 in 5 Smartphone Owners Are “Checking-In”What This Means for Real Estate

2011-01-22T10:18:00.003-05:00

Did you check-in today on Foursquare? How about Facebook Places? Gowalla?

For me, “checking in” is a part of pretty much my daily routine. I love seeing where my friends and colleagues are checking into, I love all the “badges” and gaming aspect of it, and of course I love the specials that may places are now (finally) offering for those of us who check-in.

Checking in is becoming more and more popular. The latest ComScore report, released a few days ago revealed that nearly 1 in 5 smartphone owners access check-in services via their mobile device.

I was pretty amazed by that statistic. I remember just a little over a year ago – January 2010, sitting backstage at Real Estate Connect NYC and hearing Dennis Crowley explain Foursquare. At the time I had heard of it, had even downloaded the app onto my phone, but really didn’t “get it.” Fast-forward 14 months later, and now I’m a bit “check-in obsessed!”

Here are a few interesting facts from the report:

70 percent of mobile users are “checking-in” from an Android or Apple phone
16.7 million U.S. mobile subscribers used location-based “check-in” services on their phones in March 2011, representing 7.1 percent of the entire mobile population. 1
2.7 million check-in users did so on a smartphone, representing 17.6 percent of the smartphone population.

“Although still in their relative infancy, location-based mobile check-in services are seeing rather impressive adoption among smartphone users,” said Mark Donovan, comScore senior vice president of mobile. “The ability to interact with consumers on this micro-local level through special offers, deals and other incentives provides brands with the real-time opportunity to engage consumers through their mobile device.”

So who exactly is checking in? I sadly do not fall into this demographic anymore , but according to the report, 18-34 year-olds account for nearly 60% of check-in service user.

So how exactly does this affect real estate? Well, we are starting to see brokerages adopting creative social media strategies, like the ‘Race for the Home’ event that Prudential Georgia Realty is doing. They are a real estate brokerage based in metro Atlanta, and have teamed up with property search site HomeFinder.com and mobile gaming platform SCVNGR to offer some 500 prospective homebuyers the chance to compete for a $15,000 down payment on a home purchase. We’ve also see The Corcoran Group embrace Foursquare and is now a major brand on Foursquare. Foursquare fits beautifully into Corcoran’s core brand ideas in that the process of searching for a home is just as much about what’s outside of the 4 walls than it is inside.

Beyond checking in – I think there is a greater lesson here: mobile check-in service users display strong propensity for mobile media usage.

According to the report, more than 95 percent of check-in service users used their mobile browser or applications. Nearly 62 percent accessed news. Check-in user behavior was also consistent with that of traditional early adopters, with 40.3 percent of users accessing tech news and 28.2 percent owning a media tablet, both significantly higher than average.

Still wondering where I am going with this? Here’s my point – if 1 in 5 people who have a smartphone are “checking in” around town AND 60% of 18-34 year olds are checking in – then that means a huge portion of your clientele (or perhaps your clientele’s adult children who are also potential clients) are using mobile devices when searching for property.

Contrary to popular belief, a mobile version of your site is not just a smaller version of your site on a tiny screen! A mobile optimized version of your site is a site that displays information accurately and in an easy to read format on a smartphone. If your website is not mobile optimized – you are missing a HUGE portion of your audience. Do you get clients who talk to you about listings they saw on Realtor.com, Zillow or Trulia instead of your site or your broker site? Why do you think that is? This could be a whole other blog post in and of itself – but a possible reason is all of those sites are mobile optimized AND they all have awesome apps that make searching for homes for sale super easy.

What is really exciting is that optimizing your site for mobile is probably easier than most people would think. There are tons of qualified web designers out there that can do this for you and/or create an app for your site. Not sure where to start? Ask your colleagues? Post a note on Facebook that you are looking for local recomendations.

Creating a real estate app with MLS data is also easier than you think. Boopsie and Smarter Agent are two excellent real estate choices I would recommend.

What do you think is the future of the check-in and location based marketing? Is your site mobile optimized or do you have an app your clients can use to search for homes? I would really like to have a discussion about this and get your thoughts – please leave me a comment below!

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
www.phantompower.co

Source: Katie Lance, Social Media Director, Inman News

Email Marketing Tips for Targeting Inactive Subscribers

2011-01-01T12:29:00.007-05:00

I've been managing an email marketing campaign for one of my clients for the past few years. The database grows slow and steady but it seems it is the same people consistently opening and interacting with the email content.

How can I get the others to participate?

Well, the first critical step is complete, I've identified those recipients of your email campaign who are inactive.

The point of identifying your inactive recipients is to treat them differently - not to delete them, ignore them or cry over their inactivity. Your goal after identifying and segmenting your "active" and "inactive" subscribers is to spend more productive time on actives and attempt to re-engage inactives.

Here are some things one can do to re-engage inactives:

Special Offers
If you are a retailer, for example, consider a special offer such as discounts or free shipping. If you are a B2B marketer you might offer a special white paper that will motivate the recipient to re-engage with your communications.
Survey Subscribers
While you are not likely to get a significant response, consider surveying these recipients to help provide insight into their inactivity.
Update Profile
Using incentives, drive subscribers to your profile update page where they can change email addresses, update format preferences, demographics and interests. This updated information may now enable you to send them targeted and relevant emails.
Understand Their Demographics/Profile
Perhaps a large percentage of your inactives share a common trait. Perhaps they opted in as part of registering for a white paper or seminar or promotional offer. Or perhaps a majority are women, while your content is oriented toward men.
Try Different Send Days/Times
If you always mail on the same day or time of day, try some different distribution times (what do you have to lose?).
Modify Frequency
Now that you've segmented your list by actives and inactives, consider adjusting the frequency of your sends. If you normally send twice per month, you may want to test sending three times to active subscribers, but only once to inactives.
Create Different Content
If your analysis has been able to uncover some common threads among inactives, consider packaging the content differently for this group. For example, a newsletter from a job search-oriented business might logically find many subscribers becoming inactive after completing their job search. For these recipients, the company might want to focus its newsletter content on managing people, careers and the hiring process. Uncovering this type of trend should lead to providing different newsletters or dynamic versions based on a person's profile or stated preferences.
Try Different Formats
Test using a text version, for example, that is very simple but with specific links and messaging intended to drive action.
Test Different Styles of Subject Lines
If you've used a particular style of subject line, try a different approach with the inactives. Creative subject lines could be one of your most effective strategies in getting recipients to re-engage.
Monitor Seed/Proof Lists
Send your messages to proof and seed lists for key domains. Monitor if content or images are causing your messages to be filtered or treated differently with specific ISPs and companies. If problems are detected, consider developing different versions of the messages that may not trip filters.
Send a Postcard
If you have your subscribers' mailing addresses, consider sending them a postcard that offers an incentive if they'll update their email preferences and profile.
Re-engaged to Active Status
After each email message sent to the inactives, change the demographic status of those recipients that clicked a link to "active." This helps keep your focus on converting the inactives and tracking your success in those efforts.

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Here is an extremely useful blog post from Seth Godin where he discusses the efficiencies and inefficiencies of two different email marketing campaign case studies.

What are you doing to re-engage inactives?

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
www.phantompower.co

Five Major Marketing Challenges Faced by Event Vendors and Ways to Cope

2010-11-27T16:03:00.001-05:00

Special guest post by Jeff Copeland, owner of Simple Weddings and Tampa Bay Search.

I’m a marketing guy, and I’m also a wedding vendor. Sometimes the two complement each other nicely. But the wedding industry is unique in many ways and, frankly, wedding vendors are sometimes better off ignoring traditional marketing and advertising advice aimed at other industries.

Here are five major challenges faced by businesses in the wedding industry and some ways to cope with them:

1. Marketing to a steady stream of new prospects instead of a “cycle” of repeat customers

The wedding industry is unique in that you only get one shot to market to your prospects. Generally speaking, couples only get married once. So, even if they are absolutely thrilled with the service you provided, they aren’t likely to be a repeat customer anytime soon. This fundamental difference from many other industries makes a lot of typical marketing advice null and void, and makes things like email marketing very difficult.

Ways to cope:

SEO – Increasingly, today’s brides and grooms aren’t picking up the yellow pages or watching many television commercials. They get their news and entertainment online, and if they need something, they Google (or Bing) it. You have to be there when they search! If you have not invested the time and effort in search engine optimization, you are missing more and more potential customers every day. [Check out my "What the Heck is SEO?" series and "How Google Instant Affects SEO and What It Means for Your Website" for more info]
Social Media – Granted, your wedding clients probably aren’t coming back. But their friends might! That is what makes social media platforms such as Facebook so powerful. If your happy clients “friend” you on Facebook, all of their friends and contacts are introduced to your Facebook profile. Some of them may be in the wedding market soon.
Reviews – When you shop for something on Amazon, what is the first thing you read about a product? I don’t know about you, but I always scroll down to the customer reviews section before anything else, and it’s often the only thing I read before making a purchase. Your prospects are hungry for feedback from people who have already used your service…feed them! Choose a single, reputable platform (such as Google Places, OneWed, or WeddingWire) to capture all of your customer reviews and make getting these reviews an integral part of your follow-up with clients after their wedding (we have had great success by offering a free gift such as a wedding picture). And most importantly, make these reviews prominent and easy for new prospects to find and read!
Diversify – Think of some ways you might be able to get your wedding clients to come back or use your skills and equipment for other related opportunities . Family portraits (for photographers), vow renewals, other special events?

2. The long buying cycle

Brides and grooms often have a very long lead time from the time they enter the market until their wedding date. What this means for you as a wedding vendor is brides may be checking out your website, blog, social media presence, and customer reviews a year or more before their wedding day, and possibly months before they even contact you.

Ways to cope:

Quality content – Give your prospects a reason to keep coming back! If a bride visits your website or blog, saves you to their favorites, then comes back a couple of months later only to find nothing has changed, she probably won’t come back a third time. It’s fine for your website content to be relatively static (as long as it is current and accurate), but you can always add pictures from recent weddings or stream your blog’s RSS feed to your website to keep things fresh.
Blog – Your blog, on the other hand, needs to have a steady stream of quality fresh content. You should be posting your favorite pictures from your recent weddings, planning tips, advice, and guest posts from industry professionals on a regular basis in order to give your prospects a reason to come back on a regular basis. Remember, if nothing else, time spent looking at your website or blog is time spent staring at your logo!
Pictures – I can’t stress enough how important it is to have high quality pictures on your website, blog, and social media presence. Brides love pictures. Let me repeat that – BRIDES LOVE PICTURES! And this is one area where the wedding industry has a leg up – If you’re not a wedding photographer, chances are you work with a few on a regular basis. Most would be thrilled to share some of their work with you for display on your website or blog as long as they are credited for the picture.

3. The seasonal nature of bookings, weddings, and cash flow

In most areas, January and February are the busiest time of year for wedding inquiries and new bookings (people tend to get engaged over the holidays and start their wedding planning after the first of the year). Unfortunately, the holidays and the beginning of the year also tend to be the slowest time of year for actual weddings – meaning your cash flow is probably at its lowest at the very time you need to be out there advertising to new brides!

Ways to cope:

While it’s sometimes easier said than done, try to save some money and plan your advertising spending for maximum impact. Often, this means spending as much as 50% of your annual advertising budget from January through March in order to lock in those Spring and Summer weddings.
Consider offering payment plans. Many wedding vendors take a deposit when the wedding is booked, then collect the remaining balance on or just before the wedding date. If a couple has six months or more between the time they book and their wedding date, consider letting them make interest free monthly payments in the months leading up to their wedding. This has the double benefit of spreading out your cash flow more equitably throughout the year, and decreasing the likelihood of cancellations.

4. The Economy, Stupid

Every wedding vendor knows that our industry closely follows national economic trends. Let’s face it, many wedding services are “optional” and aren’t absolutely necessary to ensure a beautiful wedding. When the economy goes south, so does wedding spending by brides and grooms-to-be.

Ways to cope:

Go where the money is - consider offering lower cost alternatives to your typical services or well-conceived discounts to brides on a budget or including more services in your current prices.
Partner – could you package your services with those of another vendor (or group of vendors) to offer a broader range of services and increase the perceived value to your prospects?

5. Low cost competition

Some segments of the wedding industry have low barriers to entry. Let’s face it, anyone with good organization skills can call themselves a wedding planner, and anyone who can afford a decent camera could conceivably take someone’s wedding pictures.

Ways to cope:

Educate your prospects and clients – many of your prospects would be shocked to find our how much your equipment cost or how much time you spend on pre- and post- wedding activities. Pull back the veil (no pun intended!) and give them an inside look at how you prepare their wedding venue or edit their wedding pictures [Note: Your blog is the perfect place to do this!]. If your prospects and clients really understand your art, they’ll value it accordingly.
Build your brand – Imagine you are looking at two rental cars. You have to choose one for your trip, but both are under a cover, and all you can see is the hood ornament. One says Mercedes. The other says Kia. Which one do you choose and why? Obviously, Mercedes is the stronger brand, and (all other things being equal) consumers will choose the trusted brand everytime. Your brand has value. I want to stress that this has nothing to do with your logo, and everything to do with your business model, marketing, copywriting, and reputation. This takes time to build, but it serves as insurance against upstart competition!
Find your target market – Once you truly understand your target market, the competition dwindles. This is called your unique selling position. Focus on doing one thing and doing it like no one else can. If you are truly unique, there is no competition, is there?

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
www.phantompower.co

15 Key Social Media Analytics Terms

2010-11-11T13:36:00.000-05:00

1. Social Reach

The total number of users associated with a brand on different social media platforms.

(For example, a company with 10,000 Twitter followers, 7,000 Facebook fans, 3,000 blog subscribers and 1,000 YouTube subscribers has a total Social Reach of 21,000)

2. Social Reach Velocity

A percentage representing a brand’s capacity to increase its social reach over time.

(For example, if a company’s social reach was 10,000 in January of 2011 and became 15,000 six months later, then it has 50% social reach velocity.)

3. Social Profile

The aggregated shares, comments, and overall brand-related activities of a social media user.

(Social profile examples include: Twitter followers, Facebook fans, RSS subscribers and so forth )

4. Social Conversion

The percentage of visitors originating from social media who take a desired action.

(Examples of desired actions include product sales, downloads, newsletter subscriptions, membership registrations and so forth.)

5. Social Mention

The overall mentions of your brand on social media in a positive/neutral/negative context over a specific period of time.

(SocialMention.com is an excellent tool that offers four important social mention metrics: strength, sentiment, passion and reach)

6. Brand Sentiment

The ratio of positive brand mentions to negative mentions.

7. Share of Voice

Brand share of voice = (total number of mentions of you + your competitors)/ your mentions.

8. Share of Social Conversations

Brand Share of Social Conversations= Social Brand Mentions/All Relevant Conversations

9. Social Media Impressions

The number of users’ reactions to your own content on social media, including retweeting, commenting, sharing and so forth.

10. Optimal Engagement Times

The best times to share content or engage with your network on social media.

(Studies have shown that many social media sites (such as Twitter and Facebook) have peak hours: the times when it’s most effective to share updates or interact with user )

11. Content-to-Contact Ratio

The ratio between a brand content and social network expansion.

(For example, if your content-to-contact ratio is 3:1, it means that for every 3 pieces of content you publish, a new user is added to your social network.)

12. Content-to-Share Ratio

The ratio between your brand content and social network sharing.

(For example, if your content-to-share ratio is 3:1, it means that for every 3 pieces of content you publish, one piece of content is shared on social media channels.)

13. Activity Ratio

The ratio of active members of your brand’s social network versus total members.

14. Bounce Rate

The time it takes site/blog visitors originating from social media to lose interest and leave your site.

15. Targeted Social Traffic

The percentage of social media traffic to your site/blog that results in sales compared to the overall social media traffic.

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
www.phantompower.co

NOTE: This glossary is not presented in alphabetical order because some terms are related to each other. So, I figured it’s best to order them in a way that will help you understand all of them without having to skim back and forth.

Achieving The Coveted:Viral Marketing

2010-10-11T12:40:00.000-04:00

Viral campaigns yield the highest ROI... Information about your product spreads naturally, like a contagious disease... only a good one...

I once read up on the 5 C’s of viral marketing:Community, Compelling, Comedy, Charity, and Contest

Let's talk Community...

We all know that viral marketing in the social media space is all about communities. In fact, I would argue that communities play a larger role than most people think, both online and offline. They can build a brand, kill a brand, make a career, break a career, influence elections, etc. Think about it; from an offline perspective, life is community driven through PTA organizations, church groups, sports leagues, stay-at-home mommy groups, and various school organizations (sororities, fraternities) to name a few. And of course online, you have Myspace, Facebook, Linkedin, Digg, Stumbledupon and hundreds of other social media sites jumping in the scene daily.

Within each of these online/offline communities consumers are talking and having conversations with each other. And, they are sharing opinions, experiences, advice, recommendations and commentary about products, services and companies usually based on real personal experience.

THIS IS VIRAL MARKETING.

The challenge with viral marketing is that it’s not always viral, if that makes any sense... Often, marketers plan for and label their marketing plans as “viral” but 9 times out of 10, it never catches on. It’s the things that just happen by accident that become viral. Remember the Diet Coke and Mentos video? At first, Coca-Cola distanced themselves from the exploding Diet Coke and Mentos viral video phenomenon, fearing it would damage their reputation and brand; however, just recently that have fully embraced the concept and now there are over 7,000 consumer generated videos on YouTube, millions of pageviews, hundreds of comments, and favored by thousands of fans. The community here is not only the millions of YouTube enthusiasts, but also the micro-communities of people and their offline conversations about these videos.

So, while I do believe it is impossible to craft a viral campaign, you can certainly try to influence one:

Formulate your marketing message. Think about the product or service you are advertising and create a message that communicates the benefits and uses of what you are selling. A website is nonnegotiable.
Make the content on your website sharable. For example, you can allow readers to embed a funny video from your website onto their own blogs. An "email this article to your friend" link is another way information spreads from one person to another.
Use email as a viral marketing tool. Include a marketing message about your product or service in the tag lines of your emails and also include your advertising message in auto responder emails you send to those who email you.
Post your content on other Internet sites such as message boards and blogs. However, do this carefully; many forum managers are now aware of this practice and may delete your messages if they think it's spam.
Incorporate your marketing message into rich media. Video clips and Flash games are very popular on the Internet, so if you have a great idea for this medium your message will spread like wildfire.
Spread your message off line as well. Tell your friends and colleagues about your product or service and hand them business cards with the URL on them along with a catchy tag line, perhaps the same one you use in your emails.

What are you doing to boost your buzz factor?

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
www.phantompower.co

Google Instant Search and its impact on SEO

2010-09-19T13:07:00.002-04:00

During Tuesday’s major search event in San Francisco Google announced a new search feature called Google Instant which will significantly change the way users search for information on Google Search.

Google Instant - Live updating search result page

This new interface updates as a user types in the search query. Not only will the regular search results update as a user types in letters in the search field, but elements from Universal Search (maps, news, shopping, etc) as well as AdWords ads will also update in real time. This results in a user seeing a much larger set of search results as the query is being typed in and refined. In addition, the query suggestions (Google Suggest) play a more central role in discovering possible queries and relevant websites.

Why Google Instant is cool?

Dynamic Results Google dynamically displays relevant search results as you type so you can quickly interact and click through to the web content you need.
Preditions One of the key technologies in Google Instant is that the rest of your query is predicted before you finish typing? See what you need? Stop typing, look down and find what you're looking for.
Scroll to Search Scroll through predictions and see results instantly for each as you arrow down.

To the Webmaster, Google Instant is cool because as users are shown a much larger set of search results, there is a higher chance of your pages being displayed in the SERPs. In addition, users can now more easily modify their search which results in more specific query that will drive more relevant traffic to your website (See my post on The Importance of Longtail Keywords). And relevant traffic means conversion!

Impact of Google Instant Search on SEO

In general this new feature won’t change the basic rules of SEO since Google’s algorithms will continue evaluating webpages in the same way as before. Webmasters should hence continue focusing on their content, traffic, and conversions.

What will change, however, is the way users will go about finding information, how they interact with search results as they learn to use more specific search queries, and how they review the results before making a choice.

CTR is the new ranking. The click-through rate for organic listings becomes more important than pure rankings since users will see many more search results in each session.
Creating relevant content which better targets specific queries will drive more traffic as users learn to perform better searches.
Experimenting with page titles and snippets and tracking the changes in CTR becomes even more important.
Universal Search listings (images, video thumbnails, maps, shopping, etc) will attract more clicks since dense graphic elements will draw more attention in a fast updating interface.
The traditional Golden Triangle theory regarding the users’ eye movements on search result pages is no longer true. Earlier you performed a search, sat back and studied the results and the ads before either clicking on a listing, or modifying your query. This will now be substantially different as the users’ eyes will wander up and down between the query field, listings, Universal Search entries, and AdWords ads. I’m looking forward to the first eye tracking study for the new search page.
Searches with short queries will fall considerably since people usually come to Google with a very specific goal in mind. The now interactive search result page allows users to dig deeper into a subject until they’ve found a reasonable set of search results which better fits their intent.

For those proclaiming the death of SEO, I would actually argue the opposite. This is definitely a game changer but it does not change the way serious SEOs have worked for a long period of time. That includes focusing on important Key Performance Indicator’s other than rankings. Instant Search is however a massive headache for those who still treat SEO as a magic formula and have been focusing on optimizing for mere nuances in Google’s search algorithm. They will continue wasting their time focusing on the petty details in the algorithms instead of working on improving the overall value of the sites they are promoting.

All in all, no matter what some people wrongly proclaim, SEO is certainly not dead - it just got more interesting.

How will you change your SEO strategy given Google Instant?

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/

Enourmous Benefits of Blogging

2010-08-22T13:10:00.000-04:00

I am already on record as pointing out that if you want to raise your visibility and get in touch with your audience, it’s a good idea to blog. It does take a little chunk of time out of your agenda, but it’s probably no more than you should spend on marketing, anyway. Also, I’ve seen many outstanding blogs….most notably by Guy Kawasaki… that are all photos and captions. But then Kawasaki goes to really interesting places like a battle ship or Red Square. And if he photographs something ordinary like a tech company office, you can rest assured it is no ordinary office but an incredibly creative, way out there, in a class of its own, office.

My point is, blogging can take as much or…almost… as little time as you want it to. And if you aren’t doing it yet, perhaps you should take a look at the following:

1) Blogs initiate dialog with web visitors

Blogs start a two-way traffic with web visitors. When you write about your products and services and write with authority, as though you are the master of your business and with in-depth knowledge about your products and services, you not only create awareness of the benefits and disadvantages about the product and service you deal in, you engage people’s attention. Your blog should also have a call to action, to make the readers of the blog interact with your website.

A call to action can mean asking them to leave comments, encouraging them to speak out. Comments left by the readers of blogs might include inquiries and leads that could lead to sales.

Blogs generate a prospective about your company. It silently speaks about the culture and vision of your company and even helps in building a brand image.

2) Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – Benefit of blogging

Blogs peppered with targeted keywords, keyword phrases and search terms related to your business puts blogs in plain sight whenever web visitors use related search terms. Instead of using long-tail keyword phrases, targeting niche keywords will help in attracting more qualified web traffic.

3) Blogs attract more links

Blog are meant to be informative and not advertisements. Informative quality, industry related articles that provide insight or a critical analysis of product and services you deal in helps you to get more links.

Links will get better search engine rankings for your website and will help in generating more traffic.

4) Fresh, original content for blogs

Fresh and original web content is the feed for search engine spiders. Websites that are updated frequently get crawled by the search engine spiders more often. Your website gets more authority and better search engine ranking.

By now, you should have enough reasons to be seriously considering blogging. For your interest and for the interest of getting more visitors to your website, blogging is the way to go. You can get started now by viewing the following tutorial videos:

How to Create a Blog on Blogger

How to Create a Blog on Wordpress

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/

And In This Corner...

2010-08-21T12:16:00.002-04:00

What research is available to demonstrate the superiority of online market research versus traditional -- in terms of "soundness" and validity -- and and vice versa?

In my experience I do find that online marketing methods are more efficient than traditional marketing in terms of "soundness," "validity," and most importantly, measurability and ROI, however, I feel an integrated, 360-degree approach is really key to the marketing mix.

Here are some great statistics on the effectiveness of online marketing but it also speaks to integration as a winning approach:

http://www.clickz.com/3626795

I agree with (name ommitted) who asks whether online is really considered nontraditional at this point. However, given the current economic climate, I find online marketing the more efficient of the two.

Unfortunately, the traditional marketing and advertising sectors are bearing the brunt of the current economic conditions budget cuts. Emarketer reports that 59% of marketing executives initiated a decrease in spending on traditional marketing in 2008 and 65% decreased budgets for traditional advertising. Additionally, the Newspaper Advertising Association of America reports that total newspaper advertising revenues fell by $3-billion in the first six months of 2008, marking the lowest level in 12 years.

In stark comparison to the struggling traditional marketing sectors, online marketing firms have been steadily building market share for several years and are surprisingly unaffected by the current failing markets. Displaying a clear strength in a clearly chaotic business environment, both paid search and online advertising revenue have grown by over 28% since 2007. Marketing Sherpa reports that nearly half of medium to large businesses plan to increase their Search Engine Optimization (SEO) spending in the upcoming year.

I find online marketing benefits outweigh those of more traditional methods in that online offers...

Quantifiable Results. Businesses who advertise online or use SEO can track and measure precisely how their company was discovered, the keywords used in a Google search, click through rates on advertisements, and direct sales results based on internet ads or searches. With this specific knowledge, tailoring campaigns to a particular market becomes easier and ROI can be easily monitored.
Flexible Messaging. With traditional marketing and advertising methods, there are no second chances at making an impression or communicating a message effectively. Once an ad is placed and printed it is essentially permanent. Online marketing is a much more forgiving and flexible option. If it is shown that internet ads are not getting enough attention, companies can quickly and easily make strategic adjustments and reap the rewards.
A Focused Approach. Using internet marketing, a company can hone in on specific customers that are searching for a particular product or service. Rather than convincing a customer to try their product, internet marketing works to position a company as a resource for those consumers actually seeking their specific business offerings.
Cost Effectiveness. SEO and internet advertising is quite cost effective in comparison with traditional marketing and advertising.

Now more than ever it is important to think strategically about where and how a marketing budget is spent. With online marketing options showing marketers greater value, flexibility, and insight into the changing trends of the market, we can expect to see more companies advertising online to help their firm weather succeed in the future.

What is the most important variable in your marketing mix?

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
www.phantompower.co

What are your top 3 favorite social networks?

2010-07-02T13:34:00.000-04:00

"A cord of three strands is not easily broken."

That's applicable where social networking is concerned as well. It's a matter of strengthening your social graph. Being networked with a given individual in three different places makes for a strong connection.

More and more business professionals are using social networks to build relationships, meet new contacts, and market themselves. For the uninitiated, however, diving into the virtual meet-and-greet can be daunting. Where to begin?

For first-time users, the answer is LinkedIn. LinkedIn is your business suit. Developed specifically for business, the site doesn’t run the risk of blurring your professional life with your private one; and with more than 25 million users, it serves virtually every industry and profession.

While LinkedIn is not very conversational in its orientation, having a profile there has become expected. LinkedIn lends a degree of professional credibility. It is also the site that requires the least amount of upkeep.

Facebook

Now Facebook... that's business casual. Facebook allows more of a 360-degree view of you, combining both professional and personal sides. Plus, it's a more conversational platform.

Twitter

Twitter is cocktail hour. Think of after hours social networking events and you've got Twitter. It's the most informal of the three and allows for the greatest degree of conversation.

It's not enough that you have a presence on each of these sites, but that you leverage your presence to connect with others who are also present on each. Social media is about being "social." Each platform offers its own distinctive advantages, but it takes all three to build the strongest connection. Plus, it gives you ubiquity. You're everywhere!

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/

The Importance of Long-Tail Keywords

2010-06-02T13:12:00.003-04:00

Those of you who have tried in vain for years to rank high for your head keyword of choice know what I am talking about. To those of you who are newly introduced to this wondrous world of SEO, I’ll say this: roll up your sleeves and prepare to wait. Or you can do the smart thing and just target long-tail keywords. You won’t have to deal with all that fierce competition for popular head keywords, and you will be a few steps closer to getting your site rank high.

It comes with one warning: the traffic volumes will be considerably lower than that from a head keyword. But then, the probability of your ranking high for a head keyword is less than unlikely, so the traffic from that keyword will amount to, basically, nothing.

It’s a quantity vs. quality argument. And when you do the math, you will find, the long-tailed keyword is the bird in the hand.

Last month, Google introduced an algorithm update and many webmasters saw a drop in traffic from Google for keyword phrases that are three or more keywords long. However, Google is now able to index longer keyword phrases more accurately. It seems that Google guessed the best pages for long keyword phrases until recently based on other signals and keywords on the indexed pages. The new Google patent indicates that Google now has the computing power to index longer keyword phrases on web pages instead of guessing them.

What does this mean to you? It means that those who have taken the time to anticipate the need of their customers and Google’s customers will be rewarded.

Still not convinced? Consider this:

Ease When you try to rank for a head keyword, you essentially go into competition with millions of websites. And the odds of your ranking high for that term are very low. For example, if you try to rank for the head keyword “online learning” you’ll have to beat at least 36 million other sites to rank high. Instead, if you use a long-tail with niche terms relevant to your site, like, “online learning in South Carolina” the competition drastically drops to under three hundred thousand. And your odds of ranking high will improve too.
Speed Thanks to the diminished competition, you don’t have to spend nearly half your life optimizing your site and building links before you can see your site ranking high for long-tail keywords.
Relevance Since long-tail keywords are more often than not, specific strings of keywords with a niche term; the chances of then meeting the exact search needs of users are very high. This aids the target marketing methods of your overall mix and ultimately drives…
Conversion The fact that search users will find sites targeting long-tail keywords more relevant contribute another point to chalk up in its favor. Reports attest to the fact that users with specific search queries know exactly what they are looking for and are more likely to turn into customers.
Exposure This is perhaps the least known advantage of targeting long-tail keywords. Using long tail keywords over a period of time will eventually help you rank higher for your head keywords as well. As your site gains authority and builds its trust quotient, the long-tail keywords will help provide enough targeted traffic and also enough ‘exposure’ to your head keywords that your attempt to target them alone won’t prove to be all that disastrous.

A great thing about targeting long-tail keywords is that you can play around with all the niche terms relevant to your site and try and rank for a series of long-tails. You don’t always have to target “online learning in South Carolina,” “online high school in South Carolina” can help send an entirely different set people swinging to your site. However, targeting keywords on your site alone won’t help you achieve all this, and I doubt if I have to reiterate the importance of building credible links with the right anchor test. Try to have your targeted keywords in as many incoming links (internal as well as external) as possible, combined with your on page optimization efforts, it will do wonders for your ranking.

What are some of your long-tail keyword success stories?

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/

Creating Word-of-Mouse

2010-05-24T10:44:00.000-04:00

Let's get one thing straight... NOTHING is guaranteed to go VIRAL.

There are people who will tell you that it is possible to create a viral campaign that will certainly be a hit, and there are agencies specializing in taking money and making promises.

But I’ve noticed that when organizations (and their agencies) set out to go viral, the vast majority of their campaigns fail. It is virtually impossible to create a Web marketing program that is guaranteed to go viral; it requires a huge amount of luck and timing. That’s an important point to remember as you work on viral marketing ideas, because it’s unlike the old-rules, numbers-based marketing techniques you’re probably used to. Consider a direct mail campaign: You could always count on a direct mail piece to generate a known number of responses, say 2 percent. So if you needed to have 100 people respond, you sent out 5,000 mailers. Easy, right?

Viral marketing is much different. You just can’t count on numbers in the same way. Many efforts fail miserably, and there are countless Web sites, e-books, and videos that only their creators’ mothers and bosses have seen. However, tomorrow those same marketers might get lucky and get a million people to view their content, driving tens of thousands of people’s interest in their products and services.

View PHANTOM POWER's list of

marketing strategies that tend to yield viral success

However, this importance of timing and luck shouldn’t discourage you from using viral marketing techniques; you just need to learn how to turn the odds in your favor.

Have you achieved viral status with one of your campaigns? Tell us about it!

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/

Adapt or Perish: The New Dynamics of Digital Marketing

2010-04-22T15:16:00.000-04:00

What do you do when your digital partners passionately complain that people "just don't get the new reality"—and your other agency partners assure you that the traditional notions of branding and marketing haven't really changed? You listen.

The gloom-and-doom digital prophets who foretold that the world would be unrecognizable in 10 years turned out to be premature to an extent that we still haven't sorted out. But they had a few points, didn't they? Does anyone now disagree that digital is one of the most critical components of the marketing mix?

And considering the permanently distracted nature of many of today's consumers, doesn't it stand to reason that now, more than ever, a brand needs to have a singular, well-articulated idea of what it stands for, across all media? Isn't that what branding experts have been telling us for decades anyway?

Respecting traditional branding ideas in the face of an increasingly interactive marketplace may best be described as "Tradigital." It's a very real and very practical approach to managing your brand communications and getting the most out of your team and your agency partners when building digital properties. Frankly, it strikes me as the only logical adaptation to an environment where the consumer is demanding more and more interaction with, and control over, your brand—especially the type of control you should by no means simply hand over.

Here are four ways you can make traditional and digital values work within your own organization.
1. Tell the truth

If digital isn't your strength, that's OK. You've employed an agency for that reason. But in the long run you'll want to take a hard look within your organization. Is your commitment to digital obvious by how you staff? Are you identifying and deploying appropriate project leads? Be honest about your capabilities and intentions. This isn't a place where you want to fake it.

2. Share

Make sure all your partners are sharing information, ideas, and expertise. If your digital team isn't included in the process of understanding and defining the market and your brand within it, it will be relegated to a strictly tactical role—a pair of hands creating digital content that may be disconnected from the big idea.

Keep in mind that agencies may not always prefer to play nicely together (even when they say they will). It's not uncommon for agencies to promise "full service" to their clients to keep profit in house. But all involved must understand that the needs of the brand come first.

If you like a little healthy competition between agencies, which may be OK. But don't expect them to work out the hierarchy on their own. You'll need to make the decisions and let them know how you expect them to work together to best serve your digital needs.

3. Question analytics

At this point, everyone knows they're supposed to be measuring something. It's just not always clear what that "something" is. Become familiar with what the industry values. Identify your key performance indicators. As a colleague once told me, effective analysis is a "hardcore skill set."

This is a function you may want a specialist for, or someone willing to become one. Ultimately, though, you'll want to appreciate that not everything meaningful can be measured, and not everything measured is meaningful.

4. Be tech-agnostic

Challenge yourself and your agency to understand the limitations and the capabilities of several digital platforms. Assign a competent technical director who has a working understanding of the latest technologies and trends.

It's all too common for developers to get comfortable with one platform, either because they've invested in the licensing of it or because they have simply gotten complacent about evolving. Relying on only one platform will substantially limit your digital potential.

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/

Marketers Rank B:B Challenges

2010-03-19T10:31:00.001-04:00

What are the greatest challenges that B:B marketers are facing? From generating high-quality leads and a high volume of leads to generating public relations buzz, see which challenges topped the list.

Today's Most Significant Challenges for B:B Marketers to Overcome

The call from the sales force is not "Give us more leads" – it’s "Give us better leads." As you can see in the chart, marketing teams are aware of this issue and are responding to the challenge.

Depending on your lead generation process, lead quality may be the result of either the original state of the lead or of a nurturing process to determine if and when the lead is sales-ready. The latter case – a nurturing process – also addresses the second most significant challenge shown in the chart above: marketing to a lengthening sales cycle.

A strategic nurturing process not only identifies when a lead is sales-ready, but can pinpoint at which stage of the buying cycle the prospect is in, to forecast timely opportunities.

When the quality of a lead is dependent on its original state, it usually means that all but the most obviously disqualified leads are handed off to the sales force as they are generated. Surprisingly, this practice is still very common in B:B marketing.

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/

Marketing by Design

7 Unwritten Rules Of Social Media

5 Simple Rules for Digital Marketers

*Branded* Content is King

How to Raise Your Hourly Rates

When Not to Raise Your Rates

When to Raise Your RatesHere are some cases where raising your rates may be a wise choice:

Common Mistakes to AvoidHere are some common mistakes people make when raising their rates:

How to Raise Your RatesHere's some advice to help you get your hourly rate trending upward:

Be Patient

How to Monetize Social Media

THIRD THURSDAY

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What are your top 3 favorite social networks?

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Adapt or Perish: The New Dynamics of Digital Marketing

Marketers Rank B:B Challenges

Branded Content is King

When to Raise Your Rates
Here are some cases where raising your rates may be a wise choice:

Common Mistakes to Avoid
Here are some common mistakes people make when raising their rates:

How to Raise Your Rates
Here's some advice to help you get your hourly rate trending upward: