Sunday, February 24, 2013
Guerrilla Marketing
In their book Guerrilla Marketing Field Guide,
the founder of guerrilla marketing, Jay Conrad Levinson, and his wife
and business partner, Jeannie Levinson, offer a step-by-step guide to
launching a marketing attack that's primed for success. In this edited
excerpt, the authors reveal the seven simple things you need to include
to make your marketing strategy a success.
Marketing has changed dramatically since the first print ad was published. That ad was probably run in a local newspaper. More than likely, a farmer told the publisher he had an extra cow and wanted to sell it. The publisher said, “Hey! I’ve got a good idea. Let me mention that cow for sale next time I publish my paper.” The copy probably read: “Cow for sale. $50. Contact Farmer Tom.” The ad was run, the cow was sold, and marketing started.
It’s not quite so simple these days. But two things remain
the same. The first is that you need a good idea of what you're selling
and why and who would be interested in buying.
You also need a marketing strategy. Farmer Tom’s strategy was very simple: Sell one cow by having potential buyers come see him -- and the cow. The benefit offered was a healthy cow at a fair price. The secondary benefit was that a local person was doing the selling. The target audience was other farmers in the community. The marketing weapon used was one ad in one newspaper. The niche the farmer occupied was that of a local farmer with an honest offer. The identity of the advertiser was straightforward and no-nonsense. And his marketing budget was most likely zero. Armed with that strategy, Farmer Tom sold his cow.
Related: The Five Broad Strokes of Marketing
Today, our world is much more complex than Farmer Tom’s, so it may seem like you need a complex marketing strategy. But in reality, your strategy doesn't have to be complex. In fact, such a strategy needs only seven simple sentences:
Marketing has changed dramatically since the first print ad was published. That ad was probably run in a local newspaper. More than likely, a farmer told the publisher he had an extra cow and wanted to sell it. The publisher said, “Hey! I’ve got a good idea. Let me mention that cow for sale next time I publish my paper.” The copy probably read: “Cow for sale. $50. Contact Farmer Tom.” The ad was run, the cow was sold, and marketing started.
You also need a marketing strategy. Farmer Tom’s strategy was very simple: Sell one cow by having potential buyers come see him -- and the cow. The benefit offered was a healthy cow at a fair price. The secondary benefit was that a local person was doing the selling. The target audience was other farmers in the community. The marketing weapon used was one ad in one newspaper. The niche the farmer occupied was that of a local farmer with an honest offer. The identity of the advertiser was straightforward and no-nonsense. And his marketing budget was most likely zero. Armed with that strategy, Farmer Tom sold his cow.
Related: The Five Broad Strokes of Marketing
Today, our world is much more complex than Farmer Tom’s, so it may seem like you need a complex marketing strategy. But in reality, your strategy doesn't have to be complex. In fact, such a strategy needs only seven simple sentences:
- The first sentence tells the physical act your marketing should motivate.
- The second sentence spells out the prime benefit you offer.
- The third sentence states your target audience or audiences.
- The fourth sentence states what marketing weapons you plan to use.
- In your fifth sentence, you define your niche or what you stand for: economy, service, quality, price, uniqueness, anything.
- The sixth sentence states the personality of your company.
- The seventh sentence states your marketing budget, expressed as a percentage of your projected gross sales.
- Keep your strategy brief.
How To Really Make Money with Clickbank
written by John Chow on March 15, 2010
Hit And Run Marketing Doesn’t Work
Most new affiliate marketers getting into the business do what I call hit and run affiliate marketing. It’s the model they’re all familiar with because it’s the one they hear about the most. The hit and run marketing steps goes something like this.
- Select a Clickbank (or any affiliate) product to promote
- Send traffic to the landing page with PPC/PPV
- PROFIT!
Spending money on advertising to get one customer that you will never see again is one of the dumbest business move you can make. That’s like Best Buy spending $50K on a front page ad on the Wall Street Journal to have those customers buy one item and then never visit the store again. They’re go under in less than six months if that’s the case!
Another problem with the hit and run model is it’s not very stable. You have to keep spending money on advertising or the sales stop. You risk the chance of Google slapping your landing page because of a low quality score, you may run out of money tweaking the ads/keywords/landing pages, competition can drive up bids to the point where you can’t make a profit, the advertiser may pull the offer, etc.
Read more...
How To Be The Go-To Expert – Part 4
This
is the fourth installment of my series on how to become the go-to
expert in whatever field you blog about. In case you missed them, here
are the previous posts.
The Best Business Card In The World
When we left part three, I told you that having a demo video was the second best business card in the world. Today, I’m going to reveal the absolute best business card in the world.
Your own book.
Nothing screams expert status more than being a published author. If you have your own book, then it doesn’t matter if the guy next to you knows 1000 times more than you. You will be viewed as the expert because you wrote a book on the topic. When a newspaper or TV show show has a list of experts to choose from, they will always choose the ones who are published.
Read more...
The Best Business Card In The World
When we left part three, I told you that having a demo video was the second best business card in the world. Today, I’m going to reveal the absolute best business card in the world.
Your own book.
Nothing screams expert status more than being a published author. If you have your own book, then it doesn’t matter if the guy next to you knows 1000 times more than you. You will be viewed as the expert because you wrote a book on the topic. When a newspaper or TV show show has a list of experts to choose from, they will always choose the ones who are published.
Read more...
Monday, February 18, 2013
Competing against big brands in search engine marketing
Competing against a bigger brand in search engine marketing (SEM) can
be tough – they get all the name recognition and the top ad placements,
and in many cases, users may have already established purchasing
accounts through them (looking at you, Amazon). The good news is, there
are actions you can take to compete with the big guys and still turn a
profit.
Using the dimensions tab in AdWords, you can easily pull a geo report at varying levels of granularity. For this example, we’ll look at major metros:
Can you spot the outlier?
New York is coming in at almost double the cost per action (CPA) of the top two metros (Los Angeles and San Francisco). In this case, you may want to either exclude New York entirely or move it to its own campaign in order to better target bids to an area with more competition (cost per click (CPCs) are nearly double that of San Francisco CPCs).
The prime advantage offered here is, while it’s great for you take this approach at such a granular level, many larger brands advertising across a huge number of verticals may not see a big enough impact on localization to warrant adding that layer of complexity.
What this means is you can pick and choose priority geos where it makes sense to bid higher and actually beat out the bigger brands.
http://smallbiztrends.com/2013/02/search-engine-marketing-small-business-big-brands-compete.html
Break Down Bidding with Localization
Even if your business is currently targeted to the entire country (or world), there are likely going to be specific geos where you may do better than others. Additionally, many bigger brands are likely to use one single bid for an entire targeted area, and you can use this to your advantage.Using the dimensions tab in AdWords, you can easily pull a geo report at varying levels of granularity. For this example, we’ll look at major metros:
New York is coming in at almost double the cost per action (CPA) of the top two metros (Los Angeles and San Francisco). In this case, you may want to either exclude New York entirely or move it to its own campaign in order to better target bids to an area with more competition (cost per click (CPCs) are nearly double that of San Francisco CPCs).
The prime advantage offered here is, while it’s great for you take this approach at such a granular level, many larger brands advertising across a huge number of verticals may not see a big enough impact on localization to warrant adding that layer of complexity.
What this means is you can pick and choose priority geos where it makes sense to bid higher and actually beat out the bigger brands.
http://smallbiztrends.com/2013/02/search-engine-marketing-small-business-big-brands-compete.html
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Marketing a Website
Here are nine (9) reasons why you want to run away from this type of quick fix website design solution.
1. You’re not a website design expert, so don’t pretend to be one – How many websites have you designed? How many have you actually built? None? Leave the website design to people who have done it before and know what they are doing. It might seem easy, but it’s not if you want it to work right.
2. It won't be built with any marketing strategy in place – What are you going to say on the site? You have 10 seconds to engage with your prospects. They are looking for certain words to help them feel comfortable with your company. Do you know what those words are? Without any marketing strategy, you will be wasting your money on a site that doesn’t connect with your potential customers.
3. It’s not part of an overall Marketing Machine including the required supporting tactics – If you are trying to grow your business, then you are going to need more than just a website. What about the other tactics? Do you have those covered? Blogging, email marketing, content marketing, social media, referral programs, and the list goes on and on. Just buying a website is going to do nothing to help you grow your company.
4. Your site won't be SEO optimized, despite what they say – Most of the companies mentioned below will tell you your site will be optimized but, beyond a few tricks, there isn’t much they can do. Optimization has to do with content and keywords. If you don’t know your keywords, your site won't be optimized correctly. If those keywords aren’t in the COPY on your site, your website won't be optimized. If you don’t add fresh content to your site with the right keywords, your site won't be optimized.
5. It won't include the analytics you need to help your marketing program improve over time – How do you know if your website is working? You need analytics that show you traffic, conversions and leads. Most of these sites come with basic marketing analytics, but unless you use them to improve performance they won't be very helpful.
6. You won't be able to optimize it with content – One way Google decides how high to rank websites is on the freshness of their content. Are you planning on adding content daily? If not, don’t expect your site to rank very high on Google, Yahoo! or Bing. Make sure you have considered how you plan to update the site on at least a weekly basis.
7. It won't have all the conversion tools it needs to generate leads – Most sites like this come with a standard Contact Us page. But what about all those people who aren’t ready to Contact You? They need offers too. You need to have landing pages and conversion Calls To Action (CTAs) all over your site. Most of these "instant website" tools don’t provide all the options required to create a lead generating website.
8. You probably won't update it frequently enough – Build it once and then let it go, right? Wrong. You have to update your website weekly. Are you planning on doing that? Do these tools allow that? Give you the options to help you do that? Probably not.
9. You might not even own the site when you are done – Is the site truly yours? If you stop paying the monthly fees can you take your website somewhere else? Read the fine print. We have seen many clients who didn’t even own their own websites. Don’t get into that situation.
Your company website is a business asset. Don’t take it lightly. This is the first place most people are going to go before they even talk with you. If it looks amateurish or half-done, they won't be calling you. Take the time to get this important job done professionally so you put your best foot forward. Your company website isn’t an electronic brochure. It should be the first stop in an amazing experience for your potential customers and clients.
1. You’re not a website design expert, so don’t pretend to be one – How many websites have you designed? How many have you actually built? None? Leave the website design to people who have done it before and know what they are doing. It might seem easy, but it’s not if you want it to work right.
2. It won't be built with any marketing strategy in place – What are you going to say on the site? You have 10 seconds to engage with your prospects. They are looking for certain words to help them feel comfortable with your company. Do you know what those words are? Without any marketing strategy, you will be wasting your money on a site that doesn’t connect with your potential customers.
3. It’s not part of an overall Marketing Machine including the required supporting tactics – If you are trying to grow your business, then you are going to need more than just a website. What about the other tactics? Do you have those covered? Blogging, email marketing, content marketing, social media, referral programs, and the list goes on and on. Just buying a website is going to do nothing to help you grow your company.
4. Your site won't be SEO optimized, despite what they say – Most of the companies mentioned below will tell you your site will be optimized but, beyond a few tricks, there isn’t much they can do. Optimization has to do with content and keywords. If you don’t know your keywords, your site won't be optimized correctly. If those keywords aren’t in the COPY on your site, your website won't be optimized. If you don’t add fresh content to your site with the right keywords, your site won't be optimized.
5. It won't include the analytics you need to help your marketing program improve over time – How do you know if your website is working? You need analytics that show you traffic, conversions and leads. Most of these sites come with basic marketing analytics, but unless you use them to improve performance they won't be very helpful.
6. You won't be able to optimize it with content – One way Google decides how high to rank websites is on the freshness of their content. Are you planning on adding content daily? If not, don’t expect your site to rank very high on Google, Yahoo! or Bing. Make sure you have considered how you plan to update the site on at least a weekly basis.
7. It won't have all the conversion tools it needs to generate leads – Most sites like this come with a standard Contact Us page. But what about all those people who aren’t ready to Contact You? They need offers too. You need to have landing pages and conversion Calls To Action (CTAs) all over your site. Most of these "instant website" tools don’t provide all the options required to create a lead generating website.
8. You probably won't update it frequently enough – Build it once and then let it go, right? Wrong. You have to update your website weekly. Are you planning on doing that? Do these tools allow that? Give you the options to help you do that? Probably not.
9. You might not even own the site when you are done – Is the site truly yours? If you stop paying the monthly fees can you take your website somewhere else? Read the fine print. We have seen many clients who didn’t even own their own websites. Don’t get into that situation.
Your company website is a business asset. Don’t take it lightly. This is the first place most people are going to go before they even talk with you. If it looks amateurish or half-done, they won't be calling you. Take the time to get this important job done professionally so you put your best foot forward. Your company website isn’t an electronic brochure. It should be the first stop in an amazing experience for your potential customers and clients.
Ikigai
A beautiful post from a LinkedIn group member that inspires me and touches my heart.
It is a great honor to be associated with brilliant and entrepreneurial people like you. Be a part of the Team Spurting Innovation Ikigai Innovation. Ikigai is something important one lives for and the reason for being.
Mission:
To support the spurting of grass-root innovation and help translate it into self-sustaining enterprise adding
benefit to humanity.
It is a great honor to be associated with brilliant and entrepreneurial people like you. Be a part of the Team Spurting Innovation Ikigai Innovation. Ikigai is something important one lives for and the reason for being.
Mission:
To support the spurting of grass-root innovation and help translate it into self-sustaining enterprise adding
benefit to humanity.
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