The Lonely Marketer

Happy New Year! As we wind down the final hours of 2006, I thought I’d share some thoughts as many of the rest of you have. Looking back at what was in 2006, here are a few things the Lonely Marketer has learned:

1. With the exception of my beloved Minnesota Twins, the sports scene in this town is looking very dismal at the moment.

2. As Marketers, our target audiences are becoming more elusive by the day which, in my opinion, offers a great challenge to us to rethink how we market our products and services in 2007.

3. Years ago I spent most of a year in London and found I really enjoyed the theatre (and pints of ale beforehand in a nearby pub…and afterward). 2006 brought me to the Orpheum Theatre in scenic downtown St. Paul, Minnesota to watch the stage performance of the famous old movie White Christmas starring Bing Crosby. I realized everyone needs to have a splash of the arts in their life. It gives you a new perspective.

4. In 2007 we need to ask more questions. We need to interview our customers and learn what it is that makes them stay up at night and where they go to find their answers. As Marketers, we also need to sit down with the sales teams from our companies. These folks spend each day communicating with our audience - they will be able to tell us something we didn’t know in 2006.

5. Blogging rocks! 2006 saw the launch of The Lonely Marketer and I’ve had a blast with it. I’ve made a ton of new contacts already and have truly enjoyed putting my thoughts “on paper”. Where did MyBlogLog come from? All of a sudden its mainstream and a great tool - you have to love the new way we communicate.

As for my plans this New Year’s Eve - well, they’re a bit more tame than in years past. My wife and I have the kids to bed and we’ve just popped the cork on a nice bottle of Prosecco - a fine Italian sparkling wine we’ve been saving for the occasion. To accompany our wine, will be Season 1 on DVD of my favorite television show - The Office.

Have a Safe and Happy New Year!

As I was breaking up boxes from numerous kids toys received by my kids this Christmas, I was reflecting on our gift buying this holiday. I couldn’t recall one gift that was not researched or purchased online. Granted, my wife and I are heavy Internet users, but this is not unusual anymore. We spent time on forums and product review posts looking for toys and gifts for relatives that had gotten good reviews and had high quality ratings. We found gift ideas and learned what others had luck with and what they recommended we avoid.

A recent article in Entrepreneur Magazine focused on online marketing going high-tech. The article, by Catherine Seda, discusses a study done that measured what technologies are being used by Internet users to talk and shop. The article suggested that we’re not in the minority for how we go about shopping and researching:

“This study suggests that heavy internet users aren’t sitting back, waiting to receive information. They’re chatting with colleagues. They’re creating content and conversations”

So, what does this have to do with marketing for small business? Plenty. As marketers, the rules are changing for us each day and how we reach our audience is a moving target. Social interaction online is becoming a norm and the use of high-tech media for marketing is now mainstream. As you look at your 2007 marketing strategy take a step back and make sure you’re giving your target market the interaction they need to analyze and purchase your product or service.

I came across a great interview with Matt McGee of Small Business SEM. The interview was conducted by Gradiva Cousin and Jennifer Grappone, co-authors of Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day. The interview was focused on how small businesses can compete in search engine optimization and search engine marketing.

I thought Matt’s answers did a great job of highlighting how small business can move faster than large business but also can be restricted by budget and resources. He also outlined some simple tips and thoughts on how small business marketers can begin understanding and implementing optimization and marketing for search engines.

I couldn’t agree more. Many small businesses can learn enough to get started and do the basics. Taking the next step of attending conferences, networking, and reading up on the topic are keys. In my current position, we’ve even tried to get larger, well-known SEO/SEM firms to come in and either validate what we’re doing or give us advice on how to improve, but often they have bigger fish to go after. We’ve taken the stance of learning and getting the job done ourselves and I couldn’t be happier with the choice. SEO/SEM work is challenging and fun at the same time.

I found a quick stat about online advertising revenues and 2007 prices written on the iMedia Connection website by Roger Park. The article states that rates will be on the rise for 2007. I’ve planned and signed orders for most of my online media for 2007 and I really haven’t seen much of an increase. I buy primarily in the tech arena and most of my pricing has carried over from this year.

One trick I live by is to ask for better pricing based on quantity and other media being purchased. For instance, if I’m buying print ads, I’ll hint to the vendor that I want to do something online (email marketing, banner ads, etc.) and flat out ask for better pricing since I’m purchasing print ads. Most vendors are willing to negotiate and the good ones get me to spend more in the end. But, the bundling seems to help lower costs.

I’ll admit, I’ve been won over by the Z-List started by Viral Garden. I saw a couple posts about it, but didn’t pay much attention. Then, I started finding some new blogs I had not read before in this list - there are some great blogs listed in here! So, I’ve added about 10 new blogs to my daily read list and felt - because of that - I had to jump in and participate. Hopefully, a few of my readers will find some good reads in here as well.

If you want to get involved, simply cut and paste the list into a post on your blog. That’s pretty easy and a great way to find out about some new blogs.

Lonely Marketer
Creative Think
Soloride
Movie Marketing Madness
Blog Till You Drop!
Get Shouty!
One Reader at a Time
Critical Fluff
The New PR
Own Your Brand!
OTOInsights
bizandbuzz
Work, in Plain English
Buzz Canuck
New Millenium PR
Pardon My French
Troy Worman’s Blog
The Instigator Blog
AENDirect
Diva Marketing
Marketing Hipster
The Marketing Minute
Funny Business
The Frager Factor
Mindblob
Open The Dialogue
Word Sell
Note to CMO:
That’s Great Marketing!
Shotgun Marketing Blog
BrandSizzle
bizsolutionsplus
Customers Rock!
Being Peter Kim
Pow! Right Between The Eyes! Andy Nulman’s Blog About Surprise
Billions With Zero Knowledge
Working at Home on the Internet
MapleLeaf 2.0
darrenbarefoot.com
Two Hat Marketing
The Engaging Brand
The Branding Blog
CrapHammer
Drew’s Marketing Minute
Golden Practices
Viaspire
Tell Ten Friends
Flooring the Consumer
Kinetic Ideas
Unconventional Thinking
Buzzoodle
Conversation Agent
The Copywriting Maven
Hee-Haw Marketing
Scott Burkett’s Pothole on the Infobahn
Multi-Cult Classics
Logic + Emotion
Branding & Marketing
Popcorn n Roses
On Influence & Automation
Bullshitobserver
Servant of Chaos
converstations
eSoup
Presentation Zen
Dmitry Linkov
aialone
John Wagner
Nick Rice
CKs Blog
Design Sojourn
Frozen Puck
The Sartorialist
Small Surfaces
Africa Unchained
Perspective
gDiapers
Marketing Nirvana
Bob Sutton
¡Hola! Oi! Hi!
Shut Up and Drink the Kool-Aid!
Women, Art, Life: Weaving It All Together
Community Guy
Social Media on the fly
Jeremy Latham’s Blog
SMogger Social Media Blog
Masey.com

John Jantsch at Duct Tap Marketing Blog has a post talking about an Email Marketing service called MailChimp that he likes. He also has a link to a free guide being offered by the service that includes tips and tricks to getting your emails read and acted on more often. John has a great, long-standing blog that I make a daily read so I trust his judgement.

I downloaded and have started to read the 50-page guidebook. I can tell already that its a great resource for small businesses who would like some information to improve email marketing delivery.

Interestingly enough, you can download the guide without registering to receive it. Possibly a great lead generation opportunity missed for MailChimp?

I’ve written in previous posts about selecting the right marketing mix - online advertising, email marketing, print advertising, search marketing, etc. The selection is purely based on how many times you can touch your target audience in the shortest period of time.

This article in Entrepreneur magazine by Kim Gordon of www.smallbusinessnow.com talks about “All Over the Place” marketing. She gives a great overview of how many times people come in contact with media per day. This media contact frequency gives all of us small business marketers a chance to touch our target audience by selecting the right media.

As I look down the road to the first quarter of 2007, my sights are getting set on developing our first marketing/sales campaign of the year. Creating and launching these campaigns is like dumping out Lego’s on the carpet and selecting which pieces will go into your masterpiece. Here’s where you get to bring together online marketing, print advertising, collateral, lead generation, search engine marketing and even a little database marketing. Its your chance to see what works the best together and what results can be achieved.

In a large corporation, people from multiple groups come together and collaboratively launch an effort such as this. For the small company marketer, much of the responsibility will fall on a much smaller group or maybe even you! To make this seem a little less daunting, I’ve put together some tips that have helped me launch campaigns.

1. Focus the Campaign: This should be obvious, right? Well, it wasn’t to me when I first developed a campaign. There is a big difference in results when you ask your company’s sales team to call potential customers and say, “This is my company and we can help” versus “We have this product which solves this problem for you in your market”. I find the results are always better when you focus a campaign around a certain vertical or product family. For instance, my first quarter campaign will revolve around a product launch that is tailored towards a single vertical (with big potential, I might add).
2. Know Your Targeted Audience: Research, research, research. Who is the audience and why do they need what you have to offer? If you can’t answer those two questions, try a different campaign. I do a ton of pre-campaign research with the intention of gathering enough information to present to my company’s sales team. Thus, educating them and empowering them to carry out the campaign. The more they know, the more confident they’ll be in talking about the product on which you’re focusing.
3. Find the Right Messaging: Through your research, you should have come across enough information to create messaging that will be used across multiple marketing mediums for your campaign. Your messaging should be a strong, concise statement about how your product or service can solve a problem or ease the pain being experienced by your targeted vertical. This main talking point should be your central theme that is used in your collateral, banner ads, white papers, website landing pages, etc.
4. Find the Right Marketing Mix: Now the fun part. What ingredients will I use in my campaign recipe? This should be a nice mix of online and offline material. Through your research you should have located where your target audience searches for information - trade magazines, online resource centers, eNewsletters, etc. Based on what you find and what your budget is for the campaign, select the avenues in which you’ll get the word out about your product or service.
5. List or Database: Who is your sales group going to contact? Or, is this purely a marketing campaign with no sales push? Typically, I like to incorporate the sales team - they need to know what your focus is and why you’re planning the campaign. So, let’s put them to work. Do you have enough contacts for them to call in the target audience in your database? If not, look to a partner, such as a magazine, from which to purchase a membership list of some sort. These can make great outbound calling lists for your sales team. (They can also be a bust if you’re not careul, but we’ll cover that in a later post)
6. Training: Whoever will participate in a calling campaign or be a contact point for an interested customer needs to be trained and briefed on the campaign. There is nothing worse then grabbing a potential customer’s interest and having them meet a brink wall when they call in. Enable your sales and customer service to help close the deal.
7. Set Your Goals: Why are you doing the campaign? Is it to gain new customers? Is it to boost sales? Branding? Is it to let the marketplace know what you have to offer? Probably all of the above, right? Well, if so, make sure you’ve put some goals in place so you can track success.
8. Launch and Track: You’ve done the work so now kick-off the campaign and start learning about what worked and what did not. If you’ve run a special promotion, track the effectiveness of the promotion. If you purchased online marketing components, track the customer response via click-throughs, online purchases, or lead generation.

Of course, every company is different and these 8 steps probably don’t work for everyone. But, there are fundamentals and groundwork in what I’ve mentioned that, if followed, will increase the results you see from your marketing and sales campaigns.

How many of you marketing managers out there are dealing with trying to grab the attention of last minute shoppers? There are quite a few this week. I came across a good article written by Kevin Ryan on iMedia Connection about the use of Search Marketing immediately before and after Christmas. Its worth a read even if you’re not trying to push sales over Christmas.

I just came across a good outline and commentary on search arbitrage. Jeremy Luebke at Marketing Pilgrim outlines the different definitions and methods of search arbitrage. If you’re doing PPC search marketing or optimizing your site for search, you’ll want to check out this post.

He raises a great point - is Google not putting an end to this because they enjoy the additional revenue? My experiences at my company lead me to believe that Google can end some of this, but they’re not.