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DSC00064Marketing Misfire Photo of the Week I couldn't resist taking this photo while walking around in Manhattan. I'll leave the company name out of it but this was their main marketing message on the front of the building. They may want to consider...

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video-300x300Beginner's Guide to Video Marketing Disclaimer: I'm am not a professional video producer. If you've read my blog for a few years you'll know I typically embrace the latest mediums in marketing, learn them, and implement them in my teams'...

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Clean ShirtsHome Delivery Dry Cleaning Case Study: How Performance... Many of my readers are marketing professionals so stick with me on this post until the end. Although it looks like a post reviewing local dry cleaners it was actually inspired out of seeing first hand...

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Hotel Video Marketing - Good Tool or Not? I recently wrote about an experience I had in Europe staying at Ibis hotels. I was impressed with their marketing of their services and the backing of that brand marketing by hotel staff. The post was...

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Yoda.sized5 Steps To Analyzing That New Marketing Effort I was recently watching the original Star Wars movies with my kids. An absolute timeless series, but it's amazing how much more suspenseful that was when I was much younger. Graphics and special affects...

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Small Business: You Can Compete With This

Category : Uncategorized, campaigns, strategy

2

One of my big projects this year is to update and get new customer stories to promote through testimonials or application notes. These are stories about customers who use our products, have a good relationship with our company and are willing to let me use their name and application in a published note. As any small business marketer knows, this is not easy. Many customers, especially the more well-known ones, are reluctant to hand out their name for publication.

Well, I’m trying once again to come up with my angle when I see Home Depot’s new social media campaign “Real People, Real Stories” rolled out through a banner ad on My Yahoo. I’m sure they’re promoting in other places as well, but this is where I saw it. Similar to my Tellabs post, Home Depot is showing customer stories through graphics and video and are allowing you, their customer, to share your story about your experiences with their brand. Here’s the banner – when scrolled over, the banner expands, the video starts and a picture of their profiled customer pops up.

depot.jpg

The landing page is equally as impressive as Tellabs’ landing page. One thing I noticed is that Home Depot is doing a good job of tracking statistics from the campaign. The URL contains “my_yahoo” so the landing page is set up specifically for people coming from Yahoo. They’ll be able to see how many hits they’re getting from each source and where the person goes after hitting the landing page. This is a well thought out campaign.

So, how does a small marketing budget compete? Just fine. The key component of this campaign is the customer story which is attainable for companies of any size. After writing an engaging account of the successful customer and how your product or service played a roll, you can find many ways to socialize the story.

Okay, so you don’t have the budget for streaming online video or a web interface that allows users to tell their story. No problem. Although I’m a fan of these new social media campaigns, ROI is yet to be determined on these. Home Depot is really going to have to push this to make it viral.

Ads on a niche search engine or news site, paid search ads, banner ads on focused industry sites, and a well-designed landing page showing off your new customer story has the capabilities for a very successful – and affordable – campaign.


Don’t Panic – Google Quality Score Update Should Help

Category : paid search, search engine marketing

0

Google made an official announcement and I’ve seen some posts about the Google Adwords Quality Score update today. The announcement indicated we will now be able to see our keyword minimum bid and Quality Score on the AdWords site. Also talked about was an upcoming Quality Score algorithm.

To clarify, I spoke with my Google rep today and she said that a full roll-out of the Quality Score being visible on the site may not happen until the 20th of this month. The announcement indicated later this week, but it looks like there is a delay.

Also, the changes to the algorithm look positive and shouldn’t cause PPC advertisers to change too much of their strategy. Basically, they’re giving new keywords a lower minimum bid initially until they’ve gathered sufficient data to come up with an actual minimum bid that reflects the quality score. There are other tweaks as well that you can read in the announcement, but this is the one that stuck out for me. I think it should make it less expensive to roll out new ad groups and keywords.

I suspect there will be more focus on Quality Score now that advertisers can see their actual score on keywords. You can bet that if you have a “Poor” ranking you’ll be working harder to improve your score.


Creating a Buzz? A Milestone Paper Co. Knows How

Category : interviews, strategy

2

The Lonely Marketer SBM-In-Action Interview Series: A Milestone Paper Co.

milestone1.gif

What is it that makes you feel 100% confident of a purchase? For me, confidence comes from seeing a product or service in action before buying or from having a product or service referred to me by a friend. Our first interview in the Lonely Marketer SBM-In-Action series, has a knack for creating those experiences for people and instilling that confidence in potential customers.

When my wife and I had our second child, we realized our time was limited and the chances of doing a baby announcement ourselves was slim. We had seen some examples of products created by A Milestone Paper Co. and really liked the uniqueness of each piece. Thus, we asked them to do our announcement and we felt they created the exact piece we wanted. They captured every feeling and emotion we were after.

And what have we done since? Talk up and recommend the company to other friends and family.

Sarah Glad, Co-Owner of A Milestone Paper Co., might not say it, but she knows marketing. Sarah has the ability to create a buzz that gets customers talking about her and her business. How does she do it? Through personal touches, understanding the needs of her customers, and a passion for “..creating an emotion”.

But, enough from me – I’ll let her tell us more about it. Sarah was nice enough to sit down with me and discuss her small business and what role marketing plays in her plans.

Sarah, thank you so much for taking the time today to talk about A Milestone Paper Co. For some of my readers who are not familiar with your business, can you give us an overview?

“We create custom paper products including: invitations, cards, baby announcements and business correspondence (business cards, fliers, mailing labels, gift certificates, conference/party gift bags). We are unique in that the process is entirely custom. We meet with each couple or client, usually in person, but sometimes by phone or e-mail to get a solid feel for the style they are after. I think our very personal approach, meeting clients face to face in locations convenient to them, showing true interest in their events, designing products that are reflections of who they are, is critical to our success. There are very few limitations put on our customers with regards to style, color, font, graphics or design. We are in the process of developing a less custom line—more similar to the traditional wedding invitation vendor with a range of designs and a limited choice of colors and fonts. We are after the couple who want quality paper products, but are either not interested in the extra effort the custom process requires, or don’t have the time for it.

My sister, sister-in-law and I own the business together and we got started after my husband and I realized that the custom wedding invitations we really wanted were far out of our budget. He and I created our own, and then my sisters and I created invitations for their weddings. From there news spread by word of mouth. We really wanted to be able to create for other couples what they really wanted for a more reasonable price. As a side note, I’ve always created handmade Christmas cards for our family. When I began to offer that service business picked up, not only for holiday cards but word spread and brides and grooms and new parents started calling for birth announcements and wedding invitations.”

I love your tag-line “set a mood….create an emotion”. You’ve done a good job of creating an image for your paper business. What was your inspiration in creating your image and what are you trying to convey to potential customers?

“I really want people to realize that an invitation is much more than event particulars on a piece of paper. It is a powerful way to connect with friends and family. When people receive a thoughtfully custom designed invitation, they notice. Their reaction is different than it would be to an ordinary invitation. Guests are intrigued and drawn in. They get a sense of the style and feel of the event to which they’re invited. The same is true of holiday cards or birth announcements. I have a client who shared the story of her financially conservative brother-in-law who received a Milestone holiday card and insisted that his own family have a custom designed card next Christmas. He was touched by the card he received. That’s what I’m after.”

What types of marketing are you using to convey this image and brand to the marketplace?

“The majority of our marketing is done for us by our clients. Word of mouth is very important to us. This business is nice in the sense that one client may send out 200 invitations. Often at least one of those recipients has a need for our services. The second most useful marketing tool for us is a paid ad on theknot.com, a wedding planning website. We get a fair number of inquiries from that ad. However, we’re finding an interesting trend in the type of bride who spends a lot of time on The Knot. More on that in my response to the next question. There are wedding related websites that offer free vendor posting. We also list our business there.”

Can you describe for us your current target market and as a follow-up to that question, who do you think your target market will be in five years?

“Our target market is evolving as we speak. We pride ourselves in being able to work with almost any budget. I often quote a project with several different options for lowering costs. I would say our target market now for wedding invitations is the mid to mid-high budget couples. They tend to be busy, career oriented individuals who want nice invitations without blowing the budget. We have an option for couples to do the assembly themselves, which is a popular choice for two reasons, it saves money and it involves the couple and often family and the wedding party in this part of the wedding.

The younger couples (early twenties) have more time and energy and less money. They often choose the do-it-yourself (DIY) route. Incidentally, what I’m noticing is that the brides who are really active in The Knot community (message boards, biographies, etc.) seem to be the younger brides. They encourage each other to do their own projects. There are templates for everything from invites and programs, to aisle runners and card boxes. We’ll need to evaluate the appropriateness of putting advertising dollars there as our target market shifts.

As for the future, I see our target market heading towards the higher end. I get more design confidence and I’m learning to use higher end paper products. The average price per piece of the projects I create is inching up as I learn more. My ideal would be to have our target market firmly established as the mid-high budget couples, with services that still appeal to mid budget couples and projects that suit the tastes of those with a high budget as well.

The same trends follow with birth announcements and holiday cards as well.”

How has your product and/or focus evolved as you’ve learned more about your customer base?

“We began carrying a line of paper products, pocketfolds, tri-folds, petal folds, metallic papers etc., about a year ago. That move significantly changed the course of our business. Couples completely derail their budget so they can utilize these products. Recently I met with a couple who gave me a firm top dollar. I worked hard to find creative ways to stay within their budget in preparation for our meeting. At the meeting they saw the pocketfold and nearly doubled their initial budget. As I mentioned earlier, our use of these products and my growing design know-how has changed the look and cost of our typical project.”

Can you talk about what challenges you face now or anticipate you will face as you continue to grow and market your products against larger competitors?

“I feel most challenged by trying to determine when to go to the next level, i.e. get more sophisticated equipment, spend more on advertising, and charge more for projects. Also, continuing to differentiate ourselves from our competitors is a top priority.”

Thank you Sarah for taking the time for the interview! We’ll look forward to catching up with you later this year.

Be sure to check out examples of the company’s work! They truly do a great job. You can also contact Sarah directly if you’d like to inquire about her services.

 


9 Steps To Moving Your Blog and Selecting Plugins

Category : blogging

26

moving1.jpgThis post is a bit off-topic for this blog, but I’ve had a couple emails from readers asking me about moving my blog and how I went about the transition. So, I thought it might be a good idea to pass along my experience. Before I begin I should let you know I’m not a web developer and this was my first experience with moving or setting up my own hosted blog on its own domain. I’ve had experience working with websites but not from a coding or database aspect. Most everything I encountered was new. This post will focus on a wordpress.com to wordpress.org move, but many of the steps I go through could be for a move from and to any platform.

With that said, let’s dig in. I had a nice comfortable home on a wordpress.com blog. I can’t say enough good things about the service they provide for FREE. They really have a great product. Why move you might ask? Well, curiosity got the best of me. I wanted to play with widgets, plugins, customized themes, etc. Plus, I have aspirations to expand the Lonely Marketer into new areas someday so making the move now made sense. So, I made the decision to risk losing traffic, subscribers, and links to move the Lonely Marketer.

Step 1 – Research – What You Need From a Web Host

I’m biased towards the WordPress.org blogging platform so my research revolved around using that. They offer the software for free – even if you’re using it for a Fortune 500 company. But, they do have some minimum requirements you should know before looking into a web hosting company. The most important requirements are PHP version 4.2 or greater and MySQL version 4.0 or greater. Your web host needs to be running these on their servers.

Step 2 – Select a Web Host and Buy Domain

All I can say is – read the support logs at WordPress.org. I did not and wasted alot of time. I thought Yahoo Small Business would be a no-brainer. They’re listed as a web host partner of WordPress and you think Yahoo would have all that you need. I was wrong. They were a disaster – I’m really surprised that WordPress lists them after reading about the complaints in the support logs. They’re install was a snap, but everything after that went wrong. The site was slow – sometimes taking an hour to reflect a change I’d make. Many of the plugins did not work without hours of looking up people who had found fixes. After awhile, I gave up and decided I needed a new host. One thing to note here is that I kept my wordpress.com blog running and was building the new site on the side.

So, I called on blogging friends for advice. Many recommended DreamHost who is also listed as a partner. BIG TIP COMING: Before signing up, look through the DreamHost support files – their moderators put coupons in there that give you money off. I saved close to $100 on my first year of hosting. A great deal! They also offer an easy one-click install of the WordPress.org software. If you do find a host you like that does not offer that easy install and you’re unsure about installing it yourself, WordPress.org does offer to install it for free. Plus, the Dreamhost support is incredible. I rarely wait more than two hours for a response to any issue – small or big.

My domain name is still at Yahoo because there is a 60 day waiting period before you can move it to a new host. No problem, I simply pointed the nameservers to Dreamhost and I was up and running.

Step 3 – Building Your Site

Before moving any of my posts and related information to my new domain, I wanted to get it all set up. My first goal was to find a theme I liked. There are thousands of options available so it took awhile. I was looking for a 3-column, widget ready theme. I settled on Tiga which may or may not be a good thing. I will plug the Theme Viewer from WordPress – a handy tool for finding themes that fit your needs.

Tiga is not very well optimized for search engines as the sidebar text shows up before the post content in the source code. If search engine traffic is at the top of your priority list, you’ll want to take this into consideration when selecting your theme. I’m in the market for a new theme, but it’s not immediate since I’m not dependent on traffic from search engines.

Next, I went out and got plugins. My focus was to find plugins that make my sight social and interactive. Here is what I’ve installed so far:

  • Akismet: Can a blog afford not to have this plugin? Akismet is a much needed for spam control.
  • Sidebar Widgets: This plugin allows you to easily configure your sidebars. You’re able to drag and drop content as needed. You will need a widget-ready theme to utilize this one.
  • Google Analytics: I chose to go with Google Analytics for my statistics tracking mainly because I was already familiar with using the tool.
  • Google Sitemaps: This generator will create a Google compliant sitemap of your WordPress blog.
  • Ultimate Tag Warrior: I mainly use UTW to put my Technorati tags into my posts. There are tons of other uses as well. Andy has a post on how you can use UTW to display related posts.
  • Related Posts: Returns a list of the related entries based on active/passive keyword matches. I caught on to this one from a SoloSEO post and am glad I did. I’ve seen my page views go up about 100% from before I installed it. Installation wasn’t exactly a snap on this, but once up and running, its been great.
  • Sociable: I use Sociable for my social bookmarking icons in each post. I think this is a nice feature to offer readers. You never know when someone might want to refer back to your posts from a bookmarking site.
  • Subscribe To Comments: I liked this feature on other blogs. Subscribing to comments allows you to be updated on comments made to a particular post.
  • Democracy: I haven’t used this too much yet, but Democracy is a polling feature that can be used in posts or sidebars.
  • WordPress Database Backup: If you’re not backing up your blog, you should start very soon. I back mine up about three times a week and receive the backup file via email.
  • WP-ContactForm: A nice, easy plugin that cuts down on alot of spam and allows for a professional method for readers to contact you.

Step 4 – Move Your Content

I had quite a few posts in my old blog that I wanted to carry over to my new site. WordPress.org has a bunch of import options from sites including Blogger, LiveJournal, Typepad, etc. But, there wasn’t anything built in to move from WordPress.com to WordPress.org. Then, I found Technosailor’s plug-in that moves posts, comments, etc. from WordPress to WordPress. Incredibly easy plug-in that worked without a hitch!

Step 5 – Transition Your Feed

I was concerned about moving my Feedburner feed from the old site to the new site. I was aiming for a seamless transition for my readers. I had read some bad stories in support logs about this going bad. This post on the Feedburner site helped explain that I could just change my Original Feed URL and all should be okay. That did the trick. I pointed it to my new feed url and everything moved over very nicely.

Before doing this, make sure you have posts up at your old and your new site announcing the move and launch of your new blog.

Step 6 – Submit to Search Engines

Here are some URLs I used to submit my new site to search engines. Depending on your level of knowledge, you may want to look into redirecting your old posts to your new site.

http://www.google.com/addurl/
http://beta.search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx
https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit
http://technorati.com/ping/
http://blogsearch.google.com/ping
http://www.alexa.com/site/help/webmasters#crawl_site
http://pingomatic.com/

Step 7 – Contact Your Friends

As any blogger knows, links to your site are very valuable. I contacted many of the people who had added me to their blogrolls or referenced my material in one of their posts. Almost all took the time to change links and help me out. I was quite thankful for that as that gave me a jumpstart on my new site.

Step 8 – Have Posts Ready

I think having four or five posts ready to roll is a good idea. You’ll want to generate more traffic than usual in the first week or two of your new site being live. Having quality content ready to go will help with that. You don’t want to launch, create a buzz, and then not post for two weeks. Also, spreading some links around to other sites can’t hurt your chances of getting noticed

Step 9 – Tap Into Other Blogger’s Knowledge

There can obviously be more highly technical aspects to setting up a blog that I don’t cover here. Like I said earlier, this is sort of a basic guide. Searching for blog optimization tips will bring up many results that will help you further. Below are a couple articles I used for reference when moving the Lonely Marketer.

That’s alot of information for one post! I was thinking of creating a page on the Lonely Marketer blog dedicated to blog moving information. Do you have or know of related content or posts that you think could be added as reference?

UPDATED – Additional Content From Readers


Tips For Lead Generation Follow-Up

Category : lead generation

6

handoff.jpgThis may seem like a very simple and obvious post, but the fact of the matter is that many organizations do not take the right steps when following-up on leads. An interesting story caught my attention that reminded me of a previous job with a larger organization. The company had grown so big that no one knew where leads were coming from – they simply looked at the state and sent the lead to the appropriate sales person with no description of what the lead needed or what the lead was interested in hearing more about.

Many of the conversations between sales people and interested prospects were confusing with neither end knowing why they’re talking to each other. In the article, Steve Weitzner, CEO of CMP Technology points out:

“You can get leads anywhere, but in the end, when you have tons of leads pouring in what do you with them?” Weitzner asked. “You should be following up on the leads, otherwise you’re left with a stack of bingo cards.”

At the smaller company I’m with now, leads are gold. Not only do we follow-up on each one, but we prepare the salesperson with as much information as possible before they make a call. Here are some simple (and maybe obvious) tips to lead gen follow-up:

  1. Know the Source: Make sure you’ve put measures in place to be able to easily know from where a lead has originated. As an example, make sure you tag online forms when submitted so you know from which landing page the form was submitted. If you’re like me, you have 20 or 30 different originating sources at any given time. If you don’t know where they came from, you might as well toss the lead.
  2. Track the Sources: Make sure your tracking the lead sources. It would be helpful to pass on to the salesperson information about trends you’re seeing on interest in certain products. Tracking also helps you decide if a lead source is providing ROI.
  3. Pass Along Intelligence: I really enjoy when a lead comes in from my PPC campaigns. I’ve set up tracking so I can see on which keyword a lead was converted. I let the salesperson know which keyword was searched on when the lead saw our ad and came to our site. You can imagine the prospect’s surprise when our salesperson begins talking about the exact product or technology that the lead was searching on. The more information you can pass along the better. Your chances of converting new business increases.
  4. Follow-Up: Tracking what happens after a lead is passed to the sales person is also very important. I’m with a small enough company that I can know almost instantly what happened. I lump the results into three categories – New Business, New Contact with Potential, or Bum Lead. These results help me analyze whether or not the source of the lead is providing quality results.

These tactics helped me figure out that the Google Adwords Content Network was providing poor leads. The search network on the other hand was providing high-quality leads. I’ve since dropped the content network and enjoyed a higher quantity and quality of leads from Google PPC.

I truly believe better handoff of leads to sales can increase the chances of converting the lead to a customer.


Weekly Recap: Favorite Posts, Articles, and More

Category : Uncategorized

2

stop.jpgSo far the traffic response has been positive for my weekly recaps so I’ll keep throwing them out. I find myself bookmarking more and more posts each week that relate to my own business so it only makes sense to pass the information along. Here is a brief collection of some of the highlights this week.< /p>

Blog Posts:

Related News Articles:

Most Read Lonely Marketer Posts:


Check in this week as The Lonely Marketer launches the first in a series of Small Business Marketing In Action Interviews!


See How Old School Marketing Can Get Social

Category : b to b marketing, online marketing, social marketing

0
I love finding examples of stodgy, “old school” marketing doing a 180 degree spin and trying today’s social marketing mediums to market their products. I spent quite a few years marketing products and services in the telecommunications market – many of those spent trying to market telcom equipment to service providers. I’ve enjoyed watching companies such as Cisco and others re-brand themselves using social media.tellabs.jpg

I was searching for some information on the TelephonyOnline website which is a popular magazine and online resource center for telecommunications related news. On the main page is this banner ad (right) from Tellabs. The banner ad consists of a 4 minute video clip highlighting the stories of 5 “echo boomers” – a generation of people who are constantly connected and in need of the highest level of service from service providers.

Tellabs is a manufacturer of telcom equipment used by service providers in their networks. Instead of the usual “here’s are product – see how it can fit into your network” approach, Tellabs is saying to the service provider, “here is your end user, this is what they need and want, and this is how we can help you provide what they need”. In the words of my favorite Guinness characters, Brilliant!

Plus, check out the landing page they put up for people who click through. The themes are carried over right into the website experience which truly enhances the campaign. There is also a place for interaction where they’re letting people tell how “on the go” technology has inspired their life. Thus letting the service provider’s customers create a viral life for the campaign.

The “Inspire the New Life” campaign is new, fresh and grabbing attention. This article also points to their campaign and talks about other examples of businesses looking to social media for interaction with their customer base.

A case could be made that they went a bit too far with the music, screensaver, and wallpaper downloads. The service provider executives who are going to sign off on the Tellabs equipment purchase may not have much of an interest, but the point is they created a buzz and brought their customer in touch with the end user. They created a marketing campaign that solves a problem for their customer – that’s what it’s all about!

What are your thoughts after looking at their campaign?


6 Must-Read Blogs For Small Business Marketing

Category : Uncategorized

2

I’m way overdue for some additions to my blogroll! As usual, I try to keep the focus of my blogroll on blogs that provide useful content to small business marketers. There are so many informative, interesting blogs being written – here are just a few”

  • 10e20 – Search, Design, and Social: A great site for internet marketing and web development information. This post about corporate blogging provided great information for me as I take on a similar project.
  • Anita Campbell’s Small Business Trends offers updates on trends affecting small businesses. There is a good variety of posts on Anita’s blog that are worth checking out.
  • Viral Garden – Mack’s blog is another blog with a wide variety of interesting material that revolves around the world of marketing. He should have been added earlier to my blogroll as I’ve been reading his blog for months!
  • Duct Tape Marketing – This blog doesn’t need much of an intro! John’s been a great resource for marketers for a long time. If you haven’t checked him out, you should.
  • Search Engine Guide: Jennifer Laycock offers many great posts loaded with information for small businesses navigating the world of search marketing. When I wrote about small businesses needing to educate themselves on SEO – this would be a great resource for that.

That’s all for this time – stay tuned!


Keyword Prices Rise 4% in Fourth Quarter

Category : Uncategorized, paid search, search engine marketing

0

arrow.jpgYikes! BtoB Online has the news that keyword prices are on the rise. This really doesn’t surprise me. We’ve all seen the stats about more ad spending going away from print and into online mediums such as paid search. That coupled with an increase in click fraud means prices will continue to rise. Now the trick will be to optimize our campaigns to offset the increases – or maybe even drop our costs.

Here was the news blurb:

“San Francisco—The average keyword price paid by online advertisers in the fourth quarter was $1.51, up from $1.45 in the year earlier period, according to Fathom Online, a search engine marketing agency, in its Keyword Price Index. The average keyword price in last year’s third quarter was $1.48″


Great Opportunity: Online Marketing Telesummit

Category : online marketing

0

I came across this great opportunity from John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing. John is a well-respected marketing professional who will no doubt provide great information for small business marketers. His online marketing telesummit is geared towards small business:

“No matter if you do business in your town or around the world, the Internet has become an essential small business marketing tool! Attend the Duct Tape Marketing small business Internet marketing super class broken into three fast moving live sessions – each packed with laser specific details for moving your business ahead in this rapidly changing medium.”

Plus, being web-based you can catch the recorded sessions if you miss one. I’m planning on signing up!