The Lonely Marketer

There are some things you just have to take a step back and appreciate. One of them is Fall in Minnesota. The clean crisp air, bursting leaf colors, kids jumping into leaf piles, apple orchards, and football. Perfect!

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I think it’s been almost two weeks since I’ve done a favorite blog post recap. That’s way too long! So, as you can imagine, I’ve got plenty to talk about. Let’s dig in:

• Effective Marketing on LinkedIn: The NLC group has a nice post about how businesses and individuals can market themselves on LinkedIn. I’ll admit - I’m a fan of LinkedIn and I learned a ton from this post.

• 8 Simple Rules For Social Media Marketing in Business to Business Markets: Stuntdubl has put together tips for keeping your social marketing efforts away from the company brochure.

• Google Spreadsheets Live Data: I haven’t done a big post on Google Docs, but a big user. If you’re a spreadsheet formula geek like me, you’ll love this - live data lookup! Check it out.

• Keep PPC Conversion Expectations Real: There is not a ton of information on the web that talks about what are realistic stats for PPC, but Marty Weintraub does a great job of outlining some basic expectations.

• How to Promote Your Killer Content and Pick up Links Along the Way: Great article on pushing your content for bloggers and website owners in general.

• The Seven Stages of Blogging: Anne-Marie nailed it with this post! If you’re a blogger, you absolutely need to read this post.

• Doing Keyword Research? Here Are Some Resources To Help!: Danny Sullivan has a great overview of the resources available to you for keyword research. Very valuable for SEO/SEM purposes!

• Are You Creating a Customer Experience?: Another great post outlining multimedia in advertising and how it lends to a great customer experience.

• Would a blog platform work for that?: Ever wondered if a blogging platform such as Wordpress would work for building a website? I certainly have and am in the process of giving it a try! Check out Janet’s examples.

• Handling Negative Comments: Do You Have a Volunteer Fire Department?: Mike Sansone - an actual blogging coach - gives his views and tips on handling negative comments. A must read for companies utilizing social media!

Phew! I need to do these recaps more often so I don’t bombard you with too much information. But, hopefully, you can find some good info in here.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Hats off to Drew and Gavin for driving this project home and creating a great result for a great cause. The Age of Conversation eBook is near completion and will be available for purchase next week!

I’m proud to say I contributed a chapter to this cool effort!

Okay, it may not draw the same lines as we saw for the iPhone, but I’m betting interest will be high and sales will be very good. Please note that all sales go for charity - no author makes a dime from book sales.

Formats/Prices:

Hardbacks $29.99
Paperbacks $16.95
E-book $9.99

Author List

Gavin Heaton
Drew McLellan
CK
Valeria Maltoni
Emily Reed
Katie Chatfield
Greg Verdino
Mack Collier
Lewis Green
Sacrum
Ann Handley
Mike Sansone
Paul McEnany
Roger von Oech
Anna Farmery
David Armano
Bob Glaza
Mark Goren
Matt Dickman
Scott Monty
Richard Huntington
Cam Beck
David Reich
Mindblob (Luc)
Sean Howard
Tim Jackson
Patrick Schaber
Roberta Rosenberg
Uwe Hook
Tony D. Clark
Todd Andrlik
Toby Bloomberg
Steve Woodruff
Steve Bannister
Steve Roesler
Stanley Johnson
Spike Jones
Nathan Snell
Simon Payn
Ryan Rasmussen
Ron Shevlin
Roger Anderson
Bob Hruzek
Rishi Desai
Phil Gerbyshak
Peter Corbett
Pete Deutschman
Nick Rice
Nick Wright
Michael Morton
Mark Earls
Mark Blair
Mario Vellandi
Lori Magno
Kristin Gorski
Kris Hoet
Kofl Annan
Kimberly Dawn Wells
Karl Long
Julie Fleischer
Jordan Behan
John La Grou
Joe Raasch
Jim Kukral
Jessica Hagy
Janet Green
Jamey Shiels
Dr. Graham Hill
Gia Facchini
Geert Desager
Gaurav Mishra
Gary Schoeniger
Gareth Kay
Faris Yakob
Emily Clasper
Ed Cotton
Dustin Jacobsen
Tom Clifford
David Pollinchock
David Koopmans
David Brazeal
David Berkowitz
Carolyn Manning
Craig Wilson
Cord Silverstein
Connie Reece
Colin McKay
Chris Newlan
Chris Corrigan
Cedric Giorgi
Brian Reich
Becky Carroll
Arun Rajagopal
Andy Nulman
Amy Jussel
AJ James
Kim Klaver
Sandy Renshaw
Susan Bird
Ryan Barrett
Troy Worman

I’ve found summer is tougher on email response than other seasons. People are breezing through their email while their mind is more captivated with outdoor activities and afternoons at the beach. But, the summer months can be a great time to build or add to your email subscriber list.

Clint Smith, the co-founder of Emma Email Marketing, had a nice, quick article about reaching a decent sized audience right away if you don’t already have a large list. His three tips are:

1. Sponsorships: The easiest way to get access to an e-mail list is to find someone already sending to it and become a sponsor. Just make sure the landing page people hit when they click on your banner ad or link prompts them to join your e-mail list.
2. Co-registration: Find an organization you like—and whose audience might also be interested in what you’re up to—and see if they’ll let you piggyback on their e-mail signup form either as a favor (if they really like you) or for a fee (if they really like you but also like making a living). There are also co-reg firms that help simplify the entire process.
3. Customers: Remember that often the best way to grow your e-mail list quickly is to start with your existing customer base. Make sure your cash register, signup forms, front desk, event booth and Web site all encourage people to join your list. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at how many actually do.

To add on to what Clint says, you can also use this time of year to grow your list for a targeted campaign in the Fall or Winter. Let’s review two key SPAM laws that should be taken into consideration when using email marketing:

• The recipient must have given consent to receive information from your company

• The recipient must have done business with your company in the last two years

Here are some quick tactics you can implement right now to grow your list:

• Website Form: Make sure every page on your website has a link to a form or an actual form giving visitors the option to receive your email newsletter.

• Trade Shows: Summer is big for trade shows. If your company does trade shows, put a signup sheet in your booth and give show attendees the option to sign up. Also, make sure the people working your booth know to direct attention to the sign-up.

• Calling Campaign: Dig into your vast contact database and find customer who your company has NOT does business with in the last two years. Hand this list off to your sales team and kick-off a “re-introduction” calling campaign. As part of the call, have your sales people ask about receiving an email newsletter. A campaign such as this not only grows your subscriber list, but also might revive a few customer relationships.

Anything you might add to the list?

I’m a big believer in online marketing being used for lead generation in BtoB environments. If you’re not using e-commerce on your website, any online marketing efforts should focus on gathering information from those visitors. That can be done via click path trending, keyword analysis, lead generation, etc.

An article from BtoB magazine on lead generation got me thinking about lead generation statistics. Here’s the excerpt in which I was most interested:

The survey found that more than 50% of buyers said they provide a valid name, e-mail address, industry, job title and company name when they register; although less than 40% provide accurate phone numbers. As for e-mail addresses, in many cases marketers may harvest personal e-mail addresses rather than corporate ones (43% of users said they gave personal e-mail addresses). Respondents said they did so to better manage information rather than hide from follow-ups.

Perhaps most interesting, Lohman said, was what type of content users said they were willing to register for. White papers came out on top at 80%. Demos lagged at 38% and webcasts at 31%. That’s somewhat surprising, Lohman said, as marketers themselves ranked demos (77%) and webcasts (64%) as two types of content they most often require registration to access.

Whether your getting customers to fill out a form for podcasts, white papers, or just a call for more information, this is important data. I get quite a bit of lead forms with gmail.com or yahoo.com email address, but a correct phone number, which makes me believe these numbers are accurate. As a gatekeeper for registration forms, you need to give leads every chance to be passed on. That may mean ignoring some false looking data.

The second set of data revolves around what types of information registered for are most popular. This does not surprise me either as I think people will register and download bits of information that they can absorb on their schedule. Over time, I think downloadable webcasts and podcasts will close the gap on white papers.

What are your thoughts on lead generation and registrations?

If you’re ever curious to see what I read and bookmark, just visit the Lonely Marketer. I’ve placed a del.icio.us widget in my right sidebar so everytime I bookmark a post or news story that I want to reference later, you’ll be updated as well. Typically, I bookmark information that would be of interest to the readers of the site.

For those of you not familiar, del.icio.us is a social bookmarking site popular with bloggers and others that participate in social media. You can bookmark web pages, posts, or sites that you want to keep and then you can access those bookmarks from any computer. Plus, you can tag them for easy searching down the road. I actually use the site outside of blogging as well. It’s great for bookmarking market research and other job-related information.

Drew McLellan of Drew’s Marketing Minute never ceases to amaze me. He’s always coming up with practical activities that serve a purpose. His newest venture, Help me build a new blogger toolbox, is no different. There are so many new bloggers jumping onto the scene every day and this is a great way to give them resources that encourage them to come up with engaging, well-written content.

I had plenty of help from other bloggers when I started and I’m sure you did too. Even if you’re not a blogger, I’d follow this list as you’ll probably find incredible content you didn’t know was out there.

Here’s how this works:

1) Anyone who is interested, create a post listing a few blog sites (and maybe give a word or two as to how you’d categorize them) that:

• Are chock full of practical tips
• Act as a living lab on how to write compelling blog posts
• Demonstrate how to build a community
• Teach marketing tools
• Are welcome wagons - bloggers who spotlight newbies

2) If you want, use the photo above as the graphic - great, gotta love consistency

3) Link back to Drew’s post, so he can find yours and add it to the master list

4) If you think its of value to your readers — why not grab the list before yours and just top it off with your new additions

5) Encourage your readers to do #1-4

New Bloggers Toolbox

Here’s The Toolbox List with my additions. More on why I added them below.

Converstations (chock full of practical tips)
CK’s blog (compelling blog post examples)
Viral Garden (demonstrate how to build a community)
Lonely Marketer (teach marketing tools)
Successful & Outstanding Blogs (bloggers who spotlight newbies)
Techno//Marketer
Internet Marketing Monitor
The Marketing Technology Blog
Create Business Growth
Modern B2B Marketing

My Additions:

Techno//Marketer (very compelling posts about new media and technology)
Internet Marketing Monitor (On top of practical tips in the Internet Marketing world)
The Marketing Technology Blog (Great site for teaching and creating marketing and blogging tools)
Create Business Growth (Have done an excellent job of reaching out and building community)
Modern B2B Marketing (Compelling blog posts that contain tips and tricks on Internet Marketing)

I encourage you to jump in and participate - someone just getting started will really appreciate the help and encouragement!

Believe me, I never in a million years thought I’d write that phrase - and certainly not publicly. But, I cannot hide it any more. I’m an asteroid and very proud of it! And you, my loyal readers, can take your shot at me in a classic game of Asteroids.

The folks over at Create Business Growth have created a game called CBG Rocks and it’s alot of fun. Me and Nate Whitehill are featured as asteroids along with Paris Hilton and Donald Trump. Check it out…