The Lonely Marketer

I found myself recently in the position of backfilling a position that I held as a small business Marketing Manager. Not only was I overly picky about selecting candidates to interview, but I found myself amazed at the amount of experience for which I was looking. Today’s small business Marketing Manager position has evolved into so much.

This is not your large company marketing group. We don’t have a group for web marketing, a group for developing sales campaigns and related marketing tools, a group for print advertising, and on and on. I found myself looking for someone that has a little experience in alot of things rather than someone that was specialized in one area of marketing.

Now, if you are specialized don’t freak out about what I’m writing. Larger companies, agencies, and self-employed marketing professionals are all excellent locations for someone that has specialized. I’m writing from the small business perspective and what I need in that role. Here are some of the major elements of experience for which I was looking:

• Content Writing: I wanted someone that had exhibited writing experience. That could be white papers, application notes, web content, ad copy, etc. Marketing starts with content!

• An Understanding of SEM/SEO: I was not looking for someone that had proven experience optimizing a website. What I did want is someone who understood the concept and why optimizing web pages and paid search campaigns for search engines was so important in today’s marketing mix. If they mentioned anything to do with keywords, they made it to the next round. Interesting note - one of the candidates was touting his Google Adwords experience so I turned my monitor around, handing him the keyboard and asked him to show my top performing ad group. He had no clue how to find that most basic element.

• Lead Generation: I was betting I wouldn’t get this experience, but I actually did. I was happy to have candidates in for interviews that had displayed experience in lead generation campaigns. The best candidates talked about “Qualified” leads.

• Exposure to Social Media: Oddly, this was tough to find. Maybe it’s because I’m so connected with social media that I expected to see more experience with some aspect of the communication medium. No one I interviewed had direct experience (I’ll be curious to see what two years down the road brings). But, the candidates that displayed and articulated the importance of social media in the marketing mix proved to me they were current. I will say that each of my final round candidates did invite me to hook up on LinkedIn. Very nice touch.

• Sales Campaign Experience: It was important to me that the candidate had some experience in working with sales on sales campaigns.

• Market Research: Everyone seemed to have this. But, many could not spell out the steps they took in their research.

• Creativity: I needed some display of “out of the box” thinking. Something that would lead me to believe the candidate could lead us in new directions and challenge me in my thinking.

• Ability to Learn: I’m not crazy - I didn’t expect to find every characteristic I listed above. But, I wanted the candidate to have some of the experience and proven track record for learning “on-the-job” and quickly.

I found the whole process very interesting. I never took a step back before to really put down on paper the experience that I thought the small business marketing manager should have. It’s a fun and exciting juggling act that at times can be stressful and at times be immensely gratifying.

Valeria Maltoni over at Conversation Agent has invited me to contribute to a string of posts dedicated to businesses measuring the ROI and success from social media efforts. If you haven’t already you should check out Valeria’s site - I think much of my audience would find her content very useful and engaging!

I’ve been asked my thoughts on companies measuring social media efforts many times. In fact, I’ve gone through the process of justifying the effort and definitely have a strong opinion. If you’re a marketing manager wanting to jump into social media, but your superiors are hesitant to give budget for the effort, you really need to think out how to position the medium.

I don’t think you can put a dollar figure on social media to prove ROI. You’ll have a hard time showing what the revenue increases were from your blogging or other social media efforts. The medium has not advanced far enough for that. I also don’t think that the medium is wide-spread enough that you can justify ROI with only subscriber count and number of comments. Many senior executives wouldn’t know what an RSS subscriber even means.

With that said, I think this is a very viable form of corporate marketing and there are a number of ways the medium can be sold up the chain and measured throughout the year:

• Don’t Isolate Social Media: Position social media as a component of your overall marketing plan. If you engage in print advertising, you’re used to making the case that print advertising is a branding component that is used to support your overall marketing messaging. Like social media, the ROI from print advertising is very hard to measure. Social Media should be one medium you’re using among many in your communication with your audience and customers.

• Sales Tool: When is the last time you created a brochure and were asked to measure the ROI from that effort? You created the brochure to support the overall success of a product or service. The brochure helped to position and describe your product development effort. Blogging as a social media medium could be considered along the same lines. With every piece of content we create for our company blog, we make sure our sales people are aware they can share that content with interested customers. It essentially becomes a unique and innovative tool they can use to spread the word. As long as you’re providing useful content for your audience, they’ll appreciate your effort and most likely visit again.

• Feedback: We’re also finding success in using blogging as a method for gathering customer feedback through surveys, new product ideas and product feedback forms. Social media is supposed to be a conversation, correct? Well, treat it as such and allow your audience to participate in the future of your products. We’ve already received valuable feedback that rivals that of an individual order placed.

• Promote Realistic Expectations: I think many marketers who are into social media and blogging are a bit misguided as to the affect blogging will have on marketing efforts. In the marketing blog community, you can start a blog, link out to 50 other bloggers in your first week and pick up traffic and subscribers that are fun to measure. Not all niches have that opportunity. Many communities lack a large enough niche in which to socialize. What then? I encourage people in less sociable niches not to pump the benefits of thousands of subscribers, millions of page views, or hundreds of comments. It could take years to develop that following in some online communities as the medium matures. Focus less on expected statistics and more on how social media will be integrated with the rest of your product marketing efforts.

• Multipurpose Content: As a small business marketing manager, it’s always music to my ears when someone says that we can use content we’ve created for multiple purposes. If you’re blogging, you should be creating valuable content. Have you thought about using portions of that content for an eNewsletter creation or the beginning of a white paper? Make sure you have a plan to have multiple purposes for your efforts.

• Go Find Your Customer: One easy case I was able to make for blogging was the ability for our company to more easily go meet our audience where they begin most online searches that lead to our website - Google. Most of our website traffic originates on Google so it only makes sense for us to continue our efforts to get in their search results. Blogging platforms are very solid ways to optimize content for search engines - especially if you’re updating often and using the right methods.

• Stats: I know, I know - stats are important. I just didn’t want them to be the focus of this post because not all social media efforts should be measured with analytics. Believe me, I do follow our stats, but I pay more attention to subscribers, comments, and from where the visits originate. These are important statistics to gauge how well your audience is receiving your content.

In two years, I’ll guarantee that there will be measurements in place that prove ROI from businesses engaging in social media. This method of conversing with your audience is growing by the day. But right now we need to focus on social media as a tool in our marketing toolbox that supports all the other tools we’re using in our marketing plans.

I’m supposed to tag some people to also contribute to this conversation, but there are so many people I’d like to hear from that I don’t know where I’d begin. For starters I’d like to see what Marty, Matt, Pat and Stoney have to say. But, if you have opinions and want to chime in, please do - and send me the link to your post and I’ll add it this one.

Reader Responses:

• Measuring ROI on social media investments (Francois Gossieaux - Emergence Marketing)
• Social Media Measurement (Tom O’Brien - A Human Voice)

Okay readers, I need your opinion. Should a small business company blog offer a full or partial RSS feed? Having participated in the blog world for over a year now, I’m 100% in favor of the full RSS feed. In fact, myself and others have written about how partial feeds are such a turnoff because we use RSS readers so we don’t have to always click-through to the individual sites to which we subscribe.

But, that opinion is largely drawn from my participation in the marketing blogging community - both search marketing and general marketing bloggers.

What happens when there is not such a large number of bloggers in a particular niche and your audience is comprised mostly of customers and end-user prospects who don’t maintain blogs themselves - or are even that familiar with RSS and blogging? Should your RSS distribution mentality change? Here are the pros, cons and discussion points we’re tossing around:

Why companies should offer a FULL feed:

• RSS content distribution is meant to give readers the flexibility to consume content on their own terms.
• Readers may not want to visit your site each time.
• Content is more engaging when can be presented in full in a Reader

Why companies should offer a PARTIAL feed:

• One goal is to get people to your site. A partial feed would get more people to click through to your site on a regular basis to see offers or other product information.
• Customers can’t purchase, request more information, or get additional resources from within their RSS reader.
• If the goal is truly to interact with your customers via your blog than you need to get them to the site for the conversation.

As I was writing this post, Stoney deGeyter posted about the full or partial RSS feed topic on Search Engine Guide. He makes a great case for why a full feed is good.

BUT, the goal of any small business marketing effort is, of course, a return on the investment and the time. Is a full RSS feed inhibiting ROI efforts or is it lending to a greater goal of community? Is community enough of an ROI factor? I’m just wondering if maybe the rules shouldn’t change slightly when it comes to company blogs.

Your thoughts?

I know what you’re thinking. It’s Halloween. Christmas lights aren’t even up yet and I’m suggesting you start thinking about your 2008 paid search campaign. Well, paid search is more than just ad copy tweaks and keyword research. Paid search is a component of your overall small business marketing plan. Now is the time to learn from your 2007 results and make sure that your 2008 paid search strategy is in line with your overall product marketing goals!

Head on over to Search Engine Guide and read my full post - Important Steps In 2008 Paid Search Planning.

Let me know your thoughts! How do you make sure your strategies are aligned?

There is a major shift happening in the world of marketing. Actually, it’s been happening for some time, but many industries chose to ignore it.

As calls from ad reps start coming in trying to get business for 2008, I can’t help but notice that many traditional print magazines are leading with offers related to online marketing. I’ve watched the print trade magazines shrink in size for three years, but this is the first year that the sales reps are leading with online marketing mediums and opportunities.

I guess this should be no surprise to anyone, right? BtoB recently report that:

Internet advertising revenue for the first half hit a record $9.993 billion, up 26.4% from the year-earlier period, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers, which released a report Thursday.

Yet, it surprises me that “old school” magazines and reps are so quickly changing their tune. I’ve spent alot of my career in the telecommunication and data networking industry that has always been slow to evolve. There are many other similar industries. But, maybe this is a sign that they’re coming of age. How the magazines write and act are typically an extension of their audience.

BtoB also reports that the channels by which we reach our audiences online is spreading out:

Forrester said interactive spending will total $18 billion this year and jump to $24 billion next year. By 2012, it will reach $61 billion, the research firm said, driven by marketers that leverage multiple channels: e-mail, search, display advertising, online video and emerging media ad channels such as social and mobile.

Now, that is what I call a shift! It’s important to keep in mind that these stats are not just a representation of a bunch of marketers - these stats are a representation of the audiences and users that those marketers are trying to reach. We need to stay on top of that and make the shift as well.

Small business marketers need to stay aware of these statistics. Our budgets don’t allow for falling behind the times.

I’m happy and excited to announce that along with the Lonely Marketer, I’ll also now be writing articles over at the Search Engine Guide. I can’t think of a better place to do a little more writing on a topic I very much enjoy - small business marketing!

But, no worries - articles and commentary will still be frequent as usual on the Lonely Marketer!

My first article went up today and is focused on a Beginner’s Guide to Google Adwords Settings. A quick excerpt:

Have you ever wondered what all those setting are in your Google AdWords campaign? Well, don’t feel bad if you don’t. I’ve come across more than a few people who have campaigns up and running that haven’t gone through and made sure they understood the nitty-gritty details of their paid search campaign. I can’t think of a better way for small business marketers to throw away advertising dollars. Let’s take a look at a few of those settings that play a large role in your campaigns success.

Check out the full post on Search Engine Guide.

It’s October, my phone is ringing off the hook, and sales pitches are starting to roll in which means it’s time for 2008 media planning and buying. This is sort of becoming a Fall ritual for me as we work on our media plan and figure out what mix of print ads, paid search, banner ads, white paper postings, webcasts etc. we want for the upcoming year.

As a small business media planner the art of media planning and buying can be a bit intimidating at first, but as you learn the ropes you find ways to put yourself in a good position to make the right decisions and stretch your dollar as far as it will go. Here are some guidelines I’m following for this year:

• Treat Reps With Respect: Admittedly, the cold calls I receive get a bit old after awhile, but I believe the caller should be treated with respect - and get a call back when they get my voicemail. I’ve developed some great relationships with ad reps and I like to continue doing that. Many times the better relationships make for better business deals.

• Have a Basic Media Plan in Mind: I like to have a basic idea in my mind come October what I want in my media plan for next year. What verticals will I hit with print, what types of online ads will I be buying, will I be trying video are just a couple of the answers I like to have ready. This way you can give eager sales reps some guidelines for what they can include in their proposals. Which, in turn, saves you time wading through endless options.

• Get The Stats: If you’re purchasing banner ads or any kind of online ad placement, ask for basic statistics from the rep. Try to get such stats as visitors, impressions, average click-through-rates, and site page views. I’ve purchased ads in the past from reputable companies only to find that their web traffic was very low.

• Know Your Budget: I always assume that my budget will be the same as the previous year (but make sure you ask for more!). Knowing a basic budget figure for media planning and buying will keep your sites set on a goal of getting the most out of what money you do have to spend.

• Keep Track of Contacts: I’m dealing with many different media types and vendors so there are quite a few contacts to remember. Start a spreadsheet or database with contact info from everyone with whom you speak - even if you don’t think you’ll do business with them. This saves time when you’re ready to go back and finalize contracts.

• Negotiate Value-Ads: Let’s face it, print advertising is declining but not dead. Many of us still need to place print ads for branding purposes. One trend I’m seeing though is many magazines are cutting back issues or decreasing in size. Use this trend to your advantage by asking for value-ads to be thrown in with print ad purchases. I like to ask for banner placements on websites (more links for SEO!!), subscriber lists for sales campaigns, or free white paper postings. You’d be surprised what you can get thrown in.

• Try Something New: It’s easy to get stuck in a rut from year to year, but every small business marketer should be looking at trying new mediums each year. We may take a stab at video this year! Remember Universal Search is playing a much bigger role these days.

• Leave Some Padding: Don’t commit every last penny of your 2008 media plan. Leave some wriggle room for events or ads that you might want to run mid-year. Remember, things change!

Does this seem daunting? Don’t let it. Have a plan, stick to that plan, and don’t get tempted to stretch the budget. There has never been a better time to be working on media planning and buying - the options for positive results are endless!

I’ve been bookmarking quite a few posts lately so I thought it was time to share some of my favorites with you. Below are a few I picked out that I thought you’d enjoy.

• Life Begins When?: A great new sales management blog written by Tom Schaber has a fun post about the evolution of technology and how that has impacted the lives of sales people. A good resource for small business sales managers! He also has a book coming out this Fall on sales management.

• A Beginner’s SEO Toolbox: Matt McGee has a very informative post outlining some tools beginners can use to get their feet wet with SEO. It’s simple and packed with useful information.

• Should Social Media Marketing be Part of Your Internet Marketing Campaign?: David Wilson has put together a good post discussing social media and its impact on websites and marketing plans.

• Search Engines for Kids: I was thrilled to see this post by Matt Bailey on Search Engine Guide. As my kids are starting to use computers I want to make sure the environment in which they’re browsing is safe. Nice work, Matt!

• The 3 Legs Intro to SEO - A SoloSEO Sketchcast: Michael over at SoloSEO introduced a new service called Sketchcast. For those of you looking for new and creative ways to express yourself or your company on the web, this may be worth checking out.

• Eleven Tips For Optimizing PDFs For Search Engines: Such a simple concept yet something that is overlooked by so many.

• Do Blogs Work For Small Business?: This is a great example of how you can use search engines in a variety of ways to rank well for products that you sell.

Hope you found something in there you liked! Thanks to the authors for the great content.

Were my expectations too high? Did a great new phone release print ad and great landing page create a buzz that fizzled? Was I tainted by the iPhone craze? I think so.I’ll admit, I was intrigued enough by a print ad in a newspaper today to follow-up and see more information online. I’m a Verizon Wireless customer and I signed on with them a few years back because of their good network. But, over the last two years, I’ve started to watch other carriers who are carrying more cutting edge technology in their cell phones.

Could a print ad change my perception of Verizon’s cell phone offering?

It was a half page ad on the back of one of the sections. The ad was all in black with the headline “Next Phones Now” followed by the date “10.3.2007″. Next were a set of 4 cell phones hidden in shadows so you can make out the outlines and a few characteristics, but not much else. Below the phone was their logo and the url - “www.verizonwireless.com/next“.

Being a bit of a technology toy geek, I had to check this out. I guess the fact that my Verizon contract is up in a few months also plays into my intrigue.

The landing page is very well done and definitely creates the aura of an unveiling. Here is how it looks:

A clock counting down, soothing music with relevant lyrics, and a spotlight you can move around that lets you uncover some of the mystery are all excellent elements for this landing page. Lower on the screen were buttons to share with friends and add to del.icio.us. Verizon definitely has the pieces in place on this web page to create buzz and potentially some viral social activity.

…yet, I think their follow-through may lack some punch.

Since I typically write about small business marketing I’m always intrigued to watch the big players like Apple throw big money at great campaigns. So, I was excited to look around the web and see all the buzz about Verizon’s new phones.

…looking…still looking….getting bored…nothing….done looking.

• A search on “New Verizon Wireless Cell Phones” on Google yields only standard Verizon Wireless results. I was sure there would be news stories on the first page about their release or maybe a YouTube video relating to the new phone mystery. After all, this is the era of Universal Search!
• Their standard Adwords ads were up leading to their homepage. No ads touting their new phones or their “Next Phones Now” campaign.
• Nothing on their homepage! I thought for sure there would be something obvious there pointing to the campaign and the new phone unveiling. But, nothing!

What if I was in the market tonight for a new phone and provider? If I didn’t see that print ad, I might not know that in two days Verizon could have some great phones available.

In the era of Universal search, I would have suggested this to Verizon:

• Put some Press Releases out over the last month discussing the new phones. That gives them time to find their way into search results while this campaign is running.
• Get some influential technology writers some specs - or maybe even a phone - to look at and review (think iPhone). Create some buzz!
• Do something fun with a video or maybe even a game that let’s users try to uncover the mystery of what they’re about to release.
• Run Adwords ads on their name and terms like “new cell phone”. Have the campaign name in the ad and promote the mystery unveiling. Cell phone decision making starts and sometimes ends on search engines!

You know what’s interesting? None of my suggestions are “big dollar” marketing ideas. That’s why I think the online marketing - namely search engine marketing - has given small business marketing the chance to compete with the big budgets.

Well, Verizon, I’ll be watching to see what new phones you have, but I’m afraid your viewing audience might not be as big as it could have been. If you’re looking for someone to review the new phones, I’m always available!

Have you considered the fact that your next job interview could be in the virtual offices of your future employer in Second Life? No? Well, you’re not alone - I’ve never considered it either. But, an article last month in Kiplinger’s magazine about virtual interviews by companies such as Verizon, Microsoft, and HP leads me to believe that the possibility isn’t so remote.

More importantly to small business marketing is how far we are away from actually having to consider adding virtual world marketing to our plans and budgets. Admittedly, my mind was pretty closed off to the possibility. I couldn’t imagine myself, buying real estate in Second Life and flying my avatar around to meetings. But, a few recent news stories have me thinking other virtual world technologies may become more mainstream for small businesses.

Cisco recently announced a Second Life-like site for resellers and developers - sort of a virtual trade show. From the article:

The new Cisco site will be accessible through Cisco’s Web site, but it is not open to the public. The ISPN was designed and housed on servers owned by Unisfair Inc. in Menlo Park, Calif., Sage said. Visitors to ISPN will be able to click on buttons to navigate as they move through trade show halls and booths, a meeting hall and a lounge, along with various “shadow people,” without the need to pick attire or facial characteristics as in Second Life. However, they will be able to chat with one another in ISPN to compare technologies. In coming weeks, Cisco plans to allow voice communication between ISPN participants through WebEx and Skype, he said.

Hitting closer to home, a major distributor of ours is hosting virtual trade shows for the manufacturers of products they carry and the resellers and end users who buy those products. You wouldn’t believe how life-like the interface is! I can actually see our company participating in an event like that - or at least trying it to see what kind of quality leads we’re able to obtain.

So, it looks like we have another avenue to consider for future marketing efforts or at least keep an eye on. If your interested, I found a webinar being hosted by BtoB about how marketers can achieve ROI in Second Life. The webinar is this Wednesday, September 26th (tomorrow). I won’t be able to attend, but would love a recap if anyone decides to check it out.

What are your thoughts on virtual world marketing? Fad or viable marketing effort?