Aligned Marketing Blog

1. Movies and Books. The formula for a good movie or book is the same. They introduce a likable or sympathetic lead character, introduce danger or threat, which can be in the form of a person, a situation, or both, and then resolve the conflict just when you think all is lost. Use books and movies as an inspiration to write and shoot your own video. What would you do different if you were the lead character? What did you learn about management from watching The Godfather?
2. Traveling is one of the best ways to find your muse. Changing your location changes your thought patterns. New places and new people can alter and refresh the way you see the world.
3. YouTube and Flickr are both loaded with visual stimulation. You can quickly find amazing images of people doing extraordinary things, or just dumb stuff, to tickle your imagination into producing your next great video or blog.
4. If you like technology visit websites like CNET's, Fast Company's, Wired Magazine's or the TechCrunch blog and write or create a video about what you found interesting. If you like current events, visit The Wall Street Journal, CNN or USA Today's websites. Every subject has a few sites that do a great job of compiling and reporting current trends and noteworthy topics.
5. Speaking of trends: Trends are posted automatically on Yahoo and Twitter. See what all the hubbub is about, do a little research and then shoot a video or write a blog post adding your (informed) two-cents to the conversation.
6. Look in the mirror. I know, it sounds strange. It works. Sit in front of the mirror for a few minutes and let the self-reflection bring you to deeper thoughts than most of us have as we sit in front of our computers or ramble through our days. Then write about those thoughts.

Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0) | Permalink

1. How do you find anything? If you’re like a billion other people, you “Google” it. Do the same thing for topics you want to shoot a video about or blog about. You can type anything into Google and get more than 1,000,000 results, all pertaining to your topic. Scan through the results until you find something that sparks your imagination.
2. Delicious is one of the post popular sites on the web. Delicious describes itself as the “world’s leading social bookmarking service.” It’s packed full of the most popular bookmarks and blogs on the web as selected by its members. If you want to know what people are talking about, what they’re interested in, then visit Delicious the next time you’re looking for video or blog ideas.
3. Blogs. There are blogs about seemingly everything. I particularly like to read about video production and blogging. I incorporate the tips I pick up into the work I do and, then, if it works well, shoot a short video or write a blog post about my experience.
4. People. I’ve always been a people watcher. At Starbucks, at the mall, at the airport, it doesn’t matter, I watch people because they fascinate me. Observe parents, waiters, firemen practicing their craft long enough and I guarantee you an idea for a video or a blog will pop into your head.
5. Exercise. When I feel like something is brewing inside my head but just doesn’t seem to want to come out, or I find myself not taking decisive action, I take my dog for a long walk. You’ll be surprised how 30-45 minutes of exercise will relax your mind and release your creativity.
6. I have a couple books that list Quotes by topic and by author, there’s also several websites that do the same. Read through the quotes by topic or author and soon you’ll have all the inspiration you need to produce a new video or write an insightful blog post.

Comments (1) | Trackbacks (0) | Permalink

1. Buy yourself an inexpensive camcorder. I use the Flip Ultra HD. I paid $179.00 for it at WalMart. The picture quality is very good and it is super easy to use. Just plug it into the built-in USB on your computer and then watch, edit, or upload your videos. It really is that easy.
2. If you don't have a new product or a dozen video ideas banging around in your head, record your Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs).  That way the most common questions you're asked by customer and prospects will have an entertaining way of being answered and your customers won't have to scroll through screen after screen of online text searching for answers.  
3. Another idea is to create a list of your 10 best tips for solving customer problems. Shoot a short video for each one, put them up on your site and be sure to share them through various video platforms such as YouTube and TubeMogul, and others.
4. Interviews make great videos. Interview industry experts, your senior executives, and your customers and then post them as outlined in the previous bullet. Note, you'll want to keep the interviews short so I suggest asking only one or two very specific questions to whomever you interview. Ideally videos should be under 5 minutes and many would argue they need to be under three.
5. Video your newest product being used or any of your product application scenes. Demonstrate why your solution is the best solution. You may even want to do comparisons between your product and your competitor's products.
6. Use several Social Media sites, not just YouTube, to promote your video. Tubemogul, which I covered in another blog post, is easy to use and an effective way to promote your video to a wide audience and measure the results.
7. Online videos don't have to have Hollywood level production value but you'll want to make a reasonable good impression. My suggestion is you hire someone to help you with editing if you're not comfortable with video editing software.
8. Record yourself reading your favorite blog posts and then promote the videos.
9. Have a good idea of what you're going to say before pressing the Record button on your camera. I like to use an outline but some people prefer a script, more of a teleprompter approach. The point is; be prepared.
10. Add some text when posting your video on your website so you can attract the search engines and be sure to write a description of your video when posting it on video sharing sites.
11. Include a clear call-to-action. Ask people to visit your site, call or email for more information, subscribe to your newsletter, or "click here" to buy your product (and "Get 10% off").
12. The most powerful videos are customer testimonials. If you can get a customer to tell the world how great you are then you will have one of the most powerful marketing tools available. If they don't have a camera, send them yours.

Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0) | Permalink

Social media is really nothing more than an online reflection of the offline world. The offline process that leads up to a sale; "know me, like me, trust me," also applies to the online world of social media. Sales happen at the end of that process in both worlds.

That sounds simple because it is. What’s striking is how many people get it terribly wrong. Instead of taking the time to get involved in an online community, much as any good business person would if they joined the local Chamber of Commerce, most people rush to the Close. They broadcast their sales pitch out randomly, hoping to hit a target. What a total waste of energy, not to mention the damage done to your brand.

When they don’t hit a target, they blame the medium, the technology. “I tried social media and it didn‘t work.” That’s a crock but it is easier than blaming themselves. It’s easier than doing the hard work involved and dedicating the time to do truly join a community and contribute real value. It’s easier than being a responsible citizen.

Responsibilities are serious business. Avoiding your responsibilities to build trust in the community, which is that you are doing if you just throw out your pitch randomly, means you are a spammer. Spammer is an ugly word in our wired-up world. So ugly that in it’s most literal sense, it’s illegal. Most of us have software installed on our computers to block these cretins.

Opening accounts on social sites such as LinkedIn, Digg, StumbleUpon, Twitter and the others for the single purpose of promoting yourself is a bad strategy. Get involved! Become an active member of the community. Provide value. Give good advice and engage with a servant’s heart. Keep the conversation going on the forum itself, don’t try to divert members to your site, your self-interest. Wait until you’re asked.

Take the time to comment and vote on other people’s content. Visit other people’s blogs and “RT” (retweet) good information, Friend those you know or who have similar interests as you and call-out the spammers. Finally, rather than quantity you should seek quality.

In other words focus your efforts on the social sites you are going to be involved in and sites that contain a group of people who can relate to your content and perspective. Don’t submit an article on postpartum depression to a social network convened around Fantasy Football.

As is always the case, to reap the rewards you must do the work. Everyone, as I taught my two boys, pays List Price for success.

Add value to the community and the community will reciprocate.

Steve

800-707-9150

Comments (3) | Trackbacks (0) | Permalink

Does your company have specific business goals for your social media activities? If not, you should.

In a November 2009 survey MarketingSherpa discovered that approximately ninety-four percent (see chart below) of those surveyed use social media to increase their website traffic, which is not surprising.

What might surprise you is twenty-one percent don’t actually measure their results and five percent have no specific objectives for their social media activities. So I can only assume that they’re on LinkedIn and Tweeting, for example, because they think it’s the right thing to do.

Doing something for the sake of doing it doesn’t sound like real business to me, does it to you?

The other thing that surprised me was the relatively low number of respondents who use social media to reduce their customer acquisition and customer support costs. I mean, the tools are free!

The bottom line is social media is a free and easy to use platform for promoting your business and communicating directly with your customers and prospect, so use it.

If you’re not sure how, give us a call.

Steve Hartkopf

800-707-9150

Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0) | Permalink

Nichebot - http://www.nichebot.com

Shopping.com Searches – http://www2.shopping.com/top_searches

AOL Hot Searches - http://hot.aol.com/hot/hot

Google Groups - http://groups.google.com

Craig's List - http://www.craigslist.com

Delicious Popular - http://del.icio.us/popular

Digg - http://www.digg.com

Google Catalogs - http://catalogs.google.com

Google Suggest – http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en

Technorati - http://www.technorati.com

If you want to focus exclusively on what’s selling visit the Clickbank Marketplace (http://marketplace.clickbank.net).

The web is constantly changing so it requires effort to stay current, to remain relevant.

As a marketing consultant it’s my business to stay abreast of web-trends. Feel free to call me if you’re having trouble finding the information you need.

Steve Hartkopf

800-707-9150

Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0) | Permalink

1. Fire
2. Jesus and
3. the Internet

I know a lot more happened, I just think the rest of it is largely subtext. I guess I’m a big picture guy. Some of us operate at 20,000 feet and some us at 3 feet. That’s fine. We’re just different. One view is not necessarily better than the other and we need both types of people (and a lot more) in the world. We all have a role to play.

Even though I consider myself a decent writer, I’m not the guy to hire if you want to a write long detailed process manual, which may be needed to implement a strategy. I’d get about 90% through, get bored and struggle with the last 10%. Attention to detail has been a life-long issue for me. My best work has been done when I had highly analytical teammates, people to help me with details. These differences are good, in fact they’re important.

Can you imagine how boring it would be if every night you sat down with your friends and family and said, “Okay, what should we talk about? Fire, Jesus or the Internet?” That wouldn’t work well, although I know people who, it seems, do only talk about the last two.

It’s hard to figure out your own set of words. It takes time and effort to work through and reconcile your inner-most thoughts and feelings. But that’s exactly how we learn about ourselves. My little three-word exercise is just one tactic and those are my results.

I’m going to assume your list, your top three (fifteen, whatever) is different than mine and that’s the point. Write your own list. Once you have it, study it. What does it tell you about yourself? How can you incorporate your natural tendencies, the real you, into your work? How can you mix it into your fun?

I’ve shared my list. Care to share yours?

Steve

Comments (3) | Trackbacks (0) | Permalink