Aligned Marketing Blog

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

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Our economy is in the rough and, while most are slashing expenses, people and marketing budgets, some leaders are using this pre-recovery time to increase investments in marketing. In a recent BtoB Magazine survey, “2010 Outlook: Marketing Priorities and Plans Survey results, 11-16-09, 71% of those surveyed are investing more in their website in 2010 than they did in 2009.

In a separate study from Bain covering over 2500 companies, about 24 percent more firms were shown to “move from the back of the pack to the front of the pack,” with regards to sales and profits, during recessions than do during non-recessionary times. Do significant marketing investments during a recession make sense?

It did for Southwest Airlines and Wal-Mart (see Monday’s post). Both were noted in the Bain study for their vision and results but other companies have made smart pre-recovery investments as well. For example, the “Intel Inside” campaign was launched during a recession in the 1990’s. Before that, Proctor & Gamble invested heavily in Ivory Soap during the Great Depression and achieved spectacular results that lasted for decades. What is it that Southwest, Wal-Mart, Intel, Proctor & Gamble, great companies all, knows that other companies seem to miss?

It’s this, marketing investments that are consistent and aligned with your customers’ needs and aspirations are always wise investments. Now is the time to assess your customers’ needs, as well as your own strengths and goals, and invest.

Slashing marketing to survive in 2008-2009 may have been necessary but now you have to play the ball were it lies. What’s your plan for 2010 and 2011? Do you know what your competitors are doing? Who was weakened by the recession and who became stronger is important marketing intelligence. As the dust settles, where do you stand or do you even know?

A return to the pre-recession competitive landscape in 2010 is unlikely. The mammoth adjustments necessary for survival changed the playing field. You and your competitors were not affected equally and new options, most likely driven by technology and the web, are available to your customers and prospects. In every segment of the economy customers are beginning to look at products and services through a new, post-recession lens. How visible are you?

John Donahoe is CEO of eBay and to summarize what he said,

“It’s not about battening down the hatches and waiting for the storm to pass anymore than it is about betting big in the vague hope your hunches will pay off. Instead, it’s about executing what you do well better than ever before, making improvements, seeing the potential in new opportunities and, most importantly, having the vision to see beyond the immediate situation and taking action…“There is more market-share shift in turbulent times than there is in good times — more of an opportunity for a strong company to gain ground.”

Donahoe is right. You can’t stand over the ball forever. At some point you have to pick a club, commit to the shot and make an aggressive best swing. Are you going to play another round defensively, trying not to shoot over 100? Or are you going to play aggressively in hopes of breaking 90? It’s your choice. Take the shot.

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About 24 percent more firms moved from the back of the pack to the front in the 2001 recession compared with the subsequent period of economic calm (in terms of) net profit margins and sales growth.

Southwest Airlines is a good example. With a strong balance sheet and some cost advantages, Southwest grew sales and market share, while the other airlines, their larger competitors, cut personnel and capacity, Southwest grew and took share by increasing their marketing investments, lowering fares and retaining all their employees, a move that kept their labor force motivated and and loyal for years.

The results were astounding. Southwest increased its fleet 51 percent in the following six years and is still the only airline to be profitable since its inception. Wal-Mart offers another example of investing during a recession. They used the 2001 recession to launch their “Everyday Day Low Prices” slogan. It proved was such as success that they’re doing something similar today, you could say it's their recession-based marketing strategy. 

This time Wal-Mart is using the current downturn, as well as the demise of Circuit City, to enter consumer electronics and, potentially, challenge Best Buy. In addition, they are remodeling their stores to make them more open and consumer-friendly, more like Target’s. These are big investments. Does Wal-Mart know something most companies don’t? Does their success allow them to do what others can’t? Or are they successful because they had the knowledge and courage to act on their goals and aspirations while their competitors responded to their fears?

On Wednesday's post, The Shot, we’ll discuss tactics.

Steve

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1. Grab your reader's attention. Begin with an interesting fact, important question, comment on a current event or something personal, such as congratulations for being named Person of the Year.
2. Then transition your reader into the purpose of your letter - introduce your company, request an appointment, or a free offer, for example. Be sure to connect your request with your grabber from (what will be) paragraph one. Your transition is key, it must be both smooth and brief, people are busy. See next bullet.
3. In today's hurry-up, get-to-the-point world, many people switch the first two bullets of their outline. they begin letters by coming right out and stating, "The purpose of this letter is to request a 30-minute appointment to..." and then write their grabber. I prefer a subtler approach but will use the direct approach if I know the reader well.
4. Insert numbers or testimonials that back up your claims next. A list of indented bullets works well for either. People like reading lists of tightly written facts - summaries.
5. Your fourth section/paragraph is your call-to-action. Tie your attention grabber or your reader's self-interest into the benefits of responding to your solicitation. I don't sell actual products so I often use mutual gain as my call-to-action: "I propose a 30-minute meeting to better understand your business objectives, review our capabilities and determine if we can help one another achieve our  goals..."
6. Your final outline point let's your reader know that your letter is one of a series of contacts, that there are more to come. Explain that you will be following up by voicemail, email or both. Basically, you're telling them "you're not going away, so let's have our conversation and see where it leads."

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How to Market a Real Time Event

by Chris Brogan

Always a URL. Always

If you’re going to wire up people and connect them to an event in the real world, you need a web page of some kind or another. People need all the details. They need some kind of intangible tangible that they can pass around to point out what’s what. Give them a web page.

If it’s just a one-off, use an event system like Eventbrite. If you’re going to do this over and over, consider setting up pages on your own website of choice, and then maybe double-up with an Eventbrite to manage the signup.

Extend onto Event Sites

Here’s where you can really get things moving. If you want this event to really spread, use sites like Upcoming.org and Eventful, to name a few. If you’ve got a Facebook group, put up an event notification there. If you’ve got a LinkedIn group, and the event matches, put it up there, too.

Status, Status, Status

Without being “that guy” (and never forget, I mean this for either gender), mentioning your event is easy across your Twitter, your Facebook, your LinkedIn status, and all the other social sites that make sense to promote. A word of caution: this gets close to what feels like carpet-bombing, so go gently. In fact, out in front of such a promotional effort, make sure you’re doing your good deeds and promoting others, and sharing other good information. People don’t like a tireless self-promoter, but they don’t mind someone who shares the good stuff, even when some of it’s their own.

Email Marketing

Do you maintain an email list? Don’t forget to drop a gentle note of your event into there, too. Again, the goal is subtlety and just a gentle pointer to your URL.

Flickr and YouTube

Want to amp up your event’s pre-buzz as well as give it some love on the day of the event? Here are two things: use photos and videos for pre-event invites and promos. Then, encourage people to take photos and videos AT the event. If at all possible, make it easy for the folks who might be into making media to have something to take photos and make movies about. (A side note: if you’re bothering to throw an event with a lot of web presence, use a tag – metadata – to denote the event, for people’s blog posts, for Flickr and YouTube, and for Twitter. For instance, we’ll use #trustsummit for our event in NYC.)

Blog Posts Matter

You can do much worse than to find local bloggers and bloggers who care about the subject matter to cover the event, should they find it useful. If you’ve a budget to do so, invite some to attend in exchange for blogging anything that might be of interest to them. Realize that in the new world, bloggers are rarely obligated to do whatever you ask, and yet, if you make it interesting and worthwhile, folks love to tell a story.

Getting a few posts out about the event ahead of time, and/or after give you a lot more traction and appreciation before and after. Again, make sure the event’s worthy of coverage. If it’s just a straight product pitch or the like, that’s tricky to justify.

Twitter on the Day Of the Event

To me, Twitter’s the magic sauce in making your NEXT event really light up. It’s too late for your event by the time folks start tweeting about it, but it’s a great way to really warm up your future events. If people are tweeting that they’re having a fun time, that they’re learning, that there are still a few hours to get down to the event and have fun, magic can happy. That’s why Twitter’s the Serendipity Engine.

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• A 1-hour Crush the Competition Session with me. In this session we’ll develop three new ways you can clearly differentiate yourself from your competition. In addition, you’ll receive a condensed version of my sales coaching webinar, including a 30-minute follow up session and a signed copy of my book, Communication Wins.

• A free professionally designed, customized page for Facebook, Twitter or YouTube from M3-SocialMindz (www.M3socialmindz.com), a leader in SEO, PPC and social media marketing. A professionally designed social media page sets you apart from the competition and is a great way to project your brand into online communities and generate new sales leads.

• A video Holiday Card (click on "Holiday Card" to see samples) from ImigPro, just like this one: www.imigpro.com. If you can’t get to their Charlotte studio, email your video or images and they’ll do the rest. This is a unique way to stand out in a  crowd and competitive world. Managers and executives can use the video-card to both extend a holiday greeting and rally-the-troops for 2010.

• A copy of Gary Vaynerchuk’s new book, Crush It!. Gary was using the power of video, social media and the web before most people knew they existed. In Crush It! you learn what Gary has to say about social media, why storytelling is your most powerful marketing tool and multi-channel monetizing. Gary has appeared on CNN, Fox News, The Today Show, and The Ellen Degeneres Show. 

• One winner will be chosen at random to receive our Grand Prize - the Crush the Competition Session, signed copy of my book, free professionally design social media page from M3SocialMindz and Holiday video-card from ImigPro and copy of Gary’s book.
• Five winners will be selected to receive the Crush the Competition Session.
• Ten winners will receive a personalized autographed copy of my book, Communication Wins.
• This contest runs from Tuesday, October 13, 2009, through Friday October 30, 2009.
• Winners will be notified by email on Friday, November 6, 2009.

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1. Make a decision only when it's necessary. Every decision has a right time to be made. Don't rush decision making just because you want to check it off your to-do list. Something important might change between the time you want to make a decision and the time you must make a decision.
2. Be a good listener. Too many leaders (people) stop listening, which means they stop learning. I know you're smart, you wouldn't be Chief-of something-Officer if you weren't, but that doesn't make you infallible. Respect those around you by listening to what they have to say, then select your course of action.
3. Find your passion and pursue it with all your might. Life is more about happiness than your bank account. If you think it's all about the bank account, then you're shallow and probably not a very happy person. Life is short; get happy.
4. Find a career in a growing industry. In a growing industry when they have enough work for one and a half people they hire two people. The result is the quality of work increases, which brings more value to the customer, which makes them happy so they buy more...it's a virtuous cycle. Conversely, in a declining industry when they have enough work for one and a half people they hire one person and work him/her like a mule. If that person sticks around great, if not they bring in another mule. Don't be a mule.
5. Execution is where good ideas go to die. Good ideas are easy. Most of the people I know can rattle off a couple dozen good ideas in minutes. Execution is much harder and, therefore, more valuable. Focus on a few good ideas and learn to execute them well.
6. Nurture your relationships. Success requires other people - supporters, a team, employees, etc. If the relationship is intact you can navigate through rough waters. If you destroy the relationship people will go against their own self interest to undermine your efforts. Life is a journey so take some good people with you.
7. Take measured risks and have faith in yourself. Most of what you plan won't turn out exactly as you envisioned. That's ok. Accept curves in the road as normal and stop fretting over what might have been. Golf teaches us this point well; play the ball where it lies.
8. "There is no such thing as failure; there is only success and quitting." Eleanor Roosevelt said that when she was struggling against considerable odds to establish UNICEF. I think Mike Ditka said, "Until you give up you're always in the process of winning." Good counsel from two very successful people. Refuse to give up.
9. Live within your financial means. Money is not everything but you do need it to survive. A financial cushion can bring you peace of mind, safety and independence. I've never really worried about losing my job because, for most of my life, I've had a financial cushion to fall back on in emergencies.
10. Get over yourself. I know your Momma told you that you were great and I'm sure she's right. However, as a whole the world just doesn't care all that much and an ounce of humility, especially if you're talented, goes a lot farther than a gallon of hubris.
11. Give more and expect less. This is a good way to create balance in your life and avoid resentment. If you only give when you expect to get then you're being small, selfish and immature. Give freely and you will have deep relationships with good people. Be a taker and you will soon find yourself surrounded by takers, all trying to hustle the other. Does that sound like fun to you? It doesn't to me.
12. Avoid toxic people. Enough said.
13. Have (quiet) confidence in your self because if you don't no one else will.
14. Don't enjoy telling or be in a hurry to let someone else know they're wrong. If finding fault in someone else gives you joy then you need to understand why you feel that way. Do you think you're up just because they're down? That's twisted. If someone has a fault or is mistaken about something try to find a non-threatening way to help (coach) them. Who knows, you might find that you are the one in need of coaching...Oh, I get it, that's what you were afraid of in the first place.
15. Wag more; bark less. If you approach others with a kind and loving heart you can discuss anything. If you approach others with an angry or resentful heart then a simple "good morning" can be ill received.
16. If you have to prove you're always right, then you're always wrong. 

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