Guest Bloggers | Seattle Online Marketing, Communications, Strategy

Is 2011 the year of Deviant Marketing?

November 13, 2010 By Joe Hage 1 Comment

One of the best things about participating in Twitter chats like #blogchat on Sunday nights at 6 p.m. Pacific Time is meeting new and interesting folks like our next guest blogger, Joshua Duncan. Take it away, Joshua.

Have you ever aspired to be deviant? Surprising as it may be, I have spent the last week thinking hard about it.

Now, before you get the wrong idea, let me be quick to add that this has all been done under the umbrella of marketing strategy (as opposed to many other directions).

A recent AdAge had a lessons learned article from the 2010 IDEA conference and one of the take-always was on fostering a “deviant culture.” The idea being that it takes a deviant culture to foster boundary-busting behavior to standout from all the noise.

So what exactly does this mean?

I have to admit that I am still trying to wrap my head around it. Being deviant in my mind is about crossing the line. It is about going past interesting, past outrageous, and past the point of feeling comfortable.

I spent some time looking for examples of deviant marketing that would expand my definition and the only ideas that I could come up with were guerrilla-marketing stunts. Some of these stunts definitely got people talking, but not always in a good way (see the Light Bright bomb scare of 2007 example).

Is this really what it takes to standout in 2011?

Something about this just doesn’t feel right. Being deviant seems like a firecracker strategy where you get a quick burst of attention and then have to move onto something else. Being deviant doesn’t seem very sustainable.

The challenge still remains that it is becoming tougher and tougher to stand out and get attention in this hyper-media drenched society. Being straight laced is more often than not going to appear to be dull.

Is it possible that what they are really trying to say is to be interesting?

Some of my favorite brands have done an amazing job baking personality into their marketing, products and company culture. Take a look at New Belgium Brewery or Trader Joe’s to see some great examples of companies doing it right.

Just because you are in B2B marketing doesn’t mean you can’t have some fun with it. Check out what Cisco is doing with their social media efforts on the B2B side to liven up their communications (have you seen their rapping intern?).

Marketing legend, David Ogilvy, had this to say about a company’s image,

You now have to decide what image you want for your brand. Image means personality. Products, like people, have personalities and they can make or break them in the marketplace.

My vote is that before you head down the path of trying something outlandish just for the sake of it, spend the time working on your company’s personality and incorporating it into your message. If done right this can become a core differentiator in the marketplace and can be a lot of fun!

So what do you think?

Bio: Josh Duncan is a marketing practitioner currently working at Zenoss, an enterprise software startup. Josh can be found writing about marketing and customer experience on his blog and on Twitter.

Photo credit: Code Arachnid

What to do if you’re “just not into social media”

September 30, 2010 By Joe Hage 5 Comments

Editor’s Note: I’m glad that I’m into social media. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have met today’s guest blogger Antonia Harler, known as @antwizzel on Twitter. This topic is particularly relevant to me … a friend was asking me this very question last week. My comments follow. And here’s Antonia … take it away, antwizzel!

Let’s face it. Not everyone is born a natural communicator and not everyone is passionate about social media.

So if social media is not a fad (doesn’t seem to be) and it’s something businesses need to pay attention to, what do you do if you’re “just not into social media”?

Your social media effort is going to be successful only if you are truly devoted to it. Which is a bit circular. How can you devote yourself to something you don’t like and aren’t convinced is going to help you?

Generally when I’m asked, “What do I do if I’m not passionate about something?” my answer is “Don’t do it.” Life is too short to waste your time on something you aren’t passionate about.

But we are talking about business – and business isn’t always hearts and roses. Sometimes we need to do things we aren’t passionate about in order to succeed.

This post isn’t about the “why” but much more about the “how.” This post isn’t about strategy or what you need to do for it to work. It’s about how you are going to find your inner social media buddy.

Start with a self assessment.

How social are you in your private life? Parties all the time? Every once in a while? Or do you simply enjoy being by yourself and not face people? Trust me, you’ll find all types on the social web. There are the social media fanatics, the semi-regular users and the ones that sign up because they feel they have to and never use their account.

The social web isn’t the complete opposite of real life. It’s important for you to understand that the social web is an online reflection of your real life.

Try to find the fun in it.

Are you tweeting for your business and think it needs to be entirely about your business endeavors in order to succeed? Stop that train of thought right there. It is not. In fact, it’s the complete opposite.

Do you read a lot on the Internet? Almost every site now has a Tweet or Facebook Share button. Joe has them here on this post. Like my article? It’s one click … share it! If you find it interesting, chances are others will too. That in turn will be the start of great relationships with your fellow Tweeters and Facebookers, which might get you new clients.

The majority of content shared on the social web is interesting or fun. We all need a good laugh from time to time.

Interact. Be social.

I’m well aware that we aren’t all programmed that way. And no one says you need to be present for hours every day of the week. You don’t.

Find a schedule that’s right for you and stick to it. If you tweet twice a day but they are awesome tweets, tweet twice a day. If you blog once a week but its mind-blowing content, blog once a week.

The most important thing is that you have fun with it and that you stay consistent. Consistency is key. People will get used to what you are doing on the social web. Don’t let them down. It can backfire faster than you can tweet.

But what if, for the life of you, you still aren’t enjoying social media?

Visit Antonia on Twitter @antwizzel

That’s one question that’s easy to answer. Don’t do it.

Find someone in your business who is as passionate as you are about your company and products but also enjoys social media and is convinced that it’s an outlet that will help your cause. There’s nothing worse than someone doing something they absolutely hate. It’s a recipe for disaster. You’ll be miserable and your business won’t be represented well.

If you don’t have the luxury of employing someone that is going to do it for you, you need to ask yourself the question if social media is a must for you. It’s not for everyone.

If there are other ways you can promote your business and kick ass at them it’s probably better for you to choose that path. Kicking some serious butt is what you want and need to do. It doesn’t matter how you do it as long as you do it.

Antonia Harler (@antwizzel on Twitter) wrote her thesis on Twitter for Relationship Marketing. She tells me Austrians (where she’s from) don’t use social media as much as people in the states so she built her work up from scratch (and keeps crazy hours to be online while her American counterparts are). She’s looking for social media marketing opportunities in the UK and, in the meanwhile, encourages you to engage her on a consulting basis. Visit her blog www.socialglitz.com and join her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/socialglitz.

Photo credit: Sugarock99

Marketing a Paid Membership Site: 6 Strategies for Building Your Audience

September 9, 2010 By Joe Hage 26 Comments

Editor’s note: I’m delighted to welcome my personal friend Judy Dunn (@CatsEyeWriter) to my Web site in this guest post. She and husband Bob Dunn are some of the savviest WordPress users I know, great resources you’ll want to add to your contact list. Today Judy shares some of her experiences as she and Bob set up Savvy WordPress (http://www.savvywp.com), a paid WordPress resource membership site, which I heartily recommend.

(P.S. Judy, I have a few friends I need to refer!) And with no further adieu, here’s Judy.

The paid, members-only website — a place where people pay to access password-protected information on high-interest topics — has taken the online business world by storm. It is one of today’s fastest growing Internet business models.

Membership sites are attractive businesses for several reasons. You can focus on a topic you are passionate about. You have a recurring revenue stream from content you create only once. And you don’t have to get thousands of customers to make a decent income (although there’s a good chance you will, if you do it right).

But even when you get everything right — the perfect topic, a laser-focused niche and a high-quality product or service — you can fail if you don’t have the right marketing plan in place.

Writers call it an author platform. I call it audience building. Simply, it’s how you are going to reach your group of buyers — and it’s one of your most important tasks.

6 Marketing Strategies for Developing a Membership Site Audience

1. Start building your email list early.

This, of course, is one of your most important tools for audience building. You need a platform for educating, informing and engaging people around the topic of your niche site. One to two years before launch is not too soon.

We sent out high-quality content weekly to our e-letter subscribers for two years and developed a small, but perfectly targeted list of 400. That allowed us to move those people over to our “3 free WordPress videos” offer and continue with regular emails with more good, free content. It’s all part moving them along the path to purchase.

2. Become a ‘go-to’ expert in your membership site topic.

After you have a base audience, start building credibility in your niche. We used social media platforms to find out where the people we needed to reach were hanging out. For example, on Biznik, the business networking site, we created a group called WordPress Chatter. It isn’t a huge group (402 members), but it’s exactly our target audience: people with frustrations, challenges and questions about creating or maintaining a WordPress blog or website. Through in-person meetups and the discussions in the forum, we learned so much.

On Twitter, we set up an account (@SavvyWordPress) and started sending out regular tweets with tips and links to WordPress resources. We created a column in TweetDeck with the hashtag #wordpresshelp, so we could track the questions and answer them, establishing our credibility and positioning ourselves as experts.

Some other ways to gain expert status are to start a blog, leave comments on other blogs and discuss issues on other social networking sites. For instance, we regularly go into LinkedIn groups and answer relevant questions. You don’t have to be the biggest expert in your field but you want enough people to recognize that you know your stuff.

3. Give freely.

You may be tiring of the advice to “give free stuff,” but all I can say is that it works. Two things happen. The more you give, the more people will see how much you know and how helpful you are. And your audience will think that if you are giving this much away, well, your paid content must be even more amazing.

Giving also kicks in the psychology of reciprocity. (See Joe’s post about reciprocity [opens separate window].) People feel a sense of obligation after someone treats them kindly. It’s why they buy the product they got a free sample of in the grocery store. And it’s why they will try to return the favor by making a purchase after they receive the gift of your time or expertise.

Of course, your product has to be high-value and you need to give consistently over time to develop trust and reciprocity.

4. Use social media wisely.

Social media was a particularly effective tool for keeping current with the needs out there — especially the concerns of WordPress users — for building our audience and for establishing credibility and social proof.

What is not effective — but I see it all the time — is sending out tons of one-way sales messages without any thought to engaging people in conversations and providing value. Don’t do that.

5. Select your partners carefully and develop collaborative relationships with other experts in your niche.

This one made a huge difference for us. It is a key strategy because you will need help from these people when you start promoting your site. If you don’t start building relationships now, you’ll just be another unknown who has created another (yawn) membership site.

We started talking to other WordPress experts early on. When we exchanged ideas on Twitter, our followers could see some of the conversations. We tweeted links to some of the WordPress blogs and websites we had designed and some of the CEOs of the large WordPress theme companies retweeted them so we reached an even larger audience.

We had Skype calls with some marketing people we had met online, who had expressed interest in our site. And we made a point of connecting with as many of these people as possible when we attended WordCamps and other conferences.

6. Don’t ignore your ‘offline’ marketing.

It’s tempting to market an online business totally by email, social media, and your website sales and landing pages. But because that’s the way everybody else does it, you are definitely going to stand out if you reach out to ‘live’ humans in real time.

Get out there and talk to people. Go to industry conferences, present workshops, join social media groups (and attend their events). You are reaching fewer people, but you will need these evangelists to create a buzz around your launch. They will be the ones who go back and talk up your site — online and off.

An outstandingly successful membership is within your reach — if you take the time to develop the right idea, build your audience carefully and apply the right marketing strategies.

Have you thought about creating a membership site? Have you joined a site as a member? Do you have questions about marketing one?

Join us in the comments below. Ask your questions and add your ideas. I’d love to hear from you.

Judy Dunn is a blogging coach, copywriter, and co-owner of Savvy WordPress (http://www.savvywp.com), a WordPress resource membership site. She blogs at CatsEyeWriter (http://www.catseyewriter).

7 Ways to Create a Persuasive Facebook Page

August 19, 2010 By Joe Hage 16 Comments

Thank you to Suzanne Vara from (http://www.kherize5.com) for this guest post. Take it away, Suzanne!

Suzanne Vara from Kherize5 (Photo credit Salvo Vaccarella)

Facebook, the social networking phenomenon that has left us all a bit melancholy as we reminisce with old friends from elementary, high school and even college about the good ‘ole days of yesteryear.

We openly share information about our present lives with our spouses, divorces, children as well as all that interests us. We are freely and willingly to expose ourselves to brands about our satisfaction and dissatisfaction with them as well as our expectations of them. As a brand, this is interaction is invited, welcomed and a means of communication, engagement and persuasion.

All brands from the largest to the smallest one man shop are beginning embrace and wrap their arms around Facebook, understanding their target audience and how they speak amongst themselves and how they accept to be communicated with. This understanding and knowledge is the first step in persuasion, which ultimately is the goal of any marketing strategy … to persuade people to do what you are asking of them. This could be to answer a question about a price point, to buy, to provide information and insight about a new product launch or to take part in a cause. The Facebook page has purpose other than a head count of how many fans they can tout to one up the competition.

7 Ways to Create a Persuasive Facebook Page

Mini Website. Facebook pages are interactive and while a website is the ideal hub, the Facebook platform can be used as a “gathering” or “meeting” place and serve as the driver to the website. Creating a mini website via FBML (Facebook Markup Language) brands can customize tabs so that new visitors land on a specific page, return visitors on another page, promote a new product/service, an event, a sale, clearance items, etc.
Content. Content, content, content! Content is king as they say when you have determined “what” to say and match this with the way that the target talks and is able to understand. The content needs to recognize the purchasing process of the target and provide the necessary information to lead the consumer to persuade them to do what is being asked. The content also needs to identify with the level of commitment that is involved for the target to do what is asked. The target will relate to this content as it eliminates any perceived indifference or even negative and brings them to committing emotionally.
Credibility. Creating a Facebook page that is easily identifiable to your brand not only removes any doubt within the eyes of the consumer (due to the fake pages) it also provides a sense of credibility. The association between the brand they have been exposed to and the brand that they see before them does not singularly create credibility but it elicits and emotional response. When people are unsure, they shy away. In feeling unsure if they do advance to listen to your message, there will still be a level of doubt and their commitment is weakened.
Emotional Connections. Listening to the target audience to learn how they relate to one another about your brand and also to the brand itself is the first step in being able to connect emotionally with them. People buy from people but also from people they like. If they are exposed to your brand in a manner that is acceptable to them and in a way that they speak, they are more apt to be like and be responsive. The greater emotional contact/connection to the brand, the greater the chances they will be persuaded to commit to your asking. After all do we listen to/pay attention to the message of a brand we do not like?
Offsite Promotion. Promoting your Facebook page off Facebook and on platforms where customers need you to be (so long as this is in alignment with your strategy and is advantageous to you) to invite them over to the Facebook page. The opportunity on other platforms to engage with the target beyond your offerings as well as immediately hitting them with your message builds trust by increasing like-ability by not only referencing your brand.
Membership. Creating a membership style page where those that have liked are privy to sales that are exclusive them as “members.” They are receiving a benefit from liking and linking to your page while you as the brand are gathering information about them. The target is now connecting on a more committed level as they are part of something that others are not and they are real benefits from linking.
Engagement and Involvement. Being responsive and engaging the target who communicates with your brand not only is a good business practice, it also attempts to eliminate any negativity where they can lower their commitment to your brand. Remember the purpose of the page is to get them to do something and talking to them increases this. Asking questions and involving them in decisions is a part of this exclusivity and membership as their opinion matters.

As a brand creating a Facebook page that is enticing and persuasive but yet friendly to users builds not only credibility but leads them to committing to do what you ask of them. As a marketing strategy, Facebook continues to be a platform whereby brands can create a place for users to gather and meet for interaction and engagement.

Suzanne is the founder of Kherize5 (http://www.kherize5.com), an advertising and social media marketing agency for small businesses. She blogs daily over at Kherize5 providing innovative ideas on how to market your small business in today’s economy. She was featured earlier today in Chris Brogan’s “You Need A Suzanne Vara.”

How To Nurture Customers with Social Media | Social CRM by eMentorMarketing.com

August 8, 2010 By Joe Hage 6 Comments

Thank you to Debra Leitl from eMentorMarketing.com for this guest post. My comments follow at the bottom. Take it away, Debra!

Social media is not a new concept. True, with the invention of the Internet, it has become a more common phrase in business, but social media has been around for quite some time. Some early forms of social media were (and still are) advertising catchy slogans or taglines which can imprint in a person’s memory and instantly link back to the product or service being advertised. Other classic forms are physical demonstrations and public speeches which will also have a lasting effect. Another type of social media is print media; any form of printed advertising, usually distributed by hand. And of course, with the onset of the Internet, the reaches of social media have no bounds.

Through the Internet, media can be spread inexpensively and with the speed of a fast-acting virus. Some examples of online social media avenues are blogs, forums, social interfaces such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter, video and picture sharing sites such as YouTube and Flickr, and aggregation websites.

By using the resources available, businesses can either self-promote, or hire a company or individual to “social network” for them. When you hire a company to handle your social networking, you expect them to practice what is referred to as Social CRM, Customer Relationship Management.

Social CRM encompasses a very broad spectrum of attaining new clientele, maintaining the customers you already have, trying to bring former customers back, and managing and reducing the cost of customer retention or acquiring new customers. CRM also handles the cost involved in marketing, trying to reduce it as much as possible.

So the question of how to nurture customers with social media is a very important question. The easiest answer is, be the best social media networker you can be. Easier said than done, right?

It is important for a company to “keep up with the times,” meaning, use whichever facets of social media are the most popular at the time. Currently, the Internet is definitely the most popular tool being used for social networking. But dig deeper: Do your consumers like blogs more than articles? Do they prefer Facebook over Twitter or MySpace? Should you bombard the Internet with professionally designed ads or with customer testimonials? What is the best combination of all of these?

By knowing your target audience, a social media networker can pick and choose which avenues to travel down; which networking practices will reach (and have a positive impact on) the customers.

In addition, it’s also important “not to put all your eggs in one basket.” Just because the Internet is currently the most widely used source of social promotion, don’t forget about the other forms available: recognizable slogans and taglines, speeches and demonstrations, print media, direct mail, TV and radio ads, etc.

A good, no, a great social media networker will be able to nurture your customers from many different angles, encircling them in a warm fuzzy blanket of information and security, letting them know that you (the company) are always there for them (the customer).

Being every-ready to answer any questions, constantly “on-call” for the customer, and thinking just ahead of the customer’s needs, will make the customer feel appreciated, wanted, and taken care of.

With so many options available to each customer, presenting the image that your company is a step above the rest (and actually being a step above the rest) is extremely important. Social media is the easiest, quickest, and most convenient way to attain this status. Using the resources available to you, the social networker, will allow the customer to choose which is the best resource available to them.

About the Author: Debra Leitl is the Mentor in Residence for eMentorMarketing.com. Follow eMentorMarketing on twitter @MentorMarketing. eMentorMarketing blogs weekly about online marketing strategy, and social media marketing.

Commentary from Joe Hage: Thanks for the post, Debra. I must admit, I was thrown off by your first paragraph and looked up social media on Wikipedia.

Wikipedia says “common forms of social media include” those elements in your list … but continues, “A common thread running through all definitions of social media is a blending of technology and social interaction for the co-creation of value.”

This second concept is where I land. Advertising slogans – in particular – stop me in my tracks. I don’t see how they constitute social media.

My company’s tagline is “At The Heart of Saving Lives.” How, from your perspective, does this fit the definition of social media?

Our takes on the definition aside, yes, I agree it’s wise for social media practitioners to “fish where the fish are.” Metrics like those available on Hootsuite, Facebook, and Google Analytics help track which of your efforts are most engaging to your customers. It’s certainly helped me shift my emphasis away from one popular destination to another.

Thanks again for the post and eager for your reply.

Local Search Secrets Exposed – An Adventure in Keywords and Categories

December 6, 2009 By Joe Hage 19 Comments

I’m honored to have this post for you by Shannon Evans, contributing author and editor of Get Found Now! Local Search Secrets Exposed: Learn How to Achieve High Rankings in Google, Yahoo and Bing (Volume 1) and multiple business books. What I’ve learned about local search I’ve learned from Shannon and, as you’ll read below, I still have much more to learn! (P.S. Shannon, I just got my book with your sweet note inside. Book looks great! Can’t wait to read it cover-to-cover!)

Shannon Evans wrote Get Found Now! Local Search Secrets Exposed

Click to buy "Local Search Secrets Exposed" by Richard Geasey and Shannon Evans

Below we transformed an email Shannon wrote me about improvements I could make to my own Web site into an informative post for you. For those joining us for the first time, I have a full-time job as a director of marketing communications for a publicly traded company. I keep this blog to learn/compete/help/entertain and build. (You can read “Why do you blog” later if you like.)

Shannon’s email starts here: Hey Joe,

I have been pondering your local search listing and have a few ideas to give you as well as a few observations.

In a recent blog post you hoot and holler about being number one in local search results for Seattle Marketing Strategy.

Well if you do a keyword search on that search string in Google: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal, you will find that “Seattle Marketing Strategist” has no measurable search volume of note. It gets roughly 140 searches per month. That means only 140 people in a month used that particular search string to find the service providers or information they were seeking on marketing. I don’t know about you but 140 people may or may not be enough for a target audience to prompt into calling or emailing you for more information.

So now let’s evaluate a few other keywords you have in your listing that are not working well either:

Maybe I should use "Seattle Online Marketing" instead? (Click to enlarge)

You show up number one for “Seattle Marketing Communications” (your second category choice). Great! But the bad news is that search phrase had no searches in October but had searches in the previous month. Then you use the phrase “Seattle Brand Building” as a category (as well as fun, etc) and it has NO search volume whatsoever. Things are looking pretty bleak for your local listing at this point; however, don’t lose faith in keywords that are geo-targeted! There are a few that you might consider using so you can crush your competitors like a bug…or at least rise to the top of the local search listings!

Let’s examine some other keyword phrases that are more frequently searched where you could easily dominate (and you currently don’t even show up on the first page!) if you included them in your local search listing:

Seattle Online Marketing (no JH Presence) 2400 searches in Oct – rising trend
Seattle Marketing Consulting 170 searches in Oct – rising trend
Seattle Marketing Firm 210 searches in Oct – rising trend
Seattle Marketing Firms 480 searches in Oct – steady
Marketing Consultant Seattle 140 searches in Oct – rising trend
Marketing Consultants Seattle 210 searches in Oct – rising trend
Marketing Research Seattle 110 searches in Oct – rising trend
Market Research Seattle 2400 searches in Oct – rising trend (almost double from Sept searches)
Seattle Marketing 14,800 searches in Oct – rising trend

Now let’s look at your actual listing as it appears on Google local search:

First, you should create a small paragraph-styled description of your business sprinkling in some of these keyword phrases. Currently you have “marketing strategy, marketing communications, brand building…”

People want to read more than that. Yes, keywords are important but Google will sometimes penalize a description that is not in paragraph form in this section. It is believed Google considers this “keyword stuffing,” a no-no in Google’s TOS. Describe what you do briefly and use keywords in natural flowing language.

Next you want to create logical categories (like Consulting) and add in a full descriptor: Consulting – Seattle Marketing Consultant, Marketing – Seattle Bellevue Marketing strategy, Communication – Seattle Metro Marketing Communication (etc ad nauseum).

Dump the categories that are not keywords (big ideas, fun). They are empty and gimmicky.

Add your url.

Phone a friend or trusted former customer who you have helped with their marketing needs and ask them to write a review on Google or on Yelp. Ask them to use Seattle and one of these super search phrases in their review title. Then you need to go on Yelp and create a free business listing there and on Merchant Circle or Hotfrog as well.

Once you have finished tackling the keywords you should add some photos to your listing. Perhaps a picture of your logo, you in that funky wizard hat and even a photo of the front of your business are really helpful in making you rank above your competition on local search. Make sure that you name those photos in your files before you upload them to your local listing. I use a keyword and a geo-tag so I can use more keywords in my listing. So if you have your logo to load as a photo image consider naming it: Seattle Marketing.

The data on Google is updated daily so you should be able to quickly identify what is working for you in your local search listing. Google’s local business center dashboard can be invaluable for showing you which keyword phrases in your local search listing lead to which action by the user as well as the geographic location where the search originated. That is HUGE! According to an old proverb: The man at the top of the mountain did not fall there!

About Shannon Evans
Shannon Evans is contributing author and editor of Get Found Now: Local Search Secrets Exposed and multiple business books. Her books teach entrepreneurs that they must deliver a consistent and unified message on the internet. Shannon is recognized in the Puget Sound as an expert in how to make your business have a web presence rather than just a web page. Her workshops and discussion groups are much admired by local and national professional networking groups. Whether coaching entrepreneurs on the ins and outs of writing a white paper or in how to create a website that sells, her classes are all well attended and often standing room only.

As co-founder of Practical Local Search she loves nothing better than teaching local businesses how to think globally but to be searched locally. When not writing or teaching she can be found coaching boys’ lacrosse, biking, fishing or clamming somewhere in the Seattle area.