Strategic Marketing
Strategic Marketing: The Best Online Marketing Articles of 2011
January 13th, 2012 2:50 PM
As online marketing info-junkies, we recently came across a compilation of the best online marketing articles of 2011. It is a LOT of stuff but indexed well so you will likely find much you can use or at least will find interesting. The article is HERE.
Posted by Greg Pearson | 0 Comment(s)
Strategic Marketing: A Good Guide to Understanding QR Codes
January 3rd, 2012 5:29 PM
I would love to be original but sometimes it is better to direct to an article that does the job.
So, here is "Top 14 Things Marketers Need to Know About QR Codes"
Stay tuned for our first 2012 Slice and Advice...Info coming soon.
Posted by Greg Pearson | 0 Comment(s)
Strategic Marketing: Facebook Marketing Tips
June 24th, 2011 7:04 AM
One of the most frequent questions we receive is "How can I use Facebook to market my business?" There are a lot of tactics you can use to leverage the power of the world's largest social network, but here are five that we recommend to clients on a regular basis. These have been proven time and again to increase Facebook "likes", as well as website traffic.  Add a Facebook widget to your homepage. This gives your visitors a glimpse of the content you provide on your Facebook page and an opportunity to "like" you directly from your website. Some Facebook widgets also include the option to share your page with others, view friends who like your page and more. These widgets are free from Facebook and can be styled to match the look and feel of your website design. Ask for some help from your friends. Send a Facebook message to everyone who currently likes your page and ask them to share it with a friend. One of our clients increased their likes by 50% in a few days simply by asking people to share or recommend their page with others. By using the Facebook messaging option, you can target those people who already like your page or organization without announcing the campaign as a status update. Use Facebook ads. Facebook ads are inexpensive and give you many options to reach specific groups of people. You can set your ad to display on pages of people who have children, who are within a certain age range, live in a specific area, etc. You can combine various demographic components to make your campaign extremely targeted. Facebook ad tools even show you the estimated number of people who will see your ad. These ads can link to your Facebook page, your website or any other address. If the goal of your ad is to sell a product, consider adding a landing page to your Facebook page with information about the product you are selling. You can link them to your website from this page. If the purpose is to increase likes, invite users to like you from this landing page.  Use Facebook Deals. Facebook Deals is a great way to present special offers, discounts and coupons to customers. And since Facebook Deals is connected to Facebook Places, the coupon or special offer is only available when customers are at your location and checked in on Facebook using a mobile device. The check-in is shared with all of their friends as a status update, expanding your visibility on Facebook. Create a Facebook Event. Facebook events are a great way to announce a special event, sale or promotion. But you don't have to limit your event to a single day. Consider setting an event that lasts for a month, or a season. When a user accepts your invitation, Facebook updates their status and your event is visible to all of their friends as well. Set the event to recur every day so that everyone who accepts your invitation will see the event each time they log in to Facebook. Contact us if you have any questions about how to use Facebook and other online initiatives to increase sales and maximize the return on your marketing investment. |
Posted by Kent Callison | 0 Comment(s)
Strategic Marketing: The One Question Marketing Survey
October 30th, 2010 12:28 PM
Surveys are a great marketing tool. They enable you to gather key marketing information from your customers or prospects, learn the channels by which your customers wish to communicate and help you provide better service. I have blogged about the benefits of using a website to conduct surveys in the past, but how you conduct the survey is not nearly as important as the questions you ask.
Many organizations make the mistake of asking too many questions, thinking they have one chance to gather as much data as possible. No one wants to answer a hundred questions on a survey. Most people don't even want to answer 10. So what is the right number of questions to ask on a marketing survey?
One.
That's right. One question is all you really need to ask. In the book, The Ultimate Question, Fred Reichheld presents the concept of a Net Promoter Score (NPS). NPS is quickly being adopted by organizations around the world to determine the quality of customer service and brand loyalty. The first step in determining your NPS is to ask a single survey question:
"How likely are you to refer our company/product/service to a friend or colleague?"
That really is the ultimate question, isn't it? For marketers, it succinctly captures all the other data you could possibly need to determine the effectiveness of your marketing efforts and the quality of your customer service.
Consider asking this question in a simple online survey posted on your website. Mail a postcard to your customers with this question or include it on your next e-mail newsletter. Whatever communication channel your customers prefer, make sure to ask them this question.
To learn more about NPS and how to determine your Net Promoter Score based on the answers you get to the one question marketing survey, I highly recommend Fred Reichheld's book. Not much of a reader? Email me and I will walk you through it.
Posted by Kent Callison | 0 Comment(s)
Strategic Marketing: Effective Trade Shows Begin Online
July 7th, 2010 3:30 PM
The Summer trade show season is underway and Fall trade shows and campus recruiting events are fast approaching. In this issue, we look at ways to integrate your website and other online marketing initiatives to maximize your investment in trade shows and campus recruiting.
Give Them a Place to LandThe first step to integrating your website into your trade show and recruiting events is to build a unique event-related landing page. If you are a SiteNow user, this is an easy task. Just create a subsection for your trade shows and create documents (web pages) for each show or event you will be attending. To enhance the user experience, consider adding some personalization to each page.
- Images or logos from the event
- Map of University or event location
- Information about your products or services that are relevant to show attendees
- Contact or information request forms
- Videos or photo albums of your products or service
- Downloads of industry specific brochures
- Booth # or show schedule
- List of alum currently employed at your organization
- Interview schedule
- Downloads of company information, employee benefits, etc.
Never Meet a Stranger
If you have access to the list of show attendees or students who will be attending your event, consider an email marketing campaign a few weeks before the show. Use an email service provider like Constant Contact or MailChimp to send emails that offer information about your company and an invitation to your booth. Sophisticated campaign management tools like Visual Hub from Williams Visual Solutions also offer the ability to combine print and email announcements before the show and SMS text message reminders the day of the show.
If you provide incentives giveaways at your booth, email communication before the show is a great way to alert attendees to your giveaways and door prizes. Make sure to include links to your new landing page in your email communications.
Show Them How It's Done
Product demos can make a tremendous impact at trade shows. However, if you have limited booth space, or if the demo requires audio to be effective, your demo may miss its mark. Additionally, some product demonstrations may be impractical in an exhibit hall, such as manufacturing equipment demos. In these instances, posting your demonstrations on your custom landing page is a great alternative. If you are a software vendor, record tutorials using a screen capture utility such as iShowU or Camtasia. Grab a video camera and record footage of your product in action. If you have the budget, consider using a professional videographer. If not, just light your product well and keep the camera steady. Upload the video to YouTube and embed the video on your landing page(s).
Stay in Touch
Make sure you capture prospect data at every opportunity. On your landing pages, include a form to collect names and email addresses for updates on new products or future trade shows. You can also capture marketing data about your prospects, such as the time frame for a purchasing decision, industry information, knowledge of your brand, etc. For campus recruiting events, these forms can collect information about graduation dates, preferred relocation choices, and more.
Don't forget to capture data at the trade show or recruiting event as well. Set up a computer at your booth with your website in fullscreen or kiosk mode and allow visitors to sign up for your email newsletters. If you use MailChimp for your email newsletters, there is a great kiosk style app called Chimpadeedoo for the Apple iPad that collects email addresses and sends them straight to your MailChimp distribution list. At the very least, bring along a pen and a clip board and collect names and email addresses for future followup.
Posted by Kent Callison | 0 Comment(s)
Strategic Marketing: Marketing Surveys Made Easy With SiteNow
April 29th, 2010 11:09 AM
Surveys are an essential part of any marketing toolkit. Online surveys are often more effective than their hard copy or telephone survey counterparts and offer some distinct benefits:
- Data can be gathered quickly
- Online surveys are convenient for respondees
- Data can be sorted and manipulated easily
- Responses can be tracked more effectively
If your website is powered by SiteNow from Williams Web, you already have everything you need to conduct an effective online survey. Every SiteNow website has a comprehensive form module that allows you to create custom forms. You can collect data any number of ways: text boxes, lists, check boxes, etc. Using SiteNow forms you can gather information from customers or prospects on just about anything, such as:
- Rating the quality of service on a scale of 1-5
- Solicit comments on new products or services
- Select a time frame in which they will be making a purchasing decision
- Provide feedback on a recent purchase
- Opt-in for email newsletters or direct mail marketing
Once you have built your form, you can embed it on any document (webpage) in SiteNow. When someone fills out the form, the system will email you the responses and save them in the system for viewing online. You can even download them as a spreadsheet for offline review.
If you are currently using a third party service provider to conduct online surveys, or if you are ready to make the move from mail/phone surveys, consider using the tools included with your SiteNow website to conduct your next survey.
Posted by Kent Callison | 0 Comment(s)
Strategic Marketing: The Golden Rule of Online Marketing
April 15th, 2010 12:07 PM
Market to others, as you would have them market to you.
Effective marketing of your organization via the web begins with a clear understanding of how companies effectively market their products to you. At the beginning of any new web design project, I ask clients for a list of websites they particularly like. We go through this exercise for a couple of reasons:
- Most clients do not have a design background, nor a marketing background. Asking them to tell me what their new website should look like or how its information should be organized is unfair. However, every one of them know what they like when they see it. It may be a news site that places breaking news in a prominent location or an online retailer that uses social networking to communicate specials or daily deals. Whatever it is, they have a clear understanding of why that site is effective at reaching them.
- You should only communicate with your customers in a way that you are comfortable with. Flashy design may get someone’s attention, but if a customer experiences a disconnect between a visit to your website and a visit to your office, you may lose them. If you are a conservative, traditional type and your website adopts an avant-garde approach, you are not being true to yourself. Your customers will recognize this quickly enough and it can make them uncomfortable. Often, customers will show me sites that have made a profound negative impact on them in terms of style or message. This list of sites is just as important as the sites they like, if not more. By understanding what a customer doesn’t like, I get a better idea of how we can create a site that they are proud of, confident in sharing and effective in communicating their message.
Above all else, I remind customers again and again of the online marketing golden rule. If you are uncomfortable with a particular marketing strategy, even if it has been effective for competitors, you should not adopt it. If there are designs or styles that betray your company’s true identity, avoid them. Never try to be something you are not and never try to sell your customers more than you can deliver.
Market to others, as you would have them market to you.
Posted by Kent Callison | 0 Comment(s)
Strategic Marketing: Idea Farming - Asking Questions to Develop a Marketing Plan
March 27th, 2010 9:38 PM
As a Marketing Strategist (and Idea Farmer) with Williams Web, I spend a lot of time working with clients to develop strategic marketing plans. At the beginning of a new strategic marketing session, I like to engage the group in a process of Question Storming. Everyone takes 15 minutes to write down as many questions as possible on sticky notes. The questions can be about anything: improving customer service, reducing cost, new advertising mediums, etc.
There are usually lots of irrelevant questions in the beginning like "what are we having for lunch" or "why does the statue on LOST only have four toes" but by the end of the process, you end up with a lot of great questions that the group works together to answer.
It is in the answering process that the real idea farming happens. People start to think about how to solve problems, how to change the way things are done and how to create a greater return on their marketing investment. And while not every idea is immediately useful, the process of getting people to develop, consider, debate and approve new ideas is invaluable.
Next time you have a problem to solve, a project to manage or a marketing plan to develop, consider using Question Storming. I think you'll be impressed with the harvest of new ideas.
Posted by Kent Callison | 0 Comment(s)
Strategic Marketing: Let Your Customers Do the Talking
March 25th, 2010 9:17 PM
Easy Auto - a client of Williams Web - is the leading Buy Here Pay Here used car dealer in Chattanooga, Cleveland and Knoxville Tennessee. They specialize in helping people with no credit (or poor credit) purchase a dependable used car.
Easy Auto recently launched a new ad campaign with actual customers offering testimonials while driving their newly purchased automobile. The videos are posted on their website and on YouTube. A little SEO hint: the titles of the YouTube videos include the keywords most likely to be used in search engines.
It's a great campaign and a good idea for any business looking to market their products or services through customer testimonials.
Posted by Kent Callison | 0 Comment(s)
Strategic Marketing: Retaining the 68% of the Customers You Are at Risk of Losing
March 21st, 2010 9:29 PM
The key to building successful relationships is communication - and frequent communication at that. If you're like me there are hundreds of contacts in your address book. Many of them are friends and family. If you look through your emails and text messages from the past year, you have probably contacted your closest friends and family members many times. But look closer at all those faceless names and count the number that are clients, prospects or referral sources. Now go back and check your emails and text messages. How many them did you contact in the last year?
Too often, we expect our clients to remain clients without any effort on our part. We expect prospects will one day wake up and realize how much they need our products or services. We think our referral sources will always want to send business our way. But just like the relationships we develop with friends and family, these relationships take work as well.
A study by The American Society of Quality Control (ASQC) revealed that 68% of customers chose another company because they felt ignored. That's a huge number of people who chose someone else's product or service just because someone didn't take the time to show attention and appreciation.
Stay in Touch
If you are a small business or a new startup, you may only have a handful of clients. For you, staying in touch can be a simple task. A phone call once a week or a monthly luncheon may be all it takes to reinforce and validate your client relationships.
If you are a larger organization and have a large number of clients, using an email newsletter to share relevant news and information is a good way to keep your company at the top of your clients' minds on a regular basis.
Another idea I like is to send one personal email each day to a different client. It doesn't take much time (less than 10-15 minutes) to write a short message to inquire about your client's business or offer an idea or suggestion to assist with a project or opportunity you have discussed in the past. This is not a sales pitch and this email is not about you. This is a chance for you to reconnect with a valued client and to remind them that their business is important to you.
You're Not The Only Game in Town
Unless you have finally discovered the secret to cold fusion, chances are there is someone else offering the same product or service as yourself. Sometimes the only competitive advantage you have is the relationships you build with your customers. If you aren't already staying in touch with your customers, it's a safe bet your competition is. The same ASQC study showed that 9% of customers left a business because they were lured away by the competition. If those customers had felt valued, they may not have felt compelled to leave.
Finish What You Start
Whether you choose personal emails, lunch meetings or some other method to reconnect with your clients, the key is to be consistent. A single email or phone call isn't enough. You need to make sure that whatever plan you put in place for customer retention is sustainable. Make sure you have the time and resources to communicate with your clients on a regular basis because not following through can be worse than never starting at all.
Posted by Kent Callison | 0 Comment(s)
