Your People are Sooooo Important

Posted by Colin Clark on Mar 31st, 2009 | Comments

Does that sound like it’s a little obvious?  I think so too, but in so many cases, companies hide their people from the world behind walls of bureaucracy.  Social media tools obviously alleviate this problem.

Let’s say someone in your organization has a relationship with a supplier.  Now let’s say that person leaves your organization and you bring in a new person to take their place.  An issue arises where the new person needs to ask the supplier for a favor.  They might cooperate and they might not, because they don’t have a relationship.

Social media was built to foster relationships.  It’s much more of a relationship tool than a marketing tool.  Sure you can promote your agenda, but it’s much better at bringing people together.  In my mind, the more strategic relationships your people have, the more successful they will be.

Twitter may have crossed the chasm.

Posted by Colin Clark on Mar 30th, 2009 | Comments

Last summer you were kind of a weirdish trendsetter if you were on Twitter.  It was a new tool with a few million hard-core users and tons of people who registered accounts, didn’t understand it, and never used it again.

Just a few short months later it seems like it’s everywhere.  People still don’t necessarily ‘get’ it, but they’re using it!  Six months ago if I went to a business function and asked people to raise their hands if they used twitter, I’d be lucky to get a handful.  Now it seems like the whole room lights up.

Why the sudden transformation?  Well, I can really only speak from my experience here in Indianapolis, though I imagine the same phenomenon is happening elsewhere.  People are really talking about it!  It seems to be on the tip of every-one’s tongue.

I should start counting the number of times I get asked about Twitter on any given day.  Weather it’s friends, family, or business contacts, everyone wants to know something about it.  Is this the beginning of the end or just the beginning of the beginning?

It's all marketing (if you really think about it)

Posted by Colin Clark on Mar 30th, 2009 | Comments

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about productivity.  I’m trying to get lean and mean and in the process get a lot more done in the day.  Today I attended the Slaughter Development Productivity Summit, which was fantastically enlightening.  For someone like me who’s pretty disorganized, seminars like this are invaluable when it comes to getting things done.

It got me thinking about how productivity factors into how customers and potential customers view you from a marketing standpoint.  If you’re one of those companies that takes an active role in ensuring productivity, then that should be as much a part of your branding as anything else.  After all, your customers want to know that they’re doing business with a company that gets things done, a company that values deadlines and has the stamina and resources to take your project to the next level.

When you break down all the things you do in your business, it’s amazing how much of it all ties back to marketing.  You develop products that people will actually want to buy.  You generate demand with advertising and salespeople.  You provide customer service (it always amazes me when people disconnect customer service from marketing).

It’s extremely important that everyone in the chain understands the message that’s going out.  What’s your mission statement?  Do your employees know it?  Do your customers?  How does the world really see you?

Blogging is officially busted.

Posted by Colin Clark on Mar 28th, 2009 | Comments

I was at a local Indianapolis bar called MudShots last night and I saw this sticker pasted to the wall in the men’s restroom.  I’ve taken this as the final nail in the coffin for ‘blogging’ as a buzzword.  It’s hit critical mass and it’s all downhill from here.  The news media has picked up the term, it’s made its way into art and pop culture, and now it’s even being plastered to the walls in bathrooms.

So, what’s next?  Blogging is still a great business tool.  It’s still a fun tool for personal use as well.  This is a practice that needs to be stripped to its essence and re-invented.  Once the buzz is gone, it will still be useful for many things, and that’s what really excites me.

Attention Marketing Department

Posted by Colin Clark on Mar 27th, 2009 | Comments

I just returned from a breakfast appointment with Justin Bryant and Derek McClain with Fusework Studios, an Indianapolis-based web company.  Justin is in sales and Derek is a project manager.  Derek mentioned that of the 35 customers that he manages only 3-4 are really actively using their website as a marketing tool.

My question is, why not?  If you’re working with a reputable web company they’ve probably built your site on top of a content management system that allows you to add and modify the content on your site.  If this is the case, why aren’t you working on your website every day?  Why aren’t you utilizing Google analytics to test content and  conversion rates?  Why aren’t you trying out new initiatives on your site?  What do you do all day?

Marketing isn’t just a checklist of tasks that need to be done.  You shouldn’t be saying to yourself, ‘Okay I’ve got the direct mail piece done, now I need to send out my eNewsletter, then I’ll have done a great job marketing my company.’  That’s what I call checklist marketing and it’s not really marketing at all!

We’re experiencing tough economic times right now.  You’ve got to prove to your boss on a daily basis that you’re a valuable part of the oranization.  You’ve got to prove that you’re producing, and that takes measurement.  At the end of the month you should be able to hand your boss a spreadsheet that says, ‘Here’s all the marketing initiatives I worked on this month’, ‘Here’s how much it cost you,’ and ‘Here’s your profit.’   Why should he or she care about anything else?  If you don’t know how to measure, contact me and I’ll get you pointed in the right direction.

Go Grassroots in your email marketing

Posted by Colin Clark on Mar 26th, 2009 | Comments

I was in Rebecca Carter -Ihle’s shop last Saturday and she shared her email list with me and I thought it was absolutely brilliant.  Since I’ve posted recently about the evils of non-permission-based email marketing I thought it would be prudent for me to share this story with you.

Every time a new customer comes into her shop, Rebecca  asks if they’d mind jotting down their email address in her little notebook.  Rarely do people refuse. It’s amazing the permission people will give if you ask.

Rebecca’s shop is located in Bloomington, Indiana and she sells what I would call high-end nick-knacks.  She’s got all kinds of specialized trinkets and treasures that you can’t find anywhere else.  She doesn’t have a website.  She relies solely on word-of-mouth and her sizable email list that she’s acquired over the years.

Give Me a Big Powerful Brand & I Would Dominate

Posted by Colin Clark on Mar 24th, 2009 | Comments

Today I was reading a post over at Chris Brogan’s blog about how Pepsi could use social media to get their message to their customers and I got to thinking and I came up with a realization; if I had a say in the marketing of a big brand like Pepsi, I would dominate the market. So here’s what I came up with, and Lord help me if Pepsi takes this idea and doesn’t give me credit I’m going to be a Coke man for the rest of my days.

Here’s the idea; you get people to talk about your marketing.  Let’s face it, Pepsi hasn’t changed much in the last 50 years.  Sure they’ve given us a few new flavors here and there, but by-and-large it’s the same product as it’s always been.  Pepsi is BORING!!!  Other than taste, why do I care if I drink Pepsi or some value brand cola?

Pepsi’s current strategy is to run lots of expensive TV ads to ‘remind’ you that you like Pepsi.  Why is Pepsi doing all the leg work?  Why aren’t they creating innovative marketing that persuades the consumer to spread their message for them?  Here’s my 4 step process for making Pepsi a little less boring.

1. Run a TV ad with the CMO of Pepsi where he says “Hi, I’m ______  Chief Marketing Officer of Pepsi.  It’s nice to meet you.  If you’d like to communicate with me feel free to add me on Twitter.  My twitter name is @_________.”  I gaurantee that this will spread all over twitter in a split second.  Everyone that uses twitter will be talking and blogging about Pepsi and Pepsi wouldn’t have to pay 1 cent more for that ad than any other TV spot.
2. Mr. Pepsi CMO has to keep using twitter.  He can’t pass it off to his assistant.  He can’t neglect it.  If he drops the ball on the Twitter thing, the community will turn on him.  #2 is VERY IMPORTANT.
3. Start a blog that discusses Pepsi’s marketing.  Notice, I didn’t say a blog that talks about Pepsi.  Remember, Pepsi is boring!  No one cares about Pepsi.  This blog needs to be focused around all the innovative marketing initiatives that Pepsi is doing.  When People leave comments, they need to not only be responded to, but suggestions need to be implemented into the marketing campaigns.
4. Keep engaging with the community and creating interesting content that will keep the flame going.  Write about BOLD new ideas that are EXCITING.

Chances are, if you’ve got a large established brand, you’re boring.  It’s your job as a smart marketer to find ways to engage people.

How EXACTLY is social media going to help me grow my business?

Posted by Colin Clark on Mar 23rd, 2009 | Comments

To really explain how social media can positively impact your business I really need to give my definition of ‘business’. Business is really just a series of relationships that facilitates the exchange of money for products or services. Using that definition, it’s easier to create strategies to grow your business.

How does this apply to social media?  Well the logical explanation is that if you build more, better, or closer relationships, then you will have more opportunities to exchange money for products and services (sales).  This assumes a basic paradigm shift; your relationships are more important than your numbers (but you still need to keep an eye on your numbers).

How EXACTLY does social media help you build more, better, and stronger relationships?  Social media has virtually unlimited applications in business, so I’ll just list out a few of my best ‘home run’ strategies.  I’m going to relate this to before, during, and after the sale.

1. (before the sale) Social media is unparalleled for raising brand awareness.  What this means for my business is that I meet people all the time who say ‘Oh hi, You’re Colin right?  I saw that video you posted, or I’ve read your blog before, or I see your stuff all the time on Smaller Indiana or some other social network.’  Brand awareness is virtually impossible to measure, but for me it’s one of the most rewarding parts of social media marketing.  You have instant power in the conversation.  You’ve earned a degree of respect before you’ve even met the person.  Being ‘generally known’ by lots of people provides limitless opportunities for generating new business relationships.
2. (before the sale) Social media helps prospects find you and helps you find prospects.  Let’s start with one simple question.  When you have a problem and you’re searching for a vendor to provide a solution, do you want the top industry expert or some slouch?  Maybe you’re not the absolute top expert in your field, but social media helps you LOOK like you are.  Social media also helps you identify ‘tribes’ of people who might be interested in the IDEA that you are selling.  Again, this facilitates a relationship that can lead to the exchange of money(sales) down the road.
3. (during the sale) Social media helps you strengthen your relationship with your prospect during the sale.  Okay, you’ve identified someone as a prospect and you’ve had the initial meeting to develop a proposal (or whatever your next step is).  This is the period where your prospect will typically hide from you and try to put off making the purchase.  Typically the reason why they do this is that they don’t have a strong enough relationship with you.  Now let’s say your prospect is using a microblogging site like Twitter or even Facebook.  Engaging with your prospect via the online world is easy, non-threatening, and you can also be helpful to your prospect during this phase of the sales cycle.  You can send them links to interesting material that’s relevant to what you talked about in your meeting.  You might even want to write a post in your blog about that particular prospect and their problem and how your product solves their problem.  Trust me, they’ll be thrilled that you’re thinking of them and their concerns.
4. (after the sale) Social media keeps you connected with your past customers.  It costs five times as much to attract a new customer as it does to keep an existing customer, right?  If you really believe it than you should be making nice with your past customers on a daily basis.  You should do everything possible to stay at the top of their minds!  You can use email marketing, direct mail, or incentives to do this, but dollar for dollar nothing is more effective than social media.  Why not friend your past customers on Facebook?  Why not look through their profiles and find ways to connect with them?  Join the same groups that they join.  Find the common thread.  Be friendly. 

The key to leveraging these tools is to use them properly.  Jumping in without a plan could lead to disaster.  Remember that it’s not all going to be sugar-plums and roses.  You’ve got to educate yourself and find out what you don’t know you don’t know (does that make sense?).  I’m against using sales copy in blogs, but these are the exact principals that will be taught in the SMASH social media education class that Kyle Lacy will  be teaching next month.  I strongly recommend that anyone interested in implementing any kind of social media strategy take this course first.  It will prepare you with the skills you need to succeed.

Cashing In

Posted by Colin Clark on Mar 22nd, 2009 | Comments

Yesterday I wrote about what an awesome Saturday I was planning on having.  Part of that included visiting a blookstore where I, logically, checked out the new ‘Social Media’ themed books that are out on the market.  I found 2 that I don’t remember seeing before, and they’re both by authors that I havn’t heard of yet.

The two books were Twitter Power by Joel Comm and Secrets of Social Media Marketing by Paul Gillin.  Has anyone read these yet?  I visit bookstores pretty recently, and I’m pretty sure this is new material.  I’m certainly going to be following the authors to find out anything new that I can about Marketing.

With the current buzz around social media marketing and blogging, I think we can expect to see a lot more books like this popping up throughout the next year.  Just remember, the fundamentals don’t change, only the tools change.  

5 Things for a Blogger to do on a Saturday

Posted by Colin Clark on Mar 21st, 2009 | Comments

It’s a lazy Saturday and I’m relaxing at my future-mother-in-law’s house down in Southern Indiana.  I thought it would be a good idea to share my top five things to do on a lazy Saturday.

1. Catch up on reading.  Ever since I got the RSS app for my iPhone, I’ve been much better about keeping up with my favorite blogs, but I also enjoy reading actual books.  Which leads me to #2…
2. Go to the Bookstore.  I’m that guy who likes to spend hours at the bookstore perusing for my next great read. 
3. Run errands.  Today I’m planning on making my rounds at Hobby Lobby, Goodwill, and a few other places with my fiancee and some friends.
4. Take a nap.  All this crazy blogging and social media-izing can really take it out of you, so I love to get a good nap in.
5. Cook a big meal.  In the busy work week it’s so much of a hassle to cook every night so I usually either make something quick or eat out.  Saturday nights are a great time to get friends together, cook a big meal, and hopefully everyone will help with the clean-up.

Thanks for indulging me in this extraordinarily dorky post.  Have an awesome Saturday!