Archive for the 'Marketing' Category

Viral marketing works. And you can do it too.

Michael Klusek June 13th, 2006

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EContentMag.com: Anatomy of a Viral Marketing Campaign.

Communicating with target audiences through Web content initiatives is also an extremely cost-effective form of marketing. If you’ve got an hour or two a week to devote to it, a blog is virtually free to produce. Contrast that to, say, an expensive direct mail campaign. Other forms of marketing also take time to produce, but cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to execute.

As much as I rant about Web content as a viral marketing tool on the speaking circuit and riff about it on my blog, I’ve never had detailed insight into the specific metrics around one viral marketing effort using Web content—until now. In mid-January, I put my marketing money where my mouth is: I published a complementary ebook, The New Rules of PR: How to Create a Press Release Strategy for Reaching Buyers Directly. Since then, I have been happily watching the wave of interest from this effort and am amazed by the metrics. If the results I’ve achieved are any indication, Web content, particularly in the form of ebooks, is one of the best viral marketing initiatives today.

My ebook, The New Rules of PR, is about how the Web has changed the rules for press releases (though most old-line PR professionals don’t know it yet). Today, savvy marketers use press releases to reach buyers directly. While many marketing and PR people understand that press releases sent over the wires appear in near-real time on services like Google News, very few understand the implications for how they must dramatically alter their press release strategy in order to maximize the effectiveness of the press release as a direct consumer-communication channel.

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Marketing expert increases visibility with a blog

Michael Klusek September 21st, 2005

Bizwomen: Where women in business meet to network, connect, support, learn and grow..

A few years ago, Mary Schmidt was earning a reputation as an innovative marketing mastermind, but her visibility on the Internet needed improvement. "I had a couple people who had a hard time finding me [on the Internet]. They were entering my name into Google and some lady in Kansas was coming up," recalls Schmidt, a marketing troubleshooter/business developer and sole proprietor of Schmidt & Associates in Albuquerque. So this April, on her Web site containing opinions and ideas about marketing strategies, Schmidt began posting blogs, or informal Web journals.

Thanks to that, folks looking for her online aren’t finding themselves in Kansas any more. And the marketing expert found a whole new way to market herself, through blogs, which could hold the key for other businesses looking to stand out in the crowd and on the Internet’s major search engines. "My Web site traffic has gone up significantly and from a wider variety of visitors from all over the world," says Schmidt. "And, if you Google ‘Mary Schmidt,’ I’m the first of [more than] 13,000 results." Prospective clients of Schmidt’s now often remark that they’ve read and liked her blogs.

"Blogs are a great way to really get people’s attention, and then they really understand what kind of value I can bring to them as a marketing troubleshooter. It’s all about establishing that relationship with potential clients," Schmidt says.

"The whole culture of the blog is more personal, more informal, more about building relationships," Schmidt adds. "People respond to blogs. You have to be ready and able to take criticism. You have to be able to take feedback. I put the responses on the Web site. Very intelligent people disagree all the time. I often learn more from a client than they learn from me."

How Apple will change everything about Podcasting

Michael Klusek June 12th, 2005

Rex Hammock on how Apple will change everything about Podcasting.

1. iTunes won’t be the eBay of podcasting, it will be the iTunes of podcasting.

2. How much could Howard Stern make podcasting via iTunes vs. broadcasting via Sirius?

3. A long tail of podcasts on iTunes will make us stop thinking of "podcasts" as just Wayne’s World programming or radio-like genres.

4. How Apple will change everything about Podcasting, #4 — They’ll make it simple.

This is the future about to happen. Now that Apple has announced that the iTunes store will carry podcasts watch out. Read the about the full implications here. rexblog.com: Rex Hammock’s Weblog.

The big takaway for professionals and consultants is this:

How iTunes’ 99¢ download model should make a light bulb go off above the heads of conference and seminar & convention planners, motivational speakers, audio tour-guide creators, etc. that makes them go, "Hmmm, every speech made at every conference we put on can be sold via iTunes" — for a lot more than 99¢, in some cases. In other words: A BUSINESS MODEL that even a media company executive can understand.

Pennsylvania uses bloggers to lure tourists

Michael Klusek June 11th, 2005

 

CNN.com - Pennsylvania uses bloggers to lure tourists - Jun 7, 2005.

PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (Reuters) — Pennsylvania is turning to a new kind of travel writer to sell its glories: the blogger.

The state tourism office has created six blogs for selected "real people" to record their visits to prime Pennsylvania locations over the summer in exchange for their expenses paid.

"I choose what sites to visit and take it as it comes," said Robert McCreary, a 37-year-old computer software salesman from Chalfont, Pennsylvania. He has become the history buff of the project, visiting battlefields and monuments and writing about them on the VisitPA.com Web site.

In his current blog, McCreary describes driving toward the Civil War battlefield of Gettysburg and imagining having General Robert E. Lee sitting in his passenger seat, "marveling at the car I was driving."

Other bloggers are a mountain biker seeking outdoor adventures; a motorcyclist looking to enjoy the open road in this largely rural state; a couple of New Yorkers whose itinerary includes a NASCAR event in the Poconos and milking cows in Amish country; a family of four looking for theme park thrills, and a pair of "culture vultures" who are planning to check out the nightlife in Pittsburgh and go shopping in the Delaware River town of New Hope.

"We want to speak to consumers in a voice that they want to identify with," said spokeswoman Carrie Fischer, spokeswoman for the state tourism office.

Check their stories out.  

"What a Long Strange Trip…

Over the next few months, you’ll really get to know the people
pictured below. They’re real people, and they’re taking real
Roadtrips—and you get to see it all right here at VisitPA.com. Our
Roadtrippers are making their own decisions, exploring the Commonwealth
on their own, and posting their photos and adventure blogs for you to
follow. "

I bet other states jump on board. This is a really cool way to put a personal spin on tourism.

Relationship marketing: Business blogs are the key

Michael Klusek June 10th, 2005

Saturday, April 23, 2005

Relationship marketing.

You’ve often heard the term used, but were never really certain what it meant.

It does sound kind of touchy feely, doesn’t it?

Really all it means, however, is building good long term customer relations through interpersonal communication.

To turn your present marketing system into relationship marketing, you have to change your outlook somewhat. Traditionally, marketers have located their target market segments, presented their offer, and made the sales. It’s always been a single step process.

Relationship marketing looks at customers and clients over a longer term. It takes into account the lifetime value of a customer.

Many experts think it costs anywhere from six to ten times as much, to find a new customer, than to sell to an existing one. With those financial realities in mind, the approach makes some sense, and some real dollars.

Relationship marketing is based on the idea that people prefer to do business with people who they know and like. After all, it’s easier to buy from a friend, than from someone you’ve never heard of before. It’s a matter of building trust.

The focus is on a multi-step marketing system, built on conversation between the blogger and reader, that works for the lifetime of the customer.

It’s said that people need to hear an offer at least seven times before they buy. That concept certainly works against the single step marketing method.

That is where a business blog can be really helpful. A reader can be reached seven times with ease, and many more times besides, through the blogging interaction.

As you write your daily blog entries, your readers get to know you and your business on a more personal level. Your blog begins that all important relationship with your prospects and current customers. You have started a blogging conversation.

As they read about your daily business activities, your problem solving ideas, your business advice, and your various products, they begin to think of themselves as a part of the company.

In fact, they are!

The prospective buyers for your products and services begin to turn into long term customers over time. Since they already know about you and your organization, it naturally follows that they will buy from you.

Your existing customers will remain loyal to your business, through the regular personal contact of your blog. Your customers will not only stay loyal, but they will often bring tons of valuable referral business to your company. Happy customers are your best marketing friends.

They will become customer brand evangelists for your business and its products and services.

By creating a business blog, you can develop strong bonds with your existing and future customers. Instead of treating them as numbers, you have formed a long term relationship with them.

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Blog, blog, blog, blog

Michael Klusek June 10th, 2005

Blog, blog, blog, blog.

Businesses dig into the latest in useful tools

Erika D. Smith
Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal
May. 7, 2005 12:00 AM

AKRON, Ohio -
Feel all tech-savvy now because you know what the word "blog" means? Do you know what a blog could mean for your business?

Sage Lewis does.

The president of SageRock.com swears by blogging as a marketing tool. More people know what SageRock.com is. More search engines are attracted to its Web site. More clients see the company as an industry leader.

All of that, Lewis said, is because of the company’s blog.

"It’s really changing the face of what publishing and information awareness is to a company," Lewis said.

A blog is a journal that is publicly available online. Most are run by one person, but sometimes several people contribute. Some are silly. Some are serious. Some are quite personal.

For companies, blogs are an opportunity to tell clients and potential clients about the industry, products and services. Also, it doesn’t matter how large or small your business is.

Blogs can build an open relationship with customers and to make your company a resource about a particular subject. They’re good for spin, too.

"The first hurdle is convincing companies that it’s a useful tool," said Debbie Weil, a business-blogging consultant based in Washington, D.C. "It’s not just some silly thing for personal use."

The most important thing about a blog is the logistics.

"Blogging can be a great marketing tool if it’s used in the right way," said Shirley Shriver, vice president of marketing services for Hitchcock Fleming & Associates in Akron.

The "right way" includes several things.

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Do-it-yourself promotion cleans some of its stain

Michael Klusek May 31st, 2005

Do-it-yourself promotion cleans some of its stain.

By Justin Davidson Newsday NEW YORK

On Sept. 29, 1855, the Brooklyn Daily Times ran an unsigned and startlingly exuberant review of a thoroughly obscure book of poetry. The anonymous critic quivered with admiration for the poet, as well as the verse. “Of pure American breed, of reckless health, his body perfect, free from taint top to toe,” he wrote. The article did not mention that this lyric superman had printed the book himself and delivered the clothbound volumes to the only two bookstores that would take it, where they spent months moldering in stacks. He also omitted that he was using the newspaper to review his own book. The name of this shameless self-promoter was Walt Whitman. The book was “Leaves of Grass.” A seismic tremor in American literature began as a dreary little vanity project.

Today the phrase “vanity project” is an accusation redolent of bloated ego, absence of talent, ill-used money or clout and contempt for the ethics of merit. Most of all, the phrase implies scorn for the normal artistic filters: all the editors, directors, producers, investors, curators and institutional functionaries who make things happen and bestow prestige. Lurking behind the term is the assumption that the only reason to produce, distribute and market your own creation is that nobody else will do it for you.

But in this world of blogs, pocket video cameras, on-demand publishing and instant Internet distribution, dismissing an artistic undertaking for its vanity quotient has become so 20th century.

Are You An Unpublished Author? Learn “Everything You Should Know” from America’s #1 Book & Author Publicist 

real reason why blogging is important

Michael Klusek May 30th, 2005

shhh, do not tell the managers the real reason why blogging is important

 

"Blogs will change your business" - front page Business Week a couple of weeks ago.

Read the article, lots of interesting stuff, lots of positive vibes.
But a simple clear answer as to why blogs will change your business?
Nope, not really.

So as a public service on a Sunday, here are the two most important reasons why corporate blogging matters:

1. It invites the customer into the company. Untouched by the marketing department.

I,
the customer, get a direct line into the real part of the company, the
part where they actually do important stuff, make products and such.
Non-marketing, you know. Just have to love that.

2. It hacks away at the hierarchy.

No jackhammer of course, more a dainty little hammer, but still. Opening channels outside the command and control structure.

And, dig this, it gives a person, the blogger, visibility,
credibility if he’s reasonably good at it and a chance to test his
integrity. In other words all the traits of a leader.

In practice a small test of having leaders without command
structures. Leaving out the marketing department and the managers,
that’s why you’d better keep mum about this.

They’ll buy that for now, while the important stuff can happen under
their radar, slowly but surely. With luck the leaders will win and
corporations will open up to new forms of structures (you should know
where I stand by now) :-)

Go corporate blogger, go!

Blogs Will Change Your Business

Michael Klusek April 26th, 2005

Blogs Will Change Your Business. Business Week 5/2/2005 Must Read

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Open Source Marketing

Michael Klusek April 26th, 2005

Collaborate Marketing Services - James Cherkoff

The marketplace is changing from one dominated by the broadcast model to one driven by digital communities, networks and niche media. For marketeers this change is creating many challenges, such as transparent markets and a more powerful consumer, but also many opportunities.

See his Ten Modern Marketing Principles which result from the new Open Source Marketing realities. Excellent points. A must read site.

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