Current Marketing Conferences Schedule

If you're looking to learn more about marketing and develop a marketing strategy for your business, here are some marketing and industry conferences I will be at in 2010.

Optimization Summits - March 23rd, Dallas, Texas. A powerful event for small businesses. Two days, 22 speakers, multiple marketing tracts, presented in a workshop format. I will be presenting four sessions on building an awesome brand. For more details and a registration discount code: Optimization Summits.

Mobile University 101 - April 28th, Chicago, Illinois. Interactive, one-day educational event that will give you a fundamental understanding of mobile marketing and how to leverage mobile for your business. I'm not presenting, just attending. For a taste of the information, check out my recent podcast on Mobile Marketing.

Small Biz Social Media Summit - June 4-6th, Hutchinson, Kansas. Event built especially for entrepreneurs and small businesses. Heavy focus on Internet, social media and online marketing. I will be presenting a session on optimizing your online brand: how to tie social media, advertising, website and search engine optimization into an online awesome brand. Great price at just $200!

Texas Young CPAs and Emerging Professionals Conference - June 25th, Austin, Texas. I will presenting a session on social media branding and marketing.

Texas Self Storage Association Annual Conference - October 17-20, Ft. Worth, Texas. I will be presenting a branding session on Tuesday, October 19th.

Do you need a marketing speaker for your conference or trade association? Contact me at 254-399-8093 or jay<@>TheMarketingSpot.com. For more information: Jay Ehret Speaks

4 Questions About Social Media

Four Common Small Business Social Media Questions

Photo Credit: walknboston

1. What social media should I do?

Look at it this way: What do your customers do? There are two parts to this. First, what social networks do your customers use? Second, what do your customers like to do on the internet? Your real goal is integration: tie all your online activities together. You don't want people just to fan your Facebook page, you want them to go to your website, then possibly give you a call. Jeremiah Owyang has a couple of charts to help you choose the right channel based on their social networking integration features as they relate to your customers' online habits.

However, social media is more than just a Facebook page or a LinkedIn Profile. Don't forget about blogs, online video and focused social networks. To help you decide what channel is right for you, check out my previous article: Social Media: What to do for your business

2. How much time should I spend on social media?

It would be easy for me to say it depends, but I won't do that to you. If you are going to use social media as an active marketing tool, then you need to be present on social media every day that your business is open. And you probably need to spend 15-30 minutes a day...at least.

Why? One, because the key word in social media is "social." That means you need to be interacting with your network, you need to be social. Two, social media tools like Facebook and Twitter work mostly in real time stream of social-ness. When someone fires up Facebook and Twitter they seen the most recent posts from their network. If you want to be seen by your network, then you need to be posting frequently throughout the day. I usually recommend posting something at least four times a day. But have a time management plan before you jump in. HubSpot advises that you not gorge yourself on social media and Chris Brogan has some advice on how to schedule your social media time.

Look for tools that make your job easier. You don't have to post everything to social media live. You can use tools like HootSuite to schedule future social media activity.

3. Will social media make me money?

Directly? Most likely not. Your customers don't join social networks so that businesses can sell them stuff. But it is possible. Home furnishing boutique Layla Grayce has a shop on their Facebook page using the Shop Tab application, available to businesses for as little as $10 a month. But again, don't forget the social part. Layla Grace doesn't just sell stuff on their Facebook page, they engage fans, solicit feedback, even post personal pictures.

Probably the best way to make money from social media is the long-term approach. Social media can boost customer loyalty if you engage your social media network. Make customers feel like they are part of your tribe. Talk to them, solicit feedback, give advice.

4. How long will social media last?

Meaning: How long will this social media craze be around as a viable marketing tool? You need to know. If social media is a fad that fades away in another year or two, then maybe you shouldn't be wasting so much time on it now. My opinion is that social media will be around for a while. I like this answer from Mischa Danaceau to this very same question on LinkedIn

"I think this is like asking how long will Rock & Roll last. Rock and Roll was an evolution of popular music that took advantage of electrical instruments.

Social media is an evolution of networking that is taking advantage of today's technology. As the technology evolves, so will the social media sites, and if they do not, new ones will pop up in their place. I think it is fair to say that social media is here to stay."

Agreed. Facebook and blogging may some day go away, but the social aspect of the Internet is here to stay as long as the Internet doesn't fundamentally change. That means social media will be a viable marketing tool for the foreseeable future, even as it continues to evolve.

Speaking of evolution, it doesn't happen as quickly as marketers would have you believe. Marketers are always looking for the next best thing because we need to be ready for it. But you should not be on the next best thing, because you need the current best thing. Spend your marketing time and dollars where people are now, not where they will be in a couple of years.

So, how would you answer these questions? Are there other social media questions on your mind?

If you enjoyed this article, consider subscribing to this blog and let the articles come to you: Receive The Marketing Spot by Email or Get The Marketing Spot in a blog reader

---

How to Start Crawling With Mobile Marketing

The Internet show about small business marketing.

Podcast Episode #51 - Power to the Small Business

---

Is mobile marketing finally coming of age? More importantly is it accessible to the small business owner? In this episode of Power to the Small Business, we discuss how take your first steps with mobile to begin a new relationship a new kind of relationship customers. A relationship in which they actually ask to hear from you.

Guest: Gary Schwartz, Impact Mobile, Toronto, Ontario
Length: 24 minutes

Email subscribers and feed readers - If you don't see the embedded player below, click here to listen to Getting Started with Mobile Marketing

You can also download the mp3 file here: Download Power to the Small Business #51 (for personal use only)

Press the play button on the Box player above and get started. Comments, questions? Please share it in the comment section below or call our brand new audio comment line: 254-433-8529.

Show Notes:

GETTING STARTED WITH MOBILE MARKETING

Topics Discussed:

1. SMS – How to use text messaging to get a mobile relationship started with customers
   
2. Short Codes - How they work. How to obtain one and use it for your own campaign.
   
3. Practical examples of how to start crawling in mobile marketing. Some easy first steps.
   
4. Mobile University 101 - An affordable opportunity to learn more about mobile marketing.

Selected quotes from Gary Schwartz on the show:

ON GETTING STARTED IN MOBILE MARKETING

"What you really want to do is say, “How do I get in to the game and how do I start building a relationship with my consumers. To do that, you need to get them to talk to you over the SMS channel (text messaging) and get them opted in to an ongoing relationship where you can send them deals, send them offers, drive them to points of ROI."

ON DRIVING BUSINESS WITH MOBILE MARKETING

“You’re using a channel to talk to somebody. The beauty is that when that person talks to you, you now know their phone number. If they give you the opt-in, you can talk back to that phone number. And so you can have a one-to-one dialogue and drive business."

ON USING MOBILE EFFECTIVELY

"A mobile consumer is on the run. Think of it as snack food. Online is your main course, and mobile is your snack food…If you’re going to do stuff on the phone, you have to make sure that the kind of stuff that you’re selling is just-in-time, I-gotta-have-it-now, content."

ON MERGING MOBILE WITH TRADITIONAL ADVERTISING

“What mobile does to make that more effective is it creates a two-way channel with that passive media. It can wake up and trigger traditional media."

ON THE FUTURE OF MOBILE APPS ON SMART PHONES

"Apps, that you see on the phone, are going to disappear. The app economy is an interim solution... The average consumer uses five apps on their desktop on a daily basis. The rest of the apps become wallpaper."

Show Links:

Gary Schwartz - Impact Mobile
Email: Gary<@>ImpactMobile.com
Gary's Blog: The Mobile Consumer

IAB Mobile Advertising: LinkedIn Group
MEF Mobile Commerce: LinkedIn Group

Events:
Optimization Summit, March 23-24 2010 - Dallas, Texas
Mobile University 101, April 28, 2010 - Chicago, Illinois
Small Biz Social Media Summit, June 5-6, 2010 - Hutchinson, Kansas

A complete archive of all past episodes can be found here: Power to the Small Business

If you enjoyed this podcast, consider subscribing to this blog and let future podcast episodes and articles come to you: Receive The Marketing Spot by Email or Get The Marketing Spot in a blog reader

---

It’s Time to Get Serious About Online Reviews

In my recent podcast interview with local search expert Mike Ramsey, he emphasized the importance of customer reviews in the local search results:

“Google, as well as gathering business information data, they gather reviews from all across the web….Companies that have reviews, especially those that have large amounts of reviews, it helps rankings.”

Mike Blumenthal has an excellent piece on his blog about Asking for Reviews, explaining how Texas apartment locating service, UMoveFree, collected and leveraged reviews. It's a great piece with some strong take-aways;

1. Give your satisfied customers a voice. People are more likely to give a negative review than a positive review. Identify your happy customers. Of course, that means your business has to be focused on creating customer satisfaction.
   
   
2. Start now. It takes a while for momentum to build. One review today wont cut it. The power of reviews is their cumulative effect over several months. This is not a short-term, one-week project.
   
   
3. Get employees involved. Everyone in the company has to be aware that you are seeking positive online reviews from satisfied customers.
   
   
4. Encourage reviews on multiple sites. In my podcast conversation with Mike Ramsey he said that Google scrapes multiple sites for reviews. So don’t just rely on your Google local business listing for reviews. Encourage reviews on Yahoo Local, Bing Local, JudysBook, CitySearch, MerchantCircle, InsiderPages, and the Better Business Bureau.
   
   
5. Get active in asking for online reviews. Train your employees to politely ask for an online review when a customer has a positive experience.
   
   
6. Do not offer incentives for reviews. It damages the credibility of the reviews, and someone might say in their review that your company offers bribes for reviews.
   
   
7. Handle negative reviews immediately. That means you have to monitor the various sites. Setting up a Google alert can be helpful. When you do see a negative review, answer it (professionally and courteously) immediately.

Finally, you need to make it easy for your customers to give you reviews. When you identify a satisfied customer that would be happy to give you a review, send them an email with a link to their site of choice (see take-away #4 above).

Another tactic is to print business cards with links to your online listings and hand them out to all your customers. For example, let’s say you need to accumulate reviews on your Google local listing. The challenge is the web address is long and complicated. Customers are not likely to type that address into their web browser. Instead, take that long web address and shorten it using a URL shortener like BudURL. For example the link would be something like: www.BudURL.com/YourCompanyGoogle. Print that on a business card and had it out to customers.

This is still a relatively new game for local businesses and it’s a chance for you to gain a competitive advantage. So jump in now before it becomes common practice. It’s time to get serious about online reviews.

If you enjoyed this article, please consider subscribing and let future articles come to you: Receive The Marketing Spot by Email or Get The Marketing Spot in a blog reader

---

What to do About Pricing? Learn From Walmart.

Walmart has a not-so-secret plan to crush what's left of competition and it's called Project Impact. But it's not another devastating round of price reductions. What is it? Customer experience enhancement. Even Walmart understands that people don't want the lowest price, they want the best value. Walmart's Project Impact could be called Project Eliminate (as in: the rest of small businesses)

Photo credit: zieak

So what should you take-away when the largest retailer and price-cutter in the world starts shifting focus from price-cutting? Bring your focus back where you have a distinct advantage over Walmart: compete at the point of contact, compete on customer interactions. Yes, Walmart can say that they are improving customer service, but it's just not possible to make that promise uniform at nearly 3000 locations with almost 2 million employees. You can on a local level.

Experience and Value

All things being equal, people will choose the lower price. That's why you better make sure all things aren't equal. There are two parts to customer interactions: experience and value. They go hand-in-hand and enhance each other. The more remarkable the customer experience, the greater the perceived value.

Yes, even when money is tight, people still seek out that unique blend of experience and price value. Because while customers will sometimes make a single purchase based on a price tag, they will make repeated purchases based on an experience. The customer experience is the number one factor of customer loyalty, and having loyal customers means you don't waste time and money searching for new customers. Additionally, there's evidence that a customer experience focus actually boosts revenue.

So step one is to focus on delivering a remarkable customer experience. But what about that darn price tag? People are trained (by businesses) to look at that price tag and ask "How much does it cost?"

Here's where you need to be very careful. Because the wrong pricing strategy can actually erode your brand image and destroy profitability. Meaning, while you may make some short term gains (very short), you create long-term problems for your business. Cutting prices means working harder for less money at the expense of your future brand. What can you do other than lower prices?

• Provide additional services to loyal customers. Businesses tend to reward first-time buyers more than loyal customers. Instead, reward loyal customers.
• Add value to your existing product/service. Package different services together, add a feature or a benefit, give greater or more immediate access.
• If you do reduce prices, reduce what the customer gets for that price. Don't just lower your price and give the customer the same thing.
• Give people options. Three choices, three prices. Each successively lower price comes with less value.

But again, it goes back to the experience and the interaction you have with customers. Bottom line: Don't just quote a price; provide an experience and deliver value.

How can you start your own project impact to improve your customers' experience?

If you enjoyed this article, consider subscribing to this blog and let the articles come to you: Receive The Marketing Spot by Email or Get The Marketing Spot in a blog reader

---