Survey of 2009's Most Popular Blog Posts (On Other Blogs)

Instead of just your usual blog reading this weekend, why not read some of the best. I put the call out on Twitter this afternoon and asked my friends for their most popular posts of 2009. This is a compilation of the responses. If I missed yours, add it in comment section below.

To start, the most popular post on The Marketing Spot blog this year was....(drum roll)
The Basics of Marketing: What is a Brand?

Now on to the other popularity winners:

Bounce Rate and Exit Rate, What is the Difference and Why You Should Care by Glenn Gabe
Clearing up the confusion of these key website metrics.

The Top Ten Faces of Facebook by Susan Hart
The most popular types of Facebook users.

Our Marriage Secret from Lauri Rottmayer
Fight for your marriage.

Twitter in a Sound Bite World: How a Single Tweet Can Offend a Follower by Judy Dunn
When tweeting is taken out of context.

Twittering Journalists by Harry Hoover
A twittering journalists wiki.

8 Strategies to improve customer service by Pratap Singh
Eliminating the gap between perceived and actual customer service.

The End of the Industrial Age and Social Media by Chris Bailey
Relationships are still at the core.

Everybody Has a Brand: What's Yours? by Scott Gibson
You already have a brand, now develop it.

Are Apple iPhone users like loyal NASCAR fans? by Paul Lopez
Brand loyalty leads to advertising impressions.

Irasshaimase: Welcoming the Customer by Dez Paroz
Dealing with complaining customers

End-of-Year Consultation: Your Top Ten Favorite Legal Advice of 2009 by Stephen Bloom
List of top 10 posts

How Not To Respond To Socmed Criticism by Elmer Boutin
Avoiding those ugly online train wrecks.

Happy New Year!

If you liked this article, please consider subscribing. For updates on new articles: Receive The Marketing Spot by Email or Get The Marketing Spot in a blog reader

---

Social Media Won't Save an Un-Social Business

There’s an old-saying among marketers: “Good marketing won’t save a bad business.” Entrepreneurs and small business owners are starting to realize that the same is true for the tools and tactics of social media: Social media will not make you a social business.

So marketers are starting to adjust. They have decided to first teach you how to be a social business. Companies have been formed to teach you how to be a social business. Great thought has been put into a roadmap to becoming a social business. This is all fine and good for businesses that are truly social. But what if that's not your natural inclination? If you're not ordinarily gregarious, should you spend time trying to teach yourself to be social?

You're either a social business or you aren't. If you aren't, using social media will not magically turn you in to a social business. So what are the alternatives?

Innovate - Give your customers new ways to experience and look at things. Make doing business with you easier, exciting, different. One way to do that is to create a "bug list." What are things that bug you or you customers? Now what can you do to innovate and turn those bugs upside down?

Deliver a knock-out customer experience - Map out a customer experience that compels the customer to say "Wow!." Add magic spots and deliver an adventure, not a transaction. Customers will spread the word for you.

Deliver awesome customer service - Give them free, accessible service after the sale. Properly train your employees with enough product knowledge to answer all questions. Empower your employees to make on-the-spot decisions with customers. You'll stand out in a world where customer service sucks.

Let your customers socialize - So maybe you're not the social type, it doesn't mean your customers aren't. Give them the platform to talk amongst themselves. Chambers of Commerce have business-after-hours events so members can socialize. Harley Davidson supports and encourages Harley Owners Groups.

Offer a service or product that no-one else offers - AT&T is the only company to offer the iPhone, so I do business with AT&T. El Siete Mares is the only nice restaurant in town (that I know of) that let's you bring your own alcohol. They do lots of business because of this. They're also the only Mexican Seafood restaurant in town, doubling-up on their uniqueness.

What can you do instead of social media? What comes natural to you?

If you liked this article, please consider subscribing. For updates on new articles: Receive The Marketing Spot by Email or Get The Marketing Spot in a blog reader

---

Changing Customer Service That Sucks

Customer service will matter in 2010. That's because customer service sucks right now. And it starts with your employees. Or rather, how you start your employees.

Your employees are stewards of the customer's experience. Right now, they are delivering the customer service that sucks. So it would be easy to blame them. A business owner might say: "Have you seen the pool of potential employees out there right now? That's just the way things are." That might be the way things are, but it's not the way things have to be.

Your employees don't really suck, they're just apathetic. And employers have conditioned them to be that way by starting them off on the wrong foot. When a business does have a training program, and you would be surprised how rare that is, that training is task-focused. "Here's a list of things you have to do. Now hang out with Laura here and she will show you how to work the register." Employees are conditioned to believe that their job is mechanical. What a shame, because most people want a job that is more than just a set of tasks.

To shift this paradigm, let's go back to the start. When training a new employee, instead of teaching them how to do a set of mechanical tasks, teach them that what they do is really important: they serve customers!

Starting at the Start

What if you changed your training and shifted the focus off tasks, at least initially. Get your new employees to buy in to the importance of your business. In the 1997 best-selling book, Gung Ho! Turn On the People in Any Organization, Ken Blanchard says if your want your employees to be gung ho,

"they must first of all understand why they are needed. Why their work makes the world a better place... People have to understand that what they do contributes to the well-being of humankind, makes a difference in their own patch of the forest"

Start your employee training my letting them know that the work they do is important. Their job has meaning. Even if that job is waiting tables in a small restaurant, or running the register at a dry cleaner. Customers would not spend their hard-earned income at a business unless it was important to them. Customers eat at restaurants for sustenance and escapism. Customers go to dry cleaners to have crisply-pressed shirts so they can look good and have a positive self-image. Find the importance in the work your employees do.

Employees will begin to appreciate their job. As a result they will take their job more seriously, paying more attention to customer service. Blanchard points out why this is in Gung Ho!

"What we're really talking about is one of the most powerful human emotions. It ranks right up there with love and hate. It's called self-esteem. One of the fastest and surest ways to feel good about yourself is to understand how your work fits into the big picture."

The big Idea: Train your employees to understand that what they do is not just a set of tasks. What they do is important, their work is worthwhile.

Do you have a training program? Do your employees understand the importance of their work?

If you liked this article, please consider subscribing. For updates on new articles: Receive The Marketing Spot by Email or Get The Marketing Spot in a blog reader

---

Conversation Starters: Entrepreneurs, Death and Predictions

Ignoring Entrepreneurs

The two biggest announcements from my local chamber this year were that Caterpillar is adding 75,000 square feet to it's Waco plant and we're getting a diaper plant. I'm sure these types of announcements are pretty common with chambers across America. Chambers love big business because they pay more in chambers dues than does an individual entrepreneur. I have nothing against Caterpillar or diaper plants, but shouldn't chambers spend at least as much time fostering entrepreneurial creativity as they do courting manufacturing jobs?

In The Brand Bubble, authors John Gerzema and Ed Lebar wrote,

"Richard Florida argues in The Creative Class that those cities that cater to creative individuals working in high technology, education, publishing, medicine, law, and artistic endeavours will be the ones to succeed in the future."

It's my experience that entrepreneurs provide that creative spirit. What are the community leaders doing for entrepreneurs in your community? Do chambers really care about fostering entrepreneurship anymore?

The Year of the Death of the Death of Things

Marketers really love to declare "The Year of" and "The Death of" things. The latest thing that is evidently dead, according to Tara Hunt, is branding. She says that we are in the "Post-Branding Era." But most things in marketing don't just die. Real death is instantaneous and permanent. Death in marketing is not. Instead it's more of a slow, lingering tapering off. Traditional advertising has been declared dead for a couple of years now, but it still lives, yielding new customers for local advertisers who use it correctly.

I'm hoping we'll see fewer of these "Death of" pronouncements this year, but probably not. Even so, there will be things that are not as weighty in 2010 as they were in 2009. So what do you think will be less relevant?

What's the Value of Predictions?

Last week, Austin Social Media Breakfast had a predictions-fest of sorts. They invited 10 local social media experts to forecast what was going to happen in 2010. Predictions are fun to do, and they're fun to hear. But what's their real value? I think the value of predictions is not necessarily what you need to do now, but the trends they will bring. Predictions are about new things, cutting edge things. Small businesses need to deal in the here and now. Most of your customers are not on the cutting edge.

What predictions and trends do you think are important for your business?

If you liked this article, please consider subscribing. For updates on new articles: Receive The Marketing Spot by Email or Get The Marketing Spot in a blog reader

---

Branding Reality Check Up

The Internet show about small business marketing.

Podcast Episode #46 - Diagnose the Health the of Your Brand for 2010

---

This episode of the Power to the Small Business podcast features Jim Morris, also known as Tagline Jim. What's the health of your brand: the psychological emotional relationship you have with customers and potential customers. The health of your brand determines the value of your identity in the marketplace. Listen and see if you have a healthy brand, or if you need a branding treatment.

Upcoming Branding Events:
Free Webinar - Branding U, Revive, Refresh, Revitalize Your Brand in 2010.
For details and registration: Branding U

Build an Awesome Brand Full Day Workshop.
Get details and registration information here: Build an Awesome Brand Workshop

Listen to the conversation in the player below as Jim Morris and Jay Ehret review the essential spots of a healthy brand: Brand Foundations, Brand Identity and Brand Integration.

Guest: Jim Morris – Tagline Jim, Evanston, Illinois
Length: 35 minutes

Email subscribers and feed readers - If you don't see the player, click here to listen to Power to the Small Business

You can also download the mp3 file here: Download Power to the Small Business #46 (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:

BRANDING REALITY CHECKUP

Examination Point 1: Brand Promise

- What’s the energy behind your brand?
- Do you have a clearly articulated brand promise? Does it say something about your business other than you sell something?

Examination Point 2: Brand Personality

- What adjective describes your business personality?
- Describe your competition’s personality with adjectives. How do you compare?

Examination Point 3: Tagline

- Does your tagline reveal a deeper truth about your business?
- Does your tagline evoke a response such as an emotion or a response?

Examination Point 4: Visual Identity

- Is your logo a visual core expression of your brand?
- Did you develop your logo after you developed your brand promise and your tagline?
- Is your visual identity consistent?

Examination Point 5: Brand Integration

- Is your promise and your personality integrated into all forms of communication about your business?
- Do your employees reflect your brand personality?
- Do you train your employees to deliver your brand promise?
- Does the preconception customers have about your brand match the experience they receive from your business?

Show Links:

Tagline Jim
Jim Morris Tagline Blog
Free Branding Webinar: Branding U
Workshop: Build An Awesome Brand

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

If you liked this podcast, consider subscribing. For updates on new articles: Receive The Marketing Spot by Email or Get The Marketing Spot in a blog reader

---

Advertising Trends: Yellow Pages Getting into Everything

Earlier this year consumers crossed a line of demarcation, preferring to find businesses with search engines rather than in the yellow pages. But yellow page directories will not go quietly into the night. Instead they have decided to fight back with...just about everything.

Video Ads

You can now add a video ad to your online yellow pages listing. You can go basic, like this photo-motion ad for Rick Cummings Insurance in Waco, Texas from YellowBook.com

Or, if you're willing to pay a little more for production, you can get a fully-produced video ad (or use your TV spot) like one fro Villaggio Ristorante in Whitestone, New York from YellowPages.com

(Email subscribers, if you don't see the video players, click here to watch: Yellow Pages Videos)

Search Engine Local Listings

Doing some poking around in Google local search results, I found a disproportionate number of local business results were also advertising with SuperPages.com. For example, this screen shot of a search for psychologists in Indianapolis show five of the top seven results have claimed their local business listing with Google. That's indicated by the "More" link at the end of each result.

With a little poking around and a phone call, I found out that Superpages has a relationship with Google. Advertise with Superpages and they automatically fill out the information in your Google local business listing. That in turn, helps with local search results.

Pay Per Click Ads & Building Websites

Yellowpages.com is also getting in on the local search game, but they're doing it with pay-per-click ads. In a recent Google search for storage in my my local area I noticed a pay-per-click ad on the right for a local facility. I knew the owner, so I called him up. He said that Yellowpages.com built the website for him, then guaranteed a certain number of clicks to his website per month. They fulfilled that obligation by placing local search ads on Google. Notice the Yellowpages.com banner in the lower right corner.

Twitter

Superpages let's you search for listings anywhere from Twitter, with their @sp411 Twitter account. You either reply or direct message your request to Superpages and they tweet you the results. For example I wanted to see pizza restaurants near Washington Dulles Airport so sent the message @sp411 Pizza 20171 (zip code) and within seconds received my reply, complete with phone number and link to the listing on Superpages.com

All Media

I spoke with a local yellow pages sales rep yesterday who told me that soon I will be able to purchase a combination of yellow pages advertising and television advertising in the same media buy. Yep, one rep, multiple media. She said the details haven't been worked out yet, but my guess is that they are talking with cable companies. Local cable networks have a lot of empty inventory and might be eager broker some of their unused spot times to the yellow page directories.

This same rep also assured me that the print version will not go away. That's probably true, but I think there will be fewer of them and they will become thinner. Give the Yellow Pages credit for trying to break away from the book method of distribution. Looks like they are willing to try just about anything. In fact, if you to talk to your local yellow page directory salesperson, they might just throw in the kitchen sink.

If you liked this article, please consider subscribing. For updates on new articles: Receive The Marketing Spot by Email or Get The Marketing Spot in a blog reader

---

Twitter for Local Business: Tools for Finding Followers

Twitter for local business is about finding the right followers. Wait a minute, don't followers find you?

First, a dose of reality. Most normal people don't join Twitter to find something to buy. Mostly Twitter is a networking and socializing tool. Most likely followers will not come to you, you will have to find followers, and that means following people first. Here are 10 tools to help you follow Twitter users that might follow you. Remember, don't try to follow everyone you can, follow only those that may be interested in your product or service. If you just start following everyone, your follow to follower ratio will be imbalanced and you will lose credibility.

In Twitter Marketing For Dummies, Kyle Lacy (@kyleplacy on Twitter) assembled an extensive list of tools to find people to follow. Because local business is mostly about geography, I've narrowed Kyle's list to a shorter list of geo-based Twitter Tools

Tools For Finding Twitter Users

Twitter Advanced Search - Twitter's own search engine is pretty powerful. Use the advanced search option to create a potent local search cocktail. Combine keywords and location to get local results of interest: http://search.twitter.com/advanced

Twitterfall - Allows you to combine multiple keywords and geo-location in the same search. Twitterfall also allows you to exclude words from Twitter keyword searches. Let's say you're a plumber in Dallas. Use "water heater" as your keyword search term, then Dallas as your location, and exclude "selling" from the search. The results will be a big list of Twitter users who had water heater problems in the past 24 hours. Follow and engage them for potential customers: http://twitterfall.com/

TweepSearch - Searches Twitter bios. Find Twitter users that have your town or neighborhood in their bio: http://www.tweepsearch.com/

Tweepz - Simple interface with lots of options. Use the advanced search to search bios, names, and locations. http://www.tweepz.com/

Twellowhood - Cool interactive map that lets you narrow down potential Twitter follows by location. http://www.twellow.com/twellowhood/

Nearby Tweets - Combine keyword and location searches to find Twitter users in your area. http://nearbytweets.com/

Twitterholic.com - Lets you find Tweeters near you buy first entering your username, and then clicking on your location. Lists Twitter users in order of their popularity. http://twitterholic.com/

A Bonus Three

Here are three addition tools, not listed in Twitter Marketing for Dummies, that I use:

Geofollow - A location-based Twitter directory. Search by City, State, Country, keyword and the results are displayed in a dashboard, 24 Tweeters at a time. Click one box and you can follow all 24 at the same time. http://geofollow.com/

StreetMavens - Find your city and get real-time results from Tweeters in your area. You can also register your business into their directory. http://usa.streetmavens.com/

Twitter Grader - Find the Twitter users by location. Works like Twitterholic but the results are slightly different. http://twitter.grader.com/location/

(Don't forget to follow me on Twitter @TheMarketingGuy)

If you liked this article, please consider subscribing. For updates on new articles: Receive The Marketing Spot by Email or Get The Marketing Spot in a blog reader

---

Conversation Starter: Defining Your Key Words (Not SEO)

Don't let your goals get in the way of your dreams or your personality. My opinion is that growth targets should not define your identity. But we do need some guideposts to keep us focused for the next year. I would suggest choosing some key words to define you, or your business. Not keywords in the search engine optimization sense, but key words by which you would like to be characterized.

Photo Credit: Ella's Dad

I've chosen my key words for 2010, they are: Initiative and Urgency.

My goals, if you can call them that, for 2010 are to take the initiative to create new opportunities, products, and services for The Marketing Spot, and to act with a sense of urgency in these initiatives and everything I do. My mantra for 2010 is "don't wait." I think it will set the tone for my business in the next year.

So now it's your turn. How would you like to be characterized in the next year. What are the key words that will define you in 2010?

If you liked this article, please consider subscribing. For updates on new articles: Receive The Marketing Spot by Email or Get The Marketing Spot in a blog reader

---

Reading to Become a Wise Marketer

The goal of The Marketing Spot blog, the reason I write all these blog articles, is to empower entrepreneurs and small business owners with the confidence and knowledge they need to be wise marketers. Meaning: your marketing actually gets you more customers, increases awareness of your business, heightens the experience of your customers, sparks word-of-mouth about, and inspires loyalty in, your business, and allows you to create memorable advertising without wasting money. That seems like quite a big goal, but with your readership, I think we're making progress.

It's been a great 2009 for The Marketing Spot. Subscribers numbers have increased 391% in the past year. That means nearly 75% of subscribers started reading this blog in mid-stream 2009. That also means you probably also missed several articles that you may want to read. This is your chance to catch up over the weekend.

So in my quest to help you become a wise marketer, here are the top articles from blog this year (based on what readers find interesting). They are arranged chronologically. Start at January and then you can jump out at whatever month you started reading The Marketing Spot. As always use the search box in the left-hand column to find information by keyword or topic.

Top Marketing Articles by Month

Best of January

Starting a Social Media Program - Podcast with social media expert David Berkowitz. Is social media right for you? If so, here are the important considerations of starting a social media program.

Case Study: Branding a Furniture Store - Developing a brand for Distinctive Forest Creations in Rochester, New Hampshire.

Classic Spot: The Importance of a Logo - Logos are always a hot topic. Here's a re-cap of the role they play in branding.

Best of February

How to Be a Social Guerrilla - Apartment industry innovator Eric Brown takes guerilla marketing into the social media space.

Marketing Basics: The Customer Experience - Managing the customer's experience is a vital component of a marketing plan. An explanation of why and how.

How to Become the Most Popular Restaurant in Town - Why people choose the restaurant they do, and what you can do to increase the popularity of your restaurant.

Best of March

Between Selfish Giving and Doing Good: 7 Tips for Authentic Cause Marketing - Marketer Judy Dunn explains what makes cause marketing work.

Classic Spot: The Importance of Taglines in Branding - Comprehensive collection of thoughts and articles on function and construction of a good tagline.

Forget What You Know, Because You're Cursed - How the curse of knowledge can screw up your marketing message. What to say when you know too much.

Best of April

Clever? Yes. Effective? Probably not. - Trying to be clever is rarely good branding. A disection of a billboard campaign that misses the mark.

Change Your Future (and Fortune) by Reading a Business Book - The types of business books, what you get from business books, how you should read them, as well as a few suggested titles to read.

Hit the Ground Running: Jason Jennings' Rules for Entrepreneurs - Podcast with best-selling business book author Jason Jennings. Jennings shares the top three lessons from his latest book: Hit the Ground Running

Best of May

What's the Best Business Use of Twitter? - Concise tips on how to best use Twitter for your business.

Five Things You Should Never Tell Your Customers - The common sense stuff we sometimes forget.

Advertising Trends: Digital Billboards - Strengths, weaknesses and best uses of the hot trend in outdoor advertising.

Best of June

You're Wasting Your Time on Facebook and Twitter - Maybe you could better spend your time building credibility and authority through blogging.

The Ideal Small Business Marketing Plan - The foundations of a small business marketing plan, what you should include and how you should implement it.

The Complete (Thumbnail) Guide to Choosing the Right Media - The basics of how you should use traditional media, social media and the Internet.

Best of July

Powercast #4 - Marketing is Work - My video briefing on the reality of marketing your own business, including managing your time and resources.

Avoiding Easy Street - Don't avoid trials, learn from them. The lessons we get from failure.

The Dont's and Do's of Naming a Business - Read this before you name a business or product.

Best of August

5 Steps to A Unique Social Media Profile - Social media is not just about showing up. Here's how to build a social media profile that rocks, by guest author Judy Dunn.

How to Write a Blog Post, Step by Step - Writing a blog post doesn't have to be hard. Here's a simple process to help you crank them out.

Three Predictably Irrational Pricing Strategies That Get the Sale - How to help your customers make the decision with with contextual, decoy, and anchor pricing.

Best of September

10 Best Small Business Marketing eBooks - Facebook, Twitter, creating case studies, viral marketing, email, marketing, customer experience, and advertising. All free, all can be downloaded without registering for anything!

Marketers RoundTable - A Discussion of Current Marketing Issues - Podcast of marketers talking shop: the economy, social media spam, customer service marketing, and social media blindness. Featuring Paula Pollack, Steve McKee, Esteban Kolsky and me.

Superman, Clark Kent, and Your Brand Identity - What can the most famous of all love triangles teach you about branding? Watch this video.

Best of October

Word of Mouth is Still Sexier Than Social Media - Featuring the numbers to prove why you should be courting word of mouth and not just social media.

The Uncharted Waters of Social Media Marketing - Social media is not really free. And there is not much data to prove that it's the best way to spend your time.

Made to Stick Messaging - Three take-aways to make your marketing messages stickier.

Best of November

Conversation Starters: Differentiation, Pricing, and Presentations - Is it really all about price and the Ryanair pricing model?

Using Facebook (For Business) Right - If you are using Facebook for business, read this article to make sure you are doing it the right, and legal, way.

The Sorry State of Customer Service in America - Customer service really sucks. Some examples that represent typical bad customer experiences, and how you can take advantage of everyone else's suckiness.

And if you're not yet a subscriber, please consider subscribing. It's quick and easy. For updates on new articles: Receive The Marketing Spot by Email or Get The Marketing Spot in a blog reader

---

Marketers Roundtable Discussion of Current Marketing Issues

The Internet show about small business marketing.

Podcast Episode #45 - The Social Media Bubble, Inbound Marketing, Price Advertising, Pitching Journalists

---

Hear ye, Hear ye! Interested citizens of The Internet, you are invited to the second gathering of the Marketers RoundTable.

Whereas marketers like to congregate and discuss marketing,

And Whereas I am a marketer with a podcast,

Therefore, let them gather at The Marketers RoundTable to discuss marketing issues for all to hear on Power to the Small Business.

Guests:
Spike Jones – Brains on Fire
Jay Ehret - (Host) Chief Officer of Awesomeness at The Marketing Spot
Chris Wilson - The Fresh Peel
Joan Stewart - The Publicity Hound

Length: 35 minutes

Email subscribers and feed readers - If you don't see the player, click here to listen to Power to the Small Business
You can also download the mp3 file here: Download Power to the Small Business #45 (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 the audio comment line: 254-433-8529.

Marketers' RoundTable - A discussion of current marketing issues:

Selected quotes from the show:

ON THE SOCIAL MEDIA BUBBLE:

SPIKE JONES: “Is there a bubble that’s going to be burst? …I think there could be. We saw the web bubble burst and I don’t see this as being too particularly different from that."

JAY EHRET: "To me Twitter is a networking tool. It can also be a customer service tool. But I’ve never thought Twitter was a marketing tool for brands.”

JOAN STEWART: "I think one of the reasons traffic is falling off: because so many people are looking at the junk they see in their feeds and saying: You know what? I don’t need this."

ON THE REAL VALUE OF INBOUND MARKETING:

JAY EHRET: "The real value of inbound marketing is personal responsibility. People have taken the responsibility to contact you, you haven’t interrupted them. That creates a different dynamic between the client and the potential customer.”

JOAN STEWART: "When someone calls me (because of inbound marketing), a lot of times, price is not as much of an issue."

CHRIS WILSON: “I think inbound marketing is a great tool for (small business). There’s probably more leverage there for a small business, especially when you’re talking about a local market."

SPIKE JONES: “Whenever people come looking for you, then there has to be some sense that credibility has been created."

ON THE FOCUS AND EFFECT OF PRICE IN ADVERTISING:

CHRIS WILSON: "If there was a retailer to break that mold completely, to add another level…you could really surprise people and give them something to talk about ."

JAY EHRET: “If the only thing you can tell me about your product is your price, then you’re not telling me very much."

SPIKE JONES: "It comes down to the hunter-gatherer mentality of shoppers… It comes down to the kind of shopper that person is.”

JOAN STEWART: “It’s an important part of the marketing mix to communicate what the value of your product is beyond just the price."

ON SHOULD YOU BE PITCHING JOURNALISTS:

JOAN STEWART: “I’m not saying that traditional trumps social media. You have to do a mix of both. What I’m saying is that I think it’s a mistake to just take traditional journalists and write them off your list."

SPIKE JONES: "Getting that list of journalists and emailing them, and contacting them; that’s a way a lot of people see as valid, even though it might not be at all”

CHRIS WILSON: “You see news stories that come out of social media and then hit traditional journalists. You never know where it could start and where it might actually end up."

JAY EHRET: "Any blogger, any so-called online journalist, can print anything they want. But there’s something about it being …on a traditional channel. It’s like there’s a tougher vetting process that something has to go through in order to get to that point."

Show Links:

Spike Jones: Brains on Fire Blog, Spike on Twitter
Jay Ehret: The Marketing Spot, Power to the Small Business
Chris Wilson: The Fresh Peel, Chris on Twitter
Joan Stewart: The Publicity Hound Blog, Joan on Twitter

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

If you liked this podcast, please consider subscribing. For updates on new podcasts and articles: Receive The Marketing Spot by Email or Get The Marketing Spot in a blog reader

---

FLAVORIZE! the Experience to Earn Conversation

As long as there has been form, there has been function: A business flavor-killer. The desire for efficiency has created sensory-numbing consumer experiences, leaving customers nothing extraordinary to talk about. It's time to FLAVORIZE! your business.

Photo Credit: Micky

People only notice things that are out of the ordinary. To get customers to notice you and talk about you, you must jar the senses. Deliver out of the ordinary experiences by adding some relative sensory oddity. We human beings have five senses: we see, hear, touch, taste and smell. In their book Conversational Capital: How to Create Stuff People Love to Talk About, authors Cesvet, Babinski, and Alper introduce the concept of relative sensory oddity (RSO) saying that "if a consumer experience can appeal to our complete faculties, it becomes all the more impactful and potentially meaningful."

Two things are needed for RSO: relativity, and oddity. The sensory experience you deliver must be relative to your brand, and at the same time it must startle the senses. For example: Playing some heavy metal music at a day spa would be startling, but it wouldn't be brand relevant. What would be? Let me share a business flavorization story with you, by engaging your sense of hearing. Listen to this story of relative sensory oddity:

(if you don't see the audio player click hear to listen: Flavorize Your Business

Jarring The Senses

Think of your customer's experience as a sensory experience and not a shopping excursion. To flavorize your business, start with the primary sense your business already appeals to; most likely sight. Now ask how you might be able to jar your customer's senses. Can you display different shapes, can you add different colors? How can you shake up some eyeballs?

Next bring in a second sense. One that customers wouldn't expect from you. IKEA is a great example. Shopping IKEA is a long, winding, visual sensory overload, until you get to the middle of the store and find their...cafe. There you will find a menu of inexpensive meals, including Swedish coffee and yes: Swedish meatballs (relevancy).

Flavorize the Experience

THE BIG IDEA: Be out of the ordinary by appealing to the senses unexpectedly. When you do, people will talk about the experience.

Touch: Add different textures to your showroom. Let customers become physically involved with your product

Visual: Add unexpected shapes and colors to the experience.

Hearing: Play music or other appropriate sounds.

Smell: Add flowers for both color and the scent

Taste: Serve a small food item such as cookies or chocolate.

What sensory flavor can you add to your business? How have you startled the senses of your customers?

If you liked this article, please consider subscribing. For updates on new articles: Receive The Marketing Spot by Email or Get The Marketing Spot in a blog reader

---

Conversation Starters: Omnipresence, Attention, and Selling

The Need to be Everywhere?

The three primary social media channels for marketers and professionals are Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Most people in my professional network are on all three. Do we really need to be? This week I downloaded and installed the new version of TweetDeck, my preferred tool for managing my Twitter account. At least it used to be. When I re-started TweetDeck I was met by a tutorial on how to use all the new features. It seems I can now simultaneiously post the same message to my Twitter stream, my Facebook profile, my Facebook page, and my LinkedIn account. Why would I want to do that? and if I do, why is there a need for all three services if they’re just going to be used as an inter-changeable platform for the same message? Consequently, I’m thinking of leaving a few of the services.

So, just an informal poll: Are you on all three services? Do you post the same thing to all three, even occasionally? Do you think you need all three services?

Earning Attention

What does it take to get attention? If you want to get noticed among a sea of competitors you have to do something different, yet at the same time something not too screwy. Here’s a cool idea you might try: print your own magazine and mail it to your clients and potential clients at the end of the year. It’s not as difficult as you think. over on the Springwise Blog, I learned about MagCloud, a service that lets you print your own magazine on demand. You just upload the PDF files. Print as many or as few copies as you want. Where do you get the content? If you have a blog, take your best blog posts of the year, load them on to MagCloud and print your own magazine. If you don’t have a blog, re-purpose some of the educational materials in your store and write a couple of interesting feature articles. I think it will get me some attention. What do you think?

What do you do to set yourself apart and get attention?

Selling vs. Giving

Do you use your online presence to sell or give? I suspect there is much more of the former. But don’t you think the latter is more effective? Take a look at this video that I found on Tim Cohn’s Search Communications Blog:

I know we need to sell, and we should always ask for the business, How much advice, counsel and commentary do you provide with your online presence? Or do you lean toward pitches, hype and buy now messages? What’s a good balance between selling and giving?

For updates on new articles: Receive The Marketing Spot by Email or Get The Marketing Spot in a blog reader

---

Big Brand Backlash: The Local Brand Opportunity

Starbucks is hiding their logo, opening new stores under names like "Roy Street Coffee and Tea" and "15th Ave. Coffee and Tea." Why? Bryant Simon calls it Brand Avoidance, I call it brand backlash.

Photo Credit: nathanborror

Remember when everybody was clamoring to get the big brands into their community? "I hope we get one of those new Wal-Mart SuperCenters" and "Please, Starbucks, build a store in our town!" Not any more. People know that big brands are small business killers. They kill the character of a community while small businesses provide the flavor and differentiation of a city. Without small businesses and local brands, you wouldn't be able to tell one town from the next. All cities would be homogenous and they may as well have a number instead of a name.

Unfortunately, most cities and chambers of commerce willingly participate in character-suicide by luring big brands in with tax credits and other economic gifts. They don't know what the citizens of a community know: small businesses are the real backbone of the economy. They see it in action.

I've been active in my local community of Waco, Texas for quite some time, volunteering and serving in the chamber of commerce, local charitable and civic organizations, and my church. I have noticed one constant over my 25 years of service: Big brands don't participate, hey don't volunteer, and they don't take an interest. Big brands are not part of a community, nor do they even try to be.

It's understandable. Big brands have no roots in all the hundreds, even thousands, of communities in which they have a store or location. And that's all communities of America are to the big brands like Best Buy and Target: a store. Your city is just a means to an end for the big brands: a place to open up a new store to increase revenue, to increase the stock price.

Local residents are taking notice. They would rather do business with a local brand if they could. It's your job to make sure they can. Give them the stuff they are looking for from a local brand. I'm not talking about price and product, I'm talking about the intangibles. It's time to grow your roots.

Do you volunteer for local charitable or civic organizations? Are you visible in the community? What character and flavor do you add?

If you liked this article, please consider subscribing. For updates on new articles: Receive The Marketing Spot by Email or Get The Marketing Spot in a blog reader

---

10 Questions to Give Your Advertising Message More Clout

More important than where you advertise is what you say in your advertisement. The most important determinant of advertising success is the copy that goes in the ad. So, before you waste another dollar on advertising, ask yourself these questions:

1. If you could only tell customers one thing, and one thing only about your business, what would it be?

It's not necessary to tell people everything, only the most important thing. Businesses tend to cram too much information into their messages, dividing the attention of potential customers. Build your ad around one key idea.

2. What will you say in the first two seconds of your advertisement?

Within the first two seconds of exposure to your message, people will decide whether or not they will tune you out. Unfortunately, advertisers try to compensate with hype, causing customers to totally discount the ad. To make sure people don't ignore you; be natural, interesting, energetic, and enthusiastic (not hyper-active). Be personal.

3. What headline could you create for your ad?

Newspapers and blogs create headlines to grab attention and give readers important information. You should too. Create a headline for your ad that grabs attention and communicates "Hey, I have something important to say." Then write your advertising copy around that headline. Use this technique for all forms of media, not just print. You don't have to actually use your headline in the ad, but the result will be focused, well-written copy around a central idea.

4. What's the emotional connection between you and the customer?

Advertising is filled with logic and facts, but people make decisions emotionally. Before you create an ad, identify a specific emotion that you want your customers to feel when they do business with you. Happy, excited, intrigued? Now build your ad around that emotion.

Please note: Prices are facts and price advertising is an appeal to logic. Reduce or eliminate prices from your ads for better results.

5. How much do you think people really want to know about you....really?

Your business is your life, but it's not your customers' life. Are you telling people what they want to know, or are you telling people what you want them to know? Put yourself in the customer's shoes and write copy accordingly.

6. Are you giving people insight into your business?

Don't just recite the facts, tell people something they don't know. Give them insight into your business. Give them behind the scenes information or give them a peek at your business personality. When customers gain insight they feel like they know you better and it forms a relational bond.

7. Are people better off because of what you said in your advertising?

Are you saying anything interesting or giving people new information? Or is your ad an exercise in blah, blah blah. Begin writing your advertising copy with the objective of making people more informed because they were exposed to your ad.

8. Is your advertising message consistent with the experience you deliver?

In the world of advertising, every business is perfect. In the real world, they're not. Don't present your business as something it's not. Give customers the real flavor of doing business with you. Much advertising money is wasted when the customer arrives at a store only to find the business misrepresented itself in an ad.

9. Are you saying anything different than what everyone else is saying?

You hear those ads that just spout the usual stuff: prices, products, service, hours of operation, or Sale! Is your ad one of them? If so, then no one is listening and you're wasting your money. Say something different.

The final and most important question:

10. Is your advertising consistent with your branding?

Every ad you do should reinforce your brand. A brand is an emotional, psychological relationship with customers and potential customers. Before you do any advertising, do the important work of branding your business.

Wouldn't you like your advertising to be more effective? Aren't you tired of wasting money? What questions should you ask yourself before you advertise?

Add clout to your advertising and build a stronger brand. Get more information from The Marketing Spot.

If you liked this article, please consider subscribing. For updates on new articles: Receive The Marketing Spot by Email or Get The Marketing Spot in a blog reader

---