The Marketing Message Blog

How 'Word of Mouth' Can Work for Small Business Owners

Are you using 'Word of Mouth' marketing to help your business grow?  Are customers spreading the word for you?  In her article in December, 2006's Entrepreneur Magazine, Kim Gordon shows you how Talk is Cheap and how you can harness it for your small business. 

Her three tips and my comments: 1)Market to influencers: Influencers are easy to find if you pay attention to people in your audience who engage you in conversation and want to know what's new.  Invite them to participate more actively and you've got a thoughtful collaborator.

2) Create winning PR coverage: People are more likely to believe what they read in editorials than advertising.  Make an effort to send out press releases and try to get your product mentioned.  PR Web is making that easier.

3)Seed viral marketing: This is more difficult.  You need to make your product or service easy to talk about.  That's a new way to think about your marketing message.  And make it fun! 

 

Customer Success Stories

I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Bob Morse on the importance of Customer Success Stories for the CaseStudy411 blog cowritten by Martin Middlewood.  The podcast interview is 9 minutes. In it, we discuss the way businesses can use content like Case Studies and White Papers to drive traffic.

What exactly is Web 2.0?

The Web 2.0 debate rages on.  There is an interesting article in btobonline.com by Richard Karpinski called, What exactly is Web 2.0.  He provides 3 interesting descriptions: 1) Web 2.0 feels more like an application that a static page; 2) Web 2.0 is not linear in usage; 3) Web 2.0 is about user participation, collaboration and contribution. 

The best definition comes from Shiv Singh at Avenue A, who says that "it puts the user at the center of the experience."  This means that the user is in control, a frightening thought for large b-to-b companies; only slightly less so for b-to-c companies.

How can small companies make Web 2.0 work to their advantage?  Jump into the social media fray and look at participating in sites like Digg.com, Del.icio.us and Reddit.  Make sure your blog lets users link to these sites easily.  The key is to create content that people want to share.

Blogging Tips from a Visionary

There's a great article in the Washing Post about Ted Leonsis' adventures in blogging called "For Ted Leonsis, a Quest to Find Himself Faster Online." Ted is one of the genuises behind AOL and majority owner of the Washington Capitals hockey team and the Mystics of women's basketball, and minority owner of the NBA's Wizards.  I worked for Ted's new media consulting company, Redgate Communications when it was acquired by AOL in the early 90's.  He is always a visionary.  If anyone could understand how to make blogging work, it would be Ted.  So he started a blog called Ted's Take with the goal of putting the information HE WANTED people to see first on Google.

He says there are 3 main factors in Google's algorithm: 1) The more popular a Web page is the higher it ranks; 2) The more a Web page is linked to other websites and blogs the higher it ranks; 3) Frequent and current entries boost rankings. 

His recipe for success?  Post several times a day; link to lots of other bloggers; link your site to your other sites and link to well-known people in the blogsphere.  His future plans are to add more video and photographs. 

What are you waiting for?  Start blogging!

Five Ecomerce Trends to Watch

In the current issue of etailer, Sherry Chiger reports on a speech given by Jay Herratti, the SVP of Strategic Planning for IAC/InterActiveCorp at the 2006 eTail Converence.  His picks for the top five e-commerce trends to watch are:  1) Video that sells; 2)Convergence (digital television with 2-way interactivity); 3) User-generated content; 4) Shopping intermediaries and comparison sites; 5) Online marketing science—analyzing metrics for everything online.

Obviously video is now exploding with the interest in YouTube.  Yet, I am most interested in his comments about user-generated content.  Specifically, he talks about customer product reviews.  He says many etailers are afraid that negative comments  will discourage sales.  But the key to effectively managing that content is not to DELETE IT!  It is to use it to TAKE ACTION.  Feeback like that is priceless.  If your customers tell you what they don't like and you act on that information, you are getting feedback that even focus groups and surveys often miss. 

Make sure your blogs allow for comments and a useful dialogue.  The only way to succeed is to give the customer what they want!  Using Web 2.0 tools makes that easy.

Time for a Website Makeover?

As some of you may know, I spent 8 years as a Marketing Director for AOL, starting in 1994.  Obviously, the Web changed and grew and continues to morph by the day.  One thing has not changed.  If you run a small online business, your website is the 'welcome mat' for your potential customers. 

With the advent of blogs, newsletters and podcasts business owners are forgetting that a strong website that drives revenue is a MUST.  Tools to produce working websites are ubiquitous.  You can probably create a website inexpensively.  What's not readily available is a way to plan your website strategy and execute it.  Would you build a house without first drawing up the plans?  A weak, ill-thought out website ensures that you are running your business with one hand tied behind your back.

When I work with my customers to grow their small businesses, we start with a Mindmap and create the plan first.  It only takes an hour or so, but it makes all the difference.  Even if your website is up and running, go back and take the time to remap it.  It's a revelation when you discover you are putting a lot of time and effort into something that's not built on a solid foundation.  For more information and samples check out my website.