Marketing | PRMarketing.com

Pinterest Launches Business Pages to Attract More Brands

Posted on November 19, 2012 by Kellie Englehardt in blog 2 Comments

Pinterest has grown substantially since it started almost three years ago, with nearly 40 million users. According to SAP and NetBase, Pinterest is the fastest growing social site ever. Over the past year thousands of businesses have started using the site, finding that it can be a powerful way to engage with customers, while having the potential to bring in new customers. The picture-sharing social networking site recently launched Pinterest for Business to better cater to the brands using it.

Businesses already using Pinterest can convert their account following a few simple steps. The major difference between having a personal account instead of a verified business account at the moment is the terms of service agreement. In the future, additional functions for business users like analytics may be added according to Cat Lee, a product manager for Pinterest.

A guide of best practices for businesses on Pinterest has been created and includes suggestions for creating inspiring boards with images people will want to share. Highlighting specials, celebrating seasons and holidays, and writing thoughtful descriptions are among a few of the ideas offered to help gain traction.

“Whether it’s Anthropologie sharing awesome clothes, Whole Foods sharing tasty recipes, the Smithsonian sharing fascinating collections, or Amazon making products easy to pin, many of us have been inspired on Pinterest by businesses,” Lee wrote on Pinterest’s blog.

Brands sharing recipes, fashion ideas, travel information and crafts tend to do particularly well with pin sharing and driving traffic to their website. Allrecipes, Etsy, Jetsetter, Organized Interiors and Petplan are a few organizations Pinterest has highlighted with case studies showing how brands are using the popular networking site.

“We look forward to seeing businesses continue inspiring their audience with amazing content,” Lee wrote.

With social media sites like Pinterest showing no signs of slowing down, having a strong social media marketing campaign is becoming more important than ever. PRMarketing.com offers a variety of highly individualized strategies to help brands stand out online using social media.

Instagram & Marketing

Posted on October 24, 2012 by Julia Minchenko in blog 4 Comments

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but Instagram proves it can be worth a lot more to your brand as well. With over 100 million registered users, the mobile photo-sharing app Instagram is becoming one of the fastest growing social media platforms. In fact, according to the comScore mobile U.S. audience measurement report, Instagram had an average of 7.3 million daily active users, while Twitter’s average remained around 6.8 million.

Instagram Details

How can Instagram be a powerful tool for business? According to social analytics firm Simply Measured, 40 percent of the brands on the Interbrand 100 have an account on the popular mobile photo-sharing service.

Add a Face to Your Business

Use Instagram for visual marketing to show off your products, brand and culture. It’s a good idea to snap photos of any new products, events, or things that would represent your business. Creative photos will give your followers a better visual of your company’s brand. The images tend to create a connection between your company and your customer/follower.

Utilize the Power of Hashtags

Hashtags (#) place search results into relevant categories and conversations on Instagram’s search feature. For example, a company that deals with technology may include the hashtag #innovativetechnology, or #computers, so people who are searching for photos of technology will stumble across photos that belong to that company. The hashtags can include anything that would pique the interest of your target audience.

Analyze Behavior

Once you create your Instagram account, don’t forget that you are using a social media platform. Analyzing your data is important to help boost your engagement and to recognize if time invested in the service is worthwhile. Analytics can help you identify the best times to post pictures and what pictures attract the most attention. This could really help your brand better understand its potential on the app.

In the end, Instagram is more than a photo-taking tool, it is a way to tell stories for your brand. There are opportunities to expand your business using this platform, and brands would be wise to jump on this band wagon.

20 Inspirational Quotes to Inspire Marketing and PR Success

Posted on October 1, 2012 by Kellie Englehardt in blog 1 Comment

Sometimes a quote can give just the right type of inspiration or push needed to take things to the next level. Here’s a collection of marketing and PR related quotes to help inspire you. For a more extensive list of powerful marketing related quotes, HubSpot has put together a collection of “101 Awesome Marketing Quotes” that’s worth checking out.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” – Charles Darwin

“Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two–and only two–basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs. Marketing is the distinguishing, unique function of the business.” – Peter Drucker

“The Internet has turned what used to be a controlled, one-way message into a real-time dialogue with millions.” – Danielle Sacks, Fast Company reporter

“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” – Albert Einstein

“Publicity is absolutely critical. A good PR story is infinitely more effective than a front page ad.” – Richard Branson

“If I was down to the last dollar of my marketing budget I’d spend it on PR!” – Bill Gates

“Don’t go to the ledge. Don’t let the urgent overwhelm the important. It’s very easy now to panic, and we cannot panic. Invest in your brands now, especially in these dry times.” The easiest thing is to shut down, and that’s the worst thing.” – Joseph V. Tripodi, chief marketing and commercial officer, Coca-Cola

“When you enchant people, your goal is not to make money from them or to get them to do what you want, but to fill them with great delight.” – Guy Kawasaki

“There are no magic wands, no hidden tricks and no secret handshakes that can bring you immediate success, but with time, energy, and determination you can get there.” – Darren Rowse, ProBlogger founder

“Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing about.” – Benjamin Franklin

“Next to doing the right thing, the most important thing is to let people know you are doing the right thing.” – John D. Rockefeller

“If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful.” – Jeff Bezos

“Human nature has a tendency to admire complexity but reward simplicity.” – Ben Huh, CEO, Cheezburger Network

“Think big and don’t listen to people who tell you it can’t be done. Life’s too short to think small.” – Tim Ferriss

“The things we fear most in organizations – fluctuations, disturbances, imbalances – are the primary sources of creativity.” – Margaret J. Wheatley, writer and management consultant

“Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.” – Mark Twain

“The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.” – Peter F. Drucker

“PR is extremely important, and being able to use it in the right way means everything. You have to market your success.” – Lee Haney, bodybuilder and former Mr. Olympia

“Businesses should follow and learn from others’ successes and failures in order to better understand and predict their own.” – Ben Mezrich, author of The Accidental Billionaires

“If you don’t believe in your product, or if you’re not consistent and regular in the way you promote it, the odds of succeeding go way down. The primary function of the marketing plan is to ensure that you have the resources and the wherewithal to do what it takes to make your product work.” – Jay Levinson

What’s one of your favorite quotes?

4 Areas of Do-It-Yourself Marketing to Avoid

Posted on April 9, 2012 by Marilyn Buckner in blog 2 Comments

They are out there virtually everywhere: myriads of programs, processes and plans to help the average Joe think he can perform like a marketing Merlyn. “All you have to do is follow these simple steps,” they’ll tell you and many of them will even provide this “proven” plan free of charge.

With dollars to be saved dancing in their eyes, the unwary marketer-to-be, a.k.a. company president, office manager, IT guy, or tech-savvy office flunky jumps on the do-it-yourself bandwagon and eagerly starts down the road toward what they believe will be an increase in sales. What they too often miss, however, is the road sign indicating they’re off on the kind of detour that is frequently followed by sudden stretches of missing pavement, chuckholes, and unmarked forks in the road.

Let’s get real, some things like amateurish marketing don’t change much over time and most of us can spot them instantly. I was recently struck by this fact as I glanced through some vintage telephone directory ads. Like technology, effective marketing and marketing strategies are in a constant state of warp-speed evolution and change. As Dave Thomas of ThomasArts put it, “When people mess around with their marketing dollars, they don’t understand that they’re playing with their revenue, not an expense.” Here are four key areas where it pays to put your dollars to work with a professional, and why.

Marketing Strategy
One DIY site I visited had a page outlining a simplistic marketing plan. Further down the page was a paid advertisement for toilet paper at Target. In a weird sort of way, I thought that was somewhat appropriate, because it almost instantly created a credibility problem for the article.

If a company does not have a professional marketing staff on board, it is too easy to miss the fundamentals of finding the demographic, and where and how those individuals can be effectively reached. This is purely a case of “put your money where your potential buyers are.” Guesswork and trial and error are not only ineffective, they are expensive.
Branding

Your brand encompasses much more than a company name and logo. It is the sum total perception of your company; it is also the personality that distinguishes your company or product. Effective branding creates credibility and motivates sellers to buy from you, rather than the competition. It can extend beyond a company name, logo and tagline into the elements of shapes, graphics, color, sounds, movement, smells and taste. For example, no other motorcycle sounds quite like a Harley, and no other chicken tastes just like KFC. Meaningful brand development is essential in building successful brands, and can’t be pulled out of a cardboard box (or created from a checklist) any more than it can be pulled out of a top hat.
Copywriting
Okay, maybe you got consistent “A’s” in your college English classes, or harbor a secret dream of someday writing a novel, but the truth is there is a world of difference between being able to write something and being able to write good marketing copy. Crafting a print worthy press release takes training and talent of an entirely different type than it takes to write a proposal. And the more concise the message needs to be, the tougher it is to get it right. It’s far easier to recognize what works than to create it; great word crafting is compelling to consumers.
Design
Desktop publishing software and affordable digital cameras have without question enhanced everyone’s creativity, and even turned a great many of us into amateur photographers. As I have experienced in art classes, it takes a lot more than knowing how to mix and match colors to come up with a piece of art someone wants to buy and own. Good design can be a tricky and complex process involving just the right amount and placement of white space, negative space, color selection and saturation, and above all, style. In addition, the pros can get it done not only better, but in a fraction of the time we novices can. It takes the right tools, technical skills, training and above all, talent to turn out terrific marketing design.

You owe it to yourself, your budget and your bottom line to enlist professional help in at least these four key areas. Your marketing dollars will not only get you further down the road to success, but you’ll also enjoy the ride much more without those noisy and unnecessary backfires.

The New Face of Marketing

Posted on December 9, 2011 by Thomas Watkins in blog 6 Comments

Trust in corporations is at a low point today, and the economy cannot be held solely to blame. Distrust of businesses (large ones in particular) began long before the economic crash of 2008. Too many companies have told half-truths about their product quality and used hidden-fee discount deals to sell those products. Too many consumers have been burned by marketing ploys that—whether legally dishonest or not—still seem dishonest to those consumers. Such half-honest advertising techniques became prevalent long before Lehman Brothers went under or Citigroup asked for a bailout.

The honest truth is that marketing must adapt. The voice a consumer trusts the most has always been, and will continue to be, their friends. One of the best ways to sell your product is through a consumer’s friend, and that requires brand development. Your brand makes your business memorable. It is a combination of logo, tag line, product, service, and emotions. These last two elements—service and emotions—are extremely important! Customers remember each interaction with your company, and they only come back when those interactions are positive. Negative experiences stand out more in their minds and get shared with their friends. You must cultivate positive customer experiences if you want to maintain your business vitality.

Protecting Your Brand

Protecting your brand is crucial, and we are not talking about trademark violations here. The biggest thing your brand needs protection from is a self-inflicted bad image. If your products are cheaply made, nothing is going to compensate for that. If your customer service people tend to be rude and unforgiving, no advertising will make up for it. If a consumer hears that an experience with your company will probably be negative, they will go elsewhere.

Your brand is defined, more than any other factor, by the positive and negative experiences your customers associate with it. A flashy logo or catchy tag line will help your name stick in consumers’ minds, but they will likely turn to friends and online reviews to find out more about you before they buy your product or service. No billboard, TV commercial, or website can substitute for the human element that comes from sharing positive experiences about a company. You want the face of your company to be a person—your customer! If your customer is selling your product for you, your growth is assured. Some tips for increasing your marketing power and brand presence can be found here.

Finding a New Face: An Example

Until now, Apple’s brand image has relied on one iconic man—Steve Jobs. After firing him in 1985, they really struggled. After bringing him back in 1996, they became wildly successful. Now, they must find a way to succeed without him. If the truth be known, however, they don’t need him. It was not because of Steve Jobs that I bought my Mac.

Steve Jobs had a way of telling his customers what they wanted, and it usually worked. That was not how I bought my Mac, however. Until recently, the Apple brand for me brought up negative memories of crashing the school lab computers nearly every time I touched one! All I had to do was type my normal 50+ words a minute and watch the cursor struggle and then finally stop moving. Or I’d click on a browser and, while waiting for it to load, click on a word processor—and watch OS Classic crash!

Ten years later, I seriously started considering Apples again because friend after friend told me that OS X was superior to Windows. After a couple years of hesitation, I finally purchased my first Mac which quickly became my primary computer. I did not buy it because of Steve Jobs but because of my friends and their positive experiences. I tell this story to illustrate my point—Apple can easily survive on the power of their fan base if they continue to provide the positive experiences that Steve Jobs made them famous for. Their face does not need to be Tim Cook—in fact, he wisely decided not to dominate the iPhone4S unveiling in early October. Instead, Apple’s new face will become those who use their products. As long as their products maintain an edge, Apple will have loyal customers who will market their products for them. Similarly, your company can also find a new face in your customers by keeping them happy.

Social Resources in Brand Development

When customers come to your website, they approach with a certain air of skepticism. If you offer a blog on your website, they get curious. If your blog is obviously open for anyone to post a review, you are more likely to gain your customer’s trust. If they can see positive reviews that are obviously unaltered and written by people who don’t gain from the reviews, they will be more likely to trust your entire site. Similarly, positive reviews of your products or services posted on Facebook or Twitter will really help your business. Then, when your customers find a product or service they really like, they will be more inclined to make that known on Facebook or Twitter, which will bring in more customers.

Customer service is also a big factor in brand development. If you are a manufacturer, you probably want to reduce the amount that your customers seek out customer service. That is best done by making a long-lasting quality product to begin with. If you are in the service industry, however, customer service needs to define your organization. As an example, airlines and cell phone companies are generally known for bad customer service. If you provide excellent customer service in either of these areas, you are likely to make it big even if you are smaller than your competitors. Words to the wise: be polite, keep your automated voice systems short, and be responsive on your web forums.

With good products and customer service, it is easy to keep your brand image strongly positive. With social media, it is easy to see how your customers feel about you. Maintaining a Facebook page or blog is less expensive than funding TV spots and billboards, and they can be more effective in communicating your value. Once your brand name becomes synonymous with a positive experience, your customers will start advertising for you—and that is the best place for a business to be.

So tell us: What are you presently doing to build your brand? Tell us what you are doing to adopt the new face of marketing and become your customer’s friend.

Google coming to Salt Lake City

Posted on September 28, 2011 by Pat Parkinson in blog 4 Comments

Search giant will host workshops for businesses

Face it, without a strong Internet presence some local businesses might as well not even exist. But optimizing your website for the search engines takes time and know-how. Business owners without the bucks to hire that swanky Internet marketing agency have a rare opportunity to learn from Google employees when the search giant hosts a series of free workshops Oct. 13 and 14 in Salt Lake City.

You know that appearing prominently in the search results is critical to your bottom line. But your company doesn’t even show up on the first page when people use search terms relevant to your products or industry. The theme for the free Google event is: Get your business online!

Those who attend can:

• Get a free website from Intuit
• Claim your free Google Places listing
• Get one-on-one advice and tips
• Learn about online marketing

According to a statement from the event organizers:

“If you don’t have a website or Google Places listing, you’ll find everything you need to get started – web professionals at your side every step of the way. If your business is already online, you’ll find tools and resources to help your business succeed online.”

Those who attend can receive a free professional website and custom domain name. Experts from Google will teach you how to optimize your website so it appears in the search results and your business gets found.

There will also be sessions about different tools for promoting your business online, like AdWords and Google Analytics. A Google AdWords expert will show you how to create an account, choose keywords and write effective advertisements. You’ll even learn how the search giant ranks the ads.

Visit http://www.utahgetonline.com/ for a complete schedule or to register for the free event. The workshops are scheduled at The Leonardo at Library Square, 209 E. 500 South in Salt Lake City.

Long Live the King: Why Content Marketing is So Important for Small Businesses

Posted on September 28, 2011 by Erik Wolf in blog 1 Comment

A lot of entrepreneurs are surprised when I tell them that their business is all about content marketing. This is especially true for B2B service firms where success means not only offering a good service at a fair price but also proving your ability to be a good partner and trusted adviser for your clients. It’s important to remember that B2B clients aren’t just looking to fill needs — they are looking to make their firm money, save their firm money or time, advance their careers and maybe all of the above.

What does this mean from a marketing perspective? It means that the world is changing, content is more important than ever and we all need to shift our thinking.

In my opinion there are five “new rules” for relevant marketing in today’s B2B service marketing environment:

1. Brochures are Not What they Used to Be:

For most businesses, assume that traditional marketing collateral is completely useless. No one in today’s marketplace wants to be sold to — what people are hungry for is good information and vendors they can trust and rely on. Assume that the primary business purpose of any printed material is to get prospects to your web site or landing page and that printed materials will almost never be read. Some businesspeople believe that they need to have some sort of brochure to use as a leave-behind. That’s OK — print the brochure and hand it out at sales meetings. Just don’t expect it to be read. On the other hand, if you want to create printed materials that WILL get read, consider books, white papers and case studies. I give out several copies of my book every week and I can tell you for a fact that prospects are more likely to read a 230-page book than a trifold brochure.

2. Brochureware is Not What it Used to Be Either:

Like your “salesy” printed materials, your “salesy” product/service pages are also unlikely to be read by most of your visitors. Most small businesses will find that the sales/marketing content is the LEAST popular content on their site*, behind (in no particular order), About, Blog, News, Contact and Careers. As with the above advice, don’t take this to mean that you shouldn’t talk about your service offerings on your website. By all means, INCLUDE the product/services content, your visitors will appreciate that it’s there. But similarly to brochures, don’t expect much to be read.

* Not counting home page traffic or paid traffic via Search Engine Marketing or any form of online advertising

3. Very Little is Proprietary Nowadays:

There are very few real secrets anymore. A lot of service providers like to think that they have a “secret sauce” and that talking about what they do in an informational sort of way may compromise the sauce. Competitive advantages based on secrecy are not sustainable in the Internet age for fairly obvious reasons. If a qualified customer is on your website looking for information and you do NOT give it to them, your competitor will. Forget about the secret sauce thing and market your expertise — that’s your real competitive advantage.

4. No One is Fooled by Parlor Tricks:

A social media marketing agency tells you they can create as many updates as you need based on keywords you provide and magically get you thousands of followers… A search engine optimization firm tells you that a few tweaks to your site every month will make you No. 1 on Google… An AdWords reseller tells you that they can launch a campaign for you tomorrow without consulting with you on the copy for the ad or creating a landing page. The bottom line is that tricks, shortcuts and get-rich-quick schemes don’t work in marketing. Whether these silly tricks are aimed at fooling individuals or aimed at fooling Google (always assume that Google is smarter than you if you want to succeed), your target WILL see right through you. If you want results, make your marketing efforts genuine — your prospects will respect you for it. I’d suggest that you’re better off doing nothing at all than taking shortcuts with any of these efforts. Cheap tricks can have expensive consequences.

5. Content is King:

Your email newsletters, blogs, social media campaigns, search engine marketing campaigns, offline marketing/advertising campaigns and public relations activities are ALL based on creating and curating original, high-quality content. And it’s content (along with backlinks from other sites) — not trickery or secret SEO sauce — that’s getting you ranked on Google. Focusing on the quality of your content improves the effectiveness and ROI in all of these areas.

So what’s my advice to you? Embrace your new role as a content marketer and start putting some thoughts together. And if the prospect of engaging in all of this content creation seems scary, here’s some advice: start by blogging, which I usually recommend be taken in very manageable posts, between 300-600 words per week. That is content that can be easily used to drive the vast majority of the content-driven efforts I mentioned in Rule No. 5, and which can — over time — be aggregated into white papers, eBooks, or even full-length printed volumes.

Don’t over extend yourself, and don’t bite off more than you can handle. Take things in small steps and get yourself and your team into good habits before you get too ambitious.

Erik Wolf is a small business marketing expert and co-author of the award winning book Marketing: Unmasked – Insider’s Tips + Tricks for Success in Small Business Marketing. He is also the founder of Zero-G Creative, an Atlanta-based online marketing agency serving an exclusively small business clientele.

Like a Bee to Honey — Marketing Lessons Learned from the Hive

Posted on September 27, 2011 by Marilyn Buckner in blog 12 Comments

I am married to a hobbyist beekeeper, more properly referred to as an apiarist. It’s a perfect fit, since my main hobby is gardening. Our large yard is filled from spring to fall with a myriad of flowers for his bees, and his bees, in turn, increase our fruit and vegetable harvests. Granted, he’s fairly new at it and only has two hives, but we both know that’s only temporary. Bees multiply. In fact, did you know that the best domestic queen honey bees can lay up to 3,000 eggs per day, or more than 200,000 per year? That is the equivalent of her own weight in eggs every couple hours! A typical hive will often contain between 40,000 and 80,000 bees. Tip: don’t mess with beehives unless you really know what you’re doing.

Friday night we experienced our first go at honey extraction. Each tiny pocket of honey is completely encapsulated within a cell of wax honeycomb. When you think about the sticky and time consuming process it takes to get it extracted, filtered, and bottled, it’s no wonder honey doesn’t come cheap. Quality marketing is a lot like that. A ton of creative thought, planning and top-notch execution are required if you really want quality results.

As the honey extraction process was going on in our garage, I wisely kept my distance in the kitchen. I must admit, however, that I did have recurring concerns about how much of a sticky aftermath would be left to clean up once it was over. To my surprise, it actually turned out to be one of the most amazing parts of the whole process.

It was only midday on Saturday when my husband said, “Come outside. You’ve got to see this.” He first took me to the backyard where some of the equipment used in removing honey-laden frames from the hives was still sitting. To my surprise, most of the sticky honey mess (there had been abundant deposits over everything that had been used) had been cleaned up and returned to the nearby hives by the bees themselves, just leaving little bits of beeswax behind. Only a few bees were still working at removing what was left. “You should have seen it earlier this morning,” he said. “There were thousands of them.” Bees definitely don’t sit idly by when opportunities arise.

He then took me around to the driveway where he had more recently put the honey extractor and wax box. Here, thousands of bees were still swarming all over and around the equipment, furiously eating and gathering honey. I had never seen anything quite like it. It was like watching the bee version of the big “day after Thanksgiving” Christmas sales. What I hadn’t known is that while bees are attracted to nectar, they are really attracted to honey. This feeding frenzy in our driveway was a real-life demonstration of the old adage, “like a bee to honey.”

Wouldn’t you love to tap into the kind of online PR that causes customers or clients to be as attracted to your product or service as bees are to honey? Bees are led to honey and nectar by their sense of smell, but one of the coolest things about them is that when one bee finds a particularly great location to gather nectar, it will hurry back to the hive to let the other worker bees know all about it, including where this fantastic discovery can be found. They actually get so excited, they do a dance on the doorstep of the hive that tells the others exactly where to go. If it’s an especially hot location, it goes viral and an ever-increasing swarm will gather at the site as the word spreads.

People aren’t much different. When we find a great product, service, or deal, most of us are eager to spread the word, too. The key to success for a product or service (or even the story about a product, service, or deal) is to be not only good enough to attract attention, but to find a way to truly stand out from the competition. This is one thing that effective branding does. You can have the greatest product on the planet, but until the word gets out through some effective promotion, no swarms of customers will come. Let’s face it: marketing dollars well spent can pollinate the growth of your bottom line like nothing else can.

Another One Bites the Dust

Posted on September 1, 2011 by Marilyn Buckner in blog 7 Comments

I have to admit it. It has been really sad to see a favorite store like Borders prepare to close its doors and become a piece of history. It was a great place to read books and magazines and to just hang out. When I went into my local Borders last week to check out what was still left after weeks of markdowns, there wasn’t a single chair in the store for my husband to sit on and wait while I checked out my favorite topic. Even the shelves and fixtures were up for grabs for the right price, and those comfortable chairs were apparently the first to go.

What happened? Was it another casualty of our current economic situation? Was the rising popularity of eBooks to blame? Not entirely.

As I pondered this question, I remembered a comment made by a friend in Borders a couple of months ago when we were told our local store would remain open. He said that he absolutely LOVED Borders, but seldom bought a book from them. Like many of us, this avid reader would check out Borders’ merchandise, then go home and buy used copies for a fraction of Borders’ price on Amazon.com.

Let’s face it. It used to be said that to be a viable business, a retailer had to have an Internet presence. Not anymore. Now a business must have 1) an attractive, easily navigable and searchable website storefront, 2) competitive pricing, and 3) intelligent optimization and web content marketing so potential customers are directed to its website rather than a competitor’s when searching for the products or services it offers. (Can you believe Borders actually had Amazon run their website from 2001 to 2008? For a quick recap of additional reasons for Borders’ demise, see http://www.businessinsurance.org/the-8-reasons-borders-went-bye-bye/)

I predict that many more stores that carry the type of goods that don’t have to be checked for size, fit or freshness will become a thing of the past as time goes on. Let’s face it. You can walk into Wal-Mart to find a toaster oven, make note of the brands and models they carry, go home and find out which one has the best customer ratings on the web, and then go back to Wal-Mart and pick one up. Or, you can simply go online to research brands, find the best price, place the order, and have one delivered to your door in a fraction of the time (particularly if you include standing in line to pay for it in a store like Wal-Mart), probably with a cost difference that more than makes up for any shipping costs, and possibly even better quality than those on Wal-Mart’s shelves.

It’s a no-brainer. It is also the reason why internet-only retail businesses continue to multiply like rabbits while even the brick and mortar stores we love are disappearing. Although we still watch DVD and blu-ray movies in our homes, Hollywood Video is long gone. Netflix beat them on four different fronts: great marketing, convenient internet ordering, home delivery and streaming video. Blockbuster is working hard to compete in this new arena, but is greatly lacking in marketing. I never knew they were offering a movie mailing service like Netflix until I saw it on their website while writing this article. And their website doesn’t have a single, clear page spelling out all the options available. I rented a DVD from a Blockbuster dispensing machine at a gas station recently, yet nowhere on their site was that option or location even mentioned, at least where I could quickly and easily find it. That’s called shooting yourself in the foot. Twice.

Doing business as usual is like having a death wish. Innovation, coupled with great Internet marketing strategies that include a website that works for you rather than against you, is critical to survival.

What do you think? What kind of store fronts do you think are here to stay, and which types do you think will be next to bite the dust?

‘To blog or not to blog’

Posted on April 12, 2011 by Pat Parkinson in blog 5 Comments

Experts say blogging still one of the best ways to reach new customers

Bloggers were surprised this week when an editor at The Huffington Post tweeted that the online newspaper was ending its popular Download Squad blog. Though puzzled, bloggers insisted the move was not a sign that theirs is a dying art form. In fact, a blog on your company’s website is still one of the best ways to show potential customers that you really know what you’re talking about.

Download Squad was part of the prolific Weblogs, Inc., which AOL purchased about five years ago. According to a Mashable report, the network also included the popular TechCrunch and Engadget. Download Squad was known for its timely reports about the release of new desktop software and bloggers speculated that the advent of cloud computing chewed into the blog’s bottom line.

Regardless, my background is in newspaper journalism and as the papers I wrote for claw for a bigger audience online, editors are embracing social media, electronic editions and, yes, blogs, to reach those who haven’t had ink on their fingers in years.

Blogging is tough. If you’re not willing to work hard to produce quality content, don’t bother. After the Download Squad downfall, PRMarketing.com asked some bloggers about their secrets for success. Here is what we were told:

Stacy Acevero is a blogger for Vocus/PRWeb. As the company’s social media community manager, Acevero said companies must have blogs for interacting with customers.

“ I don’t think blogging is going away anytime soon, although social media seems to be a substitute for customer engagement, it is a supplement, not a replacement,” Acevero said. “Company blogs allow you to position your company as the expert in the field and provide more than just short tweets of information.”

Blogs influence when creativity is paramount.

“Blogging involves much more commitment, a deeper thought process, and the ability to come up with something that is useful to your audience — a huge benefit of writing blogs. This is why blogs are so effective,” Acevero said. “Our blogs are appreciated by our dedicated readers as tutorials and jumping off points for PR pros and small businesses just dipping their toes in the business world, and they find us to be a valuable resource.”

Your blog must have original content and posts that are updated often.

Mike Sprouse is the chief marketing officer for Epic Media Group. His company started a second blog after its first project became successful. Sprouse said every company needs a blog.

“Our blog has very positively impacted our business and it allows us to communicate to a segment of the business population who are most receptive to our message. I think something that is very en vogue these days is to basically substitute a company blog for a Facebook page. In my opinion, this is a bad idea,” Sprouse said. “I want traffic coming to a property that our company manages, not to Facebook. I want to build our brand, not someone else’s.”

The number of visitors to the company’s blog has increased 500 percent in the past six months, he added.

Shannon M. Wilkinson at Reputation Communications in New York City said blogging helps convince journalists and prospective clients that the company has experts on staff. Now guest blogging is a top priority:

“After having established a voice and experimented with approaches to blogging that work for me, I am now preparing to expand the readership of the blog by participating in other, relevant blogs and inviting guest bloggers to post,” Wilkinson said.

But company blogs cannot be too promotional.

“Blogs can be invaluable for companies, but only if they are written to help readers. If they are just written to market services and products, they are a waste of time,” Wilkinson said.

Michael Feiman is president of PoolDawg.com, Inc. He said the company uses its blogs to “show our customers that we’re much more than just another website that sells pool cues and billiard supplies.”

“We currently have two blogs that we manage, each with a different purpose,” Feiman said. “The first is our company blog that talks about the goings on within the company as well as product news and industry information. The second is a blog for our mascot Frank, a ceramic bulldog that travels to pro and amateur events. Frank’s blog is written in Frank’s ‘voice’ and we upload pictures of him with players and fans. In both cases, we use blogging to show our company’s personality. Because the web can be such an anonymous place, it is vital for companies to create an emotional connection with their customers. Blogging is one of the easiest ways for us to do this.”

Kelly Daugherty is the managing partner of Smashing, a line of golf and tennis apparel that launched in March. Daugherty began blogging about the company’s products nearly two years ago.

“Our blog has been the single most effective marketing tactic we have used to date,” Daugherty said.

The company posts new articles about three times per week.

“Our blog is unique because we are honest. We don’t cover up any problems — as a matter of fact, when something goes wrong and we blog about it, we get
the highest traffic to the site,” Daugherty said.

Chase Fitzgerald is the social strategist at MAXBORGESAGENCY in Miami. The primary goal of a blog should be driving traffic to your company’s website, he said.

“With the correct keyword research and content mix, you should be able to drive traffic to your site through successful [search engine optimization] practices and leverage your social media presence,” he explained.

Companies should research how customers are finding their website today.

“Are they using terms like ‘affordable’ as opposed to ‘inexpensive’?” Fitzgerald asked. “Language in your blog post must mirror how the majority of people are finding you now. After you hold a strong stance in a few desirable keywords, take on more.”

Keeping fresh content on your blog is the best way to bump up your rankings in search engines, he added.

“Add polls or quizzes as blog posts that users will share through their social channels. This will encourage readers’ friends to come to your blog as well,” Fitzgerald said. “With each sentence you write, ask yourself ‘Would I share this?’ If the answer comes close to ‘No,’ stop writing.”

Ferris Stith manages the blog for PostcardMania.com. The firm is currently redesigning its blog for its 40,000 subscribers, most of whom are clients or potential customers.

“I’ve found that our blog is a great tool for real-time marketing education and posting news, updates, etc. I think it’s important for companies to have a blog if they have a relevant topic, angle or niche for their blog,” Stith advised. “Don’t just have one to have one. Figure out what the purpose of the blog will be for the company and then gear all your actions, posts, content, design towards achieving that goal.”

Candace Talmadge is a blogger at Talmadge Writing Services. She warned that an effective blog is a serious time commitment.

“To blog or not to blog, that is one question,” she said. “So don’t start unless you have the interest and resources to follow through.”

Even more critical is where to blog, she said.

“An ongoing blog on a company’s Facebook page is far more likely to be seen by new potential customers than a blog on a company’s website. Or be a guest contributor on a heavily trafficked site related to what your company does,” Talmadge said. “My point is to blog where the customers are, and use other social media like Twitter to talk about the blog, when appropriate.”

Jim Etherington is vice president of the Advocacy Group Inc., which is based in Washington, D.C. The firm handles campaigns for political and corporate clients.

“We do not have a corporate blog of our own, but do encourage our small staff to blog elsewhere. I, for instance, have a personal blog and try to guest blog on other sites as frequently as possible,” Etherington said. “Corporate blogs can be good when regularly updated with useful, fresh content. If your audience is already coming to you for information, such as product information or updates, a corporate blog allows a degree of control over brand identity.”

When used as promotional tools, however, company blogs fall short.

“Guest blogging on other sites is a better way to get in front of new audiences and demonstrate credibility as an industry leader,” Etherington said.

Alexis A. Moore is vice president of Town Center Realty Group in El Dorado Hills, Calif. Blogging can be extremely effective for Realtors, she said.

“I find that readers find the businesses faster from the blog sites more frequently than web sites because of the availability to keep updating them easily on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. It allows more key words to be utilized to increase traffic,” Moore said. “It allows businesses to engage and interact with the audience easily and with simple posts, images and key words. The repetition is key.”

David Howard is a marketing consultant in Alameda, Calif. For corporate blogs, “content is definitely king,” he stressed.

“Managing a blog is a way to create that content, and get it indexed. So, yes, companies need blogs. Creating blog articles that are useful also gives readers something they can share and re-post to friends on social networking sites,” Howard said. “Blogging about topics relevant to your business gives customer prospects an alternate avenue to your online presence – from the search bar, to your article, and back to your website and your product and services list. It can be a back door way to get people into your business.”

Companies that blog well become thought leaders.

“Demonstrated thought leadership builds and enhances the reputation of the firm and the stated author of the blog, typically a technical executive or senior executive,” Howard said. “Learn how to ghost write for executives. Pick a niche – high tech, biotech, health care, whatever — and learn the language and how senior execs speak to their audience. Focus on the niche … When writing, think about how your content might be re-purposed or condensed across other online presences, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.”

Finally, Lisa Ann Schreier, a blogger at The Timeshare Crusader, said “too many companies are blogging for merely the sake of blogging, without having a plan in place about what to say, who to say it to and of course how to respond to comments.”

Corporate bloggers must know their audience, be authentic and blog regularly, she said.

Great advice, but there is so much more to know. Please join the conversation by commenting about what works and doesn’t work for your company’s blog.

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