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Business Owners Marketing Brief

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What’s in this months magazine?

Regular Features

CAREERS MAGAZINE Page 4

Welcome

Page 5

A word from Tom Poland

Page 53

Bargains4Business deal of the month

Profiles Page 18

Getting To Know You: Emily Cressy

Page 42

Getting To Know You: Terry Dean

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Special Features Page 6

The Transformative Ceo

Page 8

Premature Solicitation

Page 10

Double Your Sales With Better Business Systems

Page 12

Social Media For Bloody Important Senior Executives

Page 14

Developing A Money-Making Marketing Campaign

Page 16

Observations From An Entrepreneur: Getting New Customers

Page 20

Free Webinar:3 Surefire Ways To Ignite Your Business

Page 22

Your Features Don’t Matter

Page 24

Unique Methods For Finding What People Are Buying Online

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Special Features Page 30

Biker Babes And A Bad-Ass Success Story

Page 32

We Put Social Networking To The Test . . . Ouch!

Page 34

Right Skills Vs Right Fit: The Importance Of Employer Branding

Page 36

How To Take Advantage Of Group Buying For Your Business

Page 38

‘A’ Is For Articulate Incompetent

Page 40

The Retail Inspector: Top Tips For Independent Retailers

Page 44

Six Ways To Generate A Seven Figure Income: Use The Media To Gain Notoriety And Grow Your Business

Page 48

How You Can Increase Your Prices Now And Be Sure Your Customers Will Stay

Page 50

Important Internet Marketing Lessons From Amazon

Page 54

Is Content Marketing Still A Viable Tactic In Lieu Of Recent Algorithm Updates Such As Farmer/Panda And Recent Penguin?

Page 58

The Power Of Website Blogs

Page 62

How To Choose Your Seo Partner

Page 64

How To Create Commerce-Enabled Content

Page 68

Seven Ways To Share More Proof On Your Websites

Page 70

5 Tips To Help Manage Campaigns Targeting Mobile Users

Page 74

Building A B2b Customer Community

Page 76

Don’t Blow Your Advertising Budget – Use Aidca Instead!

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Welcome Welcome to the first issue of the Smart Bomb.

About Smart B.O.M.B. Magazine: Publisher Maxiom Group Pty Ltd Level 2, 710 Collins Street Docklands Vic 3008 www.maxiom.com.au Editors Tom Poland Jo Poland Mark Matthews Digital Magazine Created

By Maxiom www.maxiom.com.au Advertising Enquiries 1300 855 696 (within Australia) + 613 8199 3486 (International) advertising@maxiom.com.au Editorial, Media Releases & Article Submission magazine@maxiom.com.au 4 | Smart B.O.M.B. Magazine

Written by some of the world’s most exciting marketing minds, the Smart Bomb focusses on cutting edge marketing strategies that business owners can implement in their business today! The Smart Bomb is a great resource as it provides guidance for business owners to develop ideas and concepts from their peers and leading edge entrepreneurs and organisations. Boasting exceptionally high quality information, tips and advice, every issue is packed with unparalleled levels of value added content including videos and webinars.

Best of all, it’s completely free and open to everyone!

A word from Tom Poland

Contributors for this issue: Jeffrey Fox

Thank you and welcome to the inaugural edition of the Smart Bomb.

Dr Ivan Misner

With businesses across the globe experiencing structural change at an ever increasing rate, a new form of commercial “natural selection” is occurring. Despite this, some business are thriving simply because they have focussed on effective marketing systems, which is what the Smart Bomb is all about. Systems that make your marketing devastatingly more effective in getting new clients so you can blow away the competition. And I’m sure you’ll be blown away too by our explosive marketing content that will provide you the guidance to conquer your target market.

Scot McKee

Ron Carroll Jessica Swanson Mike O’Hagan Emily Cressy Ian Altman Terry Dean Troy White Neil Raphel Naomi Simson Mikel Kew Tony Falkenstein Antony Welfare Christine Clifford Geoff Vautier Rachel Henke Wendy Montes de Oca Mark Rocket James Hourigan Mark Matthews Chris Chang Dee Blick

PS. Click here to subscribe to the Daily BOMB drops!

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THE TRANSFORMATIVE CEO

By Jeffrey Fox “The Transformative CEO” is the definition of a new leadership category. The transformative CEO turns around companies, creates new industries, revolutionizes the way business is done, commercializes amazing new products, changes society.

He or she has a different style, personality, background, ability. Here are some of the characteristics that describe the transformative CEO. Note: This article refers to “CEOs” which is a term that is equally applicable to a business owner as it is to a corporate executive. So please don’t make the mistake of thinking that the following content is only for corporate CEOs because the principles apply to business owners and entrepreneurs equally well.

• Obsessed with company culture, customers, innovation, and leadership.

• Encourage risk-taking, but prevent recklessness.

• Embrace mavericks, freethinkers, outsiders, as long as they embrace the winning company culture.

• Woo, cajole, lead colleagues, but is not interested in winning a popularity contest • Sees opportunity, where others see certain failure.

Is a renaissance individual, equally comfortable with art and science, literature and math; with Paris, Texas and Paris, France; with business and society.

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• Have experienced-honed intuition, street smarts, and is an unusually creative problem solver and strategist.

• According to Arkadi Kuhlmann (CEO, ING DIRECT), the transformative must be brave and resourceful, creative and effective, with no choice but to change the game, and to change the game forever.

of Paul Mitchell Systems and Patron Spirits puts it: “Success unshared is failure. At General Mills, the marketer of Wheaties, Gold Bond Flour and Cheerios, over 80% of its US employees volunteer to their communities in some way.

• Constantly works to craft a winning corporate culture, and is the custodian of that culture.

• Ensures that the company only hires to that culture.

• Continuously pushes for innovation in all area of the company, including new product development and cost reducing processes.

• Is constantly in the marketplace meeting with customers and prospective customers.Encourages personal and corporate philanthropy. As John Paul DeJoria, Founder and CEO

Jeffrey Fox Text from Jeffrey J. Fox’s newest book (# 12), “The Transformative CEO: Impact Lessons from Industry Game Changers.”

80-20 KICK BUTT MARKETING PLAN Marketing Plan template Instant access FREE - No credit card required Sample answers included Proven step by step Live online Q&A support to help you customize to YOUR business

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD! 7 | Modern Franchise Magazine

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PREMATURE SOLICITATION

By Dr Ivan Misner Networking is not about hunting.

Don’t be guilty of “premature solicitation.”

Networking is about farming.

Use networking opportunities to meet people.

Has someone you didn’t even know ever solicited you for a referral or business? I call this “Premature Solicitation.” (Say that fast three times and you might get in trouble!)

I’ve been a victim of “premature solicitation” many times. I was recently speaking at a business networking event, and, before my presentation, a man came up to me and said:“Hi, it is a real pleasure to meet you. I understand you know Richard Branson. I offer specialized marketing services and I am sure his Virgin enterprises could benefit from what I provide.

Could you please introduce me to him so that I can show him how this would assist his companies?”

a product or service that I don’t know anything about and haven’t used myself? Yeah, right. That’s NEVER going to happen.”

I am pleased to report, however, that with much effort, I was able to keep that little monologue inside my own head, opting instead for a much more subtle response.

I replied, “Hi, I’m Ivan, I’m sorry – I don’t think we’ve met before, what was your name again?”

Here’s what was going on inside my head:

That surprised the man enough to make him realize that his “solicitation” might have been a bit “premature.” I explained that I regularly refer people to my contacts, but only after I’ve established a long-term, strong relationship with the service provider first. He said thanks and moved on to his next victim.

“Are you completely insane?

I’m going to introduce you, someone I don’t know and don’t have any relationship with, to Sir Richard, whom I’ve only met a few times, so that you can proceed to attempt to sell him

What was even more amazing to me was that a few months later I blogged about my experience on one of my favorite online social networks. A great dialogue ensued with most people sharing their horror stories and

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frustrations about people who pounce on them at networking meetings asking for business even though they’ve never met the person before.

However, every time I start to think this is an almost universal feeling of distaste for that approach to networking, I am brought back to reality by the minority of people who still think that this is actually a good networking technique.

To my astonishment, a man on the forum actually wrote:“I don’t happen to believe that you need a relationship with the person you are asking first. What you must have is a compelling story or product/service that would genuinely benefit the referral. The fact that you had not cultivated a relationship with the person has become irrelevant because, more importantly, you had been in a position to help [your contact] benefit from the introduction.

If it’s of genuine benefit to the person being referred, I don’t see the problem. It’s about the benefit of what’s being referred rather than the relationship

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with the person asking for the referral.”

And he finished this astonishing point of view with: “Who am I to deny my contacts something good?”

Wow. What can I say? The “relationship” is irrelevant! All you have to have is a good story, product, or service and I owe it to you or any stranger (who says he or she has a good product) to introduce him or her to a good contact of mine! Really? People really think this way!?

According to this writer, it doesn’t matter if I actually know or trust the person wanting the business.

As long as the person has a good product (or so he says), I should refer that person because I would otherwise “deny” my contacts “something good”!

I absolutely disagree with this. I would ask anyone interested in business networking to keep the following in mind: 1. Networking is not about hunting. It is not about oneshot meetings.

2. Networking is about farming.

It’s about cultivating relationships.

3. Don’t be guilty of “premature solicitation.” Do not ask someone for a referral or for business until you feel confident that THEY know and trust you.

4. Use networking opportunities to meet people. Then, schedule additional times to connect so that you can build trust before asking for business.

You’ll be a better networker – and a more successful entrepreneur – if you remember these points.

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Dr Ivan Misner Called the “father of modern networking” by CNN, Dr. Ivan Misner is a New York Times bestselling author.

He is the Founder and Chairman of BNI, the world’s largest business networking organization. His newest book can be viewed at www.

BusinessNetworkingandSex.com.

Dr. Misner is also the Sr. Partner for the Referral Institute, an international referral training company.

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DOUBLE YOUR SALES WITH BETTER BUSINESS SYSTEMS

By Ron Carroll Is your business reaching its full sales potential?

Improve sales by eliminating the constraint.

Six constraints that could be hindering your sales.

Wouldn’t it be nice we had all the sales we wanted? Have you ever thought about what specifically is preventing your business from reaching its full sales potential?

What constraint in your business is the limiting factor? (Theory of Constraints).

Are you getting enough sales leads? Are you converting leads to orders? Are you fulfilling orders quickly? Are you getting repeat business from satisfied customers?

Each of these questions points to a different business system, and one of those systems is the weak-link that is restricting your sales throughput. That system needs your attention, NOW!

Never Stop Improving How can you improve your lead generation system to get more qualified leads? If you do have plenty of leads, how can you improve your sales presentation, offer, terms, or products to

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close more sales? If your sales leads and conversions are good, what are you doing to impress customers with on-time or fast deliveries? And if you are not getting expected re-orders, do you know why? How can you create loyal customers that will buy again and refer their friends?

System constraints—the barriers and bottlenecks that keep you from reaching your full potential—come in a variety of forms. Which of the following constraints are limiting your sales throughput?

• Rational or Logic Constraints – Errors in thinking and false assumptions are often stumbling blocks to success (e.g., believing your customers think you are wonderful and not discovering their true feelings; thinking that you don’t have any real competition).

• Physical Constraints – Physical components that are lacking or have limitations (e.g., not having an effective prospect/customer database; not having the necessary production capacity or people to get orders filled promptly; not having a website).

• Procedural Constraints – Work processes often have bottlenecks or weak-links that reduce results (e.g., ineffective follow-up systems for sales leads; websites

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of your control (e.g., the economy, market size; customer expectations or attitudes; competition).

You can usually manage or control these constraints over time by adjusting business strategies.

without a well-designed sales funnel, easy checkout procedure, or a method of answering presale questions).

• Personal Constraints – Personal characteristics can interfere with performance (e.g., procrastination, disorganization, indecision, fear, lack of time, failure to face problems, not a Systems Thinker, and so forth. What personal characteristics of yours—beliefs, values, assumptions, behaviors, or personal problems—are holding back your business?)

• Self-imposed Constraints – Business rules or polices can inhibit results (e.g., not accepting credit cards; not hiring people over age sixty; sticking to the way you’ve always done it rather than find a better way).

• External or Market Constraints – Obstacles exist that are currently out

Become A Systems Thinker Don’t let constraints, weaklinks or bottlenecks drag your business down. Become more disciplined, more detail oriented, more organized, more methodical—MORE OF A SYSTEMS THINKER.

Effective business systems and processes are the solution to every business problem and the means for accomplishing every business objective. There is no other way!

Ron Carroll Helping business owners dramatically increase customer loyalty, profitability, and growth by elevating the performance of their vital business systems and processes.

Better Systems Better Business rcarroll@BoxTheoryGold.com www.BoxTheoryGold.com

Now make a list—using the definitions above—of the specific constraints that are holding back your sales. Then go fix the systems!

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Social Media for Bloody Important Senior Executives Senior Executives are often the last to the party.

Customers and prospects are connected, so businesses have to engage.

Social media is an opportunity for Senior Executives. And a necessity.

I know very little about the hotel and hospitality industry. That should never stand in the way of a good speaking opportunity though. Not ever. If anyone’s prepared to pay me good money to shout at them, there’s a reasonable chance I’ll say, “yes”.

‘C-Suite’ – however, were wholly disengaged. Social media wasn’t really on the agenda. They had more important matters to attend to. That proved sufficient inspiration for the title of my presentation – ‘Social Media for Bloody Important Senior Executives’.

So I found myself in Berlin as a speaker for the International Hotel Investment Forum (IHIF). It was a reasonably big conference with over 2000 global hotel investors, financiers and senior executives in attendance. It was certainly big enough to warrant a decent Wi-Fi connection. You’d have thought.

My thinking has moved to the ‘Social Enterprise’ – a place were the entire business drives the social engagement of the organization. From the bottom of the enterprise to the very top, everyone is empowered, enabled, motivated and rewarded in its online endeavour to satisfy customers and prospects – including the senior executives.

It’s only a matter of time. When the next generation of digital native middle management reach the boardroom, the enterprise will be social. Or at least it will have a chance. I don’t think it’s

My research had indicated a certain degree of social media adoption by the hotel industry, limited predominantly to ‘customer services’ and running scared ofTripAdvisor.

The senior executives – the

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By Scot McKee

such a stretch. But it’s a very long way from Berlin and even further from the hotel industry.

I spent three days talking to delegates who, almost without exception, were clueless as to the opportunity or impact of social channels. In one of my presentations to over 100 people, only three of them had heard of Slideshare, none of them were using it. With over two thousand delegates attending the conference, I was anticipating a deluge of Twitter activity, but they could only manage a trickle of tweets.

The general response was, “In the hotel industry we expect to do business face to face”.

Well, yes, we all expected to do that years ago. We expected to travel by horse and cart a little while ago too, but the world has changed. So has business – whatever industry you’re in. The

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importance of direct contact in business is undeniable, but it’s not the only way of connecting with your audience.As I stood at the front of the room giving my presentation, I couldn’t help but be slightly distracted by a man on the front row equipped with an SLR camera and strobe flash.

Every time I changed the slides, he took a flash photograph of the projector screen. I had 60+ slides so you can imagine how it might get on your tits after the

third slide. My presentation was about distributing social content, about helping your audience by sharing information. “It’s OK,” I said to the man, “you really don’t need to do that – this entire presentation will be available on Slideshare and YouTube just as soon as I have a Wi-Fi connection.” He carried on taking flash photographs of the screen regardless. What I should have said is, “Are you STUPID or just not LISTENING?” but based

on President Kennedy’s Berlin experience, all he would have heard is, “I am a donut”.

Scot McKee Brand Strategy Legend, Managing Director Brand/Digital Agency Birddog, Author ‘Creative B2B Branding (no, really)’, B2B Marketing Columnist, Social/ Mobile Advocate & Rock God.

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ scotmckee LinkedIn: http://uk.linkedin.com/ in/scotmckee Slideshare: http://www. slideshare.net/birddogb2b YouTube: http://www.youtube. com/user/BirddogB2B Amazon: http://is.gd/mckeebooks Web: http://www.birddog.co.uk

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The social enterprise is becoming a reality, but is it becoming your reality? Think about how you, personally, could use it to amplify your brand. It’s bloody important, even if you are a Senior Executive.

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Developing a MoneyMaking Marketing Campaign

By Jessica Swanson

Discover why your customer needs you to sell them less and educate them more.

Uncover four marketing lessons that will change the way you do business.

Learn how to increase your small business sales by up to 400%.

If you find that your marketing efforts are producing “mediocre” results at best, you might be missing some key ingredients that will eventually lead to your overall marketing success.

Whether you’re selling a product or service, there are four powerful marketing principles that are essential to your success. Although these marketing principles are fairly simple, once applied they can be incredibly powerful tools for building your small business.

Most beginning marketers make the mistake of overcomplicating the process of marketing.

Consequently, their results are poor at best. In order to attain a positive return on your marketing investment (whether that investment is time or money), the four basic principles described below are the basic building blocks of marketing success:

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1. Understand Your Target Market It’s impossible to market your product or service if you don’t know who you are selling to and what motivates them to buy.

Are your potential clients and customers male or female?

What is their typical education level? Are they first time buyers or frequent buyers? What kind of cars do they drive? Are they married or single? The more information that you are able to gather about your audience, the more targeted and applicable your marketing campaign will be.

2. Nurture Your Relationships Once you begin identifying potential clients and customers, it’s mandatory to begin developing a relationship with them.

Research suggests that your target market needs to be exposed to your small business brand up to 27 times before they take action. This is best accomplished by educating them continually about your product and services.

You can accomplish this by sending your prospects’ educational articles, informational podcasts, free reports, downloadable ebooks and inviting them to webinars or live seminars. If you are able to effectively educate your prospects as to why they need your product or service, they are much more likely to make a purchase.

3. Communicate a Powerful Message Once you understand your audience and have identified problems that they are facing

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within your industry, you will be able to craft a message that succinctly solves their problem.

Your marketing message should also differentiate your product or service from your competition.

It’s also important that you focus on the benefits of your product or service as opposed to the features. If your marketing message is compelling enough, it will undoubtedly move your prospects to take action.

4. Test, Test and Test Again In marketing, research suggests that your results are 40% dependent on your list, 40% dependent on your offer and 20% dependent upon the creativity involved.

utterly irresistible.

If your offer provides a satisfactory solution to your target market, at the right time and the right price, your sales could increase by up to 400%.

The next time you are putting together a marketing campaign, apply these four marketing principles.

Understanding your target market, nurturing your relationships, communicating effectively and testing are the essential foundations for any marketing campaign to attain favorable results.

That’s why it’s important to continually test various “sales offers” to your prospects.

Eventually, you will be able to pinpoint an offer that outperforms all the rest and that your prospects find

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Jessica Swanson Founder of Shoestring Marketing, has helped thousands of entrepreneurs implement lowcost, high-impact marketing campaigns.

Known for her energy, passion and “get-it-done” attitude, Jessica takes complicated marketing concepts, turns them upside-down, and makes them incredibly simple and outrageously straightforward.

To download your FREE Shoestring Marketing Kit, visit: www.ShoestringMarketingKit. com

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Observations from an Entrepreneur: Getting New Customers From $1 million on yellow Pages to just $62k.

New customers have scattered their buying behaviour from the Yellow Pages to a wide range of other sources.

By Mike O’Hagan In paid advertising terms, Signage has always had best return on expenditure. In the service sector the next best was the Yellow Pages book. 5 years ago I spent over $1 million a year in the Yellow pages books, and it worked – often generating $10-$15million a year in new sales. However the world is changing. The effectiveness of the Yellow Pages (both books and online) has plummeted. Last year I spent $62k.

Buying behaviour changes What’s interesting is what the customers are now doing.

Marketers everywhere are screaming “online”. To say the new customers seeking a service went from Yellow Pages to “online” isn’t the way I see it.

We are seeing an increase in referral, customers seem to be

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An unexpected way the internet has changed buyer behaviour. asking friends and workmates more than ever. We are seeing a bigger reaction to our “brand” knowledge. And yes, we are seeing online activity including direct sales. In short, service sector new customers have scattered their buying behaviour from the Yellow Pages book to a WIDE RANGE of other sources.

The real difference BUT the real difference we are seeing – are customers ringing up and simply “ordering” our services. They don’t want to be bothered with our questioning and presenting our services with what’s in it for them. They don’t want to be “sold” – they just want to buy – NOW. They have done their “research” online, they have made their buying decision, and they are time poor and not bothered with verbal promises.

Today’s customers are savvy For 30 odd years I’ve been marketing my service businesses. There is no doubt the internet has changed buyer behaviour. Buyers today can access instant information.

They can compare and see comments/reviews. They are quickly developing the instincts to see through false “flowery” statements. The new world is becoming ever more transparent.

You can’t hide or dress up a bad product or bad behaviour.

You need to deliver or potential customers will now know.

How is your online strategy going??

Does your website get to the point with “buy now” on the front page??

CLICK HERE TO CLAIM YOUR FREE GIFT! $716.83 worth of pure, powerful, proven information to get more clients, make more money and have more fun

For a limited time the Smart BOMB’s Publisher is giving away these cash-creating resources: Sent direct to your letter box: 2 x CDs on how to create a model business Report: How to get more clients, make more money Killer Marketing Report full of client-attracting tips “Insider secrets” CDs interviews from entrepreneurs Accessible online – start immediately: How to create a new client marketing machine How to get the time for money making things How to experience personal peak performance Full downloadable manuals 17 | Modern Franchise Magazine

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GETTING TO KNOW YOU: Emily CRESSEY Emily J. Cressey, President Company: The River Rock Group, LLC Website: http://RiverRockGroup. com Contact Phone (Cell) 206-2458813 Contact Email: Emily@ RiverRockGroup.com

When and where did your business open?

I began marketing online in 2003.

The first website I ever built was about my Guide Dog Puppy, Kera. We engaged readers with fun stories and pictures of Kera, and recommended dog toys and treats. That site began generating thousands of dollars of sales each month. After that, we started offering web design, search engine optimization, and social media management services for other companies as well.

Having my own online business was an excellent foundation for positioning myself to advise other business owners.

How, or why, did you decide to open your business?

I grew up right alongside the

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What We Do: The River Rock Group creates online marketing strategies for business owners who want to use technology to: • Attract new prospects, • Convert prospects into sales, and • Build deeper relationships with their clients

Internet, and have been amazed at how online technology – websites, Facebook and YouTube, and smart phones – has changed the way people get information, and choose businesses to work with.

investment banker in New York city. Fortunately, I had a summer Internship at a Wall Street firm and found out I hated the cutthroat Manhattan environment before I took a permanent job there.

Now, people leave the house with three things: their keys, a wallet, and a phone that can access the Internet.

It turns out, I love working collaboratively with clients who appreciate the value of a strong online presence for their business. I also enjoy the work-life balance that comes from owning a business in a community like Lynnwood. I can meet my clients individually, shop at their stores, meet their families, and customize strategies that meet their needs.

Technology evolves and spreads so quickly, it can be hard for business owners to adapt their marketing strategies to effectively and affordably keep in touch with their clients and attract new leads.

What convinced you that this was the job for you?

After becoming a Phi Beta Kappa in college, I thought I was hot stuff and wanted to be an

What does it take to blend your passion with your livelihood?

I am definitely a marketing geek.

After my kids go to bed, I stay

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up reading marketing books and newsletters, browsing industry blogs and catching up on email. The nice thing is that with technology all around us, I can be on my iPhone or iPad anywhere, and observe industry leaders from a wide variety of fields.

What are the crucial elements for success for your business?

Even though gadgets and technology are fun, I tell business owners that having a strong marketing and client relationshipbuilding strategy always comes first. The Internet allows us to educate and connect with our clients directly, so its important that we be authentic, easy-tofind, and consistent in reaching out. The Internet gives us more tools and a direct line of communication, but its important we have something worthwhile to say.

Just because there are new websites like Twitter, Pinterest, and Foursquare popping up every year, that doesn’t mean that it’s going to be profitable for your business to market there.

We always seek a positive return

on investment for our clients and use the technology as a tool to get new leads, make sales, and build relationships. For some businesses, a lot of the online marketing options are completely inappropriate, and I tell people that.

What has been your biggest challenge and how did you meet it?

The biggest challenge was keeping up when I was trying to do everything myself. Now I work with a team of experts and outsource the things that are not my primary focus and passion.

It makes things easier and more fun.

How did your friends and family react when you told them you were getting into this business?

They were thrilled. I’ve always been entrepreneurial. It was either Online Marketing Consultant or running an organic farm, but I chose marketing because I’m a fair-weather gardener, and when it rains I let the weeds grow!

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What motivates you?

So many business owners are good at delivering exceptional products and services, but struggle with getting the word out about what they do, so I enjoy helping them complete that very important part of their business formula.

What personal abilities do you think are needed to excel in this business?

Be a good listener and learn everything you can about your client’s business model.

Understanding the psychology of his prospecting and sales funnel is paramount.

When you’re not working, how do you enjoy spending your time?

I recently joined a gym for high intensity weight training, and am learning to adjust my diet to optimize my health. I also wrangle two little cowpokes – Blake (3) and Julia (17 months) who remind me every day that I don’t know everything. In the evenings, I relax by sipping red wine and eating dark chocolate with my husband Ben.

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FREE WEBINAR: 3 Surefire ways to ignite your BUSINESS

By Emily Cressey The only 3 things you need to focus on – regardless of the industry you are in – to grow your business The specific top strategies smart SMBs are using to increase sales and spur growth

Why the smart use of technology MUST be a part of your plan How to create exciting promotions that create a buying frenzy with your customers

Emily Cressey

Webinar: 3 Surefire Ways to Ignite Growth at Your Business: Strategies Every Small Business Can Use to Grow Faster in the Next Year.

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Webinar Link: http:// www.youtube.com/ watch?v=aJ7es9l0KTI

Bestselling author, Emily Cressey has one goal: To help your online endeavors become more profitable. Your web presence must attract, convert and retain clients and customers; and that’s exactly what Emily aims to share with you here.

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The quality of the content is exceptional.”

Kristin Owen, Kumon Franchisee

“The program not only provided me with a deeper understanding of the subject, it also sharpened my skills. Above all, it inspired confidence. Credit goes to Gabrielle and Yamini, whose feedback I valued most.”

Sai Keng Choy, Singapore

Access to material 24/7 for 12 weeks from the time you start training.

Cost is $850 (GST Inclusive)

For further information and to register go to

“What a wonderful experience it’s been soaking up your storytelling knowledge and applying it to my business. You really sharpened up my game over the course. It’s great to have a full kit of easy to use storytelling tools. I’ve already used several of my stories to effect.”

Paul Kaan, The Social Larder

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Your Features Don’t Matter

By Ian Altman

I have a rule in my programs: if a participant disagrees with what I am saying and it makes their “blue-shirt” meter go off (I use a different term in the workshop), I tell them to speak up. In fact, I want everyone to share their concerns – especially since Upside-Down Selling may sound counterintuitive. If their meter is going off, I want them to say “that’s blue-shirt.”

When I asked the audience of CEOs of companies ranging from $1 to $100 million to describe what they hate about stereotypical sales people, the list was priceless: Pushy, untrustworthy, lying, selfcentered, slimy, … and then there were some really negative ones we can’t print. Mike, a CEO from a mid-sized manufacturing company said “lack of product knowledge.” Mike explained that lack of product knowledge was why his team was not reaching its potential.

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In order to grow, organizations often invest in “sales training” in the form of product and services knowledge. The premise is that if your team learns every last feature and benefit of your products and services, that they will impress the prospects and overpower the competition. But, this old method doesn’t work. I explained to Mike that product knowledge was over-rated. He immediately called “blue-shirt” and said “I’m not buying it.” I asked Mike if he would give me the benefit of the doubt for 30 minutes for him to get on board as I explained the concept:

1. It’s all at their fingertips:

Just about anything about your products and services is readily available on the Internet.

More importantly, much of the information may not come from your website. As a result, your clients can get just about everything they need about your products, services, customer experiences, and issues without ever speaking with anyone in your company. They may even

know more than your reps. Get over it!

2. They need a tailor:

What your clients can’t easily decipher on their own is how your products and services fit their needs. Unless you like giving away free consulting and advice, you are wise to ask questions about unique requirements associated with their specific situation. Focus on their challenges instead of your features and benefits.

There is a secondary benefit to asking about their situation;

3. Their most important factor is how well you understand them:

If you don’t take the time to understand their situation, you might suggest a fantastic solution… to someone else’s problem. If you want to stand out from the competition, do so by being the best at understanding you client’s

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situation, not your own features.

About 15 minutes into the explanation, Mike said (paying homage to Jerry Maguire) “you had me at hello.” Mike and several of his colleagues have asked me to deliver a full-day workshop for their teams later in May. If your “blue-shirt” meter is going off, let me leave you with an exercise: Read your website and that of your top competition. Better yet, copy and paste the text without including the company names.

Mix up the content, and ask members of your team to match the description to the company. See how often they match the competition to your company. The tune you and your competitors are singing might sound quite similar. On the other hand, you’ll create a memorable experience if your prospect feels that you know them well enough that you are singing a song just for them.

Ian Altman Ian Altman is the CEO of GrowMyRevenue.com. A speaker and author of Upside Down Selling, Ian helps companies become outrageously successful targeting and winning business.

How do you use questions to stand out with your potential clients?

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Unique Methods For Finding What People are Buying Online

By Terry Dean

How to Find What People are BUYING online, not just what they’re searching.

A lot of people talk about finding out what people are searching for online.

But we need to go deeper than this. We need to find out what people are BUYING online.

Just because someone is searching for a subject doesn’t mean they’re willing to spend money on it. I’ve seen so many people make mistakes here.

They see a high traffic keyword phrase. They go after it, and perhaps they even generate a large amount of traffic from it.

The visitors don’t buy. All that time and effort was a waste.

You may say, “But what if they’re a blogger and give away free information?”

Fine…but they still need traffic that’s willing to buy. A blog on its own is not a business. It’s a traffic method. You need a way to monetize that traffic consistently to turn it into a profitable income source.

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A free website where you can find out the language which convinces people to buy.

This could be through your own products or services. It could be through affiliate programs.

Or if could be through selling advertising.

Having millions of visitors sure looks enticing to those advertisers, but how long will they keep advertising if the audience is unresponsive to their offers. And let’s say you’re just using Adsense or one of the other “easy” tools for selling your space. If your site doesn’t convert into clicks and sales for the advertisers, your bids won’t be very high. There are stories all over the net with webmasters frustrated with just how little they’re getting paid through Adsense.

It all comes back to finding out what people are buying…not just what they’re searching.

Here are just a few ways you could use these resources: • Research what people are

buying so you can write content about these subjects.

• Compare competition to better create your offer and fill a gap in the market.

• Look for “hidden” language customers are using in the marketplace for your ad copy.

• Make a list of the benefits all the leaders in the market have in common.

• Come up with product ideas of your own – knowing they’re already selling.

Buyer Resource #1: Amazon Bestsellers http://www.amazon.com/gp/ bestsellers/ Amazon gives us a world of research. If you get started with the best sellers list, you can then choose any of the categories available to you. If you’re interested in information

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products, then go into the books category. But you’re not limited by this. They cover sports, pet supplies, kitchen, clothing, etc.

And you can keep digging deeper into these categories. You’ll usually want to go at least several levels deep in a category to get more specific about the subject.

Look the best sellers in your category. What are the products called and what benefits do they offer to the audience (look in the features and the product description)? What are their key selling points? These can be found by looking at the reviews.

The reviews show what BUYERS like or dislike about the products.

And not only that, but other people VOTE on whether the reviews are helpful. Think about it. You get customers telling you exactly what they like or don’t like. Plus you have other potential buyers voting and telling you whether each review is helpful for making a buying decision on the product.

Plus, there’s more. Sometimes when someone dislikes a product in their review, you’ll have others who post comments. They answer the objections of the original review.

The Amazon Bestsellers list is a great resource for identifying current buying trends

That’s a world of buyer research at your fingertips. You can get ideas to improve your products.

You can “swipe” ad copy ideas from the reviews which convince others to buy (if they also relate to your product). And you also find out the core objections…and answers to those objections.

Buyer Resource #2: Mailing Lists of Buyers

access it through a large local library). I refer to Nextmark because they have a pretty good search engine for mailing lists.

Do a search using the keywords that fit your market. Here’s the biggie. You don’t want to look at compiled lists. And you don’t want to look at “survey” lists either. You want to look at buyer lists. You want people who have purchased a product.

http://lists.nextmark.com/ The biggest resource of mailing lists has been the SRDS (Standard Rate and Data Service), but that requires a subscription (you could possibly

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For example, here is one I found in the dogs category: “PROFILE: The Only Natural Pet Store is the leading direct marketing retailer of natural pet supplies for dogs and cats. Their buyers are devoted,

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educated, health-conscious pet owners who are willing to spend money on high-end natural pet supplies for their dogs and cats.

Only Natural’s products are chosen for their holistic approach to pet health, including natural dog and cat food, treats, flea control, supplements, holistic remedies, grooming supplies and dry goods.”

This one goes on to tell me the demographics: Average age of 45, Average income of $70k, Children in HH, Homeowners, College Educated, Active Donors to Environmental and Animal Causes.

Find several buyers lists in the market and you can begin cross referencing the demographics and get a pretty decent idea of your customer before you even start marketing.

Buyer Resource #3: Commission Junction http://www.cj.com Join their affiliate network.

Now you can look at their top producing sites and even some

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of the best offers in each of the categories they offer. Choose the market you’re interested in and then order the sites by their 3 month EPC. CJ lists both the 3 month and 7 day EPC for each affiliate program in their inventory. An EPC is the average amount earned per 100 visitors. So if the EPC is $185.28, then the average earnings for affiliates was $1.85 per click they sent to the site.

Some sites won’t show their EPC codes because they need 1,000 clicks in a 3 month period for the stats to be shown. You want to pay more attention to the 3 month numbers than the shortterm 7 day one which varies way too much by special and what kinds of promotions may be done for them.

You can look at the top producing sites in your market not just to find affiliates to promote, but also to judge what’s currently selling well in your marketplace. Look at the landing pages, banners, and other tools the winners are offering to their affiliates.

Buyer Resource #4: Clickbank http://www.clickbank.com/ marketplace You can use a similar strategy on Clickbank, although it is primarily for digital information products.

Drill down into the category you’re looking for, and then check out the gravity score of the top products being offered.

The gravity score keeps track of the number of affiliates who earned a commission on a specific product over the past 12 weeks. If there is a high gravity score, then you know there are a large number of affiliates currently making sales of that product.

You don’t know how many sales are made by each affiliate, so the gravity score could be a little deceptive and a lower ranked product could be making more sales overall (they just don’t have as many affiliates).

What you know is that any product with a high gravity score is making sales and is likely being exposed in numerous places online. It has momentum behind it.

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The ‘Ebay Pulse’ daily sales and trends report

Look at the sales pages for product ideas, bullet ideas, and how they’re motivating buyers to take action.

watched items. You can even check out some of the largest stores in the category to give you an idea of the product mix of those running some of the largest eBay businesses.

sometimes at the very bottom as well. They’re PAYING to be in these places. If they’re not able to convert the visitors into income, then they can’t keep advertising long-term .

At the bottom of the page (below the fold) is another link “See more eBay Pulse Categories.” You can click this link to dig into even more specific categories for your research. Use this, because the initial search probably didn’t dig deep enough into your market for you. The next page offers better targeting for you.

Don’t make the mistake of only checking once though. You need to check the results on the same keyword phrase several times per day over a period of a couple of weeks to get an idea of who is coming up most consistently in the top few results. Simply screenshot it each time you visit Google or Bing. And then compare the rankings in the paid results during the period you’re checking it.

Buyer Resource #5: eBay http://pulse.ebay.com This is a daily snapshot of the current trends and hot sellers on eBay. Think about it this way. When someone searches on a site such as eBay or Amazon, we know they’re thinking about making a buying decision. When they search Google or Youtube, they may just be looking for information or entertainment. That’s why I put more weight behind what buyers are searching for.

There is a categories box near the top left. Click on that and choose the categories you’re interested in. Now you can see the most popular searches in this category along with the most

Buyer Resource #6: Google and Bing PPC Advertisers http://www.google.com http://www.bing.com When you’re doing any Google research, always pay attention to the paid advertisers. These are the sites at the very top, along the right side of the page, and

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Once you know who is winning in PPC, then you can analyze their site to see why. What is their offer? Who are they targeting? What benefits are they promoting? How can you duplicate their winning formula with your site?

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Buyer Resource #7: Magazine Advertisers http://www.magazines.com This one is tough to do fully online unless you buy the magazines. You want to look at any direct response advertisers who consistently run in the niche magazines. The cheapest way to do this is to go down to your local library and get all the back issues. You’re specifically looking for ads which have run in 4 or more months of the magazine. Just because it runs once doesn’t mean it’s working.

And there are often specials for 3 months worth of issues.

The key principle is they must be a direct response advertiser. This means they need to be asking for a specific response in the ad. They’re asking you to buy a product. Or they’re sending you to a website to optin to a list. Or they’re asking for a phone call.

They must be tracking their ad.

Your goal here is to examine their funnel as well. Join their

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list. Visit the site. Purchase a low cost product from them.

See what else they offer you on the backend (their income likely comes from their additional offers – not just the first sale).

Make Life Easier For Yourself Never go in blind. Once you find people are searching for a subject, then confirm they are also BUYING on the subject.

And using the tools above, you can even go further than this.

You can also compare what products and services are selling best. Analyze their websites and their offers. And come up with better ways to market your products and services.

Terry Dean Terry Dean helps Internet business owners Earn More, Work Less, and Enjoy Life through eClasses, group coaching, and one-on-one coaching programs:http://www. mymarketingcoach.com Facebook: http://www.Facebook. com/MyMarketingCoach Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ TerryDean

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Biker Babes and A Bad-ass Success Story

By Troy White A great story mixed into your marketing Personality-driven communication with your clients/prospect

A dash of cliffhanger and BAM, you have a winning campaign.

I’m a big fan of Sons of Anarchy.

you too, can create in their marketing), you are correct.

I hadn’t even heard of it until recently, when a friend gave me Seasons 1 through 3 on DVD. I’ve been spellbound – it’s a major time vampire. Sons of Anarchy has turned out to be one of the best series I have ever seen with some of the most powerful, emotion wrenching storylines I’ve experienced.

But there is something other than the main story line that keeps people craving it, and getting more and more addicted to the characters.

The best part is that they use some of the same principles I have been teaching through my emails and in my Story Selling Coaching calls.

A very basic tool that keeps your prospects interested in hearing from you .… one that grows your business by leaps and bounds over the years if you use it.

Guess what it is?

If you guessed a fantastic story line (something everyone, yes…

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Cliffhangers.

Everywhere.

The amazing writers behind this series are masters at creating tension through cliffhangers.

“Will Jax kill him?” “Will she tell SAMCRO the one thing that will rip the entire club apart at the seams?” “Will the Doctor be able to save her career… or be subjected to years as a ‘bikerbabe’?”

Each episode leaves more unanswered questions in the viewers mind.

It is unbelievably addictive.… and I am not much for watching a lot of TV.

Get this though: 5.8 million viewers per episode Highest-rated basic cable drama in the US Emmy nominated 2011 Golden Globe Winner (Katey Sagal)

iness, Marketing, Franchising, Leadership, HR & ruitment, Construction, plus more....

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Much of it achieved through the incredible use of hooks and cliffhangers. Something you Subscribe should be working on in your marketing campaigns. It works like gangbusters and isn’t that hard to do when you practice it a wee bit.

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I’ve used it for myself and for many different clients over the years, and the clients and prospects LOVE IT. A great story, mixed into your marketing and personalitydriven communication with your clients/prospects… sprinkled with a dash of cliffhanger and BAM, you have a winning campaign.

One they will want more of.

One they will continue to open, read, and act on.

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Troy White Troy White is a Calgary based entrepreneur that has been involved in sales and marketing for over 23 years. In just the past decade he has helped hundreds of small business owners generate more leads and improve their sales conversions with the ability to “Turn Words Into Subscribe Wealth”

Troy is an expert on finding unusual ways to promote your business on a budget.

If you want to stand out from the crowd, you will love Troy’s techniques on his blog at http://blog. smallbusinesscopywriter.com

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We Put Social Networking To The Test . . . Ouch!

By Neil Raphel There is no automatic link between social media and sales

You have to build relationships and a list before you sell

Social media works best if you have a following or well known product or service

People are wary of blatant selling techniques in the social realm

We were fascinated to read about the power of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other social networking vehicles to spur commerce as well as social interactions. There are hundreds of books and articles being published each month detailing how you can dramatically increase your business through social media.

And everyone in our world (marketing and publishing) has heard the story of how unknown authors have signed multi-million dollar book deals after selling hundreds of thousands of books by themselves on the Internet.

So, as a marketing firm, we decided to go all out and market a new book we published, PKP for President, primarily through social media. It’s a political satire about a cat that is smarter than humans and runs for president (without anyone knowing she’s a cat). We created a website to promote the candidacy of PKP. We also created a Twitter

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feed, Facebook page, and uploaded the first of a series of videos to YouTube.

So, what’s our grade in social media?

I’d say we deserve a grade of D for now, with the distinct possibility of failure. We have not yet succeeded in building a strong audience for the book, despite a determined push in social media. Our focus was through the New Hampshire primary in January, 2012, since the book is set in New Hampshire and the author lives there. Of course, there is more selling time until the U.S. Presidential election in 2012, but we think our social media experiment was a bust.

In the non-virtual world, we did achieve a minor coup. PKP for President made the cover of the leading trade magazine, Publisher’s Weekly, and received a nice mention in their feature on election books,

but that trade recognition has not translated into retail sales.

So, why did we fail (at least so far)?

There are several possible reasons: 1. There is no automatic link between social media and sales.

Great sales can result when your product matches a consumer need or your marketing is so clever or so extraordinary that people want to be attached to your product. But just getting it out there in the social media space does not lead to success.

2. Part of the problem may be that people didn’t make an immediate connection with our product. Maybe the premise was too weird, or cat people are not real political enthusiasts, or we didn’t explain the concept properly. But we couldn’t get people to pay much attention to this book.

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3. People expect most of their social communications to be just that, social contacts. Trying to sell something through Facebook and Twitter may be the wrong mindset. Sales may just be a fortuitous byproduct of consumer interest.

4. We didn’t have a base in social media. It’s a lot easier to sell something when you already have followers or your product is well known. Starting from scratch is difficult.

Our experience doesn’t mean you will fail. But depending on the product, you must understand the value of social media for your particular product and understand what your potential audience is looking for.

Is failure the only option?

On the positive side, we have learned how promotion through social media can work well with for another book we have published, Power Reading Workshop by Laura Candler.

Laura has spent years cultivating an online audience by offering lots of free materials as well as downloadable guides that she sells through her website.

Her “groupies” write fabulous comments about her materials and share them via their own blogs and websites such as Pinterest, which continue to broaden Laura’s reach. Laura solicits advice from other teachers and credits them with helping her develop her “field-tested/teacher-approved” materials. The result has been Laura’s Facebook following of 45,000 and significant sales of her first physical book through a number of different sales channels, none of them traditional bricks-and-mortar bookstores.

Our advice? Participate in the social media space, but you’ll have to commit serious time to building your audience there before expecting your product to be a best-seller.

So social media CAN work, but the route is usually long and takes a lot of hard work. Today’s social media is yesterday’s wordof-mouth, and that’s always been a process that’s hard to quantify, predict, or direct.

President of Raphel MarketingBook site: www.brigantinemedia.com Marketing site: www.raphelcom Phone number: 802-751-8802

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Neil Raphel

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Right Skills vs Right Fit: The Importance of Employer Branding

By Naomi Simson Employer branding is paramount in ensuring you’re attracting the right people – it has to be the right fit for the candidate and the business.

Job candidates with the appropriate skill set are being increasingly overlooked in favour of potential employees who exhibit the right “cultural fit” within an organisation.

Recent insights from recruitment firm Hays show a growing trend of favouring cultural potential over candidates with a deeper skill set across a wide range of industries, including highly-skilled roles like project management.

Organisations are increasingly looking to their business values for guidance in making recruitment decisions.

The impact of a ‘bad fit’ cannot be overestimated in terms of engagement and company productivity.

is what gives our employer brand such strength. We encourage all candidates to view our Life at RedBalloon video to get a feel for what it’s like to work behind the big red door, and whether it’s the right fit for them.

Values-guided employer marketing

Ideally you want a candidate who has great skills and the right attitude, but if I was asked to choose between two candidates, one more highly-skilled and one who demonstrated values and an attitude reflective of the organisation, I would choose on the basis of the latter in almost every instance.

At RedBalloon, we’ve always placed the highest emphasis on cultural fit when assessing candidates, which stems from the fact that our values inform everything we do as a business. This

It’s my experience that employers are increasingly looking to the values of their company for guidance, and how a candidate will live and breathe these in the everyday fulfillment of their role.

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The impact of a ‘bad fit’ cannot be overestimated.

The importance of culture is also reflected in the 2012 RedBalloon/ AltusQ Employee Engagement Capabilities report, which for the second year running puts culture on a pedestal when it comes to creating and maintaining a happy workforce.

Organisations need to shift the way they think about the standard work day, and how they expect employees to work their hours and meet their goals because incorporating flexible work options and mindsets can go a long way to creating a happy and healthy employee experience and increased engagement. And that can only be a positive thing for business.

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Cultural values in business help you stand out I’m a marketer and a ‘sucker’ for new things, but the sheer volume of messages that I’m bombarded with each day overwhelms. It is very hard to be a remarkable‘purple cow’ as Seth Godin implored – when everyone is claiming to be a ‘purple cow.’

Real cut through comes from the authentic experience someone has of a brand, which always comes back to values and culture.

At RedBalloon we just figure that rather than making ‘promises’ and ‘ trying to sell’ stuff – we will just let people know what we stand for.

Really, we are just a bunch of passionate people who are all focused on making sure that we deliver amazing experiential gifts.

We understand that people have a choice and we are so appreciative when people choose us.

Marketing has come a long way from the 1950s – but the premise is the same: I want to know that I am dealing with someone real,

and I want to know what you stand for. At RedBalloon we have a shared sense of purpose – creating and offering meaningful experiences – and a specific part of that are our values.

Have you set values for your business? I’d love to hear your experiences.

When I set up RedBalloon I’d never been a CEO before. So I read voraciously on the topics of leadership, business, entrepreneurship and innovation. What I discovered was that those organisations that grew and thrived were those built on values with a shared sense of purpose.

It is our values and purpose that have defined our direction at RedBalloon. Business is tough.

Choosing our RedBalloon values and living a business based on these values has not always been easy. When it’s easy it’s because our values are like ‘guiding stars’ helping us make decisions and recruit people to build the amazing workplace I’m incredibly proud of. Tough when they are the final touchstone between you, the rock and a hard place and by living them you know you won’t please everyone all of the time.

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Naomi Simson Naomi is founder of fast-growth experiential gifting retailerhttp:// www.redballoon.com.au. An employee engagement advocate and sought after employer, RedBalloon is listed as one of only six Hewitt Best Employers in Australia and New Zealand with an engagement score of over 90 percent. Comments and questions can be sent to Naomi via her blog athttp://www.naomisimson.com

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How to Take Advantage of Group Buying For Your Business

By Mikel Kew Use Deals Wisely

Great Service The key to Success

Lower Customer Acquisition Cost Group Buying and Daily Deals are no longer just for consumers; businesses can now get involved in this growing trend and can save their company thousands of dollars in the process.

Group buying and daily deal sites have become the Australian online success story of the past two years, with a market now worth over $500 million annually, and growing. Group buying has taken this country by storm and the likes of Scoopon, LivingSocial, Spreets and Cudo have become household names. More than 5000 deals are published every month, with an average of 1 million vouchers sold, as consumers scramble to find discounts on everything from restaurant meals, jewellery and holidays to electronics, clothing and massages.

But while the public has been cashing in on this bonanza of cut-price offers, business has been slow to catch up.

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Group Buying Rules for Business There are some basic rules to follow with group buying deals for business, both as a customer and a vendor.

As a business owner or someone charged with the responsibility for purchasing, group buying is an excellent way for business to trial a new product or service before committing to a longer term involvement with that supplier. In a way itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a no risk environment. There is no onus on the customer to continue purchasing the product or service and there is no risk to the vendor as they incur no costs unless the deal is accepted by the market.

Used well, group buying sites can save businesses around 70% on many of their most common overhead items, from

stationery, office supplies, coffee and IT support to SEO, printing, business coaching, office equipment, cleaning services and much more.

Benefits for the Risk Averse The advantages work two-fold, as not only can a business save money on products they need, it can also advertise directly to their business audience.

Unlike traditional advertising, thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no upfront spend whatsoever, just a commission taken from each sale that brings a new customer through your door.

As an advertiser or vendor it is important to consider that your offer is structured correctly and that you are able to deliver the product or service at the discount price without

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compromising on your customer experience. Many purchasers of group buying deals will be doing so to evaluate your ongoing value as a supplier, so it is important that you are able to deliver at a very high standard.

Customer Experience is Still the Key In fact, in providing a great customer experience, the ongoing value from your new customer will significantly outweigh the discount given in the original promotion. This is particularly valuable for industries that typically have high customer acquisition costs.

Maturing Sector Group buying for business is still very much in its infancy in Australia, but with the market predicted to grow to over $100 million in 2013 it is has the ability to have a significant impact on your business and if utilised well, your bottom line.

We are now seeing some major companies becoming vendors on group buying and business deals sites as these sites become more popular and sophisticated. This has a flow on effect, meaning more and more businesses are taking advantage of group buying as both a customer and a vendor.

B2B group buying is the next big thing in Australiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s online business industry, and it is just getting started. Be smart and utilise it well. Buy what you need or want to try out. Trial various promotions of your own products and services, after all there is little or no risk involved.

Everyone Still Loves a Great Deal Business owners are always looking for ways to save money or get an advantage over the competition. Group buying for business, if used well, is another excellent opportunity that businesses must consider.

Mikel Kew Mikel Kew is Co-Founder & CEO of Bargains 4 Business, Australiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s premier business group buying and deals site.

Mikel is also Director of Film Cartel and works as a technology consultant for a number of Australian eCommerce sites.

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/ profile/view?id=53411085 Facebook: https:// www.facebook.com/ Bargains4Business Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/ B4B_Australia Google+: https://plus.google. com/107036293438866621077 Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/ b4baustralia/ Website: http://www. bargains4business.com.au/?a_ aid=7a425998&a_cid=2330e789

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‘A’ is For Articulate Incompetent

By Tony Falkenstein “Only intuition can save you from the most dangerous individual of all, the articulate incompetent.”

- Robert Bernstein These guys are impressive; they know how to get the job, they know how to get the promotion and by the time they have risen to their level of incompetence, it’s too late for you… the employer.

Articulate Incompetents look the part, talk the part, produce beautiful reports… but when you measure their outcomes, you find they achieve little.

They just love meetings; they love holding the floor, and are always right. Their presentations are textbook stuff; in fact, that is probably where they got them from. In their minds, they never make mistakes.

If a project does go wrong, they can always recall a comment they made where they had highlighted a concern; they back every horse in the race, to make sure they are covered if it ends up in the loss basket. But of course they take all the credit when things go right.

Money is no object for AI’s – which is probably why they turn up in big companies, where large expenses can go unnoticed.

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They are the nice guys who will shout the bar, or land at the Company Conference in a helicopter – but don’t you ever try it… you are a mere mortal!

AI’s will never go into business for themselves – risking their own money, when they can look good on the bosses’, don’t be crazy!

Tony Falkenstein Tony Falkenstein OMNZ has worked as an entrepreneur with multinationals and public companies, and now owns the majority share in publicly listed Just Water International Limited, as well as privately- owned Bartercard New Zealand Limited. He founded Red Eagle Corporation in 1987, a week after the sharemarket crash.

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Pre-qualified pool of passive and active candidates and the hiring managers who seek them

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Modern Business IntelBuild Magazine Magazine | 45 |3 Smart B.O.M.B. Magazine | 39

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The Retail Inspector: Top Tips for Independent Retailers

By Antony Welfare

Many retail tips have been developed over time. This article, however, will help you understand the top tips I use when I am working with Retailers and, as ever in Retail, it starts with The Customer….

Customers Focus on the customer and provide world-class customer service Understand your customer’s wants, needs and desires – build your business to deliver these.

Serving your customer is what you have set the retail business to do. Make sure you remember this with every customer that you and your team deal with.

Make your customers the heart of every team and make them feel special Happy and satisfied customers are loyal and keep you successfully retailing. What better feeling for you and your staff that seeing a customer happy and buying your products.

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Brand and Your Products

Your Team

Establish your brand and values Build a brand that has the basic values to achieve what the customer requires and clearly defines your business and its way of operating. Your brand is a reflection of you and your business. Make sure it feeds into every part of your business and every member of your team.

Establish a customerfocused culture Build a team that lives and breathes your values, making world-class customer service the heart of every team and successfully growing your business.

Don’t forget to sell your products and your business After all we are in the retail business to sell products to customers. That is the reason they visit your stores and what they require from your business. Be proud of your store, your products and your team. Tell people about these and why you are proud of them.

Customers love to know why you do what you do and why your products are the best for them.

Make sure quality is in everything you do Make sure that everything you do is done to the best ability of you and your teams. Always strive to give the best service every day, with every person you interact with. Make sure the quality is tested often and that it is the right level of quality for your retail proposition.

Reward and incentivise to develop a motivated and happy team A motivated and happy team will lead to happy customers, which leads to success. Listen to, and look after, your team.

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Develop and communicate a clear vision, strategies and plans Know what you are trying to achieve and have a plan to get there. Share the vision, strategies and plans with all your teams and partners. A strategy does not need to be complex. It just needs to be clear achievable and clearly communicated to the team.

Cash Flow and Keeping It Simple Manage your cash Cash is sanity and profit is vanity.

A business will go bankrupt due to lack of cash, not lack of profit. Understand where your money comes from and where it goes. Make sure you know what is selling and what is not selling.

Poor selling products must be acted upon as they will tie up cash.

It’s not rocket science Retail is one of the oldest forms of business. We buy a product and sell it on to the end consumer with a margin; make sure that that your margin delivers a profit. Keep remembering this on the bad

days. Try not to over-complicate your business and your life.

Management Retail is detail Get the details right for your customers and look after the detail in everything within the business - understand what is happening and make sure you ‘dot the i’s and cross the t’s’.

Take your time to understand the details of what makes your business work and what does not. Then change them where necessary.

Pleasure – Enjoy it!

Be yourself and enjoy This is your journey to achieving your potential in retail. Make sure you take pleasure in it. Remember the good days when you have those bad days.

There is always a way to make something work - you just may need to ask for help to find the solution.

Make decisions Just do it. Do not procrastinate; analyse the information, make decisions and give it a go. If it doesn’t work, try another way.

Manage with facts and information Use the data and information you have in your business.

Keep your emotions in check and make decisions based on solid information, analysis and research.

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Antony Welfare Retail Expert and Author of ‘The Retail Handbook: Helping you achieve your Potential in Retail’. www.retailpotential.com

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GETTING TO KNOW YOU: TERRY DEAN Terry Dean, former pizza delivery driver and experienced Internet coach since 1996, coaches entrepreneurs to Earn More, Work Less, and Enjoy Life!

Website and Blog: www.MyMarketingCoach.com Facebook: www.Facebook.com/ MyMarketingCoach Twitter: www.twitter.com/TerryDean

What inspired you to start your business? What are your goals and values?

My business was born from desperation. I worked one dead end job after another. The last job I ever had and ever will have was delivering pizzas for $8 an hour. I basically stumbled upon the internet and by trial and error learned what worked and what didn’t starting way back in 1996.

My goal today is to help other entrepreneurs earn more, work less, and enjoy life without compromising their values. The beauty of the internet is you can succeed through authenticity and providing value before the sale instead of taking unethical shortcuts.

What was the driving force behind your decision to specialise in the small business marketing sector?

I love working directly with decision makers who have

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dreams and passions they can follow. Working with small business owners gives me the fulfillment and seeing results quickly without all the politics you find in larger organizations.

What experience do you have helping small business clients?

I’ve worked with clients in one way or another since 1998 with an intense focus on direct work with small business clients since 2006. Clients come to me for multiple reasons, but they all have the goal of producing more traffic and sales from their websites. I’ve helped them with search engine optimization, pay-per-click ads, media buying, social media, and email marketing.

Do you service other sectors as well?

I also provide help to start-up authors, coaches, and speakers in addition to working with

established small business clients. I don’t work with any company that isn’t driven by a decision making entrepreneur.

What are the main reasons that someone would choose your business to assist with developing their business?

They would choose me if they wanted someone with long-term experience at helping clients profit from their website. I’ve reviewed thousands of websites for conversion with one-onone clients, group coaching programs, and at workshops.

I’ve also ran hundreds of personal tests on my website for generating both traffic and sales.

Everything we do would be going after a trackable ROI for your business.

What process, services and support do your clients receive?

Currently my primary service is one-on-one coaching for

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better internet results to the entrepreneurs themselves. This includes both email support and regular calls where we track their numbers and their advertising, edit their websites, and create their follow-up systems. The majority of clients come to me to create a more strategic process for their online business and improve their conversion every step along the way.

What challenges did you face in setting up your business?

Have they been met?

My original expectations were to find a way to use the internet to support myself. That has far been exceeded. Today my goals revolve more around producing results for my clients. It takes time, but the majority are seeing the results they’re looking for: reliable, consistent leads and sales produced for their business online.

Who is the target market for your business?

The biggest challenges I faced originally were the fact there were no reliable sources of information to lean on. I learned almost everything I do by trial and error, finding what didn’t work first until I refined what works consistently online. The problem most entrepreneurs run into today isn’t a lack of information. It’s an overabundance of information, but the majority of it isn’t reliable, isn’t tested, and simply doesn’t work. So you still need to track and prove the results of anything you put in place.

The primary target for my services are authors, coaches, speakers, and small business entrepreneurs who want to drive visitors and sales online. If you’re not interested in internet expansion, you wouldn’t contact me. And if you simply want to use what’s “hot” or popular, then that’s not my priority either. It’s about generating a strong ROI from trackable actions and ads online.

Tell us about some of the expectations that you had.

Yes. I have clients all across the US and around the world.

Do you provide services nationally?

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Currently I have one-onone coaching clients in the US, Canada, Australia, UK, Philippines, and Singapore.

Do you have any plans for overseas expansion?

Besides the clients I work with, I have customers in a majority of English speaking countries and my products have been translated in multiple different languages.

What would you say to someone looking to grow and develop their business?

Test everything. Don’t take any expert’s word as the final say on anything - including me. The goal is always to start small with any advertising and slowly ramp it up as you optimize every step in the process. There are always risks in any business, but you can keep them small and manageable. When something works, the returns can be virtually unlimited. When you hit a winner, expand on the campaign and grow it as quickly as possible.

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Six Ways to Generate a Seven Figure Income: Use the Media to Gain Notoriety and Grow Your Business

By Christine Clifford

Create a Need for Media Consideration Grab the Media’s Attention

Know What to Do If You Get It Act On It Once You’ve Had It Keep the Momentum Going

Learn Where to Start

Last month we discussed the first way to generate a seven figure income by becoming a celebrity or corporate spokesperson. This month we will discuss the second way to get to seven figures: by using the media to gain notoriety and grow your business.

Only the Media Can Make You a Star Overnight Do you ever think to yourself, “If I could only get the right piece of exposure for my company, my cause, my product, my lectures, I could double my business, sell a million copies, and exceed our expectations…”

Only the media has the ability

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to make you or your company a star overnight. You may not sell a million pieces of product or make a million presentations in a lifetime, but the use of the media can and will draw valuable and necessary attention to you and your message. Make it a goal to get one piece of exposure.

Two weeks before the holidays, I made a pitch to the local television stations to have me on as a guest to discuss gift ideas for cancer patients during the holidays. Both the ABC and NBC affiliates had me on one of their shows. On the NBC affiliate, I held up a small, guardian angel feather ornament. The timing was

perfect. Within two hours, we had sold over a thousand pieces of product. That small, five minute appearance on local television generated two speaking engagements and negotiations with the QVC Network to sell our products.

Create a Need for Media Consideration Ask yourself the following four questions: • Do I offer something unique?

• Is there an area in my field which is untapped/ unfulfilled?

• Can I put a new twist on

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my subject matter that will appeal to a broad range of people?

• Do I have much competition?

If you can answer “Yes” to the first three and “No” to the fourth, you may have something that would be of interest to the media.

Grab the Media’s Attention There are six ways to get the media’s attention: • Pure luck • Bouncebacks (someone from one magazine/ newspaper/TV station sees you on another) • Cash purchases (you can buy media time) • Advertise • Hard work: Write press releases, post on Twitter; Facebook; LinkedIn; make phone calls and email media contacts; post videos on YouTube

• Referrals

Know What to Do If You Get It

If one media outlet features you, others will follow. It’s like a rubber ball-- it comes bouncing back to you.

• Prepare—Know exactly what you want to say;

Learn Where to Start

• Primp—Get your makeup professionally done, hair cut, mustache trimmed;

Set a goal of what type of media you want (print, television, radio, online, etc.). Start at the very lowest level: your local stations, newspapers, magazines. Send Press Releases to your alma mater, hometown newspaper, health club newsletter, or any associations or organizations which you are a member of who publish a newsletter.

Put together a Media Kit. Build on it and add to it constantly.

Track your media for the big players: keep a log of your media hits. I’ve had over 3,000.

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• Practice—Role play with friends and family; • Project Effectively—Exude confidence, use voice control, watch your body language.

Act on It Once You’ve Had It • Write Thank-You notes; • Reprint your articles; make duplicates of any videos; make tapes of any radio interviews; • Send it to everyone you know; • Do targeted mailings to

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other media contacts with your own press release; • Trade it with others who have similar media contacts that can grow your business.

Keep the Momentum Going You can always build your own media event and invite the press. Make sure you obtain an original copy/reprint/tape and dissect it. Learn from your mistakes. Read and study the media. Know what’s happening in your field that is news-worthy.

So Now I’m a Star?

Accept each media event for its face value and be grateful for the exposure and publicity.

Don’t expect recognition—it’s a constant battle for media attention and consideration.

And last but not least: remain humble. Even the biggest stars have to change diapers, walk the dog, and take out the trash.

Next month we will explore the third way to generate a seven figure income. See you at the bank!

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Christine Clifford Christine Clifford, CSP is an award-winning Professional Speaker, best-selling author of eight books including YOU, Inc. The Art of Selling Yourself, and consultant on branding and positioning. Visit her at www. christineclifford.com; linkedin. com/in/christineclifford; Follow her on Twitter. Don’t forget to ask! ™ Don’t forget to laugh! ™

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Increase Your Revenue by 50% within 12 months.

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By application only No money paid up front and no lock in contracts Work one on one with 80-20 Center Founder and Smart B.O.M.B. Publisher Tom Poland personally To register your interest please email Tom@8020Center.com with the following information (we will review and then advise you of the most appropriate next step): Your name Best contact phone number Company name Company website URL Product or service you sell Annual revenue 47 | Modern Franchise Magazine

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How You Can Increase Your Prices NOW and Be Sure Your Customers Will STAY

By Geoff Vautier

Some cool facts about increasing prices to keep in your head

Top 10 Tips for turning these reasons to your advantage

The two main reasons your customers won’t leave you Don’t think it’s the right time to increase your prices? Then think again!

Any business owner wants to make more profits and increasing prices is a great way to do that. But the biggest reason why businesses don’t raise their prices is the fear that if they do, their customers will go elsewhere. It makes sense; you spend a lot of time building up a customer base and attracting people to your list and you don’t want them leaving in droves.

But they won’t!

Cool facts to keep in your head #1 FACT: Less than 10% of customers actually leave following a price increase.

This is a very small percentage! In many businesses no customers leave.

(Geoff Vautier http://www. howtoincreaseprice.com)

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#2 Fact Only one in seven customers buy on price alone. (Dale Furtwengler, “Pricing for Profit” http://pricingforprofitbook.com )

The two main reasons customers don’t leave

#3 Fact This means 6 out of 7prefer value over price and are willing to pay more for the value they are looking for. (Dale Furtwengler)

“People will find a way to afford what they want.” Dale Furtwengler

#4 Fact In corporates, only 20% of the purchasing decision is based on cost, the other 80% is based on value, relationships, bonuses offered, reputation. (Dan Kennedy, “No B.S. Price Strategy” http://dankennedy.com/ )

1. They know that they get value from you.

They’re existing customers, right? So they’ve bought from you before and been satisfied with what they got. They know you, your company and your product or service. They’ve invested time, effort and money in the relationships which might have taken months to develop.

Who really wants to give these up?

2. It ‘costs’ them to leave “Even under adverse economic pressure, the majority of buyers respond to motivating factors other than price.” Dan Kennedy

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Have you ever tried to change an internet provider? Did you try and then give up? In the end did you stay with your supplier because you couldn’t be bothered?

How about an airline ticket?

Yes, we know there are security implications so questions have to be asked but does that justify the hoops you have to go through, the different departments you have to speak to, the extra costs you have to pay? Who’s the customer here?!

When you change supplier, it might not cost you dollars (though it can!), but it will certainly cost you time. And the same is true for your customers.

How to increase prices and keep your customers How can you make an advantage of these two reasons?

Top Ten Tips 1. Emphasise the importance of your relationship

3. Remind them how satisfied they’ve been with your product or service in the past 4. Reassure them they’ll still get great service from you and better value 5. Give them a simple, straightforward, noquestions-asked, money back guarantee (and be prepared to honour it) 6. Offer them an incentive to stay 7. Point out there is no-one else offering what you offer 8. Acknowledge how much you appreciate their loyalty 9. Show them how much you understand their business or situation 10. Remember that if they do go somewhere else after you’ve made a justifiable increase in your prices, then they may not be the right kind of customer you’re looking for.

Geoff Vautier Geoff Vautier is an 80-20 guru and pricing specialist. He successfully helps businesses of all sizes to find ways to increase their profits and grow. ….more http://www.howtoincreaseprices. com http://www.geoffvautier.com geoff@howtoincreaseprices.com “Boost your profit: Understand, and charge for, the value you provide”

2. Mention how long they’ve been a valued customer

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Important Internet Marketing Lessons from Amazon

By Rachel Henke

Times they are a-changing in the media world.

Online is the future so don’t be left behind.

Ways for your customer to ‘consume’ your services easily online.

Consider your ‘buyers’ process’ for more sales.

It’s no exaggeration to say that every time I visit Amazon, I’m blown away. I’ve been a book worm since I was fortunate enough to be taken to the library each week as a little girl by my grandma.

I can’t imagine life without reading and books, and I am not that fussed whether they’re digital books on Kindle, eBooks on my laptop or real books in my hands. Oh, and magazines are great too.

I eat books for breakfast the way others devour newspapers or even toast. The new media has just made it easier for book and learning fanatics like me to get hold of the stuff.

People still say things like, ‘Oh I can’t imagine that eBooks will really take off!’

Or, ‘Well I still like a real book

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as an eBook or digital book is just not the same.’

Times they are a-changing.

Give them time, I think to myself. It won’t be long ...

Of course digital books are not the same which is exactly why they’re great! They offer a new delivery system for authors to deliver their message.

When I went away this Summer for a month I stuffed some paperbacks, journals and magazines in my bags. I also took my Kindle which meant that I had hundreds of books at my fingertips so no matter what mood I might be in or no matter how much time I might have to do a little research I’d have it right there.

And if I was too busy revelling in pure enjoyment then so what?

No biggie right? My Kindle is a slim tablet tucked away in my bag and is lighter than a book.

The battery life is unbelievable too.

Think of ways to give your customers more choice to sample you too.

This is a huge part of the value that Amazon has brought to the market place for readers and authors. It means we have more CHOICE. It means that for very little money you can get your excited little paws onto a ton of ideas at the push of a button.

And when I say the push of a button I mean that literally! Have you bought your first Amazon Kindle book yet? If not you are in for a treat, no matter what the book.

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probably don’t have their budget but you can model the process.

As a marketer I’m in love with Amazon’s marketing PROCESS. They have made it so delightful and so easy to purchase books, whether physical or kindle books, that it’s a marketing lesson in itself.

Ask yourself these questions about your buying process:

Online is the future so don’t be left behind.

Is it really clear what I offer at my website?

If your products, books, and services are not online you are being left behind. Online shopping is the future as more and more people opt for the easy option of buying from the comfort of their home as they browse interactive websites and read customer reviews.

Is it EASY to buy in a few minutes? (On Amazon you can buy in a few seconds)

You’ll visit some sites and it’s so difficult to find what you want, you couldn’t buy it even if you could find it. So don’t let that be you!

Model Amazon. OK, you

Is your customer service in place and easy to use?

Do you offer your customers an opportunity to buy more than one thing? (When they have their credit card out they are often keen to buy something more that compliments what they just bought) Is your website simple to navigate and does it load quickly?

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The Amazon Kindle is a perfect example of offering customers more choice

Is there a reason they should buy from you and not from the high street? (Amazon has lower prices and offers free and QUICK delivery) In fact the service is so good that I feel sorry for the booksellers in town.

If your target audience (niche)

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are searching in Google for what you offer, do you come up on the FIRST page? (If not you need some help with SEO – Search Engine Optimisation & Copywriting) I wrote a review about a great book I just bought on Amazon Kindle and within a couple of days it’s on PAGE 1 for both the bestselling author’s name AND for this name + review.

This didn’t happen by magic – it happened because I’ve learned how to write valuable blog posts for my target audience and to use SEO to make it shoot up the search engines. This in turn attracts visitors that compliment my niche to my website.

I hope this is helpful to you and you can begin to understand just how critical it is that when you set up your website you

Rachel Henke Rachel is the author of The Niche Expert and founder of Rachel Henke Global where she helps entrepreneurs create online businesses they love.

Rachel ‘broke free’ of the corporate world when she started her first home based business in 2003 after living abroad for 12 years.

In 2007, tired of being out the house & away from her

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don’t throw up any old website, because it will cost you sales.

Oh and don’t get me started on Love Film – Amazon’s new service! DVDs by post, and it’s so much cooler than it sounds.

This is an example of them upselling their customers on a complimentary service.

children so much, she turned to the internet & social media & attracted a global following and became what she calls ‘an accidental expert!’

Rachel is an entrepreneur, author and online niche marketing coach.

To receive Rachel’s ‘3 Keys to Creating an Online Business You Love’ visit http://www.Rachelhenke.com

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Is Content Marketing Still a Viable Tactic in Lieu of Recent Algorithm Updates Such as Farmer/ PANDA and Recent Penguin?

By Wendy Montes de Oca

Content (or article marketing) is an attractive online strategy for small business owners because it involves organic (free) marketing tactics.

However, lately I’ve been hearing a lot of people saying things such as: “Google doesn’t like content or article marketing since they changed their algorithms” and “…article directories are not useful for search engine marketing and link-building efforts anymore.”

I like to remind people of a few fundamental rules of online marketing, specifically involving content, that virtually never changes and is extremely helpful to know…

Mixing It Up. It’s always a smart thing to have a diversified online marketing mix. I suggest to clients to look at their online marketing plan like a pie, and each slice

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is a tactical allocation for both organic and paid for strategies.

As with your retirement planning, it’s always safer to diversify than put all your eggs in one basket.

The same holds true for your online marketing plan. Mix it up and keep it diversified. Some allocations may be smaller than others, based on budget, objective, target audience, and other variables. But it’s good to spread your efforts out across many online marketing channels such as search engine marketing, paid search, social media, online PR, content marketing, online classifieds, etc. Then if one tactic is a laggard and others are leaders, it all balances out in the end. This also helps compensate for algorithmic bumps in the road that may temporarily affect your search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) efforts.

Doing It ‘Right’ Can’t Be Wrong.

Google and other search engines often change their algorithms to as keep search results relevant and fresh to related queries as well as impact unscrupulous ‘black hat’ marketers who use no-no tactics such as gateway pages, keyword stuffing, link baiting, link farming, content farming and more. These are the folks that link to irrelevant sites with low quality content, which is the equivalent of ‘content spamming’. For compliant content marketers or those using the SONAR Content Distribution Model TM, as outlined in Content Is Cash— the core strategy is to leverage high-quality, useful, content through synchronized, synergistic and relevant online distribution channels. ‘SONAR’ and content marketing, when implemented correctly, include ‘white hat’ SEO principles. And if you’re using quality, original content with either of those

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marketing tactics and distributing your content to targeted, relevant sites, you really can’t go wrong.

Quality And Relevance Are Key! According to Webpronews. com, when Google released their official statement about the algorithm change in 2011, the Farmer/Panda update was aimed to help more quality websites be higher in the search results versus content farms with irrelevant, unbeneficial content based on the keywords being searched. In recent weeks, Google’s Penguin update is similar, aimed to penalize spammy, low quality content, websites and backlinks.

Article directories may have initially been stuck in the cross-hairs losing some initial value, but again, if you are putting out ‘UVA’ (useful, valuable, actionable) content into numerous organic online channels, the diversity and balance will offset any temporary side affects which may occur versus doing article directory marketing by itself. Based on my experience, if you push out quality, original content in several places including article directories, your articles should appear in pages 1-5 of Google search results once the pages

get indexed. And with Google’s latest ‘freshness’ update, the most timely and relevant content should appear in descending order by date from the top of the search results. Quality and relevance are key.

Targeted Link-Building.

Links, whether it’s one way back link or a reciprocal back link, are still links. Quality links help SEO, and that is undisputable.

But again, there are some ground rules that are right (best practices) … and wrong. Links should be quality links, and by that I mean on sites that have relevant content and a synergistic audience as to your own. It should also be a site with a good traffic rank, as determined by sites like Alexa.com, Quantcast. com, or Compete.com. I prefer to do link building manually and strategically. I research sites that are synergistic in all ways to the site I’m working with (albeit one-way or reciprocal links). Doing it manually allows for more targeted selection and control over where you want your links to go. Manual selection and distribution can also lead to other opportunities down the road with those sites you’re building relationships with including cross-marketing or editorial efforts such as editorial contributions, revenue shares

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and more. In my view, this approach is both link building and relationship building.

Location, Location, Location.

Where you link to is important.

When doing ‘SONAR’ or content marketing, I always tell clients to deep link, that is, not just link to their home page — which to me, doesn’t make any sense anyway, as there’s too many distractions on a home page. Readers need a simple, direct call to action.

Keep them focused. It’s always smarter to link to your source article, which should be on one of your subpages, such as the newsletter archive page or press release page. Now you have a connection — the article/ content excerpt you pushed out and is appearing in the SERPs (search engine result pages) and its redirect links to the full version on your archive or press page. You’ve satisfied the searches expectations by not doing a `bait and switch’.

There’s relevance and continuity.

And to help monetize that traffic, that newsletter archive or press webpage (which you’re driving the traffic to), the background should contain fixed elements to ‘harness’ the traffic it will be getting for list growth and crossselling such as fixed lead gen boxes, text ads, banner ads,

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editorial notes, and more. These elements should blend with your overall format, not being to obnoxious, but being easily seen.

Catalyst Content.

It’s always important to make sure you publish the content on your website firstbefore you push it out on the web. I call this your ‘catalyst content’. This is the driving source which all other inbound marketing will occur and be focused around. Your website articles should be dated and be formatted similar to a news feed or blog. Also, posting timely press releases will work favorable as they will be viewed

by Google and human readers as the latest news (again favorable to Google’s latest freshness update). At the same time, send your content out via email (i.e. ezine) to your in-house list before external marketing channels see it. This helps from an SEO standpoint, but also helps with credibility and bonding with your subscribers and regular website visitors as they should get your information before the masses.

There you go. My best practices for marketing with content. I don’t practice nor condone ‘black hat’ marketing tactics.

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I’ve always been lucky enough to work for top publishers and clients that put out great, high quality content. It really does all boil down to the quality of the content when you talk about any form of article and search engine marketing. Content is king, and when you have strong editorial, along with being a ‘creatively strategic’ thinker, you don’t need to engage in ‘black hat’ or questionable SEO/SEM practices. Algorithms are always changing. It’s good to be aware of the latest news, trends and techniques, but also not to put you’re your eggs in one basket and build your entire online marketing strategy based on the current algorithms. Using solid content, analyzing your websites visitor and usage patterns and keeping general best practices in mind are staple components that will always play an important role in content marketing.

What’s your view of content marketing and other organic online marketing tactics?

Would love to hear your thoughts. You can contact me atsupport@ precisionmarketingmedia.com.

Wendy Montes de Oca, MBA Wendy has 20 years of direct response, online marketing, media and publishing experience for top publishers and Fortune 500 companies. In her career she has generated over $150 million in total revenues for various corporations, consulting clients, and her own firm, Precision Marketing & Media, LLC .

She is the best-selling author of Content Is Cash: Leveraging Great Content and the Web for Increased Traffic, Sales, Leads and Buzz [Que Publishing], which was #1 and #13 on Amazon. com’s web marketing and business bestseller book list and remained an Amazon ‘top 100’ bestseller for 10 consecutive weeks. Follow her on Twitter @ PrecisionMktg.

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www.amazecreativestrategies.com

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THE POWER OF WEBSITE BLOGS How blogging can benefit your website

By Mark Rocket

What makes good blog content How to make blogging easy

How blogging works with search engine optimisation Over the years,we’ve met many clients who are averse to creating interesting content for their website. The major search engines are actively seeking out quality content and if your site is content-poor, you’re shooting yourself in the foot. A website with only a handful of pages of unoriginal and unoptimised content is essentially swimming upstream against what the search engines are looking for, and you can expect to achieve poor results.

Famous or well-known bloggers have the advantage of people seeking out their content, and will likely get more people interacting with and following their blogs – but you don’t have to have the cachet of a superstar to run a successful blog. For the average Joe or Jane, an engaging blog post can be the start of a conversation with someone you usually wouldn’t easily be able to reach.

Benefits Of A Blog In the highly competitive world of web marketing, blogging is an easy way of creating great content, connecting with users and driving fresh traffic to your site. Blogging (or “web logging”) is the practise of posting regular content such as articles, photos, links and opinions on a section of your website, in a format similar to a journal. Blogging has been around for over 15 years, so while it might not be the exciting new kid on the ‘web marketing’ block, it’s definitely a proven work horse that gets real results.

Blogs can do seriously good things for your site. Once considered the domain of people with too much free time on their hands, these days blogs are a professional and effective means of expanding your site’s potential. A few of the ways they do this are by: • Increasing your web traffic from search engines. All the main engines reward good, original content.

• Generating inbound links

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from people sharing your content. When people share your blog posts, they actively promote your site.

• Functioning as a lowcost marketing and communication tool.

Interact with your target audience through comments, get feedback, and tailor your posts to your audience.

Using Blogs For Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) One of the major trends in search engine optimisation in recent years has been towards rewarding original, high quality content. The sharing of this content, especially on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Google+, is an integral part of how search engines determine whether content is useful or not. Each time someone shares your content, it gets a “vote” in the eyes of the search engine. When building your blog, think about having buttons for easy sharing

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on key social media websites.

To optimise your content, having a keyword focus for each of your articles is important. Pick a relevant keyword and use it in the blog title heading and a few times in the article. Beware of over-stuffing your post with keywords. This has long been a useless technique, and these days it will do more harm than good.

Make sure you get the technical bits right; there are ways to setup your blog (under the wrong URL with an incorrect tagging structure) which will hold you back, so make sure you talk to someone who knows what they’re doing.

Blog Topic Ideas Coming up with blog posts can be difficult at first, but here are some starting points to consider: • Insights on your business/ expertise. Provide interesting news that relates

to your business, or provide a link between a complicated subject and a layman reader.

• De-bunk industry myths. Readers love to feel like they’re getting insider information.

• Discuss a hot topic in your industry. Opinions make for engaging content.

• Talk about the future of your business, or issues relating to it.

The most essential point is that your content is accessible, engaging and useful. Try to imagine who your reader is, and what they’re interested in.

Examples Of Successful Blogs

customers, such as website and business owners. OK, guilty of shameless selfpromotion here, but just letting you know we walk the walk and don’t just talk the talk.

• The NZS.com Blog on the other hand, has a wide reader base of New Zealand internet users, so its articles relate to a broader scope of web topics.

• The Official Google Blog is an example of a company using its blog to communicate with its customers, explain new products, and gather valuable feedback.

• Smitten Kitchen has become extremely popular for its simple, comforting food recipes.

A random selection of blogs: • The Avatar Blog provides insights on web developments that will be of specific interest to our

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• The Everywhereist is a travel blog that has received a number of accolades from publications such as TIME and Forbes.

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• The SEOmoz Blog works by gathering posts from a wide range of authors, enabling it to cover many angles and topics.

• Design*Sponge features a range of design content from various sources.

Making Blogging Easy At first, blogging can appear to be an onerous task, but it doesn’t have to be. Here are some tips to make it easier: • Allocate someone on your team to manage the blog who likes to write or hire someone to help.

• Keep posts brief, 200-400 words is ample and people often want to see a succinct, pithy perspective more than a rambling information overload.

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• Try to blog at least twice a month and try to keep to a schedule.

Many website operators still often don’t make the connection between the words that appear on their website and the words people type into a search engine. Search engines are pretty smart but they aren’t yet omnipotent, so if all those magic keywords aren’t appearing in your site then you’ll likely have a difficult time getting ranked.

Blogging is a beneficial addition to most websites, is a super way to build great content and can provide signficant return benefits. In addition, blogging is a lot more interesting and fun than many other online marketing options.

Mark Rocket Mark Rocket is an Internet entrepreneur and space enthusiast. Mark kicked off Avatar, a web design and marketing company, in 1998 and the web directory NZS.com in 2000. Mark also co-founded New Zealand Tourism Online in 1998 and the company was purchased

by Telecom Yellow Pages in 2006.

Website: http://www.avatar.co.nz/ Website: http://www.markrocket.com/

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Connect with your audience Maxiom subscribers are highly engaged and unusually loyal. That means partner messages are read and acted upon. Association marketing has never been easier.

For More Information on Partnering with Maxiom Call Us on 1300 855 696 or Visit Our Website: 61 | Modern Franchise Magazine 24 | Modern Franchise Magazine maxiom

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HOW TO CHOOSE YOUR SEO PARTNER

By James Hourigan

Should your site be SEF or SEO?

SEO Partner Checklist.

Links are Likes!

Estimate Google Page 1 Rank Value.

Perhaps you have been around this internet marketing gig for some time and you understand all the technical terms - I call it jargon - and you are confident that you know how to get more visitors to your site by optimizing it. However, if you are like most of us mere marketing mortals, it can be quite daunting when you first start to understand the nuances involved in being seen in search results. I recommend that you find a partner to help you, but finding the right partner can be time consuming and, if you choose wrongly, it will be frustrating, time wasting, expensive and ultimately will not help you achieve your goals.

Should your site be SEF or SEO? There are two major factors that determine whether or not your site will be seen by searchers when they search by keyword.

First of all your site must be SEF - Search Engine Friendly and this is to do with the code that the search engine sees on your page. Think of this as the back end of your page, which is not readily visible to searchers, but can be accessed by right clicking and then clicking - View Source

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- when you are on the webpage.

As the marketing person you have to produce relevant engaging content for the humans that visit and your SEO partner has to ensure that content is found by the search engines.

These days Content is King when it comes search engine optimization but it is useless if no-one ever sees that content.

Links are Likes Secondly, and the single most important factor, in getting improved rankings in the search engines, is the links pointing to your site. Think of a link just as you would a ‘Like’ in the social media sense; another website ticks your site as a worthwhile or valuable resource for its site visitors to enhance their experience. The more relevance that the linking site has to your site, the better the experience for the searcher, and search engines reward relevance. So the task for your SEO partner is to get you relevant quality links to your site. Some will offer to get you hundreds or perhaps thousands of links quickly but be careful that they are not using spamming automated software. The search engines are always updating

their procedures and can identify dodgy (black hat) tactics designed to increased rankings and do penalize sites using these techniques.

SEO Partner Checklist I suggest you approach the selection of an SEO partner as you would the selection of a new employee and the following questions should help in your selection process.

1. What activities do you conduct to search engine optimize my site?

Tip: If the answer is, ‘We submit your site to hundreds of search engines for indexing,’ – run a mile! There are a number of better ways to optimise a site, including article submissions, blog submissions, forums, PR releases and link building.

2. How long will it take to get my site to Page 1 of the search engine?

Tip: More than 90 % of people do not go past page 1 when looking for something. They usually do another search.

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3. Can you tell me how many searches there are for the keywords you recommend?

6. What happens if I do not get to Page 1 for all the selected keywords?

Tip: Make sure that they give you the [Exact] numbers for local monthly searches, backed up by evidence that these are genuine numbers, unless your product can be sold worldwide and then [Exact] global monthly searches are OK.

Tip: Be very careful of guarantees and, before you sign up, read the fine print carefully because no-one can guarantee rankings, as the search engines are constantly changing.

4. Can you tell how many visitors will go to my site should I do SEO with you?

Tip: The big numbers of visitors are seen for higher ranked sites. Rank is the position of the site from the top of the page, excluding all advertisements on that page. Rank 1 gets approximately 3 times the visitors of rank 3 and 15 times the visitors of rank 10.

5. How much will it cost me to get to Page 1 for the selected keywords?

Tip: This helps you decide whether SEO or PPC is your best option to get site visitors and we will discuss that topic in our next article.

what a Google Page 1 rank will do for your bottom line. We have expanded the formula to include calculations for the increased profit you will achieve when your site moves up the SERP rankings.

7. How long will I have to continue SEO? Tip: Do not believe that once you have the rankings you seek that you can stop SEO altogether.

Yes, you can keep your position on page 1 for longer than if you were doing PPC advertising but, once you stop SEO, your rankings can slip. After all your competitors are more than likely doing SEO campaigns.

Before you start any SEO activities for your site/s, you can now estimate what increase in traffic you can expect when you move up the SERP (Search Engine Results Page) rankings.

Increasing Google rank will most certainly improve sales and our easy Google Search Traffic Tool allows you to estimate by how much. You can use it to estimate

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James Hourigan James is passionate about eliminating the mystery surrounding SEO to enable business owners to extract the maximum return on their investment from this modern marketing activity. seo@searchmeseo.com www.searchmeseo.com Click to get your GST Tool

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How to Create CommeRCEENABLED CONTENT

By Mark Matthews

Content that enables competitive advantage

Content that enables commerce

Content that enables corporate “personality” Content is a powerful tool Building a well-structured library of quality, relevant content is vital in today’s digital business.

But content isn’t just what’s on your website or a few spun articles.

So how do you create and structure commerce-enabled content that allows you to reach out across multiple channels while maintaining a consistent content experience, regardless of the channel, media or platform?

Most organisations have, over time, built a vast archive of content.

Have a quick look around your own business and see how much content you have already generated. You will have internal assets such as marketing resources, sales presentations, technical manuals, catalogues, customer service articles, press releases, news &

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commentary, even training materials and reports. Then you will have external assets such as syndicated news and reviews, community generated commentary, and curated social media conversations.

Making the Most of the Opportunities When used effectively, and interlinked, these content assets attract new customers via search and social recommendation, help solve the problems of current customers, build ongoing relationships, and establish a strong brand reputation.

For many, content is what inspires us. It inspires us to think, it inspires us to act and it inspires us to buy.

However content is only valuable if it is unique, provides positive attributes that cannot be found elsewhere, and can be accessed efficiently on the technology of the user’s choice.

Content also has to compete with the new kid on the block which is “user experience” (UX) and organisations, in order to compete effectively, must also get this right. User experience is dynamic, because it changes over time as the user’s circumstances change.

The future is extremely exciting with huge opportunities available for those brave enough to take advantage of them. The organisations that will prosper are likely to have high quality content, tailored to their respective audiences, supplemented by a compelling user experience that creates community and advocacy. These are the important elements that will provide commercially viable, sustainable businesses.

However, in most organisations content assets are unstructured and disconnected, so they are not utilised often enough or effectively enough, and do not send a consistent message or maximise the organisation’s end

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goals. Thus, they also fail the “user experience” test.

Content is Competitive Advantage Consistent, quality content is valuable to your audience.

Customer focused content is a competitive advantage. It is your voice, your personality and your relevance to your customers.

If you have nothing valuable to say, would it be unreasonable for your customers to think that you have nothing of value to offer?

Today, customers have a voice and they are talking to each other more and more, thanks to Social Media and other online platforms. Often, they know as much about your product or service as you do and know more about your competitors than you do. Content, and how you use it, differentiates you from the competition.

Focus on your customer

The cloud is the future

When you evaluate your existing content you will probably find you will have focused entirely on generating original content, which is the most valuable element in the publishing spectrum. But make sure this content focuses on the customer’s needs, is written for the customer and in a manner, and using language, that they can relate to. Including external content, encouraging community authoring and linking to external articles or sources of note, so that you become the authoritative gateway, can also be an effective and less costly way to provide value to your audience.

The cloud allows you to communicate and share information easily. It delivers immediacy, scalability, efficiency and flexibility. It also means the technology can be implemented at low cost, there is no hardware required, you can manage and support your communications remotely, and it can be quickly scaled as the need arises.

Focusing on the customer’s needs involves listening and responding to customers, but it also enables you to deliver communications that give the customer a truly unique experience. The end result is content driven commerce.

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So what does this mean for your content? To ensure that your content delivery doesn’t just become more “noise” to your audience, systems must be implemented that enable sound business management and decision making. These systems help you provide personal attention in a scalable way to guide leads from interested to sales-ready.

Attempting to address the sheer volume of information, segmentation, and reporting requirements using a manual process would be virtually

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impossible. But still, many companies are betting their future on poorly integrated solutions, or have no systems for content management at all, let alone a compelling user experience.

Yet there are already several cloud-based all-in-one marketing platforms that enable organisations to create, archive, deliver, measure and enable revenue generating content that provides for a valuable, consistent and unique customer experience.

And you can guarantee that over the next 2 or 3 years these platforms will be better, more accessible, faster and delivered on many new devices most of us haven’t seen or dreamt of yet.

Start with Free and build Many platforms offer free trials or free low level usage accounts.

There is no need to re-invent the wheel. Utilise open and

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free technologies and services wherever possible. They don’t require extensive technical or marketing skills, expensive hardware, and a long term ROI plan. Start at a small level, and measure the results. Then upgrade as you feel comfortable or build on top of it.

If you are not doing it, you can be sure your competitors are, or soon will be.

You can start today!

Mark Matthews Mark is CEO of Maxiom Group.

Maxiom delivers the Business information and advice you need - straight to your inbox. Best of all, it is completely FREE and open to everyone. Learn more at www.maxiom.com.au

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Seven Ways to Share More Proof on Your Websites

By Terry Dean

Why big promises are truly just “hype” without the proof to back them up.

Simple ways to add more proof to your websites, emails, and blog posts.

How to use the most powerful form of video on your websites.

Hopefully your websites are making a clear, benefit rich promise to your visitors. There has to be a reason they keep visiting you, join your list, or buy products and services you offer.

But today we’re surrounded by promises online. It takes more than a promise. It takes proof to back up your promises. In fact, I often define “hype” as big promises without the proof to back them up.

Here are 7 ways to share more proof on your websites...

Proof #1: Testimonials This is the obvious one. You need others to sing your praises.

They had the same problem your prospects are going through and you helped them achieve the promises you’re making.

testimonials is to install an email in your follow-up sequences that asks for feedback. You want to know how you’ve helped your readers and customers. You also ask them how you can improve.

And of course, can you use their comments on your site?

If you don’t ask, you don’t receive.

Proof #2: Your Personal Case Study This is your own personal story.

Did you have the same problem the prospect is experiencing?

How painful was it? What did you try, to solve it? How did you discover the solution you’re presenting to them?

What were your own personal results with this new discovery?

If you’re just getting started and have no testimonials, that’s fine.

Use the other proof points below, but work on getting testimonials asap.

Don’t underestimate the power of making your story real to your prospects. Stats and statistics can back-up a sale, but it’s the emotion and story that drives the sale.

The best way I’ve found to get

If you promote affiliate prod-

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ucts, the best thing you can do for your conversion is to put the product into action yourself. Use it. What are your personal results with it? If it was weight loss for example, how long did you use it and how much did you lose?

And you could even have photos to back this up.

Proof #3: Your Smiling Face The internet is an impersonal buying environment. You can overcome some of this problem with a clear picture of your smiling face looking at your visitor or slightly inward towards your text.

Make that personal connection with them. This strengthens your

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story, your promises, and your guarantee. It’s not a guarantee from some big corporation. It’s a personal guarantee from you.

Make sure the clothing and background of the photo match up with the promises you offer.

For example, I don’t use suits in any of my photos anymore because I don’t feel comfortable in them and they don’t match my promise of the Internet Lifestyle.

People will judge you by the photo. So make sure it matches the message you want to share.

Proof #4: Publicity Have you been featured in any media? If so, you could show their logos on your site. And remember, many of the big media outlets also have local affiliates you could go after. It’s much easier to generate publicity in your local area.

Contact local media through any contacts they show online. Don’t rely just on email. Get on the phone and let them know they could contact you as a source on the topic you cover whenever they need it.

Proof #5: Demonstration Video is unmatched online when it comes to product demonstration. Show your product in action. What does it do for people?

How does it get such incredible results? The two sales you have to make to any prospects are:

Does the product work? And will it work for me?

If you’re an affiliate for a product, you can use the same principle.

If it’s a physical product, show it. Use it. Explain how it delivers the results. If it’s an information type product, show proof of the results you achieved with it.

Watch any good direct response commercial or infomercial for ideas on how you can use the demonstration powers of video.

storage. Let’s say you sell home study courses and have 7 courses that are slightly damaged but still work perfectly. You could run a special at 40% off just on these 7 courses. When they’re sold out, they’re gone.

That type of sale works like crazy. With a good list, you could sell out within the hour. How many other “reasons why” can you come up with to promote your offer?

Proof #6: Specifics Specifics beat generalities. You didn’t lose about 10 pounds.

You lost 11.5 pounds. You didn’t do a study with thousands of people. There were 2,354 people who participated in the study.

Make your claims and your stories as specific as you can. Go back to your notes and find all the relevant details. The more specific and detailed you are, the more real and believable your presentation becomes.

Proof #7: Reason Why Your goal is to offer an incredible value in exchange for your prospect’s money. But why are you making such an incredible deal?

An example of this is how many of my clients run scratch-anddent specials on their products.

Over the year, you will get returns on products. And some products may be damaged just in

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Terry Dean Terry Dean helps Internet business owners Earn More, Work Less, and Enjoy Life through eClasses, group coaching, and one-on-one coaching programs: http://www. mymarketingcoach.com Facebook: http://www.Facebook. com/MyMarketingCoach Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ TerryDean

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5 Tips to Help Manage Campaigns Targeting Mobile Users

By Chris Chang

Tip 1: Campaign segmentation is critical to boosting ROI Tip 2: Cater your keywords by device type & optimize accordingly

Tip 3: Time of day matters, so use it Tip 4: Mobile landing page? 100% YES. Make LPs unique to devices Tip 5: Not all goals should be the same

2011 was definitely a great year for mobile with both tablet & smartphone device usage picking up, with a number of our clients seeing mobile traffic pick up by more than 2x YoY. The increased usage of mobile devices is bound to continue throughout 2012 and, as marketers, it’s our job to understand how users are now utilizing both smartphones and tablets during their buying cycle.

Between smartphones & tablets there is definitely a distinct difference in how users are utilizing their mobile devices.

An Adobe market study in 2011 shows that tablet users typically have a much stronger average order value than Smartphone and desktop users with AOV around $123 on tablet, $102 on desktop and just $80 on mobile phones. Tablet users also convert at a much different pace than Smartphone users with similar conversion rates as desktop users at around 2.3%

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while Smartphone users whom purchase directly on their phone lagged far behind at just 0.8%.

As the above quickly highlights, marketers must treat tablet campaigns differently than those of mobile programs. Below are 5 tips on how to get the most from each device platform.

Tip 1: Campaign Segmentation is Critical to Boosting ROI

only $0.35 on mobile due to historical conversion rate , etc).

Segmentation will also give you the power to budget according to device performance instead of lumping one’s marketing budget under one campaign.

Finally, campaign segmentation will give you immediate insight into key learnings and trends that may prove to be extremely valuable as your campaign matures. Some of the general learnings could include and are not limited to: keyword value by device type, ad copy performance by device, and optimization strategy.

Here at Elite SEM, with all of our PPC programs we will always segment out campaigns by device setting. While the keywords covered may be the same, it’s in your best interest to create separate campaigns for Desktop v Tablet v Mobile.

Tip 2: Cater Your Keywords

by Device Type & Optimize Accordingly

This will allow you to have much more control on where you’re driving traffic and how much you pay for your keywords (Keyword A targeting tablet & desktop users may be worth $0.50 but

A smartphone can be your ultimate shopping companion but does not serve as your shopping portal. eTailing Group survey show that nearly 79% of Smartphone users

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surveyed mentioned using their smartphone to help during their purchasing period (i.e. price comparison and reading reviews on the go). However instead of being a direct sales platform, Smartphones should be considered “buyer assistants” with 65% of high end phone users surveyed reporting that they used their mobile phone to find a business and then proceeded to make purchases at that business’s brick and mortar.

Use these learnings to save time and marketing $$$ focusing on keywords that you know will likely drive visits and engagement post ad click.

Terms such as “product model review” or “local ___ store san Francisco” may prove to be much more valuable to a Smartphone targeted PPC campaign than tablet or desktop based initiatives.

Tip 3: Time of Day Matters So Use It Google & comScore both recently released a traffic distribution study which clearly shows mobile and tablet traffic pick up during the evening starting from 6 PM (peaking around 9 PM) as more users are now moving away from

relying on their desktop “after hours” instead replacing those traditional searches with their tablet or smartphone. This statistic should not be taken lightly and marketers should make the most of this — optimizing their tablet & mobile Smartphone campaigns to receive more coverage and higher ad rank during the evening hours and on weekends vs working hours. By segmenting your campaigns and increasing tablet and/or mobile kw bids and budgets during the most optimal hours, marketers will be able to get the most value from their SEM programs.

Tip 4: Mobile Landing Page? 100% YES. Make LPs Unique to Devices Landing pages should be a huge focus for marketers as they look at their Smartphone vs tablet audience segments.

As we had stated earlier, tablet users are much more likely to use their device for shopping purposes with 25% of tablet users confirming they have made least 6 purchases in the past 6 months (verses 16% on their Smartphones). Furthermore, tablet visitors spent over 50% more on purchases and with 29% of owners having

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a disposable income greater than $75k (source: 2011 Online Publisher Association) Up until last year, Google and most networks recommended just lumping tablet with mobile users,driving them to the same LP. As the above shows, though, one must treat tablet & mobile separately and therefore develop customized environments to suit both audience segments. After segmenting your campaigns out by device types, look at the conversion data associated with each platform. Are you seeing stronger tablet based sales? Is the bounce rate higher for mobile and desktop users? Now review your landing pages. Make sure they are catered to the user’s ideal motive. Smartphone users clicking around a lot but not buying directly on site? Tablet users converting 20% of all visits last month? Optimize that Smartphone landing page so it becomes a “knowledge” center for visitors and do the same for tablet—optimize that landing page experience so it’s e-commerce specific.

By reviewing platform performance and developing the right landing pages for the right audience segments, marketers will have an opportunity to build

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on learnings and provide users with the most optimal landing page, reducing overall bounce rate % and hopefully improving engagement post ad click.

Tip 5: Not All Goals Should Be The Same While your overall goal may always be the same (boost my ROI, drop my CPO, increase my sales) that does not mean your SEM goals should always follow that same philosophy. As earlier stats clearly show, user engagement by platform differs greatly. As marketers, we need to approach our optimization goals the same way and measure success, not strictly off “demand gen” sales, but by specific goals catering to each platform being targeted.

As mentioned earlier, tablet users are more likely to purchase via their device than mobile users, and have a much stronger average order value than that of mobile shoppers. Review your campaign performance and pinpoint what action Smartphone users are more likely to take than tablet users. If, for example, your Smartphone users are still

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in the decision/research phase, preferring to download white papers or signing up vs direct orders, then your LP should be set up directly to target that audience segment.

Work closely with your team to develop KPIs by platform so that you develop a robust and synergetic marketing campaign.

Not seeing many direct sales from Smartphones but capturing great sign up rate and new account registration? Switch that Smartphone platform goal from CPO/ROI to Sign Up/ CPA. The key here is to take your segmented platform learnings and develop catered optimization goals that in the end will lead to stronger sales and profitability.

As with any strategic marketing plan, segmenting your audiences and pinpointing the appropriate tactics to implement for those different segments is standard.

Going above and beyond to focus on specific buying behaviors and characteristics to drive sales as well as adding value to your ads is pertinent to long term success in this ever changing digital age.

Chris Chang Chris Chang is a Sr. Account Executive at Elite SEM Inc, a search engine marketing agency with offices in New York City, San Francisco, Atlanta and Philadelphia. …more

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Building a B2B Customer Community

By Scot McKee Digital Communities are not built overnight

Customer engagement is earned, not demanded

Online relationships require time and effort

Social media is strategic, not tactical

A client mentioned to me recently the pressing need to deliver, “strong results, quickly,” from the community engagement program I was being asked to deliver. I’ve been asked for that before of course. Almost every time a client or prospect sticks their hand in the air it’s to ask for the required strong results in a timeframe that almost always equates to the specifics or generalities of, ‘quickly’.

So, once and for all, the desire to build and manage an online community of brand evangelists is admirable. Well done. That’s the right path. Customers have moved online and you want to communicate with them on their terms within their online environments. Good news. But. (You knew there was a ‘but’ coming, right?)

But, you can’t snap your fingers and build an engaged community. You can’t bitch

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and moan and delay and procrastinate and squeeze costs and when you finally take an incremental step forward (usually a small one) expect the miraculous creation of a venerated online citadel overnight. It doesn’t work that way – for all the reasons that you originally agreed to. It’s the customer’s community.

Unless and until you prove otherwise, your brand is the guest. Whether your brand is a welcome guest, a tolerated one or a toothless, flatulent aunt who sups tea out of a saucer, depends in no small part on how ‘quickly’ you press for ‘strong results’. Rome wasn’t built in a day. No one in the history of the world has ever delivered a website on time. So why is there the expectation that social community building is a switch-on, switch-off commodity?

It’s the opposite. Online communities need beliefs and

principals on which they can be built. They need nurturing and inspiring. Content needs to be created and crafted and curated and shared and distributed. Personalities need to be identified. Influencers and influences need to be moderated, adjusted, supported. There’s a whole world of pain you’re about to switch on and you are clueless because you’re still treating it like a mailing campaign from the late ‘80s.

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There was a certain comfort in the tactical campaign delivery of yesteryear – design it, print it, mail it. Achieve a predictable response from a predictable channel and then do it all over again. But community engagement isn’t a tactical play. It’s strategic.

Building online relationships requires a fundamental shift in marketing perspective. It’s not promotional, or lead generating, or conducted at arms length.

It’s attitudinal. It’s behavioural – how an organization feels about customers and prospective customers – and it’s conducted up close and personal for the whole world to see and engage with. Or not.

established online communities.

Quickly is how our meeting’s going to end.

The results may come quickly, or they may not. At which point, you have a choice – tactically try to put the genie back in the bottle, or, strategically, make a longer term investment in the needs of your customer instead of the short term needs of the quarter end figures. Whatever you decide, at least you know how to attach some urgency to the matter now. Move quickly? Yes. Deliver strong results? Absolutely. In the same sentence? Forget it. From now on, ah izz juss gonna take mah time…

Either way, on the subject of Community Engagement, you’re no longer allowed to ask me to ‘deliver strong results quickly’ – not unless you have the first clue about quickly delivering strong, integrated, digital, social and content strategies to sit alongside them. Quickly is the decision you should have made five years ago. Quickly is the speed at which news travels within your competitors’

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Scot McKee Brand Strategy Legend, Managing Director Brand/ Digital Agency Birddog, Author ‘Creative B2B Branding (no, really)’, B2B Marketing Columnist, Social/Mobile Advocate & Rock God. Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ scotmckee LinkedIn: http://uk.linkedin.com/ in/scotmckee Slideshare: http://www. slideshare.net/birddogb2b YouTube: http://www.youtube. com/user/BirddogB2B Amazon: http://is.gd/mckeebooks Web: http://www.birddog.co.uk

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Don’t Blow Your Advertising Budget – use AIDCA instead!

By Dee Blick

Why successful adverts are not necessarily beautiful creative adverts

Don’t blow your budget Brilliant! You’ve finally agreed an advertising budget. Okay it’s not quite as big as you would like it to be but nevertheless it’s a start. Now, armed with that budget what do you do? Well, I know you don’t mean to but the chances are that you’ll blow your budget for the smallest of returns. You will be left scratching your head wondering why the miracle never happened and will conclude that advertising doesn’t work.

It does. We still love responding to adverts, just not the unimaginative ill targeted ones or the over the top creative ones that leave us scratching our head.

Forgive me for sounding so cynical. This is my experience after spending many hours with businesses unravelling why their adverts failed to pull in the responses.

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Why a stunningly simple incredibly powerful little tool called AIDCA can double, triple, and quadruple the responses you get to your adverts

I don’t want this to happen to you!

Whilst I can’t guarantee that all of your adverts will be winning ones, what I can do is to hold your hand in my regular blogs on this subject (interspersed with blogs on my other passion; direct mail) and share with you some killer tips.

Fasten your seatbelt you’re in for an exciting ride!

First things first I need to share something with you. It’s not a boast; it’s an explanation as to why I consider myself to be the right person to share advertising tips with you. In the last 10 years I’ve won 10 awards for generating the highest reader responses to my adverts for small and medium sized businesses. I’m not interested in showing you how to write pretty adverts; how to write headlines which elicit all manner of praise

from your peers when in fact they’re examples of irrelevant creative brilliance. I’m only interested in showing you how to generate responses from your advertising; responses that lead to sales and nothing more. We’ll save the off the wall creative stuff for another day.

Let’s start with AIDCA an incredibly powerful copywriting tool It’s a tricky one because there is a lot of exciting ground to cover but let’s start with a fantastic tool I use when writing adverts. It’s called AIDCA. It was developed by the copywriting pioneer Robert E Ramsay way back in 1922. AIDCA stands for • Attention • Interest • Desire • Caution • Action

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Why your ads need to have AIDCA at their heart AIDCA is the mental process a person goes through before they buy into the content of your advert. It’s what they’re thinking whilst reading your advert.

benefits underpinned by genuine facts and figures about the power of your offering.

Desire

Your advert has to take the reader through the AIDCA process in seconds otherwise you’ll lose them.

Build this with your value drenched irresistible special offer or your equally value drenched giveaway. Add some genuine customer feedback. One or two meaty, unedited lines are more than enough.

Attention

Caution

Start by grabbing attention with your….attention grabbing headline. In future blogs I’m going to share killer tips on writing headlines that stop readers in their tracks for the right reasons.

This is the deal breaker where your good work can go to waste.

The reader is interested in your advert. Your benefits are looking good. The offer or giveaway has moved them closer to you. But they’re naturally still cautious. So, think about the questions a prospect will ask in the tentative early stages of the buying process/ At the stage of caution, the reader is interested in what you have to offer but they

Interest You must build on the reader’s interest with your proposition.

How? Two or three compelling

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naturally have lingering doubts; objections as we most commonly refer to them. Stuck for space?

Allay their fears and objections by signposting to the meaty content on your website so they can find out even more about you and why you’re anything but a risky proposition.

Action The final stage of AIDCA is that all-important action. You have to make it clear to your reader what you want them to do next. This means having your contact details, the terms and conditions of any special offers, your website details, social media profiles and telephone number available. Whilst readers are linked by their need for you, you can bet your bottom dollar they will have different response preferences. I like to telephone, you like to e-mail. I like to check out on twitter, you like to go

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straight to the website. Make it easy for your now hot prospect to book a meeting; request a quote, take advantage of their free session or your incredible offer etc.

I can guarantee that if you use the AIDCA model when writing adverts you’ll be well and truly on the road to writing adverts that really do sell.

Here’s your challenge

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Whip out your last batch of adverts and evaluate them against the AIDCA model.

• Is there room for improvement?

• Can you see the glaring mistakes?

• Ah, now I know where I went wrong!

Tell me what you see!

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Dee Blick Fellow The Chartered Institute of Subscribe Marketing. 27 years’ marketing experience. Won 10 copywriting awards. Author: The Ultimate Small Business Marketing Book.

Genuine Amazon 1 best seller.

Twitter deeblick Website www.themarketinggym.org Email: dee@themarketinggym.org Linkedin: uk.linkedin.com/ creativemarketer

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