Online Marketing Success Magazine - May/June 2014

onlinemarketing SUCCESSMagazine TOP 7 REASONS

WHY YOUR EMAIL LIST

ISN’T GROWING

By Donna Gunter

PINTEREST, SOCIAL MEDIA

AND PAID ADVERTISING

VOLUME 2, ISSUE 3 MAY/JUNE 2014

INTERVIEW WITH

Self-Made Digital Marketing Authority

GARY HENDERSON

By Pam Ivey

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

Organic Community Building:

YOU CAN’T BUY THEIR LOVE

By Anastasia Valentine

onlinemarketing SUCCESSMagazine

CONTENTS

Volume 2, Issue 3 May/June 2014

4 Digital Marketing Trends for 2014

By Pam Ivey

5 Digital Addiction VOLUME 2, ISSUE 3 ISBN: 978-0-9812585-1-5

PUBLISHING EDITOR

Make You Drool

6 Top 7 Reasons Why Your Email List Isn’t Growing

Pam Ivey pamivey@omsmagazine.com

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

ART DIRECTOR

Marketing Content?

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Tracey D’Aviero, Donna Gunter, Pam Ivey, Linda Lopeke, Erik Luhrs, Lisa Manyon, Kate Smith, Anastasia Valentine, Stephanie Watson

By Tracey D’Aveiro

10 Twitter’s New One Touch Video Mobile Ads

Mary Greenlees art@coloursomethingcreative.com

By Donna Gunter

8 Are You Exhausted From Writing

Kate Smith kate@omsmagazine.com

So Many I Wants, Too Few Fingers! Gadgets To

By Pam Ivey

11 Pinterest, Social Media & Paid Advertising

By Pam Ivey

12 3 Ways to Create Disruptive Marketing Messages that Matter

ADVERTISING SALES advertising@omsmagazine.com Online Marketing Success Magazine is published 6 times per year in digital format by the International Association of Online Marketing Managers.

HOW TO REACH US Letters to the Online Marketing Success Magazine can be emailed to editor@omsmagazine.com, or mailed to Online Marketing Success Magazine, 24 Kelley Crescent, Wasaga Beach, ON L9Z 1J3 Canada

Follow OMS Magazine on Facebook: www.facebook.com/onlinemarketingmanagermagazine

By Lisa Manyon

14 INTERVIEW WITH

GARY HENDERSON

SELF-MADE DIGITAL MARKETING AUTHORITY

BY KATE SMITH

18 Organic Community Building: You Can’t Buy Their Love

By Anastasia Valentine

20 In Lead Generation Your Niche is for You, Not for Them

By Erik Luhrs

22 5 Ways You Can Write Compelling Headlines That Get Results

By Stephanie Watson

24 Visual Tweets Get More Retweets

By Pam Ivey

26 Identifying Your Ideal Customer

by Linda Lopeke

EDITOR’S NOTE

Y

es, we have a new name! While the magazine was originally created for Online Marketing Managers, and those who provide those services, we’ve found in the first four issues, that half of our readers are business owners who are interested in getting more savvy with their marketing knowledge and to keep on top of trends. So, this issue marks the new name, Online Marketing Success Magazine. I hope you’ll agree, it much better describes what we stand for and the types of articles you’ll find inside.

As we go to press, the very first Online Marketing Manager Certification graduates are flying out of the proverbial nest! I’m so stoked because every one of the students has done remarkably well, have really put their backs into studying AND applying what they’ve learned (they all had to perform case studies with a potential high-level business owner as part of their final mark.) I’ve also received excellent feedback from the students on the comprehensive material that is topical and extremely well organized and delivered. Kudos to all of us!

In the meantime, I’m busy getting ready for the next influx of students, as the program opens again June 16th. If you or someone you know is interested in becoming a Certified Online Marketing Manager™, please visit www.onlinemarketingmanagercertification.com for more details, to view the program outline and to register! The fast-action investment level will be available for a limited time only!

Cheers,

Pam Ivey, Cert SBM,CPREA,CRESS,CMP Founder, International Association of Online Marketing Managers

28 WHAT’S MORE

IMPORTANT, CLICKS, VIEWS OR TIME?

BY PAM IVEY

29 Upcoming Events

ONLINE MARKETING TRENDS

Digital Marketing Trends for 2014 and Beyond

W

hen looking at the research and reports like Experian Marketing Service’s Digital Marketer Report a few things become clear about the digital marketing trends for 2014 and even beyond. Marketers need to develop clear multichannel marketing strategies that work across platforms and devices. They need to speak to the “customer of one” with more individualized experiences and more accurate personalization. In addition, they need to add video to their content marketing mix.

Develop a Multi-Channel Marketing Strategy You have many different channels available to you today in which to spend your marketing dollars. Depending on what type of business you have you may have retail, pay per click, website, direct mail, social media, email, catalogs, mobile and more channels from which to choose to reach your audience.

The trick with effective multi-channel marketing is to find out where your audience is, and be there. In addition, crosspromote the other channels to your customers because the more engaged any one consumer is with your brand on multiple channels, the more likely they are to make purchases.

Make the Move to Responsive Campaigns It shouldn’t need to be said, but it does. There are, believe it or not, still some businesses who do not have responsive websites and who do not even have mobile-friendly websites.

If you run a campaign on any online channel, and it cannot be viewed, interacted with, and completed via mobile device, you’re missing out a lot of conversions.

Consider that mobile devices are outselling PCs and that younger audiences often do not even own PCs but instead own tablets and other mobile devices then you need to get on board with mobile and responsive design is the best way to get there.

Google ranks websites that are designed responsively higher than sites designed just for PC or just for Mobile. What Google says it wants from webmasters is important, so listen.

Create Individualized Customer Experiences Consumers are sick of one-size-fits-all customer service solutions. They want to feel special, and like a customer of one. Therefore, when available, choose technology that lets your consumers individualize their experiences. When you treat your customer like each one is special and the most 4 | ONLINE MARKETING SUCCESS MAGAZINE MAY/JUNE 2014

BY PAM IVEY important customer you’ve ever had it will show up in better return on investment, more repeat purchases, and in many other ways.

Amazingly, when staff and employees are able to treat customers as important, they also feel better about their jobs and you’ll experience less contractor and employee turnover.

What’s more, when you treat your customer as special, they’ll be more likely to give you fair and honest feedback that you can use to make your business even better.

Boost Your Email Marketing with Personalization This is more about customers feeling special and while we know that email marketing personalization is automated and they do too, they still like it and respond better to it than generic impersonal emails. You have only a short time to make a good impression, start from the first moment they hand over their email information to you.

There are many ways to personalize email marketing aside from adding their name to the message. Today, you can use technology to segment your customers into very tight and narrow categories that can help to further personalize the messages you send them. If you’re not sure how to make your email marketing software like Aweber work for personalizing and segmenting find someone who can help you do it. It’s that important.

Get Visual by Adding Video to Your Content Marketing Mix The proliferation of video is rising faster than anyone can keep track of it. When you consider that over 500 years of Youtube video is shared on Facebook every single day, and over 700 YouTube videos are shared every minute, you can begin to get a glimpse of how important video has become for online marketing efforts. Most social media accounts, even the micro blogging platform Twitter and the Photo blogging platform Instagram have added video options. That, along with Facebook’s limited roll out of auto-play video ads, it’s clear that video is not only here to stay but will only increase in 2014 and beyond.

By paying attention to trends, you can get ahead of the consumer delivering exactly what they need, when they need it.

TECH

DIGITAL ADDICTION GADGETS TO MAKE YOU DROOL

SO MANY I WANTS, TOO FEW FINGERS!

Ivee Smart Alarm Clock ($200 USD) Ivee tells you the weather in any city, knows the stock price of any company, knows the time in any city, controls your Wi-Fi devices, and even wakes you up on time. www.helloivee.com

Pebble Smartwatch ($150-$229 USD) The most successful crowd funding campaign landed Pebble a million dollars in donations and launched it into the hands of consumers this year. While many critics have said the Pebble Smartwatch has its kinks, it’s already more useful than any watch we’ve seen before. And it also functions as a conversation piece. As you might have guessed, the Pebble Smartwatch can save you time by assisting you with email, Twitter and Facebook notifications -- and it’s also waterproof. Oh yeah, it also tells the time. www.getpebble.com

Muse – The Brain Sensing Headband ($299 USD)

June Bracelet

Muse uses seven sensors to detect and measure your brain activity, just as a heart monitor measures heart rate. This activity is converted into information you can track on your tablet or smartphone via Bluetooth.

Netamo’s June bracelet monitors its wearer’s exposure to the sun using a sensor. The App gives tailor-fit sun protection advice based on your habits and skin type. Get notifications when you need to apply SPF, wear a hat or put on sunglasses…

Sign up to get notified of the release:

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www.netatmo.com/en-US/product/june ONLINE MARKETING SUCCESS MAGAZINE MAY/JUNE 2014 | 5

LIST BUILDING AND LEAD MANAGEMENT

TOP

7 REASONS

WHY YOUR EMAIL LIST ISN’T GROWING

BY DONNA GUNTER | IMAGE COURTESY OF RENJITH KRISHNAN / FREEDIGITALPHOTOS.NET

“W

hy isn’t my email marketing list growing?” is a very common question I hear from clients. When you start your list, signups are great and your list grows rapidly. However, in a few months you hit a wall and experience a big slump in growth. Not to fear – this is quite normal! Typically, the problem lies in one of seven areas.

keyword search. Make sure that your opt-in form is available above the fold (without having to scroll down) on the right hand side of every page of your site.

03 Sending visitors to your home page

rather than your squeeze page. If you’re offering an ethical bribe (what I call a client attraction device) to entice visitors to opt into your list, send them to a squeeze page that describes what you’re giving away. If you send them to your home page and there’s no mention of your client attraction device, they’ll leave immediately. Ensure that they easily find and read about the reason they have come to your site.

There are some really simple things you can do to rev up your list-building engine and attract new subscribers. Here’s my list of the top 7 reasons why your email list isn’t growing:

01 Takes more than one click to join your list.

If you’re making a potential subscriber click multiple times on multiple pages to find your opt-in box, you’re losing many potential subscribers. Make sure your opt-in box is readily available wherever you’re sending your web site traffic.

04 Requesting too much info on the opt-in

02 Opt-in form not on every page. Just because you have a home page to your site doesn’t mean that visitors will always land there. Once you add content to your site, they can land on any page that matches their

DONNA GUNTER

form. Visitors are notoriously shy about sharing too

much information with someone they’ve just met online. Ask for only the bare essentials like name and email address when someone opts into your list. Later on, when they get to know you, you can obtain more information when they purchase something from you, or perhaps you ask them to share more information in order to receive a special gift from you.

Amazon best-selling author, , is a digital marketing and authority positioning expert who helps her clients become known as the #1 authority in their industry. After launching her first business from her rural, East Texas hometown in 1999 using only connections made online and Internet marketing strategies, she has grown it into a multi-business enterprise. Donna has been featured on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and Fox. If you’d like to drive more traffic to your website, pick up her free report, 100 Ways to Drive More Traffic, at www.BizSmartMarketing.com/100ways 6 | ONLINE MARKETING SUCCESS MAGAZINE MAY/JUNE 2014

LIST BUILDING AND LEAD MANAGEMENT 05 Not having a compelling offer. Does your offer make your visitors think, “Yeah, that’s my problem – I’ve got to get that!” If that’s not what they’re saying, you need to re-tool your offer. Be sure that your compelling offer, typically a client attraction device, offers to solve a major problem of your target market.

06 Sending visitors to your Facebook

business (fan) page wall rather than to your opt-in form page. If you have a Facebook business page (fan page), don’t link to your business page wall. Instead, drive visitors to the opt-in page (which should resemble the squeeze page on your site), with the main objective being to add new visitors to your email list. You might even create a different client attraction device than is available on your site especially for your Facebook fans.

07 Not asking your readers to forward your ezine.

Many email marketing services don’t let you participate in co-registration programs or tell-a-friend programs because they require a double opt-in via an email confirmation for any new subscribers joining your list. So, instead, request your current subscribers to forward their copy to their friends and colleagues.

INFOGRAPHIC - CLICK HERE TO VIEW

Bonus tip: Failure to generate traffic to your site.

You won’t generate new subscribers to your list unless you have a traffic generation strategy in place. If you’re blogging, using social networking, doing article marketing, and repurposing your content, you should have a steady stream of traffic to your site.

Take a look at your web site, your blog, your social networking profiles and your squeeze page to ensure that you’re not making any of the mistakes listed above. Make any corrections needed and watch your email list grow!

CLICK TO VIEW WEBSITE

ONLINE MARKETING SUCCESS MAGAZINE MAY/JUNE 2014 | 7

CONTENT MARKETING

ARE YOU

EXHAUSTED FROM

WRITING MARKETING

CONTENT?

BY TRACEY D’AVIERO | IMAGE COURTESY OF AMBRO / FREEDIGITALPHOTOS.NET

I

f you find yourself writing tons of content each month just to get your marketing done, you may be missing the boat on some really easy ways to manage your content better.

Every time you write something, or record something, or even post something to social media, there are many tools and strategies you can use to multi-purpose your efforts.

And you can also really expand your reach by using different vehicles to get your message out there to the people you want to work with (weekly blog posts are just boring!).

HERE ARE A FEW IDEAS:

01 Transcribe an interview or a webinar. Many people think that recording an audio interview or a webinar is a ‘one item’ marketing piece. But if you have recorded something that is 20, 30, or even 60 minutes long, you have loads of content that you can reuse and repurpose in many other places. You

can have your assistant pull social media tweets that you can then post to promote that interview, or even link back to other blog posts or programs and services on your website. Short bites of content are excellent for generating traffic to where you want it. You will probably be surprised to hear how much great stuff you share in something you have recorded on a previous occasion.

02 Use a tool like Evernote to track your ideas. If you are surfing, Evernote is a terrific tool to help you gather and organize your thoughts so when you sit down to write your content, you have much more to draw on. How many times have you bookmarked a website or blog post from someone that reminded you of something that you could write about for your audience – and then never looked at it again. Evernote helps you organizes topics and categories, and really makes it easy to manage your pieces. Swipe files are also really great to

TRACEY D’AVIERO is a veteran VA and Founder of Your VA Mentor.

Tracey trains and mentors professional women and men who are brand new to the VA industry or who have been struggling to make their business successful.

Her mission is to educate professionals on how to build and grow successful and profitable virtual businesses in the VA industry by implementing systems and smart principles.

To learn more about Tracey, check out her training programs at www.yourvamentor.com

8 | ONLINE MARKETING SUCCESS MAGAZINE MAY/JUNE 2014

CONTENT MARKETING have, although they can also get pretty tough to sort through.

Using a clip service like Evernote that helps you tag things to keep them organized, is a really terrific option.

03 A neat service that I have been using lately is called If This, Then That. It allows you to create ‘recipes’ that are built on just that principle: if something (this) happens, then do something (that). It integrates with many different services out there, but one of the neat things I use it for is to track my social media. So for instance I have a recipe that takes every tweet I post, and adds it to a Google spreadsheet. I track my retweets and favourites too. As soon as I post, the spreadsheet gets updated. It also works with other services like Evernote – so when I post a blog post, I create a note there. It’s a great addition to my content management plan. There are many, many options here – check it out so you can see what might work for you.

04 Be specific and focused. When you decide to produce content for your target market, try to select just four categories to write about. The more focused you are with your writing, the more engaged your audience will remain. So think about four main things they like to hear about, and produce content solely around those four topics. You will find that you can easily branch out your topics within those categories, and your audience will keep reading – and build that know, like and trust with you – because you will know you are speaking with them about what they really want to learn from you. Clarity will come across loud and clear – and it will help your audience relate to you much faster.

05 Plan and schedule. This goes without saying, but most people just don’t do it regularly. If you plan what you want to put out there, and then schedule it so you can make sure to get it done, you will definitely produce higher quality content on a consistent basis. When you leave things to the last minute,

you will generally not write or record something that is wellplanned, and maybe you’ll even rush through it, so your call to action will suffer. Nothing can replace good planning in your business and content is a big area to implement this.

06 Finally, mix it up! Your audience is full of all types of people with all types of learning styles. While some prefer to read, others don’t like it at all. Mix up your delivery of your content. Not only does adding videos or audios to your content plan make things more interesting for your audience, it can also help you stretch yourself so you can experiment with new forms of communication. And doing something like video tips can really help you shorten that length of time that your new contacts will take to know, like and trust you.

Content marketing and planning doesn’t have to be that awful task hanging around your head each week. With a few tools, some great ideas and a little organization, you can really sharpen up what you share with your audience – and you might even enjoy it again!

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ONLINE MARKETING SUCCESS MAGAZINE MAY/JUNE 2014 | 9

MOBILE MARKETING

TWITTER’S NEW ONE TOUCH

VIDEO MOBILE ADS O

ne of the draw backs sometimes of using Twitter to point your audience to your videos and images is that people have to click on more than once to see.

They click through Twitter, then click on the video to watch it. Now, with Twitter one-touch ad videos your audience can just click once and watch the video on a mobile device. This makes a lot of sense because especially on mobile devices having to click through more than once often causes users to not view the video.

Twitter is rolling out limited access to video at this point allowing 60 top brands to use the feature. To use the feature, Twitter Cards is needed, which makes it possible for users to attach media experiences to Tweets. There are 7 card types, summary card, summary card with large image, photo card, gallery card, app card, layer card, product card. You can also get an extension to allow downloads and deep linking.

Twitter has evolved from the micro 140 character text to a multimedia friendly social network in the last year or so. Due to creations line Vine’s and Amplify’s six second video’s popularity on the micro blogging platform it just makes sense to introduce video ads. Twitter hopes to generate more money in advertising revenue. Video is becoming more and more important to Twitter’s marketing plan over time. Testing with TV commercials and sports promotions and replays have been successful.

While mobile one-touch ads are limited to 60 companies right now, small businesses can already benefit from the proliferation of video and promoted Tweets on Twitter to boost their businesses. Twitter offers reasonably priced advertising products to small businesses.

PAM IVEY

BY PAM IVEY

Promoted Accounts

These show up in the “who to follow” section and is a great way to get followers for your account.

Promoted Tweets You can promote your brand by targeting users based on search terms they have searched for including targeting specific platforms.

Promoted Trends This is a reliable source to find popular trends. The way it works with promoted trends is that you only pay if you get a follower via the promotion.

You can find out more about Twitter Ads and Paid Twitter Advertising by clicking through this link to find out more.

If you already have an account you’ll be promoted to set your time zone, and then you’ll be shown how to get more followers, reach more people with your tweets and more. You can also see extensive analytics as well as create more than one campaign at a time. Click on “Creatives” then “Cards” and you’ll be promoted to create a lead generation card. They lead you through it very carefully, no expertise is required.

You’ll need a 600px by 150px image that is no larger than 1 MB, a short description, a call to action, like to your privacy policy, and a like to a URL for more info. You can also include a Destination URL, Data Settings URL and more. Give it a try now, because eventually the video ads choice will be included because while it’s in test mode now, video is a very popular form of getting information out and there is no reason to think that it won’t work for Twitter.

is a tireless champion of the online business industry and considered a Thought Leader in Online Marketing and Outsourcing. Known for her warm and engaging manner and wide-ranging, comprehensive skills and experience, she has inspired countless entrepreneurs and other professionals to achieve greater heights in their businesses.

Always at the ready to help, she taps into the Think Big Mindset by offering training programs for ‘newbie’ to seasoned VAs, online marketing professionals, freelancers from all industries, as well as online solopreneurs and entrepreneurs. Her flagship program, Online Marketing Manager Certification began in February to rave reviews and this spring, she’ll be launching the new International Association of Online Marketing Managers. Learn more at www.OMMCertification.com.

10 | ONLINE MARKETING SUCCESS MAGAZINE MAY/JUNE 2014

PAID ADVERTISING

PINTEREST, SOCIAL MEDIA

& PAID ADVERTISING I t’s inevitable that social media platforms like Pinterest must find ways to monetize. While some consumers get upset seeing promoted pins, or promoted advertisement in their feeds it’s important to remember that this is how they can keep their communities and networks free, and how we as marketers can learn to leverage each social media platform to its fullest potential.

Ads on Pinterest make even more sense than ads on almost any other social media platform, mainly because Pinterest is so brand-centric already. Let’s just hope that Pinterest does a better job at making their advertisement fit in and look good while also delivering value to both audience and marketer than Facebook has. While Facebook’s numbers actually look great, there is a lot of backlash coming from marketing companies and brands regarding some of Facebook’s practices.

On the other hand Instagram was able to push out promoted advertising that has gone largely unnoticed (but not ineffective) and without criticism. For instance, while Facebook’s new video ads play, albeit without sound, automatically, on Instagram the user has a choice to hide the photo ad or video and is notified by symbol and word that the photo or video is sponsored. This has created a situation where the Instagram community is more accepting of the sponsored posts than the Facebook community.

Pinterest is noted to be seeking to make their promoted content as user friendly, valuable and as beautiful as their organic content. So, that’s a good sign for promoted and paid advertising on Pinterest. Since Pinterest already has a lot of control over referral traffic for e-commerce sites it’ll be interesting to see the effect more promoted and paid advertising will have on brands. In addition, what effect will it have on smaller business owners without huge advertising budgets?

BY PAM IVEY

As social media moves toward more TV like experiences for consumers, how this affects brands both small and large will be something only time will tell. Since Pinterest has created an ads API so that advertisers can create and deliver their own ads across Pinterest’s platform using their targeting data means that Pinterest is serious about creating more advertising revenue. Brands couldn’t be more excited.

According to Internet Buzz Pinterest is the newest hot job spot for digital advertisers.

Now that Pinterest has gone this far look for an IPO in the near future. If you look at the history of social media creating ad API’s you see that it wasn’t long before announcing their IPO. So, it’s just a matter of time. But, what if you are a marketer who wants to take advantage of using promoted pins and posting ads on Pinterest, what are a few tips?

01 Make them relevant Pay special attention to your targeting, using the tools Pinterest offers.

02 Make them valuable Want to promote your special fabric? Include a link to a “How-to” video or post using that special fabric making the fabric part of the story and not the whole story.

03 Use beautiful imagery

Even when a pin is promoted, it still needs to be beautiful to get clicks, repinned and shares.

Brands need to use the same pin creation techniques they used before promoted pins in order to appeal to their customers. Don’t make pins that are too much like ads, and this will turn out to be a winning marketing solution for brands.

INFOGRAPHIC - CLICK HERE TO VIEW

ONLINE MARKETING SUCCESS MAGAZINE MAY/JUNE 2014 | 11

STRATEGY

3 WAYS TO

CREATE DISRUPTIVE MARKETING MESSAGES THAT MATTER

T

BY LISA MANYON “THE BUSINESS MARKETING ARCHITECT”

here is a big difference between marketing and advertising.

The official definition as approved by the American Marketing Association is as follows: Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. (Approved July 2013) Simply put, marketing is everything you do to position, promote and connect with your prospects.

Marketing differs from advertising in a very specific way.

Advertising is paid placement of your marketing message.

This means you have full control of the content within the specified placement (i.e. radio ads, print ads, television ads, billboards and beyond).

Although advertising can work, advertising is designed to interrupt (Think about TV commercial and radio ads that are designed to be intrusive, they are not as effective as they used

to be because you can turn the channel, watch on demand programming with no commercials, mute them or even fast forward through them). So, in reality, you have the illusion of control with paid placement but you have no real control over who might see your message, let alone respond to it.

Marketing, on the other hand, is all about relationships. I’ve been teaching this approach for years. With marketing you can connect with specific people who share your worldview.

Within the curriculum of his Skillshare course, Seth Godin shares two distinct differences between the old marketing model (which is actually advertising) and the new marketing model.

A) The old model was to invest in interruption. Interruption was really valuable and you could buy it cheap. The more ads you bought, the more money you made and your brand would be valuable for a lifetime.

B) The new model is to invest in mattering. It turns out that while it’s difficult and frustrating to pull off, mattering is a

LISA MANYON is “The Business Marketing Architect.” She’s the creator of the NEW marketing model for success. Her philosophies are featured in Inc. Magazine and alongside visionaries Richard Branson, Jessica Jackley, Arianna Huffington and B Corporations like Ben and Jerry’s in the bestselling books Wonder Women: How Western Women Will Save The World and Engage: Your Step by Step Guide to Creating a Workplace that You, Your Co-workers and Your Customers Love! An award-winning blogger and president of www.writeoncreative.com Lisa focuses on turning prospects into paying customers. She offers a FREE Copywriting Action Plan on her award-winning blog here http://writeoncreative.com/woc-ezine/

12 | ONLINE MARKETING SUCCESS MAGAZINE MAY/JUNE 2014

STRATEGY bargain. It’s about deciding to matter. To matter in what you make and to matter in the way you talk about it.

For example: When I introduced The NEW Marketing Model

He also mentioned that it’s really easy to copy someone else than to MATTER, to stand for something (my personal pet peeve — be original already).

copywriting formula, it caused a buzz because it’s contrary to

This made me think of disruptive marketing.

matters and challenging the norm I’ve been disruptive and that

Disruptive marketing is marketing that matters by taking a stand for something. Marketing that makes some noise (shakes up the status quo) by taking a stand. Marketing that supports a movement.

has naturally drawn media attention and organic exposure in

This is the kind of marketing that I do and I suggest you consider learning how to create disruptive marketing messages that matter.

Being disruptive challenges the status quo.

Being disruptive breaks the trance.

Being disruptive matters (it’s not intrusive, it creates a movement).

for Success via my “Challenge. Solution. Invitation.™” the traditional formula of problem, agitate and solve. It’s a small shift that’s making a big difference. By creating something that

bestselling books and beyond. My formula is also making a difference because it matters to me and to my ideal clients.

When you’re ready to tell your story, take a stand and create disruptive marketing messages that matter, I can help by meeting you exactly where you are when you need copy, have copy that needs help or just want to write better copy yourself with a FREE Copywriting Action Plan to help you create marketing messages that matter.

Here are three ways to create disruptive marketing messages that matter.

01 Decide that you want to make a difference and be very clear about what that difference is (I help my preferred clients dig into this when we work together to create marketing messages with integrity).

02

Infuse your values into what you market so it matters to you and to your tribe.

03

Face your fear of being afraid to go against the grain and challenge the norm. We need you to be a contrarian to change the world.

Once you have these three pieces in place, you’ll want to create a strategy and craft your message in way that matters and in a way that is disruptive.

. .it matters to me and to my ideal clients.

I’ll leave you with another quote from Seth Godin.

“Copywriting is way, way, UNDERRATED. The fact is almost everyone knows how to type and almost no one knows how to write copy. You’re going to have to invest time to learn how to do it or money to hire the best person you can afford. We are still driven by text. The words you use will amplify your story and a copywriter knows how to put those words together in a way that helps you bring that idea forward.” ~ Seth Godin via The Modern Marketing Skillshare course.

Lisa Manyon

CLICK AD TO VIEW WEBSITE “The Business Marketing Architect” A Content & Copywriting Strategist for Mission-Driven Entrepreneurs

Discover the NEW marketing model for success and get your FREE Copywriting Action Plan

As Seen In

to help you improve all of your marketing messages (as seen in Inc. Magazine and Wonder Women: How Western Women Will Save the World). www.writeoncreative.com ~ Powerfully communicating your marketing message to get results! ~

ONLINE MARKETING SUCCESS MAGAZINE MAY/JUNE 2014 | 13

INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT

GARY HENDERSON SELF-MADE DIGITAL MARKETING AUTHORITY

G

ary Henderson is what you would call a veteran in the digital marketing space, yet he’s only 32. During his brilliant rise in the world of online marketing, he has been fortunate to work with major brands like AT&T, Ford Motor Company and even celebrities like Christina Aguilera and Carrot Top. Last year, Gary’s business, Interactivity Marketing, of which he is Founder and CEO, made over 7 figures. Gary believes in hiring people for strategy more than tactics and has also inaugurated a dynamic employee apprenticeship program in his company. Gary’s over-arching theme for business success is to stay in integrity while sharing your knowledge generously with others.

Kate:

When did you first find out about online marketing, digital marketing and where did you go from there?

Gary: I’m 32 years old. I started my first online agency when I was 20. I’d been doing digital marketing for a year or two prior to that. We really started doing email marketing. I was one of the first companies in the United States to do video email.

We had clients like Christina Aguilera, Carrot Top and AT & T. And we sent videos through email. So traditionally, and this was back in the day when there were spammers, people would send a bunch of emails and they’d have a picture or a text message. And we used video email, so they could click the button inside the email and have the video played inside the email. But no one was allowed, but back in the day, we were one of the first companies to do it.

There are constantly new things coming out, whether it’s Facebook or who knows what will be hot next. I just heard that Pinterest is now coming out with an app platform. One of the 14 | ONLINE MARKETING SUCCESS MAGAZINE MAY/JUNE 2014

BY KATE SMITH things we’re trying, we’re trying to get data access to that so we’re ready to launch for clients when Pinterest has their app platform launched because that’s one of the new things our clients will want.

Kate: So you’re practically a veteran.

Gary: In the online space, I should be retired by now. We work hard every day. We had failures. Sometimes I tried things that the market wasn’t ready for. I think through my tenure of being an online marketer, I’ve learned enough about what will work or what won’t. And I can see through the majority of things that launch and will eventually fail, and steer my clients away from that. Everybody gets the shiny object syndrome. Google+ just came out. We all need to dive into Google+. Maybe you do.

Maybe you don’t. Let’s think about it and let’s really play it out if we need to invest in our time on this platform.

Kate: What’s one thing you learned along the way that’s been a game-changing a-ha moment during your tenure in this area?

Gary: Synchronized performance. So many people will hire a SEO person or someone do to Facebook ads or someone to go Google ads or someone do their social media, thinking they have the magic pill. Or they’ll hire a team of what they call ‘experts’ to do all the things. The problem with that is they all work together hand-in-hand. So driving traffic to a website, the traffic is only as good as the landing page will convert. You have to have the right offer to get the landing page to convert.

You have to have a good lead magnet. You have to have a good call to action. You have to have good design work.

And then when they optin, you have to have good sales funnel behind the scenes in order to convert that into spending

INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT money with you or taking the next step, whatever that next step is. Then you have to have a sales team maybe that gets on the phone with them or maybe you have to have a brick and mortar team to field their responses when they call in.

It’s the synchronized performance of everything. I think when companies realize that and they take strategy as a whole and they put the tactics into a synchronized plan, they are wildly successful. Companies that I see failing today are the companies that say I just want SEO or I just need a new sales funnel because having the right sales funnel is great but if it produces no traffic, there’s no money. It’s almost like building the very best restaurant sitting the woods and not putting up a sign.

Kate:

As an entrepreneur, what has been your biggest challenge to overcome?

Gary: Finding my niche. We just did 7 figures last year.

Success wasn’t as easy as it is now because we finally found a niche of people who aligned with us that related to us that needed the products and services we’re offering and we found the right way to package it. I think it’s about that synchronized performance. Prior to sticking to my guns on that, if a client would come to me and wanted SEO, I’d do it because I needed money. But once I got to the point where I didn’t need money and could stick to my integrity and stick to my guns, everything changed. Now we get our ideal client 98% of the time. So that’s been my biggest challenge is getting to the point where I’m comfortable with what we do, how we do it and why we do it and when we do it in order to really help the client.

Kate: Has it been a challenge hiring a team that works for you in the online space?

Gary: We’re starting a new apprenticeship program in my company. I think the traditional US educational systems is broken. Students are graduating with a 4-year degree and are

absolutely clueless about what to do in the world. They’re not set up to be an employee. A friend of mind has a master’s degree and when she was getting ready to do practical work, they told her to go work in a digital agency because otherwise she wouldn’t get a job when she graduated.

Our apprenticeship program is a 6-12 month program depending on how fast people work. It’s based on your speed but it’s an apprenticeship. You have a 4-year degree in a communication, psychology, sociology, or some related field.

We’re going to teach you how to be an online marketer. We’re going to pay you a salary and we’re going to teach you. And at the end of the six to 12 months. you’re going to be qualified to be one of our full-time employees.

Kate: That is really cool. What a great way to develop people.

Gary: We’ll pay you to come and learn from us. In the area that I live in, just to put it into perspective, $35,000 is about 30% higher than the median household income in my county.

It is a really nice salary.

Kate:

Can you give us one technique or strategy you find invaluable in making your business work better?

Gary: Multi-channel communication. A lot of people build an email list and say I’m going to email my list every week. And that’s awesome. I think you need more touches. The general rule of thumb is somebody needs to see something 7 times in order to have it resonate or take action on it. And we say you need to see something in multiple avenues.

So they need to get it in an email. They need to see it on Facebook. They need to see it on Twitter. They maybe need to get a direct mail piece about it. They may need to get a phone call about it. They maybe need to get a text message about it.

If you can do the multi-channel conversations, then that will be more effective.

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ONLINE MARKETING SUCCESS MAGAZINE MAY/JUNE 2014 | 15

INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT Kate: What roles or activities do you delegate to your team?

Gary: My team does everything. I do the overarching strategy for clients and I field all business development of my company.

Other than that, my team does all the tactical work. In so many ways, I’m an evangelist. I’m travelling. I’m shaking hands.

I’m meeting new people. I’m doing all these things to help our company grow. I’m building relationships, networks and bringing in the right clients that keep our company growing.

We’re anticipating 8 new employees over the next four months.

That will be at least $300,000 to $400,000 in new salaries over the next few months.

Kate: Do you have a virtual team?

Gary: We are 100% brick and mortar. It’s extremely important to me to have every employee inside my office. I travel a lot but I need my employees there. I need to know where they are. I need to be able to hit the button and do a Google+ Hangout with them. And there is something to be said about grabbing the team, jumping into the conference room and pulling up the white board and drawing up stuff. I think you lose that when you’re virtual.

Kate: What is your favourite go to tool or system?

Gary: I love Twitter and Facebook to find out what’s going on and the pulse of the industry. I also use LucidCharts.com and Mindmeister.com for mapping and brain dumping. We do a lot of Facebook ads inside our company and that’s a dayparting platform. What that means is if you did $240 of ads on Facebook, Facebook will try to spend about $10 an hour

just by default. We notice that at certain times of the day, ads will perform better than at other times. We use a tool called SocialAdsTool. So we can say we want to run this ad between 2 and 4 and stop it from 4 to 7 and then start it again from 7 to 8am the next morning and run it again for two hours. So it gives us full control over the ad. It also gives us the reporting system of what the cost per conversion is per hour of the day so we know if we’re getting cheaper conversions or more expensive conversions. That’s the hidden Ninja trick that we do. We share it with everyone. I am a fan of the more people do things the right way, the better it is for everyone. There are tons of clients for us all.

Kate:

Do you have any comment about the latest trends social media, conversion, reputation management, etc.?

Gary: You have to build a brand and build concept. So if you build a concept that people want to read, want to interact with and want to share, and you build a reputable brand, you will succeed at the game of SEO. There are no quick fixes. There are no magic bullets or pills, especially none that will last the long term.

When you get into Facebook and social media, I think a lot of organic search is going away. The reach on Facebook is tremendously down. Twitter has an app platform that’s growing like wildfire. Pinterest just announced a new app platform.

The consumers are there and you’ve got companies that are offering a free service like Facebook and Twitter or Pinterest.

They have to monetize that service to make money in some way, shape, form or fashion. They’re going to continually push down the reach of organic social media and push the reach of

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INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT paid social media. So social media without a paid strategy, in my opinion in the next 12 to 18 months, will be non-existent.

Kate:

What would be some of the top skills that you’d be looking for in an Online Marketing Manager if you were to hire a virtual team member in this regard?

Gary: I think the tactics can be learned. I hire more for strategy. I think it’s easy to learn to create a Facebook ad or how to do a Google ad. It’s the strategy of knowing when to use it, how to use it and why to use it. So having strategic thinkers and creative thinkers is the best thing I think you can do as an Online Marketing Manager or, in all honesty, as any marketing person. The tactics are going to grow and change.

I use the example of MySpace. MySpace was big. And now it’s non-existent. Right now Facebook’s big. What happens when Facebook goes away? Hiring someone who is on top of the tactics that work today, and is constantly learning the tactics that work and who understands the strategy needed to generate the result or solve the problem is critical. It’s paying the person who knows which lights to turn on, not paying the person to turn on the light switch.

to people. And all that giving is not about selling. I know if I give the right knowledge and I share generously, that I will get my fair share of clients.

Online people tend to be stingy with a tactic that’s working for them or a software that’s they’re using. Give your knowledge.

Share your knowledge. Feel confident in what you do.

I encourage my competitors to come and receive trainings from me. At the same time, I have no problem paying my competitors to go take their training. There is always something new I can learn. Check your ego at the door. Give more than you receive and when you do that, you’ll get more than you know what to do with.

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Kate: That’s a great analogy.

Gary: So when you go to hire an Onilne Marketing Manager, don’t quiz them on what screen you go into inside Facebook in order to determine how much money you spent over the last week. Quiz them on strategy and say “I need to put 150 leads into this program by tomorrow. What can I do”? And see what they come up with. Make it a strategic conversation rather than a tactical conversation.

Kate: Any other words of wisdom?

Gary: Give and you shall receive. Don’t be afraid to give your knowledge and advice to other people and don’t be afraid to receive knowledge and advice from other people. I always give more than I receive. I enter communities. I enter events. I talk

Follow OMS Magazine on Facebook: www.facebook.com/onlinemarketingmanagermagazine

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ONLINE MARKETING SUCCESS MAGAZINE MAY/JUNE 2014 | 17

CONTENT MARKETING

ORGANIC COMMUNITY BUILDING:

YOU CAN’T BUY THEIR LOVE

BY ANASTASIA VALENTINE

I’

m sure I’m not the only marketer that has heard these requests:

I want more like’s!

Get us more share’s!

I want a bigger list!

We need more followers!

Buy us a community!

Create a viral video! Or even better. Here’s a video we created, make it go viral! Yes I’ll make sure I’ll turn on the “Go Viral” switch when we upload it.

Society is HUGE on the click to get a fix mentality. It is understandable to get a brand ego boost when your company reaches 1,000, 10,000 , 100,000 + like’s , followers, shares, etc… Let’s face it, it’s a great feeling and achievement when it is earned.

ANASTASIA

KEEPING UP APPEARANCES – THE SAVVY CAN’T BE FOOLED Keeping up appearances may work for a while but at the end of the day, consumers are more savvy than ever! If your brand is communicating with a community that is bought and paid for, you may be the only one hearing your virtual voice. The only way to get real honest to goodness potential clients and people who are truly interested in what you have to say or sell is by providing incremental value at every single click.

Organic community building is like organic gardening. It’s hard work, rewarding, fulfilling, good for you (your company) and yields high quality (communities)!

Your company can attempt to shortcut community and buy your way into a false level of recognition but at the end of the day – phoney communities won’t pay the bills.

ABOUT ANASTASIA VALENTINE

has been bringing ideas to market for global companies, startups and helping small businesses make their ideas reality for over 20 years. She is a passionate ideator, positive instigator, a results and facts driven business strategist and compassionate leader and visionary. Anastasia works with all sizes of organizations through her companies Sandbox and Sandbox PR to tap into their talent, invest in their culture and even look within themselves for the “next big thing.”

As a sought after speaker, Anastasia delivers talks and workshops to organizations and at industry conferences worldwide designed to inspire, motivate and educate. She is also the host of the weekly @AVV Biz Talk Radio show debunking business myths with facts and sass.

Learn more at www.sandboxpm.com and www.sandbox-pr.com 18 | ONLINE MARKETING SUCCESS MAGAZINE MAY/JUNE 2014

CONTENT MARKETING ORGANIC COMMUNITY BUILDING WITH INCREMENTAL VALUE AT EVERY CLICK You can’t buy love but you can attract it with value. Content is king or queen but it is also important to know your audience.

The trick is to provide the content value based on your current relationship status with the prospect or customer.

At first visit a customer gets access to free content, blogs, information and eye candy. The age of stealth mode, tag lines that sell and brochures are GONE. Content that provides entry-level value, piques the interest of a new comer and creates return visitors. Their next step is taking the relationship to the next level by responding to a strong call.

You aren’t giving it all away, just a taste of what they can expect if they get to know your company and brand.

They usually get lost between the first signup and the next wave of signups for the new incentive. Remember, back to the base sales cost your organization LESS than attracting net new customers. Promote the opt-ins everywhere including socially, at speaking engagements, podcast, radio or other press appearances, email signatures, and even rectangle things some people still use…yes business cards.

Once you have your prospects this close, it is your opportunity to lose. Your community will continue to grow organically if your content, communications and corporate culture are truly aligned with your target customer. Like attracts like which simply means the more perfect fit customers you attract, the more people just like them will take notice. This organic movement of liking, following, sharing will attract more of your target audience, provided you have targeted accurately.

A PLAN FOR CONTINUAL DAILY ENGAGEMENT

You can’t buy love but you can attract it with value.

The value of content gets higher with quid pro quo. A user signs up receives access to regular communications, offers, invitations and of course the opt-in incentive. Your opt-in should align with your target audience and offerings. Consider your opt in as one of the last stepping stones to conversion or paying customer.

Ensure your opt-ins don’t get stale and mix it up on a quarterly, biannually or annual basis to continually generate interest.

New opt ins are a great opportunity to go back to your base with good news! Make sure existing subscribers don’t get forgotten with the new opt-ins.

Most brands take weekends off. Don’t make that rookie mistake as you continually grow your community using the Attract, Engage, Inform and Convert methodology on a daily basis.

ATTRACT: Go out and follow or connect with your perfect fit customers and people just like them. This puts your brand on their radar and the radar of your network

ENGAGE:

Make genuine conversation. Ask and respond to questions. Follow up and follow through. Cultivate those relationships online.

INFORM:

Provide information that aligns with your brand, offerings, industry and that is of interest to your target market.

This doesn’t only have to be your content but try for a healthy mix of home grown and reputable content to share.

CONVERT: The big ASK! What do you want your community to do? Be specific! Give a timeline! Tell them HOW! Don’t assume your community knows what your company wants them to do or how, they must be coached to convert!

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ONLINE MARKETING SUCCESS MAGAZINE MAY/JUNE 2014 | 19

STRATEGY

IN LEAD GENERATION YOUR NICHE IS FOR YOU, NOT FOR THEM L

ots of people will say “you have to know your niche” when it comes to lead generation. And it’s true. Without a firm understanding of who you’re going after, you can easily end up wasting time, money and gray-matter attracting folks you shouldn’t be talking to.

However, I see a lot of salespeople simply create a demographic breakdown of who they feel is “qualified” to buy their wares and then run with that. Sadly, they don’t understand the true power behind knowing their niche.

WRITTEN BY ERIK LUHRS

You see, your niche is not there to help your niche know you.

It’s for you to know them – first!

In our company we go through a rigorous Q&A to help clients identify the niches they want and should be working with. We start with demographics, then move into Descriptive Dynamics and then finally move into Individual Experience Qualifiers.

Many of our clients say this process causes them to restructure their entire business model, because they realize they’ve been spinning their wheels up to then.

ERIK LUHRS is known as “The Bruce Lee of Sales & Lead Generation.” He is the creator of The GURUS Selling System and author of the book ‘BE DO SALE.’ Erik is the ONLY expert in the world on Front-Loaded Lead Generation, Persona-Positioning, Lead Generation Message Linguistics, and Subconscious Lead Generation Triggers!

Erik is also a Master Practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), and he is certified in The Silva Method and Accelerated Learning. And he has been featured by Forbes, Selling Power, Entrepreneur, Fox Business News, Sales Gravy, Salesforce, Chief Executive and BNET. 20 | ONLINE MARKETING SUCCESS MAGAZINE MAY/JUNE 2014

STRATEGY Although there a lot of great outcomes from our processes there are three big ones that most folks, using only the demographics model, will miss.

REINFORCEMENT

Most folks will answer some basic niche questions, put them on paper and then forget them ten minutes later. Simply, when you’re out in the world, and hungry for sales, everyone looks like a prospect. This is why you can choose a niche and still end up chasing anything with a budget.

Instead, the point of a well formed niche is to reinforce who you desire to work with so that you avoid the distraction of all the “potential prospects” out there and focus solely on the “definite prospects.”

CREATION

When you do niche creation correctly you go beyond a list of qualifications and literally create a friend. You are designing someone you look forward to meeting and vice versa. You create them in your mind in minute detail before they appear in reality.

Once you know and feel the prospect you seek your Reticular Activating System will engage automatically. Basically, your subconscious mind, which is far more efficient and effective than the conscious mind, will take over and you will swiftly “see” more of the people you seek to engage.

COMMUNICATION

As soon as you know who you should really be dealing with you start communicating with them…in your head. You begin to think about all the different things you will discuss and all of the alignments in understanding you will create to help them benefit from what you sell. Conversely, you will also start to perceive more of their issues, so you can adapt what you do, what you offer and how you offer it to better serve them.

This is not about brainstorming ways to overcome objections.

It is about preparing the experience you wish to create with the prospect once you’ve found them, so you can engage them like an old friend because, in a way, they already are.

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ONLINE MARKETING SUCCESS MAGAZINE MAY/JUNE 2014 | 21

CONTENT MARKETING

5

WAYS YOU CAN WRITE COMPELLING HEADLINES THAT GET

C

RESULTS

BY STEPHANIE WATSON

02 DON’T BE CLEVER

rafting a compelling headline that makes a reader want to click through and read your content is one of the most important aspects of writing content.

Without a headline that makes the reader curious, they’re simply not going to click through. Most people are scanning thousands of headlines a day, and they choose a very small amount of these headlines to actually read. You want yours to be the one that gets read, and that can happen if you follow these tips.

In the old days of newspaper writing, puns were common. But on the web it’s imperative that you are clear in your headline and that when the reader clicks through to read your content that they don’t feel misled. Be very explicit by telling the reader what exactly is in the content they are going to read. For instance this very article you’re reading. I could have called it Write Headlines For Your Content and that would be okay, but it’s so much better to say 5 Ways You Can Write Compelling Headlines That Get Results.

01 USE LISTS & NUMBERS

05 IGNORE YOUR ENGLISH TEACHER

You have to remember that people read differently on the web than they read in books. On the web people tend to scan down, vertically. That’s why lists draw attention to the reader. Not only is it something they can scan down but they also feel like they can get through a list quickly. Time is an important element when reading the vast quantity of material on the web. Lists imply a lot of information that’s easy to read.

You probably learned in English class not to use personal pronouns in your writing. The thing is, writing for the web is different than a college dissertation. You are writing to a particular audience and should be able to address them using personal pronouns and job titles. Address your reader not only in your content but in your headline. If you know that your

ABOUT STEPHANIE WATSON With more than 20 years experience working from home in a variety of roles such as HTML Website Designer, Internet Marketer, Template Bender, and Virtual Assistant, today Stephanie is an author and content strategist who organizes, plans, writes and implements content strategies for business owners through her business at Barry Publishing.

You can find her at Linkedin.com www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniewatsonbarry and contact her via her website www.barrypublishing.com.

22 | ONLINE MARKETING SUCCESS MAGAZINE MAY/JUNE 2014

CONTENT MARKETING audience consist of electrical engineers you best address them in the headline in some way. That way all electrical engineers will know to click on the link to your content.

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04 KNOW WHAT’S BEING SEARCHED When your audience searches for you, what are they imputing into the search window? To ensure that your title is the most SEO friendly that it can be, you’ll need to make sure that your headline is optimized according to the search terms your audience will be seeking information about. My first thought when writing this article was so call it Creating Headlines for Your Content. But, when I found out what people search for its “writing headlines” that people search for not creating headlines.

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Headlines matter, because if you don’t have a great headline no one will read your fabulous content.

05 GIVE THEM A WHY Why should they click through to read your content? In the headline in this article I tell you why. Because the tips I give you “get results”. There isn’t much more I can say that is more clear than that. You’re going to learn five ways to write compelling headlines that get results. If you are trying to write headlines you’ll want to read the content.

If you follow these five ways for writing compelling headlines you will get on the right track to earning better results from all your online content marketing. Headlines matter, because if you don’t have a great headline no one will read your fabulous content.

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ONLINE MARKETING SUCCESS MAGAZINE MAY/JUNE 2014 | 23

SOCIAL MEDIA

VISUAL TWEETS GET MORE

S

D

id you know that on Twitter over 700 Youtube videos are shared every minute according to Youtube? It’s really not a surprise. It’s just a fact of life that we live in a visual world. People love seeing pictures, and viewing things in a visual way, especially when combined with audio, more than they like reading text. This is why adding pictures and video to your content marketing is an essential part of marketing online. This is true even when you are using the micro-blogging platform Twitter.

Visual content is an important addition to your content marketing efforts. The facts are clear. We know due to neurological studies that 90 percent of information transmitted to the brain is visual. Knowing that, it’s not really surprising that Twitter Stats show that sharing a image or video always gets more retweets than text based Tweets only.

BY PAM IVEY Here are some ways in which you can add visual content to your Tweets.

Infographics

These are long images that transform data into visual information that is easier for the viewer to grasp. What’s more, the viewer is more likely to share it in multiple ways from linking to it on their own website, to sharing on other social media, to re-tweeting it on Twitter.

Memes Images that have a relevant quote with a touching picture are shared more than a quote without a touching picture. You want to get your words out there for people to view, why not create your own quotes into touching memes. They don’t have to be quotes from famous people.

Try using Twitpic.com to share photos on Twitter.

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24 | ONLINE MARKETING SUCCESS MAGAZINE MAY/JUNE 2014

SOCIAL MEDIA Mindmaps

These are nifty little pictorials or diagrams that can show a lot of information in a short amount of space that users can take in essentially in one glance. A central topic is connected by branches to four or five headlines, which are then connected each to four or five subtopics. It’s a great way to start a conversation.

onlinemarketing Magazine SUCCESSMagazine

Short Videos

Using Twitpic.com, Twitvid.com or Twitter owned Vine.com to share short 6 second or less looping videos on Twitter.com. Short videos are more likely to get re-tweeted than plain text or even pictures if they’re interesting enough.

is a rich resource to help online marketing consultants and other service providers step into their power with confidence and know-how.

The reasons you should share more images and video content on Twitter and other social media is that it works to increase sales because more people are likely to view it. Users like to interact with visual content because it’s just simply more fun and easier to interact with and share video and image content than other types of content.

Do you have a story that demonstrates a way forward and can be just the information or insight they need when they reach roadblocks or feel like giving up on their business dreams?

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, on Twitter you only have 140 characters, but with the addition of images and video you can say so much more and be even more creative in all of your online social media marketing including Twitter.com.

Connect with us at kate@omsmagazine.com with your story idea.

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ONLINE MARKETING SUCCESS MAGAZINE MAY/JUNE 2014 | 25

STRATEGY

IDENTIFYING YOUR

IDEAL CUSTOMER

Y

ou cannot be everything to everyone but you can be the best something for someone.

Before selecting your online marketing strategy, it’s important to look at what’s involved in targeting your brand to reach its ideal customer.

One of the most critical strategic branding decisions you need to make is defining what your brand stands for. And the next step, regardless of the type of business you have, is to define a specific target market to reach. The more focused your market definition, the easier it will be to make sales and the more sales you will make.

How you define your target market drives critical areas of focus, two of which are:

01

the customers and prospects you’ll be going after

02

how you’ll serve those customers

If you make a mistake here (or worse, refuse to impose these limits on yourself), it could mean you will:

01

be spending time and money on people who will never buy from you

02

miss opportunities that you could have pursued

LINDA M. LOPEKE

BY LINDA M. LOPEKE

03 invest

in developing skills and competencies that won’t yield a solid return

04 be

unable to see opportunities where you can or could be the only player

05 over or under respond to your competitors Once you’ve determined your target market, you define the pool of potential ideal customers using standard descriptions that tell you as much as you can learn about who these people who might buy from you really are. Traditionally, we break down the ideal customer by their: situational characteristics needs/values/attitudes behavioural characteristics and demographics For a real-life example, here’s the breakdown of the ideal customer in the target market for a Career Success Program marketed by one of our clients.

SITUATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS:

NEEDS / VALUES / ATTITUDES: Top 3 emotional needs: eliminate worry over making career-killing mistakes,

is an internationally recognized authority on business management and creator of the award-winning SMARTSTART programs. She teaches creative entrepreneurs how to take decisive action so they can get their greatest work out into the world.. Click the link for more useful advice from www.smartstartcoach.com.

26 | ONLINE MARKETING SUCCESS MAGAZINE MAY/JUNE 2014

new grad,

new hire, or making a career transition

STRATEGY address concerns about how to survive in the age of job insecurity, promote seeking a sense of self while working to provide for themselves and their families Values: respect, professional recognition, advancement, competitive pricing, newness and innovation, socially and environmentally conscious

delivers 4 things: competitive pricing, a do-gooder brand, newness and innovation, and a feeling of discovery. Which means the key to success in selling to this market is to take risks, be relevant and stay connected.

Positive attitudes: work/life balance, pay for performance, sense of contribution, feeling of discovery and #1 driver is having total control over their media

Your chance of success in marketing a brand is greatly improved by knowing exactly what you plan to sell and to whom. When you focus exclusively on your best opportunities, you can make the best use of all your resources.

BEHAVIOURAL CHARACTERISTICS:

technology and media savvy, social networking, invested in higher education and professional development, most engaged between hours of 8pm to 10pm, media usage split almost equally between internet and cell phones, they consume as voyeurs first, participants second

DEMOGRAPHICS: millenials (second largest group after Baby Boomers), born between 1980 and 2001, 74M of them with $350B to spend Based on comprehensive research, the target market/ideal customer will buy this program from the client if it consistently

This is the kind of learning and high level thinking you have to do about your own target market and ideal customers.

Don’t worry, you’re not excluding other markets – they’ll still be attracted to you in other ways. It’s just that if you try to be something to everyone, you’ll end up being nothing to anyone. That’s not the way to grow your business into something that can provide you with a reliable revenue stream and personal income.

REMEMBER: Your brand tells a story written in emotional shorthand. And it’s not what you say it is, it’s what they say it is. That’s because marketing is not what you are selling, it’s always about what people are buying.

MEET

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An easy-to-use platform that lets you quickly create beautiful membership sites, right in your web browser.

Nothing to download or install. No hosting necessary.

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ONLINE MARKETING SUCCESS MAGAZINE MAY/JUNE 2014 | 27

SOCIAL MEDIA

WHAT’S MORE IMPORTANT, CLICKS, VIEWS OR TIME?

TV

adverting has always been based on choosing the right time slot, on the right show. Knowing who the viewers were was part of studying your audience. There was no way to target the ads for “clicks”, “impressions” or “page views” or other metrics we use for online advertising. For a long time, the metrics showing clicks, and page views were great ways to determine the value of any particular advertisement. But, as the Internet grows up, are clicks and page views still a good metric?

The way it works now is that an advertisement is purchased, and users are either billed per click or per impression or a combination of the two. While clicks are a good indicator that the advertisement was at least seen, it doesn’t guarantee the ad was seen by a real person. Click fraud has seen to that.

Impressions are not a good indicator either because no one know s whether or not the ads were really seen just because an impression was recorded.

Enter “viewable impressions” and time monitored viewable impressions. Time is not a new concept. It is already used when it comes to videos because the technology can determine how much of a video a view watched. Knowing how many users are actually engaging with your content is an important fundamental element in determining if advertising is useful. With this model, advertisers are only charged if ads are viewed.

What’s more, advertisers can purchase the ads to show in certain time slots on certain websites. This makes them even more useful and a lot more like TV advertisements. Coupled

28 | ONLINE MARKETING SUCCESS MAGAZINE MAY/JUNE 2014

BY PAM IVEY with the technology that allows advertisers to be sure that their audience is viewing the ads, this new way to purchase digital ads will become more popular. Now advertisers will get billed more fairly.

The ability to view real time reports that show user engagement is another feature of viewable time based impressions that can help ensure that your ad is really being seen. Using time based metrics if your ad isn’t actually visible based on user engagement for at least 30 seconds, no impressions are counted. If the user opens a different application or goes to another program on the computer, the time is interrupted and counting stops.

A really good example of this technology is on www.Meetrics.com.

You can experiment with the page, open a new window and click away from the page and the counting stops. Scroll up and down and the counting changes. This is a better way to determine if advertisements are being viewed and eliminates the problem of click fraud. This type of advertising will become popular on desktops, mobile devices and work very well on social media as they become more widely available.

This new model of digital ad placement brings up a lot of questions. With less ad inventory will the prices go up?

Will small businesses be able to compete with the price?

What do you think of viewable impressions and time based advertisement? Do you like the old model of clicks and / or impressions? What kinds of concerns do you have with this new model?

UPCOMING EVENTS Have an event you’d like included in our list? Drop us a line with all of the details to editor@omsmagazine.com

DATES

EVENT NAME

LOCATION URL/ABOUT

May 7, 2014 DigitalMedia Summit Toronto http://digitalmediasummit.ca/

SOCIAL MEDIA & INTERACTIVE MARKETING May 7 - 9, 2014

Authority Intensive Denver http://my.copyblogger.com/authority-intensive/ by copyblogger CONTENT MARKETING

May 13 - 14, 2014 SMX London London http://searchmarketingexpo.com/london/

SEARCH MARKETING May 13 - 14, 2014 The Incite Summit: West San Francisco http://www.incitemc.com/west/

CMO MARKETING May 14 - 16, 2014

ClickZ Live Toronto Toronto http://sesconference.com/toronto/ (formerly SES Conference & Expo) SOCIAL MEDIA, PAID SEARCH, SEO

May 27 - 28, 2014 SMX Sydney Sydney http://searchmarketingexpo.com/go/sydney

SEARCH MARKETING June 10 - 11, 2014 SMX Advanced Seattle Seattle http://searchmarketingexpo.com/advanced/

SEARCH MARKETING June 11 - 12, 2014 Social Media Strategies Summit New York

http://2014.socialmediastrategiessummit.com/new-york-2014/ SOCIAL MEDIA

June 16 - 17, 2014 SMX Paris Paris http://smxfrance.com/

SEARCH MARKETING June 17 - 19, 2014 Internet World London http://www.internetworld.co.uk/

DIGITAL MARKETING June 17 - 19, 2014 Conversion Conference Chicago http://conversionconference.com/ccc14-home.htm Conversion June 24 - 27, 2014 Amsterdam Affiliate Conference Amsterdam http://www.igbaffiliate.com/events/amsterdamaffiliateconference/

AFFILIATE MARKETING July 8 - 9, 2014 Ad Tech Kyushu Kyushu http://www.adtech-kyushu.com/en

DIGITAL MARKETING July 14 - 16, 2014 MozCon Seattle http://moz.com/mozcon

SEO, CONTENT, PPC, ANALYTICS, SOCIAL MEDIA August 10 - 12, 2014 Affiliate Summit East New York

http://www.affiliatesummit.com/ AFFILIATE MARKETING

September 8 - 11, 2014 Content Marketing World Cleveland http://www.contentmarketingworld.com

CONTENT MARKETING September 11 & 12, 2014 SearchLove Conference San Diego https://www.distilled.net/events/searchlove-sandiego/ SEO September 15 - 18, 2014 Inbound Marketing Summit Boston http://www.inbound.com/

INBOUND MARKETING ONLINE MARKETING SUCCESS MAGAZINE MAY/JUNE 2014 | 29

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Create a highly effective marketing strategy to WOW your clients Just explaining the system will make them want to hire your services.

www.OMMCertif ication.com Nex t program begins June 16th. Applications are now being accepted.