Know how you plan to grow!

Here’s the deal.  If you have a business, and you don’t have a plan for how to grow.. you are already failing.  You need to at least have a hypothesis by which you believe you can achieve SCALE-ABLE GROWTH.  And there is not reason to not grow.. here are the top strategies.. the key is always test (“Is your strategy working?”):

  1. you will grow by viral behaviour.  Once you get a boost of new players, you will auto-grow because your virality is above 1.0.
  2. you will grow by advertising.  You make enough profit $$ per item/customer (after acquisition costs) that it justifies continued ramped up investments in advertising.
  3. you will grow by retention and word-of-mouth.  Similar to virailty, but more personal.  you will retain your customers so well, they keep buying more and more and even bring friends occasionally.
  4. you will grow by ‘free’ marketing.  People are searching for what you got, and your SEO will help them find you in a scalable fashion. (p.s. this is very difficult)
  5. you will grow by hiring a sales-force and hunting out the best customers.
What’s your strategy?
Got any others to add to this list?

Social Network Posts… Work.

This week Buddy Media sent an email to their subscribers with advice on how to make good Social Network Posts…  Two interesting nuggets here:  1.) Email Marketing works… I opened it, read it, and liked it.  2.) The advice is right on target.  Post short messages, use full URLs, ask for a call to action, and post outside business hours.  In fact, their findings: 20% higher engagement when posting off-hours, is perhaps conservative, (I’ve seen 75%-100% higher engagement when posting off-hours).

How do you post off-hours? Why not use my PostOnTime.com tool?  It lets you schedule posts for whenever you want (even when you are out of office). It also gives you awesome options such as photo upload posts, and more…  http://postontime.com  Try it Free! 🙂

Learn Quickly the Cost of Acquiring a Customer

One of the most common advice I give to aspiring entrepreneurs about their business plans is to Learn as fast as possible the true cost of acquiring a customer.  Why?  It tells you quickly how viable your business is AND helps you to focus your message.

One of the easiest ways to do this is to run a test ad campaign with several simple landing pages.  Can you convince some (hopefully targeted) web traffic to convert into interest? Can you convince them to become a buyer?  How much did it cost to get 10 customers?  (divide that cost by 10 and you have a rough idea how much it will cost to acquire customers in the future).  Too high?  Consider A/B Testing new landing pages, or being more targeted… or maybe even improving the offering (the product).

Get Busy!  Test. This book (which I thought was quite good, especially for engineer-type thinkers) may help:
http://37signals.com/rework/

Make Sticky Products & Sticky Marketing

I’m fascinated by Marketing.  It’s super hard.  That’s why I love it.

Please, make my job easier… make products that stick!

This book is a good place to start: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Made_to_Stick

Now, this is a marketing book, but it contains ideas that product people should know…   Since you product folks may not read it… here’s an interpretation for you:

1. Products need to solve a problem people have, a need, or a desire for something not previously possible.
2. A clear vision is established that inspires the development team to reach for it!
3. It needs to deliver on any promises implied. (no buyers remorse)
4. Ideally it is “worthy” of people talking about it after they bought it.

Then, work with your favorite marketer to make sure:

1. Everyone really understands what the product is.
2. Stories are developed around the product that inspire people to buy it.
3. Credibility is built in to the product.

Redefining Marketing: Marketing is science buried inside Art.

Marketing has never been about Advertising.  This is not really a redefinition of Marketing, as much as it is a reminder of what Marketing has always been.  Advertising is a tiny, often outsourced, part of Marketing.  It is the least of what we do.

True Marketing starts with the People.  It is an understanding of the customer -> how they think, what they like, how they shop, their demographics, their psychographics, and as much data about the customer as can be compiled.

It continues with the Product.  What benefits are desired.  What benefits are conveyed.  What to make.  What features to add and CUT. What it is.  What it does. How we talk about it.  Why it was built.

And moves into Pricing. What value is delivered for various customer types.  Pricing Strategy. How to capture the most value per customer type.

And on to Place.  Where to sell.  Where to put product in easy reach of customers.

And finally Promotion (note: this is not advertising)… to include how to let people know about the product.  Packaging.  PR.  And yes, some small bit of Advertising if necessary.

Beyond this, you enter the realm of what I call Marketing Fantasy…

Marketing Fantasy is where some Marketers go… thinking they actually can control:
1. branding/brand awareness
2. style/design
3. predictions/future trends
and more.

These things are Fantasy, because Marketing might be able to measure these things, finding direct controls of these things is nearly impossible.

Why do I love Marketing?  Because…   Marketing is science buried inside Art.

.

Skeptical About Fake Social Marketing

Fake Social Marketing = the kind of contrived, half-hearted attention you try to garner by having a Fanpage or Twitter follower… but it serves no purpose other then as a huge mega-phone.

You are just saying nothing to people who don’t care.
Real Social Marketing = when you have people that *actually* care… and that you have an interactive conversation with those people, and actually listen and react to what is said.
I am skeptical of the value of “Fake Social Marketing”.  I think it has ‘some’ value, actually… at least you are making some effort, even if it is not social.  Fake Social Marketing is more like a “Blog” than an actual social site.  I think most companies take this approach because “Real Social” is harder and more risky.  These kinds of companies might use tools (such as those available by my own company: http://karmaback.com ) to rapidly grow fans & followers, then spam them with messages but ignore any responses.  That was NEVER the intent of how to use Karmaback….. I am a much stronger believer in “real social”.
Real Social Marketing is when companies use Karmaback to REWARD their existing fans/followers with a sweepstakes or discount/coupon… and a side-effect of the Reward is that you get a few more fans/followers… (it’s not necessarily the primary goal).  Meanwhile, Karmaback’s PostOnTime tool is used to help coordinate when messages get said/planned messages… but someone STILL should be interacting with the comments/responses after the post has been made.  Incidentally, the posts themselves should be useful/helpful/informative/or conversation starting… A great example would be asking your Fans/Followers if you should have a certain feature or not.
So, consider this when you are planning your Social Marketing campaign… Focus on the “real social”.  Don’t just blindly post… read and respond.  And don’t bribe, but reward.

How to reach bloggers. Just ask!

Recently, a representative from jooble-us.com (a job site aggregation, which helps people find jobs), contacted me and asked to post about it on my Blog.  (Done).

What was really interesting was the method of the message…. I actually think this might be a robot!  (filling in my most recent 2 posts, the url of my blog, and my Zodiac Sign automatically!)!

So, if a freaking ROBOT can get me to post about their site on my blog… you can easily do it too… just ask!  (this probably goes for anyones blog by the way).

Here, learn how a robot does it… full email from jooble-us.com below:

Hello!

I just want to thank you for your wonderful blog tytusblog.blogspot.com.

I
read the post “A Marketing Basic: Speak & Write Plainly!” and then I
spent another hour on your blog by reading your posts with pleasure 🙂
Every article is interesting and easy to read. I really like the
“Research Brief: how to write “engaging” Social Posts on Facebook and
Twitter”.

I work for Jooble company, we aggregate job adverts around the world.

My job is to persuade bloggers to link to our site.

I really love my job! We have a friendly team and good management, but
unfortunately I have no idea how to convince a blogger to link to us,
I’m afraid I might lose my job because of it 🙁

And that is why, instead of sending letters to thousands of different blogs, I am reading yours.

Honestly, I am not really sure if the link to our website in United States – jooble-us.com,
will be appropriate for your blog, but if you believe it will and you
can add it, I would be really grateful to you! Our site is really cool,
it can greatly help hundreds of people to find jobs.

I wish you to have a good day and excellent mood! Thanks again for your nice blog. Write more! Thanks!

P.S. I am a Aries by zodiac sign too 🙂

A Marketing Basic: Speak & Write Plainly!

Speak Plainly.  Seems obvious, but us marketers often get into the habit of “word-smithing” till the text on the page is unrecognizable by normal humans (and worse, by our target customers).  Writing regular Facebook or Twitter updates for your company SHOULD be part of a solid Marketing campaign (try our own tool to help: http://postontime.com… but keep the writing simple.  Here are a few examples to avoid, and better alternatives.

  • Don’t say user:   “Users can now log in via our web interface”
    • Say instead: customer or you.  “You can now log in via our web interface”
  • Don’t say best, most, or other false-ly colorful exaggerations: “This is the Best interface ever.”
    • Say instead: we think you will like. “We think you will like our interface upgrades.”
  • Don’t use acronyms:  “Anyone who wants higher marketing ROI should click here”
    • Instead, use simple terms: “Anyone who wants to get higher profits for their investments in marketing should click here.”
Remember, short is sweet, but complex, obtuse, or marketing-speak is sour.

Research Brief: how to write “engaging” Social Posts on Facebook and Twitter

According to eMarketer.com’s recent study, having a picture and a clear call to action (e.g. request for likes or comments) leads to the most engaging social posts: http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1008677.  My own research by running social campaigns for 6 Fanpages simultaneously has led me to agree with this, except for 1 additional comment: Keep it short!

Keeping your posts short, and varying the time of their postings (possibly using my companies own tool: postontime.com) is the way to go!  Shorter posts are more likely to get read, and short posts with calls to action (“Like this if…”).

For more tips on making your social campaigns work, check out my white paper here.

Harlan

Top Tips for Social Network Marketing!

My top tips for Social Network Marketing are very simple: * full details and white-paper here

  1. Acquire lots of fans.  (try a Karmaback Sweepstakes to help!)
  2. Engage fans with REGULAR and ENGAGING posts.
  3. Convert fans into customers by making them unique/special offers (only for fans).

It is nice when the marketing industry in general agrees with you!  Check out “Involver’s” top tips as well (note: matches mine very closely):
http://blog.involver.com/2011/10/07/social-media-marketing-tips-to-i

  1. Post Regularly
  2. Time your Posts.

So, how can you do 1 and 2 VERY easily?
For Facebook and Twitter try my new tool: http://postontime.com