That’s what Heresy decided to do with this book, Digital Doesn’t Matter: Reinventing The Advertising Industry. Shot into action by the slow dying of the advertising industry they so dearly loved, authors John Lambie and Josh Sklar spent 6 months interviewing over 100 of the top CEOs, executives, directors and journalists in the advertising and marketing industry, including people from Google, Ogilvy & Mathers, Nike, Dell, Y&R, and more.

This book looks to be a go-to resource for any person remotely interested in marketing, advertising, or PR that wants to know how to make it as we try to smoothly and effectively transition these fields into the digital era. Covering a broad, but very specific set of topics such as:

• Marketing Strategy
• Account Management
• Strategic Planning
• Data Analysis
• Social Media
• New Business Development
• Talent Development
• Recruitment
• And far more

All of that though, is only half of the reason I’m excited about this book. At another angle, this book, while available in PDF, Kindle, and hardcover form, seeks to hit a whole new level of dynamic interaction with the reader through a mobile app. Imagine if while you were reading your favorite book, let’s say Harry Potter for now (I hear it’s pretty popular), that you could comment and talk to other readers while reading your favorite sections, skip to only the parts that talk about dragons (or Cerberus, ogres, unicorns, etc.), share your own stories, provide immediate feedback to the author for her next book, give ideas, and read stories from either her or other readers that continually give insights into the world.

That’s the kind of groundbreaking concept this book looks to achieve. People will be allowed to comment, annotate, submit stories, provide feedback, and offer ideas. The app will be forever changing and updated, with the authors providing case studies, research, extra education, as well as a community to discuss what’s happening, connect people with mentors, vent anonymously, and critique the latest ads. Innovative and ambitious, to say the least.

Now, the real kicker with this? It’s not one of those things you get psyched about, look at, then wait around for 2 years while the groundwork occurs. Heresy is looking at obtaining funding by early March, and then having all of this delivered by June of this year. If this is something you want to get involved in, you can view their Kickstarter page and their Facebook page.

I hear those who donate early and keep posted on Facebook may get some special opportunities for a sneak peek at the book. I’m certainly in for a few bucks just to help see this be realized.

It may capture leads, qualify leads and convert leads, but it will never, ever, generate leads.

Think about it. How does someone end up at your website? No one just types it in randomly. Somehow or another, they heard about your site and thought that it might be of interest to them.

This is an important distinction. A great website is an essential piece of your lead generation strategy, but it does absolutely nothing on its own. You have to provide it with a steady flow of interested people for it to do its job. Without actual lead generation tactics, you’ll share your message with absolutely no one.

Fortunately, there are many, many effective ways to generate leads for your website:

1. Generic domain names – This could be considered an exception to what I said above, so I’ll address it first. Many people will try just typing in generic words as domain names to see what comes up. Some businesses have simply made that generic name their brand (Bags.com, Blinds.com), while others have purchased those generic names as a way to generate relevant traffic (Books.com – Barnes & Noble, Aspirin.com – Bayer). Those one-word domains may be hard to come by, but a 2 or 3 word descriptive domain appropriate to your business might not be, e.g., DallasDivorceAttorney.com or PhiladelphiaDJ.com. Even if people don’t type it in directly, descriptive domain names will generally rank well on searches for those keywords.
2. Organic search (SEO) – For many small business sites on a budget, this is the #1 source of online lead generation. It’s free, and it’s very effective…if you can get ranked well for keywords relevant to your business. There have been volumes written on search engine optimization, and the nuances of it are constantly changing, but for most small businesses, a simple two-pronged strategy is extremely effective: 1) publish keyword-rich content on your site on a regular basis that’s compelling enough to make people want to link to it, and 2) interact with people to share the link and encourage them to as well. Which brings us to…
3. Social media – The new social web offers several tactics for lead generation. First, your fans can easily tell others about you and share your content. That’s great if you have a bunch of raving fans who also happen to be active social media users. Most companies have to work for it a little more. As with your website, publishing alone won’t bring followers — you have to proactively seek out people and participate in the venues and public conversations that are relevant to your business. Interaction creates attraction. And when those people link to your content, that helps your search engine rankings.
4. Advertising comes in many forms online. While the old horizontal banner ads have all but disappeared from most mainstream websites, display advertising is still alive and well on the web. While some sites sell ads directly, most work with advertising networks, which they’ll be able to refer you to. The other approach is text ads, which are usually on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis. These are offered by most of the major search engines, as well as some independent ad networks. Again, the site you want to advertise on should be able to refer you to the appropriate ad network.
5. Joint ventures and affiliates are a great way to reach new people. One form of joint venture is the “quid pro quo” approach — they promote your product to their list and you promote their product to your list. This is usually only done, though, if the lists are of the same order of magnitude. Otherwise, there will have to be some sort of revenue sharing, or affiliate program. This can be a highly effective strategy and usually involves little or no up-front cost to implement. Choose your associates carefully, though, as their behavior will reflect on you to some extent.
6. Content marketing is kind of a hybrid of some of the tactics listed above, but it still merits its own entry. The key here is to publish your content on sites (other than your own website) that already have traffic, that already have an audience of people looking for information about the topics you’re creating content about. Videos on YouTube, slide presentations on SlideShare, white papers on Scribd, articles on EzineArticles — the opportunities are endless. If you can get a regular column in a major outlet, that’s even better. Don’t be overtly promotional, but do be sure to always have a link back to your site, if possible, or at least have your domain name prominently displayed. You want to drive direct traffic, not just create brand awareness.
7. Publicity should be an essential part of any small business’ marketing strategy. At a bare minimum, you should be monitoring Help A Reporter Out (HARO) for media opportunities and pitching relevant local and industry media about your company. Seek out relevant internet radio shows and podcasters that might interview you. Make sure your LinkedIn profile is up-to-date and contains relevant keywords — it’s how many reporters, bloggers and other media producers find expert sources to interview.
8. Email lists – Depending on your business, you can buy or rent a list of people matching certain demographic criteria. How effective is it? It depends on the quality of the list, the relevance of it to your business, and then having a compelling offer that will drive people to take action. Stick with an established provider and focus the list as narrowly as possible to get to your ideal clients, not just a broad demographic segment.
9. Offline promotion – Put your web address (URL) on your business cards, invoices, brochures, menus — pretty much every piece of printed material that a customer will receive from you. Use it on billboards, TV and radio ads. Show it on the last slide of any presentations you do. Of course, if you’re not putting a piece of paper in their hands, it needs to be short and memorable — yet another reason to get a descriptive domain name!

Notice that webinars and teleseminars aren’t on the list. Why not? Because you have to promote them, too, to get people to attend and you can only promote them to people you’ve already reached via some other means. They’re a great conversion tactic, but not usually a good lead generation tactic, unless they’re being done as part of a joint venture and you’re accessing someone else’s list.

Note also how many of the items on the list above refer to another item on the list. Each tactic may be moderately effective on its own, but they work best when combined with the others. That’s why an integrated marketing plan is so important. Remember, people have to hear your message an average of seven or more times before taking action. The more channels you’re distributing your message through, the sooner you’ll reach that critical mass in the mind of your potential customers.

Yep, blood in the streets.

In the financial markets, and
literal blood, too.

…that’s what’s on the news.

I speak out against spreading more bad
feelings, and it offends a certain number of
people.

I know bad things have happened.

I don’t deny the reality – but I DEFY the
spirit these things create in people.

I DEFY HOPELESSNESS.

Read the rest…

All of my life, I’ve been an irrepressible optimist. I’ve had a lot of people tell me that I’m not being realistic, or that I’m in denial. But Ray’s email this morning really captured my sentiment beautifully – I’m not in denial, I’m in defiance. I DEFY HOPELESSNESS. And I don’t deny the reality, I just CHOOSE how to react to it.

Depending on your world view, you may or may not be in full control of the circumstances of your life. But no matter what your world view, you ALWAYS have the Power of Choice regarding your ATTITUDE and ACTIONS. You can’t change your past, but you can always change your future.

Image: Nob3L

I’ve read dozens of books on sales and marketing over the years, and while I learned a lot, some of the best, simplest advice I ever got came not from one of them, but from a sociology textbook. While you may never have heard of Diffusion of Innovations, it’s the foundational work on which more familiar titles like Crossing the Chasm and The Tipping Point are based.

The book is primarily focused on how innovations are spread within social groups. In that context, the author defines five characteristics of an innovation that influence the decision to adopt or reject it. If we think broadly about the term “innovation” as not just a new invention, but simply an idea that’s new to the individual, then it becomes clear that this is the same decision process someone goes through when evaluating buying your product or service. While every buyer has their own unique set of circumstances and decision criteria, these five characteristics offer an excellent checklist for both your overall marketing strategy and the individual sale:

Relative Advantage is the relative benefit of your offering compared to all other alternatives, including the status quo, i.e., doing nothing. Most marketers focus their efforts here — feature-benefits lists, ROI analysis, and competitive comparisons. Pricing also falls under this category. We’d like to think that if we’re the logical best choice, we’ll make the sale, but unfortunately, that’s all too often not the case. That’s because there are many other factors in the decision process that have nothing to do with pure logic.

Compatibility is a measure of how well the new idea fits into a person’s life. It may be a matter of logistics, e.g., actually having room for a large item, personal preferences such as color or finish, religious factors or cultural factors, or even more complex psychological factors, such as whether your product fits the customer’s self-image. Clearly defining your ideal customer will help you address this. Consider psychographic characteristics as well as demographics. What’s important to them? How do they see themselves?

Simplicity is, simply, how easy the product is to use and understand. Too many choices causes anxiety, and a confused mind says “no”. More complex products will have longer sales cycles and required the more skilled salespeople.

Trialability is a measure of the ability of the prospective customer to try out your product or service before purchasing it, i.e., test drives, free or super-cheap samples or trials, free initial consultations. Money-back guarantees are a slight variation on this. How can you apply this to your business?

Observability is the degree to which the benefits can be observed during the trial period or initial use. For example, it’s relatively easy to observe the benefits of taking aspirin to relieve a headache, but impossible to directly observe the results of taking aspirin to reduce the risk of heart disease.

You can apply this five-point checklist at every stage of your marketing and sales process: product strategy, sales process, campaign, and individual sale. You don’t have to be strong in all five areas, but if you have a gap, you need to be aware of it so you can either address their concerns or make a point of being sufficiently stronger in the other factors.

Want to know more? Read the full article at OPEN Forum.

In this day and age, it just shouldn’t be that hard to find free wi-fi in popular gathering place, like HEB Central Market. In fact, they advertise that they have free wi-fi:

The HEB Wireless network shows up easily enough, but once you connect, actually accessing the internet is another matter entirely:

Mind you, it’s been this way for at least a week – I had the same problem when I was here last week, and I did tell someone about it. Apparently I’m not the only one. From a review of Central Market on Yelp just a couple of months ago:

So I thought I’d try an alternative. Of course, there were the usual selection of obscurely named networks, all requiring a security key, but there was one that looked promising:

MyTurf_FREEWIFI – awesome!

Only problem… “No Internet access”. The signal strength is fine, but no internet access.

I don’t get it. If free wi-fi is worth offering, it’s worth checking to make sure it’s working. And if it’s not working, turn off the router! It’s effectively advertising that you have something, and then you don’t. Terrible customer experience.

I’ve been doing some copywriting work for a client targeting small business owners – mostly busy professionals in mainstream, brick-and-mortar businesses. We’ve been using a totally different, “less is more” approach on our copy. The emails are on the order of 300 words. The landing page copy is all above the fold.

I can’t post the actual numbers, but let’s just say that the three key metrics – open rate, click-through rate, and conversion rate – have been well above the standards for their industry. The proof is in the pudding, as they say.

But the icing on the cake came today, with this message from someone on the list:

Hi guys,

I just wanted to let you know how refreshing it is to receive a sales letter that looks and sounds normal instead of the typical <famous internet marketer’s name deleted> junk mail format, which I never bother to even read.

Best,

Bob

Copyblogger has a great post on this topic, in which he describes this alternative approach:

Product Launch Formula founder Jeff Walker came up with an interesting way of describing the new approach. His friendly, conversational email sequences became a “sideways sales letter.”

Walker is a great example of a sharp marketer who knows he has a better shot at his prospects if he gently ropes them in with a net of high-quality, relationship-building content, rather than trying to harpoon the sale in a single shot.

The copy is just as long (or longer) than the lengthy pages created by more traditional copywriters. It does all the same work — answering the most frequently-raised objections, building rapport, presenting benefits, building urgency.

But it’s delivered over time, and in a friendly, relaxed tone of voice. It doesn’t seem desperate. And it doesn’t burn out the prospect. Even if the prospect doesn’t buy this time, he’s in a great mood to buy something else down the line.

Know your audience. If they aren’t the “make money online” crowd, don’t expect that kind of language to necessarily work for them. And even if it does “work”, that doesn’t necessarily mean a different approach wouldn’t work too. Keep in mind that it’s not just about converting leads to your call-to-action, but also your brand positioning. Long-form sales letters don’t project high-end professionalism.

If you really want to know for sure which works best with your audience, try a split test on a sample of your list and see for yourself.

For more on this topic, see:

• Rage Against the Sales Letter by Jonathan Fields
• Short Sales Letters (and Why They Work) by Dave Navarro
• Are Long-Form Sales Letters Dead? by David Risley
• Click Here, You Idiot – A spoof of long-form sales letters, just for fun

How did you decide how much to charge for your product or service? Did you base it on the competition? Some margin above your cost? Or did you throw a few numbers in a hat and pick one? A crystal ball, perhaps?

I’ve seen many companies that didn’t seem to give their pricing much more thought than that. Outside of a few industries, such as retail and energy, in which pricing is heavily studied and practices are well-established, pricing is often an afterthought, based on only one main factor plus some gut feeling, rather than the many factors that should be considered. The price of your product is more than just a number you plug in to your forecasting spreadsheet. It’s an essential part of your marketing strategy.

Continue reading at OPEN Forum

Retweeets and comments (there, please) much appreciated, as always.

Watch:

First off, let me say that I think this is an awesome program and I don’t mean to disparage it or the recipients of its services in any way. That said…listen again to what the woman at about 0:14 says:

You don’t know how very basic essentials are until you have none.

Huh? That sentence makes absolutely no sense. It sounds like it should. I understand what she means. But what she said makes no sense. I think maybe she meant:

You don’t know how essential the basics are until you have none.

That would make sense.

Now I don’t fault the woman. In an ad hoc interview, I’m sure I’ve said all kinds of stuff that didn’t entirely make sense. But what I’m wondering is who at Tide (or their ad agency) let this get through. I can’t imagine that out of the hundreds of people they’ve provided this service to, that was the best quote.

If you’re in the business of communicating, you need some quality control. The amount is proportional to the amount of exposure/risk you have. A freelancer lifestreaming to Twitter? Not a big deal. A national PR campaign across multiple media? A big deal.

Maybe I’m being a grammar nazi. But you know what? If you’re a multi-national corporation, or an ad agency who works for them, you should have a grammar nazi on staff who reviews everything – twice — before it goes out.