Leverage Blog: How to Exploit the Web.

Why does your business need a blog?

I've heard it a 100 times, and it's a great question.  Blogs are the "latest thing," but why does your business need one?

Truth be told, blogs are not always my first recommendation.  Many times I recommend other tactics before embarking on a blog marketing project; an email newsletter or a snappy refreshing of the website are sometimes the best places to start.  But that said, here are three reasons why a blog needs to at least be on your marketing radar.  The more these resonate with your business, the more a blog can help you:

• Blogs inform your customer
  • Your blog tells your customer more about your product/service, how to use it, how it's changing, how it affects their world.  And your blog invites their feedback.

• Blogs help keep your company top-of-mind
  
  • With new information posted (nearly) every day your customers have a reason to remember you, to visit you, to check your RSS feed.  And being top-of-mind is key to grabbing up-sells and referrals.
• Blogs help take price out of the discussion
  • There is always going to be someone with a lower price.  Always.  But the personal connection on a blog, the opportunity to build a relationship with a customer, builds loyalty and trust.  Go ahead, raise your prices, increase your margins.  It's possible.

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A good reminder

Sometimes we're moving so fast to keep up with the competition that we forget.  Forget to plan and execute.

Or we're so consumed with our busy workday routines that we forget.  Forget to step back and create something new.

A consultant in San Francisco this morning knows this, and he has a reminder on his laptop:

Thanks to Seth for the wake-up call.

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The advantages of a simple, clear homepage

I've not been sharing, and I'm sorry.

I work in web design every day, creating websites for small business clients of Wheel Media, but thus far Leverage Blog has focused mostly on marketing.  I'm going to change that emphasis, starting now, because design is so important to conversion.  (Conversion:  The process of getting visitors to your website to make contact with you by phone, email, or carrier pigeon.)

Today I'm excited about a new real estate company in SoCal called Contour Realty.  A client of mine, we expect to launch their website next week, but you'll get a sneak-peek here.

They do real estate sales differently, and we needed to communicate how.  The design and the message need to be simple and clear to pull the visitor in.  Tell me, did we hit the mark?

First, the competition:

 

 

Next, Contour:

Every business is different.  In Contour's case we need to present a new way of doing a common transaction (i.e., selling a house.)  We feel a simple, clear design and message will draw customers-in.  I'll keep you posted.

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Spam filters should save time, and this one does

Why use a spam filter that you have to search through the filtered results to make sure it didn't grab something you need, like an email from your mother-in-law?

I've heard more than once people checking their spam folder for email from clients or newsletters; it's a huge waste of time and defeats the purpose of the tool, no?

MaFee SpamKiller?  Silly name and also not effective.

A better solution is Cloudmark.  $40/year, it catches all the bad stuff and leaves all the good stuff.  I could tell you why it works well, but you're busy, so foggetaboudit.  Big time saver, with a capital B.  Here's what I didn't have to sift through today (partial list:)

• re system report
• You have unclaimed cash
• Re: News ok
• Wall Street is Paying Top Dollar for Old Gold and Silver Coins and Collectibles
• What IS 0EM Software And Why D0 You Care?
• Your Order
• ?

Listen to your staff, grow your company

Great article in the NYT yesterday about creativity and innovation in the workplace.  The idea is to create a culture where everyone in the organization is encouraged to think of ways to improve things-- make customers happier, deliver services at a lower cost, outflank the competition-- all that good stuff.

Tim O'Riley of O'Riley Media sums it up nicely:

"[create an ] Architecture of participation. That is...make it easy, interesting and rewarding for a wide range of contributors to offer ideas, solve problems and improve products..."

Yes, you could put a suggestion box on the wall in the lunchroom.  Or you could send an email to everyone in the firm asking for their ideas...

..but don't expect any results.  Proper execution of this (and most) good ideas requires a little planning, effort and persistence.  A mass-email won't foster a new culture in your business, but a simple plan just might.

Take a look at the the full article (free login required)

Customer service: "Nice" is not "service"

The other day I took my car to AAA for an oil change.  They do auto repair as well so I asked the woman at the counter if they could maybe look into a small problem while they were under the hood.  Have a listen, if it's easy to figure it out lemme know how much to fix it.

She gave me a blank (yet friendly) stare, but I saw a technician and he said sure, they would take a look, but that a full-diagnostic would be better and that would require me to leave the car for half-a-day.  I knew my options, right?  I said I wouldn't have time to leave the car, but appreciated the 'quick look.'  Hey, maybe it was a simple problem?

When the car is finished the paperwork didn't say anything about the "quick look," so I asked her.  She looked at me with mystery and confusion in here eye, said "Hmmm, I don't now," and when I pressed further she didn't try and find the technician.  I expressed my disappointment, since I was told they would do this for me, and she says, as nice as can-be, "I guess that's how it goes sometimes."

Huh?  It's not like a rainout at a baseball game.  AAA listened to my request, gave me a big warm offer of assistance, and did nothing.  Then I get an "act of God" explanation as to why they did nothing.

Allegory on how to treat your customer:

1. Be nice.
2. Say no (nicely) if they ask for something you can't (or won't) deliver, and explain why.
3. If you say yes to a special request, do it.
4. Don't blame the universe if you drop the ball.  Try and understand and fix your error.

AAA was nice.  The place is clean.  I can get my car washed at the same time.

But I won't be going back.

"I wouldn't be caught dead in that kind of environment"

Eric Sass has an interesting article about MySpace and why big companies aren't advertising there:

SOCIAL NETWORKING SITE MYSPACE HAS grown to 60 million members, adding 8 million to million new members in the last few months alone, and now accounts for around 12.5 percent of all online display ads.

But major brand marketers continue to shun the site. That's according to executives at a panel on the "Revolution in Television" hosted by the Advertising Research Foundation Monday in New York.

You'll hear the term social networking websites, referring to sites like MySpace and the much smaller Tribe.  These are sites where tens-of-thousands or millions of people create personal pages and connect through similar interests.  Billions of hits.  Lot's of potential customers, but...

Big marketers are cautious because advertising on sites with user-generated content can hurt their brand.  Imagine your ad next to a profile with an explicit photo or bigoted headline...get ready for damage control when someone calls their congressman.

So is there an opportunity here?  Yep.  Smaller firms can grow revenues with user-generated content. It starts with creating a place where you know something about the users...where they are your customer.

It's called a blog, and if managed correctly your customers will be contributing content (in the form of comments) and interacting with you like never before.  The blog marketing projects I have in development are showing great promise as loyalty-building, repeat-business-generating, brand-boosting machines.  Blogs are valuable.

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ASIDE:  For an example of an excellent business networking site see LinkedIn. 100's of CEO's (and yours truly) find it a great place to make new contacts.

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Full text of Eric's article is here.

Innovation takes many forms

We shouldn't be afraid to innovate; to go beyond consideration of a new idea and execute it.  Today's case study:  My Curry Ravioli:

                                Why are you laughing?

innovate innovation

RSS. Explained in simple terms.

RSS has been explained beautifully by programmers with PhD's from Stanford in terms only Masters-students from Stanford can understand.  I'm going to give it a shot in a learn-by-doing format.

RSS is a way to receive automatic updates from websites and blogs.  The updates are content, like articles from the New York Times. To receive the updates you need a place to read them, and one of the easiest is Google  Reader.

Create an account with Google and you'll be able to search and add feeds from many of the websites you visit during the day, from ESPN to Investors Business Daily to the National Enquirer. Most large sites have RSS feeds.

How does RSS help you?  It brings all your online information into one place where you can read the headlines and click-through if the article interests you.  The content is updated automatically from the sites, often almost instantly.

Recommendation:  Gather together at least 5 sites you normally visit and throw them into your Google Reader.  Now you're pinging one site instead of five.  Entering 1-2 sites is a waste of time-- it makes RSS an extra step.  5+ and you're saving time.  20 or more and it's information-overload and time to get back to work.

FWIW (for what it's worth) you can get Leverage Blog online, or in RSS, or in Email.  You choose.  You're the master of your domain.

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Leverage Blog in your Email

Clients and readers have asked if they can receive Leverage Blog in email.

Yes.

I searched the blogosphere and found and great solution:  Feed Blitz. You can now sign-up for email updates in the "Subscriptions and Feeds" area in the left-column.  If you use an RSS reader (RSS is explained here) you can subscribe to the feed.

Keep the requests coming.  I'm listening.

How can make your customers feel great?

I use Cloudmark as a spam-filtering tool and it works very well.  What works equally well is in their marketing. In the toolbar they have a little button that says 'My Rating.'  Now I'm a new user, and I don't even have a rating...but I want one.  Why?  Because we all want to feel like top-performers, or respected or valued.  Hey, I'm good.

How can you help your customers feel like they're a valued member of a group?  A group you created just for them?  In Cloudmark's case the rating also serves to preserve the quality of the spam flagging. In yours, maybe reward customer feedback with open recognition-- your most helpful clients are "Platinum Partners," and those in the "Gold Circle" are trying to make the jump up...

We don't need to give them a 10%-off coupon to participate. Just some recognition.

Hey, I'm good.

The web is still growing very, very fast

Seth talked about a fungus today, and it made me think.

Seriously.

My comment after reading about his experience at the buffet is this:  The Internet is still growing, and fast.  Growing in terms of visitors.  Users.  Customers.  There are tens-of-millions of people out there that just started using email 6 months ago, and made their first online purchase last Christmas.  What will they be doing this Summer?  Reading blogs?  Using an RSS reader?

Not to mention the 75 million Americans retiring soon who will have time on their hands and may enjoy activities while seated.  What do you have for them?

Old habits die hard

I found this post from the research thought-leaders at Jupiter. It says the New York times will soon be dropping stock listings from their papers for most days of the week.  Of course most of us don't check our stocks in the morning paper, but the reason it stayed for as long as it did seems pretty clear-- old habits die hard.

I'm referring to old habits of the readers, not the top-brass at the NYT.  I'm betting that a small but influential (super-rich) group of older, more traditional readers enjoyed their 30-year ritual of checking the market in the morning paper.  That familiar routine marked the beginning of their day, and the Times was not about to rock the boat.

Summary:  Lead your customers to your new, more useful/efficient/smart products, but don't disenfranchise your oldest, most influential ones in the process.

Word of Mouth Marketing: What it is & where to start.

WOMm

Word of Mouth Marketing (WOMm) is giving your customers reasons to talk about your business and giving them the tools to do so.  Why is it important?  Good WOMm empowers your customers to share their experiences with their friends, associates and partners.  It's viral (can we still use that term?), it inspires new products and services, and it minimizes the damage from unsatisfied customers.

Here are a few simple best-practices to start the conversation:

1.  Give them reasons to talk about you:

• Build an amazing product or deliver an amazing service.
  • The lightest hammer
  • The cheapest drainage system
  • The most elegant presentation
  • More

• Listen to what they say.
  
  • What does your customer really want?
    • More features?  Which ones?
    • More live conversations with you (and fewer emails?)
    • Delivery? (doesn't have to be free.)
    • A personalized ________________ ?
    • More

2.  Give them the tools:

• Set-up a blog and invite your customers to comment.
• Invite 5 customers to lunch and ask them (good) questions.
• Create a prototype and ask a few customers to give you feedback.
• Survey your customers (of course everyone already is doing so, right?) and ask questions that will garner objective feedback.
  • Look the surveys
    • Do things differently based on the survey feedback.

Like all mission-critical marketing initiatives, I'm not too hip to the idea of adding a little WOM 'stuff' into the marketing mix. That said, I'm also pretty pragmatic, and I don't think most organizations need 3 months of research before rolling out a WOM campaign.  How about this middle-ground:

1. Define your WOMm objectives based on your customer and business-model.
2. Create a set of tools that can be rolled out quickly, measured and scaled.
3. Execute.
4. Evaluate.
5. Enjoy.

Bitty Browser: (Another) new way to spread your message online

I came across the Bitty Browser today, a small browser that you can add to a website or, in this case, a blog.  It can be configured to display any site or blog you choose or organize a blogroll, and access to search.

Cool and interesting?  Of course.  But more importantly, what's the marketing value of the tool to your business?  Here are my top-of-mind ideas:

• Cross-promote blogs and websites.
• Add "Portal" features (search, news, etc.) to retain visitors and encourage repeat visits.
• Keep your site (and your brand) fresh *

* This is the big one.  Let's talk about how this tool can help communicate to your customer that you're a leader in your industry.  Are you providing your visitors with easy access to information that will position you as a thought leader?  Can this tool reinforce the message that innovation is standard at your business, and that your competitors are standing still?  Get creative, think about your customer and what they want to see, to know.

Also to note:  Non-technical staff can configure (and update) the Bitty Browser in no time flat.  The marketing strategy requires some thought, but the moving-forward execution is easy.

Oh, for this post I've set the BB to Wheel Media, my web design shop for small-business.  Surf away.

The Google dis-utopia

Allow me to digress...

Michael Arrington's post today reminded me to share a link to a mini-movie that paints a dark future...one owned by Google.

One part entertainment, with tongue-in-cheek, and an equal part forecasting; it's worth a look. Michael's overview is below:

In the spring of 2004 Robin Sloan and Matt Thompson presented the ominous Epic 2014 (now renamed Epic 2015) that ultimately predicts that Google will force the New York Times to shut down. In the movie, they also predict that Google will launch something called “Google Grid”: “…a universal platform offering an unlimited amount of space and bandwidth that can be used to store anything. It allows users to manage their information two ways: store it privately or publish it to the entire grid.” See the movie here.

Oh, the quote in bold well, that's coming.  Google announced it on the 2nd to analysts.

Orwellian, or simply progress?

Blogging is on the front-page of the NY Times

Companies of all stripes are using blogging to shape public option.

And there you have it.

The article begins with the slightly ominous (but not surprising) news that Wal-Mart has a PR firm  targeting blogs.  Specifically, they are suggesting topics (zoning restrictions are bad, perhaps?), sending pre-written posts to blogs, and inviting bloggers to corporate headquarters.

What does a front-page NYT article about blogs do for its value as a marketing tool?  Already legitimized, it thrusts blogging further into the mainstream. Blog readership is growing in every sector at a crazy-wild pace, and the mention of General Electric, Cingular and Microsoft fuel that growth.

The article creates a stir of doubt and fear around blogging (much like the article in Newsweek did about Search Engine Optimization,) but it's legitimate-- SEO is not a 'science' and blogging is not 'objective.'

I prefer an educated client whose done their homework, asks smart questions and knows what they want.  If you have the right service/product they won't push as hard on price and will be a customer-for-life.

Who's working on your blog strategy?

Blog Marketing Best Practice: Contributors

Guy Kawasaki has a great example of one my favorite blog marketing tactics, one I'm calling Contributors.

On the 4th guy did an interview on his blog of Adam Lashinsky from Fortune Magazine.  It's super-successful in the blog medium for at least two reasons:

1. Smart questions, smart answers, smart people.  As with blogs, websites and all marketing messages, good content is key.
2. Sort-and-sweet.  Blog readers don't want a white-paper  (although they would appreciate a link to one.)  They want news that's current and on-topic, small nuggets of information, and/or sources of research.

Who do you know that can provide a sharp idea or observation for your blog?  A thought your readers would value?

Ask your peers to contribute by telling you something wise.  The interview format is great, but a brief quote will work well also, and your contributor will appreciate the visibility.

The rising tide lifts all boats, no?

Blogging: Will it catch on?

This just seen on a bus in Sacramento:

Blogs being advertised on the side of a bus?  With the marketing budget of AT&T (and others, I'm sure) building awareness about blogs the medium will get a head-of-steam in no time.  AT&T has so much faith in blogs they're spending big bucks just to promote the category.

Wow.

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Sheraton: Stingy with wifi = missed opportunity

I stopped by the Sheraton in Sacramento yesterday to hop online and do some research between meetings.  Wifi used to be free in the lobby areas that support the conference attendees (and road-trippers like me,) but no more.  $5.00 for 10 minutes, I believe.

Now that's dumb.

Wifi is now a profit-center...one that will drive hundreds (of nickels) in revenues.  Big whoop.  And what did they give up?  A cheap (very, very) cheap way to cultivate new customer relationships, to differentiate, stay 'top of mind' and get people in the door.

If they are concerned about squatters surfing the web all day then get creative.  Limit session-lengths, or fix the total number of connections at any one time.

Their default strategy (free) was smarter than their planned one (charge.)

New in Search Engine Marketing: Pay-Per-Call

When I discuss search engine marketing (SEM) strategy with clients we evaluate the opportunity/impact/expense of two core tactics:

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Pay-Per-Click (PPC)

A new tool called Pay-Per-Call is being rolled out by Google and Yahoo! and I've added it to the list.

Pay Per Call adds a phone number to paid search results.  Calls to a toll-free number are forwarded to the advertiser's business and are tracked and billed by the search engine (or their partner.)

The service is very new so listings are hard to find...so far.  The opportunity is great for simple services, like a florist. This searcher/customer is less interested in comparing flower shops and more interested in ordering a bunch.  For most B2B firms however-- an example might be aircraft sales-- the visitor is going to be clicking-on website links to evaluate the business; they'll be less-likely to just pick up the phone and say I'd like to buy a plane.

Pay-Per-Call is now on my radar.  Learn more here.

Clean design sells the product

Seth Godin drew my attention to a great side-by-side comparison of effective design.  And for those of you short on time (all of us,) it's a short online flash movie.  Take 120 seconds out of your day:

If Microsoft packaged the iPod.

Note that in 2005 an iPod sold every second, so we know the design is on target (as well as the product and merchandising.)

 

When I think about web design, I think about how I can clean up the page.  How I can include fewer images, lists and features?  Can I shorten the headline?  Our goals is to help the visitor focus on one clear, compelling idea and be inspired. Once inspired, they will dig deeper and find that feature list and detailed description, and call us.