Junta42 blog

The Art of the Free Sample - Content Survival Tips

Every month our investment club meets to review our portfolio, make stock purchase decisions and, hopefully, learn a little. This month our meeting was held at Whole Foods on the east side of Cleveland, Ohio. Previously, this was a Wild Oats, and it was the first time I'd visited the store since it was renamed and re-branded as a Whole Foods.

The difference was notable as soon as we walked in.  I have two words for you - Free Samples.  There was a worker at the door giving out samples of organic peaches and mango. There was another stand set up next to our meeting room area that was giving away complimentary organic coffee. It made quite an impression.  I plan on stopping back and picking up some more of those mango.

Giving away free samples to consumers has been an age-old marketing practice. The idea is to let prospects try it. If they like it, they'll come back for more. From Crest toothpaste to the new Frosted Flakes Gold, consumer marketers with smaller-ticket items use free samples to drive their businesses.

Business-to-business marketers and high-ticket consumer marketers have a bit more difficulty giving away free samples.  "Yes sir, please try out our new forklift, no questions asked." "Yes maam, we'll send over your new Pontiac Vibe today.  Keep it as long as you like." Just doesn't work.

So what to do?

Your content is your free sample. Give your customers and prospects a taste of your brand by delivering great information to them on a consistent basis. Instead of giving them that forklift, how about a video series on green shipping practices? Instead of delivering the Pontiac, how about a custom magazine showing Pontiac owners how they can get the most out of their car and their lifestyle?

This is not rocket science, it's survival. Interruption marketing is near-death. Consumers are tuning out more and more marketing messages. To survive, you have to be relevant. You have to provide constant value in order for your customers to pay attention...even just a bit.

There is no social media strategy without content

I was talking with a marketing consultant today, and we chatted about simplifying the idea of social media. Look at it this way. You are having a one-on-one conversation with your customer. If you are only talking about how wonderful your products and services are, how long do you think they will pay attention to you?

Social media works the same way.  You won't be allowed into the conversation without coming to the party with something of value. This is the golden rule on social media sites, as well as your own website. How long do you think your customers will stay on your site that includes only information about your products? What would you do if you were in their shoes? Would you stay more than five seconds?

Get to know your customers informational needs. Then, provide content that solves those needs. It's that simple. This strategy is not just something nice to do, it's communication survival 101. Go out and create great content.

What's your free sample?

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4 Easy Steps to Getting Found on the Internet

After speaking at the min day summit yesterday, I was able to connect with a few publisher friends of mine I haven't seen in quite a while.  For one person in particular (who will remain nameless), I didn't pick up their business card - and wanted to send a follow up email.

While searching online, I couldn't find the person's email address. Now, this is a very successful publishing executive. When I typed his name into Google, it was like he didn't even exist.  On the company site there was no direct contact information. After about 5 minutes of searching through documents in Google, I finally found his email in a pdf document.

I wonder - does he know how hard it is for people to find him on the web? Being a marketing and publishing executive today is all about being accessible. That aside, what does it say about his web knowledge, or how his company positions executives, that they make it a chore for people to get in touch with him and the company?

Seth Godin, in his book Meatball Sundae, has an excellent example about this very topic. In his example, he was discussing how getting the direct contact information for Bank of America's CEO was almost impossible - guarded by layers of hoops, contact forms and gatekeepers. Not only does this present a customer service no-no, but it is exactly the opposite online perception of what the web was built for - transparency, easy access, openness, etc.

Because of this one small situation, my perception of the person and the company has changed - and I'm not even a customer. I wonder what customers must feel like when trying to get in touch with company executives.

Make sure as a marketing professional you are taking care of your own online persona, as well as your company's.  Here are some simple things that will help:

• Make Your Email Accessible - Put your email address and contact information on the "contact us" portion of the web site. Web forms are fine (we use one on the Z Squared Media site), but make sure executive emails are accessible. The easiest way to do this is to set up a Media Room on your site, that includes all your basic company information, including press releases and contact information. Here is what we use for Junta42's Media Room. I have my direct email information on the contact us page (and my blog). The contact us page also includes other emails depending on what you need to do.
• Create a Press Release Strategy - Online press releases shouldn't necessarily be leveraged to get you press. The key goal should be search engine optimization. A regular press release strategy makes sure that you and your company information can be found easily through the search engines. We use PRWEB for our press releases. 
• Google Alerts - Most executives I talk with use Google Alerts for industry keywords, but many forget to use them for their own company, as well as their own names. Go to Google Alerts and make sure you monitor your company's name (including misspellings), your key brands, as well as variations of your name.  Whenever there is a mention on the web, Google will send you an email. That way, you know who's talking (or not talking) about you on the web. You may also want to monitor your competitors while you are at it.
• Get and Update Your LinkedIn Page - Not only is LinkedIn a great way to stay connected to business colleagues, it also gets great search rankings.  For my own name, LinkedIn makes the first page.  From their statistics, I get about 20 people a week that find me through LinkedIn. I'm not sure why some people still send out MS Word resumes in emails anymore. Just send your LinkedIn page.
• Other Helpers - Creating a Facebook page, sustaining a blog and/or authoring guest blogs on other sites, and keeping your profiles updated on social networking sites such as Digg and StumbleUpon all help.

How accessible you are on web is incredibly important to your online brand strategy.  Make sure you know how you are being perceived, and how easy or difficult you are making it for your customers to contact you. These are very simple strategies that are more and more a requirement in today's connected world. I'll be sending this link to my friend.

Related Articles

• You Are What the Web Says You Are: Reality and Social Media Reality

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4 Content Marketing Essentials for Every Business

Content marketing isn't a luxury anymore...it's a necessity. Delivering consistent, valuable content to your customers and prospects is now a cornerstone of every business, large or small.

Here are 4 things that every business, not matter what the size, should be doing on a regular consistent basis that involves high-value content.

1. Blog - A blog may be the simplest and most effective way to deliver daily and ongoing content to your target buyers. It also gives you the ability to be edgy and cutting-edge on topics that can differentiate you from the competition. If you are looking for the basics on setting up a blog site, see this post from The Lonely Marketer. Once you launch the site and begin to add content on a regular basis, promote the site like crazy. Problogger has a bunch of great posts on this.  Here's "10 Tips for Finding Readers" and "Another 19 Strategies."

2. Hire an Editor - It's challenging to extract the best information from a company and deliver it to target buyers on a consistent basis. Businesses are set up to deliver products and services, not necessarily ongoing valuable content. For that reason, find an industry expert to take charge of your content activities. You can either find a freelancer (check your trade magazines to find the best ones) or hire a custom publisher to oversee your content activities (for a basic directory of custom publishers, go to custompublishers.com, or The Custom Publishing Council member directory).

3. Launch a Microsite - It's often challenging for businesses of any size to add content to a product or services Web site. Large companies deal with corporate branding politics that causes headaches for any minor change...plus, large companies have many groups of targeted buying groups (so it's challenging to deliver a consistent content message). Small companies may be scared to change their site too much because they at least want their site users to know what they are selling.

The easy answer is a microsite (sometimes called a content web portal). At this site you can focus on creating great custom publishing content targeted to your customers and prospects.  Be sure the content is 100% customer-focused. If it is, you will be successful. A great example of a medium-sized company is Intuit's JumpUp.com. It's obvious their target is the small business owner and start-ups, and all the content is concentrated on small-business planning and entrepreneurial issues. Any company can do this...and if done right, the payoff could be big.

4. White Paper Program - White papers are usually 8 - 12 page documents that cover a key industry issue. Design doesn't have to be anything fancy, but the content must be great. Custom published white papers can serve as excellent thought leadership and lead generation pieces for your company. The key with white paper programs is consistency. If you launch a program, make sure you have at least one white paper per quarter. Although you can use them as sales collateral, white papers are most easily downloaded from your Web site or, better yet, your microsite. Grant Thornton has always done a great job with their white paper program.  Check them out here.

Although there are many more custom publishing/content marketing initiatives that a company can (and maybe should launch), these are the basics that every business must have in our new marketing social media environment. Down the road, you may want to consider printed custom magazines or newsletters, a digital magazine launch, eProducts such as eBooks or eNewsletters, and possibly in-person events such as customers roundtables.

Final Note: The Case for Print. I was at the Folio conference in New York recently where traditional publishers discussed the differentiation between print and web users. Consistently, publishers notes that there was only about a 15 to 25% overlap between print and web users. Depending on your industry and your readership, be sure you understand how your customers want to receive their information. If the research tells you print is still a big part of their daily behavior, you may want to integrate the above strategies with a print newsletter or mini-magazine that can lead buyers back to the content on your Web site.

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Related Articles:

• Microsite Scorecard - See How the Microsites Stack Up
• Key Questions When Launching a Content Marketing Initiative
• Why Most Custom Publications Aren't Measured
• Content is King, But What Is It Really?
• Stop Shouting Features: 5 Tips To Create a Knowledge Marketing Program
• Want Customer Loyalty? Create Customer Wins With Content

>>If you liked this article, try Junta42 for more.

A Useful Marketing Scorecard - How's Your Customer Communications?

I just posted to the Custom Publishing Council blog on a marketing scorecard specific to custom publishers. Whether you are a marketer or a publisher, the questions can be applied in either case.  Take a read and let me know how you scored, and what questions you would add or subtract. Take it now!

Side note: It's always intrigued me (including my own companies) how marketing services companies are so good at doing great marketing work for their clients, but forget the basics when it comes to their own communications efforts. More than not, whether it's a custom publishing company, large marketing services company, or a small business, most of the marketing is hanging on by a thread.

I wonder what would happen if these companies focused more on their marketing communications. Would their business get better or worse?

The 5Rs of Marketing Communications Planning

I was reading through the archives of the Journal of Integrated Communications and stumbled upon a Don Schultz article entitled "Marketing Communication Planning in a Converging Marketplace." It's amazing how many of Schultz's comments still ring true in today's marketing environment.

Of note is Schultz's notion that marketing communications managers use his 5Rs of marketing communication planning instead of the infamous 4Ps of marketing (product, price, place, promotion). The underlying notion of the 5Rs is that the customers, not the organization itself, are ultimately in control, leaving the 4Ps obsolete. Most marketers, specifically electronic marketers, understand this today, but this was a novel concept in 2001. Here is a summary of the 5Rs:

• Responsiveness - The traditional marketing organization is not built to be responsive and is organized to "talk, not to listen." The ability of a marketer to quickly and successfully respond to the informational needs of the customer is paramount to making an ongoing impact on the customer's buying behavior.
• Relevance - This is the interruption vs. value issue. Interruption marketing, such as print advertising, the 30-second spot, etc., are no longer relevant to the majority of buyers. Buyers are looking for information that helps them accomplish a task, solve a problem, educate them about an issue, or entertain them. Thus, relevant and valuable content delivered to customers as they need it is paramount to the overall marketing program.
• Receptivity - "The challenge of the new marketplace...is communicating when the 'buyer wants to buy,' not 'when the seller wants to sell.'" Marketers are all about schedules and deliverables that are presented through a marketing production schedule. The fact is, marketing organizations must present ongoing, valuable information to solve customer issues "when they need it." This underlines the importance of corporate blogs, corporate discussion forums, and integrated communication programs that give the customer information where and when they can best use it (most likely, when they are ready to buy).
• Recognition - Brand recognition "allows customers to make decisions based on past experience or recommendation from friends." Buyers are bombarded with more choices every day, and ultimately, a brand that consumers have an affiliation with in some way, is an asset and a differentiator. Everything, from technology to product specifications to packaging, can ultimately be copied. What is difficult or even impossible to copy is the ongoing communications that make up a brand.
• Relationships - "It will be the customer who determines the length, strength and depth of the relationship the marketer is trying to create." This underlines the importance of internal marketing (customer service that understands the vision of the company) and ongoing retention marketing (focusing less on lead generation and more on what the informational needs are from your current customers).

As a conclusion to the 5Rs, Schultz advocates a "delivery first, message second" strategy, positioning that "it makes no difference what you say if you can't get the message to the customer or prospect."

To Schultz's model of "Media - Message - Consumer" I would adapt the following chart below.
    
A minor change, but one that I feel is important as we see marketing organizations scramble to get the attention of the target buyer (see this post on measurement and purpose).

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Related Articles:

• Key Questions When Launching a Content Marketing Initiative
• Why Most Custom Publications Aren't Measured
• Content is King, But What Is It Really?
• Stop Shouting Features: 5 Tips To Create a Knowledge Marketing Program
• Want Customer Loyalty? Create Customer Wins With Content

>>If you liked this article, try Junta42 for more.