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The ultimate measure of success...

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 08:24:42 -0700

Would your employees refer you?

Makes you think. Those people who you pay to deal with you/your business… do they boast about what a great organization you have? Are they whipping out business cards when they’re out during the day?

Employees are a cornerstone of your marketing team. Are they sending the right message? If not, why?

More on this topic from the amazing John Jantsch.

Make love to your calendar

Thu, 20 Oct 2011 09:35:45 -0700

One of the first things I ask clients is “do you have a calendar for your marketing”?

:::cue the blank stare:::

I’ve yet to meet anyone who does.

We time table out our sales meetings, our business trips and product arrivals but marketing is left to roll around on its own in our brains. We squeeze in our efforts when we have time or (more likely) when our backs are up against a wall.

Marketing requires resources (like time, money, energy!) and as with any good business, allocating those resources effectively makes the resources stretch further. Who isn’t interested in stretching resources and getting the most for your dollar and hour?

The calendar creates focus.

Avoid the terrible habit of sitting down at your computer and clicking around helplessly for marketing advice. (Unless your clicks brought you here… then good job!).

Having a specific activity calendared means you’ve made time for it and you can begin to prepare accordingly.

Here’s a great way to make sense of putting marketing activities on your calendar:

I recommend clients first start by plotting three marketing events down for the coming year: short term (1-3 month away), medium term (4-9 months away) and long term (10-12 months away).
Then, on a separate sheet of paper or document, go ahead and make a list of all of the tasks you need to do to accomplish your task.
Next, assign a date to each of these tasks, by working backwards.
Last, add the tasks to the date of your calendar.

You’ll then have a calendar that tells you what to do to execute a successful marketing plan. It’s so much easier to accomplish marketing when we sit down to accomplish tasks than it is to sit down and constantly be stuck in a purgatory of strategy and wanting immediate results (which is where a LOT of business owners feel themselves pulled).

And before you leap out of the gate, scrap the idea that you’re going to strive for a perfect calendar that precisely maps out every marketing move.

Free presentations

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 08:33:00 -0700

Marketing strategy & planning View more presentations from Rebecca Tall Brown

Online Marketing for Sept 2011

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Online Marketing + Bonus Slides

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 22:46:46 -0700

Online Marketing View more presentations from Rebecca Tall Brown

An awesome way of identifying who’s who on the social...

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 07:37:27 -0700

An awesome way of identifying who’s who on the social networking scene… it’s just like high school! Via e-strategy.com

Give your business the edge

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 14:15:13 -0700

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Next steps to keep propelling forward??

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Marketing your business using Google Tools

Tue, 07 Jun 2011 07:45:00 -0700

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Next steps to keep propelling forward??

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Google Business Photo Service goes live today. Basically...

Fri, 06 May 2011 08:58:19 -0700

Google Business Photo Service goes live today.

Basically they’ve taken pictures of the *insides* of businesses and posted them online. To see if your business is participating:

Google your business name
Click on “Place Page”
You’ll see photos: any photos attributed to Google, and of the inside of your biz means that you are participating already

Localmind Uses Foursquare & Facebook Checkins for Q&A Platform

Tue, 03 May 2011 06:38:09 -0700

Localmind Uses Foursquare & Facebook Checkins for Q&A Platform:

Making social media check-in services (like Facebook, Foursquare and Gowalla) more useful than just “I am here”, Localmind layers over the apps and adds a question and answer feature. It’s like combining location-specific Aardvark with check-in services, from an app on your mobile device.

From Mashable:

“’The basic idea of Localmind is to give you the ability to ask a question of someone checked in at any location,’ explains co-founder Lenny Rachitsky.

‘The power of Localmind,’ says Rachitsky, ‘is you can get remote omniscience. You can see what’s happening anywhere in the world through other people’s eyes.’”

From traffic, to wait times, to daily specials, Localmind allows users to check in with people already at their destination and get a heads-up.

The questions going forward will be (1) will this be a tool that makes it okay to ‘talk’ to strangers in a way that no other tools have worked and (2) how will they time-index the data so that the relevant stuff stays on top?

Businesses and locations will want some sort of control over these tools and I forsee a future where every business has an in-house person whose job it is to just monitor, clarify and keep social media reflective of the brand.

"Quote of the week: “The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work..."

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 17:28:45 -0700

“Quote of the week:
“The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he’s always doing both.””

- James A. Michener

Other Uses for your Elevator Pitch

Fri, 08 Apr 2011 11:04:00 -0700

More than just verbiage to pull out at networking mixers, here are some suggestions from CareerRocketeer on how to re-purpose your elevator pitches:

Social Networking Profiles (Facebook’s “About” or “Work” sections, Twitter’s “About”, LinkedIn’s profile sections, Yelp’s “About” Section)
Business Cards (make use of the back side)
Email Signatures
Resumes (replace that awful “objectives” line!)
Website “About” Page

Pitching Yourself -- Responding to "What do you do?"

Thu, 03 Mar 2011 08:00:00 -0800

Today, the question “What do you do?” is the equivalent of modern-day leprosy.

I’m a lawyer.

“Oh.” Stares over your shoulder.

I’m a podiatrist.

“Hm! Bet you’ve got some awful stories! Bah hah hah!”

I sell insurance.

:::Blank stare and walks away:::

Your response to “What do you do”, can also be an aphrodisiac.

I’m a director at Habitat for Humanity.

I’m Brad Pitt’s masseuse.

Etc.

So how do we contend a question which labels us instantaniously? If you’re still reading, it’s likely you’re having a difficult time with the feeling like a leper part of this.

First: Take Inventory.

Make a list of pre-conceived notions people might associate with your profession. Instead of having an underlying script that says “They’re probably thinking that I’m too old to be doing this/silly to do this/smarmy because of what I do”, get every contention out on the table.

To use myself as an example, I’d say: I’m a marketing and business consultant.

Potential clients might think:

I’m unnecessary to their business (they could easily do what I do)
I’m too young to be in this position
I must charge a lot—“consultant” = expensive
They have no idea what a “marketing consultant” is/does and so they stop listening
They heard of someone who got “taken” by a marketing firm and so they shy away from anyone offering similar-sounding services
I must not be professional to be operating independently—isn’t it more legitimate to go to a marketing firm for real results?

Second: Getting the Real Story.

Looking at your list, mark the responses you’ve actually heard people say (not the ones you’ve imagined them saying).

I’ve actually had people respond that:

They have no idea what a “marketing consultant” is/does

Run your big list by a few (2-3) people you trust to be honest with you. Ask them if they’ve ever had these thoughts about someone in a similar role, or even with you. Let them know that their feedback is constructive and helpful and welcome.

Third: Design Tactics.

Your Audience.

For the points you have actually heard before, figure out who said them. Is it a certain type of potential customer or friend? Take a moment to build a profile of “Who doesn’t get what I do?”.

In my example, people who don’t “get what I do” are typically small, independent business owners who have had a brick-and-mortar business for 20+ years. That’s my audience. So I might explain:

“You know how it used to be enough marketing for a business just to be listed in the yellow pages? Well, now there are so many places a business can advertise—I help business owners shuffle through all of that, marketing their message and connecting with customers.”

Leading in with a question, “You know how ______________” (fill in the blank with any generally-accepted fact/stereotype relevant to your audience) makes it easier for the audience to relate to you.

If you find that you have several audiences, develop pitches that speak to each of them, and then try to group the pitches (around certain age groups, certain industries, certain technical-skill levels, etc).

Your imagined fears.

Those other points that you haven’t actually heard might be concerns to your audience, or they might be insecurities of your own. To address them, see what you can address in your pitch, what you can dismiss, and what you might need to work on.

In my example, my un-founded fears were:

I’m unnecessary to their business (they could easily do what I do)

I know that some people might be able to do what I do, but it’s likely that they’d need to give up many of their responsibilities or dedicate serious time to it (which isn’t likely to happen). I can address the limitation of time business owners constantly face.

I’m too young to be in this position

I need to just accept that there’s nothing I can do about my age. That’s a fixed point. I can add to my credibility by explaining my experience, education and knowledge in my field.

I must charge a lot—the word “consultant” = expensive

One way I address this is to explain how much more cost-effective it can be to have a non-staff employee dedicated to a project. My entire focus is on their project. I pay for all of my resources, my benefits, my breaks. They’re just purchasing strict work-time when they hire me.

They heard of someone who got “taken” by a marketing firm and so they shy away from anyone offering similar-sounding services

While I can’t change their prejudices, I can mention credible organizations and clients I’ve worked with, along with my experience in my dad’s small family business. I show them I empathize with the sometimes vulnerable position of owning a business.

I must not be professional to be operating independently—isn’t it more legitimate to go to a marketing firm for real results?

My insecurity around having to compete with firms is really the critical factor here. Firms are great for those with the resources/strategy of needing a complete team. When a client hires me, they also have access to my network of reliable designers, coders, publicity professionals and SEO specialists. Mentioning my network is one way to show I provide a complete-solution.

Wrapping Up

Building a pitch that analyzes where you’re losing people, how to capture them and how to address any other uncertainties will give you confidence in answering “What do you do?”. By strengthening your statement, you’ll see how you can help people, using what you do as the lead-in. Practice your speech on new people—try different adjectives and see what kind of success rate you have. Blogger Ramit Sethi covers testing and tracking the success of pitches in his recent post How to test responses in bars.

(What inspired this post: In his recent TED talk, Alain de Botton talks more about how “What we do” determines how people respond to us… and how we can be kinder and gentler. I’m also involved with a local Elevator Pitch Meetup Group.)

Small Businesses Emerging from Recession

Fri, 18 Feb 2011 10:01:03 -0800

Small Businesses Emerging from Recession:

Small business owners are starting to rebound, slowly but surely.

I want to BE the trend, not just eat the trend

Wed, 19 Jan 2011 11:24:00 -0800

My grandpa Nathan Tall was a cook on an Army transporting ship during WWII. He then went to work assembling airplanes. However, he had one dream that was left unfinished: operating a mobile food truck… in the form of a potato.

(Bear with me on this one…) His concept what that of a a mobile food cart/truck with the exterior of a potato that served the potato in its various forms: fried, sliced, baked, julienned, (etc.) with a slew of potato toppings.

Yet he pioneered a deli (now cafe) and the potato pipe dream stays just that.

A decade after Grandpa Tall’s passing, I could see it coming to fruition as the trend of dining at food trucks makes the leap from I want to dine there, to I want to own one.

The Eating:

The website MobileCravings keeps tabs on the coordinates of favorite mobile food providers in your city. The carts themselves are actively updating their locations and times and for extra convenience, you can follow them in real time via Twitter and Facebook.

The Owning:

Trading a cubical for a mobile food-party center has its appeal and today, Entrepreneur covers How to Start a Food Truck (via Steph @SkinnyJeans).

If you’re the type who likes to do their research, Portland’s thriving food cart movement has a book in the works.

The Local Dish:

San Diegans can keep up to date with Mobile Cravings and check out food cart ratings on Yelp!

An innovative event is Ballast Point Brewing & Spirits’ beer-paired food-truck dinner on Thursday, Jan. 27 in Linda Vista (5401 Linda Vista Road). On-tap, $1 brews are paired with grub from the MIHO Gastrotruck. More info: ballastpoint.com

San Diegan’s can learn about the permitting process here and by contacting (619) 338-2379 or email fhdutyeh@sdcounty.ca.gov

Happy noshing, from four wheels.

Computers, TV and... You

Tue, 11 Jan 2011 07:47:18 -0800

“The interrelation of the Web, social media, and TV has been accelerating for some time” reports marketing pulse-keeper ClickZ. The market is still yet undefined and GetGlue, the first entrant to this industry is still a baby: just 3 years old.

Analysts realizing that the current model (checking in and receiving badges/discounts, ala Yelp!) is not near full potential in participation (there are still <1M total users among the big three platform) or engagement.

Where is it evolving?

One company founder hopes to move to a point where conversation means “users can look up TV shows and engage with other users”. It will be interesting to see if the natural engagement/enthusiasm we see show-specific fan blogs can carry over.

Content Delivery Stands Up Because it Absolutely Must

Fri, 07 Jan 2011 14:04:21 -0800

As usual, this week, Seth Godin and RSS both posted un-related articles. Yet themes are being exposed between these two thought-spots and in a million other places, once you start to dig.

Godin wrote about the quiet amazement of RSS (really simple syndication) in his post “In defense of RSS”.

In “set it and forget it” fashion, RSS automatically delivers specifically-tailored online content via a feed reader. He explained why it’s important: because it actively delivers what you want in a format you can sift through—always knowing you’re receiving the most up-to-date content available.

Today, RSS wrote about the death of privacy policies and the emergence of real-time privacy notifications.

All of these changes hearken to calls that there is too much information available and users are becoming more and more recipient-oriented.

In my day-to-day life, I see that those who are low-to-medium consumers of internet information spend as much time searching as they do ingesting. It’s no wonder that they same big stories, videos and “internet magic tricks” are tagged, forwarded and retweeted.

The photo on the right features “push notifications” — which I believe where the smartest and most-read information will be headed.

I ‘ll liken it to a school classroom: the kids who participate the most (I-have-every-answer-and-raise-my-hand-every-time) and the kids who act out get the most attention (for better or worse). The in-between kids who sit back and passively receive information are typically overlooked and, I’d guess, capture less overall.

Eight reasons I work for small business owners Their utter passion for their niche/industry how they...

Fri, 10 Dec 2010 12:34:37 -0800

Eight reasons I work for small business owners

Their utter passion for their niche/industry
how they adore their long-time customers
The thrill they exhibit when a first-timer finds them
The flexibility they show when they’re faced with a “no” or a “can’t”
The humble surprise that emerges when they receive praise
The adorable fact that while you can get them to change topics, all they really want to talk about is work
The stories they share of good and tough times
The pure hope they choose each and every day

Pay attention to the man behind the curtain: spot-the-ad games for building savvy kids

Fri, 03 Dec 2010 09:45:00 -0800

In media, there’s ongoing, tiresome discussion regarding children and advertising. The government regulates content and some display times, but frequency and consumption is free reign. To help wisen the kid in your life to advertisements, here are spot-the-ad games for building savvy kids:

Give them a stop watch and time the amount of commercials during their favorite show. Turn that into a pie graph (or, better yet, get a real pie!) and show % of show versus % of commercial during the half hour.
The next time you’re in a waiting room, pick up a magazine and have him or her point out how many advertisements they see. Be sure to help them see that “Stars’ Favorite Products” and “Great Gift Ideas!” are also subtlety placed advertisements.
When driving, have them count how many ads they can spot. Include less-obvious things like bumper stickers, gas station pump-TVs and sign-twirlers. For an extra challenge, leave the radio on and count radio spots.
With older kids, have them build a picture of who the general audience is for a show, based strictly on commercials. How old is the audience? Do they live in the city? In an apartment? On a farm? What kind of car does this audience drive? What kinds of food do these people eat? Advertisements on PBS (yes, those are ads on PBS) are different from those on NBC during a sporting event.
Encourage your older child to record a guess-price for every product advertised during the pre-show advertisements at a movie theater. Popcorn, Coke, Mercedes, Motorola phone, whatever. Have them add up the total sume if you were to buy everything advertised. Be prepared to be blown away.

Advertising is an enormous presence and having a savvy eye means that yes, we hear you, yes, we see you, and yes, we’re free to choose how you effect us.

And if this goes really well, maybe throw in the concept that advertising creates revenue, making TV shows, newspapers and magazines possible. Squeezing in ethics-related topics might not be a bad idea, either :) There’s tons of content for that.

Oh! It's so American: Small Business Saturday

Mon, 29 Nov 2010 14:26:37 -0800

During the past 21 days, American Express has coined, sponsors and promoted “Small Business Saturday” — taking place on the Saturday directly after Black Friday with the concept of supporting local small business.

When I first heard of the event I was pretty gleeful and tried to think about how to best phrase catchy announcements for my favorite small business. But something didn’t seem right and I cooled my zeal while watching the campaign run its course.

The evening of Small Business Saturday, it hit me: American Express is the sole sponsor of this program. Heck, the promotion’s website is even branded in the company’s signature deep ocean blue color! The campaign comes in feel-good, patriotic wrapping with equally nationalistic lingo like “pledge” and “movement”. On the site, there are business tools like complementary co-branded Facebook ads, posters, fliers and even the not-so-subtle Tips on Social Media.

The promotions such as “Spend $25 at a small business and receive a $25 statement credit!” put the onus on consumers to use their AmEx card at a small business. Making this a push campaign (to the consumer) who pulls on the business (AmEx’s actual profitable customer and ultimate target) to accept AmEx.

So, what happens when the consumer, bedazzeld with small business adoration, realizes that their business of choice doesn’t take the blue wonder plastic? Fact is, American Express charges business anywhere from 0.5% to 1% more per transaction than Visa or MasterCard (unless you’re like McDonald’s or Costco who have an exclusive contract with AmEx and get much lower rates).

Participating businesses have to register with AmEx for the free promotion… providing AmEx with an opt-in database of business owners that they can run against current customers. Bam! Presto! Automatic list of qualified leads!

While any promotion for small business is beautiful in my book, I’m interested in what kind of boon this will prove for AmEx. Will small businesses feel enough push from consumers and the “change of heart” from the king of credit cards (AmEx cards represent just under a quarter of all credit transactions).

Shopping bags full of questions pop up when one contemplates the evolution of this strategy:

Is this something the credit company will continue to push?
Will this “new holiday” stick without consistent AmEx to promotions?
Can consumers be drawn into cause-based shopping on a deal-based shopping weekend?
Will small business support this corporate-baby from the inside with sales? I’d be interested in seeing the increase in online retailers participating in Cyber Monday since its inception in 2005. And what part of that is just new online business, not converts?

Bottom Line: We’re certain to see more refined multi-platform marketing as companies learn to target, make seamless next-to-nothing offerings, and wrap in socially-conscious “value” packages.

One of the most irritating sentences in marketing...

Tue, 23 Nov 2010 09:35:00 -0800

For-profits, non-profits, tiny independent resellers, huge box stores, online merchants all buy into the social networking craze and they do it in the worst way:

Tell your friends!

Ugh.

A more loathsome, irksome, some-body-better-hold-me-back-some sentence has never been uttered before.

Five reasons why the sentence irritates me:

Consumers “tell their friends” because they we want to, not because, company, telling them to. The fact that you’re telling a consumer to do something means that the consumer’s sharing isn’t genuine. It’s contrived. I’m not your puppet :::cue Rolling Stones-esqu music:::
Companies are the ones with the marketing money/marketing game plan. To turn around and hoist the burden of marketing onto an unpaid consumer is ridiculous. Not only is the consumer supposed to buy your product but also be told how to market and what to say? You’ll get the response of, “Hey, company, YOU tell my friends. In fact, you have to now re-convince me that I want to be a part of your shenanigans. I’m not going to do your dirty work for free.”
When the “tell your friends” is the *only* way for a consumer to get something they want (to support something, to cast a vote, to win a free prize or discount or entry into a contest), it’s basically a pyramid scheme.
It’s not fair for the consumer who’s intelligent and genuinely cares. Maybe they have a certain avenue where they’d like to share — a sweet, clutter-breakthrough sort of way. Company with marking plan, you’ve just made them do things your way and you’ve ruined the organic possibility of what “their way” may have brought. You just punched “viral” in the gut and it no longer wants to play on the playground with you.
The biggest reason this irritates me? I’ve used this line. More than once. I have to hold myself back from using this line. The reptilian part of my marketer brain goes to this as a default. It’s lazy, it’s a placeholder no better than the Latin filler text “Ipsum lorem daa daa daa”.

Strong authors have written books on just giving your consumer a reason (product, service, cause, event) GOOD ENOUGH, targeted enough, meaningful ENOUGH for someone to organically want to share. If you’re reason isn’t worthy of your consumer “telling their friends”, then you need to revisit your reason, revisit your markets, and revisit your methods of conveying benefits.