I recently received an e-book called the 100 Best Kept Marketing secrets. It was published by HP.
Its was ok. But it wasn’t great.
You can find it here:
http://h30038.www3.hp.com/getasset.php?lang=1&asset=2344&uid=345550
My LinkedIn contacts did much much better!
Don’t you agree?
Click here to find the original question and answer on LinkedIn Answers.
The Success Stories series provides case studies from people about what it takes to become successful. Each of us is unique in our goals and aspirations, but we have things in common with others. Through the 10,000,000 people in my LinkedIn network we can share ideas and solutions that will help you achieve your goals. While I don’t always agree with all the comments I receive, I include all that are presented coherently and could help at least one of my readers.
The questions have been slightly edited for grammar and presentation. Comments and Kudos, while always appreciated, have been edited out.
EVP Internet Marketing, Rostin Ventures
The secret is Social Marketing. It has changed the way marketers and entrepreneurs view business and the rate at which business defines success.
The steps to implement social marketing plans are simple. The easiest applications can be found online. Free blogs and sites are listed below on the subject. Read the content and follow these steps:
- Build a free mini website on your subject at www.blogger.com/start The site will be hosted by Google for free. Link the mini website to your company website content, which generates revenue or leads for you.
- Register with the network of sites found at www.socialmarker.com
- Read content within relevant content of sites found on www.socialmarker.com and link to friends on those sites, just as you have on LinkedIn.
- Post comments on bookmarking sites and link those comments to the mini site you have built.
- Use your relevant network at Linked In to review your mini site, post comments, and contribute to the new social marketing community you are developing.
Measurement of online traffic is built into every mini site and each page of your company website should be monitored for traffic. This system will allow you to target specific demographics of individuals looking for your product or service.
Links for these steps are provided below. They work and are very profitable…free marketing and advertising.
- http://www.socialmarker.com
- http://social-marketing-spot.blogspot.com
- http://www.ecommerceadvertisingreview.com
Owner, Hydrogen Creative. Redefining your Assets to the Customer Perspective
Tunnel VisionThe most common practice of businesses and organizations is to define their marketing assets based on the values that are business-centric, such as:
o Leadership
o Profitability
o Patentability
o Productivity
o Stock Value
o Innovation
o Technology
o Functionality
o Style/Culture
o Price
But, if you think about it more deeply, the ability to sustain this performance throughout all the environmental and economic changes and fluctuations really depends on one thing: Customer values.
The Customer Value Grid
Customer values form a totally different grid to the corporations. Individual products are a fraction of each customer’s total spectrum of activity. Even though the marketer promotes the advancement of its own interests, it only addresses a fragment of the customer’s needs. It is the customer values that inform the marketer how to engage customers for loyalty, frequency and continuity.
-How does your customer look at your product?
-Achievement: how well will this product or service help me to achieve my goals?
-Convenience: how easy is it to locate, engage or acquire this product or service?
-Comfort: can I use this product in a comfortable way or to increase comfort.
-Esteem: will the use of this product/service equate with or raise my esteem?
-Pleasure: will this product/service directly or indirectly enable me to increase the amount of pleasure in my life?
-Trust: is this product, service or company a reliable source for all of the above.
Don’t be surprised that price is not represented as a customer value. One of the world’s largest companies has built its business on low prices. But this is because price is only a function of the degree to which all the above can be satisfied. The customer that orders the meal deal can be the same one that purchases a state-of-the-art home theatre system.
Customers will expose themselves to financial risk to maximize comfort, esteem or pleasure. A house purchase is a simple example of this. Few homebuyers purchase a house that is easily affordable. In a consumption-driven society customers will invest disproportionate to their means to maximize these values. Wal-Mart’s value pricing simply enables their customers to maximize convenience and pleasure.
It is also true of business customers as well as consumers. We do not stop being human at work, and businesses are complex human structures.
When your product meets all or most of the values that customers ascribe then you gain acceptance. This acceptance is not limited to one occasion, but all occasions in which your product is needed. This is the chain of loyalty, frequency and continuity.
Matching Corporate Values to Customer Values
Try to match the customer value grid to the corporate value grid:
Leadership-Achievement
Profitability-Convenience
Patentability-Comfort
Productivity-Esteem
Stock Value-Pleasure
Innovation-Trust.
Technology
Functionality
Style/Culture
Price.
They don’t line up. The enterprise was established to fulfill a selfish function: the creation of wealth for its community. Consequently its values are self-interested.
This disconnect is a common reason for a business, even one that has experienced success, to ultimately fall. The more the business values align to its customer values the greater its propensity to succeed.
Extract from article: jonsherrington.blogware.com
Head of Marketing
For me it is the ability to improve my lead form conversion rate from 20% (industry average – i.e. when people click through to a landing page only 20% of the people will actually fill out the form and get whatever it is you are offering.) to 60% overnight.
How did I do this? I used an interactive dialogue which takes people through questions one at a time. It is intelligent and asks different questions depending on what your previous answer was. Not only did I triple my response rates but I also gained much more profiling information out of them. Meaning that when sales people called for follow up they were armed with much more information.
Check the link below to see my dialogue.
Director of Marketing North America – GenevaLogic
It’s not a secret but it’s frequently overlooked: Existing customers.
I’ve done a fair amount of small business consulting and the one thing that I’ve found missing in almost every marketing plan is building on the good will of existing customers.
Some business owners do not want to ‘burden’ their customers by asking them to promote their business because they don’t understand that customers usually WANT to share when they have had a great experience.
Here are some ways to accomplish that:
- Ask your customers to refer others to you. Don’t be shy about it and don’t forget to put something in their hand that has your contact information. A business card, a flier, a loyalty punch card, a discount coupon that they can hand to a friend, something that will remind them and direct new people to your business. For example, you could hand your customer coupons that have a tear off section. Every time they hand out your information to a friend, they tear off the piece that gives them a little treat or discount at your business as a reward for passing your information on.
- If you business has a local customer base, don’t overlook the reviews that are part of Google Maps. Ask your customers to review your business so others that are searching for it immediately see good information. Same thing goes for Citysearch in your area. You might think those reviews are worthless but you would be shocked at how many people make decisions based on things like that.
- If the type of business that you have is activity based (dog wash, coffee shop) don’t overlook the power of a good event. Create a fun event and charge ‘admission’ to communicate value – then give out invitations to your customers that get them in for free if they bring a new contact that has never been to your business.
- Get interested in what your customers are interested in. Is your business in a neighborhood that is very dedicated to the local school? Is it near a dog park? Is it close to a charity that is well known and liked? Is there a local chapter of an organization that lots of people are involved in? Sports team? Find out what your best customers do in their spare time. If it’s something that you can genuinely get behind in your heart, connect with them by offering a special service, points system, discount or throwing an event for them.
- Who is active when you are slow? Do you have a public business that has a known slow time but you don’t want to be closed? If you have a morning or evening that you know is slow, find out if there is anything going on that you can bring in that some of your customers are involved in – a group or club that needs a place to meet, a group of people who are trying to learn a new skill.
- Is there anything that you are an expert at that your customers are interested in? For example, if you own a coffee shop, can you give a talk on sustainable coffee production? If you are a car mechanic can you give a class on a simple repair that would save your customers money? Knowledge transfer is a great way to get your customers involved in your business and it marks you as an expert who cares about more than just making money.
That’s all I can think of off of the top of my head. If you want specific ideas for your business, I would be glad to give you suggestions.
Multimedia Producer, Mind Taffy Design; Graphics Design and 3D programming for Acrobat 3D PDF
The Secret is i3D. It is the same technology using in the most popular 3D games, both on-line and retail, and the i3D technology literally rivets the audience with light, graphics, FX, movement and interactivity (the user 100% controls the experience). Want to hit Males 10 to 45? This is the way to do it, and let them have a Blast (no pun intended) at the same time.
VP Sales and Marketing at Sales Force ASP & AccelStream
We have found that the best kept marketing secrets are centered around rich media messaging (video emails) and social media.
First, I have a few questions for you:
- What if you could send advertisements to prospects and only pay for the ones that were not thrown out?
- What if you knew exactly how many targeted recipients read your message?
- What if you knew when the messages were received (so that you could follow up in a timely manner)?
- What if you could have prospects tell you exactly when they wanted you to contact them?
The video message must contain 4 items:
- Your organization’s branding
- A concise, motivational video message with a call to action
- A plug in that allows immediate response
- Alternate contact information, such as phone and email address
Rich media messaging has been very successful in the non-profit arena and more recently it has been used for product marketing.
The success of the implementation requires proper planning. Don’t use a pre-recorded corporate video. Instead, think about what you want the recipient of the message to do, e.g., make a donation, volunteer, enter and submit their information, request an appointment, etc.
Next, assemble the storyboard for the video that motivates the recipient with a clear call to action.
Provide a way for the recipient to take action, via a plug-in. You’ll see two examples of this in the links below. The plug-in is in the area to the right of the video screen.
Finally, send the messages via email with a carefully scripted and html formatted email. Provide an opt-out link as well.
You will be surprised at the number of responses that you’ll get. You can measure the success by tracking the number of “plays” of each video message by the day, week, month, etc. It’s all inside AccelStream.
Take a look at the examples below.
- http://v1.as48.com/hxpp1.asp?MSGID=B7682B82-C3B8-417A-861E-EC7A336F06AD&bhc…
- http://m1.as48.com?MSGID=A8BAB940-F80B-48A1-93FD-F8C4A2DA88B4
- http://v1.as48.com/hxpp1.asp?MSGID=5D035AA4-70BE-4E23-B4AB-05D9E47B6371&bhc…
Owner, Business Ads In Motion
The best marketing tool available is creating a brand. So many companies are worried about what they need to make today that they don’t consider tomorrow. They just keep living the same “today’s”, with the same type of “impulse” advertising and the promise of tomorrow grows further away. We need to adjust the way that we think. Successful companies understand the urgency of generating revenue and increasing profits, but at the same time grow and cultivate a brand image. You can do it in a large or small market. It could be “Coke” for cola or “Joey’s” as THE PLACE to go for pizza. You can create that effect in any size market and there is nothing better than owning a brand and having your own sector of a market. The movie Field of Dreams famous quote is that “If you build it, they will come”. I’m telling you that if you take the time to build a brand, consumers will come.
VP of Marketing
The key to marketing is sincerity. Once you can fake that, you’ve got it made!
(OK…OK…very old joke.)
Whamwiki.com
My best secret is learning from others. 100 heads are better than 1. This post is an excellent example of useful information. I also read books, participate in local marketing organizations, and read lots of blogs. I use Bloglines.com to keep track of all the new content. It’s very useful.
To help me keep track of all this information (for when I’ll actually need to use it), I’ve developed my own tool called http://whamwiki.com. It’s a wiki where I can condense all this marketing information into useful lists. If anybody is interested, you can use it as well. It a collaborative tool.
Partner at Amtower & Company, consultant, author, speaker, radio host, leading authority on marketing to the government
There are several great marketing “secrets” but the best one I have ever run across is building relationships with my customers that last through time and turbulence. When the business relationship ends, I stay in touch with the folks I worked with, offer some advice now and again, and more often than not, the relationship is renewed. Sometimes it is renewed when the person moves to a new company and sometimes when they get a new boss. Sometimes they recommend me to peers at other companies and other divisions of their company. Many of my clients and former clients are connected to me on LinkedIn and we stay connected here, recommend one another, share connections, and more. I offer to act as a reference when they are looking for new jobs. Relationship management is best kept “secret” I have.
writing | editing | communication strategy
My father used to say that “good products don’t need marketing and advertising.” Dad was dead-wrong!
Based on over 20 years of marketing and communications experience both online and offline, here are my top five marketing secrets:
- Consistent effort (which includes investing appropriate resources)
- Clear messaging (my specialty!)
- Appropriate risk taking (and realizing that sometimes you have to try and fail)
- Being true to yourself (your brand, your company)
- Understanding that one-size-fits-all marketing doesn’t work in the long run
Marketing/PR at Parker, Smith & Feek
Innovative Evolution – Take what you (or others) have done and constantly evolve it.
It keeps the brand fresh and engaging, while keeping within your traditional brand framework.
Coca-Cola, Apple and Disney are all examples of this.
Apple takes it one step further with and incorporates this approach into its products. One little change this year, another next year while making no real sweeping innovative advances in technology.
Dynamic Marketing Leader – Fluent in Spanish
For me, the best kept marketing secrets are as follows:
· Actionable consumer data is the first element. You must know your customer and be able to predict and eventually impact their behavior. Businesses that anticipate how to meet their customers need on a practical and emotional level – win.
· Clear and concise messaging that answers the key human question – “What’s in it for ME?” or some variation of that. The target consumer needs to clearly be able to see and understand the benefit to them.
· Consistently changing is another key secret. Check out the brands that win – Nike, Pepsi, Burger King, Kitchen Aid, Target, Virgin Atlantic, I could go on but those are a few that come to mind quickly and they have all evolved and changed with the media landscape. They have embraced the change and taken risks that have paid in spades. There are some stale brands out there that I will NOT list but they know who they are – changing the font on your logo is not change. You need to grow and evolve your message to match our growing and changing society who you want to spend their hard earned dough on your product or service.
· Measure something. Don’t go crazy and expect dollar for dollar returns but measure brand awareness, benchmark other brands in your space, look at your growth during an advertising period versus non-advertising times – DO SOMETHING to measure the value of your marketing investment. That may mean creating marketing metrics for your business – I did it for a manufacturer of non-durable consumer goods – it can be done!
· Finally, enjoy what you are doing. The minute it is not fun – move on. There is nothing more exhausting that non-motivated marketing people. It is a waste of everyone’s time and energy so please love your product or service, love the consumer you serve or just love the process.
Add your insights and opinions in the comments section below!
Success Stories are part of my Success Through Balance approach to life. I believe that Success comes from living a balanced life. You can read more about being successful and the skills required here.
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