The Marketing Mix | official blog of the Marketing Mentor community

When does "opt-in" mean "free to shill"?

Ilise and I have been hammering away at the presentation she's giving (and I'm ably assisting with giving, I hope!) at the Creative Freelancer Conference in Chicago on August 28.

It's really, really fun working on it, and at the risk of bringing doom down upon myself, I think it's really going to rock, the combination of our different but complementary skill sets and presentation styles, even without the excessive cursing I'm usually given to, but have sworn off for the duration.

It's also been eye-opening in a lot of ways: combing through examples from my files, both physical and electronic, to see what sticks and what doesn't, what shines and what feels kind of lame upon closer examination. For sure, I'll be making some major adjustments to my own sites once I get back and things calm down a little.

But I came across one example of egregious fouling-up from a usually astute self-promoter (and someone very, very good at his chosen profession, which is marketing-related), so I thought I'd throw it out there in advance of the presentation, to get some real-time feedback: when someone opts-in to your list, what's the first thing you send? I don't know, but had better not be an ad for yourself!

I know what happened, because I know how some email marketing programs are set up: to send out the very next missive in the pipeline. I'll make a humble suggestion, though: when you set up your program, make the first thing a "goodie", not a "me! me!" I was so disgusted that the first communication I got from this incredibly talented person was a pitch for an upcoming workshop, I almost unsubbed on the spot.

Am I nuts, here? Is it out of line to think someone should earn my trust a bit before trying to sell me something?

What do you do with your list? And what would you do if you'd gotten a Big Fat Ad as your first email from a signup?

Change in an unfamiliar territory

I was reading a fascinating statistic the other day.

Every second, 14 Nokia mobile phones are sold. And Nokia is not happy about it.

It promoted me to look a little closer at what Nokia is doing these days with positioning themselves in the digital media delivery world now that iPhones are starting to take over the world. Nokia has been a world leader in mobile communications for many years and suddenly the rules of the game are changing. Nokia is realizing that it needs to position itself as a promoter of social networking, with photo and video sharing and games for users of its cell phones. The market is changing and it’s a new and unfamiliar territory for them. Mr. Tero Ojanpera, Nokia’s CEO, was quoted saying “Change is painful, but you have to figure this out in order to be successful. The question is, are you willing to play by the new rules?”

If a giant corporate company is having this big a-ha moment and shifting their products and marketing efforts, what are we, the small business owners doing to keep on top of the changes in the market today? I am realizing more and more the importance of teaching myself about all the online and social networking avenues out there to stay current and grow my business. A year ago I wouldn’t have cared about Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn but it seems that the world is moving in this direction whether I like it or not at a speed that is hard to keep up with. So am I willing to make the change? You bet. It’s an unfamiliar territory for too me but I am slowly getting more comfortable in it. Everything flows from the market and the market is saying “get active online!”

So how has this change affected your business? Are you getting more connected? Is it an unfamiliar territory for you as it is for me?

Nothing beats immersion for a good introduction

I've been singing the praises of Twitter for months now, but it took Ilise one conference trip where Twitter was on the menu for her to finally see its power.

For those of you with short memories, she's been up at Bizjam in Seattle this week. All good, but I had to laugh at the email I got today, saying Aliza Sherman (a very plugged-in lady currently residing in Alaska) had been Twittering Ilise's session and could I please blog about it.

Emailing about blogging about Twittering. Sometimes, I just love the time I'm alive in.

(It's old news now, but you can check out @alizasherman's old tweets, or, for you supernerds, check out the Bizjam hashtag.)

UPDATE 7/11: Color me Behind the Times; didn't even know about this tweet tracker.

Guest Post: There’s Gold in Them There Tweets!

Looks like the communicatrix ain't the only Twitter apologist in the Marketing Mentor fambly; previous guest mixer and Marketing Mentor client Drury Bynum of Workerbee Creative—that's @drubynum for those of you on Twitter—also has good words for my current favorite time-waster—er...social media space.

You can't throw a rock in the blog world and not hit someone evangelizing about how social networks have changed everything. But I've always felt it hard to justify my time spent adding friends to Facebook, photos to Flickr or alerting my 68 followers on Twitter that I drink too much coffee this morning. I've always thought, "Am I really making connections here, or am I just personality spamming?"

Well, now I’m a believer because I actually I turned a relationship on Twitter into a paying job.

Twitter is a public instant messaging service, where you can subscribe to the posts of whomever you like, and vice versa. Like most, I originally didn't see the value. Yet it started to become clear when one evening I posted, "Thank God, or whomever, for Pandora." The next morning Pandora was following me. Pandora was obviously searching for Twitter entries (probably with a 3rd party app like Summize) that contained their name, and, as a bonus, accolades. I realized then the value of access to an audience that is actively listening.

The Twitter call to action is “What are you doing?” It should be, “What are you focused on right now?” This clarifies the point a bit – if you answer the first question, you may say, “I’m drinking coffee,” which is a dead end. But if you say, “I’d love to find a way to keep my coffee warm to the last drop,” (I did this) then you’ve created an invitation to respond. If your Tweets (individual Twitter entries) are useful, interesting, entertaining, part of a larger conversation or contain keywords that others are searching for, then you will get attention.

So how did I turn this attention into a paying gig? After posting a link to a video that I had created, one of my followers viewed it and sent me a direct message (via Twitter). "I've been following you on Twitter for a little while now and was checking out your blog." In the next sentence, she offered me a video job. Shortly after that, I came very close to securing a video shoot in Portugal after sending a casual tweet to a member of a large filmmaker network. I didn't get the assignment, but the point was that I was in the right place talking to the right person.

There is obviously no formula for getting work from Twitter, but if you use your imagination and talk about things that are valuable to the Twittersphere, then you will make some valuable connections.

DIY web site template sites

If you still don't have a web site, don't be ashamed.

Just realize that there are really simple ways to create a phase 1 site so that you can have the online presence that legitimizes your business.

A few clients in our "Feet to the Fire" Group are looking for templates to use.

Here are a few we know of:

• Yahoo Small Biz
• Google Apps
• GoDaddy.com
• IV Websites
• Intuit's option

Do you know of others?

Do you have experience and opinions on these? If so, please share it in a comment.

5/16 UPDATE FROM COLLEEN:

Sandra Koenig emailed us to say some photogs she knows use LiveBooks. I checked it out and there are some pretty spiffy portfolio options. And Vanessa Stump gives the thumbs up to RapidWeaver, a Mac-only program with good templates.

Choosing a URL when most are taken

In one of the "Feet to the Fire Groups" this week, Carrie Hamilton of Kismet Design offered this advice to a colleague who is trying to find a URL for her already named company:

Finding the perfect URL is almost impossible. My company is called Kismet primarily because it was one of a few words I liked the sound of that was available with "design.com" after it.

When people are looking for you on the web, they’re likely to try .com first, as I’m sure you know, though personally, I Google practically everything anyway. I would think that if someone wants to find you, they will, whether you’re a .com or a .biz. (or a .net). We’re all more internet savvy than we used to be.

Aesthetically speaking, though, .com is just a little bit nicer.

Why not try slight, memorable variations on your business name, like thesavvygal.com or thesavvygrl.com or even thesavvygrrl.com? How about savvygals.com, since your target market is women? Using underscores (_) might work, too.

You could also try adding a word to it that describes what you do, like savvygalconsulting.com. Or try savvygalconsultants.com and make it sound like your company is just a bit bigger than it actually is.

One more tip: URLs are cheap. Once you settle on something, buy up what you can that’s similar to it, so you can get as much traffic as possible going to you. At least get the .net as well as the .com, and link them all to your site. (Oddly, in my case, someone had already bought the .net version when I bought my original URL.)

Also, see what’s available for your own name and link it to your site as well. I own three URLs that all go to my website: kismetdesign.com, carriehamiltondesign.com and carriehamiltondesign.net. (Unfortunately, there was a quasi-well known actress with whom I shared a first and last name, who sent the cost of owning carriehamilton.com into the stratosphere).

I agree with everything Carrie advises here, especially the tip to own your own name, if at all possible.
Any other good ideas out there on the topic?

Guest Post: Web-Savvy, but Marketing-Lazy?

Today's guest post comes from Jim Koscs, Marketing Mentor client and owner of AudaMotive Communications LLC, which specializes in PR and marketing writing for auto industry clients. It's a fascinating look at the assumptions we make based on how we look at the new, "useful" tools we're implementing, and a reminder to take a second look at them through the eyes of our prospects and customers.

I’m not a lazy person, but launching my web site last year (after eight years in business!) triggered a change in the way I marketed myself -- and not for the better.

In a conversation about introductory marketing letters, Ilise asked if I send samples with them. I said no, because I had a web site to host a wide selection of work samples. Isn’t that what a web site is for, to save the time, effort and expense of sending out samples?

The first thing I did when I hung out my shingle in 1999 was to buy the shingle –- a domain. But for the next eight years, having the domain in my e-mail was the extent of my “online presence.” During those years, I sent marketing letters that detailed why I was the ideal automotive writer for a potential client. Each was targeted and succinctly written, with bulleted lists outlining my pertinent experience.

I would include 2-3 samples to match some of those bullets -– a press release, speech or brochure … whatever applied. That all changed when I put up my web site. “No need to send samples, I’ll just give them the web address, and they can download all the samples they want!”  At the same time, I also shortened my marketing letters. Why fill up the page with details when they can read all about me on the web site? Marketing suddenly got easier, and, with no samples to send, cheaper, too!

How did all this work? Not very well.

As I finally realized (with Ilise’s help), I’ve been assuming that anyone receiving my newly abbreviated letters would be so intrigued with my claims that they’d visit my web site. Once there, the many samples and client testimonials would compel them to call me. Too bad web links in a printed letter are not clickable.

To visit my web site, a prospect would need to be at a computer and be willing to type my URL into a web browser. Recipients that do not make that effort are left with a brief, fairly uninformative letter, but no samples of my work and no way to know if I am for real. (I also do send e-mail to prospective clients, and those of course link to my web site.)

So, for my “new” strategy, I’ll be digging through my computer files for the “classic” marketing letters I used to send … and I’ll be including samples again. Now, I’ll say something like, “This is just a small sampling of my work. I invite you to visit my web site to see a full range of ways I have helped my clients.”

Showing off new client web sites

Just showing off a few new client web sites and blogs.

On most of these, you will notice, on the homepage especially, the use of the word "you." The focus is on the visitor, where it should be.

Cleveland Design

Backpocket Copywriter

Tuff Cookie Productions

Cross it off your list

Aaron Design blog

Several other clients are in the throes of revamping their sites.

More to come soon.

How delicate to be when offering help

The question of how to offer your services to someone you think needs help is a very delicate matter.

I got this message recently from a reader of my Quick Tips:

I really like your concepts but I think you could use a better website. As my personal Marketing offer I want to give you a FREE upgrade to your website. If you are interested please email me back. I work in Joomla and in Flash.

What do you think of this approach?

How long should your email newsletter be?

Clients are often asking me how long their email newsletter should be and I usually say, "Shorter is better."

In fact, when people tell me they love my Quick Tips from Marketing Mentor, I ask them why and the first thing I almost always hear is, "Because it's short."

So you would think that an effective email newsletter should be short, right?

Not necessarily. I know several people who put out longish email newsletters that people do read because they are either really well written or they have useful information (or both!). Colleen's newsletter, communicatrix | focuses, is one of them. Bob Bly's Direct Response Letter is another. It's chock full of tidbits every month. You can read as much or as little as you like.

I always recommend you start with something short. Then, as you get more ideas and as people become accustomed to your writing and your style, lengthen your text as you see fit.

And remember, you can always write a bit then link to a place on your web site or blog where those interested can keep reading.