The Marketing Mix | official blog of the Marketing Mentor community

Introducing: The Un-Newsletter

Even though I think email marketing is still one of the best ways to stay in front of prospects and clients (and I love MyEmma.com as an email marketing service, especially if you take advantage of our 20% discount, I am moving away from recommending that you send out an email newsletter.

Instead, I am recommending an un-newsletter.

You see, the word "newsletter" seems to trip people up. It takes too long to write and too long to read. The "un-newsletter" is much shorter, doesn't require a lot of reading or writing (sometimes just a couple lines and a link to more, for those who want it) and still serves the main purpose: to remind everyone that you're out here and available to help.

My own newsletter, Quick Tips from Marketing Mentor, is gradually becoming an un-newsletter too. (If you don't already get that, you can sign up here: http://www.marketing-mentortips.com/)

What do you think about this idea of an "un-newsletter?"

Being #1

Welcome to Week 17 of my adventure of following the Start Up Version of the Grow Your Business Marketing Plan + Calendar.  In my posts, I talk about my voyage down the road of self-employment as a virtual marketing assistant, my achievements and roadblocks along the way, and I include a weekly recap at the end.
 
As part of the Grow Your Business Marketing Plan, we are supposed to check our search engine rankings.  This means typing relevant search terms into Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc… to see where our site comes up in the results.

My Google ranking for the term “virtual marketing assistant” was hanging out around 8.  This was pretty good, considering it was on the first page.  But at #8, there’s always room for improvement.

I’m happy to say that today my site comes up first in Google.  Why?  Because of the power of anchor text.  What is anchor text?  It is simply the text that is linked to your site.  Here’s an example.  The Marketing Mix is my favorite marketing blog.  In this case, marketing blog is the anchor text.

Maybe you’ve noticed that in the past 4 weeks, I added an introduction to my blog post where the words virtual marketing assistant link to my website.  Over the past 4 weeks, I’ve gone from #8 to #1 in Google.  Coincidence?  I think not. 

This is happening because by linking virtual marketing assistant to my website, it is explaining to search engines what my webpage is about.  My web page is about “virtual marketing assistant.”  If you use the anchor text click here, it is telling the search engines that your webpage is about “click here.”  Having more descriptive link text is a benefit to your reader, and to the search engine.

Search engines use many factors to determine where our websites rank for certain searches.  People dedicate their entire careers to getting high search engine rankings, but there are a few simple things we can do ourselves to improve our rankings:

• Understand what keywords and phrases your prospects are searching for (the Google Keyword Tool is a good way to do this). Remember to be specific with your ideal keywords.  You might not be able to get a first page ranking for “graphic designer,” but you might be able to get on the first page for a term like “logo design Kansas City.”
• Have descriptive title and meta tags in the html code of each page (that include your important keywords or phrases )
• Have keyword rich text throughout your website
• Remember the importance of incoming links to your website.  Exchange links with partners and clients.  When you post on a blog, remember to link back to your website if possible.  Just by keeping the idea of linking at the forefront of your mind, it will help you increase your website rankings.

Week 17 Recap:  Last week I said I was going to reach out to three contacts per day on Biznik, and I have been!  I’ve been commenting on articles and sending introductions.  It only takes a few minutes but I feel like I’m really making a vested effort to expand my knowledge, and my network.  Also, I completed last month’s promo piece—a list of services for web designers who want to offer additional services to their customers (such as content writing, blogging, article writing, etc.)   

Can Twitter be a marketing tool?

A few months ago, after resisting it for a while, I went ahead and signed up for a Twitter account. Frankly, it was mostly out of curiosity. What is this twittering all about? How can it improve my life? I started following my immediate group of contacts and people were following me as well. It was (and still is in my opinion) mostly a time sucker. Most people write meaningless information. Do I really care who that someone just ate a sandwich or is waiting in line somewhere? Not really. It was too much. I ended that experience pretty fast. I signed off Twitter and that was the end of that.

Last weekend I presented a new workshop here in LA called “Nuts and Bolts of Winning Proposals”. 12 interesting design and marketing business owners came from all parts of Southern California including one attendee that drove from Arizona.  When I asked him how he heard about this workshop he said: “I found it via Twitter." You can imagine my surprise. Twitter? Really? Apparently someone heard about my workshop and twittered about it. And then someone else twitted about it and so on and so forth all the way to getting this guy to drive from Arizona and spend the day at my workshop.

So this changes things. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not about to start twittering but it makes me rethink about the power of twitter and how it could be used as a marketing too. I don’t have to twitter but it may be good to know people who are active twitters with big following. And that’s a marketing tool right there.

So, do you twitter? Is it affecting your business?

 

Adapting by Adopting from Google's Playbook

Two media pieces caught my attention over the weekend:

1. In the Sunday Business section of the New York Times (3/1/09), there was a profile of Marissa Mayer, Google's VP of Search Products & User Experience (i.e. she controls the look, feel and functionality of Google's pages), in which she revealed -- for anyone who cares -- their design guidelines. We'd all be silly not to give some thought to how to adapt them. Here's what she said:

"Avoid first- and second-person pronouns. Always write “Google” instead of “we.” If you want to make the design on the page simpler, take away one of these: a type of font, a color or an image. Don’t switch tenses. And steer clear of italics because they are hard to read on a computer screen."
Read the rest here:

2. On one of my favorite public radio shows, On The Media, there was a segment on What Would Google Do?, a new book by Jeff Jarvis. My favorite part of the transcript:

"Google also makes mistakes well. It puts out every product as a beta, which is its way of saying, this product is incomplete and unfinished and imperfect, so help us finish it. Tell us what it ought to be. And that’s a very transparent way, for a company that isn't always transparent, but Google in that way opens up its process as, I think, not only media but other industries should do." Read or listen to the rest here:

I'm experimenting with transparency a bit lately too, as I go through the experiment I call my business. One of my recent mini-podcasts was about how I try to reach my monthly goals.

And where I used to waste a lot of time feeling bad about even the tiniest mistake, these days I'm relishing every mistake I make. It's incredibly freeing to say, "I was completely wrong about that," (especially for a so-called "expert") so I've been doing it whenever possible.

What about you?

Growing Your Business with Marketing, Week 9: a Website is Work in Progress

This is Week Nine of a 52-week project/experiment in DIY marketing. Armed with nothing but a copy of the 2009 Grow Your Business Marketing Plan + Calendar and my bare wits, I'm applying the skills you need to grow a business in real time, day by day, and reporting on them week by week. You can follow along here every Monday; check in with my companion blog, A Virgo's Guide to Marketing, for additional links and information.

This week's suggested task to launch my website. Since I launched the first one in November of 2004, a second one in September of 2006, and re-launched the first one in March of last year, I decided to just focus on getting this one as tight and fresh as possible.

The good news is that a website is never done. With modern content management systems (I'm a fan of WordPress, but there's also Expression Engine, iWeb and lots of others), there's no reason you have to wait until you've saved up enough items (or money) to call your webmaster: most small biz types can be their own webmaster, as well as designer, content producer and editor. Not that I recommend you do that indefinitely; there's much to be gained from bringing in outside professionals. One of the ideas I'm toying with is extending a particular flavor of service specifically for marketing pros and designers, since it's hardest of all to look at your own stuff with a critical eye.

So what did I do to my site this week?

Growing Your Business with Marketing, Week 8: Newsletters and other webalicious marketing

This is Week Eight of a 52-week project/experiment in DIY marketing. Armed with nothing but a copy of the 2009 Grow Your Business Marketing Plan + Calendar and my bare wits, I'm applying the skills you need to grow a business in real time, day by day, and reporting on them week by week. You can follow along here every Monday; check in with my companion blog, A Virgo's Guide to Marketing, for additional links and information.

This week's official task was to pull together samples of great newsletters in preparation for putting together your own or, if you already have a newsletter, to aggregate past issues into an archive on a page of your own website. My own tasks this week centered around updating and adding to my online content as needs arose, in addition to keeping up with the relentless, now-regular cold calling duties.

I'm sort of a militant fanatic-maniac when it comes to newsletters.

They have such tremendous potential to deliver great information (to the reader, your prospect or future fan) and they are such a great resource for you (hard to get an email list off of a blog), it horrifies me to see them abused. And they are—so much so that I wish there was a better name for them than "newsletter" (and no, "ezine" is most decidedly not better) so that I wouldn't have this uphill climb to get other militant fanatic-maniacs to at least test-drive mine.

The archives page is a good way around this. As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I'm in the process of moving all of my back issues from my old design site to my new home base, communicatrix-dot-com. If you're in a similar situation, I'd suggest at the very least setting up one page on each site you think people might find the newsletters on; I have one on the old site and one on the new, with a note on the old saying—you guessed it—to go to the new for latest versions.

Before I did so much as sketch out a list of ideas or daydream about names, I read dozens (no, really!) of newsletters to see what I liked and didn't like. You can read my findings here; they're old, but they stand.

With two years of monthly lessons under my belt, there are some additional things I'd address. I've learned a ton from producing 22 monthly missives. (And please let me know in the comments section if that's something you'd be interested in reading, and if you have particular questions you'd like to see answered.) The chief one, though, is to allow yourself enough time, so you're able to maintain a regular publishing schedule. Along with rich content, I think that's the key to building a loyal list of readers.

Growing Your Business with Marketing, Week 7: See my site, hire my brain

This is Week Seven of a 52-week project/experiment in DIY marketing. Armed with nothing but a copy of the 2009 Grow Your Business Marketing Plan + Calendar and my bare wits, I'm applying the skills you need to grow a business in real time, day by day, and reporting on them week by week. You can follow along here every Monday; check in with my companion blog, A Virgo's Guide to Marketing, for additional links and information.

This week, Part 2 of Optimizing Your Online Presence: Getting your site to do the heavy lifting

Before I get into the meat of this, I need to address a couple of things. First, the stated task for this week of the Veteran's Calendar is to choose three projects to write up as case studies. That's great, but it's not what I needed most, so I decided to tackle another online-related task: getting my "hire me" pages up and running.

Second, working this calendar out loud has been nothing short of monumental in the amount of stuff it's enabled me to finally get done towards accomplishing my goals—some of them quite longstanding.

Take, for example, my "hire me" page. I've been semi-officially retired from design for over a year  now, but up until this week, all of the "hire me" links on my site redirected people to my old (and outdated) design portfolio site. I'm not embarrassed by the work, nor am I trying to hide my background as a designer, however brief it was. But I knew it had to be confusing to people—the email queries asking "What do you do, exactly?" and "How do I hire you now?" were a big hint—and I was overdue for getting something more concrete up there.

Guest Post: Marketing Through a Slowing Economy

Colleen's note: Today's guest poster, L.A. designer Heather Parlato, seriously walks her talk. We've "known" each other online through Spencer Cross's KERNSPIRACY designer's mailing list for years, but it wasn't until this year that we met in person—and we've met now at three separate networking events! (So far—another one coming up next Wednesday, in the Marina; any of you interested Angeleno indie biz types please, check it out!)

With the slow-down in the economy, the question comes up repeatedly—how are you marketing yourself to stay afloat in leaner times? When the latest incarnation of this question surfaced in a KERNSPIRACY discussion today, I circulated a list of ideas I think work well for small businesses and sole-proprietors, and Colleen asked me to share them here.

We all know we’re supposed to keep marketing and stay visible, so I decided to get personal by investing more time & energy in existing relationships, and kicking up my networking circuit to build new ones.

Holiday Gifts – Borrowing from Marketing Mentor’s Designers Guide to Marketing and Pricing, I picked a selection of my favorite clients and sent holiday gifts. To keep them affordable, I made them myself, shopped for cute packaging, assembled personalized elements, and sent them through the mail.

Mine Existing Clients for Referrals – Pick the clients you like working with most and tell them how much you appreciate them [because it’s true] and then ask them if they know anyone else as fantastic as they are who might need your services. If appropriate and affordable for you, offer an incentive for them in the form of a discount.

Mailing Campaigns – Taking the advice I give clients all the time: map out the year and plan a campaign of evenly-timed, seasonally-relevant mailings. It can take between 6 to 12 touchpoints before a company decides to hire you, so put your name & brand in front of them regularly throughout the year.

Chambers & Industry Associations – I decided to expand on my current affiliations by looking into a larger area chamber, and other business-supported organizations that offer regular networking opportunities and referral breakfasts. I tend to target area before industry, but a quick search on the criteria that’s important to your practice can lead you to organizations where potential new business can be found.

Social Networks – Expand your social networks for maximum exposure. Cross reference everyone you know in every community. Scour any communities relevant to your business focus for meetings, mixers & seminars and meet people face-to-face as well [biznik.com, meetup.com, blankspaces.com, mediabistro.com].

Trade Clients – If you can afford to, and are approached by a client who offers a good trade in place of payment for services, consider taking it. A major touchpoint of your brand is the experience of working with you, which can lead to referrals to new business.

Marketing Mentor’s 2009 Marketing Plan – This isn’t a paid plug—the plan just happens to work really well with my style, personality and willingness to market myself. Admittedly, the smaller checkpoints allow you to make a lot of headway in small steps. I feel good when I know I’m doing everything I can to further my business, so this plan keeps me on track.

Try a selection of these strategies and see what works. The mantra in times like these is to get noticed and stay visible, so when you find what works for your business, make the commitment to keep doing it and expand on the ways in which it works best.

Heather Parlato is a freelance graphic designer in Los Angeles enabling small- to mid-sized companies to expand market presence through smart design solutions. She can be found online at www.heatherparlato.com.

Can you detect a "fake" mistake from a real one?

I made a mistake last Friday. I sent a promotional message that was meant for one group to a very different group of 187 people (to whom it wouldn't have made much sense). Plus it was only a draft, so it wasn't finished and the links weren't live.

The minute I realized what I'd done, I got that pit in my stomach, as if something really bad had happened.

It hadn't. I had just made a mistake (a common occurrence) borne of inattention and quick clicking. So I quickly whipped up an "oops, sorry" message and sent it right out, literally 5 minutes later.

Several people wrote back right away to say it wasn't a problem and to ease my mind. Others, however, seemed a little suspicious, almost implying it was one of those "fake" mistakes.

You know what I'm talking about, right? The "oops, we forgot the link" message. Do you get many of these? Can you tell which are fake and which are real? What do you think about these?

And more importantly, what does it say about us that we resort to "fake mistakes" to stand out in the clutter?

Growing Your Business with Marketing, Week 6: Expressing your expertise

This is Week Six of a 52-week project/experiment in DIY marketing. Armed with nothing but a copy of the 2009 Grow Your Business Marketing Plan + Calendar and my bare wits, I'm applying the skills you need to grow a business in real time, day by day, and reporting on them week by week. You can follow along here every Monday; check in with my companion blog, A Virgo's Guide to Marketing, for additional links and information.

This week: Sharing knowledge wisely

This week is all about generating helpful stuff to share with people who come to your site—specifically, a page of links and resources that will be of use to your market.

I already collect and point people to information in many ways—via delicious bookmarks, a StumbleUpon blog, and a trio of resources in each issue of my monthly newsletter (which you can sign up for here). I also have a page of links to blogs I like on my main site, communicatrix-dot-com, and helpful blogs and tools for fellow marketers broken down by category in the sidebar of the Virgo Guide to Marketing (a.k.a. the standalone blog that accompanies this project.)

In fact, I'm in so many places pointing out so much stuff, one of the first things I did with the relaunch of my site was to create a big "aggregator" page with all the places I live outside of communicatrix, and what I offer in each space.

So while I can and will keep refining the pages I use to point people toward The Good Stuff, I thought a better exercise for me this week might be to corral and update some of my own information more neatly—namely, my newsletter page.