By Mark Helfen
=============
“For most people there’s not much training in branding. They learn it in the field.”
So says Kevin Heney, speaker at next Monday’s (March 8) SDForum Marketing SIG meeting.
Heney runs Kevin Heney Design , a consulting firm that helps businesses with their branding. He is also the founder of the Silicon Valley Brand Forum , where branding professionals discuss the challenges of branding. (Check the forums website for their next meeting, coming up on May 4.)
Heney’s presentation will cover the value of a strong brand and what branding can do for your business, how to strengthen your brand, and some of the new challenges in brand management.
Many companies do nothing to manage their brand. Some technology companies are lead by “brilliant people that are strong on technology, but not strong on branding.” Heney’s talk will explain why ignoring your business brand isn’t a good strategy.
He will bring a number of real world examples of brand positives and negatives. Although following good branding strategy, the negatives aren’t negative, just “more challenging.”
Like other areas of marketing, new technology shakes things up and changes the balance. In the case of branding, social media has changed the landscape.
“Most people underestimate the effects of social media in their brand,” said Heney, both in the positive and negative direction.
He related the story of a brand “challenge” faced by United Airlines, involving the airline, a guitar, Youtube, and potentially $180 million in value. I won’t repeat it here – you will need to show up next Monday to hear all of the details.
So come to Monday’s meeting, and start your field training on branding.
=============
Mark Helfen is a freelance writer, journalist, and marketing consultant. He can be reached at:
mhelfen@wordpixel.com
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/markhelfen
Facebook: www.facebook.com/mark.helfen
follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/mark_helfen
=============
Monday, March 1, 2010
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Email should still be a part of your marketing mix.
By Mark Helfen
The worlds second oldest form of Internet marketing*, email, can still be an effective part of your marketing and sales strategy.
But as described by Laurie Beasley, founder and president of Beasley Direct Marketing, there is a great deal of strategy, tactics, and - mostly - thinking needed to run an effective campaign and get results.
Beasley was the speaker at the February 8 SDForum Marketing SIG meeting.
Beasley is also President of the Direct Marketing Association of Northern California, and an instructor at U.C. Berkeley Extension.
"Email marketing is old. It's been around for 7 to 10 years. But people are still as crummy at it as they ever were," said Beasley.
Beasley was the speaker at the SDForum Marketing SIG meeting for February, and she offered a number of suggestions on how to make email marketing pay off.
Email marketing needs careful thinking about content, the construction and look of the email, the frequency of emailing, and even the time when it's sent. Not just a "batch and blast" mentality. "That fills up their in box with worse than SPAM, with crap," said Beasley.
The email content needs to be written so that "every word needs to be relevant to the person you are sending to." Keep it light in text and graphics, with lots of white space.
"You need to invest in content to make it interesting and lively," words which this writer certainly approves.
"The longest people will spend on an email is 55 seconds, so you have 55 seconds to convince them to do something, and then they're out," said Beasley.
The email construction, or layout, needs to reflect the email programs your customers use. The things people look at are the from field, the subject, the preview pane (for Outlook users), and if you get them to open the email, to portion that is visible without any scrolling.
The time you send an email is important. Don't send overnight, or your customers will arrive at work with your message as one of a large pile that needs to be looked at. Beasley recommends the time before or after lunch, where they may be fewer meeting and less competition for attention.
How do you get addresses to email to? One way is to rent lists where people have opted in to receive third party emails. This is a way to contact potential customers (prospects), but the best strategy is to combine email with telemarketing. Direct human contact is still more powerful then just email.
One of the best ways to build you in-house list is to allow people to sign up on your web page. People opt-in for newsletters more than any other reason. Which gets back around to being sure that your newsletter is relevant and interesting to your readers. Emails that aren't relevant to the person who receives them are one of the main reasons that people later opt-out of your email list.
=============
* The (almost) first Internet marketing.
Back in the early days of the Internet, the backbone was owned and operated by government agencies - the principally National Science Foundation. When you got your personal email address, you had to agree that you wouldn't use the Internet for commercial purposes (really!). The first advertising SPAM was posted to Usenet groups by the still notorious Sanford (Spamford) Wallace, advertising green cards for immigrants.
=============
Mark Helfen is a freelance writer, journalist, and marketing consultant. He can be reached at:
mhelfen@wordpixel.com
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/markhelfen
Facebook: www.facebook.com/mark.helfen
follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/mark_helfen
=============
The worlds second oldest form of Internet marketing*, email, can still be an effective part of your marketing and sales strategy.
But as described by Laurie Beasley, founder and president of Beasley Direct Marketing, there is a great deal of strategy, tactics, and - mostly - thinking needed to run an effective campaign and get results.
Beasley was the speaker at the February 8 SDForum Marketing SIG meeting.
Beasley is also President of the Direct Marketing Association of Northern California, and an instructor at U.C. Berkeley Extension.
"Email marketing is old. It's been around for 7 to 10 years. But people are still as crummy at it as they ever were," said Beasley.
Beasley was the speaker at the SDForum Marketing SIG meeting for February, and she offered a number of suggestions on how to make email marketing pay off.
Email marketing needs careful thinking about content, the construction and look of the email, the frequency of emailing, and even the time when it's sent. Not just a "batch and blast" mentality. "That fills up their in box with worse than SPAM, with crap," said Beasley.
The email content needs to be written so that "every word needs to be relevant to the person you are sending to." Keep it light in text and graphics, with lots of white space.
"You need to invest in content to make it interesting and lively," words which this writer certainly approves.
"The longest people will spend on an email is 55 seconds, so you have 55 seconds to convince them to do something, and then they're out," said Beasley.
The email construction, or layout, needs to reflect the email programs your customers use. The things people look at are the from field, the subject, the preview pane (for Outlook users), and if you get them to open the email, to portion that is visible without any scrolling.
The time you send an email is important. Don't send overnight, or your customers will arrive at work with your message as one of a large pile that needs to be looked at. Beasley recommends the time before or after lunch, where they may be fewer meeting and less competition for attention.
How do you get addresses to email to? One way is to rent lists where people have opted in to receive third party emails. This is a way to contact potential customers (prospects), but the best strategy is to combine email with telemarketing. Direct human contact is still more powerful then just email.
One of the best ways to build you in-house list is to allow people to sign up on your web page. People opt-in for newsletters more than any other reason. Which gets back around to being sure that your newsletter is relevant and interesting to your readers. Emails that aren't relevant to the person who receives them are one of the main reasons that people later opt-out of your email list.
=============
* The (almost) first Internet marketing.
Back in the early days of the Internet, the backbone was owned and operated by government agencies - the principally National Science Foundation. When you got your personal email address, you had to agree that you wouldn't use the Internet for commercial purposes (really!). The first advertising SPAM was posted to Usenet groups by the still notorious Sanford (Spamford) Wallace, advertising green cards for immigrants.
=============
Mark Helfen is a freelance writer, journalist, and marketing consultant. He can be reached at:
mhelfen@wordpixel.com
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/markhelfen
Facebook: www.facebook.com/mark.helfen
follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/mark_helfen
=============
Friday, January 29, 2010
The first internet marketing strategy - email - should still be a key part of your marketing mix.
By Mark Helfen
What might be the original internet marketing strategy – email – is still alive and kicking, and a can be a valuable part of your overall marketing mix. Or so says Laurie Beasley, founder and president of Beasley Direct Marketing. She is also President of the Direct Marketing Association of Northern California.
Beasley will speak at the Monday, February 8 SDForum Marketing SIG meeting on the topic “Building Blocks to successful B2B Email Marketing.”
Email is still a widely used strategy, and its use is growing in a difficult economy. As one example “every software company does email marketing,” according to Beasley.
From her perspective, email marketing includes a broad variety of information sent by companies to their customers, or potential customers. Software updates, company news, customer retention marketing, and prospecting all fall in the email marketing area.
“Its difficult to pack everything into a single hour,” said Beasley, but she commits to giving attendees the “core foundation for success” of an email marketing strategy.
Since much of the email marketing I get has subject lines like “Size does matter,” or “Term Life With No Physical?” I asked her about how spam affects the strategy.
Her answer was that spam isn’t illegal, just not very effective.
The idea is to use opt-in marketing. When you send email to a rented list, everyone on the list has opted-in. The objective is to get a relevant offer in front of the right people, something that spam isn’t very good at.
Beasley listed three main topics for her presentation:
1. What a relevant email offer is.
2. Tried and true techniques for growing your own email list.
3. Why subscribers choose to opt-in for an email list.
So come to the Feb 8 meeting, and “If you are, or will be responsible for email marketing, you will learn how to plan and resource an effective email marketing project.”
=============
Mark Helfen is a freelance writer, journalist, and marketing consultant. He can be reached at:
mhelfen@wordpixel.com
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/markhelfen
Facebook: www.facebook.com/mark.helfen
follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/mark_helfen
=============
What might be the original internet marketing strategy – email – is still alive and kicking, and a can be a valuable part of your overall marketing mix. Or so says Laurie Beasley, founder and president of Beasley Direct Marketing. She is also President of the Direct Marketing Association of Northern California.
Beasley will speak at the Monday, February 8 SDForum Marketing SIG meeting on the topic “Building Blocks to successful B2B Email Marketing.”
Email is still a widely used strategy, and its use is growing in a difficult economy. As one example “every software company does email marketing,” according to Beasley.
From her perspective, email marketing includes a broad variety of information sent by companies to their customers, or potential customers. Software updates, company news, customer retention marketing, and prospecting all fall in the email marketing area.
“Its difficult to pack everything into a single hour,” said Beasley, but she commits to giving attendees the “core foundation for success” of an email marketing strategy.
Since much of the email marketing I get has subject lines like “Size does matter,” or “Term Life With No Physical?” I asked her about how spam affects the strategy.
Her answer was that spam isn’t illegal, just not very effective.
The idea is to use opt-in marketing. When you send email to a rented list, everyone on the list has opted-in. The objective is to get a relevant offer in front of the right people, something that spam isn’t very good at.
Beasley listed three main topics for her presentation:
1. What a relevant email offer is.
2. Tried and true techniques for growing your own email list.
3. Why subscribers choose to opt-in for an email list.
So come to the Feb 8 meeting, and “If you are, or will be responsible for email marketing, you will learn how to plan and resource an effective email marketing project.”
=============
Mark Helfen is a freelance writer, journalist, and marketing consultant. He can be reached at:
mhelfen@wordpixel.com
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/markhelfen
Facebook: www.facebook.com/mark.helfen
follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/mark_helfen
=============
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Search Engine Optimization for Beginners
By Mark Helfen
The objective is to get attention and traffic to your web site, to sell your products or services, by getting on the first page or two of results when potential customers use a search engine – Google or another.
The strategy is to use a new version of public relations – that is, getting other people (or in this case, search engines) to get your web site and your business noticed, without paying for it.
The tactics are Search Engine Optimization, or SEO. At last Monday’s SDForum MarketingSIG, Athol and Dan Foden described a large number of techniques and tricks to help make sure your web site is seen when prospects are searching for what you sell.
At one time, businesses pursued SEO strategies to get a good placement in search results, But then search engine marketing (SEM), or paid search engine advertising, took over.
SEM has become less effective over the last few years said Foden. In fact, his consulting business, Brighter Naming, has dropped almost all paid search advertising.
At the same time search engines are smarter. Intelligent, relevant, and regularly updated content on your web site can get you up in the search engine output, instead of 5 or 10 pages down the list.
The result is “the best ROI on your marketing dollar,” and you can start “on a shoestring.” As in close to free. It all starts with a web site. It’s even a low investment of time. After getting set up, Foden says that 10 minutes a day can keep your web site fresh enough to keep you well up in Google’s search results.
The balance of the presentation was a large number of hints and tactics to make your web investment pay off. I will only list a few of my favorites here. If you are interested in the complete list, check out his book Brighter SEO Organic Search Engine Optimization.
1. Two views of your web site:
There are two views of every web site – the human view, and the robot view. The robot is the process from Google and other search engines that indexes your web site with occasional visits.
Two web sites were shown side by side, both dentists who compete in the Dallas area. One was based on interesting graphics, the other text heavy. By looking at the page source (which most browsers let you see) the difference in what the search robot sees was clear. Robots can’t read graphics, so you need to be sure that there is plenty of text to describe your business and target market. This is part of the text that allows your web site to be found.
2. Keywords:
In addition to the text displayed on your page, there are keywords and meta-tags that are not visible to the end user. But they are visible to the search robot. While the tag values and the text on the page are different, they should be aligned, covering the same topics. For at least one example of tags, check out Foden’s Brighter Naming web site, and view the page source. The tags are
A search on Google for “meta tags google” generates a lot of information, including some documentation directly from Google.
3. Content:
Content, in this context, means words strung together that provide meaning and value to your potential customers. This could be a description of your business or services, or articles you write that show your expertise and inform your prospects and customers. More useful and compelling content means more that you web site has more “stickiness” – people spend more time looking at it, and you have more chances to sell them something.
Search engines value content also. They are looking for results that will deliver value to their users, and they are getting better at finding it. So more content helps raise the position you appear in a search, and increases the search terms that will find you. According to Foden, the days of just repeating paragraphs of junk with the right words to fool a search engine are past.
4. Regular updates:
Search engines also value change. So after you get all that valuable content in place, it immediately begins to go stale. You need to keep adding information to your web site. That’s where 10 minutes a day comes from. Newer content will help your web site show higher in search results.
5. Tools to help:
There are a number of mostly free tools to help you understand what key words are most frequently searched, how your web site is viewed by search engines, where people spend time on your site. The ISP where your web site is hosted probably keeps statistics on your web pages – contact them for information. Google analytics is a service that gives you “rich insights into your website traffic and marketing effectiveness,” and its free from Google (www.google.com/analytics.) A paid service is Keyword Spy (www.keywordspy.com)
6. Register you web site:
You need to register your web site with a potentially long list of search directories. Starting with Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc… A key directory is the Open Directory Project (www.dmoz.org/). These directories are where search engines go to find new sites.
Foden’ new book has a four-page list. A Google search for “search engine registration” will return about 52 million hits that you can check out.
7. Inbound, relevant links:
One of the factors that Google uses to determine the popularity and value of your web site is to its users is by the number of other sites that point to yours (inbound links). In the past, whole systems of interlinked sites were set up to try to achieve this end. Supposedly the now smarter search engines value “relevant links” more highly than a random collection. Foden suggests posting on blogs with links back to your site. Or exchanging links with friendly, non-competitive businesses or partners, each site pointing to the other.
This is only a small sampling of last Monday’s meeting. And the meeting is only a tiny fraction of what has become an entire industry – SEO optimization. There are many web sites and newsletters that cover the area. Or you can buy Foden’s new book for an introduction.
=============
Mark Helfen is a freelance writer, journalist, and marketing consultant. He can be reached at:
mhelfen@wordpixel.com
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/markhelfen
Facebook: www.facebook.com/mark.helfen
Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/mark_helfen
=============
The objective is to get attention and traffic to your web site, to sell your products or services, by getting on the first page or two of results when potential customers use a search engine – Google or another.
The strategy is to use a new version of public relations – that is, getting other people (or in this case, search engines) to get your web site and your business noticed, without paying for it.
The tactics are Search Engine Optimization, or SEO. At last Monday’s SDForum MarketingSIG, Athol and Dan Foden described a large number of techniques and tricks to help make sure your web site is seen when prospects are searching for what you sell.
At one time, businesses pursued SEO strategies to get a good placement in search results, But then search engine marketing (SEM), or paid search engine advertising, took over.
SEM has become less effective over the last few years said Foden. In fact, his consulting business, Brighter Naming, has dropped almost all paid search advertising.
At the same time search engines are smarter. Intelligent, relevant, and regularly updated content on your web site can get you up in the search engine output, instead of 5 or 10 pages down the list.
The result is “the best ROI on your marketing dollar,” and you can start “on a shoestring.” As in close to free. It all starts with a web site. It’s even a low investment of time. After getting set up, Foden says that 10 minutes a day can keep your web site fresh enough to keep you well up in Google’s search results.
The balance of the presentation was a large number of hints and tactics to make your web investment pay off. I will only list a few of my favorites here. If you are interested in the complete list, check out his book Brighter SEO Organic Search Engine Optimization.
1. Two views of your web site:
There are two views of every web site – the human view, and the robot view. The robot is the process from Google and other search engines that indexes your web site with occasional visits.
Two web sites were shown side by side, both dentists who compete in the Dallas area. One was based on interesting graphics, the other text heavy. By looking at the page source (which most browsers let you see) the difference in what the search robot sees was clear. Robots can’t read graphics, so you need to be sure that there is plenty of text to describe your business and target market. This is part of the text that allows your web site to be found.
2. Keywords:
In addition to the text displayed on your page, there are keywords and meta-tags that are not visible to the end user. But they are visible to the search robot. While the tag values and the text on the page are different, they should be aligned, covering the same topics. For at least one example of tags, check out Foden’s Brighter Naming web site, and view the page source. The tags are
A search on Google for “meta tags google” generates a lot of information, including some documentation directly from Google.
3. Content:
Content, in this context, means words strung together that provide meaning and value to your potential customers. This could be a description of your business or services, or articles you write that show your expertise and inform your prospects and customers. More useful and compelling content means more that you web site has more “stickiness” – people spend more time looking at it, and you have more chances to sell them something.
Search engines value content also. They are looking for results that will deliver value to their users, and they are getting better at finding it. So more content helps raise the position you appear in a search, and increases the search terms that will find you. According to Foden, the days of just repeating paragraphs of junk with the right words to fool a search engine are past.
4. Regular updates:
Search engines also value change. So after you get all that valuable content in place, it immediately begins to go stale. You need to keep adding information to your web site. That’s where 10 minutes a day comes from. Newer content will help your web site show higher in search results.
5. Tools to help:
There are a number of mostly free tools to help you understand what key words are most frequently searched, how your web site is viewed by search engines, where people spend time on your site. The ISP where your web site is hosted probably keeps statistics on your web pages – contact them for information. Google analytics is a service that gives you “rich insights into your website traffic and marketing effectiveness,” and its free from Google (www.google.com/analytics.) A paid service is Keyword Spy (www.keywordspy.com)
6. Register you web site:
You need to register your web site with a potentially long list of search directories. Starting with Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc… A key directory is the Open Directory Project (www.dmoz.org/). These directories are where search engines go to find new sites.
Foden’ new book has a four-page list. A Google search for “search engine registration” will return about 52 million hits that you can check out.
7. Inbound, relevant links:
One of the factors that Google uses to determine the popularity and value of your web site is to its users is by the number of other sites that point to yours (inbound links). In the past, whole systems of interlinked sites were set up to try to achieve this end. Supposedly the now smarter search engines value “relevant links” more highly than a random collection. Foden suggests posting on blogs with links back to your site. Or exchanging links with friendly, non-competitive businesses or partners, each site pointing to the other.
This is only a small sampling of last Monday’s meeting. And the meeting is only a tiny fraction of what has become an entire industry – SEO optimization. There are many web sites and newsletters that cover the area. Or you can buy Foden’s new book for an introduction.
=============
Mark Helfen is a freelance writer, journalist, and marketing consultant. He can be reached at:
mhelfen@wordpixel.com
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/markhelfen
Facebook: www.facebook.com/mark.helfen
Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/mark_helfen
=============
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Win the Search Engine Wars – or – Your graphics designer is screwing up you website rankings.
By Mark Helfen
You can win at the search engine wars, and Athol and Dan Foden will show you how at next Monday’s SDForum Marketing SIG meeting.
Foden is president of Brighter Naming, which helps companies develop names both for their products and for themselves. He also consults on internet marketing, search engine optimization, and is the author of the recently released book Brighter SEO: Organic Search Engine Optimization. He will be assisted by his son Ben, also a freelance marketing consultant.
Foden has been a popular speaker at previous Marketing SIG meetings.
I spoke to him Tuesday, and he said that his presentation would be practical advice, using real web sites, starting with his, for a detailed description of how you can get a high page rank on Google.
As search engines have gotten more intelligent, “honest citizens (or webizens) can play again,” said Foden. “You don’t have to game the system.”
Foden promotes a balanced approach, including a web site, search engine optimization, blogs, and social media that form the “SEO Power Pyramid.”
The result is “free” visibility, without paying for advertising. Perfect for small businesses, departments, or the individual consultant, including those just starting out. No need to pay Google for Adwords.
“If you are out of work, starting a business, this is a low cost way to get noticed,” and you can do it yourself said Foden.
The wide reach of the web will widen your visibility beyond the limited circle of friends, family, and your contact list to an international audience, and Foden says his own business is “living proof,” attracting clients from well beyond the valley within the last month.
Monday’s meeting will cover four topics:
- How to do integrated internet marketing on a shoestring.
- How you can start getting visibility for your small business tomorrow.
- How to stay a step ahead of the curve in the internet space.
And, perhaps most surprisingly,
- How your graphics designer is screwing up your website rankings.
“There are two views of a website. The human view, and the robot view. People don’t think of the difference,” said Foden.
You will learn the difference at Monday’s meeting.
=============
Mark Helfen is a freelance writer, journalist, and marketing consultant. He can be reached at:
mhelfen@wordpixel.com
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/markhelfen
Facebook: www.facebook.com/mark.helfen
follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/mark_helfen
=============
You can win at the search engine wars, and Athol and Dan Foden will show you how at next Monday’s SDForum Marketing SIG meeting.
Foden is president of Brighter Naming, which helps companies develop names both for their products and for themselves. He also consults on internet marketing, search engine optimization, and is the author of the recently released book Brighter SEO: Organic Search Engine Optimization. He will be assisted by his son Ben, also a freelance marketing consultant.
Foden has been a popular speaker at previous Marketing SIG meetings.
I spoke to him Tuesday, and he said that his presentation would be practical advice, using real web sites, starting with his, for a detailed description of how you can get a high page rank on Google.
As search engines have gotten more intelligent, “honest citizens (or webizens) can play again,” said Foden. “You don’t have to game the system.”
Foden promotes a balanced approach, including a web site, search engine optimization, blogs, and social media that form the “SEO Power Pyramid.”
The result is “free” visibility, without paying for advertising. Perfect for small businesses, departments, or the individual consultant, including those just starting out. No need to pay Google for Adwords.
“If you are out of work, starting a business, this is a low cost way to get noticed,” and you can do it yourself said Foden.
The wide reach of the web will widen your visibility beyond the limited circle of friends, family, and your contact list to an international audience, and Foden says his own business is “living proof,” attracting clients from well beyond the valley within the last month.
Monday’s meeting will cover four topics:
- How to do integrated internet marketing on a shoestring.
- How you can start getting visibility for your small business tomorrow.
- How to stay a step ahead of the curve in the internet space.
And, perhaps most surprisingly,
- How your graphics designer is screwing up your website rankings.
“There are two views of a website. The human view, and the robot view. People don’t think of the difference,” said Foden.
You will learn the difference at Monday’s meeting.
=============
Mark Helfen is a freelance writer, journalist, and marketing consultant. He can be reached at:
mhelfen@wordpixel.com
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/markhelfen
Facebook: www.facebook.com/mark.helfen
follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/mark_helfen
=============
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