Below you will find some great resources on New Media Marketing from my recent speaking engagement in Heritage, Ohio.

The Case for a New Approach to Marketing

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Your Marketing Toolbox

This PDF download lists the various tools that you’ll want to put in your marketing toolbox to have the ready for upcoming promotions and marketing efforts.

Twenty Blog Post Ideas that you can use & use again

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Headline Ideas & Where to Use Them

PDF coming soon…

E-mail Marketing Explained and other ideas

Following are links to blog posts on this web site that will help you in your quest to successfully convert your email list into economic benefit to your community.

Improve Conversions from E-mail Marketing with this Simple Tip

How to Collect Customer Information This Holiday Season

How to Collect More E-mail Addresses from Customers

E-mail Marketing: Mix It Up with the “Letter” Format

Five Tips to Improve Twitter E-mail Open Rates

Seven Reasons to Keep Using E-mail Marketing

When to Send E-mail Marketing

Recommended Tools, Blogs & Books

This PDF download lists the various recommended resources that have been especially helpful or inspirational to me and my team over the last six months.

Case Studies Worth Watching

The following are links to the various businesses and events mentioned in my presentation. These are live events, and they may cease to exist or change and develop over time. Hopefully you can learn from them and the other promotions that these businesses conduct – and use those ideas in your own community!

It’s time to consider using video to market your business. It doesn’t matter what size business you have, video is now an affordable and most importantly, effective, tool that can improve sales significantly. The following statistics about marketing with online video using video sharing sites should make you think twice about ignoring this powerful marketing tool:

“Video in email marketing increases click-through rates by 96%.” – Implix 2010 Email Marketing Trends Survey

“Press releases that include video components receive 500% increase in views.” – Eloqua, April 2010

I found these stats over on Pixability’s web site that say that sites with video receive…

• 30% more clicks
• 18% more calls
• 30% more store visits
• 24% more purchases than those without video

In July 2011, a Pew Research Center study said that 71% of adults watch online video like YouTube or Vimeo videos. According to this study, rural and minority Internet users are no less likely to watch online video than suburban or city dwellers. Men and women are also equally likely to use video-sharing sites. Also of interest, parents use video-sharing sites more than non-parents. Some 81% of parents in the Pew study reported using video-sharing sites compared to 61% of the non-parents.

Mobile use is on the rise, too… It seems that 34% of cell phone users in the United States have shot video with their phone, 26% have watched video on their phone and 22% have posted videos or photos online… all from their mobile phone.

YouTube viewership has grown from 8 million views a day at the end of 2005 to 3 billion views a day in 2011, according to YouTube.

All of this on the heels of Forrester Research’s stunning announcement in 2009 stating “You are 53x more likely to appear on Page 1 of Google’s search results if you have video on your web site.”

Now. That is shocking.

Why aren’t you using video in your marketing? What is holding you back? Ask your questions or share your roadblocks, and I’ll try to answer your questions in future posts on this blog.

Photo Credit: Mike Jennings

One easy way locally owned business can get themselves on the map (literally) is by soliciting customer reviews for your business on geographically based review sites. Review sites are usually very large conglomerates with individual mini-sites for each geographic location. Often they’re divided by state or region, and then subdivided by city or township within that region. The bottom line in this uber-web-based world in which we live is simply this: If your business can’t be found through a quick web search – you’re business is going to die.

Use Geo-Based Review Sites to Grow Your Business

What’s great about these websites is that they allow brand-new customers to find you – and want to try your business out – when they may have known nothing about you before. These new customers are online searching for your type of business in your area; if you’ve set up your profile and garnered some reviews on any of these sites, they’re likely to run across your business. Suddenly they not only know you exist, what you do, and where you’re located, they also get to find out what your customers think about you by reading the reviews.

So how do you get into this action? It’s pretty simple.

Step 1: Focus on the major review sites.

The most important local review site is the home of the “red pin” – Google Places, formerly known as Google Local. Other review sites include the following:

• Yelp.com
• Local.Yahoo.com
• CitySearch.com
• InsiderPages.com
• CitysBest.com

There are more, but if you get set up on at least a few of these major websites, your information will get picked up by the other sites as well.

Step 2: “Claim” your business and/or set up your profile.

Once you’re at the website, search for your business. You may find it already listed; if so, you’ll see an option to claim the business or add updated information. Fill in all the information you can: physical address, phone number, email address, Internet information (email, website, blog, Facebook, Twitter), store hours, specialties, owner’s name, history. Some sites will give you more room than others. Some will also allow you to post pictures; I highly recommend that you post a few photos of the outside of the store, inside of the store and a sampling of available products.

If you don’t find your business, you’ll simply have to start the profile or information from scratch. Follow the same principle as above by including as much information as possible on each site. Remember, the more information you have, the more you will show up in search results and the easier it will be for people to find you.

Step 3: Ask for reviews.

The most important part of a business profile on one of these review sites is, of course, the customer reviews. So start asking for reviews. When your best customers come in to your business, make it a point to personally ask them to go online and submit a brief review to ONE of the review sites. Don’t ask them to submit reviews to more than one; that’s simply too much and too complicated, and most customers (even the ones who love you) won’t respond. All you have to do is say something like, “We’ve just set up our profile at CitySearch.com, and we’re trying to get some reviews up. If you have a moment when you get home, would you mind sharing about your experiences here? You’re one of our best customers, and we’d really appreciate new customers getting a chance to hear from you.”

Then hand each customer a card with the information printed on it, so they won’t forget when they get back home.

That’s it! The whole process is simple and can really make a huge difference in helping new customers find you, so get it started now and see what results you’re getting in a few months.

Image: dbking.

You’ve heard us talk about the phenomenon for small businesses that is Twitter. We’ve talked about everything from fun Twitter contests to writing tweets that get the picture or link opened.

But what about Twitter basics? Lots of brick and mortar retail stores and local restaurants are catching onto the fact that their customers are on Twitter – and that deals are being done there. Is it time for you to catch on to Twitter and capture some of those deals?

I say an emphatic YES!

First things first:
1. Setup an account on Twitter. Go to www.twitter.com and get started… It’s easy and painless. And unlike many social networking sites – if you choose a username or “handle” as they’re called in Twitter circles – and decide later that you made a bad choice – you can change it! Twitter is cool like that, so don’t sweat it – go sign up!

2. Upload a PICTURE of you or your store logo for your avatar. This is a critical step.

3. Tweet a few times. Just say something about your business, what you like, what you’re doing. You can’t tweet too much – unlike Facebook where you can really overdo it and drive folks nuts.

4. Download Tweetdeck to your computer. It will be your new friend.

5. Visit Twitter’s Advanced Search engine – type in some searches about your community, business district, business niche or even your business name. Watch in amazement at what pops up.

There’s more to a successful run on Twitter – like writing a description that gets you found, creating a Twitter background, who and how to follow, how to grow a following – and most importantly how to start doing some business on and thru Twitter. That’s exactly what we’ll be covering in our webinar on Tuesday, September 14, 2010 called (remarkably) Twitter for Small Business 101. Andy and I will co-teach this webinar – and you will leave FULL of great and valuable information whether you a complete Twitter novice – or have been on Twitter for a while. We’ll talk Twitter strategy perfect for retail stores, small business and local restaurants and the like. Join us by registering here… and stay tuned. We’ll be talking a lot more Twitter in the coming days and weeks.

Maybe you just made the newspaper or a local magazine – or better – you just got interviewed for a major trade publication, the Wall Street Journal or a mainstream lifestyle slick. Maybe a prominent blogger is going to blog about you – or feature you in an upcoming e-newsletter. Maybe you think you’ve thought of something so smart that an influential person tweets about your article, stuff or activities…

These days, publicity comes in all shapes and sizes – but one thing is the same. It will give you a boom. The boom will be short-lived if you’re not prepared to leverage it into long-term sales for your small business. Here are a couple of tips that will help you leverage publicity into long-term growth for your local business.

Get ready for the traffic on your web site.

This seems obvious, but you really should actively prepare to capture customers as a result of the publicity, especially on your small business web site.

1. Make sure an e-mail list signup form (that is short and simple) is strategically located at the top right hand side of all of your web site pages or posts. This will help you grow your e-mail list.

2. Make sure your social media profiles are apparent at the top and bottom of each page or post on your web site, so that folks can connect with you there.

3. Make sure there is fresh and relevant content and that all contact information, forms, store hours, and directions are up to date.

4. Make sure that your web site has the ability to be SHARED so that when people get to your site, they can – with a single click – share your business with 1300 of their closest *cough* *ahem* Facebook friends…. or Twitter followers or other social media connections. We recommend the ShareThis button at the top and bottom of each page or post on your web site.

5. Similarly, install the Facebook LIKE button at the top of each page or post on your web site, so that with a single click and half a thought, your web content or article can be posted to their Facebook Wall and their friends’ newsfeeds. This exposes you to their friends.

6. Finally, install the TweetMeme’s Retweet button at the top of each page or post on your web site. This button not only allows the sharing feature on Twitter, but it allows YOU the measurement to see who shared your content – so you can thank them and otherwise engage them via Twitter.

Prepare to leverage the publicity on social media.

Social media is where you will turn the publicity into a boom for yourself. Often media in and of themselves are not a direct connector. But the power of your network mixing with theirs can really work magic. Here are a few things you can do to stir that pot:

1. Tweet with the news writers and folks in the media on a regular basis (that means, ideally, BEFORE the story hits). When they post a story about your business or referencing you or your business in any way, use all available methods to THANK them for their kind words. Tag them on Facebook, and tweet out a thanks to them.

2. Do the equivalent of the “reprint.” Re-publish the news at least twice – maybe three times after it happens. Facebook and Twitter news cycles are short these days, so posting an article Wednesday morning and Thursday afternoon are likely to expose your story to a different group of folks. If you have over 1500 fans or followers, you should also post the story again later at night (between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m.) as well.

3. When you post, drive the traffic to the story via your web site.

How does this all turn readers or viewers or listeners into sales? Again, as in the first edition of Leveraging the Boom: Turn Events into Sales the goal is to make new connections – to capture contacts that you can turn into relationships and then keep as customers for a long and profitable lifetime value of the customer. It’s about short-term tactics that lead to marathon relationships and long-term growth and profitability.

What say you? How have you turned publicity into sales?

Photo Credit: Eivind Z. Molvær

Editor’s Note: Annie Mueller provides value-filled, relevant content to help small businesses build an effective online presence. In over 6 years of freelance writing, she’s never had an unhappy client.

Networking is about meeting and building relationships with people for a purpose. It’s that last part that counts in the definition, the purposeful part. Otherwise we’re all just socializing, which is what much of it amounts to anyway because if you don’t know your purpose, it’s pretty difficult to achieve it. That’s fine if you just enjoy socializing for the sake of socializing (and, actually, the best social networkers are people like that usually). However, if you’re spending marketing dollars and the prosperity of your business depends on the success of your social networking, you’d better do a bit more than socialize.

1. The Question You’d Better Answer First

Why are you interested in social networking? To build your business? How, exactly?Do you sell online or just promote online? Are you locally, nationally, or internationally focused? Do you want people to talk about your business online, share your links, spread the word about you, learn more about you, recommend you, sign up for a program, get a free sample, get your e-newsletter, read your blog, interact with you, ask questions, get a membership, order a product, pay for a service, refer you to their friends? If social networking works for you just the way you want it to, what will the results be? Get that pinned down first; don’t tweet a single character or start a Facebook page or write a blog post until you know the answer to this question:What do you hope to accomplish from your social networking? What are your ideal results? Be very specific; don’t say, “I want my business to grow.” Say, “I want 75 members in my exclusive coaching clubs,” or “I want to sell 6,000 widgets online next year,” or “I want 100,000 readers so I can sell pricey ads on my site,” or “I want 250+ people in my referral program,” or “I want 100 customers to sign up for my gold-level service club.”

2. Believe in what you have to offer.

Billy Mays. Everybody wished he would be a little bit quieter but nobody doubted he really loved that OxiClean. And he sold it. Bob Ross. He was all calm and light and happy trees and you just knew you could paint that way, too, if you listened to him. He believed it, and he sold it. Tyler Florence. A gourmet chef singing the praises of a packaged salad dressing? Er. Something’s screechy and wrong here. If what you are trying to sell violates the principles you have already defined for yourself and your business, don’t waste your time trying to sell it. You either have to find a new product or service which fits with the way you’ve defined yourself, or you have to redefine yourself and your business. If you can’t convince yourself that what you have to offer is genuinely worthy, then you cannot convince anyone else. Believe in your business, first. If you’re in one of those slog points, revisit the notes you made on top of the mountain. Remember your strengths. Think about your unique offer. Define the value and make sure it’s something you believe in.

3. Find the right people: the ones who actually need and will benefit from what you offer.

Target your online audience as (or more) carefully as you target your target market. Who will be interested in what you have to offer? Don’t waste your time trying to interest “everybody.” NOTHING (except maybe toilet paper) has universal appeal. Focus on the people who will love, adore, and build small shrines to the solution you bring them. They will become your secondary marketers and will talk a whole bunch of other (fringe) people into trying your business, too. They will be passionate, enthusiastic, and committed customers. Get these people. Focus on them. Pour your attention onto them. Quit trying to convince a huge crowd of slightly disinterested folks to get interested in you, and instead, start talking to the people who are already into your field. Your job is half-done.

4. Find a (free) preliminary way to solve problems.

Before you sell, give. This is a basic idea of permission marketing, education-based marketing, and Golden Rule marketing, which are all pretty much the same thing. So pick a name and then apply the concept by giving first. Offer genuine value. Don’t try to cheap out at this point. People will flee and never return.

5. Find and focus on 1 to 3 social outlets.

Even if you have a full-time, salaried social networker plugging away for your business, focusing on a few social outlets rather than trying to have a presence on all of them will get you better results. Of course Facebook and Twitter are the big daddies, but if you know your target audience well (and you should) go where they are, whether that’s Facebook, Twitter, ZombieLandForums.com, or somewhere else entirely. Go to the people you want to reach and focus on a few of the places where they hang out online.

6. Be enthusiastic.

Because if you don’t really care or even like it that much, why should anybody else? Introverts, break out of your personality a bit and show some emotion. If that’s utterly impossible for you, delegate or hire out so you get a voice out there with some enthusiasm in it. Otherwise you waste your time.

7. Offer value, help, and attention.

First, offer free items of value. This could be content (your blog, your resources) or samples (don’t be cheap) or trials or digital products (ebooks, podcasts) or giveaways or clubs or services.Second, offer help when you see a need and, definitely, whenever people ask for it. Don’t hesitate. Don’t count up the loss of billable hours. Help.Third, offer attention when people start interacting with you. Don’t work to get people to notice you and then ignore them when they do. Follow up. Listen, Respond. Interact. Be real. Give your attention.

8. Be consistent.

Give people familiarity and reliability. They tend to like that sort of thing.

• Consistent message: say one thing, say it clearly, and repeat it often.
• Consistent value: don’t create one great product and then cheap out on the next. Your customers will feel betrayed.
• Consistent method: if you blog, post on the same days and follow the same format; if you tweet, offer the same kind of helpful info all the time; whatever you do, set up a format that works for your goal and stick with it. Sure, some variation and creativity is great; just work within some basic boundaries so people know what you offer and aren’t disappointed. It only takes one visit to a blog without a recent post for a visitor to strike you off the “live” list.

9. Be ready to sell what you have to offer.

If you follow the steps as outlined, eventually (maybe much sooner than you think) people will ask, “What else?” You’ve offered value, you’ve been sincere, you’re enthusiastic and likeable, you’ve been helpful, you’ve been consistent. You’ve won them over. They like you. They want to give back. They are eager to invest back in you the way you have invested in them. So give them a way to do just that!

• Make it obvious. Obvious doesn’t mean obnoxious. No flashing signs or neon arrows necessary, but a nice big button that says, “Order XYZ Product Here” could do the trick.
• Make it easy. Purchasing should be a simple, one or two step process.
• Make it sincere. Any sales material you have needs to reflect the heart and vision of your business. Go back to step 1: do you still believe in your business? Put that belief into words. Be real. You can always get an editor.
• Make it subordinate. Yes, this is your business; but your first goal must remain – always – to help the people in your network. If you know that they would be better helped by another product or service, or that your product/service will NOT help them, then it is your responsibility to say so. You may lose a sale, but you will gain a reputation that is worth many more sales in the future.

10. Follow up with even more value after the sale.

Repeat steps #7 and #8 with everyone who buys from you. Sound like hard work? It is. That’s the thing with social networking: it isn’t a magic button or an automatic cash cow. There is no keyword strategy that can build a business without any real value any it. So build a good foundation. Put the work in. And here’s the good news: the initial work will pay off exponentially. That’s the magic part of the social networking model, and it does work. Once you put in the work, the time, the belief, the energy, the effort, the attention, and the value, you win over a few people who love you like you love your business: maybe 10, maybe 100, maybe 1000. Then they network for you. The 10 becomes 100, the 100 becomes 1000, the 1000 becomes 10,000. And it keeps growing. You keep giving, of course. So yes: social networking, done right, is 1) hard work which 2) requires time and effort and 3) takes time before it pays off. But it also 4) does pay off and 5) the returns can be quite great and often 6) will take off and continue to grow far beyond the original investment you made.

Photo Credit: Intersection Consulting

On Friday, I had the privilege of meeting with a favorite client of ours who is about one year deep in his social media marketing journey. He gives bold testimonial that new media and social media are his number one marketing tools – and he can say that confidently because his businesses are thriving like never before.

Last week, another client of ours closed a deal that had been in the works through social media channels for nearly four months. But what a doozey of a good deal it was – a key influencer purchased and is telling everyone about his purchase. Gold.

We get asked all the time: How quickly can social media move the needle?

There are a lot of answers to the question. Here are a few thoughts I have in the “how long does it take to move the needle” category.

1. Once you have built an engaged social media community and are providing valuable information to them through other new media channels as well (such as e-mail and website or blog), if you ring the dinner bell on social media (most typically Facebook Pages or Twitter), they’ll come. Sometimes in less than an hour. That’s quick needle-moving.

2. Rome wasn’t built in a day. That community that makes some businesses look like an overnight success – it isn’t. Sure, you can build NUMBERS in a matter of days if you know what you’re doing – but trust and engagement that lead to sales (and isn’t that what we’re after: selling more stuff) – that’s a slower hill to climb. Sales will start increasing or at least stabilize in fairly short order, but the real benefit is gained by building long-term trust and engagement with your community of customers and prospects online. That trust that makes them feel like insiders will have a mushroom effect on your business success – when that level of trust reaches critical mass you are staged for record sales numbers, massive amounts of PR, and recommendations from key influentials in your target market – regardless of the economy. The needle moving sales success that happens at this stage of the game happens after deliberate, strategic, and consistent relationship building over a series of months (but not years).

3. Social media doesn’t move the needle. Solid marketing strategy integrated throughout your business, including a wise understanding of your customers and how to use and market via new media and social media tools is what moves the needle.

4. The needle will never move if you don’t make what’s happening online and off-line cohesive and consistent. Inconsistency will leave you dead in the water. You’ll also be dead in the water if the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.

5. The needle will move the wrong direction if you fail to make good on the promises you make online. If the pizza is burned, and you don’t make me happy again – the needle will undoubtedly move the wrong direction for you – probably sooner than later.

6. The needle is moving all the time whether you want it to you or not. We visited with a local restaurant manager last night that had no idea what was happening on Twitter in his area. Just because your head is in the sand, doesn’t mean that the world isn’t going on around you. The majority of brick and mortar buying decisions are made before the customer ever pulls into your parking lot – they’re looking online first. If you aren’t there – they’ll go somewhere else – and you’ll wonder where your sales are going. You will miss opportunities to grow your business.

The needle is moving, people are talking – are you listening, learning and engaging in an effort to move YOUR needle in the profitable direction – even if it takes a few months to hit one out of the park?

Photo Credit: Unhindered by Talent