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!

This week our guest on ResultsRevTV will be Elizabeth Sparkman Fowler of MyScoop.us. My Scoop is an online style magazine dedicated to keeping Southern fashionistas in the know with the latest fashions, events and trends. They provide readers with daily articles, newsletter and the scoop on local events.

Elizabeth was a My Scoop reader from its inception and served on the blog’s Advisory Board. She has over six years of marketing experience and has worked in industries ranging from higher education to architectural projects. She has worked in TV, radio and Product Packaging as well.

As a native of Mississippi, Elizabeth spent the first four years of her career in Birmingham, AL after graduating from the University of Alabama. She has recently made her home in Jackson as Editor and Publisher of My Scoop Mississippi. We are thrilled that she will be with us this week and can’t wait to talk with her!  Here are some of the topics that Marianna will be discussing with Elizabeth:

• How to leverage the power of relationships in social media marketing to get more exposure for your business
• Media Marketing
• What the media looks like today

You can visit MyScoop’s website here and read more about Elizabeth here!

We hope you will join us for this episode of ResultsRevTV on May 11th to hear more from Elizabeth Sparkman Fowler.

Next week on ResultsRevTV we will have Jack Criss join us to share some of the knowledge he has gained in his 23 years of experience in the media and publishing industries.

Jack is the owner and publisher of Greater Jackson Business Magazine and has founded and published several other Mississippi based magazines.  He has spent the last 18 years in the field of business newspaper publishing as an editorial and advertising executive.  He is also the author of “Ready, Aim, Right!”, a collection of political and philosophical essays and editorials, published in 2004.

In addition to his work in the publishing world, Jack has hosted and produced business talk radio shows in the Jackson area for several years.  He is also a popular public speaker in the Jackson area, having addressed classes at the University of Mississippi, Millsaps College, Belhaven College, the Jackson, MS Young Urban Professionals organization and many other civic groups.  Jack has also spent a great deal of time with the Mississippi Chapter of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s Team In Training.  He is a Board Member, Alum and Mentor and has run one marathon and two half marathons with the group.

As an active member of the community and with years of experience and success in the publishing industry Jack has much to say about business networking and surviving the ups and downs of owning a small business!  You will not want to miss this opportunity to hear about his experiences and much more!

WHAT IS SOCIAL MEDIA?

The most important thing to remember is that social media is still a media. Which means it is still a marketing TOOL – not an end to itself. However, in contrast to both traditional media and new media tools, such as web sites and e-mail, social media is used differently. By name and nature, it is SOCIAL which dictates a relationship. At the very least, this demands a TWO-SIDED conversation/interaction format.

More specifically, social media differs from traditional media in that anyone can create, comment and add to social media. Social media can take the form of text, audio, video, images and communities. Traditional media doesn’t let you PROVE how many visitors or engaged customers you really have (Yes, I know all about Neilson ratings and circulation numbers – How many of you really believe all of that?). Social media shows you REAL numbers for your audience – or at least a more “real” number than any other media that’s ever existed for small business marketing purposes. Social media also allows you to track and know information about your audience – not just know that they’re there.

WHO USES SOCIAL MEDIA & NEW MEDIA?

1. Practically everyone uses Google and other search engines regularly, and the searches frequently return blog posts, YouTube videos or other social media content high in the search ranks. So even people who say they don’t use social media are actually consuming social media content without knowing it.
2. 63% of consumers turn to the Internet FIRST to find a local business. (Yet a whopping 80% of business owners reported spending LESS THAN 10% of their marketing budget on web-based marketing.) – Source USA Today Snapshots, March 5, 2009 – cited Neilson Online/Web Visible survey of small business owners.
3. When people who are NOT social media users ask their non-social media networks for advice (usually via e-mail or phone call), the answers come back include URLs to blog posts and other social media content.
4. There are more than now 400 million active users of Facebook (up 150 million from one year ago). More use Facebook than any other existing media (including television). The fastest growing demographic are those 35 and older. More than 2/3 of the users are outside of college age. By nature of the beast, those users are also at least semi-educated, literate and computer literate – making them far more likely than average radio or television listeners to have a decent income.
5. YouTube statistics – Recently, I got to inform a client that 74% of his target audience visited YouTube at least once every two weeks and often multiple times a day. They were shocked. They where even more surprised when I told them that a significant number of those visitors used YouTube on a daily basis to research products and services, view product demonstrations, and find information for work purposes. But, when I told them that visitors to YouTube actually based their buying decisions on what they saw on YouTube, well, they were shocked and couldn’t wait to hear more.
6. On October 9, 2009, the third anniversary of the acquisition by Google, Chad Hurley announced in a blog posting that YouTube was serving “well over a billion views a day” worldwide. comScore had previously reported that the number was actually over 10 billion per month. In September 2009, and the average video viewer watched more than 10 hours of video during that month. That’s pretty significant.

Those are just a few reasons why social media is critical to your business. This doesn’t tell you how or when or how often to use social media. (Strategically is a good start – it’s not a waste of time play tool anymore! And it’s getting crowded, so you have to stand out in the crowd by doing it smartly.) But hopefully, if you’re a business owner or community leader trying to convince yourself or your fellow locally owned, independent small business owner friends and colleagues to network with you, promote your business and your community using social media tools, this will give you some ammunition to open some eyes during that conversation.

Here are a few quick tips and reminders about how NOT to use social media (that is Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, LinkedIn, YouTube and the like) when promoting your locally owned, independent small business. If you want to upset customers in your store – ignore them. The same goes for the web. Your customers REALLY don’t see a huge difference in the reality of the web and the brick and mortar… maybe you still do, but I promise – they don’t. So, use the web to leverage your time and your customer relationships. And by all means – don’t turn your back on anyone at the party. It’s not nice…

Here are some specific tips. Let me know what you think and add your own in the comments section!

Do NOT Use Social Media as…

• An outlet for traditional media – For example, don’t post the graphic from your recent direct mail campaign blindly and expect that people will care.
• An online billboard – Don’t constantly announce and scream promotions and push an offer or even a subtle marketing message towards your fans/followers exclusively. This is not a billboard for you to spit out information and no one to talk back to you.
• A 100% free tool – While New Media TOOLS are often free to use, the time, strategy development, and even some elements of advanced use cost money. The point is that $100 goes a long way on New Media—web sites are cheaper and more social; strategy development is more straightforward; and the results are all but immediate. For FAR less investment, you can gain impressive and quick returns.
• A magic wand – It’s not a “build it and they will come” sort of media any more than a web site is. You must promote your social media presence elsewhere and engage in its use strategically or your use of the tools will fail. It’s more about HOW you use it – just being “on” social media doesn’t mean you will improve your results.
• A place to ignore other humans – Rude is no more popular or socially acceptable online than off. It’s still rude to ignore someone standing in the same room with you or to slam a door in someone’s face. The same applies on social media. Whether you know them or not, kindness and respect for other humans is always in good taste.
• A platform to be distasteful – Don’t post or allow employees to post anything negative towards other humans or anything that is distasteful. If your grandmother would have so much as given you a sideways glance, don’t post it. Big personalities are welcome – as long as they’re clean personalities.

A few weeks ago, I wrote the following for my weekly E-mail letter (Want to get this letter? The content is current, relevant and behind the scenes business owner information. Sign up here):

Sometimes a project comes along that just warms the soul. Right now, Andy and I are working with the new owner of a historic soda fountain as he seeks to share the nostalgia and heritage of this landmark with a new generation – using New Media and Social Media tools. Recently, when meeting with the new owner, I found myself saying something that I say a lot: “Customers are more loyal when they feel like an insider, and prospects are more likely to convert when they have ‘insider’ information.”

Similarly, several times a week, without fail, folks ask us about our lives… Usually the question goes something like this: “It seems like you are on the road ALL THE TIME… HOW do you do it?” Or, “How do you have time to do all of this?”

Really, the bottom line is that folks want insider information – they want a peak behind the scenes. And your customers want the same from you. As strange as it may seem, in this age of reality shows and YouTube (check out our channel), people really do care what happens behind the scenes at your business. I don’t think I’m that interesting, but who am I to tell you how to feel or what to be interested in? Or maybe, if you’re like me, it’s so refreshing to know that other people think or feel like I do. I believe “Insider Information” is a “needle-mover” when it comes to customer loyalty, word of mouth marketing and long-term success.

What are YOU doing to make your customers and prospects feel like “Insiders?” (Yep, go ahead, hit the “reply” button and tell us. Seriously.)

Maybe “Insider Information” from us will help you become more motivated and/or equipped to use the tools of Social Media or New Media effectively for your business. So, from this point forward, our e-mail newsletter will be flavored with the spice of our life: tales of life on the road, digital nomad-ism, social media, new media, late-night brainstorming sessions, work/life balancing acts and our disdain for early starts. Welcome to the INSIDE, loyal readers.

In follow-up to this e-mail, I got a note from friend Mandy Becker, owner of Swagger Gifts in Cary, NC. I asked her permission to share her comments with you because I thought her feedback was so apt – it reinforces the message. Here’s what Mandy had to say:

I loved this!  I totally think the insider info think is critical!  The last three times I went to market, I wrote a blog about what it was like, what I was buying, etc. My customers loved it! They felt like they were part of the action! I have heard so many times, “Oh, I wish I owned a gift shop – what’s it really like? Do you love it?  What’s a typical day.” It is amazing how much people care about one another’s lives; I think we live vicariously through others in some way. Anyway – thank you!

P.S. I think I might even do a weekly blog post called “Insider Information.” Thanks for the idea – I hope it is okay if I use it?

Where are the points in your customer experience that make a new customer feel awkward, out of the loop? Do some customers walk into your restaurant and know exactly what to do, what to expect, how to respond? Learn from your regulars – and find ways to make new customers feel equally comfortable. Sales and tips will increase accordingly.