JournaMarketing

Put down the expensive Web rebuild and slowly back away

If you're in the process of considering a big, expensive website re-design (and isn't everyone?), stop what you're doing and read this NY Times article, Strategies to Succeed Online.  Then take the money you save from the re-design and put it into content.

These days, a Web site may not even be the best place to start
promoting your products or services. Instead, you can consider setting
up a blog, participating in social-networking communities like Facebook and creating a storefront in virtual worlds like Second Life to get the buzz going. . .

What a company should not be doing is spending lots of money on dot-com
speculators, buying specialized software or even paying for the
services of Web developers.

I know what some of you are thinking.  You don't have time to keep a blog or a Facebook profile fresh -- so you think it's a better use of your resources to spend money on a traditional website.  I think that's a mistake, for most of you.  Why?  Because the thousands of dollars you spend on traditional website development could be spent on new content.  You could bring on a freelance/part-time blogger or podcaster to work as an extension of your staff, generating engaging, interesting material.  You can open up new conversations with people to establish yourself as an authority in your field.  You can tell stories.  I've seen this work with some of the small organizations I've worked with, and for most of you, it's a far better investment than a static website that's essentially just a slick brochure.


Technorati Tags: nptech, marketing, social_networking, NYTimes

The Age of Conversation Podcast 3: Becky Carroll

Becky Carroll has a lot of good stuff to say about how we treat customers, and she shares it all in 10 minues on this week's Age of Conversation Podcast.  Okay, she didn't share all of it.  For the rest, you'll have to go check out her blog.   But this 10 minutes with Becky is well worth a listen.

Takeaway quote:  "This (customer experience) is going to become the competitive differentiator for organizations."

As always, I welcome your feedback -- good and bad -- in the comments or via email. Enjoy the podcast!

Download Episode 3 (MP3, approx. 10 min., 9.1 MB)

Show notes for Episode 3:

Guest: Becky Carroll
Chapter:  Conversations and the Customer Experience p. 14

:30   Customers Rock!
2:00  What (and when) is customer experience?
3:00  Customer experience is important beyond the point of sale
4:15  Experience helps customers differentiate between businesses
5:30  Concrete steps for improving customer experience

Thanks to Saurab Bhargava for our theme song, called Conversations.  You can subscribe to the podcast here.

Technorati Tags: Age_of_Conversation, AoC_Podcast, Becky_Carroll

Customers Rock!

I just finished an interesting interview with Becky Carroll, the woman with one of the coolest marketing blog titles ever: Customers Rock!. She's got great things to say about how to treat people, even after we've engaged them in a transaction. I'll post the audio tomorrow.

Technorati Tags: Age_of_Conversation, Customers_Rock!

Beth Kanter on IT Conversations

Beth Kanter was interviewed for the podcast IT Conversations. I haven't even listened to the whole thing yet and I'm recommending it. If you communicate on behalf of a nonprofit, you're sure to learn something you can use.

Let this be a lesson to you...

I decided to get some other things done this weekend, so I didn't blog. Then, on Monday, I was on the road, so I didn't blog. Then, on Tuesday -- well, what's one more day? So now it's Wednesday, and I haven't written anything for this site yet this week. It goes to show how easy it is to let communications slip. You don't have to write every day, but every day you don't write, it becomes easier not to write the next day, too.

The Age of Conversation Podcast 2: Drew McLellan

This week, I talked to the other half of The Age of Conversation's dynamic duo, Drew McLellan. Drew and Gavin Heaton were the two originators of everyone's favorite collaborative book. We talked about how much money the book has raised for charity, what lessons the book's success carries for marketers, and how the Internet eliminates geographic boundaries and takes us "Full Circle."

Download Episode 2 (MP3, approx. 14 min., 6.7 MB)


Show notes for Episode 2:

Guest: Drew McLellan
Chapter: Full Circle p. 66

1:00 Book sale update
2:45 Tight timeline proves how quickly marketing can move today
7:00 Full Circle
9:00 We disparage 1992 online dating
11:00 No marketer can know every online service intimately
12:15 Social media and online networking gives us access to more help than ever

Thanks to Saurab Bhargava for our theme song, called Conversations.

Note: I'm still trying to get the settings right on Skype, so our sound levels were a little funky. Please leave your feedback and suggestions in the comments so I can improve these as we go along!  (You can subscribe to the podcast here.)

Technorati Tags: Age_of_Conversation, Drew_McLellan, AoC_Podcast

Do you know what people are passionate about?

Brains on Fire has proof that you can never predict what people will be passionate about. It seems Kansas University decided to eschew tradition and change the lettering on its basketball jerseys to a new font called Trajan. And that didn't go down well in Jayhawk-land, where a student has rallied support for the old font with a website, Trajan Sucks. He's even selling T-shirts.

So what's the point? Aside from the fact that someone apparently has a light class load this semester, the story shows that people who work with your organization may care a lot more about what you do than you realize. Interact with them. Engage them often. Work with them regularly and communicate along the way. They're probably more interested than you think.

Technorati Tags: communications, Trajan_Sucks, Brains_on_Fire

How to open a branch office without paying rent

You don't sit around in your office all day waiting for people to show up and give you money. So why would you do the same thing with your website?

David Wilson at Social Media Optimization compares your organization's website to a brick-and-mortar store.

Now using a brick and mortar analogy, consider for the moment that your web site was not in a single location online, but instead had multiple locations. While your store (ie web site) gets a lot of walk-in traffic from one main road (your SEO and PPC strategy) you have noticed some new neighborhoods have began to spring up with a demographic that matches your target audience.

What would you do? You would probably consider expanding your business and building more stores in these new locations and that is where your audience is. The concept of social media optimization is similar. You want your web site and message to appear where your audience is congregating online.

This is a wonderful, "why-didn't-I-think-of-it-before?" analogy. It goes to the point I made yesterday about widgets, which allow you to offer compelling, engaging information to people who've never even heard of you, by sharing your content with other organizations, for use on their websites. If you have important things to say -- things that people will really value -- you shouldn't sit on it. And putting it on the front page of your own website isn't enough. There's no excuse for maintaining a single point of contact with people online. Every organization should be opening online branch offices that help them reach people where they've already gathered.

Technorati Tags: marketing, PR, social_media, David_Wilson, nptech, blogging, widgets

4-year-old Marketing

Katya shows us how bad marketing is like a 4-year-old. One example:

Get someone’s attention, but fail to deliver a compelling message. “Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom.” “Yes, sweetie?” Then forget what you had to say or make something up. Bad marketing is all about bad messages. Good marketing is about getting attention AND good messaging.

I love it! Go read the rest.

Don't wait for Web visitors

You don't have to wait for people to visit your website to find out about you. Editors Weblog writes about "widgets" -- snippets of code that allow any website to publish their content to other websites quickly and easily. The focus is on newspapers and other media outlets, making their headlines available for other websites to publish. The headlines link back to the newspaper's website. But the implications of widgeting are great for everyone -- even you.

Several weeks ago, I wrote about how you can Widget yourself in 3 easy steps. It doesn't take any technical skill. All it takes is a steady stream of interesting information that someone might want to put on their own website. If you haven't "widgeted" your organization, you're missing a great opportunity to reach people who don't even know your website exists!