Are your going to be an influence have or an influence have-not?

June 29, 2007 | Leave a Comment

Just got the eMarketer eNewsletter and it has an excellent Word of Mouth article along with great graphs and stats.  The most interesting thing for me is the rise of influentials.  More and more people are becoming influential and guiding what other people think.  That is our business model, although I never thought of it that way. 

What we offer:

All our books and materials are about Buzz Marketing but are really about increasing word of mouth and influence.

We are in the beginning of the Rise of the Influential Middle Class.  Just as an economic middle class exploded, so are we seeing an explosion of an influence middle class.  They do not have the same clout as the upper class influentials, but as a group they wield more power because of numbers. 

The question is, are your going to be an influence have, or an influence have-not?

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog 

No Phone Trees

June 28, 2007 | 1 Comment

Marcin Musiolik emailed me and asked me to mention No Phone Trees . Here is what he had to say. Interesting if you spend a lot of time doing this.
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Our mission is to help users skip phone trees and connect with a real human on the customer support phone lines at many companies throughout the U.S. Users simply choose the company they wish to call, and we’ll dial the company directly, navigate their phone tree, and call them back when they are in queue for an operator or customer service representative. The service is available for free, and we’ve gotten some great feedback so far.

We are in the middle of doing a soft beta launch, and we are trying to get early feedback to refine the site before we publicize the site more broadly.

Give their site a try if you are tired of walking through the maze of numbers.

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog 

But My Clients Use DOS…

June 26, 2007 | 2 Comments

KeyboardAre you in an industry where your target market is not tech savvy?

If so, this blog post is important for your future success.  Many companies know that a small percentage of their potential clients are going out to the web and purchasing.  You may decide to put up a basic webpage, which of course does nothing, and leave it at that.

Here I am going to highlight three situations where people have thought that they did not need a web presence and why developing one is important.

Excuse #1:  Our industry is In-Home Health Care.  Very few of our clients use the Internet.

Some home health care companies I have met know just how wrong this thinking is already.  The decision maker for the person getting in home services is usually a son or daughter.  The decision is difficult and they are usually going to spend considerable time researching what company they can afford and can provide the highest level of care for their parent.

Lesson:  Just because your end user is not tech savvy does not mean the decision maker isn’t.

Excuse #2: My clients are in the dark ages.  According to research, they still run on DOS.  

I just spoke to a group of vendors that sell to country clubs and this is one of the concerns they have.  In this case, what does runs on DOS mean?

All this means is that the main member database and maybe the accounting is an older system that runs on DOS (a very old Microsoft operating system.)  This does not mean that when they buy a new computer for the club, they make a special request to get DOS.  Many companies still run their back end databases on older systems because they work and because they cannot justify upgrading just because there is a new operating system. 

So to say this means that they do not surf the Internet or do research on your products and services before they buy is a fallacy. 

Even if the country club does not have modern computers, consider that the board members are people that have some expendable income and probably have a very nice machine at home.

Lesson:  Even if the company does not seem tech savvy, do not assume that the people in the organization cannot research you.

Excuse #3:  Our Industry Does Not Have Internet Access  

About six years ago I started working with a big publisher of Automotive Aftermarket magazines.  When we started, they wanted to do some web stuff but it was not a high priority because they knew many of the small automotive shops did not have internet access in them.

Some of their magazines put up content management systems and started producing great online magazines, and others just posted static html pages that were hard to find and navigate.

Six years later, they tell me nearly all their clients have Internet access and it is obvious that the group that invested in the web early has a huge advantage over those that did not make the investment.  They are turning a profit on the web and are able to offer all kinds of new products and advertising opportunities that the other group of magazines can only dream about.

Why doesn’t the other group catch up?  The web takes time and effort, and now it is a daunting task and some of them keep putting it off because they do not have the resources now to catch up. (The excuse has changed)

In this case, it is good to think of a website like a rental property you just bought.  You can try to flip it and you may get lucky, but more realistically you invest in it, keep it fixed up and maybe make improvements, promote it and hope you can attract tenants that will stay, and you may turn a modest profit on it each month, but you are also building equity for the future.

Lesson:  Don’t wait until last call.  Even if you think your industry is not going to see your online effort in wide numbers soon, build for the long haul and in time you will be very happy you did.

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Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Marketing ROI, Internet Marketing, Blog 

Handshake HQ - Give It A Try

June 20, 2007 | Leave a Comment

 Handshake HQ

We have not fully launched Handshake HQ yet.  It is fully functional but we continue to look at ways to improve the interface and marketing.  That said, give it a try if you would like.  You can sign up at http://www.handshakehq.com/ and there is a free account as well as a paid version.

What is it?

OK, long story short.  I wanted a better tool to follow up with people after I met them, so I tossed together the first version of Handshake HQ to help me by templating my emails so I could craft better messages with better goals.  Then I could power through a stack of cards in seconds and send each person a highly personal email. - No SPAM, these had to be sent one at a time.  It just helped me write better emails and not have to retype the whole thing.

I started using it with a great deal of success, and as soon as I told the first person about it, they wanted it for their organization. Handshake HQ is the commercial version of this simple solution.  Better Messages Faster with Better Results is what it boils down to.

Give it a try and let me know what you think.  It is an attempt on our part to share tools we find useful and profitable with other people that may benefit from the same strategy.

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Small Business, Sales, Interesting Buzz, Buzzoodle, Employee Advocates, Blog 

Buzz in your Hive

June 19, 2007 | 1 Comment

Phil Gerbyshak pointed me to Seth Godin which pointed me to The Messaging Time:  Get Your Hive Buzzing.  Take a look at how to get more buzz out of your organization

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog 

Is Your Image Rusty?

June 18, 2007 | Leave a Comment

Sears TruckIs your image rusty?  The Sears Logo and name on this truck sure was.  The back “Sears” had considerable rust running down from the bolts over the E and the R.

If I am Sears, I am trying to combat the image of being an old company that may be obsolete in the world of Target, Best Buy and Walmart. Yet nothing yells old like having your logo covered in rust!

I am a realist.  As much as I would like to say that every vehicle should look like new every day, I know that is not practical. However, I think that a big corporation can easily have standards that say you have to protect the image of the company and the logo can never be excessively dirty, damaged or obstructed.  It would be better to remove the logo in this case and have plain white (and rusty) trucks.

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog 

Matt Heinz - House Values

June 15, 2007 | Leave a Comment

Matt Heinz has been a reader and supporter of this blog for a long time.  He is also located in one of my favorite parts of the country and I think he and I have very similar marketing philosophies.  So when he asked me to review his book I was happy to.

His book is full of simple online strategies to grow your business.  I interviewed him and here is what he had to say:

1) What makes your book special and interesting?

At HouseValues, we recently launched an exciting new set of Web marketing tools to help our small business real estate agent customers capture more new business directly from the Web.  The book was written as an accompaniment to that product launch, to help our customers accelerate the impact and return they’re getting from these new tools.

But the book wasn’t just written from the point of view of real estate agents.  We wrote the book for all small business, as nearly every step in creating a successful, profitable Web marketing strategy is applicable to accountants, bakers, retailers, consultants and much more.

The book’s format is perhaps its most unique feature.  Instead of offering a large, intimidating block of Web marketing strategies, we’ve broken it down into individual steps.  Each step typically takes just 10-15 minutes to complete, and they’re written in sequential order.  If you were to simply follow the book a day at a time, after 2-3 months you’d have built yourself an incredibly powerful Web marketing strategy, all with minimal time commitment and surprisingly little out-of-pocket expenses.

Or, simply flip through the book and pick out the easy-to-execute strategies you like the most.  They can be working hard for your business by the afternoon!

2)  Was publishing your first book easier or harder than you thought?

Harder.  We had a great printer, and a great team within HouseValues that handled the book design and fulfillment.  But just the act of writing the book (even though it’s only 120 pages) took more focus and discipline than I had imagined.  That said, writing a book is incredibly fulfilling, and I’m even more excited to see it in use.  Many of our customers at HouseValues are already using the book to improve their Web marketing, and drive more customers into their business from across the business.  That’s the best output of this project, by far.

3) How do you use your book as a marketing tool?

At HouseValues, we offered a free copy of the book to every customer who took advantage of and activated our new suite of Web marketing tools.  This included a customized, personal Web site as well as advertising of their real estate listings on their behalf across the Web (driving more traffic and prospective customers directly back to their new Web sites).

The response to this offer was incredible.  Even more exciting is that we’ve been able to use both the book and the content of the book to make Web marketing more accessible to our customers, so that more of them are doing things in their business (mostly for free) to increase the volume of business they’re generating for themselves online.  For us, that’s the best part of this entire project – seeing our customers generate more business and success.

4)  Does it really rain every single day in Seattle?

Well, it is raining right now.  But yesterday it was beautiful.  It’s hit or miss here, but in the summer and early fall this is the most beautiful part of the country, hands down.

5)  How and where can someone buy your book?

The book’s available for purchase by visiting http://www.housevaluesbook.com, or just go to Amazon.com and search for “Move The Mouse & Make Millions!”  But if you’re a HouseValues customer, just call us.  We’ll send you one for free.

You can visit Matt’s blog at http://mattonmarketing.blogspot.com/

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog 

49 Marketing Secrets (That Work) to Grow Sales

June 13, 2007 | 3 Comments

Business Marketing Secrets BookI am lucky to be included in a great marketing book called 49 Marketing Secrets (That Work) to Grow Sales. It has a whole host of marketing material for businesses. Authors include some big names, such as Tony Alessandra, and also has normal business owners talking about what marketing tactics work best for them.

If you have a business and want to learn more about all the issues surrounding marketing your business and helping it grow, buy this book.

Ron Finklestein has spent a huge amount of time and effort in assembling this great book. I got 100 copies to sell when I am out speaking, and he has also made the Marketing Secrets eBook available for any of the authors to sell from their website.

You can purchase the 49 Marketing Secrets eBook here.

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Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Marketing ROI, Small Business, Buzzoodle 

Buzz Marketing Workshop

June 12, 2007 | Leave a Comment

There are a few seats left for the Free Buzz Marketing workshop this Thursday, June 14th, 2007

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog 

Buzz Marketing and Sales Workshop - Free

June 12, 2007 | Leave a Comment

The Ruby Group in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio is sponsoring the Buzz Marketing and Sales workshop.  45 minutes of generating leads with buzz and 45 minutes of closing the sale.

www.therubygroup.com

Only a few seats are still available so RSVP with Holly Rhodes at hrhoads@therubygroup.com

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Events, Buzzoodle 

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