Fool Proof Marketing Campaigns

The best kinds of marketing campaigns are those that integrate all kinds of different media in one. It's far more effective to use email, social media, blogging, SMS and other media all together than to just use one. So how do you create integrated marketing campaigns?

Tease with Social Media, Launch with Email

The most powerful platform for launching a marketing campaign is by far your email list. You'll be able to reach far more people through your email list than through any other avenue.

Use social media to tease people about upcoming launches. For example, drop hints about what might be in a new product, or tell people that an awesome contest is coming up, without actually letting on what the contest is.

Once it's actually time to launch, use your email list to get things kicked off.

Enroll Cheerleaders and Affiliates Early

Reach out to people who can help you early on. Talk to people who could retweet you once you're ready to launch. Reach out to potential affiliates as early as possible.

Cultivate relationships with people in your industry before you need it. When you're ready to launch a campaign, you should have allies across all kinds of media. You should have people retweeting for you, affiliates mailing promotions and bloggers writing reviews.

Have Two-Way Communication

Build a two-way communication channel with your audience. Use social media and use blog comments to get feedback from your audience. Having open communication also lets your users feed off of each other's excitement.

If you were just using email marketing, people can't talk to each other about your launch. They can't share what they think is coming up, or ask questions of each other. Make sure you have at least one channel of communication that allows your audience to talk to you or to each other.

Using SMS and Direct Mail

SMS and direct mail are two forms of media that are seldom discussed.

For each promotion, product launch or contest, send just one or two SMS messages. Don't overload your audience by sending too many texts. Send your text when it's most timely.

Direct mail is a fantastic avenue for reaching previous customers. It's only really valid for product or event related campaigns, since it's quite costly. You have to be able to make money by making sales to recoup your costs.

These two tactics aren't mandatory, but can really make a big difference when used properly.

During Down Times...

When you're not doing a campaign, do as much as you can to cross-promote your different kinds of media. Use your email list to grow your social media following. Use social media to boost your blog traffic. Use your blog to bring on more email followers. So on and so forth. This makes launching campaigns much more powerful once you get around to it.

Successfully Build Your Brand

Building a successful brand can solidify your business in your niche. It establishes you and your business as a name that can be trusted. Here are some tips to help you build brand success.

What Is a brand?

When you see the swoosh logo, what does it make you think of? And how about Coca-Cola? You know the tagline, don’t you? And if we say “You’re in good hands with -” you can probably finish the sentence.

All of these show how a particular brand has influenced not only society but also our idea of what these certain products should be. For instance, when it comes to photocopying, people use the term “Xeroxed.” Actually, Xerox is a brand name that has become synonymous with the act of photocopying. How is that for brand success?

Building Your Brand

Who’s to say that you won’t become as big as Xerox one day? For any business, you start in the same place – building your brand.

Here are some tips to get the ball rolling.

Be real with your customers – Anyone can create a “smoke and mirrors” advertising campaign. You can promise the world and some will believe you. But, when you don’t deliver, your credibility is shot. One way to be real is to put a face on your business. Add your photo. Speak plainly and in simple terms with your customers.

Make good on your promises – The problem with many companies is poor customer service. If you promise to send a confirmation email after purchase or an answer to an information request, then do so in the time promised.

Sell your product – Inspire customers to buy by giving them a reason to use your product or service. Describe how their life will benefit from having your product in it. Help the customer make an emotional connection to your product.

Promote your product in as many places as possible – When new products come out, do a press release. Promote it on your social networking site, your blog and your website. Create YouTube videos and also podcasts about your products to increase the talk. Don’t forget offline promotion as well.

Be consistent with your brand – Whatever you decide that your brand will stand for, be true to that. Use people and ideas that are in line with your brand to help identify it for your audience.

Target your customers – Now that you know your brand, you have to connect with the people who “need” what you offer. Use keywords to draw your customers to you. Create a list of potentials and then stay in contact with them.

What does your product stand for? Take some time and create your brand. Then, provide quality products that connect with your customers so they almost sell themselves.

5 Common Business Process Mistakes

Happy New Year!  Is your business ready for a great 2014?  Having great business processes is crucial to business success. That said, if you do it wrong, the creation of business processes can actually hinder your success.

How can you ensure that your business processes actually help rather than hurt you? Make sure you avoid these five mistakes.

Mistake #1: No Overall Model, Only Details

It's common for people to only focus on the details of how to perform specific tasks. Unfortunately, if your business processes don't have an overall model or goal, the details will be disjointed and inappropriately applied by staff.

Every business process should be part of a bigger business model or philosophy. The process is the "how" of running a bigger system. Just having a bunch of "hows" without a "why" is a recipe for disaster.

Mistake #2: The Processes Are Technology Based

Great businesses use technology. Writing businesses for technology is important. That said, if your processes are completely reliant on technology to work, then you're laying a very weak foundation.

Let's say you have an expense tracking process. The process should focus on the step by steps of tracking expenses, rather than the software itself. That way if the software ever fails or if you ever switch to a new system, your employees will know how to perform the actual tasks, rather than just push the right buttons.

Mistake #3: Not Enough Details

Your business process documentation should be detailed enough that a person new to the job could operate the process with a little guidance.

It's common for people who're competent in a task to write documentation for others in a way that could only be done by people who also have competence in that task.

Instead, documentation should be written in a very step by step manner. It should be written for a new trainee, not for someone who's more experienced.

Mistake #4: Documenting Untested Processes

Not everything in your business should be documented. In fact, you should only document a process once it's been proven and refined to its most efficient form.

If you spend time documenting processes that haven't been proven to work yet, you'll spend a lot of time documenting things and then throwing them out.

Documentation should be done to help train people on things that work. Wait until your processes are proven before doing this.

Mistake #5: Neglecting Human Relationships

Finally, remember that processes often involve human beings.

Say you have a process for handling fulfillment when you're shipping a new product. The documentation might cover how you handle order volume, how to get samples from fulfillment and so on. However, the documentation might not include how to actually interface with the people who run your fulfillment house.

The human element in processes is a crucial element. Make sure you're not neglecting it.

These are five of the most common mistakes business people make when they're automating, documenting or designing business processes.  What do you think?

Top 3 Tips For Getting Facebook Fans

When it comes to advertising and marketing online, there is nothing like having a Facebook fan page that has a lot of fans.  Facebook fans will make your company look very trusted and it is a great way to draw in more potential customers.

Most people will admit that they will often go towards companies that have more fans because they feel like
it is a great way to determine if they are a trusted brand or company. If you are looking to learn how to get more Facebook fans, here are a few tips I have to share:

Tip #1 - Create Contests

This is a strategy that has helped other companies that are trying to get more fans. These contests will help you stay connected with your fans and to create a relationship that will help build your online presence.  You can give away little items like t-shirts or you can even give people discounts. The only thing that they will need to do is share your Facebook page and to tag a photo to your fan page. This causes their friends and family to see your page and thus gaining more fans.

Tip #2 - Utilize Other Sites Besides Facebook

Focusing exclusively on Facebook as this is not the best strategy for internet marketing. You will need to go over to websites like Twitter as a different source of traffic. You will then need to post about your Facebook page and have people join you on Facebook as well. Most people are members on both social networks and so it is a good idea to target them on both sides.

These are just simple ways to get more Facebook fans and to really increase your overall presence on the internet. Do these two things and you will start to see a big increase of fans on Facebook.

Tip #3 - Post Consistently

I recently attended a great Webinar with Mari Smith, a leading Social Media Strategist on Facebook where she shared her 7 Steps to Facebook Success.  One of the tips she gave in the Webinar was to be sure to post several times a day. Different people are online at different times and while you do not want to overwhelm your audience, posting consistently is just smart.  If you're interested in watching the Webinar (there is no cost) You can find it HERE

That's it for this week!  If you are a DIY kinda person and want to really ramp up your Facebook Marketing check out Mari's new program, "Extreme Fanbase Growth 2.0" she really is an expert and who I've been learning a lot from. (and yes, this is an affililtate link, but if you know me, I make very few recommendations and she really is good.)

How to Have Facebook Advertising Success

Lately I have been playing around with Facebook Advertising.  At first it was a little daunting, but once you get in a groove and do it a few times, it is pretty simple.  The key is to keep it short, simple, and sweet -- that's how we've built a business at LearnEASE and it works on Facebook, too. Here are five ways to make Facebook work for you, without rearranging your lunch breaks:

• Use the Facebook Power Editor. Ok, it's a little buggy. But it gives you options that let you track your advertising, set up news feeds and mobile adds, and do bulk editing. It's simple to understand, and there is a nice tutorial, so you won't waste tons of time on the learning curve. 
• Love Content. Share photos. Link to your site or to news or related blogs. Keep it simple. Re-share things your followers have posted, check the morning news, or share things that come across your feed that seem relevant. Fresh, relevant content drives ad conversions. 
• Place ads. If it's in your budget, those ads can make a difference. Target them for certain demographic or geographic sectors (or by likes, connections, interests, etc.), so you're only advertising in areas that work for you. Text ads, display ads with images, or super-hefty Facebook engagement ads are your three options in the Facebook universe. 
• Be organized. From the beginning, set up an organized ad campaign. Know what you want to achieve, so you can measure your results against your goals. Plan how often you'll post content on Facebook or how often you'll set up new ads -- and then stick to that schedule. 
• Minimize time, maximize results. If you only have five minutes a day to spend of Facebooking, make it count. Plan posts in advance so you can cut and paste in two minutes when the day comes, or schedule your posts, then spend three minutes responding to messages. If you only post three days a week, that gives you two other work days to work on ads. It doesn't have to be a headache. 

Expect a learning curve at the beginning, and start in a week when you can build in some extra time to figure out exactly what you're doing. Set aside time once a month to put together a calendar. Once you're conversant with the software you'll find you have plenty of time to do what you need to do without extra stress.

Happy Facebooking!

5 Tips On Becoming SuperWoman

I am super woman.  Yes, that sounds very conceited and I swear that is not my intention.  But I get asked a lot by various clients, colleagues, co-workers, friends, family, “How the heck do you get so much done, do you not sleep”?   Well, since I do sleep, and actually I sleep more than most I think - at least nine hours a

night – I decided maybe I should ponder this question and see if I could figure out why.  Maybe, just maybe,  I have some sneaky tips on what makes me so productive. So here is what I came up with:

#1 Get Plenty of Rest 
I know this is not exactly a productivity tip, I’ll get to a few of those too, but I do firmly believe getting enough rest allows for longer periods of concentration and focus. I’m sure there is some deep rooted science proving this too, but for me it’s based on experience. When I’m rested, I am energized, happy, focused and productive.

#2 Eat well and Eat Often
After I had both of my kids I did weight watchers and I have to say I liked it a lot and it taught me some good eating habits.  I’ve carried those with me and I’ve noticed that when I eat healthy and snack at regular intervals, my energy stays up.

#3 Have a Schedule
I follow the same schedule pretty much every day.  Now there are huge blocks of time that are not, “scheduled” since my work is very busy and always changing, but there are cornerstones throughout the day that stay the same.

For me it falls at 8am, 10am, 12pm, 2pm, 5pm, 8pm.  I have specific things I do at these intervals (i.e. check email, log in/post/check social networks, have a snack, check my ToDo list, etc.). This frees my blocks of time up and allows for flexibility in my schedule but still time to get things done.

#4 Make a ToDo list
Prioritize. Stick to It – this is one of my biggest tips.  I do not live out of my email in-boxes (yes I have several).  Every day I make a priority list of what needs to be done and prioritize.  I allow for le-way time for things that do come up in my email and I block out time to get certain things on my list done.  This leads to tip #5:

#5  Block Out Time
Block out specific time on your calendar to get things done.  I cannot tell you how many task/productivity apps I’ve downloaded on my iPad, but there have been a lot, and none work as well as the one I am going to share with you right now.

Now, in case you are hoping I will tell you what the best one is and I am, but don’t get too excited, you might be disappointed.  My biggest productivity application is (drumroll here). Outlook. Yes. Outlook.  Here’s why.  For me I am booked constantly with meetings and calls, so I’ve found that blocking out small chunks of time (15 – 30 minutes) on my calendar throughout the week allows me to get the top priority things done.  This really works well for me, but you definitely have to stick to it and hold yourself accountable.

There you have it, the top 5 things I do to be super woman productive.  What do you do?

Top 6 Reasons To Have A Facebook Business Page

Recently we have really seen a large influx of businesses asking us to design their Facebook Business Page.  I love this!  But it occurred to me that it might be a good idea to share some of the reasons and statistics as to why it is a good idea.  

So here it is, the Top 6 Reasons Why Business' should have a page:

#1.  Your Current Customers and Future Customers are on Facebook

According to GeekyGadgets this week in Technology News, there are 1.1 Billion Monthly Active Users! That's a lot of reach.  That includes 665 million daily active on average in March 2013

#2.  Your Customers are looking for you

I know I do.  When I find a company/service I like, I'm looking to "like" them on Facebook

#3.  It allows you too stay connected with your customers.

You can provide relevant information about your industry and quickly alert your customers of special events, offers and discounts.

#4.  Referrals. Referrals. Referrals.

Posting interesting and relevant content, offers, special events and discounts allows your fans to spread the word to their friends.

#5.  Your Competitors are on Facebook

Over 15 million businesses, companies, and organizations now have a Facebook page

#6.  Search Engines Like Facebook.

Google a few, when searching for a company, if they have a Facebook page, it's near the top of the search

In my mind, Facebook is a marketing vehicle, it's one component of a strategic marketing plan and should be targeted to the business' audience.  All marketing activity should fit together, like a puzzle, to create a whole picture of your business, who you are and what you stand for.  What do you think?