Sometimes I find my Say It For You blog posts taking on a "'Dear Rhoda'-advice-column cast.  (With 25 years of 'Dear Rhoda' financial advice columns under my belt, the format has a natural feel for advice on business blogging.)

Today, I thought I'd model the post after the "More Ways To Save" section in last week's Indianapolis Star, which offered advice on smart grocery shopping and meal preparation.

Here are just a few of the food-related tips business owners can heed when it comes to blog marketing:

Stock up on items you'll use.

(One customer bought 12 bottles of salad dressing at once, so she'd have it on hand for preparing various dishes.)

The blogging equivalent is to keep an "Ideas" folder.  Jot down any juicy word tidbits or clever sayings, clip articles from magazines, the newspaper, ads, brochures, billboards - anything you believe you'll be able to later incorporate into a blog post.

Be flexible.

(One shopper first looks for which items are on sale, then plans her meals around those items.)

Bloggers need to be flexible, too, building posts around conversations with other bloggers and business people, and centered around news items and issues of the day. Suppose  you just read about Michell and Barak Obama's theater date night in New York City. Relate remarks about what you sell or the services you provide to New York, big city life, married life, fashion, theater, babysitting, etc..

Develop some favorite websites.

(Cooks are advised to bookmark their favorite websites, so they can easily go back to find just the right recipe for either a family dinner at home or a big party.)

Business bloggers can do the same thing, bookmarking favorite sources of information on subjects that relate to their business, and favorite blogsites to link to. 

Repackage if necessary.

(If buying a ten-pound package of ground beef or other product saves money, go ahead and buy the larger size, advises the Star reporter, then rewrap into smaller packages you can save in the freezer for later meals.)

"Repackaging" is a way to get more out of your business blog, because the material you developed for your posts can be used for brochures, newsletters, e-books, and as text for video clips about your business. 

As I always say, "Your brand 'r you in your blog!" Serve up valuable information and they will come!


 

by Tony Fannin, president, BE Branded

Today, I’m going off the marketing path just a little to make a point I believe in. In today’s world, technology has made it possible to communicate across the world and connect with people whom you’ve never met before in person. We can woo customers whom we have no idea who they are and garner business from people we’ve only emailed. If we’re somewhat advanced, we actually get to see them through teleconferencing. All of this is fine and dandy, but I feel like it also makes us vulnerable with our customers.

You see, if there is no personal or human connection, your customers can, and will, easily replace you. You’re nothing more than just an email on the other end or just a voice on the cell phone. I have no personal buy-in to you or your company. Some may say that their superior product/service will be enough to capture and keep customers. I don’t buy that. There are too many “superior” products/services who lose out to others because the salesperson actually took the time to get to know the customer as a person and understood who they are and what they’re about. Remember, we humans tend to do business with friends over strangers any day.

The art of face-to-face is becoming lost. We use speed and convenience of technology to communicate with our customers at the sacrifice of becoming a real person to them by physically seeing them on a regular basis. At BE Branded, we make it a point to actually see our clients on a regular basis. We break bread with them. We become more than just a voice or email. And sometimes, we actually develop a true friendship. It’s amazing what you can learn about each other over lunch or dinner. You realize that each other are real people with real emotions, concerns, hopes, and dreams. By understanding this, you can actually better serve your client. And in some cases, keep them as clients. Because you’ve become more than just a “vendor”, you’re most likely to be given second chances for blowing it on those rare occasions. You’ve deposited “goodwill” in the bank.

Here’s an example of what can happen if companies depend too much on technology for their communications and connections with clients. Just recently, Heineken put their marketing account up for review. Their current advertising agency is in Portland. Heineken is in New York. It’s not that they were dissatisfied with their current agency, but they felt that because of the complexity of their marketing channels, they wanted an advertising agency who they could meet with face-to-face on a regular basis. Heineken executives stated that “Collaboration is essential for a successful partnership, and in-person meetings DO make a big difference.” The account is worth $110 million. Other companies also put their advertising account up for review because of wanting more face time with their agencies (ConocoPhillips and Liberty Mutual).

Technology is great at what it does best – quick, convenient, innovative. But when it comes to servicing clients on a real, human level, nothing replaces good, ol’ fashioned face-to-face discussions. Think back to even your own personal experiences with calling the customer service line of a company. It took three rounds of listening and talking with a computer before we reached a human. Now wasn’t that pleasant? Keep the art of seeing real people, having real conversations, solving real problems. Who knows, you might end up with a new friend. And when that client is now a friend, your chances of keeping their business just increased dramatically.

www.bebranded.net
317-797-7226  

By the time they are young women, East African girls can carry up to 25% of their body weight on their heads, according to Don Vorhees, author of The Book of Totally Useless Information. The amazing thing is, those young women do this using no more energy than it would take to wear a straw hat.

I like to use this metaphor to illustrate some points about business blogging.  A small business owner's or professional practitioner's blogging efforts can have an effect on marketing results that is disproportionately larger than might seem possible from mere short, informal pieces of writing.

For business owners seeking to leverage their blog marketing efforts, it's worth noting the secret behind the East African ladies' carrying power: It's their remarkable posture control, Vorhees points out.  "They form a rigid straight line between their vertebrae and pelvis."  With very little movement of the head, neck, or shoulders, their power is concentrated.  Westerners, Vorhees adds, tend to bob and dip when they walk, wasting a lot of energy.

Blogging is "leveraged" almost by definition.  Internet commentators David Verklin and Bernice Kanner (Watch This, Listen Up, Click Here) say blogging is part of "marketing to the moment of aperture", offering the right product or service at the right time before the right prospect. Because searchers arrive at the blog seeking information on exactly what you do, what you sell, or what you know, there's a "rigid straight line" between the potential customer and your business!

At the same time, just as the East Africans maximize carrying power through focusing energy in a straight line, you can enhance the power of blog marketing through focusing each blog post on one central theme, then using key words to help direct traffic your way.

Blogging for business has a creative element to it, no doubt, as interesting, well-written content will engage readers and keep them coming back. Along with the art comes the science of blogging.  The science involves focusing on a theme and using key phrases to create that "pull marketing" power. 

The combination of art and science is the hallmark of East African basket-carrying and the hallmark of successful business blogging as well!

Multi-tasking is the big word around job interviews these days. Most small business owners find themselves wearing many hats and playing many roles in running their business. It’s important for entrepreneurs to use a “multi-tasking” approach when it comes to their marketing efforts as well.

As I work with business owners on their blog marketing strategy, I’m finding at the start of the conversation that most are already fully aware that blogging has become an indispensable part of any business tool kit. The only problem is that their efforts are being devoted to playing all those different  roles just to keep the business running, and so they lack the time and inclination (and sometimes, as my clients readily admit, the talent) to compose blog posts.

I want to share a true marketing story, recounted in Don Voorhees’ The Book of Totally Useless Information, about Blue Bonnet Margarine.  During World War II, butter was in short supply, and the Standard Brands company decided to add margarine to its product list, sponsoring a contest to name the new spread.  A company employee in Texas suggested naming the margarine after his state’s flower, the bluebonnet. That was the winning entry, but, as Vorhees goes on to explain, the company “didn’t use a bluebonnet flower for the logo but opted to use a blond woman wearing a blue bonnet”. They had re-purposed the name!

Remember that blogs can multi-task and re-purpose, too. There’s more than one important way in which small business owners’ or professional practitioners’ business blogging efforts can have a disproportionately large effect on their marketing results.  As professional website copywriter and blogger Matt Rouge puts it, "Blog posts contain valuable information about your business and your industry.  This information may be further used in email and print newsletters, white papers, brochures, and other media."

The blog can reflect different aspects of the business and different personalities. 
Whether you propose to do the blog writing by yourself, have your entire team participate, or collaborate with a professional ghost partner like me, the content in the blog posts will be a way of continually thinking through and reinventing your business brand.

Then, the material in those posts can be used to market your business offline as well as in the blogosphere.

 

by Tony Fannin, president, BE Branded

Too many companies and entrepreneurs today think that technology is a strategy. They say, "All I need to do is get rankings. Just create an online store and they'll come running. What I really need is a killer app. You just have to be doing the newest twitter thing (or whatever the flavor of the week is)." Too many believe the silver bullet(s) is Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. Companies and entrepreneurs make e-commerce or social networking their core marketing strategy.

Here's some insight for you – TECHNOLOGY IS NOT A MARKETING STRATEGY PLAY. It's only an enabler. Real marketing strategy is still centered around relationships with brands. It's still a matter of emotional connection, not technology connection. The online tools are great and allow us to do things that were once impossible or very expensive. Cool apps, social media, and web site rankings are part of the picture, but it's not THE picture. What happens when you put all of your money and efforts into a piece of technology or new app and 6 months later something cooler, different, better comes along? Do you run to that? If you keep this up all you'll end up doing is running in place going from one new thing to another. Now there's nothing wrong with trying out new things, but too many just hop in without any thought of does it help us get to where we're going? If so, how does it fit within the other strategies already in place?

Here's an example. Drugstore.com was supposed to put the Walgreens out of business. No more brick and mortar. Just go online, click, click, and you're done. It was going to be the new world order overtaking the outdated concept of actual stores. Initially, Drugstore.com's stock soared as everyone saw this as a "can't lose" company because their strategy was NEW technology and a NEW way to do business. But Walgreens did a strange thing. They didn't panic. They didn't put their next two-year marketing budget building and promoting an online store. What the executive team did do was they took a careful look at the web, its capabilities, and its advantages and compared that to what their core brand was (to be the most convenient pharmacy in America). Now, yes, an online store is convenient, but it also would erode one of their core economic drivers, the purchase of snacks, drinks, paper towels, and any other of items they sell that aren't dugs. So how did Walgreens not only survive, but crush Drugstore.com? They utilized the new technology in how it operated their backend. By creating an internal network of linking all of their stores online, customers now can call every Walgreens store in any state their "hometown" pharmacy. Because each store can access customer information from a common data base online, a customer from Kansas City who is on vacation in Tampa can walk in and get their prescription filled right there. This supported their brand of "most convenient pharmacy in America" without eroding one of their core economic drivers. This also helped Walgreens still keep a real, human relationship with their customers by having human pharmacists interact with customers and answering any questions or fears they may have.

Side note: Drugstore.com stock sold for $11 at their IPO. At it's peak it was $69 in 1999 a few months after the IPO. Now it sells for $1.84 in 2009. Price for Walgreen's stock: $30 as of June 2009.

In the end, marketing strategy is about telling a human story that communicates on an authentic level in ways that truly connect with your market. Marketing is a RELATIONSHIP PLAY that leverages technology to its advantage. If it doesn't add or support your brand, why use it?Technology must enhance your brand and story. It shouldn't BE the story. 

www.bebranded.net
317-797-7226 

In the U.S., processed foods are required to list ingredients on their labels, and the ingredients have to be listed in order of their weight in the final product. So, if tomatoes are listed first, that’s the main ingredient; if sugar heads the list of ingredients, that means there’s more sugar than any other substance in that product. It’s quite a simple concept, and one that’s paralleled in the way search engines evaluate and index blog posts.

When a search engine is visiting a website or blog, it reads the information on it, measuring the relevance of the material it finds to what the online searcher appears to be looking for. When the key words (which match what the searcher typed in) appear in the title of the blog post and towards the beginning of the text, it’s assumed that those are the “biggest deal”, indicative of what that blog post is mainly about.

There’s a second parallel I found between blogs and food labels. If a label says “Reduced Calories),that means that food product must contain one third less calories than a comparable, non-reduced-calorie food. By definition, blogs should be “reduced calorie” compared with corporate websites.  Blogs should contain at least a third less content than a promotional brochure or a website page, and should focus on one idea having to do with the business – highlight one product, one service, debunk one myth, one comparison, one testimonial from a customer, one true story, one link to a news story.

As a professional ghost writer of blogs, to me a “sugar free blog” is one that goes light on the hard-sell, and one that offers valuable free advice.

As blogging consultant Mack Collier points out, most companies spend too much time blogging about themselves.  The way to make blogs exciting, Collier advises, is by finding your "bigger idea".  In other words, rather than touting your company's pet grooming product, blog about the proper way to groom pets. In business blogging, best to keep things lean and syrup-free!

There are no federal guidelines, I learned, for the use of the word “natural” on food labels. Many foods whose labels say “natural” contain artificial preservatives, artificial coloring, or artificial flavors. To me, "natural" in business blogging means to keep the tone informal, yet informative, giving your readers a “taste” of your personality, as well as the special personality and culture you've created in your culture.

In fact, the special challenge I love about my profession of ghost blogging is to capture the special flavor of each business in their blog posts!  In fact, one of my clients described it as follows: "I cook my own stew, and my ghost blogger adds the condiments, spices, and flavoring!" 
 

 

by Tony Fannin, president, BE Branded

Your business isn't growing and your bottom line proves it. Is it your marketing that's not hitting the mark? Or, is it your sales efforts that is losing the customer? Is it one or the other or both? How can you tell? Ultimately, how can you fix something if you don't know where the problem lies? Here is one way to find out.

It's called the Purchase Funnel Assessment. It visually shows you what responsibilities marketing and advertising has and what responsibilities sales has. Below is the chart that I'll reference in this blog.

At the top is what marketing is responsible for. Sales is responsible for the bottom half of the funnel. This is where a purchase begins for all customers. They flow in this order:

Getting customers into the purchase funnel is what marketing does. This is accomplished by brand, advertising, messaging, and media plans.
1. There must be awareness of your product/service
2. Customers must then become familiar with what benefits you provide and how you will make their lives better
3. Then they will form an opinion about you and your company 
4. Once they have an opinion, then you are in their consideration to buy from

The bottom half of the funnel is where sales takes over. This has everything to do with the environment (store or web site), competitive conditions, and pricing structure.
5. Once they're in the "store" how strong is the intent to buy? It's sales' job to increase that intent
6. Customers must have a great experience while there, otherwise, they are out the door
7. If you follow through on your part, then the purchase is made, congratulations, you have a new customer/client

If there are any holes in any of these seven steps, that's where customers will leak out and you lose them. This is how you can tell if there's a hole in marketing or sales. By knowing this you can fix the problem quicker and with the right solution. For example, if your brand isn't well defined, then opinion of your company suffers. Your prospect leaves at this point. That's a hole in your marketing. If your company (or web site functionality) does not provide a wonderful time are not genuinely there to serve, your prospects will have a bad experience with your company and walk out the door (or click on to another web site). This is a hole in sales.

All of these steps must be fulfilled in order to gain another customer/client. If your company isn't gaining the market share you projected or expect, then there is a leak in your funnel where they are leaving you. By knowing if its a marketing or sales issue, you'll be able to take appropriate action and invest your resources (human and financial) wisely. And one more point, when fixing these leaks, being cheap won't cut it. All you'll end up doing is putting on a temporary patch which you'll have to spend more re-fixing later. While in the meantime, you're still losing customers, just not as fast as before. Like anything else, if you're going to do something, do it right with the necessary resources. It will payoff in the the end with increased revenue and market share.

www.bebranded.net
317-797-7226

Ghosts inhabit the kitchen as well as the blogosphere.  I don’t mean to burst anybody’s bubble, but Betty Crocker, whose face has adorned cake mix and flour packages for ninety years, never lived. She is, and always has been, a sales promotion, one of the most successful ever.

Things all started in 1921, when the Washburn Crosby Company, a forerunner of General Mills, was running a contest to complete a jigsaw puzzle of a flour milling scene. Thousands of entries came in, many with questions about baking problems. The company’s advertising manager thought it would be appropriate to have a woman answer those letters.  He chose the last name of a recently retired executive of the company, William Crocker, with Betty as a fictitious, friendly-sounding first name. A woman employee with a nice handwriting was chosen to sign “Betty Crocker.” Pretty soon “Betty Crocker was doing the nation’s first cooking show over the radio.  That show, the “Betty Crocker School of the Air”, ran for twenty four years!

By 1936, the company needed a face to go with the name. A portrait was commissioned blending the facial characteristics of several of the women employees (they didn’t have PhotoShop back then!). Over the years, “Betty” changed, becoming younger in 1955, more professional in 1980, and multicultural in 1996.

The point is, through the personality of Betty Crocker, Washburn Crosby Company and its successor General Foods Company were able to bring to millions of women a trusted kitchen friend.

As a ghost writer and ghost blogger, I’m sometimes asked how we do it.  How can we ghost bloggers write for business owners and professional clients without being trained in those fields ourselves?  A ghost blogger uses a “third ear” to understand what the client wants to say and to pick up on the client’s unique slant on his/her business or profession.

I’m the “Betty” for my business owner clients, answering their customers’ questions, and helping create a more personalized marketing conversation online. Often business owners and professionals, even if they enjoy writing blogs, lack the time to keep up enough “frequency and recency” to win the Internet search.

As I said in an earlier blog post, while I may not be a doctor, a lawyer, an auto mechanic, a telephone technology expert, a travel guide, a gourmet chef, or a tax expert – as a ghost blogger, I can still play one!  Just ask my ghostly colleagues Mrs. Butterworth and Aunt Jemima!
 

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by Tony Fannin, president, BE Branded

I just recently came from a corporate networking meeting. I had the opportunity to listen to about 30 "elevator" speeches. A few were good, some interesting, but most were very forgettable. The ones that were dull solely concentrated on what they did or the literal description of their product. We all have had the experience of when someone tells you the specifics of their product or service, our eyes glaze over and the information goes in one ear and out the other. There's nothing that captivates our imagination or compels us to be a part of something great. Unfortunately, many company's advertising does the same thing. The spout off the latest and greatest details of what their product does or the kind of service they provide without capturing our imaginations or touching on our desires. Customers glance at it and blow by. It doesn't matter if it's online, offline, social media, or any other channel you can think of. 

In reality, customers don't buy products and services. They buy benefits and dreams. Your advertising and marketing should captivate your customers imagination. It should help them see how wonderful their life COULD be with your product or service. Marketing isn't a spec sheet. It's not a rundown of EVERYTHING your product does. Nor is it a laundry list of every service your provide. And it's definitely not how wonderful your company is. Your advertising should be about how you can benefit your customer's life. How your service can help them achieve their dreams. It doesn't matter if it's B2B or B2C, the same principles apply:

1. Tell me what benefits I will get – Don't tell me everything your product/service does. It not about how great you are, it's how much can you benefit my life or business. Save the details. That will come after I decided that you may have what I need. Then, I will want every piece of information you can give me. Not so much because I want to be able to do it myself, but to reinforce that my faith and trust in you is warranted.

2. Tell me how you can help me achieve my desires/goals – Help me realize my dreams and goals and I will be loyal customer for life. Not only that, I'll become an evangelist for you, for free. Don't tell me about how great your company is, that you've been in business for a gazillion years, that you will meet and exceed my expectations, and that you deliver quality, have standards of excellence, all wrapped up in integrity.

3. Tell me how you can be a meaningful part of my life – Let me know how you can become an integral part of my lifestyle or business and I'll give you my emotion and wallet. Show me how you fit my lifestyle, not make me adapt to your world or do things your way. 

Your marketing and advertising should not be a dry recount of your product or service. Your advertising should capture the imagination and stimulate the mind. It is these things that customers will not only buy, but buy into.

www.bebranded.net
317-797-7226

PR consultant Mikal Belicove, writing in May's Entrepreneur Magazine, encourages readers to "Start a blog for your business". Belicove runs through a list of blogging platforms, including:
 

Free hosted platforms:

• Blogger
• Live Journal
• Vox

Premium hosted platforms:

• WordPress
• TypePad

Stand-alone platforms:

• WordPress.org
• Movable Type
• (My Say It For You blogs are hosted by Compendium Blogware.)

Bellicove concludes his mini-tutorial by saying "As you blog, keep in mind that content is king.  Always post fresh, original, and relevant content, and your blog will soon build a loyal following."

(I was taught at a sales seminar to replace "Yes, but.." with Yes, and…), so here's my "Yes, and.." on the subject of blog content:)
 
There's a thing called "bounce rate", which is a metric search engines use in ranking blogsites.  Once having found your site, how long do readers stay there before "bouncing" away to someone else's site?

With thousands of blog posts under my belt, one lesson I've learned is that if the typeface in your blog is too small, if the lines are too closely packed, if paragraphs are overly lengthy, those things are off-putting to blog visitors.   Illustrations, bolding, italics, bullet points - all the "couturier" touches are important in holding readers' attention.

So, when all is said and done, which counts more - content or couture?  A great blog post will incorporate BOTH!

 

by Tony Fannin, president, BE Branded

We've all know of many companies who have single positions of "Sales and Marketing". Often times, these are the same companies who blame marketing for the lack of sales. And most of the time it's the advertising or marketing agency that becomes the "fall guy" for the poor sales numbers. They believe since sales didn't increase, that the marketing campaign was a failure. In my opinion this type of thinking is not just wrong, but can be detrimental to the growth and health of a company.

In it's true essence, marketing is a way to introduce your company, service, product to the marketplace. It's a way to set yourself, your brand, as unique from other competitors who have similar products, with similar prices, and similar features. Now all of this has nothing to do with sales. Marketing isn't a one-on-one tactic. Marketing is telling as many people as possible who you are and what you offer to make their lives better, easier, more luxurious, cooler, etc. Marketing's ultimate goal is to bring interest to your company, product, service. Sales' ultimate goal is to make the one-on-one sale.

Sales is the singular activity that makes the final pitch to show a prospect that buying from your company is a worth while engagement. Whether it's brick-n-mortar or the virtual store, sales comes down to the moment of truth. By then you have had to made your story compelling and engaging through marketing to get them to consider you in the first place. It's up to the "sales" effort to get them to take action.

Here is a elementary, but clear, example. Say your child no longer wants to play the violin. So, you make a sign saying "Gently used violin for sale". You hang it in a local store. You ask people to call for details. The sign you made is marketing. The store is the media channel. The phone conversation with Mr. Jones – describing your child's violin, the quality, how new it is, and how little it's been played – that's sales. Marketing introduced Mr. Jones to you. You become the sales department. 

Sales and marketing are different disciplines. Most companies are good at sales. Most companies are not good at marketing mostly because they try to sell when they really need to be marketing. That's where advertising agencies bring their real value. They are marketers, not sales companies. Trying to sell someone who doesn't know who you are and what you stand for turns you into the type of salesman that we all hate being around whether if it's an individual or a company. Sales without marketing, people feel like they're being "hustled". If you get your marketing right, making the sale will be easier.

www.bebranded.net
317-797-7226  

Interesting, how expressions come into our everyday language…

In the old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle hung over the fire.  Every day they added things to the pot, eating mostly vegetables and only very rarely getting meat, I read on RootsWeb.

Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special.  It was a sign of wealth that a man could bring home the bacon. They would cut off a little and share with guests and they'd all sit around and chew the fat.

Blogging is very much about sharing, and each blog post is part of conversations already happening - both online and off.  Your business has "wealth" to share in the form of valuable tips, insights, products and services.  But the sharing can't all be one-way.
Business blogs need to operate like talk shows, I've been thinking, and not like one-way outbound broadcasts.  That's why blogs are on the WEB, going and coming in all different directions.

There are a number of things to keep the conversation going.  You can build a blog post or two around a customer success story.  You can ask for feedback from clients and from guests and readers, either in the form of a testimonial or an opinion.  It's vital to encourage comments and to respond to comments quickly. Keeping a pulse on other blogs is a great idea, and, so long as you properly attribute ideas and quotes to their source, it's more than OK to put your own spin on something you read on a competitor's blog. 

When it comes right down to it, no business blog can be successful without becoming part of the big conversation in the blogosphere.  When you post your business blog (or hire a professional ghost blogger like me to do it for you), you're "cutting off pieces of the meat" and sharing the wealth with "guests" so they will stick around and chew the fat!

 

by Tony Fannin, president, BE Branded

How does brand power relate to advertising and marketing spend? In other words, how much is enough? First of all, know what to expect from your competitors. This will give you a gauge on how much you need to invest in advertising and marketing to keep up and how much to surpass them. This is a new way to think about advertising budget. It's no longer tied to percentage of sales. Here is an overview based on where you fall on the brand power scale (see blog on June 13, 2009)
Optimum branding is measures the efficiency of the dollars spent in relationship to the brand power achieved. There are four categories:

Proactive brands – These brands have greater than average brand power. They spend amply to build strong positions and dominance. Their spending is the most effective. (it's more efficient to stay in motion than to stop and begin again)

Inefficient brands – These brands are usually in brand crisis. They lack strategic focus or fail to fully integrate their marketing efforts (traditional, online, social media, PR, etc.)
Inactive brands – Mostly made up of smaller brands. Less established. Low advertising budgets with predictably low levels of brand power.

Reactive brands – They have impressive brand power and are spending the amount necessary to achieve it. They are here instead of in the Proactive Brand category because their position depends on market factors beyond their control. (a product that becomes wildly successful, but fads as the fad fades. no staying power independent of the trend). They do enjoy strong brand status, but are vunerable if they relax their efforts and break consistency.

A new or little know company can make a lot of progress very fast if they invest in their marketing appropriately. Every person is a new convert. The potential market is wide open. As they become more familiar and more established, the pool of unreached potential market shrinks. The effectiveness declines. ($9 of spend only buys $3 worth of punch). But if the budget is reduced, then your brand power will begin to lessen because it still takes a level of budget just to maintain without losing ground. So advertising budgets needs to remain in proportion to the brand power a company is at and at what level they want to achieve.

www.bebranded.net
317-797-7226

When Mensa members were asked to recall the best piece of advice they'd ever received, Pam Olsen came up with one we business bloggers don't really need to follow:

"When assembling a large project, wait until the very end to tighten the screws!"

Bloggers don't need to wait until the very end. As Chris Baggott, CEO of Compendium Blogware explains, that's because "search engines put high value on pages that are frequently updated."  Baggott compares blogs to traditional websites, whose content tends to be only infrequently updated.

The end of one blog post is hardly the end of the blog, and it will hardly be laborious to "loosen the screws" in order to add to your message, update it, or correct it. As web designer John Raleigh explains, "Blogs make it pretty easy to get the job right."

The beauty of blog marketing is not only that it tends to beat websites in "winning search", it's that you can do well today what you may not have done so well yesterday or the day before.  And, since blog posts appear in reverse chronological order, your best blogs will be the ones searchers see first!

Put your best blog foot forward today and every day, of course.  But bloggers for business can say along with Scarlett O'Hara of Gone With The Wind, "Tomorrow's another day!"

 

by Tony Fannin, president, BE Branded

The power of brands is far from exact science. It's more of an art. Though it's not a tangible asset, the economic effects are real. There are various methods and tools to "measure" brand and its power and affect on the marketplace. In today's environment, your brand does not stand isolated. It's effected in by your competitors and other market pressures. It's often said that if you're in the middle, you become roadkill. This chart will help you visualize how detrimental it is to be "average".

The brand power chart helps companies understand the position they are in compared to their competitors and the unique forces that each position must face as challenges. There are 4 levels of brands:

Elite brands – They are flagship brands, icons. No one is outrunning them. They can move forward with minimal effort. Stable. Efficiencies are gained through superiority. They have to spend less on "catch-up" strategies. The pressure is to work harder, even though there is no preceived threat. They have to push themselves and not get hubris.

Above average brands – Though not icons, they are extremely powerful. These brands must work the hardest. They must contend with the power of the downward force exerted by the Elite brands. The must struggle to just maintain their market status without the resources of the Elite brands. Then they must content with the forces from below who are trying to squeeze them out of their market positions and take it for themselves.

Average brands – These are somewhat stable, but not powerful. They are neither gaining or declining. They just exist. The danger is eventually, they become irrelevant and disappear. They get great amount of pressure from the Above average brands and the Below Average brands.

Below average brands – These brands have the most to gain and little to lose. They are at the bottom of the market. Their advantage is that it takes less effort to move up a level than any other brand position. These brands can afford to take larger marketing risks because of the huge upside and minimal downside.

Understanding where your brand is will help a you develop the right marketing and advertising strategies. It also helps you to be objective when facing your current circumstances and market situation. When you know what you're up against, it's easier to focus your efforts and not just "shotgun" them at everything that moves.

www.bebranded.net
317-797-7226 

Beginning strong is important for business blogging.  Using key words and phrases in the title of the blog and early in the text shows readers they've come to a source of information that matches the inquiry they typed into the search engine.

But, very much like a speech, where you have only a very few seconds to capture the rapt attention of your audience at the beginning, but where having a strong finish is important as well, that's how it is with blog posts.

Speech coaches advice against memorizing your speech - with two exceptions: the opening line and the closing line.  Jack Valenti, author of Speak Up With Confidence, says, "The conclusion of a speech is one of the most powerful elements, often cementing all that you have said…Memorize that last paragraph."

I receive a monthly email newsletter from professional speaker Todd Hunt. The latest issue had a great anecdote that really brings out the importance of a strong finish in any encounter.  A colleague had taken Todd to lunch at the Cheesecake Factory.  Their server, Trevor, diligently refilled their drink glasses as needed.  "Nothing unusual about that", says Hunt.  But, after they'd paid the check, the server asked, "Would you like another Diet for the road.?" That extra bit of customer service, remarks Hunt, probably cost Cheesecake Factory a nickel at most.  But now, Todd's telling his thousands of newsletter subscribers about the restaurant's exemplary client service!

Business bloggers can take a tip (pun intended) from this restaurant tale.  At the very end of each blog post, put in just one more "soft" CTA (call to action):
"To find out more about _________, click here.
 "To sign up for _________, click here."

Try this technique for your business blog for the next few weeks.  Let me know how it works for you.  I'll be curious to to hear about the results.

And, hey, to learn more about how a professional ghost blogger can help drive more traffic to your business website, click here!

 

 by Tony Fannin, president, BE Branded

Search engine optimization is the science part of the art-science mix inherent in blogging for business.  The technical definition of SEO is "the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search engines or 'natural" search results".

Since eye-tracking studies have shown that searchers scan a page top to bottom and left to right, looking for a relevant result, getting your blog placed at or near the top on Page One of a search engine's results page increases the number of visitors to your site.

So, in your business blog, what are the best things to do with key words and phrases to try to place high?  According to blog mavens Shel Holtz and Ted Demopoulos, those key words and phrases should be the first words in your blog title and then reappear in your first lines of text.  Using the example of a vegetarian dog food company's blog, Holtz and Demopoulos advise against the title "Feed Your Dog Right" in favor of "Vegetarian Dog Food Is Good For Your Dog", or, even better, Vegetarian Dog Food and Dog Treats" (which uses two key phrases).

SelfSEO.com  cautions against "stuffing keywords", suggesting that the percentage of key words in your text shouldn't exceed 3-5% of total content.  (That amounts to approximately three per page, and I've gone one over that in this post).

As a professional ghost blogger, I frequently need to remind my clients (and often myself) that SEO isn't everything. Fellow blogger Tony Fannin points out that when heavily-SEO'd sites with lots of information were compared with sites with more personality and design, visitors liked the branded and designed sites more and spent more time exploring those sites.

On the other hand, as I've often remarked in these blog posts, SEO is important in that online searchers are scanners, not readers, and it's vital to confirm very quickly that they've come to the right place for help.




The line Renee Zellweger's said to Tom Cruise in the movie Jerry McGuire , "You had me at hello", became a favorite overnight. 

When searchers arrive at your business blog, you want them to become engaged immediately.  In essence, the response you want from searchers is "Your blog had me at SEO!"

 

by Tony Fannin, president, BE Branded

President Obama is held up as the poster child of how to use new media to market a brand. His team masterfully planned and executed grass roots campaigns, used e-commerce to generate record donations, and even incorporated above-the-line marketing. Most believe it was his use of social media that made his campaign so effective. Let's breakdown the campaign to really see what the advertising and marketing strategy of Team Obama.

Brand – Some doubt the power of a brand. Obama capitalized on it. His theme of "Yes we can" was the foundation of every tactic of Team Obama. To the general public it became a rally cry. To his team, it was a well crafted brand position that was carried out with the consistency seen from the likes of Nike and Target.

Budget – Team Obama spent an average of $2.8 mil. a day, on advertising during the presidential campaign. (Who says social media is cheap.)

Media Spend – Surprisingly only $8 mil. was spent online during the whole campaign with Google being the largest beneficiary. In fact, Team Obama spent the vast majority of their $600 mil. war chest on above-the-line advertising (TV, radio, print, direct mail, PR). Just his 30 min. infomercial during the World Series cost $4 mil by itself. According to Campaign Media Analysis Group and the NY Times, Team Obama spent over $236 mil on TV and $250 mil on radio. If you project the TV spend, by itself, Team Obama will have spent more than most major marketers budget for their total marketing spend for the year. Companies such as McDonald’s, Verizon, WalMart, and Target are all out spent by Team Obama.

Integration – This is where the true genius of Team Obama shines. They were masters at integration of new media, traditional media, PR, and good old-fashion door-to-door marketing. The types of media was used according to their strength (brand messages to the masses via TV, niche communication via social media, call to action via door-to-door) All of this was held together by the brand, the main thread (in their case, rope) that kept the campaign cohesive and coordinated.

So what can we conclude? Here are few take aways I have:
• To achieve a big goal, you must allocate resources proportionally (you can't expect to make a big splash by dipping your toe in the water.)
• Brand. Brand. Brand.
• Integrate your tactics to support each other in a symbiotic circle
• There is no silver bullet

www.bebranded.net
317-797-7226

by Tony Fannin, president, BE Branded

Marketing and advertising strategies have changed over the decades. There's always the fads from "inventing" a new formula for cleaner shirts to utilizing the greatest technology ever created (at least for this hour). I've seen the changes throughout my marketing career and others have written about it as well. Right now there have been three main strategies from the mid- 1960's to the present day.

Ready. Aim. Fire. – 1960's to late 1970's
This is the era of research and analysis. Before you went after any market or invested any amount of dollars into advertising and marketing, you spent great amounts of time, money, and resources in exhaustive research and data analysis. If the numbers didn't show enough of an ROI, companies simply didn't invest in marketing to that segment. So, it took a long time for products/services to be marketed. During that time, that was fine since society and the market space didn't change that much from year to year.

Ready. Fire. Aim. – 1980's to mid-1990's 
During this time period great change began to happen. Technology was becoming more in reach of the average person. Wall Street created different ways of doing business (see  LBO's and M&A's) Marketers during this time, saw that the market space changed quicker than it has historically in the past. They no longer had the luxury of time to make sure there plans were fool-proof and perfect. This was an environment where you had to take in all of the information you can in a short period of time and take your best educated guess. Hit the market place before someone else beats you to the punch. Then step back, see what effect you have and then readjust.

Fire. Fire. Fire. – mid-1990's to today
In today's world marketers have even less time to research and analyze. Change happens almost daily. Markets shift in a matter of weeks. With new tools and venues for marketing and advertising being added almost weekly,  you have to be as open to change in the way you market and advertise. The ones who believe they must "get it perfect" before we go to market will soon find out that what they once believed to be true is no longer because their audience has changed and the market landscape has shifted into something totally different that what it had been only 6 months ago. Today, you must develop your marketing strategy around the concept of continuously "firing" and adjusting on the fly. Because of today's technology tools, you'll learn more in 2 months of having your product out there than if you spent 6 months in testing and tweaking every word.

The main reason for this marketing strategy shift is because the consumer is now in charge. They can directly tell you and all of their pals what they really think. If they hate something you do, you'll know it. If they love something you do, you'll know that too. One of the worst things in todays world is to be ignored. That means you are irrelevant. You don't matter. At least, if customers complain about you, they are actually helping, by letting you know how you can improve and wow them. They actually give you the answers.

You can't wait until things are perfect. By the time you think they are, the market has already begun to change and you're already behind. There's a principle in the book "Sun Tzu, the art of war" – the idea is that you gather as much information in as little time as possible to make your first move. Then you go into action even though you don't know everything yet. As you progress, you learn. As you learn, you adapt. As you adapt, you become victorious. This principle completely supports the "Fire. Fire. Fire." idea of today. 

Today's successful businesses are ones who take action over inaction. It's through action do you learn, adapt, and are always in the process of becoming what your customers want you to be.

www.bebranded.net
317-797-7226