While writing my last blog about event marketing, I realized that barn that I keep my horses at is infamous for event marketing to their marketing strategy. Honey Tree Stables is located five minutes from Miami University in Oxford, OH. This means, that a majority of its clients come from the University itself. While this may seem beneficial to the business, it is extremely hard to capture and maintain services for these customers.
In order to gain customers, the owner, Sarah Oelerich, and several of her employees and clients, must ban together to come up with unique marketing strategies. Many of these ideas market her business through event marketing. For example, at the beginning of each school year, Sarah and Honey Tree Stables put on an open house. Rather than just having the barn open for clients and potential clients to walk through the facility, Sarah has a welcome back party with a band and game festivities. The band, the pool, and the games allows current and potential clients to interact with each other, for them to get to know Sarah and the other staff, and to have a great experience that will make them come back year after year. After the party, Honey Tree Stables put up pictures and video footage of the event on its website and invited clients to come and view them online.
Sarah also puts on a number of clinics throughout the year, both with her clients and the Miami Equestrian team. This allows the community and the internal community to get a taste of what Sarah does. She markets this through email marketing with the Miami Equestrian Team and the clients, posters throughout Oxford, and creating an experience during the event that makes the customers feel like they are at home.
Without these events, many of Sarah’s customers would not get to experience the culture and fun at Honey Tree Stables. Without these experiences, it would be hard for Sarah to maintain customers. Sarah and Honey Tree Stables do an amazing job at capturing their audiences through event marketing. Companies that have a hard target marketing to capture or those that have experiences that they want to sell, should try using event marketing. They should set up events that promote not only the services that they sell, but that capture the experience a customer has when using the services they offer. Similar to Honey Tree Stables, companies should hone in on a certain area they would like their customers to experience and then build their event marketing around that. They will see that event marketing does in fact capture customers and if done right, keeps them coming back for more.
Posted Wednesday, October 29, 2008 by
brian lecount
I've posted before about tag clouds, word clouds or whatever you want to call them. I just think they are really cool for summarizing a large quantity of information and quickly displaying the main concept.
Here's Wordle's word cloud for the R.O. Why! Marketing main blog page.
It shows the primary concepts we're talking about on the blogs. I've seen these used for navigation on many Web 2.0 websites, and love that approach. There are plenty of creative uses for such a visual representation. Imagine it on the cover of the next proposal you send out, demonstrating the big ideas inside. How about the cover of your resume? The executive summary of your next marketing strategy and planning document. How about the bio page of your website, with a different cloud for each executive profiled.
I'm looking forward to the creative thought around this and sharing it with our clients. Have any great uses you've discovered? I'd be thrilled to hear about them. Please add them to this post in a comment!
We Have to Change Our Thinking
Here's Wordle's word cloud for the R.O. Why! Marketing main blog page.
It shows the primary concepts we're talking about on the blogs. I've seen these used for navigation on many Web 2.0 websites, and love that approach. There are plenty of creative uses for such a visual representation. Imagine it on the cover of the next proposal you send out, demonstrating the big ideas inside. How about the cover of your resume? The executive summary of your next marketing strategy and planning document. How about the bio page of your website, with a different cloud for each executive profiled.
I'm looking forward to the creative thought around this and sharing it with our clients. Have any great uses you've discovered? I'd be thrilled to hear about them. Please add them to this post in a comment!
Posted Thursday, October 16, 2008 by
Kaitlyn Kurtz
I heard the other day that "marketing costs for small businesses are just not justifiable." Many businesses often think that marketing is not one of the more important costs within the business--small businesses especially. However, small business marketing is often what makes or breaks companies.
Small businesses should have a very cost effective marketing strategy. It should include email marketing, building a website, maintaining SEO, and blogging for sure. While in the office, I help a lot of mainstream businesses who can afford at least a good majority of the marketing services that we provide, there are companies and groups I deal with outside of work don't or may not want to devote as much money to their marketing as they should.
Since I am very involved in the horse world, I will use that market as an example. As the horse world continues to grow rapidly, it is important more than ever now that riding stables, show facilities, and trainers use marketing to their advantage. It is important to create websites and pages on MySpace and Facebook for them since their main target market is teenagers. Especially for those barns located near college towns and major universities, SEO and website enhancement are EXTREMELY important. High school students looking to ride after school often make sure that their university either has an equine program or has a riding facility near by. And how do they find that....the Internet of course!
So while people may think that marketing is not always worth the money put in, I'll tell you from a market that I never thought would make it online, it is! Marketing is important to all businesses--especially small businesses who think that they cannot afford it.
Small businesses should have a very cost effective marketing strategy. It should include email marketing, building a website, maintaining SEO, and blogging for sure. While in the office, I help a lot of mainstream businesses who can afford at least a good majority of the marketing services that we provide, there are companies and groups I deal with outside of work don't or may not want to devote as much money to their marketing as they should.
Since I am very involved in the horse world, I will use that market as an example. As the horse world continues to grow rapidly, it is important more than ever now that riding stables, show facilities, and trainers use marketing to their advantage. It is important to create websites and pages on MySpace and Facebook for them since their main target market is teenagers. Especially for those barns located near college towns and major universities, SEO and website enhancement are EXTREMELY important. High school students looking to ride after school often make sure that their university either has an equine program or has a riding facility near by. And how do they find that....the Internet of course!
So while people may think that marketing is not always worth the money put in, I'll tell you from a market that I never thought would make it online, it is! Marketing is important to all businesses--especially small businesses who think that they cannot afford it.
Posted Friday, October 3, 2008 by
Kaitlyn Kurtz
In addition to a strong blog and website content, one of the leading small business marketing strategies is email marketing. Email can not only get pertinent information out to clients/customers, but it can be a personalized message to clients that make them feel like a large part of the company and its motives. While the information that goes into the email is important to get right, it is also important to get the design of the email correct so that it is aesthetically appealing and has easy usability. While building the template for a new client of ours, I began looking through articles that could give me email marketing tips about content and layout. I came across the following:
8 Email Marketing Tips
Email Marketing Tips, Tricks and Secrets
Just reading through these during the email marketing design phase helped me think about what was important to candidates and to the business writing the emails. Once I got into the mind set of what each party would like, it was a little easier to create the layout and content. Without searching through email marketing content, I felt as though I was just building emails and learning through trial and error what works and what doesn't. However, once I took the time to look through why email marketing was positive for companies and clients, and different email tips, email marketing became easier for me to understand.
8 Email Marketing Tips
Email Marketing Tips, Tricks and Secrets
Just reading through these during the email marketing design phase helped me think about what was important to candidates and to the business writing the emails. Once I got into the mind set of what each party would like, it was a little easier to create the layout and content. Without searching through email marketing content, I felt as though I was just building emails and learning through trial and error what works and what doesn't. However, once I took the time to look through why email marketing was positive for companies and clients, and different email tips, email marketing became easier for me to understand.
Posted Friday, October 3, 2008 by
Kaitlyn Kurtz
Search Engine Optimization is becoming a vital part of small business marketing. In order to increase the amount of visits to a website each month, businesses must focus on making their websites the best they can and add enough new content that SEO becomes easy. While SEO seems relatively simple, there are a lot of different areas that business can focus on whether it be content, blogs, PPC, linking to other pages, etc.
After working at a small Cincinnati marketing firm for a month and a half now, I am starting to understand why each of the areas of SEO are important to small business marketing. Blogging for business is probably one of the most important SEO strategies that a company can implement. By having quality content on the main pages, blogging keeps the rest of the content fresh and up-to-date. Having this constant changing content, Google then recognizes this and puts the website higher on the search rankings. In addition, adding links within blogs to other sites will help drive referral visitors to your site.
There are several other SEO strategies that businesses can implement as well to help their website become higher in the search ranks. If you'd like more search engine optimization tips, contact us. Also, check out the following articles.
For a list of SEO tips: http://seoarticles4u.com/Tips_On_SEO_-_Search_Engine_Optimization_a4662.html
For SEO focus for Google:
http://seoarticles.seoforgoogle.com/local-search-engine-optimization.cfm
Frequently asked SEO questions:
http://www.rankforsales.com/seo-seven-most-often-asked-questions.html
After working at a small Cincinnati marketing firm for a month and a half now, I am starting to understand why each of the areas of SEO are important to small business marketing. Blogging for business is probably one of the most important SEO strategies that a company can implement. By having quality content on the main pages, blogging keeps the rest of the content fresh and up-to-date. Having this constant changing content, Google then recognizes this and puts the website higher on the search rankings. In addition, adding links within blogs to other sites will help drive referral visitors to your site.
There are several other SEO strategies that businesses can implement as well to help their website become higher in the search ranks. If you'd like more search engine optimization tips, contact us. Also, check out the following articles.
For a list of SEO tips: http://seoarticles4u.com/Tips_On_SEO_-_Search_Engine_Optimization_a4662.html
For SEO focus for Google:
http://seoarticles.seoforgoogle.com/local-search-engine-optimization.cfm
Frequently asked SEO questions:
http://www.rankforsales.com/seo-seven-most-often-asked-questions.html
Posted Thursday, September 4, 2008 by
Kaitlyn Kurtz
After almost a month with R.O.Why! Marketing, it is time for the fire hose to be turned on. Rather than doing small tasks and fighting my way through piles of client information, it is now time for me to take the bull by the horns. From acquisition marketing plans to search engine optimization, from email marketing to blog reviews, from end of the month reports to clinging to my sanity, this week has seen it all. I never thought that a month into the work force after college I would have such an in-depth and educational work load. Rather than being just another person in a large corporation pushing paper, I can safely say, being part of a small team, certainly allows you to learn more and take on more responsibility. it certainly makes working in the Cincinnati marketing profession entertaining and on its toes.
Posted Friday, August 29, 2008 by
brian lecount
Yesterday I posted about the Digital Marketing Summit and provided a recap of my favorite talk of the day. So today I continue my quest and dive into Technorati. OK, so maybe I'm a little late to this part of the game.
It's all about weaving a web of networks, participating in conversations, and making sure that you're found when people are looking, right?
So the list continues:
I'm on Twitter
And here's the blog network
And Facebook
And now, Technorati.
What's next?
It's all about weaving a web of networks, participating in conversations, and making sure that you're found when people are looking, right?
So the list continues:
I'm on Twitter
And here's the blog network
And Facebook
And now, Technorati.
What's next?
Posted Friday, August 29, 2008 by
brian lecount
At R.O. Why! Marketing, we talk with a log of companies that want to get into blogging for business. As time goes on, I find that we have to do less convincing that blogging is important, and more time helping these firms understand just how simple blogging is.
We Have to Change Our Thinking
Writing for a business blog is not like writing an article, an email marketing newsletter, a press release, a brochure or a whitepaper. These types of writing are "institution-to-one" communications, and they often lack the voice of an individual. A blog on the other hand is communication from a real person. Bob, your CEO, Mary, your product development manager, your customer service representatives Mike, John and Nancy, or your HR director Jennifer. When real people write without disguising themselves, the soul of the company is exposed. Blogging for business allows the passions of your company to come forward and be expressed in an open environment, and when people write about what they are passionate about, most find it quite simple once they get started.
We need to retrain ourselves to make blogging for business a part of our everyday. Do it first thing in the morning before you check email. Make it your lunchtime download of what's filling your day. Scratch out a note on your PDA while you're on the bus and finish it when you return to the office. Once you get started, you'll find that your antennae go up, and you become much more aware of the things you can write about. In most cases, your blog posts won't take more than 10-15 minutes.
What inspired this post? I received an email from Chris Baggott, CEO of Compendium Blogware that led me to a website on 10 Ways to Find 10 Minutes to Write, and wanted to just ad a few of my own thoughts
. That's it. An email. it got me thinking, and this blog is the perfect place to share my perspectives.
. That's it. An email. it got me thinking, and this blog is the perfect place to share my perspectives.So, what are you thinking about right now that your audience could benefit from? Share it with them. You've got 10 minutes.
Posted Thursday, August 28, 2008 by
brian lecount
I attended a great event this morning put on by the Cincinnati Chapter of the American Marketing Association called the Digital Marketing Summit. My favorite talk of the morning was that of Ted Murphy of Izea. In it, Ted gave some very helpful pointers on how to get started in the maze of social media opportunities. While we're all caught up in traditional brand development and the interactive marketing programs we've always done, there's an entire ecosystem out there right now of consumers, fans, critics and their conversations that happen whether we participate or not. It's time to get involved, and to start influencing the conversation.
My key takeaways:
At R.O. Why! Marketing, we already take part in some of these opportunities. I'm on Twitter. We're blogging for business, and I have a Facebook page, but there are many more opportunities that I look forward to stepping into. All it takes is a plan, right?
My key takeaways:
- Start listening -What is currently being said?
- Create some goals for your social media efforts
- Determine what content you can draw from -Text, video, photos, audio, etc.
- Find content you can capture -Customers, partners, employees
- Decide what you're willing to share
- Choose your platforms
- Participate in other conversations, don't just broadcast -The most important conversations may not be those you start. Seek out conversations about your brand & add value to them.
- Create your own storm of social media content
At R.O. Why! Marketing, we already take part in some of these opportunities. I'm on Twitter. We're blogging for business, and I have a Facebook page, but there are many more opportunities that I look forward to stepping into. All it takes is a plan, right?
Posted Friday, August 22, 2008 by
brian lecount
At R.O. Why! Marketing, one of the things we do for clients as part of our blogging for business solution is to review their blog posts before they go live. It's all part of an effort to make sure that as an organization, the client sends a consistent and clear brand message to the market. In most cases we catch a couple of spelling errors or we recommend rewording something so the brand development police won't worry about competing messages. Not a big deal and pretty easy to deal with.
Today, in reviewing a post that included an image, I saw something fuzzy in the image and when I blew it up larger, it was a copyright watermark. Yes, the client had used Google Image Search to find a picture to help illustrate the point in the blog post. Harmless enough, but they didn't realize that it was a copyrighted image. OOPS!
We quickly removed the blog post, notified the client, and the image was replaced with another royalty free photo. Luckily our client wasn't approached by the photo's owner, but this was a good lesson for them to learn.
Don't assume that images you find on Google are free for you to use as you wish. Google doesn't own these images, but simply stores a thumbnail in its cache. When you click on one, Google splits the screen to show you the thumbnail and the page that the full size version appears on. The site that the image appears on is (or should be!) the rightful owner with license to use the image.
The better route would be to seek out royalty free image sites, or better yet, purchase credits to a stock photo site like iStock and purchase inexpensive web resolution images as you need them.
Be careful. Just because it's freely accessible, doesn't mean it's free!
Today, in reviewing a post that included an image, I saw something fuzzy in the image and when I blew it up larger, it was a copyright watermark. Yes, the client had used Google Image Search to find a picture to help illustrate the point in the blog post. Harmless enough, but they didn't realize that it was a copyrighted image. OOPS!
We quickly removed the blog post, notified the client, and the image was replaced with another royalty free photo. Luckily our client wasn't approached by the photo's owner, but this was a good lesson for them to learn.
Don't assume that images you find on Google are free for you to use as you wish. Google doesn't own these images, but simply stores a thumbnail in its cache. When you click on one, Google splits the screen to show you the thumbnail and the page that the full size version appears on. The site that the image appears on is (or should be!) the rightful owner with license to use the image.
The better route would be to seek out royalty free image sites, or better yet, purchase credits to a stock photo site like iStock and purchase inexpensive web resolution images as you need them.
Be careful. Just because it's freely accessible, doesn't mean it's free!
Posted Thursday, August 21, 2008 by
Kaitlyn Kurtz
Blogging...It certainly is an interesting marketing tool. Effective...yes. Yet, not taught often enough.
Throughout college, I learned about both traditional and nontraditional ways of marketing. I even learned about many of the new strategies within social media tools, but yet, blogging and the importance behind it were left out of the curriculum. Sure professors taught students the definition of a blog and where we can find them, but they left out a lot of pertinent information about their ability to strengthen businesses.
In the last week and a half, I have been working a lot with this concept of blogging for business. I find the marvels behind the importance of blogs to be mind-blowing. It is amazing to think that these small writing times allow for interactive marketing between business and consumers and to help companies with their search engine optimization. Had I known all of the benefits of blogs, I would have suggested them within small business marketing plans I have developed for the other employers I have worked for.
Blogging not only allows businesses to get a step up in internet marketing, but they allow bloggers to throw around ideas with others interested in the same areas. This alone has the potential to create an area where new marketing ideas, concepts, or strategies can develop further. They serve as a great way to get feedback or suggestions. And they certainly are a way to get what is in your head out on paper (figuratively speaking anyways).
Had I known what I know now about Blogs, I probably would have created one a lot sooner and I certainly would have informed other small business owners about their ability to help businesses grow. I also, for the sake of future business owners or motivated employees, will be contacting several University professors and reminding them of the importance of a Blog. I believe that more time should be spent teaching students about these new nontraditional and social media strategies since the wave of the future lies within technology and the importance of being unique and buying unique items within consumers.
Throughout college, I learned about both traditional and nontraditional ways of marketing. I even learned about many of the new strategies within social media tools, but yet, blogging and the importance behind it were left out of the curriculum. Sure professors taught students the definition of a blog and where we can find them, but they left out a lot of pertinent information about their ability to strengthen businesses.
In the last week and a half, I have been working a lot with this concept of blogging for business. I find the marvels behind the importance of blogs to be mind-blowing. It is amazing to think that these small writing times allow for interactive marketing between business and consumers and to help companies with their search engine optimization. Had I known all of the benefits of blogs, I would have suggested them within small business marketing plans I have developed for the other employers I have worked for.
Blogging not only allows businesses to get a step up in internet marketing, but they allow bloggers to throw around ideas with others interested in the same areas. This alone has the potential to create an area where new marketing ideas, concepts, or strategies can develop further. They serve as a great way to get feedback or suggestions. And they certainly are a way to get what is in your head out on paper (figuratively speaking anyways).
Had I known what I know now about Blogs, I probably would have created one a lot sooner and I certainly would have informed other small business owners about their ability to help businesses grow. I also, for the sake of future business owners or motivated employees, will be contacting several University professors and reminding them of the importance of a Blog. I believe that more time should be spent teaching students about these new nontraditional and social media strategies since the wave of the future lies within technology and the importance of being unique and buying unique items within consumers.
Posted Wednesday, August 13, 2008 by
brian lecount
Several months ago I took the plunge and signed up on Twitter. Unsure of what to expect, I started sharing what was going on at R.O. Why! Marketing, some of the email marketing, interactive marketing and blogging for business efforts we're delivering for clients. At first, very similar to blogging for business, it feels like you're simply talking to yourself. Few followers, not many replies, but I found that after some effort and a focus on sharing valuable information (vs. the all to common 'I'm eating a sandwich' Twitter updates,) the followers started to come in droves. I'm several months into it now and with over 100 followers I can say that my tiny little universe seems actively engaged.
I also have a couple of very tangible benefits to share. My efforts on Twitter have delivered big for R.O. Why! Marketing, connecting me with a contact that has since become a new client in Chicago called KeenHire (a company that does some amazing things with behavioral interviewing, assessments & targeted selection,) - thanks to CincyRecruiter & smheadhunter for the connections - and in addition, this small Cincinnati advertising agency has just found its newest employee.
A few things I've learned that are worth sharing:
- Twitter is for business too. Think smaller & Get creative.
- If you're going to tweet, respect the audience & deliver valuable updates.
- Save the 'I'm in Cincinnati' updates for SMS messages for Brightkite.
- Engage those people you'd like to attract as followers. Read & comment on their blogs, etc.
- Avoid the temptation to follow everyone that follows you. It's not required, nor is it always recommended. Make sure those you follow add value.
- Share more than you feel comfortable sharing. Invite the universe in & build a relationship.
Just like other social networks, you reap what you sow. So far I have found Twitter to be a worthwhile investment of a small amount of time, and given it's recent payoffs, I think I'll keep tweeting.
Have an experience to share?
I also have a couple of very tangible benefits to share. My efforts on Twitter have delivered big for R.O. Why! Marketing, connecting me with a contact that has since become a new client in Chicago called KeenHire (a company that does some amazing things with behavioral interviewing, assessments & targeted selection,) - thanks to CincyRecruiter & smheadhunter for the connections - and in addition, this small Cincinnati advertising agency has just found its newest employee.
A few things I've learned that are worth sharing:
- Twitter is for business too. Think smaller & Get creative.
- If you're going to tweet, respect the audience & deliver valuable updates.
- Save the 'I'm in Cincinnati' updates for SMS messages for Brightkite.
- Engage those people you'd like to attract as followers. Read & comment on their blogs, etc.
- Avoid the temptation to follow everyone that follows you. It's not required, nor is it always recommended. Make sure those you follow add value.
- Share more than you feel comfortable sharing. Invite the universe in & build a relationship.
Just like other social networks, you reap what you sow. So far I have found Twitter to be a worthwhile investment of a small amount of time, and given it's recent payoffs, I think I'll keep tweeting.
Have an experience to share?
Posted Monday, August 11, 2008 by
brian lecount
I'm excited this morning to welcome Kaitlyn Kurtz to R.O. Why! Marketing as account coordinator. Kaitlyn comes to us from Honeytree Stables in Oxford, Ohio, where she developed marketing and public relations campaigns, including the company's website, various market research projects and print advertising. Kaitlyn also recently completed her Bachelor of Science degree in Marketing at Miami University in Ohio, where she also served as Marketing Director of her Laws, Hall & Associates team that developed an advertising campaign for Foot Locker. After presenting to the CEO of FootLocker, her campaign was chosen to be launched into 5 major European markets and voted the best due to its through the line consistency and overall creativity.
Kaitlyn has a big job ahead of her here at R.O.Why! Marketing. As account coordinator, she will focus on managing client projects ranging from email marketing, interactive marketing, search engine optimization and our blogging for business solution.
Please join me in welcoming Kaitlyn to the team!
Kaitlyn has a big job ahead of her here at R.O.Why! Marketing. As account coordinator, she will focus on managing client projects ranging from email marketing, interactive marketing, search engine optimization and our blogging for business solution.
Please join me in welcoming Kaitlyn to the team!
Posted Thursday, July 3, 2008 by
brian lecount
I was inspired today by a great blog post by Seth Godin. In it, he compares marketers to lawyers, charged not necessarily with telling the truth, but with arguing for the client, their product, their practices, etc. We're paid to claim that our client's products are the best, even if they are not. Clients hire us to build email marketing campaigns, event marketing programs, interactive marketing strategies, and other marketing strategy efforts to sell the product or the service, even if it's not the best; even if the customer would be better off with nothing at all, or heaven forbid, a competitor's product.
What about when a client hires a Cincinnati advertising agency like R.O.Why! Marketing? They want email marketing tips and ROI marketing programs that grow their business. They need a newsletter and they know that what they need is a newsletter. But what if they don't? What if they're wrong? What if they really need something else? What if R.O.Why! Marketing isn't right for them?
It's happened before, on each end of the spectrum. Just this week we landed a client who felt that email marketing was what they needed. While email marketing does need to be a part of the mix, we believed it was not the right time. After we considered the ultimate marketing results they were looking for, their culture, the budgets and timeframes, we felt strongly that blogging for business was best for them. We could have just sold them an email marketing program for more money and more profit. It would have been easier, but it wasn't right. Their audience expects more and while we were hired to serve the client, I believe we were really hired to serve their customer.
We've also had to walk away from business because the product couldn't live up to the marketing claims. The company needed to make dramatic changes to the product itself in order to make it competitive, and good for customers, and worth buying.
As Seth says "...marketers still have the chance to be believed. But trust belongs to statesmen, not lawyers."
What about when a client hires a Cincinnati advertising agency like R.O.Why! Marketing? They want email marketing tips and ROI marketing programs that grow their business. They need a newsletter and they know that what they need is a newsletter. But what if they don't? What if they're wrong? What if they really need something else? What if R.O.Why! Marketing isn't right for them?
It's happened before, on each end of the spectrum. Just this week we landed a client who felt that email marketing was what they needed. While email marketing does need to be a part of the mix, we believed it was not the right time. After we considered the ultimate marketing results they were looking for, their culture, the budgets and timeframes, we felt strongly that blogging for business was best for them. We could have just sold them an email marketing program for more money and more profit. It would have been easier, but it wasn't right. Their audience expects more and while we were hired to serve the client, I believe we were really hired to serve their customer.
We've also had to walk away from business because the product couldn't live up to the marketing claims. The company needed to make dramatic changes to the product itself in order to make it competitive, and good for customers, and worth buying.
As Seth says "...marketers still have the chance to be believed. But trust belongs to statesmen, not lawyers."
Posted Wednesday, July 2, 2008 by
brian lecount
We just finished a fun contest for one of our clients that uses our blogging for business platform. The blogger with the most posts in June won a Flip Ultra video camera.
We're coaching this client to post great blog content on a frequent basis in order to develop a more casual dialogue with their market, further their brand development efforts, and also to accomplish the search engine optimization goals we have agreed on.
Blogging for business doesn't have to be difficult or time consuming, but it does take some effort to get into the habit. Upon announcing the contest, the blogging really took off. As a result, blog and website traffic have tripled since April, with much of that traffic created in June, and we have a very, very excited client who can't wait to receive her new video camera. (Have you seen these things? Very cool.)
In order for blogging for business to succeed (and long term success is still on the horizon here...), R.O.Why! Marketing not only needed to deliver a great blog platform that was built for search engine optimization, but we also needed to help each blogger create the interest, time and passion for blogging. For the cost of one great dinner out, the contest helped create that spark amongst an entire team of people, and now they're reaping the benefits. When was the last time your blog and website traffic tripled?
There's an opportunity here for every marketer to identify what we need our audiences to do in order to help us all succeed in the long run (yes, buy stuff, but what else?) and to find exciting ways to help them do it. Contests are just one way. Peter Shankman's figured out a way. Events and PR stunts are another. Speaking of, have you seen his book?
We're coaching this client to post great blog content on a frequent basis in order to develop a more casual dialogue with their market, further their brand development efforts, and also to accomplish the search engine optimization goals we have agreed on.
Blogging for business doesn't have to be difficult or time consuming, but it does take some effort to get into the habit. Upon announcing the contest, the blogging really took off. As a result, blog and website traffic have tripled since April, with much of that traffic created in June, and we have a very, very excited client who can't wait to receive her new video camera. (Have you seen these things? Very cool.)
In order for blogging for business to succeed (and long term success is still on the horizon here...), R.O.Why! Marketing not only needed to deliver a great blog platform that was built for search engine optimization, but we also needed to help each blogger create the interest, time and passion for blogging. For the cost of one great dinner out, the contest helped create that spark amongst an entire team of people, and now they're reaping the benefits. When was the last time your blog and website traffic tripled?
There's an opportunity here for every marketer to identify what we need our audiences to do in order to help us all succeed in the long run (yes, buy stuff, but what else?) and to find exciting ways to help them do it. Contests are just one way. Peter Shankman's figured out a way. Events and PR stunts are another. Speaking of, have you seen his book?
Posted Monday, June 30, 2008 by
brian lecount
I love to see a client win, and have enjoyed reviewing the statistics on the search engine optimization and blog network that R.O.Why! Marketing delivered to them.
MDI Medical is a rehab therapy staffing firm that works with physical therapists, occupational therapists, and speech language pathologists, send them on assignments across the country. Based outside of Atlanta, MDI chose R.O.Why!, a Cincinnati marketing firm, to deliver a variety of marketing programs including website enhancement, search engine optimization, email marketing and a sophisticated blogging for business platform.
Search engine optimization has produced the following stats on rolling month site visits:
MDI Medical is a rehab therapy staffing firm that works with physical therapists, occupational therapists, and speech language pathologists, send them on assignments across the country. Based outside of Atlanta, MDI chose R.O.Why!, a Cincinnati marketing firm, to deliver a variety of marketing programs including website enhancement, search engine optimization, email marketing and a sophisticated blogging for business platform.
Search engine optimization has produced the following stats on rolling month site visits:
- Rolling month site visits up to 2,208 (5/27/08 - 6/26/08) up from 1,952 & 1,052 for 2 previous periods
- Nearly 52% of site traffic in June is from search engines (up from 33% in May)
- 688 keywords triggered 1,040 visits in June (up from 203 keywords & 459 visits in May)
- 174 visits in April
- 318 visits in May
- 509 visits in June
- 1 keyword drove traffic in April
- 41 keywords drove traffic in May
- 146 keywords drove trafic in June
Posted Wednesday, June 25, 2008 by
brian lecount
Ever have one of those moments when all of the clutter seemed to just fade away and you became laser focused on what was truly important? I am enjoying a morning full of that type of focus today.
As I prepare for an upcoming vacation in a couple weeks, I spent some time this morning working through my list of priorities. Client needs come first.
All of these things I'll be working on for the next 10 days or so are focused on what matters - RESULTS. Marketing results and ROI for clients, meeting deadlines, keeping promises, delivering, delivering, delivering.
As marketers, we can learn from this and apply the same rigor to the campaigns we're running and the work we do each day. How many of the things that are on your plate today, this week or next are truly focused on delivering results? How many of these 'projects' are truly necessary? How many meetings don't you need to have?
What would happen if you got rid of all the junk that doesn't matter for just 2 weeks?
If you reduced everything you spend your time on to a bulleted list of the most important things, how much of your daily work would survive the cut?
Marketers, get focused! Improve your email marketing campaign now. Stop himming and hawing about the brand development efforts and the strategy. Make a decision, act, and make some progress this week. Cut the fluff from the ad campaign, focus on why the reader/viewer/recipient should care and create some results.
You know what's great about this? Except for client requests, if it's not on the list, I won't be spending time on it for the next two weeks. Like the boxes that have been in my basement since we built the house 5 years ago, if it won't get my attention in the near term, will it ever really make it back on my priority list? Was it really important at all to begin with?
As I prepare for an upcoming vacation in a couple weeks, I spent some time this morning working through my list of priorities. Client needs come first.
- What ROI marketing projects need to be completed before I leave and/or return?
- What loose ends can we handle now?
- What email marketing campaigns are scheduled for that week?
- Does each client understand what our next steps are and are the deliverables abundantly clear?
- What items do I NOT want to see on my list when I return?
- What search engine optimization, pay-per-click, email marketing performance, interactive marketing and blog analytics reports need to be delivered?
- Are the bills paid?
- Are invoices current?
- What reports do I need?
- How many proposals are still out for companies looking for a Cincinnati advertising agency?
- Are any proposals due before I return?
- How many can be closed before I leave? Wow - at least 3 can!
- Can we decide on the new hire before I leave?
- What about the office location search?
All of these things I'll be working on for the next 10 days or so are focused on what matters - RESULTS. Marketing results and ROI for clients, meeting deadlines, keeping promises, delivering, delivering, delivering.
As marketers, we can learn from this and apply the same rigor to the campaigns we're running and the work we do each day. How many of the things that are on your plate today, this week or next are truly focused on delivering results? How many of these 'projects' are truly necessary? How many meetings don't you need to have?
What would happen if you got rid of all the junk that doesn't matter for just 2 weeks?
If you reduced everything you spend your time on to a bulleted list of the most important things, how much of your daily work would survive the cut?
Marketers, get focused! Improve your email marketing campaign now. Stop himming and hawing about the brand development efforts and the strategy. Make a decision, act, and make some progress this week. Cut the fluff from the ad campaign, focus on why the reader/viewer/recipient should care and create some results.
You know what's great about this? Except for client requests, if it's not on the list, I won't be spending time on it for the next two weeks. Like the boxes that have been in my basement since we built the house 5 years ago, if it won't get my attention in the near term, will it ever really make it back on my priority list? Was it really important at all to begin with?
Posted Wednesday, June 4, 2008 by
brian lecount
As any individual or corporate blogger knows, comments posted to your blog are an important element to building a dynamic conversation and an ongoing relationship with your readers. It is very important to solicit comments whenever possible, asking customers, employees, partners and even the general public to chime in with their reactions to your posts. This feedback on your blog give you a sense for how your message is resonating, allowing you to directly address comments and perhaps tailor your communication to better suit your readers' interests.
While the tone, nature and information shared in comments posted to a personal blog may be of little concern, when it comes to blogging for business, oversight of your blog posts and comments is critical. Organizational blogging efforts must strike a delicate balance between freeing the passionate voices within and the external market to share their insights with the corporate need to keep the blog on strategy from a branding and messaging standpoint.
For example, today we received a comment posted to our blog that began as follows:
"Our web is wholesale jewelry. This is the largest wholesaler of the jewelry and all the commodities made by handmade. You can wholesale thousands of jewelry easily and quickly. The minimum order is $100. We specialize in..."
This is of course a blatant attempt to promote products & services by an unethical marketer. Instead of finding blogs specific to the wholesale jewelry business, this person is attempting to post advertisements on every blog they can find.
Had our blog been built using some of the free tools out there, this comment may have made it onto our blog unnoticed, confusing our readers and eroding the value of our blogging efforts overall.
Instead, we use a blogging for business platform that helps protect the company from off-strategy posts and comments, and ensures that we deliver valuable blog content that our readers want. The marketing-related conversations being held on our blog don't get interrupted by irrelevant messages, and our relationships remain protected.
Want to see a demo of a blog platform that delivers all the benefits of blogging for business (including automatically keyword optimized blogs built on a search engine marketing strategy) while delivering the brand and messaging oversight that's critical to your business? Click the Contact Us link above to get in touch.
While the tone, nature and information shared in comments posted to a personal blog may be of little concern, when it comes to blogging for business, oversight of your blog posts and comments is critical. Organizational blogging efforts must strike a delicate balance between freeing the passionate voices within and the external market to share their insights with the corporate need to keep the blog on strategy from a branding and messaging standpoint.
For example, today we received a comment posted to our blog that began as follows:
"Our web is wholesale jewelry. This is the largest wholesaler of the jewelry and all the commodities made by handmade. You can wholesale thousands of jewelry easily and quickly. The minimum order is $100. We specialize in..."
This is of course a blatant attempt to promote products & services by an unethical marketer. Instead of finding blogs specific to the wholesale jewelry business, this person is attempting to post advertisements on every blog they can find.
Had our blog been built using some of the free tools out there, this comment may have made it onto our blog unnoticed, confusing our readers and eroding the value of our blogging efforts overall.
Instead, we use a blogging for business platform that helps protect the company from off-strategy posts and comments, and ensures that we deliver valuable blog content that our readers want. The marketing-related conversations being held on our blog don't get interrupted by irrelevant messages, and our relationships remain protected.
Want to see a demo of a blog platform that delivers all the benefits of blogging for business (including automatically keyword optimized blogs built on a search engine marketing strategy) while delivering the brand and messaging oversight that's critical to your business? Click the Contact Us link above to get in touch.
Posted Friday, May 30, 2008 by
brian lecount
I just finished reading a great new whitepaper from Compendium CEO Chris Baggott. (Compendium is R.O.Why! Marketing's blogging solution partner.) Entitled Corporate Blogging and Email Marketing: Why They Work Together, the paper addresses how effective marketers (and their advertising agencies!) are using these two proven tools to acquire customers and cultivate strong relationships.
A study by the Pew Center for Internet & American Life notes that email and search are the tied as the number one online activity. Email marketing best practices have long proved that email is ineffective for acquisition; for that we must turn to search.
But how do we fully leverage search when pay per click (PPC) advertising is costly and, as pointed out by Marketing Sherpa, captures only a small portion of the available market? Organic search is the answer, however another problem surfaces: the vast majority of corporate websites are not updated with enough new content frequently enough to effectively accomplish dominant search positions.
As Chris Baggott points out, "What’s needed here is an easy to execute strategy for targeting large numbers of keywords and ranking on them in the organic results. This is where organizational blogging comes in. At the end of the day, search engines want to deliver relevant content."
He continues by explaining that the relevance of your content is driven by:
• Page titles
• Keywords
• Recency and frequency
• Humanization
• Metrics - bounce rates, page visits, visit duration
From Chris's piece, blogging for business make sense for a few key reasons:
Although the adoption of blogging for business by corporations is growing rapidly, we're clearly just at the beginning. However, as more organizations embrace the idea of leveraging employees for content creation and integrating email marketing with it, latecomers will find it increasingly difficult to own their market via their blogs.
If you'd like a copy of the whitepaper, please contact me at blecount [at] rowhymarketing [dot] com.
Thanks to Chris for a great piece, and to Compendium for supporting R.O.Why! Marketing with a great blogging solution. Our clients love it and we look forward to introducing many more people to the platform this year.
A study by the Pew Center for Internet & American Life notes that email and search are the tied as the number one online activity. Email marketing best practices have long proved that email is ineffective for acquisition; for that we must turn to search.
But how do we fully leverage search when pay per click (PPC) advertising is costly and, as pointed out by Marketing Sherpa, captures only a small portion of the available market? Organic search is the answer, however another problem surfaces: the vast majority of corporate websites are not updated with enough new content frequently enough to effectively accomplish dominant search positions.
As Chris Baggott points out, "What’s needed here is an easy to execute strategy for targeting large numbers of keywords and ranking on them in the organic results. This is where organizational blogging comes in. At the end of the day, search engines want to deliver relevant content."
He continues by explaining that the relevance of your content is driven by:
• Page titles
• Keywords
• Recency and frequency
• Humanization
• Metrics - bounce rates, page visits, visit duration
From Chris's piece, blogging for business make sense for a few key reasons:
- Mr. Edelman of the Edelman Trust Barometer says that "Employees are the new credible source of information. We have data that shows an employee blog is five times more credible than a CEO blog –and I say this as a CEO blogger."
- "Widespread employee blogging presents an opportunity for many new pages of relevant and closely related content thus increasing your document collection."
- "By organizing blog content around specific keywords and topics instead of authors, business blogs become laser focused on serving up only the most relevant content based on the searchers input."
Although the adoption of blogging for business by corporations is growing rapidly, we're clearly just at the beginning. However, as more organizations embrace the idea of leveraging employees for content creation and integrating email marketing with it, latecomers will find it increasingly difficult to own their market via their blogs.
If you'd like a copy of the whitepaper, please contact me at blecount [at] rowhymarketing [dot] com.
Thanks to Chris for a great piece, and to Compendium for supporting R.O.Why! Marketing with a great blogging solution. Our clients love it and we look forward to introducing many more people to the platform this year.
Posted Friday, May 30, 2008 by
brian lecount
Today a client of R.O.Why! Marketing received a comment on one of their blog posts that was somewhat antagonistic. The comment questioned a company policy, and our client was torn on whether or not to reply, and if they did, how they should frame the response.
We helped them realize that interaction with your audience and creating a more personal relationship is what blogging for business is all about. Positive or negative, a comment on your blog should almost never go ignored. A potential customer was reaching out to them, and while perhaps they did not use the best approach, the situation presented a great opportunity to differentiate.
Our client delivered an outstanding response to the blog comment, clarifying the company's policy, explaining the reasons for it, and how such a policy was a benefit to the great people they serve. Whether the person who commented will respond is not the point. Instead, the company demonstrated more of who they are, approaching the situation with humility and a willingness to deliver value. The search engines will find this response, and so will searchers, and in doing so they will learn one more reason why this company is different from the competition.
When your readers take the time to respond to your blog posts, welcome the opportunity to respond. Thank them for the comment, deliver real value, and introduce a side of your company that your website will likely never reveal. They may end up becoming a customer one day, or perhaps you'll leave an impression that will encourage a recommendation in the future.
Happy blogging....
We helped them realize that interaction with your audience and creating a more personal relationship is what blogging for business is all about. Positive or negative, a comment on your blog should almost never go ignored. A potential customer was reaching out to them, and while perhaps they did not use the best approach, the situation presented a great opportunity to differentiate.
Our client delivered an outstanding response to the blog comment, clarifying the company's policy, explaining the reasons for it, and how such a policy was a benefit to the great people they serve. Whether the person who commented will respond is not the point. Instead, the company demonstrated more of who they are, approaching the situation with humility and a willingness to deliver value. The search engines will find this response, and so will searchers, and in doing so they will learn one more reason why this company is different from the competition.
When your readers take the time to respond to your blog posts, welcome the opportunity to respond. Thank them for the comment, deliver real value, and introduce a side of your company that your website will likely never reveal. They may end up becoming a customer one day, or perhaps you'll leave an impression that will encourage a recommendation in the future.
Happy blogging....
| Next |
