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.

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.

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

Taking a job with a small Cincinnati Marketing Firm has opened my eyes to a new world, a lot of information, and even more excitement.  But as I sit here and indulge myself into the world of search engine optimization and email marketing, I cannot help but wonder what my friends are doing now.  Pushing papers? Selling useless items? Still going through boring training? Or are they actually learning about the real-world? So they like it? Are they happy?

Choosing to work for an entrepreneur was one of the best decisions of my life.  Sure its a lot of work, but I already feel like I am more submerged into the marketing community than most.  I feel as though I may be able to make a difference. I'm happy. And I enjoy coming to work to learn and discover the tricks of the trade.  Now how many college graduates can say that?

Getting my feet wet within a new company has allowed me to gain a lot of knowledge in a short period of time.  I have learned more about internet marketing in two weeks than most college graduates do in half a year.  That being said, I have noticed a very interesting trend among companies both in the Cincinnati area, and through research and time spent playing on the internet, companies across the world--Websites.  While many companies put a lot of thought and time into making sure their website not only educates readers, but is aesthetically pleasing, many do not. 

A lot of content among websites is either poorly written or is not helping the company in any way, shape, or form.  Content among websites is extremely important for companies to get ahead among their competitors.  Not only does it tell a story about the company and their mission, but it is an essential tool when pulling customers to the site.  Through techniques, such as search engine optimization, companies can see how the content and the way it is written, helps the website become top ranked among search engines like Google and Yahoo.  By having their site toward the top of the searched sites, companies can draw consumers to their website easier and hopefully gain an advantage over their competitors. This is the same with the aesthetics of the website as well.  Sure a website may have great content and be extremely well-written, but without a good layout and a strong color scheme, the website can be easily over looked.  It is important for companies to create an attractive page that is not cluttered or one that makes your eyes jump from an important part of the page to a less important part.  For example, taking the customer's eyes away from content related to the product/service to look at a picture in the opposite corner.  Clearly, we need more websites to capture an audience for more than just graphics!

It also amazes me that many companies are unaware of the advantage gained through strong websites--especially when they only have a small marketing budget to work with in the first place.  I feel as though many companies cut corners to save money and time by creating their own website without the proper knowledge of how effective their website can be.  Little do many people know, even just taking the time to write an effective and detailed script for websites will help draw consumers more than one that is written so poorly it cannot make it to the top of the search.  I believe more marketing consulting companies need to focus on this branch of a company's marketing strategy.  They need to push this idea of a stronger website so that companies can get ahead easier and more effectively. 

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.

The old phrase "you learn something new everyday," does not even come close to the amount of information that I have acquired during my first week on the job.  Coming into the office, I knew a lot about the theories and definitions of many marketing strategies, however, I had never really been able to apply them completely to the real world from a small business marketing firm's point of view.  Now, though, I am beginning to feel extremely comfortable about blending theories and applications together with a hint of creativity and a new perspective. 

Not only do I feel comfortable sharing my ideas within the office, but after a meeting with one of our clients, I feel as though my fresh ideas will spread like rapid fire with our clients as well.  While sitting in a meeting, I couldn't help but sit back and listen as to how other businesses operate and brainstorm ideas.  I really took the time to immerse myself in their culture to understand exactly who they are, how they operate, and what is important to them.  This not only allowed me to feel part of the group as we discussed new marketing strategies, but made it easier to come up with ideas that matched the positioning and brand development of the company.  While each company is ultimately unique in its processes, I found that my adaptability to create ideas or suggestions works in other settings that I am not used to.  I now realize that whatever setting I am thrown into, I feel confident enough with my ideas and intuition about the culture of the company to be able to create some solid ideas.   Whew! I was hoping this would be the case!

In addition to feeling confident within the office, I now feel confident with taking my ideas out of the office.  I have now even been able to take a majority of concepts out of the office now and apply them to the other areas of my life.  After learning more techniques regarding search engine optimization and email marketing tips, I have been able to continue creating a strong marketing tool for a local horseback riding facility.  Even the knowledge I gained from our client's perspective, has allowed me to help this same facility with its brand development and creatively sharing this positioning with its clientele. While i could do this to an extent before working with ROWhy! Marketing, I have a lot more to offer knowledge wise to other passions within my life. 

Who knew that even after one week of work and the immersion into a small business and its culture would not only tell you about the type of worker you are, but would give you enough knowledge to begin applying techniques to other areas of your life?

Since graduation I have spent a majority of my time this summer focusing on horseback riding and my tan...not so much on my business skills. However, in the last two days I have been reminded of how the real world actually works. 

While in class at Miami University, I sat through many lectures in which i came out thinking: "That was useless."  I never thought I would actually have to use a majority of the small bits and pieces of information I learned from the classroom.  Boy, was I wrong!  Coming out of college I had every intention of joining a smaller, more entrepreneurial work atmosphere--preferably one that focused on marketing tools that help other small businesses get on their feet and get their name out to the public. 

Upon my arrival here at R.O.Why! Marketing, I have had to not only learn the ropes of working in a marketing consulting firm that specializes in internet marketing consulting and search engine optimization, but I have had to reach far into my memory for those small skills I obtained within the classroom.  I used to joke with a buddy of mine about his over abundance of knowledge in IT and computers, but now I am envious!

These first few days on my new feet have been a lot of fun, yet extremely tiring! The amount of knowledge I have acquired within the last three days has been nothing short of monstrous.  yet the amount and the different levels of difficulty have only left me wanting to come to work and learn more about ROI marketing and internet marketing.  I have a feeling this will be a fun and long journey here in the office!

I subscribe to a free service that let's me know what stories and sources reporters are looking for.  It's called Help a Reporter Out (www.helpareporter.com)  You should check it out.

So this morning I get an email about a contest that an online resource for those going through divorce is holding, and they're asking for promotion ideas.  The winner receives a Kindle.  Although I think the Kindle is super cool and of course I'd like to have one, I also get totally jazzed about coming up with interactive marketing ideas.  Companies today are looking beyond email marketing, search engine optimization and other brand development strategies toward more interactive marketing approaches to involve their audiences.  No, I'm not the first to suggest a viral video marketing strategy, but I believe that this approach has a lot of merit if building word of mouth is important to you.

Here's the idea I submitted:
(Remember, this is for a website that provides resources for those who have gone through a divorce, so the strategy needs to fit.)

Potential titles:

The ‘Dear John, It’s Over’ Video Contest
The ‘I never meant to hurt you’ Video Contest
The ‘It’s Over!’ Video Contest
The ‘I’m Starting Over…I Need a Makeover!’ Video Contest
The ‘I’ve got to get something off my chest’ Video Contest

Potential promotional copy:

Hey, divorce is a difficult thing to go through, and through these tough times we could all use a little laugh, right?  [Contest sponsor] announces the ‘I never meant to hurt you’ video contest.

Is it time for a divorce?  Time to tell your significant other to take a hike?  Need to come clean about seeing ‘someone’ else?

• Have you  been burned by your PC too many times?
• Cheated on your PC with a Mac?
• Had a Miller Lite while your Bud wasn’t looking?
• Has Windows Vista taken you for granted one too many times?
• Time to say goodbye to your 3 year old’s binky when it no longer quiets your little hellion like it promised to?

Confess to your ‘significant other’ about it in a short, funny, 2 minute original video.  What counts is  humor, originality, video production quality, and the tangible metric – YouTube views.  Videos must be sent to [the contest sponsor's website] where they will be screened (for inappropriate content) and uploaded to the contest channel on YouTube.  [The contest sponsor] embeds the YouTube video code into the site and builds a quick polling feature to allow visitors to vote, and the highest combination of website visitor votes + YouTube views wins.

Here’s an example of a script for a video:  Telling your SUV that you’ve been seeing a perky little hybrid.

“Hi honey, we need to talk.  We’ve been together for a long time.  We’ve had some tough times and some really great ones too.  But over the years I feel that I’m the only one putting the effort into this relationship.  I take care of you, keep you looking great, and I will say that you’ve been pretty reliable.  But the world around us has changed.  Gas prices are skyrocketing and frankly, people think we’re unsafe.  They just look at us differently now, and as hard as I have tried to remain content, this relationship just takes everything out of me.  I fill you up with my love every week, but then I have nothing left.  No passion, no excitement, and no money.  It costs so much more now to keep this relationship going than it ever used to.  I feel taken advantage of, and I….I’m so sorry…I just can’t do this anymore.  I need to tell you that there’s someone else.  For the last few months I…God I can’t believe I’m telling you this….I’ve been seeing a hybrid.  No, it’s not someone from work, and I really wasn’t looking.  It just kind of happened.  I’m so sorry.  I never meant to hurt you, but I need to go this direction in my life right now.  It’s what I need to feel like myself again.  And you’re going to be fine, really!  I think we’ve both been pulling each other down.  You’re a smart, good looking, enormous SUV with a strong personality and a command for the road.  There are other people out there that would appreciate you, give you all the gas you need and not feel guilty about it.  You know, the wealthy elite.  I just can’t afford to give you what you need anymore.  I’m so sorry.”

We'll see if the idea wins the contest, and I'll of course post it here, but let me know what you think.  Have any viral video ideas or examples you'd like to share?

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? 

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:

• 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)

Blogging for business has produced:

• 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

Great to see the work paying off!  Have a similar story of results?  Please share it!

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.

• 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?

Then came the business development and administration side. 

• 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?

If you're like me, you often wish you could work like it's your last week (or day!) before vacation.  Isn't it amazing how quickly the clutter falls to the side and you focus all of your talents and efforts on those things that are the most important?

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 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.

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:

1. 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."
2. "Widespread employee blogging presents an opportunity for many new pages of relevant and closely related content thus increasing your document collection."
3. "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.

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....

Fun day to be talking about blogging for business as a marketing strategy.  We have been working with a client for about a month on a blogging platform we delivered.  It can always be a little tough getting started with your blog.  What will I blog about?  When should I blog? I don't have time for this!  All familiar comments we hear, but as you progress, your blogging for business radar starts to heat up.

Our client is a rehab therapy staffing company with lots of passionate folks.  And they're busy - really busy - supporting hundreds of traveling therapy professionals and trying to fill thousands of jobs.  Along comes this guy from a Cincinnati marketing firm towing the blogging for business line.  So we get them started, slowly at first, at looking for things in their day that would make for great blog posts. The management team has also had some fun promoting the blogs internally, and today held their first blogging for business lunch.  Free lunch for anyone who's willing to eat & blog.

The results?  Happy staff and 11 new blog posts today!  Hats off to Monica, Autumn, Lindsey, Larry, Luke and Katie for creating some great new content. 

They've got blog posts on everything from how to find a great job and the Fish! philosophy, to working with recruiters and hospitals, and even a post about flying monkeys. 

They're having fun with it now, and starting to form even tighter relationships with a market that their blogs are beginning to help them grow.  This is exactly what blogging for business is all about.  Let the outside world in.  Empower your people to be positive public voices for the company.  Let the passion out. 

Here are a few quick steps to help your team develop some energy around blogging for business:

1.  Spend a little time educating your team on what a blog is and what it's for.
2.  Train the team on what to blog about, how often, and exactly how to do it.
3.  Coach them along the way with content ideas and suggestions for including keywords to get the SEO benefits
4.  Encourage candid (but appropriate) dialog on the blogs
5.  Make it fun.  Share fun stories with your audience, not just the hard facts.
6.  Provide incentives. Hold 'blogging for business' lunches, have a contest for the most frequent blogger, etc.

But the first step?  Just get started.

Here at R.O.Why! Marketing, we've had quite the new business development push going, and it's really starting to pay off.  We are very fortunate to have been recently chosen as the Cincinnati marketing firm by two area companies: DocuStar and also by Star Base Consulting.  We will be delivering a variety of solutions including marketing strategy, email marketing, direct mail, interactive marketing, and a corporate blogging platform.

The other story behind our new business push is the flurry of requests we're receiving for quotes.  It seems that many firms are talking with Ohio marketing agencies and shopping price.  We are being asked for quotes on search engine optimization, quotes on ROI marketing measurement, quotes for email marketing programs, etc. 

While we certainly appreciate the interest, we will not reduce what we do to a commodity.  At R.O.Why! Marketing we sell marketing solutions that grow businesses.  Period.  Have a problem like too few leads?  Not enough sales?  Customers not fully engaged?  We can help you solve that, but it starts with a relationship.  We need to build one together in order to properly address your challenge.

How much to send emails to my database?
In one example, a company asked us for a quote for an email marketing program.  Well, anyone can provide email software.  Anyone can deliver a tool at a price, but it's what you get for that price, the expertise in email marketing, the best practices, knowing what to avoid, the support, the on call status, etc. that makes all the difference in the world.  I just can't communicate all of that without meeting the company. or without writing a ridiculously long proposal that no one would read.  You need to hear it in my voice, read it in my face, shake my hand and know that you're talking to the company that CAN make it happen.

We sell the solution to the problem, the expertise.  The tool is just the tool, and if it's just quoted like that, it will be compared to other tools without an appropriate appreciation for the differences in features/functionality, and the company and people behind it.

Everything can be obtained cheaper.  Are you sure that's what you want?

We went live on some major back end upgrades to a client website today at www.MDIMedical.com.  While we were not engaged to work much on the site's design, we rewrote and organized all of the content in a much more intuitive way.  Here, we're all about delivering ROI marketing strategies, so we built some strong calls to action into a common sidebar that should help drive qualified sales and marketing leads for the company, and work to help us monetize the entire marketing strategy.

R.O.Why! Marketing has also delivered a corporate blogging platform consisting of 5 company bloggers and a little over a dozen targeted keyword blogs.  As bloggers post new content on the specific keyword topics, they'll begin to rank much more effectively in the search engines, helping out the overall search engine optimization effort significantly.   

Overall, we completed the following:

1) Organized and architecture files into bookmark / search engine optimization-friendly folder structures
2) Modified layout to polish the overall look and feel without changing the brand
3) Improved the page aesthetics to deliver a cleaner appearance
4) Use general include files so future updates, redesigns and new modules can be "plugged-in" much more efficiently (header, footer, sidebar, etc.)
5) Improve child menus within the navigation to be css-driven & easier to manage
6) Replace most inline javascript into modular included .js files, and use asp to replace javascript code bloat where applicable.
7) Created page-level meta keywords and descriptions support which was not previously present
8)  Applied the new page template code to the ExactTarget email marketing signup confirmation pages
9)  Crafted new, discipline-specific pages of content for each the clients 3 primary audiences

We have many more big plans for the site, but this was just a first attempt to clean things up a bit, give users clear calls to action, launch the blogging platform, and prepare for future upgrades.  We're looking forward to the redesign of the overall brand in the future.

So, what's this Atlanta-based company doing with an Ohio marketing agency?  They sought out a firm with specific healthcare staffing expertise and found us. 

We love when that happens!

What do you love?

Hate?

Think?

Believe?

Feel?

Wish?

Really interesting project going on right now that's cataloging what people think about.  Culling through thousands of Tweets, Twistori is unearthing what's in our hearts and minds.  What we dream about, yearn for, what we would like more of.  What keeps us up at night.

What about our customers?  Do they really care about blogging for business?  Are their hearts on fire for their brand?  Is event marketing really what makes them tick?  Do they really need more email marketing tips?  Each day, are they incessantly hunting for a new Cincinnati advertising agency?

What do they yearn for?  What keeps them up at night?  How much do we really know about what our customers truly want? 

At the end of the day, I don't think our customers here at R.O.Why! Marketing really care about any of that.  They're not out there trying to buy internet marketing consulting services.  They're not looking for another marketing firm, a print advertising campaign that wins an award (for their agency) or the next great interactive marketing campaign.

Here's what they do want:

1.  More sales
2.  Higher profits
3.  Better service
4.  Fewer hassles
5.  Less bull
6.  Someone (dare it be their agency?) to take their hand and lead them

What's fun about my job is cutting through all the crap, thinking like a business owner for our clients, and leading them to efficient, profitable business growth.  But to do that, you have to know what your customers really care about.  You need a Twistori that reveals your customers' hopes, dreams and fears. 

Alternatively, you could just set your agenda aside and listen to them.

I had a meeting with a business owner and the VP of sales recently to discuss the findings of their new customer & prospect research project, which would culminate in a new marketing strategy and marketing communications plan.  They had recently hired a Cincinnati advertising agency, but were less than pleased with the output.

I had met this company before.  I understood the business.  They fit nicely into a box called IT staffing and services.  Yet pouring through the volumes of feedback, a very different company was coming to life in the comments from its customers and prospects.  What became clear was that this company was, and would become, much more.

Having long ago set the goal of distancing itself from the commodity business of staff augmentation and consulting services, this company was already delivering the 'trusted expert', solution oriented experience.  The problem is that too few people knew it.  Customers' understanding of the business was limited to the services they purchased.  Most had no idea the depth and breadth of talent and experience that lived here.  

It was time to start telling the story.

As we pieced together the major elements of the marketing strategy, this new direction fit the company better than the path they are currently on.  We needed to capitalize on the intellectual capital resident in the people.  We need to get them talking, blogging, and connecting with customers and prospects.  We must capture customer successes and tell powerful stories of how this firm has changed the business landscape for its customers.  We must define and claim a thought leadership position in the market, sharing educational content and valuable resources at every opportunity.  The enthusiasm for this newfound clarity permeated the room.

Then it was time to talk about the identity.

Considering the time and expense of historical brand development efforts, the owner of the firm preferred to 'stick with the logo we have.'  Sure, as a business owner I can understand the complications of such a change.  Materials, market communications, and the associated efforts can be expensive.  Meanwhile there's a closet full of trinkets with the current logo.  He felt like he'd be taking a few steps back before really getting started.  I understand.

The problem is that the packaging no longer fits the product.  The product is amazing.  It changes businesses.  It delivers increased productivity and revenue, decreases costs across the enterprise, and lays out a deliberate path for using IT as a strategic advantage.  Yet it's sold in a paper bag.

The market can't see it.  They can't sample it's uniquness.  They can't form a connection with a brand that doesn't clearly fit the products, services, and people it represents.  It gets pre-judged before anyone has a chance to realize its value.  It doesn't form a connection, tell a powerful story, and inspire the market to act.  And so, neither will the company.  Judging a book by its cover may not be fair, but you do it everyday, and so do your customers.

Does your brand fit?