Last week I had the privilege of attending MarketingProfs’ Digital Mixer in Chicago. For two solid days I enjoyed sessions and keynotes from some of the brightest stars in the digital marketing universe. Just Google the conference and you can quickly see that there’s been no shortage of excellent summary posts. For mine, I’d like to add a take from our unique perspective. First, we are an advertising agency as opposed to an in-house marketer. Plus, while we work with businesses of all sizes, we counsel several small businesses that are very interested in how new media can grow their business. Thus my post will look at some of the best conference takeaways by area (social media, search, blogging, email marketing) through the prism of agency and small business. (more…)

As a final act of closure on the holiday weekend, I re-traced the July 4th parade route on my morning run. As I carefully dodged candy wrappers, leaflets, and other giveaway items on the newly swag-encrusted streets (an unseasonal rain had left all of these promos fused to the ground) I thought of how parades can be useful to marketers.

First, they are great ways to support your community and country. Second, they are an OK local mass media tool — emphasis on the OK and the local. Finally, they can be useful cautionary tales because none of your other marketing efforts should resemble your parade strategy at all.

Parade strategy is fine for an actual parade. You see, a parade is a large untargeted mass of people. Buy some huge bags of candy, maybe run some fliers at the copy center, and you are destined for parade greatness. That is an acceptable investment for something that you should largely chalk up to good will and community outreach.

Again, none of your other efforts should look like a parade. Unlike a parade which pulls in large, seemingly random samples of people from all walks of life, chances are you can find a targeted slice of customers or potential customers to talk to. Rather than running general overview brochures on Astrobrights by the hundreds for papering the streets you should know your audience well enough to produce a small, powerful piece tailor-made to position your solution before this target. It sounds simple but the lines can get blurred such as sending a generic postcard to chunks of the phone book or sending an email blast when you should be launching a targeted email campaign.

The holiday is over. Make sure your marketing is back off the parade route.

Photo credit by Michael @ NW Lens via Flickr

Years ago I worked for a small educational publishing company. As I sat down to begin work on what would ultimately be the first of my two complete overhauls of the company’s website, I remarked to a colleague that this first website looked like ‘creating a website’ had been an item on a to-do list — that they’d simply created an online business card, checked it off their list, and moved on. That’s not an indictment as much as it was the way of Web 1.0. Many simply felt they needed to plant a flag on this internet thing and then get back to the real work. Most marketers have seen the error of their ways and have upgraded their website several times as they strive toward a dynamic Web 2.0 experience. Though now there is a different item appearing on those checklists.

In this age of social media, more and more marketers regardless of their understanding of these new channels want “on that Facebook thing” in much the same way that the checklist marketers of the early ’90s wanted “a website on those interwebs.”

Recently I heard some words of wisdom — ironically, at a marketing best practices conference. “Why do we come to these conferences, learn what everyone else is doing, and then go home and copy them. Why do we follow, when we should lead.”

So how does this apply to you and wanting a piece of the social media action? Simply put, all of these new channels — Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube (to pick a few low-hanging fruits) — are more than just items on a checklist. Want a Facebook page? It can be created in 10 minutes. Same with creating profiles or accounts on all of those other sites. If you want to be a follower, the good news is that it doesn’t take long to establish a simple presence on these channels. You can probably spend the better part of a day creating accounts on all prevalent networks and community sites and cross a BIG item off of that beloved checklist.

But what if you want to lead? What if you want these channels to actually work for you?

Then you are ready to realize a simple truth — social media is a means not an end. Creating presences on these channels is not the item on your checklist but rather a means for accomplishing an even bigger item on your checklist — developing greater brand engagement with your customers and potential customers. Checklists aren’t bad by nature (I use a ton of them to keep several different things straight). Often it’s what’s on them that’s wrong.

Using ‘greater brand engagement’ as your goal, how can you use social media as a means to help you achieve that? Which social channels would best support these goals? Too often marketers grab all of these sites off the rack regardless of how well they support their business’ goal. Maybe a photo-sharing presence on Flickr would be better than a blog for your business. Maybe Facebook isn’t right for you. In order to answer these questions you first need to know what you are doing.

We are currently working on a project for a client that I cannot wait to share with you that does all of these things. We have a branding/messaging goal for the client and are building the means for accomplishing this through social media. More on this when we can share it but leading produces a greater sense of satisfaction than following.

In the meantime, ask yourslef if you have a social media strategy or just a checklist? Are following or leading?

Are you afraid of clowns and balloons? My wife is deathly afraid of clowns. Probably a generational thing for those of us that grew up with Stephen King’s It. Balloons she can handle. However, in your business you need to be afraid of clowns and balloons.

First, let me give credit where it is due. The expression ‘clowns and balloons’ comes from a longtime client of ours who is a car dealer. He said that many dealers want more “clowns and balloons from the manufacturer.” This term is shorthand for having a sales event for the sake of having a sales event. More sizzle than steak.

Why should you be deathly afraid of clowns and balloons? Because it probably means that your message, your value, your unique selling position has eroded or evaporated entirely and you don’t have a leg left to stand on. So the best prospect for getting people to pay attention to your brand is to rely on clowns and balloons to do the work for you.

Of course we aren’t being literal and limiting this warning to just balloons and a grown man with a red rubber nose. Rather, clowns and balloons are all of those advertising stereotypes that make all of us cringe as they scream “come on down.” Starbusts, animals, gimmicks, and like-minded stunts.

If you find yourself renting a helium tank and looking up ‘clowns’ in the phone book — stop. Round up your team and head off-site with a wipeboard. It’s time to re-think your message. In that sense, maybe clowns and balloons aren’t so bad after all. Think of them as that cautionary, check-engine light for your brand.

There’s a story that Dean likes to tell. Let’s see if I can get it right …

There’s this entrepreneur who runs a successful store and comes to the conclusion that it’s time to open a second location. So the business owner goes through all of the steps — site selection, building, etc. — and soon he has a bright and shiny new store. The owner flips over the ‘Open’ sign and gleefully takes a seat behind the counter waiting for that first sale. And sure enough that sale eventually comes but it takes longer than expected and the steady stream of traffic that the owner expected would follow never materializes. So the entrepreneur sits in his second shop and rather than watching a steady stream of customers, he watches the tumbleweed.

Seems like a sad tale right? Well, we forgot to tell you a few things. First, the owner built outside of town where he could get a good deal, which is great for the pocketbook but not so great for traffic. Then the owner decided not to put any signs up pointing people to the new store because as he said, “everyone knows about my first store.” The owner also opted not to run any additional advertising campaign to drive traffic to the new store and didn’t include the new store’s address on his current ads. And worse still, the owner never even put up signs in his first store telling existing customers to be sure and check out his new store. When you take these strategic blunders into consideration, it’s no wonder that the sad owner sat watching the tumbleweed blow rather than listening to his cash register ding.

The really sad thing? This parable is acted out all the time as successful offline businesses hungry for a piece of that lucrative internet action, hang out a shingle for their online business. The problem is, often times that’s all they do — hang out the proverbial shingle which in the online world equates to merely building a website. The point of this parable is to illustrate that you would never think of opening a physical store without a plan for how to generate revenue.  The same is true for your online store. Before your ‘opening’ you need to consider the following:

• New Traffic — Hopeful internet entrepreneurs think that traffic will immediately materialize once they go live with their new website. Many seem to think that there is a man who simply pulls an “internet switch” when sites launch that makes them appear on Google, drives a bunch of traffic to the site, and all of a sudden the money starts pouring in. Not so, you need to carefully plan for delivering traffic to your website, both through organic search optimization, and, yes by spending some additional ad dollars on pay-per-click search. These are the signs you put up when your store first opens up that help people find you.
• Current Customers — As mentioned above, one of the easiest things to do (that was missed by the owner in the story thus making it one of the larger strategic blunders) is to simply let your current customers know about your new website. It can be as easy as putting up in-store signage or complex such as offering a bounce-back deal on receipts for a new purchase at the online store. Another great way to drive customers to your online store is to catch them when they are already online via email (you are collecting your customers email right?). Remember that the old adage is true — it’s easier and cheaper to sell more to your current customers than it is to acquire new customers.
• Social Media — Another great way to catch customers when they are online is via social media. Make sure you have a presence for your site on relevant social channels. Not only is this a great way to connect with current customers but it provides them with an easy medium for sharing your business with their network.
• Campaign Integration — You have campaigns going on for your physical business, right? If so, make sure that your website is a meaningful part of that message. Ideally you can find some time to speak to the value that your site adds to the customer experience rather than just limiting it to the ubiquitous URL at the end of the ad. But even that is better than nothing.
• Additional Launch Campaign — In addition to all of these efforts, you may need to look at spending additional dollars outside of your current activities to help launch the site. If you expect the website to be a meaningful part of your business, you need to put the resources behind it to help it do so. Look for high-traffic display ads to help build awareness and clicks for your new site.

These are just a few things you can do to avoid being that lonely shopkeeper. Bottom line: You need as big of a ‘grand opening’ for your new website as you would plan for your a new store location. And it’s more than just a secondary store. As we so often tell clients, your website is a branch of your store that’s open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year … It deserves attention and dedicated resources to meet this potential.

Do you have launch strategies that have worked well for your site or online store? We’d love to hear about them.