MondayMorningMarketeer: Creating CustomerLoyalty, Suspects to Prospects

This is me in the Whitehouse East Wing at National Small Business Week 40 pounds ago and looking very cerebral among the books, don't you think??! The White House by the way does a great job of Marketing, the party they threw for us was outstanding. It was truly a unique experience being honored as the National Small Business Administration Journalist of the Year. Upward and onward just like Ellen Degeneres, I have goals, this year the Webby Awards for http://pplmag.com/



Creating Customer Loyalty, Turning Suspects into Prospects



There are about six recognized stages to creating Customer loyalty.

These are: Suspect, prospect, first-time customer, repeat customer, client and advocate.


Today I am only talking about two: creating suspects and prospects.


Here is one major way to create suspects: Give them information, after all this is the information age. You can do this with Talkcasts or Podcasts, or Free Webinars, done properly they are all really the same thing.



This is how I use them to educate my suspects, fans, listeners, followers, whatever you want to call them. They are people just like you and they are important to me. Do they make me money? No not directly, but what they, you do is increase my credibility in my field and you, they who are not reading this, spread the information I provide by word of mouth, which, “hello” is hard to get but “FREE.”



So on my Techno Granny Show, I operate as a Talkcast similar to a Talk Show and I find someone who uses the technology that I want people to be more conversant with. My guest gets to advertise their business at the end of the show by giving out their contact information. Here are two people who have used helpful information to get the word out about their business—Techno Granny, me and also my guest for the day.

Now the second type of show or training is a webinar, which is also a community call. That’s what Monday Morning Marketeer is. I talk for fifteen minutes about inexpensive ways to market your business, I try to keep the tips either free to implement or under $100.00. Now when I advertise, “Big Business Marketing for Small Businesses.” Do you think people listen? Of course, by showing that I care about the little things that you can do to market your business all by yourself, I have increased my visibility and created a platform for selling marketing that costs a little more than a hundred dollars. I have given away marketing tips but I have gained two things: visibility and an on-line audio portfolio. If you want to know what I know or think about a particular topic, it is probably on my Monday Morning Marketeer, hosed at www.Talk Shoe.com.



By the way, did I mention that you can do this to, and to record, advertise and host your webinar or talkcast at www.talkshoe.com , it is free, but hurry because I fear that someday soon, it will become so popular that they might start to charge. I have increased my listeners to my shows to 1,000 per week in live and downloaded format because all of my shows are archived at www.talkshoe.com and you can listen to them—whenever, possibly forever, at least as long as the internet lasts.

Now let’s talk about blogs, let’s talk about you and me sharing information and getting reactions. How cool is this. Blog about what you know is of importance to your target audience, blog regularly and post your blog to sites like Technorati and Digg and other blogposting and hosting sites and guess what if you use E-Blogger, which is owned by Google, it really “Gets Your Google On!”



Post tips of the week, post other bloggers that blog on the same subject but please educate your suspects, prospects, friends, fans and followers with useful and entertaining information. Sometimes a little levity goes a long way.

One of my protégé’s on TalkShoe has a show called Gourmet Eater; his business is Smells Like French Fries. Gregg Matthis recycles restaurant cooking oil. His idea was to introduce Pittsburgh Restaurants to the public and he likes to eat. Each week he interviews one of his current customers or finds new restaurants to hi-light. Everyone wants extra exposure, especially on the internet where Talkcasts and podcast are hosted. Now which call as a busy restaurant owner would you rather get a call to be interviewed on the Gourmet Eater or a call to be prospected by Mr. Greg Matthis of Smells Like French Fries? And I know from his results that it is easier for him to get that appointment after he has interviewed them on his show.



Now let’s talk about You-Tube.


You-Tube


Remember that when you are attracting suspects, fans, friends and followers to drive ideas in this information highway world with a microwave mentality, to create “Buzz,” it must be simple, word of mouth friendly and supported by tools to facilitate customer conversation.

Well Talkcasts, Webinars, podcasts, blogs, they all do that easily and so does U-Tube.

This three-step success formula worked exceptionally well for Blendtec, a small, Utah-based maker of high-end home and commercial blenders.


The fledging company needed more business, so executives brainstormed: How do we earn more market awareness on a shoe-string budget? Their answer? Online videos with a simple, word-of-mouth friendly premise: CEO Tom Dickson, dressed in white lab coat and goggles, blending up a host of everyday objects (baseballs, a Tiki Torch, Transformers, an iPod, a video camera) in a light-hearted, don't-try-this-at home presentation schtick.


‘By Week 3, the company had dropped all other search engines from its budget.’


How did Blendtec facilitate online awareness and conversation? By posting the video on YouTube! Within a week, the Will It Blend? Videos became a YouTube hit. Uploads followed on such other sites as Revver.com and Digg.com. At the end of the first seven days, the Will It Blend? Video campaign had six million views. But that's not all. Other product makers, anxious to leverage the campaign's popularity, began paying Blendtec on average $5,000 to film promotions for their firms using the Will It Blend? format. Bottom line, the videos became a revenue producer in their own right. Awareness went way up, along with sales. Blendtec reported a 43 percent sales increase for 2006.



Listen to the archived version of Monday Morning Marketeer at:
http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/tscmd/tc/33960   This is from Episode 39, dig deep!


Also listen to: - How Important is Your Web Logo Style


Listen Live or listen Later.

This blog post can be reproduced in its entirety with the following information:


© Joanne Quinn-Smith, Monday Morning Marketeer 412-628-5048
http://mondaymorningmarketeer.com/
info@mondaymorningmarketeer.com
Listen at: http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/tscmd/tc/33960
Blog: http://mondaymorningmarketeer.com/
follow on twitter at:  http://twitter.com/monmornmarketer

Posted by Joanne Quinn-Smith at 6:07 AM 0 comments

Five Tips to Inexpensively Increase Your Marketing in Tough Times

Five Tips to Inexpensively Increase Your Marketing in Tough Times

Experts are saying that most recessions only last 18 months which means that this crazy “sluggish economy” should be ending soon. So then what! So now what! What have you done to continue markeing your business in Tough Times? Research studies have proven that those businesses which continue to market through a recession will grow 50% and those who do not will either not grow at all or not be there when economic situation improves.

So you are saying to me, "but I can barely pay administrative costs and it’s tough to make payroll even for my administrative assistant. I have had to make cutbacks and tighten up, there’s nothing left for marketing." Well, did you ever hear that when the going gets tough, the tough get going????
Can I throw some other trite sayings at you?
Think outside the box.
Find a quicker, more effective way to market.
Get out of your living room, there’s no business there.
Action cures just about everything.

Here are five ways to increase your marketing without expanding your budget

I. Increase your networking, find synergistic events and get out there—miracles don’t happen in your living room.
Sign up for newsletters that tell you about events in your local area.
In Pittsburgh—Pittsburgh Business Times, City Paper, City and County Websites. Many of these events are free or low cost, you will know which ones work out for the best Return on Investment if you have to pay for them.

II.On line free marketing:
Merchant Circle, you can almost create a mini website
Craig’s List—check out announcements and Notices, Shows and Events, Clubs, Garage Sales, Fundraisers, Graduations .What works for you to expand your potential customer base?
Craig’s List—Services and Small Biz Ads
Open Directory or Dmoz, takes a while to get your website approved by volunteers but let it sit and percolate while you do other things.
Restaurants can advertise on LocalWineEvents.com for free in your local area
SuperAds.com, choose the free listing, you can upgrade later when the economy gets better if you feel the need.


III. Word of Mouth:

Offer Perks to Regular Customers to Get the Word Out, use referral marketing. It helps keep your steady customers happy, let’s them know they are important and there is no source of new business like a satisfied customer.

IV. Use Social Media, Blog, Talkcast, Social Networks

Blogging, Talkcasting and Social Networks can give you an opportunity to do some shameless self promotion by setting your self up as an expert in your field. With all of the options out there and money tight you need to be the “go to person” in your field.
Some tips for Social Media
· Don’t always tout your business, offer good information and then give people a call to action, a subtle suggestion that if they need additional information they can call you.
· In your social networking offer free seminars, do them on line as webinars or hook up with a businesss that needs to promote itself also and hold it there for free. Everybody wins. You get your expertise out to some new clients and your non-competitive venu gets exposure for their business.
· Good partners are salons, spas, small restaurants (some like Panera have free meeting space that you can reserve.) Anyone that has a space that can accommodate about 30 people is a good candidate.

V. Many small businesses do not know that you can get some free advertising on Google, using Google Local or Google Maps. Google is looking to increase the value of their local search and their mapping application, so they have a simple way for you to tell them some information about your business, and now they are infusing those results into their main search engine
Things You Need Before Starting Your Free Advertisement
· A description of your business
· Your phone number, address and any other contact info you want to advertise
· A logo or image that represents your business (some people use a picture of their office, store or restaurant) If you are a consultant and a good in person networker, it's best to use YOUR picture.
· A coupon or special offer you want to advertise (Google also lets you add a coupon for FREE if you want)
·
Step-by-Step Guide to Free Google Advertisement
1. Go to www.google.com/local and search for your business to verify it is not yet listed with an advertisement.
2. Go back to www.google.com/local and click on Add/Edit Your Business at the bottom left part of the page.

Whatever you do, know that your clients and your neighbors are watching you. You can be the impetus for not just building your business during tough times but also inspiring others to do the same. The trickle down effect is that businesses on the same perverbial street corner who are doing business makes that street corner a hub of activity and in tough times prospects and customers want to be where the action is.

This blog post can be reproduced in its entirety with the following information:
© Joanne Quinn-Smith 2009, Monday Morning Marketeer™ 412-628-5048
Listen at: http://tinyurl.com/MondayMorningMarketeer

Blog: http://www.marketingmondaymorning.blogspot.com/
Or on its unique radio channel at:
http://www.positivelypittsburghlivemgazine.com/
Joanne Quinn-Smith is the Creative Energy Officer of Dreamweaver Marketing Associates in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and an expert on Web 2.0 Branding.
Joanne has also been designated by the 2009 U.S. Small Business Administration as the Small Business Journalist of the Year for her work with information relevant to and advocacy of small businesses.
Follow at: https://twitter.com/monmornmarketer
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/joannequinnsmith

Phone: 412-628-5048

Monday Morning Marketeer, To Tweet or Not to Tweet Your Blog!

To tweet or not to tweet, your blog! It’s not Shakespeare but if you quote him and add his name, many people will follow you. Also if you can tweet out someone else’s tweets that have a RT directive and if you can tweet out people to follow so that you can make new friends, why wouldn’t you tweet your blog.

With the clutter of your prospects and client’s e-mails keeping conscientious e-mail readers like me up at night, Lord knows you have got to engage your readers somewhere else besides e-mail, so why not tweet?

The idea by all means is to tweet valuable and interesting content so if your blog has valuable and interesting content, and I am sure it does or why would you waste your time on it then twitter tout it. By all means cast out your line in the Twitterville fishing hole and hope that you catch some extra fish, that is readers.


Tweeters converted to readers are not a bad thing. Do I sound corny? Am I making light of twitter? Well, yes and no! Just the idea of twitter and that little blue bird and 140 characters, come on—it’s a veritable microwave marketing miracle. And thereby twitter is by nature a light subject although not to be made light of in marketing. So go on, you know you want to, tweet your blog. And also if you are not using everything in your arsenal to develop your presence on line and in the social media world then someone should give you a swift kick in the trump, not Donald but a twitter double entendre.


Instructions from Twitter Feed:

Tweeting your new blog posts is a great way to engage your readers, and something that most serious bloggers have already espoused. An easy way to do this is through Twitterfeed, which automatically updates Twitter with each new blog post. Here's how to set it up: Head on over to the Twitterfeed site, click Sign In with OpenID or create an account with your e-mail address and a separate pass code. Then type in your Blogger blog's URL. Once you've registered you'll then be taken to the New Feed page where you can start linking blog feeds to your Twitter account.First click the Connect your feed to Twitter Account button, which will prompt you to enter your Twitter login credentials to authorize Twitterfeed's access. You will get a nice little confirmation once you've successfully linked up your Twitter Account.Next just enter a name for your feed, as well as your blog's Feed URL into the form. If you want to customize your feed's settings you can modify frequency, add prefixes, and even create keyword filters. Otherwise you're all set—Create Feed button and your Twitterfeed is enabled.You can always come back later to the Twitterfeed site and modify your feed settings, as well as look at click-through metrics for existing feeds.

http://twitterfeed.com/

Great article at Buzz.blogger.com


“John Merrick and Soren Jordansen just released a tool called Tweet My Blog that makes it easy to automatically post new updates to your blog to Twitter.com using a WordPress plug-in.Tweet My Blog provides a way to link your blog postings to Twitter so your followers there will be informed each time you update your blog.They also provide a widget that you can add to your blog that takes the information flow the other way. You can show your latest tweets on your blog.The use of both the plug-in and the widget completes the flow of information between Twitter.com and your blog and provides more links to what you are writing about, and this should increase the number of people who read your blog. If they then decide to follow you on Twitter, you should see an additional increase as more people learn about you and what you are doing.Both the plug-in and the widget are provided for free, at least for now. John and Soren are both good at earning an income, so I don't know if Tweet My Blog will continue to be free in the future. Maybe it will, maybe it won't.”
Dimitry says:
“Here is a great free tool to get this done and also schedule future posts: http://www.blogomator.com/”
MLM-Branding-Specialist says:
“I think it's a great idea, and even before I know of this plug-in I was doing so. The fact is, if you're active and informative you're usually able to build up a following on Twitter before you can for your blog. In this way, Twitter can be used to stream in new readers, and can then be used for conversation surrounding your latest blog post.”
Now the Monday Morning Marketeer and the ever so subtle self horn tooter in me says don’t be Marlo Thomas in “That Girl” and always be tweeting or pimping your own stuff. I know I am dating myself but then I am also known as “The Techno Granny.” So get over it. And speaking of getting over it, if you are going to tweet your blog, you also need to get over yourself.
You need to do things like ask questions and give tips. You must chronicle important events and projects in your community and of your friends and associates. Cross promotion of other people makes you a resource and if the people you promote are smart they will reciprocate. Everyone wins. It’s a veritable Twitter Economy. Oh excuse me, that is probably someone’s twitter name or an already taken hashtag.
The clue here is to keep everything related. If your Twitter account is business-related, keep it professional. Don't add in random tweets about personal life. “I scratched my arm just now” is not only not going to make sense three months from now, but it also is not very interesting right now. The more relevant and related your content is, the better it's understood and the more followers you'll gain! Also remember one thing and that is all of your tweets, including your blog appear in Google and search engines under your name, yes your name.
Here’s some info right from the delicious blog
Aug 7 2009
“Sharing Made Easier: Email and Tweet Your Bookmarks
Earlier this week Delicious released a series of significant improvements and each day this week we spent some time exploring each of these improvements. This post concludes our series of deep dives.A part of the fun of discovering something new on the Web is sharing it with friends. We’ve made it easier to share your bookmarks on Delicious when you use our Firefox extension or bookmarklets. Instead of copying and pasting an URL, you can now email or tweet your bookmark directly from Delicious.
How it WorksPreviously, sharing a bookmark with another Delicious user required using a particular syntax or copying and pasting the URL into an email or tweet. Now, you can share it directly when you save or edit the bookmark. To share a bookmark, simply add recipients in the new Send field when you save or edit the bookmark. Click the Send field and you will see the Send tab with social network options.
For Twitter UsersIf you use Twitter and want to send bookmarks to your Twitter feed, associate a Twitter account (only a single Twitter account can be associated at one time) by logging into Twitter under the Twitter panel. You have the option to send all your saved bookmarks to Twitter by selecting the “Tweet all bookmarks unless private” checkbox when you add the Twitter account. If you’ve selected this option, your Twitter account will appear by default in the Send field.”

Okay this is the Monday Morning Marketeer again. Tweetfeed, TweetMyBlog, Blogomator, Delicious—these are all applications that will help you tweet your blog. Hello! All of these applications were developed just for you with your name on to help you turn your “followers” into readers, so now why aren’t you tweeting your blog????????? To Tweet or Not to Tweet, Your Blog! It may not be Shakespeare, however, “Methinks the lady doth protest too much!”

© Joanne Quinn-Smith 2009, Monday Morning Marketeer™ 412-628-5048Listen at: http://tinyurl.com/MondayMorningMarketeerBlog: www.marketingmondaymorning.blogspot.comOr on its unique radio channel at:www.positivelypittsburghlivemgazine.comJoanne Quinn-Smith is the Creative Energy Officer of Dreamweaver Marketing Associates in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and an expert on Web 2.0 Branding.Joanne has also been designated by the 2009 U.S. Small Business Administration as the Small Business Journalist of the Year for her work with information relevant to small business.Follow at: https://twitter.com/monmornmarketerFacebook: http://www.facebook.com/joannequinnsmithThe audio radio talkcast of this show can be heard on Monday Morning Marketeer unique radio channel at http://positivelypittsburghlivemagazine.com, date of show 8-24-09