Business Marketing: How to get More Clients and Bigger Profits Using New Technology and Applications

Good news for the internet newbie: To the swift go the spoils. Master social marketing, and you’ll dominate your niche.

Entrepreneur hopefuls who are seeking for ways to succeed in online business may finally have a more level playing field thanks to social media. Reduced costs involved with social marketing and the ability to interact with customers easily through new technology and social media applications, make it possible for newbies to jump in and quickly become a trusted authority in a certain niche. This translates to more customers and increased profits in less time.

There was once a time when new business owners had to fight their way to the top and take a beating from competitors, but social media has changed all of that. It is a new game now, and if you can learn the ins and outs of successful social marketing, you can dominate your market.

Attract and convert customers

One word can describe the best philosophy for getting clients: relationship. If you can connect with your prospective customers, engage them and create loyalty, you are in an excellent position to convert prospects into paying customers.

But how do you build these valuable relationships? The answer is to go where your customers are. Use simple online research to identify a number of social media sites where your customers hang out. Search for forums, message boards, blogs and social networks where these people are asking questions, posting reviews and building relationships. Once you have found these sites, join in on the discussions. By posting thoughtful questions and valuable information to help others, you can become a part of the community.

It only takes a handful of quality communications with a group to become a valued member. When you become known as the person who brings something worthwhile to the table, you begin to establish yourself as a person of authority on the topic or niche. Then, and only then, can you begin to share your business subtly—through a signature link or a product mention.

Rather than approaching these social communities from a seller’s perspective, you approach them from a relationship perspective, which allows you to earn the right to present your products and services in time.

Create bigger profits

In order to increase your business profits, it is important to get past the mind-set of doing anything and everything for one sale. Instead, your focus should be on the repeat customer. After all, it takes a lot of effort, communication and sometimes money to convert that one customer, so why not make it worth your while?

The way to maintain the connection with the customer is to communicate continually. Consider sending out a monthly e-newsletter to stay in touch with customers in order to keep you fresh in their minds. That way, when they think of something they need, they will come to you instead of the competitor.

Make your marketing communications more than just a sell message. Offer something of value—a whitepaper, special report, e-book or video—to build rapport with your customer list. By sharing with customers information they desire, you are further solidifying yourself as the authority on the subject in their minds. This way, they click on your link and visit your site when they are looking for solutions.

Business marketing is so much more than it used to be. Rather than pumping money into ads that may or may not work, social media technology and applications now provide you with low-cost methods that in many cases are far more effective in reaching customers and increasing business profits.

Chris Marentis is a serial entrepreneur and recognized Internet Marketing expert having served as SVP at AOL and CEO of Clearspring Technologies. For more information on Online Marketing and Advertising, go to http://www.gennextmedia.com today.

Social Media Marketing: Why Videos are Cool Tools for Generating Leads

A huge part of the fun that social media marketing holds for innovative owners is the wide array of business marketing tools that are available to promote any company. You’re at liberty to try and then use whatever tool is more effective for your own business situation; it’s a matter of trying out and going with what works as each company is unique.

One very cool social media tool is video. If you’re into making movies, you may already have some up on YouTube. YouTube is now the world’s top search engine, having recently bypassed Google. But don’t worry about Google losing its edge—it bought YouTube in 2006. Together, YouTube and Google are behemoths of the search engine world.

YouTube’s tagline is: “Broadcast Yourself.” I might add, the better to sell your ideas and skills.

For example, if you’re a graphic designer, you might feel more at ease in showing how to design and balance white space with images in laying out an attractive magazine page—rather than write an article on how to do it. Video then is a terrific medium to show-n-tell with your voice-over explaining the steps, in synch with your hand actions.

Video production requires good lighting and a distinctive background to promote your brand image. So does a clear and crisp sound. Speak slowly and lucidly. Make sure there are no extraneous background noises. Script your production by outlining the process including words you’ll use. Rehearse beforehand. 2-4 minute videos are most effective.

Meantime, you’ll have a silent production partner promoting your company. That is, use a white board as your backdrop with your business name and website written on it. Just be sure it’s in the eye of the camera.

The whole idea behind social marketing is to get people to start commenting on, and exchanging, ideas. As I mentioned in one of my articles, that’s how I met up with Michael Licamele, VP of Marketing at TotalMortgage.com. As a result of our meeting through social networking, we’re now teaming up to write a book on how real estate agents can use social media for marketing properties. From out of the blue!

Don’t let Internet marketing for small business slip by you. Don’t play small, either. Stretch your reach and be amazed at how you can cultivate leads that last a lifetime—based on authentic, relationship-building.

Chris Marentis is a serial entrepreneur and recognized Internet Marketing expert having served as SVP at AOL and CEO of Clearspring Technologies. For more information on Online Marketing and Advertising, go to http://www.gennextmedia.com today.

The Reason Most Companies Will Fail With Social Media: 5 Phase Process To Get it Right

I have to get this off my chest.

Over the past few months we have encountered way too many great organizations implementing new websites and social media marketing programs without any clear objectives, strategy, measurement for success…nothing. Just and email from an executive demanding something get created that resembles social media so they look good in a press release, to the board or the CEO.

It reminds me of when I was running a major web 2.0 widget syndication platform company, and I got a call from the President of the digital division of a major entertainment company demanding that they need to get a Facebook application up asap!  It was when Facebook opened up the platform to third party developers for apps. When I asked why, it was just cuz…

We need to stop the madness or this social media marketing thing is going to hit a wall. Lots of time, money, and more importantly expectations, will be put into programs that will not work. Yes, it’s not that costly to build a Squidoo page, and you can build a Facebook Page in 45 minutes. But trust me, these efforts done in isolation, without being connected to all the other activity your business is doing, and without a strategy that builds on each piece, will not result in any meaningful impact on your business.

Seth Godin wrote about this issue in the context of businesses finding it easier to create events versus employ a process. It’s much easier to create a event (Seth uses the example of a trade show, but you could substitute a Facebook Page instead) because it has a specific focus and it’s temporal. It’s much easier to implement and get people rallied around a trade show booth…or get your 25 year old developer to do a Facebook Page! Social media marketing is a process that takes time, attention and a new kind of professionalism. Done right, it is a process and can be very effective and giving your business a real economic advantage.

Here is an outline of how we think about the process when we engage a client:

• Understand The Client’s Business:
  • What does your sales and product funnel look like?
  • Who is your best prospect, what is the emotional connection and how can we improve engagement?
  • Who are the top competitors and what makes them successful?
  • How can we improve exposure and coverage?
  • How are we empowering the community to interact and expand?
  • How can we increase lifetime value of each member of the community?
  • How can we build a voice and a new stage for your licensees?
  • How do we bridge offline experiences with online presence?
  • How are we extending to the mobile environment?
  • Baseline metrics

• Digital Forensics: Complete Analysis of the Marketplace
  • Reverse engineer digital footprint of target customers, key competitors and existing licensees
  • Uncover the most powerful, high volume keywords and phrases used that we can win
  • Step inside the dialogue going on in the target customers head while searching for related solutions
  • Partnership and linking strategy
  • Evaluate how competitors are implementing keyword/positioning and conversion mechanisms

• Get The “Home Base” Right: Website and Blog Evaluation, Organization and Structure
  • SEO site structure including landing pages and site sculpting
  • Content planning for distributed web, blog and website
  • Blog strategy
  • Take advantage of content pumps and leverage

• Build The Distributed Network: Social Media Content Build-Out And Distribution
  • Blog, Website and landing pages (plug-ins) as needed
  • Build and assemble content assets and other resources
  • Publish and distribute 10-12 SEO rich articles to start
  • Create 10-20 videos in the form of FAQ’s or mini-course. Distribute to over 80 sites using four different keywords
  • Create 4-5 Web 2.0 SEO optimized pages including Squidoo, Hub Pages, Facebook and Twitter (also vertical focused)
  • Establish Internal and External linking strategy
  • Blogging and forum participation strategy
  • Tools, dashboard and workflow
  • Integrate lead follow-up with autoresponders and/or sales people

• Measurement: Monitor key metrics on dashboard
  • Identify what is working and do more of it
  • Identify what is not working and do less of it
  • Work the math model to reduce average cost per lead/customer over time

This is a four plus month process and it actually never ends because you should be continually optimizing. These phases build on each other and are all connected so they have huge impact on your business. Also, this new marketing paradigm is moving so quickly, new concepts are being introduced daily, you should be always integrating new ideas.

Their are many terrific people and firms that can help implement a similar process. But as a businesses owner or manager, you can no longer abdicate the knowledge of what should be done, and how to do it right. Don’t let the “event planners” ruin your opportunity!

Forum Marketing Secrets That Will Explode Your Business Opportunites

Through years of experience in online marketing (forums go back to the early days of the Internet) and the many projects at the GenNext Social Media Lab, we know that forums are one of the best ways to market your brand, generate qualified leads and develop relationships with other individuals in your niche market. It’s amazing how this can snowball into new marketing partnerships, guest blog opportunities and traffic to your blog or website.

Don’t know where to start?

Well, finding a forum for your niche market couldn’t be easier. Technorati is the webs largest blog directory and a great place to start. You can also search in Google Blogsearch. Just search by keyword for the niche or market you are competing in. You can also search in Alltop, this is a curated site which means sites must be submitted and approved. So, you know these are pre-qualified to some degree. While you are at Alltop and Technorati, make sure you submit your site as well!

The key is to start your focus on a few sites that you can put into your RSS reader and easy check and participate in daily. Start with 5-6 sites and move on as you get the hang of it. Be sure to visit many sites before you choose a few that you are going to concentrate your efforts on.  Also, it’s make sure you scan the forum posts to ensure that this is, in fact, a forum within your niche and has an active participation level.  Do not waste time replying questions and posting threads if no one is there to see them.

Simple But Effective Art Form

There is a simple art to Forum marketing that many businesses are unaware of.  Here are some of the secrets to creating an established presence within a forum and sky-rocketing the visibility of your product:

Introduce Yourself

Most forums have an introduction section for new members. Some also use community forum management applications (like Disqus) that provide an opportunity to add a profile so people can look you up and learn more about you. This should be your initial step when entering.  Tell everyone your name, company, title, website and blog address and expertise.  This establishes rapport with the moderators of the forum and also gains the trust of the members.

Brand Yourself

Create a signature that you add at the end of every post you make. Many forums allow you to use one or two links, so use this to your advantage if they do. You can find out by looking at other posts and seeing what others are doing. Key here is to use your “link bait”, blog posts or articles on your site as targets for your links so it does not appear to be commercial.  These links will increase the traffic to your site. Do NOT spam people with promotion. This should be about sharing experiences and relevant information in the context of the discussion, not marketing.

Listen First

Initially, it is important to become an active listener. Take some time to look through the posts and get a feel for the tone of the conversations. Become familiar with the moderators and those members who are frequent posters. Get a feel for how you can help. This could give you great insight into what kind of educational materials you will want to develop for “link bait”.

Be Consistent

Be a constant presence. A forum is similar to any blog or group, you must remain visible in order to establish credibility. The more people see your name, the more they will remember you. This is about smart commenting and participation in the community. You are there to help!

Wrap-Up

The objective here is about producing leads and increasing your bottom line.  This is not done over night though. Forums are a great way (for FREE) to converse with members of your market in a casual and hassle free manner. You will learn as much by listening as you will be talking. Beware though, forum’s are like families.  There are rules and guidelines that are established by the site owner. Become aware of these and abide by them or you will do more harm than good to your brand.

Find another great post on forum marketing at Social Media Examiner.

Have you started to participate in forums yet?

Don’t Fake It…Is Your Brand Authentic?

Have you ever tried to find a restaurant that your family can stop in quickly while you are on the road in an unfamiliar place.  You start looking for places along the side of the road, and make split second decisions about where you will eat…what brand you will buy!

Last weekend while on the road with my family we did this, and it struck me how we were making these decisions.  In this case, we were thinking about two different Italian places. One was a chain and the other was a family owned restaurant. The chain seemed to be a well organized, nice looking store but it felt sterile, not very warm or inviting. Even more important, we did not see many cars in the parking lot. We got the impression that the chain was going to have “fake” Italian food. In contrast, the other Italian restaurant was smaller, but something felt “authentic” about the look and feel.  Not very polished like the other restaurant, but it was inviting. Even better, a TON of cars in the parking lot…we had to wait for a seat.

Not all chains are bad and not all family owned restaurants are good.  That is not the point here. Being true to what you are, and making that contagious among your best customers and prospects is the difference between an average business and one that needs “extra parking”. McDonald’s does not sell on the fact it has the best burgers in town or most comfortable environment. But if you have kids, and you are looking for a quick, no hassle place to get a meal everyone will like, who does not absolutely love it when you see those golden arches in the windshield?

This principle of authenticity is going to become even more important in the emerging digital era of social media marketing. The opportunity is to energize the social graph with what your product or service is about. The net effect is brand buying decisions like we see in the analog world (discussed above) are happening real time in the digital word now. How do you make sure your business marketing reflect your brand or service in an authentic way? Here are some ideas:

1. Don’t let others define your brand, be active. If you make adjustments because of competitive issues or customer insights, make sure they become core touchstones in every facet of your business. We have a strategy document that among other things outlines specific touchstones for communication. Anyone in the company (or outside contractors) has access and uses it as a guiding principle for creating any touch-points with customers or prospects.
2. Explore various ways to communicate your brand authenticity and measure reaction. You want to get people talking, sharing and engaging with your brand. The great thing about the social web is it costs virtually nothing to participate. You can try approaches in fairly quick cycles and get feedback. In the analog world, you have to build a store and it is very hard to change it once it’s done.  Not so in the digital world. Use this to your advantage.
3. Participate! I wrote a blog post a few weeks ago about how I think blogging makes me a much better business person.  It clarifies my thinking and gets me in the conversation with my customers. Also, participating in forums and other blogs plugs me into the top of mind issues that my customers and partners are taking about, and allows me to make adjustments if I am not talking to those issues.

The big reason why you want to be authentic…it will differentiate your brand. The worst thing you can do is blend in and be like everyone else. That chain Italian restaurant probably suffered from this more than any other issue. I did not see a reason to go!

Every business and every person has a unique, interesting personality that people will want to engage in if you let it out. Are you?

How To Build A Business From A Depression Era Entrepreneur: 5 Lessons From Dad

This is a tough post to write as my dad, Cosmos Marentis, past away last night in his sleep after a week of hospital and hospice care. He was an incredible man, successful entrepreneur and business mentor. He grew up in Harlem NYC during the depression, raised by Greek immigrant parents.

Dad used to scrape the ice off the streets, after ice delivery trucks left, so he can bring it home to the icebox our family had in the tenement building. They could not afford to buy ice themselves. He had to be an enterprising person from the beginning.

My family benefited greatly from dads wisdom. Most of us are all successful entrepreneurs, millionaires many times over because of his mentoring and example. As we sat in the hospice waiting for the inevitable ending of this outstandingly lived life, I thought a lot about where my dad started in life and how he ended up building one of the largest and most successful mechanical contracting companies in the NYC region.

Here are some key lessons I learned that I want to share with you:

1. Just start doing something! My dad got out of the army after WWII and opened up shop in Manhattan servicing Greek Diners and funeral parlors.  He started working with the “new technology” called refrigeration and air conditioning. He did not always know exactly what he was doing, but knew he could figure it out as he worked with it. No VC’s, no 100 page business plan, 100% make it happen.

2. Be open and available for new opportunities. My dad got a call one day from someone in real estate at the Bank Of New York. They needed a company to service their new air conditioning system 24/7, 365 for a new kind of room…for computers.  My dad did not even know what a computer was or why they needed a room, but he said yes because he knew that if it was that important to them, they would pay good money (and so would others) for that service.

3. Make your employees and clients feel special. It’s amazing how your business will grow and new opportunities get created when you have motivated people working with you and clients that know how much you appreciate them.

4. Persistence and determination will separate your business from your competition. At the end of the day, most markets that have solid opportunities will also have very good competitors. You will also face unforeseen obstacles and events, it’s inevitable. Seth Godin calls this “The Dip”. My dad had to battle rheumatic fever, the unexpected death of a partner and many other events that could have been great excuses to give up. Dad didn’t and his competitors did…he ate their lunch!

5. Technology is your friend! Many entrepreneurs don’t want to take the time to integrate new technology and process into their business. It’s hard.  It takes time and a learning curve. From new computer room technology to operational infrastructure, my dads company used everything they could to stay ahead of the competition. You can too!

I think about my own business today, GenNext Media, and what we preach with new technology and social media marketing. These touchstones or lessons have never rang truer than today.  We are hopefully coming out of the “great recession” and business marketing is changing dramatically…we call it disruption.  Fact is, just like in the past, winners and losers will emerge in this “new normal”.  These lessons from my dad are a beacon to a successful outcome for any business.

Thanks Dad! We love you and will miss you…

How to Make Time for Social Media Marketing? 3 Ways to Get Back Time For The Social Web

The Thanksgiving break was a great time of reflection. We have learned a lot the past year in our GenNext Media social media marketing lab. As I sat around with my family and friends digesting my Thanksgiving feast and watching football, I scanned some of my favorite business marketing blogs (tip #2) for an answer to this daunting question , “What is it about social media marketing that makes business owners so scared?”

Internet marketing helps businesses build relationships with customers, generate new leads, and increase profits and visibility of their business. However, the one area that left them asking for more was: time.  

It’s an issue we all face as we get deeper into the execution of our social marketing programs. How do I make time for social media marketing? The Social Media Examiner had a terrific post about this subject about a week ago.

Being a small business owner myself, I can commiserate. There simply is just not enough time in the day to run your business effectively.  However, it is important to remind yourself of your businesses overall goal: to increase customer leads and produce more profits.  Social media marketing is, or will become a key part of running your business and a means to an end goal.

Here are three ways to organize your social media marketing efforts and make the most of your time online:

1.  Time is Money: Social media marketing has the capability to sky-rocket your business, however, it also has the ability to be a immense waste of time.  Many businesses set aside time each day for “marketing and networking.”  By making a structured schedule for marketing efforts, there will be less room for procrastination and wasting time. Set aside 1-3 hours for browsing industry blogs, updating your Facebook page and participating in forums within your niche market.  This will ensure that you remain visible within the distributed web and keep your efforts focused, for a specific amount of time, each day.

2.  Spend Your Time Constructively: Whether you are going on a business trip, sitting in front of the TV, or waiting for a meeting to start, you have time for social media.  Check your messages, send out a “Tweet”, reply to posts, etc.  Any extra effort that you put in will benefit your business, increase your visibility and attract more leads.

3.   Allow Yourself to Have Fun: Social marketing should not be a burden to your life or schedule.  It is there for your convenience and to help your business increase its customer base.  If you forgot to reply to a comment, distribute an article or update your blog today, IT’S OK.  If you treat social media marketing as a helpful and valuable way to market your business and foster relationships, then you will be less stressed and have much more success.

Social media marketing takes time, organization, and dedication, but it almost always pays off in the end.  That being said, embrace the distributed web and put yourself out there for other people to see and communicate with.  So stop reading, and start doing!

What are some of the ways your business finds time for social media? I would love to hear your insights…

Thankful For The New Normal

I am thankful for a ton of things this holiday. Funny thing is in the midst of this great recession I started a business, crazy right?

Think about this.  The media and marketing economy is in the biggest state of disruption since the invention of the radio.  With over 10% unemployment, finding great people is easier than ever.  New technologies like cloud computing and web services make starting a business inexpensive…with powerful tools as good as any large company can afford. Major media does not have a lock on my messaging? I don’t need a sales rep to “buy” advertising! Don’t get me wrong, I like sales reps, I was one in the mid 1980’s.

It has never been a better time to accelerate or build your business. Those of us who stand up and take this opporutnity will be rewarded.

Let’s be thankful for all this change and get ready to take advantage of it!

What do you think?

Is Social Media Marketing Trading Time For Money?

Lot’s of discussions going on around the Internet and in business meetings about how much time should be spent on social media marketing and how should that time be allocated.  A very active discussion is taking place at Chris Brogans blog where he postulates the framework of two hours a day broken down like this:

• 1/4 Listening in forums, blogs, tweets, competitors sites…
• 1/2 Commenting and communicating on and off your sites
• 1/4 Creating content…everything from blogging to video creation

Regardless of your personal view on how much time and how to allocate it, the point is social media marketing requires time, commitment and engagement. The question is…is this effort worth it?  Will I get more customers, more effectively and make more money? Simple question.

Our experience with our own products, and the clients we have worked with, point to these conclusions:

1. Versus a media mix of just PPC and/or traditional media, we are able to lower our average cost per lead significantly when social media marketing is added to the mix.
2. We become better at what we do because we are more in tune with the marketplace.
3. Our average lifetime value of a customer is always going up because we have a system, and multiple touch points, for activating our customer base when we have new products and services to sell.

Media and marketing is in a state of disruption.  If you have not already downloaded our free book on the subject I really encourage you do do it. The key point, if the results we get are real, the economic advantage a business can derive from implementing a social media marketing program is significant.

We believe that is leverage. Not trading time for money. Getting significantly more value for the time put in is what successful business know how to do.

What do you think about the time for value trade off?

Email Marketing Is Going Social

Engaging tartet customers in your content and getting viral traction is one of the tougher aspects of marketing in the social web. As social marketing continues to mature and mainstream, new tools are constantly emerging to help make this task easier.

Share-to-Social is the next generation of the ‘forward-to-a-friend’ forms found on many websites and email campaigns. This will be cool when it becomes mainstream.  Why? Because share-to-social functionality enables an email recipient to share your content with their entire social network.

New Products To Test

Tons of new products are coming to market in the viral sharing space. Here are two that we are looking at that specifically address email marketing.

• Exact Target rolled out a suite called Social Forward in April

• Silverpop also introduced new share to social functionality in the last few months.

Both companies provide a way for marketers to incorporate the icon of a social network such as Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn in an email. Subscribers can then click the icon and share the contents of the message with their online networks.

These products do two things. First, engage prospects and customers to virally spread content to their social graph. Even better, these tools also can track your “campaign” as it travels virally through Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn and other social networks.  For example, Silverpop’s Share-to-Social feature tracks which social network the email recipient posted the message on, and which achieved the most pick up. So you can tell what content is getting the most play in various social networks. This provides great feedback for understanding your target customers better and targeting messages as well as content.

The net is if building our list is the “holy grail” of our marketing efforts, this becomes a very nice capability to help us maximize the value of our list and activate our customers and prospects to spread our messages.  That’s email ROI…

Case Studies

Studies show these tools can be very effective. One study, by Silverpop (you can get the case study on the website), discovered that the average social sharing rate is 0.5% – compared with the less than 0.1% rate realized by earlier-generation forward-to-a-friend campaigns.

Other findings from the report:

• The life of a shared message is about one week.
• Email messages generate clicks on sharing links for an average of 6.8 days
• Despite inclusion of links, 35% percent of email messages studied generated no social email clicks.
• Facebook dominates among social networks.
• On average, an email will collect an additional 1% of views when shared on networks, a number Silverpop expects will grow as social sharing moves into the mainstream.
• Shared email has a powerful “multiplier effect.” Using conservative numbers, the Silverpop model estimates a posted email message has an average increase in reach of 24.3% (based on original emails delivered), but it also expects this figure to increase exponentially when sharing becomes mainstream.
• There is not any consistently in click through rates based on placement or other variables measured.

Social sharing is still relatively new and not adopted by mainstream (does your Mom or sister use it yet?). Email and instant messaging are still the most popular way to share web conten.  This is going to change quickly and it is one of the places you can get ahead of the game and get and edge on your competition. We will be testing these new tools in the GenNext Social Media Lab over the next few months.  You should too…

Let’s compare notes.

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