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Duct Tape Marketing

• Weekend Favs June Twelve 12 June, 2010, 7:23 am
  Weekend Favs June TwelveThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week. I don’t go into depth about the finds, but encourage you check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from Flickr. Image credit: pamramsey Good stuff I found this week GetListed.org – tools and resources to help you get listed higher for local search in Google, Bing and Yahoo Minify – Wordpress plugin that helps minimize css and javascript files that slow your blog from loading. Google seems to be focused on page load speed these days. Remarketing campaign via Google AdWords – How to create your own retargeting campaign using your Google AdWords account. Retargeting is a pretty hot topic these days. Related Posts:Weekend Favs April SeventeenWeekend Favs April TenWeekend Favs June FiveWeekend Favs April ThreeWeekend Favs May Twenty TwoPowered by Contextual Related Posts Like this post? Share it with others
• Weekend Favs June Five 5 June, 2010, 7:52 am
  Weekend Favs June FiveThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week. I don’t go into depth about the finds, but encourage you check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from Flickr. Image credit: cyrildoussin Good stuff I found this week: Write rhymes – As you write you can click on a word and this tool will find a rhyme for it – you know, in case you’re feeling a bit poetic. TinEye – a reverse image search engine. It finds out where an image came from, how it is being used, if modified versions of the image exist, or if there is a higher resolution version. 25 Free Must Download Design Programs – List of free software programs that will help you with many design tricks for editing, animation and 3D modeling Related Posts:Weekend Favs April TenWeekend Favs May Twenty NineWeekend Favs May Twenty TwoWeekend Favs April SeventeenWeekend Favs June TwelvePowered by Contextual Related Posts Like this post? Share it with others
• The Duct Tape Marketing iPhone App 4 June, 2010, 8:20 am
  The Duct Tape Marketing iPhone AppThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing I couldn’t get the Sirens’ call of the iPhone app out of my head – so, introducing the Duct Tape Marketing iPhone app. (iTunes link – Cost is $2.99) For now the main purpose of the app is to provide a more functional way to deliver my audio interviews. The application gives you a good way to search, sort and bookmark over a hundred interviews and features content I’ve never released publicly. I’ll add another interview each week and also feature exclusive “app only” audio content each week. Upcoming segments include Zappo’s CEO Tony Hsieh, Power Friending author Amber MacCarthy, Open Leadership author Charlene Li, and Constant Contact CEO Gail Goodman. I’ve chosen the portable audio format so you can take me in your car, on your run, or on the train. Hope you enjoy and let me know what you would like to hear. Related Posts:Must Have iPhone Trick for BloggersOriginal iPhone Users Feel the Love TooWeekend Favs October Thirty-OneTuned In On the GoReview the Duct Tape Marketing PodcastPowered by Contextual Related Posts Like this post? Share it with others
• Retargeting Dramatically Improves Conversion 8 June, 2010, 6:52 am
  Retargeting Dramatically Improves ConversionThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing The term retargeting has been around marketing for some time as a reference to the practice of coming at customers and prospect from new angles. The Internet version of retargeting takes a slightly more modern approach. Retargeting on the Internet is the practice of delivering customized ad content based on the sites a person visits. This form of site based behavioral retargeting is gaining in popularity with small businesses. There are number of services that businesses can employ to run retargeting campaigns. They work by tracking (placing a cookie) when someone visits your web site and then delivering ads for your products and services to that same person on the sites they may visit after they leave your site. Your ads are part of an ad network’s presence on these sites, but the firm’s tracking code, installed on your site, is what helps determine that your ad is shown to your site visitors. The ability to deliver repeated messages to this very highly targeted visitor is getting very strong results for users. Many people visit a web site one time because the saw something that interested them, but they never come back. With retargeting you can create ads that essentially follow the visitor around and gently remind them about why they came to your site in the first place. Google actually employs this technology routinely to deliver more relevant ads to sites you visit and even ads based on the content of your Gmail emails. Retargeting is very cost effective tool for small businesses as well because the spend can be so narrowly focused. Creative marketers will also find retargeting as an effective way to segment customers and actions. For example you can retarget someone who has clicked on a link on a link in an email who visits a landing page from an ad who buys one product and now is ready to hear about the upgrade Because ads are shown individually to your site visitors, but on many large sites, advertisers gain the added benefit of appearing to be very active and this can add to the impression that a very small business is much larger. The following services offer retargeting for small business marketers: Retargeter FetchBack AdRoll The one negative seems to be concerns that the technology used (installing a cookie) is an invasion of privacy and that retargeting is overly aggressive unless you inform visitors that you are installing the tracking cookie. Services are moving to make the practice more transparent, but you should visit your privacy policy if you intend to take this route. Anyone have any experience with this tactic they would like to share? Image credit: timlewisnm Related Posts:Weekend Favs June TwelveBest Blog Directory and RSS Submission SitesTwo Very Useful Web Site ToolsWhat if your web site could talk?Your Website Content Development Must Focus on your target market whether it's the guy around the block or around the world!Powered by Contextual Related Posts Like this post? Share it with others
• How To Talk To Small Business 10 June, 2010, 3:35 am
  How To Talk To Small BusinessThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing I was recently asked to share some insights (opinions) about small business at a conference attended primarily by large enterprise B2B marketers charged with growing their organization’s small business segment. (My friend Anita Campbell helped me on this one) I found myself slipping out of my supposed expert role and instead talking to them more as a long time small business owner. And this is what I shared: Small businesses owners do business with companies and people they know, like and trust. While you can buy a great deal of know and like, trust is earned over time and where were most of you ten years ago when we started our businesses? When it comes to word of mouth about your organizations we talk about businesses we know, like and trust, who also give us something remarkable to talk about. When was the last time you talked about a perfectly adequate experience? Give us something to talk about. When you want to get inside our heads and try to figure out why we are such irrational beings when it comes to your value propositions understand this – an enterprise buyer considering a purchase may be juggling between two line items on a spreadsheet, a small business owner may be making that same consideration by juggling between your proposal and their daughter’s braces. Create engagement with your content, not your metrics. If you’ve produced white papers, webinars, ebooks, and research that we can use, put it out freely in the social space. Don’t make us give you 27 data points before we can see the goodies. I know you’ve got a VP somewhere whose benchmarking registrations, but if you put that content where we can have it, where we can engage with it and find value in it on our time, I promise you we will trust you more. Create connection by proving you know who we are. Gather up some of your small business customers and ask us what we think, what we Google when we look for your kind of solution, what we don’t understand, what else we need, why we don’t trust or get your message. Understand that you must change your language when you market to us. You can’t strip features, repackage and reprice your enterprise solution and call it a small market offering. We won’t get it. It’s not that small business owners aren’t sharp, we just don’t have time or use for corporate speak and jargon. Create community by investing in ways to help us get more of what we want. No matter if you are trying to sell us credit services, printers or mobile devices if we can come to understand that you want to help us succeed and grow our businesses in ways that are related, or even unrelated, to your core offerings, we’ll get closer to you. Create ways for us to learn from trusted advisors, bring us together in peer to peer sharing environments, and every so often do something that surprises the heck out of us. I hope this doesn’t come off as a personal rant, it’s meant to help any B2B marketer struggling to understand the small business beast. Two asks today 1) Please, let me know if this seems on target and add your thoughts 2) Tell me about brands that you think get the above Image credit: eschipul Related Posts:The subtle dynamics of partnering with BigCoThe 5 Things People Really BuyStop Trying To Be Better Than the CompetitionThe Easiest Way To Explain the Marketing ProcessWhy Social Media Doesn't Matter AnymorePowered by Contextual Related Posts Like this post? Share it with others
• Habit is Such a Fierce Competitor 3 June, 2010, 9:02 am
  Habit is Such a Fierce CompetitorThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing Have you ever made a sales call, presented what was an obvious advancement in terms of innovation, quality, efficiency and price, only to walk away without the sale? If so there’s a good chance you’ve met the competitor known as habit. Habit, even a costly one, can stop a buyer from switching to your product more thoroughly than any competitor’s feature set or low ball price ever dared to. When you encounter a prospect or market segment that’s unwilling to listen to logic you must be prepared to introduce a specific approach aimed at teaching them how to switch. In some cases the fear of change, unknown or known pain of switching, or overall risk raises the selling bar to the point where most give up. Implement the following and you might find a rich new market for your products and services. Acknowledge the habit The first step is to come to grips with the problem yourself. Stop trying to convince people why they should switch and start understanding what’s keeping them locked where they are. You can’t help them solve the problem if you don’t understand and acknowledge it yourself. How much does that habit cost? Once you understand what’s holding them back you can go to work on defining exactly how much their fear or indifference is costing them. When you can quantify just how much their behavior is costing them in dollars and cents you’ll stand are far greater chance of getting their attention. Look to your existing success stories and poll your existing client base to come up with hard and soft numbers that reflect the benefit of switching to your product or solution. When you can demonstrate that not switching is costing $9822 while switching only costs $3588, you’ll raise at least one eyebrow. Build a case of what’s in it Since your fighting the laws of physics here you’ve got to create even more force to overcome the inertia of a reluctant buyer. Focus on what’s in it for them. Talk to your customers and get a good feel for the 3-4 “real” (meaning not the stuff you put in your marketing brochure) benefits your customers experience. Don’t worry about how simple you think they are, if your customers are telling that’s why they really switched, believe it’s why others will as well. I switched credit cards one time because the company showed me how much more detailed their online statements were than anyone else. That’s why I switched – not because I could get a cheap plastic cooler for every $1000 I spent. Easy to switch offer Once you’ve helped them realize the real cost and built a benefit rich case, you’re almost there. You’ve also got to remove the final barrier known as “what if.” What if evaporates with an over the top guarantee to switch them back and pay for all disruption if . . .it goes away when your throw in all set-up, training and refining at no cost . . . it goes away when you implant your super responsive customer service rep in their business for 90 days . . . it goes away when you offer to get paid only after they experience the proposed savings. So, what’s your easy to switch offer. Habit a darn fierce competitor, but one that won’t stand up to your habit busting strategy. Image credit: adobemac Related Posts:Successful Marketing Requires Behavior ChangeYour Business Will Take Off - I Guarantee itMake them a oneconditional guaranteeStop Trying To Be Better Than the Competition5 Questions You Should Ask Every CustomerPowered by Contextual Related Posts Like this post? Share it with others
• Are You Delivering Happiness? 7 June, 2010, 8:27 am
  Are You Delivering Happiness?This content from: Duct Tape Marketing Marketing podcast with Tony Hsieh (Click to play or right click and “Save As” to download – Subscribe now via iTunes My guest for today’s episode of the Duct Tape Marketing podcast is Tony Hsieh, CEO of the billion dollar company Zappos. Tony describes Zappos as a service company that happens to sell shoes online. Extreme customer service was not the big master plan. In Hseih’s new book,Delivering Happiness, he chronicles what he terms the mistakes he made along the way in an effort to help other entrepreneurs avoid them. (They failed their way to 1.2 billion in sales) Hsieh cites his research into positive psychology or the science of happiness as one of the factors of success at Zappos. Changing the culture to being about making employees, vendors and customers happy became the Zappos brand. Building processes to deliver happiness at every touch point is hard to do. You have to build it at the core and let the people deliver who you are. Define the core values and make it something that get amplified everyday. Hire and fire based on the core values. You can find more about the book and Tony’s Happiness Movement at Delivering Happiness My question is when will there be a Zappos Airline? Related Posts:How Do You Resell Your EmployeesAre You an Active Business Blogger?Making Ideas HappenThe Referral Engine Launch Day Bonus5 Ways to Make Culture a Marketing StrategyPowered by Contextual Related Posts Like this post? Share it with others
• The Next Evolution in Office Printing 11 June, 2010, 4:15 am
  The Next Evolution in Office PrintingThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing I’ve been buying printers for twenty years or so (my first laser printer cost $2500 in 1990) and back in the day if you lost that disc full of printer driver files that came with your printer you were doomed to a day or so of trying to get your printer to work with your new computer. The driver technology, although much simpler and mostly downloadable online, has remained intact for most of those twenty years. This week HP announced what I think is an awesome advance called ePrint. Now you can connect an HP printer to the Internet, no computer required, and print to it from an e-mail capable device, from anywhere you happen to be. HP ePrint technology allows you to attach a document you wish to print to an e-mail message that you forward to a Web-connected printer using any device with an Internet connection. There is no printer driver to install. Instead the printer is assigned a unique e-mail address when you register it before first use. I know I would start my day at my home office and send a couple files to my office printer to be waiting when I got to the office and I can image hotels adopting this approach to make it easier for business centers to print from the room. Even in the office printing from a smart phone or iPad will be much easier too. The introduction of this technology comes with a host of web enabled all in one printers starting at $99 and other enhancements such as cloud file storage and an app store for various specialized printing solutions. For me, I’m just hoping I never have to download another printer driver again! Disclosure: Over the last few years HP has sponsored various programs on Duct Tape Marketing, but I’m not being paid to talk about this cool new technology. Related Posts:HP Introduces Small Business Marketing ToolsIn house and on demandHP To Acquire LogoWorksTurn Blah Advertising Into Referral AdvertisingWeekend Favs for August NinePowered by Contextual Related Posts Like this post? Share it with others
• Hire a Journalist 19 July, 2010, 4:20 am
  Hire a JournalistThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing I owe the idea in this post to a conversation I had with David Meerman Scott, author of The New Rules of Marketing and PR. Most every business these days is really a publishing business of some sort, whether they think that way or not. The need to produce lots and lots of educational content has become standard operating fare in today’s Internet search driven marketing world. But, publishing content in blog posts, ebooks and articles, while considered compulsory, is not the easiest thing to do for some. A smart move that businesses should consider these days is to hire a journalist, rather than a marketing person, to act as their primary content producer. If you think of your business as a publishing business, the need for journalists becomes obvious. An experienced journalist will usually look at content in the objective, source driven, and factual way they’ve been trained – precisely the way that marketing content must be viewed and communicated these days. An experienced journalist knows how to start with the kernel of an idea and develop an entire story quickly – another key success factor in more is more publishing business. An experienced journalist, particularly one that’s worked in your industry, may possess key contacts throughout your industry and with publications that cover your industry – making them much more than a content production machine. The good news, for you at least, is that there is a growing pool of very experienced journalists finding themselves without a publication to write for as traditional publishing operations downsize and go out of business, so now is a great time to snap one up, even if just for a few hours of work a week. Related Posts:The proper way to stalk a journalistCreate a Journalist Listening Station7 Steps to the Perfect Media InterviewThe proper way to stalk a journalist - video versionRight and Wrong of PR PitchesPowered by Contextual Related Posts Like this post? Share it with others
• Social Media Makes Email Even Stronger 6 July, 2010, 4:42 am
  Social Media Makes Email Even StrongerThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing Marketing podcast with Gail Goodman (Click to play or right click and “Save As” to download – Subscribe now via iTunes This week’s guest on the Duct Tape Marketing podcast is Gail Goodman, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of leading email marketing service provider Constant Contact. Over the last year or two email marketing has taken a back seat to social media in terms of buzz. However, during the recession, firms that had a solid relationship with an audience via email held a much stronger position. Email marketing still produces the highest ROI of any online marketing tactic. Commercial e-mail returned a whopping $43.62 for every dollar spent on it in 2009, according to the DMA’s just-released Power of Direct economic-impact study—an effort the trade organization publishes every year at its annual fall conference. A funny thing happened on the way to increased social media usage too. Instead of spelling the end to email, it actually caused an increase in the inbox. A great deal of social media activity still revolves around the email inbox. I frequently field questions from audiences about whether social media has replaced email and I think the answer is that social media and email play very well together and, in fact, email has only become more important. Social media makes email even stronger and, when used correctly, email can make your social media efforts even stronger. To that end, email service providers are looking for ways to help customers more fully integrate their social media usage with email marketing. Constant contact has added event marketing with plenty of social features and recently purchased Nutshell Mail a tool that brings a summary of your social network updates to your inbox in a single email on your schedule. I spent some time recently with ExactTarget, an enterprise email service provider. ExactTarget’s purchase of CoTweet, a social media monitoring and management tool is further sign of the growing integration of email and social. This trend will continue so while I’m a big fan of growing your friends and followers, get that email subscriber list built for the long term. Related Posts:Weekend Favs January Twenty ThreeWhat do your HTML emails really look like?Opt-In Email Deliverability ChecklistEmail Marketing Still a Great Small Business ToolConstant Contact Adds FeaturesPowered by Contextual Related Posts Like this post? Share it with others