The Grocery Stores Industry report, published annually by Barnes Reports, contains timely and accurate industry statistics, forecasts and demographics. The report features 2010 current and 2011 forecast estimates on the size of the industry (sales, establishments, employment) for the 47 largest world countries, such as Japan, China, India, Russia, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, UK, France, Germany, Italy and U.S.. The report also includes industry definition, 5-year historical trends on industry sales, establishments and employment and estimates on up to 10 sub-industries, including supermarkets, markets, grocers, convenience stores, delicatessens and chain stores.
I had the pleasure of hearing Barry Mike speak this week during my monthly IABC luncheon. Virtually everything he discussed was relevant to my line of work, and anyone who has a job in PR, marketing, IMC, social media — or any ther profession having to do with communication. Of all his pearls of wisdom, one really stuck with me. He said, “People need meaning. Everything communicates.”
How dead on is that statement? Clients and publics like to be in the loop, information is everything. Our days are filled with questions and searching for answers. “How’s the stock doing? Why is she wearing that? What is he NOT saying? You KNOW what they’re up to (wink, wink)!”
As a professional we should encourage our clients or organizations to tell their side of the story, as regular people, we should do the same. Some might disagree, maybe they don’t want to stick their neck out, or would rather the issue just went away — but the truth of the matter is, if you don’t tell your side of the story, somebody else will.
Look at Tiger Woods and Mark McGwire — hate to pick on those two — but they were mum on their issues for so long that the media, mistresses and Jose Canseco’s of the world told their story for them. I’m not saying one source is more credible than the other, but how much would it have meant to their brand AND their publics if they’d just spoke sooner.
Sometimes not saying anything is really saying a whole mouthful. In this day of social media, online news and the need for instant gratification, it’s almost impossible to control a message, but at least we can still speak our piece. If we don’t, someone else will, and they’ll probably mean it.
Over the last 7 months I’ve been very focused in my research on the dynamics of how B2B marketing is changing — particularly the increasing importance of developing buyer-centered marketing strategies and programs. (In fact, this week I’m speaking at a B2B Magazine event in London about new ways to drive B2B e-mail marketing programs based on behavioral/implicit factors, versus standard demographics.)
The broader evolution of B2B marketing has been accompanied by new challenges and opportunities, and in some cases these have driven the emergence of completely new marketing disciplines.
Content marketing is just such a discipline. Whereas marketing content has always been with us, I submit that modern content marketing is something altogether new — an evolutionary approach to engaging buyers with buying-stage-relevant information and a response to several rapidly-changing B2B marketing dynamics.
What has led to this emergence? And what are the implications for this new discipline?
There are a lot of moving pieces, and this post will detail some of the key dynamics. Yet it’s important to couch these dynamics in the macro environment of the shift in power from buyer to seller. You’ve probably heard me tell this story before: First, the Internet changed the nature of buyers’ access to information, which changed the nature of their relationship with B2B vendors. Second, this evolution led to a new Web 2.0 phase, where B2B buyers “… use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations,” as explained by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff in Groundswell. This shifted power away from vendors, toward buyers. Third, B2B marketing organizations — responding to this power shift — began fighting back — leveraging the same Groundswell approach and technologies to engage with buyers when and where the buyer now prefers, with information that is of relevance at that moment in time — which is where we are today.
Successful B2B marketing has become anticipatory and serendipitous, rather than forced and interruptive, and it focuses on the information needs of the buyer at each stage of his/her buying process, while being aware of the channels and peers buyers will turn to for insights and advice.
It is in this environment that the new discipline of content marketing has emerged.
How has marketing content changed, and what is content marketing?
Given this environment, your marketing content today must do much more than merely incite awareness or interest on the part of the buyer; rather, it must put the buyer at the center. C. Edward Brice, SVP of Worldwide Marketing for Lumension, commented on this in a recent interview on the Savvy B2B Marketing blog:
[C]ompanies have to engage differently with prospects. They have to stop focusing on the sales cycle and instead focus on the buying cycle. This ultimately means that companies need to understand prospects and customers to a greater extent, including how that individual wants to buy and what information they need at particular points in the buying cycle.
It is in this context that ‘content’ has taken on a new meaning. Content represents critical information, conveyed on specific topics, delivered via specific channels and in specific voices that align to specific phases of the buying cycle. What is interesting is that this type of interaction is what you might have once thought of as dialogue with the sales person — except in this context it is dialogue being managed by a marketer (and intermediated by the Groundswell community). Fortunately, the scope and sophistication of platforms now available to marketing organizations — particularly the coupling of CRM and marketing automation — enable us to power this pattern of mass one-to-one marketing in a scalable and efficient fashion … we just need engaging content … right?
So marketing content is no longer tactical; thus, ‘content marketing’ has emerged as a new strategic art in the battle to drive buyer-centric marketing. Content is no longer the static prose of taglines and brochures; rather, it is the connective tissue of a new era of ‘bottoms-up’ B2B marketing … and powers buyer dialogue.
For a specific definition, content marketing guru Joe Pulizzi (Twitter: @juntajoe) offers in this blog post: “Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.”
While content’s role has increased in importance with the emergence of content marketing, at the same time it has become a major challenge for many B2B marketers — especially when it comes to powering their marketing automation campaigns. In fact, in the recent “2010 E-mail Marketing Benchmark Report” from MarketingSherpa, content relevancy was named as the number-one challenge for e-mail marketers — especially B2B marketers. (See graphic below; used with permission.)
Source: MarketingSherpa; click to enlarge
What are the key dynamics shaping the new discipline of ‘content marketing?’
It’s clear that content marketing has emerged as both a major new opportunity and challenge for B2B marketers. So what does this mean for B2B marketing organizations, and how do they respond? To answer this question, I think it’s first important to dig into the specific dynamics that are shaping the current evolution of content marketing.
Based on my research, here’s what I believe is supported by current, defensible data and the opinions of thought leaders focused on this topic:
> Buyer education is increasingly self-directed and conducted online, via a variety of digital channels: This is the logical outcome of the evolution described above and was a key point of synthesis from my previous Propelling Brands post on how the B2B buyer is changing. In that post, I pointed to a growing body of research — mostly from Enquiro, author of The Buyersphere Project; MarketingSherpa, author of their annual B2B ‘Benchmarking Report; and analyst firm Forrester — indicating that the nature of B2B buyers is in fact shifting in this Web 2.0 environment. B2B buyers are more than ever preferring to conduct much of their buying process on their own, and “B2B buyers are increasingly turning to online sources, earlier in their process, to research purchases before ever calling a ‘live’ sales rep,” as I noted in that post. Essentially, buyer education is occurring via Internet-delivered content — on blogs, on Web sites, via social media and via traditional e-mail, but sans a sales person.
Since then I’ve continued to find data points that support this observation. Most recently, I was reviewing research by the Information Technology Services Marketing Association (ITSMA — which puts out some great studies — BTW). Their report, “How Customers Choose Solution Providers,” published this past September, looks at the nature of B2B buying decisions within IT organizations. According to this report, nearly two-thirds of buyers conduct their own research and then contact the vendor, not vice versa. (See graphic below; used with permission.)
Source: ITSMA; click to enlarge
> Purchase decisions incorporate more peer input than ever — increasingly accessed via digital means and led by the buyer: The Groundswell has had a two-part impact on how decisions are made. First, content and insights from peers are leveraged more than ever, and second, that collaborative decision-making process has become requisite for any major B2B purchase.
C. Edward Brice, cited above, commented on this in his Savvy B2B Marketing blog interview:
Today with the Internet and Web 2.0, friction is practically non-existent. Word of mouth flows freely. People are extremely informed because information is available anywhere. For example, according to TechTarget/Google research, the primary source of information about products and services is someone’s peers and colleagues. People place more trust in those sources than in the company itself.
This is echoed in the ITSMA buyer research. It shows that peer influence far outweighs other information sources, and social media increasingly represents merely another channel for accessing the insights of industry peers (also noted in the previous ITSMA chart ). (See graphic; used with permission.)
Source: ITSMA; click to enlarge
Gone are the days when a sales person, working with a single buyer, could solely influence a sale. Today, a vendor must contend with the ’savvy B2B buying unit,’ as I like to refer to it. This is evident in data from MarketingSherpa’s “2010 E-mail Marketing Benchmark Report.” No B2B purchase is made without the input of others, and the larger the purchase, the larger the group evaluating the decision. (See graphic; used with permission.)
Source: MarketingSherpa; click to enlarge
The ITSMA research also notes that B2B buyers increasingly leverage social media content as a virtual proxy for direct peer input, and it points out that a significant proportion of B2B buyers are actually leveraging this type of insight in their decision-making. (See graphic; used with permission.)
Source: ITSMA; click to enlarge
Meanwhile, the volume and proportion of user-generated content to the total Internet marketplace continues to grow. A year ago, eMarketer predicted that the number of US user-generated content creators would grow from 82.5 million in 2008 to 114.5 million in 2013, and that the proportion of total Internet users participating in user generated content would grow over that same period from 42.8% to 51.8%.
> Traditional media venues have lost their power and are declining in numbers: The indicators are everywhere that the Groundswell has had a tandem impact on traditional media outlets. If people are shifting where they consume buying-oriented information, and preferring to leverage new outlets and peer insights, then something’s got to give — and it has been traditional media for the last decade. A September report by UNITY: Journalists of Color noted that 35,885 journalism jobs had been lost over the previous 12 months (via the PDNPulse blog).
This trend has been dramatic in business and industry publications. American Business Media reported in December 2009, “Total b-to-b spending after the first three quarters of 2009 (tradeshows, print, digital) was $15.1 billion, reflecting a decline of 19.3% versus the same period in 2008.”
Given shrinking traditional venues, B2B marketers have subsequently been forced to figure out how — more than ever — they can ‘go direct’ to buyers. This was made clear in a recent report released by the Custom Publishing Council:
Marketers poured more money into branded content in 2009 than ever before … . [The study] showed that total spending on branded content was over $1.8 million per company … . Even allowing for the addition of new categories, 2009 spending was double that of 2008 and the highest amount since the CPC began conducting the survey in 2003.
The most significant data point in the CPC report was the increasing proportion of marketing dollars being spent on content being created directly by B2B vendor organizations. “Of the average overall marketing, advertising and communications budgets, branded content accounted for 32% of funds. This is the greatest ever proportion of overall funds dedicated to branded content. The previous high was in 2007, with 27%.” (See graphic; used with permission.)
Source: CPC; click to enlarge
This shift mirrors data MarketingProfs published about a year ago — when we were already beginning to see signs that B2B marketers were shifting their media mix to vendor-produced content. In the study, “B2B Marketing in 2009: Trends in Strategies and Spending,” corporate Web sites and e-mail — both vendor produced content — were expected to play an increasing role (with blogs trailing not that far behind). (See graphic; used with permission.)
Source: MarketingProfs; click to enlarge
We also have seen further evidence of this in MarketingProfs’ most recent study, “The State of Social Media Marketing,” that cites online content as the leading paid tactic B2B marketers are leveraging today. (See graphic; used with permission.)
Source: MarketingProfs; click to enlarge
> The new yardstick for content value is whether (and how) it provides a buyer with leverage to move his/her buying process forward — i.e., it must be measured more from the buyer’s needs than from the vendor’s needs: “Think of today’s marketing mantra as, ‘Tell, don’t sell,’” comment the folks at Media Logic in a blog post last September. “The key to successful lead generation in this market is engagement. If we can get our best prospects to converse with us, chances are we’ll be able to get them to identify themselves and move them to close.” This means meaningful content that makes the point of engaging buyers with the questions and issues the buyer has on his/her mind. (And — BTW — when you know the content a buyer is consuming you also have insight into where (s)he is in the buying process, which I’ll touch on below, and this helps you even better segment and target your content.)
This correlates to the data noted previously from the CPC. Their research shows the number one reason a company would engage in producing its own content is to ‘educate [potential] customers’ — cited by 54% of marketers as their primary purpose, and nearly twice the proportion of any other response.
Producing ‘good content’ thus means covering the full range of the buying process — not only syncing with buyers once they’ve raised their hands and indicated their interest, but also further upstream as they are framing up how they might approach their purchase. Chris Koch (Twitter: @ckochster) of ITSMA explained this in a post on his blog:
Marketers are engaging with buyers too late in the game. Long before they begin thinking about buying anything, customers are trying to sense the next issue or problem that they will face in their businesses. They are conducting research, looking for thought leadership, talking to people, and looking for examples that will help them clarify their next move. Marketers need to get involved at this stage–long before a buyer approaches them with an RFP.
These people are not leads. They are researchers looking for content. This requires that marketers become educators and facilitators, actively helping customers articulate a need they may not have known they had. Not until the buyer has identified a need and wishes to make a purchase can marketing move into lead generation mode.
Of course, many marketers do some form of demand generation today. But to take advantage of the epiphany phase, marketers take those efforts to a higher level.
Producing ‘good content’ also means covering the full range of buyers’ interests — i.e., every question they might have before engaging with a sales person. C. Edward Brice offered a thought-provoking insight into this reality in his Savvy B2B Marketing blog interview:
Competitive comparisons are some of the most heavily searched terms. Most companies didn’t grow up in the Web 2.0 world and because of that, competitive comparisons make them nervous. But buyers are searching for that content in their buying process. Either someone else gives it to them or you can. There’s a way to compare yourself to the competition in a professional manner, without disparaging those other options.
> Modern digital marketing and communication platforms enable us to connect the dots — so we can both target content delivered and observe buyer’s consumption of content in a one-to-one fashion: This is the last piece in the equation and the ‘qualitative’ dynamic among my other data-centric dynamics. It also is the new key to connecting content marketing to both efficient sales conversions and increased customer lifetime value. The other factors speak to changes in the world external to B2B marketers, but as I noted earlier, marketers are increasingly leveraging the same Groundswell technologies to connect the dots and succeed in the new era of Buyer 2.0.
To be clear, there is a critical symbiosis between marketing automation and content marketing. One cannot live without the other. “Marketers agree that ‘content is paramount’ to feeding the demand management process, for initial prospect acquisition and for nurturing buyers through the purchase process,” comments Laura Ramos of Forrester in the Silverpop-sponsored research paper, “How Managing Leads Pays Off In A Stronger, More Qualified Pipeline.” I also detailed this reality in a recent post on the Silverpop Demand Generation blog that examined, “Content: The Dirty Underbelly of B2B Marketing Automation.”
On the flip side, marketing automation platforms also allow us to keep track of content viewed and downloaded and map that back to a specific prospect and their ultimate purchase decision. Observing aggregated actions help us to identify the critical paths pursued by specific buyer personas — i.e., the common paths of engagement with our promotional resources — and this helps us to better tune the information we develop and the channels we leverage for delivering content marketing. “There is no substitute for studying buyer behavior in good B2B marketing,” also notes Ramos in her paper.
The results of behavioral data in response to content consumption are significant. They help us better score and route leads by understanding where a buyer is in the buying cycle: “By tracking a customer’s engagement with content, we actually have a very good idea of their position in the sales cycle,” comments Blake Hinkley in a post on the Marketing Lab blog. Hinckley refers to this as ‘passive profiling,’ and notes it is a better picture of a buyer than the information offered on registration forms.
The nuances of mapping content against the buying cycle — and using it to assess the maturity of a prospect in his/her buying cycle — also helps us rationalize choices about how we track and assess the use of content. For instance, when should you require registration to access your content? Michele Linn (Twitter: @michelelinn) tackled this in a post on the Savvy B2B Marketing blog, titled “Lose Control”: “My third ‘ah ha’ moment came this week when I read a fabulous post from Chris Koch that made the point that we should consider someone’s place in the buying cycle when deciding if we should require registration and determining how much information we need.”
How can B2B marketers be successful with content marketing?
I hope that my analysis of the dynamics that are shaping the direction of content marketing helps you get your head around this (r)evolution. At any rate, understanding these factors is helpful in understanding the advice that many out there are offering on smart content marketing strategies. There is so much more to cover, but I think the key is to be grounded in what is really going on — which is critical to making smart choices about your own strategies and tactics.
For next steps, I’d first recommend following some of the content marketing experts out there — i.e., the good ones. In addition to the thought leaders and research I’ve cited above, I also follow Ardath Albee (Twitter: @ardath421); Valeria Maltoni (Twitter: @conversationage); and Stephanie Tilton (Twitter: @stephanietilton). (And for more on ‘B2B marketing 2.0 luminaries to follow in 2010, check out this Propelling Brands post.) These are all smart people with great insights.
Second, I’ll follow up this post with another one (either here, on Demand Generation or on the MarketingProfs Daily Fix — or maybe all three — to be linked here). My follow-up post will provide some thoughts about how to get in the ‘content marketing mindset.’ So stay tuned …
What do you think?
Did I hit all of the major factors shaping the direction of content marketing? Please add your thoughts on what is driving this (r)evolution.
Berry Blue Haiku is a quarterly digital magazine focusing on haiku for kids of all ages. Each issue, will include contests, articles, lessons, as well as puzzles with haiku/senryu related-fun. The first issue will be published in June 2010.
They are open to all types of haiku: traditional with a seasonal word (kigo), modern, human haiku (often called senryu), or fun haiku.
They would also like to see articles on writing haiku/senryu; on their history; or on haiku masters such as Basho, Chiyo-ni, Issa, Shiki, and Buson, etc.
Nonfiction word length: Up to 5 years: 50 – 150 words
6-11 year olds: 150 – 500 words
12 and up: 500 – 1,000 words
Payment: Three favorite haiku will each receive $10.00, payable by PayPal ONLY.
Articles/lessons/crafts up to 500 words: $5.00
Articles/lessons/crafts over 500 words: $10.00
Rights: Non-Exclusive Worldwide Electronic Rights for one year from publication date.
Berry Blue Haiku Author Guidelines
Berry Blue Haiku Illustrator Guidelines
Click here to add Advice from a Caterpillar to your RSS reader.
Are you struggling to find a consistent marketing plan that feeds your spirit and authentically expresses who you are? I know the feeling; marketing is often the hardest part of our businesses but yet the most critical.
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In this free call I’ll share with you some of the major shifts in turning points that dramatically changed my marketing and increased my results. With only a few simple changes in both mindset and perspective I quickly began to grow my business and it happened rapidly.
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Comparative advertising can be a double edged sword, as Audi surely must have found out after putting up its outdoor work in Santa Monica last year. I was reminded of this ad work during a recent sweetgreen brainstorming session. Here is the press release about it:
Juggernaut Advertising, an independent advertising agency headquartered in Santa Monica, CA, has initiated a tactical outdoor marketing campaign on behalf of BMW of Santa Monica. The campaign is in response to Audi’s current billboards challenging BMW with the headline “Your move, BMW.”Juggernaut Advertising’s creative work features the BMW M3 with the headline “Checkmate.” and is positioned prominently within the same sightline to westbound traffic as the Audi ad. Juggernaut approached BMW of Santa Monica after identifying a unique and immediate geographical opportunity along the highly trafficked Santa Monica Blvd. corridor between Beverly Hills and Santa Monica.
“When we heard the idea, we loved it and couldn’t resist going forward,” says Del Montell, Jr. of Santa Monica BMW.
My favorite aspect of the work is that it was opportunistic and NOT done by BMW’s agency of record. It should also serve as a reminder of the power of smaller nimble ad agencies who are simply closer locally to the client and the customers. Check out a photo below.
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As more products essentially become commodities, service has become a viable means for increasing revenue and profit margins for companies in these industries. Use a service strategy to your advantage.
Big companies often struggle to develop great relationships with their customers. Too many levels of authority, employees unauthorized to make decisions, arbitrary policies preventing customer-facing employees from advocating for the customer, and limited access to direct customer feedback often handcuff the big guys from delivering great service and developing good relationships with their customers.
This spells opportunity for agile companies!
One of the reasons I enjoy working with small companies is knowing exactly who stands behind the company and its policies. This tends to build a more responsive organization and it’s good marketing. If your a small business, use your size to your advantage. Develop relationships with your customers and provide the best service possible. Develop a culture for customer service through training and service programs that empower your employees.
Great customer service can differentiate your business from others and improve your bottom line. Embrace a culture of customer service and develop relationships with clients that make them want to be your customer for life.
A solid lead generation strategy is a must have for any business.
If you want to generate more leads from your existing webpage there are millions of potential levers you can pull to increase lead flow. While a lead is a lead, it is always important to generate a quality lead.
Time and time again marketers are seeing huge gains by re-working their webpages to ensure their value proposition is consise. Want better leads? Make your landing pages more concise. Visitors don’t have time to figure out what you are offering.
Feel free to browse our other tips on lead generation in a segment we call “Lead Generation 101″.
This will help you integrate your marketing with the sales department.
Write copy to show what your product will do for the prospect
Focus on the customer. They buy benefits, not features. Talk about how they will feel when they buy your product
Make it easy for your prospect to respond
Give as many methods to respond that you can; email, fax, web registration, phone, mail with return postage paid envelope
Think campaign, not 1-shot
Frequency is important in mail. Research shows that if no connection has been made after a mailing, send a follow up piece 2-4 weeks after the initial piece. This will raise the response rate by 50%.
Research and test every year
If you have done the research, you have not done testing and vise versa. You have to do both to understand what your success is.
Develop measurement system to determine return on investment
Do not measure just on CPM (cost per 1000), CPC (cost per click), or CPI (cost per inquiry) instead use conversion to sales, cost per order, contribution to overhead/profit and lifetime value
Unless you are in high school, take the music off your iPod or iPhone and download the hours of educational podcasts on the iStore. You want to know about Social Media Marketing, it’s there. Do you want to know what a Harvard Professor thinks about the changes in consumers buying habits, it’s there and it doesn’t cost a dime! Log in to the iStore and go to the business category. Zig Ziglar even has a huge number of podcast s available that are yours to download for free.
This may not be earth shattering news to most of you, because you knew this information was available. The question isn’t whether you knew about it, the question is if you are using it! Knowledge is the difference between those that live the life they want and those that have to accept the life they have.
If you find that you are unhappy with your current employment or you simply need to find a way to make more cash, you don’t have to look any further than the Internet. Thankfully, this advanced technology has made it much easier for those individuals who want more. Working from your computer is now easy and you will find it can be quite profitable. The following are just a few incentives you will receive when you become an affiliate marketing associate:
Work At Your Own Home
Perhaps the best thing about becoming an affiliate marketing associate is that you get to do the work from your own home. If still working a fulltime job outside the home, this means less time away from your family and you won’t feel as if you are depriving yourself from quality time. While it can often be difficult to work at home fulltime, you will find that it is much more pleasant to work for yourself than for someone who may not appreciate you as much as they should.
Work At Your Own Pace
Another incentive to work from home as an affiliate is that you get to work at your own pace. Whether you want to work just a few hours a week or you want to make it a fulltime career, you have the option to do so. No one is going to be standing over your shoulder watching what you do and making sure you are putting in the hours. You are the boss and the pace you choose to set is your decision alone.
You Get To Choose What You Sell
Another great aspect of becoming an affiliate marketing associate is that you get to choose what you sell. Just because you become an affiliate in a business does not mean you have to market all of their products. You get to pick what you want to advertise and, as long as you follow their particular guidelines in advertising, you will not have any issues with that business.
The reasons to become an affiliate are many. You will find there are a variety of opportunities for you to make the extra money you need or even make it a fulltime career for yourself. Not only will you find the work to be fulfilling, you’ll find it can be quite profitable, as well.
Visit http://www.onlinebusinessauthority.info and check out the site. I want you to prove to yourself that you are not just a talker and are genuinely driven to earn money online. You’ll find a special surprise for you at http://www.onlinebusinessauthority.info which will turbocharge your online earnings.
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I realize I think differently from others. This fact became clearer to me this week when discussing writing-related topics with another writer. The conversation centered around my OWP (other writing persona). And the conversation turned to the topics of publicity, promotion and marketing.
The way I see it. There are many ways to market yourself as a writer. And Bria Quinlan (an awesome person and someone I consider a friend) had a post about the Writing Career Mindset last week. That post plus the conversation with Author X I realized that my writer mindset, demeanor, attitude was different than others. And realistically, I knew that but this was a “ah ha moment” so to speak.
Anyway, during the conversation with Author X the topics of “waiting” and “success” came up. Specifically, waiting until they were famous/successful to do something. Whether it be building and maintaining a blog or website, joining twitter, donating a free story, putting up a serial read on their website, submitting a story to a charity anthology where all royalties go to a specific charity.
And it got me to thinking, which my dad has told me is a dangerous thing. Why wait?
Why wait for some mystical point where “success” is bestowed upon you? Who defines if you are a successful? How will I know when I am a success? Will I know it if I see it, get to that point?
Isn’t it about reputation, building a reader base, building a name for yourself as an author, getting your name out there?
There are plenty of reason to wait. And I know how real life can get in the way, stop you, make you pause. I’ve been dealing with real life for a while now. And sometimes real life sucks. But one thing what I’ve had to deal with, am going through right now in my personal life, has taught me is to why wait.
If I waited for some magical “ok you can do it now” then I wouldn’t do anything. My thinking is do it now because if I waited I would still be stuck in the same place I was. I don’t like being stuck. I prefer to move forward. It is me who defines successful for myself not someone else, not something else. And I will admit for years the thing that was holding me back the most was me.
In many ways I am more successful as a writer than I was last year. I have more focus, a better attitude and a better mindset. I have defined, realistic and smart goals. I know where I want to go with my writing, what I want to accomplish and how. I have a career business plan.
And I do make a small bit of money with OWP. I have sold short stories, novellas and poetry. I have even self published a book of poetry. To some just the act of selling is a success. For others it’s submitting (a story). And for others still it’s a numbers game either monetary or quantity books sold to readers.
Success if a personal thing. Each person has to define it for themselves. Would I meet other’s standards? Probably not. Do I care? No. And that is another kind of success right there. Not letting others perception of me, hinder me.
But it goes back to - why wait? What are you waiting for? What is your definition of success?
While affiliate marketing can be one of the easiest businesses to get started, as well as one with low start up costs, it is often more difficult to make a success with it. The reasons are many. However, with a little time and patience, you can learn how to not fail at your affiliate home business.
First of all, an affiliate home business takes time to become successful. One of the reasons that you can fail with your business is to give up on it too soon. We all wish we could become a success overnight, but it is rare for that to happen. Instead, sit down and set some goals for your business and keep them realistic.
Another great downfall is to consider this as a hobby. You should realize that this is an actual business and it must be treated as such. If not, you are not going to put the required time in it to make it work for you. Instead, you’ll end up earning pocket change when you could be earning a fulltime income.
Those who are new to the business must also take the time to continue their learning. While the concept of this business is a relatively easy one to understand, there is much more to learn. Take some online classes on some of the various marketing techniques and learn how to implement them in your business. Those who don’t spend time learning more about the business will find themselves unable to reach the goals they have set for themselves.
As long as you continue to learn, treat your affiliate home business as a business, and give it the time it needs to succeed, your business has a great chance of succeeding. Make sure you choose your products wisely and understand that you need to spend enough time on your marketing and you may actually be astonished at the results you get.
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Marketing a product or service can be confusing. I know. I’m a marketing consultant.
I am constantly amazed how many prospective customers I talk to are confused about how they should market their business. While marketing may seem easy, it’s actually complicated.
The confusion starts with the definition of marketing. Various professionals in the industry will insist marketing is that part of your business plan that involves getting your product to the market on a continuous basis. Supply meeting the demand. Others argue it’s selling your product or service. Some say it’s advertising your business.
See where the uncertainty comes in?
Marketing is your brand and all the nuances of developing and building that perception, maintaining it, and living up to the standards it implies. Advertising is part of marketing. Public, shareholder, and media relations are part of marketing. Customer service is part of marketing. You, your employees, and your customers are instrumental in marketing your business. That’s why the most effective method of marketing your business is by word of mouth.
There is confusion spawned by the “marketing professionals” who call on business owners and insist that advertising on the radio station they represent is essential to growing their client base. Their station is “Number one in the market.” The TV station they represent has the top-rated evening news program in the market. Your customers will be unable to find you if you place less than a full-page ad in the telephone directory they represent. These sales representatives are honest. Their radio station may be #1 in the market for the teenage market listening to hard rock. Their TV station may be the only station broadcasting their evening news at 10, 9 central. Their phone directory may require a full-page ad because the only one they print is the small, portable version for your car.
Marketing is everything about your business, from you and your passion for what you’re doing to how your customers feel when they have your product in their hand or after they’ve received the benefits of the service you provided them. Plus the full spectrum of what’s between those ends.
You can change how you reach your customers and get your message through to them. I’d like to show you how you can market your business, effectively, employing word of mouth strategies in advertising and every other aspect of marketing your products and services. I’m happy to share my years of experience demonstrating that you can change the way you advertise your business … and get a return on your investment.
When traditional employment is not right for you, you may find yourself frustrated by the options. What you may not realize, however, is that there are many options for you right at home. The Internet has made it possible for many individuals to seek out opportunities in working at home and you will find that many of these jobs are quite simple to get started. The following are just a few ways that you can get started in home computer jobs:
Data Entry Services
With advanced typing skills, you can provide your data entry services to a wide variety of business. In fact, many individuals often have home computer jobs in this area and make fulltime pay working part time hours. All you need to do to get started is start applying for some of the various data entry jobs you can find online in some of the job boards. However, beware of the businesses who want you to pay a fee to get started. Many of these are scams who are simply trying to take your money.
Affiliate Marketing
Another great way to get started in home computer jobs is with affiliate marketing. While you will spend the largest portion of your time advertising different products, you will find that it doesn’t cost anything to get started and you will earn a commission on anything that sells from your advertisement on the Internet. While you do not need your own website, you will find that it would be beneficial to your sales.
Freelancing
Whether you are a writer or a photographer, you will find there are many different freelancing opportunities online. With some of these websites, you just have to be accepted as a member, after showing them the work you can produce. Once you are accepted, you just need to upload the work you have available to sell. Keep in mind, it’s always a great idea to do some marketing on your work so that others will know where to find your services.
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It has recently become very evident that I will have little free time this quarter. Between working on my core classes and my recently invigorated summer internship search, this might be my busiest quarter of the year. I guess for the benefit of my MBA degree, the Bengals lost in the playoffs yesterday to the NY Jets. There is no doubt that with my team out of the playoffs, I will now have significantly more time available each week. Gone are the days of spending endless hours on espn.com to get the most up-to-date information on my team, gone are the Sundays of spending four hours watching the game and then several additional hours either too happy or depressed to do any work.
I was actually at the Bengals game this Sunday with my dad and brothers. The 1 degree wind chill was not nearly as bad as losing. I’m still upset about the loss, but eventually I will adapt to life without football. Hopefully I do this sooner rather than later, especially since I have an important phone interview with a recruiter from Cardinal Health on Tuesday. I will be speaking with her about their summer marketing internship and hopefully I can make a positive impression.
-Joseph
republished from https://fisher.osu.edu/blogs/gradlife/author/fahrendorf_3/
Are you wondering what it takes to get your own online business up and running? While there are a lot of Internet businesses, if everyone knew how easy it was, there could be a lot more. The fact is, starting your own business on the Internet is one of the easiest businesses to get started. This, of course, doesn’t mean that it takes a lot of hard work and a lot of varying skills, but it is often easier to get a business started up on the Internet than it is to get a traditional one started.
If you are going to start an online business to sell products, there are many things you can do to get your business off to a smooth start. First, you need to decide whether or not you are going to create your website or hire someone to do it for you. If you are unsure of html and web design, a professional will be able to set up a site for you that will suit all of your needs. Another thing to consider with your website is using a merchant account in order for you to collect payments on orders, as well as some type of software to help with your inventory.
Of course, you must determine where you are going to get the products to sell, as well. If you do not own a product of your own, you will find many places to secure products. Those who have the money to invest in a product may want to work with product wholesalers. This will allow you to purchase the product at wholesale and choose the price you are going to sell them. However, if you don’t have the money to invest, you may want to choose to go through a drop shipping company or become an affiliate associate to another company. Each will allow you to sell their products and you will earn a commission.
The most difficult aspect of starting your own online business is giving it the time to become successful. Success is not going to happen for you as quick as you might think. Every business takes time to start earning money. If you are willing to put the time into it, you will be sure to find that running your own business on the Internet is not only fulfilling, but profitable, as well.
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This is a direct quote from Henry Ford’s, My Life and Work (now out of copyright). This shows his remarkable thought process on marketing and price based costing. You do not determine what your costs are and then determine the price (like tacking on a margin). You find what the market will buy for different price points and produce the units at costs that are profitable.
Our policy is to reduce the price, extend the operations, and improve
the article. You will notice that the reduction of price comes first. We
have never considered any costs as fixed. Therefore we first reduce the
price to a point where we believe more sales will result. Then we go
ahead and try to make the price. We do not bother about the costs. The
new price forces the costs down. The more usual way is to take the costs
and then determine the price, and although that method may be scientific
in the narrow sense, it is not scientific in the broad sense, because
what earthly use is it to know the cost if it tells you you cannot
manufacture at a price at which the article can be sold? But more to the
point is the fact that, although one may calculate what a cost is, and
of course all of our costs are carefully calculated, no one knows what a
cost ought to be. One of the ways of discovering what a cost ought to be
is to name a price so low as to force everybody in the place to the
highest point of efficiency. The low price makes everybody dig for
profits. We make more discoveries concerning manufacturing and selling
under this forced method than by any method of leisurely investigation.
When doing interrnet business secret to attainment has always been how to generate traffic. Not only directing traffic, but also making sure that the traffic is targeted. I should prefer to witnessed people spend a ration of money and mores in website rise without success and hence the reason for this article. The trivial you anger it right in inteernet marketing then makking means online will be a frequent a leave in the park.
Social networking websites like Ning, Yuwie, Tagged and the have turned people into overnight millionaires. We human beinngs are social creatures each looking to interact with other people. Online business owners have taaken advantage this aspect to make available their house links these public networking sites.
One feature of marketing on these popular networking sites is be conscientious not to annoy other users. The prudent fear to do is to post your vocation links after a certain period of time sooner than doing it very single minnute. By posting business link every minute people will start asssuming that your vinculum is a spam. When sending messages your connections, it is intelligent to first introduce yourself in front of talking about task programs.
Creating a accord with your connections on networking websites increases the chances of them reading your messages. To get less ill responses join groups where you have common interests and share your affair ideas. The same attitude should also apply here, introduce yourself to the dispose first, charter out them remember you are and then tell them what you do. In withal, online business groups guarantee you connection to a specific people.
There are different internet marketing strategiies but one that currently stands out online networking.
To begin with, attraction marketing is a way of selling, however one that offers more personalized approach in such way as to build trust from the possible buyer, investor, or business owner. While old-style marketing technique, sales agents are constant and ever selling to the possible buyer, attraction marketing enable the buyer to come into the sale on their own. This is the most successful method in my opinion.
How attraction marketing works? This is simply because it overcomes the forced sale and enables the prospect to want to buy. For an instance, your favorite store at the mall, in most case they have the size and style you are looking for. They have enough stocks, clean, well light and comfortable to be in. There are also service personnel available to help but they are not helping you t overcome your objections to styles or sizes. You can select what works for you. How this thing works? Even if you do not buy from the store today, chances are good experience was a positive one. Because of this, you will go back in their store next time.
The difference of this from old-style selling is that attraction marketing concentrates on creating a customer who will come back. There are definitely lots of people who do like buying and are willing to do so, but they don’t want to feel pressured into a sale.
So, how to fit in? Yes this is a god plan, but how do you get attraction marketing to work for you? You can find lots of answer to this question online as well as learning what you have to offer them.
Article writing: This will help people searching for your product or service to find it easily online.
Video: You can use this for demonstration or for teaching something.
Creating blog and network: This is to build loyal base readers who trust you and are willing to buy from you since they trusted you.
Squidoo: use this site and alike to help you get links from people who are already interested in the subject.
Social networking tools: This will help people to find you and get to know you.
Of course, you also need to be interesting, distinctive, and even unpredictable. You should stand out in a crowd so that prospects can find you and will learn to trust in what you say.
So, if you’re the type of person who’s not into selling, this type of marketing method is the one you should try. –Aymen of Arbitrage Conspiracy
Now that most of the holiday decorations have been put away, and tomorrow, many of you will be going back to work after a short winter break, I thought it might be interesting to look at two very similar, yet very different holidays cards I received this December.
You see, although I am in love with Emerson College I did not start my college career there (I ended up at Emerson almost by accident, different story for a different day.) My first few semesters after high school were spent at the small rural school in New Hampshire. Although I left this school, I somehow never left their mailing list and still receive mail from them quite often.
The mailings I get from my old school, and Emerson typically do not coincide… however this december I got a holiday card from both. Boy, are they drastically different. Lets critique each.
Emerson College’s Holiday Card
The front of the card could use some work, but overall its good. I personally would have chosen a different photo. In my opinion the photo on Emerson’s card is busy and highlights skating in the Boston Common… which Emerson has nothing to do with. I don’t even think many Emerson students go skating on the Common, I like skating, I live in Beacon Hill & go to Emerson and
I have never even gone skating on the Common!
The inside of the card is nice with a message from Emerson’s President Jackie Liebergott.
Overall, I’d say this card is quite nice. It is to the point and features a nice seriffed font that conjures up a holiday feel.
New England College’s Card
Although you can not see it in this photo, the image on the front of the card from New England College is distorted. It looks as if they took a 75dpi imagine and blew it up far too large.
There is no branding on the front of the card at all, the only hint that it is from New England College is the fact that this is one of their buildings hiding behind a snow-covered tree.
The inside of the card is really where New England College fails with their holiday card. The text, as you can see here, is just a plea for money. Not ONLY is it a plea for money but they make the assumption that NEC is in my thoughts this holiday season. Sorry, but during the holidays I am thinking about my family and friends, not about the school that I transfered away from.
They continue to sign the card in inconsistent signatures, and include a P.S. about how my gift will be tax deductible.
This card might as well be that one friend who only calls you when they need a favor that they will never return.
The Bottom Line Is…
Know your audience and known what is appropriate. Don’t just send out mailings asking everyone for donations. I think its safe to say that hardly anyone under the age of 25, especially students, are going to donate to a private college.
Remember your timing! Students and parents are about to shell out another huge sum of money for the spring semester! Do you really think they want to make a “donation” right now?
If you are going to beg for money, do not go begging students and parents around the holidays. Its poor timing!
Emerson’s card is a great example of what a holiday card should be. Its pretty much on-brand, and to the point. You want to wish families, students and friends of the college a happy holiday season.
Before sending out something like this, thing who you are sending it to and what the message will mean to them.
It’s easy to get caught up in the brilliant stories of startups going viral to gain awareness, and the simplicity and usability of certain websites turning into large revenue streams. How cool the actual product is, the fact that the founders just built it and the rest just happened. This is the veritable entrepreneurial myth.
Here’s a few things to think about:
How many sales and business development people do you think Google has? Answer = around 5000. And we all thought their non human automated adwords system did it all.
What investment has Twitter made in Public Relations? You think Oprah and Obama just happened upon it? No they were pitched to heavily with a large investment in leading PR firms.
How many Youtube videos were posted by company created accounts? Answer = Hundreds of thousands.
Who seeds the quirky auction items on ebay? Answer = ebay started the game very early on and let the media know.
Everything is not as it seems. Push marketing is alive wand well, just the tactics have changed. It feels very organic and community driven, but the often the community is created by it’s founders and leaders. Nothing wrong with that, it is the job of entrepreneurs to invent said communities. But it makes for better business articles to talk of such things occurring naturally, so the real story is rarely told.
The question for startups is – what tactics can we employ to garner the same momentum?
Extremely sad and shocked at the increase of the price of HBR from Rs.500 to Rs.750! Not sure why this suddenly increase in price. Is it cos of the new design or because it is a double issue or it is New Year?
What is the point in making the new design more accessible to reading when you are making the magazine less accessible for people to buy?
As long as the price was at Rs.500 I used to eagerly wait for the magazine to come out. Cos Rs.500 for me was an opportunity cost in financial planning. Rs.500 was a sacrifice I made for a movie outing with my finance. I used to think – even if I missed a movie with her, that’s fine! I get to read HBR management stuff. She understood.
Now, I can’t give her that reason. I can’t tell her that I sacrificed my time with her for a book which cost Rs.750.
What about the rest of us? What about new managers climbing the corporate ladder who may not have big salary but have big dreams and want to learn management ideas and thoughts from icons of HBR but cant because of the increase in price. Others may get access to HBR cos their HR would be good enough to buy it for them in office. Student’s studying MBA may get access to it from the coll library.
So what happens to the rest of us? Are we to be denied the pleasure of reading HBR?
The Entrepreneur (India edition) is Rs.100. that makes sense. That makes big sense to buy. And the content is good. Not as classy as HBR but good nonetheless.
So here is my big question: Why on earth did you guys raise the price back to Rs. 750?
If you are charging HBR print edition so much, why not give free online access to your articles and archives?
You know what is even more sad? Me not buying HBR won’t make any difference to you. It won’t cause a dent in your brand, sales or the policy you follow.
But hopefully there ought to be more ppl like me out there who will read this blog, nod their head and voice out their concerns as well… That may probably be a wake up call for you guys to rethink your pricing strategy in India.
As we wind down 2009, I have had a few moments to think about where we are going with this whole enterprise social media, online communities, social marketing, etc. So, here are some “true-isms” for 2010:
1. Marketing via Social Media is becoming mainstream. Most of it is ad hoc and mediocre, but there are some notable exceptions and that list is growing. Finding less people saying “why” and more people saying “how”.
2. Innovators are starting to change the rules. When you see a market disruption, the early indicators are the ability to gain market share at low cost by disrupting the status quo. Doesn’t mean that twitter is your end all strategy, but you are finding companies that are leveraging multiple web 2.0, social, community applications to streamline the way they do business; either gaining new customers or efficiencies in servicing the ones that they have.
3. Customer Experience is becoming transparent – if your service sux or is barely mediocre, you need to be concerned. Social media is optimized better that static websites. This means the ANGRY blogger who writes a scathing review of their poor customer experience will get ranked higher than all of the money you just spent on broadcasting to the market.
4. Social Marketing is a “downhill” spend versus some alternative marketing channels that are “uphill” – Means that you get the snowball effect from a $1 spent in social marketing because you get the target audience, influencers, and search benefits. Alternatively, if you are having to spend dollars at trade shows, etc. you have to spend to counter the social marketing of your competitors, it is to a limited audience, and it is gone once you spend it.
5. Social Marketing doesn’t work if you apply a traditional marketing approach to the social networks. You cannot just message and broadcast your advertising or PR messaging on social networks and expect people to engage. The analogy is word-of-mouth marketing in the offline world. Do you hire a street team and then have them drive up and down the block with speakers blanketing the neighborhood with a speech? You laugh at the analogy, but that is exactly what many “interactive” major brands are doing online.
6. Social Media, Marketing, etc will extend from the public networks into the enterprise. We are having conversations with partners and CIOs around business intelligence, lead generation and tracking, customer experience management, enterprise application integration into internal communities, information architecture, employee engagement, organizational productivity gains, integration of external and internal communities, contact center integration, supply chain enabled applications, business process integration, corporate governance and compliance, MBOs, cross-functional alignment, ROI, etc.
7. Social Media is following the same path into the organization that the original “website” did… in the process became web applications, processes, ecommerce, etc. The original web solved a problem for people in aggregating and distributing information. Social Media solves the opposite problem in that it helps people with context and filtering.
8. The “Social Enterprise” is growing up. The last three years have seen pockets of cottage industry level “consultants”… but, everyone claimed to be a social media consultant. Saw the same thing in mid-90’s as everyone was a web consultant, but the difference by the end of the decade was that the real consultants figured out how to map back to business strategy and tie the web to business objectives, ROI, and core business issues. The real consultants figured out that they needed standardized, repeatable methodologies that were scalable across the enterprise (and enterprises) and transferable to their clients. The applications they developed focused on “big” problems and the size required sophistication and strategic understanding. 2010 will be the breakout year for many consulting organizations as they move from tactical point applications to enterprise solutions.
9. Organizations that have embraced the new collaborative economy and all of the challenges and opportunities in 2010 will face hurdles in converting to the social enterprise, but the smart ones will understand that the risks are too high. Smaller companies, non market leaders are looking for an edge or opening to exploit and grab market share or enter new markets. In a down economy, you have to leverage what you have better. The larger companies that cannot adjust can find that market share is a trailing indicator of performance (how we did) versus social media which is a leading indicator (what people think).
10. From 1989 to 1999, 62 of the top 100 companies on the Fortune 100 list changed. 62 came off and 62 new ones entered the list. If you think about it, 62 of the top, most respected market leaders got caught from behind and eclipsed in one decade with the selective use of a new technology and widespread business process reengineering. 62 of those CEOs and other executives probably said, “web?”, not going to affect our business. I wonder how many of them retired early…. I wonder how many of the top companies and executives will still be on the list in 2020…
Are you struggling to find a consistent marketing plan that feeds your spirit and authentically expresses who you are? I know the feeling; marketing is often the hardest part of our businesses but yet the most critical. 
The front of the card could use some work, but overall its good. I personally would have chosen a different photo. In my opinion the photo on Emerson’s card is busy and highlights skating in the Boston Common… which Emerson has nothing to do with. I don’t even think many Emerson students go skating on the Common, I like skating, I live in Beacon Hill & go to Emerson and
I have never even gone skating on the Common!
Although you can not see it in this photo, the image on the front of the card from New England College is distorted. It looks as if they took a 75dpi imagine and blew it up far too large. 
The inside of the card is really where New England College fails with their holiday card. The text, as you can see here, is just a plea for money. Not ONLY is it a plea for money but they make the assumption that NEC is in my thoughts this holiday season. Sorry, but during the holidays I am thinking about my family and friends, not about the school that I transfered away from.