Do It! Marketing Blog: Marketing for Smart People™

Just came across this Facebook post from someone who shall remain nameless to protect the self-absorbed.

On the surface, this will look innocent enough. 

But a treacherous marketing gaffe lies in wait... 

Another victim is about to fall prey to the Social Media disease known as... 

[Drum roll]...

Social Me... 

Check it out and let's discuss... 

While I really value having connections on Facebook, I'm noticing that I'm not as active on my personal page and decided that focusing on my Public page will be the best use of my time and allow me to really connect more with people. So I am in the process of deactivating this page - if you haven't already, please 'like' my community page so we can still connect there: [link]

What's wrong with this picture?

Let's color-code it and you'll see how NOT to confuse "Social Me" with "Social Media"...

While I really value having connections on Facebook, I'm noticing that I'm not as active on my personal page and decided that focusing on my Public page will be the best use of my time and allow me to really connect more with people. So I am in the process of deactivating this page - if you haven't already, please 'like' my community page so we can still connect there: [link]

If you were keeping score, you noticed that there were 10 - TEN! - mentions of "I, Me, My" in this two-sentence post. 

One of the games I like to play with my marketing coaching clients is to take ANY piece of copy - a sales letter, a web page, a prospecting email - and totally REMOVE ALL "I, Me, My" language and translate it 100% into YOU and YOUR language, which is much more compelling to most of your prospects, readers, and fans. 

Here goes... 

The level of activity on this page has diminished so that the value you're getting is not at the level you deserve. Please click over to this new page [link] where you can tap into a much more active community, ask your questions, take part in value-rich discussions, get the answers you need PLUS you'll get access to valuable downloads, resources, and tools. See you on the other side!

Social Media... 

Did you notice the new score? 

Let's turn on the colors again and see how you did...

The level of activity on this page has diminished so that the value you're getting is not at the level you deserve. Please click over to this new page [link] where you can tap into a much more active community, ask your questions, take part in value-rich discussions, get the answers you need PLUS you'll get access to valuable downloads, resources, and tools. See you on the other side!

Old score (Social Me): 0-10. You lose! 

New score (Social Media): 7-0. You win!

What do you think? Please use the COMMENTS area below to share your advice, insights and recommendations when it comes to Social Media vs. Social Me... 

And then leave a comment below with your questions, thoughts, and advice on the ideas above.

Are you a DO IT freak? Welcome to the club!! Please use the social media buttons at the top of this post to share it with your network. YOU are a rock star!

When it comes to marketing, there are four things that you need to focus on, four levels if you will.

The four levels of marketing are:

• Strategy
• Tactics
• Initiatives
• Action steps

When you go to a conference, when you ask your mastermind group for help, even when you start searching the web for answers and resources to grow your business, the number one source of overwhelm is when you've heard a whole bunch of strategies, a whole bunch of tactics, a whole bunch of initiatives, a whole bunch of actions steps and you don’t know the difference.

There are three reasons why this short-circuits your brain:

1. You can't do them all
2. You can't even prioritize or figure out how to start to think about them
3. You can't distinguish which is which and why or how it might work for your particular business

A strategy is a big picture area of your business. It could be a marketing-focused strategy. It could be a sales-focused strategy. It could be a financial strategy.

Let’s say you come across someone who tells you Twitter is an amazing marketing platform and you’re really missing out if your business is not on Twitter. He's using it and it fits his business beautifully, and you respect this person and you admire their successful business.

And now you’re thinking, "Oh man, it's all about Twitter, Twitter, Twitter."

"If this guy built his business on Twitter, I can probably build my business on Twitter."

Well, let's back up and analyze that as far as the four levels of marketing.

Internet marketing is the strategy. In other words, Internet marketing is the big giant umbrella over Twitter.

The tactic under that would be social media. There's a lot going on via the internet, folks, that's not social media.

For example, Search engine optimization, your website, the structure of your web presence, blogging, email marketing, dozens of internet marketing strategies. Social media happens to be one bucket under that, so social media is the tactic.

An initiative would be "I'm going to start using Twitter."

This is level three now. I'm going to start using Twitter. I'm going to start understanding it. I might read a book. I might go to some websites, I’m going to grab a copy of Twitter 101 or Using Twitter for Business, all those fabulous resources that are out there for free.

Now, the action step - here's level four, the action step always takes the form of verb, noun, date.

• Set up my Twitter account by Wednesday
• Load my first 30 tweets in Hootsuite by Friday
• Find 100 influential people to follow in my industry by next Monday

Those are action steps.

And the action step can also go on your calendar.

So it really takes it down to "What are you doing today?" What's on your priority to-do list today?

Your to-do list could be 50 things, but what are your top three most important things that you need to do based on the strategies you've selected, based on the tactics that you’ve chosen, based on the initiatives that you've designed, what are the action steps to put on your calendar and get it done?

So let’s follow this through with a complete example -- let's say you're in the insurance business.

You're selling into the insurance marketplace, insurance companies and insurance agents, general agents, insurance associations, insurance publications, and you’re looking to become a dominant resource in that world.

Your action step would be "I want to follow 300 insurance industry folks on Twitter by March 1."

Does that fit into an initiative? Yes. The initiative is aggressively grow my Twitter following targeted to the insurance industry.

Does that fit into a tactic? Yes, it does. It fits into the social media set of tactics.

Does that fall under a strategy that you decided to use? Yes, it falls under your internet marketing strategy.

So right there, just unpacking those four levels, you've gotten some insights through which you can start to filter and sort all of your old ideas, old notes, all of those conference sessions that you may have gone to, all of those tactics and tools and light bulb moments, all those nuggets and sound bites that you may have swirling around in your head or on your “someday, maybe list.”

If you start to sort them in to these four levels; strategy, tactic, initiative and action step – you’ll get a much clearer blueprint for ALL your marketing going forward this month, next month and next year.

Marketing 1.0

Cajole convince persuade chase sell beat up interrupt intrude close close again stalk give up

No wonder you're exhausted...

Marketing 2.0

Solve answer enlighten equip fix listen nurture connect engage attract entice invite buy

So much better... 

Here are two visual reminders for you.

Please share them, post them, pin them - and most of all, remember to USE them as daily reminders for how YOU engage your own prospects, customers and clients.

Tags: Marketing for speakers, marketing for authors, marketing coach, Marketing 1.0, Marketing 2.0

Thoughts? Ideas? Recommendations? Please use the COMMENTS area below and let's hear from YOU...  

Guest post by David Pierce

One of the keys to any productivity system is to actually put things into the system. Who knew?

Obvious though it may seem, many of us have trouble taking the time to enter our thoughts into our task-manager, to-do list, or organizational system.

This can happen for any number of reasons – no paper nearby, no easy way to record your ideas – but our productivity can be hurt by not inputting everything into our system so we can deal with it properly.

What should live on paper lives in our brain, and then proceeds to be forgotten and left alone. That’s a surefire road to getting yourself in trouble- or at least forgetting leaky faucets.

There’s a simple, quick solution to this problem, though – it’s called a mind dump.

A mind dump is simply a way for you to get everything out of your head and onto paper. Our brains aren’t made to remember things forever, but paper is; with an empty brain, we’re able to either focus on new things or deal with the task at hand, instead of constantly dwelling on past things taking up valuable bandwidth.

Executing a mind dump is simple: take out a pen and a paper, or fire up a new document on your computer. Then, write down everything that comes to your mind. There is no step three.

Anything and everything is fair game: what you have to do, what you’re thinking about, hopes, dreams, goals, and whatever else comes into your mind. Set a time limit – say, 20 minutes – and everything that enters your brain immediately must exit your brain and go onto your paper.

Once you’re done, you can begin to take action on the items you’ve written. On what do you need to take action? What do you need to deal with, follow up about, or file somewhere?

Things that don’t need to be further dealt with? Just get rid of them. Make sure you don’t need to think about them ever again, and be done with them.

There’s no set way for doing the best mind dump possible. The point is to reset your brain, update your productivity system, and put onto paper all the things that have been taking up the valuable (and limited) space in your brain.

Many people use “triggers” to make their mind dumps easier – a set of key words or phrases that set your mind on a particular aspect of your life, in order to let you focus on items related to it. 43 Folders has a long list of these triggers, everything from “Phone calls,” to “Furniture”, to “Weddings.”

Some people, GTD followers in particular, do a mind dump before their Weekly Review, as part of figuring out what the week ahead has in store. Others, like myself, do it once a week or so – whenever I have 20 minutes to spare. I recommend doing it at least once a week – it has a tendency to get long and unweildly otherwise.

A mind dump can also be done anywhere – another great thing about it. Open up a note on a cell phone, or write on the back of a newspaper; wherever you are, if you’ve got a free moment, clear your head.

You’ll be amazed how many things come out of your brain and into your organizational system, when you devote time and space to emptying it.

Tags: Marketing coach, marketing speaker, mind dump, productivity tips, success tips. Originally published on Lifehack.org

Please use the COMMENTS area below to share how and when YOU get things out of your head and into your system...

If you're interested in marketing success, business success, and life success - well, there are a lot of so-called experts out there.

Many are called. Few are chosen.

I've made the choosing easy for you...

Here are 29 super-smart, generous, prolific, sometimes contrarian, and always fascinating people worth following...

p.s. The best thing about them - none of them would CALL themselves a "guru" - they simply consider themselves lucky to be sharing their insights with others who can benefit.

Here they are in no particular order (although each of them is truly #1)

1. Jay Baer - http://www.convinceandconvert.com
2. Stephanie Chandler - http://www.stephaniechandler.com
3. Corey Perlman - http://www.ebootcamp.com
4. Melinda Emerson - http://succeedasyourownboss.com
5. Barry Moltz - http://barrymoltz.com
6. Henry DeVries - http://www.marketingwithabook.com
7. Scott Ginsberg - http://hellomynameisscott.com
8. Dan Janal - http://www.prleadsplus.com
9. Mark LeBlanc - http://markleblanc.com
10. Mary Foley - http://maryfoley.com
11. Gene Marks - http://genemarks.com
12. Viveka Von Rosen - http://linkedintobusiness.com
13. Brian Tracy - http://briantracy.com
14. Tom Searcy - http://www.huntbigsales.com
15. John Jantsch - http://www.ducttapemarketing.com
16. Joe Calloway - http://joecalloway.com
17. Jay Conrad Levinson - http://www.gmarketing.com
18. Joe Vitale - http://www.mrfire.com
19. Mark Sanborn - http://www.marksanborn.com
20. Marshall Goldsmith - http://www.marshallgoldsmithlibrary.com
21. David A. Fields - http://www.davidafields.com
22. Pamela Slim - http://www.escapefromcubiclenation.com
23. Mark Hunter - http://thesaleshunter.com
24. Bob Bly - http://www.bly.com
25. David Siteman Garland - http://www.therisetothetop.com
26. Bob Burg - http://www.burg.com
27. Jeffrey Hayzlett - http://hayzlett.com
28. Jim Kukral - http://www.jimkukral.com
29. David Rohlander - http://theceocode.com

And here are eight more for good luck... (Yep, you get more than 29. See? Underpromise and overdeliver!)

1. Michael Goldberg - http://www.buildingblocksconsulting.com
2. Randy Gage - http://www.randygage.com
3. Jose Palomino - http://www.valueprop.com
4. Dharmesh Shah - http://onstartups.com
5. Sally Hogshead - http://sallyhogshead.com
6. Michael Dalton Johnson - http://www.salesdog.com
7. Larry Winget - http://www.larrywinget.com
8. Gary Vaynerchuk - http://garyvaynerchuk.com

Bookmark this blog post - stay connected with these people - implement their big ideas - and you WILL profit, prosper, and succeed.

What do YOU think? Please use the COMMENTS area below to share your advice, insights and recommendations on the people who have made the biggest impact on YOUR professional success...

And then leave a comment below with your questions, thoughts, and advice on the ideas above.

Are you a DO IT freak? Welcome to the club!! Please use the social media buttons at the top of this post to share it with your network. YOU are a rock star!

You'll remember from the introduction to this Business Blogging 101 series, I mentioned the three BIG problems keeping you from doing a better job of leveraging blogging into business: 

1. You are unable to write QUICKLY. 

2. You are unwilling to write BRIEFLY. 

3. You are inefficient at IDEA CAPTURE.

Good news for you - #3 is the final topic we'll tackle today and you'll become an idea capture ninja before you're done reading this post...

Business Blogging 101: 7 Ways to Capture Ideas Like a Ninja

1. Set up a blog idea file in your email account. I filter everything through Yahoo! Mail and here's a shot of my "Blog - Best of the Web (BOW)" folder that sees a lot of action every single day. Drag, drop, captured!! 

2. Use the Notes feature on your smartphone. I'm an iPhone guy myself but here's the idea that will work on any smartphone or tablet device...

3. Use a task manager on your computer, phone or tablet - handy for portability across all devices you use - and make a TO DO entry called "Blog fodder." Here is what mine looks like on the terrific to-do/task manager called Wunderlist:

4. Carry a notebook and pen. Everywhere. All the time. Yep, seriously. Pictured below is one of my favorites - the Dot Grid Journal from The Creatives Outfitter.

5. Keep a trusty pad by your bed. In the nightstand, on the nightstand, under your pillow, doesn't matter - but late at night, early in the morning and sometimes at 3am is when you WILL get your best ideas. And if you don't write them down, they are gone, baby, gone... I like these "NOTE TO SELF" pads from http://www.knockknockstuff.com:

6. Carry a pocket video camera. Sure, you have your phone. But if you want HD video, external mic capability, and some special features, why not keep one of these in your briefcase like I do? See a celebrity at a conference? Three-minute video interview - BOOM! See something amazing on the street or while traveling that's worthy of a video blog? Two-minute video blog - BAM! Lots and lots of ways you'll be able capture ideas with this little guy. I own this Kodak Playtouch which runs less than $90 and shoots in 1080HD. Awesome...

7. Use micro-notes. In addition to my main notebook you see pictured above, I also keep an "Action Cahier" which is a much smaller notebook. You can throw one of these in your car, one in your bag, and keep one around the office for jotting quick blog ideas, questions, brain blurbs, blog titles, subject lines, all sorts of random and useful idea-starters. If one of these is always nearby, your next brilliant idea doesn't stand a chance of escape!

Tags: business blogging, blogging 101, marketing speaker, marketing coach

And then leave a comment below with your questions, thoughts, and advice on the ideas above.

Are you a DO IT freak? Welcome to the club!! Please use the social media buttons at the top of this post to share it with your network. YOU are a rock star!

Guest post by Janet Aronica

Creating consistent and helpful blog content is a great way to build community and trust around your brand for your prospects.

It's how you draw the right potential customers to your website.

But cranking out daily content is challenging.

How can you keep the blog post ideas flowing? How can you keep the content fresh and prevent yourself from re-hashing the same old thing?

Here’s a brainstorm of some ideas to get you started, or just keep you going...

Multi-media and Visuals

1. Do a screencast with Screenr of your product and share it on your blog.

2. Show a step-by-step guide on how to do something in a screencast, how-to video, or show the steps in a series of photos.

3. Create a music video for your company and post it on the blog.

4. Share a cartoon or create an original one.

How-to’s and Tips

5. Write a how-to article. Give instructions with screenshots or photos on the steps someone needs to take to do something.

6. Point out common mistakes in your industry and offer solutions on how to fix or avoid them.

7. Offer a list of benefits for doing something.

8. Share a list of some things to avoid.

9. Relate your how-to content to a current event or a celebrity. Example: “Five _____ Lessons from Lady Gaga” or “What the Election Teaches Us About ____”

Use Existing Content

10. Take the contrarian position – Find someone else’s article that you agree or disagree with. Introduce your blog post with what you specifically agree or disagree with it, and support your argument with a few concise points.

11. Do a weekly or daily links-roundup of relevant news for your community.

12. Find tips in other content, create a list of those tips and give links to those articles as the sources.

13. Share an excerpt from an ebook or white paper with a call to action to download it for the rest of the information.

14. Share an excerpt from an upcoming webinar with a call to action to get the rest of the content in the webinar.

15. Share your slides from a recent presentation.

16. Share conference takeaways.

17. Do a round-up of last year’s/last month’s/last week’s most popular posts.

18. Re-interpret existing content: Collect the top motivational YouTube videos for your audience, top ebooks, top webinars or infographics.

Incorporate Other Platforms

19. Create a Slideshare presentation of new statistics related to your space and share that in a blog post. Tag the Slideshare presentation with relevant keywords for your company to leverage SEO benefits of the platform.

20. Ask a question on Twitter and share the results with a Storify embed.

21. Collect Tweets from a webinar or conference hashtag, show them off with Paper.li (as recommended by FitSmallBusiness.com) and offer your own takeaways in the blog post.

Research

22. Respond to industry research with your own perspective. Offer a fresh angle to spark conversation.

23. Do a survey with Survey Monkey among your community members and create an infographic based on the results.

24. Do a poll of your Twitter community with a Twtpoll or your Facebook community with a Facebook Question and post the results on your blog.

25. Do an in-depth case study about one company, or offer a few examples of how other companies do something successfully.

Thought Leadership

26. Record an interview with an expert in your field and post it to your blog.

27. Get experts to offer a tip and do a round-up of their recommendations.

28. Feature guest posts from industry experts.

29. Publish responses to frequently asked questions about your industry.

30. Create a list of trends to watch.

31. Compare and contrast: Different products, different approaches, different companies, different people, different places, etc.

32. Do a review of other non-competitive products or services that your community cares about.

33. Be a journalist: Be the first in your space to offer industry takeaways about breaking news.

34. Explain what a current event or topic in the news means for your industry or community. Example: “What ____ Means for ____.” “Why _____ Matters for _____.”

35. De-bunk common myths.

Make it About Your Community

36. Interview your favorite customer.

36. Post a Flickr slideshow of pictures from a recent event.

37. Run a contest and give away something relevant to your community.

38. Ask for guest posts from community members.

39. If you have company news to share, talk about it in a way that makes it about the reader. Example: If someone gets promoted, talk about how why were successful. Inspire your audience.

40. Publish a post relevant to the current season or holiday.

41. Outline the top practical use cases for your product, service etc.

Originally posted by our partners at Hubspot on the HubSpot Inbound Marketing Blog.

What do you think? How do YOU generate ideas for your blog? Use the COMMENTS area below to share your advice, questions or opinions...

You'll remember from yesterday's introduction to this Business Blogging 101 series, I mentioned the three BIG problems keeping you from doing a better job of leveraging blogging into business: 

1. You are unable to write QUICKLY.

2. You are unwilling to write BRIEFLY.

3. You are inefficient at IDEA CAPTURE.

Good news for you - #1 and #2 are related and we'll solve them both for you before you're done reading this post...

Business Blogging 101: 7 Ways to Write Less and Say More
 

1. Think fortune cookies - you don't need to write an essay to share a key nugget that occurred to you while you were driving or in the shower.
   Example: 101 Success Tips in 3 Words  
    
2. When you have a lot to say, say it in shorter, sharper chunks. Like a series. Call it something snappy like "Business Blogging 101." See?
    
3. Use quotes, stats, visuals, videos, and graphics. These are not only easier for your blog readers to absorb, they're MUCH more likely to be shared, thus driving more traffic and Google juice back to YOU. 
   Example: Marketing Concept: 12 Home Page Must-Haves
    
4. Great blogs do NOT persuade, explain or convince. Put your opinions out there - the sharper, the better. Give your readers something to agree or disagree with.
   Example: The (REAL) Idiot's Guide to Social Media Marketing
    
5. Stop being so nice. It's OK to piss people off. Too many blogs take both sides of any given argument and end up sounding like a high school essay instead of a pointed, share-worthy piece of thought leadership.
   Example: 5 Signs that Your Prospect is Giving You Too Much Bullsh*t
      
6. Master the 20-minute blog post. Give yourself 20 minutes on the clock. Set a timer. Write. Revise as you go. When the bell goes off, hit publish. Truth: Even if it sucks - which it won't - you're better off posting it than if you had posted nothing that day. Honest.
    
7. Steal these blog titles: 7 Ways to... 5 Keys to... Top 10 Strategies for... 3 Biggest mistakes of... 11 Secrets of [topic] revealed... 7 Questions to ask yourself... 13 Quick tips on... 
    
8. (Bonus) Use numbers in your titles
   Example: Marketing Coach: 17 Ways to Drive More Traffic FAST
    
9. (Bonus) People love lists of key points, mistakes, lessons, examples, templates, strategies, tactics, tools, secrets, and so on. 
   Example: 23 things to say when you're asked for free consulting
    
10. (Bonus) People love free resources. People love when you point out other cool people, other great blogs, and things they need to know about, use, read, or buy to make them more successful in your area of expertise. 
    Example: Why Your Business Needs to FLOP
     
11. (Bonus) People love bonuses. Underpromise and overdeliver and you'll keep folks coming back for more. Like sharing 11 points when you initially promised just 7. Priceless!! 
     

And then leave a comment below with your questions, thoughts, and advice on the ideas above.

Are you a DO IT freak? Welcome to the club!! Please use the social media buttons at the top of this post to share it with your network. YOU are a rock star!

How to Generate 10X Traffic from LinkedIn in 10 Seconds - Wow, that sure sounds like a lot of over-the-top, frothing at the mouth internet marketing hype, doesn't it?

Well - in this particular case, the technique you're about to pick up does EXACTLY that.

Here's a quick video to show you exactly how powerful this 10-second tweak on your LinkedIn profile can be...

(Hit the "full screen" icon in the lower right for a bigger, sharper video)

Tags: Marketing speaker, marketing coach, LinkedIn, social media marketing

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What do YOU think? Please use the COMMENTS area below to share your tips about making the most of your LinkedIn profile...

Elevator pitches remain as critical as they have ever been - perhaps even more so given the increasingly short attention span we all seem to have. Here then is some good advice on how to create your own elevator pitch from Toby Marshall at Lead Creation.

1. A great ‘Elevator’ provides just enough information to hook the listener in and spark a conversation. It is just the beginning, not the close; think lead generation not sales.

2. It should be short—10 to 20 seconds. Our attention spans have become shorter due to fast-paced city living and Social Media.

3. Practice it by speaking out loud and standing up—never just write it and read it to yourself. Say it again and again in front of a mirror; then with colleagues or friends. Say it 20 times and you’ll then know it enough to improvise and vary it so it comes alive and doesn’t sound stale.

4. An ‘Elevator’ is not just for sales people or business owners. It’s also for people who have jobs and want better ones—that’s most of the population!

5. A great rule of thumb is to only use your ‘Elevator’ when asked the question. If you walk up to someone and start talking about yourself it’s usually a big turn off; most people would say something like “so tell me about you.”

6. Sell yourself, not your product or business. The other person needs to be interested in you before they will buy anything from you. The old adage that ‘People buy from people they like’ still rings true for B2B marketing

7. Elevators are never about closing a sale, despite the name ‘pitching’. In this Social Networking age, blatantly selling is less and less acceptable. Even at Chamber of Commerce meetings—a pure business setting—I run a mile from people who are all about themselves. Life’s too short!

8. It’s NOT your cold calling script (if you are still foolish enough to be doing cold and not ‘very warm’ calling!)

9. Use pauses to emphasize; it is not a race to get the words out. Vary your tone as speaking in a monotone bores people—it’s very common though, possibly because they themselves know the words are boring!

10. If you are in a business setting, think about how you can help the prospect achieve their goals. That may be the breakthrough you are looking for with your lead generation—thinking about the implications for them?

Note that there is nothing in the above about providing a case study. In my experience they will ask me if they are interested, once they have heard my ‘Elevator’. Also, including studies that are meaningful makes it too long, and you are likely to see their eyes start to glaze over! Just have a couple ready to go in case they ask, though.

The above rules will help you see much better results with your lead generation in all types of social and business settings; learning to change the pitch depending on who you are speaking to, and where you are speaking to them, is a huge advantage to you and your business.

Tags: Marketing Coach, 10 Golden Rules for Your Elevator Pitch, Marketing Speaker, Marketing for Speakers, Marketing for Experts

What do you think? Use the COMMENTS area below to share your advice, insights and recommendations on the elevator pitch, otherwise known as your "verbal business card," "audio logo," "10-second introduction," etc.