60 Second Articles:

1. Six Months Down, Six To Go: A Reality Check To Increasing Your Profits
2. Lost In Space? Get Google’s 32-Page SEO Starter Guide
3. Why Word Of Mouth Should Be Part Of Your Marketing Plan
4. The 60 Second Close: You Don’t Get This From Others 

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1. Six Months Down, Six To Go: A Reality Check To Increasing Your Profits

• This month marks the halfway point of 2011, a year projected to have a positive economic rebound for most companies. But one thing seems to remain the same: out of a need to increase profits, many companies are still actively seeking the magic answer by jumping online for the next big thing, hoping for easier ways to profit.
   
• While many great online tools are available, the most successful companies are well grounded in traditional marketing. These businesses understand that to win the game, a company must excel inside before it can excel outside. Companies such as Nordstrom have followed this template perfectly for years.
   
• With six months to go, where is your company focusing its efforts? On the hopes that a social media miracle will supply instant profits or on pushing the internal operations of your company up a notch? 

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2. Lost In Space? Get Google’s 32-Page SEO Starter Guide

• The foundation of online marketing is search engine optimization – being easily found online when a user types in and searches keyword phrases relevant to your company’s product or service.
   
• While it’s a challenge to get listed within Google’s first two pages, as three million other companies are competing for the same twenty spots, it can be done.
   
• More companies, tired of being lost in cyberspace and hurting from the lack of online visibility, are realizing the importance of budgeting additional dollars to hire the right team to accomplish the goal of being found online – and hopefully within Google’s first two pages.
   
• To learn more about SEO, just email me for a free copy of Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide.

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3. Why Word Of Mouth Should Be Part Of Your Marketing Plan

• The most important and trusted source of information a consumer gets about your company’s product or service is not from your company’s marketing efforts, but from other consumers. Their reviews and recommendations can make or break your company.
   
• With the trust level of consumers talking to consumers, more companies are allocating their marketing dollars into creating experiences at every customer touchpoint to ensure a stronger word of mouth and a better customer experience. 

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4. The 60 Second Close: You Don’t Get This From Others 

• Differentiation is a big part of the services our company provides. While we can easily draw the pictures and come up with the big idea, our strength is in guiding your business in the right direction and making sure every element and process is in place to ensure your success.
   
• From the very obvious aspects to the things you never think of, such as helping you build a championship team, separating the online facts from fiction and even advising on intellectual property rights, we’re a little different than your normal advertising marketing firm. And we’re proud of that.
   
• If you’re ready to experience something a little different, then call us. We can get you there … faster than ever. And don’t forget to email me to obtain your free copy of Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide.

60 Second Articles:

1. Turn Your Website Into A New Business Generator With 12 Product Offers
2. Three Key Sales-Building Tools For Twitter No One Told You About
3. Is Customer Satisfaction A Policy Of Yours? Get Rid Of It Now!
4. The 60 Second Close: You’re In The Media Business Now!

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1. Turn Your Website Into A New Business Generator With 12 Product Offers

• The purpose of a website, beyond being an informational platform, is to convert users into leads, ultimately nurturing those leads into qualified prospects and customers.

• Most companies have forgotten this critical objective, resulting in an unfavorable online return on investment. A website should inform, subtly sell and capture as much information about visitors as possible by incorporating a lead generation function

• To attract and capture leads, a strong landing page is critical to persuade visitors to participate in various offers in return for providing contact information. The more valuable and category-specific content a website offers, the more visitors register to receive it, eventually creating more leads and turning your website into a new business generator.

• Below are 12 kinds of products you should consider offering on your website, at various times, that can effectively convert your visitors into leads:
   
  1. E-book
  2. Newsletter
  3. Webinar
  4. Research results
  5. Testimonials
  6. Case studies
  7. Mobile application
  8. Infographics
  9. Special articles
  10. Videos
  11. Whitepapers
  12. Podcasts

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2.  Three Key Sales-Building Tools For Twitter That No One Told You About

• Automatic “Thank You” Notes: Instantly send a personalized “Thank You” message to every new follower to your Twitter account with more information about your company. Read more www.socialoomph.com

• Look Who’s Secretly Talking: Search out those tweeting about your company that you’re not aware of because they’re not replying back to you, at www.BackTweets.com

• Network and Lead Generation: To find prospects by their occupation in a specific geographic location, as listed on their Twitter bio, visit Google and type the following in the search field:
  intext:”bio * occupation” intext:”location * State” site:twitter.com — specifying both the occupation and the state.

• For example, to find attorneys in Texas, type the following into Google’s search field:
  intext:”bio * attorney” intext:”location * Texas” site:twitter.com — and Google searches Twitter profiles that have “attorney” in the Bio field and “Texas” in the Location field. Also do a separate search with the State abbreviated.

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3.  Is Customer Satisfaction A Policy Of Yours? Get Rid Of It Now!

• It’s time to get rid of “customer satisfaction.” This worn-out phrase from the ‘60’s did its job, but times have changed.

• Nowadays, no company – regardless of its product or service – can afford to keep merely satisfied customers or clients. Aim higher and replace satisfaction with excellence. Aim for “customer love.”

• Old customer satisfaction programs must be elevated so customers rave about your product or service, sharing their experiences with others. This way, customers become your own marketing ambassadors.

• Upgrading your customer satisfaction program can bring huge results for your company. Your choice: just a satisfied customer or one who’s really in love with you?

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4. The 60 Second Close:  You’re In The Media Business Now!

• No matter the business category, in order to be successful online, companies must be active in the media business by publishing articles, videos, testimonials, podcasts and more.

• The Internet provides countless opportunities to publish content so it is found by prospective customers and clients. The more a company’s content is found online, the more successful the company as the website becomes a new business generator.

• Developing website content should be an important part of your marketing plan. What will you publish? How will it be found? How will you capture leads and turn them into customers?

• These are the actions we implement for our clients to help them succeed. We’re ready to do the same for you. Just call us. We can get you there … faster than ever.

1. Finally Revealed: The Best Time To Send Out Your Email Campaign
2. The Digital Revolution: Is It More Sizzle Than Steak?
3. Using QR Codes As Marketing Tools
4. The 60 Second Close: Three Key Strategies No One Else Tells You About

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1. Finally Revealed: The Best Time To Send Out Your Email Campaign

• A new study from online marketer Hubspot, (www.hubspot.com) reveals the most effective time to send an email broadcast to your customers, no matter which business category you are in, is early Saturday morning.
   
• Weekend email campaigns tend to have a much higher click-through rate (CTR) than those sent during the week, which means more consumers read your emails and fewer opt-out.
   
• During the weekend, recipients seem to be more relaxed and ready to read email, rather than tackling all of their email messages on a harried workday.
   
• Send out your next email campaign Saturday morning and track the CTR. Keep in mind your CTR also depends on how well your list is segmented (so your customers get relevant information) and how attention-grabbing your message is.

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2.  The Digital Revolution: Is It More Sizzle Than Steak?

• We are in the middle of a digital revolution. Millions of consumers are making purchases based on information found through their computer or smartphone.
   
• Because of that, companies of every category view the digital landscape as an advertising bonanza – a new mecca to increase sales and promote products while reaching millions of eyeballs.
   
• But many companies are approaching this new frontier with a gold-rush mentality, without strategically considering the prime purpose of marketing – to increase profits.
   
• The reality is that huge traffic counts don’t necessarily translate into sales and some digital media formats just don’t play out as great advertising and profit-building platforms.
   
• The fact is, digital tactics alone will not dramatically affect your sales. They must be integrated into your plan, complimenting your traditional marketing efforts.

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3.  Using QR Codes As Marketing Tools

• With the increasingly popularity of smartphones, QR (Quick Response) Codes are ready to go mainstream and play an important role in linking your customers and clients to valuable digital content via their smartphone.
   
• Manufacturing companies are putting QR codes on their catalogues and packaging to provide additional selling information or instructions.
   
• Retailers and service companies are placing QR Codes on merchandise, promotional products, store fronts, for-sale signs, menus, print ads and business cards to tell additional stories about their products, such as up-selling opportunities, testimonials and product reviews.
   
• To find out which scanner is best for your smartphone model, search online for “QR Code readers.” To learn how to generate and send a code back to your digital content, search “QR Code generators.” The smartphone scanners and generators are free; all you provide is the content for viewing.

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4. The 60 Second Close: Three Key Strategies No One Else Tells You About 

• We’ve provided three important strategies to consider as you move your marketing efforts forward: effective timing of your email campaigns, establishing a digital strategy and implementing a QR code program. 
   
• With your customers and clients going through a shift using today’s technology, your marketing has to adjust also. And while some of the new platforms are quite attractive, will they increase your bottom-line profits? 
   
• Rather than jumping on bandwagons, our goal is to help you determine what is going to work best for your company that will increase your profits.
   
• That’s what we do for our clients and would love the opportunity to do that for you. Just call us. We can get you there … faster than ever.
   

60 Second Articles:

1. Why Word Of Mouth Is More Important Than Buzz
2. How To Improve Your Chances For A Top Listing On Google Places
3. Did You Know? Factoids For Meaningful Conversations With Customers
4. The 60 Second Close: Staying A Few Steps Ahead

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1. Why Word Of Mouth Is More Important Than Buzz

• People often use “buzz” and “word of mouth” interchangeably. Buzz typically centers around a one-time event and has a short life span. The buzz surrounding last month’s Super Bowl ads, for example, created excitement for about a week and then suddenly disappeared.

• Word of mouth – the most successful and efficient way to increase sales – is a long-term process based on the interesting, unique and common-sense way your company does business each day, interacting with your customers.

• Word of mouth marketing should be an integral part of your company’s sales-building plan. Every customer touch point should create an interesting experience that encourages your customers and clients to share those experiences with others. The more your customers talk about you, the more your reputation spreads and sales increase.

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2. How To Improve Your Chances For A Top Listing On Google Places

• Google, Yahoo and Bing are placing a heavy focus on “local search” for every business category.

• Run a Google search for “your product or service in <City, State>” and the first result you’ll see, above the organic rankings, is a Google Places listing of five to eight local businesses.

• Obviously, every company would like to be included on that visible part of the list. Most believe the only way to get there is to first claim your company’s name on Google Places, Yahoo Local and Bing, then fill out the form and cross your fingers.

• But what most don’t realize is that, beyond registering your business name, the search engine’s algorithm is likely spidering for additional geographical information on your company’s web pages.

• Here are four critical tips to give you an advantage in boosting your rank on Google Places:

1. When you claim your business and fill out the form, the description portion should include keyword phrases commonly used by those searching the Internet for you, along with your address.
2. Ensure your company’s complete address – city, state and zip code – is listed in text (not embedded in an image) on your website’s home page and on all of your other web pages. Include street intersections if applicable.
3. Add an embedded Google Map of your location to your home page.
4. Insert a geo-meta tag in the header on each page of your website. Get the code at: http://geo-tag.de/generator/en.html

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3. Did You Know? Factoids For Meaningful Conversations With Customers

• We’re Reading Newspapers Online: Daily newspaper websites collectively reach 32.3% of U.S. consumers in a typical month, up from 30.3% in 2008. (Source: The Media Audit)
• Out With The Office Computers, In With Tablets: Tablets are the new corporate rage, growing at a rate much faster than computers ever did. Over 30 per cent of North American companies are already equipping some employees with tablets and this rate is expected to dramatically increase as more tablets are introduced into the marketplace. (Source: Forrester Research, Globe & Mail)
• Kentucky Owns March Madness Title: Adults living in Lexington Kentucky, are among the nation’s top collegiate basketball fans with 76.3% of adults in Lexington regularly following college basketball on radio or TV. Their neighbor in the state, Louisville, ranks second in the national survey with 70.6%. (Source: The Media Audit)

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4. The 60 Second Close: Staying A Few Steps Ahead

• With the Internet and social media making our world much smaller, word of mouth now plays a huge part in your company’s success. Positive and negative comments can circulate among millions of people within seconds.

• Still, you can control what your customers say about you by encouraging favorable chitchat. Need help in developing a word of mouth plan? It’s just one of the many things we do. Need assistance in getting a better position on Google Places? We can help.

• We stay one step ahead, so you can stay ahead of your competition. To find out more on how to stay ahead, just call us. We can get you there faster than ever.

60 Second Articles:

1. How To Solve Your Company’s Most Important Crisis
2. The Grateful Dead And The Beatles: Are They Our New Marketing Gurus?
3. The 60 Second Close: We May Have The Answer For You

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1. How to Solve Your Company’s Most Important Crisis

• The most important crisis faced by businesses of every category is growth. How will your company cultivate new revenues? Will it tap into a current customer base or seek out new targets by offering new products? The key to new growth involves developing a creative campaign that resonates with potential customers and delivers measureable results.
• While every company aims to increase profitability by streamlining services and cutting costs, the smarter corporations are revving up their advertising engines with creative messages that zing.
• Does your company’s current creative campaign have the power to break through the clutter of 5,000 selling messages your customers encounter every day? Can your creative campaign boost your company’s profits beyond all expectations?

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2. The Grateful Dead And The Beatles: Are They Our New Marketing Gurus?

• Is it possible there are valuable marketing lessons companies can learn in the rise and popularity of two of the most popular rock bands in the world – The Grateful Dead and The Beatles? Two books may convince us of that.
• “Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead: What Every Business Can Learn from the Most Iconic Band in History” relates how the Grateful Dead always gave back to the community with various benefit concerts. In 1983, the band established the Rex Foundation, a non-profit charitable organization through which they could channel many of their worthwhile community causes. Marketing lesson: giving back to your community results in a huge return on your investment and solidifies life-long customer loyalty.
• To be released this spring, “Come Together: The Business Wisdom Of The Beatles” is about The Beatles obstacle-filled journey to the top. Companies will identify with similar struggles encountered by The Beatles in the early days, from passion, differentiation to image and branding.

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3. The 60 Second Close: We May Have The Answer For You

• Millions of advertising dollars are wasted daily if your target audience fails to hear or see what you’re saying.
• We urge you to closely examine your creative campaign. Is it getting through the clutter or is it being wasted? If you’re unsure and would like a second opinion, then let us know. This simple effort could determine your company’s life or death.
• For creative marketing that cuts through the clutter and brings profitable results, call us now. We can get you there faster than ever.

Special Issue:
How To Prevent A Blockbuster Moment: Essential Survival Lessons For Your Business

60 Second Articles:

1. The Blockbuster Moment: Critical Lessons For Businesses Of All Sizes

2. How Your Company Can Prevent Becoming A Blockbuster

3. The 60-Second Close: How To Ensure You’re Not Late Getting In The Game

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The Blockbuster Moment: Critical Lessons For All Businesses Of All Sizes

• After a decade of misdirection, Blockbuster Inc. just recently filed for bankruptcy. Once a key player in the movie rental industry, Blockbuster’s downfall sprang from the same “ailment” that affected the Yellow Pages, Barnes & Noble, newspapers and other retail and service industries. They simply lacked a clear vision of the future and were late getting in the game.
• And while their customers connected to the Internet and sought easier ways to rent movies, companies such as Netflix, Redbox and several other live-streaming and video-on-demand platforms surged forward, endearing themselves to Blockbuster’s core customers.
• Blockbuster’s collapse spotlights many critical issues that businesses of any size and category should address to prevent being surprised by an upstart.

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How Your Company Can Prevent Becoming A Blockbuster

• The rise and fall of Blockbuster offers lessons for any company that interacts with customers. We urge your company to consider these four Blockbuster-prevention questions to help guide your organization’s strategic approach:

1. How do you envision your customers’ wants and needs five years from now? Where will they be and how will you be front and center with them?
2. How do you envision the distribution and promotion channels of your product or service changing five years from now?
3. Does your company have a clear online vision in place, a complete marketing strategy that emanates outward from the Internet?
4. Do you provide an unbeatable customer-focused experience that exceeds customers’ expectations? Could a push-button kiosk replace your product or service if your customer decides that having no customer service is better than having poor customer service?

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The 60 Second Close: How To Ensure You’re Not Late Getting In The Game

• We hope Blockbuster climbs out of its financial situation, but meanwhile the company leaves us with priceless marketing lessons for every business to ponder and act on immediately.
• We can help you set up a marketing strategy and a vision for the future, while developing programs that provide great customer experiences. And more importantly, we can help ensure that you’re not late getting in the game.

If you’re ready to start looking at your future, then call us. We can show you how to get there . . . quickly.

As a part of an ongoing project, I recently had the opportunity to listen to groups of middle-school students talk about their perspective on health, exercise, and nutrition. I expected much of what they said. School cafeteria food, for example, is still not winning any taste-tests—and of course it remains unhealthy. French fries, pizza, corn dogs and burgers are the primary lunch players. (Veggies occasionally make a watery, tasteless appearance.) I did not, however, expect the children to clamor for fresh vegetables to be included in their lunch program.

That sentiment was the first of many paradoxes presented during the sessions. Like most adults, these children understand the importance of living a healthy lifestyle. They knew the right answers and wielded terms from the health-conscious vernacular such as “carbs,” “trans-fats,” and “organic.” Without any urging, they noted that individuals should exercise roughly an hour three to four times a week and eat healthy foods. Yet, also like most adults, the majority of these children are not living by those principles.

And they know they’re not. Despite rattling off many of the foods that make up a healthy diet, the only food items that elicited excitement and passion were the notoriously caloric ones: pepperoni pizza, fried chicken, cheeseburgers, ice cream sundaes and French fries. We asked the kids to share their thought on the discrepancy. One boy said, “I know I need to eat healthy foods, but the bad ones are the only ones that taste good.” Alarmingly, the majority of students held a different view. Instead of recognizing that some of their favorite foods were unhealthy, they tried to justify each choice. Strawberry ice cream is healthy because it provides a serving of fruit and dairy. Cheeseburgers are fine as long as you eat one with a slice of tomato and lettuce.  Fettuccini Alfredo is good for you because it doesn’t have any red-meat. If only it were true.

Children often say the darndest things, but this time, these naïve rationales are worth exploring. The fact that these children are already trying to justify poor choices signals things to come. Clearly these kids have some understanding of how to live a healthy lifestyle. They lack practical experience—and role models. The nation is waging war on obesity but victory will only come when we equip the next generation with more than knowledge—they need to experience healthful decision-making first-hand.

Right now, that is not happening. That’s the reason Northlich has continued to engage consumers to gain the understanding of how to affect positive behavior change in this space. As noted before on this blog, the tipping point for the obesity epidemic is quickly approaching. Only those that anticipate and proactively strategize for the impending consumer fallout against products, brands and services that have allowed obesity in America to flourish will remain successful.

60 Second Articles:

1. Crack The Marketing Code By Answering These 10 Critical Questions
2. Look Who’s Talking — Not The Movie
3. The 60 Second Close: Is It Time For “Retro” Marketing?

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1.  Crack The Marketing Code By Answering These 10 Critical Questions

1. Does your company have a unique “story” to tell that makes it stand out from the competition?
2. Does your company offer a product, a service or an experience that is not only of value, but is memorable enough to break through the advertising clutter and be heard by your target audience?
3. Does your company employ a team of goodwill ambassadors who have a passion for the company’s culture, philosophy and the product?
4. Does your company understand what business it is really in? (Southwest Airlines is not in the airline business, but in the business of providing people a safe, fun and memorable way to get to their destination.)
5. Does your company understand the lifetime value of a customer and the exorbitant costs of gaining new customers versus retaining current customers? Does your company have a customer retention strategy?
6. Does your company know who its best customers are, not by demographics, but by their first name? How is your company rewarding the best customers for their valued loyalty?
7. Does your team have not only an intimate knowledge of your product and service, but an understanding of what’s most profitable — not in terms of percentages, but in real dollars and cents?
8. Does your company strive to make a difference in your community, where your customers live and work?
9. Does your company have a “face” – a personality, a CEO, a President or an owner to which customers can relate to and readily access?
10. While everyone loves first impressions, does your company leave an everlasting final impression with customers that creates memorable conversations and encourages repeat purchases?

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2.   Look Who’s Talking — Not The Movie 

• Here’s an instant and reliable way to find out if anyone’s talking about you or your company on Facebook or Twitter. It’s a new search engine called Kurrently, at www.Kurrently.com.
• Test it yourself by sending out a tweet and then go to Kurrently and do a search for a keyword within that tweet. Presto, you’ll be found. Now, test it with other keywords that are relevant to your business. It’s quite possible that people are talking about your product without you even knowing about it.

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3.  The 60 Second Close: Is It Time For “Retro” Marketing?

• Incorporating TV, radio, print, direct mail and billboards into your advertising plan almost seems “retro” because no one talks about traditional advertising anymore. It’s not the “in-thing” and it just doesn’t seem glamorous like it used to be.
• Contrary to what the many pundits are saying, we strongly advocate that when targeted properly, “retro marketing” still works and it works even better once you’ve cracked the all-important marketing code.
• Crack the code then develop your sales-building plan. It’s your model for real growth and profitability. Need some help? We can show you how to get there … now much faster than ever. 

Awareness as a success metric is a cop-out. It continues to be used because creating a consumer action requires consumers to change their behaviors. That is no easy task. Few of us enjoy change and even fewer want to instigate it.

In most product categories, consumers are locked in automatic behaviors. Creating consumer behavior change requires that marketers break through the inertia and create new behaviors. This task is not as daunting as one may think. It starts by deeply understanding a consumer—not only their wants and needs, but how they make decisions.  A familiarity with their mental models is essential because it allows marketers to discern the opportune times to disrupt consumer inertia. It is then possible to provide consumers compelling rationale to act. Good marketers go one step further—they give consumers a reason to keep acting.  (Action always trumps inaction, remember?)

Marketers are not always judged by the degree to which they change behavior. They should be.