Category: Marketing Techniques and Philosophies

By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, General Commentary, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Marketing Trends/News, People Helping People, Publishing, Uncategorized

This is a guest post by Edward Hasbrouck, author of The Practical Nomad, in a rebuttal to Amazon’s latest blow against independent bookstores: getting its customers to spy on them for price checks and then buy online. Remember: when big dogs attack, we are stronger in a circle than standing alone.

Here’s Edward now.
—Shel Horowitz

Amazon.com wants you to browse your local bookstore to find the books you want, then go to Amazon.com to see if you can get them cheaper online. Why not turn the tables? Go ahead and browse the reviews on Amazon.com to find books that might interest you—then order them from your local bookstore, where there are no shipping charges and you can pick books up at your convenience without having to wait at home for a delivery.

The links from both my own Web site (Hasbrouck.org) and my publisher’s site for my book series (PracticalNomad.com) go to Powells. if you sign up as a Powells.com “affiliate”, and include the appropriate code in your links, you also get a cut of sales referred from those links. Small, but royalties on book sales are also small, and every penny helps. It took some effort to get my publisher to link from their site to Powells.com for my books instead of Amazon.com (their default), but eventually they agreed.

You can also create direct links for a specific book from Indiebound/Booksense, a joint online marketing effort of local independent bookstores. If someone follows the link, they can find out what store has the book in stock nearby, or request that a copy be sent to a store near them for pickup. And as with Powell’s, you sign up with them as an affiliate to get a small referral commission.

 

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Shel's Personal Life

Yesterday was a challenge to find the bright side of things. But proving that I am in fact a PR guy, here’s how I spin it:

  • My e-mail started working again by itself, and the 16 hours it was down is nothing compared to the 55 hours without power after the snowstorm (though I’d have rather done something else with the hour-plus of testing I did)
  • When I finally got through to person #5 on the 40-minute tech support call, he not only got my fax working properly in just a couple of minutes but he was a pleasure to talk to
  • I used a big chunk of the on-hold time to go through two weeks of Twitter new-follower profiles and follow back the interesting ones
  • I actually liked the guy who came to do a $69 duct cleanout and tried to bait-and-switch me into a $1900 home repair project (and Groupon offers a satisfaction guarantee, so I should get my $69 back)
  • Despite waiting until almost the end of the month, I went late enough in the day for my car inspection sticker that nobody was ahead of me
  • It was a beautiful day and I got a nice hike in the woods
  • Before all this craziness started, I got a nice piece of client work completed early in the morning

    • I decided decades ago to have a happy life, and it was an excellent decision. I see days like this as merely a reminder of that resolve, even if I do feel rather heavily tested at the moment.

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    By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Energy & Sustainability, Entrepreneurship, Frugality/Frugal Fun, Green Business, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies Tagged with , , , , ,

    Maybe once or twice a year, I actually get an unsolicited bulk e-mail that is targeted, relevant, and has a subject line that makes me open it. nd while I absolutely detest spam, I don’t object to this. If I am exactly the right audience for an offer, it’s not spam; it means a company is doing its homework and compiling a list of actual prospects.

    This morning, I got one with the subject, “recycle related/reuse and swap search engine.” Since I write about the environment and have a 40-year commitment to encouraging reuse, I opened the e-mail.

    This is an excerpt:

    ecofreek.com is a search engine that searches the web for free and ‘for swap/trade’ items people no longer need from over 45+ major sources, providing the most diverse and accurate results anywhere in the world.

    Also included are items for trade like books, sports equipment, antiques, automobiles, bicycles, motorcycles, CDs/DVDs, computers, property, seeds/gardening supplies, and lots more.

    We also encourage people to exchange and re-use items though our search engine and also our ‘places to give things away’ section. Feel free to recommend us new resources as well, we have a section we link to other environmental/green sites.

    We hope you enjoy your experience at our site and welcome any and all feedback.
    Please contact me for any questions about our site/service or working together.

    Sincerely,
    Nicole Boivin – Founder

    She also included her personal e-mail and phone number.

    So I went over to look, and I like what I found (mostly).

    As a longtime participant in Freecycle.org, I was interested to compare. I found several major differences:

    1. The search engine is elegant and allows you to choose a geographic area ranging from your own town or US state to anywhere in the world. Freecycle restricts you to your own community.

    2. Ecofreek is web-based, rather than e-mail-driven, which means you can search for what you want instead of just posting a wanted or offered notice and hoping for response.

    3. Freecycle is about gifting. While gifting is an option at Ecofreek, swaps are also encouraged.

    I did get very weird results when I clicked a suggested link (not a database result) for free samples of Kashi. And I do see that this site will need to be prepared to deal with people spamming the message boards (I saw one or two noncommercial spams). But I think it’s a good addition to the frugality and environmentalism toolbox.

    And I will write to Nicole and ask her how I get listed in the environmental section she referred to.

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    By Posted on Posted in Green Business, Green Marketing, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Uncategorized Tagged with ,

    Busy week of interviews. Catch me talking about green marketing:
    November 15, 8:00 pm ET/5 pm PT, January Jones interviews me: 818-431-8506

    November 16, 7 pm ET/4 pm PT: Interviewed on Your15Minutes Radio’s “Brand This” with Shaun Walker and Reid Stone, https://www.your15minutesradio.com

    November 17, 11 a.m. ET/8 am PT: Interviewed by Susan Rich on “Get Noticed Now.” https://www.richwriting.com/2011/11/shel-horowitz-on-get-noticed-now-w4wn-com/

    November 25, interview with Susan Davis on Good and Green Radio will become available at https://wgrnradio.com/archive-good-and-green-radio-with-susan-davis/ as well as at iTunes

     

    Here’s a description that Susan Rich wrote. It’s pretty accurate for all four calls:

    Join get-you-noticed expert and internet radio host Susan Rich as she talks marketing ideas that help you grab attention and drives sales.

    This week she’ll be joined by the ultimate expert in Get-You-Noticed tactics: copywriter, marketing consultant, author, and speaker Shel Horowitz. He has published eight books on the topic, the latest is: Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green.

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    By Posted on Posted in Advertising, Democracy, Ethics in Government, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Politics, propaganda Tagged with , , ,

    Political advisors spew so much crap about the need to tear down your opponent. Here’s a refreshing case study that proves the opposite is possible.

    Congratulations to the newly-elected mayor of Northampton, Massachusetts, David Narkewicz. While his opponent went negative to the point of craziness (even going so far as to attack him for riding a bicycle, with an ad that talked about training wheels as a metaphor for inexperience), Narkewicz stayed positive, focusing on community-building, achieving widely held goals, and his own civic history. He was also deeply issue-focused and very articulate during the numerous debates (more than I can remember for any previous local election, in my 30 years in the area).

    As a marketing consultant who has occasionally advised politicians, I have long held the opinion that such a positive campaign could be quite popular. I used this positive focus writing the press releases for the successful first mayoral campaign of a different mayor, who won in 1989 and went on to serve four two-year terms.

    And while I predicted that his opponent’s strategy (using the considerable talents of a very good local ad agency), would fail, even I was pleasantly shocked at the margin of victory. Narkewicz took 70 percent of the vote, sweeping every ward, even the traditionally conservative western parts of the city. And he had coattails for progressives in every other contested race, as well as a ballot initiative to keep a land-preservation bill that the right had attacked.

    Bravo.

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    By Posted on Posted in Advertising, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Marketing Trends/News, Publishing, Uncategorized Tagged with ,

    In this month’s newsletter, I wrote about the most elaborate press kit I’ve ever received, including a video player, a bottle, and more. To see, please click the link above and then click on “current issue” (that should work until about November 15).

    I’d love to know what you think about it. Meanwhile, I got a reader response, and permission to share with you. If you have a response, please share it at the bottom of *this* page.

    Wow, I’d wonder how many of THOSE packages the author or his minions had prepared and sent out. I would definitely want to at least scan the book to see where such marketing techniques are discussed, and I’d certainly (based on my own curiosity having been so piqued) be interested in a substantive discussion of such marketing and the strategies and principles that underlie it.

    I’d also like to know if such a strategy gets results, or just a momentary interest.

    Or if those two are actually the same thing.

    And then, how does one translate principles at the heart of something like that — targeted to people interested in the very fact of the marketing campaign (a marketing expert!), who might be expected to look deeper into the marketing itself even if it were not so intricate — to selling, say, hair shampoo or breakfast food, where the motivation to look deeper would be less ever-present?

    And finally, for us po’ folk, how do WE do something in any way similar to THAT! (Without being served a cease and desist order from Heinz Ketchup). Pat. PS- You can quote me, if you’ve a mind to and anything I said was not said by ten or twenty other people more concisely or entertainingly.

    — Pat Goudey O’Brien
    PGO Editorial Resource
    The Tamarac Press
    141 A Tamarac St
    Warren, VT 05674
    802.349.7475
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    By Posted on Posted in Advertising, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

    It’s an interesting juxtaposition: reading Martin Lindstrom’s new book, Brandwashed, which talks heavily about big-ticket marketing—among other techniques, manufacturing celebrity. And then dropping in to Midtown Manhattan a couple of hours early for my event, and spending those hours exploring around Times Square—about as commercial a location as one can find in the US.

    First, frugalist that I am, I was pleased to play tourist while keeping my wallet safely inside my pocket, and still feel like I got a good taste of Madame Toussaud’s, Ripley’s, and Planet Hollywood just from the free stuff: the gift shop, the teaser exhibits, and in Planet Hollywood’s case, the restaurant walls lined with movie artifacts.

    But second, the whole idea that not only do we love celebrity, we even love the people who emulate celebrity. Replicas of props, concert announcements about a Beatles brunch (at B.B. King’s Lucile’s club) featuring not one of the two surviving Beatles, but cast memb ers of Beatlemania.

    As soneone who is not-all-that-tuned into celebrity (I can’t even tell you WHY the Kardashians are famous), I find it fascinating to watch.

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    By Posted on Posted in Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Web 2.0/Social Media Tagged with , , , ,

    Overlisting people for Follow Friday and its many genre-specific siblings on other days of the week has polluted Twitter–too often, you click on a profile and see nothing but undifferentiated lists of people to follow. This does no good for the people making the lists, and hardly any good for those mentioned.

    But naming people to follow is still a useful thing when done right. I’ve added many followers by checking out some of these folks and following them. Typically, each week, I’ll pick one person’s list that mentions me, and visit the other people mentioned.

    There are, of course, many ways do “do it right.” Here’s what works for me, personally; your solution may look different.

    When I do my #ff (and my eco-Monday), I list several in one tweet with a couple of keywords, such as “humor” or “green marketing.” With hundreds of people on my list to spotlight for Follow Friday or Eco-Monday, I keep a document in my email program that groups them by category in batches of 140 characters or less and also lists the dates I mentioned them. Here’s an example:

    [1/8/10, 7/11/11] Green-3 @billmckibben @zerofootprint @greenbucket @Greenopia @gosner @greenmarketing @MarcalSmallStep @greenforyou

    So in this case, this is the third batch of green contacts (out of 36 so far–yeah, I need to make an official Twitter list), which I posted in January 2010 and repeated in July 2011. All I have to do is scoop up the part after the dates and pop it into Twitter, then add the next date in the brackets. 114 characters, eight people recommended, and I’m done until the next time. If it’s an Eco-Monday post, I won’t label them “green,” because it’s obvious. On Follow Fridays, I try to always give some clue abut why I follow these folks.

    But here’s the thing–I do *one* #ff tweet and one #ecomonday tweet per week, and I post plenty of other useful content during Fridays and Mondays.

    Then I come back and say thank you to anyone who has #FFd me (or retweeted, mentioned my book, etc.)–but I do it as Thanks for the #ff, and that way it’s clear that I’m saying thank you and not necessarily endorsing them.

    I skip pages that are nothing but long lists of people to follow. BORING! They’ve lost their chance for me to follow them back if that’s all I see when I visit.

    Yes, this does annoy a few people who like to be on my list every week. There’s at least one prominent marketer who used to #FF me each week, but I only #FFd back once in a while. She stopped. But at the moment, I have 583 people on my #FF list, and that number is always growing; I’d be foolish to post them all at once every week. It’s not about ‘I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine,’ but about another way I can be a useful resource for my own followers while keeping a Twitter profile that people actually want to read. And event hough she hasn’t listed me in a year or so, that marketer still shows up on my list every once in a while.

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    By Posted on Posted in Advertising, Demographics/Psychographics, Energy & Sustainability, Green Marketing, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies Tagged with , , , ,

    I’ve long been  a fan of marketing to different market segments according to their own hot buttons, as anyone knows who has read my books (especially Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green).

    Here’s someone on Triple Pundit, looking at the experience of driving a Nissan Leaf from the point of view of someone who sees a lot of potential to go way beyond the green market. Nissan’s marketing and advertising departments might want to read it.

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    By Posted on Posted in Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Web 2.0/Social Media Tagged with

    Guest Post by Gerardo A. Dada

    Sucharita Mulpuru wrote a blog post about Facebook commerce that turned out to be quite controversial. Sucharita’s previous post on the topic was aptly named 500MM users.. so why can’t they show you the $$. A bold quote from the post “No one’s revenue will come from Facebook”, along with a recommendation to stop wasting time chasing F-shiny objects, and focus on fixing the basics (like search and ratings & reviews) which have proven results.

    My thoughts are pretty aligned with Sucharita, in the sense that no one seems to be making money from Facebook other than Facebook, Zynga and a few agencies – in the gold rush the money was made selling picks and other mining tools. I see brands confused about how to even think about Facebook and chasing meaningless metrics such as number of fan “likes”. When marketing leaders share their goal for social marketing this year is to get to 100K or 1 million likes, I ask them what they will do with the customers that have liked the brand, usually resulting in blank stares and confusion.

    So I want to share my humble opinion on the role of Facebook for marketers.

    One of the principles I feel strongly about is that social media is only a set of tools to help you achieve business objectives. Then, let’s start with the basics and think about how can interactive marketers leverage Facebook to achieve business and marketing goals. “Social media goals” don’t count, unless they are leading indicators in the context of a broader strategy. Think about it: the main reason marketers care about Facebook for one simple reason: there are over half a billion potential customers using it every day. As I wrote in aprevious post, you have to fish where the fish are – but you have to bring them home (your site) to cook them (make money). It was the same with video and other new tools available to marketers.

    Sounds logical, yet, brands continue spending millions of dollars in media sending customersto Facebook. The traffic should flow the other way around.  Getting customers to respond to an ad is difficult enough to send them to a site where you have little control with the hopes they will “like” your brand and maybe someday somehow and up on your site or buying your product.

    A couple weeks back I saw an online ad for Sierra Mist Natural, curious to learn more about the new drink I clicked on the ad, which took me to Sierra Mist’s Facebook page. Not only was this not the experience I was expecting, I was unable to learn more about the product, learn what makes it natural (is it using Stevia for sweetening, natural flavors or something else?) and landed on a Facebook page where a couple customers had quite negative comments on the product.

    To sort through all the confusion it could be useful to think about Facebook as four discrete opportunities:

    1. Encouraging fans to advocate your brand on Facebook

    This is the most basic, but also the most powerful Facebook tactic so far and it’s free. I haveblogged about this extensively. People trust recommendations from their friends. Chances are their friends are on Facebook too.

    If your brand has 50,000 fans (Sorry Facebook, “likes” does not work as well), and if you can get one of every five to tell their friends how much they like your brand, you would have 10,000 people advocating personally to an about 1.3 million potential customers about your brand. 1.3 million customers you probably can’t reach through your traditional marketing efforts. Your customers can advocate on Facebook without even having to “like” your brand. You don’t even need a brand page on Facebook – customers can advocate directly from your website.

    2. Your brand’s presence on Facebook (brand page) and “Likes” associated with it

    Most brand pages on Facebook are quite boring and expose visitors to customer service issues or provide irrelevant information to customers. It’s time to get creative and map a proper brand experience on Facebook. The possibilities are endless, but don’t create siloed microsites or just copy your website in the Facebook iFrame.  Do something useful like providing reviews, Q&A, links to your site and resources that will engage customers in a social context. There are so many things a brand can do here that it would be impossible for me to provide best practices, so I won’t try. This is an area where a good agency can help.

    3. Facebook commerce

    To clarify, with F-Commerce I mean not only adding your product catalog to your Facebook page but actually enabling transactions within it: you can complete an order without ever leaving Facebook. I think it makes sense for a few select use cases: buying tractors on Farmville, buying a song using iTunes credits, etc.  However, I am really skeptical this will be mainstream – ever. For a couple of reasons:

    • Leaving Facebook to complete the transaction on the brand’s main site is easy. It takes seconds and can be completely transparent for the user.
    • The user experience will probably be better on the main site. Brands have invested millions on content management systems, search capabilities, interactive features, social capabilities and other elements that give customers a better on-site experience than what is possible on Facebook.
    • Many consumers probably consider most brand sites to be more secure and reliable than Facebook. With the news about Facebook security and privacy issues I guess people would rather share their credit card number with an established business than with a social network that has no good track of protecting personal information.

    Alvendia (now 8thBridge) shared the total sales on Facebook across all the brands they serve peaked at $100K in December. That’s less than $3 million per month, a number that is largely insignificant for their client base. Brands should still make their product catalogs available on Facebook to encourage advocacy and sharing, with an easy link to the product page on the main site.

    4. Advertising on Facebook

    In the end, Facebook is not a social company – it’s a media company that makes money by selling advertising. Advertising on Facebook should be evaluated like you would consider advertising on any other media outlet: based on audience profiles, advertising formats, targetability and ultimately, click-through rate. I am not an expert, but it is common knowledge that CTRs for Facebook are pretty low compared to industry averages. Maybe because when customers are in “social mode” they are not so interested in ads. The risk is that customers start mentally ignoring the ad space on the right most like most of us ignore banner ads on most web sites.

    Then again, for the right reasons, with the right strategy, advertising on Facebook may be the right thing to do. Back in 2004, I was one of the first to advertise on Facebook when we were promoting the Imagine Cup. That particular campaign yielded decent results.

    Conclusion

    In conclusion, if you start with your business goals in mind (and not with “let’s do something on Facebook”) then go on to evaluate the four ways you can leverage Facebook for your business in the context of a customer experience journey, Facebook can be a really powerful tool that produces top-notch results.

    [Editor’s Note: This originally appeared on Gerardo’s fascinating blog, The Adaptive Marketer. I thank him for permission to reprint.]

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