Things changed last week on the Social Landscape. Facebook may still be king of the hill, but Google has put a plan in motion that will virtually guarantee that they will compete and most likely overtake Facebook in the near future. The lights went on in marketers brains all across the world when the implications of Google’s new “Search Plus Your World” feature was recently launched. Now, Google Search Results can be influenced by who your friends and peers are and what they have to say. Facebook and Bing have had a similar partnership for some time now, but since Google controls about 70% of all search, Google+ adding “personal” results will have a much larger impact on the world of SEO and marketing in general.

Over time all of our regular clients will be receiving Google+ accounts and we will manage and work them just like we do the Facebook and Twitter platforms. Nothing needs to change overnight, but the direction we see things going has prompted this immediate action. The graphic below shows how Google is now delivering “personal” search results. You will see this too if you have a Google+ account and are logged into Google when you perform a search. This is the goal of Google of course to have everyone logged into their account for maximum interactivity. Think about it, aren’t we all logged into Facebook most of the time these days? Personally, I just got sick of logging in and out all day so I just stay logged in all the time!

There is a plethora of recent information about this Social Network called Google Plus (Google+) out on the web now especially in relation to the new interactivity with Search Results. Just search Google+ and you will see what I mean. A link to what I consider the best explanation done by Rand Fishkin of SEOMOZ is provided below.

It is VERY IMPORTANT to understand GOOGLE’s most recent changes.

When Google first introduced their Social Network called Google+ I jumped on board and was pretty impressed. It all looked and worked quite well. Many of the barriers that Facebook puts in place to stop you from getting to know people that you do not know personally are gone which I like. Also the ability to post more file formats and the larger display of photos made for a richer experience. But sure enough, I fell back into old habits – Facebook is just where I have been for years and starting and managing a new Social Network was not on my list of top priorities. Now it is!

You can take a look at my page here if you are wondering what it all looks like.

Now, you may have heard something about Google delivering more relevant results that are tailored to you individually. When the change first started happening a week or so ago called “Search Plus Your World” most people yawned, as did I. Now that I see the full implications of what this really means I am waking up real quick as should you if you use the web to drive business.

You can see by the screen shot above what is happening. The upper right red circle indicates that I am logged into my Google account. I signed up long ago for a “Plus” account with Google+ which is their growing social network. So, what happens now is Google can look at everyone in my network and adjust my search results to include any content that they have contributed socially because it shows up in the left circle as “8 personal results”. It may also show up attached to any web pages that any of those “in my circles” have “+1′ed” the page (+1′ing something is similar to “liking” on Facebook). Theoretically that will let me know what my friends think about some of the results and maybe influence my decision on where to click. Will it work? YES!!!

The smallest circle also now allows you to toggle in between showing “personal results” or not showing them. Of course if you are not logged into your Google account none of these results will show. If you don’t even have a Google account, you need one. Get that here.

Here is that video by Rand Fishkin, CEO of SEOMOZ explaining things.

Now, you may say I am not involved in Google’s social network so why should I care? You should care because it is an opportunity to increase your influence by virtue of the +1′s you add to your web properties and the influence that you can have by showing up in other peoples results under “personal results”. When you click on those “personal results” you will see stuff from all over the place including Twitter. Any place that you have commented or wrote anything that relates to the search query it will be there. Or if you don’t get involved with Google’s attempt to rule everything, your competitions results, reviews, blogs and recommendations will show up there instead when a potential customer is searching for what you offer. This will take off because Google will be changing most every Google account to a Google+ account and more and more people will start using this social platform. Curiously, one result that does not appear is Facebook posts – you will find them on Bing.

Word is that Google will be spending BIG bucks to promote this whole effort, and they sure do have the bucks to spend. Anyone who has a gmail account or a Google account of any kind will be encouraged to get involved in Google+.

This bears repeating, so I will!
The growth so far has been nothing short of phenomenal, growing faster than any Social Network ever. Google+ has over 90 million on board now and according to several analysts, is on track to have 400 million members by the end of 2012!

If you are a Brandtastic customer (or a prospective customer) you should know that we are adding to the workload by recommending that our clients get on board with Google+ which is a newer Social Network. They have developed a plan that seems likely to succeed which will increase the influence that those involved in Google+ will have on Search Results.

The more complicated it all gets, the more complicated it all gets. That is about all I have to say for now.

We will stay on top of things, so you don’t have to!

Frank Motola / Brandtastic

Hope you were able to attend the Internet Marketing Seminar at SCORE Orlando in the NEW National Entrepreneur Center on May 23rd, 2011. Yes the National Entrepreneur Center is the former Disney Entrepreneur Center, now at a bigger and better location! Frank Motola of Brandtastic presented the seminar. Frank is available to speak to your industry group or at your convention, chamber meeting or tradeshow. Contact him at 407-414-5270

All attendees were business people who were ready to learn! We helped many small businesses to understand how to get more out of their web presence. We covered several topics including effective branding, domain name choice, web design and the importance of good content, keyword research, SEO, Local Search with Google Places and Google Analytics.

The Cost of This Live Seminar was only $25 and was sponspored by SCORE Orlando.

Back in 2009 we put on an Orlando Internet Marketing Seminar with SCORE at the Disney Entrepreneur Center in Orlando, FL. Well a lot has changed! Now, the DEC has become the NEC, the National Entrepreneur Center. Bigger and better and in a great new location at the Fashion Square Mall. We also have a bigger and better presentation too. We want to bring businesses up to date with ways they can maximize their web presence. You will learn about many FREE Tools that are available to help you get more out of your Internet Marketing and Website. All attendees will have access to a special URL that lists all the resources that are covered in one place.
Call Frank @ 407-414-5270 if you have any questions.

This is a short 3 minute video from our 2009 presentation with SCORE.

Sheila's enthusiasm is contagious!

She delivered a knock-out punch to conventional thinking to an enthusiastic crowd at the Inspiration2020 Conference. One of the themes of the conference was that it was time to stop listening to the “news” and whining about the economy and wake up to the reality that the exact economic circumstances that everyone is crying about – actual presents amazing opportunities for entrepreneurs and businesses that are ready to thrive and succeed. Sheila recommends that when we wake up each morning we need to Dump Our Head Trash(tm) before starting the day”. In other words don’t listen to the nay-sayers, who say it can’t be done – just take the steps necessary to advance towards your goals.

My business is marketing and branding with Brandtastic, and when Sheila asked if there were any people in the audience that considered themselves “marketing experts” I humbly raised my hand along with one other gentleman. Sheila then quipped “OK, you two can leave now.” I returned with “we can always learn more” and boy-oh-boy, did I! Sheila is the bomb.

I found Sheila to be an exciting mix of a personal cheerleader, motivational speaker and marketing diva. She can lay claim to the “been there, done that” badge when it comes to being at the top of the ad game. From a humble start and $5000 in savings she launched her own advertising agency from scratch. No stranger to success, she had just launched a division of a huge agency with flying colors when it dawned on her that “if I could do it for her (previous employer) why not do it for me.” She pitched and won her first client which was a half-million dollar deal. From that deal, strategized in her “second-floor bedroom in her pink slippers” through many more she built an award-winning agency that launched companies domestically and internationally into great success and results. Results is what she is all about, “what good is an award-winning campaign to a client if they did not achieve results.”

One mantra that those in need of marketing need to realize when they say “we can’t afford marketing now” goes like this according to Sheila – “Marketing generates leads, Leads generate revenue.” So those companies that don’t think they need to spend money on marketing are paving their own path towards their own demise. Spending money on marketing ineffectually that does not generate leads is the major problem today. Another problem that can present itself is when the Sales Team drops the ball. According to Sheila “marketing can take you three-quarters the way around the circle, but to complete the loop and make the transaction that drives revenue your sales and closing skills must come into play. Qualified leads need to be converted into customers.”

Sheila tells it like it is when it comes to marketing and success. She makes no qualms about her opinions or advice, saying “sugar-coating is for cereal in my world.” Unabashedly admitting that if you don’t have something unique about your sales proposition, then “make it up – and then spin it.” What she was advocating was not that you just fabricate something about your business, but that you avoid the standard B.S. like “been in business “X” years, great customer service, qualified employees, etc.” Think creatively, what is your real advantage over the competition – what makes your customers choose to do business with you? If you are competing on price alone, you become a commodity and unless you are Walmart you will not be successful in the race to the lowest price for what you offer. Sheila gave an example about an office furniture store owner who argued with her that his business was only about the best price so she could not help him. She proceeded to create the idea that he provide a free “office work-flow analysis” that would go into a business and look at where the furnishings, desks and partitions were positioned and what type of improvements could be made. Then if they were chosen to handle the work, a follow-up assessment would be done to help implement the best use of the items that were installed or sold. Now THAT was not just selling a commodity, it was providing “added value” with very little additional cost to the business. Every business can or does provide added value that can be packaged and marketed into a competitive advantage that will drive more sales. Sheila described this as “putting meat around what you already do that has unique value and packaging it.”

Her success took a great amount of tenacity and hard work. She “worked harder, got more clients, hired more people, worked even harder, got even more clients and hired even more people” and the cycle became less rewarding as she had less time to spend doing anything but work. This is a danger many of us face as small business owners, becoming a slave to our business and forgetting what we were in business for – the freedom to do the things that we wanted in life! As Sheila’s Ad Agency reached the pinnacle of success she realized that she did not get the satisfaction that she desired from all the effort over so many years. She had an epiphany moment in 2005 from this realization and sold her agency. Now she has taken the systems that she established in her own agency to make businesses successful through marketing and put them into a Toolkit for everyone to take advantage of. Her true passion is now being realized – “helping others to be successful by empowering businesses.” She is on the “Fun Bus” as she describes the way life should be every moment of every day.

When it comes to branding as it relates to logo design, Sheila advises “it doesn’t matter what you think or like, what matters is whether it is effective in attracting the marketing you are after.” Ad campaigns and branding that wins creative awards or that you “like” may totally miss the mark when it comes to reaching and influencing your target market to choose your product or service.

When it comes to effective PR, she gave us some valuable advice too – “Nobody cares how great your are.” To get anyone to notice your Press Releases you need to make it relevant to what people care about. Look at the news, “put on your PR glasses” and find out what is being covered. Then find what it is about your pitch that can tag on to something that people are already interested in. At Brandtastic, we had a client that sold a Sliding Door Lock that prevented children from opening sliding doors and getting themselves in dangers way. The best PR slant turned out to be presenting the product as a solution to the kind of things that were being covered in the news – tots roaming outside and getting lost or even worse, falling into pools or nearby bodies of water. The owner of the company actually had a passion to prevent these type of accidents which can turn into tragedy. The news sources loved the angle of presenting a solution juxtaposed against the tots escaping into danger and the information was picked up.

It was truly a privilege to meet and listen to what Sheila Stewart was willing to share with us and I hope to continue to learn from her in the future. You can learn more about how you can get off of the “Struggle Bus” of life and start everyday on the “Fun Bus of Life”(tm) at her website getonthefunbus.com – Sheila is also an Executive Business Coach with Powerteam International and can be reached by email at Sheilas@pti360.net – Maybe she can help you along the road to realizing your full potential!

Now, don’t get me wrong, real brand affinity does exist – fan of Jaguar? I am there! How about that new concept C-X75, amazing. But back to the mundane, normal business entities that have been sold the bill of goods that “you need a Facebook Business Page”. Sorry, but I do not want to be a fan of my dentist, or my electrician or even my dog-sitter. I would be glad to be their “friend” on Facebook, because they are my friend sort of. This whole system of creating business pages for brands that just don’t attract fans is nonsensical and totally a waste of time.

This brings me to the real beef. Why can’t the CEO of a company, the front-man, the rock star of the company use a Facebook Profile Page to promote their business, and moreover why can’t the little guys – the mom ‘n pop’s, the sole proprietor’s and the entrepreneurs simply use their face as the face of their business. Truth is, they do. In my little informal survey of local small businesses, almost 90% of them use a Profile Page to represent their business. They ARE their business, why not?

Many of the old “Become a Fan” pages had built in apps which promised to deliver a carrot in return for simply pushing that button. Then we got ourselves hooked up with them and were usually disappointed. If you have a cool restaurant with great food and raving fans, perfect – do a Business Page, but if you are a great Graphic Designer that deals personally with each customer – why not use a Profile Page? I know, I know – it is against the rules. But have any of you heard of massive banning of small businesses that use Profile Pages? I love the personal nature of the whole Profile Page, adding someone to your base by “Add as Friend” seems a whole lot less presumptive than shooting out requests to “Like” me. Sounds desperate, and even sounds worse when you have to hire your marketing company to do it for you. If you attract fans organically, great – Business Pages are for you, if you need to make friends in business – you may need to break the rules.

Here is what Facebook has to say on this officially:

If you create a profile for your business, your account may be disabled for violating our Terms of Use. All personal site features, such as friending and messaging, are also for personal use only and may not be used for professional promotion.

My hope is that somewhere, somebody is realizing that everyone is breaking the rules for good reasons. Business IS about making friends, so why shouldn’t we be able to invite friends to learn about us (and our business.) It is a fine line I suppose, but for me – I AM my business.

Zuck, are you listening?

Got to talk with un-marketing author and speaker, Scott Stratten last night.

UnMarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging.

No deference to Seth Godin, he truly is the lynch-pin that influenced a new generation of marketing professionals and those who are interested in making products and services that are better and therefore more successful. Seth’s Purple Cow and other great books like Meatball Sundae will always be close to our hearts, but there is a voice that I heard last night that is worth your undivided attention. “It is not rocket science”, as Scott said, “it just comes down to the fact the common sense just ain’t so common any more.” The basics of customer service and the attention it deserves is sadly lacking in our old “push” methods of marketing. Sure, I have already heard much of what Scott Stratten had to say – but it was more in the way he delivered it, in the book and in his message to us, that was so compelling. The light not only went on, it is still on today and I will be thinking about much of the marketing that I do personally in this new light.

Last night I was happy to find a truly great speaker addressing the AMA-CT in Glastonbury, CT. Right in the middle of my road trip to work on 3 new clients websites I found an oasis of marketing reason and common sense. The event is one of 30 book promotion stops for Scott Stratten, well known blogger and social marketing expert. If you are a bit jaded on hearing from “social marketing” experts, I am with you. But this young guy taught this old dog more in 2 hours than all of the previous experts that I have had the pleasure of snoozing through. He really get’s it. It is all about conversation and engagement. Connecting with our customers and building relationships.

The stage was a small, cozy room in a lovely upscale town outside of Hartford, CT. Folks came from all over the state and western Massachusetts to hear Scott’s ramblings as he sat comfortably on a high stool with no mike, no power point, no hand-outs and no notes. His advice came right from his experience and large knowledge that was contained in his equally large head (inside pun for those that were there). So about 60 of us got the pleasure of learning Scott’s take on future of successful marketing. Bottom line – marketing is not the same anymore, and it will never be what it was ever again. We are all just a bit too smart for that.

I asked Scott if he would mind if I shared some of his advice and nuggets of wisdom with you and he graciously obliged.
So, here goes. Most of what follows is either paraphrased or direct quotes that I furiously wrote down as he delivered rapid-fire ammunition for the new marketers.

How do I make something VIRAL? (something Scott’s clients often ask him)
Make it awesome. Make it memorable, evoke emotion – happiness, shock, humor or sadness.

Social Media is nothing new. We just used to call it “talking”. That is all it is – conversation.
Personally, I liken it to the big porch in front of the General Store. Everyone used to like to hang out where the conversation was going on. That is where friends were made.

Social Marketing is not a task or a department, it is the chance you have to interact with your current customer base or potential new customers. When it is thought of as a task, or worse yet – an automated task, you immediately devalue your customer and your audience. There is no substitute for genuine engagement.

Everytime a client asks for the ROI of Social Marketing a kitten dies somewhere. (Ok, Scott is a bit emotional at times)

Our job as marketers is to get content consumed, not subscribed to or held in a folder to read later. We all know what happens to those things – they NEVER get read. So write your messages and communicate in a way that will be read and have impact now.

Don’t put up roadblocks to communications. Do you really need a captcha that has 6 letters, 4 numerals and one thing that kind of looks like a giraffe? How much dreaded spam are you stopping vs. how many potentially interested people are you losing? Remember, when you have a contact form as a prerequisite to gain a free report or sign up for something – every additional field that is added will result in a loss of between 10 and 30% of the interested viewers. So, after filling out the name, phone, address, company, email and first-born fields there will be nobody left to hit submit!

Twitter is where Scott lives. But surprising he told us that “Twitter is a horrible marketing and sales tool.” But it is an important and extremely valuable tool to communicate with. It is a scalable way to reach out to your targeted market. Twitter allows you to meet and engage in conversation with awesome people that you could never meet any other way in such a short time. But it is not all about numbers, having tens of thousands of followers (although Scott does), it is about finding your voice, sharing with others and actually talking to people. Don’t use a logo for your avatar! People talk to people, not to logos. And the best part of getting to know and influence more people, is that people do business with those that they know, like and trust. This is nothing new, it is centuries old wisdom that is as true on Twitter as it was in the Roman Coliseum.

Imagine going to a great networking event and talking to several people. What if everyone there had a follow and unfollow button on their shoulder? If you should decide that they are really not “valuable” to you – just go right up to them and hit their “unfollow” button and walk away. Hmmmmm, might be kind of rude eh? Think twice before insulting anyone in person or on-line!

Twitter creates awareness and cost nothing. The cost is time – the investment you make is time, not money. Scott’s ROI?
More people know him, more people trust him and more people hire him! Your current ad agency may not be able to figure the metrics on that one or provide the analytics to justify it, but it sure does work good. Problem with most ad agencies is that they are full of people trying to protect their positions by making more money on more billings and bigger media buys.

Scott describes himself as the CRO of his Toronto based Un-Marketing company, the Chief Relationship Officer. He wants to be front and center and in the game, the “rock star” of his company. Every CEO should be that engaged.

It is better to work your Social Media for a half hour a day, that 3 hours on Saturday. People like a consistent conversation. Companies that begin a SM campaign or effort and then leave it to die on the vine are sending the message that they just really don’t care that much to spend the time talking to you (the customer) or listening to what you have to say. Imagine that your subordinate takes a phone call and it is from an irate customer with a complaint that wants to talk to the boss (you). Would you instruct them to “just hang up”, or “ignore them” – or how about if you get a personal email asking for details on your product, would you just hit delete and get on to more important stuff? Of course not, then why do companies continue to ignore the conversation that goes on about and around their brand? To not get involved in the conversation via Social Media is just turning your back on your customers. Progressive, engaged, customer-centric organizations monitor their brand and reach out to their customers on a regular basis to stay tuned in to their market.

Starting and building a Twitter following without interaction is like sending a mannequin to a networking event.

Social Media is not a fad, it is not going away. It has fundamentally changed the way we communicate.

I don’t “believe” in Social Media. That’s good, because it is not a religion.

The way we share (advice) has shifted.

It used to be the rule of thumb that if a customer had a great experience with your business they would tell one other person, but if they had a bad experience they would tell ten other people. Today, they tell 100 thousand other people.
That means we all need to be the best we can, be transparent, be real and deliver on the brand promise that we extol.

Final word about customer service . . .
Today, to be exceptional all you need to do is offer what used to be considered normal.

Check out some of Scott’s 30 tour stops for this non-traditional book release event.
If you are within a day’s drive of one of these events, you need to be there.
Or at least go buy the book.

http://www.un-marketing.com/blog/services/unbooktour-dates/

If you think there are opportunities to market your product or services here on the web, rest assured you are not alone! I have similar thoughts. The name here is Mark Gebbie, Editor, Gebbie Press. We publish the All-In-One media directory, listing all USA TV, Radio stations, Daily and Weekly newspapers,Trade and Consumer magazines, Black and Hispanic media, news syndicates, networks, and much more. Available in print, on disks or mailing labels. www.gebbieinc.com

It\’s used by public relations executives, marketers, freelance writers, advertisers, corporate communications departments, reference libraries, universities, public affairs officers and the like. (Sorry for the ‘plug’, but you\’ll have to understand what it is I am marketing to make sense of my WWW promotion strategy, and how you can apply the same ideas to your unique concerns!)

Clever readers have already learned something-don\’t pass up a chance to promote what it is you have to offer! The more likely the reader is to actually need your offerings, the less you will have to worry about ‘sugar coating’ your message, be it your home page, E-Mail or whatever. More about sending unsolicited E-Mail and the fear of being excommunicated by your net peers further down.

Here\’s how it all began for me….sooner or later, you get the bright idea to bring yourself up to speed and get a page up on the Web. So you picked up a free software access kit and went on line. Remember how you felt the first time you searched for something or stumbled across a web page? Don\’t loose that feeling, whatever you do! Keep your eyes and ears open. I\’m going to assume for this discussion that you have a page in place and are ready to promote it.
If you cannot design a clean, simple and informative page yourself, pay the hundred bucks or so and have a nice one made. Register your URL with as many search engines as you can on your own, or pay someone to submit. If someone will register you with 200 search engines for a hundred bucks and you don\’t have the time or experience to do it yourself, let them do it. Just get that URL into the system, and be patient. Submit to ‘new site’ services as well. Pretty basic stuff so far. You have a page, and you\’ve registered it with many search engines, ‘what\’s new’ services, internet ‘yellow pages’ and whatever else you can find. Perhaps you have spent a couple hundred dollars for design and submission. From here on, your costs will only be in terms of the amount of time you can sit at the keyboard.

Now for the real magic! Let\’s start with getting your page cross linked. Take advantage of pages that are currently established and doing well. If you link to a page that has similar or complimentary material, some of the people will inevitably get around to clicking on your link. What pages are good prospects to swap links with depends on what it is that you do. I can only give generic advice here. If you sell bananas, you\’d want to link to pages like ‘Banana Importers Trade Assn.’, ’1001 Banana pie recipes’,'Healthy Eating’.

The idea is not to hook up with others who sell bananas, but others who are in some way related to bananas. People who eat them, research them, cook with them, promote them (‘Banana Promotion Council’), paint them, whatever. You get the idea. Be clever here and use your imagination! When requesting cross links, be polite and friendly. Perhaps begin by saying, ‘Saw your site, and I\’m very impressed with the work you have put into it.’ Explain who you are, and why you would consider their link to be ‘a fine addition’ to your page. Suggest why your link may be of import to them, even if it is obvious. Sometimes it won\’t be, depending on the marketing strategy you cooked up. Send your URL and a few lines of text to go with it so they can link to you if they agree. As your page becomes more of a resource rather than an ad, it becomes a more attractive place for everyone concerned.
How do you find such pages to link to? Type ‘bananas’ into any search engines, and you\’ll be busy for hours going to home pages, evaluating their worth to you (and vice versa), finding the E-Mail address of the contact person and dashing letters off to them. Get the old cut and paste, click, click thing happening, and before you know it, you\’ve sent out a hundred requests. You\’ll get more than one link out of them!

Are you a known entity or respected among your peers? Start an award program! At our website, I had 50 state pages for radio and TV station hotlinks kicking around. So I cooked up a ‘Station of the Month’ gif/award/logo, emailed about 5of the stations, and got two dozen Gebbie award banners up at some pretty substantial radio websites. Remember-it\’s an award for you in disguise. GRIN.

To promote the Gebbie Press All-In-One Directory, I contacted public relations firms, advertising, marketing, promotion firms, freelance writers, photographers, journalists and the like. As it is media reference work, I\’ve approached hundreds of newspapers, magazines, radio and tv stations, etc. You\’ll have to come up with your own ideas as to who to cross link with, depending on your product or services offered.
You may have a valuable resource sitting right under your nose. Is your product or service something you can barter and bargain with? If it is, you have a big advantage as far as I\’m concerned. If your product is too expensive to trade (more on what you will want to be trading for in a minute), or your services require too much investment of your time, you are out of luck. But try and think of something you might be able to offer someone a gratis.

We\’re a nation of horse traders. I love to swap for things; I get a big kick out of it! As a rule, everybody wins when goods or services are traded. If your product sells for 100.00 but only costs you 10.00 to make, you can trade for 100.00 in goods….for ten bucks! Back to bananas. Let\’s assume that the ‘Betty Crocker Banana Recipes’ home page runs banner ads. You\’d like one, but the price is too high and you don\’t know if anything will arise from it. Offer them a nice case of bananas in return for a banner ad. You\’ll be pleasantly surprised, I hope. If you have something to swap, you might get one trade for every ten letters you send out. (Cut, paste, click, click…doesn\’t take too long to send a ‘bunch’ out!). I have traded for web page design, logos, the 200 search engines someone submitted us to, countless banner ads, on-line press releases announcing our page and so on.
Enough about trades. If you can swing them, do it! By the way, E-Mail letters asking for reciprocal links or offers to trade are not, in my opinion, the ‘unsolicited’ letters you may be trying to avoid sending out. Few people will take offense at such offers. If they do, don\’t worry, send a brief apology, and move on. Plenty of fish in the barrel. It\’s important to keep at the promotion end of things. I find the response rate of swaps to be pretty high-possibly as high as ten percent. Any direct marketer would be happy with that rate! So each chance you have, go searching, find some prospects and send out some E-Mail. Often you will have answers before you are finished with your session.

A digression. Get rich quick spam is unsolicited email. That\’s pretty clear. I think the net would come to a grinding halt if only solicited mail were sent. Sure, we all want email that reads ‘where may I send my check to?’ Or email that ‘should’ interest us. When I first went online, I didn\’t have a single email address for anyone who asked me to send them some solicited email. Yet I now have 200 or so folks ‘in the books’ that I speak with from time to time. All the result of me emailing them out of the blue. Use common sense, make sure they should have an interest in you, don\’t try to sell them anything, and if at all possible, come bearing gifts!
If you can fine tune your search to target firms or individuals who might actually need or want your goods, bingo! If you went to the ‘Banana Promotion Council’ home page and saw a list of 50 restaurants that create dishes with bananas, you\’d be wise to ‘gently point’ them to your home page. While this can be a slow, one-on-one type of sale, if you had a good prospect list to begin with, you may find it to be very quick and profitable. There is always ‘another’ list of prospects lurking in the distance. Alter your search criteria, try a new search, follow related links you may find, and so on.

Now, about newsgroup and email lists. As some of these can be quite specific, they are extremely important resources for both getting and sending information. You will likely find groups devoted to raising, canning, shipping, selling, cooking and promoting bananas! On a personal note, I didn\’t even know Netscape had a news window until I found it by accident. Nor do I know much about what my server offers, or how to find groups, subscribe or unsubscribe. I presently don\’t have the time to sift through what I understand can be a lot of mail, at times. Nor do I have time to engage in much discussion, so I have tried what I call ‘the next best thing’ approach.

By now, you should have many links in place and have met many people. Surely more than a few of them are newsgroup or list members. On a personal basis, ask if he or she would mind helping out by making an announcement on your behalf. As they are active participants, they carry more weight than you do, particularly if you just post to any old group you run across. If you join in, that\’s another story, and one I cannot tell you about, lacking any experience. While I cannot recall how I did it, I have in the past posted to what I felt were appropriate groups. Yes, the dreaded unsolicited e-mail delivered to perhaps hundreds of people. Of 200 recipients I mailed to, I got back about 10 ‘thanks-this is of use to me’ responses, one ‘please unsubscribe’, and two who asked if they could repost the letter, finding it ‘worth repeating’. Your results may vary!

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Wow, that is scary. I have actually been designing logos for over 30 years! I think that makes me OLD by most standards . . . but I really would prefer it if you would use the word “experienced.” I just love branding and logo design so my work has brought me on an enjoyable journey. God was gracious enough to allow me a measure of natural talent, and it has been very rewarding using it to help companies define their image through a logo design. That logo design ends up being the core image that your branding is hung on, it becomes “real estate in the consumers mind” as my friend Jerry Ross says.

My work started right after schooling at Syracuse University’s School of Advertising Design. I joined my dad’s existing sign business and promptly began redesigning most of our customers logos in the Hartford, CT area. New customers always got tremendous deals on logo designs too and soon I had a bit of a decent reputation as a designer. As the years passed, many clients asked us to handle their brochures, ads, displays and many other crazy things. When they asked if we could do something related to marketing or their image, the answer was always “yes, sure we can do that.” By tackling more and more we gained experience in many areas of marketing and branding.

Around 1990, my concentration was fully towards design and becoming more of an “ad agency” without the traditional BS trappings that end up costing clients through the nose. This strategy paid off and as my original clients grew we grew with them. In this ‘day and age’ I feel privileged indeed to have clients that have been with me since the late 70′s!

In the late 90′s we began to see the real emergence of the web on the marketing landscape locally in Hartford, and began helping companies tell their story with a web design. Today, of course – your web design IS your hub of all marketing. As a result most of our work is creating web design in the Hartford, CT area and now in the Orlando, FL area too. Yes, I finally smartened up and figured out that we did not have to put up with slush, ice and drab, gray skies forever – moved the family South about 5 years ago. We love it here in Orlando, but work brings me back to Hartford office on a regular basis. In fact, a week from today I will be shooting photos for a painting contractor in Farmington, CT for Franklin Painting’s web site redo. If you’re from CT area and would like to get together the last week of the September, please give me a call on my cell @ 407-414-5270.

I recommend it’s consideration to all those who may need to learn humility -

“The greater the artist, the greater the doubts.
Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented
as a consolation prize.”

Robert Hughes

As an artist, I will admit wholeheartedly that I NEVER really have “perfect confidence.”
I begin each project with a tiny bit of worry that it will come out right, of course as
business people we try not to let that thought out of the bag.

I sent to a client that I wanted to work with as an indication of the reality of work as an artist. “I suggest that each of us surely offers a degree of talent, and perhaps together we may achieve a bit of genius.”

“Talent hits a target no one else can hit;
Genius hits a target no one else can see.”

- Arthur Schopenhauer

Now as artistic business people we do look at everything differently. We see the target sometimes and need to explain it gently to the client.

Some wonderful words from Thoreau:

“I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”

Henry David Thoreau

I love the part about “new more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves . . . ”
That is the part that I look forward to! The law that governs us in reality is God of course, most of us who are successful as we follow His lead realize this. Years back when I was a very young pup in the design world, I thought that I was the genius, the creative master of all. When it dawned on me that all creativity ultimately comes from the Creator, things started to order themselves much better in my life! Not preaching here, just saying.

For the unsure, procrastinator in all of us!

“If you put off everything till you’re sure of it,
you’ll never get anything done.”

Norman Vincent Peale

That’s all for today – Have a Wonderful Next Week!

This video is 3 minutes of snippets from a web marketing presentation that we provided for SCORE at the Disney Entrepreneur Center in downtown Orlando recently.

By combining SEO (Search Engine Optimization) that will deliver visitors to your site, with a well designed website that will capture the visitors attention and convert them into a customer – your company should be enjoying tremendous lead generation from your web presence.

If you are not getting direct leads, that means e-mails and phone calls directly linked to a web visit, you are missing the boat.

A good online reputation for your company goes deeper than just your site too. Remember, anyone that is considering hiring you or buying from your company will search your brand and or personal name to see what they find. Make sure what they find convinces them that your company is the best choice. This is why Social Media is so important today, let’s face it – it is more than just what WE say about our company on our website, we need to be concerned with what other people are saying about doing business with us. That is what is really making the difference when it comes to buying decisions today.

We provide web design in Hartford, Orlando and Winter Haven that incorporates all these components to build your brand online. On Our Fall Road Trip to Hartford we will be working on 3 new sites and would love to meet with you personally if you are from up that way. If you have a project to discuss, call me now and we will set time aside to meet in person. I used to live through all that cold rain and slush, but now I have smartened up and just visit at the best times.

How do you know if your site is working as hard as it should be. Start with installing Google Analytics and find out.

[watch?v=C73QhOxAP6E]

You can ready more of what Nick has to say at Fast Company
Fast Company Expert Blogger, Nick Nanton