I first heard about a PR Blackout via Susan Getgood at Marketing Roadmaps. She wondered why people do things that they don’t get enjoyment from, which is what it seems is happening to some Momdot members.

Momdot is a community site where mom bloggers can gather together and hang out with other mom bloggers. Or something along those lines (I couldn’t find an about page). They have a call-in show and last week, many bloggers complained about being burnt out. They are tired of reviews and giveaways. They’re afraid if they say “no” they won’t get any more pitches. And so Momdot decided to issue a challenge to its members. One week in August, just stop all PR and go back to blogging about family, hobbies, and whatever else suits them. A PR Blackout Challenge.

Some moms seemed relieved and ready to participate. Others, who have been painted as overly critical, couldn’t understand why a blackout is necessary. If you’re overwhelmed, just don’t do it — that’s what several of the commenters who wouldn’t be participating said.

But Caroline McCarthy at CNET questioned whether “mommy bloggers” need to grow up and just take time away when needed, rather than “missing the point” by doing a blackout. And then Liz Gumbinner wrote an article at BlogHer that questioned the movement and the stress moms were feeling. She wondered why a “PR Blackout,” which seems to alienate the PR community, instead of a “Write Well Week” or something of the sort. Although Momdot claimed that wasn’t the point, it was just what they named the movement, it could have some ramifications in PR-blogger relations.

There are two things to learn here:

1) If your company’s PR people or firm are contacting bloggers about reviews and giveaways, be courteous. Some bloggers complained that PR reps were bugging them constantly about when they would post. Let your PR people know that’s unacceptable. No one likes to be harassed.

2) And if you are a blogger who feels pressured by reviews and giveaways, take a break. Or just stop altogether. If a PR person is too pushy for your tastes, politely decline and move on. It’s not the end of the world, nor is it the end of your chances to do reviews. If it’s causing you that much stress, let it go and spend time with your family.

Not all bloggers feel that a blackout is the way to go, so you PR people keep looking for bloggers you want to work with. Trust me, there are enough of them out there.

image: sxc.hu

Post from: Bizzia

We want quality. We want reliability. And okay, sometimes we do actually want cool, too. But we don’t want our ads to be cool — we want to feel cool or interesting. Can your product do that? Does your advertising show us?

We want to save time and money. Does your marketing tell us how you’ll help us achieve that? Can you help us get the boring stuff done so we can spend more time with friends and family? Or can you give us enjoyment out of the time we do have together?

Creativity in your marketing is important. You want to find a way to stand out. But don’t do it just in hopes you’ll get some sort of award. Be creative so you can make the sale. Wow us. Creative is great if you show us something we haven’t seen before, as long as it interests us enough to make a sale. If it doesn’t try to close the sale, it fails.

Your customers don’t care if you have award-winning advertising. It’s all about them, not you. So what are you going to do in order to make it about them?

image: sxc.hu

Post from: Bizzia

Said Lauren Litwinka of Hudson Horizons: “Over the years, social media and social networking services, particularly Facebook and Twitter, have evolved tremendously. They once catered almost exclusively to a youthful demographic. But now, they present priceless marketing and business networking opportunities to professionals around the world.”

Among the tasks of their social media marketing is taking advantage of services such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, LinkedIn and Yelp. If you are interesting in marketing in the social media field, hiring a marketing company to do the work for you is oftentimes a good idea.

“Unfortunately, not every company has the time or know-how to successfully market themselves using these social media services,” said Litwinka.

“That’s where we come in.”

Social Media (Image: Flickr)

Post from: Bizzia

Many people ignore advertisements until they are ready to buy. Before I bought my car, I paid no attention to talk about various models and features. But when it was time to get rid of my unreliable car, I started researching. What’s the best brand? Best model? What cars are reliable, get good gas mileage and have minimal repair costs? When I was ready to buy I started noticing the wealth of information available to me.

Where do your customers go when they are ready to buy? Are you already there, waiting for them, prepared with just the information you know they will need? Or do you follow them around, asking — even begging — them to pay attention to you even when they’re not in the market?

Which one will you be? You could interrupt constantly with irrelevant ads. Or you could find out who needs your product and then market to them. Which is a better use of your time and money?

And why don’t more companies see this?

image: sxc.hu

Post from: Bizzia

Merkle

“The mobile platform is evolving into a powerful direct channel that is ubiquitous, and offers instant engagement and measurable interactions across a variety of mobile applications,” said Eric Kirby of Merkle. “Our approach is to take an integrated view of a client’s customer and prospect data to develop the most impactful marketing strategies. Mobile will be an increasingly important source of insights and marketing activity going forward.”

Merkle points to the a Jupiter Research report that predicts spending on mobile ads will surpass $5.5 billion in 2014. Chosen to lead the new mobile marketing practice for Merkle is Mike Ricci, formerly of iLoop Mobile.

“We are extremely pleased and excited to welcome Mike Ricci into his new role at Merkle,” said David Williams, the CEO and President of Merkle. “At this moment, we are seeing a remarkable evolution in the mobile space, in that consumers are increasingly embracing mobile communications as their preferred channel for receiving product news and information – and even for making purchases. As a result, leading brands are rapidly introducing the mobile channel into their integrated customer marketing strategies.”

Post from: Bizzia

Car manufacturers think that releasing new cars every year and pressuring people to get the latest-and-greatest is the way to go. But really, this constant push of what’s essentially the same product year after year just dilutes the impact of their marketing. Face it, there’s no perceptible change in most models each year. A slightly different fender shape or a couple of new accessories are not big updates.

Automakers rush to put out car after car and then beg us to buy last year’s model at a discount in order to make room for this year’s “innovation.” This paradigm has been going on for decades. Nothing has changed.

What if it did?

What if a bold manufacturer decided they don’t need to sell a brand new model of a car every year? What if they switched to every two years? Or what if they alternated with several models, so a new one came out every year, but of a different model so they all still only release models every 2-3 years?

Would consumers be pleased with slightly fewer choices? What if the cars only came in a few colors, or you could only get a particular color every other year? Could it change the whole auto industry to go back to manufacturing fewer cars than they do now? And can scarcity actually work in their favor a little?

Sometimes, you can offer your customers too many choices. Or you may be trying to update your product a little too often with too few benefits. It dilutes your product and your message. Do you want to do many things, or do just a few things really well?

Forget what everyone else in your industry is doing. What can you change to make your product and company better?

image: saebaryo

Post from: Bizzia

And surprisingly, grocery stores (and the like) don’t seem to be using the data to their advantage. As a “club” member, the store occasionally sends us promotional coupons. Or maybe the register will print out a coupon based on what we bought.

But here’s the thing: they are still doing it wrong. When I buy diapers for my little guy, I get a coupon for another brand, or the store brand. That doesn’t work with me. I buy a certain brand because it works for us. If they want me to come back and purchase more diapers, they need to give me a coupon good for that same brand. Yet they rarely do.

There are some products that I’m willing to try as a generic brand. Sometimes not. Maybe I’ve already tried the generic and it didn’t taste the same or work as well. It could be anything. In my purchase history, they could tell whether I’ve bought store brand items. If I never redeem store-brand coupons, they need to change the tactic. All of the data is there. It’s simply a matter of reviewing the information and targeting things to suit my shopping needs.

I rarely like companies to use my data, unless it’s to recommend a purchase based on what I’ve already done. Amazon is very good at that. It even allows me to say which items I’m not interested in, and they don’t bother me with that one again. Why can’t grocery stores do the same?

What data do you have that you can use to directly market to your customers? And I mean marketing useful products and services that will fit them — not just scattered shots that you hope will get the mark.

image: Newscom

Post from: Bizzia

That person is probably not your CEO (Lisa Barone thinks so).

I used to read a regional computing magazine that had some great articles. It was via that magazine that I discovered blogging (about 7 years ago). The opening column, which is usually something written by a magazine’s editor was in this case written by the publisher. And it was awful. He rambled. Half the time he didn’t talk about technology, but about his family vacations. Or when he did talk about technology he came off as an old technophobe. Not what you want to see in a computing magazine, right? It was so out of touch that I had to skip that part of the mag.

And it’s possible people are doing the same thing to your company blog. If your CEO is truly engaged in the day-to-day operations of your company and can provide an interesting perspective, that’s great! But so many CEOs are just out of touch with their organizations. They don’t know what work is like for the regular worker bees. They’ve forgotten what it is to worry about making ends meet in a rough economy. And they don’t understand how to connect to customers.

Barone recommends that you find the person with the most passion and excitement for the company. That’s right, find the worker who cares about the day-to-day and is truly excited to share his or her experiences. So many companies are afraid of risk, afraid that someone will say the wrong thing. What customers really want to see is a real person at the company. Someone they can relate to.

If you’re that person, great! If not, then you need to find someone who can help you. Someone who can connect with your customers. Hand the blog keys over to that person and watch what happens.

image: morgueFile

Post from: Bizzia

Here are a few ways to build your marketing newsletter:

Prominently display the opt-in form. When visitors come to your website, the opt-in form for the newsletter should be one of the first things seen. If you hide it too deep in the website, don’t expect to see many daily subscriber additions.

Offer an incentive. Everyone loves free stuff. Even a chance at a prize might be good enough to increase the rate at which you gain newsletter subscribers.

Contact your current list of customers. It doesn’t hurt to ask if your current customers are interested in subscribing to your marketing newsletter.

Give a good reason. People aren’t going to want to join a marketing newsletter just to get spammed. Instead, offer something such as informative content or coupon alerts to those who subscribe.

Free is always good (Image: Flickr)

Post from: Bizzia

Here’s what I am reading this week. Things that make me think. If you run across any great articles this week, please pass them along. And if there’s a blog I shouldn’t go another day without reading, let me know. What are your favorite marketing reads?

The Confusion
Seth Godin talks about confusing internal biochemistry with external events, and it makes for an interesting read. And it does seem like we react differently to things depending on what’s going on in our lives and bodies. In a down economy, it’s easy to get sad and frustrated with the situation you’re in. But when you concentrate on what you’re doing right, instead of what you’re doing wrong, you will notice a big change in how you look at everything. (I’m not saying you need to ignore what you might be doing wrong. But when you are so focused on it that you are dissatisfied with everything, try reminding yourself about what you do right, to bring in some balance.)

What’s Your Signature Response to Problems?
Yes, yes, yes. Exceed expectations by responding proactively to problems. If you want to stand out, you really need to do this. You must think about how you will respond to problems. We all know about Nordstrom’s reputation for service. Do people know about yours?

7 Ways You’re Screwing Up Relationship Marketing
Because it’s not about creating a touchy-feely relationship. It’s about making a connection and getting the customer to stick around and buy. It’s about marketing. It’s about finding customers and creating a relationship that brings them back again and again.

9 Proven Headline Formulas That Sell Like Crazy
Use headlines that grab attention. Tell them what they need to hear. Remember to highlight the benefit, not the process (how to make money working from home vs. how to start a computer business from home).

It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood: Some thoughts about community.
What is a community? Are you creating conversations around shared interests, rather than a product? And if you decide to work to create a community, will you stick around and keep engaging the customers and community? There’s nothing worse than watching a dying gathering place when a company decides not to support it anymore.

image: morgueFile

Post from: Bizzia