Marketing Technology Blog

I Have No Competition

Douglas Karr — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 01:43:55 +0000

I know that sounds arrogant. I don’t mean it that way. Whenever anyone mentioned competition at a company I worked at, I scoffed. I always have. Someone told me once that it’s impossible to look behind you and still race forward at top speed. I believe fear paralyzes companies.

I believe in co-opetition.

I’m not advocating ignoring your competition… every company should understand the advantages that they bring to the table. More important than your competitive advantages, though, is whether or not there’s a match between those advantages and the actual needs of the customer. I’m growing my business from scratch right now and in the first days I took on every job I could just to ensure I could stay afloat. In hindsight, that was not a good decision… I could have referred many of those projects and the clients would have been just as happy, maybe happier.

My focus now is creating partnerships with large agencies, public relations firms, and continuing to increase the relationships I have with very large clients. This week, I’ve referred two good prospects to my competition. It was the right thing to do. I can’t provide these relationships with the attention they deserve and I don’t have the resources to ensure their success… so why would I risk my reputation on it?

Here in Indianapolis, there are a great group of talented people that can provide similar services that I provide. Companies like ExactTarget, Right On Interactive, Compendium, and a number of web design and development agencies have products and services that I could provide… but I won’t. They have investment, infrastructure, customer support and resources that I don’t have. That’s better for the customer.

On the Social Media side, there are quite a few of us in town… all of whom I believe are my friends. As we approach some of the large corporations in town, each of us will bring our own perspective to the table. I’m not concerned about competing with them on this level. Again, I’m more concerned that the company gets the right resource. If I refer them and it’s a success, we all win. I look great for referring them, my competition gets business, and I’ll get the first call on the next opportunity, too.

Recently, a (huge) local company gave me the runaround to pressure me into providing some free services to them. I simply referred them to a colleague who first checked with me. When that back-fired, they came back to me and I let them know I wasn’t interested.

On the other side, there are a few agencies in town that now proudly wear the monikers of search engine optimization or social media expertise. Although they added no one to their staff with that expertise, nor have they had any results with clients in those arenas, they continue to prey on companies looking for those services. They’re opportunists, providing every service that anyone cares to ask about. I don’t like what they’re doing and I speak out against them as often as possible.

If you’re looking for a search engine optimization provider, do some searches and you’ll find who is winning search. It’s that easy. If you’re looking for a social media expert, attend some regional events, check out who started the successful regional networks, and observe who has the large followings. It will become very clear who has the expertise and who doesn’t. The opportunists leave a trail of tears.

I don’t believe I have competition. My job is to see if I’m a fit for the pain that the company has. If I’m not a fit, I’m moving on. That’s why my engagements are growing, I’m getting more time to work on things I enjoy, my clients are seeing the results they want, and I’m happy… and still broke .

What do you think? Do you really have any competition?

This post was written by Douglas Karr

Douglas Karr is the founder of The Marketing Technology Blog. Doug is President and CEO of DK New Media, an online marketing company specializing in social media, blogging and search engine optimization.

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Is Google Really Trying to Make the Web Better?

Douglas Karr — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 15:47:27 +0000

A while ago, Google put a patent on analyzing domain registration as a part of a site’s authority. The result was that the entire blogosphere and SEO industries began advising clients to register their domains for the maximum time. I even wrote about it recently.. and was rebuffed by good friend PJ Hinton from Compendium Blogware (see the comments).

Now Google is being a little more forward in its approach – with Matt Cutts dropping hints that Google might utilize page load times as a factor in ranking sites. While this sounds all warm and fuzzy, it honestly concerns me. Does this mean that only sites with deep pockets will be able to rank well in Google’s index?

Is this Google’s way of interfering with Net Neutrality? Or is it simply trying to save money? Imagine the savings to a company like Google when their crawlers are capable of crawling sites in a fraction of the time it takes now… the numbers are huge.

Part of the issue, in my opinion, is that Google is finding that it needs to be more sophisticated in its crawling methodologies. The web is getting much more complex, with dynamically generated content, use of JavaScript and Ajax technologies, syndication, Flash and Silverlight, and multi-media. If Google wants to remain a viable search engine, their crawl and index methodologies must evolve. That evolution requires a lot more processing, memory and bandwidth. That costs money.

So, as one of the wealthiest companies in the world, Google is beginning to drop the hint… hard. Make your sites faster and we’ll reward you with better ranking. This is fantastic for companies with the infrastructure, capacity and resources… but what happens to the little guy? How does a small personal blog hosted on GoDaddy for a few dollars compete with a company hosted on a platform that costs thousands of dollars with loadsharing, caching, web acceleration or cloud technologies?

In my humble opinion, I think it leans the evil side. Let’s break it down:

The web is becoming more complex.
This requires Google to advance its technologies.
That costs Google more money.
The alternative is penalizing sites that perform slowly, requiring them to spend more and speed up their sites, reducing Google’s costs.
That doesn’t make good PR, though.
Instead, Google does it in under the auspices of enhancing the web experience.

It’s not about you and me. It’s about Google’s bottom line.

That said, site speed is important and I recommend people improve their sites’ performance to reduce bounce rates and increase conversions. That decision is left to your business to evaluate and determine a return on investment for.

When Google begins doing this, it’s no longer a business decision – it’s a business requirement and will simply knock small businesses, regardless of their relevance, off the search engine results page. I don’t believe it’s fair – and it’s the work of a monopoly. Monopolies get to make decisions that impact profit without consequences since there’s a lack of competition.

Google may want to be careful on this one… Bing is looking much nicer every day (and I have it running in Safari!).

This post was written by Douglas Karr

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Keep Your Promises

Nila Nealy — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 22:04:56 +0000

A friend was telling me a story the other day. She’d felt she’d been burned by a company she’d been doing business with and needed to vent about it. Several months ago, when the relationship began, they’d sat down and agreed on how they’d work together, outlining who’d do what and when. Things looked pretty good at first. But as the honeymoon phase began to wear, she saw signs that all was not as it had been discussed. In fact, the other company wasn’t keeping specific promises they’d made. She addressed her concerns with them and they promised to not let it happen again, to keep on track. I’m sure you can see where this is going. Recently they did it again – and this time in a big way. They agreed to approach a situation a certain way and then one of their guys completely and knowingly blew it. She walked away from the business.

What does this have to do with marketing? Everything.

Everything you do is marketing. Not just your ads and your blog posts and your websites and your sales pitches. Everything. And when you make promises explicitly or implicitly, you’re asking for someone to trust you. If you’re lucky, they’ll grant you their trust. If you don’t uphold your promises, you’ll lose their trust. It’s that simple.

If you imply that your product is the fastest, it better be the fastest. If you say you answer calls in 24 hours, you’d better answer calls in 24 hours. No ifs, ands, or buts. People can be forgiving. You can make a mistake. You’ll have to earn back that bit of trust that you lost.

But, you cannot intentionally deceive. Not allowed. Say what you’re going to do and then do it. Mom always said, “if you make a promise, keep it.” Who knew she was talking about business, too?

This post was written by Nila Nealy

Nila is the principal of TwentyTwo, a business consultancy specializing in brand strategy, identity, and communications. TwentyTwo helps businessess inspire and excite their people, interest and influence prospects, make meaningful connections with their customers, and purse profit with purpose. Learn more about Nila at LinkedIn or my web site.

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5 Social Networking Steps for Sales Professionals

Douglas Karr — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 04:49:03 +0000

Met with a client today who understood the basics of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. and I wanted to provide them some feedback on beginning to utilize social media effectively. The client was a sales professional and wanted to begin taking advantage of the medium but wasn’t quite sure how he was going to balance his job requirements while ramping up a social media strategy.

That’s a common problem. Social networking online isn’t unlike networking offline. You meet people, identify connectors, and find and build relationships with influencers and prospects. You can’t simply step into the first Rainmakers event and do this (Rainmakers is a regional networking group that has explosive growth). It takes time, requires some digging, and ultimately momentum to begin profiting from your network. This is as true online as it is offline.

5 Steps to Successfully Utilize Social Networking to Drive Sales

Get online: Build your LinkedIn profile, open a Twitter account, and if you want to speed up the process (and invest more time), begin writing a blog on your industry. If you don’t have a blog, then find other blogs you can contribute to.
Identify Connectors: One quick way to find the connectors in your group is to join an online network such as One Degree Connected. ODC builds an online network and allows you to prospect much easier by connecting your address book to everyone else’s. Connectors are also Twitter users with large followers, or bloggers with a large following.
On Twitter, you can do this by researching hashtags and finding the people behind those industry tweets. Advanced tools such as Radian6 can also help here!

For Blogs, the latest changes to Technorati can really help you narrow down your targets. Doing a blog search for a term like CRM can provide you with a list of blogs, in order of popularity! Add these feeds to your favorite feed reader!
Build Relationships: Once you identify connectors, begin adding value to their content by adding relevant contributions to via comments and tweets. Don’t self-promote… these aren’t the folks buying your products, they’re the ones who will talk about your products and services.
Attract a Following: By contributing to the conversation and building authority in your industry – connectors will talk about you and influencers will begin following you. The key here is to give, give, give… you can’t give enough. If you’re worried about people simply stealing your information and using it without paying you… don’t! Those folks were never going to pay you, anyways. The ones who would pay are the ones who still will.
Provide a Path to Engagement: This is where a blog really comes in handy! Now that you’ve got folks’ attention, you need to bring them back somewhere to do business with you. For a blog, it can be a call-to-action in your sidebar or a contact form. Provide some registration pages for downloads or webinars. If nothing else, offer your LinkedIn profile to connect with them. Whatever you decide, just be sure it’s very easy to find… the easier it is to connect with you, the more people will.

Social networking for producing sales isn’t difficult but it may take a long time. Just as putting sales goals down for the number of calls you’re making, number of meetings you’re attending and number of closes you’re making… begin putting down some goals on the number of industry folks you’re finding, the number you’re following, connecting with, and contributing to. Once you get your game on, volunteer for a guest post or have those connectors or influencers guest post on your blog. Trading audiences is a great way to expand your network.

As you continue to work your network and build relationships with connectors and influencers, you’ll gain their respect and open yourself to opportunities you never knew existed. I’m consulting daily now, speaking regularly, writing a book and have a growing business – all built from an effective social networking strategy. It took years to get here – but it was well worth it! Hang in there!

This post was written by Douglas Karr

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The Greatest Marketing Tool Ever!

Adam Small — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 11:15:44 +0000

No, I am not going to unveil a new great and wonderful technology, website, or other marketing silver bullet that will rocket your company into super stardom.

I am talking about great customer service. It seems obvious to say that. Everyone knows that great customer service is a proven method to grow your business, but from what I’ve seen, many companies have forgotten it. If they haven’t forgotten it, at minimum they’re missing the opportunity to enable the voices of their own happy customers to grow their business.

Everyone has their own horror story about customer service and everyone has their own story of great customer service. As marketers, we need to remember that these stories are being told every day to prospective customers and clients. And now – social media has amplified these conversations!

Customer service has the power to cut both ways. That bad story has the power to send new prospects and existing customers to your competitors. That great story may bring new customers and increased sales. It’s your job to improve customer service to silence the bad, and provide a bullhorn to amplify the good!

So how do we make sure that the story is being told? Lately, I’ve seen some inexpensive, practical ways of making sure that the story gets told. One company I know of is allowing customers to write and post their stories on the company’s blog and sharing them with anyone willing to read.

Some companies have started client networks on the Ning platform. They’re using these networks as a knowledge base, forum, help desk and testimonial site all in one. It’s a great way aggregate the customer experience and paint the true story of your company’s great customer service.

So what are you doing to make sure that your prospects hear about your great customer service?

This post was written by Adam Small

Adam is the CEO of Connective Mobile, a mobile marketing company that offers mobile marketing solutions and integration. Connective Mobile works with clients in the restaurant/retail, real estate and conferences/events industries.