The Freakin' Word!

Amazon is Changing the face of Book Sales Yet Again

2016-02-05T16:13:00.001-08:00

Rumor has it that Amazon is getting into the brick and mortar book business big time. Mall reps and human resources rags are talking about it and articles are popping up all over the place calling attention to it. What will it mean for indie bookstores to have the largest retail book giant in the neighborhood? Well, what did it mean for the locals when B&N moved in and eventually out? Given the diversification of the lines sold at B&N and the rebranding as stores akin to libraries sporting coffee shops and other push-in offerings that keep potential customers milling about for hours at a time, there’s still hope for an unsullied bookstore. Will Amazon fill that role thereby ousting smaller shops once and for all? Well, it remains to be seen where these shops will open. Right now, it’s Seattle, Wa. and word is hot on a new location in La Jolla, Ca. As test sites we’ll all begin to see the kind of technology that will be put in place. Lips are flapping about eliminating the checkout process with data on the book/item being transmitted alternatively. I bet there will be a 3D printing and filling stations for Kindles as well. As far as the imagination can take us, knowing Amazon is never afraid to be the trendsetter.

Author Platforms: The Holy Grail of Getting Signed

2015-12-17T21:40:00.000-08:00

It's tough in the publishing world. There's so much competition and as authors, it's absolutely key that you represent your "business" — you and your work — with a solid foundation. Industry-speak for this holy grail is the author platform. This author platform (cue the angels singing) is the meat and potatoes to building awareness for your work while at the same time also creating an entree to the agents and publishers you are hoping to sign with. In part, because it means you are not only bringing a product but also a market of readers who are ready to purchase any books you write. Coming with a platform in hand (or in proposal) also shows a willingness on your end to do some of the heavy lifting of marketing. And I say heavy, because building this following is NOT an easy task.

An author used to be able to sell a great manuscript solely on the idea of great writing. The current wave of traditional and self-publishing success includes an author platform that is preferably established during the drafting stage of your book. Taking this proactive approach to your writing career will help establish a resume detailing your accomplishments in an effort toward making you and your book a success. A success because you will already have created a dynamic author-reader dialogue to build your database of readers, gain endorsements or “supported by” backing and maximized your personal brand and professional reputation in the process.

So, what exactly is this author platform thing? Your platform details who you are and what you are known for — your public face — as well as showcases your ability to promote yourself in the marketplace. Each of your marketing efforts contributes to the layers and strength of your platform, and thus the presence and power you wield in your industry. If you were a Jedi, it would be your force. Your platform is how you reach out to readers in order to build exposure, a network and name-driven notoriety.

Your author platform is a mix of marketing elements optimizing benefits from the publishing, journalism, technology and business areas in your arena. Here’s how you can get started in building your author platform.

Create a great Web site. Freakin' Genius Marketing will design a crackerjack, customized site that you can customize to represent your public YOU. It's important to feel empowered by your content management system as you must update your content regularly. No one likes a static site. It's like the needle getting stuck on the vinyl record. Keep your site fresh and up-to-date with the changes and growth of your career and a blog jam packed with keywords to drive traffic. Include information about you and your book, pictures of your cover, reviews, a schedule of speaking events, endorsements, articles or any other press materials, video clips and anything else that may help in boosting interest to your site.
Be prepared with a press kit. Your kit should include a one-page press release highlighting your unique direction and the benefit of your content, an author bio and perhaps a photo and a sell-sheet with book ordering information. You can even include extras, such as a jpeg file of your author photo and book cover, an article detailing the key elements of your book and storyline, a DVD containing your media clips, and a suggested interview with ten questions and answers that may be used for print media or an actual interview.
Get endorsements or blurbs from experts within your industry or recognizable names. This association will add a boost in professionalism to your name and work.
Connect your topic to breaking news. The media is interested in tying related topics to the news happening right now. If your writing is in relation to current news, contact the appropriate venue as an author with knowledge on the topic. Watch those RSS feeds and create sidebar article pitches.
Speak on your topic. Develop a speech that combines your expertise and book topic that is also tied into current events/news. Keep a calendar of your speaking engagements, who your audience is and the number of attendees. Speak for free if you have to and also look into teaching adult extended learning classes in your city.
Write a blog. Become involved in the writing community. Your blog should be less about pitching your book and more about contributing to a discussion. Start conversations, engage, have fun and write consistently. Tie it into your social media and newsletters to keep a fresh batch of eyeballs on your posts regularly.
Utilize audio and video. You may create an author interview, discussion, or even a type of trailer for your book. Add it to your Web site, create a link within your e-mail and post it on YouTube.
Join writing organizations. Involvement in organizations helps to build a network of professionals within your same industry. You may learn from and utilize this affiliation in building your writing career.
Be a friend to All bookstores. Never walk by a bookstore without going in and introducing yourself. Shake the hands of managers and employees and thank them for helping in the success of your book. We all tend to recommend on experience — someone we know and like. A personal touch to those directly dealing with consumers may result in the suggestion of your book to potential readers.
Consider a marketing professional. Hiring a marketing professional or publicist like Freakin' Genius Marketing can help polish your materials and presentation as well as introduce you to varying media contacts. You will also gain inside knowledge and techniques you can apply throughout your career.

You are not building an author platform to sell your book; you are building your career and introducing yourself to the industry. This platform is the foundation of your business and your personal brand, that, with an investment in time, will open up literary avenues and a direction of opportunity. Your platform is absolutely INTEGRAL to getting media attention and book reviews. It will become leverage to move your book through the circuit because you are much more valuable to a publisher if you bring a crowd of followers that think you are the bees knees.

6 Tricks to Building an Amazing Personal Brand

2015-12-13T15:13:00.003-08:00

Branding. A term that's long been associated with companies. Not so much anymore. Today almost everyone has a personal brand. Despite being concerned with what others' think of us, not too many of us have consciously cultivated our own personal brands, but they exist nevertheless. A footprint exists in perpetuity in the sands of digital time and space crowd sourced by everyone you know be they friends, colleagues, or bosses. In case you aren't up on the hype, in the lands of the internet, a digital footprint is used to describe the trail, traces or footprints that people leave online. So, hold onto your socks when you read this little tidbit. In 2014, an AVG study reported that 92 percent of children under the age of two have a digital footprint.

The question isn't whether or not you have a personal brand, but how you choose to cultivate it. Do you choose to be defined by what you may have put out on the internet or social media at some point in your life when you weren't thinking of what it would look like years later?

Here are a few ways to start consciously building your own personal brand.

Start thinking of yourself as a brand

What do you want for people to think of when they hear or read your name? Is there a certain topic, effort, or category in which you want to be perceived as an expert? Are there character or personal qualities you want others to connect to your brand? When you have an idea about how you wish your brand to be perceived, you can start to be much more strategic about creating that persona. This doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn't be human, fallible or relaxed, on the contrary. Michael Simmons wrote, "Authenticity is key in the digital age." Your brand is valued at some extremely high ROI no matter where you view it from.

Keep a keen eye on your online presence

You can’t mold others' ideas of you without first understanding the current status. Remember, perception is reality to others. Google yourself and set up alerts for your own name on a regular basis. If your name is somewhat common, use your middle name or middle initial to differentiate your search. Cultivating a healthy personal brand is just as much about being responsive to what is being said now as it is about creating new discussions yet to be had.

Get your own personal website

Having a personal website is one of the best ways to rank for your name on the search engines. Ensure that when your name is typed into search engines, your website comes up first in the results. Your website doesn’t need to be filled with dynamic content that you need to manage every day. It can be a simple two-to three-page site with a short biography and some links to your most active social platforms. When you have time, add elements to it and perhaps a blog.

Have a purpose for what you share with others

Every tweet, every status update, and every picture you share contributes to your digital footprint. Your personal brand is like a poetic fusion of your multiple daily actions. Once you understand how you want to be perceived, you can get a whole lot more strategic in your messaging and positioning.

Associate with other strong brands

Your personal brand is strengthened or weakened by your connection to other brands. Find and leverage strong brands which can elevate your own personal brand. Start with the three C’s: company, college, colleagues. Where did you attend college? Are there groups or associations you can join? How about an alumni newsletter you can contribute to? Find hidden opportunities available within your company and organizations you are involved in. Contribute. Contribute. Contribute.

No ruts for you

A strong personal brand is dependent on a strong narrative. In other words, what’s your story? Find your theme song. Reinvent yourself. If you have multiple passions or areas of interest, a narrative becomes even more crucial so there can be unified theme. But like in life, the only thing that stays consistent is change, so a strong personal brand should be ubiquitous and ever evolving.

If you're interested in kicking around more ideas about how to build your personal brand, contact Freakin' Genius Marketing for a consult.

Think about things differently in 2016! Happy Holidays From Your Friends at Freakin' Genius Marketing

2015-12-12T07:56:00.000-08:00

Retrospection is Key in Memoir Creation

2015-12-09T20:01:00.000-08:00

Part three of a three part series.

“Writing memoir is like preparing yourself to go to confession,” says Frank McCourt, who didn’t publish Angela’s Ashes until he was 66. “You have to examine your conscience.” And that entails honesty. You can’t write an effective memoir if you’re worried about family and friends looking over your shoulder. Even if the truth hurts, if it is truthful, then there’s no other way to present it. At the very least, readers will recognize the courage in that and respect you for it.

The most integral part of successful memoir writing is retrospection. It’s not enough to just chronicle your life as if you were a newspaper reporter. Memoir demands that you write about what you’ve learned from your experiences. For instance, Jeannette Walls, author of The Glass Castle initially wrote about her childhood as a detached observer, and the result, her literary agent told her, was a story that read like it was “wrapped in cellophane.” Only when she assumed the persona of herself as a little girl did it become real and powerful.

In many ways, writing a memoir is like painting. You slap some words on a blank canvas, take a few steps back, look at how they’re coming together, then refine things further. That step back is retrospection. It’s thoughtfulness. It’s an attempt to figure things out. It’s the search for your truth.

“A smart therapist once told me that what I had done in this book was exactly what he tries to get patients to do, and that is confront the truth,” says Walls. “For many years I was running from it, but the truth has a way of catching up with you, and this was my way of coming to terms with it. The things that haunt you, the things that have power over you—once you confront them, they lose their power. So many people ask me, ‘How can you forgive your parents for treating you that way?’ Well, actually, the person I had to forgive was myself. By sitting down and telling what really happened, I was able to understand it for the first time.”

Part I

Part II

6 Tips for Starting Your Memoir

2015-11-09T19:39:00.000-08:00

Part II of a III part series

1. Write a memoir, not an autobiography
An autobiography is the story of an entire life, but a memoir is just one story from that life. You can only ever write one autobiography, but you can write countless memoirs. It’s a much less intimidating project if you view it that way.

2. Diagram your life
Some people have one burning story to tell. Others find it difficult to immediately pinpoint anything. Tristine Rainer, author of Your Life as Story, recommends diagramming your life to gain perspective. To do this, get in a retrospective mood, enlist the help of a friend or spouse, and map out your life’s six most significant moments. When you do it thoughtfully and honestly, there will usually be one pivotal event that stands out as particularly meaningful. If there isn’t, don’t worry. There are many different ways to map out a life. Try categorizing yours by challenging choices, powerful people, conflicts, beliefs, lessons learned, even mistakes repeated. Experiment until you find the one story that wants to be told, the one experience that really shaped you.

3. Don’t begin at the beginning.
Don’t tell your story chronologically. That’s too predictable. Think of your favorite books. Most don’t start at the beginning. Instead they grab you with instant action and intrigue. A good beginning is a tease. It will give your readers just enough action to hook them without divulging the outcome. Then it flashes back to the real chronological beginning and fills in the holes.

4. Use all your senses.
The best writers create vivid new worlds for readers to inhabit. Yet most budding memoirists produce first drafts that are flat. To transport readers, write in great detail. This is done through deep descriptive vocabulary and by using all your senses to fully re-create a moment in time. You can teach yourself to do this. The next time you’re waiting in a restaurant, a doctor’s office, or even in traffic, notice the various sights, sounds, smells, and textures. It’s what writers do, both in reality and in their stories.

5. Build your writing muscle.
You have a writing muscle, and it needs exercise to perform well. Set a daily goal of writing 200, 500, or even 1,000 words. Set aside a regular time, like early morning, and be disciplined. Don’t worry about making what you write perfect. Just focus on getting the story out. Above all, relax. Memoir is the easiest type of writing to do well. You’ve already done the research and are intimately familiar with every character. Now you just need to paint a picture of it with words.

Do You Have a Memoir in You ?

2015-10-22T19:35:00.000-07:00

Part I of a III Part Series

You don’t need to have had a hardscrabble youth in order to write a memoir. You don’t need eccentric parents. Believe it or not, you don’t need anything dramatic. And you certainly don’t have to publish it. It's a sad but true truth, 99.9 percent of people lead boring lives. But every single one of them is trying to make some sense out of his or her existence, to find some meaning in the world, and therein lies the value and opportunity of memoir. It’s therapeutic for the writer, and it eventually even helps his or her descendants understand themselves better.

“Memoir is about handing over your life to someone and saying, This is what I went through, this is who I am, and maybe you can learn something from it,” says Jeannette Walls, author of Glass Castles. “It’s honestly sharing what you think, feel, and have gone through. If you can do that effectively, then somebody gets the wisdom and benefit of your experience without having to live it.”

Writing about your life is also about coming to a fresh understanding of it at an age when you probably think you know yourself pretty well. Novelist Stephen King has said, “I write to find out what I think.” He means that until you set an experience down on paper, until you ponder the perfect words to describe it, you can’t fully appreciate or understand it. When you weave related experiences together, you will see a pattern in the quilt of your existence. It’s about creating a legacy that doesn’t have dollar signs in front of it but has far greater long-term value for those that know and love you.

There are as many different types of memoir as there are people. Like Walls you can write about your childhood. You can write about places you’ve visited, as Elizabeth Gilbert did in the blockbuster memoir Eat Pray Love. You can write about a crime or injustice you encountered, as Mary-Ann Tirone Smith did in Girls of Tender Age, which traces the murder of a classmate. You can write a memoir about anything, no matter how small or seemingly inconsequential. Everybody has stories shelved in his or her subconscious, awaiting translation.

The challenge is getting started, coaxing the story out. (Indeed, there are those who say beginning is half done.) Since there is inherent worth to the endeavor beyond public acclaim, you don’t have to be a professional writer or someone with connections in publishing to succeed. You can write it for yourself and truly enjoy the process.

Considering Launching a Medspa out of your Current Medical Practice?

2014-02-05T16:49:00.003-08:00

You’re a physician with a healthy practice, but you’re interested in adding Med Spa services and products. You are suddenly looking at line extension marketing and increasing awareness. Two strategies for growing your practice you, perhaps, have never had to do.

As a medical professional, your practice is defined as a service business. Pretty clearly, service businesses are defined by the American Marketing Association as enterprises that are established and maintained for the purpose of providing services (rather than or in addition to products) to private and/or commercial customers. The AMA defines those services as “activities, benefits, or satisfactions which are offered for sale or are provided in connection with the sale of goods.”

Entrepreneurs engaged in medical-based service businesses must recognize how service marketing differs from product marketing, especially if their growth includes products. Service marketing can be far more challenging than the marketing of products because of these three distinctive characteristics of service offerings: 1) Services are intangible; 2) Services are perishable; 3) Services cannot be separated from the provider.

This all changes when you add a line extension that puts you into a product-driven market and has many aggressive competitors. That’s not to say that you don’t compete with other service providers, but at the risk of sounding silly, the points of difference are, well…they are entirely different.

So, up until considering the addition of non-medical procedures to your menu of offerings, such as those that are cosmetic or product related, you’ve probably never thought of how you compete for market-share in your local/regional markets. All of that changes when you offer a competitive service that’s outside the range of insurance-covered medical procedures and care.

Since 1996, there’s been tremendous expansion in the number of medical spas available to consumers. See, right there. Did you catch that? Your patient just turned into a consumer.

What’s important to realize is that everyone is opening Med Spas, from dentists to general physicians and internal physicians to OB/GYNs. And even though you may want to enter the market, how will your medical spa differentiate itself from the one down the hall or next door, or near the supermarket?

First things first: If you are considering adding Med Spa services, create a survey to give your new patients when they are filling out their health background forms asking whether they would be interested in receiving medical esthetic services, such as injectables, skin rejuvenation and laser hair removal from you. When asking them, be sure to list all the services that you are thinking of offering and don’t forget to ask them if they want to be included in the grand opening celebration and offers.

It’s imperative that you check out your state’s medical and cosmetology boards to make sure you are in complete compliance before you invest anything in overhead expenses or marketing dollars. Many details and legalities must be considered, like making sure you have the right experience to determining the scope of practice for nurses and estheticians. Be cautious and invest time and money in knowing the legalities in your state. Smart money spent now saves headaches later.

Your second step is to develop a concept for your new line extension that is unique. If it isn’t something someone else has, even if only by the way you bundle, offer memberships instead of a la carte or exclusive products. It’s important to create a facility that will be easily separated from the competition. From the color you paint your walls and the décor you place in the waiting room to the retail product you offer for sale, you are establishing yourself as a unique facility. There needs to be consistency and professionalism.

·         Make sure that you choose to offer a product line that supports its claims and is results oriented
·         Offer the most utilized treatments (botox, injectables, microdermabrasion, and skin rejuvenation treatments top the list)
·         Watch the trade magazines for new and updated technologies in skin care
·         If space allows, consider adding body contour device

Your third step is to create a unique personalized consultation process during which your potential customer is fully educated about the options that are really right for them, and why one service is recommended over another. After the consultation, clients should leave with a totally unique, personalized treatment plan listing all potential services—invasive and noninvasive—from which they can benefit from. Also, the treatment plan should outline the financial aspect of the services recommended should be covered so your customer can make an informed decision on next steps to take.

Once patient interest has been researched, legal and medical details have been ironed out, a concept has been determined and the Med Spa’s grand opening has been arranged, it’s time for your marketing to kick in. Here are fifteen marketing tips and strategies that will help increase your Med Spa’s visibility without eating up your entire budget.

·         Include a complete educational consultation to help patients understand the different available treatment options.
·         Organize seasonal promotions to encourage clients to try different services.
·         Organize weekly promotions to create excitement.
·         Host educational evenings twice a year to introduce your patients to all the services you offer.
·         Hold anniversary events every year and invite the local paper in order to make it a VIP event.
·         Send birthday cards to your clients that include a gift certificate or discount on Med Spa services.
·         Perform community service in your area to create branding while helping a good cause.
·         Produce a loyalty program that offers Med Spa dollars and discounts.
·         Create a Med Spa service menu and keep it visible for anyone and everyone to take.
·         Direct mail to your clients twice a year to promote events and special promotions.
·         Create an e-newsletter to educate your clients about your services and products.
·         Make sure you dedicate virtual space to your new line extensions on your website and in social media. Offer incentives to “like” and “follow” your business online.
·         Donate to different charity events.
·         Participate in women’s trade events.
·         Organize evenings of education in golf clubs and gyms.

So many marketing tactics can be created without spending too much money; however, if you have the budget, you should seriously consider investing in a public relations firm that will prepare a yearly marketing plan for your Med Spa facility.

There are endless details involved in transitioning into or opening a Med Spa as a line extension to your medical practice. However, if you do your due diligence, research the market, consider your competition, stay visible in your community and exceed patients/customers’ expectations, you’ll be the proud owner of the most popular new Med Spa in town!

This article was written exclusively for Medmonthly Magazine.. The original article can be viewed here.

Why Zen Works in Website Design

2013-12-02T10:23:00.003-08:00

There’s hardly anything as corny as a marketing riddle, but here goes. Responsive web design isn’t a website that gets you referrals nor is it a website that drives new patient traffic but both are outcomes of having a website that features responsive web design. So what is it? Did I get you curious?

Well first of all, let’s do an experiment. Pull your site up on your desktop or your laptop. I’m assuming you have a screen at least 12-15” wide. Can you see your whole page? Do you have to scroll down to see the content on your home page? How about your other pages? Can you see the tabs for your site’s main pages at both the top and the bottom of the site? Is the font crisp and clear? Is there reverse type? Do you have flashing elements loading?

Now, grab your phone. Whether it’s an android or an iPhone, you’ll note that the screen fits in the size of your palm. Now, pull up your website. What do you see? Are you looking at a 2X4 version of your whole home page in an unreadable font size? Or, are you looking at a miniscule piece of the left hand corner of your home page? Do you have to scroll down and across just to see the name of your business? Is the sunshine or the light above you making the screen so dark you can’t read the letters anyhow? Do you see funny shapes where the flash was unable to load?

Ok, ok…just to prove my point. If you’ve got one, pull out your Ipad. Try the exercise again. What elements do you see in a warped presentation on that screen?

Websites that were designed as recently as three to five years ago were not designed as responsive. Yes, what I’m getting at is that they were designed for desktops and laptops. Where a mobile site was launched as a .mobi it was a separate site from the original site, and even so, it wasn’t a particularly intuitive design model.

With the popularity of multiple mobile devices of different shapes, sizes and resolutions comes the advent of responsive web design; really out of necessity rather than form.

It originated because designers had to physically re-write their sites to adapt to each new platform.

Specific phones and tablets needed uniquely formatted websites, and companies struggled to keep multiple sites for their products working right. As a result, web design became time-consuming, costly, and just darned tedious.

Zen works across platforms! Responsive web design contains a set of techniques that adapt website features for each platform automatically, making the site functional, practical and user-friendly regardless of what device the user chooses to use to access it.

Responsive web is zen. Zen is simple. Zen works.

• Gives you increased flexibility

Websites will be able to fit any screen size on any device, ensuring that brands can reach consumers effectively. That means people will be able to look you up anywhere. Even when they are waiting in their doctor’s office shopping for a new doctor that won’t keep them waiting so long.

• A better user/prospective patient experience; Reaching more people in more places.

The designs are highly adaptive and will optimize website content for each device in its own way. The site will look great, be intuitive, and be help your prospect find what they are looking for easily. A happy prospective patient is a happy long-term patient.

• Reducing your bounce rates

In the past, bounce rates were high for mobile devices, largely due to functionality issues from websites that hadn’t been optimized for that particular device. They’ll find your site, no problem. No bouncing. Your site will come up under your domain name on any device. ANY DEVICE!

For more information on cross-platform compatibility, AKA, a simple, zen design that is beautiful on any screen your patients and prospective patients use, contact a strategic website design company that knows a site can be beautiful and effective in today’s multi-screen world.

This article was written for exclusively for Medmonthly Magazine (December 2013) by Lori Gertz, Chief Freakin' Genius at Freakin' Genius Marketing. The article can be viewed here.

How to Grow Your Practice

2013-11-04T10:27:00.000-08:00

How to Grow Your Practice

or Why I Care Enough to Tell Others about My Amazing Doctor

Not too long ago, my family and I moved across the country. We settled in a wonderful little beach community where every day is paradise and first world problems are tempered by the scenic views and fresh salty air. That said, the flu still rolls in annually and the kids get sick and need preventative care, a mole removed here and a referral for something there. So, what’s a marketing strategist mom to do in an entirely new community?

Oddly enough, it wasn’t a rush to the internet. I create websites for professionals. I know that the content is direct and on point, albeit a bit contrived. However, I also know that what they sell is not what I am shopping for. I’ll write about that when I cover creating a website that works to grow your practice.

As a parent or a potential patient, I’m shopping for expertise, kindness, responsiveness, intuitiveness, and someone I can like as well as trust. Oh, did I mention that they have to be on my insurance plan? The Affordable Care Act should give that one a run for its money very soon!

Actually, the first place I turned to were the parents of the kids my kids attended school with. Chances were anything my kids caught would come from that source anyhow, so I might as well have them cared for by the same professionals.

“Oh sure,” I could imagine hearing our new providers say, “I saw Jimmy with this virus yesterday, aren’t they in the same class?”

So I rang a parent or four.

“Jill, I hope you don’t mind me asking, but I’m looking for a pediatrician for Olivia. Preferably someone that takes my insurance, but more importantly, I want someone who has walk-in acute care services, convenient hours outside school and one who returns phone calls promptly. Do you love your doctor?”

Approaches like those inevitably opened the floodgates to some of the most valuable Word-of-Mouth references and recommendations as well as, a finely detailed list of who-to-avoid’s I have ever culled.

As a marketer, I couldn’t help but want to template Word-of-Mouth, akin to catching lightning in a bottle. How can a medical professional initiate Word-of-Mouth when it seems so counterintuitive to manipulate something which should arise out of a natural satisfaction for their service?

Now I want to preface all of this by sharing that I believe that Word-of-Mouth is neither a panacea nor a magical alternative to a well-considered marketing plan, but it’s definitely an important part of the 1:1 relationship building that can help you grow your medical practice beyond your wildest dreams.

The terminology alone can stir up false impressions because there are really two, entirely different, meanings attached to the concept of Word-of-Mouth.

Inbound referrals that are the result of Word-of-Mouth are often pre-conditioned to already need and want to hire you. I was shopping for a pediatrician. Jill led me to one she loved. Scenarios like mine are a major appeal to the whole concept. All you have to do is show up to the consult after one of your patients like Jill sells you to me and you’ve got me in your pocket. I’m already inclined to try your services so it’s almost like you’ll have to un-sell me to make me go away.

Now, this technique of Word-of-Mouth mustn’t be confused with the need for a deliberate program to generate referrals and fill your pipeline with prospects. You don’t want to rely solely on your current client base because if you do, you will be disempowered to grow your own practice. You want to promote referrals to your existing clients so they will refer spontaneously but you also want to pursue other mechanisms of getting people to talk about you.

The reason that Word-of-Mouth advertising is increasingly important in healthcare marketing is because patients are increasingly proactive about their healthcare.

Patients have a strong voice in making health and medical choices for themselves and their families and even more to that point, 1:1 Word-of-Mouth references of a patient are being amplified in social media comments via Facebook, Twitter and others. Don’t even try to guess how many clients I get who are trying to recover their reputations from one unfortunate YELP campaign by a disgruntled client.

The question remains, how do you inspire positive Word-of-Mouth advertising in your patient roster? What can you do to ignite commentary? As wonderful as it would be if it did, it generally doesn’t happen spontaneously. People need a reason to talk about you, your staff, the service they received and/or the overall patient care experience they received in your office.

Here are a few techniques that can inspire some deeply valuable Word-of-Mouth juju:

Understand your patient’s motivation for making a referral

People will tell others about you because:

You did or said something that was amazing.
They look well informed by sharing information about you.
They feel compelled to share your wisdom because they trust and value what you have done for them.
They want to be associated with you.
Something you just wrote or said will be of great value to someone they care about, who needs that help right now.

Some of the impetus for Word-of-Mouth is similar in Entrepreneur’s list of WOM “trigger” activities. A few are here:

Word-of-Mouth is triggered when a customer experiences something far beyond what was expected. Slightly exceeding their expectations just won’t do it. You’ve got to go above and beyond the call of duty if you want your customers to talk about you.
Don’t depend on your staff to trigger Word-of-Mouth by delivering “exceptional customer experience.” Deep down, customers know service comes from an individual, not from an establishment. And even the best people have bad days.
Physical, nonverbal statements are the most dependable in triggering Word-of-Mouth. These statements can be architectural, kinetic or generous, but they must go far beyond the boundaries of what’s ordinary.

At some point you might need to budget to deliver the experience that will trigger Word-of-Mouth. Heck, it might be by adding a play area for the children of adults who come to see you, or it might be to develop a targeted newsletter or e-book as a free giveaway. Although Word-of-Mouth is (mostly) free, some activities that inspire WOM may need a budget in time and/or dollars.

The take-away? In my case, Jill’s expectations were regularly exceeded by her doctor who is now happily our doctor. I tell others about professionals I love to use even when not asked specifically because I am ever impressed by the deepening relationships I have with them. Now mind you, if I am disappointed, I will also share that.

Positive Word-of-Mouth advertising and patient referral is inspired when expectations are surpassed. The ordinary and every day patient experience will never be anything to talk about and is quickly forgotten, so don’t count on it filling your prospective patient pipeline. When your current patient is motivated to share their experience and put their own reputation on the line in making a referral it’s never ordinary and neither are you. Go the extra mile to strategize it and reap the benefits of a healthy, growing practice.

This article was written exclusively for Medmonthly November 2013 by Lori Gertz, Chief Freakin' Genius, Freakin' Genius Marketing. The original article can be viewed here.

Skype makes monsters of us all

2013-07-16T19:29:00.003-07:00

Reprinted from the LA Times OP-ED; July 10, 2013

To many of us of a certain age, Skype is an answer for which there was no question.

By Jack Shakely

When God saw that our egos needed deflating, he invented Skype.
Skype is the 21st century invention that sci-fi movies had been predicting for decades: phonavision. Actually it's "computavision," with a tiny camera at the top of your computer screen. Very "Futurama." But what "Soylent Green" and other futurist movies didn't tell us is that this new invention makes you look like you died a week ago Thursday.

I enthusiastically signed up for Skype a few years back when my grandchildren were still toddlers. The idea of being able to talk with and see my grandsons was very appealing. But reality trumped the ideal.

The 2-year-old resolutely refused to sit in front of the computer screen and screamed and clawed his way up his mother's arm like a skittering spider monkey. The 4-year-old was more benign, but after wiping peanut butter and jelly all over the screen and pounding on the computer keyboard, he too lost interest and started wrestling with the dog.

I initially chalked this up to short attention spans until I looked down at the far right corner of my computer screen and saw staring back at me the grimacing death mask of a character out of the cast of "Marat/Sade." I had Skyped my grandchildren, pulling back the curtain on a bed-headed, stubble-chinned lunatic of a grandfather. Nobody, including me, had any use for this person.

I'm not trying to finger Skype as the sole perpetrator of this cruel technology. I'm sure there are many equally mean-spirited phonavision variations out there, all with the same design flaws. For one, because the camera is at the top of the screen and the image of your unlucky caller is mid-screen, it is impossible to maintain eye contact. Looking at the person on the other end of the call makes you look like you are talking to your lap. The only way to remedy this is to look directly into the camera, which means you can't see the other guy.

Which may be just as well. Because the other design flaw, and I'm not quite sure how they do this, is to make everybody over the age of 50 look a decade older on the spot. I've read that television adds a few pounds to you, but decades? And pounds? And where are my friends buying their clothes? Ratty Bathrobes 'R Us?
I have an old friend, an editor and teacher, who lives halfway across the country. Every few weeks for the last 20 years, we get together by telephone to discuss everything under the sun. Just before Christmas, she told me she was getting a new computer and suggested we jump headlong into the new century via Skype.

My friend is a true beauty, with a mass of blond, cascading hair framing an intelligent and inquisitive face. Or she was until she got Skyped. The poor creature I gazed on looked like Jane Wyatt the day after she left Shangri-La.

My friend looked pretty rough, but at least she didn't make me gasp, as I did her. Talking to her lap, she recovered enough to laugh and say, "Well, Jack, I guess we can stop calling you the Gray Fox, huh?"

To many of us of a certain age, Skype is an answer for which there was no question. And the telephone, which is still in play, thank God, has a built-in design superiority. Every telephone is a time machine. Leaning back and looking out the window with the phone in my ear, I notice that my male friends have regained their flat stomachs and lost their bald spots. My female friends don't wear much makeup because they don't need it, and somehow they all seem to be wearing those starched cotton shirtwaist dresses I so admire.

And I can peek in on my grandchildren every day on Facebook without scaring the bejabbers out of them. Forward into the past.

Jack Shakely is a novelist, a former newspaper editor and president emeritus of the California Community Foundation.

Looking Forward and Back

2013-03-14T13:00:00.003-07:00

So, in the last 8 years how much has really changed in your life?

Well, first of all if you had a baby who was born in 2005, that tiny little person is now in second grade and challenging your patience and your parenting skills daily. If you were just walking down the aisle, you are one year beyond your seven year itch. Congratulations if you won the bets others placed at your wedding! If you were just going to medical school, you are exhausted but finished and now facing years of loan payback.

I was awestruck when I saw this picture on NBC's blog. I've blown it up so you can see it better despite its resolution challenges. I know that research supports the onslaught of the concentration of mobile technology use in the world, but this picture spoke a thousand words to me.

Did you know:

More than half of U.S. mobile ad spending is local.
Google’s gross annual revenue from mobile advertising is over US$2.5 billion per year.
Consumer reaction to mobile ads The MMA and Lightspeed Research (October 2010), in UK, France and Germany, 45 percent of consumers (especially younger people) noticed mobile advertising and of these, 29 percent responded to it. Of those that responded to the ads, the following went on to make a purchase: Germany 49 percent; UK 47 percent; and France 22 percent.Time sensitive special offers or discounts (especially coupons) were most likely to lead to purchase.
People were most likely to purchase content such as apps, music and games.

NBC News writes of its picture comparison of St. Peter's Square,
"What a difference eight years makes."

Why your business needs a mobile-friendly site

Of those viewers in the US who react to seeing a mobile ad:
42 percent click on the mobile ad;
35 percent visit the advertiser’s site;
32 percent search for more information on their phone;
49 percent make a purchase and
27 percent call the business.
71 percent of smartphone users that see TV, press or online ad, do a mobile search for more information. (Source: US Consumer Mobile Movement survey April 2011)

Yet, surprisingly, despite these conclusive findings, 79 percent of large online advertisers still do not have a mobile optimized site. (Source: Google/Kelsey 2010)

Want more proof that you should include mobile technology and an optimized mobile strategy in your marketing plans?

U.S. mobile ad spending will grow from US$790 million in 2010 to $4 billion in 2015. Local ad spend will grow from US $404 million to $2.8 billion.

• This makes locally targeted mobile ads 51 percent of overall U.S. mobile ad spending, growing to 70 percent by 2015.
• Mobile local advertising includes ads that target users in specific locations or contain location-specific calls to action. (Source: BIA/Kelsey June 2011)

Mobile local search volume is expected to surpass desktop local search for the first time in 2015, but advertisers will continue to invest more in desktop local search.

• In 2011 mobile users performed 19.7 billion local search queries compared with desktop users 54.9 billion local search queries. In 2015 there will be 85.9 billion mobile local search queries, compared with 84.0 billion queries. In 2011 mobile local search revenues were US$400 million, rising to $3.2 billion in 2016. During the same period, desktop local search revenues will grow from $5.7 billion to $10.2 billion.

“While mobile local search volume will exceed its desktop equivalent, ad dollars will remain lower, because advertisers aren’t yet keeping pace with the growth of mobile local ad inventory, but we expect that to evolve.” (Source: BIA/Kelsey April 2012)

US expenditure on mobile advertising and marketing is estimated to be US$416 million in 2009; $743 million in 2010 and will be $1,102 in 2011. In 2010 mobile ad formats were dominated by messaging ($327 million), but display ($202 million) and search ($185 million) will catch up in 2012. Video lags at ($28 million). (Source: emarketer.com (October 2010)

These are some of the most credible sources in the industry! Apart from that, numbers don't lie. Expectation has been realized and if you haven't witnessed it first hand, scroll up again and look at that picture. Mobile technology is a venue where your brand can make an impression on global or local markets of all shapes and sizes. Seize the moment. Don't wait another eight years to enter the future now.

Algorithms Don't Feel, People Do

2013-03-14T12:07:00.000-07:00

Reprinted from the Harvard Business Review Blog

Alan Schulman is Vice President, Chief Creative Officer of SapientNitro, NY.

| March 14, 2013

There's a reason why creative people in advertising get out of bed in the morning. It's about making someone feel something — an emotion — in order to get them to act later. As we ponder a future of advertising bathed in delivering customized messages to each person, in their precise place on their every device at precisely the right moment, a word of caution: the medium is not the message. The message is still the message. Which means advertising is still very much about the brand messaging business, not just the reaching the consumer on any device business.

As a 30-year advertising practitioner, and a Chief Creative Officer of North America's now largest digital agency, I'm truly amazed at the sophistication of the technologies and platforms for delivering ads to virtually every device, from the smallest hand held screen to Walgreen's massive canvas in Times Square.
Vast amounts of Silicon Valley capital have accelerated our ability to deliver behaviorally targeted messages and videos that follow you from destination to destination and device to device. Publishers have even begun offering "in app" custom ad units specifically designed to match consumers' touchscreen desires. As an industry, we have an amazing set of providers and tools at our disposal that connects the consumer with the brand.

But as any smart advertising person will tell you, the creative message itself plays at least half the role in determining the effectiveness of any advertising component. It's the creative that will always tell an intriguing story, involve and hopefully, leave you inspired to act. This balance between medium and message has largely been lost, as we seem more seduced by the algorithms — the containers and software solutions for delivering messages to devices — than the evolution or effectiveness of them.

We are still very much in the ideas business. Despite how much more sophisticated the algorithms get at search, contextual and behavioral ad serving, advertising still has to move you. And that comes down to the kind of creative that makes you feel an emotion... not just "think" or push you into "lower funnel" activation as many marketers are so anxious to do.

This means drawing you in, getting you involved, and making you react emotionally, which is just as important on a hand-held device as it is in a 30-second TV spot. Creatively, this has been the challenge for the web banner, the video pre-roll, and even the next in-app-native touch-screen rich-media ad. These units may drive our impression-based ad-supported model, but they've yet to adequately prove the ability to make the consumer feel.

This emotional requisite often referred to as the "The Big Ideal" or "Higher Order Benefit" was once the holy grail of real advertising currency. These days, it seems emotional ideas have been replaced by sophisticated algorithms that can deliver near-real-time metrics and drive dynamic optimization of creative ad messages. These algorithms allow us to churn out countless versions of copy and banner executions for one campaign — changing layouts on the fly and cramming the call to action into an ad from beginning to end — in many cases before we've even gotten the consumer's attention.

Is this the future of advertising we are destined to produce? Turning the craft of brand storytelling into algorithm-driven copy factories?

The task we face as advertising practitioners is how to combine our efforts with media brethren to create seamless brand experiences and cascade them through new technologies and media platforms. In doing so, we serve a more involved, emotional system of messages on behalf of brands to the right people over time.
We have the technology. We have the talent. We have the ability to redefine the story to make one feel. We just need to remember that the medium isn't the message and no matter how seduced we are by the science of advertising, we must remember that algorithms don't feel, people do.

2013-03-14T11:25:00.000-07:00

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Drop us a note today to discuss how we can help you realize your marketing goals online and offline.

2013-03-11T21:01:00.003-07:00

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What is a Human Interest Story?

2013-01-26T19:41:00.001-08:00

An Excerpt from Be the News: A Guide to Going Viral With Your Human Interest Story

Many news stories are focused on reporting the facts, especially those facts which involve money, sex, drugs or rock and roll. You might find this gets both boring and depressing after a while unless you have specific interest in the details.

While we might have a lot of interest in the election results, a cure for cancer, a food recall, or what tomorrow’s temperature will be in your fair city, news media may want to add local flavor or want to put a “face” on the news by covering a story or topic more in depth. This is sometimes referred to as the story-behind-the-story, the “better half” of a story, or the sidebar.

The human interest story may look at a news item in a more personal, emotional way. This is accomplished by pressing the flesh with people who have been directly affected by it or creating a report on one or several people facing challenges that it may have uncovered. The mission of covering these stories is to grab us by our emotional shirt collars and make us think and form an opinion.

It’s rare to see a nightly newscast or a morning newspaper without at least one human interest story. Most have a standard location for them, in broadcast, it is often the last story told before signoff.

A newspaper might be covering post-hurricane financial losses and have an article that deals with statistics regarding them. To push past the grind, they might have a sidebar article on a few people in the town that is rebuilding. The main topic is the hurricane, but the underlying emotional piece is how it affected people, like you and me. It gives a whole new paradigm to understanding the losses and puts them in a feeling perspective – beyond the facts.

In contrast to a regular and objective news story, the rules of journalism are bit looser, dare I say, even slightly more subjective with human interest topics. In some cases the story is so intense that the reporter barely needs more than the facts as they are reported. Other times, the story needs to be reigned in. A slant is sometimes created and then the job of the human interest story is to add perspective rather than the opposite happening.

If yours is a human interest story, it doesn’t have to be deeply stirring and emotional, just on-topic or perhaps more for light laughs (if that falls within your goal for going wide with it to begin with). This is especially true when news venues are leading with gory, crime laden flavored journalism. Stories that meet neither of those end goals can make it into the news just as a diversion to the hard stuff to make it more palatable to the viewer. If the lighter material wasn’t there, readers and viewers would sooner turn the page or the channel to avoid the ugly news.

Great Tools to Track Your Footprints on the Internet

2013-01-21T21:46:00.000-08:00

Excerpt from Author Lori Gertz's Be the News: A Guide to Going Viral With Your Human Interest Story

Are there good tools on the web for me to track mentions of my name, my company's brand, topics or subjects that I'm invested in? The following are just a few of the tools you can use to keep track of your imprint on the web.

Social Mention: Mentions of your Name on the Social Web
A great tool for searching the social Web, Social Mention offers a quick glance at mentions of your name on the Web. Just enter your name and switch between blogs, microblogs, bookmarks, comments, events, images, news or all of them at once. An RSS feed is available.

Pipl: Searching the Invisible Web
Pipl claims to search the Web to find documents, blog entries, photos, publicly available information that other search engines don't serve up. It's a great, fast search engine that I like; the only disadvantage is it offers no RSS feed.

Monitter: Tracking Twitter
Monitter is one of the coolest looking monitoring tools for Twitter and one of the most useful. Although most people are using Twitter's own search tool for search and alerts on Twitter, Monitter offers a little bit more. Giving you the option to search for three different keywords at once, Monitter is great if you want to keep your eye out for mentions of your name, your username and your company all at the same time. It also offers an RSS feed. Monitter also allows you to narrow the search to a particular geographic location, allowing you to find out what’s going on in a particular area of the world.

BoardTracker: The Ultimate Search Tool for Forums
BoardTracker is a forum search engine, message tracking and instant alert system offering relevant results quickly. It’s a great search tool for forums and message boards.

Google Alerts: The Big G
I couldn't end this post without mentioning Google Alerts, although likely most of you are familiar with it outside of what I’ve written here in this book. Although Microsoft and Yahoo have alert tools, I find that Google's offering beats them hands down. It offers e-mail and RSS alerts for any set of keywords including your name.

How to Create Your Own Media List

2013-01-20T21:22:00.000-08:00

This resource page is an excerpt from Be the News: A Guide to Going Viral With Your Human Interest Story, a highly reviewed Amazon Bestseller! 5 Stars!!!! Buy Your Copy By Clicking Here!

1. Decide which media outlets you want to target. You probably wouldn't pitch a story about senior citizens to an alternative rock radio station. Choose the media that will have an interest in your story.

2. Go to the web site for each media outlet. Most have a "Contact Us" page, but do not send your story idea to a general contact email address.

3. Look for an editor, producer or reporter and find their email address. Often, you will find it on a profile page for the person, or on a page with a story they did. Tip: You may have greater success contacting an editor or producer than a reporter.

4. If you can't find an email address for a specific person, try using the organization's default email structure. Most companies use a standard format for employees at their company email addresses. For example, they might be first.last@media.com, or firstlast@media.com or firstinitallast@media.com. If you want to reach reporter Jim Smith, but can't find his email address, see what the structure is for other employees there. Then, use that structure for Jim. If the addresses you found were first.last@media.com, try jim.smith@media.com.

5. Consider buying a list of media contacts. There are sources where you can buy a list of media email addresses and other contact information. If you want to reach a lot of media outlets, or can't find contacts for the ones you want, buying a list might be the best way to go.

Good Tips to Remember

· Keep your pitches short and to the point. Never deluge your contact.

· Put all information in the body of an email. Never use attachments.

· Never spam media outlets. Send personal pitches to each contact.

Why I wrote Be The News: A Guide to Going Viral With Your Human Interest Story

2013-01-08T10:53:00.000-08:00

The reviewers love it and I am ever humbled! Be the News: A Guide to Going Viral with Your Human Interest Story has marched its way up the ranks of bestselling books at Amazon to the #1 spot in its category.

After much rumination and over 2,000 hours spent on writing a memoir of our personal family story I found myself wondering about the 15 minute of fame rule. How do news stories that dominate the landscape of every media venue in the country end up looking like isolated examples with nary a trace of change effected by them just a few months or years later? Is it apathy or is it just because we are a flash in the pan society? I refuse to subscribe to either of those possibilities and can merely surmise that there just aren't tipping points on the meaningful issues at the foundation of the stories. So, I set aside my memoir to write a simple to follow How-To book about going viral.

It's hard to risk your reputation for something you believe in. I cover this extensively in Be the News. It's hard, but it's not without a well won sense of accomplishment if it helps to effect change. There are specific steps you must take in order to prepare your story for release. It is key that the reason for your story is not ego-centric but issue or story-centric and that you position the mission of your decision to speak out ON TOPIC. Again, identifying a topic that is relevant and newsworthy already puts you in the "back story or side-bar" category to most journalists and that moves you closer to having a venue to speak through.

Carrying a media megaphone isn't the way to ingratiating yourself with journalists but carefully plotting who you trust with your story based on their experience with others like it, as well as their overall integrity is. If you have a story, business related or otherwise, that you would like to see the media grab onto, there are specific steps you must take in order to gain the attention you want. Be the News is the only how-to guide offering the insights as to what those steps are.

My seasoning of over 26 years of public and media relations and strategic marketing expertise didn't even begin to prepare me for the days I hid in my basement avoiding the media on a hunt for my story. I wrote the book from the standpoint of the things I did right in addition to the things I did wrong, but mostly from the standpoint of things I didn't think about at all as an outgrowth of the intention to advocate on a larger issue.

Our story started a national discussion. If I were to be a little more candid, what it started was a real (and sometimes nasty) national argument. Did it effect change? If our appearance on live national TV and our 10,000+ newswire pickups and radio interviews saved even one child from the legacy of FASD, then yes, I believe it effected change! Would I like to see more change? You bet! Which is why I wrote Be the News. With this step by step guide to going viral with your story, more people can stand up for their right to effect change and make a difference. So go ahead, think about going viral, but don't do anything until you read Be the News. It will prepare you in a way no other book will.

Have you been Sullied?

2012-12-12T07:50:00.000-08:00

The Scoop to Online Reputation Management

Have you been sullied or besmirched online? They are great words with horrific repercussions. Can you go no further than a Google search on your or your company name before you witness the literal slamming of your reputation, corporate philosophy, product and/or service quality, or worse?

This is a huge issue in this day and age where the internet rules and everyone is an expert by means of just tapping what is out there on the great WWW.

Here’s an anecdote for you to put this issue into perspective.

Six months ago you engaged an employee to work for your small to mid-size company. You knew within the first two weeks that it probably wouldn’t be a marriage made in heaven. Your hire wasn’t communicating with management, wasn’t fulfilling the goals of the position and had already started showing up late for work, but you held back judgment and decided to give them a chance to get their feet on the ground in your business.

Unfortunately, by 8 weeks on the job things had only gotten worse and it necessitated a review meeting and the probation discussion. Not exactly where you wanted to go when, after a year of a hiring freeze, you excitedly brought on a new staffer.

At 12 weeks, it was obvious that this hire was not interested in growing into the position and you were frustrated. In a frenzied moment when you discovered the employee was taking two hour lunches, surfing the net during office hours and harassing other staffers you very professionally called the person into your office and after explaining your position on their choices very privately let them go, effective immediately. In your mind 12 weeks was sufficient enough time to let them prove their value and get on board. You were fair with compensation and even gave them a severance pay of 2 weeks.

Fast forward 3 weeks and while you are vanity surfing your name and your company’s name on the internet to see how your website fares against competitors in your market, you SEE it!

A complaint! In fact, it’s worse than just a complaint. Hell, complaints give you an opportunity to do better and actually make it right by someone. This was a complete trashing of your reputation, your standards, your philosophy and your entire staff! It’s written from the standpoint of a disgruntled customer, but immediately you recognize the rhetoric, the vocabulary, the energy and essence of this virtual attack, and know intuitively that this was written by the employee you fired.

What do you do? This reputation destroyer begins to post complaints in many high profile optimized sites and suddenly your recently updated, highly optimized company website falls in the 5th position below all the bashing being done to your company by this angry, and probably still out-of-work ex-employee.

In 2009, a study commissioned by Microsoft found that of the almost 80% of U.S. hiring managers who had searched for candidates online, 70% of them said they had rejected a candidate based on what they found in his or her search results.

Can you imagine what this means when translated into a prospective customer looking for services or products like those your company has delivered with integrity since its inception?

While there are many companies that manage reputations online they charge a pretty good sum to do so. For immediate damage control, you should start by utilizing some simple SEO techniques on your own. You might not be able to remove the damaging results from the Internet but you can definitely minimize their impact without having to engage a specialty company to do it for you.
Here’s where you should start.
________________________________________
Step 1: Assess the Damage
________________________________________

Before you begin to manage your online reputation, you should assess it. Type your names in search engines. Set up search alerts for your name (Google recently made this easier to do from the Google dashboard through a new “Me on the Web” tool).

If you find something negative, ask yourself:

• Did I post it? If, for instance, photos from your Facebook account are showing up in search results for your name, you can simply delete the photos or adjust your privacy settings.

After you’ve removed the content, you can use Google’s URL removal tool to stop it from appearing as a cached copy or snippet in search results.

• Is it personal information that could be used in a crime? If someone posts your social security number, bank account number, credit card number or an image of your handwritten signature, Google will make efforts to remove it from search results. It will also contact the site’s hosting company to request that the page be taken down.

• Is it posted on a high-traffic news site? Competing for search results with a popular news site is difficult. But Patrick Ambron, the cofounder of a personal online reputation management service called Brand-Yourself, says that all hope is not lost. “Google usually only likes to rank one result per domain name per page,” he says. “So if you could get another result on the same domain name like Huffington Post that was better optimized for your name, you could theoretically knock the bad article off.” One way to do this is to create a profile on that news site using your full name. Use as many links as possible, and link to the profile from all of your other web properties.

If you didn’t answer “yes” to any of these questions, your best bet for reducing the visibility of negative content is through the use of positive content.
________________________________________
Step 2: Post Positive Content
________________________________________

“If you can’t get the content removed from the original site, you probably won’t be able to completely remove it from Google’s search results, either,” reads Google’s guide to keeping personal information out of Google. “Instead, you can try to reduce its visibility in the search results by proactively publishing useful, positive information about yourself or your business.”

In other words, if you want to make negative webpages appear lower in search, you’ll need to create content of relevance to push the negative links down. Google suggests responding to negative reviews of your business, for instance.
Profiles on social networks are powerful tools for this purpose, as results from large sites like Facebook and Twitter often carry more SEO power than a single post on something like a personal blog.
________________________________________
Step 3. Create an Identity Hub
________________________________________

One secret to pushing your positive online presence further up in search results is to make a hub that links to all of your content. Ambron recommends these tips for pushing your hub to the top of search results for your name.

• Claim your domain name. Including the search term (in this case, your name or your company name) in the URL of your web page tells search engines what the page is about.
• Mention yourself and your company. You’re trying to tell search spiders, “This page is about me and my company!” A good way to do that is to use names a lot. Use your name in tabs and headers.
• Link to your content. “[Google] considers each link to your site a vote for the site,” Ambron says. “Google has gotten pretty smart, so where those links come from is very important. The more reputable links are better votes. A vote from CNN is better than some site you made that you just linked to yourself.”
Remember all of those social media profiles that you created in step two? They’re attached to reputable sources like Facebook and Twitter, which makes their “votes” count as much more reputable than a page you just created.
Sign up for as many of them as possible and then link them all to your hub.
• Post often. Search engines love fresh content. One easy way to create it is to post your social media feeds to your blog.

(Thanks to http://mashable.com/2011/06/27/manage-online-reputation-seo/for the specific steps to online management of ones reputation)________________________________________

In the end, the integrity of your business and your reputation are your greatest assets. Protecting them is a matter of priority and enlisting outside help in addition to your proactivity is often the best method.

There are many online reputation companies to choose from with varying rates and maintenance programs. I've included a list reprinted from my book, Be the News: A Guide to Going Viral With Your Human Interest Story below. Make sure the company you do hire understands your business philosophy and has a keen sense for small to mid size business and you are well on your way to recovering your brand identity and reputation!

Reputation Management Companies

Top 10 Reputation Management Companies (listed in order) as chosen by Visibility, the Magazine for Online Marketing Strategies (tinyurl.com/avg8p)

· Reputationchanger.com

· ReputationManagementConsultants.com

· Netmark.com

· Customermagnetism.com

· Brucelay.com

· 1SEO.com

· Rebuildmyreputation.com

· SEOimage.com

· Submit-express.com

· Iprospect.com

The Purpose of Marketing (I love this article!)

2011-11-01T20:12:00.000-07:00

Written by Somik Raha
Go To Original Article Here

"You need to understand the purpose of marketing," said a successful CEO mentor of mine, with stern compassion. He'd invited me to meet him, and since I'd just finished my Ph.D., he asked me about my work. I went on for about 15 minutes about my dissertation, which focused on getting clarity on our values in the context of decision-making, before he dropped this gem in my lap (paraphrased): "This world is a noisy place, and people gift you a short amount of time with great difficulty. You have no right to steal their time by rambling and being unclear. To honor their time, you must share your deepest truth as directly and clearly as possible. Now, in a single sentence, I will summarize your work. Your work is about helping people align their decisions with their core values!"

It was the most simple, succinct, accessible, comprehensive and beautiful description of my research. More importantly, I started to wonder, what is marketing really about? I realized that I'd been filtering my understanding of marketing through my own biases and to reexamine this question, I had to ask a more fundamental question, "Do our beliefs create our experiences, or do our experiences create our beliefs?" A professor of mine once shared a three-step exercise he did at a retreat that provides insight into this question.

In the first step, he was asked to look at a sculpture with intense love and note his experiences -- he found grandness, beauty, simplicity and many other "good things." Then he was asked to look at the same sculpture with intense hatred. He noted paint peeling off, problems with symmetry and many other "bad things." In the third step, he was asked to look at that sculpture with neither love nor hatred. At this point, he realized his beliefs were completely swaying his experience in the previous two steps, and was convinced of something powerful: by making the polarities of his perception explicit, he was able to release their subconscious hold. As a result, the quality of his third experience was poignantly clear, and he was able see things more as they were. We can understand marketing more truly by adopting this method.

Belief: Marketing is Good: Take the example of the Buddha, an expert marketer of grand ideas -- he never delivered his message in the same way to everyone, instead tailoring it to the occasion, with mindfulness of his listener's ability to access his message. He focused on asceticism with the monks, on being a good householder with householders, and building a strong republic with kings. Gandhi and Martin Luther King were also legendary marketers in recent times. Gandhi made full use of the pen to take his message of nonviolence and commitment to truth far and wide. His short phrase, "The fragrance remains on the hand that gives the rose," was his philosophy of marketing. His vision was that of providing people a way to constructively channel their frustration with a great injustice. Be it spinning cotton at home or making salt from the sea, he connected a great pain with a simple, yet great action. These examples have one thing in common: the marketers did their marketing without any expectations of personal gain, and had in their hearts the well-being of those they wanted to serve.

Belief: Marketing is Bad: This was a viewpoint I held for a long time. I remember reading Robert Cialdini's Psychology of Influence for an Organizational Behavior class; the book horrified me with its depiction of what goes on in marketing -- its study of human habits for the express purpose of manipulating people into buying things, regardless of actual need. Cialdini described our tendency to fall into repeated patterns with a succinct phrase, "Click, whirr." That is how mechanistic and predictable we humans tend to be. For example, marketers know that we respond to kindness and gifts, so they bombard our mail with gifts goading us into purchases. Over time, we develop a thick skin to avoid being sold on something, although researchers find that we are less successful than we might think.

Marketing As It Is: When I consider the things that I've desired and acquired, I wonder, why am I bored with many of them quickly? It is usually because I discover that these things are severely limited. So then, what I'm really seeking is limitless satisfaction. There are those who are skeptical about this and say, "there's enough for our need, not enough for our greed." What if there were enough for our limitless wants? What if we could really have limitless satisfaction?

The trick is that limitless satisfaction cannot be achieved with anything that is limited. Now, there is nothing mysterious about limitlessness -- anyone who has meditated deeply and felt something separate from their thoughts has tasted it. Those who have not meditated may also have tasted it, by entering "the zone" at work or in sports, where their effort seems effortless. Or by giving or receiving overwhelming unconditional love. Or by giving up on a complex problem only to have an elegant solution float in front of their eyes.

In all these experiences, we don't remember the "I," however briefly that may be, and this is where it gets intriguing. What emerges from this space is a creative impulse grounded in abundance. In every experience that has been marketed to us, this is what we have really been looking for. A connection to our own limitless creativity. We are deeply joyful when the connection is made -- and deeply sorrowful when it eludes us. Ironically, we can only perceive this limitlessness when it is limited through our creations, just as light can only be perceived when bounded by darkness.

It's a game. We enjoy this play of placing limitations on ourselves and then breaking these limitations over and over again to discover that we cannot be limited! Going back to the CEO's message, we can now restate the truest purpose of all marketing: it is a game of inviting others to access their unlimited creative nature by sharing our creations with them, and doing so within the limits they've placed on their time.

Of course, not everyone sees it this way. There are marketers who have exploitative and deceitful intent -- wouldn't blindly accepting their invitation amount to falling into a trap? An ancient Indian tale inspires us to deepen our awareness. Whenever sages would grow powerful in their practice of connecting with their limitlessness, the lord of the senses, Indra, would feel terribly insecure and try to disrupt their practice. When all material pleasures would fail, Indra would send sensuous beauties to distract them. Most would succumb, but not all. As the story goes, one sage was invited by Indra to attend a dance by his most beautiful dancer. As she proceeded to dance, she also started to strip, and to Indra's delight, the sage swayed wildly, saying, "Take it off, take it off." This continued, and soon there was nothing left to take off. Indra was certain that he had knocked the sage's mind off of limitlessness. And then, he noticed strangely that the sage continued to sway and utter, "Take it off. Take it off."

The stunned silence from Indra and his dancer marked their recognition of one who pierced through the limited into the limitless. By being established in his own limitlessness, that unknown sage transcended all judgments and words, and effortlessly marketed a timeless possibility: it is always possible to see the limitless in our own limited experiences. Are we game?

Craving Zen and Inspiration

2011-09-26T10:24:00.000-07:00

I have this nifty little zen sandbox on my desk. It’s about 3 inches wide and about 9
inches long, has a little rake, 7 stones and about 6 tablespoons of sand, if that. Sounds like an insignificant little desk decoration, doesn’t it? Ah, but in its simplicity lies extraordinary gifts.

A recent study by Basex, a New York research firm, found that office distractions ate up 2.1 hours a day for the average worker. Another study found that employees devoted an average of 11 minutes to a project before being distracted. Researchers Gloria Mark and Victor Gonsalez of the University of California, Irvine, found that once interrupted, it takes workers 25 minutes to return to the original task, if they return at all. “People switch activities, such as making a call, speaking with someone in their cubicle or working on a document, every three minutes on average,” Mark was quoted as saying.

So, how many times a day do you wander away either physically, mentally or both for lack of focus or worse, for lack of creative inspiration?

As many jobs in the United States move further away from the old factory style, process driven work that used to be prevalent, and move into a more skills and ingenuity based model, the most successful companies are increasingly becoming the most creative ones. Out is the old mind numbing, repetition based work, and in is the new and ever changing creative and inventive, idea based work.

So how to spark that creative enthusiasm at the office when you have to tackle some project that you are perhaps not so passionate about? How can you build a creative palace inside the same old work cubicle that you are so familiar with? Here are a few tips.

Want Something New for Yourself

The most important step in the process begins inside of you. You have to want to add something, life or a spark or a new perspective, to your work. Often, if they can get away with either pummelling through a task on automatic pilot or attacking it with zest and excitement, many people will choose the former simply because it’s less work. It’s hard to fire up those creative juices, and all the best tips in the world will not help you one bit unless you really, in your heart, want to find inspiration.

Change it Up a Bit

Sometimes being in the same space with the same layout day after day after year can be a major contributor to brain fry. Try moving around the furniture a bit to get your creative juices flowing. Put the desk over by the other window. Change a few of the pictures around or buy a new painting or print for the wall. Experiment with different flowers in fun, colorful vases. If you keep doing the same thing you can expect much of the same results. Sometimes just switching around a few basic things in your workspace can give your mind an entirely new and fresh perspective on life.

Write it Down!

Your mind is like a continual idea factory always pumping out ideas. Granted, many of these are illogical, unusable, or even unrelated. Ask yourself this: If I have to write down a hundred lame or unrelated ideas to get to one jewel, is it still worth it for me? If your answer is "damn straight! Yes", then grab a Post-It and a pen or your cell phone and get into the habit of writing down practically everything that comes to mind. Develop some kind of a system to mine through those ideas at a later date in order to sort out the bad from the good from the brilliant.

Take Breaks!

An essential step for the most creative minds, stopping and thinking about something else every once in a while can be one of the most crucial parts of your creative work day. It's all about stepping back and looking at the big picture, but sometimes it’s more about stepping away and looking at a different picture for a while. Hence, my little desktop Zen sandbox. Schedule five minute breaks throughout your day and use these to go somewhere else and do something completely unrelated to your tasks. Go outside, stand in a patch of grass, and look at the sky. Find some carpeting and do a couple of stretches. Close your eyes and meditate on all the wonderful things in your life. When you get back to work, you will find your brain to be much more amenable, and your inspiration levels will soar.

The People Mill!

Running your good ideas through other people can often turn them into great ideas. There’s simply nothing like collaboration if you want to do something really great. Find some like-minded people and use them to bounce your ideas off of. They will often open your eyes to new aspects of an idea that you might not have thought of before. Make sure to also give them feedback on their ideas as well. Honesty is important in a process like this and there is no room for negativity. Make it a rule that all ideas will be considered.

Brainstorming is Key!

Besides all the wonderful tips above which can do wonders for indirectly or directly stimulating creativity, it’s also important to set aside a specific time to actually be creative. Dedicate a portion of your day to turning everything else off and focusing on pulling down that new inspiration. Better than a time limit, an idea goal will help get you started on the right foot. Keep with this brainstorming process until you have come up with a lucky number of seven to ten fresh ideas. They don’t all have to be good ideas either, just whatever comes to mind. Later you can sort them out and see if you’ve come up with anything truly genius.

Inspiration can be found in even the most mundane of places. We just need to learn how to spark our own inspirational fire by changing the typical way we view our work and responsibilities. Make interacting with creative others a normal part of your routine, and find time to break up the monotony of your daily schedule. Seek inspiration when you might usually zone-out and go on autopilot, and always look for an opportunity to grow.

If you are interested in owning your own Zen Sandbox, please let me know. I know the manufacturer directly and have them available for purchase for $5 + S+H.

Online or Offline, that is the Question...

2011-09-24T09:38:00.000-07:00

I’m told that many business owners feel like they have two businesses; the one they started in brick in mortar and the one they launched as the power of the internet took hold. I’ve been asked repeatedly by clients lately, how do I integrate my existing brands and company awareness with that of the one the internet seems to be creating for me?

My first response is that the branding of your products and services does not have to differ between marketing or information venues. Moreover, it is the nurturing of the relationship with your customer that is always the key to your success so it is THAT element that must be reflective of the venue. So, if you start from that basic premise supported by your unparalleled customer service and attention to detail, you back into how you provide that continuity of support in an online environment.

Online businesses as extensions to brick and mortar businesses offer unlimited ability to reach your potential customers when it is convenient for them, rather than when the doors of your office suite or retail shop are open to the sunshine. Remembering as you expand your online footprint that your customer base is more global, may not know you or your products and may be coming to you with preconceived notions about what you are offering or what their needs are is imperative.

Your online presence is an extension of your existing business if you so position it, however, you must remember that a global audience has probably never heard of you before and is often comparing you to others. If you consciously begin offering other products and services through your portal to the world, however, you begin to recreate yourself and indeed, will find yourself running two separate and distinct operations unless you then import your new direction into your brick and mortar business.

Running An Offline Business vs. An Online Business

Running a company as an "offline" business is very different than running a business online. While the goal of selling a product or service may be the same, the means used to actually achieve those sales can be very different.

Offline enterprise companies will often have an extended outside sales force that will travel to potential customer locations and demo the products or meet with the potential customer to explain the services. Traditional companies will also run seminars or training sessions from time to time or offer other support mechanisms to maintain a close, supportive relationship. Some of these techniques have been adopted for online companies, with some online companies scheduling online demos or holding webinars (website-based seminars), but it really isn't standard fare for the typical "online" company. It is far more common that an online company will offer promotions including sampling, free trials, and online specific promotions with very little overhead and marketing cost to the company itself.

Running an Offline Business in combination with your Online Business

It is important to provide continuity in branding, philosophy, and policy whether you are marketing on or offline. Consider your online presence simply as an extension of your offline business, and use the same principles online as you would offline. Continuity should exist within the brand. In other words, the image portrayed online should be consistent with any existing offline branding. Use the same color schemes, logos, tag lines, and company philosophy online as the ones that exist offline.

Online Shelf Space Is Free

Unlike retail stores, the "shelf space" online is essentially free and unlimited. That doesn't mean that you should clutter your website with excessive materials; it simply means that you can choose what to promote, as well as the amount of exposure the promoted items receive, and all at a relatively low cost.

Loyalty among your Current and Prospective, both Online and Offline Customers

A traditional retail business, with face-to-face customer interaction, can be very different from a virtual business, where customer contact is limited to phone, email, and interactive forums. It is more difficult to use these online channels to build customer loyalty.

It is important that online companies encourage communication with customers. Online companies can use website forums, blogs, RSS feeds, social networks, email, or even work to build an online "community" around their product or service. Strong communication is important to building customer loyalty. It takes more work to build loyalty online than offline. Online companies should provide communication in a variety of formats, so that customers and potential customers can choose how they want to receive information or updates.

Expanding Your Audience

The Internet is global. It is not uncommon for online companies to routinely sell into foreign markets. Offline companies, on the other hand, are often somewhat limited by geographical borders. Take the opportunity to pursue foreign markets at very low costs with an online presence.

An online business can be a lucrative extension of an offline business. Having an online presence is no longer simply a nice addition to an offline company -- it really is a necessity in this day and age. Consider this: if your company does not have an online presence, chances are good that your competition does, and they are taking business that could be yours.

Small to Mid Size Business Use of Twitter Doubles

2011-02-28T10:49:00.000-08:00

No surprise to us at Freakin' Genius Marketing, social media has become an important marketing tool for small businesses, particularly younger firms: 32% of small-to-midsize businesses (SMBs) in operation for 0-6 years use Twitter, compared with just 7% of those in business for 11+ years, according to a report from BIA/Kelsey. Meanwhile, Twitter use among small to mid-size businesses doubled, from 9% in 2009 to 19% in 2010.

The longer a SMB has been in business, the less likely it is to use Twitter, and those older SMBs (11+ years in business) are more likely to use printed Yellow Pages (37%) than those in business 0-3 years (17%) or 4-6 years (22%).

Additionally, and also not really a surprise, nearly one-half (48%) of surveyed SMBs use Facebook to promote their businesses—even more than the 43% of SMBs that report using e-mail marketin, with over one in five (22%) SMBs use blogging to promote their businesses.

So it seems, digital media is a largely integrated part of most small to mid size businesses' marketing plans. Is it part of yours? Contact Freakin' Genius Marketing today to create a tactical action plan for digital in your marketing.

For more research results and to read more...

Do you know who your SUPER INFLUENCERS are?

2011-02-15T11:50:00.000-08:00

Ok, so you have a database and, yes- I know how much it cost and how painstaking it was to get them to opt-in to your mailings. I also know how challenging it is to create emailings and social-media based promotions to keep their attention without encouraging them to opt-out because of a deluge of offers you might be sending them.

Have you customized groups within your email databases? By doing this you can define criteria that enables you to market 1:1 to each of your customers based on their individual purchasing habits and overall interests with you and your business.

By customizing groups within your opt-in databases you will be able to identify who your target markets for specific “products” or “services” are rather than blanketing your whole database. Opt-in or otherwise, deluging your customers with offers that they won’t relate to is not a way to keep them lively and responsive.

Additionally, and more to the point of this blog post, have you identified your super influencers? These are your customers who are not only likely to purchase something from you, or take you up on one of your email promotional offers, but more importantly these are the customers who will share your offer with others. These are your “virtual” testimonials who will pass along your emails and your blog entries.

If you haven’t identified who your SUPER INFLUENCERS are yet, you may be spending a lot of time facilitating social media that isn’t working for you. You may be FB’ing and Tweeting but without a great sharing ROI (Return on Investment) on pass-along.

You know I’m big on ROI…in fact, it’s my mantra. So let me explain.

Simply slapping up social media content and hoping it works to build awareness and drive sales is not enough. Many business owners fail to get maximum exposure for their social media campaigns because they don't take the extra step to activate viral sharing of their content. And if marketers don't identify their key influencers and motivate them to share, they're missing out on the real promise of social media: Social content works best when it's shared.

According to industry research, people who visit a campaign link after it's shared with them convert at up to four times the rate of those who just fall upon it by chance. So when you encourage sharing, you aren’t just increasing your reach—you’re dramatically boosting your viewer conversion.

So how can you get your following on Facebook and Twitter, as well as bloggers who love your products and services, to start sharing your content far and wide?

Here are three key ways to activating your key influencers to share more and more often:

1. Identify your Super Influencers

You know the rule, 1% of your social media followers are responsible for the majority of sharing. These "super-influencers" share your social media campaigns with their larger social networks, passing on links to your contests, promotions, deals, and other marketing campaigns.

These influencers are more than just fans, they're ambassadors. The process is fairly straightforward. There are a boatload of social media measurement tools that enable marketers to find the people who are talking most about their brand; see what type of content they're sharing and with whom, and learn how they are sharing it (email, Twitter, Facebook, their own blogs, etc.).

Once you find your influencers, the trick is activating them to share even more.

2. Activate Your Super Influencers

Once you've identified your super-influencers, you need to motivate them to share more. Do this by offering them "sharing incentives" that encourage them to share and reward them for their efforts.

One of the best incentives you can provide is exclusive information. Super-influencers love to be an inside source of information for their friends and followers—sharing contests, information, or deals with their social networks before other people have heard about them. Create exclusive content you share only with your super-influencers, and let them know they're part of a select few to receive this special offer.

Other incentives you can offer include shareable friends-and-family discounts, access to exclusive or after-hour in-store sales, VIP parties, and discounts for sharing a deal with 10 friends.

You will also want to comment directly on your super-influencers' blogs, link to and promote their content whenever possible, and publicly thank them for their loyalty via email or posts.

3. Measure Your influencer's Effectiveness

You won't know whether sharing is working to increase brand influence and drive conversion if you don't measure it. It's important to find out exactly who is sharing your content the most, who they are sharing it with, where they are sharing it (which blogs, sites, and social networks, or via email), and whether that sharing is directly resulting in clicks and conversions. You can use those social media measurement tools I talked about above to find out the exact impact sharing is having on bottom-line results.

Creating and publishing social media content is not enough these days. Business owners that want to benefit from the real power of word-of-mouth need to find their super-influencers, and then motivate them to share. If you do this effectively, such sharers will directly boost traffic to your site and drive a large increase in conversion and hence, sales!