Small Business Marketing & Business Acceleration | FrontlineMarketingSystems.com

Interview: The Future of Cloud Marketing Software with Vocus CMO Jason Jue

Posted on 16. May, 2012 by BLarson in B2B, Blog, interview, interviews, Online PR, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Vocus

At TopRank Online Marketing, we are fortunate to provide consulting to quite a few innovative B2B companies that serve other marketers. A great example of that is PRWeb and parent company, Vocus, both long standing clients.

In late 2011 Vocus welcomed Jason Jue as Chief Marketing Officer. As Vocus & PRWeb’s Account Manager at TopRank, I was keenly interested in getting to know Jason better and learning his plans for the future – and what better way than through an interview for all readers of Online Marketing Blog to see?

In this interview Jason talks about the undeniable convergence of PR and marketing, what social media metric is most undervalued by many PR and marketing professionals, where marketers should invest for 2013 and his vision for Vocus.

Tell us a little bit about your background and what excites you most about joining Vocus? 

Prior to Vocus, I was Vice President of Marketing at Rackspace and had several executive positions at Dell in the US and Asia, marketing to businesses. Vocus offers cloud marketing and PR software to businesses in every market sectors and size that want to reach and influence buyers

I’m excited about sharing with businesses how easily our products work wonders for our current customers. Some of the leading marketing consultants such as Sirius Decisions and MarketingSherpa use our products to maximize their online publicity.

For some people, Vocus is synonymous with Public Relations software. Can you speak to how and when Vocus first expanded to offering marketing solutions?

We have always believed PR to be a core part of “promoting a product or service” or marketing. Many customers who buy our PR software have a marketing title, and we’ve recently seen faster growth in this group. These customers use our social media and PRWeb news release features of our PR software. For them, we created a cloud marketing suite which integrates search, publicity, and social media marketing. Our cloud marketing suite was the most successful product launch in Vocus history, and will be even better when it includes email later this year.

Do you see PR and marketing professionals as two separate audiences? Or are they converging disciplines?

In marketing teams that have PR and marketing professionals, we continue to see them as two audiences with different product needs, although their roles are converging, especially around social media. PR professionals are using social media for brand positioning. Marketing professionals use social media for lead gen. Meanwhile, for the millions of businesses who have few, if any marketers at all, the marketing functions blend together.

Use your crystal ball and give us a glimpse into the future. How will the Vocus offering change over the next 2 years? Where do you see the most opportunity for growth?

The future of marketing is simple and powerful integrated campaigns. Every marketing team realizes that when working together on unified and integrated campaigns, lead generation and brand perception results are much better than working alone.

I know that sounds like a pipe dream as marketing complexity has increased to address the everywhere all the time customer. Today’s customers are constantly switching back and forth from website, news, social, search, email, and mobile. To add confusion, each specialty has their marketing tools resulting in silos and disjointed communication.

In the near future, marketers will be able to buy cloud marketing software to easily manage integrated campaigns. It will incorporate the trendy with the tried-and-true tactics of marketing The essential elements will work together for better results in lead generation and brand perception. And, it will recommend how and when to engage with prospects and customers.

Seem unbelievable? I think it’s unbelievable that it hasn’t already happened. In the past 15 years, every corporate function, from marketing to sales to HR, has seen a proliferation of technology tools. Marketing is the only function without a major product suite. IBM is doing it for large enterprise marketing. We are integrating all the important marketing tools into a cloud marketing suite so every business, large and small, can easily achieve big results .

Staying on social for a moment, what is one social metric that you think may be most overlooked by PR and marketing professionals alike? On the flip side, any stat that you view as overvalued?

The most important social media metric is how many people actively recommend your product or service. I think the most overvalued metrics are fans, followers, and likes.

As 2012 is well underway, what is one investment you think marketers must make in order to succeed the rest of the year and into 2013? (i.e. invest in mobile marketing)

Focus on marketing fundamentals that will dramatically accelerate growth. Who is your target customer? What product or service should you develop for them? How should you promote to them? Why should they buy from you?

Then, find the best product for you that simplifies all the marketing tactics and trends. This product will then let you focus on the marketing fundamentals.

Thanks, Jason!

Gain a competitive advantage by subscribing to the
TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.

© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. |
Interview: The Future of Cloud Marketing Software with Vocus CMO Jason Jue | http://www.toprankblog.com

Interview: The Future of Cloud Marketing Software with Vocus CMO Jason Jue

Posted on 16. May, 2012 by BLarson in B2B, Blog, interview, interviews, Online PR, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Vocus

At TopRank Online Marketing, we are fortunate to provide consulting to quite a few innovative B2B companies that serve other marketers. A great example of that is PRWeb and parent company, Vocus, both long standing clients.

In late 2011 Vocus welcomed Jason Jue as Chief Marketing Officer. As Vocus & PRWeb’s Account Manager at TopRank, I was keenly interested in getting to know Jason better and learning his plans for the future – and what better way than through an interview for all readers of Online Marketing Blog to see?

In this interview Jason talks about the undeniable convergence of PR and marketing, what social media metric is most undervalued by many PR and marketing professionals, where marketers should invest for 2013 and his vision for Vocus.

Tell us a little bit about your background and what excites you most about joining Vocus?

Prior to Vocus, I was Vice President of Marketing at Rackspace and had several executive positions at Dell in the US and Asia, marketing to businesses. Vocus offers cloud marketing and PR software to businesses in every market sector and size that want to reach and influence buyers.

I’m excited about sharing with businesses how easily our products work wonders for our current customers. Some of the leading marketing consultants such as Sirius Decisions and MarketingSherpa use our products to maximize their online publicity.

For some people, Vocus is synonymous with Public Relations software. Can you speak to how and when Vocus first expanded to offering marketing solutions?

We have always believed PR to be a core part of “promoting a product or service” or marketing. Many customers who buy our PR software have a marketing title, and we’ve recently seen faster growth in this group. These customers use our social media and PRWeb news release features of our PR software. For them, we created a cloud marketing suite which integrates search, publicity, and social media marketing. Our cloud marketing suite was the most successful product launch in Vocus history, and will be even better when it includes email later this year.

Do you see PR and marketing professionals as two separate audiences? Or are they converging disciplines?

In marketing teams that have PR and marketing professionals, we continue to see them as two audiences with different product needs, although their roles are converging, especially around social media. PR professionals are using social media for brand positioning. Marketing professionals use social media for lead gen. Meanwhile, for the millions of businesses who have few, if any marketers at all, the marketing functions blend together.

Use your crystal ball and give us a glimpse into the future. How will the Vocus offering change over the next 2 years? Where do you see the most opportunity for growth?

The future of marketing is simple and powerful integrated campaigns. Every marketing team realizes that when working together on unified and integrated campaigns, lead generation and brand perception results are much better than working alone.

I know that sounds like a pipe dream as marketing complexity has increased to address the everywhere all the time customer. Today’s customers are constantly switching back and forth from website, news, social, search, email, and mobile. To add confusion, each specialty has their marketing tools resulting in silos and disjointed communication.

In the near future, marketers will be able to buy cloud marketing software to easily manage integrated campaigns. It will incorporate the trendy with the tried-and-true tactics of marketing The essential elements will work together for better results in lead generation and brand perception. And, it will recommend how and when to engage with prospects and customers.

Seem unbelievable? I think it’s unbelievable that it hasn’t already happened. In the past 15 years, every corporate function, from marketing to sales to HR, has seen a proliferation of technology tools. Marketing is the only function without a major product suite. IBM is doing it for large enterprise marketing. We are integrating all the important marketing tools into a cloud marketing suite so every business, large and small, can easily achieve big results .

Staying on social for a moment, what is one social metric that you think may be most overlooked by PR and marketing professionals alike? On the flip side, any stat that you view as overvalued?

The most important social media metric is how many people actively recommend your product or service. I think the most overvalued metrics are fans, followers, and likes.

As 2012 is well underway, what is one investment you think marketers must make in order to succeed the rest of the year and into 2013? (i.e. invest in mobile marketing)

Focus on marketing fundamentals that will dramatically accelerate growth. Who is your target customer? What product or service should you develop for them? How should you promote to them? Why should they buy from you?

Then, find the best product for you that simplifies all the marketing tactics and trends. This product will then let you focus on the marketing fundamentals.

Thanks, Jason!

Gain a competitive advantage by subscribing to the
TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.

© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. |
Interview: The Future of Cloud Marketing Software with Vocus CMO Jason Jue | http://www.toprankblog.com

The Value of Small Business Blogging: 3 Key Questions & Answers

Posted on 15. Mar, 2012 by Lee Odden in Blog, business blogging, interview, lee odden, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Video Interviews

Earlier this week Frank J. Kenny did a Skype interview with me about small business blogging and why or why not it makes sense. Frank’s audience is the network of Chambers of Commerce across the U.S..  I think it’s a timely question considering the ongoing “blogging is dead“, “no it’s not“ debate that’s been going on for the past 5 years or so.

As a small business owner myself, I’ve been blogging here at Online Marketing Blog for over 8 years and can testify as to the pros and cons like few others can. In our case, we’ve had great success with our blog as a way to achieve industry awareness and credibility, attract new business, employees, media coverage, speaking opportunities and many other benefits.

In the interview with Frank, he asked 3 key questions about blogging and social media that I wanted to share here since it’s had such a huge impact for both our clients large and small, as well as on our own small business.

Why should small businesses blog?

Blogging is a method of creating and publishing conversational content. Blogs are an easy to use content management system. The value is in the content and ability for companies to leverage the inherent promotion and engagement capabilities of the blog publishing platform. Blogging offers a few key advantages:

1. Easy to use platform to create sharable, linkable content that addresses specific prospect and customer interests
2. Serves as a hub to a hub and spoke model of content marketing and promotion
3. Creates a promotable SEO and Social Media asset – every post is a potential destination for a link and an entry point through search engines.

Through multiple channels of discovery, blog content can reach:

• Prospects
• Existing customers
• Potential employees
• Marketing partners, investors
• The media: journalists, bloggers

What is the impact of Google+ on search and how does it affect business blog marketing?

Google+ personalization and it’s impact on search is the hot topic and any company that wants an advantage in Google search results needs to consider Google+ and other social media participation. The behaviors of content creation, sharing and engagement are incredibly rich signals that search engines can use to improve search results quality and search user experience.

The more people that have included your Google+ profile or page in their circles, the more likely content that you’ve created, shared and engaged with will appear in their Google search results while they’re logged in. Google+ optimization should be an essential part of any business blog effort.

At the same time, social media content, whether it’s text, images or video is content that can be crawled and ranked in search results. Social media optimization can improve search visibility of that social content for people that are actively looking for solutions.

When we make optimization recommendations, we go beyond search keywords and have our clients consider social topics as well. Understanding what keywords consumers are searching on as well as the topics they’re discussing on blogs, twitter, and other social networks can inform an editorial plan that does a much better job of attracting new customers because it’s focused on their language and the things they care about. Incidentally, I go deep, deep into this within Optimize.

How much emphasis should small business bloggers place on SEO vs social media?

The consumer journey through the sales funnel is increasingly weaving through a social and search experience. Our model of optimization focuses on how consumers Discover, Consume and Share content so the notion that people will come across a small business solution because of a social connection to a friend that then leads to a search on Google or Bing to get more information is entirely likely and common.

When people use specific words in a search they are segmenting or qualifying themselves to a certain degree because the words they use indicate intent to a particular purpose or outcome. Creating, optimizing and socializing blog content according to those purposes or pain points can be very powerful for any sized business that wants to be found or talked about where relevant customers are looking.

There’s so much more I can say about this (and I will – see my upcoming speaking schedule)

Here’s the video version of the interview:

Despite the success we’ve had with our own business blogging efforts at TopRank Online Marketing, we’re probably only realizing a fraction of the potential benefits from business blogging. If that’s the case, why do so many other companies with significantly greater resources fail at blogging for their business? They quit, lack vision, underestimate resources and timeframe, and fail to understand where blogging can be integrated with achieving multiple business goals.

Hopefully you’ll find the advice above useful to help your business blogging effort. If you have specific biz blogging questions, please ask them in the comments.

Gain a competitive advantage by subscribing to the
TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.

© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. |
The Value of Small Business Blogging: 3 Key Questions & Answers | http://www.toprankblog.com

The Value of Small Business Blogging: 3 Key Questions & Answers

Posted on 15. Mar, 2012 by Lee Odden in Blog, business blogging, interview, lee odden, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Video Interviews

Earlier this week Frank J. Kenny did a Skype interview with me about small business blogging and why or why not it makes sense. Frank’s audience is the network of Chambers of Commerce across the U.S..  I think it’s a timely question considering the ongoing “blogging is dead“, “no it’s not“ debate that’s been going on for the past 5 years or so.

As a small business owner myself, I’ve been blogging here at Online Marketing Blog for over 8 years and can testify as to the pros and cons like few others can. In our case, we’ve had great success with our blog as a way to achieve industry awareness and credibility, attract new business, employees, media coverage, speaking opportunities and many other benefits.

In the interview with Frank, he asked 3 key questions about blogging and social media that I wanted to share here since it’s had such a huge impact for both our clients large and small, as well as on our own small business.

Why should small businesses blog?

Blogging is a method of creating and publishing conversational content. Blogs are an easy to use content management system. The value is in the content and ability for companies to leverage the inherent promotion and engagement capabilities of the blog publishing platform. Blogging offers a few key advantages:

1. Easy to use platform to create sharable, linkable content that addresses specific prospect and customer interests
2. Serves as a hub to a hub and spoke model of content marketing and promotion
3. Creates a promotable SEO and Social Media asset – every post is a potential destination for a link and an entry point through search engines.

Through multiple channels of discovery, blog content can reach:

• Prospects
• Existing customers
• Potential employees
• Marketing partners, investors
• The media: journalists, bloggers

What is the impact of Google+ on search and how does it affect business blog marketing?

Google+ personalization and it’s impact on search is the hot topic and any company that wants an advantage in Google search results needs to consider Google+ and other social media participation. The behaviors of content creation, sharing and engagement are incredibly rich signals that search engines can use to improve search results quality and search user experience.

The more people that have included your Google+ profile or page in their circles, the more likely content that you’ve created, shared and engaged with will appear in their Google search results while they’re logged in. Google+ optimization should be an essential part of any business blog effort.

At the same time, social media content, whether it’s text, images or video is content that can be crawled and ranked in search results. Social media optimization can improve search visibility of that social content for people that are actively looking for solutions.

When we make optimization recommendations, we go beyond search keywords and have our clients consider social topics as well. Understanding what keywords consumers are searching on as well as the topics they’re discussing on blogs, twitter, and other social networks can inform an editorial plan that does a much better job of attracting new customers because it’s focused on their language and the things they care about. Incidentally, I go deep, deep into this within Optimize.

How much emphasis should small business bloggers place on SEO vs social media?

The consumer journey through the sales funnel is increasingly weaving through a social and search experience. Our model of optimization focuses on how consumers Discover, Consume and Share content so the notion that people will come across a small business solution because of a social connection to a friend that then leads to a search on Google or Bing to get more information is entirely likely and common.

When people use specific words in a search they are segmenting or qualifying themselves to a certain degree because the words they use indicate intent to a particular purpose or outcome. Creating, optimizing and socializing blog content according to those purposes or pain points can be very powerful for any sized business that wants to be found or talked about where relevant customers are looking.

There’s so much more I can say about this (and I will – see my upcoming speaking schedule)

Here’s the video version of the interview:

Despite the success we’ve had with our own business blogging efforts at TopRank Online Marketing, we’re probably only realizing a fraction of the potential benefits from business blogging. If that’s the case, why do so many other companies with significantly greater resources fail at blogging for their business? They quit, lack vision, underestimate resources and timeframe, and fail to understand where blogging can be integrated with achieving multiple business goals.

Hopefully you’ll find the advice above useful to help your business blogging effort. If you have specific biz blogging questions, please ask them in the comments.

Gain a competitive advantage by subscribing to the
TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.

© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. |
The Value of Small Business Blogging: 3 Key Questions & Answers | http://www.toprankblog.com

Video Interview: Social Media Marketing at GM – Charlotte Blank, Manager of Social Media

Posted on 15. Feb, 2012 by Lee Odden in Blog, interview, Online Marketing Summit, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Social Media, Video Interviews

At the recent Online Marketing Summit in San Diego I caught up with Charlotte Blank, Manager of Social Media at General Motors to talk about digital marketing.  In this short interview I asked Charlotte a few fundamental questions about digital and social media marketing related to customers:

1. How does GM segment digital marketing activities between customer acquisition and retention?

Follow up: Does GM follow a social media editorial calendar according to customer buying cycles and personas?

2. With all the shiny objects of social media in the world, how does she go about deciding what to test and what to implement?

Take a look at the video and I think you’ll be interested in the customer-centric approach GM takes with social media and how time is allocated towards new customers, activating current customers as evangelists and their approach to filtering shiny social objects.

How is your company focusing digital and social media marketing efforts towards winning new customers and engaging those you have? How do you evaluate new social technologies for marketing and communications? Do you allocate time for testing, experimentation or go with the crowd?

Transcript:

LO: This is Lee Odden from MarketingBlog.com at Online Marketing Summit in San Diego. With me is Charlotte Blank, Manager of Social Media at General Motors. Welcome.

CB: Hi Lee, Thank you.

LO: So thanks for spending a couple of minutes with me to answer some key questions I think for digital marketers, big brands, small brands. One of the first questions I had for you is, in terms of your digital approach, how much of it is split between customer acquisition vs customer engagement and retention?

CB: We definitely approach the consumer from a 360 degree angle. We try to keep the consumer at the center at all times in thinking about their journey from when they’re just kind of living their life 98% of the time to maybe thinking about making a car purchase a few months down the road to actually actively researching the car.

I think social media in particular, plays a role in all of those areas of the funnel. Our own channels, like our Facebook pages and Twitter handles for example, we typically think of as an upper funnel play.  There are really an opportunity to engage our consumers with their lifestyle passions. For example, music is a big pillar for Chevrolet and we offered early access to Spotify when that came out. That was a good integration with the millenials that we were targeting for the Sonic launch. That encouraged more engagement with our Facebook page. That would be an example of a lifestyle play that we use our own social media channels for.

I also see social media playing a big role in the ownership and CRM space and that’s where I think I’ll be focusing a lot of my efforts this year. I think that there’s a big opportunity with turning our owners into advocates and giving them tools to light up their social graphs and really share with their friends how they love their GM vehicles.

In that kind of middle area, more on the conversion question, we do have an entire group that has all kinds of sophisticated ways of knowing when someone is in market.  Because we really want to be cognizant that we’re not flooding the market with our messages about “buy now, buy now” when really only 2% of people are in market at any given time.  So we like to be very sophisticated in the way that we target those people with relevant messaging when they’re ready for it. There are still great opportunities for social to play a role there, especially in the influencer space. The ratings and recommendations – we work a lot with 3rd party sites like KBB and Edumunds – those are increasingly socializing.

LO: Is there integration much from an editorial planning standpoint? Are you running social content calendars for example, that tie into buying cycle or customer segments?

CB: We absolutely do use content calendars, mostly from a lifestyle engagement space. We do constantly measure and optimize the way that we’re resonating with consumers. We’re starting to find some real nuances depending on the name plate. So some of our more performance oriented vehicles, Camero fans, Corvette fans, Cadillac, they really like that awesome car content – great performance engine type of content that they just can’t get enough of. Whereas we’ll use some of our bigger brands, Cheverolet overall to connect more with young consumers based on a lifestyle play, a mom blogger relationship or ways to be more a part of every day life.

LO: In the social media world, by the way I love that you used the word optimize, OptimizeBook.com is where you’ll see this video and information about a book called Optimize. In terms of this fast changing world we’re in, there are so many apps and channels for us to deal with, it’s almost information overload not only for consumers but for marketers deciding where it is that those consumers are spending their time. How do you decide when it comes to new digital marketing technology, to invest, where to experiement?

CB: That’s a great question, that’s one of the things I talk most about in my job. It’s one of the most important things that we can do.  It’s all about consumer insights and putting yourself in the shoes of the consumer you’re trying to reach. This varies by campaign, by name plate, by the tone that we want to have with our consumers. We need to define up front what are we trying to achieve and who are we trying to connect with? Put ourselves in their shoes using thorough research, data and insights. What is that these people like to do? Do they use the Pinterests of the world, are they big Tweeters, do they even click on online advertising? It depends on who we’re trying to reach. If you constantly put yourself in the consumers shoes, it can help avoid the “chasing shiny object syndrome”.

LO: Right, some empathy towards what’s important and what they care about.  If you’d like to share a Twitter handle, a blog or any other social destination for folks to find out about you and the work you’re doing?

CN: You can follow me @charlotteblank and please like all our Facebook pages. We have  8 Chevrolet pages and one each for Cadillac, Buick and GMC.

LO: Thanks Charlotte!

Gain a competitive advantage by subscribing to the
TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.

© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. |
Video Interview: Social Media Marketing at GM – Charlotte Blank, Manager of Social Media | http://www.toprankblog.com

Video Interview: Social Media Marketing at GM – Charlotte Blank, Manager of Social Media

Posted on 15. Feb, 2012 by Lee Odden in Blog, interview, Online Marketing Summit, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Social Media, Video Interviews

At the recent Online Marketing Summit in San Diego I caught up with Charlotte Blank, Manager of Social Media at General Motors to talk about digital marketing.  In this short interview I asked Charlotte a few fundamental questions about digital and social media marketing related to customers:

1. How does GM segment digital marketing activities between customer acquisition and retention?

Follow up: Does GM follow a social media editorial calendar according to customer buying cycles and personas?

2. With all the shiny objects of social media in the world, how do you go about deciding what to test and what to implement?

Take a look at the video and I think you’ll be interested in the customer-centric approach GM takes with social media and how time is allocated towards new customers, activating current customers as evangelists and their approach to filtering shiny social objects.

How is your company focusing digital and social media marketing efforts towards winning new customers and engaging those you have? How do you evaluate new social technologies for marketing and communications? Do you allocate time for testing, experimentation or go with the crowd?

Interview Transcript:

LO: This is Lee Odden from MarketingBlog.com at Online Marketing Summit in San Diego. With me is Charlotte Blank, Manager of Social Media at General Motors. Welcome.

CB: Hi Lee, Thank you.

LO: So thanks for spending a couple of minutes with me to answer some key questions I think for digital marketers, big brands, small brands. One of the first questions I had for you is, in terms of your digital approach, how much of it is split between customer acquisition vs customer engagement and retention?

CB: We definitely approach the consumer from a 360 degree angle. We try to keep the consumer at the center at all times in thinking about their journey from when they’re just kind of living their life 98% of the time to maybe thinking about making a car purchase a few months down the road to actually actively researching the car.

I think social media in particular, plays a role in all of those areas of the funnel. Our own channels, like our Facebook pages and Twitter handles for example, we typically think of as an upper funnel play.  There are really an opportunity to engage our consumers with their lifestyle passions. For example, music is a big pillar for Chevrolet and we offered early access to Spotify when that came out. That was a good integration with the millenials that we were targeting for the Sonic launch. That encouraged more engagement with our Facebook page. That would be an example of a lifestyle play that we use our own social media channels for.

I also see social media playing a big role in the ownership and CRM space and that’s where I think I’ll be focusing a lot of my efforts this year. I think that there’s a big opportunity with turning our owners into advocates and giving them tools to light up their social graphs and really share with their friends how they love their GM vehicles.

In that kind of middle area, more on the conversion question, we do have an entire group that has all kinds of sophisticated ways of knowing when someone is in market.  Because we really want to be cognizant that we’re not flooding the market with our messages about “buy now, buy now” when really only 2% of people are in market at any given time.  So we like to be very sophisticated in the way that we target those people with relevant messaging when they’re ready for it. There are still great opportunities for social to play a role there, especially in the influencer space. The ratings and recommendations – we work a lot with 3rd party sites like KBB and Edumunds – those are increasingly socializing.

LO: Is there integration much from an editorial planning standpoint? Are you running social content calendars for example, that tie into buying cycle or customer segments?

CB: We absolutely do use content calendars, mostly from a lifestyle engagement space. We do constantly measure and optimize the way that we’re resonating with consumers. We’re starting to find some real nuances depending on the name plate. So some of our more performance oriented vehicles, Camero fans, Corvette fans, Cadillac, they really like that awesome car content – great performance engine type of content that they just can’t get enough of. Whereas we’ll use some of our bigger brands, Cheverolet overall to connect more with young consumers based on a lifestyle play, a mom blogger relationship or ways to be more a part of every day life.

LO: In the social media world, by the way I love that you used the word optimize, OptimizeBook.com is where you’ll see this video and information about a book called Optimize. In terms of this fast changing world we’re in, there are so many apps and channels for us to deal with, it’s almost information overload not only for consumers but for marketers deciding where it is that those consumers are spending their time. How do you decide when it comes to new digital marketing technology, to invest, where to experiement?

CB: That’s a great question, that’s one of the things I talk most about in my job. It’s one of the most important things that we can do.  It’s all about consumer insights and putting yourself in the shoes of the consumer you’re trying to reach. This varies by campaign, by name plate, by the tone that we want to have with our consumers. We need to define up front what are we trying to achieve and who are we trying to connect with? Put ourselves in their shoes using thorough research, data and insights. What is that these people like to do? Do they use the Pinterests of the world, are they big Tweeters, do they even click on online advertising? It depends on who we’re trying to reach. If you constantly put yourself in the consumers shoes, it can help avoid the “chasing shiny object syndrome”.

LO: Right, some empathy towards what’s important and what they care about.  If you’d like to share a Twitter handle, a blog or any other social destination for folks to find out about you and the work you’re doing?

CB: You can follow me @charlotteblank and please like all our Facebook pages. We have  8 Chevrolet pages and one each for Cadillac, Buick and GMC.

LO: Thanks Charlotte!

Gain a competitive advantage by subscribing to the
TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.

© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. |
Video Interview: Social Media Marketing at GM – Charlotte Blank, Manager of Social Media | http://www.toprankblog.com

How to Choose the Right Content To Drive Online Sales

Posted on 19. Sep, 2011 by Lee Odden in Blog, content marketing, interview, lee odden, Marketing PR Conferences, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing

Interview Screen Grab from the 2011 Vocus Users Conference

When I was at a client’s User Conference earlier this year, Steve Farnsworth caught up with me and asked a question about using analytics to refine content for increased sales. I’m a big fan of repurposing content and I’ve paraphrased the transcription and shared below.

When people look at analytics from their website while developing content plans, what kinds of things should they look for to help improve online sales?

To start with, a company can do some research to start developing personas that reflect the kinds of customer segments they’re after. That information can get things going in terms of an Editorial Plan and keywords used to optimize content and attract links, resulting in content that ranks well on search engines and drives traffic to product and services pages. As you attract that traffic from search engines, there’s some data to work with – to analyze and refine.

Through web analytics you can see which search terms are driving outcomes that you want, like conversions.  You might see really broad phrases, if you’re fortunate enough to rank highly for really broad phrases, driving traffic that results in behaviors that are more indicative of “tire kicking” during the initial phase of a buying cycle.

More specific phrases may be more characteristic of buyers that are further along in the search process. You can see that by looking at referring search queries for instances of pricing, specific nomenclature or model numbers. That kind of search can be more representative of someone who is ready  to buy.

So in terms of your editorial planning for content, you can take a look at this sort of cycle and anticipate what people want, optimize and promote. Observe how they visit and behave on the site. Then identify and refine subsequent content creation, optimization and promotion to make the content even more relevant and valuable.  The result is a shortening sales cycle, more revenue per sale and a better experience for customers.

Paid search marketers can refine their ads on the fly and see the effect on sales. What do you look for you in your web analytics to refined web site content to become more “findable” and more likely to convert visitors to buyers? Do you incorporate social CRM tools with web analytics? Any other tools?

Gain a competitive advantage by subscribing to the
TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.

© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. |
How to Choose the Right Content To Drive Online Sales | http://www.toprankblog.com

Content Without Advocacy is Just Words and Google Bait

Posted on 21. Jul, 2011 by Jay Baer in Blog, content marketing, interview, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Social Media Book, Social Media Examiner, Social Media Success Summit, Video Blogs

Mike Stelzner knows a little something about building a successful company from thin air. He’s the founder of Social Media Examiner, currently ranked the #8 marketing blog in the world on the AdAge Power 150 (we’re lagging at #19 here at Convince & Convert). In just one year – from a standing start – SME became a multi-million dollar business. In addition to the blog itself, Mike and the SME crew produce the excellent Social Media Success Summits and Facebook Success Summits (disclosure: I’ve been a part of nearly all of them as a paid presenter).

Every time I think I’m doing a good job building a community and a company at Convince & Convert, I look at what Mike has cooking and realize he’s doing it bigger, faster, and better than me. Bastard.

The good news is that Mike doesn’t believe in secrets, and his excellent new book Launch: How to Quickly Propel Your Business Beyond the Competition (affiliate) shows you exactly how he’s built SME and his other businesses, and how other companies like Hubspot have used the same playbook.

Mike and I discuss the book and its teachings at length in the video above, and I really do hope you’ll take a few minutes to check it out. Lots of very interesting ideas from Mike that run counter to the accepted wisdom about how you build businesses.

For example, the core premise of Launch is the Elevation Principle, which dictates that you can build the best business by fulfilling people’s needs at NO COST. This is in stark contrast to the conversion and immediate ROI focus that most companies have adopted, even within the social media world.

Planting Customer Crops

Mike really believes in farming. Planting content seeds that produce customer crops down the road. Not today, but eventually. He also talks a lot in the video and in the book about giving gifts. The notion of quid pro quo and reciprocity are ruining business, in his estimation. Giving gifts (material gifts, content gifts, attention gifts) without expecting a return will produce – somewhat ironically – a far greater return.

It’s a weird paradox. Mike’s entire philosophy is about delaying business gratification, and about doing right by your prospective customers today so more of them will become actual customers tomorrow. Yet by following that advice, he’s actually building companies FASTER than if you did it the old school way with a bunch of sales reps and high-pressure Webinars.

I know it works, because I’ve seen him do it, and I’ve used some of the same techniques for my own businesses, and for my clients. But the reality is that most companies – especially large ones – don’t have the guts to give away all of their content without so much as even an email collection gate. If nothing else, Launch will inspire you to give it a try.

Content Without People Is Just Words

But the wisest part of Mike’s book isn’t about content or gift-giving, it’s about people. His formula is content PLUS people equals success. And when the storm clouds of budget and tactics roll in, the people part is usually what gets left out in the rain.

The book talks about “fire starters” – people in your industry that can drive awareness and social proof and attention and advocacy. It’s similar to Gladwell’s “Mavens” segment from The Tipping Point, but in today’s hyper-shareable world of micro-content and invitation avalanches, these people aren’t just nice to have, they’re critical.

And that’s the problem. I don’t care who you are, what company you work for, or how good your content is, that content isn’t good enough to truly succeed without key people making it work. You have to find a small group of netizens who believe in you enough to put some of their own skin in the game and support your content efforts. Are those employees? Maybe. Are they customers? Perhaps. Business partners? Sure. But all of those audiences are biased. What you really want are customers or third parties who don’t have anything to personally gain via your success. Those are the fire-starters that make your content more than just words and Google Bait. They are what make your content into a movement.

Don’t fall for the trap of just making content and posting it in a vacuum. As you’ll learn in Launch, the same amount of effort you put into your content creation should also be put into relationship cultivation.

That’s the secret. And I’m glad Mike is willing to share it for the price of a book. Pick up Launch. It’s a quick, interesting read that will have you dog-earing a ton of pages.

Content Without Advocacy is Just Words and Google Bait

Posted on 21. Jul, 2011 by Jay Baer in Blog, content marketing, interview, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Social Media Book, Social Media Examiner, Social Media Success Summit, Video Blogs

Mike Stelzner knows a little something about building a successful company from thin air. He’s the founder of Social Media Examiner, currently ranked the #8 marketing blog in the world on the AdAge Power 150 (we’re lagging at #19 here at Convince & Convert). In just one year – from a standing start – SME became a multi-million dollar business. In addition to the blog itself, Mike and the SME crew produce the excellent Social Media Success Summits and Facebook Success Summits (disclosure: I’ve been a part of nearly all of them as a paid presenter).

Every time I think I’m doing a good job building a community and a company at Convince & Convert, I look at what Mike has cooking and realize he’s doing it bigger, faster, and better than me. Bastard.

The good news is that Mike doesn’t believe in secrets, and his excellent new book Launch: How to Quickly Propel Your Business Beyond the Competition (affiliate) shows you exactly how he’s built SME and his other businesses, and how other companies like Hubspot have used the same playbook.

Mike and I discuss the book and its teachings at length in the video above, and I really do hope you’ll take a few minutes to check it out. Lots of very interesting ideas from Mike that run counter to the accepted wisdom about how you build businesses.

For example, the core premise of Launch is the Elevation Principle, which dictates that you can build the best business by fulfilling people’s needs at NO COST. This is in stark contrast to the conversion and immediate ROI focus that most companies have adopted, even within the social media world.

Planting Customer Crops

Mike really believes in farming. Planting content seeds that produce customer crops down the road. Not today, but eventually. He also talks a lot in the video and in the book about giving gifts. The notion of quid pro quo and reciprocity are ruining business, in his estimation. Giving gifts (material gifts, content gifts, attention gifts) without expecting a return will produce – somewhat ironically – a far greater return.

It’s a weird paradox. Mike’s entire philosophy is about delaying business gratification, and about doing right by your prospective customers today so more of them will become actual customers tomorrow. Yet by following that advice, he’s actually building companies FASTER than if you did it the old school way with a bunch of sales reps and high-pressure Webinars.

I know it works, because I’ve seen him do it, and I’ve used some of the same techniques for my own businesses, and for my clients. But the reality is that most companies – especially large ones – don’t have the guts to give away all of their content without so much as even an email collection gate. If nothing else, Launch will inspire you to give it a try.

Content Without People Is Just Words

But the wisest part of Mike’s book isn’t about content or gift-giving, it’s about people. His formula is content PLUS people equals success. And when the storm clouds of budget and tactics roll in, the people part is usually what gets left out in the rain.

The book talks about “fire starters” – people in your industry that can drive awareness and social proof and attention and advocacy. It’s similar to Gladwell’s “Mavens” segment from The Tipping Point, but in today’s hyper-shareable world of micro-content and invitation avalanches, these people aren’t just nice to have, they’re critical.

And that’s the problem. I don’t care who you are, what company you work for, or how good your content is, that content isn’t good enough to truly succeed without key people making it work. You have to find a small group of netizens who believe in you enough to put some of their own skin in the game and support your content efforts. Are those employees? Maybe. Are they customers? Perhaps. Business partners? Sure. But all of those audiences are biased. What you really want are customers or third parties who don’t have anything to personally gain via your success. Those are the fire-starters that make your content more than just words and Google Bait. They are what make your content into a movement.

Don’t fall for the trap of just making content and posting it in a vacuum. As you’ll learn in Launch, the same amount of effort you put into your content creation should also be put into relationship cultivation.

That’s the secret. And I’m glad Mike is willing to share it for the price of a book. Pick up Launch. It’s a quick, interesting read that will have you dog-earing a ton of pages.

(video production from my friends at Real Simple Video. If you need someone to take your raw footage and tidy it up, add titles, etc. they are the guys. Fast and reasonably priced. Check them out at http://realsimplevideo.com/jaybaer).

Going Undercover is Quite Revealing

Posted on 05. May, 2011 by Michel Fortin in answer, attitude, Blog, consulting, customer, helpdesk, Influence, interview, Opinions, people, problem, respect, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, success, support, workaholics4hire

Sometimes, I answer helpdesks to help in special cases or on more technical issues. But when I do, I do it anonymously as our support staff works as a team.

(It’s the way my wife’s company works. It allows us to work interchangeably, such as replacing each other on vacations or providing collaborative input, without any interruptions.)

However, when I do, something interesting happens.

Some clients treat me like crap. They patronize me and show contempt towards me. They are terrible to deal with, not because of their request but because of their attitude.

They range from the miserable, “the-world-owes-me,” insatiable ingrate who sends tickets in rapidfire succession for every little itch they need to scratch, to the uppity, snarky snob who expects others to bow in the mere presence of their support ticket.

Now, don’t get me wrong.

I’m not talking about someone who’s genuinely pissed off because of some frustrating problem they need help on, but later becomes appreciative when their problem is solved. (I do sympathize with them when stuff like this happens. I’ve been there!)

No, I’m talking about people who lambaste subordinates just because… they can.

It is utterly amazing to me to see how clients treat me when they don’t know it’s me — the same person they revere, are friends with, and pay $500-$1,000 an hour for consulting.

Worse still, it’s terrible to see how people are downright condescending toward others in seemingly menial positions. It’s also surprising because I would have never expected it from some of them. They’re the kindest people I’ve met.

To quote Lynette Chandler who shared a similar story with me on Facebook:

“I was floored… I’ll never view her the same way again.”

Indeed.

The sad part is, many of these clients were people I’ve met at seminars, were friends of mine, and were supposedly some of my biggest fans. Needless to say, it also made me realize what my wife and her staff had to put up with for 15 years.

(Hats off to you, and you know who you are! )

Here’s the interesting thing about this.

How many do you think are like that?

10% (i.e., 90% are good and 10% are bad)?

20% (or 20-80)?

How about 30-70?

Nope. This happens in about 50% of cases. Yes, 50%! Close to half of all tickets come from clients who treat me horribly and browbeat me just because of the position I’m in.

Maybe it’s because they think I’m a woman? Or an Indian? Or a teenager? Or someone who just started in an entry-level position? In all of these cases, it doesn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter! And it would be downright insulting if any of these were true.

(I’m confident I’d embarrass the daylights out of them if they ever found out it was me!)

In addition to the show Undercover Boss, this also reminds me of an article I read once about a CEO who typically conducts job interviews at restaurants, just to see how the job candidate treats the wait staff — which greatly influences their decision to hire them.

It’s a great social experiment, that’s for sure. It’s also going to make me think twice when I’m the customer, on the other side, dealing with a cashier, nurse, order taker, wait person, counterperson, clerk, or whomever is serving me at that time.

Sure, I still expect them to do their jobs. After all, I’m the customer and I’m paying for it.

But they deserve to be treated the same way I expect to be treated…

… With respect.

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