Author Archive
Faster Web Sites = Improved Profits
Last week I had the pleasure of speaking with Alistair Croll, a leading Web Performance expert. Alistair is the founder of Bitcurrent; an executive at CloudOps; a partner with start-up incubator Year One Labs; and an advisor to various technology venture firms. He was previously a co-founder of Web performance management firm Coradiant. The one point that jumped out at me during the interview was that the speed with which a Web page loads into a user’s browser has a direct correlation on Web site’s performance, regardless of the industry which it serves. Listen to the podcast here - http://bit.ly/web-performance-management
Expected Changes in B2B Marketing Budgets for 2011
An excellent survey from the smart folks at Marketing Sherpa. Here is their summary and survey results: SUMMARY: We asked more than 900 B2B marketers how they expected their marketing budgets to change for 2011. Learn which marketing tactics are receiving an increased level of investment, and which are not in this week's chart, including social media, email marketing, direct mail and more. Click on the image for a better view.
Don't spend another cent on your branding campaigns until you read this
Last week, I had the pleasure of speaking with Martin Goldfarb, co-author of the just published book, Affinity Beyond Branding. Martin is perhaps best known as the official Liberal Party pollster from 1973-1992. He also happens to be one of Canada’s most successful entrepreneurs and a leading expert in the study of human behaviour as it relates to the marketplace and society. He has consulted to numerous corporations, including Ford Motor Company, DeBeers, and Four Seasons Hotels. Once you listen to my chat with Martin, you will appreciate that this book and the experiences he shares are worth their weight in gold. Listen to the podcast here. Get your copy of the book here.
It’s 11:00 in the Twitterverse. Do you know where your people are?
One topic that we’ve been spending a lot of time discussing with clients is corporate social media policies. Due the medium’s explosive growth (see Social Media Counter post) companies are having a real challenge managing employees’ use of social media and networks. On the one hand, these tools make up the lingua franca of a fast growing market segment. On the other, using them without some forethought, knowledge, and structure can be a dicey proposition at best. The challenge is compounded when many of us use these tools at work for both business and fun. What to do then? First, train both executives and employees about the dos and don’ts of social media. Second, develop a social media policy that prescribes what is permitted and what is not. Drug giant Roche recently published guidelines for social media. They're written for employees, but posted for all the world to see. The Social Media Principles, which incorporate elements from the company’s code of conduct, guide employees on both personal and professional social media use. Here is the full article - http://bit.ly/abrf4O. To help you get going, here is a link to the Social Media Principles - http://bit.ly/social-media-guidelines. These should give you a ...
I feel the need…the need for speed
Just when I thought the summer sun and mellow pace of afternoons by the lake has dulled my sense of how fast the Web is really moving, I came across a resource that snapped me back to reality. To really appreciate what is happening, take a look at Gary Hayes Social Web Counter at http://bit.ly/socialmediacounter. Although I don’t think that as human beings we are wired to process so much information so quickly, the Social Web Counter provides some perspective.It shows a variety of stats in real time, as well as daily and longer. Hurry up and check it out at http://bit.ly/socialmediacounter. You’ll be blown away. Guaranteed.
Flip the Funnel – What if all of your company's marketing is completely backwards?
I often discuss books with our clients and business partners that I think can have a major positive impact on their businesses. One title which has consistently been on the list for the last couple years is Joe Jaffe’s “Join the Conversation”. His most recent book, “ Flip the Funnel”, is equally powerful. The assumption in this book is that many traditional marketing approaches are getting it all wrong. In other words, the focus has been on customer Acquisition as opposed to customer Retention; on the fat side of the funnel, as opposed to the skinny one. Jaffe passionately argues , and backs it up with statistics, that investing in existing relationships is far more profitable than devoting the bulk of your budget to acquiring new customers. “Retention is the new Acquisition”. I know what you’re thinking – how can I possibly find the time to read another book? Fear not, we’ll do that for you, and more. Below you will find a link to a video ...
Your Company Sucks
Just kidding. You know we love our clients. But someone, somewhere on the vast network we call the Internet, may be saying this about your company. The better known your brand and your products, the greater the chance that someone is taking a pot shot at you. The issue is not whether the criticism is justified but how quickly you find out about, and respond to, it. The difference in finding out within hours as opposed to days or weeks can be measured in millions of dollars and, once in a while, can even become a matter of survival. If your company was "slammed" for no good reason, you can set the record straight. If the criticism is justified, you can fix it quickly and win points for your lightening-speed response and exemplary customer service -- a perfect opportunity to make lemonade from the lemons you've been handed. So how do we find out as soon as possible? By using a set of tools readily available online. We've covered some of these before, but they are worth mentioning again: 1. Google Alerts -- http://www.google.com/alerts. A content monitoring service, offered by the search engine company Google, that automatically notifies users when new content from ...
The Case for Podcasts – Doubling the odds that your marketing message will be remembered
As many of you know, I have long been a fan of podcasts as an effective marketing tool. My reasoning was, and continues to be, twofold: First, anecdotal evidence demonstrates that a significant portion of your audience prefers to consume content by listening to it as opposed to reading it. Second, many C-level decision-makers no longer read and review product and service options while in the office, where their time is at a premium, but rather while driving or working out. In these latter settings, audio content trumps all other types of content for obvious reasons. As our rationale was mostly based on anecdotal evidence, I am always on the lookout for science-based empirical evidence to buttress my thinking. I recently came across a study from sparkinsight.com (see graphic below) that proves our podcast thesis – after two weeks, we remember 10% of what we read, 20% of what we hear, and 50% of what we see and hear. So, you ask, what is the best way to leverage the power of the spoken word? Here are two suggestions: 1. When promoting a new product or service, consider creating two short (15 ...
HootSuite.com becomes Mother's little helper – Keeping tabs on your brand
A number of clients have been asking us about social media tracking and monitoring tools. Over the last little while we've been recommending HootSuite. It allows you to create a dashboard of your most important social networking apps including LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook and monitor them all on the same Web page. This is a huge time saver for any company that want to keep tabs on its brand in the fast expanding social media universe. Hootsuite received a good write up in today's Financial Post. You can read it here - http://bit.ly/ceicL2 If there are other tools you use, let us know buy leaving a comment below. If you need help setting up HootSuite for you company send me an email at michael@ar-com.com
What's up Tweety Bird?
Twitter, Twitter, Twitter. That's all I seem to be hearing these days. Granted, when your user base is growing at the pace of 300,000 accounts everyday (over 105 million users to date), you are bound to garner some attention. Just to put it in context, 4 billion tweets were posted on Twitter in the first quarter of 2010. That's a lot of conversations. I must admit that I was not an immediate Twitter convert. For some reason, I really did not feel the need to know, in 140 characters bursts, what someone had for breakfast or dinner. Fortunately, I regularly speak to people who are much wiser then me, and as a result have become a convert. Due to the inordinate number of questions I get from clients about Twitter and its application to business, I am going to do two things. First, I'm hosting a Webcast in the next few weeks to answer your questions. Second, my next few posts will highlight some powerful Twitter apps and their business utility. The first one is TweetBeep (http://tweetbeep.com/). It is very similar to Google Alerts but instead of searching the Web, it focuses on the Twitterverse. Once you register (free) you are asked ...
