Archive for Marketing Thoughts
99 Designs An IM Dream
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99designs home page
The purpose of this post is really just a bit of an eye opener for those of you not aware of the site 99Designs.com
If you’re an internet marketer, or ANY business owner who needs graphics, 99Designs provides you the opportunity work with not just one graphic designer, but potentially hundreds.
Heres how the site works.
1. Using a contest scheme, a project is posted on the site. ”Design me a new logo for my retail clothing store”, or “Make me a ‘no scammers’ button”.
2. A prize value is listed. This varies from 100 bucks to thousands, depending on the scope & quality expected.
3. Thousands of designers view your project, and have the opportunity to compete for the project.
4. Every time a designer submits an idea (or SET of ideas) they appear in the contest page for all to see. So in essence, these designers are competing directly with each other.
5. The contest runner eventually selects just one design from a raft of different designs displayed.
This is a great thing for someone who hasn’t got a hot shot designer they can trust. Rather than going through an elance like process, where you’re shown past work, you get to see exactly what you’re going to get for your money, and can compare it with other competitor’s works.
Have a look around! If only they had an affiliate program… I’d be promoting it!
Twitter and TweetGrid for Negative Keywords
Posted by: | CommentsGot a ppc campaign you’re about to upload into the big “G”? Concerned you’ve missed a few negative keywords that will destroy your click through rate?
Log into TweetGrid (see my last post for more about TweetGrid).
Type in your main core keywords. Lets say they’re “Knight Armor”, “Shining Armor”, “Paladin Armor”, and so on.
Find out what related conversations people are having right now (you get topical, recent and potentially “hot” negative keywords this way) that AREN’T associated with your core campaign keywords.
For example, you might be advertising display armor, but your search pulls up computer games which involve the “Paladin” class (hundreds of thousands of searches a month).
Add those words to your negative keyword list.
The same process of course can be used to find new keywords…
Using Twitter and Tweet Grid For Research
Posted by: | CommentsAre you researching a new business idea?
Are you looking into potential niches for affiliate marketing?
Have you got a product idea that you’re not sure will fly?
Head over to Tweet Grid. Select a 3 by 3 box (click on the image at the top of the home page). And then type in 9 terms that relate to your idea, niche, or business opportunity.
Tweet Grid's Title Graphic
Simply click on any of the sizes that appear on the header image - 1×1, 1x 3, 2×2, etc… and you’ll get the appropriate grid size.
If you were researching the widget consulting industry, you might type in a variety of keywords to “listen in” on people’s twitter conversations that include that particular keyword.
So, if I type in “widget consultation” into one of my boxes, I might overhear a conversation about a negative experience involving a widget consultation, or I might see someone advertising on twitter for their own services.
Or perhaps I’d type in “widget 2.0″ and see that many users have been experiencing terrible problems with widget 2.0, and that you could fulfil a need.
I have websites in the World of Warcraft niche and routinely monitor “World of Warcraft” on Tweet Deck. Its amazing how many times you’ll hear girlfriends, wives, boyfriends and husbands bemoaning the amount of time their significant other spends on World of Warcraft.
Or maybe you want to follow just one Tweeter’s updates, such as Barak Obama, or Jonathon Weston… *cough*. Simply enter their name into the box, and whenever anyone mentions them, or they post an update themselves, you’ll be informed.
Handy.
Impressed by SGIC’s New Campaign
Posted by: | Comments“Unworry“, says the new advertising and marketing campaign from SGIC.
If you remember, not too long ago SGIC’s campaign revolved around the motto, “We’re fiercly competitive”.
I hated the old campaign, but love the new campaign.
Why?
What do you think of when you’re told a company is fiercly competitive? “Who cares” came to my mind, repeatedly. Every company is fiercly competitive… what we as consumers want to know is, “what’s in it for me?”
SGIC’s old campaign “fiercly competitive” motto made me think, “Fiercly competitive in what regard? Prices? Shareholder ROI? Profit margins?” The terms fierce and competitive don’t fit with insurance companies, at least, not in public marketing campaigns.
We want to think that our insurance company is like a warm loving parent, there to look out for us when we cut our knee… not a fierce tiger trying to savage the competition (and maybe us).
What do you feel like when you’re given the opportunity to “unworry”, as SGIC’s new campaign promises?
- Hopeful,
- Optimistic,
- Safe, and
- Relieved that someone else is going to handle all the concerns of your life for you.
Its also talking about whats in it for you, not the company.
If you’re looking at creating or changing a motto for your own company, use SGIC’s newfound focus as an example of speaking the right way to your audience.
- Keep it simple
- Make it bring out specific emotions in your target audience
- Tell your market what’s different about you
Don’t know if your motto is quite “there” yet? Why not ask your customers?
Engage Your Audience, Disengage PowerPoint
Posted by: | CommentsWhen speaking, whether to a crowded room, in a podcast, or in a one on one situation, engage your listener by using vivid visual information…. I call it, “creating movies in their minds“.
I’m not talking about using arm flailing body language, and I’m not talking about using a box full of props. And boy, I’m certainly not talking about using the same old PowerPoint slides.
What am I talking about? Let me illustrate it to you… read these words carefully.
Goat.
Prince.
Thunderstorm.
Drunken brawl.
What happened when you read those words?
Did an image of the letters that make up the word “goat” appear in your mind? Or did you think of a mental image of a goat, maybe in a green grassy field?
Something like this pops into my mind!
What about “prince”? Did your mind associate that word with the letters P, r, i, n, c, and e, and “display” that in your thoughts like chalk on a blackboard? Or did you see in your mind’s eye an image of a young man draped with robes in a royal hall?
Thunderstorm - dark clouds, flashes of lightening.
Drunken brawl - last Saturday night out on the town and the local thugs duking it out.
We don’t remember groupings of letters, we associate words with images and stories in our minds.
Merely reading collections of notes put together in PowerPoint to the room is NOT increasing your listeners retention with visual information. Its called being boring, lazy and ineffective.
How can you use this information?
For one, throw out the notes written in PowerPoint. Just because some study 10 years ago showed people remember visual information better than auditory does not mean PowerPoint is the answer to your prayers… its not. Its a crutch you’ve depended on for too long, and a crutch that will eventually break and hurt you.
When speaking one to one, or even on stage, remember - people associate your words and ideas with visual images and story. Take advantage of that to make them remember your point, and remember you.
When you’re engaging your audience, here’s my difficult, long hours, hard work solution to help you chase boring, unoriginal, and ineffective slides from your life:
1. When you’re speaking, don’t use your slides to remember what you’re saying. Know your content well, or at the very least, deliver it from notes you’ve made, and deliver it with as much enthusiasm as you can muster. Just because you’re talking tax doesn’t mean you can’t talk a little horror.
2. Use your slides to show a powerful, interesting and throat grabbing “visual backup” to the point you’re making.
For example, are you talking about the economy? Sure, tell them about the percentage drop, but show them the picture of a pile of dollar bills burning. Show them an avalanche, or show them a house of cards falling down. Show them a cake and how much they don’t get to eat now. Anything but a boring graph.
3. Create stories for them to go along with. Use analogy and metaphor to create more easily related ideas and vivid visual imagery.
We’ve all heard analogy & metaphor before. “He cried like a baby”, or “Its like shooting fish in a barrel”. What does this do in our minds? It creates visual imagery and points of reference that we can all relate to.
Here’s a few of my own:
Creating visually interesting stories is like crack for your listeners mind - they can’t get enough.
Keep feeding them information based around statistical data, numbers, and figures they can’t relate to, and your audience will sour quicker than milk in the Australian sun.
Get it? Good!
Your Audience?
Does Being an Expert Count Anymore?
Posted by: | CommentsIts been said a million times before,
“Be seen as the expert in your field.”
When people see you’re the expert, they’ll trust you, and they’ll buy from you.
Good enough advice, but does it still hold water?
Does it still hold water when the “economy experts” have sent the biggest economy in the world in to a financial tailspin?
Does it still hold water when your “financial expert” has sent your 401k, superannuation, or other retirement plans so low that you’ve put retirement off for a decade?
And does it still hold water now in an age where anyone can declare themselves an instant expert on the Internet with a web site and some fancy marketing jargon & copywriting?
In some fields, where people are already battered and beaten — where people roam the virtual streets armed with “disbelief daggers” and “skepticism submachine guns” (hello Internet marketing!), the term “expert” is flung around so much it has lost all meaning.
So what do we cling to when our coveted “expert” status is slowly eroded by those around us?
Some ideas:
1. Show your human side. Some guru’s & experts seem to carry the lofty “better than thou” image of royalty with them whereever they go… and I think its hurting them. Be “real”, “human”, and show yourself.
2. Actually return to the real world where real people walk, talk and interact. Get contacts there, and get known. There’s nothing like speaking to someone face to face for 10 minutes to show them who you are.
3. Give of yourself and your time. Helping others is a huge credibility builder. The whole human race is built on helping each other… and helping for nothing can’t be beat. I help train new speakers and market my local Toastmasters club (and they help with MY speech making skills, too!)
4. Treat your readers/prospects/clients like an old friend you haven’t seen for a while. Not too friendly, but happy, intrigued, and interested in them. Or maybe you just want to land a hug on them? See point 6.
5. Just plain don’t call yourself an expert. One of my favorite writers, Wil Wheaton (best known as the young Wesley Crusher from Star Trek, The Next Generation) calls himself, “just a guy, ya know?”. Is he popular, successful, and LOVED? Oh my yes! Do people trust him, believe him, and love to hear his every word? Yes, yes, YES.
6. In the words of my Mum, “just be yourself Jonny”…
Stop saying how much of an expert you are, and start engaging with people as only you can.
What do YOU think?
