New Blog

A new blog has just been started outlining marketing ideas and strategies that can  be put to use.

Check out the first post – http://www.marketing-ideasblog.com/marketing-ideas/marketing-ideas

watching Frank Kern and Ryan t…

watching Frank Kern and Ryan talking about visualisation

drinking some wine and doing s…

drinking some wine and doing some blogging. Hmm, not sure those two go hand in hand??

Discover How This Powerful Con…

Discover How This Powerful Concept Can Be 100% Responsible For Your Success: http://EzineArticles.com/?id=1460571

Publicity and Press Releases -…

Publicity and Press Releases – What Every Small Business Owner Needs to Know: http://EzineArticles.com/?id=1460475

Top 5 Strategies to Promote Yo…

Top 5 Strategies to Promote Your Business: http://EzineArticles.com/?id=1442556

Social media – is it for you?

Many people are talking about social media these days. It’s becoming a new ‘buzz’ word. So what does it really mean for you and your business? Should you bother using it? Hopefully this article written by Jacob Morgan can define a few things for you.

 

If you are an individual or a company looking to get involved in social media then you need to be prepared to receive positive feedback and negative feedback.  In my opinion the negative feedback is more important and in fact I would argue that all the feedback you receive is actually positive.  I call it negative feedback because it is portrayed in a critical light, meaning that instead of someone saying how great and amazing you are, someone will tell you that you suck, but the important thing is to find out why.

Positive feedback is easy to give.  Let’s say you release a new widget, next thing you know people are praising you saying your widget is the greatest thing since sliced bread…ya…so?  Sure positive feedback is great, it let’s you know that you are onto something, that you are doing something right.  The positive feedback you get is a good indication that your product or service is satisfying customer needs or wants.  However, you are never going to get 100% positive feedback.  Some of (if not a lot of) the feedback you receive is actually going to be negative, what matters is how you deal with the negative feedback.  Make your negative feedback actionable and turn it into something positive.

Negative feedback is actually positive feedback, stay with me on this one.  Let’s say you create a widget and release it, now instead of praise, people are making voodoo dolls out of you and telling you that your product sucks (ok if they are making voodoo dolls then you probably have a serious problem).  Instead of going into defensive mode, listen to what your users are telling you and make the changes they are requesting.  Look at negative feedback as constructive criticism because that is what it is (minus the voodoo doll).  If people tell you they don’t like something about your product then you know what you need to fix.  If someone tells you that your product or service is buggy, doesn’t work, looks bad, etc. then you know what you need to improve upon, this information is priceless as it shapes your product or service into what it is.    Collectively, your feedback is a giant focus group comprised of users who want to tell you what they think about your product (or you, your brand, your company).  No focus groups is always going to have 100% of the people say they liked the product.

The reason I wanted to address this is because a lot of people are scared to use social media because of the negative feedback they may receive.  I’ll share a little story with you about some negative feedback I received when I first started writing.  During the first month of my blogging I was chastised by a reader who called me out for not editing my posts for grammatical errors.  The criticisms were rather harsh and at first I felt a little upset and defensive, but then I realized that the reader just told me what I needed to fix.  I thanked the reader for his comments and have since tried to be more vigilant of my grammar.  This is just one of the many ways to take a seemingly negative piece of feedback and turn into positive feedback.  I receive comments and emails from readers all the time critiquing my posts or asking me to remove certain aesthetic things, and guess what, I listen and respond to all of them.  Every piece of feedback I receive I consider positive.  The fact that someone is taking the time to interact with me and share their opinion is humbling and I am grateful for every comment or e-mail I get.

How do you respond to the feedback you get?  How have you been able to take a seemingly negative piece of feedback and turn into something positive?

Marketing Strategy

I was reading Seth Godin’s blog and found this fantastic post. Remember when you are creating your own marketing mix, that some of the old fashioned ideas will still work – check out what your competitors are doing and then be different from them.

Enjoy.

Old Marketing With New Tools

Remember hand-written thank you notes?

Then they became xeroxed form letters.

And then mail-merged form letters.

And then Amazon order confirmations by email.

We tend to use new tools to do less. We try to save time and money at the same time, and end up depersonalizing and commodifying what we do.

A simple example: cost and speed pressure means that when you get your car serviced, it’s unlikely you’ll be greeted by the mechanic himself, wiping his hands on a greasy rag, telling you exactly what he did to your car. Instead, you’ll get a difficult to decipher printout.

Why not use the technology to give more?

The mechanic can have a simple digital voice recorder. As he works, he can describe each thing he’s testing and what he finds. You can then email the digital file to Iowa, India or Israel, have it typed up and beautifully formatted and waiting for the customer when he returns. How can that not be worth the $1.50 it would cost?

Or have your private school or summer camp record a 7 minute video on every student every month (that’s a seven minute a day commitment per teacher) and post them privately. Seven minutes is the equivalent of a three-page personal letter, with far less resistance on the part of the teacher.

A friend of mine is wrestling with this right now. It’s so so easy to hide behind technology, to use it as a shield, instead of as a clever tool to actually get you closer to the customers you depend on.

Another example: if you have high-value customers, you should never give them a mass Survey Monkey type survey. It’s dehumanizing and it sends exactly the wrong message. Instead, ask them for feedback by email or web form. A few easy toss up questions and then just ask whether they’d recommend you and why.

If you get 200 responses, you ought to care enough to read and reply yourself. If you get 2,000, go hire someone to digest them all and make it easy for you to see the trends.

Inertia is one reason that techniques like these aren’t done often, but the real reason is fear. We use technology to insulate us from our customers instead of bringing us closer.

Marketing Mix -”Poor Boy” …

Marketing Mix -”Poor Boy” | Marketing Mix http://tinyurl.com/56j57k

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