Stay On Top of Your Game

I recently signed up for Google Alerts (in beta testing) for my own business and for many of the businesses that I work with. Once a week (or however often I prefer), Google sends me updates by email on each phrase I’ve set up an alert for. It’s VERY cool.

Just today I received an update on “Buckhead Saloon” and found tons of videos on YouTube from our own customers. Almost all were actually pretty flattering, some were downright hilarious.

What did I do in response? Created a branded-YouTube channel for Buckhead Raleigh. I then added all of those videos that I could find related to this venue to Buckhead’s “favorites” and added a link to our YouTube channel on all of our other social media (MySpace, facebook Page, Twitter, etc.). Our sales manager can now send instant examples to potential clients of just how local organizations, non-profits, etc. have held events at our venue and tons of success doing so. Greek Week 2008, anyone?

I hope everyone enjoys this free tip!

PS – Of course, there’s a lot more that you can do with Google Alerts. I just chose to approach this one weekly report from an integrated marketing communications (IMC) approach.

"Driving" Your Brand Home

I received a flyer in the mail today for a new local advertising program: Tee Time North Carolina.

There aren’t any locations close enough to the shop that I was interested in advertising with at the moment (and I also didn’t think the rates were very competitive for small businesses), but nonetheless, I still think it’s a pretty cool idea.

The only thing I could see being an issue for me is weathering. I’m very particular about brand management, so if maintenance wasn’t a key factor for this provider, I could get disappointed very quickly. Lots of our clients enjoy golf and golfers could be a good demographic for us is why I was particularly interested and bothered to check out the website provided on the flyer.

PS: This is not a sponsored post – so if the folks behind TeeTimeNC.com happen to find this blog by way of Google Analytics – how about a free month of advertising?

Anyone else have any fun, creative advertising outlets to share?

Personal Peeve: Facebook Fakers

It makes me cringe when I get a “friend request” from a business, organization, or association. I cringe less significantly when it’s a group, but there’s still a little sting.

This is a classic case of jumping right in without a little doing research.

Those who would take a little time to explore facebook and learn about its features would have learned a few things that would make them appear less “new” at this social networking game:

1. Profiles are for people. How in the world can I really be “friends” with an organization? I can be a fan, but not a friend. 9 times out of 10, unless it’s something or someone I really care about, I deny the request until the group can get it together and make a page.

2. Pages give you “insights”, which are facebook’s versions of watered-down analytics. That’s valuable info my friends, not to be tossed by the wayside lightly.

3. The number one reason I don’t want to “friend” you or join your “group” is because I don’t want you poking, writing on my wall, or messaging the heck out of me. That’s what updates are for, and when they’re sent out in their rightful place, they’re received with higher effective rates.

So please, stop making yourselves look so ridiculous.

Also, from what I hear… they make you pay to create a profile as a non-personal entity. Throwing away money on something they’re giving away for free are we? Bad form.

/rant. Thanks for letting me vent!

The Mother of All Blog Giveaways

…which no, I am not hosting (but I definitely think it’s worth acknowledging in my business blog).

One of my favorite personal blogs to follow is Lauren’s at Adventures of a Southern Newlywed. A few weeks ago, she posted about how her husband had gifted her with a Keurig – one of the coolest cup-at-a-time brewing systems – something I’ve seen popping up in corporate world since last winter and now personal worlds… a lot lately.

They really are a neat little system with very little mess (see the official Keurig website for how it give you lots of coffee/tea/beverage choices in little pre-packed cups and brews them each individually) for brewing beverages, but at cup-at-a-time rate – which is great for cutting down on waste and costs (which is my guess as to the source of the backbone of their success in business settings).

Anyways, back to tying this into business – lots of brands are standing up and taking note of personal bloggers and their influence on their followers and offering up free products for the bloggers (usually females, as I’ve noticed) to give away on their blogs in a contest for one of the lucky readers who make themselves known and leave a comment.

Keurig has offered Lauren their Platinum home model – which at $199.95 MSRP – is no small gimme!

My question for business-followers out there is this – are you participating the blogworld, do you know who is talking about your products (or would be interested in your products), and are you turning that into a revenue stream?

If not, it’s so worth a shot. (You can’t tell me you haven’t heard the old addages about the power of word-of-mouth.)

Media Guerilla points to interesting research from Intelliseek that finds that consumers are ‘50% more likely to be influenced by word-of-mouth recommendations from their peers than by radio/TV ads.’”
Source: Business Week

Enough said.

(Note: As always, this is not a paid endorsement of Keurig, just an observation from my own personal Google Reader subscriptions of how businesses are leveraging the power of social media.)

Keep Doing What You’re Doing

I know that I’m surrounded by good business people because nearly everyone I know is personally connected, and connects their business, to one or more great causes.

Even though the economy is a bit – gross? – right now, there’s good news for those who’ve continued supporting their favorite causes:

Cause-related marketing still works, study shows

“In this experiment, products with cause-related marketing enjoyed as much as a 74 percent increase in sales compared to products with generic ads.

Participants spent nearly twice as much time looking at cause-related ads compared to generic ads. Lead researcher Gavan Fitzsimons said, “Consumers are paying more attention to cause messages, and as a result, are more likely to purchase them.”

The second part of the study, an online survey of more than 1,000 Americans, showed that the cause, the nonprofit organization associated with it, and the product itself are all important factors in the purchase decision.”

The linked article above notes the most favored types of campaigns but there’s one segment I think they’re sorely missing: animals and rescue organizations. Maybe that’s grouped into one of their broader category titles.

A few (but in no way all) of my favorite local causes (in no particular order):
SPCA of Wake County
Brittany’s Battle
Racing Heroes Charity Auction
Dress for Success – Triangle NC Affiliate

We’ve Said it Before…

Both Peggy and I constantly preach about the necessity of a branded email address and yet still… some folks are missing the boat. Check out her blog post from today that covers another reason to brand your email address: because AOL, BellSouth, and Yahoo aren’t paying you for the free exposure you’re offering up!

While we’re at it, if you engage in any sort of email promotion or marketing, please take 30 seconds to familiarize yourself with the guiding principles that are the CAN-SPAM Act. (No one wants to be fined up to $11,000 by the FTC.)

Prime Example: Since activating my NC real estate license, I have received numerous unsolicited emails about property listings that not only don’t include opt-out methods, but when I’ve contacted the actual sales team, they can’t come up with a concrete answer for how they actually received my email address (although they swear the TMLS didn’t sell it to them… I am a bit doubtful and will be making a few calls today).

What kills me is that they are for properties that are available for sale in areas that not only am I not any sort of interested in, but neither are any of my clients. Having your email address marked as “spam” by Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail, Bellsouth, and Road Runner personal email users will get you automatically sent to the spam folder very quickly. (And let’s not even mention the black-hole that is emails that are automatically blocked by these ISP before the ever even get to the spam folder…)