Marketing Muse from Silver Square

Giving is the new marketing

This fun snapshot of social media explains how and why embracing social media can help your business and grow sales. As us how we can help you get started.

Pull your print ads...

I'm going to catch a lot of grief over my opinion, but it's time someone put it out there.... if you're examining your 2008 marketing budget and looking through your ROI, my guess is you're not really sure what, if anything, your print ads did for you. You run print ads because you think you're suppose to, you're a victim of a stellar sales job or you're afriad your "awareness" will fall off the charts.

None of these three reasons are valid.

Print ads have a time and place and audience (here's my disclaimer) and yes, all businesses and cases are subject to the results you need to see to fulfill your 2009 business goals, but I'm fairly sure I could sit down with you and make a case for how you could spend your budget, hit your business goals and maintain a consistent marketing approach without print ads. Here are a few things to consider:

1. You can still speak to your 'print ad' audience through your magainze, newspaper, etc. through banner ads, special sponsorships, tradeshows or get really creative and make up a promotion

2. Use your Web 2.0 tools to devote time and resources at staying in front of your audience; it's much easier to trial and error here than testing print ads until you get the right offer nailed down

3. Awareness isn't growing your business. Sales grows business. This economy isn't the time to build awareness. It's the time to spend smart and make sure every dollar is producing a business result

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Go Butler... finally you have a great website, but a couple things are still lacking

I'm a Butler grad and proud of it, but for many years their website was just bad. It was behind the time and behind in the activities which speak to the individuals they were trying to attract. Finally they have kicked up their design, shared how life is at Butler through student blogs and helped most (most) of the schools create a consistent look with the university. I really like the 'Is Butler right for me' portion of the site - good job there. In my mind though, there are still at least two big items missing...

Video is where it's at for these kids. Take some time over the next few months and get some real life video going to accompany your other web 2.0 applications. Buy some kids a video camera and see what they come up with. Make it a contest and buy a student's books next semester. You don't have to spend thousands to get personal and relate to the type of kids you want coming to Butler. You just have to be real.

After the site visitors get through the grandiose Butler branding stuff, they'll want to know about academics and the information on their school's site. These are still mismatched, inconsistent, dated and just plain horrible. Help them. Quickly. The disconnect is too great. This may very well be where a potential Butler student ends their experience and holds that last bit of information in their brain as 'Butler.' Is that what you want? I don't think so since you went through the time and effort to kick up your other presence.

So, good job, kind of. You still have a little work to do.

What's with Twitter?

If you have ever been wondering exactly what Twitter is all about, and likewise wondering why you should wonder, visit "Twitter Means Business" book by Julio Ojeda-Zapata. This first chapter of his book explains why it's not just something silly, even though its name may get a few giggles.

If you're interested, drop me a line and I'll tell you just how much social networking has done for us and our clients in the last month.

What is that one thing?

You have heard me say before that reading The Breakthrough Company was one of my best reads in 2008. Now I'm going to share one of the quotes from the book that, if done, could have a big impact on your business.

"Take 10 minutes right now and ask yourself, 'What one thing should I do tomorrow that will have the biggest positive impact on my business?' And then don't stop until it's done." 
        - Keith McFarland, author

Let me know your one thing and how you accomplished it and we'll share it on a future blog.

There's a reason it's called social networking

Have you ever given any thought to the term 'social media'? While chatting this morning with Kyle Lacy, I realized lots of people don't really (still) get social media.... and here is why. They are missing the fact that you have to be social.

Just like in the real world, you attend a networking event and get the most out of your time and effort if you take steps toward meeting and greeting as many people as possible. The social side of our day-to-day life is just as important as your social persona in our virtual worlds. Talk it up, meet people, devote some time to the craft and interact. You shouldn't have any surprise to the fact that the more you mingle, the more you know, the more you can give and the more you can receive. Very simple facts of life - no matter how you describe your environment.

The point:  Be Social. If you're not, you're not getting social media.