Training Marketer

Wondering if you should follow through with a new business idea? First, check to see if it’s “sticky” enough to sell by taking the Stickiness Aptitude Test.

The Stickiness Aptitude Test, from Electric Pulp, can help you determine how sticky your marketing message is. Answers are scored on a scale from one to 50, from Scotch Tape to Superglue.

Take the test to see if your ideas are “sticky,” or if you’re looking for an interesting way to make this Friday move a little faster. 

Space colonies? Rocket-powered shoes? Robots doing the laundry?

Predicting the future is tough. Most of the time our ideas don’t pan out exactly how we expected, but luckily we have experts out there who can help us see into the future.

If you’ve ever wondered what the future of social media looks like, experts out there have already started their predictions. Those at Mashable, the social networking news blog, had a recent guest post sharing expert predictions into our social media future.

Jackie Peters, CVO and founding partner of Heavybag Media, recently attended the Executing Social Media conference where Peter Shankman, social media guru, gave a very energetic keynote on the future of social networking and how the social web is changing the way we do business and make money.

Some of Shankman’s social media predictions:

Information overload. Think you’re overloaded now? Just wait, soon there will be too many channels, tools and platforms for anyone to keep track of. The solution will be in the form of one tool that streamlines all of the information in order to successfully manage the information, automating the process for you. FriendFeed and Socialthing are two emerging tools on the market now.

Automated life tracking, life sharing and network building. Peters tells us to imagine a world where a business traveler can walk into an airport, their Bluetooth device signals their arrival and a ticket is printed and ready at the check-in desk.

The fall of reviewers and critics. With personal information so easy to access, people will be using recommendations and ideas from your trusted network rather than traditional reviewers or critics.

Citizen journalists rise. “One customer can do better than a million dollar spend on the Super Bowl.” Customer reviews hold more merit than anything a professional critic could write. We want to know what our friends think about a product or service before we give it a shot.

In the end, “the evolution of the web is more about how it is becoming integrated into our lives and less about the technology.”

Peters’ important side note - according to the movie Back to the Future 2, in 2010 it was predicted we would all have a fax machine in every room. Basically, don’t hold the predictions against us in the next few years if it turns out we weren’t so right.

The American Catalog Mailers Association (ACMA) will be covering current issues involving the catalog industry and postal services at the National Catalog Advocacy & Strategy Forum in Washington D.C. on June 26, 2008 and June 27, 2008.

AMCA is inviting members and non-members to attend this “first-of-its-kind” forum where the Postmaster General of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), the Chairman of the Postal Regulatory Commission and other key personnel will discuss important issues regarding the relationship between the postal service and catalogers.

“This top-to-top forum, only for catalogers and their key suppliers, is an opportunity to join in dialog with executives of the Postal Service and their Regulator, visit with members of Congress and their key staff members to communicate the value of cataloging and educate policymakers on the critical issues facing our industry, and discuss Do Not Mail and ACMA work on how preference requests are handled by catalogers. Members will also be able to participate in an ACMA annual meeting to vote for officers & directors and get up to date on ACMA’s Program of Work to improve the external environment for cataloging.”

Hamilton Davidson, Executive Director of ACMA is calling on all catalogers to attend and share the event with others in the catalog industry to create a strong showing. This event is an opportunity to help control postal costs that impact your company’s future financial performance.

“When a bunch of CEO types descend on our nation’s capital with the same agenda, it gets noticed. Your participation will show the USPS and PRC through your action that you are committed to keeping the mail open for your products. Your questions and comments will reinforce the points I have been making that this is now difficult and proposed changes threaten to make it harder. Your passion and intensity will convey that this industry has terrific growth potential if properly managed, even though the last two years has taken us in completely the wrong direction,” said Davidson.

You can now create Facebook pages for products and brands. I have to thank those at the MarketingSherpa blog for bringing this cool feature to our attention.

Facebook is giving marketers the chance to create product and brand pages for free (as of now). Enthusiastic customers can become your friends, giving you the chance to network with their friends. It may open up a whole new world of product promotion, and it’s right there for free.

Be aware that it’s not the same as creating a regular Facebook profile. You have to go to the Facebook homepage, click on the like titled “Advertisers” in the footer. It will take you to a page where you can buy ads, but look closely for the free offer to post a product without being a paying advertiser.

The Sherpa blogger foresees a charge for this new feature sometime in the future, so take advantage of the offer now. Good luck.

A website is your own personal employee whose “life is your business 24 hours a day 7 days a week,” according to Glen Graham at the G&R Group Blog. During tough economic times, the Internet can open the door to opportunities that are outside the reach of brick-and-mortar businesses.

With Americans debating whether to spend their economic stimulus checks on gasoline or food, why is now best time to start a marketing website?

Here’s why:

No time off. A website doesn’t take breaks, vacation days and doesn’t complain about how expensive it is to drive to work because of $4/gallon gas prices.

No pesky employees to deal with. You don’t have to pay a sales person to hang around all day and update their Facebook page when sales are slow.

Low start up costs. Find a domain name and hosting service. No need to run around the city, searching for the perfect building to rent, and no desks or chairs to buy.

Easy maintenance. You don’t need to hire anyone to come in at night and vacuum up the floors or wash the windows.

It’s where your customers are. One-third (33%) of online U.S. adults are more likely to shop online because of high gas prices, low shipping costs and freedom to shop 24 hours a day.

Make sure your site is good enough to do the selling for you and now (even during a recession) can be the best time to start up an online business.

Surveys are a cost effective and quick way to gain insight on what your customers are thinking. If administered correctly, online surveys can be an invaluable business tool.

Like other emails, you can track and test online customer surveys to find out the best way to mold your marketing for your customers. You can even increase survey response rates drastically by molding your survey content correctly.

MarketingSherpa released a new “How To” last week that examines how one survey company creates powerful surveys with high response rates for their small and mid-size business customers.

Tara Zanecki, Director Online Sales Channel at Workshare Inc. boasts that in the past year, four surveys have had completion rates of up to 12% and they have an average 31% completion rate with new online purchasing customers.

With each survey, businesses find something new about their customers, according to Zanecki. Survey results can help marketing companies and small businesses develop effective email subject lines and messaging.

The survey guru shared 12 tips on broadcasting and writing customer surveys. Here are a few of the best survey tips:

Test and retest. Send the survey out to a test list to see how the email renders in different platforms. Testing surveys and having others read them over helps you catch small mistakes like typos that could be embarrassing once sent out.

Keep surveys short. Try to get the information you need in the least amount of questions. She advises no more than 20 questions for emailed customer surveys, but adds that B-to-B surveys may be longer.

Follow send best practices. The middle of the week (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday) is generally are the ideal days to send. If you’re sending to international customers, think about where they are. An email sent on Friday to a customer in China may be received on Saturday.

Survey the competition. Take a look at your competitors’ surveys and complete them, with an honest opinion. The more surveys you take, the more you find out what you like and don’t like.

Read the full “How To” at MarketingSherpa.

Whether used at trade show booths, on your Website or in customer emails, a well-products product demo can help explain your product and reinforce your marketing message.

A product demo can also get your sales team on the same page with the same marketing pitch and help generate quality leads.

MarketingProfs posted an article today on the best way to create marketing demos for products. The process should start by asking yourself four questions:

1. What is your demo’s objective?

A clear objective will help your team stay focused when deciding on visuals and message.

“If you’re a marketer for a retail Web site and your goal is to encourage more users to purchase products online, build a three-minute demo using actual screen shots of your site with a voiceover that tells users how to buy online as it shows them.”

2. What type of demo should you produce?

Should it be focused on the product, or conceptual? Product demos are very useful for people who want to see a product and understand how it works before they purchase. A conceptual demo can be used when the customer is already familiar with the product. Think about car commercials these days that barely show any features, but you still know what they’re selling.

3. How do you get the greatest return on investment with the demo?

The demo should be easily accessible to all of your customers. Make sure the demo does not take a long time to watch or load on your site. Don’t force people to download an application before being able to view a video, because they won’t take the time to do it.

Make sure the demo is easily portable in order to show it at trade events, to use on sales team laptops while on the road and easily sent via email.

4. Should you produce the demo in-house or outsource the work?

Do you have the resources in-house to create a professional demo in a timely manner? Outsourcing the project to a reputable firm that specializes in demo-development will free up more of your team’s time. If you choose to keep it in-house, be sure to produce a demo that you’re proud of. This is your chance to create a lasting first impression with customers.

Demos should be used anywhere you see fit - linked to in emails, newsletters, on your homepage, even given to your customer service and sales representatives to email customers.

The demo may be the first time a customer has ever come in contact with your company, make sure your marketing message comes out loud and clear.

Today a friend sent me this great little article, “Two of the Biggest Hurdles.” The author brings up an interesting question - why do small businesses have trouble marketing themselves consistently?

The answer is because there are two big hurdles in the way - perfection and fear of failure. The author goes on to give some tips on getting over or around the two.

Hurdling perfection:

Obsession with perfection can delay work significantly.

Perfection is not bad in itself, but can be when it holds you back from putting a “good enough” idea out.

Put your ideas out there, then pull them back in and analyze how you could have done it better. Keep repeating the process until you get as close to perfection as possible.

Be willing to start somewhere, accept mistakes and learn from them.

Focus on the pursuit of perfection.

Hurdling fear of failure:

Marketing takes time and effort and everything doesn’t always work when you first try it.

Failure can be positive, because it allows you to learn from your mistakes.

The important thing is to keep trying, even if you make a complete mess of it the first go around.

Be courageous. Focus on achieving the ultimate result.

First test your marketing efforts on a small group. Make tweaks where needed, test again and then go big.

Do your best to clear these hurdles and get your ideas out there. Don’t let perfection or the fear of failure stand in the way of a potentially great marketing idea.