Why I love the NCAA tournament and Why you should to

Hope springs eternal. The March Madness countdown has started. The tournament, the Cinderella Stories, you name it it all happens in this tournament.

It is also one of the best marketing case studies out their. This year, we have Warren Buffet in the mix, Mobile Marketing will play a huge part and ads are almost has expensive has the Super Bowl.

Everyone is trying to tie into the tournament. How about your business? Are you trying to tie yourself and your company to the brackets, the tournament a college? Something at the very least… like a blog post.

Does Facebook Have a Future Yes or No?

Report: Facebook Users ‘Bored,’ Ads Not Effective

David Cohenon June 5, 2012 12:00 PM

A new poll shed more doubt on the value of Facebook’s 900 million-plus users to advertisers and marketers, uncovering negative results in terms of advertising and time spent on the site.

The online survey, from Reuters/Ipsos, which drew more than 1,000 respondents, brought some alarming results, including:

• Four out of five respondents have never bought a product or service as a result of advertising or comments on the social network.
• 34 percent of Facebook users are spending less time on the social network compared with six months ago, while only 20 percent are spending more time on it. The rest (46 percent) said their time spent on Facebook had not changed.
• Of the 34 percent who said they were spending less time on Facebook, the reason cited most often was that the site is “boring,” “not relevant,” or “not useful.”
• 44 percent said Facebook’s troubled initial public offering left them with a less favorable opinion of the company, and 46 percent said the Facebook IPO made them more wary of investing in the stock market in general.
• Nearly 40 percent said they use Facebook every day.
• 21 percent did not have Facebook accounts.

eMarketer found in a February study of its own that email marketing and direct-mail marketing influenced consumer decisions more than Facebook advertising, and Analyst Debra Williamson told Reuters:

It shows that Facebook has work to do in terms of making its advertising more effective and more relevant to people.

On the flip side, looking at the recent decision by General Motors to pull $10 million worth of advertising off the social network, Nielsen President of Global Media Products and Advertiser Solutions Steve Hasker cautioned that the success rate of a campaign was dependent upon the product or service it is promoting, telling Reuters:

If you are advertising Porsche motor cars and you can get 20 percent of people to make a purchase, that’s an astonishingly high conversion rate. If you are selling instant noodles, maybe it’s not.

As far as the issue of boredom, Gartner Analyst Ray Valdes pointed to the constant cycle of change at Facebook, including the introduction of timeline and its $1 billion acquisition of photo-sharing application Instagram, telling Reuters:

Facebook continuously has the challenge of Facebook fatigue, of the novelty factor wearing off, and therefore, they have to introduce new kinds of interaction.

Readers: Do you think the flurry of changes Facebook has been making of late will be able to stem the tide and reverse some of the negative trends found in the results of this poll?

Marketing March Madness with My Brackets for Marketing Success

RSVP March Madness Marketing Brackets

Here are my favorite Marketing Tactics all set up in bracketology lets see who wins

Marketing March Madness with My Brackets for Marketing Success

RSVP March Madness Marketing Brackets

Here are my favorite Marketing Tactics all set up in bracketology lets see who wins

Disruptive Solutions What is next on the horizon

I have been thinking a ton lately about disruptive solutions and what may be next on the horizons especially for SMB marketplace. Groupon hit the world by storm, does it have long-term legs can it go the distance? Time will tell for both business and the marketplace. Obviously Amazon continues to change the way we shop. Methods changed Soap (talk about changing a commoditized product). What is next out there? What needs disruptive change.. Do we even know or does it just hit us and then hit a tipping  point.

I spend most of my time in the Small to Medium size business (SMB’s) and we think every day how can we help them get their marketing message to their target audience and grow you revenues. For some it is about survival for others it is about going to the next level. But every day we try to come up with solutions that will help them. But what I want to come up with is what is really disruptive what will really change the world of marketing for the good. Or maybe there is not one

What ever happen to professional courtesy?

Has the internet changed us with the ability to get twitter followers overnight for a day or two until you follow them back and then they leave you or buy FB friends that do not mean anything, have we really lost our professional courtesy overnight?

I have been struck by the company’s that joins an email subscriber group just to get you to join theirs then they leave yours but continue to spam your email. I mean I agreed out of professional courtesy to follow you because I thought at some time we may do business together so I wanted to know that your company is doing.

But really please, like me for a week and leave me and then want to continue the relationship. Is that what we are coming to? Once you remove yourself from the relationship remove yourself completely from the relationship. Your like the past fling that breaks up but still wants to date on your term.

Is Social So OVER?

The last few days I have been thinking about social media and its play/future in the marketing mix of the future and I began thinking about is social media over? I read a quote the other day that today’s business coaches are yesterdays real estate agents and life coaches. Could that be also said about social media “experts”

Yesterday on CNBC interview an social media start-up CEO exclaimed, much to the chargrin of his VC onlooker that Apple is the most talked about company in social media channels BUT has no social media presence at all. None. Now that caused  me to pause and think about what I have been thinking about over the past few months.

But the two questions that I ask is where if anywhere does social media play out and is it dead? Or was it never really anything.

Come on lets get real if Jeffery Gitmore is writing books about Social Media didn’t we really know its time was over.

QR Codes the Hotest Marketing Tactic You Can Use Today

QR Codes Usages to Drive Business to You

 

In today’s world of Marketing the fastest growing tactic is the use of QR Codes or 2-D Bar Codes to help you the marketer or business  owner drive business to your door.

 

The QR Code was first created in Japan to be used to tell the ripeness of fruits and vegetables. And to date the fastest segment of adoption is by 18-35 males.

 

The premise of this article already assumes that the user understands what a QR code is and how to create them for your business. This article is a listing of ideas and thoughts on how to use them to increase your business.

 

1.       Drive to a mobile website

2.       Promote dishes on a menu

3.       Promote beer/wine/spirit selections

4.       Video

5.       Weekly/Monthly Specials

6.       Promote something special within the business

7.       Customer Testimonials Website Page

8.       FAQ

9.       Restaurants to use if there are long waits

10.   On post of services pieces

11.   On all collateral pieces

12.   Push people to sign up for social media sites

13.   Call now button and link to a tracking number

14.   Google Places

15.   You Tube Video (Not recommended)

16.   Link to send a text

17.   Discount and Promotions for joining mailing list

18.   Register to get physical address

19.   Reward for Joining FB,

20.   Push people to email list

21.   Link to an ecommerce Site

22.   Supplement and increase your retail space

23.   Talk about something special in the business

24.   Use to develop loyalty programs or increase enrollment in loyalty programs

25.   Have customers and Fans use to promote your business to others to grow your fan base.

26.   Customer Testimonials Videos

The Great Groupon Debacle

What happen at the Super Bowl! In the marketing world all we are talking about his the ads, what was good Darth Vader and what was not Doritos and most importantly what was Groupon thinking?
There was more conversations up to the kick off about the fact that Groupon was going to run a SB Commercial. What was that going to mean? How cool was that? What is the impact?

So what happen? They ran their ads. The ads were horrible. The did not really apologize for them. They pulled them in less than a week.

Does this remind you of the pre-Internet Bubble for the 90’s? How does a marketing company miss the mark so much on their advertising and promotion.

The fact is they are not a marketing company, and in essence many of their companies that are running “deals” with them are finding them to not be profitable for them in the long run. In essence, Groupon deals are short-term cash flow strategy.

I

Patience The Golden Virture of Business Dev

Patience. Many times it is referred to has a golden virtue. Do we have it, I think today has Bus Dev, Marketer and Sales Professionals we feel such pressure to make things (anything) happen that we have no patience. Their are times that I ask myself what is the appropriate amount of time to devote to new leads, prospects, projects.

In today’s immediate gratification world we are constantly looking for something to happen fast, right now, this minute. Do we move away from social media activities, lead generation programs and marketing campaigns because we have no time for patience to wait. In Seth Godin’s book The Dip there is a dip downward before we are on the trajectory upward. We need to have the patience for the dip to get to the “good stuff”.