Trends Archives - Page 14 of 19 - McLellan Marketing Group

10 things I hate about you (say our clients)

October 25, 2007

RainToday.com (one of my favorite resources) has an eye-opening collection of articles that reveals the 10 major problems encountered by decision makers during the process of hiring consulting and professional services providers.

Not only are these the things decision makers hate about you, but, more importantly, they are also the reasons why they don’t buy your services.

It’s a must read. You have to register to get to the download page, but you can always say you are Arnie Fuddleknicker.

Seriously — go read it now. Shoo.

More

Now that we’ve decided blogs are potential PR engines…

October 15, 2007

Ah, the good old days. PR pros bombarded reporters, news directors and radio jocks with their pitches, releases, and freebies.

But it’s a new day my friends and suddenly PR firms, publishers and business owners have decided that blogs are as viable as the daily paper, when it comes to getting out the word about a new product, book or idea.

All that is well and good. When it’s done right. But most often, I get e-mails like this:

Hello Drewsmarketingminute,
I found your site http://www.mclellanmarketing.com/ and I wanted to
know if you could Blog or write an article about XYZ (changed because I am a nice guy)! You can write your own article; alternatively you may use this recent press release below. You also take a look at the XYZ samples and information on our site at http://www.XYZ.com Thanks!

This guy has never read my blog. He found me on a list or technorati search. He didn’t use my actual name (unless I have become Drewsmarketingminute) and he insults my integrity, suggesting that I would just run his release verbatim.

I get several of these a day. I ignore several of these a day.

Ogilvy PR has the right idea. They’ve created a bloggers outreach code of ethics. I, and many other colleagues think they’ve got the right idea. I hope that all of us who live in the marketing world and may be pitching bloggers take note. If you want to reach out to a blogger…this would be a fine primer to study before you make that first contact.

We reach out to bloggers because we respect your influence and feel that we might have something that is “remarkable” which could be of interest to you and/or your audience.

We will only propose blogger outreach as a tactic if it complements our overall strategy. We will not recommend it as a panacea for every social media campaign.

We will always be transparent and clearly disclose who we are and who we work for in our outreach email.

Before we email you, we will check out your blog’s About, Contact and Advertising page in an effort to see if you have blatantly said you would not like to be contacted by PR/Marketing companies. If so, we’ll leave you alone.

If you tell us there is a specific way you want to be reached, we’ll adhere to those guidelines.

We won’t pretend to have read your blog if we haven’t.

In our email we will convey why we think you, in particular, might be interested in our client’s product, issue, event or message.

We won’t leave you hanging. If your contact at Ogilvy PR is going out of town or will be unreachable, we will provide you with an alternate point of contact.

We encourage you to disclose our relationship with you to your readers, and will never ask you to do otherwise.

You are entitled to blog on information or products we give you in any way you see fit. (Yes, you can even say you hate it.)

If you don’t want to hear from us again, we will place you on our Do Not Contact list – which we will share with the rest of the Ogilvy PR agency.

If you are initially interested in the campaign, but don’t respond to one of our emails, we will follow up with you no more than once. If you don’t respond to us at all, we’ll leave you alone.

Our initial outreach email will always include a link to Ogilvy PR’s Blog Outreach Code of Ethics.

What do you think?

More

What is the most powerful selling tool?

October 3, 2007

This just in from the folks at Nielsen. No great shock (I don’t think) to see word of mouth topping the chart, in terms of effective selling tools. The power of a recommendation from a known/trusted source has long been the gold standard.

But what’s pretty interesting, and a big change from a few years ago, is the third highest item on the list. Opinions posted online.

So, what do you think? What does this say about blogging? Sites like epinion.com?

If you’re on the company side — what do you think it means for you and where you spend your resources? If you’re a consultant or agency-side pro — what do you think it means for you and for your clients?

By the way…this was an international survey. It covers 47 Markets: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Thailand, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, UAE, United Kingdom, US and Vietnam.

More

Come mix and mingle

September 30, 2007

One of the things I love about big cocktail parties is the mixing and mingling. It's a smorgasbord of conversations and you can drift in and out, sampling a little bit of each one.

So, imagine all the Age of Conversation authors standing around, drink in hand, chatting. Wouldn't it be fun to flit from group to group, engaging with each author?

Well, until we can make that happen, David Brazeal of JournaMarketing (and an AoC author) is doing the next best thing. He's vowed to create a podcast with each author and share them with all of us.

He's got three done and you can check them out on his site.

Gavin Heaton
Me
Becky Carroll

This will be a series worth watching for. Thanks to David for putting the spotlight on each author!

More

Harry Beckwith’s genius x 40 (part 1)

September 11, 2007

If you have read this blog for any length of time, you know I believe Harry Beckwith to be a modern day prophet. Or at the very least, quite brilliant.

Beckwith has mastered what I stumble with every day. He tells stories that illuminate.

He does it in plain language that everyone can grasp and apply to their business.

In his most recent newsletter, Harry Beckwith's Invisible Ink (subscribe here) Harry talks about his fascination with what motivates people.

He goes on to say that he's come to 40 conclusions surround this question. I thought I'd share some of them with you. And maybe if you like them, I'll share a few more tomorrow.

Your biggest competitor is not a competitor; it's your prospect's indifference.
Your second-biggest competitor is not a competitor; it's your prospect's distrust.
Your biggest obstacle is whatever stereotype your prospect has formed about you and your industry.
Prospects decide in the first five seconds.
Prospects don't try to make the best choice. They try to make the most comfortable choice.
At heart, every prospect is risk-averse, and risks are always more vivid than rewards.
Beware of what you think you know or have experienced; memories fail people constantly.
For the same reason, beware of what others say they know or have experienced.

So what do you think? Ring true for you? Had you forgotten some of these truths?

More

Do blogs make e-newsletters obsolete?

September 7, 2007

Here's the question. Now that we have blogs, should we still have e-newsletters?

My friend Dawud Miracle raised the question and paints a picture that suggests that e-newsletters are really thinly veiled tricks to capture e-mail addresses and sell products. Blogs on the other hand, according to his initial post, are less intrusive and give the reader more control. He's generated quite an interesting collection of responses.

Here's mine.

With all due respect, who died and made us King? That is so 1980’s. We are not in charge anymore. The consumer is.

My agency has had a e-newsletter since 1999 and we have thousands of subscribers. They seem to like it.

I have had a blog for less than a year. Have a good number of subscribers but certainly not the thousands that the e-newsletter has. The blog subscribers seem to like it.

Some of the e-newsletter subscribers have opted to also sign up for the blog and visa versa. (I try not to use the same content).

If we have learned anything in this era of citizen marketing — we don’t get to decide. We offer up value in a variety of media and let the consumer choose which option works for them.

And if we think that e-newsletters are more sales driven — we are crazy. I have seen blatant blog posts that practically begged for work. I’m not saying that is bad…but I saying we are deluding ourselves to think of one as a sales tool and the other as an educational vehicle. Both…can be both.

As long as we have subscribers to either vehicle, I will keep writing them.

So what do you think? Are they mutually exclusive tools? Does one replace the other? Is one medium more geared towards a sales pitch?

Do we or should we choose for our readers/prospects/customers?

More

Is this the future of everyone’s personal brand?

September 6, 2007

Dan Schawbel is 23. He has a full-time job. A blog. And a personal brand (Rob Cuesta's take).

(In comparison, when I was 23, I had a dog.)

Dan has embraced personal branding an d has expended a significant amount of energy to mastering it. His blog is all about it. He's created a magazine focused on it. By the way, Donald Trump graces the cover of the first issue and thinker/doer Guy Kawasaki penned an article.

Oh yeah…and he's built his digital personal brand site. A site dedicated to 360 degrees of Dan. His professional life, personal life, ambitions and creations. All in one spot.

What do you think? Will everyone have one of these? What would you put on your personal branding site? Where would you draw the line? Or isn't there one any more?

P.S. If you didn't think owning yourname.com was important — ask Dan what he thinks about it.

More

The next generation of social media specialists

September 3, 2007

…are already in training. Sure, there’s MySpace and Facebook, but look out because here comes SugarLoot.com.

This teen-driven site hosts contests that encourage the kids to:

Upload videos
Upload photos
Participate on their blog
Create relationships that support mutual votes and “fan” rankings

The traffic numbers are staggering. Not only is this site attracting kids by the boatload, but it is also attracting advertisers. Prizes for the contests come from companies like Petco (cutest pets), Apple, Westin, M&Ms, American Express, JVC, Dell and others.

It’s also being used to hype upcoming movies. The Clique is a book series aimed at teen-aged girls. Through SugarLoot, they are running a contest where the grand prize winners will get to audition for a role in the movie adaptation of the books.

One of the contestants has over 18,000 views of her audition.

We McLellans were late to the party, but in just a couple days, my daughter’s audition has over 100 views. And we hadn’t even e-mailed the grandparents yet!

My point? If you think your business doesn’t need to pay attention to social media – think again. Tomorrow’s customers are learning it today. You’d better do the same.

More

I’ll give you a toaster….

September 1, 2007

Remember when we were kids and banks would offer toasters, clock radios and stadium blankets in exchange for opening a checking account?

Well baby, we have NOT come a long way.

All too often, when a company tries to bribe potential customers with incentives, they fail to really understand the math that's going on in the prospect's head.

The key to developing a good incentive offer is understanding the value of what you are offering versus the cost of what you want in return. Check out my post at IowaBiz.com as we explore the good and bad of incentives.

More

As we were saying…about watching differently

August 29, 2007

There's a new beta in town. Hulu.com

Their goal? Nothing big. Just to give you access to the world's premiere content, when, where and how you want it.

Here's a bit of the CEO's welcome letter.

Welcome to Hulu! Our passionate and growing team here has been very hard at work on a service that we're quite excited about. We'll keep you updated with news as we go along.

The first bit of news we'd like to share is that we have a name: Hulu.

Why Hulu? Objectively, Hulu is short, easy to spell, easy to pronounce, and rhymes with itself. Subjectively, Hulu strikes us as an inherently fun name, one that captures the spirit of the service we're building. Our hope is that Hulu will embody our (admittedly ambitious) never-ending mission, which is to help you find and enjoy the world's premier content when, where and how you want it.

So do you suppose Hulu will have :30 spots?

Thanks to Jon Burg for giving me a head up on this beta release. Check out his comments as well.

You can sign up to be a part of the beta as well.

More