These seasonal icons have been around since 1843, when just over 2000 were designed and printed in England, then sold for a shilling – about 10 cents in today’s currency, but much more in value back then. Postage was one penny, or about a cent.

The First Christmas Card sold in England 1843

How things have changed. Time itself is in short supply; postage and printing cost so much more now. Should you just consign it all to the digital age and outsource your message via the inbox? Here are my reasons why I believe you should eschew the e-card, and take a more traditional line.

• There has been a move towards e-cards in recent years, delivered by email as either a link or attachment.  Many company and business servers are set to block such mail; your client may never know how much you mean to them.
• Spammers and hackers have been quick to seize on this seasonal flow of e-cards with false links leading to phishing sites. A legitimate-looking ecard, once it is clicked and/or downloaded, might actually be spyware, spam, or a computer virus. It may cause embarrassing images to pop up on your computer, or hi-jack it and send on further bogus e-cards from your address.
• Paper greeting cards are tangible; they have ‘weight’. They’re proof of how much you value the relationship – you took the time to choose a card, personalise it, address it and send it.
• E-cards may appear an immediate solution, but their place in the professional world can be questionable. As a rule they appear impersonal and may show a lack of sincerity;
• E-cards can be a reminder of our fast paced world; consider that many people view e-mail as an annoyance, and associate with it only as a business tool that has to be endured. Is that the thought you want to be tagged with?
• Some people view the e-card as an environmentally acceptable alternative, but given the amount of recycled material that goes into cards, and that cards themselves go to through organizations like Planet Ark, it is not a particularly strong case.
• The 20/80 rule is a truism of business. Sending a Christmas card to that 20% that provides 80% of your work is a great way to engender goodwill, retain brand awareness and reinforce your relationship with them on a social level.
• Finally, choose a card that is discrete and secular in design. Don’t try and attempt to sell yourself or your products through this communication. Deliver your seasonal best wishes with sincerity and leave the business for another day – this one belongs to a higher cause.

What I’m seeing though is that many businesses, having made the decision to go online, fail to do much more than that. They get a website…and stop. No attempt to market it, to monitor it, or to maximise its potential. Obviously, it’s desirable to just have a website, and then waste it.

Well, if that’s your aim, read on and I’ll share a few ways you can do it in style…

Let’s Start at the Very Beginning

If you want to waste your time and money from the get-go, employing a fly-by-night operator to build  your site is a great way to kick things off. The problems faced by people who have had a site built by a shonk are a sad reminder of cost/quality benefits. Unanswered calls, ignored requests for updates, lengthy downtime, impenetrable backends, no support…the list is long. 

Or you could use someone related to you or an acqaintance, because then you might get it for free – and it will be worth every cent. Just don’t try telling them you don’t like their design – guaranteed to end in tears.

1. Make it a Random Act of Marketing

This is probably the best way to totally waste your website; I call it the ‘Field of Dreams’ theory (from the movie of that name – you know, “Build it, and they will come.”)

If you want to waste your website, put your portal online, and never promote its existence. Don’t link it to any of your marketing collateral or other relevant sites. Don’t drive traffic to it from your emails.

Just treat it like all your other advertising that never gets followed up. Tick the box to say you’ve done it, and move on to the next thing. After a while you’ll forget you even have a website! Just like the rest of the world.

2. Analytics are Over-rated.

You may have heard about all the fancy stats that people like to throw around about their websites. Bounce rates, time on site, page views…as if that stuff is something you need to know about. You’re busy enough just running your business, right?

Of course, you could get an online partner who comes by once a month and discusses these things with you, educates you on their importance, and maybe offers suggestions on how to get some really exciting numbers about your site.

But if you want to waste your website, don’t worry about analytics. You probably wouldn’t like what they had to tell you about your pages anyway.

3. Stay the Heck Away from Social Media

Social media is just a waste of time. It’s not like anyone does anything meaningful with it. Can you do business with social media? Reach out to new prospects? Be seen as an expert in your field just by offering your knowledge to others? As if that kind of thing could help you get more customers.

No, to really waste your website you should just stay right out of the limelight. Don’t put a ‘Like’ button on your home page. Don’t link your website to places like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or Youtube, because it’s not like millions of people, potential customers, go there.

And forget about having a blog on your website. You wouldn’t want to give away any secrets to your competitors, would you? Keep what you know to yourself. You might need it if you ever get the chance to start over.

4. The More the Merrier

One of my favourite ways to waste a page is load it up with a whole bunch of words; the bigger the block of text the better. What a great way to get people to spend more time on each page! Think how impressed they’ll be after wading through all those words to find what they wanted, or better yet, urgently needed to know!

Oh, and copy writers…why would you use them? As if it matters how the words are laid down. It’s not like there’s any way for people to find your website based on the quality of the text, eh? So don’t waste your money on good copy - waste your website instead.

5. Time is NOT of the Essence

People really want to find you and see your website. So play hard to get - make them wait.

If your page has a heap of really big files on it, or dodgy script running in the background, or is so poorly designed that it loads badly, then people will have to hang around. And if they’re waiting to see your pages, then they can’t be viewing other sites, right? Great strategy.

Okay, so some mob called Google did say that faster sites create happy users. And so what if 40% of people abandon a website that takes more than 3 seconds to load. They probably wouldn’t appreciate all you had to say on your pages anyway. Which kind of brings us to our final point for today…

6. Ignore Mobile Devices 

You probably think that the best way to view web pages is on a computer. After all, who searches for services or shops when they are out and about?

Having a website that can’t be loaded quickly and easily on a mobile device is a total waste. I can’t put it simpler than that. You could have an app that links back to your website or promotes your business in other ways. You could promote yourself on Foursquare, or Facebook or Google Places. 

If only you thought mobile search was important.

Seriously, a website today is the shopfront of the past. You will be judged on its appearance, on how people feel when they are in it. It is just as important as an ad in the Yellow Pages was 20 years ago. And just like then, if you can’t be found easily, you will be overlooked.

What other ways have you seen people wasting their website?

Not just in the geeky ‘great stuff that works great’ sense. What I loved was the way that the great stuff was marketed. Sure, the fact that the guy behind the company was a bit of a rebel made for a great back-story; real rags to riches stuff. It was that kind of nature that brought on the development of the Macintosh.

And I really admired that the man wasn’t afraid to dream big, to fall flat, or to start all over again in a whole new field.  He understood that when you get a second chance you make the most of it! After 12 years away from Cupertino he hit the ground running with one great idea after another. The iMac. The iPod. The iPhone. The iPad. With iTunes in support. I guess all that time in the wilderness wasn’t wasted.

Having all that great technology is one thing, but it’s worthless in a business sense if you can’t get it to market. Or get the market to notice you. Steve Jobs knew how important it was to have a Unique Selling Proposition – Apple ads are gems of the advertising world.

So he didn’t build another beige box, he built a box with personality. He didn’t make another MP3 player, he made an icon out of the iPod. He didn’t invent the tablet, but he cornered the market with the iPad.

He understood it’s not enough to create awareness for your product, you need customers to want your product. It was his ability to awaken that desire within the consumer, turn them into customers and have them become raving fanbois that I admired most as a marketer.

It was this approach which helped me define what it would take for me to succeed in selling:

Know your customer. And make them happy.

The secret to Steve’s success wasn’t just that he could make a better computer.  Arguably he suffered his greatest losses when he held the edge in technology. No, he really became successful when he learnt to sell his wares better, when he understood his market and knew how to make them happy. The customer could relate to what Steve was selling, and how he was selling it to them.

At a time when people were fearing that technology would only be for nerds, Steve stepped in and reassured them that in his vision of the future no-one would be left behind. In time he would make it possible for us to have a computer in every home, a stereo in every pocket, a connection to the worldwide web in the palm of our hand.

It was Jobs’ ability to tell a story about the product in a way people could understand that really underpinned Apple’s rise to America’s greatest company. No jargon needed, just give the people what they want in a package that not only works well and looks good, but makes them feel better for having purchased it.

Steve Jobs made products for the masses that made them feel empowered. He turned the future on its head by making technology personal, by letting people be in control and not enslaved or overawed by it. And with clever advertising and an understanding of his market he created a brand that is almost without peer.

Apple have it all before them now. Their Messiah may have left the building, (in much better shape than when he entered it for the second time), but there is much he has left them, and all the world with too. Whatever the future holds, his imprint is indelibly etched upon it for generations to come.

I have added some links to some of my favourite Steve Jobs moments from Youtube.

Steve’s Commencement Address to Stanford students.

The ‘Lost’ 1984 Introduction of Macintosh.

The Mac v PC ads

]]> http://jeffpolley888.wordpress.com/2011/10/08/steve-jobs-at-the-core-of-apples-success/feed/ 1 jeffpolley888 Steve Jobs and the MacIntosh 1984 Steve Jobs & the iPhone Steve Jobs knew what it took to make a happy customer steve-jobs-apple-homepage-tribute http://jeffpolley888.wordpress.com/2011/08/06/are-you-qr-ious-about-the-future/ http://jeffpolley888.wordpress.com/2011/08/06/are-you-qr-ious-about-the-future/#comments Sat, 06 Aug 2011 00:29:49 +0000 Jeff Polley http://jeffpolley888.wordpress.com/?p=175 Continue reading →]]> One of the great challenges for the print industry in the 21st century has been to maintain relevance in a world obsessed with going online. The ability to connect the world of ink and water with the dream-woven realm of pixels has been the holy grail. Will QR codes prove to be the portal that connects your offline collateral to your online existence?

History of QR Codes

A QR (Quick Response) Code is essentially a 2D information matrix similar to a barcode, but in the way a bicycle is similar to a motorcycle.

A conventional bar code is capable of storing roughly 20 digits, whereas a QR Code is capable of handling up to several hundred times more. In fact, over 7000 characters can be stored in a single code.

The codes were first developed in 1994 by Denso Wave, a division of Toyota, to aid in the storage and recording of spare parts for the Japanese car maker. QR codes quickly became popular with the public for the same reasons that their simpler siblings had found acceptance – they were fast, accurate, and easy to access.

Japanese mobile phone makers were beginning to add cameras to their devices and were looking for as many ways as possible to use them – giving them the ability to read and process QR codes was almost a no-brainer. Today there are over 80million handsets capable of  interpreting QR codes in Japan alone, and most smartphones being produced globally either come standard with reader/scanners or can load them as apps.

Why They Should Be A Part of Your Marketing Mix

It is widely recognised that the best approach in marketing today is to spread your message across a number of channels, linking them where possible to provide as easy access as possible to your information or goods.

QR codes give potential customers immediate access to what they want then and there – they act as a physical hyperlink between the offline world and online platforms.

The advantage to the customer is they don’t have to wait to get home and fire up their computer. And as an advertiser you aren’t hoping they remember the URL. Having piqued the prospects interest with the code (which can be very creatively done) they can view it immediately and interact with the information provided.

QR codes can also provide marketers with a wealth of in-depth, accurate analytics. It is possible to measure exposure, the level of product interaction and location-linked data, all in real-time.

How Are They Being Used?

From business briefs to disaster relief, QR codes can be used to drive sales, inform people, link paper to pixels and entertain. They can even be found on tombstones! Below are just some examples.

Business cards – people are always trying to cram too much information on to their cards. With a QR code, it is possible present all that and more, linking to your company’s website, a special promotion for new customers, or a video presentation. Try Snap South Brisbane‘s code here, which links to a YouTube video.

Coupons – a QR code can take the prospect to a landing page where they can download a discount coupon in exchange for more information about themselves, allowing further marketing opportunites. Here’s how Dunlop Tennis used there code.

Magazine ads - a magazine ad featuring a QR code lets the customer act on their impulse. It can also provide you with immediate insights on the level of reader engagement and geo-location information. This alleviates one of the major issues with press ads – getting a true measurement of reader involvement and reaction.

Museums and art galleries – enrich your visitors experience! A QR code beside each painting could link to a video on the life of the artist, a PDF catalogue of their works, or a dissertation on that particular piece. Museums could use them to link exhibits in similar ways. The institutions could use them to link to maps of the buildings. Fenimore Art Museum did it this way.

Visiting a new city – QR codes on places of interest could link to audio presentations, work as virtual tour guides. Placed on bus shelters or train stations they can link to timetables and route maps.

Building Permits – In New York, building permits will carry QR codes as a means of keeping people informed on the progress and purpose of new constructions.

Menus – a code with each dish’s description could link to something simple like an image of the dish, to a video on the preparation and cooking of the meal, and the source of the food involved. The Radisson Edwardian found success using QR codes. There are more ideas here.

Posters – placed at concerts they can link to the artists website, offer exclusive downloads, or discounts from merchandising.

Disaster Recovery - a case study on how the Japanese Red Cross used a QR code post tsunami and earthquake to drive donations. (Clicking on the code here will open a larger image which can be scanned.) A QR code was also used to help in the aftermath of the oil spill that occurred last year in the Gulf of Mexico.

Qr-itical Errors to Avoid

1. Make sure your target audience is au fait with the concept and the technology. Who are they, what is their demographic, and where and how are you aiming to deliver your message. Remember that a good internet connection is vital – don’t place the codes where there is no reception available!

2. Until QR codes have become readily recognisable by the general public, you should probably explain to viewers in your marketing piece that they have to scan the code with a QR code reader. It won’t hurt to tell them where it will take them either. You might even recommend an app suitable for a number of phones – I use Optiscan on my iPhone 4.

3. A QR code can be almost any size, from about 20mm x 20mm up to something projected on a wall. Be aware a small image will often be too dense to scan if you’ve encoded a longer URL. Use a URL shortener like bit.ly or goo.gl to generate a short URL QR code. This will also allow you to track its effectiveness with the analytics on their sites.

4. Consider where your ads will be placed. A tiny code placed in a hard to approach space will get little use. Also think about the perspective your target audience will have. Will they be able to scan it from directly in front, or does it need to be skewed? Size, place and frame the ads accordingly.

5. Remember, people are using mobile phones or devices to scan your code. So please, make sure your target is mobile friendly! Nothing says FAIL quite so loudly as delivering a prospect to a site they can’t load, or doesn’t work on all devices. *hint – iPhones and iPads aren’t Flash friendly.

6. Before sending your code to print, test across a few scanners and devices. The text in the code cannot be changed so make sure you have it pointed in the right direction, and that it is mobile friendly. Better codes (i.e. ones you pay for) can be redirected multiple times. Finally before releasing it to the public, test it again.

So QR codes have much to offer both sides of the marketing mix. Customers can have a richer experience delivered in a variety of ways, from the printed page to places they pass everyday. Marketers can gather more reliable data on how customers are behaving and what they are doing in response to their advertising. It’s a win-win, and who doesn’t like that? Next time we’ll look at the alternatives to QR codes that are being developed.

Have you ever used a QR code in your marketing? Have you ever responded to one?

Many of my clients have been approached now by companies seeking to sign them up for discount deals. Not all businesses are suited to this form of marketing, particularly those that offer services rather than products as the base of their commerce. Even those that are should definitely take part only as part of a pre-determined marketing strategy that will see them profit from the heavy discounting later. 

The idea of using coupons to create new customers has been around for decades. Their roots can be traced to late 19th century America, where Coca Cola used redeemable coupons to encourage people to try their new product.

Coca Cola was the first to offer coupons encouraging people to try the new drink.

Particularly popular in difficult times discount coupons flourished through the Depression and WW2, before becoming a craze in the 60′s where coupon clipping from magazines was practically a family hobby. They peaked in a physical sense in 1992 when almost 8 billion were exchanged.

Given their long history, and close connection with the American psyche, it was only a matter of time before they emerged on the internet, flourishing again in the tough economic conditions surrounding the GFC – in 2009 3.5 billion were redeemed, ending 17 years of steady decline.

Taking the old model to new heights is Groupon and its myriad mimics. Groupon (its name is an amalgam of ‘group’ and ‘coupon’) has been described as the fastest growing company in the history of business. (You can get an idea of its growth from this video from Forbes.) When it was only 18 months old it was valued at $1.35 billion, and recently it turned down a $6 billion offer from Google.

As an aside, it is interesting to note that the only company to be valued at $1 billion faster was YouTube, ironically now part of Google. It was founded in 2005 and still hasn’t turned a profit. Groupon was into the black after just seven months.

Naturally success like that spawns wannabees at a rate that would embarrass a cane toad, with an estimated 400+ clones out there and the battle well and truly on in the US between Groupon and LivingSocial for top billing, in every sense of the word.

There's a lot of fish in this pond - and beware of the sharks!

Like sharks drawn to blood in the water Facebook and Google are now circling. Facebook Deals is the latest spin-off from the facilitator of the world’s largest online population, while Google Offers will this week make its beta debut in Portland, Oregon with Floyds Coffee first off the rank.

Emily White, Facebook’s director for local, recently revealed that Facebook will initially focus on offers for things that are best done with friends, like concerts or events. In Australia that will pitch it directly against local hero my247.com.au which began life as an online Brisbane entertainment guide in 1999.

The Google Offers model is a little different to that of Groupon in that it doesn’t require a tipping point of people taking up the offer before it becomes valid. Google Offers is also likely to be the entry point for Google Wallet, a notion that has many of the world’s banks wondering just where this behemoth might be headed.

Okay, so that’s the skinny on coupons and online group buying deals. Now, how and why does it work…

The premise is based on a simple proven formula: establish a value for a product > offer a substantial discount to that value > engender a sense of urgency to claim that discount (limited time/only so many) = reel’em in. It’s geared for impulse buying, and aimed at people who are keen to get things for less.

Under the Groupon model, the business agrees to offer customers a  product or service at a hugely discounted rate (at least 50% off) if a specified minimum number of sales are reached. Once that number of sales is reached, the deal becomes activated and all the customers that signed up for the deal are eligible to take part. The eligible customers are charged for the purchase, and receive an email for a printable voucher that can be used to redeem the deal with that particular business.

For delivering these customers, Groupon takes 50% of the money collected. Some group buyers vary the amount they take, some hold on to a percentage for a little while to allow for refunds. But they all do well out of it. The only people at risk are the businesses, especially if they haven’t done the math or prepared adequately.

Due to the viral nature of these limited time campaigns, a business can potentially see a month’s worth of sales in a 24 hour period. A restaurant can be booked out for weeks. But at a minimum 50% discount, and with 50% going to the promoter, the shop stands to make at best 25%. Is this enough to cover your costs?

There are three main reasons that I can see where you might use this tactic:

1. Cash Flow – generally the money flows to the business about 24 hours after the sale has closed. If you have offered a $200 deal for $100, and 100 people took up the offer then you have $5000 inbound. Of course, you may have been willing to open the deal up to many more. Just remember that you’ll have to pay the piper before long.

2. Advertising Value – appearing on these sites will certainly get your brand or business noticed, and you can definitely track the ROI from this. If your deal goes viral your company will be exposed to a whole new audience that you may not have been able to reach otherwise.

3. New Customers – giving away your product to attract new customers is an old practice. But what you do next may determine whether they become regular repeat customers, or remain flash in the pan visitors you never see again. Unless you heavily discount again. Preparation and performance will be vital to your long term success here.

It should be noted here that a high proportion of the people who use these coupons are price-sensitive shoppers. They are bargain buyers by nature, and as such are not likely to be naturally loyal customers that you can rely on for repeat business. Service and quality of product will never be put ahead of price for the majority of these people.

Sadly too, many will look very dimly on a poor experience if you try and cut corners to keep costs to a minimum. They won’t hesitate to voice their displeasure through social media if they wait for hours, or feel they have ‘ripped off’, turning what may have been a risky venture on the businesses’ part into a downward spiral as word of mouth turns potential customers away.

If  you are thinking of going ahead with a group buying deal, then consider these points:

Calculate how much this is worth to your business – Be aware that you may only take 25% of what you might normally make on a sale. Calculate how many sales you need  in order to make it worth your time. Don’t factor in your ability to up sell, or that many won’t redeem their coupons.

Set a limit to the number of coupons you’re willing to accept – It’s not unusual for popular collective buying sites like Groupon to generate thousands of coupon sales – if you don’t set a limit you could be in trouble.

Prepare for the coupon promotion – Set up a scheduling calendar if your business requires appointments to be made so you can immediately begin booking your new customers. Try not to have a day full of coupons – leave room for real customers to balance out the discount ones. You might also need to hire extra workers to handle the large influx of business and calls for appointments.

Get your people on the same page – make sure your staff are well-prepared. It’s important they know what the offer entails, and what it might exclude. Discount customers usually want to redeem as soon as possible – how they are dealt with by your staff will go a long way towards turning them into repeaters. If the experience is a negative, others will know about it.

Choose the promotional date carefully – If your business is seasonal in sales you’ll want to take that into consideration when choosing the date for your offering. Schedule it during those slow times when sales are expected to be down.

Gather data for use in future promotions – in my opinion this is possibly the best thing you can do to maximise your chances of turning these customers from faint prospects to loyal repeat customers. See if you can make it a condition of the deal that you get the person’s contact. Failing that, try and collect as much as possible at the point of sale or when the booking is being made – it could be so they can contacted if anything changes. Ask for them to leave a comment on your website –  even a testimonial on the back of a napkin is better than nothing.

Most importantly though, treat it as part of your marketing campaign. Measure, test and measure again to see if group buying works for you. And if you have used one of these deals, I’d love to hear about it.

Online deals are here and they’re hot right now. Just don’t get dealt out of the game by offering what you can’t deliver.

One analytic that generates much conversation with my clients is the bounce rate. Google defines bounce rate as the percentage of visitors that leave a site without having moved from the page they landed on. To paraphrase, they came, they saw, and they left. In theory at least, because they found what they were looking for. A low number logically would be the target.

There is an element of self-interest here. Google wants your search to be successful, and figures that if you go from the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) to a webpage, stay there a while, and don’t return to the SERP, then you must have found what you wanted.

Why this matters to Google is because while they like being helpful, they like even more to make money. And they do this by being seen as the best place to search, because then you might be encouraged to take out advertising with them, aka Google Adwords.

Many people mistakenly believe that the bounce rate measures how attractive their website is to visitors, but really there are many more factors at play than how pretty it may appear. Remember, the spiders that trawl the web are blind to your dazzling pictures (that’s why you should have alternate text on that photo), and really have no idea that blue and green should never be seen together.

What they do ‘see’ is text, and what they want to ‘see’ even more is relevance. And this is where the confusion can set in. Say you have a simple reference site, with three pages. A mummy page, a daddy..oh wait, that’s for another blog.

So, a simple reference site. Three pages. One of these is a contact page, one an ‘about us’ page, and the other has the meat and potatoes. Not surprisingly, your keywords have traffic landing on the latter page, and because the visitor finds what they want there, they probably exit from that page too. The result – a high bounce rate, because a high percentage of visitors didn’t need to move on to the other two pages.

Should the owner of this site be concerned? Probably not, because the site has fulfilled its purpose, to be seen as a good reference point for the visitor. The number of people coming to the site is more likely to be the hot topic for this client.

But what if this were a commercial site? The client wants to make sales, or get leads at least. They see the meat and potatoes as an entree to their just desserts for having a website. In this case, people not going through to the contact page is a disaster, and a high bounce rate would be a key indicator that the meat and potatoes page needs a tasty to call to action.

Of course, if the site contains many more pages, then other factors will come into play, in particular what keywords are delivering people to the specific pages. Relevance as always is vital, but so to is ease of navigation, speed on site, and layout of the pages. If your website is visually unappealing, amateurish or just plain difficult to comprehend at a glance, then it is likely your bounce rate will climb.

If you do find your bounce rate sitting stubbornly above 50% and would like to get it down, then you may care to consider these potential fixes:

1. How are people finding their way to your site? If search engines are the biggest source, test the keywords that are delivering the traffic. Are they leading people to the correct pages, and are they the right terms for which you want to be found.

2. Are there too many words on the page for what you want to say? Content is king, but time is precious and searchers are invariably in a hurry. A page full of text on a commercial site with no obvious lead will quickly be bounced. Even trade and reference sites need to be mindful of the amount of content they are displaying. A good designer can help you, like the ones here. (Note: blatant plug for Snap South Brisbane)

3. Consider a Search Engine Marketing strategy, perhaps with a Pay Per Click campaign while you get your Search Engine Optimisation back in order. A properly targeted campaign should help to lower your bounce rate, and lead to a better conversion ratio.

As with all things web, be patient while undertaking any alterations. Wholesale changes done quickly can be risky to your rankings too. Try making small changes to one or two pages and compare the results. Finally always keep in mind that your website should be an integral part of your marketing strategy, not all of it.

Having your website properly designed, with good SEO and a clear objective of what success should look like will soon have you bouncing back in the right direction.

You just have to say the words, and people will follow you. Or so the ‘experts’ would have you believe. In fact the 2011 Social Media Marketing Industry Report found 90% of the 3000+ marketers agreed with the statement that “Social Media is important to Business”.

Well, they would, wouldn’t they? I mean, that’s their jobs on the line there.

But what if you are a small business that just wants to attract new customers? What if you are a business that deals with other businesses? Is social media still a viable channel for you to navigate?

According to the report, small business owners are the ones who should benefit the most with new partnerships, improved sales and reductions in marketing costs. They are also twice as likely to find qualified leads.

But when the report notes a reduction in the cost of marketing in this fashion, it is speaking in strictly monetary terms, and as every small business owner knows, it’s the time cost that sometimes weighs heaviest. There are just not enough hours in the day for many owners. The report also noted that those who put in six hours or more per week benefited most, and that those who had been involved in social media for longer periods are also more likely to be seeing better results.

No-one can deny the potential reach of these platforms. In Australia it is estimated that half the population use Facebook, while world-wide it’s expected to have a billion users before too long. Twitter too is growing and evolving. LinkedIn in Australia celebrated its two millionth member this month.

So there are great numbers of people involved. But is social media good for the corner store? The local printer? The dentist? I’d give it a tick, but with a couple of provisos.

Firstly, ask yourself can you find an hour a day at least to monitor your Facebook page. You’ll need more than that really, because Twitter almost demands real time responses, and you will want to learn more on how to maximise the benefits, and investigate other ways you can use social media.

Secondly, ask yourself what you want to get from this exercise. Are you looking to increase the number of people walking through the door, or do you want to get to know the people who walk through your door regularly? No right or wrong here, but like any marketing exercise, start with the end in mind, and have some idea of what success will look like.

Thirdly, this isn’t all about you. Social media when used in a business sense is all about them – the followers, friends and connections you make. Demonstrate that you care about them, have some degree of expertise that could benefit them, and wait for the karma train to pull in to your platform.

Finally, if being actively involved is too much, consider marketing your business on these platforms. While Twitter doesn’t off this service (yet), Facebook ads can be extremely targeted, and provide the analytics to easily judge the effectiveness of your offering. LinkedIn recently opened itself up to ads too, although it could be argued that having a profile on that site is an ad in itself.

So, what will you do with social media?

Imagine if you could toss more coins...

One of the great truisms of marketing is that it’s not a cost, but an investment.

And yes, done properly, with accurate tracking and reporting, this should be the case.

But not everyone sees it that way.

For some people, arguably the glass-half-full people, everything that goes out of their pocket is a cost, with little hope of ever turning from red to black. Others just can’t find a way past their fear of making a loss, to see that sometimes you have to overcome the fear of falling before you can fly. We might say they are risk averse to marketing.

It’s this risk of making a loss that I’m addressing here today. And it was prompted by a piece that I read that outlined a very good case study to illustrate the point.

The example – a person is offered a simple bet – a coin toss. Heads you win $10 – tails, you give me $2. Most people felt this was a good bet, and would take it. But if they were offered $10 for heads, and say a loss of $6 for tails, they shied away. The odds were still strongly in their favour, but they were more focussed on the size of the potential loss.

The reason people feel this way is that our brains feel losses and gains unevenly: Losing feels worse than winning feels good. Of course, there are people who feel no pain when losing…you can find them at Gamblers Anonymous, after they’ve finally seen the light.

Most people lost sight of what they stood to gain by risking a little of their money, when confronted by the size of their possible losses. If you only had $6, and there was only one toss, then yes, you are indeed risking it all.

But if you have a reasonable pool of money (oh, I don’t know, let’s call it a marketing budget) and you applied it to a proven strategy with a reasonable ROI, then you should make money.

Because marketing is not a cost, it’s an investment in growth. It’s a calculated risk with money that you have allocated for just such a purpose. It might be said that as you have already set aside these funds, in essence you have nothing to lose.

Try the experiment yourself. Bet you win.

I say this because recently I came across one of our competitors whose details were incorrect. And this in a franchised operation!

Being found online should mean being found in the real world too. Nothing turns a potential customer off quicker than to arrive at a street address, and find no sign of the business being sought. You might argue that they could have called first, but what if the phone number is wrong? The onus is not on the customer to verify details – it’s up to the business to make sure its contacts are correct.

The fact that being ‘local’ is on a par with being ‘liked’ in these community-conscious times means that you have to be on top of your game in these areas.

With this in mind, here are some things you can do to integrate ‘local knowledge’ into your marketing.

Google Places – this should be a no-brainer, but it is surprising how few businesses really tap into this free resource. Once known as Local Business Centre, Google switched the title and tweaked it in late 2010. It is an integral part of Google’s search, as important as any SEO you employ. Make sure you complete as much as possible in as many of the fields supplied, and double-check it before you post, and afterward.

Google has also responded to the march of social media by giving greater credence to the opinions of others. Reviews are critical in increasing your position now, so the more of them the better. I wouldn’t suggest you rush your customers to supply them, but drip fed over time it will certainly help build your ranking.

Arguably the new display also increases the importance of Adwords, as the paid ads have moved to directly above the organic search results, where the old local ads or 7-pack used to appear. Get enough paid ads in, and the organic results could be pushed below the line. Competition for spots here could be tight in the future.

Local Directories - there a number of these aggregating sites available, and many of them will have garnered your details from sources that may not be accurate now.
Sites like truelocal.com.au and hotfrog.com.au both had incorrect details for the company in question. A Google search will bring sites like this to the fore, and each should be checked, and if necessary corrected. Remember that the client won’t be blaming these third-party sites for incorrect information, it is your company that it will reflect on.

SEO - this will always be important to having your website found. What is needed now is to make sure your SEO follows this local angle. When was the last time you checked your keywords for location against those of your competitors, and what Google were seeing used? Don’t leave it to anyone else, be pro-active and test regularly.

Don’t forget the real world – Be active within your local community. Attend local business networking events where you can demonstrate your expertise, sponsor a sporting team or perhaps an award at the local school. What about partnering with one of your clients to put on a marketing event that will profit you both? How is your signage, seen from street level? Does your store front look inviting, and is it easily accessible?

If you want people to beat a path to your door, first make sure they can find it!

After the recent floods the first thing we cleaned was the footpath out front, the parking bays and the entranceway. We wanted our shop to look as normal as possible, ready to receive customers. And we did!

So keep your branding strong, your business cards at the ready and remember that success is best when it’s shared – win/win situations build lasting relationships.

I guess just about every business worth their salt knows how to ‘Talk the talk’. Whether it’s their ability to sell themselves, their service or their product, a business that can’t talk themselves up is a business going out of business real soon.

But today, you have to be able to do more than just talk. What your marketing promises you have to deliver.

In this age of social media, word of mouth is king. Word of mouth can be defined as one consumer endorsing a given product or service to another potential consumer of that product or service, without inducement or favour from the producer of that…well, you get the idea.

As such these endorsements carry more weight than paid commercials or paid search. The endorser is under no obligation to give a recommendation, but does so because they have been so impressed by that company, product or person.

It means that people who don’t know one another except by avatar will accept the word of a stranger over all the sincere celebrities or learned experts a brand can muster. Just by working harder to make people happier, by listening to your consumers, by delivering on your promises, you are making it easier for them to tell their friends about you in a multitude of ways. Online in social media like Twitter, facebook and Foursquare. Offline over coffee at work or at a BBQ.

Everybody loves a good story, especially one with a happy ending. If you can make your company or brand the star of such a story, you are a long way towards being talked about. Of course, do things badly and you’ll be the star of a different kind of story – a cautionary tale!

And this is where matching your walk and talk is important. Word of mouth can’t be faked – attempting to do so is akin to corporate suicide. It is unethical, and when uncovered (and it always is) creates a backlash paticularly from the online community that can fatally damage your brand’s reputation.

If your walk doesn’t match your talk, then pretty quickly the world will know. The whistle will blown on you very sharply, and you will be called to account. Hopefully you’re listening!