Power up your job search results with social media. Reserve your seat now for January 2010 workshops: http://ping.fm/yly4z

Edumarketing is all about educating your customers about the products and services you offer and how they solve your customers problems.

Spend some time thinking about what problem(s) you’re really solving with your products and services. This is challenging, especially if you offer a service. Keep asking yourself what’s the problem I’m solving until you get down to the real core issue. The first two or three answers are the easy ones…the real root of the problem your services address will be found by the time you’ve asked the question five or six times.

Once you’ve identified the problem, look at how you’re communicating to your customers. Are you talking about solutions and benefits? Are you describing how you solve the pain they may be feeling? That’s the message you want to communicate in a variety of ways: through articles, webinars, short videos, newsletters, emails, Twitter updates, and your blogs.

And always provide your customers and prospects with a way to learn more about you with links to your website, your shopping cart (if they’re ready to buy), your email address, etc.

Do those things and you’re at least a step closer to attracting more customers and positively affecting your bottom line.

Did you know you can create almost any product, instantly, and have it shipped to your door or your customer in 24 hours? Zazzle makes it simple. You upload your own images, or select from more than 21 billion customizable products (that’s right, billion), add text, choose your product, and presto! it’s done.

Better yet, you can create your own store – FREE – for the ultimate in internet marketing. Here’s mine. It’s the latest trend in just-in-time customization. Have it your way…..literally! No minimum quantities required.

Here’s a mousepad I created
from a lovely seascape we own,  by
Mexican artist E. del Castillo

Attend this series of half-day executive briefings and learn:
Simplicity:
Cut bureaucracy and waste,
Clarity:
Integrate strategic thinking into your
business, and
Speed:
Create a strategic recovery plan for
success.

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REGISTER TODAY!

Heard about the SD school budget cuts to arts and sports? Here’s a unique fund raising event to replace those cuts: http://bit.ly/11rAfL

Corporate Politics: The Elephant in the Conference Room. Naming It. Reframing It. Taming It. http://ping.fm/mMIsL

Happy (US) Memorial Day to all. Hope you enjoy this video. Seems appropriate for today: http://ping.fm/mGtnF

It’s time to review your strategic plan, cut waste, & think creatively about what’s next :http://ping.fm/wMrhz

Jonathan Salem Baskin’s column in the March 23 issue of Advertising Age triggered an interesting concept. He talked about a Glendale, CA mall that turned marketing on its head and focused on customer needs to bring customers to the mall instead of the traditional discount coupons and promotional events.

Rather than just focus on hosting the retail stores within the mall, they created a guest loyalty program as the pillar of their marketing strategy, allowing shoppers to accrue points and “gain elite status levels for visiting the mall.”

Talking to customers and focusing on their needs makes it possible for them to design cross-retailer promotions targeting specific consumers. According to Baskin, “the mall can analyze visit frequency and shopping behavior, reach out to wayward members, and incentivise their return.”  Recently, for example, they polled customers on what type of restaurant should be added to the mall, rather than just go after what they thought would work.

As a volunteer for a professional strategic planning organization, the Association for Strategic Planning, I coordinate the venue logistics for the local chapter’s bi-monthly meetings. Similar to the Courtyard by Marriott rewards program, the Holiday Inn also has a special rewards program for meeting planners that lets planners accrue points for holding meetings there. These points can then be used for savings on future meetings or for personal rewards. What a great incentive to hold more meetings there…provided the service and catering also meet your expectations.

My thought is, how can these ideas be applied to other businesses? Go beyond just a rewards program and ask your customers what would encourage them to continue to do business with you? You might be surprised.

The Americana at Brand mall, for example, also offers a concierge service for anyone. “It’s housed in a luxury-hotel reception area flanked by attendant-maintained restrooms and a children’s play area full of toys,” says Baskin.

Our auto mechanic, Tom’s Master Mechanics, offers incentives to his customers. He has free wifi available for customers who are waiting to have their car serviced so they can get their work done as they wait. If servicing your car will take more than a day, he has a relationship with Enterprise Rent-A-Car, and if the service fee is over a certain amount, he picks up the cost of the car rental! We’ve been customers for more than 20 years, and have referred many friends because of the quality of service we receive.

Could newspapers, for example, utilize similar tactics? Many have tried loyalty programs that reward subscribers with restaurant discounts, coupons and free ads, but what about incentives to reward readership?

Here’s a novel idea:  let readers earn rewards points every time they forward a newspaper article to a friend or blog about a story they read in the paper. The points could be redeemed for a panoply of things beyond newspaper subscriptions and free ads, such as to cover EBay seller listing fees, travel incentives, or website design and hosting….the ideas are endless. Papers shouldn’t think about doing it all themselves. Rather, they would form alliances with non-competing service providers to deliver the rewards.  Seems like a win-win-win all around.

Taking that a step further, they could form allegiances with non-profits their readers and subscribers care about and find creative ways to generate revenue for the non-profits while building customer loyalty and readership. Ideas should go beyond sponsorships to finding ways to help the non-profits fill their voids in areas such as volunteers, budget management, and promotional fulfillment (newspapers that survive are in the distribution business after all). Those are just a few examples that come to mind.

The point is to think beyond the traditional concept of building customer loyalty and communicate with your customers. Find out what they’re doing, what they’re interested in, and what organizations they support.  Then find ways to deliver services to them as incentives for their continued loyalty.  That’s smart, strategic marketing.

Source: Advertising Age, March 23, 2009, page 22, Jonathan Salem BAskin – On Marketing and Leadership.

Social marketing is the latest trend in internet marketing, helping individuals and businesses grow their leads and client base. The trend has been growing dramatically with the tightening of marketing budgets, employee lay-offs, and retiring boomers turning to the web to start their next career or generate additional income.

According to ComScore’s August 2008 report, Facebook and MySpace were the two fastest growing sites on the web from June 2007 to June 2008. Latin America has the highest rate of growth in using Facebook at 1055% vs. North America’s measly 38%. However, in terms of total number of unique visitors to Facebook, North American still leads the world with 49,248,000 vs. Latin America’s 11,931,000 in 2008. Europe came in second with 35,263, 000.

Social marketing (also called attraction marketing) is what helped get President Obama elected. Through videos on YouTube, viral marketing campaigns launched by groups such as MoveOn.org, and individuals hosting rallies and parties locally, his marketing reach was unprecedented in the history of presidential campaigns.

You can use these same tools to attract customers to your business and monetize your site if that’s of interest. Facebook, YouTube, and MySpace are just three of the many social networking sites online now. Others include LinkedIn, Twitter, Squidoo, Plaxo Pulse, Ning, Xing, and Konnects. First, decide which two or three sites to use. If you have a website, you’ll want to link to that. If you don’t, consider at least setting up a blog. You can set up a blog for free on Google Blogger or WordPress (the blogger I’m using here). Both are easily customizable to fit your needs.

Take the time to think first about what your business purpose is. What’s the ultimate goal? Is it to promote your website? Do you want to sell products or services online? Do you want to promote yourself as a speaker or subject matter expert? What’s the main purpose of your business, and what do you want to achieve with attraction marketing? Write it down on paper.

Next, do some research. If you don’t already know who your target market is, check out your competition and think about who would buy your and their products and/or services. What are their ages, incomes, aspirations, interests, needs? Again, write it down. You’re beginning to paint a picture of the purpose for your business and your preferred customer.

Now think about what success looks like. How would you measure success? By the number of phone calls, orders, product sales? By dollar volume in sales? By the number of unique subscribers to your blog or website? Write that down, too.

Then check out the various social marketing sites I mentioned earlier and see who’s using them. Are they your target market? You can get some demographic data online about the different site visitors from companies like ComScore, too. Here’s an example from Rapleaf of the gender and age of social networkers.

Choose one to start with and set up your profile. Choose a blog site like Blogger or WordPress and set up your account. Write your first blog. Then link the social networking site to your blog. A great resource to help you in this process is Renegade University. From there you’ll get a wealth of information about internet and network marketing. Here’s another great resource about the 7 Great Lies About Network Marketing. It’s fascinating.

This is just a start to get you up and on the web. If you need help, give me a call at 858-357-9600, ext. 5 or e-mail me at jeri.denniston@hainescentre.com.