In the United States we  celebrate Independence day this weekend. Happy Independence day to all!  Make this weekend a wonderful time of celebration of the freedom of not only thought but of action too!  Even with all the challenges our country faces today, freedom is the catalyst for greatness and I wish every human on the planet had freedom.

As I prepare to celebrate independence day with softball,  water fights,  BBQ, root beer floats and fireworks, I think about tapping the spirit of independence in marketing, taking hold of your destiny.

My message today is about independence in your marketing and sales. The world of internet marketing has changed and no longer can you build a website, execute  some nice Search Engine Marketing /Key word  (SEM) work and all the sudden the world comes to you, throwing their money at you.  I don’t know if many readers remember the old IBM commercial that ran in the early days of the internet where a team of co-workers is huddled around a PC monitor to look at a website and they kick it off live and the order counter just starts spinning?  The workers are excited at first as the numbers trickle in and then begin to fret at the order counter starts spinning out of control.  Great commercial, but not reality, not then, and certainly not now.

The reality of today is that your business must still build a great internet presence, must still have strong SEM but you better also be list building, targeting and then hunting down your prospects through automated drip marketing and sophisticated Customer Relationship Marketing. There are over  3 billion people using the internet . Truth be told, there is a customer for everyone and every product. Just doing some SEM is a passive aggressive approach and is not enough.  You better be hunting in the social media streams to find your prospects.

Take control of your destiny and create independence like the patriots did in America 233 years ago by seeking out change, finding your audience, connecting  with them and inviting them into a dialog about becoming your customer for life.  Build an Attention Connection. The founding fathers of the nation would not have broken free if they had taken a passive approach.

Don’t be a pacifist waiting for customers to find you with a bit of SEM, take action and hunt them down.

To get attention, you must pay attention. Happy Marketing Independence day!

When it comes to Internet and social media marketing, I am always reminded of an old joke about two guys out hunting grizzly bears.  The joke goes like this:

There were two hunters in Alaska out hunting grizzly bears. The first hunter was a sage old hunter who was a professional hunting guide and had seen his share of bear hunts. Along with him was a second hunter, a very inexperienced hunter who was on his first hunt with the guide.

After a few hours out in the brush, the inexperienced hunter kept hearing rustling noises and began to fear that he had probably put himself in harms way by hunting bears. The rustling grew louder and finally the fear got the best of him and he asked the sage old guide “don’t you ever worry about being able to out run the grizzly?”

The guide looked at his fear filled companion and in a dead pan voice replied, “nah, I don’t ever worry about out running the grizzly, I just have to outrun you!”

Can you outrun your competition when it comes to Internet and Social media marketing?

It’s just as important to know what your competition is doing as to what you are doing. Your organization not only needs to pay attention to your own social media, SEO and PPC but your closest competitors.

There are great tools available today to monitor brand and social buzz, along with compare your keywords, tags and SEO with with the keywords of those you compete with.

I highly recommend competitive analysis as a vital first step in social media and your internet presence.

Here is another great video that is worth the 45 seconds. Can you out do the competition?

Funny…

Stay connected.

Until now, most companies have considered their Customer Relationship Management systems  (CRM) as a separate system from their website, Internet marketing, social media and communication with their prospects, customers and partners.

Those days are gone.

Dont have a fence in your organization.

Your CRM strategy and resulting systems should be driving the design of your website, your social media, your Internet marketing and all communications with your stake holders. The overload of information we all receive each day, the result is the attention span of customers is so short these days, your organization needs a database and automated sequences to manage the process of communicating with your customers.

Our world is changing so fast with the tools of communication rapidly evolving (social media,text messaging, lexicon survelance, brand monitoring, etc) that you can not place your bets on any one form of communication medium as “the channel” to reach your clients. You need to segment your clients, refine focus your message and select the tools to delivery that targeted message.

At the heart of all this is your CRM database and the technology exists to integrate every communication into complete customer interaction history that can be tracked. You can drive your sales and marketing blind without the data and facts.

Smart companies who stay ahead of the competition will have their CRM system driving and tracking every communication with your customers.

Some questions to ask your team:

1. Is my website a integrated with my CRM and is this integration two way to both push and pull content?
2. Is my content integrated? Meaning all content is driving customers and partners to a sale, regardless of the medium?
3. Does my current customer database include a field for social media ID’s and addresses? ( Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc)
4. Am I using my CRM system to push communication to and from my social media presence?

If you  are going to attract and maintain the Attention Connection™ of your prospects and make them a customer for life, you will need a CRM system that is driving it all.

Stay connected and have a great weekend! Spring is here.

For many people who have not made steps to use social media and automation to make money yet, they may be standing around scratching heads saying how do I do this?

It’s not that hard and here is a real live case study of social media at work.

My high school classmate is the manager of Cisero’s ( non Facebook Link) in Park City, Utah. I had not been in touch with this classmate in more than 20 years and Facebook was the connection.

Like most small businesses in the restaurant and nightclub business, they really did not have much more than a website that was a couple of pages of brochure ware.

About four months ago with prodding from a marketing friend (me) Cisero’s management  ventured out and put up Facebook page for the establishment.

Each week Cisero’s post the specials and announce events through Facebook broadcasts.  I get the notifications.

Now here is the take home message. I don’t live near Park City, I live in the Denver area. However, I do travel to Utah on business on a regular basis and the next time I am in Park City, I will be eating at Ciseros’. Why, because they have remained top of mind with me by simply keeping me in the loop.

There are dozens of options of places to eat in Park City but Cisero’s is my next stop because they are in my mind because they have stayed in touch.

This is a great example of low cost, high touch value of social media. The cost to set up the Facebook page, 15 minutes of time. The cost to transmit the message… another 5 minutes. Hard costs… well, zero.

Compare this cost to stay top of mind with me, a man who lives out of state? Printing, mailing, emailing, calls, TV ads… you get the picture.

Social media is powerful and you should be using it today.

As I always say; to get attention, you must pay attention.

Connect with you later.