Georgia SBDC- Marketing Blog

Happiness...And Why I Do Not Create It----Marketing!

Whenever asked about what I want most out of life, its not money or status, its happiness.  Deep down I really want to be happy.  Now don't get me wrong, I am happy, but at the same time, its strange that I chose the profession that I am in.  As Seth Godin wrote in his blog post today is about how marketers try to make people unhappy.  Well he did not really say that, but stay with me.  He wrote that "What you have doesn't make you unhappy. What you want does."

Marketers create that want.  A lot of people do not know that they want something until they see an advertisement or see someone else with the product or using the service.  People for the most part want things that they can not have (Chick-fil-a on Sundays) or what others already have and form some sort of jealousy or envy.  Customers can not picture their life without a product or service until they know it exists.  They were perfectly happy until we introduced them to their new form of unhappiness.  This is even more strange if we talk about the company www.despair.com who tries to create unhappiness for a living to ultimately make people happy.  I am a loyal customer of them and will always recommend them to others to make them unhappy...errrr happy.  Check them out to see what I mean.

So to sum up, my profession tries to make people unhappy so it will eventually make them happy.  Sounds like a presidential campaign to me!  So if I am doing my job correctly, I hope to make you really unhappy one day, but of course then make you happy again.

Welcome Everyone!

I want to welcome a brand new group to Maximum Marketing!  Enjoy and participate.  These sessions are only as good as what you put into them!  Soon you will learn that marketing is not the same as it use to be.  You need to work harder to find a niche and solve their needs and problems. 

Good luck and enjoy your time!

Are you protecting your image online

Are you protecting your identity online?  Do you know what other people are saying about you?  I always recommend doing a Google search on yourself in order to police what others are saying about you.  The Marketing Blog wrote an excellent post of the seven different ways to protect your online identity.  This goes far beyond what I tell people to do!!!  What do you think of this list?

1. See where you stand. Start your reputation management initiative by Googling your name. Try it with quotes and with out (first and last name together). Look through each of your results on page one and page two of Google. Are there any there are are negative or you wish to remove?

2. Set up a Google alert. Visit Google and set up an alert for your name. After setting up the alert Google will send you and email to confirm that you wish to receive the updates. Accept the alert and each time your name is published to the Web, you'll know about it.

3. Contact website owners for name removal. If there are sites that include your name and commentary that is less than desirable, contact the appropriate websites requesting that the information be removed. More often than not, website owners will agree to remove your name and/or inappropriate information.

4. Purchase a domain with your name. Add sites and webpages associated with your name and watch negative search results get pushed lower on Google rankings. Visit GoDaddy or another provider of website URLs and hosting, and purchase a domain that contains your name. Even if your name is rather common, experiment with variations until your name can be established in the form of a dot com. Once you own a domain, publish a webpage with your personal profile.

5. Start a blog under your name. Blogger is a great tool for setting up your own blog which can be used to publish information about yourself. Popular blog sites are often picked up by Google and you can control the content. Be sure to sign up for Technorati after your blog has been published. Submit your blog for review and its popularity will increase, improving search rankings and continuing to push down negative search results.

6. Free press release. Use free-press-release.com or a similar free press release site to publish favorable information about your and your reputation. This form of reputation management is easy and costs nothing. Be sure to use your name throughout the release and in the release title.

7. Author articles in your field. Publish article relative to a particular topic or area in which you've done some work or have experience. Use article distribution services to build online references to your content. Make sure your articles contain an about the author section that links back to your main website.

Do not be ordinary! Your customers might leave you!

Are you different?  Or are you ordinary?  So many companies are fine with the status quo and do not want to change much.  One thing I always tell people is that if you are not changing, you are dieing as a business owner.  You need to continually improve and want to make changes to improve. 

Pretend that if your current customers disappeared tomorrow, and they did not come back, who would you sell to next?  Is there another group of customers that will buy your product or service as is?  Would you need to adapt your offerings?  I know that this example is drastic, but use it to think about your business.  Mortgage companies over a few year period nearly lost all of their customers!

What happens when customers don’t have the same amount of money?  Starbucks now has coupons if you return in the afternoon for a drink.  Starbucks is not what I normally think about for an afternoon drink!  I never thought I would see the day that Starbucks would have a coupon!  Does this devalue their company?  What factors made them this way.  Do you view them the same way that you did in the past few years? For some time I saw them as a high-end coffee shop.  Or maybe their prices were just high end.  They started to be ordinary, and not different anymore.  Continue to change so you will not have to be ordinary and wonder where and how you are going to get your new customers.

I Am Old, I Can't Use Social Media... Or Can I?

So do you think some of the new types of social media are not right for you?  Do you think that you are not the right age for new marketing and media?  I do not think there is really a true age group out there, just groups of people (that is expanding everyday) who adopt and at the very minimum and try new ways to do things.  Imediaconnection.com has developed a list of myths about social media and some new types of media.  I am going to include on here two of them and their response.

Myth #1: The mobile web is all about teenagers and twentysomethings.

Reality
Active users of wireless devices actually run the gamut of age groups, from pre-teens to senior citizens. For example, recent demographic surveys by Dynamic Logic and InsightExpress have shown that there are attractive numbers of wireless users in the 35-and-up age cohort. Smart marketers recognize that there are diverse and extensive audiences to be reached on mobile devices.

Myth #2: Texting is a young person's activity.

Reality
The average age of a texter is 38, and the fastest growing group of texters is age 45-64. Consider that kids often text their parents, who are then highly motivated to receive those messages and respond to them. There's no technological barrier to broadly diffused texting either, since more than 96 percent of mobile phones in the U.S. are currently capable. In fact, more than 150 million people regularly send and receive information via wireless text messages.

Advertisers looking at the mobile space may want to consider making their traditional media interactive by adding a call-to-action via wireless. For example, it's easy to ask people to text a special word to a short-code destination and, in return, to serve those interested consumers a mobile coupon they can cash in at a local retailer.

Social Media and new techniques are not the cure all for marketing.  They also should not be the only type of marketing that you use.  It is a combination of all aspects of your business.  Different customers liked to be reached in different ways.  Try to use new ways to reach your customers!

Walk to your business! With Google

Thanks to Stephen Brooks and the blog About Bars and Marketing for the idea of this post (and the pictures).  He seems to have combined two of my loves.

In a world that has gone oil price crazy, and thank goodness the price is on its way down presently, Google has figured out a new tool that can help people.  Google walking directions!

Google has a cool new feature in beta - walking directions. To access them, go to Google maps and enter your starting and destination addresses just like normal. When the resulting directions are displayed, they will be for motor vehicle travel, but just beside the “By Car” indicator, there will be a link to get “Walking” directions.

This will be very useful for cities with many one-way streets. Can you imagine all of the Peachtree Streets you will have in Atlanta?  Sometimes the walking directions will be longer, this is because it does not want you to walk on divided highways or Interstates.  I can only imagine trying to be told to walk on I-285 or I-16 in south Georgia.

Now this will not always be the shortest way to get around.  Google presently does not know cut through roads and short cuts.  I am sure that this will be the next feature as Google Maps changes over to Google X-Ray vision.  Google will do it, I can feel it, they surprise me every day.

The two maps to the side (you will not recognize the streets) have the driving directions above and the walking instructions below.  I had originally had local maps on there, but my computer did not agree with them.

So how does this help the small business owner?  How does it help you?   Many small business owners publicize via Map quest or Google Maps the directions to get to their business.  If you are in a downtown area, it is much easier for many residents just to walk to a business instead of driving.  You will be helping local residents and looking green at the same time.  As I say, it is the little things that can set you apart.  If you are downtown, this may be that way.  Also not a lot of people are doing it presently so you can be one of the first.

Google Does it again. Customized Searches

Have you been burdened by Google because when you search for something it brings up a national view and not a local view?  I know this is a problem I face all the time......   Well burden know more, Google now customizes searches for your geographical area.  It looks at your IP address from where your computer is located and will bring you search results that are close to you. 

This picture shows where it will tell you your results are coming from.  Not all people are thrilled by this revelation as they enjoy searching on a more national level, but this is good for a small business owner attempting to reach their local market.  This should give smaller companies a chance to at least try to compete using some search engine optimization skills. 

Nobody likes things to change, but Google will continue to do things since they are the market leader.  They will continually try to make things better so they can continue to have dominance in their market.  As long as they keep changing, they will probably still be in the #1 position in the search engine market.