In the past, companies have gone green as part of both an ideology and to send a message about their community responsibility. It’s mostly been considered an expense attributed to Marketing and Public Relations.

In the past, the cost of being green has been prohibitive to many small companies. Today it is becoming the exact opposite; a way to reduce both the cost and the environmental impact.

The current economic state has turned the reasons for going green from purely a philosophical stance and a calculated cost to being about the bottom line and potential savings. Fuel costs alone have thrown the balance towards ecological thinking

It is no longer about making a statement, it’s just good business.

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Part 1 - Consumables, The easy place to start

The paperless office was a joke when it was first thought of in the 80’s and 90’s. We have been creating more papers since then than ever before. But again, the cost of office supplies is increasing, so by going green and actually reducing the amount of paper and other disposables used you will save money and the environment in one move.

Modern software packages – Office 2007 for instance - have file sharing and cooperative functions built in that make working on electronic copies of documents easier and better than ever before. Implementing new document handling services will also save you time and money in the long run by speeding up your processing time and accuracy. A piece of paper gets misplaced a lot easier than an email.

Accounts Payable Management

Accounts payable and Invoices are big problem areas for many companies. Different standards and systems often cause payment policy problems. Espcially if you are using a central processing that sends invoices out for verification.

Use scanners and email to verify invoices between departments. The cost of losing an Invoice is often high in both supplier relations and financial terms. Emails can be traced much easier than papers.

You can also consider using a system like American Express - @ work. Which allows you to completely computerize your expense processing, all invoices can be processed through this system, not just the ones paid with the AMEX card. Saving you both paper and postage if you normally send paper copies of invoices for verification to different site managers etc.

Using the Amex Card for invoice payments also adds a net 30 days to your payment time. Which can even out the disparity between a company who has a fixed payment policy and suppliers who invoice with different payment times.

I am sure that there are many services like this, but the one I have most experience with is the AMEX system, which is why I’m mentioning it, if you can find something that works as well or better, please give me a heads up.

Printing / Copying

Printers are expensive, ink and toner is expensive. And they are power hogs. By reducing the amount of papers used, you can reduce the cost of all three, and keeping fewer more efficient printer/copier combinations in a central location.

Using double sided printing and copying for anything that does not specifically require a single sided print can reduce the paper usage with over 40%. (Client observation) Most modern copiers have automated single to double sided conversion settings.

Filing

Filing systems take up between 5 and 15 percent of the floor space in an office. With less paper, you will be able to either improve the conditions of the employees with more open space. Or you can move to a smaller office.

Less paper in filing also reduces cost of long term storage of documents, and if created and maintained electronically from the beginning, you reduce the cost of converting them later.

Reduced Housekeeping

Anything that reduces paper waste also reduces the potential cost of document destruction as well as cleaning cost. 10-15 percent of all cleaning activities are focused around emptying trash, and most office trash is paper. Less garbage is a strong negotiating point with your cleaning service.

Lighting

The new low energy light bulbs are no news to anyone these days. But the use of them can quickly turn into a money saver. Using 1/5 to 1/6 of a normal incandescent bulb in energy and lasting longer before replacing accomplishes two things immediately.

a. Reduced energy cost and cost of replacements

b. Reduced cost of maintenance with fewer calls for broken bulbs

Task Lighting is also better for employee health and well-being, just ask your average employee how they feel about overhead fluorescents in general and you’ll see that this is a very quick way to make the workspace a more comfortable and inviting place.

No reason not to do it

Reducing and replacing consumables is a direct money saver, capable of both improving the bottom line and the workplace environment for employees. The long term effects of better environment on the cost of sick leaves, workers comp and other health related expenses Is hard to predict, but can only work in your favor.

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-Stay tuned for the second part -
"Going Green is the Cheapest Marketing You’ve Ever Seen"

Today Google launched their KNOL (Short for Knowledge) service. A user contributed knowledge base that can take a huge bite out of for instance Wikipedia. But KNOL has a much more interesting aspect.

It is a showcase service for authors, and it has more in common with for instance Digg and Propeller than it does with Wikipedia.

Proprietary Information

On KNOL, the author owns the article. No more moderations where overzealous people nitpick on the smallest details and undo every change that they feel is wrong; regardless of its true merit. On KNOL, the article and author is voted on as wholes. No one but the author can modify it. So in that sense, it is more related to Social Media than it is to Wikipedia. And now we are beginning to see the genius of it.

The Bloggers Dream (or Nightmare)

This creates a very interesting new aspect for online marketers. Especially those that have spearhead knowledge in combination with great writing skills. These authors can now showcase not only their work, but themselves on something that proves to be a very interesting battleground for bloggers. It’s no longer a battle of “who has the most friends on Facebook and Stumble” This one is going to be fought with good old-fashioned writing skills and sweat of the writer’s brow.

The KNOL Effect Is Coming

Now, the best writers, will undoubtedly be able to drive massive amounts of traffic to their blogs, Much like the Digg Effect, a top voted article on any subject is bound to bring traffic in the thousands when KNOL gets established.

The problem here is that KNOL May take over a large part of the referencing capacity from other Social media sites. Especially for “normal” users who are already used to trusting Google with delivering the content they are looking for.

We may see a very large, and quick shift in traffic generation. We will definitely see changes occurring around us when the current big names scramble to counter whatever effect it has on them.

Time is no longer an issue – Were back to Quality

On Digg, you are the flower of the day, here one minute, gone the next.

But because KNOL published works are not going to be time sensitive. It is no longer enough to be the only person that day that posts on a topic. You have to be the best permanent to claim that particular spot. Now quality articles written with the utmost precision will be the best way to create a following.

One Digg - Hold the LinkBait

On many social media sites, Link bait and Flashy headlines combined with funny shtick photos is the mainstay of popularity. KNOL promises something else.

This is a new world, one where being the best social networker may no longer be enough to get anywhere. KNOL may just have cornered the market on quality.

Verification of Authors and SEO

Another interesting thing is how the voting of verified authors may or may not influence the search engine ranking of sites associated with that author in general. THIS may very well be the largest impact KNOL has on the online marketing world.

Google certainly has the power to penalize authors who are viewed as poor writers and translate that into their search algorithms.

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This is not something where “wait and see” will be a good plan. Don’t for a second think that a social media endeavor, launched by Google, and with its sights set so squarely on some of the largest services out there will have anything less than earth shattering effects on the scene.

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Alright, so I’m going to lose more than a few PC points here, but i keep seeing the same problems over and over, and applying the same solutions over and over seems to work fine. (I’m using that as proof positive I’m on to something. )

So take it or leave it as you please. Just please keep the comment profanity to a minimum.

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1. No IS a Word in Your Vocabulary

Yes, it is important to try and meet the customers’ expectations, but ladies - Please . Stop bending over backwards to please everyone. You are one person with limited and valuable time. I keep seeing women in design for instance re-doing work over and over and over. Learn when to say no, some clients will never be happy. You are well within your right to ask them to stop and clarify in writing what they want. Once you have delivered that, it’s their problem. There are limits, and they are yours to make.

2. You Are Competent

Women have an uncanny ability to negate and downplay their own abilities; especially when in a room with male counterparts. Stop putting yourself down, there is nothing wrong with a sense of modest grace, but when someone is trying to step on you.

It’s time to let them know the female advantage of heels when you step back. Your knowledge is just as good, and just as valuable, as the men in the room.

(Here is a little secret for you, we men are just as nervous as you are, we are just taught to hide it behind a pretense of confidence.)

3. Who Ever Said Being Cheap Was Good For a Woman

Women are experts at reducing their price – especially when they are selling their own competence as s service. Everyone will want what you have for free, but you’d be crazy to offer it.

Stick to your guns and learn how to tell your customers what is free, and what isn’t. You’ll see that they expect nothing less than to pay a fair price for your knowledge once the cards are on the table.

4. Substandard Is No Good – Superstandard Is Unattainable

You have to learn that delivering TO the customers expectations today, will outweigh beating their expectations tomorrow. Too many women are perfectionists with their own work. This is a good thing, but only if you understand when you have met or exceeded the customers expectations. Not your own!

Quite frankly ladies, you’re trying to meet some standards that NASA are considering Utopian. Make sure you make your customer happy. Your own standards are probably going to make them wait.

5. You Can’t Do Everything Alone

Alright, so there are single mothers (and fathers for that instance) who are successful entrepreneurs. But women have a tendency to think that this is how it should be. Single or not.

They try to run homes and families, with the same attention that they would as a stay at home mom. Well guess what, there is no point in trying if you have better options available to you.

Kick that husband of yours in the rear, 50-50 is NOT too much to ask ladies . Talk to the rest of the family, you will most likely find them more than willing to help you out. But you have to set some rules here. Don’t succumb to the sad looks and guilt trips kids are sooo good at dishing out.

And for the sake of everything holy. Learn to ASK FOR AND ACCEPT HELP! It will often be offered to you even when you don’t ask. What’s so wrong with accepting the help and support of the friends and family that love you?

When you let people help you with some things, you can do everything else better. You risk running both your business and your family half-assed otherwise, which is not what you want.

Quite frankly, the single largest reason my female clients are considering quitting their business is that they feel they are neglecting their families, and when I check I see a husband on his ass on the couch. (and he fed the kids pop-tarts for dinner again)

Enough said.

Just remember to Share this if you liked it, and forget it if you didn’t

In “The Extinction of Dinosaur Marketers,” I discussed the problems of bringing the old school of hardcore sales and pushy advertising into the new online marketplace. We are starting to see a new trend blooming that is showing exactly this problem.

This morning I read an article by Neal Levitt, who is discussing the shift from online advertising to online promotions; Coupons, Contests, Giveaways etc. and we can see clearly that fear and lack of understanding is the driving force behind this change.

In the article, Rob Enderle states the problem very clearly. “Promotions are typically tied to actual sales; advertising is vastly harder to measure. You may never know for sure whether an advertising program is truly successful, but a promotion’s success or failure tends to be rather obvious,”

Microwave Marketing

So we are back to what I was discussing in the Extinction Series. It’s not about the actual results, it’s about being able to squeeze the results in to an easy to understand and immediately available metric. Instant gratification rules the show still. It’s the microwave society thinking I’ve been warning about.

Problem is, you aren’t dealing with the same ballgame anymore, now that customers are forcing us to accept that they are individuals with which you need to create a functioning and lasting relationship. You can’t measure the single sale result as a measure of success. The easy to understand metric may be a comfortable and familiar feeling. But to rely on single sale as measure of success is suicide in the age of customer interaction.

Thought Exercise

Which would you mention as the top three websites right now?

Yahoo - Google – Youtube – Myspace – Facebook.. You should have had at least one or two of those In your top threes. Now, what do all of these have in common?

They are user driven – and – none of them are focused on you. Yahoo and Google, provides searches, where your customers can find you at their leisure. Youtube, Myspace, and Facebook are communities where your customers can talk about you when they want to. Although you can buy advertising on Google and Yahoo, your ad will only get seen or clicked on when that is what the customer did a search for.

Any and all attempts to circumvent this, and create an artificial ingress point into your customers interactions with eachother will be considered spam.

Experiment

Create a page with a great sales promotion. Something extremely good, and submit it to Digg or any other voter driven system. Then watch how fast you get slammed with negative feedback and your submission gets buried.

If you think this is irrelevant. Maybe you are thinking that this is a problem with the nature of Digg more than a problem with the approach. Think again. Guess who just got annoyed with you? It was a cross section of your customers. And they just let you know what they think about direct advertising and promotional pushes invading their space.

All these networks are nothing without the users. These users are showing you exactly what they think of the way you are trying to talk to them, and these users are your customers when they leave that particular site. So to think that this is not a great way to check your customers’ reaction to your particular approach is short-sighted at best.

Advertising or Promoting?

It’s funny how the old school thinkers are turning these against each other, when in the new marketplace, they are completely interdependent. They are doing this because the harder to measure metric of online advertising is branding. And branding just doesn’t translate well into an excel sheet.

You can, and SHOULD offer your customers great value, which can be done with measurable systems like giveaways, coupons etc. And you can use contextual online advertising to drive them to the place where they can see it. But you can’t do either without the other. Advertising without having a conversion in mind is fairly brainless. But to do a sales promotion without driving targeted traffic to it is even worse. Now, the reason advertising works for this is because advertising online (when done right) is contextual.

Lets go Viral – Nope… too late

What the thinking behind online promotions is, is that it hopes to drive a viral market. The promotion is intended to create a buzz on its own and make people talk about it. This is actually not a bad idea at all.. Have you started yet? Oops. You missed it!

Once this becomes the standard way of squeezing the square peg into the round hole, people will stop doing it. Once these promotions become the mainstay of every online venture, no one will want to hear a word about a promotion anymore.

Just by writing this post I’ve educated a couple of bloggers that may stop writing about promotions as a result. So you are either ready to go now, or you are probably too late.

The intermediary step is to try and fake it, With undisclosed pay per post articles for instance. But that time has passed too, the social networks have educated each other and undisclosed promotions are getting a lot of negative feedback now. If you at any point make the mistake of thinking that the customer can’t recognize a sales pitch a mile away, you missed out on the real opportunity. To build a relationship based on their expectations, not your need to make a quick buck.

Natural Recommendation Is the Only Lasting Approach

Your customers will talk about you, when you simply meet their needs and requirements, and do it with their end satisfaction in mind. Satisfaction will drive discussion and recommendations naturally. Honest opinions and reviews from trusted sources will never be out of date.

The forced discussion started dying as soon as it became a marketing idea.

Whatever your thinking is for using promotional activities, interactive systems or contextual advertising online, you have to always step back and consider the value to the customer of not only the promotion, but the way you are advertising the promotion.

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When you meet their needs, they will meet yours. If you do it well enough, they will come back to do it over and over again.

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Whenever I buy something that says "batteries sold separately." I calmly dream that this will be the store redeeming my basic faith in a company’s ability to seize the most self-evident opportunity for customer service.

(I’m starting to think I am a hopeless idealist.)

1. If you are selling an item. TEST it before you let the customer walk out with it. Take out a pair of batteries. Put them in and make sure everything works.

It really doesn’t matter that the item is made by Widget Industries in Upper Mongolia. YOU sold it, and the customer will be angry with YOU when it doesn’t work.

2 . (This is where companies make fools of themselves) Turn off the object and put it back in the box before closing the sale. But LEAVE THE BATTERIES.

Yes, I said it! Save your key rings, forget about the complimentary Frisbee. Take the unusually smart step of actually making sure that the item will work when they get home without the customer needing to buy batteries.

In fact, if I come home with an object without batteries, but a complimentary branding Frisbee, I’m probably going to be even more fuming than if I didn’t get the Frisbee at all. At that second I am going to wonder what moron came up with that idea instead of just giving me a pair of bloody AA’s! Now I’m both angry that I have to go back out and get batteries, and convinced that your establishment is owned and operated by a cretin. Not the customer experience you should be shooting for.

Giving It Away Increase Sales

The amazing thing is that your sale of batteries has a great chance of increasing too. Why? Because if you don’t have a policy of testing each item, your sales clerks are going to forget to remind the customer they will need batteries x amount of times out of a hundred.

If clerks test everything as a policy, they won’t forget as often and that will improve sales of batteries as well. And here is the kicker, the customer probably has other things that need batteries, so even though you just gave them batteries for the item they purchased, they will often end up buying them for other items.

It All Goes In the Plus Column

If the item you are selling is $2.49 with a profit margin of 30 cents. This is admittedly not a great idea. But if you are holding a profit margin anywhere over $3 per item, you can’t really lose by doing this.

AA batteries are about 7 cents if you buy in bulk. You are paying more for those fancy brochures used to staple the receipt to in case the product doesn’t work. Now you will have to deal with less customer returns as well, which also saves you money and bad will. (See the math here?)

If you have a profit margin that is high, Say $70. You will have to convert 1 sale in every 250 to a returning customer or a referral for it to break even.

I guarantee you will be head and shoulders above the competition that are still standing there like misers, taking them back out of the gadget before asking you if you would like to buy batteries. To me, that is not just a missed opportunity of customer service. It’s downright counterproductive and borderline rude.

I can also promise you that the statement "I’m going to leave these in here, if you would like to buy extra batteries, this item takes Double A’s" will do more for your customer satisfaction than a Frisbee ever will.

Have you bundled yourself so tight you can’t move?

Once upon a time…… I worked with a company that provided contracted services. The services were spanning many areas, and of course came in different bundles.

I was tasked with finding the "custom" contracts, those not conforming to any of the standard bundles, so that they could be standardized. Something that many companies try to do to simplify both the billing and being able to provide the service they agreed on. Up until this point, it was nothing strange to me.

When i worked on it, i quickly realized that almost all of the "weird" contracts as they were called, had been sold by one of the senior staff. These contracts were highly customized in both services provided and pricing. This of course was interesting, but what was more interesting than that, was that the company had an almost 100% retention rate of these customers.

After crunching the numbers, it also became very clear that the profit margin on those contracts were on average 7$ over the standard packages. Even after taking the "hassle" of customized billing and keeping track of what services to provide into consideration.

The Senior member had tapped several majorly important resources at once. The customer got a personal relationship which let them buy exactly what they needed. And in the process, the company:

A) Made more money
B) Kept the customers longer, (making even more money.)
C) Made the customer happy
(which i’ve harped on enough already as the only way to get good referrals.)

Simplified Billing be Damned

These wierd contracts were exactly what every customer should have been offered, Customized to perfection, the senior staff member had by "breaking the rules" shown that it was the best option available.

But as always, the "cutting costs" aspect of simplified billing and contract management was what the corporate head office could more easily measure, and therefore wanted. So that was what they got. The profitability and retention went down as could be expected.

The savings of "simplified billing" ended up costing them more than hiring an extra Accounts Recievable staffer would have cost them.

And lets not forget that they had a very powerful accounting and billing package that if used correctly would have made it a non issue to begin with.

Lessons Learned
What i learned from this staff member was that unless you are completely unable to customize, there is no reason not to. It’s simply better to sell them what they want. They are willing to pay a slight premium on the services they do get, if you allow them to cut out the ones they don’t want.

Thougts on Selling Services

-Services, should never be sold as a fixed package unless they are interdependent.

- if they are interdependent, they shouldn’t be listed as two separate items to begin with.

- Bundles are great, some customer likes the no hassle approach, and the rest can use them as a base from where to start. But to not allow customization is the same as saying "Your wants and needs are not important."

For Gods Sake, Don’t Listen to Me!

Every time you sell a custom contract that adds or subtracts a service from one of your bundles, You are being given Free Product Development . Your customer is helping you improve your bundles and packages with no other consideration than you listening to them.

Consultants like me charge big money to give you the same information that your customer just gave you for free.

So by all means, please ignore this opportunity, and call me instead, I’ll be happy to listen to your customers for you, (and bill you accordingly.)

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Satisfied customers are your best sales force, but are you paying attention to the ones that are doing the work for you?

Next time you get a clear referral, don’t miss a beat in contacting the person who gave it. Make sure that you thank them for the business. If at all possible, reward them somehow, give them a discount, a gift card, take them out to lunch. Whatever you do. never let a referral go unnoticed.

If you notice and appreciate the business they send you, they’ll do it again.

Major sales teams almost always have bonus programs, are you rewarding your “sales force?”

I received an email today from a man, (the disclaimer at the bottom of the email clearly states that I was not allowed to discuss the content by the way) So, I won’t mention either his name or the company. I will however take my chances and tell you what his point was. Let’s just call him Mr. T. Rex

He sells mass email lists, and was fairly upset at what I said about direct marketing approaches in the “Extinction of Dinosaur Marketers ” Series.

I quote…

"If my services make more money than it costs, where do you get off claiming that it’s a bad idea! I sell exceptionally well targeted lists, with superior quality prospects that are handpicked for every customer, We have a higher conversion rate on our lists than our competition. Who the (expletive deleted) are you to say that we’re dinosaurs?” You’re nothing but a…
(I’m cutting it here because I want to keep this blog at least PG-13)

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Well Mr. Rex, it’s easy… It’s the other conversion rate I’m really interested in. You see, I consider potential customers as being on a fence; you have to pay equal attention to how many you push down the other side as you do to the ones that jump down your side. The ones that don’t buy aren’t completely unaffected; they might be turned away too.

What I want to hear about is – How many of the ones that didn’t buy did you turn off in the process?
I’d be better inclined to like it if the list wasn’t targeted at all. Then at least you wouldn’t be turning away your exact target segment by giving them a negative connotation to your company.

If you convert X%, but give as many a bad taste, you just lost out in the long run. Your target segment isn’t going to grow fast enough for you to pick a marketing approach which potentially damages future sales.

Now tell me how drying up your potential customer pool is a risk worth taking?

I do however thank Mr. Rex for taking the time out to email me his thoughts; it’s always interesting to see what the other side of the coin looks like.

If you are intending to market your business to - or through - media channels, your best friend will be a well designed Media kit.

Media kits (also called Press Kits) help interested parties to find key information about you, your company and your products right when they need it. The easier this information is to obtain, and use, the better your chances are of getting it picked up.
Getting free publicity is never a bad thing.

A Media Kit is Useful For:

1. Spreading the word
Press kits act as a marketing tool to reporters of all kinds. Whether the person is producing materials for a blog or a major newspaper, a well designed press kit will get their attention. If you create a press kit that can get a reporters attention, you will be rewarded with increased exposure. Then it’s up to you to convert that exposure to whatever goal you are pursuing.

2. Attracting Advertisers
A press kit will give a potential advertiser access to the information they are looking for to make a decision. Having the right information in there tells them that you are the sign post they are looking for. Transparency, sells advertising. Don’t skimp on facts and figures.

3. Projecting Authority
Press kits are bragging posts. You can add things here that my may not want to publish in your own publication. How many are referencing you, what is being said about you. Things that might go against the normal rules of modesty can and SHOULD be in a press kit. Projecting authority is the key to bridging into new areas. If you write great blog posts, you might get asked to comment on a TV show. But you have to be able to show why you are the person they want.

Appeal to their Laziness

Remember, you are dealing with people looking for something. If they are looking for something to publish, chances are that they are on a deadline. Make it complete, interesting and do as much of their work for them as you can. You’ll see your press kit appear in places you never thought of. The stressed writer will gladly take well written text from press kits and republish it instead of missing a deadline.

People are inherently lazy; write text in third person that can be reused unaltered. if it gets republished, the sentence "We are a company who builds…" will have to be rewritten. Writing in third person appeals to the laziness inherent in most people. (And to the stressed journalist even more.)

What to Include

A press kit is comprised of three basic elements. (Static, Images, Dynamic)

1. Static Information
Facts about the company, things that don’t change or at least stays relatively fixed. This is where you can put all your background information.

Answer the standard battery of questions:
Whom - What - When - Where - Why - How

Write this information in easy to read, friendly, third person voice. DON’T make it read like a vision statement. A mission or vision statement is almost only republished when someone is writing about mission or visions statements.

The Press Release Trick

The static section should include Press-Releases. You should make a press release or two every month. A steady flow of press releases shows activity, which makes you newsworthy on its own. If you have tree releases spanning the last 18 months, you are not looking very active. Appeal to a publisher by telling them you are a business that is worth taking notice of.

You are also telling them that they better move before someone else gets the all important scoop on the next one. News people HATE being scooped, which works to your advantage.

Awards, recognitions, and references

Show them that you are the authority. Any accolade you have received should be noted and if possible shown in the static section. This is a lemming syndrome. If others think you are noteworthy, the person reading your press kit will think so too. If it’s an ego boost to you, put in in there.

2. Images
Remember that images are often a requirement, Logos, as well as pictures of relevant people and events.

Cover the Bases
Remember the lazy aspect. Don’t make them work to publish your image.

Include several versions of logos, banners and images. It is better for you to have several sizes than have your logo cut and butchered or even worse, skipped, because it doesn’t fit. If they can pick one that fits their available space, you don’t risk losing information because they re-sized your full width banner to a thumbnail.

Several formats

Have Black and White images ready. Some images just don’t look good when converted to B/W so it’s better to have done your own work there as well.

Print quality - Which normally is 300 dpi (dots per inch)
Try to include at least two of the following formats: TIFF, GIF, EPS (PDF is becoming more acceptable to most).

Web quality - which normally is 72 dpi
Try to include both JPEG and GIF

List images with a thumbnail and a clear description, and list the file formats available under as download links.

3. Dynamic Information
This is information that appeals to advertisers looking for a website or blog to publish their ads on. Show them everything they want in a simple easy for follow format. And keep it up to date. If possible use things like widgets to show your data in real time.

Hits and visits
How many hits you get on your site per day/week/month. How many customers frequent your location. You can also be even more specific, and tell them Weekday vs. Weekend, Data, I’ve seen that this can swing a publisher that has a specific target audience.

Subscribers
If you have an RSS feed or a mailing list, tell them how many you are reaching. Easiest way to do this is to have a feed widget published that shows your current number of subscriptions. Do not publish that widget however if your readers are low (some say 50, i’d say 100.) It turns away future subscribers to see low RSS Counts. But more on that in another post.

Demographics
Demographics are a huge selling point to advertisers. Get as much info as possible. You can gather information in several ways. A quick sidebar poll for instance is easy to create and a powerful way to get this information. Having it ready for your potential advertiser will increase your sales dramatically.

Display demographic information in charts and numbers. The Visual is a great selling tool.

Previous Advertiser Click through rates
If you’ve had ads before, tell them how many hits they generated.. If you can justify the price you are asking, you’ll get less apprehension from future buyers.

Be specific if you can. Tell them the difference between separate sizes and positions etc

Tell them the Price
If you are selling advertising space, don’t make it a mystery to find out how much. Let them know what you offer, what locations, sizes and prices of each opportunity.

Here is a pricing policy tip, Give them several levels with the second to last made unattractive by the top level.
- Text ad in RSS feed - $79/month
- 120 by 120 Thumbnails in sidebar - $199/month
- Banner $ 299/month
- RSS Feed and Banner $300 per month.

This trick actually increases the sales of the top level. The third option will get no sales, but it makes the top offer look attractive. If you get rid of the "package" top level, less people will buy the $299 banner than would the $300 package. opting for one of the lower levels instead . Always have the "duh" price in there. It might seem silly, but it has proven very effective.

Actual Factual

Don’t subject a publisher to hype. If you make a claim, make it a truthful one. They will not be very pleased with you if they publish something that turns out to be false. These people are spreading your name and increasing your notoriety, don’t make them regret it.

If you sell advertising space based on inflated numbers, you are guilty of false advertising yourself. You sell advertising more if you already have advertising there. So losing advertisers because they didn’t get what they expected will slow down your future sales as well when your ad slots are sitting empty.

Give them everything they need

If you are looking to get noticed, try to have everything that a publisher might want in one easy to access location. This includes the text, images, facts and figures etc. Make this accessible in one single file. A .zip or .rar file is online publishing standard. Again, appeal to their laziness. Give them what they want prepackaged, and ready to go.

They will want a quick fact sheet of information that includes:
- Name of Company and or Publication
- Contact information
- Exact URL
- Submission Deadlines
- Payment and Ordering information

Tell Them the Copyrights

Give clear instructions what they can publish, what they can change. And what they have to either keep as is, or request permission before changing. This is a common concern for someone looking to republish information, and if they can’t get it quick enough. They might skip you for someone that has it clearly listed.

Make it Easy to Find

Don’t hide your press kit in a link under "about" or "contact", give it its own link prominently displayed.
PRESS - PRESS KIT - MEDIA KIT work very well as link names. Whatever you choose, Just make sure that people don’t have to look around to find it. Although many hide it in the footer, if you want to sell ads, your better off putting it in the header.

Don’t Lose Out

A well designed media kit resolves the major problem of time. If it is available when needed, you don’t have to worry about missing an opportunity because you couldn’t take a call or answer an email in time.

The New Marketing Channels

Read the previous Entries:

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

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So the market has changed, there is no denying that fact any longer. Now the question is how do we adapt and break in to this new marketplace? Since the traditional avenues of direct marketing, commercials, advertising etc. are drying up, we need to find the openings that have been created instead.

These new openings revolve around word of mouth, this is the new hard currency of marketing and the reason so many traditional dinosaur marketers have problems adapting. Word of mouth is hard to measure, largely uncontrollable, and almost impossible to buy without running the risk of being exposed as a "cheater." Hence, it is every traditional marketers and CEO’s nightmare. What can’t be exactly measured, reported and controlled with a spreadsheet tends to be ignored. This is fine; those who adapt will just have more business when the rest keel over.

Advertising Is Dead, Long Live Advertising

The basic rules of advertising have not really changed. AIDAS (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action, Satisfaction,) still holds true. The major change that social media has added, is Confirmation . Instead of having a single place in the chain, confirmation is now the center of the customer’s decision making process. Although the confirmation part is integral, it can be skipped. It can also occur between each step of the chain, multiple times if necessary. This is why the hard sell doesn’t work anymore either. The customer is demanding the right to abort any decision process to return to the confirmation part. More often than not, a hard sell approach will trigger this apprehension and drive the customer to verify with their network.

To avoid hype, people are looking to their networks to find someone who knows and is willing to talk. These experts can be anyone with the forum and will to voice their opinion. These networks are multilayered, a friend might not know the answer, but knows a blog that discusses the topic. This is considered more reliable than the corporate website.

The initial reach and market penetration is not happening through traditional mass advertising, but through targeted lifestyle and spokesperson advertising. In order to reach the new target audience, the powerful marketers of tomorrow will be on an increasing level people with some notoriety in a specific field. Being famous is no longer enough to create interest - context is.

The use of celebrities has become synonymous with major brand advertising, and as such, it carries little or no reference trustworthiness. Whereas smaller artists, athletes, bloggers, and other micro-celebrities are beginning to carry more weight because they are often seen as independent and with a higher degree of integrity and honesty.

What is important to notice is that the impact value of celebrities is diminishing, whereas the group specific role-model is increasing. Group specific in this case means anyone can represent you, as long as they are contextual. You can notice this in that celebrity endorsements have declined compared to just a couple of years ago.

No One Cares What Tiger Woods Drinks

The consumer is looking for contextual endorsements; a golf club is a great promotion for Tiger, IF he plays it himself. Or he can explain why this is a great club for an amateur and use his expertise to project believability. But he can’t sell Pepsi or any other drink very well anymore. Especially if he isn’t seen drinking it on the course. We see it more and more, celebrity advertising for non contextual products is dropping fast.

Also noteworthy here is that the reason for the non-celebrity advertising being more prevalent is not the ineffectiveness of the celebrity as such, but the ineffectiveness of TV advertising as a whole. There is simply a need to cut the production cost of TV and print campaigns to balance the reduced conversion rates that they are seeing.

This is where the micro-celebrity comes in. People are looking to the smaller more focused person, one that by default places a lot on the line with his or her word. These are the real marketers of the future.

A blogger promoting a product can have a higher impact value than a Tiger Woods promotion. Unless it is something that Mr. Woods uses on the course and thereby places his own reputation and success on the line with. Since very few people believe that Tiger actually drives a Buick, his endorsement of the vehicles they produce has been reduced, we have seen most car manufacturers move away from the celebrity endorsement to market to what the customer needs are, which currently is price and mileage. Mr. Woods’ contract with Buick expires in ‘09; I for one would be surprised if it was extended past that point.

Blessed are the Geeks

Traditionally, a marketing campaign would find their target market, and then find the middle segment -the large part of the curve - that consisted of normal users. Early adapters and latecomers were ignored as this market was the small portion of the fringe. And it was thought that early adopters would simply respond faster to traditional advertising.

As I discussed in Part 1, the middle of the road are no longer interested in hearing about your product. They have become exceptionally good at ignoring marketing messages. To get traction now, you need the people with the highest propensity to look for, and be excited by, new items.

All of a sudden, we have arrived at the evolution. Now, previously ignored market segments of earliest adopters, The Geeks , are ruling the earth. By reaching them, catering to their specific needs and wants, - which in most cases is extensive and factual information - you will create the necessary buzz around your product or service. And only through them will you be able to properly penetrate the social media networks to get enough spread. These geeks are key players in certain areas, and often have large followings of people who listen to what they say.

The early adopter is a decision maker based on two primary criteria. They want remarkable products, and they need plenty of information. In order to reach them, this information has to be available for them to become excited. What is important to recognize is that the early adopter will sell a new product before they have seen it. Your advertising can’t just sell on spin anymore; it has to sell on fact. Your word of mouth reach through these networks is the spin.

Watch Out For the Fake Geek

Although the Geeks have already passed along the social media craze well into the mid range of "normal targetable consumers." They are also the ones that pioneer the new social media sites. When a social media site becomes packed with dinosaur marketers spamming everybody, the geeks leave. When they do leave they take with them much of the credibility of that particular channel to the next evolution in social media,

To the dinosaur marketer, the obvious solution is to create a "fake geek." jumping on new forums to spread your message, but this doesn’t work well either. The "real geeks" will search and destroy any such effort, only when the onslaught is too big will they give up protecting their realm and move on to the next one. You can never maintain spam and early adopters in the same network for long. You can stay there and spam with once the early adopters have left, but your conversion rates will drop instantly when this is the norm.

A Shilling Backlash

The "shill" - a person that is paid to act like an unaffiliated customer endorsing a product, is perhaps the worst idea possible to work within this realm. It is considered one of the worst types of dishonest spam, and people are becoming VERY good at spotting this. As soon as a shill is suspected, the community will immediately paint the company out to be dishonest and underhanded. A real, honest endorsement from a customer is gold, to get caught manufacturing these is equal to suicide in most cases.

When approaching the marketplace as it looks today, honesty and disclosure have become watchwords. The customer is too smart to accept anything less than ethical marketing. They will force ethics by actively de-railing and exposing any attempts they spot to circumvent the rules of the new social networks. In the new marketplace you need to be both remarkable, and forthcoming, or you will fail on reaching the target audience.

Going Viral - Not What it Looks Like

The magic word today is Viral. The holy grail of social marketing is to find that one pearl that will spread itself like wildfire. And many companies are making a decent profit on promising viral marketing. This is an area to watch, and watch carefully. In many ways, it does not convert like you would expect. If used to spread a message that isn’t true, or leaves the customer feeling cheated, you will hear about it.

Viral marketing requires that the advertising itself is noteworthy, not the product. This creates a disconnect between what advertising is accomplishing, and what marketing should be doing. Viral marketing is so powerful that it can be intoxicating in itself. But the effect of a great viral campaign to promote a so-so product is disappointing in many ways. You’ll get noticed, which can be great for the ego, but if you’re not living up to the expectations. It won’t be good for business.

You could theoretically create something like "Poo-Perfume - He’ll never forget your scent ", and through a funny video ad blast the viral campaign wide open. You have the two parts of a successful viral campaign, the outlandish product and a funny advertisement that would be noteworthy by itself. But apart from gag stores, no one would buy your particular scent. These viral campaigns are excellent for brand building and to keep your name in front of a potential customer. However, the product has to deliver quality that matches the hype, or you are selling Poo-Perfume to everyone that thinks they bought Chanel.

The viral campaign is great for Branding, and to keep an already recognized name in front of customers. It may however not provide many sales. In order for the viral campaign to function, it has to provide an interest that can be converted into action, and that can only be done if the rest of the solutions are in place. Many of the viral campaigns you see out there miss this goal by a mile. The ad is watched millions and millions of times on YouTube, but conversion are average at best.

Since the viral spread is so powerful, if your product or service fails to meet expectations when the customers flock to find you, your negative effect can kill you as quickly as the viral boosted you to begin with. Remember that the social networks are as powerful in bringing bad products down as they are blasting a great idea into orbit.

It’s Your Call - Evolve, Or Perish

You can and must prepare to handle the new expectations of the marketplace. Social media has changed the behavior of your customer. The technical evolution of cell phones with IM, Email, Twitter and everything else connected into one persons pocket has left zero room for error. Every customer has to be treated like The editor of the New York Times, because quite frankly, their reach can be just as big.

Passing On a Sale Is Long Term Profit

Your name, brand, and business are on the line every time you try. Since you don’t know how many readers follow this particular customer. Your only bet is to apply good old fashioned business sense. It’s better to talk a customer out of a sale that isn’t what they want than to have him or her talk 400 people out of making a purchase later.

Quality Is Your Only Hope

Without it you will be left without remedy when someone is displeased. Your best bet is to fix a problem as they occur. If your business model is based on sub standard products, you can’t do this. The amount of complaints will take the profit right out of any venture. And the lack of remedy will be noticed, discussed and taken apart in public forums that you have no real control over. If you lack a direct relationship between your promise, and your delivery you won’t last long.

You can’t adopt old techniques to new media.

The key trait of any dinosaur is to attempt to fit old into new. Remember that the new media networks were created so that traditional marketing can be avoided. The only way to get old style messages into new media is to change the delivery method, which means you are trying to mass advertise without admitting that you are. We know by now that bring sneaky, underhanded, or dishonest is not the way to build relationships.

With Their Permission

Your customer is not willing to be accosted by marketing and hard sales anymore. Ask permission, don’t do it in a clandestine way either. Tell them what you want, and accept that the ones that are interested enough to give you permission to contact them are your best targeted audience to begin with. Anything less than a customer’s express permission is spam. Just because it is legal does not make it welcome.

When They Want It

Google is the key to many businesses success, being on page one there means that anyone that finds you. Should have been looking for what you have. This is why it’s a bad idea for you to have non-contextual search words on your webpage. It brings visitors that are looking for something else. Since they aren’t interested in what you have to tell them, you are wasting their time. Not a good place to start a relationship.

Customers Relations Spread

Your relationships with your customers will spread - Negative and positive experiences alike. Focus on the customer experience, and forget about the short term profit margin. You don’t like to be nickel and dimed, neither does your customer. The difference between the dinosaur age and today, is that your customer through social media and technology has a way of sharing this experience with everyone they know before they have reached their car.

The Market Is Not Yours to Take - But It Is Yours To Lose

You can’t blast your message out there until you reach enough people. There aren’t enough people interested to make it worth your effort. You can’t buy, get, or cheat your way successfully for long in the modern market. The customer is in control, and you are along for the ride.

They will not trust what you say, what your advertisements say, or what celebrities on TV say about you. They trust their networks, and their own experience. When you have their trust, you become part of that network, and they sell you to the rest of the world. Break that trust, and you just fired your best salesman.

Dinosaurs May Be a Dying Breed, But a Live One Can Still Kill You

Pay close attention to any idea that carries the traits of a Dinosaur Marketer. Anytime it sounds like they are about to break the cardinal rules of maintaining a good customer relationship as I’ve expressed here, they are liable to bring you into extinction with them.

You can’t really blame them; this evolution has shook up much of what was true in the past. Change is painful, hard and for some almost impossible when their entire world is built around providing a service that is no longer cost effective. Just be prepared to protect yourself and your company, because a dinosaur marketer isn’t willing or capable of doing it for you.