The Art of Promotion (Arthur Brisbane)

 Arthur Brisbane, (born Dec. 12, 1864, Buffalo, N.Y., U.S.—died Dec. 25, 1936, New York City), U.S. newspaper editor and writer, known as the master of the big, blaring headline and of the atrocity story 

Arthur Brisbane was a run-of-the-mill newspaperman, no better and no worse than a thousand others in his profession, until William Randolph Hearst spread his name on the front page of all his newspapers; then he became America’s leading columnist. I can name a hundred men who can write better stuff than anything Brisbane ever wrote, but you would not recognize one of them because they have not been properly promoted. (From the Book - How To Sell Your Way Through Life)

By ‘‘promotion experts,’’ I do not mean advertising men. Promotion is one thing, advertising is something entirely different. Promotion, the sort to which I have reference, is the art of keeping an individual (or thing) favorably sold to the public all the time. Perhaps this is why some people or business feel they have a name (brand) to care for and you see their adds all the time such as famous brand as coke. 

Online presence is a fundamental thing for any business nowadays specially when to have a website can be done for free (that is the minimum) but better results can be achieve when done with professionalism 

The changing face of advertising - The miracles of Technology

Advertising can be intoxicating. The spin, the story, the message, the call to action, the image, the placement, the measurement, the refinement: it all adds up to a powerful cocktail that can ultimately change the world. At its core, advertising is all about influencing people – persuading them to take the actions we want, whether that’s choosing a particular brand of toothpaste, picking up the phone, filling in a mailing coupon or visiting a website. Done well, advertising has a power that can achieve amazing things, and if you’re in business you’re already doing it and will continue to do so.

This picture above could be look more real than what it is, if wasn´t for the right side where you can see the enormous amount of evidence of the adulteration. Well I did use a very simple tool to put me in that picture and to be honest I am not very skilled on that kind of  software, But it proves a point that i want to emphasize today, if I can do it, every one else can too. But of course that is not very convincing,... if you use a better software, or such software on the hands of someone who knows how handle the task of modifying the picture can make it look real. Not long ago to do that wasn´t even possible but today almost anyone can do it. 

That brings me back to what I was saying in the first paragraph. Because of the internet anyone can put some advertising for a very cheap price or even for free with the tools available now, those tools or advertising on the internet is relatively new comparing to other methods of advertising and if not done properly it will look as cheap as my picture above (not convincing anyone that it is real), but if you invest your time to learn the online advertising or pay someone who knows how to do you can indeed achieve excellent results. 

I hope this girl did not mind me putting her picture here, it was the same girl on the other picture, we did talk a lot using facebook messenger in the past, but we never met face to face, again that must not have been possible some decades ago. The world is always changing, lets take advantage of the new technology to do what wasn´t possible before. In this case my problem was not the technology, she did find a boyfriend before I even be able to start planning to meet her..... 

If she end up reading my post here.... I just want her to know that I was always under the impression she was a good girl with very good values who calls my attention,  I wish her well and good luck.  

 

If you are not valued, do not be angry, it means that you are in the wrong place.

This is another post that I copy from a group I was part of..... it is a nice one. Let´s not focus on me copying stuff, hahaha !!! Let´s see what can we learn from it....

A father said to his son: You graduated with honors, here is a car that I acquired many years ago ... it is several years old.

But before I give it to you, take it to the used car lot downtown and tell them I want to sell it and see how much they offer you.

The son went to the used car lot, returned to his father and said, "They offered me $ 1,000 because it looks very worn out."

The father said, "Take him to the pawn shop."

The son went to the pawn shop, returned to his father and said, "The pawn shop offered $ 100 because it was a very old car."

The father asked his son to go to a car club and show them the car.

The son took the car to the club, returned and told his father: “Some people in the club offered $ 100,000 for it, since it is a Nissan Skyline R34, iconic car and sought after by many.

The father said to his son, "I wanted you to know that the right place values ​​you the right way." ...

If you are not valued, do not be angry, it means that you are in the wrong place. Those who know your value are those who appreciate you, and never stay in a place where no one sees your value.

Negative experiences outperform the positive ones

That is very true, the negative experiences we have outperform the positive ones, we tend to remember the bad experience longer, they tend to affect our mood more than the positive ones. Some studies even put a number on this saying we need to have 4 to 5 good experiences to erase 1 single bad experience. If you were married it may means you have to do 5 good things to your spouse before she forgive you.

When we think in terms of business it may be very wise to start taking care of bad reviews before investing in more advertising. That is why I am always advocate to have what I called "the foudations" in place before running some ads, that will give a much better results for your ads if you have this foundation in place before doing advertising.

There is a service online marking provide to help you fix this problem, it is called reputation management, if don´t know where to start it may be a good idea to look into this kind of service, it will improve your business in no time.

Remember.  You just go to search for a doctor on the yellow pages if your family or friends cannot refer you to one. We trust people, family and friend,... the last resort is to go to directory of doctors. That is why also is so much cheaper to maintain a client than acquire a new one

Here are some other articles you can go to read more about good vs bad: 

Bad vs. Good: Why Does the Bad Seem to Outweigh the Good?
Bad Memories Easier to Remember
Praise Is Fleeting, but Brickbats We Recall
New Study Suggests we Remember the Bad Times Better than the Good

   

Above-the-line and below-the-line marketing

Above-the-line and below-the-line marketing are terms used from some authors to differentiate between broadcast and targeted marketing techniques. Above-the-line marketing refers to mass market advertising that is oftenused to push specific promotional messages out to large audiences or to build your brand. Below-the-line is used to tailor your communications to individuals or segments to ensure a more powerful message. Through-the-line is a term often used and this simply refers to creating an integrated approach by using an appropriate blend of above and below-the-line marketing. To help you further understand the split, given below is a list of

Marketing channels that would fall into each bracket:

● Above-the-line: –– TV; –– radio; –– press; –– display advertising; –– outdoor.

 ● Below-the-line: –– SEO; –– direct mail; –– paid search; –– e-mail; –– direct selling.

 Of course this blog is devoted to help you understand better the “below-the-line” type of channel, these channels are becoming more and more popular as they were more powerful to bring you better results for your business.

The benefits of CRM (customer relationship management)

At its core, effective CRM promises the following:

• Increased revenue and profitability

• Improved customer satisfaction and loyalty

• Improved service delivery and operational efficiencies

• Decreased acquisition costs – keeping churn low through CRM offsets the need to spend as much on acquisition of new clients, while retention of existing ones is cheaper for obvious reasons

Maintaining good customer relationships is critical to the success of a business.  The cost associated with acquiring a new customer is generally far higher than the cost of maintaining an existing customer relationship. While an investment in a CRM communication programme or platform can be large, these costs are often offset over the increased revenue generated by encouraging repeat business.

Broadly, CRM can be looked at from:

• A marketing perspective – increasing the number of people who know about your service or product

• A cost perspective – decreasing the amount you spend on customers; it costs more to attract a new customer than maintain an existing one

• A sales perspective – turning the people who know about your service or product into people who have made a purchase

• A service perspective – ensuring people who have interacted with you are satisfied and delighted.

Effective CRM can also create a powerful new marketing and referral force for a company: its happy customers. Delighting customers fosters positive word of mouth. The first step to any CRM initiative is to understand the value of a customer relationship to a business.

Relationship value = Revenue generated by customer – Cost

Using influencers to help spread the word

There is one particular category of users online that warrants a special mention when it comes to defining your digital marketing strategy. Dubbed ‘influencers’ these early adopters are the online opinion leaders. Through blogs, podcasts, forums and social networks they harness the power of the web to extol the virtues of products and brands that they like, and equally to denigrate those they find unsatisfactory.

Why are influencers important to you? Because they have the virtual-ear of the online masses. People read and listen to what they have to say; they value their opinion and trust their judgement. These online influencers have already won the pivotal battle for the hearts and minds of online consumers. 

Engage positively with them, and you essentially recruit a team of powerful online advocates (the last part of New customer path) who can have a potentially massive impact on a much wider group of consumers. This is the online equivalent of ‘word-of-mouth’ marketing on steroids. Of course, give them a negative experience and... well, you can guess the rest.

But how exactly will you recognize these online influencers? A December 2006 report by DoubleClick (‘Influencing the Influencers:  How Online Advertising and Media Impact Word of Mouth’) defined an influencer as a person who ‘strongly agreed’ to three or more of the following statements:

● They consider themselves expert in certain areas (such as their work, hobbies or interests).

● People often ask their advice about purchases in areas where they are knowledgeable.

● When they encounter a new product they like, they tend to recommend it to friends.

● They have a large social circle and often refer people to one another based on their interests.

● They are active online, using blogs, social networking sites, e-mail, discussion groups, online community boards, etc, to connect with their peers.

Identifying the influencers within your market sector, analyzing their behavior and tailoring part of your digital campaign to target this small but influential group can result in disproportionate knock-on benefits. Don’t neglect your core market, of course – but certainly consider targeting influencers as part of your overall digital marketing strategy.

Not every agency or market consultant is a specialist of everything, as for me for example Influencers is not my specialty, so I don´t mind to refer good articles from other sources.

Key traits of the online consumer.

We are all familiar with the old road-rage analogy of the congenial, neighbourly man or woman who suddenly becomes a raving speed demon when they get behind the wheel of a car. Well, there is something about the immediacy and anonymity of the digital experience that has a similar effect on people.

It’s always risky to generalize and make assumptions about people – especially in a field as dynamic and fast-moving as this one. The only real way to know your market intimately is to conduct original research within your particular target group. That said, a lot of research work has been done (and continues to be done) on the behavioural traits of online consumers, and a broad consensus has emerged around the key characteristics that epitomize the digital consumer:

1) Digital consumers are increasingly comfortable with the medium: many online consumers have been using the internet for many years at this stage – and while the user demographic is still skewed in favour of younger people, older users are becoming increasingly internet savvy. ‘It’s almost like a piano player who plays faster once they know the instrument. In the beginning people “pling, pling, pling” very carefully, and then they move on to playing symphonies,’ said web usability guru Jacob Nielsen in an interview with the BBC. As people become more comfortable with the medium they use it more efficiently and effectively, which means they don’t hang around for long: your content needs to deliver what they want, and it needs to deliver quickly. Proper use of Keywords will help them find what they are looking for as well as rank up your website in search engines.

2) They want it all, and they want it now: in the digital world, where everything happens at a million miles per hour, consumers have grown accustomed to getting their information on demand from multiple sources simultaneously. Their time is a precious commodity, so they want information in a format that they can scan for relevance before investing time in examining the detail. Designers and marketers need to accommodate this desire for ‘scanability’ and instant gratification when constructing their online offering. Think about ‘value for time’ as well as ‘value for money’.

3) They’re in control: the web is no passive medium. Users are in control more than ever before. Fail to grasp that simple fact and your target audience won’t just fail to engage with you, they will actively disengage. We need to tailor our marketing to be user centric, elective or permission based, and offer a real value proposition to the consumer in order to garner positive results.

4) They’re fickle: the transparency and immediacy of the internet doesn’t eradicate the concept of brand or vendor loyalty, but it does erode it. Building trust in a brand is still a crucial element of digital marketing, but today’s consumer has literally at their fingertips the power to compare and contrast competing brands. How does your value proposition stack up against the competition around the country and across the globe? Your brand identity may be valuable, but if your overall value proposition doesn’t stack up then you have a retention problem, you will lose them out.

5) They’re vocal: online consumers talk to each other... a lot. Through peer reviews, blogs, social networks, online forums and communities they’re telling each other about their positive online experiences... and the negative ones. From a marketing perspective this is something of a double-edged sword – harness the positive aspects and you have incredible viral potential to propagate your message; get it wrong and you could just as easily be on the receiving end of an uncomfortable online backlash.

What makes great business great?

That may be a composition of lots of things, but one thing is for sure, that is not advertising. Because if you advertise a business that is not great, people will come to your doors, and may never comeback because the experience is not good.

But in the other hand, Online marketing or digital advertising have great tools to help you improve your business, not only get more costumers, but actually help you improve your business. Part of what makes your business great is the costumer experience, and listening to your costumers is a big part of it.

Tools like the one who allowed your costumer to leave a review or suggestion to you is important to have, more important than that is to answer your costumer, given them a feedback, it shows you care about them and your business. It validates them, makes them feel heard,....

So actually listen is what makes their experience memorable, I remember when I did work in sales at a phone company, there were people who waited more time to be attended by me, we always had a good talk and as a consequence to that we also had the sale by the end of our interactions....
This are the things we learned to be a good listening practice:

1) Not talking when others are speaking
2) Letting others know you’re listening through facial expressions and verbal sounds (“Mmm-hmm”)
3) Being able to repeat what others have said, practically word-for-word

But there is more to it, in a study they analyzed data describing the behavior of 3,492 participants in a development program designed to help managers become better coaches. This is what they discovered about listening:

1) Good listening is much more than being silent while the other person talks.
2) Good listening included interactions that build a person’s self-esteem
3) Good listening was seen as a cooperative conversation.
4) Good listeners tended to make suggestions

If you want help in setting up some tools like the ones we talk in this article, feel free to book an appointment with me.

Reports

Business reports are valuable and essential tools for any enterprise regardless of size or industry. They  provide a means to track and analyze the performance and overall health of the business while identifying areas for improvement and opportunities for growth.

Business reporting promotes transparency and for many public companies, an annual report is a legal requirement to provide shareholders, the government and others with financial data and ownership information about the business. Additionally, regular reporting throughout the business year enables businesses within the same sector to measure and compare their performances against others and against itself, which is very important to set up a growth objective.

If you were hiring any kind of service, you should expect a report of how things are going specially if you hire a online advertising services, they can give you a precise report if they wish to, that is for the nature of this business, they are measure based on what we call Key Performance Indicators (KPI) and they can tell you how is the performance of the marketing that is done.

Market segmentation, Client profile or Avatar = product positioning

Now a days there are many ways you can refer to your ideal client: persona, Avatar. To arrive at this point you need to start the process of called market segmentation, them you will have niche communities, influential media personalities and fragmented attention spans tie in to the ability to segment online audiences and customise messages.

 

Picture 1 - that is the light I bring to the top of the hill

Segmentation is the process of taking a single, general audience and dividing it up according to specific groupings or characteristics. Once this is done, each group can be targeted differently depending on their needs from the brand. For example, a bank may serve a wide range of customers, but the messages it sends to segments such as young high-income earners, small-business owners and retirees will be very different – necessarily so. Digital offers a wealth of user information, the ability to target users based on these factors, and the availability of technology for creating and managing large databases. In digital marketing segmentation, customers can be reached across a wide range of communication channels depending on their preferences and needs. The focus should not be on separate channels, but on how digital channels can enable and work with the strengths of what may be considered ‘traditional’ media such as TV or billboards. Today, digital often plays the role of a bridge for customers between different marketing media, allowing them to respond to a broadcast message on TV through a social media property for instance, where they can obtain a deeper, richer and more interactive brand experience.

Once an audience segment has been created, the message sent to it can also be customised (often automatically) thanks to the availability of the necessary information and digital tools.

Now lets see the project I was working this week (or better yet an analogy that you can better understand the power of marketing done properly), It was the second phase of the project (because the first phase was a complete failure, or was it?) I did invest more than the last time and put a stronger light on the top of the hill hopping to see it when I get back home. And guess what ?? I was able to see it…

That light inside my home will be good only for me to see it, outside home, perhaps some neighbors, but on top of the mountain every one who look at that direction if they pay attention they could see it. I know only the people who like the night sky and spend time looking the stars or similar things would be able to notice it, perhaps they are exactly what I call my ideal customer. So why to advertise to everybody ?? That for sure would be much more expensive, even if I Include the cost of finding out (testing) who is my ideal client. Besides advertising to everybody would be waist of resources and will be not as effective. 

 Lets see some pictures of my project

 

Picture 2 - that is the view of the look out on top of the hill from where I live (inside Jiujiang University)

Picture 3 - Pictures taken from the same place before and after installing the light (still inside the park)

 

 Picture 4 - From back home (inside the university campus) you could see the light with a naked eye.

 

Just let me say to finish here, I spend less than two US dollars (US$2,00) on that light, and I was even able to go back there and retrieve the light on the next day, that is a pretty amazing results considering the situation. 

This is exactly what a properly online marketing campaigns can do for you and your business. Notice I did not said “advertising” , that is part of the process but not the whole thing, and when advertising is done properly under the marketing campaign, it yields much better results with lot less money.

SEO Basics course.

 However, developing a broader strategy that improves performance across a number of keywords, SEO is a digital marketing discipline that divides marketers. It is also arguably the discipline where a little knowledge really is truly dangerous, whilst a lot of knowledge is essential if you want to be able to deliver your digital strategy. This is because as soon as you have a website you are using the SEO channel whether you like it or not. If your knowledge is minimal then you might try to rank number one on a specific key term and this could cost a significant amount of money and time to achieve.

 would be far more efficient and would also reduce the risk of a penalty. Even if you have appointed a great SEO or broader digital agency you still need to ensure that you understand the fundamentals of good SEO as agencies cannot achieve success without guidance and direction from their client (despite what some may tell you).

That is why it is important that you should have some good grasp of the SEO concepts. It will help you understand what kind of service are you hiring and how it will help you, and also discuss with the one who is providing the service to you.

This course is not on Udemy anymore, but you can access it here:

Video Courses (uteach.io)

SEO Basics - Yellow Corn School (coursify.me)

One reason why so many digital marketers and business leaders are reluctant to embrace the detail of SEO is because they have the misconception that it is a very technical and complex discipline. Technical SEO considerations are very important, but they are just one area of SEO. Truly strategic SEO is in fact very closely aligned to more traditional marketing techniques. If your background is in marketing then you probably already have the skills needed to implement a great SEO strategy. It is worth noting that when we are talking about SEO we are probably talking more about Google than any other search engines sine it does have the biggest market share on searches performed. That said, many of the principles of good SEO are actually about good content, design, user experience and other marketing principles, so good SEO is likely to work for most if not all search engines. 

The final note is that when optimizing your site it is important that you do not try to learn Google’s techniques and find ways to work around them to get to position one. This is a sure-fire way to cause yourself problems in either the short or medium term. SEO should always focus on optimizing for the user, not the search engine. Ultimately this is the aim of every good search engine as well – to improve the internet experience for users. If you have the same goal then you will find that your SEO strategy will be aligned to the philosophy and therefore algorithms of the search engines and you will be able to win now and in the future.

Positioning your product / brand or testing the market ?

In this digital era, everything you can do that slightly change your results, even small percentages like 0,01% (due to the scalability of the digital environment), can provide us a very palpable results in the end. 

I was undergoing a project to actually show an analogy to what it is the difference when you position your product in the right way, the project did fail, but I still can use as an example for other areas of marketing

 Coming back to that failure project. I did took a red led put on some batteries and did take it on the lookout on top of the hill outside city limits (Jiujiang city, Jiangxi - China) . I was hopping to see the red led light when I was back home in the city during a night time. I knew it could not be seem at day time because the light was to small but I I was hopping to see at night, it turns out it was too small even to be seen at night…

 

This concept or analogy still would work, that failure did not invalidate the concept, I just not invest enough on the resources to make it work, when you position your self or the product right you can reach much more people spending lot of less resources with much better results. Marketers are supposed to know that and be able to provide a good deal for the buck you invest with them after all this what they do.

 In my opinion it would always be a good investment if you put “x” in and get out “2x”. I would repeat the process of putting “x” in as much as I can as long as I am getting “2x” out. Lets say you sell a product for $10 for a profit of $5. If you invest $1 in marketing you get 3 new clients. So if you do a proper marketing you may get 10 new clients instead of 3. Even better.

Now the question becomes how do you know you are doing proper marketing ?

Let me introduce you to a testing concept now within the digital era. To test a “copy” (selling script) is very easy and fast, you can have data to base your next move in perhaps only 24 hours, just like my experiment with the red led, few hours later I knew it did not work, so now I am planning my next move based on the result of this failure experiment, witch is not wise to call it failure because in reality it is only a part of a process of getting where you want to be. There is no way of getting there without under covering a few ways it doesn’t work by experimenting it. 

There a technique call “testing A/B” in selling funnels, it consist in establishing 2 different web pages to sell a product, as you get the results of your sells you know each one converts better, and you keep the process of trying to improve from what it is working.

If you don’t want take much of your time from your business to run such experiments, you at least should consider hiring such a service, you not only going to improve your sales but also keep all your time to dedicate to your business, while still being sure to receive a good quality marketing service. The last one here is possible because many marketers offer you such a service on a monthly basis, you pay only if you satisfied with the results.

Now let me wrap up this post. I could make this post about positioning my topic as “positioning your product” but my project to use as the analogy did not work, so I did position my topic as “testing the market” because I have learn something with this project, and if I will try again I will improve it somehow that it may work at the next time.

There is always so many good options a good marketing provider can discuss with you to improve your business, best of all you when you hire such services you can use your time to take care of your customer (your most important priority) than otherwise having to learn digital marketing.

How do you educate your prospects?

I copy this post on Linkedin from "Nathan Willard" mostly because I like this picture and he went precisely to the point...  He talks about educating your customers, and that is where social media posts comes in. If you have good website with posts and info about your product on your page, when you do the advertising your customer already is educated about your product from your pages and is more willing to pay the price you could justify in those earlier engagements, I refer this process by having a foundation before running ads...

When most of us go to buy something we usually don't know exactly what we need. We try to get informed. We may be acutely aware of the problem we're trying to solve, but sometimes we may not even understand what the real problem is. We could just feel the symptoms. We may have even convinced ourselves we need something, and it turns out that's not the solution at all. So we then find someone who we hope is going to be able to fix our problem, and we hope they take care of us.

But how will we know?

When a prospect comes to you, you need to educate them. And you need to do that in a way they'll understand. If you don't, and they can't tell why your solution is more valuable than another, they'll feel forced to shop on price. But in reality most people understand that quality products cost more. They are willing to pay more, if they can see the value. You have to show your value - that's good and ethical marketing.

Understanding customer lifetime value (CLV)

CLV is the profitability of a customer over their entire relationship with the business. Businesses need to look at long-term customer satisfaction and relationship management, rather than short-term campaigns and quick wins – this approach leads to increased value over the entire lifetime of a customer and means that CLV is a metric central to any CRM (customer relationship management) initiative.

It’s important to look at your customer base and segment them according to how often they purchase and how much they spend with your company. Very often, customers who spend more cost more to acquire, but they might also stay with the company for longer. Referrals made by a customer can also be included as part of the revenue generated by the customer.

The key is to understand these costs and then target your CRM strategies appropriately. CLV lets you decide what a particular type of customer is really worth to your business, and then lets you decide how much you are willing to spend to win or retain them.

For example, a potential customer looking to purchase a digital camera is likely to search on Google for cameras. As a company selling digital cameras, your excellent search advert and compelling offer attract the potential customer, who clicks through to your website. Impressed with your product offering, the user purchases a camera from you, and signs up to your email newsletter as part of the payment process.

Analyzing the amount spent on your search campaign against the sales attributed to the campaign will give the cost per acquisition of each sale. In this case, this is the cost of acquiring the new customer.

As the user’s now signed up to your newsletter, each month you send her compelling information about products she might be interested in. These newsletters could be focused on her obvious interest in photography, and highlight additional products she can use with her new camera. The costs associated with sending these emails are the costs of maintaining the relationship with the customer. When she purchases from you again, these costs can be measured against the repeat sales likely to be made over the course of the customer’s lifetime.

Assuming that a customer buys a new camera every three years, moves up from a basic model to a more expensive model, perhaps buys a video recorder at a certain point – all of these allow a company to calculate a lifetime value and ensure that their spending on a particular customer is justified.

What is Digital strategy anyway ?

This is perhaps best answered with another question. Can you tell in one sentence what you will be trying to achieve over the coming years? If not, then you don’t have a strategy. If you can articulate that but you don’t know how to get from where you are to your end vision, then you don’t have a strategy either.

If you have a vision and a path to get there then you have a strategy but if that is not based on research, bought into by your leadership team and with clear deliverables then your strategy will almost certainly not be a success.

If you were to Google the word ‘strategy’ you would find definitions such as ‘A plan of action designed to achieve a long-term or overall aim’ (www.oxforddictionaries.com) and ‘A method or plan chosen to bring about a desired future, such as achievement of a goal or solution to a problem’ (www.businessdictionary.com). Both of these definitions are of course true, but we need to look into the area of digital marketing and incorporate some of the following ideas on the context to a strategy that is robust, and aligned with your business

 Core areas:

● understand what is possible;

● understand your business and market context;

● understand your customer;

● understand the potential challenges you face;

● plan your strategy for optimal delivery;

● understand the possibilities within the relevant digital channels and touch points;

● measure and evolve your strategy.

Here is another article that nicely talks about 5 rules of digital strategy.

A history of digital marketing

Digital marketing first appeared as a term in the 1990s but, as mentioned above, it was a very different world then. Web 1.0 was primarily static content with very little interaction and no real communities. The first banner advertising started in 1993 and the first web crawler (called Webcrawler) was created in 1994 – this was the beginning of search engine optimization (SEO) as we know it. This may not seem a deep and distant past but when we consider that this was four years before Google launched, over 10 years before YouTube, and that social media was not even a dream at this point, it shows just how far we have come in a short time. 

Once Google started to grow at pace and Blogger was launched in 1999 the modern internet age began. Blackberry, a brand not connected with innovation any more, launched mobile e-mail and MySpace appeared. MySpace was the true beginning of social media as we define it today, but it was not as successful as it could have been from a user experience perspective and ultimately that is what led to its downfall. Google’s introduction of Adwords was their real platform for growth and remains a key revenue stream for them to this day. Their innovation, simple interface and accurate

algorithms continue to remain unchallenged (although Bing have been making some good steps forward in recent years). Cookies have been a key development and also a bone of contention over recent years with new regulation

and ongoing privacy debates. Whilst cookies have played a role in the ongoing privacy concerns of digital technology, they have also been a key development in delivering relevant content and therefore personalizing user experience.

 Web 2.0 was a term coined in 1999 by Darcy DiNucci but not really popularized until Tim O’Reilly in 2004. With Web 2.0 there was no overhaul of technology as the name might suggest, but more a shift in the way that websites are created. This allowed the web to become a social place, it was an enabler for online communities and so Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Skype and others were born. One trend that has certainly appeared in the last 10 years is an increase in buzzwords. There seems to be a new word or phrase for everything. From ‘big data’ to ‘dark social’, new terms arrive all the time. At nearly every marketing conference these days there is one speaker who is trying to socialize a new phrase they have

coined. Whilst these buzzwords can inspire us and open our eyes to new ways of thinking they rarely change the underpinning strategic planning of an effective marketing-led organization.

 As this are evolving so fast no wonder if you may feel lost between what it is the best approach to do online marketing. Let me give you a counsel. It is not a bad idea to hire professionals for this (I know I am suspect to give this kind of counsel, but hear me out), those professionals need to be on top of their game if they want to stay in business, there are many professional like me who will not make a contract, you can stay as long as you were satisfied and seeing results, that is why I do a report every month to my clients, and the best reason may be… you save your time to do what you do best, to serve your customers.

Connectivity

Writing "market-ing" instead of "marketing" suggest  that marketing is about dealing with the ever changing market ,and that to understand cutting-edge marketing, we should understand how the market has been evolving in recent years.

The clues and trends are there for us to see. A new breed of customer, the one that will be the majority in the near future, is emerging globally — young, urban, middle-class with strong mobility and connectivity. While the mature markets are dealing with an aging population, the emerging market is enjoying the demographic dividend of a younger, more productive population. They are not only young, they are also rapidly migrating to urban areas and embracing a big-city lifestyle. 

The majority of them are in the middle class or above and thus have a sizable income to spend. Moving up from a lower socio economic status, they aspire to accomplish greater goals, experience finer things, and emulate behaviors of people in higher classes. These traits make them a compelling market for marketers to pursue.

But what distinguishes this new type of customer from other markets we have seen before is their tendency to be mobile. They move around a lot, often commute, and live life at a faster pace. Everything should be instant and time-efficient. 

When they are interested in things they see on television, they search for them on their mobile devices. When they are deciding whether to buy something in-store, they research price and quality online. Being digital natives, they can make purchase decisions any where and anytime, involving a wide range of devices. Despite their internet savvy, they love to experience things physically. They value high-touch engagement when interacting with brands. They are also very social; they communicate with and trust one another. In fact, they trust their network of friends and family more than they trust corporations and brands. In short, they are highly connected.

Connectivity is arguably the most important game changer in the history of marketing. Granted, it can no longer be considered a new buzzword, but it has been changing many facets of marketing and is not showing signs of slowing down.

That is why perhaps you should consider social media marketing or branding before running some ads, you will notice that running ads after having a well engaged audience before will bring a much better result on the budget invested in advertising

Bad reviews are valuable too…

All reviews are valuable, and a mix of positive and negative reviews helps to improve consumer trust in the opinions they read. Consumers trust reviews more when they see both good and bad scores, while some suspect censorship or faked reviews when they don’t see any negative opinions on the page.

Too many bad reviews aren’t good for business. The benefits of bad reviews very much depends on the proportion of good to bad. The negative reviews make the positive ones more believable, but there is a point at which it does the opposite. If, for instance, a product page contains 20 reviews, and 3 are negative, then the other 17 look trustworthy. If that proportion changes too much, it’s a different matter.

If you want to implement Reputation management to you business....feel free to contact me

Mind your Ps (Marketing mix)

You might be asking yourself how all this new digital ‘stuff’ fits in to the traditional marketing mix: the venerable four Ps of Product, Price, Promotion and Place. Well, it breaks down something like this.

Place

Let’s start with the obvious one: it’s the internet. It’s the 2.4 billion plus people around the world who have decided it is better to be connected... whether it is accessed through a computer, a mobile device, internet protocol television (IPTV) or whatever else might come along. That’s really it.

Price

Pricing is critical online. You have to be competitive: this is the internet, and pricing is transparent. You don’t necessarily have to be the cheapest – but to compete you need to make sure your overall value proposition to the customer is compelling. Overprice your product and a host of price comparison sites will soon highlight the fact, as will the countless peer review communities where consumers actively debate the relative merits (or otherwise) of everything from financial products to wedding stationery.

Product

This is what you have to offer – your unique value proposition to your customers. A good product, of course, is the cornerstone of all successful marketing, but it is particularly crucial in the digital arena. A product that delivers tangible benefits and fills a real need in the marketplace – something that leaves the customer with a genuine perception of value – gives marketers the scope they need to do their job effectively. When you’re promoting something viable, it’s much easier to engage with consumers and to convince them to buy.

Conversely, the best marketing minds in the world will struggle to promote a product that doesn’t deliver the goods. And this is where the all-pervading, viral nature of the internet can really come back to bite you. If you promote a product online and that product doesn’t deliver, you had better be prepared for the backlash.

Digital consumers are no wallflowers – they are vociferous and well connected. They won’t keep the shortcomings of your product or business to themselves – they’ll shout about it from the tallest building in cyberspace, and others will quickly pick up the cry. Once that happens you can pretty much shelve your marketing ambitions and go back to the drawing board. So, it is important to make sure your product and the entire customer value chain associated with it is right from the start. You need a solid foundation if you’re going to build a sustainable online business, and that all starts with a sound product.

Promotion

Promotion is everything you do, online and offline, to get your product in front of your prospects, acquire new customers and retain existing ones. Examining those options will you in a better marketing position. Here we have the main elements in order to whet your appetite:

● Your website

● Search engine optimization (SEO)

● Pay per click search advertising (PPC)

● Affiliate/performance marketing and strategic partnerships

● Online public relations

● Social media

● E-mail marketing

● Mobile marketing

● Customer relationship management

● Content marketing...

● Display media

Mapping the Customer Path throughout the Five A’s

As I said in the other post "As customer trust their peers more than ever, the best source of influence is the army of customers turned advocates. Thus, the ultimate goal is to delight customers and convert them into loyal advocates.". So advocate is where the magic happens, and it will not happen for your business unless you know how to satisfy your customer needs. 

For you to understand the needs of your customers, perhaps how was his experience in your establishment you need his feedback, for the tools (reviews and reputation management) we have today in online environment that should be very easy. 

The New Customer Path

With increased mobility and connectivity, customers already have limited time to consider and evaluate brands. As the pace of life accelerates and their attention span drops, customers experience difficulty in focusing. But across multiple channels - online customers continue to be exposed to too much of everything: product features, brand promises, and sales talk. Confused by too-good-to-be-true advertising messages, customers often ignore them and instead turn to trustworthy sources of advice: their social circle of friends and family.

Companies need to realize that more touchpoints and higher volume in message do not necessarily translate into increase influence. Companies need to stand out from the crowd and meaningfully connect with customers in just a few critical touchpoints. In fact, just one moment of unexpected delight from a brand is all it takes to transform a customer into the brand´s loyal advocate.

Companies should focus their efforts to intensifying communication, strengthening channel presence, and improving customer interface - to improve those critical touchpoints as well to introduce strong differentiation.

Moreover, companies need to leverage the power of customer connectivity and advocacy. Nowadays peer-to-peer conversation among customers is the most effective form of media. Given this lack of trus, companies might no longer have direct access to target customers. As customer trust their peers more than ever, the best source of influence is the army of customers turned advocates. Thus, the ultimate goal is to delight customers and convert them into loyal advocates.

As you notice this really is a NEW WAY of how things work related to marketing and advertising, technology allows customers to become this way, the good strategy is to use the same technology to handle the proper way of influence customers and not only advertising to them. That is why when business stablish a foundation before posting ads online their results are so much better. I talk about this foundation on this video. 

 

HCM Attribute: Morality (6 of 6) - Ethics in marketing

The last Human Centric Marketing attribute is Morality. Morality is about being ethical and having strong integrity. Ethics in marketing is a serious business. A person with positive moral character has the ability to know the difference between right and wrong. Most important, they have the courage to do the right thing. Similarly, brands with strong morality are values driven. The brands ensure that appropriate ethical considerations become a key part of all business decisions. In fact, some brands put ethical business models as their core differentiation. The brand keep their promises even though customers do not keep track.

Unilever, for instance, announced in 2010 the Unilever Sustainable living plan, which aimed to double the size of the business while halving its environmental footprint by 2020. It also aimed to improve the well-being of more than 1 billion people and to enhance the livelihoods of millions of people in the process. The corporate-wide moral compass was translated into brand-level initiatives in a movement to create more humanized brands within the company.

Examples Include Knorr´s effort to fight malnutrition in Nigeria, the effort by Wall´s to create micro-entrepreneurs in India, and Omo´s campaign to save water in Brazil

Human Centric Marketing (HCM)

HCM Attribute: Phisicality (1 of 6)

HCM Attribute: Intellectuality (2 of 6)

HCM Attribute: Sociability (3 of 6).

HCM Attribute: Emotionality (4 of 6).

HCM Attribute: Personability (5 of 6).

HCM Attribute: Morality (6 of 6).

One example from myself 

Maybe everyone who is using internet may get a similar experience like me once in a while, as I am learning and working with online marketing I am always interested in courses and new technologies other people are developing and using and I end up enrolling in this program here

Morrison Education.

Getting a Education is never a bad thing, it is how you succeed in life because you acquire the necessary knowledge to make it happen. The bad thing is when you get involved in a program thinking the cost is “X” but the cost end up being “X + Y” because there are tools and other stuff you need to buy to accomplish your goal. Usually they never tell you the total cost up front, that is called up sell , now that you enroll the program and probably will not get a refund for what you have already paid, your only option is to continue is to keep buying from them…

I don’t want this happen to me when I am enrolling in any program, even if it was a good program, the problem is that this seems to be a standard business or marketing procedure… I don’t really mind to choose the less travel road, and for me this is what I called “integrity”. So I liked this educational program so far and perhaps that is something you also be interested in, so here are the total cost of the program…

You may pay the initial fee to get involved in the system, latter you will need those following tools to work in such a online environment:

Tools: (you may go and check the price of these on their website)

1)      clickfunnels (free trial)

2)       http://buildredirects.com/  account (basic $ 19,99)

3)       Get response account (free trial)

4)       Your domain - PurchaseYour.com (Around $ 20,00)

Plus the EMBASSADOR program if you choose to get involved. Embassador program is about US$ 1500,00. That will not be necessary to go on in the program but it will increase your commission enormously at the back end, meaning every time they up sell any course on their website you get to earn a commission too (the courses they up sell are the ones listed on the figure below), otherwise you only earn the first initial commission which is small compared to all the potential earning.

This is why affiliate marking like clickbank sometimes let you earn a high commission like 75% or even 90%. Because they will earn on up selling on the client you just brought in, the initial ticket is usually a small one, but when they up sell the bigger price ticket you don’t earn anything, and that is where it lies the bigger potential earning.

I think it is a great leaning opportunity here, also with great potential to make money if you don’t want do their program only for the purpose of learning. Also this post may be the true behind the scenes for you to make an informed decision. Notice that they may change the program anytime, it is not mine or me managing it.