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Right now, I’m running events for two local not-for-profits – FCI Art Show and Capital K9′s Dog Paddle. We’ve just started launching our social media programs to build awareness and generate traffic for both events. (Go become fans!!!)
The first event, the FCI Art Show and Auction is a silent auction sponsored by Food Concepts and other civic-minded local businesss. It’s free to attend and raises money for our local community non-profit, Middleton Outreach Ministry, (known as MOM.)
When setting up the FCI Art Show, I re-fell in love with EventBrite (not an affiliate link) - and now I’m super bummed that I can’t use the service for the Capital K9s Dog Paddle event. I forgot how much I love EventBrite. It’s a fabulous service for free events, and for higher-ticket events. Not only does it take your registrations, but it encourages your event attendees to tweet and status update their friends about the event. I love how easily the social media tools are integrated with the registration.
Unfortunately, Dog Paddle is in that uncomfortable middle — not free, but not expensive enough to make the automation worth it. Even showing our non-profit status, we’d have to pay 2% + 99 cents per ticket, PLUS the2.9% plus 30 cent transaction fee through Paypal. That would end up costing us $2 for every $10 . So for now, we’ll have to take Dog Paddle registrations the old fashioned pen and paper way. (You know how much I hate that.) The good news is that the event is so popular that we sell out anyway. We usually have over 1000 dogs come-and-go throughout the course of the day. (WOW!)
If you’re in the Madison / Middleton area, I encourage you to come out for these two great — but very different — events that are raising money for two great causes.
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Think back to when you graduated from high school. Didn’t you know everything? I sure did.
It seemed that with each new role, I learned how much I had to learn. I went from knowing everything to knowing just how little I really knew.
To be successful in marketing, it seems like you have to become a perpetual student, because the game of marketing is always changing. People’s preferences and tolerance for marketing is continually shifting. Plus, marketing has become increasingly technology dependent, so when there are advances in technology or you want to use a specific tool, you have to learn a whole new thing. I’ve always been curious about marketing, so being a lifelong student of marketing comes naturally to me. (I also love teaching marketing!)
Recently, I went outside of my marketing comfort zone, and spent a weekend in Phoenix learning about sales and leadership from Blair Singer. I wasn’t sure what to expect – and whatever I expected, I certainly didn’t get it. The weekend was intense, with hands-on exercises that drove the points home. I loved the interactivity, and plan to bake more of that into my own training sessions. But more than that, I really “got” what holds me back. Some of the lessons I learned that I’d like to share with you are:
Now, none of those lessons were rocket-science type of lessons. I knew them to be true at some level, but Blair’s teaching style makes you “get it” at a level that you won’t be able to easily forget, that compels you into taking action because you can’t now “un-know what you know.”
That’s always my wish for my students and my clients. Take action! Do something different. What are you learning? Are you pushing yourself out of your comfort zone? What classes/teachers do you recommend? I’d love to hear.
(By the way, a.k.a. shameless plug, if you want to learn about blogging, we just broke out the WordPress blog training as a separate class. $39.00)
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Do you ever go back and read your Facebook Status updates or your Twitter stream?
If you don’t, go do it right now….I’ll wait…..
Did you do it? What did you see?
Reviewing of your status updates is like looking yourself in the mirror. Without self-reflection, you don’t have insight as to how others are perceiving you. Even if you are mostly using social media for personal reasons, your status updates can leak over and affect your business reputation. Marketing is all about perception.
An interesting, visually appealing way to see your status updates is to use wordle. Click on the picture at right to see my Twitter Wordle. I created this by first bringing my Twitter stream into http://www.tweetstats.com, and then converting it to this visual using http://www.wordle.net. (Thanks to @unmarketing for the idea, which I got from his blog)
There are times when I don’t like what I see in my social media profiles, and I simply adjust. But there are some people that I’d bet never look back at their own updates. If they did, they’d probably change what they post. Many of these “culprits” are friends and family members who I adore, and I don’t think are “bad” — but I wonder if others who know them less well are getting the wrong impression. These are the 5 potentially damaging pattens that I see. Please let me know if you have any to add.
5 Patterns to Watch Out For
What about you? What patterns do you see that others might not notice?
As I mentioned in a prior post, search engine optimization (SEO) consists of three steps.
Let’s say you’ve done keyword research and you know that a great term for you is “hops poisoning in dogs.” How would you optimize your page to make sure that you are found for “hops poisoning in dogs?”
As you can see I actually did optimize on this term. When I first wrote the blog post, Blog. You Just Might Save a Life. I was on the first page on both Bing and Google for weeks! Search engines love fresh, juicy new content!
Since I only wrote one post about this subject, I haven’t built any back links, and my site doesn’t really have anything to do with dogs, over time my SEO star power has faded for this search term. That’s why it’s important to do all three steps — not just the on page optimization. If you need help with all three steps of SEO, I have a great team in place, ready to help. Just shoot me an email – amachina@tornadomktg.com.
Any other on page SEO tips that you’d like to share? Tell us please!
Search Engine Optimization. SEO. What is it really? Why is it sooooo hard? Why is it soooooooooo hard to find someone you can trust to help you optimize your site?
When someone types in your company name, or your main product/service and your geography, you want the search engines to serve up your site to the human being conducting the search. The only way to make that happen is to optimize your site so that the search engines can find it.
There are three main components of search engine optimization.
Keyword research is the foundation, then the on-site and off-site components must be used together to “optimize” the effectiveness of your search engine optimization efforts.
I can teach you how to do the on-site search engine optimization yourself. It’s not that hard. In fact, the next post I write, I’ll give you the crib notes to do-it-yourself on-site search engine optimization.
But getting backlinks? The off-site optimization piece takes time, know-how, discipline…and did I mention TIME, which is something all of us are short on. That’s why I outsource all my SEO projects to a trusted partner, because I know I don’t have the time and discipline to do it myself — nor do my clients.
Channel partners (VARs, ISVs, distributors) often worry about channel competition. If they outsource their SEO work to someone like me who knows the channel model intimately, won’t I just equalize everyone? Actually the answer is NO. Everyone won’t do the work to the same level. PLUS, why would you want to spend the time education someone who knows NOTHING about your industry?!
Look at Blytheco, the “800-lb. gorilla” of the Sage channel. They were early to recognize the power of search engine optimization, and they’ve been deeply focused on SEO for years and years. You might not be able to beat Blytheco for broad terms like “Sage Mas 90″, but you might be able to win more specific terms, like “Phoenix AZ Sage Mas 90 Reseller.” Because we know the industry, we can guide you to terms that might work — in a way that a SEO company off the streets never could.
PLUS, we can help you capture the leads that visit your website and convert them into paying customers. Being found online is just the first step. Then the work begins to get people to know, like and trust you!
Microsoft Convergence 2010 is right around the corner. I’m looking forward to a great trip to Atlanta — and hope to see you there!
Whether you’re showcasing your Microsoft Dynamics ISV products with a tradeshow booth at the Expo or you’re a Microsoft Dynamics VAR bringing customers, or you are a customer, independant consultant, etc., my feeling is that if you are going to spend the time and the money, you may as well do it right. You need a strategy in place!
Step One: Build Pre-Show BUZZ! Let people know you are attending and why they might want to meet with you. I see some companies doing a great job of building pre-show buzz!
Step Two: Pull Your Look Together! Make sure all your employees have current business cards (AND that they bring them along). Shine up your website. Shine your shoes while you’re at it…. Set yourself up for success. Make sure you look as good as you are!
Step Three: Be Prepared for Follow Up. Follow up is THE most important thing you can do. Don’t leave it as an after thought. Know exactly how you will follow up with the people you meet at the show. Will you send a hand-written note? Will you send follow up emails? What will your follow up offer be? You should know this NOW so that you can execute on your plan immediately while the leads are hot. Leads grow colder by the day…
P.S. If you want to meet up at Microsoft Convergence in Atlanta — either to discuss marketing or to taste test favorite beers, give me a call at 949-357-6356. See you soon!
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I want to inspire you to go into the weekend thinking about what small changes YOU can make that will make a dramatic difference in your life and in your business.
Tony Robbins is the master motivator, and this video is a good reminder that no change is too small. As he says, two millimeters can be the difference between drop-dead gorgeous and butt-ugly. We see this in marketing when we do A/B split tests, and find that one tiny wording change creates a massive difference in the results. One millimeter isn’t a lot, but it is significant.
As TonyRobbins points out, the internal shifts are more important than the external shifts. Are you willing to adjust your attitude?
What one millimeter changes are you willing to make today?