OnlineMarketerBlog.com by DJ Francis
June 4, 2008
06:01 am | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
I released a free white paper today which answers the following questions:
- What exactly is Web 2.0?
- How should your writing style change?
- How has online interaction changed and what will this mean for the future of business?
- What is the secret new currency in this market?
This white paper is perfect for individuals or small business owners who wants to better understand the world of social media and the effect it will have on their business.
Download the white paper here: Writing Content in a Web 2.0 World
Please let me know what you think. Comments can be left on the original post found here: http://onlinemarketerblog.com/2008/06/04/writing-content-in-a-web-20-world/
Enjoy!
Recommend This If you liked this, let others know:
June 3, 2008
06:03 am | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
I find that marketers and bloggers are usually funny people and I
was thinking about all of the ways we’re just a tad different than
other folks.
So, without any delay, and in a Jeff Foxworthy-esque voice, I present: “You might be a marketing blogger if…”
- You go through life wishing you could A/B test your own
conversation. At the singles bar: “If I would have said ‘Hey babe’
instead of ‘Hello,’ could I have improved the response…”
- You can decipher this sentence: FYI - I’ll get the ROI on the KOLs before COB.
- You save all of the direct mail that comes to the house “just to see what the old guys are up to.”
- Your wife asks if this dress makes her look fat and your first
thought is “I’m gonna need some market research before I say anything.
Continue reading You Might Be A Marketing Blogger If…
Recommend This If you liked this, let others know:
May 29, 2008
06:26 am | 0 recommendations | 1 comment
You will notice a new list in the right column of my homepage entitled “WordPress Marketing Bloggers Network.” Founded by Rick from eyecube a few weeks ago, the WMBN provides a round-up of the best…well, I think you can figure it out.
OnlineMarketerBlog is honored to be among such company. As a means
of introduction, I would like to point out a few of the more
exceptional posts in recent days:
Continue reading Around The Horn: WordPress Marketing Bloggers Network (WMBN)
Recommend This If you liked this, let others know:
May 22, 2008
06:14 am | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
In this installment of the series, I will cover all of the books,
magazine, websites, and podcasts that you need to become an A-List
Blogger. These resources will give you the ammo to be the very best in
your field. (And if you think this amount of reading, watching,
researching, and learning is impossible, visit tomorrow when I will share the secrets of how to carve out at least 10 hours per week to study.)
Continue reading How To Be An A-List Blogger - Study, Study, Study (Part 4)
Recommend This If you liked this, let others know:
May 20, 2008
05:45 am | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
In this continuing series, I am covering how you can become not only
the best blogger you can be, but also how to become recognized in your
field and thus adequately compensated. The first two installments
covered tactics - commenting and optimizing for search - but in this third post, I am making it more personal.
There are traits that are uniquely ideal for blogging. I believe the most important of these traits is curiosity.
But how can something as abstract as curiosity lead to concrete
blogging results, nay success? What are the benefits of curiosity? I’ve
gathered some of the best comments on this topic and I hope it proves
enlightening. (If so, please feel free to comment below and subscribe to be notified of future posts on the subject.)
The Pain of Not Knowing
Curiosity is arguably caused by the pain - or perhaps frustration -
of a gap in knowledge. Most of us have experienced this condition in
acute or chronic form.
Continue reading How To Be an A-List Blogger - Curiosity (Part 3)
Recommend This If you liked this, let others know:
May 13, 2008
06:34 am | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
Last week, a lot of you read my guest post about the ROI (return on investment) of social media.
There is no doubt that social media is changing the ways people
interact online and hence, the way companies communicate with their
customers.
The thing that is still missing is quantifiable data about these
interactions. We’re in a theory stage - we know what’s right because we
have experienced it - but we are still waiting for proof in numbers.
Forrester Research made a giant step in the right direction when they
introduced social technographics.
Social technographics is an analysis of consumers’ approach to
social media - not just which ones they use, but understanding how they
use the medium in their daily life. You can download the full report on
Forrester Research’s website (there is a fee) or read the book on the same topic published April 21, 2008: Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff. (There is also a ton of free goodies at the Groundswell blog.)
I sat in on a webinar last week where Charlene and Josh expounded on
their work. Josh summed up the goal of this work: “Think about what you
want to accomplish, not the technology.” There is so much fascination
about what technology can do that marketers often forget the question
is what technology can do for you. The webinar came back
again and again with the message to use this data to inform a strategy
for your clients. (You can find the resulting Q&A published
post-webinar here.)
How’s It Work?
Charlene and Josh categorize web users into six sections based on
the level of their activity, from Creators to Inactives. I have not
seen a clear but simple ranking system like this before and I certainly
hope it is accepted as an industry standard. The real value, however,
comes from their detailed analysis of each category’s activity.
Continue reading Social Technographics: Forrester And The ROI Of Social Media
Recommend This If you liked this, let others know:
May 9, 2008
06:07 am | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
I was freezing my tush off a couple of weeks ago at Wrigley Field
and inquired to my good friend why he had made the unlikely (in my
mind, at least) switch from marketing to insurance. It seemed to me
that he was turned off by the manipulative and predictive nature of
old-school marketing - as though statistics and market research would
tell exactly how someone would behave.
Then, just yesterday, I read both David Oglivy’s chapter “18 Miracles of Research” in On Advertising and Hank Williams’ post Who Needs Market Research. The stars seem aligned to answer a few questions about market research, including: Why can I not rely solely on market research and how can the online channel help?
Sure, research is helpful to some extent. As Ogilvy said,
“Advertising people who ignore research are as dangerous as generals
who ignore decodes of enemy signals. (pg. 158)” But you are making a
severe mistake if you expect focus groups, polls, and testing to divine
your strategy like a Magic 8-ball.
Market research (especially customer-focused research) must be taken
with a sizable grain of proverbial salt. Here are three reasons why:
1. While I think there is some use of market research, I agree with Hank Williams’ hypothesis that content and experience are much more important. People cannot articulate an experience they’ve never had.
Focus on producing good content and a good experience - not whether
people claim that they understand how they think they will respond to a
hypothetical situation. And even if you have the product or
advertisement, do you really think people will respond the same way to
it during a focus group at the mall as they would in their own homes?
Continue reading 4 Reasons Not To Rely On Market Research Alone
Recommend This If you liked this, let others know:
May 6, 2008
06:11 am | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
I am glad to announce that my first guest blog post has debuted on THINKing, the blog of My Creative Team. You can read it here: http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/?p=703.
Many thanks to Harry Hoover for making this happen. Be sure to visit their blog and website.
And for THINKing readers who want to keep up to date with OnlineMarketerBlog, don’t forget to subscribe. Thanks for checking out the site.
PS: Some late breaking news - I just found out that I made the Junta42 list for top content marketing blogs at #51. Thanks to all my readers!
Recommend This If you liked this, let others know:
May 2, 2008
06:15 am | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
In early April, I promised to give away free enewsletter advice.
I am happy today to report back on the communication of a non-partisan,
civic participation non-profit. They asked me not to mention them by
name, so the organization will hereafter be known as “the client.” And,
this client’s enewsletter was far better than at least 90% of what I
have seen, so first, congrats to them!
With this post, it is my goal to suggest new tactics and options for
this particular client, but I hope that the advice will be useful to
your company or organization as well.
The simplest way to tackle the client’s enewsletters will be to
break it down into its separate parts. I think the content over all is
fabulous - personal, informative, and (mostly) on message. I am really
impressed by the client’s enewsletter and only have some humble
suggestions.
Would these suggestions work for your non-profit or company enewsletter too?
Continue Reading 9 eNewsletter Improvements You Cannot Forget
Recommend This If you liked this, let others know:
April 29, 2008
05:44 am | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
Is the concept of the Big Idea dead in advertising? How much has the
internet and Web 2.0 specifically altered the fundamentals of the
industry?
In his 1983 book, On Advertising, master David Ogilvy held forth on the central tenet to sell products:
“You can do homework from now until doomsday, but you will never win fame and fortune unless you also invent big ideas.
It takes a big idea to attract the attention of consumers and get them
to buy your product…Research can’t help you much, because it cannot
predict the cumulative value of an idea, and no idea is big unless it will work for thirty years” (emphasis by the author, page 16).
And yet, almost the very same day as I read this from Ogilvy, I find
myself almost stunned off the treadmill as new master Seth Godin holds
forth on the big idea in the third disk of his audio book, Meatball Sundae:
“There’s a difference between a big idea that comes from
a product or service, and a big idea that comes from the world of
advertising. The secret of big-time advertising during the 60s and 70s
was the big idea…Big ideas in advertising worked great when advertising
was in charge. With a limited amount of spectrum and a lot of hungry
consumers, the stage was set to put on a show. And the better the show,
the bigger the punchline, the more profit could be made. Today, the
advertiser’s big idea doesn’t travel very well. Instead, the idea must
be embedded into the experience of the product, itself. Once again,
what we used to think of as advertising or marketing is pushed deeper
into the organization. Yes, there are big ideas. They’re just not
advertising-based” (disk 3, minute 48).
Of course, we should probably define a “big idea.” As explained, a big idea is an advertising tool
to sell products. It stands the test of time. It originates with the
company and is distributed far and wide. It is inextricably linked to
the product and the experience of the product.
In my mind, big ideas include cut-out coupons. By-mail Sears
catalogs and mail-in rebates. Tony the Tiger and the Trix Rabbit. Toys
in cereal boxes that had kids begging Mom to pick that one! (Why cereal
innovation is on my mind this morning, I have no idea.) Shopping malls.
Radio jingles. Anything that fundamentally affected people’s decision
about whether to buy a certain product or not.
So where do I stand?
Continue reading Ogilvy vs. Godin: Is The Big Idea In Advertising Dead?
Recommend This If you liked this, let others know:
