A summary of things you should know about Connect – The Secret LinkedIn Playbook according to Josh Turner: Introduction In this episode Josh Turner takes a deep dive into hisRead More
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]]>In this episode Josh Turner takes a deep dive into his book, Connect, where he shares some unique LinkedIn strategies to generate leads, build relationships, and increase sales.
In his book Turner provides a step-by-step guide that outlines simple LinkedIn activities that are designed to advance your business when it comes to building influence, finding partnerships, and business growth. The goal of the book is to show you the most effective ways to use LinkedIn, how to use LinkedIn for marketing purposes, and how to build a profile that attracts paying clients.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurs who run or plan to run a business that involves building a network of relationships and need help developing a social networking strategy on LinkedIn.
I wanted to make sure that this was not just another LinkedIn tips and tricks type of book. This book is going to stand the test of time because it’s not based on how you use a certain tool it’s based on a philosophy and a way of marketing that just so happens to leverage LinkedIn. It’s a time tested way to generate lots of leads online by building relationships.
This book can be read straight through or you can cherry-pick your way around.
If you take the time to build the relationship first then when you ask for a phone call or a meeting your response rate is going to go way up.
The book starts out with comparison to what my business looked like before and what it looks like now that I’ve designed and applied this system. This is the jumping off point for explaining the system and why it works.
One of my favorite chapters in the book is Caveman Psychology where I walk you through an evolutionary psychology and why it works. I set the stage with the things that you need to do from a psychological standpoint to position yourself properly to earn the right for someone to even agree to take a meeting with you. I walk you through a new marketing blueprint for how to put these things in place online and specifically we dive really deep into LinkedIn and into webinars. I explain how to set up the LinkedIn campaign that will achieve all of this all the way from the basics to some of the more advanced strategies. We go all the way from identifying your target prospects, to then bringing them into your funnel, to working them through processes that will generate leads.
I also dive really deep into webinars and the reason behind that is because when I look at my business, the growth that we’ve achieved, and the successes we’ve had is fueled in big part by webinars. It’s a combination of utilizing LinkedIn in this very systematic type of way but also webinars. My business generates somewhere between eight to ten thousand webinar registrations every month. I walk you through what has been successful for us so that you can determine how you can incorporate webinars not only into your business but then how to integrate them with LinkedIn campaign. This will get you in front of the right prospects and allow you to use it as a great lead generating tool. These are the two broad components of the book and within them we talk about positioning yourself as a leader and the tactical things you can do within LinkedIn to achieve that.
We talk about how to really develop relationships the right way by sharing content and the right way to put it all together so that it positions you above the fray. We talk a lot about LinkedIn group strategies and how you can leverage a group to generate a ton of leads. We talk about how to track all of this activity because when you have thousands of prospects that you’re working through these processes within LinkedIn you have to have a very organized structure for keeping tabs on it.
Finally, the chapter that you might get equal value from is a chapter on what to do once you are face to face or on the phone. I break down six types of sales calls that you will encounter as a result of utilizing the process. I give you scripts as well as the general framework for how to conduct those calls to position yourself in the best light and stay classy but at the same time have a productive sale call.
The end stage is getting people all the way through the funnel of this system and getting them to the point where they agree to a phone call or meeting so that you can really talk business.
NOTE: That was just a summary. To get the full deep dive, play the audio clip at 08:11
“When a copier sales person cold calls a purchasing manager whom he has never met is it any surprise that the purchasing manager will most likely never return that call?” – Josh Turner
I started using LinkedIn for business development way back in 2006 and at the time I was a CFO of a construction and manufacturing company in St. Louis. Unfortunately that company was hit hard by the down turn in the economy and it was forced to shut its door’s which was when I decided to go work for myself. I first started working as a freelance CFO and one of the ways I was able to grow the business was leveraging LinkedIn, not only the network I had built for myself prior but doing more things proactively. Fast forward to 2011 I had a couple of clients that I was helping in finance ask me about the different strategies I was using with LinkedIn. After trying to explain these strategies we realized it would just be easier if I did the work for them and that was when I built Linked Selling . Now we have a team of 14 with clients all over the world in all sorts of industries and we’ve had a lot of fun along the way.
This book is the playbook that my company has used to triple our revenue every year for the last three years and the book that we’ve used to generate millions of additional revenue for our private clients. I figured there were a lot of other businesses out there that would want to get their hands on this. The inspiration was that when I first started working for myself in 2010 I was frustrated and getting very little out of networking because most of the people weren’t my prospects. This book and the systems that I walk you through are the systems that I designed in response to that. I figured out how to use LinkedIn to keep my name in front of thousands of targeted prospects and then leverage a relationship building a process that works the reader through a set of messages that culminates in a request for a meeting or phone call. It’s taken us a few years to perfect the system but now we are there and I am super excited to get this message out to those who it will make a big difference for.
Ask by Ryan Levesque
Buy Connect by Josh Turner on Amazon today
Visit TheConnectBook.com to learn more about the book and get the special offer
Visit LinkedSelling.com to learn more about Josh’s services
Visit LinkedUniversity.com for more exclusive content from Josh and his team
Follow Josh Turner on Facebook and Twitter
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books:
A World Gone Social by Ted Coine and Mark Babbitt
Escape The Expected by Tom Trush
Unselling by Scott Stratten
What did you like and not like about this episode? Fill out this one minute survey here.
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]]>A summary of things you should know about Mindsharing according to Lior Zoref: Introduction In this episode Lior Zoref takes a deep dive into his book, Mindsharing, where he showsRead More
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]]>In this episode Lior Zoref takes a deep dive into his book, Mindsharing, where he shows you how to master the art of crowdsourcing everything.
In his book Zoref offers several practical tools for unleashing powerful creativity that you can get from a large crowd as well as success stories of several people who succeeded by using crowdsourcing. The goal of the book is to help you use social media to learn things faster, build stronger relationships with people online, and understand the intricacies of the digital age today.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurs who are unfamiliar with social media and want to know more about interacting with their friends, followers and influencers.
To my knowledge there isn’t any book that explores what is happening in this era other than my book. My book is tapping into this specific area on how crowd sourcing and social networks can help us solve problems and think better.
I recommend reading the introduction because it will give you a great overview about what to expect from the book. The book is divided into four parts and I think that each part is one that you can jump in and out of.
I would say that We are stronger than Me. When you think with a big crowd it’s basically as if you are upgrading your brain. There is another way in order to solve big problems and it is by going to big crowds and asking questions.
I start by telling you how crowdsourcing can help anyone in their career from startup to big organizations and in the first part I give many examples/stories of this.
Then there is a part about how we can use crowdsourcing in our personal lives. In this part I tell you a story about a startup called CrowdMed who is using crowdsourcing to solve medical mysteries.
There is another chapter where I talk about the How To which is basically going to places where there are big crowds of people and asking questions.
The last part is my favorite part and it’s about making dreams come true. For me it all started a few years ago when I started my PhD. I told a friend of mine that maybe one day I would present my research on the TED stage and my friend told me I had a better chance at winning the lottery. When my Facebook friends heard that they decided they would help me make this dream come true and so we did. And then I tell other stories of how inspiring people used crowdsourcing to make their dreams come true also.
NOTE: That was just a summary. To get the full deep dive, play the audio clip at 08:45
“Great minds think alike but clever minds think together.” – Unknown
I am 44 years old, married with three kids. I was obsessed with technology early in age and became a computer scientist and studied computer programming. From there I worked for Microsoft for 14 years. Right before turning 40 I hit my midlife crisis and I decided to retire from Microsoft and started on my journey to get my PhD. In the last few years I have been consulting to brands and startups that are using crowdsourcing as a strategic tool to innovate.
The inspiration is a story I heard a few years ago about Debra who lives in New York and at that time her four year old son Leo had fever. So Debra went to the doctor and told her it’s probably strep but after leaving the doctor she had a bad feeling about it so she took a picture of her sons face and posted it on Facebook. She began to get a lot of messages that said her son might have a very rare illness that could kill him. Immediately she took her son to the hospital to check to see if he had that illness. After checking they concluded that it was in fact the disease, started treatment immediately and were able to save his life. After hearing this story I did my research and wrote the book about the power of big crowds.
The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki
The Art of Asking by Amanda Palmer
Buy Mindsharing by Lior Zoref on Amazon today
Visit Mindsharing.info to learn more about Lior and his book
Follow Lior Zoref on Facebook and Twitter
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books:
A World Gone Social by Ted Coine and Mark Babbit
The Art of Social Media by Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick
Digital Bacon by Alex Rodriguez
What did you like and not like about this episode? Fill out this one minute survey here.
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]]>A summary of things you should know about YouthNation according to Matt Britton: Introduction In this episode Matt Britton gives an in-depth preview of his book, YouthNation, where he showsRead More
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]]>In this episode Matt Britton gives an in-depth preview of his book, YouthNation, where he shows what it takes to stay connected, agile, authentic, and relevant in today’s marketplace.
In his book Britton provides an effective marketing plan with practical advice and strategies for keeping your business brand relevant to the new economy of youth-driven cultures. The goal of the book is to teach you how to use psychographics to target younger markets, craft a brand story that will attract new target markets, build highly engaging online communities, and stay ahead of the competition.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurs who run a business that deserves the attention of millennials, but are having difficulty marketing, hiring, and communicating with the younger generation.
I think that I’ve had a very unique experience in spending a lot of time in the board rooms of major corporate marketers and because of that I’ve been able to understand their challenges and needs. I’ve also spent a whole lot of time on college campuses, nightclubs, and places where this culture is really being built, and so I think the experiences I’ve had within being on both sides really has led to an invaluable resource.
I think every chapter provides a unique set of value in its own way and so the reader can go in and look at individual chapters and be able to get an understanding of the key principles. The front half of the book is written about the cultural changes that are being driven by millennials and the back half of the book talks about the marketing and advertising implications to that. So I think the reader can just look at the front part or back part depending on where they are looking to gain the most insights.
I would want it to be that anybody who wants to succeed in business right now really needs to fully understand and embrace youth culture to do so. They need to understand that young people are changing the world and the decisions and lifestyle habits are the ones that are disrupting every industry. And in order for them to succeed they need to understand what’s going on with young people and stop ignoring it.
There is massive change going on now in the business landscape and it’s being driven by cultural changes in our population. Right now the big changes are being made not by decisions made in the boardrooms but by movements that are happening on the sidewalks by young, empowered millennials that are leveraging technology and social media to really change the world. These disruptions are causing changes in all corners of our economy and business world and I’ve broken them down to different principles which need to be understood by businesses and understood by marketers in order for them to succeed.
The first major changes that I’ve written about in the book I call from status symbol to status update and that’s basically talking about how millennials and the driving consumer is much more consumed than obsessed with experiences verses the possession and material items. So retailers and providers of goods really need to change the way they come to market and not so much focus on unique selling proposition of their products but of the experiences and stories that can be told from the consumption of their products and services.
I talk about changes in music and popular culture and the huge explosion of outdoor festivals driven by popularity in electronic dance music and how electronic dance music is a massive trend that’s not going away anytime soon and how brands can jump on it.
I talk about since the shift is moving away from the consumption of physical items to the consumption of experiences; young consumers are now focusing on the access of good verses the ownership of good. So it’s the rental or sharing economy and what does that mean and what companies have really thrived by creating marketplaces for the items instead of just traditional retail models.
I also talk about microeconomic changes that are being driven by millennials such as them not wanting to move to the suburbs and instead staying in major cities and the implications for them staying in the cities in terms of them being about to transact with one another. I talk about careers and the evolutions of careers and what millennials want from them.
I talk about the power of the crowd and how the crowd is an invaluable resource for companies that want to source best in class thinking and wisdom.
Lastly I talk about what all these changes mean to the future of marketing and advertising. I stay with television and how the television model with the adoption of all these new technologies is starting to become broken and how companies that have relied on the age old television model really need to reinvent themselves.
I talk about some of the new ways, since we can’t rely on television as much anymore, to reach consumers such as the creation of content and the value of storytelling. I talk about how brands can use data, the social and interest graph, and social media data to be able to actively target consumers.
Lastly I talk about the importance of people needing to be brands and personifying their brands.
My book is really a holistic view of all these changes that are going on and what I found in talking all over the world is that there is such a disconnect. Things that are sort of household names and household habits of millennials who are changing the world are still so out of reach and largely misunderstood by business decision makers and I am hoping this book provides a great resource to tie it all together.
NOTE: That was just a summary. To get the full deep dive, play the audio clip at 04:18
“Experience is the new currency” – Matt Britton
I am the founder and CEO of MRY which is an advertising agency focusing on digital and social technology to really help brands break through and be remarkable with their consumer.
I work with a lot of major corporate marketers and what I found over and over again with big brands is that there seems to be a major disconnect behind their knowledge of the marketplace as they exist today and really what’s going on in terms of the disruption and change that’s already being driven by youth. For me the book is really meant to be a roadmap for marketers and business decision makers to understand how to navigate the complex changes that are brought about by these youths driving the economy to ensure they are not left in the dust.
Permission Marketing by Seth Godin
Buy YouthNation by Matt Britton on Amazon today
Visit YouthNation.net to learn more about Matt and his book
Follow Matt Britton on Facebook and Twitter
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books:
The New Entrepreneuz by Ronen Gafni and Simch Gluck
What’s Next by Michael Price
A World Gone Social by Ted Coine and Mark Babbitt
What did you like and not like about this episode? Fill out this one minute survey here.
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]]>When starting any sort of new business venture, social media marketing and online promotion have become two of the most important ways for an entrepreneur to get their products outRead More
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]]>When starting any sort of new business venture, social media marketing and online promotion have become two of the most important ways for an entrepreneur to get their products out to consumers.
While social media is free (for the most part) and easy to use, it is also easy to make mistakes. Getting distracted by all of the bells and whistles that come with social media can keep a budding startup business from true success.
“Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make, but about the stories you tell.” – Seth Godin (Highlight to Share)
There are a variety of social media mistakes that entrepreneurs make when it comes to marketing their business online. Using social media platforms to communicate is a great format, but only when done properly. We’ve interviewed many authors on social media marketing and I compiled a list of the common social media mistakes most entrepreneurs make so you know what to avoid.
Perhaps you were extremely accomplished in your previous ventures or maybe you have a very strong pedigree. There is nothing wrong with being proud of the accomplishments of your past, but most of your social media followers will not care to hear about them on a daily basis. When you share too much about your past achievements, it is a huge turn off to those who do not already know your work.
Just like anything else in life, talking about your past achievements is best done in moderation. There are instances where your past experiences will come in handy and when they are germane to the discussion, there is nothing wrong with bringing them up.
However, social media users are savvier than ever. They will see through any attempts to call attention to yourself by being boastful and may decide not to use your products or services because of your arrogant social media presence. Even worse, this affects your company’s word of mouth in a negative manner.
Social media is great, because it gives potential consumers a chance to get to know you on a more personal level. This can be a bad thing if you are a person who allows themselves to get swept up in negativity. We all have bad days and personal beefs, but social media is no place to air your sour grapes or complain about the hard times in your life.
Consumers use social media as a means for escaping the drudgery of day to day living, so the last thing they want to be confronted with are the harsh realities of your life. Airing your personal frustrations about the problems that you are having with other people or whining about how hard you life is will lose you social media followers and create bad word of mouth.
Put yourself in the shoes of the consumer. Would you want to buy a product from someone who used their social media profile as a place to vent and complain? The answer is usually no in most instances. Before you fire off your negative social media post, take a moment to consider what your customer base will think of it.
Social media is a great outlet to speak intelligently, but it is even more important for you to use it as a place to listen. By using social media to garner consumer feedback, you have the opportunity to collect information that is specifically designed to help you. If a consumer has a complaint, you can rectify it immediately and ensure that you do not lose their business.
You can also use social media to engage with customers on a more personal level, getting to know them better. While it is great to let consumers learn more about you, learning more about them allows them to feel more valued. Speaking to them about matters more important than your latest sales and promotions is pivotal.
The plethora of tools and usages that social media provides for its users can be overwhelming, causing an entrepreneur to lose sight of the ones that are most important. Social media comes equipped with analytic tools that are geared towards measuring the impact of your social media marketing push.
These tools often come free or can be purchased at exceedingly reasonable prices. The tools will show you which of your posts have become most popular and let you know if any of your materials have shown the ability to go viral.
Posts can also be scheduled when you are too busy to get to a computer or smartphone. With so many options available to you, an entrepreneur would be a fool not to at least explore some of them. No matter what goal you are trying to accomplish, there is an analytic tool designed to help.
One of the best parts of social media is its ability to offer you a means of promoting several different products at once. An entrepreneur can easily leverage social media’s reach to gain as many new customers as possible. There are so many possibilities and there are a million thoughts that are probably crossing your mind about how to pursue them. Enhancing your business prospects comes first and foremost.
Be careful about getting caught up in the madness of trying to promote several different products and services at once. Over promotion can fatigue the audience and cause them to pass by your posts when they are using social media. Training your focus on just one venture allows the audience to get to know the product better. It also decreases the the number of distractions.
As a business mentor for MentorMojo, virality expert Emerson Spartz gives some more effective social media marketing tips in detail here:
The Art of Social Media by Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick
Digital Bacon by Alex Rodriguez
Trendology by Chris Kerns
Do It! Marketing by David Newman
A World Gone Social by Ted Coine and Mark Babbitt
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]]>A summary of things you should know about The Art of Social Media according to Guy Kawasaki: Introduction In this episode Guy Kawasaki reveals all his insights on his andRead More
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]]>In this episode Guy Kawasaki reveals all his insights on his and Peg Fitzpatrick’s book, The Art of Social Media, where he shares over 100 practical tips and tricks on the most popular social media platforms.
In their book Kawasaki and Fitzpatrick give you an actionable marketing strategy that guides you through steps to build your foundation, amass your digital assets, optimize your profile, attract more followers, and effectively integrate social media and blogging. The goal of the book is to help you improve your online presence and dramatically increase your social media traffic.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurs who are trying to improve their social media marketing efforts to increase brand awareness, build credibility online, and network with other experts.
Many of the other books on social media are at like a 50,000 foot view. They are written with very obvious advice and my book is not at the 50,000 foot level, it’s more at the 1,000 foot level.
In a perfect world I think someone could read through this book in maybe 90 minutes.
I want the read to find that social media is not as big of mystery as you might think. Social media is blocking, tackling, and experimenting and don’t be afraid of making mistakes because everybody makes them.
This book is an extremely tactical practical book to help you start, understand, and get you on the path to mastering social media as a marketing tool. It’s not a book about how to make more friends; it’s not about how to update your college buddies and family about your life. This is a book that is meant for a business person to use social media as a platform.
NOTE: That was just a summary. To get the full deep dive, play the audio clip at 07:43
What you want to do is you want to position yourself with someone who is trustworthy, likeable, and competent. And the way you do this is not by constantly pimping yourself but by providing value.
I am currently the Chief Evangelist of an online graphics tool company called Canva. Prior to this I advised the CEO of Motorola for a year, I was also the Evangelist and Chief Evangelist of Apple. I’ve started several companies and I’m a writer and a speaker, I’ve written 13 books.
My main inspiration was royalty. Basically I wanted to enable people to use social media as a fantastic marketing tool.
If You Want to Write by Brenda Ueland
Buy The Art of Social Media by Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick on Amazon today
Visit ArtOf.Social to learn more about the book
Visit GuyKawasaki.com to learn more about Guy and his other books
Follow Guy Kawasaki on Facebook and Twitter
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books:
A World Gone Social by Ted Coine and Mark Babbitt
Digital Bacon by Alex Rodriguez
Trendology by Chris Kerns
Relevant advice and tips:
5 Reasons Why Your Marketing Sucks
5 Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make With Marketing and Branding
What did you like and not like about this episode? Fill out this one minute survey here.
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]]>A summary of things you should know about Profit Hacking according to Steven Daar: Introduction In this episode Steven Daar shares his book, Profit Hacking, where he gives online entrepreneursRead More
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]]>In this episode Steven Daar shares his book, Profit Hacking, where he gives online entrepreneurs a 3 step formula for marketing and growing a business.
In his book Daar shows you exactly how to hack and scale each of the 3 steps showing you the leverage points hidden in your business and the fastest way to double your monthly profits. The goal of the book is to teach you how to significantly increase traffic, grow your business on a massive level, maximize every marketing activity you do, and stop wasting your time on ineffective business strategies.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurs who currently own an online business that is struggling to see a consistent increase in digital traffic, conversion rates, and profit.
I believe this book is almost like a piece of art. The designs that helped with the book did an incredible job. This book is also very focused on action and gives very clear bite size action steps for people to do.
Ideally this book is one that you can refer back to over and over to continue to get value from and grow your business from the principles I give in the book.
It would be that traffic conversion and economics are all extremely important and they all need attention but a lot of people outweigh the percentage of their time and resources to getting traffic. Even if you just take 20% of your time of your traffic generating activities and give it to working on A/B testing or conversion optimization as well as figuring out how else to serve or further monetize or give value to your customers you will do your business so many favors.
The subtitle of the book is the entrepreneur’s three part formula for maximizing success and that three part formula is traffic, conversion, and economics.
The very first part of the book is about trying to change the mindset of the reader. What I see a lot of times with entrepreneurs is they creating their website for their business and website is just one big assumption. So everything from the layout, the design, colors, copies, and the images. They are all just guesses as to what is the most effective thing to show to the visitor that will get them to want to engage further. People build their website and think that now they need to drive traffic to it. Driving traffic to a website that you never continue to work on, test or improve to make it more effective at converting visitors, you’re not going to get the full return on investment of the time and/or money that you spent trying to bring traffic to that site. The thing is trying to convince people that they often don’t have a traffic problem but the truth is if you were really good at conversion and economics then traffic would almost never be a problem. A huge lesson of the book is that traffic becomes a lot easier every time you increase your conversions and every time you get stronger at your economics. The two things that increase your revenue per visitor are increasing your conversion rate and increasing the average order value or average customer value. Getting more traffic will never increase that side of your equation or increase your revenue but once you are break even or profitable then traffic is just gasoline that you want to put into the engine of your business.
“Books don’t work, people do.” – Steven Daar
I was basically born and bred entrepreneur and I started my first business really soon after college. I had the passion, drive, and good ideas but I didn’t know that much about marketing and sales. It came clear soon after that if I was going to make this original business successful I would have to learn how to reach the people that I wanted to talk to and speak to them effectively. I got really deep into learning how to do those things specifically on the internet and eventually that lead to me writing Profit Hacking.
The inspiration behind writing this book was it was the book that I wished I had five and a half years ago when I started my first business. If I had this book it would have saved me a lot of time, frustration, and lost money. A big part of the mission and purpose of the book is to inspire more entrepreneurs to not only learn how to drive more traffic, convert it and monetize it so that they are more profitable, but also how to leverage that into more good done for the world.
Choose Yourself by James Altucher
Buy Profit Hacking by Steven Daar on Amazon today
Visit ProfitHacking.com to learn more about Steven and his book
Visit ConversionForGood.com to learn more about Steven’s conversion optimization
Follow Steven Daar on Twitter and Facebook
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books:
Digital Bacon by Alex Rodriguez
The Suitcase Entrepreneur by Natalie Sisson
A World Gone Social by Ted Coine and Mark Babbitt
Relevant advice and tips:
5 Simple Ways Entrepreneurs Can Attract Customers
5 Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make With Marketing and Branding
What did you like and not like about this episode? Fill out this one minute survey here.
The post A Preview of Profit Hacking with Steven Daar appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>A summary of things you should know about Trendology according to Chris Kerns: Introduction In this episode Chris Kerns takes a deep dive into his book, Trendology where he sharesRead More
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]]>In this episode Chris Kerns takes a deep dive into his book, Trendology where he shares the latest technologies that will amplify your marketing efforts tremendously.
In his book, Kerns gives you an action plan for developing real-time marketing to engage your audience on topics that are trending in the media by using his data-driven approach. The goal of the book is to teach you how to measure the performance of your social strategy, leverage new trends on a daily basis, build a data-driven team and avoid the marketing strategies that don’t work.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurs who have a marketing plan in place or are developing one that includes the use of social media and other digital marketing platforms.
There are a few books behind real time marketing but this is the first book that looks at the data behind it. It’s about the performance which to me means it’s about the audience and if they want brands to be doing this. And the data is telling you that absolutely they do, they respond in huge ways. They share that content more, they reply to it more, and they engage in conversations with brands.
There are two main parts of the book if you divide it in half. The first half is looking at lots of different types of events and understanding how brands are using Twitter during big and small events. The second half of the book is more around how to bring this into your framework, how to build a team, set goals and how to build a data driven process. And also lots of interviews with industry leaders about where this whole real time thing is headed.
The biggest takeaway that I have seen in all sorts of different forms of what we call real time marketing is that it’s not a winner take all. And that the distribution of success is massive. It’s rarer for you to fail at real time marketing than it is for you to succeed at it.
I begin the book with one of the most popular stories out there about real time marketing and that’s the story about Arby’s and the social media manager there name Josh Martin. This was one of the most successful examples of real time marketing which looked like something that somebody did off the cuff but the whole point of this being the intro to the book is that there is actually a lot of planning and process involved. To be spontaneous in social media sometimes it takes a lot of planning. Then I jump in and I talk about real-time marketing and then I walk through some of the current climate around it.
From there I jump on over into real time. I kick off real time with the thing that most people know about which is big events like the Super bowl, the Emmys and the Golden Globes. Brands have war rooms set up so that when a micro moment happens within that event they create quick content around that. So what I look at is not only how many brands are doing that but how effective is it and what’s the result of brands doing that. And what I found is that it works really well and the audience really likes it.
In the next chapter I take a turn from the big events to the smaller events. This takes two forms; one is smaller events like holidays that you know are coming. When brands are doing social media around those and being relevant to their audience based on that smaller event. And then there are all these quirky little holidays that tons of brands are jumping in on these days. One is called May the 4th which is Star Wars day. I saw a ton of brands jump in on that this year and got a great reaction from the audience. Not only do we look at our brands using this type of content to talk to their audience but also how effective it is. And then I also look at daily trending topics that pop up out of nowhere and brands jumping on those. These are things you can’t see coming at all but they can still give your brand a big lift in your social engagement numbers.
After I walk through all the different times of real time marketing I then pivot the book over to understanding how to build out a team and a process around it. I kick off with how to build a data driven foundation for being more nimble in your organization. I show you the processes you have to have in place and the groundwork as well.
In the next chapter I talk about goals. Social media goals have always been a hot topic around how to set goals and how to revise your goals as you are going. The overall finding that I had around goals is pretty similar to what I’ve always preached with social media which is you should be creating new goals when you’re doing real time. If you are running a business everything you do should be supporting the goals that you have already in place.
In the next chapter I talk about the process. Real time marketing, because it is so quick turn, there can be a lot of confusion and mistakes made if you don’t have the right team, process, and technology in place. I step through all those different ways to make sure that you are managing risk while you’re jumping on the opportunity of real time.
In the final chapter is when I bring in the thought leaders from across the industry that are not only doing real time but are seeing the future of real time.
I am the director of analytics and research at Spredfast in Austin, Texas. We are one of the biggest social marketing platforms out there. We work with large enterprise clients to do everything around social media that they are looking to do. Everything from one on one conversations all the way through finding content that’s out there and amplifying current conversations about a brand. My job every day is around the data behind social media.
Trendology is all about real time marketing but more importantly it’s about how brands are looking at trends and leveraging them on social media. There was a lot of conversation about it which was interesting because I work in social media. But based on my background and what I do the interesting thing to me was that there was no data about it. No one was really look at the performance or asked if it actually worked. That is when I started pulling data and that was the inspiration behind the book. The book looks at the 100 biggest brands in the world and how they work in social media and then jumps into their use of real time and trending topics.
The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Buy Trendology by Chris Kerns on Amazon today
Visit TrendologyBook.com to learn more about Chris’s book
Visit Chris-Kerns.com to learn more about Chris
Visit Spredfast.com to learn more about his marketing automation system and company
Follow Chris Kerns on Twitter and Facebook
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books: Digital Bacon by Alex Rodrigues | A World Gone Social by Ted Coine and Mark Babbitt | Guerrilla Marketing in 30 Days by Jay Levinson and Al Lautenslager
Relevant advice and tips: 5 Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make With Marketing and Branding | 5 Reasons Why Your Marketing Sucks
What did you like and not like about this episode? Fill out this one minute survey here.
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]]>5 Reasons Why Your Marketing Sucks Marketing a business isn’t everybody’s cup of tea; and even if you are great at other things, it is quite possible that you areRead More
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]]>5 Reasons Why Your Marketing Sucks
Marketing a business isn’t everybody’s cup of tea; and even if you are great at other things, it is quite possible that you are doing it all wrong when it comes to marketing. And that could mean the end of the road in a few years time.
If your business, albeit being a potential success, isn’t quite hitting the mark, you need to find out whether your marketing sucks! How do you differentiate between a marketing plan that works and one that doesn’t? It’s simple – just take a look at the points below.
Reason 1 – No plan: Where is your marketing heading towards? Which marketing steps work and which don’t? What do you do to replace the ones that don’t? If you don’t have a proper plan, you won’t have answers to any of these questions.
A marketing plan needs to work to achieve a set of goals, have ample research at its back, identify and use the strategies that work, have means to measure the results, and add and alter as and when necessary. Do you have such a plan?
Reason 2 – No budget: You need to determine how much you want to spend on your marketing even before you take the first step. Don’t treat it as a series of requirements – it will only lead to waste of money.
And don’t opt for the cheapest option – usually you get what you pay for. So, even if you don’t need to pay your nephew to design your business logo, its best to get a professional to do it. Remember, it’s not just a logo; it is the first step in your brand building efforts.
Reason 3 – No cohesion: A black and white logo and a multicolored website or an edgy website and a tacky business card – exactly what impression are you trying to convey? Every element in your marketing plan needs to work together to create a uniform whole.
Disparity in fonts, colors, style and any such element can confuse your target market. What image do you wish for your business – corporate, edgy, contemporary, or something else? Make sure every piece of marketing reflects this core concept.
Reason 4 – No social media: If you aren’t on any social media platform, you are losing out. Your target base is out there. And so is your competition. Failing to mix new age marketing methods using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and so on is sure to lead to loss.
Create a Facebook business page, a Twitter account, a LinkedIn profile, claim your Google+ page, and do whatever it takes. Make sure you update to them regularly. And remember, while Pinterest may work for a jewelry lineup, YouTube works better for a tech service.
Reason 5 – No metrics: Yes, you may think that your marketing efforts are paying off, but unless you are capable of measuring it, how do you know it for sure? Also, you have no idea which of your strategies work and which don’t.
Analyze and evaluate every step to make sure it is of any advantage. Do A/B testing to identify marketing efforts that do well and the ones that don’t. Use the metrics tools available to determine whether your efforts are paying off.
It is easy to sit back and be smug about how good you are at marketing. But it won’t be so easy once you are aware of why it sucks. But don’t despair; rectifying a mistake becomes easier when you have identified it. Take your time, and get your marketing back on track.
Guerrilla Marketing in 30 Days by Jay Levinson and Al Lautenslager | Listen to Al give a deep dive here
Traction: A Startup Guide to Getting Customers by Justin Mares | Listen to Justin give a deep dive here
A World Gone Social by Ted Coine and Mark Babbitt | Listen to Mark give a deep dive here
Moving Targets by Gabriel Aluisy | Listen to Gabriel give a deep dive here
Digital Bacon by Alex Rodriguez | Listen to Alex give a deep dive here
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]]>A summary of things you should know about Digital Bacon according to Alex Rodriguez Introduction In this episode Alex Rodriguez takes a deep dive into his book, Digital Bacon, whereRead More
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]]>A summary of things you should know about Digital Bacon according to Alex Rodriguez
In this episode Alex Rodriguez takes a deep dive into his book, Digital Bacon, where he shares his proven tactics and methodologies to promoting a business effectively online.
In his book Rodriguez provides you with a step-by-step campaign for increasing your online traffic, improving your social awareness, and measuring your results. The goal of his book is to make your online presence more engaging and attractive to your audience.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurs who are having difficulties promoting a business online and need an all-in-one, easy-to-follow digital marketing strategy.
I didn’t see a book out there that talks about a campaign from beginning to end.
You can definitely read the table of contents and figure out exactly where you need to start. However, I did write the book in the context of a campaign development process so it is important to start at the beginning to at least understand what exactly I am talking about when I say campaign framework. BACON is an acronym for the five essential components of an irresistibly attractive online presence.
The main concept in this book that I am putting forward in the book is to challenge anyone that is working on their online presence to think about it in the terms of a campaign. You need to make sure that it’s researchable, strategic, creative and properly distributed and measurable. If you are lacking on any of those five concepts then I would suggest you step back and really look at how you can incorporate one of these concepts in to your campaign for maximum effect.
The objective of this book is how to make your online presence attractive. The title Bacon represents a metaphor for what is attractive to us and it’s also an acronym for the five essential components of a digital marketing strategy. I have looked through hundreds and hundreds of campaigns online and separated the ones that work from the ones that don’t work. And looking at the ones that work I have recognized that all of them have the same five components. With each essential component I match it up with an essential process to acquire this component for your campaign.
The B in Bacon stands for Based On Reality. Based on reality we are suggesting you deploy a discovery phase and I teach you how to build a successful discover phase. This includes discovering your current site and social media presence. After that I look at what you offer and take a look at it from a very fresh perspective. I ask very challenging questions to make you think very deeply about what exactly you offer. Then we talk about purchase drivers and I have a whole list about them which is much more than just driving down your cost. Purchase driving is things that really pull the trigger and allow you to sell online. From there we talk about key word research and I teach you how to build that research. Then we look at how to build an audience profile and after you do that you will need to build a persona. With all this research I ask you to narrow it down in to 10 big lessons; the 10 big things that you learned out of the discovery phase.
The A in Bacon stands for Aimed Towards Results. Effective online efforts are based on measurable goals and every initiative is informed by a plan customized to its business needs. In this quality I recommend you go in to a strategy phase. Not every business out there thinks strategically about their online presence but I challenge you and show you how to do it. In this chapter I show you how to select a primary KPI which means key performance indicator. I am not talking about business KPI or accounting KPIs but specifically about digital KPIs and I give you a list of KPIs that you can choose and aim towards for your digital campaign. Then we talk about potential competitive exploits and I show you about seven different things that your competitor might be lacking that you might be able to exploit to get an edge up on them. I talk about the difference of strategic schemes, tactics and strategies and I tell you how to differentiate and incorporate them in to your campaign.
The C in Bacon stands for Creatively Developed. The phase that corresponded to creatively developed is the production phase. In this chapter I talk about the value of creative excellence that is still very relevant today. I talk about mind mapping, bulleting and creative processes. Then I talk about three mind hacks that have helped me personally. I go in to production timelines and how to produce your assets.
The O in Bacon stands for Organized In Propagation. The reason these successful campaigns are found is because they distribute their offer correctly on the web. Here I talk about earned channels verses owned and paid channels. I talk about the difference between those channels and how to utilize them best for your campaign. We talk about distribution framework, how to choose which best works for you and how to deploy them. I have a chapter which is based on the ultimate website pre-launch checklist which is a two and a half checklist for you to apply or hand to your web developer before you launch any web presence online. I also have a formula on how much you should bid for paper click ads if you chose to go that route.
The N in Bacon stands for Numerically Measured. These campaigns never measure results in the form of vague adjectives but rather as numbers. They rely on objective measurements to know whether their efforts are moving their business forward or not. This is paired with the phase I call the analysis phase and this is where we go back and check these metrics and make sure that our campaign is on track. I have a section here on revealing your KPI’s you established back in the strategy phase. I also give a couple of testing methods that you can apply in order to measure your online presence and make sure that it’s hitting on point.
Finally, at the end of the book I have two pages that include downloadable resources and links to tools that I mention throughout the book.
“Many of us are so engrossed in to our respective businesses that we forget a key fact. What we think we sell is irrelevant. The way you dreamed up your product or service, the years you put in to it, the passion you have for it, the amazing team behind it, it is all irrelevant unless your offer satisfies a functional need for someone else.” – Alex Rodriguez
I develop high-end digital marketing campaigns for companies that are looking to transform their brands and attract more business. My focus is launch campaigns and I’ve built some launch campaigns for some of the world’s most renowned brands such as Disney, SeaWorld and the list goes on and on. I was born in New York City, grew up in the Dominican Republic and started my career there in the advertising industry. Now I lead my own agency called Yummy Marketing.
We are in a very interesting era which is deemed by many as the digital era. Most everybody has access to tools to become their own advertiser, publisher and media manager but in earlier times you had to do all of that through an agency. With that immediacy of access to these channels comes a very big challenge. Not everybody is used to knowing how to promote their businesses online in a very effective manner. I recognized there was a void for speaking about very trident and proven tactics and methodologies and I decided to write a book to address that point.
Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy
Buy Digital Bacon by Alex Rodriguez on Amazon today
Visit DigitalBacon.com to learn more about the book
Visit CreativeStrategyTips.com for exclusive content and a free download of The Creative Strategy Manifesto
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books: A World Gone Social by Ted Coine and Mark Babbitt | Hello My Name is Awesome by Alexandra Watkins | Moving Targets by Gabriel Aluisy
Relevant advice and tips: 5 Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make With Marketing and Branding
What did you like and not like about this episode? Fill out this one minute survey here.
The post A Preview of Digital Bacon with Alex Rodriguez appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>A summary of things you should know about A World Gone Social according to Ted Coine and Mark Babbitt: Introduction In this episode Ted Coine and Mark Babbitt share theirRead More
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]]>In this episode Ted Coine and Mark Babbitt share their book, A World Gone Social where they give you the tools and advice on using social media to relate and survive in business today.
In their book, Coine and Babbitt walk you through the fundamentals and steps in on how to create change, build teams, make relationships online, and utilize social media marketing.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurs who are having trouble utilizing social media and are unable to disrupt an industry they desire to be successful in.
The primary deference is that we are trying to first set the stage. I think while a lot of books talk about how to be a better entrepreneur what we are trying to do is to say social media allows you to connect and listen. This book introduces to leaders the power of disruption. You can either have change happen to you or you can bring the change to your industry. We are giving you a 15 chapter guide book on how to exactly do that.
We have really gone out of our way to make this a compelling read because that is the kind of book we want to read.
Open yourself up, bring people in the right room at the right time and get stuff done.
The first section of the book is about what is going on now, what does it mean to your business and your brand as a leader. Once you identify that how are you going to build a team? Team building is so different in the social age than it was in the industrial age.
In section two we talk about the death of large. The death of large is that large companies are no longer at an advantage because of economies of scale but they are at a tremendous disadvantage because they are lumbering bureaucratic beast with tons of overhead that are afraid to make decisions.
As we build out the death of large we studied some really remarkable companies and they operate by self-management. This is when you employ mature responsible adults you won’t need to manage but instead you enable them and let them do it. We talk about some incredibly profitable thriving companies that are doing exactly that.
The last chapter in this section is called Open which is about ordinary people and extraordinary networks. Building your personal and corporate network is the key to success.
From there we talk about the blue unicorn and what exactly we mean by that term. In this chapter we give the reader the how to and not just for themselves but to assess the leadership all around them of being a social leader. We give very real tools wrapped around a very real since of urgency in the social world of business. We point out CEO’s of major companies that are social and doing amazing work and we learn a lot from their examples.
Then we dive into how to build a team socially enabled, putting the customer first, diving into our open networks and building a cast of internal champions. We give you companies who are doing this very well already and let you learn from their success.
Next we have a chapter on customer experience and how to make that happen in the social age and another on social media marketing. We give examples of how marketing is done in this age when trust is everything. Rather than telling people how great your company is you provide them value and services if that is what they are looking for.
The last two chapters of the book talk about the social circles of life.
We end the book on a positive, inspiring and most importantly an actionable note.
“More social, less media” – Ted Coine
“Change happens only as the result of insurmountable market pressure.” – Ted Coine
Mark Babbitt – I am the CEO and founder of a talent community online called YouTern where we help college students, recent graduates and young careerist ascend into the workforce as gracefully as possible. I am also the president of Switch and Shift which is a leading leadership site.
Ted Coine – I am the co-founder and chairman of Switch and Shift.
We didn’t realize we were writing A World Gone Social at first. It’s a five year project maybe a year or more in before we realized this was a book. I was speaking with business leaders and every time the word change came up terror got in their eyes. Change used to be something that happened occasionally and now people don’t know what to do about it. As we interviewed leaders we realize that they weren’t ready for a world gone social and we then realized how much this was impacting our careers and businesses.
Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore
Good to Great by Jim Collins.
Give and Take by Adam Grant.
Buy A World Gone Social by Ted Coine and Mark Babbitt on Amazon today
Visit AWorldGoneSocial.com to download a free chapter of Ted and Marks’ book
Follow Ted Coine on Twitter
Follow Mark Babbitt on Twitter
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books: Digital Bacon by Alex Rodriguez | Pocket Man by Scott Jordan | Moving Targets by Gabriel Aluisy
Relevant advice and tips: 5 Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make With Marketing and Branding | 5 Reasons Why Your Marketing Sucks
What did you like and not like about this episode? Fill out this one minute survey here.
The post A Preview of A World Gone Social with Ted Coine and Mark Babbitt appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
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