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
The post A Preview of Trendology with Chris Kerns appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>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.
The post A Preview of Trendology with Chris Kerns appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>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
The post 5 Reasons Why Your Marketing Sucks appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>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
The post 5 Reasons Why Your Marketing Sucks appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>5 Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make With Marketing and Branding Marketing, when done correctly, is considered as an investment to a business. Since entrepreneurs can’t splurge huge amounts of money on theRead More
The post 5 Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make With Marketing and Branding appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>5 Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make With Marketing and Branding
Marketing, when done correctly, is considered as an investment to a business. Since entrepreneurs can’t splurge huge amounts of money on the promotion of their products and services like larger brands, they need to be very particular about their marketing plan to ensure that not a single marketing dollar gets wasted. A great marketing plan can bolster the market reputation of a business and can help it win the trust of its targeted audience eventually, whereas a bad marketing plan can hurt its business prospect in more than one way.
Building a brand image is never easy. It takes years to build a solid brand but it takes just a few seconds to ruin it. Don’t believe us? Well then, try posting something nasty via your company’s social profile and you will see how the reputation of your company comes crumbling down [safety notice – don’t try this at home/office].
The thing is that most entrepreneurs have no idea about promoting their brand and for that reason, they try different things only to find themselves in deep trouble at the end. Sometimes they prioritize product development over marketing and branding and sometimes, they just ignore the concept of branding altogether. Here are some 5 mistakes entrepreneurs make with marketing and branding:
You Have no Idea About Your Targeted Audience
Imagine a scenario that you are selling anti-aging products and you are targeting mainly teenage boys. The probable outcome of this bizarre marketing initiative is easy to predict – a big Disaster. You need to realize the truth that you simply can’t target everybody around. You need to identify your targeted audience first before even thinking about marketing products. Culture, age, sex, geographical locations etc all play pivotal role while choosing your targeted audience.
You Don’t Care About What People Are Saying About Your Brand
Some business owners tend to remain oblivious to the fact that people might be discussing about their brand right now on different social media sites. You may never know that an irate customer might be venting his anger by spitting venom about your brand on Facebook or Twitter and if you don’t intervene right now or don’t redress his problem, things might go out of your hand. You need to keep a hawk eye on different social media channels otherwise a small issue can get snowballed into a major crisis.
You Are Trying to Be Everywhere
Some business owners are of the opinion that they should be active on social media channels. Now, there are over hundreds of social networking sites available and that means, there is no way you can be active on all of them. Try to identify those platforms that draw large number of your targeted audience and be active on those platforms. Limit the number of official social account to 4 or 5.
You are Trying to Do Everything By Yourself
Some business owners try to do everything all by themselves. It is good to keep eyes on everything but it will drain all your energy at the end of the day. Moreover, sometimes it is good to appoint a professional rather than doing all by yourself and messing things up miserably.
Your Business Does not Have a Website
You gotta be kidding, right? Why would a business not have an official website in the digital world today? To boost the brand presence of your business on the web, your business needs to have a website. There is no way around it. You need to invest some marketing dollars on design, hosting and content. Make the website live as soon as possible otherwise all your attempts to bolster the brand presence of your business will fall flat on the ground.
If you are looking for some great books that provide insights into marketing and branding, I recommend the following 5 reads:
Guerrilla Marketing in 30 Days by Jay Conrad Levinson and Al Lautenslager – Listen to my interview with Al here
Business in Blue Jeans by Susan Baroncini-Moe – Listen to my interview with Susan here
Startup Mixology by Frank Gruber – Listen to my interview with Frank here
Everyday Entrepreneurs by Ken Horn – Listen to my interview with Ken here
How To Get Unstuck by Barry J Moltz – Listen to my interview with Barry here
The post 5 Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make With Marketing and Branding appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>3 Advantages of Guerrilla Marketing Every Owner Should Know The competition in the business world is fierce, and it’s hard to come by the profits you aim for. This isRead More
The post 3 Advantages of Guerrilla Marketing Every Owner Should Know appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>3 Advantages of Guerrilla Marketing Every Owner Should Know
The competition in the business world is fierce, and it’s hard to come by the profits you aim for. This is especially true for small businesses which don’t have huge resources to invest in marketing at their disposal. That’s why you need to get creative.
Guerrilla marketing techniques involve low cost campaigns that aim at promoting products or services to a smaller demographic. But the novelty lies in the approach – they use unconventional and surprise methods to do this.
What good can it do for your business? Let’s identify the real advantages of guerrilla marketing.
Enhance customer base. Guerrilla marketing aims at three things – attracting new customers, urging old customers to buy again, and making them pay money for more. But they do it in a way that surprises and delights them.
Suppose you own a café. A good strategy to attain profits will be to offer free cookies with coffee for a customer who comes in with two friends. You will earn three customers at one go, and will benefit from the deal.
Or, suppose you have a salon. To attract people, offer a free pedicure with a beauty treatment package. It will lure them in, enhance your customer base and add to the profits too. And the cost of the free item service won’t matter when you get more customers.
Create collaborations. Guerrilla marketing doesn’t always involve freebies. You can think up as many ways as you can to achieve your goals. Try to have collaboration with another business that attracts the same customers as your business does.
Suppose a florist shop is just around the corner on the same street of that of your café. Why not try to collaborate with them? Offer a discount coupon for your treats for people who buy flowers from them. And in turn, attract their customers to your café.
Competition exists. And it will always do. But if you can come up with advantageous collaborations and manage to implement your guerrilla marketing tactics to them, every participant can profit from it. Just give free reign to your creativity.
Best of all – save money! Traditional methods of marketing require ample money, be it a print ad or an online one. The greatest advantage of guerrilla marketing is that the methods are almost always low or even no cost. That means a serious saving.
Any business can create a Facebook page and promote products or services on it. And you can also circulate your innovative ideas on it. It will be much easier to spread the word about your latest offer and that too at no additional cost.
Also, most guerrilla marketing tactic isn’t dependent on much for success. Do you really need to have huge money or resources to announce a promotion that anyone wearing pink on a particular day of the week will get a free dessert? No, you don’t!
So, where do you start? Well, do it whenever and wherever you want.
The basic tenet of guerrilla marketing is to surprise the customers. And whether you dress up or ask them to dress up, whether you arrange a raffle or organize a tasting session, it won’t have too much effect on your monetary resources.
Just ask your employees to come up with marketing ideas that don’t need to spend much. Engage in brainstorming sessions. You will be surprised at the suggestions you may get. Also, take a cue from businesses that have done it with success.
And keep in mind, guerrilla marketing isn’t just for small businesses. Any business can use unconventional means to attract customers, new and old. And they can also make profits, not just revenue.
For a great book in reference to the advantages of guerrilla marketing, we recommend “Guerrilla Marketing in 30 Days” by Jay Conrad Levinson and Al Lautenslager.
Listen to my interview with Al Lautenslager as we take a deeper look inside his book >>> LISTEN NOW
The post 3 Advantages of Guerrilla Marketing Every Owner Should Know appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>A summary of things you should know about Guerrilla Marketing in 30 Days according to Al Lautenslager Introduction As a business owner you know you need marketing but you don’tRead More
The post A Preview of Guerrilla Marketing in 30 Days with Al Lautenslager appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>As a business owner you know you need marketing but you don’t know where to start. Al Lautenslager and Jay Conrad Levinson give you that starting point in Guerrilla Marketing in 30 Days. It’s really common sense types of things but not necessarily common practice. Wade interviews Al in this episode to discuss that path, one step in front of the other, that road map, for the marketing that you need to do for business.
What makes the book different is the fresh examples. At the end of each chapter there is an action plan that helps with the implementation, the number one problem with businesses today is implementation. Other businesses know they have to market but they don’t know where to start. I give you that starting point in this book. It’s really common sense types of things but not necessarily common practice. It helps businesses get started, gives them that path, one step in front of the other, that road map, for the marketing that they need to do for business.
One of the biggest mistakes businesses make is that they know they have to market but they don’t. The take away is you have your starting point and your step by step plan. You don’t have to be intimidated or fearful anymore because you don’t know anything about marketing. You don’t have to be afraid to start with something.
The book is organized into days which are just another name for a chapter. Day one is the Guerrilla Marketing mindset. Every single day, no matter what I am doing, I think about the question how am I building the awareness with my prospects and clients through all the marketing that I am doing? I consciously think about that, which gets me in the proper mindset to start my day.
I meet a lot of people in my travels and people tell me what their job is to which I tell them to change that mindset, you are all marketers of the business that you work for. Am I biased with that mindset? Absolutely, but I have seen successful businesses become successful because of that mindset. So day one takes you through that mindset and how to develop the mindset.
In day four I talk about the target market and one of the things I suggest to people is that your best prospect is a current client. I tell businesses all the time to spend over half of your time and over half of your marketing dollars on current customers. That typically surprises and astounds a lot of businesses. A current customer already knows you, already trusts you and already likes you and that is much easier to market to rather than starting fresh with someone that doesn’t know you and doesn’t trust you yet. I also say that your second best prospect is a past customer and I give examples as to why this is true.
Day five I talk about positioning and it is probably my favorite day of all the days I talk about in this book. One very important concept in this day is that everybody is an expert in something. People like to buy from experts, people trust experts, people have confidence in experts work and that’s positioning. My second favorite day in this book is day eight.
In day eight we talk about benefits, competitive advantages and things like that. When I start talking about this day in the book I say that I probably got a little bit of bad news for you. The bad news is your customers and prospects don’t care about you. They don’t care about you, what they care about is what is in it for them. Every time they take a look at marketing they are looking for the benefits, not the features. I suggest that you make a list of what the benefits are that you offer to all your customers and prospects. After that I suggest that you make a list of what your competition offers. If these two lists are identical neither company has a competitive advantage. These are just some of the examples of some of the days in Guerrilla Marketing in 30 days.
“Spend over half your marketing time and half your marketing dollars on current customers.” – Al Lautenslager
“Put your message where your target market can see it.” – Al Lautenslager
“You’re an expert.” – Al Lautenslager
“Features tell and benefits sell” – Al Lautenslager
I’m an author, speaker and marketing consultant. I travel the world talking about various marketing strategies for those that are interested in growing a business to do so with low and no cost marketing tactics. I’ve been a business owner for fifteen years; I owned a printing and mailing business in the city of Chicago and spent time in corporate America before that. Parallel to my business ownership I started doing a lot of marketing consulting with small businesses. I sold that business in 2009 and focus today on consulting. I’m an author of six marketing books and am really passionate about fulfilling my mission of helping businesses grow with low and no cost marketing.
I’m a former business owner and coming out of the corporate world with a marketing background I had to enter the trenches and start marketing from my boot straps on day one. I did that based on my corporate marketing experience and based on my education, very successfully. I started helping other businesses do that because they saw my success and wanted to know what I was doing and how I could help them. I was asked to speak to their chamber of commerce, their franchise or their organizations and come to find out I really enjoyed that. People were walking away with immediately actionable tactics that they could use the same day they heard about it. I asked someone I knew in the speaking business how to leverage this speaking thing that I’ve just been asked to do. How do you make money doing that? He said I have to position myself in such a way that you are the absolute go to person and that means writing a book. I decided to get an endorsement from Jay Conrad Levinson, the father of Guerrilla marketing. That is when we came up with the idea of Guerrilla Marketing in 30 days. I asked Jay if he would co-author it with me and he agreed to.
The Autobiography of Ben Franklin by Benjamin Franklin
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini
Buy Guerrilla Marketing in 30 Days by Jay Conrad Levinson and Al Lautenslager on Amazon
Visit Market-For-Profits.com for more information on Al and his book
Download the full transcript here
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books: Market Like You Mean It by Al Lautenslager | Do It! Marketing by David Newman | Guerrilla Social Media Marketing by Jay Levinson
Relevant advice and tips:5 Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make With Marketing and Branding | 3 Advantages of Guerrilla Marketing Every Owner Should Know
What did you like and not like about this episode? Fill out this one minute survey here.
The post A Preview of Guerrilla Marketing in 30 Days with Al Lautenslager appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>