http://www.maxxcommunications.com/index.php en wnowak@shaw.ca Copyright 2010 2010-09-06T21:41:00-08:00 http://www.maxxcommunications.com/index.php/site/benchmark_study_values_adventure_tourism/ http://www.maxxcommunications.com/index.php/site/benchmark_study_values_adventure_tourism/#When:21:41:00Z According to the benchmark Adventure Tourism Market Report consumer study by The George Washington University (GWU) in partnership with the Adventure Travel Trade Association (ATTA) and Xola Consulting, adventure travelers are affluent, educated, and spent more than $89 billion (excluding airfare and gear/clothing) on adventure tourism in 2009. Conducted in late 2009, the final study surveyed people from representative countries within Latin America, North America and Europe, regions that account for 72.8% of all international tourism expenditures [1] and 68.7% of all international departures [2].  Based on UNWTO-reported departure figures, as well as the percentage of adventure trips reported by the respondents in the survey, statistical analysis was used to estimate that nearly 150 million [3] adventure trips are taken every year. The Executive Summary of the report will be available online from the ATTA in Fall, 2010. In the same study, survey respondents also indicated they spent significantly on gear and apparel for their adventure travel pursuits. The study revealed that adventure tourism spending, when combined with the estimated $53 billion (extrapolated from the study) spent for related gear, apparel and accessories, adventure travellers spent more than $142 billion in 2009. By comparison, according to Cruise Market Watch, the 2010 cruise line world market share is estimated at $26.8 billion, while the Wine Institute reported the 2009 U.S. wine market to be a $30 billion business. The goal of the Adventure Tourism Market report was to gain a better understanding of the size and characteristics of the adventure tourism market. Adventure travel is a sector of tourism increasingly recognized for attracting environmentally and culturally aware consumers and for its focus on responsible and sustainable development, a model designed to create economic opportunities for local people in rural and remote communities worldwide. In the Adventure Tourism Market Report, adventure tourism primarily represents domestic or international travel featuring physical activity, nature-based travel and cultural experiences. Survey respondents were asked questions about their past three trips and intentions for future trip. Based on their answers, the study categorized their trips as: hard adventure, soft adventure or “other travel.” Activities were categorized into either hard (e.g., climbing, trekking, etc.) or soft (e.g., bird-watching, safari, etc.) adventure activities or “other” tourism activities. The study revealed that 26.3% of people taking the survey took hard adventure or soft adventure holidays. Although adventure tourism is acknowledged as a growing niche tourism segment, primary research to quantify the size and scope of this market in the U.S. or internationally has been lacking. The study focused on previous (actual) and anticipated (intended) travel behaviour, as well as psychographic and demographic information. The GWU/ATTA/Xola report provides a detailed examination of adventure travellers in these three areas, including: number of travellers, spending and a snapshot of predicted future trends. Information available in the Adventure Tourism Marketing Report is expected to aid the adventure travel industry, destinations looking to build or enhance their adventure offerings and adventure tourism operators seeking to better understand their target market. Comparing these findings with recent ATTA adventure tourism trade studies also reveals important differences between the expenditures of guided and un-guided adventure travelers.  For example, ATTA Members’ customers spend approximately $3,000 per person per trip (excluding airfare and gear), roughly three times higher than the independent adventure traveler. For destinations, tour operators and gear, apparel and accessories manufacturers and retailers, these new trade and consumer findings indicate the independent adventure traveler is an underserved, dynamic, growing and innovative market. Although many people are engaging in adventure activities while on vacation, they may not fully be aware of the value tour operators and guides, and also specialty gear brands and retailers, bring to the holiday equation. Source: Adventure Travel Trade Association, news release & the web editors 2010-09-06T21:41:00-08:00 http://www.maxxcommunications.com/index.php/site/four_social_media_tips_for_small_business/ http://www.maxxcommunications.com/index.php/site/four_social_media_tips_for_small_business/#When:21:39:00Z Social media can be an effective marketing tool for small businesses. However, one size does not fit all. It is important to remember that different businesses have different social media needs. Acquiring new customers may be a top priority for some, whereas others may want to use social media to solve customer issues or deepen customer relationships. Regardless of the reason, social media can serve as an efficient, low-cost marketing tool for businesses seeking to generate measurable business results. Below are a few tips for putting social media to work for you. 1. Publicize your product or service Social networking sites and microblogs are not merely for socializing. They can also help you get the word out about your product or services for free. Create a full profile and use the right keywords to build your visibility in search engines and increase the likelihood that people will find you. Daily interaction with others on social networks and on microblogs will help keep the pulse of your business going strong. 2. Create a custom online community Creating a custom, privately branded online community enables a company to zero in on a highly targeted audience, engage in deeper conversations with them, and forge long-lasting customer relationships. You can use the survey capabilities provided by an online custom community to get a detailed look at the behavioral and mindset trends in your community. A bonus of creating such a community is the information you can glean from community members Twitter, Facebook, etc. profiles and activity. When a member logs into your community to update their profile, prompt them to add links to their Twitter handle or their LinkedIn, Facebook, and MySpace profiles. If they choose to enter this information, you will have gained at least some access to their profile data and their activity on those sites. 3. Stay on top of customer conversations in real time Managing negative information about your company on reputation sites is essential for protecting your company’s name, its executives, its product(s), and most importantly, its brand. Monitor reputation sites daily to obtain feedback (whether it is positive or negative) on the experiences your customers are having with your business. Catch a harsh review about one of your products? Above all, do not react with defensiveness. Unless the customer is an obvious wingnut, view his comment as constructive criticism and thank him for drawing attention to a critical issue. Communicate your commitment to investigating the problem. You may find out that the unhappy customer has uncovered a real issue that needs addressing. 4. There is a caveat Social media is fast becoming indispensable, but it is a complement to, rather than a replacement for, other online tools, such as ad management tools that can drive customer purchasing decisions. Ad-management tools such as the DoubleClick DART program and Atlas Advanced Analytics can drive customer conversions in ways once unimaginable. Ad-management tools enable companies to build robust customer profiles by following the online actions of a purchaser throughout the entire purchase lifecycle, including when and where they clicked on an ad, where they went on your site, and what they searched for once there. Peter Bingaman is vice-president of small business services, Deluxe Corporation (http://www.deluxe.com). 2010-09-06T21:39:00-08:00 http://www.maxxcommunications.com/index.php/site/five_fatal_social_media_errors_and_how_to_avoid_them/ http://www.maxxcommunications.com/index.php/site/five_fatal_social_media_errors_and_how_to_avoid_them/#When:16:09:00Z More and more businesses are using social media to get their messages out. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Web Blogs, and other user driven platforms provide new opportunities to reach new audiences, or to reach existing audiences in new ways. And, because they are user driven, implementing them is relatively easy and inexpensive; there’s no need for special HTML skills, FTP access, graphic design skills, or costly printing. Too often, however, social media marketing communication is undertaken without an integrated strategy in place. That is particularly true in the marketing of events and event driven businesses. But today the problem is endemic in small and large companies alike. The result is a flood of marketing communication, but fewer people actually receiving those messages. In this article, I will explore why marketers so often misuse social media platforms and how to ensure that you use them to communicate effectively. The Cost of Social Media Misuse Many people believe that, in terms of marketing, more communication is better. As well, many tend to regard social media platforms as silver bullets for their marketing communications challenges. When a business marketing team subscribes to both these misguided notions, the typical result is a wholesale embrace of social media at the expense of strategic considerations. The negative implications that follow may include the following: Expending marketing, business, sales, or technical resources on low value communication activities instead of on high value ones. Creating “noise” and causing target audiences to tune out; in the worst cases, the result is a devaluation of your brand. Confusing the marketplace with poorly timed, competing, or apparently conflicting messages. Current estimates hold that the average North American is exposed to between 600 and 3,000 advertising messages each day. Yet another reason that more communication is not necessarily better communication! Wanted: Not More Communication, but More Effective Communication Your target audiences almost certainly do not want more communication. What they surely do want is more effective communication, which is to say communication that delivers the information they want or need, at the time they need it and in the formats they prefer. To create an effective marketing communications program, you need to decide which social media platforms will work best with other ingredients in the marketing mix to help you reach your marketing communications objectives. Choosing platforms and ingredients strategically, with an eye to how they will complement one another, will create much better results than using them simply because they have become available. Pursuing the latter course, communicating via any and all platforms just because they are there, merely creates noise. Five Fatal Errors and How to Avoid Them Below are the five most common errors that businesses commit in using social media platforms for their marketing communications, along with ways to solve the problems that result (or to avoid those problems altogether). Error 1: Failing to consider the audience first Jumping on the latest, greatest communication bandwagon without first asking, “Who is my audience and is [insert new media platform here] the best way to reach them?” is the leading cause of ineffective marketing communications. That social media lacks an entry barrier (i.e., it is easy and cheap) magnifies the problem; even marketers who should know better are led astray. Without understanding your audience’s needs, expectations, and preferences, you can make only guesses about how best to reach them. Solutions: Sometimes, profiling your target audience based on knowledge that exists inside your company can be enough to determine whether a particular communication path is worth pursuing. Audiences can also be interviewed, surveyed, or polled to determine their communication preferences. But the most effective strategy will be a combination of solutions, including those provided below. Error 2: Assigning ownership of messages Companies will often make individuals owners of important key messages. Thus, numerous people throughout the company are given incentive to do whatever they can to “get their message out,” and they will tend to measure their results in terms of volume. The result is a great deal of noise for those on the receiving end of these dispersed communications, because no one has an incentive to make the needs and preferences of the target audience a primary concern. Solution: Assign ownership of audiences, not messages. For example, “business partners” may be one target audience with whom your business needs to communicate. “Attendees of event X” may be another. Assign an individual or department to own each audience for your company; it’s then the owner’s job to represent the needs of the audience and to ensure that the messages delivered to the audience match what the audience really needs. This approach also helps to reduce noise because one entity has complete visibility into the messages that audience is receiving. Error 3: Offering too much or too little choice Offering audiences too much choice for communicating with them creates noise. For example, if they receive the same information via Twitter, LinkedIn, emails, online groups, and your newsletter, at some point they will tune out and potentially miss important new information. Offering too little choice is just as problematic. For example, many organizers now use Facebook to advertise events and contests to the exclusion of traditional websites and advertising. However, the assumption that “everybody” is on Facebook—or that everyone who is on Facebook and needs the information will receive it is flawed. Solutions: Choose the best mix of communication vehicles for your audience and purpose. Enable audiences to filter your information and messages by topic. Enable opt in communication and allow audiences to choose their preferred format to receive information (e.g., daily, weekly, monthly email; RSS; social media group or fan page). Above all, provide a single place that audiences can go to get all available information on one topic. Error 4: Failing to consolidate messages and information A key problem with relying on quick-and-dirty methods to disseminate information (e.g., Tweets, Facebook, and LinkedIn updates) is that no one ever gets the complete picture at once if ever at all. You also lose control of the message through “re-tweeting” and status sharing, so it is important to have a method in place that allows you to own the whole picture even while the message is being disseminated by others. Solutions: Assigning ownership of audiences (No. 2 above) can eliminate this problem. Here is another strategy: First consider how many messages the audience really needs about the topic, and how often they need to receive updates. Next, follow the advice in No. 3 above. Then, for each topic or event, provide a single place where audiences can go to get all the information they need. These days, this is most likely to be a Web page but it may also be a toll free number or a physical location like an information kiosk. Finally, in every message you send out on the topic, tell people where they can go to get complete information. Error 5: Falling prey to “easy” and “cheap” The primary problem with easy and cheap is that it is easy and cheap. With no premium or barrier to entry, user driven communication vehicles like Twitter and Facebook arrive on the market already commoditized. By becoming distracted by easy access commodities, companies erode the value of tried and true foundations of communication. Examples of how this can happen include: Creating too much noise for truly important messages to be effectively heard. Inadvertently training your audiences to ignore messages from you because there are too many messages of low value. Succumbing to 11th-hour communication (because it is so easy to do) rather than planning out well-timed information delivery. Solution: Consider new communication channels within the context of the bigger picture: your business and marketing goals, your audience’s needs and preferences, your marketing communications mix. The marcoms mix should always be open for tweaking, but make changes only after you have a solid business case for it. Once the need for change is determined, take the time to map out your audiences, the messages they need, and the best channels of delivery for each audience-message combination. An Aside: My Favorites Two marketing communication e-vehicles are my tried-and-true favorites. Here is how I like to fit them into an overall marcoms mix: E-newsletters or e-bulletins. Ideal for consolidating information into one location. Summarize important information and provide links to Web pages where complete information can be found. Stick to a reliable distribution schedule that people can come to expect and appreciate as part of their daily or weekly routine. Dedicated Web pages. Ideal for collecting all the information and answers to frequently asked questions about single topic. Easy to link to when communicating updates on the topic and easy for others to link to when re-tweeting or recommending the topic to friends. It may be a traditional HTML page, a blog entry, or a LinkedIn or Facebook Group page. Just remember that not everyone can access applications like LinkedIn. Your audience should never feel forced to sign up for third-party applications to get the information they want from you. Maria Ford is a professional “marketing journalist” and founder and president of Kaszas Communications (http://www.kaszas.ca), based in Ottawa, Canada.  2010-08-28T16:09:00-08:00 http://www.maxxcommunications.com/index.php/site/five_reasons_why_deep_links_help_not_hurt_your_site/ http://www.maxxcommunications.com/index.php/site/five_reasons_why_deep_links_help_not_hurt_your_site/#When:00:17:00Z Historically, companies that monitor links to their websites have not looked kindly upon inbound ”deep links”. Links to site pages other than the homepage or other top-level pages. Some objected on the grounds that deep links cause visitors to bypass a sites main advertising or branding page. Others were concerned that visitors might not recognize that they are on a new site and so might interpret the linked page as part of the website that linked to it. But the truth is that deep links can actually be really good for a website. Here are five benefits they provide. 1. Deep links improve your search engine rankings If you are serious about optimizing your website, you likely know that inbound links can boost your site’s search engine rankings. The more high-authority sites that link your way, the higher your site will appear in search results pages (SERPs). Well, your rankings can improve even more dramatically if other sites are linking to a variety of your sites pages, not just the homepage. That is because search engines infer that content throughout your site is worthwhile and so the engines reward you by improving your standing in the SERPs. Also, having deep links implies you are getting links the natural way (editorial links) as opposed to paying for them. (A fair number of paid link services will perform link building only to your site’s homepage.) 2. Deep links increase your site’s traffic If deep links can increase your search engine rankings, it is pretty much a given that they can increase your site’s traffic. The higher your site appears in search engine results, the more people who will learn about it and visit it. Moreover, those who find the site through a deep link are more likely to return to the site than those who find the site through a generic homepage link. That’s because a deep link, being more targeted, is more likely to give people what they want. If a blog mentions the new type of organic dog treat your online grocery store sells, for example, you are probably better served by a link directly to a page featuring that product than to your store’s homepage. If visitors to your site easily find what they are looking for, they are more likely to return. 3. Deep links let you target different keyword groups If more of your site’s pages get inbound links, then more of your site’s pages will get indexed by search engines. If more of your pages are indexed, more of them will be crawled during Internet searches. That opens up many keyword opportunities for your site. Instead of trying to cram all your site’s keywords onto your homepage or another main page, you can target different keyword groups on different pages. Again consider the online grocery store example: Your main keywords for a page about organic dog treats might be “organic dog treats,” “buy organic dog treats,” “organic dog treats sale,” “organic puppy treats” and so on. Ideally, you have different target keywords for each different product page. 4. Deep links keep old content alive Many company sites now maintain blogs as a way to engage and interact with readers and increase site traffic. Unfortunately, many of the older blog entries get buried within the site and are never read again. You can revive these old posts by linking to them in your new blog posts. When you blog about something relevant to a past blog post, add a link. A reader might click on the link, read the old post, and link to it himself. Good posts can go viral weeks, months, or even years after they were written. Another good way to keep older posts alive is by posting a monthly summary of the previous month’s top posts, and linking to them. 5. Deep links can help you learn about and improve your site Without deep links to your site, people may rarely get beyond its homepage. That does not mean your site does not have good content, it just means that people do not have an easy way of getting to it. Deep links provide a fairly effortless way to reach your site’s various pages. Once you have a substantial number of deep links, and a resultant increase in site traffic, you can really start benefiting from a Web or keyword analytics tool. You can see which pages people visit the most and which pages people spend the most time on. That information can help you determine which of your pages are most appealing to readers or customers, and which can be improved. Determine which techniques attract visitors, and implement them on the appropriate pages. Larry Kim is the founder and VP of product development for WordStream Inc. (http://www.wordstream.com), a provider of SEO tools and pay-per-click software for search engine marketing efforts. Follow him on Twitter (@larrykim) or check out the WordStream Blog. 2010-08-08T00:17:00-08:00 http://www.maxxcommunications.com/index.php/site/content_curation_engage_your_customers_in_three_easy_steps/ http://www.maxxcommunications.com/index.php/site/content_curation_engage_your_customers_in_three_easy_steps/#When:00:07:00Z Recently, the AP Stylebook updated its guidelines to reflect the evolution of social media: For example, “fan,” “friend,” and “follow” can all be used both as nouns and as verbs. A decade ago, those words might have sounded completely foreign if used as they are today. The widespread adoption of the Internet has forever changed the way we communicate as brands, companies, and people. In the age of social media, it is no longer just about communicating; it is also about interacting. Most marketers are eager to achieve a level of engagement with current and prospective customers, but the majority stop dead in their tracks when they consider this question: Where am I going to find the time to develop all the content necessary to do it? I am going to let you in on a little secret: Engaging customers online does not have to be difficult. In fact, sharing information with the appropriate group does not need to be daunting or time consuming if the way information is selected and shared is effective. Then and Now: From Content Creation to Content Curation Consider the next step in the evolution of content: curation. At one time it was sufficient to produce and distribute content exclusively to a companys own customers. Marketers would create their own blogs, podcasts, case studies, news stories, whitepapers, and so on. But a few things have changed: Everyone is publishing volumes of content, which makes it hard for marketers to rise above the noise while continually producing fresh content. Customers are not looking at information from just one source and especially not from just one company. Customers are increasingly consuming expert and community content as a part of the buy cycle. In such an environment, content curation has emerged as a new and powerful way for marketers to sift through the flood of content available to customers. Like the owners of high-end art galleries, marketers must sift through the information from across the Web and “curate” it to ensure that it is relevant to their customer. By doing so, marketers can cost-effectively advance online thought leadership and drive business through new and innovative customer interactions. Two big concerns that marketers often have is that they must continually publish new content, and that their customers will be inundated with too much information. Content curation, however, allows for customers to receive a manageable amount of relevant content from trusted sources; and it encourages a brand or company to share outside content as well as its own in order to offer the most relevant and useful results for its client. Ultimately, embracing content curation improves the channels of communication by making the information that’s shared with relevant audiences more user-friendly. Be Present, Be Relevant, Be Trusted For smaller organizations that do not have the time or manpower to compete with larger companies that are producing new content, curation levels the playing field. Regardless of size, however, companies cannot afford to be left out of the chatter when it comes to producing and publishing information that influence customers purchasing decisions. But with so many companies publishing and sharing content through channels, including blogs and newsletters, the Internet can feel like a high pressure hose, drowning your customers with information. Rather than trying to decipher what information is relevant and which of the information is from a reliable source, people are hungry for sites and social media curators that can filter content so it’s manageable and relevant. And they ultimately view those sites as trusted resources. Enter content curation, which is like a precision-engineered irrigation system: It delivers the content that matters most to your customers, when they need it, to help them growth their business. The Art of Curation in Three Simple Steps Just about anyone can master Content curation by following these steps: 1. Identify The first step in content curation is identifying the information that is most relevant and valuable for customers. Research shows that people are more apt to click on a news article they agree with than one they disagree with: 58% of the time vs. 43%. Offering information that the target audience agrees with and is looking for will ensure they become frequent visitors of the company’s content channels. Some key questions to ask yourself when identifying relevant material: On what topic do you want to be the go-to authority? Identify a critical and specific topic that your customers what to hear from you about every single day. Make sure that you can be a trusted and unique resource on this topic without having to compete with other online resources. Who are the topic sources and influencers on this topic? Identify the key sources and influencers for your topic. You can then follow these outlets for their insights via email, Twitter, news feeds, or otherwise and selectively pick the best content for your curation strategy. What can you leave out? The tendency is to want to include too much, which can overwhelm your audience and drown out your own message. As a curator, focus on the 5-10 most relevant articles, posts, and tweets daily. 2. Organize The next step is to organize the information so that customers can easily consume that content. As you build a rich library of relevant content, the need to organize and structure that content will grow; therefore it is best to organize your content as an integral part of your curation practice. A few aspects to consider when organizing your curated content: How do I segment my content? All your customers may not be interested in all your curated content. If possible, you should categorize your content along the lines of your customer base. For example, if your technology is used both by cardiologists and by ophthalmologists, categorize your content accordingly so that your customers can easily get to the most relevant content quickly and directly. Where should I archive this information? If you curate items every day, then in a year you will have several thousand pieces of content. As a curator, you should not lose this rich repository that you have built up. Give that content a home in public form whether your corporate blog or a dedicated microsite. This repository can enhance your search visibility and your stature as a trusted resource. 3. Share This is the easiest aspect of the curating role, because the information has already been selected and organized. To share effectively, you will need to think through the following: How often should I share? Just as with a good friend, sharing needs to happen regularly. If you do not share content regularly enough, you will not be considered a reliable source for your key topic. How should I share? You can share your content through a website or blog, social media channels, or email newsletters. Whatever you decide, consider your audience and how they consume content. Content curation is a time saving and cost effective way to interact with current and would be customers. Ultimately, it is a win win for everyone: It allows customers to conveniently receive relevant industry content on a regular basis; at the same time, it enables marketers to easily produce and distribute fresh content and directly engage customers. Pawan Deshpande is the founder and CEO of HiveFire, provider of the Curata content marketing solution 2010-08-08T00:07:00-08:00 http://www.maxxcommunications.com/index.php/site/twitter_101_seven_tips_for_effective_marketing/ http://www.maxxcommunications.com/index.php/site/twitter_101_seven_tips_for_effective_marketing/#When:20:10:00Z Millions of people are connecting through social media, so it’s no wonder that advertisers and marketers are hustling to get in on the action. In the past year, we’ve seen many brands step into this new world only to fail miserably. After one analyzes many of the marketing flops on Twitter, the underlying issue becomes apparent: To be an effective marketer on Twitter, you must first stop thinking like one. Marketing on Twitter requires a shift in your mindset. Twitter is all about simple conversations; you can’t use press releases, marketing copy, or other one-way communication tactics and expect results. Customers want interaction with you and with each other. Tweeting is one-to-one, with the benefit of being in a public space where other customers may read your conversation and interact with each other on your behalf. Below are seven tips for brands looking to grow or establish a Twitter presence. 1. Know the rules: Get to know your neighbors It is important to remember that Twitter is a community and that every community has its own set of rules. Before you jump into the conversation, spend some time watching and learning. You will find that most people are very friendly and supportive, but it is best to understand the ground rules first. The easiest way to jump in is to ask for help. That may seem strange, as brands are used to being in the driver’s seat, typically telling consumers what to do. You may think asking for advice makes your brand vulnerable, but the fact is it’s one of the things that makes social media great. 2. Connect person to person: People don’t talk to brands, they talk to people It does not matter how large your company is. On Twitter, people want to connect to a person. They are not interested in talking to your “brand.” Make your updates personable and human, not scrubbed and polished like a press release. It is fine to be a little rough around the edges. If you can, identify a real person to write the updates to give a face to your tweets. For example, Comcast’s Twitter account @comcastcares is headed by Frank Eliason, director of Digital Care. Eliason even lists his direct email and personal website on his profile, which not only gives a human face to the company but also helps build trust in the conversation. By using Twitter, Comcast is offering an alternative, less-corporate outlet for customers to receive support. Customers are able to ask questions and can be communicated with on their own turf no more having to wait in long lines, no need to press 4 for more options! 3. Create a conversation: Twitter is a two-way street Some companies might eye Twitter as another “channel” to conquer. That kind of thinking is dangerous with interactive marketing. Social media is not about building a channel; it is about creating a conversation. Your job should be to get people talking by posing questions, asking for input, and connecting them as a trusted third party. Creating a conversation requires something that many marketers are not used to: actively listening to customers. That is what makes social media wonderful. Since consumers now have more choices and are able to jump from brand to brand in an instant, that relationship has become more crucial than ever. 4. Promote a dedicated ambassador: Make social media part of your plan Social-media outlets such as Twitter work best when they are frequently updated. The most prolific companies on Twitter have tens of thousands of updates. That may seem like a lot of work, but it does not have to be; the updates tend to be short, quick, and off the cuff. We find that it works best when our clients designate a single person internally to act as a social-media liaison, or ambassador. Doing so ensures that the updates occur more frequently and result in less clutter. The social-media ambassador can then begin to build relationships with key customers, and those customers are then able to act as brand ambassadors. Be sure to also establish some “rules of engagement” for your ambassadors. They will need guidelines to help them decide which conversations they should participate in and which should get escalated within your organization. 5. Have something to offer: Give people a reason to follow you People love to pass on information, and if people are following your brand they are already showing a proclivity to your message. So why not reward them? Offer inside information, special offers, or one-to-one conversations with customers who follow you through social media. Once you have been using Twitter for a while, you’ll notice key people who like to talk about your company (aka “Influencers"). They are worth more than you can imagine! Encourage users by converting them into brand ambassadors: Invite them to your private product launches, let them contribute to new feature requests, and ask them how you can improve. Not only will you gain firsthand, unfiltered information on how your products are used in the real world, but you will also activate a network of ambassadors to give you the best thing you could ask for: positive word-of-mouth. 6. Link Twitter to your website: Integrate your messaging Twitter is a very flexible technology, which is what makes it so powerful. That Twitter can be set up to automatically update your followers every time you post a blog entry or that any RSS feed can be rebroadcast through your Twitter postings are examples of Twitter’s strengths. However, be careful not to abuse those strengths: Too many automatically generated posts will make you lose that all-important human factor. Another great option is the ability to add buttons, badges, and widgets to sections of your other sites (articles, pages, etc.) so that visitors are able to tweet your content. Each article or page can be linked with a button that allows customers to send an update to their followers with a quick blurb and a link to your page. Again, keep in mind that people generally tweet only interesting or compelling content, and a list of products or features may not be very intriguing to them. (Find awesome add-ons here: http://twitter.com/badges and http://sharethis.com/.) 7. Track conversations: Listen and learn By using the @reply feature, it’s easy to discover people talking about your brand. The Twitter search function also allows you to search by your company or product name. Use those tools to discover the things being said about you in real time. Stay on top of what’s being said about you by frequently checking your @replies; you might be surprised by what you find. More-sophisticated tools allow you to graph conversation activity over time, as well as monitor positive and negative sentiment among users. Using those tools provides you with a more in-depth understanding about what people are saying; that, in turn, will help you develop more-relevant conversations. Social media-focused agencies offer more robust monitoring tools that can provide a dashboard view of conversations around a brand. 2010-07-04T20:10:00-08:00 http://www.maxxcommunications.com/index.php/site/email_campaign_tips/ http://www.maxxcommunications.com/index.php/site/email_campaign_tips/#When:22:15:00Z Personalize your messaging to target audiences when you can Provide links in your emails to increase user click action Encourage “forward to a friend” activities (e.g. offer a discount) so your message can go viral Test your message on different readers to make sure they work on all platforms Write headlines that get noticed – use the “what’s in it for me” principle 2010-06-05T22:15:00-08:00 http://www.maxxcommunications.com/index.php/site/what_makes_email_marketing_so_effective/ http://www.maxxcommunications.com/index.php/site/what_makes_email_marketing_so_effective/#When:21:07:01Z 1. Email marketing has a broad reach It is tough to find anyone who does not have at least one email address, which means you can reach out to your entire customer and prospect base. Just be sure to get their permission first by asking if you can add them to your mailing list. 2. Email marketing is proactive Many small or independent operators start promoting their products and services by placing ads in a phone directory or a local community newspaper, or by sending direct mail. The problem is that to see those promotions your customers and prospects have to first stumble across them. Email marketing, however, goes directly to a place they are already looking, their email inbox. And unlike paper based mail or ads, email gives them the opportunity, by simply clicking a mouse, to contact you directly to get a quote or more information. 3. Email marketing is targeted Most forms of advertising are based on the idea that if you hit thousands of people with your message, even though it may mean nothing to most of them, a few are likely to respond. Email marketing is based on the idea of sending the right message directly to the right people based on their preferences, local market conditions, and other factors. You can build a master list and then segment it by geographic location, marital status, gender, age, income, time of year, etc. Doing so eliminates a lot of the guesswork that makes other forms of marketing so inefficient. 4. Email marketing provides data If you are using an email marketing application or service designed for small business operators, you can run reports that show which emails or messages worked and which did not, so you can improve your next campaign. You can even run split tests, sending one offer or message to half your list and a different one to the other half, so you can get a better feel for exactly what makes customers and prospects buy from you. 5. Email marketing allows you to engage It is nice to get the immediate reaction from a customer who sees your ad just before going shopping. But your real goal is to build a relationship with a broader base of prospects so they think of you whenever it is time to hit the stores. Email marketing allows you to do that by bringing them shopping tips, updates on trends, seasonal items, and special loyalty program deals on a regular basis. It is a great way to engage them, and keep them engaged. 6. Email marketing has a low cost of entry Most forms of advertising or marketing require a big up front investment before you see any results. That can get expensive for a small business operator who is trying to keep expenses down. Email marketing has very little up front cost, allowing you to market effectively without having to stop your core business work for long periods to get it done. 7. Email marketing is less intrusive Unlike telemarketing calls, email marketing does not interrupt a prior activity to deliver a message. Opening email is the activity your customers and prospects are engaged in when they see your message. If you have done a good job of building that relationship, they will look forward to seeing what you have to say. 8. Email marketing works According to research, email marketing generated a return on investment (ROI) of $43.62 for every dollar spent on it in 2009. You are unlikely to find that kind of ROI from any other form of marketing or advertising, the best reason of all to launch an email marketing campaign. When done correctly, email marketing allows you to become (and remain) visible to your customers and prospects with highly targeted messages at a minimal cost, all while delivering outstanding, measurable results that will ripple far beyond your pond of current customers. Wendy Lowe is director of product marketing for email marketing solution Campaigner (http://www.campaigner.com) 2010-05-03T21:07:01-08:00 http://www.maxxcommunications.com/index.php/site/the_new_5_ps_for_successful_marketing/ http://www.maxxcommunications.com/index.php/site/the_new_5_ps_for_successful_marketing/#When:17:43:00Z Power The power of a striking, compelling visual. The power of the written or spoken word. The power of communication. Communication that causes reaction, gets attention, creates interest, fuels desire, drives action. Passion You must have a passionate conviction that your company or organization, its products and or services are the very best they can be to fill the needs of your target markets. Perspective You must have the ability to see things in their proper relationship to each other. What business am I really in? What are the attributes of my product and services? Who are our customers and what do we know about them? Perspective Why should someone be interested in my product or services? Are we positioned were we want to be? What do we know about our competition? These are critical to understanding your core competencies which are the products and services you offer and what differentiates you from your competitors. Persuasion The ability to induce someone to do or think something. The more credible the message, the less information you need to supply. The core of the message must answer what consumer need or desire your product or service satisfies. It must do so differently and better than your competitors. Consumers do not buy products or services they buy solutions to their problems. They buy Benefits not Features You must understand the motivations of your target markets so that you can create an emotional connection with them. 2010-04-20T17:43:00-08:00 http://www.maxxcommunications.com/index.php/site/web_metrics_what_you_need_to_know/ http://www.maxxcommunications.com/index.php/site/web_metrics_what_you_need_to_know/#When:16:49:00Z Looking for ways to use your website metrics but don’t know where to begin? Lets start by putting Web analytics into some context. What they can not do is offer a magic formula for success on the Web and taken out of context or misunderstood, they can even result in poor business decisions. What they can do is help you build a picture of your website and its users behavior. Though the picture is a snapshot of a given moment, and from only one perspective, it is an important one. Approaching your websites analytics as a three step process will allow you to not only understand the tools available and what they have to offer but also create a gauge by which you can determine how well key business objectives are being met. 1. Understand the basics It is a crowded landscape and it is not obvious which numbers need your vigilance. Below are the most basic, essential Web analytics data that you need to understand and monitor. Unique visitors: This metric tells you the number of potential, new clients. Total visitors: This metric tells you how often your site is visited. Pageviews, unique pageviews, and click-through rates: These metrics, sometimes referred to as impressions, tell you where users are going on your site and can help you understand what site content is the most relevant to visitors (so you can create more of it). Keywords: This metric shows you the keywords through which people found you and how each keyword converts for you. For example, people who search for car dealership in Seattle convert a lot better than people who search for car reviews. Entrance pages: This metric shows the content through which people found your site. Identify that content, and create more of it. Traffic sources: This metric tells you where your traffic is coming from. This is a great metric if you are trying (and you should be) to measure how much traffic each campaign is driving and how each campaign is converting. Keep in mind that any data taken out of context can be misleading and Web analytics are no exception. Here are some caveats worth considering: Bounce rate: This number indicates the degree to which people land on some page on your site and bounce off that page without going deeper into the site. Conventional wisdom says a bounce rate of approximately 30% is quite good, while a rate of 50% or more indicates a need for website improvement. The problem with such a simplistic view is that bounce rates can be affected by many other factors, such as bookmarking. If people use a bookmark to get directly to relevant information on your site, or if they simply find what they need immediately upon visiting the site, your bounce rate increases. If that happens repeatedly, your bounce rate goes up significantly but users are finding what they need; therefore, the bounce rate could be an indication of good information architecture and site design. Length of page visit length of user views: It is often assumed that if people spend time on a site it is because they like it and find it helpful and relevant. That may be true. However, it may also indicate that the site is hard to navigate and finding critical information is laborious. Always consider the content in question. If users are spending 90 seconds watching a 90 second video clip, that is probably great news; if users are spending 90 seconds on a page that involves a contact form with four data fields, that is probably not. 2. Develop a plan Determine which metrics are most valuable to you, and develop a plan so that you’re obtaining data on a periodic basis that makes sense given the cycles and seasonality of your business. There is no simple formula for doing so, but that does not mean it has to be a hassle. Use your common sense and what you know about your business. For example, if your companys sales cycle is highly concentrated around the holiday season, monitor site visitors and product pageviews on a daily basis from early November to mid January. Whatever you do, make sure you have mapped out a simple 12 month monitoring plan for yourself, put it on your calendar, and stick to it. The insights you will get are worth the time and effort. 3. Analyze your data You now understand the terminology and you have implemented a plan based on the metrics that are most valuable to your business. It is time to analyze the data to determine how well your website is working for your company. Start with a modest approach. Analytics tools such as Google Analytics come with preset reports that allow you to slice, dice, and view your data in various ways. Poke around your analytics tool and see what’s available. Stick to the reports that focus on the key metrics defined above. (Most of the popular analytics tools have great online help, should you need it.) Once you have spent several months familiarizing yourself with some preset reports, consider entering the high level data into an Excel spreadsheet. Sort the data and look at it in different ways, such as pie charts, line graphs, or subtotals by region or product category or client type. Experiment and have a little fun. 4. Involve your colleagues Your colleagues have unique learning styles and worldviews. Similar to your monitoring plan, schedule a brief recurring meeting to share your Web analytics data and any analyses you have done with a cross section of your colleagues. (You want access to a diverse mindset.) Ask them whether they see any patterns you may have missed or whether they have any insights of their own. The cumulative brainpower of your organization can dramatically increase the value you derive from your analytics data. You are off and running. Continue to measure your way to success! Pete Gaioni is strategist at iFactory (http://www.ifactory.com). 2010-04-12T16:49:00-08:00