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Archive for the ‘Simon Baer’ Category

Journalists, Olympians and Killer Whales Battle for Spotlight- Giving a Title to Your Post

Posted in Marketing, Simon Baer, tagged , , , , , , , , on November 30, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

Every blogger knows how important it is to have a catchy blog title. In the Hubspot webinar on inbound marketing CEO Brian Halligan uses one of his employees post’s as an example, instead of something like: “Colleen’s Tuesday AM Thoughts” she names the post “8 Marketing Tips from an Olympic Gold Medalist” convenient if you happen to have a gold medal for those that don’t here’s what a good title is all about:

-Entices the Reader: Unfortunately I reached this conclusion while channel surfing. Digital Cable has made an art of catchy titles, after all “The Whale that Ate Jaws” is wayyyy more interesting than “Underwater Animal Footage.”

Yes, this is the actual video of a Killer Whale attacking a Great White Shark, the only thing scary about it is that it’s off the coast of California!!

-Piques Curiosity: Even if I’m not a marketing person I’m far more likely to read a post called “8 Marketing Tips from an Olympic Gold Medalist” than “Tuesday AM Thoughts.”  At this point the reader is probably wondering who the gold medalist is and what makes them knowledgeable in marketing.

- Reflects Search Terms: A great way of growing blog traffic is by reaching out to a wider audience. Think about what your post is trying to answer and then think what search terms you’d use to find that information. Online Marketing Connect’s latest post is titled: “Does Social Networking Threaten Journalistic Integrity.” Notice the title uses key words that potential readers are likely to search by.

In recent years, humans have become experts in screening everything to avoid the risk of wasting time on something they find unworthy. The essence of website descriptions on google search results, subject lines on emails and channel menus on digital cable is to convince you of parting with your precious time.

So let me know what you think of this title: Did it meet your expectations? Does it entice you into reading below? Is the title likely to match search terms for this topic?

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‘Duh’ Post of the Week: B2B Sales- Let Informed Customers Make Informed Decisions

Posted in Simon Baer, Training, tagged , , , , on November 20, 2009 | 1 Comment »

Man am I glad that sales pitches are totally ineffective. By no means is this breaking news but I think that most people under-think what’s behind this.  Many an old school salesman will lament about how relationships used to matter and now it’s all about the convenience and the bottom line.

That seems like a BS excuse to me. Relationships matter more than ever- it’s just how you build them that has changed.  It used to be that business was conducted face to face and over the phone when necessary. Before, Don Draper-like looks and charisma was necessary to be heard, no more.

Information is virtually instant, thus the ability to fact-check and comparison shop means that thinly veiled sales pitches can be easily blown apart.  Now relationships are built on: ideas, integrity and transparency.

  • Familiarize yourself with your customer’s industry, organization, role and their needs. The best way to do this is to ask them.
  • Sell yourself, not your product: describe your products exactly as you would to a family member you’ve known for a long time.
  • Be straightforward about your expectations of them and acknowledge what your product doesn’t do

Inform your customer and let them make an informed decision. Push information and you push the customer away.

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Evaluating Your Perceived Value

Posted in Entrepreneurship, Finance, Marketing, Simon Baer, socialmedia, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on November 18, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

I grew up washing buckets at my Mom’s Flower shop in a painfully frugal mid-western town. Her arrangement design was basically a European model that focused on style and quality stems rather than size and price. As you can imagine she struggled initially as people failed to see the value in a bouquet of roses that wasn’t half-dead and from the grocery store.

Eventually she figured out the key: You can try telling them about the superior quality all-day but they can’t feel flowers lasting 10 days longer—What you can do is put the flowers in a bigger vase and fill the bottom with marbles so the flowers feel heavier.

Online marketing consists of technology and marketing; which are measured in very different ways:

  • Marketing: From an agency perspective we are constantly striving for better ways to measure value-added to our clients. Engagement campaigns can be especially difficult because there are usually a myriad of goals, all weighted and measured differently.

ie, A campaign’s primary objective is to increase ‘positive’ mentions of X brand on various social media sites. A secondary objective is to increase facebook fans. The primary objective had moderate success and the secondary objective had great success. How do you reconcile this?

    • Technology: Technology uses the term perceived usability to better reflect that for web-based applications value is negatively correlated with awareness. Time for a sports analogy: An offensive lineman goes unnoticed by fans until he screws up. Same goes for technology: A customer is likely to become aware of the functionality, usability and aesthetics as a result of the user-experience not meeting the user’s expectations. (see Don Normon’s post for a thorough overview)

    No doubt balancing these contrasting views is challenging but seriously analyzing how customers determine ‘the value’ of your product or service is paramount to establishing your pricing models.

    Bottom line: What are your marbles?

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    America’s Youth: Growing up in a Business Incubator

    Posted in Entrepreneurship, Management, Simon Baer, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 17, 2009 | 1 Comment »

    There are two things that get me really jacked in life: Good ideas, and good ideas put into action.

    Cristo Rey is a network of private schools set up primarily in neglected urban neighborhoods.

    Here’s what’s great about the schools: Their mission is to narrow the ‘achievement gap‘ that is to say they focus on preparing at-risk, urban, and blue collar youth with the attitudes and skills necessary to achieve in college and beyond.

    Here’s how they do it (excerpt from Workplace U on American RadioWorks)

    The Cristo Rey business plan works this way: Employers pay the school what they would pay a full-time, entry-level employee, minus benefits. In Birmingham that’s $21,500. That one job is shared among four students, who each work on a different week day. A student’s work-study income pays about 70 percent of that student’s tuition. Parents pay a fee based on their income sometimes less than $100 a month. Foundations, charities and donations make up the rest. The Cristo Rey Network is sponsored by dozens of major corporations and by grants from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and other philanthropies.

    The Story (on Workplace U) focuses on Carlon Harris a high school junior in Birmingham who works as an administrative assistant at a Birmingham business incubator. This would a daunting assignment for any high schooler, then factor the social, economic and potential challenges at home.

    Various types of public charter schools have been filling this void for quite some time now and are now very popular across urban cities. High Tech High is a group of high schools, middle schools and one elementary school in San Diego County whose goals (among others) are to increase the number of educationally disadvantaged students in math and engineering who succeed in high school and post-secondary education (High Tech High’s Goals).

    While High Tech High’s science focus is badly needed in American Education, their admissions process is a lottery- A lottery??? What good does that do anyone? You’re removing any element of motivation.

    Cristo Rey has found the winning formula; motivated kids possibly lacking family or social structure put them in a situation with high expectations combined with real-world experience that shows them what they’re working towards.

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    Keep it Simple, Stupid

    Posted in Entrepreneurship, Management, Marketing, Simon Baer, tagged , , , , , , , on November 15, 2009 | 2 Comments »

    I have re-discovered my favorite site on the internet– Stuff White People Like. What is beautiful about this site is it’s simplicity– It’s short, well written and cleaver.  These types of sites seem to have exploded all over the internet in recent years. Earlier this year Ben Huh did an interview with Mixergy.com and shared some insight into how he built a network of these sites anchored by I Can has Cheezburger and Fail Blog that generated 218 million page views in September alone.

    In terms of content and community management he has it dialed down to a science:

    • Site visitors are lazy! – There are TONS of alternatives for your customers so following the KiSS model (Keep it Simple, Stupid) minimizes their opportunities to get distracted.
    • Content + more content – You don’t want to shut visitors out that want to spend more time. If you’re following KiSS content generation should be easy and you can pass it off to users. In the case of I Can Has Cheezburger there is no shortage of cat pictures and stupid captions to put under them.

    funny-pictures-cat-tastes-your-icecream

    • Quality Content= Value – Think of these sites like fast food restaurants. Items on the dollar menu are cheap and easy to make and a $1 double cheeseburger seem like a great value.
    • Get innovated once you have their trust – I got in the habit of reading Texts From Last Night every morning while eating breakfast. Then they released the Iphone app – Texts From Last Night meet another morning routine ;)

    Anyone thinking of investing time or money into one of these sites has one big question: What happens when the fad passes? Huh points out that allowing the community to guide the content will ensure that visitors keep coming back. Even if/when one of these sites runs its life cycle all that’s lost is the design and software developed for the site. Computers and humans can be reassigned to other projects that generate other KiSS sites….

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    Crowd-sourcing vs. Engagement- Identifying your Primary Objectives

    Posted in Marketing, Simon Baer, socialmedia, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 11, 2009 | 3 Comments »

    Crowd Sourcing and Engagement are probably the two biggest buzz terms in marketing today. My non-marketing friends know about interactive marketing; know that it’s here to stay, and know a handful of terms and buzz and then wonder what in the hell I do.

    Of course any interactive campaign has several goals:

    • Fan/customer engagement
    • Crowd-sourcing
    • Differentiating yourself from competitors
    • Drive time on site and impressions
    • Increase ad revenue
    • Email capture
    • Attract new customers or advertisers

    It’s possible to have several goals but it’s best to identify your primary objectives. Although it is possible to have both as objectives, one has to take precedence over the other or the campaign could be viewed as a failure. The two basic types of campaigns that our technology can be used for are crowd-sourcing efforts or customer/fan engagement. Engagement campaigns can be fun, safe ways for brands or media properties to interact with their fans while crowd-sourcing campaigns can be a great way to tap into the community for creative work.

    Here are the distinctions between crowd-sourcing campaigns and engagement campaign.

    Engagement

    • Low barrier to participation- Photo contests with very broad themes are the best way to guarantee high participation. Ihoops is an NCAA/NBA collaborative; their theme is simple—youth basketball.
    • Results are not as quantifiable- Around the office we use the term ‘fan engagement’ rather than ‘customer engagement’ because customers that are fans will champion your brand to passive customers. Tapatio Hot Sauce is a perfect example- The hot sauce is sold and served in restaurants across North America so it must have millions of passive customers but it has formed a quirky and massive following of 27,000 facebook fans who have demonstrated they are willing to share their love with their friends. This month’s contest is best “Tapatio costume contest.” There are a suprising number of Tapatio themed costumes out there—by hosting the contest Tapatio has given these fans a chance to share their enthusiasm.
    • Engagement campaigns can be sustained long-term- Themes can be loosely based, seasonal or change based on the community. Starting December, Sacramento Press will start a series of neighborhood photo contests. These have a very low barrier to entry, can be recycled easily and can easily attract local sponsors.

    Measures of Success for Engagement Campaigns: quantity of submissions, number of votes, and time on site

    BabyContest_adunit

    Crowd-sourcing

    • High barrier to participation- Anything other than drawings and doodles requires a certain level of expertise especially video editing and graphic design.
    • Must reach out to people outside of brand- The San Diego Science Festival asked us to help them host a contest for a new mascot. Initially submissions were below their expectations but the AOR began reaching out to design students and comic book artists and have dramatically improved the quality of submissions.
    • Requires worthwhile incentives- If you want someone to submit quality work you have to give them incentives. Simple enough right?
    • Difficult to maintain long-term campaign- Most of these campaigns are one-offs for new product design, logos or mascots. Plus the high barrier to entry and high-value prizes make long-term campaigns unattractive.

    Measures of Success for Crowd-sourcing Campaign: Quality of submissions- at least one usable design, hopefully several

    Contest Life Cycle

    This post was inspired by a post on Creativity Unbound by Edward Boches about a new agency that will specialize in crowd-sourcing campaigns. It will be interesting to see how Victor and Spoils will do. One of their biggest challenges will be maintaining enough clients when they’re only running short term campaigns. They should be able to negate this by; establishing a network of designers, solid relationships with AORs and reaching out to top-tier customers with multiple brands. Their business model is solid and they seem like a talented team. (Actually they seem like a team of evil lawyers but we’ll see their true colors once the new website is up- via crowd-sourcing of course!)

    

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    The Halloween Magnifier

    Posted in Management, Simon Baer, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on November 3, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

    My favorite part of Halloween is the lack of real identity that one holds on to on a daily basis. Sure it’s an opportunity for the button-down businessman to live his Brett Michaels fantasy for the day but there are more subtle identity-benders that make the night so interesting.

    First, it is totally acceptable not to bother learning people’s real names; for those of us with poor passing memory, this is a life-saver. No longer do you need to worry if her name is Kristy, Christine, or Kristina. For the rest of the evening the spunky blonde can be known as Kate Gosselin.

    Second, your identity for the evening is in the eye of the beholder. This year I was Ferret Boy (loosely based on an elementary-school friend. Plus an excuse to buy an awesome ferret shirt!) Apparently my rendition of Ferret Boy looks a lot like Napoleon Dynamite, Napoleon it is I guess.

    My third point, (this is how this ties into a work blog) is that people’s Halloween characters tend to be a reaffirmation of their real-life character.

    Landmark Events helped us to host a kick-ass party at the Pearl Hotel, about halfway through the evening we gathered those of us present for a team photo. Everyone was spot-on in their costume selection. The design girls wowed us with their creativity and superb execution. Eric made a 200 pound ex-MP look dainty with a set of DDs and a sheer white shirt. Both Jimmy and Pat slipped into costumes that looked so easy and natural they might not have been costumes (seriously Pat, the Peewee Herman get-up should not be that easy).

    So… I guess this inadvertently relates to my last post. Want to know if your organization will be successful? Throw them a costume party and see who shows up- The more ridiculous the costumes the more successful the team.

    IMG_0153

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    Digital and Interactive Marketing Conferences 2010

    Posted in Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Simon Baer, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 28, 2009 | 12 Comments »

    Human interaction is a great way to establish connections, swap ideas, and find out what’s happening outside of your bubble. Attending conferences, exhibiting, and/or speaking at these events will grow your business and establish credibility for both you and your company.

    Here is a list we’re putting together of the top internet marketing, 2.0, and interactive conferences for 2010. Please add any conferences we missed for 2010 in the comments.

    2399373518_4aef11b84c

    January

    Kellogg Marketing Conference— 1/22-23 Northwestern University, Evanston, IL
    Attendees: Marketers (of all kinds), Sales Managers, Brand Managers, Small/Medium Business Owners, MBAs

    Social Media Conference 1/27 – 1/29 Miami, FL

    February
    Online Marketing Summit—2/22-25 San Diego!!!
    Attendees: Brand Marketers, Strategists, SEO Marketers, Digital Media

    March
    Search Marketing Expo West—3/2-4 Santa Clara, CA
    Attendees: SEM, SEO marketers, E-commerce managers

    Media Summit New York – 3/10-11 NYC
    Attendees: Advertising Sales, Digital Advertising, Station Managers, Producers

    SXSW Interactive 3/17 -3/21 Austin, TX

    Marketplaces 2010 3/22 -3/24 San Diego, CA

    PMA Annual Integrated Marketing Conference 3/24 – 3/25 Chicago, IL

    Social Media Conference NW 3/25 – Mount Vernon, WA

    Sports Event Marketing Experience—3/26-27 Washington DC
    Attendees: Pro and College Sports Marketing and Managers

    Inbound Marketing Summit – 3/30 San Francisco
    Attendees: Brand Managers, New Media Managers

    Where 2.0 Conference 3/30 – 4/1 San Jose, CA

    April
    Kellogg School of Management Technology Conferece—4/21 Northwestern University, Evantston, IL

    Advertising Age Digital Conference – 4/13 -4/14 New York City

    Ad Tech – San Francisco 4/20-4/22 Moscone Center West

    May

    Community 2.0 Conference – 5/3 -5/5 Boston, MA

    June

    AAF National Conference 6/10 -6/12

    October

    Peer Summit 10/6 – New York

    Blogworld and New Media Expo 10/14 -10/16 Las Vegas, NV

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    The Greatest Asset

    Posted in Management, Simon Baer, Training, tagged , , , , , , , , on October 26, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

    My first post will be about trust. Not the most thrilling topic but a crucial element at a startup. I say this because in many ways trust is a very real assets at a start-up, it’s free and it can be used to create a very dynamic and productive work environment.

    Admittedly, I’ve had my doubts about my role at the company and the company as a whole. Am I a valuable to the team? Do I fit in? What happens if the company doesn’t work out?

    In the end there are only two questions that matter. And the answers are yes and yes. You are valuable to the team and you fit in great.

    Resources at a startup are tight. You and the company are each other’s biggest investors— in this economy there is no shortage of talented, ambitious (and more experienced) help out there. Whenever doubts pop into your mind remind yourself that if the company is dedicating a portion of these coveted resources towards your salary, you are worth it or you wouldn’t be here. On the flip side, I am young, ambitious and underpaid. I give up short term income for invaluable training, a work environment that suits me perfectly and ultimately long term success. I believe in our co-founders, the business model and our product or I wouldn’t be here. With open and frank communication, ambition and focus a young entrepreneur in a startup can have as much job security as an OB/GYN or funeral director :)

    Trust Fall

    Trust Fall

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