LinkedIn is now worth over 1 Billion dollars. According to Business Week:

“The professional networking site, home to some 23 million affluent users who sign up to find jobs, hire talent, and connect on projects, is about to become one of the select few social-media companies to attain a valuation of more than $1 billion.” Read the rest of the article it is very interesting.

So if you want to reach consumers with a high net worth LinkedIn is the place to do it.

Byte or get bitten!

Personal I have never watched a single episode of “Family Guy” but you would have to be from Mars not to have heard of the Show. Well according to the New York Times, “In September, Seth MacFarlane, creator of ???Family Guy??? on television, will unveil a carefully guarded new project called ???Seth MacFarlane??™s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy.??? Unlike ???Family Guy,??? which is broadcast on Fox, this animation series will appear exclusively on the Internet.

The innovative part involves the distribution plan. Google will syndicate the program using its AdSense advertising system to thousands of Web sites that are predetermined to be gathering spots for Mr. MacFarlane??™s target audience, typically young men. Instead of placing a static ad on a Web page, Google will place a ???Cavalcade??? video clip.

What does this mean? It means that Google knows how to get in front of people and reach them with the media they want. As business owners we would do well to analyze our web presence and the use of Google Adsense. Especially in the light of Google other big announcement regarding creating its own Media Ad Network.

Byte or Get Bitten!

OK, I am sorry. It was not my intention to post this, just because everyone has already. The SEO Rapper has some offers some excellent rules for website design. I went out to the websites of top 10 marketing companies in Grand Rapids and I thought they would appreciate this post.

Byte or get bitten!

It is time to put your money were your mouth is. Tom Blue wrote an interesting article comparing the results of advertising on the radio verses Internet Marketing the results were pretty amazing

Radio Advertising Monthly Budget $13,000 per month for 3 Months Total Spent $39,000 plus cost to create the ad.

Adwords Monthly Budget $400 – 750 per month for 3 month Maximum Spent $1900

SEO Monthly Budget $2,000 per month Maximum Spent $6,000

Radio Adwords SEO

$39,000 $1,900 $6,000

What were the results? Number of Leads

Radio Results
Month 1: 62
Month 2: 46
Month 3: 0 (stopped ads)
Average CPL: $240.74

Adwords Results
Month 1: 37
Month 2: 47
Month 3: 62
Average CPL: $17.98

SEO Results
Month 1: 29
Month 2: 44
Month 3: 60
Average CPL: $22.55

The evidence is pretty clear. We need to be advertising online. It is cheaper and you get better results. For folks in West Michigan that should be a no brainer. Save money grow your business.

Byte or get bitten!

I have a loan officer who does not live in Grand Rapids, who sends me direct mail once a month. For awhile I opened the letters thinking that there was something of value in the mailings, but now I don??™t even open the letters.

OK, here is the good thing about her Marketing efforts; she is always top of mind. She has helped me purchase two homes and I would definitely use her again. Not because of the mailings but because I trust her. The bad thing is that I throw away her mailings as soon as I get them without opening them. The truth is I throw away a lot of ???Junk Mail??? all the time.

On the other hand, I get a ton email from all sorts of people I do not know or trust. But every now and then I get caught by an email that compels me to open it.

So, one hand someone I trust sends me something I don??™t read and someone I do not know sends me an email I read. Why the difference?

First, like everyone in this technology age I, like all of you, have been conditioned to tune out a lot of information that screams, ???BUY ME??? unless it is relevant to your current needs and interests. ???Snail Mail??? comes in a sealed envelope and makes it easy just to discard it.?  Whereas email gives you the option to quickly preview before making a discard decision.

Here is an example of an email that caught my attention. It was from a company that I did not know but they had a compelling subject that enticed me to look and within the first 3 seconds the email grabbed my attention and I kept reading.

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Not only did I read the email but I actually called them, sat through a demo and will definitely start using and recommending their services.

Now please keep in mind that I am not bashing, at all, direct mail campaigns. They have their place but here are a few tips. If you are going to send out a direct mailing make sure it is infrequent and that it has something a value to me related to your products or services. You should use your customer database to ensure the mailings are personalized to each customer??™s interest. Even mom and pop shops can do this inexpensively using mail merge. And please do not send letters to someone who does not know you.

On the other hand email marketing campaigns are different, but only slightly. Here are a few tips
1.? You can send me (the consumer) an email if I do not know you, but don??™t act like you know me. That is a trust breaker. If our relationship starts on a lie how can I ever trust you again?

2.? The subject should be an arousing ???pick up line???. Why do I want to interact with you?

3.? If you have not figured this out yet let me state it again. Don??™t try to sell me something. Inform me and educate me.

4.? Make your message engaging and create brand awareness. That is why I like OnMarketer, they give you the ability to brand your email without fat attachments and providing links back to your website. And guess what? It makes it trackable.

5.? Don??™t spam me!!!!! As a consumer I am ok with regular emails from you, especially if they are informative and engaging. But don??™t spam me, stalk me, make me Wanna Put Your Number On The Call Block Have AOL?  Make My emails Stop. (oops sorry to break into Destiny??™s Child.)

Anyway there are other things that you can do to create compelling email messages that will get consumers to read them and I would be glad to help you out with more advices, but I must be getting punchy if I am breaking into song. So this should do get you by for now.

Byte or get bitten

I have a fundamental problem with several names that describe technology. I think that some of the great names that IT folks have come up with fall short from meeting business expectations.

Take for instance BI (Business Intelligence) great name and it has a lot of potential to live up to its name but the problem is that too often the term is used describe the tools and technology and not the value it brings to organizations.

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) create term and when done properly it can add tremendous value to an organization. However, once again the term now applies to a piece of technology and not the art of managing the relationships that businesses have with their customers. So what happens is that business owner look to a piece of software to try to resolve their customer issues and when it doesn??™t work as they perceived it would because of the name they want to throw out the CRM application and Nix the budget for all future IT projects.

Then there is the term Internet Marketing. Great term! But it has now become synonymous with SEO/ SEM which is only a very small piece of what a term like Internet Marketing should really do. Then add to that the never ending websites and spam-o-grams that promise you that ???for just $29.99 you can have millions of visitors to your website in minutes.??? I think the term Internet Marketing and the vultures around have taken a term that could have meant a lot and put it in the same light as ???Network Marketers??? or the ???Carpet Baggers???.

So I have had a problem coming up with a name for what I do then it came to me, if it was a snake it would have bit me. MANO (Marketing, Advertising, Networking, Online) that??™s what I do.

True marketing centers on a strategy and Marketing 2.0 involves the 6Vs as outline in Denise Shiffman book Age of Engage. Advertising is a form of communication whose purpose is to inform potential customers about products and services and how to obtain and use them. Networking is about connecting people who share interests and activities or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others. All of this is done Online that means do just on the internet but the variety of ways that people are and will interact with the web, be that through phone, GPS units, Cameras, you name it.

Adam over at Audetta Media also wrote and interesting blog on terminology. That inspired me to vent my frustration here. I am on a mission to rally the industry around MANO (marketing, advertising, networking online)

Byte or get bitten