Recently, it became clear to me that I was not walking the talk.  That as a marketer, I was using excuses like: “I spend my days marketing others” and “I am very fortunate that I get so many referrals, so I don’t need to be marketing myself.”  But then, it occurred to me I couldn’t ask other folks to be investing their time to doing email marketing, blogging and social media, if I was putting it on the back burner, myself.

I understand how hard it is to find time, and how easy it is to ‘do it later’.  So, to help me, as well as all of you reading this, I have decided to start back to the basics, not only to give me a fresh start, but also to help all of you learn during my process.

To get started, I am going to have to make sure I know my intended audience. Then I can create an editorial calendar, which will keep me more focused on blogging several times a month, mentioning those blog posts on appropriate social media outlets, and then wrap each month up with an email recap.

I currently mention a lot of great articles in my status updates on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, so I will continue doing that, as well.  The articles are ones which inspire my/your business, offer insights on cool new tools (from a new WordPress plugin to a time management app), and bring new ideas on how to communicate my/your meaningful difference.

So, how to get started (or re-energized) and accomplish the goal of understanding my intended audience better?

First, I need to do the first thing I have my prospective clients do.  Answer some questions about who my audience is, what they really want/need from me, and where my business is at with its current marketing efforts.

Why don’t you do this along with me?  Answer the questions for your own business…

I have a list of questions that I tend to start with, and sometimes I have to ask less of them, because the client makes it easy by being clear up front.  Other times, I have to dig deeper.

Here is the first (and yes, obvious) question that helps me know whether the client has put thought into what they say when folks ask them what they do.  Though the question is obvious, it really makes it clear how well the client knows their own audience:

Describe your company – what is your Elevator Speech? (an elevator speech is a short – very short – statement you can say to folks ‘between floors in an elevator’, to explain what you do, and whether they or someone they know can benefit from finding out more).

Here is a bad elevator speech, I should know, I used it my first year out: “I can do any kind of marketing you need.  What are you looking for?”

This was bad because most people don’t really know what marketing is – they might think it is sales, public relations, or marketing research (calling folks to ask their opinion on a product).  I don’t really do those tasks, though I have and could, I really did not want to be doing ‘those things’.  And, yet, I was telling them I could do anything.  Also, what I found was though it was an open ended question, when I asked them what they were looking for, they usually didn’t know.  If they wanted anything from me, it was help to figure out why they would need me.  I was not being clear with my own marketing message.

Here is a better elevator speech: “I help people build their complete online presence: blogging, email marketing, social media…  Since my forte is marketing, I also create or redesign websites (using WordPress) with the goal to make it easier for your visitors to get the info they want.”

Though I don’t always say it exactly like that, I can state something to that effect in about 14 seconds.  At which point, people either say, they have been considering one or another of these activities, they know someone else who is looking for help with marketing, they don’t know what social media really is or they just heard about WordPress and have a question.

Sometimes, they tell me they have no interest in Twitter, or some other site, and I get to ask what it is that they don’t like. And we begin to have a great conversation.

On occasion, they say they know someone else who offers similar services and then I can ask who the person is – because I may either know them or may find someone new to align with (I’m always open to talk with folks who are doing similar things – as I’ve found often its more complimentary than competition).

However they respond, at least they are responding. I don’t get that blank stare I used to get from my old conversation ’stopper’, where I was leaving it up to them to tell me what they didn’t know they needed.

Anyway, getting back to the questions I ask, I’ve provided a link to download UniqueThink’s New Client Questionnaire.  This way, you can quiz yourself on how well you know your own company and why you are doing things you are doing and what you are trying to accomplish with any new marketing goals.  It is a very helpful exercise, so I truly hope you take advantage of this and try it, now.

You can either print it out and ask yourself the questions or call me for a 1-hr free consult, to go over it together.  Again, when I go over these questions with the client, it is to help them figure this all out, as much as it is for me to understand where to go next.  I don’t always ask every client every question.  Sometimes I skip around and sometimes I probe deeper on one specific question.  If you are reading the questionnaire, right now, you may notice, some of the questions are repetitive.  Those are for those times I haven’t felt like I fully gathered the insights I needed to understand the clients goals (or that they haven’t really addressed the goal), with the way the question was originally framed.  And in most cases, I tend to ask 5-8 of the questions and ‘get it’ enough to move to the next step.

Well, that’s enough info to get you started on the first step.  Any questions, yet?  How do you feel about going on this journey with me?  Do you see the value of exploring or re-exploring this (even if you’ve already begun your own marketing efforts)?  Feel free to share your experiences, insights, and more… by commenting below.

I was checking out this article on WebDesignLedger.com called “40 Tasty Restaurant Websites to Inspire You” and two things immediately occurred to me.

First, I was really really hungry looking at all the amazing food on these sites’ home pages – great job on most of them to really highlight their food well in a very appetizing way!

Second, my marketing head kicked in.  Fortunately, many of these guys do a great balance of graphic art (look of the site and displaying the food well) along side complementary marketing (making sure people can find the site and, find what they need and find their way around the site).

Previously, I had reviewed another Top Sites article, which highlighted Photographers’ websites.  Unlike the samples for the top restaurant sites, it was obvious that the photographers’ websites list was compiled by a designer who didn’t look at the sites from a usability standpoint, but rather from an aesthetic one.

Though the photographers’ sites had beautiful images, they didn’t encourage people to take an action.  You know, like contact the designer or purchase an image.  Never mind things like calls to action and search engine optimization, the majority of those sites actually made it hard for people to get back to an image they liked.  They probably were too focused on the images and believed that if their art was good enough, they didn’t have to ‘market’ the site.

Well, that is kind of true if:

• You are already a well established artist and a well branded name
• You are expecting people will know of you and come looking for you
• You are only sending folks to your site, not expecting new people to find you

This is not true if:

• You are trying to build brand recognition based on your new site
• You are building the site to have new people, who never heard of you before, find you through the search engines
• You are trying to get people to take an action, like call you or purchase something

Getting back to the restaurant sites, while I was reviewing these I got really hungry, so I went to lunch.  A QA (Quality Assurance) and UI (User Interface) professional joined me and I told her what I was writing about.  She said to me, “The reason restaurants are more likely to accept marketing than photographers is because restaurants get that they have to get people in the door, to keep their doors open.  Photographers are artists and want their sites to be a reflection of their art.”

At this point, I could easily turn this into a blog post about finding the balance between art as art and marketing an art website for a business, but let’s save that for another blog post.  However, there is relevance to what the QA/UI person said with relation to restaurant websites:

What if the restaurant has a chef who thinks more on the lines of an artists?  What if he/she thinks of his/her food as an artistic creation?  That’s when they might forgo or forget about the purpose of their website and focus too much on the ‘food as art’ design.

So many times, when I come across these Top Website lists, I come away thinking : “Well, the referenced sites are graphically lovely, but I don’t think new people, landing on the site for the first time, know what to do or even what the site is about.  And, they certainly aren’t encouraged to go deeper into the site.”  Often the visitor can’t find their way around, even if they want to.

Using this 40 Tasteful Restaurant Website’s article, here is an example of what I perceive to be a food as art designed site – either the chef/restaurant is world renown, or they didn’t want to compromise with marketing/usability (or don’t understand there needs to be a balance).

I’m guessing the chef is the brand, or at least I am hoping for that, and they aren’t concerned with new people searching the net to find them, because they are already a known brand. What do you think – tell me by commenting below?

The site is very pretty and very appetizing, but let’s pretend a friend sent you an email with a link that stated: “Thought you’d like this…”

What is your first reaction (OK, your first reaction, if you like cheese as much as me is “YUM!” – but what comes after that?”  Do you know what the site is about?  Do you guess it’s a restaurant, or are you thinking maybe it’s a cheese manufacture?  Do you know where to go next, to find out your questions?  (HINT: Orange Letters – but which one takes you where?)

Now to be fair, this restaurant is not targeting everyone and not assuming people will just find them.  Additionally, they do have some other images rotating on the home page, which make it clear it’s a restaurant (if you look threw all the photos).  And, this site, if they are banking more on reputation, may have intentionally been created this way.  They are selective and probably only want the people who can afford and appreciate them, the type of person who is intentionally seeking them out – not the stumble uponers.

But stay with me another minute and let’s get back to your pretend friend who sent you the link originally.  Let’s just say you guys are looking for ‘the experience’ of this level of dining and your friend emails you, “Let’s meet here for dinner…”

Though you guys are intentionally going to the site, is the site providing you with a good experience?  Do you know where they are located?  Do you know how to call for a reservation, do you need a reservation?  Do they cater to your ’special diet”?  Can you look at the menu?  Have you figured out yet, which orange letter will get you to the page to tell you the info you need?

Now, let’s look at a site that I think does a nice job of balancing graphic design and marketing/usability  I’ve marked it up to show you what works (Stuff in yellow are my markups):

The graphic layout and the marketing components blend nicely & effectively together – underneath my markups, that is.

Now to be clear, I have to tell you too things:

1. I understand the audience for these two restaurants are different

2. If you click to this second site – MarieCatribs.com - this is actually not their home page!

However, you can see from my notes, why I think they are doing things correctly – for usability purposes, yet not loosing their creative aspect.  If I had time to redesign the first example, to give you an idea of how – with a few minor changes – they could be both artistic and user-friendly, I would, but to tell you the truth, this post has gotten me too hungry.  So why don’t YOU tell me what you think the first website could do to make their site just a bit more friendly for the visitor, yet keep its creative vision… (comment below)

Bon Appetit and happy, balanced, web designing… (looking forward to hearing your ideas!)

Two of my favorite things are food and marketing, so a blog post about how restaurants can cost-effectively market themselves was bound to happen.  Here are a couple of quick ideas that have either been percolating in my head or I’ve noted area restaurants doing:

1. Twitter and blogging:  There are endless possibilities for using twitter and blogs to promote your restaurant:

• Today’s Specials – I don’t know about you, but if I was following twitter posts and I saw that my favorite restaurant was tweeting their daily specials, my mouth would be watering and I’d be calling up everyone I could think of to find someone to join me for a meal!  There are tools that will allow your twitter posts to appear on your site/blog, too!  So, without having to write them in multiple places, folks coming directly to your site/blog, can see these specials, as well.
• Last Minute Event Associated Twitter Discounts: So, you just remembered that today is Bike to Work week and your staff things it would be a fun promotion to offer anyone on their bike or using an EcoPass to get a 20% discount.  SpudsBros, on the Pearl Street Mall just did this recently.  Though I don’t know if it was last min or planned,  but they accomplished it without advertising costs, by simply mentioning it on their Twitter page.  It’s that simple to do last min promotions!

• Wine List additions, or any additions/changes to the menu - if you are a restaurant and you have new items, why not share that news with the local twitter community?  You could also write a blog post (provided you have one set up on your site – and you should), describing the new item and the positive response it’s already received.  After blogging about it, tweet your post’s url.  This not only allows folks already visiting your site to see these insights, but also gets your twitter followers over to your site and… hopefully… making a reservation!
• Chef’s Tips - again, this would be a great use of your blog, and after you write a tip, go over and share the link with Twitter.  If you can’t think of any tips, you can always contact UniqueThink for a free one hour consultation, to get you started.

2. E-Newsletters:

Who would want to be on the email list for your restaurant?  Well, I would if you were my favorite establishment.  I am currently on a few, ranging in price from low-budget to high-end.  So, don’t think your dining facility is above this idea or below it, for that matter.  The email lists I am on all do things differently, but below are some of my ideas – by the way, I recommend Constant Contact for cost-effective, high quality do-it-yourself email newsletters.  And, below offers quick ways to gather content:

• Using Existing Content: Those blog posts you have been writing (Remember, the Additions to the Menu and the Chef’s Tips, to name a few), are all great content to share with your email list. Once a month, pick a few existing posts and summarize them in your newsletter.  Or do it the opposite way, write items for the newsletter and then post it online, too.  So, everyone benefits.  Some folks won’t come back to your blog to hear what you have to say, they want the newsletters in their inbox.  Others won’t sign up for the emails, so this lets you share the same great content with both types of folks.
• Featured Recipes: OK, so some kitchens aren’t going to give away their recipes no matter what I say, but I say give it all away.  Just because you profile a recipe, doesn’t mean folks are going to stop coming in.  After all, there will always be folks like me, who as hard as I try (and I don’t try very hard), will never be able to duplicate the taste of your staff preparing and presenting it to me.  I’d rather have you cook and clean up and just enjoy the experience.  But, if you are not going to give away that award-winning dish of yours, at least offer last weeks or last month’s special that you won’t be putting back on the menu anytime soon, so we can enjoy it again, until you tweet to us that it’s available as part of your specials.

3. Offline options:
These two actually both came from one of my favorite restaurants – Leaf.  If you are in Boulder, CO, and are a veghead – or even if you aren’t – and want vegetarian global cuisine using the finest organic, seasonal ingredients, this is the place to go.  I have taken many meat eaters who have loved this spot.  But, this is not about how great their food is, though it is.  This post is about some unique marketing ideas I’ve seen them do recently:

• Discount on Receipt - Studies show that it is easier to sell to an existing customer than to obtain a new one.  Plus, if someone is loyal to you, why not give them a perk.  Too many times establishments give discounts to new folks, with promotions geared to first time visitors, but why not award the true fans.  On the bottom of the receipt, you can give them a 10% off their next meal.  Some chain restaurants do something similar, but make you call in and take a survey.  Though the survey info might be worth the cost and expense to a large chain, it is probably too costly for the independent establishments to benefit from the insights.  So, why not just get the folks who like you back into your restaurant without the hassle of doing an extra step.  I know, when the Leaf, in Boulder, did this a few months back (for a limited time, their receipts offered 10% off the next meal) they not only got me to come back, but it stayed ‘top of mind’ as I carried it in my wallet, to pull it out when we were trying to decide where to go for a meal.  In the case of Leaf, they happen to be owned by the same group as some of my other area favorites, and each one had the same note on their receipts, to try the Leaf.  Maybe it was because the Leaf was the newest or least known of the 4.  But think about it, this promotion didn’t cost them to advertise.  They were either marketing to existing clients from the other restaurants or, in the case of the Leaf itself,  who also included the discount on their receipt, it offered a perk to loyal customers.  I know I appreciated the loyalty discount.  Chances are, if you were a fan of one of the other 3 restaurants, you’d liked the menu selections at the Leaf and be open to trying it, even if you weren’t an exclusive veghead (because you knew the food would be high-quality).
• Cost-effective Branded Take Out Boxes – OK, I admit, I love left overs!  Nothing better than getting to re-enjoy more of the delicious meal I hadn’t gotten enough of the night before.  Plus, maybe it’s my grandmother’s voice in my head, but I can’t throw food away, so if there is any of my meal left over, it’s coming home with me.  Recently, when I asked Leaf for a To-Go box for my sweet potato fries (which are too good to end up in the trash), they came back with an effective, yet low-cost branded box.  On it, in pencil, the staff had written the words Leaf 6/26/09, drew a quick image of a leaf and wrote Fries underneath.  I thought this was brilliant, and as you can see from the image I took, it didn’t take them more than an extra 15 seconds, but it made a big impression on me, because:

1. It is always good to know how long somethings been in my fridge
2. It showed they were paying attention and gave me the correct leftovers, as well as giving me the reminder later which to-go box is which (remember, I take my left-overs home from everywhere)
3. It looks pretty, even if it only took a few seconds to do it
4. And, this is the brilliance of it, if I worked in an office with other folks, and I brought my leftovers to work, it would become a talking point.  My co-workers would be saying, “Oh, you went to the Leaf?  How was it?”  And we all know word of mouth is the best marketing there is…
5. In addition to a Doggy-bag, this works great for any TAKE-OUT orders, too!

So, hopefully some restaurants are reading this and taking the advice to heart.  If you own a food establishment or know someone who does, definitely contact me for a 1-hr free consultation, to find unique ways for you to use online and offline marketing ideas.  Or, if you have some ideas to share, we encourage you to post them below, because we’d all love to hear them!

Bon Appétit’

When you hear the words “keyword” or “keyword phrases” do you know what they mean to you, your business and especially your clients?

So many times, when I begin to work with a client, the first thing they say, before they even have content for their home page, is “I just want to rank #1 on Google.” So, I naturally ask them which keyword or keyword phrase they plan to rank #1 for? And, that is when I often learn that they hadn’t thought much past the desire to rank well.

I can relate. We are constantly hearing that we need to rank well on the search engines, in order to get traffic to our sites. And, though this is partly correct, I believe there are many options to get traffic to your site, but we’ll talk more about other options in a future post. For now, let’s talk about ranking appropriately with the search engines.

For the purpose of this post, we will focus on the topic of keywords and keyword phrases. So, let’s start with a quick definition of these terms related to search engines:

Keyword or Keyword Phrase: A word, term or phrase that someone types into the search box on a search engine site (such as Google, Yahoo or MSN), to find information or sites that talk about ‘their’ subject of interest.

I want you to be sure you understand this: the definition does not say a term that you, and folks in your industry, use to describe your services or products. What it does simply state is that it is a term someone else (a potential client or customer) might use to find info about the subject they are interested in.

For example, though you want to rank #1 for your company name and products, there are folks who may not know you, yet, so you also want to rank for the terms they’d use to solve their problem.

Here is an example that might be helpful.

A few years ago, I went to meet with a company that duplicated CDs. Before I walked in, I did a few searches, to see what they had already begun and how they were ranking in the search engines. I couldn’t find them for any of the ‘obvious’ terms I was searching for (cd duplication, cd manufacturing…). So, you might be as surprised as I was when their president said to me, “We’re # 1 on Google!”

“Really? Wow, that is great, but may I ask for what terms?” I politely questioned, because either I had done something wrong or he was using a term I wasn’t looking up (and maybe his potential clients wouldn’t use his term, either).

He proceeded to show me and, when he did, it became clear why he was #1.

The way he was looking up the term, and the way he had optimized his website, was to use the following full keyword phrase, exactly as it is written below:

“CD/DVD Manufacturer and Duplication Services”

Now, let’s break this down, because – at first sight – it does seem like folks might find him this way:

But let me ask you, if you were looking for someone who did CD manufacturing, would you type in the term exactly as he had it? Take another look and remember, he was ranked # 1 exactly as it is written above – slash mark between CD/DVD, and all. Because he did his search with quote marks around it, as well, this meant his clients would have to use the words in the exact order they were in and how they were presented to find his company’s only #1 ranking search term.

He was nowhere to be found on the terms individually, because he had only placed the words on his site as they appeared in his search term (minus the quote marks).

That would be like me doing a search for…say… the above sentence.  Chances are I would easily rank #1 if I did a search for the above sentence (once the search engine’s indexed this page), because no one else has written it the same exact way I have.  But would anyone be looking for it to find my company?  If not, it doesn’t matter how well I rank for it!

Most likely, if you were looking for his CD duplication services, you would be looking for the term CD duplication or the term CD duplicators. Maybe you would be looking for CD manufacturing (not manufacturer). But chances are, you would not go to Google and type in CD/DVD (because most people don’t think to put the slash in between). So you would never see him.  In fact, I went to Google’s keyword research tool, to see how many folks were looking for the term, as he used it, so I could show you the results.

As you can see from this image, there is not enough data (meaning no one is typically looking for that full term that he ranks #1 for). However, Google does provide you with additional searches to consider.  This is handy, because look how many folks are searching for CD duplication or CD duplicators, not to mention DVD duplication and DVD duplicator (notice no s at the end of that specific keyword phrase).  Also, you might notice folks were looking for the term dvd cd duplicator, which is interesting to note (and could be a whole post of its own), but no one searches for it as CD/DVD (it isn’t a natural instinct for most folks to add that slash to their search).

Let’s pause for a moment…

You may be saying, yeah, but if he includes that full term on his site and he is ranking #1 for it in any fashion, doesn’t that mean he’ll rank for the individual terms, as well? Well, that is a maybe. See, if there are 200 or more sites who are optimizing their site with the correct keyword phrases that do rank well, then he will be pushed below them – meaning someone would have to search a long time to find him.

If you know that folks are looking for the term CD duplication or, better yet, CD duplicators, you should be consistently using the term or terms appropriately throughout your site. Not the term “CD/DVD Manufacturer and Duplication Services.”

If no one is looking for the keyword phrase you are using, then it doesn’t help you to rank #1 for it!

This brings us to another example.  In this case, it is of a keyword phrase lots of folks are using, but one that is useless for the site to use (fortunately, the client realized it):

I have a client who offers software internationalization services. It’s a specialized field, but basically they work with the strings of code (the backend of the software) to prepare it to work in any language.

Their president told me he had a disappointing experience with a search firm. They were trying to rank him for terms that didn’t make sense to his clients and he knew it.

They were suggesting he use the keyword phrase “translation software”, because they found it ranked better than some he was using. And, yes, they were correct, a good number of folks were searching for that keyword phrase. The problem was most of those folks were looking for:

1. A product like Rosetta Stone (which teaches you how to speak another language)
2. A way to translate a simple line of text from one language to another – you know, like how to say “Hello, it is nice to meet you” in French

The second searchers were looking for a free online tool like Babelfish not a company that organizations like Yahoo and HP might go to, in an effort to make sure their millions of lines of code work in any language.

Fortunately, my client knew his own clients well enough to know the search firm was giving him bad advice, at that moment. Keep this lesson in mind, just because a word ranks well doesn’t mean it will bring the folks who need your product.  Maybe a lower ranking word will bring better targeted folks to you.

The thing I want you to take away from this post is that ranking well in the search engines requires understanding how your customers would search for you!

If you don’t know, then ask some of your existing customers. Whenever a client calls me for the first time, I ask them how they heard about me. Granted, for me it’s usually from a referral, which I like even better than ranking #1 in any search engine, because it means another client recommended my services! But on those occasions that folks said they found me on Google, I always ask them if they remembered what search term they used.

I also listen to what terms they use when they speak to me, because they may give me clues there, as well.

As I’ve mentioned before, my forte is online marketing, not SEO, but they go hand and hand.  I believe I do a good job at starting folks out on their SEO campaigns.  When I am working with a new client’s optimization, one of the first things I do is spend a minimum of 1-3 hour just doing a keyword research campaign (I’d prefer more time, but again, this is just to get them started).

However, before I begin the research, I ask the client what terms they think folks are using to search for their types of products or services. Then I go to a series of keyword researching tools to begin to capture results. BUT, I always keep in mind that just because a keyword ranks well, such as translation software, it doesn’t mean it is the word potential clients are using to find them. So, I go to Google and do some searches to see what types of companies are listed for that specific keyword phrase.

And, of course, while I am doing that, I encourage my clients to check with a couple of existing customers. Because, after all, their customers are the best resources, as they were once prospects, too.

Here are my suggestions of free keyword research tools, to get you started:

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

http://tools.seobook.com/keyword-tools/seobook/

http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/

This post is just the tip of the iceberg, when it comes to keywords and keyword phrases, but I do hope it expands your mind and offers some good advice.

By the way, if you haven’t already, you may also benefit by reading two previous posts on UniqueThink’s blog, about search engine optimization:

SEO tips: How to Optimize your site

Setting Realistic SEO Expectations

And, of course, don’t forget I offer a 1-hour free consultation, if you need to discuss your specific situation!  Feel free to contact me.

If you have any keyword horror stories that others can learn from, or any good research tips, please share them by commenting below! 

You know that feeling, you are unhappy or frustrated with a product and you finally get to the point where you have to call the company to get a resolution. So, you pick up the phone and you get:

1. A recording telling you to either wait or leave a message
2. A customer service person who isn’t able to answer your question, because they don’t know the product well enough and therefore they aren’t listening to your specific question
3. You get that one guy who thinks you are the problem, not the company’s product, and he acts like you have inconvenienced him by calling

Instead of helping, you are left more frustrated and, well, probably annoyed – at this point – and if you have a blog, you are probably going to tell the world about the terrible customer service experience you just had.

Seth Godin just had an experience with a call center that he wrote about on his blog, in a post called:

Who answers the phone?

This was my take away line from that post:

“Shouldn’t you be rewarding call center operators by how long they keep people on the phone, not how many calls they can handle a minute?”

Seth often says things I agree with, but this one nailed it on the head for me. Back in the mid 90’s, I took a seasonal customer service job with a children’s educational CD-Rom distribution company.

After only weeks of being there, I had broken the company record with 81% upsells on calls. (Upsells means ‘add-on purchases’ – think “Do you want fries with that burger?”)

In this case, the upsells were things the company had put on sale for the week. So, I would let the caller know we also had some sale items and if they were interested, I’d be glad to tell them about them. It was easy and natural for me, because I felt like it was helping the caller. After all, who doesn’t like a sale, and the customer was trying to get their holiday shopping done and wanted help finding appropriate gifts.

They were usually delighted to find someone offering assistance, as if that was a rare occurrence. So, I would ask the child’s age and interests, then I’d take the upsell list of items for that week and tell them about an item that fit their specific gift-giving needs.

The caller was happy to get their shopping done and I got a dollar for each upsell they purchased, so I figured the company must be happy with me. And two of my managers, Vicki and Mitchell, told me I was not only outselling all the other seasonal help, but I had also outsold all the full time customer service reps, too.

So, you can bet I was surprised when the ‘other’ manager came to me and said:

“Bethany, I am very upset with your stats. Why are you on the phone for 8 mins when everyone else’s average call time is under 3 minutes?”

I asked if he thought it might have anything to do with the fact I had outsold the rest of the staff and broken the company record. I also reminded him several callers had ask to speak to my supervisor, because – as one told me:

“I have never had such a great experience calling this or any other catalog company before!”

I found out most people reserve the ‘conversation with the manager’ call for when they are registering a complaint, so now I make sure I ask for a manager when I get excellent customer service.

But back to that ‘other’ manager, it still urks me, to this day. It’s not just because it happened to me, though ego-wise, that was a factor, at the time. The real reason it bothered me was because I immediately understood why I had outsold everyone else: It was my first experience within a call center and I was naive to the fact that they were even monitoring my call time, so I just did what was natural and helpful to the client. But that experience made me realize that the company (who by the way closed its doors shortly after that holiday season, due to a merger with Mattel) didn’t care about the customer’s experience, because they were too focused on the wrong stats.

When I read Seth’s post about call centers the above story was just one of my many thoughts on the subject. His post brings up a valid point: who IS answering your company’s phone and – even if it can’t be the brand manager, as Seth suggests, shouldn’t they be trained appropriately, to eliminate the clients’ frustrations, not enhance them?

Granted, I know you can’t have upper management answer every call or predict every customer’s unique situation, but there should be well trained people answering the phone, not the newest hire. And, as Seth points out, there should be a way to escalate a call, when needed.

For instance, yesterday I called my bank. On Saturday, I had been to a restaurant and used my card to pay the bill. The restaurant ran the charge and the bank withdrew the money on Monday.

On Tuesday, the restaurant authorized the same charge, a second time.

Now, I know it was probably an error on the restaurant’s behalf, but still that is $72 bucks I’d rather not pay them for twice (especially since the dinner wasn’t that great).

When I called my bank, the guy explained it was still just an authorization, but he was going to put me through to the “dispute department” anyway.

When the woman from the dispute department got on the phone with me, it was already handled. Her first words were, “I have a feeling this charge will drop off, but I have already put a note in the account, if it does go through we will dispute it for you immediately.”

That was that. I wasn’t required to wait to see if it would get charged to my account, like I had experienced in the past with authorizations (‘just wait and see’ mentality). I wasn’t told I would have to contact the restaurant, like I had been told in the past (‘it’s not our problem’ mentality). I was, instead, told, “don’t worry, we’re here and it’s our job to help.”

Wouldn’t it be great if that was the answer every time you called a company with a legitimate concern!

Thanks, Seth, for another great and thought-provoking read.

If you have a customer call center, maybe you should be thinking of your staff as ‘marketing representatives’ for your company, instead of perceiving the caller as the problem or an annoyance you have to deal with to get business done.

Remember, everyone who interacts with your clients makes an impression…

I thought I’d write a follow up for my last post entitled Oprah, Skype and the Book Club:

I did have a chance to watch the taped version of this ‘premiere’ use of Skype for Oprah’s Book Club with author Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth: Awaking Your Life’s Purpose

If you haven’t read my last post, it was not a review about the book, but (since this is a marketing related blog) more an examination about the marketing behind the event. I am still fascinated by this campaign, it is a rather impressive idea. And, though I don’t often have clients with the budget of Harpo Products (Oprah’s multimedia production company), I do like to watch how they are doing this and conceptualize how I can create scaled down versions for appropriate clients.

For clarification of #4 on the last post: They do use pre-selected “Skyper” (viewers with a video camera on their computer, who talk via Skype) and do mention Skype a great deal. Though Oprah confesses she had never heard of Skype before, she acknowledges how cool it is to be able to have people (sitting in their homes) talk with her on videocams. She had people from across the U.S. and a woman based in Germany call in on Skype. She also used ‘emails’ and the ‘phone’ to talk with other individuals across the globe.

Now, to be fair, other marketers have already started using Skype for group meetings. Last year, Ed Dale (located in Australia) of StomperNet did a series of Skype calls with members, across the globe, in StomperSimple. And I am sure there were others, before him. But Oprah’s group has done it on a grander scale:

Obviously, this new example is a high profile (meaning: high budget) campaign – more like an interactive live Internet TV-style show – it was stated that 500,000 people watched the live version of this, and, as of the other day, 1.5 million have downloaded the pre-recorded version (either from Oprah.com or iTunes).

Yet, as ready as the Harpo team was for this experiment, there were still complications. Though, to their credit, the group is taking ownership and finding ways to resolve them. It seems, many viewers didn’t get to actually watch it live. So, they are responding by asking people to show up early to the next “class” and emphasizing this is a new media that they are exploring. They wrote, in a reminder email (about access to the next installment): “If you’re willing to partner with us in exploring this new frontier, we’ll see you in class on Monday!”

They also remind people they can download each class, afterwards, if they can’t get on the live call. I like that they are being proactive for the next class. Also, I like the availability of the downloads, I know I am not going to spend my Monday night watching the live version. I’d rather watch it on my own terms, which reiterates my constant reminder to my clients that the need to make their webinars or even newsletters available in a variety of ways. That’s why I love blogs: You can post links (without HTML knowledge) to pre-recorded webinars, archive past newsletters, and more… This way, a month from now someone new can find it and utilize the info. So, you don’t need a budget like Oprah has to achieve a lot of these results (though you may have a smaller audience, you can still make a big impact).

As a marketing tool, I think this combination of Virtual Classroom and Skype accessed students is a great experiment to witness – I am sure many people will follow on what they are creating. I know I am already brainstorming ideas.

And, yes, as a viewer, I am also enjoying it. It is self-help oriented, but is ‘bigger’ than ones-self. And it is not limiting, like The Secret has been accused of being. (The Secret seemed to leave out the step about taking action, and they focused too much on material gain.) Though I have not read Tolle’s book, this workshop, based on the book, isn’t like that, it seems to be more about “awareness” and getting past our individual ‘egos’ – Now, I am sure, as with all things in life, there is not a lot of new content in this book, just a ‘re-visiting’ of it, but maybe it is a re-visiting in a way that more of the main-stream can understand and take action on it! So bravo to Oprah and Eckhart for doing this.

The other thing that I liked, from a viewer’s point, was that they make it clear that Eckhart is not trying to be a guru or a prophet. He is just a guy who took his ideas and wrote them in a way that he hopes can help others. Yes, he is making money off of it, but his intent seems genuine after watching the first installment. Let me know (by posting below), if you disagree.

Though, I have to say, I downloaded the video recording and there is a weird glitch that happens when I watch it on my computer: On occasion, for no apparent reason, the recording will jump back to a section I have already listened to, not to the beginning, but an earlier section. It seems to always take me back to one of 3 sections. I found it quite amusing though, because it was always interesting stuff that I might not have listened to sharply enough the first time (since I listened to it in the background, as I worked). So, I would laugh at myself and re-listen more focused, the second time. And, when it happened a 3rd time, I could also just use the forward option, to go back to ‘the future’ space where I had last heard new content.

Like everything on the web, there were glitches, but overall the campaign (and for me, the content, as well) was worth following along.

Let me know your thoughts on either the marketing campaign, the content, or even my use of this example on this blog, by posting below.

I am always looking for interesting ways to market something, so when I got the email (pictured left) from Skype, I had to check it out.

After all it seemed to be about Oprah and her Book Club using Skype to conduct a chapter by chapter reading of bestselling author Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth: Awaking Your Life’s Purpose.

It seemed, from this email, that Skype was hosting this virtual book tour/club. Every Monday for 10 weeks, starting yesterday (Monday, March 3rd), they explained, Oprah and Eckhart would be reviewing a chapter and answering questions.

I thought the goal was to take questions from readers around the world through a live Skype video call. I figured this meant you got to see Oprah and Eckhart live, and though I didn’t see the first installment, yesterday, I gathered you might also get your own mug up there.

After all, one of the things I use Skype for is to be like The Jetson’s and talk with my clients or my mom over the computer using our built-in cameras to see one another. In my mind, I began to try to figure out how they would do that with 500,000 people.

As I mentioned, I missed the premiere of this happening, last night, so I went to Oprah’s site to find out more.

Of course, Oprah’s site tells you that you must join the site and the book club, which I promptly did, to investigate.

So, why am I mentioning it here? It’s not because I am a fan of Tolle, I have never read his stuff (so I have no opinion either way about that, sorry) and didn’t previously have interest in Oprah’s book club (though I appreciate how she encourages her audience to read!). The reason I wanted to write this post was because I was intrigued by their process and what I found out – and I thought you might be, as well:

1. This seemed to be an expanded method of doing a book tour using the Internet (though book tours have been done through webinars and maybe even using video, I have not heard of people using Skype to market in this way. So, I had to check it out – I’m still confused where Skype comes in, more on that below.
2. I was surprised to see that Penguin (the publisher) is not mentioned on either Skype or Oprah’s site – and depending on where you look, it seems to be more about Oprah then Tolle (though I gather neither publisher or author are complaining). And according to The Huffington Post “About 3.5 million copies of Eckhart Tolle’s spiritual self-help guide have been shipped since Winfrey, host of “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” announced her selection four weeks ago.”
3. I was curious about the joint venture between Harpo and Skype and how it is being handled. My first impression was that Skype dropped the promotional ball by not announcing this sooner, but then again, I don’t read every promotional email that comes in – so maybe they wrote about it earlier. Or, maybe Harpo’s agreement was to not mention it to the Skypers until they knew the Oprah crowd had time to register? I didn’t know why they would do that, but it got me wondering what the terms were and how Oprah’s site was handling the promotion
4. Oprah.com doesn’t mention Skype at all, or at least I couldn’t find them mentioned (if you find it, let me know). One thought is they are just sponsoring and not actually providing access to the event. In fact, after you sign up you are told you have to download something from a company called Move Network.
5. What is Move Networks about and why is their image so blurry? OK to be fair, it was only the first 1 min and 43 seconds that the image on their own site was extremely blurry, oh and the reason I kept watching it was because during part of that time my mouse froze. (I have a year old MacBook Pro, so it can’t be that my system is that outdated already, can it?) After that the picture was AMAZINGLY clear and I did continue to watch the rest of their 3 min and 26 sec video of beautiful areal views of snow covered mountain tops – it really was crystal clear.
6. What does Limelight Networks have to do with this promotion and should I already know more about them?
7. And, of course, Oprah’s people are making the podcasts (taped versions of the ’show’) available on their own site and on iTunes.

So, no, this is not a post about Eckhart’s book and what I think about it. So, please understand that fact. It is an evaluation of a new way of getting information out there and how Harpo Production is doing that (and with whom they are coordinating the efforts.)

For the time being, I can’t say whether this is a valid new method of marketing, because I am still evaluating it, but I thought it was an interesting exercise on how the pieces came together and how everyone was benefiting from this campaign.

What are your thoughts?

Amy Gahran of Contentious.com shared a great podcast that I felt was important to share with you:

Chris Anderson – Editor in Chief, Wired Magazine and author of the New York Times bestselling book “The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More” – gave a speech in June of 2007 about his upcoming book called “FREE: the Economics of Giving Stuff Away“.

The speech is available as a free podcast on IT Conversations

And to show his allegiance to this concept of FREE, Chris Anderson plans to give away the audio version of his upcoming book. Sure, he has a logical reason…

So, go over and download his important (and free) podcast to find out how this will work to your advantage. It is more than worth the 29 mins and 58 seconds of time it takes to listen. (I found it so valuable I listened to it 3 times! OK, it was on in the background, while I worked, but you get the point.)

After all, anyone who knows me is aware, I am a big proponent of Free. I give away lots of my clients’ stuff for Free – hehe.

But it isn’t only my clients’ stuff: In my own business, I offer a free 1-hr consultation. When I do a workshop, in addition to providing copies of my presentation to anyone (even if they didn’t attend), I have been known to giveaway treats.

And, we all know I love giving away free advice – that is probably why I have 5 blogs and respond when people ask a question.

But really, what is the reason I do all this? It’s simple, it lets you get to know me, to make sure you understand why I would ever ask you to do something like give away your products for free.

And you can be sure, at some point in our professional relationship, I WILL find ways to give your products away free – but you will love me for it!

In fact, that is what I did for companies like SONY, JVC, Anheuser-Busch (Get Bud, Get Music), and a host of musical acts: Bonnie Raitt, Frank Black (Pixies), Led Zep…

And yes, I can hear you shouting “BUT I am not a big corporation like those guys! I can’t afford to give it away” Don’t worry, there are easy ways for indie artists and small locally owned businesses to do this in a practice method AND increase sales.

In fact, we increased sales 75% for DreamQuest Software, game developers who worked out of their Louisville, CO home, by strategically giving away their products. (Ask me and I’ll tell you exactly what I did.)

PlayFair Toys of Boulder, CO has been seen giving away free prizes at Baby Loves Disco events. It got them in the same room as their core audience, opened up conversations, and grew their mailing list, all at the same time.

The Video Station, a locally owned and operated video store, gives away free movies all the time. Just sign up for their newsletter. In addition to knowing what films just came out, you automatically get sent a free movie rental coupon.

You’ll notice some giveaways are obvious, some are more subtle. Yours can be as big or small as you want, but giving it away is a great way to gain exposure and increase sales (without losing revenue). You just need to know what to giveaway and be sure you understand how it will benefit you.

Start by listening to this free podcast on giving it away, by renown author and editor Chris Anderson. And, when you are done, let’s brainstorm great ways to give your stuff away.

DO YOU SQUIDOO?

Well, it was bound to happen, wasn’t it?

Any of you who have spoken to me personally over the last year – about ways to increase your online exposure – have heard the advocation of building a lens on Squidoo.

“get in now and get the advantage, because – for some reason – the search engines love it!”

That is what I said and that is what I meant.

If you listened and built a lens in the last year, you probably saw 1st page (maybe even first place) organic listings on Google for your lens. I did on one of my own, but as of now it is no longer up that high.

Like all good things, eventually the search engines fall out of love and rankings start to slip. Or they change their algorithm and the thing that made magic is gone.

Today is that day…or so it seems.

I was reading my Twitter comments and saw this post by Ed Dale about his blog post on the subject. People are noting that their squidoo ranked sites are slipping out of favor on Google.

We all knew it had to happen sooner or later…but I still think it is a worthy tool.

After all, even the overpopulation of MySpace hasn’t rendered it useless. It just changed the game, a bit.

Think of it this way, the more places you have fresh content – of interest to your audience – the more likely people are going to get ‘repeat exposure’ to your ideas, services, and products.

And that is a good thing.

So I still suggest you Squidoo. Now is a good time, with all the publicity around the slap.

People who have not visited before will be exploring it, to see what they have been missing.

They may just come across your lens as they search their favorite subjects on Squidoo…

Do You Squidoo? If so, share your lens here:

See that blue box that states, “Say Hello”?

Over there on the…….far right panel……………….>>>

Yeah, that’s right – it’s a way to chat with me.

I put this IM (instant messenger) box up for those of you that have a marketing question that can’t wait.

So, if you see I am online – which I am as I post this note – I will be glad to chat with you!

It’s a cool widget I am trying out from Meebo. So far no one has taken me up on it, but this blog is still new.

I figured if I pointed it out and explained it to you, maybe you’d say hi and ask a question.

SIMPLY PUT: You just type in that area that states: Type here and hit enter to send a private message.”

That is correct, it is private. No one – but me – will see it. You are not posting to the world.

So, if you have a marketing question that needs an answer right now and I am online (which it will indicate!), then drop me a note and I will be glad to answer it.

Just another way to make it easier to find answers to your marketing questions…

Say hello,
Bethany

P.S. Please note, if the status bar tells you UniqueThink is offline, I will not be able to response. If that is the case and you still want to leave a question for me – feel free to do so by visiting me at UniqueThink.com