Trying to find the correct journalists and bloggers to write about your services/product?

Well, hopefully, MediaSync is gonna make it much easier to know who writes about your industry or subject matter.

Today, I came across a Press Release announcing a free service called MediaSync by a company called mBLAST.

The MediaSync site has this to say about their offerings (keep in mind, just because they mention it being for professionals, doesn’t mean it isn’t simple enough for you to use on your own):

MediaSync is a free online resource that allows you as a Marketing or PR Professional to:

• Quickly identify, connect with and track reporters, editors, analysts, bloggers and others in the media/analyst community who are assigned to a specific beat and/or write on specific topics relevant to your marketing activities;
• Have your “press list” become an always-up-to-date roster of media contacts for use in your daily marketing activities, such as briefings, phone follow-ups and email distributions;

Find and participate in upcoming editorial opportunities via editorial calendars and/or ad-hoc press inquiries.

I just tried it out and it does have some good info already, yet doesn’t seem to have too many upcoming editorial opportunities (but the service is new, so that is to be expected). Hope to see more of that soon! In the meantime, they do list who has written what, in the recent past.  So check them out, do a search for your topic, and see who tends to write about products/services like yours.  This way, you can get more familiar with them and, then, send the correct folks your relevant press release.  Let me know what you think of MediaSync, by commenting below.

P.S.  Though UniqueThink can help with small press opportunities, we focus more on finding alternative ways to extend your reach through social media and email marketing.  If you are looking for a Public Relations agency to handle all your PR needs, we have several recommendations, such as Keeton PR (a great boutique PR firm in Denver, CO and a UniqueThink client).

A new study shows that the largest growing demographic on Facebook is… grandma and grandpa.

Today, an article, entitled “Older Adults Nearly Double Social Media Presence [STATS]” appeared in Mashable & stated:

A new study from Pew Internet found that between April 2009 and May 2010, social networking site usage grew 88% among Internet users aged 55-64, and the 65 and older group’s social networking presence grew 100% in the same time frame.

Why do you think so many of our elders have recently joined social media sites?

I spoke with my own mom about it.  She said it was originally to see photographs that my sister was posting.

And, we’ve had some fun family exchanges.  While commenting between my siblings about our most recent gathering, my mom posted a memory I had forgotten. It was delightful to retrieve that memory!

Another time, when I mentioned the Buskers on the Pearl Street Mall (in Boulder, CO), my mom asked about them.  Instead of just telling her myself, I encouraged friends to tell about their favorite Busker.  It was a great conversation, because not only did I get to find out which street performers my friends recommend (Zip Code Man won hands down), I got to share with my mom a bit about my town, and about my friends.

But I get the sense she’s also hearing too much about her kids and grandkids, that maybe she wishes she didn’t know.

There’s also those awkward moments of remembering its not just one person you are speaking with, but also all of their friends. Though I didn’t speak to her about it, I recently saw a post that she commented on to one of my nephews.  After her sweet comment, one of his friends joked back, “Your gwamma woves you”.  Though I know it was in jest, it might have stung at them both.  I hope not!  But it’s hard to have conversations with multiple generations and their friends, all at once.  The humor, alone, is different.

So, the question is, will this be a lasting trend?

Will our aging parents, who were hoping to keep better in touch with us, get disappointed or will we all find a way to connect better despite the age gaps.  And, if so, will it mean the younger generation either sensors what they write or embraces the wise elders into their online tribe.

There is a lot we can learn from folks who have been through all we are going through, but the question is does Facebook, and the other sites, provide a venue for extending conversations across the ages?  Or will it make the generation gab wider?

How do you feel about the idea of sharing your online world with your entire family?  Has it been helpful in making you closer, despite age/humor/location differences?  If you are over 65, have you felt welcomed?  Or maybe you use Facebook just to find old friends, and save the family connections for phone calls and in person visits.  Please share how you are using social media, across the age differences (no matter what age you are), by commenting below…

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.

Editor’s Note: The video of the Blogging for Biz panel is now available at WordPress.TV – it is also added to the end of this post.
I had a great time at WordCamp Boulder.  Beth J. Hayden – of BloggingWithBeth.com – and Jim Turner – of OneByOneMedia.com – shared the Blogging for Business Panel with me (Bethany Siegler of UniqueThink).  I heard there was video of it, so I won’t repeat much of what was discussed.  And once I find it, I’ll link to it.  In the meantime, I did want to add to the conversation we started about what types of businesses should be blogging.

It has long been my belief that ANY company CAN benefit from blogging.  As a panel we came up with the following, as some of the top reasons to consider blogging for your own biz:

1. Get found online
2. Build a community of people who trust your company will take care of and listen to them
3. Communicate your meaningful difference, to let folks see how your products/services help resolve their situation

When our panel was asked if blogging was REALLY for every type of business, there was a discussion about whether a Dry Cleaner could truly build a successful blog.  My response: “YES, definitely!” and then I think I gave a few examples off the top of my head, like Green Cleaning Pros OR Cons.  I could come up with tons of post ideas people would like to read, there are endless topics, like treating your garment when the stain first occurs TO how to care for that antique quilt you inherited from Great Aunt Sally.

Then, to prove my theory about ANY business benefiting from blogging, I offered the audience an extreme example of a business blog. I was once in a conversation where someone asked, “Is it appropriate for a Mortician to have a business blog?”  And, to me there is no question, YES!, so I gave a quick example of a possible topic to the WordCamp audience.  Not everyone might be interested in that specific topic I mentioned, but if done correctly the overall blog could offer readers a great deal of trust and a level of comfort when picking out a funeral home.

As I mentioned earlier, I don’t want to take the time to talk about what we already talked about at WordCamp (but you can find the video, if you want to hear the whole panel discussion.  And, if you do find the video before me, please let me know!).  For the rest of this post, I’d like to focus on how blogging can be good for every kind of business:

Now, when I say ANY company can benefit from a blog, I have to state the conversation Beth and I had after the panel.  We both agreed we should have stated:

There is one ‘type’ of company who should not blog: A company who is NOT willing to make the commitment to blogging

However, what does that mean?  What is ‘the commitment to blogging’?  The commitment is about figuring out why you should be blogging and coming up with a strategy to make it happen.  And then, making it happen!

Below are some tips to get you started:

• Understand the purpose of your blog.  Determine what you want your company and, most importantly, your readers to get out of the conversations. For instance, here are some good reasons to want to blog (you should want to do more than less of these):
  • Answer Frequently Asked Questions: Let people get to know your product/service better
  • Get visitors familiar with the company’s philosophy: Helps to assure it’s aligned with the customers’ needs
  • Encourage Involvement: Gets the customers’ to take actions, like commenting, to build a community and even share insights and ideas to help others
  • Become a thought leader in the industry: Share your knowledge of the overall industry, not just your products place in it
  • Learn from your clients:  Listening to what your readers have to say can help to create future services and products they want, instead of what you assume they might want
  • Engage with your community: Having a blog is a great way to get to know your customers’ better.  The more back and forth dialogue, the better
• Lay out a successful, effective and easily maintainable strategy:
  • Decide who will be contributing or better yet, ask the staff which portion of the following tasks they might be good at helping with: content manager, editor (if needed), writers, researchers, media/arts department (don’t worry if you are all of the above – there are always tools to help)
  • Figure out how frequently you want content added and if that is a realistic goal, with staffs’ other obligations – you can always adjust, but don’t overload at first, or it may never happen
  • Determine the appropriate tools (WordPress is at the top of that list)
  • Plan an editorial calendar – just like the newspapers and magazines do.  This does not mean you can only write when something is on the calendar – it just makes it easier to know when some important dates or material needs to be added.  But go ahead and blog on a whim, if you have something of interest to share!
  • Set realistic goals, maybe you are unable to blog as often as you’d like, but when you do, it is great content!  Or maybe you only have time to do short posts summarizing things you read somewhere else, instead of heavily researched articles prepared in-house.  As long as it is relevant and informative, that is fine!
• Follow through, start your blog and make sure to maintain it!

Please keep in mind, these are just suggestions, and they can be tailored to work for any company.  Maybe instead of you writing the content in-house, you hire a copywriter.  Or maybe you go to the local college and get an intern, if your budget is tight.

As far as a ‘type of business’, there really aren’t any businesses that I can think of who could not benefit from a blog.  If you have a business and don’t think your readers would be interested in reading your blog, why not give me a chance to brainstorm an idea or two, by commenting below.  And if you just want to challenge me, just name a biz that you don’t think could find material worth blogging about, to their specific audience and let me see if I could come up with a couple of content ideas.  Post your thoughts and challenges in the comment box below…

Watch the Blogging For Biz Panel at WordCamp Boulder: (Note: It is a 45 min video, so may take time to load – and looks like nothing is happening.  If you have issues, you can also go directly to WordPress.TV to view it there, along with the rest of WordCampBoulder).

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!)

University of Colorado at Boulder’s Marketing and Creative Services department has partnered with Bethany Siegler of UniqueThink, to offer her WordPress: Managing Content training to select clients. The department will continue its focus on communications planning, web site design, development and usability, while utilizing Bethany’s experience for training clients to maintain content on their sites using the WordPress platform.

Bethany looks forward to working with CU.  She has been doing a similar presentation at Boulder Digital Arts (BDA), which is for the general public.

The next public workshop at BDA is:

Tuesday, May 18th, 2010
6PM – 9PM
BDA Arapahoe Studio
1600 Range Street, Suite 100,
Boulder, CO  80301

If you are interested in attending this presentation, please visit the Boulder Digital Art’s Website.

If your organization, association, meeting up group or company is looking for WordPress lecture style or hands on training opportunities, please contact Bethany at UniqueThink to arrange for speaking opportunities.

OK, this is not by any means a complete list, but figured I’d mention some of the WordPress related events happening in and around Boulder, Colorado this November.

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009, 6-7:30 p.m.

WORDPRESS WEBSITES: How to get a cost-effective, easy to maintain website
Westminster Public Library, College Hill
Click here to read my post on this free WordPress Workshop for those trying to understand WHY to use WordPress for your complete site.

Thursday, November 5th – 6:00 PM

Boulder WordPress Meetup – How Do I
Slice of Lime Office – 1216 Pearl St, Suite #200 – Second Floor
Click here to register for this Boulder WP meetup group – there’s a suggested $2 donation.

Sunday, November 8th – 10am – 1pm

WordPress – Installing & Getting Started
Who Should Take This: Solid knowledge of HTML and CSS.
Instructor: M. Douglas Wray
Location: BDA Studio – 2510 47th Street, Suite 202, Boulder, CO  80301
Click here to sign up for Doug’s class at Boulder Digital Arts

Tuesday, November 17th 6pm-8pm – Sold Out

BDA Members-Only Panel: The Wonder of WordPress
I think this is already sold out, but it should be a good one.  Doug Wray, Angela Bowman and I will be on this panel to discuss Wordpress.ORG and why we all choose it as our #1 platform for building websites and blogs.
Location: BDA Studio – 2510 47th Street, Suite 202, Boulder, CO  80301
Click here to see if they released any extra spots!

Thursday, November 19th – 2pm – 5pm

WordPress – Creating & Managing Content
Who Should Take This: People who will be responsible for creating and managing content on a WordPress site, and web developers who need to train their clients.
Instructor: That would be me, Bethany Siegler
Location: BDA Studio – 2510 47th Street, Suite 202, Boulder, CO  80301
Click here to sign up for my class at Boulder Digital Arts

If you have specific questions about which of these offerings you should take, please either comment below or contact me directly.

Update 10/28/099:  This class has been rescheduled, due to snow.  It is now being held on Wed, November 4th.  Same time, same place.

I am doing a Free Workshop (lecture style) on Why to Use WordPress.ORG to build your complete website.

WORDPRESS WEBSITES: How to get a cost-effective, easy to maintain website

NEW DATE: Wednesday, November 4th, 2009
Westminster Public Library, College Hill, 6-7:30 p.m.
3705 West 112th Avenue
Westminster, CO  80031

Here’s the link to Google Maps

Call 303-404-5104 to register for this FREE program.

You need to RSVP – there is limited room, so make sure you call

Here is what I’ll be talking about:

• Get introduced to why WordPress is a great option for any small business to build and maintain their own site.
  • No more expensive graphic designers or waiting on a webmaster to make a simple change on your site.
  • If you have an old static site that isn’t bringing in traffic, or if you’re creating a website for the first time, Wordpress is a great option for any small business.
  • Maintain your own website with this quick, easy and cost-effective tool that grows along with your company.

• What we will be discussing
  • Do you really need a Site AND a Blog for your business?
  • The difference between Blogs and Sites
  • Wordpress.org (not Wordpress.com)
    • It’s Free software (all you need is a hosting service provider and some plugins)
    • Maintain your own site/blog
    • Built in Marketing Advantages
    • A glance at how it works
      • Admin panel, Themes, Plugins and Widgets (what are they)
        • Steps to get started

      This series was coordinated by Dhyan Atkinson, and there are a lot of other great workshops in the series, as well, so go to the library’s website and check them out. Beth Hayden just did a great one on BLOGGING FOR YOUR BUSINESS. And the next one, after mine is Cindy Kalman, talking about GRAPHIC DESIGN IN THE INTERNET AGE.  So, check them all out.

      If you miss any of them, don’t worry, we’ll be doing them again in the new year.  Also, don’t forget I am doing WordPress Workshops at Boulder Digital Arts, as well.

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’

Learn how, and why, to use WordPress for your complete web solution.  Set up and create sites (as well as blogs) using WordPress.org:

Getting Started with WordPress – For Content Creators
Date(s):
Monday, July 06, 2009 | 6pm – 9pm For description and more info, click here

Getting Started with WordPress – Web Developers
Date(s):
Tuesday, July 14, 2009 | 6pm – 9pm For description and more info, click here

Location:
BDA Studio
2510 47th Street, Suite 202, Boulder, CO  80301

Registration and more info available at BoulderDigitalArts.com

OK, many of you have been asking us to do this, and it ends up that due to family circumstances Doug won’t be able to teach his normal WordPress Workshop for Boulder Digital Arts.  So, Angela Bowman and I will be doing it for him.

If you have been wanting to learn how to set up Wordpress.org for yourself, instead of hiring me to do it for you, this is the time and place.

You actually benefit from both Angela and my own experience.  Interestingly, we both took Doug’s class a couple of years before we met each other.  So, when we did meet, we were so excited to find someone else who loved building websites (not just blogs), from the fantastic WordPress tool set.

Anyway, for these classes, you get both of us teaching you all we learned from Doug, originally, plus all we’ve learned since.

So take full advantage of it.  Instead of paying one of us our normal hourly fee, you get both of us for 3 full hours, per class.

There are two options, and taking both classes could be beneficial, depending on your goals.

The first Workshop is for those who want to run the site themselves, to understand the power of Wordpress.org as a content-creation or management tool, plus a review of the marketing advantages of using it.

The other workshop is  for using WordPress.org as a site-building tool ( bit more technical, so it’s geared toward those who want to learn all the nooks and crannies).

There will be a review of plugins during both classes, and some of the content will overlap, so if you have questions on which to take, call me and we’ll figure it out.

Sign Up Now, while there are seats available! Or contact me with any questions

There’s going to be lots of fun information.

Getting Started with WordPress – For Content Creators

Getting Started with WordPress – Web Developers