Regardless of how you set it up, there has to be a feedback method. Readers and viewers have to have a way to reply to what they have seen. This is part of what makes the page a blog rather than an article. It is interactive and people respond to that.

The ability to interact on a personal level is a big contributor to the trust and connection that blogs can create. So it is important that your company blog doesn’t forgo this component.

Of course you must also have a system for monitoring the feedback and removing any that would actually harm your marketing campaign.

You also have to decide which media form your online journal will take. Or maybe you will tackle all three. I would start with one first.

Any of the three can be effective and you will have to determine which one best suits your audience. Is your target market likely to own an ipod? If not then perhaps podcasts are not the right option for you. You would opt for a blog or vlog instead.

But you aren’t limited to just one.

Finally, remember that the blog will not deliver the message unless people read it, watch it, or listen to it. If no one comes to your blog or is interested, it won’t be able to create the desired connection.

Next: Promoting your Blog

Then the momentum started to pick up. More people posted their own blogs, software was developed to facilitate the postings, people became interested and loyal readership developed. Innovation occurred, and vlogging and podcasts were born.

Now blogging is an internet industry unto itself.

And we all know that where there is a popular commodity there is a marketing opportunity.

Anything that people pay attention to can serve as a vehicle for marketing. Sports have sponsors, TV shows have commercials, pregnant women have built in billboards.

Blogs reach the public. People are paying attention to them and businesses can use that to connect with their market.

Blogs

A web-log, or blog as we mostly call it, is a written journal that is posted to a user’s website. The content of a blog is completely user-specific. Some blog sites contain commentaries and reviews on places or people. Others give recaps and insights into news events. Some are educational in nature to showcase the thought leadership of the writer.

Some still retain the original journal purpose and function as personal diaries where people write their innermost thoughts and then publish them to the world.

Just as the theme of the blog is specific to the writer, so are any special features. Many times you will find that blogs contain pictures and other images, links to other sites or other blogs, and even more advanced features like audio files or videos.

But the hallmark feature of a blog is that the message is delivered as written communication.

VLog

Vlog’s, or video-logs are very similar to blogs in that they serve the same purpose. People use them to convey their thoughts and opinions.

The distinction between a blog with video stream and a vlog is that in the blog, the video will be what the commentary is written about, whereas in the vlog the video will actually be the commentary itself.

It’s similar to the difference between a newspaper and the six o’clock news – one you read, and the other you watch.

Vlogs really started to gain their popularly in just the past couple of years, so they and their technology are still relatively new. As digital video cameras have become more affordable and accessible, vlogs have become more common and I think that we are going to see a really big jump in the ways that vlogs are used. It is possible that they will replace blogs as the most common form.

Podcast

Going even further, a podcast is a little more complicated of an idea. Unlike the blogs or vlogs, a podcast is meant to be downloaded directly onto an i-pod – although it can be experienced through the website as well.

Basically, a user downloads a feed that will provide them with updated podcasts on their portable entertainment unit. And for as long as they subscribe to the podcast they will continue to receive the updated feed.

Originally, the podcasts were audio only, but now that we have the ipod video, podcasts can be digital images as well. One of the greatest advantages of podcasts is that they are transportable. You don’t need to be at the computer anymore.

Blogging, vlogging and podcasts all welcome user comments. They invite interaction, and that attracts visitors.

These three methods are here to stay, and they can help your business a great deal. If you are not incorporating these methods into your marketing campaign, you are missing out on a great opportunity.

Companies and marketers are understanding that the use of blogs, vlogs, and podcasts can generate a lot of buzz around their products and services if used correctly.

Let us know how you are using these online tools to help grow your business.

Myrtle Beach woman gets $4050 for advertising space on pregnant belly

Really, where won’t we advertise? As marketers we are always looking for the next big innovative way to reach our client base. It can be advertisements in washrooms, company logos on athlete’s uniforms, slogans across the miracle of life – whatever we can do to expose ourselves to our target market in a creative and innovative way – we want to do it.

When it comes to marketing we know that in order to sell someone a product or service you have to first form a connection with them. The customer has to believe that they need the item and they have to believe that you are provider who will best meet their needs.

That is what successful advertising does. It creates the demand and then markets the solution. And the company that is most successful at doing this, the one that best targets their perspective customer base, is the one who gets the biggest market share.

So we are always looking for the edge that will put our marketing strategy above everyone else’s.

Now I don’t know about advertising on the prenatal, but there are definitely exciting new ways of marketing on the web.

The internet provides the platforms that create marketing advantages and this is because it is still relatively untouched. It hasn’t been completely exploited and overdone yet. There are plenty of advertising opportunities available now that the market will still respond to and there is the promise of many more to come.

Unfortunately this isn’t the case off-line. Television, radio, direct mailings, print ads. None of these work like they used to. There’s too much clutter. They have been over done and used up. People just don’t respond to them in the same way and they do not create the same connections that they once did.

That is why we are purchasing space on people’s stomachs.

Internet marketing is still fresh enough to create the connections. People haven’t been desensitized to it yet because they haven’t been inundated with it since before they were born.

Of course. Like everything, there are still challenges to internet marketing. Nothing comes that easy.

Enter blogs, vlogs, and podcasts. These are tools that can take create the connection and deliver your message because they are an online platform that has the public’s trust.

So what are they? How are they being used? And most importantly how can you use them to promote your business

During these post I will be explaining the concepts behind these tools and we’ll take a look at how others are using them. Then we will discuss the principles and some dangers that marketers need to consider before diving into this realm. And finally, we’ll look at how these tools can be used by you and whether or not they should be.

I have been going to a few “live networking” meetings lately and I have discovered something – many business folks still have no idea what a blog, vlog or podcast is – can you believe that? They are much like the deer in the picture – stuck with no where to go.

Because I am so caught up in this online world it has become second nature to me – I made the fatal mistake of assuming that everyone knew what they were and how to use them. Well, they don’t.

So over the next few posts I am going to talk basic’s about how you might join in on the fun.

Read, learn, enjoy. Here is what we will be covering…

1. Introduction
2. What are they?
3. How are they used?
4. Should you use them?
5. What you need to know before you start
6. How to promote

1. Headline Is Everything
   Imagine, while standing in line at your local movie theater, you see a film poster with this tag line, “Movie created by Universal Studios has many special effects.” If you saw this poster, would you even bother finding out more about the film, let alone actually seeing it?

   However, if you saw this same poster with the tagline, “17 year old Marty McFly got home early last night. 30 years early.” your interest would be piqued and you’d probably find yourself attempting to find out more about the film and eventually seeing it.

   Your headline is no different. First impressions are the key and your headline is your first impression. Make it snappy, compelling, and interesting. Grab the reader with your headline and your foot is in the door.

2. Focus on Your Target Market
   In order to know how to market, you must understand to whom you are marketing. If your target market is the dog grooming industry, you cannot suddenly take a left turn in the middle of your piece and begin chatting about how your product or service will help those in the medical field.

   Remember who your audience is and address their needs and concerns specifically.

3. Make an Emotional Connection; Keep Them Interested
   Now that you’ve got their attention, you have to keep it. The thing you need to remember when writing is that you’re not writing about or for yourself.

   You’re writing for your audience. Microsoft is famous for saying, “Your Potential, Our Passion.” In order to grip your reader and make a true connection with them, you have to understand their basic needs and desires.

   The most common mistake marketers make when writing a marketing piece is thinking about their product, their needs and themselves. After all, shouldn’t a marketing piece showcase your product and you? You are marketing your service with the piece, right? So, why shouldn’t the piece be all about you?

   As you begin along this train of thought, remember back to the last time your most distant family member sent you a letter detailing their present day life. You may recall how they went on about your seventh cousin’s new baby or how that twelfth cousin by marriage, whom you’ve never heard of, just got a promotion. You may also recall how you could have cared less.

   When you send your clients, potential or existing, the equivalent of your distant family member’s letter detailing the boring details of your company, you’ve already lost the battle.  Instead of telling your audience how your company is number one and how fantastic you are, use your marketing piece to answer the burning question that is on their mind…

4. Answer the Question, “What’s In It For Me?”
   How can you help this person who is reading your piece? Can you make their life easier? Save them time and money? Can you help them expand their business or better automate their services? What’s keeping your clients and potential clients up at night?

   Once you answer these questions yourself, you will be better able to answer their questions and your marketing piece will more likely avoid their trash bin.

5. Fully Explain the Benefits of What You Have to Offer
   Now that you’ve answered the questions in tip number five, it’s time to explain how you can make their life easier by explaining the benefits of your offering. Make it easy for them to understand.

   Don’t make your potential or existing clients think. Do the thinking for them. Avoid using long sentences and paragraphs as you lay out the benefits. Break up your paragraphs. Use bullets and lists where appropriate. Do everything you can to keep your reader from giving up and moving on.

6. Call To Action
   Once you’ve established a connection with your target and have explained the benefits of your offering, it’s time to call them to action. Fully explain the next step they should take in accepting your offer. If you fail to suggest a next step, your target will do nothing.

   Make sure to determine what action you desire from your marketing piece and fully instruct your reader on how to do so. Again, don’t make your target think. Do the thinking for them and spell out how to take action. Make doing so easy enough that it requires little to no thought on their part.

   Words are the most powerful weapon we have as inhabitants of the earth and when you’re marketing, they’re THE weapon. With a well-written marketing piece, you can grow your business by earning new clients and keeping existing ones.

Ultimately, there are cases where the former will be the best option, and other cases where it will be the latter option: it all comes down to the particular circumstances of the company at hand.

For example, a company that has a solid and long-standing in-house marketing staff—with more than sufficient resources to make convincing press releases, handle customers’ queries, and so forth—will probably choose to hire an exclusively SEO company.  That’s because they probably don’t have the in-house expertise to launch and manage an effective search engine optimization campaign, but have got pretty much every other aspect of marketing down to a T.

Surely a company that neither has a good marketing staff (in the traditional sense) nor any qualified SEO staff will be inclined to go the route of the full-service marketing firm.  Such a company has nothing to lose and everything to gain from following this path.

Some companies simply have no need for many traditional marketing techniques, and prefer to practically exclusively focus on online marketing initiatives.  This is the case for specific companies with even more specific target audiences: for example, a company specializing in hi-tech gadgetry aimed at computer experts is likely to get their message across more than effectively enough with e-advertising, as the intended customers are highly connected by default.  To reiterate, only companies in a very few niches can afford to make this call, and only if they are ready to pour lots of effort into the SEO side of things.

For most run of the mill companies, there really is no substitute for a comprehensive marketing firm that can tackle all their needs and produce one consolidated bill.  The more impressive such specimens can house an incredibly diverse set of skills under one roof, and that is a major asset for any company in need of marketing assistance.  Such firms will not only be able to tackle your SEO work, but they will tackle the copywriting work that complements and fills out said work.  Furthermore, as most companies cannot afford to abandon traditional avenues of marketing, such firms can help in the drafting of press releases and reaching strategic decisions on message content.

Furthermore, these kinds of broad, inclusive marketing firms can help you land new online revenue opportunities such as pay per click advertisements.  The money garnered from these channels, though on a minor scale at least to begin with, can end up subsidizing a good portion of online marketing initiatives in the future, and is one thing that you won’t find any exclusively-SEO company offering to do for you.

“Picture them Naked”

This is definitely a trick. Picturing their audience naked, or in their underwear will stop many presenters from feeling nervous.

First, let’s understand why it works. It is actually not because it makes the audience less intimidating. Trust me, your boss or a big client would be just as intimidating in their nickers as they are in a suit – and maybe even a little more so!

In reality, you aren’t actually scared of those you are presenting to, you are nervous because you’re scared of yourself. Nervous speakers are worried that they will make a mistake, not say the right thing, do something goofy, or otherwise not get their message across. They are worried, and worrying is a mental activity.

Picturing the audience naked works because it too is a mental activity. You are using your imagination, which distracts your brain from its worrying.

So if picturing the audience naked distracts you, then it is a great trick to use, but any form of mental activity can work just as well. Counting window panes or repeating a tongue twister can also work. I once had a client for whom I would provide a simple puzzle – It would only take a minute or two and if he was successful, I bought the coffee after the speech.

The key to this trick is that your brain has a job to do, other than worry.

“Find a Friendly Face”

Myth. And a bad idea at that. The concept behind this advice is that by finding a friendly face to keep coming back to, you will provide yourself with a place to gain encouragment. Humans are very social; we continually seek cues from our environment, and adjust according to them.

In a conversation, the person we are speaking to provides these cues through their interaction with us, but during a presentation these cues are removed because we are speaking in an endless stream without response. This is a challenge that a lot of presenters have difficulty with; it feels very unnatural to speak without receiving assurances that we are saying the right thing.

If you go into a presentation with the intention of finding a friendly face to gain your encouragement, then you are setting yourself up for a potential failure. Most people in the audience are looking at their papers, or staring back at the speaker with a  blank expression. This doesn’t mean that they dislike what the speaker is saying, but if the speaker is looking for a friendly face and doesn’t find one, they can become nervous and self-conscious.

Instead, I recommend that you create the assurances that you need. The first step is to identify the cues that you use to tell others that you are interested in what they are saying. Do you step closer to them, smile slightly, or nod your head? Do you furrow your eyebrows to show that you deeply considering their point? These are the body language cues that mean “interest” to you.

Now use them to encourage yourself. During your presentation nod as you say something that you expect others to agree with or smile slightly if you are making a great point. This will do two things, first just performing the action yourself will bolster your confidence. And second, several members of your audience will mimic your behavior and nod along with you or smile back. Now you will have the friendly face you are looking for.

“Bring a Glass of Water”

This is one of my favorite tricks. But, like picturing the audience naked, it doesn’t work for the reason that most people think. The water is not for dry mouth – it’s a prop.

Taking a sip of water provides you with an acceptable excuse to take a pause.

If you are distracted during your presentation then you will need a chance to gather your thoughts, regain your composure, and find your place in your notes. By taking a quick drink, you are not only able to regroup mentally, but you also create an acceptable excuse to take a moment to flip through your notes upon returning to your presentation.

The danger of the water is that you will compulsively sip on it when you’re nervous. This is not only very distracting to the audience, it also carries the risk of a full bladder – which will be distracting to you.

To prevent this, I always put a little salt in the glass. Not enough that it tastes bad, but just enough that it doesn’t taste great. That prevents compulsive sipping.

And if you actually do get dry mouth, gently place the sides of your tongue between your molars and chew once or twice. This will get your salvatory glands going again, which is much more effective than any beverage.

There are two ways that we can think about integrated marketing. There is the narrow perception and the expanded one. We can think of integrated marketing as a strategy to increase our exposure by using several advertising vehicles to deliver our message – combining TV and print ads say.

Or we can think about integrated marketing as a strategy to increase the impact of our message. This means varying the style of our message as well as the vehicle. We want to use the expanded definition.

Fly Fishing – Integrated Marketing
Let me explain it using an analogy that I know very well – fly fishing. I’m the one out in the river with hip waders. But it takes more than those flattering pants to catch a fish. I have to think it through and do a little planning. I know that I want to catch a fish, but I have to decide which one – and how.

The fish I’m trying to catch is going to determine the type of line and fly I choose. Just as in marketing we have to identify our target market because they are going to determine the type advertising vehicle and message that we use.
My fly line – like my advertising vehicle – does not catch the fish. The fly catches the fish. It’s the lines job to deliver the fly.

And different fly fishing lines are designed to overcome different barriers that separate you from your fish. Sometimes I’ll need a heavy line to reach my fish, sometimes an arrowhead taper will do it. It all depends on the fish – where they are and what they are like.

In the same way, your advertising vehicle brings your message – brings your fly – to your market.By integrating and varying your vehicle – using TV, using print, using the internet – you are changing your line to better reach your market. You are choosing the right vehicle to overcome the barriers between you and your customers.

Variety of Vehicles
Employing several advertising vehicles is certainly an important part of integrated marketing, but it isn’t the only one.
By considering the line I’m able to get my fly to the fish, but will it hit it? Only if I have the right message. Only if I have the right fly. Different fish have different motivators to strike. Some will strike at the nymph others won’t.

Within your target market different members will respond to different messages. Different messages will motivate them to purchase your product or hire your services. If I want to hit all the fish in my river, if I want to snag every type of customer in my market, I have to vary the vehicle, but I also have to vary the fly.

Variety of Message
That is why successful integrated marketing employs not only a variety of advertising vehicles, but also a variety of messages. Connected and integrated but a variety. Integrated marketing is successful because it uses different lines and different flies to catch all the fish in our river. It uses different vehicles and different messages to snag all the members of our target market.

It is successful because it provides maximum market coverage.

RevBuilders Marketing has a different belief. All marketing/advertising works at different times for different reasons. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is certainly the hottest item today and is an extremely important part of any well rounded marketing strategy. However, you must make sure that it works effectively with your current strategies as well.

So before you launch out and select a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) company be sure to ask these questions:

1. Do they have any sales experience?
   Having great technical skills is important, but communicating vital. The goal of online marketing is to drive leads or sales. If you do not have someone on the team who understands this process, the results will not meet your expectations.  Hiring a company that understands the entire decision making process of your prospects and client is critical for long term success.
2. Do they have any marketing experience?
   Many Search Engine Optimization (SEO) firms have been established to take advantage of the growing market – nothing wrong with that.  However, many of them view online marketing from a strictly technical point of view. This approach could be harmful to your long-term goals.  Marketing is more then just Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It is the whole package. Having a company that can manage all aspect of your marketing gives you a distinct advantage over those who use several companies – you will be much more efficient and you will see more dramatic results.
3. Will they or can they work with other marketing disciplines?
   Coordinating different companies to work on an integrated marketing campaign is challenging at best. Working with a company that can act as the “marketing manager” and bring a team together to work for your success has a much better chance at succeeding. It could be several different companies, as long as you, the client, is working through one single contact point for all your marketing needs.

I went on a quick trip with my Dad and a good friend to Wild West Virginia. We arrived on Sunday afternoon and quickly started in on the research. You must know what your target fish is eating for dinner.

Match the Hatch – is king when fishing for trophy rainbows and brown trout. Trout are very smart and picky about what they eat – if you do not give them want they want, you can forget it. Current conditions can also influence how well you may do – in West Virginia if the water is too warm, the trout will not look at a thing. So timing in important!

After many tries at matching the hatch, I tied on a green woolly bugger (king of all flies), carefully placed it with precision and masterful casting skills right in front of a nice 17-18 inch rainbow – wham! The fight was on. If you do not know how to properly cast the fly or how to present it just right, the trout will stick her nose up at you every time.

So here are four Marketing Lessons: They may be basic, but just about everyone ignores them.

1. Understand what your target market is eating (what are the problems you can solve for your hungry prospects)
2. Understand their eating habits (online searching, local events, associations, media – you must know where your target market gets their information)
3. Understand how they like it served (Design for effectiveness not awards.)
4. Test, Test, Test (Marketing is a guessing game as much as it is science. People don’t always follow the rules)

The RevMan