I used a lot of my recent ISBDC conference information and you can check all those facts over here - stuff like Facebook being up 700% and how communication has risen 18% in overall time online. Those are big numbers.

ICR and SMPS people were a great group and I really enjoyed speaking to many of them afterwards.

I would also like to share with you the slideshow deck and a few videos I referenced.

I really enjoyed the Kevin Kelley panel discussion and I believe it’s a must watch for those of us interested in where the internet is going and why it’s so important to get involved online now instead of later.

I gave the group some good nuggets and some specific takeaways that may be relevant to your company.

Here’s some of the nuggets:

• The internet is not the silver bullet for marketing but the connections you make now will digitally last forever. And the relevant connections you have, the more chances of someone finding you.
• Social media is just one tactic of online marketing. You should have overall integrated marketing strategy in place then you can use the social media tactic - if you don’t have this, then how do you know if it is working with you?
• Being a valuable community member is more important than just talking about yourself and your company online.
• Going out and signing up for a Twitter, Linkedin, or Facebook account is only part of what you can do. There is a etiquette and language you must learn and follow to be a respected community member.
• So many times businesses sign up for these “free” tools expect them to work with little time or planning dedicated to their success. You usually get out of it what you put into it. If it sucks, then maybe you should look at yourself instead of the tool.

Here where the takeaways:

• Set specific goals with constraints and measurable items of return.
• Put in place a schedule. This will help develop a routine and habits and answer the question of “When do I have time to do this?”
• Figure your expected ROI. Your schedule should answer to the ROI you expect. Which is determined by the goal you laid out in the first step.
• Take sometime to explore the different tools and keep an open mind to how they can fit in your day. I did not learn this overnight but made mistakes and discoveries and learned from them both.
• If you are uncomfortable about communicating, why not just start by listening to what is going on.

Feel free to call me at 317.218.0500, tweet, facebook, linkedin, or email me for further advice as you discover these new tools.

And to tell you the truth, sometimes I think I know the answer to this question and sometimes I feel like I don’t.

Has any of my contacts through Linkedin, Facebook or Twitter generated business for MediaSauce. Well, sort of. But maybe it’s not the kind of direct correlation that advertising and marketing delivers. Or that we think advertising and marketing deliver.

You see, you can’t argue with the facts. Lots and lots of people are using these platforms. The increase in usage is tremendous.

Facebook is up 700% in time spent and has over 200 million users - over 100 million unique visitors last month.

Linkedin is up 69% in time spent and has over 41 million users - over 12 million unique visitors last month.

And finally, Twitter, the marketing buzz word for the first six months of this year, is up a whooping 3700% increase in time spent and has over 32 million users - over 19 million unique visitors last month. This is all from Nielsen, if you think I’m making it up.

I know it’s insane. But what’s even bigger is the fact that more people are using the internet to communicate than entertain themselves. In fact, according to Netpop, communication online has increased 18% to 27% of total time while entertainment has decreased 30% to 19% of total time online.

What’s that mean? We are more entertained with each other than Hollywood. These social networks are our reality shows (without so much drama - well, maybe not.)

We are social beings. We love talking and hanging out. We like being part of crowds and causes. We go out to see people.

Well, what does that have to do with my business?

Let me explain.

Word of Mouth Marketing has the strongest Return on Investment. When someone you trust gives you a recommendation about a product, you are highly likely to purchase that product. It’s what every business wants.

Take Apple for example. They made a great product. They have great advertising. But is that what sold the product to you? Probably not. It was probably a friend that had one that told you how awesome it was. The advertising exposed you to it but it didn’t sell it to you. Your friend did.

Social Media and Networking is Word of Mouth online. That’s it. It’s that simple.

So if you can figure out how to get your customers to talk about you both offline (WOM) and online (Social Media), you don’t have to spend a lot of money on other pieces of your advertising and marketing budget.

But guess what? Trying to advertise on a social network doesn’t work. People don’t like banners or contextual ads on their Linkedin and Facebook profiles. They hate the fact that advertisers are trying to sneak into Twitter.

Why? Because you aren’t being a valuable part of their community. You aren’t playing by the same rules as they are. You are buying yourself into the party and shouting out your benefits. You, my friend, are a party-crasher - uninvited and you are stinking the place up. But they can’t eject you (maybe on the new Digg Ads they will) but they can ignore you.

Just like they ignore you on TV (DVRs), radio (change stations), print (skip the page) and web (does anyone actually see a banner ad anymore?).

So if you want to be in these communities and you want people to notice who you are and what you stand for and are selling then you have to be the person they want to talk to.

You need to be smart, funny, friendly guy that people want to talk to, listen to, and, in general, they want you to notice them as well. You can’t do that when all you are doing is talking about yourself.

So what do you have to do? It’s simple - just be a friend.

Check out the powerpoint above, it will give you tips on each platform and walk you through the basics to get started.

By the way, none of these platforms are difficult. They just take some time to understand and use. In no time, you’ll be a pro.

If you want to measure the ROI from each one of these platforms, it’s pretty simple but that does take some time as well.

Just set up your CRM tool (Salesforce incorporated some social networking features) or your Excel sheet and measure the items I suggest in the powerpoint. Like for ROI on Twitter, I suggest:

• Measure Your Time on Twitter

• Measure Your Connections (Target Audience Reach)

• Measure Your Conversations

• Measure Your Cost to Advertise on Twitter - there are a few out there now like BeTweeted.com and Magpie.com

This is just like you would do for a face-to-face meeting or cold calling.

Oh, and I want to make sure that I answer the question at the top.

Whenever I meet someone new, I hook up with them on Linkedin and I search them out on Twitter.

If we have more conversations, I reach out to them on Facebook.

I want them to be a part of my life and I want to be a part of theirs. We’re friends, we’re business partners. Lots of businesses say they want to be your partners but do they reach out to you in this personal way. Probably not. It’s much harder to ignore someone you have a relationship with.

Have I had success through these links? I sure have.

Through Linkedin, I have met a couple of new clients but the majority of my business has been from former co-workers reaching out and connecting. We still have those connections going and they can easily find out what I’m up to. And you better believe they reach out when they have business in what I do because I’m not the first line in the Yellow Pages. We have a relationship already. They trust me.

Through Facebook, I’ve met friends of friends and while the connection is social at first, it has quickly leads to business. In fact, I usually earn business from friends by the way I use Facebook to promote our business and they want to learn how as well.

Through Twitter, I’ve reached out to people I did not know. But not like a cold call - I reached out by joining in their conversations. But I’ve also had several reach out to me wanting to learn how they can be a part of MediaSauce and our culture.

Listen, these platforms will probably not be around forever with the way the web is evolving but these virtual connections I’m making will move along with me. People I’m tied with today will probably remain with me in five years though it might not be through Facebook or whatever.

You don’t have to be my BFF to be connected online. But if you want to learn more about me, then connect below. You can be guaranteed that I want to know more about you. I’m a social being after all.

What do you think? Think I’m crazy?

Linkedin
Facebook
Twitter
Friendfeed

So the beef today is with DIRECTV and Sprint. I’ve been a customer of both for a long time. DIRECTV for the past five years and Sprint since I’ve had a cell phone (back in 1999). That’s a long time, right?

I’ve defended both to naysayers and I’ve also pushed a lot of customers their way but I’m done. I have to be and let me tell you why.

First, DIRECTV. My area has recently upgraded to U-verse. I would like to get it. Why? Because it has a lot of the features I want and I really don’t want to pay the high fees to get HD for my TV. Plus I’m still running my internet access through my cable TV (even though, I don’t have cable TV anymore) and I’m tired of their high fees for high speed access because I’m not tied to their bad grainy cable signal.

So I’m ready to break away to something I think is better. But DIRECTV won’t let me without paying their early withdrawal fees. I can understand it if I’ve been a customer just a couple of months. But I’ve been there five years. Just because I upgraded a last year to a different plan, they treat me as if I’m just another new customer who is not been with them for a long time. This is what this says to me - THEY REALLY DON’T KNOW WHO I AM.

And when I hear that it makes me say, “You know, I really don’t know who you are, DIRECTV, and you never appreciated any of the time I’ve spent with you so kiss off.”

Now onto Sprint. Same thing. I’ve been with them for ten years. While the Palm Pre looks pretty fantastic, I’m not willing to tie myself to you for another two years just for ONE cool phone. I’ve been with you for a long time and yet again because I bought a new phone less than two years ago, it’s $600 to break my contract (I have three phones with them). They are still the only guys that don’t pro-rate the contract. That’s crap.

Again, they don’t know I’ve been with them for a very long time. Longer than any job. Slightly longer than my marriage but yet, they don’t know me. So I will be breaking my contract and I will be telling people not to sign with Sprint just like DIRECTV because you just don’t care about who you deal with.

Here’s a Twitter worth for your marketing minds. Are they really worth it?

rootsben: @kmtr You need to work out a contract with DirecTV so we can watch CW! Seriously! about 15 hours ago
distroia: DirecTV scammed the F*&K out of us! When we moved we got a box for Jareth’s room and that AUTOMATICALLY extended our “contract” by 2 years. yesterday
tideturns: i hate directv so much that i am willing to pay to get out of my contract. I’m finally getting AT&T U-Verse 1:51 PM May 15
vcolombo: Just paid my DirecTV early contract termination fee. Glad to be rid of them. 0:53 PM May 14
dbkguy: Beware of Directv. You probably agreed to a contract and u don’t even know it. 11:16 PM May 13

And don’t give me that crap about we have the equipment and free install - your equipment only works with you and no one else so it’s worthless to me if I don’t use you. There’s no benefit for me just for you.

I tweeted about this concept of ETFs and I got back a lot of responses including one from a good friend, Langston Richardson. He says:

Most marketing efforts concentrates on getting customers into the door, sell them a package and pass them along into an often disconnected realm of customer service. Perceptions of brands will tend to follow this longer engagement track and thus over time effect brand perspectives of consumers. Case in point, the challenge of Charter Communications has with customer service.

As to early termination, anything that is a surprise is a negative. Fortunately, there is no brand who owns this on the subscription model services. Contracts are full of legal-speak but many companies never use them as a selling point. Is there something about the relationship that can be marketed rather than only seen at the end of the relationship during a breakup. Today’s informed and aware consumer hates being tricked.. or thinking they’ve been tricked. Getting out of contracts magnifies this negative.

Along with many others.

Via MTRay27 @donschindler not a fan of #directv after recent experience…would be happy to fill u in…negative branding

Via mrmysterious: @donschindler it was worth it to me to pay two etf’s to Sprint to get my wife and me an iPhone.

Via y0mbo @donschindler Early termination fees only guarantee customers will not be back, even if their new service is worse than what they had.

Via robbyslaughter: @donschindler Early termination fees => good for the vendor, bad for the customer => bad idea. Nothing brilliant.

So how do you fix this? I suggest a very different point of view. One from the customer. Here’s what I would do.

Know how long I’ve been a customer. There should be no contract fees for someone who’s been with you for over two years. Then I’m more likely to stay. Locking people up every time they touch their plan is an screw-you move and you know it. Stop doing it.

I think you should also take away the fees altogether and watch how many people come over from other providers. No contract. No hassles.

What do you think?

Is the fee you charge to make sure I hesitate in taking my business elsewhere worth the negative feelings to your brand?

Ford is changing cars and PR

So I got this email last week.

Hi, Don

On Wednesday, May 13, Ford will be stopping in Indianapolis to host a 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid “open house” starting at 10 a.m. at The Westin Indianapolis, Capital One Room, 50 South Capital Avenue. It’s part of a 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid cross-country tour - 33 cities over 60 days.

The all-new 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid is getting a lot of buzz lately. In recent news, the 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid achieved an astounding 1,445.7 miles on a single tank of gas driving a total of 69 hours. It is the precursor to Ford’s planned line of plug-in hybrid vehicles, which Ford plans to place on the market in 2012.

Speaking at the open house will be Lisa Drake, chief engineer, Ford Sustainable Mobility Technology, to talk about and demonstrate the 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid including Ford’s state-of-the-art SmartGauge technology. During the presentation Lisa will discuss Ford’s goals to have best-in-class MPG ratings for all vehicles in the Ford lineup as well as new Ford technologies like EcoBoost, which will be available in half a million Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury vehicles over the next five years. She will also touch on the importance of sustainability and working jointly with environmental stakeholders.

Following the presentation, you will then have the opportunity to take the new 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid for a test drive.

I really hope you can come out and join us. Please let me know, I would love to have your feedback!

Cheers,

Janine

I thought “Wow, this is pretty cool.” I wonder what I’m doing on Wednesday. Crap, I have too much work to do but maybe I can find some time to go.

But here’s the interesting part. I don’t know Janine - we’ve never spoken before. She found me - like many others in cities across the nation - by researching my blog and Twitter feeds.

It wasn’t hard for her. Just a little homework and a nice email asking me if I would like to come out. Now I’m sure this happens to many prolific bloggers like Chris Brogan (he actually gets to test drive many cars) - but this doesn’t happen to me. I’m just a little known blogger here in Indy but things are changing out there.

She could have done just the normal thing and blast out a press release and hope that the media picks it up. But I wouldn’t have come. Or even considered it. But a personal invitation. Well, that’s different.

Now I’m sure she was just copying and pasting to all the bloggers but when I responded she was right there. Quick to answer my questions.

That’s really what intrigued me. She answered my emails faster than most companies do with their customer service people.

In fact, I was having a rough time with a bank the other day and fired off an email to the CEO (he was asking for my feedback). Guess what? I still haven’t heard from him. I doubt if I ever will.

I think Ford has got a smart thing going here and I would encourage them to keep using social media the way it is supposed to be used. Invitations. Conversations. Participation.

By the way, you should be following Ford’s Social Media Director, Scott Monty. He’s got some great insights and he’s always quick to follow up.

Hey Scott, if you read this I wrote another blog about your company recently. I wasn’t for sure if the owner of the Gould Valves wanted your company’s name to be part of the story but he now says he doesn’t care. You can check it out here.

So how would you use social media to promote your event?

It’s a tool for communication with other people. When email came out (does anyone remember life without email?), some people embraced it. But others, you know, struggled, they fought it, but then they finally had to give in. And, of course, there were those that got confused and accidentally spammed the entire company. That still happens. But it doesn’t happen so much anymore. And what companies do actual training on how to use email? It’s just a part of life in the office environment and you should know how to use email.

Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter can all be the same thing - even if it isn’t called by these specific brand names in a few years. Think companies won’t have an internal Facebook for communicating. Think a Linkedin type tool won’t hold all your business and personal information. What we are seeing is just the first shots at these tools. Email has come a long way in a short time. Don’t think that these tools won’t evolve as well.

Being a good communicator and understanding these new ways of communicating will lead you to be successful at your career and in your personal life. Duh.

Yes, I know, face-to-face time is important (it’s also the most expensive part of your day) but you can’t be everywhere at every time that you are needed. These tools can make it possible to be part of the conversation, though.

I love to Business Stalk

Here’s an analogy that I liked and I use it often. BTW, I got it off Twitter but I can’t remember the person that wrote it so if I stole it from you, please send me a note and I’ll give you credit @donschindler.

Linkedin is my business suit. Not that I wear a suit often but it’s my business voice. It’s my living resume. It’s my recommendations and it lets people know that I do know a few other people in business land. It’s where I talk with other professionals (but not in real time hopefully they will fix that).

The other cool things you can do in Linkedin is answer other professionals’ questions so they can see you are an expert in your field.

And when it comes cold-calling a business, I always check them out on linkedin to see if I have a friend or acquaintance they may know someone on the inside first. Everyone knows how much easier it is to get into a company and speak to them if you have a personal recommendation.

From foundphotoslj

Facebook is my business causal. This is where I mix business and pleasure, my friends and co-workers and clients hang out and I learn about them and they learn more about me. I’m conscious of the fact that there is more than one audience (friends who accept my silliness) who may be keeping up with me.

My wife recently experienced a business issue with Facebook. She doesn’t believe in all the nonsense that I talk sometimes about Facebook which is a good thing.

She posted on Facebook that a client had returned their feedback on her writing without tracking changes and how much that annoyed her. She didn’t mention the client. But the client then commented back on her post that “He bet he knew who did that.”

She was embarrassed but not too much. They had a good laugh over it and moved on. But this kind of thing can go badly if people take it too seriously like this exchange between FedEx and their agency.

From ilmungo

Twitter is my cocktail party. This where people are chatting all the time about things I might be interested in. This is a fun place to be and you can spur lots of conversations. I use it personally as way to track the “experts” in my field but to also keep track of clients and what they may be experiencing. I also keep searches going for my company name and my name and some crucial keywords that are important to me.

But here’s a Golden Nugget that I like to leave with clients that don’t think they have the time to get involved with these online tools like Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter.

There is a whole mess of kids coming into your business right now that understand these tools. And guess what, they have amassed thousands of virtual friends online and when it comes to moving their myspace and facebook crowds over to business relationships (and they will), who do you think will get the sale or the next job. You, with no audience other than a rolodex that may or may not be accurate and trackable) or the kid with a large audience willing to talk to him online?

Maybe I’m full of crap. But I use these tools every day and people are conversing with me and I’m doing business online. Why can’t you?

BTW, you should not start using these tools unless you have a plan in place of how much time you should be spending with each one. They can all suck the resources right out of you and your business.

So what do you think?

Facebook vs Linkedin vs Twitter

Maybe you think that your target audience isn’t online.  You’ve talked to a few of your colleagues and they all think the same thing.  Well, maybe they aren’t.  But I wouldn’t use my gut to consider if I should be doing more online.

For instance, I have a client that did a series of their target audience (engineers) and their distributors.  There was some very insight findings.  Their engineers used Google more than anything else to find new products whereas the distributors used Trade Magazines.  And the predominant niche search, Global Spec, wasn’t used very often at all by either audience.

So where should be focus our marketing dollars.  Trade magazines or Google?  The client made the decision to pursue the target audience, engineers, via Google and communicate directly with his distributors dropping trade mags altogether (mainly due to expense).

Now, let’s take a glance at the rest of the world which could be your target audience.

Using Compete.com, Facebook has 91 million unique visitors, a 23% increase over last month, and a 195% over last year.  Is your audience going there?  BTW, ads aren’t the best way to reach people on Facebook.  Being part of the conversation and allowing them to control it is a much better way to engage.

Linkedin has grown 13% over last month and 143% over last year.  Over 38 million people are using it.  There’s lots of ways to connect and spread the word of your company via employees, questions and answers and groups.

Twitter.com has grown almost 77% over last month (due to mainstream news and celebrity silliness) and 1202% over last year.  Everybody and their brother is wanting you to follow their tweets.  I’ll fill you in later on down the road on the best ways to monetize Twitter but you can’t argue that the world is getting online.

Maybe your target audience isn’t online but I seriously beg to differ.  The world is changing - they are connecting and chatting online about how their world is changing.

Your business can lead join this conversation by changing how you view the online world.  Your website should be your central hub of all your marketing and you should really look at how people are using and connecting with you.

Or you can wait until you are for sure your audience is no longer in the spot that you always thought they were.

Don’t be just thinking about going digital.  The rest of the world isn’t thinking anymore.

What do you think?

The PowerPoint has links to various websites built into it but if I mentioned something in particular that you want to know about I’ll try and get back to you on this post.

The worksheet we handed out at the presentation is available for download complete with answers below.

Worksheet Answers to Building an Internet Strategy in the Digital Age

Again, if you have questions you can email me or just comment on the blog.

Thanks and good luck with your businesses!

Google Analytics Dashboard

I don’t have a whole month’s worth of data on my friend’s site, www.veinskincareinstitute.com, but I do have enough to teach you guys how to read the data and what I would consider important.

Let’s log into our account and see what the site is up to.

First, we see the Dashboard.

Here we can find several things quickly. We see our mountain range of user activity. Looks like on average we get about 30 users a day visiting the site with 579 Visits.

Now these are not 30 different people. If you want to know Absolute Unique Visitors, then click on Visitors on the left side navigation. You’ll see there were 552 absolutes. But even that is questionable because the same person could use different computers (or IPs) so don’t hold these numbers as exact. Just know that you were seen about 30 times a day.

Back on the Dashboard, we see about 1704 Pageviews or about 3 pages visited per visitor.

Then the numbers on the right side, there is a Bounce Rate of 50.95%. This is very important. About 50% people that land on the site, don’t dig any deeper. They don’t take the next step. I would like to see this number lower since we don’t drive them off the site with any links (like to an external blog or other sites like a directory might).

These people also spend about 1.48 seconds on the site. So you could take this as something like they move pretty quickly while they are on the site (average of a little less than 50 seconds a page). Average Time on Site can be misconstrued as well because people have the ability to open new tabs on a browser and leave a site up; even though, they are no longer interested.

New visits are at 95%. That’s really high but that also can be mistaken because we just put analytics on the site. So I’m not really concerned about that number.

Let’s drop down on the Dashboard.

You’ve got the Absolute Visitor report in the Visitors Overview.

Next to it, you’ve got a Map Overlay. The US and Canada are the strongest. Since we aren’t really trying to reach into foreign areas then it is working fine.

Traffic Sources Overview is very important. Right now, it shows Search Engines as our High Point. 74.09%. That’s good but we are also running an Adwords campaign right now. Now I don’t have the list of keywords but this 75% makes sense when you are running one and not doing a lot of outside advertising directing people to your URL.

So let’s click “view report” to see what is going on at a deeper level.

Google Analytics Referrals

I’m very interested in where the referrals are coming from.

Google is first with 344 and then we get a direct/none (that means someone typed our name directly into the browers - but it’s about three times as less).

Yahoo is second, then we get down to MSN and the much, much smaller referrals. OK, the adwords campaign is probably working.

NOTE: If you are running Adwords, make sure it is synced up with Google Analytics. Then you can track it more effectively by campaigns and goals. Very efficient.

Notice, how little yellowpages.com/referral is. I would make sure that matches up with the referrals they say they are sending to you if you are buying space from them.

You can also see how many pages they visit, average time on site, percentage of new visits, and bounce rate. All good stuff.

Notice that Yahoo users spend more time but they are also much fewer vists so you can’t just say Yahoo people are more engaged - there’s a lot less of them and that can really mess with the statistics.

The other cool thing here is keywords.  We get to see the keywords that people are putting in and then finding your site.  Are they the keywords you want people to find you with or is there an opportunity to exploit what they are putting in and finding you?

The interesting thing here is tattoo removal st. louis is driving traffic to us.  I didn’t expect that and it’s good to know.  Plus we aren’t paying for the keyword and we are first on SERP for that search.

Google Analytics Keywords

Let’s go back to the Dashboard.

Last but definitely not least is Content Overview.

Click in and go to the full report.

Here we can see that the homepage is where most people entered the site or at least seen the homepage (Top Landing Pages link can confirm this). But notice that before_after_pictures gets a lot of users as well. But as you go across you can see how much time they spend and where they go afterward.

Google Analytics Content

There’s a lot more that you can do in Google Analytics. I really like the Site Overlays, Top Landing Pages, Top Exit, Top Content. It’s great.

We’ll take all of this into account when we make recommendations on how to change the site up so we can convert more people.

Pledge to End Hunger

My friends at MediaSauce and I are trying to feed hungry kids in Austin, TX with www.pledgetoendhunger.com.

Tyson Foods will supply an entire trailer truck of food (35 lbs of food per click). Kimball Office’s Hum Office and Share Our Strength both helped with some much needed resources. MediaSauce and Kombolt provided the big idea, strategy and technical firepower.

All we need is a 1000 people to pledge to help. You can give, share or volunteer. One click, 35 lbs of food, feed 140 children.

Just click www.pledgetoendhunger.com.

Once we hit 1000 people, the challenge changes and Indiana can benefit from the food. Tyson will fill two more trucks and send them to the states that have the most pledges on the site.

It’s so easy to do, just click the link and sign up.

2 minutes of your time - a full belly for a kid that seriously needs it.

You don’t know how much I appreciate it.

Thanks. Thanks again.

Don

How's Your Current Marketing Going?

2. What is your current marketing strategy and how is it doing? What are your tactics to complete that strategy. You should have a record of what you are spending and how you are spending it and what it is bringing in. ROI is very important for each individual piece but don’t kill something just because it’s not performing as an individual (you should know how it is integrated with all of your marketing efforts).

My friend’s company, Vein Skincare Institute, is like most other small businesses.  As a friend on Twitter said they do “Random Acts of Marketing”.

Here’s my friend’s answer to what they do.

Secondary to finances, staffing, and business issues; we are currently not doing a lot of marketing.

In the past we have done much more, at various times including: print (major newspaper, magazine), direct mail, network TV, cable informercials, radio, seminars, direct physician office visit/in-service referral solicitation and data/guerilla-based.

At the moment, we have our web-site, pay-per-click internet campaign, (ever heard of Google’s Stupid Tax with Adwords) occasional e-mail offers, spotty thank you notes to patient referral sources, and in office signage.

We feel that we really need to pick up the marketing pace in a big way.

We need to have accurate tracking by staff.

We need to have aggressive data based marketing with software to facilitate this on a regular, efficient and consistent basis.

We need to overhaul or website from information, content, creative, color, speed, user friendliness, optimization techniques, increasing data base of e-addresses, regular e-newsletters, regular mailing and offers, and tracking of success/failure of programs.

Again another long winded answer:  bottom line is we are not doing very well with marketing currently.

Our budget is minimal for advertising right now, so I think mass media is out, and frankly I am not sold that it is pertinent anymore.

I think we need to maximize the internet, maximize data based, and direct office visits to referral solicitation, with tracking and consistency pushed in all areas.

I responded to her by saying, “I would agree with you on some of this.  Mass media sucks for pricing but can be crazy good if targeted at your audience and with a call to action that can be tracked.  It takes a lot of work to do this.”

Do you know your current marketing efforts?  If they are succeeding or failing?

Are they prepared for the work?  Technology makes tracking easy but it does require a lot of planning and effort.  Most small business really don’t need any extra work so it’s my job to figure out something that can track but not add a lot of extra work to the staff.

Next up, Question 3. Who is your competition both online and offline?  Knowing your competition well will help you position yourself differently and craft your message.  You should know their market share as well.  If you can’t find out on your own, buy the research.  It is marketing dollars well spent and can save you from making a bad decision.