Ten Ways to Use LinkedIn | Guy Kawasaki

When Guy Kawasaki blogged about the Ten Ways to Use LinkedIn, LinkedIn had 8.5 million users in 130 industries. Since then we’ve grown to over 12 million users covering 147 industries, but many of Guy’s suggestions on using LinkedIn (see below), still remain a great way for professionals to strengthen their online brand reputation and leverage their professional network. Happy Reading!

1. Increase your visibility.

By adding connections, you increase the likelihood that people will see your profile first when they’re searching for someone to hire or do business with. In addition to appearing at the top of search results (which is a major plus if you’re one of the 52,000 product managers on LinkedIn), people would much rather work with people who their friends know and trust.

2. Improve your connectability.

Most new users put only their current company in their profile. By doing so, they severely limit their ability to connect with people. You should fill out your profile like it’s an executive bio, so include
past companies, education, affiliations, and activities.

You can also include a link to your profile as part of an email signature. The added benefit is that the link enables people to see all your credentials, which would be awkward if not downright strange, as
an attachment.

3. Improve your Google PageRank.

LinkedIn allows you to make your profile information available for search engines to index. Since LinkedIn profiles receive a fairly high PageRank in Google, this is a good way to influence what people see when they search for you.

To do this, create a public profile and select “Full View.” Also, instead of using the default URL, customize your public profile’s URL to be your actual name. To strengthen the visibility of this page in
search engines, use this link in various places on the web, For example, when you comment in a blog, include a link to your profile in your signature.

4. Enhance your search engine results.

In addition to your name, you can also promote your blog or website to search engines like Google and Yahoo! Your LinkedIn profile allows you to publicize websites. There are a few pre-selected categories like “My Website,” “My Company,” etc.

If you select “Other” you can modify the name of the link. If you’re linking to your personal blog, include your name or descriptive terms in the link, and voila! instant search-engine optimization for your site. To make this work, be sure your public profile setting is set to “Full View.”

5. Perform blind, “reverse,” and company reference checks.

LinkedIn’s reference check tool to input a company name and the years the person worked at the company to search for references. Your search will find the people who worked at the company during the same time period. Since references provided by a candidate will generally be glowing, this is a good way to get more balanced data.

Companies will typically check your references before hiring you, but have you ever thought of checking your prospective manager’s references? Most interviewees don’t have the audacity to ask a
potential boss for references, but with LinkedIn you have a way to scope her out.

You can also check up on the company itself by finding the person who used to have the job that you’re interviewing for. Do this by searching for job title and company, but be sure to uncheck “Current titles only.” By contacting people who used to hold the position, you can get the inside scoop on the job, manager and growth potential.

By the way, if using LinkedIn in these ways becomes a common practice, we’re apt to see more truthful resumes. There’s nothing more amusing than to find out that the candidate who claims to have caused some huge success was a total bozo who was just along for the ride.

6. Increase the relevancy of your job search.

Use LinkedIn’s advanced search to find people with educational and work experience like yours to see where they work. For example, a programmer would use search keywords such as “Ruby on Rails,” “C++,” “Python,” “Java,” and “evangelist” to find out where other programmers with these skills work.

7. Make your interview go smoother.

You can use LinkedIn to find the people that you’re meeting. Knowing that you went to the same school, plays hockey, or shares acquaintances is a lot better than an awkward silence after, “I’m doing fine, thank you.”

8. Gauge the health of a company.

Perform an advanced search for company name and uncheck the “Current Companies Only” box. This will enable you to scrutinize the rate of turnover and whether key people are abandoning ship. Former employees usually give more candid opinions about a company’s prospects than someone who’s still on board.

9. Gauge the health of an industry.

If you’re thinking of investing or working in a sector, use LinkedIn to find people who worked for competitors—or even better, companies who failed. For example, suppose you wanted to build a next generation online pet store, you’d probably learn a lot from speaking with former Pets.com or WebVan employees.

10. Track startups.

You can see people in your network who are initiating new startups by doing an advanced search for a range of keywords such as “stealth” or “new startup.” Apply the “Sort By” filter to “Degrees away from you” in order to see the people closest to you first. [Republished from: Ten Ways to Use LinkedIn via "How to Change the World" -- Guy Kawasaki's blog]

Guy is known for bringing the concept of technology evangelism to the masses through his pioneering work at Apple’s Macintosh group. In addition to blogging the above post earlier this year, he has also blogged on topics ranging from LinkedIn Profile Extreme Makeover to LinkedIn and the Art of avoiding an Asshole Boss.
[Source: Guy Kawasaki's weblog -- How to Change the World - http://blog.guykawasaki.com ]

Implement a PR Strategy in 7 Days

 

Q: I want to generate publicity for my business, but I don’t really know where to start or how to go about it. Can you help?

A: Here’s how to generate publicity for you and your business by spending just a little of each of the next seven days on PR:

Day 1: Determine your target.

Make a list of all the publications in your target market area. These will most likely be newspapers, such as weekly newspapers, daily newspapers, regional business journals, free about-town advertising fliers and chamber of commerce newsletters. I would shy away from national publications unless you have a dynamite national story or you have a connection at a national publication. Next, determine the radio and television stations in your target market area. This includes AM, FM, public radio, college radio stations and the like.

Day 2: Develop a database of contacts from day one.

From each of the publications, determine where your news or announcement would best fit. Once you have done this, find out who the primary editor or reporter is for this part of the publication. Sometimes this is a feature editor, a feature reporter, a pool reporter or the managing editor. Do not send your press release to anybody and everybody at a particular publication. Do the same thing for radio and TV producers: Find out who assigns the news to reporters. Find out who edits the on-air news.

Day 3: Determine what PR story you will communicate.

Brainstorm PR topics. Are you making an announcement, communicating a change, stating an opinion or revealing a finding? Do you have a local angle to a national story? Is your information newsworthy and not promotionally slanted? All you need is 12 topics to average one press release per month for one year. However, don’t let this schedule stop you from reporting news when it happens or making an announcement.

Day 4: Write the actual press release.

Editors love people who speak their language. A one-page press release that opens with who, what, where, when and why will make them happy and increase your probability of getting into their publication. Include some background information, a quote from you or another high-ranking person in the organization and the contact information. That’s all there is to a press release. It doesn’t have to be a long thesis. It doesn’t have to have every single detail in it. If the reporter wants to do more of a story, he or she will call to develop further.

Day 5: Send your press release to those in the database you established on day two.

Some editors prefer faxed press releases, yet there is a growing trend toward receiving them by e-mail. Very rarely are press releases snail-mailed; however, some still are when photos are part of the release. Finding out your editor’s, reporter’s or producer’s preference will increase your chance of publicity.

Day 6: Use your press release for other things.

Because of the sheer number of press releases generated, they cannot all be published. Don’t let this stop you from issuing the release and trying to generate publicity. There are other things you can do with press releases. You can post them on your Web site in the media room area. You can use them as direct-mail pieces to customers and prospects. You can use them as handouts on sales calls or put them on the other side of your fliers. Use your imagination here, and you will be surprised at the unique ways you have to generate publicity and ultimately buzz about you and your business.

Day 7: Continue your efforts to establish relationships with editors, reporters and producers.

The more relationships you have with your targeted publications, the increased likelihood you have of getting publicity. The time to do this is not when you have a breaking news story. Take your time in this area and spread out your efforts. Then when you do have that breaking news or blockbuster story, you’ll know who to contact directly and quickly for the biggest PR impact.

Spending just a little bit of time each day on these seven steps will make you an expert in the PR arena. The most appealing part of all about this kind of PR strategy is the cost. In the spirit of guerrilla marketing, this is not high-dollar marketing, but rather marketing that relies on your time, energy and imagination.

Al Lautenslager is the president and owner of The Ink Well, a commercial printing and mailing company in Wheaton, Illinois, and the principal of Market For Profits, a Naperville, Illinois-based marketing consulting and coaching firm. He can be reached at al@market-for-profits.com or through his Web site, Market for Profits”.

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The Importance of Sales in Networking

Editor’s note: The article below is based on material from Dr. Misner’s recently released New York Times bestselling book Truth or Delusion? Busting Networking’s Biggest Myths.Truth or delusion? If you’re getting all the referrals you need, you don’t need to sell.

Delusion. Anybody who’s experienced and successful in referral marketing will tell you that sales skills are absolutely essential. And they’re needed in every part of the process–not just in closing the sale with the prospect.

First, you have to sell yourself to your potential referral source–she has to buy the concept that there’s value in introducing you to someone she knows. A referral is not a guaranteed sale; it’s the opportunity to do business with someone to whom you’ve been recommended. You still have to close the deal.

You have to make it clear that you know how to sell, that you can and will provide the products or services you’re expected to provide, and that your customer will be happy with both the process and the result–which will reflect favorably on the provider of the referral. If you can’t make that first “sale,” your potential referral source won’t become your referral provider, because she won’t be inclined to risk her relationship with the prospect. That is, she won’t do her part to sell the referral. Two separate studies, the one I conducted in the early ’90s and another one conducted in Florida in 2006, found that approximately 34 percent of all business referrals turn into sales.

This is an outstanding number, but it’s still not 100 percent. Therefore, sales skills are still important in networking. Having the knowledge and skill to generate the referral, then having the knowledge and skill to close the sale, gives you the one-two punch.

Beyond selling yourself to the referral source, you have to sell yourself to the prospect to get that first appointment. Yes, the referral helps a great deal, but you’ve still got to convince the prospect that the appointment is worth his time and likely to result in a favorable outcome. You should avoid being aggressive, indecisive or evasive at this point; the prospect, having been in contact with your referral provider, is expecting a high level of respect and professionalism in your approach. You can and should be confident that a mutually beneficial deal is in the works, and you should communicate this to the prospect by your attitude and actions. Strive not to embarrass your referral source.

Then, once you’ve made the appointment, you have to persuade the prospect to buy your product or service. This is the part that usually comes to mind when you hear the word “sale.“

Your integrity is paramount at this stage. The prospect should know exactly what to expect–no hidden charges, no unexpected exceptions, no bait-and-switch.

Even if you’ve created a highly efficient system of generating referrals for your business and you see a steady stream of referrals being funneled to you, there’s no guarantee you’ll be capable of closing any of them.

Note, however, that in referral marketing, closing the deal with your prospect is neither the beginning nor the end of the selling process. To get to this point, you’ll have made at least two other “sales,” as noted above. And in order to build and maintain the long-term relationships that characterize referral marketing, you have to follow up with both your new customer and your referral provider–again, part of the total sales process.

Remember, the number-one rule in referral marketing is to make your referral provider look good. You need to demonstrate that you know how to sell to the prospect in a way that doesn’t embarrass the source of your referral–that you’re going to consult with the prospect, discover his needs, offer solutions based on those needs, give him some options and not force a sale if you know you can’t provide a good solution.

On the other hand, if your technique is to hold the prospect hostage at his kitchen table until he breaks down and buys, your referral source won’t be pleased that you’ve abused your relationship with her and damaged her relationship with the prospect. You may get the deal, but you’ve shut yourself off from further deals with that client–and with any future referrals from your source.

The bottom line about sales in referral marketing is this: If you’re not comfortable with sales, or if you haven’t been professionally trained, sales training is an investment worth your while. It’ll serve you well in every aspect of relationship marketing and referral networking.

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Called the father of modern networking, Dr. Ivan Misner is the Founder of BNI  and the senior partner for the Referral Institute. He has written nine books, including his recently released New York Times best seller Truth or Delusion? Busting Networking’s Biggest Myths. 

Low-Cost Marketing Trends for 2007

 

Businesses, especially small businesses, continue to fight the pressures of improving their bottom line. This means they don’t have a blank checkbook to spend on marketing. Enter guerrilla marketing: Getting the word out about a business without investing in traditional or Yellow Pages advertising is the challenge at hand. Using time, energy, knowledge, information and especially imagination will be the best practice of the most successful marketers.

So what will guerrilla marketers be doing in 2007? Emphasizing PR, positioning, communication of benefits, networking and more. Take a look:

Local Search
Though we’ll discuss globalization later, most small businesses market locally because they tend to do business within their community, suburb or city–typically staying within about a 50- to 100-mile radius. If this sounds like your business, you don’t need to invest in marketing that reaches beyond your local audience, like search engines that reach the whole world. The desired goal is to isolate your search engine listings and related online advertising dollars in an area where you do want to do business.

To learn more about targeting your search engine advertising dollars to your local audience, start with the list of local search engines at LocalSearchGuide.org.

Podcasts
Never before has the online community had such an opportunity to reach its audience offline. On top of that, the spammers and hackers haven’t yet found a way to infiltrate podcasting. (They probably will, but not like they’ve done with e-mail.)

Podcasts, like any information you put out, should be of interest and value to your target market. What do they need to help their businesses or their personal lives? What solutions do you have that they would like to hear more about? These are the things people find interesting in podcasts. A once-a-month delivery promoted through all your other marketing channels will give a real synergistic boost to your marketing.

Blogs
There are 100 times more blogs than there were three years ago, according Sifry’s Alerts’ August post on the State of the Blogosphere. At first, it was only the most tech-savvy businesses that had blogs. Now blogging is on the increase with all types of businesses because it’s a cost-effective way to create marketing buzz and communities of support.

Blogging is like having a conversation with your target market. It also provides an interactive forum for your target market to talk back to you. And a blog done in conjunction with your website gives you one more way to reach your prospects.

The best part is, many blog programs allow you to set everything up yourself with little or no technical know-how. If you’re not sure you’ll be able to support a blog on your own, contribute to someone else’s. This’ll help you gain exposure and position you as an expert in your field.

Online Advertising
Ad dollars are continuing to shift to the internet and will continue to do so as new opportunities such as video open up. Online ad spending increases have been driven by the growing ability to measure campaigns effectively and a relatively high ROI. As a result, for many businesses, the question isn’t whether to advertise online or even where or when, but rather how to stretch every dollar spent.

For the everyday entrepreneur and guerrilla marketer, this translates into a focused pay-per-click campaign on Yahoo! or Google AdWords. You can focus on a particular target market searching particular keywords and test your campaign instantly, all for fewer dollars than the old mass-market banner ads and certainly for a lot less than the cost of print ads.

Expanding to Global Markets
Borders are being removed in the business world because international labor rates and talent levels make location irrelevant on the internet. No longer is going global just for large corporations; Sally’s e-commerce bead shop that’s operating from a home office can now do business in as many countries as have internet access.

For the aggressive entrepreneur, marketing globally is done mostly online. Using pay-per-click campaigns, a focused opt-in e-mail campaign or other traffic-generation techniques, a local entrepreneur can easily reach a global market.

The internet has also greatly reduced language barriers. A lot of e-commerce is done in English, so there’s not necessarily a huge need to translate. However, translated websites do open up new opportunities.

Expanding to global markets can be done with your e-commerce website or as an affiliate of the many thousands of retail portals available online, like Amazon.com and eBay.

Direct Marketing
No longer are awareness ads or even branding ads generating enough results to justify their use. Today’s consumers want to know what’s in it for them. They want a deal, a discount or something special. These all have implications for increased direct marketing. In addition, with all the technology available to us for managing databases, target markets can be more tightly defined, segregated, sorted, compiled and marketed to, providing a higher return to those employing direct marketing.

For today’s entrepreneur, direct marketing can start with a simple postcard campaign to 1,000 prospects. Doing this frequently will generate interest and awareness in your products and services and motivate prospects to buy from you. Learn more about direct marketing at our “Direct Mail and Coupons” page.

 

Al Lautenslager is the “Guerrilla Marketing” coach at Entrepreneur.com and is an award-winning marketing and PR consultant and direct-mail promotion specialist. He’s also the principle of Market For Profits, a Chicago-based marketing consulting firm. His two latest books, Guerrilla Marketing in 30 Days and The Ultimate Guide to Direct Marketing are available at www.entrepreneurpress.com.

Don’t Sell to Your Network–Educate Them

 

When entrepreneurs try to develop a qualified, consistent and dynamic circle of networking partners who are going to provide them with referrals for new business, their tendency is often to “sell” those individuals on their product. It’s as if by showing them all the finer points of what’s available, convincing them to try their product and closing the sale with their networking partners, they’ll somehow realize an influx of referrals.

I don’t disagree that in order for the members of your networking group to refer you effectively they must be familiar with what you have to offer; however, it’s important to resist your urge to sell to group members. What do I mean by that?

Educating your networking group’s members about the type of referrals you want–specifically, where applicable, even the names of the individuals with whom you want to meet and develop relationships–is much more important to the success of your networking in a closed contact network than selling to other members. This demands a shift in how you see your networking partners. They’re not the clients; they are, in effect, your sales force. And for your sales force to sell you effectively, they have to know who to sell you to and how to sell you.

Below are four tips for incorporating this educational style into your networking meetings:

1. Teach your network members what your “dream referral” looks like. If you could go to your next networking meeting with a walking, talking dream referral in tow, what would he or she be like? Describe this person in detail to your networking partners. The more details you can provide, the greater the chance that your partners will recognize that person when they come across him or her outside the meeting.

2. Share customer profiles and case studies of current customers. This is a highly effective way to educate your networking partners about what it is you’re looking for in a new client. By sharing the qualities of your current clientele, you’re illuminating the canvas for the rest of the group so they can see the picture you’re painting for them. When appropriate, consider bringing in a customer or client to talk about how you’ve helped him or her. These kinds of interactions go a long way toward educating the group as to the type of person you wish to have referred to you.

3. Break your business down into its lowest common denominators. It’s very tempting to start your personal introduction with a statement like: “We’re a full-service XYZ.” Resist this urge! When you have 52 opportunities over the course of a year to talk about your products and services, don’t waste the opportunity to highlight one aspect of your business by painting with the full-service brush. Get detailed! Educate your networking partners week by week about the specific things you provide. Bring support material to provide a visual. Do demonstrations, when possible.

4. Ask specifically for the referral you want. I often hear members of networking groups say things like “Anyone who needs . . .” or “Everyone who’s looking for . . .” Usually, when I hear “anyone” or “everyone,” I tune out, because I know so many anyones and everyones that I end up referring no one. This is an interesting dynamic that has to do with information overload. When you’re asking for a specific type of business referral, your request from your networking partners should be specific. Using a broad, generic catchphrase will limit the effectiveness of your results.

By keeping your focus on educating your networking partners about what type of referrals you wish to receive, you’ll find that the referrals you begin to get will be of a higher caliber and offer more chances of becoming closed sales than if you try to sell the members on what you’re offering. You should be trying to educate a sales force instead of trying to close a sale. Shift your intention in the group, and you’ll find that the quality of your referrals will improve.

Dr. Ivan Misner is Entrepreneur.com’s “Networking” columnistand a New York Times bestselling author. He’s also the founder and chairman of BNI, the world’s largest referral organization with thousands of chapters in dozens of countries around the world. His latest book, Masters of Success, can be viewed at www.MastersofSuccess.biz

10 Marketing Tactics Under $10

 

Sometimes it only takes a few dollars to make a marketing idea go a long way. If you’re looking for some new ideas, here are a few to consider. If one of these works, do it again. If it works a little, fix it or adjust it, and then do it again. If it doesn’t work, just try another one of these low-cost ideas. What do you have to lose when your tactic costs just $10? 

1. Instead of putting a 39-cent stamp on an envelope, put 39 1-cent stamps on the front of an envelope. One of the principles of direct mail is to stand out to get the attention of the receiver so your mail isn’t thrown away or ignored. Attention, interest, desire and action lead to a successful direct-mail program. And anything you can do to get attention increases the probability of action being taken. Best of all, in this case, you won’t even rack up any additional costs.
2. Every month, give customers a chance to win a free lunch, compliments of your business. Everyone likes a chance to win things. An incentive like a $10 gift card for lunch at a local restaurant might be enough to influence a customer to order from you now, rather than later, or choose your business instead of your competition.You could also consider other offers, like a Starbucks or gas card. You’ll probably want to offer a full tank of gas, though, which would mean upping your price a little—a few gallons doesn’t sound all that appealing.
3. Make a donation to charity for every purchase made during a particular month. If your orders average more than $100 each, donate $10 per order. If that doesn’t make sense for your prices, find another dollar amount that’s a good fit. Your donations will be well worth it if they accelerate orders or increase volume.
    
4. Use lottery tickets as incentives for referrals. You could market your giveaway as a chance to win a million dollars (or whatever the grand prize is for the lottery in your area) for all referrals received during a particular period of time.
5. Hold a contest for prospects and customers. How about “Guess the serial number on a $10 bill and it’s yours”? It’s not a lot of money, but people who stop by your place of business will have fun and will remember the contest. And if they win, they’ll tell people about it–even for just $10.
6. If there’s still penny candy available, $10 will buy 1,000 pieces. If not, you can still get quite a bit for a small investment. Including candy in your invoices makes companies remember you. Typically, the people who handle accounts payable don’t get the attention buyers get, so even the least little bit of attention could go a long way in a company. Include two pieces–one for the receiver and one for the receiver to give away. This isn’t huge materially, but it’s the thought that counts.
7. For $10, you can hire a student, a niece or nephew, or a friend’s teen to picket your business with a sign protesting something positive. It may sound silly, but having a picketer outside your place of business with a sign that reads something like, “We’re protesting good customer service at this location!” or “This place is full of nice people,” will get you noticed. You may even get coverage from the local media.
    
8. On a toll road, pay the toll for the car behind you, and ask the toll collector to give your business card to the car’s driver and tell him or her you paid the toll. Sure, it’s a crapshoot, but you never know who might be on the road. And it’s a low-cost tactic that has imagination written all over it. If the toll is $0.50, you can do this 20 times for your $10 marketing budget. Chances are good that at least one or two of those 20 people will contact you.
9. Show up in person with a cookie for the receptionist at a client or prospect’s office. The thing is, customers and prospects love attention. Drop in and visit a few of your customers and just say you’re stopping by to brighten their day. You can’t do this with 1,000 customers, but you can do it with 10 or 20. And sometimes those 10 or 20 can be enough to supply you with just the right orders to meet your monthly goal.
10. Advertise using fliers. At an average cost of 2 cents each, $10 will buy 500 printed fliers. You can use them to canvass a targeted area, include them in packaging and delivered orders, hand them to walk-in customers or mail them to a targeted list. Better yet, get your fliers to 100 people, five times each, and the power of frequency will increase the probability of a response. But make sure you have the right message, the right offer and the right target. Also keep in mind that many printing or office-supply companies often offer specials on copy pricing. If you can’t find any specials, offer a fusion marketing arrangement to do a joint promotion with a printing supplier. 

There you go–10 true guerrilla marketing examples that use time, energy and imagination instead of a lot of money. They work. And they can be used to build revenue to the point where your marketing efforts can be expanded in scale and scope to really ramp up your business.

 

Al Lautenslager is the “Guerrilla Marketing” coach at Entrepreneur.com and is an award-winning marketing and PR consultant and direct-mail promotion specialist. He’s also the principle of Market For Profits, a Chicago-based marketing consulting firm. His two latest books, Guerrilla Marketing in 30 Days and The Ultimate Guide to Direct

Guerrilla Marketing for Your Retail Business

 

Guerrilla marketing has been in the news lately. Perhaps you’ve heard about Cartoon Network’s Aqua Teen Hunger Force promotion that drew out bomb squads in Boston and made front-page news across the country. Some say the attempt went awry; some say any press is good press. Whatever the case, it was guerrilla marketing.

Just to refresh your memory, guerrilla marketing is about gaining the maximum exposure for a company, event, product, service or person with the minimum amount of cash. Instead of a big budget, marketers rely on time, energy, information and knowledge to draw a crowd. Does low- or no-cost sound like a welcome relief to your budget? Let’s review some easy-to-implement guerrilla marketing tactics for your retail business.

Many retail entrepreneurs are in a great position to use holidays for promoting their businesses. Every month has a holiday except August. And if you don’t find one that fits, make one up: National Haircut Day, Treat-a-Dog Day or Buy Roses for No Reason Day, for instance. These types of themed days can even get you extra media coverage, so be sure to let the media know about your made-up holiday and promotion.

Another way to get press is writing special-interest articles on relevant topics, such as “The History of Valentine’s Day” or “How the Poinsettia Became So Popular.” Feeding the news community with this information positions your business not only as a resource for information related to holidays, but also as the place to shop for holiday-related gifts.

Other guerrilla ideas for retailers are events or contests. The event could be an open house, or a meet the expert, meet the mayor or meet the press. Contests can be simple, such as guessing the number of roses in a car for a florist or predicting the day a certain milestone will be reached–the thousandth guest or millionth sale, for instance. These suggestions may sound corny, but hopefully they’ll get your creativity going.

The most powerful guerrilla suggestion for retailers is to keep track of your customers and prospects. Prospects have already expressed interest in you, so marketing to them should produce sales. Use a guest book in your business or hold a drawing and collect names and contact information from the entries. This pool of prospects will prove more valuable than any mass advertising. And remember, when you get contact information, put it in a database and be sure to get permission from your prospects before e-mailing them.

Guerrilla marketing can–and often will–push boundaries. It’s OK to be on the edge, to test extremes, to get attention and to take calculated risks. Sending seasonal greeting cards falls into this calculated risk category. Imagine getting a greeting card from your favorite retailer wishing you a happy July 17. No special day, really, just an arbitrary greeting–maybe including a promotional offer. People love getting greetings at unexpected times, and you’ll get attention for your gesture.

Another easy way to get noticed is putting candy in with each item you sell, which will also help you gain attention and stand out from others. Brainstorm marketing ideas with co-workers and suppliers. Try a few. Repeat what works. Fix what doesn’t. You may surprise yourself with how well your marketing takes off with your budget still intact.

Let Customers Rain In

 

Michael Lacey is in the business of IT consulting, not creating weather. But the 38-year-old Plymouth, Minnesota, entrepreneur knows that hiring employees who can make it rain is critical to the continued success of Digineer Inc., the 87-person company he founded in 1998. Three years ago, Lacey brought on a new salesperson he felt would be a rainmaker–someone with a marked ability to attract and retain customers.

The company’s rapid expansion since then–sales growth of more than 80 percent a year to the current level of $14 million–is due largely to the direct and indirect effects of adding that rainmaker, Lacey says. “If I had hired another salesperson, a good salesperson but not a great one, we would have grown,” he says, “but I don’t think it would have been as explosively.”

Hiring a rainmaker is the most important task of any entrepreneur, according to Jeffrey Fox, a Chester, Connecticut, sales training consultant and author of Secrets of Great Rainmakers: The Keys to Success and Wealth. “Sales is job one,” Fox says. “It’s the critical first job.”

Hiring a rainmaker starts with finding one, and that starts with defining one. To Lacey, a rainmaker is skilled at understanding customer needs and then dealing with customers the way the rainmaker would like to be dealt with. “The best way I could describe a rainmaker is somebody who understands the Golden Rule,” he says. To identify such a person, Lacey looks at a candidate’s track record, and he interviews intensively.

For Fox, a rainmaker can be anyone with great listening skills, tremendous energy and a hunger to prove himself or herself. He is less keyed on track record. In fact, he thinks it’s so important for potential rainmakers to listen to and follow worthy advice that he focuses on younger hires who lack preconceived notions.

To hire a rainmaker, offer an environment that is focused on the customer, requires little bureaucratic paperwork and gives the rainmaker free rein. Oh, and be ready to pay through the nose. “Pay steak and eat hot dogs,” is Fox’s advice. Entrepreneurs should be prepared to pay a rainmaker more than anyone in the organization–including themselves–because rainmakers are motivated largely by money.

Structuring compensation is also critical. Don’t just pay a big salary. Base most compensation on performance. Put salespeople on 100 percent commission if possible. And remember that not all rainmakers are salespeople.

Other types of rainmakers can be compensated with bonuses or profit sharing to provide motivation to constantly improve their game. Otherwise, they’re likely to go elsewhere, Fox says.

A rainmaker who has the freedom and motivation to bring in business will likely be a happy rainmaker who stays with your company. But you might drive away rainmakers by saddling them with paperwork such as unduly detailed and burdensome expense reports. You may also drive them away by micromanaging.

One common misstep is promoting a rainmaker into a management job where he or she has little customer contact. Neither the rainmaker nor the company’s sales will benefit, Fox warns. “Rainmakers should be allowed and encouraged to stay in the field, keep selling and keep ringing the cash registers.”

Not all companies are ready for a rainmaker, in Lacey’s opinion. Companies must reach a certain level of maturity and have a track record that lets the rainmaker leverage his or her skills and turn them into dollars. “You have to have enough success stories that they have something to trade on,” he explains.

Perhaps the best news about rainmakers is that good ones can transform a company’s entire culture, making it more customer-focused, more driven and more capable of attracting and keeping customers. But just as you can never have too many customers, no enterprise can have too many rainmakers, Fox says: “After you hire your first rainmaker, your job is to find another one.”

Mark Henrickswrites on business and technology for leading publications and is author ofNot Just a Living.

Tis the Season for Smart Marketing

 

Nothing drives sales and business relationships like a personal connection, and there’s no better time to make that personal connection than during the holiday season. No matter what type of business you have, reaching out to your customers and prospects over the holidays is critical, since it helps builds long-term relationships with customers who buy from you–and keeps them coming back all year long.

If you’re not sure just what to do, here are a few tips:

1. Personalize your holiday cards.
Perhaps the most important way to network during the holiday season is to send a customized and personal holiday card to each and every one of your prospects and customers. Standard cards purchased at the local drug store just won’t make the impact you really need to make that personal connection. Instead, consider purchasing holiday cards that are customized–include your logo, your company name and even your photo on the front of the card.

Then write something personal on the inside instead of just “Happy holidays” or “Best wishes.” Stories about your family or a funny (but tasteful) quote will help you make a personal connection with your customers and prospects. Match the look and feel to other printed holiday materials, such as return address labels, gift tags, gift stickers, holiday brochures and thank-you notes to carry the theme throughout every aspect of your business during the holidays.

2. Show your charitable side.
When it comes to sending cards, one option to consider is the charity holiday card–a portion of the proceeds from the purchase of the card is given to a specific charity. Holidays are a season of giving, and current and future customers like to see that you support appropriate charitable organizations. Locate an organization whose cause is close to your heart, or consider one that your customers will appreciate. Regardless of the organization, a charitable contribution is always appreciated over the holidays.

3. Remember that timing is everything.
The timing of your holiday card mailing is also something to consider. Is your product or service holiday related? If so, consider sending out Thanksgiving cards in early November to remind customers to think of you when purchasing gifts or services related to the holidays. Even if your product or service isn’t holiday related, Thanksgiving cards stand out because it’s more than likely they’ll be the first card your customers receive and open. Another alternative is to mail New Year’s cards, a nice way to help drive business at the beginning of the year.

4. Make a high-impact promotion.
Once you’ve determined your holiday card strategy, your next step is to implement special sales or promotions related to the holidays. Then send out a postcard or two to drive sales for these promotions. Consider vertical postcards instead of horizontal ones, and make sure they’re full color, high-impact, glossy cards that will stand out in a sea of promotional mailings. Use photos of your business or products, or choose images that relate to your promotion.

5. Get out there!
Now’s the time to get out there and network. When people see you in person, they’re more likely toremember you when it’s time to make a sale. So attend industry conferences or other events related to your business. And depending on just what business you’re in, consider participating in industry holiday parties or town celebrations. You might even want to sponsor an event that will provide you with the right target market visibility.

If that’s not an option for you, think about throwing your own holiday party at your place of business and inviting customers and prospects to attend. Offer refreshments, and put on some holiday music to set the mood. Another option is to partner with similar or complementary small businesses to throw a party. That way, you can share the costs while making an impact. Be sure to provide giveaways, such as calendar magnets with your company name on them, to all attendees.

6. Don’t forget the thank you.
The final step in a successful holiday season are the thank-you notes. Handwritten thank-you notes make a strong impact on customers because they’re proof you go the extra mile to please your customers. It’s especially effective, during the holidays, to send thank-you notes to your customers when they purchase large orders or to thank them for referrals—you’ll attract a tremendously loyal customer base.

If you follow these steps for holiday networking, this holiday season is bound to be one of your best yet. And the best part is, the relationships you build during the holidays will surely carry over to the new year.

Janet Holian is the chief marketing officer for VistaPrint, a leading online supplier of high-quality graphic design services and customized printed products for small businesses and consumers.

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By Janet Holian

Hot New Marketing Trends

Still using the same marketing tactics you were using five years ago? Those won’t work with today’s shifting dem-ographics and preferences. The U.S. population is older, more multicultural, more time-pressed and more jaded toward overt sales pitches than ever before. And your marketing strategy should be built accordingly.

So what’s working? After consulting over a dozen experts in the field, we’ve uncovered the following hot trends in marketing.

Market on the Move:
According to the Mobile Marketing Association, by 2008, 89 percent of brands will use text and multimedia messaging to reach their audiences, with nearly one-third planning to spend more than 10 percent of their marketing budgets on advertising in the medium. As phones with video capability become more prevalent, expect more rich media marketing options. Plus, now that mobile phone service providers are dipping their toes into the credit card pool–soon your phone or PDA may make plastic obsolete–customers will be relying on these devices more than ever.

“There are some low-cost mobile marketing onramps for small businesses,” says Kim Bayne, author of Marketing Without Wires. “Businesses can implement opt-in text messaging services and coupons with their loyal customers. We’ve already seen local restaurants send the day’s specials to nearby lunch patrons. The cost is fairly low, and it can be done from a PC, without involving a pricey service provider.”

Go Online:
“Think globally, act locally” is now the mantra for entrepreneurs advertising online. Online ad spending is up as much as 33 percent over last year, says David J. Moore, chairman and CEO of digital marketing firm 24/7 Real Media Inc. in New York City. Earlier this year, Google announced a new local advertising program linked to its map service and AdWords program, allowing businesses to drive some of Google’s traffic to their brick-and-mortar locations.

“[Entrepreneurs] should pay attention to any targeting that allows them to increase advertising efficiency by reaching users in their particular geographic area,” says Moore. Online ads are also migrating to podcasts and blogs, where advertisers can reach very specific niche audiences. And with increased access to broadband and the falling cost of video production, Moore foresees a rise in online video ads for businesses as well.

Court the Boom:
A baby boomer turns 50 every 7 seconds–joining a population segment that will grow by 25 percent in the next decade while other segments remain flat.

Matt Thornhill, founder of consulting firm The Boomer Project, which helps businesses reach adults born between 1946 and 1964, says it’s time for marketers to recalibrate their thinking about marketing to older adults. Boomers are a dynamic group that’s much more open to new experiences and brands than previous generations of older adults have been. Stephanie Lakhani found that to be true at her upscale Breathe Wellness Spasin Boise, Idaho. Catering primarily to boomers, the two spas bring in about $1.2 million per year. She says boomers are an excellent target, with disposable income and a tendency to refer business. “They expect perfect service,” says Lakhani, 35, who adds, “They tend to travel and buy in groups, so giving them an incentive to refer a friend in the form of an upgrade or a thank you [gesture] works very well. They are also very responsive to direct mail.”

Thornhill adds that marketers should target boomers by what they’re doing instead of how old they are. “Boomers are living such cyclical lives. In their 40s or 50s, they could be going back to college, be empty nesters or be married a second time and raising a young family,” he explains. “You wouldn’t sell the same vacation package to all these people. So pick the lifestyle segment you’re targeting, and focus on that.”

For something that’s named Really Simple Syndication, few tools are more misunderstood or misused than RSS. Provided by such companies as Bloglinesand NewsGator, RSS lets you send and receive information without using e-mail. Instead, the information is sent directly to a subscriber, who receives it through an RSS reader. With browsers like Internet Explorer integrating such readers, we’ll be seeing more information feeds. That could be a good thing–or not–depending on whether businesses use them properly.

“You don’t need to blog to offer an RSS feed,” says online marketing consultant Debbie Weil, author of The Corporate Blogging Book. “But you should have a blogging mind-set. Show the reader what’s in it for them. Write clear and interesting headlines. There’s a bit of an art to writing RSS [content].” She adds that you should break up your feeds by audience–customers, investors, media and the like–just as you would any other message distribution.

Jim Edwards, 38, uses a blog and RSS to promote his business, Guaranteed Response Marketing. “Whenever I publish an article, either through my blog [www.igottatellyou.com/blog] or through another site’s RSS feeder, I expect to get 100 to 300 references back to me in a week,” says Edwards, whose $2 million Lightfoot, Virginia, business provides electronic tutorials and publications. “It’s a quick way to get links back to you, as well as to get on sites that people are actively looking at.”

Use Social Networks:
Customers are making friends online through social networking sites like MySpace.com. The massive site–boasting millions of users, all segmented by age, geography and interests–offers an unbridled opportunity for marketers, according to Libby Pigg, senior account manager at Edelman Interactive in New York City.

“You [can] launch a profile for your business and give it a personality,” says Pigg, who has launched MySpace marketing campaigns for major consumer products companies. “It’s similar to a dating site, where you tell people a bit about yourself. Then, you use the search function to find the group you want to target–maybe single people in New York [City] between 24 and 30–and contact them to become your ‘friends.’”

A MySpace profile helped Taylor Bond generate interest in Egismoz.com, the electronics division of his $20 million retail company, Children’s Orchard, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Earlier this year, Bond sent invitations to some of the site’s young, tech-savvy users. The key to maintaining their interest, he says, is to provide fresh content and special offers.

“We’re seeing more people come into the store saying that they saw us on MySpace,” says Bond, 44. “We’re definitely seeing more traffic and feed-back on the profile, and we’re getting some incredible feedback about what’s hot and what people want, so it’s good for market research, too.” Opportunities also exist on other networking sites like Friendster.com, LinkedIn.com, and even niche sites like Adholes.com, which focuses on the advertising community.

Advertise in Unusual Places:
From valet tickets and hubcaps to T-shirts emblazoned with video displays, advertising is popping up in new places. A March survey of marketing executives by Blackfriars Communications entitled “Marketing 2006: 2006’s Timid Start” found that business spending on traditional advertising continued its decline, and spending on nontraditional marketing methods–from online promotions to buzz marketing–rose 12 percent since late 2005.

Scott Montgomery, principal and creative director of Bradley and Montgomery, an advertising and branding firm in Indianapolis, says the shift in ad spending will continue as advertisers look to make their ad dollars more effective.

Montgomery and his team were the first to develop advertising programs on electrical outlets in airports. Reasoning that business travelers–one of the holy grail audiences marketers love–power up portable technology while waiting for their planes, it seemed a natural place to reach them.

“Smart marketers are looking [for] places where people are engaged,” says Montgomery. “You have to target your message in a way that makes sense for [how] people behave.”

Premium-ize Your Brand

Brands like Coach and Grey Goose vodka have mastered the art of taking everyday items and introducing luxe versions at much higher price points. Now, growing businesses are also going upscale with their products or services.

Andrew Rohm, professor of marketing at Northeastern University’s College of Business Administration in Boston, says smaller businesses can often “trickle up” more easily than large brands, which may find that customers are resistant to accepting their more expensive offerings. “A small brand can reinvent itself without having to swim upstream against its image,” says Rohm.

To posh up your product, he advises the same best practices as with any new offering: Do your research, and make sure there’s a market for the product or service before you make your brand go bling.

Blog On:
With the blogosphere more than 43.1 million blogs strong, according to blog search engine Technorati, it appears everyone and his grandmother are blogging. Robert Scoble, technical evange-list at Microsoft and author of Naked Conversations: How Blogs Are Changing the Way That Businesses Talk With Customers, believes blogs are important for businesses that want direct customer feedback. And development blogs, where businesses get direct input about products and services from readers, will soon become even more important, he says.

Scoble predicts a rise in regional blogs linked to Google’s new local advertising program and Mapquest.com for quick access to directions, giving people more insight into the local businesses they want to frequent. He also says we’ll see more video blogs, which won’t replace text blogs but will more effectively communicate with some audiences. “If I’m trying to explain to you what [video game] Halo 2 is, I can write 10,000 words and I’m not going to get it right, but you can see a 2-minute video and you’ll understand,” he says.

Take these trends into consideration as you plan for the coming year. Not every idea may apply to your company, but most are market forces you can’t afford to ignore.

Make It Stick
Tap these marketing trends to get into customers’ hearts and minds.

Multicultural Market: By 2010, the buying power of American blacks and Hispanics is expected to exceed the gross domestic product of Canada, according to the Selig Center for Economic Growth at the University of Georgia in Athens. Make sure you’re not overlooking this market. Rochelle Newman-Carrasco, CEO of Enlace Communications, a Los Angeles multicultural marketing firm, advises companies not only to translate materials when appropriate, but also to be conscious of cultural images: “In lifestyle shots, go beyond multicultural casting. Show scenes where the clothing, food and other backgrounds reflect different cultures.”

Experiential Marketing: Kathy Sherbrooke, president of Circles, an experiential marketing firm in Boston, says businesses must figure out the key messages of their brand and find ways for their staffs and locations to reflect that image–young and trendy, sophisticated and elegant, and so on. “Create an environment that’s consistent with your brand,” she says. She points to Apple Computer’s retail stores, where clerks use handheld checkout machines and pull prod-uct bags out of their back pockets to reinforce the ease-of-use and streamlined processes for which Apple is known.

Customer Evangelism: From hiring word-of-mouth marketing companies to creating incentives for customer referrals, businesses are placing more importance on customer evangelism, says Andrew Pierce, senior partner at New York City branding firm Prophet. “Companies need to be customer-centric for this to happen,” he explains. “If you’re not finding ways to increase value and inspire loyalty, it won’t work.”

At the simplest level, Pierce advises using customer testimonials to add credibility to marketing efforts, including webinars where customers talk about your company. More extreme examples include buzz marketing campaigns where happy customers talk up the product, or inviting customers to trade shows or other events where they can show their enthusiasm in person.