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The Marketing Minute made the grade!

November 7, 2007

I’m always astonished at the amount of time some bloggers generously pour into providing resources for their readers.

Mack Collier has created the top 25 marketing blogs and now John Crickett over at Business Opportunities and Ideas has created the top 100 Business blogs list.

I’m proud to say that this blog is #25 on John’s list. More important…John has compiled an amazing list of resources for all of us. Even if you just explore one a day, you’ll have quite the adventure!

The blogs are listed in order of their Technorati rankings (T), their Alexa rankings (A) are show as well. The rankings are correct at the time of posting.

1. Business Opportunities Weblog T: 12 A: 16,213
2. Copy Blogger T: 36 A: 7,825
3. Seth Godin T: 47 A: 10,314
4. MicroPersuasion T: 169 A: 33,643
5. How To Change The World T: 180 A: 14,709
6. Duct Tape Marketing T: 215 A: 31,714
7. Freelance Switch T: 312 A: 10,638
8. A VC T: 1,226 A: 27,737
9. Rough Type T: 1,253 A: 69,429
10. Successful Blog T: 1,432 A: 44,935
11. Small Business Canada T: 1,517 A: N/A
12. David Allen, Getting Things Done T: 1,549 A: 53,592
13. Springwise T: 1,913 A: 23,858
14. Small Biz Trends T: 2,155 A: 63,364
15. Fast Company T: 2,310 A: 12,141
16. Instigator Blog T: 2,477 A: 58,816
17. Occam’s Razor T: 2,548 A: 45,541
18. Smart Wealthy Rich T: 2,879 A: 79,415
19. eMoms At Home T: 3,443 A: 27,125
20. Escape from Cubicle Nation T: 3,467 A: 202,751
21. The Marketing Technology Blog T: 3,496 A: 47,038
22. Business Pundit T: 3,724 A: 114,669
23. The Engaging Brand T: 4,404 A: 433,644
24. Influential Marketing Blog T: 4,779 A: 98,886
25. Drew McLellan – The Marketing Minute T: 4,820 A: 129,669
26. The Digerati Life T: 4,873 A: 53,353
27. Success From The Nest T: 4,908 A: 95,008
28. Business Blog Consulting T: 5,186 A:237,901
29. Church Of The Customer T: 5,576 A: 250,201
30. Todd And T: 5,643 A: 161, 019
31. Net Business Blog T: 5,936 A: 36,107
32. Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing T: 6,583 A: 92,784
33. Bootstrapper T: 7,497 A: 50,304
34. About.com Entrepreneurs T: 7,797 A: N/A
35. Blogtrepreneur T: 7,897 A: 53,011
36. Branding & Marketing T: 8,200 A: 710,326
37. Simplenomics T: 10,252 A:288,753
38. Freelance Folder T: 10,543 A: 63,590
39. HELLO, My Name Is Blog T: 11,395 A: 422,218
40. Self Made Minds T: 11,704 A: 39,719
41. Sox First T: 12,894 A: 994,161
42. Young Go Getter T: 14,239 A: 45,373
43. Trust Matters T: 15,462 A: 58,403
44. Small Biz Survival T: A: 18,074 A: 875,069
45. The Personal MBA T: 19,207 A: 142,649
46. The Entrepreneurial Mind T: 21,958, A: 155,166
47. Blog Business World T: 23,025 A: 252,405
48. Working At Home On The Internet T: 23,247 A: 423,900
49. Biz Informer T: 24,631 A: 904,745
50. EmpowerWomenNow T: 25,837 A: 117,085
51. Biz Plan Hacks T: 27,048 A: 1,335,732
52. CreateBusinessGrowth T: 32,949 A:197,290
53. Business Opportunities and Ideas T: 33,205 A: 282,805
54. The KISS Business T: 35,496 A: 621,082
55. Startup Spark T: 35,747 A: 386,949
56. Buzzoodle Buzz Marketing Blog T: 41,092 A: 467,418
57. MindPetals T: 41,714 A: 128,487
58. Marketing Deviant T: 43,764 A: 281,072
59. Go Big Network T: 44,842 A: 25,303
60. Cool Business Ideas T: 49,679 A: 187,126
61. Neville’s Financial Blog T: 52,048 A: 140,296
62. Atlantic Canada’s Small Business Blog :T 52,589 A: 795,253
63. College Startu p T: 53,143 A: 184,398
64. Reflections Of A Biz Driven Life T: 79,365 A: 361,398
65. Branding Blog T: 93,462 A: 1,110,518
66. Carnival Of The Capitalists T: 93,462 A: 1,897,375
67. Young Entrepreneur T: 104,933 A: 26,491
68. Marketing Genius T: 132,066 A: 2,222,119
69. Better For Business T: 137,774 A: 590,797
70. The Small Business Blog T: 140,824 A: 577,490
71. Focused Mind T: 162,356 A: 520,971
72. Small Business Tips T: 166,367 A: 74,005
73. Lifes Perspective T: 194,358 A: 179,801
74. Business Opportunities Blog T: 199,700 A: 832,678
75. The Savvy Entrepreneur T: 224,227 A: 391,147
76. Egg Marketing Blog T: 231,062 A: 740,867
77. The Franchise King Blog T: 273,240 A: 520,732
78. Small Business Entrepreneur T: 317,977 A: 883,094
79. The Great Startup Game T: 331,293 A: 421,492
80. Work At Home Start Up Guide T: 345,597 A: 1,190,178
81. Dorm Room Biz T: 360,865 A: 957,072
82. Startup Blog T: 377,609 A: 2,552,189
83. Open Innovators T: 395,824 A: 1,230,257
84. Get Entrepreneurial T: 437,475 A: 446,085
85. Bplans Blog T: 437,475 A: 1,373,525
86. Stuff4Restaurants T: 461,534 A: 298,982
87. Canadian Entrepreneur T: 484,461 A: 237,901
88. Strategize T: 487,964 A: 2,856,731
89. The Marketing Spot T: 587,893 A: 2,550,840
90. The Ravings Of A Mad Entrepreneurial Scientist T: 587,893 A: 566,836
91. More Than We Know T: 871,446 A: 2,964,420
92. Solo Entrepreneur T: 1,212,405 A: 471,491
93. Stuff4Business T: 1,391,575 A: 298,982
94. Consultant Journal T: 4,262,598 A: 667,342
95. Startup Addict Musings T: 4,446,976 A: 1,03390,690
96. Edith Yeung T: 8,911,336 A: 125,290
97. Boostrap Me T: 8,911,336 A: 550,348
98. The Selling Sherpa T: Not Listed A: 772,292
99. BizzBangBuzz T: Not Listed A: 1,484,797
100. The Freestyle Entrepreneur T: Not Listed A: 1,519,518

Enjoy the bounty!

Hey Good Lookin’ — should you really be in your own TV spot?

November 6, 2007

This might ruffle a lot of feathers, so let the comments fly. With very, very few exceptions (and I mean very, very) you should not be in your own TV spots. And in most cases, you shouldn't be in your own radio ads or voiceover work either.

I know…but you are different. People tell you how good you are.

They are lying.

They aren't being mean. They either have no clue how to evaluate if you are good or not, or they are being polite. Honestly, in most cases, they are being polite. Either way, you are not good.

You look uncomfortable. You sound uncomfortable. Frankly, you come off a little stiff and uptight.

If I have not brought a curse upon my house with the above statements, let me add this. Your kids and grandkids shouldn't be in your ads either. They may well be cute as a button but that doesn't mean it's a good choice.

I recognize how intoxicating the attention and comments are. "Hey, saw you on TV. You looked great!" But you are paying a pretty penny to garner a compliment or two, aren't you?

Let's try to be objective here. If you saw an ad where the spokesperson was awkward, uncomfortable, stiff or just looked amateurish, would that give you a sense of confidence about their product or service? You've got enough competition and obstacles when it comes to selling your wares.

Bottom line – don't let your ego or an overzealous sales rep tell you it's a good idea for you to star in your own commercials. Use professionals in your advertising. It's worth the investment.

Unless I know you. Then, you look great.

Blogtipping — November ’07

November 4, 2007

I am joining with my fellow bloggers in celebrating some new blogs that I enjoyed this past month.

As is the blogtipping tradition, (created by Easton Ellsworth) I'll offer a few reasons why I like the blog and one suggestion for improvement.

My self created theme for this month is relatively new Iowa Bloggers you should know. There are way more than 3, so feel free to browse my Central Iowa list on my blog roll.

This month's nods go to….

Focal Point is Chris Punke's take on using viral video on the web.

Things I love:

Chris is shifting away from links only posting to sharing his own expertise.

As you might expect, Chris uses a lot of video to make his points.

Chris' style is very approachable and comfortable.

Suggestion:

In your new style of posts — keep up the tradition of linking out.

Angela Maiers is a tightly woven blend of tips, stories and inspirational posts for educators. Angela Maiers reaches out through her blog, her seminars and her consulting services.

Things I love:

The diversity of your posts.

How you share your own experiences and hard learned lessons.

Your natural, engaging style of writing.

Suggestion:

How about expanding your resources to include others involved in the educational process, like parents?

Moment on Money is a financial planner's blog. But Art Dinkin is no ordinary financial planner. He speaks in plain English about things that matter to all of us, like identity theft and life insurance.

Things I love:

Great financial information in language we can understand.

Lots of outbound links that allow us to explore the topic even more.

Every post, a practical tip or insight. What's not to love?

Suggestion:

How about some quizzes or worksheets so we can do some self-analysis?

There you have it discerning readers…until next month's blogtipping adventure!

Free Audio Series: Extreme Leadership

November 3, 2007

I read a lot. So for me to say someone is one of the best business authors I've ever read…means they have gone against some serious contenders. And Steve Farber is without a doubt, one of the best.

His books Radical Leap and Radical Edge should be required reading for every business leader. The work world would be a much better place.

Steve's making a very generous offer. In celebration of being featured on MSNBC, CNN, CNBC and Public Television this weekend, he's giving away his audio series, Extreme Leadership: In Pursuit of the OS!M.

We're talking 3+ hours of leadership inspiration and wisdom. Free.

I can't imagine this offer will go on forever…so get on it now. Really. Now.

:60 ticks marketing tip: Find your facts

November 2, 2007

American Factfinder is a great source for population, social, housing, economic and geographic data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Looking for average family income, racial mix or other data for a state, county or city?

Want to identify cities or counties with a high percentage of Spanish-speakers? You can find them here.

Want to choose which zip codes to send a direct mail into based on home values or mortgage amounts? You can find them here.

You can even look at business patterns by city, county, state or region, find the number of businesses by NAICS code and identify business size, payroll, number of employees and much more.

All totally free. Gotta love that.

Can we age out as marketers?

November 2, 2007

One of my favorite blog readers/commenters sent me an e-mail recently. He was seeking a little bit of advice and perhaps trying to find out if he was all alone in how he was feeling.

Well, I don't think he's all alone at all. He expressed a concern that has probably crossed most of our minds somewhere along the way.

Here's how he started the e-mail.

AM I GETTING TOO OLD? As a 43-year-old marketing director, how do I stay in touch with a target market of 18-30 year olds? As we get older, how we practice marketing and stay current?

I posted the rest of his e-mail over at Marketing Profs Daily Fix and we are in the middle of a very lively discussion about his/our universal question — how do I stay relevant?

Come over and jump into the conversation.

Do it Wrong Quickly — is a right choice!

October 31, 2007

In the past, marketers have had to carefully plan ahead because getting it wrong was just too expensive. But today you don’t have to get it right out of the shoot. Now you can start fast, change fast, and relentlessly optimize your way to success. We can do it wrong quickly…then fix it, just as quickly!

In Do it Wrong Quickly, Internet marketing pioneer Mike Moran shows us how to do that–step-by-step. Drawing on his experience building IBM.com, Moran shows how to quickly transition from “plan then execute” to a non-stop cycle of refinement.

I recently had a chance to run a few questions by Mike and I think you’ll enjoy his answers. But brace yourself — he’s a funny engineer. I know, I had trouble with the concept too!

Many of your readers are probably entrepreneurs stuck in a corporate culture. If they get what you’re saying but their boss does not – how would you recommend (other than reading your book) that they begin to infuse this idea into their company culture?

Reading my book and buying copies for their 20 closest friends is by far the best thing to do, but oh–you ruled that one out. I think that we marketers need to challenge ourselves to work just as hard at marketing inside our companies as we do outside.

We all think of ourselves as these very persuasive people that can get customers to consider new ideas, so why do we feel so stuck trying to explain something new to the boss? I say it’s because we don’t apply ourselves.

If your boss resists, do what you would do with customers that resist–try to understand what the blocks are and overcome them. For example, suppose your boss is extremely risk-averse, and trying something new scares him to death.

In that case, you might want to point out how dangerous it is for us to avoid this new important thing that our competitors are doing and customers are responding to. So if he really responds to fear, then scare him even more about the status quo.

Analyze what moves your boss and then pitch to that impulse, the same way you tailor messages to your target market.

How would you recommend that agencies help their clients embrace this thinking?

Read my book–oh wait. Sorry.

One of the things that drives most CEOs and CFOs nuts is that most marketing can’t be shown to contribute to the bottom line. It gives them fluffy stuff like "increased brand awareness."

If you adopt a metrics-based approach to Internet marketing, then everything an agency does produces tangible impact in money terms–which helps clients justify bigger marketing budgets over time and gets them promoted over their peers who are still pitching name recognition and customer satisfaction.

Any agency that can explain how their clients become heroes in their jobs can cause them to embrace this thinking (or at least give it a warm handshake).

Off-line consumers are changing as well. How does all of this translate for the local, primarily face-to-face business owner, like the butcher the baker or the candlestick maker? Is your premise only a web-based one?

The book focuses on Internet marketing of all varieties, but these ideas work offline, also.

In fact, some of them are stolen from offline direct marketing. Anyone sending out direct mail pieces or catalogs already knows how to "do it wrong quickly" because they judge the effectiveness of each piece based on response. They know what they send out the first time is wrong and they use the response to each version to tell them how to keep changing to get higher response.

Direct marketers tweak their materials over and over to get the highest response they can. One of the big messages of my book is how you can apply that thinking online.

If you could only use one tool (blogs, podcasts, Twitter, wikis, Facebook etc.) to track and observe your potential customer, which one would you choose and why?

I’d use a Web metrics package, such as Google Analytics or CoreMetrics.

As important as it is to listen to what your customers say (and I spend a lot of pages on that), it’s even more important to watch what they do. In the end, observing customers seeing your marketing message and clicking (or not) and buying (or not) tells you more than what they say.

Listening is important, but if you only do one thing, watch. A Web metrics package is the easiest way to watch, and Google’s is free, which is personally my favorite price.

Is there a specific industry that desperately needs to "get this" more than others?

I don’t know any industries that really have this down, but the ones that staring at the biggest culture changes are heavily-regulated industries.

Those industries are used to creating very effective one-way messages (even online), but they are scared to death to respond to customers in public because then they have to go off-message.

It’s hard to talk to anyone in pharmaceuticals or financial services without hearing about what their lawyers say about all this risky business. The problem is that the biggest risk of all is to sit out this change.

The first company in each regulated industry to figure this out will have a bigger edge than the first movers in other industries, because their competitors’ organizational cultures will be excruciating to change. Oh, and did I mention they should read my book? Oh, yeah. Just checking.

Does Disney really care if your kids are fat?

October 30, 2007

I don’t need to tell you how pro-Disney I am. I love the brand, I love the culture, I love the actual experience. It is where I go to re-charge and relax. It is, in my mind, my place.

So it pains me to call bull#&*@^ on Disney. But I’ve got to.

Thanks to a post on Marketing Profs Daily Fix (by Ted Mininni) and a follow up from Cam Beck at ChaosScenario, I learned about an article on CNN/Money.com.

It reported that Disney has pledged their efforts to fight childhood obesity by launching a new line of products called Disney Garden that will include Mickey-shaped snack trays with combinations of celery, peanut butter and raisins or apples, cheese and crackers and others. Other items include sugar snap peas, honey orange carrot coins, cheesy broccoli bites and miniature apples, peaches, pears, plums and oranges.

Disney was one of a dozen companies that made a pledge before an FTC hearing in July that put more pressure on the companies to help curb the growing child obesity problem through more responsible marketing.

So Disney must be committed to eradicating childhood obesity, right?

I don’t really think so. I’m sure they recognize its a problem. And they certainly don’t want to purposefully fatten up your kids.

But Disney Garden is brand extension, not social responsibility.

Let’s face it, Disney is all about being family friendly. They want to create brand loyalty among family decision-makers. Where better than the grocery store? And who better to cozy up to than Mom? What is one of the hottest topics among parents today? Childhood obesity.

Here’s the pesky part of this new breed of marketing. For it to be authentic and embraced by your consumers, there can’t be any "holes" in the story. You have to be able to prove that you are walking your talk.

In this case, here are some of the holes I might reluctantly poke into Disney’s pledge against obesity (childhood or otherwise):

Disney has granted the exclusive privilege of a presence inside their parks to McDonalds and their french fry wagons. So much for their break from Mickey D’s. The only thing those wagons sell — fries, sodas and bottled water.

Disney owned ABC Network still accepts and runs plenty of commercials for Doritos, sugar-laden cereal and other junk foods. And they run plenty of them during Saturday morning cartoons and Hannah Montana reruns.

I just visited Disney’s website for Kids Island and watched a cool web ad for Cheetos.

Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t think Disney is out to fatten up our kids. And I know they are doing some things to offer healthy alternatives, like offering carrots instead of fries. But to lay claim to a position as the industry leader out fighting obesity seems a stretch.

Today’s marketing needs to be very wary of hype. And this feels a wee bit hyped to me. What do you think?

Is there an ROI for being customer focused?

October 30, 2007

Thanks to a post on The Engaging Brand I read about study done by Peer Insight.

They did a three year study of 40 Fortune 500 companies – and the results clearly make a case for the ROI a company can realize by focusing on being purposeful about the customer experience.

The study showed that companies that focused upon customer experience design outperformed the S&P 500 by a 10-1 margin. While I think that’s a very nice argument for crafting the customer experience, I think it is only one way to measure the value.

Here are some other valuations you need to consider:

~ Employee retention. (Use this calculator if you have a strong stomach.)
~ Customer retention. Multiply your new customer acquisition costs times 5.
~ Loss of word of mouth. The best marketing tool around. And you don’t have any.
~ Fewer surprises. When you’ve planned the customer experience, you can anticipate problems before they sneak up on you.

And that’s probably just the tip of the iceberg. What other benefits/ROI are there for purposefully designing the customer experience?

Age of Conversation: Three months later

October 29, 2007

A little over 3 months ago, we launched Age of Conversation with our fingers crossed. We came screaming out of the gate.

103 authors, most of whom have never looked each other in the eyes. From 10 different countries. Working together for a common vision — to publish a book they could be proud of and raise money for the world’s children.

So, how are we doing so far?

In the 90+ days since our launch, together we have raised $10,380.81! (That’s 1,351 books)

That’s the good news. The bad news is that 98% of those sales took place in the first 60 days.

It’s time to prove that we know how to market. The holidays are coming and Age of Conversation would make a great gift for clients, business partners, family or friends.

We’ve got a couple ideas up our sleeve but would love to get some from you too. How can we get AoC back on the radar screen and on everyone’s wish list this holiday season?

Could we raise another $10,000 in the next 90 days?

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