Happy Thanksgiving

In lieu of this week’s blog post, I want to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving.

While it has been a tough business year I am sure you will agree there is much in which to be thankful.

Look for a new post next week.

Best,

– Andy

The Elevator Pitch Revisited

The past few weeks I have been involved in many conversations regarding the perfect elevator pitch.  In each conversation I’ve challenged people to evolve their idea of an elevator pitch to fit in with today’s technology.  This requires keeping their pitch to 140 characters required by Twitter or the 70 characters allowed by Google AdWords.

To that end I am reposting this blog entry from January of this year.

Google AdWords are those “sponsored links” in the right hand column on any Google search results page.  While we’ll discuss these further another time, these are cost per click ads that are placed by a company to get your attention based on your search terms.

When using Google AdWords as a marketing tool, the challenge is communicating your point of difference in 70 characters (including spaces).  This limited amount of space also needs to motivate the audience to take action.  Just like your elevator pitch.  This got me thinking- are Google AdWords this generation’s version of the elevator pitch?

Could you differentiate your company in 70 characters?    It’s not easy.  Luckily for me it only required a 35% reduction in characters bringing my AdWords pitch to “We increase your marketing return without increasing your investment”.

There is a sales adage that says know when to stop talking.  That same advice can be said about your AdWords pitch.  Make it relevant, distinct, motivating and to the point – 70 characters will force you to do just that.  Then once you’ve said your pitch, let your audience strike up the conversation to find out more.  If they don’t want to learn more then maybe your pitch isn’t as strong as it needs to be.

If it isn’t please refer to our previous entries – Perfecting Your Elevator Pitch and Who’s On First?

So see if you can get your AdWords pitch down to 70 characters.  Doing so is just another way to market smarter.

Measuring The Impact of Social Media

The attraction of social media is based on its ability to reach an audience with few out of pocket costs.  However, social media does require a financial investment through an employee’s hours and opportunity costs.

As a result, companies need to know how their social media efforts are making an impact on their business.

Part of that impact should be measured by social media activity that was generated by consumers, not your marketing department.  By measuring consumer comments regarding your company, you get a good sense about their interest in your brand – good or bad.

Two new tools can help measure this activity:

BackType lets you monitor what people are saying about your company or your competitors.  Its trend section is under development but will allow you to trend activity.

Addictomatic creates a dashboard of things like flickr, digg, twitter, youtube, blogs and other tools to give you a current picture of what is being said about your brand.

The benefit of social media is bringing you closer to your consumer by understanding what they are saying about you.

BackType and Addictomatic are two tools that help make that goal easier.

The Importance of Timing

November 1, 2009

I went out to get my Sunday paper (yes, I still read the paper) to find it polybagged in an advertisement for Snickers. The bag included a coupon for a bag of Snickers’ Minis.

Does anyone else find it odd that I received a coupon for snack-sized Snickers the morning after my children are waking-up from their Halloween-induced coma?

Return on investment is crucial for your marketing efforts, but some things are out of your control – like natural disasters or a surprise launch of a competitive product at the same time as yours.  However, there are some things you can control –  like timing.

A few years back I participated in Bzz Agent’s word-of-mouth marketing program where they were getting people to try Hershey’s new Take 5 chocolate candy bar.  The problem was they sent me the product in July in Georgia.  The melted glop that remained was not very appetizing.

When I brought this to Bzz Agent’s attention, they stated they had received similar complaints and would rectify the situation.  They did resend the bars – in August.

I can’t imagine Hershey’s received the return they had hoped for based on poor timing on behalf of them and BzzAgent.

Just last month, Toronto’s subway newspaper, the Metro, began running ads promoting their mobile website, suggesting that the website was so riveting it might cause car accidents. Their timing, however, was lousy, since the Toronto government had just passed legislation making it illegal to drive and use a cell phone at the same time.

There are many things not in your control when marketing, but to ensure the best possible return on investment make sure you control what you can.

Do you have any marketing disaster stories caused by poor timing?  Let us know.