Unconventional Marketing by Nadine M Rosin

Happy New Decade!

As I kick off a new year with my podcasts I want to reiterate the mission of my podcasts.

I seek to bring you interesting people that are doing interesting things in marketing in order to share their experiences with marketers around the world for education and inspiration.

My first podcast guest in the new decade is Nadine M. Rosin. Nadine is an unconventional person in several ways. It’s her unconventional approach to life and marketing that offers great inspiration. Nadine is a certified therapeutic body worker and a non-denominational minister who performs weddings in Tucson. Nadine is the author of a book titled The Healing Art of Pet Parenthood. The book was inspired by the loss of her dog Buttons. Buttons was diagnosed with cancer when she was 8 years old and was given just 6 weeks to live. That’s when Nadine got unconventional…

An Unconventional Person
Nadine is less likely than most people to accept the conventional way of doing things. She subscribes to the cliché “necessity is the mother of invention.” When the veterinarian gave her dog Buttons 6 weeks to live, Nadine sought and found the causes of the cancer. Rather than deal with the symptoms, Nadine took a holistic approach to Buttons’ cancer. Over the next four months Nadine cleared out all toxins in her home. Essentially, she cleansed Buttons’ environment inside and outside and strengthened her body nutritionally so her dog’s body would heal itself. It worked. Buttons lived another 11 years and died of natural causes at age 19.

The Marketing Lesson in Mourning
Nadine observed that people (especially in the U.S.) are encouraged to keep sorrowful emotions bottled up. She points out that it’s not healthy to hide these powerful emotions. It’s not how we heal. An example Nadine offers is how during President Reagan’s funeral the esteemed media praised Nancy Reagan for not showing her grief in public. It’s a normal human emotion to mourn over the death of a loved one. It’s authentic and healthy to grieve. Grieving gives us a healing process.

What does this have to do with marketing you ask? Good question. Keep reading…

Create Content About Which You’re Passionate
The experience Nadine had with her own pet coupled with the observations of how people need to grieve even after they lose a pet, inspired Nadine’s book. Her book helps “pet parents” to grieve and heal after the loss of their pets.

Nadine never had a budget to market her book. She doesn’t have a warehouse of books to send out for promotion. But, Nadine does have a warehouse full of passion. She started her marketing plan with a 3 minute video, which serves as a trailer about the book which she posted on YouTube. Then, she searched for videos on YouTube for “pet memorial” and found people offering tributes to a pet which had recently died. Nadine would leave a short, authentic and sympathetic comment in her handle: authorgirlpetparent with a link to her video. Many people would click on her video and find her book and buy it. Eventually, many people came back to her video to comment on how helpful the book was to them in their healing process over their pet loss.

Shoestring Marketing

Nadine designed her website herself with no prior experience. She just learned how to do it. She found and visited online pet social sites to find conversations with people about their pets and engaged them. Two such sites include Dogster and  DoggySpace. The people she encountered on these pet social sites actually speak in the persona of their pet.  She started making friends on all these social sites and establishing her brand in her own persona of Authorgirlpetparent. This marketing strategy cost no money. It did “cost” her about 6 hours each day after work, which she admits flies by because she is so passionate about the topic and her online relationship building. One such online connection got her an invitation to be flown to an event where she was the keynote speaker.

Nadine is very focused on the details of her online relationship details. She sends a personalized direct message (DM) to every new follower on Twitter and Facebook. She also gives free help to other pet parents who have holistic questions. She offers a 30-minute one-on-one consultation. No one is turned away who can’t afford one.

Marketing 2.0 at Work

Nadine’s content marketing and relationship building strategy is intuitively exactly as I wrote in my book, Marketing 2.0. Nadine has developed a content marketing strategy and prioritizes the connections she makes online with people on pet social sites and through Facebook and Twitter. Nadine also blogs regularly on her pet parenthood blog and accepts, speaking engagements where ever possible.

Experiential Marketing
Nadine is creating experiences with people when she connects with them. She shares her own personal experience through her story about her deceased dog Buttons. For example, someone on Facebook contacted Nadine about a friend who had just lost a pet. This person posted Nadine’s video on her friend’s profile. This person turned out to be Yvonne DiVita an active social media expert who supports women in business and pet owners (pet parents). Yvonne bought and read Nadine’s book.  She contacted Nadine to help her market it. She offered Nadine valuable social media advice to accelerate her social media marketing on Twitter and Facebook.

Results in Motion
When I asked Nadine how she measures results, I could tell she was a little uncomfortable with this topic. As an author of a book, I understand that conventional results measurement is all about measuring book sales. But, until Nadine’s book sales gets into in six figures, she won’t be excited measuring that result. So she ignores the numbers. Instead Nadine measures the results in motion, which includes:

What kind of emails is she getting from readers?
How much are other people trying to connect and help Nadine?
What’s the value of her new connections?
Do her connections offer value that can contribute to book sales in the future?

There Are Many Inches in a Mile
The unconventional path to book sales for Nadine wasn’t so unconventional after all. Nadine figured it out as she went along. Her passion and commitment combined with her authentic approach to connecting with people has allowed her to learn successful marketing strategies as she experimented with them.

Nadine is measuring milestones. As I state in my book, marketers can measure the outcome of relationships developed online. These milestones are stepping stones to end results. You don’t get from an inch to a mile in one step.  It’s ok to measure the inches you achieve on your way to the mile.

One small example of measuring inches for Nadine is the way we met. I found Nadine when she was featured in a newsletter article put out by our mutual publisher, Wheatmark Publishing. I was impressed by her story so I contacted her to to be a guest on my podcast. Who knows what doors may open from this podcast interview.

I hope Nadine’s story as a pet parent and as a marketer inspire you in some way. I invite you to learn more about Nadine and her book here. I’m sure Nadine would enjoy connecting with you, to share common interests in marketing or pet parenting.

Bernie Borges
@berniebay

P.S. To learn more about developing content marketing strategies like Nadine’s check out my book, Marketing 2.0.

Psychotherapist a Self Taught Inbound Marketer

Ken Donaldson has a very unique vocation.  He is a licensed mental health counselor, aka a psychotherapist. Ken also calls himself a life coach and a relationship coach. Ken has been in private practice for sixteen years. While Ken is a psychotherapist by vocation has had to become a marketer. Here’s his story. The podcast interview has the whole story…

When Ken first got started in his profession, he expected it to be much easier to develop his practice. He created about 1000 business cards and waited for the phone to ring.  But the phone didn’t ring. He quickly realized developing his practice would require marketing.  So, he started speaking. That was a good start because when Ken spoke to a roomful of people he created more exposure for himself. His speaking gigs usually produced some client referrals and more speaking gigs. Ken eventually realized he had a business. So, he set out to learn how to grow and run a business.

Ken started educating himself on how to run a business by attending workshops, reading books, blogs and websites on marketing. While Ken doesn’t consider himself an aggressive marketer, he realizes that compared to most of his colleagues in his profession, he is like a Chris Brogan.

Marry Yourself First

Ken is the author of a best selling book: Marry Yourself First. His book is a compilation of “the best of his best advice” for people to live extraordinary lives.  His book offers 24 key life principles that give people success. Ken’s strategy is to market his book as a way of marketing Ken Donaldson. And vice versa. He has two websites. His primary website is Ken Donaldson.  And, his Marry Yourself First website promotes his book.

Video Marketing

When Ken first developed his website he was advised that it needed audio. So he added audio. Then he was told he needed video. So he added video. He learned that it wasn’t as difficult as he thought it would be. He also created a small website called Ask Ken Donaldson. Ken creates short video responses to the questions he receives. Then, he posts them on YouTube and on his website. He currently has nearly 90 videos. Ken’s content marketing strategy is to produce free advice and give it away through his websites, his blog, Facebook and Twitter with video as a primary form of content delivery.

Location, Location, Location.

As the old saying goes in real estate, Ken has learned that in marketing it’s content, content, content. Ken’s strategy is to give his best in 3 to 5 minutes. He produces content that delivers on the 3 E’s reaching people who are interested in his content. Ken’s videos are very authentic and human. For example, during a vacation in Utah he created some video with beautiful scenery. It was totally unscripted, raw video because it was so casual with some good advice from Ken.

Trading Dollars for Hours No More

Ken’s practice is doing well. His content marketing strategy effectively drives clients to his practice. In 2009 he got more clients from the internet than ever before in his sixteen years. He attributes his success to being more visible, more available and more downloadable.  He eventually plans to “trade dollars for hours.” He’s already started producing premium content through his 5 CD program and has more plans for more premium content.

Ken’s brand is growing and his business is thriving. I feel strongly that these content marketing, inbound marketing strategies apply equally to all business of all sizes across all industries.

In addition to the website links for Ken above, you can connect with him on Facebook and Twitter. He’s a good example of a niche marketer having fun while enjoying success.

If you want to learn more about content marketing strategies, check out my book Marketing 2.0.

@berniebay

Measuring Results in Social Media Marketing

This blog post an updated excerpt from my book, Marketing 2.0.

Measuring results is one of my favorite topics in marketing. Since the invention of marketing (I couldn’t find that date in Wikipedia), executives have wanted to measure the effectiveness of marketing dollars against sales in order to determine their return on investment, or ROI.

The reality is that in recent years, measuring marketing results, at least at the quantitative level, has become increasing sophisticated through tools and techniques. In addition to quantitative metrics, measuring qualitative results can be just as valuable.

Social media marketing measurement is very similar to measuring other web marketing results. First I’ll review the tools you can use. Then, I’ll offer ways you can use them to measure social media marketing results.

Conventional Wisdom

Let’s start with a look at the conventional web marketing metrics tools, beginning with some free tools. You may be familiar with some or all of these tools. As obvious as they are to me, I often meet marketers who are not harnessing them to their full potential.

Google Analytics—a free web analytics service that provides website owners valuable insight into website traffic details including visitors, sources of visitor traffic, pages visited, time spent on your website, keywords driving website traffic, geographic location of visitors, conversions based on a predefined goals, and much more.

Google Webmaster Tools—another set of free and powerful tools from Google providing another level of detail in studying traffic data for your website as well as keyword click-throughs and inbound links.

Google Alerts—another free service that will alert you by email or to your RSS reader each time Google finds a relevant result for a topic you’ve set up to track.

Google Blogsearch—a free search engine subset of Google’s search engine geared to display blog posts. When you search on a phrase, Google displays recent blog posts for that phrase.

Social Media Measurement Tools

As social media marketing has exploded, so has the landscape of tools and services designed to help companies measure and optimize their results. I’ll start with a partial list of free social media measuring tools. Note most free tools offer fee-based premium versions as well.

Blogpulse—a service from Nielsen Buzzmetrics that acts as both a blog search engine and blog tracker. Bloggers can track conversations taking place about topics of interest, as well as discover where their blog ranks in relation to others covering similar topics.

Trendpedia—a free service that functions mostly as a blog search engine. Its main feature involves helping people find the most popular trends in social media across a variety of topics and tracking the trend of the topic over a three-month period in comparison to other relevant topics.

Trendrr—a free service that adds a real sense of analytical measurement through its use of trending graphs. Trendrr lets anyone track, compare, and share trends on any topic across blogs and other social media.

Technorati—a free service that functions as an Internet search engine for blogs. You can track your blog content in Technorati.

Twitter Search – Whether or not your have a Twitter account, you can use Twitter’s search engine. Marketers should search relevant keywords to learn about conversations about their brand on Twitter.

The free tools listed above are a partial list of many tools available to track your content results. I encourage you to use as many tools as practical to measure and track your social media marketing results on an ongoing basis.

Staying on Course

However, tracking the reach of your content in social media is just a part of the measuring results secret sauce. You also need to gain insights so you can measure your progress and take action. A metaphor comes to mind. Social media marketing is like flying an airplane. The sophisticated cockpit constantly calculates the extent to which the plan has shifted from its course route and makes the necessary adjustment to get the plane back on its course. In social media marketing, you must similarly be tracking and interpreting in order to know when and how much you must adjust your content strategy and your tactics to stay on course.

In addition to the free tools listed above, there is an ever-growing list of fee-based tools to measure social media results. I will only list two because these are the two we use at Find and Convert and therefore I’m most familiar with them. Again, there are many other good tools available and you should do your own homework.

HubSpot – an inbound marketing software as a service (SaaS). HubSpot allows marketers to track keyword rankings, competitor’s web marketing presence, traffic analysis, leads and lead intelligence. Recently, HubSpot added social media tracking features allowing marketers to track the impact of social media on your desired goals (such as sales leads). In the screenshot below you can see the emerging impact of social media traffic.

ScoutLabs – a social media tracking tool that allows marketers to track mentions in blogs, bookmarking sites, Twitter, photos, video and more. We like the ability to track sentiment of keywords and the ability to chart trends. Below is a short video interview with Jennifer Zeszut, CEO of ScoutLabs.

Measuring Quantitative Results
There are many factors you can measure in your social media strategy. First, make sure you have clearly defined goals. Otherwise your metrics will not be meaningful and you won’t be able to measure success. Here are some quantitative metrics you can measure.

Subscribers – watch the subscriber count to your blog(s) and newsletter grow.

Followers – watch the number of followers on Twitter or Facebook grow as well any groups or communities your create.

Mentions – track the mentions of your brand and relevant keywords to learn about conversations and decide which conversations you should engage.

Sentiment – track the sentiment of your keywords to determine what (if any) changes you should consider in your content strategy and in the tactics you use. A negative trend on a topic may give you cause to back away from that topic or to change your approach to it.

Inbound Links – links are the currency of the web. Track the number of links you’re building and where they are coming from.

Comments – study the comments being made on your blog or your Facebook and Twitter accounts. Comments could give you reason to engage or add more content on a topic of high interest.

Connections – one of the greatest and measurable factors in social media marketing is the new doors that can open up. New connections can result in speaking opportunities, media interviews, guest blog or publication articles, key introductions and new sales opportunities.

Brand Equity – all businesses should care about brand equity. It’s not limited to large companies. Using any combination of tools described above you should study the trends in your brand. Is your company name a growing keyword driver of traffic to your website? If the trends are positive, correlate that to your sales results. If you have employees with a strong social media presence include them in your brand equity study. The relationship between your employees and your brand is tied more tightly than ever before. Take Mike Volpe as an example. His blogging, speaking, podcasting and overall content creation on the web has a positive impact on HubSpot, his employer. And, btw, both Mike Volpe (the brand) and HubSpot (the brand) benefit from his efforts.

It Takes Work!
If you’re thinking, man this sounds like a lot of work, you’re not only right, you’re onto something big! Measuring results properly is not just hard work. It’s time consuming. So, where are you going to get all this time? By eliminating non-performing marketing activities! Measure all your marketing activities. If you have losers in your marketing mix (assuming you’ve been at it more than six months) scale them back or eliminate them. Many marketers report cutting back on marketing activities such as direct mail and tradeshows after measuring success in their social media strategy. BTW, attending a tradeshow can be just as effective as exhibiting at a tradeshow at a fraction of the cost. While you’re at the tradeshow you should be posting to Twitter about the people you’re meeting and the content you’re enjoying, taking pictures and shooting video interviews with industry people and posting all this content on the web to keep building your footprint on the web. Of course when you tag this content you’ll create links and build more brand equity. And, you can measure that…

To measure your social media marketing results keep at it and measure. Keep at it. Measure. Keep at it. Measure.

Tips for Bulls-Eye Blogging: Getting Your Content Found

Dianna Kersey: Information Architect

Since the beginning of time, humans have been searching for ways to communicate.  From sign language to cave drawings to paintings, humans have been trying to tell their stories.

In fact, we humans have protected, copied and preserved the written word since its inception.  From Dead Sea scrolls to naval captain’s logs to newspapers to the blogs written by the world’s 70 million bloggers, people have been (and continue to be) obsessed with communicating what is important to them.

So, you say you are clean out of parchment, your hammer and chisel are dull and you don’t own a printing press?  How about we move into the 21st century and we learn how to communicate with not only other humans, but search engines as well, so those other humans can find the words on your blog that express what’s important to you.

So let’s start with the basics….

Loading the Rifle:  What is a Blog?  Here is a short video to explain:

There are 8 types of blogs that can be a part of how you choose to communicate what’s important to you.

Here are examples of each kind:

1.    Linkblog – Social bookmarking, such as del.icio.us
2.    Moblog – sending pictures from a camera phone or mobile device, e.g., Flickr
3.    Podcast – audio recording in MP3 through RSS feed – iTunes
4.    Videoblog/Vlog – video recording in MP4 through RSS feed – YouTube
5.    Microblog – short text message, popular with mobile users, e.g., Twitter
6.    Miniblog/reblog – content is mostly from a third party in a post versus creating original material,  e.g., stumbleupon
7.    Liveblog – covers a live event, such as a sporting event or press conference.  Engadget is an example.
8.    Blog – A collection that can include all of the above.

Once you choose which format is inspiring to you, it’s time to bring it to life and be found on the social web. When choosing a blog strategy, first you will want to choose a blog platform (such as WordPress or Blogger) and create a themed look and feel appropriate to what you want to talk about and what you feel will appeal to the type of audience interested in your same topic.

Now that you have a blog hosted and up and running…. now what?  You need great content. Period.  Your content must be interesting, informative, educational, or inspiring in a way that compels your readers to engage with you.  Most important, be creative and have fun with the voice of who you are.

Rand Fishkin from SEOmoz has written a great article that details 21 tactics to increase blog traffic, but we are going to cover just a few highlights.

Talking to Humans: Taking Aim at Your Target

Here are a few items to help keep your content fun, inviting and engaging to your audience:
-    Great content – first and foremost.
-    Link to your sources and data information. Don’t be afraid to link to resources valuable to your readers.
-    Invite guest bloggers to be featured on your blog.
-    Interview influential people who address the topic covered by your blog.
-    Use rich media – e.g., video, charts, images, graphs, podcasts, bullets, etc….
-    Use community sharing software such as ShareThis or Tweetmeme to allow visitors to share your content easily with others through Twitter and Facebook and many other bookmarking  platforms throughout the web.

Talking to Search Engines: Bulls-eye

Okay, so you have great content. Check.  Now it’s time to be found in the search engines and share your content with readers.  You have to socially broaden your footprint on the web and get your content out to communities that are interested in what you have to say.

How do you do that?

Here are some simple tips to help search engines identify and “read” your content and properly index it so that a person searching on the topic that you posted about can find your blog. By using these plug-ins (or many others like these), you can help tell the search engines what your posts are about.

-    Use a SEF (search engine friendly) plug-in, such as headspace2, to insert title tags, smart URLs and descriptions into your posts to help search engines index the posts for the right keywords.
-    Tag your content with keywords relevant to what that post is about.
-    Make it easy for someone to subscribe to you with RSS feeds or subscribe with email.
-    Use an interactive WYSWYG word processing plug-in, such as Tiny MCE Advanced, which allows you include images, video and a myriad of other functionality to make your content engaging.

You’ll be loaded for bear if do your research, choose the type of blog that’s right for what you want to communicate, educate yourself on your chosen topic, learn from other bloggers, create a community by broadening your web footprint, and use the 21st century tools to help humans using search engines find your blog content when they search on the keywords that are most relevant to it.

Good luck!

Interview with Brian Halligan, Co-Author of Inbound Marketing

Podcast interview with Brian Halligan, CEO of HubSpot.

I interviewed Brian Halligan, CEO of HubSpot to discuss his new book, Inbound Marketing, Get Found Using Google, Social Media and Blogs, which Brian co-authored with his co-founder and fellow MIT alumnus Dharmesh Shah. First, I asked Brian to briefly describe HubSpot. In full disclosure, Find and Convert is a HubSpot partner.

HubSpot is an inbound marketing software company which is about three years old now. HubSpot helps companies transform their marketing strategy from the ground up through a methodology which is implemented and managed on their web-based software platform. HubSpot software helps marketers run their organic search engine optimization, PPC and social media strategies with analytics and lead intelligence to measure results.

Inbound Marketing – The Book

Brian describes his new book as a cookbook for marketers that provides the transformation from old style marketing to the new inbound marketing. The book describes how marketing has changed over the past 5 years. In his book, Brian and Dharmesh outline the five steps in becoming an inbound marketing centric business.

1. Create lots of content
2. Optimize that content for Google and social media
3. Spread that content
4. Measure results
5. Convert website visitors to leads and customers

A New Mindset

If you’ve read my blog before or listened to any of my recent podcasts you’ve heard me say that the new marketing is a mindset. It’s a new way of thinking. It’s all about creating content and building relationships through your content. As Brian points out in his book, marketers need to make the shift away from interruptive marketing to inbound marketing. He says the modern marketer is half a traditional marketer and half a content creator. When a marketer creates “remarkable” content, other content producers will remark about your content. In fact others will link to your content. And, links are the currency of the web which will produce traffic to your website. In fact, Brian says the modern marketer’s content becomes a magnet to their website hub.

Not Your Father’s Marketing

I asked Brian how marketers can embrace inbound marketing? In response he takes us on a trip down memory lane (you may not be old enough to remember his story). He says that marketing hasn’t changed much over the last 50 years. But, during the past 5 years it’s changed a lot and will continue to change in the coming years. In 1965 television ads worked exceptionally well. People had to watch the ads. They had no choice. In fact, they had few choices in their media consumption. Today, consumers can block out ads across most media platforms including television, radio. email and web browsers. In short, consumers can filter out most advertiser’s interruptions.

Are You Worthy?

In years past any company with a healthy budget could advertise and sell products. Even bad products could be marketed and sold with a big budget.  Today, the friction is far less for great ideas with less money required to get the word out. Good products with good positioning and happy customers can sell by spreading the word around the web. Bad products (unworthy) can’t hide anywhere in the current marketing paradigm.

Measuring Results

A common question asked by marketers about inbound marketing is how do you measure results? Not surprisingly, Brian and Dharmesh devoted a chapter to this question. Their advice is to look at campaigns using the funnel metaphor. Study the flow of visitors to your website hub, the conversion to leads, to opportunities and ultimately to customers. Study all the web channels that filled your funnel and see which ones have produced the best results in the funnel. The ones that work best you should  “double down” on and nix or revise the ones that don’t.

What’s Remarkable Content?

I asked Brian how does a widget manufacturer produce remarkable content? One of the case studies in his book is Whole Foods. They are a natural and organic grocery food retailer. As part of their inbound marketing strategy one of their buyers blogs during his trips to France.  He blogs about his meals during his trips, and the cheeses he bought on his trips. He cites another example of a fishing rod manufacturer who creates lots of content about the industry, not about the product. The magic sauce of inbound marketing is not to sell your product through your content. He says marketers should turn their website into a magnet about your industry to attract people. Invite customers, analysts and others interested in industry topics to engage with your content. Allow your content to become a magnet and engage people in ways that can convert into leads. It’s a very common mistake when marketers jump on the web and create content all about their products.  Marketers can be very successful inbound marketers if they talk about industry issues and watch others link to your content.

Watch Your Competition

Marketers can easily watch their competitors in the age of social media and tools like Google Alerts. HubSpot created a series of tools under the Grader brand. Marketers can use Website Grader to measure their own websites, as well as their competitors side by side.  Other Grader tools such as Twitter Grader and Facebook Grader allow marketers to watch their competitors on a frequent basis with a lot of transparency. Marketers can watch the competitive trends. Startups can be very aggressive by watching competitors closely.

Why Now?

In this chapter Brian and Dharmesh stress that marketers should not wait to embrace inbound marketing.  The barriers to entry to beat the top content producers are high. The longer a marketer waits to become an inbound marketer the harder it will be to catch up. All the great content that marketers produce will generate links back to their website hub. The content becomes a permanent asset on the web.

Marketing Crystal Ball

I asked Brian what’s in his marketing crystal ball? To answer this question, he referenced the large old style marketers like P&G who have allocated big money to advertising over the past 50 years. This approach to marketing built Madison Ave. Brian predicts that in the next 50 years inbound marketing will flip Madison Ave on its head. Advertisers have fewer media outlets to turn to because consumers are watching less television and reading less print. Instead consumers are going online using Google, social media and blogs. Brian predicts the next group of companies that will become Google-size success stories are those who engage on the web through remarkable content. The next Coke will not be an interruptive marketer. The next Coke will be content producers with a great product. I partially disagree. I think this will happen in the next 5 or 10 years. It won’t take 50 years. Just look at Zappos.

Two Real World Examples

I asked Brian for two great examples of inbound marketing. But, I required that he describe his own company as one of them. You may think this was a softball. But, the truth is that HubSpot is a poster child for inbound marketing. I asked Brian to describe their success with HubSpot TV. He described the early days of HubSpot before the product launched.  He was actively blogging about inbound marketing several times each week.  He rapidly adopted the mindset of constantly creating content. So, it started even before HubSpot launched version one of their software product. This approach eventually led to the development of their free Grader products (great content) described earlier. One day one of HubSpot’s product developers, Karen Rubin, suggested starting a TV show! Though some people initially laughed, she convinced V.P. Marketing Mike Volpe, himself a prolific content producer. The rest is history. HubSpot TV is more than one year old now with a loyal and sizable audience. It airs live every Friday at 4pm eastern and is syndicated in iTunes ranking #1 for inbound marketing and other related terms. Shameless plug: I was a guest on HubSpot TV in August. I had a blast!

The other success story Brian told is from his book about a company called 37Signals. I learned that this company has long provided inspiration to HubSpot. They are a small software company out of Chicago with really great products. They created a wildly successful blog called Signal Versus Noise. This blog was once a top 100 blog. They also created a book, and their reputation spread very quickly. I pointed out (unknown to Brian) that we are a 37Signals customer. We use their Basecamp product in our client engagements. And, we learned about Basecamp through word of mouth. Proof positive that inbound marketing is for real.

At the end of my interview with Brian he said something which I believe is profound in its simplicity and its reality. Brian said “Inbound Marketing is not rocket science. The sooner you do it the better off you are!”

Brian, I couldn’t agree with you more…I wish you and Dharmesh success with your new book, Inbound Marketing which is available everywhere.

A Lesson in Personal Branding: Brent Britton “Attorney 2.0″

Attorney 2.0 Brent Britton

One of the success stories in my book, Marketing 2.0 is about Brent Britton. Brent is an intellectual property attorney. Though he’s not that old, Brent has been on the Internet since the stone ages. He’s a former math and science nerd who graduated from MIT. He went to law school then went to Silicon Valley to practice law and help companies manage their intellectual property.

One of the Oldest Industries (not that one…)

Brent is definitely an exception, not the norm. Not too many lawyers use the social web. Brent is quick to point out that the legal field is a bit stodgy.  The legal profession in general is made up of technology laggards. If you ask most law firms “why don’t you use social media” most will say “that’s not where we get our clients.” But, Brent’s use of the web has been second nature. I give Brent a lot of credit for his personal branding. I asked Brent how he does it while being part of a law firm and complying with strict industry regulations.

Brent is Human Before He’s a Lawyer

What’s brilliant about Brent’s social media strategy is its simple logic. Brent’s use of the social web is nothing more than an extension of his personality. He points out that we are all social creatures. The Internet has become a communication tool for him.  And, since he’s been on the Internet since its commercial inception, it’s truly second nature to him.

Brent’s Social Media List

Brent’s blog is his primary communication platform on the web. But, he also podcasts, is active on Twitter and Facebook, LinkedIn and guest writes for publications. Brent is also a regular speaker at events. His witty personality has earned him several emcee roles at events and conferences.  Brent emphasizes that he has never been hired because because the client likes the firm he’s with. He is hired for him. Therefore, it’s important to allow his personality to be available and the social web is a natural platform for this.

Brent’s Advice to Lawyers Considering Using Social Media

Brent’s advice to other lawyers is simple. He says don’t obsess about getting on Facebook and Twitter every day. Just be natural. Brent posts as thoughts come to mind. He understands that our lives are mult dimensional but they can become one dimension on the web if you allow it. He advises to know who you’re speaking to when you blog, Tweet, or post on Faceook. Brent uses the same philosophy I advise in my book about your approach to using the web: educate, enlighten or entertain them.

Brent’s Blog Strategy

Many lawyers have not yet embraced social media. Brent’s blog strategy is very interesting.  On his blog, Brent discusses intellectual property. Lawyers must play by the bar rules. Brent’s blog is not intended to give advice. It is meant it educate, enlighten or entertain. He admits it does require a careful balance. But, he also knows that most business people don’t understand patents, copyrights and trademarks. Therefore, Brent’s blog takes a lay person’s approach to explain what it’s about. You won’t get legal advice on his blog, but you may learn something about these topics. If you want legal advice, you’ll just have to contact him. The blog is where Brent can communicate his knowledge through informational content. People who like his content call him for real legal advice. The blog also has his picture, his Twitter handle and other tidbits about him that humanize him. Imagine, meeting a lawyer who is actually normal and even likable?! This brings it full circle. Someone who calls him at his firm for legal advice that got to know him on the web has actually begun a relationship with him before they have met him. That’s what his strategy is about.

It’s All Organic

Brent does not apologize to say that all his activities have been done simply and naturally over time without much effort on the technology side of things. For example, Brent has ignored SEO and analytics best practices on his blog. He doesn’t measure anything other than he gets phone calls from people who have read his blog.

Which Social Tool Would You Use?

I asked Brent which social communication platform he would use if could only use one? Brent said he would choose his blog as the medium. The blog is where he can communicate his knowledge and generally portray his personality.  You just might say that a blog is the “mother” of all B2B social media communication tools.

For those in B2B who doubt the power of social media marketing, just ask Brent Britton. Or, listen to this podcast (above)…

BatchBlue Software Rides Perfect Storm

Michelle Riggen-Ransom is co-founder and Director of Communications at BatchBlue Software, a Providence, Rhode Island software company focused on small business owners. BatchBlue’s first product is called BatchBook. It is a web based social CRM tool. It allows small business people to manage their contact network while also tracking conversations with them on the social web including blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, etc. This allows a small business to keep a more complete picture of what’s important to their contacts. BatchBlue Software is almost three years old at the time of this podcast interview.

I have written a story in Marketing 2.0 about BatchBlue Software. During a recent interview with Susan Bratton of DishyMix I shared that story, and I learned that Susan has become a big fan of BatchBook.

Starting a Software Company in a Weak Economy and in a Crowded (CRM) Market

Michelle gets an “A” in humility. She actually says they’ve been very lucky these past three years. As if luck allows a start-up to thrive in a weak economy. But, the timing of the start of the company has coincided with the wide adoption of business blogging and Twitter and Facebook and the whole social media world becoming more popular. Michelle and her co-founder Pamela O’Hara were very quick to embrace the tools of the social web to do two things which are at the center of my book. They use the social web to produce content, as well as share content. And, they build relationships. Everything they do is focused on their customer…Everything. The social web has matured before their eyes as they launched their company. It has been a perfect storm for BatchBlue Software.

A Product Centric Blog Strategy

The BatchBlue Software folks were bloggers before they started the company. So, it was natural for the team to write blog articles about their respective area of expertise and interest. While Michelle blogs about community events, Adam blogs about technical issues and Pamela blogs about product features and benefits. People who subscribe to the BatchBlue blog can find out about the company, the products, the people. BatchBlue treats the blog as a human way of communicating.  It’s not a promotional strategy. It’s a communication strategy focused on the customer.

A Twitter Strategy that Rocks

At first Michelle didn’t see much marketing value in Twitter when she first started using it (didn’t we all start out as skeptics?)  It occurred to Michelle that making connections with people is very powerful no matter what the platform is.

Today, they have two Twitter accounts plus each person at BatchBlue has a personal Twitter account. The branded BatchBlue Twitter account has become a great communication channel for customer service. Customers often communicate to BatchBlue through Twitter about product related topics.  Michelle makes sure to respond very quickly (she calls it real time).

Michelle often re-Tweets customer’s comments as a way of sharing their feedback or compliments. Michelle likes to show her gratitude this way.  Michelle admits that her personal Twitter account sometimes blurs with her BatchBlue life. But, that’s ok. Most of us do that.

Small Business BUZZ

What I find most interesting about BatchBlue’s Twitter strategy is an initiative called SBBUZZ. This is a Twitter stream which occurs on Tuesday nights. SBBUZZ is a community of small business owners who come together on Tuesday nights on Twitter to discuss topics of interest.  SBBUZZ already has over 10,000 followers on Twitter. The only rule for SBBUZZ is you must be respectful and you can’t pitch your company until the very end of the event when people are given the opportunity to do so. There is no phone conference. #SBBUZZ is purely a Twitter stream event. All the credit to the value of this community goes to BatchBlue as the host of this community. This a great example of content marketing on the social web. Other aspects of BatchBlue’s content marketing strategy include regularly scheduled webinars, Blue Papers (as opposed to white papers) on popular topics, newsletters and links to presentations.

Consider how you can create a community where the community gets great value and you get the leadership credit for it?

Small Business Web Initiative

This initiative was born at SXSW. Michelle and Pamela partnered with Freshbooks, Mail Chimp, Shoebox and Outright to integrate their software products. Each of these software companies serves the small business customer market with non competing products. They’ve come together as a suite of products in the Small Business Web.  Any software company can join the Small Business Web as long as they have an API and a shared passion for customer service.

Measuring Success

BatchBlue admits they are doing well and they are looking forward to launching a second product in 2010. Michelle admits that using the social web is working effectively, but it is work. Michelle admits they are still learning and experimenting but they are hitting their stride. Michelle’s advice is “be thoughtful and put in the time that is required, because it is work.”

Michelle welcomes your connection and input on their strategy, their products and even their karaoke parties. You can reach Michelle by email at mriggen at batchblue dot com, and you can connect with her on Twitter.

I look forward to watching BatchBlue Software continue to experiment and learn and grow.

Bernie Borges
@berniebay

Measuring Online Brand Value in Content Marketing

I recently interviewed Andrew Davis of Tipping Point Labs at Starbucks in Cambridge, MA.  Drew is Chief Strategy Officer and co-founder of Tipping Point Labs, a digital content creation shop that helps clients sell products through content marketing strategies.

TPL’s blog was recently rated the #1 blog on Junta42! Drew credits his team who releases new content every day!

I asked Drew why content marketing has become so important and what do we mean by digital content marketing? Drew points out that consumers are looking for more information about products, whether it’s a low engagement product or a high engagement product. Consumers may not start their research at a vendor’s website. So, marketers have to be available to buyers through valuable content that is easily found and is influential. The idea is to create the right kind of content that makes its way down to the consumer.

It’s all about valuable content that builds relationships, influences buying decisions and drives revenue.

The Influence Pyramid

One of TPL’s clients is Breville, an Australian maker of kitchen products including coffee makers. When they entered the U.S. market and they hired TPL they set out to find amateur influencers such as the Coffee Geek, and Single Serve Coffee and Heather Perry. These bloggers write content about coffee every day! They are influencers. In my social media marketing book, I call these people rock stars!

Prosumers – are people who are really engaged, but they don’t write every day as the influencers do. But, they are willing to write reviews at specialty websites such as Amazon.

Consumers – the end buyer in the mass market. They read a lot, but they don’t write. They consume and they are influenced by others who have conducted research or purchased products with something to say.

When you consider the shape of the influence pyramid the numbers at the top are much smaller. It is a finite audience at the top and an infinite audience at the bottom. Traditional advertising in this value chain has tried to sandwich itself in the middle and the bottom through mass advertising. But traditional advertising is no longer trusted. However, the influencer’s recommendation is built on trust and is therefore very valuable and trusted.

Measuring Results

TPL uses Google Insights to measure results. For example, TPL measures the espresso market in the U.S. in the food and beverage category. TPL measures through an online brand value chart to show the growth of online brand value and correlate it to revenue. This method of measurement is a new approach. TPL is hoping it will have long term validity. They also measure the impact of influencers blogging about a product such as Breville.

I asked Drew for a B2B example of successful content marketing. He told me about ORLive, an online community who transmits live surgeries online to provide education to surgeons. It’s educational content to help surgeons learn about new technologies. It’s been a successful content marketing strategy for device manufacturers by educating surgeons.

Any conversation with Andrew Davis is always enlightening and enjoyable. Sitting around the corner from MIT in Cambridge on a sunny August day was the icing on the cake for this podcast interview. I encourage you listen to the entire interview to hear more not covered in this blog post summary.

Drew promises to visit me in Florida during the winter when it’s cold and snowy in New England and warmer and dryer in Florida. You can connect with Drew on Twitter. You’ll be glad you did.

Bernie Borges
@berniebay

Justin Levy New Media Results in Motion

Justin Levy is General Manager and partner at Caminito Argentinian Steakhouse in Northampton, MA. Justin is focused on the marketing side of the business.  His partner Joseph M. Gionfriddo is responsible for day to day responsibilities and is the head chef.

Although Caminito Argentinian Steakhouse is a local restaurant with a single location in western Massachusetts all marketing is global on the web but with a local target.

A True Marketing 2.0 Strategy.

I wrote a case study about Caminito Steakhouse in my Marketing 2.0 book. When Justin became a partner in Caminito in March 2008 80% of the marketing budget was in local print advertising. Justin cut most of it. Instead, Justin built the website which includes Google maps with directions, lunch menus, dinner menus, appetizers, wine specials, and more.  Justin made sure the website used SEO best practices in order to be found for desirable keywords such as  “traditional steakhouse.”

Justin also developed a blog separate from the restaurant website. The blog is called Prime Cuts. The blog is a thought leader with cooking tips, grilling tips and behind the scenes cooking insights filled with steakhouse expertise.

Caminito’s video strategy includes Prime Cuts TV which is tied into the blog and also shared on video channels like YouTube. They feature mostly Joe with weekly videos about real life examples of hard to explain cooking topics. They are mostly things that are fun and a little more difficult to do such as how to sharpen knives, how to judge the temperature on a grill, etc. You’ll have to check it out for a fun learning culinary experience.

Justin is very active on Twitter, through @justinlevy plus Facebook with feeds to FriendFeed, Google shared items and basically anywhere it can be fed. Flickr, Vimeo, Blip.TV, YouTube. Anywhere they can find a footprint on the web.

Broad Footprint

Old style marketing for a single location restaurant would be marketing to people within a 50 mile radius. But, Justin’s Marketing 2.0 strategy reaches people around the world.  For example, I can recommend Caminito Steakhouse to my network even though I’m located in Florida. My network includes people in Boston and around the world. This can have a multiplier effect.

Results in Motion

Before Justin joined Caminito Steakhouse they were averaging 5% to 10% decreases in sales each month. The last 18 months since Justin has set his Marketing 2.0 strategy through social media, sales have consistently increased 20% or more each month over the same month in the previous year. During the summer of 2009 they’ve been up 70% over the same months in the previous year.

Content Marketing Strategy

Caminito Steakhouse has created a broad footprint on the web with a lot of great content. They spread and share it. The result is great SEO rankings, in some cases ranking even higher than national steakhouse chains like Ruth’s Crist and Longhorn. “This stuff works!”

New Marketing Labs

Justin is also General Manager of New Marketing Labs. Their Inbound Marketing Summit is coming up  October 7/8 in Boston. This IMS is the third event of the year with previous events in San Francisco and Dallas in April and May respectively.  IMS has many rock star speakers including Chris Brogan and Brian Solis. I’ll also be on a panel on innovative marketing programs using new media strategies. Check out the Inbound Marketing Summit.

Hope to see you at IMS in Boston. Maybe we can have a steak together at Caminito Steakhouse.

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Content Marketing: “This stuff really works!”

Last week I had a quick trip to Cambridge, MA for a guest appearance on HubSpot TV. During my visit I sat down with Andrew Davis, Chief Strategy Officer of Tippingpoint Labs. A conversation with Andrew (Drew) is never boring. The location we picked was a Starbucks around the corner from the MIT campus which added to the charm of the experience.

Tippingpoint Labs is a “digital content creation” shop.

“We create valuable content: video, audio, presentations, photos, podcasts, wiki contributions, articles, stories. We believe in perpetual production: creating high-quality, relevant content to a well-defined audience. We move quickly to adjust and refine your content to build a relationship with your audience.”

I asked Drew to give me an example of how they create content and “move the needle” for their clients. He gave the example of a client called Breville, an Australian maker of kitchen products including coffee makers and blenders. This is a crowded market segment with aggressive advertisers.

Drew and I share a passion for “marketing 2.0” strategies which are anchored in engaging your target community through great content and building authentic relationships. Drew explained how Tippingpoint Labs engaged influential blogs such as the Coffee Geek and Single Serve Coffee to become aware of Breville and to review their products.

Product Launch Through the Blogosphere

When Breville launches new products or announces strategic partnerships such as the one with Keurig in March 2007 pertaining to a new single serve gourmet home brewer, influential blogs such as Single Serve Coffee are engaged. These blogs cover the coffee market and enjoy a loyal following. Essentially, these blogs are the new media and channel of communication for manufacturers like Breville.

Online Brand Value

Drew points out that to measure the value of branded content on the web, Tippingpoint Labs tracks popularity of brands online and correlates them to sales figures using tools such as Google Insights. As relevant topics grow in popularity such as “coffee makers” so does the popularity of Breville, and the sales figures reflect it. Below is a chart showing how the conversation between Breville and Delonghi brand espresso machines is shaping the market.

Below is a short interview with Drew. We closed this interview with a profound statement: “This stuff really works!”

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