McIntosh Marketing Blog

Now this is a question that I hear over and over from client’s and co-workers alike.  Everyone wants to know if Affiliate Marketing is not only worth it but if it is really beneficial?  Or what the risks are of marketing for a company and then finding out their unethical?  Just like everything else, it really depends on what products your sign up for and how you market them.

One of the most important things you must do before deciding to market for a company is to inspect the website.  Take your time to check and make sure they have accurate contact information by calling them or looking them up in an online phone directory.  You can also take this time to verify their address.  If you notice the address varies with other listings online then this may be a flag that the business is not legitimate.  This is not always the case as others may be marketing this product as an affiliate as well but the corporate information, address and phone number should all match up regardless.

PAY ATTENTION!!!   You should always make sure their site offers details, images and a full description of the product or service that they are offering.  You are responsible for what you are promoting so it is very important that you educate yourself on the product or service prior to any affiliate marketing promotions.

Always check the sites disclosure on what the charges will be to the users/client’s.  This will show you that there is nothing the company is trying to hide and that it is not a scam.  If there is no disclosure on the site it may be a real good sign to take your business somewhere else.

Next you should search for their company name on Google.  This will show you how well they are ranking currently which can give you some insight on how easy or difficult it may be to market the product.  Like I said, this is just for insight and it may not be accurate for a product that is brand new.  Also at this time you can see what kind of feedback people are giving on the product prior to committing to selling it.  You can see if there are lot’s of customer complaints or satisfaction which can help you make your decision before investing any time or money into it.  You have to be realistic when using this tip to make a decision because many companies will have complaints, regardless of their legitimacy, so you may need to feel them out to see if the complaints are valid.

Allot goes into finding an legitimate affiliate with a good offer besides just how much they pay out.  Always make sure you feel 100% informed about your product so you are totally comfortable prior to selling it.  Confidence and believing in your product truly is the key to increasing your online sales and making your affiliate marketing really worth it!

Over the last few years I have been asked for my marketing glossary several times.  Truth is, I don’t really have one.  I do have notes with definitions here and there but have never actually put them all in one place.  In fact, when I try to explain these marketing terms to someone, it seems to me that most of the time they think these terms don’t really exist!  It could be due to many of them sounding very similar to each other but trust me they have very different meanings.  I really felt the following keywords should be listed as they tend to be used most often and more commonly but for the full list with detailed definitions go to http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/

deep linking – linking to a web page other than a site’s home page.

description tag – an HTML tag used by Web page authors to provide a description for search engine listings.

impression – a single instance of an online advertisement being displayed.*

interactive agency – an agency offering a mix of Web design/development, Internet advertising/marketing, or E-Business/E-Commerce consulting.

keyword research – the search for keywords related to your Web site, and the analysis of which ones yield the highest return on investment (ROI).

search engine optimization – the process of choosing targeted keyword phrases related to a site, and ensuring that the site places well when those keyword phrases are part of a Web search.

By taking the time to learn these terms you will not only become more knowledgeable of Internet marketing but just by reading them you will start to understand more and more of what actually goes into your marketing.  I feel this list is pretty thorough list and can help even the beginning marketer to understand the terms of the online marketing world better.  Not only will you be able to learn more about the terms but once you start to understand them you will learn more about how marketing is actually done!

Recessions and tough times are good for marketing opportunities. But unfortunately most business professionals, entrepreneurs and even marketing experts have a counter-intuitive reaction to this statement. You know the old saying, “Buy low, sell high.” There is a corollary to this adage in marketing: “Economy soft, market hard.”

Now while I can send you a White Paper that substantiates this proposition so clearly and so emphatically, unfortunately it would not really matter how many reports, statistics or evidence I produced for many. What many of these businesses professionals are running into is not lack of evidence, but an abundance of preconceived and fixed ideas that disallow the ability to view new and more effective methodologies.

Case in point #1: Yesterday I was calling on a prospective client. I informed her what I did in that I helped small businesses like hers to effectively market themselves with internet marketing tools, such as social media and local search. She rapidly replied, “We don’t do marketing because we are a small company.” I had to suppress the laugh. Maybe it’s the other way around.

Case in point #2: Having worked for years with CPA’s, Accountants and Enrolled Agents, I have noted an epidemic amongst their industry members when it comes to a fixed idea that is literally stopping them from adapting to the new world of online marketing and social media. “We are a referral business only.” One CPA went onto tell me, “Although CPA’s are traditionally seen as having very little personality, our business is built on relationships.” I didn’t have the heart to tell him that this is the case with all successful businesses.

In these two case point above, it was not that there was lack of evidence or a lack of statistics to utterly prove that social media is referral ginseng: organic fuel for their most trusted source of marketing themselves and developing new business.

And this brings me to an important element that has been missing in the education system, our universities and within the various agencies and organizations established to help businesses. That good marketing is not an expense, but an investment; an actual part of conducting business. To succeed, any business person must not only know how to market, but must also know how to stay up-to-date on the latest developments in marketing, as there will always be better and more effective ways to market. As the world evolves, the ways of reaching, motivating and selling also evolve.

In its day, the Pony Express was pretty slick. It was the social networking of 1860. But then came the telegraph. Ponies and the adventurous men who rode them were now suddenly outdated. What was innovative one year was completely disregarded the next.

Get off the pony and learn to telegraph. Today, learn internet marketing tools and how to use them.

Although I have had the pleasure to read many helpful books on marketing, this is my first book review on our company blog. And I am quite happy to announce that I had a great time reading Halligan & Shah’s newest book entitled, Inbound Marketing: Get Found using Google, Social Media and Blogs. The foreward was written by internet marketing author David Meerman Scott, so I knew that I was in for a treat.

Both authors are top executives at Hubspot, a true industry leader in internet marketing and social media. For the last few months I have been following Hubspots’s blog postings via Facebook.

Not only was this book an easy read, it was highly educational in that it provided contemporary examples and several analogies that made their point come across with little effort on my part to discern any aspect of what they were describing. I purchased this 215 page book last week and had  it read, cover to cover, in 5 evenings of part-time study. Yet this book was full of many applicable ideas and technologies.

What I really loved about this book were the checklists at the end of each chapter. This added a simple “To Do” list that I feel inspires others to act within the pragmatic aspects of internet marketing tools that they clearly lay out in their book.

The book is simply about the basics and how to get them implemented to achieve results, namely being found. I learned a tremendous amount regarding:

• How Barack Obama really won, using social media successfully.
• How The Grateful Dead served as an excellent prelude on how to succeed as an internet marketer.
• How to build a “content factory”.
• How to do a blog correctly and how to get found, as well as knowing the #1 reason why they fail.
• How social media can fit within the B2B sales model to increase customers and sales.
• How to pick keywords and using PPC as a beta-testing method to narrow the right terms.
• What affects link value and what not to do so as not to become banned by Google.
• Basic usage tips with social media giants, such as Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Digg, YouTube and StumbleUpon.
• How to covert visitors into leads, and leads into sales.
• What one should look for in a PR agency.

And lastly, I was highly appreciated the last chapter entitled, Tips from the Trenches for Startups, that gives 26 steps on how to implement all that was detailed about in their book. I consider this book more than just a great read, but an important resource in helping any trying to increase their B2B results with internet marketing.

McIntosh Marketing has now initiated a marketing group for CPA’s on LinkedIn.

CPA’s and accountants have traditionally been lax in their online marketing efforts. McIntosh Marketing is taking efforts to educate the financial field, and their related industries, on how to attract more high-end clients through an effective educational format via their blog and an established social media program.

LinkedIn is a powerful format for B2B relations for CPA’s, accountants and EA’s in that they should take advantage of the vast resource to share their vision, passion and services through this vital social media channel.

Out of the blue my wife purchases a book on how to use a map and a compass in rough terrain. The book is authored by a well-known mountaineer and sherpa who has helped to lead expeditions in the Alaskan wilderness who has also been called to find lost hikers. As I was reading this manual, too many similarities came to mind for those involved with internet marketing strategy.

This navigation book concerns itself with one major problem: Being lost.  The book clearly demonstrates on how to easily and effectively learn to use three important elements to getting back home or getting found by someone else:

• Observation of the environment around one; establishing the lay of the land.
• A compass or some form of determining direction, such as the sun or stars.
• A map.

If one posses all these three things, then one is in control, can take effective action and thus survive. In business, as well as with internet marketing, we need these components at our disposal at all times.  But what are these in reality in the business world?

1. We first have to have a lay of the land. This is accomplished with marketing surveys, metrics, reading top industry blogs, listening to people and a myriad of other tools that help us gain a thorough reality of where we are. To get to point B, you must have a firm and honest grip on where you are as a point A. In business and with internet marketing strategy the correlation is knowing one’s positioning.

2. In business and in utilizing internet marketing tools, we too often get so involved in the tactics and technology of social media that we forget to establish a direction to get where we want to go: The goal.  The key is to have a clear goal to arrive at, in which our actions can be directed towards so that we do survive.

3. A map. In internet marketing, this can be likened to any tool that gives one perspective, understanding and objectivity. With an accurate map there is no guessing. In business, this is accurate know-how and acquired skill.

With a firm grip of your positioning, a known goal and the know-how and skill to get where you want to go, you are never really lost. You have the survival skills in which to make it through any economic situation and how to overcome barriers and competition.

I look forward to your views and comments.

I have noticing a current trend in several online marketing books and blogs that I find dangerous. The idea is that your blog or article has to be only informational and does not need to sell. This is misleading and not based on historical or statistical fact.

Of course your blog post or your article has to educate. But if there is no call-to-action, then you leave a person lost, not knowing where to go or what to do. True selling is about solving a perceived or real problem and then directing your prospective client to DO something, so as to overcome, alleviate or solve that problem.

Whether through the pages in a book, or in person, having a rich background in sales always results in better writing, and this makes for a better company blog. Your selling skills establish not only a foundation for business acumen, but those skills will far exceed punctuation, proper grammar and descriptive adjectives in getting more people motivated to do business with you. Don’t get me wrong, writing skills will more and more be in demand. To maintain a steady stream of original content, one will have to have strong writing skills.

But nothing will ever replace the advantage of having been in the trenches and having to truly listen and understand another person’s problem, really get into communication and then to help them overcome their fears, ignorance or misconceptions to the end results of a closed sale. When one can really achieve that, added to great writing skills, you have the ultimate combination in any writer or blogger.

So many businesses are asking how to achieve improved marketing ROI on the dollars they are spending. And while talking about educating the masses and inspiring the tribe, any business person needs to see a return. Otherwise, the business will not last or the business person will lose interest and thus the blogger their source of income.

And what I say is not a matter of opinion. Check out the following experts in marketing and advertising, all of whom learned how to sell people, in real life, and all who went onto to build huge marketing organizations. All of these professionals were result orientated and that came from learning how to sell and close a sale.

David Ogilvy On YouTube

Sergio Zyman’s Website

Grant Cardone’s Site

One of the most tired and true forms of marketing and PR for any business is to put on events. Even with the proliferation of social media and internet marketing tools, event planning still plays a major role in how we do business, connect with new potential clients, as well as reinforce our brand message with core players.

A great way to advertise and market your event is using all the internet based tools available. And now one resource, Eventbrite http://www.eventbrite.com/home/, any business can now utilize their resources to effectively and broadly promote any event or special occasion. To date, Eventbrite has help to sell over 13 million event tickets for their members.

Eventbrite really offers a simple, yet comprehensive package that allows you to:

• Build a customized and professional online page for your event.
• Promote your event with social media sites, i.e. Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, Digg, etc.
• Manage system that allows you to track your events, plus prints check-in lists and badges.
• Has several methods of collecting payment, with a very small fee for collecting the money for your event.

Eventbrite has done a great job in meeting the needs for the B2B world in helping them to put on professional looking events that taps into the power of online marketing tools and social media.

The words we use have so many meanings that they have begun to represent the same ideas. As they have become garbled, we have become confused. And so it is with the two words, marketing and selling. They seem so interchangeable that they have list there important distinctions and how they operate one with another.

In plain English, marketing is senior to selling. Selling is simply one part of marketing.

Marketing starts with ideas, and from there a survey of opportunities, possibilities and needs within a market. Someone had to conceive of the pet rock before it could be sold. Marketing is large and often complex mix of technologies, of which sales is one part. Marketing also includes market research, industry trends, sociology, surveys, design, branding, beta testing, PR, packaging, social media, web sites, copy writing, distribution, pricing and host of other methodologies and branches of business.

I hear many small businesses call their marketing efforts selling and many of their efforts to sell more, marketing. It may seem like I am being anal, but in reality it is important to not only know the difference, but to also understand the totality of what those words mean and represent in terms of action and depth of planning and application.

I have seen people struggle in their sales, not because they were unsociable or had halitosis. They simply had no marketing strategy, as well as basic marketing skills, and thus thought too small. Or in some other way went about their small business venture like Helen Keller driving a car. They were completely able and capable as a person, but yet still blind.  Helen Keller was an amazing person. She changed the world more than most people who can hear and see. But putting her behind a car and having her drive the Hollywood Freeway at rush hour is far from prudent.

While it may seem time-consuming, becoming educated on the techniques and methods are far faster and more effective than being ignorant. Short cuts never build success or empires. In fact, short cuts are just that. They cut things down and your goals come up short.

George Washington Carver once said, “There is no short cut to achievement. Life requires thorough preparation.” Never was this more true in small business, particularly in the fields of marketing and sales.

Someone posted a question on a forum today about whether Twitter was actually worthwhile or not in the marketing of their brand new website. It got me thinking about how people use Twitter, how I use Twitter, and what people who haven’t been on these social networks like I have for years think of it. So I thought it would be a good idea to write about it here, and come up with a few reasons why Twitter is an awesome marketing tool, perhaps even better than what you could do in three dimensions pre-internets.

1. Good luck telling 5000 people about your brand new company instantaneously and for free in the real world.

As a business owner, you’re trying to find people who are interested in your products or services, and market said products and services TO them, so you can sell and deliver those products and services. Right? Right. So how do you find these people? You can purchase expensive mailing lists.  That is risky and costly, and only as effective as the mailing list creators actually create correct lists. You can pay for advertising in magazines you know your public read.  Expensive, but effective if your text is correct and you’ve done your surveying to find out the correct buttons of your public.  Billboards, tv and radio ads are very expensive ways to promote to very large audiences in the hopes that some will be interested in your company.  There are a lot of ways to do this. Most involve money, lots of research and considerable time.

Twitter is free. It allows you to promote, FOR FREE to as many people as you can possibly add as followers. If you have 5000 followers, you can tell them all about your new company in the time it takes to type a sentence and click “Send.”

2. Finding the RIGHT public.

How long does it take to collect the names, addresses, email addresses and phone numbers of 5000 people who are actually INTERESTED in your specific field? Well, if you do broad advertising to general public it can take a long time. If you use Twitter search you can find, in about a second, every single Twitter user who is interested and talking about your particular field or industry. Then you can request to add them as followers.  BAM! Instant friends who have similar interests to yours.

3. Retweets!

When Twitter users (tweeple) like your posts, they retweet them. You can even ask your friends and followers to retweet something you feel is important, and often they will. This is a common practice among tweeple.  In real life, your customers will mention your products or services to their friends when the opportunity arises or when they think of it. But on Twitter, all they have to do is click RT and send your tweet out to their 5000 friends. This can go on and on until your post is actually automatically featured on a web page for popular bookmarks like Populacular.

4. Directing the public to your business.

Standing on a busy corner with a cardboard arrow works well for a car wash, but even then it’s a full time job for someone actually willing to DO that, and it’s certainly not something a business owner would do. He would hire someone and pay them to do that. So that’s money. Not to mention the facts that you may not have a storefront to direct public to, and your business likely isn’t appropriate for street corner sign twirling. So how do you handle the routing of public to your brand new business? Send your Twitter friends the link to your website! Let them know who you are and what you do and give them the link to your website. Easy.

Of course all of the above is assuming that you have a valuable service to offer and that your posts are interesting and offer something to the reader than he will want. As long as you’re providing something of value that the public need or want, Twitter is the fastest, cheapest and most effective way to market your business to a large volume of potential customers who have already expressed interested in your specific field.