Book Review: Facebook Marketing by Justin Levy

By Susan Payton | Published: September 2, 2010 Leave a comment

With so many books out there on social media, it can be hard to know which ones are worth buying and reading. That’s what I’m here for! I just finished reading Facebook Marketing: Designing Your Next Marketing Campaign by Justin Levy.  It’s a handy book to have on your desk as you navigate the world of Facebook for business.

Levy (who is a colleague of mine) does a great job of addressing the why and how of having a Facebook Page. He dedicates a chapter on developing a Facebook strategy (something that should be addressed before even getting started). He encourages you to ask yourself: Read More »

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Pownum Interview

By Susan Payton | Published: August 31, 2010 Leave a comment

This interview was conducted with Marty Carroll of pownum.

Q. What does your company do?

Pownum lets the public rate and review all types of organizations – think AT&T, Dell, Greenpeace, United Airlines, etc – at pownum.com and on the phone with an iPhone app. There’s a lot of talk about transparency but pownum will make it a reality. The idea is that it introduces a new level of openness between organizations and consumers, makes plain which organizations are really customer centric and helps other consumers make more informed brand choices. pownum is short for ‘power in numbers’.  Read More »

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How to Measure Engagement

By Susan Payton | Published: August 30, 2010 Leave a comment

One of the big debates in my industry (internet marketing and social media) is how to calculate the ROI of things like Twitter, Facebook and blogs. The problem is, everyone’s talking and no one’s paying attention.

Dollar for dollar, you CANNOT measure the ROI of these tactics.

There. I said it. Now, after the shock wears off, let me explain.

Say I see a tweet for a local restaurant, but don’t rush out to patronize it that week. However, three months down the road I happen to be in that area. I have a choice of several restaurants, but remembering that tweet, I elect to eat at that one. How do you measure that? I probably won’t tell the waitress that I’m there because of a three-month old tweet. Read More »

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Learn Social Media Strategies at Lavacon

By Susan Payton | Published: August 26, 2010 Leave a comment

This just in! I am officially a speaker at the Lavacon Conference, to be held in San Diego September 29 to October 2. This conference is chock full of sessions on how to use social media and content to get the most out of your marketing. There’s even a session on how to use Foursquare for your business.

My session is Old School/New School: Developing an Effective PR Strategy. At Egg, we blend traditional PR techniques with social strategy, and I’ll be sharing some tips on how we do it in this session.

If you’d like to attend, you can enter the referrer code EGGMARKETING at checkout to save $50. Early bird registration ends Monday, 8/30, so get on it!

And leave a comment if you plan to be there so we can connect.

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Questions to Ask When Selling

By Susan Payton | Published: August 26, 2010 Leave a comment

After reading a stack of recent books on marketing, I went back to an older book for some great advice on selling. The Power of Consultative Selling, released in 1987 by Bryce Webster, has some great advice that still rings true when it comes to selling. As a business owner, selling will be a big part of what you do (at least until you can hire salespeople).

Asking the Right Questions

It seems intuitive that people prefer to talk about themselves than about others. This comes into play in a huge way in selling. Webster talks at length about the types of questions a sales consultant should bring up:

  • General Questions (Fact-Finders): These are your typical who, what, when, where and why questions that can help you better understand your potential client’s company and needs.
  • Open-Ended Questions: The more you can get a client to talk, the more you can find out. Ask about their feelings on their industry, their needs and their goals. Make it easy for the client to respond with a big answer, rather than simply “yes” or “no.”
  • Close-Ended Questions: Sometimes yes or no answers are ok, but pay attention. For these you need to already have determined your client’s needs and be directing him toward an answer you already expect. For example, “is there room in your budget to include this software to improve efficiency?” or “do you feel this would help you meet your goals?” If the answer is no, don’t waste your time trying to convince someone who’s not interested.

Read More »

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Top 20 Sales Professionals on the Web

By Tom Blue | Published: August 25, 2010 3 Comments

Lead411 has been in the sales game for almost 10 years now and prior to being CEO of Lead411 I was a sales professional myself. I have read numerous sales books and I continue to follow twitterers and bloggers on the web. All this being said, I feel I have the correct background to provide a quality list of the most well known sales professionals on the internet. The list has been taken for the most famous sales authors, bloggers, and/or twitterers that have that most followers. Please see below.

Art Sobczak http://www.telesalesblog.com/
Cindy King http://cindyking.biz
Craig Rosenberg http://www.funnelholic.com
Dave Stein http://www.esresearch.com/
Doyle Slayton http://salesblogcast.com/
Eric Blumthal http://twitter.com/EricBlumthal
Ian Brodie http://www.ianbrodie.com
Jeb Blount http://www.salesgravy.com/
Jeffrey Gitomer http://www.gitomer.com/
Jill Konrath http://snapselling.com/
Kevin Eikenberry http://blog.kevineikenberry.com
Mac McIntosh http://www.sales-lead-experts.com/
Marc Benioff http://www.salesforce.com
Neil Rackham http://neilrackham.com/
Paul Castain http://yoursalesplaybook.com/
Peter O’Donoghue http://www.salesdnaltd.com
S Anthony Iannarino http://b2bsalescoach.com/
Shane Gibson http://www.closingbigger.net
Tom Hopkins http://www.tomhopkins.com/
Tom Ziglar http://www.tomziglar.com
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Lingo24 Interview

By Susan Payton | Published: August 24, 2010 Leave a comment

This interview was conducted with Nick Jarvis of Lingo24, a worldwide language translation service.

Q. What does your company do?

A. Lingo24 is a web-based B2B translation and localisation agency, with hubs in countries all around the world (UK, USA, Western Europe, Central America and New Zealand), which allows us to serve customers 24 hours a day.

Lingo24 was launched in 2001 by 22 year-old languages graduate Christian Arno as a home-based e-business, and was the first translation company to market itself entirely online.

Q. Who are your competitors?

A. Our main competitors are translation agencies Applied Language, Big Word and SDL.

Q. What marketing tactic has given you the highest ROI? What percentage ROI do you get back on this?

Our main marketing tactic is SEO and online marketing, by a mile. We have a dedicated online marketing team, whose job it is to monitor our Google rankings in each of our language markets, refine our keywords, build our profile online by seeking media coverage and link-build by providing ‘expert advice’ content to relevant industry websites.

As such it is difficult to calculate an exact ROI, as all of our sales and marketing activities are intertwined and cooperative. However, our investment for July in SEO and online marketing activities was £1000 (US$1,589), which yielded a return from Google, between our eight websites for the English, French, German, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian and Chinese languages, of 57,358 visits, along with 47 pieces of published content online, each containing a link back to the Lingo24 site and a ‘call to action’.

Consequently, July saw Lingo24 achieve our highest value of orders ever, with a projected total turnover for 2010 of over US$10m.

Q.What percentage of your marketing budget are spent on marketing activities?

Our marketing budget is split pretty evenly between online and offline marketing activities. Online marketing activities include predominantly SEO, link-building and media relations. Social media marketing is a by-product of the integration of social and business networks, such as LinkedIn, into our everyday communication strategies. Our offline marketing activities comprise direct and tactical marketing campaigns coordinated via the Sales team.

For more information, visit Lingo24.

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Do You Have a Marketing Partner?

By Susan Payton | Published: August 23, 2010 Leave a comment

In reading The Next Evolution of Marketing by Bob Gilbreath, I dogeared a lot of pages to come back to. One was about marketing partnerships. Let’s look at an example.

Do you remember back in 2007 when 7-Eleven stores across the country were “converted” into Kwik-E-Marts (The Simpsons’ favorite hangout for Squishees) when The Simpsons Movie came out? Perfect example of marketing partnerships. Visitors to any 7-Eleven store could buy Kwik-E-Mart products, like KrustyO’s cereal, and could see advertisements for the movies. It was a brilliant marketing plan in that it put Simpsons fans in the movie. It was also genius because two brands paired up to get even more leverage out of the strategy.

There’s no reason you have to go it alone with your marketing. Let’s say you own an office supply store. Why not partner up with local schools or YMCAs to hold a school supply drive? Or if you own a pet grooming shop, partner with local veterinarians to promote both of your services at local dog parks. Read More »

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Using Twitter for your Business

By Susan Payton | Published: August 19, 2010 1 Comment

Twitter is a marketing tool to be reckoned with. It’s boosting web traffic and sales for many businesses, from the smallest mom and pop shop to major corporations like Dell and QuickBooks. Every business uses Twitter in its own unique way, but some of the more popular ways to use it include:

  • Customer service
  • Listening to what people say about brands and industries
  • Introducing new consumers to company’s products
  • Learning

The list goes on and on. The advantage of Twitter is that it’s instantaneous. You can offer your customers faster customer service than they’d get pressing 1, then #, then waiting for 30 minutes to get a problem solved on the phone. You can find out what people are saying about your brand simply by searching for your brand or keywords that relate to your products. You can jump into conversations and have meaningful dialogue with potential customers. Read More »

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The Dev Department Interview

By Susan Payton | Published: August 17, 2010 Leave a comment

This interview was conducted with Nick Villaume of The Dev Department.

Q. What does your company do?

A. My company provides coaching, credentialing and white-label web development services to freelance and small graphic design firms. 

Q. Who are your competitors?

A.  I compete with offshore labor as well firms like Agency Fusion and DigiSage.

Q. What marketing tactic has given you the highest ROI?  What percentage ROI do you get back on this?

A. LinkedIn Discussions have been my best source of marketing ROI. We spend an hour or so a day scouring discussions for Graphic Design. We use this to establish ourselves as experts in working with designers and to invite group users to attend one of our free webinars.

What percentage of your marketing budget are spent on the following?

  • Advertising  – 0
  • Social Media Marketing – 0
  • SEO – 0
  • Public Relations – 0
  • Direct Marketing – 0
  • Other  – 0

A. My current advertising budget is $0, but we have seen 15% growth over last year just using these methods.

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