2013 Marketing - What Will Change

As I was contemplating my last post for this year, I couldn't help but start to think about 2013, a brand new year and many new marketing advances which are sure to come our way.

How with 2013 be different?  I'm sure that social media marketing will expand and ad re-targeting will take things to the next level yet again.  In fact, I can almost guarantee that Google and other search engines will once again change their algorithms to make advertising generate even more in the coming year.  Consumer choice is likely to evolve as well. What does this all mean for marketers, businesses, and those trying to rise above the noise?

In my opinion technology is going to continue to influence our marketing practices but the core philosophy of effective marketing does not change.  Knowing your customers, providing value and excellent customer service are tenants that we must continue to follow.  The means to the end may change this coming year but the outcome is the same.  Those who deliver value, customize their approach, and meet or exceed the needs of their customers from a brand and product perspective are going to end up on top.

Following Brands
This coming year, I'm going to spend more time follow and emulating today's top brands and their strategies for growth.  Innovative companies like Apple and Amazon, as well as smaller start-up companies are sure to introduce new ideas and expand out perspective on what is possible.  My goal is to learn from all of them and integrate what works into my own marketing practices.

Do you have a favorite brand?  Watch what they do differently in 2013.  I also think it's important to not just watch their marketing practices but the entire customer life cycle. What do they do differently? Better?  There's always a lot to learn and following your most favorite brands is a great way to get there.

2013 Marketing Goals
My goals for next year are focused on improving the customer funnel.  From prospect to customer, to repeat customer, I know I can do a better job managing process.  How about you?  Are you effectively communicating with those interested in your services or products?  In 2012 I think I left a lot on the table and it doesn't need to be that way.

Let me know what you're focused on in 2013 and be sure to share your thoughts in the SCOOP Marketing Forum for others to comment.

Brand Update : Gems wants you to Raho Umarless

Gems Surprise launched in 2010 is a poor cousin of Kinder Joy. The variant launched to fight the Kinder Joy  became a poor second cousin because of unimaginative gifts and poor campaigns.Last week my daughter demanded she wants a Gems Surprise but I flatly refused saying that the toy that comes with it may not be attractive  and we settled for Kinder Joy for Girls.

Now Gems Surprise has corrected the mistake by launching a new set of toys featuring the Panda which has been  the main character in Gem's campaign.
The variant is currently running a TVC featuring adults in line with the brand's strategy of targeting adults .

Watch the campaign here : Gems Umarless

The TVC is well made but one wonders whether there is some confusion regarding the targeting part of STP.

As I understand, Gems Surprise is fighting against Kinder Joy which is targeting kids. Now Gems Surprise wants adults to buy the brand and collect the toys. Now that is ridiculous. Expecting that adults would indulge in a product like Gems Surprise is imagination running wild. Now if the brand expects the kids to buy Gems Surprise by seeing the campaign is also a highly optimistic thought since the ad is appeals to adults rather than kids.

So this is another brand which got confused because of its own actions. The brand should have left this variant to kids. Infact my feeling is that Gems is beginning to alienate the kids and is not making right noises to get adults on board. 

Ideally the brand should have found some universal message that has appeal across age groups. Cadburys has done that with Dairy Milk. In the case of Gems, the brand is just saying that it is Umarless ( Ageless) but not saying Why ?. What Gems needs is the universal brand mantra that appeals to everyone regardless of age.

Related post

Cadbury Gems : changes segment

Brand Update : Can SRK save Lux ?

SRK is once again featuring in the ad of Lux. It was in 2005 that SRK stunned brand watchers in an ad for Lux. At that time Lux was celebrating 75 years of stardom. Circa 2012, Shah Rukh Khan again stars in Lux ad  not for  celebration of any milestone but a desperate attempt to rejuvenate the brand.

Lux which always centered around celebrities has been struggling for the last few years.Reports suggest that Lux is witnessing a de-growth thanks to competition from the likes of Santoor. Lux over the years has been facing a positioning problem which I have highlighted in my previous posts about the brand. Too many variants shifted the HUL's focus from strengthening the core brand to leveraging or rather squeeze the brand equity. This virtually made the core Lux brand vulnerable to competition. The commoditization of celebrity endorsement further diluted the celebrity-focused positioning of Lux. Virtually the differentiation of Lux was no longer existing. 

Lux is now in an un-enviable position. The core positioning of Lux- beauty soap of stars is virtually being killed by competition. Celebrities now are no longer differentiators. Lux also cannot risk going for a heavy repositioning sans celebrities because of its connection with Stars for over 75 years. The brand is in deep trouble.

With SRK, the brand is attempting another come back. Last year, Lux successfully leveraged Abhishek and Aishwarya and smartly took the platform of  ' Beauty'. 

The current campaign features SRK with the current Lux Diva Katrina Kaif. The brand completely changed its beauty based positioning ( benefit)  and decided to focus on fragrance (product feature ).The brand is pitching that  it contains international quality fragrances. From  benefit to  feature based positioning is a step backward for the brand. Usually brands start with feature based positioning and later graduate to higher -order attributes ( Laddering). Here Lux chose itself to downgrade from a higher -order positioning to basic stuff.The brand is absolutely confused about its future direction. 

Lux in the new campaign has the tagline : "Bas Zara Sa Lux " roughly translated to " Just need a little Lux" . The tagline is ideally suited for a detergent rather than a beauty soap. The treatment of the ad is below average with zero creativity and usual theme. No wonder the brand is on a downward spiral.

Watch the ad here : Lux SRK

What Lux right now needs is a thorough clarity about its brand manthra and its positioning.No amount of celebrity endorsement will work if the brand is confused about its positioning. It had earlier focused on beauty oil and now it is saying that fragrance is the key USP. This confusion is only going to kill this brand unless the marketing brains of HUL sit together and decide on the brand manthra for Lux. Other wise we are going to see the slow death of an iconic brand.

Brand Update : Kinder Joy sharpens its Offering

Despite its higher price, Kinder Joy has found lot of popularity among the consumers. Recently Kinder Joy sharpened its product offering by launching a variant - Kinder Joy for Girls. This is a very significant and smart move by the brand . As a regular purchaser of the brand for my  girl child, often I find that the toy, that is the main attraction for kids, is usually more skewed towards boys. The cars and other characters appeal more to the boys than girls . Most of the time, my kid is not enthused by the toy but she keeps  hoping for a toy she could play with.

I was surprised to see when the shopkeeper gave me the option of choosing Kinder Joy for girls. And my girl was thrilled when she got a Barbie bracelet from the egg.

Now Kinder has made life easier for parents of girl child but if you have a boy and a girl, then you are in for trouble.

The move by Kinder offer lot of challenges in the distribution side, Firstly it needs to convince the retailer to stock these two SKUs . So more shelf space means more effort by the sales team. Since one cannot expect that both these SKU will move in the same way. So it will take some time for Kinder to get a grip on the demand of these two SKUs.

The launch of Kinder Joy for girls is an example of brand listening to customer needs and proactively addressing the needs. 

Related Brand

Kinder Joy : Surprise Inside

Learn from Coca-Cola, Red Bull and Oreo for Social Media Success

No matter what size your business is, you can still utilize social media platforms to boost your marketing efforts. Did you know that Facebook has over 1 billion members, there are more than 140 million users on Twitter and YouTube gets 4 billion views every single day? 

Social media is used by consumers across the world as part of their everyday lives but it is a vital element that businesses should use too. According to a new report by Forbes, social media is more prevalent among customers than ever.

However, only 8% of Fortune 500 CEOs are on Facebook; only 4% are using Twitter and less than 1% has a presence on Google Plus.

So it is clear from the findings that it is important for businesses to engage with their customers through such channels. When used correctly, you can form an online community of dedicated fans that will help your brand maximize its advertising strategies.

Learn from renowned big-named brands for social media success. Here are 3 examples of social media triumph:

• Coca-Cola 

Facebook: 36 million fans

Twitter: 616,873 followers

YouTube: 105 million video views

Coca-Cola is a great example when it comes to tweeting, photo sharing, uploading videos, blogging and social media apps. It has achieved massive success online and the secret is that it has an independent fan page rather than an official one. The fans can moderate the posts themselves so it is more like a community rather than an advertising platform. It is about engaging instead of acquiring and about loyalty as opposed to selling.

• Red Bull

Facebook: 32,282,658 fans

Twitter: 746,963 followers

YouTube: Over 340 million video views

Red Bull has built up a very strong fan base online and it has become one of the most flexible media companies in the world. The fun, unique content that it publishes has made it a lifestyle brand and the company produces several engaging videos on a daily basis.

Just take the latest Space Jump as an example. Its mission to the edge of space resulted in Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner successfully completing a jump from 23 miles above the Earth; setting world records for the highest jump, highest balloon flight, and fastest jump.

Red Bull has become a badge that you like extreme things. It appeals to everyone that embraces adrenaline activities such as those who like going fast on motor bikes, and surfing in the desert.

• Oreo

Facebook: 28 million fans

Twitter: 56,000 followers

YouTube: 5,258,025 video views

Oreo’s social media marketing strategies are admired simply because it plays on the fact that it is a highly recognizable brand.

It creates a lot of buzz and has built a strong community to achieve high engagement rates. They have a ‘fan of the week’, a ‘birthday of the day’, and they ask their fans to share their ‘Oreo moments’.

Essentially, they have achieved success because they reach consumers in a personal manner and make it fun.

Conclusion…

Brands that do well on social media tend to be the biggest brands in the world. But SMEs can emulate the likes of the companies mentioned above by employing the right techniques.

Don’t think of it as a marketing channel that you have to get involved with; think of it as what your brand can do for customers online. Social media is a relationship, not an advertising platform. Start genuine conversations with your consumers, engage with them and think of it as a community.

Once you have made the contact, it is an on-going practice. Even the likes of firms such as Red Bull needs to continuously engage with their fans or they will go elsewhere.

This guest blog post was provided by Custard, a creative marketing agency based near Manchester England that specializes in innovative social media strategies.

Killin' It with a Facebook Campaign: SnapKnot Case Study

As the economy forces small businesses to manage on limited resources and use out-of-the-box marketing, social media has emerged as a powerful low-cost marketing tool. Last week I had the honor of speaking with Mike Rheaume, co-founder of SnapKnot – one of today’s fastest growing photography websites. Mike shared his insight into successful social media marketing and gave me a new appreciation for leveraging the power of social to grow your business.

SnapKnot is an online platform that matches engaged couples with wedding photographers in their local area and price range. The site, featured on TechCrunch earlier this year, has seen explosive growth thanks to the proper use of social media.

It’s a Contest
In addition to meeting a specific market need, SnapKnot has done an amazing job of leveraging social media to achieve significant growth. And it all began thanks to a Boston-area startup named SocialContests that designed a Facebook contest designed to exponentially increase followers. SnapKnot encouraged participation among photographers by offering a $3,000 camera to one lucky winner and promoting the contest via their website, online media partners, and email list.

The Facebook contest, which took place over a 3 month period, had a direct and dramatic impact on follower count. Snapknot saw a more than 700% jump, now boasting more than 79,000 fans. More importantly, these followers have translated into increased revenue through new membership subscriptions and prospective leads on the wedding photography website.


More than a Contest
One of the most impressive aspects of this case study does not come from the utilization of social media itself, but the well-executed marketing program behind the contest itself. There are a few things that SnapKnot did extremely well with contest partner SocialContests to ensure a positive return on their contest:

1. Incentives for a specific audience. SnapKnot knows their customers extremely well. As such, they didn't just offer any type of camera for the contest but one that was highly valued among professional photographers. By understanding the audience and providing a product that was sought after, SnapKnot showed their knowledge and expertise while creating a true incentive for their audience.

2. Capturing information from users. Not only did the contest encourage users to become fans of the wedding photography site, it also required name and email address as well as a qualifying question to be answered for participation. Building a house list is one of the most powerful tools in any marketing arsenal, especially when integrated with a drip marketing program that moves individuals through a purchase decision process leading to interest, desire, and purchase.

3. Leverage the power of social. Offering a great incentive for little cost (name and email) SnapKnot realized that much of their success would come from tapping social networks of photographers who they normally could not reach. Through a contest sharing feature, many photographers learned about the contest through social shares and emails from their friends.

By applying a number of effective marketing strategies, SnapKnot was able to gain momentum for their contest and their brand. If you never thought social could give you the boost you needed to kick-start a campaign or grow your pipeline, think again. Given the cash-strapped state of small businesses and start-ups, I think SnapKnot’s use of a Facebook contest to elevate their brand and drive ROI was nothing short of genius. A well-executed contest or social strategy can be the different between profit and failure.

If you haven’t considered contests as part of your marketing strategy, I encourage you to learn more about Facebook related contests and determine how you can leverage them for your own business.

If you’re interested in learning more about SnapKnot, or would like to learn more about their social engagement, visit SnapKnot Facebook Page.

Mobile Marketing Has Changed Forever!

Mobile development and marketing has been the bane of marketer’s existence for some time. Companies understand the significance of reaching consumers via mobile devices but seldom understand the work involved in developing and maintaining a separate website. As a marketer you may know about the value of mobile but also understand the work involved in developing, maintaining, and marketing a mobile website. 

Given limited resources, companies have often “thrown up” a basic mobile site – if they have one at all – to meet the explosive demand of mobile. However, many of these sites have limited functionality and significant overhead. When you add in the work associated with developing, maintaining, and optimizing a traditional websites in addition to a secondary asset for mobile browsers, any available bandwidth quickly evaporates into thin air and it seems virtually impossible to get things done. That is, until now…

I recently had the good fortune and opportunity to speak with Ajay Kapur, CEO and founder of Moovweb and CMO, Mitch Bishop. My interest was to learn more about mobile marketing and what companies are doing to help businesses overcome the obstacles of mobile development. And, most importantly, mobile marketing. 

Moovweb is on the cutting edge of mobile experiences and today announced their patent-pending, cloud-based “virtualization” engine for mobile, designed to speed the delivery of mobile sites and applications. In essence, they’ve created the next generation of mobile site development to enhance the browsing experience for consumers, empower marketers, and make life a lot easier for designers and programmers.

If you’re new to mobile technology and marketing, Moovweb is an established company that offers technology that drives mobile experiences for some of today’s leading, most well-known brands: 1-800 Flowers, Under Armour, Macy’s, John Deere, Accenture. Their mobile solution is the world’s busiest, having served more than seven billion mobile page views to millions of consumers. Moovweb’s technology allows a business’s mobile sites and apps to constantly sync with desktop sites, including all content, features, and other development efforts. With this approach, powerful mobile experiences can be delivered in days, not weeks or months. Their latest announcement, bringing this platform mainstream in the form of developer, small business, and enterprise versions, is a significant paradigm shift in the marketing domain. Although other companies offer mobile development platforms, this company, in my opinion is the industry leader.

In the past, marketers had to focus part of their staff on mobile. This may have included the mobile experience, design, programming, marketing and tracking. What the release of this platform allows is the combining of desktop websites and mobile into a single experience that leverages much if not all of the same content. Imagine being able to make changes on your desktop site that are immediately translated into mobile yet having the ability to test, tweak, and refine the mobile experience for improved ROI and customer cultivation. Unifying Web and mobile development is, in a word, Nirvana. Marketers now have a true asset to improve speed to market, testing, and results at a reduced cost.

According to Moovweb’s press release, “Businesses need to add valuable features quickly to remain competitive. With Moovweb, those features are instantly available to all channels, cutting down on development costs and speeding time-to-market; not only at product launch but for on-going improvements. Innovation is accelerated and customers gain the benefit of consistent interactions across all channels.”

As marketing transitions from a single platform, the PC, to multiple viewing devices from mobile phones to tablets, marketers must continue to find ways of rising above the technology discussion and focus on user experience. The Moovweb platform is the first to do this in a significant way, serving as a beacon of light through the often troubling maze of marketing via different devices. This solution can provide the means to adapt to new technology and implement money-making features across mobile channels quickly and efficiently. By leveraging a single set of web assets, companies can deliver exception experiences to customers and do so more quickly than ever imagined.

About the Moovweb Platform

Moovweb uses a specialized technique called site virtualization that enables a mobile site or application to instantly inherit 100% of the content, features and business logic of a desktop site – a complex task that has previously taken considerable time and resources to create. Moovweb can virtualize a desktop site in seconds instead of weeks. Once virtualized, a developer or designer uses Moovweb’s free interface to customize the mobile experience for their audience. When ready for testing or deployment, the mobile experience is pushed live to 

Moovweb’s high-performance, secure, cloud-based infrastructure for testing. Moovweb then syncs content, features and business logic across all Web experiences in real-time. A first for developers and marketers everywhere! Developers use a Web interface to configure and monitor projects, manage users, learn about the platform and get support.

Moovweb is now commercially available in three editions:

Moovweb Developer Edition

Moovweb Small Business Edition

Moovweb Enterprise Edition

For additional information on Moovweb, visit: http://www.moovweb.com/product/overview

The reality is that marketers must be comfortable with mobile. If you have never engaged in mobile marketing, now is a great time to do so. As companies develop technology that supports a user’s experience across devices, focusing on tracking and metrics that marketers are comfortable with can be leverage for additional insights and results. I encourage you to learn more about mobile marketing and how to fully integrate this channel into your integrated marketing campaigns. 

6 Social Media Tools for Enhancing Your Marketing Efforts

Social media is becoming an increasingly important component in the plans of many organizations. The social web has plenty to offer, but making the most of it is much more than setting up a profile on a few popular sites. It’s about creating an active presence and having the tools that allow you to manage it effectively. These six tools will help you tune your social marketing efforts to peak-level performance.

1. HootSuite

HootSuite is a very popular choice among small businesses. This tool is essentially a web-based platform that lets you manage your presence across the social web. So you can manage profiles on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and other networks from a single interface. In addition, the streamlined goodness of the HootSuite allows you to schedule posts, monitor brand mentions, and even analyze social traffic.

HootSuite is free to use, but you can upgrade to the paid Pro version, which of course, frees you of the limitations that accompany the free version.

2. Traackr

At one time, social analytics tools were scare. Now they’re all over the place. Traackr is a little known tool slowly but surely proving to be one of the best of its kind. With Traackr, you can easily identify the influencers who are the most valuable to your brand. It lets you see how these authority figures are responding to your content by viewing who is contributing the most to your social marketing campaigns. From there, you can build new strategies around the data, and then view the results of your efforts.

Traackr is available at a fixed monthly rate, but plans can be scaled to fit individual needs.

3. TwitterSearch

If Twitter is one of your preferred social networking channels, then TwitterSearch should be one of your favorite tools. This tool can help you find just about whatever you need on the popular microblogging site. For example, you can use it to find out what people are saying about your brand, or what they are saying about your competition. It’s also great for researching trending topics that would fit into your content marketing strategy.

Freely available, TwitterSearch is an underrated social discovery gem you don’t want to sleep on.

4. Wildfire

Wildfire is a powerful platform that lets you monitor and manage your social media presence. An integrated suite of solutions, it offers advertising, messaging, analytics, and various other features for brands looking to maximize their efforts. With Wildfire, you can create engaging experiences that captivate your audience, and then have a comprehensive view into deep insights that enable you to do it again, this time, even better.

Wildfire, now owned by Google, is a in Pro and Enterprise pricing plans for social marketers with slightly different needs.

5. Postano

Postano provides a convenient way to stay active across all your social spots. It lets you aggregate content from each of the top social networks, and even those that are not directly supported can be connected via RSS feeds. Furthermore, you can designate specific times to post your updates, make edits before publishing, and prevent specific users from seeing specific content. With Postano, sharing your content is a breeze as it allows you to easily embed posts into web pages, sidebar widgets, and various management interfaces.

Postano plans come in three pricing tiers, but you can also give it a test drive with a free trial.

6. VenueSeen

Last on the list is VenueSeen, definitely one of the most interesting social tools around. VenueSeen is unique in how it tracks the activity of photos taken within your place of business. This app collects data related to the pictures you post on Foursquare and Instagram, and serves it up in a way that makes it easy to see what type of buzz you’re generating. The platform offers additional tools for connecting with your audience through marketing campaigns, and even developing custom experiences with API integration.

VenueSeen is available on a monthly subscription at a price that you may find surprisingly affordable considering what’s included in the package.

Load Up the Toolbox

Ignoring social media is starting to become a bigger risk than taking the actual plunge. This space is filling up with competition and while there is still plenty of room, you want to have your feet firmly rooted in a comfortable position. Stock your toolbox with options that will take your social media marketing efforts to the next plateau. It’s the only way to fly.

Guest post written by Francis Santos who is a writer for Benchmark Email, a best practices event marketing company.

15 Tips for Local Businesses to Grow Online Presence

Launching a small business these days can be a really scary prospect because you have to think about so many different things. Thankfully, when it comes to marketing there is a relatively simple and easy way to get found in your local area and that's with local SEO. 

Online marketing at a local level has proven to be a very effective marketing strategy for smart small businesses because it allows the people who are looking for you to find you easily.

Gone are the days where people would open the Yellow Pages to look for a dentist. Now they go straight to Google or directories like Mojopages or Manta to find someone nearby who is trustworthy.

Here are 15 tips to help you get found:

1. Get Connected
The first mistake most people make when starting out is spamming their social communities. Instead of going down this dark road get involved in your local forums and websites instead. This increases the relevance of your site with your signature links pointing to your website.

2. Distinguish Yourself with Google Places
We all want to be found on Google and Google maps and getting listed on Google Places makes this really simple. It's great for people to find your website, address, contact details and a list of your services but it can be hard to rank highly on it. So make sure the information on your listing is accurate, is exactly the same as that on your website and that you place a link to your site.

3: Keep Your WHOIS Updated
SEO experts believe that Google checks to see if your domain name is registered with your business address when ranking for local searches. So sign into your registrar account and update it today.

4. Submit to local Search Engines and Business Directories

Google is not the only player out there. Bing is also a contender and a valuable addition if you use Bing Maps. Also consider local search engines such as Yandex(Russia), Baidu(China) and Kvasir (Norway) if you're in these countries. Local business directories are also becoming more important these days. If you’re in the USA, consider submitting your local business information to these directories. 

5. Use Google Analytics
This is the best free tool out there at the moment. It takes just two minutes to sign up and add their code then you can start collecting your web traffic data almost instantaneously. The data harvested from this neat little tool includes number of visitors, their duration on your site, where they're located, what site directed them to you and much more.

6. Get Social Buttons
Add a link to your Google and local page in the form of social sharing buttons.Make sure your email and phone number is listed on every page of the footer too. 

7. Webmaster Tools
Identify issues with your website with Google or Bing Webmaster tools. Search engines can have issues finding your website when local searches are made and these tools will tell you if it's so.

8. Go Mobile
Mobile search traffic is going to surpass desktop traffic very soon in the future. This is why you need to optimize your site for mobile use. If your site is slow and difficult to navigate on a phone or tablet, people will switch to your competitor's site.

9. Blogging
Support your site with a blog. Blogging helps your site in three main ways: it sharpens your knowledge of your business, brings in traffic and informs your customers.

10. Google AdWords
Launch a paid traffic campaign with Google by selecting keywords, writing ads and attracting visitors instantly. Set the maximum limit of how much money you want to spend and when your ad is clicked you will pay Google a few cents. If no one clicks you don’t pay. Nifty huh?

11. Get Reviewed
Ask your satisfied customers to write you a review on Yelp or another local directory so that Google understands you are providing good quality services. 

12: Link to Facebook
Don’t forget to link your Facebook page with your blog. Adding the RSS reader application to Facebook will push your blog posts to Facebook automatically. 

13: Multiple Domains
Google checks to see if your domain is relevant to your country so set your geo-targeting with Google’s Webmaster console. 

14. Offline Community
Supporting a charity or participating in events can get you mentioned in local newspapers and other websites.This will increase your relevance and can boost traffic to your site as well.

15. Social Networking
Make your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Foursquare accounts seem more trustworthyto Google by getting your friends to like and follow your business for a quickboost.

There you have it! Now get out there and make your local presence known. This guest post is provided by Sameer Panjwani who is the CEO of Maximizer e-Services. You can visit his site DirectoryMaximizer to know more about promoting your local business using their local business directory listing service

Guest Blogging Challenges and How to Avoid Them

Many people decide to guest post on other people’s blogs to help increase traffic to their own websites and to receive a byline on their article. Guest blogging is an excellent SEO tool because most bloggers will allow the guest blogger to link back to their own website within the article. 

There are so many topic possibilities and various ways to promote your own products through guest posts, given that the blogger accepts the topic. 

While guest blogging can have countless advantages, many people are not sure where to start and may run into problems along the way. Consider the following tips to help you when guest blogging.

Coming Up With Ideas
The first step to guest posting is to come up with topic ideas. Before you ask a blogger if you can guest post on their site, you should have an idea of what you want to write about, what stance you will take in the article and what your title will be.

The first thing you want to consider when brainstorming topics is if it relates to your product. If you want to include a link to your website or talk about your business, you should be writing a topic that connects in some way to the page you are going to link to. If you simply want to guest post in order to get your name out there on the Internet, then try to come up with a topic you are knowledgeable about or are interested in. This helps to make the process run smoothly and helps to keep readers interested.

Pitching the Topic to the Blog Owner
After you decide on a topic, the next step is to contact the blog owner of the blog you intend to post on. This is one of the biggest challenges that many people have. You need to know how to decide on a quality blog to post your article on as well as know how to approach the blog owner.

When searching for blogs to post on, try to find a blog that receives numerous visitors every month. This will get more people reading your content and visiting your site. It is important that you search for blogs that relate to the topic you are interested in writing about. Think about what general subject your article would fit under, such as lifestyle, finance, health, Internet, hobbies, etc., and look for top blogs that specialize in that niche. In addition to finding a blog that your article would work well on, you also have to determine if they accept guest posts. If they do, the website will usually have a page that outlines the blogger’s guidelines. Make sure that you read through these guidelines and that you follow the directions before contacting the blog owner.

Before you pitch your topic to the blog owner, there are several things that you can do to increase your chances of getting your topic approved. First, interact with the blog. Read the articles posted to get a good idea of the voice, comment on various posts so that the blog owner recognizes you as a frequent reader and never overlook reading through the guest posting guidelines. Next, you will need to pitch your topic to the blog owner. 

When you email the blog owner, put a title in the subject box letting them know that you request a guest post. Greet them nicely, and provide your name, the topic that you would like to write about, and your expertise in the topic area. Offer any other important information that would help them in making a decision about your post, such as a link to your website or sample of work or a description about the article you want to write. Always be polite, follow their suggestions and make sure to write your email with proper spelling and grammar.

Writing a Quality Guest Post
The next challenge that many people have is writing a quality post. When writing a post, try to keep your own voice while matching that of the blog. Follow any word count limits suggested by the blog owner, and make sure to write in a clear manner with appropriate spelling and grammar. Keep the article interested, and above all, edit your piece several times to ensure that the article reads well.

Researching
Another important part of writing a quality post that many people struggle with is completing their research. Choosing a topic that you already have knowledge about is a great way to reduce the amount of research you need to do, and it adds credibility to your piece. If you still require research, gather several quality articles on the topic, and add the information to your article in your own words. Never copy from other sources, and make sure that you never use an article that you have already published somewhere else. This is bad for SEO and will cause your guest post to be rejected.

Follow Up by Engaging the Community
The last aspect of guest blogging that many people fail to do is to follow up by engaging their readers after the post is published. You can do this by using social media sites to promote the post as well as respond to all comments made on the article. Bookmark the page that your article is published on, and check back often to respond to others.

This has been a guest post from Naked Business Consultants, who are the experts at capital raising if you're aiming to take your business to the next level.

5 Tips For Dramatically Improving Your Display Ad Conversions

Today's guest post from By Marc Poirier, CMO/Co-Founder, Acquisio, is all about improving your display advertising conversions. If you want to make the most of your online marketing, it's vitally important that you understand how to make the most of every dollar - improving conversions and seeing a positive return on your investment.

It’s not so long ago that display advertising was considered to be on the brink of extinction, and all but a dead resource. Targeting audiences was difficult, and attempting to make deals with publishers that were mutually beneficial was near to impossible.

Much of that has changed in the last couple of years, and the Google Display Network (GDN) has certainly been an instrumental part of the evolution. However, the GDN experiences many of the same problems that early display networks endured, and it’s very important to be vigilant about how and where your ads are displayed, as well as to whom they’re shown.

If we look at the problem from a point of finding solutions, then we see five main areas that marketers can pinpoint. We can dig into these deeper in order to ensure that a decent ROI is achievable through the GDN by lowering your CPA and increasing the number of conversions that you get.

What is important to remember about these five things is that each area needs to have a great deal of attention paid to it to get the most for your advertising dollar. They all work in concert with each other, but when one is not working at its optimum level, the entire initiative can suffer as a result. The following are five tips to maximize your GDN investment and improve CPA.

1. Create Keyword Lists
Start by creating lists of around 20 keywords, and then put them into action and start testing them against each other. The best results are usually achieved by allowing them to run for at least two days, as you’ll need time for them to duke it out and get a decent amount of click data, which you can then use to declare a winner.

Don’t stop at doing this just once. Constantly create new keyword lists, and have them compete, eliminating low performers, and elevating sets that do better.

2. Configure Ad Placements
There are times when even the most seasoned PPC pro can be surprised by the places on the network that lead to success. That said, however, general experience shows that the pages that perform the best in any campaign are the ones that are most closely related to your advertising topic.

On a daily basis, you should be combing your Analytics to find pages that are either getting high numbers of impressions and no clicks, or pages with high CTR and few conversions. Also, be on the lookout for pages that are performing well, and add them to your Managed Placements. Be this a domain, or an actual page on a domain that performs well, you can add that to your list and dedicate more resources to it.

3. Manage Your Bid Pricing
Certain topics are more popular at given times of year. This is something that every marketer knows, lives, and breathes. What’s interesting that we have found on the GDN is that, when these terms become more popular, you can actually lower your bid prices. It’s counter intuitive, but true. More volume means more opportunity.

With good placements and actively progressing keyword lists, you’ll be able to adjust your bids at a higher strategic level, and get on pace for lowering your CPA on a daily basis. There really is no harm in attempting to find your sweet spot several times a day.

4. Test Ads
Any good PPC pro knows that one should have at least two ads running in tandem, and this is true in this space as well. Defining your creative at the beginning is important, but the people who really define what your ad should be, and how it should look, are your audience members. Give them several to choose from, and eliminate those that don’t engage, and keep going with the good ones. But never, ever stop testing.

5. Watch Your Daily Budgets
This is something that you can’t keep your eye on close enough. Campaign budgets can start to get spent on a whole lot of nothing if you’re not careful. Therefore, paying close attention to the daily budgets of your campaigns is a non-negotiable aspect of successful advertising initiatives.

Those campaigns that are not performing well should be cut down to allow for more resource dedication to those that are. This keeps the entire account healthy, and gives you more working capital. With this strategy done the right way, you will extend your reach and increase your potential conversions.

With the amount of decisions that need to be made on a daily basis, it’s easy to see why some will opt for a tool to manage their accounts, but it can be done manually if you’re able to dedicate the time to staying on top of all of these aspects. Stay on top of all of them, and you’ll be able to lower your CPA while increasing the number of conversions you achieve, and enjoy greater visibility into your results on a daily basis.

Marc Poirier is a professional Internet Marketer with more than a decade experience in the Search industry. He is Co-Founder and CMO of Acquisio where he leads all sales and marketing activities. He often speaks at events like SES, SMX, Ad:Tech, TFM&A and OMMA, and writes columns and articles for various publications, including Search Engine Watch, Visibility Magazine, SES Magazine, and the Acquisio blog.

Marc began his entrepreneurial career in 1996 while working on his Ph. D. in Cognitive Science. That’s when he co-founded Webaxis Alliance, an interactive agency that worked on major Canadian web sites such as sympatico.ca and canada411.ca

Brand Update : RIP Tata Tion ( 2009-2011)

Tata Tion- the non-carbonated beverage drink from Tata Beverages has bite the dust. The brand which was derived from tea extracts and the differentiator was the presence of Ginseng which gave the drink a healthy proposition was discontinued merely after one year of existence . 

Although the product had good intentions, consumers gave it a lukewarm reception. Two factors may have affected the life of the brand a) Taste b) Price . Tion's taste may have acted as a big downer and it never appealed to the masses. Second factor is the price. Tion was very expensive and even though Tata launched a smaller SKU, the quantity was never enough to quench the thirst. That was also the first impression when I tried out the brand. 

Another issue was the segmentation. Tion was not able to clearly focus on its TG. Who would actually buy a product like Tion ? Tion infact tried to cater to every one hence the brand positioned itself very loosely. The tagline " Why Let Go " is a result of such a unfocused positioning. The brand at best would appeal to the set of consumers who wanted a healthier alternative to softdrinks and that is definitely not youngsters.

Tion was bit too early in targeting the mass using the health proposition. Although many experts harp on the trend towards healthy foods, the idea is still in the utopian stage and has not translated into purchases . 

Related Brand 

Tata Tion - Why Let Go

How to Host an Effective Facebook Competition For Your Business

Facebook has become a phenomenon and an invaluable marketing tool.  It is becoming increasingly popular as a space to host competitions and there are some key points to understand in order to run a successful Facebook promotion.

Understand the Rules of Facebook

The key point to understand is that all promotions must be run through a 3rd party app.  This is true in all cases even if the competition simply involves submitting a name.  Even though there are numerous competitions on Facebook which ignore this rule, they do so at the risk of having their Facebook presence shut down completely.  If the cost of using a 3rd party app would be prohibitive, it is possible to use Facebook to promote a contest which is being hosted elsewhere such as on a blog or a 3rd party website.

The 2nd most important rule is that all promotions on Facebook must be clear in their terms and conditions and these must be visible on the front page of the promotion.

Understand the Goal of the Competition

Is the aim of the competition to collect e-mail addresses for a mailing list, to drive traffic to a Facebook page or to guide users to an external website?  What is the current state of the platform and what changes will need to be seen for the competition to be judged a success?

Assessing the current state of the platform could be a good opportunity to see if anything can be done to make it more appealing before the competition starts.  Once the competition is in progress, it is important that no significant changes are made (unless they are connected with the competition). Otherwise, it will become difficult to impossible to judge whether the increase in traffic is due to the competition or due to the improvements to the platform.

Understand that Technology is a Delivery Method - Not a Goal

In many ways, running a successful Facebook competition is essentially identical to running any other sort of competition.

Make the effort needed to enter the competition commensurate with the prize on offer.  Users may leave their e-mail address for a small prize, but are unlikely to go to any great degree of effort unless the prize is very desirable.  A great way to find out what people find desirable is simply to ask current users what they would like to see as a competition prize.

Encourage users to make their friends aware.  Since the number of entrants in a competition reduces each individual's chances of winning, giving free entries in return for referring other people is a common strategy for encouraging people to spread the word.

Make sure that everything works as it should.  This is possibly the most fundamental rule of all; however it is surprising how often it is ignored.  Any questions must be checked and double-checked (both for accuracy and for spelling) and if the answers to them should be found on a website make sure they are there.  Likewise, check that the method for entering the competition works as it should and is regularly monitored for glitches, technical or otherwise.

Special guest post by Amy Harris who is a writer forExpert Marketwhich offers a free service to businesses, providing a sourcing tool for finding office equipment and business services. She enjoys helping businesses discover the best marketing strategy.

Totem Pens : Carving Out a Segment

Brand : Totem
Company : Win Pens Pvt Ltd

Brand Analysis Count : # 518

Totem is an interesting brand. You may not have seen an ad of this pen but this pen is selling like hot cakes in various markets across India. Totem ballpoint pens are manufactured by Win Pens Pvt Ltd which is based in Culcutta. 

What is so special about Totem is that this simple pen effectively met  the need of the customers. Forget the fancy expensive pens or the highly advertised ones because many does not serve the basic function as effective as Totem. Many customers have realized that products like these perform much better than the high profile ones. 

Totem which is priced at Rs 3 is now one of the fast selling brands in the category. There is strong demand for this brand among students and also from office segment. The reason being the utility. Many pens in the sub Rs 10 category have serious quality issues. Most of the pens smudge , are not ergonomic and often the ink gets messy . I have seen many students (during their exams) carrying a piece of cloth to remove the smudge from their gel pens which messes up their answersheets. Many consumers say that products like Totem has more quality than its expensive counterparts. 

Brands like Totem virtually created a new segment of Rs 3 pens. Consumers ask for Rs 3 pens and many well known brands have started selling their products in this segment. The success of these products can be attributable to 

a) Value For Money

b) Utility

c) Better Performance

The Rs 3 category is now getting crowded with many brands entering the space. Totem has not invested in any brand building activities. Its playing the commodity game and soon can be outperformed by more established players. The company will be losing a big opportunity if its not able to capitalize on the current demand. Right now consumers are not asking for specific brand in this category and its a matter of concern for brands like Totem. Brands like Nataraj, Linc etc are capitalizing on their brand's awareness to make their way into this high volume category and for Totem, its losing an opportunity to build a brand .

How To Use Social Signals To Dramtically Improve SEO

In order for your website to achieve the level of success you are looking for, you need to engage in some type of online marketing. Currently, search engine optimization and social media marketing are two of the best ways you can promote your website and drive targeted traffic to your business.

While SEO and SMM are two different entities, they are becoming increasingly intertwined thanks to the latest search engine algorithm updates released by Google. Google is now placing a larger emphasis on social signals to determine whether or not a website is providing its users with quality content. The thinking behind Google’s algorithm updates is that if your website does provide value to your readers, those readers will want to share it with their social circles via their social media accounts. If your website has a lot of backlinks coming from these social media websites, then it will be rewarded with a higher ranking in the search results.

Because of these recent Google algorithm changes, it is important for businesses to include social media marketing techniques with their SEO campaigns. This will allow your website to obtain the highest possible rankings within the search results.

How to Improve your Social Signals
There are a variety of ways that you can improve your website’s social signals in order to obtain a higher ranking within the search engine. One of the easiest strategies you can use is to include social media buttons on your website’s content. This will enable any visitor to your website to easily share your content through their social media accounts. If someone has a large following on a social media website, their followers may see your link posted on their account and share it with their followers, greatly improving your website’s credibility in the eye’s of the search engines.

Another way to improve your social signals is to actively market your website on the most popular social media websites. Creating a Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Pinterest account for your business will allow you to raise the awareness of your company on those websites while simultaneously connecting with their users.

Once you have created your accounts, you will need to actively engage with people on those social media websites. By interacting with people on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, you will be able to form meaningful relationships with them. This will lead to those people following your account and seeing all of the new content that you produce.

After you start to build a following for your social media accounts, you will want to provide your followers with nothing but high quality content. When you provide your visitors with nothing but great content, you will become an industry leader and viewed as an expert in your field. This will allow your business to gain credibility and the trust of your followers. Once people view your business as an industry expert, they will be more likely to share your content with their social media followers and help build valuable backlinks for your website.

As search engines start to place more of an emphasis on social signals when determining where your website should be ranked, it is important for businesses to add social media marketing to their overall SEO strategy. With an increase of links coming from social media websites, a business’s website will move up the search engine results as Google will view the website as an authority figure.

Guest Post provided by Ben Sawyer.  Ben is well known blogger and Internet Marketing Strategist. Here is his advice about how to implement social signals into SEO to increase online visibility and gain more visitors, which he already implemented into a campaign he done for Vandko Candles, New York based company.