Pinterest Email... This is Cool!

This morning, when I rolled into the office and started trolling through my emails, I saw a letter from the founder of Pinterest.  As a casual user of Pinterest it certainly caught my eye.  The letter is a personal one that takes you inside a recent idea that was just launched, Secret Boards!

The concept is simple but brilliant.  Here's an excerpt from the email...

"I had two thoughts driving home from the hospital with my wife, Divya. The first was, “I can’t believe I’m a Dad.” The second was, “I hope I can get our new baby, Max, out of that new car seat when we get home.” During the first couple weeks, we started to figure out all the little things that are second nature for experienced parents...

"As usual, Divya was a few steps ahead of me. When our doctor suggested we buy a humidifier she said, “Oh, I already have one!” When I was getting Max ready for his first bath, she pulled out a neat homemade bath kit, complete with a tiny towel, comb and toothbrush..."

“How did you figure all this stuff out already?!” She looked at me and and cheerfully replied, “I just follow other parents on Pinterest!”

"Today, we’re excited to continue this tradition with a new feature we hope will make Pinterest even better—secret boards. Secret boards give you a place for things you’re not quite ready to share yet, like a surprise party, special gift ideas, or even planning for a new baby. We’re testing out the feature by giving everyone 3 secret boards. You’ll find them at the bottom of your profile. We can’t wait to hear what you think!"

—Ben & the Pinterest Team

You can see from the email, Ben took inspiration fro ma real life situation and applied it to his business.  Are you doing the same?  Taking inspired action is truly the key to success.  Also, I thought it was really cool that instead of announcing a new "feature", Pinterest made it personal and share the back story about it's creation.

Now that you have the inside scoop... starting Pinning and have a great weekend!

Godrej Aer : Aer it Out

Brand : Aer
Company : Godrej

Brand Analysis Count : # 517

Godrej has entered the Rs 300 crore Air Care market with the new brand Godrej Aer. Godrej was instrumental in developing the category of air-freshners in Indian market through the JV Godrej - Sara Lee. Ambi-Pur was the brand which had created this category in India. But in 2011, Sara Lee sold its personal care division to P&G and the brand Ambi-Pur has moved to P&G.

Not to be left behind in the category which Godrej's JV had created, the company was quick to launch its own brand Aer in the Indian market. Godrej Aer is now running its launch campaigns across the Indian market. 

The brand has started off with some thoughtful branding strategies. To being with, Godrej has chosen a very powerful brand name " Aer ".Aer which is the marketer's way of using the generic word " Air" .

Ambi-pur is the most visible brand in the air-freshner category in India. Air-Wick is another brand which is focusing on the home category . There are also many local and imported brands in this category.Odonil was one of the pioneers in the room-freshner category but some how this brand is restricted to washrooms ( pun intended). This lifestyle product is expected to see better growth in coming years. According to reports, this category is growing at the rate of 20% each year.

Godrej in the launch campaign is focusing on the car -freshner segment of the category. 

Aer has tried to tackle the market using two differentiating attributes. First factor is the design. Aer has put lot of thought into the design aspect of the container. The design is eye-catching and very contemporary. Second differentiator ( in car freshner) is the ON/OFF switch. The brand is harping on this factor in the television commercial .

Watch the ad here : Aer 

Godrej Aer's focus On/Off switch  as the key differentiator may not be sustainable since any competitor can easily replicate the feature. Launching the brand purely on this easily copy-able feature is a marketing mistake on the part of Godrej. Its also surprising to see that Godrej is downplaying the wonderful design element of the brand. The brand is focusing on functionality + fragrance as the main focusing point. The brand has the tagline  " Aer it Out " and has put its mission as to change the way air smells and spells. The brand has priced the product a little above the Ambi-Pur but I feel that the design will encourage many consumers to switch to this product for a trial.

Related brand

Ambi-pur

5 Important things to remember when planning your social media strategy

A lot of mistakes I see businesses making when joining social media networks is leaping in without a plan – or to put it more precisely – without a strategy. It’s something I think many of us overlook. After all, when we use something on a day-to-day basis for our own personal enjoyment (I mean, who doesn't log into Facebook during their lunch break or on their night-off?) we assume we can treat social media marketing with the same flippancy and casualness.

But social media marketing is just that, it’s marketing. You wouldn't jump head first into a print ad campaign without thinking about the marketing credentials and the strategy behind it first and you shouldn't jump head first into social media marketing either.

The sheer power of social media marketing has already been proven so don't waste your time trying to convince yourself of the potential opportunity. While I'm not claiming every company needs to hire a social media professional to plan out their strategy, what I do recommend is sitting down with your marketing team and answering a few questions, outlining a key points, and jotting down some ideas or key concerns.

1. Think about your demographic
Before you start posting status updates, think about who's going to be reading them and what time of day they're most likely to check their updates and news feeds. Take for example, if your main demographic included teenagers and school children, posting during school hours would be a big waste of time because they would be in class (hopefully) and wouldn't have access to their accounts. Posting during the evening however or during lunch break would be prime time for updates as this is when they'd be online and looking through updates.

2. Brand your pages
Your social profiles are just like your web pages and emails. They should all be branded. Make sure you've got your logo clearly and concisely displayed somewhere on your profile and make sure your colors and design features echo your websites in some way as well. Make sure these choices are consistent throughout your social networking too – because it’ll be confusing for customers and fans if not.

3. Set a budget
A great part of social media marketing is communicating with your customers and fan base, encouraging their interaction. While you don't need a budget for this initially, in order to drive your presence forward on a larger scale, you might want to set up competitions or give-away's. To do this effectively, you need to set aside a budget and a realistic one too. Do you want to give away smaller prizes on a regular basis, or do you want to give away a large prize once or twice a year? All these little details need to be taken into consideration for your promotions.

4. What are using social media for?
While social media is for encouraging brand communication and inevitably increasing traffic and sales, you need to consider what your customers and followers are interacting with you for. Are they following your updates because they're funny, or do you give away bargain discount codes? Do you post interesting and insightful content or are they following you because they get a behind-the-scenes look into your company? All these thing matter and once you've identified this pull, making updates become easier.

5. Set targets
Set yourself realistic targets on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. Think about how many updates you want to post daily, and then (on a larger scale) how many likes and interactions you want on a monthly basis. Keeping track of these things is a great way to prove how worthwhile your work has been – but it’s also a good idea as you can see if your technique and strategy is actually working over time. If not – it might be time to try a different social network – or reevaluate the strategies you’d had in place.

By asking yourself these questions and taking the time to answer them honestly, you can dramatically improve your chances of social media success. The benefits of social media can be yours with a little planning and hard work.

This Guest Blog Post was provided by Elle-Rose Williams – who works with WhoIsHostingThis. You can find out more about them, here. 

Attract More Visitors To Your Blog - 9 Strategies...

Attracting more people to your blog is essential for improving your individual brand and monetizing your blog. In today's guest post, Korah Morrison shares her helpful traffic generation tips. Attract more visitors to your blog with these simple steps: 

1. The first method you may wish to think about is simple advertising. Advertising works and there are many methods you can use to advertise your blog--both online and offline. It will cost you a little bit of money, but its expense all depends upon how badly you want people to see your blog. 

2. You can try a guest post on someone else’s blog. This is where you add quality content onto someone else’s blog in return for their blog linking to yours. This will bring you direct traffic from the readers of the article who follow the link, and will help you to appear higher up in the search engine results pages. If you do wish to appear even higher in the search engine results pages you should consider the aspects of SEO. This is the act of making your blog post easier to read by the search engines, so that they list you higher up in their search results. Submit a sitemap to Google so that they list you in their search engine results. 

3. Do not be afraid to talk about it on social media. If you have followers or friends on social media platforms, then talk about your blog and encourage people to go and look at it. Talk about its topics and the angle you took on certain issues. 

4. Add a link from your email to your blog. Have one embedded at the bottom of your emails so that every single email you send out has a link to your blog from it. You may also add a link from your website if you have one. 

5. Allow people to link from your comment section, if you want them to comment and to keep coming back. Links are handy for rising higher in the search engine results pages, so people will happily keep coming back and commenting every week if you allow them to post links. 

6. Have an exciting or interesting title for your blog posts. A dull or boring one will not attract many visitors. Make sure that you write about the title you choose. Don’t add a title that is exciting and interesting if it has nothing to do with what your blog is actually about. Do not make your title misleading, but do make it exciting or interesting enough to grab people’s attention. Sometimes it is only the title of a blog that encourages people to even bother reading your blog.  

7. The use of social bookmarking. Put the plug social bookmarking. It is quite possible to get targeted traffic from these services. 

8. Compile lists. People love to read lists of any rules, tips, techniques, relating to important questions. Very convenient when all useful tips collected in one place. 

9. Commenting on other people's blogs. It is desirable to leave comments on popular blogs. And not just comment, but clever and useful comments. It could allow you become noticeable and get attention. Traffic from popular blogs is very useful. 

If you're struggling to generate traffic to your blog, consider these helpful hints.  Over time, by taking small actions in the direction of your goal, traffic will start to build.  Stick with it!

About the Author: Today's guest post is by Korah Morrison, writer on essay writing service and she likes to write about seo, blogging, social media and internet marketing.

Marketing New and Different!

What is it that makes someone stand up and take notice?  In marketing, it's what's new and different that catches the eye.  I recently had to address this issue with the SCOOP Internet Marketing Forum.  I started the forum a couple of years ago and have been blessed with a growing number of members. However, now I'd like to expand the platform to help as many marketers as possible find the answers they're looking for.  To do so, I have to begin asking some questions.

Where to Begin?
I thought long and hard about my forum and other forums I've joined in the past and asked that one difficult question.  "What's so great about the SCOOP forum?"  It's not an easy questions to ask yourself.  In fact, I'd like you to try the question out on your product, service, or business.  What is it that's truly unique about you?  How do customers benefit by purchasing your service above other service providers?

The question is difficult because it requires us to think of something new, different. After asking the question to myself I realized that:

--What I had to offer wasn't different
--Consumers could find similar information elsewhere
--I was making excuses for why I had a me-too solution

From Thought to Action
Once I realized that I wasn't offering anything of greater value than my competitors, other marketing forums, I had to begin asking a different question, "How CAN I make my forum different and better?"  Asking that questions really got me thinking.  It also made me realize that I should be working with others to share ideas and evaluate possibilities.

After just a short while we started to find a variety of things that we could do to enhance the forum (expanded profiles, design changes, exclusive content, etc.) to set us apart from the competition.  It was clear to me that once you start asking the right questions, you can do something to set you apart and rise above the crowd.  Keep this in mind the next time you're just getting by and need a change for your company, products, or services!

3 Things Marketers Can Learn From Governor Romney and President Obama

This is not a political article. Ant it isn't an article about who will win the race for the White House during this year's presidential election. Nor is this an article about political policy, polling data or even hot-button social issues.  Rather, this is a post about what the campaigns can teach marketers. No one has done more marketing in the last few months then Governor Romney and President Obama. We should definitely be learning something from their campaigns.

The Presidential election is less than a week away. The time for Americans to choose their leader is nearly at hand. The campaigns have churned out well over $1B worth of advertisements, videos, content and branding. They have pounded each other, lauded their owned accomplishments, and pandered to the American people. After this sprint of a campaign, the candidates can now see the finish line. They are sprinting down the homestretch in an effort to be hired for the most powerful job in the world.

What can we take from their organizations to help ours?

1) Great Video

Have you seen the biographic videos produced by the campaigns? If you haven't, here is Governor Romney’s and here is President Obama’s.  They are both extraordinarily well done.

Also well done are the campaigns’ negative ads.

And, whether or not you like all the negative campaign ads isn't the point. Studies show that most people don't like negative campaign ads. However, those ads do help win elections. The reason we see them so frequently is because they work. And, incidentally, they are becoming more common, not less.

The bottom line is this: the ads are well done from a storytelling and video perspective. They pack a ton of info into a 30 second spot. They are shot well, narrated appropriately, and are generally very 'slick' and professional looking. They don't hire amateurs to do their work. And they have expert copywriters producing the content.

What to do

Now, you certainly can’t afford to spend money like the Presidential campaigns. However, you can produce well thought out scripts, high quality footage, and even decent narration, on a shoestring.

2) Branding and Recognition

You have, no doubt, seen the Obama campaign's sunrise logo or the big letter 'R' that denotes the Romney campaign. Both of these images have gained immediate mindshare. They are beautiful looking logos and convey what the campaign is about.

More importantly, perhaps, the campaigns have maintained brand consistency. Many companies struggle with this, swinging wildly from one branding concept to another. While the candidates may verbally swing back and forth and remain inconsistent on the campaign trail, their branding has remained constant. Everything from the taglines, to the logos, to the visuals has been choreographed beautifully.

What to do

Get your branding figured out right now.  Some companies waste valuable time and resources either unsure of their branding, or branding incorrectly. How do you know if you're doing it wrong? Well, here are a couple of questions to ask yourself to determine if your branding is clear:

-- If your customers were asked what your tagline is, could they tell you?

-- If your employees were asked to draw your logo, could they do it?

--Can any employee explain what your company does AND why you do it better than anyone else in 10 – 15 seconds?

--Are you branding consistently?

3) Social Media

The campaigns don’t just post stuff to their respective Twitter accounts and hope people will read it. Rather, they actually engage with their social media audience. Both candidates have hosted Google+ Hangout sessions. Both tweet regularly. Both post images and video. Both have their immediate families and supporters use social media regularly.

Are the people closest to you—or even all your employee—using social media to spread the good word about your company?

The Obama campaign set new standards for social media marketing in 2008. And both campaigns are doing a great job this year. The Obama campaign clearly had a built in social media engagement advantage coming into the race. But the Romney campaign has sought to mitigate that advantage. Both campaigns understand how critical social media marketing is. They seek to trend on Twitter, accrue 'Likes' on Facebook, and +1s on their websites.

This should be a valuable lesson for marketers everywhere.

What to do

I am always stunned by how reluctant employees are about getting involved in the social media efforts of the company they work for. Companies like Hubspot and Marketo have 20 to 25 employees on Twitter. They tweet regularly, build their own brand constantly, and grow followers daily. These companies get it. We’re still working on it at LogMyCalls. Other companies struggle to get anyone outside of the marketing department to even post company-related things on their Facebook pages or create a Twitter account.

To remedy this executives at some companies go so far as to ask prospective employees during the interview process—for any position—if they are comfortable having various social media accounts and sharing content on social media. 

Marketing Lessons From a Tropical Storm

As the news of a pending tropical storm unfolds, it reminds me of the fact that good marketing lessons can be found just about anywhere.  Living in the supposed path of this soon to hit storm, I've noticed the frenzy of activity from the community around me.  And they're buying stuff... lots of stuff!  Batteries, flashlights, generators, food, and who know what.  

From a marketing perspective it reinforces the power of creating urgency in your marketing message.  I would argue that individuals who are fearful will buy whatever they can find to help mitigate their fear and anxiety without particular interest in brand or cost.  Talk about an ideal situation for sellers!  Some retailers are responding appropriately to this opportunity - making important products easy to find for consumers.  Home depot for example placed batteries, flashlights, and bottled water at designated kiosks near the front of the store.  

The question I have for you this week is how you can create a similar sense of urgency among your prospects and customers.  "Only 3 left!"  or "On sale today only!" are just two examples of creating urgency.  However, you can intensify this effect by building a story of anticipation.  This is what Internet marketers do well.  They communicate in advance of their messages which focus on scarcity.  If you take the time to build anticipation and limit the opportunity to make a purchase, you can dramatically improve sales and not have to compromise on price.

I recently saw this done well with the launch of a new Internet marketing product.  For weeks leading up to the release, the company published videos, interviews with industry experts, data and infographics to show the importance of what was to come.  When the doors were finally opened, people were virtually stepping over each other trying to get the limited supply of software available.

Not only did this marketer "sell out" of available inventory, but he created a habit of scarcity among his potential audience.  What do you think is going to happen the next time he has a product launch?  You guessed it, people will jump on the bandwagon even sooner.  

Consider how scarcity and urgency can motivate your consumers.  Whether you run a one-day sale once a year or introduce new products in a limited way, you can certainly learn from the frenzy around tropical storms.  I know it sounds crazy but the reality is that you can learn valuable marketing lessons from anyone - even mother nature.