If you haven’t already you need to sign up with Google Alerts and enter in your business name. I strongly urge each and every one of you to do so. This small but genius feature allows you to keep tabs on your company without having to do any real searching.
This particular feature has been around for quite some time and I’ve used it in the past but usually for finding good sites to look over in a particular niche I might be interested in or an industry I’m involved in. The process is simple – sign into google – go to google alerts – type in your business name and have google send you an email daily/weekly of when that name comes in the search engine. Pretty easy…right?
Yet, you would be surprised as to how many marketers, researchers and overall business owners do not utilize this feature. A search feature is a business owners best friend. If you have a large site with a search engine you can ultimately find what exactly people are searching for and what results they are finding. If you are involved in Twitter or any other type of social media then you need to be searching your name weekly just to see what people are saying about your brand.
What do you do with it?
You got the information so what do you do with it. Well it really depends on just what was said. If its just people spamming and using your brand name to get attention to their sites than simple ignore it. Unless they are literally dragging your name through the mud and then it can get ugly. However, 90% of the time you don’t even want to worry about it. The point of it all is to see how people are reacting to your company – your brand – your services.
Is your company living up to the promises?
Is your customer service department handling complaints well?
Is there a problem in your shipping department?
Is there a problem that you are just not aware of?
These and numerous other questions will be answered in due time just by finding exactly what people are saying about your company online.
In marketing and advertising nothing is guaranteed. This should be no surprise. As a marketer we have to do everything can to generate ‘noise’ for the client. We have to think outside the box and do things never attempted (but legal).
Money-Back Guarantee!
Yet, there is a company that offers a money back guarantee…seriously? YES! This is a never before done feat for online marketing ad networks and to be honest I am surprised it hasn’t happened yet. Ad Age recently wrote about “Undertone Networks to Pay Up to $50K If Ad Runs Where It Shouldn’t”. Sure, why not – this is a classic no brainer here folks. Online advertising is one of the easiest to monitor.
Newspapers/Magazines/Outdoor advertising = there are problems that can arise in which a ‘quick fix’ could take days if not weeks and months. Online advertising it can be fixed in a matter of minutes, hours depending on the severity of the situation. Nonetheless the actual guarantee is amazingly brilliant because no on has really offered this in the ad network circles.
If an advertiser finds their ad in an inappropriate place, instead of saying sorry, you know what, here’s your guarantee,” said CEO Mike Cassidy.
“There are a lot of networks out there and a lot of them are saying the same thing; we’re putting our money where our mouth is,” Mr. Cassidy said.
My question to those out there: what guarantee’s do you offer your clients?
Personally I tell them I can only guarantee my experience and knowledge and do everything in my power to make their brand/product/service known in sectors they never knew exisisted and show them various paths to take.
We’ve all heard the catchy motto there is no such thing as ‘bad publicity‘. While there are tons of examples out there there is a recent event that caused such an uproar made via social media that the company pulled the advertising. If you haven’t heard by now Motrin had a commercial out
Pretty standard, right? WRONG?!
In marketing and advertising we have to be prepared for anything and nothing at all – an oxymoron, right? Yet, Motrin the company that promoted this ad had no idea the controversy it would cause in the internet. On twitter apparently voices by the hundreds (moms) were raised about this commercial. However, those that might have been staged or not is not relevant at this point.
The point is however the result of Motrin taking down the ad and therefore resulting in more publicity. If people hadn’t heard of the pain reliever they now did. Did the company who put together the marketing plan have any idea this would happen? Ah, this is where it gets tricky.
As I mentioned there is room for staged controversy and everyone in marketing knows by ‘blending’ in and just stirring the pot a little can cause publicity in results never seen before.
Bottom line is this: When you have a product and/or service and you feel the need to market and advertise it find out ways that it could cause controversy. Then who knows you might be the one within the ad company that saves that marketing project.
We see it everyday when we flip on the tv from Mac/PC comparisons to Verizon and AT&T displaying their new technology phones. Those that are close to me know I’m a tech head and love new “gadgets” so it is no surprise that I read Gizmodo.
Apple isn’t going after the current smartphone market of business users. It’s focusing on regular people who probably don’t own a smartphone by emphasising that the iPhone is a music player, a pocket-size Internet access device, and a phone — with e-mail as just another add-in
Yet, looking over the first stats BB’s fails twice as much as iPhones. So how do you think that will go over with BB users?
Now to the marketing part – if you haven’t figured it out Apple’s marketing plan of the iPhone was genius. They didn’t go after business users but found that niche’ market that has been overlooked. The Gen X/Y users who want business but have a little fun with a smartphone.
The beauty of it all though had to be the actual article on Gizmodo:
Marketing No Matter What
When it comes to marketing AT&T are no dummies. Though the article talks about actual failures within a certain ‘brand’ AT&T decided to still advertise but did so correctly by not advertising the iPhone.
So the question isn’t how “does” technology go hand-in-hand rather how does it NOT.
Pretty point blank question, right? Yet, not a totally straight forward response huh? We can “say” we plan our weeks out for work for various projects which can turn into months. We try to plan our days to be more effective. How does that usually pan out for ya? Personally – it doesn’t. Not overall that is.
This is when I’ve found that be turning off emails/IM’s/Twitter/etc I can actually dive into my work. If I have an IM going off every 5 minutes and with my compulsion I have the need to respond immediately. The best way to get work done is to focus on that project and nothing else.
Easier said then done.
Now, I’ve spoke about this before but the point I plan to make on this particular post is that we as people need to look more long term. Not just days but weeks. Not just weeks but months. Not just months rather years. If we can look at “the big picture” we will be able to figure out the necessary steps needed to get in that direction.
Next time you’re planning out your week determine wether or not it meets your long terms goals. If not then its really not worth your time. Stop looking at life in the short distance or soon enough it will be only seen in the rear-view.
I can’t apologize enough for not giving everyone enough notice about the recent domain move. It was something that unfortunately came to head that I needed to do rather quickly but could’ve waited another week to prepare everyone. Sad to say my move didn’t go according to plans.
I’m still messing around with everything and am extremely grateful that none of the content was lost due to making sure I exported all the DB files via phpadmin. I’m actually looking into the possibility of doing a step-by-step of moving from one site to another. If you’re interested that is.
Nonetheless I am still trying to get over my cold and sadly today, without going into too much detail, I have drainage where I am not able to talk much with out my throat hurting. I’m able to focus a little better today but it is still a struggle as I try to beat this head cold.
I’m praying that next week I’ll be over this cold and be able to deliver some great content as I have probably 20-30 post in “drafts” that need editing. Great ideas and concepts so I’m eager to push them out when they’ve been proofed, of course.
Two things that should not happen together: trying to move content from one domain (nvizionlife.com) to another (drivenmg.com/blog) while being extremly sick. Yet, trying to create more branding for myself and my side company I felt the need to do so. While the timing was less than perfect the saying is true, “What’s done IS done.”
So, welcome to the NEW domain blog and please excuse the mess while I still move some things around in order to create a more friendly place for you all to enjoy. In the coming days/weeks I will be giving some great content and links to things pertaining to social mediamarketing, advertising, branding, and just about anything and everything related to an online entrupeneur as I go through the steps.
For one reason or another there are people out there that have used social media to hurt people. While it still is the internet there are examples of being physically being hurt and dying. This is when parents need to step in and help. As marketers we need to be careful of how to market products in the same respect.
Just a quick update – I’ve been sick the last few days and can’t seem to get out of this damn cold. It’s killing
my creative process and my ability to write some provocative post for you to read. I do have one brewing I might be able to get out today but we’ll see how the day goes.
Just wanted to give you an update before you start unsubscribing from my feed
Wait…what?! Yes, social media‘s whole plan is to get you sucked in and not let you out. If you allow it your soul will be stripped from you and you will become an mindless zombie spending mindless hours in Facebook. To make sure that happens here are some great tips I have found useful to make sure that I use the networks and not the other way around.
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