JR Raphael from PCWorld had an amazing column, “The 10 most uncool moments in tech” that showed up on MSNBC.com a couple weeks ago. His column highlights tech companies that try as they might to come across as cool, completely miss the mark.
The column includes video of each of the failed attempts at cool viral and ad campaigns. Check them out for a few chuckles, but you’ll probably find yourself more often shaking your head in disbelief—yes, they really are that bad. Here’s a quick example of just how horrible these marketing moments really are:
Raphael’s commentary, however, is absolutely riveting and will definitely make you laugh.
Beyond the humor, there’s a lesson to be learned. Don’t try to force your brand to be something that it simply is NOT.
Every brand can’t be cool. Every brand can’t be classy. Every brand can’t be a hero. But, every brand can fail if its position is not defined.
Your brand position is the crux of your marketing program. And, if you haven’t defined your brand position and brand persona, for goodness sake get on it! While you’re here at B2B Fishbowl, check out what our very own Matt Hensler has to say about brand personas too.
Millions of people use Google everyday to look for a product, service or information. I guarantee that a substantial amount of these people are potential clients looking for your particular service or product. Below are eight ways I’ve found that can help increase your Google page rank.
1. Know Your Current Page Rank: The first step to increase your Google ranking is to know your current Page Rank. Visit PR Checker to find out.
2. Submit Your Site: You want the search engine spiders to come to your site and start indexing it into their database.
3. Quality Page Content: Make sure to update your website or blog regularly. Good content will increase your ranking. It’s that simple. More good, relevant content means more visitors. This eventually leads to other sites linking to your pages.
4. Link Often: Google looks at both inbound and outbound links. One of the easiest ways to increase your Page Rank is to exchange links with other websites or blogs that have similar content.
5. Social Networking: Submit your website or blog posts to popular sites like StumbleUpon, Digg, Delicious, Facebook and Twitter. These sites will help you generate backlinks.
6. Make Your Graphics Search Friendly: Keep Flash to a minimum. People may enjoy reading Flash, but search engines tend to skip over it.
7. Clean-coded Site: Make sure that your website’s coding is clean and simple so it’s easy for web crawlers to crawl the content.
8. Use Meta Tags: Include Meta keywords, Meta descriptions and page titles on every page.
Whenever I ask this question at a meeting, I get affirmations from all the marketing types. The sales people shoot back with, “But those leads aren’t any good.”
Can they both be right? Actually, yes. In many cases, the leads that marketing sends are not sales ready or even warmed up. They may be potential customers who dropped by a tradeshow exhibit, sent in a BRC, called an 800 number or clicked something online. They may be somewhat interested in learning more about your product or company, but most likely they will need lots of nurturing before a sale is made.
So, here’s my question:
The good news is that we can all stop the finger pointing and get the sales and marketing departments singing Kumbaya. All that’s needed is a good marketing communications strategy, technology (CRM and marketing automation), implementation of an effective demand gen program, and a willingness by management to get everyone focused on results—both short and long-term.
Within the B2B industry, your website can mean everything to your potential customers. Prospects want useful information and they want to get it fast, without making a huge effort, which is why it’s important for B2B companies to provide relevant web content.
The article Website Content Tips, offers six tips to ensure your web content grabs the attention of potential customers. Tips include:
Chunk content
Use instructive headings
Format for scannability:
Bold information-rich keywords
Use bulleted and numbered lists
Consider tables to convey and compare information that can easily get lost in text
Use anchor points
Be clear and concise
Employ good design
So remember, it is extremely important to have organization and flow throughout your website and to communicate your message clearly. By doing this, you will increase your SEO and distinguish yourself from your competition. Let your audience know why your product and/or service is the best!
Research, or just finding out what people are thinking, has become an increasingly important part of decision-making in both personal and business situations. Gathering opinions before you take action can help you make better choices and may head off potential problems.
Which movie will you see tonight? Check the Flixster polls to see which flix other people liked.
Want a new cell phone? See which models have the best customer ratings.
Need to let your elected leaders know your concerns? Answer their surveys.
In B2B marketing, we help our smart, forward-thinking clients make better strategic decisions by recommending market research, customer satisfaction scoring, focus groups and online surveys to uncover what their customers and prospects are really thinking and feeling.
The world may seem survey crazy, but it just human nature to want to know what others think. Right now, I want to know what you’re thinking, so please answer this one question survey. After clicking your answer, you can see if others think like you—or not!
