The Wax Blog

According to Free Dictionary the definition of karma is the total effect of a person’s actions and conduct during the successive phases of the person’s existence, regarded as determining the person’s destiny. Beth Hodgson’s last post about the boomerang effect – what happens when you get even more traffic by sending it to others from your blog -  stirred up some comments about how karma works in the blogosphere. (Thanks Jorgen for kicking that discussion off and I’d love to hear YOUR stories too!) It got me thinking about my clients, and how their attitudes and actions affect the kind of PR results they get. Read on to find out how MUCH karma affects results. (more…)

One struggle I have with my clients at times is convincing them that they need to credit sources. Their opposition isn’t because they don’t want to credit the sources that they use, it’s because they’re afraid they’re sending traffic away from their website. It’s a common fear, but that isn’t the reality, at least not exactly. (more…)

Tim Busa from Constant Contact  sent me this recent video made by the Constant Contact email marketing folks. Props for trying to make a dry subject funny- but the woman at the beginning scares me.

(That’s Gail Goodman, CEO of Constant Contact. Just funnin’ ya Gail!)

I was sitting here wondering when a marketing person was going answer my email (from two days ago) when it occurred to me that  traditionalists will have to add a sense of urgency to their worklife in order to survive. I came out of sales where response to request timing was everything. But when I started working with other publicists and marketing folks I realized that isn’t always the norm. Okay I understand when you’re working with books that get released 6-8 months after you’ve sent the galleys out for review. Or when you’re developing brand images with focus groups, etc. All those things move at a snail’s pace (at least to me).

A sense of urgency in response can no longer be reserved to the daily print reporters and local TV folks, or for breaking news. Folks, we’re living in an extemporaneous, real-time conversation world now. Getting back to someone three days later -or never- isn’t gonna cut it. I work with quite a few partners in what I do, whether it’s web design, marketing, writers, etc. Guess what – the blogger that answers my email or tweet the same day I send it is going to get my business. The one that answers me within an hour – they will always move to the top of the heap. And I think my clients feel the same way, and have felt that way long before the social media “engagement” craze started.

Look, I’m not asking you sew a Blackberry into your bra. But the days of taking days to answer messages are over. And the traditionalist publicists and marketing folks better learn that or they might end up like poor Goose.

In honor of being incredibly lazy this week, here’s one of my fave 2009 posts – the last Friday of every month I’ll throw a repeat of one of the more popular posts, just in case you missed it!

A product, service or book is probably the greatest thing in the world – to its creator. But when an editor or producers says “pass” it’s the publicist who has to tell the client. Sometimes ZERO  media are interested. And for anyone who has written a book, started a business or provided a service, that can be a pretty personally hurtful message no matter how carefully it’s couched. For me, it’s the equivalent of having to tell clients “your baby is ugly” 95% of the time, without hurting their feelings. Nearly impossible. (more…)

You don’t get big muscles after just one workout and you can’t expect big marketing results right away either.  Lots of small business owners worry constantly about the ROI of their marketing investments. Instead, schedule time to review the results of what you’re doing on a weekly or monthly basis, depending on your sales cycle. (For some of you online marketers it needs to be daily) Otherwise don’t worry about it. Trust your judgement!

If you’re not sure how to measure your results, go back to Step 1 and review. And please share with me any new ways you might be measuring results particularly with social media. We’re all learning on this one!

It’s important to change up your marketing efforts and try new things…without throwing out the things that work.One of the hardest things to measure is the synergy that develops when you combine marketing mediums. It’s the basis for integrated marketing communications (IMC) concepts but no one has really captured where the actual motivation occurs to get your customer to buy, call, whatever.  To keep tweaking your marketing recipe you constantly have to look for new ways to get your message out there…here are a few ways to do that each month that won’t take much time. (more…)

Marketing – as opposed to sales remember – is one of those proactive tasks that seems to get pushed aside for more urgent ones. An astute commenter in my last post mentioned you need to always be planting seeds for future business to grow. Just like your workouts if you put marketing time on your schedule each week and hold it sacred, you’ll see the benefits very quickly. Here are some tips for finding the right time to work on your promotions, social media, advertising, whatever you consider ‘marketing’. (more…)

How much time should you spend on a weekly basis doing marketing and promotion tasks? It will vary of course but there are some rules I’ve learned working with a broad swath of companies and industries over the past couple decades including B2B, B2C, online and retail.Feel free to poke holes in my theories here…but tell us all WHY so we can learn from your successes. (more…)

Rather than reinvent the wheel, here are some links to blog posts and articles  to help you figure out the right mix for your business…

For blending social media with traditional media, and choosing the right mediums, check out my blog post at Main Street Savvy

To follow steps for picking the right marketing vehicles for your business, go to my post on Evobloggito

Some ideas for starting social media are right here on the Wax Blog “How to Bake a Yummy Social Media Souffle”

If you’re sick of me, Entrepreneur has a great piece on this topic “3 Steps to Finding the Right Marketing Mix”

For B2B’ers, SalesVantage has a great post on the topic too.

Keep in mind it might take a bit to find the right recipe…and it needs to be measured and tweaked on a regular basis to keep working well.