You’re going to love it – so check it out and spread the word!

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AJWS-AVODAH Partnership book club

First, offline in New York, Gabriel will be facilitating a discussion about Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations at the AJWS-AVODAH Partnership’s monthly book club “People of the Book.”

We’ll discuss Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations by Clay Shirky. Amazon.com calls it: “A revelatory examination of how the wildfire-like spread of new forms of social interaction enabled by technology is changing the way humans form groups and exist within them, with profound long-term economic and social effects-for good and for ill.”

The discussion will be facilitated by Gabriel Blau, Internet Marketing Strategist and Co-Founder of VisibleU.

Tuesday, January 19 at 6:00 p.m. at the AJWS office. RSVP now to slipkin@ajws.org!

Marketing Tactics that Get Results Webinar

Second, online, Gabriel will be on a panel run by Verio, one of the world’s largest and most respected hosting providers.

Begin 2010 with a BANG! Marketing is a powerful tool for you to generate opportunities, nurture leads, strengthen customer relationships, and increase sales. Join this webinar to obtain new ideas on marketing tractics that get results. You’ll learn first hand from viaVerio Partners what marketing tactics they use to obtain new customers and increase revenue from existing customers. This panel discussion is all about Marketing Best Practices.

Verio Inc. has teamed up with three of their partners, VisibleU, thunder::tech, and Riser Media, to bring you this exciting webcast on “Marketing Tactics that Gets Results” which will take place on Thursday, January 28th at 2:00 pm EST.

Join us to learn what marketing initiatives are working:
- Online Marketing
- Relationship Marketing
- Passive Marketing
- SEO
- Social Media
- Email Marketing
- Content Marketing

Click here to register for the webinar: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/909047675

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• TED talk: How social media is making history by helping citizens report the real news (presentationzen.com)
• Room for Debate: To Tweet or Not to Tweet (roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com)

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Our approach this year was to create unique and funny cards that people enjoy getting and would remember seeing. Our e-cards generally get about the same open rates as other emails we do for the same company, but they consistently got higher forward rates. For some background on what we’ve done in the past, check out last year’s post on the subject.

On to the pretty pictures.

For WiseCounsel LLC, a legal staffing firm, we put together a cartoon about one of their employees gracefully dealing with an unusual staffing request:

For our friends at the Coleman Center (a gorgeous meeting space here in NY), we wondered what sort of corporate training seminars the North Pole staff might have to attend leading up to the holidays.

And for our own internal card, this year we thought it might be fun to share some of the back and forth editing and deliberation that we go through, everytime we put out one of these. I have a feeling that this will seem very familiar to some of you…

We thought the art was cool enough (please, stop applauding, I’m blushing) that we put up a desktop wallpaper based on it. It’s still online if you’re interested, and you’re the sort of person that hasn’t taken down their tree yet: http://www.visibleu.com/holiday-wallpaper/

Frankly, there aren’t too many parts of my job that are this much fun. A holiday card is often the one time that you really take a moment to talk to your customers without trying to sell them anything. Maybe because of that, many of the holiday emails we got were hastily thrown together and forgettable. But we’re strong believers in the importance of taking the relationship you have with your customers seriously, and not skimping when you have an opportunity like this to lay a solid foundation. And if you can make someone giggle when they open your email, well, that can’t be bad, can it? Maybe they’ll even decide to share it with someone.

Some other people’s thoughts we were reading on the subject of holiday cards:
http://www.gbltd.com/blog/2009/12/holiday-e-card-hit-delete/
http://stylecampaign.com/blog/?p=33
http://www.entrepreneur.com/marketing/onlinemarketing/article187292.html

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So if you find yourself looking for way to grow your customer base on a tight budget, don’t despair – you’ve got options.

You may feel that the big turnkey marketing options aren’t on the table. You can’t afford to advertise, at least not in the places or amounts that will make a difference – avenues like PPC may bring you results if you can afford to invest significantly ( alot depends on your industry), and print and other media can have an intimidating price tag for a business trying to save money.

So where does that leave you? Well, these days, the name of the game for many people is Making Personal Connections. The idea is, you may not be able to get your message out to every person on the planet all at once, but if you can reach a small group, and make them really feel connected to you and your business, then they may help you spread your customer base for you. You may not bring in the massive numbers of a big-budget campaign, but the people you do reach may be much more likely to become your customers.

You first step, always, should be to make a plan. You need to look at your business  – figure out who your customers are (and who your best customers are), who your competitors are, and what your message is. Then you need to know what your marketing budget is. We’ve spoken to companies that feel like they just have no budget at all, but you always have something to invest in growth, whether it’s $50 a month or $5000. Know what it is, and plan around it.

One good area is through Social Media – focus on a few social media networks that seem to work for your business, and then spend some time each day making posts, commenting on other people’s posts, and growing your social network. It doesn’t cost anything more than an investment of time, and a commitment to sticking with it.

You can start a blog for your business – it’s a great way to connect with people on subjects connected to your business and show off your expertise. But make sure you have the time and the energy to stick with it – if you’re not updating at least once a week, you may be wasting your time. If you do update consistently, take advantage of your other social networks bring people to the articles you’ve written. And be sure not to make each post a sales pitch.  Focus on real content that would interest your market.

You can also take your marketing offline, and seek out meetup events and networking groups wherever you live. A face-to-face meeting can be far more powerful and memorable than any online connection, and you never know what may result from meeting someone. Even people who will never become your customers may have other ways of helping your business grow.

And once you have a growing contact list, make sure you stay in touch! Don’t waste your efforts by dropping the ball. Make sure you stay in touch with your list with a good, regular email campaign, and take the time to respond more personally to people you’ve connected with. Keep your word-of-mouth marketing in mind, and encourage people on your list to reach out to people they know who might be interested in your business.

Above all, keep in mind that you will need to stick with your marketing plan for a while in order to get the results you want – you’re not going to see any quick fixes. It’s easy to get discouraged after only a few weeks and give up on your efforts, or try a different direction altogether. But if you stick with your strategy and mark your progress as you go, you should see a steadily growing base of followers.

Of course we think you may want to work with us on your internet marketing but you may also want to take a look at this recent newsletter from sitepoint, with some similar advice on the subject of “skinny” marketing.

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2. Social Network Marketing Spending to Increase in 2009
3. The Theory of Social Media Marketing Evolution

Everyone has their own way of using the site to his or her advantage, but Walker’s list of power tools is great for anyone using LinkedIn to cultivate new business, network or keep up with existing contacts – and the competition.

Take a look at this comprehensive rundown of what you may or may not be doing to make the most of your presence on the professional networking scene.

Once you’ve studied it – and thought of ways to integrate the techniques into your own marketing strategy – feel free to read some of the LinkedIn success stories Walker has uncovered.

Just think … with the proper attention to detail, someday soon a similar story could be yours!

LinkedIn Events
This feature is very simple. You can submit your event allowing you to promote it to other LinkedIn users both within and outside your network. You can also go here to find events you might be interested in attending. Both live and virtual events can be included.

• “Events Home” displays a list of the events related to your connections (created by, attending or interested in).
• “Find Events” allows you to search for events you may be interested in attending.
• “My Events” are events you have created that are upcoming or past.
• “Add an Event” is where you, well, add an event. Once you publish the event, your connections will automatically receive an update. You can also share it with up to 50 specific contacts at a time via LinkedIn mail, and you can pay to advertise the event to people outside your network.

Blog Link or WordPress
If you write a blog (a professional one of course), have the blog content automatically “sucked in” by one of these 3rd party applications so that your most recent posts are actually displayed and promoted in your profile.

SlideShare or Google Presentation
Have a smashing presentation you did in PowerPoint? You can use this 3rd party application to post your presentations publicly on LinkedIn to help you build credibility and clarify your areas of expertise.

LinkedIn Groups & Discussions
This is one of LinkedIn’s most useful features (and I would hazard a guess that it’s the most used too). Individual LinkedIn members start groups where other members have discussions, share news and post jobs. The wonderful thing about these groups is they are basically segmented mini-markets ready and waiting for you to tap into. As of this posting, there are more than 357,000 groups on LinkedIn ranging in size from 0 to more than 100,000 members. Approximately 5,000 new groups are created each week. Some groups have a spam problem but often there are worthwhile discussions to be had and news to read. Groups are also a great place build visibility among people who are interested in your area of business (we’ll dive into this more next week!). Be careful though – the line between “sharing information” in the form of links to your site or blog and spam can be very faint.

LinkedIn Searches (within your network and outside it)
Many people use LinkedIn as a simple contact management database. Having a lot of people in that database can provide you access to any company, person or network with whom you want to connect.

In fact especially if you don’t know who to reach out to for a particular question, need or opportunity, a quick keyword search on LinkedIn can tell you who you already know that meets your criteria, and can also find people you don’t know but should – and that’s where the magic begins!

Network Updates
These updates are useful obviously to keep up with what people are doing, but also as an excuse to reach out to someone and reconnect, and as a means of finding people you might want to know. You receive a list of updates both via email and at the bottom of your profile letting you know of the changes people have made to their profiles. Did they change their headline? Change their current job? Are they connected with 5 new people some of whom you might know?

LinkedIn Browser Toolbar
This application installs a thumbnail into your browser bar. The application simply opens different pages on LinkedIn to save you the time of typing them in. http://www.linkedin.com/static?key=browser_toolbar_download

LinkedIn Q&A
This is a tool that many LinkedIn users swear by. This tool can provide a great deal of exposure. When you answer a question, and your answer is rated “best answer” it will also appear in your profile which not only adds to the good will surrounding you but help you build credibility as an expert in your field. Beware however – this can be very time consuming.

Send Mass Emails
LinkedIn does limit your ability to do this outside of groups, typically you can email up to 50 people on your list at a time. But it can be a great way to get the word out. Note that when you post a “question” in Q & A, you can send the question to up to 200 of your connections in addition to making the question public.

Job Postings
For $195 for a 30-day posting, you can use LinkedIn to post jobs to a wider network of people or you can post jobs for free through groups that you’re a member of if the group owner has turned on the “Jobs” feature. Note that job descriptions are limited to about 3,900 characters.

Tagging
I included tagging in the last article on How to Set up your LinkedIn Profile but it really belongs here in the list of tools. It is a great tool for organizing your contacts into groups that are personally meaningful. Right now the tool is in Beta so it may not be visible yet to everyone. But when it becomes available I would definitely suggest checking it out.

Here’s another post from Maisha Walker that details the success stories of LinkedIn users who are using the site to its full potential. Your homework after reading this is to think of ways that you can improve your own presence.

Which of the tools listed above are you using now – and which will you start using? Let us know.

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Of course, we don’t make that data up. No, we use sources such as eMarketer, MarketingProfs and other research entities that compile information that allow us to draw conclusions and provide our two cents on various topics on advertising and marketing across channels but especially online.

Unless you’re a subscriber to these services, however, you may not have access to all the information they hold. Information that can help you when planning your own marketing campaigns or campaigns for clients.

A great resource that we’ve found – which is available to everyone – is MarketingCharts, charts and data for marketers in Web and Excel formats.

The available info is as current as you can get, with some charts revealing the top 10 Web sites in various categories for September 2009, among many other interesting articles such as “Men More Likely to Ditch Traditional Media for Digital.”

More on that later. But for now, check out MarketingCharts and find a way to make it work for you.

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Many recipients either unsubscribe or simply stop reading emails from online marketers. Year-after-year, in-box clutter has been the number one reason people resist emails, but this year, things have been turned on their head. A 2008 study from Marketingsherpa’s email summit in Miami has determined that in-box clutter is not the biggest problem – the problem is relevance.

58% of those surveyed said the number one reason they opted out of or unsubscribed from an email was because the email was not relevant to them; 44% said it was because they received too many emails from a particular sender; and only 31% said it was because of in-box clutter.

Good News For Email Marketers

It is good news that relevance is the reason people are opting out of emails, because unlike in-box clutter, this is something we as email marketers can control. It is more important than ever for your campaigns’ to immediately strike a chord with your customers. Marketers need to identify the absolute best products/offers they can send out. Copy and design need to work seamlessly together from subject headline to layout to entice customers to open.

The chart plays an optimistic beat for online marketing – it asserts that you are in control of the effectiveness your emails have on your customers. There will always be recipients who opt out, but good online marketing practices can limit and decrease these numbers.

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In an attempt to narrow the focus of an e-book he’s preparing, Redlich asked members of the professional networking site to answer the question “What Are Your Biggest Questions On Internet Marketing?” They had five categories from which to choose:

-Hypnotic Copywriting
-The All Mighty Salesletter
-Magnetic Marketing Strategies
-Organic SEO For Top Results
-I Want it ALL!

Not surprisingly, of the 182 people who participated in the poll (the number of respondents just before this post was published), 35% said they ‘Want it ALL,’ with another 25% preferring ‘Magnetic Marketing Strategies.’ The other half chose more specific interests as you’ll see on the graph after the jump.

Dig a little deeper than the overall results and you’ll find clear distinctions in priorities across demographics that were separated by job title, company size, job function, gender and age.

For instance, pros who hold C-Level, VP and management titles couldn’t care less about hypnotic copy – or so this study suggests.

Perhaps even more alarming, not one 18- to 24-year-olds who responded (they make up 8% of the total respondents) think they need info specifically related to marketing strategies OR sales-letter techniques. Yowsa!

The redeeming quality of this portion of the poll, however, is that 50% of 18- to 24-year-olds said they ‘Want it All.’ You can wipe the sweat off your brow now.

As for the rest of the poll and the various degrees of data it contains, go ahead and compare it for yourself. Heck, why not add your two-cents to it. We’re certain Carlos Redlich and his e-book will be better for it.

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Maes introduced a yet-unnamed product that, since its demo last week, has created a lot of buzz in the tech world for its far-reaching capabilities.

This wearable device, which Maes refers to as a “sixth sense,” contains a projector that paves the way for profound interaction with our environment. When we saw it, we immediately thought “Minority Report.” You remember the futuristic Tom Cruise/Colin Farrell sci-fi thriller where they never touched the computer, but rather manipulated the screens by simply moving their fingers in the air. Well, it’s here – and it’s beyond exciting!

(We can’t even do this invention justice in our description of it, so be sure to watch the video after the jump.)

[ted id="481"]

Most of the credit for the “sixth sense” device goes to its inventor, Pranav Minstry, one of Maes’ students. The product obviously has a long way to go – at current, its design (not to be confused with its technology) is primitive. Maes said she hopes the package will be fully developed and ready for consumers in the next 10 years, but we hope it doesn’t take that long. Much like the iPhone, we think this device will change the way we capture and retain information across multiple platforms. And by “change,” we mean completely revolutionize.

Speaking of the iPhone, Steve Jobs is rumored to be unveiling the 3.0 version at today’s Worldwide Developers’ Conference. We wonder what he thinks of the “sixth sense,” which, frankly, makes the iPhone look like a rotary dial. Props to Maes for planning the demo just days before Apple pats itself on the back for another edition of its best-selling mobile device. At least the lady knows how to steal a little bit of thunder.

We wonder if she’s figured out how to swipe a slice of marketshare too.

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Over the past year we’ve made several changes to the GolfEtail e-commerce Web site, including the addition of rotating Flash banner ads; the launch of a blog that features golf player and product news; and the introduction of The DealTeam, animated characters designed to facilitate a sense of community among GolfEtail users.

The users have responded well to the changes as the site has experienced an uptick in traffic since the implementation of these components. Organic visits to the site have increased nearly 170%. Sixty-five percent of those visitors were new, and they account for nearly 60% of the transactions conducted on the site. Keywords have played an important role in new traffic as well, with more than 19,000 keywords driving search traffic up 330%. Almost 85% of keyword traffic was new.

What this means for the online golf apparel retailer is that Web 2.0 practices are working the brand, drawing traffic primarily using search engine optimization. SEO – through Web copy, the blog, and customer reviews – have introduced GolfEtail to a new customer base flocking to the Internet looking for the best deals on quality golf equipment.

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