Archives for February 2011

Social Media Mistake – Not starting with a plan

February 26, 2011 by Doug Mcisaac

The most common social media mistake I see my clients making is starting their social media without a plan. Their are several scenarios that happen.

You hear someone talking about how much success they've had with social media so you jump in and set up a Facebook profile.
Your boss comes in and says, "We need to get on that FaceTube or YouBook thing, and you need to take care of it."
You realize that your old advertising methods aren't working and you need something new so you give it a shot.

In most of the scenarios above you end up failing. Why do you fail? Primarily you fail because you don't start with the right questions:

What are my goals for social media?
Who is my customer?
Where is my customer active in social media?
What information does my customer want to know?

The thing to remember about social media marketing is that it cuts both ways. It's better to not be involved than to do it poorly.

Let's dig into these questions

What are my goals for social media?

There are several metrics that you can track:

Engagement:

# of new people on your email list
# of fans/followers
# of comments / likes / share of your content

Revenue

# of online sales if you have an online store
# of new customers coming into your store

Who is my customer?

I'm always surprised when I ask prospective clients who their customer is and they say everyone. It's not everyone, you might take everyone's money, but that doesn't mean you should be working with everyone or that everyone will buy your product or service. Build a profile of your best customer: age, sex, likes, occupation etc.

Where is my customer active on social media?

There are several ways to find this out:

Ask them – this is the one that most of my online peers miss. Ask them in your store, ask them when you're meeting with them, email them if you have a list, but ask them.
On Facebook –
- Go to advertising
- Start an ad
- Adjust the demographics to fit your demographics
- Ask yourself if that's enough people

What does my customer want to know?

This will depend on your business. Bars need to let people know what specials, events and music they have coming up. Clothing stores should share sales, dressing tips, Real Estate agents can share tips for lowering your mortgage rate etc… You can also do some of the following to find out what they are interested in.

Ask them…
Search.Twitter.com – search based on your business type and keyword phrases
Do a Google search with the keyword phrases for your business – look for social media sites that could be a good fit
- "Keyword phrase" blog
- "Keyword phrase" forum
- "keyword phrase" in video
- "keyword phrase" in News

Feel free to ask any questions about planning in the comments below.

Never Lose sight of your dreams

February 24, 2011 by Doug Mcisaac

This is a little different from what I normally write and is much more about me and mindset then strictly about business. We’ll be back to our irregularly scheduled business and online marketing posts soon, but for today join me as I explore my goals from 20 years ago and how they relate to where I am today.

I have a game or ritual I’ve done for years. I walk up to one of my book shelves and I take down whichever book catches my eye first. I open it up to a page and sit down and start reading. Then most importantly I try to apply what I’m reading to a situation that I’m currently going through.

This morning I grabbed Awaken the Giant Within by Tony Robbins. I opened it up and the first sentence I noticed was one that I wrote in the book in 1991, when I was 23 years old. It said “Never lose sight of your dreams.” I asked myself had I lost sight of my dreams? The short answer is “maybe” the longer answer is much more complicated and I like to say my goals have evolved.

Ask yourself that question today and take the time to answer it honestly. Most of us have lost sight of our dreams or at the very least they’ve been subjugated or set aside.

After thinking about that and journaling for a while I decided to track down my goals list from 1991 and I found it. I am blessed that I have journaled in my life. I wish I had done it more regularly throughout my life, but I’ve had several periods over the last 20 years that I’ve spent time journaling and am am able to go back and read about myself from those periods.

My goals / dreams in 1991 were the following:

Build a multi-million dollar business and become a millionaire in my thirties.
Get paid to speak in front of 3,000 people
Compete in a national martial arts tournament – I didn’t really care if I won, but I wanted to be a legitimate threat to anyone I fought.
Build muscle to reach 175 pounds
I wanted to help others achieve their dreams

Let’s see how I did since then:

Goal # 1 Build a multi-million dollar business and be a millionaire in my 30s.

I did that with RMTG, Inc. We had 30 employees and did just short of $5 million a year for 5 years. Then I “retired” selling my shares back to the company with a 10 year, six figure a year payment package in 2005. RMTG ultimately went out of business and my payments stopped at 10 months instead of 10 years. This on top of a number of other things caused me to ultimately lose everything which could be another series of blog posts.

I joke that I should have been more specific with my goal because I was a millionaire in my 30s and lost everything before my 40s. I’m back on track to building a multi-million dollar business again and will easily do six figures in 2011.

Goal #2 Get paid to speak in front of a group of 3,000 people

When I was 23 I was speaking quite a bit, mostly presenting the Shaklee opportunity, but also talking about NLP and mindset. My regular speaking was MC’ing a monthly Phoenix- wide Shaklee seminar that had 100-150 people and the largest group I presented to a group of just shy of 300 where I was able to share the stage with Robert Cialidini, the author of Influence, one of the seminal works for people interested in persuasion. I ended up moving back to Billings from Phoenix in 2002 and pretty much set speaking aside until a couple of years ago.

In the last three years I’ve presented both paid and for free to groups across the US from as small as 10 people to almost 200. This year my goal is to get paid to speak at least once a month. I have three, possibly four speaking gigs lined up for March and am starting to plan April and May. The 3,000 is a very specific number and will take a while, but I will hit it. If you know a group that might be a fit feel free to contact me.

Goal #3 Compete in a National Martial arts tournament.

I was doing Kenpo karate point sparing tournaments back then and that’s really what I meant. I didn’t check a leg shot properly and tore my MCL and quit competing. Since then I’ve done Olympic fencing and fought in local club tournaments reaching the semi-finals a couple of times with foil. But my best chance at this is SCA heavy fighting. I’ve won 2 of the last 4 tournaments that I’ve been in and feel that even at the ripe old age of 43 I have a chance at increasing my skills enough to be a legitimate competitor in any tournament that I enter. Not quite there, but certainly on the path.

Goal #4 Build muscle and reach 175 pounds

I was pretty skinny back then and was working out an hour or two every day while trying to improve my fighting skills. I was about 165 pounds and one of the issues I had was not enough muscle and/or power. Because of that my goal was to build more muscle. Part of my reasoning was vain as well. What 23 year old doesn’t want to have big shoulders and bulging biceps.

Today, I chuckle at this one. Let’s just say I will never be “only” 175 pounds again unless I lose a limb. I soared past that in my early thirties. My goal today is to get back down to 205.

Goal #5 Help others achieve their dreams

What I meant when I wrote that was help people grow their Shaklee businesses. I quit doing Shaklee and personally feel that the old school MLM model is broken. I still use the products because I do believe in them. Which could just be a case of “drinking the Koolaid” but I find my body likes their protein better than any of the others I’ve tried over the years.

What it could mean today. I love working with business owners helping them grow their businesses. Almost everything I do is focused on helping people make more money. Local businesses don’t understand online marketing and most of the people who are trying to sell them services are simply fleecing them or have no clue what they are doing.

I also dabble in information marketing and have built and sold several courses and coached other online business owners over the years. The courses range from my work with Social Traffic and my product Local Social Profits. Both of which were focused on showing people how to be a local social media consultant helping businesses leverage the power of social media marketing for their businesses. I’m toying with re-launching that again, but their are so many of the “get rich quick” types peddling “get rich” selling offline consulting that it has poisoned the well a bit for me personally. I’ve been doing online marketing consulting for almost 5 years now and get a little disgusted with what I see being sold.

The exercise:

Track down an old goals list. This is best if the list is at least a decade old.
Review your goals.
Write down what you meant on each goal that you set.
Write down how you’ve done on that goal
Write down where you are today.
Once you’ve done that ask yourself, “Am I following my dreams?”
Journal your answers
Come back here and share what you learned

I hope this post was as interesting for you as it was for me. I rarely share about myself and posted on Facebook that this post was coming yesterday because if I hadn’t I probably never would have hit publish.

Racing to the bottom is not a marketing strategy

February 4, 2011 by Doug Mcisaac

It happened again this morning. I received an email from someone I consider to be a smart marketer and who has a depth of knowledge that I respect. She was offering new pricing for her services that are a deep discount on her past prices. Why is this pertinent to the post title? It's because I've seen her drop her prices several times in the last year and it appears that she has made a rookie marketing strategy mistake of discounting her services.

Why isn't discounting a good strategy?

History is littered with corpses of once great companies that tried to race to the lowest price. When is the last time you shopped at a Kmart? Do you even remember Woolworth's or Kreskes. Walmart, as big as it is is even beginning to show some kinks in it's armor.

It also sounds like shes desperate. Do you want to do business with someone who's desperate? I know I don't for a number of reasons. First how did they become desperate? Do they suck? If you're going to offer a discount you need to tell me why you're desperate for the cash. Second desperate people tend to get themselves in over their heads and end up never delivering. I've seen it many times.

You don't want discount customers

The other problem with discounting is the type of customers it attracts. Spend an hour on a Saturday at WalMart, is that who you want as your customer? Discount customers are discount customers because they can't afford better or they don't value you and your services enough to pay what they are worth. Not only will you be stuck with these customers, but you will find that they tend to be the most difficult and demanding customers as well.

What about the customers that paid full price?

Have you ever bought something and then saw it in another store for less or an ad where it was discounted? How did you feel? Do you want your customers feeling like that? Dropping your prices can cause a negative backlash from your current customers.

But sales are good aren't they?

Occasional sales are great, but they need to have a reason and a limit on them. If she had said I just had a big project reschedule and I have time to take on 5 more clients this week at a discounted rate. That would have been fine, it still maintains her value, gives a good reason why and gets her the cash infusion she needs.

The key in any business, but even more so as a consultant is that we need to value our time first before we can expect anyone else to value it. I'll do a follow up post explaining some of the things that I have done to maintain my value.

Are you Frustrated with Your Social Media Marketing?

February 3, 2011 by Doug Mcisaac

“Frustration” – a word frequently used to describe companies new to social media and those who have been involved in social media but have yet to enjoy a return.

The problem is two-fold. First, establishing a social media presence takes time and continued effort. You have to be consistent in your involvement with the social media medium and remember that returns will not be overnight. Second, you have to make sure that you are using social media in a way that makes sense for your business.

If you are not sure, ask yourself these simple questions:

Are you using the right platform?

First, remember that there are a variety of social media platforms for you to consider – most notably Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Further, within these platforms, there exist variations on the theme. For example, in Facebook, you can have a “Page,” a “Group,” or a “Community.” Each variation has its own set of tools, purposes, and capabilities. In addition, you may decide to participate in several social media platforms at the same time.

For example, if you have a fitness center or weight loss product , you may want to use your YouTube channel to publish videos on how to perform certain exercises or tapings of classes you offer there while using Facebook to build a sense of community through candid photos, listings of hours, available classes, and upcoming events.

Have you scrapped past attempts?

However, you also need to remember that whatever you take on has to be maintained and updated regularly. This can take up valuable time and people resources. While it can certainly be worth it in the long run, remember that consistency is key. If you do not think you will be able to maintain various platforms (or you have already started and stopped using a platform) be sure to erase or delete those accounts. Otherwise, you stand the risk of eroding your brand value when a customer (current or potential) stumbles across your forgotten Bebo account. Instead, make sure that what you have is the best it can be and do away with anything that you are not actively using.

Are you providing the type of information and interaction that your audience wants?

Ask yourself what it is that your audience would want to read, not what you want to tell them. Providing discounts or having giveaways can be useful, but you have to have more substance than that. Consider posting facts about your company, the brand, or its products. Think of the tidbits of information you encounter everyday that make you stop and say, “Really?” Examples include fun facts about how long you have been in business, what happens “behind the scenes”, why your business operates as it does (e.g. why Yoga class was cancelled on Tuesdays, why you do not serve poppyseed bagels, why you buy local, why legal documents are presented in blue card stock), etc.

Are you listening to your audience?

Likewise, are you listening to your audience? When they make a post, do you respond? Do you stay on top of when your company is mentioned on other sites, blogs, social media, etc., and make relevant comments to that affect (on that site and yours)? Remember that social media has developed because of the continued interaction it affords. Its purpose is not to simply broadcast, but rather give people a voice in things they would otherwise not be privy to.

Do you allow them a voice?

Similarly, make sure that you give your audience a voice. Ask open-ended questions, run surveys and polls, include them in new product decisions, etc. – the more things like this you do, the more valued your audience will feel. Remember that interaction is a large part of a successful social media campaign. If miss out on this, you may already be out of the game.

Social Media can be a key part of growing your business and brand to attract local consumers.

Local Internet Marketing isn’t just about having a website, it includes being findable in multiple places when local consumers are looking for your product or service. A Local Internet Marketing Consultant can help you determine the best route for your online marketing plan.