5 Reasons You Should Always Follow Up On Your Pitches

Editor's Note: The following is a guest Marketing Mulligans post written by Mickie Kennedy, founder and president of eReleases, a cost-effective electronic press release distribution service, and a widely-regarded and well-respected PR professional who maintains the company's popular PR Fuel blog. Kennedy echoes a universal media relations truth we've been espousing for years:  if you want media coverage from your pitches and announcements, you absolutely need to follow up with the journalists you're targeting. Here's why.

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Some media members have PR people believing they live by the motto:  “Don’t call us, we’ll call you.” That’s why you might think that when you don’t get a response on that press release you sent out it must mean that no one is interested. Maybe that is the case, but maybe it’s not. The only way to know for sure is to follow up on your pitches.

Here are 5 reasons why you should always follow up:

1. Journalists Often Have Too Many Pitches To Go Through

Things slip through the cracks. That’s just how it is. Journalists are busy, and they receive countless pitches every single day. The pitches and press releases never stop pouring in, and to the busy journalist, they all start to look the same. Simply put, they can’t manage all of the information they receive on a daily basis. A simple follow-up call directing attention to the information you sent over can help ensure your pitch doesn’t go unnoticed.

2. A Story Published Without A Conversation Could Be Inaccurate

Has this ever happened to you? You send over a press release, and without any follow-up conversation with the reporter, you find your story has been picked up. But because there wasn’t a conversation, the story contains some significant inaccuracies. It happens more often than you might think. A simple follow-up call can help prevent this from happening.

3. Persistence Can Pay Off
There’s certainly truth to the old saying, “The sticky wheel gets the grease.” Persistence is important to achieving PR success, but you should also know there’s a very thin line between being persistent and being a pest. Don’t immediately call after sending an email; give it a few days. If the reporter sounds busy, don’t keep talking their ear off. If the reporter says no, don’t keep pushing.

4. There’s Something To Be Said For The Personal Touch

Picking up the phone helps you form relationships with journalists. It makes your pitch more personal, helping you stand out from the plenitude of emails crowding the reporter’s inbox.

5. A Follow-Up Call Can Explain The Benefits Of Picking Up Your Story

When you follow up on your pitch, it gives you the perfect opportunity to explain how the story you’re pitching is the perfect fit for the publication you’re targeting and its readers. You can quickly explain why your idea is so unique, and you can talk about the information in a way that shows how it can be readily used by reporter.

© Copyright 1998-2012 eReleases® Press Release Distribution. All Rights Reserved.

The Name Game: How To Make A Name For Yourself Online

Editor's Note: The following is a guest Marketing Mulligans post written by Mickie Kennedy, founder and president of eReleases, a cost-effective electronic press release distribution service, and a widely-regarded and well-respected PR professional who maintains the company's popular PR Fuel blog. Thankfully, in the digital age, it’s possible and quite easy to make a name for yourself and your business through advances in social media and public relations. Here's how.

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In this day and age of instant communication, you think it would be much simpler to get the word about your business to interested parties. But often the opposite is true, and it’s a generally long and detailed process to make people understand how awesome you are.

Why is that? During the early stages of the Internet, when information wasn’t so readily accessible and the population online was much lower, it was easier to make a name for yourself. But the ease of use and accessibility of the Internet has made it so more and more folks log-on each day. This includes tons of businesses and interesting personalities, all of which are vying for a spot onstage.

Luckily, even with all of these competitors, it’s possible to make a name for yourself and your business. Advances in social media and public relations give you an edge every single day to make a difference… you just have to know how to use them!

1. First Steps

One of the earliest steps you must take when making a name for yourself is to decide on what your “brand” is. Your brand is anything that separates you from everyone else – something that is instantly recognizably “you.”

Companies like Coca-Cola and Nike have gone to great lengths to design and nurture their brand. When you see that check/slash symbol, you know you’re looking at something Nike has made. And Coke’s red and white designs instantly make you thirsty.

Your company needs something like this to visually separate you from the thousands upon thousands of other companies out there. When customers and the general public see your brand, they should instantly recognize it as your business. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a logo, either; it could be your shining face if you’re willing to put yourself out there.

2. Making A Name

Now that you’ve successfully designed a brand for your business, it’s time to spread it around the world! There are countless avenues for you to try your hand at marketing and PR, including social media sites like Twitter, sending out press releases, and even new tech like QR codes.

But for the most bang for your buck, I would suggest utilizing social media to its full potential. Nowhere else can you reach potentially millions of users with such little effort. Plus, if your business or product is extremely niche, you’re job might be even easier because you’re likely to find communities of people specifically interested in what you’re selling.

One rule to remember when making a name for your business: go where the customers are! If you’re spending all your time on Facebook, but all your customers hang out in communities elsewhere, you’ll still end up with an “Out of Business” sign on your door. Always remember to seek out who you want to market to and you’ll never have a problem with making a name for yourself again!

How have you made your brand stand out from the rest?

© Copyright 1998-2012 eReleases® Press Release Distribution. All Rights Reserved.

Pin This!: 7 Pinterest Marketing Tips For Small and Mid-Sized Businesses

Editor's Note: The following is a guest Marketing Mulligans post, written by Ekaterina Walter, social media strategist at Intel Corp., and first appearing in this post on American Express OPEN Forum. Pinterest has taken the social media world by storm in recent months, and businesses of all sizes and in all industries are trying to  figure out how to make the online bulletin board work for them. In this informative article, Walter offers seven very useful tips, particularly for business-to-consumer companies, on how Pinterest can be fully leveraged for marketing purposes. 
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The image-sharing site Pinterest has been constantly in the news for the last few months. At first glance, the site seems to be nothing more than a place to share photos of shoes, recipes and crafting ideas arranged on aesthetically-pleasing pinboards, but according to a study by Shareaholic, the site now drives more referral traffic than Google Plus, YouTube and LinkedIn combined. So how do you make that leap from putting together whimsical boards on your profile to generating website traffic?

1. Show Your Personality, Tastes, Interests, Or Values

Your Pinterest profile shouldn’t be a copy of your website: it can be used to show a more fun side to your business. As well as showcasing your own work, you can use it to show more wide-ranging interests, such as a commitment to environmental issues, pictures of the place you live, local events you support, or your staff’s pick of movies, books or music. As well as having a Pinboard of their own products, Victory Jewelry also show boards of spiritual inspiration, Harry Potter and LEGO creations. This helps to make their brand stand out by helping to project some real personality.

2. Mark Your Content

If you are an artist, photographer or designer, you may wish to watermark your website images. Although Pinterest recommend only using images directly from websites rather than from image searches, making sure your images can be attributed to you not only helps to prevent potential copyright issues, but means that if images are used indirectly on Pinterest, you know that they can be traced back to your website if someone is interested in your services. This photograph by Gallery by Laura has been marked so that it can always be traced back to her studio website.

3. Give Tutorials

You can go beyond product images to get your message out there: YouTube videos can be pinned to boards in the same way as any other thumbnail so you can show off your expertise with ‘How To’ videos for aspects of your business. You can have a mix of learning techniques on a Pinboard, such as videos, infographics and storyboard images, like this board from Hero Arts. The content can then be shared both within Pinterest, or onto other networks.

4. Show Behind The Scenes

You might be concerned if your business is service-based, rather than product-based, that you won’t be able to use it to drive sales. But you can use Pinterest to show behind the scenes at your company, with boards about your staff, local environment and industry, or other ways of using interesting images to help people find out about what you offer. Rocket Clicks is a service based company, but they still provide plenty of interest on their profile by showing photos of their staff, their inspirations and industry infographics.

5. Go Beyond Your Website

Make use of what is possible with the Pinboard format by putting together ‘looks’, lifestyle ideas, or show your products in real environments to show how they can work. These inspirational boards from Bandhini Design show how their products can contribute to lifestyle aspirations.

6. Make Sure Your Products Appear In The Gift Section

Pinterest has a dedicated gift section, searchable by price range. If you have an e-commerce site make sure you tag your images by price when you upload them, that way they will automatically appear on the Gift Page. As with this image from Econica Fashion, Pinterest will add a price tag on the corner of your image and copy it into the sales section.

7. Help Others Find Your Content

Remember to make your content easy to find by using #tags in your descriptions, as well as labeling your Pins and Boards with obvious titles. Users can search by Pins, Boards and People, so make sure your company name reflects what you do, for example including the word ‘Design’ or ‘Kitchens’ after your name. You can also have a company website link for when people click on your profile image. These Boards by Ben Tyler Building and Remodeling are all logically labeled to help users find their images.

Like all social media networks, Pinterest is about community, and the same rules apply as on any other network. Share others’ content, don’t be too ‘salesy’, ‘like’ and comment on images shared by others, and engage in the conversation. Above all, pay attention to Pinterest’s own Etiquette Guidelines if you’re not sure how to get started.

© Copyright 2012 American Express Company. All Rights Reserved.

Six Ways To Get The Most Out Of Client Satisfaction Surveys

Editor's Note:  The following is a guest Marketing Mulligans post written by Caty Germon, managing director of  PUBLICeye, a leading online survey technology company headquartered in the United Kingdom and with offices around the world. This article, which originally appeared on Ragan's PR Daily, discusses how businesses can poll their clients to improve operations, relationships, and most importantly, the bottom line. You can follow PUBLICeye on Twitter at @mypubliceye.

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A client satisfaction survey can help you find out, but it’s not something that you can rush. Get the survey right, and you will gain insights to help you expand your business; get it wrong, and you will, at best, be completely ignored or, at worst, annoy your clients and seriously damage the reputation of your brand and business.

The stakes are high, but the rewards can be great. With that mind, here are six simple steps for getting the most out of your client satisfaction survey.

1. Identify Your Objectives

Before you start, it’s important to understand what you want to get out of your survey. In which areas are you specifically looking for feedback? What information is really going to help you compete in your marketplace? How will this help your business?

Having a clear set of objectives enables you to understand the questions you need to ask as opposed to what you’d like to know. It will also help avoid “death by data” when you start poring over the results.

2. Avoid Leading Questions...

This is crucial. Although asking leading questions can be tempting—everyone wants to hear great things about their business—it will waste your time, because you won’t glean any useful insights. Worse, you’ll waste your clients’ time. Your survey needs to come from a neutral space and allow respondents to form their own opinions.

3. ...And Don't Try to Get Away with Leading Answers, Either

Make sure that wherever your answers are on a scale that they’re evenly weighted, rather than presenting more positive options than negative, or vice versa. There should also be a midpoint so users can answer “neither agree nor disagree” or “no opinion either way.”

When you have a list of answers, watch the order in which you give each answer. If the top answers in the list are always the ones how you’d like people to choose, you’ll end up with skewed — and useless — results. Avoid this fate by choosing a survey platform that can make the answers random.

4. Write in the Tone and Language of Your Audience 

We all know what’s like: You start a survey that asks long-winded questions full of business-speak, and your brain feels like it’s wading through mud. Nobody wants that. Make sure you set your tone and language to the audience that will receive the survey. Remember that they’re giving up their time to help you; the survey should be as pleasant an experience as possible.

5. Don’t Forget the Branding

So many companies send surveys without giving even a fleeting thought to how it looks and how it fits with their branding. This is a big mistake. Your surveys should be given the same attention in terms of design and branding as any other element of marketing. If you don’t, it could damage people’s perception of your brand.

6. Before You Go Live, Make Sure You Test, Test, and Test Again

Imagine this scenario: You’ve got your captive audience; they’re halfway through the survey, and then the page jams, or a question has no responses, or the logic doesn’t work, and they can’t proceed. A survey that doesn’t work, for whatever reason, can destroy all the hard work you’ve put into it; that’s why it is crucial to test with a selected group of people.

Also, when you receive your test results, run reports and analyze them as if they were the real thing. This way you can see whether the questions you asked give you exactly the kind of information you need. Plus, you can make any necessary adjustments before going live.

© Copyright 2012 Ragan Communications, Inc.

The Art Of The Twinterview: How To Conduct An Interview On Twitter

Editor's Note: The following is a guest Marketing Mulligans post written by Devon Glenn, staff writer at MediaBistro's SocialTimes, part of the WebMediaBrands network of informative online publications and blogs about the global media sector.  In this informative how-to guide, Glenn describes best practices for conducting interesting interviews with subjects in real time via Twitter, a useful tactic growing in popularity as the micro-blogging service continues to rapidly expand worldwide. As times goes on, Marketing Mulligans will feature more how-to posts like this to supplement its other commentary on all things marketing.

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I thought I had Twitter all figured out. Then I decided to use the micro-blogging site to conduct a real-time Q&A with an author while unsuspecting followers watched. How clever, I told myself. How madcap! How wrong I was. But here, tweeters, is how to do it right:

1. Think Days, Not Minutes

My first twinterview was with Twitchhiker Paul Smith, a writer who had hitchhiked his way from the UK to New Zealand solely on the generosity of strangers on Twitter who offered him transportation and places to crash.

I checked the time zones and set an appointment for the interview, which I had expected to last about 20 minutes. Four hours later, I was still in my chair, still typing, and about to pass out from hunger. I had also incorrectly posted the name of an award he had won for his tweeting achievements. Luckily, Mr. Smith had other things to do that day and signed off with an encouraging “well done!”, or something to that effect, in my message box.

It takes a lot of concentration to both write and respond to an interview question in 140 characters or less. The best strategy is to send all the questions in a private message to be answered all at once. If the answers come back sounding canned, as emailed interviews often do, let interviewees know that you might have some follow-up questions and give them a week or so to respond at their leisure.

A Twitter interview seems like it would be over in the blink of an eye, but in reality it’s more like a game of Words With Friends: you play your letters and wait for the response, which could come back hours or even days later. It’s not frustrating because it’s not urgent and you probably have multiple games going on. It’s the kind of social situation that only exists online.

2. Interview People Who Are Comfortable Using Twitter

William Shakespeare once tweeted (in his own pre-technology way), “brevity is the soul of wit.” Not everybody is as pithy as the Bard, but for those personalities that thrive on Twitter, a twinterview is a great way to churn out a punchy interview that readers can scroll through quickly.

This twinterview by Josh Dobbin with @DrunkHulk was brilliantly executed because the character, who is the alter-ego of writer Christian Dumais, was in his element (and also drunk).

@joshdobbin You fire off angry, pronoun-less tweets filled with rage and confusion. Have you considered a career in politics? 

@DRUNKHULK DRUNK HULK CONSIDER POLITIC! BUT THEN REMEMBER DRUNK HULK GOT SELF RESPECT! AND MORE IMPORTANT! DRUNK HULK ALWAY FINISH WHAT

Not everyone will show such mastery of the character limit.

3. Take A Screen Capture, Or Not

Sometimes it’s fun to see the pictures as they appear on your Twitter account:

But this is time-consuming and can look a little messy. You can also wrangle the text into a more traditional Q&A format, with the questions in bold font, like this:

mbstartups @twitchiker: Why Twitter rather than FB?

twitchhiker @mbstartups: Facebook is a closed circle, and doesn’t feel as dynamic as Twitter in terms of delivering (or reacting) to real-time events.

Or, save the bold font for the Twitter handles, like this:

mbstartups @twitchiker: Why Twitter rather than FB?

twitchhiker @mbstartups: Facebook is a closed circle, and doesn’t feel as dynamic as Twitter in terms of delivering (or reacting) to real-time events.

4. Don’t Be Afraid To Ask Big Questions

Just because the answers are brief, doesn’t mean your questions have to be limited to fact-based or “yes” or “no” questions. Mix it up with something challenging like, “summarize your resume in 140 characters or less,” or even more pretentious, like “what is the meaning of life?” The answers to questions like these are much more palatable with a character limit.

© Copyright 2012 WebMediaBrands Inc. All Rights Reserved

The Small Business Social Media Cheat Sheet

One of the greatest marketing challenges for small businesses, especially when it comes to orchestrating social media campaigns, is determining precisely where to begin. Do I start with Facebook or Twitter? Or maybe YouTube? Some combination of the three? How do I leverage LinkedIn and Pinterest? And what about Foursquare and Yelp? And do I need a daily deals service such as LivingSocial or Groupon?

Ugh. It can really be overwhelming, especially for a business owner who may not have much experience with marketing, let alone social media.

Well, have no fear...the small business social media cheat sheet is here! This informative infographic from Flowtown and Column Five Media analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of each major social media channel, offers excellent advice on how to get started, and outlines the size of the audience that can be reached.

4 Ways To Score Media Coverage Without A Press Release

Editor's Note: The following is a guest Marketing Mulligans post written by Keredy Andrews, a senior account manager of Punch Communications, a United Kingdom-based public relations (PR), search, and social media agency which works with local and global B2C and B2B clients. This story, which first appeared on the blog Spin Sucks and then on Ragan's PR Daily, describes different ways that PR professionals and business owners can generate valuable media coverage WITHOUT using press releases to do so. You can follow Keredy on Twitter at @the_only_keredy.
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When you’ve put time and effort into creating a news release, it can be enormously frustrating when you can’t get in touch with journalists, or the story is turned down by your target publications.

Hours have been wasted with no results to show your client, meaning you have to keep pushing when other work is piling up.

Most businesses would like positive newspaper or magazine coverage, but the truth is only the very best stories make the page in what is an ever increasingly competitive arena and now many companies are not suited to a traditional news release approach.

This might be because data or case studies are not available, no new services or products are in the pipeline, or the particular industry is flooded.

Whatever the reason, the client wants media coverage, and you’ve been asked to find a story. Instead of forcing a non-issue or, much worse, fabricating figures, public relations consultants should be managing clients’ expectations (because many still consider the job of a PR agency to write news releases) and using the most appropriate method of gaining coverage.

One alternative technique is to offer a company spokesperson for interview or comment within a planned feature, illustrating the individual’s expertise and shining a light on the business as an authority in it’s field.

Placing thought leadership or advice comments can be more time efficient than the intense and lengthy news release pitching route. Resource is a concern within PR, especially within principled agencies that put the emphasis on delivering results rather than on how many hours have been spent on the account.

If you consider the ratio of time spent to the gained results, and compare it to the work involved in gaining a few comment pieces, you can see how putting forward a company individual could be an effective strategy for you.

Here are four ways to gain media coverage without a news release:

1. Read Editorial Calendars or Forward Features Lists

Whether you use a specialized paid-for service, contact features editors yourself, or find the list on the publication’s website, a forward features list details the articles that media outlets are planning, often 12 months in advnce.

Carefully think about the facts, figures, analysis, and advice your client can bring to the feature. Conduct a frank discussion with your client about what’s required with the assigned journalist to secure the opportunity.

2. Watch for Media Requests

The integrated agency where I work registered with a journalist inquiries system, which means I receive emails (sector specific) with requests for planned features.

The range of inquiries is huge, but quickly spotting and responding to something relevant to one of my clients has resulted in coverage in national and primary industry publications.

Also, subscribe to HARO...if you haven’t already.

3. Scan Twitter

In a similar way to email alerts, journalists and bloggers use the platform to request commenters and as mentioned in a previous article on the blog Spin Sucks, #journorequest is a useful hashtag to watch.

4. Build and Maintain Relationships

When you begin to serve a new client there is no harm in calling the targets to introduce yourself, the business, and any key individuals available for interview and comment. In the past, I’ve been lucky and on one occasion there was an immediate fit to provide industry advice on a monthly basis.

Also, if a journalist covers a relevant story or has written about a competitor, let them know that you exist in preparation for the next appropriate opportunity.

Although a quick response, a helpful attitude and a healthy relationship with the journalist is often needed to obtain any print, broadcast, or online PR coverage, I find that it is especially important when it comes to providing comment.

Nearing deadline, the publication needs to trust you can provide what they need to complete the feature. If you efficiently and quickly deliver the goods, your comments will likely be used and chances are the media outlet will contact you again for comment on similar issues.

©  Copyright 2012 Ragan Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Think Again: Why Social Media Isn't A Waste Of Time

So you've probably heard plenty from naysayers, cynics, skeptics, and even CEOs, CFOs, and CMOs that social media is a HUGE waste of time. It doesn't generate the same return on investment (ROI) as other marketing vehicles; it adversely impacts employee productivity; it exposes companies to legal and marketing risks; and blah, blah blah. Similar arguments are made for individual users, who seemingly spend hours on end communicating via Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms, and refuse (or may be reluctant) to engage with others in the outside world once inside their social media cocoons.

Whatever. You and I both know that social media has plenty of proven, practical uses and applications, for both companies and individuals, and it does get awesome results, especially if campaigns are designed and executed correctly, and if the channels are used in moderation in accordance with their intended purposes. Now here's additional proof of all this:  statistical evidence of what social media accomplishes for people and companies EVERY DAY.

On a daily basis, more than 250 million photos are now uploaded to platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, and 80% of users now visit one or more social networks and blogs. In 2011, 41% of college graduates used social media to search for employment, and Americans spent a whopping 53.5 billion minutes on Facebook alone, mostly to remain in touch with friends, family members, and colleagues.

In the grand scheme of things, social media enables us to communicate more effectively and frequently with those we care about, and to send and receive news and information in real time to wider and more targeted audiences.

These and other insightful statistics may be found in the following infographic from Schools.com, which analyzes the many benefits Americans are reaping from social media usage:

How Sweet It Is: New Twitter Followers Activate U.K. Agency's Rube Goldberg-Esque Gumball Chute

In the marketing profession, we see a ton of innovative, clever, and creative ideas (after all, that's at we're paid TO DO, right?) every day. Now, admittedly, some are much better than others. Hey, just because we said they're innovative or creative doesn't mean that they're quality, or that they hit the mark! :) In any case, this is one of the more on-target creative concepts we've seen in a while.

As reported in this piece on Adweek's AdFreak blog, U.K. brand communications agency Uniform has created a fun...and rather elaborate and whimsical...gumball machine ― dubbed Sweet Tweet ― which spits out a sphere every time a user follows the company on Twitter. The machine, which is activated when the user clicks "follow," then sends a jumbo gumball down a winding chute complete with twists, turns, drops, jumps, ramps, and even multiple 360-degree loops directly into the agency's studio. In return, Uniform automatically sends out an @reply to the new follower with a link to the following video of the machine in action.

According to Uniform's future director Pete Thomas, "We wanted to create a physical app that connected our studio to our Twitter followers, raising awareness and alerting us all to each new follower." The agency specializes in creating real-world Internet-enabled experiences, so the Rube Goldberg-esque contraption seems to reinforce that positioning and expertise.

Give Sweet Tweet a whirl by checking out the video below of the gumball machine as it goes to work:

6 Ways Brands Can Get Chummy With Consumers

Editor's Note: The following is a guest Marketing Mulligans post written by Carrie Ferman, chief executive officer of Remark Media, a global digital media company focused on developing social media businesses that incorporate relevant, high-quality content. In this informative how-to guide, which originally appeared here on iMedia Connection, Ferman explains why personalization has become essential for brands striving to make meaningful connections with consumers, and how companies can learn to take these valuable relationships to the next level. You can follow Ferman and Remark Media on Twitter at @RemarkMedia.
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As brands, we strive to create deeper long-term relationships with consumers because, ultimately, our financial success depends heavily on our ability to build and maintain brand equity. Cultivating a dialogue that results in continued engagement is a vital means of accomplishing this objective. While the web has become a key platform for facilitating these types of interaction, conversation simply for the sake of conversation does not always produce engagement. For dialogue to be productive, it needs to be meaningful to the consumer; that means it needs to provide relevancy and value. This is where personalization, or as we call it, the "personal web," comes into play.

According to a Forrester Research report, "As the general content of the web gets broader, individuals will cease aimless surfing activity and gravitate toward sites that deliver products and services customized to their needs. Sites must plan now to respond to this expectation or risk being left behind as the web changes to a personal medium."

The personal web is about delivering the right information to each consumer at the right time, to the benefit of both consumers and businesses. For consumers, personalization means eliminating information overload by providing relevant and timely information that addresses their specific needs, allowing for activation and decision-making. For businesses, personalization provides a cost-effective avenue for gathering information about consumer preferences and behaviors that can be factored into brand messaging and targeting. It also can directly improve site performance by increasing conversation rates, lowering abandonment rates and improving retention performance.

E-commerce businesses like Amazon.com pioneered the personalization of customer experiences by implementing filtering and recommendation technology. Today, the proliferation of smart technologies and social graphing has further enabled personalization so that it can become an intrinsic part of brand strategy.

So how can brands leverage these capabilities to form a more personalized relationship with their customers and truly embody the personal web? The following are six ways to do just that:

1. Do Your Homework

Apart from demographic segmentation, information regarding source of entry (search, direct, click-through), web history, and social graph all can be extremely valuable in tailoring one-to-one experiences. Invest in new tools and applications that allow you to better understand your customers, their preferences and behaviors; and then use this information to create customized experiences, user-by-user.

2. Create Dynamic Homepages

Pushing your brand message is important but you need to do so in a way that resonates with each consumer. Many types of people are coming to your site, with individual learning styles, modes of interaction, and different ways of seeking and finding information. There is no "one size fits all" approach for your whole audience. Avoid static, pre-built pages, and instead try rotating your content, using dynamic insertion and recommendations based on your homework, leveraging text, video and audio when appropriate. These techniques draw in the consumer, increase your opportunities to connect and provide you with additional preference information to fine-tune personalization.

3. Invite Participation and Feedback

People derive value by contributing. They feel valuable, relevant, proud and, even more importantly, included. These positive feelings can pave the way for positive brand associations. Participation can be either indirect and passive, or direct and active, and both types have value. Encourage indirect and passive participation through action-oriented titles, using a conversational tone to your text, and incorporating links into podcasts and video blogs. Encourage direct and active participation by asking questions about customers' opinions, needs or experiences, offering opportunities to create or rate products, and taking polls, to name a few methods. Creating an online environment that fosters participation opens the door for building a bond and developing relationships.

4. Make Content Complete and Easily Accessible

Be it messaging, product information, how-to articles, or FAQs -- relevant content can fuel engagement, particularly social engagement. Be the main source of complete information about your brand, and consider providing complimentary informational or interest-focused content around your products and services. Additionally, ensure that this content is easy and intuitive to find. If not, you will likely experience high bounce rates. Invest in intelligent organization architecture, smarter search, and dynamic formats like Q&A.

5. Adapt Content-Targeting Practices

Thanks to cookies, advertisers can serve up targeted ads based on search history, location, social sharing, and even emails. Leverage this same technology to serve up targeted content which, like the ads, appeals to your customers' preferences, interests and needs. They will find value in being served content that relates to interests for which they have already exhibited a passion. This demonstrates your understanding and helps to further build a trusted, personal relationship.

6. Provide Interest-Centric Communities

Passion around a topic or interest stimulates conversation and engagement. Provide the opportunity for your customers to unite around their passions. This can lead to positive brand associations, while allowing for your brand to be incorporated into the conversation in an organic and authentic manner. Move beyond message boards by utilizing sophisticated discussion platforms that are intuitive, in real time, and that seamlessly interact with content.

In today's landscape, the personal web is not a competitive edge, but rather a critical success factor necessary for building meaningful relationships. Delivering strong results through personalization doesn't have to be costly or complex. Current technology and process approaches allow for personalization in a way that was not thought possible just a few years ago. The most effective brands will leverage the above techniques from inception, strategically weaving personalization into their brand strategy for the dual benefit of their business and their customers.

© Copyright 2012 iMedia Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

A Fountain Of Light...CES Style

Last week, we had the privilege of attending, for the eighth time, the glitz, glamour, and gadget showcase that is the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas...or in industry parlance...simply CES. According to published media reports, this year's show attracted nearly 150,000 attendees and over 3,000 exhibitors from all over the world, including consumer technology behemoths Microsoft, Intel, Sony, Samsung, Sharp, and countless others too numerous to mention.

While there was plenty of action on the show floor, and as there always is on the world-renowned Strip, the highlight of our week was attending an exclusive customer and partner V.I.P. soiree for our client at Hyde, the brand-spankin'-new nightclub inside the Bellagio which just opened on New Year's Eve. Overlooking the iconic Fountains of Bellagio, the 10,000 square-foot indoor/outdoor Hyde marks the first-ever nightlife experience in Las Vegas from sbe and globally-acclaimed designer Philippe Starck. It is a sight to behold, and definitely unlike anything we've ever seen, either in or outside of Vegas. Hyde is not for the timid or those light in the wallet:  private parties start at around $500 per person, and it's all bottle service, with 1.75L of Grey Goose setting you back a cool $1,550.00.

Speaking of the Fountains of Bellagio, our party was on the terrace overlooking the lake and the fountain show, with proximity so close you can feel the spray on your face. Check out this cool video which we took of the show from inside the club:

Keepin' It Real: Why People REALLY Follow Brands Online

Here at Marketing Mulligans, we're all about keepin' it real, regardless of whatever marketing subject we're  riffing on. So here's an interesting take on why people REALLY follow brands online.

Obviously, most companies know by now that creating positive online brand experiences leads to loyal customers. And that usually leads to increased sales, greater brand recall and awareness, and other positive residual marketing effects, such as positive word of mouth and the sharing of promotions and discounts with friends, family, and colleagues.

So what are the reasons behind following a given brand online? How do customers perceive online experiences? What compels them to share certain information with others? New research from Column Five and Get Satisfaction has some answers:

• The top three reasons people follow brands on Facebook, Myspace and Twitter are:  special offers and deals, they're already current customers, and the brand's interesting content.
• More than half (53.47%) of respondents follow two to five brands on Facebook.
• Almost all (97.09%) said an online experience has influenced them to buy — or not buy — a brand's product or service.
• Nearly half (45.88% percent) of all consumers have bought a product or service from a brand they follow on Twitter.
• Nearly three-quarters (70%) have participated in a brand-sponsored online contest or sweepstakes.

For more insights, check out the infographic below:

A 3-Step Guide To Planning Social Advertising Campaigns

Editor's Note: The following is a guest Marketing Mulligans post written by Charles Lumpkin, vice president of product management and innovation at BLiNQ Media, the leading Social Engagement Advertising (SM) pure-play media and technology company for the Facebook platform. This commentary, which offers a three-step guide to designing and implementing social media advertising campaigns, originally appeared in MediaPost's Online Media Daily. You can follow Lumpkin and BLiNQ Media on Facebook at Facebook.com/BLiNQMedia or on Twitter at @blinqmedia.
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The amount of first-party data available on Facebook and other social networks is enough to make an excited brand marketer foam at the mouth. But social media advertising isn’t as simple as just matching ads to consumers. Successful social branding campaigns require careful planning and testing. More often than not, they uncover unexpected correlations between brand and consumer.

When plotting a social media campaign, there are three criteria to keep in mind above all others: creative, targeting and optimization. Consider the following as you prepare a campaign:

Creative
Effective advertising gives users a reason to click. The creative needs to convey this reason, whether it’s a compelling offer or a call to action. Users flock to social media platforms to converse and share with friends, so your creative team should produce short, catchy ad copy with a conversational tone.
With a few creative ideas in hand, you can test dozens of combinations of text and images. Our internal studies have found that images are responsible for 70% of the response rate on social ads, so don’t be afraid to experiment. Test images that are visually jarring or out of the norm.

Every in-ad image should have a single subject, and that subject should take up a large portion of the graphical real estate. Space comes at a premium within social ad units, and group shots can make an image murky.

If you’re using Facebook, take advantage of Like-gates for fanning campaigns and try to match the creative to target sets. Social’s targeting capabilities enable advertisers to match different messages and creative to different audiences for maximum performance.

Targeting
One key step in running a successful campaign is planning. Consider the target demographic and how you might reach them, based on their interests. This can be done concurrently with creative design, as the two fit closely together. When advertising to moms, try daytime TV show targets to appeal to their interests. It is important to sift through many different targets and think about their inclusion in the campaign before it begins.

Marketers would be wise to use Facebook advertising products, like Friends of Connections Targeting, which leverages the social graph to grow their base, building scale off of a group of consumers who match their criteria by targeting their friends.

Facebook’s Sponsored Stories product is also a great tool for reaching new users on the network. This ad format is triggered when a consumer Likes a brand’s Facebook page, application or place. The activity is then promoted across the network to their friends, via a sponsored story ad, increasing the likelihood that friends will notice this activity in their News Feed.

Optimize
Once the creative has been tested against several different audiences, it’s time to optimize the combinations that achieve the best results. Don’t be afraid to kill all the losers, because you’re going to reward the winning campaigns. Once you build new fans, re-market to them to build engagement and drive branding goals.

Even if your campaigns hit your desired level of success, don’t stop experimenting. Constantly ask yourself, if you move more budget to social, will it replicate this success on a larger scale? Can you expand on the targets that are working?

Social advertising is opening a world of opportunity to brand marketers, but some of the biggest opportunities are initially hard to see. Keep experimenting with creative and targeting, because you never know which unlikely corollaries will drive brand results.

© Copyright 2012 MediaPost Communications. All Rights Reserved.

Promote This! 7 Awesome Tips for Better Self-Promotion

Editor's Note: The following is a guest Marketing Mulligans post written by Mickie Kennedy, founder and president of eReleases, a cost-effective electronic press release distribution service. These tips originally appeared in this article on Kennedy's popular PR Fuel blog. Promoting yourself can be tricky. You know you need to do it to create opportunities for yourself and your business, but oftentimes it can come across as boorish, overly aggressive, or even worse...offensive. Follow these suggestions to get it right, especially as you start the new year in full-on marketing and business development mode.

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Self-promotion:  some business professionals do it naturally, while others despise it. Either way, getting it right is crucial to growing your business. Here are seven essential tips to get you started on the right foot.

1. Zero In On Your Target Market

This seems obvious, but you’d be surprised how many people get this wrong. Step one is to identify your target market. Who is best suited to use your product or service? Once you figure that out, only market yourself to them. Self-promoting to anyone else is a waste of everyone’s time.

2. Be Confident, But Not Overbearing

Getting number two right requires you to tread a fine line. First of all, you don’t want to come across as a pushy salesman who is full of himself. On the other hand, you need to be confident in what you’re offering or no one will take you seriously. It takes practice to walk this tightrope without falling on your face!

3. Don’t Interrupt

You don’t want someone interrupting your family time do you? Be sensitive to your listening audience’s time. If they’re busy — then they’re busy. You aren’t going to sell yourself to them if all they want to do is get back to eating dinner with their family. Remember, they’re doing you a favor by listening to you in the first place.

4. Get To The Point

It’s easy to ramble on and on. But the more you ramble, the less chance you have of the party on the other end being receptive to what you have to say. In fact, the more words that come out of your mouth, the more likely your promotional message is getting muddled in the process.

5. Put Your Service Into Everyday Speak

Have you ever come across a company website where you read the homepage and you have no clue what the heck they actually do? Remember, all of that industry jargon that you use — your customers probably don’t. If you’re a lawyer, you aren’t speaking to other lawyers. You’re speaking to those who will need your service. Adjust your language accordingly.

6. What Makes You Different?

Why should someone listen to you when there are a million other people offering something similar? You need to come up with your own Unique Sales Proposition (USP) and present it clearly to your target customer. Otherwise, your self-promotion will fall flat and they’ll just go with whoever else they know offers a similar service.

7. Call To Action

Think of your potential clients as sheep (and we mean that in the nicest way possible). They need to be told what to do. Your self-promotional spiel will mean little if the other party is left wondering what to do next. Instruct them!

Remember, all businesses rely on a certain degree of self-promotion. Learn how to do so effectively and watch your company grow.

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