Why “Bring It On!” is the Next Big Marketing Strategy |  |
- Why “Bring It On!” is the Next Big Marketing Strategy
- Foursquare Update: You Can Check In Friends, Too
- Consumers Love Shopping in Stores – It’s Checkout They Hate
- Ouya Gets Lesson on How NOT to Use Kickstarter
- 20 Plus Ways to Build a Website or Web Presence
| Why “Bring It On!” is the Next Big Marketing Strategy Posted: 27 Jun 2013 04:00 PM PDT
Siblings – football – business. No matter where you look, rivalry is everywhere. While mudslinging and attack ads have been largely confined to the political world, more and more businesses are taking advantage of competitive marketing. From Bing to Powerade, brands are directly calling out their competitors and bringing their rivalries to the next level. While I can honestly say that I don't loathe any of my competitors, brand rivalries have gotten so fierce that some company executives openly "hate" each other. Competition Advertising: Bring it On!Brands that have directly challenged their competitors include:
The danger here is that Microsoft is attacking Android and iOS developers, the very same people who build Microsoft's platforms. The biggest lesson to learn from Bing's campaign is that you should try to avoid alienating the people you need in your advertising. Though this is a risk Bing is willing to take, it's one that I think most companies are not.
You see, Gatorade has released a line of Prime, Perform and Recover drinks. Now, while I might not be a professional athlete, being required to drink 3 different drinks on game day is a bit excessive, don't ya think? To capitalize on this, Powerade has embarked on a "Keep it simple" campaign that cuts down on the confusion. This friendly jab focusing on the competition's perceived product inefficiency is what made this a successful move.
The Volkswagen strategy focused on being different. At the time, the entire US auto industry was focused on big cars. Big cars were the norm – big was beautiful. When Volkswagen entered the scene, they went against the entire US auto industry with the slogan, "Think Small." These two words cut through the competition and established Volkswagen as the only unique option in the market. Are You Inspired to Make Your Marketing More Competitive?If you want to be the challenger brand, then you'll want to create a strong content strategy that will ensure success and prevent a flop campaign. A truly successful competitive marketing strategy is one that can sustain itself over time. You don't want to release a competitive ad only to have nothing else to say or be unable to respond to criticism. Creating a roadmap gives you the ability to attack the market leader and increase your share of the pie. Furthermore, avoid being overtly negative whenever possible. While you want to leverage challenging ads against your competitor, you also want to make consumers perceive your brand as different, similar to the Volkswagen campaign. When you establish yourself as a genuine alternative, then competitive ads can truly have a great effect. The great news is that it's much easier to be the challenger brand than to do the defending – even if the competitive ads fail. You see, your brand has much to gain but very little to lose. And hey, people love rooting for the underdog. Game Face Photo via Shutterstock The post Why "Bring It On!" is the Next Big Marketing Strategy appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| Foursquare Update: You Can Check In Friends, Too Posted: 27 Jun 2013 01:30 PM PDT
A new feature on Foursquare allows one user to check-in several friends at your business. This week, a Foursquare update to the social media app introduces the “I’m with …” button. By tapping the button, a customer checking-in at a business can include the names of connected friends joining them there. After hitting the button, a drop-down menu appears. Each friend selected from the menu will get a notification requesting permission to allow the check-in. Foursquare announced the new feature on its official blog earlier this week. On the blog, a company representative explained:
More check-ins makes it easier for businesses to attract more customers and easier to engage with returning customers, writes Jason Fell at Entrepreneur.com. The latest move is another attempt to revitalize the social check-in site and create more engagement with businesses. By allowing one user to check-in their friends on Foursquare, the Foursquare update feature would seem to make it more likely those friends will check-in and follow the same business in the future. Earlier this month, Foursquare announced sponsored posts for small businesses in a pilot program aimed at competing with other social networks offering comparable features. Initially available only to select large brands, the new sponsored posts allow small businesses to better promote themselves locally. The feature adds sponsored posts to a user’s feed when that user is in close proximity. It also allows businesses to reach out to Foursquare users who might not yet be regular customers. The post Foursquare Update: You Can Check In Friends, Too appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| Consumers Love Shopping in Stores – It’s Checkout They Hate Posted: 27 Jun 2013 11:00 AM PDT
If you own a brick-and-mortar retail store and are worried about eCommerce sites or "showrooming" eating into your business, a recent study from Synqera reported in MediaPost might help you sleep better at night. Despite the growth of eCommerce, more than two-thirds of Americans still prefer to shop at traditional, brick-and-mortar stores rather than online. However, there's still one part of brick-and-mortar shopping customers dislike. Synqera found the checkout process is the number-one pain point for 73 percent of consumers, and could be what stops them from shopping in your store or makes them turn to online sites. The majority of consumers say waiting in the checkout line is their least favorite part of in-store shopping. What could make it more enjoyable? While 18 percent think there's no way to make the checkout process more enjoyable, I can think of several ways. Speed it UpWith customers growing increasingly used to ordering online with just a few clicks, waiting in line behind other slow-moving shoppers is just too much. Make sure you have adequate staff on hand to deal with expected traffic volumes, and that your point-of-sale technology is up-to-date so it doesn't slow things down. Train retail clerks on efficiently prepping the cash registers before the store opens and on using downtime to do things like get change or change register tape (so they don't have to handle these housekeeping tasks while a line forms). Get PersonalPersonal service is a big factor that drives customers to brick-and-mortar stores, Synqera found: 80 percent of shoppers say they're more likely to shop in a store that provides a customized experience for them. Three-fourths say they'd enjoy checkout more if they received personalized coupons at checkout. Consider adding a retailer loyalty program that lets you deliver personalized offers on customers' smartphones or, for those who don't want to get coupons that way, at the point of sale when you ring them up. You can also personalize offers outside the in-store experience by sending targeted emails or direct mailings with offers based on how much the customer has spent in the past, the types of products they buy or how often they shop in your store, to name just a few ideas. Make SuggestionsTwo-thirds of consumers are more likely to shop in a store where they receive personal suggestions while shopping. Make sure your salespeople actively engage with customers, greeting them when they enter, suggesting add-on products to go with what they're purchasing, or offering advice and insights. (This is a great way to combat showrooming – if customers know they can get the info they need from your sales staff, they won't have to turn to their phones to look it up and possibly find the product somewhere else for less). There are also ways to make suggestions without salespeople. For instance, you can display groups of products that complement each other together, such as a camera with accessory battery packs, straps and cases. You can use signage to suggest "Buy two, get a third free," "Check out our sales items in the back of the store" or "Sign up for our email newsletter and save $5 off your next purchase." You get the idea. Suggestions help engage the customer with your store, and Synqera found that the more actively engaged the customer is inside your store, the better they feel about shopping. Which leads to my next point. Make Checkout FunThree-fourths of consumers say they buy more if they're in a good mood while shopping in-store. One of my favorite places to shop is Sephora. I always hope there will be a huge line at the checkout counter—yes, you heard that right—because Sephora smartly merchandises the line with a display of tempting impulse buys. All are under $20, and they're so irresistible I usually can't help grabbing one (or two). I've seen more stores using this technique. You can find more information about the full study on Synqera's blog. How do you make checkout more enjoyable for your customers? Checkout Photo via Shutterstock The post Consumers Love Shopping in Stores – It's Checkout They Hate appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| Ouya Gets Lesson on How NOT to Use Kickstarter Posted: 27 Jun 2013 08:00 AM PDT
If you’re thinking of getting financing for your new product idea through a crowdfunding site like Kickstarter, a lot could be learned from the problems currently facing the creators of Ouya. The lesson: Make extra sure you can deliver on the promises you made to your backers. In this case, literally deliver. Ouya is a new video game console that hit retailers this week. While it’s hardly a substitute for the more complex gaming systems like Xbox or Playstation, the $99 price tag and what could be a raft of games produced by independent developers in the future certainly make it an intriguing option. There are currently 179 games available on Android-based Ouya, according to its website, 40 of which are exclusive to the system. The Ouya Kickstarter plan backfired this week, however, as a lot of the people who were promised their own systems before the game hit retailers have still not received their consoles. And it could take weeks before they get the system they helped to get off the ground. TheVerge.com cites a report that says as many as 7,500 systems are in a Hong Kong facility awaiting shipment to backers.
Meanwhile, Ouya has already sold out at its retail locations, further angering backers who are still waiting. The system first became available on June 25 at Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop, Target and GAME, as well as at the Ouya site. The issue also got Ouya CEO Julie Uhrman upset because there were some backers who did receive their system before the retail launch. Uhrman is quoted by TheVerge.com as saying “I did not promise to ship to most of you before we hit store shelves. I promised to ship to all of you.” Most of the backers who have yet to receive their Ouya are outside the U.S. Still, the company certainly has an uphill climb to restore its reputation and to somehow make good on its promises. The fiasco could also reflect negatively upon Kickstarter and the whole crowdfunding movement. The Ouya campaign has been one of the most successful in the site’s history, raising $8.5 million from backers. But many of those backers are now waiting to see whether promises made to them will finally be kept. The post Ouya Gets Lesson on How NOT to Use Kickstarter appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| 20 Plus Ways to Build a Website or Web Presence Posted: 27 Jun 2013 05:00 AM PDT How do I start and build a website? This is one of the more commonly searched questions by small business owners. Thanks to Google and various government statistics we know that about 50 percent of businesses do not have a website. I find this astounding. When it is such an easy thing to do, why isn’t that number closer to 100 percent? If you have been looking for how to build a free or low-cost website, this post is for you. Some of the more popular ones I profiled here in 2010: DoodleKit, ezWeb123, Google Sites, Jimdo, Wix, and Weebly, to name just a few. Since that time, I have been studying the topic, partly because I used to build websites for new businesses and also because I review technology tools to help you stay productive and profitable. Earlier this year I finished my first book (which I will email you for free): Website Design You Can Do Yourself: 30+ Free and Affordable Tools To Build and Market Your Own Website. This post is drawn from this new book. 20 Plus Ways to Build a Website or Web PresenceAbout.me is a very simple Web page option for small business owners. You can look at it as a "landing page" about you. I would almost venture to say that it is the resume of the future. It allows you to pull in all of your social network streams, your blog, and whatever contact information you want to share. Free. Doomby is a solid choice for a new business owner building a website. After filling in a form, you can save and activate your website immediately. Once you land in the dashboard, they wisely ask you where you want to go next, which is quite helpful for newcomers. Free service with option to upgrade to paid plan.
Edicy is quite possibly the fastest and most elegant website builder I've used. It is mind-boggling, frankly. Easy sign up process, then you jump right into the site building dashboard. The site I built in a matter of moments is in the screenshot above. While it is nothing fancy, I base part of my review on can it be done without much effort. This service can work for just about anyone, but it looks terrific small businesses that desire an international presence because it offers multilingual capabilities. They offer a light free plan, then standard service is approximately USD $8/month and the "Plus" level is USD $13/month. IM-Creator has a short learning curve among website builders. The drag-and-drop interface is refreshing, and with one click, you add a photo gallery and with another click, delete it. The same is done for adding a new text element or an entire page or a YouTube video. You overcome the short learning curve by simply testing how the different elements work. You can create a free site or upgrade for $7.95/month on a 12-month contract. Jimdo has a unique option that allows you to build an actual online store, not just a website. You can list up to five items for free. It comes with free search engine optimization and other great features like RSS feed, but not free e-mail. Pick a subdomain name for your free site and enter your email and you're ready to start customizing your free Jimdo site. Lifeyo is a website builder that uses the powerful Amazon.com backend to host your website. Their drag-and-drop options really work well. They do not require a credit card to sign up, but the trial period is less than a month long. The plans vary in price from $8 – $25 per month but offer annual and biannual discounts.  OnePager OnePager is built on the premise that you might only need a one-page website. More than that, they believe that fast signup means you don’t even sign up. You do not have to enter any info to start building (see screenshot above). You simply click “Start building” and you are customizing your site. They certainly allow you to add more pages, but they recognize that many, if not most, small businesses can succeed with a very simple website. In addition, they have loads of options to make your site more powerful for only $8/month. Puzl is a relatively new free website design tool that is advertising-supported. I found it to be quite elegant and user-friendly. Even after I published the test site, I didn't find any advertising in the traditional sense. There was a footer link that said the site is built by Puzl.com, but that was all. I think that's a fair trade-off for a free website, especially one that looks good and is simple to set up. They do charge if you have an existing domain and choose to map your domain to your free site. Squarespace looks like the Apple of website builders. The templates offer interesting alternatives that have specific types of businesses in mind. I should restate this: Their templates explode off the page. Take a look at this sample I created in less than 5 minutes: Squarespace Sample by TJ. Their lowest cost plan runs $10 per month (or $8/mo if you prepay annually) and has healthy space and bandwidth. vFlyer is a combination of website builder, Craigslist ad service, and single page web builder. The flyers you create can be posted, added to your website as pages, or even emailed to a mailing list. You can even turn the flyers into a printable PDF. If you manage online classified type ads to grow your business, you will like this service. Plans start at $12/month with a discount on annual subscription. 14-day free trial. Yola offers a very easy process with just four fields to get started. The service then walks you through various options and templates to get your free site going. There were many professional templates to choose from and Yola made it easy to change templates before clicking the "Publish" button. They have a free plan, then paid plans start at $4.95/month. What If You Just Do Not Have Time to Build a Website?Even with the ease of these tools, there is still a learning curve. For some business owners, these tools just do not cut it. While I firmly believe that having a website is essential for business, it is not my job to persuade you but to give ideas to help you keep moving forward. With that in mind, I offer you these well-known and lesser-known options for maintaining a web presence. Email Marketing Packages with Add-on Archive: Many small businesses use email newsletters to keep in touch with customers, but don't have a website yet (surprising I know). Depending on your business, as noted in the introduction, you might be able to stay thrifty and leverage the "Email Archive" service that many email providers offer. For example, for an additional $5/month, Constant Contact will allow you to turn your emails into a Web page and archive them, with a link, for customers and prospects to access. The archives are often found by search engines if you make them publicly available.
Biznik: This is a social network focusing on small business owners. Member profiles are frequently found at the top of a Google search for keywords related to your profession (presuming you've built your profile correctly, and the service team will help you). Facebook Business Page: Many use a Facebook Business page in combination with some other marketing campaign, but interacting with your friends, family, and potential customers is valuable if your service is consumer-oriented. There are business-to-business companies there, too, but the results I hear about are mixed. The Business Page options allow you to add a lot of information about your company and maintain a blog, of sorts, right within Facebook. Again, it is well worth it to have your own website. Otherwise, as Anita Campbell, CEO of Small Business Trends, puts it – you are just a digital sharecropper camping out on someone else's site, beholden to their rules and regulations. LinkedIn used to be mainly for job seekers and people networking for that next big job, but they've added robust options for companies to showcase their work. The LinkedIn Company Page is a terrific way to keep in touch with prospects and customers and network for more. Google Places – This is tied to your Google account and your location. You don't have to have a business storefront, but you need a real address. It allows you to post details about your services, offer coupons, post photos, your important contact information, all for free. There are still reasons to use this even if you have a Google Site. Flickr – Many photographers and creative types use Flickr more than a website in many cases. It provides a way to store tons of photographs and display your work. Your profile information is easily accessible by those viewing your photos. With the latest Yahoo! announcement, you get one terabyte of free storage. That is a lot of storage.
SlideShare.net – This service is ideal if you are a solo sales-oriented businesses (say a self-employed trade rep or a buyer for a range of companies) and you survive making presentations. For $19/month, SlideShare gives you custom branding and a profile area as well as storage for your presentations. You can track customer visits. They have a free account, but you can't customize it. If you simply need a web location and don't want a lot of the stuff that goes along with keeping up a website, this option might work for you. It is quite robust and can work as a powerful lead management system. Yelp and Angie's List – these customer review sites are a huge opportunity. There is a fair amount of contention around whether these services are good for business or not, but they are not going away. With the right attitude and approach, you can grow your business with Yelp and others. Each of these services allows you to have a detailed profile and gives you tools to track visits and reviews. You could survive without a website if you used one or both of these services wisely. Evernote – Millions of people are rabid about this wonderful online notebook, but did you know you can make your notebook public to non-Evernote users, too? You can by simply right-clicking on a notebook and selecting "share" and you'll get a link like to share. It won't be a beautiful custom-domain type link, but you could shorten it at Bit.ly and provide samples to your writing or other work this way. The free account is loaded with storage space. There you have it: 20+ ideas to build a website or web presence. Again, these are not the be-all, end-all of website options. As I have said many times, there are no rules here. You can do any or many of these and still succeed. There are tons of great website designers and programmers who can build something custom for you, if that's what you prefer. The goal of this post is to help you get a presence started: Something fast and affordable. Let us know in the comments what's working for you and your small business. If you want a free copy of the book, just drop by this Website Builder ebook page and I’ll gladly send you a digital PDF copy. The post 20 Plus Ways to Build a Website or Web Presence appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
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