Google recently released www.20thingsilearned.com, an interactive online book about the fundamentals of the web.  It explains concepts like cloud computing, malware, phishing, plug-ins and browsers.  Illustrated by award-winning German illustrator and children’s author Christoph Neimann, the tome has a storybook feel that encourages the reader to relax and expect simple explanations. Perhaps more wordy than many would prefer, it does a good job of making these concepts accessible to the average Joe.

Many of our clients think they are the only ones who don’t understand technology when, in fact, they are in the majority.  So we’re particularly curious what you think about the book.

Give it a click, then let us know what you think!

1.  Create Compelling Content. Blogging is an easy way to do this.  It creates more ways for people to find you and it tells your customers who you are.  Good content builds trust, brand, reputation – all the things that make it easier for me to hand over my hard-earned money for your products & services. Get creative!

2. Hire Someone To Create Compelling Content. Look, you can’t do it all yourself.  If you’re not a writer, that’s okay.  What you may not know is that there are starving writers out there who will research and write for you at a fairly inexpensive rate.

3. Sponsor A Blog–Or A Blogger. Find websites that have already captured your target customer and buy an ad on their site.  Better still, sponsor a blogger, podcaster or video blogger with a relationship with that customer on that site.  This is a seriously fabulous way to collect customers, but do keep a close eye on the return on investment and mix things up as needed.

4. Advertise Through Traditional Channels. It’s easy to pull back on advertising when times are tough, but now is NOT the time to cut advertising.  Now is the time to DOUBLE your (smart) advertising because your less savvy competitors are pulling back.  Now is the time to really stake your claim in the marketplace.

5. Measure Twice, Cut Once. You’ve got to measure your efforts or your throwing away money.  But remember, just because one string instrument isn’t contributing to the symphony as much as another, or your having trouble measuring it at all, isn’t a reason to toss it out.  You’ve got to look at the performance and think about what happens if that instrument stops playing.  If one of the key numbers falls flat as a result, its value is higher than when measured in isolation.

The planning season for 2011 has begun. How will you improve your marketing effectiveness?

Your marketing plan should include direct increase to profits, but it might also drive results such as an increase in market share, brand value or share prices.  Your plan might focus on customer and/or employee retention.

Here are 5 questions to ask yourself as you get your planning on track:

ONE:  What do you want to achieve in 2011?

Brainstorm a list.  You can cull it back to a realistic and manageable set of goals later.  Answers might include things such as

• More qualified leads
• More customers through the front door
• More return customers
• More dollars per customer
• More time off for the business owner
• Ability to provide health insurance for employees
• Increase in brand awareness
• National attention
• Award achievement
• World Peace

TWO  How will you know if you met your goals?

• You can’t manage without measuring. What will it take for you to measure each of these areas?
• Don’t measure the easy things, measure the right things.  Ask yourself what you’re going to do with the answer when you get it, and what that’s worth to you..

THREE  Do you have a line item in the budget for gathering information and analyzing it?

• You can’t manage without measuring!
• 3% to 5% of the marketing budget is realistic to spend here;
• You can’t manage without measuring!

FOUR  Is your budget goal-based?

• Change your outlook from budgeting by media (TV, Radio, Internet) to budgeting based on your objectives.

FIVE  Do you have a line item in the budget for testing new channels?

• If you’ve never done direct mail or social media, or radio, or screaming from the top of the North Head Lighthouse, budget for some tests and see how they pay off.  You might be surprised.
• 1% of the marketing budget is realistic.

Sharpen your pencil and get that brainstorming going!  If you’re spending more than 15 minutes on this whole process, you’re thinking too hard.  There’s plenty of time for that later.  Just start!  Now!  Yes, I mean YOU.

~Keleigh

I was asked a great question this morning on how an organization empirically quantifies marketing results.  After all, how do you separate the people who would have bought your products and services without your advertising from those who showed up because of your advertising?  In short, you don’t.  But that doesn’t mean your efforts aren’t measurable!

The following link to a Microsoft Office article addresses the question of measuring Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI) fairly well: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/create-a-results-oriented-marketing-plan-HA010060235.aspx?CTT=5&origin=HA010024376

Breaking it down

What ROMI is really about is establishing how the results of the investment will be quantified before engagement, then doing the work of making those measurements.

When establishing how results will be quantified, it is important to keep in mind that some results are short-term, some long-term, some direct and some indirect.  Keep in mind that, like medicine, marketing is part science, part R&D, and part art/instinct/creative.  Only engaging in activities that can be empirically quantified leaves many of the strongest tools out of your tool box.

However, by pre-determining how results will be measured, measuring each component of the overall marketing strategy individually, as well as part of the whole, a person can draw an impressively accurate view of what is working and what isn’t.

If you aren’t measuring what works and what doesn’t, you aren’t most likely wasting at least some of your marketing dollars and are far less likely to progress in building your brand.  The more you use ROMI as feedback and adjust your marketing plan accordingly, the stronger your cumulative effort becomes.  The more you ignore it and/or divert funds to projects that are not a part of the overall marketing strategy, the more you dilute the result of our efforts.

Marketing isn’t empirically defined, but it is definitely scientific.

Thanks to an unnamed City of Long Beach official for the question, which caused me to find a way to articulate what weighs heavy on my mind as we move into the 2011 budget season.

Guy Powell has a nice little Excel spreadsheet for calculating your ROMI hurdle rate: ROMI-hurdleratecal.xlt

John Jantsch is a marketing coach, award-winning social media publisher and the author of two best selling books- Duct Tape Marketing and The Referral Engine. His following article is via OPEN FORUM

It’s not really enough to have a website. These days you must create a total web presence, but you’ve also got to create strategy based on overall objectives.

This is another way of saying unless your online activity ends in a sale you’ve failed in the game of online marketing. There are countless ways to fail on the quest to convert a pair of peering eyes into a paying client.

Below are just some of the assumptions online marketers make that prove deadly when it comes to successfully building trust and converting sales.