Business Marketing and Promotions

2. Maximising people's perceptive abilities through Co-Branding

2006-08-14T12:50:00.000+10:00

Here is the second part of the article. I decided to post it on Small Business Branding becuase it is profound for website owners and small business owners alike.

All the big brands are doing it, Entrepreneur’s Journey is doing it, and even teenage school kids are doing it, but the chances of many small businesses doing it right are close to nill! Now, what on earth am I talking about? Well, today I’m going to be giving you one of the most powerful techniques which you can use to strengthen your brand with – So, strap in folks.

You are what you eat.

Have you ever seen someone only ever eating Subway and thought to yourself - “Damn… that guy is definitely on a diet or something”. Or maybe you just saw someone wearing really cool Nike gear and you presumed they were seriously sporty. These are prime examples of what psychologists and marketers like to call - proximity influenced perception. Basically, as humans, our minds store things in a particular way, which allows us to cross-reference ideas, objects and places which are seen together in any way imaginable - LITERALLY. Some might even draw similarities between our brains and the way google ranks pages. In the above cases we combined attributes of brands and PEOPLE together but what I’m going to show you is that you can combine the attributes of brands and BRANDS together.

Hang out with the baddies and become a baddie.

Mothers are so right sometimes, and this is just one of those times. Did you notice that Apple iPods have teamed up with Nike? It creates a radically different and innovative identity for the team. I can almost certainly bet you, that after visiting this website, you’ll no longer see Nike or iPods in the same way. This allows them to do several different things:

Nike can Attract Apple’s market segments
Apple can Attract Nike’s market segments
They can cross-sell their customers to buy each other’s products and MAKE MORE money.
Finally, it allows them to refurbish their brand and attract people who may be ‘in between brands’ or simply seeking innovation, with this smashing product combination.

Interested? All you have to do is find a product or service which can compliment what you sell and make sure that they have a positive brand image and are selling to roughly the same consumers. Finally, make sure that this company has a strong identity which matches yours. Now you have a company which you can team up with to develop complimentary products with.

You can do Anything… Almost

If you lived in Australia during the nineties you might remember back when Metway and Suncorp were two different banks. However, Suncorp struck quickly and took over Metway. Then to minimise the effect of alienating the Metway customers, Suncorp decided to Co-Brand the names Suncorp and Metway together - effectively creating, Suncorp Metway. As time past and people adjusted to the new Co-brand, and integrated attributes of their perception of Metway into Suncorp. Finally Suncorp is slowly removing Metway from the equation, leaving the website titled, just plain old Suncorp. Albeit, not all was taken away… when the brands merged, perceptions about the two brands also combined and they have continued to change over time. If you’re going for a takeover or your brand needs some lovin’ how about using Co-Branding to these effects:

Increase customer perception of your service
Diversify your market into different segments
Increase brand recall
Get some PR buzz flowing
Change your brand Identity
Steal someone else’s customers.

This may be difficult for most small businesses to achieve in a physical marketplace but it is a lot more practical on the Internet. If you happen to own a website and you buy a competing or complimentary website, why not follow what Suncorp or Nike did? In the end, if done right, you will win out with a fantastic increase in your total brand value.

Best of luck Branding,
Robert Kingston

1. What is Perception?

2006-08-09T12:48:00.000+10:00

Perception is all to do with the processes which consumers use to collect, interpret and recall information about the world around them - more specifically, in our case - buying our products. There are basically 4 processes which information passes through and they are:

Selective Exposure: This is whether or not a person chooses to be exposed to advertising or not. This can occur conciously, when a person leaves the room as TV ads come on, or subconciously, when the person learns over time not to goto specific websites which are filled to the brim with 'annoying' untargeted ads.
Selective Attention: This determines how much attention people devote to the advertisement. As humans can only conciously process around 7 bits of information at a time, our subconcious filters out what we don't need and allows us to focus our concious mind on the things that matter. Have you ever been on a website where your attention is transfixed on a particular advertisement which you just happen to need? That's what we call Selective Attention. In some models, Selective Attention is grouped into Selective Exposure, however many empirical studies reveal that people can recall a brand which they do not conciously notice.
Selective Comprehension: Once people notice an advertisement, they then attach meaning to it based on their beliefs, attitudes, values, needs and experiences. So people can really see what they want to see. Maybe you know someone like this, who lives blind to the world of possibilities, or blind to the fact that everyone hates them. In their ideal world, its true. Just go out one night and pretend someone is following you - I can bet that you will find evidence in the world around you that it's true. This is great for customers because you will be able to sell them something and if you are a good enough marketer to them they will search for reasons which will make them buy your product.
Selective Retention: People can only remember so much. The closer things are linked, the better retention people will have. Thats why marketers always use mnemonics with symbols, images ryhmes and associations. This is especially important when considering co-branding in your business.

That's basically all perception is about with regards to consumer psychology. I could get a lot more detailed but this will suit our purposes more than enough.

Perceptions Affecting Your brand in the Web 2.0 World

2006-08-09T11:21:00.000+10:00

Perceptions rule the world. If I were to ask you what you thought of George Bush, your perception would yield a different meaning than what someone else might percieve of him but the point is perceptions (although markedly different) govern the meaning and value we attribute to everything. So my job here on this blog, is to tell you what the hell it has to do with marketing and advertising in the world of Web 2.0.

Everybody in the world wants to get the most value they can to satisfy their insatiable needs as best they can. This is an underlying facet of Perception which is often overlooked and I hope to explore topics which show you how to leverage this information. I'll be writing incisive topics such as:

What is Perception?
Maximising Associative Perception through Co-Branding
Leveraging Brand Equity
Delivering Powerful Messages to 'Cut Through the Clutter'
Dealing with Consumer Responses to Your Brand.

These articles will highlight the extreme importance of perception and value creation and how you can leverage this information to build a strong corporate identity in the world of bloggers and information junkies.

New Issue at trendwatching.com

2006-08-05T23:34:00.000+10:00

As you might have guessed from an earlier post of mine, I love looking at trends in the world today. This monthly briefing's theme is about innovation... Check it out here.

Regards,
Robert Kingston

Master this and you WILL become rich.

2006-08-04T10:08:00.000+10:00

There is only one fundamental concept in marketing which cannot be denied. That is, us marketers are communicating to our customers about how our product or service satiates a particular need of theirs. It is one of the only concepts in marketing which is concrete and if you master it - you may not only communicate your product's features better to the market, but you may also convice your audience that they need WHAT YOU SELL. It sound's like pretty powerful stuff, doesn't it? Well here are a few points which can push you in the right direction:

Take the easy road and find a product that people really do want to have.
Build your brand to match your product and your target market's values.
Diligently plan coodinate your marketing communication to send out a powerful and distinct message aimed at your target market.
Hire a GREAT copy writer - Or learn to do a GREAT job yourself.
Aim to satisfy your customers completely and then upsell them.
Use powerful and coercive language to gain rapport and highlight the need which the customer should fulfill. (A person doesn't need something - Until they notice it, that is.)

There are so many more points I can give to you on this, please feel free to link to this post and to discuss it.

Blogging on the Small Business Branding Blog (Try saying it quick!)

2006-07-31T23:02:00.000+10:00

As the title says, I'll be posting on the Small Business Branding Blog for an unknown amount of time so this website won't be updated as readily. Hopefully though, the plans which I had hoped to put into place on this blog will be used more effectively on the SBB website.

As that site is more developed I will be posting more advanced articles. The first article I'd like to post is an introductory one on branding. I hope you like it and keep visiting the website to see more marketing advice for small businesses.

10 Ways To Get Incoming Links To Your Website

2006-07-30T22:46:00.000+10:00

The following Article is written by James Woodley. I found this information TOO GOOD not to share. I hope you enjoy it and visit his website down below...

Obtaining incoming links to your website fulfills two main
objectives. Firstly it increases the traffic you could
potentially receive to your site because the more links you
have the more traffic you should receive, and secondly, by
obtaining links from pages with a good page rank you can
increase your own page rank which, although not the deciding
factor, will help boost your ranking in the search engines.

Listed below are ten ways in which you can obtain these
sought-after links.

1. Exchange Links With Other Websites

This process, known as reciprocal linking, is common place
on the internet, and is something most webmasters do.
However, while it's something you should do, it's important
to note that search engines place more importance on one-way
links than two-way or reciprocal links.

2. Submit Your Website To Directories

This is a good way of getting one-way links to your site (if
a reciprocal link is not required). There are numerous
directories you can submit to, offering both free and paid
submissions. When deciding on whether paid submissions are
worth it, you should look at the page where your link is
expected to appear and see if it has a reasonable page rank,
and the number of other links that appear on that page, with
the fewer the better.

3. Build A Network Of Websites And Interlink Them

When building multiple websites it makes sense to interlink
them, preferably from a home page link for maximum benefit.
This can be very beneficial if each of your websites is on a
different server, but be careful if they are hosted on the
same server, as the search engines will think you're
deliberately manipulating their results, and will most
likely prevent you from achieving higher rankings.

4. Write Articles

This is a very powerful method of obtaining a lot of
incoming one-way links to your site. By submitting your
articles, which include the all important resource box with
the link to your site, to multiple article directories you
can pick up backlinks from not only these article
directories but from other websites who pick up your
articles and include them on their website or blog.

5. Write Press Releases

Writing a compelling news-worthy press release about your
site or related topic, can also result in multiple websites
and news sources picking it up and linking to your site.
This is a very effective way of obtaining numerous one-way
links very quickly, but doesn't offer the long-term benefits
that articles do.

6. Create A Blog

Blogs are very easy to create with multiple websites
offering free services, so there is no excuse for not
creating a blog related to and linking to your main website.
You could post anything - your thoughts, articles, or
affiliate program reviews, for example, but make sure you
include a link to your site in the links section, and at the
end of each post if appropriate.

7. Leave Comments On Blogs And Guestbooks

You've got to be careful with this method that you don't
abuse it and start spamming other people's blogs or
guestbooks. Leave legitimate comments, and make it look like
you actually have something to contribute. For example, just
saying “Great Blog!” and then leaving your link is rightly
considered to be spam, and will also damage your reputation
in the long run.

8. Post On Forums That Allow Sig Files

Sig files are the line(s) that appear at the bottom of each
message and act as a discreet way of advertising your site.
You won't get a great deal of benefit in terms of page rank,
as most forums do not have a high page rank for their
threads, but you will build up a good number of links, and
as forums generally tend to get spidered by the search
engines regularly, they will follow the links to your site
and subsequently spider your site on a regular basis.

9. Write Testimonials

By writing and submitting testimonials to websites that you
have previously purchased products or services from, you can
get high-quality links to your site, often from the home
pages of the sites in question.

10. Buy Links

The final way to obtain incoming links is by simply buying
them. This can have a dramatic effect on your page rank and
subsequently your search engine rankings if you can get
links from PR6+ sites, however the only problem with this is
that most links for sale are often for a set period of time,
usually a month, and so you have to keep buying them to
maintain your higher page rank and rankings.

James Woolley is a full-time marketer who runs a website and
newsletter dedicated to helping people make money online
through internet marketing.

Keeeping Up With Consumer Consumption Trends

2006-07-30T08:57:00.000+10:00

Perhaps the best way to stay ahead of the market is to keep up with marketing news and this site I am going to show you is definitely amongst my favourite sites for finding out whats going on in the marketplace. The site is TrendWatching.com.

This month's brief is hardly surprising but its still quite interesting if you're looking to use innovative methods for advertising and retaining customers. Basically, personalisation and customisation in consumer products and services have been around for a long time. However, now websites and businesses are creating entire worlds in which customers interact with the company and also other customers.

This medium is especially useful for targeting young men who play in these worlds to escape their own reality. As you might have guessed, this is very useful to place advertising in.

So, if your brand suits online gaming, then maybe you should consider advertising on one of the many sites out there. Here is a handful:

Hopefully you have gained some insight from this post.

Rob.

The Winner's Marketing Mindset

2006-07-29T22:27:00.000+10:00

Have you ever wondered what kinds of beliefs it takes to make ridiculous amounts of money? I was reading an interesting collection of posts this evening which gave a lot of insight into this age old question. I don't claim to know the best three beliefs for a marketer to have but these are the points that I came up with:

There is no such thing as failure in life - only feedback. Every response you get, no matter how good or bad it is serves as feedback on which you can base future decisions upon.
Give yourself permission to succeed in whatever you pursue. Just accept that you are the only person who will be able to draw success in your life and there may come a time where you have to make a decision to pursue your goals at the expense of a comfort.
Find your purpose in life and anything is possible. People al have different strengths and weaknesses, some are more developed than others. Position your life around your strengths and match your skill with appropriate challenges.

If you PERFECT these three beliefs, not only will you lead a fulfilling life, you will have suceess beyond your wildest dreams. If you want to check out more good mindsets, my business partner's blog is surely one to watch!

Oh, and I'd kill to hear what YOU think of these, or to provide some more examples of good beliefs.

On Writing a Winning Business Plan: 1. Introduction

2006-07-28T18:46:00.000+10:00

1.0 Introduction
Perhaps the shortest and most definitive piece of a business plan is the introduction. That's because in this section you identify what sort of company you will be and why you are in the business. Below is the outline of the introduction and what I personally reccomend when writing each section.

Company Name and Details
Members
Company Background

Mission Statement

Vision Statement
Objectives

Corporate Governance

Company Name and Details
This section defines the basic details of the company including the name, adress, contact details and basic industry it is looking to compete within. For the 'Company Name', if you don't happen to have one already, choose something you like but keep the following points in mind when selecting it:

Keep it Short

Simple

Memorable

Relevant and;

Distinctive

Take 'Coca-Cola' for example (Said to be the world's most valuable brandname), it's Short, Simple, Memorable, Relevant and Distinctive. No one else can use Coke but many brands try to make it similar to Coke. Do you see a problem with this? Well, when other brands mimic Coke's brand image, they aim to instill attributes about Coke onto their brand of cola. This effectively erodes the customer's distinction between the two brands, making them forget the one that is imitating coke altogether. Whereas, if you make the product attributes too different, and it's not relevant at all, people will not be able to find your brand, so it is always good to keep them somewhat relevant.

Finally, a good name will be short, simple and memorable, these three points go hand in hand with each other. A good example of this is 'Google' - Its Incredibly short, its brain-dead simple and it is memorable as it is derived from the word meaning "A number with one hundred zeros after it."

Members
This section should clearly define who is part of the comapny and what their role is. Although I won't go into detail in this part, I will tell you one thing. Make sure you clearly define who will be taking what roles, becuase the last thing you want in your business is job ambiguities tearing your business apart.

Company Background
This section is also quite important, in that you describe your business's mission, vision, objectives and responsibilities.

Mission Statement
This is a statement of the organisation's purpose for existing. It should outline the position you want the company to take and what it strives to do. Here is an example of how to write a good business Mission Statement. Another good website which shows examples of mission statement by the leading world organisations can be found here at Man on a Mission. Make sure you keep it realistic and true to your organisation's and employee's core values, as they will be the people who your customers communicate with (both directly and indirectly).

Vision Statement
This statement is different from the organisation's Mission, in that it details the goals of the organisation and as Jay Ebben writes, "... the vision should state what the founder ultimately envisions the business to be, in terms of growth, values, employees, contributions to society, and the like..." This is a powerful section because it allows the company to pursue goals instead of flying aimlessly throughout the corporate world. Once again, you will find excellent examples of these on Man on a Mission.

Objectives
Depending on the type of plan you want to create, you can add different objectives in. For a marketing plan, you might like to use what are called S.M.A.R.T. Objectives. For those of you who don't know it stands for:

Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Realistic and;
Timely

So a good example of an Objective would be, "To achieve a 20% increase in sales in X business for y product for the financial year of 06/07." It is Specific - in that it describes the exact figures and areas of the objective. It is Measurable - Due to the fact you can collect data to measure the performanc of the company against the objective. It is Achievable - Because any business could easily achieve a 20% increase in sales. It is Realistic - Through the plan of action, it is a realistic objective for the company to have. Lastly, it is also Timely - As it specifies the time period and date by which the objective should be achieved by.

By writing objectives, it gives your company a focus in which you can direct your resources to achieving the desired result. Furthermore, by writing S.M.A.R.T. Objectives, you are driving your company towards following objectives which are possible to be met and are strategically important in growing your business.

Corporate Governance
I have left this until last because it isn't exactly required by a company but it certainly helps their community image. This is basically a statement of what the company or business believes are it's responsibilities in society. An example of this is how MacDonald's has the Ronald MacDonald Children's Charity. This reduces customer's perceptions that MacDonald's is a big corporate brand and can even give them a better image within the community it is helping. Once more... Man on a Mission has great examples of this, and while I don't particularly like to use the same source over and over in the same article, I believe this is a fantastic resource when you are looking to write the Introduction to your business plan.

That's all I have for you guys this week, I hope you all find this information as useful as I have in the past.

Robert.

The Best places for promoting your website

2006-07-28T09:52:00.000+10:00

How would you like to increase your traffic without spending a penny? Well, I'm compiling a nice list of websites you can submit your sites to, to increase your page rank, traffic and most importantly - PROFIT.

The Million Dollar Blog Site - Free Pixels
BlogBurst - Free Content Syndicators
Submit Express - Free S.E. Submission
Blogspot - Free Blog to Link to Your Website
Information Blog Directory
Use your site as a Signiture on your favourite forums.
Get reciprocal links to and from your friend's sites.
Combine your site with complimentary sites.
More to come...

If you have any other fantastic ideas, post them up!

Vital Ingredients for making TOP SECRET Business recipes...

2006-07-27T13:45:00.000+10:00

If you ever did a business degree at University you would have no doubt have written countless Plans for business. Plans are extremely useful for the success of any business and you could reduce your risk exponentially, just by having an effective plan for starting or managing your business. I myself find that there are only SEVEN tools you need to have, to devise a successful Business/Marketing plan. That is, you need:

Introduction
Situational Analysis
Marketing Mix
Promotions Plan
Organisational Structure
Budget and Plan of Action
Conclusion

Over the next few weeks I will describe all of the above points and more, that you will need to cover when writing a winning Business plan. I hope that this will help you to understand how to plan your business instead of hiring some chump who thinks they know what your business and industry is all about.

Look out for them!

Why SEO experts are almost pointless.

2006-07-27T09:49:00.000+10:00

Almost every marketing site you visit these days, RAVES about search engine optimisation or SEO. But the reality is, that for many small businesses, this approach to promoting your website is rather short-sighted and pointless when the search engines change their algorithms. In fact, many SEO companies charge from $200 to $1500 AUD up front, with continual monthly fees (not including your advertising expenses)! Not to mention the fact that many don't try to draw profitable traffic to your business.

At the very core, I believe that every organisation should design their site in accordance with Google's, Yahoo's and MSN's Mission Statements for their search engines. Why? Because that is what SEO is all about - Giving the search engines what they want to deliver to their users. Two programs which I have read and endorse, both advocate tailoring your site to meet the Mission statements of Major Search Engines. Those Programs are:

Of course, you should always follow some of the tips many SEO experts use but it's just not worth the trouble of hiring someone to do something which can be easily done anyway. That is:

You should find out the best keywords you need to use to target your audience
Write your main keywords into your websites which match the content (but don't overdo it!)
Link to other high ranked pages which have similar keywords and content
Get other high-ranked pages who have similar content to you, to link to your site

(I'll talk more about this another day...)

Get an affiliate program going
Submit you site to anywhere you can submit it to, (I particularly like this one here called FreeWebSubmission.com)

After that, continually update your content on the site, because we all know how much Google loves new stuff.

On Maximising Your Copywriting: Targeting

2006-07-24T08:49:00.000+10:00

It's my oppinion that the most vital part of any good sales site is the use of a good quality copywriter to help communicate the value of your product and brandname to your leads. Think about it... We live in a world of people and just because you have a great product doesn't mean people will be aware of it when they visit your site or just because you say its the best - No, you have to tell them what's in it for them. Furthermore, you have to give them lots of detailed information about it which they will enjoy!

Say for instance you are marketing 'promotional website products' towards grandmothers who want to learn how to use the internet - you don't want to tell them "The three most profitable internet lead conversion techniques known to man!", because they seek another benefit - to learn how to use the internet.

So, in addition to having a good copywriter you ALSO need to identify different key markets and generate targeted traffic and deliver them to websites aimed toward those different segments! This is where it starts getting tricky.

Now you might be asking, "But Rob, how do I generate targeted traffic to segmented sites?". Well my friend you are in luck because I'm going to show you.

Identify several different market segments.
Write ads which target these segments.
Place advertising where your target audiences are likely to see them and where google will DIGG your site.

Thats it. And your highly targeted copywriting will take care of the rest!

Search Engine Optimization

2006-07-23T16:09:00.000+10:00

It's an unbelieveably simple thing to do. I just cant believe why people can't do it for themselves. Hell! I could do it too. You just have to watch:

Keywords on google
Links and Site Rankings (of the sites you exchange links with)
Titles
Website Design
Copywriting

It couldn't get any more simple than that! Really, all it takes is hiring someone who has enough persistence and good research skills to find quality sites to exchange links with! Besides spending gratuitous amounts of money on an SEO professional to spend days finding people to exchange links with your site you might as well do it "in-house" - With your marketing and techy gurus.

Underway...

2006-06-28T12:08:00.000+10:00

My friend and I, Pete have finally got the ball rolling with regards to starting our own business. Turns out that its a lot more work than we expected though. At this rate I suspect we will be up and running by the end of November.

You all better start saving, so you can buy our products...

Business Idea: A Community

2006-06-25T08:25:00.000+10:00

Has anybody ever properly decided to set up a professional looking community website for networking university students. Kind of like a match between Hi5 and a Dating Site. If you think about it, you could advertise at universities and once you have a ton of members, use adsense to generate some revenue and get some advertisers targeting Uni students to show ads on the website!

The world runs on money and the only reason why people are going to uni is to get a cool job which they get paid for - And what better way to help University students to get the job they want by offerring a site which gives career advice, networking and a place to meet people? I'd join that site!

If anyone does decide to take it up, let me know how it goes...

Elance

2006-06-17T14:17:00.000+10:00

This site looks fantastic - perfect for outsourcing stuff and growing your business.

Music Tastes

2006-06-16T22:25:00.000+10:00

For probably an entire year, I have been listening to chillout music (Prefuse 73, Thievery Corporation, The Avalanches and Jamiroquai) but all of a sudden I have taken up Rock music (Led Zeppelin, Wolfmother, Guns n' Roses and INXS). WTF... Right? It's come out of nowhere. Maybe it could be attributed to a shift in my thinking this year. I've become more relaxed, entreprenurial and creative this year than I can ever recall.

Hell... I've got more ideas for businesses than I can manage. Maybe I'll put up some business plans for people to use. Speaking of which, here is a business we created and ran for an assignment. It wasn't totally up my alley but it was fun marketing and running it...

DON'T CLICK THIS LINK FOR FUN!

2006-06-16T17:07:00.000+10:00

I know that you absolutely don't want to click this link at all, do you. You'd never just find yourself wanting to click this right here, would you.

You know why? You can't think about what you don't want to think about, without thinking about it - Think about it... :P