Archive for the ‘General’ Category
Upcoming Seminars: Advanced Social Media Marketing
Friday, January 29th, 2010Social Media Marketing – How to Create Personal & Valuable Customer Relationships
Sunday, 03/14/2010 2:15PM – 3:15PM , Room 159
The New England Food Show | Boston Convention & Exhibition Center – Boston, MA
For busy restaurateurs, mid-level and senior marketing professionals and HR managers, keeping up with the rapid pace of social media can be daunting. With new social media websites, blogs, video sharing sites and applications appearing almost weekly, new opportunities are always on the horizon. In this workshop, you will learn how to plan, execute and measure a successful social media campaign and how to create policies to protect your brand and avoid legal trouble!
Learn how to:
- prepare and implement internal policies to protect your brand and reputation
- plan an effective strategy
- use analytics and other tools to measure success (more…)
Social Media for Small Business
Friday, January 29th, 2010Social Media Marketing : Find out if social media is a waste of time or a critical part of your long-term marketing plan
Thursday, 04/1/2010 7:00PM
Flint Memorial Library | North Reading, MA
Presented by: Dan Green, President, The Green Internet Group
For entrepreneurs, mid-level and senior marketing professionals and HR managers.
Over 18 months ago marketing budgets were slashed by business owners and corporate executives looking to conserve cash during the recent economic downturn. As confidence returns businesses are reinvesting in marketing . However 18 months is a long time and much as changed. Despite the hype and proliferation of self -proclaimed “social media marketing experts” few businesses have truly harnesses the power of social media. Worse, many have spent significant resources with little or no return on investment in social media.
Find out what works, what doesn’t and how measure results so you can decide whether investing in social media is right for your business. (more…)
Still Ignoring Social Media?
Saturday, November 14th, 2009A convincing argument that social media has evolved from passing fad to seismic shift in online communications.
Build your brand and your sales by combining social media with mobile technology
Tuesday, September 29th, 2009Geared towards restaurant operators, this upcoming seminar explores integrated marekting using cutting edge technologies and social media. Space is limited so call today to reserve your seat.
The world has gone wireless, and new media marketing has taken on a life of its own. But what does it mean to SMS text, tweet, friend, or become a fan?
In this seminar, we’ll explore how:
- Social media has impacted marketing strategies and mobile exposure. (more…)
Technology is Changing Our Businesses and Our World
Monday, August 24th, 2009This video is from a presentation Sony played this at their executive meeting this year. It clearly shows the impact of technology on our lives and our world. It makes you think.
You can watch the entire video on YouTube by clicking here.
Get off my lawn you Twittering punk!
Thursday, August 13th, 2009Another resume for a “Social Media Marketing Expert” landed on my desk. Every month, I see several of these. But for some reason, this one grabbed my attention. I didn’t examine the curious sense of importance I subconsciously attached to this particular resume but I think I knew why–I’m looking for the moron who was Twittering at the movies the other night so I can waterboard him.
Okay, I can’t be sure he was Twittering. But despite 50 feet of Technicolor straight ahead of me, once the glare of his Blackberry seared my retina, this jerk became the focus of all my attention. Attempting to count his thumb strokes, I determined that his manic bursts never exceeded 140 characters. Aha! Must be Twitter. Besides, he reekked of self-involvement that seemed clearly at odds with his lack of self-consciousness. I bet those were his best sweatpants-nice choice.
Looking at the resume again, I decided to set up a phone appointment to see why the candidate so freely used the term “expert.” To me, that implies some track record of success and I wanted to find out more about how he defined a successful social media campaign. I suppose to protect his real world reputation we should give him a name. Let’s call him Earl. I made the call. (more…)
So What’s Your Story?
Sunday, August 2nd, 2009Before joining the online conversation you and your staff better get your stories straight.
What’s your story? Can you tell a colorful story that paints, from a customer perspective, a vivid picture of what it’s like to do business with your company? Describe every interaction at each of your touch points. Before you can make the social web work for your business, be certain you and everyone in your company can tell the same story to every customer.
Your story may start with someone answering the phone. How many times does it ring? What does the person answering your phone to greet your customer say? Perhaps your typical customer experience starts with a physical visit to your store, office or practice. What does the customer see, smell, hear–what grabs his or her attention immediately. Be a fly on the wall and describe the conversation between the customer and the person representing your company. Let’s give him a name and job description. How about Beau? (Why not Beau–you have a problem with Beau?) (more…)
Spring Brings Major Changes in Search
Friday, June 26th, 2009The last few weeks have brought significant changes to the search landscape that could have huge implications on ones current search engine marketing strategy .
Microsoft’s Bing.com is out of beta and initial stats show interest was high and in alignment with Microsoft’s goal of becoming the number two search engine within five years.
Launched as a decision engine as opposed to a search engine, Bing’s initial focus is on travel, shopping, health, or local search. If the concept of being a decision engine translates to users, those of us in search marketing might discover a higher proportion of users are further down the purchase funnel, ready to buy. Bing has tremendous implications for pay-per-click advertisers as searches at this end of the funnel could lead to better conversion rates and require reallocating client keyword portfolios. Time and testing will tell. But for our clients in the travel and local search space we are considering diversifying their spend. If the early trends hold Yahoo will need to respond to survive. (more…)
A Greener Green Internet Group
Sunday, June 14th, 2009Our group gets its name from our fearless leader, whose last name happens to be Green. It was kind of a “shotgun” homage. But making every effort to be a green Green Internet Group was something we agreed to incorporate into our core values. We’re finding the task to be more challenging than we imagined.
Breaking old habits was easy enough, except for one of us, but the real difficulties came when trying to accurately measure carbon footprint impact and true energy savings from things such as telecommuting and buying local. First we went after the low hanging fruit, tackling the day to day operations starting with supplies.
We’ve eliminated paper use wherever possible through the use of electronic forms, electronic invoices billing and my favorite–eliminating unnecessary paperwork. The paper we are using is made from 100% recycled materials including:
» Printer paper
» Sticky notes
» Stationery
» Binders
» Presentation folders
For our ink jet printers we’re testing out refillable cartridges and printing double-sided whenever possible. Internal power consumption strategy has been fairly simple—if we’ not using it-we turn it off.
Comparing power consumption to pre-conservation times was eye-opening. We’ve enjoyed a fairly substantial reduction in energy used with relatively little inconvenience. Next we moved on to logistics.
Eliminating unnecessary road trips seemed a good place to start. Much of this came down to better planning. We’ve also increased telecommuting options, keeping face to face meetings to a minimum. I have mixed feelings about reducing face to face interaction–it’s hard to play practical jokes on people who aren’t around so you can enjoy the fruits of your efforts. Phone pranks are kids stuff-we gave those up in our mid-thirties. But the total miles and time saved have given a boost to productivity in certain areas and we’re committed to the cause.
We haven’t cut back yet too much on client meetings but this area of our business was always fairly efficient. Because we work with clients nationally we’ve become quite adept at web conferencing and other virtual communication. The biggest challenge for many of us has been driving more slowly. This is proving to be a tough a bit to break. It’s a combination of time management, allowing a little extra travel time, and concentration. While finding slower drivers with whom we can pace ourselves is becoming easier, we’re still a small minority of drivers.
Changing product output was a bit more challenging. Some clients love the idea of using Forestry Stewardship Council papers for direct mail and print work. Internally we do what we can. But different papers inks and delivery methods all have an effect on margins, either through cost of goods, labor and service times. We’re examining P&L activity regularly to make sure our bottom line sustains our business philosophy.
Buying local has always been on of our core beliefs. But drilling down into the actual carbon footprint data is not only difficult but error prone. The results of these calculations are only as good as the assumptions built into them. The good feeling of supporting fellow local businesspeople can blind one from some unpleasant realities. Looking through the narrow lens of reducing environmental impact requires some dispassionate thought. Supply chains are complex and some real in-depth calculations have shown some disappointing results. Sometimes the local purchase comes with a jumbo carbon footprint compared to alternatives. For now we’re trying to really understand the complexities of these measurements willing to fall short in on our green initiatives if they come at the expense greatly reduced local business support.
We’re also looking at other potential energy consumption trade-offs resulting from telecommuting. When we all come to work we heat one office while lowering thermostats and turning off electronics in six different homes while we’re all at work. When we’re all working from home does the energy consumption from the additional heating and energy hungry devices we all need wreak more havoc than the gas we’d use coming into the office?
We’ll keep you updated on our findings as we dig into the data a bit more deeply. So we’re looking for any experience or input to help us make the Green Internet Group greener. We’d love to hear from you.
Turning Clicks Into Cash
Friday, June 5th, 2009When training clients in pay-per-click management, I often see the same costly error—mistaking conversions and sales for profit when determining budgets and maximum cost per click. Basing campaign success on conversions alone is not going to help unless these conversions are profitable. It’s important to understand and incorporate acceptable customer acquisition costs into campaign setup. Without doing so, every sale can chip away at profits.
In some instances profit isn’t the only metric that matters; sometimes it isn’t even critical. It’s important to understand the specific goals for your campaign and the associated success metrics. On occasion we have clients whose only goal is to be at the top of the results. Position is all that matters. Your budget is going to based around achieving top position, profit be damned.
Other clients first begin stating they want to maximize sales and mention metrics like highest traffic, most conversions, return on ad spend and highest profit margins. While certainly an achievable and sometimes desirable strategy, none of the metrics factor in overall profit. Traffic doesn’t equal conversions and conversions don’t necessarily equate to profit. Return on ad spend is tricky for newcomers to understand, especially those who have been bombarded by salespeople pushing return on ad spend as ROI. But return on ad spend only factors in sales-not profits from those sales. (more…)
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