Passionate Users

This is a must read for people wanting customers to buzz about them. It is about user manuals and why we stop selling the customer after they buy. I found it through Seth. Thanks. Seth's comment is that Marketers should write the user manuals. I think that employees should be trained to think like marketers. (Or like the customer, for that matter.)

Back to School Marketing

How can a local university help you with your marketing? Here are 6 tips.

• Be part of the curriculum - I have never met this prof, but he uses us as one of his blogging examples and has students monitor our blog.
• Continuing Education - I speak at least twice a year at the local university and help people studying entrepreneurship learn about how to be more successful.
• Course Guest - Professors that teach marketing, business administration and technology have all invited me in for presentations on what we do in the "real" world.
• Career Fair - Career fairs are a great place to show off your company a bit and maybe find your next employee.
• Organizations - I have been invited to participate in events with several organizations that are business oriented and run by students.
• Interns - Don't overlook finding an intern to help you do your buzz marketing. One part time person that does nothing but create buzz on the web can really help your business grow.

Remember that universities and colleges want to help their students succeed. Most will be eager to have you participate on campus. If you contact one person and they are not interested, try some others. This is not something where there is one person in charge of managing these kinds of opportunities.

Clarity – Get What You Want

Please read this post all the way to the end. If you want to get people to take action, you have to give them clear direction. Does the person understand exactly what you want and do they know the steps to completion? If you make assumptions, you can be sure that you will not get what you want and you will all feel more frustrated. For years I dreaded working with print shops. They always seemed to think that their customers should already be certified design specialists that knew everything about how a file should be prepared. If the experience of working with you is frustrating or makes the new client uneasy, they will probably not come back. Please help me illustrate this point by posting a comment on this blog post. Describe the worse example you have experienced where a vendor was not clear and created a negative impression because they were hard to work with.

Guy Kawasaki - Cleveland

If you are in NE Ohio come see Guy Kawasaki speak on September 6th. Buzzoodle will also be showcased at this event as an innovative company in the region.

Do you have anything new to say?

I was reading another very popular blog a week or two ago and it said they never publish the same idea twice. Always new stuff, it claimed. Obviously your blog will not have repeat visitors if you do not add new and interesting ideas. However, can anyone really say that each blog post is completely new? The whole idea of a blog is that it is a continuum of thoughts and ideas. The same goes for being an expert. If you are developing yourself as an expert in a particular field, do not be afraid to repeat your message, but in a new way. I have probably written about the buzz you can create by following up with old contacts 10 times, but never in the same way and I am sure you have not read them all. If I did today’s post on Brain Surgery it would be new. But it would not be effective. The real key is to be able to take your old content and make it new through adding different viewpoints, uses or examples. Begin by looking through your old posts and seeing which ones are popular. Since you wrote that post, you probably have new experiences and insight. Now write the same post with a different angle and add the new insight. Even the people that read your older post will probably appreciate the refresher. We rarely read something once and immediately act upon it.

Exit Interview Questions

Can Exit Interview Questions help you create buzz? If you do not conduct an exit interview when one of your staff quits, you should start. Not only is it an excellent source of information on how to improve your business, but it is also an excellent way to maintain an advocate that might create buzz about you. Of course, this post only counts for people that are leaving on good terms. There are a lot of exit interview question sites out there that can provide you with excellent basic exit interview questions you can use. I wanted to come up with some additional questions that are often overlooked during the exit interview. What do you consider your biggest success story during your time with us? This can be used to build your database of success stories and it helps you hone in on what the exit interviewee liked best. Would you like us to keep in touch with you? I stress to people that are leaving on good terms that we respect their decision and if I can ever help them in any way down the road, I am willing to do that. If they have been willing to contribute to our success, then I should be willing to contribute to their career success. What do you know about our referral program? Make sure anyone leaving your organization knows about your policies on referrals and on referring job candidates. All of our former employees can get a sizable commission on anyone they refer to us. Are you willing to continue to create a bit of buzz about us in your spare time? If you already encourage employees to create buzz on a regular basis, be sure to ask the employee to continue to do so and email you every any time they create some buzz, just to let you know. With these questions added to your other exit interview questions, you will be able to build a stronger relationship as people leave that will help you create more buzz in the future. Once you have some ex employees on your list, start using it and really keeping in touch. Make your email to them personal and let them know about your successes, your job openings, your new clients and big news. Few companies do this, and it is easy to do.

Debunking 5 Buzz Marketing Myths

Myth 1: Buzz Marketing is not ethical Any broad marketing category may be ethical or unethical depending on the truthfulness of the message and the means for delivering the message. If you create a powerful, truthful story that highlights your best points and everyone starts talking about it, you actually have one of the most highly ethical forms of marketing. How many other marketing types can have sincerity and permission to interrupt someone’s day? Myth 2: Buzz Marketing takes a big budget Most things in life are easier if you have a big budget. Buzz marketing can benefit from a budget, but it can also be very successful with no budget. People that lack money are forced to be more creative, and buzz marketing is more effective as a grass roots, highly creative effort. If you want to blow a big budget, buy a Super Bowl ad. Myth 3: Buzz Marketing requires street teams Many people think that buzz marketing requires street teams. Groups of people that run around talking about stuff on busses, in bars or in stores. They talk loudly enough to be overheard and try to get noticed. When I started Buzzoodle, I got contacted by many people that did this, offering their services. That is not a proper Buzz Marketing tactic. Buzz Marketing is far more effective by training your existing advocates, such as your employees, in ways to create buzz on a regular basis. Myth 4: Buzz Marketing is a fad The name Buzz Marketing may be a fad. The techniques and the strategies will stand the test of time. In fact, because of technology, there are constantly new ways to create some buzz and generate word of mouth. Buzz Marketing techniques that involve ongoing buzz creation are becoming more relevant and more essential all the time. Myth 5: Buzz Marketing requires a blog Blogs are a great marketing tool. They help you create buzz, generate sales leads and get speaking engagements. However, blogging is not essential for Buzz Marketing. It all depends on your goals. If you are focused in a particular city, you may find that more off-line buzz strategies will help you create buzz. Some people rely more on eNewsletters than blogs. One of the reasons blogging seems synonymous with buzz and word of mouth marketing is because many marketing agencies use blogs to see what people are buzzing about. That does not mean you have to have a blog to create a buzz. These 5 Buzz Marketing Myths may be stopping you from getting started. Do not be intimidated by buzz marketing. A few minutes a day can lead to big buzz down the road, but you will never get their unless you start walking.

Making Money with Blogs

If you have not figured it out yet, Blogs are a good marketing tool. Blogs can also make you money. If you want to be see how much money a blog can make you, read this cnn article. Thanks to Dan Barker of Barker Software & Consulting for pointing it out to me. Before you think you are going to get rich with your blog, consider some things.

• It takes a while to build an audience, unless you are Guy Kawasaki.
• Millions of blogs are being created. The good thing is most will fizzle.
• You have to enjoy writing every day, or pay someone else to.
• While their are free blog sites, you should pay for one. I have been trapped here at blogger for a long time because I do not have the time to migrate.

Making a little money with blogs is not hard. Generating leads and speaking engagements with your blog is not hard. It does take time and you should keep in mind that the people in those articles are the exception. Start your blog because you love to write, you are passionate about the topic and you want to be seen as an expert on your topic in your industry. You might be making money with your blog in a year, but have realistic expectations in the beginning.

Buzzoodle Buzz Marketing - Author's Pricing

Special Discounts on Buzzoodle Buzz Marketing. Be one of the first 100 people to sign up before September 30th, 2006 and you will be able to purchase Buzzoodle Buzz Marketing at author's cost. I will let you know by email when I get the first shipment and will personally send them out. Sign up for Buzzoodle Buzz Marketing and be the first to know the 57 word of mouth marketing challenges that can make your organization the one everyone is talking about. - Because many people are requesting multiple copies for their staff, I am limiting it to one copy at cost per company, please.

Snakes on a Bandwagon

Does your story have the trappings of a bandwagon? One filled with snakes? Considering this is a buzz marketing blog, you may have noticed the absence of any mention of snakes on a plane. Lots of buzz. Some huge names in word of mouth marketing seem to have converted their blogs to speaking of nothing else. I, however, don’t like to jump on the bandwagon and pretend it is more than a movie. Don’t get me wrong, it is great that so many people have gotten behind it and felt like they could participate in the story. It is fun. A small group of people decided it would be fun to make a big deal about the movie, and it worked. Other people joined in and eventually the buzz was big. Let’s forget about snakes, bandwagons, and Mr. Jackson for a minute. Have you considered that there are people right around where you live that, if they decided to passionately promote you, could start a huge buzz on your behalf? What is important to remember is that they will not do it because you want them to or need them too. They might do it because they can, if it seems fun. Do you have a great story that will make it easy for people to get on your bandwagon and make you successful just for the fun of it?

Buzz Marketing in Turkey

If you blog or do Buzz Marketing and you are expecting to see an 8% increase in sales in the first month, think again. Blogging, and Buzz Marketing in general, have something in common. They spread at their own pace and do not create a sudden upsurge in sales unless you are very lucky. Instead, much like the 6 degrees of separation theory, your efforts lead to connections that lead to additional connections that make unexpected things happen. Take for instance this buzz marketing blog and my 9 year old daughter's business, Kids Roar. Some wonderful people in Turkey read my blog and flew over here to discuss a partnership deal. At dinner, I briefly mentioned how Alexandra had a business and it was a lot of fun. The one couple had a young daughter as well, so we talked at some length about that. Now these people know someone that is the editor of CEO's Magazine in Turkey and they went back and told him about it. Bang, now Alexandra is featured in a CEO magazine in Turkish and even though it will probably not generate sales directly for her, it is another great story she has in her arsenal to help create buzz. See her press release she and I did last night here. My blog gave me the chance to meet them, Alexandra's blog gave them interesting information to use in their article. The buzzworthy story made it right for the magazine.

Commercial real estate buzz

How do you create buzz about your commercial real estate? We are moving offices right now and one thing I have noticed is the difficulty of finding a good source of commercial real estate listings. I am sure they are out there, but as I browse I have not been able to find one good source. It got me thinking, if I owned commercial real estate, how would I start creating buzz long before I wanted to sell it to make it easier? Much like anything else, I would work hard to develop commercial real estate success stories. For example, have your tenants stayed longer than in the average property in your area? Have your commercial tenants been more profitable because of the location? Did you get a great deal on the location and is it highly profitable for you? Constantly be looking for stories to tell and tell them frequently. People that do not have commercial property yet will start thinking about getting into the business. Then, when they start asking for advice from you, you know that they are potential future purchasers of your property. If they are not, there is still a good chance they are going to talk about you to others. Once you begin thinking about selling the commercial property, start telling people about it. For example, “You know that plaza I have? I am thinking about selling it, even though it is very lucrative, and putting the money in a new venture…” Listen to what people are saying and see if anyone bits. This works best if you are not in a hurry, of course. You could even mention that if someone offers to buy it before you list it with a realtor, you could part with it for less. I would also always keep a list of business owners I met that were currently renting. They are a source for potential new renters if they outgrown their existing space, and they probably often think about the benefits of owning their own multi-suite business site. Send them all out updates and opportunities once in a while to keep them dreaming about the possibility of owning their own commercial property one day. The great thing about buzz is that it fits in nicely with life. It is really just cool small talk. Real Estate is usually a long term investment. Be sure to invest in creating buzz and awareness as well to get the highest profit from your commercial real estate.

Web 2.0 Web Traffic Watch List

One of the things I have struggled with is how fast new buzz opportunities spring up. How can I spend day and night looking at each one and letting you know about them? There are millions of niche places you can create a little buzz. Which ones are the best depends on your goals and which day it is. Seth Godin has a link to a list of top Web 2.0 companies as measured by Alexa for traffic. This is a gold mine if you are looking for new places to create buzz. The disadvantage of this site is that it does not describe them. But if you have some time to kill and want to explore new opportunities, it should keep you busy for a week or 10.

Opportunities - Buzz and Word of Mouth

A good friend of mine is publishing a book on marketing tips. He is getting 100 tips written by various people to be included in the book. He already has some big names involved. The cost is only to buy 100 books at $6 per book. You can sell them, give them away, etc. He has about half the slots full. This is a good buzz opportunity because you will be in the book, and you will have a gift to give people when you talk to them. Win/Win. Check him out here Also check out the upcoming WOM Conference in England - They have done a good job of simply asking me to talk about them. That is all buzz usually takes.

Great Deals on Buzz Marketing

What? Great Deals on Buzz Marketing? What does that mean, you ask. I consider a great deal on buzz to be something that I spend less than 5 minutes on and it is likely to get 2 or more people to spend more than 5 minutes on my website, blog or making a purchase. So what are some great deals on buzz marketing? Great Buzz Deal #1: Email - Each day follow up with two stale contacts and touch base. This should take under 5 minutes and all you have to do is filter through your email achieves. Great Buzz Deal #2: Social Bookmarks - Go to del.icio.us or another social bookmark site and bookmark an interesting page on your company website or a post on your blog. Be sure to use compelling descriptions and tags so that more people are likely to click on it when they see it. Great Buzz Deal #3: News Voting – Go to Digg or GoBigNetwork and post a link to your blog or website. With the right title you might generate a huge buzz return on your investment and it should not take more than 2 minutes once you have an account and have done it once or twice. Great Buzz Deal #4: Drop an email to a popular blogger. - If you provide a link and something interesting to say, they may add it to their blog and you will get buzz. Great Buzz Deal #5: Forum or Blog Comments- Add a thoughtful comment to someone’s blog post or message board/forum. Provide a link back to your site or blog to get more traffic. You could do it right now, right here. That saves you at least a minute! These are just five of the many great deals on buzz marketing that are on the internet these days. Be creative and bargain hunt for deals that give you a bigger bang for a smaller investment of time and keep doing them frequently.

Newspapers and Blogs

Yesterday the local Akron Beacon Journal did an article on business blogging that heavily featured me. Including a huge picture of me smiling that made me look fat, my wife says. The funny thing about the article was that it did not have a link on the web and did not generate any internet traffic at all. I was actually down yesterday. What it did generate was a lot of emails from people, some of whom I had not spoken with in a while. That was nice. Then, local Small Business Guru and blogging expert Anita Cambell mentioned it in her blog the next day. That did generate more traffic. The moral of the story is that buzz is not isolated. One thing leads to another, that leads to another, and can build up to nice buzz for you.

VOIP and Viral Bad Buzz

When you change your phone number, you have to tell people. When you change it back, you have to tell them again. VOIP easily spreads good and bad buzz when people send out their new contact information. Consider the email my sister just sent out to 50 people: ------------- Hello Just wanted to let you all know we are back to our old phone number. # 610-xxx-xxxx We tried the voice over internet protocol (VOIP) and it has been an absolute nightmare. I will be glad when it is all over!!! Hope all is well! -------------- If you are in the VOIP industry, you need to be sure to make people happy, because bad experiences from you and your competitors travels fast. As a side note, I have been very happy with our VOIP 2nd line in the office.

Buzz and Busy - Now Hiring

Buzz is good. It makes you grow. Sometimes buzz makes you grow fast. I am looking for at least one good software engineer. Must be in the greater Akron area. Ideal candidate will enjoy how technology can enable content management and marketing. Send resume to jobs@outstanda.com

Make It Great - Phil Gerbyshak

I finally got my copy of Phil Gerbyshak's new book, Make It Great. It came to the office, and I took it home when I went home for lunch, planning to reread it again in the evening. (I'd read the advance copy before.) When I got home, my wife, who met Phil on a trip to DC, had already read it. So instead of me rehashing my thoughts on it, here are hers.

It provided a nice wrapper for the other business and leadership books I have read. Phil mentions Zig Ziglar and others that I have read, and ties them up into an actionable work book. - Neofita McDaniel

The Soul of an Amusement Park

I have been working long hours lately and wanted to do something fun with the family on Saturday. At the last minute we decided to go to Geauga Lake Amusement Park. It is less than an hour away and with young kids, it is not necessary to drive the extra distance to Cedar Point, as it is famous for bigger roller coasters, which I could not have gone on with them anyway. For those of you that do not know the history, Geauga Lake used to be an amusement park across the lake from Sea World. Then they bought Sea World and merged them. Then they became Six Flags. Then they closed the Sea World section and made it sort of a lame part of the park, with some minor attractions. Then Cedar Fair bought it and really changed things up. All of this happened in about a 8 year span. There is buzz marketing relevance coming, stay with me…. The constant changes have left the park without a vision or a soul. The coasters are still fun, and they have invested heavily in turning the old Sea World side into a water world theme park, but there is a real lack of identify. There are lots of places that once used to be cool restaurants on the lake and great little shops. Now many of them are boarded up or employee only areas. It was fun in the past to listen to live music and have a drink in the late afternoons. Riverboats still sit on the lake and I have not seen them move in years. The whole park seems like a carnival in a parking lot. Here today, vacant tomorrow. Amusement parks usually thrive on the buzz they create by adding the next “world’s largest rollercoaster” – replace largest with fastest, highest, etc. Sometimes you do not need buzz. In fact, you are better off without it. In the case of Geauga Lake, it is fine but I hope the current owners stay in place for a few years and care enough to make it seem special. To give it an identity it has clearly lost. Maybe next year it will be the Aurora metro park zoo and video arcade.

Generating Sales Leads with Buzz Marketing

Sales leads can be generated with buzz marketing only if you are prepared. Buzz Marketing is not going to make people come and get in line to buy your service. It is going to create curiosity that will cause an investigation. If you are trying to generate sales leads with buzz and word of mouth marketing, consider the process a prospect will go through for your particular product or service.

To increase sales leads with buzz marketing:

• Make sure your website has clear, easy to find information about the product or service.
• Make sure it is easy to purchase online or request to request more information.
• Make sure your product or service name is memorable and you are ranked high on search engines when people start investigating.
• Have every staff member know how to handle a call from a sales lead.
• Make the purchase an easy to understand decision with multiple ways to find out about it. Acknowledge and reward people that do a referral and generate a sales lead for you.
• Be ready for a sudden increase in sales.
• Don’t let your buzz die. Keep generating a steady stream of buzz and word of mouth. When people hear about something from multiple sources they are more likely to investigate.
• Follow up with your sales leads quickly and multiple times. More than likely the buzz has made your lead curious, but you are not their top priority.

If you take the Buzzoodle approach and keep generating a steady stream of buzz, you will generate more sales leads. Be prepared to educate and handle the leads well, or you may be wasting your time.

- And yes, this is one of those many things I have learned the hard way.

The Unfortunate Fact of Customer Service

I am lazy. If I am spending a nickel, I expect to be treated like a king. Not like during some revolution, but like a king during a good, stable, firmly in control of the countryside kind of way. Tomorrow is a meeting I am scheduled to go to. It is a membership organization that requires a sign up. I am already in another group, and told the owner to add it to my bill and I would join this one as well. He told me (nicely) to go out and sign up on the website. He does not realize how lazy I am. (I am actually busy, but lazy seems cuter.)

Now I will miss the next meeting because it took too much effort. Far less effort than writing this blog post, but I write this post because I want to.

If you want to create buzz you have to make your story easy to spread. If you want more sales, you need to make the purchase as easy as possible.

A Little Buzz Here, A Little Buzz There

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know that our thing is creating a little buzz all the time with as many advocates as possible. Doing that can lead to a long tail effect for buzz and grow your organization. I have a form up where you can sign up to get information on my book, Buzzoodle Buzz Marketing as it nears release. I have been promoting it in a variety of small ways, and the funny thing is that each different way gets me a little more results.

• My Network - My personal network is the only thing that has resulted in a lot of interest right away. Some people have pre-ordered copies for all of their employees already.

The rest are all about even. All of the following areas have generated 1-5 people interested.

• My Squidoo Lens - Had I not taken 15 minutes the other night in bed to update my Squidoo Lens, I would have lost out on a couple of interested people.
• This Blog - Even with 50-150 readers a day, this blog has underperformed with sign ups. Only a few.
• eNewsletter - I have not made the announcement in our eNewsletter yet, but it landed in someone else's and resulted in someone being interested.
• Trackback on Seth Godin's Blog - Making comments and doing trackbacks on popular blogs also generate interest, and has generated conversions.
• Google Search - Yes, even the traditional search engine is bringing in contacts, and I didn't even pay anyone for SEO.
• The great unknown - Several people have personality flaws and refused to let me know how they found the page. I might delete them, but then again, I might not.

This is in about 10 days of working at it in my spare time. The real lesson here is that Buzz Marketing should not be about hitting a home run. It should be about creating a little buzz here, a little buzz there and building it into a roar that sticks around and grows.

Agency.com

Tim Raines pointed me to his post that points to what agency.com is doing to win subway business. If you have not seen the video yet, it is interesting. Thanks Tim.

Yellow Pages

We are doubling our office space soon and it was time to do some cleaning. One trip out to the dumpster was with my arms full of yellow pages phone books. New ones, because I throw the old ones away. It is expansive to buy a yellow page ad. You could create a great, interactive website for less than the monthly yellow page ad cost. I'd kept the phone books because I used to keep the phone books, but I always look up people's phone numbers online now. It took a layer of dust on the cover to get me to realize I was never going to need the phone book again. Even if the power was out, I would look up a bill in a filing cabinet to call the power company. If you want to create buzz, you have to have a buzz-worthy message and you have to put it in a place people will find it.

Win the Buzz Game

Creating buzz really can be thought of like a game. There are lots of ways to measure your success (points.) Here are the different point options you have. And by the way, you can help measure ROI with this as well.

• Sales Increase - Are your sales going up and Buzz is the only thing different?
• Website Sales - Can you track where sales are coming from on your website through your ecommerce store?
• Website Traffic - Is your website traffic growing faster? Do you see a bump after a buzz marekting effort?
• Blog Mentions - How often are you mentioned on blogs? Is it going up?
• Google Trends - If you are popular enough, google trends will show you website search trends.
• Call and Email Volume - If you are getting more calls and emails for information, it is a good sign that buzz is paying off. Be sure to ask people how they heard about you.
• Search Engine Ranking - Believe it or not, Buzz effects search engine ranking. Every time someone links to your page from a credible site they are helping you achive better ranking. Measure your search engine rank for main keywords.
• Inbound Links - The same as search engine ranking. You can measure your inbound links on the major search engines.
• Referrals - If you are creating good buzz and have good products and services that people understand, you will see an increase in referrals.

I am sure there are more ways to measure your results. I know of some more sophisticated products out there but this is a simple list you can start with today. Be sure to write down your measurements so you can compare them over time.

Seth Godin for Authors

As I am going through the final stages of publishing my first book, I was very pleased with Seth Godin's blog post with advice to authors. If I could get on Oprah, Seth would have to blog about me and then my evil plan would be complete. One thing I will adjust on his list: He says blurbs are not very important. I agree on the back cover they may not be very important to selling the book, but blurbs are a good way to build advocates (people that are not famous but are quoted on your book will talk about it.) and a good long list of blurbs with names and titles is going to produce a lot of search engine hits on a website or blog. Thanks for the advice, Mr. Godin.

WOM BUZZ VIRAL Marketing

This post is my personal opinion on the differences between Buzz Marketing, WOM - Word of Mouth Marketing and Viral Marketing. There is so much overlap, that some people think that it is all just word of mouth marketing. Some people think Viral Marketing takes place only on the internet. Some people think Buzz Marketing is when you go out and pay people to fake buzz. WOM - Word of Mouth - Word of mouth is really people recommending something to someone they know or writing about something in a public place, like the internet. Referrals from a friend are very likely to trigger a purchase, and this is the goal. Viral Marketing - Making something viral does not necessarily mean someone is willfully recommending the product or service, as in word of mouth marketing. It could be that the message attaches itself to something that someone does, such as an email footer for hotmail, and spreads. Or it could be something that is easy to spread and people enjoy spreading it. Viral marketing spreads very quickly and with little effort once the marketing virus is released. Buzz Marketing - Buzz Marketing I refer to as word of mouth marketing with the volume turned up. It is the art of getting more people to talk about you more often. Word of Mouth Marketing experts are often trying to do the same thing, but buzz has a stronger focus on increasing volume and passion about the topic. Good Internet Marketers will use all of these to be successful on the web. Their Internet Marketing Strategy will include:

• Word of Mouth Internet Strategies such as a Refer a Friend website feature
• Viral Marketing Internet Strategies such as a video that is funny or options to easily Digg a page.
• Buzz Marketing Internet Strategies such as creating more content and connections that get people to link to them, write about them, reference them and email about them. One way is to be controversial or exciting, another way to achieve this is with volume of smaller buzz efforts.

With Buzzoodle Buzz Marketing, we prefer a disciplined approach to creating consistently more buzz over the long term with your existing advocates. My upcoming book will address how to do this on a limited budget.