Between bouts of butt-cheek-numbness (Pro tip: remember to bring a bleacher seat or stadium chair to a wrestling match) I was treated to a fun day of watching little men at various stages of development open up a can of whoop-ass on each other.

There were three rounds of wrestling for each wrestler, which means a full day of fun and frolic. Between bouts, I could not help but draw parallels between what I saw on the mat and what I see every day in the marketing world.

1. How bad do you want it?

One consistent theme during the tournament was the kids who wanted it more came out on top. The kids with heart consistently beat the kids whose hearts weren’t into it. The desire to win was the key differentiator in many matches.

How bad do you want to win in your marketing efforts? What lengths are you willing to go to in order to win? Is your heart in it?

2. Natural talent is eclipsed by preparation & effort

Many kids in that gym are natural born athletes. I’ve seen them perform in other sports and outshine their competition. This (wrestling) was different. Kids who wanted to win and/or who came into the match better prepared consistently outperformed the natural athletes.

How prepared are you? Have you done everything you can to learn new tactics? No matter your channel or marketing discipline, preparation and staying on the cutting edge is critical to success. What have you learned lately?

3. Wrestling isn’t sexy. Neither is marketing.

Heart does not show up in a pretty package. Kids that “looked” the part were not necessarily the best prepared to kick butt and take names.

We have a tendency as a community of marketers to move onto the next sexy thing. But those things are more often than not a distraction from executing on tactics and channels we already know work. I’m not suggesting your ignore those new shiny things completely – just be realistic about them. Does your business REALLY need a mobile strategy or a QR campaign? What if you spent that time focused on improving conversion on your existing web site? What if you could double the open rates on your e-mail campaigns? Resist the temptation to chase the shiny object, unless it’s a good fit for your objectives.

4. There’s more than one way to win

There was a diversity of technique deployed by the winners. I found that fascinating. Some were very strong, some had a strategy of executing takedowns and letting the other kid up (2 points for every takedown while giving away 1 point for an escape) until they won a “technical fall” a 15 point lead. Strategy was all over the board – no single strategy prevailed in the gym. As these kids mature, the good wrestlers may be able to morph their strategy to their opponents.

It is critical to ensure you’ve aligned your marketing strategy with your business objectives. Not every business needs a social media strategy or a Facebook page. I realize that’s not a fashionable thing to say in today’s marketing world, but it’s true. Tie your strategy, channel and tactics to your business objectives and you’ll never go wrong.

5. Take your lumps and learn something from them

Watching some of these kids pour their heart into the match only to lose was a gut-wrenching experience. The strain on their faces. The tears. Ugh. In every situation like that, the coaches came back and taught the kids something after the loss.

Make sure you take time to debrief from each campaign and review lessons learned. I subscribe to the WWW-TALA debrief method espoused by the manager tools podcast. WWW = What went well. TALA = Take a look at. Ask yourself those two questions after every campaign. What went well? What should we take a look at? Be brutally honest with yourself. It’s the only way you’ll learn from your mistakes. Then pick yourself up and move onto the next measurement cycle.

6. Perfect one move before learning another

I watched some kids win a match with little more than one move – but they knew that one move very well. I suppose even at this age you can say they “mastered” that one move – because they did it so well they were able to overwhelm their opponents with it, if the opponent did not have a way to counter it.

Before adding a new channel into your marketing mix, make sure you have mastered your existing channels first – or at least taken them as far as you can.

I hope you’ll find these tips useful. And next time you’re rewriting an e-mail subject line for the 12th or 13th time, imagine the 7 year old kid doing wall sits with sweat dripping down his back and a grimace on his face. And ask yourself before you throw in the towel and just go with headline #11 – ask yourself – “How bad do I want it?”

Sean McGinnis is VP Sales & Marketing at DotCO Law Marketing, a digital media network that provides internet advertising opportunities for lawyers and law firms. Sean consults, speaks, and authors on a variety of topics related to digital marketing and sales. He is co-founder of the community blog 12 Most and has 12 years of internet marketing experience. Follow Sean on Twitter and on Facebook.

But before you turn your articles into particles, let’s look at what the content universe is made of. Once we know what’s on the Periodic Table of Content, we’ll be ready to start smashing particles in the content accelerator.

What follows is a description of each particle and examples of how to break it down or combine it with others. If you don’t want to read them all, just look at the ones you already have and the ones you want to create.

Tw (Tweet)

Tweet is a tiny particle, which survives in nature only a short time. Tweets are known for traveling far and in many directions, and they may be comprised of subatomic links, mentions, hashtags and quotes.

•  Any content can be atomized into Tweets. Doing so can lead to small chain reactions of shares and clicks. Quotes, stats, captions and headlines can all be made into tweets.
•  Tweets can be combined into post. Use three tweets and add your own commentary, or simply list 12 related tweets.

P (Post)

One of the primary building blocks of web content, Posts can be seen as updates on social media sites (Facebook, G+) or in corporate blogs or other streams. They tend to be timely, short-lived and date-stamped. Posts are informal and highly shareable and may include images.

• Since Posts are already small, they can only be broken down into Tweets.
• Posts are strongest in compounds with other elements: Link to posts from Tweets and Newsletters. Link from Posts to Web Pages.

Ne (Newsletter)

A newsletter is an out-bound particle that lives slightly longer than the Tweet. It has more properties, including subject lines and link tracking, so it requires careful handling.

• Newsletters should always link to Posts and Articles. Their energy is lower unless this bond is created. If a Newsletter gives the full text and doesn’t link to something else, the visitor doesn’t click and no traffic is generated. Never put the full text into a newsletter. Always combine!
• Newsletters should contain smaller particles.

Pc (Podcast)

The Podcast is pure, distilled audio and has no visual energy. Podcasts are typically less powerful than Video, but more powerful than text, because of their ability to convey tone. Create them using radio frequency microphone technology.

• Podcasts are easy to create by reading summaries of Articles and Case Studies.
• Podcasts may be by-products of the Presentations creation process. Simply pull the audio track out of a Video or Webinar, or record the presentation using a smart phone and edit later.

Pp (Presentation)

No longer just viewed on projectors during speeches, today Presentations can be found across the web, ranking in searches and shared through social media. They are most powerful when charged with visual content, such as charts and images.

• Post to Slideshare and embed into Web Pages, including LinkedIn
• Record the audio track to create a Podcast
• If possible, use social media coverage to live tweet those juicy soundbites during the presentation. Use a predetermined hashtag sub-particle.

Re (Reviews) (aka recommendations, testimonials)

Since the recent explosion of these particles, Reviews can be found everywhere. Find them on your Yelp page, LinkedIn, Google Place Page or free-roaming emails.

• Combine them with your Web Pages through testimonial chemistry, but never create a Web Page of testimonials. Reviews are supportive content that increase the credibility of other Particles. When they stand alone (on a testimonials page) they are weaker, since visitors don’t go to website to read reviews. They go to get information and learn.
• Add reviews to Case Studies, Newsletters and Press Releases.

Cs (Case Study)

Sometimes known as a “success story,” Case Studies increase credibility and are useful when trust is critical and the sales process is long. The problem-solution-result structure is easy to spot. Case Studies are powerful because they can be atomized into almost anything.

• Break them down into outbound Newsletters, less formal Articles and two or three tweets to increase traffic.
• Combine with Reviews (use the Testimonial isotope) and link to Web Pages to increase conversions.

At (Article)

An extremely versatile element, Articles are slightly larger than Posts and more structured. They are less self-serving than Web Pages. Articles are created to inform and entertain, not just market and promote.

• Atomize Articles into Posts and Tweets
• Transform into Web Pages (add product/service information) or into Case Studies (restructure, add example).
• Combine 5 articles into an eBook or 20 articles into a Book.

Pr (Press Release)

This targeted, highly-charged particle travels quickly. Although it was once directed specifically at media, today it can be found ranking in search engines and reaching a wider spectrum.

• Press Releases are easy to convert into Web Pages and Articles, but be careful. Rewrite the Press Release before posting it on your site to avoid the duplicate content penalty. Each Web Page particle on your site should be original and unique on the web.

Vi (Video)

Although the content and messaging may overlap with surrounding particles, the format stands alone as one of the most compelling and powerful formats for content.

• Most content can be atomized into Video in any properly equipped lab.
• Video becomes more powerful when bonded to a Web Page (a process known as “embedding”) improving the conversion rate (visitors into leads) of the Web Page.

Wb (Webinar)

Similar to a Presentation, but always with audio and sometimes with video.

When viewed in real time and given a hashtag, Webinars often generate Tweets.

• Create Video or Podcast particles through recording technology.
• If the Webinar requires registration, be sure to atomize some aspects and make them viewable as Articles (transcripts).

Pdf (PDF files)

These are supportive particle that should never stand alone. Any valuable content that is currently within a PDF but not on a Web Page should be atomized immediately, since they are not as search friendly and lack Analytics.

• Best when bonded to Web Pages as an alternate (print-friendly, downloadable) versions of Articles, White Papers, Press Releases, etc.
• There are only a few, specific environments where PDFs can stand alone and still have value: Scribt and Slideshare.

Wt (White Paper)

Also referred to as a Research Report, Technical Brief, or Guide,

White Papers tend to be formal, text heavy and a bit boring. Historically common, many White Papers still exist in legacy content and sometimes they are relevant for years. These are prime candidates for atomization.

• One White Paper can often be broken down into three or more Article or Posts.
• If the White Paper is available only as a PDF, make it into a set of Web Pages.
• Post on Scribt
• If there is an Executive Summary, this may be broken off into a Case Study or Web Page.
• Subatomic quotes and stats can become Tweets.

Wp (Web Page)

A stable particle that’s clear, direct and easy to control. Their effectiveness is also easy to measure. Web Pages are powerful in both search engine marketing and at converting visitors into leads and customers. However on their own, they are not frequently shared.

• Case Studies, Articles and White Papers should all be atomized into Web Pages.
• Marketing PDFs should always be converted into web pages.
• Reviews should not be combined into a Web Page since “testimonial” pages generate disproportionately low visits. Reviews should be added to various pre-existing web pages.

Bk (Book)

Offline particle with a history of endurance. No particle is older except the ancient Scroll (Sc) and Slab (Sl).

• Books can be created by combining many Article particles through editing fusion. This process releases large amounts of credibility.
• Books can be atomized into Articles and White Papers

Eb (eBook)

Similar to the Book but shorter. Similar to the White Paper, but less formal and text-heavy. eBooks typically feature more design elements (charts and images) and can be created easily using presentation software such as Powerpoint or Keynote.

• Convert White Papers into eBooks
• Combine Articles with a similar theme into an eBook

Atom Smashing Examples (good and bad)

• Multiplying Video (good): Brad Farris of EnMast made a one hour webinar interview of three experts. Later, he atomized the video into three shorter videos, each was of an expert answering a specific question.
• Atomic Meltdown (bad): A biomedical company hired a PR firm which then used their home Web Page as a Press Release, submitting it to online news wires. The explosion in duplicate content caused Google to blacklist the domain. The company no longer ranked, even for it’s own name. Hazmat suits and a Reconsideration Request were needed to clean up.

Final Thesis

Content marketing is exactly like high energy physics. Well, not really. But you can accelerate your publishing if you look at the content around you and think about combining things and breaking things down….a webinar becomes a podcast…the podcast becomes a blog post…combine the blog post with a newsletter…etc.

Be a web marketing scientist, find something to atomize, and make your marketing go boom.

by Andy Crestodina. You can find Andy on Google+ and Twitter.

Simply put, brand journalism is the practice of covering your company and your industry like a reporter would. That means dropping the corporate jargon, un-spinning the spin and providing trustworthy information to readers.

It also means transforming your marketing department into a publishing team that can produce content for readers and reporters doing online research.

Here are 5 steps to help you get started in brand journalism:

1.) Know Your Beat

Imagine this. You are reading an election story and the reporter just wrote what a candidate said verbatim. No background. No context. No comment from the other side. You wouldn’t give much weight to the story, would you? That’s how company announcements used to be… and it doesn’t work anymore.

Whether you work for a software company, a manufacturer or a car dealership, you need to know your industry and should write about it like the expert you are.  Your article will appear as a resource not just as a pitch. When industry writers (be they bloggers or journalists) search for information on the topic, they can find your article and will have more incentive to quote it in their own story.

2.) Find Your Sources

Even today, a marketing team can be removed from the day-to-day of an organization. That’s something you can no longer afford. Like any good journalist, you need sources. Talk with the people in your organization and get to know what they do and how they do it. They’ll provide you with new story ideas and can help you in a pinch when you need something clarified.

Additionally, you’ll need external sources, usually customers. They can give you a true user’s view-point into what your company and other companies in your industry are doing.

3.) Build an Editorial Team

Any publication has multiple voices creating content. If you’re recruiting, don’t just look for a person with experience in your industry. Hire someone who writes about your industry.

You don’t have to limit this to marketing professionals either. You want to add former reporters, outstanding bloggers or even the sources you rely on everyday — people who can research and report on what is going on quickly.

4.) Run Your Marketing Department Like a Newsroom

Those old marketing meetings? Stop them now. You’re the editor of an online publication and you need to start treating your department that way. Hold editorial meetings on a regular basis, inviting regular editorial team members and other people in the company to provide ideas and discuss the upcoming story calendar.

Once you start treating meetings like you’re in a newsroom, your editorial team will have an easier time writing quality content for your readers.

5.) Earn Trust

This is probably the most important part of brand journalism. Marketers have a reputation for being untrustworthy (some might even say evil).

You need to develop a reputation as an honest and trustworthy source. With so much out there about any given topic, your company’s expertise and insight into your own industry can provide readers with information they can’t get elsewhere. And sharing that information benefits everyone.

How does your company practice brand journalism? We’d love to hear your insights.

By Dan Stasiewski

Dan is a consultant at the inbound marketing agency Kuno Creative @Kuno in Avon, Ohio. He has 7+ years experience in developing online communities and building buzz for companies, products and brands. Before landing at Kuno, Dan worked in the software and digital media industry, where he spearheaded content marketing efforts and coordinated communication with companies including Amazon, Microsoft, Random House and EMI Music.

@kuno
@danstasiewski
inbound marketing agency

Constance is smart and her small group of friends love her. She’s got this beautifully crafted content that stops visitors in their tracks. But there’s a problem: hardly anyone sees it.  She lives in a quiet place and she’s lonely.

This is the story of how Travis meets Constance. How traffic meets content. It’s a story of friendship, love and guest blogging.

Boy meets girl. Search meets social.

When Constance was a girl, her mom always told her “marry a nice young man with lots of incoming links.”  SEO was always important in their family.  (Grandpa told stories about the quality of the content back in his day).  But Constance was a strange girl.  She found it easier to connect with people more than with robots.  She preferred social networks to search engines.

As Travis was growing up, he was always good at sports and ranking for keyphrases. But social media didn’t come naturally to him. He often felt like a Google guy in a Facebook world, always wondering how to create a real, lasting social media connections.

What this cute little couple is about to find out is that in a healthy, guest blogging relationship, they can have both great SEO (links and content) and great social media (a true connection and leveraged followings). Guest blogging creates both new links, and real connections.

They sound just perfect for each other, don’t they? Well, let’s find out why…

Why Travis? Criteria for a good place to blog.

Constance has always liked local guys with a little charm and large social networks. These guys are popular in the area and can really help her meet new people. So PR type men, association dudes, and hometown bloggers were always appealing.

But she also likes guys with great abs and authoritative domains. She’s always noticed the toned, fit guys with great link popularity. These guys may not be famous here in town, but they can really help her rank in search engines. They would make beautiful keyphrases together.

Travis seems to have a bit of both. He’s got a loyal local readership and a lot of incoming links. Plus he’s a snappy dresser. His blog looks sharp, links out and invites comments. She’s starting to feel the chemistry…

Why Constance? Criteria for a good guest blogger.

Travis doesn’t play games. He’s upfront with her and communicates his hopes and expectations clearly. His Guest Blogging Guidelines explain how the ideal partner for him will write. But Travis is already smitten. He loves Constance for her originality. She’s real, she cares, and she always leaves him thinking.

He also likes that she has a small, engaged network of followers. That doesn’t hurt. And he knows Constance will be there for him when he needs her, to reply to visitor’s comments.

Things are looking good for these two.  After a few tweets, emails, ideas, an outline, drafts and some edits, they consummate by making the post live. They are officially in a guest blogging relationship.

Sparks Fly: sharing and links

Travis knows it’s not all about him. For this relationship to work, Constance’s dreams need to come true, too. He’s ready with the chocolate and flowers.

• First, he presents her with a gourmet, dark-chocolate, keyphrase-focused link on his site. It’s what any gentleman would do.
• Next, he promotes the article with a colorful bouquet of social media and an email newsletter, giving her all the credit. She deserves it.

And she feels the same. Constance pushes out the link through her small network of engaged fans and followers, bringing in some quick comments. Traffic is up, visitors are happy, and the couple lives happily ever after, or at least until the next post.

You get what you give

If you share your traffic with guest bloggers, and share your content with other blogs, you’ll enjoy the same benefits of our lovely young couple.

• Be Constance: Give content, get an incoming link and traffic
• Be Travis: Give a link and share your audience, and get some fresh content in return.

Either way, you’ll make a new friend.

by Andy Crestodina. Andy’s romance with web marketing continues on Google+ and Twitter.

Do:

Determine your marketing objectives and relevant metrics before launching your campaign.

Are you looking to boost your Facebook Friend count? If so, it would be useful to calculate your Cost-Per-Fan to make sure you’re affordably scaling up your brand’s social media presence. If you’re more interested in generating buzz around your brand, then tracking engagements (Likes, Share, Comments) and the Cost-Per-Engagement may make more sense. Facebook Ads can be used for a multitude of purposes—from promoting specific actions to building general brand awareness—so it’s important to figure out what you want your Facebook campaign to achieve before you begin spending money on it.

Think about your ideal audience and target your ads carefully.

Facebook offers some of the most granular demographic targeting functionality of any ad network. You can target people based on their geography, age, gender, employer, education and their interests in any number of combinations (21-35 year-old men with college degrees in Los Angeles who like ESPN, for example). Facebook also lets you target your ads based on connections, so you can focus your ads only on your Fan’s friends and leverage social proof to drive more clicks. While segmenting your audience across some or all of these dimensions is no doubt time-consuming, it will also help ensure that your ads are only being delivered to relevant audiences, which will boost the performance of your campaign in the long run.

Make an exclusive offer in your ad.

People like to feel special, and Facebook users are no exception. If you want your ad unit to grab people’s attention, you need to make the ad’s content worth their time. Offer people a deal that they won’t find anywhere else and you’re more likely to win those coveted clicks. Some brand marketers take this a step further and require people to “Like” the brand within the ad unit before gaining access to the special deal. While this may be a good method for gaining new Fans in the short run, be warned that many of those Fans may simply “Unlike” your page once they’ve gotten what they want.

Run A/B tests and change your ads periodically.

Facebook Ads are tiny, so tiny that even the most minute change can make a major difference in your click-through rates and conversion rates. Create multiple variations of your ad with small changes to your headline copy, body copy, and ad image to discover the optimum combination for your target audience. Even when you think you’ve found the sweet spot, change up your ads every few months so that people don’t get burn out on seeing the same ad over and over.

Don’t:

Treat Facebook like a mass broadcast tool.

True, Facebook’s reach is tantalizingly broad—everybody from your little cousin to your grandma is probably on it. But that doesn’t mean that you should treat it like a megaphone through which you can blast one-size-fits-all messages. Facebook users value relevance and authentic engagement when dealing with ads, so make sure that your ads are custom-tailored for your audience if you want to see any lift from your campaigns.

Send people somewhere irrelevant when they click on your ad.

Getting people to click on an ad is usually just a means to an end, so it’s absolutely vital that you direct users to the right place when they click. Examples of bad destinations include your company’s home page or your Facebook Page’s Wall—both of these sites are too generic and don’t offer users an immediate call-to-action so that they can take the next step. Instead, send them to either the relevant sub-section of your Facebook Page or to a custom landing page that delivers on the promises made in the ad. This will help ensure that more clicks are turning into conversions, which is crucial if you’ve decided to run your campaign on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis.

Use Facebook Ads to sell people something right away.

People go on Facebook to enjoy Facebook—they’re not necessarily in the mood to buy something. You may see better success if you pare down your expectations; instead of a purchase, request a social action (Like/Share) or direct people to a landing page where they’re required to enter their e-mail address in order to access a special offer or exclusive content. This alleviates some of the friction for the user, and makes your ad seem less of an intrusion into their Facebook browsing experience as a result.

Set it and forget it.

Facebook Ads provide a wealth of data on how your ads are performing, so it would be a shame to ignore all of these useful insights by not keeping track of your campaigns on a regular basis. Like other forms of online advertising, Facebook Ads require continuous tinkering and trial & error in order to produce real results. If you’re truly dedicated to maximizing your ROI from your Facebook ad campaigns, then you need to view your campaign as an ongoing quest of optimization, not a one-time event.

Conclusion

Facebook Ads provide a great opportunity for you to get your brand noticed and build buzz, but to get the most bang for your buck, it pays to take the time to thoroughly understand the uniqueness of the platform and adjust your advertising strategy accordingly.

Do you have a Facebook advertising story you’d like to share? Please let us know in the comments.

By Hafez Adel

Hafez Adel is the Director of Marketing at ReTargeter, a digital marketing and display advertising firm that specializes in retargeting for brands of all sizes.

Putting Clients in Control

A decade ago we noticed a trend that business marketers wanted the freedom to do this, but most other web design firms charged hourly for simple content changes. In 2001, there were few affordable packaged solutions we could afford to offer our clients, and open-source options were not, in our opinion, user-friendly. They were great for “webmasters,” but they were too complicated for amateur website administrators.

SiteBot

So, I decided to develop Orbit’s own content management system.

The system had to be easy for clients to use to minimize support calls.

• It had to be simple.
• It had to be secure.
• It had to be flexible so custom features did not require custom back-end development.

The first version of our content management system, called SiteBot, was released in 2003. We included SiteBot in all our proposals and priced our website services no higher than the average Chicago firm. This strategy provided us with a big advantage over our competitors, and business started to grow.

The Orbit Baby is Born: Mighty-Site

By 2005, WordPress, Drupal and several other open-source CMS’s had gained attention, but they were still meant for developers and webmasters – not marketers. As websites with a CMS were a standard requirement, we wanted to offer something noticeably better packaged and more powerful to make an impression on prospective clients.

Orbit released the second major version of its content management system and branded it “Mighty-Site”. Brand and usability were the primary motivators for the upgrade. This build was a team effort involving Orbit’s new design team and new PHP programmers. Inspired by a 1940’s ad, I illustrated my second daughter – who just learned to stand – swapped a rattle for a barbell, and the Mighty-Site baby was born!

Ecommerce

By 2006 we had more opportunities to design and develop ecommerce websites and needed an out-of-the box codebase to offer. Ecommerce platforms were highly competitive and offered many features, but we believed we could design and build something better. Utilizing Mighty-Site’s flexibility, it was relatively easy to expand its capabilities for product catalogs, coupons, shipping rules, sales tax, and everything else that makes ecommerce complicated.

Usability => Money

At this point, developing the website was the greater challenge, but we focused on the aspects that made clients money – Design and Usability. Ecommerce sales conversion was a hot topic, and we believed we could deliver a more user-friendly process than off-the-shelf software. For example: to reduce confusion, website users placed items into their cart without needing to leave the product screen, and to prevent cart abandonment, we designed the one-page checkout form and never required a customer to create an account.

Affordable Customization

Most ecommerce projects needed something customized for their customers. Because the developers of our websites were also the developers of Mighty-Site, we had a cost advantage over random developers enhancing random open-source codebases. Thus, our clients were able to invest in custom built ecommerce sites without absorbing expenses for enhancements to the content management system.

Custom Applications

Experience gained from ecommerce development created opportunities for us to offer more complicated and custom front-end website applications. New clients were taking advantage of our services to create websites highly integrated with their normal business operations:

• Membership Directories
• Event Calendars
• Ecommerce for Event Registration
• Location Searches with Google maps
• Custom products for publishers and travel agents
• Customer Relationship Management

Mighty-Site never needed customizations to handle the administration of the custom data. However, there was an unforeseen consequence to the complicated data architecture: Mighty-Site was reaching usability and technical limitations on the amount of data it could effectively serve per screen. We also needed the ability to quickly expand its feature set with custom management applications and various reports.

Mighty-Site 2.0

In 2008, Orbit went to the drawing board with a new design and development team to plan the third major release of the content management system – Mighty-Site 2.0. The motivators for improvement were Speed, Organization, Expandability and, of course, Usability. Mighty-Site 2.0 was released in 2009 and is still in use today.

We have launched at least 150 websites with this system. What is more remarkable is that many clients from the early years have upgraded their sites to the new version of Mighty-Site, usually with a website redesign. The results are even better! As time advances, so does technology, and Orbit, for the sake of our clients, is right there with it.

By Barrett Lombardo

In light of this situation, I offer you 7 questions to ask yourself before you consider dropping QR codes into all of your marketing campaigns.

1. What is the Objective?

Do not get distracted by the shiny new toy. Just because you can use a QR code, does not mean you should use a QR code. As all good marketers know, you must have a goal and clear, measurable objectives for your campaign. The same is true for the use of QR codes. If you have no clear objective for incorporating a QR code into your campaign, then you probably shouldn’t.

2. How will you measure success?

Once you know your objective, you need to establish metrics by which to measure the success of your QR code initiative. One of the strongest benefits of using QR codes is their advanced metrics capabilities.  Tagging systems allow you to easily collect information on when and where your QR code was accessed, the type of device that was used to scan it, and allow for consumers to opt in to email or SMS campaigns. This adds yet another layer of data to a campaign that helps make the case for ROI.

3. Who are you reaching?

Have you considered who is scanning QR codes and then compared that to your target audience? Neilsen’s reports that:

• 62 percent of those ages 25 to 34 have smartphones
• The fastest growing segment of smartphone adopters is adults between the ages of 55 and 64
• Teens are the slowest demographic to adopt smartphones

Do the research to ensure that QR codes are relevant to your target audience.

4. Where are you taking them?

Content is king. If you do not have a magical journey in store for the consumer, then leave them be. QR codes offer a chance to extend the consumer experience and move consumers along the path of engagement. They just took the time to interact with your marketing—you captured their attention! Don’t disappoint them with a meaningless trip to a flat website or repetitive messaging. Reward them for their efforts with something that adds value to their life.

5. Is there a call to action?

You caught the consumer’s attention, moved them to a digital platform for further engagement, and then….what? What do you want them to do next? There must be a call to action to continue the momentum and the journey.  It is time to think about how you want to mobilize the consumer.

6. Does it fit?

Think about your QR code at the beginning of the design process. QR codes are not exactly sexy design elements, and your design team will be none-too-pleased if you ask them to slap one onto an existing design. If you are serious about using a QR code effectively, then it should be at the center of your creative design from the start.

7. What’s the lifespan?

The beauty of a QR code is that you can redirect consumers to a new piece of content without changing the code itself.  This enables you to modify the consumer journey over time and extend the life of a campaign. By providing fresh content regularly, you encourage consumers to become repetitive scanners and increase your engagement opportunities.

Brands with a compelling story to share and the ability to shift paradigms from brand to consumer centric will be well served incorporating QR codes into their marketing efforts.  QR codes can amplify marketing messages, strengthen brand loyalty, and mobilize consumers to act when used properly.  If—after asking yourself these 7 questions—you feel like a QR code is right for you, then go for it! If not, please do not ruin the shiny new toy for the rest of us.

By Shannon Downey

Shannon Downey is the founder and president of Pivotal Chicago @PivotalChicago a digital, social media and mobile marketing agency. She is a digital trainer for the cities largest advertising agencies and is adjunct faculty at DePaul University. Shannon is co-founder of the Grant for Good and sits on the board of directors for Woman Made Gallery and the Firebelly Foundation.

Interesting Dilemma

When Jennfier Lucente became New Media Manager for the CAF one of the first things she did was to set up Facebook and Twitter accounts for the organization. But to her dismay, she learned from the CAF social media followers that the CAF was primarily known for just one thing, the River Architecture Cruise.

Jennifer was surprised to learn that very few residents were aware that the CAF also offered exhibitions, programs, classes, and about 80 other tours that residents could experience. So she wondered what she could do to increase overall awareness of the CAF’s offerings beyond the River Architecture Cruise.

The Big Idea

Jennifer knew that she did not have a large budget for traditional advertising so she would have to come up with a grassroots marketing campaign. After some brainstorming Jennifer thought of an idea called the “Around Chicago in 85 Tours” challenge. She personally challenged herself to take all 85 of the CAF’s tours in a one year period. Her plan was to promote and document the entire challenge using social media with the goal of increasing public awareness for the CAF’s tour offerings.

So starting in spring of 2010, Jennifer began the 85 Tours challenge. Before each tour  Jennifer posted the schedule online and invited the CAF social media followers to join her. During each tour she Tweeted fun facts and observations from the docents leading the tour. After each tour Jennifer created a summary post on her 85 Tours blog  and uploaded pictures and video from the tour to the CAF Flickr and YouTube pages.

Results of the Challenge

Jennifer completed the “Around Chicago in 85 Tours” challenge in May 2011. The event ended up being a big success for the CAF. The CAF’s membership numbers greatly increased during the campaign and the organization had its best year ever in attendance and revenue figures.

There were no blockbuster exhibitions or tours in 2010 so the results were driven mainly by the 85 Tours Challenge. While the challenge did end up attracting a lot of main stream media attention, the CAF did not work with a media agency and there was no paid PR campaign. The marketing for the event was purely a grassroots movement fueled by social media.

Lessons Learned:

• Live it to sell it! By taking all the tours herself Jennifer got a better understanding of what the CAF was all about which made it easier for her to promote the tour experience to potential consumers.
• You don’t need a big marketing budget to spread the word about your product or event. Jennifer promoted the 85 Tour Challenge entirely through a grassroots social media effort. She did not use any paid media promotion.
• Spread the word about things you do that people don’t know about. Jennifer started the 85 Tour Challenge because most people only knew about the Architecture River Cruise.
• Turn your everyday activities into something compelling for social media. Things you don’t think much of because you do them everyday might really interest audiences that never get a peak into your operations.
• Invite consumers to join in your adventures. Jennifer invited people to accompany her on each of the tours she attended and many people joined her along the journey.

Question:

How have you used social media to build awareness for you company or brand? What tactics worked the best? Let us know in the comments below.

You can learn more about the Chicago Architecture Foundation on its Facebook page  or by following its Twitter ID.

By Kyle Akerman

Kyle is a recovering electrical engineer who spent the majority of his adult life designing hardware for a large mobile device company (Hello Moto!). While attending business school Kyle developed a taste for marketing. Now he enjoys devising and implementing online content strategies to help clients tell their story better. And because of his engineering background he is not afraid to dive into web analytics data to help clients find actionable insights and make sure that they measure what matters.

Kyle on Twitter

Kyle on LinkedIn

Kyle’s Blog

HubSpot’s Greatest Hits: Volume I

“Why Page 1 Matters”

100 Awesome Marketing Stats (slide 33) – In search engines, 60% of all organic clicks come from the top 3 search results, and 75% of users never go past the first page. It’s worth much more to be at the top of the charts (and search results).

“Ask For Less Info”

Science of Analytics (slide 37) – If a form has fewer fields, more visitors will fill it out, which means higher conversions. It makes perfect sense, right? Now we have the research to back it up.

“Tuesday’s Gone With The Visitor”

Science of Email Marketing (slide 14) – The one day of the week that gets more opt-outs and email unsubscribes than any other? Tuesday. Who knew?

“Publish Early, Share It Late”

Science of Blogging (slide 61) – Blogs are most likely to be read early in the day and on the weekends, but the Tweets and Facebook posts that promote those blog posts are more likely to get shared late in the day.

“Magic Raffle Rewards”

Science of Email Marketing (slide 32) – The words you use in email subject lines matter. Use of certain words, (i.e, “Magic”, “Raffle”, “Rewards”), will make your emails less likely to be delivered.

“Bloggers Get The Visitors”

100 Awesome Marketing Stats (slide 75) – Ready for some crazy stats? Companies that blog have 434% more indexed pages, 55% more visitors, and generate 67% more leads than companies that do not.

“Twitter You Please”

Science of Blogging (slide 28) – The top 5 most re-tweetable words are “you”, “twitter”, “please”, “retweet”, and “post”. Hubspot recommends you keep it personal and stay away from industry jargon (it hurts the visitors’ ears).

“I Will Follow You“

Science of Analytics (slide 54) – Photography of people looking in a certain direction can improve conversions. Note: Technically this is a cover tune since Hubspot was referring to another study, but since I first heard it from Hubspot, it made the list. It was mentioned in this blog as well.

“Banner Blindness“

Optimizing Your Site for Maximum Lead Flow (slide 18) – Simply put, people ignore banner ads. You don’t want to be the clutter around the content, you want to be the content.

“You’re So Vain”

The Most Facebook-Shareable Words – It turns out that the most shareable word on Facebook is…..Facebook. Rounding out the top five included “why”, “most”, “world”, and “how”.

So, those are some of our favorites from a group that’s sure to produce more hard-rocking content marketing research and recommendations. We’ll be here listening. Someday you might even see a Hubspot’s Greatest Hits Volume Two…

If you’ve tested any of these tips, please let us know by leaving a comment below.

by Andy Crestodina

Gadgets, doodads and gimmicks

A few years ago, it seemed every developer learned how to make cool-looking sliders for users to make selections. This is great for something gradual and subjective, like a “hot/cold” temperature gauge. When used for selecting finite information, like your exact age, it is extremely frustrating and lacks any focus on the user. On touch screens, it can be even more painful. Users don’t want to use gadgets or gimmicks if they don’t support what they’re actually trying to do on your site.

Org-Chart Navigation

Your users shouldn’t be expected to find what they need based on how your company happens to be organized. It becomes up to the user to decipher how to access the warranty information or contact the company by determining if the printer he just purchased is under “electronics” or “home-based products.” Don’t make your users work so hard.

Fantasy World

We live in a 24 hour world. News breaks at any moment, and typically it’s before the official press release. Many sites ignore what’s really happening in the NOW. If a product recall is rumored or a company executive scandal hits Twitter, having a way to alert users via the site is vital. Not doing so is pretending your users don’t know, and quite frankly it’s insulting. Trust your users.

We don’t need no stinking feedback.

Customers are finding ways to reach out and provide valuable feedback to companies in faster and more passionate ways than ever before. Going to the site is a straightforward way to talk to a company. If your site and/or application is lacking a clear, easy, inviting way to gather this feedback, then you might as well have a “we don’t care” sign up in your front window.

5 Ways to Invite Users Into the Experience

1. Build the site for your user, not your boss. We don’t take off our customer hats when we walk into the office, but sometimes we act like it. Instead of asking if the site serves the purpose of our boss, we should ask first if it serves the purpose of the user. Do this FOR REAL. If you hear you or your team talking yourself into why something SHOULD work, but doesn’t, try again.
2. Keep in mind your site is not your user’s top priority.  Your user will not spend all day there, reading all the carefully-crafted (yet lengthy) copy to get the most out of your site. They will visit with a purpose. Help them get the task done quickly and easily.
3. Visitors may be checking out the site at work, on the phone or via tablet computers. Too many sites just don’t work in these scenarios. I don’t want to view a video with audio blaring (that I can’t control) on a tiny screen while riding the train, but I may want to check out some information about your products. Give the user options and control.
4. Assume your users will be distracted. It would be great if users all approached your site from the same place, visiting the straight line of navigation you anticipate for each task. But, alas, we are human. Humans jump around, get distracted, come back later, or forget how many tabs they have open. Don’t assume one straight line for each task – assume many curved, blocked and different ones. Test all of them.
5. Ask for – and receive – feedback graciously. User feedback will help improve the experience. Listen, respond, test, and then ask for more.

User experience is not just about applications working as you think they should or positive analytics. Your users can actually love you more based on improving the experience. This makes it easy for them to share the love and help you and your company in countless ways. It’s time to help them help you!

By Jeannie Walters, 360Connext

Jeannie Walters has been focused on the customer experience for more than 15 years, consulting to companies big and small on their retention strategies. She is principal at 360Connext, a speaker, and mom to two young boys.

Headshot photo credit: Valerie Foltz