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Out of the Fog Marketing Blog
Tips, thoughts and topics on marketing for small to medium-sized businesses in Michigan and
throughout the world. Contributions by Chris Slocumb, Casey Frushour, as well as other members of the Clarity Quest team.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Here's the last part in our "Marketing Tips for Tech" series. Hope you enjoyed it - feel free to ask your own tips or ask us questions. 12) Consistent and pervasive branding. Your company’s logo and URL should be on all documents to make sure that your clients and prospective clients know who you are and with what company you are affiliated. Consider is putting a signature at the end of all emails including replies and forwards. Be careful not to embed too many graphics into the signature as it alerts some spam filters. And don’t forget to trademark and copyright appropriate materials. If you want to be really coordinated, have your marketing firm create a simple style guide which outlines how and when to use your corporate marks.
13) Use web analytics. To maximize your profits figure out who is hitting your website. This can be useful in many ways. You should also definitely track the keywords people are searching for in order to find your product or service.
To find companies hitting your site you can use two free services --Google Analytics or StatCounter. While these services are free you do have to manually search which people looked at your website unless you create custom scripts. Nevertheless, it is a top choice for a free customer base service. Another service is LeadLander, Visitortrack by NetFactor or LoopFuse. They are more expensive choices, costing $1,900 to $4,800 per year; however they provide you with customizable automated detailed lead reports, ties into Jigsaw and LinkedIn databases, and customized email alerts.
14) Test customer satisfaction on an ongoing basis. It never hurts to know exactly how your clients feel, and get important feedback about the positives and negatives of your job. This can be as simple as a phone call to your clients, or an anonymous survey on your website. A phone call or email is more personal, and your client will know that you value their opinion and business. An anonymous survey on the other hand allows you to truly know how you conducted your service or how your product worked for your clients. This allows for the communication of productive criticism, helping you improve your products or services. To get the best results you should consider conducting both types of customer satisfaction tests.
Labels: analyzing leads, ann arbor michigan, branding, customer satisfaction, customer satisfaction tests, google analytics, leads, marketing tips, surveys, tech compnaies, technology marketing
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
This week and next, I'll offer the last two parts of the "Marketing Tips for Tech Companies" series.
8) Use pay-per-click. Sure this sounds obvious but it's amazing how many companies do not use PPC. They either are afraid to try or had a bad experience because the campaigns were not setup properly. The Internet is an efficient and inexpensive way to reach your audience. Tradeshows and print ads can be expensive and are aimed at mostly passive buyers - people that are simply browsing with no intention of using your services. If someone searches “marketing firms in Southeast Michigan” then they are more than likely actively searching for just that. This makes it more likely that they will click through to your website. For example, a full-page advertisement in a trade magazine can cost between four to ten thousand dollars, compared to a trial pay-per-click (PPC) campaign that might cost $500-$1,000. Try using exact keyword matching instead of broad match for even bigger bang for your buck. Once you have mastered exact keyword match campaigns, Google Adwords’ embedded match is an exciting alternative for ad targeting. For a great training video on embedded match techniques, see http://www.stompernet.net/goingnatural3/vid1_adwords_triangulation_method. 9) Ask for Referrals. If you know your customer is satisfied, which hopefully they always are, then you should ask if any of their friends, colleagues or partner companies need your services. Referrals are very simple because all it takes is one simple question to your client. Although this sounds easy, many companies do not do this, and lose potential business. There are several firms out there that automate referral reminders and gifting. Check out Automatic Referrals for detailed advice on how to get more referrals and even phone numbers from your current clients.
10) Cross promote your product or service. Cross promotion involves using two or more companies or organizations combine forces to advertise a product or service (think an OEM and reseller). Each company or organization helps promote the others' product or service. By teaming up with synergistic companies you will save time and money. It will allow you to gather more information than you could on your own, for example lead lists. Also, other companies have different techniques, thus learning from them can be of great advantage to your company. In addition, the cost of advertising and renting booth space at a trade show can be very expensive; by teaming up with another company you can save money.
11) Integrated Marketing. Diversification is a key to more than just stock portfolio success. To reach your target audience you must use many different marketing techniques at once. You should be using different forms of marketing in parallel such as internet marketing, public relations and advertising. Used in combination marketing efforts are so much more powerful than ad hoc campaigns.
Labels: cross promotion, customer satisfaction, customer service, integrated marketing, marketing, marketing tips, pay-per-click, referral marketing, tech companies, technology marketing
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Our client, Cielo MedSolutions, was named an "Emerging Tech Company of the Year" finalist in Automation Alley's Annual Awards Gala. The winners will be announced Friday, September 12, 2008. Go Cielo! Labels: automation alley, cielo medsolutions, michigan tech companies
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
One of the areas our clients often struggle with is frequently updating their blogs. More and more we are seeing the influence of frequent blogging on Google rankings--blogs are no longer just communication tools but important parts of search ranking efforts. Plus recent analysts studies have found that web visitors view a company's site more favorably if there's a blog. You can turn to an agency to help write corporate blog posts or do-it-yourselfers can check out Mashable's 40+ Top Topics for Corporate Blogs. Here are more topic suggestions: 1) Repackage content from a newsletter or ezine. 2) Summarize or comment on a technology or product changing the way your company does business. 3) Summarize a customer success story. 4) Summarize a customer failure with lessons learned. 5) Check out what your friends or peers are writing about in Facebook groups or Linked In. That's how I found the topic for this post! Labels: blog ideas, blog topics, blogging, company blogs, corporate blogs, Google ranking, mashable
Monday, August 4, 2008
So many tech companies, especially startups, gloss over the importance of consistent branding. I was searching for a blog and came upon Dawud Miracle's blog. I liked the look and content of his posts so I scanned a few. About halfway down the page I instantly recognized a home remodeling photo of one of our website clients' Meadowlark Builders. At the time I didn't know Dawud lived in same town (Ann Arbor) as I did. But I instantly knew that kitchen was a Meadowlark remodel. Their kitchens have a particular look. Meadowlark's work along with their logo, website and collateral IS their brand. Well it's just as important for your tech company to have a look and feel in marketing materials, online presence and even public relations that instantly identifiable. We often talk to $20M and $30M companies with online retail presences that don't have a style guide. Here's the bare minimum you should have in a style guide: Acceptable logo treatments: color, B&W and text-only along with sizing and placement guides.
Colors: Primary and secondary colors, PMS spot and process equivalents. Can colors be screened? Are some only designated for background and not text?
Corporate fonts: Headline font, text font, accent font; include leading, kerning, font size, all caps or no, and other style specifications. Also a good idea to specify common alternates in the case the fonts are not available in a particular setting.
Check out our marketing portfolio and you'll see the application of style guides across website, collateral and advertising. Thanks to Cathy Colson our creative director for the style guide list. Stay tuned for an upcoming post on advanced style guides. Labels: ann arbor, branding style guide, cathy colson, chris slocumb, clarity quest marketing, corporate fonts, dawud miracle, logos, marketing portfolio, meadowlark builders, style guides
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