Robert Urban, Chief Marketing Officer of Brand Advance, recently wrote an awesome white paper giving suggestions on when it makes more sense for a company to train an existing employee, hire a new employee, or to utilize the services of a marketing agency for various marketing initiatives.

Here’s the link to download the white paper: http://bit.ly/cdYzO3

It’s well worth reading!

Here’s a teaser….

Robert Urban, Chief Marketing Officer of Brand Advance

In today’s economic climate, businesses have streamlined their personnel. As a result, many of these businesses face challenges beyond their employees’ expertise, knowledge, or tools available. Marketing is a key component in any business’s success and if your business isn’t equipped with the right tools and know-how, what do you do?

You could hire additional employees to conquer the challenges you face or you could train your present staff in the skills needed, thus inundating them with even more pressure. Or you can hire outside help through the use of an agency that is specifically geared toward helping you achieve your marketing goals.

Of course, there is no single right answer for every business as they are all unique and share different goals, objectives, challenges, and resources. Your solution is specific to your business and situation, but there are best practices and guidelines that can serve as a solid foundation when making this decision.

Download the full white paper here: http://bit.ly/cdYzO3

What do you do when you don’t have the necessary skills to accomplish your marketing objectives? Do you hire an agency, bring on a team member, or teach yourself? Why?

Feel free to share your thoughts below

As many of you may have heard, the story of Facebook is going to be hitting the big screen in a movie called “The Social Network”.  Here is the link to the official Social Network movie trailer if you haven’t seen it yet.

Recently the internet comedy channel Indy Mogul came up with an awesome parody video- Twitter’s movie trailer.

It has been written: Soon every aspect of social media will have its own parody Social Network trailer.

Other parody versions have already been created for YouTube and MySpace.

I found the twitter movie trailer absolutely hilarious and well worth sharing.

I hope everyone enjoys it as much as myself and those in my office did!

Facebook just announced that they are rolling out a new Questions and Answer feature.  The product feature is currently being tested and was only rolled out to a small beta group as of now.   This feature will allow questions to be asked and then answered by the entire Facebook community. Additional details on the feature’s functionality can be found on Mashable

This feature was not meant to be an advertising platform according to Facebook, but this doesn’t mean that you can’t utilize it to grow and advance your business.  The question is how?

Here’s 5 Rock Solid Ways that your business can take advantage of the new Facebook Questions feature:

Thought Leadership

By providing helpful answers to  questions asked by others you can reveal your expertise.  Once others are aware of you and respect you they are more likely to desire to do business with you.

Working through Problems with Industry Peers

Asking and answering industry specific questions can help you gain more knowledge that can be implemented to improve your business.  There is a popular saying that a rising tide floats all boats…Though you want to win in the market place and out do your competitor it is often effective to collaborate and help one another to achieve common goals, or over come mutual problems.

Uncovering your Customer’s problems (Content Strategies)

Being aware of the questions that your customers asks is a very effective way of understanding the issues and problems that they face.  This new found intelligence can be utilized for market research purposes to assist in developing new products, refining your service offering, or even developing content strategies to help answer these questions in the form of whitepapers, videos or webinars.

Connect and Engage with New Potential Customers

If one of your customers, or potential customers  is asking a certain question chances are many other members of  your target audience will be interested in the answers as well.  These consumers will seek out these answers and some will comment or participate in the conversation.  This basically creates a list of prospects for you enabling you to friend them, start building a relationship and raise exposure of your brand.

Increased Search Exposure

Unless you were in a box for the last five years you would know how popular Facebook is.  Google knows that they are popular as well.  In fact they are one of the few websites out there with a Page rank of 10.  Just to give you a bench mark- YouTube has a PR of 9, Fox News has a PR of 8, MTV has a PR 7.  This basically means that Google views Facebook as a high authority site.  With this high authority they have very strong SEO power and have a large amount of content indexed.  If you are answering questions that consumers in your market are asking there is high likelyhood that other consumers searching for information will find it and be exposed to you.

What do you think about Facebook’s new question feature?

How else do you feel question and answers can be utilized to grow your business online?

We’re very excited to announce that we have hired a new creative director to join the Brand Advance team.  Here are some details from a recent press release:

Cutting-Edge Artist Named Creative Director for Orlando’s Brand Advance

ORLANDO, Fla. (July 2, 2010) – Rich Johnson, an award-winning artist who has distinguished himself as an innovator in design, photography and video, has been named creative director for Orlando-based Brand Advance LLC.

Brand Advance – an Interactive marketing agency specializing in SEO, Social Media and Marketing Staffing is headed up by Chief Executive Officer David Brim – is based in Orlando on East Colonial Drive.

(Above intro and outro created by Rich Johnson)

Johnson, a 2002 graduate of Full Sail University in Winter Park, spent the past 10 years honing artistic skills that have evolved to include all areas of design: print, web, film, photography, and graphic art.

He also has been recognized for his work with Claymation, Lego animation, print and digital design, and has won numerous national and international awards for visual arts, including first-place for Lego Animation 2000 and Only in Your Imagination Clay Animation 2000. He also is an approved Getty’s Photographer whose work recently was featured on MSN.

Brim said Johnson is a great fit for his company, adding that “his appointment will help us strengthen our focus on creativity and innovation to inspire and excite our customers.”

Robert Urban, chief marketing officer for the company, describes Johnson as “a creative thinker who understands how to appeal to a broader audience.”

In his new position, Johnson will help develop and implement creative campaigns for clients in all aspects of design. He also has plans to develop and launch a vlog and webisodes for Brand Advance’s internal properties.

Recently Brand Advance was referred to a growing author and successful business man to generate buzz and awareness for his upcoming book and tour. After several interactions with him it was clear that he was viewing social media as traditional “push” marketing. The points below were articulated to him in an email…specific aspects of the email relative to his business were stripped away for this post, however I thought it would still be beneficial to share this information as it may help others better understand social media and how it can help grow their business.

1. Social media is not sales

Social media creates an environment for sales to happen, but social media itself is not sales. If you go into a social setting and “sell” it is frowned upon. Selling in social media is like pushing your products in church…People go to church, just like social sites, for a purpose and it’s very interrupting to “Sell” and push a message at them…It’s better to engage with them and participate in conversations. This doesn’t mean that you won’t meet and start your relationship with your best and most profitable customers at church.

2. Word of mouth marketing is the most powerful form of marketing

When people make a purchasing decision they often ask others what their experience has been with that brand or person through a social interaction. Think of social media as Word of mouth on steroids. There are over 400 million people on facebook and millions on twitter…talking with friends, associates and family members. Crafting a solid social media campaign with a little oomph can spread this Word of mouth of your brand virally throughout each person’s social circle.

3. Growing Awareness & Respectability is Key

The key to social media is connecting with people through content and meaningful interactions and revealing your expertise and thought leadership in the process. Once people know and respect you as an expert in what you do increased business and sales will follow. Think about Donald Trump, his personal brand is synonymous with business success (even though he has failed many times, as most successful people have). But the key is when Donald Trump puts out a book, tie or anything else with his name attached sales will often follow because people are aware of his his brand.

Which brings me to my next point….

4. Build a community
   

People often buy from people or brands they have a relationship with. Building up a community of loyal and engaged advocates will never hurt. It’s called herd marketing….Once you have a herd (engaged audience) you can lead them where you see fit. Part of this is building your communication touch points and customer contact information….Facebook, twitter and email addresses.

5. Social Media ROI

If people are engaging with your brand and spreading the word through their social circle you’re getting far more value from a well crafted social media campaign then “traditional advertising”. Social media is also not measured like typical advertising…We can measure it on a profit and loss statement…but as mentioned social media is not sales, it creates an environment for sales to happen and helps you connect with your current and potential customers to break through the clutter. You measure ROI for social media over time on the overall company profit and loss statement, because it’s difficult to measure where a specific sale generated from word of mouth actually came from. In social media you measure the word of mouth, communication with the brand, shares, web traffic and other key performance indicators.

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If you have any additional ways that you feel help people to better understand social media feel free to leave a comment below.

If you’re interested in learning more about how you can take advantage of social media to help grow your business feel free to give us a call. Our team offers a free initial consultation and would be happy to assist you in finding success through social media.

David

Last week a blog post that I wrote was published on Copyblogger, one of the top 5 internet marketing blogs in the world.  It was very well received and within a week had over 400 people share the post on twitter, over 80 people share it on Facebook and 40+ comments.

I just realized that I didn’t even share this post with my loyal readers….That is unless you follow me on twitter.  If you don’t…shame on you! lol

Anyway I thought that I would share the post here on my blog as well…Feel free to leave your comments.  Also in case you’d like to see it, the original post on copyblogger can be found here.  Enjoy!

So many people all around the world have great ideas, products and services. And yet some businesses do well, and some fail.

What separates the businesses that starve from the businesses who feast?

For the answer, we turn to another way people have been setting their feast table for hundreds of years: fishing.

Landing a fish, just like landing a customer, requires strategy and know-how if you’re going to come home successful.

Here are my top 10 ways to land the catch of the day.

1. Know what you’re after

In fishing, you always use the best bait possible for the particular type of fish you’re after.

So many times clients come to me and say, “I don’t have a target market”. They’re always wrong.

At a minimum, you should understand:

• The problems your customers have
• Their buying habits
• Their potential objections to your product
• Where they go to find information
• What influences them (their heroes and idols, TV shows they watch, websites they enjoy, magazines they read, etc.)
• What their core demographics and psychographics are

Even if your product “appeals to everyone,” typically 20% of your audience will generate 80% of your revenue. Your job is to figure out who those 20% are, so you can find the kind of bait that appeals most to those customers.

Bait that works for trout won’t necessarily let you land a great white shark.

2. Know where to fish for your customers

Determining the right fishing location can be the difference between a successful fishing trip and going hungry.

Knowing the places where your customers hang out online gives you a much greater chance for marketing success. Figure out which sites your customers frequent and you’ll have a much better chance of reeling one in. Try seeking out:

• Blogs they read
• Forums they participate in
• Social networking sites and other membership groups
• Entertainment or other non-work related sites

You don’t want to use a top water lure if the fish you want are feeding on the bottom.

3. Be aware of your competition

All fishermen guard their secrets closely, but newcomers can still pick up plenty of tricks by watching what their competition does.

I’m not saying it’s smart to copy your competitor exactly. “Me-too” marketing doesn’t work.

But learn from them and get a feeling for the overall marketplace you’re in. Incorporate those insights into your own marketing and content strategy.

By analyzing your competitors you can also figure out how you can position your brand to stand out from the crowd.

4. Use good bait

When you’re hoping to catch a fish standing side by side with a row of other fishermen, you have to make sure your bait is the most appealing fish food dangling the water. Otherwise, that fish is liable to go for one of your neighbor’s hooks instead.

Consumers have lots of options and offers dangling in front of them in any marketplace. You’ve got to have some pretty juicy bait to stand out from that crowd.

So what makes good customer bait?

• Magnetic headlines
• Compelling images
• Content that’s valuable in its own right
• An attractive niche that makes your customer feel “this is for people like me”
• Easy-to-swallow landing pages

5. Setting the hook

Just because a fish bites doesn’t mean you can reel it in. Many a marketer has a woeful tale about the big one that got away.

Once a customer is interested and bites by clicking through to your sales page, you have to set the hook by making an offer that’s so great it’s practically unfair.

6. Forget catch and release

Remember, it’s a lot easier and more profitable to re-sell an existing customer than acquire a new one.

So if you land a big fish, keep it! Don’t throw it back for someone else to catch.

Re-marketing, high-quality affiliate offers, and up-sells are great for keeping the customers that you currently have, instead of letting them drift back into the stream for some other savvy marketer to reel in.

7. Test the waters

Fishermen often track different variables, like what time of day they went fishing or what bait they used. They measure their results over time to figure out the smartest way to get certain fish.

Similarly, in marketing it’s always wise to test various aspects of your marketing campaign. Measure your results to see what works best, and track your results over time.

Try different images, headlines, or layouts to see which one maximizes time spent on your site, lowers bounce rate, and produces the best ROI.

8. Don’t get discouraged

Some days the fish just aren’t biting.

Sometimes you are not going to be as successful as you’d like, but it’s a process. Continue to educate yourself about business and marketing, keep analyzing your competitors, keep talking to your customers and refining your message.

Keep going and don’t get discouraged. Tomorrow’s the day you’ll get the big one.

9. Partner up to get a bigger catch

Fishing with a buddy helps you to both cover more water and come home with a bigger catch than usual.

If you’re hoping to land more customers than you’ve ever reeled in on your own, find a partner. By knowing your own skill set, you’ll be able to effectively select partners that complement your skills. This strategy can also help you get bigger customers than you could have handled on your own.

10. Enjoy the trip

It’s definitely a lot more fun to catch the big one than to see it get away, but no matter what happens, remember to enjoy yourself.

Entrepreneurship is a lot like fishing. Even when it’s not going as well as we’d like, it’s still a privilege to be able to spend our days doing it.

About the Author: David Brim is the founder and CEO of Brand Advance, an interactive agency that provides marketing consulting, web design, and marketing staffing to emerging companies. David is also the founder of GroupTable.com, collaborative software to increase group productivity. David blogs at Filled to the Brim, and can be found on twitter @davidbrim.

John Wooden is regarded as the most successful coach in sports history.  Wooden has had 12 NCAA final four appearances resulting in 10 championship wins.  Wooden also has an amazing 80% overall winning percentage.  John Wooden’s principles of success drove his life and those lessons transferred over into everything he did including his coaching career.

John Wooden had this to say about success…

Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming.

- Coach John Wooden

This is a valuable lesson to learn…by applying successful principles to your life as a whole…you will excel in everything that you choose to do.  So what lessons did John Wooden live by?

Wooden crafted the “Wooden Pyramid of Success”, which I have added into this post.

Some of the most important lessons I’ve gathered from studying Coach Wooden over the years are:

1. Control Your Personal Image

Your image is how many people will perceive and judge you.  Coach Wooden wanted all of his players to look respectable.   Legendary UCLA center Bill Walton got thrown out of practice and told not to come back until he shaved and got a hair cut.  Controlling your image and perception is extremely important online.  People tend to Google your name when looking to hire you or go into business with you…What will they find?  How will they perceive your personal brand?

2. Be true to yourself and follow your dreams

This point may sound cliche, but it is so very true.  Know who you are and who you are not and strive to achieve your dreams whether it’s being a successful father, business professional or athlete.  Stay true to your values and strive for excellence in anything you decide to do.

3. Stand up and be accountable for your actions

It’s easy to pass the blame on to someone else or sweep something under the rug.  Only when you realize your faults and short comings are you able to change them and grow.  Listening to your customers and those in your life can give you insights that you may fail to realize otherwise.   You don’t have to implement every change someone recommends to you, but have an open mind and be ready to digest the nutritional bites of insights that can be beneficial to you, or your company.   Social media is a very powerful tool to listen to, monitor and respond to the chatter and feedback about your brand.

4. Build the best teams

In any endeavor you are involved in it’s important to surround yourself with value creators, opinionated people and those skilled in their area of expertise.  You want to make sure you don’t make the common mistake of building a team full of “Yes Men”, people with the same skill sets as you, or those who bring the team down with their negativity.

5. Failure to prepare is preparing to fail

This lesson speaks for itself…Before going into any situation  it’s good to gather as much information about that situation as possible.  The big thing that Coach Wooden preached regarding this point was that his team should focus on themselves and do whatever they do best.  Wooden didn’t even scout out competing basketball teams…he simply coached his teams to play their best basketball everytime they stepped onto the court.  I don’t completely agree with this point.  I favor Sun Tzu principle that if you know yourself and know your enemy you need not fear the result of 100 battles.

6. Don’t mistake activity with achievement

So many times people get caught working on what’s immediate as opposed to what is truly important.  It’s a trap that’s very easy to fall into.  I’ve experienced this trap many times…It’s easy to get an email or phone call and be obligated to answer it immediately thus getting distracted from important goals or tasks for the day.  To avoid this trap I try to never lose sight of what is most important.   I find that mapping out the steps to obtain a goal by starting from the end and working backwards is the best way to figure out the optimal path for achievement.  Once I’ve determined the steps, I strive to find time to self reflect through reading and meditation to make sure I’m not getting too far away from the steps needed to accomplish my goal.

7. Happiness begins when selfishness ends

I Thought that this was a very nice quote.  I feel most athletes or virtually any striving person or professional has to be a bit selfish with their time, attention and resources to be successful.  It’s very important to remember why you are striving to be successful in the first place.  For me it’s so I can help others be successful through my insights and experience, provide a great life for my family,  and not be forced to trade my time for money allowing me to travel the world and see and do the amazing things god has created, or inspired, with those who are close to me.  Keeping these end goals in mind will transform your journey to success from selfish to selfless.    I love what I do and look forward to working everyday.  Investing my time in the short-term  to accomplish these “end goals” has made me very happy thus far and I’m confident that seeing these goals actualized will be even greater.

8. Make Your Yes Mean Yes

The whole essence of this lesson is to be a man of your word.  Wooden was quoted as saying “Make your yes mean yes and no mean no”.  This is a very simple concept, but a very important one to live by.

9. It’s a weakness to get caught up in praise

Praise and achievements can be motivational, but what you have accomplished is only proof that you have ability to achieve some level of success.  You should not allow yourself to be caught up or become complacent due to your past accomplishments.  In business and sports there is always someone else striving to take your spot, customers or future successes.  The focus should not be on what has been already accomplished, but what you’re striving to accomplish next.

10. Be quick, but don’t hurry

“Be quick, but don’t hurry” is my favorite John Wooden quote.  It’s better to take your time and do one thing right then to rush and do 1,000 things wrong.  In an ESPN interview Wooden was cited as saying “The key to sustainability is being patient and doing things right.”

A while back I wrote a post about the the business lessons I learned from sports. It may be worth reading if you’re interested in the subject. Years back I also had the fantastic opportunity to read the book Be Quick But Don’t Hurry
by Andrew Hill. It was a fantastic book and I give it my highest recommendation.

John Wooden will surely be missed, but his lessons will live on forever.

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Many have called Coach Wooden the “Gold Standard” of coaches.  I believe he was the gold standard of people and carried himself with uncommon grace, dignity and humility.  Coach Wooden’s name is synonymous with excellence and deservedly so.  He was one of the great leaders- in any profession-of his generation.

- Mike Krzyzewski
Duke Head Basketball Coach



Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming.

Ever look up while standing in a crowded area? If not give it a try…a strange thing happens.   You’ll often see another person will stand by you and look up in the same direction you are…then another person…then another…if you do this long enough you’ll eventually gain traction and notice a whole group of people are now looking up to see what everyone is checking out.

By doing this exercise you’ll witness first hand the power of social proof.

Here is how Wikipedia explains Social proof:

Social proof, also known as informational social influence, is a psychological phenomenon that occurs in ambiguous social situations when people are unable to determine the appropriate mode of behavior. Making the assumption that surrounding people possess more knowledge about the situation, they will deem the behavior of others as appropriate or better informed. Since observation of others usually provides only inconclusive information about what behavior is most profitable, the term ‘informational social influence’ is superior. Social influence in general can lead to conformity of large groups of individuals in either correct or mistaken choices, a phenomenon sometimes referred to as herd behavior.

Social proof is an inherent social principle that can be leveraged in social media to increase traffic and visibility to your venture.  The way I would recommend to best utilize social proof is the following:

1. First have a clear idea of the offer you’re trying to promote
2. Make sure the website of your offer has a strong call to action (or is a buzz worthy product).  Social proof is much more effective principle if the thing you’re looking at is actually worth while….If your product or service is worthwhile it will gain significantly more traction.
3. Plant the social proof seeds…This could be through well written or enticing content (articles, blog posts, press releases, etc) or through a genuine recommendation.Recommendations are a great way to facilitate the social proof process.  This can be done through sponsored conversations, which can be done by reaching out to online influencers with talking points and asking them to review or plug your product.  This kind of activity can be done by sponsoring blog posts, tweets, check-ins, or having a creator of a relevant social network send a message out to their group members.Now many people disagree with sponsored conversations, but lets face it….If you have a good product/service and can help facilitate the propensity for the site to go viral and reach the masses…why not?  (In the art/good practice of disclosure I did work for IZEA until May of last year, but I am not getting paid for this post.)  Another way to plant social seeds are through social bookmarking.  If you have a good product,service  offering or content share it with others by utilizing services like Digg, Delicious, Stumbleupon or sharing the post via Facebook/Twitter.

Social proof is in my eyes a natural catalyst for word of mouth marketing.  The good part is many times you don’t even have to say anything….simply revealing your actions to your social circle of influence or helping facilitate the process/enabling others to share your offer or content with their social circle of influence can do wonders.

Word of Mouth marketing…or in the case of social proof….(Traction by Action Marketing <–I coined that! ) is a very powerful asset to incorporate into your marketing campaign.

Now it’s your turn…Do you agree with my comments?

What role do you feel social proof plays in marketing?

Guest post by Robert Urban

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Show me a “how to”  instruction video and I can do just about anything… or can I? Recently, a situation occurred in my house that consisted of a significant plumbing issue.  I Googled it, read articles, and knew all the  jargon to make myself seem knowledgeable to the Home Depot expert when requesting the parts, but soon realized I was way over my head. I had neither the necessary tools nor know-how to tackle the problem. We called a plumber and within 15 minutes he fixed the problem and made it seem like the easiest thing in the world. Couple hundred dollars later and it was as good as new. It reminded me that the cost of any service oriented person is in the education, experience, and tools they bring to the table.

I have been in the design and development community for a long time and have heard numerous times:

“Hey I know this is written in open source code and free, why does this website cost x amount?”

Experience and Education

While there are still the handful of designers and developers that are self taught and incredible, a vast majority of those that choose to pursue this profession get a degree to compliment their experience. With school cost skyrocketing this person is paying several thousand dollars to enhance their skills and knowledge base. This doesn’t take into account the countless hours that they spend learning new programs, playing around with various designs and elements, and trying to keep abreast of new technologies and changes in the industry. With minimum wage being around $6 an hour, here is another few thousand dollars worth of time invested in learning their trade – all in becoming better suited to work long hours and be berated by people that don’t know anything about design, code, and development repeatedly ask why something takes longer than they think it should.

Tools

I once had a professor tell me that in today’s age it no longer is as high a priority of what you know, but rather how fast you can find and process information. A great designer/developer has a library full of scripts, plug-ins, programs, source code that they know how to manipulate to save time and effort; there is no use in reinventing the wheel. Take into fact that they also typically  have spent a boatload of cash on the newest software programs (seen the price sticker on Adobe CS suite? It’s pricey.) as well as cutting edge laptops and giant monitors, and once again the cost adds up.

These people love what they do – they have paid their dues, spent an exorbitant amount of money, and more importantly, their time, in learning their trade; just so you can question why this open source development that you want isn’t free. Next time the designer quotes a price, think of these factors and how much you invested in learning your skill and how you would feel if someone said they want your experience and time for free, or even better: next to nothing.  The return of investment on having an incredible site designed and developed is worth opening your wallet and paying their worth.

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I know that Robert’s post focuses on web development and design, but this is applicable in virtually any arena with people who have a specific skill or talent.

Feel free to share your thoughts