Kelly Smith Marketing

My Radio Interview with Jeffery Benjamin

Kelly Smith — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 21:07:22 +0000

Jeffrey Benjamin of Breakthrough Training

One of the local people I admire in my Reno Sparks area is Jeffrey Benjamin. His company is called “Breakthrough Training” and is committed to helping people become their best by finding out a little better about who they are and by giving them a great training program that challenges long-held personal beliefs. I’ve met several of the alumni of his training and they all have great things to say about it. It is definitely on my short list of things to do this next year.

I was recently interviewed by Jeffrey to be on his weekly radio show and below is a link to that broadcast. This was an interesting experience for me. In his office where he works he has a very nice radio and television studio with all necessary equipment that he needs. He’s truly focused about helping people become successful and he has quite a following. At every meeting that I have seen him attend there are always 30 or 40 people near him wanting to shake his hand. He has a very commanding presence but very personable the same time. He’s a take charge kind of individual who doesn’t stomp on the little people in the process.

Be sure and go to his website at http://www.BreakthroughTraining.com or visit him on Twitter at @JeffreyBenjamin or his Facebook page http://www.Facebook.com/JeffreyBenjamin. This guy is a true gem.

I hope you enjoy this short interview:
Jeffrey Benjamin Kelly Smith PODCAST

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Apple’s iPad Changes The World

Kelly Smith — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 18:32:31 +0000

Throughout the years there have been several dramatic changes or shifts, even called revolutions when it comes to business and technology. One of the biggest of all times is the Gutenberg printing press which made the printed word available to everyone in a cost-effective manner. Originally the state run church sought to prevent the printing and distribution of the Lord’s word. Great men like William Tyndale were even martyred for trying to produce the Bible for all to read. Before Gutenberg’s day someone had to hire a person, a scribe to copy it word for word and it was very expensive because it took years.

Modern Printing Press far different than ones 500 years ago!

Original Gutenberg Bibles are some of the most valuable artifacts of the kind. But it was only the first of several revolutions over the next 550 years. The telescope by Galileo altered our view of the universe. The cotton gin made it possible for clothing to become less expensive. The lightbulb has had so many positive effects on our lives that it’s impossible to calculate. The railroad, telegraph, radio, motion pictures, air travel, automobiles, submarines and other naval vessels, television, space ships, satellites, computers, the Internet, cell phones, iPods and Rogaine are just a few of the major events of the last few hundred years. (Ok, I slipped that last one just to see if you were paying attention!)

But we have just witnessed another earth shattering life-changing event that, although it has received much attention, I believe most people do not realize how powerful this event really was. What I’m talking about is the new product from Apple computer called the iPad. Why do I make such a dramatic statement and rank it among those lists of life altering inventions?

Because this will have a dramatic impact on your life. Just like Gutenberg’s printing press that began to bring us out of the dark ages the iPad literally brings the world to your fingertips like nothing else. If you own a magazine or newspaper you had better wake up. If you work for a printing company that prints magazines I hope your eyes are open. If you are involved in distributing or shipping such printed products this will really change your life.

Apple's iPad Alters the Universe

In the not-too-distant future just about everything that we normally receive through the mail or delivered on our doorstep in the morning will be delivered through your iPad. People Magazine, Golf Digest, your local newspaper, etc. will all be viewed and watched on this little device that fits in your purse or briefcase.

Instead of static photos, video will now be the norm. The days of a few hundred cable channels being available on your television just got replaced by millions of options on your iPad. The days of direct mail postcards are probably now numbered because direct iPad postcards are just around the corner.

I know I’m barely scratching the surface here because it’s hard to see just how far-reaching effects of this product really are going to be. But just like with what the iPod did to the music industry and the iPhone has done to the telephone or cell phone industry, the iPad will now do the same to the print, television, radio, and shipping industries. When I say shipping at really mean the Post Office. Companies like UPS or FedEx will become even more important than they already are with a product like the iPad.

So if you’re involved in any kind of advertising or marketing you need be prepared for a product like the iPad. (I personally will be really happy to not have to watch those stupid Super PoliGrip commercials during evening news!”Bye Bye Paste, No More Ooziness!”) In the last few years the Yellow Pages have taken a dramatic hit as more people have moved away from their once-useful-but-now-antiquated medium to searching online for what they need. The same will be true for the iPad. The ability to track people that are near you or your business will become paramount to your success. But you’re only going to be able to track them if they give you permission.

Your personal identity and security will be even more important than ever and I guarantee you that your freedoms will be impinged. But I’ll stop right here because it would be very easy to go down a negative path here of conspiracies and biblical prophecy. We’ll keep things on the up and up.

It is my hope that for your financial future you will recognize the impact this product is going to have on your business, work, products, life and future. If you thought you were drowning in information before, we just had the effect of a flood similar to Noah’s ark poured out upon us by one small announcement. The only ones who were saved were the ones who listened to Noah.

Better start iPad-dling!

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More Sales with Social Media?

Kelly Smith — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 05:33:08 +0000

People always ask me how to generate more leads, make more sales and increase their business with the Internet. They want to know how to use Social Media to accomplish this. Its free and they have the ability to broadcast to the whole world and they ask, “How can I reel them in using Twitter or Facebook?”

What do you think about that question? Is there anything wrong with it? Does it feel right or accurate or desirable?

We are Social People on the Web

I say that something is definitely wrong with that question. Here’s the deal. For years and years, since the beginning of advertising, it has always been a one-to-many method of accomplishing that desire. Some marketing firm or department comes up with a message; it goes through design and testing and finally gets approved by management. It gets printed, filmed, broadcast, labeled and mailed. The message is then accepted or rejected by the potential consumer who got blasted with the message that interrupted their favorite TV show or while they wait to hear their favorite song on the radio. The open the mail near the trash can to zap anything of little interest. They spend 10-30 minutes a day deleting junk email.

Its called interruption marketing. We are so used to it we hardly notice it anymore and we just live with it. We change the channel, turn the dial, throw it in the trash or make some decision that we are going to do something about what we just heard, saw or read.

But Social Media is different.
Its Social. . .
Its Friendly. . .
Its Relationship driven. . .

If we have a relationship with someone and they turn and try to sell us something , it can ruin that relationship in an instant. Someone wanting us to join his or her favorite Miracle Juice Company has accosted us all and something happened to that relationship in the process. It dropped a notch. It may even ruin the relationship and removed the trust you once had.

Social media should be an investment in building relationships. Just as it takes time to build a friendship, it takes time online too. Dr. Bret L. Simmons is great at pointing out this principle and trying to get people to make this shift in the advertising world.

Twitter is great for sharing your message amongst friends who share your same ideas and passions. But you have to build those relationships and find those who feel the same way you do. That doesn’t happen overnight.

I recently attended a panel on Social Media at the University of Nevada Reno with 4 great guys who are leaders in this industry. Each one came from various backgrounds and experiences and approached things in a different way but the consensus was the same. The panelists were Bret L. Simmons of the College of Business (UNR), Mike Henderson of One to One Interactive, Professor Todd Felt of the School of Journalism (UNR), and Flip Wright from the Glenn Group. About 65 people attended the event and although it started out slowly, it really took off and all were well fed with new information and a new perspective about Social Media.

Here is the message of the evening: if you try to use interruption-marketing techniques in a Social Media setting, you will fail. If you are a jerk in person, you are a jerk online and Social Media will bring that out in a short time.

There is such potential on the Internet for something good to happen. The opposite also exists and unless we follow the rules of Social Media, we will go the way of the online dodo bird and become extinct.

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Personal Branding in a Crowded Society

Kelly Smith — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 19:28:18 +0000

One of the most powerful aspects of marketing is the concept of Personal Branding. Before I explain more of this let me back up a little bit and give you some history.

Branding actually goes back thousands of years but we associate the word “branding” with stamping a hot iron logo on the rear end of a cow. This would brand the cow and claim it as a property of a certain rancher. In the old West, before there were fences that kept them in a certain area, cattle would wander all over the place in search of food. This became the only real way to designate whose cow was whose.

Branding Cattle was the only way to claim them as property

In our modern era we are very familiar with brand names such as McDonald’s, Nokia, Samsung, Coca-Cola, and thousands of others that occupy a specific little niche in our brain. Each one of these brands represent a specific product or service that we think about. There’s even a website that shows the top 100 brands of any given year and it’s a fascinating study.

Companies large and small all have a brand related to them. But a brand is not a logo or a corporate trademark, it’s “a gut feeling in the mind of the consumer*”. It’s what a person perceives the company to be which may be far different than what the company wants them to think they are.

If you want someone to do work on your furnace or air conditioner, you already have someone in mind. If you want to go to a bakery and get a delicious treat, you almost certainly have a place in mind. The same is true with just about anything else in our society.

It’s also true with individuals. You yourself have an aura or brand associated with you and what people think of you, or have a gut feeling about you. Every person that knows you has already categorized you as to who you are, your personality, your likes and dislikes, the things they don’t like about you, the reasons they would call you an invite you to a movie or call someone else, the type of car you drive, etc. etc. etc.

If you can narrow down the essence of who you are to one word, what would that be? Think about this for a moment. It’s very important. It may not be exactly who you are at the moment because you may be a lot of things to a lot of different people but when it comes to personal Branding, you need to think about occupying a single word in a person’s mind.

If I tell you to think of your favorite car-what is it? If I tell you to think about your favorite color, what is that? The same is true with your favorite movie, your favorite song, your favorite software program, your favorite tires, favorite Chinese food place, favorite vacation spot, etc.

If you can work and spend your entire marketing efforts on trying to occupy a single word in people’s minds, you will become very successful. The key is though you cannot occupy more than one word. Someone will always dominate a single word and it isn’t you, if someone else.

Many of these principles were taught to me by Diane Diaz and Bret L. Simmons and I have to give them credit for how they have affected my life with this. It was kind of an epiphany to wake up one morning and realize I was on the wrong track. I was not focused on what was most important to me and what was the one word that I wanted to occupy people’s minds.

Bret said that his single word is “leadership”. For me the word is “inspiration“. My goal now is:

To inspire People, Leaders and Companies to be the Best that they can be and to have a Positive Influence in the World.

I really can’t think of a better thing that I could be doing something that fits in with my personality and personal desires.

This epiphany is so revealing and freeing to me. I don’t have to be anything more than inspirational. I don’t have to be perfect, I don’t have to know everything about everything, I just need to work on being the most inspirational person that I can be.

You have got to look inside yourself to see what single word you would like to build your life around. Maybe its decisiveness, management, loving, support, fun, humor, pioneering, strength, or a million other terms. It really doesn’t matter as long as it’s important to you. No matter what principle you want to base your life around, the vast majority of the world can use you.

They don’t know where they’re going and if you do, you’re way ahead of the rest of them.

Start right now and decide what word describes you and what your personal brand should be. The go out and be it!

(*The Brand Gap, Marty Neumeier)

Initiated from a discussion at FullSail.edu

Most Famous Song in History?

Kelly Smith — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 01:42:09 +0000

Here’s an interesting question: What song or part of a song has been played more on the radio than any other in all of history? Would that be equivalent to making it the most famous song in history or should we look for some other criteria?

My first reaction to this would be the song “My City Was Gone” by the pretenders because it’s played on every Rush Limbaugh show several times a day and has been around since at least 1984. But I’m just not sure of this answer. Some of the old DJ’s that were on the radio for years, say 50 years or more, do any of them have their own theme song that they kept playing through those years?

Some brands of companies have songs associated with them like “Rhapsody in Blue” for United Airlines, but that may have been played mostly on the television and not on the radio so I guess we don’t really care exactly what medium its played on, just how many times it’s been played.

There are also a lot of commercial products that have songs associated with them, would they win this contest?

Some groups like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir have been playing for over 80 years, so do they, or other groups like them, have a theme song that could win this contest? Are their singers in other countries like Julio Iglesias, who is far more popular in the rest of the world than the United States, does one of his songs top this chart?

How about something from Michael Jackson, the Beetles, Elvis or the Rolling Stones?

How about the Theme song for Sesame Street? All the song lists that I found for “Top 100 of All Time” are too limiting to answer this question.

Are there theme songs of ancient countries, like China, Israel or Japan, that have songs played more than any other? Many of them didn’t have radio for most of their existence so maybe this isn’t a fair question but I would still like to come to some sort of consensus.

I look forward to hearing your answer below and if you have any statistics to back it up, that would even be better. I tried to search this answer on the Internet but didn’t get very satisfactory results, in fact I really couldn’t find any.

Let me know what you think.

The Power of Viral Videos

Kelly Smith — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 19:08:22 +0000

The Power of Viral Videos

It’s no wonder that the big three network broadcast stations: ABC, CBS and NBC are all suffering drops in ratings. Everything has changed because of the Internet. Why be forced to watch some brainless sitcom while constantly interrupted by commercials when you can watch something far more interesting on YouTube any day of the week whenever you want to?

People are looking for something new, authentic and real. Television has tried to answer that with reality TV shows but nothing takes the place of real experiences as photographed and shown on YouTube.

If any of the big three networks tried anything like the following video they would get sued. Don’t try this at home. Don’t even think about trying this in any fashion! This is one of the stupidest, most dangerous things I’ve ever seen (but because someone else did it, we get the benefit of watching it). There is quite a bit of debate whether it is real or not but I am putting my vote that this is real because its just too real looking to be fake (lol). I could be wrong.

Here’s another video that has got to be one of the cutest cat videos I’ve ever seen. It’s definitely worth watching.

Here is a video that shows the power of viral videos when companies don’t live up to their word or take care of your possessions when they are supposed to. Apparently United Airlines had broken this man’s guitar while in the luggage compartment of the airplane and refused to do anything about it. This guy decided to write a whole song about it and believe me, it cost United far more than the cost of the guitar because of their incompetence! After 50,000 views of this video, United relented and said it was a “learning experience” for their company and they would be giving him $500 for his guitar. It’s possible this video cost them well over $100,000 (my guess) and far more in a damaged reputation.

Here’s another one that I still can’t decide whether it’s real or not. It certainly looks real but I’m not sure it can actually happen like this. But it’s still great entertainment.

But what does this have to do with Internet marketing? I believe there are several things that must be considered. First of all recognize that people are going online to view entertainment. Advertising budgets are switching to the Internet because many people are going to the Internet for their entertainment. For me, I can hardly sit still watching anything on TV without a laptop in front of me. I get bored so quickly that if something doesn’t interest me, I’d rather be searching online for something of more value. Now please understand, I like to learn things and I’m not bored because I want more excitement, I want something of more value for my time.

The second thing you have to realize is that if you can possibly create a video for your company or product that is done in such a manner that it becomes viral, you can reap millions of dollars of advertising if done correctly. But whatever you do don’t do it incorrectly so that it looks fake. It will do more harm than you can possibly imagine.

The third thing to recognize is that you will notice that every video now on YouTube has advertisements associated with it. If you can find the video that will benefit your product or service in some fashion, you can actually pay to have advertisements attached to those videos. This can reap a huge windfall if done the right way.

This latest trend toward videos is continuing to shift toward cell phones as they become more powerful and capable of showing whatever the people want on demand. Infrastructure still isn’t capable of creating videos for people when they wanted on their cell phones but it is definitely moving in that direction. It would be wise to start preparing for that now.

The last thing I want to mention regarding these videos is the fact that these are not scripted well-planned products, but something done on the spur of the moment with a handheld camera. There’s something about that combination that makes it more real so it’s not a big budget decision. But videos placed on your website regarding what you do and what you sell created in this fashion for people to get to know you. And it’s that unpolished reality that is becoming so appealing to so many people.

I highly recommend you start planning for creating viral videos, or at least videos that go on your website, to promote your business.

Many of these links were sent by FullSail.edu.

How To Learn The Lesson In Marketing

Kelly Smith — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 06:49:54 +0000

Marketing is a huge subject. One far too big to cover here but Internet marketing has become the area of greatest interest for anyone involved in advertising their company or business. The Yellow Pages are dead. All traditional mediums have had a reduction in their revenues and many of them, including Citadel Broadcasting, have recently cited this drop in advertising revenues as a reason for declaring bankruptcy.

Everything seems to be moving to the Internet and as an industry, it is definitely flourishing. But not everyone who advertises on the Internet is benefiting from this change. In fact it has become an extremely difficult arena for many companies to succeed in.

And that brings me to a story.

Gary Halbert-Copywriter

It’s been said that Gary Halbert, the great copywriter (actually one of the greatest copywriters of all time) was at a seminar teaching people about how to be good copywriters. He gave a scenario where if everyone in the audience owned a hamburger stand and he decided to put one right across the street, what advantages would they like to have in order to compete against him?

Everybody gave all kinds of answers such as:

“My prices would be the lowest!”

“I’d pick the busiest location!”

“I’d want a world famous recipe!”

“I’d offer customers credit, so they can pay later!”

“I’d have more staff to serve more people faster!”

“I’d sell my burgers wholesale!”

Apparently Gary listened patiently to all of their answers until everyone had finally given their turn. “Okay, he replied, smugly smiling the weathered, all-knowing grin of an old master.

“I’ll give you every single advantage you have asked for… I only want one advantage and, if you give it to me, I’ll whip the pants off all of you when it comes to selling burgers!”

Apparently everyone was listening very intently as he gave his final answer

“The only advantage I want is… a starving crowd!”

The previous quotation was taken from a book called “The Niche Marketing Black Book” from MarketSamurai.com. These guys have an interesting product that delves into how to find niche markets on any subject and use it to your advantage in marketing. It’s a well-written book and I highly recommend it but, I disagree with the previous story.

I hate to be the one to disagree with the great Gary Halbert, one of the most revered marketers of all time, but something doesn’t quite fit. Why doesn’t it fit you ask?

The reason is because I’ve just seen that exact scenario played out last weekend where 2 hamburger stands were right across the street from each other and the story wasn’t as Gary described it.

You see, earlier in the day I had taken my boys sledding in the snow in the nearby mountains. It was a brisk cold day that was perfect for sledding. After a few hours of getting bumped around and having a great time, we had had enough and headed home. Everyone decided they were quite hungry so I called my wife and told her we were going to get something to eat on the way home. I asked the boys where they really wanted to go and a few of the popular fast food joints came to mind. Wendy’s seem to be at the top of the list until one of the other boys saw a sign for In-N-Out Burger and we deided to go there.

IN-N-OUT BURGERS

As soon as we got near it we noticed an enormous line of cars waiting to go through the drive-through. We could tell that inside, many people were standing around with no place to sit. It was going to be hard to find a place to park but we had made up our minds, we really liked their fries and that’s where we determined to go.

We could already taste it.

As we waited for the stoplight to turn into the establishment, I turned my head to the right and saw Burger King sitting right there on the opposite corner. Not a single car was in line at the drive-through. There was only four or five cars in the parking lot and the place looked mostly empty.

I pointed that out to the boys that we had the option to go there, but we had already made our decision. We went through the light, turned the corner and found a parking spot, went in, ordered our meal, waited 10 minutes for a table to open up, scarfed down those delectable fries and headed home completely happy that we made this choice.

But the image of a totally packed restaurant right across the street from an almost totally empty one selling almost the exact same product has haunted me ever since.

Why would one company, In-N-Out Burger, who spends almost nothing on advertising have 10-20 times the customers of Burger King (who spends millions on advertising) on the exact same day under the same conditions? Is their food that much better? Do they have a bigger selection? Do they have a better image, brand, logo, marketing campaign, customer service, etc?

Most people would say that in almost every case, Burger King beats them. Burger King has a far bigger selection of food items. They spend far more money in advertising, their logo was designed and refined through endless focus groups over several years. They have top of the mind awareness on all kinds of television ads as their smart aleck King does all sorts of goofy things to people.

The Burger King Bar?

So why is In-N-Out Burger literally bringing home the bacon while in this case, Burger King was barely serving anyone?

I believe I’m about to reveal to you a secret that is so essential and is so completely and totally relevant to the world of Internet marketing (and marketing in general) that you need to take great heed to this message. This is so simple yet so powerful that I believe it makes all the difference between the two Burger places I’ve just mentioned.

You see, although I really like In-N-Out Burger’s hamburgers and especially their fries (but only when they’re hot) their food is really not THAT much better than Burger Kings. I mean we’re not comparing Burger King to PF Chang’s here, we’re comparing it to another hamburger place. All the major fast food chains offer burgers that are only slightly different in taste (although I know that some people disagree with that over-generaliztion and have sworn allegiances to their favorite brand. I’m just glad that McDonald’s finally recently improved the taste of their burgers. I refused to eat there for years!).

The prices aren’t that much different. The selection is incredibly smaller because they don’t offer a $.99 value meal, chicken strips, salads, and endless assortment of side dishes, kids meals, tofu options, anything vegetarian, etc. They basically only have three sizes of the same hamburgers, one size of fries and the usual brands of drinks and some shakes. Thats it. And it all fits on a small menu just above the order takers head.

They were located right across the street from each other so that can’t be a real big factor, in fact, I got off the freeway on the same side of the street as Burger King and had to cross the street to get to In-N-Out Burger, so that rules that out. They weren’t offering hamburgers at wholesale or on credit, they actually have less room to eat in and people were standing around, the company isn’t new (since 1948) so it’s not one of those phenomenons relating to something brand-new and exciting.

So what is it that makes it so successful and have more people eating there?

You see, Gary Halbert was wrong. Both of these places had the exact same customer base: starving crowds of people. They were all driving by the same street. There were no special signs anywhere advertising a reduction in costs or free fries with their order (there actually may have been some on the Burger King place-those kinds of signs are always there). They were all looking for a quick and tasty meal but 20 times more people chose In-N-Out Burger than Burger King.

Gary Halbert was right if you were thinking about wanting to establish a business and deciding which business to go in. Yes, of course, you would want to find one where people are clamoring for your product. But I believe he is incorrect in this instance when comparing competitive strategies between those in the same industry. They already have the same crowd of starving customers.

And that brings us full circle to the beginning of my discussion-why do some companies who market on the Internet succeed while others don’t? How do some companies manage to spend a fraction of what another does and get tremendously better results?

If you thought trying to find your ad in a newspaper was difficult, it can be far worse on the Internet. One of the things that is so appealing to those who want to advertise or market on the Internet is its low cost. In many cases it’s extremely low. There isn’t the giant expense of television towers, radio waves, huge printing presses, etc. to get the message out. Everyone with computer access can market on the Internet.

But that low-cost alternative can be extremely expensive. For many people, some estimate well over 90%, they don’t succeed in getting their message across. They waste their time and effort and how much does that cost?

Just send me your basic information, and I’ll reply with an answer that has tremendous impact on your Internet marketing decisions, in fact all of your marketing decisions. In fact, some of you may not choose to market on the Internet at all after reading what I am about to reveal, its that powerful.

I promise I won’t spam you, that’s not my goal. My goal is to help companies market themselves on the Internet, not use subversive or illegal tactics to accomplish this task. and if you don’t like information, you can always delete and it’s easy to opt out of getting any more e-mails from me.

I just think it’s essential that people understand this vital principle of marketing can not only save you hundreds or even thousands of dollars, it will help you find more targeted customers, ones that are looking for you.

Once you realize this, it can totally set you free and save you a fortune. I mean think about it, In-N-Out Burger is an old company, with an old-style, a limited product offering that doesn’t hardly advertise anywhere. Yet it creams its competitor right across the street because it understands one principle of marketing and has stuck with that principle. It hasn’t gotten diverted into endless options and programs. It has a brand and sticks with it. It knows where it fits in knows where it doesn’t.

I look forward to hearing your comments about this principle. Just fill out the form to the right and I will get back to you soon.

Marketing Has Changed Over The Years!

Kelly Smith — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 06:25:42 +0000

Here’s an amazing video that shows how marketing is changed over the years. You will quickly see that things are far more difficult than they used to be. There are a lot more avenues, competition, mediums, messages, cultures, languages, and ways to do just about everything.

Every company whether they realize it or not, is putting forth some sort of brand. I think most people think that branding is related only to Nike, Coca-Cola, Apple or IBM, but this is not the case. Every company has a brand. Every business has a brand.

What is that brand? It’s not just the logo, or a trademark, or comprehensive identity package. It’s been described as “a gut feeling as to what your company represents”. (1) Because there’s so much competition in the world today one of the most important things for anyone doing any kind of marketing is to be authentic and real. Even the mere whiff of being inauthentic can lose a sale, the customer or a permanent reputation.

It’s also important to remember who you are. Remember that it is impossible for you to please the whole world or provide everything they need. I have seen numerous companies, large and small, lose site of this issue and cause them to branch out into all sorts of products and services and thereby dilute the message.

One of the latest of these is Google’s new foray into digital telephones. Haven’t they learned the lesson of Microsoft? Microsoft was very profitable once they stuck with producing the software that ran the hardware produced by IBM, Dell and several others. But greed knows no bounds. They’ve now immersed themselves into so many products that profits are way down.

A long time ago, General Motors establish several brands that each meant a specific thing. Chevrolet, Oldsmobile, Buick, Pontiac, Cadillac, etc. all meant something different and were created for a very specific audience. Over the years this drastically changed and you could hardly tell one brand from another. I presume this was all done in the name of cost savings but it cost them the company in the process.

Never change your brand. I don’t care what it is, don’t change it. You can certainly improve upon it but don’t remove it from its essence, from what it is and who it’s meant to serve. As soon as the company changes its focus from creating something useful into something that is only profitable, a few drops of poison have been added to its drinking water.

It’s that darn word “profits”. Yes of course a business must make profits or it cannot survive, but the way they get profits that will maintain a company for the long haul is a far different strategy than the one that gives some quick profits at the expense of their future.

As soon as the focus changes only to profits its death is certain.

If you’d like some advice on establishing your brand and creating a profitable mark for the future, please fill out the form to the right and let me know what you’re looking for. Let’s build a profitable niche together.

(1-The Brand Gap, Marty Neumeier)

This article was originated from FullSail.edu and a class on branding.

Sitting on a Plane talking about SEO

Kelly Smith — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 06:16:46 +0000

I am currently in San Jose California on a plane and had an interesting conversation with someone about his company and the marketing they do. This is a large company that does about $2 Billion a year in sales.

I asked to see his website and when I went there I learned all kinds of things about this company. First of all I discovered that they are getting a large amount of traffic (over 282,000 views per month or around 10,000 per day) and a great deal of that is from PPC. In other words they are paying for people to visit their site. Some months they pay over $16,000 per day for these visitors.

But the real killer here is that they don’t have their website properly formatted for SEO and therefore not able to take advantage of free traffic. By just applying some basic principles they could have a tremendous amount of free, regular and steady traffic to their site. I am not sure who persuaded them to just do PPC and forget about basic SEO, but they must have some motive to do so.

I recently heard of a company that did about $10 Million per year and spent about $1 Million with Google PPC per year to accomplish this. But something happened (no one knows why for sure) but they were de-listed by big G and went out of business. A few hundred employees out of work because some bureaucrat didn’t like something and pulled the plug. The management swore that they were not doing anything unethical or illegal and they had no idea what happened or why.

Never put all your eggs in one basket with Internet Marketing! Make sure you have a good footing in many areas and not just one. There is too much power in the hands of some of these people and this is ripe for corruption.

If they would pull the plug on $1,000,000 per year in advertising dollars, they will certainly do it for a lot less, and possibly any other reason they can think of.

SEO First Page Rankings on Google

Kelly Smith — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 21:44:18 +0000

Here is a short video I have created for you to see how I can help you get on the first page of Google and therefore more customers and clients:

Everyone wants to be on the first page of Google. It’s understandable why because it’s not much use being any other page. Nobody goes past page one, in fact 20% of the people don’t even know you can scroll down!

Although that seems hard to believe, it’s true. What’s also true is that the Yellow Pages are dead. I asked someone recently how much they spent per month on advertising in the Yellow Pages. They said about $600. I then asked him how many phone calls they’ve gotten over the past month from the Yellow Pages ad. He said two. So in essence he was paying $300 per lead by advertising in the Yellow Pages.

In the past, about 15 years ago, I also advertised in the Yellow Pages and spent about $1200 a month. I don’t think we ever got more than five calls a month from that ad. But that’s just the nature of things, things change. And things are changing dramatically for those who want to advertise and market their business.

All of the old mediums of advertising are suffering right now. Newspapers, television, radio, direct mail, etc. all have declining revenues because of one main reason: the Internet. Of course there are other factors such as the economy but the Internet is growing dramatically in advertising revenues. Google’s revenue last year was $22,000,000,000 just in advertising. The next closest one was Time Warner, the mega-opulous of traditional media and it had $9,000,000,000 in advertising revenue. And Google’s revenue is up substantially from the previous year.

Internet advertising has one over-arching, overwhelming advantage over all other forms of advertising: traceability. You can track down to the penny how much money a person makes from any given ad. They know exactly where it came from, what keywords they used to find it, what the resolution of their monitor was (I’m not sure why they bother with that one), what documents referred them to it, what domains they came from, etc.

No other form of advertising has this capability. Everything else is just guesswork. The Nielsen ratings, as good as they try to be, are never as accurate. And that’s the advantage of the Internet.

Not only does it track it all, in many ways it’s free. But free is a bit of a misnomer. Anyone now can write a blog or an article and have the whole world able to view it. Whether they do it or not is an entirely different issue and that’s where the problem with Internet marketing lies-it’s so easy that it’s become very crowded.

To print a newspaper you have to have massive expensive machines and elaborate distribution channels. Much of the same things are true regarding television and radio. But with the Internet, all you have to have is a connection. You can even access it from your phone nowadays. And I predict even more dramatic changes in the near future.

But the Internet has also come of age because now local search marketing is the new rage, or at least a fairly new phenomenon of the last two years. The ability to target a specific industry in a single zip code, town, city, county and/or state has never really been viable before. Now it is and it is very cost effective.

You can easily target a few specific phrases for your business that you think people are typing in the search for you. Because that’s where people are going to search for you anyway. They’re not going to the phonebook anymore.

So the key question here is not IF you will become involved in local search marketing, but WHEN? It will be a rare business that survives in the future without using this technology. You simply must have a website and it must be properly formatted. But you must also drive traffic to it because it’s very very difficult to be found on its own. Most people don’t have the time, energy, or money to to compete with the big boys and their elaborate websites.

But a simple, SEO-friendly and optimized website is an absolute necessity and as long as it’s effectively marketed, it can be your best lead generator possible.

Its also a lot less expensive than the Yellow Pages!

Contact me when you’re ready to increase your sales and find new customers. Just use the form on the right or call me at 702-726-2427.