Social media is seen by many marketers as the next gold rush. Like any business, the media industry evolves in cycles. In the past, there have been few job openings at media companies but now as content converges and more media companies are looking for ways to branch out and reach larger population bases there is an increase in the availability of highly coveted marketing positions.

However, the availability of new technologies and new developments in the media industry have created a demand for new kinds of experience, cultural knowledge and skills sets that candidates must be aware of if they wish for such a position.

If you are pondering starting social media marketing, these findings will help push you over the edge.  If you’re already onboard, feel free to examine what the really experienced marketers are doing.

When searching for a marketing position in the media industry it is important to know that the industry is highly heterogeneous. Marketers should also be aware of the competition that they will face when pursuing a position at a media company. Typically, marketers must have a plethora of solid experience and a vast understanding of the media industry and the specific changes impacting the industry they are looking to work in. Marketers should already be familiar with how to communicate their messages across a variety of mediums and how to connect with a large customer base.

Social marketing requires so many processes going on at once that it can quickly become overwhelming. It’s no wonder that things can slip through the cracks.

5 Simple Things Most Social Media Marketers Forget To Do

Set Goals

It’s amazing how many campaigns are run without a set goal. Marketers understand that social media is interacting with consumers but forget they need goals to track success. The goal doesn’t need to be a sales figure, it could be something as simple as number of @ replies on Twitter or Facebook fans. By analyzing your current standing, your goal and your % change you can decide what has been working and what not. Without these numbers you can neither optimize your campaign nor determine success.

Link Profiles

Linking your social media profiles to a hub and each other is a simple and effective way to build a community throughout your network. By making it easy for consumers to find the brand profiles you will remove an obstacle for them to join the community. Giving consumers multiple ways to connect with the brand increase the likelihood.

Use Multimedia

The web has evolved to go beyond just textual content to include images and videos. Leaving out this section of content means, disregarding a large section of consumers.

Listen Intently

When engaging in social media, 60% of your time should be spent listening to the industry and mentions of your brand. Only 40% of your time should be spent actually interacting with consumers. Here listening means actively tracking conversation and reading mentions. Just knowing that they exist is not enough; you need to know what they’re talking about, how they talk and what the trend is.

Have Fun

One of the forgotten, yet most important aspect of social media is to have fun. Brands forget that they’re engaging consumers talking to them instead of broadcasting a message. By having a good time yourself and staying upbeat consumers enjoy interacting with you. The brand must set the mood for the engagement, just like in offline relationships, online consumers will take cues from the brand on how the interaction should occur.

Remembering these 5 strategies can help make your social campaign a success. These may be easy to forget, but are extremely effective.

Author: Kuldeep Singh

The primary reason you want to submit articles is to get links back to your site, but how are you formatting that link in the resource box? You want to have the anchor text of the links to be the keywords you want to rank for, yes, but it’s important that you don’t have the same anchor text in every link.  Why? Because if the search engines see that every link to your site contains the exact same anchor text, it’s a red-flag that your links were not acquired naturally.

People don’t always behave the same, and search engines know that it’s statistically impossible that every single person who links to your site will use the same link text.  So be sure to vary your link text. I like to reinforce my main keywords while also optimizing for related keywords. For instance, if your site’s primary keywords are “kitchen remodeling”, you could use a variation like “kitchen remodeling tips” or “kitchen remodeling advice” or “how to remodel your kitchen”.

Those anchor texts still help reinforce your ranking for your primary keywords since they contain your primary keywords (or variations), but they also help you rank for lesser terms–and it’s the lesser terms that are the easiest to rank for.  So when submitting to article sites, be sure and vary your anchor text, using your primary keywords about 70% of the time.

This is simple enough to accomplish: just change your resource box for each site that you submit to.  Submit Slowly to Avoid the Sandbox  there is one school of thought that Google and Yahoo both penalize links that appear too fast. They basically wait for months before actually applying the value of those links to your ranking.

This is referred to in the search engine optimization world as “sandboxing”.  As of right now, MSN (under its new name, Live) does not sandbox links. So if you’re looking to rank and get some traffic going quickly, getting a lot of links fast will pay off with MSN. You’ll just have to wait a while before seeing many results in Google and Yahoo.

If you’re trying to rank in Google or Yahoo as quickly as possible, and if you’re a believer in the sandbox theory, then you’re best bet is to submit to the article sites a little more slowly. Maybe only submit to a few a weeks. This will cause your links to build more “naturally” from the search engines point of view.  If you’re Not a Sandbox Believer…  There are other schools of SEO thought that claim sandboxing doesn’t exist at all.

Their theory is that it just takes a long time for the algorithm updates to hit Google and Yahoo so that your links are counted. If they are correct, then it’s still best to get as many links as possible as quickly as possible, and then just wait for them to be applied.  What I Believe  I tend to lean away from the Sandbox theory myself, but not because I have a lot of empirical evidence that it doesn’t exist.

It just seems illogical to me for search engines to sandbox links just because they appear quickly.  For example, let’s say there’s some big news event that happens regarding some web site, and suddenly thousands of links appear from every news site covering that sector. Would it make sense for the search engines to ignore all of those links just because they appeared quickly? It was natural that they appear quickly, since the event was unexpected.

So I tend to believe that it just takes a while to update the rankings for billions of web pages, and therefore the links don’t kick in immediately.  Summing it All Up  whatever your Sandbox beliefs are, you can see that your linking strategy needs to be analyzed before you start submitting to article sites. Take a few minutes to come up with the list of keywords you want to rank for. Try to get at least five or six sets of keywords into your article resource boxes.

Don’t put all of your keywords into one basket, so to speak.  Taking a little time to plan out your submission strategy could save you from wasting all of that time only to find that the search engines have ignored your links because they think they’re “not natural”.

It’s not big news that submitting articles to free article sites is one of the best ways to get free one-way links into your sites. However, it’s important that you think about your linking strategy when submitting articles, otherwise all of your efforts will be lost. Here’s why.

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Author: Kuldeep Singh

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is defined in the Wikipedia as a “set of methods aimed at improving the ranking of a website in search engine listings”. To the average webmaster, it’s how you get higher up in the search engine results pages and get more traffic. There are many myths and also many great pieces of advice I see floating around so I am presenting a list to you, the reader, of what to do and what not to do in the SEO world.

Having the correct knowledge you can get the best results. I see quite often sites employing “tricks” like hidden text and keyword spamming, and hopefully after reading this article you will at the very least know what to avoid like the plague. After all, while some of these tricks work even momentarily, in the long run (usually within a month) you get heavily penalized or banned.

SEO DO’S :

1. Original content – Search engines reward websites with original content, which will also naturally draw incoming links and visitors as well. Original content can be anything from product reviews to a blog to your own articles.

2. Add more content regularly – How often a website is updated can have a big impact on your search engine ranking. Most search engines prefer fresh content, so you become a more preferred source by constantly having new and fresh content.

3. Research your keywords – You need to research which keywords you want to target before you even start making your website. These are the keywords that you will be targeting in backlinks when possible and your main page will revolve around these keywords.

4. Create a sitemap – Sitemaps are a definitely plus. It helps search engines walk your website with ease, since you’re hand-feeding it the list of webpages. It can also greatly help visitors find what they are looking for on your website. Be sure to link to your sitemap from your main page.

5. Use HTML – While this may sound obvious, there are sites out there created entirely in flash or javascript. While some search engines can read part of javascript, by not using regular html link between pages on your site may not even get seen by search engines, and your page text may never be seen, so your target keywords are never seen by the search engines.

6. W3C compliant – Making your web pages complies with the World Wide Web Consortium’s standards is always a good idea. It is impossible to know exactly how the search engine spiders read a web page, so it is impossible to know how it will handle non-standard code. You can bet, though, that it has been tested to handle html code that follows the standard.

7. Webpage title tag – Be sure to put your target keywords in your title tag.

8. Build backlinks at a normal pace – Don’t use one of those link farm programs where every member automatically shows links to all the other members. Search engines will see you one day literally showing thousands of backlinks instantly and this could get you penalized or banned.

Link exchanges are fine if they’re the type where you agree to or initiate each exchange, because if you were out looking for link exchange partners you would be doing the same thing. The key is not have thousands of backlinks show up instantly.

SEO DON’TS :

1. Avoid cloaking – Cloaking is when you give your visitors one page, and search engines another page. Search engines want to see and index what your visitors see. Getting caught cloaking can have dire consequences on your site ranking.

2. Avoid hidden text – This is making text, but background or near-background color. Normally it has tons of text that is meant for only search engines to see (they read raw html), and is loaded with keywords. Search engines are very good at catching this old trick and it will quickly get you a huge penalty or possibly a ban.

3. Avoid keyword stuffing/spamming – Avoid overloading your webpage with keywords that are only intended at tricking the search engines. The best way to avoid doing this is just write your text, with keywords in mind, towards your audience.

4. Avoid using flash or javascript for your navigation methods - Search engines usually can’t read these, or read them well enough to be dependable. Always use standard html links to be sure your site is easily walk able by search engine spiders.

5. Don’t submit your webpage url too often, if at all – You can submit your url directly to search engines, though search engines prefer to find your website via a backlink or incoming link. Resubmitting weekly or monthly can heavily damage your ranking with the search engines.

6. Avoid the “quickly get submitted to thousands of search engines” deals – While many of these do what they say, keep in mind that 98-99% of all search engines are powered by Google, Yahoo, or MSN. Just keep these 3 in mind and you’re covered.

7. Don’t forget backlinks – Link popularity plays very large into how your site is ranking by search engines, and is always a key element of SEO. Miss the backlinks part, and your SEO will suffer quite a bit.

8. Avoid excessive graphics and flash presentations – This is not to alter how the search engine looks at your site (directly), but at how your visitors view your site. There are many ways to make an effective website without overloading your visitors, and if a website takes more than 5 seconds to load, you will likely lose your visitor before they even get to visit your website.

As you can see, the list of things to do and things to avoid can have a large impact on your website. Heck, doing too many of the wrong things can get you outright banned and can be the demise of your website. The big things to keep in mind to keep you on the right track is to play it fair and don’t try to cheat the search engines. Cheating the search engines has a good chance at working in the short run, but usually in very short order you are worse off than when you started.

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is a buzzword to most people, but what it comes down to is how to get your site noticed by search engines more and thus more traffic. There are many good ways and bad ways to go about this, and inside I show you want to and what to avoid like the plague.

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Author: Anthony Mora

How many people do you know that react well to threats or ultimatums? The media is no different. When pitching the press, you are trying to position yourself as a media resource or an ally, and an ally does not issue threats.

You want the a href=“ http://anthonymora.com/media.html ”>media  to understand that you can help meet their needs by giving them interesting stories. You are not going to make your story more interesting to a newspaper editor or TV producer by threatening to take your story to his or her competitor.

If your story is hot or timely, and various media outlets are pursuing you, by all means, use that interest to your advantage. Inform the media outlets that there are others interested and that you need to make a decision as soon as possible. Try to negotiate the best coverage you can. But, even in that situation, you never want to threaten the media.

If you can convince the media that you have an interesting story that meets their needs and that you are an expert in the field, the media will feature you. Those are your primary objectives. You can threaten, scream, cry, and badger the media, but all you are going to do is alienate them. Plenty of people do these things every day. Of course, you’ll never see them in the media.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2008
For further information visit:   www.AnthonyMora.com

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Author: Lauren Mather

The Top Ten Marketing Tips during the Recession        It is proven that in times of hardship successful companies do not abandon their marketing strategies they  adapt  them. Here is a quick guide to the things you can implement to make sure your business survives the recession.

1. The potential that lies in existing customers Your best immediate sources of additional profits and increased business are your existing customers. These are the people who you’ve already invested time,  energy  and money with you to create a relationship.

It usually between five to ten times easier to get an existing customer to buy from you again, than it is to get someone to buy from you for the first time. Prospects in particular are more likely to become customers if your marketing efforts are complimented by a recommendation from a friend or family member.

TIP:  You can encourage your existing customers to attract new customers for you by undertaking a ‘recommend a friend’ as part of your promotional efforts. For example, you could send out an offer where your existing client and their friend will both receive a discount when they book a treatment together, or mention a promotional code when booking separately.

2. Developing a marketing strategy        Growth has nothing to do with the size of your business. It’s about how many customers and prospects you can market to. This is not the time to cut marketing spend. It is well documented that businesses who increase advertising during a recession, when competitors are cutting back, can improve market share and return on investment at lower cost than during good economic times.

You need to be aware that marketing efforts require careful planning and, in order to you assess your return on investment and effectively plan future marketing, you must keep a record of the sales generated as a result of your campaigns. Try and set some time aside each week for brainstorming new ideas or calculating your business growth.

TIP:  There are, however, ways to market more cost effectively, perhaps by reducing your ad space or by sending out promotional SMS messages which reach customers cheaply, directly and quickly.

3. Data Capture Build a mailing list. This will enable you to target your campaigns more effectively. Collecting the names is the hard part, so give your prospects a reason for them to provide you with their name and address – competitions, discounts, maybe even a loyalty card. Work at keeping your list accurate and up to date.

Try to get hold of email addresses as well as (or even in preference to) contact details: email is cheaper and more versatile than postage. It is vital to monitor your customer’s purchase history. This will indicate whether they are cutting back.

TIP:  You can use purchase history information to target those who have reduced the frequency of their visit. This will encourage them to remain loyal.

4. The power of the Internet Many businesses still do not collect the email addresses of everyone who contacts them. Every time a business fails to capture someone’s email address they’re turning down the opportunity to contact them for FREE, for weeks, months and years ahead. Once you have Email Addresses – use them!

TIP:  You can use email to thank people for their business, make them a special offer, give them a free article or report, send a newsletter, recommend a product or service they may be interested in or ask for referrals.

5. Utilising technology Technology helps to simplify working life, yet many businesses are reluctant to adopt new forms of communication. Consider the impact of a website showing photos of all your best work, compared to a simple price list or leaflet. Similarly, SMS text appointment reminders can be a worthwhile investment as they reduce no-shows and wasted staff time.

6. Advertising        It is essential that you measure the response to all of your advertising in order to evaluate whether or not it represented a viable investment and to shape your future investment decisions. It is worth asking how many people responded to your ad, how many of those were converted to a sale, what’s that worth to you?

Some practical advice: an attention grabbing headline is essential, one change in headline can produce a 50-100% increase in response, the ad itself needs to appeal directly to the interests of your target audience. People don’t buy your product or service. They buy the benefits that your product or service offers them.

So spend some time getting clear on what exactly your benefits are – and then make sure that you articulate them precisely in all of your communications.

TIP:  Research has shown that the effects of advertising are short lived. Therefore, in order to optimise your budget, it makes sense to spend smaller amounts very regularly. This will ensure that your business is consistently at the forefront of customer’s minds.

7. Promotions        Customers will be shopping around for the best deals. You do not necessarily have to cut list prices but you may need to offer more temporary price promotions. Targeted and personalised promotions are more cost efficient than just sending out one generic campaign. SMS can be a relatively cheap way to reach customers directly, and provide a good way of reaching customers.

TIP:  It is worth noting that discounts below 15% are often ineffective

8. Rewarding loyalty        Start a loyalty programme. The customer gets a good deal, you get a keen customer. A simple approach is to give clients a free treatment after they purchase a set number of treatments. Invite your regulars to trial new products and treatments at a reduced cost, you could target this promotion based on client’s purchase history.

TIP:  Customers are naturally dubious of sales offers so frame the offer as a “thank you” for their loyalty.

9. Adjusting product portfolios         Business owners must reforecast demand for both the treatments and products they sell to ensure that they are getting the most out if their offerings.

TIP:   Multi-benefit products will weather the storm better than specialised products, but professionals must take the time to explain all the different features and benefits of each product or service.

10. Maintaining core values Although these are understandably tough times for most businesses but maintaining quality is key to survival. Businesses shouldn’t lose sight of their vision. Managers need to take time to communicate with, and motivate, employees to ensure a good working atmosphere is maintained.

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Author: Alison Redfern

In today’s business environment there are more and more ways of reaching your target audience. More of your customers are on line, with emails, websites and social networking sites. This gives your business greater opportunity to reach mass audiences when advertising and promoting your company on line.

But does on line marketing get the right message across for your company? And how will people remember your company and refer back to it?    There is still a lot of importance to be placed on print media for companies who want to portray themselves as exclusive and expensive.

How can you impress potential and existing customers with an on line banner compared to a luxuriously printed brochure with a smooth matt laminated cover, shiny UV varnished images, specially cut out shapes and onion-paper inserts?

People still like to be tactile – newspapers, magazines and even books are all available on line, but they are also still around and being purchased in their original print versions – they like the feel of something expensive as well as the more subtle and beautiful look, rather than the harsh glare of a computer screen.

A printed brochure, flyer or business card can be kept to refer to at any time.    Sure, on line marketing has its place in any company’s advertising budget, as we said, a way to reach the masses, but this also comes with a more hit and miss result because it less targeted at a particular market.

A well-designed brochure or direct mail postcard, printed on a high quality paper and with special effects and offered or delivered personally to the customer helps them sense your exclusivity and makes them feel important to be part of that.

They then buy into the exclusivity by purchasing your product or service.      Remember, that while online marketing is fast and far-reaching, print media can give your company the look and feel of a ‘real’ product or service and should not be left out of your marketing mix.

About the authors:Redline Company is a marketing company in Marbella, Spain specializing in doing what we call complete marketing  -  info@redlinecompany.com   -  www.redlinecompany.com

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Author: zion datamatics BB

If you are a webmaster you know that article marketing is a great way to increase traffic and eventually search engine rankings. The only problem that you may be faced with is where you are going to get the articles to use for this type of marketing.

While you may think that getting article content is difficult, the fact of the matter is that there are a couple of different ways that you can get the content that you need. Sure, it takes a bit of effort on your part to get started but if you put your mind to it you will be able to start your article campaign sooner than you ever thought possible.

So where are you going to get the content that you need to make article marketing a success? The first place that you should look is within yourself.

If you have any kind of writing ability or experience, you should be able to write all the articles you need. Even if you only have a moderate amount of writing ability you should be able to churn out at least a couple of articles per day.

If you are going to write your own articles make sure that you proofread them thoroughly, and that you are using proper grammar. After all, other people will be reading these articles and will be judging your level of expertise and ability to communicate.

If you give your audience a bad impression from your articles they may stop reading before they have the chance to click through to your website.

Furthermore, many article directories will not accept poorly constructed articles, which eliminate your audience in the first place.

It can be a time consuming task for a webmaster that has many other business development tasks that are competing for attention. Some webmasters do not have the skills to write their own articles, and others simply do not have the time. If this sounds like you, the good news is that it is quite possible to find article writing services that will write articles for you.

The great thing about working with a professional writer is that you know you are getting high quality articles. The only downside that you must deal with is the fact that you will have to pay for their services.

You should think about hiring an article writer as an investment as opposed to a business expense. If you work with a good writer you will more than make your money back when the traffic begins to flow into your website.

If you do use a professional writer or writing service to write your articles for you, it is always a good idea to read and edit the articles before submitting them to article directories. Even good writers will occasionally make mistakes, and you should correct these whenever you find them.

Furthermore, every writer has his own voice, or writing style and this style may not match your own. You should always do whatever rewriting and editing is necessary to make the article sound natural to you, so that you are comfortable listing yourself as the author.

So getting quality content for your website is not quite as difficult as you might initially imagine. If you have reasonably good writing skills, then write your own articles.

If not, then find a professional who is willing to help you out at a reasonable rate. Either way, quality content is what you need to succeed with your article marketing strategy.

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Author: Shah Dayan

In the world of advertising companies are constantly trying to find new and innovative ways to stand out from the sea of billboards, television, radio and newspaper ads.  And since for many companies every dollar spent on advertising is important you want to make sure it is spent wisely and effectively.

That is were vehicle advertising comes in.  Also known as vehicle wraps or vehicle graphics it is the process of covering a car, truck, van or bus in an advertisement.  This can be either fully covering the vehicle or only partially such as a door or window.  In effect your are turning your vehicle into a moving billboard that will get noticed wherever you go.

This can be especially effective during outdoor events and allows companies and organizations to target specific demographics.  And a well designed vehicle graphic can draw the attention of thousands of eyeballs everyday.

Many people tend to forget or block out most other forms of advertising.  When you are bombarded with a sea of billboards and traditional forms of advertising it quite often just becomes background noise.

But some research has shown the vehicle advertising tends to stand out more which leaves an impression on people who will remember the ad more often.  Think about it yourself.

If you are driving around, to and from work or just running errands which of the cars do you notice?  Would you notice the thousand mini vans or countless number of SUVs?  Or do you remember the bright red Ferrari that came up beside you.

It’s the same for vehicle advertising.  Your eye is immediately drawn to something different.  Cost is another very important consideration in any companies advertising budget.  With tradition forms of advertising you would have to factor in different costs that are associated with each.

For example with billboard advertising there is the cost of designing and printing the ad as well as an addition monthly cost for renting that one space to display your advertisement.  With vehicle adverting you would still pay for the design, printing and application of the graphic wrap but there would be no additional monthly costs involved.

If you were to wrap an existing company car or truck the monthly payment would be the lease payment you would be paying for anyway.  The cost for wrapping the average vehicle can be in the neighbourhood of about $3,000.  And depending on the amount of use that car or truck gets the wrap advertisement an last for three to five years.

Far longer than any flyer, newspaper ad or billboard.  It is important for companies and organizations to consider various forms of advertising to get your message out to the people that are most relevant to you and your business.

But you also want to ensure the you get the maximum impression for the advertising money that is being spent.  Vehicle graphic wrap advertising can have the advantage of turning your entire fleet of cars, vans and trucks into a mobile sales force that gets noticed.

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Author: Joshua Watson

Viral marketing is a creative marketing technique that relies in large part on social networks to reach its audience.

It is worth mentioning that viral marketing shouldn’t be confused with other traditional publicity techniques because whilst the second relies mainly on paid promotional services the other uses the free online community has a means of spreading the word.

If done correctly more knowledgeable marketers will even be able to put into motion an entire well orientated marketing campaign, many times requiring no money what so ever.

Mounting a viral marketing campaign or trying to accomplish a viral effect isn’t easy, but with the help of a few methods and practical tools the chore could be greatly facilitated. These seven profitable online marketing rules will provide a good starting point whilst also helping make a site more profitable.

Provide email newsletters
Creating an interesting newsletter only takes a few hours at best and the results could be quite rewarding. The email newsletter will basically serve two very distinct purposes. The first mission will be to provide subscribers with valuable information and the second to serve as a reminder to visit the site.

To take the most advantage of each subscriber the newsletter should contain catchy bold headings and only short well written introductions containing a link to the articles available on the site. An email newsletter although not the best example of viral marketing, can still deliver compensating results especially if the newsletters are made widely available.

Feed the world
Feeds are the single most important allies when it comes to Viral Marketing. The internet has taken a rather particular liking to feeds and now there are hundreds if not thousands of sites dedicated entirely to them.

Feed aggregating sites can catapult and propagate the reach of a feed way beyond its normal boundaries. Also another benefit worth mentioning is that just like email newsletter, after a reader subscribes to a feed, they can be used to provide valuable news updates and serve as a reminder to visit the site.

Give free goodies
People love free things no matter what they might be. The internet revolves around free services, it could be considered a tradition.  A site could offer a wide range of things starting from icons, wallpapers, templates, themes, software, plugins, ebooks or even services like free hosting and publicity.

Start a competition
Starting a competition is an excellent way to motivate readers to take a more active role on the site. This will be achieved by engaging the reader’s competitive nature. Just like free gifts, people love to win prizes no matter what they might be. These can even one of the free goodies but instead of giving them away, they are awarded as a final prize.

Employ the power of free services
Social networking and bookmarking sites are the nucleus of any successful viral marketing campaign. Using free sites like Myspace, Flickr, Yahoo Mash, Digg, reddit and Twitter could help kick off the much desired viral effect.

These sites are perfect since they are completely free and have an extensive user base ready to be exploited. Most people are not aware but the blogosphere is a giant social network worth millions in publicity and a remarkable breeding place for viral marketing.

Captivate dreams
Internet users are normal human beings that just like everyone else in the world, have expectations, personal desires and dreams. Individuals will only share, propagate, something that is worthwhile and meaningful.

Something spectacular that will catch the attention of the community driving them to desire and want to be part of the movement. When writing an article, beginning a competition, offering free gifts or selling a product, it is essential to include a good sum of marketing magic to turn that ordinary item into something literally spectacular.

Go the extra mile
Viral marketing requires perseverance and a good amount of inventiveness. With the spreading out of the internet most individuals have become quite sedated to nearly all common advertisement techniques. Going the extra mile means creating new emotions, developing new solutions, solving old problems and making a lot of noise in the process. Create a buzz with bold statements, integrate innovations and turn ordinary everyday things into cyber works of art.

Viral marketing is the alteration and exploration of new frontiers. To be successful, marketers will have to establish new ingenious ideas and persuade the various social communities to desire them. In the end viral marketing will be a natural process of autonomous propagation, requiring no interference from its creator.

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Author: Pat Price

When you think of soda, what are the first couple of brands that come to mind?  Odds are Coke or Pepsi are on your list.  Why?  After spending millions of dollars in advertising over the years they’ve managed to be at or near the top of your mind for their category.  And, customers purchase from companies they favorably recall.    As small businesses, we also want to be at the top of our prospects’ minds.

The challenge is to create Top of Mind Awareness (sometimes referred to as TOMA), without investing an arm and a leg!  So here are some tips you can use to help create TOMA:

Be unique   If we want to stand out in a prospect’s mind, we need to be a standout.  So what is it that makes you or your business special?  Is it your size, location, quality, speed, availability, or price (to name a few)?  If you’re an also-ran, you’ll get run over. Yet most businesses cannot articulate what makes them different.

Do yourself a favor and spend some time focused on this one item.  If you’re in doubt, ask your best customers.  They’ll know!      Invent a new category   Perhaps you’re having difficulty finding something unique because you’re swimming in a sea of competitors.  So what do you do? Jump out of that sea and into a new by creating a new category that you can own.

Take my company for example.  I can’t compete for top of mind awareness with all of the marketing companies and agencies out there.  So I narrowed my focus.  Thus, my tagline is “smart marketing for  small  business.”  Another classic example from years ago is the 7-Up brand.  For years they competed head-to-head with colas, always falling short.  So they created a new category – the UnCola.

Now they could command the top spot in customers’ minds when they were in the mood for something other than cola.

Is there a way for you to focus on a more specific niche that you could own?     Be memorable   Sometimes we get so creative and obtuse with our company name that it’s difficult for people to remember what we do.

As small business owners or entrepreneurs, one way to stand out is to also create a label for ourselves.  For example, I can remember back to the old days when businesspeople were referred to by their occupation.  I remember there was the Window Washing man, the Plant lady, or the Firewood guy.  Those labels made sense to me.

What nickname or label could you give yourself that’s simple and descriptive?       Repeat, repeat, repeat   Design your marketing message to reflect your unique position.  Then repeat your message over and over and over.  Repetition breeds familiarity and familiarity builds credibility.  And that, we know, increases sales.   Where else can you add your positioning message – on your signature line for your email, on your voicemail message?

Consistency   Along those same lines, once you’ve got solid positioning language, don’t change it.  Sometimes we get tired or bored from using it all the time.  But think about my favorite classic example, Empire Today.

You’ve probably heard their jingle and phone number, 588-2300, what seems like a million times. And yet, that’s exactly why they’re successful.  People remember it.   How can you infuse more consistency in your communications?      Just remember, if you want to capture more marketshare, you’ve first got to capture more mindshare.

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