WebStudio13 » Marketing

Part II: 10 Mistakes That Online Marketers Tend To Make

Andrew Ran Wong — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 03:16:08 +0000

In yesterday’s post, we discussed the first 5 mistakes that online marketers tend to make (review it). In brevity, these 5 mistakes can be summarized as the following:

“Underestimate the amount of time needed to succeed;

Using incorrect Internet marketing tools/vehicle;

Overhyping the importance of having a blog;

Spreading yourself too thin among too many social networks;

Mistakenly thinking that quantity must matter more than quality.”

Having reviewed the first 5 fundamental mistakes, let’s wrap this up by introducing the last 5 mistakes here.

6. As long as I am consistent with what I am doing, victory will come.

There is a difference between “efficiency” and “effectiveness.” As you practice something more and more, you become more efficient at it. However, if that’s the wrong thing to do, it doesn’t matter whether or not you are efficient because it is not effective to begin with. My approach is to use measuring tools correctly to track your results. If it doesn’t work, change the tools.

For example, I am currently using Google Analytics to analyze the source of the traffic coming to my blog. I also use sites like Quantcast to dissect the demographics of the visitors to my different websites. These tactics help me gain a better understanding of my audiences, which in turn, boosts the effectiveness of online marketing tools I should focus on using.

7. Now that I am an online marketer, I don’t need to interact face-to-face with anybody else offline.

This is a very logical conclusion that many online marketers hold. For them, the notion of online marketing is completely separated from the need to network with real people at a real offline environment. Unfortunately, this type of assumption has made a large number of online marketers step into the inevitable process of failing.

I consider myself as an online marketer. It’s true that I work on my computer all the time in my New York apartment, but I also have a meetup group that I use to host offline meetings regularly. Because of this, I have been able to leverage my online presence faster than most other online marketers because of the community I’m forming. Just take a look at my LinkedIn profile. It’s not hard to notice that most of my recommendations are coming from people in my entrepreneur group who have actually met me personally and, therefore, trusted me. As a result, my LinkedIn profile has given me an incredible amount of credibility in building my online presence.

8. Online marketers don’t sleep, and they have to work 100+ hours per week.

Well, I can only agree with you to a certain extent with this assumption. In any endeavor, anybody must work hard in order to get the exceptional results that they expected. This is especially true if you are building a business. Furthermore, if you really love what you do, you wouldn’t call it “work” to begin with. I don’t call “blogging” as work. It’s fun! My suggestion is you should increase your workload accordingly based on how much you can bear. There is no need to kill yourself with something you’re uncertain about.

9. I’ve read all Seth Godin’s books and every other marketing book you can find on Amazon. There is no way I will fail if I implement all those ideas.

No matter how good a book is, they are still theories. If you want to make something happen for you specifically, think outside of the box given your unique talents, time and circumstances. Theories work differently given different contexts. With all the marketing books you’ve read, it would be critical to figure out a formula that especially works for YOU! In the marketing world, there is no such thing as a master key!

10. As a marketer, marketing skills are more important than any other skills I should learn.

No, this is not true. Online marketers still need the following skills: sales, communication, leadership, and even personal development. They are equally important. Still remember the book “Tribes.” Seth Godin is a great online marketer. Why would he write a leadership book? Think about it.

I’ve outlined all 10 mistakes by far. What do you think? Let us know whether you agree. Always feel free to add your own mistakes if we haven’t got a chance to cover them.

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Part I: 10 Mistakes That Online Marketers Tend To Make

Andrew Ran Wong — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 23:51:51 +0000

There are many subjects that I love to talk about. Marketing is one of them. Not only do I think marketing is cool and interesting, I also believe any businesses, no matter what fields they are in, need marketing more than anything else, especially in today’s world. But the problem is that people are bombarded with so many commercials that they would simply escape from your purposely designed messages. As a result, being a good marketer is more challenging than 99% of daily tasks you engage with. As a marketer myself, I’ve learned countless lessons in the past. Here I would like to share the 10 most common mistakes that online marketers tend to make. Part I covers the first 5 of them.

1. I can make it happen next week or next month

When I first started out with my blog and began marketing myself online, it wasn’t all rainbows and sunshine. In fact, it took discipline to build my RSS subscribers and my Twitter followers. I had to blog and tweet everyday to earn their trust. Such process is a must for every online marketer. Patience, discipline, and consistency are keys here.

2. Google and Facebook ads will make my message go viral

I’ve seen people spending countless dollars on ineffective marketing vehicles. In my opinion, whether or not it’s the right marketing tool depends on your customer persona. Their habits or behaviors demand your use of various marketing tools. For example, if your target market consists of small business owners, the best social networking site is probably LinkedIn. On the other hand, if your audiences are mostly young people who love music, go with MySpace.

3. I must have a blog as an online marketer

No, this is not necessarily true. In an interview that I conducted yesterday with David Meerman Scott, the author of New Rules of Marketing and PR, he specifically pointed out that online marketers and business owners do not have to own a blog. The key is to produce meaningful and valuable content. That said, you can leverage your presence through any of the following marketing channels: video, pictures, podcasts, microblogging sites like Twitter, or even guest blogging on other blogs in your niche.

4. I must take advantage of all the social networking sites out there

The conventional wisdom tells us the more tools and vehicles you employ, the more effective your message will be. This doesn’t mean you have to register on 100 different social networking sites simultaneously. In fact, you can just leverage on a select few of social networking sites and work hard to increase your presence on those networks. Right now, my main social media platforms are Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. I will probably add Foursquare or Gowalla to my list soon.

5. Quantity usually matters more than quality

I know a few online marketers who believe in the power of repetition. As a result, they would do anything to increase the frequency of their messages. For example, some people would insist blogging once a day or tweeting no less than 30 times a day. This is supposed to do you good if your content is good. On the negative side, it may backfire if your content is poor. So my advice is: don’t sacrifice quality and go for quantity. Quantity only works when it’s combined with superior quality.

Please subscribe to our RSS feed so you get notified once Part II is published. You are welcome to post your comments below.

Update: Now you can read Part II here.

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6 Lessons I Learned By Being an Arrogant Marketer

Sam Diener — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 02:49:40 +0000

At about 8:45 AM on Tuesday I was waiting for the bus to take me from Philly to NYC. It was approximately 24 degrees with a wind-chill of um….. 0.

Over the past 7 months I had managed to build a website reaching levels of success that had shocked many of the seasoned experts in the marketing field. Now I was responding to a request for a meeting for a speaking opportunity with the NY Entrepreneurs Business Network. Yet the rare opportunity I might have allowed myself to feel proud or even a little bit smug, was sufficiently suppressed by one tiny little idiotic fact: I hadn’t even had the common sense to wear a hat or gloves and I was bitterly cold. My dear mother would have flipped out if she knew this fact.

Looking for anything to take my mind off of my current predicament, I opened up the February issue of INC Magazine. Because my fingers were pretty much frostbitten, even turning the page was a task I wasn’t really up for. I was stuck pondering page 24.

On the bottom of that page was a quote by a guy I had never heard of named Jeffrey Zeldman.

“Promote the hell out of your product—not yourself…” He further went on: “There is a difference between being arrogant about yourself as a person and being confident that your work has some value. The first is unattractive, the second is healthy and natural. Some people respond to one as if it were the other. Don’t confuse them. Marketing is not bragging, and touting one’s wares is not evil. The baker in the medieval town square must holler ‘fresh rolls’ if he hopes to feed the townfolk.”

Of course I was able to find a lot to think about based on this simple quote. The experienced entrepreneur or marketing executive might have the experiences to understand what Jeffrey Zeldman is talking about, but this lesson does not just apply to them, it applies to all of us. Because no matter what we THINK our profession is, we ALL are in sales and marketing and most of us have NOT had the experiences to truly understand the quote.

I may not fit your definition of “experienced” because I don’t have years, I have months. But when I initially started marketing my own website, I learned some valuable lessons by making the mistakes one can only make by being the “arrogant marketer” to which Jeffrey Zeldman was referring. It took failing by being egotistical to learn the tremendous value of “being confident that (my) work (had) some value.” There is no reason that you should make the same mistakes though. I would love to share some of the lessons I learned:

1. Advertising Your Popularity Hurts You: I once had an article read by eight thousand people in one day. But advertising that fact did NOTHING to make more people want to read that article. When you throw out numbers like this and people don’t know who you are, then you sound like you are trying too hard, and you turn people off or lose credibility. If people DO know who you are and you talk about how popular you are, then you look like a pretentious asshole. There are much more creative ways to go about it.

2. Your friends are good for nothing! Your friends are your friends because they love you. They don’t love your business. In fact, your friends don’t want anything to do with your marketing efforts. If they did, they would work for you, and then they would be subordinates, and not friends. Don’t expect your friends to help you hustle. They really won’t like you if you do. I promise.

3. The Only Way To Get is to Give: It pains me to say it, but there is nothing free, especially in the marketing relationship. If you are thinking you can push a business relationship to spread your message for free think again. Curry favors and you will get them in return. If you do get lucky enough to have someone help you without bringing something to the table, be ready to return the favor. Take a favor for granted, and you can kill a relationship. Additionally, asking for free favors from someone will usually put a thorn in someone’s side as well. I did this too much in the beginning and managed to piss off a few would-be connections.

4. The Most Effective Marketing For Your Product Is Done By Outsiders: This is a very true look at the value of social proof. Anything you say about your own product is simply discounted by the masses. If you can get just one publicly positive review from someone non-affiliated with your product then you are golden. However, the opposite is true as well – negative publicity is detrimental. Think about this: if you read a bad Yelp review, aren’t you going to think twice about going to that restaurant, doctor, or pet store? Now that we have social media, anyone can reinforce your marketing message, and your marketing power is revved up proportionally to that person’s sphere of influence. Previously – we had to rely on a telephone-like spread of ideas. This leads to my next point.

5. Networking Is Extremely Important As a New Age Marketer: This is something that I have understood since the beginning. In the traditional medium, a marketer can create an amazing advertisement and those they target with a billboard or advertisement are going to see it. Online, those with the most influence control a dramatic piece of what people see. Enlisting the help of these influential people is usually a function of networking and building relationships. In fact, if you are good enough at networking, you can have a huge impact without ever spending a penny. Of course, if you are an arrogant marketer, you could easily forget the point I made previously “The Only Way To Get Is To Give.”

6. You MUST Sell Yourself Or Your Company To Sell Your Product: I am going to establish some quick semantics here. Please understand that selling yourself is not the same as promoting yourself. From his quote above, I think Mr. Zeldman would agree that “promoting” yourself is meant to have an arrogant connotation. I would say that self-promotion borders on bragging and is certainly not the same as selling yourself. The actual process of selling one’s self is beyond the scope of this article. Some do it well, and others don’t. This is a large topic in itself, and I will address it in a future article.

There is certainly a point when a product or service reaches an ability to sell itself. Usually this is the result of an excellent marketing message, or an exceptional product. But in order to reach that “tipping-point,” a company or individual usually must sell itself well through effective marketing. But all of those who are successful understand that no-one likes an arrogant marketer.

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Book Review: Second Edition of The New Rules of Marketing & PR

Andrew Ran Wong — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 19:24:23 +0000

I received the 2nd edition of David Meerman Scott’s “The New Rules of Marketing & PR” in the mail several days ago. It’s a good read. The 2nd edition has been completely revised and updated compared to the previous version. Here, I decide to do a brief review about the book and share my thoughts about certain topics mentioned in the book.

Apparently, we all know the reason why David Meerman Scott started to write this book in the first place. In the digital market, the “New Rules” indicate a paradigm shift as far as marketing & PR is concerned. As mentioned by David himself, in the past before the Web came along, there were only three ways to get noticed: buy expensive advertising, beg the mainstream media to tell your story for you, or hire a huge sales staff to bug people.

So what has changed? David went on to use himself as an example. The process of promoting his new book is exactly like a live demo illustrating how David lives up to the “New Rules” depicted in his book. He did not spend a buck buying the ads and promoting his book through PR agencies. Instead, he sent out hundreds of free copies in advance to other influential bloggers in exchange for their reviews. This kind of practice is commonplace in today’s world because of the “long tail” phenomenon, which says our marketplace has been dramatically democratized and everybody now can be a reporter and publisher.

David’s book can be organized into three parts

I. A rigorous overview of how the Web has changed the rules of marketing and PR

II. Details about each of the various media

III. Detailed “how-to” information and an action plan to help you put the new rules to work for your organization

Essentially, the message in the book is plainly simple and easy to understand: cut off all the inefficient layers in between you and your buyers so you can reach them directly. But I would suggest you treat the “New Rules” as a how-to book and implement ideas introduced by the author. In addition, I particularly enjoy the following aspects covered in the book, including topics such as social media, video/audio podcasts, news releases, blogs, search engine marketing, etc.

Overall, the 2nd edition of the “New Rules” is one of those “5-Star” books I would recommend. Not only because it contains great information about how to use Web 2.0 tools. Most importantly, it is written by someone who is extremely experienced in the world of social media marketing. If you are in business for yourself but not reaching your buyers directly yet, there is no doubt you should get this new & improved edition. As a matter of fact, WebStudio13 is designed to make people aware of all the new rules mentioned in David’s book. Get the new edition now before other people do. You can thank me for writing this review later.

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20 Tips to Help You Build A Dynamic Online Community

Andrew Ran Wong — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 13:18:51 +0000

How to Build An Online Community

Breaking news! One group (NYEBN) that I founded in mid-2009 has just hit 3,000 group members. I have used social media as a main tool to grow our community in the past. For each month, we would put on different events, mostly business-oriented. Here, I decided to write a tutorial and share the 20 lessons I’ve learned in building this community so you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. If you are interested in building an online community that allows you to develop real relationships offline, read on.

Setting Up The Group

Positioning yourself right for the game is important. Make sure you leverage the power of different social networks. Here was what I did when I first started out building the group (NY Entrepreneurs Business Network).

1. Set up a Meetup Group (click here and there to learn more about Meetup).

2. Set up a Facebook Fan Page.

3. Set up a Twitter group account (read Twitter 101 tutorial).

4. Set up your own Twitter group list (how to use Twitter lists).

5. Set up a LinkedIn Group profile (optional).

Promoting The Group

Marketing is the most critical element that sets the superstars apart from the mediocre ones. Here are some of the techniques I have implemented that worked well for me in the past.

6. Post the event on your Meetup group, and set up the “reminders” so Meetup can automatically send out reminders to your members.

7. Post the event on Facebook. Post it on both your Facebook profile and group walls.

8. Offer opportunities for other groups to partner up with you so they can post your events on their sites and co-promote the event with you. This technique will work well if your group has a large amount of people.

9. Offer monthly contests to motivate your members for spreading the word for your group.

10. Offer free event opportunities to increase the popularity of your group.

11. Contact different event directories to list your events on their sites.

12. Tweet your events regularly and direct your followers to your Meetup sites and sign up.

13. Print your group website URL on your business cards and give them out at your events to people who are interested in joining your group

14. Add your group website URL to your email signature

15. have a well-designed logo for your group.

Building Relationships

User experience is the key for success. In my case, my users are NYEBN members. Becoming a trust agent among all your group members will earn your group a good reputation in the long run. Here are my approaches when it comes to building relationships.

16. Be a good listener. Pay attention to your members’ event reviews and improve your event quality where it applies.

17. Try to answer emails, tweets, or Facebook messages addressed to you by your members. I try to answer them all unless it’s a sales pitch. If you couldn’t handle it, maybe that indicates that your group has grown to a size so big that it’s time to hire an assistant.

18. I usually ask for a microphone at our large scale events. Then I would announce something about our group mission, and how we are driven to help each member succeed. This is something that event organizers usually overlook but it really helps build rapport especially between you and new group members.

19. Just because you have a mailing list, doesn’t mean you can send out emails to your members whenever you want. Too many emails annoy the hell out of your members. Be mindful of this.

20. If your group is business-related, set up educational seminars to promote personal development. Having a right mix and balance of events is really important for any successful networking groups.

Bonus Tip: Practice the above five techniques on a consistent basis and true relationships will begin to take shape.

If you want to read another article on “How to Run a Successful Business/Entrepreneur Meetup Group,” click here. Let us know if you have other tips to add.

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The 7 Internet Marketing Success Secrets

Andrew Ran Wong — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 19:32:38 +0000

Internet Marketing

Today’s marketplace has evolved dramatically. Imagine this scenario. When you are introduced to a company that you don’t know by a friend, the first thing you’ll probably do is to Google the company, or search for it on Twitter/Facebook. In other words, the marketplace has become very Internet driven. The so-called competitive advantage, in this day and age, is shaped by technology, social media, and other Web 2.0 tools. So what is the success recipe for companies who know how to leverage these tools?

Well, I have included 7 key elements in terms of how to develop a viable business in today’s marketplace.

1. Freemium

Chris Anderson, in his new book “Free: The Future of a Radical Price,” mentions the concept of “Freemium.” Why is Facebook able to attract 390 million active users? How did Mark Zuckerberg become the “Accidental Billionaire” at such a young age? How did Google, Wikipedia, and Craigslist become such high trafficked websites? One simple concept, free rules!