November 2015 – Jon Turino, Minister

November 24, 2015

November 23rd Monday Marketing Minutes

The third episode of Monday Marketing Minutes™ was broadcast live via YouTube using Google+ Hangouts On Air.

Here’s a summary of the tips and advice that were included in this episode. You can click on the image above to watch the replay on YouTube at your convenience. And if you have marketing questions you’d like answered you can always send them to me at jon@jonturino.com for inclusion in a future episode of Monday Marketing Minutes.
The tips presented during the November 23rd, 2015, episode have to do with measuring your marketing. If you can’t measure something it is virtually impossible to improve it so measuring and monitoring are part of the cohesive and comprehensive marketing plan mentioned in the November 16th episode.

There are a great many tools available to you on your website and social media platforms, like Google Analytics, Facebook Insights and LinkedIn Statistics and they will work best if you plan your landing pages to take advantage of them.

The idea is to monitor your statistics to see what is working the best and use that information to do more of what works and less of what doesn’t work. It’s not rocket science but it can make a huge difference in the level of success that your marketing campaigns achieve.

The advice presented during this episode dealt with considering the use of the Power of Free as a marketing strategy or tactic. You can use free things to build interest, build credibility and awareness and even to increase the size of your audience.

Think about it. The bakery that provides free samples sells a lot more muffins or cupcakes or pies or cakes than the one down the street that doesn’t offer them. Free trials are a great way to get people “hooked” on your product so that they will later convert to a version for which you get paid. The same goes for so-called “basic” accounts that give you some, but not all, of the full feature set of the product. These things work and they don’t have to cost a lot of money.

Today’s episode was the first broadcast to include a guest presenter — Mr. Leon Henry from WebStep in the U.K. Leon is a marketing and social media consultant who helps his clients similarly to what I do for mine.

We also had three questions from an audience member, Nana Bellerud, on the topic of business networking and those were addressed during the audience question portion of the program.

You can watch the replay of the complete broadcast here. Enjoy and please do remember to send me your questions for future episodes of Monday Marketing Minutes. You’ll find links to all past and future episodes HERE.

And, as always, please do contact me if you’d like help with your marketing plans, strategies, and tactics. I’d love to be of service to you in building your business through better marketing.

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November 24, 2015November 24, 2015

November 16th Monday Marketing Minutes

The second episode of Monday Marketing Minutes™ was broadcast live via YouTube using Google+ Hangouts On Air.

The tips presented during the November 16th, 2015, episode had to do with understanding that marketing is a process and not an event. Your marketing strategy and tactics need to be well planned in advance of the execution of your plan.

The plan itself must be cohesive if it is to be maximally successful. That means that all of the underlying strategies, tactics, messages and media selection must tie together and have a common look and feel. This applies as well to online marketing via social media and the design of websites and landing pages. The plan must also be comprehensive, covering all the bases in terms of media and messaging.

I also spoke about remembering that marketing involves everyone in the company from corporate management to customer service personnel — including every employee — and not just the marketing department.

The advice presented during this episode dealt with remembering WHY people buy: based on emotions and supported by logic. The emotions can fall into many categories, including being fed or driven by necessity, need, want, desire or ego. So when the messages are crafted they need to trigger the buying impulses based on the emotions you think will be strongest for your product or service.

I used some slides from my Probiotic Marketing™ presentation/infographic to illustrate these points. People buy things — or do anything else for that matter — based on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Thus, you need to craft your message to match the level of need — physiological, safety, love/belonging, esteem and the self-actualization levels — if you are to be successful. The three slides that followed in the broadcast were used to illustrate these points.

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November 24, 2015November 24, 2015

November 9th Monday Marketing Minutes

The first episode of Monday Marketing Minutes™ was broadcast live via YouTube using Google+ Hangouts On Air.

The tips presented during the November 9th, 2015, episode had to do with analyzing your current customer base so that you can find out who your best customers are and why they are your best customers. With this information in hand, you can then craft a strategy to find more customers like them from other sources.

Knowing who your best customers are, what they are buying and, perhaps most importantly, why they are buying is critical to identifying places to locate additional members of your most successful target markets, crafting messages that will resonate with those prospects the way your current messaging is working with your current top customers and using the right media for reaching new audiences containing prospects who best fit your target customer profile.

The advice presented during this episode dealt with the message development step in crafting the most effective messages — messages that not only appeal to the logic the customer uses to justify purchasing what you are selling but also to the emotions — the belly — that trigger the buying impulse. Both elements must usually be present to motivate an immediate purchase.

It’s also critical to understand WHY people buy things in order to craft the right message for them. Eliminating a problem or alleviating pain is often a good strategy, depending on the product or service being offered. Other good inducements include reducing fear of loss, desire for gain, the need for comfort and convenience, the satisfaction of emotional needs and the creation of a better lifestyle or life condition.

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November 8, 2015November 8, 2015

7 More Reasons Not To Hire An Expert

It was three years ago this month that I wrote a post about Ten Reasons Not To Hire An Expert. I got to thinking today about that subject for some reason and thought I’d share some additional reasons with you.

You are too smart to need any help from anyone. You know everything there is to know about every subject under the sun. There isn’t a question you can’t answer nor a topic you can’t expound upon with certainty. If it weren’t for the fact that I think that puts you into category seven below I would actually envy you.
It would hurt your pride to admit that you could use some help. This is more of a male trait than a female trait. Not being willing to admit to being lost and not being willing to ask for directions is the epitome of this. So is refusing to read a user’s or instruction manual. How many things have you screwed up, broken or had to replace for this reason? Just remember: pride usually goeth before a fall.
You can afford the time, effort and expense of doing things over again instead of doing them right the first time with a little help from someone who knows more about the task that needs doing than you do. Just think about the amount of wasted time, effort and expense, not to mention the long-term negative effects on your life, your business and even the environment from indulging in this strategy.
You can’t afford it because you never budgeted for it. This is such a common problem with small businesses as to be almost epidemic. This one came from a friend of mine who is a CPA. It helps explain why so many small business owners are never able to scale their businesses to success.
You don’t see why you should pay someone for sharing their expertise with you even if it will take away your pain and frustration and provide you with more time, energy and profits. If this is what you feel, why do you think someone should pay you for your product or service or time or labor or knowledge?
You are too stubborn to accept help even when it doesn’t cost you anything directly. This is truly a cardinal sin in today’s world of the overwhelming availability of knowledge and expertise in virtually every field known to mankind. If you Google a subject and don’t get at least several pages of hits then I’d suggest you become the expert in that topic. When you see something offered that might help you, take advantage of it!
You are too ignorant to know that you actually need help. This puts you into the category of unconscious incompetent and you have my sympathy. There are ways to become conscious of the areas in which you could use some help and then to act upon that new knowledge. Does that make sense?

You can read the original article, which was couched in far more polite language than I’ve used here. Or you can ignore it and dismiss this one as well. See reason number one above.

As always, your comments, compliments, brickbats and other non-profane thoughts and words are welcome.

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