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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July 15, 2015March 11, 2016

Visualize and Plan

Visualize & Plan – Chapter 2 Excerpted from Motivational Magic

Beginning the process of growth requires you to ask yourself a lot of questions. What is it that you’d like to accomplish in your life? What would you like to be doing as a career? How would you like to look? How would you like to be contributing to your own good, the good of your loved ones and the good of society? How do you want to be viewed by those who you care about? By those who you leave behind?

What is your fondest dream? How does it look when you visualize it? If you are not currently living it, and I can only assume that you are not or you wouldn’t be reading this book, how does it feel when you imagine that you are living it?

Regrettably, I can’t answer any of these questions for you. Only you can imagine how things should be, how you want them to be, how they will be once you’ve done what’s needed to make them happen.

What is your dream? How important is it to you? How willing are you to pursue it? What risks are you willing to take and what sacrifices are you willing to make to achieve your particular dream? Sometimes life is about risking everything for a dream that no one can see but you!

Change begins with a vision. A picture coupled with an emotion – how things feel when you’ve done what needs to be done to make reality as you experience it match reality as you have envisioned it. We’ll talk much more about the details of using the Visual Image Formation technique in Chapter 9, but the concept is essential to any and all changes that you’d like to make in your life.

If you can create a vision, and you most certainly have the power within you to do so, then you can constantly remind yourself of that image. You can use affirmations, notes on your bathroom mirror, schedule messages to pop up on your computer, tablet or smartphone. You can do whatever you need to do so that the vision remains in the forefront of your conscious mind so that it can be continuously transmitted to your subconscious mind.

Your subconscious mind – mainly the right brain hemisphere – is designed to keep reality as you experience it in harmony with reality as you envision it. In other words, if the reality as you’re currently experiencing it does not match the reality as you visualize it, then your subconscious mind will go to work to make you do the things you need to do to make reality as you experience it match reality as you envision it. Or it will change your vision. But more about that later.

Once you have successfully implanted your vision in your brain, you won’t be able to stop thinking about it. And if you can’t stop thinking about it you won’t be able to stop working on it – or for it. It’s a simple, but not necessarily easy, matter of putting your mind to work on making you do the things you need to do to make the vision a reality.

What will it make you do? Let us count just some of the ways:

It may prompt you to get answers to questions you hadn’t thought of before;
It may provide you with “aha” moments or answers – particularly after “sleeping on it;”
It may cause you to be more aware of something or someone around you;
It may encourage to gain new knowledge or new skills.

I have no clue exactly what will happen for you since I have no clue as to who you are, what you want, who you want to become or why you want the dreams you want. But you do! Or at least you can begin to find that out.

Identify what you want – creating a vision or mental picture as clearly and in as much detail as possible – enables you to plan to make that vision a reality. And it is in this planning phase where special care is needed.

Let’s say that you have a relatively short term dream of walking across the stage of a prestigious university in a cap and gown to receive your college degree. Visualize yourself doing that. Imagine, in great detail, how that will feel. Think about how much pride you will feel when that degree is hanging on your wall in your home, your study or your office. Imagine the things you can do now that you have your degree that you couldn’t do before.

Are you with me so far? And isn’t something else happening as you go through this exercise? What is it? Isn’t it your brain telling you that you can’t? That you don’t have the time, the intelligence, the money or something else to make this dream a reality?

This is where you really need to watch out. When you create a vision that is different than reality as you are currently experiencing it, then your subconscious mind will go to work to help you resolve the disharmony that is created when reality as you envision it doesn’t match reality as you experience it. So it will either help you do the things you need to do to make reality match your vision or it will change or corrupt your vision! But it will resolve the disharmony!

We all have the self-talker inside of us. It’s usually negative and left over from our earlier experiences as children or early in our careers. The “Well, I can’t because…” syndrome: I’m not good enough, I’m not handsome or pretty enough, I’m not smart enough, I’m not blah, blah, blah…”

When this happens, we need to recognize it and tell this inner voice to shut up! Tell that doubting voice that those excuses are in the past and are no longer inhibitors to new dreams and plans. Those were the bad old days and those were the bad old ways. You are good enough and, by golly, if you aren’t yet you soon will be! The strongest factor in achieving success is self-esteem: Believing you can do it, believing you deserve it and believing you will get it.

If you fall victim to this inner voice and begin to say to yourself “I can’t…,” then you will achieve nothing except the ability to say that you are always right. For if you say you can’t then you won’t and you should probably stop reading here.

Keep in mind as you visualize and begin the process of goal setting, strategy development and tactical implementation of your plans is that you’ll want to learn to develop a sense of urgency for achieving your goals. Life is short, and if there was ever a moment to follow your passion and do something that really matters to you, then the moment to get started on that passion is NOW!

Another thing that we’ll talk about further in future chapters is letting going of other kinds of baggage besides the self-doubter and the I-can’t-er. It is hard to keep a sharp focus on your vision of the future if your eye is stuck on the past or even sometimes on today.

This is not to say that the vision and the plan should become so all-consuming that we go overboard and ignore our day-to-day duties and responsibilities. Moderation in all things is the watchword.

We want to keep our vision in the forefront so that as we set goals, develop strategies and implement tactics we are making sure that each action we take contributes in some way, shape or form to the overall plan. We want to make sure that we make the rest of our lives, starting from this moment, the best of our lives.

I said in the beginning that there is magic in this book.There is also magic in believing – believing in what you want, what you visualize, what you need, what you desire or want and, most importantly, believing that you will get it!

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Get your copy of Motivational Magic on Amazon.com or from Kindle at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0112ODGD. Order or download your copy now.

July 18, 2013July 22, 2013

Ewwww! Gross!! — Marketing the Unmarketable

Ewwww! Gross!! – Marketing the Unmarketable

Karen Rice from Myrtle Beach, SC, posted the graphic you see to the left a few days ago. Here’s a snapshot of the conversation as a result of her post:

Jon Turino: Wrong question! Whose brand are you buying? Why? Strength? Softness? Economy? Some other reason? Get it together at http://jonturino.com/probiotic-infographic/ Enjoy!

Monday at 10:32pm, Kathleen O’Mara: I don’t want to know! LOL

Monday at 10:44pm, Kim Henson: I would have never thought of all that, Jon Turino. Guess that’s why you market and I write.

17 hours ago, Kim Henson: Me either, Kathleen O’Mara. Gross.

17 hours ago, Jon Turino: I wouldn’t want to be the marketer for this product either. But the people who are have come up with the bears who (1) shouldn’t use so much and (2) won’t end up with traces on their behinds, the “Enjoy the Go” campaign, using quarters to illustrate strength (with blue water), etc. Now let’s talk about probiotics and gluten free and how they can make your experience in the WC so much more enjoyable that you’ll sing and dance about it on national TV. For more of my “humor” get a copy of http://jonturino.com/packages-pricing/the-a-to-z-blog-book-jon-turino-on-amazon-and-kindle/ . There are 26 articles in it that we can chat about.

14 hours ago, Susan Baiden Chestnut: This one makes me go Hmmm!

9 hours ago, Kim Henson: Susan Baiden Chestnut, it makes me go Ewwww! Lol.

Thus I found the title for this post. And I got to thinking: What other products are really tough to market?

How about hemorrhoid creams?

How about medicines for adult rash?

There’s a new TV campaign for men who leak a little after peeing whose tagline is “Protect your manhood.”

And pads for women who might leak a little when they laugh too hard, or cough, or are having their periods have been on the market for years.

Then there are adult diapers for both sexes.

Have I missed anything yet?

These are not generally the kinds of products that people talk about at social gatherings or business networking meetings, folks! They are normally quietly discussed between close friends to whom one trusts a seemingly or potentially embarrassing secret while looking for advice. And, like toilet paper, each has its own features and benefits when it comes to solving the problem – relieving the pain – associated with the condition.

I don’t know how much money advertisers spend on promoting toilet paper but it’s in the multiple millions of dollars per year. As are the expenditures for the other products mentioned above and illustrated in this post.

So what’s my point?

My point is that while everybody buys these things, the ones that get bought most often are the ones that are marketed most successfully. Just because everyone needs it and uses it doesn’t mean that you can expect to sell it without marketing.

If it can’t be found by the consumer or if your brand for your bottom is not “top of mind” when the need to buy it arises then you simply won’t have a viable business.

So let’s give a “hat’s off” – or a “bottoms up” – to the very creative folks who find new ways to market the unmentionables. And please give me a call if you need help marketing your product or service.

As always, thanks for reading and please do make time to comment pro or con.

Scoop.it

Great ideas ad for The A to Z Blog Book — Order Your Copy Today! Hard Copy $24.95 at https://www.createspace.com/4295924, Kindle e-book version for only $9.95 at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CZN4BA0

July 11, 2013July 17, 2013

Horses, H2O and Humans

Horses, H₂O and Humans

It’s been a while since I’ve posted a rant in this space. I’ve been inspired by Alex at Heyo and Derek at Social Triggers and even my buddy Jake at Embark Marketing. So here goes.

Cowboys used to say that you could lead a horse to water but that you couldn’t make him drink any. So the horses that wouldn’t drink any died. Which reinforced the cowboys’ belief that horses offered water that they wouldn’t drink were really stupid and thus deserved to die.

If you were offered water, would you drink it? I don’t mean Evian or Nestle or some other fancy water that you pay far too much for. I mean good old-fashioned water say from a tap in your kitchen. Or, if you are old enough to remember doing it, from the front end of the garden hose, after letting the water run for a while, of course, so that it was nice and cold and didn’t taste like rubber?

You probably might answer those questions with reservations. It would probably have something to do with whether or not you were thirsty at the time, right? But what if you weren’t thirsty at the time and a few minutes later your water supply was cut off by some catastrophe? Would you last as long as you might if you had drunk the water even if you weren’t in desperate need of it at the time?

Knowledge is like that. You might not think you need it when it is offered. But when disaster or drought strikes, you surely could have used it after your refusal to drink from the cup when you didn’t think you needed it, couldn’t you? How do you know when a piece of knowledge, a piece of expertise, a piece of experience or some advice on avoiding a mistake will be a critical element in shaping your future and the future of whatever endeavors you are engaged in?

I’ve been offering my knowledge to you for well over a year now. Many of you have taken advantage of it, particularly the free stuff, including the website resources list, the calendar of events, my monthly newsletter and maybe even these blog posts. And I’m thankful that my efforts to provide value for you are appreciated at some level and that you are finding them useful.

I have to say, however, that sometimes my efforts to bring knowledge to you so that you will have it in your time of need seem to be unappreciated or ignored. Not always, but sometimes. I did The A to Z Blog Book. $24.95 on Amazon, now $9.95 on Kindle and $20 if you get one from me personally, autographed or not. Several hundred ordered it during the free promo period on Kindle. Two were kind enough to write reviews, and very nice ones at that.

I just did the Probiotic Marketing Infographic. OK, the name is funny because it is a take-off on the TV commercials touting prebiotics, probiotics and other “features” of yogurt. Clearly a borrowed interest kind of name, to which I don’t normally resort, but an infographic filled with tremendously valuable information on how best to market what you sell to the most likely prospects in the most effective way in any case.

I’ve been promoting these things heavily on Google+, Facebook and Linkedin. A few of you are drinking in the knowledge offerings, and many of you are complimenting them with “likes,” but not nearly enough of you to justify the effort that it takes to lead you to the water. It reminds me of the cartoon showing an Indian chief ignoring a Gattling gun salesman because he was too busy fighting a battle with bows and arrows. You’ve seen the cartoon. And you’ve thought: what an idiot. But have you looked at, let alone taken advantage of the knowledge offers in The A to Z Blog Book or the Probiotic Marketing Infographic? Not according to my Google analytics! So what does that make you?

How much is a good idea worth if it increases your sales, bumps up your profits or helps you stay in business? How much is being prepared in advance worth? I have bunches of stories about how a few ounces of prevention can save tons of time, effort, money and grief. But you have to make the effort and the investment in learning these prevention techniques before you need them if they are to be of use to you.

Please give some thought to these issues. Buy The A to Z Blog Book in one form or another. Order the Probiotic Marketing Infographic. They don’t cost very much. And they contain the kind of information you really need and won’t find anywhere else in this world. Or be like the horse that is led to water and refuses to drink. It is your choice, and I hope you choose to drink in this valuable knowledge before you succumb to the results of not doing so.

As always, thanks for reading and please do bombard me with comments pro and con.

Scoop.it

Image credit: <a href=’http://www.123rf.com/photo_13261383_skinny-cowboy-horse-drinks-water-from-a-bucket-vector-illustration.html’>vipdesignusa / 123RF Stock Photo</a>

March 4, 2013June 3, 2013

Time for a Commercial Break

I spent some time today putting together a set of small videos that I’d like to share with you. Some have to do with free offers – the website Event Calendar and the Marketing Strategy Development e-Book – and others have to do with asking you to spend some money with me.

The very inexpensive offers are The Piano Story and the Marketing Plan and Marketing Strategy Worksheets. Very inexpensive and very, very useful to you.

The more expensive offers have to do with the Instant Strategy Session and the Monthly Mentoring Mode. Certainly more costly but much more in depth and personalized service for you.

I’d love to do business with you and I hope you’ll both enjoy these short videos and respond to their calls for action. Because I could use the business and I’m betting that you could use the help! Just click the links above to visit the applicable pages and view the videos.

Thanks for reading – and watching. And please do let me know what other products and services that you would find useful.

December 17, 2012July 15, 2013

Smite Those Tactics!

Marketing tactics are insidious and prolific. They keep popping up on what seems like an almost daily basis. SEO. Content. Backlinks. Tracklinks. PPC. AdWords. Promoted posts. Featured items. Offers. Text messages. Mobile apps. Interactive cable TV. Webinars. Teleseminars. e-Books. On-demand presentations. Gadgets, widgets and plug-ins. And the list could easily go on. In fact it does go on!

Are you inundated by the latest “must have” tactics in your marketing strategy mix? If so, I suggest that you smite those tactics until you step back and take a broader view of your overall marketing strategy. Don’t succumb to the siren song of any new tactic until you figure out if it will do you some good.

To whom are you marketing? Are you in the B2B or B2C business? What are the demographics of your markets in terms of age, occupation, income and interests? What kinds of activities are your prospects interested in and how do they find out about them? Mightn’t that information provide some valuable insights to guide you in the selection of your messages and the media you use to deliver them?

Who buys the largest quantities of what you sell, and where can you find more of those kinds of customers? Are there uses for your products or services outside your existing customer base that could be exploited with new messaging? Would new media selection help your message go viral? Is going viral what you want? Can you support that level of activity?

The right hierarchy for your marketing strategy decisions is goals first, strategy second and tactics third. So if those tactics are distracting you or diluting your overall goal and strategy work then I suggest you smite them until it’s time to consider which of them you’ll actually want to implement to support your plans.

Comments, as always, are solicited and thanks for reading.

Scoop.it

December 4, 2012June 3, 2013

Elements of a Marketing Plan — 3

I’m going to continue posting the materials from my Udemy.com online course entitled The Marketing Plan Seminar in 2013 so that my followers can get a feel for the kind of work that I can do for them on a consulting basis. If you can’t wait for the installments to be posted you can order the complete course at http://udemy.com/The-Marketing-Plan-Seminar at any time. In the mean time, I hope you will enjoy each small installment and please do give me a call if doing so triggers something for you where I can be of help with an Instant Strategy Session or working with you longer term with the Monthly Mentoring Mode. Enjoy!

While we need to answer the first three questions on this slide, we really need to think about the fourth bullet — how will we convert leads to prospects to (new) customers and how will be both retain and convert new customers to repeat customers.

Elements of a Marketing Plan — 3

We’re really asking three questions here. Who are the real target markets we’re trying to reach, what messages that hopefully will resonate with these target markets are we trying to convey, and what is the best media to use to get those messages to those target markets in the best and most cost effective way.

Order the complete course today so that you’ll be ready for 2013 and won’t have to wait for the next twelve slides!

December 3, 2012December 3, 2012

Elements of a Marketing Plan — 2

I’m going to continue posting the materials from my Udemy.com online course entitled The Marketing Plan Seminar so that my followers can get a feel for the kind of work that I can do for them on a consulting basis. If you can’t wait for the installments to be posted you can order the complete course at http://udemy.com/The-Marketing-Plan-Seminar at any time. In the mean time, I hope you will enjoy each small installment and please do give me a call if doing so triggers something for you where I can be of help with an Instant Strategy Session or working with you longer term with the Monthly Mentoring Mode. Enjoy!

: This image goes with the accompanying video that is part of the online Marketing Plan Seminar. This is slide number 7.

Here we see the hierarchy of goals, strategies and tactics. Too often people fall into the “tactic of the day” trap and go off developing tactics before setting initial goals, supporting the goals with strategies and then implementing tactics that will support them.

Elements of a Marketing Plan — 2

The “bottom line” here is to make sure that you develop things in the right sequence.

November 30, 2012November 30, 2012

Elements of a Marketing Plan — 1

: This image goes with the accompanying video that is part of the online Marketing Plan Seminar. This is slide number 6.

This slide illustrates the first thing that you’ll want to do in developing your marketing plan: market research. Have a look and a listen to this one. The better your research the better your plan will be.

Elements of a Marketing Plan — 1

You’ll want to make sure that you take a real objective look at your markets — people who are really likely to be intersted in what you can supply. You’ll want to estimate the size of your market(s) and segment them into niches where appropriate. “Everyone” is not a well defined target market!

You also need to identify competitors, not only for your product or service but also for the overall dollars that are available from your prospective customers for your type of product or service. Look also at barriers to entry. How expensive is it to enter the market? What regulations or licenses could impact your entry into the market? And what about physical location needs and alternatives if you are considering a brick and mortar based business.

The more complete your research, the better your planning results will be. Don’t skimp on this step!