In Hollywood, the pinnacle of accomplishment is an Academy Award. In public relations and social media, it’s the PRSA Silver Anvil Award - the most prestigious honor a PR professional can achieve.The Silver Anvil, symbolizing the forging of public opinion, is awarded annually to practitioners who have successfully addressed a contemporary issue with exemplary professional skills, creativity and resourcefulness.

I am proud to say that Maples Communications has earned seven PRSA Silver Anvil Awards and one Bronze Anvil on behalf of our clients - more than any other PR/social media practitioner in Southern California.

Silver Anvils recognize complete public relations and social media programs. Winners incorporate measurable and sound research that identifies problems and opportunities; select effective strategies and tactics; effectively implement resources; and evaluate, identify, analyze and quantify results. These four areas represent the solid criteria by which senior practitioners judge each entry to ensure it meets the highest standards of performance in the profession.

Sponsored by the Public Relations Society of America - the world’s largest public relations and social media professional association - Silver Anvil Awards are regarded as the highest watermark of success for any public relations practitioner. There are 16 categories, reflecting the wide scope and valuable contribution of public relations today. Only one Silver Anvil is awarded in each category; no awards are given in categories where judges determine that the entries do not merit them.

For more than 60 years, this elite group of Silver Anvil winners has contributed to the public relations body of knowledge, forging the history of the profession by promoting and shaping best practices among all public relations practitioners.

I am privileged to be a part of a dynamic industry and a highly talented community of communications professionals. Naturally, peer respect and recognition are deeply rewarding; to be considered one of the “best” PR practitioners in the country seven times is a great honor. But it’s equally satisfying to share the spotlight with my clients. After all, ours is a close and collaborative partnership in which the rewards of hard work and commitment deserve to be shared.

Summaries of all seven of our PRSA Silver Anvil-winning campaigns, as well as the Bronze Award campaign, are available on the Maples Communications website. These summaries include research that identifies the issues and opportunities the programs address; complete plans listing objectives, strategies and target audiences for each campaign; descriptions of key tactics; and metrics for success.

Are you ready to make these winning strategies your own? It was an honor to win seven PRSA Silver Anvil Awards and it would be an honor to help you with a winning PR/social media campaign too.

The most powerful and cost effective marketing tools are public relations and social media. PR, the art of attracting media attention with a well presented story, and social media, the creation and sharing of relevant content, directly increases a brand’s target market visibility, which directly boosts sales.

What follows are some tips on a few key marketing essentials to create a dynamic and magnetic marketing communications program. These are what I consider the essentials for an entrepreneur and emerging growth company to consider in building value in the brand.

1. A logo package: Whether it is software, hardware, bicycles or whatever, it always makes sense to develop a logo package that really packs a wow factor. Spend the money to have your logo done by a professional graphic artist - design a logo, business cards and letterhead. With the design elements that you get in the package, can give your business a real professional feel and look. It will be money well spent.
2. Business cards - Many logo packages will provide a business card design. If you didn’t get one of those, you can pair the elements of your professionally-designed logo into a pre-designed business card template. Simply search Google for “creative business cards” and get some good ideas.
3. Digital letterhead - If you have a great business card design, then you can cut and paste some of those design elements into a great looking digital letterhead that you can use to print memos and letters off of your desktop.
4. E-mail signature - Now take your logo and create a killer signature. There’s a cool app out called WiseStamp that has great templates that will make your signature a digital contact information powerhouse.
5. Website headers, banners and ads - Armed with a professional logo, you can create website and blog headers, banners and ads in a snap when using Microsoft Publisher. It is easy, but the images can come out slightly grainy. Instead, try using BannerSnack, an online website header and banner tool that is free and really easy to use.

Value Proposition: The top five compelling message points is like the little black cocktail dress of the marketing world. You can use it, modify it, and turn it into dozens of focused applications. Start with a list of the top 5 reasons your ideal customer should choose to do business with you. Include the top 5 points that differentiate you from your competition or the solution that solves your ideal customers’ problems. Write them in plain language, the way you would tell your best friend when helping him or her make a decision. Now you have a coherent marketing document that you can use internally and externally. Let me provide you a few recommendations on how you can use these 5 points:

1. A marketing message summary - After your market research and market planning is done, the top 5 compelling message points and top 5 points of competitive differentiation summarizes your marketing message in a way everyone inside and outside your company can understand and also tell your story.
2. Selling sheets - Turn these message points into selling sheets. Start by creating one sheet for each point and do a single sheet with all ten points. As you begin to penetrate different markets, you can customize these selling sheets as you mix and match the message points by customer industry, segments and product needs. The possibilities are endless and you keep your selling messages straight, consistent and on point according to your marketing plan.
3. Blogs - These compelling message and competitive differentiation points make ideal blog posts. Use the document as a foundation landing page and then link out from within the article to products, services, customer testimonials and other forms of credibility and proof of your statements. Just like your selling sheets, make a point of writing articles that features each individual point that’s in your marketing message summary. Use those points as the foundation for everything you write about and you will never be at a loss for great brand-building content.
4. Direct marketing - Use your message document to create direct marketing pieces that go out to key customers and prospects, have a call to action, and drive them to try and purchase additional products or services.
5. Trade show exhibits - Identify the trade shows you will be attending and then use the marketing message summary as inspiration for your trade show marketing, including the exhibit, display, pictures, pre-show marketing, etc.
6. Landing pages - If you have done a good job of segmenting your market and used your list to create one selling sheet, then you are ready to create website landing pages to drive these ideal customers through preference and purchase.

Optimize your Website/Blog. Your company website is your primary destination for customer call to action. It is your marketing ante. It should be simply and elegantly designed around the one thing you want your visitors to do. Make sure you’ve installed Google Analytics tracking code to your website (visit: www.google.com/analytics [http://www.google.com/analytics] for more information), and study your visitor behavior. Then, start making improvements to your website around what you’re seeing in the data. You need to continue developing relevant content that resonates with your audience if you want them to continue coming back.
You need to take care of the basics of usability, done with the appropriate keyword research, the posting of relevant content regularly for your target audiences, and do the basics of SEO across the site. With that said:

1.  Have metrics tracking in place - You need to make sure you sign up for Google Analytics. Seems like a no-brainer, but you’d be amazed how many firms don’t take advantage of it. It offers more data than you may need, but you can’t beat the price.
2. Write and distribute an SEO press release - This should be a business announcement with a focus on the USP (Unique Selling Proposition) of your product or service. In other words, separate your company from the competition and position yourself as the industry leader. I recommend you use the same SEO copywriting techniques as you did for the web page - emphasizing the appropriate keywords, especially in the title and the beginning of the release. An SEO press release is an effective way to get your news distributed across the Internet news channels for generating market awareness, in-bound links for SEO and new visitors to your website.
3. Submit the Website to the Internet Directories - Links are the fundamental building blocks of the Internet and Search Engine Optimization. Having links pointing to the site is what makes your company site visible and are vital to ranking high in the search engines. Submitting your company site to Internet directories like Open Directory www.dmoz.org and others is a great way to build a foundation of keyword optimized links and tap into a new source of qualified visitors.
4. Company blogs (Management or Product) - There is nothing better to build natural search engine rankings and traffic than blogging. Blogs are the most powerful search engine optimization tactic available today. Now that you have the new website, several posts in place for each blog, you need to maximize the links and traffic for your blogging efforts and consistently post at least one and possibly two per week. Having a blog allows you to use the powerful “Blog and Ping” method of getting keyword optimized back links to your website for SEO and it’s also a good way to generate sustained traffic from the “Blogosphere.” You can accomplish this by creating a blog and submitting it to hundreds of blog directories such as Technorati, Furl, Digg, and others. Start with your value proposition:
   1. Use your logo package as design inspiration. You can easily integrate your logo into existing WordPress templates.
   2. Get a landing page plugin. A landing page plugin for WordPress integrates perfectly with a blog design and lets you convert your existing sales copy into an effective landing page.
   3. Re-purpose articles and marketing materials. Use your value proposition and your marketing materials as foundations for new blog articles. Interview customers, and write about problems you’ve solved or new products and services you are exploring.
   4. Create product pages oas landing pages. If you are selling products or services, create a landing page that features groups of products and then link out to articles or more information.
5. Leverage your ‘expert’ articles - Taking your expert articles and presentations and getting them published on other sites is the ultimate online marketing strategy. They can be used for the following advantages:
   1. Generating one-way in-bound links for boosting company search rankings
   2. Attracting laser-targeted “ready-to-buy” visitors to the website
   3. Positioning the company as an expert in the various industries it participates

   You can use an online article syndication websites to submit the company’s various whitepapers and case studies. In addition, you can use YouTube, SlideShare, Flickr and other network sites to place presentations, videos, images, and reviews with links back to your company website.

E-mail Marketing. Today’s e-mail marketing services such as Constant Contract, Mail Chimp or a Weber integrate with just about anything you throw at them. You can use them independently or you can integrate them inside a blog.

1. Newsletters: Use your logo package to inspire the design. Use your WordPress blog articles to send out as newsletters. You can also create an original newsletter each month or just set the system to aggregate your blog posts and send them out in a newsletter format.
2. Customer relationships: Group your customer lists and keep them informed about things that are important to them. You can pull relevant items from your value proposition and be sure to feature messages and specials to those customers that care about that the most.
3. Surveys: These e-mail marketing systems also have simple survey features that you can take advantage of to ask your customers questions and tweak that top 10 list.

I could go on and on with ideas on what to do with a value proposition, WordPress blog, logo package and e-mail marketing service, but I think you get the idea. It doesn’t take a lot of time, money or content to create a powerful marketing program. PPC, press releases, blogs, online syndicated articles and presentations, and SEO are today’s most effective methods for generating a quick surge of immediate traffic to your website as well as long-term sustainable traffic for educating audiences and building awareness for the company. It takes time, but you need to consistently develop relevant information for your audiences, engage in the online communities, and be active with the company blogs.

What else do you need to know about building your brand and generating sales?

This is 3-of-3 in the “E-tail Content Marketing: Engaging Customers at the Point of Purchase” series of blog posts. A Content Marketing Program is designed to support the e-tailers by placing content at the point of the transactional purchase - a sale that does not require a sales person. The purpose of the content is to inform customers and prospects about what they should consider in making their decisions.

Today’s customers look everywhere for great, relevant content in order to make smart buying decisions. Therefore, they need content that makes them smarter and more knowledgeable. Companies that provide great content, in the right places, will win. Whereas in the past, customers were wary about information that didn’t come from a traditional media source, today’s savvy buyers can sniff out the good content from the bad, and they don’t mind if the information they engage in comes from your company.

There are many social media tools and social communities to choose from, and the list grows longer every day. By mixing your customer knowledge, your company objectives, and, frankly, your budget, you should be able to determine appropriate content mix using various social media tools. Remember, even though certain vehicles that I am about to introduce may prove to be the best options for your company, your content marketing efforts need to be well integrated with the content initiatives in my previous blog. A few more social media touch points for your consideration.

YouTube Channel: YouTube is the largest video sharing site to date and a perfect place for your company to establish a channel. The site receives the most traffic and the highest amount of users making it the definitive place for getting videos published and marketed. To maximize our video efforts and results:

1. Create compelling videos: You need to create content that addresses your audiences’ needs and wants (company content value proposition standards). The primary goal is to create videos that are helpful and compelling to our prospects and customers. Video content may consist of how-to’s, answers to frequently asked questions, expert interviews, screen video captures, slide shows, etc.
2. Make the videos findable: Videos often appear on the first page of search engines, and are a proven method of leap-frogging competitors to the top of the search results page - Google owns YouTube. To make your videos more findable, you need to do the following:
   1. Title: You need to use targeted keywords in the first few words.
   2. Description: Start the description with a full URL and be as description and keyword-rich as possible - we should not be stingy with our description.
   3. Tags: You need to add any and all related keywords in the tag field.
3. Company YouTube Channel: You need to turn the YouTube channel into a destination.
4. Use annotations to build subscribers: You can add annotations to the Company YouTube channel videos that include clickable calls to action - they can include links to other videos, playlists or channels, or include subscription options.
5. Post a bulletin and alert friends and subscribers: You need to create a bulletin and a link to the videos that will appear on the subscribers’ and friends’ home page - this draws extra attention and traffic.
6. Leverage other social media platforms: Every time you post a new video, we should create a blog post around it, post it on Facebook to reach a wider video audience, Tweet it, and submit it to StumbleUpon.

By creating video content that resonates with the audiences, building up a branded channel and using bulletins and ads, you can greatly increase the return on the company’s investment in creating online videos.

SEO content: Search engine optimization (SEO) refers to techniques that help the website rank higher in organic search results, thus making the website more visible to customers who are looking for your products via search engines. You need to write content that your customers will find relevant and engaging. Aside from the topical nature of the content, the way format the web pages can have an impact on how the search engine bots digest our content. Every webpage you create should have a thought-provoking headline to grab the customer’s attention, and should also include the keyword or phrase that the webpage covers.

Title tags and Meta tags: Meta keywords consist of an additional text snippet in the HTML that allows you to list a few different keywords that relate to the webpage. Meta descriptions are usually the first place a search engine will look to find text to put under the blue link when they list the website in the SERP. The Meta description is limited to 150 characters.

Customer product reviews: Recommendations from like-minded buyers build shopper confidence. More than just star ratings, customer reviews connect shoppers to buyers who share their interests - driving engagement and sales. You can make these conversations easy and productive, using innovative social and SEO solutions. A few key points for customer reviews:

1. Drive Sales: Help shoppers make better decisions quickly.
2. Increase Traffic: SEO puts fresh information from quantified buyers directly on the product pages - where search engines can see it and shoppers can find it.
3. Generate more content: Consistently proven to drive higher levels of content volume and product coverage. The customer review process generates the critical mass of content needed to power meaningful social programs.
4. Syndicate across the social web: An open social commerce network puts us in complete control of our review content, making it easy to share our user-generated content to social networks and channel partners.

Contests - for product reviews and customer purchases from an e-tailer: One of the best ways to drive engagement and build word of mouth about the brand is to run a contest via social media. Launching quarterly contests will help you achieve specific marketing and sales goals. You can do contests with your e-tailers to buy your products from their site where customers will be entered into a contest with the chance to win a cool prize with friends and family. Also, we can run contests to garner reviews on the company website.

Expectations

There are probably a fair number of ways to measure the program with Google analytics and other online analytical tools. We should manage these analytical tools, but we should focus on the numbers that give us the biggest impact on what we’re doing. Key expectations:

1. Increase transactional sales through your e-tailers without sales assistance.
2. Obtain customer product reviews.
3. Most popular content - determine which pages on the website and our e-tailers are getting the most traffic - create more content that resembles the most popular.
4. Execute e-tailer partner contest promotions for customers to buy products on their site - did it increase sales?
5. Execute quarterly product review contests to get customers to write product reviews.

Content marketing can always be measured if you have a clear understanding of your strategic communication objectives. Just keep it simple and answer the question, “How will we know that the content plan is working?” This should lead you directly back to your company goals. A company that invests in content without investing in the measuring of that content doesn’t truly believe in the content marketing initiative.

Are you implementing a content marketing program? How are you measuring your success?

Develop a process to create content: When content programs fail, it’s usually not due to a lack of quality content, but because of poor execution. We will create a process to develop content that is consistent across all product lines and distribution points. We will ensure excellence in every piece of content:

1. Content/editorial
2. Design/art/photography
3. Web development/integration
4. Content-specific marketing
5. Monitoring customer conversations and reviews
6. Print/web production and maintenance
7. List/audience development and maintenance
8. Responsible method for consistently updating and refreshing content

Constant updating of content is crucial to getting the target audience to view your company’s content as a resource in helping customers make buying decisions. Buyer information consumption is basically how a buyer is researching, discussing, reviewing, reading, watching or otherwise engaging with content that influences their decision on which product to buy. Knowing who your buyers are is great, but understanding how and why they consume content is crucial to our success.

SellPoint content distribution. SellPoint, as an example, is a syndication partner to online e-tailers like Walmart.com, OfficeMax, Staples, and dozens of other top national e-tailers as well as regional and specialty dealers - they have more than 200 e-tail partners and shopping sites. They can provide you:

1. Weekly syndication audits to insure that your rich-media product tours are in place everywhere your products are sold online.
2. Integration of your content with e-tailer web sites to ensure optimal shopper engagement and compliance with e-tail site requirements.
3. Automated placement of your content as soon as new products are launched, and real-time change management post launch.
4. Your company driven network expansion by adding new online retail venues as channel placements expand.

To leverage a company like SellPoint, you need to constantly provide them an array of relevant content, images and video on your products. The content needs to meet your company’s basic value proposition as well as be search engine optimization (SEO) compliant.

Another element of your success will depend upon having relationships with all the key e-tailer representatives who manage and execute the content marketing programs. Meeting regularly in person will allow you to maintain a process to keep your content current and conducive with your primary e-tail partner contact for product content.

Company Website: The website is your company’s ante for the business and provides customers relevant content to assist them with information in positioning your products for preference and a call to action to purchase. The website should be structured and formatted with these key elements:

1. Headlines: As with most media, a great headline or page title can make or break a page. But specific to web content, it’s important to remember the SEO aspects. Integrating a major keyword phrase into a headline and programming the page title with a relevant <h1> tag can add some nice Google juice.
2. Sub-headlines: Visitors scan before they read, so creating enticing, benefits-focused sub-headlines can really boost the odds that your web pages will be read.
3. Images: Optimizing the image’s file name and alt tag with keyword/phrase provides the context Google needs and validates the relevance of your web pages.
4. Bulleted and numbered lists: Lists make content much easier to digest. Even the slightest indention and bullet will draw the reader’s eye - Google likes them too.
5. Calls to action: Despite the intelligence levels our site’s visitors, people don’t want to have to think when they are browsing websites. Obvious command-oriented calls to action are key in moving visitors through the website.

Video content marketing: Video presents a major advantage for telling the company and product stories. A video can be created for almost any reason, whether we need to promote a product or spread the word about our latest campaign, or tell our story to existing or future clients. Whatever we can dream up, we can do through video - it’s a powerful tool and one we should use frequently. Here are a few to consider:

1. FAQ. Creating a frequently asked questions video will allow customers to have easy access to their questions.
2. Social media. Creating video blogs or including other useful and relevant video to social network channels will not only enhance your brand image, but will also increase search engine optimization (SEO) - and our chances of being found over a competitor.
3. Interviews. Interviewing management or influencers on camera is a great way to communicate the company’s message. These videos are also perfect for establishing the brand as a thought leader in the industry.
4. Video tour. Online product tours allow customers to see all aspects of the product without having to be present. Creating a video tour is an inexpensive way to show potentially millions of people what your company has to offer.
5. Testimonials. We can drive sales by boosting customer confidence with video testimonials. Posting testimonial videos via multiple platforms will also increase our visibility and likelihood of appearing in search results.

The key to a successful e-tail content marketing strategy is, you guessed it, great content and tactical execution. Not just any content, but great content. Customers know the difference between great content and a blatant sales pitch with no inherent value. In the past, customers received great content from the media giants. Today, they can and should be receiving it from you. Even if you do not have internal talent, there are firms like Maples Communications who can put their talents to work on behalf of your company.

What type of programs are you implementing to develop great content?

The rules of marketing have changed. In the new marketing world, you are what you publish. Our customers, with the help of the Internet, have become more sophisticated and require to talked to and not sold to with content that is engaging, relevant and informative. Today, we need to create and share content that is informative, inspiring, and, above all, valuable at the time our customers need it - right place, right time.

Content marketing is an umbrella term encompassing all marketing communications formats that involve the creation of sharing content for the purpose of engaging customers at the point-of-purchase with relevant information to assist them in making a decision. As Leslie Fiering, vice president/analyst with Gartner, once said, “It just has to be good enough at the right price and they (the customer) will buy.” Content marketing subscribes to the notion that delivering high-quality, relevant and valuable information at the point of preference and purchase to the customer will drive profitable customer actions.

A Content Marketing Program is designed to support the e-tailers by placing content at the point of the transactional purchase - a sale that does not require a sales person. The purpose of the content is to inform customers and prospects about what they should consider in making their decisions. Our motivation behind content marketing is the belief that educating the customer at the point-of-sale will result in increased sales and brand recognition as a thought leader who provides great value in their products.

Why an E-tail Content Marketing Program? It drives online sales conversion rates and it captures the customer’s attention at the decision point. It also drives in-store sales. Every customer starts the purchase process with search. The content provides the customer information to include your company’s products in the preference and purchase stages of the buyers’ decision. It is proven that content impacts online research for in-store product decisions.

Value Proposition and Key Message Development

The value proposition will be a collection of key message points on what a customer should consider in making a purchase of what some consider a commodity product and the benefits of buying your company’s brand. The persona of a customer transactional sale requires the following message points:

1. Product value
2. Price/performance (benefits)
3. Good enough products/compatible/reliable
4. Ease of acquisition and service
5. Ease of doing business
6. Valued content from credible experts to assist in making a decision

Content message points will be developed by reading customer reviews, studying company web analytics, reviewing competitor content, and using professional social networks. We will refine the content over time, but the standard value proposition for content will be measured by:

1. Engage: Intuitive and inviting content (stories) capture and maintain the attention of the customer where it matters most - while they are shopping.
2. Inform: We must communicate key “why to buy” messages, from product features and benefits to brand attributes through our uniquely mixed media content of text, images, animation, video and voice.
3. Inspire: Your content must have a call to action. Your content must drive customers to purchase your company’s products - delivering increased sales.

Objectives and Strategy

There are several objectives for the content marketing program, but the real measure of the program is an increase in sales. With that said, the following are the primary objectives:

1. Attract leads, prospects and opportunities without actively selling.
2. Generate an increase in e-tailer revenue growth.
3. Provide product information at the point-of-sale to increase preference and purchase.

Within the company’s product family, there may be different audiences based on the product offering and different industries. So, the content strategy can get complex. We must consider the actual content production and a process in order to maintain consistency in delivering a message of needs/wants/likes/dislikes that resonate with the customer at the point of purchase. Our strategy will focus on the value proposition and points of differentiation:

1. Focus on providing great content for all your products and services to each e-tail partner.
   1. Read competitive product reviews and content - highlight the positive.
   2. Weave SEO keywords with H1, H2 and H3 words into all content
   3. Weave customer messages into each piece of content
2. Use more informative images and videos.
3. The content for the e-tailers must be consistent with the website.
4. Help the customers understand what they should consider in making a decision to solve their needs or problems.
5. Build customer loyalty to survive and thrive in the highly competitive e-tailer landscape.

In my next blog post, I will talk about the tactical execution of an e-tail content marketing program. Content is the most powerful and cost effective means to influence the decisions of your customers. It takes time, but you need to consistently develop relevant information for your targeted audiences and online communities.

What are some of the initiatives your company is executing to engage customers at the point-of-purchase?

In the Los Angeles Times this week, Ina Paiva Cordle wrote an article on how social media is giving firms a boost by word of mouth. The article is about a few people who lost their jobs and decided to reinvent themselves online. For these small businesses, social media has become a portal to success. According to a recent study by EMarketers, 80 percent of leading companies will participate in social media marketing in 2011, nearly double the number from three years ago.

And, a 2011 Social Media Marketing report by SocialMediaExaminer.com found that 90 percent of marketers said social media was important for their business. This same report sites that 88 percent said it generated more business exposure and 72 percent said it increased traffic to their website.

Every company mentioned in the Los Angeles Times article reinvented themselves online and immediately went to social media to get the word out. A few of the Irvine Incubation Center entrepreneurial companies asked me for a few pointers in starting a social media program for their companies. The following are the 10 steps I recommend each company to follow in establishing a successful social media program:

1. Start by identify your objectives and expectations. These should relate to your key business objectives. Be as specific and quantitative as possible. The objective is to have social media contribute to the company. ($5,000/month in new online sales) (increase website visits by 20 percent) or (100/month requests for proposals)
2. Emotionalize your Brand by standing for something. This is what makes your business venture so special/unique/worthy of advocacy. It is your value proposition in just a few sentences and should resonate with your target demographics, so that they are inspired to share it with others. Remember, hit people with the features and benefits, and you win their minds. Infuse them with your purpose or your mission, and you win their hearts.
3. Identify Your Audience. Who is your customer and who influences their decision? Be as specific as possible relative to psychographics and demographics. Spend some time listening to what people are saying about you, your market, product categories, and general discussions online. The simplest way to do this is to Google your company or use the native platforms on social media like search, twitter or the search features on Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube.
4. Optimize your Website/Blog. Your company website is your primary destination for a customer call to action. It is your marketing ante. It should be simply and elegantly designed around the one thing you want your visitors to do. Make sure you’ve installed Google Analytics tracking code to your website (visit: www.google.com/analytics [http://www.google.com/analytics] for more information), and study your visitor behavior. Then, start making improvements to your website around what you’re seeing in the data. You need to continue developing relevant content that resonates with your audience if you want them to continue coming back.
5. Establish your Social Media Outpost. Set up accounts on LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Once you have done that, download Hootsuite (www.hootsuite.com) and you can monitor your brand, listen to relevant conversations, engage your communities and update your social platforms all from one simple dashboard.
6. Engage in using E-mail Marketing. When you ask people, they say they do not have time to engage in social media but almost everyone uses e-mail. E-mail marketing with relevant content ranks high in terms of conversion. Constant Contact and VerticalResponse are two excellent services that can get you up and running in no time. Make sure to integrate your social media with your e-mail marketing and invite people to engage, e.g.: “Engage with us on Twitter for real-time customer service.” “Get exclusive deals on our Facebook page.”
7. Don’t abandon a Traditional PR/Media Plan. If you are generating relevant content, the mainstream media will cover your company and product stories. Create something buzz-worthy about your business. Do something creative and unique - find something to differentiate your company from the competition or the market. Then reach out to your trade media, and don’t forget the local newspapers, television and radio, and tell them why their viewers would love to learn about your business and products/services. (Focus on the viewers, not why you deserve coverage)
8. Start an SEO Program. You want to optimize your website and blog content for your desired keywords, so that when people type in: “best tires for Ford trucks” into Google, Bing and Yahoo, your tires for Ford trucks website shows up. Spend some time learning more about “Search Engine Optimization”.
9. Measure your Results. Google Analytics is an industry-leading analytics program and it is easy to sign up and install your website and blog. Measure your results against your business objectives in step one.
10. Continually Hone and Refine your Content. Your social media program is in automatic. The best results come from letting the content and data drive decisions. If your customers resonate with one platform over another, channel your time and resources to that platform.

In this new social media marketing world, you are what you publish. If your content is engaging, relevant, and informative, that’s how your audience/customers will perceive your brand. In executing a social media program to market your company today, you need to create and share content that is informative, inspiring, and, above all, truly valuable.

What elements of social media have had the most impact on your business? What do you consider the “magic sauce”?

In making my recommendations, I am assuming you have already taken care of the basics of usability, done the appropriate keyword research, are posting relevant content regularly for your target audiences, and you’ve done at least the basics of SEO across the site.  With that said, I recommend:

1. Have metrics tracking in place - You need to make sure you sign up for Google Analytics. Seems like a no-brainer, but you’d be amazed how many firms don’t take advantage of it. It offers more data than you may need, but you can’t beat the price.
2. Write and distribute an SEO press release - This should be a business announcement with a focus on the USP (Unique Selling Proposition) of your product or service. In other words, separate your company from the competition and position yourself as the industry leader. I recommend you use the same SEO copywriting techniques as you did for the web page - emphasizing the appropriate keywords, especially in the title and the beginning of the release. An SEO press release is an effective way to get your news distributed across the Internet news channels for generating market awareness, in-bound links for SEO and new visitors to your website.
   1. Offline: Many of the local newspapers and radio stations have announcement sections/stories for local businesses. Some communities have business-specific newspapers that will be more likely to consider the new company website as a newsworthy event.
   2. Online: There are several good online sources we use for press release distribution. I recommend using PRWeb, PRLeap, PRLog, and MyMediaInformation targeted business/multiple trade media. Announce it to local LinkedIn groups.
3. Start a pay-per-click campaign - It is the best way to create instant and sustainable traffic. You can do this through pay-per-click (PPC) search engine advertising with Google Adwords, Yahoo! Search Marketing Solutions and/or MSN adCenter. Before doing this, you need to make sure the website is set-up for collecting leads as well to ensure PPC advertising pays off in the short-term. The PPC advertising campaign shouldn’t cost more than $300-$500 per month. I recommend you end the advertising campaign once the organic SEO program positions the company on the first page of the search.
4. Submit the new Website to the Internet Directories - Links are the fundamental building blocks of the Internet and Search Engine Optimization. Having links pointing to the site is what makes your company site visible and are vital to ranking high in the search engines. Submitting your company site to Internet directories like Open Directory www.dmoz.org and others is a great way to build a foundation of keyword optimized links and tap into a new source of qualified visitors. You need to analyze the directories, but there are a few paid directories like Yahoo Directory, Ezilon, BOTW.org, and others.
5. Company blogs (Management or Product) - There is nothing better to build natural search engine rankings and traffic than blogging. Blogs are the most powerful search engine optimization tactic available today. Now that you have the new website, several posts in place for each blog, you need to maximize the links and traffic for your blogging efforts and consistently post at least one and possibly two per week. With the new website, submit the site and blogs to the various blog directories to assist with one-way links to improve rankings in the search engines. Having a blog allows you to use the powerful “Blog and Ping” method of getting keyword optimized backlinks to your website for SEO and it’s also a good way to generate sustained traffic from the “Blogosphere.”  You can accomplish this by creating a blog and submitting it to hundreds of blog directories such as Technorati, Furl, Digg, and others.
6. Leverage your ‘expert’ articles - Taking your expert articles and presentations and getting them published on other sites is the ultimate online marketing strategy. They can be used for the following advantages:
   1. Generating one-way in-bound links for boosting company search rankings
   2. Attracting laser-targeted “ready-to-buy” visitors to the website
   3. Positioning the company as an expert in the various industries it participates

You can use an online article syndication websites to submit the company’s various whitepapers and case studies.  In addition, you can use YouTube, SlideShare, Flickr and other network sites to place presentations, videos, images, and reviews with links back to your company website.

PPC, press releases, blogs, online syndicated articles and presentations, and SEO are today’s most effective methods for generating a quick surge of immediate traffic to the new website as well as long-term sustainable traffic for educating audiences and building awareness for the company.  I firmly believe if you consistently use these marketing tactics to launch and maintain the website, you will see a return on investment in the form of increased sales.  It takes time, but you need to consistently develop relevant information for your audiences, engage in the online communities, and be active with the company blogs.

With every article I read or seminar I participate in regarding local search, everyone seems to focus on where search happens. My focus is on where sales happen.

Can you remember the last time you opened the Yellow Pages to get a telephone number?  No?  Me either. And it’s likely that neither can most Americans — more than 54 percent of us have replaced phone books with Internet and local search.

That should be enough to convince you why local search marketing is critical to the success of your business. Nearly 73 percent of all online search is related to local content and eight in 10 of those users end up making a phone call or showing up to visit the store in person.  Chew on that statistic for a minute and it becomes pretty clear that the acts of being found online and gaining new customers are dramatically intertwined.  It doesn’t matter what you sell, product or service, or if you have a store or small home office - if local prospects can’t find you when they search online - then you don’t exist.

Like it or not, if you are not showing up on “the map” you are losing new business opportunities every day.  With more than 300 million searches a day in the U.S. alone, it’s likely that someone is looking for your business as you read this article.  The question is simple.  Are they finding you, or are they finding your competitors in a local search?  The search engines have created a new index that deals exclusively with businesses who want to list their products/services to their local geographical audiences, which is where local search engine marketing is needed. 

Sure, there are other ways to get your message out, but even if you succeed creating awareness through offline traditional efforts, chances are your new prospect will go online to interact with your business a bit before picking up the phone or jumping in the car - it’s just how the world works these days.  More than 54 percent of all Americans have replaced phone books with Internet and local search.

The importance of marketing and building your brand online spawned an entire search marketing industry, but with nearly 100 percent adoption of search behavior by most market segments (think how many people you know that have a Web browser in their pocket these days) means that even the most hyper-local businesses must make search marketing a core local business strategy.  The real question is, “What’s in it for you?”

• New business: Getting found in local search brings a steady stream of new customers 365 days a year
• Return on investment - Consider the “Lifetime Value” of one new customer, or the profit of one “big ticket” sale - many recuperate their investment from just one new customer
• Listed in Online Maps such as Google, Yahoo and Bing - More than 90 percent of the total search market is controlled by the “Big 3″ - you get found where your customers are looking
• Save money on multiple Yellow Page listings
• Total reach and coverage in the city/metro area your business serves - add additional cities if needed
• A Web site is just a placeholder, I recommend continuous relevant content development, video and a blog

I have spent years building brands and creating reputations for some of the most recognized companies in technology.  And now, my goal is to help you navigate a well-rounded local search marketing campaign that leverages the power of SEO, social media, and quality content to put your business in front of the people who matter.  So, how do you get started?

Now more than ever, companies must stay current with the ever-evolving search experience - from offline to online and mobile media - as well as implementing smarter search tactics to survive in today’s diverse media landscape.  Failure to reciprocate consumers’ changing search behaviors give your competitors a leg up, as your bottom line quickly morphs into a flat line.  Every generation is becoming search savvy, making it imperative for you to scatter your messaging via: 

• An SEO-optimized organic ranking
• Pay-per-click ads
• A user-friendly website
• A local-listings-management tool
• A social-networking presence
• A mobile website and/or app
• Directory assistance
• Listings on local-search and Internet Yellow Page sites

This collection of tactics underscores the idea to balance a national brand presence with local-market awareness.  If you’re not doing what is necessary for consumers to easily find you at both national and local levels, you are distancing yourself by creating a disconnect.  You can equate this to not having a storefront sign for your local business: the sign attracts attention, peaks interest and stands as a marker of your business’ presence.  Without it, pedestrians and motorists alike will not find you.  If they can’t find you, how will you drive sales?

Your entire search presence must point the consumer toward the desired outcome - the sale.  Do what works for you, but, moreover, do what works for the consumer, always striving to enhance the search experience.

With sales as the final goal, your search presence is ultimately about driving a response, whether you seek phone calls, in-store visits or even online requests.  To bridge awareness to conversion, your search presence must be complete with the relevant information consumers need to make a transaction.

What does this mean for your company?  You must help consumers find you in their local markets, where sales happen. 

Send me an e-mail at bmaples@maples.com if you would like a copy of the whitepaper, “Think Global, Act Local in SEO Search Marketing”.  While consumers search globally, we know they buy locally.  This whitepaper provides you details on how to start and execute a local search marketing campaign.

President Obama Delivers his State of the Union Address

The Soviet Union launched Sputnik on October 4, 1957 during President Eisenhower’s administration.  A few years later, President Kennedy launched the American response that led to the Apollo program and the “Space Race.”  President Obama used these three space-related terms as metaphors forming the centerpiece of his State of the Union address this week:

This is our generation’s Sputnik moment.

I understood the challenge he was issuing, but I decided to personalize his challenge in a manner where I can make a difference.  For decades, every company has relied on traditional communications to build brand awareness such as advertising, public relations, trade shows, events and promotions.  Today, the Internet has brought us social media and the ability to do one-on-one marketing with our customers.  Social media is a company’s ability to communicate with its customers.  It is every company’s ‘Sputnik moment.’

I don’t get Twitter.  I don’t get Facebook.  I don’t get LinkedIn.  I don’t get social media and I think it is a fad that will pass.

Chances are, you’ve heard at least one person mutter these words or some variation - or, you muttered them yourself.  I know I’ve heard similar phrases numerous times.  Strangely, I find that, in this situation, what people say and what people mean are two completely different things.

My challenge to you is to let go of all your inhibitions about social media and accept that you need to change to succeed.  It is a challenge to step up and make a difference.  I believe small and large companies alike need to assemble teams of the best minds in their company utilizing outside partners as necessary, and focus on the hardest problems in growing the company and communicating to customers.  Make this your Sputnik moment.  Begin a process to out-create, out-innovate, out-communicate, and out-perform your competitors. 

Effectively influencing marketplace perceptions and demand is always challenging, but the pay-off is successfully attaining your business goals.  Social media has profoundly changed the way people communicate and interact with each other.  It is also changing the way businesses need to communicate with current and potential customers.  Today, tools like WordPress, iTunes, LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr, blogs and YouTube have given everyday people access to broadcast their messages around the world for essentially nothing.  The rules of communications have changed - it is a Sputnik moment.

Here at Maples, we have the right credentials to make a difference for you and your company.  We have won seven of the most prestigious awards in communications.  We have executed successful social media for a lot of our clients.  We have represented some the most well-known brands in the world.  One thing you can count on from us, we are relentless in achieving results for our clients.  We will never quit.  We are passionate, committed and loyal to a fault, and we will constantly stand side-by-side with you to make a difference.

Put the stake in the ground to succeed and engage.  Seize the day!  Make your Sputnik moment a launching pad into a new frontier.

Can you, your company or your president be considered thought leaders in the digital era without a blog?  You can’t be taken seriously by business audiences unless you have a blog in the mix.  A blog is your delivery mechanism to share your insights consistently.  And, while it is certainly possible to do business without a blog, having one is the key ingredient for establishing and sustaining your expertise and knowledge on specific topics.

But launching and running a company blog is not easy.  It’s not as simple as writing posts on a regular basis because a blog has to provide value on a regular basis.  Blogs are the fabric of online communication, serving as outright thought leadership vehicles and behind-the-scenes content management systems.  They require a time commitment, serious thought and far more than merely regurgitating the latest stats or trends about their industries - your readers want your opinion and analysis.

So what are the key points in a successful company blog?  Here are a few of mine:

1. Relevant content that provides insight, perspective and information. At its core, a company blog has to deliver its readers relevant information they can use to increase their knowledge, learn new things or receive insight that makes a difference.
2. It needs to be well written. A blog with spelling and grammatical errors reflects badly on the person writing it and their company. Also, blog posts need to have a good flow and provide an engaging narrative that makes it easy to read. This is particularly important given many people scan content online as opposed to reading it. This is why a good headline is so important to capture someone’s attention.
3. Posts have to happen on a regular basis. It could be one, two or five posts per week. Whatever your editorial plan, it needs to be consistent to establish expectations within the company and among the blog’s readers. The worst thing a company can do is post four or five times a week for a few weeks, and then once a week or not at all afterward. When the audience doesn’t know what to expect, they start to drift away.
4. Respond to industry issues, competitive stories and customer concerns. Customer service and public relations have never been more important; a bad story can spread around the web’s social network at the speed of light. Your blog becomes a responsive outlet to explain your side of any story and douse the fires of negative activity or accentuate the positive.
5. It can’t operate as a standalone entity. A blog needs to be supported and nurtured within a company. It needs to be actively promoted within communications, marketing and sales collateral, business cards, letterhead and e-mail signatures.
6. The blog and its content should also be promoted on social media services such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and e-mail notification to targeted customers, influencers, media and other friends of the company. A blog needs to be seen as an integral part of a company’s brand and identity as opposed to be left alone to its own devices.
7. Search engine-optimizing your content is important in bringing in search visitors as well as direct traffic. The more linkable your blog and website, the better your search results will be. Very often traditional websites are difficult to link to and not easy for search engines to index. This can be due to the blog or website’s structure, the software it’s built with, or its overly complex URLs. Blogs are almost always superior in this respect.
8. A company blog needs to be integrated into the blogosphere and the blogging community. The people writing a blog need to be reading and commenting on other blogs. You can’t write a blog in isolation otherwise there are no connections with the “outside” world.
9. It needs to look good and have a user-friendly design. As much as a company will spend time and money to create a good Web site, its blog also needs to be functionally and attractive. It is a public marketing vehicle that reflects a company’s brand, culture and approach to business.
10. A good blog should follow best practices by including things such as an RSS feed (both through RSS reader and via e-mail), information about the writers, the ability to leave comments, links to social media services, and links to other company resources.

Finally, I’m a big believer that ideas flourish when you’re out and about talking to customers, industry gurus and other people about their ideas, interests, thoughts and business endeavors.  As much as you can get many ideas from reading online, socializing is a great way to stimulate the mind and idea generation.  Many of mine come from the traditional newspapers like the Wall Street Journal or USA Today.

These are my thoughts to a successful company blog.  What are some of the other things that a good company blog should feature?