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Duct Tape Marketing: Why Computers Don’t Matter Anymore

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 08:37:27 -0400

Why Computers Don’t Matter Anymore

This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

An event occurred recently that was widely covered in financial and tech circles, but the significance of which may have been lost on most.

Apple’s market cap rose slightly above Microsoft’s, making it the largest tech company in the world. Now, market cap is based on current stock price and is a lousy measure of things to come and this is by no means a post about good and bad investments, but to me it marks a point in time that clearly points to the path we’re headed for the next decade or so.

Katya's Non-Profit Marketing Blog: Cause-related marketing tips from Coke, Microsoft and Renault

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 07:01:40 -0400

As I posted yesterday, this week I attended the Conexion Colombia nonprofit conference in Bogota. A highlight was a panel of marketing experts from Oglivy (Coca-Cola’s agency here), Microsoft and Renault, who shared their marketing strategies - and their advice to nonprofits seeking partnerships with companies like theirs. It was a goldmine of information. Their advice spans borders - so I want to share it here. Here are the key points, nonprofit marketing friends:

1. Great companies inspire - often more effectively than we do.

Katya's Non-Profit Marketing Blog: Robin Hood Marketing, Colombia Style

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 19:08:51 -0400

Left: Director of Marketing Catalina Mejía and Right: Executive Director Ángela Escallón Emiliani of Conexion Colombia.

I’m at the Conexion Colombia nonprofit conference in Bogota, where I spoke on Robin Hood Marketing and online outreach - and where I got to hear from a Colombian marketing guru as well as a panel of corporate marketing executives. I want to share some of what I learned in one post today, another tomorrow. What was most clear was this: Good marketing principles are the same, anywhere in the world.

Gabriel Perez, professor of marketing at the University of Los Andes, and someone who has marketed everything from Chiclets to cars, had these universal insights to offer:

Eyes on Sales: The Confirmation Step: The Missing Link In Your Sales Process

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 12:31:58 -0400

This article is an excerpt from the new book Top Dog Sales Secrets. Jeb Blount explains how use of the confirmation step, "with the exception of qualification, will have a greater impact on your closing ratio than any other in the sales process."

Duct Tape Marketing: Why Is Simple So Hard

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 12:09:02 -0400

Why Is Simple So Hard

This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

The other I posed this somewhat trick laden question on Twitter – “Is making something easier to understand dumbing it down or smartening it up?” The answers I got were mixed. Some obviously saw that I was suggesting it’s actually harder to make some easy to understand. Others clearly felt that it somewhat of a disservice to try to make things that were complicated seem simple.

Katya's Non-Profit Marketing Blog: How To Raise A Lot More Money Now - a free eBook from Network for Good

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 09:20:05 -0400

At Network for Good, we’re always looking for the latest and greatest resources to help nonprofits engage with supporters online. And we get a lot of questions about how to raise more money online – now!

Inspired by the great work that nonprofits do every day, I called on some of the smartest people I know in the nonprofit fundraising world to help me write this eBook and give you 50 creative ideas that you can start using today to raise more money for your cause.

Get your free copy of How to Raise a Lot More Money Now: 50 Great Ideas from 11 Top Experts.

I’d like to give a special thanks to all of my friends who contributed: Jeff Brooks, Mark Rovner, Jocelyn Harmon, Alia McKee, Sarah Durham, Kivi Leroux Miller, Chris Forbes, Nancy Schwartz, Beth Kanter, and Allison Fine.

Gettingattention.org: Last Chance to Enter 2010 Tagline Awards — Deadline Midnight Tonight

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 09:18:23 -0400

Update – July 29 – Nonprofit Tagline Award entries are now closed. Please enter next year!

Your nonprofit could be a 2010 Getting Attention Nonprofit Tagline Award winner! But only if you enter your organizational, fundraising campaign, program/service and/or special event taglines by midnight tonight.

And, even if you don’t win this time round, all entrants will be invited to join me this fall in a game-changing webinar: How to Build Leadership Support for Critical Marketing Projects.

Take 3 minutes now to enter your nonprofit taglines today. Here’s more information on the tagline awards program.

Duct Tape Marketing: Think Like An Editor

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 15:53:18 -0400

Think Like An Editor

This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

I’m writing a series of posts over at Colourlovers for HP and what follows below is an excerpt from today’s post. I’m also doing some fun video interviews with real small business called Local Color.

So often content producers have no real plan. If they write a blog they simply decide that day what they plan to write. First off, this makes the writing process more difficult and makes repurposing much harder.

Effective reuse comes from planned reuse. The best tip I can give you is to sit down once a month or so and create an editorial calendar. This allows you to create some goals, but it also allows you to think big picture about what needs to be written to create a body of work that will have multiple uses.

Influential Marketing Blog: Discovery Channel Uses Social Networking To Freak You Out

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 14:30:25 -0400

Influential Marketing Blog: Discovery Channel Uses Social Networking To Freak You Out

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 14:22:31 -0400

I have never been a big fan of horror movies. Getting scared on purpose was never something that I quite understood. One of the scariest movies I ever saw, though, was a film back in 1995 called Outbreak with Dustin... Rohit

Eyes on Sales: Developing a Customer Experience Strategy in a Cloudy World

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 13:48:02 -0400

Social media has exposed the gap between corporate claims and the customer’s experience. Virtual communities have given end users a voice unfiltered by management. The end result of this power shift is that end users have become more vocal and demanding about their experience.

Marketers Make a Difference: What's on Your Backside?

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 12:43:00 -0400

This may be a little off topic, but it's on my mind because I just ordered business cards. Business cards used to be simple things that conveyed contact information. Now, like a lot of things, they have gotten fancier and fancier as individuals try to stand out from the crowd. As a result, many people choose to put content on the back of the card. I always find this annoying because I like to make notes on the back of cards I receive. Today, among other things, I was offered the opportunity to add a calendar to the back of the card. The print is so small I'm not sure how it helps me or the recipient.

The one thing I did add to the back of my cards was the recycle symbol. Recycled content seems far too hard to find, but that's a rant for another day. The point is, it's important for me to reflect my values in everything I do. That's how you build a brand - consistency and congruity.

Years ago I interviewed with an environmentally-focused organization and I asked why their glossy annual report wasn't printed on recycled paper. It was, they just weren't taking credit for it! Whether you have an environmental mission or not, your constituents will be turning you over and looking at all your decisions - from purchasing to your HR policies and more. Make sure your backside is covered.

Duct Tape Marketing: Inspiration Is the Root of Commitment

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 12:34:14 -0400

Inspiration Is the Root of Commitment

This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

I’m going to continue another day or two on this idea of commitment. Forgive me if you find it tedious, but it’s a really big, really important topic and I think it will lead somewhere helpful – I started with the Evolution of Commitment and A Convenient Truth.

Getting people to commit to spending money with your firm, and perhaps equally as important commit to returning to spend money, commit to passing your message and telling your story, and commit to referring your products and services, has become more complex in this everything is free, information overload world we find ourselves in.

Frog Loop: #CitizenGulf - Unfolding a Social Media Strategy

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 10:30:34 -0400

The CitizenGulf project was just unfolded last week. A national event on August 25 with would-be meet-ups throughout the country designed to create awareness for the Citizen Effect project, seeks to raise funds and awareness for fishing families. The effort also fits the nonprofit's citizen empowering philanthropy philosophy, which is identifying actionable problems and solutions amongst major problems, such as this one -- the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill. How does one go from an oil spill to a national meet-up event? What strategies and tools will be deployed? Here's an inside look on how we scaled from a nonexistent program to a national effort in just three months.

Strategy Begins with Research

We began our effort with a very visible citizen reporting trip featuring Citizen Effect's Dan Morrison and May Yu, Jill Foster, and myself that informed our strategy. Specifically, though it raised awareness via successful CNN iReports, photos, video, podcasts, blog posts, and social network outreach, the effort provided critical insights:

Frog Loop: 2010 Overachiever’s Guide to Year-End Fundraising

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 09:37:54 -0400

Like crime, procrastination doesn’t pay. Literally.

For many organizations nearly half of online fundraising revenue comes in during the month of December. But in actuality it takes months of preparation – building and stewarding an online community, inspiring donors, cultivating them, testing in advance of year-end and analyzing your metrics -- to really make the most of your year-end fundraising opportunities.

The good news is you’ve got several months – four to be exact – to get your fundraising house in order. That’s why Eric Rardin and I co-wrote this Overachiever’s Guide and presented a Care2 webinar on this very topic last Thursday – so we could share nine steps you can implement now to help you raise more money in December.

For instance:

Your Mother gave you sage advice that holds doubly true with your donors: Always say your hellos and thank-yous.

Gettingattention.org: Connect Your Nonprofit to Major News for Marketing Wins – Case Study

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 09:17:57 -0400

Subject: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Visits HealthRight in Vietnam

Healthright-nonprofit-marketing

I was thrilled last Thursday to receive this timely e-news alert from HealthRight International. It’s nonprofit marketing at it’s finest.

This scrappy organization doing fantastic grassroots public health work worldwide had learned just a week prior that it had a fantastic marketing opportunity on its hands: Hillary Clinton had selected its Smile of the Sun center in Hanoi (a model for providing support and advocacy services for children and families living with HIV) as the stage for her signing of a five- year agreement with the Vietnamese government to fight HIV/AIDS.

Healthright’s executive director Mila Rosenthal (in photo in white shirt) is a close friend who happened to be visiting us a few days before Clinton’s visit. She couldn’t leave her Blackberry alone for a minute – not like her – and when I asked why, she shared the news as she continued to work on visa issues.

Duct Tape Marketing: A Convenient Truth

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 07:39:37 -0400

A Convenient Truth

This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

Last week I wrote a post on a subject I’ve been fascinated with of late called the Evolution of Commitment. The general idea of the post was to suggest that with all of this free information and free versions of products available it’s become more challenging to get someone to commit to your offering. I asked readers to tell me what gets them to pull out their wallet and commit and several themes arose.

Duct Tape Marketing: Weekend Favs July Twenty Four

Sat, 24 Jul 2010 10:42:12 -0400

Weekend Favs July Twenty Four

This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week.

I don’t go into depth about the finds, but encourage you check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from Flickr.

Image credit: tm-tm

Good stuff I found this week:
300+ Resources to Help You Become a WordPress Expert – Pretty much more than you need to put yourself into the WordPress business

Frog Loop: Online Fundraising Contests: Effective or Digital Litter?

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 20:38:02 -0400

In the good old Web 1.0 days cause marketing campaigns got a bad rap. Some criticized corporations and said their cause marketing efforts were PR stunts designed to score brownie points with the public. In the Web 2.0 world, cause marketing contests such as Pepsi Refresh and Chase Community Giving have caused a different kind of ruckus. It's called digital litter. Why? Because in cause marketing contests, charities and ordinary citizens are encouraged to reach out to their online networks and ask people to vote for their favorite charities. The charity with the most votes receives cash grants ranging from $10K to $250K+ to help fulfill their mission. Critics say that the obsession with voting is not only cluttering up their email, but their social networking space too.

Katya's Non-Profit Marketing Blog: Thoughts on marketing, millennials and social media

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 16:15:05 -0400

I recently did an interview with Achieve CEO Derrick Feldmann. Achieve helps nonprofits engage supporters. Here are some excerpts!

Duct Tape Marketing: The Social Profile Interactive Tool

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 14:43:33 -0400

The Social Profile Interactive Tool

This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

Email service provider Exact Target has been doing some very valuable research of late called SUBSCRIBERS, FANS, & FOLLOWERS. More importantly, I guess, is that they have been sharing this research and I think you should go grab this fascinating read.

Below is a pretty cool interactive tool that introduces us to the 12 distinct consumer personas they turned up online. Studying this kind of behavior allows you to get to know your audience based on their personalities, not just their demographics.

Eyes on Sales: Ask for the Sale!

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 13:52:32 -0400

A mentor once told me that she never buys from someone who doesn’t ask for the sale. It was an off-the-cuff remark, but it turned into a powerful lesson for me.

Duct Tape Marketing: The Evolution of Commitment

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 08:21:20 -0400

The Evolution of Commitment

This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

Most of us want to sell something – want to get people to commit to plopping down the hard won cash in an exchange of value. That’s certainly one of the reasons millions of business folks have jumped into online networks and social platforms – to gain access to the hundreds of millions that hang out there and prospect for customers.

Eyes on Sales: Value Selling Warren Buffett Style

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 14:19:44 -0400

Matt Drought explains how a Warren Buffett statement about pricing can also be used as a mantra that directly relates to selling, price and value.

Frog Loop: Social Media Nonprofit Benchmarks

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 13:13:58 -0400

One of the biggest questions nonprofits have been asking for the past couple of years, is what benchmarks should they be using for social media? The 2010 Nonprofit Benchmarks Report released by NTEN has some great data that nonprofits can use for guidance.

Nonprofit Social Media Benchmark Data You Need to Know

According to 1200 nonprofits surveyed:

Influential Marketing Blog: What USA Network Knows About Branding That MTV Doesn't

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 13:02:49 -0400

The day that Michael Jackson died, I turned to MTV for the first time in several years. Like others in the so-called MTV Generation sandwiched between the youngest of Generation X and the oldestof Generation Y, I remembered growing up in the 80s with the battle cry of "I want my MTV!" On that day, however, I was greeted not with news coverage about Michael Jackson's death - but with a reality TV series about teen pregnancies. Confused, I shared in a tweet what many of my generation had felt for years:

"MTV is officially irrelevant. Michael Jackson just died and they are airing 16 and Pregnant."

Gettingattention.org: Ask Yourself 4 Questions for Effective Nonprofit Taglines

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 10:57:13 -0400

Welcome to guest blogger Allison Van Diest. Allison, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Blackbaud, prides herself on being not only a marketing “artist” but a marketing “scientist” able to measure the marketing impact. She has some terrific guidance to share with you on shaping a tagline that works…

What has less than 140 characters and tells the world what you’re up to?

Yes, Twitter does. But how do you think the Twitter folks got the idea that a short, punchy phrase or two can be among the best ways to communicate? Decades ago, taglines showed the world that a few well-chosen words can mean more to a reader than pages of advertising copy.

The purpose of a tagline is to create an impression that is meaningful and moving, as succinctly as possible. And in today’s landscape of light speed communication, with constraints on readers’ time and attention, a well-written tagline is critical.

Duct Tape Marketing: A Book You Can Do

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 07:54:13 -0400

A Book You Can Do

This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

Thankfully my newest book, The Referral Engine, has met with enthusiastic support. The book offers a road map for how any size business today can go about building a marketing machine based on deserving and attracting referrals. As many reviewers have pointed out, it’s a pretty darn powerful and enjoyable way to build a business.

Katya's Non-Profit Marketing Blog: Is your tagline a winner? Find out with the Taggies! And make it snappy.

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 21:38:57 -0400

Taglines are tough. Try to sum up your essence in a few pithy words. It’s hard! It feels like telling your life story in a haiku.

So Nancy Schwartz comes to the rescue with her inspiring annual tagline awards - and a pithy summary of how to write a great tagline: make it snappy! Let people know within two seconds what your organization does and how it helps them!

As Nancy says:

Too many nonprofits don’t have a tagline because they can’t craft one that works, or, even worse, they use one that doesn’t work very well. That’s 72% of all nonprofits according to a recent GettingAttention.org survey.

If that’s you, Nancy 2010 Tagline Contest for Nonprofits will inspire you. Nancy is a nonprofit marketing expert, and she’s hosting the third annual Getting Attention Nonprofit Tagline Awards Program (a.k.a. The Taggies).

Influential Marketing Blog: What USA Network Knows About Branding That MTV Doesn't

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 14:59:28 -0400