Don't be a Marketing Moron.
Let me start by saying. I am a marketer, and I am a moron……
I once had a boss back in the boom boom 90’s that used to storm into the office and yell “are you in sales or are you a marketer”…….he thought that a sales person who used email and not the phone was a marketer. He was pretty much right, he would storm in and I would grab for the phone and once he left the office, go back to the way I was doing things……I was one of the top sales people, but I was a marketer. If he only knew….
Marketing is the way to reach your audience and get them to call you, and if they don’t call you, at least soften the blow for the hard working folks in the sales department. It also creates brand recognition and makes people think of you when they need whatever widget or service you offer.
Do you doubt this, when you need to blow your nose, what do you “need”, you “need” a Kleenex. That is marketing. We all know that Kleenex is a brand, not a thing. The thing is a facial tissue.
Marketers, including me, are morons because we have not yet gripped the full potential of technology to help us achieve our goals and become Kleenex. The power is right in front of us, it is free or low cost and requires nothing more than a strategic plan.
Let’s take Hotels and CVB’s for example (I can pick on them for a bit, why not). I was speaking at a conference a year or so ago where all of the hotels and destinations in attendance claimed that the best way to reach their audience was through their snazzy brochures and cold calling. I calmly told them, that all of their brochures, when they reach my desk, go straight into the recycle bin because the information was already too old to be relied upon and did not give me the information I needed anyway. It is way to old school, and you should not be printing that much anyway.
Cold calls, we stopped cold calling years ago. No one wants to get those calls. When was the last time you took a sales call from someone and when was the last time you actually purchased something from a cold call. So went the door to door Fuller Brush salesman, so goes the 1980’s way of contacting prospective clients.
The information I need, is the information I need and I if I have to look at one piece of information that is not related to the information that I need, it is not what I need…….does that make sense?
I explained to the hotels in attendance, that when a client calls me and wants to do a program in say, Virginia Beach, the first thing our planners do is hit Google, then the CVB and then other places we look to for online information. Online is where we get the information we need, when and how we need it. We also get the most up to date, fastest turn around for our clients. I have not picked up a “printed” brochure in years. I have picked up the phone to call, but I did not get your number from the yellow pages, I got it from your website or a directory.
Here is where marketers are morons. They do not take the steps to make sure that they are where they need to be online. They need to take a day and develop a strategic plan for how they are going to be found on the internet. Even a rough draft is better than no plan and if you do not have some type of plan, you are being hosed by the competition because they are way ahead of you.
You, as a good marketer, should be looking to list on EVERY directory know to man that is remotely in the industry. Not the directory that gets the most hits…..that is only part of the puzzle. You need to be listed on EVERY directory.
Here is the reason. One, say a directory only gets 10 hits per day, and a marketer passes on it in favor of directory that gets 10,000 hits a day. Now, one of those hits was from a meeting and event planner looking to book a total buy-out program that would have netted the hotel or destination over $1,000,000. Oooops, you just screwed yourself because you were too lazy to fill out one more online form because the directory was not popular enough for your ego. Bad marketer, lazy marketer…… no plan.
The second reason that you want to be listed on every directory known to man is that it helps with Google and how important you are to the search bots. The more positive, inbound links that you have from sites in the same industry, the more important the bots think you are. Therefore, you come up higher in the Google search rankings. Make it to the first page of Google and you are golden, you will probably be beating business away with a stick. My people don’t look past page three. If you are a destination in the southwest and you Google “meeting destination southern US” and you don’t come up, you may not be totally doomed, but at the very least, you have made yourself very hard to find. Scratch that….. You are doomed.
Now there are a million ways to get to page one on Google and no matter what anyone tells you, there is no exact science to get there. You can spend a million dollars (literally) on fancy SEO consultants who will probably do a really good job of getting you there, but this is not an article for a CVB, Hotel or Destination that has a million bucks to spend, this is an article for the folks with a limited budget who really want to be found and work their way to that million dollar budget.
For smaller players to be found on the internet there are ways that you can avoid being a moron. Smart marketers realize this and are doing it; the morons are the ones sitting on the sidelines waiting to get fired.
This list is by no means accurate or complete, it is simply a rough “guide” on what you can do to position yourself better to be found on the internet, and this is the 21st century way for meeting and event professionals to reach out and learn more about you and get the information that they need NOW, which in this age of need it yesterday meeting planning, is the best way to secure business.
So, here we go, in no particular order, here is your rough draft:
• Get listed on every directory that has to do with the meetings and events industry. If you have to pay 20, 50 or 100 bucks, do it. It is a simple thing, just time consuming. Remember that the one directory listing you pass on because it is 50 bucks may be the one that nets you the largest return (our biggest client was the only lead we have EVER received from one of the directories we list on, was the $50.00 worth it. Yes….I just renewed for another year).
• Join every social network you can, both personally and as a business. This allows for at least two touch points in every situation (think about it, you now have twice the opportunity to be found).
• Get your staff to join all of the social networks as well. You are multiplying the touch points.
• Participate in the social networks you join. If you join PlannerMix or LinkedIn or MeCo, be active. No one is saying you have to be on 24 hours a day, but devote a small portion of each day to going in and participating by answering questions, giving advice or even asking questions.
• After you join the Social Networks, lay off the marketing…..be an expert about your subject, don’t just keep rehashing the “we have a special deal this week for meeting and event planners”. Tell us what cool things are happening in your area. Tell me that they just opened a Kinko’s next door to your property or about the new 5 star restaurant in town.
• Get a twitter account and use it. I follow about 300 hotels……do I follow you? Who am I going to think of the next time I need meeting space in southern Florida?
• Start a blog, and post as frequently as you can.
• Find a way to become an expert and get mentions in the industry press. This is not as hard as it seems. When you are an active member of the social networks, reporters and editors frequently look for story ideas or people to quote. This one is primarily tied to Google. It helps you become positioned as an expert and “get found”.
• Share the wealth. This one is often overlooked, but is one of the most important things about the internet. After you get listed in Directory A, link back to them. This helps them come up higher in Google (remember those positive in-bound links) which increases your chances of being found. Don’t worry about the competition being found, they are already being found. Start an “industry links” page on your website, if you work for a destination or chain that has rules against this, simply mention it in your blog….”Hey, we are now listed on Directory A, check them out, here is the link”. Get mentioned in an article, do the same. “Hey, I got mentioned in an article, I am great….here is the link”
• Go back to step one and repeat, every day. I did not say all day, simply follow the steps every day.
This is not a one and out proposition, it takes time and time and even a little more time. You will find however, that as the weeks go by, the inbound traffic to your website starts to go up and the phone rings a little more often than it used to.
We did a test a few weeks back, to see how many smart marketers there were and how many morons there were out there. We offered virtually free or totally free listing packages on PlannerWire, the PlannerWire Directory and on PlannerMix just to see what would happen. With the exception of a few, most failed.
I like to test the power of the internet, so here is another test……
Go to www.plannerwiredirectory.com, click the get listed tab and choose the “Showcase” level listing option, right now it says $249.00 per year……put in all of your information. When prompted, enter the promo code “nomoron”, it will make it free for the first 10 who list. After that, the next 20 will get a full listing for $20.00 for the year……now you have started the process.
Go and find other directories, or check back here in a couple of weeks, I am going to start to put together a comprehensive list of all of the industry directories I can find……smart marketers make all of our lives easier.
I wonder how many of you will actually do it…or are you just lazy.
I once had a boss back in the boom boom 90’s that used to storm into the office and yell “are you in sales or are you a marketer”…….he thought that a sales person who used email and not the phone was a marketer. He was pretty much right, he would storm in and I would grab for the phone and once he left the office, go back to the way I was doing things……I was one of the top sales people, but I was a marketer. If he only knew….
Marketing is the way to reach your audience and get them to call you, and if they don’t call you, at least soften the blow for the hard working folks in the sales department. It also creates brand recognition and makes people think of you when they need whatever widget or service you offer.
Do you doubt this, when you need to blow your nose, what do you “need”, you “need” a Kleenex. That is marketing. We all know that Kleenex is a brand, not a thing. The thing is a facial tissue.
Marketers, including me, are morons because we have not yet gripped the full potential of technology to help us achieve our goals and become Kleenex. The power is right in front of us, it is free or low cost and requires nothing more than a strategic plan.
Let’s take Hotels and CVB’s for example (I can pick on them for a bit, why not). I was speaking at a conference a year or so ago where all of the hotels and destinations in attendance claimed that the best way to reach their audience was through their snazzy brochures and cold calling. I calmly told them, that all of their brochures, when they reach my desk, go straight into the recycle bin because the information was already too old to be relied upon and did not give me the information I needed anyway. It is way to old school, and you should not be printing that much anyway.
Cold calls, we stopped cold calling years ago. No one wants to get those calls. When was the last time you took a sales call from someone and when was the last time you actually purchased something from a cold call. So went the door to door Fuller Brush salesman, so goes the 1980’s way of contacting prospective clients.
The information I need, is the information I need and I if I have to look at one piece of information that is not related to the information that I need, it is not what I need…….does that make sense?
I explained to the hotels in attendance, that when a client calls me and wants to do a program in say, Virginia Beach, the first thing our planners do is hit Google, then the CVB and then other places we look to for online information. Online is where we get the information we need, when and how we need it. We also get the most up to date, fastest turn around for our clients. I have not picked up a “printed” brochure in years. I have picked up the phone to call, but I did not get your number from the yellow pages, I got it from your website or a directory.
Here is where marketers are morons. They do not take the steps to make sure that they are where they need to be online. They need to take a day and develop a strategic plan for how they are going to be found on the internet. Even a rough draft is better than no plan and if you do not have some type of plan, you are being hosed by the competition because they are way ahead of you.
You, as a good marketer, should be looking to list on EVERY directory know to man that is remotely in the industry. Not the directory that gets the most hits…..that is only part of the puzzle. You need to be listed on EVERY directory.
Here is the reason. One, say a directory only gets 10 hits per day, and a marketer passes on it in favor of directory that gets 10,000 hits a day. Now, one of those hits was from a meeting and event planner looking to book a total buy-out program that would have netted the hotel or destination over $1,000,000. Oooops, you just screwed yourself because you were too lazy to fill out one more online form because the directory was not popular enough for your ego. Bad marketer, lazy marketer…… no plan.
The second reason that you want to be listed on every directory known to man is that it helps with Google and how important you are to the search bots. The more positive, inbound links that you have from sites in the same industry, the more important the bots think you are. Therefore, you come up higher in the Google search rankings. Make it to the first page of Google and you are golden, you will probably be beating business away with a stick. My people don’t look past page three. If you are a destination in the southwest and you Google “meeting destination southern US” and you don’t come up, you may not be totally doomed, but at the very least, you have made yourself very hard to find. Scratch that….. You are doomed.
Now there are a million ways to get to page one on Google and no matter what anyone tells you, there is no exact science to get there. You can spend a million dollars (literally) on fancy SEO consultants who will probably do a really good job of getting you there, but this is not an article for a CVB, Hotel or Destination that has a million bucks to spend, this is an article for the folks with a limited budget who really want to be found and work their way to that million dollar budget.
For smaller players to be found on the internet there are ways that you can avoid being a moron. Smart marketers realize this and are doing it; the morons are the ones sitting on the sidelines waiting to get fired.
This list is by no means accurate or complete, it is simply a rough “guide” on what you can do to position yourself better to be found on the internet, and this is the 21st century way for meeting and event professionals to reach out and learn more about you and get the information that they need NOW, which in this age of need it yesterday meeting planning, is the best way to secure business.
So, here we go, in no particular order, here is your rough draft:
• Get listed on every directory that has to do with the meetings and events industry. If you have to pay 20, 50 or 100 bucks, do it. It is a simple thing, just time consuming. Remember that the one directory listing you pass on because it is 50 bucks may be the one that nets you the largest return (our biggest client was the only lead we have EVER received from one of the directories we list on, was the $50.00 worth it. Yes….I just renewed for another year).
• Join every social network you can, both personally and as a business. This allows for at least two touch points in every situation (think about it, you now have twice the opportunity to be found).
• Get your staff to join all of the social networks as well. You are multiplying the touch points.
• Participate in the social networks you join. If you join PlannerMix or LinkedIn or MeCo, be active. No one is saying you have to be on 24 hours a day, but devote a small portion of each day to going in and participating by answering questions, giving advice or even asking questions.
• After you join the Social Networks, lay off the marketing…..be an expert about your subject, don’t just keep rehashing the “we have a special deal this week for meeting and event planners”. Tell us what cool things are happening in your area. Tell me that they just opened a Kinko’s next door to your property or about the new 5 star restaurant in town.
• Get a twitter account and use it. I follow about 300 hotels……do I follow you? Who am I going to think of the next time I need meeting space in southern Florida?
• Start a blog, and post as frequently as you can.
• Find a way to become an expert and get mentions in the industry press. This is not as hard as it seems. When you are an active member of the social networks, reporters and editors frequently look for story ideas or people to quote. This one is primarily tied to Google. It helps you become positioned as an expert and “get found”.
• Share the wealth. This one is often overlooked, but is one of the most important things about the internet. After you get listed in Directory A, link back to them. This helps them come up higher in Google (remember those positive in-bound links) which increases your chances of being found. Don’t worry about the competition being found, they are already being found. Start an “industry links” page on your website, if you work for a destination or chain that has rules against this, simply mention it in your blog….”Hey, we are now listed on Directory A, check them out, here is the link”. Get mentioned in an article, do the same. “Hey, I got mentioned in an article, I am great….here is the link”
• Go back to step one and repeat, every day. I did not say all day, simply follow the steps every day.
This is not a one and out proposition, it takes time and time and even a little more time. You will find however, that as the weeks go by, the inbound traffic to your website starts to go up and the phone rings a little more often than it used to.
We did a test a few weeks back, to see how many smart marketers there were and how many morons there were out there. We offered virtually free or totally free listing packages on PlannerWire, the PlannerWire Directory and on PlannerMix just to see what would happen. With the exception of a few, most failed.
I like to test the power of the internet, so here is another test……
Go to www.plannerwiredirectory.com, click the get listed tab and choose the “Showcase” level listing option, right now it says $249.00 per year……put in all of your information. When prompted, enter the promo code “nomoron”, it will make it free for the first 10 who list. After that, the next 20 will get a full listing for $20.00 for the year……now you have started the process.
Go and find other directories, or check back here in a couple of weeks, I am going to start to put together a comprehensive list of all of the industry directories I can find……smart marketers make all of our lives easier.
I wonder how many of you will actually do it…or are you just lazy.
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