Moller Marketing Has Moved

We have made things official and moved to www.mollermarketing.com - Go visit us and make comments about Creative Advertising Ideas

Interviewing Competitors as Brand Recognition?

"If you are small and niche I don't think it hurts to link out to competing sites or even to feature their brand or their owners as content. You can get exposure and work your way up the social ladder by siphoning off their brand value. But I think there is far more value in featuring them and recommeding them than in having them mentioned in an ad. Interviewing people, for example, is an easy way to get great content and build mindshare." - Aaron Wall, www.seobook.com

Wow, this is an interesting, yet compelling strategy. As many of you know, one of my sites is www.clogon.com where I sell clogging shoes and taps. One of my competitors is Trevor Dewitt, owner of www.clogdancing.com. They don't sell clogging shoes but are #2 for traffic in the clogging industry (right behind ClogOn.com!) It would be interesting to hear his reaction when I call and ask to feature him as a "Featured Fellow Clogger". I'm sure it will get a great response and, like Aaron says, "...get exposure and work [my] way up the social ladder by siphoning off their brand value."

What do you all think? Have you seen any results from this type of marketing?

Narrowing Down Your Niche vs. Finding Suppliers

So which comes first: narrowing down the niche idea or finding suppliers? This is a question that is coming to my attention more and more as I teach others how to build their own internet businesses.

Narrowing down the niche:

• You want to have high demand (see www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion) - at least 16 searches per day to make the idea even worth your time
• You want to have minimal competition (use google and type in allintitle:"any keyword phrase" to see what the real competition is for Search Engine Placement - my target numbers are 30,000 competitors or less; this usually means that within 2-4 months I may be close to the front page of Google if I'm aggressive with other marketing strategies
• As your narrowing down the niche, you don't want to get "over excited" because the other speed bump you may run in to is....Finding Suppliers

Keyword Phrase-----digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion-----allintitle:"keyword pharse"
-----------------------------target: 16/day+ ----------------target: less than 30,000

clogging -----------------137.0/day ------------------------------37,100
clogging shoes -----------68.0/day -------------------------------730
clogging cue sheets ------23.0/day -------------------------------285

Finding Suppliers - Why not look for these first?

• There are many ways to find suppliers: contact them directly, talk to competitors, use tools like TheShipper

As I think about it, why not look for suppliers first and then, when suppliers are found, think about keywords and phrases you can optimize with? To me, this seems much easier and a better way to manage time.

What are your thoughts?

How to optimize with video...

I had a client ask about marketing with podcasts or video. I did some research and this is what I found - not new news, just some help.

1. Make the video quality stuff. If it's not good, it's probably not going to be worth the time invested.

2. Put the site name in the video. (Not all video farms allow links.)

Here are a few sites you can share your video with:

youtube.com
myspace.com
google.com
spikedhumor.com
revver.com (this one pays you)
metacafe.com (this one too, but I'm yet to make a dime on it)
stupidvideos.com

Here are a few websites to propagate your video:

digg.com
milkandcookies.com
reddit.com
stumbleupon.com

Do any of you have anything to add?

Linkbaiting from Aaron Wall

Link Baiting, or linkbaiting, is one of the waves of the future for SEO and SMO. Below are some things I really liked from www.seobook.com.

Link Baiting
The idea of link baiting is to create a piece of content which is centered on a set demand from a specific audience. Questions to ask yourself are:

• Who is the target audience?
• Why would they care?
  
• Why would they want to share your ideas?
  

Some common link baiting techniques

• Talk about a specific target audience.
  
• Give people a way to feel important about themselves, someone they care about, or something they feel should be important.
  
• Take recent events and scale them out to others in your community.
  
• Be controversial.
  
• Be complete thorough.

Mine, Mine, Mine!

• People like to view themselves as being important.
  
  • Many bloggers search for links to their blogs on Technorati or Google Blog Search multiple times each day.
    
  • Calling out specific people, especially with humor.
    
  • People are more likely to believe and spread messages which reinforce their opinion.
  
  
• Community involvement is important to help others identify with and feel ownership in your link bait.
  

Just Ask!

• Ask for feedback from people who may be interested in helping you improve your idea or helping you market it.
• Asking people for feedback can help others feel ownership in your idea, and is a way to pitch them on your idea without looking sleazy pitching it.

• Some social news sites allow you to place voting buttons on your site. Do so on your most important ideas.
• Have a friend or yourself submit your best ideas to the most authoritative and relevant social news sites.
  
  • Ensures your story has a title that is easy to vote for.
    
  • Ensures your story is submitted at an appropriate time.
    
  • If you do not do it soon after mentioning a story on your own site someone else may submit for you, using a dumb title or dumb post content.

Leverage, Leverage, Leverage
Use the connections you have.

• Call in favors from people you helped in the past.
  
• Incorporate community ideas into your idea.
• Leverage friends and contacts via instant message and email.
• Build accounts on social news sites: www.delicious.com, www.digg.com, etc.

To read more, go to Aaron Wall's article about linkbaiting...

What I've learned from Sponsorship and Advertising Sales...

Since forming a partnership with Highlight Sports about a year and a half ago, I've learned many important things about Sponsorship and Advertising Sales. Here are a few ideas:

- Instead of talking about price, talk about "return on investment" or what they want out of the sponsorship (some may not care as much about ROI - they just want to show their support and brand their company name)
- When the question is asked about cost over the phone, set up an appointment to meet in person if possible
- Ask questions about what the company does for marketing
- Take notes
- Pick their brain about how what we are doing could benefit them, if not now, later
- Tie their needs back in to the presentation
- KISS: keep it simple stupid
- Listen for buying clues
- Don't burn bridges: what may not work now could always work later if you leave a good impression.

Additional Notes I took on my learning curve:
- Mention competitors as options for sponsorship
- Use phrase like "We are considering your company as a potential sponsor..."
- Generally better to start a little high with numbers: you can always negotiate down, but not up
- Be willing to negotiate price and tools provided
- If they are hesitant with the pricing, ask something like: "Is there some things I could rearrange to make that package a better fit for you?"
- Show clients past work we've done

There are many different approaches that can be taken; these are some of the things that have worked for me. More to come....

Anyone interested in Sponsorship Sales?

Here are a few things I've recently come up with about Sponsorship and Advertising Sales. Read and enjoy...

- Focus on Controllable Factors: attitude, enthusiasm, how prepared you are to answer specific questions

- Open Well: Get the prospect listening, liking you, and thinking, "Tell me more." Make sure they see the sponsorship opportunity you're offering. You have approximately 45 seconds to accomplish this phase.

- Stay Customer-Focused: First ask questions about the prospect's objectives. Make sure the presentation relates directly to their dominant reason for buying. Listen for all buying cues, diagnose objectives, prescribe optional sponsorship solutions that have been proven to maximize return on investment. (Do a survey later.)

- Stress the 3 Strongest Benefits: People buy benefits, not features. It's not what it is, it's what it does. What you are selling are consequences, so stick to the high points; don't overwhelm prospects with too much detail.

- Be Sincere: If you're truly committed to engaging in transactions that benefit everyone involved (win/wins), your good intent will shine through. No one cares about how much you know until they know how much you care.

- Master the Fundamentals: know your prospect and a bit of information about their business and industry. This knowledge combined with a mastery of selling skills and thorough knowledge of sponsorship packages will increasing closing rates.

I've found that, by implementing these things, advertisers I've worked with have been a lot more prone to re-invest with us at a later date. Here's some feedback generated from a local event: Xtreme Danzz Competition and Highlight Sports Feedback

What are your thoughts?