I’ve finally seen the light on the power and privilege of guest posting over the past month, and it’s been a nice perk getting to write on some really good blogs here lately. I wanted to share a couple of my latest guest posts for you in case you missed it:
Here’s the thing: to say this is long overdue is like saying BP took a little too long to fix the gulf oil spill. I confess, I’ve slacked off on wrapping up my Optimization Summit reviews from March. Most people would probably just have killed the idea at this point, but what I haven’t shared with you yet is simply too good not to get out there, regardless of timing. So, we’ll carry on, wayward sons.
Up next is Mack Collier’s presentation, Think Like a Rockstar. I had heard of Mack before, so I was looking forward to the presentation from the beginning. Mack packed his presentation with more case studies than most Lasik surgeons can throw at you at their “get to know us” seminars, and I loved ‘em. More than that, though, was that his rockstar analogy really sticks. It’s one of those analogies that doesn’t just clarify a topic; it illuminates it.
So far in Season 4 of Mad Men, we’ve already learned how to fire clients like Don Draper. Now, in episode 405, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, Don takes this a step further and shows us how scolding and calling out your clients can actually work in your favor.
The brief synopsis is this: the Honda company is taking bids, and they have very strict rules on how the presentations and courting should work. Don makes it appear as though he’ll be breaking the rules by presenting a full-blown commercial to the Honda execs, which only gets his competition to do the same. However, upon presenting, Don simply calls his Honda audience out that they haven’t even followed their own rules, and he returns their check and turns down their business.
I recently finished up Joel Comm’s book Twitter Power 2.0. The video below gives you the good stuff, but here’s the 10-second version:
Pretty good practical resource for people new to Twitter. Joel does a nice job of really covering the bases and giving good guidelines for setting things up.
If you’re fairly familiar with Twitter already, you’ll definitely want to just skip through quite a few parts. But in the midst of all that are some pretty good morsels to put to use.
The list of third party resources in the back is very helpful.
…. created a Facebook profile yet.
There’s someone who is completely confused by “@” and “#” symbols next to otherwise names and words.
There’s someone who doesn’t know that traditional advertising is dying.
There’s someone who’s never heard of Seth Godin.
There’s someone who has a cell phone but no texting service.
There’s someone who thinks it’s hard to accept credit cards.
There’s someone who thinks building a website costs at least $25k.
What is local search marketing you ask?
Have you ever done a Google search and seen that map in the middle of the results? You know what I’m talking about… it looks something like this:
Want to know how to get to the top of that list?
Read on to learn more about Local Search Engine Optimization techniques, and why it’s important to ‘localize’ your business.
First off, let’s quickly discuss what we mean by local search marketing.
I’ve ranted and warned and cited other experts regarding focus groups before. But now, I can play the “Don Draper said so” card when the idea of focus groups come up (and don’t think I won’t!).
In episode 404, “The Rejected,” of Mad Men, the season finally makes a little progress. Pete’s gonna be a daddy, and he’s finding ways to fully leverage his account with the dad-in-law. Don finally has to face some consequences of sleeping with his secretary. Peggy’s found a new lesbian friend who’s introducing her to all kinds of new things.
All good stuff, but not exactly the kind of meat I’m looking for in terms of what we marketers can actually put into play today.
Chasing greatness can be overwhelming. Pursuing the title of “the best” can be downright paralyzing.
And for some reason, we tend to over-compete with our marketing skills when it’s not even intended to be a competition.
So give yourself a break and just make sucking less your goal.
“Smoking killed far more people than terrorists ever did. It’s just not as dramatic.”
You can thank Seth Godin for that loaded byte. His post on the power of slow change makes a great point: single events don’t crush anything; series of events over time do.
On the one hand, you’ve got something to be happy about: no individual act is make or break for you. So stop treating it that way.
OK, so it’s a little difficult to extract this week’s obvious marketing lesson out of Mad Men. But I think I was able to take something away from it.
Episode 403, “The Good News,” starts giving us a little bit more on each of the characters. Joan wants kids, but her husband’s probably headed for Vietnam. Don’s en route to Acapulco, but just U-turns to New York after finding out Anna has cancer. And Lane is separated from his wife.
