Small Business Commando News

My LinkedIn network recently passed the 1,000th connection.  I’m currently at 1,018 connections.

That’s quite a few, and I wonder what significance it has (if any).

I receive a 5-10 emails and requests each week that originate from LinkedIn.  Generally, they are people seeking advice, trying to sell me something, or wanting to connect to someone else in my network.

I like being well connected, and think that LinkedIn has done a very nice job.  I’ve posted a number of jobs there, so they do make some money from me.

If we’re not linked, drop me a line.  You’ll have access to my network.

The wife, kid and I recently moved back to Chicago after living in California for 20 years. I suppose wanted to beat the rust belt rush that global warming will cause. After our first real winter, I’d say we’re a millennium or two ahead of the crowd.

We built a house in the city, close enough to hear the Cubs fans wailing at Wrigley Field.

One thing I noticed about Chicago is that the houses are long and narrow.

Another thing I noticed is that this is a bricklayer’s town. They use real brick with mortar and everything. In San Diego, brick is actually stamped plaster that is propped up with two by fours.

San Diego brick reminds me of the fake wood paneling on my father’s 1973 Chevy station wagon.

Real brick is expensive, so builders only put the good brick on the front of the house and use cheaper structural brick on the sides and back.

When we built our dream house (not pictured here), my wife selected a brick that is reminiscent of old Boston. It’s a deep red with character and weather marks.

The builder convinced us to pay more to match the color of the side and front bricks so it’s hard to tell where the expensive brick ends and the structural brick begins.

Chicago houses put their best foot forward leading with the good brick out front.

So what does this have to do with small business marketing?

I thought you’d never ask.

When you’re marketing your business on the Internet, you’ve gotta lead with your best, most compelling benefits.

This is particularly important with when marketing with video.

Attention spans are incredibly short, and if you take more than a few seconds to get going, you’ll lose your audience. Your online video is one click away from dismissal.

When you produce a video, grab the viewer’s attention immediately. You have less than 5 seconds before you’re in the danger zone. If you haven’t grabbed attention in 15 seconds, you’re toast.

We’re finding that the optimal length of a business marketing video should be around 30 seconds. If you have to go longer, you’re better off making two short videos that are each focused on an individual topic.

What are your thoughts, comments, questions, or ideas?

I read a lot about marketing and the importance of segmenting your target audience.

I get that, and agree, but it’s really hard to do.

If you happen to be a dentist (an extremely competitive field of medicine), your target audience can change at a moment’s notice.

Take this young chap in the photo.

A few seconds before the photo was taken, he was merely an average prospective client for a dentist.

You know, semi-annual check-ups, maybe some braces, a cavity here and there. Nothing special, right?

But immediately following this photo, he’s suddenly become a highly valuable client needing extensive dental work. Say it with me, “cha-ching!”
This is the customer that you reach using Directional Media also known as “who?” advertising. You do not need to convince him of the value of good dental health, or spend much time on branding with him. You simply need to be the go to provider of services and answer the question, “Who’s a good emergency dentist near here?”

Branding through repeated television, radio and print advertising will all come into plan as this boy makes a decision for a dentist.

If you do not have a currently running search marketing campaign or Yellow Pages presence, all of your previous marketing will go to waste, because the customer with an immediate need can not find you.

Find three places this boy (or his parents) will look to make a quick decision on emergency dental care, and make sure your business is well represented.

Alert blogger Andrew Shotland (not pictured here)

tipped me off to a fascinating article on Slate about the history and challenges of the Yellow Pages industry.

I’ve said it before, but the Yellow Pages is a deeply misunderstood directional advertising medium.

While many (including me) have predicted the demise of the Yellow Pages, there continues to be value for advertisers.

This article dives into the amount of waste and environmental impact, but does not address the positive impact of consumerism and reduced driving when fingers do walking.  The simple fact is that not every uses (or wants to use) the Internet as their sole source for local business information.

Armageddon in Yellow Pages?

I can’t write about Yellow Pages without thinking of the scene in Monty Python’s Holy Grail of the warrior claiming “I’m not dead yet!” as pieces of his body are hacked away.

Ken Clark, a highly respected Yellow Pages insider wrote an enthusiastic rah-rah piece about the underlying strength of the Yellow Pages and how the industry does a lousy job of promoting itself.

I must agree with Ken that the core product is strong, and is perhaps the most misunderstood of all advertising mediums.

According to recent industry-sponsored surveys, usage of old yeller remains steady. While I find this particularly hard to swallow (as I do see falling usage), there remains plenty of usage in the print directories. I imagine that print Yellow Pages would easily come in behind Google and Yahoo in local references and well ahead of MSN and Ask.com.

In the heyday of the Yellow Pages (the period between the US Civil War and the Vietnam War), most people I spoke to claimed that they rarely used the directories. There are about 39,000 industry professionals in the US who beg to differ.

I’ve had the unique vantage point for the last few years working on online marketing to compare rates of return for online advertising and traditional media. I’ve been running call tracking test for a variety of clients, and have continually been surprised at the results.

While I firmly believe that nothing compares to a highly efficient online campaign (I am VERY biased), I continue to be amazed at the call volumes delivered by print advertising.

For years, I would ride along with Yellow Pages sales teams, and nearly every renewal sales call began with the advertisers stating (often vehemently) that he was NOT going to renew the Yellow Pages advertising for another year.

More often than not, the sales call would end with the advertiser buying a larger ad package than the one he wanted to cancel. I mean, this happened so regularly that it was comical.

See, Yellow Pages advertising is not BOUGHT, it is SOLD. The advertiser needs a respectable sales person to relate the value story, calculate ROI, provide guidance on proper tracking techniques and help the business owner make a wise decision.

I doubt that many of the folks on Wall Street have ever had to sweat making payroll as a small business person. I can tell you that it is not fun. That’s especially true when you (as the boss) have the great honor of going without pay, or reaching into your own pocket to ensure that your employees never miss a paycheck.

Yellow Pages is not glamorous. It will never be highly respected as a money maker for local businesses. It won’t win any awards other than ones it bestows on itself.

But at the end of the day, when the dust settles, and all good cliches have been ridden hard and put up wet . . .

The Yellow Pages remains one of the most fundamentally important aspects of a local businesses marketing campaign (alongside with his web site, online video, and search engine marketing).

Nice write up, Ken.

Andrew Shotland (no, that’s not it) wrote a beautiful piece of link bait in his blog on Local SEO.

http://www.localseoguide.com/naming-your-business-with-seolinkbait-in-mind/

He highlights a photo of a business that has a sophomorically funny name.

I would be remiss in my responsibilities if I did not share with you the actual best name ever.

This is a real man who lived in Odon, Indiana, just up highway 231 from my birthplace of Loogootee.  There is a man currently living in Odon with the same name.  As they say, birds of a feather don’t fall far from the tree.
Here it is.

Warning . . .

Parents, chase your children from the room.

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Small Companies Are Finding a Home on the Web - New York Times

An article in today’s New York Times Small Business Section discusses how small businesses are embracing the Internet as an important source of customer acquisition.

They mentioned my company, Weblistic  as a company designed to help small businesses solve these issues.

Although we’re normally very quiet about the secret sauce that helps Weblistic customers achieve superior returns, it is very flattering to be recognized. 

It’s important to view online marketing as a series of blocks that build a solid foundation.  Google PPC advertising, Yahoo, Microsoft, Ask, AOL, Superpages, Video, Mobile, Pay-Per-Call and lead generation sites are all important components and vary in their effectiveness.

The one thing that I see is that the business evolves quickly, and what was effective last month might not have the same power this month. 

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Shares in most Yellow Pages publishers are taking a beating amid a panicked sell off.

See story here about RH Donnelley shares plunge.

Advertisers should not be so quick to abandon the print product.  While usage is declining, it is akin to a melting iceberg.  There is still a lot of value, and the best way to track is to use call tracking numbers and measure the ROI.

Note to investors:  Yellow Pages companies throw off loads of cash.  Most could seriously reduce their overhead and increase cashflow without increasing revenues.

Note to advertisers:  No single vehicle will solve all of your marketing needs.  The money you make from your yellow pages ads is just as green as the money you make from your local online advertising (gratuitous link).

I just finished presenting a breakout session at the International Franchise Association convention in Orlando. I shared the stage with the amazing Gregg Stewart of TMP Directional Media and highly creative, Mark Ludwig of Hot Dish Advertising.

We each covered our areas of specialties, and I did a segment on using video and video sharing to market your business.

It really struck a nerve, and the questions would still be coming if we hadn’t run out of time.

One of the simple tips is to break videos down into easily digestible segments.

You’re far better off producing 15 videos that are each 1 minute in length than using one video that is 15 minutes in length.

When you submit the videos to the video sharing network sites (such as YouTube, Veoh, and AOL Videos), use a very simple phrase to title and tag each video so that Google will know how to categorize it.

A few notes on franchising. . .
Franchising is hot.  There were over 3,000 total attendees at the show representing over $16 trillion of economic impact in the US.  This is an industry that thrives when the economy slows because talented employees lose their jobs and purchase franchises.  These are some very sophisticated and dynamic companies that attract entrepreneurial managers.

I read an interesting article about an Arbitron survey of a rural county in Southern Indiana residents.

It’s interesting to me because I grew up in the adjacent county (Martin).

The telephone survey of 151 households found that 52% had high-speed Internet access at home.

52% ! ! !

The town where I grew up (Loogootee, Indiana) has about 2,400 residents and is the largest “city” in the county.  Then entire county has only 10,000 residents.

A large percentage of the young people move away to find gainful employment.  So, this is beyond an age-driven cultural shift.  When you consider that the public internet emerged in 1995 (13 years ago), this is even more amazing.

Imagine what changes will take place in the next 13 years.

29 percent of Daviess residents shop in Evansville monthly: Marketing director shares results of survey at Rooster Booster Breakfast

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