Ideas for Business

Note from Ashley: Please welcome this guest post from Shawna Kenyon, an Associate Account Manager with TopRank Online Marketing.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, if that’s true then how many is an Infographic worth? Infographics are all the rage right now, and it’s not surprising B2B marketers are paying attention. When people talk about infographics we often hear the phrase ‘data visualization’. That’s because we have the means to transform information that could otherwise be deemed bland or boring, into something creative and compelling.

There is a method to the madness.  According to studies, 83% of learning occurs visually whereas people only remember 20% of what they read.  In a world of information overload it is essential that we present our customers with information that is easy to read, digest, and share.  Below I have included 4 Tips that will keep you from going off of the data visualization deep end.

#1 – Walk Before You Run

It’s tempting to jump head first when creating an infographic, but that’s how projects get messy and end up behind schedule.  In order to effectively create and market an infographic I recommend answering some basic questions that will set your team up for success.  These questions could include:

• Who is the target audience?
• What is the response you’re looking for?
• Is the infographic going to speak to a specific service or niche, or to the brand as a whole?
• What format will you use?
• What color themes best represent core messaging?

Once you can answer the questions above, the next step is to consider how the data you’re trying to convey can be represented visually. And remember, this is an INFO-GRAPHIC so there needs to be a mix of useful information and eye-catching images. Too much of one or the other can leave the reader feeling disenchanted and confused.

#2 – Know the Goal

By now we all know that goal setting and working to attain goals it is the best way to accomplish desired outcomes. Infographics are no different. We rarely succeed with one hand tied behind our back so do yourself a favor and understand the ‘why’, before tackling the ‘how’. When setting goals ask yourself:

• What are you trying to achieve with this information?
• Is the goal inbound links for SEO?
• Increased traffic?
• Social buzz?
• All of the above?

#3 – Share and Share Alike

It’s no accident that companies of all industries and sizes are tackling social media head on. It works. And it works on a number of levels. Now is not the time for tunnel vision. Get the word out and make it easy on your readers to do the same.  Some of the steps you can take to increase sharability include:

• Adding social share buttons (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google +)
• Know when to publish your content. For instance avoid publishing on Sunday mornings and holidays. Friday afternoons are also not ideal as people are getting ready for the weekend.
• Use calls to action. Though it may seem obvious, your number of shares can increase dramatically when you tell readers how you’d like them to share your content.

#4 – Promote, Promote, and Repeat

If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? If an infographic is published, but nobody knows how to find it, does it have an impact? My guess is you already know the answer to that question. An infographic is like any other piece of content; it needs to be promoted in order to be successful. There are dozens of tactics you can implement to increase your infographic’s visibility online. Here are just a few:

• Create a blog post
• Schedule Tweets that speak to specific
• Break it out into a PDF and promote on Slideshare
• Promote via email blast or email marketing campaign
• For 11 Ways to Promote your infographic be sure to check out this article from Lee Odden

In the end there are no hard and fast rules to creating and infographic. However, there are many blog posts, presentations, and yes infographics out there that can take the fear out of creating your own infographic.  I’m curious to know what experience you have had with infographics or how you feel about infographics as a consumer.  What do you think is the most important part of an infographic?  Why do you think some infographics succeed, while others fail?  Do you have a favorite infographic that you would like to share with our readers?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. | Infographic Feeding Frenzy: 4 Tips for Wading the Waters of Data Visualization | http://www.toprankblog.com

Have you ever felt that your marketing strategy was beginning to take on some unhealthy habits or perhaps fattening up in all the wrong places? Perhaps it’s been awhile since you took a long hard look at your strategy and looked at it for what it should be, an ever evolving and improving means of communicating with your customers.

Keeping pace with quickly changing Internet marketing trends can be exhausting, and frankly overwhelming. However, it is essential that your team offers new and inspired ideas to your prospects and customers. Why? Because if you don’t, someone else will.

2012 has many changes in store including: Over ¾ of the population will be online, smartphone shoppers will reach 68.6 million, and more than 90% of social networkers will be on Facebook. What should that tell you? It’s time to get off the couch and start strengthening your marketing strategy to better target your customers.

#1 – Stretch Your Content

Whether you’re new to marketing or are a marketing expert this is one step you should never skip. Avoid becoming overwhelmed by simply taking the time to stretch out your current marketing assets. How can this be done?

• Repurpose existing blog posts as articles or social media posts
• Curate content from other news sources to share with your network
• Drive traffic to existing content by creating multiple varied social media posts

#2 – Don’t Skip Your Warm Up

I’m sure you’ve all heard the expression “walk before you run”. The same can be true when creating your online marketing strategy. If your strategy is based solely on ideas your own ideas then are you really considering the needs of your customers? Before we jump into the 5k marathon it is important that we step back and identify some vital information about our customers. This can be accomplished in many ways including:

• Identify the habits and preferences of your customers online
• Run A/B testing on campaigns to help formulate your hypothesis

#3 – Take Your Marketing Strategy For A Jog

After identifying what strategy you believe is best suited for your customers it’s time to test. You may find that what you thought you could do, isn’t quite working out and your plan needs tweaking. Take this opportunity to make changes while your plan is still in the planning phase, you wouldn’t want to make a run for it and pull a muscle – that could put you out of the game for weeks!

#4 – Add Variety To Your Marketing Approach

The dreaded marketing rut, every marketer has been there at some point. You may have had success with particular content types and built your strategy around that one tactic. Today we must rely on not only creating content that our customers will enjoy, but creating it in the format that they are most likely to consume. Popular forms of content that should be a part of our marketing hub and spoke could include:

• Video
• Images
• Status Updates
• Microblogging
• Case Studies
• Articles
• Audio
• Blogs
• Webinars
• Testimonials
• Buying Guides
• E-Newsletters

#5 – Avoid Cravings & Falling Back into Bad Marketing Habits

This is another step where having the support of your colleagues is important. Perhaps you had a bad month: blog readership is down, engagement on social networks just isn’t taking off, or your clients are unhappy with results. Instead of reverting into your former bad habits, this is an opportunity for growth. If something isn’t working, change it or determine what small tweaks you can make in order to increase your chances for success.

#6 – Monitor Progress

Measurement is one of the most important exercises in your marketing mix. Without proper measurement, you will be ineffective in scaling and duplicating your process. Set a series of goals and benchmarks for your team and track which bad habits you’re losing, as well as the strength and momentum your revitalized marketing plan is gaining.

#7 Don’t Expect Results Overnight

No matter what the late night television infomercials tell you, it’s impossible to lose weight or become healthy overnight. Taking your marketing strategy to the next level is a journey that will help your team build process along the way. The time that it takes to generate results will vary from company to company depending on your industry, if you are B2B or B2C, and who your audience is. Don’t become discouraged, if you stick with your newly energized marketing strategy you WILL see results.

I’m well aware that many of these “exercises” are easier said than done. However, I am a strong believer that it’s time for us to get tough and make a change. Deciding to make a change, is half the battle. I’m curious to know: What have you found is your biggest marketing hurdle?

Gain a competitive advantage by subscribing to the
TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.

© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. | 7 Exercises to Revitalize Your Marketing Approach | http://www.toprankblog.com

If you’re old enough to remember the classic movie, Cool Hand Luke, there’s a moment when a rebellious prisoner played by a young Paul Newman refuses to “go along” with prison rules despite some grueling punishment. The warden, played by Strother Martin, made the famous observation about a lack of communication.

The failure to communicate is probably the most important cause of failure with client and internet marketing consultant relationships. Everything from managing expectations to performance reporting are affected. One of the most common outcomes from a lack of communication in a consulting engagement is the failure to implement.

Tweet This: What’s worse than bad social SEO advice? Failure to implement the good advice that gets results.

There are many reasons for a failure of implementation when it comes to online marketing tactics and the fault lies both with consultants and client side marketers alike. Here are a few common reasons for each. Hopefully you can identify whether your situation falls into one of these categories so you can avoid wasting time, money and lost revenue growth for all.

Marketing Consultant Implementation Fails:

• Selling Incomplete Expertise – Not understanding what it really takes to implement a certain type of consulting can result in the agency not properly preparing the client for what their obligations are for successful implementation. “Fake it til you make it” is a common practice with consultants and agencies breaking into new areas (like all the SEOs getting into content marketing now or PR/Ad/Interactive agencies getting into SEO a few years back) and a common casualty is the inability to follow through.
  Lesson: Consultants need to develop processes for new areas of expertise, bring in outside consultants to build the practice area expertise and be up front with potential clients to ensure adaptability and to manage expectations. The other lesson is to simply not over-state capabilities and sell things you don’t know how to do.
• Failure to Assess Capabilities – A review of both internal and client side responsibilities for successful implementation is critical. A company that says they want to develop a content marketing strategy and hires a consultant who says yes without identifying the company has no intention of hiring writers or tasking employees with content creation is a major fail for all.
  Lesson: Understand the essential processes and tasks involved with new consulting engagments and identify the capabilities of anyone at the company who may be potentially involved with implementation. Confirm in the agreement who will do what and what is expected.
• Failure to QA & Manage Tasks – While many client and consulting engagements begin with good intentions all around, projects that take months for discovery, strategy and implementation can go off track if they are not managed properly.
  Lesson: Consultants must manage and share a timeline. They must also require time to oversee implementation and ongoing QA of content, SEO and social consulting implementation because it is inevitable that client staff or other consultants will implement partially, differently than intended or overwrite good work 6 months down the road.

Client Side Marketer Implementation Fails:

• Lack of Consultant & Tactical Due Diligence – Companies that hire consultants will get more value for their investment when they have some awareness of how the tactics they’re hiring for actually work. Too often companies hire social media “brandividuals” or chase after a shiny social media object tactic without really having an idea of how things fit in their marketing plan.
  Lesson: Either some effort is put forth to gather that knowledge through internal efforts or education is made part of the consulting engagement.  In particular, SEO and social media brandividuals and hot social apps in the press need to be vetted for real-world expertise, experience and practical application for the business.
• Mis-Alignment of KPIs vs Business Goals – Imagine a company hiring a consultant to grow a Facebook fan page to 10,000 fans. The consultant delivers. But then the company fires the consultant because revenue didn’t increase.
  Lesson:  A responsible marketer should identify measurement goals that account for progress AND business outcomes. Consultants can view a goal like fans, followers or rankings as easy money but the connection to business value must be made. This one is on both client and consultant. Corporate marketers must be able to answer “why” when they identify performance measures that do not have a direct impact on business objectives.
• Lack of Influence and Internal Support – Ambitious marketing managers who have become aware and educated about the significant impact of an integrated SEO, Social Media and Content Marketing program may get budget to hire a consultant only to discover that PR, Social, Content, Legal, HR and other parties that need to be involved are “not on board” with key implementation approvals and tasks.
  Lesson: As research is conducted into what is involved with bringing an outside consultant into the mix, it’s important that client side marketers map out who they will need to work with internally to get tasks implemented. The time to grow that internal network of “friendlies” should begin long before the engagement begins.  Identify how those peers will benefit from participation and cooperation with your consulting investment. Make sure they have a clear picture of the benefits for themselves, their group/department and the organization overall.

Of course there are more ways to fail internet marketing consulting implementation than the short lists above, but the key is responsibility about capabilities, planning, managing expectations, allocating appropriate resources and most of all: communication.

It takes two to tango and if a consultant is involved it will inevitably be deemed the consltants fault. That’s why it’s essential for online marketing consultants to properly identify key characteristics of companies that are capable of implementing or able to adapt or adjust to enable proper implementation. In the end, we all want a 360 degree win and that requires better communication during prospecting, kickoff, engagement and with ongoing consulting.

If you’re a corporate marketer, what are some of the fails you’ve seen from consultants that have caused failures of marketing implementation?   Your turn consultants: What implementation fails have you experienced and how did you overcome them?

Gain a competitive advantage by subscribing to the
TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.

© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. | Classic Marketing Consulting Fail: “What We Got Here is a Failure to Implement” | http://www.toprankblog.com

Infographics – Cute, Cool or Creepy?

They are everywhere. I mean it. It’s not safe to surf the waters if the Internet anymore. You can’t hang ten to your favorite blog, ride the curl of your Facebook page or even lazily drift on over to Twitter without bumping into them. Oh, sure, they’re so cute and colorful, and some even think they are cool, but to me, those infographic things are just plain creepy. With all their eye-catching colors and sappy little clipart stuff, they suck you in, drag you under and then take a huge bite out of your time and energy. Unleashed upon us by the likes of Reddit and Digg – alright not really, but they are the cause of it you know, needing something quick and quirky to grab onto in the hopes of making everything viral – infographics have become a school of sharks upon the calm sea of websites. Every blogger with a clipart collection, every media site with an agenda and every content creator with a “great new thing” is using infographics to get their message across. And I find that creepy and not cool at all. Here’s some reasons  why.

1.)     Diminishing the message. The current trend in infographic design seems to be the cuter, the better. I’ve seen sinking ships used to graphically illustrate the bankruptcies of large, once respected corporations. I’ve run across coffee cups with cream posing as pie charts to illustrate effectiveness and usage of various workplace strategies. And the best one so far has to be the one I just saw today that showed smiley faces in various states of distress emphasizing different woes and weaknesses affecting many firms’ IT departments in today’s economy. Do we really need all these cutesy, light-hearted images to discuss rather serious problems? Have we become that moronic and weak-minded in today’s world? I hope not!

2.)    Over saturation. I discussed in the first paragraph how infographics are pretty pervasive on the web. What I didn’t mention is that I’ve recently seen them in my doctor’s office, in the grocery store and the garden supply place. It would appear that they’ve become land sharks, too. And this causes me to wonder if, by their very popularity, they aren’t somehow a bit less effective, or have the potential to become that way. Will we become so used to seeing them that we no longer “see” them? Like the street signs in our neighborhood or the clippings and photos we stick on the front of the fridge, will we skim over them, as they visually melt into the surrounding landscape?

3.)    Message accuracy. I see so many of these infographics touting “facts” without any citations or resources to back up those facts. And that creeps me out, too. Without knowing the sources of the info on the graphic, how do I know whether or not those facts are true, and whose version of the truth is being portrayed. Call me a cynic, but as a long time marketer, I know how things can be spun to mean almost anything you want them to mean.

I suppose I should take a moment here and apologize to the fans and creators of all these infographics swimming around. I don’t mean to offend, but I feel a bit as though these things are the Great Whites of marketing and advertising. They may look harmless, but they have a whole lot of teeth to bite you with. And they leave me feeling a bit like a bucket of chum. Or Dennis Hopper’s boat. Tell me when it’s safe to get back in the water, please!