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| Volume 9, Issue 7 |
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In This Issue:
 The equity factor at work
Smart presentations: Remember this
It's OK to be boss - and why
Productivity coach's corner: Reflect on one habit to improve your productivity
Do you know how to lead and manage your department?
Seven steps for improving your brand
 Social network marketing: What works?
 Embrace the Lemon: Strategies for helping a campaign go viral
How to use social media to generate buzz for your event
 New search marketing research: Marketers reveal what works now
 A two-step process for launching successful email
Does your email need a frequency adjustment? Ways to tune the dials
 Turning web browsers into buyers
Breaking up…with customers
Living with a BlackBerry addict
 Eleven ways to boost your energy
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The equity factor at work
Let's play a game. Here are the rules: We'll be asked to split a sum of money. I get to make the split, and you get to choose whether to accept or reject the split. And if you reject it, both of us will walk away empty-handed.
Rationally, I should realize my advantage and offer a lopsided split in my favor and you should accept the uneven split—because any amount of money is better than nothing. Right?
Wrong. If we're like everyone else who plays the game, we'll end up with an even split. Here's why...
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Smart presentations: Remember this
The greatest truths are the simplest.
Often, they touch what we know or believe, but with an economy of words and a clarity that cuts through all the B.S. and makes us realize the wisdom. Here's one that should be burned in the brain of anyone and everyone in business: Logic leads
to conclusions. Emotion leads to action. Makes sense, doesn't it? Think how much better...
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It's OK to be boss - and why
Since 1993, I have studied the experience of thousands of managers at all levels in a wide range of industries through workplace interviews, focus groups, polls, questionnaires, and intensive seminars. Our research confirms that across today's workplace there is a shocking and profound lack of daily guidance, direction,
feedback, and support for employees from those who are their immediate supervisors. This is what I call the "under-management epidemic."
In today's high pressure workplace, employees need a boss who sets them up for success every step of the way and helps them earn what they need. In our training programs for managers, we focus intensively on back-to-basics management. We teach managers to practice what I call, "the art of real empowerment"—through regular
guidance, direction, and support. Here are eight steps we taught to some 30,000 managers in about the last five years to help them get "back to the basics":...
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Productivity coach's corner: Reflect on one habit to improve your productivity
Every day, productivity and energy is lost not because people manage their time poorly. Instead, their productivity "habits" slow them down and make things harder than they need to be.
At the end of a typical workday, do you reflect on how much you've accomplished? Or, on how much further you have to go? Of course, there is power in focusing on a goal—on what is not yet finished; athletes and other professionals do it all the
time. However, if you're constantly coming up short or consistently putting things off to the last minute, it may be time to look at your habits and behaviors...
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Strategically speaking: Do you know how to lead and manage your department?
Staff units should not be given a free pass when it comes to strategic thinking and planning.
Problem No. 7: Thinking we know how to lead and manage our unit or department.
Best Practice: A three-year business plan should be a requirement for all staff departments and line business units. Most of us began our careers as individual professionals, no matter our level of education, and then later moved into a management role. The question as to whether or not we have the skills and
competencies to manage a group of people called a department with employees is a different question than just our professional/technical knowledge. These competencies to lead and manage a group or team of employees to achieve objectives are not automatically a set of skills all of us have been trained to have. Peter
Drucker once said the only place where leadership was taught in schools was at the service academies—Army, Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard (state-run versions as well—Virginia Military Academy, etc.). For instance,...
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Seven steps for improving your brand
You already know brand loyalty affects the bottom line, but did you know a stale brand can also influence it?
Markets change. Priorities change. Fads come and go. Periodically re-evaluating your brand's relevance and perception in the marketplace gives you the opportunity to recommit to its core values, thus ensuring the it's delivering on its promise.
Effectively managing your brand is an ongoing process, but the following seven steps will simplify it tremendously...
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Social network marketing: What works?
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"Viral campaigns truly leverage the network aspect of these social networking sites."
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When marketers want to reach users of social networks such as Facebook, MySpace, or Cyworld, they have two choices: buy advertising or start a viral campaign.
New research by Harvard Business School professor Sunil Gupta suggests that viral may be the way to go in these connected worlds. But first it's important to understand both who influences purchase decisions in online communities and which groups of users can be influenced...
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Embrace the Lemon: Strategies for helping a campaign go viral
Viral marketing campaigns have quickly become one of the most simple and cost effective ways to increase brand awareness.
But viral methods can be chaotic, and mastering strategies for controlling viral campaigns has become the Holy Grail for marketers. While there is no proven process for viral marketing, there are several strategies that can position your campaign for viral success. At Worktank, we recently launched a grassroots, viral campaign
called Embrace the Lemon. The motivation behind launching it was to inject pragmatic positivity into the world during a time of constant bad news. We wanted to bring out stories about overcoming adversity that would give others hope and ideas about
overcoming their own adversity. The strategies we followed can be applied to any viral campaign...
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How to use social media to generate buzz for your event
Michael Stelzner is an experienced Internet marketer, but even he was surprised with the results from the marketing campaigns that he and his team implemented for their Social Media Success Summit.
In the excerpts below, Michael talks about the tools they leveraged to generate buzz and build momentum to put on a successful event...ideas you can replicate for your own marketing campaigns...
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New search marketing research: Marketers reveal what works now
SUMMARY: Search marketing is evolving at a rapid pace, and we’ve got the latest data on how search marketers are adapting to the changes.
Download this 15-page PDF excerpt from MarketingSherpa’s 2009-2010 Search Marketing Benchmark Report for six new data charts and highlights on major trends, including:
- The growth of paid click volume
- ROI vs. spending trends
- The blurring lines between display ads, search, and social media...
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A two-step process for launching successful email
Email is one of the easiest, most affordable, and most effective marketing tools out there.
Nonetheless, launching an email-marketing program can seem a daunting challenge, especially for time-strapped entrepreneurs and small-business owners. You're so busy running your business, how can you find the time to figure out what to say and how to say it? The key is to just get started and improve as you go, so I've put
together some tips for finding the right tone and content to help you hit the ground running. That's Step 1...
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Does your email need a frequency adjustment? Ways to tune the dials
What to send, and how often, are the top questions facing any email-marketing-program manager today.
Yet, all too often, frequency for the sake of frequency trumps relevancy in this channel. It's a classic catch-22: Email works so well that it runs the risk of undermining its own potential. Email programs tend to start with slow and cautious frequency, produce easy return on investment (ROI), and become stars. Management
assumes that if some email is good, more must be even better. As with all good things (wine, chocolate, and pizza come to mind), increased consumption eventually leads to a point of diminishing returns. The correlation between cost and benefit is neither linear nor constant...
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Turning web browsers into buyers
Strategies to reduce shopping-cart abandonment and keep prospective customers on your site longer.
Imagine you owned a grocery store in which roughly half the people who loaded up shopping carts suddenly left them full in the aisles and took off without buying a thing. Most merchants would consider that a crisis, but on the Web, it's the norm. The median abandonment rate is 40 percent for consumer-products companies and 58
percent for service companies, according to a recent survey by MarketingSherpa, a research firm based in Warren, Rhode Island. During periods of economic decline, shopping cart abandonment tends to spike, because potential customers jump to other sites to check prices or simply decide not to buy...
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Breaking up…with customers
Here at VerticalResponse, because of the nature of our low-cost, easy-to-use e-mail marketing solution, we tend to cater to a lot of small businesses. We have a pretty low risk product with a free online trial. Because of this, we attract all
walks of life on the business front from the mom and pop shop, to a company that has 500 employees and umpteen thousand customers.
Over the course of the eight years we’ve been in business, we’ve had to “break up” with a bunch of customers for various reasons, and you know what I’ve come to terms with? It’s OK. Not every customer is right for every business. It’s really all about what type of company you’re setting out to be, what your core values are, and how
you handle the situation. It doesn’t matter what your business is -- you could be an online software company or even a dentist’s office -- from time to time you’ll have to deal with an unwanted customer. I’ve outlined a few break-up scenarios we’ve gone
through over the course of our eight years that will hopefully shed some light on why it’s OK to walk away...
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Living with a BlackBerry addict
Meg Cadoux Hirshberg writes about how her husband, Stonyfield Farm's Gary Hirshberg, never lets his BlackBerry leave his side.
Her name is Bond Girl. My husband, Gary, refers to her simply as his BlackBerry, but I know better. Bond Girl has become the awkward third wheel in our relationship. She sleeps on Gary's bed table and wakes us each morning. When he reaches to silence her, he can't resist scrolling down her sleek silver body to
check for last night's e-mails. Bond Girl joins us when we dine and sits on the sidelines at our kids' soccer games, purring randomly. She knows all Gary's secrets and contains all his memories. She alone knows where he'll be today, tomorrow, and ever after. My normally calm husband turned quietly frantic when he misplaced Bond
Girl a few months ago. She turned up after a 15-minute search, and I joked that it would be interesting to see just how long he could live without her. Not missing a beat, Gary replied, "I think you just did." Over the 25 years that Gary has been in business, we've marveled at each new technology. I remember my amazement at our
first PC in 1985 and first fax machine in 1987. Then cell phones came along. But none of those affected the texture of our relationship the way Bond Girl has...
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Eleven ways to boost your energy
How to use nutrition, exercise, and stress relief to refuel your body and energize your mind.
Fatigue is one of the biggest problems of modern life. But most of us deal with the problem in all the wrong ways. We want a magic bullet--an energy bar or supplement or tonic that will make us feel like a superhero. So is there an easy and quick solution to our energy crisis? Yes and no...
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