Be current

Create a contest that that is relevant to the current events. For example you could create a holiday contest with a virtual Easter Egg hunt. Hide Easter eggs on your website each day, for a period of time and invite your Facebook followers to join the contest. The first player to find an egg and click on it wins a prize. Perhaps it could be gift cards to the surrounding businesses within your community or your own products. All of the clues and hints to find the eggs could be posted on Facebook to drive people to your site!

People love photos

Run a contest using photos of your products, or business. Ask Fans to snap a picture of your products / business (or better yet, of them using your products!) and post the photos on your wall. As a reward give those that have posted the photo a gift card as a thank you.

Another option is to have Fans post a photo of themselves, could be seasonal such as Halloween or of them using your product. Then ask FANs to vote on the best photo and give a reward for those voting and a reward for the best photo.

Make them guess

Run a guessing game contest the same day of every week. The guessing game could be a word jumble of local businesses or landmarks, a picture of a local place where people guess where it’s taken, or old standby of how many items are in the container.

Ask for insight

Ask Fans to share tips on how they do things. The tip with the most unique comments or likes could win a prize. An example could be “what are your tips to growing a great vegetable garden”. Keep it light and fun, not to technical.

Favorite quotes

Ask fans to submit their favorite quotes. This is simple and can be applied to just about any business. The person who got the most likes or comments on their quote wins the prize.

Thank them for “likes”

Run a weekly contest where you’re giving away a prize for those Fans that have Liked something on your wall. Each week, put all the names of the “likers” in a list and do a random drawing to pull names.

Facebook offers a lot of ways to connect with customers, Friends and fans. Please share your Facebook contest success stories in the comments.

So what is your website saying to clients, potential clients, and prospective employees? Do you even know?

Here are some practical reasons why your website IS important:

It speaks on behalf of your company in ways you can’t.

The first thing I do when I hear about a company that I want to learn more about is go to their website, and so do most people. It has been said that when someone goes to a company’s website, they draw an opinion of that company within the first 3-5 seconds. The opinion could be good, or it could be bad. Nonetheless YOU have the ability to positively affect that opinion with an effective website.

It’s a marketing tool available 24/7.

Your business development folks may tell you they work 24/7, but they really don’t. Make the most of this tool by understanding what your target audience is really looking for. It gives them the ability to learn more about you anytime, anywhere. And also update the site frequently so people have a reason to come back to learn more about you and what you can offer them.

It should be a destination point for marketing efforts

At Three Hats Marketing, when we help clients with their marketing, their website becomes a great foundational tool for our marketing efforts because it offers the prospect a place to go to learn more. That effort on the part of the prospect is then tracked, which makes our marketing much more measurable and effective. How are you using your website? Is it just an online brochure? Or are you using it to the fullest potential?

It’s extremely cost effective

Unlike printed marketing pieces, your website can change constantly. And as a result, it should be the most recent information available about your company. If you don’t have resources internally to handle your website, consider contracting with a company like Three Hats to handle it for you.

Now, go ahead, visit your site and see what you are saying to the world. See if it represents your company well. If not, put together a plan to fix it. Could be one of the most important marketing efforts you do.

I think of myself as pretty “handy”. I enjoy doing small projects around the house but certainly know I have limitations when it comes to building things (especially when electricity is involved!) I’m lucky to have most the tools and actually know how to use the majority of them. I have multiple hammers and have driven a few nails over my 32 years.

Most of us have at least some building tools – like a hammer, and even though most would say they can use a hammer to hang a picture, or build a flower box, few would say they could use it to build something significant like a home. That requires a set of skills and experience many of us don’t have. I learned the lesson early in life when I misused a hammer and almost knocked myself unconscious… and I still have the scar to prove it!

Email Marketing is no different – maybe no physical scaring, but if you try to do it yourself you could be putting your business in harm’s way. Email marketing uses a tool, email – which is probably even more prevalent than a hammer these days. To do email marketing right, it requires a set of skills and experience many business owners don’t have – much like building a home. Just because I know how to use a hammer, I certainly wouldn’t try to use one to build my own home. In the nearly 10 years that I’ve been a marketer, I’ve found that Email Marketing is one of the most difficult aspects of marketing. It is extremely challenging – even for professionals that do it on a regular basis.

So why do so many people believe they can do email marketing without the necessary skills and experience? Based on the numerous conversations with clients that have tried it themselves, we believe it is due to a lack of understanding. There are simply hundreds of potential points of failure with email marketing. To be blunt, even though you know how to use email, or even one of the many “self service” systems available now for email marketing, you should not do your own Email Marketing unless you are an experienced professional. Your business may not be able to recover from the proverbial scar that could be made if you make even one mistake.

If not done properly, one simple email could cost you thousands of dollars in fines, damage your brand, harm your client relations or even lose customers.

Below are just a few of the finer details that many are not aware of with Email Marketing:

Email Permission:
Did you realize that if you send a mass email to someone without their permission, you are actually breaking the law? By far the most important aspect of email marketing is the concept of permission. Businesses sending emails without the recipients “permission” is SPAM and could be in violation of the CAN-SPAM Act, which means the sender could be subject to penalties of up to $16,000 for each separate incident. Just because you’ve exchanged business cards at a networking event, doesn’t give you the legal permission you need to add that person to your email list.

And even if you have a legitimate email list, there are a number of technical qualifications you must adhere to – like including your snail mail address in the email.

Email Design:
The design of your email plays a huge role if your email is received, opened and read. Did you know that there are over 18 mainstream email systems used and that the emails you send look differently in each of these various programs? Have you ever seen your email marketing in AOL? Yahoo? Gmail? Outlook 2003? Outlook 2007? Mozilla? If I am speaking a foreign language to you right now, then you may be sending poor-looking emails to your clients and prospects without knowing it – even if you are using a reputable “self-service” system.

Email Spam filters:
Are you aware that there are 11 mainstream Spam filters and that each have different definitions as to what looks like Spam? Do you know that the wrong characters and words in your email can affect whether your recipients even receive your email? If not, you are probably wasting money on emails that aren’t even being delivered to your recipient’s inbox – let alone being read. These are things that “self-service” systems typically don’t help with either.

Email Content
Once the email is delivered in the recipient’s inbox, the next most important piece is the subject line. Do you know what makes compelling subject lines – causing people to want to open and read your email? Are you aware that if your subject line is too short or too long, fewer people will open the email? Do you understand how images work in emails between email programs? Do you know when to use images and when not to use them? Were you aware that approx 30% of email recipients don’t even know that images are disabled in their email system – meaning they are not seeing your images?

Email Measurement
Do you understand keywords, hyperlinks, landing pages and other aspects in your content that make email marketing effective and measureable? Do you know the best days and times to send your emails to your target audience to assure the greatest open rate? Do you know what audience segmentation is and how it can add to your email effectiveness?

Much like building a home, email marketing requires the necessary skills and experience. If you think email marketing can be and effective marketing tool for your business, you need to leverage a professional who has spent the time learning the “ins and outs” of this marketing tactic.

Three Hats Marketing has helped many businesses effectively use email marketing – and we can help yours as well.

We’ve got the scars to prove it!

Correct or not, it has presented an anology that has been used in business over the years and I would like to make the point we see many businesses doing this with their marketing as well.

Here is a common conversation we have with business owners.

3hats: “So tell us what marketing activities you have done in the last 6 months.”
owner: “Well I had an ad in the local coupon pack.”
3hats: “Did it work for you? What was your goal for doing it?”
owner: “I don’t know….”
3hats: “What was your reason for doing it?”
owner: “I don’t know… I guess because my competitor did it.”

Often times business owners take actions with their marketing efforts solely based upon the actions of their competitors. Why is that wrong? Well, even though you are competitors and may offer customers similar products or services, there are many more things different between your businesses. Potentially your budget, your ideal customer, your geographic target area, your capacity, your services, your profit margin on certain products or services, your business model, your business goals, your vision, etc.

Instead, we advise companies to stick to the following for their marketing activities:

Follow your goals

Understand what you are trying to accomplish with your business (as well as your marketing) and stick to it! Set goals for yourself and determine the best ways to accomplish them in the most cost effective way. Know what your competitors are doing, but try not to let that influence the decisions you are making for your business – because as we pointed out above, you may not understand why they are making those decisions and as a result, may not be the right ones for you.

Follow your audience

Make sure you know where your ideal client is looking for the type of products and services you offer, and how they like to be communicated to – then go it ‘em. Be creative in how you reach out to them. Understand under what circumstance do they have a pain you can fix with your product or service and reach them then.

Follow your plan

Almost weekly businesses are presented with new marketing opportunities and new ways to spend their money. Develop a plan and weigh each marketing tactic against that plan. Is this the best way to spend these dollars? Do I know what I can expect as a result of spending this money? Does what I expect align with my business goals?

A little bit of thought and a little bit of discipline with your marketing can go a long way to help you reach your business goals. If you would like to discuss marketing planning or evaluate some of your marketing tactics further, please give us a call.

What is a brand?

Most people I talk with immediately assume that a companies logo is their brand. I think that is a common misinterpretation of the word. I believe that a logo is simply a graphical representation of how the company sees the brand. Brands are not concrete like a logo – brands are feelings and emotions. I have heard it said that “a brand is the emotional and psychological relationship you have with those you come in contact with.”

I would also argue that what your company does and look like can affect your brand. I find myself drawing conclusions about companies in less than 3 seconds based upon an emotional or psychological connection I have with them – through signage, their website, an interaction with an employee, a commercial, their logo and more.

So can a “person” have a brand?

Brands are typically reserved for discussions around companies, but what about people? Can people have a brand?

Well let me answer that question with two words: Tiger Woods. When you read his name, did it immediately draw an emotion or psychological reaction for you? I’m sure it did, and certainly his sponsors realize that it doesn’t evoke the same “emotional and psychological response” it did 6 months ago due to his recent issues in the news. Companies do realize that people have brands and they sometimes invest millions in them.

What are the benefits of a brand?

Branding offers you and your business both internal and external benefits. Externally, you create an identity that can connect with people – basically you form emotional relationships with those you come in contact with. Why is that important? Because in large part, a person’s buying decisions are based upon their emotional connection with that product or service.

Internally, your brand can serve as your conscience, or internal compass. By understanding your brand, it can help you make business decisions both operationally and in a marketing capacity.

So what about that homeless person?

OK, so we now have discussed that a brand is an emotional and/or psychological relationship you have with those you come in contact with and that “people” can have a brand. But is a personal brand only reserved for that “high ticket” celebrity or can even a homeless person have a brand?

Well, let me ask you this question: when you drive to the bottom of the ramp and see a person standing there asking for money, do you draw an emotional or psychological feeling about them? I do. Maybe it is just my marketing background that causes this (I doubt it), but I draw conclusions about their situation based upon how they are dressed, what their sign says, what they have with them, and the look on their face. All in about 3 seconds.

People make this “3 second” determination about celebrities, about homeless people, and everyone else including you and the company you work for. The million dollar question is “are you and your company paying attention to this fact?” Does your logo evoke the “feelings” about your brand you want? Does your website? Does your employees?

These pieces are a huge part of successful marketing. If you or your company need help in sorting through these issues – give us a ring. We promise to give you more than 3 seconds consideration.

Tom Smith is the founder of Trendstream, a research consultancy that specialises in providing research and consultancy on social media, web and mobile. He formerly worked as Head of Consumer Futures at Universal McCann.

Social media continues to grow globally in terms of adoption, usage, interest and impact in a massive way. It’s undeniably changing the way that content and information work particularly in terms of the publishing of consumer opinion. This has transformed the way that consumers relate to brands and the way that brands should operate, driving direct interaction, transparency and a more consultative approach.

However, we still operate in a system defined by the old media world and consequently big brand involvement is still in the main tentative and sporadic. From my experience of trying to get big brands to embrace the social revolution, there are a number of reasons why they have yet to embrace the real opportunities that involvement can deliver:

1. Social Media is often viewed as just another marketing channel: It is of course so much more; it is a completely different approach to interacting with consumers and customers. Of course, you can advertise in a social media environment, but the true return on investment comes from developing communities, creating content to be shared, and talking and listening directly with consumers.

2. It does not fit into current structures: True social media falls somewhere between marketing, PR, communications, content production and web development. No one is quite sure whose responsibility it is and who should ultimately deliver their organisation’s social media strategy.

3. Communities and content are global: Users of social media connect, consume, and share content globally with little care for international borders. Marketing and PR departments and objectives are set up nationally or regionally. Very few organisations have a truly international structure and perspective.

4. Social media needs a long term approach: To build community, distribute content, or get people actively involved in an application takes time. Marketing and PR work on short time frames and are wedded to sets of individual campaigns or short term objectives. Social media is not a campaign, it’s a permanent approach.

5. No guaranteed results: You book advertising and it’s guaranteed to work. For, example you book a web campaign on page views and you keep going until you reach your goal. This is what advertisers call a push medium, i.e. you choose when people see it. Social media is a pull medium; usage and interaction is totally dependent on the user choosing to do so. If it’s not relevant or lacks creative brilliance it will not work. This makes it hard.

6. The metrics are new: Companies are used to the big numbers of advertising, but these numbers are different. Advertising is measured in booked exposures, i.e. page views, while social media is measured in direct interactions, i.e. number of friends, number of views or number of users. These numbers will always be smaller, but not necessarily any less measure of success.

Read the full post at Mashable.com

My furnace was out. And it was 4:30 am.

I ran downstairs and the thermostat said 58 degrees and the first thing that went through my head was the cost I was about to incur by calling for heating and cooling service in the wee hours of the morning.  So I did what any man would do – I flung open the furnace door to see if I could fix it myself.  And after a few minutes of staring at the endless wires and ducts, I quickly realized that I was fooling myself to think there was anything I could do.

So I made the call.  Now earlier in the year I signed up for a service plan with a local heating and cooling company.  So my call was to them.  I knew they offered priority attention to service plan customers as well as a service call discount.  What I didn’t expect though is what happened next.

I received a call back almost immediately from the technician on call.  While on the phone I explained what was going on.  He proceeded to ask me a series of really good questions and was actually able to diagnose my problem over the phone.  He then directed me on how to fix it and save a service call.

You can assume it was a simple fix if I was able to do it, but I can’t help but to reflect on his willingness to spend 25 minutes on the phone with me at 4:30 in the morning.  When we finished the call, I told him how much I appreciated him doing that.  He certainly could have just said “I am on my way” and charged me a service call and his hourly rate.  But instead – in his words – “I just treated you like I hoped someone would treat me.”

And therefore, one overnight service technician just got his company my commitment for another year’s service plan agreement at renewal time, my “word of mouth” recommendation to everyone I meet, and a blog entry from this local marketing professional recommending Mowery Heating, Air Conditioning and Plumbing to everyone that reads his post.

You wonder what good customer service can do for your company?  Now you know.  It will always be your best marketing tactic.