Posted on Sat, Jun 20, 2009
I was pretty behind on my RSS reading so when I woke up at 7:30am today (yes, on a Saturday), I opened my Google Reader and found over 700 new articles. Slowly I made it through them and actually found some really great articles I was inspired to comment on. I wrote out these very nice comments and then got this staggering message:
Thank you for my comment!?! I just spent 10 minutes out of my busy day to write a thoughtful and intelligent comment on your blog and contribute to your community and you won't even post my comment!
Well, I'm an internet marketer and I know how this goes. Companies are afraid that people will leave negative comments about them. Personally, I say get over yourself. If your company isn't strong enough to take the criticism or maintain transparency then you shouldn't be blogging. That's what blogging is about - stimulating conversations with your community. It's not much of a community if the conversation is only one-sided.
Posted on Wed, May 27, 2009
I don't like to be self-promotional, but I'm so proud of one of my early customers that I had to feature him here on my site. Charlie King is the Director of Golf Instruction at Reynolds Golf Academy and HubSpot just featured him in a video case study.
Charlie's a golfer, not a marketer, but he's achieved amazing results from inbound marketing! Here are some tips that all small business marketers can learn from Charlie:
- Learn from the experts - Charlie is a HubSpot customer, but he didn't just take our word for everything, he went out and did his homework. Charlie is an avid fan of David Meerman Scott and Paul Roetzer so he started reading their blogs and getting their advice.
- Test the waters, and then test again - He didn't know what would work and what wouldn't so he started testing everything -- offers, landing pages, calls to action, social media channels -- to see which ones converted well and which ones didn't.
- Stop focusing on design first - Although he wanted a nicely designed and functional website, he didn't let that monopolize his time. He launched his website on a content management system (CMS) that was easy to use and update. Then, he stopped obsessing about it and started creating content to help him get found online.
- Let go of the old rules - There aren't many golf instructors out there writing e-books, publishing a library of video training sessions, and doing an online tv show. Charlie threw out the old rules (lots of press releases and advertising that he couldn't track) and started with some fresh ideas.
All of his (and his team's) efforts paid off in a big way. They grew their leads by more than 50% in 5 months and now their golf schools are at their highest attendance rates in their history! Congratulations Charlie and the Reynolds Golf Academy team on a job well done!
Posted on Sat, May 23, 2009
I love seeing the kind of results that Google comes up with for broad match AdWords campaigns. I typed in "keyword tracker" because I was looking for online tools that help you track your organic rankings for a set of keywords. I was getting results for keyword tracking, keyword analytics, keyword lists, but then I saw this one. The 7th position showed an ad for the "Best Guacamole Recipe." I think it's time for Avacado.org to review their ppc campaign.
Posted on Wed, Apr 29, 2009
This election year was quite emotional for me and I have been motivated by the message of change. Although 100 days isn't enough to see the change we're all looking for, it's definitely a start. For one, the President (or at least his staff) is blogging and I feel more connected with our government than ever. Here are some photos they shared today on
WhiteHouse.gov to commemorate his journey so far.
Posted on Sat, Apr 25, 2009
I love the Urbanspoon app so much for my iPhone, but they never had anything on their website. Now you can actually embed this code on your own website and search for nearby restauants without your iPhone. Just spin the slot machine and get recommendations for SF Bay Area restaurants. Pretty cool!
Posted on Fri, Apr 24, 2009
I am surprised at how many companies I work with don't actually have an online marketing plan. If you're new to internet marketing or even an old hat, there are a few questions that every marketing plan should answer.
- Where does my web traffic come from?
- How much of my web traffic is converting into leads?
- How much of my web traffic is converting into customers?
- What keywords are used to find my website?
- How much of my web traffic from search engines is brand related? for employees at my company? for information queries?
- What keywords & how many keywords do I rank for in Google?
- What keywords do my competitors rank for?
- How many links do I have and are they high authority links?
- How do I stack up against my competitors online? (links, traffic, thought leadership)
- What topics are being discussed in my industry and how well has my company established thought leadership for those topics?
Once you've answered these basic questions then you can start to strategize about how you're going to drive more traffic and qualified leads to your website. Until you have these answers, you're just running blind. The thing I love most about online marketing is that it's measurable - you can always find a metric to help you gauge your performance.
Posted on Sun, Apr 19, 2009
Happy Earth Week! Today is the first day of Earth Week and events are planned around the country to help reduce our global footprint. Growing up in the Santa Cruz mountains made me a little cynical for Earth Day and Earth Week because we really should be doing our part every day, not just once a year.
But, I know it's hard to make changes and many places just don't have the same culture as California. Take a look at San Francisco for example. The government made a sweeping change not to allow plastic bags at any stores. Instead, they must use biodegradable bags made from corn, despite the additional costs to businesses.
While I'm not suggesting this is the best way to deal with global warming (I'm more of a free market capitalism kind of girl),
as an individual or as a family, there are some relatively easy changes you can make part of your routine that will have a big effect on our environment. Especially if our communities come together and take on these challenges.
My favorite website to help with this is CarbonRally. You can join and create a team to track your progress. I've committed to the following challenges this month:
- Sit, Click and Deliver - Shifting one purchase to online and avoiding a car trip to the store will reduce your CO2 emissions by 7.4 lbs
- Bring Your Own Bags - By re-using grocery bags, you will reduce your CO2 emissions a total of 6 lbs by the end of one month
- Setback Payback - Using a programmable thermostat for 1 month will eliminate 200 lbs of CO2 and save $32
There are many more challenges like communiting to work one day per week (I work from home so I do this every day!), using a low-energy dishwasher (check, just got one), and changing out your lightbulbs to CFL's (check again).
What challenges will you take?
Posted on Thu, Apr 16, 2009
Dear Fraiche,
My husband and I are begging you to please come to San Jose. We met Jessica a few months back and asked her if you were opening up any new locations. At the time we lived in Palo Alto and now we've moved to San Jose. She said they were looking at San Mateo (who's in San Mateo?!?). We suggested Santana Row!!!
The frozen yogurt phenomenon has hit the Bay Area hard, and, low and behold, Pinkberry came in and stole your thunder. We were there last weekend and the line was 30 minutes long! I hate to say it, but...we told you so.
We've tried everything, Frozos, the Willow Glen Ice Cream place, Trader Joe's Soy Mango Vanilla, even that crappy looking store on the corner with the penguin. When we found Pinkberry we thought we had a viable solution - no soy and not quite as good, but the pomegranate was a decent option. Now we find out that Pinkberry isn't actually natural or fermented with that special bacteria, and it's second ingredient is sugar.
We're begging and pleading...please open up in the South Bay.
Sincerely,
Erin Colbert
>> Comment below to sign my virtual peititon to tell Fraiche you want them to come to the South Bay.
Posted on Sun, Apr 12, 2009
Aqui's Cal-Mex is my new favorite quick service restaurant. Located in downtown Willow Glen (with 2 other locations in San Jose & Campbell), Aqui's is the perfect place to have a healthy meal when you don't want to cook or just a chill night out. They've got a great outdoor space which has been packed the last couple of visits because of the spring weather. There are plenty of heaters and a beautifully landscaped Spanish-style courtyard with a water fountain.
They have nightly specials, but the standard is an organic California-style Mexican cuisine, where entrées are all under $12. Last Friday night we decided to take our friend's advice and try the Industrial Strength Margarita-Sangria Swirl. It was awesome! 
Unfortunately for me 1/2 a glass and I was definitely feeling it. We also had the bread pudding for dessert but I wouldn't recommend it again. It was good, but more bread than pudding and not quite what I was expecting, or hoping for.
For dinner I had the chicken avocado wrap with sweet corn salsa and a side of the crab tortilla soup. Warren had the Cuban-style enchiladas with fried plantains inside. We loved our own dishes but found ourselves sneaking tastes throughout the night because they were both so tasty.
What do you think of Aqui's? What's your favorite location?
Posted on Sat, Apr 11, 2009
Using HubSpot's software I help companies set up lead tracking on their websites so they can see their entire sales funnel -- who is coming to their website, where are they coming from, and tracking the conversion rates to leads and customers. When reviewing their web forms to track leads, many ask if they can filter out all of their competitors and non-corporate email accounts like Gmail, Yahoo, Mac, and Hotmail from accessing the content.
My concern is that setting up all this special filtering and restricting so many users from receiving certain offers (a whitepaper download, access to attend a webinar, or launch a free trial of software) is preventing qualified leads from moving forward in the funnel.
The best case scenario is that you've made it harder for your competitors to access your content. But, the reality is, if they really want it they'll just go sign up for an email address you didn't block or ask their friend to download it from their account.
Worst case scenario is that you've now lost a potential customer because they didn't want to use their corporate email.
My advice, spend more time creating remarkable content and a world wide rave rather than trying to keep everyone away from it.