Fred Abaroa

In Gladwell's The Tipping Point he states, "The Band Aid solution is actually the best kind of solution because it involves solving a problem with the minimum amount of effort and time and cost." The band aid referred to here is Word of Mouth. Of course it has to be the right mouths. Gladwell refers to these people as Connector, Mavens and Salesmen. The Connectors are people who "link us up to the world". They have social networks in the hundreds. They seem to know everyone and everyone knows them. The Mavens are "information specialist". They accumulate knowledge especially in the marketplace and share it. Finally the Salesmen are "persuaders", charismatic people with negotiation skills. Your assignment is to make a list of Connectors, Mavens and Salesmen. Find out their speciality and match it with the products your marketing. You should always have a relationship with these band aids. Ask their advice and keep them up to date. Don't force it, this will not work at all. The word of mouth campaigns are most effective when they are natural. Gladwell's book talks in a lot more detail about context and other points. Take a read and put it to good use. Don't just read but do.

Fred Abaroa
The Marketing Imagineer
Fred [@] TMIFred.com

Twitter:
@FredXpress
@TMIFred

Blogs:
www.TheMarketingImagineer.com
Podcasts:
WordOnTheTweet.net
MakingMountainsOutOfMoleHills.com

Ok so I wasn't really elected but I still feel special. What am I talking about? A fairly new set of Social Media tool which makes going places a bragging right. The two apps I know of are Foursquare and Gowalla. In a nutshell whenever you go to the gym, restaurant, sporting event, mall, etc.. you "Check-In" and you are awarded a prize. The software also tells you who else in your network of friends is there and who has been there the most. The person who has been there the most is the Mayor. I know it may not sound that fun at first but after a while it becomes a competition and encourages you to visit places you may not have previously. Here is where the marketing opportunitycomes in. A savvy business owner can monitor this competition and post the current top ten. I would put it on my Twitter and facebook pages. I'd taunt the number 2 and 3 to get them to beat number 1. As the competition heats up others who have these apps get informed and start to wonder about this place that has so many people trying to become number one. As you can now see the top three have become accidental salesman for your establishment. What a great way to create buzz and it is easy.

PS I just listened to a Marketing Over Coffee episode. They had even more ideas.

So what are you waiting for? Make a Poster and let the competition begin! (Need help getting started? You know how to find me)

Fred Abaroa
The Marketing Imagineer

fred [@]TMIFred.com

Twitter:
@FredXpress
@TMIFred

Blogs:
www.TheMarketingImagineer.com
Podcasts:
WordOnTheTweet.net
MakingMountainsOutOfMoleHills.com

I hear this statement a lot, so what is my answer??? It could! Let's take a look at a couple "It"s. For a lot of businesses, especially B2B, Facebook is the wrong choice. (Isn't it) You have to build yet another website, sort of. You have to provide content. Finally you have to build up your fans. The later being the hardest thing to do. I looked at one of the largest fan pages for a business, Best Buy, and it is over a million. Of course one TV commercial has a lot more than that. Marketers will go as far as telling you, "The Facebook fans chose to be a fan and are thus loyal." That may be true but it still takes more than that million for a big company like Best Buy. Still we are not talking B2B.

Another "Wrong Choice" for B2B is Twitter. All the same things I talked about with Facebook apply here, build the landing page, which is probably only seen once. Provide content, only 140 char at a time. And getting people to follow and pay attention to what you tweet.

By now those of you who know me are wondering if this is really Fred writing this. Those of you who really know me and have heard me speak know that I have found great success with social media for myself and clients. Yes those of you who paid attention to my talk know that it was twitter itself that worked for me but the publicity I could generate by showing it works.

Yes it is the free publicity. Dell made headlines telling the world sales have been up since using twitter. But was it really twitter or the fact they bought alienware and other factors. Your success in sales is due to people knowing you exist. The right people. A good piece of publicity goes a long way. Especially with the internet where a story can resurface over and over again. Every year around July 4th Costa Vida is mentioned in the news. Why you ask? Well one of the competitors of Nathan's Famous Hot Dog eating contest is Tim "Eater X" Janis the Costa Vida World Burrito Eating Champion. I have my google alerts turned on to my clients and the competitors and it always amazes me how many times I see the same story surface. I am also seeing my tweets, linkedin updates, and Facebook status coming back at me through other peoples blogs. You see many blogs now have running Facebook and Twitter updates on that site. Search Engine bought hit it the right time and your mentioned all over again.

So here is my advice. Measure your sales now. Start up a twitter and Facebook presence. Market the heck out of your product. Then measure your sales again. Take the best looking number and tell the world since using social media sales have been up. Since reporters are still looking for this kind of story, they'll jump on it. Especially if you say you never thought B2B could benefit from social media!

Do I even need a call to action here? If this makes sense and you need a marketing, talk to me.

Fred Abaroa
The Marketing Imagineer

fred [@]TMIFred.com

Twitter:
@FredXpress
@TMIFred

Blogs:
www.TheMarketingImagineer.com
Podcasts:
WordOnTheTweet.net
MakingMountainsOutOfMoleHills.com

Some years ago I had to take a motorcycle class to renew my motorcycle license. One of the most astonishing things to me is that the instructor said over 75% of all accidents happen right in front of you. He went on to state that we could prevent this if only we would pay more attention to what is right in our view. Hmmm! Now that is a thought. What have we been missing when we are looking in the periphery or dwelling on the things behind us? What is ahead of us or in plain view that we are missing? Is there something more obvious that we need be doing, than what we are doing now? Makes you think doesn't it. Something I have heard time and time again is to include "A Call For Action" in our marketing campaigns. That seems to be obvious and right in front of us but surprisingly absent most of the time. I have been sometimes criticized but mostly praised for asking for the business. I don't know who started this notion that people get offended when they are marketed to. If it is a really bad marketing effort I can see a few, but most of the time we expect it.

Want to know more? I have lots of ideas about "Looking Forward" Marketing,

Fred Abaroa aka “CostaVidaFred”
The Marketing Imagineer

fred [@]costavidafred.com

Twitter:
@FredXpress
@TMIFred

Blogs:
www.CostaVidaFred.com
Podcasts:
WordOnTheTweet.net
MakingMountainsOutOfMoleHills.com

Seriously I had a really good topic but forgot what it was. This article is memory assistance or for many of us note taking. Modern technology has presented us many ways to record our thoughts. I love my iPhone and have loaded an application called evernotes. The great thing about this application is that it will replicate on your desktop computer as well. Of course there is nothing like paper and pen or pencil. Always have one available everywhere you go. Then create the habit of writing everything down, everything. The approach is not unlike brainstorming. No idea is a bad idea. Then once a week put those ideas into an application like evernotes, spreadsheet or anything you can sort. Add tags and titles to those ideas and the next thing you know is that you have a virtually ulimited source of content, ideas and training material.

Fred Abaroa aka “CostaVidaFred”
The Marketing Imagineer

fred [@]costavidafred.com

Twitter:
@FredXpress
@TMIFred

Blogs:
www.CostaVidaFred.com
Podcasts:
WordOnTheTweet.net
MakingMountainsOutOfMoleHills.com