Competition
is tough…
get BRANDWISE!

Today blogging is a big part of our marketing efforts. Over the years however we have tried blogging a few times with mostly failure. I personally have tried blogging on a business level in the past with very little luck and then thought I would try to blog on a personal level about one of my passions. Although, I thought this would keep the ideas flowing and I would just keep blogging and that this would be good training for my business blogging when I decided to pick this up again, sadly this did not work either.

I am writing this article because I see it all the time. I just went to 2 competitor's websites and started reviewing their blogs. I was happy to see the on one of the sites, this competitor although they say they do SEO for businesses only had 3-4 articles over the last 3 months. The articles were very short, used no photos and barely used keywords. The other competitor had about 11 articles over the last 7 months. Their articles had no photos, but did a better job of writing interesting, relevant and longer articles. They also used keywords much better.

So this article is not meant to gloat about my happiness to see my competitors struggling, it is about finding out if you are struggling and offer a few tips to help.

For those of you who have not heard us preach about writing a minimum of 1 article a week or better yet trying for 2-5 articles a week, this is our mantra.

Over the last 7 months we have posted an average of 8-9 articles a month.

So how are we now able to write 1-2 articles every week for 6-12 months?

• Well I think part of it is commitment. Part of it is I personally set a goal of no less then 1 article a week. When Thursday and Friday roll around and if I have not written an article yet, I start getting antsy. I hustle to find a good topic and just write.
• I review our website analytics daily to see if things are improving. I know how many people subscribe to our blog, how many people commented on the blog in the last 30 days. I also can view which articles were the most popular over time and try to write similar articles with more information on that topic.  I can also view which articles got the most comments allowing me to figure out how to recreate this effect and test new ideas. Don't forget about which articles got the most inbound links from external websites.
  
  
• Our blog gives us an area to test new ideas like making offers, polls, asking questions, engagement, video etc. By being able and willing to try new things I am also able to see which things work and have a better understanding of why some things work and others don't. This is valuable knowledge in marketing and blogging it the cheapest way to do testing that we have found.
• Our blog also allows us to set ourselves up as a thought leader on all things branding. When someone reads our blogs and then in a face-to-face meeting quotes our content as their own, we know that we are really reaching people and they understand and believe in what we are saying. This will help you stay motivated to write more often and on a regular basis.
• Lastly, we are able to compare our blog to many of our competitors by just a quick review of what they are doing and saying. You can also use this Hubspot built tool Blog Grader to evaluate your blog or your competitors blogs.

So the key to building a successful blog that you are able to continue writing on a regular basis is:

1. Commit to it and build blogging into your weekly habits!
2. Use blogging software that gives you good analytics (you can start with Google Analytics, but I would look for something more robust and business goal focused).
3. Commit to testing new ideas on your blog. Figure out what is and isn't working.
4. Share your knowledge freely. The more quality and remarkable content you share, the more people will pass it on and come back to your blog. You become the resource on your area of expertise.
5. Read more blogs and compare yours to others including your competitors. Use Blog Grader (the grading on blog grader are ok, but usually a little skewed so don't get hung up on the numbers).

If you have ever had troubles blogging, please share either what your problems is with blogging or better yet, how you were able to over come your writers block.

If you share a problem you are having I will offer a personalized suggestion or response to try to help you. I invite others to help as well!

Thanks and happy blogging!

Brandwise has started adding video marketing to our online mix of marketing tools. At this point this is a very new medium for us so the current videos are very basic and amateur. We will however continue to build our educational videos so stay posted and look for the new videos we have in the works. These will hopefully get more professional very soon.

In the mean time please feel free to give us your thoughts on this video and others you would like to see.

If you would like to review this topic in depth, download the Tip Sheet that goes with this video, click here for your copy of How Social Media Works for a business.

So today I was checking out something on YouTube and noticed a big ad at the top of YouTube that was promoting a Bounty paper towel video. It is obvious that Bounty spent some time and money on this video and even paid Rev Run of Run DMC to sponsor this viral video. I am a long time Run DMC fan so this caught my attention. Never would I have thought 25 years ago that I would see the day where Run would be selling paper towels, but it has now happened.

This video is kind of fun and I'm sure beyond this blog article will be passed around and spread virally as Bounty intended. It is interesting to see companies that step it up in the social media marketing. There are so many companies scared to try this new medium especially to this extent and cost. So good for you Bounty! Someone has to be a leader and they are surely going to benefit from it.

So what are you doing to push your comfort level on social media marketing? Are you trying new things?

One of the great things about social media marketing is the cost is pretty low even with a highly polished video like the one Bounty put out and the exposure you can get is HUGE!

The key is engaging the audience. Do you think Bounty has engaged a young teen audience with this video? Of course they have. Are these the people buying Bounty? No, but they probably do influence the buyer (hey mom why don't we buy Bounty paper towels?) - right? This young audience will be buyers before you know it and reaching out to them now will help solidify brand loyalty.

What are your thoughts? Would you try some funky videos to promote your product or service? Leave a comment below.

So it has been brought to my attention that LeBron James has left the Cleveland Cavaliers. I do not follow basketball, so I do not know all the details, but I do know that Dan Gilbert is super pissed off at the way LeBron James left his team.

How do I know, well it is less about sports and more about design. Apparently Dan Gilbert thought it was a good idea to use Comic Sans for his letter to the Cavaliers about the loss of LeBron. You can read the letter Open Letter to Fans from Cavaliers Majority Owner Dan Gilbert here. Or you could read some of the negative feedback Dan is getting on his typography choice for such a letter in rage on CNN's article Cavs owner's letter mocked for Comic Sans font.

The main point of this article written on a branding blog is to show the importance of fonts and typography in the use of building your brand. You see if you want to be taken seriously in your writing, delivery of the message should be done to convey what the audience is expecting. When it comes to typography (the professional use of type as a design element) Comic Sans is kind of a joke and not taken very serious. As a matter of fact for those designers that know typography well, you might find this video funny if you have not already seen it yet. It is called Font Fight.

So the key of any font is to make your message clear, legible and convey the tone of your message.

Comic Sans is not the font you should be using when you are super angry, that is unless each line is followed by a "POW!" and a "WHAM!" as you are punching your audience in the face as in the old comics or the old Batman TV Show.

Notice how the font has changed in this article? Is this helping me convey my message or is it taking away and making it harder to read?

I leave the answer up to you. Please leave a comment with your thoughts on Comic Sans and also add your thoughts about Dan Gilbert using Comic Sans in a rant about the LeBron James exit to the Cavaliers?

Also let me know if I should continue writing our blog articles in this interesting font?

As I was going through some papers on my desk, I ran across a sales accountability sheet I wrote a while back. For all you sales experts out there, I am curious if you use a similar tool to make sure you are reaching all your sales goals.

I must have picked this up through a book or training program, but I can not remember where it came from and before I was taking on so many tasks to run my company, I used to shoot for getting these 4 point everyday.

Here is how it works. In order to stay productive and manage your time well you get a scorecard everyday. Your goal is to reach 4 points everyday.

Here is how you score sales goal points.

1. Get a lead, a referral, or an introduction to a decision maker -
   1 POINT
   
   
2. Getting an appointment to meet the decision maker -
   2 POINTS
   
   
3. Meeting the decision maker face-to-face -
   3 POINTS
   
4. Getting a commitment to a close (a purchase) or an action that directly leads to a close -
   4 POINTS

So you see all you have to do is fulfill any combination of these daily habits and add the points. If you get 4 points everyday you should be easily meeting your sales goals.

That being said, I ask you to share your thoughts on this technique.

• Have you used this technique?
• Do you use a similar technique, if so what is it?
• How successful is a daily habitual tool like this for reaching your sales goals?

Over the last 5-6 years I have been doing email marketing. Although I love all the stats and measurements of things like:

• Open Rate
• Bounce Rate
• Click Through Rate

in the early days it was hard to have this great marketing tool make the cash register ring, have people give us a call due to our email or interact with us in any way.

So we continued to do our email marketing campaigns for a few years, but always kind of sporadically. This is partially due to nothing more then the email marketing stats.

I worked with the marketing research guy, Andrey Osiatynski a few years ago and we were able to do a pre-show marketing campaign to set up meetings for a trade show we were going to be attending. Andrey is really smart and enjoys working with email marketing.

Overall this worked great at setting up appointments and getting to speak to prospects, however again we got no business from it. Basically this stepped up the email marketing efforts to the next level however it is a lot of work and you need to be cautious not to be spamming people with tactics like this.

So now we fast-forward to 2009. This is when I feel we have actually been able to make email marketing an effective tool. You see email marketing can me a powerful tool when combined with a blog and the social media. Over the last year we have pretty much been able to put out a monthly newsletter (we may have missed a month or two, but mostly sent something out every month).

What we have learned is that it is more important to send email when you have really valuable information to share. I personally do not like weekly emails, I find them overwhelming and sign-off after about 4-6 weeks. Weekly might work if the email was short and sweet and offered a tip I could apply quickly (maybe not every week, but often enough I will not mind getting the email).

So how do you develop this remarkable content on a regular basis for your email? Well, we write blog articles several times a month, 4-15 articles a month typically. Within these article we can usually find some gem that we think will be good to share to our email list audience. Only a small few of our email list subscribes to our blog so this is not usually overkill of the same message. If you decide to do this, add a few extra tips on this topic to your email in order to offer value to the email readers that are also subscribed to your blog.

The key here is not to copy the whole blog article into the email, but rather hit on a few high-points to pique their interest about the topic then provide a link back to your blog article for all the details. This builds interest and drive a lot of interested traffic back to your site.

Here is another email marketing tip. Continue to grow your list by asking people to sign up. This is an area that we have neglected for the last year or so. Well, now is the time to change if you found any of the tips in this article interesting…

Please sign up for our e-Brand newsletter where you will find more great tips.

We typically mail something out about once a month.

Sign up for the Brandwise Email Newsletter

I recently ran across a poll Pam Moore (The Marketing Nut) put out and I thought I would put this out to my followers as well and then write an article on the results.

So here's the  deal Take this quick poll and then in a week or two I will write up an article on our findings about this poll and also throw out a few tips tied to our findings.

If you were only able to use one social media tool for your marketing communications, which tool would you use? Twitter? Facebook? Email?

Social media is an amazing tool at expanding your marketing reach.

Sometimes we get hung up on the numbers and use them as a form of measuring success, like – "I have 500+ Facebook Fans" or "We have 9000+ Twitter Followers". To some degree you have been successful, but on the other hand collecting friends, followers and fans does not pay the bills.

I see many people that have huge followings, but have nothing to do with any of it.

I'm sure some people use software tools to entice many people to follow them, some even follow people in hopes they will get followed back.

The real problem with this is this turns into the same thing as a magazine ad or TV commercial. People start tunning out.

The goal of these social media tools like twitter and facebook are to build relationships. If you are not interacting with your friends, fans and followers, than you are not building a relationship, you are just spamming a lot of people with garbage they really have no interest in.

Sadly, I see this all the time. I think it is really important to have original unique content in order to form your personal voice or brand personality. This is what people connect to, not some purchased content that I writer is selling to multiple customers. I see this in email marketing companies and newsletter companies sometimes.

Instead of doing an original bit of content for each client, these companies write a handful of content and sell it to multiple companies, it is similar to the idea of "Stock Photography". Stock photography is ok if you know where to find images that are not going to be used by your local competitor. Nothing is worse than finding your image on someone else's marketing collateral.

Content is the same, if you are buying content that anyone in your industry can use, I'd recommend thinking twice. This is not the best way to build your brand! Not even for the cheep price you pay for this content!

So back to the main point of this article it does not matter how big your following is unless these people will also stand up and evangelize (spread the word) about how great your company is. I remember the early days (early 90's) of purchasing Apple Computers for me. I was a mac addict and still am a strong mac user and have never bought a pc computer product. I am more brand loyal today then ever before, but in the early days, I would fight to the death for keeping my mac on my desk even in an all pc corporation.

My point is this… are your followers willing to fight for your product or service? Will they stand on the mountaintop shouting your companies name and web address? Will they retweet your latest post? If not, 9000+ followers doesn't mean a thing.

5 followers that retweet your twitter posts is more valuable than 5000 that don't!

So get out there and start being social. Interact with your followers. Start building relationships and evangelists. Maybe you need to start retweeting your followers tweets. Whatever you do, just get out there and tap into this valuable resource!

Don't forget to go vote on your favorite blog tips. There are only a few days left to vote!

So the other Sunday I was watching Sunday Morning on CBS. The morning show, which I watch on a regular basis on Sunday mornings, was doing a special on Green Day and their rock opera American Idiot.

I was quite surprised to see an old punk rock band that I used to listen to quite a bit in the early and mid '90's. Since I have always had a fondness for punk rock music and their thoughts of DIY (do it yourself),  damn-the-man, and taking down the system, it made me think of what punk has become. It made me wonder has Green Day (and punk rock in general) sold-out?

For those of you unfamiliar with punk rock, this is a no-no. This goes against everything punks believe in. Then I take a look at myself, although I have kept some of my punk rock roots, I too am getting older, watching CBS's Sunday Morning, and have become quite the member of the business community in Cowtown (Fort Worth, TX). Although, I have built my business on the ol' DIY model, there are a lot of areas where I too may have sold-out in the eyes of a young passionate punk.

As I watch this interview with Green Day, I notice, they do not think they sold-out at all. They are loving where they have been able to take their music – to the masses. They have done a pretty good job reaching the masses by going from garage-underground bars to Broadway. 

Green Day seem to have done a good job of creating a rock opera that has a punk rock feel, but could be watched by the non-punk rock community like – 'gulp' – my mom or any lover of Broadway. Better yet, maybe they are bridging the gap and bringing punk music listeners to a Broadway musical. Talk about a big stretch for most young punks!

Anyhow, American Idiot has been open now for several months and seems to be doing quite well. Who woulda thought this young punk band could become serious business minded entrepreneurs.

So I am wondering, what do you think? 

See a before and after of Green Days career by watching the videos below. 

Green Day - Early Punk Rock Days:

Green Day - Entrepreneurial Rock Opera Days:

So although I have not listened to Green Day for sometime, I actually had to break out some of my old CD's and take a listen. I love their early stuff on 1,039/smoothed Out Slappy Hours, KERPLUNK and even Dookie. This is where I kind of stopped listening to them. Green Day however did make it into my 2007 wedding reception as the last song played. Now the song Good Riddance will forever be in my memory associated with good times in my life.

I think Green Day has done something pretty amazing! There were times when I thought they had sold-out, but I truly have to appreciate their business sense and the abilty to bring punk rock to the masses! It will be interesting to see where Green Day goes from here.

Here's one for the road - Good Riddance (time of your life):

Feel free to leave your thoughts on Green Day and your thoughts on their salesmanship and entrepreneurial skills. Or just your thoughts on how punk rock has moved into mainstream business.

So last night I was watching a little TV when I noticed a commercial I had seen before, but had not paid attention to enough to know what company the commercial was advertising. Last night though, I took notice that is was Esurance. The video had no animation and no cartoony graphics/logo any where. The new logo was designed by a high-end designer since things were clean and professional.

The funny thing is this really made we think… was this commercial for the eSurance company that had always used "Erin" eSurance the animated character?

So after doing a little research, I found out that Esurance had in fact changed their logo, brand and commercials. The next thing I thought is how well is this transition going to go. It seems there is no easing into the new logo & brand. On one hand this will be good, but on another this will also confuse the marketplace. I bet it will take a year or two for everyone to fully relate the new brand to the "eSurance" of the past.

eSurance spent nearly $92 million on ads and media last year says the NY Times article announcing the new agency of record. Before this new agency was selected, eSurance did all their branding internal and now are looking to outsource things.

Old Brand:
So to refresh your memory, here is an animated commercial with Erin eSurance.

New Brand:
Now, here is the new and improved logo, brand and commercials.

What are your thoughts on this change? Please answer these few questions for the polls listed below and see what others think.