Branding Tips to Increase Sales

Old media like newspapers and magazines are declining as we do more and more online as evidenced by a recent New York Times headline Print is Down, and Now Out. DVR’s help us timeshift our favorite TV shows and skip commercials. Caller ID enables us to screen our phone calls and we use voicemail to avoid talking with people we don’t know or don’t want to talk too (think “cold callers”).

I love infographics. But sometimes must question if they are accurate.

This one gives some great tips. I like the direction this infographic is taking, but I'm not sure all the data is 100% accurate. I wonder if this reflects certain kinds of businesses. For example B2B vs B2C… are all these tips relevant for both? What about the porn industry, do you think they post durring business hours? Not that this was meant for the porn industry, but this may change the game depending upon your industry.

Passion trumps business any day!

So as some of you may know, I started a music site on the side for fun, to rekindle my passion for music and to test out Inbound Networking. This has been fun and a great way to see how applying some inbound marketing strategies can really tap in to people's passions.

For me it is very helpful. Extremely valuable actually. The company website is great for getting a better idea of the prospect's professionalism. This is a great tool for sales people. Heck it might be a good tool to help qualify if you want to connect to people. If they do not add a website or social media sites, maybe they are hiding something or not tech savvy. Is this a good fit or bad fit for you? This should be one way to measure the seriousness you take with these people. Here is an example:

You know I see and hear this all the time. People hear this buzz about twitter and decide… I should check out this social media tool. So they sign up build a profile and put out there first tweet usually saying something like "This is my first tweet, I do not know what I'm doing." This is fine and a good place to start, but I thought I would share a few tips to help the new tweople understand twitter better. I am going to share a few basics.

Yesterday I saw someone post this question to a group and it got me thinking. I would bet there are few companies that are 100% satisfied with their social media ROI. I think there are a few reasons for this. Some people look at social media as a fad and so they are not going to give it their full attention if any at all. In the webinar we put on yesterday, we referenced these people as dinosaurs. They are not really interested in change.

Ok, by this time you surely know about Facebook and twitter, right? Are you still riding the fence on jumping in and using these tools for your business? If so, you are falling behind and very quickly. The early adopters are gaining so much ground through social media that it is going to be hard to catch up. So now is the time get on board!