Bradley H. Smith >

Bottomline, my job is to make sure the prospect will take the call from sales.

RIIIIIIINNNGGGGGG.... "Hello. Oh, yes, I know of your company and have a strong impression that your solutions will help me. Come on in with your dogs and ponies." 

 

(Sales still needs tools for the close AND the client experience too )

I'm in the best selling marketing book because I believe the author's base premise.

People (prospects) want to learn what your product will do FOR THEM - not what your company does. Every bit of content you present MUST address the prospect's question - "What's in it for me." Period.

 

Congratulations on the 3rd Edition of The New Rules of Marketing & PR," David.  Thanks for making me a best practice in the book. 

Don't assume the power cable to the LCD projector is in the bag.

< sigh > 

Don't block the faux followers... for now.

Yes they are stupid, distracting and some social media firm's "I will get you 10,000 followers" game. But they can help you build your REAL Twitter base of relationships. 

Twitter has a 2,000 follower cap - until you build up a ratio of people following you. Just leave the spam. After you build your base past the 2,000 caveat - block them and report them.

I do NOT suggest following them back. 

 

Yeah yeah yeah. And I like raindrops and roses and whiskers on kittens. 

How do you know if your product has become a commodity?

Long-time clients switch for a better price. You gave them no passionate reason to stay.

 

Live free (and differentiate) or die.

  

Go to hell, Klout. I don't need your manufactured stress.

I know many people are digging Klout, but I am officially disengaging myself. It's a money maker for some company that is trying to feed on my vanity. Obviously, judging by this photo on my homepage, I have no vanity.

What the final straw was it sent me an alert email to go see the screen below. I have plenty of REAL “Oh no!” in my world, thank you. I am not playing your game. 

I will create my own clout. And Photoshop my own Klout.

Twitter (and a sales person's good SoMe skills) drove my marketing automation choice.

I asked my Tweeps what they suggested for setting up a complete marketing automation process.

I got a couple practical responses (thank you.)  But of more interest, I got a call from a sales person who “saw my Tweet.”  He got the sale even though his compnay was never discussed in the Tweet thread. He had his TweetDeck set up for his competiors' @handle. 

 

FYI: I am going with Salesforce with and Act-On marcom integration. Both were the right scale for my needs.

Typos are not fatal to your brand. Unless you are in makreting.

Sorry if you are reading this guys, but you spammed a LinkedIn Group. No one is marketing is going to believe these folks know what they are doing. 

 

2005? Update it gents. This says "old content."

Don’t abuse your personal brand and place fans at financial risk.

Subjectively, I am not a fan of Glenn Beck at all – to be clear. Objectively, I think this (image below) sponsorship is an egregious use of “celebrity” to pump a product. Will he take responsibility for the product’s promise – or lack of performance?

How much financial risk should you ask from your fans? Pimping someone’s financial future (INVESTMENT) is very different than buying a $15.00 bottle of perfume from a pop star brand or booking a cheap hotel with Captain Kirk. The “personal brand” needs to be credible to the product / service.

 

He’s turned into Ed McMahon.

Forms are important for (traditional) lead generation, NOT for lead qualification!

This form truly angered me.  They used the email address field to PRE-qualify leads - and since I used my "gmail" address, they DIS-qualified me. For a whitepaper PDF download? Ridiculous and insultive. You never know where your NEXT client may come from. 

 

Many people are out of work and don't have access to a business domain address.