Bradley H. Smith >

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."

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. 

 

 

Internal people will "get bored" with your website. Prospects will not.

It is very common for internal folks to "get itchy" to change the major theme of your site sooner than you would expect. They're on the site a lot. (especially if it’s good!)

Prospects are going there for the first… maybe second time. Be creative and flexible but hold to your strategic “first impression” plan for greeting new visitors.

 

I am the first to admit even I get a “little tired” of the auto-play video on my homepage. But I need NEW PEOPLE to hear it.

 

 

Reminder: iPads don't render Flash.

This is not an anti-Apple comment. It is a fact.

 

And there are elevenetykabazillion out there NOT reading your message. 

 

 

Hello... marketing? It is YOUR JOB to know your site. Every page, link, icon and form.

The content on this page was for crisis control for national headline news. Crisis over. Content deleted. Link remained.  

 

 It's 2011. The only excuse for broken pages is "I'm lazy and don't care."

The three little words marketers like to hear are not "I Love You."

They are "Tell Me More." 

 

It's the common denominator for all conversations at all levels in any sales and marketing funnel. What will your website (or your sales people) say when asked that?

If you have a business website (and domain), don't use "aol.com" as your email address.

I am shocked at the number of OTC -listed companies whose CEOs have @AOL.com, @earthlink.com,  @gmail.com etc. as their professional email address. That throws the stability and credibility of your entire organiztion into doubt.  You want people to invest in your compnay and you cannot figure out how to get a domian-based email address?

AOL?  Pah-lease. This is not 1995.

Visit your own website every single day.

In fact, set your company home page as the default opening browser page. Tweak it. It's the web, not a brochure.

Cross pollinate your webform data with other departments.

This webform is on the investor relations website of a large corporation. The data ONLY feeds an automated news alert email engine for the IR department. For most compnaies, that is the data's only function. Eyeballs rarely look at the actual data. 

Now, imagine that whenever MEDIA is selected from the drop-down descriptor, the Public Relations department receives the sign-in data too. "DING!" A new media contact is born. Elegant solution for something your company is already doing. 

All companies have silos - it's unavaidbale and fairly real-world. But don't have bunkers.

If you're spending time, money and effort on an outreach campaign, use it on your site visually in an obvious manner.

Oh for pete’s sake, no one clicks on a "see our current ad" link.

For real cross-media message reinforcement (which you want...) integrate the visuals, even subtly. Continuity demonstrates an organized thought process which is a good B2B brand.

 

This campaign series I launched is still running. The clever web developer made the faces randomize on each visit.