Archive for January, 2010

Close Enough to Use the Same Toothpick

Posted in PLM Files on January 31st, 2010 by Yvonne_PLM – 1 Comment

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       Toothpick imageNot a pretty thought is it? 

But that is how closely integrated your marketing should be and for SMEs it all starts with keywords.  

After countless conversations with entrepreneurs and business owners about their online presence, this is how I see it.

  

  1. You can’t start off building a new brand online but don’t expect quick results – it will get lost in cyberspace.  Brand building flows out as a side effect from the right marketing approach for the size of your business.
  2. You have to start with well researched keywords that you can build some natural search results using on-page and off-page SEO.  Again, don’t expect dramatic results within 6 months.
  3. Once you have identified the keywords you need to serve your business, they need to be used in ALL of your marketing, both offline and online.  This includes everything from your blog, your tweets, your sales documents, your email campaigns and your company language.

Integrated marketing is not easy to achieve, especially with well established companies that have grown organically but your profitability depends on it. 

You can make a start in the right direction today by reviewing your webpage today and perhaps preparing an SEO plan to get things rolling.

Marketing Product Launch Management

Posted in PLM Files on January 26th, 2010 by Yvonne_PLM – 4 Comments

Business woman pensiveAt last night’s talk about ethical banking, hosted by FastTrack: The Club for Entrepreneurs and Small Businesses , a woman whom I had just met was vigorously shaking her head saying “I still don’t GET what it is that you DO”.  

It is a frequent issue for me when I am talking to people about my product launch management business and what a product launch manager does. 

Product Launch Management is a relatively new discipline, so I have started using an analogy to project management.  I said “it’s just like a project manager.  You have a project management methodology (PMI, Prince II) and project management tools – I use a product launch methodology (Product Launch Formula 2.0) which is a unique way of generating a lot of sales in a very short time, and then there are the tools:  social media, direct email, blogging, press releases, video etc. 

A Product launch manager combines product launch methodology and product launch tools with your product and client list to create sales.  Simple as that!

Making a Buzz Creates Sales (or does it?)

Posted in PLM Files on January 14th, 2010 by Yvonne_PLM – 4 Comments
Bee Photo

Iridescent Green Sweat Bee

Recently Darrell O’Dea, Chief Detonator at Explode Marketing , challenged us to create our own 5 word ePitch.  He needed examples to include in his latest e-book.  Darrell’s ePitch is, “we ghostwrite your e-book” and it is pretty effective in my view!  My own effort however, leaves a little to be desired “making a buzz creates sales” or “an online buzz creates sales”.  

I can kid myself and say, hey, my business is complicated I can’t possibly say what I do in 5 measly words. I mean a product launch manager covers the whole gamut of internet marketing, investigating your product, possibly tweaking it, creating the offer, bundling products, talking to joint venture partners, analysing your website, looking at your assets, managing social media, writing articles and blogs, emailing your clients and ultimately selling loads of your product or service.  That’s 42 words, whew!  But, in our increasingly ADD world, if you can’t say it in as few as words as possible (like 140 on twitter) then you lose people. 

 So I contacted Darrell and said Help! What do you think – how can I improve my 5 word pitch – here’s what he came up with. 

 ‘We Buzz, You Sell’ 

‘We Buzz, You Profit’ 

or 

‘We’ve Caught Your Viral Market’ 

Great stuff I thought, but it was his last idea that really struck a chord with me.  It is so good that I am NOT going to tell you because I want to develop a branding theme around it. 

Try it out yourself – it does wonders on focussing on what your company REALLY does!

Italians Rule!

Posted in I Digress on January 6th, 2010 by Yvonne_PLM – 12 Comments

3 italian bottlesValpolicella Wine Tasting at New Year

Last time I posted a small comment on my blog about wine, my web site statistics went stratospheric.  So, purely in the interests of statistics, I have once again pointed my taste buds in the direction of some interesting Italians!

I was fortunate enough to spend New Year with friends who have a wonderful Italian wine cellar.  One of the benefits of having a dozen or so from each vintage is that you can open wines at various stages of their development and decide whether they could do with more time or should be finished off or relegated to the in-house wine rack for quaffing.

We started the evening with Zenato Valpolicella Superior 2007 which was a great palate cleanser.  Valpolicella is from the Veneto region of Italy and is second only to the Chianti region in terms of volume. This wine set the scene nicely for the following beauties.

Second-up was a 2003 Ripassa Valpolicella from Monte Faustino, very fruity and smooth wine. It was a drier style than the Zenato and had a lot more tannin.  This was a fine example of the Ripasso style of wine.

Lastly, we had another 2006 Ripassa Zenato Valpolicella wine with a lot of structure which needed a few more years to be at it best.  John the owner of the cellar had tasted the 2005 version of this wine previously and in his opinion the 2006 was definitely a better wine.  It would be worthwhile tracking this one down and putting a dozen the cellar.

The overall verdict for the evening was that the 2003 Ripassa Valpolicella from Monte Faustino was the best wine of the evening.  A half hour after removing the cork the wine had opened up nicely and we accompanied this with a gourmet homemade pizza – a match made in heaven if I dare the cliché. 

Molto bene