About two months ago, give or take a couple of weeks, Google updated the way that they grade websites and deem them eligible to show up on the first page for your search question.  This page is set apart for the most relevant websites based on how you asked your search question.  Most of the time this works well but sometimes a website shows up that is not very helpful.  This means you aren’t happy with it because it’s not useful or as Google would say, relevant to your query.  Often these sites show up because they are gaming the system in one way or another and that makes Google unhappy.  And when Google is unhappy they do something about it.  The latest update was nicknamedPenguin and Penguin changed some things for one of my clients. Here is the story.

We have a fairly new and small client that got hit pretty hard witht the new update. What I mean is that they were showing up on the first page for  several search terms and then they lost all of them.  That sucks! It took us completely off guard and we have been looking hard to get more clues about what happened.

We figured out several reasons for this mishap but today I was reading a blog by Dan Deceuster called “The Penguin Update and how Google identifies spam” when we figured out another huge problem. Mark Cutts of Google said they would go after and penalize websites that were, “engaging in webspam tactics to manipulate search engine rankings.” When I read this I realized the huge problem our client had that was probably causing a large percentage of his problem.

You see, our client had a link building company before us create literally thousands of links to their domain in a relatively short amount of time.  We knew about them when we started and knew that he had been taken advantage of since the majority of them were not even considered valid by any of the major search engines.  It occured to me after reading the blog article that these links where actually permanent examples, like evidence, left all over the internet telling Google that they in fact had been trying to manipulate the system in a spammy way.  Google has now figured out how to find this evidence and go after offenders whether you know it or not.  My client does not understand the problem or the severity and he didn’t know he had hired a company that would do things that hurt him.  His excuse is that there was no way to know.  The reality is that he chose someone based on low cost and picked someone without checking them out.  This is a huge lesson for us, our client and for everyone else, including you.

If you want to be found in Google and get more traffic to your website you must learn enough to make wise decisions when hiring an SEO company or an Internet Marketing firm.  Do you know their track record?  They don’t have to be rock stars to get you good results but they do have to be honest and trustworthy people.  Talk with them and see if your gut would trust them with your mother or your daughter.  If not find another company.

You also need to discover if they are competent at their craft.  Both Competence AND Character are at the foundation of trust and in this new world of Internet Marketing you need two things:

1. You must be marketing on the Internet to survive the long haul.
2. You need a company that is learning and growing because no one knows all the answers.  Good companies are watching how things change and trying to uncover why.

Are you marketing on the Internet?
Do you work with a company who are truly expert learners in this area?

If you said no to the first question then get going.  You cannot afford to wait.  Everyday you do means more people are getting in front of you.  If you said no to the second question then find a company that will help you and that you can trust. It is worth the time to figure it out.  That is what we do for our clients and it pays off in the end… if you’re patient.

Good luck and good marketing.

Google and April Fools joke make a great video and are awesome for Branding

Reputation

A brand is described many ways but as Marty Neumier put it so well in his book, “The Brand Gap,” it all boils down to your reputation. Your reputation is what people think of you at a conscious level and an unconscious level. Your reputation is what makes people like you or not like you. It influences whether people trust you or not, and it impacts what they say and do in regards to you or your company. Basically, reputation is an abstract word that we use to group all of the little things in life that give us some hint about who a person or company is. Do you have a reputation for being nice or mean a good dresser or a poor one?  Do you have a reputation for being conscientious or sloppy, timely or late, honest or dishonest? Whatever picture you have of a person is part of their reputation. There are many things that come together to give us an impression of a person or company and those things form a reputation. The conscious mind isn’t even able to keep up with all of these impressions, but your right brain or unconscious mind does and that influences our gut feelings and emotions on any subject. (The right brain is powerful and one of its big job descriptions is to take all the little pieces and then consider the whole picture).

Yes, brand and reputation are complicated beasts when you start to look under the hood, but when you just consider that everything you do impacts your reputation it becomes easier to impact how you influence it.  When I wrote that a brand is incremental, I was referring to all the little things and that is how we analyze it.  Imagine a line with “weak” on the left end and “strong” on the right end and lots of incremental hash marks along the line as if it were a scale from 0 to 100.

Scale

Every little thing that improves your reputation in a society, whether you consciously notice them or not, are positive attributes and move you further up the line towards 100.  Everything that takes  away from your reputation, no matter how small, are negative attributes that move you towards 0.  Now take all the little things about a person or a company, and I mean all of them, add all the positives and subtract the negatives and you get a relative score on how strong or weak your Brand or reputation is.

Many of these things are so small, like polished shoes or misspelled words, that on their own people say they are not significant, but when added up they shift our thoughts and behaviors.

A Brand is incremental and when you understand what to look for and how to influence it you reap the rewards of having a strong brand or reputation. In the next blog I will talk more about the little things and  how to know if something is worth your time.

Thanks for reading and let me know if this was helpful.

This week I was flabbergasted to see mind numbing, non descript marketing at a trade show in Vegas.  I was there to meet with a great client and also to further investigate his market space.  Some of his competitors were there, and many of others selling in that same industry.  The attached word cloud demonstrates a really good reason how mind numbing it was.

This cloud is taken from the program that lists all the vendor raffle prizes offered at the show.  Notice how large iPad is?  It is followed up by American Express and Kindle.  The more times the prize was offered the larger the word became in the word cloud.  iPad showed up more than any other word by far.  Translation: most companies were offering an ipad as their raffle prize.  Now, you might be thinking,“This sounds great to me!  I have more chances to win an iPad and I’ve been really wanting one.”  Well as an attendee it is good news but think with me for a moment on the purpose of a raffle at a tradeshow.

Purpose of a Trade Show Raffle

It is to get your attention to come over and listen to their “shpeel” about… whatever they have that you probably don’t need.  Why give something away?  Because people really don’t want to talk to you and as a company you are trying to, “entice them” to stop by and have a non threatening conversation while you try to have an invasive conversation with them.  Your goal as a company is to ask them where they’re from, maybe say something polite and interesting, and then launch into your “Carney” like sales pitch to possibly qualify them and get permission to scan their badge so you can either call them or send them the unsolicited emails after the show.  Which most of them don’t want.  That is why you need a raffle at a tradeshow and most companies know it, while they wouldn’t put it as crass as I have.

So there I am, walking the trade show gauntlet with the carnies barking from all sides, trying not to look anyone in the eye, and give them reason to start talking to me.  I was studying the booths and looking to see who stood out.  The answer was very few.  They all used the same types of displays and the same copy. My favorites were, “Talent Management” and “Innovation starts here.”

The word cloud was a useful tool that revealed what I had noticed on the floor. Most of the companies that were trying to stand out were saying and offering the same thing as everyone else. There is no fascination or sence of urgency to act if you can get the same thing everywhere.  This was marketing suicide for most of these companies and money wasted to boot.

Yes, sometimes I’m just looking for a hamburger and I want to know who sells one but when two or three are on the same intersection they need to tell me why they are different, significantly different or else I go with the least painful option.

These raffles aren’t a bad idea.  Sometimes it’s just fun to offer something to potential clients, but if your trying to stand out then by all means, take a minute to think and then stand out.  I really wonder how these companies will decide if this show was a success for them but somehow I think they’re measuring the wrong thing.

I promise you that if you do these 12 steps you will radically increase your chances of success over everyone else around you.

By the way, they’re only secret because they’re so obvious that very few people notice them, let alone follow them.

1. Discover what types of activities and situations encourage and energize you.

You can go a long way on your own happiness.

2. Look at what kinds of small businesses have those types of activities and situations.

Look hard. There is a business for every type of person because there is every type of customer.

3. Learn everything you can about that industry and learn all the time.

The more you understand your businesses landscape the better you can solve the right problems in a way that is sustainable for that environment.

4. Learn the fundamentals of small business.

Hard work is better than talent when talent doesn’t work hard. Fundamentals get you in the door as the entry fee. A man or woman who is skilled in their work will stand before Kings. They will not stand before obscure people.

5. Do the fundamentals of small business.

Knowing about something is not the same as knowing how to do it and doing it. This will kill a business before it gets started.

6. Be a good person not a shmuck.

People may buy from you because you have a good deal but they will keep buying if they like you.

7. Find counsel you can trust.

Wise people can help you see things that you will miss. Fools will only give you their opinion with no wisdom or understanding.

8. Learn who your company is and tell people clearly all the time and tell them so they can hear it.

It’s not what you say that counts; it’s what they hear.

9. Learn about Paradox.

In small business it is rarely, “Either/Or.” It is way more often, “Both/And.” This can save you a lot of trouble and a lot of wrong turns but it requires a good sense of balance.

10. Be Patient.

Timing is important. You cannot rush anything and come out with anything great. A good wine takes time to develop and mature. If you open the bottle too soon it’s bad and if you open it too late it’s bad. Have the courage to be patient and watch for the right timing for everything in your small business. It is what separates the masters from the novices.

11. Above all else Persevere.

Perseverance is the biggest, most hugest piece of the entire puzzle. Never give up, never surrender and then
know when to move on.

12. Finally, do it again.

Always go back to the beginning and relearn. Study, work, love people and persevere. If you think you’ve learned it all the first time you are missing out on the finest of lessons. You and your business are just like gold. Gold is heated to a melting point and then the impurities are skimmed off the top. This is elementary but by doing it over and over again the purest of form of gold is left behind and has had unparalleled value for ten thousand years.

Don’t be afraid of doing it all again. Find the gold in YOUR small business.

AUTHENTICITY… What is it?  Does it matter?  Does it matter in business? Yeah, I think so, but why does it matter and what exactly is it? And if marketing were to be more authentic what would THAT look like? We know we want it and sometimes we are fooled into believing that people are being authentic when they are not.  So what’s the big deal?

Authenticity is the currency of this generation even for growing our businesses.  The mantra seems to be either, “so what” or “don’t just tell me show me.”  We have been told for so long that, “it’s all in the message”, or “it’s just how you spin it”, or “people won’t buy your stuff if you don’t hook their emotions” etc. and they’re half right… and half wrong.  What happened was the business people, not just the marketing folks, forgot that people care about the authenticity of what is being offered “the steak” as much as they care about the experience “the sizzle.”  People want to have an experience but all too often over the past 40 years the promise of the sizzle fell far short of the steak. Because of this reality, some people want to throw out marketing and advertising altogether, but have you ever heard the term “Truth in Advertising?”

Think about it: Truth or Authenticity is important and marketing and advertising is neither honest nor dishonest by nature.  It is just a tool and the tool only does what its master tells it to do.  If we are to survive in business and for that matter in life we must figure out how to be authentic so our sizzle doesn’t outshine our steak.  We must also figure out what authenticity is.  What are its behaviors?  So answer the question for me, “What are people doing and saying when they are being authentic?”

The closer you stay to emotional authenticity and people, character authenticity, the less you can go wrong. That’s how I feel now, no matter what you’re doing.
-David O. Russell.

Please let me know your opinions… it’s important.

By Michael K. Redman, Principal & CEO, Half a Bubble Out

In today’s fragmented world and new global economy many employees and business owners say that Missions Statements don’t work or they are a thing of the past. They point to nameless companies who had their mission statement posted all over the place, but no one knew it and worse yet no one lived it, especially the management. If this was your only experience with Mission Statements then you’d be smart to turn the other way and leave the idea in the dust. BUT… if you are willing to take a few moments and consider the roots and true power of a Mission Statement you could be adding a powerful tool to your companies arsenal, not to mention giving your company a competitive advantage in the market place.

Think of it like this, a “Mission” is really the “WHY” of a company. In many companies today there is no substantial “WHY” for people to rally around and care about. If the Mission Statement is an outward expression of the WHY then it better mean something. Here is my take on the short history and evolution of Mission Statements.

Long ago, before the management movement of the 20^th century a few founders of companies started their companies because they saw a need, either because of something they experienced or something they were taught. These business leaders were moved internally to achieve something through their business, either to meet a personal desire or a need in the community. Henry Ford saw an opportunity to create cars that were consistently made. At the time there were over 200 auto manufacturers and every car that they made was custom built. No two were the same and that caused everything to take longer to make which made cars more expensive to own. Ford saw that standardization and an assembly line would make cars more easily available, more cost effective to buy and easier and less expensive to maintain. Eventually either Ford or one of his leaders who was good at managing the people and stuff figured it would make sense to write down the “WHY” of Mr. Ford and the “WHY” was called their mission statement. The first writing was probably more like a mission book but that was too hard to remember. Then someone, probably a writer who had few words and little patience said, “I think we can put this into just a few sentences.” Or at least that is what I imagine happened.

In companies like Ford and many others the “Mission” came out of the heart and passion of the leader. In companies that were growing you could go to those companies and see how the owner talked about “WHY” they did what they did and “WHY” it mattered. The “WHY” impacted how they did it, when they did it, and so-on.

What happened next was the copycat principal (My made-up term). When the mid 20^th century management movement came along it became very popular to analyze and implement the same tactics successful companies were using and one of them was the Mission Statement. They took it apart word by word and studied it until they felt there was nothing more to glean from this “amazing” tool. Soon it became the vogue thing to do. Books were written about it, lectures given and consultants consulted on it. Soon every major company had a version of this “Business Tool”. The Mission Statement became a thing of its own. It was what you wanted your employees to do but without the heart of the “WHY.” You see, the Mission Statement originally was a reflection of the founders and the “WHY” came from something that mattered. The companies that were succeeding weren’t succeeding because they had a Mission Statement. They were succeeding, in part, because they had an authentic “WHY” with depth that the company could rally around and that made sense to the day to day work that needed to get done. It was as if the copycat companies were looking at the Mission Statement, the two dimensional reflection, and thinking that was all they needed. They dissected it to pieces, but in the end they only had a dim reflection that had height and width but no depth. It was just a pale reflection of the “WHY.”

When we imitate great things it is a compliment, but we better make sure of two things before we do. The first is that we are imitating the original idea and not a pale reflection. The second is that when we are looking at something great to imitate we need to know that part of the greatness is hidden and that quality imitation requires time and patience.

So now when you hear yourself or someone you know say that a Mission Statement is useless, remember that if it’s based on the “WHY” of substance then it will never lose its value as a rallying cry to the people in a company.

That makes a true Mission Statement a pretty valuable thing in my book.

“Beware, this may mess with your sense of what is effective marketing and advertising!”

Good isn’t always the same as what works or as a friend of mine said to me recently, “Is it Good or do you just like it?” In my business, the business of marketing, we talk about this concept a lot.  Is a commercial “Good” or do we just like it?  Most people assume that if an advertisement is entertaining or has a  certain level of “Quality” then it must be effective; it must work.  It’s soooo NOT true!

It goes like this, “That commercial was great” or “It is so professional, not a small town commercial at all” or “It was so cool,” and the worst word of all, “Good.” What does Good, or all these other adjectives really mean?  Do we really know what we are saying is “good?”  My experience is that we don’t and it really doesn’t matter until we confuse the fact that “Good” does not always mean “It Works.”  This becomes really important in regards to marketing what you want people to remember.  Lets look quickly at three video ads that are “Good” but had no appreciable effect on the bottom line of the companies.

Three famous companies – Cadbury, Nissan and Taco Bell -  each created really entertaining commercials. In fact when I saw these  many years ago I was convinced they were brilliant.

The  Cadbury Commercial is with a gorilla sitting at a drum set playing to Phil Collins’ song “In the Air Tonight.”  You can feel the passion oozing out of this gorilla and if you like the song at all you can be sure to find this one enthralling.

The Nissan Commercial was actually a major one within a larger campaign.  You may remember the Asian man with the little dog who showed up in all the commercials and this specific one was an animated spot with GI Joe, Barbie and Ken dolls.  I’m sure that someone was insisting that the old man and dog was a memory hook, guaranteed to make people remember Nissan.  If that didn’t do it the sheer uniqueness and comedy would.

The third is none other than the  “Yo Quiero Taco Bell” campaign with the famous Chihuahua.  Yes everyone loved them and talked about them but ….it didn’t work. Based on a July 19, 2000 article in the LA Times,http://lat.ms/mncxB. Over the coarse of the campaign the popularity of Chihuahuas grew, but Taco Bell profits dropped 6%. One major theory is that they focused on the dog and not the food. In a company like Taco Bell 6% is a big bummer and not good business.

Go ahead, watch them.  Be entertained and enjoy them for what they are – well crafted, well produced mini forms of “Good” that DID NOT WORK.  It’s true.  Cadbury continued its course into the toilet as far as value and tried to sell.  Taco Bell’s business didn’t increase at all from the use of the commercials and Nissan’s business actually decreased during this campaign.

When we are evaluating commercials in the future it is ok to call them “Good” but please remember the question my friend asked, “Is it good or do you just like it?”  For some people the answer is the difference between success and failure at the cash register.

Researchers, Magazines, a plethora of new books on the market, and many of our friends and colleagues tell us that  Social Media isthe panacea of all things marketing… and social and whatever else someone thinks up…. but is it all good?  The new marketing mantra is that traditional advertising is dead.  I hear all the time that no one is reading newspapers anymore or watching TV or listening to the radio..  If I listen to what everyone is saying, no one is doing anything but spending time online.  The truth is that TV shows, like American Idol are still setting record highs for viewership and they are not alone.  Radio listeners actually increased by 1 million people in America from 2009 to 2010 based on a study reported in Ad Age magazine. Within this past year, I have worked with at least 10 customers around the country and in England that used newspaper advertising last year and it produced a significant profit by outperforming every other media.  Does that sound like Traditional media is not working?  The problems with marketing are rarely the media itself but the underlying issues of marketing and advertising.  Issues of frequency, reach, clutter, attention and other such issues are my largest challenges as a marketer. These exist everywhere and as we will see in a moment some of them may even be more of a problem online.

Before I go any further let me explain my litany of vocabulary.  Frequency is how many times the average person sees or hears an ad message in a given period of time.  Reach is how many people are potentially exposed to my ad message for a given broadcast or printing or even an entire campaign.  Clutter refers to the total amount of messages that my ad is competing with, no matter where it comes from, to gain your attention.  It could be expressed as the average ads per person that are competing for your attention and that includes banners, bumper stickers and the rear end of the pants in front of you.  These are the real problems we marketers face every day as we try to get people to notice our companies, know what we do, believe that it is as good as we think it is and then remember us when it is time to buy as well as actually buy from us.  This is not a profession for the faint of heart.  And Social Media may not be making it any easier for us in spite of what all the evangelists are saying about it.

An article titled, “I Can’t Think” in Newsweek on March 7th, 2011, talks about brain research and the use of FMRI (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging).  This type of research lets scientists and later us, see into the brain and what it’s doing in amazing ways that just weren’t possible a few short years ago.  The article mentions a study that watched people’s brains with FMRI while they were fed more and more information that should have let them better solve a problem.  We have been taught that the more information we have the better decision we can make.  Well that isn’t really true based on the research, and believe me there is a lot of it out there.  Yes we need enough quality information but as we reach a certain volume our brain starts to stress out. Too much information becomes rather difficult to manage and process.  Our brains start to stress out as it tries to pay attention, access, organize, remember and apply all the new data.  This is called “Information Fatigue” and it was a term added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2009.  What the FMRI showed was not a gradual decay in processing ability but a sudden and sharp decline, “as if  a circuit breaker had popped” in the brain.  It gets even more severe, check this out.  “They”, the people in the study, “start making stupid mistakes and bad choices because the brain region responsible for smart decision making has essentially LEFT THE PREMISES”. This is because this area of the brain is responsible for critical thinking and controlling emotions. When information overload hits us and this part of our brain shuts off we get overwhelmed or frustrated or angry and we make poor decisions.  Remember the last time you had to make a decision and you got really frustrated trying to make the right one? I bet you probably just gave up and randomly chose one.  That’s not logical and it’s not always wise but if it’s between the chocolate cake or carrot cake the consequences probably weren’t that high.

Social Media is argued to be good for us because we have all this information at our hands.  The proponents say that people are hungry for information and they trust it more in social media.  While I might trust it more from some of my friends I don’t trust just anyone with an opinion.  And if I try and use Social Media to advertise to you – how do I know that you aren’t experiencing information overload or fatigue?  And if you are experiencing information overload then why would I believe that you could or would make a rational decision to choose my product or service?  See what I mean about the faint of heart?

Social Media is a great thing but it’s also just another form of information and the issues of marketing are still the same.  The questions are still, Did you see my ad, or “referral by a friend” or my nifty creative video I did about me, enough times that you paid attention to it, know what I’m offering, remember it when you need it, and believe that my product is worth having over any of my competitors so you will come and buy it from me?  Social media is cool and useful and another great place people are paying attention to….. so I’m going to use it but I still need to solve the core problems of marketing before Facebook overloads your brain.

If you want help making wise decisions about where to market your company and what will give you the best chance of success then give us a call at “The Bubble”.  We help people with these types of things every day.

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the process of making your site more easily found by increasing your ranking in search engines. More simply put; if you own a car company and I enter “car dealerships in Chico, CA” into a search engine like Google does your car company pop up as the first listing?

The main purpose of Google, or any search engine, is to provide us (their customers) the most relevant WebPages possible based on what we ask for when we type in a “search term”.  If we aren’t consistently happy with what we find we will go to another search engine to find the answer.  This is what happened when so many people left Yahoo and went to Google over 10 years ago.  To accomplish the amazing feat of trying to read our minds from a few words typed into a WebPage Google came up with a special scoring system.  They give the best scores to the WebPages that follow their rules and reward them by giving them the best place on the front page.

There are “over 200 SEO factors” that Google uses to rank websites in the Google search results. Statistical research tells us that when a potential customer puts in a search term on Google they will click the first link 42% of the time, the second link 12% of the time, and the third link about 9% of the time. That means if you are in the fourth position you are missing 63% of the potential traffic.

“90% of people never go past the first page of a Google search.”

So how does an organization optimize their site to increase their position in the rankings? It begins with proper planning. When building and maintaining a Website it is imperative that you plan and prepare to attract visitors. Without proper planning, preparation, and maintenance of your websites you may build the perfect site that never gets noticed. Ten years ago your website might be competing against 50,000-100,000, but today it’s competing against millions and millions of websites.

Understand that it takes time, diligence and patience, and you won’t see results overnight. A solid SEO strategy, in this day and age is one of your greatest assets to building an online presence. It will deliver more visitors to your site increasing sales of your product or service.

Wondering where to start? Give us a call to find out how we can help!