Partner Views Blog

In the January 21, 2013 issue of The New Yorker financial reporter James Surowiecki writes about the sunk-cost effect. In the article Surowiecki uses the example of New York Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez. The Jets extended Shanchez’s contract and will pay him $8.25 million next year even though he has thrown more career interceptions than touchdowns. The Jets bet big on Sanchez and against all evidence they are hoping that their investment will pay off if they keep at it. This not only happens in sports it happens in big and small businesses all the time. You have invested, or sunk, a lot of time and money into a project and even though it is not getting results you continue to invest. I often see this with online businesses who have a new website that is not getting the results they need but will not give it up because they have invested so much in it. The article quotes Hal Arkes, a psychologist at Ohio State University, “Abandoning a project that you’ve invested a lot in feels like you’ve wasted everything, and waste is something we’re told to avoid”.

In a recent blog I presented a number of social media marketing stats taken from Neilson’s Social Media Report 2012. One stood out on a subject that is just starting to attract attention:

Guy Kawasaki is quoted as saying, “If you have more money than brains, you should focus on outbound marketing. If you have more brains than money, you should focus on inbound marketing.” It often seems many large, traditional companies have continued to spend heavily on traditional or outbound marketing while smaller, leaner companies have embraced inbound marketing or as it is sometimes called, content marketing. Many smaller, cash strapped businesses are often hesitant to try inbound marketing because the “big boys” are not doing it. Well, according to Brandon Gutman in Forbes online blog, MarketShare, that is all changing. Check out 5 Big Brands Confirm That Content Marketing Is The Key To Your Consumer. Read the article for all the details and links, but I’ll summarize it here. (I have blogged a bit about Inbound Marketing and you can learn more about our Inbound Marketing Services here.)

In my last blog: Getting the most out of Google Business Maps I told you about some ideas for making a Google business map. Here are the nuts and bolts of what to do.

I have often written about why businesses should be using social media as part of their marketing strategy. This is even more important in light of recent research reported in The Social Media Report, Q3 2011 by Nielsen. According to Nielsen visiting social networks and reading blogs is by far the top online activity at 22.5%. This far outstrips gaming, the second most popular online activity at 9.8% or reading e-mails at 7.6%. What I found more impressive is the how influential active social media users are on the internet.

1. Specific Destination: Any time you have a link it should be to a specific page for a specific action. Don’t send people to Facebook send them to your Facebook page. Don’t send people to your home page send them to a specific landing page optimized for a mobile phone.
2. Optimize for Mobile: 99% of all users will scan your QR Code with a mobile phone (OK I made up that number but who carries their desktop to a restaurant?) Your destination page needs to be set up for mobile phones. Facebook already is but if you send them someplace else make sure they can read your page on a smart phone.
3. Keep the URL Short: The longer the URL the more complex the code will become. Keep things simple and use a URL shortener. If you make a unique code on a site like bit.ly.com you can keep track of the traffic. An added plus for bit.ly is that when you add .qr to the end of any bit.ly URL it will generate a QR Code.

More QR Code Ideas

Even though many franchise owners may own more than one franchise location in reality they are local business people who depend upon local customers and repeat customers for their business. There may be many marketing mistakes franchise owners make because they do not think of themselves as local business owners. QR Codes are a tool to help correct that. In fact almost anything a local business can do with a QR Code a franchise business can do

Last night Simon, an old colleague of mine from Australia, sent me a link to an article about streaming HD video over the internet. If you had changed the names and the places the article could have been written about projects Simon and I had been involved in 10 years ago. He made a comment about each generation re-inventing the wheel and I guess that is true yet we are constantly hearing about change and advances in technology. I remember 20 years ago being at a conference and hearing about the “shifting paradigm.” For most of the conference I thought a “paradigm” was a nickel short of a quarter but I soon figured it out. That paradigm seems to still be shifting, it never stopped.

This week as I am getting ready for the Social Media Marketing Workshop 101 I am concentrating on some of the details of online marketing. Some of these tips may seem obvious to the seasoned online marketer but it is surprising how often these are overlooked and they are usually very easy to implement. I’ve written before about the importance of claiming your Google Places and it is something every location based business should do. If you haven’t claimed your Google Places yet download my free E-Book: Claiming Your Google Places, and follow the step by step guide. It won’t take long, do it now and I’ll wait.

I have been very surprised with the response to my past three blogs on QR Codes both on my web site and in discussions it has generated in LinkedIn groups. I think part of the interest is generated by the rapid market growth of smart phones and tablets. There are 5.3 billion mobile subscriptions worldwide and use of smart phone technologies in countries such as Japan and Korea is way ahead of the U.S.A. Another reason may be the interest among early adaptors. According to Arbitron/Edison Research’s study of the Social Habit 2011 nearly 60% of Frequent Social Networkers use smart phones as opposed to only 31% of the general population. So here is a hodge-podge of remarks, suggestions and links from some of the many people who responded to my blogs over the past couple of weeks.