Letters From Dan

Logistically, categories and tags have all kinds SEO science behind them. It’s really easy to make mistakes with categories and tags. But I’d like to leave the website organization and SEO mistakes for another blog post. In this one, let’s talk about user experience.

I bring this up after having visited Gizmodo.com today and thinking to myself how interesting that site was. I actually wondered to myself why I don’t read it more often. And that entire string of thought came after seeing their sidebar.

Typically blog sidebars are pretty much the same from blog to blog. There’s some ads, a tag cloud of some sort and an index to the categories, pages or tags of the site.  But after seeing Gizmodo – that doesn’t make sense at all.

I really want to help make you aware of the Google Adwords Keyword Tool mistake that many people make. But first I want to start by saying that it is not your fault if you are making this mistake. Very big SEO companies, big time internet marketers and even IM conferences teach how to use the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. And I recently saw a video teaching it where a commenter said it was very useful.

But they are wrong.  They make a mistake just teaching it.

The Google AdWords Keyword Tool is not for content marketers. It is not a keyword research tool. What you learn from it is not what you think you learn from it.  The Google Adwords Keyword Tool provides information for one group – Adwords Advertisers.

One common marketing mistake small businesses seem to make is not leveraging operations activities for marketing purposes. As I highlighted in my “Dog the Bounty Hunter” story, the average, ordinary things that you do can be used as marketing.

I recently took a trip to Costa Rica, a fabulous country, and had opportunity to zipline with the Titi Canopy Tour group in La Foresta (outside of Manual Antonio National Park). The ziplining was fantastic. It wasn’t the scenery as much as the ride that really makes ziplining cool. And the crew at Titi Canopy Tours make everyone comfortable and safe each and every time. They are a class act.

But, they’re not making as much money as they could be. . .

No one wants to make a pricing mistake. Small business owners often have to order pricing labels so getting it right the first time seems crucial. Lately I’ve gotten some questions about how to price things, both products and services.

Fortunately, yes I say fortunately, there are no rules. That holds true especially if you provide a unique service or one that requires a great deal of expertise. However, if you’re offering the same service or product someone else is then you’ve got something concrete to look at.

Make sure everything you do results in actionable information. One of the big survey marketing mistakes is asking questions no cares to know the answer.

Honestly, I would love to stop that here. That alone is all you need to keep in mind moving forward. But a picture with color is so much easier to imagine. Here are a few examples of actionable information that should clarify this discussion.

The Survey Question

You’ve surely taken surveys that ask your age, income and marital status – have you not? I have too, several times and I’m eager to give that information. But I wonder, and I hope you do too, what are they doing with that information?

When you ask survey questions to your audience, role play the answers that might get returned. Suppose 65% said they were male and 35% female? What would you do? Suppose it was 50/50 or the reverse, would that change your marketing in any way?

One of the biggest survey marketing mistakes is failing to understand the value of the information.

John Morgan’s book “Brand Against the Machine” is really a full length definition of branding itself. Sure, there are examples of small business branding mistakes and a whole lot of what you should be doing. But as a whole, it’s what the dictionary should reference when you look up “branding”.

Blockbuster is an example of a company that didn’t see it coming. Coincidentally in Chapter 13, titled Extra Ordinary (not Bankruptcy Court), Morgan talks about the rise of Netflix and Redbox in the wake of Blockbuster’s meltdown. He makes the point that it wasn’t Blockbuster’s failures that made Netflix great. In fact, Netflix became great because they did something “extra ordinary”. They took something mundane like renting a video and added a spin no one had ever tried before. Redbox is now doing the same thing.

No matter how big you are, you aren’t immune to making mistakes automating social media.

Fox Television has joined the Social Media game in a serious way. In fact each show has its own Twitter account, Facebook page and overall social media presence. If you’re a fan, Fox makes sure that you can show your love everywhere.

But. . .

But the problem is Fox Television automates their social media profiles. And that problem became glaring and apparent during the 2011 World Series when their top rated show Terra Nova was bumped for Game 5.

Since they failed to take the World Series into account when they were automating the system, several tweets that day and the day before announced the upcoming show. In fact, just two hours before the show would have begun, @terranovaonfox reported that the next new episode was only 2 hours away.

Coupon Strategy is one of the most common small business mistakes to avoid. Your coupon strategy should be more than just a way to get new people in the door. And it doesn’t have to cheapen the place.

Take a look at this coupon we received from Laser Quest Nashville after attending a birthday party recently. You can probably argue that the copy isn’t good and the 4″ x 6″ size isn’t perfect. And if this were a marketing piece we received in the mail – I’d listen to your argument. But that’s not what we’re looking at today.

Hank Williams, Jr. recently turned what seemed like a marketing mistake into a marketing success story. And in true Hank Williams, Jr. fashion he did it by recording and giving away, what I call, his “Fox/ESPN” song (aka Keep the Change).  In the end, you can decide whether the unfortunate incident was a mistake or not.

After using the word Hitler on a Fox morning TV program, ESPN pulled Hank’s Monday Night Football theme song from their broadcast. In what started as a typical morning for the super country star, a little politically incorrect remark turned his world upside down in a matter of hours. Fortunately, today’s technology gave Hank an opportunity to capitalize on the moment.

I just completed Dodge’s grand marketing event the Dodge Journey Challenge (#journeychallenge on Twitter). It was a ton of fun following clues online to try and find a Dodge Journey in Oklahoma one week, then the next week driving to Albany, NY to start their east coast challenge.

Being the marketing guy I am, I was very excited to see Dodge put together an online/offline marketing expedition to help sell their Dodge Journey truck. While I had a great time searching the “world wide world” for the truck, I thought Dodge made a few marketing mistakes that will surely result in far fewer sales.