Oliver Fritsch´s MarketingBlog

I finally admit it: Listing to my own voice in this Podcast made it painfully clear to me: 9 years of studying English in the German public school system, 4 years of study at Middlesex University in London and 10 years of living in Boise, Idaho, USA did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to neutralize my strong German accent. Can´t wait for Jay Leno to start making fun of me. Whatever!

Anneliese Olson, Director at Hewlett Packard interviews me in her SMB Podcast about the Market Success eBook, challenges in starting up your own business, how to improve the design of HP´s Printers and a ton of other things.

Listen to it from her website or here (MP3, 12 MB)

Chapter-3-Prospecting

Are your sales down?
Suffering the recession blues?

Forget everything you have heard about Internet Marketing!
Start prospecting old-school with your phone in hand instead of playing the waiting game.

If you are a small business owner, chances are that you have spent thousands of Dollars for your precious website and maybe even more for on-line search ads.

If still nobody is calling you, you are not alone.

Unless your site gets thousands of hits every day chances are that you find new customers through it quickly are slim.

Download my new chapter about how to:
-find new customers
- qualify them
- talk to them and then
win them over for free at: http://www.hp.com/sbso/special/doityourself/ebook.html

Good selling!

Oliver

Chapter 2: Innovating
Are you looking for “tiebreakers” that give your customers a good reason to choose your product over a competitor’s product? As more and more services and products degenerate into commodities, your challenge will seldom be to come up with new ideas, but to select the few precious thoughts that will make a real difference for your customers - and your business. In this chapter we will show you how to develop new ideas, how to manage those ideas and, most importantly, how to test them quickly and inexpensively.

This was a difficult chapter to write for exactly the same reason. There are countless books on innovation out there, but I have not come across a single one that provides any useful advice for a small business or a small enterprise (called “SME´s” in Europe.) I guess that´s the reason why companies come to us when they need help in re-energizing or re-engineering their R&D and product development departments. All too often, a small business creates one great product that fulfills its role as a cash cow and then fall short of coming up with the next great idea. Consider 1-trick ponies such as Rubik’s cube / AOL´s Dial-up Service, or Skype. All of them struggle with the same question: what should be next?

How do you generate and collect new ideas systematically?
How do you evaluate them and pick the right ones to move on?
Download our full chapter for free here: http://www.hp.com/sbso/special/doityourself/ebook.html

Heike Mayer, Assistant Professor Urban Affairs and Planning at Virginia Tech, created an awesome looking map of Boise, Idaho based tech startups.

As you know, I absolutely love smart graphics.

Heike, a fellow German, created an image of the tech universe in Treasure Valley. At the center you see the “Stars” (or sometimes “black holes” if you like), Micron (Public, NYSE:MU), Hewlett Packard (Public, NYSE:HPQ), and Boise State University. Concentric rings around them show the years of startup companies whose founders left these big companies and ventured out on their own. It also shows relationships between them. The big arrow in the image obviously points to my companies, VocationLab LC and Cendesic.com

What stroke me when looking at the map was the large number of companies flying around in this community of just 250000 people living here – most of which I had never heard of, let alone know what they are doing. This map could be a great starting point for someone of getting in touch and connecting us all. The obvious choices: our Chamber of Commerce or the local press seem to be asleep at the wheel in this regard. Heike, maybe you want to take a stab at it? You´ve got all the data at your fingertips now

The map is available as a poster being distributed by Idaho TechConnect and the Department of Commerce. (Contact Krissa Wrigley at 562-3701 (krissa.wrigley@idahotechconnect.com) or Julie Howard at 334-2470 (julie.howard@commerce.idaho.gov) to order copies.) Thanks to Eddie Kovsky from the Idaho Business Review for writing in his blog about this map.

In case you wondered why I didn´t update my blog for such a long time, I have a good excuse: I was too busy writing this book.

HP commissioned me to write a marketing book to inspire their small and medium business customers about the cool things that can be done with their color printers. I teamed up with Ines Bitsch, one of Europe’s top art directors and graphic designers to illustrate my ideas and insights I gained during 15 years of marketing execution.

What looked like an easy shoo-in during the concept phase turned into a labor of love that lasted the summer, fall and spring of 2007 and 2008. Vacation plans were scrapped, editors commissioned (Thank you Jim Lyons and Brianna Gask-Wilson), new work stations installed and hundreds of customers were interviewed about what kind of marketing and selling help they really need to become more successful.

Well, I keep it short today, here it is.
Download the starter chapter directly from HP´s web site here:
http://www.hp.com/sbso/special/doityourself/ebook.html?LinkfromOliversBlog

Every month HP will publish another chapter until its final publication in print in October 2008.

Let me know what you think and tell me which other chapters you would like to see in the future.

Cheers!
Oliver

What happens when lawyers shape a Web 2.0 Community

Ahhhh the big guys are finally waking up to the promise of free labor coming in the form of Social Networking sites.Following in the footsteps of Dells (NYSE DELL) Idea Storm (www.dellideastorm.com) and Procter and Gamble´s (NYSE PG) Capessa Community (www.capessa.com) some Toyota (NYSE TOYOF) Marketing bigwigs had the great idea to invite the American creative community to help them generate new marketing ideas for free.

The invitation was delivered via a HOW magazine email and read like this:

“Toyota wants you to be part of a network of young, creative individuals: a special project called HEYA. At HEYA.toyota.com, we have built an online room that serves as art studio, inventor’s garage and screening room. The question that sums up HEYA is “What can we do together?” Why would you want to be involved with HEYA? $2500 sponsorships and support for your projects Maybe you have a creative web site idea, want to do a graphic design art show, or have an idea to creatively raise awareness for an issue that matters to you. This could be your chance to get Toyota’s help. Get to voice your opinion directly to Toyota. Toyota wants to listen to your thoughts on their marketing and print ideas, their car design, and most of all to hear what creative young adults care about. Connect with others and collaborate on innovative new projects. Perhaps you are a graphic designer who needs a photographer, or you’re a publisher who needs people to weigh in on feature ideas, or maybe you just want to meet creative people from a wide variety of talents - city planners, web designers, artists, surfers, engineers and musicians - and pick their brains. HEYA is limited to 500 members and US residents only. For consideration for this group, please take our screener at: www.HEYA.toyota.com”

I felt almost tempted to apply for one of the limited 500 spots to work for free for this great company.Unfortunately, I never made it through the screener: With over 25 detailed questions, Terms and conditions, a privacy policy and a code of conduct spanning more than 28 pages and 8916 words it became clear to me that the lawyers are still reigning at Toyota. What´s the point of contributing my valuable insights and trying to influence this beautiful brand if it would never reach the intended audience? Hey, I could even be held liable for participating and donating my time for free:

“ Think (BOLDED) , before commenting or posting content. Be sure to thoroughly review Toyota’s Online Privacy Policy which outlines other safeguards pertaining to the protection of your interests, including Toyota and HEYA’s obligations to you. You Could (SIC!) be Held Legally Liable. When you choose to go public with your opinions, comments or content, you are legally responsible. Individuals can be held personally liable for any commentary deemed to be defamatory, obscene, or offensive. In essence, you post at your own risk. Outside parties actually can pursue legal action against you for postings.“

If you want to create a customer insight community for your company that respects the intelligence and goodwill of its volunteers talk to us first (oliverf@cendesic.com) – and leave the lawyers at home!

I admit it!

It has been a tough few weeks bringing all the puzzle pieces together to create an educational event on Findability, Search Engine Optimization and Blogging for the local business community here in Boise Idaho, March 19.

This is the real world! Content had to be organized, sponsors had to be found, and mundane things like consolidating eMail lists and organizing payment processing have been keeping me up at night. Our friends at Blueline Marketing have been very supportive every step of the way. But now we are ready!

Here is our program with a special reward at the end for my blog readers

I look forward to seeing you on Monday

Oliver

————————–

Pssssst!
Whisper, whisper!

If you have read the Statesman, the Idaho Business Review or the Idaho Science and Technology news, you already know that on Monday, March 19, Cendesic Marketing and BlueLine Grassroots Marketing will co-host a seminar entitled:
Findability: Getting Your Business Found on the Web.

Our 1-day seminar includes lunch and will teach your businesses how to improve the “Findability” of your business and services through organic as well as paid search engine optimization strategies on the web.

This is a first for the Treasure Valley and we will not have another event like this for a long time to come.

Our Program Schedule
March 19, 2007
Boise State University
Hatch C & D
Boise, Idaho
1-Day Workshop 8:30 - 4:30
Findability - Getting Your Business Found on the Web

8:00 - 8:25 - Registration

8:30 – 9:15
Overview & Introduction: How to create Findability for your business
Oliver Fritsch, CEO
Cendesic,com Boise

9:20 - 10:00
Introduction to Search Engine Marketing
Shane Vaughan
Vice President of Marketing
Balihoo.com , Boise

10:05 - 10:50
How do integrate PR with your new media strategy – New rules of media relations
Mike Boss
Director of Media Strategies
Bluelinegrassroots.com

11:00 - 11:50
How to inspire Citizen Marketers
Justin Foster
Director of Business Development
Bluelinegrassroots.com

12:00 - 1:00 - Lunch & Networking

1:00 - 2:30
Workshop #1A: Strategies and Tactics to set your website on fire!
Session 1 (45 min) - Technical aspects of SEO: How to optimize your site
Session 2 (45 min) – Content aspects of SEO: How to create content keywords that work

1:00 - 2:30
Workshop #1B: Beyond your Website: How to create Findability from the outside-in.
Session 1 (45 min) - Web 2.0 - Thinking outside of your website.
Session 2 (45 min) – How to be part of the conversation

2:40 - 4:20
Workshop #2A: Strategies and Tactics to set your website on fire!
2:40 - 4:20
Workshop #2B: Beyond your Website: How to create Findability from the outside-in.

4:20 - 4:30 - Closing Remarks

Learn how to get your products and services to rank #1 on Google through organic and paid search engine optimization strategies.

Your Key Benefits:
• Learn and apply our breakthrough keyword strategy process to increase your sales and company visibility on the Web by 100% or more. Our unique “KDD” or “Keyword Deep Dive” process helps you to define a customer-centric keyword universe for your business and get instant results.
• The best thing: After our clinic, you can start advertising on Google Adwords on a shoestring budget of $1,50 per day and measure click- throughs immediately. After a few weeks you will also notice a significant increase of your natural or organic traffic.

Background
More than 70% of all purchases of consumers and business customers are preceded by a web search.

What does this mean for your business?
The web provides a first point of contact for your customers and gives you a chance to present your products and services – BUT – only if they can find you! Findability becomes a critical part of your overall Marketing strategy.

Test it yourself:
Enter the generic description (not the brand name) of your products and services into the Google or Yahoo search box and see if they come up among the top 5 search results.
• If they do, you don’t need our services and we would appreciate it, if you could pass on word about our clinic to your business friends
• If they don’t, we suggest you reserve a spot for our clinic right away.

Unfortunately, it is not enough to ask your webmaster or creative agency to come up with some keywords, paste them into Meta Tags and hope for the best.

Today, the field of Search Engine Optimization & Marketing is highly competitive and constantly changing. It takes focus, dedication and expertise to develop a set of keywords for your business, which:
• your customers are actually searching for and which are not used by your competitors
• help you achieve a high organic (or “unpaid for”) ranking
• you can afford to pay for, to appear in the paid results section without breaking the bank

What you will learn
The most important thing you will take away from our 1-day clinic is a customer-centric keyword strategy, that is geared to your business, minimizes costs and maximizes your business impact. In addition, you will:

• Analyze the strengths and weaknesses of your own website, based on the Cendesic C21 Search Engine readiness criteria
• Learn how Search Engines work
• Understand what your customers seek
• Understand the differences between organic search and pay per click services
• Develop a unique set of keyword for your business
• Learn about other findability strategies that ensure more potential customers find you
• Assess your competitors web performance through external tools
• Define a better customer experience flow for your business
• Learn, how to spot SEO/SEM schemes, that will do your business more harm than good
• Understand how to offset costs for paid keywords with web-based revenues
• Learn, which slogans work best for your business and which ones don’t

What you will get
Each participant receives our extensive Search Engine Marketing Business Planning Tool Kit to apply and implement lessons learned immediately to his or her own business.
Who is it for?
For business owners and marketing managers seeking to use Search Engine Marketing for customer acquisition and retention.

What is it about?
Learn how to analyze your website’s usability, sales potential and functionality; discover how to rank #1 on Google through organic and paid search engine optimization strategies.

Who is Cendesic?
Founded in 2004 in Boise, Idaho, USA, Cendesic is a full service search and marketing agency focused on generating Findability for the products and services of our national and international clients in the US, Europe and Asia.

Who is Blueline Grassroots Marketing?
BlueLine is Idaho’s only grassroots marketing firm. In the clutter of today’s marketing chaos where advertisers are either resented or ignored, BlueLine specializes in helping companies accelerate natural word-of-mouth

If you have made it all the end to the page, I want to reward you with a very special offer.
I have set up a secret page on our website with a payment button that gives you 50% off and lets you attend our-hands on workshop for just $99.00 instead of $ 199.00

So click and reserve a seat to this important event right now….or if you can´t come: forward this email on to your friends and business partners.

The secret link:
http://www.cendesic.com/friends_and_family.html

But remember: Pssst - Dont pass it on !

Blink!

For everybody who missed this exciting Page One story in the Idaho Statesman today, I reprint Jim Lyons’  (JimLyonsObservations.blogspot.com) and my secrets for promoting your own blog. (Or read the full article in the Idaho Statesman´s business column on March 3 2007 here.)
I just love it when traditional media embraces the new media.

Why?

The Idaho Statesman, (owned by The McClatchy Company (NYSE: MNI)) is the most widely read newspaper in the great state of Idaho, reaching 129,287 adults per weekday.The fact that they placed a link from their highly trafficked site (Alexa Rank 35,000) to ours at www.cendesic.com (Alexa Rank 135,000) increases our findability and our credibility with Google’s (GOOG) and Yahoo’s (Nasdaq YHOO) Search Engine Spiders a lot.

My advice: if you are a new media company and get a chance to collaborate with a traditional media company: JUST DO IT!

And now – spread the word please! Here are our 8 secret rules to promote your blog.

Reprint them!
Steal them!
Use them!

8 secret rules to promote your blog by www.cendesic.com

1. Write well. Content is king. Think like a journalist. Write headlines that capture your readers´ interest. Provide human-interest stories. Don’t be politically correct. Speak from the heart. Be passionate, but have your facts straight.
2. Make it personal. Register your own domain and link it to your blog. Add a photo and a description of your interests and passions. Your readers will want to know who the person behind the writing is.
3. Energize yourself. Install free Google analytics software (analytics.google.com) on your blog to see who reads your blog, which corners of the world they come from, and which topics and links they are most interested in.
4. Promote your blog. Add your blog address to your business card, Web site and e-mail signature. E-mail all your contacts with requests to pass your blog address on to anyone interested.
5. Register your blog. Register your blog on Technorati.com, which makes your blogs instantly searchable and findable. Popularize your blog by registering it at specialty search engines and notification sites like Pingomatic.com, del.icio.us, Feedster.com, Findory.com, Blogarama.com, and BlogTopSites.com. 
6. Get subscribers. Go to Feedburner.com, register your blog, implement its RSS code on your Web site and share the link through e-mails and on your Web site. This will let readers subscribe to your blog with one click. It will also tell you how many people have actually subscribed to your blog and read it frequently. 
7. Link to others. Read other peoples´ blogs, comment on them and link to them from your blog. Sooner or later they will become interested in what you have to say about them and will link back to your blog. This will increase your traffic.
8. Optimize for search engines. Increase the findability of your blog by including keywords in your headlines and links. Choose proper categories and meta tags, which provide information about your blog and key words that can be recognized by search engines. Register your blog address with regular search engines like Google.com, Yahoo.com, Snap.com and MSN.com.

By the way: We are offering a one-day clinic in Boise, Idaho on March 19, 2007 about blog promotion and search engine optimization. Call (208) 854-1208 or e-mail info@cendesic.com to register.

This event is sponsored by the Boise State University! — Just in case you have lived behind a rock for the last few months - or you are not an American (like me) and don´t have a clue what this means, here is why this is cool:

On January 1, 2007, the undefeated and untied Boise State Broncos became the 2007 Fiesta Bowl Champions by defeating the Oklahoma Sooners 43-42 in overtime. The game was called one of the best college football games ever played, due to the combination of an underdog team, Trick plays, comebacks and a thrilling overtime victory. 

You know a new trend hits the mainstream, when Fortune 500 companies like SAP (NYSE: SAP) start adding social media bookmarks to their corporate Blog pages.The big question for marketers though is this: Does anybody care? It is easy to add links to social media services such as Delicious, Digg and to any of the other 120 book marking sites out there. But don’t be disappointed if nobody actually uses them. After all: In the Web 2.0 world it’s content that counts. Only if you provide valuable information for your customers, they will:

• Bookmark your site for themselves, and

• Share it with others on a social media pages like Digg.com or Del.icio.us

“Valuable” is information that helps your customers get something done easier or faster or content that “blows their mind”, such as a good eBook, a “how-to” presentation, or a useful online tool.

Need an even better idea? Easy, just look at how a decade-old TV show survives these times. Take a page from the playbook of NBC´s (NYSE: GE) “Today” show. What’s the secret formula that makes it so addictive? Here is what they do:

1) They confirm every morning that – yes, even though big things have happened in the last 24 hours, planet earth is still spinning and you will see another day.

2) They focus on content that directly affects their viewers’ financials, health or emotional well-being, i.e. information, that:

• Helps them to save money or make more money

• Impacts their health positively or negatively

• Enables them to have better relationships and avoid hardships.

It can be that simple!

You know good interactive marketing when you see it!
I don´t speak a word of Chinese, but when I browsed this ad, I got the message immediately:
http://www.epson.com.cn/spc/subpage_proof.asp?drky=1&Tz=3
Cool snazzy music, serious but still funny and most important: a product benefit message that blasts the competition. The page shows the superiority of Epsons printers Seiko Epson Corporation (TYO:6724) compared to competitors in terms that customers actually care about: lower supplies costs, smear fastness and no need for special paper. You can even grab a bottle of water and spray the documents with it - fun!

Contrast these ads with the highbrow & eclectic stuff you found during the Superbowl Bonanza yesterday:
Huh? What´s the point of a GM (NYSE:GM) robot that has nighmares and fears of getting laid off?
I am afraid to have to break it to them: keep putting out depressing ads like that and your nightmare will come true!