Monthly Archives: October 2009

I’ve had a reality check about blogging.

I haven’t posted an entry on my blog for a fortnight because of work pressures. What I’ve realised is that even if you have a long list of topics you want to write about, or lots of current news stories to comment on, if you don’t have or make the time, or lose the will because of work or domestic pressure or simple ‘blog fatigue’, then it simply doesn’t happen. And when your blog becomes expected, this will disappoint your contacts and readers.

In a way, I liken it to going to the gym. Once you fall out of the habit and resolve to starting again ‘tomorrow’ – tomorrow becomes after the weekend, becomes next week, becomes next month.

I’ve realised that trying to put something informative and relevant out to the people who have subscribed, and then syndicating it across all my networks, takes on average about 80 minutes per day to do it properly. That’s how I’ve achieved over 100 reads a day on the blog and rising, and another 150 across my social networks but it’s probably unsustainable with a day job!

I read a great blog on Linkedin (check out http://www.selectivityinc.com/blog/) about putting in place an editorial calendar and sticking to it. Wise words, I imagine that’s what Seth does!

As a result I’m refining my output down to a more managable 3 times a week to ensure that I maintain quality and relevance. I’m aiming to do this Monday, Wednesday & Friday. If in the future, time allows, then I’ll get back up to five times daily!

Apologies if you’ve had to do without your little bit of daily Marketing Assassin magic! I’ll be back in the saddle tomorrow.

Best wishes, and as always, comments welcome!

René

I recall with some fondness the Choose Your Own Adventure books I read in my youth.  The opportunity to escape to a new world, making decisions that affected me and the outcome of the story and to try something different. It was captivating.

Shoot 20+ years into the future and I still love words. I started writing this marketing based blog several months ago because I felt passionately about writing and also about inspiring others to market effectively (and because it might turn into a book and make me rich!)

As a result, I see great opportunities with the fledgling Guardian Local experiment being rolled out next year in Leeds, Cardiff and Edinburgh. This could be the next seismic shift in the news and communications sector. Though getting local people to contribute to local news is not a new thing, the fact The Guardian is trying this out means journalism as we know it could change forever.

If you’re interested, maybe even want to take part, read more about it here http://tinyurl.com/yho68ks

If you’re in b2b, are you making best use of the trade organisations and portals available to you?

Sure these days, most business people have joined the social networking revolution with a Linkedin profile. You may have joined some groups of like-minded individuals and be looking to engage with customers, prospects and suppliers.

But what about trade associations and online portals? Every sector has them. They aren’t generally the sexiest sites on the Internet, but they work in bringing people together.

Some are free, some paid for, consequently offering different accessibility. Most involve some sort of user-based forum for finding information, starting conversations, asking and answering. Some are linked to the main magazine in the sector.

Most have an online / print directory you can list in and offer a recruitment angle. Some even allow you to post your news and press releases, and if you want to pay more, advertise. The forward thinking trade associations and portals list tender and business opportunities demonstrating their business relevance.

Where do you go for your business information online? Reach out. It’s likely your customers go there too.

A feature on Monday night’s BBC 5Live Drive made me smile. In it their business reporter was commenting on the next day’s papers and the economic headlines.

In the space of 12 hours, Steve Ballmer CEO of Microsoft had talked about the recession being U shaped, meaning we hit the bottom, would coast a while and then hit growth. Things wouldn’t, in his view, be getting any worse. In another paper, Michael Geoghegan CEO of HSBC was talking about the risk of a W shaped curve, where growth follows the initial recession but we then hit recession and then growth again (the old boom and bust argument).

They then went on to talk about the less cyclical V curve (recession then growth) and the L curve which is probably the worst of all, a slump leading to long term depression.

But what does this mean for budding Marketing Assassins?

You need to know how the recession has affected your market and where to focus your energy. This will determine if your strategy is still the right one – greater penetration of a saturated or declining market is not an avenue you want to go down. Maybe development of a niche market or diversification into a new area with a slightly modified offering may be the way ahead.

Have you struggled but have now started to see the green shoots? Or have you been making hay during the recession? Do you now have reason to be concerned about being caught out or caught up by competitors better placed to take advantage?

The London Evening Standard is dropping its 50p cover price next week to become a freesheet.

After a high profile relaunch earlier this year which saw circulation initially dip 20% before recovering 12% this is a big gamble on the part of its Russian owners. There are a wealth of other daily publications in London (including LondonLite and Metro) and with more and perhaps better content available on mobile devices and the Internet, this was inevitable.

Maybe the movement to free was brought about by the influx of dating ads, suduko and a decline in credible journalism. Whatever the reason, one of the capital’s flagship brands has had to modernise with the times with no guarantee of success in the future.

Giving away a product for free carries incredible risks not least in how your product is perceived, the value it holds and in terms of The Standard, the inability to develop and engage with its customer base on a meaningful level. Commercially, there should always be a reason for giving something away – to reward, entice, convert, cross sell or up sell.

The Standard will be hoping an increase in readership will be an attractive draw to advertisers.

Two audiences for this post 1/ those of you, who like me, have experienced the abject horror and humiliation of redundancy, please take heart. And 2/ marketing professionals still in a job who may be able to help.

Yup, that powerful human feeling of rejection kicks in and makes you feel pretty worthless. Especially if you’ve had to go through somesort of formal scoring process. In many cases, decisions have been made before that point whether you like it or not, remember it is a business and not a personal decision.

In these cost sensitive times, companies are downsizing and candidates for redundancy are being selected on wide criteria: you may be the biggest earner, be part of the biggest team and/or unfortunately work on an unprofitable or no longer unrequired piece of business that the company wishes to outsource or do away with.

But, this is your time, your big break, your time to really think about what you want to do with your life.

OK, time, and a requirement to pay the bills are right at the forefront of your mind. So consider the following approaches to help cut the clutter and focus.

1. Landing a job

- If you need to work, utilise all the online job boards, spend a day refreshing your CV, upload it and make it searchable, getting it front of recruiters. Sign up for job alerts direct to your email address – note 98% of them will be tenuous to say the least. I’m a marketer so in the early days, I used Monster, Totaljobs, Trovit, Guardian, Brand Republic and The CIM’s Marketer site.

- Going direct – most companies (or in my case agencies) are not advertising right now for fairly obvious reasons. But it’s already better than it was in the summer. Recruitment agencies typically charge 15-20% of the first year salary as a commission for the candidate introduction, so it gets quite expensive for the recruiting company. Create a powerful email that gets your value across in 2-3 lines. Talk achievements, campaigns and budgets.

- Applications – Make each application unique, link your experience to the requirements of the role. Pay attention to the little things like the document title (Name>Role>reference) so it looks tailored. Follow up within 24 hours on an appliction to ‘check receipt’ and to gauge if you stand a chance.

- Management – keep a log in Word/Excel of live applications, contact, role and a status update on last contact and when to contact next. All companies whether they are advertising or not are being inundated and are not contacting applicants who don’t make the grade.

- Get networking – post your profile on Linkedin, join groups of relevance and respond and set up posts. Start a Twitter account, join Facebook. Put yourself out there. 

- Start a blog – are you passionate about what you do or an expert in something? Start a blog – I did. promote it on all your social networks (see point 5). Add it to your email footer and your CV. But keep it up -even if you only add something every few days. It shows you are committed.

2. Doing your own thing (part time or full time)

- If you have more time to pursue your dream, work every day to get a step closer to it. It may be you start up on the side of a day job or go head long into it. There are lots of resources out there to help, ranging from entrepreneur networks (www.ecademy.com), startup networks (www.startups.co.uk) to BusinessLink (www.businesslink.gov.uk) and referral networks like BRE and NRG and others.

And with open source software, free hosting packages, cheap rents and cheap staff (!), its no surprise that so many businesses launch and thrive in recession.

To those marketing professionals still gainfully employed, seek out the experts that are available to you NOW and utilise them before they 1/ get snapped up or 2/ become too busy to help you.

Hope this post helps.