Des Moines Business Record Piece on createWOWmedia
June 21, 2010 by Doug Mitchell · Leave a Comment
I was very happy when I started receiving calls, emails, and tweets about an article that just hit the Des Moines Business Record titled “createWOWmedia Nurtures Online Findability“. I think author Joe Gardyasz did a great job synthesizing 1.5 hours of interview in a piece that highlighted how we leverage social and interactive tools…and more importantly how our clients use them and thrive with them.
The word “nuture” is something we take very seriously. Anyone who’s heard me speak knows that I represent a firm’s online efforts with a picture of cupped hands, holding a seedling in a mound of soil. That seedling represents your online world…and you must provide the proper elements like fresh content, participation in online community, multimedia, etc. to thrive and grow.
I’m also humbled by the comments from our clients highlight in the article Boesen the Florist and Nutrisport – Full Potential Training. Tom Boesen and Ryan Irwin said some very nice things about our work and I am sincerely humbled and grateful.
Take look for yourself if you’d like and thank you for making our work a sincere pleasure. http://bit.ly/bizrecord
Market Too Small or Not Doing Enough Outbound Marketing
June 2, 2010 by Doug Mitchell · Leave a Comment
I’ve had a lot of conversations with business owners lately…many of whom rely mostly on Inbound Marketing to drive new business. There’s nothing quite as powerful as inbound marketing and word of mouth that causes your phone to ring with, “Hey I’d like to write you a check.” But if you’re in a market where you’re educating quite a bit and talking about powerful and disruptive changes to “the way things are today” at Acme Widget maker, inbound marketing is probably not enough.
Although the market for your services may be vast, “I KNOW every business needs this stuff!”, the market for those who will buy your services without being “sold a little” may be tiny. I’m not advocating a telesales team to find people willing to pay you $2500/hour for consulting (or am I?). But I am advocating an effective blend of outbound and inbound marketing to keep a steady flow of clients coming through the doors. That specific blend is different in every business. What’s your blend?
Hot Chicks Don’t Get Dates
May 25, 2010 by Doug Mitchell · Leave a Comment
If your first thought about your website is looks…you’ve already wasted money.
Being another pretty face doesn’t mean you get dates. There’s the intimidation factor: ”She’s way too hot to take my call or go out with me.”
Then there’s the already taken factor: “Well she’s so hot she obviously has someone.”
The people who are really active daters, engaging with lots of people, exploring possibilities, and having lots of conversations are attractive, engaging, and dynamic…but not so hot that they’re unapproachable.
Be the website that a lot of substance and depth behind its attractive face and you’ll get dates and possibly even enter some long term relationships far more often.
Asmus Farm Supply Home Page Video Profile is Live
May 24, 2010 by Doug Mitchell · Leave a Comment
Our great client to the north in beautiful Rake, Iowa now has a tidy and crisp 1 minute video on their site that really captures the essence of who they are and what they do. Sure the breakthroughs in chemicals, nutrients, and genetics have massively increased yields and outputs so farmers in Iowa can feed the world. But…without proper and safe distribution, application, and sound agronomic recommendations farmers would be far less consistent. Asmus Farm Supply takes a passionate interest in doing things right for farmers and I believe this brief video demonstrates that.
Asmus Farm Supply Video Shoot Wrap Up
May 21, 2010 by Doug Mitchell · 1 Comment
We had a great day up in Rake, Iowa (you can hit MN with a rock from here it’s so far North) shooting video and putting the pieces together for a 60-120 second “Who we are, what we do, and what makes us special” video that will soon grace the home page at Asmus Farm Supply’s Website. I shot a little blog post on our way out that reminds us all to not waste any opportunity to capture content especially when we’ve driven far and brought lots of great equipment. We have enough video archived now to provide Asmus with content for months. We can’t wait to show off the amazing staff, the unbelievably clean and massive facility, and the new offices and conference center that are being built.
Living in the city, you and I probably don’t appreciate how important solid agronomics and proper application of nutrients and other chemicals are to producing the food that feeds the world. I appreciate it 10x more after spending the day with our friends at Asmus Farm Supply, Inc.
Doug Mitchell talks content creation at Asmus Farm Supply from Doug Mitchell on Vimeo.
My Enterprise Confessions Ebook & The Huffington Post: A Long Tail Case Study
May 18, 2010 by Doug Mitchell · Leave a Comment
If you don’t believe in Interactive Marketing, the Long Tail of Content, Social Connectivity, Content Outposts, and being disciplined enough to write compelling content for the web…you are missing out. Here’s the progression that may change your mind about executing vs. thinking about when to act.
- I wrote an ebook in early 2008 called “Confessions of an Enterprise Software Salesperson: What I Really Meant When I Said __________”
- After about 500 opt-ins (list building for email marketing) I placed the book on Scribd (another fantastic content outpost for findability).
- I still get 5-10 opt ins a month and have over 2500 reads on Scribd.
- Today I check google reader for alerts on my name (online reputation management via listening strategies) and notice a tweet from Doug Mitchell (I call him “the other Doug Mitchell”) about the fact that “Doug Mitchell’s of the world are out there doing stuff. (Using Twitter to participate in the social conversation).
- I check the link Doug is referring to and it turns out my Confessions book is referenced nicely on The Huffington Post (and my graphics work commended too I might add Brand Chef).
- The author linked back to my hosted version of the book at Scribd. (Good thing I gave away the compelling content ubiquitously across the web without being greedy).
Now my phone hasn’t rung with people wanting to give me money (yet) today…but every bit of this exposure counts for me and for you. If nothing else, I’m tickled pink and now am writing blog posts and sending emails to my aweber lists about this (ie creating more content with keywords and analysis). Come on wouldn’t you feel good if your “ancient manuscript” was dug up and praised? (OR are you too busy to write it). Execute.
Tom Eischen Sales Algona Iowa Goes Live
May 17, 2010 by Doug Mitchell · Leave a Comment
So I’m a guy from Southern California and 5 years ago if you’d have told me that I provided the optimum findability architecture (WordPress) along with monitoring, social marketing, and video to an agricultural dealer in Algona, Iowa, I’d have laughed out loud. So start laughing.
Today we hit the switches on our good friends at Tom Eischen Sales. Tom deals DuPont Crop Protection, seeds, beans, power equipment…and he also has a complete service bay on site.
It’s just great for a city boy to finally understand (and embrace) what it means to farm, how important agronomists are, and how important Iowa is to the WORLD in terms of food production. I love my new friends at Eischen’s and the createWOW team is very excited help them leverage the web as a demand generator and conversation engagement platform. (Just wait til the crop sprayer footage comes online).
Are we reaching the social connectivity breaking point?
May 13, 2010 by Doug Mitchell · Leave a Comment
Interesting phenomenon out there. I think people are reaching their breaking point with online connectivity. I’m now getting multiple “friend” requests per week from people I absolutely have no connection to…except that we have perhaps 1 mutual connection (like a politician or some other person that I’m connected to…but don’t really know). I’m also getting 1-5 “become a fan of” requests per day…many of which are the same people re-inviting me to the same thing I’ve declined for the last 12 months. If Facebook used to be “Like a Backyard BBQ with your friends” what is it now? Twitter can still be useful and you can filter, etc…but the sheer volume of broadcast junk and spam (or at least no value followers only promoting some kind of home based business or Acai product) are beyond comprehension.
Are we hitting the point where a combination of privacy concerns and connectivity overload is going to spark mass exodus? Now that things are so clogged up and tons of people are gaming Facebook are you far less motivated to become a fan of “some business you know” because you “know the person” who runs it? Do you now reserve “Liking” a business for those you TRULY love, patronize, and buy from?
I understand that more friends, more fans, more “reach”…but I keep coming back to the quality and value of audiences that largely don’t care about you or your business…but “might” hear about what you have and want it. Isn’t that the old model we seem to dislike so much today?
Membership Sites for Associations
April 27, 2010 by Doug Mitchell · 1 Comment
Here’s how a conversation just went between me and a colleague:
ME – “Hey you know a content rich membership site is perfect for Associations that want to educate, bring more value, and drive engagement between members don’t you think?”
HIM – “Yeah but you know, Associations are still hanging onto the walled garden/newspaper model of having full control, owning the infrastructure, owning the content, and doing it all themselves.”
ME- “I do, but I believe more Associations are understanding that trying to build out and monopolize ‘unique’ content while maintaining website infrastructure that is expensive and outdated is not their core business model and counterintuitive to what an association should do in most cases.”
HIM – “I hope you’re right. Let’s find an Association willing to inject immediate value for its members by leveraging a membership site that has a huge stream of content covering small business issues, Internet Marketing, social media, networking, and branding.”
So am I right? Are you the association? Do we just not get it?
Do Amazing Products and Organic Growth Give a Business a Free Pass with Interactive Marketing?
April 26, 2010 by Doug Mitchell · Leave a Comment
I just spent this last weekend attending Dark Lord Day at the 3 Floyds Brewery in Munster, IN. Before you get weirded out, Dark Lord is a Russian Imperial Stout variety of beer that they release on one day…and one day only per year. This festival started humbly but has grown out of control and the estimated crowd for this Saturday was 8,000 people. Mind you the brewery itself is in a light industrial area and has a postage stamp parking lot. So what drives so many enthusiasts out to share and enjoy amazing beer and festivities…and wait in line for hours to get 8 bottles (max per person) of this $15 elixir? It’s the quality of product in their niche market of course. But here’s the thing:
- 3 Floyds has a website and it’s informative but they don’t interact much with it…ie lack of blogging, etc.
- 3 Floyds is on Twitter but I’ve tried to engage and they just seem to use it here or there as an announcement tool.
- 3 Floyds seems on the surface to have a “our beer does the talking for us” approach…and I can say it works.
So is 3 Floyds making a mistake but not engaging their fans and audience in the social sphere? They are absolutely killing it with sales, loyalty, and mystique growth without the added interactive marketing tools. My guess is that they will keep on growing this way for quite some time and not really ever answer my tweets and I’ll keep going there and buying their stuff and evangelizing. Seems counterintuitive eh?
