InSights Group

We are doing company launches, brand management, running companies, and in general trying to keep up with you in changing the world!

Monthly Archives: May 2009

Are You Keeping Your Promises?

sarahblackdress100 Are You Keeping Your Promises?This is a guest post by Sarah Worsham, CEO & Web Strategist at Sazbean Consulting and blogging at Sazbean.com. Sarah is passionate about helping companies reach their business goals by using the web effectively. Sarah provides guidance through Internet Marketing, Strategy & Business consulting.

Sometimes doing business is a lot like being in kindergarten.  When you were 5 and the teacher promised you a story before naptime, you’d get really upset if she later told you she didn’t have time.  It didn’t matter that she let you do a bunch of other fun stuff instead of the story.  You just remember that you were looking forward to the story and you didn’t get it.

The same is very true in business.  If you make promises to your customers, you better make sure you deliver them.  It doesn’t matter what else you did for them, they’ll just remember that you didn’t keep your promise.  And then, similar to kindergarten, they’ll tell all their friends how you don’t keep promises.

Sometimes we forget the we make promises to our customers in the form of advertising slogans, sales, special offers, verbal agreements, etc.  Customers see a special offer as a promise by you to deliver what’s in the offer.  If you make claims that you can’t deliver, you’re breaking your promise.

Moral of the story?  Never promise or market or advertise anything you can’t deliver.  And even if you’re overdelivering – providing extra service – make sure you still deliver on your original agreement (promise).  If you can keep your promises, customers will remember – and tell others – and referrals are the best kind of business generation.

3B's and an E

tomprofilephoto2 150x150 3B's and an E This is a guest post by Tom Harris, Your Marketing Coach. Tom helps entrepreneurs and small businesses develop and execute marketing plans. He specializes in website usability and effectiveness.This is a guest post by Tom Harris, Your Marketing Coach. Tom helps entrepreneurs and small businesses develop and execute marketing plans. He specializes in website usability and effectiveness.

What do we all want for our businesses? More sales! But what do we need to get from people before we can have more sales? We need to get their attention! They’re not going to buy anything from us until we have their undivided attention.

David Meerman Scott, in a recent blog post, noted the four ways that we can get the attention of potential buyers, and I herewith borrow his thoughts for my comments.
The first way (the first B) is to BUY their attention. This is otherwise known as Advertising. We pay money and throw messages out, and occasionally someone notices a message and responds.

The second B is to BEG for attention, also known as Public Relations. We hire someone to write press releases and circulate them to their media connections, asking journalists, reporters, newspaper editors, reviewers, or whoever is interested to please, please, please write about us.

The third B is to BUG people. This is called Sales. We find individuals, wherever we can find them, and try to engage them in conversation (bug them), until they listen, and then maybe they buy something from us.

The common thread of the 3 Bs is that we are INTERRUPTING people to get their attention. Sure, maybe they actually really do want to buy our stuff, but we’re still using variously annoying tactics to attract their attention.

The final item is E. This is where we EARN their attention. The 3 Bs have been around forever, but this one is new. This one is not interruptive. This is the method of social media, where we create connections with people and develop relationships, and don’t try to buy, beg or bug, but rather create environments where people Know, Like and Trust us (KLT). It’s where we continuously publish information that has value to people, and we give that information away for free, and thereby establish ourselves as “obvious experts”. Then we don’t need to go find buyers, because they come to us.

This method may take a little longer to produce results, but the results, I will argue, are more “real” and more solid and potentially longer-lasting than those created by the 3 Bs. And, as a bonus, we might just make some friends in the process.

3B’s and an E

tomprofilephoto2 150x150 3Bs and an E This is a guest post by Tom Harris, Your Marketing Coach. Tom helps entrepreneurs and small businesses develop and execute marketing plans. He specializes in website usability and effectiveness.This is a guest post by Tom Harris, Your Marketing Coach. Tom helps entrepreneurs and small businesses develop and execute marketing plans. He specializes in website usability and effectiveness.

What do we all want for our businesses? More sales! But what do we need to get from people before we can have more sales? We need to get their attention! They’re not going to buy anything from us until we have their undivided attention.

David Meerman Scott, in a recent blog post, noted the four ways that we can get the attention of potential buyers, and I herewith borrow his thoughts for my comments.
The first way (the first B) is to BUY their attention. This is otherwise known as Advertising. We pay money and throw messages out, and occasionally someone notices a message and responds.

The second B is to BEG for attention, also known as Public Relations. We hire someone to write press releases and circulate them to their media connections, asking journalists, reporters, newspaper editors, reviewers, or whoever is interested to please, please, please write about us.

The third B is to BUG people. This is called Sales. We find individuals, wherever we can find them, and try to engage them in conversation (bug them), until they listen, and then maybe they buy something from us.

The common thread of the 3 Bs is that we are INTERRUPTING people to get their attention. Sure, maybe they actually really do want to buy our stuff, but we’re still using variously annoying tactics to attract their attention.

The final item is E. This is where we EARN their attention. The 3 Bs have been around forever, but this one is new. This one is not interruptive. This is the method of social media, where we create connections with people and develop relationships, and don’t try to buy, beg or bug, but rather create environments where people Know, Like and Trust us (KLT). It’s where we continuously publish information that has value to people, and we give that information away for free, and thereby establish ourselves as “obvious experts”. Then we don’t need to go find buyers, because they come to us.

This method may take a little longer to produce results, but the results, I will argue, are more “real” and more solid and potentially longer-lasting than those created by the 3 Bs. And, as a bonus, we might just make some friends in the process.

Every day in every way my life gets better and better…

491460765 fecdc541d0 m Every day in every way my life gets better and better...What do you tell yourself when you get up in the morning? I developed this particular affirmation several years ago and use it when life sends me reminders.  All of our actions and reactions in life are not to the events that are happening, but to the way we percieve, react, feel and rationalize what is happening.

I had an amazing and wonderful day today. I had the opportunity to learn new things, push myself to new limits, and have a sense of accomplishment at the end of it all. How was your day?

Are You Sending Everybody the Same Message?

tomprofilephoto2 150x150 Are You Sending Everybody the Same Message? This is a guest post by Tom Harris, Your Marketing Coach. Tom helps entrepreneurs and small businesses develop and execute marketing plans. He specializes in website usability and effectiveness.

Do all of your customers and potential customers have exactly the same needs?  David Meerman Scott, in his book The New Rules of Marketing and PR, talks about “buyer personas”, the various sub-groups contained within your “market”.  He offers the interesting example of a website for a college, which would clearly need to focus on a number of different groups; current students, prospective students, parents of current students, parents of prospective students, alumni, and so on.  So a buyer persona is a description of a group of people who have clearly distinct needs.

Can you segment your overall market into distinct groups?  If you can, do you have a distinct message for each group?  Does your website address the needs of all of these groups, or does it just have a single one-size-fits-all message?  How about your printed materials, business cards, email marketing, etc?  Do you have several variations of your “elevator pitch” that you can select from based on a little knowledge of the person you’re with a the moment?

Probably some of your groups are more important to you than others.  Are you giving the appropriate amount of attention to each group?  Do you have one or more minor groups that maybe you should not be focusing on at all?

The goal of all your marketing efforts must be to focus on the buyers’ needs and goals, not on your products and services.  As David Meerman Scott says in another of his books, World Wide Rave, “nobody cares about your products”.  Buyers care about their own needs, and if your marketing message includes information for both Group A and Group B, that means that no matter which group you’re talking with, at least part of your message is not relevant to them.  Try to identify the various Buyer Personas that you might have, then tailor a custom message for each group.

Tom Harris, Your Marketing Coach

What Benefits Do You Provide To Your Customers?

sarahblackdress100 What Benefits Do You Provide To Your Customers?This is a guest post by Sarah Worsham, CEO & Web Strategist at Sazbean Consulting and blogging at Sazbean.com.  Sarah is passionate about helping companies reach their business goals by using the web effectively.  Sarah provides guidance through Internet Marketing, Strategy & Business consulting.

A lot of companies get caught up in how much they’re selling or how great a deal it is and they forget one vital thing.  Customers buy your products or services because of the benefits they provide for them.  Benefits equal the value of your product or service.  If customers don’t see value (benefits) in your products or services, they won’t buy from  you. (For reasons of simplicity, products will be interchangeable with services from this point on.  If you’re a service company, your service is your product.)

Customers will have their own ideas about what benefits they can get from your products, but it is also up to you to provide that information – up front and clearly.  Instead of talking about the features of a product, talk about what benefits a customer will get from using a product.  While listing features may be important for some types of customers (very technical or detail-oriented), many just won’t care, or worse, will be confused.

For example, the bottle of Diet Pepsi on the desk in front of me.  Why do I drink it?  A few reasons – I’m thirsty.  I want a bit of caffeine.  I like the taste.  Those are the benefits that bottle of Diet Pepsi is providing to me.  Do I care about it’s features? Calories, Total Fat, Sodium, Protein, Color, etc. Maybe.  In this case, I did want something with 0 calories, but that wasn’t my primary reason for getting something to drink, it was just part of the decision process.

Here’s the secret.  The benefits you provide to your customers (and how well you provide them) are also what distinguish you from your competitors. All your marketing efforts should be geared towards talking about benefits. Customers are very selfish – all they care about is what’s in it for them, so make it clear.

Now you have to deliver the benefits (and value) you promised.  But that’s a topic for another post….

If your friends told you to do something, would you?

If your friends told you to do something, would you?I hope so, if you surround yourself with great friends, and if what they told you would be beneficial to you. Enter Social Media and Organic Marketing strategies.  When the buzz is happening that there is a new place to hang out online, make connections and grow your business, you might want to listen.

Today at InSights we had a class based on using LinkedIn to increase your online business networking presence, how to use it for job searching, and to increase your entrepreneurial opportunities.

Tomorrow we will be pinging, plurking and discovering how to make Facebook and Twitter talk to each other.

If anyone tells you they don’t have time to incorporate these practices into their lives, tell them they need to make the time. Once the power is discovered, there is no turning back…

Stay tuned later this week for a major Twitter story to be released by the InSights Group and one of our social media class participants.

What is your best social media story?

24 Hour Challenge Accepted and Expectations Far Surpassed!

shoes 3 24 Hour Challenge Accepted and Expectations Far Surpassed!

Thank you to our supportive community here in Michigan! Yesterday evening we put out the request for children’s shoes for our good friends who are travelling to Russia tomorrow, Saturday May 2nd to adopt two wonderful boys. The request was answered, in true giving spirit, and in a total of 24 hours we had 100 pairs of shoes donated to the cause! Talk about an inspiring, giving, sharing and resourceful group of people! Thank you to everyone who donated, took the time to run around and pick them up, and for being ready and willing to answer the call. This was truly awesome and inspiring! Special thanks from John and Joan who will be bringing these gifts to the orphanage next week. We are thrilled to be able to have helped put this together, and are thankful for those who were able to answer the call!shoes 24 Hour Challenge Accepted and Expectations Far Surpassed!