Marketing is dead.
How many times have you heard that in the last couple of year?
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My reading challenge for 2018
So, I love books. Ever since I was little, I was drawn to books. Even before I could read myself- I would ask my parents to read to me all the time, and then could sit for hours and “read” it from the pictures. When I was in 2nd grade I got my library card and borrowed my first book. I finished it on the ride back home so we were back at the library the other day for another. I read Victor Hugo’s les Miserables by the end of 3rd grade, and kept on reading vigorously through middle school and high school- focusing on fantasy, science fiction (I think I’ve read every Asimov book translated to Hebrew) and history. My military service put a temporary stop to this habit, but after graduating from the Naval Academy I had more time on my hands (and was travelling for several hours by train almost every day), so I was back- this time reading mostly in English, which is not my native language. I read many classics at that time- from Moby Dick to Lord of the Rings Trilogy and anything in between. University meant I was reading all the time- mainly academic books and articles but I was fine with it. Upon graduation I’ve started working at jobs that required travel so I’ve had lots of time to kill on flights. This time my focus shifted to business books and “light-science” books like Gladwell’s “The Tipping point” and Thomas L. Friedman “thank you for being late”.
Community creation
People love to be a part of a community.
What exactly constitute a community changes from one person to another, but most people will agree on the functionality: it should provide you with something you need.
· For some it’s a sense of belonging.
· For others it provides tangible benefits- knowledge, tips.
· For others it’s a network itself.
Regardless of the motivation- it seems that people like to belong. What people aren’t very good at is creating a community.
On Taking time off
This fall, for the first time in what seems like forever, I’ve taking some time off. Not one or two days, but some serious time off. I went on a surf trip for 10 days. Ten days without work-related calls, almost no emails, and mostly, with very little other than surf and rest.
It was challenging, I must admit. It takes time to adjust to a the rhythm- getting up in the morning, doing some yoga, eating a leisurely breakfast, surfing all day long, doing some yoga again, eating dinner, watching some photos of us surf and hitting bed early to do it all again the next day. The only big changes between days were dictated by the weather gods- some days a certain beach would have good surfing conditions, other days we had to travel to a distant beach to surf, other days had no waves so we relaxed or went to the local market instead.
Re-igniting the Owntrepreneurship blog
I’ve been away for too long. I know that. The last post published on this blog more than a year ago. That’s like forever in internet terms. And while the reasons for this were valid, I still feel somewhat guilty and would like to explain myself.
The power of a hand-written note
Recently I’ve prepared and delivered a bunch of hand-written cards to celebrate Jewish New Year. This is nothing new of course. It’s rather a traditional custom, even considered antiquated by some.
I mean- why go through all the trouble of going to the shop, buying a printed card, writing a personal note, mailing it and waiting for the recipient to respond?
I think that most people underestimate the power of personalization. It’s true that in today’s work this is common knowledge, and every marketer knows that to achieve maximum impact she should try to personalize the message to the client. But how personal does and email or text message feels? My guess is that most of us get these “Happy holiday” emails now and then, and just gaze at them and delete. The truth is that people understand the effort you’ve put into delivering them an actual, physical object. Even if it’s just a card, and even if it just says “Thank You”, it’s much more meaningful than any form of electronic correspondence. More than what is written in the note, it actually says to the recipient- “I’ve been thinking of you”. And that is greatly appreciated.
What to do when a client fires you?
A client of mine called me the other day. Said they won’t be needing my services anymore.
Ouch.
No matter how much you train yourself to deal with rejection, the initial feeling you feel is a kick in the stomach. And this was a good client, one I’ve been working with for over a year. A client with whom I’ve had great working relations, where I known many team-members. Even worse- a client for which I’ve delivered great value. So the first reaction is always one of shame and misery- why did he “fire” me? What have I done wrong? And why do I deserve this treatment?
I took a few deep breaths, and decided to be the professional I aim to be. I thanked him for the opportunity to work together. I told him I’ve learnt a lot from him (the CEO) and from his team. I also told him I appreciated the fact he took the time to call me from abroad and notify me in person.
How to make the best use of conferences B2B platform – 8 easy hacks
As much as we marketers would hate to admit it, not all marketing is digital (here’s a great example of such offline marketing strategy: https://owntrepreneurship.com/2016/12/21/for-real-marketing-impact-go-offline-and-old-school/).
Conferences, trade shows and expos still bring in large crowds, and as marketers we simply cannot ignore the possibility to engage with our target audience. However, conference have become so commercialized that it is impossible to make an impact without spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on lavish booth, VR experiences and raffles.
But there is still one tool in your toolbox that most underutilize. This is the online B2B platform. Using this in an intelligent way can lead to scheduling multiple meetings with relevant people regardless of your ability to spend (sometimes without even having to have a booth at all!). Let’s start.
1. Set your profile
Just like on any other social platform, you need to have a decent profile which includes a headshot, short description and contact details. Don’t be lazy and add links to your website, social media accounts and phone number.
2. Choose areas of interest
Make sure you list your areas of interest and make them visible to others. It ensures people can check if you have any relevancy to them and that if they do agree to meet you it would be a productive meeting.
3. Search for relevant people
This is the real deal. You must take the time to search various combinations of key words to identify relevant people you might like to engage with. Copy all the names to a spreadsheet and start to go one by one and contact them.
4. Contact
This is the tricky part- some B2B platform do not allow for direct contact without the approval of the other person. Some are only used to set meetings at a designated area at specific times. Whenever possible, complement any meeting request with a short written note, explaining who you are and why you would like to meet them.
5. Connect using other channels
Don’t rely Solley on the B2B platforms inmail. Connect with the person on LinkedIn as well. Sometimes these platforms include a link to the person’s profile, but even it it’s not listed, it should be fairly easy to find on LinkedIn. Once found you can use the same approach note for the request to connect. Once connected you can send an inmail with a request to meet at the conference.
6. Try their personal email or phone.
If a person connects with you on LinkedIn but does not answer the inmail meeting request you still have two more options- you can extract their email from their LinkedIn profile and email them, or, if they have a phone number listed on their profile- you can even try the odd cold call.
7. Hack the app- nowadays every event has its own mobile app. And while I wouldn’t suggest to conduct all these activities using the mobile app, but you can certainly use it for certain tasks. For instance, Some desktop B2B platforms do not allow messaging / inmail option, while the same B2B mobile does allow it. Mobile app also shows you people around you at any given event or talk- which makes for even more focused targeting (e.g. you can see everyone who’s attended a session about a specific area and target all of them as qualified leads).
8. The gift that keeps on giving:
The conference has ended? There are still people you need to connect with? Fear not! Oftentimes the B2B platform will stay online for many days after the conference has ended, allowing you the same access to information as before.
In summary- Using B2B platforms requires very little skill, and a lot of diligence. Done right it can increase the effectiveness of participating in a conference tenfold.
Bonus- all B2B platform require registration but most don’t actually check you are registered to the conference itself. This means you can try to set meetings and only after you’ve verified enough interest you can actually register to the event. It also means you can get real marketing value without presenting.
Bonus II- always complement your B2B activities with notifications on social media before, during and after the event. It might remind people who are not listed on the B2B platform of your existence an push them to set a meeting with you.
How to use Quora for inbound marketing
Recent funding round of Quora left no doubt- it means business. Raising round D of $85 million Series meaning Quora is now worth around $1.8 billion.
With 190 million monthly users, most of which are active and considered quite intelligent, this is a great source for inbound marketers.
I have been using for some time now and find it surprising not many do. Here are a few tips to help you get started:
- Find answers to questions that bother you
This may seem trivial, as it’s the goal of this platform. But if you have any marketing or market related question, Quora would be the best place to get professional answers. This could be very helpful as a marketer in general, as well as provide specific insights you may need for a campaign. - Market research- This isn’t as obvious, but you can learn much about the market, potential users’ behavior and sentiment on this platform. All you need to do is ask
- Competitive analysis- Here you’ll need to be more subtle, but in many areas people discuss pros and cons of specific products, which you can learn a lot from.
- Content research: you can easily understand what’s bothering people and which topics are left unanswered by searching for a answer and seeing how many people asked such questions, how many people follow these questions and topics and what it the general quality of these answers. Generate your content accordingly and don’t forget to ask/ answer and link back to it. You’d be helping people get the information they crave and gain traffic to your publication.
- Thought leadership
Quora has an option to host a blog, but it could be difficult to maintain in parallel to the blog of a brand you are trying to promote. Instead, be an authentic voice and position yourself as an authority on topics which are relevant to your business. - Traffic- Answer questions:
This is what we’re really here for. If you can answer someone’s question, provide helpful details AND link back to your site you can create a constant traffic stream back to your site. Be helpful and subtle, Quora forbids you from simply pasting post written elsewhere or simply pasting links to external sites. - and some more traffic- ask questions
Asking questions drives traffic, engagement and positions you as a thought leader.
Here’s one example of a question I’ve asked on Quora that keeps sending people to my site, 2 years later: https://owntrepreneurship.com/2016/05/16/how-one-post-generated-tremendous-traffic-to-my-blog/ - Incorporate Quora search, question and answering into your routine content creation process:
I’ve incorporated it into my social media published routine- I ask a “leading” question regarding every new post I publish, and add the post link in the questions’ details. - Don’t forget to share on social media
Quora answers and questions are easily shared on Social media, and these tend to get nice traffic (don’t forget to include .@quora and #Quora in your tweets).
Beware of one caveat- Quora does not allow to open company profiles, so all this activity will be conducted under your own name. Make sure you adhere to Quora rules and etiquette (yes- there’s an answer for that as well: https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-major-policies-and-guidelines-on-Quora)
BTW- here’s my Quora profile: https://www.quora.com/profile/Yotam-Gutman-2
Communication preferences for the busy entrepreneur
You get this every day as a freelancer/ entrepreneur – bombardments of emails, messages and calls. It used to be though but manageable, but nowadays it’s become worst. Not because there is more of, but because these messages are distributed across multiple communication channels.
Multi-channel communication stress
So every time you think you are done replying to all the import emails you check your Facebook and see your inbox is full there. Skipping to LinkedIn – again, many unread messages. And your phone only makes it worse- WhatsApp, text messages and an odd (perhaps a tribute to the 90’s ? ) voice mail you haven’t checked in 3 months.
Oh, and there’s that thing the phone is actually made for. Calls. But most of the come in at a time you are unable to answer, so they become missed calls which you should now return.
And there’s a different etiquette for each communication channel, too. It’s ok to respond to an email a few hours after you got it, but if you start a WhatsApp/IM conversation and queue for some time the other side gets pissed- why aren’t you answering.
And Even Email, the form of communication invented to save time and make communicating across the globe effortlessly, is difficult for us freelancers, who use anything between 2-5 email address at a time.
Do it like the Navy
So after battling with this difficulty for a while, I decided to go back to my root. Back when I was at the Naval Academy we were taught how each in operational includes a Communication chapter. It lists all the frequencies, participating units and code names. It also list the Communication preferences for each entity during the different phases of execution.
For instance- a Surface vessel should try to communicate first using SATCOM (less chance of it being intercepted), then other means and finally HF frequency, which can be triangulated and disclose the vessel’s location to the enemy (don’t worry, this isn’t top secret stuff, it’s common knowledge since WWII). For us tactical officers, in charge of our ship’s communication, this little table was like a bible. We would memorize it, copy it and paste it around the comms room, bridge and literally anywhere where someone could pick a handset and send a transmission.
And since everyone in the fleet knew these rules, you had no misunderstanding and grief over who contacted who and in what channel.
Communication preferences for contacting me
So here’ my Communication preferences. If you want to reach me, please start from the top and if you don’t get a response quick enough move to the next option.
- LinkedIn messenger
- Text Message
- Call
- Tweeter IM
- Google Hangouts
- Skype IM
- Voicemail (only if older than 40)
And if you really want my attention – let’s meet Face to Face (but make sure you schedule it via Email. It listed right here : Yotam’s email
