Are You Keeping Up With These 5 Digital Marketing Trends In 2012?

Digital marketing is a constantly evolving landscape. New technologies and tools that can be used for marketing purposes are steadily being developed, creating a space that is always in flux and that offers infinite opportunities for digital marketers. While it may be difficult to stay on top of every new technology, there are certain digital marketing channels to watch for in 2012.

1. QR Codes

These days, QR codes can be found everywhere, from public transportation to magazines to food packaging to wedding invitations. When they first emerged, one of the hurdles to QR codes was that many consumers were simply unaware of their purpose.

In 2012, this channel has grown significantly; a recent post shows that marketing use of QR code and barcode scans grew to 68 percent of firms surveyed as part of a 2012 study, up 15 percent from 2011. The post also reflects that 24 percent of consumers use QR codes, a significant percentage in these early stages of adoption. As Millennials grow to represent a larger portion of the population, QR codes should continue to carry some momentum.

2. Nearfield Communications (NFC)

Consumers are always looking for convenience; better, faster, and newer seems to be the current state of mind. Nearfield communications (NFC) allow consumers to 'tap and go,' linking bank cards through platforms like Google Wallet. From an Adage post regarding NFC expansion in Japan, 'In one innovative use of the technology, two Gap stores in Tokyo this month started a 'Like with a high-five' Summer T Coordinates campaign in which a customer connects the app to her Facebook account, then gets a bracelet in-store to act as an identifier. When the customer sees a staff member wearing an outfit she likes, she 'high-fives' to show approval by touching the bracelet to her smartphone. The phone makes a cheering sound and sends the outfit to her Facebook feed.' NFC will continue to offer convenience to consumers making payments in the U.S., but examples like those discussed in the Adage post may not be far behind.

3. User Generated Content (UGC)

As new technologies and social networks become available, so too does the opportunity for consumers to generate blog posts, videos, photos, or reviews about brands. Rather than limit these channels strictly for consumer complaints or reviews, companies should develop digital strategies around the opportunity. User generated content (UGC) has some distinct advantages for marketers, according to a Mashable post; the post cites cost-effectiveness, brand promotions, and ability to drive massive social engagement as reasons for marketers to consider UGC.

Putting the power in the hands of the consumer does not need only to yield negative attention; embracing UGC can be beneficial to marketers in a number of ways.

4. Video Marketing

Online video is not a new concept, but its continued growth provides a valuable tool for marketers to reach prospects and customers. A Time Business post shows more than 184 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content in October 2011, for an average of 21.1 hours per viewer.

Batch and blast video marketing has some advantages, but with available technologies to personalize messages, targeted video marketing can pique a customer's interest, offering an edge over traditional video marketing. Targeted video marketing includes addressing a customer or prospect by name, providing shipping invoices, or simply offering products or videos relating to past purchases or behavior. Marketing automation software could fuel marketing's growth by targeting customer segments or individuals via video.

5. Mind Controlled Technology

This last trend has not yet broken ground in the digital marketing space, but its anticipated emergence could change the game in the near future. Emotiv has developed one of the first 'affordable' mind controlled technology products, and could change not only the marketing landscape, but also the way we live our lives. This technology reads brainwaves, and will control objects based on the user's thoughts.

How does this tie into marketing? Well, just think, in the near future you may be perusing a website and encounter an ad that does not necessarily interest you; seconds later, a different ad may pop up that is directly related to your thoughts. While we have not seen the likes of this technology just yet, watch for it to become a serious player in the near future.

If digital marketers stay on top of these trends, there could be significant advantages over the competition. There are many different ways to market products in today's digital landscape, but tapping into these five trends could give the major marketing players a leg up in the future.

Which trends are you keeping up with this year?

Beyond Content Marketing: 10 Alternative Uses For Infographics

Infographics distill complex information into an easy-to-understand visual format that tells a compelling story. They are a powerful content marketing tool, but can do so much more than effectively drive online traffic to your site. Here are 10 examples of how infographics can be used effectively to communicate your message both online and off:

1. Consumer and B2B sales presentations

When your ability to communicate to customers about your product is restricted by time, understanding or language barriers, an infographic (either printed or online) makes a handy sales tool. It's an ideal way to illustrate a point simply, quickly and break down a complex process or supply chain for in-depth discussion. And let's be honest, scrolling through one on an iPad looks pretty sharp.

2. Trade show graphics

Infographics on banner stands in high-traffic areas make attractive and unique visuals for a trade show booth. In addition to making your event space more interesting to look at, the high-quality data can encourage attendees to interact with your staff, or can be enlarged on strategically placed posters to draw visitors from other parts of the event to your booth.

3. Internal communications/HR tools for employees

With their data-centric focus and ability to help viewers zero in on key messages, infographics make a great reference tool for employees who have just joined the company, or for posting vital information during times of internal change such as the introduction of a new benefits package, mergers, acquisitions or downsizing. **Note: they are not suited for communicating confidential information, as infographics are by their very nature viral communication tools that are easily passed around.

4. Crisis response tool

The viral component of infographics is a great asset when trying to provide essential information quickly during a crisis. For example, key contact details, locations of emergency shelters, or a crafted FAQ for responding to urgent request for data can easily be developed and passed to media, blogs, relevant websites and other social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, etc.

5. Conferences and speaking engagements

Animated infographics are a brilliant alternative to the usual slide presentation because of their huge visual impact. Integrating them into your speech helps your message stick in the minds of attendees and helps it spread after event if uploaded on YouTube or Vimeo. The frequently updated Social Media Revolution created by Erik Qualmann is one of the best examples of this.

6. Personal bio or resume

When done well, a summary of professional skills and experiences spiffed up with infographics can make you stand out as a candidate. Here's a couple of resources, including a Pinterest page of ideas and a site that takes data from your LinkedIn profile to make a visual resume.

7. Company collateral

Infographics make concise inserts, brochures and spec sheets for customers who still need or prefer printed information about your company. They also work well online for e-newsletters, media kits and as vehicles to communicate pertinent data from annual reports, white papers and research conducted by your company.

8. A resource that establishes you as an industry expert

Sometimes infographics are useful for consolidating a wide range of comparative data that can be used as a resource by potential customers and help establish you as an industry expert. Finding information isn't difficult ' it's the time it takes to sort through and compare it that's time consuming. Whether you're selling TVs or providing information about the airline industry (as in this example), infographics can help inform potential customers and drive decision-making behavior.

9. Tell the story of your brand

If your brand has a unique history or legacy that helps define who you are, an infographic can communicate your pedigree in a visual style that represents who you are and why your target audience should care. Although this example was created by another company, it's an excellent showpiece for promotion of SXSW as a brand.

10. Marriage proposals

Maybe this one isn't for everyone, but for two digital hipsters in love it's perfect. Drake Martinet, associate editor at D: All Things Digital, popped the question with this infographic just in time for Valentine's Day this year. And the lucky lady, Stacy Green, who's a senior vice president of marketing and communications for Mashable, said YES.

The creative and strategic potential for infographics is unlimited. Hopefully this list will inspire you to consider how this powerful tool can be utilized to suit you and your business needs. Happy brainstorming!

This article is an original contribution by Andra Chiscop.

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Compelling Storytelling: The Key Ingredient Of Successful B2B Content

B2B marketers believe the key to effective content lies in powerful storytelling. This is one of the major takeaways from B2B Content Marketing Trends 2012 ' an industry survey conducted within the B2B Technology Marketing Community on LinkedIn.

81% of the respondents identified compelling storytelling as the most effective content tactic, followed by originality (52%), customized content (52%) and professional writing (39%). In terms of the content formats used, case studies, white papers and e-books lead the way, with infographics picking up speed as the fastest growing content type.

Top 3 trends in B2B content marketing in 2012

1. Content marketing is expanding dramatically in terms if tactics, forms and volumes of content, with 84% of marketers saying content production is on the rise.

2. The top goals of content marketing are lead generation (68%), thought leadership and market education (50%), and brand awareness (39%).

3. The biggest challenge for marketers is time and bandwidth to create content ' 94% of B2B marketers create content from scratch.
For more B2B content marketing trends, have a look at the SlideShare presentation.

B2B Content Marketing Trends 2012 from Holger Schulze

'Humble and Confident' or Weak and Lackluster? Microsoft Unveils New Logo.

On August 23, 2012 a monumental change took place at one of the world's largest technological companies; Microsoft unveiled a new logo, the first new logo since 1987.

This marks a significant change in the direction the company is taking. On the same day the logo was reveled, Microsoft stated in a press release that they wanted to revamp their image in time for the launch of Windows 8, which happens in late October. Windows 8 is the first software from Microsoft that can be used on both PCs and personal tablets, changing the way in which consumers interact with their various technological devices.

By creating a new logo Microsoft is not only trying to build interest and buzz around the product launch, but also show its target market that they have changed their way of thinking product development in response to how people currently use technology. Windows 8 is not just another 'pretty' update and neither is the logo. It's a new logo for a new Microsoft' with a new attitude.

Before

After

So how is that new business attitude reflected in the new logo? The first change is the font. Gone are the italics in favour of a new, straight font, which connects the F and T. They also altered the colour by lightening it and simplifying the use of colour removing dimension and shadows.

Secondly, the four coloured squares, which were previously curved and used to represent a window, have been straightened out and flattened to make a square. This was done to represent how applications will appear as mosaic tiles that will work on both touch tablets and PCs.

The changes are pretty minimal, so what has the response been? Pretty minimal as well. While it's not being hailed as horrible, there's no real praise for it either. It seems that it has failed to make an impression one way or another.

For a new logo that is supposed to be ushering in 'one of the most significant waves of product launches in Microsoft's history,' I personally think they could have done much better.

But like I said, they didn't do a horrible job. Many components used are what go into a good logo. As Lance Ulanoff, Editor in Chief at Mashable.com, points out it's simple and timeless. The design is clean and modern and void of stylistic trends that will easily look dated in a few years time. It also doesn't deviate too far from the past logos. The logo is appropriate for the direction the brand is heading in. The tiles act as representation of the product the Microsoft is offering.

So where does it fail? Where it fails is the fact that it's not memorable. Microsoft wanted the logo to be 'humble, yet confident,' but humble is the wrong route to take if the brand is trying to play up the notion of significant innovation.

The lightened colour comes off as dull and weak. The adjustment of the coloured tiles is very minor. What the logo should say is 'Microsoft is a leader in technology that offers innovative products to customers for their changing need.' Instead it says 'Microsoft made a few changes here and there that might go unnoticed with customers.'

Simplicity is key in logo design'can anyone say Apple? The new Microsoft logo can be described as simple' but unlike Apple, it's not clever and it's not iconic. It's bad business practice to try to follow in the footsteps of a competitor who has done it so well. Microsoft would have been better served striking off on its own' creating something original to set its brand apart.

While a logo a brand does not make, it is important to put thought and care into it, especially when evolving it.

Do you feel, given the goals and intended messaging, that Microsoft created a new logo that connects with consumers?

Save Time ' Bring Out the Old and Make it Shiny and New Again

When I'm busy, one of my favorite things to do is to bring out some old (but great) content and let it make the rounds again. After all, I worked hard on creating that content and if my readers responded well to it, it's worth giving it that extra push.

For example, if I'm about to go camping for a week and I run out of time to write one of my weekly emails, I'll dig through some old stuff to find a gem that is relevant to what we're talking about today. It might be a blog post, a report or even an email that I sent out previously.

I do this for a few reasons:

' I've likely gathered plenty of new readers that haven't seen this useful resource and it's new information for them.

' Even for those who followed my work back then, not all of them would have seen the content, so sending it out again, gives them something fresh they haven't seen before.

' It's a refresher to those who may have seen the content before. Plus, when I reintroduce the content, I try to add something new and valuable to make my readers think on why the information is important.

' It saves me a heck of a lot of time from having to create even more new content from scratch. I produce new content regularly, but a little break now and then is much appreciated.

Look back at previous content you've created. Which posts got you the most thank yous, replies or comments? Could you reintroduce that to your audience and give them even more value?

If you've got content, you want to bring out again, here are a few things to do:

' Review it to ensure the information is still up to date. Add any extra information that you think will be of interest to your readers.

' Tell your readers why you're bringing it out again. What takeaways do you want to share or what feedback have you received about the content?

' Spread it around. Share it with your mailing list, post it on social media, allow your affiliates to brand it and more.

' Advertise it. For extremely successful content that leads to product sales, consider setting up a pay-per-click program to generate even more business.

Good content is meant to be shared and reshared. You've probably got some gems in your archives, just waiting to be shined and shown again.

Developing A Buyer Persona? Avoid These 4 Common Mistakes

Don't get me wrong: I'm glad to see that marketers are starting to use buyer personas for content marketing. It's a positive trend that, when done correctly, helps content marketers become a strategic asset and deliver a real competitive advantage to their organizations.

However, there's a lot of confusion about what buyer personas are and aren't and how to develop them. I worry that buyer persona could become just another meaningless buzzword. That would be a shame, because personas are such a useful tool.

In my eBook, The Buyer Persona Manifesto, I define a buyer persona as an archetype; a composite picture of the real people who buy, or might buy, products like the ones you market, based on what you've learned in direct interviews with real buyers. The key point here is actually talking to buyers. If your buyer personas are based on generic or internal ideas about your buyers, your content won't be any better than it was before you had personas.

Let's look at the four mistakes you need to avoid when developing and using buyer personas as the basis for your content marketing strategies:

1. Making stuff up about buyers

Marketers typically gather facts about their buyers by talking to a sales rep, meeting with a product expert or conducting online research.

It shouldn't be surprising that these sources don't have the information that marketers really need. Your sales reps will readily admit that buyers mislead or even lie to them about how they compare and choose one solution over another. Moreover, even your product experts are unlikely to be buyer experts because they interact mostly with current customers plus a select few of your largest prospects. And mining online data leads to personas that are little more than job descriptions with high-level pain points.

If content marketing is going to benefit from persona development, you will need to uncover specific insights that are unknown to your competitors or anyone inside your company. This information will be so valuable that you would never post it on your website. However, it will tell you, with scary accuracy, exactly what you need to do to deliver content that persuades buyers to choose you.

How to fix this: The only way to gather clear, unexpected insights about how your buyers make decisions is to have a conversation with them. Make it a goal to spend a few hours a month interviewing recent buyers, including those who chose you and those who did not. Ask buyers to walk you through their decision, starting with the moment they decided to solve this problem. Each in-depth conversation should take 20 or 30 minutes, but the time it will save you in planning, writing, and revising content will be immeasurable.

2. Getting sidetracked by irrelevant trivia

Marketers sometimes make the mistake of gathering buyer information that doesn't really help them deliver more effective content or campaigns. If your marketing team is debating whether your buyer persona is a man or a woman, or if you are bogged down finding just the right stock image of your persona, then you're focusing on the wrong things. Unless you're a B2C marketer, the buyer's gender, marital status and hobbies are rarely relevant.

How to fix this: You may decide to include other data in your buyer personas, but content marketers really need only five insights:

• Priority initiatives: What are the three to five problems or objects that your buyer persona dedicates time, budget, and political capital to?
• Success factors: What are the tangible or intangible metrics or rewards that the buyer associates with success, such as 'grow revenue by X' or a promotion?
• Perceived barriers: What factors could prompt the buyer to question whether your company and its solution can help with achieving his or her success factors? This is when you begin to uncover unseen factors, such as competing interests, politics, or prior experiences with your company or a similar company.
• Buying process: What process does this persona follow in exploring and selecting a solution that can overcome the perceived barriers and achieve their success factors?
• Decision criteria: What aspects of each product will the buyer assess in evaluating the alternative solutions available? To be useful, the decision criteria should include insights both from buyers who chose a competitor and those who decide not to buy a solution at all.

These 'Five Rings of Insight', when gathered directly from buyer interviews, will tell you how to reach undecided buyers with content that addresses their key decision-making process points. Using the Core Buyer Persona Template and Product-Persona Connection Template (click on the sample images below for a registration-free, full-sized download) will help you organize your findings from your calls so that everyone on your team has access to these critical insights.

Core Buyer Persona Template

Buyer Persona Template

3. Developing too many buyer personas

This mistake happens when marketers layer buyer personas onto their existing market segments, frequently defined by demographics such as industry or company size. Many people think they should create a new buyer persona for each of the relevant job titles in each of these segments. Not so.

One company I worked with initially planned to build 24 different buyer personas. Ambitious? Yes. Necessary? No. When they started interviewing their buyers, they were able to pare that list down to 11. Because their marketers are continually conducting new buyer interviews and gaining new insights, we expect to be able to consolidate that list even further.

How to fix this: When you have captured the Five Rings of Insight about your buyers, you will see that differences in job title, company size, and industry do not necessarily relate to differences in your insights. For content marketing and most other marketing decisions, you will only need a separate persona when there is a significant difference on several of those findings. For example, you may find that buyers of your RFID technology in both the hospitality and consumer products industries have nearly identical priority initiatives (a mandate to be more competitive) and perceived barriers (need an incremental approach). If you have a strong story to communicate on each of these points, one persona may be the best way to ensure effective messaging and content marketing.

4. Conducting scripted Q&A interviews with buyers

Using a telephone script or online survey to learn about your buyers won't reveal anything you don't already know ' inevitably, your buyer's first answer to any question will be something obvious, high level, and not particularly useful. The structure imposed by surveys and scripts leads to nice charts, but it fails to reveal the new insights that you need.

How to fix this: It takes a bit of practice, but you can learn how to have the unscripted, agenda-driven conversations that will lead recent buyers to tell you, in incredible detail, exactly how they weighed their options and compared your solutions with your competitors' offerings.

The key to success is asking probing questions based on your buyer's answers. For example, if buyers tell you they chose you because your solution is easy to use, you might ask follow-up questions to understand what about the solution needed to be easy. Or you might ask about the training the buyer expects to attend before it is considered to be 'easy' in their mind. Another follow-up question might seek perspectives on the resources the buyer will consult, or steps they will take, to compare your solution's ease of use to their other options.

When you avoid these four mistakes, your buyers' needs will be the focus of your marketing strategies and tactics. You'll become so attuned to your buyers' perspective that you will consistently impress them, confidently delivering content that answers their questions and persuades them to choose you.

Want to learn more about buyer personas? Attend Adele Revella's workshop, Building Your Buyer Personas, at Content Marketing World, September 4-6 in Columbus, Ohio.

Five Factors That Make Pervasive Business Intelligence A Winning Wager

A white paper about the performance advantage provided by business information analytics reminded me of a conversation I had with a professional blackjack player. 'If you know how to analyze the data,' the admitted card counter said to me, 'playing blackjack is not gambling.'

Because companies are no more interested in gambling with their futures than professional card sharks, an increasing number of enterprises are striving to make improved enterprise performance a sure bet by enabling data-backed decision-making at every level of their operations.

Internally, wider access to BI solutions can make all employees more accountable while supporting greater consistency in performance management. And externally, partner relationships can be strengthened through effective sharing of data and key performance indicators (KPIs).

According to IDC, an elevated interest in BI and analytics can be traced back as far as 2008. Studies then showed that data analysis was a top priority for nearly half of survey respondents. Judging by the expanding offerings of enhanced BI and analytics products from software providers, the demand has not abated.

Despite technological advancements, making truly pervasive use of business intelligence in an organization is not a simple thing. Even when well managed, the costs for promoting and implementing pervasive BI can be high due to:

• Defining metrics and KPI
• Assembling, cleansing, staging, and analyzing data
• Disseminating and presenting information

And as organizations move further along the path toward pervasive BI, the needs and requirements of end users increase, resulting in a widening gap between the demand for and supply of business analytics solutions.

If human capital and IT resources remain tight, prioritizing activities that support the greatest diffusion of BI throughout an organization and to external stakeholders is advised. In a white paper ' Improving Organizational Performance Through Pervasive Business Intelligence ' IDC identified five key factors that have the strongest influence on BI pervasiveness.

1. Training

It's hard not to think 'duh' when IDC says training is important to promoting pervasive business analytics. But training goes far beyond teaching users how to access data with a dashboard. IDC stresses that companies need to make sure people know how to use the data to truly improve decision-making.

In addition, IDC points out that training should include ongoing reinforcement of BI tenants with ubiquitous presentation of content metadata, or information about the metadata, metric, and KPIs in reports and dashboards.

2. Design Quality

A BI solution must be designed to address not only the needs of various end-user groups but also those of the IT group that support ongoing requirements. A well-designed solution is easier to update with new data sources, new domains, new reports, new metrics, and new data hierarchies. Design quality is measured by a system's flexibility and organizational agility to respond to ongoing decision support demands.

Dissatisfaction with an IT group's ability to rapidly respond to new requests is the primary cause for end-users to seek alternative BI solutions to those provided by central IT resources.

3. Governance

Organizations that have more experience using BI to improve performance assign more importance to governance. In fact, IDC noted that organizations that rank themselves as more competitive within their industry tend to place greater importance on data governance.

Makes sense. Without governance, you may not achieve consensus on what the data means ' which virtually guarantees that BI will play a non-central role in decision making. Decisions based on unarticulated or estimated data are made in an environment of strategic ambiguity.

4. BI Envy

IDC really calls this factor 'Nonexecutive Involvement.' But the common technique they highlight to get more people behind pervasive BI participation is this: find eager participants in a business group, and then provide them with the tools and information that will shine a spotlight on them during meetings and collaborative decision-making sessions.

5. Performance Management Methodology

One of the keys to an effective BI and performance management solution is to ensure a direct connection between business strategy and actionable KPIs as well as a subsequent link between strategic and operational KPIs.

Does it help? Based on IDC's pervasive BI study, 75% of organizations that rate themselves as most competitive in their industry use a formal performance management methodology.

Interested in reading more? Download the whitepaper Improving Organizational Performance Through Pervasive BI (no registration required).

Your Customer Loyalty Department

Here's an idea. We have accounting departments, sales departments, human resource departments and more. Why not a customer loyalty department?

Loyalty can be measured and it can be monetized. Loyal customers buy more through repeat purchases and may also spend more per purchase. Not to mention the good will they provide when they positively tell your story to potential customers.

The sales and marketing departments may get customers in the door. So, why not have a loyalty department that will keep them coming back through the door?

Please note that the loyalty department isn't the customer service department. It's a team that is dedicated to creating programs and strategies that will get customers to come back the next time, every time. As a matter of fact, the customer service department might actually be under the control of the loyalty department.

Also note that the loyalty department isn't part of marketing. It should be separate. Some would argue that this concept might be part of marketing. I respectfully disagree. Marketing is about the image and branding. Loyalty is specific to keeping the image and brand alive ' after the customer has decided to do business with the company.

And, the loyalty department isn't just about creating a customer loyalty program. As a matter of fact, you don't need a customer loyalty program at all to have a loyalty department. However, if you do, it would surely fall under the responsibility of this department. Again, loyalty is about the strategies that get the customer to come back next time.

An over simplification of the most basic chain of events that happens in most businesses is that marketing makes the customer aware of the product. Then someone from sales may take over and get the customer to buy the product. The customer service kicks in as the product is being sold and delivered. The loyalty department has its hand in all of these steps, creating systems that enhance the customer experience, every step of the way.

Titles may not be all that important, but if you want to make it official, you can consider a title like VP of Loyalty or Chief Loyalty Officer. This is a leadership position that will have influence in many areas of the company. In addition to the departments mentioned above, the loyalty department may work with HR to help create employee loyalty programs.

Customer (and employee) loyalty shouldn't be left to chance. It should be thought out and strategized. Create a loyalty department. Hire or promote someone into the leadership position that will help bring your customers back, again and again.

How to Create an Idea Dashboard to Track Your Favorite Content Ideas

Content marketing productivity involves more than just creating great content, it also involves tracking and applying the good ideas you find in the blog posts you read each week.

Each week, for example, you encounter a staggering amount of information and good ideas. Even if you only read the 10 new blog posts that appear each week on the Content Marketing Institute blog, and the average blog post only contains five ideas, that's still a lot of information to absorb and catalog for future reference.

When you add those 50 ideas to the other ideas you find across the web, social communities and other media, your information management tasks can quickly become overwhelming.

The following is the solution I came up with to track the consuming tsunami of valuable ideas, strategies, and tips. I needed an easy way to increase my comprehension of individual posts plus I needed a way to quickly and easily relocate important posts in the future.

Here's the idea dashboard I created, and how you can adapt it to your needs:

Idea dashboard criteria

Just like the dashboard of your automobile allows you to monitor numerous functions at a glance (i.e., current speed, miles traveled, available gasoline, current radio station, and comfort settings, etc.), an idea dashboard helps you monitor ideas worthy of further study.

A good idea dashboard satisfies the following criteria:

• Relevance: Dashboards focus on the important, not the trivial. In a car, for example, the speedometer is larger than the call letters of the current radio station or the inside temperature, giving it higher priority in your field of view. Likewise, your idea dashboard doesn't need to list every blog post, just those you're most likely to want to revisit.
• Brevity: Listings in an idea dashboard do not have to include all the information you found in the original post. All that's needed is enough information to summarize the post and its key ideas, providing a reason for you to click the link back to the original post.
• Ease of use: An idea dashboard must be easy to update. You don't want to add to your daily workload ' the less time it takes to add a blog post to your customized reference library, the more likely you are to keep it updated! Ideally, you should be able to add references to new posts in under 10 minutes.
• It includes a visual component. In order to easily access previous posts, your idea dashboard must be 'scannable;' i.e., you have be able to select relevant posts at a glance.
• Search-ability: In addition to visually scanning and selecting for relevant topics, you must be able to easily search, or filter, your dashboard to locate the information you're looking for as quickly as possible.
• Flexibility: When setting up your dashboard, it's unlikely that you'll 'get it right' the first time. As a result, it must be easy to rearrange your dashboard to reflect your changing interests or priorities.

With these criteria in mind, there are three steps involved in setting up and maintaining your idea dashboard.

Step 1: Choose your key categories

Selectivity is the key to success: Selectivity involves self-curation ' identifying topics that are most relevant to you.

If you're not selective, instead of saving time, you'll end up creating an additional source of information overload. Your goal is not to duplicate the Content Marketing Institute's archives, but rather to index the articles that you will refer to often and, therefore, want to keep on hand.

Start by choosing a few key categories of ideas and tips for your idea dashboard ' I suggest starting with no more than three or four. The fewer you choose, the more useful you're likely to find your dashboard. Plus, if necessary, you can always add more categories.

In my case, the categories I chose were design, content, productivity, and miscellaneous.

Step 2: Choose the right format

Next, choose the right format for your dashboard. Your two primary options are spreadsheets (like Excel, or Google Docs) and mind maps.

Sample mind map.

Mind mapping software presents a more visual environment, making it easy to scan titles and topics for desired information. You can collapse mind maps to reveal just the blog post titles, or expand the maps you've created to view the contents of a particular blog post in greater detail. In the above example, notice how easy it is to view the main ideas in the expanded 'Content' topic.

Mind maps also allow you to include more details than spreadsheets can ' you can include graphics, keywords, phrases, and sentences from the original blog posts, as well as including multiple links for each topic.

Most importantly, at a later date, you can easily modify your dashboard by dragging the content topic ideas you create from category to category.

Step 3: Update daily

Idea dashboards work best when you make updating them a habit, or part of your daily ritual.

Consider setting aside a little time each day to review what your peers have written on the CMI blog and add the most personally relevant posts to your dashboard. You should be able to add a new post to your idea dashboard in about 5 to 7 minutes.

Here's a suggested scenario for updating your dashboard and adding new posts:

• Blog post title: Start by copying and pasting the blog post title, as is, into your dashboard as a new topic. Later, you can analyze and 'reverse engineer' the post and analyze why it was effective from the reader engagement and SEO points of view plus how you might model the title for your own content efforts.
• Add a link to the original post: Next, copy the blog post URL and link it to the title in your dashboard. This makes it easy for you to return to the post to reread it. Note that many mind mapping software programs will automatically insert the favicon, or graphic associated with the URL. (See the CMI logo shown below).

• Create subheads and note the key points: Next, copy, paste, and edit the key ideas you find in the articles to create subtopics in your mind map. You can often find key ideas formatted as subheads or appearing in lists in published articles. However, resist the temptation to copy every subhead you find. Instead, just copy the ideas that best summarize points of the post that are most relevant to you. To make each entry on the mind map easier to read and index, you will want to eliminate unnecessary words in the text as you add it to your map ' short topics are much easier to scan and more likely to catch your eyes.
• Notes: Look for key sentences you can copy and paste directly into your map. Use the Notes feature found in most mind mapping programs to add additional information that will only appear when you click or roll over the Notes icon. (See the icons next to the three items in the list of Goals in the above example, and in the screenshot below.) Information that would be appropriate to add as a Note includes definitions, examples, ideas, suggestions, tips, or sentences worthy of being quoted in future projects.

• Reference links. Always include links to previous blog posts when they appear. Good ideas are timeless! Follow links and, if they are relevant, treat them as if the posts just appeared. The age of a post has no relationship to the importance of its ideas!

The above are just suggestions. As you work with your own idea dashboard, you'll undoubtedly come up with your own routine.

Consistency, however, is extremely important. It's not how much time you spend, but that you spend it every day. As few as 10 to 15 minutes a day can make a big difference in your ability to access relevant customized information at a later date, when you need it most.

General best practices

Here are some suggestions based on my experiences:

• Divide and conquer: Subdivide large topics into subtopics. For example, I immediately divided Productivity into two subtopics: Tools and Techniques.
• Exercise restraint: Commit to brevity and simplicity. Only add the most relevant posts. (Don't worry, there will still be plenty of content to use!) When adding information, avoid the temptation to include more details than just what's needed to remind yourself why you considered the post important and worthy.
• Comments: When appropriate, use your mind mapping program's comments feature to note the key reasons you decided to include that post in your dashboard.
• Efficiency: To save time and effort, avoid reaching for the mouse and selecting commands from menus. Instead, use keystroke shortcuts for both common functions like Copy, Cut, and Paste, as well as to Insert new topics and navigate from topic to topic. Often, you can use the Tab key to jump from topic to topic. (You can usually locate lists of keyboard shortcuts in your software program's Help menu.)
• Resources and tags: If your mind mapping software program includes these features, use Resources to include the author's name, so you can later search for all posts by the same author. Use Tags to further classify topics. Tags help you search for types of content ideas, such as copywriting, story telling, titles, call to action, etc.

Additional options

Here are some advanced ideas to keep in mind as your idea dashboard becomes increasingly important to you:

• Cloud computing: Instead of saving your idea dashboard on your desktop or laptop computer, consider saving it online (cloud), with resources like Mindjet Connect, Dropbox, Evernote, or iCloud. These allow you to access your dashboard from any device with web access, and provide reliable backup, so that your dashboard is never lost if your device fails.
• Mobile mind mapping: Many mind mapping programs are available in multiple formats, including desktop/laptop versions and mobile versions for smartphones, iPads, and Android devices. Programs that are available in multiple formats increase the utility of your dashboard.
• Managing map size: When your map grows too large to easily scan the post titles, try copying and pasting the topics into a series of linked maps ' in other words, instead of working with a single large map, link the key topics to four, or more, smaller maps.

Additional benefits

• In addition to helping you manage the torrent of good ideas flowing by you every day, you're likely to find that the daily exercise of reducing 800 to 1,500 word blog posts to a few key topics and 25 to 50 words increases your understanding of the post.
• Daily experience eliminating unnecessary words will also improve your writing and self-editing abilities, as you become more aware of the benefits of brevity. You're likely to begin to write more carefully and become more confident in your ability to edit your own copy.
• Finally, additional uses for mind maps are likely to appear as you become more comfortable and efficient at working with the software and tools every day. New applications for mind mapping will suggest themselves to you, helping you bring new efficiency to your firm and your clients.

Share your experiences tracking Content Marketing Institute blog post ideas for future reference. Do you already have an idea dashboard? How do you track important blog posts? How do you select which ones to include? Are you already using mind maps to track ideas? How would you benefit from an idea dashboard? Please share your comments, concerns, and suggestions below.

Want more content marketing inspiration? Download our ultimate eBook with 100 content marketing examples.

Armstrong Yields the Yellow: WSJ Sentiment Tracker by NetBase

In a post I wrote back in June, we looked at the Wall Street Journal Sentiment Tracker analysis on the doping scandal that has surrounded Lance Armstrong for a large portion of his cycling career as well as his retirement and wondered what to do about a scandal that has no end in sight. After this Saturday's latest installment of the WSJ Sentiment Tracker, we now have to wonder what happens after the scandal is put to rest by the man at the center of it all ' and social media users on Facebook and Twitter had plenty of opinions. 48% thought that Armstrong ought to keep fighting the allegations, 32% still showed support for the headline-making athlete while 18% expressed anger, and 2% made jokes of the situation. I haven't always been Armstrong's biggest fan (but that is more because of the way he has treated the women in his life), so I thought I would stick to the jokes this time around ' check them out below!

The French vs Lance Armstrong. The first battle the French have ever won.

Good news, everyone! I've just tied Lance Armstrong for most Tour de France championships!

Back when I was a kid'. Lance Armstrong was an American hero and Pluto was a planet.

What's your take on the scandal? Let me know in the comments!

Protect Your Brand Against Pandemonium

Do you ever wonder how truly seamless your customer's journey is with your brand? Do you stay up at night worrying that your TV campaign gets them excited about your product but they end up being disappointed with the in-store experience, or that they can't find what they want on your website, or that they'll see poor product reviews on Amazon and won't buy from you?

Don't worry. You're not the only one with these concerns. We deal with companies every day that have these same worries and many others. It's a marketing jungle out there. Brands are trying desperately (and often failing) to organize a wide array of marketing tactics in such a way that the entire customer experience is integrated. Meaning, no matter when and where the customer or prospect encounters your brand the 'feeling' is the same. Creating relevant connections between your various marketing tactics is important because brands don't want to lose anyone along the path to purchase.

Successfully creating meaningful interactions for your customers across the Four Ps (Product, Price, Place and Promotion) is extremely difficult. Brands nowadays have so many more ways to reach out to people, which is both a plus and a minus. On the plus side, you can touch customers and pleasantly surprise them when they're not expecting it. On the minus side, customers can go looking for and pretty easily find a lot of 'dirt' on your brand. So how do successful brands do this? How do they ensure seamlessness or at least protect against pandemonium?

One way is through our proprietary Integration Audit process, where we create a visual representation of an integrated marketing strategy. This visual tool serves as a detailed map to help guide all current and future marketing decisions. We invite you to learn more about our Integration Audit here. As we've done for many brands, we'd love to help you find the highlights and holes in your marketing plan so that you can create a seamless journey for your customer.

Customer Experience Enchantment Recipe I Learned from Guy Kawasaki

Creating customer loyalty these days is tough and requires the type of customer experience that customers never forget. If you attended the SLA 2012 conference in Chicago, you were in for a treat as the famous Guy Kawasaki shared his 8 lessons on enchanting customers with an exceptional customer experience.

Why is enchantment key to customer experience? Because to enchant is to do more than persuade. It is to delight, to seduce, and to inspire.

Customer Enchantment is the Key Ingredient to the Customer Experience

Customers today are bombarded with choices, options, and vendors. When one steps up and enchants the customer, it creates that lasting impression. This impression becomes associate with who you are, what you offer, and where you'll take the customer in the future.

This lasting impression is the type of brand equity that keeps customers coming back for more.

Guy Kawasaki's Recipe for a Memorable Customer Experience

Guy Kawasaki lays it out in a simple recipe for a memorable customer experience.

1. Customer Experience Requires Likeability

• Show off a great smile. Put your whole self into it, not just your mouth.
• Accept customers as they are, don't think that they need to change.
• Focus on 'yes', it should be your go-to move with the customer. Seek to help. Always.

2. Customer Experience Requires Trustworthiness

• If you trust the customer, the customer will trust you.
• It's cliche, but with customers, you have to show that it's win-win. Your win should NEVER be their loss.
• Build customer relationships by making connections on points where you agree. Build upon each point of agreement.

3. Customer Experience Requires a Customer-Focused Product or Service

• A customer's point-of-view is golden. It's the starting point to any effective change.
• Develop products and service around what customers want to use, not what you want to build.

4. Customer Experience is About Action

• Stories about what you're doing, are the most effective way to make a connections with customers.
• Using social media effectively is sowing seeds of customer loyalty.
• Don't just talk about something, do it.

5. Customer Experience Requires Overcoming Resistance

• Use stories to back up what you want your service or product to accomplish.
• Use statistics to show how effective it is.

6. Customer Experience Requires Endure

• Stick with it, even if you don't see the results right away.
• Build a community around your product or service, they'll sustain you in times of need.
• Give back to customers and they'll keep you going in the long run.

7. Customer Experience Needs Effective Presentation

• Customize your introduction in each presentation
• 10-20-30 Rule = 10 slides, 20 minutes, 30-point font

8. Customer Experience Uses Technology Effectively

• Remove the speed bumps
• Provide value, particularly with social media
• Provide information, insights and assistance

Guy Kawasaki's recipe is a framework for any organization looking to take it's customer service to the next level and create a lasting impression on their customer base. Ultimately, each decision we make, every product or service we provide has to show the customer that we understand their needs and are catering to what they need and want most.

Once we have that in place, we're just getting started. Having a product or service isn't everything.

You achieve the memorable connection with customers when you're able to tell stories and encourage your customers to tell stories about how that product or service connection was made and the good that came from it. When we're telling stories of how lives were changed, we'll know that our enchanting customer experience has been effective.

Emerging B2B Content Marketing Trends In 2012

There's an interesting new survey out on B2B Content Marketing Trends that was compiled from responses by marketing professionals in the B2B Technology Marketing Community on LinkedIn. The objective was to discover emerging trends in the rapidly growing content marketing space in the second half of 2012. Let's take a look at some of the key findings and discuss how they may impact our inbound marketing strategies going forward.

Is Content Marketing Becoming Mainstream?

With more than 84% of those surveyed responding that they are increasing content production, clearly the word is out'blogging and advanced content are taking a prominent position in B2B marketing. The leading content types being created are case studies (62%), white papers and ebooks (61%) and press releases (58%). Infographics have also been hot, increasing from 28% last year to 43% this year. More interactive content, such as 'advertorials,' webinars and social media engagement appear to be on the decline with B2B marketers. Budgeting trends are also telling; last year 20% of marketing budgets were allocated to content. This year the number is closer to 30%.

It's interesting that blogging wasn't mentioned specifically, even though this is clearly an important part of the content marketing arsenal. Perhaps the surveyors consider blogging to be more of an interactive skill, like social media posting. We consider blogging to be one of the core components of content marketing.

What are the Primary Goals of Content Marketing?

There was a time when content was all about brand awareness and product marketing. Times have changed. Effective content marketers these days deliver qualified sales leads to the bottom line by tailoring topics and content, SEO optimization and targeted demand generation tactics to reach potential buyers. This is the essence of our Enterprise Inbound Marketing services, and B2B marketers are steadily moving in this direction with:

• Lead generation is the top goal of content marketing'at 68%!
• Thought leadership and market education are next'at 50%
• Brand awareness is #3'at 39%
• Lead nurturing is in 4th place'at ~35%
• Social media engagement is 2nd to last'at ~12%

We are embracing these trends, with one exception. We see lead nurturing as a primary goal for content marketing. In our view, the best way to drive more sales qualified leads is to create integrated lead generation and lead nurturing campaigns, mapping appropriate content for each stage and each persona with high quality content and using marketing automation to drive and analyze results. In our view, thought leadership and brand awareness are still important, but they are less campaign-oriented and are best served with regular blogging and social media promotion of compelling, educational content. With the B2B emphasis on ROI-driven marketing, we feel that content marketing budgets should be focused more on lead generation and nurturing and less on brand and product awareness and thought leadership.

What About Marketing Automation?

Surprisingly, only 26% of marketers are feeding marketing automation campaigns with compelling content mapped to buyer personas and stages. Fifty-seven percent of those surveyed don't use marketing automation at all. A good follow-up question would have been, 'How do you expect to grow sales'through telemarketing and direct mail?' Good luck with that, folks. This is 2012, and you have lots of great options for reaching and closing more qualified sales leads these days.

What are the Biggest Challenges?

This is not surprising'creating good content has always been a challenge due to:

• Insufficient in-house talent and bandwidth
• No resources dedicated to content marketing
• Content marketing is 'owned' by different groups with different agendas
• Content creation is still focused on brand and product marketing
• Marketing executives don't 'get it' yet

What are your thoughts about these B2B content marketing trends?

Photo Credit: San José Library

Enterprise Lead Nurturing Guide

Are you a medium- or large-sized business marketer? Discover the 4 critical steps to lead nurtuing campaigns with this helpful guide.

10 Automated Lost Customer Survey Design Tips

Last week, I shared 4 tips to consider when setting-up an automated lost customer survey in SalesForce. This week, I will share 10 automated lost customer survey design tips.

Below are 10 survey design tips for building an effective automated lost customer survey:

• Ask all of your lost customers to complete an automated lost customer survey. The cost of collecting this data is minimal if you automate the survey in your CRM, and being able to track trends across customer segments is incredibly valuable information in identifying areas for improvement.
• These surveys should be launched a couple days after cancellation. You do not want to bombard your lost customers immediately after they cancel your service, as they sometimes will ignore these emails and see them as attempts to salvage business. They also sometimes are frustrated with the cancellation process and this can bias the responses. By waiting a few days before sending it out, you will increase response rates and also get a more objective set of data.
• The survey should be no more than 3 to 5 minutes in length unless you are targeting enterprise customers. In those cases, you can get away with a slightly longer survey without sacrificing a significant drop in completion rate. This is because enterprise customers are generally more tied to a product and have a closer relationship with the vendor. However, the goal here is to get responses from these customers as this will help you identify which ones are worth your effort in trying to win them back down the road.
• Limit the target respondent group to the individuals that either executed the decision to cancel the service or would have knowledge of it. Sometimes it is hard to nail this down, so you can limit the respondent target to the owner of the license agreement or the direct contact or the informant of the decision to cancel service. Otherwise you can get a lot of misleading data that would actually be more detrimental to your purposes than helpful.
• Make the survey engaging so that you minimize the respondent abandonment rate. It is important to make the questions follow a logical order. Surveys that bounce all over the place drive respondents bonkers. Also, try to minimize the number of free response questions, as these can appear as a lot of work to the respondent.
• Set the survey up in such a way that it can be used as a tracker survey over time. A very valuable piece of data is the change in trends over time. To obtain insight into trends you will want to develop survey questions that allow you to add additional options over time. The best way to do that is by adding an 'other; please specify' option that allows you to collect write-in information and standardize it over time into additional options.
• You will want to cover the following issues in this survey at a minimum:

• How the product or service was used (if there are multiple use cases)
• Reason(s) for cancellation
• How is their need being resolved and by which competitor(s)?
• Be sure to tell your lost customers the exact time commitment required to participate in the survey invitation. You want to set expectations that will be fulfilled. This will also ensure that they walk away from the survey with a positive last impression.
• Let the respondent know how important this data is to improving the quality of your company's products and services for other customers. This lets the customer know that the data will actually be used and is highly valued by your company. This is an indirect way of telling your customer you are looking into the reasons that caused their departure and, if possible and worthwhile, your company will likely be resolving the issue. This should increase your chances of winning back this customer down the road.
• Be sure to thank lost customers for participating in the survey. You never know when your lost customers will be asked about their experience with your company. It is always a good policy to leave a positive last impression with them.

Next week, I will share a sample lost customer survey invitation.

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3 Improv Exercises That Will Take Your Content Brainstorms to the Next Level

With a culture so caught up on structure and editing, there is a pressing need to let loose; to let the mind speak and to take advantage of the social wave that is developing in the workplace. From the countless sources that fuel brands' content marketing strategies, there comes a time when an organization needs to step back and evaluate the topics in its repertoire.

One of the best ways to get employees out of the mindset of 'this is how it is' and into one of 'this is what's possible,' is to use interactive, improvisational exercises intended to stimulate creativity.

This approach may be intimidating to employees at first; but creating an atmosphere that supports individual opinions allows for open communication that can lead to discoveries that would not surface in a typical 9 to 5 strategy session.

Before getting started:

• Try to focus on using the term 'Yes, and'', where you build upon each other's thoughts without using the word 'no.'
• You should serve as a facilitator of these exercises to ensure that you are leading the group mind down a constructive path.
• Be prepared to record the session and to ensure that all team members are actively participating in the exercise.
• Do not edit any thoughts (yours, or any other participant's) during the brainstorm session (save that for the debriefing period).
• After the session, hand out the 'r.e.a.d.' sheet I've provided below, to understand which ideas participants thought were most valuable.

Introduction to word association

Given that most individuals on your team will have little or no improv experience, it's important that you alleviate any sense of intimidation by easing everyone into the exercises. For these sessions, it's ideal to work with a group of between four and 12 people ' but if the group grows larger than 20, consider breaking in to smaller groups.

Start by having your teammates form a circle where everyone is facing inward.

Ask the team member on your right to say a word ' any word at all that pops into his or her head, without any set context. From there, go around the circle in a clockwise direction, asking each person to add his or her own new word to the list.

After a few rounds of this, stop the group and point out any patterns that have naturally started to emerge. You'll likely notice that most of the words are related ' if not directly associated ' to the words preceding them. Many of these are being triggered by visions, sounds, feelings, smells, or tastes that your teammates have associated with these words in the past. Use this as a transition to the next exercise, where each player is expected to start actively associating words in order to build out themes.

Developing ideas through word association

Since the group has just been acclimated to 'being goofy,' you can start using these exercises to explore your business. Next, write down key themes from your content marketing strategy on individual pieces of paper and place them in a hat. Your team should still be in a circle and will use the same free-association format as it did in the first exercise.

Start by choosing one term from the hat at a time ' the term selected will serve as the starting point for each round of this exercise. The idea here is to explore the chosen theme as broadly and as deeply as possible, until the group has exhausted all possibilities and repetition becomes apparent.

In order to build upon the original word, members of your team should be focusing on saying a word that either is:

• directly related to the theme at hand (a relationship of A to A)
• a bit removed from the original word (a relationship of A to B)
• or is conceivably relatable to the original word (a relationship of A to C).

As mentioned above, players will pull from their memories and what they know to be true, so it is important that participants fully support the decisions their teammates are making and understand that, in this moment, each statement is assumed to be true. In order to build momentum, each player should go off of the last word that is said and avoid saying any preconceived words that would derail the evolution of the pattern that is being created.

One of the unique benefits of this exercise is the organic path it takes and how the theme you end on may be completely different than the theme you started on.

Putting this exercise to use for creating content ideas

Let's say a brand in the consumer packaged goods (CPG) category is starting to focus on the nutrition of one of its products. Some of the themes explored by the group with the prompt 'organic' may look like this:

After de-briefing, the group may have all agreed that the following words stood out the most to them:

With these unique terms in mind, perhaps the group decides to do a series of blog posts centered on the farmers who produce their grain, with an emphasis on their laborious work routine and how, at the end of the day, despite all their hard work in the field, they still sit down to have a healthy family meal.

Developing stories one word at a time

In the final round of the exercise, your team will still be focusing on saying one word at a time. But this time, as you go around the circle, instead of saying random words or words that can be segmented into categories, your objective is to build a cohesive story.

One by one, each team member will have to determine the direction the group goes by saying one word that needs to be part of a 'group thought.' The group will fall into a rhythm found in normal conversations and start to define where one thought ends and a new one begins as the exercise progresses.

Using the same prompt as above, here's what the first round of this exercise may look like:

At first these words may seem silly, but during analysis you will start to notice that some will make you think a bit differently about the subject matter at hand. During the first exercise, the group explored different areas that showcased the value proposition associated with the product and even explored the food's origins. Now words such as 'germs' and 'sick' surfaced that added context around reasons why people choose organic foods, as well as how to stay healthy by eating healthy.

It may be challenging to try to create a cohesive story around your client, but at bare minimum, it forces your team to think of how all the themes explored in the second session can be placed into practical use.

Key takeaways from these exercises:

• There's nothing stronger than developing ideas through the efforts of a 'group mind.'
• Using agreement allows for new ideas to be formed regardless of their relevancy or business impact.
• Collaborating on a specific topic allows for new points of view to arise that can fuel a fresh perspective on a possibly stale topic.
• New themes can be discovered that either support the brand or interests of your audience (or both!).
• By transcribing the recording of the session and gathering each participant's completed 'r.e.a.d.' sheet, you'll be able to build a road map of new content opportunities.

Want more content marketing inspiration? Download our ultimate eBook with 100 content marketing examples.

Image credit: Bigstock

What Are The Two Best Credit Card Debt Relief Solutions?

Why do people end up in debt from the use of their credit cards? 

Most people have their own credit card for personal use. A credit card is a card that charges interest and is normally used for short term financing solutions. It is used for purchasing services or goods on credit. The company, institution or bank who issues the card will collect the payment for the purchased goods or services at a later date, normally every month.

Some people get overwhelmed when they use their credit cards and end up with credit card debts which become impossible to manage. The following are common reasons why people with credit cards often end up with bad debts:

• The person's attitude

When you have your own credit card, you need to be responsible for your own expenditure. Your attitude matters most. It is easy to spend more than you earn when you have your very own credit card. Sometimes a person's negative attitude will lead to debts if not managed properly.

• The providers

The providers of credit cards are another reason behind personal credit card debts. Most often, they will tempt you with offers that can bad for you in the future. You might encounter preapproval which can lead to an increase in the credit limit of the card.

• The person's behavior

The person's behavior is another potential problem which may lead to credit card debts. Such problems like not being able to repay their full credit each month will lead to an added financial burden. The next problem is if they are unaware of the financial balance which may lead to their behavior of making frivolous purchases which they can't afford. Another problem is taking cash advances and making large purchases which they know will give them financial problems in the future.

• The cards

The credit card is easy to use, and because of this it can lead to people spending more often which in turn can lead them to go over their credit limit and result in added debt. Generally, credit card balances are charged including compound interest, if you don't repay the whole outstanding balance each month.

What is the best solution for credit card debts?

The solution for the credit card debts is credit card debt relief which offers two solutions: debt management and debt settlement. The two solutions are both good for debt problems depending on your current financial status. Debt settlement means the settling of debts between the creditor and the debtor. Debt settlement services can help to get out of these problems. Debt management makes use of a plan to be able to organize the repayment of the debts and hopefully avoid the need to file for bankruptcy.

Repaying your debts is important for many different reasons. Debts are a bad image for you. Most companies or institutions will not trust a person that has a lot of debts. The best way to solve this is to repay your debts so that you do not have any more problems. This is easier than it sounds, once you get the hang of it.

Image Source - theonlinecitizen.com

This article is an original contribution by Amarendra Alapati.

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Nike Business Branding: 'They're Onto Something' is an Understatement

Every time I sit down to write a blog post about business branding, there's this voice in my head that says, Try not to bring up Nike. Now, it's not that I dislike Nike. The company is such a stellar example of branding that I can find a way to incorporate Nike into just about any branding blog post. But, in order to not sound like a broken record, I try to refrain from bringing them up whenever possible.

This is my Nike complex.

Today, everything I've ever wanted to say about Nike gets to come out! While the brand is far too large and complex for this post to be 'definitive,' I want to take a closer look into a few of the things that make this brand so great.

A Content Generation Powerhouse

You hear the phrase 'content generation' thrown around a lot these days. Everyone's talking about inbound marketing and creating content. 'You've got to be creating content!' cries every single marketer. Well, yes, quality content with strategy behind it. However, if you're wondering what that really means beyond blog posts and fancy Infographics, take a hint from Nike. This content generation powerhouse was creating top-notch stuff long before content marketing was big'

2007: Nike+ Website

Nearly five years ago, The New York Times reported on Nike's major step into content marketing (though they had been more than dabbling long before). Nike had launched its Nike+ website, which allowed users to track their runs through a shoe sensor that synced with the runner's iPod; the iPod then synced with the Nike+ website. (Remember, this was 2007 ' no 4G or Cloud!)

The article reports (quoting Advertising Age) that Nike spent only 33% ($678 million) of its 2006 advertising budget on traditional media (TV, print, etc.), which was down from 55% from ten years earlier. In 2007, Nike was leading big business in content marketing. But, they were just getting started.

2012: Nike+ Fuelband

Fast forward to 2012. Today, the Nike+ website has been reinvented through the introduction of the Nike+ Fuelband. It used to be that great business branding meant designing a shirt with your logo, and then turning that shirt into a status symbol that people were proud to walk around in. It was free advertising; people felt good; everybody was happy.

Today, however, that primary concept is going a lot further. Nike fans aren't just wearing a product with the Nike label; they're actively sharing it with friends and followers on social media networks. Let me explain'

The Nike Fuelband is a sophisticated bracelet Nike sells. You wear it on your wrist and run, dance, whatever it is you do (because ' by the way ' Nike is all about what you do). As you go about your activity, you have a goal you're trying to meet. It might be calories burned; it might be steps taken. The Fuelband then syncs up with your Nike+ account, and you can share your achievements through Facebook and Twitter.

With Nike+, the company has created a genius product that provides a useful service, and allows the consumer to generate content on behalf of the company. Impressive, right? There are also more specific (and fancier) related apps like the Nike+ Running App, which allows you to receive live encouragement from your friends on Facebook while you're on a run. Of course, that also means everyone who sees your Facebook activity also receives a Nike brand impression every time you go on a run. Another win for Nike.

The Nike Image

Of course, Nike has some pretty smart people making things happen. A couple months ago ' the one time I allowed myself to write about Nike ' I brought up the fact that Nike's famous slogan, Just Do It, boosted sales from $877 million to $9.2 billion in the first ten years. With results like that, it's natural that Nike would expect a lot out of itself.

So, what have these business branding geniuses done since then? Well, one of the most appealing parts of the Nike brand is the fact that Nike wants you to be who you are. The company doesn't try to make every one of its customers into star athletes because, at base, they're realistic. Nike acknowledges the fact that many of their customers will never run a marathon, much less a 5K. However, they want to be the shoes on your feet and the app on your Facebook as you go about your life.

No surprise: this resonates with people. Just Do It is a catchy slogan, but there's something deeper to it. Nike doesn't have to say what the It is, and frankly, they don't really care. They Just want you to Do It with their support. If you look at this concept too closely, it might make Nike sound rather unappealing ' just another 'heartless corporation.' However, when you look at the high-quality content that the company produces, you have to give credit where credit is due' Nike is offering something of value to the customer, which is what really matters.

Okay, good for Nike, but where's my take-away?

Here's the deal. Nike operates on a much, much bigger budget than you and I can even dream about. They have a global spread that should make any marketer's palms sweat. And, I'd wager that you're forty times more likely to get a definition for the word 'Nike' than for the word 'obstreperous' when polling the man-on-the-street.

That being said, there's no reason you can't start branding your business with the same approach that has worked for Nike. The beauty of content marketing is that it all works on a sliding scale. You can get proportionate results for your money. Your app may not be as sophisticated; your blog may not have as many readers; but, you can create content, and your audience will share that content if it's valuable. That's a guarantee!

What are some of your favorite aspects of the Nike brand? Or, what do you not like about the Nike brand?

It's Counter Productive

In the last few days I've heard from a variety of entrepreneurs, clients and peers, sharing about how things are going'

'I haven't worked on my program in 4 weeks, I feel horrible about it and I am so mad at myself.'

'I've had that thing on my list of stuff to do for 2 WEEKS and I just can't make myself do it. What's wrong with me?'

And many more, just like those.

Saying things like this, even to ourselves, is counter productive. It's not going to get us where we want to go, it's not going to help us create the success we want, and it's definitely not going to get us to change the behavior or feel good.

Been Going On For A LONG Time

My guess is that if you have these kinds of things running through your head, they've been there for a very long time. You've pretty well practiced them and their relatives for years and years and years. Where has it gotten you? Have you achieved what you want? Is it helping and supporting you in reaching the goals you set.

Probably not.

It's thinking like this that contributes to where you are and to perpetuating the problem.

Making A Shift

It's time to change things up a bit. When you catch yourself headed down one of these roads, stop yourself as soon as you notice it and compliment yourself. Yup. Compliment yourself ' about the topic you are already thinking about or about something else, if that's too challenging.

Say something good about yourself, your skills, what you can accomplish.

Then, start to ask yourself, 'How can I move forward with this in a supportive way?'

That program you haven't worked on in weeks ' put a 1-2 hour block in your calendar for sometime in the next few days or in the next week and dedicate it to working on the program. Then do that every week. Yes, it will go slower than you might have hoped, but it will continue to move forward. (If it's a bigger priority, then schedule more time for it.)

That thing you've had on your list for 2 weeks? Break it down into smaller pieces, and just do 1 tiny step today or tomorrow. Call a friend and ask them to hold you accountable.

The old saying, 'How do you eat an elephant?' makes sense here'

'One bite at a time'

Often what is in our way is we are trying to take off a huge hunk and swallow it whole. Just break it down into little bite-sized pieces and start chomping on those. Before you know it you'll have gotten a TON more done, and it will probably take less time than you thought.

And, if you're marketing is like a huge elephant for you (yeah, I know, it's kind of a funky metaphor), and you're ready to deal with it, then enter your info here for the early bird notification about Marketing in the Morning', my new program that will be launching in September. I'm going to do something extra special for the early-bird sign-ups in the next week or so, so if you're even just curious, you'll want to get on the list and see.

Why Lead Scoring and Personas Need To Be Connected

Lead scoring and personas are popular topics in B2B marketing. However, the two are generally discussed separately.

Until B2B marketers begin talking about personas and lead scoring together they are missing an simple way to identify missed sales opportunities.

What if your objective is to deliver highly engaged leads to sales, but your persona indicates that sizable segments of your audience are not likely to engage with marketing content or even to register. Your lead scoring is excluding a valuable segment of your audience and you have the information you need to identify the issue!

Let's look at lead scoring, personas, and the connection that needs to be made.

Lead Scoring

B2B marketing uses lead scoring to determine what prospects should be sent to sales and when. Lead scores are often based on a combination of the following criteria:

• Role, including function, title and seniority.
• Company characteristics, including company size, industry and structure.
• Observed behavior, including the marketers website, content and email, as well as social media and other observable behavior.
• Explicit provided information, such as a timeframe to purchase, role in the purchase process or existing solutions.

B2B Marketing Personas

B2B marketers use personas to develop a better understanding of their audience. Personas potentially include how your audience engages with content, marketing or sales. It can also include priorities, risk profiles, media usage, role in the purchasing process and numerous other elements and anecdotes.

The Missing Connection

What do your personas say about how your prospects research and purchase? Is that information aligned with your lead scoring, across all segments, or does your lead scoring model run afoul of your personas? Here are examples of issues to watch for:

• You expect high scoring leads to engage with content on your site or through your emails when your persona indicates they are more likely to look to peers or publishers for information.
• You expect prospects to provide accurate information about their purchasing plans, when research shows only 36% of buyers provide accurate answers to these questions.
• You expect decision makers to attend your webcast or view your product demo when your persona indicates they rely on the recommendation of their team for more technical aspects of the evaluation.

In Summary

If your personas and lead scoring rules are like those of most B2B marketers, you are missing an opportunity to identify segments of your target audience that are interested in your solution but will not provide the explicit information or exhibit the behavior needed for marketing to pass them on to sales.

Are you ready to acknowledge the disconnect between your lead scoring and personas and begin begin using your personas to improve your lead scoring and sales and marketing integration?

Your Turn

Is the current approach 'good enough' for B2B marketers because is supports automation? Or is this an area B2B marketers need to take on in order to improve lead scoring and drive bottom line impact? Share your view in the comments below or with me on Twitter (@wittlake).

Photo Credit: Putting the Puzzle Together by Ken Teegardin

How to Sell Anything Online

A post entitled, 'If You're Selling something, Then SELL It' from my old blog ' originally posted May 19, 2009. Still good advice!

Too many companies are making money online for you not to be one of them.  And forgetting everything but the simple art of selling, there are a few simple things that you have to be doing to convert potential customers into paying customers.

When I get to your website, I usually got there on purpose.  Either I clicked on an ad of yours that looked appealing, or I searched for what you sell in Google, or someone told me that I would like what you've got so I cam there directly.  You are already winning the battle.  But there are ways that you can blow it, so don't assume that just because I am there, the battle is over.

Strike. Hit me with some solid information right away.  Don't make me look for it, because the attention span of someone searching the internet is short, and getting shorter everyday.  Catch my eye with headlines, have clear website navigation, allow me to search for exactly what I need.

Educate. Give me value in descriptions.  Too many companies put the same boring descriptions of the products that they are selling.  If your competitors description is the same as your description, you are not making my decision process any easier.  If you need to hire an expert copywriter for your site, do it.  Any thing to get a unique, value-driven message across that will entice me to buy.

Leap. Take a risk.  If you are afraid to take risks in business you will lose.  At this point, you have my attention, I have gotten to the product that I am interested in, and all it will take is one small thing to sway me one way or another.  So do something different.  Show me customer ratings, comments, descriptions.  Show me the prices of your competitors compared to your own.  Offer me a special deal as a first time buyer.  Make it easy and make it different, and you will have an easier time convincing me.

Lead. On every single page, put a call to action.  And make it stand out so I know exactly what it is I am supposed to be doing.  After all, your goal all along is to make a sale, so lead me down the sales line throughout every step of the process.  If I get lost, then your sale is lost.

Strike, Educate, Leap, and Lead.  Take a look at the pages on your website.  If you have a page that looks like it was made from a carbon copy of one of your competitors, you are losing.  If you have a page with no call to action, you are losing.  If you are not taking risks and being unique, you are losing.  This is a new era of selling online, and you need to keep up or lead to win.

Bollocks to B2B Marketing Buzzword: Relevance

Recently, I've felt compelled to take on some B2B marketing terms that make me a bit nuts as their meanings become blurred through the casual way we're using them. I've taken on engagement and conversation, and now I've got a twist going about relevance.

Be Relevant!

Design content that's relevant to your audience!

If you're content isn't relevant, you're marketing efforts will fall short.

I agree with all of these statements, which is easy to do because they really don't say anything. What does 'relevance' really mean in a marketing context? If marketers understood this, there would be a whole lot of content in the trash bin. Just saying'

In order to answer the relevance question, marketers need to back up to the 'who' question. Because, unless you know who you're trying to engage and what they care about, the point of relevance is, well, irrelevant.

Questions to answer in evaluation of the relevance of your marketing content:

• Who is the content is designed for?
• Why will they care? (Hint: make sure your content passes the 'so what?' test)
• What value will they recognize? (Hint: not what you want them to value, but what they actually care about)
• How important is the information to them? (Hint: is the topic related to helping them solve a problem keeping them from achieving a critical business objective?)
• What will they learn? (Hint: share your expertise)
• What will the audience takeaway as a next step? (Hint: identify the most memorable thing about the content asset)

I hear from a lot of marketers that they don't have time or budget to do the research and legwork that will help them answer the questions above in relation to the content they are developing. There's still a lot of 'we need one of those' types of discussions going on. (Think infographic, Facebook pages, videos, etc.) But when asked 'Why' they need it, their answers speak more to shiny object syndrome than valid business reasoning.

If you stop and think about it ' we're all tuned to relevance. Think about the way you delete stuff out of your inbox without giving it more than a cursory glance. Why do you decide to register for the webinars you attend? Relevance is an instinctive reaction. Something either catches your attention or it doesn't.

And what makes the difference can be remarkably subtle: For example, if I'm thinking about how to get more insight from my web analytics and I receive an email from a company I'm not familiar with that's focused on 'business intelligence' or 'big data,' I might delete it without taking the time to stop, think, and relate it to 'insights from analytics.' But, if I remember the company as being an expert in analytics, I will probably take the time to make the connection.

The words we use, as well as the topics we choose, and the perception of our companies by our audience all play a role in the recognition of relevance by those we intend to engage.

Some of the stuff that ruins relevance for audiences includes:

• Overuse of company or product names and references ' who cares?
• Focus on the company, not the audience ' why should they spend their attention?
• High-level, surface information that doesn't get to the depth of interest that makes it valuable ' where's the learning?
• Content that leaves the audience hanging ' where are the takeaways?
• Content that's a replay of 27 other articles your audience has likely been exposed to ' (Hint: if you have nothing new to add that spins the topic in a new direction, let it go)
• Talking to the audience like you know them, but obviously don't ' clueless!

Relevance is in the eye of the beholder. (Sound familiar?) What you think or want doesn't matter.

The secret to relevance in B2B marketing is to learn what your intended audience is interested in and applying what your solutions enable in relation to that interest'using words that resonate.

What are you doing to ensure that your marketing content is making the right connections with the right audience wherever they find it? (website, blog, nurturing programs, email copy, white papers, etc.)