First of all, you may be asking “what is a swipe file”? Basically a swipe file is a journal of ideas, keywords, concepts, etc that you’ve taken from other sources which you may or may not use in your own business.

You might be thinking to yourself ”that sounds kind of…. evil”. Well, what can I say, it kind of is. But that’s not to say that you shouldn’t have one. I think every marketer out there should have a swipe file, and I’ll tell you why.

Good ideas are good ideas. It doesn’t matter who or where they come from. Just stealing an idea outright is probably not the best way to go, but if you think about it, you may have ways to improve on that concept. Then it really isn’t stealing is it? You may have a different way to implement that idea or concept, or maybe just thinking about the idea brings you another different idea that you otherwise wouldn’t have thought of.

As a copywriter, I think it’s okay to take certain keywords or phrases and use them yourself. We do this anyway whether we think about it or not. Every word in our vocabulary has come from someone that has come before. We don’t invent new words when we talk to each other. Therefore I don’t really think it’s wrong. It’s not the same as stealing someones essay or blog post.

Anyways, you get the idea. If you don’t already have one, go out and buy a composition book, a spiral, whatever, and start jotting down ideas from different sources. You may be surprised when those ideas may come in handy. 

I was going over some data at the marketing charts website and was kind of surprised to see a report stating that business to business companies don’t have much of a social media presence. I read the report, and it got me thinking. What could these companies accomplish with social media, and how should they use it to their advantage? It seems we (as marketers) focus alot on business to consumer social media marketing, especially when it comes to Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube, and maybe that’s the major problem. So I’d like to discuss some ways that business to business companies can use social media to their advantage. Let’s start by discussing…

Top barriers to social media for business to business companies

According to the report, there are 4 main reasons why b2b companies don’t focus as much on online marketing. Here we go…

1. Insufficient personnel to maintain - It’s not surprising that this is number 1. So many companies have downsized, and they are continuing to do so (HP just let go of a ton of people the other day). However, why do you need to hire more people to do this? Here’s what I think. I would solicit blog entries from employees and offer some sort of reward for entries that are picked. Wow, pretty simple. Every one of your employees should have a presence on LinkedIn. If not for the company, then for their own good. Encourage them to post and answer questions. Now you have a social media presence and you didn’t even have to hire anyone.
2. Lack of organizational knowledge - I’m not sure what they mean by “organizational” knowledge, but I think that if you don’t know something you need to go and figure it out. There are a ton of online resources to find out more about online marketing. There are tons of books out there. If you don’t have time to research them yourself, then pick a different career. To think, these guys call themselves marketers. You should always make time to educate yourself.
3. Preference for traditional marketing - Let me say something here (like you have a choice). I prefer traditional marketing. And yet, I still engage in online and social media marketing. Why? Because I see the advantages, and also because a marketer needs to use any and all weapons at his or her disposal. If you aren’t using social media, you’re leaving a big weapon in the armory collecting dust. There’s no reason for that.
4. Perceived irrelevance to their field - Bottom line: you have to go where your customers go. This is 2010, take a deep breath and say it with me now, twenty-ten, soon to be eleven. People go online to find information. When you go fishing, you probably go to the lake where there are tons of fish. Why is marketing any different. Sure you’re dealing with a company, but that company is made up of individuals. And individuals like to go online to educate themselves. If you have a presence online and provide relevant information, then those individuals will find you. That’s called marketing.

What can b2b companies do to take advantage of social media

1. Start a blog - We’ve talked about it before. People go online to find information. Provide useful information to people and they will find you (and your company). Provide information on all aspects of your industry and your business. Like I said before, solicit entries from your co-workers (you’ll be surprised at all of the great ideas and talent that you have on board). If you can become an industry expert, then you can’t help but increase your brand awareness… and your profits.
2. Get on LinkedIn - People go to Facebook to interact with friends, relax, and play games, and all that good stuff. People get on LinkedIn to interact with other professionals, and to learn. You and every one of your co-workers should have a presence on LinkedIn. You should spend time asking and answering questions, linking up with other professionals in your industry, and basically becoming a part of the community.
3. Be one of the few - The fact that not many b2b companies are using social media means that the ones that do are ahead of the game. Going back to the fishing analogy, if you’re the only one at the lake, you’re going to catch alot of fish. Get started, stop making excuses and do it. Your competition will hate you, but your customers and prospects will love you.

What do you guys think? How can b2b companies take advantage of social media? What other obstacles do they need to overcome?

Like many young students, Helen was learning how to write letters for a class project, and she and her fellow students were given the task of writing to a company. Helen chose to write to one of her favorite companies, Nintendo.  She explained that she was a big fan, and wrote that she had begged her parents to buy a Nintendo DS for her, which they refused to do. Check out this link to see her letter (warning, this is a video game website, so if you’re at work they may block you).

Now, most companies would throw a letter like this in the trash, or disregard it completely. But Nintendo (evil marketers that they are) had other ideas. After calling the school and talking with the principal to verify the letter, they decided to send Helen and her class a DS (and in classic Nintendo fashion, one game). Wow, way to go Nintendo. I’m sure Helen will remember this for the rest of her life, and will probably continue to purchase Nintendo products for years to come. When someone tries to talk smack about her favorite company, she’ll have something positive to say in response. And so for the cost of Nintendo DS (probably around $80 bucks or so) Nintendo has created a lifelong customer and brand advocate.

Let me add one more thing in here. Giving away a product is not the answer. Well, okay, I’m sure it helped alot. But I think that the fact that Nintendo responded to this individual request (and by the way did not seek out any kind of attention for this act) is what’s really important. Today, we have all these high tech solutions and ways to reach potential customers, but in the end sometimes it’s that human interaction that creates the biggest impact. Don’t forget it.

Wise words from one of my favorite bands (Rage Against the Machine), “know your enemy”. In marketing, you are competing with other companies, and even industries (look at how movie theaters compete against DVD, and television) for scarce money. In order to succeed, you need to arm yourself with all the knowledge you can about your competition. You need to know their strengths, weaknesses and strategies, so that you can develop your plan to defeat them. Great, so you already knew that. But how do you go about obtaining this information? Here are some quick tips for you…

1. List your direct and indirect competitors. How are you going to learn about your competition if you don’t even know who they are? As one of my old mentors (and good friend, you know who you are) would say, “make a list”. Don’t forget to include both direct (companies that provide similar products or services to yours) and indirect competitors (companies that provide products or services different from your own that satisfy the same need).

2. Pay them a visit. After you have your list, you should visit your competitors website and learn what you can. Not only will you learn about their products and / or services, you will also learn how they are marketing themselves, what they think of their own brand, and you will be able to get an idea of which type of customers they are targeting. You can also learn about their history, and the officers of the company. If there is a trade show, visit them and find out all you can. If they have a store, go in and patronize them. Find out what you can up close and in person. It’s important to do this early so that you will get a fresh impression of what type of business they run.

3. Dig a little deeper. Visit www.hoovers.com and check out their financials. If they are a publicly traded company, then there are tons of sources to go to get additional information. Go to www.dnb.com and check out a credit report. Remember those officers you learned about in the previous step? Google them and find out more about them. This will let you know a little bit more about how decisions are made at this company.

4. Set a date to follow-up. Like all marketing, competitive analysis is a process not a project (we’ll probably discuss this in detail in a future post). This means that you need to set up a follow-up date in your calendar so that you can go through the process again, and find out what’s changed. If you’re dealing with professionals, then your competition is looking at you just like you’re looking at them, and they’ll react to whatever strategy you’ve chosen to take them down. Do yourself a favor and stay vigilant.

Once you know all about your competition, you can use this information to find out what you can do better or differently than them. Develop your strategy and watch the competition suffer. We’ll talk more about how to take these suckers out in the future.

Hey, I’m not an expert on competitive analysis, so if any of you readers have anything to share, let me know in the comments, or email me at edwardviator@evil-marketer.com

Entrepreneurs drive the business world. They are the ones that take the big risks. They move fast instead of waiting for things to happen. They are way more action oriented than other companies. They have the tenacity and drive to succeed. So why then do so many start up companies fail. There are some obvious reasons, such as the usual barriers to entry; it can be difficult especially if you are trying to go up against the big boys without a tenth of their budget. But I believe there’s more to it than that. I think many entrepreneurs are so excited to start their business that they do so without giving the process enough thought and planning. This is especially true of online businesses, where the start-up costs are relatively cheaper (the cost of a domain is much cheaper than renting an office). Here are some reasons why I think many new bushiness fail…

1. Belief that being good is all that is needed to be successful

I live in a neighborhood where many people know how to cook excellent food. Yet, there aren’t many successful “mom and pop” restaurants. Sure, I see new ones pop up all the time, but they don’t really last very long. Having visited some of these places (hey I’m all about helping local business thrive) I can tell you the quality of the food is far superior to most places. However, quality is just not good enough in this day in age. You can have the best product in the world, but it doesn’t matter if you aren’t taking care of your other business responsibilities. Little things like bringing in customers, pricing strategy, customer service, location, keeping proper hours, etc. Having an excellent product is a definite must, but don’t forget that it’s only one piece of the business puzzle. Remember the basics… play to your strengths and passions, be objective in regards to your business, and seek help from others when you need it.

2. Lack of goals

Let’s face it, this is a problem even for the big companies. The difference is that they can afford to make mistakes, you can’t. One of my favorite movies of all time is “Deep Cover” (yeah, I said it), and there’s one part in that movie where a father turns to his son and asks him what he wants for Christmas. The kid shrugs and says he doesn’t know. The father then says something like “how are you ever gonna get what you want if you don’t even know what you want.” Exactly, I couldn’t have said it better myself. Setting goals is essential in life and in business. Sit down and identify your personal goals. See where they sync up with your business goals (spend more time with your family, more money, etc), visualize what you want to achieve, and then develop a plan to get there. Set up milestones (divide your big goal into smaller objectives), and timelines to achieve these milestones. Prioritize your efforts around these goals and milestones and you will be much more focused on what is important to you. There are rules for setting goals, but I’m sure we’ll get to that in a later post.

3. No process

One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is that they have no systematic processes for anything. Most of them keep everything in their head, and never commit ideas to paper. Let’s face it, business is complex. If it wasn’t then we wouldn’t have to go to school for years to learn how to do it, and you probably wouldn’t be reading my posts. Put those ideas on paper. Write out your processes, especially for some of the more complex things. This will make it easier for you to identify where things can be improved. Also it makes it easier to train others whenever you get to that point. Remember, a good business needs structure, processes, and people. You need a plan, tasks, timelines, etc to reach that plan, and people to execute it.

There are probably more things that I’m leaving out, but these are the major factors. What do you think? Why do you think so many start-up companies fail? More importantly what can entrepreneurs do to make sure they succeed?

Here’s an interesting link from www.vcplan.com describing the 8 characteristics of success. Let’s check them out.

1. Passion - It all starts with passion. You must love what you are doing.
2. Work - Nothing is gained without hard work. Whatever it is you do, you need to work hard at it.
3. Focus - Stay focused on your objectives. It’s difficult to be excellent at a thousand things, but you can be the best at one.
4. Persist - Everyone fails at some point. To be successful, you need to keep going.
5. Ideas - Keep that brain working and be observant. You never know where the next good idea will come from.
6. Good - Be good at what you do. As the old timers say, practice makes perfect.
7. Push - It’s great when you have someone that can push you or motivate you, but it’s even better when you can push yourself. If you are having trouble with this, then you probably need to do something that you are more passionate about.
8. Serve - Remember, you’re here to help other people. Whatever you do, it’s not about you, it’s about the people that you are serving.

Did I leave something off the list? Comment below or email me at edwardviator@evil-marketer.com