Marketing Fails Not Limited to Small Businesses

By Erin Quinlan

We’ve all seen them – the marketing fails.

And it’s not just from small businesses, big brand marketing decisions sometimes lack logic or grace.

Want someone to help you with your marketing strategy to make sure that you don’t fall into one of those categories? TheSilent Partner Marketing can help.

Not sure what we mean by marketing fails? Here are a few examples.

One time, Belvedere Vodka referenced rape in an ad. After the fact, Belvedere did make a donation to RAINN, an anti-sexual violence organization, but it is an example of a judgment error that deviates from the typically clever, engaging social graphics.

Making light of mental illness? McDonald’s learned that this is not a good strategy and pulled this ad after intense criticism. 

Huggies once ran a campaign making fun of dads. People have always joked about women being great moms and men being fumbling fathers. It’s old, demeaning, sexist – and not true. Huggies found this out the hard way, when they launched a campaign poking fun at dads as being fumbling fools that didn't know how to take care of their babies. It didn’t go well. There's a fine line between parody and just plain making fun of people.

Social media is a great tool when it comes to marketing, but when used incorrectly, it can fail miserably. Take for example, when Susan Boyle released an album and announced she would be taking questions during an exclusive album listening party. She used the hashtag #susanalbumparty. It’s supposed to say “Susan Album Party,” but that’s not really what it looks like, is it?

Ouch.

These are just a few examples of where marketing strategies have failed and people have fallen on their faces.

Ready to make sure that isn’t you or your business?

Give The Silent Partner Marketing a call at 866-432-6456 or e-mail Kyle Reyes at kyle@thesilentpartnermarketing.com and we can help you out.


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Erin Quinlan is the Content Marketing Manager of The Silent Partner Marketing, a boutique marketing firm focused on helping businesses grow in an age of exploding technology. You can find The Silent Partner Marketing on Google+, Facebook, and Twitter. 

An Open Bar At An Open House: Real Estate Marketing 102

By Kyle Reyes

(Part two of "Are You Marketing In The Digital Age")

Earlier this week, I shared with you a video that I used to promote my house when I listed it for well above "market value".

But having a video isn't enough - it needs to be a part of a larger marketing strategy.

It's like a poisonous spider that doesn't have fangs to with which to bite.  The venom is no good without the delivery method.

Once the video was done, I knew I needed to drive traffic to it.  So I took a page out of Joe Petrowski's book and included it in a blog on AOL's Patch.com.

The traffic to the video was incredible - bringing in tens of thousands of hits.  Boom - the carrot was dangled.  As you can imagine, my realtor wanted to have an open house.

"People saw your 'man cave' in the video," she said.  "They're going to want to see it in person."

I'm going to be honest - I've always been sketchy about open houses.  I know I might ruffle some feathers here - but I'm going to say it: for many agents, open houses serve the agents better than they serve the sellers - they are a lead generator.  I respect that...but with thousands of dollars of single-malt scotches hanging out in the man-cave, I was hesitant.

It was time for a little outrageous marketing.

I made a deal with my agent - I made her give me a shirt and a hat with her real estate agency branding on it and told her that I was going to play the role of "bartender" downstairs - and not let anyone know that I was the homeowner.

As you can imagine, she wasn't crazy about the idea.

She finally relented...and the open house began.

Enter: prospective buyers. 

Prospect: "My GOD who owns this place?  This bar is AMAZING!".

Me: "From what I hear, the guy is pretty freaking cool.  You should meet him.  And I hear he dumped about $75k into this pad before he decided to get married.  Personally, I think he's a fool for selling it at this price."

BINGO.  I got to hear some incredibly candid feedback that I was able to turn into some wonderful and simple changes that made the house even more appealing to prospects.  

In the spirit of full disclosure, although I wasn't supposed to actually serve cocktails...I sort of ignored that little "rule" and offered an open bar.  As you can imagine, it contributed GREATLY to the candid feedback.

And then...it happened.

A couple came in after seeing the video...and fell in love with the house.

It sold at asking price - $25k more than the "experts" said it would ever sell for.

Even though my wife and I are now settled into our new money pit....errr....we still look at listings.

Every house looks the same.  Every header and description read the same.  Videos?  Ha.  Every agency seems to think photos stitched together with music count as a video.  

It's time we stopped marketing in 1997.

Outrageous marketing - which is what our firm specializes in - doesn't have to mean ridiculous and over the top.  It just means doing something a little differently.

How are YOU changing the game?

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Kyle Reyes is the President and Creative Director of The Silent Partner Marketing, a boutique marketing firm focused on helping businesses grow in an age of exploding technology.  You can find him on Google+, Facebook and Twitter.  He's the Chuck Norris of marketing.  It's outrageous - we know.  That's kind of the point.

Selling Your Home In The Digital Age

By Kyle Reyes

I bought my first house when I was a bachelor.

And as you might expect, I turned it into the ultimate bachelor pad.

Never anticipating getting married, I dumped tens of thousands of dollars into the new house.  

Ugly siding...gone.  New siding...in.  

Extra yard space?  Adios.  Hello second patio where you could step down into a hot tub.

And don't even get me started on the man-cave that I created.

Then life threw me a curve ball and I reconnected with the girl I was in love with throughout high school.  Cue wedding bells.

The problem?  We each had our own house.

The real estate agents in the area tried to tell me what the price would be based on the comps.  But after pouring blood, sweat and tears - along with a ton of money - into the house...I wanted to be able to dictate the price a little better.

So how did I do it?  A few cocktails...a video camera...and then an open house.

Although this video was far from the quality of video work that our agency usually provides, it racked up tens of thousands of hits pretty quickly.

How did we do it?  Tell you what.  Click here to watch the video.  Then in the next blog...I'll tell you how a blog...a video...and bartending at an open house helped sell it and save the bottom line.

So tell me - how are YOU marketing in the digital age?   

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Kyle Reyes is the President and Creative Director of The Silent Partner Marketing, a boutique marketing firm focused on helping businesses grow in an age of exploding technology.  You can find him on Google+, Facebook and Twitter.  He's the Chuck Norris of marketing.  It's outrageous - we know.  That's kind of the point.

Using Content Marketing and Lead Nurturing to Grow Your Business

By Erin Quinlan

As a business owner, you obviously want your business to grow.

To do this, you should implement a strong content management system and nurture your leads to help drive conversion rates among these leads.

The Silent Partner Marketing can help you with both of these tasks.

The idea behind content marketing is simple, give people interesting and relevant information about topics they care about. Content marketing generates interest in your site as a rewarding place to visit, establishes trust and improves brand and website loyalty, attracts a community of like-minded consumers, and earns links and builds your target audience.

The purpose of content strategy has also been described as achieving business goals by maximizing the impact of content.

Followers will come back to you as loyal customers, and they’ll share your information and link to your site. The more they like and link, the higher you’ll rank on search engines’ algorithms and the more potential customers will see what you have to say.

Now that you have these people interested, you have to close the deal. But how? 

Lead nurturing. 

When acquiring leads, make sure they are quality leads. Quantity is less important than quality for a small business with limited sales resources.

Have an instant response system. Make sure to alert the prospect that you are going to contact them. Also ask for more information right away, driven by what you received from the lead source. Then make sure you contact the prospect within the time you promised.

Offer immediate value to the potential customer. What could you give them just for interacting with you? 

You will also want to listen closely to understand what the prospect seeks.

Once you have the lead, give him or her a special place to interact with you. Make it easy to find, and a conduit to a live person that responds quickly. 

Get permission to stay in touch and give the prospect options for either e-mail or phone communications. Then make sure to stay actively in touch. Remind them of the details of the conversation, which have been captured in your nurturing system.

You can also offer the lead more value. Make a special offer or package deal – also driven by what you learned while you were listening and noting the needs expressed by the prospect.

One great way to see how things are going is to track the content and results of all interactions.

We’ve already discussed listening, but listen some more. This includes keeping all relevant information in one place so that you always have the lead’s history with you close at hand. 

You can also ask for a referral. You don’t have to wait for the sale to close to ask for a referral. However, use your judgment and only ask people who are clearly happy with how you have handled them so far. 

A big part of lead nurturing is learning from your mistakes and adjusting your lead generation and conversion systems to improve your return on investment. 

Ready to jump in?

Give The Silent Partner Marketing a call at 866-432-6456 or e-mail Kyle Reyes at kyle@thesilentpartnermarketing.com and we can get you started.

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Erin Quinlan is the Content Marketing Manager of The Silent Partner Marketing, a boutique marketing firm focused on helping businesses grow in an age of exploding technology. You can find The Silent Partner Marketing on Google+, Facebook, and Twitter. 

Car Dealership Hole In One Marketing Fail

By Kyle Reyes

Talk about a choke on the green.

Hear the story last week about the car dealership at the center of a dispute after a charity golf tournament?

Allow me to summarize.

Allan Ross of California thought he'd won a $66,000 Kia Sedan after he sunk a hole-in-one at the tournament.

But when he went to claim it...the dealership told him he was getting a gift certificate for $25,000 - the amount they had insured in case someone actually won.

There's a lot of pointing fingers now between Folsom Lake Kia and Ford and the insurance company - who they say should have put signage up saying the limit was $25,000.  The insurance company, of course, says they shouldn't have placed a $66,000 car at the hole.

Of course countless people have taken to social media blasting the dealership.  It seems that the dealership thinks that people actually care who was at fault.

Now they have a public relations and a reputation management nightmare on their hands.  Ironically - because they originally tried to do something good.

There are countless "reputation management" and "social media" companies out there.  But do you really think they are going to guide you through public relations nightmares like this?

It's just one of the benefits of having an outsourced marketing agency like The Silent Partner Marketing.  Call us today at 866.432.6456.

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Kyle Reyes is the President and Creative Director of The Silent Partner Marketing, a boutique marketing firm focused on helping businesses grow in an age of exploding technology.  You can find him on Google+, Facebook and Twitter.  He's the Chuck Norris of marketing.  It's outrageous - we know.  That's kind of the point.

What's the Difference Between All the Social Media Sites?

By Erin Quinlan

With so many social media sites out there, where do you begin? What’s the difference between Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Pinterest?

Let The Silent Partner Marketing explain it all for you. 

Facebook is the most common among all the social media marketing tools out there. Facebook uses the social graph and activities to target demographics and people. Of course it’s extremely important and necessary to share your products, offers, and services, but you also need to prove that you are an expert in your field. People aren’t going to automatically trust you. 

You need to build that trust, and doing things like sharing valuable content, news articles, and information on the latest and greatest in your industry will prove that your fan base can trust what you say.

With Facebook, you can build your fan base, share your page with friends and family, post your Facebook link anywhere you can, and give incentives for people to like your page. Maybe you’re giving something away once you reach 10,000 fans. People love challenges and techniques like this work well.

On Facebook, you can share valuable content and interact. People love to see that there is a real person behind your brand. If you don’t show your face, people get weary if it’s really you or not. Make sure you keep that Facebook page active, interesting, and never stop engaging.

Twitter is quick, frequent, and has the smartest of the audiences. With over 140 million registered users, Twitter is a sea of information waiting to be read, followed, and re-tweeted. Twitter can transform your lengthy blogs into small snippets of information. This is great for grabbing people’s attention quickly and driving more people to your blog.

Twitter is also great for directing people to your website to generate leads. However, you need to have content that is enticing enough for people to stop and read. People are normally scrolling through quickly and only clicking the ones that stand out the most. Make sure when you’re constructing your tweets, each one has hashtags for searching purposes and a link that is directing your viewers where you want them to go.

Many are saying that Google+ is the up-and-coming Facebook. With over 250 million registered users, that’s definitely a possibility. With Google+ Circles, you can separate your followers into different groups so when you’re making an announcement or just posting your latest press release, you can choose who you want to share this information with. Another unique feature with Google+ is the “Hangout,” where you can video chat with up to 10 people at once. 

With Google+, use images, make your profile open to search, and use your Circles wisely. Whether you choose the tiled images or the one to span across the top of your page, choose the best one you have. It is the first thing someone sees when they click on your page. Make sure to also add some albums. 

And since Google is king in the search world, you need to make sure your profile is open to search. If not, no one will find it and all the time you put into making your page won’t count. Circles is probably Google+’s best selling point, so you really need to use this feature at its fullest. 

As one of the new members to the social media marketing tools, Pinterest is climbing very quickly. With over 30 million viewers, it’s kind of hard to not be found and visual content rules all on Pinterest. If it’s not appealing, it won’t be re-pinned. From pictures to infographics and tutorials, it’s full of all things appealing to the eyes.

Pinterest is divided up into boards and each board has a category. Boards are important because it’s how people are going to find certain images they’re looking for. Pinterest is great for showing the personality and culture of your brand, and getting offers and content out and into the search engines.

Ready to jump into the world of social media marketing?

Give The Silent Partner Marketing a call at 866-432-6456 or e-mail Kyle Reyes at kyle@thesilentpartnermarketing.com and we can get you started.

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Erin Quinlan is the Content Marketing Manager of The Silent Partner Marketing, a boutique marketing firm focused on helping businesses grow in an age of exploding technology. You can find The Silent Partner Marketing on Google+, Facebook, and Twitter. 

Establishing Yourself as a Subject Matter Expert

By Erin Quinlan

In marketing, differentiation can be a source of huge competitive advantage. 

One way you can differentiate yourself is to become – and identify yourself as – a subject matter expert. 

Establishing yourself as an expert on any topic involves equal parts knowledge and personal branding.

Not sure how to do this? The Silent Partner Marketing can help you get your thoughts in order and get your message out to the public.

When you’re establishing yourself as an expert, show your passion. To become the expert that you are, you invested a lot of time, energy, and focus. 

Do your research. Find out what other experts in this area are saying. Are these things something you want to talk about? Do you want to take a different angle?

You’ve learned a lot on your way to becoming an expert, but continue to learn. Always welcome questions from colleagues and other interested parties. If you don’t know the answer, go and do some research. The more you engage with others on the subject and the more questions you are asked, the more research you do and therefore the more knowledge you build up.

Networking is also important. Join some peer-to-peer groups, attend events, and meet people that are also interested in the subject matter. Ask questions and join in discussions. Industry associations are a great way to network with like-minded professionals. 

Now that you know everything there is to know about your subject, it’s time to share. Once you begin to build a credible reputation as an expert, opportunities to shine will come to you. Write, write, write!

Your clients may or may not use Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or other social networking sites for business, but you should. Social networking is a way to create buzz in your industry and start to stand out as the go-to person on a topic. Of course, this can't and shouldn't take the place of face-to-face networking at conferences or other events.

Nothing beats experience. In his book "Outliers," Malcolm Gladwell advocates that 10,000 hours is the amount of time it takes to get really good at something. With experience comes a deeper and truer understanding of the subject matter. Take advantage of the experience you have.

Want to become known as the go-to person in your industry? Let The Silent Partner Marketing help you out.

Give us a call at 866-432-6456 or e-mail Kyle Reyes at kyle@thesilentpartnermarketing.com and we can get you started.

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Erin Quinlan is the Content Marketing Manager of The Silent Partner Marketing, a boutique marketing firm focused on helping businesses grow in an age of exploding technology. You can find The Silent Partner Marketing on Google+, Facebook, and Twitter.