Craig Rentmeester's Blog

Now on Twitter

I've succumbed to the pressure and joined Twitter.

You can follow me @CRentmeester

I will try to keep the overlap between my twitter activity and blog content to a minimum.

Leaps of Faith

Every transaction involves a leap of faith.

Buyers worry about a seller's reputation, customer service, warranty, product performance, resale value, etc.

Sellers worry about the buyer's ability to pay, how much post-sale support resources they'll use, how likely they are to buy again in the future, etc.

How big that leap is varies depending on the product being sold and the seller.

It is the marketer's sole purpose to make that leap of faith small enough that a deal happens.

So, what does this mean to your business?

1. Brand Awareness.
The fact that someone knows about your business before making a purchase is important. It immediately gives them an increased sense of trust.

2. Brand Experience Matters.
People are creatures of habit. If a customer is able to try a product and it lives up to expectations, their more likely to purchase that product in the future versus one they haven't tried.

What if you're entering a new market, or are a relatively new company?
See below.

Ways to Minimize the Leap of Faith without Discounting
It's easy to discount, and I'm completely opposed to it. However, for expensive purchases or lengthy contracts, I think discounts should be used only if you get something in return. 

Below are some other ways you can add credibility in inexpensive ways.

• Encourage Positive Word of Mouth about the product from friends of relatives.
• Request testimonials, images, and/or video from your current customers.
  • Buyers don't want to be the guinea pig. They want to know there are other people, like them, that chose this product before.
• Free trials, samples, or test drives.
• Advertising. Like I said, brand awareness still helps.
• Face-to-Face Meetings. Old school. It can instill confidence that you're not running a Boiler Room-type operation.

Innovative Shopping Breakthrough or Web 2.0 Gone Wild?

Zugara, a company I'd never heard of before today, launched a preview of a service that may become a mainstay for internet shopping.It uses augmented reality and motion capture to allow shoppers to preview clothes before they buy them.


Read the Full Release

Credit: Story found via Guy Kawasaki on Twitter.

You Get what you Support

Markets, and the businesses in those markets, are there for a reason.

As soon as customers stop coming to businesses, the businesses are forced to adapt.

Whether it's the way a business sells (direct, distributor, etc.), to where a business is located, your purchases today affect investments tomorrow.

It challenging markets, customers have the power to make, break and shape the way a business operates.

Choose wisely.

You may be stuck with less than preferable options at the end of this cycle, because of the purchasing decisions you're making today.

How do Americans Spend their Time?

If you're a marketer in the U.S., you should take a look this interesting report about how Americans spend their time put together by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

It has broad reports for everyone over 15, and is also segmented demographically by age groups, sex

When your product would be used and how much time and attention is devoted to that activity can help you better position your product.

How to Get Listed in Google Shopping Results?

This questions has come up a lot lately.

Answer: Google Base

Steps to Take
Create a data feed in XML or TXT format.

Your product listings will remain active for up to 31 days. After that, just re-upload your feed and your products will be published again.

Customers Control the Message

In today's world of social and blended media (a mix of traditional and social), companies don't control the message.

In the past, companies could have a consistent voice.

A spokesperson.

A platform.

Today, smart companies have empowered employees that act as brand evangelists because they're compensated, and, more importantly, because they actually care about the products they're company markets.

The days of fluffy press releases, littered with disguised value propositions, getting front page coverage are gone.

Companies that embrace the change will grow quicker than before.

Companies that don't will not see a vocal backlash. 

They'll just be irrelevant.

Hindsight

Today is the last day that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer is publishing its print edition. It will reduce its staff of 140 down to 20-25 employees as it moves to an online only newspaper.

Three years ago I received the letter below from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. (click the image below to view the letter).

It notified me that I didn't get accepted to their internship program.

Around this time, I got the same types of letters from editors at Newsweek, the St. Louis Post Dispatch, and many other daily newspapers and magazines.

Hindsight has allowed me to realize that I applied to these types of internship programs for the wrong reasons.

1. I had no vision; I didn't know what I wanted to do or become.
2. I was denying the fact that newspapers were a dying industry, even though the writing was on the wall.
3. I was applying because it was safe. I had worked at magazine for 4-5 months and was a J-school student.

In retrospect, I was glad I caught on at a startup company called BuySelf Realty, and had the opportunity to change the way people sold their homes. this was around the time that flat-fee real estate services were becoming popular, and the housing bubble was in full swing. 

I learned more about business there than I would have doing fact-checking at the P-I. 

The takeaway

When you don't get what you were hoping for, try to remember why you wanted it in the first place.

Is it truly what you were looking for, or were  you trying to convince yourself it was what you wanted when it really wasn't.  

Hindsight brings clarity. Vision can do the same.

7 Cheap and Easy Marketing Ideas for a Recession

With the recession in full swing, and the Dow dropping below 7K, I thought it'd be wise to provide some cheap marketing tactics.

Hopefully these help you start a surge of other marketing ideas for you.

1. Highly focused pay-per-click advertising.
Don't bid on generic industry terms like 'car insurance' or 'car rental'. Instead, bid only on long-tail terms like 'car insurance quote wisconsin' or 'car rental prices denver, co'. Using geographic phrases, and keywords with obvious buying signals is way to keep search marketing costs low and ridden with higher quality conversions.

Tip: Create focused landing pages with plenty of conversion methods (sales quotes, whitepapers, brochure downloads, e-mail list sign ups, etc.)

2.  Create a valuable whitepaper and send out an e-mail to your permission list noting that it's available for download.
Make sure your whitepaper cites its statistics.

Tip: Buying the rights to whitepaper or e-book by an industry expert may yield higher returns on investment and requires less staff. 

Tip: Make sure you have a way to track whose downloaded the whitepaper so you can follow up with a sales call. A simple PHP form will suffice.

3. Create an online user group on Ning or LinkedIn.
Ning allows you to create your own social network. Think Facebook but with only your customers or friends.

Offer a discount to people that refer their colleagues or other customers. Create unique content that your best customers would care about (tutorials, slideshows, videos, etc.)

Ning's basic social networks are free, but ad supported. To not have ads shown, it costs $25. Let your customers know that Ning needs to support itself somehow.

This will give your biggest fans a breeding ground, and help connect them to drive brand loyalty and referral business.

4. Create a Twitter alias and connect with your customers on a one-to-one basis.
This one is a little iffy and requires your company to have the right culture for this to make sense.

I hear it can be addicting as well, so you may need to hire a well-intentioned intern to manage it.

5. Create a blog.
You don't have to have a cat to have a blog. 37Signals is an example of corporate blogging done very well.

You can have a labs blog where you talk abou upcoming products, or a service pack blog where you talk about enhancements to your products that have been made. You can administer your e-newsletter as a blog.  

6. Develop strategic partnerships for referral business.

At Applied Engineering, the company I work for, I've been reaching out to local workforce centers to help drive training revenue from dislocated workers.

7. Promote your local business online for free on all the major spots.

I wish I didn't have to say that, but it is overlooked by too many small businesses.

I hope this helps.  Best of luck. Stay positive.

A Call for Transparency in Blog Commenting

"Great article", says Making Money Online.

"Loved your interesting story about whales", says Whale Expert AK.

No one starts a blog without expecting some level of two-way dialogue to naturally happen. In fact, that's why most people start blogs -- to share their ideas.

Then, through powerful search algorithms, social recommendations and a necessary dash of self promotion to get the former started, there ideas begin to be heard.

Then, once their ideas begin to be heard, some commenters  see opportunity to steal traffic, redirect eyeballs and turn a profit.

The last part of the equation is fine with me, as long as there is value in the comments, and transparent motives.

What amateur traffic stealers and link builders don't understand is that, like most things of value, there are mechanisms built in protect the innocent and defeat the selfish. In the case of blog commenting, that mechanism is the nofollow link placed inside of virtually link that is attached to a blog commenter's name.

You've been notified.

Unless you're expecting quality referral traffic from the link you attach to your name, or bullshit keyword phrase for that matter, it's not worth the effort to try to get around the system.

Why not?

Because it's automated on every popular bloggin platform.

Another reason. OK. Any blogger that allows comments and is worried about their reputation is notified when their blog receives a comment, and is able to unpublish it.

Social media is rewarding when it's used correctly, even if you're not a heavy content creator.