No matter what reason you’re exploring the idea of a Facebook contest or sweepstakes, it’s a marketing tactic that countless companies have leveraged. It’s no surprise: The number of Facebook users has jumped 45% over the past 12 months. Facebook is now the most popular tool among marketers who use social media.

While the payoff can be big, holding a successful contest takes in-depth planning. We’ll outline how to determine if you should do a contest and how to go about planning and executing your promotion.

Facebook Contests for Customer Engagement
STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE FOR MARKETERS
Free Download: Click here

The psychological properties of the 11 basic colors:

Source: www.colour-affects.co.uk
Marketing Week, 11 October 2007, pp 28-29.

Quick Tips on Disclosure Requirements

Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising
http://ftc.gov/os/2009/10/091005revisedendorsementguides.pdf

FTC’s Revised Endorsement Guides: What People are Asking
http://business.ftc.gov/documents/bus71-ftcs-revised-endorsement-guideswhat-people-are-asking

Dot Com Disclosures: Information About Online Advertising
http://business.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/bus41-dot-com-disclosures-information-about-online-advertising.pdf

Certainly, it may be understandable that TV and radio operators need to generate advertising revenues, but how far will they go when it comes to the number of commercial minutes placed within their programming schedule? It has become apparent that with the inception of digital video recording, consumers are indeed skipping past commercial content. Perhaps this is what is causing media operations to ramp up the spot breaks. The big question is, “who wins at the end of the day?” At present, through the magic of digital recording devices and applications, the consumers are the victors. If no one is watching the paid advertising, what benefit does this render to the advertiser? If the advertiser becomes dissatisfied, how will this benefit the media operators in the long run?

It is no secret that Google and other online marketing networks have learned how to more effectively place their advertiser’s products and services strategically before the eyes and ears of a measurably specific target audience. In other words, why place an advertisement for women’s apparel in front of a male consumer. Through the art and science of technology, these online marketing platforms have discovered not only what advertisements to show where, but where to show the advertisement, and to who would be most interested in an advertiser’s specific product or service. On top of smart target market practices, these online marketing networks are able to deliver to their valuable advertisers accurate and timely statistics and metrics (analytics) to help advertiser fine tune their offering with an even greater degree of marketing success.

In our opinion, if TV and radio operators could balance their spot breaks with advertisements that strategically target the program’s specific viewer or listener, perhaps consumers will be far more willing to sit through commercial breaks. We believe terrestrial media organizations are fully aware of their current weaknesses and limitations, but the larger question is, will they be able to beat companies like Google to punch? If online marketing networks, with their powerful and highly-relative consumer behavior databases make their way to the terrestrial airwaves before the old school media operators can figure it out, we just might find these organizations aligning with, or at the very least, being acquiring by their online advertising competition.

Who do you think will win this race?

The moral of this story is that we must fervently consider the wants and needs of the today’s consumer. We must accurately develop products and services that are specifically designed to achieve a consumer goal, solve a consumer problem, or satisfy a consumer need. We must determine where these consumers are and place our targeted messages before their very eyes and their very ears.

Happy Marketing!

This article was written by Trinity Web Works founder, Tony Marino. Copyright 2012. All rights reserved.

Reinventing the Corporation

Corporate leaders are looking for ways to take advantage of an organization’s capabilities, grow business and stay ahead of the competition. They are looking for more than veiled improvements, quick fixes, and fad programs. In order to succeed in this effort, organizations are actually reinventing themselves. This means that companies are making long range, strategic plans and core changes to the way they do business which requires a systematic approach to organizational development. Organizational development is a long-range effort to improve an organization’s problem-solving and renewal processes. Through instituting changes, companies take on new characteristics in vision, mission and process. This does not, however, always happen seamlessly.

The Challenges of Change

Where there are changes there are challenges. Organizations are systems and when the smallest change is implemented; its effects are felt throughout the organization. Unfortunately, there are numerous external factors that often pressure organizations to change such as; technology, competition, social trends, increasing diversity within the workforce, economic shocks, and unpredictable world politics. The challenge for organizations is keeping up with the pace at which change is occurring without running the risk of destabilization.

The truth is that organizations must be able to maintain equilibrium between stability and innovation. The challenge is to remain balanced enough to give a sense of being grounded without becoming stuck and unable to respond to changes in the environment. Stability should not be such that it eliminates innovation.

While reactive ability is necessary, managers must do more than that, they must also be able to anticipate the changing patterns of people, markets, products and technology. Another challenge, then, is actively creating a climate within the organization that embraces creativity and innovation. Accepting this as an overhead budget condition requires commitment from top level management.

Changing the Corporate Culture

Organizational culture is described as, “The way we do business around here.” Before the early 1980s the issue of culture was restricted to anthropology. Organizational culture, however, became an organizational concern after the publication of Deal and Kennedy’s book, Corporate Cultures; The Rites and Rituals of Corporate Life.

Today corporate culture is referred to in terms of norms, shared values and basic assumptions understood and shared by members of the organization. As change is discussed, the impact on corporate culture needs to be taken seriously. In fact, the focus of organizational development is to improve an organization’s self-renewal process so managers can quickly initiate changes to the corporate culture to meet emergent problems. Tomorrow’s leaders are likely to be those who are flexible, innovative, and able to conceptualize both the necessity of change and the impact change will have on all the facets and members of the organization itself.

Reference

Deal, T. & Kennedy, A. (1982). Corporate cultures: The rites and rituals of corporate life. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co.

Models and Normative Approaches

One outcome of OD is increased learning or capacity of the organization to do for itself. Understanding how to measure both quantitatively and qualitatively its “health” is essential to that goal. One method of diagnosis is to use models to describe “effectiveness.” Competitive analysis approaches to diagnosis compare firms to others in their industry (or to one they aspire to imitate). Another popular approach is to describe the idealized organization, undertaking a comparison between that and its current state. All approaches spotlight or identify “performance gaps” as a prerequisite for creating planned change.

Collaboration in Diagnosis

When diagnosis is a collaborative process, it supports the aims of OD and establishes learning as a key value. Deciding what to measure; who will be involved; and how to collect, analyze, and report on the information should be a collaborative process between the consultant or practitioner and the organization. Understanding how the organization approaches these tasks helps build a picture of how problems are managed. It also helps define what problems exist. Not only does the problem need to be addressed but the entity (whether a person, group, or total system) also needs to learn how to prevent or avoid this situation in the future. In reality, progress is made even when the same problem is repeated but is resolved more quickly and efficiently.

Diagnosis is no guarantee of change. Sometimes “fixes” are too costly or impossible— then palliative measures may be chosen as the best course of action. At other times, the system or people may choose not to proceed from diagnosis to an action stage, allowing “natural evolution” to unfold.

Promoting Positive Change

Principles of valid information, non-judgmental discussion of the information, and allowing free choice to reinforce the positive values of OD are at the core of “action” learning, and they establish conditions that promote effective change. Organizations at all levels exhibit resistance to change. Even when problems arise and are recognized, action is not always taken. Assessing the likelihood of compliance (the willingness and capability to change), therefore, is critical. Involvement by stakeholders during diagnosis helps reduce resistance and provides more information about how to implement change. This participation is critical to clarity, commitment, and effective execution of the change plan. It is one mechanism OD consultants use to help organizations, groups, and individuals learn how to build mutually beneficial relationships. These four factors—clarity, commitment, execution, and mutually beneficial relationships—form the basis for learning, growth, organizational effectiveness, and increased capacity to manage change.

Generating valid information, presenting it in a non-judgmental or non-evaluative manner, and allowing people in the organization the freedom of choice also promote positive change and are critical to upholding inherent OD values. Participation should promote these aims. Planned change can happen without participation but it will not meet the values of OD and will create ethical concerns.

Marketing to other marketers to make it easier to make money is great, but many of the buyers never use the products and just try to pawn them off on other marketers. So you wind up with all these people selling scripts, programs, eBooks, and more to other online marketers and they profess how great they are without ever using them. They are just trying to make a buck as an affiliate of someone else’s idea.

I am all for new marketing ideas especially the ones that automate tedious tasks. I love submitting articles and use an auto submitter. RSS feeds provide news to my sites. Automatically creating links to Clickbank items based on keywords in my blogs is a godsend.

But, to me, if people don’t use these products and just pimp them to others, they are missing out on the long term benefits for a quick buck.

I admit that I have done this in the past and may do it again in the future – but – I only sell products that I actually use and approve. That way I can actually vouch for them since I have used them and can speak from personal experience.

Personally, I prefer to market to the average Internet Joe. I market to people who are looking for a deal on a credit card (and I use a super script to keep my site current). I recommend hotels in Thailand and can speak from first-hand experience. I post links to hotels in Thailand forums and also have 6 Thai affiliate hotel sites.

I also write articles about Thailand and list my hotel affiliate links in the author’s resource box. These are pretty easy to write since I have been traveling to Thailand for over 30 years.

I also write the occasional marketing or credit article to get some traffic to those sites. I have about 10 article sites and advertise on those sites that others submit their articles to.

I would rather make a few bucks marketing a product to people who are actually going to use it instead of marketing to someone who is only going to try to sell it to someone else.

All of this is just my personal opinion. There is nothing morally wrong or illegal of marketing to marketers. I use many of the items that are up for sale, especially those that make my life a little bit easier.

The one thing that I do object to is the folks that market to others and make false or misleading statements indicating that they use the product and how wonderful it is when they have never used it and just want to make a buck.

Anyhow, keep coming up with all those great products that marketers can use to make our lives easier. Just market them honestly.

Adsense, opt-in, and purchased leads often deliver poor results. Why? Most often the reason is these leads aren’t NEARLY as powerful as leads you build yourself.

Send out an article like this one, get people to read your good information, then come to you as warm leads — and you’ll have a HOT lead that WILL buy something. What’s the difference?

The prospect reads your information, got to know and trust you, THEN came to your sales information. At this point, the prospect has created a mental bond with you and your ability to help them achieve their goal. This lead, gathered with YOUR lead building system, is FAR more prepared to buy than any other kind of lead.

Don’t believe me? Look who is making good money online year, after year, after year. It’s people who have a big weekly newsletter, have sites filled with good information, spend a lot of time talking with prospects on the telephone, offer an e-book, or send repeated autoresponder messages. These methods all build a RELATIONSHIP with the prospect, making them 20 times more likely to buy. While Adsense might get you thousands of hits, building your OWN leads can get prospects who will actually BUY something.

“But I can’t write an article and don’t like to talk to prospects on the phone,” you say. No problem. Today there are lead building systems that pull in huge numbers of prospects, then use advanced Flash web movies to convert the best of these prospects into hot, pre-sold leads.

These systems are the new cutting-edge of online marketing. They have become so highly developed and easy to use that thousands of people just like you are earning big commissions non-stop with them. It’s not at all unusual to set the lead building system in place, then watch the sales stack up at $1,000 per pop.

Clearly, building your own leads, then using an advanced Flash selling system is the easy way to profits these days. Don’t pass up this marketing method for your business.

If you need assistance in building your lead-base exponentially, we believe we can help. Call us anytime here at Trinity Web Works.

Telephone: 213-325-0977
Email: admin@TrinityWebWorks.com

Before any business can progress towards the completion of a measurable and realistic marketing plan, a company must first assess their present STRENGTH, WEAKNESSES, OPPORTUNITIES, AND THREATS.

Let us help you strategically define your current marketing position and show you how to maximize your profit potential.

The “SWOT Analysis – Online Marketing White Paper” is our “free” gift to you!