It had been on my priority list as an essential part of our website. Now it’s here and so I can discuss the reasons why I think building a custom 404 error page should happen as soon as you build your site, and not much later like I did.

1.    Missed Traffic
When it comes to site traffic, one of the worst things that can happen after your PPC, ad, or content has compelled someone to click, is that the first thing they see is the nasty default 404 error page. I don’t know about you, but for me, if I’m visiting a site for the first time, it almost doesn’t matter what page I was trying to view, if my first experience is a 404 error,  I’m done with that site. I become missed traffic.

2.    Missed Call to Action
We all know that it’s hard enough to skillfully direct the right prospect with the right content through right action. So it is absolutely essential that if they are prepared to click on an actual call to action or click the submit button on a form, the last thing we want is for the link to be broken. Missed Calls to action are a killer.

3.    Brand Damage
Brand damage is obviously not as easy to define or track as the previous two, but the lasting effect of turning someone off your product needs to be carefully considered. Not having your site well organized and maintained can easily shake the confidence of a prospect. Additionally, the entire goal of a website is to make the buying decision and process as easy as possible. To put your prospect through the inconvenience of a link that doesn’t lead to the content they were seeking as well forcing them to back browse is never a good idea.

As your site gets larger, and the pages and links change, it’s difficult for any marketer to keep track of which links are still floating out there and the pages to which they are linked. For the reasons above, as well as to provide a solid back-up for your prospect to reach valid content in case you missed a broken link, it makes sense to create a custom 404 error page right out of the gates.

Any other benefits you think of for creating a custom 404 error page?

I have made mention in the past that I wished that I could be a database guy. I’m going to reiterate, I really wish I had some database skills.

As a marketer, moving data, tracking data, ensuring data integrity, and making use of data is pretty much the core of what we do. We might be able to create relevant content and send some terrific emails, but when it comes down to converting sales, data management is key.

Our current dilemma involves the inability to write back to our License Key Generation platform. We have our customer data in Salesforce for sales and support. The problem is that our data sync is one-way to salesforce to protect our license key database integrity. If I really knew how to dig into our database, I might be able to facilitate a two-way sync for just contacts without too much difficulty.

I’m aware that I can certainly have someone do this for me, but without the database knowledge, I have to pull several people on our side from development and the project becomes far larger and more time consuming that it should be.

Another huge data issue for every marketer is data hygiene. Our customer records are a bit of a mess, and we have a large number of duplicates and incomplete records. Again, I know that there are plenty of companies who can clean us up just fine. But, if I was a database whiz I could have a continuous process in place and wouldn’t have to pay the large sums of money to have them do it for me.

Alas, at this point I don’t have the time to really learn database management, but I also have don’t necessarily have the budget either. Hopefully I will figure something out.

Is anyone else stuck in database purgatory?

Good White Papers are really hard to write.

I wrote our first White Paper several years ago. It was a fair initial effort that took a great deal of time, contained some relevant information. But isn’t exactly at the top of my list of go-to assets.

When we launched our new product, the Universal Imaging Utility System Deploy Plug-in for Microsoft SCCM, I wanted a valuable, usable asset and maybe even a decent lead generator. So I had our recent White Paper written by a professional. (The @ppum Group did a great job and was a pleasure to work with)

But are White Papers really worth the time and money to market?

Unfortunately, the answer comes back yet again, to the same thing I’ve talked about all too often – good content. If the content is good, really good, and relevant to the reader, and provides knowledge or a solution, it is totally worth marketing. The big problem is that the White Paper universe is saturated with poorly written pieces. Or worse yet, filed under the wrong category. It can be extremely tiresome to sift through countless company-sponsored White Papers trying to find anything useful.

The other difficulty comes from the large cost associated with promoting assets like White Papers through paid content syndication. Some of the largest conglomerates, while still offering free submission, charge thousands of dollars a month to promote and track the leads associated with said White Paper. I don’t know about your budget, but mine certainly doesn’t have $75 a lead with a 125 lead minimum readily available for one site, let alone multiple.

So if good White Paper content is worth marketing, how can one accomplish it on a small budget?

-I mentioned the free submissions available on many content syndication sites – that is a good place to start.

-The next tip is something I figured out about two years ago. You can optimize the heck out of a .pdf for great SEO results when the White Paper is hosted on your website. First, under the properties section in Acrobat, you can add meta data to help search engines find your asset. Then, you can hyperlink any images or links that you didn’t already have hyper-linked through InDesign or word or whatever you wrote it in. Lastly, under Tool>Advanced Editing, you can TouchUp Text Reading Order. This actually tells the browser in which order you want it to read the .pdf which can be extremely helpful with keyword and header content.

-A lot of White Paper writing sites will recommend submitting a press release to promote your asset. I have mixed feelings about this one. Part of me thinks that any press is good press, and there are plenty of free PR sites. But does your White Paper contain content that is remotely as significant as your latest new product? Basically I ask myself, even if my White Paper is terrific, is it newsworthy, and does it warrant me pestering the journalist who’s desk the release will ultimately cross? The last thing I want is to have someone glaze over anything associated with our company. (This, of course,  assumes that journalists pay attention to our companies in the first place.)

-Social Media is a pretty solid tool for continued promotion. Assuming you’ve done your job of garnering followers with similar interests to your company, strategic posts highlighting particular aspect of your White Paper can be very effective. This is true particularly if you have designated landing pages and an automated marketing system (we use Pardot) to track interactions. I used to use Hootsuite to plan out a weekly or bi-monthly post to Twitter or LinkedIn until we started using Pardot.

Those are my main ways to promote our White Papers, what are yours?

I’ve been thinking about the time involved for content marketing a bit more often lately as I contemplate starting up a Product and Support blog on our UIU and UIUSD site. I’ve done plenty of research to try and determine the value, focus, and time requirements of adding another consistent content stream to my existing obligations. Even though we are a niche software developer, and the content focus is rather restricted, I’ve got a pretty clear game plan worked out in my head that I think will be fairly successful.

The problem with adding more quality content obligations really comes down to the time required to generate something potentially valuable to our readers. And the more I think about it, the more I think that if I don’t have an adequate amount of time each week for at least one quality post, then I am better off not adding that content to our site, and instead, focusing on the other content marketing projects that are still in the works.

Sure added knowledge base items, support topics, new product development, and discussion on current trends in our industry would all make for great topics to bring people to our site and increase SEO. But if people get a few sentences in and don’t have anything good to read, then not only will they leave immediately without taking the time to read more about our products, but will be unlikely to return.

In my estimation, it’s far better to focus on quality, relevant content, even if that means there is less of it, than to crank out a slew of sub-par posts or pages that could potentially to more harm than good.

I realize that as a topic, the time for good content marketing might seem fairly obvious. If you can’t create something good, don’t do it at all, duh.

But I think that particularly when it comes to a continuous content obligation like a blog, it is vital to determine if you are going to have enough time to continue to generate quality content. It might be great for the first half dozen posts, but somehow that blog deadline sneaks up on you every week, and before you know it, you are struggling to not only find something worthwhile to write about, but allocate less and less time to make sure it's actually worth reading.

That is why, at this time at least, I have decided not to try and get the Product blog off the ground.

Any other kinds of content that would be better off left on the drawing board?

First let me begin by saying that for the most part, I really like Google. They do some great stuff, and it’s almost all for free. Except of course the Paid Advertising.  But there is a part of Google’s business model that really bugs me – using it’s clients as guinea pigs to test new products. We don’t have to rehash what has been over-articulated in regards to Google wave, Gmail privacy policy changes, Google buzz, and the list of changes and discontinued products goes on and on.

My issue, and the part that adds extra time to my work load, is the constant changes in core products like analytics and adwords in particular. It seems that the developers get tired of the current UI, and see how many times a year they can make changes that seldom actually add to the experience or the ability of the customer to do more work efficiently.

The latest analytics changes are a great example. Ok sure, some of the new features help to take a look at some of the visitor data a little easier, but not most of them. Where did content page navigation go? All the way up next to Explorer, which was overview under Traffic Sources before the tab changed – what is it doing up there?

Like any new product, there will be feature updates, UI changes and with those come a new learning curve. What irks me is that Google makes changes that might make sense from a developer or even (sometimes) a design perspective, but it very much seems that they don’t consider the user perspective.

The left hand navigation tree is another good example. Previously, subcategories were pretty easily visible and navigable, but now in order to see everything, you need to click each item, and scroll six times because the page height increased astronomically.

I think that even though some of the actionable items under each main category were formerly a touch confusing while in page, they still were all in one spot and after the initial learning curve, were workable. Now the left subcategories are disconnected from the pages on which they are actionable.

To be honest, I’m in the middle of a whole bunch of stuff so I really don’t want to be inconvenienced again to re-acclimate myself. So take the moaning with a grain of salt. It’s a free tool and complaining about it won’t ever do any good. And we'll all keep using it anyway.

Sometimes Google, new isn’t always better.

I would like to make the argument that any company, however small or large, in whichever type of business it may be, needs to have a social media policy of some kind.

Now certainly a one-man business or small shop shouldn’t waste their time writing an elaborate 20 page document covering every single aspect of every possible social media platform available. But they do need to evaluate how their employees are going to conduct themselves across various platforms as representatives of the company. Even if that means a simple paragraph in the employee handbook.

What is important to understand is the scope and penetration of company related social media interaction. For example, as the marketing director, I try to weigh each item I post anywhere against how I might be perceived as a spokesman for Big Bang. Even on accounts that have no direct tie to the company, I still consciously conduct myself as if the person reading what I typed knew I worked for Big Bang and what it was all about. This is largely because I spread Big Bang information all over on a daily basis.

But what about the person who isn’t responsible for external media, like one of our software developers. Well Big Bang’s short little two-page social media policy breaks it down two ways. First, if the individual does not have their work email, work url or any other work related items tied to any of their social media accounts, then they may conduct themselves however they wish. If however, they do have information available for public consumption that indicates their affiliation with Big Bang, they need to conduct themselves accordingly.

The extent to which a company manages and enforces social media policy is typically based on the scale of effect that an individual's personal social media presence can have on the company's brand and image. For Big Bang, we simply want represent ourselves ethically and with common sense, to offer honest and transparent insight into our brand and protect its integrity. And if we make a mistake, to be honest about that as well.

For us, and what I think is the most effective way to institute social media policy, is to treat employees with the same level of respect and trust that you have in them to work hard for you every day. They already possess the level of pride in their company necessary to, with the subtle guide of a well-written social media policy, conduct themselves as brand ambassadors.

And if they don’t, then that is probably indicative of larger issues than errant tweets.

Ideally the prospect has been tagged and scored, so each new piece of information helps us steer them toward a tipping point, ours is a successful download of our Free Trial. For example, a prospect clicked on a Google PPC ad and from there completed a form on a specific landing page pertaining to product X. The next time the prospect visits your website, he looks at product X in more detail and exits on the video you have explaining how product X works in scenario Y. By this time, your prospect has established a pattern and the next time you see him/her visit the website in real-time, you can send off an introductory email containing the Case Study your company wrote specifically dealing with how product X works in scenario Y.

Talk about a content-driven, meaningful first impression!

Another situation in which stalking your prospect can pay off might be if sales has already established communication with a prospect, but they have expressed reluctance to speak with the salesperson. The prospect may have even told sales to take a hike-they aren’t interested. How interesting would it be if a week or two later sales notices this very prospect download a white paper or visit the website. It’s pretty obvious the prospect is still interested, but definitely prefers the hands off approach.

Yet another example might be relevant to the support team. If support is currently working on a case for a customer, but work is in progress, and the support person notices that the customer is visiting the knowledge base, he/she can touch base with the customer to see if there is an additional issue or more information is needed.

These are just a few ways that real-time cyber stalking can be beneficial. What it all boils down to is yet another great tool to determine what content your prospect and customers need to convert them or take good care of them.

Any practical examples from your web tracking that work for your organization?

I answered, “absolutely, people love being stalked!”

Before you begin preparing your rousing rebuttal, let me elaborate.

One of the many slick web tracking features of Pardot is a web prospect tracker they call Lead Deck. Lead Deck is able to track incoming web visitors based on a number of criteria including IP address. This is by no means unique, but how they handle the resultant data is one of the big reasons I chose them.

So without detailing too much of the functionality, needless to say, this allows our sales people to see in real-time when their prospects are engaged on the web.  If the prospect is unknown, there are any number of ways to determine a known prospect. They can immediately see exactly which pages they just interacted with and what forms they may have completed, or send them an email through our CRM. All of this data is tracked and scored for lead conversion.

When I first introduced this to the team, I told them that they should be glued to Lead Deck and the second they see an existing prospect, they should email or call them. I was of course being completely sarcastic, but the looks I got were worth it.

The conversation that followed was definitely worthwhile to have though – When and how should you stalk your prospects?

Much of the answer to this question hinges on business type. For a B2C retailer, connecting immediately following a product search may be completely appropriate. For Pardot, what really sold me was the tailored email I received within 10 minutes of researching their site. For our software company, and for many others, the need to make far more judicious use of the visitor information is crucial.

The last thing most web visitors want after leaving a site is a phone call trying to sell the product at which they were just looking. While there may be a handful of those perusing software who don’t connect what just transpired, they are far outweighed by the vast majority for whom the immediate response is cynicism and contempt for being cyber-stalked. That certainly isn’t the first impression we want our prospects to have.

So how can you make good use of such real-time information?

Find out in next week’s post.

...cont'd from Part 1

What we hadn’t properly examined was our massively diverse current and potential customer base. This sounds like an impossibly dumb oversight, so I will explain. Most small businesses serve a specific industry, be it manufacturing, healthcare, retail, education or government. From there many get even more granular and cater to a specific gender, age group, financial status, etc. Our customers and potential customers, on the other hand, include any and all organizations with more than 100 computers running a Microsoft operating system. That’s it. Your company needs 100 computers, something most of us can’t perform our jobs without, and the most popular operating system in the world. So while our customers come in all shapes and sizes, the things that qualify them as our customer are really simple.

My critical mistake was not accounting for how differently those customers use those 100+ computers. We knew there would be special circumstances, because there always are, and we planned to work those out one-on-one. As we got going, we realized those special circumstances were less special than we thought. In fact, most have reported a scenario that was the complete opposite of what we anticipated. Education is a primary example and a large part of our current customer base. In general, each student is not going to have a school-issued computer in their possession, but rather use one in a smaller pool of shared PCs. We determined very quickly that requiring a license per user where a student is considered a user (not just staff and teachers) was maybe easy but not necessarily fair.

We did find that other customers loved the idea of the per-user model. Barring a rapid growth in employees (which rarely bothers anyone) or a merger, corporate licensing per-user is both easy and relatively predictable from year-to-year. It was also attractive because corporate environments are going to be far more likely to support multiple computers per user.

Lesson: One size does not, as advertised, fit all.

It was the kind of mistake that was good in many ways. While we are back to a per-computer licensing model as the default offering for both products, we now also have a plan for those UIUSD customers that a per-user model is more attractive. It isn’t as simple as I wanted, but at least it remains simple for the customer—As for the sales staff, well, that’s what we’re here for. We also learned a lot about some of our customers’ challenges this week, and that is always a good thing.

All things considered, I think we have achieved both mutually fair and as simple as possible, though it took us a few extra days more than planned. I lived, I learned, and now I just need to find a way to keep this from the boss.

I’ve made a huge mistake.

Guest Post from Big Bang Sales Director, Kelley Burian

I’ve made a huge mistake.

Some of you may recognize that as a popular line from the TV show Arrested Development. Unfortunately, my love for the show is not the only reason I’ve had that line running through my head all week.

I’ll back up. My name is Kelley Burian, and I am the Sales Director with Big Bang LLC. I am guest-blogging this week in place of our usual Thursday Big Bang Blogger, Nate Bauer. Nate is off tending to the needs of his newest offspring, who is thankfully happy, healthy and appears to have inherited her looks from her mother. (Nate’s joke, not mine.)

Back to my aforementioned huge mistake.

Adam Murphy has spent more than a few bytes writing about pricing recently, and that train of thought didn’t come from a vacuum. Just over a week ago, we released our new product for driver management in SCCM, the Universal Imaging Utility System Deploy Plug-in, or UIUSD. Much thought, research and discussion went into how to license and price the UIUSD, and we changed our minds on how to do so at least twice in the months leading up to the release date.

We had three specific goals in mind, which I have listed below:

1.       Set a fair price for existing and future customers.

2.       Set a fair price for us.

3.       Make it as simple as possible.

While admittedly the first two are the whole ballgame, the third was an important extension of #1. For those not familiar with enterprise-level software licensing, #3 isn’t easy to find. We often joke about the need for advanced degrees in both law and applied mathematics to purchase the most basic, everybody-needs-it-gotta-have-it software. How can the customer determine if they have received a fair price if they don’t fully understand how that price was calculated?

With those initiatives in mind, we took stock of what we already knew. It’s not as if we hadn’t successfully licensed software before. We have been doing just that for several years with much success. Our customers have been happy to pay the price we set for the software, and we were in turn successfully growing a small business. Yay capitalism!

So why not just stick with the tried-and-true? We certainly considered that, of course. The problem was, without getting into the specifics of each product, we developed two different pieces of software for two different kinds of customer. In the end, we decided to change things for this product based on what we learned from both market research and direct input from our beta testers—the few outside of this building that were knowledgeable on the software prior to its release.

Instead of licensing the software per computer, as we do with the UIU, we decided to license the software per user. In doing this, we aimed first to get in line with the growing trend of multiple computers per user. As these devices get more affordable and more mobile, a single employee may have a desktop computer in the office, a laptop at home and a tablet for travel, and a per-user model would only require one license for that one user. This model would also allow for quick and easy math on the part of the software buyer—the number of licenses you need is simply your number of employees. Easy right?

Find out why it didn't work out so well next week.

I understand why it happens. New budget years (for most year-to-year fiscal calendars) come out. New technology expos usually hit first quarter. And when spread across education, government and corporate entities, it’s not surprising they occur in quick succession.

But for a small software company who caters to every vertical, it can be a little challenging. The last three years, we have often had as many as three shows in five weeks. The personal travel challenges of trying to run sales and marketing can be pretty profound. I always travel with our Sales Director, so when the two of us are out of the office for extended and repeated periods of time, goals and items for completion often get pushed back. Let alone this year, I am not traveling to our two shows in April because they coincide with the birth of my daughter.

But the real challenge for a small business is having to find a way to budget for those shows so close together. Show costs and sponsorships keep going up. While the ROI and face-time with leads is easily justifiable, the shows continue to take up a larger portion of my budget each year. Add to that the exorbitant cost of shipping, show marketing and especially Convention Center services ($125 a day to vacuum and 10x20 piece of carpeting?), and we have to be pretty choosy about the shows we attend.

Fortunately we have found a few great shows and are pretty loyal about yearly sponsorships. This year we are trying out two new shows, Microsoft’s TechEd (our new product UIUSD for Config Manager launches next week and makes us eligible for the show) and Campus Technology. But our very successful staples continue to be Help Desk International (HDI), FOSE, and Educause.

Unfortunately, only Educause is in the fall, everything else falls between April and the first week of July. Alas, what are we to do?

Anyone else find themselves exhibiting at shows all at one time?

Even in a perfect software development cycle, with no surprise feature adds, a flawlessly planned out marketing campaign, and rock-solid internal sales process – stuff still gets crazy.

I think that is the nature of software development. Launching a great product with the right number of solid features, fixing bugs, testing, all take more time then you ever think they will. So while marketing and sales might say they have everything finished and are anxiously awaiting to spread the word, there are always many, many last minutes changes.

I must finish this short post to go finish tech docs we forgot about, and fix the ease of navigation for all the new web pages, and send the physical media off to the printer, and…

Are there any developers and software marketers who haven’t spent the last days/weeks leading up to a launch working late nights around the conference table littered with pizza boxes and red bull?

If you are anything like me, which assumes you are reading a marketing blog because you do, in fact, have something to do with marketing, then you receive, on a daily basis, copious quantities of unsolicited direct mail.

And, if your reaction to receiving said direct mail is anything like mine, at least ninety-nine percent receives the focus of your attention only as long as it takes to move it from your desk to your trash can.

After speaking with several acquaintances, in and out of marketing, the consensus is clear, and their collective desire with to discontinue contribution to landfills, overwhelming.

If this is in fact the case, why do I insist on sending a postcard prior to a show advertising our product and inviting the attendee to visit our booth?

Answer : The THREE OR FOUR individuals who proudly display the postcard when they visit our booth.

That’s it. It amounts to a discernible .0008 rate of known return. By the numbers I should never pay for it. Yet the attendees are part of our target market, they attend shows like the ones at which we exhibit to learn, and the opportunity to showcase our brand in this way is just too good to pass up.

That being stated, I have never, nor can I ever see myself sending out direct mail blindly. But when I have the opportunity to reinforce our tradeshow messaging it makes sense.

So rather than jump on the “Direct Mail is Dead” bandwagon that seems to be cropping up, I will say that just like any other marketing tool, one needs to determine if and how it can be effective. And also, just because your direct mail piece can be used solely as a coaster, do you really want it to be?

Any other instances in which you have successfully utilized physical direct mail?

Without diving into the politics of why Obama isn’t trying to create an actual privacy law, suffice it to say that the upcoming privacy bill is all about the attempt to protect consumers online, including legislation that would allow the Federal Trade Commission and state Attorneys General to enforce the new bill when it comes out.

While there are several key points to understanding the new privacy bill, the one that may affect marketers the most involves the news that the Digital Advertising Alliance is going to endorse “do not track” features which would allow consumers to easily opt out of being tracked online. In order to accomplish this, they are exploring agreements with major browser developers to offer easy opt-out browser features.

I won’t digress to weigh-in on the sometimes controversial extent to which advertisers are able to track consumer data, including the oft-discussed abuses by Facebook and Google, but as a marketer seriously exploring cookie-based re-targeting of visitors to our sites as a potential tool to add this year, this new bill gives me cause for concern.

The ability to keep my brand in front of potential customers as they navigate elsewhere certainly has its appeal. If a customer has spent time on our sites, the implied, if potentially vague “permission to market” by serving up ads on the subsequent sites they visit offer the opportunity for prospects to see and think about the information from our sites for weeks afterward.

As you may well be aware, this is not an inexpensive service. If the average consumer is given the ability to easily opt out of re-targeting, it will be interesting to see how the pool of available re-targeting prospects changes in size, and how the cost to service those who have not opted out may increase.

I will definitely be keeping an eye on this as the year progresses. Re-targeting may not be an option for me this year after all.

Given that there is so much that still needs to develop from this news, what are your initial thoughts?

As a result, I periodically evaluate existing marketing tools and potential tactics against my overall marketing strategy to make sure that I’m not sacrificing effectiveness by not spending as much time with each that I should.

The large quantity of marketing tactics I have chosen to employ usually means that I just work more, much to the chagrin of the boss, and for which I receive regular chastising. But if I take the time to successfully implement a new tool, or do something like completely restructure our adwords program complete with vertical-specific, keyword silo-ed, tiered campaigns with multi-variate landing pages for each, and the results are very positive, I want to continue utilizing such plans.

The problem as a one-man marketer for a small software shop, is that I found myself spread pretty thin in the attempt to maximize effectiveness of so many tools and ideas.

This, along with my decision before the first of the year to migrate to a new marketing automation platform as well as a new CRM whilst preparing for a new product launch, led the boss to ask me a very pointed question, “Do you need some help?”

My Initial reaction was, “Certainly not, I should definitely be able to handle effective marketing for a software shop our size.” But the more I thought about it, I realized that I really only had two options - Cut back on the number of individual endeavors so I wouldn’t be working as much, or hire an assistant.

Stubborn pride was never an issue, I always focus on what is most beneficial for the company. But I tend to be the driven sort, and had already invested so much time establishing successful campaigns, and had so many things I still wanted to dive into, that justifying the extra cost for additional sales was kind of a no-brainer.

I think it is important to understand that there definitely can be too much marketing, the key is how you most effectively manage your time to maximize the success of each tool you use.

I’m very grateful that right about the time I should have reined myself in, not only was the boss already on top of it, but the company was in a position to bring on an extra employee.

Bonus is that we just need to find a replacement for my new marketing assistant, Tish, who is moving over from our sales department. Turns out she has an MBA in Marketing – who knew?

But I will provide my observations on the subject and ask the question in print that so many of us think regularly – Do companies still actually fall for people selling themselves as a social media [insert something silly here]?

My observation of the rise in popularity and importance of social media is that, in very real ways, it has changed the way conversations are happening with customers. Not so long ago, brands were able to largely dictate sentiment with one-way communication to their customers. Now customers not only have an immediate response vehicle in the form of social media, but when en masse, have the opportunity to dictate communication to the brand. Cases in point - the latest reversals in planned policy from Netflix, Verizon, and Bank of America.

But this new change in conversation dynamic is only the latest development in constantly evolving customer relations. As such, companies should be aware of how best to communicate with their customer base across ALL MEDIA to ensure satisfaction. The best conversations still involve the right content to the right people at the right time.

What this change in conversation dynamic does not require however, is a social media “wizard” to set up your Google+, Twitter and Facebook accounts for you. As you well know, all social media platforms are not equal and social media is most certainly not for every company. But you won’t hear that from social media services peddlers. They will insist that a Facebook page will be great for gaining customers to your International Aeronautical LED engineering company. And for your custom cabinetry business? Why you will be sure to find a vibrant community of antique Brazilian Tulipwood veneer and dowel rod clients on Twitter.

My observation is that just like any one of the thousands of tactics in your customer relations and marketing strategy, social media should be evaluated for potential benefit for your organization, and if viable, should be carefully incorporated into your overall plan. Large companies with substantial marketing teams will very likely have one or more people dedicated solely to monitoring and contributing to the customer interaction across many social media channels. Many small businesses may not have any need for social media, or do not have the time to effectively engage their customers, nor the money to pay someone to do it for them.

Either way, customer interaction continues to evolve and it is up to the individual organization to determine how and where they will best communicate with their customers. If Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn make an effective communication tool, then they can certainly be utilized and can facilitate terrific engagement.

But do you really need a self-proclaimed "guru" who knows nothing of your business to tell you how to talk to your customers?

It’s going to be a great product, and bring real value to our future customers.

In order for me to type that last sentence confidently, a great deal of work had to go into not just the creation of this new software, but in determining market need, saleability, and perhaps almost as important as the quality of the product – who my target market is and how to get them to buy it.

Needless to say, the market need for the Universal Imaging Utility System Deploy Plug-in (UIUSD), after speaking with quite a few Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) admins, is pretty ripe. The software is priced competitively, and we feel that reception will be overwhelmingly positive.

The biggest issue?

Our target market is almost too defined.

You read correctly, I did just declare that we know EXACTLY who our target audience is and where to find them, and I made it read like it actually might be a slightly negative thing.

The reason I feel this way is due to the extremely specific, and small number of individuals to whom I need to market.

As an illustration, the advantage of our existing product is that target messaging carries with it secondary, and even tertiary possibilities depending on the interaction. For example, our current product, the UIU, is designed to work with any operating system cloning and deployment solution to reduce the number of OS images an organization needs to maintain down to ONE by, among other features, handling all the drivers needed for any hardware component. The messaging is such that any entry-level help desk individual, IT Manager, all the way up to CTO or CIO of any company utilizing anything like Ghost, Altiris, Zenworks, , Acronis, FOG, ImageX, etc., can be made aware of the time-saving benefits.

In contrast however, the UIUSD is a plug-in specifically for SCCM and as such, our target market is limited to SCCM admins only in Enterprise environments actually utilizing SCCM. In addition, the innate complexities of the robust SCCM platform greatly reduce the likelihood that anyone in the organization not intimately familiar with SCCM would benefit from the kind of targeted messaging able to generate quality leads.

So on one hand my job with our new product is easy when defining my ideal prospect, but on the other hand, quite a bit more difficult in planning campaigns that reach the exact right person at the exact right time.

Won’t stop me from selling the heck out of our awesome new product though.

Have you ever had a target market that was too specific?

In principle, I have wanted to develop a referral program for our customers for years. The idea is solid and works for a variety of businesses – establish great relationships with great customers and convert them to loyal advocates who refer new customers, right?

The relationship building we excel at. The great product for great customers is dialed in. We even have loyal advocates and referrers and customers that take our product with them as they change jobs. But incenting other current customers to refer us to their colleagues and friends just won’t materialize and here’s why:

I have wracked my brain trying to figure out with what, or how to reward our current customers to refer new business. I have spoken with several of our most loyal customers to find out what “things” I might give them to make it worth their while to spread the word, but the answers are always the same.

What are my options?

Gifts – If I was so inclined to offer monetary or “schwag” gifts, which I am not for several reasons, most of our clients are unable to accept them. I feel gifts or rewards for purchasing cheapen the integrity of a product that stands on its effectiveness and ability to make their lives easier. In addition, the quality of such a gift would have to carry significant enough value to not insult the recipient which would then cut into our profit margin. We give away cheeky T-shirts at our trade shows for free, or sometimes as a thank you for a testimonial or case study, not as an incentive.

Discounts – I think that discounting our product as an incentive for a referral is not a good idea. First, aside from looking good to his/her boss, a discount on the product for which the referrer has already obtained budget dollars means very little. Second, the risk of the new reference asking the referrer the cost of the product and the referrer quoting the discounted license price is not worth the confusion. And Finally, and most importantly, we have a great product that sells very well at its current competitive price.

I would rather our marketing and sales team work on the communication with our existing customers to determine additional leads. We certainly track referrals, but I don’t see an effective way to encourage future referrals for our company.

Would love it if someone would disagree so I had something to use.

I define a customer as one who has purchased something from Big Bang and everything that goes along with said purchase. A customer was at one point a prospect/lead, but all my prospects are certainly not customers.

So I was quite surprised when almost every item I found when searching for ‘defining ideal customer’ dealt exclusively with defining an ideal prospect.

I think this is woefully shortsighted. As essential as defining a target market/demographic/prospect is to gaining a customer, the buying habits, satisfaction with product, and most importantly, customer loyalty, are necessary to defining an ideal customer.

In order to successfully do this, Big Bang needs to understand not just what caused a prospect to become a customer of our product, but how that product improved their image cloning and deployment program, what features can we add to make it even more efficient, how their environment changed over time, how effective was support, why they did, or did not renew after their first year, how long they have been a customer, etc.

If I don’t understand these essential qualities of a customer, how can I possible define one, let alone make the necessary adjustments in order to build a lasting relationship?

After all, if I can continue with our current software renewal rate of 92% with each new customer, the long-term revenue implications are obvious compared to a single purchase with no renewal.

Target prospect + purchase + customer satisfaction/duration = Ideal Customer

Here are my Top Ten Marketing Goals for 2012 – (in no particular order)

• Increase unique visitors from 12k to 17k+ per month

      We have been holding steady between 11 and 12k for the last quarter of 2011, and after completely revamping Paid search program and a full SEO audit, are continuing to generate relevant content to attract more visitors.

• Increase UIU Trial Leads to 8-10+ per day

      Our Universal Imaging Utility trial conversion rate is pretty solid, now I just need to get more of the right info to the right prospects at the right time for increased trial activation.

• UIU/UIUSD Product Blog

      Our Big Bang Blog (the one you are reading) has done extremely well in the first few months so I really want to get a solid blog schedule for our two software offerings. Product updates, relevant industry news, upcoming development ideas, etc.

• Create company-wide social media policy

      Last year I really tightened down my social media tactics and developed a clear plan. Now, as our customer base and brand awareness continues to grow, I want to make sure the rest of the building is on the same page and utilizing SM appropriately.

• Implement Re-Targeting

      If I can justify the expense with increased revenue, I really want to fire up a re-targeting campaign this year.

• Build and implement Salesforce Knowledge Base for Support and Sales

      The web-based knowledge base from SF is pretty robust and I think will help us take better care of our customers more efficiently.

• Write Wikis for products

     Well-written wiki can’t hurt. Just haven’t had the time.

• Develop Webinar schedule for new UIUSD product.

     Our new SCCM plug-in, the UIUSD, will be perfect for a well-laid webinar schedule for lead capture.

• ROI, ROI, ROI, ROI, ROI

     Now that we have moved to Pardot and SF, I am, for the first time, able to be Super-OCD on ROI for absolutely everything. And I now have a marketing underling to help with reporting and metrics.

• Have new marketing assistant own at least three things

     Speaking of Marketing assistant, as I get her trained up and involved, I already told her that I want to focus on her strengths and interests and have her “own” at least three major aspects of of our overall marketing strategy.

Those are my Top Ten Marketing Goals for 2012, what are yours?

Not so much. Especially for a small business.

A well-planned, accurate marketing budget can have a huge impact on a small business for a couple of reasons.

Financial Impact –
This is the obvious one, but typically small businesses don’t have a great deal of surplus cash to spend willy-nilly on marketing efforts. So it is important to determine which marketing tactics best enhance your overall strategy and how much they will cost.  Also, cash flow can fluctuate greatly during the course of a year, and it is crucial to anticipate expenses and plan available cash well in advance. Finally, a small business needs to decide what percentage of their revenue will be allocated for marketing. This is critical for a small business as they grow to accurately measure and understand the effects of marketing expense on total revenue.

Strategy Implementation-
One of the biggest benefits of establishing a clear marketing budget for me is the ability to concretely set strategy implementation points on a yearly basis. While certain aspects of my overall marketing strategy are “high-level” ideas (better define ideal customer, increase quality of interaction, etc.), pin-pointing the specific tactics and their corresponding cost during the year really help me to plot a clear plan for successful implementation.  I find that if I approach a particular quarter with a clear plan in mind, the ability to successfully initiate those plans and measure their effectiveness greatly increases. It makes sense to me to have thought about what comes next rather than sit at my desk one day and randomly think, “well that looks like fun, why don’t we try that!”

Happy Office Admin-
If you want a sure way to make the invaluable individual who handles all your accounts payable want to wring your neck, don’t prepare an accurate marketing budget. That way you can drop random invoices for trade shows, ad spots, direct mails, etc. right on his/her desk and make her try to figure out how to pay for them all. OR you can strategically plan out how much you are going to spend over the course of the year, and either ensure you aren’t hit with any huge expenses all at once, or run your budget past them so they can plan appropriately. Otherwise you may find yourself looking foolish to your vendors when your Admin makes you cancel an order.

Planning a marketing budget doesn’t have to be a pain, especially when the benefits will certainly make up for the time you put into it.

What other benefits of planning a marketing budget are there for a small business?

Most of the items required new research, learning new skills, or careful incorporation into my existing marketing strategy. But some goals I desired to have in place by this time, but for a variety of reasons was not able to complete.

My Top Ten Marketing Goals for 2011

Continue to Develop Solid Brand Position - SUCCESS

-Speak and write passionately about product to attract ideal customer

Start Small Business Blog - SUCCESS

-You are reading it

Create Social Media Policy - SUCCESS

-Develop and document strategies and tactics for connecting andnetworking with ideal customer

Build and Combine Customer Lists - SUCCESS

-Take current customer list, clean, and combine with new lead list

Increase Unique Web visits to 15k/month - FAILURE

-Fine Tune SEO and analytics – finesse content and design

Do a Professional Product Video - SUCCESS

-Utilize Angelvision for product video

Mobile Marketing - SUCCESS

-Develop mobile site and begin opt-in mobile program for updates

Referral System - FAILURE

-Focus on centers of influence and trusted advisers to promote brand and product. Develop referral promotion for loyal, enthusiastic existing customers.

Focus on ideal Customers - SUCCESS

-Identify ideal customer and focus 90% of assets and energy on closing
 opportunities to them.

Define and clarify Sales Cycle - SUCCESS

-Clearly define conversion parameters and lead scoring to qualify and track each lead through cycle and increase opportunity close percentage.

*Failed - Increase Unique Web Visits to 15+/month
Big Bang and the UIU have been averaging between 11 and 12k unique visitors per month for about six months and I really wanted increase that by a few thousand. The primary reason that this goal was not completed is that I really stopped focusing on clicks and completely revamped my entire adwords and landing page strategy to really focus on interaction.  Another factor was the complete rebuild of our websites including new developer and CMS, for which we have been re-establishing our organic search ranking slowly. The goal of increased traffic will definitely be making it to the 2012 list in an upcoming post, but I think I might up the ante just a bit to 17k+/month now that the foundation is set.

*Failed - Referral System
This goal has been on the last two year’s goals in a row, and I think that it will not be making it to the 2012 list for a few very good reasons. But since I’m already getting long-typed on this post, I will save the topic of Referral System and why I think it will never work for us for a dedicated post in two weeks.

What goals did you miss this year and why?

One facet of marketing that is often presented, and which I typically ignore, is the “Big Bad Site/Publication Advertising Pitch.” Due to my small business budget, I can’t afford to shell out 10k a month in ad spend for a PPM display ad, or a full page print ad for a broad-target publication. But primarily, anytime a big company comes after a small one, I can’t help but wonder why they want my money so badly. Consequently I usually don’t even bother even reading the proposals from said offers.

But there was this one time…

I should have known better, but I was courted, promised some pretty sweet results, and most importantly, assured that I would have long-lasting web visibility for my target audience. This company, which shall remain nameless, is a World-wide Business targeted news and information website with representation in something like 16 countries, and local writers in 13 of them.

So even though I approached this opportunity with the usual level of skepticism, the Account Rep provided some pretty convincing data, and a feasible first-time price point, to convince me to try and advertising campaign for three months. The assets included a crafted campaign focused on our Universal Imaging Utility (UIU) software and its unique ability to create a single hardware independent image that can be easily deployed to any PC regardless of manufacturer. Case Studies we provided were to support this campaign, which would correspond to targeted display ads linking to a custom designed micro-site packed with great links and content.

Fully admitting that I chose poorly, but without expounding on the details, the main problem with this ad campaign was that the assets were randomly hosted on their site with no continuity, and the display ads only appeared on our content. Needless to say, the return versus spend was abysmal.

The part that really escalated feelings of regret over having made a poor decision, was that when I contacted my rep to try and get some metrics from the campaign, she totally blew me off. Even after everything was finished, and I wrote a respectful, but data-packed email clearly expressing my tremendous disappointment with the outcome of the campaign given what she told me I could expect, she completely ignored me.

I take full responsibility for going against my better judgment of dealing with big companies offering advertising to small companies, and if I possessed a lesser degree of business tact I would be smearing this company’s name everywhere I could. But I simply must lament yet another case where a Big Bad Company duped a small business, didn’t deliver on any of the promised results, and then completely ignored them because they knew there was nothing the small business could do about it.

Needless to say, making this poor decision once is all I need to never make it again.

I decided not too, because I am still not convinced that QR codes are here to stay and couldn't see the benefit of early adoption. Besides, I already have the URL of our company on the card, and my email, and twitter and LinkedIn extensions as well. My card would be mostly blank if a QR code supplanted any of this information.

I think that from a usefulness perspective, QR codes have their place. A developer posting QR code on their website for their latest Android app which when scanned, takes the user to the Android app market app download page will certainly save some time.

I also think that QR codes can be useful for promotions. For example, a trade show exhibition floor banner with "Win a Free iPad 2" promo. Instead of taking up valuable real estate on the banner with the promo details, contest rules, etc., a QR code is all that is needed to take the user to a web page with all corresponding details and maybe even a lead capture form.

For the most part though, particularly in print media or physical display ads, my opinion is that the QR code scan requires too many steps to be the wave of the future. Take for example a magazine ad with QR code. First, the user must scroll through smartphone apps to either QR code reader, or camera. Then they must open they app, carefully line up the phone to the QR code (assuming the physical asset isn't wrinkled or wrapped around a pole) and press the scan or shutter button. Finally they must wait while the QR Code refers to the corresponding URL and wait for the page to load.

This example takes several screen swipes, and at least three button pushes, and depending on the clarity or size of the QR code, several seconds to line up the phone to capture the scan.

This many steps, even if the total time is equivalent to manually typing in a URL, just doesn't seem to have the makings for a long-term, or massively adopted technology.

Not only does the lack of efficiency seem suspect, but with personalized, or custom URLs at a marketers disposal, branding is all but lost with the use of a QR code. Instead of helping spread brand or promotion recognition through catchy URLs, QR codes create an impersonal action and don't leave anything tangible for the user to remember or share.

I may be wrong, only time will tell. But I'd be willing to bet that until NFC or RFID, camera auto-scans or some other technology comes along to take the place of typing in a URL to a smartphone browser, it isn't going to be QR codes that lead the way. Even in the Android app developer QR code example mentioned above, there are still more efficient ways to get that information to a smartphone (Chrome to phone).

What do you think of the future of QR codes?

This year has brought us steady growth, and since the primary cause of growth is new customers and new sales, it was definitely time to make sure we were taking care of those customers the best we could.

Our former CRM served us adequately for a time. Not so long ago, we had a primary distributor responsible for lead generation and sales, and we didn't have many records to keep track of. Well, we let them go last July, and in the last six months have taken responsibility for everything in house.

As the last weeks of 2011 approach, we are on pace to increase sales over last year by a respectable amount. So we are not only managing our existing customers effectively, but it appears taking care of new customers better ourselves than when we had a distributor.

We are also releasing a new product first quarter 2012, which will bring in an entire new customer base.

To manage all our customers and prospects really well, cultivate leads, handle support calls, and make sure none of them slip through the cracks, we needed a capable, and fast CRM.  After much research, seemingly countless demos, and chatting with as many marketing and sales folks as I could, I decided to go with Salesforce.

The primary consideration was the desire for a smooth implementation, and as little interaction from our developers as possible. With a new product release in the offing, pulling them off of production for any amount of time would mean an undesirable delay.

The other important feature we needed was efficient support capabilities and support interaction with sales.

After that, most of the big CRM companies really have all the same similar basic features. To help with  implementation, having our friends over at PSN to handle setup and API integration makes a huge difference. So off we go, and will hopefully have everything ready to go just after the first of the year.

The one thing I will say surprised me, is after all the courting and demos that Salesforce has as a part of their sales process (which were solid), the hand off after purchase was oddly abrupt. There was no implementation check list, no implementation support, and the only thing I received after finally inquiring about it to the sales rep was a link to an intro webinar. I understand that it's a monster of a platform, but, given the amount of money we've committed to spend,  I expected a little more than a "Good bye and Good Luck."

 What is your CRM of choice?

Although not possessing the degree of animosity, and certainly not the violence from the list above, the ongoing war between development and marketing is no less dramatic. This is particularly true in the software business, and amplified when the size of the business, and the confines of the battle field, are small.

Initial meeting or Parley if you will-
Development begins work on a new version of an existing product, or a new product altogether based on market need and/or customer feedback. The very first thing that Marketing asks is what the development cycle looks like, and can all the cool new features be a part of the initial release so it can start planning branding, PR, distribution, sales and launch.

Lines are Drawn-

Marketing needs dates to effectively begin promoting product and pretends to not understand dev roadmap.

Development knows there is no way all the features will be available with first release and as talented and dedicated as they are, they are certainly not clairvoyant, and so their roadmap release date is intentionally vague with superfluous time multipliers included.

Battle of the Bulge"-ing Timeline"
Marketing begins the lengthy process of developing new physical media, working with sales to establish pricing and product delivery, begin campaign creation for launch prep, etc.. As time progresses, Development naturally runs into bugs, encounters unforeseen roadblocks, and has to create new code for new features and the initial alpha release gets delayed.

Results of Battle of the Bulge"-ing Timeline

Marketing comes back to development, still with relatively little impetuousness, but with a little impatience, and inquires as to what the time frame might be for alpha release now that bugs are being fixed.

Development starts to bristle because they are working their butts off and the new bug fixes might lead to new needed features which require new code, and the timeline for alpha is still fuzzy.

The Battle of Constant- "Nope (le), still not ready"
Alpha has been successfully tested, and now preparations for beta are in full swing. Marketing starts to get prematurely excited about the beta press release, initial contact with new/potential customers for beta testing, and really wants to move things along since the timeline has already been stretched. Development says for the 100th time, "When we say we are 90% ready for beta, that means the product is only really at 25%. We'll let you know THE SECOND we have a clear idea, but right now it looks like a couple more months."

Results of The Battle of Constant- "Nope (le), still not ready"

Marketing gets pissy and starts acting like a three-year-old that doesn't get his way. Repeats emphatically that the demand for the new product is through the roof and can't they please just have something to market.

Development has to restrain from physical back hand and shakes head and goes back to work.

The Armaged- "Done Yet?"
Marketing at this point has had to physically tie itself to its chair to keep from going into Development's office and asking for an update every other day. Marketing is constantly fielding calls  asking about the new product and with each call gets more impetuous. Development has been working late nights to try and meet the current deadline, and as much as they want to get a new great product to the customers, they really want to get it done so Marketing will finally shut its mouth and go away.

Results of the Armaged-"Done Yet?"

Marketing is finally appeased like the child that was at last granted the lollipop or new toy and proceeds to market its butts off to try and sell the great new product. Buys Development a round of drinks, not only for the great work, but as a peace offering for Marketing's admitted juvenile behavior.

Development accepts the alcohol, takes some time to let their brains recover, and once marketing leaves, shake its head and discusses how annoying, but unfortunately necessary marketing is.

But alas, world peace is not possible. And it's only a matter of time, i.e. the next product release, for the two wary foes to meet on this inevitable field of battle again.

Trite and contrived though a list of things I'm thankful for may be, I wanted to contribute my top five list of things I'm thankful for as a marketer.

5. My wide-open-cookie-jar of small business marketing options

I am very thankful that I have the freedom to pursue any and all marketing strategies and tools to help increase leads and sales, and even more than that, an employer who encourages it.

4. Quality vendors and  partners who work so well with us as a small business

Very often,  vendors don't take the time to step into the shoes of their individual small business clients. I am thankful for several who have, and make the work we do together not only profitable, but enjoyable. A special thanks to Roy Gum at Private Social Networks, Jason Frizzell at Pardot, and  Scott Yeaton at CDW.

3. Constantly developing technology

At times it might be more daunting than anything, but trying to keep up with ever-changing technology makes life really exciting. The excitement comes not only from getting to play with the latest gadgets, widgets and apps, but in determining which if any of them might be beneficial to my marketing efforts.

2. That honest content, and personal relationships with customers actually work

As a small business, one of the best feelings is to develop an honest relationship with a prospect or client. Creating a solid interaction and being able to feel good not only about the integrity of the delivered content, but that the messaging is actually effective, leads to great sales, and more importantly, a long-lasting relationship

1. That I am constantly challenged and always learning something new

I am most thankful for a job at which I am always able to learn and develop. It is extremely important to me as an individual to be challenged and know that in my place of employment, I will continuously be able to strengthen existing skills, learn new ones, challenge myself to step outside my comfort zone in any way I can, and do all these to better my ability to contribute to my work and business. I am very thankful that my employer not only encourages this, but is actively funds the technical training, trade shows and conferences, and networking events necessary for growth.

These are just my top five things I'm thankful for as a marketer, what are you thankful for?

The Annual DMA conference is, as far as I know, the largest direct marketing event in at least the US. It was my first time attending this show, and I must tell you, I was pretty impressed.

The quality and diversity of the sessions was tremendous. Prior to leaving for the show, I plotted out which sessions I was going to attend. The show offers several tracks depending on one's focus,  Acquisition & Lead Gen, Retention & Loyalty, Cross-channel Strategy, Mobile, Creative, etc., but the concurrent sessions could be easily attended mix and match. Let's just say that I wish there were three of me, because I had a really hard time choosing between sessions.

I attended a few of the keynotes, including the one in which @biz was supposed to present, but his wife was pregnant and due soon, so he presented via skype. The other keynotes were decent, but the learning sessions were so good that I didn't want to miss any for a less pertinent mass-presentation.

The expo floor was cool. I'll admit that when you are a marketing guy, and are used to standing in your company's booth working for leads, being on the other side as the attendee, with marketing guys actually marketing to you the marketing guy, is pretty fun. I spent quite a bit of time on the show floor, partly because I was looking for a few specific solutions, but also because it was really great to see all the emerging marketing technology.

The overall organization of the event was stellar. I had so many options, but never so many that I felt overwhelmed. And all the while, the layout, floor plan, session schedule and planning were very clear and easy to follow-definitely took a lot of the stress out of attending a show.

I also enjoyed that the conference included pre- and post-conference intensives. I chose the pre-conference focus which included four tracks of four sessions each. Very good stuff.

Let's just say that I came back with some amazing, concrete tools and ideas to incorporate into my marketing strategy that will improve our branding, advertising, content and ultimately increase sales.

So for what it's worth, I will definitely be attending next year, and I might even bring a colleague with me just to absorb even more quality information. If you have any questions regarding the show, or need greater detail, please leave a comment and I will answer them as best I can.

Hope to see you at next October's DMA 2012 show in Vegas.

When I first started to look for the ideal Marketing Automation provider for Big Bang a little over three years ago, our company had no internal sales, relied heavily on our sole distributor for most everything, and had just hired me to do internal marketing for the first time. So initially I needed the tool to help me get a deeper handle on web visits than Google Analytics was capable of, develop and run email marketing campaigns, and provide the ability to begin creating landing pages and other lead capture assets. We didn't even have a CRM back then.

The MA company I chose was fairly new to the game, a small company like we, and even though their product may not have contained all the greatest features and functionality, the price was right and they were more than willing to work with us in a very personally.

Over the next couple years, our two companies continued to grow. Big Bang changed the status of our sole distributor to primary, hired someone internally to start developing sales and a sales channel, and continued to increase the number of contacts and customers that we were dealing with directly. All the while, our marketing automation provider continued to develop their product and grow their customer base.

But as time went on, continued sales, product, and infrastructure growth again changed the direction our company was heading, and after firing our distributor, we had to pretty much restructure everything internally from the ground up. I began to see that our business needs were going to quickly outgrow the capabilities of our MA provider. The clearer my marketing strategy became, and the more efficiently I was able to execute, the more obvious it became that I would need a tool that was able to do a whole lot more.

I no longer had the time to build landing pages and trigger campaign emails from scratch. I needed accurate and logical lead scoring. I really needed a customizable dashboard and easy reporting capabilities, and most of all, I needed to be able to do all of these things and more a whole lot more quickly.

So I switched.

It certainly wasn't an easy process. The time and effort required for the implementation of a new MA platform is significant. But the time invested now to get the new tool operating efficiently will be more than rewarded, not just in my time, or my ability to more efficiently manage our digital marketing efforts, but in the trackable, reportable, and measurable increase in sales.

Ultimately I had to decide if the headache of changing platforms was worth it. But if I am able to begin a higher quality dialogue, or generate quicker interaction from consistent and well-delivered content, and ultimately increase sales while saving myself some time, all the while having the revenue to justify it, then I think the answer is obvious.

Working in Small Business environment where the sky-is-the-limit is a great thing. But with no real restrictions, policy, or boundaries, and only company philosophy/mission and small business budget to guide, how does a marketer successfully implement strategy?

This quandary is pretty much at the forefront of my thought process just about every day. I'll be honest, when I first started doing marketing for a small business several years ago, I was like the proverbial kid in a candy store. 'Oh look, shiny social media over there'.' What's that? Unfettered communication possibilities with customers?' 'No ominous corporate policy to dictate budget?' 'I can put anything I want on the website?'

I was so over-joyed by the open cookie jar that is small business marketing possibilities, that initially I jumped head-first into every option I could find. And for the shortest amount of time, even though I had established my own budget, I thought I was in heaven singing up for every forum, every social media app, blasting out emails, launching new display ads, and signing up for new trade shows.

It didn't take long before I was over my head trying to keep track of how many different tools I was trying to utilize. Not only were organization and logistics a nightmare, but my grandiose plans of delivering solid content to my target market to drive sales were completely clouded over. The worst part, was that as the sole person responsible for anything related to marketing, web, etc., I didn't have near enough hours in the day to effectively keep up with everything.

Fast forward 3 plus years later and as I mentioned above, pretty much every day I think about my marketing strategy and where each of the countless tools and ideas I have at my disposal might best fit. There is never a shortage of new marketing opportunities, between constantly advancing technology, to the "helpful" support guys at the office coming up with clever ideas while testing our latest software release, it becomes difficult to prioritize.

"Helpful" Marketing Ideas from the Support Guys

In this way I think that sky-is-the-limit small business marketing is pretty unique. Without the typical mid-size and enterprise policies and protocols as a guide, it's pretty easy for the abundant possibilities to overwhelm and cloud over one's goals.

The key for me as Small Business Marketer is to develop a clearly defined marketing strategy at the beginning of the year, allow for flexibility along the way, but always analyze whether implementation of a new idea or tool helps me most effectively and efficiently accomplish my goals.

I still have a list of all the tools and ideas that I think have pretty cool potential. But for now, instead of a limitless sky, I gladly go about my marketing under a self-built roof. (Don't worry, it's retractable)