EvoBloggito

Business in 2010: Still Evolving After All These Years*

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Jan 2, 2010; Category: Blogging, Business, Communication, Marketing, Zeitgeist; Tags: Blogging for Business, Business, Change, Economy, Entrepreneurs, Future; One Comment

New Year’s resolutions aren’t part of my tradition. They’re too easily forgotten or ignored, and they seem to focus primarily on end results rather than on underlying issues that create the need for improvement.

However, because the end-of-year holidays include more days off than I’m used to in a 2-week period, I usually do end up thinking about how things have gone over the previous year and where I’m going in the next. While I don’t exclusively think about business at such times, I’ll restrict this post to my reflections about Evo’s business (believe me, it’s better for both of us ).

My business has changed fairly dramatically in the past year, and blogging and blogs have played a big role. Evo has been in business since May, 2000—nearly 10 years. In terms of business activity, 2009 was not awful, but not great (until the last couple of months). My long-time business partner left the company in August and, while that has limited Evo’s ability to do some things, it’s also created profitable opportunities for collaboration with other companies.

I originally selected "Evolution" as part of the business name because I knew we’d have to evolve to be effective, as well as to stay in business. Back in 2000, I thought of websites primarily as online brochures. A lot of people still want static, set-it-and-forget-it websites that somehow bring them tons of business. It doesn’t work that way in 2010, and it really never did. I’m excited that websites can play an active role in marketing for a price that is well within the reach of most small businesses and organizations. My focus is now primarily on helping businesses and organizations incorporate blogging and blog-based websites into their marketing mix. In September, I developed and released a highly-customizable WordPress theme, Evo4 CMS, specifically for creating blog-based websites, and it’s greatly increased both my flexibility and efficiency in the implementation phase.

The challenge is that blogging, engaging online with customers, and keeping your website updated requires some time and effort. Definitely not a set-it-and-forget-it scenario. In 2010, I have to do a better job of communicating the benefits that kind of time and effort can bring about. Depending on how well I’m able to do that, next year should be a great year for Evo. And, I will have put some real tools in the hands of people to help them manage their business, which is a good feeling.

So, I’m focusing on two things in 2010:

1. collaboration with other developers, marketers, and consultants
2. helping businesses and organizations acquire the web-based tools and knowledge that allows them to manage their own marketing

I’m looking forward to it. Still evolving (and maybe still a little bit crazy) after all these years.

*apologies to Paul Simon

The Surest (and most common) Way for Companies to Shackle Their Social Media Efforts

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Dec 18, 2009; Category: Blogging, Business, Communication, Marketing; Tags: Business, Communication, social media; No Comments

More and more companies seem to be getting the message: social media (blogging, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) presents great opportunities for making connections with their customers and would-be customers. And yet, many of them get it wrong, mostly because they fail to grasp that social media is not just another variation on broadcast media.

There is a scene in Cool Hand Luke, in which the warden (Strother Martin) says to Paul Newman’s character, Luke: "You ain’t gonna need no third set [of shackles], ’cause you’re gonna get your mind right. And I mean RIGHT." That’s what needs to happen with corporate marketing managers and small business owners before they venture into social media: they need to get their minds right.

Here’s an all-too-common scenario:

1. Marketing executive, experienced in managing marketing campaigns, ad campaigns, and PR campaigns, decides to "get into social media."
2. She has her ad agency create a blog and set up a Facebook fanpage. She gets her PR group to develop some social media-flavored promotional and marketing messages.
3. She assigns some junior staffers to create social media content using the messages: blog posts, Facebook updates, tweets, etc. All of this content has the hollow, promotional, not-fully-human, fingernails-on-chalkboard sound of corporate messages delivered out of context.
4. After several unfruitful months trying to make her messages "go viral," the marketing executive believes there is no ROI for social media. She tried it, and it doesn’t work. And she’s right. Her old-school, promotional, broadcast media approach to social media is guaranteed to fail. Every. Single. Time.

What marketing people and business owners need to understand is that creating an effective social media presence is like joining a conversation. Conversations happen between people who listen and respond to one another; they are not a series of carefully polished and self-interested messages. These kinds of conversations, based on listening and responding, generally lead to relationships, because we all value someone who listens to us.

Think of it this way:

How would you react if you were in a conversation with another person about how to barbecue spare ribs, and someone walked up to butt into the conversation with "I know you’re interested in spare ribs! This week only, I’m offering customers 20% off on all spare ribs, limit 5 lbs. per customer, offer void in combination with all other promotions." If you’re like most of us, you’d ignore that person in the hope that he would go away. If he persisted in pressing his own interests without making an honest attempt to form a relationship with you, eventually you’d probably excuse yourself. If you’re more direct, you might let him know that he’s interrupting a private conversation in which he is not welcome.

On the other hand, what if he walked up and hovered near you and the person you were talking with, listening intently for a few minutes before asking, "Excuse me, but how do you make sure your ribs stay juicy? Mine are often dry."? Most people would welcome him into the conversation, and within a relatively short period of time, would welcome any information of value that he brought to it (assuming he continued to listen and respond appropriately in your conversation).

You gotta get your mind right. And I mean RIGHT. Then start blogging and setting up Facebook fanpages.

Eating our own Dogfood: We’ve Relaunched our Entire Website on WordPress

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Sep 2, 2009; Category: Blogging, Content Management System; Tags: Blogging, Business, WordPress; No Comments

You may or may not have noticed: you’re looking at a new version of both EvoBloggito and evowebdev.com. They are integrated in a "blogsite", based on the WordPress platform. Why? Primarily because we think the integration will result in increased search engine traffic for the "non-blog" portion of the site. But also, because we wanted to demonstrate WordPress’ viability as a Content Management System. The entire site does not have to look like a blog. Had we not created a blog section and blog posts, you might not have guessed that the site is built on a blog platform.

EvoBloggito, of course, has been on WordPress from the beginning. But we wanted a closer connection between the blog and the website. The lines are blurring, and that’s a good thing. We believe most businesses would benefit by using this approach, attracting more traffic and engaging with their customers/prospective customers via a blog.

If you would like to learn more about replacing your static website with a WordPress-based blogsite, contact us.

Hunkering Down: Local Business’ Dilemma

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Aug 4, 2009; Category: Business, Marketing, Zeitgeist; Tags: Business, Marketing, Zeitgeist; 2 Comments

Like a lot of people over the last several months, we’ve not been in much of a spending mood. We cut out some things that we judged non-essential, and one of those things was espresso. After several espresso-less months, however, my wife decided espresso was more essential than we thought. She headed to the local store (as far as we know, the only local store) that carries Illy espresso-ground coffee. That is, they used to carry it. They’d cut back themselves, no longer stocking low-margin, low-profit, or seldom-purchased items.

I should backtrack to let you know that this store is where my wife discovered Illy. The store contains (or used to) all kinds of “exotic” foods and wine, kitchen furnishings, furniture, and other household furnishings. We went there only on rare occasions, until my wife discovered Illy. Then she shopped there at least monthly, and she usually bought a lot more than espresso, which was the initial reason for the trips to the store. We’ve bought furniture there, which is not a low-margin item. I don’t mean to suggest furniture was an impulse purchase, but my wife’s familiarity with the store (we drank a lot of espresso) was a big part of the reason we bought furniture there.

Now, there’s not a huge reason for us to go to that store. No doubt we still will on occasion, but not monthly. Since we don’t know of another place to buy Illy locally, we’re looking for it online. Another local piece of business migrating online.

I can understand the store’s need to reduce it’s inventory to best-selling items where possible. But if you’re in the business of providing a range of exotic stuff, aren’t you shooting yourself in the foot (or your brand in the heart) by cutting back to best sellers? Isn’t that Albertson’s business model?

62% of Small Businesses Do Not Have a Website: the Glass is 38% Full

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Jun 5, 2009; Category: Business, Marketing, Zeitgeist; Tags: Business, Entrepreneurs, Website; 10 Comments

I stumbled onto an article on Entrepreneur’s website (Turn Web Traffic Into Foot Traffic; Justin Kitch) that changed one of my basic assumptions, which was that "most" businesses have a website. Note the imprecision in the word "most," which is a hallmark of bad assumptions; I should have known. The survey from which the numbers were taken is recent: April 2009.

Clearly, the benefits of online marketing are not as well known to the general public as "most" of us in the online industry believe. Or maybe people have some idea of the benefits, but aren’t sure how to get started and follow through. Maybe it’s just easier to let their local Yellow Pages provider sell them an overpriced and under-performing print ad. (BTW, I called Dex to inquire about pricing for Yellow Pages advertising, and they took my information and told me they would have a "marketing consultant" contact me in 5-7 business days. I promise to share the results in a future post.) Or maybe it’s all of the above.

The business and marketing landscape is changing: advertising does not yield the same results it did even a decade ago (I looked hard for data, but was confronted with words like "colinearity" and other words I’ve never read before. My personal belief is that the difficulty of determining ROI on advertising has resulted in a great deal of obfuscation). People’s behavior when they are preparing to buy is changing: a Performics survey indicated 75% of baby boomers use search engines when looking for information to assist in the purchase of automobiles, appliances and electronics. But so far, only 38% of small businesses even have an online channel with which to speak to their customers and prospects. In 2009, that’s almost unbelievable.

As I mentioned, I had hoped to do a comparison between online marketing and Yellow Pages advertising. Sort of a "Marketing Media Smackdown." That will have to wait until the lumbering Yellow Pages mechanism fires up enough neurons to contact me. Watch this space.

August 2009 update: I had reason to go look up the study referenced in Justin’s post. It turns out that 38% of small businesses surveyed did NOT have a website. The figure was 37%. What about the other 1%? They "weren’t sure."