At the end of each year I spend time analyzing company goals, personal goals and the obstacles that developed on the route to them.
I thought it would be cool to list some of the lessons learned both by the company and personally in 2006:
1) Be willing to adapt your plan. In order for us to hit our revenue goal we had to develop some new streams of income for the company that weren’t originally part of our goals in January.
2) Keep your ear to the tracks. Throughout the course of the year we were able to take advantage of opportunities purely because we were postitioned properly. If we weren’t constantly trying to learn more about this industry we would of missed the train.
3) Learn to let go. Steven and I enjoy getting our hands dirty, so much so that we stunted some of our growth this past year by keeping training wheels on bikes that didn’t need them. It’s important to empower your team with important responsibilities where your only guidance is the initial project overview.
This lesson was imperative to learn in 06 because for us to hit our revenue goals in 07 it’s imperative that we scale our most valuable resource - human capital.
4) Surround yourself with Winners. We are just as picky choosing our clients and partners as our clients are choosing their agency. What we’ve learned in 06 is that we are on a path to becoming the best comprehensive search solution for our clients. Because we invest so much time an energy improving processes and our product clients or partners that aren’t on a similar path with their business do nothing but impede progress.
5) Clients and Partners are our biggest asset. We’ve been fortunate to partner with some truly stellar online marketers this year. So much of our 2006 business has come from within our network of agency alliances. I read a book a few years back called “Love is the Killer App” by Tim Sanders and I must say it truly is. This lesson and principle has been emphasized by going above original expectations; by spending additional time on our clients we’ve developed innovative solutions that bring more value to all future campaigns.
6) Personal Fitness is mandatory if you are to perform at a high level each day. I’ve been working out all my life and if I was to time line my life you’d see different reasons for my strenuous workouts. The lesson I learned in 2006 is that my performance at work is directly correlated with how many times I was able to fit a work out in during the week. I’m so much more productive when training on a regular schedule.
-Tom
It’s almost the end of the year and I’m starting to analyze the deals that have been fruitful and the deals that have fell short of their expectations. I do this to prevent making the same mistakes twice with deals, unique business relationships, etc…
What I’ve realized is that it wasn’t always about the deal as much as it was all about the people involved and their understanding of what it means to “execute”.
Main Entry: Execution
Part of Speech: noun
Synonyms: accomplishment, achievement, consummation, fulfilling, doing, completion, realization, performance, implementation
Why does Google seem to be in the right place at the right time all the time?
The moment someone within Google brings up a new idea, concept or strategy they are making moves to see that idea, concept or strategy to completion. They are always one step ahead of their competitors by being proactive with their business. Yes they make mistakes but they hit more home runs by taking action than by freezing at the pitch.
The only reason I am bringing this up is because as our company grows I am seeing how pronounced this truly is. It starts at the top. Leaders must continue to push and inspire their company’s to break comfortable molds.
- Be Innovative with your Marketing
- Analyze the risks so you can manage them properly
- Develop the action plan
- and EXECUTE.
If you don’t someone will and more times than not, that someone will be your competitor.
-Tom Elliott
Streamline your Content Projects with a Killer CMS
Wednesday, December 13th, 2006
Over
the last 12 months CKMG has been producing 100’s of unique articles on
the low end and 1,000’s of unique articles on the high end for various
clients.
The biggest thing we’ve seen this year is that companies are in dire
need of new content management systems. A killer CMS can mean the
difference of having one person manage multiple sites exceptionally
well and having 5 people manage one site poorly.
Companies that have a cleaner method of managing and optimizing the
content on their site have a leg up on their competition. This allows
them to pull ahead of the pack with content investments when others are
worrying about how to organize their pages.
Obviously the CMS will not be the ”end all, be all” but it
will provide your Site Editor the tools necessary to stay on top of the
site’s daily content improvements.
Your website should be improving every day and with a Killer CMS there should be no excuses…
(Recommended CMS Links coming to a CKMG Blog Post near you)
Locating a Content Supplier is only Half the Battle.
Monday, December 11th, 2006
Finding a company that develops a well blended mix of articles for your website is only have the battle.
Many internet brands have purchased significant amounts of content
over the last year without having a clear plan of implementation.
They’ve jumped on the content bandwagon and made purchases based on
recommended keyword phrases and guestimations according to how many
pages their competitors possess.
In theory this is a step in the right direction but without a clear
road map and infrastructure to manage the site most of these
investments have not generated a significant ROI.
If an internet brand truly wants to establish itself as an authority
there are certain measures that need to be taken internally to ensure
the success of a well developed content campaign.
My Point:
What sites typically earn the highest amount of Page Rank?
CNN - 9 out of 10
ESPN - 8 out of 10
LATimes - 8 out of 10
SearchEngineWatch - 8 out of 10
These sites are building organic links daily due to the pure volume
of fresh content being added to their sites. It is much easier for a
publisher to link to one of their articles than to rewrite or cover
one. These one way links pointing to the internal pages of a CNN.com
or an ESPN.com are helping them build link popularity which intern
helps them with their organic rankings when new articles are added.
What publishers and online marketers should learn from this?
1) Train or hire someone to manage the content of your site on a
daily basis. This person should be writing new articles, posting on the
corporate blog, developing a list of site favorites for news rewrites,
looking for potential interviews, partnering with sites that are
relevant in nature for content swaps, and much more…
2) If you aren’t trying to become an online magazine but want to
have a site that is managed like one, find a company that can do it for
you. The only company that provides this comprehensive of a content
solution that I know of is this one boutique agency located in South
Beach and Santa Monica by the name of Content Kings Media Group. (wink,
wink) 
3) Treat your site like an online magazine. The moment news breaks
that directly or indirectly affects your business/customers you should
be covering it. How else are you going to grow into a trusted
authority of up to date information?
4) Buying content because you read in a blog or forum that content
is king is not the right posture to take. Develop your strategy first
and then deploy a progressive content campaign. Combine free sources
of content with your article purchases to maximize your dollar.
-Tom Elliott
How do you improve your Lead Generation campaign? Close more deals…
Friday, December 1st, 2006
Too
often companies are quick to point the finger at the company supplying
the lead. Do we need to remind everyone what seperates an average
company from a great company? It’s not the LEADS… It’s the sales
consultants on the phone, hitting their daily call numbers, making new
presentations, following up and earning the sale.
When you go to the mall to window shop are you planning to buy
something in every store you enter? No; of course not. You are simply
window shopping. Yet how many of us have purchased something
unexpected at the mall simply because of a casually persuasive store
manager?
(raise my hand) I know I have.
Guess where people do more of their window shopping now?
Window Shoppers, Soda Jerks And Dodo Birds
It’s our job as marketers to capture the “internet window shoppers”
attention and to pique their interest just long enough to want more
information. Once the marketing company does their job and delivers
the lead to the company it’s on the company’s shoulders to take action
and cultivate that lead.
There isn’t one sales person on this earth that can honestly tell me every one of their deals have been a ”lay down”.
So, back to the question. How do you improve your Lead Generation campaign?
1) Work with an agency that provides a well blended marketing mix
and an innovative approach to their lead generation strategies.
2) Conduct end of month meetings to learn more about what’s working
and what’s not working. Discuss what sales people are hearing on the
phones to help the agency customize their campaigns to potentially
address some of these issues up front with information. Every
objection given from a potential client is a new way to look at
marketing the product or service.
3) Get back to the basics with your sales force and track the
numbers. If sales are down, look internally first before pointing the
finger at anyone else. If your productivity numbers are up and your
training has increased but your sales are stiill falling you have a
bigger problem on your hand than “leads”.
-Tom
Black Friday brings some interesting topics for discussion
Wednesday, November 29th, 2006
“(MarketWatch)
- If Internet sales on Black Friday rose 42% from a year ago, why did
investors on Monday sell off the stocks of leading online commerce
companies such as Amazon.com Inc. and eBay Inc.?” read full story
As the competition for Holiday budget heats up between online
retailers and brick-and-mortar retailers coming up with online
promotions to move volume cuts into the bottom line.
Why would investors want to sell their online retailer stock if the statistics are showing growth?
Brick and Mortar retailers are becoming much more savvy with their
online marketing efforts. Because of this they are making life more
difficult for the wholly online retailers like an Amazon.com.
In addition to the B&M’s grabbing market share they are also
running online only promotions with price points that justify the sale
based on predicted volume. This cuts into the margin but the B&Ms
are willing to take that risk to drive volume.
This will also cut into the competition’s margin by forcing them to drop prices and run promotions to compete.
As the competition continues to heat up with online retailers guess
what else becomes more expensive? That’s right… PPC Advertising
All I know is that if retailers are expecting to stay at the head of
their pack in 2007 initiatives need to be put in place immediately
to build out more ”
Organic Real Estate".
Pubcon (the Webmasterworld Conference) is always a great show…the people are good, the sessions are informative. This year was actually an exception. Maybe I should say exceptional, because this year they went above and beyond. The they had a record attendance and knowledge was flying everywhere you turned.
Pubcon is well-known as an event where you can gain a huge amount of accurate information from highly knowlegeable people. At other conferences the speakers are often guarded, not wanting to give out all their “best info and techniques.” At Pubcon the speakers are more open, laying out information and advice freely for all. The reason for this is two-fold: the great community, and the high level of skill and experience needed to master the information being disseminated.
I take this to heart when I speak. Because there is so much misinformation and so many questionable tactics in much of the SEO world, I feel an absolute obligation to inform as much and as freely as possible when I speak. People simply and earnestly seek the answers and keys to online success - they just want to know how to do the right thing for their business - so it is our job to help.
Will a lot of companies take the information we provide and try to improve their business? I certainly hope so, and I wish them and their business the best of luck. I trully believe what goes around comes around. No matter what happens to their business, everyone will benefit.
How? When they find success, they appreciate the advice and seek me out afterwards for more advice. The result is a growing relationship, two strong and vibrant businesses, and a partnership as we help them take their business to a whole new level of success and their life to a whole new level of income.
Other times people do not have the resources or time to implement the advice we give them, so they don’t find the success they were hoping for. In that case they seek us out as well. The level of what must be done for them to attain the success they seek is very, very high. The simple fact is, it takes a huge amount of work!
Companies need hundreds or even thousands of pages of content of all types in order to dominate their industry and succeed. They need good site structure. They need tremendous amounts of high-quality inbound links and a good linking strategy. In fact, most audiences we speak to realize this right off the bat, and just come straight to us to help them from the start. They realize there is so much to be done that outsourcing it to experts simply saves them tremendous time and money. Again, good relationships are created, and we again help them build their business out to great success.
Additionally, the personal interaction, the opportunity to speak to and help people one-on-one cannot is priceless. Inevitably, great personal and business relationships, communication, help, and success are created. Truly win/win. And that is what good business is all about.
- Matt
The Promenade in Santa Monica, what a perfect location for our west coast operations.
I’m sure we won’t have a shortage of staff volunteering to stay late or work weekends. We’re directly across from Yankee Doodles, a hip sports bar & grill with a great big patio for afternoon meetings.
The office is looking sharp, the painters did a wonderful job integrating our corporate colors into our unique floor plan. We are labeling the look and feel of our office “interactive elegance”.
Our west coast office will be the home of our Sales, Content, Design & Tech teams.
Matt Tuens, our new VP of Sales and Business Development did an outstanding job representing our company at the Conference. He was a speaker on the Affiliate Strategies and Content Strategies panel.
The session had close to 200+ people in the audience which was much larger than what I had seen at previous WMW conferences.
David Rivero, the founder of JoeBucks Affiliate Programs joined Matt on the panel along with Elisabeth Archambault of Buckworks - a successful affiliate marketer and John Coronella, an internet marketing consultant with OnlineMarketer. Jake Baillie, a leading SEO strategist and regular speaker and moderator at the SES conferences was in charge of moderating the session.
Tom’s Take:
Affiliate Marketers need to position themselves for long term success by creating demographically focused content. As the major brands and companies begin allocating larger budget to online marketing they will move the smaller affiliates out of the way by overpowering them with paid search.
Affiliates should act preemtively with their content strategies. Building new sites and unique content around what they know to be important to their target audience.
Affiliate Programs should be investing in their affiliates. If I owned an affiliate program I’d be developing content distribution technology to supply my affiliates with fresh up to date content to help promote my products or offerings. Every week I’d have something new to bring to my affiliates. By delivering unique content to their affiliates they are building out real estate in the vertical.
If it’s a health & wellness vertical, every page of content given to an affiliate is another chance to take out an opposing company for competitive keywords. Unique Content development compounded over time is a win/win combination for an affiliate program both with organic real estate and building trustworthy links back to their brand.
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