Learn to use the power of the Dark Side of the Force. Listen to the best marketing podcast ever produced in a doughnut shop with my friend and co-host John Wall. In this week’s episode, it’s a Google showdown between for-profits and non-profits, and why it will make your keyword costs go through the roof.
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Chris Brogan wrote:
Here’s what you do: find a “hidden gem” blog, someone who you think is writing good stuff, but who has only one or two comments per post. Write a blog post telling us just a little bit about that site, why you like it, who should become a regular reader, etc. Make sure there are TWO links in the post: one to that new site so we can find it, and one back to [chrisbrogan.com].
Actually, despite having published over 1,400 blog posts and 760+ audio podcast episodes, the vast majority of my posts on FinancialAidPodcast.com get zero – yes, zero – comments. I’ve debated for a long time why this might be. Comments are enabled, no registration required, etc. so it’s not necessarily barrier to entry. I think it might be the case that for my audience, it’s perceived as an “expert” blog and therefore audience members are reluctant to contribute, treating it more like an information source than a discussion.
The desired audience is fairly inclusive – students, parents, families, financial aid professionals, and anyone who likes:
So, Chris Brogan, send over the commenting hordes!
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The credit crisis we’re currently enduring has been a long time in the making. Arguably, you could stretch all the way back to 1971 when President Nixon removed the United States finally from the gold standard, making our currency a fiat currency. Since then, and especially since the late 1980s, we’ve been inflating our currency and sloshing around cash from one bubble to the next, as investors chased yield and strategy shifted from long term to short term.
Consider the bubbles we’ve had:
Each bubble larger than the last.
It’s like… like the United States has been bar hopping, and the real estate bubble was the final bar before last call. Then someone stood up and yelled “Drinks are on me!” only we don’t know who. Doesn’t matter, drinks are on someone, so drink up!
The credit crisis is the hangover for 37 years of excessive drinking at the fiat currency bar. As the song goes, you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here…
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I was thinking to myself as I lay in bed this morning, coughing up phlegm, that I’ve been more sick in the past year than I’ve been in the last ten. The corollary is that I’ve traveled more in the past year than in the last ten, and travel and I seem to disagree, at least on a health front.
I already take a multivitamin supplement and drink plenty of juice and water (and coffee). Regular exercise is in the mix, too. I can’t take Airborne because I’m allergic to sucralose (nasty swelling rash) – what other tips and tricks do you suggest to fend off travel crud?
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LinkedIn. Love it or hate it, it’s prominent, it’s a social network, and it lets you post URLs to your profile… except that they’re naked URLs, with no link text to help you in your search efforts, right?
Nope.
Now you can. Go to LinkedIn, make sure you have a public profile set up with a good URL, and then instead of choosing My Blog or My Company, choose Other.
Cha-ching! Link text in your profile from a prominent, trusted domain.
Speaking of which, are we connected on LinkedIn? If not, connect here:
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A few late night thoughts. Without digging into all the economics, the short version is this: 2008 economically is poised to be somewhere between hideous and horrifying. Take your pick: subprime, alt-a, gasoline, wheat, corn, student loans, etc. Any way you slice it, the economy is in a tailspin.
That said, the show must go on – but how? When donor pools dry up, how do non-profits weather downturns? Here are 5 ideas.
1. Batten down the hatches. Just as every other American individual and business MUST do, non-profits need to be ruthless about cutting costs. Got a photocopier in the office? Unplug it, and ask that people use a scanner and email instead. Enforce 100% lights out at the end of the workday to cut power costs. Reduce or eliminate as many consumable as possible – belt tightening is the rule.
2. Hit up donors sooner rather than later. It’s customary in the non-profit world to ask donations and contributions around the holiday season, but as the economy trends downward, you need to ask now, while there’s still disposable cash. Pick a reason, any reason, to ask for donations. Hitch up to minor but relevant holidays, or an aspect of those holidays, or heck, just manufacture your own holiday, but ask.
3. Increase focus on microdonations. The Internet gives non-profits greater reach at lower cost, more so than ever in history. Leverage that power to focus on building your house list, your potential donor base. This requires some serious heavy lifting in marketing, but as long as you have capable staff, you’re trading time and energy marketing online versus expensive offline marketing. Learn how to find your donors online, and learn how to get small donations from LOTS of people. Be sure to investigate any and all payment options and find the lowest per-transaction costs. Amazon and Google Checkout both offer 100% pass-through of contributions.
4. Build buzz. You’re already doing good work – now get off your duff and start marketing the heck out of your works. The more awareness you can spread about your work, the easier it will be to get critical general operating funds out of donors. Look carefully at how you market your works, and make friends in the PR and marketing fields so that you can ask their advice before launching any kind of campaign.
5. Mind your money. Wherever you’ve got your money parked, be SURE it is safe. If you have general operating funds in anything other than an FDIC insured account, your organization is at risk from a legion of predicted bank failures. Make sure you’re playing it super-safe with the cash this year – know where it is, and know that it’s insured.
With luck, talent, and intelligence, operationally efficient and forward-thinking non-profits should do very well in 2008 as the rest of the pack is slaughtered by the economic sharks in the water. With fewer competitors for donors’ money, the most lean and aggressive non-profits can potentially earn some big donor market share. Good luck!
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Where do the veterans of new media go?
A theme that has cropped up in discussion lately about PodCamp is this:
Where do the veterans go to learn new stuff?
PodCamp, BarCamp, NewBCamp, BootCamp – there are so many conferences, sessions, and opportunities for new folks, from Zero to Podcasting at PodCamp Toronto to all of NewBCamp/BootCamp, and it’s heartening to see the new media community welcoming with open arms anyone who wants to learn. New media’s future hinges on the continued generosity of the community, and I hope PodCamp especially continues to be one of the welcome wagons.
That said, where do the veterans go to take their game to the next level? Where can they turn?
To be honest, there isn’t anything for them, not because of a lack of desire, but because being on the frontier means you’re responsible for your own training, your own innovation. You can get together with friends and share what you’ve created, but by and large, innovation is your responsibility.
Sure, I think it would be fantastic to have a 400-level track at PodCamps, and PodCamp organizers would do well to remember that all levels of skill welcome means all levels, including the occasional rocket scientist/trail blazer, or else that occasional rocket scientist has a diminished incentive to contribute.
But beyond that, the innovators are on their own. In the martial arts, one of my teachers, Ken Savage (of the Winchendon Martial Arts Center), compares our head teacher, Mark Davis (of the Boston Martial Arts Center) to a trailblazer at the head of our line, machete in hand, cutting a path so we don’t have to.
Being a trailblazer can mean recognition, thanks, and even fame, but it also means you’re the first guy or gal to step on the snakes, scorpions, and other delights the jungle has in store for you. Veterans of new media need to remember that as well – if you want to continue being a leader, the path never gets easier. Same scorpions, different day.
Where do I personally go to learn? I look at tons of different sources for idea components. For example, I got a thank you email from someone on LinkedIn that had a great idea component in it, something that I’m going to combine with a few other ideas and make even better. New ideas, new insights are all around, if only we’re paying enough attention to grab them as they whiz by. Ideas come from arbitrage – I’ve often quoted Mark Davis’ signature expression, study something old to learn something new. Finally, ideas come from just trying something, watching it flop, finding the parts that did work, and refining it until it does work.
As Thomas Edison said, “I haven’t failed 10,000 times. I have just found 10,000 ways not to make a lightbulb.”
Where do YOU get your ideas? Where do YOU go to learn?
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I got a promotional email from Big Machine Media today cc’ed to a list of 340 podcasters and bloggers, promoting their musicians.
Good try, gang.
Look, a lot has already been said about blogger outreach by better minds than mine.
Here’s where this campaign really fell flat.
First, please, please, please if you’re going to do outreach, at least BCC your list. I’d actually prefer that you “go pro” and use a mailing list service like Blue Sky Factory to manage your mailings, so that you have comprehensive blacklist and other filtering at your fingertips. On those occasions when I need to do outreach, I set up a segmentation that says, “Never, ever send this email to the same address twice”.
Second, put an obvious, functional opt-out in the email.
Third, if you’re going to pitch me, PITCH me. Show me why you deserve an ounce of my time or attention. The email I got had a relatively decent subject line, but a really poor payload. This company wants to promote their musicians to me. Fine and good, I love promoting musicians (like Rich Palmer, Matthew Ebel, Anji Bee, Rebecca Loebe, Black Lab, Natalie Gelman, Rayko KRB, and countless others) and I love hearing new, independent music, but the pitch in this message was about as exciting as getting my grocery bill via email, which is to say not at all. (perhaps you have exciting groceries? I do not)
What would make an effective pitch to me? Well, you could send me a link to an MP3 ( <= free MP3! ) so that I could hear what you have to offer – that’d be a start. Tell me WHY your musicians are so good, and whether or not musicians like to be compared to others, tell me at least who they kind of sound like – for example, Matthew Ebel sounds like the love child of Billy Joel and Ben Folds with a dash of William Shatner from time to time, and an ounce or two of John Mayer.
Marketing music is difficult under the best circumstances, and lord knows I’ve made more than my share of missteps. At least maybe this list of basics will help music marketers who WANT to do outreach be a little more effective.
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If you want your favorite blogs to be ultraportable, check out Feedjournal. It makes an old-school newspaper out of your RSS feeds.
Here’s today’s Christopher Penn morning paper. (PDF, 292 kb)
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Valentine’s Day doesn’t rank highly on my list of important days. As CC Chapman said, if you need a holiday to show someone you love that you care, you have serious issues you need to address in your relationship.
Combine that with crass commercialism and an attempt to raid your wallet through your heart by major corporations (check the stocks of 1-800-FLOWERS today – ticker: FLWS, FTD ticker: FTD, Red Envelope ticker: REDE) and you have a day I’m not wildly thrilled about.
So let’s rearrange the day of showing love a bit.
Figure out what you’d spend on an average Valentine’s Day among flowers, gifts, dinner, cards, and the other corporate subsidies pop culture asks you to buy. Total all that up, and then make a contribution to your significant other’s favorite charity instead, in their name. If you’re going to spend money today, spend it on something that will show true love – a contribution to an organization that will serve the greater good.
There’s no shortage of charities to choose from, and tons of good causes. Check out Charity Navigator to find efficiency ratings of various charities, to see how your money is used and what percentage of each dollar goes to actually help the people or causes you donated to help. Every non-profit charity with 501(c)(3) status is also required to disclose its IRS 990, so you can inspect for yourself how they use their money.
Make Valentine’s Day about love – love not only for your significant other, but about love for your world, your community, and the greater good. As my teacher Stephen K. Hayes says, there is no greater way to serve yourself and make yourself happier than to help others.
Got a charity you want to promote? Post a link to it in the comments!
Photo credit: Sister72
