Barbara Walters Price

"Simple, small steps, taken repeatedly in a focused and sincere effort..."

"... to help others get what they want might be the best way to summarize relationship management at its finest."

Helpful post from Duct Tape Marketing talking about a recent presentation by Keith Ferrazzi, author of Never Eat Alone and Who's Got Your Back.

Especially don't miss the suggested action step. Read the post here. 

Did You Know that You Can Remove Google Personalization from Google Search Results?

Part of my job as a marketer is to keep up with our firm's search engine keyword positioning. We track our positioning on a variety of keywords.

I've noticed, and I bet you have too, that Google is increasingly trying to "help" us. Google seems to know where we are and returns search results that are supposedly geographically relevant. It also returns results based on our past search/click activity and pulls from our social network (social circle, as they call it) including our Google Reader subscriptions.

Bill Hartzer at Search Engine Marketing has a very helpful post on this and explains: 

If you search Google and find that you are increasingly faced with personalized search results from Google, you are not alone. Not only is Google personalizing your search results when you are logged in, they are also determining your location and personalizing your search results according to your location. For example, Google “knows” that I am in the Dallas area. So, when I search for “moving” I get search results that are tailored as if I am in Dallas and moving to another location in Dallas, even if that is not the case.

From Google Accounts Help:

Google sometimes customizes your search results based on your past search activity on Google. This customization includes searches you've done and results you've clicked. Since personalized search treats signed-in and signed-out users differently, the instructions for turning off search history personalization are a little different in each case.

Any big brother concerns aside, this "help" has frustrated me. I want to be able to do quick "depersonalized" checks to see where we might truly be ranking on Google on a certain search term without deleting cookies or without signing out of Google. Deleting cookies and signing in and out is too cumbersome. However, without turning off the personalization, it's easy to believe you are faring better on Google than you actually are if the personalization feature is skewing the results.

We are working hard to move up in the rankings on a few key search terms and, therefore, when I do a spot search, I don't want Google's help. (When determining search keyword rankings, we have used the tool Rank Checker from SEO Tools. See this post on it.)

Bill's post provided the key I have been looking for in how to turn off Google's personalization service: 

So, at the end of the search results URL (in my web browser) I have to add “&pws=0″ to the end of the URL, hit “enter” and Google will de-personalize the search results for me.

This is how you can accomplish:

• turn off Google's Instant Search 
• search Google as normal for keyword(s)
• in the URL bar, append &pws=0 to the end of the search URL
• hit enter and look for any changes in results

Let me be clear that I am NOT an SEO expert. I am merely a marketing professional who is trying to gain some understanding of how all this works. I am posting this because I have experimented with this tool for a few days and it seems to be helpful. 

Give it a try and keep this in your toolbox as you do spot keyword checking.

For more information, bookmark Bill's blog and see Google's site for help. 

If You Ever Give a Speech, Tape This to Your Forehead

For those of us who give presentations (and who will give presentations), this simple yet powerful graph can make you a better speaker. Print it out and tape it to your forehead - or better yet tape it to your speech notes as you prepare. Thanks Indexed!

Source: thisisindexed.com

"What's the ROI of your Mother?"

I found this presentation on slideshare and liked it. It is from brand-utility.com. While it's B2C focused, there is good stuff here. From brand-utility's website:

"When someone asks to Gary Vaynerchuk 'What’s the ROI of Social Media?', he answers 'What’s the ROI of your mother?' and insists on the importance of human relations."

I think the theme, what's the ROI of your mother?, is a powerful one when thinking about social media - for any type firm, even a professional services firm.  Take a look.

"What's the ROI of your mother?" a presentation about ROI and Social Media

View more presentations from brieuc

12 Internet Trends That You Should Consider

Hubspot published "12 MInd-Blowing Statistics That Every Marketer Should Know" (April 1, 2011) that were gleaned from their research. There are several that a professional service firm marketer and/or rainmaker should be aware of. Let's go through the list. My comments follow each item.

1. 78% of Internet users conduct product research online. No surprise here. If it's not easy to find your firm (and the individual professionals in the firm) through a Google search, that's a problem. The easiest way to check this is to Google your firm name, the names of key professionals in the firm, and certain key search terms. If there is a problem, address it immediately. 
2. In the past year, Web-based email usage dropped a staggering 59% among 12-17 year olds, who prefer to communicate via text, instant messaging, and social networks. This is an interesting one and a trend to watch. We obviously don't do business with 12-17 year olds but they will grow up to be clients. If the trend away from email continues (and grows), then we have to rethink the strategy of email newsletters and other email communications. Don't stop sending your email newsletter but let's all be mindful of this trend.
3. 78% of business people use their mobile device to check email. Hubspot asks "Is your email newsletter optimized for mobile devices?" Mobile devices are not the way of the future anymore. They are the present reality and will become every more ubiquitous in our everyday life. Check your email newsletter on several mobile platforms and make sure your website works on mobile devices. 
4. 40% of US smartphone owners compare prices on their mobile device while in-store, shopping for an item. This one doesn't apply to professional services firms but it again speaks to the power of mobile devices. 
5. 200 Million Americans have registered on the FTC's "Do Not Call" list. Per Hubspot: "That's 2/3 of the country's citizens. The other 1/3, I'm guessing, probably don't have a home phone anymore." 
6. 91% of email users have unsubscribed from a company email they previously opted-in to.  This speaks to the importance of making our content useful and targeted. 
7. 84% of 25-34 year-olds have left a favorite website because of intrusive or irrelevant advertising. This one really doesn't touch professional service firm websites or blogs but is interesting. 
8. 57% of businesses have acquired a customer through their company blog. Blogs are a proven business-generation tool (keep in mind that they are not the ONLY business development tool). Yet blogs are difficult to maintain for some firms and other firms shy away from from the concept because of perceived liability.   
9. 41% of B2B companies and 67% of B2C companies have acquired a customer through Facebook. Our firm, Mercer Capital, hasn't adopted a Facebook strategy yet but we are actively researching the potential benefits for our clients and stakeholders. What has been your firm's experience with Facebook marketing?
10. The number of marketers who say Facebook is “critical” or “important” to their business has increased 83% in just 2 years. See #9 above.
11. Companies that blog get 55% more web traffic.  Blogs create fresh content and Google loves fresh content, among other things. See #8 above.
12. Inbound marketing costs 62% less per lead than traditional, outbound marketing. Hubspot is all about inbound marketing and in-bound marketing obviously costs less than outbound. Mercer Capital doesn't focus on one to the exclusion of the other because I believe a mix is most producive for our professional service marketing efforts.

What are your thoughts on these 12 items? 

 

Free and Easy Way to Save Keystrokes and Time

In every business, there are terms, phrases, product or service line names that we continually type as part of our work product, marketing material, or other. There are tools that record keystrokes for you so that, instead of typing out the name, title, phrase, etc., you just hit a few keys and, voila, your name, title, phrase, etc. is inserted.

For example, Mercer Capital's (my firm) newest book is entitled Buy-Sell Agreements for Closely Held and Family Business Owners. That's a long title and its easy to miss a letter here and there when typing. So, in the free download tool I use, Texter, I've created a macro and instead of typing out that long title, I instead type BSA [enter] and get the full name of the book returned.

I also use Texter successfully for LinkedIn invitations (I always personalize but I use Texter for the boilerplate sentence in every one of my invitations) and, importantly, for responses to those who either accepted my invitation or who invited me  to connect. I always try to send a thank you to these people. It's an easy way to help you stand out from the crowd, and it's easier still when using a tool such as Texter. I've created my thank you message in Texter so when I am responding to an invitation, I type LI [enter] and Texter returns this standard thank you message.

Think about how a keystroke saving tool such as Texter can be helpful to you and your business. There are other tools available to you. If you use one other than Texter and like it, please let me know.

Marketing Info You May Have Missed

• 10 Tips for Professional Services Content Marketing - Hinge Marketing (great advice here)
• Stop with Your Stupid & Generic LinkedIn Invitations - Kyle Lacy (I agree. It only takes a moment to personalize your LinkedIn invitations. No reason not to)
• 7 Reasons to Add QR Codes to Content Marketing - Content Marketing Institute (I'm still struggling with how to effectively use QR codes in a professional services firm but liked this post)
• Your Logo is a Business Tool, Not a Subjective Piece of Art - Drew's Marketing Minute ("Your logo is a business tool.  If it’s doing a good job — leave it be.")
• 26 Ways to Screw Up Your Content - Ardath Albee's Marketing Interactions (this is worth a look)
• Quora for Content Marketing: Is It Worth Your Time? - Content Marketing Institute (Since this is the question I ask myself about Quora, I was interested in this piece)
• 5 Ways to Improve the Timing of Marketing Tactics - Hubspot [webcast] (definately worth your time to watch and/or listen to)