Pricing as a Strategy to Encourage Early Purchasing Behavior

In my earlier post, I wrote how I have observed that consumers have become ultra late purchasers this past year, while hypothesizing that with the state of the economy, most light to moderate users were waiting on a review to make a purchasing decision. Following that post, I received a lot of comments and e-mails asking how one could counteract this trend. I noted to the concern of some that we were shortening our advertising campaigns because we were finding no correlation between the amount of advanced advertising spends and the amount of advanced sales. This is not to suggest this course of action is for everyone, but I do believe it is wise for us.

I further believe that we should start looking more at pricing as a strategy to encourage early purchasing behavior. The traditional approach of discounting performances early in a run is one method of attack, but I would suggest looking at what happens after a show takes off. If consumers are waiting for a great review before purchasing, then we should capitalize on that as much as possible. Several arts organizations have experimented with demand based pricing. This isn’t a new idea, but I believe that we are just now starting to perfect it.

Demand based pricing provides an incentive for early purchasers--they will be “insured” against a spike in ticket prices if a show receives a fantastic review and takes off. Late purchasers who wait until a review hits, will have to pony up significantly more than those who leap before the review. Just as patrons learn that some companies do fire sales on shows that aren’t selling well, they will soon learn that they either purchase early or pay a premium for waiting for the review. There simply is no incentive for late purchasers to buy early if they can get a relatively good seat at the same or similar price point as an early purchaser.

This will require some educating on our behalf. Sales offices (noticed that I didn’t say box offices) in responding to complaints from customers should take the opportunity to cross and up sell – “Our prices increase with demand. With a favorable review, the demand for a production increases significantly causing prices to go up. I am sorry that has resulted in a higher ticket price for PRODUCTION A, but I know you will also be interested in PRODUCTION B because it is very similar and has an amazing cast. While purchasing today for PRODUCTION A, we can lock in the lowest available price for PRODUCTION B with the best available seats if you would like, guaranteeing that you will be protected from any increases in the future. And remember, subscribers are always protected against any fluctuation in price due to increased demand. I wouldn’t be doing my job if I let you paid any more than you absolutely had to. I know that you will enjoy both PRODUCTION A and PRODUCTION B so let’s take care of both today.”

Pricing should be a fluid variable. If we cannot encourage early purchasing behavior by running advanced advertising, maybe we can do it by capitalizing on those who insist upon purchasing late.

JD Powers: Brand Image Matters Most in Selecting a Retail Bank

JD Powers has spoken ... and the Brand gods are pleased!

On July 14, JD Powers released it's inaugural study on the bank shopping ad selection process.

Financial marketers get a sharp pencil and take note:

36% of a shopper’s selection decision is driven by the bank’s brand image, while branch proximity (21%) and products and services (14%) also considerably influence which bank shoppers ultimately choose

Branch employees can positively impact a bank’s brand image by providing personal service, communicating proactively and having a customer-driven focus.

Nearly 1/3 of customers who avoid considering a particular bank altogether do so because of a previous poor service experience with that bank

Banks can use visits by non-customers as an opportunity to showcase their services and improve consideration when these customers shop for a new bank

Recommendations—both positive and negative—account for 31 percent of importance weight in a bank’s brand awareness, while positive recommendations drive 36 percent of a shopper’s consideration of a bank

Satisfaction with the account initiation process increases considerably when bank employees perform simple actions to improve the service experience when opening a new account—including greeting the customer when entering the branch, keeping wait time to five minutes or less, calling the customer by name and providing the customer with a detailed needs assessment. Among the 19 percent of customers who experienced all these actions, satisfaction scores average 890 on a 1,000-point scale—84 points above the industry average. In addition, the percentage of customers who say they “definitely will” reuse the bank for future products and services increases to 66 percent, compared with an industry average of 47 percent.

The bottom line, a dollar spent in training will yield tremendous results.  In short, your entire institution philosophy should be to treat every visitor (regardless of their balance or need) as you would treat a guest in your home: Sincere greeting, hand shakes and eye contact, talk to by name, listen before you speak, escort from point-to-point, walk them to the door when leaving.

I hope this provides some support as you strive for a budget to train your staff.

Take care,

Eric

The 2009 Retail Bank Shopping Study is based on responses from more than 7,500 consumers who shopped for a new banking account or new primary financial institution during the past 12 months. The study was fielded in February and March 2009, and includes 25 banks: Bank of America; Bank of the West; BBVA Compass; Branch Banking & Trust; Capital One; Chase; Citibank; Citizens Bank; Comerica; Fifth Third; HSBC; Huntington National Bank; KeyBank; M&T Bank; National City; PNC Bank; Regions Bank; Sovereign Bank; SunTrust; TD Bank; U.S. Bank; Union Bank of California; Wachovia; WaMu; and Wells Fargo.

Marketing and Business Solutions During Tough Times

It’s not surprising that marketing and business growth right now is challenging.

The current economic environment is making it harder and harder to find qualified prospects as well as getting established customers to continue their purchase patterns.

This has been the subject of many blogs, Tweets and articles posted to sites like LinkedIn (which is a professional social networking community).

After posing the question myself to some of the top marketers in the industry, here were some ways they are staying afloat at a time when others are drowning…

• Partner Power. Whether it’s through targeted joint ventures, reciprocal ad swaps, guest editorials in like-minded publications, revenue share opportunities OR affiliate marketing efforts -- there’s no better time than the present to reach out and seek out synergistic partners for sales or prospecting efforts. These efforts cost virtually nothing and could bring in a stream of new sales and leads. As I mentioned before on this blog, relationship building and cultivation is always a critical part of your business development/marketing efforts, so make sure you’re spending at least 10-25% of your time doing this.
  
• Database Marketing. This is another tactic I’ve written about before. Data-mining your current customer list into different "buckets" or segments such as VIPs, multi-buyers, hot prospects, new to files, actives, cancels, expires, inactives, etc. and then crafting special messages to each of those groups to either -- encourage purchase activity or re-engage communications through special offers -- is a great way to leverage your database. Find out who your top buyers are (remember the old 80/20 rule?) and then build a strategic marketing plan to contact this list several times a month with special offers, new events, referral programs, and other compelling offers.
  
• Referral Incentives. Speaking of referring a friend, family or colleague … some marketers are offering gift cards to their top customers (of $20 each for group of 25) for every qualified lead they refer to the company on a quarterly basis. On average, each person referred at least 2 people during first 90 days, which equates to about a $20/CPL…a very reasonable cost per lead.
  
• Optimizing Search and Social Marketing. Another tactic that should always be incorporated into your marketing plan is SEO and SMO. However, nowadays, marketers are refining and testing to get the most out of their website’s conversions. They are making sure their website and monetization process is clear and strategic. And since leads obtained from SMO and SEO involve little to no cost to acquire (not including the time of the marketer), reevaluating your website’s overall message, content, navigation, layout, lead gen tools, products, tags and similar will really offer a huge bang for the buck.

What are YOU doing to help grow business during these tough times?

I’d love to hear all about it! Let me know in the comment section of this post.

Build in Volume...find a way

Greetings...

In doing one of the things that I really don't like (taking our van in for routine service) something dawned on me...and I had to share it!

At certain intervals, the manufacturer (Honda) has built in a service light on the dashboard that says "Service Engine Soon." The only way to turn it off? At the dealer! Problems? Not sure. Concerned. You bet. The final resolution? Just a normal service rotation...but it got me to act!

This is a brilliant built in provider of sales volume.

May be a little irritating, but it certainly works. I am here at the dealer (along with bunches of other people that I am presuming have a similar situation).

So the opportunity for YOU lies in your creative ability to drive volume in predetermined ways, similar to the "Service engine soon" light on the dashboard.

Find a way to drive predetermined and ACTIONABLE volume to your institution!

Be creative...listen to your front line staff and your customers...or just call us and we can help!

CHEERS!

Bruce

Business Lessons Learned From the Triathlon

As I write this, I am 72 hours from competing in my first triathlon: 1,000 meter open water swim, 15 mile mountain bike and 5 mile trail run.

I consider myself a trail runner.  In fact, until a few months ago, I couldn’t swim more than 25 yards without being winded and I could count on my fingers the number of bike miles I had ridden in years.

But I was a good runner!   Not great, by any means - I hadn’t won a race since high school – but I regularly placed in my “past his prime” age group for my monthly trail series.

Now, I can swim over a mile without drowning and comfortable bike well enough to compete … but my running miles have significantly dropped off and I haven’t placed better than 4^th in my age group all year. 

The lesson: FOCUS!

Professionally, we are being asked to do much more with much less.  The choice we need to make is: Do we want to be outstanding in one area, or serviceable in many.

The answer my be different for each of us, but ask yourself what is best for you and what is best for your institution. 

Yes, there are those gifted few who either have the DNA or unlimited time to train for all three events and who can excel in all of them.  But the fact is that there are few world-class swimmers, bikers or runners who are also elite triathletes.  You don’t see Lance Armstrong, for instance, competing in the Ironman.

Those of us with limited resources are typically best served to stay focused and excel in one area.

My suggestion?  Focus on your existing customers.  They cost the least to sell to and there is likely a world of opportunity with those customers who have already walked into your doors to begin a relationship.

You can be good at acquiring new customers and furthering your brand, but if you excel in on-boarding and customer share-of-wallet, you'll make the largest splash for the bank or credit union with the budget you have.

As for me … I’ll try to survive the swim and not loose too much ground on the bike, so I can dominate on the run.

Take care,

Eric

“Best of the Web” Recognizes MuscleMarketing.Blogspot.com as a Top Internet Marketing Blog

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
CONTACT: Precision Marketing and Mediamedia@precisionmarketingmedia.com
http://www.precisionmarketingmedia.com/

"Best of the Web" Recognizes MuscleMarketing.Blogspot.com as a Top Internet Marketing Blog

West Palm Beach, FL – July 20, 2009 – MuscleMarketing.Blogspot.com was recognized by prestigious industry directory, Best of the Web, as one of the top "…Business/Marketing and Advertising/Internet Marketing…" blogs in the blogsphere.

Created by Wendy Montes de Oca, MBA, who is also President and Founder of Precision Marketing and Media, LLC, Muscle Marketing is the ultimate Internet marketing blog featuring tips to grow your business regarding all things marketing.

According to Montes de Oca, "Muscle Marketing offers real-world strategies for optimizing and monetizing online marketing efforts including email marketing, search engine marketing, pay-per-click, social media, list building, content syndication, press releases, media buying, affiliate marketing and more." She added, "Because I have such a diverse background with expertise in direct response marketing as well as business development, product development, and customer retention/communications, I stray from online marketing articles every now and then and write about virtually anything that will help grow AND retain customers."

When asked what makes her blog stand out from the pack, Montes de Oca added, "I write about business solutions that are proven, powerful and cost effective. Nowadays everyone … from Fortune 500 companies, to local proprietors, to online publishers … are looking to make more money, get more leads and grow their business for less. And that’s what I offer: More than 15 years of marketing insight for free."

Montes de Oca concluded, "I’m thrilled that my blog, Muscle Marketing, has been recognized by Best of the Web and look forward to posting more articles and helping business owners bring their companies to the next level."

For more information or to give your marketing a little muscle, please visit http://musclemarketing.blogspot.com/ or http://www.precisionmarketingmedia.com/blogsandmore.html.

About Wendy Montes de Oca, MBA
Ms. Montes de Oca’s diversified background includes over 15 years of experience in marketing, media, publishing, financial services, and law. She has a proven track record with both acquisition and retention efforts as well as has editorial and copywriting experience. Her background includes multi-channel marketing with expertise in direct response marketing for the Web. She is currently President of Precision Marketing and Media, LLC and prior to that she was Vice President of Marketing and Business Development at Agora Publishing/Early to Rise. Her marketing articles have appeared in popular eNewsletters such as Early to Rise and The Total Package as well as on various blogs. She is a distinguished speaker at prominent marketing conferences such as the Specialized Information Publishers Association (SIPA). Throughout her career, she has been recognized with various industry awards for quality, innovation, teamwork, and new product/new business development.

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Hot Marketing Ideas To Help Grow Your Business On A Shoestring Budget

Whether you’re a Fortune 500 company, local proprietor, or online publisher everyone is looking to make more money, get more leads and grow their business … for less.

Below are some ideas to help you do just that.

• Online press releases could be a powerful tool that’s often overlooked. There are many free online press distribution services, like PRLog.org, that can help get your message on the web and picked up by media sources, online news aggregators and bloggers. If you have a relevant, useful, newsworthy message…turn it into a press release. In addition to driving traffic to your site, the link you embed into the online release will help you with SEO link-building efforts.
• Classified ads and internet bulletin boards are not just for selling items any more. They are a powerful way to create buzz, initiate backlinks and drive traffic to your site. Many sites like Craig’s List, which is a "Top 50" site that reaches over 40 million people, offers free postings and many categories to suit your message. Crafting the right ad for your objective just takes some creative thinking. I’ve used this platform successfully for many lead generation efforts.
• Leveraging local or regional newspapers with an editorial piece or captivating print ad is also a great trick I’ve used with fantastic results. You simply search online for list of newspapers by city or state, then narrow down your list by newspaper circulation. If you don’t have the budget for advertising you can offer the newspaper valuable content with your name and contact information mentioned in your byline or editorial note. Surprisingly, there are many regional newspapers that sell advertising space dirt-cheap. Years ago, I was targeting high net worth individuals. I researched the richest counties in America, and then those respective newspapers and publications within those counties. Aspen, Colorado was one area where a print ad cost me roughly $500. That ad generated several sales (I only needed 1 lead to breakeven) and produced an ROI of more than 1000%.
• Partnering with synergistic companies is often a tactic that doesn’t get as much priority as it should. In my opinion, at least 25% of a marketing professional’s role should be business development and relationship cultivation (including affiliate marketing). Reaching out to "friendly competitors" opens the door to a plethora of possibilities including revenue share deals, joint venture agreements, guest editorials, and reciprocal ad swaps (in ezines). These efforts cost virtually nothing and help with both your sales and lead generation efforts.
• Advertising on blogs and ad networks with either banners or text ads is another great way to target a particular prospect (by either channel or genre) and costs a reasonable fee. There are many high traffic blogs for almost any niche out there and some rates are under $1/CPM. With this, research and strategic targeting as well as relevant, powerful creative copy is essential. I’ve been advertising on select blogs for many years with great results.
• My SONAR Content Distribution Model TM is another cost effective, yet powerful, way of repurposing and synchronizing content (albeit text, audio, video) distribution into various, targeted channels. And it allows companies, publishers, entrepreneurs … basically anyone with content on their website … the ability to ultimately turn traffic into sales. For more information, check out http://www.precisionmarketingmedia.com/sonar.html.
• Pay Per Click can be a viable way to bring in leads and sales. Although in my experience, it’s hard to get a conversion with a "cold lead" that is over $99. The "sweet spot" seems to be products between $19.99 - $59.99. This is ideal for lead generation efforts of low cost info-publishing products, like paid eBooks. And you don’t need to break the bank either. With a robust keyword selection and bid management tool as well as engaging text ad and landing page copy, you could bring in several thousand names per month and spend less than $2,000 (which is about a $1/CPL). Note: for saturated markets (such as real estate related terms), certain keywords may cost a little more to get exposure.

There’s many more ways to market your business effectively … and "cost" effectively.
It’s just a matter of being a creative marketer.

If you’re interested in a marketing plan tailored to your specific needs, contact me and I’ll be happy to provide a proposal.

6 Ways to Pinch Pennies and Grow

Don't let a tight budget stall your growth.

As marketing professionals, you're being expected - ney, demanded - to do more with less. The good news is that it simply takes some creativity ... and who has more creativity than us marketers?

Here are 6 ideas (some creative, some not) to help jump start the ol' mellon and get those neurons firing. Please, please, please feel free to add more by commenting to this blog.

6 Penny Pinching Ideas:

1. Create a referral program

OK, it's nothing new, but your existing customers can be your best asset. And let's face it, no matter how big you are - you have a lot of customers. It can be as easy (and cheap) as printing small, pocket-sized cards offering $5-$25 for the customer and their referred friend. Make sure you offer an incentive to both.

I've had success printing a brochure-sized piece with 4 business card sized offers of $10 to each - saying: Earn up to $40 by spreading the joy. Quarterly, I'd include it in newsletter mailings to all customers and watch the spike in new accounts.

The keys: Keep it easy, Keep it trackable, Make it fun.

2. Internal promotions

Don't want to incentivize your customers? Use your NEXT best asset - your staff. Make a game of which branch can recruit the most new customers. Offering incentives to a smaller group of people (or teams) will be easier on the budget.

3. Get out of the office

You should, of course, participate in the local Chambers - but how many bank/CU employees are out on your behalf? At a minimum, all senior management and board should be expected to be active in the community and promote the institution.  

The key: From church elder, to scout leader, to chamber committee member, there are plenty of opportunities to contribute - just make sure that promoting the bank/CU (elegantly) is also being done.

4. Bank@Work

Many credit unions have already mastered this - but, with a community charter focus and limited resources,  many more have forgotten this art.

Whether you call them SEGs or Commercial Clients, you have customers who have employees. And those employees are prospects. Find ways to communicate with them.

The key: Make sure your commercial staff teams up with your retail staff and vice versa.

5. PR - or "Image Management"

Your institution has a wealth of interesting stories that are likely overlooked because, since you see it everyday, you don't look at them as newsworthy. I'll bet your local news outlets (hungering for good news - especially from local financial institutions) would disagree.

• You mean banks ARE lending?!?!: Let them know how much you've lent to date. Even if it seems small by your standards, to "Tammy the teacher," it will seem huge.
• Case studies: Have you saved a family from foreclosure? Helped a kid go to college? Helped a student afford a trip overseas? Your staff do amazing things for customers everyday - it's the beauty of their job. Collect and share those stories.
• Share your expertise: Few understand finances better than bankers (at least lets hope so!). Be the local resource for sound financial guidance. In this economy, you may be able to work out a deal to author an ongoing "Smart Finances" section - aim high!

6. Fish where the fish are

Focus your budget on your existing customers, there are fewer hurdles - so it's the smart spend.

• Focus on customers with only 2 or 3 products: Single service customers are likely single service for a reason - build the relationship with those that have multiple, but few products.
• Look at depositors with no loans - especially mortgages. Don't reprice existing, but try to get customers with other institutions mortgages to refinance with you.
• What about depositors with no checking: Get them to view you as their primary financial institution.
• What unused HELOC balances are out there?  Go get 'em.

For at least the next six months or so, we will have to work a little harder to maximize our budgets. You don't necessarily have to spend a lot to gain a lot - you just need to be creative, utilize your entire staff and have fun.

Take care,

Eric

The All-Star Break...we made it!

Good morning everyone....a bright and sunny Monday to you!

Well, we made it! The 2009 All-Star break... hopefully your team is still in contention and the break will provide a needed rest. My Reds are limping into the break and a cloud is forming over the 2nd half.

The All-Star break is designed to provide a brief rest to all teams, celebrate the 1st half successes and reward the best and brightest players. It is also an organizational time to take stock in the team, analyze performance, make game plan changes, and perhaps pump up the team with new talent acquisitions.

Is your bank or CU taking an All-Star break?

You should!

Take stock of your marketing plan, analyze performance against the plan, make changes to your game plan, and take a new look at acquiring new customers, new markets, or new products...

The break is a scheduled rest point for baseball....shouldn't it be for you, too!

Have a great Monday...

Cheers!

Bruce Clapp

Buying Trends and the Impact of Reviews

To say that this has been an odd year would be a drastic understatement. A little less than a year ago towards the end of September, I remember working with the leadership and board of Arena Stage on an action plan to address the stock market crash and the, at that time, anticipated economic crisis. It seemed we had an incredibly daunting task ahead of us -- exactly how does one forecast and prepare for an economic crisis on the scale that none of us have ever experienced before? At the conclusion of our fiscal year, I am happy to report that Arena Stage had an exceptionally strong year, both artistically and financially. Our success has afforded me the time and opportunity to look back over the course of the year and analyze some of the patterns we saw to learn from them as we embark upon the next fiscal year.

From an overall observation, I started to notice two things that struck me almost immediately after the market crash in September: late purchasing behaviors became common place, and many of our would be patrons put a much higher importance on reviews in making a purchasing decision. To confirm what I thought were changes in patterns, I input sales data into an excel spreadsheet which produced the graph above. Starting from six weeks out and then going through the week that most reviews hit, I tracked our weekly sales for all eight of our mainstage productions. A dominant pattern appeared--sales remained constant for almost every show until the opening week, and then several took off almost exponentially after reviews hit.

Because we had several very short runs for a couple of our productions (2.5 weeks and 3.5 weeks), I created marketing plans that started advertising campaigns much earlier than normal, in an attempt to secure significant advanced sales. But even with robust advertising expenditures, audiences weren't willing in most cases to plop down their money until the show opened or they read a great review.

Takeaways:

1. As I don't see an end to the economic crisis anytime soon, I expect this pattern to continue next year, so I am not going to waste valuable advertising dollars on advanced campaigns as this graph shows that despite those expenditures, patrons still waited. Instead, I am going to shorten the campaigns, and spend significantly more over shorter time periods and concentrate on pushing reviews. This most likely will mean where before we had about a 50/50 split (50% of advertising dollars spent before opening and 50% after), next year we will look at a 30/70 split (30% spent before opening and 70% after).

2. In this blog just a little more than a year ago, I was arguing that traditional reviewers were becoming less influential with the addition of citizen based reviews and user generated content. However, when the crisis hit, many patrons began looking for a "sure bet" when spending their very limited expendable income. So reviews became even more important than they previously were, and certain reviewers became more influential as several media companies cut their reviewers, leaving only maybe two or three major critics in a large metropolitan area. From the graph above, you can see at least four examples of shows that took off after the reviews hit. Also by concentrating more advertising dollars for after a show opens, you can put more money behind pushing exceptional reviews.

Overall:

I thought I was going to have several heart attacks this year as sales patterns for individual shows were completely different from previous years. So much so that there were a couple of times that I was forecasting that a show would miss its goal by a significant margin only to go over goal by the time the show closed. I am sure that I must have seemed a little schizophrenic to certain board members, but forecasting during this climate was exceptionally difficult. I will say however that I was very proud that our reforecasted income model that was developed in October was almost spot on. We ended the year with a 1% variance off where we forecasted we would in the box office. Next year, I will probably continue to have the minor heart attacks, but I now know what I am up against--extremely late buyers who are very sensitive to reviews. They say that knowing is half the battle, so now we have to shift our tactics to address our new reality.

The Four Pillars to Online Success

A friend and colleague forwarded an article from a fellow online marketer stating, "…Mega success on the Internet is all about copy alone. Unquestionably, it's also helpful to know about other things like search engine optimization, squeeze pages, twittering, teleseminars, order forms, testimonials, seminars etc. But without powerful copy to fuel the marketing engine you will not even be able to make a living online. Let alone become wealthy."

I agree…well, sort of.

I don’t think to be a success online an entrepreneur needs just copy alone, per se. Before good copy is developed, you need a few other things, which I’ll go into in a moment.

First, I’d like to clarify the difference between content and copy. Content is editorial…beneficial, value-oriented information that helps a consumer in some way, shape or form without a blatant sales pitch. Copy is creative writing…a promotion that is trying to get the consumer to take action (whether it’s to buy a product or give an email address). Great copy is engaging; tells a story; plays on emotion (i.e. greed, fear, vanity) and evokes response.

In my view, great copy undoubtedly will help seal the deal, but before you even start the "deal" you need:
1)a big idea
2)valuable content
3)strong copy
4)powerful multi-channel marketing

You see, there needs to be a foundation to any business model. And for online marketing, there first needs to be a big idea. The aforementioned may seem simplistic, or even outdated...but they truly are the staples to business growth (online and off).

You need to determine what is your idea’s "unique selling proposition" (USP)? What makes it unique from its competitors? Is there currently market demand for it? Is it solving a problem for the consumer in some way?

Once you have content, you can repurpose it into a variety of products for a variety of objectives, such as:
-For SEO (articles, back links)
-For PR (buzz, website traffic)
-For sales and leads (i.e. free whitepapers for lead generation, paid ebooks, DVDs, CDs, member websites, paid newsletters, instructional binders, webinars, teleseminars, conferences)
-and more!

To me, those are the four pillars to online success.

Could you make a go starting an online business without one of the four? Sure, but you wouldn’t be running on all cylinders, and quite frankly, you would leaving money on the table.

In my opinion, anything worthwhile should be worth doing right.

SEO and Content Syndication: Debunking The Duplicate Content Myth

Oftentimes, real-life experiences with my clients influence my blog posts.

For instance, recently a consulting client of mine asked me if I agreed with a colleague of his about Google disliking duplicate content and to reduce or refrain the amount of content he syndicates (distributes) on the Web.

I think there’s a huge misunderstanding out there about how to distribute your content without hurting your website in the eyes of search engines.

If you publish content, you should have the first, original content on your website. No doubt. However, you can "repurpose" it and strategically distribute it on the Web, and this will not hurt your search engine/Google SEO efforts.

This is something I refer to in my SONAR Content Distribution Model TM and has helped my clients’ quantifiably increase traffic rank, traffic visits, leads and sales.

SONAR is a cost effective, yet powerful, method of repurposing and synchronizing content (albeit text, audio, video) distribution into various, targeted channels. And it allows companies, publishers, entrepreneurs … basically anyone with content on their website … the ability to ultimately turn traffic into sales.

SONAR represents the following online distribution platforms:
S Syndicate partners, content syndication networks, and user generate content sites
O Online press releases
N Network (social) communities
A Article directories
R Relevant posts to blogs, forums, and bulletin boards

SONAR Case study: My synchronized content distribution technique helped increase traffic ranking and visits to a alternative health website by 3,160% and 81.5% respectively in only three months. And in four months, traffic visits increased to an investment website by nearly 80% as well as an increase its traffic ranking by nearly 150 percent. Plus, the traffic to this investment site was monetized for an ROI of 221%.

So not only was the website’s SEO/SEM efforts NOT hut by content syndication, it actually improved exponentially with rank, visits and sales.

The key is to repurpose the content. To tweek an original article on your website with minor changes (for example to headline, intro paragraph, closing, etc.) and then syndicate on other different websites.

Google tries to look for the best version…where the content originated...the first, primary source (usually your website) and typically that site that gets the "search engine credit" so to speak via the higher ranking in the organic results listing.

In Google's view, duplicate content is more hurtful for a site if it's posted in more then one place on that SAME DOMAIN (not via syndication on other websites such as through online press releases, article directories, etc.) .

For example, if you may have two pages on your site with virtually the same content, in most cases, Google notices this and ignores one of those webpages. You will not get both of those listings in the search engine organic results…just one of them.

Keep in mind, Google will decide your pages are duplicate if ONLY your (page titles and meta descriptions) are the same. So make sure each webpage on your site has unique, relevant tags with targeted keywords.

Now if you’re concerned about webpages on your website and it’s text "printer friendly version" hurting your website’s SEO… simply block the search engines from spidering the print friendly version.

When you think about it...syndicating content is the SEO model of social sites (like Digg, Drop Jack, StumpleUpon, etc.) and article directories.

So make sure you understand the power of your content and how to syndicate it the right way before you hit the breaks on any SEO/SEM efforts ...

...Because that’s what will actually hurt your site … doing nothing and not leveraging your content.

ALM Is Not A 4 Letter Word

Asset and Liability Management (ALM): Three little letters that few marketers want to think about.

But lets face it, given the economy, delinquencies and shrinking margins, the more intelligently we can discuss our balance sheet, the more effective our marketing efforts will be to the institution's bottom line.  And the more effective our marketing is to the bottom line, the more we can justify larger budgets (or salaries!!!)

Some Balance Sheet issues to consider:

• What is the bank's margin (essentially, the difference between what you earn on loans and what you pay on deposits)?
• What percentage of your deposits are in Time Accounts (CDs)?  What does the maturity cycle look like?
• Does the institution have a positive or negative Gap (If Fed rates drop tomorrow and your deposits reprice - what will it do to the bottom line)?

In short, are you needing deposit or loans?  Should those loans be fixed or variable?  It directly ties to what your department needs to be promoting to your customers.

Finally,  if you're not on your institution's ALCO committee, ask to sit in every so often. You'll gain a much greater understanding for why upper management may ask you to change directions every couple of months.

 If you need more "ALM 101" try:

• Take advantage of education opportunities through the ABA or CUNA
• Take your CFO out to lunch
• Call MarketMatch and let us help (sorry had to get a sales plug in)

Have a great July 4th weekend.

Take care,

Eric