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by Jerod Morris (@jerodmsf)

It is on nights like last night when I am most glad that Mavis Beacon taught me typing.

I had the pleasure of going to the monthly meeting of the Social Media Club of Dallas last evening where the guest presenter was John Jantsch, one of the most influential marketing thought and theory leaders for small- and medium-sized businesses. It just so happens that the majority of our clients are small- and medium-sized businesses, so I knew immediately that this would be a most beneficial use of a Thursday evening.

Because I wanted to be able to share what I learned with you (and so that I wouldn’t be distracted by the baseball scores on my iPhone) I decided to put my super-warp-speed-barely-look-down-at-the-keyboard typing skills (thanks Mavis!) to good use. The fruits of my note-taking labor are below, cleaned up a bit from their original form so that they make some semblance of sense.

If you have any questions about the notes or want an idea expatiated further, feel free to leave a comment, email me (jerod [at] orangecaster [dot] com), or go to John’s Duct Tape Marketing blog.

You will also want to be on the lookout for John’s new book, The Referral Engine: Teaching Your Business to Market Itself [affiliate link to Amazon], which I got an advanced copy of and which John was nice enough to sign.

First, here are the slides John used. Then, my notes are below.

Update: You can also read my other post from this morning, over at How-to-Blog.tv – “4 Lessons for Bloggers From John Jantsch’s Referral Engine Presentation“

Continue Reading…

Path To Peace

One of the key differentiators between the Web 1.0 world and Web 2.0 is that Web 1.0 was defined by shouting out one way messages to consumers where Web 2.0 is about conversing, sharing, and in many cases paying it forward.  Ironically, when I visit the blogs and websites of some of the top social media personalities in the industry, I find websites with brash “Hire Me” graphics and a lot of copy written in second person.

This past Sunday morning while catching up on trade blogs, I came across a good post about using Twitter lists on Mashable.  Not being familiar with the author, I went to her personal blog to check it out.  The most recent post she had about her dedication of her birthday to cause she is involved in related to the Rwanda crisis called Path To Peace.  An no where to be found on this site was the typical horn tooting that has become way to popular on the sites of influential social media professionals.  How refreshing!  I was also really impressed with the project Path To Peace as it is an effort focused on the future versus the past of Rwandans.

Getting back on topic, one tendency in social media has been the obsession with numbers of followers, retweets, etc.  I think all marketers should take a step back, however, and evaluate their social media presence against softer measures such as community contribution including paying it forward.  How many posts, retweets, or track backs have you or your company made to help others?  Have you promoted a cause?  Are you giving before you sell your services?

Taking my own advice I am going to specifically ask the question of my employees when it comes to our sites such as MidwestSportsFans.Com and DallasSportsFans.Com as well as this one I am writing on.  I will say that this week alone I handed an influential social media consultant in the Dallas area a huge opportunity that was better suited for his experience versus ours.  I also brought one of our favorite SEM firms into a great opportunity and contracts are already being exchanged.  I’m feeling great about the “thank you” I got from both these partners of ours much more than any retweets and track backs I’ve gotten this week.  Still, I really have to think through how to quantify this and what the social media world is missing in terms of tracking people “paying it forward”.

One of the most common marketing requests we get at Orangecast are franchisees who are looking for ways to market online.  One of the most common goals is to market products and services locally.  However, franchisors generally setup their web presence nationally and struggle with local search engine optimization.  This leaves franchisees in a bind and usually forces them to consider options such as creating local websites, email campaigns, and engaging in social media.  Unfortunately, many franchisors feel threatened by this and often severely limit these avenues per fine print in franchise agreements.  We have heard stories of franchisors sending “cease and desist” for blogs and local websites and forcing franchisees to turn over all customer email addresses of local customers.  The following is a quick list of items to negotiate into your franchisee agreement to ensure you have the flexibility needed maximize online marketing opportunities.

Tip 1 – Investigate Local Search Performance For Existing Franchises

Most regional and national franchisors want to maintain brand control and have a single website for the brand.  There is generally specific verbiage to prevent the franchisee from creating websites associated with the brand.  As a potential franchisee, you should evaluate the search engine presence for the brand.  This list should include:

• Ask to see analytics reporting for traffic in a particular city.  Get specific as to what keywords drive traffic.  If you are getting into a fast casual dining concept and are being sold on catering being a potential revenue stream, verify that the corporate website is driving local search results related to catering.
• Think like a customer and “Google” local terms to see where the concept surfaces in search.  If you are considering buying a franchise in a handyman services company, Google specific services with local city names and see where their site surfaces in Google.
• Ask if they provide Pay Per Click or Search Engine Marketing campaigns for franchisees.  If so, require that any fees associated with it are on a “cost per conversion” basis versus cost per click.

If you receive significant push back in your search for insight into these items, this should throw up a major red flag.  If you are made promises that this is being worked on, consider delaying your signing or specifically gear payments around progress in this area.  Search Engines are a significant piece of “affordable” marketing for local goods and services.  If this marketing is not available to your franchise, you are starting at a significant disadvantage.

Tip 2 – Review Email Marketing Campaigns

Email marketing is a powerful mechanism for connecting with customers.  Review campaigns provided by the franchisor.  Review content, open rates, and click through rates.  A good campaign will have open rates of 25% or better and will have a 15% click through rate or better.  If the content is too promotional and/or open and click through rates are not good, contractually give yourself the option to execute email marketing locally.  You should be able to drill into these numbers at a local level and content should be local or regionalized.  If it isn’t, opt to run these yourself as you will produce better results for your units.

Tip 3 – Maintain Social Media Rights for Your Personal Brand

Franchisors are very sensitive in the area of social media.  This is understandable as brand impersonation is a huge issue in social media.  Still, you are your own personality and being a franchisee is part of that.  Maintain the right to be “Bob Smith, Dallas Franchisee of XYZ” in your social media profile.  This includes broader initiatives like a Facebook fan page.  Social Media is becoming a very powerful and you should leave your options open in this space respecting the brand management needs of the franchisor.

Summary

There are hundreds of variables to consider when structuring a franchise deal.  Though the above might seem small in the scheme of things, the long term success of a local franchise relies on marketing.  As a franchisee, you can’t completely rely on the franchisor to make your business work and you will want to maintain some control.  If you are being forced into giving up search engine, email marketing, and social media control, consider another franchise opportunity or revisit the concept after they can prove results in these areas.

Marketing Bits co-host Jerod Morris was asked by Glenn Moore to attend Sports Media 360 in Cleveland, OH  to participate on a panel discussing credibility online.   The event was put together by The Dugout Sports Show (OKG Media) and Media Frenzy Communications.
The discussion on the panel was excellent so I thought I’d share with our listener base.  A special thanks to Sports Talk Cleveland for the audio feed and to Glenn Moore putting the event together.

The panel members are:

Brad Zibung – “The Heckler”, Founder/Publisher
Greg Bedard - Green Bay Packers Beat Writer, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Jerod Morris – Midwest Sports Fans