1. Failing to take it slow
2. Neglecting your best buyers
3. Leading with tactics

Read more about what these mistakes are doing to harm your business and how to avoid them. Three Fatal Marketing Errors To Avoid

Read Matthew’s article below.

This week, pages upon pages of commentary have been written about Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram, the astronomical valuation applied to the deal, and the competitive impetus for the transaction. But what’s most interesting is what it implies about Facebook’s perspective on content creation versus content distribution.

Before Instagram, Facebook was exclusively a way to distribute. It didn’t provide tools to actually create (with the exception of typed status updates). Instead, it largely left creation to others — notably Zynga for games, native camera applications for photos, and record labels and Spotify for music.

Facebook’s purchase of Instagram represents the acquisition of a technology platform that enables people to create and share. Think about it. When you take out your phone and snap a photo, not only do you use Instagram to create content, but you almost always immediately use the app to share it, too.

The larger shift toward content creation has been on the horizon for some time. Just look at Pinterest. While many users aren’t creating the images themselves, they are the creators of their own pinboards, and the time spent crafting those vehicles for self-expression is undoubtedly astronomical.

That makes this space ripe with deeper user interaction, and that’s worth something. Facebook certainly thinks so. They just spent $1 billion on a company with no business model — just the proven capability to engage consumers while they create. Marketers should take a cue from Facebook’s move and apply the following tips.

1. Seek Out Content Partners

If content creation isn’t your brand’s core competency, don’t reinvent the wheel – look to others who can help. Just as Facebook acquired Instagram, marketers too can work with companies that deliver content creation capabilities. Running a campaign with a content partner can, in the end, result in far more engagement than expected.

2. Embrace Platforms with Traction

One of the first things Mark Zuckerberg said after the deal was that Instagram would largely be left alone, and the existing experience will remain intact. Marketers often go in the other direction. They try to make micro sites, special flash platforms, or their own apps, which can limit the possibilities for sharing and consumer participation. Companies like Facebook and Instagram are already great at powering content creation and distribution. So are sites like Pinterest. Marketers should leverage each platform’s expertise, instead of trying to create something similar from scratch.

3. Make Room for Amateurs

Content creation can sound scary, because not everyone has the skill to create good music, photos, or video. Smart platforms and campaigns like Instagram and Pinterest make room for the pros, but they largely believe in the creative possibilities of the consumer audience. Anyone can snap a photo, just as anyone can create a pinboard. Marketers shouldn’t relegate themselves to all pros. Pros create aspirational content that people will want to share, but amateurs bring reach.

To launch the high quality TV channel TNT in Belgium a big red push button was placed on an average Flemish square of an average Flemish town.

A sign with the text “Push to add drama” invited people to use the button.

See what happened!

A fun little roadmap to determine where you should post your status!

Happy Posting!

The Vancouver Sun featured this article: “Social media: The age of disconnection.”

Do you think Social Media is actually “Connecting” society or “Disconnecting”?

Take a look!

Social media: The age of disconnection

Spring-clean your business by answering these four questions about how you work.

1. When you talk about your company, what words do you use?
2. Who do you listen to more — yourself or your client?
3. Are your customers staying with you?
4. Are you open to new methods of customer acquisition?

Read the entire article by Joey Faucette featured on entrepreneur.com More

TLH Heliskiing website is LAUNCHED!! Special thanks to everyone involved in this exciting project!!

Visit www.tlhheli.com to check it out!

You’re at a dinner reception. The stranger next to you strikes up a conversation.

It only takes a few minutes before you realize: “This guy’s completely self-absorbed.” No matter how hard you try, every topic leads back to him. Soon, you find yourself inching away.

Guess what? You can find the same thing on the web. Sites that are egocentric. More interested in talking about themselves than solving customer problems. However, unlike the dinner reception situation, your escape from a self-absorbed website is quick and painless.

(Although there are offenders across the board, the biggest culprits seem to be business-to-business companies and small- to mid-sized firms.)

To heck with product benefits or helping prospects and customers solve their problems – the narcissistic website dwells on the company’s spectacularly engineered offerings, their superior manufacturing techniques, the brilliance of their people, the company’s offices. Is there a place for bragging? Sure, but it’s secondary to the customer’s issues. Too many websites forget this.

When you consider that the average visitor has an attention span measured in seconds, and that he scans the web instead of reading every word, a narcissistic website has the same effect as a narcissistic tablemate: it turns people off.

In contrast, an intelligent website doesn’t leave a visitor stranded, searching for the customer benefits of the company’s products or services. It:

• Provides clear statements that are customer benefit oriented
• Supports its claims (often using customer and third party support)
• Proactively addresses potential objections
• Ushers the visitor into a dialogue

Let’s look at a very simple before-and-after example.

We’re at the website of a widget manufacturer. Their target market? Widget buyers from manufacturing firms.

The homepage leads off with:

“Since 1908, Acme Widget has precision-manufactured more than 10,000 varieties of widgets. What’s the Acme difference? State-of-the-art technology – including the latest laser manufacturing techniques – along with six sigma processes to ensure the highest quality.”

Sound good to you? Where does the customer fit in?

While prospects and customers care a lot about the companies they deal with, they care first and foremost about their own needs. In this instance: “How will Acme Widget solve my problems?”

Here’s another take on the copy:

“Whether you are looking for red, green, purple or color matched widgets, no other company offers a wider selection, faster delivery or more production-friendly engineered designs than Acme Widget.

Independent tests show that using the Acme ViperWidget can result in improving your production speeds by as much as 35%, while significantly reducing defective rates over traditional widgets.

Great selection. Fast delivery. Increased production speeds and reduced defectives for lower overall manufacturing costs. One name. Acme.

Download our free white paper, ‘Increasing Your Production Speed while Lowering Defectives with Better Engineered Widgets,” highlighting the recent tests of more than five hundred widgets conducted by independent testing laboratory, International Widget Laboratories.”

This time, the copy speaks to the interests of the customer. Customer problems – and Acme’s solution – stand front and center. Note, I still referred to the Acme’s engineering abilities. The difference here is that the reference to engineering is now linked to customer benefits.

Imagine a widget buyer visiting two sites: one with the first copy, the other with the second.

• With the first site, the buyer learns a little about the company, but not enough to differentiate it from the competition. And not nearly enough to understand, and appreciate, the benefits of doing business with the firm.
• At the second site, the buyer learns about the company’s wide selection, fast delivery, exceptional production speeds and lower defect rates. All strengths she can quickly grasp. What’s more, the white paper provides third-party support – validation – for the company’s claims.

The underlying concept is simple and an underlying marketing communications truth. The most effective marketing communications puts your customers and prospects first, not your company. By focusing on customer and prospect needs, you are more likely to fulfill your company’s needs.

As obvious as this statement would appear, it is similarly obvious that many marketers don’t really follow it.

A Quick Check-up to Find if Your Company Website is a Narcissist

Pretend you are a customer visiting your company’s website for the first time. Write down five key concerns you have related to purchasing these kinds of products or services or choosing a company that you feel (or marketing research indicates) reflects the key concerns of your target market when researching companies like yours. Spend up to one minute at your website. Close the browser. How many of your five key concerns were addressed? How well did they address your concerns? A brief amount of copy addressing a key concern and a link to more detail is fine; no mention of these concerns is not.

Did the web page copy get to the heart of your concern or was it focused on the itself instead of the prospects needs? Use what you have learned to further test your website in front of real prospects and customers. Find out their most important problems they are hoping your website will help them answer and re-design your website around helping them.

It’s your choice: propaganda that only ends up stroking your company’s ego or profits.

Written by Peter DeLegge