Marketing Muse :: Silver Square :: Indianapolis, Indiana

8 Ideas for Using a Microsite

September 3rd, 2010

If you haven’t heard, it’s our 10th anniversary. I’m pretty excited about it; a little because that’s a nice milestone and I’m proud of our work, and a lot because it gives us a very good reason to host a big bash party (of which you’re invited so get in your R.S.V.P.). However, I happen to be thinking about all of the things we could have done had we planned a bit better for the big year. So learn a little from my mistakes and take some advice: make time to plan for yourself and your business.

One of the things I was thinking would have been fun to include in a 10 year marketing activity was a microsite. Oh the fun we could have had. We were brainstorming today on some crazy, outlandish goals for the next 10 years (loved Clay’s idea of rebranding the White House seal…cracks me up) and we could have shared such fun via a microsite. Then my brain hopped to wondering: Do people really know how to utilize a microsite? I think we all get it’s a site (hence the name) but maybe not exactly it’s purpose or potential. I’ve come up with eight ways off the top of my head to get you started on how you can intertwine a great microsite presence to your marketing mix.

A Special Offer – You want to create a site that hosts your special offer. The special offer does not live on your home site and no one knows about it unless you drive them to or they find this special offer microsite.
Speaking Spanish – Want to branch out to a specific culture or group? Speak their language! We were recently talking to the International Center of Indianapolis and it made me think of all the global families that find their home here in our communities. What if we welcomed them, initially, via an entry point that was all known and comfortable to them?
Social – If you’re a social networking maniac and involved with more than a dozen social media sites, maybe it’s time to make your own social site.
Anniversary – note above. This would fit under the short-lived microsite type, but, it would have been relevant, had a great purpose and provided some history and facts that would have helped our clients and prospects learn a bit more about us.
Expertise – if you’re an expert in your area but you’re lost in the corproate world shuffle, get yourself a microsite. Your niche can win some SEO battles and help put you on the map a little faster when someone google’s your name.
Campaign – If you’re running a special campaign or fundraiser type tactic, great use of a microsite!
Product – this makes total sense if you’re selling a unique or special product, or, if you’re trying to education an audience. Help visitors learn what it is, what it does and how to get it.
Co-Branding – if you’re partnering with someone or want to jointly do something as two brands, a microsite may be your best bet.

I’m sure there are other great uses, but these quickly came to mind based on what’s going on in our world right now and what may be the most relevant to our subscribers. Please share your microsite thoughts in our comments.

Raquel Richardson

marketing, web

branding, design, ideas, key message, microsite, seo

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Silver Square helps you make your site a LEAD GENERATING MACHINE

The Healthy Office

September 2nd, 2010

All around my personal life, I’m being bumped up with talks of healthy this and wellness that. This topic is shared with my kids, my parents (although, actually, they think healthy is diet coke and potato chips AFTER 10 a.m. instead of FOR breakfast) and I even think it’s coming to our office.

I’ve been inspired by Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution since at least the beginning of this year. Now my son’s school has made the commitment to go this route and it has sparked lots of good talks with my son about what healthy is and what healthy is not. For example, he recently told me he has three favorite places to go: Starbucks, Target and McDonald’s. I had to cringe on the last favorite. I told him how McDonald’s isn’t healthy, but that it’s OK to eat occasionally, and selecting apples as your side makes it a little more palpable. Now, each time he picks something up, he asks me: “Mama, is this healthy” and allows me to say whether I think it is or isn’t and why, i.e. what it will do for you.

I know first hand healthful actions make me more productive and happier, and therefore I think a better contributor to my work and life. Now I’m going to take more steps to bring that food revolution and lifestyle to our office. It’s the least I can do for my kids, myself and the wonderful people I work with each day.

Here are a few ways I plan to bring the natural to the office:

My next trip to the farmers’ market will include an extra grab of goodies to bring in to the office for show and tell
I’ll bring in flowers to bring the outside inside
Next time I make a Rhu pie out of my aunt’s garden of goodies, I’ll make an extra one for the Squares to enjoy too
I’ll pack my lunk at least twice a week

These are small steps, but they are in the right direction. I would enjoy hearing more tips and how you’re incorporating the natural into your work life.

Raquel Richardson

business smarts

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You now that 'lean your ladder against the right building' thing? MARKETING STRATEGY Silver Square can help you find your building

What is completely and totally original about your site?

September 2nd, 2010

Look at the websites of your competitors. Now look at your website. How is yours different? Naturally, it has your branding and colors. There’s information about your company, and your contact information. Okay, technically that’s different – but your competitors still have their branding, their about us, and their contact information. You’re not going to make your website stand out by just trading jabs.

Let’s rephrase the question: how is your site better than your competitors’ sites? That’s the question you need to be asking yourself because that’s the question your customers are asking.

We all get that simply having a website of any kind no longer makes you unique. Everyone has a web presence. Congratulations, you occupy space. Now what?

Something about your site needs to be jaw-droppingly good. What might that be?

a startling and compelling visual design
an engaging tool where your customers can log in and see their history with you
give away practical and relevant advice to your visitors
explain clearly how and why your product is important
get involved with a charity important to your customers
have a contest where visitors enter pictures, videos, or stories
be funny

You don’t need to be the best at all of these things. You might decide you want to do a couple of things well, but all you really need is to find one unique hook for your site. If you knock that one thing out of the park, you’ve given your customers an answer to the question.

Need to know more? Join us at The Combine in Bloomington, Indiana (9/9 – 9/12). On Saturday, Raquel and Clay will be presenting on Web Strategy.

Clay Mabbitt

technology, web

ideas, marketing, technology

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Write to the beat of your own drummer

September 1st, 2010

If you feel like you’re starting from square one when you sit down to begin any writing project, your business needs a personalized style guide. Whether you’re writing a blog post, cover letter or recipe, a style guide can give you and your coworkers a consistent foundation to tackle any project. In a nutshell, a style guide is a collection of your business’s writing forms, lingo, rules and exceptions to the rules.

What’s being written and why? Start by surveying all of the writing you do: newsletter articles, blog posts, etc. For each type of writing, come up with one sentence explaining its role in your business. Following that “mission statement” of sorts, establish guidelines for tone, word count and voice for each type of writing.

As an example, the newsletter article should educate potential clients on how your company is serving the community, with some call to action included. Stick with 400-600 words, an affable tone and first-person voice.

What are the rules? The second part of developing your style guide will be an organic process of evaluating and reevaluating, of adding and subtracting rules. These rules can include things like how components such as staff contact information are written in emails, a collection of boilerplates such as your company’s mission statement, and editing and proofreading processes for your company.

These are items that only you can establish. Creating these rules and sharing them with your coworkers helps ensure consistency, accountability and the confidence that you are handling a writing project correctly.

What’s the lingo? I used to edit cookbooks full time. The style guide I created for cookbook writing and editing included at least 100 terms and names not covered by www.m-w.com. My guide included bearnaise, molecular gastronomy, Alain Ducasse and brunoise.

If you work for a law firm, financial institution or swimming pool manufacturer, you have your own set of terms that can be put down on paper to ensure consistency. Start making an alphabetical list. Every time an industry-specific word comes up, add it to your list. You’ll be surprised by how quickly the list grows.

(Check back on Sept. 8 for a post on general style guides and guides for the nitpicker.)

Casey Kenley

news

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David Anderson – Proust Questionnaire

August 31st, 2010

David Anderson, owner of Pinpoint Multimedia, joins us this week on the Proust. You can find him on LinkedIn and SmallerIndiana.

1. What is your most marked characteristic? I would hope it is my sense of humor and eagerness to help. Could also be the piece of lunch still left in my teeth (ooh, I hope not)
2. What is the quality you most like in a man? A friendly demeanor and sense of humor are most appreciated in a man. They most often mean that he will be interesting company.
3. What is the quality you most like in a woman? Intelligence without pretense is an attractive quality in a woman. Women often have the ability to engage their power more subtly than men, and the ones who do it well are incredible.
4. What do you most value in your friends? I most value interaction and collaboration with friends. I enjoy the energy and exhilaration of a group of friends, whether that is working, watching a ball game, camping, or just hanging out.
5. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? I have a lazy streak that I struggle to overcome. I get frustrated at myself when I find myself in a lazy mood.
6. What is your idea of perfect happiness? Perfect happiness is when all things are going well. I enjoy the joy of those moments.
7. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? Coming to the end of a week (or period of time) and realizing how much is left undone.
8. Who are your favorite writers? Seth Godin, Malcolm Gladwell, Dave Barry
9. What is your current state of mind? Challenged by these questions but determined to answer them with relevance and grace (hmmm, maybe too much bs in that answer)
10. What is your motto? ‘Motto’s are for wimps, but a good manifesto…’
11. What is your greatest fear? Physically, I have a great fear of heights. But more spiritually, I am afraid that life is moving by too fast. When the day comes that I have to rely on memories rather than experiences, I want to make sure those memories are rich and meaningful, rather than just a blur.
12. What is your greatest extravagance? My extravagance is going off on tangents. I’ll get going on something and go crazy. Golfing, motorcycles, camping, guitars, drums, computers, etc. I’ll jump in, buy a bunch of stuff, play around for awhile, and then get bored and move on to something else. My house is THE stop when we have a garage sale.
13. On what occasion do you lie? I lie when I tell myself that I can finish a project while watching TV late at night.
14. What do you dislike most about your appearance? The 75 or 80 pounds I’ve let accumulate on my waistline.
15. Which words or phrases do you most overuse? I have a couple, but can’t seem to think of them right now. I grew up in a corporate environment and cringe when I hear corp-speak terms like ‘synergy’ and ‘leverage’ come out of my mouth. Still, I say them too often – old habits die hard.

Dean Verleger

The Proust Questionnaire

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Companies to Watch 2010

August 30th, 2010

We were thrilled to be part of this event once again with the Indiana Small Business Development Center. This is one of the nicest business events of the year! Located at The Roof Ballroom this event showcases the top companies to watch in Indiana; this year there were 41. It’s amazing to hear their stories, meet them in person, and yes, watch them in the years to come. Here are a few photos of the night, courtesy of our friend Nicole Bickett over at VisionBridge.

Raquel Richardson

just for fun

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Back on the wagon

August 29th, 2010

I wanted to point out the obvious to our subscribers and blog readers… I have fallen off the blogging wagon. This is the first time since starting this blog in 2007 that I have let the blog get so far behind. This past month of August was busy! We moved offices, had some changes on our team and helped host a couple major events. I was crying uncle.

So you see, when I sit across the table from you or talk to you on the phone about understanding the commitment, the fun, the hardship, the challenge, and yes, the good return on your investment that your blog can bring, I say it with true knowledge. So, now that we all know I have fallen off the wagon, I’m just going to get back on it. That’s what you do.

So welcome back. Welcome back to me, and welcome back to a whole new host of ideas, authors, topics and tips that our crew will be bringing to you on a daily basis once again. Thanks for hanging in there with us.

Raquel Richardson

marketing

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Marketing a Musical

August 25th, 2010

This summer I appeared in a musical called Enter Love. This was an original work by a very good friend, Lynn Lupold, among others. Because I cared about the people and the project I volunteered to lend my professional expertise and run some online promotion for the show. The show was wildly successful, selling out every single performance. So how did we get there?

Website

The website for the show is actually pretty basic. It’s a simple blog layout. What made it successful was the editorial calendar. When the site was created I mapped out 10 weeks of posts leading up to opening night. The topics included profiles of people involved with the show, casting announcements, photos and videos, and contest announcements (see below). The steady stream of new information helped us build inertia and interest in the show. Because we included individual profiles of people in the show, we made it very easy for them to tap into their personal networks by sharing a link to their profiles.

Email Newsletter

We knew we would have a small group of advocates who would love to help promote the show if we could arm them with the ideas and collateral to do so. On the website we created a signup form for anyone who wanted to receive a weekly email with tips on what they could be doing to help promote the show.

Facebook

An enterprise like this is ideally suited for Facebook. Armed with a decent camera you can walk into rehearsals and get a steady trickle of photos leading up to the show. Photographs like these get good traction of Facebook. Many of the photographs were of cast members who are regularly active on Facebook. Tagging them in photos drew a lot of online attention to the show.

Contests

We ran weekly contests leading up to the show in which people could win free tickets to the show. The details varied from week to week, but ways to enter included tweeting about the show, leaving a comment on the blog, or commenting on a promotional video on YouTube. I was honestly surprised that the contests did not draw even more attention, although they were certainly successful at raising awareness and buzz about the show.

Other Contributing Factors

Less it seem like I’m claiming sole responsibility for the successful promoting of this show, it’s worth mentioning other factors that certainly impacted the box office sales.

Local celebrity. Many of the people involved in both creating and performing the show are well known names in Lafayette, where this world premiere was held.
Creative. Thanks to John Metzinger the show already had a great logo and visual branding in place before I was involved.
Video. Promotional, performance and documentary footage of the show was captured and edited by video wunderkind Jack Klink
Lafayette Civic Theatre. It’s not their first rodeo, and the theatre’s relationships with local media, the blog, and their existing promotional machine was also a key for this run.

Clay Mabbitt

marketing, web

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Annie Sever-Dimitri – Proust Questionnaire

August 24th, 2010

Annie Sever-Dimitri, MSW, Life Coach at YourCoachForLife, joins us this week on the Proust. You can find her at SmallerIndiana or her blog.

1. What is your most marked characteristic? My creative verbal abilities.
2. What is the quality you most like in a man? Wacky sense of humor.
3. What is the quality you most like in a woman? Same as above.
4. What do you most value in your friends? Loyalty.
5. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? Being able to think creatively, then get bored, and toss the whole project aside.
6. What is your idea of perfect happiness? World peace.
7. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? Child and animal abuse.
8. Who are your favorite writers? Helen Fielding, Maya Angelou, SARK, Gregg Braden
9. What is your current state of mind? appy, happy, joy, joy–we finally have sun today!
10. What is your motto? Do something that scares you every day.
11. What is your greatest fear? I am afraid of fire. That is why I am doing a fire walk later this year!
12. What is your greatest extravagance? Kombucha and my wardrobe
13. On what occasion do you lie? When someone has a bad haircut
14. What do you dislike most about your appearance? My nose
15. Which words or phrases do you most overuse? Fabulous, cool, sweet

Dean Verleger

The Proust Questionnaire

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Jacob Schpok – Proust Questionnaire

August 17th, 2010

Jacob Schpok, Director of Programming for the Indiana Small Business Development Center, joins us this week on the Proust. You can follow Jacob on Twitter or connect with him on LinkedIn.

1. What is your most marked characteristic? My pursuit of contentment.
2. What is the quality you most like in a man? Compassion towards those with less.
3. What is the quality you most like in a woman? Passion towards living life to its fullest.
4. What do you most value in your friends? Their integrity.
5. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? My maladaptive perfectionist mindset. It’s known to frustrate my friends, family, and co-workers. I try to keep it on the down-low when interacting with the general public.
6. What is your idea of perfect happiness? Living in the moment and appreciating life. That’s life in the larger sense, not the movie Life starring Eddie Murphy, Martin Lawrence, and Bernie Mac. Although, if I remember correctly, the movie wasn’t bad either.
7. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? Fixating on doubt and regret or being forced to watch Fox News. Kind of a tossup.
8. Who are your favorite writers? Malcolm Gladwell, John Gribbin, Dr. Seuss, Charles Bukowski, Sogyal Rinpoche, and Christopher Buckley
9. What is your current state of mind? Inquisitive.
10. What is your motto? “It’s funny because it’s true.”
11. What is your greatest fear? Living in an Orwellian world.
12. What is your greatest extravagance? My extensive music collection.
13. On what occasion do you lie? I lie all the time or do I? Wa ha ha ha.
14. What do you dislike most about your appearance? My left ear is a little higher than my right. Adjusting new glasses always becomes a whole project. See question five for explanation.
15. Which words or phrases do you most overuse? I’m not even joking, seriously, no really, just kidding

Dean Verleger

The Proust Questionnaire

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Silver Square

8 Ideas for Using a Microsite

The Healthy Office

What is completely and totally original about your site?

Write to the beat of your own drummer

David Anderson – Proust Questionnaire

Companies to Watch 2010

Back on the wagon