Review: AMA Detroit Event: Trevor Tkach & Susan Wilcox Olson: National Cherry Festival: Marketing on a Dime

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Last night, Trevor Tkach & Susan Wilcox Olson of the National Cherry Festival (Traverse City Cherry Festival) came to visit the American Marketing Association of Detroit (AMA Detroit).

They came to talk about how they market a nationwide festival without having any marketing budget. Their presentation was titled, "The Cherry Festival: Marketing on a Dime."

Trevor Tkach recently took over the Executive Director position, but he brings a wealth of experience from working there for four (4) years. Plus, he worked with the West Michigan Whitecaps minor league baseball team.

Susan Wilcox Olson has worked with the Cherry Festival for 23 years, and she has a load of war stories.

Susan Wilcox Olson (left) and Trevor Tkach (right) gave a talk at the AMA Detroit on 5/30/12.

During their talk, they told us a lot of different things, but these were the main focal points.

Marketing Tip: 1 Simple Idea That Makes You Nice AND Gets You More Business

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Key Tip: If you want to make more money, be NICE!

Okay, that probably needs a little more explanation, but it's not a hard concept.

It surrounds you giving away free samples!

My Reminder about an Old but Good Tip

4 Big Concerns for Small Business Facebook Marketing (by Craig Robinson)

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Editor's Note: This is a guest post by Craig Robinson of Qwaya.  I am excited to include this post, because at this time, I do not have the background with using Facebook Ads to offer any legitimate insight.  Craig is the editor for Qwaya (http://www.Qwaya.com), which offers a lot of opportunities for businesses to target their marketing to specific types of people using key valuable demographic data.  I hope that you enjoy what Craig has to share.

With the meteoric rise of Facebook over the past few years, it’s fairly difficult to ignore the social site’s presence in the atmosphere of the Internet. It has influenced much of how businesses online operate in this day and age, and any business worth its salt will have at least a small Facebook presence to keep up with the brand name.

For small businesses in particular, Facebook provides an absolutely stellar opportunity to get some much needed recognition and to use your fan page as a marketing channel for your company. If done correctly, you should be able to pick up a wide number of fans and help to build your brand’s name over time.

Addressing Four Popular Marketing Concerns for Businesses on Facebook

Marketing Tip: Don't make (logical) sense--Trigger my senses!

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I have another marketing tip.

Most of the time, I try to provide to write based on my experiences--as a marketer.  I have taught myself most of what I know through experience rather than formal education.  So in many ways, I am like a wide-eyed baby, just learning everything as I go.

Is this really the best way to advertise a restaurant?

I try to share those experiences with you, because they're often interesting (or at least I think so :).  Sharing these experiences with you also helps me take time to realize some things that I have learned.  This is an important part of the learning process.

This time, however, I am bringing you an experience based on something, where I bring a WEALTH of experience.

I LOVE food!  Generally, I'm willing to try just about any type of food, but I've had a love affair with food for years--too many years!

This morning, I was reading some advertisements within an unofficial visitor's guide, and I started noticing my own reactions to things.

I saw advertisements for many different things, but a couple of the ads caught my attention.  These were restaurant advertisements, of course.

So I started to pay attention to the different advertisements.  I realized that there were more restaurant ads than I noticed "naturally."  I only saw them once I was looking for them, but there were a couple of ads I noticed "without trying."

What was the difference between the ads I noticed and the ads I did not notice?

Internet Marketing Tip: 1 Method to Write for Google SEO and for Human Readers

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You CAN write for Google SEO using keywords and still write for your readers.

How many times have you started read something, only to slap your head in disgust?

Yep!  You fell for the title that matched your search, but that link just read a bunch of junk--just to get to the top?

Most of us know when we see junk, and many of us know that people write things for the Google robot.  Google often encourages this, even though the people that run Google really don't want that to happen.  Their search ranking algorithms encourage this type of behavior.

So we do not want to write a content piece that LOOKS like it was written for SEO purposes only.  We want people to actually READ what we write...and appreciate it, but how can we do this?

Does your brand include this 1 essential thing? (Hint: It doesn't cost a lot, either!)

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Branding CAN be easy!

Most of us realize that branding is so important, because branding is people's perception of us.

Perception may not be reality, but a person's perception is his or her reality, and if we want that person's business, that person's perception very much becomes OUR reality, no matter how accurate.

That's why we care so much about our brand.

Some companies spend a fortune on their branding, and that is not always a bad thing.

Many of us try so hard to make sure people know that WE are the ones who provide the service or product that will be what the paying customer wants.  We want people to think that we're the best.

That's important!

However, there is something worth a TON but costs nothing.

Review: AMA-SWMI Event: Craig Daitch: A Different Way to Use Social Media

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Craig Daitch of Ford Motor Company spoke at the Kalamazoo County Club for an event sponsored by the American Marketing Association-Southwest Michigan (AMA-SWMI) this past Thursday (5/17/12).

This guy is good!

He titled his talk, "A Different Way to Use Social Media," and did he deliver!  There will be more on that later within this post.

Craig Daitch has an impressive marketing background, but he also is known as a start-up junkie.  When you try to get start-ups to be noticed by people who never heard of them, you have to be creative with your marketing.

Craig Daitch of Ford Motor Co. spoke at the AMA-SWMI Event on Thursday, May 17, 2012.

Craig describes himself as each an emerging media consultant, an agency innovation specialist, and a leading digital communication strategist.  After hearing what he had to say, it's really tough to argue with him.

Craig quickly proved that he was NOT just another "me-too" guy reciting the same tired stuff about how to use social media.  (Get Followers, Engage with your social media contacts, use all of the platforms, Your business can't survive if you aren't on Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn/Pinterest/etc.)

If you aren't Deep Linking, you're probably wasting your time SEO Internet Marketing

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When I first started marketing on the Internet, I did not understand some critical things.

One of these critical things I was missing was the concept of deep linking.

I was writing all sorts of articles and blog posts for this company (as a volunteer, thankfully).  I did a good job of getting backlinks to their site.  Truthfully, people were finding them.

However, I had to work a lot harder than necessary to get the results for this business.

I did not understand the importance of deep linking.

What is Deep Linking?

Deep linking is a simple concept, but I see a lot of people fail to apply it.

Marketing Tip: How to Make People Really Like Your Facebook Fan Page

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The Sad Truth about Social Media Marketing and Facebook Fan Pages

Social media marketing can make me a mint, and I don't even have to be very helpful.

Sadly, that's a true statement, but it's not one that would make your mother proud--or at least it shouldn't!

Almost any time I give a talk, I get asked some variation of, "Should I post that on Facebook and Twitter?"

 

 Any time I discuss doing some marketing work with someone, that person is likely to ask some version of, "Do you also do social media?"

Honestly, I don't blame these people.  People who are not internet marketers hear all sorts of things about Facebook and Twitter in the news.  They might even use one or both of these themselves.

That is where many of these business owners fail to make that connection.

Facebook Fan Pages Can be Great! 

Branding Tip: Having Talent is Great but Taking Action is Even Better--Much Better

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Does your brand include your action?

The Important Realization

I recently realized something that has been pretty helpful for me.  It's so simple, yet hardly anybody understands it.

You can be fun, and you can be an individual, or you could be extremely serious and follow the crowd.

It does NOT matter!  You could be the most talented person in the entire world, and large crowds of people might be demanding your type of talent (which you happen to be the best at doing--hands down).

The problem is that you're probably not taking action, and your brand is suffering!

People can't notice what you can do, if you aren't doing anything!

3 Reasons I Like the ReTweet Button on Twitter

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The ReTweet Button on Twitter is really cool, I think!

As many of you know, I am mostly new to social media. I'm "learning as I go," and I am sharing things as I am discovering them, even if many other people discovered around the same time that Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue (in 1492).

One of my newest revelations is pretty simple.

I've come to really like the Retweet option (Retweet button) on Twitter.

Three (3) Reasons I Like the ReTweet Button:

Social Media Marketing Productivity Checklist

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Social media marketing is not brand new, but it is nowhere near old.

So we don't really know answers to these types of questions:

• Is social media marketing activity productive?
• If it is productive, is it always productive?
• If it not always productive, when IS it productive, and when is it just playtime?

(Note: Many of us offer answers, but none of us truly has the "answers," yet.)

I saw a couple of posts yesterday, and they inspired me to think about things and write this blog post.

Blog Post #1: People Aren't on Social Media to Connect with Brands
(by Richard Meyer of New Media Marketing)

Blog Post #2: Sales Quotas aren't Hit on the Golf Course
(by Jeremy Miller of Sticky Branding)

Richard Meyer's blog post questioned whether people actually connect to brands on social media.  Jeremy Miller's blog post questioned whether time spent on the golf course really helps secure sales.

They seem to be different topics, but I took them to be the same thing.  The explanation is simple.