“Brand is the ‘f’ word of marketing. People swear by it, no one quite understands its significance and everybody would like to think they do it more often than they do”

…€” Mark diSoma, Audacity Group

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ClickZ’s expert on Rich and Streaming Media and Tribal DDB’s SanFran Executive Creative Director, Dorian Sweet, posts a beauty about the clash between online and offline agencies.  Most laypeople don’t even know the battle is heated or what the relevance is to their own marketing strategies.  The most important comment (IMHO) in the post is:

Online advertising will change. And three things will lead the way: measurement, the idea, and the user.

Dorian continues to point out that we’re focusing now on the “idea” component and that the other two will quickly follow. I’m a product of 1960’s and 1970’s traditional advertising so I wasn’t around in the hay-day of early television advertising.  I suspect the process was similar.  The ideas shifted, evolved and changed direction as the industry matured.  So goes the world of online marketing.  Now in its infancy, there are few tactics that can be considered “mature.”  And, although we’re still in the honeymoon phase of development, it won’t be too long before we’re back to the real world …€” and that world will be completely different than the one we left behind just a few short years ago.

In support of this view of change, Dorian points out Nike’s recent decision to ditch Wieden + Kennedy, it’s LONG TIME agency,  for some of its running shoe business because they’re just too traditional and are not embracing this shift to the digital/online world of marketing.  This is a VERY big deal folks.

At the Global Marketing Summit in Myrtle Beach last month, almost every EVP-Marketing that we spoke to had specific inquiries about how we could help them become braver in this new world of online marketing.  Questions about blogging, vlogging, social networking, forums, etc., were the flavor of the day.  Even the presenters were orienting their material to this dynamic.

Sooooo, what does a business owner do with all of this?  The quick answer is “ANYTHING”.  This is the new frontier … boldly go where no man has gone before! (sorry about that … I couldn’t help it.)  Because there are few rules, the opportunities are boundless.  GO NUTS!

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It seems the topic of Intellectual Property, Patent and Trademark issues has heated up in the past year or so. At least it has for us. I often get asked how to find out if a company name, product name or domain name is defensable from a trademark perspective. My knee-jerk response is “I’m not an intellectual property attorney, but….” … then I give them the following advice:

• They need to review this issue with a qualified attorney
• Understand that trademark infringement results in suits to the tune of $150,000 per incident (that usually gets their attention). This is not an issue that should be taken lightly and it would be foolish to proceed with a name that you suspect is infringing on another company’s rights
• Searching on the USPTO.gov website is a great place to start but it is NOT a replacement for a qualified attorney’s “clearance search.” More on that in a bit.
• You’re not reeeeallly “good to go” until the USPTO says so … which might take years.

To quickly find out if you have a potential problem, go to www.uspto.gov and do the following:

1. Click on the “How To Search” navigation button, top right of home page
2. Next page; Click on the “SEARCH trademarks now” link, top of the right column
3. Next page; Click on the “Free Form Search (Advanced Search)” link in the center box
4. Next page; In the Search Term box, type in the company/product name. Use quotation marks if it’s two or more words. Click on “Submit Query”
5. Mix up the words to find other variations. For example if your name is “Power Boat Paradise”, you might want to try “Boat Paradise” or “Paradise Boat”, etc.
6. If you find a “Live” trademark that is substantively similar to what you’re doing, you probably have an issue with how you’d be able to protect it or, more likely, even getting it approved by the USPTO to begin with. It would be better to just move along to the next name.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you don’t find a match with a couple of searches, it doesn’t mean you should skip the step of having an attorney do a clearance search. Having the search performed by a qualified third party will demonstrate to anyone that you’ve effectively done your due diligence and you’re doing your best to not infringe on other people’s marks. Also, the attorney will typically do a more comprehensive job in this search process…. Use the USPTO site to exclude names, not identify useable names.

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Commenting on Google’s approach to their initial biz dev, Seth asks “Was Google Right?” … and then tells us:

… they made counter-intuitive decisions. No ads, for example. No
clutter. No popups, no tricky interpretations of privacy policies.
Instead, every decision was, “If this is going to be the one and only
choice, the best search engine in the world, what should we do?” The
feeling was, if they built that, the money would take care of itself.
And the investors who bought in were in on the game from the start.

Did they get lucky? You bet. Did it seem arrogant? Sure. But my
point is that if they hadn’t made those decisions, they would have
certainly failed.

A la “The Law of Attraction”, is there any other way to think that will lead to wild success? Nope.

In your mind, are you positioning your company to be the best of the best without ANY competition? OR, are you getting mired in your competitor’s latest tactic, or figuring out how you can incrementally improve your product to boost sales a bit? If you plan on succeeding a little bit, that’s exactly what you’ll do. If you plan on succeeding wildly … ditto.

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A quick review of our traffic analytics shows a user of StumleUpon gratiously tagged our blog as worthy of review. As a way of saying “thanks for visiting” we’d like to give you a free special report. Called “Go Nuts in 2007″, we invite you to read about our view of the power and potential of brand strategy. This is a “must read” if you’re a business owner who is struggling with the marketing of your products/services.

To get the free special report, click here! Again, thanks for stumbling and feel free to browse our site!

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Jason with the support system specialists at bigWebApps.com commented on my last post and said:

We have been blogging for about 2 months, so connecting with bloggers with more traffic is one of our primary goals.  To achieve our other goals we have determined that this is necessary.  Where the problem comes up is getting other bloggers to accept a trackback without posting something directly related to what their post was about.  So it’s a battle, as you mentioned, to take someone else’s idea and “extend” it to make it your own.

First, thanks for the comment Jason.

There are two BIG categories of business people that belong in the “MUST BLOG” category;  Local service businesses and niche service businesses.  This is not to say that other businesses won’t benefit from blogging, it’s just that these types of businesses are completely missing out on a huge marketing advantage if they aren’t blogging.  Mostly, the decision to not blog is due to a lack of education or a deep fear.

In these cases, I try to educate the client that the biggest reason for them to blog (other than the insane, cost-effective improvement to their site traffic) is they’ll be come “better” business professionals.  By taking up the challenge of extending someone’s idea …€” as difficult as it may be at first …€” a business person will;

• learn more
• network more
• be more visible
• grow more
• succeed more

What more could you ask for?!  We all wish you and your team the best of luck Jason! … EXTEND!!!

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Lyndon Antcliff, over at Cornwallseo.com, gives us a masterful post about his “tips for publishing a great SEO blog.” With the title “SEO Bitchfest”, I just had find out what he had to say. I wasn’t let down. Lot’s of great (deep) ideas in one post.

He begins by commenting on Michael Gray’s suggestion that some SEO people just need to stop blogging. Their drivel just adds noise rather than useful information. At first I thought to myself that this comment is missing the point that everyone has their own spin … their own ideas … their own contributions. It’s this extension of ideas and how it impacts the long tail of search that has so greatly expanded the world of business thought sharing and the value of organic SEO. After reading more, I realized he didn’t miss the point. He pegged it. There truly ARE tons of blogs that are created only for the sake of content dumping and regurgitation. With these low value blogs, there’s no real added value.

So, how do you avoid this trap? Here’s Lyndon’s list of tips. My comments are in italics. You’ll need to go to his post to read all of his comments.

1. Have a goal. Goals might include; increase traffic 100%, network with 5 new industry professionals this month, target 2 new niches, get invited to speak at 1 new event each month, increase newsletter signups by 50% … the list is endless. Notice how the goals are specific and measurable.
2. Publish unique information. Like the Duke used to say, “It don’t mean a thing if you ain’t got that swing.” Doo wop, do wop, do wop, do wop. Find your voice. Be bold. Be fearless. Stand out from the masses!
3. You are unique. This is the realization that allows you to pull off #2. If you don’t stand for something powerful and special, you’ll find it hard to differentiate.
4. Read less blog more. A slight adjustment to the wording … “Read ‘the appropriate amount’, blog more”. Someone with 25 years’ experience needs to read less than a newb to stay on top of their game. It’s a fine line, but the point being made is DON’T get consumed by reading other people’s sh…stuff, if doing so impacts your ability to blog your own ideas and slows your participation in the blogosphere.
5. Blog your convictions. Like Mr. Miyagi said in The Karate Kid, “Daniel-san, must talk. Man walk on road. Walk left side, safe. Walk right side, safe. Walk down middle, sooner or later, get squished — just like grape.!” Nobody is moved by conservative or vanilla. STAND for something!

Our focus is not just on SEO. We’re about brand and marketing and creative business development. My point in re-posting Lyndon’s content is NOT to regurgitate … it’s to extend, add value and to get this great message out to the rest of the business world. Here’s some more for you to absorb;

1. Consider your knowledge. A question I often ask people who are initially hesitant about blogging is, “If I were to chat with you only about your products/services and your experience, how long could we talk without slowing down or repeating what you have to say?” The answer is invariably “several days”, or “wow”. In that moment, they realize they have thousands of pages of unique experiential content sitting, untapped, in their brain. The best place for that content is not in their grey matter, but on a blog. Posting for 15-30 minutes every couple of days does just that.
2. Don’t be afraid. It doesn’t matter if you’re a professional writer. In short order, you’ll find your voice and style. Jump in, the water’s warm! There’s a belief that a blog without mstakes is too sterile, too contrived, less “real”.
3. Connect with people. A trap new bloggers fall into is posting without connecting. Trackbacks, comments and hyperlinking will expand the value of your blogging efforts by many powers of 10.

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