123 eGuides

123 eGuides. 3 Proven Steps, Just 3 Bucks.

123 eGuides are authoritative guides published exclusively in electronic format to provide maximum value at minimum cost. Every 123 eGuide is just 3 bucks or less ($2.99 to be exact).

123 eGuides are designed for today’s reader who wants information in a quick, convenient, easily readable format. Each 123 eGuide is intended to provide a functional overview rather than a detailed roadmap. Every 123 eGuide always includes additional resources if the reader wants to learn more.

Check the "Available 123 eGuides" link above to see what's available. 123 eGuides are available wherever eBooks are sold, including the Amazon Kindle store and in any eBook format at Smashwords.com.

1 Minute Advice: Brand Relevance in Three Steps

Maintaining the relevance of a brand is a key challenge in today's brand-saturated, media-frenzied environment. Writing for Adweek, Allen Adamson, co-founder of branding firm Metaforce has some good advice about staying relevant, and he boils it down to three steps:

1. Wake up every day assuming you are no longer relevant
2. Be a keen observer of human behavior
3. Be ready to see and seize.

Regarding relevance, Adamson writes: "There is no long-term value in a brand if the product isn’t something people will use or find important to their lives. To achieve success in brand building, the first thing you need to do is identify a problem to solve, come up with a different way to solve it, and then determine if this difference will actually matter to anyone."

See what more Adamson has to say about the three brand relevance steps here: https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/to-keep-your-brand-relevant-follow-these-3-essential-rules/

This post is brought to you by 123eGuides.com. 123 eGuides are a series of authoritative guides about branding, marketing and small business published exclusively in electronic format to provide maximum value at minimum cost.

1 Minute Advice: The Magic Marketing Metrics You Need to Know

As CEO of the small company he co-founded, Sharat Sharan led it through twenty years of growth and success despite a tough economy. One of the compelling reasons for its success, writes Sharan for MarketingProfs, was "when we converted our marketing team from a cost-center to a revenue driver." In doing so, Sharan and his team discovered key marketing metrics that he said "mattered most to the business's bottom line."

What were those magic metrics?

1. Pipeline
2. Attribution
3. Churn and Customer Lifetime Value
4. Overall engagement.

This sounds simple, but each of these four metrics may not be the easiest things to measure. You need to determine the best way to set up your marketing program and projects to accurately measure and emphasize these metrics.

Read more about each of the four in Sharan's insightful article. (Free registration required.)

This post is brought to you by 123eGuides.com. 123 eGuides are a series of authoritative guides about branding, marketing and small business published exclusively in electronic format to provide maximum value at minimum cost.

1 Minute Advice: Sometimes Small Marketers Know Best

Here's an interesting spin on marketing: Everyone assumes the "bug guys" are the most skilled at marketing. Sometimes, however, small company marketers know best. Why? Because they don't have the same budgets and resources as larger companies.

The premise of an intriguing MarketingProfs article suggests that all marketers could learn some techniques from small company marketers. A report cited in the article indicates, for example, that almost all small company marketers take the time to learn at least one new technology each year. They also tend to learn to use more tools than their larger company counterparts.

Small company marketers also have a laser focus: They tend to concentrate their efforts on a smaller number of projects instead of spreading themselves too thin. This focus allows them to avoid distractions, unlike larger companies that seem to want to do everything at once, resulting in not doing any one thing extremely well.

There are other fascinating insights in this article about why small company marketers may actually be more efficient at marketing -- well worth reading. (Free registration required.)

This post is brought to you by 123eGuides.com. 123 eGuides are a series of authoritative guides about branding, marketing and small business published exclusively in electronic format to provide maximum value at minimum cost.

All eGuides Half Price, March 4 - 9

For the week of March 4 through 9 only, 123 eGuides is making every one of our informative eGuides available for half price... just $1.50 each to celebrate "Read an eBook Week."

123 eGuides are a series of authoritative guides published exclusively in electronic format to provide maximum value at minimum cost. 123 eGuides employ the magic of three, based on the simple principle that virtually anything can be accomplished in three proven steps.

123 eGuides are designed for today’s reader who wants information in a quick, convenient, easily readable format. Each 123 eGuide is intended to provide a functional overview rather than a detailed roadmap. Every 123 eGuide always includes additional resources if the reader wants to learn more.

To purchase any of the following eGuides at half price, just click on the title's link below and enter the code EBW50 when you check out. Your eGuide is available in a wide variety of formats, including PDF. This special half-price offer is only available from March 4 through 9 at the links below.

Low Cost/No Cost Marketing 123
B2B Marketing 123
Branding 123 Second Edition
Sales Leads 123
Product Launch 123
On Your Own 123

Take advantage of this sale today. Thanks for your interest!

1 Minute Advice: You Need a Social Media Plan

Most marketers are using social media, but not always in a planned, programmatic way. Writing for MarketingProfs, Sandra Gudat, head of the agency Customer Communications Group, says a social media plan should be integrated with your customer marketing strategy to ensure customer engagement and customer base expansion.

Gudat suggests building a social media plan with five key thoughts in mind:

1. Check your goals
2. Know your social customers
3. Develop your messaging
4. Fill in your social calendar
5. Track metrics.

Gudat says it's also smart to include a customer loyalty program in a social media strategy and to create "shareworthy social media posts." She views social media as a "prime opportunity to engage your customers one-to-one."

Read more from Gudat's article here (free registration required): https://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2019/40455/get-started-on-your-social-media-plan-because-it-matters-to-your-customer-marketing

This post is brought to you by 123eGuides.com. 123 eGuides are a series of authoritative guides about branding, marketing and small business published exclusively in electronic format to provide maximum value at minimum cost.

1 Minute Advice: Brands with the Most Buzz

Brand rankings are based on a variety of factors, but one of the more interesting rankings is based on "buzz."

The nearly 2000 brands in the YouGov BrandIndex were ranked using the Buzz score which asks respondents, “If you've heard anything about the brand in the last two weeks, through advertising, news or word of mouth, was it positive or negative?” Scores are net scores, calculated by subtracting the percentage of negative responses from the percentage of positive responses for each brand.

The "Buzz Ranking" shows the brands with the highest average Buzz scores between January and December 2018. The "Buzz Improvers" ranks the brands with the highest increase in Buzz comparing scores in years 2017 and 2018, to be included the year over year variance must be positive. Both scores are representative of the general population.

All brands must be tracked for at least 6 months to be included in the rankings, and must have been tracked for at least 6 months in the prior year’s period (as well as being currently tracked) to appear in the movers tables.

For 2018, these were the top ten brands in the Buzz Ranking:

1. Netflix
2. Amazon
3. Amazon Prime
4. Samsung
5. YouTube
6. Dawn
7. Toyota
8. M&Ms
9. Home Depot
10. Chick-fil-A

These were the top ten brands considered Buzz Improvers:

1. United
2. Ring doorbell
3. Samsung
4. American Airlines
5. Chick-fil-A
6. Uber
7. Pepsi
8. Hulu
9. Goldman Sachs
10. Target

For more information about the YouGov BrandIndex go here: http://www.brandindex.com/ranking/us/2018-buzz/top-buzz-improver-rankings

This post is brought to you by 123eGuides.com. 123 eGuides are a series of authoritative guides about branding, marketing and small business published exclusively in electronic format to provide maximum value at minimum cost.

1 Minute Advice: Brand Growth Stems from Positive Associations

Fighting for brand attention and, even more importantly, the growth of a brand is always a major challenge for brand marketers. Two marketing experts believe that brand growth doesn't necessarily come from traditional brand marketing tactics, such as Internet or point-of-purchase advertising. "Rather, it takes place in the subconscious mind of prospective customers. And their purchasing decisions are much more malleable and easily influenced than many brand leaders realize," write marketing psychology professor Michael Platt and brand growth strategist Leslie Zane in an opinion piece on Knowledge@Wharton.

They continue, "Brands that dominate and are growing in their categories are bursting with a myriad of positive associations." Based on the Human Connectome, which is a complete map of the neural connections in a brain, Platt and Zane have come up with something they call the "Brand Connectome." They suggest that "every brand has its own mini-network of associations composed of every memory a customer has of the brand. These accumulated memories, both positive and negative, form what we call the Brand Connectome.  Think of the brand as a tree planting its roots in customers’ subconscious. As the brand grows, it adds more associations and more branches to hold them. And as the branches take root in our memories, the tree spans more of the brain’s terrain."

Platt and Zane believe "The more similar and positive a Brand Connectome is among customers, the more likely they are to recall it — a key component of brand equity and major driver of purchases. In fact, a robust Brand Connectome filled with positive memories is actually the source of what is often referred to as the “emotional connection” to a brand."

Pretty heady stuff... and certainly worth considering.

This post is brought to you by 123eGuides.com. 123 eGuides are a series of authoritative guides about branding, marketing and small business published exclusively in electronic format to provide maximum value at minimum cost.

1 Minute Advice: Do You Make These Email Marketing Mistakes?

Common mistakes in marketing are... all too common. They can be campaign killers, especially if they are made unwittingly. One of the more obvious places mistakes can be made is email marketing. Email  continues to be very effective as a marketing medium, but it must be used properly.

Writing for MarketingProfs, Erika Taylor Montgomery identifies thirteen specific email marketing mistakes that you should avoid. Among them are:

• Not making use of personalization
• Not taking the time to segment your email list
• Not taking full advantage of automated emails
• Failing to review analytics
• Overlooking mobile email users
• Ineffective email subject lines
• Overdoing it on sales language.

For more about the above seven email marketing mistakes, as well as learning about the other six mistakes, read Erika's informative article (free sign-up required): https://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2018/40171/13-common-email-marketing-mistakes-to-avoid?

This post is brought to you by 123eGuides.com. 123 eGuides are a series of authoritative guides about branding, marketing and small business published exclusively in electronic format to provide maximum value at minimum cost.

1 Minute Advice: Video Marketing Growing in Importance

A report entitled "The State of Video Marketing" indicates that 83 percent of marketers say video content is becoming "more important," according to coverage by Marketing Charts. The use of video across many marketing formats is growing as well: Now 85 percent of marketers use video on their websites, 84 percent use video on social media, 55 percent use video in email, and 55 percent use video in webinars.

The majority (59 percent) of responding marketers believe that video converts sales leads better than other forms of content. The majority (55 percent) of marketers increased their video marketing budget in 2018.

The report was based on a survey of 271 marketing executives, 50 percent of whom work in B2B companies, and 21 percent of whom work in a mixture of B2B and B2C companies.

This post is brought to you by 123eGuides.com. 123 eGuides are a series of authoritative guides about branding, marketing and small business published exclusively in electronic format to provide maximum value at minimum cost.

1 Minute Advice: Treat Your Customer Like Your Mom

Customer service expert Jeanne Bliss has authored an intriguing book, Would You Do That to Your Mother? The "Make Mom Proud" Standard for How to Treat Your Customers. Bliss shares numerous stories in her book about companies that engage in both excellent and poor customer service.

In an interview for the Knowledge@Wharton newsletter, Bliss discusses three key shifts that are causing companies to be more sensitive to their customers:

1. Organic growth among existing customers is "ten times more profitable" than acquiring new customers
2. Social media is holding companies accountable because customers themselves are talking about the company's values
3. Silos in a company "don't organically unite," so the entire organization needs to focus on "customer math" by asking such questions as, "Did you bring in more customers than you lost?" and "Are you keeping more customers than you're losing?" 

Bliss also makes the following insightful observation: "We're finding that the more high-tech we get, the more humanity we need." Read her full interview here: http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/would-you-do-that-to-your-mother/

 This post is brought to you by 123eGuides.com. 123 eGuides are a series of authoritative guides about branding, marketing and small business published exclusively in electronic format to provide maximum value at minimum cost.