M & A Rainmaker

I am always searching for ways to describe how new media marketing works to the business people that I talk to.

My latest thought was that you could describe it’s implementation as a sort of whirlpool effect where your potential customers are out on the calm sea and you want to catch thier attention at  the outer influence of the whirlpool and then draw them gently in and then steadily down towards you - the supplier of products, services or information.

One of the main features of this type of marketing is that it is about ” Pull Marketing ” and not ” Push Marketing “. You are drawing potential clients very gently into the whirlpool and not pushing them in !!

We live in an increasingly self service world: We like to be in charge of who we buy from and deal with and we don’t much like things being pushed at us or people being pushy.

The numbers of people using the Internet to find what they want are increasing all the time. The types of things that they search for are growing all the time.

The old ways of marketing are not necessarily dead but they are suffering from a terminal disease.

Traditional ( Push ) marketing is still happening - advertising, PR, mailshots, telemarketing - it’s all still going on and it’s all still effective to some extent but more and more and every day Internet and Word of Mouth Marketing ( accelerated by the Internet ) are rising to the ascendancy.

I also think that in catching peoples attention at the periphery of the new media whirlpool you think more about people’s problems, needs, desires, objectives and questions and you lead them gently to solutions, fulfillment, destinations and answers. There is tremendous subtlety, patience, intelligence, kindness and humour in this new media whirlpool approach. Generally speaking the ladies are good at it because they often have these traits in spades. It is natural for them to deal with people in that way.

Thinking about the old Features, Advantages, Benefits sales approach you are again thinking about the potential benefits and advantages to people rather than hitting them with almost meaningless features.

You certainly need to have thought through what your core offerings are and who your target markets are. However then, you need to think laterally about what people might be thinking about or searching the Internet for and what might strike a chord with your target market. Definately you need to put yourself in the mind of the person who might be your client.

So, the way that you might attract people at the very edges of your whirlpool might be by posting a video on YouTube. Maybe something funny or shocking or maybe something informative. You might also post thoughts and useful information in  your blog. You might post a Press Release on an Internet Press Release site. ( By the way all the time that you are doing these things you have at the back of your mind the key words and phrases that your target market will be using to find someone like you ). You post things on Social Networks like Facebook and Twitter and again some are funny, some light hearted, some are informative and some are serious. Of course you still try to get into various publications and press ( many of these have online variants now ).  You list on relevant directories. You publish white papers ( as you did before ). You make your products and services clear ( as you did before ). You maintain a clear and consistent brand ( as you did before ).

Floating out at the edges of the whirlpool each of things are having thier own effect in terms of attracting peoples attention and drawing them closer to you. The YouTube video gets it’s own YouTube audience but also signposts the way back to you or your company. The blogs, PR’s, Social Networks etc all do the same.

Each of these things link back to your main website and to your email, phone number, fax number and ultimately to you.

Literally as people come within the sphere of your whirlpool the current gets steadier and stronger. Not in an unpleasant or imposing way but in a friendly and helpful way.

By the time they meet you they know quite a bit about you. They know what you believe, what you stand for and what you believe. They have, to some extent, a relationship with you.  They may even have exchanged Facebook messages with you briefly before they have spoken to you.

Then we consider that when there was only Traditional Sales and Marketing we always did our best to empathise with our potential clients - to make our advertising relevant; to make our telemarketing about creating a relationship; to tailor our mailshots and letters to our target audience; to have our salespeople ask questions and listen.

It always was and is about walking in thier shoes and understanding how they they think and feel and what they are likely to want and need. It is just that now we have this amazing thing called the Internet to communicate with our potential customers in words, pictures and videos.

I just thought that I would have a quick look to see how The Glan was doing for people that searched for Christmas and New Year in Holywell.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=christmas+in+holywell&btnG=Search&meta=&aq=f&oq=

I am pleased to say that thanks to NikkiP and her team we have good representation in this and related searches with the Glan blog featuring well

http://glanyrafoninn.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/christmas-meal-in-holywell-eat-christmas-dinner-at-the-glan/

and also an old Ecademy blog that I did making a reappearance in 2009/10 clothing

http://www.ecademy.com/module.php?mod=list&lid=73858

Nice to see !!

I was up at The Glan Yr Afon Inn last week and the manager, Ian, was telling me that we had some new customers.

They had just moved to the area and had Googled ” Restaurants near Holywell ” to see what was around.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=restaurants+near+holywell&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=lw

I am pleased to say that we come up on the first page for this search a couple of times.Once because of our entry in Google maps and once because my daughter Claire did some SEO work on the Glan website and it comes up top of the natural listings for this term. ( Thanks Claire ).

That’s all you need really isn’t it !!

I was a bit amused by the other restaurants that appeared on the front page : The Springfield Hotel have someone working for them who does a lot of work getting them found on the Internet; McDonalds;Two Indian restaurants;The Little Chef up on the A55; then it goes a bit weird - a chain of restaurants in Ireland ! ; a pub in Somerset; something in London etc etc

I am not complaining - it’s a great position to be in !!

The news that 365iT recently acquired IT Managed Services and Computer Hosting company 7 global gave us the opportunity to experiment with getting listed on Google NOT for the names of the companies eg 365iT, 7 global and 5i, but for the products and services that they offer.

As we have mentioned before the only people that are going to search on 365iT, 7 global and 5i for news about this acquisition are the people that already know about it ( because they have been told about it in some way and just need a bit more information).

Actually what we want is for people that are searching for terms like ” IT Managed Services Provider ” or ” Computer Hosting Services ” to come across the news that eg there is an IT Managed Services company that has just become a sister company to a unified communications company and could therefore provide a managed hosted unified communications solution as a ” one stop shop “.

This is actually what the potential customer wants ( assuming that this is what they were looking for ) and what the supplier companies involved want aswell ( ie they are looking for potential customers who want a combination of IT managed services, computer hosting and unified communications ). So, this is truly a win-win situation. In addition since Google wants to provide it’s searchers with the most relevant information for thier search it is a win for them aswell.

So, the first thing to understand is that we are not seeking to promote the company names involved in the acquisition but what the acquisition does for the potential clients. This leads to a re-prioritising and re-wording of the Press Releases and other communications  and it assumes that we have already worked out what keywords and phrases we want to promote. 

In this case for example 365iT, 7 global and 5i make way for IT Managed Services, Computer Hosting and Unified Communications. THESE are the things that we want to promote into the search.

The original Press Release

http://www.365itechnology.com/images/content/press_releases/365_iT_plc_acquires_7_Global_Group_Ltd.pdf

is therefore modfied to this Press Release

http://www.24-7pressrelease.com/press-release/365-it-plc-acquires-it-managed-services-and-computer-hosting-specialist-7-global-group-ltd-127184.php

http://www.prfire.co.uk/press-release/365-it-acquires-it-managed-services-and-computer-hosting-specialist-7-global-group-4212.html

where one emphasises the names of the companies and the other emphasises what they do. ( This thinking reminds me of the Feature, Advantage, Benefit sales philosophy - a Feature is like the company name, an Advantage is something that the company can do and a Benefit is something the customer needs and the supplier can provide and will lead to a cost saving or improvement in service ).

I chose a paid ( I paid $20 ) Press Release through 24-7 Press Release.com particularly because it is one that I have had a lot of positive experience with and I know that not only does it rank high but also it lasts some time in this ranking. ( Some Press Release sites posts appear briefly and then disappear ).

24-7 PR is also easy to upgrade so that, for example, you improve the SEO and the analytics as you go. I noted that PRFire was one of the websites that got good rankings when we were investigating boiler room brokers in an earlier post.

So it was a calculated assessment that by using the right PR sites with the right wording we would get appropriate rankings and this has indeed proved to be the case ( at the time of writing ) with the search as follows

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&rlz=1R2ADBR_en&q=IT+Managed+services+computer+hosting+&btnG=Search&meta=&aq=f&oq=

 achieving a top of Page 1 listing and another front page listing

and subsets of this search eg

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&rlz=1R2ADBR_en&q=computer+hosting+services&btnG=Search&meta=&aq=f&oq=

also getting onto Page 1.

It should be noted that this is within hours of the Press Release actually being released ( it was released today ).

As soon as it was released we have supported the PR with comments and posts on eg Facebook and Twitter and links from these sites.

It will of course require further work to maintain these Page 1 listings but ” Objective achieved ” for the moment.

Lets look at how the “boiler room stockbroker”  Anderson Munro achieves a veneer of respectability on the Internet to prospective investors .

If we Google Anderson Munro as follows

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&rlz=1R2ADBR_en&q=anderson+munro&btnG=Search&meta=&aq=f&oq=

we can see that the website comes up at the top followed by the use of various press release sites which promote different investment  themes like investing in Verizon, A.T.&T, o2, Intel or car battery manufacturer BYD.

Anderson Munro selects these ” bait ” themes because of thier brand and respectability.

BYD, they will tell you, was invested in by Warren Buffett - which is actually true.

As we know most people only look at the at the first page of Google and mainly at the top few natural listings. So the aim of the person at Anderson Munro who is posting all of these themes on press release sites is to dominate the front page and as many following pages as possible and to get free, natural listings as far as possible.

There are no Adwords posts so this is a possible area for someone else to get on the front page of Google and interrupt Anderson Munro’s  false veneer.

This was pointed out as a possibility in the stumbleforward blog here

http://stumbleforward.com/2009/04/09/readers-story-milton-hayward-scam-ripping-off-people/

So, the Anderson Munro internet promotion approach is to set up a website and then surround or support it with Press Releases via Free Press Release sites. These Press Releases will pick up the various themes promoted by Anderson Munro’s cold callers when they call the database of prospects that they have.

The Anderson Munro press releases can also be further promoted through sites like Digg.

This is a simple but effective Internet promotion technique. Promote the name Anderson Munro and then the theme.

Other companies employing a similar approach include

Westernfield Holdings who are discussed here:

http://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16737

http://www.englishforum.ch/finance-banking-taxation/61492-investing-carbon-credits-cold-calls-westernfield-holdings.html

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090524212659AAhtZaF

http://migger.net/2007/05/31/unicorn-ventures-advarsel/

for example or just Google

 http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&rlz=1R2ADBR_en&q=westernfield+holdings+scam&meta=&aq=0c&oq=westernfield+scam

and also check out

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&rlz=1R2ADBR_en&q=macmillan+frasier+scam&meta=&aq=0&oq=macmillan+frasier

and

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&rlz=1R2ADBR_en&q=milton+hayward+scam&meta=&aq=2&oq=milton+hay

Westernfield Holdings Wind Turbine drivetrain testing

Strange title for a blog eh ????

Well there is a reason and the reason is because I have decided to admit that I fell for one of the oldest tricks in the book the other day and bought stock from a rogue trader - otherwise known as a ” Boiler Room Scam “.

You can get more information on ” Boiler Room Scams ” here

http://www.cityoflondon.police.uk/CityPolice/ECD/Fraud/boilerroom.htm

and if you Google it.

Here’s a couple of useful blogs to look at in relation to Westernfield Holdings and other interesting companies:

http://stumbleforward.com/2009/04/09/readers-story-milton-hayward-scam-ripping-off-people/comment-page-1/#comment-5560

http://migger.net/2007/05/31/unicorn-ventures-advarsel/ ( starts off in Danish but there are lots of comments in English so you will get the drift pretty quick ).

http://www.ouaza.com/wp/2007/08/31/arnaque-boursiere-artemis/ ( starts off in French but lots of English later )

http://www.upvery.com/2265-macmillan-frasier.html

and the FSA has a useful list here:

http://www.fsa.gov.uk/pages/Doing/Regulated/Law/Alerts/overseas.shtml

You can bet that I will be writing more about this but for the moment I am ” keeping my powder dry ” as I have set the dogs onto some of these guys. They are going to find out that they are pretty big, nasty, dogs in the near future :-)

The thing that caught me out here is that they came with a reference from someone that I knew which I guess means that thier information and data originally came from a legitimate broker.

I guess that the other couple of things that caught me out were that it was in area of business that I thought was pretty hot ( electric cars ) and from a part of the world that I regard as high growth ( Far East and China ) and a company that had been invested in by Warren Buffett ( everyone’s investing hero ?? ) and was presented to me by a very educated and competent  ( sounding ) lady.

As I say there will be much more on this but there was something that quite intrigued me in relation to the way that these boiler rooms promoted themselves on the Internet and the way that they used it. They use some of the promotional techniques that we have talked about here.

Lets Google a couple of companies:

Westernfield Holdings - http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=westernfield+holdings&meta=&rlz=1R2ADBR_en&aq=f&oq=

Anderson Munro - http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&rlz=1R2ADBR_en&q=anderson+munro&btnG=Search&meta=&aq=f&oq=

Macmillan Frasier - http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&rlz=1R2ADBR_en&q=macmillan+frasier&meta=&aq=f&oq=

So, firstly someone ( we do have some idea who ) is generating plausable sounding ( ? ) company names and accompanying websites. Then they need to fill the website with appropriate content, promote the website ( get it ranking as high as possible in Google ) and create some semblence of history and credibility around the company.

This is done using free press release websites and these may be further promoted using Digg or some other similar site.

Unfortunately for the people who are creating these companies and websites people are talking ( all around the world and in many different languages - some reading eg French or Danish websites and then commenting in English ) on the Internet and posting what they know. This means that in some cases victims comments are managing to get onto the front page of Google with warnings about them.

Blog and forum websites that contain the warnings are ranking as high if not higher than the companies own website and the various press releases.

Of course there is a timelag but as the victims get quicker at spotting the scams and sharper at posting them with relevant keywords then the timelag is reduced.

People have made the point that the websites are not very old ( They have done a ” whois ” on the websites like this

http://whois.domaintools.com/makeb.net

and found out who constructed them and when ) and also that the Press Releases only start from certain dates and again are not very old.

Also, interestingly, some of them are still being posted about - probably in an effort to drive out the warning posts and replace them with PR’s.

These posts will tell you what the next ” stock theme ” that they are going to be telephone calling about is going to be.

Westernfield Holdings were still posting as recently as November 25th 2009 on the subject of thier alleged investment of $25 Million into a wind turbine drivetrain testing centre. Hence the title of this blog

Of course Wind Turbines are a very topical subject and the drivetrains are an element which is costly and high maintenance so the area itself is somewhat legitimate.

As I said there will be more and I am hoping to get some comment from some of the companies mentioned

• Strategic marketing objectives
• Tactical marketing objectives
• Messages
• Offerings
• Target markets
• How to get to target markets
• How we will support our proposition
• What the competition is doing

This needs doing whether we are thinking about Traditional Marketing, Word of Mouth Marketing or Internet Marketing - all of which we will do in a co-ordinated way.

From this review we will obtain some key messages, straplines, words and phrases.

We will create a website that has:

• Our brand
• Our message(s) - relevant ones
• Our culture
• Our content - relevant

and always - in the back of our mind - will be the fact that we want to be found for certain searches. We integrate these terms into our content and we also ” code ” them in where we can ( in website names, titles,  metatags etc )

 What we are doing is that we are taking care of the relevant content and correct classification aspects referred to earlier. THEN we need to go about increasing traffic and creating links ( ideally from other high ranking websites ).

To achieve this we ” promote ” ourselves.

N.B. Whilst we will concentrate on Internet promotion clearly Traditional marketing and Word of Mouth marketing will lead to an increase in Internet activity alongside a return fom that particular activity e.g. a mailshot may get a return in it’s own right but it will also add to Internet marketing  return .

When we talk about Internet promotion I am thinking that we have already established a website which has everything we have talked about so far in it. It looks great, has the right content, has the right coding and construction.

It will get direct visitors ( because people will see the url somewhere and type this in to the browser ).

It will get visitors via Google and other search engines because when people search for your products and services they are very likely to find you because your website has the right content and coding.

It will get more visitors because you will promote it on and you will create links from what I call referrer sites:

1. Feeder websites. These are small, perhaps niche focussed websites that you establish.
2. Social Networking sites eg Facebook, Twitter, Ecademy, LinkedIn.
3. Photo/Video sites eg Flickr and YouTube
4. Your blogsite.
5. Other people’s web and blogsites.
6. Information sites eg Digg, Stumbleapon,Delicious,Social Median
7. Directory sites.
8. Google Adwords.
9. Press Release websites.
10. Others sites.

Promotion does a number of things:

• People see you on that medium/site eg on YouTube and further promotion may occur there
• They link through to your website ( ie you get more traffic and links )
• It adds to the number of visitors to your website 

To give you an example of how I have used ” referrer sites ” to boost visitors and links to a main website - here is one of the pubs websites

Sometimes the solution just turns up !!

Just recently we have been discussing how to create websites that not only look good and are easy to use but are also search engine optimised.

My past experience of having websites built is that you typically get website designers who are either creative and artistic or programmers. Simplistically the arty types don’t understand coding, databases and SEO and the programming types don’t understand art, aesthetics and ease of use.  In fairness you do get more that have an appreciation of both now.

However, you still get websites designed today without an appreciation of SEO. Some website customers don’t really think that this is an issue but my bet is that most of them will - one day. The days of un-SEO’d websites are long gone in my view.

Website designers often have to deal with customers who don’t understand that they need to do some thinking about what they would want to be ranked for if thier website was to be SEO’d. They also don’t appreciate that some things just take time and steady effort. Many of them also do not know what they want thier websites to look like or criticise designs without being able to say why it is not right for them.

There are a couple of things that modern websites really need that are often not provided.

One of these things is called a statistics monitor - enabling you to see the source of the people that come and visit your website and it’s various pages. One of the reasons for this is that today it is quite common to drive traffic to your website from e.g. a blogsite like this or from social network sites, press release sites. Google Adwords etc etc You need to know which of them is more effective at driving traffic to your website.

The other thing that you really need to be able to do is to be able to update the content on your website quickly and easily, with text and images and even video. Since I have had this blog I have been amazed at how easy it is for me to update it quickly. I am not doing anything clever with it at the moment - not using images and video for example. However I don’t have to get hold of my website designer and explain what I want to do - I just do it with a blog. A good website has to have regularly updated content though so not being able to update it easily is a problem.

So, because I tend to look for a process that will make a business proposition replicatable and scalable I have been thinking about the process for producing an effective website that incorporated things like SEO, statistics and content management.

Amazingly a business contact turned up here today with a system for making the production of websites easier and quicker ( deskilling some elements ) whilst at the same time ensuring that they were SEO’d and that they incorporated things like statistics and content management.

Now, for all I know there are loads of these systems around and more research is required but for now, as I said to my contact, I have a tool which allows me to follow and recommend a much more comprehensive website building process. 

We talked briefly about target market for this and to me it was ideal for businesses that were producing multiple, somewhat tailored but perhaps not exactly the same, websites. The thing was that I could reel off a couple of prospects ( suspects )  for this straight away.

Well I have put the system out for review to a couple of people I know and will get some feedback from them soon. Watch this space !!

Oh, it’s called the Vesuvius Project because I think that when we have the right solution it will explode

Just thinking about marketing strategy for a meeting that I have got next week. I am not sure about you but I like to try and keep things ( relatively ) simple. I have got a simplify and focus attitude to most things. ( Although some of them stubbornly refuse to be simplified )

So, I think that the really key issues are:

What your strategic objective is ?

Typically companies that I get involved with have an exit strategy ( see - selling a business ) so included in  the objectives is the creation of  as much value in the brand, the processes and the customer connections as possible.  We want clear and consistent brands and messages; linked traditional, word of mouth and internet campaigning; creation and maintenance of a good customer and prospect database.

What the tactical objective(s) are ?? 

Perhaps we want to promote certain products and services to certain types of people to generate leads; perhaps we want to improve our Internet Marketing profile as our Traditional and Word of Mouth marketing is working pretty well.

What is our message ??? ( What are we offering ?? , what is it that we want to say to people ?? ) 

Is our proposition clear ?? What do we really do ( best ) ??

Who do we want to get our message to ??

Geographically( What area ?? ) , vertically ( Which sectors ? ) and horizontally ( What size of businesses ? ) I also like to visualise and describe the ideal, perfect customer. Hopefully we will have at least some of those

How are we planning to get our message/proposition to our target markets ?

We have got these three main routes of Internet, Word of Mouth and Traditional. We can also ” push ” our message or we can allow it to be ” pulled ” ( eg we make sure that when people are enquiring about an area that is one of our main offerings they are going to find us )

What will we do to provide proof that we know about these areas and establish our credibility ??

We will talk about people that we have helped with our solutions. Case studies. Testimonials. Referrals.

What are the competition doing ??

Who are they ?? What are they saying ?? What are they doing ??? What are our advantages and strengths ?? 

These are some of the main areas that we need to be thinking about.

Just doing some work for a client on thier Internet and Marketing strategy and thought it was interesting to compare the source code of the websites that come at the top of Google to those that don’t. It’s all in the Titles and Metatags really !!