Red Frog, Inc.

(from "How to Profit in a Down Economy" by Josh Barinstein, Copyright 2004)

[Josh Barinstein]
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for your comments. Let me go into becoming an industry expert. I'll spend a little bit of time on this. This is the next to last point that I'll be covering today.

Being an industry expert is very powerful marketing. I want us to talk about this and see what sort of feedback I can get from you a bit later on. But, it puts you in a position, when you're an expert, to be the obvious choice for your audience. When it comes time for them to make a decision to buy, you have by then hopefully, hopefully they know you well and you know them well, you've engaged in building the relationship over time. You've educated them, which is a key thing. So when the time comes to purchase, you are more than likely the logical choice for them to go with.

A side benefit of becoming an expert is that if you've educated your audience when they hire you to do business, they are prepared, they understand what you do very well. That is a great thing because you're going to save money not having to explain how things work at that point! They're going to be less frustrated because they understand what to expect. And there is nothing that, and I think we will all agree, like being on the same page in the relationship. So, when you become an expert, you more than likely get hired in the end, and you have what promises to be a great relationship.

So, how do you do that? How do you become and industry expert? I mentioned case studies before, articles, writing abstracts. You want to be writing about you expertise. You want to be getting this published, either on the Web, or in different publications. Many times in the mix of things you do, you can do a customer success story. And they can feature a testimonial. Testimonials are… if you're not getting them you should, you can ask for them. If people are happy, they'll be glad to tell you what it is that made them so happy. It's a very powerful way of talking about yourself by letting others do it! It's not a "me, me, me" type of action. But others are glad to say things that are essentially speaking about you without you having to do it. A good testimonial will create trust with your audience, so I believe they are indispensable. That is a good way to get the word out as to how you are an expert.

Writing bylined expert articles, if you're not doing it, where you highlight your company's expertise in the article, is another great way to establish yourself out there. There are many places on the Web, so that if you want to distribute this on the Web, you can submit it to the Editors. Put a byline saying, "copyright, such and such, and your contact info." Whether you allow the free publication... in most cases we've written articles, and they state that as long as you keep the byline you can distribute them anywhere. And those things can become viral. I've heard of stories from someone in Marketing, whom I know pretty well, showed up on the Staples website! They have a Marketing area and you go and you search for something, I think, relating to sales leads, referrals. And her article showed up there! So, just by having that, if it gets around and it lands in the right hands, you can get a lot of exposure in a sort of viral way.

[Participant]
Are you saying the word viral like virus?

[Josh Barinstein]
Virus, absolutely. Not in a negative… you know, virus on your machine, but viral marketing. If you haven't read… oh, what's the name of that book that was written and spread through the Web as a viral piece? I think it's… it might be called "Viral Marketing," but it's a PDF you can download of the entire book. It talks about the effect of, for example ICQ, how that became viral. And other mechanisms and how they spread and how the whole viral effect works. There are some interesting things written about how you can help push that along and draw a lot of attention to you through this viral mechanism. And that’s what that's about.

[Participant]
OK.

[Josh Barinstein]
Newsletters, if you're not doing that yet, they're a great mechanism where you keep your name out and you also are able to spread a lot of good information about what you offer. Not just what you offer, but things about the industry, things that you can educate people about. You don't spend a fortune. Newsletters, especially the emailed ones, are not costly.

One important tactic, and back to response marketing, because we're big believers in that, is that you want to have your audience fill out a quick survey, either online or on a card, or whatever that mechanism might be, before you give them the newsletter. Get the info before you send them the newsletter. You do a sort of a trade. You can follow up later with the newsletter and beyond and you can also, depending on what you have them fill out in terms of needs and so on, you can qualify your prospects. So don't do anything as a one-shot deal, don't just get the newsletter out. That's not a bad thing to do. But make sure you engage with people so you can follow up. Follow-up is very important.

Solid content on your website, I talked about this before, this establishes expertise. Get your case studies, your newsletter… anything you've written that's of value on your website. It's a cheap and fast way to get your information out. Publishing on the Web, as we all know, is just… write an article, you throw it up… done. And then hopefully through search engines and other mechanisms you're getting people to come down and read them. So it's all part of the strategy.

Lastly, I want to talk about speaking engagements and seminars that you do in person. We touched on the Web, Internet events. Having actual speaking engagements, again the sort of tradeshow effect of being face-to-face, you want to be involved in those. They're very effective in how you spread the word in regards to your expertise, to people in a live scenario where they can ask you questions, and they can come over afterwards and engage with you even further.

Putting executives, putting yourself out there as a speaker at prominent events is a great, great way of positioning yourself, you and others as experts. What you do, in that case, to do a follow-up is you require that they fill out a card or give you a business card before they leave. Or not even when they leave but at the beginning of the seminar, so you make sure that if anyone has to leave early you have their information! And you can follow up with a copy of your presentation, you can send them a free white paper, you can find some valuable information you can follow up on. So, that is very important, make sure you capture who's attended your event so that you can follow up later on. Those getting out, face-to-face, which is sometimes difficult to do, you may not be sure where to go, or how to present. But once you get that rolling, once you get the practice under your belt, it's a key thing to have because it will make a huge difference in your business and establish that expertise we talked about.

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Josh Barinstein is President of Red Frog, Inc., the Southern California ad agency that provides worry-free experiences and powerful results in the areas of Marketing, Print design, and Web/CD-ROM development.

Learn more at www.RedFrogInc.com or by calling 888-955-0550.

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