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The fifth installment of the XL Marketing Trends is now available and ready to be read and embraced by a person just like you. In a world of non-stop connectivity, word-of-mouth marketing is an incredibly important tool that can help your brand gain awareness quickly. People trust other people (not so much brands) so the more you can get people talking, the more they are willing to try something out. 

Request your free copy of this special report so you can discover:

1. Brands that have successfully developed WOM campaigns (online and offline)
2. Lessons learned from small and large brands with WOM initiatives 
3. How to grow WOM knowledge and start a successful WOM campaign.  

Read Full CBS Money Watch Article

We all make pitches every single day of our lives. From
“Would you like fries with that?” to “Will you marry me?”, proposals permeate
our lives.

If this is so common on a personal level, why isn’t everyone an
expert at pitching new business on a professional level?

Obviously, it’s not that easy. Nothing in new business is
black and white – you have to be flexible and adapt to the needs of each
potential client. Pitching is an art that, once perfected, still doesn’t guarantee
a win every time…but wouldn’t you rather know you couldn’t have done anything
better than wonder what you did wrong?

Here’s a quick look at five naughty and nice behaviors to
keep in mind when you’re on the pitcher’s mound.

Naughty List

1. Pursuing
   EVERY opportunity. Think about new
   business the way you think about marriage – are you compatible? Do you
   have what it takes to make a happy long-term commitment? If
   not, don’t waste the time and resources required for an effective pitch.

2. Telling
   clients they’re wrong. If we want
   clients to treat us as experts in our field, we need to treat them as
   experts in theirs. If they identify a problem, solve it. If they come to
   you not knowing the problem, figure it out and then solve it. Just don’t
   pretend to know more than they do about their day-to-day biz. That’s
   insulting.

3. Talking
   at them instead of to them. This
   isn’t lecture hall. If you bore them, what does that indicate about future
   working relationships? Keeping clients engaged and excited is half the battle.

4. Badmouthing
   the competition. This isn’t a
   mudslinging fight. Don’t even acknowledge the competition – you’re selling
   YOUR expertise and talent. Mentioning anyone else just takes focus away
   from that. Should the client bring up another agency, politely sidestep
   and move on.

5. Presenting
   every ounce of research you have. Presentations
   are your chance to shine. Highlight the research and insights you
   developed, but leave the fine print in the appendix. They’ll thank you.

Nice List

1. Treating
   clients like partners. It’s not
   always possible, but if the opportunity arises to use the client as an
   asset, do it. Absorb their insights, learn their biases and make them feel
   like part of the team.

2. Doing
   your homework. Sometimes clients
   provide you with insights and sometimes they don’t. Either way, take the
   time and make the investment in your own research. Look at the target
   demographic, evaluate competitive sets, test your creative – whatever is
   appropriate to your situation.

3. Presenting
   in an appropriate format. Know your
   audience and where you’ll be presenting. Do you need boards? An electronic
   presentation? Both? Neither? What about leave behinds? Should you bring
   thematic props to engage the client, or keep things more formal? Each
   pitch is different – adjust accordingly.

4. Keeping
   things interesting. We’ve all sat
   through awful presentations. Don’t inflict that on others. Present with
   passion, excitement and a sense of humor, and don’t read from a slide. Use
   visuals with big images and brief headlines to serve as a background for
   what you have to say.

5. Following
   up. After the presentation, send a
   thank-you to the client. This can be as elaborate or simple as you deem
   appropriate, but it’s important. Thank the client again for the
   opportunity and make sure they know you’re available should any questions
   arise. If they know you’re easy to work with, that’s just one more gold
   star by your name.

This is the first article in what will be an ongoing series about WordPress. This article will provide an overview of WordPress and future articles will elaborate further on installation, features, enhancements, using WordPress effectively, and much more.

What is WordPress? WordPress is a powerful content management system (or CMS) and blogging platform that originated as a tool designed specifically for blogs. In the last few years, WordPress has been molded into a combination of its original blog system and a visual website editor. Learn more about it at wordpress.org and wordpress.com

WordPress has many features that make it one of the best content management systems on the market. Some of the features that make WordPress so great include: thousands of plugins (enhancement modules), tens of thousands of free themes (designs), ease of use – both in publishing new content and editing existing content, and automated upgrades to enhance the platform as it continually evolves.

One of the very notable benefits to using WordPress is the speed in which content published in WordPress is indexed by Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Additionally, content implemented through WordPress is generally quite SEO (Search Engine Optimization) friendly. There is little extra markup in the source code that can create roadblocks for search engines. Also, WordPress creates an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed. RSS is a feed that serves the basic content from your site to subscribers, making it easy for them to follow regular updates on multiple websites or blogs. Instead of having to continually visit your site and look for new articles or content, they are notified when changes occur.

Some of the free plugins that are available also connect WordPress to popular social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. When you post content on WordPress, it automatically publishes an excerpt and a link back to your site.

Thanks to these social media plugins and and a few of the others available, optimizing your WordPress site and content for search engines is as easy as ever. In one of my later posts, I’ll further further explain some of these popular plugins.

Below are some common questions and answers relating to WordPress.

Questions?

If you have any questions or would like to share your thoughts or experiences with WordPress, drop us some comments below.

What’s Next?

In my next post, I’ll describe the process of installing WordPress on your own hosting account, I’ll recommend web hosting providers that support WordPress or have very good systems for hosting it, and explain how to upload or install themes and plugins.

About the Author
John Dawson works on various projects for the Loud Few, including anything WordPress, search engine marketing and occasionally fills in as our profesional photographer. You can learn more about him here or follow him on twitter at twitter.com/lonewolfdj.

We’re jumping on the iPad bandwagon – but rather than getting our own we are giving away no less than three iPad’s to our next three team members.

Checkout more on who we are looking for below ….if this description fits your skill set or someone you know get in touch with us. Also feel free to share this on Twitter and Facebook – you never know who might be a closet code monkey out there.

Search Engine Marketing & Social Media Marketing

Loves a challenge, people good rankings in Google for a living and knows how to get the message out on Twitter and Facebook. Click here for a full description.

Front-End Developer

Knows the in’s and out’s of XHTML, CSS and Javascript and has had their way with WordPress a few times. Click here for a full description.

Business Development (Sales!)

Works in the interactive industry and has connections with the people who could use a solid online marketing strategy and a team of people to make it happen. Click here for a full description.

A few more details on our iPad offer:

• You must be a full-time employee for a period of 60 days and start on or after April 1st, 2010.
• You outright own the device, this is not a lease from The Loud Few.
• There are no restrictions on your previous knowledge of The Loud Few, your relationship to the current employees of The Loud Few, or current employment discussions with The Loud Few.

Some of our recent work was picked up by MediaPost's Marketing Daily. We crafted a brand identity for this new flavored rum and developed a strategic plan to create complementary messaging between online and offline platforms. So the activity people see in store drives them to Facebook and their phone, and their Facebook/mobile drives them to the store. It is a seamless campaign that uses each touchpoint/channel to enhance the other. 

Read the Full Article 

Social Media is perhaps one of the most rapidly-evolving and exciting technologies to hit the online space in years. What began as a way for people to stay in touch with each other has evolved into a network of real relationships, meaningful communication, and strategic alliances, all of which present an abundance of opportunities to businesses of all sizes.

However, the ever-evolving landscape of social media and the fact that it creates broad-reaching exposure and vulnerability has resulted in many businesses feeling confused and timid about incorporating social media into their marketing strategy. They often get hung up cycling through a list of objections which can ultimately lead to a wealth of missed opportunities. Because we never like to see businesses miss out on great marketing opportunities, we’re dedicating this issue of our newsletter to overcoming the top 3 social media objections:

Objection 1: We don’t have time for social media

As with any marketing strategy, social media does take time and commitment. However, ask your team this : “Do we have time to talk to existing and prospective customers about our business, services and expertise every day?” There’s a really good chance that you do, and that you already are engaging in this activity daily; you just aren’t doing it through social media yet. Social media can actually streamline your communication strategy, and ultimately save you time.

For example, there is a good chance that your business is already producing interesting content in the form of business whitepapers, videos, presentations, sales info, etc.  With social media, you have the opportunity to share that content with a multitude of prospective customers quickly and efficiently. If you aren’t leveraging the sharing power of social media to distribute your content, you’re already wasting time.

Objection 2: We can’t measure the ROI of social media

Many businesses get hung up when they try to put a dollar value on social media efforts. While many metrics can be tracked to measure the performance of a social media campaign, putting an exact dollar value on social media is tricky. Why? Because it’s difficult to assign a dollar value to a relationship. Think of it this way – If you meet someone at a networking event, trade show, or on the golf course, would you be able to assign a dollar value to that relationship? Most likely you couldn’t, but you would probably agree that the relationship has the potential to accomplish one of two things:

1. It could drive a lot of revenue to your business if the person had a positive experience.
2. It could negatively impact your bottom line if that person went around sharing their negative experience with the world and you didn’t resolve the issue quickly.

So although assigning ROI to social media can be tricky, the bottom line is that your business probably can’t afford to ignore it.

Objection 3: Our products/services aren’t the right fit for social media

This objection comes from many B2B businesses and anyone who generally thinks their product is “too boring” for the online environment. But keep one thing in mind – Your products and services are purchased by people, and it’s people, not technology, that make up social networks. People like to talk about, share experiences, and search for products and services that are relevant to their business and to their lives. This social activity is definitely not limited to B2C and CPG brands.

There is no product that is too boring for people to discuss in the online environment. If you don’t believe us, try searching twitter or the blogosphere for some very boring things – you might be surprised at the conversations that already exist around those topics.
Businesses of all types and sizes can accomplish a slew of marketing objectives through social media, and the benefits of integrating social media into your business’s marketing strategy far outweigh the risks of ignoring it. If you’re interested in discussing the next steps in making social media work for your business, or if you just want to throw some additional objections at us, we’d love to hear from you.

About the Author
Erin Steinbruegge is a Partner at The Loud Few who specializes in interactive marketing strategy. You can learn more about her here or follow her on twitter at twitter.com/steinburglar.

ST. LOUIS, (April 8, 2010) – Sapporo USA, producer of Sapporo, the #1 selling Asian beer in the U.S., has chosen Moosylvania, the digital, branding and promotion agency, from among six finalists to be its lead marketing partner for all strategic and creative initiatives in the U.S.

“Moosylvania came to the table with an understanding of our brand and the strategic thinking to get us where we need to be,” said Sage Ubukata, president, Sapporo USA. “We are sincerely excited to be working with the Moosylvania team and are looking forward to a wonderful future together.”

Moosylvania is charged with all marketing for the brand with the aim of increasing Sapporo’s market share in the U.S. beyond its current core base. To achieve this, Moosylvania plans to develop a new U.S. brand position supported by fully- integrated advertising and promotional campaigns that will launch nationally Q1 2011.

“We could not be happier to be working on such a special brand that has a genuinely distinct and fertile heritage, perfect for where the market is today,” said Gus Hattrich, president, Moosylvania.

“We are very excited to begin working with Sapporo USA,” said Nick Foppe, EVP of Account Service, Moosylvania. “It’s a great win and we are definitely looking forward to growing the brand in the U.S.”

About Sapporo USA
Sapporo USA (www.sapporousa.com) produces Sapporo, the #1 selling Asian beer in the U.S. It is part of Sapporo Holdings Limited, a Japanese holding company with an enterprise value of C$4.3 billion. The company manufactures alcohol products including Sapporo Draft Beer, Yebisu Beer and Draft One. The company distributes Yellow Tail and Beringer in Japan.