Phyllis Zimbler Miller's Blog: Phyllis Zimbler Miller Author, page 45

Should You Market to Consumers or Businesses?

Does this question sound as if it had a simple answer? At first glance it may seem to have.

Yet I suggest that the more a company or service professional thinks about this question, the less simple the answer is.

The September 30th Wall Street Journal article "BlackBerry Maker's Issue: Gadgets for Work or Play?" by Phred Dvorak, Suzanne Vranica and Spence E. Ante raises this question for a large company:

As Research In Motion Ltd. executives prepared early this year for the launch of their first tablet, the PlayBook, one big question loomed: Who was the device for?

Some executives, like RIM's technical visionary and co-chief executive Mike Lazaridis, saw the gadget as an extension of the BlackBerry, long favored by corporations and business people. Others were pushing for more focus on ordinary consumers, people eager for games, music and movies, according to executives close to the company.

Why is this such a big deal? Because the advertising and marketing for the rollout of the company's first tablet depended on being clear about who to target the device for.

Yes, I could make a case that there could be effective marketing campaigns that could appeal to both target audiences. Or that concurrent different campaigns could be targeted at different audiences.

Yet the question I'm asking here is for those of us with small businesses or who are service professionals. Because we usually do not have huge advertising/marketing budgets, we need to be clear who we are targeting.

Let me demonstrate why the answer is not always so simple:



Suppose you are a dentist. Easy answer, right? You target consumers.

Hold on.

What if you'd like to become the sole dental practice for a manufacturing plant down the block from your dental office?

In this case you would probably choose to target the execs of the company – in effect marketing to that business – rather than marketing to the individual consumers.

In conclusion, give this supposedly simple question some thought for your own company. Who is your target audience? Consumers or businesses?

P.S. Yael and I have started hosting the audio show "Marketing on the Internet" on the Women's Information Network. Our first show – "Foundation Online Marketing Principles" – is available now.

© 2011 Miller Mosaic LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the co-founder of the marketing consulting company Miller Mosaic, LLC, which offers "done for you" and "do it yourself" social media services including marketing-focused WordPress websites.



Visit Phyllis' "about" profile on Google Plus.

View information on Phyllis' books and ebooks at http://budurl.com/PZMbooks

The "Fashion" in Domain Names

I've written about this topic before, but as I "travel" around the web I continue to see domain names that puzzle me.

Pondering this subject recently, I realized that a "fashion trend" is responsible for some of the domain name confusion.

In the beginning the trend for domain names appears to be the shorter the better. This was particularly important when people had to type your URL into their computer's browser from, for example, someone's business card or remember it from meeting you at a networking event.

The arrival and then popularity of social media sites has changed this domain name landscape.

Nowadays it is much more likely that someone will simply click on your website URL on your social media profiles (or from your URL appearing in search engine results) to check out your site.

This means that the length of the domain name is less important than in the past.



I asked someone recently what her URL stood for, and she seemed surprised that I could not figure out what the initials meant. (Would you know that "sb" stands for small business?)

But, remember, changing your URL to something that is clearer does not mean that you have to get a new website.

You only need to get a new domain name (keeping the old one, too) and have that new domain name redirected to your website.

In fact, you can even use this technique to send people to a specific section of your existing website.

For example, Yael and I both bought the URLs of our names three years ago in order to protect our brands. It is only this week, though, that we redirected the URLs to specific pages of our individual author blogs. (See www.PhyllisZimblerMiller.com and www.YaelKMiller.com )

(You can also use shortened URL services to send people to a specific section of your site. I do this with http://budurl.com/PZMbooks to send people to a display of the covers of my four books.)

In conclusion, just because you know what your URL represents does not mean that this is clear to others. Check out your domain name now in light of having a recognizable URL to put on your social media profiles.

If your domain name is confusing, get an additional URL now that is clearer.

© 2011 Miller Mosaic LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the co-founder of the marketing consulting company Miller Mosaic, LLC, which offers "done for you" and "do it yourself" social media services including marketing-focused WordPress websites.

Visit Phyllis' "about" page on Google Plus.

View information on Phyllis' books and ebooks at http://budurl.com/PZMbooks

Websites: You Get What You Pay For

On a LinkedIn group discussion a book author asked for help because people came to the website she had created but few people seemed interested in her book.

Other people in the group checked out her website and gave her insightful feedback about why her website didn't work particularly well.

I looked at the platform she was using and thought, "You get what you pay for."

The problem with free website-creation tools is that they aren't known for teaching people what makes an effective website.

The list of issues for this particular book author included the problem of the site not looking "professional." Someone pointed out that the unprofessional look of the site reflected badly on the book she wrote even though the book could be a gem.

She commented to the group that she was revising her site. When I read this I wondered if she had first spent time learning as much as possible about effective websites.

What makes achieving effective websites even more complicated is that website fashion changes. Yes, it really does.

Flash introductions were big years ago until people realized how Flash slowed down loading time and prevented the search engines from "reading" the home page.

Websites used to prevent site visitors from "piercing the corporate veil." For example, "about" pages were written in the "royal we" while contact info was info@companyname.com

But in the era of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and now Google+, site visitors expect to know upfront who are the actual people behind a company site – their names, faces, roles, and Twitter usernames if possible.

In addition, it is important to consider how a site will look on a smartphone, as more and more people are accessing the Internet from their smartphones.

And don't forget that silence is golden – no automatic music or video playing when people first arrive on a site.

If you truly want to create an effective website yourself, you need to spend a great deal of your time and effort learning as much as possible before using the free website-creation tools.

If you don't have the time to do this, be warned that the site you build may hurt rather than help your marketing efforts.



Or if you are interested in having a "done for you" marketing-driven WordPress website, check out our WordPress website service now.



© 2011 Miller Mosaic LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the co-founder of the marketing consulting company Miller Mosaic, LLC, which offers "done for you" and "do it yourself" social media services including marketing-focused WordPress websites.

Visit Phyllis' "about" page on Google Plus.

View information on Phyllis' books and ebooks at http://budurl.com/PZMbooks

Websites: You Get What You Pay for …

On a LinkedIn group discussion a book author asked for help because people came to the website she had created but few people seemed interested in her book.

Other people in the group checked out her website and gave her insightful feedback about why her website didn't work particularly well.

I looked at the platform she was using and thought, "You get what you pay for."

The problem with free website-creation tools is that they aren't known for teaching people what makes an effective website.

The list of issues for this particular book author included the problem of the site not looking "professional." Someone pointed out that the unprofessional look of the site reflected badly on the book she wrote even though the book could be a gem.

She commented to the group that she was revising her site. When I read this I wondered if she had first spent time learning as much as possible about effective websites.

What makes achieving effective websites even more complicated is that website fashion changes. Yes, it really does.

Flash introductions were big years ago until people realized how Flash slowed down loading time and prevented the search engines from "reading" the home page.

Websites used to prevent site visitors from "piercing the corporate veil." For example, "about" pages were written in the "royal we" while contact info was info@companyname.com

But in the era of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and now Google+, site visitors expect to know upfront who are the actual people behind a company site – their names, faces, roles, and Twitter usernames if possible.

In addition, it is important to consider how a site will look on a smartphone, as more and more people are accessing the Internet from their smartphones.

And don't forget that silence is golden – no automatic music or video playing when people first arrive on a site.

If you truly want to create an effective website yourself, you need to spend a great deal of your time and effort learning as much as possible before using the free website-creation tools.

If you don't have the time to do this, be warned that the site you build may hurt rather than help your marketing efforts.



Or if you are interested in having a "done for you" marketing-driven WordPress website, check out our WordPress website service now.



© 2011 Miller Mosaic LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the co-founder of the marketing consulting company Miller Mosaic, LLC, which offers "done for you" and "do it yourself" social media services including marketing-focused WordPress websites.

Visit Phyllis' "about" page on Google Plus.

View information on Phyllis' books and ebooks at http://budurl.com/PZMbooks

I Know Social Media Marketing Has Really Arrived When …

On the same day I read in the Sept. 19-25 issue of TV Guide about the fall TV shows each with their Twitter usernames (e.g., @HOUSEonFOX, @NCIS_CBS, @BodyofProofABC, @nbcsvu) and the September California CPA magazine's cover story "Using Social Media to Find Your Firm's New Talent."

TV shows and accountants. Quite a range of business models.

Of course, neither TV shows nor accountants may be using social media effectively. But at least TV shows and accountants have gotten the message that social media should be an arrow in their marketing or advertising or promotional quiver.



Every so often I hit a "follow" limit on Twitter. (I do NOT follow back automatically; every Twitter account I follow I have personally followed.)

When I get notified by Twitter that I can't follow any more people, I go to www.manageflitter.com to see who that I'm following is an inactive Twitter participant – and I unfollow those people so that I can follow more people who interest me.

I just did this so I could follow the four TV shows whose Twitter usernames I listed above. And what surprised me is, given their business models, how many accounts that are inactive should be active!

Often the problem, I suspect, is the lack of understanding how to effectively utilize Twitter for creating business connections.

If this is true of you, read my Business Chopstix post "Do You Understand the Power of Twitter for Businesses?" now.

I realize that people often get frustrated because they don't see immediate results from participating on Twitter (or other social media sites).

Here is the thing:



Social media is NOT an overnight miracle worker. You must be willing to put in time and effort to reap results. And you must be willing to share information and not just try to sell your products or services.

In addition, while other social media sites do not require daily participation in order for you to be effective, Twitter is the one site where daily participation is important. In fact, my business partner Yael K. Miller and I caution clients not to start on Twitter if they aren't willing to commit to daily participation.

But – and this is an important but – Twitter need not take hours a day. Once you have set up an effective Twitter profile and have a strategy for connecting with people who might be interested in what you have to offer, you can easily be an effective Twitter participant with less than 10 minutes 3 times a day (morning, afternoon, evening).

(For help with setting up an effective Twitter profile, get our FREE report.)



If you are an active Twitter participant, you, too, can follow your favorite TV shows or favorite accountants on Twitter. And you can also follow me at @ZimblerMiller and Yael at @MillerMosaicLLC.

© 2011 Miller Mosaic, LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the co-founder of the marketing consulting company Miller Mosaic, LLC, which offers "done for you" and "do it yourself" social media services including marketing-focused WordPress websites.

Visit Phyllis' "about" page on Google Plus.

View information on Phyllis' books and ebooks at http://budurl.com/PZMbooks

Are You Hostage to Your Website?

For those of you who regularly read my blog posts, you know that my company believes in WordPress websites that can be changed by the site owner at a click of a button.

Someone in one of the networking groups to which I belong explained her quandary to the group:

She had developed an extension to her product line that required new photos to show off this extension. But she had already spent so much on a website built for her. How could she justify spending more money to have all these new photos added to her site?

All I could think of was:



If she had a WordPress website now, adding photos of her new product line would be a snap:



Add a new page or pages and upload the photos.

To emphasis the new line even more, she could get a URL specifically for the new products and that URL could be redirected to a page of her existing WordPress website that features these new products.

Voila! The new products would be showcased on her existing website with no additional cost (except the optional new URL) as she could easily add the page or pages and upload the photos herself.



If you don't yet have a WordPress website for your company, check out our WordPress website service now.

© 2011 Miller Mosaic, LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the co-founder of the marketing consulting company Miller Mosaic, LLC, which offers "done for you" and "do it yourself" social media services including marketing-focused WordPress websites.

Visit Phyllis' "about" page on Google Plus.

View information on Phyllis' books and ebooks at http://budurl.com/PZMbooks

Effective Marketing Websites: Silence Is Golden

I have just landed on one too many websites where music begins the moment you land on the site.

THIS IS SO ANNOYING!

Whether people are at work and do not want to announce they are surfing the web or whether people are at their own computers and do not want to be bothered by someone else's choice of "great sounding music," having music play instantly on a website is a good reason for me – and many, many other people – to immediately click away from the site.

Now, if it is a site I really want to visit, I will look to see if I can turn off the offending music. But I just visited a site where I couldn't find that option – so away I went …

And immediately started writing this blog post.

As I have said before, the goal of Miller Mosaic LLC's work with clients is to make it as easy as possible for people to say "yes" to what the clients are offering.

It is difficult to get people to say "yes" if they immediately click away from the annoying music.

This glitch in effective website design is almost as irritating as coming to a site on which you have to wait for the Flash to load.

In today's top-speed world, most people will not wait for a Flash intro to load. People will click away to someone else's much more user-friendly site.

WARNING: If you have a site built on iWeb, you need to know that the iWeb platform will disappear in June of 2012. It's a good idea to start planning now for this occurrence.

And if you are interested in having a marketing-driven WordPress website with all the terrific options that implies, check out our WordPress website service now.

© 2011 Miller Mosaic LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the co-founder of the marketing consulting company Miller Mosaic, LLC, which offers "done for you" and "do it yourself" social media services including marketing-focused WordPress websites.

Visit Phyllis' "about" page on Google Plus.

View information on Phyllis' books and ebooks at http://budurl.com/PZMbooks

For Business Owners (and Book Authors): If You Are Marketing Online

Let's face it – every business these days should be marketing online. This is true even if you only sell products or services offline.

People check things out on the web – they let their fingers do a new kind of walking. (Heck, I check out the online menu before I decide to try a restaurant to which I've never been.)

If you want to encourage people to trust your business, you need an effective online presence. Minimum is a good website; maximum is using social media effectively to connect with target audiences.

And because things are changing so fast online, it is necessary to keep up with major changes in order to take advantage of new opportunities. Yet many business owners and book authors don't do this.

For example, it amazes me to see that, in the book marketing groups in which I participate and in the emails I get from prospective book authors, a large proportion has not made any effort to learn about the current publishing industry as well as online opportunities.

Yes, I admit this is not easy. I started at zero knowledge in 2008 when my novel MRS. LIEUTENANT was named an Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award semifinalist. I dove into learning as much as possible – and 3 ½ years later I still spend part of each day learning new things.

These days I frequently look at websites whose font is too cutesy and/or too small to be read easily. Or websites with all the text in white on a black background (basically unreadable).

This isn't even knowledge that needs to be learned. It is common sense. You want people to be able to easily read what is on your website.

Yes, I know that you can read it. But you are committed to reading it. Other people aren't committed to reading your site when they can quickly click away and read someone else's visitor-friendly site.

Especially if you are a book author, the opportunities for marketing online at the moment are increasing exponentially. Ebooks anyone? And while you probably can't take advantage of all the opportunities, you should be keeping your eye to the web to look for new opportunities that fit your books and your personality.

Here is just one of the new things I learned today:

I saw a reference on a book marketing discussion that it can take up to eight WEEKS to get a self-published book listed on Amazon. But if you use CreateSpace, owned by Amazon, it is much quicker.

And, yes, within three DAYS this week of when I approved my 86-year-old father's comedy short story book "The Love Life of Howard Handsome and Other Short Stories" it became available on Amazon. Now that's fast!

In other words, all self-publishers are not created equal. So it is definitely worth getting input from other authors before making a decision.

When I chose BookSurge (now merged into CreateSpace but at that time a separately owned unit of Amazon) through which to self-publish MRS. LIEUTENANT, I wasn't on social media and didn't know anyone to ask for input. But I figured that a company connected to Amazon was better than a company not connected to Amazon.

(I am NOT saying that CreateSpace is the best self-publishing option. I am saying that it is a good idea to consider your choice from a strategic marketing perspective.)

Thanks to Google and the other search engines, even if you know no one from whom to get advice, you can research and then read articles to help in your online marketing whether for books or for a business.

And keep up your research! The things you learn will benefit you.

© 2011 Miller Mosaic, LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the co-founder of the marketing consulting company Miller Mosaic, LLC, which offers "done for you" and "do it yourself" social media services including marketing-focused WordPress websites.

Visit Phyllis' "about" page on Google Plus.

View information on Phyllis' books and ebooks at http://budurl.com/PZMbooks

People-Friendly Websites Utilize Microcopy

How many times a week are you frustrated because the information requested from an online site isn't clear and you have to re-enter your info a second time – and maybe even a third time?

This week I've set up three ebook author accounts for my father Albert Zimbler for his first self-published comedy short story book "The Love Life of Howard Handsome"

The three sites – Amazon's Kindle, Barnes & Noble's Nook, and Smashwords (multiple ebook formats) – pay royalties to the author, so a Tax ID or a Social Security number is required.

Over 11 years ago when I worked for an LA web design company, we used microcopy to make it clear whether a phone number should be entered as XXX-XXX-XXXX or XXXXXXXXX. And yet here in 2011 website forms still do NOT make this clear.

I entered my father's Social Security number without the hyphens in one information field only to be given an error message. Then I had to go back and type the number with the hyphens.

But on other sites it could have been the reverse: I could have typed the number with the hyphens and gotten an error message.

SIMPLE SOLUTION: Make your websites people friendly by adding microcopy next to the information fields in which confusion can result.

For example, if you ask for a telephone number, have microcopy showing the format in which the number should be entered. (See above example.)

This small courtesy can greatly reduce the frustration people feel on your website.

And yesterday my business partner Yael K. Miller was attempting to download webinar software for an online writing course she will be taking.

When she reached support, she was told to switch from using Firefox or Chrome to Internet Explorer and the software would download easily.

As Yael said, why not use microcopy at the point of download to tell people that in the first place? Instead, people using other browsers are frustrated and have to waste the time of the support staff to be told what could easily be written on the website page.

In today's often frenetic online world, the difference between a website that makes things easy as opposed to a website that makes things difficult can be a major factor in what a potential customer or client thinks of your company.

I challenge all of us to review our website pages to see if we make things clear. And, in fact, Yael and I have already accepted this challenge. We're currently changing the labels we use for purchase links for books and ebooks to make things clearer.

What have you done to make things clearer on your site?

© 2011 Miller Mosaic, LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the co-founder of the marketing consulting company Miller Mosaic, LLC, which offers "done for you" and "do it yourself" social media services including marketing-focused WordPress websites.

Visit Phyllis' "about" page on Google Plus.

View information on Phyllis' books and ebooks at http://budurl.com/PZMbooks

Book Marketing in the Digital Age

Browsing in a West Los Angeles Barnes & Noble store I pondered another reason why eBooks are outselling (or in the process of outselling, depending which statistics you quote) physical books:

I had seen the full-page advertisement in The New Yorker for the paperback edition of Ken Follett's novel "Fall of Giants." So I looked at the book in its physical version.

The paperback was so thick (and heavy!) that it would be uncomfortable to hold to read. Clearly this was a book to read on an ereader or a tablet.

(A friend told me she likes to read in bed at night with an ereader rather than a book because, if she falls asleep while reading, the ereader hitting her face isn't as heavy as a book.)

I looked at the rows and rows and rows of books in the store – and envisioned a day when all of these rows would have disappeared.

Now let me make myself clear: I love physical books as well as eBooks. But I'm just saying.

And switching from a reader's perspective to an author's perspective:

The expanding opportunities online for a book author are amazing!

For example, this Thursday, September 8, at 7:30 pm. Eastern, there's going to be a simultaneous tweetchat on Twitter and a Facebook chat through the group "The Pampered Book Club" about my eBook novel "Lt. Commander Mollie Sanders." View the Facebook invite now and I hope you'll considering joining the chat.

This will be the first time this book club has tried a simultaneous chat, so there are no guarantees. But I love this idea from Latoya Brown because some people are Twitter fans and some are Facebook fans. (In preparation for the live chat, the first chapter of the eBook novel can be read at www.molliesanders.com/book-excerpt )



And Amazon has just introduced in beta an amazing (in my opinion) opportunity for authors to connect directly with their fans:



Amazon's @author feature allows readers to send questions from their Kindle to an author's Twitter account or post a question on the author's Amazon author page. Read more about this innovative opportunity.

And while I am not yet able to participate in the Amazon @author feature, I have joined the Kindle Forum/Kindle Social Network from www.booksummit.com

Meanwhile, Miller Mosaic co-founder Yael K. Miller has researched a cool WordPress plugin — Content Slider by SlideDeck — to display books on a WordPress website. Check out an example of this plugin now.

And a big thanks to Tim Roux, whom I met online, for including my novel "Mrs. Lieutenant" in his compelling article "Being at War" for www.speakwithoutinterruption.com

Plus here are two book marketing guest posts:



September "Ask PZM" at author Joylene Butler's http://cluculzwriter.blogspot.com/

BookBuzzr.com guest post "Book Authors Need Mobile Friendly Websites"



Ours is truly a brave new world for book reading and book promoting!

© 2011 Miller Mosaic LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) and Yael K. Miller (@MillerMosiacLLC on Twitter) are the co-founders of the marketing consulting company www.MillerMosaicLLC.com, which builds mobile friendly WordPress websites and works with clients to effectively use social media marketing.