When I fist started blogging just about two years ago on www.joshwhitford.com I had no real idea on what I was going to talk about. I love business and I love marketing and eventually that became the theme of the posts I continued to write.

In the beginning I figured I would learn how to rank for keywords and then continue to do so. One of the first keywords I targeted was the term Unconventional Marketing. I thought the term was just what I was looking for as my starting point and target audience.

I eventually ranked for the term after trying for a couple of months and now I continue to hold the first spot in Google roughly two years later. For the record, I got most of my link love by changing the title on my site to the Unconventional Marketing Blog and then people continually linking to my site with that description. Pretty easy huh?

I recall when I showed up #1 for the first time. I wrote a post talking about being #1 for the term and how proud I was. Then a thoughtful commenter showed up and told me how my term sucked because according to all major sites, the term gets little or no traffic to speak of. Way to rain on my parade, right?

So I shuck it off and continued without much thought.

A few months later someone emailed through my site asking for me to develop a marketing plan and help them execute it for them. The deal turned out being a solid 5 figures and low and behold they found me through the term Unconventional Marketing. Crazy.

Not only was that one deal a success, but I have had 3 deals in the 5 figures result from that one search term… So much for no search traffic, huh?

What is the point of all of this rambling? Simple. Just because someone comes and rains on your parade about something you worked hard to get doesn’t mean that you should take what they say as fact or the law.

It also means keywords and search terms that get “little” or “no” traffic to speak of can result in large deals.

So many people get hung up on the numbers, how many people visit, how many page views, how many this, how many that and so on. Really the numbers are deceiving and can be manipulated pretty easily to give people what they want… more numbers. Instead, focus on what will help you reach your goal. Will 5 buyers get you closer to your goal? You bet. Can you find 5 buyers out of 10 visitors? You bet.

Before you think about keywords and how “little” traffic they get according to whatever source, realize that until you actually rank for the term, you’ll never know. I can tell you that people search and click on Unconventional Marketing about 3-4 times a day or 1,200 times a year. But out of those 1,200 visitors I’ve made a fair chunk of change. Get the point?

Try whatever you can and see the results for yourself. What if I had given up on the idea of unconventional marketing because some naysayers analyzed and determined I was wrong? What have you given up on because of others’ opinions? What do you think would be fun to try just for the sake of trying?

What is Unconventional Marketing?

Doing what the majority doesn’t and getting results…

The past year or so has seen it fair share of ups and down with the economy, and with that we see some interesting marketing ideas. I love coffee and occasionally visit the local Starbucks or Dunn Bros. A recent idea someone at Starbucks dreamed up was to reward your receipt with a stamp that will discount your next coffee if you return the same day. If you cant tell I love coffee.

I admire Starbucks for trying, but I don’t see anyone talking about the new marketing scheme. At least they are rewarding the people who visit their stores multiple times a day, which can be up to 3 times before 10 a.m., according to one Starbucks worker.

Within a week, Dunn Bros. Coffee offered me the same deal as Starbucks. Do they really think giving someone a $1 off their next drink will stir up buzz and bring people flocking in? It won’t. The reason is simple. Nobody cares about saving $1 with the condition of having to return within a few hours. And most of us are probably going to be annoyed that we were even told about this lame deal.

If I were in the decision-making process of one of these two companies, I would reward the faithful customers by going over the top. Working the early morning shift at a coffee shop, you would learn quickly who are the talkers and frequent customers. I would then greet those customers with a limited edition card (like the Black Centurion Card). The card would be worth a month’s worth of free regular coffee if they return it at the end of the month. I would maybe make about 20 of these, depending on how much business is done at that particular store.

I would then create a couple more cards (different colors) like that in greater number that would be worth between 25-50% off for the month. Now you have a product that people will talk about. Plus you have just placed that into the hands of the talkers. It won’t take long for that to be passed around and a month is just long enough to get it into the hands of another talker as the first gets less excited.

Then I would run a campaign in the store showing the picture and posters of “Have you seen this card?” Let everyone know who comes to the store they could potentially get one of those cards. Now that is an idea worth sharing. Scarcity and Reward. Scarcity to create a desire and a reward to the talkers and return customers.

@TheRealJosh

I have set out to start a new trend in social media / networking. I want people around me to be able to find me socially online as well as offline by merging the two. On the Internet I have been branding myself as The Real Josh and now I am taking that to the next level by allowing those outside of the Internet to see and know my brand as well. Here are a couple of pictures I took of the vinyl sticker I purchased from a site called Custom-Vinyl-Lettering.net. After all this is the Unconventional Marketing Blog. I have to implement some of my ideas from time to time and test them out. What did you expect?

Twitter Window Decal

As far as I know, I am the first person to post their Twitter handle on their car. I spent about 10 minutes on their custom vinyl page picking the letter type and size I wanted for the back window on my Tahoe. I clicked pay via PayPal and was one step closer to have a custom Twitter Window Decal.

A couple days later I received my box with the Twitter Decal and lengthy set of installation instructions. The whole process took about 45 minutes and some patience while cleaning the back window of my car and determining where best to place @TheRealJosh. I opted for the lower left side of my window so that the back windshield wipers only hit just a little part of the ‘h’ in my name. I figured the less that it was touched the longer it would stay preserved and in place.

All in all I paid about $15 including shipping for the whole Vinyl Twitter Window Decal and about an hour of my time. I have had people tweet they have seen me while out and about town. I’d say my Twitter window decal turned out pretty sharp in the end.

Why Window Decal?

I figured that since I am hitting the social media side of online business along with my branding, the Twitter window decal is a perfect fit. In most states if you do business and use your vehicle you are required by your insurance company to include your business name and contact on the vehicle somewhere. My decal has nothing to do with business but like those business decals on other vehicles, it fits right in.

How many times while you are stopped at a light do you spend that 30 seconds reading what is written on the car in front of you? In Fargo, traffic is not a huge deal and I don’t have to commute miles and hours every time I want to go somewhere, so my Twitter decal is mostly for novelty purposes. Plus, I figured no one is Fargo or North Dakota for that matter probably has a Twitter window decal so I should be the first. Because I am trend setter like that.

If you want to be cool and get your own cheap Twitter window decal and be a trend setter online as well as offline, you know where you can go to do it. Until then, if you see me around town don’t hesitate to Follow Me!

Here are my social Links:

• Twitter.com/TheRealJosh
• Facebook.com/TheRealJosh

Marketing Schwag, ie. giving away free branded material, is by no means a new marketing technique. Still most companies are all but creative in their approach of giving away schwag. In fact, most businesses barely manage to give anything other than pens, shirts and other clothing pieces. While most people will take these items, the large majority will never wear a company shirt more than once. Below is video about some decent marketing schwag from Mobile Paw Spa. (click here to watch video)

The number on thing you can possibly do is give away free branded schwag that people will use or sport daily. I really wanted to get these LED flashlights that were the size of a business card and give them away as my personal business cards. Who would possibly throw something like that away? Now they would have a fully functional miniature flashlight in their wallet or purse. Maybe I will someday.

Let’s say I owned a large sporting goods store and wanted to get more people talking about my business in the long term. I would give away a car GPS to anyone who purchased $x,xxx from the store. But on the schway GPS, I would program popups to mention whenever they were within range of one of the stores across the country.

There are a ton of differnet ways to give away useful and effective marketing schwag for your business or cause. Open up the creativity and let it ride on something worthwhile. It would be better to give away 1,000 whatevers to people who are the talkers vs. 10,000 four-color fliers to random people who don’t care about your products or services.

To learn more about my philosophy on Twitter or for other Twitter Marketing ideas, please visit my Twitter page. If you are interested in programs to help you automate and run your Twitter accounts, visit my Twitter Hummingbird review post. Onto the topic on hand…

Twitter continues to be a very useful and powerful tool for communication. The old euphemism, “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know,” no longer applies online. On the Internet, it is who knows you. Twitter is the tool that allows many people to find you and get to know who you are. Here are a few tips to help your business leverage Twitter.

search.twitter.com

Use search.twitter.com to find out what people are saying about you and/or your brand. Search.twitter is as close as it gets to knowing what people are thinking. People talk about all sorts of things online and on Twitter. With this search feature you can quickly get the pulse on any subject matter. After you find out what people are talking about you can start to engage in conversation with them. Add them as a friend or @reply to them with your thoughts. Twitter is the equivalent to the court of public opinion, so what they are saying is exactly how people feel. If what they are saying is inaccurate, help guide the conversation to some press releases or other info showing the falseness. *Don’t beat them over the head with the truth, simply help to show what is correct.

Use Twitter Direct Message on an individual basis

There are tons of programs and services out there that will allow you to send a messages to all of your followers at once. There are a few drawbacks to this approach most of which come from the impersonal approach of messages. People know when you are talking to them directly or if they are one of a hundred. Unless you are trying to get out an urgent message like 4 hours left of a sale, avoid using Twitter direct messages. Instead, send out a message with that person’s name and that you are there to engage in conversation with them, you are there to answer their questions, you want their business or whatever you are aiming to do but be upfront with them. Don’t switch and bait users with kind works and tons of ads.

Post Twitter updates consistently

If you are there to engage in conversation, do it. Even if you only post one or two things a day on Twitter, do it every day. You will establish a sense of time and commitment to the idea of open conversation and people will know that you are approachable and willing to participate. As your following grows, each of these posts will spark little conversations of their own, increasing the number of people who know you. The hardest part of having a business is keeping all eyes on you, the same is true online. When you stop posting and participating, so does your audience.

Sell on your site, not on Twitter

The best possible way to leverage Twitter for sales and visitors is to engage in conversation with those people. As trust and rapport build between you and others, you can safely direct them to your site or business offering them sales, promotions, discounts and so on. Do not stuff your twitter comments with affiliate links or direct people to spam sites. People will catch on quickly and stop listening to what you have to say. Nothing is wrong with promoting your own sites or services as long as you are being upfront and honest about it.

Update your Twitter background, picture and info

Nothing screams spam and fake more than a Twitter account with a stock Twitter background and thumbnail image. Take the few minutes to design a nice and consistent background and thumbnail to match your brand, this shows that you are taking Twitter seriously and are willing to invest time into it. Most spam accounts on Twitter have generic backgrounds and thumbnails and are much less likely be followed in return.

Have fun and be original

Be yourself. People can tell and they like it. I would rather 50% of people love me and 50% of people hate me, than to have 100% think I am OK. When you’re OK, you’re unremarkable. Don’t feel bad if you can’t follow everyone back and you ruffle a few feathers. It’s the same in real life as it is online. You can’t be everything to everyone.