I love social media marketing success stories about small businesses and startups operating on a tiny budget.  If you’re a small business owner or entrepreneur looking to create awareness, earn interest and actually win paying customers on a budget, blogger Mary Hall’s recent interview with the founder of GoGo Gear is a must-read.

Marketing expert Mary Hall published a valuable, how-she-did-it interview for anyone starting a new company or looking for a marketing tactic that won’t break your budget.

Mary Hall spoke with Arlene Battishill, founder of GoGo Gear, a new company making stylish and protective riding gear for women motorcycle riders.

This interview is a rich case study for small businesses and startups in all industries because it provides insightful detail about the founder Arlene’s thought process.  You can peek into her personal approach as she  shared steps to building her new brand using social media and no budget.

Social Media Was New to Founder
Arlene Battishill acknowledges that she didn’t know a lot about social media.   Importantly, she did deeply understand GoGo Gear’s target customers and her new company’s mission to fill a gap in the market.  This clarity helped considerably.

She knew that her future customers, women motorcycle and scooter riders, did not believe that riding apparel could be both stylish and safe (padded for protection in case of falls).   Why?  Because as a motorcycle rider herself, she couldn’t find any protective riding jackets that were also fashionable.

Arlene kept the skepticism in mind when she began her Twitter account @LAScooterGirls three months before launching the company’s finished website and new riding apparel line.

Arlene used a business approach to Twitter.  She searched for terms that pointed to her potential customers on Twitter (“motorcycle” or “scooter”) and began following them.  She crafted a clear Twitter bio that explained exactly what the company does. In her words, “… we only have only one  click to gain their interest.”

Seth Godin, visionary author of global bestselling books like Purple Cow and Tribes, would say, GoGoGear set out to appeal to only those folks that shared their worldview:  Women motorcycle and scooter enthusiasts who want to wear stylish jackets while riding.

Women motorcycle lovers on Twitter began following @LAScooterGirls because Arlene was a real person sharing her ideas for riding apparel quietly.

• She shared openly and candidly experiences in building the brand new company.
• She was not selling or pushing her new brand.
• Arlene posted on Twitter frequently and enthusiastically.

Twitter Followers Became Referrers

When the new company’s website was launched, three months after the @LAScooterGirls Twitter community began, GoGoGear experienced a wave of support and it’s Twitter followers acted like, well, a community.  They shared the new company’s website with friends, made purchases and then shared their delight with the fashionable riding jackets on Twitter.  In other words—Arlene’s Twitter followers built buzz for the new company by referring others to GoGo Gear.

The Best (Marketing) Money We Never Spent

According to Arlene Battishill after the launch of the clothing and website,  their Twitter followers   “…started sending out RT (Retweets) to their own followers and we continued to pick up more followers. The momentum continues to this day. The “Twitter-verse” has been the most important marketing tool we’ve used and the best money we’ve never spent.”

2 Key Success Factors

Personal Approach. I think the key success factor in this new company launch success story, is the personal approach Arlene Battishill used when posting on Twitter.  She was her authentic self and she was “all in”.    She achieved the personal touch in her Twitter posts  by sharing overseas travel anecdotes as they were happening.

Commitment to Use the Marketing Tool.  The founder Tweeted non-stop for three months before the company website and product line launched.  What did she Tweet (post) about?

She frequently Tweeted about her global travel adventures involved in finding manufacturing partners in Asia.  Arlene’s Twitter followers became invested in the progress of the new apparel line and startup company because they connected with Arlene as a person first.  They followed her progress for three months and became “invested” in the new brand.

Twitter Followers to Sales

For those (few) cynics among you that may be saying, well, Twitter followers are not customers—wrong! @LAScooterGirls followers soon became customers and sent their friends and family too.  When new riding jackets were shipped to a retailer, GoGo Gear Tweeted the details.  Retailers would find a line of loyal @LAScooterGirls fans lined up to buy the new jackets right out of the box!

Follow the new company on Twitter here http://twitter.com/lascootergirls
Their Twitter handle is   @LAScooterGirls
The company’s blog is here

Social media marketing is long on hype and short on from the trenches examples of what works.  Mary Hall has prepared a terrific case study for consumer marketing with the article, read full interview here. Thanks Mary!

Mary Hall blogs at Huffington Post and at the wildly popular blog, The Recessionista here.  You can follow Mary on Twitter here.

As a small business owner you’re wearing a ton of hats—entrepreneur, chief sales person, accountant, product developer, customer service rep, and more.   If you’d like to jump on the social media marketing bandwagon, great!  Social media marketing is really the way business gets done now. It’s time to put on your publisher’s hat.

Before you fire off a bunch of clever Tweets or set up one of the latest Facebook pages, you’ll want to make sure you’ve got a plan to develop lots of original, exceptional how to articles, white papers, online videos and other content.  Content that’s going to set you apart from your competitors.

Do yourself a favor.  Figure out what tasks and functions aren’t paying off.  Evaluate everything you and your team are doing—include marketing and every other function.  If a program or task isn’t producing new prospects and leads, delivering happiness to your customers, or producing revenue—either outsource it or eliminate it. Be brutal.

Free up your time and your team’s time and energy for creating exceptional content that demonstrates your unique competitive advantage..  Social media marketing can’t be phoned in.  She with the best content and the best interaction online wins.

During my time in corporate America, I experienced repeatedly how new programs and initiatives failed because the senior team didn’t (have the guts to) eliminate non-productive, non-revenue producing tasks from their staffs.  Executives simply piled on new programs/tasks and rarely considered what functions could be eliminated.

This is the beauty of a small company, you’re more nimble and you can quickly discard what’s not working and invest your time and energy in a new role:  exceptional content publisher.

What tasks have you seen successfully eliminated in order to find the time for social media marketing?  Or successfully outsourced/delegated? Post your thoughts in the comments section below.

Other posts you might enjoy:

1. Five BtoB Social Media Marketing Tips from IndustrialInterface.com’s Brian Jones

2. Junta42 Content Marketing Blog:  37 Reasons to Blog

If your small business is looking for ways to increase the number of web visitors—as most of us are—here are seven content marketing ideas.  The secret to being found online is a web site updated with an ongoing supply of fresh, relevant content when your prospects are searching for solutions.

Before you can Tweet your way to successful marketing and sales, you’ll want to publish lots of valuable content.   Content that sets you apart from your competitors.

Content Marketing Tactics:

1. Create original, relevant content that attracts your prospects. Invest time in asking your customers and prospects about their information needs. What kinds of answers/how-to’s/tips are they having trouble finding online?   What are their favorite information sites when problem solving?  Do they use online forums?  Blogs?  Trade publication sites? When do they use print sources? More content ideas here.
2. Generate content that stands out. Go way beyond FAQs.  Your competitors publish frequently asked questions. Break the mold.  Be creative.  As Seth Godin suggests: “Go to the edges…Start where the last person left off.”  Look for innovative content formats that are not common in your industry.  Short videos?  Coolest case study of the month? Top 10 questions people forget to ask when buying a solution.
3. Publish fresh content on your web site as often as you can. Searchers and search engines love fresh content.  Don’t wait for a new product release.  A press release doesn’t usually equal fresh content.  Unless it includes a customer success story using your products/services.
4. Monitor your Google Alerts and Yahoo Alerts closely. Track appearances of keywords relevant to your offerings. Check out the web site where your industry content is published.
5. Monitor your competitors’ content to keep up with current topics. Set up Google Alerts for competitor company names, products.  When the Alerts arrive, review the sites where your competitors are getting their content published.  Find the holes in competitor content.  Fill them with better content.  What’s missing?  What info can be presented better?
6. Publish a company blog.  If you don’t already maintain a corporate blog, it’s time to start because blogs are easier to update than (most) web sites.   By posting relevant content a few times a week, you will be more findable by the search engines and prospects.  I posted more about business blogging here.
7. Stay on top of the latest issues/trends talked about online by your prospects/customers. Check in often with the key social networking sites that your prospects use.  If you do not have time to do this—find someone that can.  Stay in front of your market’s info-needs curve by producing timely content about new issues that your prospects are facing.

A recent Forbes survey here of the online searching habits of 354 top executives confirms the need for relevant content.  Some key survey findings from these execs (firms with $1 billion-plus in annual revenues):

• Executives cite a more than 2:1 preference for viewing work-related information online (70%) instead of in print (30%).

• 53% of executives surveyed prefer to gather information online themselves.  Not delegate it.

• Are you selling to execs under the age of 40? These folks search online for information over 20 times each day.

• 86% said they occasionally or frequently click on linked words from Web articles and content

So, as an example, given the specific data provided in this post, how likely are you to click through to review the Forbes CSuite Digital Survey?  Or to read more about it at Forbes.com?

Related posts:

How to: 5 Social Media Marketing Tips from IndustrialInterface.com Co-Founder

The three most common questions that business owners/marketers ask me when the subject of starting a small business blog comes up (right after, jeez do I really need a blog?):

1. “What do I write about on a blog?”
2. “What kind of content should I add to my web site?”
3. “We’ve got product/service descriptions, testimonials, capability brochures, tech specs, white papers, and other marketing collateral.  What other content do we need?”

I’ve posted on this topic before and thought I’d update it.  Good quality content is just another basic business requirement these days.  It’s not a nice-to-have.

Especially for small businesses without large marketing budgets.  Writing compelling, interesting, helpful content and posting it online can help you to be more “findable” when buyers are searching for solutions.

In order to make your web site or blog the go-to Internet site for buyers in your industry looking to solve problems or achieve goals, here are some ideas for creating killer customer content:

Check Out Competitor Sites: If your competitors are blogging or hosting online community sites, check out the topics being discussed.  Write a blog post or article with your fresh approach to solving the problems.  Remember to share your (best) insights when you create content.  You’re goal is to start a conversation with a customer or future customer.

Monitor Social Networking Sites: What are the most popular questions, issues on the social networks used by your customers & prospects?  If your target market is on LinkedIn, the Answers section is a good source of content ideas.  Or Twitter, or  ITToolbox. Or other social media sites your customers use.

Ask Your Customers: Start with your current customers.  What kind of conversations are you and your sales and service folks having with your current customers?

• Talk with a few of your best customers every week.   Find out what’s keeping them awake at night.  (This week/month.)  It’s a fast-changing market/world.  Don’t assume you know what’s on your customers’ current list of priorities today.

• What pages on your web site are the most popular?  Take those subjects and expand them into multiple blog posts.  (Make sure you have visitor stats and analytics added to your web pages.)

• What are the most common questions that come up on your customer or technical support calls?  List each question and provide detailed how-to answers.

• What new strategies are your customers are using to weather the rocky economy?  Expand on those.  Offer your insight for improving operations, doing more with less, cutting costs or whatever your core competency is.  You’re the expert.  Share!

• What’s the most common topic in email messages you send to existing customers? You probably have several useful approaches to solving problems around your products and services.  Those make great blog posts.   (Or web site articles if you’re not ready to launch a blog.)

• What are the problems your customers encounter over and over?  Create blog posts, or a series of articles, to explain the options—and when to use each one.

Ask Your Sales Team: What are the top 10 questions customers ask when making purchases? Paul Gillin, in his most recent book, Secrets of Social Media Marketing, says in that a ‘frequently asked questions’ blog is the safest type of business blog.

• You can get lots of content-mileage out of prospects’ questions.   Be sure to get your sales people’s feedback.  They’re hearing different questions than others in your company. There are probably a few ways to answer each question, depending on the customer situation.  So take different slants and write web site articles or blog posts about each one.

Listen to Prospects: For people not using your products and services yet, list their most common issues. Think of the type of information you offer during your first sales call with a future customer. This can be a treasure trove of customer conversation (blog) topics.

• Also, check in with partners that refer potential buyers to you. Ask them to describe the buying signals that indicate it’s time to refer a customer to your company.

All Work and no Play…Back in 2006 (when blogs were sort of the new, new thing) at a conference I attended in Seattle, Robert Scobel (leading tech blogger) suggested that business bloggers should publish one personal post out of every 17 posts.

Share your passions. What are your favorite causes, charities or fundraising events?  Talk about why you love your favorite non-profit.  Write about your favorite team occasionally on your company blog.

Personal stories about a travel experience during an industry trade show, a family trip or about a local hero.  Content that reveals your personal interests like ScienceLogic’s blog does is valuable because it builds a picture of who your company really is.

Share Your Expertise

How-tos and tips. Share your fave shortcuts for problem solving.  Stuff your customers do not think to ask you about.  Be generous with your expertise.  As you’re writing, ask for other ideas from your readers.  Remember, this is a conversation.

When creating content, remember to share your very best ideas.  Your best practices, advice and secrets for getting things done.   When you publish surefire ways to solve problems, cut costs and achieve goals, it helps you to stand out from the crowd.

What useful content inspirational ideas did I miss?  Add your ideas below in comments.

7-13-09 Update:  Here is link to Guy’s blog where he published all of the links he discussed at this event.

This morning 600 people gathered in La Jolla (San Diego) to hear Guy Kawasaki talk about “Social Media to Market Your Business”.

Photo source: Adjix TwitPic

Guy treated us to a powerful tutorial on how he uses social media (and by social media I mean mostly Twitter) to build his new venture, Alltop.  The lesson was so valuable because he visited each social media site and demonstrated in real-time how he uses the services to search and to market.

A good time was had by all.  Thanks Guy and San Diego Venture Group.

Alltop is an online “magazine rack”.   Alltop compiles the top content sites in 600+ subject areas (food, wine, news, venture capital, football, art…)

Guy generously shared tips, tricks and strategies.  If you’re a small business or a startup working to grow your customer base by improving visibility, attracting attention and visitors to your web site, here are some cool ideas from the busy Tweeter who just published Reality Check: The Irreverent guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competiton.

He started with some of the networking social media sites:

Finding or Checking Out People On Social Media Sites

LinkedIn’s highest and best use is to see who is connected to your personal network of contacts.  A good tool for finding partners and doing background checks on folks you’re thinking about working for, or partnering with.  (Most of the 600 here today use LinkedIn.  Not so much on the Twitter users…)

Jigsaw is useful when you want to directly contact a person but do not have their company email or other contact info.

Spokeo provides human resource folks with background information (the good and the bad) by searching people on 43 different social networks.

Tip from Guy: When approaching someone for first time, anything you learn about heir interests can give you a helpful icebreaker.  Like maybe the person’s Amazon wish list contains books about soccer, wine or vintage cars.  According to Guy, you might tweak the person’s interest for the few minutes you need to begin your pitch.

Marketing Your Company Using Social Media

Unless you’re a well-known brand with a base of fans already on Facebook, Guy doesn’t recommend using the site to market your business.  “You’ll end up talking to yourself and your competitors” he says.

This is where his love of Twitter comes in.  Guy thinks “Twitter is the best thing to happen to marketing since, well, maybe ever…”

Guy’s Strategies + Tools for using Twitter

Build a following

• Follow everyone who follows you.  Out of respect he believes.  (and my note hey, who knows where your next customer, gig or opportunity will come from?)

• Search for people with your interests. Here is Twitter’s advanced search page.

Find interesting links.  Tweet or Share them.

Search Alltop (just as an example) for juicy content related to your business and the interests of your market.

Try Adjix, a free-link sharing service for use on Twitter.  It also shortens URLs, a must for 140-character limit-Twitter but unlike other link-shortening sites, Adjix allows you to schedule re-tweets.  Bonus for Firefox web-browser users is an Adjix button.   http://web.adjix.com/AdjixWhatIsIt.html (Personally I find Firefox’s web browser to be like a rocket compared to Internet Explorer’s more 1960’s VW Beetle.)

Big Companies  Using Twitter Successfully to Market

JetBlue They actually answer customers’ questions.  Check out their twitter page, this is 5-star customer service

Los Angeles street food vendor Kogi BBQ is known for Tweeting where their food truck will stop and at what time.  This small restaurant is said to have hundreds lined up to buy their tasty food at each stop  http://twitter.com/kogibbq

Comcastcares is poster boy for customer service for Comcast with 23,000 Twitter followers.

Next post I’ll cover Guy’s killer Twitter marketing tools.

• Sure business blogs are great, but for me?
• I just put up a new web site. Now I need a blog?
• Who would read it?
• What would I write about?
• I have to write?

When catching up with a friend of mine recently, he mentioned his new online business.  He’s designed a handy, pocket device to help amateur photographers to (actually) use the settings on their SLR cameras.

Of course, this entrepreneur  has a beautifully designed website—he is after all a photographer and amateur photography instructor—so that’s expected.

His new web site (developed to sell his new product invention) is not just beautiful but it outlines the problem experienced by many amateur shutter bugs  and clearly explains how his product solves the problem.

Excellent!

Now the next step is to make his new site more “findable” by online amateur photographers.

He has the opportunity to now build up content and interest, outside his domain. To place his content in a few other online destinations of his target customers–photographers.

Here are my suggestions:

1.     Upload his excellent demonstration video on as many video-sharing sites as possible in addition to YouTube.

2.     Set up a Flickr presence with his photographs

3.     Launch a blog to tell the stories of how amateur photographers can improve the story they are telling with their photos. Topics like:

-       Top 10 questions asked by every amateur photographer
-       Top 7 problems of new photographers when purchasing a SLR camera
-       How to take better pictures
-       How to work with exposure factors
-       How an amateur photographer improved her photos by learning how to set the SLR

Did I miss anything?

Why take all these extra steps, when he already has a great website?  Humm, glad you asked:

Benefits of building content outside of your small business domain  (your website):

-       Make your small business more “findable”. The more places you are outside of your website, the easier it is for buyers to find you when they’re searching for your products, services.
-       You can update your blog easily a few times a week without going through your web programmer.
-       Search engines (still) like ‘froth over’ frequently updated content
-       Blogs make it easy to tell stories about the folks that use your products.  We all love stories.
-       You build trust.  Visitors to your blog, (future buyers) can post questions, you can answer and become a trusted source of information and how to articles.

- Generate leads.

What’s not to love? Small business blogs are for every entrepreneur that wants to establish a relationship with his/her future buyers.  (I will keep you posted on his progress when he begins his blog.)

Put your toe in the (social media) water…you’ll love it.

Or, maybe I’m missing the mark? Is a small business web site enough?  Do you really need a blog if you’re selling to online buyers?  You know the drill.  Leave your comments below and set me straight.

Since I am a marketer/ social media enthusiast—I’ve translated the speakers’ recommendations into marketing ideas.    (Apologies in advance to the experts.)

This is part 1 of my posts from ideas shared at the DMC’s “Orange County Business Growth Forum.”

Steve Mednick, Plenum Revenue Group: Steve Mednick is a professor at the Grief Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at USC and a serial entrepreneur.  He shared his own bootstrapping stories and those of students of the Greif Center program.

One of the graduates of this USC program is Mark Benioff, founder of Salesforce.

•    The start point. When launching a new startup  (or for that matter,  a new product, service or marketing project) just get to the start point.  What is the idea that will get you started?  What is the idea that will get you your first customers?  We’re in business to get customers.

•    On market research.  Don’t worry about needing a budget to do research. The only opinion that counts is the customer’s.  Ask your (potential) customers when in doubt.  Then, give them what they want (as long as you make a profit.)

• Cynthia’s note:  I uncovered one of my small business clients best ideas for generating revenue during a 15-minute call with one of his best raving fan customers.

•    Ask someone for help.  If you’re uncertain about a project, product or service—ask someone!  Use your network. Talk to 250 people. Get help. Find someone who knows about what you’re attempting to achieve.

•    Your ability to execute in the marketplace = $$$.  Execution–finding a way to get something done—is the key.

•    Take the hair-on-fire approach. [To starting a company or a marketing project.)  Just do the next thing, take the next action to get to your (next) goal.  Steve had a great slide for this one.  Actually all of his PowerPoint slides were excellent. Very Zen.  Not crowded, not busy, got his message across, told the story.

•    “Think from your customer backwards.” Saras D. Sarasvathy published research about “thinking from the customer backwards”.  In 2007, Saras was one of the top 18 entrepreneurship professors by Fortune Small Business Magazine.  Steve Mednick says:  “Just start talking to customers.”

•    Get past the ‘great idea’ stage. Get to customers to execute your ideas.

•    Network. Network. Network.  Become known in your space.

•    Give to get. Make connections.  Brand your company as the go-to-person for your products, services.

Thanks to Steve Mednick for a great presentation.  Here is the link to his complete article, Bootstrapping Your Business – Get Real – Get Started

Next post I’ll cover more pearls of wisdom from the Digital Media Center’s  “Orange County Business Growth Forum.”

Any hair-on-fire ideas that worked for you that you’d like to share?  Add them below in comments.

I think you should always have your business blog separate from your company web site.  Why? More chances for buyers to find you.

Let’s take a page from Starbuck’s.  They often setup both a kiosk outside of a mall and a Starbuck’s store inside the mall.

Two chances for latte lovers to find them!  More traffic (er, people passing by).  More revenue opportunities.

Give Your Business Blog its Own Identity

And you want your own URL for your business blog.  Something conversational.  A bit fun.  A bit less formal than your company site URL, domain.

So your company web site and your small business blog should have separate URLs.

Boring: www.abc-plumbing.com/blog

The ABC Plumbing Company blog name could be something more creative like:
A bit more memorable: www.alphabetplumber.com

Also, for your small business blog, you want the best blogging software out there.  After all, you spend your hard-earned time posting. Resist using a blog program that’s tacked-on or built-in to a web site template.  Even on a tight marketing budget.

Use the best business blogging software, programs that are developed and maintained just for blogs, like WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, and lots more. The blogging software is also the most search engine friendly.   Great for making it easier to be found on Technorati.  (Technorati is for blogs what Google is for web sites.)

Think of your business blog as your kiosk or coffee cart to lead buyers, prospects and customers to your company web site.  That makes for a bit of guerilla marketing—everything pointing back to everything else.

I love it when companies do the right thing; you know something for their customers! JetBlue Airways offers an excellent example today for small companies.

JetBlue’s now offering to give full ticket refunds to passengers who booked and paid for flights and then lost their jobs. Now this is a timely, sensitive promotion, given the crummy worldwide economic situation.

What I love is—the reason JetBlue is making the offer. Not because their customers asked. (Though it’s never a bad thing to offer a customer-requested promo.)

No. JetBlue created the promotion, according to the Wall St. Journal, “…because the airline has noticed that passengers are waiting to the last minute to buy tickets, a sign of nervousness about their finances.”

They listened to their customers’ behavior. Talk about having meaningful customer conversations.  And being ‘tuned into’ your customer community. Love it!

Yes, there is some fine print, limited time frame. Only for folks that loose a full time job. But, hey. I think it’s a great gesture!

How can you listen (harder) to what’s going on with your customers?

Before Web 2.0 made the world of marketing (sort of) easier, small business could pick up marketing ideas from the big guys. Now we have social networking sites, blogs and online communities.

Humm—the tables have turned. Wall St. Journal today has article about how Microsoft is actually taking a page from small companies with its new advertising campaign.  (The economy must be worse than we thought.)

According to the article the ad campaign is “…using actual Microsoft customers to give the products more personality.”  Customers like Coca-Cola, Nestle and Method (beautiful/useful hand soap +). The coolest person they’re using is CEO of Quicksliver, outdoor clothing and equipment maker.

The execs are talking about how technology (Microsoft) has helped their business.  (Duh, small business knows that recruiting your raving fans is the best way to tell the story about your products/services.  It’s how you find like-minded prospects.)

All sneering aside, the way Microsoft is capturing the testimonials is smart.  “…their improvised lines were recorded by telephone, both to save money on production of the ads and to underscore the message that communications technology can be cheaper than travel.”

Small Business Leads-to-Sales Boost Alert:

Here is your homework if you need a way to jump start your customer conversations, leads and sales:

1.    Pull out your list of your raving fan customers.
2.    Call them and find out who’s willing to tell a great story about how your products help them:  Save money.  Speed up processes. Eliminate tasks. Insert what you do best [here].
3.    Record them on a good old-fashioned telephone answering machine.
4.    Post them on your blog, web site.

While you’re on the phone with your fans, ask them what else you can do to help them to get through this “economic tsunami”.

Let Your Customers Know You’re There
Or stop by and deliver coffee and bagels.  Early in the am.  Show them how much you care about them.  We’re all in this together.

Here is the link to complete WSJ article, “Microsoft Stresses Savings” (subscription required).

Other ideas?  Any good recommended providers to get audio, telephone recorded testimonials quickly up on a company’s web site.  Easily? For non-techies?