I need to come up with an activity/ event / project …a nationwide campaign for a firm offering housing loans. The last time I did a contest where families were encouraged to submit their ‘dream home ‘ design and winners were rewarded in cash. This time I want something with a twist…and the prize would probably be interest free loan. ( working on it) or maybe furnishing the house for free. Objective if to raise brand /company awareness and increase their customer data base. Help!

The media used would be either press releases or via flyers. Ideally the event should get families involved. Maybe even a contest running through for 3 months? TV is ruled out completely. Radio is an option – it’s not a cheap media but if the campaign is unique – we could push it through.

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Jay’s Answer: Why not a YouTube contest (have entrants create 30sec-1min videos saying why they should win)? Create a video describing the rules, and example or two of types of entries you’re looking for, and an email address for people to submit their videos to (and their contact info)? Have a nationwide voting period to pick the best entry (from among the best you selected).

How can I best attract users to my site (Questionfish.com)?  And then they bring friends.  And how can I let local business know about my low cost sms coupons?

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Jay’s Answer: Right now your website appears to be trying to do everything for everyone: questions, groups, how-tos, local attractions, and even dating. While you can compete with sites like Craigslist, you need to focus on an underserved niche. Think of it this way – why should someone care about your site? So start with a region and the low cost SMS coupons and target people who are likely to see/use them. Perhaps it’s a college crowd. Young professionals. Kids. Once you’ve focused on the region/market, then contact businesses who are likely to have this demographic as their clients. Since you have a chicken-and-egg problem, you’ll need to get businesses to offer coupons for no cost to them (initially). One you have sufficient coupons, then you can start marketing to your target market to get them to visit your website.

What all does “social media” include, and how should we take advantage of it?
“Social media” seems a dauntingly broad term. How would you define it, and what specific parts of it would you advise businesses to take advantage of?

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Jay’s Answer: Social media is distinct from traditional media. Traditional media involves TV, radio, magazines, and newspapers. The cost to produce traditional media is high: experts are required to both produce the content and to disseminate it. Social media involves such things as blogs, forums, wikis, videos, email, etc.

Traditional media is generally perceived as authoritative. The perception arises from two reasons: cost and format. Since it’s expensive to produce, it’s assumed that only experts are commentators and the expertise isn’t easily questioned.

Social media allows anyone to say anything to anyone who’s listening. And that’s the rub with social media – everyone is on equal footing. Google CEO Erick Schmidt once stated that the average blog has one reader – the blogger. Therefore, trying to get your voice heard is like screaming into the digital wind – no one can hear you (unless you’re perceived of as a pundit).

The key to social media success is to go where your target market is already and become a frequent contributor to the conversation. If done well, people will start asking, “Who is this person?” and investigate you. That’s why you want to have your website, LinkedIn profile, etc. all in place – for when people are looking at you. Then, have a plan in place to capture their contact information (or provide a way for them to subscribe to your social media output, such as an RSS feed) so you can leverage your public contributions into a more private conversation (where you’re perceived us as the authority, and not just another contributor).

Any suggestions on a simple one-fee-for-service package setup/host or hand holding template resource?

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Jay’s Answer: Yes, blog software can be configured with add-on tools to perform e-commerce. The simplest way is adding a PayPal button to your website. There are many more complex tools that can allow you to create online catalogues, allow customers to pay and download digital media, etc.

• PayPal supports most countries in the world.
• One of the most complex options is Joomla. Here’s a link to the Joomla extensions for e-commerce.
• A simpler option is using Wordpress. Here’s a link to a WP e-commerce plugin.

We are tech guys that are dramatically realizing that, online or offline, marketing is the key. We have a social network site that has one main purpose – connecting businesses and customers via text message. The site has been dormant for a while due to lack of marketing. A few customers on the site have all been obtained through offline approach; they are not tech savvy — we ended up having to do all work.

I have two questions: (1) how to attract new businesses or customers to jump start the site online BIG time? (2) what are the best ways to monetize a new social network site like this?

We do not have any money – but we have skills and network. We have experience in promoting products offline i.e. direct mail, door-to-door sales, guerilla marketing, telemarketing, retail channels, etc.

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Jay’s Answer: Since you’re basically starting from zero (no businesses nor customers), you need to bring in both – creating a vibrant network. Instead of trying to be all things to all people, why not start the network in your community? Focus on text messaging by local businesses for local people. Make it free for the “beta” test for everyone to use it. Work out the kinks. Get testimonials and develop case studies. Once that’s in place, bootstrap yourself to other niches/communities. Since you don’t have any money, you need to spend time to make it work.

We recently launched a redesigned website. My company (supremeschoolsupply.com) supplies printed forms, lesson plan books, receipt books, and related items to schools.

I am seeing a greatly improved traffic flow and also better SEO than my old site, with lots of new visitors. We are averaging about 10 page views per visitor, and my order conversion rate is much higher than national averages for actual orders placed on the site compared to site visits.

We have very little traffic to the About section of our website relative to the rest of the pages on the website, with only about 1% or less of our site visitors viewing pages in the About Us section.  Any thoughts on the About section or how to improve? I am wondering if I need to restructure those pages, or just minimize them and enjoy my excellent order conversion rates.

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Jay’s Answer: People don’t really care about your company – they care for what your company can do for them. Having an About section is enough for people to know that they can find out more about you, should they want to. But most people are searching out products, and apparently finding them easily.

I found tonight that an existing competitor of ours already has a domain that will be similar to what I was proposing to use, although the main words will be switched around and an “and” will be replaced with an “n”; i.e. XandY.com will be YnX.com.

Do you think I should abandon the domain name altogether and go with something different or can I use it to our advantage someway?

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Jay’s Answer: If you’re thinking of the name as your primary website name, don’t do it. However, consider using the potentially confusing name it as a redirect to your primary site as a guerrilla marketing e-trick.

I am looking to do a video contest for ShirtFall.com and I would like your help and ideas. We started out wanting a song for ShirtFall.com and we will be having a contest to have users come up with the song.

So what we are looking for is ideas of ways to hold a contest that are different. Something that will set ShirtFall.com apart. What we want is a new idea that uses youtube, facebook and maybe even other websites. We want our contest to stand out.

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Jay’s Answer: Make a separate contest category for social connections. Give anyone who wants an affiliate ID/URL. Count unique visits based on affiliate code. The winner is the person who produces the most traffic for you.

We have two pitiful websites for our company that need to revitialise. Starting from scratch is the only option as they are so bad.

Where do i start? What resources can I use to gather what I need? How do I present this to management? How can I cost this out?

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Jay’s Answer: The direction you take depends on the resources you have (money, time, web development, etc.). Management will care about the ROI of the effort. So I suggest starting by accumulating analytics about your traffic today (Google Analytics is one such free service). That’ll help to inform your results (what % of your visitors convert to customers, etc.).

If you plan to regularly update the site yourself, you’d probably want to investigate CMS (Content Management Systems). Basically you hire someone to build the framework of the website (including graphics, color scheme, layout, etc.), and you’re responsible for filling the website’s content. CMS systems (Joomla, etc.) have many add-on modules that can no doubt address your needs. The software itself is free, but there are technical trade offs to using one CMS system over another.

Could you advise what is the best email marketing software?

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Jay’s Answer: There are a lot of choices.

The lowest rung is using a program such as Entourage or Mac OS X Mail to send out your emails. This isn’t ideal, since you’ll be tempted to use Bcc to send out all the emails at once.

The next step up is using a bulk emailer programs such as MaxBulk Mailer or Direct Mail. This allows you to send an email at-a-time to your email list. HTML, Rich Text, or plain text are all supported.

Finally, a contact manager/SaaS solution (MyEmma, Constant Contact, SendStream etc.) for web-based control. The major benefit of these services are templates and in some cases, dedicated IP addresses. Dedicated addresses are most useful to ensure your emails aren’t blocked because of another user using the same IP address.