Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with Marketing

What are media licences?

popcassady — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 06:44:49 -0800

I am paying someone to write and distribute a press release. They want money upfront so they can pay for 'media licences'. What are media licences? I hired someone through an online freelancer site -- they had buckets of good feedback -- but having hired them, I now have some reservations. (I wasn't impressed with their copy and they got my name wrong when they emailed me.)

What are media licences and are they necessary?

Are we having a text adventure?

IzzeYum — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 06:43:03 -0800

Part of my job is dealing with the social marketing for our organization. I have noticed lately that many of our text posts are doing better than our visual posts - seemingly against FB best practices and logic. Has something changed? We have a very specific type of post we do once or twice a week. Every time lately we have done this post as text only it has crushed the previous one with an image. We have seen other text only posts also beat posts with image - even when similar.

For example "Restaurant X is great" with image of food, chef or logo is performing worse than "Restaurant X is great" with no image, etc.

Granted the "restaurants" change post to post but this text vs. image thing seems pretty consistent.

I have poked around for changes in the FB formerly edgerank formula and have not seen anything about recent changes that may cause this effect.

Thoughts?

Whats in a name... or title

Anonymous — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 20:11:30 -0800

I just stared a new job and I have the rare opportunity to give myself a title. I do a lot of things in this new job- basically in marketing spectrum. What should my title be? Anon sense I can't have my contacts thinking i don't know what I am doing here. These are my basic duties-

-Art direction and design for most print advertisements
-I am in charge of the website, including directing the redesign that we are in the middle of (hired out, I am not doing the actual design, but I have been and will be creating content and graphics for the website.)
-maintaing and updating all the information on the website
-Creating content including copy and images for the e-newsletter mass email.
-Event management and direction (parties, trade shows, tie-in concerts and public events)
-managing and collecting more customer information for the contact lists
-maintaining the budget and keeping the most up-to-date pricelists for venders
-maintaining relationships with local businesses and related clubs in the area who would be possible sources to improve our customer base
-manage their social media footprint

I am also expected to come up with strategies to improve relationships with demographics that we are currently not doing as well with as we could be (like a giant population of our city is southeast asian, and our businesses could reasonably appeal to people of all backgrounds- so how do we get people to realize we exist).

So what do I call myself? They have never had anyone do this stuff before, and while I have done all of these things at different jobs separately, I have never done ALL of these things at once.

I have some ideas, but I am hoping the hive mind can come up with something that will look super great on a business card.

Matching two spreadsheets via one matching column

skylar — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 09:39:02 -0800

I have two separate marketing lists on spreadsheets, both of which were originally opt-in, but have been residing on different systems - System A for email marketing and System B for SMS marketing. List A has the users' email addresses, cellphone numbers and names. List B just has the users' cellphone numbers (plus a column called "unsubscribed" for those people who. I want to combine the two spreadsheets to create one spreadsheet while keeping the column called "unsubscribed" so I know which people to keep permanently removed. Can you advise me on how to synchronise these two spreadsheets using the cellphone number as the common data? Thanks!

Advice for how to market myself as a design/media/communications ninja

overeducated_alligator — Sat, 01 Jun 2013 10:15:20 -0800

I've got a very eclectic resume: 5-7 years of experience in several different fields at once, because I have had multiple simultaneous jobs. Now I'm looking for a new gig, and I think I have a lot to offer, but I'm not sure how to market the breadth of my skills. Here's my brag list:

- designed & edited a peer-reviewed academic publication for 6 years
- built web databases and CMS in HTML/CSS/PHP/MySQL for a nonprofit (also for 6 years)
- fact checker/research assistant for a mass-market popular science book
- made and sold my own Photoshop plugins
- done storyboarding and hand-drawn animation for some filmmakers
- made curriculum materials for schools
- I'm about to finish up a Master's Degree in Science Education

I know that to some people, all this might look kind of nutty and unfocused, but I've had a pretty consistent goal throughout. I want to work with all types of information and media (web, print, video, illustration, writing) -- to specialize in being a generalist.

I think I could be an asset to a company that appreciates this goal, but can I sell myself as a "complete package" in a world of specialists? Is there a particular industry or sector where you think I might be a good fit?

Should I try to find some sort of recruiter/headhunter? Or is that only for high-tech?

A million media impressions! Uh... is that a lot?

FishBike — Thu, 23 May 2013 09:28:28 -0800

Help me calibrate my "media impressions" scale. I'm frequently the recipient of internal company memos that describe the success of various marketing campaigns in terms of their number of media impressions. The numbers are typically in the millions or tens of millions. My problem is have no idea what is considered to be large campaign, either in absolute terms or relative to the size of the market being targeted. For folks who work with these numbers every day, where is your dividing line for classifying a campaign as "big"? I know that a precise answer is impossible and am just looking for order-of-magnitude kind of stuff.

Or to put it another way, if my target market contains X people, what fraction (or multiple) of X would I need in media impressions to expect a noticeable impact on sales.

How to download text of Facebook posts and comments from a fan page

trbrts — Mon, 20 May 2013 13:34:30 -0800

Mefites, can you help me come up with a quick and dirty way to download the text of all the comments and posts from a given Facebook Fan page? I'm trying to do a word cloud visualization of our Facebook presence. Thanks.

Ideas to market a guided tour?

aisforal — Wed, 15 May 2013 08:06:03 -0800

I'm helping a friend start up a small guided tour company and am looking for ideas to market it. It's a full day tour by minibus, starting in Edinburgh, Scotland, taking in sections of the Antonine Wall, a Roman wall built around 150AD. The tour guide is a historian and Roman re-enactor, and he'll be doing the tour in full Roman armour.

Things that have been tried so far:
They have a website, Twitter and Facebook page.
They have paid for a leafleting campaign, and flyers are being distributed around Edinburgh (alongside flyers for every other tour and exhibition in Edinburgh).
Press releases have been sent, this has so far resulted in one article in The Scotsman (this brought a lot of visits to the website and resulted in some ticket sales).
The tour guide and a friend have visited a lot of pubs/cafes in central Edinburgh in full costume, leaving flyers.
I have posted the site on Reddit (r/Edinburgh) with some interest but no sales yet.

The plan is to run the tour a couple of times a month (everyone has a day job) over the summer months, but it will need a concerted effort to get people to buy in.

So I am hoping that you can come up with suggestions that we can use to try and sell more tickets. Money is quite tight so the cheaper the better!

I didn't get the job, but I have been sort of offered a better job?

ad4pt — Tue, 07 May 2013 13:00:10 -0800

I didn't get the job, but I have been sort of offered a better job at the same company in the future? Is there anything I can do besides wait? I'm currently an office manager for a small marketing firm. It's a very small company, the owner and I are the only administrative staff, everyone else is a sales manager. I've been sort of applying for jobs here and there that sound appealing since I have the advantage of already having a job and I'm worried about the financial health of my company.

I applied for an executive assistant position for the president of a medium sized, successful, local company. I killed my interviews and it was between another person and me, they went with the other person.

I wrote the customary "thank you for not hiring me" letter and asked if they had any feedback. The president called me and spoke with me for about 40 minutes about how I should not feel bad at all for not getting the job, the other person's personality fit the assistant role better, but he did want to hire me for a marketing position. Yay!!

It was a very flattering phone call, but essentially he said he recognized my creativity and talent and thought my personality would be wonderful for a marketing position. He said he still very much wants me to work for the company and he will "make" a position for me. However, he said their budgeting was done at the beginning of the year and there's no position for me to fill so I might have to wait until then. After further discussion he seemed to think that maybe he could make it happen sooner.

Now, I have very little marketing experience, but I was a digital art major and am very familiar with most creative software. I currently work at marketing firm and produce a great deal of marketing material and come up with marketing ideas. I didn't study it at all, but I am very interested in it and so far I've made significant contributions to my current company.

In short: THIS COULD BE AN AMAZING OPPORTUNITY FOR A FIELD THAT I'M REALLY INTERESTED IN, BUT DIDN'T REALLY INTEND ON GETTING INTO. I am SOOO stoked and feel like this could really be like my "big break" into the marketing field. The company I would work for is really wonderful to their employees and seems to value innovation and out-of-the-box ideas. I REALLY REALLY want to work for them. In this phone conversation the president pretty much told me that they would be happy to pay to do everything I love to do!

My question: How do I make sure this opportunity doesn't slip away?

I didn't send a thank you note for his phone call (this was Friday), because I already sent a thank you note for not getting the job and thanked him many times over the phone and I thought it might be overkill.

When and how is it appropriate to e-mail him to follow-up? Is there anything that I could send him to help further affirm that I would be a great employee?

I think I can clearly articulate specific examples of how I've boosted my current company's social marketing, e-mail campaigns, web visibility, etc. Should I at some point send that in an e-mail? Wait until I get maybe another interview for this potential job?

Help? I have no idea what I'm doing here. I know mostly I should wait, but I just want to make sure that I follow-up on this as appropriately, professionally (but persistently) as possible because I really, REALLY, REALLY want this job.

Any advice is highly appreciated.

Tell me just what a communications campaign is exactly.

pinetree — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 06:03:35 -0800

I've been asked to invent a mock communications campaign for a non-profit organization based around their primary cause. There's just one problem: I've never done that before. Like, I literally don't understand what a communications campaign is in a tangible "this is what you put on paper" way. I'm supposed to identify messages, timeline, key audiences, plus vehicles and strategies to reach the target audiences. Finally, I'm supposed to say how I'd measure the campaign's success. The whole thing is only supposed to be a couple of pages.

Given my work background in communications and marketing, I think I have a decent grasp on the various parts I just listed above, but I still feel really intimidated. I'm worried I would approach this mock campaign in a style that won't adhere to some sort of standard format.

To clarify, I'm not asking for MeFites to tell me ideas for what I should include in the campaign. I have plenty of ideas, but I've never ever been asked to "write" a communications campaign before and I feel like I'm in over my head.

I'm looking just for examples of a communications campaign in this particular format described in the first paragraph. Are there industry websites or blogs out there I should look at? Is there a book I should borrow from the library? I'm honestly stumped about where I'm supposed to turn to get a clear picture of what my finished product is supposed to look like.

I'd greatly appreciate answers from anyone in the Hive Mind who does this sort of thing for a living.

Thanks so much in advance.

Social/Online Marketing for a Therapist

mokin — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 12:55:11 -0800

My mom wants me to help her with her "online presence." How do you do that for a therapist? My mother is a psychologist who specializes in individual, family, and sex therapy. She has Facebook and Twitter accounts that she doesn't do much with, and she has her own website.

She wants to redirect her practice toward working with more people in their twenties/thirties, which is younger than most of her current clients. She thinks an online presence might help with that, and she wants me to basically do social marketing for her.

She showed me the website of this therapist as an example of what she wants to do.

I currently have the passwords to her Facebook and Twitter accounts, but I haven't really done anything with them yet. I suggested to my mom that she ask her clients to write Yelp reviews for her, but she told me that most people have privacy concerns and don't want to write reviews with their name attached.

I'm not getting a lot of direction from my mom about what she wants, and I'm at a loss as to what I can actually do for her. I suspect there's not a lot I can do, but I would like to give it a shot.

What suggestions do you have on how to market a therapist online, keeping in mind most people are shy about revealing they go to therapy? How did you find your therapist?

How to market an independent bookstore to local businesses

trillian — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 08:02:39 -0800

I'm looking for some ways to get the local lunch crowd into our bookstore, which sells used books, CDs, DVDs, videos, and books on tape/CD; a small number of new books; kids' gifts; and other gift items/stationery/cards. Many of our customers don't have much to spend (which works out because our books are priced very low), but nearby is a law firm, a couple of big corporations' local offices, a bank, etc. I don' t know if the employees even know we exist. Any ideas on how to get them in here to pick up a birthday card or used CD or small gift for a friend? We're located in the downtown area of a medium-sized city. There are very few places to shop in the downtown business area.

Please be my career counselor for a moment

Anonymous — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 17:27:13 -0800

After five months of not holding down a steady job, the offers are starting to come in. I need help choosing from three of them -- none of them are exactly what I want, but I see positives in every job. I come from a marketing background in a developing country where the economy is booming. I've been looking for another job in the capital city where I want to build relationships and basically have a life outside of work, since in my last three-plus years of working I have not had one outside of my long-distance relationship, which just ended. I want to make new friends and have time for new experiences, and I want to be open to the possibility of finding love again.

I came from a senior management role in a company handling multiple business units for marketing, but the nature of the company is such that it's still a startup after twenty years and it is a family-owned company so while I *have* been doing a lot, it's not a recognized brand, or, the business unit it's most popular for (very niche retail) is not really highly regarded in the grand scheme of things.

Here are my options:
1. Start over in real estate services as an analyst for a fortune 500 multinational, to be on the fast track as an assistant manager / junior agent in six months and then hopefully manager, eventually. I don't mind starting from the bottom. What I do mind is starting from the bottom in a new industry and in a different field (sales), which I may not be good at. I see this as a plus because I want to be able to start my own business eventually, and I want this sales training to help me overcome inertia. The team I'll be joining seems to have a good working collaborative environment, the fact that it's a multinational makes me want to be part of the company, and yes, the long-term money and commissions in a booming real estate industry is tempting me. My tentative boss seems pleasant and rational.
I'm also worried about how, if ever I decide to leave and go back to marketing, this will look on my resume. I don't want to seem haphazard with my choices. And again, I might end up being terrible at this job, and it might be difficult for me to move on and find a marketing manager position from this. For the longest time, this was my only option as they seemed very positive about my application but for various purposes (busy) held off on giving the offer for three months. They gave me my preemployment requirements and I won't be able to get an actual offer on the table until I give my medical results. I also don't know how to turn them down graciously (in a highly relational culture) after getting this far with multiple follow ups from my end.

2. Go into retail marketing management for a company that's as part of culture as much as McDonald's is in other countries (it's a mall chain and I'll be working in one branch). Here the responsibilities are pretty cut-and-dried, I just follow orders from the top as I handle one branch. I want to work here because I get to learn processes for once after coming from an anything-goes-so-long-as-approved-by-the-boss place, and I feel that I'll have better options after working for such a prominent company. However, I will not have a social life here due to the nature of retail (long hours, events at night, holidays working).
My tentative boss has explained the reality that for the most part, people who enter the company without an SO generally don't ever get married, and there are many broken marriages caused by the workload. I feel like I *need* to have a life outside of work! I come into a new city without any form of social support, I moved here to build a network as well. I want to be able to go to church and volunteer and take lessons. I don't really plan on staying forever, but I'm not getting any younger and if I end up here, I might end up not meeting anyone in an environment that's filled with mostly females.
After having all this difficulty finding a new job though, I feel like I need the brand name of this company just to boost my resume. I also don't know how long I'll be staying, or how long I can stay working like a zombie without ever seeing light of day (I have no qualms with working that much, actually, I've done it in my last company... but at that time I had what I thought was a supportive boyfriend). [One company that I interviewed for (I really wanted to work here!) was concerned that I didn't stay long enough in work to seem like a reliable employee because 1) I'm a millenial, 2) they make major investments in their employees with regard to international travel.] They want me to show up next week and they told me my papers are ready (is this to sign an offer?), and I'm a little gun-shy about asking for time to think about this. I feel pressured to take the offer with the way it's been presented to me (come next week, your papers are ready!), and I don't know how to ask for more time -- this is a company that's known for ruthlessness in business. I'm just one of many applicants. (BTW) I don't expect to stay here long-term at all, I don't even expect to get promoted because I hear politics gets really bad, though my tentative boss seems pleasant enough.

3. No concrete offer yet from this new educational institution where I will be contributing to marketing planning and executing (I will have three staff) as Marketing Manager. I will need to learn Korean here (I see this as a good thing, part of the job). I consider this a third offer already, because the lady who interviewed me told me that they'll call me for requirements (I'm assuming preemployment) or I might go through a final interview with a c-suite officer (perhaps as a final formality).
This will offer the most pay (which might not even be bigger than my previous salary), and while I work six days a week, I feel like the environment is more relaxed and the nature of the industry doesn't seem to eat up the rest of my life . But, there's no formal offer yet, and while I want to follow up, based on my hard-won experience pressuring companies to expedite applications with offers from other companies never really worked to my advantage. While the working environment seems professional enough, I'm worried that just like my old company I'll be working like a dog and not really getting anywhere because of poor management and because educational institutions don't tend to grow horizontally.

What do I want out of my career, long-term? I want to travel internationally for work and from my experience interviewing, IT companies seem to offer this best (I need experience in digital marketing though, which I don't have). So do tourism boards, but those jobs are a white elephant. I also do freelance marketing so I want to continue that while working. After feeling unstable for the longest time in my last job, I want to not have to put all my eggs in one basket (one job).

This was a long one so I really appreciate any feedback I can get from the more-experienced careerists.

Thanks!

Choose the new face of Mount Rushmore (why?)

Gordafarin — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 10:52:34 -0800

Who or what is behind Rushmorevote.com? I've been seeing billboards around Cincinnati, Ohio asking people to vote for a new face to be added to Mount Rushmore. Obviously it's some sort of viral campaign or joke, but I can't find any further information about it. They've got a website, a Facebook page, and a Twitter. When you answer the survey, they then ask several questions about your demographics and how you found it.

Marketing Filter:Why are video product pitches so 2011?What should I do?

limitedpie — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 11:52:11 -0800

Groupon and Dropbox used to have great 2 minute animated videos on their sites explaining how their products worked, the problem they solved, and why you should get it. (On Groupon I am talking about the Groupon Works site where they try to get businesses to sign up.) I went to go look at these today-- I am trying to write a script for a short video explaining a product I am building-- Uggg, these cool videos have been replaced by a sales page with no video. What does it all mean?? I am wondering, do video pitches not work as well as a sales page? What about if the value proposition is complex? Does the dropbox and groupon switch reflect that consumers won't click a video because of lack of time or is it a technology hurdle or is it because they figure by now their markets are saturated and everyone understands what they do?

Here are my big 3 questions:

(1) Is a professiionally produced 2 minute video pitch a great or poor way to sell a product in 2013?
(2a) What are the best video product pitches or product explanations online now? (I love the squarespace demo video, I think it is one of my favorites... but it only has music, I need to see examples with words.)
(2b) Any favorites on kickstarter?
(3) Any tips for an aspiring scriptwirter?
(4) Any websites that are best for this, like 'selling with a 2 minute video for dummies' {when I use to google to find resources I find that most of what I come across is sleazy clickbank garbage that demads I sign up for free webinars. Bleck!}

Details: I am trying to make my video do double duty-- explain the idea on both my landing page and also to show it on kickstarter to help fund my dream project. Does this change anything about how I the structure / create content of my script ?

Oh my, that was a lot! Thanks for any adivce and pointers!

Finding a job in marketing (digital) in CA (SF/Bay Area, San Jose etc)

pakora1 — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 20:13:11 -0800

What are the best resources/avenues/contract agencies to get hooked up with regarding getting a marketing job (digital/online) within the Bay Area (California). Need some pointers on career sites/resources for finding a marketing (digital) job in California in the Bay Area. The person in question has over 6 years experience with most of it in the online/digital arena with fortune 500 companies. Also he is a US citizen so no issues around visa. Curious what are the best places to look for beside the usual (monster/career builder etc.). Open to direct to hire or contract.

Thank you for all responses.

How can I make money from my casual photography?

filthy light thief — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 09:33:33 -0800

I'm a photographer by hobby and by interest, but not for money. I'd like that to change, but just a bit. What are some good ways to sell my photos? I've been taking digital photos for over a decade now, starting with the silver brick that was the Canon PowerShot G1, and most recently getting a Nikon D3100. I have also dinked around with Photoshop for over two decades, though I've only focused on image correction in the last 5 years. In short, I have a LOT of photos.

I'm not looking to become a professional photographer, or make a living selling my photos, but it would be nice to earn a bit of extra money by selling prints. I've thought of printing up a collection of my photos and going around to see if I could get some stuff shown in coffee shops, but I moved this summer, and I don't know if there are that many little places that would show art like that around now. I also checked out local art shows, but there were a number of photographers everywhere I went, with a booth full of mounted images for $25-50 each. I image that they made some money, after paying for printing up all those photos and renting the space, but it seemed like a decent online shop could do better.

But looking online, there are lots of places to sell images. I don't think I really have stock-type images, as they're more of interesting places and views and less of common events/emotions, and stock shops seem to be full to the gills with any sort of image you'd want already. Then there's Etsy for making (and possibly mounting/framing) my own prints, or Smugmug and the like, where you pay some money to host images and have them handle the sales and printing mechanisms. But I'd still be worried about how to get found amongst the mass of what's already out there.

In short: I'm looking for feedback and experiences from more casual photographers with selling your work, either online or off, how much effort it takes to set up shop and what I could do in my spare time to promote my little shop in the immensity that is the internet. Thanks!

Marketing 0.101--targeting a small population

limagringo — Sat, 16 Feb 2013 05:02:28 -0800

Finance guy failing horribly at marketing. I'm trying to figure out the best way to market a service to a small, geographically diverse population and would love your recommendations for: 1. books on targeted marketing in general; 2. ideas on how to reach AP Spanish Juniors and Senior and 3. ways to evaluate whether this is too targeted a population and we need to broaden out. Ok, Mrs. Limgringo (who provides the Lima not the gringo) has successfully tutored several kids of family friends for the AP Spanish exam. We've got a pretty good system for tutoring and a decent track record so we decided to take it online and scale up. We've got a pretty good idea of our product (listening comprehension and verbal expression for college prep), our demographic (upper middle income families with college bound juniors and seniors) and our differentiator (guaranteed performance, native speakers who are trained teachers) but I have zero idea how to link all this stuff up. The target population is about 80k spread out across the US--zero overseas. Marketing efforts so far consist of adwords and local newspaper press releases. Conversion is less of a problem than traffic. Once we get a dialogue with potential customers going, they tend to sign up (around 70% rate).

We're not looking for this to be a major money maker for us so much as an interesting sideline to make some pocket money and help out some good teachers in Latin America, so I'm not really looking to expand into generic high school teaching although we could do so.

Sorry for the details--not sure how many are necessary and thanks for the help.

New job selling laboratory equipment, but have no lab/science experience

AMWKE1984 — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 06:40:32 -0800

I recently accepted a sales position within a company that sells laboratory equipment. (i.e. centrifuges, GC's, HPLC's, Thermal Cyclers, etc) I have no previous lab or science experience, so learning about a myriad of highly technical products/methods is a quite challenging. My main challenge comes from the fact that I need to engage in conversations with scientists, chemists, biologists on a daily basis. With no previous lab experience, I've been having a hard time talking to them on technical level. My biggest fear is asking about their work, and then sounding like an idiot for not knowing what the heck goes into carbon testing or any other lab procedure. (my B.A. is in marketing), so the sales part is not an issue.

Most of the other salespeople here come from lab backgrounds, or have degrees in the sciences. There are a few who are in my age/background who are doing well without the science knowledge.

What I'm looking for is a resource to better understand the flow of a lab. For example, if a lab is doing blood work, how do I know what pieces of lab equipment they are already using, and to maybe help understand the bath that a sample takes. I know I'll never be able to learn what someone has learned in 4-8 years of school/lab work, but I know I have the intangibles and the drive needed to succeed by learning whatever is necessary.

To summarize, what is the best method for me to understand the inner-workings of a lab, in order to at least have an idea of what their equipment needs are. I've found that science types like to talk a lot about the work they do, instead of me just asking if they have any equipment needs.

Thank you so much for the help!

What are the top PR websites to submit my new product?

usermac — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 15:32:32 -0800

I need to market my software and my friends told me about a couple of PR websites but I can't recall them now. My friends have a successful software company here in my city. They shared with me that you need to push press releases and when they get picked up, you get a bump in sales. I'll ask them again soon but I'm looking for your thoughts and recommendations.

I understand that some of the RP website have a yearly fee and that's ok.

Bookkeeping business--can I make a living?

Ex-Wastrel — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 09:18:22 -0800

Accounting degree, experienced bookkeeper working for other folks, already know Quickbooks, etc. A small amount of capital ($5-6k) and a current part-time job that pays just enough to cover my expenses, but it's only going to last another year or so. I could go get another bookkeeping job, but I'm sick of making next to nothing and having next to no control over my work. How can I make myself viable as a business? I had started graduate school in a completely unrelated discipline, but after a few years and some major life upheaval, I'm miserable and leaving school after this semester. My current employer is not up to taking me on full-time, and I don't think they're going to be in business more than another year. But I know that I do this well, and I know that private bookkeeping companies can charge more than I get paid per hour--I know there's also overhead and such, but if I can net to about the same amount with a few more hours per week, plus have a more flexible schedule, I'll be thrilled. It would have been better to be ready to go at the end of the year instead, but, well, I didn't make the decision until recently. I'd like to have at least made my initial capital back by sometime this summer, ideally, but it'd be okay if it weren't for a bit longer than that.

Principally, I'm concerned with how I find clients. I don't have extensive connections in the community and I'm not a big salesman type; I am pleasant in person, though, and reasonably good on the phone. I already own a good laptop, a laser printer, etc, but won't have proper office space to meet clients at home, but I've heard that meeting people at their offices is at least somewhat okay. I assume I'll need to spend part of my money on phone/fax service and a PO box, and I'll need my own QB license, obviously. But I would think that at least half of it could go towards marketing. I know it isn't a lot of money. Where can I find out how to spend it effectively? More broadly, where can I find resources to make this thing a success?

Ideally, in five years I'd like to have an actual office, employees, working relationships with local CPAs, but for right now I just want to be able to make a living for myself where I'm respected for what I do, instead of being bottom-tier clerical staff. I'm fine if much of this requires a lot of legwork--I feel like I've been sitting around on my life far too long as it is.

Emergency SMS notifications to staff

rhapsodie — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 10:27:45 -0800

Can you recommend a service that will let me broadcast SMS notifications to all staff in an emergency? I am assuming it would be an SMS marketing service, but if there are other options I'd love to hear them. The main feature I need is that it is easy and fast to send out a notification in an emergency. I did some searching on SMS marketing reviews, but it's near impossible to find a non-biased article: I just don't trust sites with urls like sms-marketing-reviews.smsmarketingreviews.com/sms-marketing-reviews.html

Help me be less of a marketing noob

astapasta24 — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 19:28:47 -0800

What resources should I be reading to learn more about marketing? I'm less than 6 months at a new job (my first "real" job out of college too) and I've some how become my company's marketing person, except I don't really know anything about marketing. The extent of my knowledge includes just 1 class I took in college at the business school called "Marketing Strategy" and it seems like what I learned there doesn't cover anything remotely near what I really should know. Even though marketing is nowhere near my job description or job title, I still want to do this well!!

For what it's worth, I'll be needing to market a smallish company to a pretty specific population.

What should I know in order to do this most effectively?? If books are recommended, it'd be great if I can get it in Kindle form or at least find it easily in Hong Kong!

Help with a trendy Asian restaurant name?

emeyer5269 — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 15:27:14 -0800

I'd like to get some help for a new trendy, southeast Asian restaurant name. The restaurant will be limited service (fast-casual), similar to a Chipotle. Some names that I like: 1) Papaya 2) Spice 3) Samosa Any help would be greatly appreciated. Let me know if you have questions, and I can try to answer them. Thanks! Eric

Help me become a social media marketing expert

pwnguin — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 19:34:48 -0800

I want to transform my department's social media team into the campus experts on social media. What are the books, workshops, tools, websites and communities I should be looking into? The person who managed this stuff left a year ago, and it's clear that our student team that was hired in the lurch isn't getting enough attention or guidance. What I'd like to do is learn enough to mentor this team, partially to help build my own niche within the dept, and partially to become competent enough to relieve our director of the duty of managing this team.

I know how to use most social media (except maybe Pinterest) on a personal level, but I'd like to figure out the 'srs bsns' side of it. For example, Twitter. We have a few accounts, with a total of around 3500 followers. I'd like to have some guidelines on what / how much to retweet, when to use a hashtag, and what relevant metrics (other than the obvious, followers) to track.

I'd also love to have some software (preferably open source) to queue up stuff and release it over time, to help compensate for variable student schedules. You can tell which days our social media student employee is in, for example, because we get five to ten tweets / posts that day, and none on the others. I think having a buffer will help smooth things out, and let us focus on reaching goals.

I know there's a lot of sketchy advice on SEO and social media, so I'm turning to the metafilter for advice!