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Here is a question for you… would you like to enjoy new qualified new business leads joining your data base of prospects every day – people who want to invest in your products and services?

Building my list has been a significant factor in the growth of my business and yet every month I meet hundreds of entrepreneurs and marketing leaders who have not yet started to automate their lead generation. In fact my informal research at all of my live events where I am talking about marketing, digital marketing and social media has shown me that more than 90 percent of businesses are not building and nurturing their database.

A couple of years ago I hosted a very successful list building programme, but since then a number of key things have changed. These changes are so important that I have decided to host a FREE webinar sharing tips about building a qualified list.

What would be the impact to you if you received new qualified leads joining your data base of prospects every day?

If you are looking for ways to ensure you are automating your lead generation, then you will not want to missing this FREE Webinar where we will be covering 4 keys to automate your lead generation.

You can join me on Tuesday 31 August 2010 at 6pm for 60 minutes (1pm ET) – I will be covering:

1.  How to get your list growing now – especially for those of you who have new businesses and don’t yet have a website (hint: I have done this with new businesses before they were even ready to launch their new product or service)

2. The biggest mistake most business leaders make when starting to think about developing their list

3.  Two of the most effective ways I have found to boost the growth of my list (hint: I am not talking about buying a list, and you will be surprised when you learn that one of the ways is offline even though I teach digital marketing and social media marketing)

4.  Essential tools to help you put your list building on auto pilot

5.  Details about my BRAND NEW four-part list building programme that I will be delivering by this September.

So if you want to start or tune up your lead generation and build a qualified list of customers to help you grow your business I do hope you will join me for this FREE webinar.

And make sure that you join me LIVE as i will be making a very special announcement on the webinar that you will not want to miss if lead generation and list building is a priority to you in the last quarter of the year.

With 721 days to go to the 2012 Olympics, did you know that Cadbury is the “official treat” of the 2012 London Olympics and Paralympics through it’s sponsorship?

Well they have just launched a two-year campaign, Spots v. Stripes – it’s an integrated campaign across TV, print, digital and social media encouraging the UK population to side with the Spots or the Stripe team. You can then take part in silly games – both in the virtual and in the real world – then logon to the site and claim your points.

You can find the campaign on Twitter, YouTube and Facebook where there are two Facebook Pages – one for the Stripes supporters and one for the Spots supporters (who currently have more fans!).

Spots v Stripes will be on tour to take games to everyone and help bring them together in the spirit of play. the website comments:

Our games crew of 2000 Spots and Stripes will be out playing games for free, here, there and everywhere. They’ll be getting people to play together in universities and colleges, at summer fệtes, festivals, community centres and with disadvantaged and harder to reach groups of people.

But that’s not all. In August and September we’re making whole cities stop to play with big game events in Glasgow, Leeds, London, Birmingham and Dublin. They’re free too and give everyone a chance to play some crazy games, like custard cricket, and have some good old-fashioned fun!

The dates for the live events for all but Dublin are listed on their Facebook Pages.

Interesting that Cadbury have invested in a 2 year campaign – they were previously a sponsor of the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games – and good to know that chocolate and sports go well together!

Who would you support? Go on pick your team!

And marketing managers take note of Cadbury’s YouTube channel where they have made their video’s available to embed so that people can use them on their websites and blogs – I still see lots of brands reluctant to make available digital assets. Remember that if you make your content available more people will help spread your message through word of mouse!

Today RTE announced it’s new Fall schedule of programmes and one of the casualties was The Afternoon Show (it’s going to be replaced with a lifestyle programme comments The Irish Times).

I was a very infrequent viewer of The Afternoon Show but I do recall when they came back on air after the Summer break in 2009 that they were one of the first shows in Ireland to encourage users to join the on Facebook or Twitter – alongside advising people to text and email the show.

Programmes, be that TV ones or marketing programmes, come to an end – and unfortunately that also is the case with some organisations if they close or merge.

But what does that mean in terms of your footprint on social media?

Ghost Whisperer a US TV on CBS and syndicated across the globe show came to an end in May. The last date of them posting to their Wall was 24 May 2010. However people are still posting content to the page though no moderation or responses are being made by someone managing the Facebook Page.

Turning to The Afternoon Show, their last update on Twitter was 5 May 2010 and their last update on Facebook was on the 21 May 2010 where they said ‘ Thanks to everyone for watching The Afternoon Show. We have now finished for the summer break and hope to be back with you in September. In the meantime, have a wonderful summer, and we’ll see you in September!’.

They have 3500 members of their Facebook community some of whom have posted content up to this week – but it looks as though no moderation or responses have been made since the last update.

I am noticing a number of Facebook Pages for brands, products and services that are left ‘abandoned’, Twitter profiles that become covered in cobwebs or business blogs that have faded out. I know I need to go to back to some of my own digital real estate and do some tidying up or closing down of profiles or accounts as project and programmes come to an end.

So what should you do if your programme or campaign does come to an end or natural close and you have integrated a social media programme? Here are a few thoughts:

1. Plan for the end at the start – if you are developing a social media programme for your product and service consider what will happen at the end of the programme or campaign. Will you delete the account or who will nurture and look after it in the longer term?

2. Manage expectations of your community – whether you be taking a break for the Summer recess as The Afternoon Show did, make sure you communicate what is happening

3. Celebrate the ending – just as you have a leaving party when you move from one job to another to mark a transition consider doing that with your updates on your social media profiles. Perhaps direct people where you want them to go next. And take time to thank people who joined you and your community on the journey.

Investing time in developing a community online takes time, patience and a little whole lot of passion (if not love). ‘Breaking up is hard to do’ as the song says.

How would you recommend managing the end of a programme when using social media? Would you leave the community live or close it down? What great case studies and examples have you noticed?

And in case you can not remember the song (written back in 1962) here is Neil Sedaka singing the classic (check out also THIS LINK to a video for a great old version of the song on YouTube – it’s not permitted to be aired off YouTube).

Are you a business in Europe using Google Ads to build visibility about your products and services or to drive traffic to your website?

Then you are going to find the announcement this week made by Google of interest.

Google have just announced that they are changing their policy to allow European advertisers to buy and include keywords in your Google Ads that have been trademarked by other companies.

This change comes into effect on 14 September 2010 and extends changes that were made in  Britain and Ireland in 2008 – though this has been possible in the US since 2004.

Up until now, brand owners have been able to file a trademark complaint with Google to stop third-party ads from being featured alongside the results of a trademarked name.

The New York Times reports that “brand owners, led by the French luxury goods company LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, had argued that only they or authorised sites should be able to buy and use such trademarked terms in searches, so as to protect their brand value.”

It goes on to comment that “Google argues that selling brand names as ad keywords to multiple bidders helps consumers because it allows them to find product reviews, sellers of second-hand goods and other information. It stressed that the new policy would not extend to the actual display text in search findings.”

This is clearly a good move for Google and will boost their revenues for Google AdWords. I am wondering however what the impact of Facebook advertising being highly targeted and the growth of people using Facebook has been to Google. Have you moved some of your online advertising from Google to Facebook in the last year?

Photo credit – The Truth About on Flickr

NOTE: I am giving away access to a years service from LouderVoice, the online customer ratings service to celebrate their third birthday– scroll down to the bottom of the article if you want to discover how to be in with a chance to win it!

Do you know what influences your customers to buy online?

A recent Econsultancy report noted that in the US more than half (55%) of consumers report that a product with a high rating will increase their likelihood of purchasing. While in the UK three-quarters (75%) of people aged 18-26 years of age use recommendations on social sites to help them research products prior to purchase.

Last year I had the opportunity to interview Conor O’Neill the Founder of LouderVoice.com a service which enables you to cost effectively add powerful reviews and customer feedback to your site in under five minutes, or use their custom API for even greater control and flexibility.

You can listen to the content rich replay of the podcast here – get ready to take notes (it’s one of my longest podcasts but definitely worth listening to if you are interested in this subject area) as Conor goes in depth in terms of the background research in relation the importance of online reviews in impacting buying behaviour and best practice tips for integrating online reviews into your customer management.

LouderVoice is celebrating it’s third birthday and they have generously offered me the opportunity to give access to someone access to 12 months use of their standard package.

So if you have been considering adding a ratings and review service for your customers on your website or blog, you could be the lucky person who get’s access to this thanks to LouderVoice.

But what do their customers say about working with them?

I reached out to LouderVoice customer Puddleducks, an award winning online retailer who specialise in wet weather clothing for all the family. I asked them what the top three benefits of enabling LouderVoice on their website. Here is what Aedan Ryan their Co-Founder had to say:

1. Greater customer engagement: LouderVoice reviews have allowed us to build on our Word of Mouth referrals and receive honest reviews directly from customers on our website. Reviews can be added directly on each of our product pages and can also be added as a general review of our customer service.

2. Increased sales conversions: Research has shown that potential customers value consumer reviews when making a purchasing decision and we have found that sales conversions have increased due to the integration of LouderVoice reviews on our site.

3. Added SEO benefits: The content on the site is regularly changing with customers adding new reviews. The reviews are also fed to the LouderVoice consumer website which provide powerful inbound links back to the PuddleDucks website.

So if you are interested in the LouderVoice service here is how you can be in with a chance to access their standard service for 12 months at no cost.

HOW TO WIN ACCESS TO A YEAR OF ACCESS TO THE LOUDERVOICE STANDARD SERVICE

If you would like to win access to the service just tell me in the comments below in 150 words or less why you are interested in adding reviews to your website or business blog.

To qualify you can be a business anywhere in the world but you must already be trading online and have a business blog as – one request is that you write a blog post about your experience of the LouderVoice service within 90 days of having access to the standard package. (I am requesting this not LouderVoice). You should also not be using a service link LouderVoice at this time – I want this to be an opportunity for someone who has been considering using online ratings to their website to have the opportunity.

No cash alternative will be available and if you would like to trade up to a premium level of service from LouderVoice should you win, you will be responsible for the additional fee,

You will also be required to work with LouderVoice to get this set up on your website or blog by the end of August 2010.

Go ahead – over to you – just leave your comments below. Entries to be in by midnight Ireland/UK time on Friday 5 August 2010.