Janet Johnson | The Art of Marketing

I’ve been awake in a strange bed since 4:30 a.m., obsessing over story telling.

I’m in Eugene, Oregon, attending the Oregon Wine Industry Symposium, and speaking on a panel on “How to Make Your Web Site Work Harder For You” in a couple of hours. At our panel’s practice session and the annual wine industry dinner last night, I was impressed by simplicity and effectiveness of the storytelling going on… every award had a story, every acceptance speech had a story, and every vineyard, vintner and enthusiast had a story.

It seems the wine industry itself is a compilation of stories, and the people in it are natural story tellers, which is a great attribute for making the web work harder for you…

So the theme that’s going to be called out this morning, as I speak to my section of the panel - Engagement - is the art of online story telling.

It’s simple: people are captured and compelled to action by great stories.

As prospects and shoppers go online, they might be researching people, products, healthcare decisions or (like millions of us) posting our random thoughts, photos, videos, for friends, family and perfect strangers to see.

(”You’re either on the screen, or watching the screen, baby!” my friend Paul shouts in my ear…)

Simple, engaging stories serve to: 1) attract our attention; and b) provide the power of persuasion, once we’ve offered it. And so, in an effort to capture my thoughts about storytelling before I share them with attendees, I find myself here… in the quiet of my hotel room, at my desk, looking at a laptop, telling a story.

Our room is going to be the smaller of the two large rooms at the Hilton Hotel, which was built sometime in the 70’s and hasn’t been updated since. Three things that could have an effect on our attendance:

1. We’re the first session of the dreaded “Morning After…” You know the drill, the big dinner (with lots of wine) was last night, and everyone had a good time. The last thing they want to do is get up and go anywhere but The Big River Grille, and order up an “exceptional northwest cuisine-themed” breakfast.
2. We’re up against a session called “Impact of Grape Maturity on Wine Flavor” and I’m hoping people will say, “Yep, it does!” and come listen to our session instead of the learned folks from Oregon State and UC Davis. And another session called “This Just In: Extension Research Updates,” with speakers from Oregon State, Cal Poly and USDA Prosser, where ‘Short Shoot Syndrome’ and ‘cover crops’ will likely attract a healthy audience.
3. We’re in the “not geeky” track for oeneophiles. What a hoot.

I expect (fingers crossed) 100 or so people to brave their way in to listen to us. We’re focusing on simple, effective, FREE tools you can use to improve your web presence for attendees.

Our Panel’s Story:

Digital Footprints Don’t Lie - Debora Geary from Fireweed Analytics, will show us that using Google Analytics, which is a free analytics tool (and Google is the only one you’ll ever need, no matter what your ISP says, according to Debora), anyone can see the ‘digital footprints’ their customers will leave as they walk around a web site. What captures their attention, and what you can tell about their paths and meanderings are quite telling.

She studied the Sokol Blosser site in preparation for the panel, and found one of the top pages people visited on the site has been the “meet us” page - a simple compilation of photos of the people behind the wines. (JLJ: People love to buy stuff from people they like. Especially foods and wines.)

Capture Prospects with Content - Katherine Gray, content strategist, will speak to the importance of content on a site that will both support your brand and deliver the message you think most important. She’ll speak to authenticity of voice, and how to use words (first and foremost) and design to effectively tell your brand’s story. But it doesn’t stop there.

She’ll point out the critical links to a site’s shopping cart (JLJ: when they have them… most wineries take their orders by fax, and the abandonment rate off of “buy now - send us a fax!” pages are huge.) that could be vastly improved by simply adding a bit of contextual content here and there.

Think Like a Spider - Ben Lloyd of Amplify Interactive will tell attendees to go online, turn off the graphics in their browser, and look at how search engine spiders “see” their sites. (JLJ: go to your browser’s Preferences… Content… Uncheck the “Load Images Automatically” button. You’ll be amazed at what you see or don’t see…) Then sprinkle relevant keywords (pinot noir, pinot gris, pinot blanc…) in your title tags (most importantly!) body copy and headlines to give the spiders a notion of what your site is about. That will give you the opportunity to come up in search results when people are looking for a lovely pinot to take to the party Friday night.

Get Into the Magic F - I will wrap the panel by talking about how easy it is to use blogging, sharing, tagging and social networks to engage readers, tell great stories about your wines (and the people behind them), and improve your chances of showing up at the top of a Google search results page (”the Magic F”). And how to easily manage and monitor your online reputation using free RSS readers (like those from my client Attensa), so you’ll know exactly who’s talking about you, when they do, delivered right to your inbox if you like.

Dennis Hahn, ID Branding CEO and our panel moderator did a wonderful job of pulling all of our presentations together into a story… and he’ll lead our lucky attendees through the session in a memorable, compelling manner.

I’m off for coffee - fuel for the stories I’m about to share.

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The guys over at SEMpdx know how to engage and reward the speakers for their upcoming SEM conference - by giving them “airtime” on their blog. My interview was posted over there this morning, thanks to Todd Mintz. I was a bit rushed, however, I didn’t put a link to my own blog in the whole thing.

So much for do as I say, not as I do… Sheesh.

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I just started off my last two posts with “in a hilarious post…”

Lame.  Shame. Blech.

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I love the end of a year/beginning of a New Year. It always gives me the opportunity to look back over the past 360+ days and note what I’ve loved, and what I want to do differently in my life. I’m starting to think about that now - and here’s what I’ve loved from a work perspective. (Don’t worry, you’re not missing out on much, those who really know me understand I put most of my energy these days into work.)

1. Yoga. As a business tool, a healthy body is essential. As a bonus, somehow twisting, stretching and standing on your head a few times a week really helps your thinking. I discovered yoga as I watched my sweetie blossom by practicing, and now I’m hooked. It has truly given me more energy, more creativity and more perspective.
2. Apple. With my Mac and iPhone, I have complete connectivity and control over my schedule where ever I am during a day. Critical for a consultant, I had no idea how hard I had to work at my Blackberry to get it to work halfway (fine for email, poor at everything else). I was an Apple Business Development Manager in the late 80’s; and was sucked back into the Wintel platform once I got into the Internet startup/telecom world. The iPhone hoopla was lost on me when it came out. It took a stint at a client, Chockstone, who used Macs prolifically around the office, to get me back to the Mac. And the commercials are hilarious.
3. USB Drives. In conjunction with my iPhone, I’m able to be a self-contained unit wherever I go as long as I have my files on my thumb drive. And for someone who has schlepped her laptop around the country, there’s nothing that feels more free than tucking a drive into my purse and walking, hands-free, to the train into a client.
4. RSS. I write about RSS a ton, and have a client, Attensa, who’s developed the most secure enterprise RSS platform available. But as a small consultancy, I’ve found RSS to be an integral tool to keeping up with client coverage, watching trends, and reacting quickly to competitive announcements, etc. News and information comes to me. I’m pretty lazy - so having something with a much greater reach and awareness watch for me is a kick.
5. iGoogle. Having an iGoogle account this year saved my bacon many times. My workaround for getting to my calendar anytime, anywhere (except from my Blackberry - where it was one-way communication only) was Google calendar. It was brilliant - sending alerts and reminders to me (on my Blackberry) of meetings and locations. I was able to log on from any client or Starbucks, and get a full view of my day/week/month. And the Docs and Spreadsheets were fantastic for capturing client meeting notes and sharing information collaboratively with teams of people. I used them regularly for one client, OpenMake, who has people all over the country who need to collaborate and capture information.
6. Smartbrief. Okay, so here’s a bonus - since I wonder how many people will really give me credit for the Yoga tool - I love Smartbriefs. They’re daily compilations of news about a whole bunch of subjects. I subscribe to the IAB Smartbrief to keep up with news about online marketing trends and such. When I worked for Chockstone, they served the restaurant industry - so I found a NRA Smartbrief that served up information about restaurant trends. The quality of the content is excellent, and Smartbriefs are free.

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I’ve been totally spoiled by Microsoft. There. I’ve said it. And I didn’t realize how spoiled I’ve been until I got my Mac and iPhone. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t regret the move.

But I simply HATE the fact that every email I get on my iPhone (including every piece of SPAM I get on four email accounts) has to be manually deleted (that’s one by one) - even after synching my iPhone to my Mac.

Why haven’t people been yelling about this for months???

Apparently, I’ve uncovered a horrible secret: Comcast’s (my internet provider with whom I’m stuck) email system is antiquated - based on POP technology. And apparently MSFT’s Outlook took care of the synching problems with Comcast’s aging POP servers with workarounds; so that when I deleted an email on my Blackberry, it would be deleted on my Outlook and vice versa. And, by the way, SPAM rarely made it to my Blackberry.

And apparently, according to Apple and my web hosting provider (and excellent resource) Michael Krol at Phorium; IMAP email systems are built to move email from web to device to device more easily.

Apple’s advice, switch to a Gmail account - which is built on IMAP; or use .MAC.

Obviously, I can’t do that. I consider my email address an important business tool. So my hero at Phorium helped me with what I consider a life-saver. Run everything through my janetleejohnson.com account at Phorium, and ditch my [insert expletive here] Comcast dependency.

I’ve updated my main email account, and am testing it now. It’s early in the process, and I’ve run into a couple of snags with Apple Mail (which - under Leopard - fails on me a couple times a day in heavy use); but I have hope.

And IMAP. Which is apparently a lifesaver. Who knew?

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