How do you celebrate Leap Day?

Congratulations then to a fellow leaper with a different celebration: Coach, author and artist, Cynthia Morris of Original Impulse, Inc. launched JourneyJuju today. (NOTE: Leap Day offers special significance for many. Sadie Hawkins, one of the most famous associations with Leap Day, holds meaning for me since I invited my husband to marry me in 2000 with a Sadie Hawkins postcard.)

As a campaign, Cynthia’s launch wins consideration. She would tell you the event has been in the planning for months. Late last year she began making travel shrines, a meditation of sorts about her trips and commitment to travel. In addition, at the request of friends, she gathered her favorite sayings into a series of journey blessings; the blessings join the shrines and journey fortunes in product offerings on her site.

The emotion around Cynthia’s creative ventures motivated her to use her blog each day in February to walk readers through 29 different ways to make a leap. The posts offer insight as well as opportunity. Her JourneyJuju lets readers experience and savor the monumental jump. I salute her for unabashedly sharing her fears, her excitement, and her ideas about confronting each.

Not only does Cynthia share from her heart, she explains the why behind it, exposing her vulnerabilities, inviting conversation and connection. I like how she walks her talk: she challenges readers to join the shrine movement with their own photos on social media site FLICKR.

JourneyJuju also offers a Media Room. Our 24/7 news conditioning assures Cynthia that readers of all persuasion will peek at those pages for the scoop: there’s a news release, a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page and interview questions.

My bet: JourneyJuju is not only a personal leap; it's a fun destination and web statistics will bear that out. So, how do you celebrate Leap Day?

Contact us. (If you can)

Is it just me or have you initiated contact from a website and had the email bounce? The typical “contact us” page offers an option to connect with potential customers while not promoting a specific email address. Sadly, the option doesn’t always work.

In the past few weeks I found this to be true for a major ad agency, a chamber of commerce and a business-to-business service. In each case my ISP sent me an error message saying there was no such address.

What are you thinking, people? Test. Click all links. Dial all numbers. Can you afford to miss an opportunity to connect with potential customers? The business bar has been raised. Given the stiffness of competition today, your business needs to win the easy, no-brainer contests. So, if you haven’t reviewed your online site in some time, take a moment and do so. Prevent the stupid mistakes.

Once you've accomplished this feat, consider your response time; customer communication deserves to be a top priority.

Only a small percentage of potential customers will let you know about a problem. I experienced this for myself when one an inquiry from my website was sent to Outlook's junk mail. (There's another consideration for your site; safelist your webmail address.) The disgruntled prospect contacted me a second time and we discussed the problem. Fortunately, after our conversation, this prospect was willing to overlook the delay. No question, my experience was the exception, not the rule and I'm grateful for the reprieve.

Humor me puh-leeze. Lighten up your press release.

Getting the news “out there” takes many forms. Faithful readers of this blog have strong opinions about press releases, publicity avenues, and promotional ideas.

I read about and experiment with visibility techniques all the time; some work, some don’t. Nevertheless I was surprised to read from Publicity Hound Joan Stewart that one of the premiere wire services has been red-flagging humor. That’s a problem. What we need in this world is less humor. NOT!

So, my hat is off to Duke City Fix for publishing in full a fun release in which AIBA, Albuquerque Independent Business Alliance, took actress Jessica Alba to task for some rather unkind words about Albuquerque. In an interesting turn of events, organization members have banded together to discuss options for telling visitors "where to go."

Why not a humorous, tongue-in-cheek approach? Why not talk back? Join the discussion. Let’s get engaged about what’s happening in our communities.

Amazingly enough we’ll participate in the world instead of letting it pass us by…be proactive rather than victimized. How cool is that?

Virtual Book Tour on Viral Marketing Puts You in Charge

If you follow my blog posts you may already know I’m a fan of David Meerman Scott and his blog WebInkNow. A few weeks ago I’d mentioned Scott’s downloadable ebook, “The New Rules of Social Marketing – How Word of Mouse Spreads Your Ideas for Free”; at the time there was no virtual book tour. When the virtual tour – and how cool is that - was announced, I neglected to mention it and Mike Sigers of Simplenomics who’s hosting the hour reminded me.

Got a question about viral marketing? Ask. And sign up for David Meerman Scott’s 70-minute teleconference on viral marketing happening at 5pm EST on Tuesday, February 26 or, get started on a virtual tour of your own by contacting Mike.

I notice lots of conversations much of it hype about viral marketing. Here’s an opportunity to get the real deal: a subject matter expert addressing your questions about viral marketing as it relates to business today. It's just over one hour of your time. My suggestion: don’t miss it.

Yeah, but...

“How do I establish ROI, Return on Investment?”

The question made sense. Unlike many small business owners, this entrepreneur tracked everything. Her charts detailed the number of leads and conversions from each source. I looked more closely at detail: 15 leads from television over four months with three conversions to sales. Translated: $9,000 spent on two television stations, $3,900 realized in sales, $5,100 deficit.

“Cut your losses,” I said. “Based on ROI, you’ve given this campaign a fair chance and it’s not working.”

“Well, we changed copy just a few weeks ago and I think that might make a difference.” What could I say? (NOTE: This is a clear example of “Yeah, but…”)

“I like this interactive DVD offer, but it’s a little pricey,” the owner continued. “For $15,000 I get 1,000 DVD’s that we can use for current customers and prospects. Don’t you think that’s a good plan for us?”

Instead of a direct answer, I asked a series of questions. “Do your customers/prospects have high speed connections? Are you confident they will put this in their machine and then refer a customer to you? Is there any reward for them to do so? If there’s no reward for the referral, then I might not stake my money on that campaign.”

“Well, I see what you mean but…”

Do you recognize a glimmer of yourself in these scenarios? It occurs to me that we all have situations for which we solicit input; truth be known, we want the information to line up with the solution we’ve already imagined. Pause.

What if you change your response? Does your resistance make sense, or, could you use one of these four standard replies?

1. Yeah, but we’ve always done it this way.
2. Yeah, but I like this plan (fill in the blank with this scenario, this idea, and so on.)
3. Yeah, but my friend knows better.
4. Yeah, but I prefer the answer I first mentioned.

Yeah, but is a communication used too easily too often. Would you agree?

Market On with an online media room or, NOT!

Online press rooms or online media rooms make hot topics these days. Virtually all of my clients talk about the option. And they say the right things:

“The global economy requires an Internet presence.”
“It’s important to talk with all kinds of audiences on the web.”
“Our company has a press room.” OR, “We’re building a media room.”

Cynthia Morris, owner of the coaching firm, Original Impulse talked with me about her online media room. Join me in a quick look:

• Kudos to Cynthia! She took the plunge, created a media room, placed it one click off her home page, and added significant content. Because this enthusiastic woman does nothing half-heartedly, my guess is that she’s not paid close attention to the media room in some time. How do I know? Well, let me count the ways.
• Note the label at the top of her media room: Media Expert. Who created this title? The Media that I see listed on the site (with one exception from Health Magazine) pre-dates 2005.
• Cynthia displays a listing of six other published articles; only one of them includes a link.
• The radio show interviews which Cynthia alludes to could not be found either. The current schedule includes only upcoming guests for the month of February 2008 and Cynthia was not among them.
• The media kit has one item, a bio. The bio is in pdf format and while it reads well, it does not include the many accomplishments that Cynthia has to her credit. My experience is that some reporters do prefer more factual content, particularly if they are quoting someone as an expert.

My special comment to Cynthia is that her “story” doesn’t come across as well as it could. She’s a fascinating individual with a variety of fun experiences and a treasure trove of creative products to prove it. Her bio summary line, “Cynthia offers a living example of going for a creative and juicy life” is an understatement. I’d suggest: “When it comes to creativity, Cynthia doesn’t just teach it, she lives it!”

(Disclosure: I currently work with Cynthia on a public relations project designed upgrade her online media room and increase her overall visibility.)