(First published May 2009) Welcome to Cutt to the Chase with Amanda Northcutt of TexAgs.com - Your go-to source for up to date marketing and advertising news and helpful information.


New Ideas

What in the world is Twitter?

You might have noticed that Twitter has been in the news a lot lately, but you might be wondering just what the heck it is, exactly.  From the Wikipedia article on Twitter:

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users’ updates known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length which are displayed on the user’s profile page and delivered to other users who have subscribed to them (known as followers).

Ok, so Twitter is basically just another way of communicating with people. Sounds simple enough. But the really cool part is that to some extent, all the communication is taking place publicly (although you can send "direct messages" to people that aren’t visible to everyone else).  This is cool because it lets you jump right into conversations that are already taking place, and easily find the people talking about things that are relevant to you or your business.

A couple of our current sponsors are already using Twitter:  Ticketcity and Fibertown

Moving Forward

Each month this section will contain several marketing and advertising related articles from various sources. This section will help keep you up to speed on current marketing initiatives in an ever changing marketplace.  This month the articles will focus on how you can use Twitter in your business.

• Twitter for Business (.pdf link)
  • John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing has put together a great overview of what Twitter is and how to use it to help market your business.  One of the most powerful things he talks about is the advanced search capability built into Twitter.  For example, maybe you’re a realtor and want to talk to people near you who have questions about buying or selling a house - Twitter lets you do that!  Just make sure you are always offering something of value to people, rather than barging in and trying to get money from them.  Start out by helping them, to earn their trust, and then maybe they’ll use your services, or tell their friends about you, etc.
• How not to use Twitter
  •  This does a good job of explaining how NOT to use twitter.  Basically what I said above about not barging in and selling to people - treat it like you’re talking to people at a cocktail party and use good manners!

Good Question

In this section I will address questions that I hear on a regular basis from our sponsors. Please email me if you have any question or issue you would like addressed in this section: amanda@texags.com

Q
I’ve been hearing a lot of buzz about the importance of social media.  How does TexAgs fit into all that?

A
TexAgs.com is really just another kind of "social media".  Social media is just a term used to describe all sorts of new ways that people are creating, sharing, and finding information.  Some examples are blogs, internet forums (like TexAgs), Facebook, and Twitter.  Check out the Wikipedia article on Social Media if you’re interested in getting a better handle on all of this.



What’s up at TexAgs

• All this talk about Twitter wouldn’t mean much if we weren’t using it too, but we are!  You can find TexAgs on Twitter here.


• Please welcome our newest sponsors!
  • Sponsoring the Metroplex forum, North Texas Home Finders
  • Sponsoring the Automotive forum, Allen Honda

Additional Notes

• As always, I can be reached on my cell phone (979.324.0485) or by email (amanda@texags.com) any time. I appreciate any feedback you’d like to provide on this newsletter: comments, suggestions, complaints, etc.

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(First published April 2009) Welcome to the fourth edition of Cutt to the Chase with Amanda Northcutt of TexAgs.com - Your go-to source for up to date marketing and advertising news and helpful information.


New Ideas

With all of the concern about the state of our economy, now is a great time to evaluate your marketing efforts and develop a plan of action to gain market share in your industry. Some people will tend to cut back on marketing during a downturn, but this can actually be an opportunity to outdo your competitors and win new customers.

Do an honest assessment of your marketing buys:

• Are you continuing to buy certain media just because you always have?
• Are you making sure that your advertising is trackable?
• Are you taking a shotgun approach and buying everything you can as opposed to doing your homework to make sure you’re actually hitting your target market?
• Is your message reaching people on a core emotional level, or just scratching the surface?
• How do you determine your marketing budget – Logically? Emotionally? A percentage formula that you’ve been using for the last decade?

Moving Forward

I’ve been hearing a lot of buzz about poor customer service lately at a number of businesses, so my articles this month will focus on the importance and implementation of superb customer service! If you think you know everything about customer service, think again. Scroll through this info, I promise you’ll learn something new. If you don’t you can send me a mean email or something ; )

• A great blog on customer service
  • There’s not just one particular post that I’d like to highlight; a lot of Bill’s advice is worth reading. If you can, refer back to this blog to scan his posts every few weeks.
• Who answers the phone at your business?
  •  A great post by Seth Godin about the importance of making the first point of contact with your customers a great experience for them.
• Jet Blue has mastered the art of the call center, well, minus the call center
  •  Good customer service starts with getting your employees on board and passionate about taking care of customers.
• Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com
  • Zappos is one of the most well recognized service companies today. Tony has some great insight into providing awesome customer service and creating a great company culture.  The bit toward the end about happiness is a little out there, but there’s definitely some valuable information in his presentation.
• The Customer Rules by C. Britt Beemer
  • An excellent book of case studies on organizations who have set the bar for customer service and interaction

Good Question

In this section I will address questions that I hear on a regular basis from our sponsors. Please email me if you have any question or issue you would like addressed in this section: amanda@texags.com

Q
How do I gauge the effectiveness of my campaign with TexAgs?

A

First off, I will say that the importance of monthly click thru reports are somewhat blown out of proportion. While a CTR (click through rate) of .01% is acceptable for a branding campaign, and .02% is average for a more direct sales campaign, those are certainly not the be-all end-all statistics of web advertising. Your ads CTR is one of the items listed in your monthly click through reports. Remember, monthly reports are only available upon request. Email me if you’d like to start receiving those.

TexAgs has far more to offer its sponsors than rotating banner ads. We offer you the ability to directly engage your target audience through interaction with them on our discussion forums. We can accomplish this “engagement” together in a number of ways: “intro” posts about your business and the services you offer, simple giveaways of your product or service, writing a “Tip of the Month” related to your business that is helpful to the TexAgs users, posting within the forums about your business or just becoming a part of the community, or even recording a podcast with our podcast team about your business that we can post on several forums.

The direct response from those types of innovative initiates is generally far more telling than the click thru rate on your rotating ads. The type of engagement we’re encouraging you to have with our users is 100% unique to sites with discussion forums.

What’s up at TexAgs

• Gabe Bock is the Aggie Sports beat reporter for TexAgs.com. You can find him covering most sporting events on campus, with an emphasis on football, baseball and men’s and women’s basketball. He is also heavily involved in marketing the website and building up our base of users and subscribers. Gabe and his wife, Megan, are expecting in early June. Their daughter will be named Gabriella (Ella) Joy. In addition to his love for sports, Gabe has a passion for music. He is a life-long singer and has nearly 14 years experience playing the guitar. Gabe has also predicted a Texas Rangers World Series title in 2010!


• Marla Madison – Office Manager Extraordinaire! Marla is a Graduate of TAMU and has a degree in sociology.  TexAgs has been very blessed to have Marla since last September (we seem to have trouble tying our shoes without her). Marla and her husband have two boys, the oldest is a student at Sam Houston State University.  Marla is on the Board of Directors for Brazos Valley Youth Football Association.

Additional Notes

• As always, I can be reached on my cell phone (979.324.0485) or by email (amanda@texags.com) any time. I appreciate any feedback you’d like to provide on this newsletter: comments, suggestions, complaints, etc.

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(First published March 2009) Welcome to the third edition of Cutt to the Chase with Amanda Northcutt of TexAgs.com - Your go-to source for up to date marketing and advertising news and helpful information.

First of all, I have a big announcement coming up. There will be more details to come, but I’m going to launch a new website in about 3 weeks that will house all of the TexAgs sponsorship information and include boatloads of helpful information about web advertising. I’d like to include a testimonials section within the website, and I don’t ask for these often, but if you would like to write a few sentences about your experience as a sponsor on TexAgs, I will increase your impression count by 500,000 for the month of April. 500,000 impressions usually costs $375, but I’d like to give you that in appreciation of the time it takes and your willingness to help me out. Send me an email if you’d like to participate.

Also, I think this newsletter has the most valuable and relevant information I’ve sent out yet, so do your best to make it all the way through!

Success Story

A Must Read for Anyone looking to really reach their customers!

Here’s a word from Harlan Scott, Director of Operations for the EccellGroup:

For me, the sponsorship meant a legitimate voice in the TexAgs community - an effective way to respond to critique from customers and maintain a feeling of goodwill towards EccellGroup among current students, former students, and the Bryan/College Station community. The aforementioned demographics alone are the sole reason for the success of EccellGroup, and this made sponsoring the Aggies Only forum on TexAgs with daily giveaways a perfect way to show our appreciation. Additionally, our newest concept, Eccell Steakhouse, is only a year old. Hence, TexAgs has allowed us to get the most for our advertising dollar by helping us reach beyond our existing customer base. It took a lot of persistence on Amanda’s part to get us on board. We explained to her that in this economic climate no one can afford to throw money around on random marketing ideas unless we can see a tangible effect on our business. In the industry we call this “more butts in seats.” Amanda promised results, and we got them.

What’s been refreshing is how hard the TexAgs team has tried to make sure we get results. Many advertisers will spend hours trying to convince us to do business with them, but once they get our money, I might get 10 minutes of their time for the remainder of the contract. Our business revolves around customer service, and it’s refreshing to do business with someone that understands the importance of service after the sale. Amanda communicates with me on an almost daily basis checking the progress of our promotions, sending me links to the positive and negative feedback posted on the site, and even sending reservations and VIP’s our way. Not only do new customers redeem our free gift certificates, but some people try us out for the first time just because they appreciate our support of TexAgs.

Still, I wondered how much hits on TexAgs translated into sales for EccellGroup. The Thursday before Valentine’s Day was the one year anniversary of our steakhouse, and Amanda helped with a little experiment. We posted a thread only 24 hours beforehand to announce our one year anniversary and to offer 25% off the entire ticket at Eccell Steakhouse to anyone who mentioned TexAgs and the anniversary. Typically a Thursday before a huge weekend like Valentine’s translates to a slow night. I can tell you with absolute certainty that our thread on TexAgs and MyBCS doubled our sales that night. Every other guest was there because of TexAgs… in less than a days notice!

 

New Ideas

Refresh Your Ads!

Every one of us visits different websites, and I’m willing to bet that we’ve all seen the same ads over and over again on our favorite online destinations. After a while, those same ads might not grab our attention as much as they did in the past. So, if your ads have been up on TexAgs for a while, it might be a good investment to reassess and go with a new look.

The users of TexAgs visit TexAgs nearly every day and they stay on our site for nearly 12 minutes at a time. That means, our site is one of the “stickiest” on the web. People don’t generally come to TexAgs just to read a few articles, they come to chat, participate, look around on their favorite discussion forums, etc. My point being, these folks see your ads, a lot.

While this isn’t free, it is a solid investment. You want to continue to entice people to look at and click on your ads. If you have a static ad (no moving text or pictures), you might think about going with a Flash ad (moving parts). Flash ads can generate more attention and allow you to display more information on your ad because the text can rotate.

If you’d like us to handle making the new ads,click here, fill this form out completely, and send it back to me. Or just email me if you’d like to create your own ads and I’ll send you the requirements.

 

Moving Forward

This month I’d just like to recommend a few of my favorite books instead of providing articles. I know, I know, none of us have time to read books. Try an audio book on CD, I have one on in my car 90% of the time I’m driving. Here’s the list:

• Good to Great by Jim Collins
• Purple Cow by Seth Godin
• Customers for Life by Carl Sewell

I would love to get recommendations on stuff to read from you too. If you’ve got a suggestion, I’d love to check it out. As always, you can reach me at amanda@texags.com

 

Good Question

In this section I will address questions that I hear on a regular basis from our sponsors. Please email me if you have any question or issue you would like addressed in this section: amanda@texags.com

Q
I’m really hesitant to participate on the discussion forums because I feel like those people are in an entirely different world. It seems like they know each other and use terms I’ve never heard of. What do I do?

A
First of all, brush up on your knowledge of discussion forums with this article(this is well consolidated and easy to run through, I promise).

Even I often read and re-read, and then have my husband read and re-read any information I write up before I post it on the site! But the important thing to remember here is that the people on our website are just like you, sitting behind their computer at work or at home on the couch. They’ll appreciate the fact that you’re willing to dive into their community and participate right along with them!

If you need some advice on posting in general, or want me to help you polish up statements I’m more than happy to. I’d love to be of assistance with anything that makes your sponsorship more successful!

What’s up at TexAgs

1. In the February Newsletter I promised that TexAgs would open a new ad position. Well, we did! Ticket City debuted the Sticky Thread Sponsorship on Monday February 22nd. Here’s the skinny on the ad spot:
   • Duration
     • Monday morning 7AM to the following Monday at 7AM
   • Cost
     • $500/week for Basketball & Football boards
     • $350/week for Business and Investing
     • Discounts available for multiple weeks.
     • 50% off for current TexAgs sponsors and MaroonBook Listers
   • Length
     • 200 words maximum
   • Procedure
     • All posts must be emailed to amanda@texags.com at least one week before they are to run. Payment by credit card required, no later than the Friday before the post runs.
   • Reservations
     • Reserve your time slot in advance to insure availability, as only one business will be featured each week.

   This sponsorship position would be great if you’d like to:

   • Get the word out about your business
   • Promote a special event or discount
   • Announce a new product or service from your existing business
   • Post a job listing
   • Or just about anything else that warrants one full week of major exposure!

    

2. TexAgs has been working like crazy on a cutting edge video media guide. These videos will let you view all the sponsorship opportunities available on TexAgs and will help you and me best determine how to effectively reach your target market.

   Here’s a “rough draft” of the first three videos (more to come). I haven’t shown this to very many people, and before I do I would love suggestions and feedback, both positive and negative. Please email me if you have a comment.

Additional Notes

• As always, I can be reached on my cell phone (979.324.0485) or by email (amanda@texags.com) any time. I appreciate any feedback you’d like to provide on this newsletter: comments, suggestions, complaints, etc.

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(First published February 2009) Welcome to the second edition of Cutt to the Chase with Amanda Northcutt of TexAgs.com - Your go-to source for up to date marketing and advertising news and helpful information.


New Ideas

Run A Contest on TexAgs

Looking for an easy and effective way to boost your sales? Running a contest in one of our discussion forums is a great way to compliment a sponsorship. Forum contests are engaging and stimulate our users to think and talk about your product or service. Forum sponsors such as Rudy’s, Freebird’s, and the Eccell Group have benefited from a huge increase in discussion about their respective businesses since starting their daily gift card giveaways. However, don’t feel like this type of promotion is only available with our bigger sponsorship packages – It would be my pleasure to set up a short term contest for any sponsor regardless of their level of sponsorship. Remember that grabbing the attention of potential customers these days is becoming increasingly difficult. There is no substitute for direct engagement of your target market.

Sponsor a Forum

Taking advantage of a presenting sponsorship of a discussion forum on TexAgs is the most effective way to put your business in an exclusive, highly visible position within the TexAgs community of over 250,000 people. You will be able to achieve an outstanding level of brand recognition and take advantage of additional strategies such as contests and giveaways as mentioned above to solidify your position in our users’ minds. We are currently accepting sponsor inquiries for the following forums: Maroon & White Recruiting, Rivalries, A&M Men’s Basketball, Politics, A&M Baseball, Business & Investing, The Nerdery, Entertainment, Religion & Philosophy, Outdoors, Houston, and Metroplex.

Aggies Only, A&M Football, General, Real Estate, and Job Network forums are all currently sponsored.

Moving Forward

Each month this section will contain several marketing and advertising related articles from various sources. This section will help keep you up to speed on current marketing initiatives in an ever changing marketplace.

• Search Engine Optimization
  • What is SEO? Search Engine Optimization is a term that everyone with a website must know. If you’re not familiar with the term, give this a quick read.
• Where to Begin your SEO Campaign
  • Here is an understandable breakdown of how to improve your SEO. Again, if you have a website, which all of you do, and you’re not implementing these tactics, you’re probably missing business.
• How to Advertise Now
  • Some good pointers on where to put your valuable advertising dollars.

Good Question

In this section I will address questions that I hear on a regular basis from our sponsors. Please email me if you have any question or issue you would like addressed in this section: amanda@texags.com

Q
What’s on the horizon for new sponsorship opportunities with TexAgs?

A
We’ll soon announce a new short term sponsor opportunity that will allow the presentation of specific information about you, your business, an event or new product, etc. Details coming soon!


Q
Instead of receiving monthly invoices and having to write a check every month, can I pay by credit card?

A
Yes! In fact, we encourage you to pay by credit card; it eliminates all the hassle of paper billing and you won’t ever hear from our billing department about a late payment. We’ll charge your CC on the same day every month and just mail you a receipt with your CC transaction confirmation number. Just send me an email at amanda@texags.com and I’ll give you a call to get your CC information.


What’s up at TexAgs

• Last week TexAgs announced our official affiliation with ESPN. This partnership will help our recruiting buffs in their effort to provide a top notch subscription service to the TexAgs users. No worries, this will not affect any sponsorships. Read the full story here.


• If you’ve been to the TexAgs home page lately you’ve probably noticed a few changes. The TexAgs team is making great strides in creating a more robust premium content section, which includes the teaser section complete with scrolling pictures on the home page. This means we’re working hard to not only keep our current site users fully engaged, but to bring on new users as well, which in turn creates more engaged eyes on our sponsors’ ads.


• Featured Employee: Andrew Kilzer ’07 has worked at TexAgs since the summer of 2006.  Starting out part time in Brandon’s spare bedroom he was brought on full time to start 2008 and hasn’t looked back since.  Day to day Andrew deals with anything and everything that happens on the site and considers himself quite humorous most of the time.  He loves being outside, and has set a goal to run a half marathon in 2009. Of course, how could we forget to mention that he is awesome.


• Featured Employee: Donald Ness ‘06 joined the team in 2007 as a software developer. Attracted to the entrepreneurial spirit of the company, he brings a passion for technology and technical wizardry to TexAgs. Donald is a Bryan resident with a strong interest in local business and politics.


• Please welcome our newest sponsors: The Aggie Field of Honor, sponsoring the News & Notes section on the home page; The Eccell Group, sponsoring the Aggies Only Forum; long time sponsor AgsReward, sponsoring our new Real Estate forum; Tonkaway Ranch, Fibertown, Amerinet Mortgages, City of Navasota, and Dr. Reece!

Additional Notes

• As always, I can be reached on my cell phone (979.324.0485) or by email (amanda@texags.com) any time. I appreciate any feedback you’d like to provide on this newsletter: comments, suggestions, complaints, etc.

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(First published January, 2009) Welcome to the first edition of Cutt to the Chase with Amanda Northcutt of TexAgs.com - Your go-to source for up to date marketing and advertising news and helpful information.

I have two goals for this newsletter: first, to do a lot of your marketing research for you (all forms of media, not just online) and put it here in a digestible format; second, to guide you through and help you take full advantage of your sponsorship on TexAgs.com.


New Ideas

As a sponsor, you have the right to participate in conversations on all discussion forums and promote your business on TexAgs.com. Our most successful sponsors participate in the forums; hands down, coupling your sponsorship package with direct participation is the best recipe for a profitable campaign.

Participation in the discussion forums is more than just making promotional posts, it’s participating in the day to day conversations and becoming a member of the community. Here’s what Adam Koch, a long time sponsor with TexAgs, had to say about the great success of his campaign:

I did not really do anything special.  I think it is partly my reputation and word of mouth that are the most benefit. The ad by itself likely would not generate enough traffic but I use it to generate a little credibility to those who do not know my reputation. I would say the first 6 months were a trial and I did not see much benefit from it. I was dedicated to keep on for a year, so that’s what I did. Now I’m seeing more activity and as a result it is starting to generate a little profit after a year. With insurance however, even if I break even, that is a good thing.  I will make money the next year on that account assuming I do not lose them as a client.

I really think that just placing the ad and waiting for the phone to ring will not work often here. You must to be active in the community, and make no mistake (as you know) Texags is a community. A community as a whole wants to do business with other members (at least that is what I am hoping) and it seems to be playing out that way for me. I’m trying hard to become THE insurance agent for Texags.

When you are ready to begin your TexAgs sponsorship I will create a username like this for you and help you use it to your organization’s advantage.

Moving Forward

Each month this section will contain several marketing and advertising related articles from various sources. This section will help keep you up to speed on current marketing initiatives in an ever changing marketplace.

• Internet advertising will be relatively unscathed in the downturn
  • Online advertising is projected to continue a strong growth trend despite the recession as audiences move online faster than advertisers.
• Internet Advertising: The Ultimate Marketing Machine
  • Half of your advertising budget is wasted! If you start this article, be sure to finish it, the best and most relevant tidbits are toward the end.
• Reaching Elusive Audiences: Adults at Work (.pdf)
  • A telling study by Jupiter Research detailing online behavior at home and at work. A short read and several charts and graphs for the visual crowd.
• The New Frontier of Advertising
  • This article was written in 2006, but if you haven’t read much about search engine optimization, take 3 minutes to look this one over.

Good Question

In this section I will address questions that I hear on a regular basis from our sponsors. Please email me if you have a question or issue you would like addressed in this section: amanda@texags.com

Q
Why doesn’t my ad come up on TexAgs as often as I thought it would?

A
Most of the sponsors on TexAgs have what is called our Basic Sponsorship Package. This package guarantees that we will show your ad a minimum of 500,000 times per month. The important thing to remember is that Texags.com receives on average, 25 million page views per month. This means if you’ve purchased 500,000 page views per month, your ad is likely to be seen on TexAgs about 1 in 50 page views throughout the site.

The Basic Sponsorship Package is a great ad package for a long-term sponsor who is looking to have a steady presence throughout the website, but not looking to have a major and immediate impact. There are other sponsorships available for those companies looking to make a major impact by purchasing a stationary ad on the TexAgs home page or in one of the discussion forums.

If you are dissatisfied with your ad showing up 1 in 50 page views, consider purchasing more page views (i.e., purchase 1,000,000 page views per month and your ad will show approximately 1 in 25 page views throughout the site).

I’m sure many of you have noticed that ads for the Texas A&M Foundation, Aggieland Credit Union, Freebirds, Rudy’s, Ticket City, Traditions Book Store, etc. show up quite a bit more frequently than others. These sponsors have taken advantage of some of our more unique sponsorships, all of which include stationary ads on at least one portion of our site and a generous number of rotating advertisements. Several of these sponsorships are even interactive, most notably, the Texas A&M Foundation (Spirit & Mind), Freebirds (Burrito Lottery), and Rudy’s (BBQ Blitz).

If you’re interested in putting together an interactive advertising campaign with stationary ad placement, please contact me. I’d love to work with you on creating a unique program that will help you reach your target audience.

Q
I’ve hit refresh 100 times and not seen my ad, what’s going on?

A
If you are constantly hitting the refresh button on TexAgs and still not seeing your ad, take a look at the very bottom right of your screen. You should see: “There are approximately XXXX visitors currently on TexAgs.” On any given day there are usually between 4,000 and 8,000 visitors on our site at once; these people are also clicking through different pages of our website collectively at a much higher rate than you are as an individual at your computer screen. Fear not, your ads are being shown at the rate you purchased them to.



What’s up at TexAgs

In this section I’ll keep you up to date on our side of things - changes to the site, any relevant news or events we have going on, etc. The first few newsletters will focus on introducing you to the TexAgs team.

• Brandon Jones ’95 has been the President and CEO of TexAgs since 1998. He has grown the site from a handful of A&M Football fanatics to the online go-to destination for Aggies everywhere. He and his wife, Ari, have 2 daughters and a son who will arrive in March.


• Amanda Northcutt ’08: Director of Sales to both myBCS and later TexAgs.com since the beginning of ‘07. I am married to Travis Northcutt ’08 and we recently purchased a house in Bryan and are in the process of our first major remodeling project.

Additional Notes

• As always, I can be reached on my cell phone (979.324.0485) or by email (amanda@texags.com) any time. I appreciate any feedback you’d like to provide on this newsletter: comments, suggestions, complaints, etc.

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