Internet Marketing, Social Media, Business | StuckInTheFunnel

A Case in Conversion: Dave Ramsey ELP (Endorsed Local Providers)

Now that I’ve gotten to the age where my liabilities and responsibilities seem to be increasing, I have started to search for a financial advisor to direct and handle my investments.

 While listening to Dave Ramsey on talk radio the other day, he made mention of the “Endorsed Local Providers” on his website. Although I have not taken Ramsey’s classes or read any of his books, I have enjoyed his practical insights on the radio. This already established trust led me to his website in a search for CFP talent.

 After submitting the obligatory “Locate an Advisor form”, I was officially captured as a viable prospect and my journey through the conversion funnel continued.

 This Conversion Funnel portrays my quest for a financial planner:

The ELP was straightforward during our meeting. I even blatantly asked him about the agreement he had with the Dave Ramsey organization and he answered honestly.

 So will I choose Dave Ramsey’s local provider as my financial planner? Not yet. Given my thorough nature, I have asked a friend with a financial background to take a look at the services and fees provided to me at the meeting. Based on his recommendations, I will see whether or not I exit this conversion funnel.

 What you can learn from this experience:

1. Celebrity endorsements still hold water and can help your digital persuasion.
2. Radio advertising is still a viable medium to include in your marketing mix. If tailored correctly, in can assist it increasing your online conversions.
3. Endorsements can help increase your prospect count, but don’t rely on that alone. You will still have to sell yourself well, especially in today’s market.

pleaserobme.com – Philanthropy or Viral Marketing at it’s Finest?

ForTheHack launched http://pleaserobme.com/today – a site that essentially filters and displays a stream of Tweets that link to a user’s real time location via the 4 Square Website.

 It also let’s you search for people based on their location and Twitter username.

 When you really break it down the site does not really provide anything outside of what 4square already offers (especially considering the stream links out to the 4square website.) It should also be noted that it does not actually list the empty home’s address despite the site’s claim.

 So why did they do it?

 The site creators claim:

The danger is publicly telling people where you are. This is because it leaves one place you’re definitely not… home. So here we are; on one end we’re leaving lights on when we’re going on a holiday, and on the other we’re telling everybody on the internet we’re not home. It gets even worse if you have “friends” who want to colonize your house. That means they have to enter your address, to tell everyone where they are. Your address.. on the internet.. Now you know what to do when people reach for their phone as soon as they enter your home. That’s right, slap them across the face.

The goal of this website is to raise some awareness on this issue and have people think about how they use services like Foursquare, Brightkite, Google Buzz etc.

I think there might be a little more to it than that…

The obviously controversial/humorous context of the site has already caused a stir on Twitter and the blogosphere. The creators of the site will wake up tomorrow to a wealth of inbound links from bloggers (they are already are on Tech Crunch), tweeters and disgruntled 4square users. They may even collect some revenue off of that obligatory Google Adsense ad…

As an internet marketing and social media enthusiast, I commend the guys over at ForTheHack for coming up with such a clever marketing tactic and raising some awareness about the possible dangers of location-based services.

Social Networking on the Rise, Especially With Teens and Young Adults

Well, we all sensed this but nothing solidifies a theory like some hard data. Research conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project indicates that in 2009 73% of teens with internet used social networking sites compared to 47% of online adults.

Facebook Reigns Supreme With Adults

Adults hip to the social networking scene favor Facebook by a large margin. Older adults prefer it slightly more. According to the study 73% of all adults 18 and older who use social networking sites have a Facebook account.

In contrast, 48% of all adult social network site users have a MySpace account. The younger generation is much more apt to use MySpace, with 66% of social networking adults 18-29 having a MySpace account, but only 36% of the 30 and older bracket. Usage rates for the professional networking site LinkedIn are the reverse of MySpace. Fourteen percent of all adult social networking site users have a LinkedIn account, which breaks down to 7% of adults 18-29 and 19% of adults 30 and older.

Younger Tweeple are Tweeting

Microblogging and status updating sites are more popular among the younger crowd. Thirty-seven percent of online adults 18-29 use Twitter or another status-updating site, compared to 9% of 50- to 64-year-olds and only 4% of online adults 65 and older. The overall Twitter/status-updating site usage rate among all adults is 19%.

As Social Networking continues to grow in popularity in the older crowd, I am sure the amount of adults embracing Twitter will continue to increase. The concept of Tweeting most likely presents a learning curve for some, but after some experience on Facebook (already being embraced by adults) the concept of microblogging will become more understandable and justified after they have changed their status a few times on Facebook.

Don’t Buy a Toyota or You Might Drive Halfway Across the U.S. Without Stopping

Or, you could put the car in neutral if you sensed a problem.

I was car shopping in Oct-Dec of last year. All of my vehicle research/inventory browsing was done on the internet, which caused me to surrender my email address to many car dealership’s lead capture forms so I could receive more specifics on availabilty, cost and warranties for the vehicles I was interested in.

After about a month and half of research, I purchased my vehicle.

Since then, I have received an influx of emails from American car dealerships I previously inquired to (names will not be disclosed) explaining why I should buy an American vehicle while using Toyota’s recent accelerator recall folly as selling point. They told me how there was over 200 consumer complaints in the U.S. and Japan about the accelerators on their Toyota’s.

They tried to digitally persuade me with email.

Those kind of numbers are statistically irrelavant. If they told me there were 20,000, I would have listened a little harder.

Bottom line, car manufacturers always produce cars with some type of defect. However,  Toyota’s defect correlates with your acceleration which makes it a bit “scarier”. Look at the historical data for recalls and reliability of this company. They are in good standing.

Put the car in neutral, look at the recalls for all the cars you are considering purchasing and be a smart consumer.