Blog Archives

In honor of Steve Jobs – Name Your Own Price offer

Posted by Milena Regos on October 6, 2011

Steve Jobs’s incredible inventions changed the world and our lives forever. He transformed the entire planet and the way we communicate, listen to music, live and work. His Think Different advertising slogan is still an inspiration today and Out&About Marketing has come up with a limited time marketing offer for you.

“Here’s to the crazy ones…The ones who see things differently… They have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They invent. They imagine. They heal. They explore. They create. They inspire. They push the human race forward”.  Steve Jobs

So what about if we change things around. Instead of agencies and consultants telling you how much their services cost, what if you tell them how much you are willing to pay for their services. It’s all about perceived value anyway. If you believe in the power of word of mouth and you want to get more business how much are you willing to pay for it. Assuming that you have a great product or service to start with why not take it to the next level?

No marketing can help you if you have a bad product. You can’t put lipstick on a pig. It won’t work. But let’s say you have a great business and you want to tell more people about it. Now you can – just Name Your Own Price.

In honor of Steve Jobs and his Think Different motto, I’ve created for a very limited time a marketing offer which is unheard of in the industry.

I strongly believe in the Power of Social Media and the Power of Word of Mouth for any business. It’s hard to put a dollar amount on word of mouth and connecting with people. Yet a business needs a good plan with a well thought out strategy on how to utilize various social networks and tools available today to get the word out about their great product or service. I want you to Name Your Price based on the value you perceive you will get from a well thought out plan and strategy.

So, here’s the offer I’m putting on the table today.

The Offer – Name Your Own Price for your custom made Word of Mouth/Social Media Strategy

You can choose from:

1. Social Media Audit
2. Social Media Strategy
3. Brand Reputation Management
4. Personal Branding Strategy
5. Facebook Strategy
6. Twitter Strategy
7. Word of Mouth for your business

This offer is valid for 1 week only and expires on Friday, Oct 14th.

The only condition is that I can take or leave your offer (it needs to be realistic) but I promise I’ll talk to each one of you.

So, here it is: Think Different today and Name Your Own Price. Now, it’s your turn.

Photo credit: Flickr, charliecurve

Categories: Blog Creativity Marketing Social Media | No Comments »

It’s 2010. Is Your Business Social – Social Media Workshop

Posted by Milena Regos on October 7, 2010

It's 2010. Is Your Business Social?

Today, I had the incredible opportunity to speak to 35+ executives today in Incline Village at the Parasol Tahoe Community Foundation. The audience consisted of many non-profits and small to medium businesses from the area. Some of them have national and international operations. The workshop was 3 hours long and after a hard core group exercise at the end everyone walked out with a social media strategy in hand or at least armed with information and resources to get going in the right direction. We all worked hard in these 3 hours yet we managed to have a lot of fun.

Below are the slides from the presentation. Enjoy and please, use responsibly. If you happen to be in the room, you will notice that I have deleted some of the confidential data slides.

A couple testimonials from the event:

“THANK YOU MILENA!!! You facilitated an amazing workshop! We really appreciate it!” Wendy Losee, Event Organizer

“Thank you for a great workshop today at the Parasol Foundation. I appreciate all of your wisdom and insights into the world of social media.” Robin G., Participant

Thank you guys for being a great audience. Special thanks to Parasol for organizing the event. What did you think about it? What did you learn? Please, leave a comment below.

It’s 2010. is your business social. milena regos

View more presentations from Milena Regos.

Categories: Blog | No Comments »

Out&About Marketing turns 1 year old- 10 Lessons Learned

Posted by Milena Regos on July 6, 2010

Happy Birthday Out&About Marketing! It turned one year old today! Yipee!

A year ago I embarked on a new journey with Out&About Marketing. The results have been very,very positive. I accomplished many of the goals I set for myself and learned a few lessons along the way. Overall, I have no regrets and I’m proud of the accomplishments.

Thank you to all of my clients who keep me on my toes, open my horizons and challenge me to learn more. You are all the best!

Thank you to all of my readers who visit my website, read and comment on my blog. Let’s keep the conversation going.

I learned so much throughout the year thanks to all of you – my clients, my readers, my social and real life friends and the hundreds of new friends I met online.  It’s been an absolutely incredible and motivating journey. Here are 10 lessons on starting a business, marketing for small businesses and social media marketing a year later:

1. The busier you are, the more you learn how to prioritize and optimize. I learned how to filter and aggregate content and how to go from spending hours online to only a few minutes a day. Social media can be a huge time investment. Learn how to manage your time and balance your day. And the most important skill of all is to learn to balance work with life. I have to say I managed to stay sane and have sufficient time to play and enjoy my life outside of ” computer time”.

2. Learn to elliminate 80% of the time you spent on unnecessary and non-important tasks and concentrate your effort on 20% of the things that are truly important for your business and for your life. It’s hard some days but you can do it. Limit your time to what’s truly important and get rid of everything else.

3. Social networking is great and really works when done correctly. One of my biggest appeal to social networking is the opportunity to make friends in real life. It’s rewarding to know you met someone on Twitter first and eventually you got to shake their hand in person. Introduce people to each other. Never forget that the Internet just opens the door for real relationships and true networking.

4. Never stop learning. Pick a tool each month and learn it. Maybe it’s WordPress, FourSquare, Evernote, Dropbox or Groupon. Whatever it’s the latest and greatest tool, invest time in learning it and seeing how it applies to your digital life or business. Don’t jump at all tools at once.

5. Every 6 months revisit your business plan/social media/marketing strategy and adjust as necessary. It’s one thing to have a plan. It’s different to actually follow it, measure your goals and adjust your strategy. Don’t be afraid to make a mistake. Learn from it and keep moving. Don’t waste too much time on worrying about being perfect. No one is.

6. Celebrate. Small things matter. Set monthly and weekly goals that you can measure and when you achieve them, congratulate yourself. Set the bar higher for the following month.

7. Create a compelling story. People don’t care about your product. They will identify with a good story and if they believe it they will consider purchasing your product. Don’t just sell them your stuff. Provide interesting and engaging content. Ask yourself not what you are going to gain from social networks but rather what are you going to contribute. What’s your story? How do you fit it?

8. Find your niche. Find your niche and your voice. What are you knowledgeable about and have an expert opinion on? What do you know that people want to know? What can you be the “google” of? Without a very targeted niche approach your marketing will get lost. Start small and think big.

9. Before jumping in social media – educate yourself. Read blogs, learn new tools, develop a strategy and adapt it. After a few months revisit your measurements and adjust as necessary. Start small and grow your efforts as you become more proficient with each network. Social networking works. Period. But don’t expect to see overnight success in terms of sales. Be patient. You didn’t wake up one day to a full house of kids. Or maybe you did. Most likely you went through the dating stage, the wedding, and eventually the kids. It’s the same with social networking.

10. What are you passionate about? Do you have passion for what you do? Can you carry your passion online in your blog, tweets, Facebook updates? They say Content is King. If you don’t have passion, content will be a chore. If you have passion, get yourself a Flip camera, start a blog and start producing quality content. You will start building an audience. Just remember #8. Find your niche.

What would you like to get from Out&About Marketing? How are you using the site? What advice do you have for the blog and for me? What is your biggest marketing and social media challenge?

Thank you for your feedback and for your time. Now I’m going to celebrate being one year old!!!

Categories: Blog Business eMarketing Events Life Marketing Small Businesses Social Media Social Media Marketing Success Stories | 2 Comments »

10 reasons why I started Out&About Marketing

Posted by Milena Regos on February 7, 2010

1. Because I’m passionate about honest marketing and social media and believe that if done right it really works.
2. Because I’m tired of shitty marketing and bad customer service.
3. Because the social web is changing the world and businesses will adapt or die. Some businesses need to die. It’s OK.
4. Because people need great products and services and amazing companies want to sell their products and services.
5. Because I believe the biggest marketing channel is Word of Mouth. Word of Mouth Works. Social Media facilitates Word of Mouth.
6. Because companies can save a lot of money with the right web tools and technology. In this economy, saving money on your marketing is crucial to the success of your company. Don’t save money to just save money. Market the right way. Be aggressive. Now is the time to stand out.
7. Because the tools exist but the people who know how to use them really well are not there or are very expensive.
8. Because it takes a lot of time to learn what I already know.
9. Because not everyone can afford a big agency and not everyone needs it.
10. Because I want to create brilliant, remarkable, outstanding marketing campaigns for talkable brands.

So staying up late at night and working on weekends doesn’t bother me. I’m doing what I love and what I’m passionate about. I consider myself lucky. Very lucky. How about you? What are you passionate about?

Categories: Blog Customer service Life Marketing Social Media Word of Mouth | 6 Comments »

One Happy Customer – Case Study

Posted by Milena Regos on November 11, 2009

Overnight success with social media

Sliding on The Cheap turned to Out&About Marketing for help with social media. Kevin Tinto, a great businessman and founder of Sliding  on The Cheap could see the potential for using social media for his business. His website, http://slidingonthecheap.com offers discounted skiing and snowboarding lift tickets, ski&stay packages, ski deals, ski shop sales,  ski resort events and killer deals from around the country. Sliding on the Cheap has solid email following (30,000 subscribers+) and many businesses report a spike in phone calls the minute their newsletter goes out. Kevin, who lives part time in the Bay Area and part time in Truckee is a hard core skier and really passionate about skiing, snowboarding, motorcycles, wakeboarding, biking and anything outdoors. He’s determined to spread discounts and insights from the ski resorts to his loyal followers and help making skiing and boarding more affordable – a great idea in this economy. If you are not already a fan of his newsletter, join today and watch for it to hit your Inbox – you are guaranteed to read something that you will like and use for your next ski/board adventure.

Here’s what Kevin Tinto said about this custom created social media strategy for Sliding on The Cheap:

“As one of the largest Ski/Snowboard informational services with more than 30,000 weekly email subscribers worldwide,  we sensed that Social Media was critical to the continued growth and success of our business, but had no idea how to implement on a large scale.  With limited knowledge of this new medium, we turned to Milena Regos.  Her charge:  Develop in a matter of weeks, a complete and professional Facebook and Twitter Strategy. Within two weeks of launch we had 345 Facebook Fans and we are adding new Fans and Email subscribers daily.  We fully expect to add thousands of email subscribers by season’s end, and expand our business in directions we couldn’t have even contemplated just six months ago. As Managers, you have two choices: use Out&About Marketing to work on your Social Media Strategy, or find yourself  outgunned in a complex and changing Internet environment”.

With the launch of Sliding on The Cheap social media strategy, they are off to a great start. Within days, they accumulated 345 Facebook fans and continue to grow fast thanks to an easy and engaging Facebook contest.

It’s the perfect business to engage on social media with their fans. People love discounts and freebies and they will help spread the love from Sliding on The Cheap. Fan them on Facebook or start following them on Twitter today. Although, we can’t disclose the specifics of their social media strategy, here are some tips that any business can utilize to become successful:

1. Create a solid word-of-mouth campaign. Word of Mouth is your best marketing vehicle. If you have happy customers, they will talk about your business to their friends and spread the word for you – for free. If you need help creating your Word of Mouth campaign, Out&About Marketing can help.
2. Explore the possibilities of social media. Find the networks that make the most sense for you. Not everyone needs to be on Twitter and not everyone needs to be on LinkedIn. With more than 300 million active users on Facebook you can’t ignore it but you still need a plan on why and how you are going to engage. Have you heard of Foursquare? It may be the next Twitter.
3. Understand that once you commit to being on social media, you need to keep your content fresh and engage with your followers. There’s nothing worse than seeing a blog that hasn’t been updated for a year or going to a Facebook page that’s been non-existent for months.
4. Think of fresh and engaging content. Make sure you provide value and not just sell your business.
5. Listen to what your customers are telling you and address their requests in your business. Use social networks as a research tool to make your business better.
6. Adjust your strategy as you learn more about the social media environment. You will make mistakes. Apologize quickly and publicly when you make a mistake and move on.
7. Hire someone with experience that can help you get your social media off the ground. This new marketing medium is changing too fast and you need someone who’s staying on top of it, understands how it all works and can recommend the best approach for your business. You are probably not going to hire someone full time to learn and maintain your social media effort, but you can outsource some of it and commit to doing some of in in-house by spreading the responsibilities to people within your company. Social media can be very powerful if used well and any company can benefit from it. Social media does take knowledge and time. The knowledge required is not just about social media, but also about online marketing in general and how customers behave online. If you get stuck, Out&About Marketing is here to help you!

Share some excellent social media stories here or tell us what you need help with. Do you know someone who wants to explore the endless possibilities that word-of-mouth and social media present? Send them this post today. (Full disclosure: In case it’s not clear until now, Sliding on The Cheap is my client).

Categories: Blog Brands I like Business Case Studies Creativity eMarketing Facebook Marketing Ski industry Small Businesses Social Media Social Media Marketing Success Stories Technology Web 2.0 Web 2.0 tools Word of Mouth | No Comments »