They recently posted this David C. Cohen article “The Mentor Manifesto” on their Facebook Page, and I wanted to also share it with you. I found it to be true in mentoring, and also true in life.

Find the full post here.

The Mentor Manifesto

• Be socratic.
• Expect nothing in return (you’ll be delighted with what you do get back).
• Be authentic / practice what you preach.
• Be direct. Tell the truth, however hard.
• Listen too.
• The best mentor relationships eventually become two-way.
• Be responsive.
• Adopt at least one company every single year. Experience counts.
• Clearly separate opinion from fact.
• Hold information in confidence.
• Clearly commit to mentor or do not. Either is fine.
• Know what you don’t know. Say I don’t know when you don’t know. “I don’t know” is preferable to bravado.
• Guide, don’t control. Teams must make their own decisions. Guide but never tell them what to do. Understand that it’s their company, not yours.
• Accept and communicate with other mentors that get involved.
• Be optimistic.
• Provide specific actionable advice, don’t be vague.
• Be challenging/robust but never destructive.
• Have empathy. Remember that startups are hard.

If you are are just starting off in your Marketing career, check out his other blog post on How to Find and Engage Great Mentors.

For those that joined us, thank you. We hope you found value in our discussion. And for those that missed it, here’s some excerpts.

And be sure to check out our free Marketing Toolkit.

Links to Austin Area College/University Job Boards

• University of Texas Access – https://accessut.utexas.edu/
• Texas State – http://www.careerservices.txstate.edu/Employers.html
• St. Edward’s  – https://www.myinterfase.com/stedwards/employer/home.aspx
• Austin Community College – http://www.austincc.edu/career/employers/postjob.php
• Southwestern – https://southwestern-csm.symplicity.com/employers/index.php?signin_tab=0&js_disabled=0
• Concordia  – https://www.myinterfase.com/concordia-texas/employer
• Huston Titlston – http://cgd.htu.edu/Recruiters/RecruitersProcedureGuide/tabid/82/Default.aspx
• Texas Lutheran College – http://www.tlu.edu/cs_employers

Marketing Intern Job Description Template

TITLE: Marketing Intern, Paid, Summer Internship

At <company name>, we do these things <123XYZ>. We are looking for a strategic marketing intern to help us execute on our business objectives as we <do what in?> the market.

The intern will be in a tutoring and mentoring relationship, reporting to the <enter the hiring manager position>. The purpose of the internship is to <example: “carry a consistent message to market, and to gain awareness and exposure that brings in new clients. “>

The intern role consists of <sample tasks>:

-       Social and Email Marketing program management

-       Writing and editing for the company blog

-       Content creation and execution

-       Pulling Market Statistics and Research

-       Blogger and Community Outreach

-       Metrics Reporting

The Internship requires  <sample requirements>:

-       Efficient time management and responsible project planning

-       A love of writing and the discipline to edit

-       No fear of numbers

-       A willingness to reach out to strangers

-       A <Fall/Spring/Summer> semester long commitment

An Intern will be successful in this position with some experience in < sample skill sets>, which <is/is not required>

-       HTML

-       WordPress Blog platform

-       Customer Service

-       Microsoft Office (Word, Excel)

This position offers <sample offering>:

-       Flexible Hours, some remote.

-       Approximately 20 hrs/week

-       College Credit  & References Available

-       $10/hour to start

-       Potential to remain on staff as a part-time employee

<A paragraph about your company. If you have a PR boiler plate, it’s good to use a paired down version here.>

To apply, send a cover letter by email to <email address> telling us why you would make a great <company name> intern, along with your resume.

Feature by Co-Founder, Caroline Lim. With an iPhone in one hand and a pink planner in the other, she’s always on the go. Whether she’s working, gyming it up, or shopping, you can catch her on Twitter.

Timing is everything. No, I’m not talking about when to walk up to that attractive person you’re trying to hit on, although, the same holds true. I’m talking about when to send an email campaign.

When sending an email campaign, when’s the magic day and time? This is the Holy Grail of questions for email marketers. With that said, people try desperately to find the answer. So what’s the problem? Contradictory conclusions.

Here’s the reality: Email marketing constantly changes, which means as a result, strategies should also change accordingly. To go a step further, just because a strategy works for one company doesn’t mean it works for every company.

In short, since email marketing is so dynamic across businesses and strategies are diverse within each organization (as they should be), this results in the contradictory conclusions you will find when you google “the best time to send an email campaign”. Whew! So then bottom line is, how do you know the optimal time to send an email campaign?

Welcome to part one of the three-part series on timing. Use these resources, plan your strategy and send the hell out of those emails. GoMarket!

Part 1: The Beginner. It’s the first time you try to ask someone out on a date – all you know about the timing are the basics (not while they’re eating, in the bathroom, ect) or ASAP (“Let’s just get this over with.”).

The general answer: The general rule of thumb for sending email campaigns: Mondays and weekends are bad and mid-week is good. If this doesn’t ring a bell, don’t sweat, the following resources provide some great beginner knowledge. Again, make note of the contradictory conclusions and pay more attention to the rationale and strategies.

• Timing is Everything: What is the Best Day of the Week to Send an Email to Your Customers? From Comm100

The skinny: Don’t send same day emails. Send your email three to five days before the target event, focus on sending your email blast in the Eastern Standard time zone (only relevant for North American campaigns), and for the highest open rates, send around noon or 1:00pm EST. Lastly, remember the “Monday Blues”, “Weekend Warriors”, “Midweek is the Best Week”, and the number one rule of email marketing is “Test. Then test again.”

• The Best Day and Time to Send Your Email Marketing from MarketingGum

The skinny: Pulling conclusions from Marketing Sherpa, eROI, and MailerMailer, Mondays at 9am have the highest open rates and the best click-through rates. You can even download the free whitepaper for the full details.

• Assessing the best time to send email from Email Marketing Reports

The skinny: Look at the past 6 months’ worth of  results to gain insight into the best send time for future campaigns. Generate a graph comparing your results with the yearly email marketing metrics report provided by MailerMailer as a benchmark. Deviations to this graph tell you everything you need to know.

Behind the contradictory conclusions, one thing does hold true: the importance of testing. As if I didn’t make it complicated enough, wait until you read part two of this three-part series: The Advanced.

Here’s a taste of what to expect: Best Day To Send Marketing Emails from Understanding Marketing dives into the difference between B2B and B2C email marketing strategies as well as other influencing factors such as trigger events and auto responders.

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Feature by Co-Founder, Caroline Lim. With an iPhone in one hand and a pink planner in the other, she’s always on the go. Whether she’s working, gyming it up, or shopping, you can catch her on Twitter.

Sure, maybe I spread the metaphor a little too thin with my last blog post, Win over the Gatekeeper with your Resume. But isn’t a dating metaphor pretty obvious in relation to A/B split testing? Wouldn’t you want to test which pick-up line (the variable) maximizes your return on phone numbers (conversion rate)? Know what a HiPPO is? Just keep reading.

What is A/B Split testing?
Gotta love wikipedia: “A/B testing is a method of marketing testing by which a baseline control sample is compared to a variety of single-variable test samples in order to improve response rates.”

Why A/B split test?
You A/B split test to achieve your goals and get the results you want. Usually the end goal is to increase conversions. Can you honestly trust your gut feeling 100% of the time? Never guess what works – test what works. You should always test, why? Because it’s:

• Easy. It’s the simplest testing method out there. It’s not expensive (some of the time, free!) and there are a plethora of resources out there. Wingify, a conversion optimization blog, offers a list of 15+ Free A/B Split Testing Resources.
• Creative. Unleash the creative Marketer within yourself. What’s the best part? You feel amazing when you create a test that skyrockets your conversion rate.
  • Speaking of creative, Brian Evans explains the importance of A/B split testing through a real-life example with his volunteer, Keith. Super intriguing!
• Measurable. Testing is completely measurable with the right tools in place. The benefit of measurability is to confidently decide whether or not your gut was right. I’m sure you’ll be surprised by the results.
• Evidence. Have a stubborn HiPPO (Highest Paid Person’s Opinion)? Get them off their high horse with some hard evidence. They won’t be able to argue against raw data.
• Constant Improvement: Who doesn’t want to make continual improvements to maximize returns? With A/B split testing, you can control the risk associated with making these changes.

So now that I’ve grabbed your attention, you need the following to get started:

• At least two different variations of a landing page, email campaign, subject line, or whatever you want to test. Get those thinking caps on and create a list of variations. I personally like to organize them in a good ole excel spreadsheet.
• The appropriate sample size to reach statistical significance. According to eMarketing Dynamics, “the smaller the detectable percentage improvement sought, the larger the sample size that will be required”. Use the *free* sample size calculator they provide to plan the sample size you need for your A/B split test.
• A way to track your results. (duh!) If you’re specifically testing landing pages, *free* Website Optimizer does wonders. Built to be a Marketer friendly product that requires minimal tech support, you should still watch the video tutorials and ask your Marketing Mentor for guidance. If you want to test different elements of your email campaign, use an email marketing service that offers an A/B split feature such as MailChimp and Campaign Monitor. If Website Optimizer and email marketing services don’t suit your fancy, eMarketing Dynamic’s result check is perfect for checking your results based on your sample size.

Now GoMarket. If you’re still insecure about your A/B skills, practice with Anne Holland’s website, Which Test Won?. Showcasing a “Test of the Week”, you can vote for which A/B version you think won and then see the real-life test results. If you’ve hit the ground running and already have some amazing results, share your findings with other Marketers on Marketing Sherpa. We’re all in this together right?

Thank you Dave Wilby for teaching me the importance of testing and introducing me to the world of A/B.

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Feature by Founder, Amanda McGuckin Hager. When not dreaming of interactive Marketing programs, she’s dreaming of pools, fireplaces, fashion, gardening or digging wells in Africa.

In all my years of experience, throughout departments across the organization, there is nothing like an amazing PowerPoint presentation to spur an imagination – or a career. In scrappy start-ups, presentations are used to express intangible ideas and for asking investors for money. In Fortune 500 companies like Dell, dreadful as they can be, PowerPoint presentations are used to express everything in every meeting, every single day.

Young Jedi, I can’t stress these PowerPoint skills to you enough. Whether you are planning to join the Corporate or the Non-Profit world, you’ll need to know PowerPoint. Hell, you’ll even need to know PPT if you plan to join the Military. (See the New York Times: “We Have Met the Enemy, and He is PowerPoint”).

A recent study by University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management uncovered that the PowerPoint slides you present can influence your role in strategy building (that’s cool.) I might even venture to say that your PowerPoint skillz can accelerate your career.

Here are a few key points from popular book Slideology, by Nancy Duarte (which we highly recommend for its stunning visuals. Get it here):

-          Visual Communication is key. (Words are empty. Images are substance.)

-          Design slides that capture the emotions of what you want to convey.

-          Presentations are a 3-legged stool: Message, Visual Story, and Delivery.

-          The #1 Rule you learned in English 101 still applies: Know Your Audience.

-          Beef up your Graphic Design Skills (with the help of the book) or, do like I do, hire a designer.

Where do the great PowerPoint presentations live? Slideshare.net. This site’s traffic is so massive, it is one of the top 1000 websites on the Internet. Run, don’t walk, there to find the best of the best.

And, while you can, go to your student bookstore and get the reduced-price student copy of Microsoft’s PowerPoint or Apple’s KeyNote. Don’t fret – there is always Google Docs Presentations (free).

Now, go to your local community college and take the Community Education Courses in PowerPoint. It’s worth it!

I’d like to take this opportunity to give a shout out to Marketing Superstars and friends of mine in Toronto @AprilDunford and @UnMarketing. I have no idea what their PowerPoint skills are, but we can always ask.

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Feature by Co-Founder, Caroline Lim. With an iPhone in one hand and a pink planner in the other, she’s always on the go. Whether she’s working, gyming it up, or shopping, you can catch her on Twitter.

My last blog post, What’s your best 50 character pickup line?, includes a pickup line metaphor for email subject lines. To continue my comparison between relationships and Marketing, if you impress the Gatekeeper, you get the interview. Much like dating, if you impress the best friend, you typically get the date.

Note: People actually pay “professionals” to write their resumes for them. That’s ridiculous. You are fully capable of writing your own with these excellent resources at your fingertips:

Step 1: Brainstorm –Get that notepad out. If you already have a resume worksheet, you’re ahead of the game. If not, or you have no idea what I’m talking about, no worries, there are plenty of them out there like this one from uwrf.edu. If you’d rather just start jotting down your past experiences, major accomplishments, skill sets, ect, Grace Keh wrote a great article on building your own resume worksheet.

My #1 tip? Keep your career goals in mind. Once you have that figured out, your resume should reflect it.

Step 2: Write - Hopefully you already know to use positive, active words when writing your resume, to highlight accomplishments, not tasks, and to tailor your resume towards the position you are applying for. But do you know about the 5 p’s and the 7 secrets?

The 5 p’s of resume writing are Packaging, Positioning, Punch, Personality, and Professionalism. Each of these p’s are described in detail within Jay A. Block and Michael Betrus’ book, 101 Best Resumes.

The 7 secrets come from this completely brilliant article: 7 secrets of a successful marketing resume by Louise Fletcher. Happy reading!

Personal advice: Don’t go crazy with the professional jargon. It’s a sure sign if you are dependent on a thesaurus. Furthermore, don’t use superlatives when describing yourself. You may be a complete rockstar, but be sophisticated about your accomplishments through awards and numbers.

Step 3: Layout – My top 5 tips:
1. There are many ways to organize your resume. The layout can vary, but should always be consistent in regards to font, size, margins, ect.
2. Keep it simple and concise. Your resume is a synopsis of your abilities, not an autobiography. Rule of thumb: one page in length.
3. Emphasize your strengths and downplay your weaknesses.
4. Keep the reader in mind.  Make sure your resume is appeasing to the eyes and not too “busy”.
5. Put some personality into it. Your resume should be professional but also stand out in the crowd. I personally like to add my LinkedIn and Twitter account so the reader can dig deeper into who I am.

For awesome formatting tips and hints, use the Mccombs School of Business Resume Writing Guide. For instance, you’ll learn how to maximize lines and space by avoiding the “orphans” or “danglers”.

Step 4: Examples: Look at some “great” examples.  Yes, I know “great” is a very relative term, but that’s why you’re reading this blog post! Here are some of my favorite resources:

For the bookworm: Start on page 223 for the “Portfolio of Sample Resumes” portion of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Perfect Resume, 4th Edition. I would also recommend checking out the newest edition that was published this year. If that’s not enough, 101 Best Resumes, Chapter 10, gives you a plethora of examples as well.

If you’re completely against books: bestsampleresume.com offers Marketing resume samples in various Marketing positions. Awesome.

A duh moment: don’t plagiarize the resume examples you find. I mean, honestly, I just had to throw that out there.

Step 5: Checkmarks and Proofread: Time to dot the i’s and cross the t’s. Make sure you’ve got everything checked off this Resume Checklist from The University of Scranton Career Center.

Once you’re all checked off, it’s time to Proofread. Let’s be honest, some people can be real sticklers about grammar and the tiniest mistake can get your resume kicked out of the pile. Not only should you proofread your own resume at least 5 times, get someone else to proofread as well. (Hint: This is where a marketing mentor would come in handy.) Also, like all important writing material, get someone who will give honest feedback, aka not your mother.

So there you have it, the do’s for writing your resume. Happy resume writing, GoMarket yourself, and hopefully you’ll never make it on this list: 150 Funniest Resume Mistakes, Bloopers and Blunders Ever.

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You might be wondering what is worthy of writing a press release. Really, you are asking: “What is News?”

To many, writing a news release is the cornerstone of services provided to them by their PR firm. When a news release is written, there is a perception that media will come flocking to us to do a story … well, that isn’t necessarily the case. A news release requires thought and strategy to develop it and it certainly requires a pro when it comes to pitching the news release and story ideas to a reporter.

Just because your company exists doesn’t mean it’s time to write a news release. And, when a news release is written, it doesn’t mean that every media outlet on the planet is going to cover our story. Here are some examples of what we mean:

Event: Alliance with another organization
Potential coverage: Trade media in your industry, local business media

Event: Awards
Potential coverage: Trade media in your industry, local business media

Event: Company birthday
Potential coverage: Unless it is a major milestone birthday (say, 150th anniversary), don’t hold your breath for too much coverage

Event: Donations, grants, etc. you are giving/receiving
Potential coverage: Trade media in your industry, local business media. Note: the larger the dollar amount, the more newsy the story becomes.

Event: New product, services, employees, clients
Potential coverage: Trade media in your industry, local media. Depending on the availability of your new product or service, national media coverage is definitely an option. Also, if an employee or client has a well-known name, it is very possible to go outside of trade media and into national consumer media for coverage.

Event: Special events
Potential coverage: Local media, potentially national media depending on the type of event. Again, the larger the dollar amount, attendance, impact, etc., the more newsy the story becomes.

Obviously there are many, many more story opportunities than this, but the list is meant to give you a perspective on the thought and strategy that goes behind not only writing the news release but also who is pitched. Every news release creates different media opportunities and it’s our job as your PR agency to guide you in that process.

50 characters. That’s all it takes to make or break your email campaign. I guess that’s why they say the subject line of an email is the most important element of the entire campaign. Think of it as a pickup line. The first few words out of your mouth can make or break your chances for a date. Too much pressure? Here are 5 great resources, your wingmen, to help you land that first date (that leads to a great relationship, of course):

1. Email Marketing Subject Line Comparison by MailChimp: MailChimp is an email marketing service that also has an awesome resource tab complete with free email marketing guides and articles. This particular article includes interesting findings from a study where they analyzed 40 million emails and found the ones with the highest and lowest open rates.

Main takeaway? To achieve the highest open rates, the subject lines should be straightforward, describe the subject of your email, and not scream advertisement. As “stupid simple” as it may seem, I think they hit the nail on the head.

2. Email Subject Line: 15 rules to Write Them Right by Lyris: Lyris is another email marketing service that has a superb list of email marketing resources. My personal favorites include their white papers and webinars. This white paper lays out 15 rules that every marketer should know about writing subject lines, aka the “tricky little devils”.

My favorite rule? Rule #3: Test, test, test.

3. E-Mail Subject Lines: Beyond the Basics by Gail Goodman from Entrepreneur.com: Being a guru in email marketing with a ridiculous track record, Gail Goodman also finds time to be Entrepreneur.com’s “Email Marketing coach”. As you may know, Entrepreneur.com is a useful marketing resource in itself, but in particular, Gail has written some awesome material. Although it’s an older article, it’s a short and sweet way to teach marketing interns or entry-level marketers how to make subject lines more “powerful and compelling”.

Of the 5 points, I would have to say #4: Remember “WIIFM”, really drives it home.

4. Email Subject Lines: Words, Order as Critical as Length by Sean Donahue from Sherpa Blog: If you don’t know MarketingSherpa, you should. Although MarketingSherpa does require a membership (try the free trial) in order to read some of their full articles, their blog is a free, helpful resource! This Sherpa blog post summarizes the findings of a white paper by Epsilon who analyzed subject lines to “determine the influence of length, word order and content on open rates and clicks”.

In a nutshell, keeping your subject line short isn’t everything, you also need to pay attention to word choice and word placement.

5. Optimizing Headlines and Subject Lines by Dr. Flint McGlaughlin from Marketing Experiments: If you are someone who loves presentations and PowerPoints, this is the resource for you. Marketing Experiments is a free resource that specializes in marketing communications research and experiments, hence the name. Although optimizing headlines is an important know-how as well, since we’re focusing on optimizing subject lines, I would skip to slide #13 of the PowerPoint.

This presentation is super neat because it explains the step by step process in which different subject lines can be tested to produce the highest open rate.

Fool-proof pickup lines don’t exist. Similarly, there is no “right” way to write a “successful” subject line. Even your flawless marketing mentor (yeah, right) doesn’t have the golden touch. Writing a subject line that proves optimal results is an art, and with every art form, it takes practice and learning from mistakes. If there is one thing I wanted you to takeaway from this post, it would have to be the importance of testing. Ideally try A/B split testing, which will be a future blog post.

Catch up with Brian on Twitter, by following him here. I also recommend subscribing to his newsletter, which offers all kinds of tips, tricks and tools.

Read the books Brian recommends:
-Landing Page Optimization: The Definitive Guide to Testing and Tuning for Conversions
-Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition
-Waiting for Your Cat to Bark?: Persuading Customers When They Ignore Marketing
-Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day

Catch up with Josh on Twitter, by following him here, and be sure to check out (and subscribe to) his blog, A Random Jog.

Read the book Josh recommends, Made to Stick, by ordering it here.