It’s officially Spring. Birds are singing, flowers are blooming and generally people are happier with the lighter evenings and the dreary winter months behind us for another year. Time to take stock and put some plans in place.
So what can you do to refresh your marketing?
Once you start, keep going!
One of the most difficult challenges of any marketing, communications or business development campaign is maintaining momentum. These activities tend to generate their own buzz and excitement at the beginning as everyone involved begins to buy into and contribute to the new ideas and ‘fire’ which surround the creative process.
Everyone is very eager to get started, to ‘do something’ proactive and ultimately beneficial for the business. But this type of intensity can be very difficult to maintain over a prolonged period of time, especially when the desired results may not be immediately forthcoming. Continue reading
It doesn’t matter how great your business is, if the impression you leave with clients is that you’re too busy being great to pay attention to things like good service.
Clients who are spending money with you will want to feel like they are valued and that their business and commitment to you are worth something. If you can’t fulfil that part of the covenant between you, you may find clients migrating elsewhere. Continue reading
The benefit of video content might not be immediately apparent to everyone; but as soon as you consider that YouTube is the second largest search engine behind Google then the benefits become more obvious.
Video content is especially useful for businesses which have something to teach or who can develop instructional content. ‘How to do XYZ’ videos are a good example. Instructional videos seem to rank best followed by videos with funny content.
One step at a time but keep going!
Step 1 – determine your target.
Make a list of all the publications in your target market area. Look at newspapers, trade magazines, local newsletters etc. If you are interested in broadcast, also list local radio stations and television channels.
Step 2 – develop a database of contacts.
Find out who the best person within each media is for your story, it may be there are several people who could take it with a different angle. Make sure your story or news is appropriate for the person you are sending it to.
Never has this been more true than in the current climate.
You can communicate regularly with your propsects, lure them within arms reach, tempt them with lots of offers and still they don’t buy from you. What next?
Well sometimes sitting in your own comfort zone is what prevents those “hot” prospects from taking things further. It’s necessary for you to start mixing in their circles, making yourself known to them in a more familiar environment.
It is easy to get overwhelmed when you are trying to pull a marketing strategy together for your business.
You are living and breathing it and sometimes you need to take a step back and assess what’s really necessary.
Your competitors seem to be everywhere, you are nowhere! You feel that you need to be everywhere but you don’t know where to start. Well that one is easy! Forget the competition. For now at least.
Consider sponsorship. I don’t mean the high profile TV ad type of sponsorship (unless of course you have the budget and it works for you), I mean sponsor an event that they are likely to attend where your brand can be put in front of them and raise awareness in an uncluttered environment.
Most of you will have heard of Guerrilla Marketing founded by Jay Conrad Levinson “The Father of Guerrilla Marketing”. This was an email received from them about creating marketing brochures.
Guerrilla brochures and how to produce them
Now that it’s so easy to produce your own brochures right in your own office, and now that the World Wide Web just begs you to publish your brochure online, it’s crucial that you don’t make the ten big mistakes made by amateurs with their brochures.