Knock the Dust Off Your Marketing Plan
It’s time to start thinking about your marketing plan for the next year, assuming your fiscal year starts January 1.
Around this time of year, assessment and planning starts. What advertising has worked? Should we put more money into interactive advertising? Do we need to revamp our website? While these are all things you should be thinking about, we recommend that you dig deeper.
Good Reputations are Built on Good Behavior
Earlier in my career, I met with a business owner who asked me to promote his achievements. His goal was to build awareness and credibility as an expert in his field, among his prospective customers, peers and the media.
After telling me about his many good deeds that deserved recognition, I asked him whether he had done any bad things that could harm his reputation and would make it impossible to reach his goal. Naturally, he responded that he had a stellar career and there were no skeletons in his closet.
This challenge sounded intriguing, so I went to work and developed a smart public relations strategy to build his reputation. While I was preparing to execute this strategy, I opened the newspaper and discovered one skeleton that my client failed to share with me.
To counter the bad news, my client asked me to immediately ramp up his public relations plan and start communicating all of his accomplishments. However, he failed to explain why he was not truthful earlier about his past mistake that made the news.
Protecting Your Online Community and, Thereby, Your Brand
Stephenie Meyer, the author of the best-selling Twilight series and other novels, recently said she is resigning from social media. Regardless if you are a fan of her or the vampire stories she tells, this speaks to a larger issue of people using Internet applications to attack or even disguise their identities – people commonly called trolls – to say what they want.
As more companies use social networking to reach their customers or humanize their brand, the growing number of trolls online could intimidate a brand from jumping into to the social media pool.
So, how can businesses keep trolls under the bridge where they belong and out of their online communities? It’s not easy, but it can be done.
Brand Your Body (and Other Things)
Part of the “Low-Cost, High-Impact” Smart Marketing Workshop
It’s one of those simple things that a lot of businesses overlook: putting their logo on clothing. If the clothing is cool, interesting or free, it’s likely that customers are willing to be your walking billboard.
You can go with the typical t-shirt or baseball hat, or think creatively. Pictured is the Bookmans bicycling team. Bookmans paid for the jerseys and shorts and they get cycling billboards found riding all over town and in major events such as the Tour de Tucson.
Build and Enhance Your Brand Online
If you’re not online, your business is sooo last decade.
Entire generations have now grown up without having to open a phone book. They know they can get the same information – plus a summary of the business, perhaps some photos, customer reviews and ratings – quicker and more conveniently online.
Nearly one out of every three Pima County residents is between the ages of 10 and 34. You can’t afford to ignore that many would-be customers. Here are some simple steps you can take to capitalize on the Web.
Introduce your business online. If your business doesn’t have a Web site, build one. A Web site advertises your business 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It costs on average between $25 and $300 a year for a registrar to host your domain name. Where else can you get that kind of exposure for that price?
Capture an online audience. Interactive marketing has become a specialization that commands high prices. But there are things you can do to maximize visits to your site without paying an expert to help direct Web traffic to your company. Focus on your company’s mailing lists, providing customers with your Web address via signs, business cards, promotional fliers, holiday cards, promotional gifts, etc.