Jack Kaser, CEO
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7 Signs Your Marketing May Need to Evolve |
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A lot of marketers get both confused and fed up with all the talk about things like new media, social media, inbound marketing, user generated content, and the age of conversation. I mean, how is a person suppose to apply all these somewhat vague and hard to pin down terms and trends. Well, there's no denying that the world and certainly the world of marketing has changed. If you're trying to wrap your head around what that might mean for you, here are seven very concrete ways to start viewing the evolution of your marketing strategies and practices.
1) Your marketing strategy is a sales strategy - far too many small business folks view marketing as selling. I've got nothing against sales, you must have them, but what you must have, before a sales presentation is ever made, is a crystal clear, very easy to understand difference. You must claim and communicate at every turn the way that your products, services, and processes are uniquely here to make some narrowly defined target market's life better. Oh, and it can't be boring, there must be something remarkable enough about your business or strategy that people go out of their way to tell others about it. Do that and selling not only gets easier, it gets somewhat superfluous.
2) You use mail-in rebates - OK, really this one's kind of a pet peeve of mine, but it applies to any kind of odd or confusing issues around pricing, buying your products, contacting your company, or engaging your services. Any practice that doesn't make sense or makes your customers jump through hoops, either because it makes your life easier or you're intentionally trying to trick people into buying, is so last century.
3) You are the low price loser - This is the opposite of the low price leader. See, the low price leader uses technical or operational advantages to profitably thrive in competitive pricing scenarios. The low price loser simply tries to compete on price alone instead of competing on value. Value means many things, but far too often business owners undervalue or under-educate about true value and are forced to differentiate based on price. Differentiate, activate and army talkers, add value, and charge premium prices.
4) You think a blog is something created by the IT department - Blogging is the tip of the very large iceberg of content creation in the new world of marketing, but it's still one of the easiest ways for you to play. The fact that anyone can find anything they want about any business or challenge by simply visiting a search engine means that you must be consistently producing content that allows your business to be the one they find online. Committing to producing educational content through the low-cost, easy to operate blogging software is a no-brainer for your marketing department.
5) You think lead generation is about hunting - the problem with going out and hunting down your prospects is that they have developed far too many ways to tune your messages out or simply developed a numbness to much of what they see as attempts to sell them stuff. Today's marketers are optimizing tons of content, written word, images, audio, and video and placing it online, offline, and in outposts like LinkedIn and Business Week's Business Exchange so that when prospects go looking, and they still are, these marketers are being found.
6) You think the only way to press coverage is pounding journalists with press releases - Well, I'm not really sure this was ever that effective, but identifying key journalists and building relationships through relevant interaction on their blog, sending industry data, and commenting on stories is a far better way to become a quoted source. Expand your view of the media to include industry blogs (some of which have larger and more focused readerships than a traditional metro Business Journal) and build relationships with these individuals. Consistently submit press releases and articles to online distribution sites such as PRWeb and Pitch Engine.
7) You think the best way to get more referrals is to ask - Sure asking for referrals is a good thing, but being more referable is a better thing. You make your organization more referable when you do something that's remarkable, that people can't not talk about. And, you do it by looking at every interaction with a prospect or customer as a marketing interaction. You do it by making certain that in every engagement the customer not only receives the value, but realizes that value fully. You do it by keeping your promise in a way that provides a wonderful experience.
Click here to view article from Duct Tape Marketing: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ducttapemarketing/nRUD/~3/ydCsB3g0bmg/
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Try These Innovative Marketing Techniques |
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Friday, 29 May 2009 17:17 |
Maureen Farrell, Lisa LaMotta, Mary Crane and Brett Nelson How to get the word out and not go broke doing it. When it came to marketing her Boston-based cosmetic dentistry practice, Helaine Smith chose to marry modern technology with an age-old principle: Sex sells. Last March, Smith published Healthy Mouth, Healthy Sex!, a 19-page electronic book about how oral hygiene can lead to better sex. The free guide offers medical advice on everything from having oral sex with braces to the effects of gum disease on pregnancies. Since the book went live, Smith's name has careered around the Web. "When people Google me, all of this appears, and everybody says wow," says Smith. "It supports everything I do. I'm popping up all over the place." Since ditching her $2,000-a-month Yellow Pages advertisement in 2002, Smith has become a modern-age marketing maven. She writes an e-newsletter and posts instructional videos on YouTube, covering topics from infection control to painless injections. Smith also writes on dental health for local newspapers. Result: Since 2002, annual revenues have tripled to $1 million, while her marketing budget hasn't grown a penny, she claims.Getting the word out on the cheap is one of the greatest hurdles for aspiring small-business owners in any economic environment, let alone the troubled one we're in now. "In times like this, people think the first thing to do is to cut back on marketing to save money," says guerrilla-marketing expert Jay Conrad Levinson. "But that's kind of like ditching your wristwatch to save time. A down economy is not a time to become low profile, or people will forget you." Levinson's contrarian philosophy: Double marketing outlays in tough times, to perhaps 8% of projected gross sales from a more typical 4%. Read entire article at Forbes |
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NEXTLevel Business Introduction |
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Friday, 29 May 2009 17:17 |
Jack Kaser, founder & CEO of NEXTLevel Business, began his entrepreneurial journey in 1984 when he started his first company- Kaser Communications Advertising in Dayton, OH. 14-years later in 1998, in an effort to compete in a larger market, Mr. Kaser moved to Cincinnati, OH and started Synergy Group, a marketing & technology company. A decade later, as business and market conditions continued to evolve, NEXTLevel Business was born. What began 24-years ago as an advertising design firm, has evolved into a world-class growth strategy consultancy. Today, he has joined forces with TopLine Business Solutions in Phoenix, AZ. Their combined ideas and strategies have been proven to work for many recognized companies like AT& T, Pet Foods, Black and Decker, General Mills, Ralston Purina, Pacific Power & Light, Blue Cross- Blue Shield, Deluxe Check Imprinters, Coca Cola USA, Hewlett Packard, Honeywell, General Mills, IDS/American Express and countless others… and they can work for your business too! So, find yourself a quiet place, get out your pen and notepad, and get ready to learn how to become the overwhelming choice for your prospects and customers to do business with! In a nutshell, the NEXTLevel team is in business to produce bottom-line profits for their clients. And because they are very good at what they do…results are guaranteed! Throughout their website, you will find useful information that will help you better understand the fastest, easiest, most profitable way to double you business and income. For serious business owners, visit NEXTLevelBusiness.com or feel free to email Jack Kaser directly at
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. Don’t forget to purchase a copy of his new book, “The FORMULA- Creating Customers For Life”, and ask for it autographed absolutely FREE! TAKE YOUR BUSINESS TO THE NEXT LEVEL TODAY! |
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