Out of the Fog Marketing

A down economy and slow summer season make it one of the best times to re-evaluate your company’s marketing strategy. I'll be presenting a list of proven tips which have worked for our tech clientele. Here are the first three:

1) Create a Marketing Rulebook. When starting your company or launching a new product line, make sure you are consistent in everything you do. From the president of the company to the receptionist, all should have the same idea of what your company is, and how you present it to the outside world. Your marketing rulebook should have both internal and external positioning. It should have defined target audience(s). Although you would think that the more groups of people you target the better, it will be might be a smarter choice to narrow your focus. Pin point the best fit for your company –this may not be the group with the highest short-term revenue potential, but the one with the best long-term prospects.

Another important aspect that fits into your marketing rulebook is to be consistent in your form and style. This might seem like the simplest of all the rules, but it is one of the most important. Your target audience should your logo, blog, and URL on just about every piece of outbound marketing including emails. Brand elements should be in press releases, articles, blog syndication websites increasing familiarity with your company.

2 Research your marketplace before spending. It’s amazing how many companies spend marketing dollars unnecessarily. This is why it is important to research your marketplace before you spend money on a service or campaign. There are many internet tools that help you determine the wants and needs of your target audience. For example, SurveyMonkey.com and Zoomerang.com are both online survey tools, which can help you get a feel for what your target audience needs. These services can range from a limit of 10 questions for a free account or an unlimited amount of questions for only twenty dollars. However, the more intricate your survey becomes the more expensive it will be. Nevertheless, this can be a worthwhile investment, because the more you spend on the survey the less you will unknowingly spend on useless campaigns.

It is also important to check out your competitors online. This can be as simple as entering what a prospective client would type to find your service in a search engine. When generating a list of competitors, you should see what they have done to become successful and see how you can learn from this.

Finally, you should determine your ideal prospect profile. You can use a more pricey service such as Hoovers, which generates a complete list of all the companies you might want to target. However, there are also other free options, such as ReferenceUSA. You can usually access this account through your local library. Jigsaw and LinkedIn are great data sources if you know the names of the companies you want to target but need an employee's name and contact information, .

3) Establish a marketing budget. Once you have researched your market, establish a 12-month marketing budget. I advise companies to create a gold, silver and bronze budget in terms of the dollar amount and then you will be ready if you have to slash or increase budgets throughout the year. For more on the ways to establish the correct amount for your marketing budget, see http://www.clarityqst.com/pdf/marketing_budget.pdf.

Stay tuned for the next post in which we'll cover branding and customer testimonials....

Labels: high-tech marketing, hoovers, infousa, jigsaw, marketing technology, referenceusa, technology marketing, tips linkedin

OK I admit it. The digital age of "get it when I want it and that means now" has made me more impatient. I won't wait for coffee if there more than 3 people in line. And I dial the next company on my search engine page if the first home repair outfit doesn't pickup. However most consumers (including myself) will wait if your product or service is truly outstanding.
Take custom cakes at Cake Nouveau in Ann Arbor -their cake orders are booked through the summer. For my last birthday my husband went in looking for a "nice pretty" cake and came away with a custom kayak cake in tribute to my favorite hobby. That's over the top outstanding.
Even in business-to-business marketing we tout the benefits of differentiation. But are you REALLY differentiated? What has your company done that's out there or over-the-top whether it's PR, customer service or your latest product? People will wait for the best.

Labels: b2bmarketing, business to business, local business marketing. differentiation

NPR recently broadcast an interview with Rob Walker on the Diane Rehm Show, which provides a good overview the current state of marketing. While the focus was primarily B2C, there are certainly implications for all sectors: with the abundance of choice in every industry, buyers are turning to their emotions to help them make decisions. People are identifying with what they buy as a reflection of who they are. Consider the 2007 study reporting the majority of people who buy Prius hybrids do so because it sends a message that they are green, rather than to specifically produce fewer emission or get better gas mileage.

Since businesspeople are human too, factors beyond numbers contribute to B2B buying. Think about the strong messages that are sent when companies make culture decisions—when a tech start-up dumps their in-house PCs to go all-Mac, when a firm switches to a 4-day workweek, or when an outdoorsy entrepreneur installs a climbing wall in the break room? There are innumerable businesses in any industry providing "quality services", connecting with your clients on another level entirely can make their buying decision easier.

Get a free high quality back link to your website by creating a personal and domain page at Aboutus.org.
The Wiki-based site pages get very quickly indexed by Google. If you have not created or edited a Wiki page before it can take a little time to learn the system, but there is a handy tutorial on the site.

Labels: about us, backlinks, build backlinks, link building for SEO

Research states executives and business owners spend up to 25 minutes a day, or 100 hours each year, just scheduling meetings on their calendars. Jiffle offers an online scheduling and calendar system that lets your prospects, clients or customers see your calendar and schedule a meeting. Right now the service is free, but after June 2008 it will require a subscription starting at $99 per year or $9.99 per month.

Labels: appointment setting, jiffle, online calendar, online meetings, scheduling

It isn't just a good idea for the environment, recycling is great for marketing your business as well. Recycling ideas that is. Often content such as articles, snippets or topical advice can be reconstructed or updated as an easy way to build more content and, if online, gain valuable back links.
Also if you spend a good deal of time on content such as blog posts, make sure you distribute subsets of the content on sites such as Twitter. You can also put snippets on your email signature.

Labels: backlinks, blog posts, blogging, guerilla marketing, marketing content, twitter