Last
modified June
30,
2009
Can
you manage your own social media communications?
Can
you maintain your brand?
Effective
messages are best developed with the ultimate goal of solidifying
the brand, and bringing awareness to the products or services
the company has to offer.
Can
you diversify?
Diversifying your communications to reach select, targeted audiences allows
you to broadcast your message productively and fruitfully. You must constantly
identify, research and seek the most direct and appropriate methods and messages,
ensuring maximum potential for coverage.
Can
you keep up?
Further, and just as importantly, full accessibility
in answering questions or providing explication is a critical connection with
your audiences that
must be fully supported for each communication. The point of social media is
to engage; you can’t leave ‘em hanging! Interest from your audiences
without access will not produce thorough exposure. In fact, it may undermine
the very efforts and goals you undertake.
For
social media help, click
here.
Make
your Offer Clear
Be
specific about the purpose of your offer. For instance,
do you want to drive traffic to your location, get people
to come to your web site, create a buzz or establish yourself
as a thought leader?
If
your goal is to drive traffic into your location, make
sure you give your customers or prospective customers a
reason to go to your facility. Make the offer fun and specific,
a reason why you would consider changing a busy day for
a stop. The toughest thing to do is get someone to go somewhere.
Our lives are consumed with responsibilities that are overwhelming
most days. Think of what would make you change your plans
for the day. Would it be a real savings, would it be free
coffee while you shop, or maybe a value-added benefit?
McDonald’s has a time-tested pull that literally
drives traffic to its doors: Their Monopoly games not only
get visitors in, but get them coming back again and again
to collect the game pieces or “properties” they
need to win prizes. McDonald’s has further leveraged
this successful promotion with additional gaming and associated
fun on a dedicated web site: http://monopoly.promotions.com/postmonopoly/front.do.
If,
like McDonald’s your plan includes driving business
to your web site, make sure you provide a reason to go
to the web site, like a free e-book, a coupon, or a free
gift. With short attention spans, we spend very little
time looking at web sites before deciding to move on. Could
you offer a free webinar, a chance to win a trip or some
other reason to visit your site often? Once you have enticed
a visitor to visit, keep them there with added value, links
of interest and other looping mechanisms that will entertain
or inform, so they will stay.
Generating
buzz could mean that you offer help in the form of a downloadable
video that trains employees to do something better, such
as customer service, phone skills, customer relationship
management or anything that will get them to register for
upcoming notices. However, there are many who say that
making people register for downloads cuts your numbers.
So we’ll leave that up-to-you!notices. However, there
are many who say that making people register for downloads
cuts your numbers.
So we’ll leave that up-to-you!
Engage
More Prospects for your Business
Touch
points have become critical in all phases of communication
with prospective customers. Generations raised with technology
are way ahead, and others must adapt quickly. The changing
redesign of marketing is all about the customer, the speed
and the dedication to reap rewards.
Reaching
customers through many methods and levels is now what business
development is all about. Instead of sticking with the
phone and making cold calls, email, text message, instant
messaging and other web forms of communication have taken
the lead. Most people are trying to do more than one job
and just don’t have time for extended conversations.
Customers
also want you available to them 24/7, which has been made
possible by Blackberries and iPhones. Introducing new concepts
and staying in touch are now accomplished with blogs, Twitter,
Facebook, and My Space.The “grand old” form
of communication is email. Decisions are made online long
before a conversation takes place—there is no time
to not be prepared!
We
don’t have time for telemarketers, or for anyone
ready to waste our time. It’s all about efficiencies
so think before making that call, is this my best route
to achieving my goal?
Outsourced
Marketing
Cheaper than you think
What a
stressful year it has been! It’s confusing for
everyone and CEOs, business leaders and managers are
asking themselves the question of how to maintain
presence in the market while keeping an eye on all
the other expenses.
Historical
research has shown that a consistent, strategically-focused
marketing effort during an economic downturn has significant
benefits. When companies maintain a presence in the marketplace
during a recession, businesses are more likely to keep
sales secure and maintain market share. When the economy
turns around, research shows that these organizations who
maintain market presence will recover faster and market
share will increase faster than those who didn’t.
Sales
are uncertain and budgets are tight, so what can you do?
Cutting expenses is often a basic necessity, but there
may be other things to consider. Many companies attempt
to do all the marketing internally even though that is
not their strength nor the best use of their time. Or they
rely on inexperienced staff to handle marketing efforts,
yet these are people who do not deeply understand brand
strategy, positioning, public relations, web design, promotion
and advertising. “Outsourcing" your marketing
efforts could be the answer.
Many
of us are comfortable with outsourcing some areas of business,
including bookkeeping, payroll and IT. Outsourcing marketing
means that you are hiring a knowledgeable marketing professional,
on an independent contractor basis, to think and act on
your company's behalf as your "marketing director." This
individual works with you to develop a marketing strategy,
start a coordinated marketing plan and drive the implementation
and execution of the marketing that keeps your business
in front of customers to drive sales.
Outsourcing
eliminates the need to add marketing responsibilities to
an unprepared and inexperienced employee, or to hire marketing
staff. With outsourcing, you purchase a piece of the expertise,
time and talent of someone who proficiently does this for
a living. People who study and perform marketing tasks
on a daily basis can increase sales dramatically.
Benefits:
*
Experience
* Flexibility
* Efficient
* Objective
* Strategic
* Expertise
We
all know that staying ahead of the economy is more difficult
than we bargained for; we should consider every avenue
to keep our businesses alive and well.
