Why strategy works
I mentioned last week that it’s so easy to put the cart before the horse when you’re excited about a new business venture, product or service. So many times entrepreneurs and businesses rush to market before considering the implications to their business operations and brand. And when you do that you risk damaging your reputation for quality and service, and ultimately your brand.
For entrepreneurs I always encourage taking a deep breath and turning off the “I know I need…” switch. What’s the “I know I need…” switch? It’s the switch that stops all the assumptions and daydreams related to promotion and marketing that many entrepreneurs have. You can’t wait to put your first ad in the phone book or the local paper - or set up your website. I say, “Flip the switch! You haven’t asked the tough questions yet!”
Marketing, public relations, corporate communications and even advertising should revolve around someone else besides you the business owner. It should revolve around the customer. Who do you really want to do business with? Where are they? What do they do? read? listen to? see? visit? play? Who do they work with, talk to, live near etc.? Profiling your customer - the one you really want, the one who has the time, money and inclination to do business with you may seem like a breeze. But when you really start hashing through your answers, you might be surprised by what you find.
In working with individual clients and organizations, I’ve found that the answer to many of the questions above help you establish the core of your marketing and promotion plan. Why advertise in the local paper if 90% of your target market doesn’t subscribe? Perhaps dollars are best spent in creating a key event rather than radio spot advertising - it will all depend on what helps you reach your target audience AND tell your story.
Take a few days to really get to know your customers or potential customers. Let the information you gather guide your outreach strategies and see where that takes you before you commit to spending your hard earned dollars in a medium that has low return on investment.
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Vibrant Resource
Sarah Zink’s “Not Everyone With a Checkbook is Your Customer” is a fantastic book that I had the privilege of working on in part. Sarah’s no-nonsense approach to disecting your target audience is a proven success.
It’s available at Amazon.com or you can always reach out to Sarah herself for some dynamic training.
Putting the cart before the horse
So often in business it’s easy for entrepreneurs to put the proverbial cart before the horse. When seeking to start marketing and promoting your company, organization or program I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to have clearly defined objectives and make a comprehensive list of elements of your business that need to be in place in order to achieve those objectives.
For example, don’t order those business cards before you have your website domain registered. Don’t register the domain name until you’ve developed a solid branding plan for your business. The benefits of fully developing a plan before you start your public relations or marketing efforts (of any kind) are immeasurable.
In the weeks ahead I’ll be blogging about important things business owners and managers need to consider relative to their branding, marketing and public relations efforts. Hope you’ll stop back in and share your ideas and experiences.
TRD
Try a Random Idea
It’s been a while since I cracked open the old Creative Whack Pack. It’s a great tool to inspire your thinking whether you’re working on a new article for your newsletter or brainstorming a new marketing idea. Today’s draw of the cards led me to “Try A Random Idea”. The challenge was to open any book at random, put your finger down on a word and consider how that word relates to what you’re doing. What random ideas can you try?
I think this is a great way to shake out the cobwebs when it comes to communicating, especially if you find yourself in a bit of a communications rut. I know that it is so easy to fall into doing the same old thing whether it’s corresponding with your customers, writing the company newsletter or even blogging. The idea of choosing a random word can really work - even if you do what I did, and land on the word “the”.
At first I was tempted to flip pages and do this again, until I found a better, more stimulating word. But that wouldn’t be really exercising my brain and my creative muscle now would it? Think about “the“. How can you incorporate that into what you’re communicating about your company, cause or self? For me, it made me start listing out ways I can focus on being “THE” PR Chick in my professional community. What are some simple steps that would propel me into top-of-mind awareness in my field? Got ‘em. Okay, next. What about my clients? “THE” All About You Recovery Salon. What will it take to position them as “THE” place to go when you’ve got cancer recovery needs. It brought me back to thinking about their brand flywheel we developed and focusing on the personality traits that make this team amazing.
And of course, I love etymologies, the roots of words and their evolutionary development. So I hopped over to webster.com to check out “the” and lo and behold, you’ve got to scroll down the page to get everything on this seemingly simple word. So that got me thinking about the breadth and depth of the projects I have on hand. This simple word has now encouraged me to take a step back from each project I have on my plate and consider whether or not the work I have planned really communicates the diversity, uniqueness and intrinsic value associated with each client, product and project.
The power of “the”- a Random Idea that has really stirred up my creative juices.
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Vibrant Resource: It isn’t the first time and it won’t be the last, that I highly recommend Roger vonOech’s “Creative Whack Pack” or just about anything from Creative Think.
Vibrant Challenge: Try this exercise today. Then mark your calendar or set a reminder for 30 days from now. Do it again and see how it helps. Let me know how it works out for you!
Customer Care… or don’t
You know, 6 years ago I saw this crusty old magnet on my husband’s bachelor pad refrigerator and had a chuckle over it. At the time he and friends were on the front lines in an incredibly high-volume call center in a high-tension industry. The quote on this magnet, “If we don’t take care of the customer, maybe they’ll stop bugging us,” was probably just a macabre daydream at the time, because in all actuality, he cared a great deal about his job. So much so, that now, he’s in management fighting the good fight against representative apathy and burn out.
Seeing this picture again did get me thinking. Are the cobwebs and dust gathering on your end of the phone line? By that, I mean, are you picking up the line to ring the client? What is your customer care strategy?
Note here that I used two distinct words. Not “service”, but rather “care“. And not your “philosophy”, but rather your “strategy“. Because when it gets right down to it, it’s not what you think you do for and communicate to your clients - it’s what you actually say and do. Right down to the way you greet them on the phone, to your voice mail, to your voice mail return time, to your follow up plan, to your regularly scheduled communications strategy….
Wait, you say you don’t have a regularly scheduled communications strategy with your clients? Ahhhem. Dear reader, dear reader you must. You simply must! And yes, I do know it’s easy to slip off the communications bandwagon. I’ll admit it, I’ve let follow-up calls or check-in calls slip by me, I am human and so are you. So let’s make a plan.
Whether you choose a formal means of communicating regularly with leads, colleagues, clients and former clients such as newsletters or e-campaigns or you choose to pick up the phone every Thursday morning for an hour and make a round of hello calls- you need to choose something. I cannot emphasize enough that whatever you choose should fit the personality of your company or yourself. When it comes to frequency, that’s where we stop thinking of ourselves and start thinking of our customers. How often can we stay in touch without being annoying? I recommend you consider the depth and breadth of your service to said person or company to help you make that decision.
Should you choose a more formal means of communication, please be sure you tap in to the most talent you have on hand. If that’s calling your favorite PR Chick to get you started with email templates or writing guidelines and key words so be it. Make sure that whomever is in charge of your regularly scheduled communication pieces internally has the ability to communicate in “The Voice” of your company, has a good eye for editing and has the ability to identify when they’ve reached the limits of their capabilities and/or work load. There is nothing worse than getting any newsletter (e or otherwise) that is so slapped together you wonder whether someone’s child did it for extra-credit.
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Vibrant Resource: Constant Contact continues to be a very cost-effective way to introduce yourself and your business into the e-mail newsletter arena. It is also a great tool for other marketing strategies. While there are certainly more robust platforms for e-marketing, I recommend Constant Contact as a great starting point.
Vibrant Challenge: I challenge you to do an apathy check on yourself and your team when it comes to truly caring about your relationship with your customers. Are you communicating not only that you appreciate and care about their business, but also communicate the benefits of your continued partnership? Do the self-check. Analyze your results. Create strategies to improve or enhance.
It’s Alive! Or it should be…
Creating a living, breathing brand isn’t something you can rely simply on a great graphic artist or advertising agency to do for you. Sure each of those players has a part in the grand scheme of things, but you, the business owner, the employee, the manager, the leader has to find a way to bring your brand to life each and every day.
In a former position, I had the opportunity to work with a great agency (MARC USA) on a re-branding project. From their dynamic team I learned the concept of making sure that your brand embraces three primary categories: Personality, Benefits and Difference.
It’s incorporating these three elements into each and every communications piece, message, speech, website etc. that allows for complete integration of your brand. I know I’ve posted about brand integration before, and I probably will again. But it’s only because it is so vitally important to being an authentic communicator, which I firmly believe translates into a stronger customer base and greater top-of-mind awareness.
So what are you doing that integrates the personality of your company, the benefits of your company and the point of differentiation of your company in what you’re doing today. I’m serious. What are you doing today? How are you communicating these important traits. Do you know what they are? If not, take some time - at least 30 minutes to put your mind to it. You’ll be surprised what you might find.
Plan for Charities
Picture this, the phone rings at home and it’s a neighbor. They congratulate you on starting your new business and want to give you the opportunity for some great exposure. Sounds great – all you need to do is underwrite the cost for the uniforms for a youth baseball team. They’ll put your name on the jersey’s and everything. It’s just $850.
Now if you’re opening a local service-based business, exposure to parents, officials, and fans could be just what you’re looking for. And supporting kiddos is always a good thing, right? Sure it is, and community-based giving is important when it comes to being a good business citizen. Even large companies have taken the expensive ride down this slippery slope. Organizers are often more than willing to mention your name, print it on the t-shirt or some other low-cost added value.
Having a charitable giving plan, or even a charity of choice, can keep entrepreneurs and small businesses on solid ground when it comes to community citizenship. For example, the Vibrant Charity of Choice is the American Cancer Society, but I also offer a 20% discount for local 501c3 certified organizations. Here are some ideas to consider for charitable giving:
• Select a charity that really means something to you and your employees. When you’re passionate about why you’re involved with a charity, others are more understanding if you decline their proposals.
• Align your activities with a charity with your business goals: choose one that serves your primary service area and reaches one of your target audiences.
• Ask for what you need when it comes to added value. Ask if you can send coupons to organization members, ask to speak briefly at the event, put a link on the organizations website to your business site.
• Establish an application for funding that allows you to capture information from applicants. You could also establish a policy of discounted services for charities rather than monetary donations. Generic Sponsorship Application
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Vibrant Resource: The Business Case for Corporate Citizenship
Vibrant Challenge: Schedule some time to think about your charitable giving policy. Take into consideration what you and/or your company is passionate about. If that means surveying your employees so you have complete buy-in for future activities then do it. Then establish your policy and stick to it. If you’re having a hard time choosing the right charity, check out the Charity Navigator.
Holy Cannoli Batman!
I have readers! You are out there. According to my web analytics there are actually about 45 live human beings that have tapped into the Vibrant Blog. Woohoo!
Okay, so sure, there are blogs out there that generate thousands of readers, but we’ll get there. Going through the data I was sincerely surprised to see some unique referral patterns and sites. It got me thinking…I sure wish you could track traditional communication methods the way you can a website.
To my fellow PR chicks and fellas…just imagine it. Being able to guarantee that 85% of your target audience actually read the message you so artfully and patiently crafted. In fact, they spent an average of 2.76 minutes reading your letter and then forwarded it to another member of your target audience. (insert dramatic sigh)
But let’s face it, that’s why the digital realm is so freakin’ attractive. You can track email newsletters, website visitors, promotional code deployment and so much more. Of course, with the thrill of instantaneous data comes the responsibility of cautious reporting.
You have got to be smart when communicating the results you track in the digital age. I can’t stress enough how important it is to set those goals ahead of time and agree upon them with the entire team that’s engaged in a project. I mean, I could be totally thrilled that one day I had 65 unique visitors to a special feature or offer on my website. But if those visitors happened to be generated from Kuwait because of a fluke search engine query, how thrilled should I be?
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Vibrant Resource: Web Analytics Association - These people know their stuff. They have a well-archived repository of webinars, articles and interviews. All written in (fairly) layman terms. Yeah!
Vibrant Challenge: Think about your website. No, really think about it. What is it out there for? What are you trying to communicate? What are you trying to do? Create at least one measurable objective for your site. Remember, objectives must contain clearly stated goals, include a time frame and a method for evaluation.
Integration - brought to you by the letter “I”
Much of what I do through my own creative process and with clients is to fully integrate messages, brands, images and the personality of a company into everything we communicate. It’s what I call creating a living, breathing brand.
I was catching up on my newsletter reading this morning and ran across a good article by Gregory J. Pollack with PBM Marketing in Marketing Profs. In this article Pollack talks about taking the idea of fully integrated brands into “Partnership Brand Marketing”.
I found his ideas dead on. He writes, quite well, exactly what I’ve been talking with a few of my clients about recently. Choose your partnerships for promotions and marketing carefully and with a strategy of reaching a new customer base in mind.
Pollack writes:
“But the key ingredient is integration. It is not enough to create a promotion or align with a licensed property. It is not enough to create a joint merchandising display.
Well-crafted partnership brand marketing should include every possible touchpoint that your business has with its customers—both traditional and nontraditional marketing, including Internet, special events, advertising, promotions, public relations, packaging, merchandising, and a host of other marketing components. ”
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Vibrant Resource: Marketing Profs - I’ve been reading it for more than 6 years and it continues to provide fresh ideas and information.
Vibrant Challenge: Think about your brand. It’s more than just your logo, it’s a balance of your personality, benefits and primary point of differentiation. Is it fully integrated into everything you do in business? Ask yourself, “What do I need to do to prepare for brand integration.”
Vibrant Goals: Make a list of other brands you’d like to partner with to build your own brand. Remember to think strategically.
Cool Breeze
This morning there is a cool breeze blowing and it is so refreshing. It’s been hot, muggy and practically stagnate around here lately.
This morning’s cool breeze got me thinking, so I asked myself, “How can I freshen up my work?” It’s important to me and I think it should be important to any company in their communications, to stay fresh. So as I’m preparing this morning to start a new project I pulled out Roger vonOech’s Creative Whack Pack and selected two cards at random.
So today’s whacks are “Combine Ideas” and “Take a Whack At It”. The first is taking an objective look at the topic and see what is a different idea that I can combine with it. This reminds me of some signs my husband and I recently saw in Fort Worth that read as if it were “Charlie’s Discount Liquor and Gun Range”. It happened to be two different establishments, but the signs didn’t read that way. We got a big kick out of coming up with other oddly matched businesses. The example that von Oech uses is that Gutenberg combined the wine press and the coin punch to create moveable type and the printing press. So for this project at hand, I’m going to have to sit back for a few moments to consider a unique pairing for a great press release headline. Good whack!
The second one, “Take a Whack At It” is one I should probably carry plastered to my forehead. The primary point is you can’t hit a home run unless you step up to the plate. As a baseball fan that grew up on the diamond I’ve heard plenty of analogies to life from this sport and I don’t think one rings more true.
So my lessons learned from these two whacks? I’m going to take 5 minutes to brainstorm unique juxtapositions for this client and then I’m just going to start writing.
Now I ask you fair reader. What have you been mulling over for too long that you just need to take a whack at?