Archive for the 'Marketing' Category
This is great marketing!!!
The train station in Liverpool, England T-Mobile did this great commercial unbeknown to the daily commuters. They practiced for 8 weeks plus one late night at the station. On January 15th, 2009, with hidden cameras and 400 dancers at 11:00 a.m. their plan was put into action. And some say the Brits are straight laced!!!
Prospecting Tool – Google Alerts
One of my favourite tools for hunting prospects is Google Alerts. Google Alerts are e-mail updates, sent daily or weekly, relating to the latest relevant Google results based on the query or topic you request. Google Alerts does most of the hunting for you, and all you have to do is go through their suggestions and choose which business or people you want to contact. As with any hunting tool, Google Alerts is only as good as you make it – if you don’t go through the prospects or fail to jump on some opportunities, then this tool will not work for you.
Smart Advertising
A few weeks ago I blogged about buzzmarketing, creating advertising that leaves a lasting impression. The Super Bowl is known for its high-budget and comical commercials that cost $3 million for 30 seconds of air time. During the Big Game last weekend, the most effective commercial was one by Miller ‘High Life’ Beer. The ad was only one second long and consisted of a brewery worker yelling “High-Life!” This ad, which cost only $100,000 to air, drew some of the biggest laughs and created much inquiry into the product. This blog is further proof of the ad’s buzzmarketing potential. Often times, being different is the most effective way to catch attention, and when being different costs less, everyone benefits.
What Is Your Buzz Word?
Everyone knows that buzzwords are crucial to a great sale of a product or service, but are you aware of all the buzzword traps that you fall into? I’m currently reading the book “Eat This, Not That: The No-Diet Weight Loss Solution!” Even I fell into the old trick of buying the book because it had the buzzword “weight loss.”
In one section of this book, the author discusses how food companies put buzzwords on their products to help them sell, such as “all natural” or “less calories”; the mindful buyer will be caught by these buzz words, but will also look at the ingredients to see if the buzzwords are true. So what is your buzzword to catch consumers? Just as consumers check food labels to make sure they measure up to what was advertised, buyers of your product or service will inspect your company to see if it stands up to its buzzword.
Know Your Audience
Lets get something straight here first and foremost – I am female: I look like a woman and I sound like a woman but yet I have been called Mr. on two separate occasions recently.
The first was an e-mail following up on a booth I visited at CES – the e-mail actually mentioned how much they had enjoyed meeting me!.
The second was in a voice mail left from someone referred to me by a service provider. The person listened (but did not hear) my message and yet still called me Mr. To spare these people the embarrassment I won’t actually mention their names or company (although they probably deserve it for their blatant ignorance) but these occurrences served to remind me how important it is in business to know your customer.
What do you think the chances of me doing business with either of these companies are? I’d say somewhere less than zero. Not only did they offend me from the start but the first had the gall to blatantly lie in their communication (enjoyed meeting me indeed) – it did nothing for their credibility.
This was originally posted in the Out-Smarts blog.
It takes no time to pay a little attention to your customer, prospect or potential client and offending someone will be counteractive to your cause.
So next time you are planning an email or phone campaign or any marketing or sales activity for that matter, give a little thought to your audience:
1. Don’t dare to assume that the recipient is male when they could be female and vice versa. If you’re not sure if someone is male or female then its often best to avoid such a salutation.
2. If you’re not sure of the spelling of a contact’s name then omit it (you should see the collection of incorrect spellings I’ve collected over the years with a name like Mhairi).
3. If in doubt either don’t take the risk or take a little time to do some detective work to find out.
A little attention to detail can go a long way in helping you open the door to business so take heed and take time to know your audience. It will be worth your while.
2008 Top Trends
Trendwatching has come out with their Top 8 Important Consumer Trends for 2008 for businesses to capitalize on.
They are:
1. Status Spheres – status is the main buying factor
2. Premiumization – developing high end products and services in every industry
3. Snack Culture – catering to the craving for instant gratification
4. Online Oxygen – reach and touch consumers online in new ways
5. Eco-ionic – bold new design and green credentials catch customers
6. Brand Butlers – less emphasis on advertising and more on marketing that takes care of the consumer
7. Make It Yourself- more people wanting to create and personalize products
8. Crowd Mining – use customer input and sweat equity to build your brand. Check out Netflix movie ranking accuracy prize contest to see how it’s done.
Whether you run a small or big business this report has some great ideas for building business in 2008. Happy New Year!
A Great PR Resource
One of the biggest challenges facing small business owners is getting PR. In fact, it is such a daunting task that many of them don’t even try. They figure they will just wait until they have a budget big enough to hire a PR consultant. I recently came across a great eBook “PR in Your Pajamasâ€- written by Elena Verlee, a business coach and PR expert. Although the book is promoted as ‘practical publicity for the time-strapped, cash crunched mom entrepreneur’, this practical guide is a good read for any business owner. Her no-nonsense approach to PR provides valuable advice including practical tips for building a media contact list and 10 key questions you need to ask a reporter. My favourite section of the book is “The Art of Following Up†where she gives specific tips for how to follow up with a reporter without becoming a stalker or sounding like an idiot they would never want to interview! Filled with great quotes from media people and other business owners, this book will definitely jumpstart a few PR ideas for you.
Google AdWords – Which Edition?
In follow up to our Google AdWords posting last week, the folks over at Out-Smarts have posted a second installment in their series of posts. This one is called Google AdWords – Which Edition. The article discusses getting started with the service and in particular choosing the right Google AdWords edition to meet your needs: Standard or Starter Edition.
The Benefits of Google AdWords
GoogleAdWords is a great way to easily target your niche audience and promote your product to that audience. With hundreds of millions of Google searches performed every day it makes sense to tap into that huge potential market and thats just what GoogleAdwords lets you do.
When you next google something look at the right hand side and the top few searches of the page: these are ads (usually highlighted) placed and paid for by companies using the GoogleAdWords service.
The major benefits companies find in using this service (increased traffic notwithstanding) include:
- ability to get started on a minimum budget: as little as $5 per month;
- manage your budget effectively with monthly spend limits;
- test the waters, try different keywords and ad wording and make adjustments easily;
- you only pay for actual clicks (people who click through to visit your site);
- advertising with Google, unlike advertising in traditional media, is highly targeted by location and language;
- its relatively simple to get started
- and the service offers advanced reporting options if you are so inclined.
All in all, GoogleAdWords brings great bang for your advertising buck. Watch out for more in a series of Google AdWords blog posts at Out-Smarts.
Small Business Marketing for Women Business Owners
After many requests, I am once again offering this seminar in Vancouver. If your bottom line is not performing the way you want it to, join us to learn how to:
- Identify profitable target markets and the most effective way to reach them
- Bring in more customers
- Develop a marketing system that works for you that will generate more business and more revenue
When: Saturday, September 29th, 2007 9:30AM to 12:30PM (Breakfast will be provided)
Where: Boardroom, 744 West Hastings, Vancouver
Click here for more details.
Space is limited to 12 people – the last time we offered this course it sold out in 3 days!
