Ok, I don't want to steal somebody else's stuff and post it as my own, so I need to send you to another post. Check out the link below, its a post regarding how to make sure that online blog advertisers do things in such a way that people actually pay attention and care. Of course, many of the concepts proposed apply across marketing mediums, but we are a "blog" so figured we'd keep it relevant, right?
http://www.mpdailyfix.com/2007/11/dear_nbc_your_ad_on_my_blog_su.html/?adref=NsbF3c7
Friday, December 21, 2007
Monday, December 17, 2007
Underestimating yourself
This week, I was reading a marketing question from a small business person on MarketingProfs.com. He happened to be in Residential Construction. As he posed his question to the forum, the question was posed, "Since Construction is a dry market, what else can I do thank make a logo and some business cards?" Actually, the complete list of what he'd done is here:
1)Made company logo 2) thank you letters (send these out after completing jobs 3) Business cards 4) Magnets 5) Also a large photo album to show out potential new customer our excellent work on estimates. 6)Envelopes with our logo 7)website 8)send before and after pictures of their job when sending thank you letters 9)Company t-shirts
This actually makes me distraught. I am a HUGE fan of small business and I constantly find hard working entrepreneurs and business people selling themselves short. What is more important to an individual than the roof under which one puts their family to sleep each night? Your home is your castle, the place in which lifelong memories are built. While the components of construction may be bricks, mortar, nails, drywall and the like ----- the product of construction is what dreams are made of. Ultimately, what you say with the logo, t-shirt, website, and the rest is vastly more important than the stuff itself. If you feel you are in a "boring" industry, your marketing will convey that very point.
Sometimes it helps to have someone look at your business from the outside in to show you what they see. If, as a business person, you work to provide a service or product, you cannot allow yourself to diminish its importance.
1)Made company logo 2) thank you letters (send these out after completing jobs 3) Business cards 4) Magnets 5) Also a large photo album to show out potential new customer our excellent work on estimates. 6)Envelopes with our logo 7)website 8)send before and after pictures of their job when sending thank you letters 9)Company t-shirts
This actually makes me distraught. I am a HUGE fan of small business and I constantly find hard working entrepreneurs and business people selling themselves short. What is more important to an individual than the roof under which one puts their family to sleep each night? Your home is your castle, the place in which lifelong memories are built. While the components of construction may be bricks, mortar, nails, drywall and the like ----- the product of construction is what dreams are made of. Ultimately, what you say with the logo, t-shirt, website, and the rest is vastly more important than the stuff itself. If you feel you are in a "boring" industry, your marketing will convey that very point.
Sometimes it helps to have someone look at your business from the outside in to show you what they see. If, as a business person, you work to provide a service or product, you cannot allow yourself to diminish its importance.
Friday, December 14, 2007
Some cool mass marketing from a traditional below the line marketer
I'm generally not a fan of Television advertising as a way to build relationships with your customers. Unfortunately, unless you've got the ad budget of an auto manufacturer, government entity, beer brand, or Nike; it is hard to make a splash and then keep it going. But, I think Starbucks has grown big enough that they can now pull it off :) and with McD's breathing down their experiential marketing coffee cups, it was time.
So, the good news was that the new Starbuck's holiday commercials were a nice breath of charmed wintery air that left you feeling all warm and cozy inside, much like they want you to feel in their stores. The long term transition of Starbuck's marketing to mass media will have to be watched closely to see if they can hold it together, but their initial foray left me at least feeling pretty good about it all.
For the $4.0o Venti Dulce Macchiatto Amaretto Mocha Latte with cinnamon and a twist they are still going to have to deliver the "Experience" that their followers expect on site. But, with an ultra caffeine fix location on almost every street corner and the master of the Big Mac on the hunt for the perfect cup of coffee, even this "normally anti-TV" guy has to congratulate them on a good move.
So, the good news was that the new Starbuck's holiday commercials were a nice breath of charmed wintery air that left you feeling all warm and cozy inside, much like they want you to feel in their stores. The long term transition of Starbuck's marketing to mass media will have to be watched closely to see if they can hold it together, but their initial foray left me at least feeling pretty good about it all.
For the $4.0o Venti Dulce Macchiatto Amaretto Mocha Latte with cinnamon and a twist they are still going to have to deliver the "Experience" that their followers expect on site. But, with an ultra caffeine fix location on almost every street corner and the master of the Big Mac on the hunt for the perfect cup of coffee, even this "normally anti-TV" guy has to congratulate them on a good move.
Marketing a Brand
Marketing 101
Marketing, in a nutshell, is how you communicate who and what your product is and what you, as a company, stand for in an effort to expose the most people possible to the product and ultimately sell a LOT of it. This can include everything from traditional sales tactics to Advertising, event sponsorships, public relations through the press, the internet, product sampling and a variety of other pathways. Marketing conveys to a customer your passion for the product and why they should buy from you instead of a competitor. Why should they buy and tell others about it? How do you build a relationship between a product and a customer that conveys the kind of feeling we all have when the work week is over and we get together with good friends on a Friday night. That is what we need to be. That is marketing.
Creating a personal relationship between products, services, and consumers.
Who are Marketers?
In an organization everyone is a marketer to some degree. Everyone who works on mixing the product, assembling the packaging, shipping it to customers and selling to distributors is part of the marketing process. Perfecting the taste of a product, perfecting the package, and perfecting the customer’s access to the product are keys to one's growth. Then, insuring that the marketing team is effectively communicating the perfection of the product and its key attributes will make for a successful venture. Truly successful companies find ways to create passion among not only their “official” marketing and sales staff, but also within every individual employee. If every employee understands the passion customers have for a product, they will be excellent public representatives every day.
How do we do it?
These days, people are so absorbed with life, work, family, kids, and activities that to create a relationship between a company and a customer, you must go to where they are. In terms of marketing dollars across the United States, Television and other mass media spends are going down while direct investment in neighborhoods, cultural programs, sports, and music are going up. It is involvement in peoples’ lives that make the biggest impact now. This is true across culture groups and across age groups. Television, while it still has its place, is so cluttered with hundreds of other messages that it frequently gets lost. By essentially going, as a brand, to a family soccer game or a local concert, we prove that we understand what is important to our customers and thus, they trust us and purchase our product.
Marketing 101
Marketing, in a nutshell, is how you communicate who and what your product is and what you, as a company, stand for in an effort to expose the most people possible to the product and ultimately sell a LOT of it. This can include everything from traditional sales tactics to Advertising, event sponsorships, public relations through the press, the internet, product sampling and a variety of other pathways. Marketing conveys to a customer your passion for the product and why they should buy from you instead of a competitor. Why should they buy and tell others about it? How do you build a relationship between a product and a customer that conveys the kind of feeling we all have when the work week is over and we get together with good friends on a Friday night. That is what we need to be. That is marketing.
Creating a personal relationship between products, services, and consumers.
Who are Marketers?
In an organization everyone is a marketer to some degree. Everyone who works on mixing the product, assembling the packaging, shipping it to customers and selling to distributors is part of the marketing process. Perfecting the taste of a product, perfecting the package, and perfecting the customer’s access to the product are keys to one's growth. Then, insuring that the marketing team is effectively communicating the perfection of the product and its key attributes will make for a successful venture. Truly successful companies find ways to create passion among not only their “official” marketing and sales staff, but also within every individual employee. If every employee understands the passion customers have for a product, they will be excellent public representatives every day.
How do we do it?
These days, people are so absorbed with life, work, family, kids, and activities that to create a relationship between a company and a customer, you must go to where they are. In terms of marketing dollars across the United States, Television and other mass media spends are going down while direct investment in neighborhoods, cultural programs, sports, and music are going up. It is involvement in peoples’ lives that make the biggest impact now. This is true across culture groups and across age groups. Television, while it still has its place, is so cluttered with hundreds of other messages that it frequently gets lost. By essentially going, as a brand, to a family soccer game or a local concert, we prove that we understand what is important to our customers and thus, they trust us and purchase our product.
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