Archive for the ‘Marketing’ Category
Keeping Your Business Fit
I don’t get to the gym as often as I should. Life seems to throw too many other time-zapping needs at me. It’s easy to make excuses and before I know, it’s been a month since I last picked up a weight or stepped on a treadmill.
When that happens, I can see and feel the difference almost immediately. As soon as I get back to regular workouts, I also see and feel a positive difference almost immediately.
It’s the same with your business. Keeping your business fit and in shape is vital if you want it to have a long and healthy life. Let it get out of shape and you’ll have a flabby, soft and lethargic work culture that can’t respond quickly and efficiently to a changing marketplace.
Here’s my fitness program to help you build business muscle and get your company or organization into top shape. Read more »
Make Every Contact Count
A few years ago a retail company hired me to consult with them about why their advertising didn’t work. I first reviewed the amount of traffic in the store, the direct result of the advertising. It was healthy, indicating that the advertising did work in getting people to come shop. Upon further tracking, however, I found that only 7 out of every 100 people coming into the store made a purchase.
They had an astonishing 93% walkout rate!
It wasn’t the advertising that didn’t work. It was the employees who didn’t work.
The employees were ignoring the customers. When I delved into this problem with the employees their reason for the behavior seemed perfectly logical to them. The employees claimed Read more »
Planning for the Recovery
If your marketing strategy during the recession is to hang on, wait it out, and resume business as usual when the recovery comes, now would be a good time to re-examine your strategy.
Business as usual is not likely to be what you’ll find in a recovery marketplace. While you’re waiting for recovery, a major shift is happening. Consumers are re-thinking and changing the way they spend, what they spend, and why they spend. The change encompasses direct-to-consumer marketing and business-to-business marketing.
Fortune 500 companies are already making changes to deal with what is called the new frugality. The economic and demographic behavioral changes resulting from the recession are providing clear indicators of the trends to come. You should be Read more »
Marketing Masters
Summer will not be here for several weeks. But having spent the Memorial Day weekend in hot and humid weather, I have mentally moved into summer thinking. Along with that comes summer reading.
Sunny days spent reading on the beach, or while lying on a hammock in the shade, are great ways to acquire information and knowledge. Although my bookcase is overflowing with volumes about sales, marketing, advertising and creativity, there are some books that are timeless masterpieces — packed with gems of wisdom that are only available through real experiences shared by the authors.
If you find yourself with time for rest and reading this summer, here are my recommendations for the Read more »
“Searching” for Results
The number of consumers performing online searches increased 20% in 2008 to more than 11.8 billion searches in the U.S. alone. In the worldwide market there were 82.8 billion searches in 2008. These figures will continue to increase in 2009.
As you strategize about where to spend your marketing budget, be sure you are allocating a portion to optimizing your results from Internet/Web searches.
This is especially important if you are marketing business-to-business. And it is why more than 26% of small B2B companies (those with fewer than 100 employees) are beefing up their online spending this year while making cuts to the overall marketing budget.
In just over ten years the marketplace has Read more »
How Reverse Thinking Can Move You Forward
The expression “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade” pretty much sums up the market place for many businesses and industries these days. There are a lot of lemons being delivered right now.
Most business owners and marketing managers know you don’t gain momentum by cutting the spending on your marketing. But that knowledge often gets forgotten when revenues are down or cash flow is tight.
One of the best techniques to use for changing your perspective, and looking at your challenges differently, is reverse thinking.
When used for marketing, the technique of thinking in reverse shows you Read more »
Trends Vs. Fads
A fad can make you rich, if you’re lucky enough to be the person who invented it. Hula Hoops, Pet Rocks, the Low Carb Diet, Ouija Boards and Koosh Balls are a few of the fads that enjoyed soaring popularity for a while and then fizzled. But at their height, they were hot.
The difference between a fad and a trend is that a fad is a product. A trend is about changes in behavior. People who are astute enough to spot trends and act on them have golden opportunities to bring the Midas touch to their businesses.
When it comes to trends, you have three choices. You can Read more »
Power Words
The cover of the April 6 New Yorker is a funny look at what might be called advertising hucksterism at its most obvious. It’s the April Fool cover done by popular artist Roz Chast.
Chast’s combination of ad cartoons promise “Lottery Winning Secrets! This Could be You!”, “Finally: A Candy Bar that Burns 500 Calories as You Eat It!”, ‘”Vitamins That Make You Smarter!” and other enticements from investing to amazing sex to eternal youth.
Of course satisfaction is guaranteed or double your money back. That promise always boosts response. The words you use in Read more »
The Power to Persuade
As Washington continues to allocate funds to financial sectors and select corporations, and as it supposedly puts money back into consumers’ wallets through the stimulus package, I can’t help but observe the greatest oversight of all when it comes to stimulating the economy.
And that is advertising.
There is not a penny put in any package to stimulate advertising.
Yet advertising is the single most important industry that needs to survive if Read more »
Low-Cost Ways to Boost Cash Flow
Feeling the pinch? Looking for ways to keep your brand alive and healthy during a sick economy?
To fight the blight of a tight market, it’s time to pull out guerrilla marketing strategies. With guerrilla marketing, instead of the big-budget, splashy ad campaigns you might use when cash is flowing, use stealth marketing to motivate consumers without looking like advertising as usual.
Quite simply, guerrilla techniques are the unconventional, innovative and imaginative approach for reaching customers in ways and places that are Read more »
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