Marketing today has become very social media oriented, but that doesn’t mean more ‘traditional’ approaches are no longer necessary.
Carro Ford, marketing expert and writer of The Smartass Marketer’s Handbook, has put together 10 marketing tips that can help you to reach out to potential clients, partners, or, if needed, sponsors.
You’ve got the content, you’ve got the insights, you’ve got the news; it’s just about learning how to best present them to your audience.
Every Presentation Is a Connection
Approach your next presentation as a marketing opportunity. Is it a live face-to-face meeting or an online session? The minimalist approach works best with a live audience. For a captured digital audience, it starts to look like a screen saver after a while, so plan to change your slides more often.
Don’t Make Us Read Your Presentations
Any time you see a complete sentence on a slide, stop and drop it into the notes section. Replace it with just a couple of words at most, and if you really feel you need those words, drop them into the talk track. Or even better, find a symbol or image to represent the idea. If most of the presentation is written out, who needs a presenter? You are important, and the audience is there to hear from you.
Get Loud About Your Award
Has your business won an award? Make the most of this window of marketing opportunity. Email the good news to your customers, prospects, suppliers and partners. Write something for your newsletters and use quotes and pictures. Talk about employees who contributed to the achievement. Play up the prestigious group that gave the award. Talk about what the win means to your customers.
Go Face-to-face with Event-based Marketing
Bring prospects into your space by hosting an open house. Team up with a local business or civic group. Put the focus on information. For example, partner with a life coach for a productivity workshop or a marketing guru to teach a social media class. Your own customers might enjoy the information, too. Make it a fundraiser and help a charity.
What’s Your News?
When was the last time you published a press release and posted it on your website? For too many business owners, it’s been months, if not years. It’s not that you lack something to talk about; you do newsworthy things all the time. Here are just a few ideas: Customer success stories, a new service, an award, or a new hire.
Commit to a Cadence of Press Releases
Commit to publishing a press release at least once a quarter, but first build an email list of business editors at local papers, newsletters, business blogs and monthly magazines – both print and online versions. If you have a database of customer and contact emails, send it to them, too. Post the release in your online newsroom and promote it via Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Point readers back to your website to get the full release.
Continue to the next page for more marketing tips.
Customer-based Collateral
Does your business use brochures? Well, who doesn’t? But are they what your customers need? What are the typical questions you get from customers and how do you respond? Ask your customer service team. Use those answers to create an FAQ sheet, or a blog or two, a tip sheet or checklist, or even a new brochure.
Market to the Buyer’s Journey
What’s your typical sales cycle? That varies widely, from a short-term meeting room rental to a slightly longer decision about leasing a virtual office. Still, all buying journeys have a beginning, middle and end, and that’s what matters for this content marketing tip. Do you have a useful, informative piece of content — website, map, brochure, customer story — for each point of your customer’s journey to a purchase? That helps you identify gaps in your marketing strategy.
Where to Focus Marketing Energy
What are your sales priorities for the next 3-6 months? Services? Live receptionist? Meeting rooms? Now spend some time thinking about where you usually drum up the best leads for that business. If you do nothing else, make that the first priority of your marketing team. Throw some money, research, creativity and determination at it and see how far you can go.
Where to Find Blog Ideas
Does your business have a blog? If so, always be on the lookout for topics and keep an idea file. Ask your sales and service teams about frequent questions they get from customers. What do they wish clients knew more about? Then blog about those subjects. Answer those questions in a blog and let the customer-facing teams know when it’s published. Urge them to share the blog with customers as a conversation starter.
About the Author
Carro Ford loves marketing and has been practicing it for a long time. As author of The Smartass Marketer’s Handbook, she also loves sharing ideas, tips and techniques to help her fellow marketers. You can reach her at carrof@earthlink.net and find her book on Amazon.
