I pass by this rug shop every day. Sometimes several times per day.  They have signs up in the window that suggest that there are rock-bottom deals to be found because the bank is forcing them to liquidate their inventory. Alas, I’m not buying it, and neither are my friends. And the reason is that I don’t trust them. Why? Twice in my recent memory the shop promoted its “Going Out of Business Sale”. It must have been so successful that they saved themselves from actually closing the doors. Twice.

I accept that it’s got to be hard to be a brick and mortar rug business these days. People don’t buy expensive rugs as much in this day of Ikea and Crate and Barrel. That’s why I actually did take one of my rugs to them to be cleaned a few years back. (It must have been either before or soon after the first “Going Out of Business Sale”.) I paid a pretty penny to have the rug cleaned, not to mention the hassle of loading it in and out of my car. I feel for them.  Well, I used to.

To understand this approach to marketing, I need to explain that the rug shop is located at a very busy intersection on the way to Stinson Beach and Muir Woods. In fact, in giving directions to the beach, people will often say, “Turn left at the rug shop”. It’s that prominent. According to the kindly Muir Woods park ranger I spoke with recently, over 1 million people visit Muir Woods each year. Nearly all of them will pass through this intersection on their way. I suppose that the shop owner is targeting his promotional tactics on a first-time buyer, rather than build relationships with those closer to home.

His tactics don’t foster relationship-building at all. Instead, with the implied urgency of the message, the goal is a quick purchase. Furthermore, using this approach erodes trust of those who see his storefront on a regular basis. I talked to several people informally about the promotion, and I heard only negative feedback.  

Crying Wolf. The rug shop owner is a lot like the boy who cried wolf. People are willing to listen the first time and maybe even the second time. Unfortunately, the rug shop owner continues to cry wolf, for weeks and months with these signs in his windows, further deafening our ears to his cries. We don’t trust him and in the end don’t want to do business with him.

Relationships Matter.  As business owners we rely on the trust that we have with our customers, prospects and community for ongoing patronage and to grow our sales. The boy who cried wolf eroded the trust that he had with his community, and when there really was a wolf, they wouldn’t listen. Consider the relationships in your business. Are you building them or crying wolf through misguided marketing tactics?

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1. Bacon folder – This is one I owe to my friend and colleague Rosie Taylor, who shared this with the Duct Tape Marketing Consultant network this past week. A bacon folder is just a term to define how you can clean up your inbox and send like messages to a folder for later reading. In using Gmail, which uses labels vs. folders, I set up a path for email from specific senders to go to the same place (or have the same label). That way I can read all the email on a specific topic when I’m ready. This is especially helpful for keeping up with marketing trends and developing content. I look forward to leveraging this practice further and will let you know if I become truly enamored of it.
2. YouTube - I know, I know. YouTube is old news. But did you know that it’s the second largest search engine behind Google? So, how is it making my life easier? Mainly how I am using it for training on specific topics. You can learn about nearly every aspect of small business on YouTube. You can find someone who’s presenting information the way that you learn, consume it at your own pace, watch it over and over until it sticks and basically save a whole lot of effort by accessing this free resource. In particular, as I install new plug-ins and widgets on my website, I go to YouTube to learn best practices so I can make the most of the tools I buy and the most of my time in using them.
3. Constant Contact – Again, I know. I am a Constant Contact Authorized Local Expert and give presentations on subjects such as email marketing and social media marketing. But when the foot hits the pedal, I have to say that I am thrilled that Constant Contact is driving my engagement marketing. For example, lately I’ve been creating new events by copying past events. They have improved the interface which has resulted in saving me a huge amount of time and effort to get my new events populated with the right information. Their customer service is wonderful and I have always gotten things fixed and tweaked so that my events and emails look professional. Yes, I may be biased about some things, but this is one that comes from direct experience in using the tools and seeing how they’re helping grow my business.

To check out my first “Favorite Tools and Apps” post, click here.

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How much time should you spend ON vs. IN your business? For starters, plan for about 20% of your time. I realize that you don’t have that time to give up. Or do you? Remember, working IN the business includes all sorts of tasks that can be delegated or outsourced. Yes, it requires some money to do that. This is one of those times when spending money to make money holds true. By investing to give you the time to work ON your business, you are building for future growth and success.

Undertaking a marketing strategy would be working ON your business. Many people I interact with want to grow their business. They desperately need a marketing strategy and plan. However, even thought they may want it, many have trouble finding the time in their schedules to actually commit to make that happen. (Hmm, kind of sounds like the good intentions I have about going to the gym and the disconnect I have with actually making the time to get in there as often as I should. Guilty as charged.)

Have you ever thought about the difference between working IN and ON your business? If so, I’d love to hear from you. If you haven’t, maybe it’s time to have your marketing audited and talk about making time to work ON your business.

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1. Basecamp – This cloud-based project management software enables me to keep all my notes and correspondence about projects with clients in one place. I also use it with partners as we collaborate on projects. http://basecamp.com/
2. Buffer – It’s an application that allows you to share easily on social networks. I started using it on the iPad and have now installed it in my Chrome browser to make posting simple. I use the free version and find it a time-saver as I prepare my posts. http://bufferapp.com/
3. Flipboard – This app bills itself as a “social magazine” and is my go-to for reading on the iPad. It pulls in subscriptions, social networks and more into one place. From there I push content to Buffer so that I can share content with my followers. http://flipboard.com/

What tools can’t you live without? Please let me know. Maybe I’ll share it in Part 2!

The post Favorite Tools for Saving My Sanity – Part 1 appeared first on A.Point.Marketing.

A clear way of thinking is:

1.       Strategic Objectives are nouns

2.       Tactics are the verbs to achieve them

By opening my seminars with a discussion of Strategy Before Tactics, I have seen the lights go on. People come to understand, for example, that email marketing is a tactic and should not be mistaken for a strategy. That simple yet elusive concept is worth the price of admission. For without a strategy in place, money is being spent and results not measured.

If you are not aiming for a specific goal, there’s nothing to measure the effectiveness of your tactics against and money is wasted. Conversely, with a strategy in place, all possible tactics are considered for how they will achieve the strategic objectives. Furthermore, measuring the effectiveness of the specific tactics allows you to continually tweak and improve your marketing. You drop the tactics that don’t deliver and focus more on tactics that deliver.

If you realize that you’re focused more on tactics and don’t have a marketing strategy for your organization, let’s talk. Simply complete the Signature Brand Audit and we’ll have a conversation about your marketing, no obligation. I’d love to help steer you in the right direction.

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BONUS – Download Duct Tape Marketing’s latest eBook
7 Essential Stages of a Total Online Presence

There are many moving parts involved in marketing and the online elements increase in importance with each passing day.

But, marketing is a system, and to effectively operate this system you must assemble and integrate each of the important parts into something that looks like the whole.

Your online presence is your key to success no matter what your business sells – no matter if all of your transactions are done face-to-face – no matter if you don’t yet see a way to get a return from your Facebook page – no matter if you’ve never bought an online ad.

The key, however, is to build a Total Online Presence, much like you would a tall, sturdy building, by constructing floor by floor in specific order or in stages. Your stages may differ just a bit based on where you are today and you’ll surely come back and revisit, add on and revamp each stage as you grow, but I believe the following model is the surest way to view your online marketing as a system.

In this eBook we outline the core components of a Total Online Presence and give you a taste of the specific details that must be considered as you build your own presence.

This content in this eBook is a showcase of the thinking that we put into our full course called Total Online Presence. We think that once you get a taste of structure and depth of organization you’ll want to experience the detailed “how to” lessons built into the course.

Download HERE.

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Here’s why you can’t ignore the value of a referral marketing strategy:

1. Credibility and trust –When a prospect receives a referral to someone who can provide what they need, there’s a level of trust associated with it due to the relationship of the person making the referral. That shortens the sales cycle.
2. Better prospects – When you educate your referral partners about what makes a good referral, you can narrow your focus so that it benefits everyone. Getting specific with what you’re looking for makes it easier for someone to spot a perfect referral. For example, a chiropractor who is looking for people suffering from migraines is more likely to receive qualified referrals than by simply telling people that he is looking for people in pain. Of course, the best referrals are those made when someone believes they can help someone else. The more they know about what you do, the better. It’s a win-win situation, and the person making the connection feels like they’ve won too.
3. Know your Timing Triggers – Timing triggers are those things that make people start looking for a product or service. For example, the trigger for an insurance agent would be when a student turns 16 and his parents need to buy insurance. Using this information to plan your messaging and the timing of your marketing will yield better results.
4. Get intentional and seek referrals – Towards the beginning of an engagement mention to your client that you’ll be asking them for a referral down the road. Then, when they’re seeing some real benefits from working with you, ask for the referral. While they’re in this honeymoon stage, giving a referral will be easy. Furthermore, when you put trust in them to help find qualified referrals for you, they’re more likely to listen and learn more about what you’re looking for and to become a more loyal fan of your business.
5. Follow-up – Routines make the difficult things simpler. Put in place a routine to follow-up with both prospects and referral sources. For prospects, have some regular steps that you use to keep in contact with prospects. For referral sources, be sure to keep them in the loop on what’s going on in your business and to acknowledge them for bringing clients to you. Something as simple as sending a thank you card goes a long way to make them feel appreciated.

So, what’s your referral strategy? Do you actively work with referral partners who are educated about your product or service? Spend some time to figure out where you’ve got some holes and then make the effort to plug the gaps. You’ll reap the dividends for a long time.

For more on this topic, read John Jantsch’s The Referral Engine or check out www.bni.com.

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I know, that’s the extreme. Now think about the value you’d see of retaining your clients and actually getting the benefit of word of mouth and referrals. Did you know that it costs 6 -7 times more to obtain a new client than to retain an existing client? If you take the time and effort to nurture those relationships, you’ll see the pay-off.

Here are 3 things to do to improve your business’ relationships today.

1) CONNECT – Make contact with your customers. In talking to business owners I frequently hear that they don’t have a plan to keep in contact with their customers. Some will have a quarterly review or send a holiday card, but so many are missing the opportunity to nurture those relationships through regular communications. So, pick up the phone and call some of your top clients. Focus on those you haven’t heard from in a few months. It’s amazing what connecting can do to getting more business.

2) GET SERIOUS WITH A CRM – Many small businesses don’t have a Customer Relationship Management system. In the past few years cloud-based CRMs have become widely available and affordable. They’re simple to set up and can track all the communications you have with a person or company, along with lots of other features that manage those relationships during and after the sales cycle. Consider AddressTwo or Batchbook.

3) INFORM – Once you connect, you have the chance to educate. These days, we talk about education as the key to bringing in business without really selling. In many cases a business will take on clients and provide them with a specialized service to meet their needs. While they consider you an expert in that area, they may not even know about the other services your company provides. Share that information so that they know to come to you to meet those needs.

Finally, once you’ve started, be consistent. Email marketing is one of the best ways to nurture relationships with customers and prospects. We believe that marketing is about education, and that’s what regular email communications do.

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As I write this, I am sitting at my computer looking out the window into a foggy valley. If I look over to my vegetable garden I can see my tomato plants that are over 5’ tall and nearly as wide (yes they’re indeterminate). But it’s the end of summer and I should be able to go out to my garden and pick ripe red tomatoes. But I can’t, because I live in a Bay Area micro-climate that renders air conditioning unnecessary, save for about 10 days per year. Great for the energy bill but not so good for ripening tomatoes. And for someone who was perfectly cast as a Jersey tomato in her kindergarten class play, that’s tragic.

Imagine my delight (yes, really) when Ruth, one of my fellow BNI members, mentioned that she had so many tomatoes that anyone could arrange to come by to harvest some. I mentioned that I love tomatoes and gardening, and how if I had the time that I’d like to become a master gardener. She laughed and responded that she’s no gardener and basically sticks the plants in the ground and makes sure that the irrigation is working. I set a time to stop by and started thinking about the tomato salad I would make that night.

So, what does this have to do with marketing? Well, Ruth says she’s not a gardener, yet she has achieved success with crops bountiful enough to share with others. She has put in place a system to ensure that her garden will grow. Of course, earlier in the spring she had to do some planning around what to plant where and to prepare the garden plot. But as long as the irrigation system works, she’s going to see the results she’s looking for.

It’s the same with marketing. Do strategic planning, choose marketing tactics that are in alignment with it (to reach your ideal client) and tend the system. Make adjustments and watch the business grow. Do you have a marketing strategy for your business? Just as Ruth’s planning and irrigation allow her to be successful without being a gardener, do you have a system in place that makes marketing manageable for your company?

As a marketing, I’m like the master gardener who comes in to help plan for the season’s crops. We consider the size of the garden, the climate, what the client is looking to grow. We come up with a plan to make that happen. I work side by side with the client and teach them how to tend their garden by installing systems that will ensure that the garden will flourish. After the garden is growing, I check in with my client regularly and make adjustments to make sure that they’re getting the yield that they want. We consider new plants and remove other plants that didn’t grow well.

If you’d like for me to take a look at your “garden”, click here to go to the Signature Brand Audit, a quick online form that you fill out to tell me about your company, marketing challenges and goals so that I can give you some ideas of how to improve the yield on your crops. The brand audit is a free, no obligation way to share some growing tips with you from the perspective of a master marketer.

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Guest post by Suzi Lee Musgrove of SLM Creative Design & Associates

A conversation last week with a colleague reminded me of the value of providing clean graphic design files to a print house. Many business owners who hire a graphic designer may not realize it, but good printers are very particular about how graphics are submitted. And different printing processes and companies require different parameters.

It can get technical, but a clean file essentially has all of the parameters aligned with the specific printing process that you plan on using. Why should you care?

If the file isn’t properly prepared, that beautiful design you paid for might not look like what you expected when it gets printed. Or important images or text could be cropped because measurements weren’t precise. Or your text could reflow and you could lose part of your message. A good printer will catch problems before going to print, but they can charge you by the hour to fix it, or send the files back to your designer for changes.

Bottom line: Poorly prepared files can increase the cost of your project, and you could loose valuable turnaround time.

You might assume that this is something your designer automatically does. It would make sense for “Clean Files 101” to be part of every designer’s education—but it’s not. Many designers haven’t had the experience with all the ways printing can be done to make files consistently accurate. When I worked as the designer for a printing house, we would frequently receive great designs that weren’t ready for the press.

The next time you’re hiring a graphic designer for your marketing, consider asking them about their experience with printing, and if they can guarantee clean files. You’ll end up with a better product, and you might save some time and money.

Suzi Lee Musgrove is a designer and art director with over 16 years of experience providing creative products for her clients. Her ability to offer the highest level of service and care to each client has seen the steady growth of SLM Creative Design since its inception. She can be reached at http://www.slmcreative.com/.

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