Your Marketing Machine: April 2009

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

All Core Messages are not Created Equal.

I wrote a post recently that All Sales Channels are not Created Equal and talked about the resources that you would have to commit to each one. But today I had an appointment with a new client and was discussing their Core Message and went through an exercise that I thought might prove useful. More importantly, I discovered that you can have more than one sometime and that All Core Messages are not Created Equal.

List your core messages, you can have more than one but keep it short and sweet.

Which one differentiates you the most?
Which one screams the loudest?
Who and what influences whom?
Which would could prove the most effective?
Which one has the highest risk attached to it?
Which one has the Lowest Risk?
Which one is the easiest to support?
Which is the easiest to implement?
1. In the short term?
2. In the Long Term?
Which one is the most affordable?
Which of them is most recognizable to your customers?
what are the best vehicles to reach your audience or constituents?
Can you combine and optimize?
If you decide on more than one, what is the best timing to introduce each?

So what is your core message?

Technorati Tags: Core Message,Target Market,Sales Channels,Marketing Channels

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Brand Yourself before your Non-Customers do!

I was just reading an article written by John Jantsch that he posted on Could Your Brand Stand a Personality Upgrade? on the HP Small Business Marketing Guide. He discussed Small Business branding and encouraged you to work at it much harder by identifying it more clearly to your customer base.

Don’t be a big fat zero: It is pretty scary to brand yourself. You always feel like your limiting yourself and as a result try to be everything to everyone. And as a result, your are nothing to no-one. A ZERO! Another alternative is to to leave your customers do it. That perception, is of course probably the most correct one. I have recommended before, go call 10 of them and find out what your brand is. A word of caution is that it is very difficult to change this image and if you so choose to try, it is expensive. I have written several posts on this.

But don’t be less then zero: I think the scariest part is leaving the branding to your non-customers. Now, let me do the math. Your customers in your target market is called market share. Your market share, more than likely is something less than 50%. Maybe 5%, if you are extremely successful. So, if you have not developed a strong brand, if my math is right, 95% of your target market is defining it for you. So, go read John’s post, I think you need to take hold of it and brand yourself with everything you got before someone else does

Technorati Tags: SMBmarketing guide ,Duct Tape Marketing ,Branding ,Target Market

This is syndicated from Business901"

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

New Get Content Get Customers Out Soon

Excited to show you the new cover for the revised and updated paperback version of Get Content Get Customers (Turn Prospects Into Buyers with Content Marketing), which will be available in bookstores on May 22nd.

And, by the way, the paperback does include new case studies and has a few expanded pages on social media content marketing.

I really believe that anyone passionate about a topic should write a book. If that's you, check out this post I wrote a while back - "10 Keys to Writing a Book when You Have No Time to Write a Book."

This is from Junta42 blog, and written by Joe Pulizzi.

Build a Referral Program for your E-zine

I have made just about every mistake possible in e-mail marketing and I am still learning. I have a list of 2500 but only get open rates of 20%. But I also have a client that gets open rates of over 50%. That list is only 600. Who has the better list? Without a doubt the one with 600 and it creates business. Why? It was created solely with direct sign-ups.

People want to increase e-mail mailing because it is free. But e-mail is not free. It takes effort, great content and current material. E-mail is struggling as a medium, it is still push marketing. But I have this junk mail theory, if it is cool enough, it is not junk. If an e-mail is worthwhile enough, it is not spam.

I believe an active small list allows you to target your message better and therefore have a more interested party. I would have a tendency to recommend not increasing their list but segregate it into more accurate groups. I think what makes a great list is creating more of a direct message to individual groups within the entire group. Than grow it by doing this:

A suggestion, create a referral program:
1. Segregate the list into groups.
2. E-mail only twice a month with more precise content.
3. Personalize as much as possible
4. Ask for referrals(forward e-mails) and if your friend signs up???
5. Become a guest writer on another's e-mail. Leave them write on yours. Each of you, of course would get a link to that persons. Ask for a signup to yours inside the post.
6. People that have customer traffic, create an offer to acquire their e-mail, especially at point of sale or a computer that could print a coupon.
7. Get and post testimonials about your newsletter, everywhere.

If they want to create a better list, make a better offer to get the name or better yet content that someone wants to read. If you want to grow your list do it from within not by trying to acquire more.

And then to start blogging.

Technorati Tags: E-zine,Email,E-mail marketing,Referral,Referral week,Referral Marketing

All Sales Channels are not created equal

How do you go about creating sales channels and making them not competitive with each other. It is a pretty tall order in today's world and one that really takes quite a bit of time so that they and yourself are not competing with each other. The Channel Advantage is a good book to start with and can be found at bargain prices. Let me give a couple of suggestion from the book and a few places on the web that you can find information.

If you are trying to find the best way to take your product to market there is a U.K business link that you can take a survey to Identify Potential Sales Channels and it will give you a set of recommendations. It is only a 5 minute exercise and well worth it.

The Channel Advantage recommends using a 4-step process to evaluate and manage each channel.

It looks straight forward but in today's world I think it is missing one component. There should be 1-block on the bottom saying consumer and final price. Distribution is so good these days that the channels cross over so effectively that the consumer has to see the same price. Many times even when there is value added services being included. So, how many sales channels do you have and do they all end up with the same price to the consumer? Does your marketing plan cover the basics?

Technorati Tags: Sales Channels,Lead Generation,Channel Advantage