Marketing Smarts Newsletter
July 29, 2011
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 Greetings! !
Summer is in full swing and it's not too late to plan for your late summer and fall harvests.
Summer, at least here in the West, means turning the sprinkler system back on. Before you think you've received a gardening email, you haven't. You have received a little musing on how your garden doesn't go dry in the summer and neither should your marketing.
If you let your garden go dry over the summer, when winter hits, it may or may not come back. And, even in the rainy summer climates, you still have to tend your garden or it's out of control.
Consider the similarities between your gardening system and your marketing system. The perception is that everyone is on vacation, no one's going to become a customer and that your prospects are just checked out from their business. Untended, you'll come back in Fall to a mess that may leave the last quarter of sales dismal.
There's definitely an ease to doing business over the summer which is why I love wearing sandals from April until October. Yet, the bubbliness of summer is not a signal to ease up. Instead, it's time to focus on making sure that you don't get slapped in the head come September with a dry, fallow or wrecked garden. If you won't let your garden go dry this summer, why should your marketing efforts?
3 Things To Do for Summer Marketing
1) Mid-Year Review of Your Marketing - Where are you now? Where do you want to be on Dec. 31st? Do you need to adjust or re-conceive your goals and desires? Did you make the money you wanted? What's not working? What can be abandoned or shelved? What is your focus for the next 6 months.
2) Try Something New - A looser atmosphere means you can lighten up a bit. Try attending a completely new networking group. Try launching a Facebook page for your business. Or, imagine where some new customers might come from and dream up a campaign to attract them.
3) Create a Summertime Promotion - Products (service product included) that can be thrown in a new package or grouped together. Summer time discount that goes away after Labor Day. For instance, give a free review or analysis for your prospects that's good only until Aug. 31st. Partner with another business owner and create a discounted cross-promotion.
So, are you looking for a bumper crop of leads coming your way in the Fall of 2011 or are you going to scratching the dry ground come September? Go spend an hour of quiet time at Starbuck's, your local library or a conference room, figure it out and get going.
Good marketing,
Anne Kenney
Chief Wrangler
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In this edition:
• Welcome Message • Smart Marketing Tip • Article Insight • Special Offer • Latest Blog Posting •
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It's The Message, Not The Media, That Matters
Crafting a worthy message cuts across all media channels
Yes, your new social media toy is shiny and cool. Everyone, and I mean everyone, is talking about Facebook and Twitter. You cannot turn anywhere and miss the conversation about them.
Yet, your shiny new toy is pointless if your marketing message - what you say about your business - is boring, irrelevant, over-inflated, misdirected or just plain bad.
Without your strong relevant message
and/or noteworthy activities like client successes or new products, it
will not matter what media you choose for your marketing. Think of it
like the news. While the news can be crazily sensational, it constantly
piques your interest.
Your marketing message has to pique a
prospect's interest. They are not dullards. They want to be excited.
They are curious. They want to feel safe. Message matters because
however a prospect encounters you, they want to know what you do, what
you think and how your business can help them.
It is ESSENTIAL for a service-based companies to have a strong message. You have no product that your prospect can hold and they really, really have to trust you to buy from you.
Think about your own experience. What's the last thing you bought? How did it catch your eye? Why that product? Why not something else? Why are you spending your money there? Use that experience to think about what message "they" sold you on and use it to influence your message.
Worried about scaring them with a "negative" message? Study after study shows that humans respond to problems better than goals. You won't be negative or scary if you come from a genuine place of help.
3 Ways To Develop A Strong Message
Answer one of these questions. Write out your story. Cut it down to a few lines or just one. Tell that story to everyone.
- What problems do you solve for your clients?
- What successes have your clients had from working with you?
- What is the most passionate, core idea of your business? What motivates you?
With a strong message, you'll find others responding to you and trying to help you because they understand you. After all, isn't that what we all want? A little understanding.
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What NOT To Do on Your Local Business Website
Search Engine Land's website offers a great article on ways to improve your visibility and more easily turning up in search results with this 10 point article.
Search Engine Land is a treasure trove of blogs postings that bring you up to date on the vast sea of search marketing and the technologies behind it.
Getting found in search results is so important. Don't blow it on techniques that are outdated or harmful.
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Special Free Offer
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 Have you received my new complimentary eBook,
25 Time-Tested Rules of Small Business Marketing?
In this eBook you learn the rules of marketing to successfully
generate profitable leads.
You'll discover how to prioritize
your demands on your limited resources, what are rules really work for
small business marketing and finding customers.
Subscribe Here
Discover:
- The #1 Rule is the must-read of all rules.
- Why Google is smarter than you and how you can get banned by them.
- Discover what your best marketing tool and your biggest marketing asset are.
- Find 3 big ideas for reaching the hard to reach prospect.
- Learn at least 2 ideas for lazy marketing.
- And, so much more.
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Yellow Pages - So Not Over!
Latest Marketing Smarts Blog Post
In my latest blog posting, I share a post about the new over-hyped news that the Yellow Pages are dead and how it may be way, way to soon for certain businesses to withdraw their advertising.
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Contact Details
Bullseye Marketing
Phone: (650)-345-3720
Fax: (650)-458-8158
send us email
@copywright Bullseye Marketing 201
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