Posts Tagged ‘Marketing’

Candy Rice of The Collective Savvy with her regular car business brainstorming partner, her husband Tim. Photo courtesy of Sohi Photography.

I’ve heard of the “napkin effect” for brainstorming (http://www.thebackofthenapkin.com/), but I’ve never really been a huge napkin user for business (I generally have a notebook for that!). But I realized something today. Some of the best business brainstorming I’ve ever experienced occurs in the car. Call it the smartphone effect, the telecommute effect, or just plan ol’ there’s-nothing-else-to-do effect. But regardless, the car seems to be catalyst for creative conversation.

I could focus on the calls from the car (when its parked of course). Or the borrowing of a store’s Wifi from the car in order to be on the internet. Or checking phone messages or texts from the smartphone. But really the thing I think is key is the lack of overall external distractions. You are cruising along with someone beside you and invariably you start talking. Off goes the radio, on goes the conversation and BOOM–you have impromptu business brainstorming at your fingertips.

What makes car brainstorming so effective?

1. You have someone to talk to for an extended period -How often does that really happen? In this day and age, people are often so busy they don’t have time to just sit and talk.

2. You have subconscious or overt prompters for conversation – great billboard advertising, an interesting bumper sticker, a car you like, etc. Many things can trigger a conversation, which evolves to ideas and problem solving.

3. You have a need to connect – or in some cases just talk – about your business and have a ready audience within reach. So you do. It’s that simple!

4. You have few interruptions – The TV is off, you can’t text and drive, the kids aren’t vying for attention and the dog doesn’t need to be walked. Amazing how much creativity spews forth when you have brain cells left for it.

5. You aren’t talking to just your co-workers, partners or subordinates about work – You are chatting with your spouse, a buddy, you children or a neighbor.

I actually find number 5 most valuable. Why? Because they bring a different and fresh perspective to your business, even if that is not an area they work in.

Now, the challenge of brainstorming in the car is limited resources for making a list, taking notes or doing immediate look-ups. I actually think that can be a good thing b/c it allows you to stay focused on the business at hand. But if you are like me and need to record the key conversational elements in some way, maybe implement one of the following tactics.

• Check your cell phone for voice recording capabilities and make verbal notes once you are parked.
• Keep a notebook in the car, solely for the purpose of car brainstorming. Go ahead and clip one of your favorite pens to it so nothing hinders you from capturing what you need when you have the chance to write.
• Ask your passenger to help you remember the key points – maybe even have them call your voicemail and leave a message so you can note it later.

Regardless, I am sure you can come up with a solution to retain what you need. But the key thing to do is enjoy the time and value of the car brainstorm. It’s an under-appreciated phenomena!

Have savvy thoughts or suggestions on this post? Leave a comment and let us know!

Candy and Tim with a great idea... Photo courtesy of Sohi Photography.

Positioning is a powerful thing. Make a one woman weep and another woman sing… or something along those lines!

In all seriousness, positioning is a crucial part of the business of marketing. Without it, you lack direction, clarity and purpose in your marketing endeavors; or at the very least, in the mind of your consumers. I had a “daily life” reminder of that recently when I was trying to sell a table on Craigslist.

This table was a good table. It was a nice dark color, had some cool silver accents and was super sturdy. As a matter of fact, it had been used as a desk in two households before being relegated to the Craigslist sell pile. So I diligently posted pictures of the table, the dimensions of the table and mentioned the (very) slight damage on the top. It was priced to sell and I was ready to go.

But I had no buyers. I reposted several times over time, changing up the verbiage and the headlines, but always promoting this great table. No luck.

No luck that is, until I realized I had positioned that table all wrong. I was selling it as a table. So I sat down, removed my past Craigslist post and reposted that table – this time as the perfect desk.  It was big, it was of a dark tone, it had cool silver accents and was a super sturdy desk with a slight marking on top that your computer would hide. That table sold within an hour – and the buyer was afraid I might sell it out from underneath her.

Positioning that table as a table did me no good. Who wants a slightly damaged centerpiece for their dining room? But positioning that table as a desk did the trick – because in the words of the purchaser – “This is perfect! Exactly what I was looking for!” And so the table sold, all because I repositioned that table in the mind of the consumer! A great lesson to be reminded of!

We’ve had a lot of conversations with clients recently about what I like to call “Taming the Time Suck.” Like a lion on the loose, social media can be a fascinating thing to observe. Or play around in. Regardless of whether you do it for business or pleasure, social media can eat a ton of time if you don’t manage your efforts effectively.

While each day can be different – as well as each opportunity you may capitalize on – it’s important to designate the right time for the right projects.

5 Ways to Tame the Time Suck

1. Designate time to work on your social media projects. – This is especially important when developing or revamping your materials. Setting up, tweaking, etc., can be quite the time suck,  so make sure you plan for your social media activities. Go as far as to close your browser if you have to get other work done and then just open it up with you have time to monitor and manage.

2. Designate time each day to work on your accounts. – You will need time to manage and monitor your accounts. And you should adjust that time if you know your posts and activities relate to a prime media story, a seasonal promotion, or something equally as important to capitalize on.

3. Prioritize - Not everything has to be done each day or in every way. Are most of your customers YouTube watchers? Then spend more time there rather than on LinkedIn. Move things to the back burner as needed, but make sure you don’t embrace the empty storefront scenario – you still need to keep things active!

4. Be effective - It’s tempting to goof off: looking at fun links, playing games, or responding to friends’ posts. But treat your job like a job, and you’ll minimize the amount of time you are supposedly spending on social media for work.

5. Prepare – If you need assistance from other departments (such as graphic design work, customer service, etc.), make sure you are communicating with them in advance or as needed in order to handle your campaigns efficiently and effectively. Preparing properly can make a world of difference!

Have other tips for taming the time suck? Please post below!

Seasonal marketing, as we’ve discussed, requires a lot of preparation. But one point that often gets skipped is virtual preparation – Spring Cleaning if you will – no matter what time of year! Sprucing up your virtual sites can go a long way in making your company seem polished, organized, and ready to go for the seasonal market time of choice.

3 Savvy Virtual Seasonal Marketing Techniques to Consider

1. Spruce up Your Seasonal Marketing Materials Online - Do you use the same ad year after year? Are you sure it still resonates (if it ever did) with your clients? Do your graphic images match your seasonal campaign? Think about the message you are sending vs. the one you would like to appear and prepare to launch it in time with your seasonal campaign.

2. Specify Seasonal Keywords - When was the last time you fine-tuned your website to focus on certain keywords or phrases – especially holiday or seasonal related ones? Now is the time! Think about the words or phrases folks are likely to search and then add them to your mix.  Ta-dah! You just helped yourself move up the SEO food chain.

3. Spotlight Your Seasonal Promotion – Is your seasonal promotion front and center on your webpage, virtual media sites, or online shopping cart? Many folks forget to make their seasonal promotion prominent, which defeats the purpose of your seasonal marketing efforts. So let it shine! Give it the attention it so deserves.

Seasonal marketing can be a great chance to boost sales. Prepare now for profit later! Need help? Let us know! info@thecollectivesavvy.com.

Seasonal marketing is often tied to a cause marketing effort. We recently defined seasonal marketing, but cause marketing hasn’t been heavily discussed in this blog. Essentially cause marketing is the combined effort of a for-profit business and a non-profit cause to raise mutual awareness, brand affiliation, and money. I suspect you see where this is going now…

Taking integration to the “next” step, a savvy marketer will often marry their seasonal promotion activities to a cause to tug on people’s heart strings (and purse strings!). This cause may be one that the company has supported over an extended period of time – such as Wendy’s support of the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, or it may be a cause that ties well to the season, such as companies that support Toys for Tots over the holidays.

3 Savvy Ways Companies Can Blend Seasonal + Cause Marketing

1. Percentage of Sales Donations – Pick a seasonal marketing timeframe. Then pick a percentage of proceeds from your seasonal sales to go to your charity of choice. For example, seasonal Back to School promotions may work with charities such as your local PTA or  Back to School Clothing Drive.

2. In-Kind Donations – Cash donations are great and often appreciated, but sometimes a company is able to garner more support and resources around an in-kind donation. In-kind donations vary from charity to charity, but examples include fans for Project Cool in San Antonio, where fans are collected and distributed to the elderly in order to handle the intense summer heat. Your company may give these gifts outright and tie it to a seasonal promotion;  it may make the amount donated dependent on sales during a seasonal promotion; or it may serve as a collection site.

3. Time – Sometimes a company may offer a donation of time – either by bringing employees in for a project or recruiting volunteers for a project to help their pet cause.  Ever see Extreme Home Makeover? Look at the companies that donate time to the building of homes on that show – often showing up in force!

One thing we recommend companies keep in mind is that don’t lose focus on the fact that cause involvement is still ultimately an element of your business plan. Its great to do it, but you couldn’t do it if your business wasn’t in place. So make sure you are vocal about it.  It will have multiple levels of impact – on your company, your cause, and the way people perceive both.  So don’t leave the information out of your seasonal marketing efforts – imagine the impact you could have if others take up your cause as well!

This week we are tackling the broad overview of social media integration into your marketing efforts. Many people seem to see social media as its own thing and not a blended part of an overall marketing mix. <”ANH!” goes the buzzer.>

In order to be effective, social media needs to be a strategic, well-thought out part of your marketing efforts. Take the time to do the research, the planning and the implementation CORRECTLY and in the long run, you will save time, energy and drive more results. Ta-dah! Success!

Ok, ok, ok… maybe there is more to it than that. Integration strategy for social media has multiple levels of implementation. This week, we are focusing on an overall strategy and in the next few weeks we’ll tackle individual social media sites you can leverage.

5 Savvy Steps to Social Media Marketing Integration

1. Determine where social media fit into your overall marketing plan – Is it first priority? Secondary? Just a small line item in comparison to the rest of your efforts?

2. Determine what you want integrated and the messaging related to it – Is it overall brand awareness? A particular campaign? A sales only strategy? A cause marketing effort?

3. Determine how you want it integrated – Video? Messaging? Photos? Blog posts? What are you going to do to make sure your messaging comes across the way you want it and still be interesting and relevant?

4. Determine how you want the sites promoted – Does your print material refer to your social media sites? Do your sites cross reference one another or your “hard” stuff?

5. Determine how you will handle moving forward – Social media seems to change daily and when you are doing other things, it can be hard to keep up! How will you explore new options to integrate into “old” options? Designate time each week to research? Deal with it as you have time? Or plan for a monthly review?

We can help you with your marketing integration. But if you are looking for other resources to learn about it online, check out these great articles:

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/social-media-integration-big-theme-for-2010/#more-1894

http://mashable.com/2010/01/11/social-media-integration/

Got questions about Facebook or other social media activities? Ask The Savvy Girls your marketing or social media questions! Those savvy ladies can be found at www.facebook.com/thesavvygirls or www.twitter.com/thesavvygirls.

Got a comment? Leave a comment! We love to get feedback.

Yay! This month’s theme is one of my favorites: Marketing Integration! Even before I had heard the term “marketing integration” coined, I was preaching to co-workers on this topic. Afterall, everything you post sends a message, every message builds your brand, and if you want everyone to view your brand a particular way… well, it’s obvious that integration is key!

So this week I am going to talk about marketing integration overall, with the next few posts for this month really getting into the nitty-gritty of integrating your social media + marketing activities. But first, I’m nailing down the technical description of Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC).

IMC is ” a process for managing the customer relationships that drive brand value” (IMC Using Advertising & Promotion to Build Brands)

Now, what does that REALLY mean?

According to Merriam Webster, integration is “to form, coordinate, or blend into a functioning or unified whole.”

It basically means instituting a strategy of internal and external marketing integration so that everyone understands the processes, methods, and goals for achieving brand success (how that is defined differs from company to company!). Without internal understanding, you certainly won’t have external understanding, and without that you’ll get nowhere.

5 Savvy Things to Know About Marketing Integration:

1. Integration is more than just visible blending. Match your website to your newsletter, your Twitter to your Facebook, your advertising to your sponsorship materials, etc. While all of that is extremely important, true  integration is both broader and deeper than visible similarities.

2. Integration entails cross-functionality. This means that more than just your marketing team is involved. After all, if your branding is to carry throughout all elements of a business, it’s easier to achieve when you have representatives from customer service, sales, etc., all contributing to the team effort!

3. Integration means touching all of your stakeholders. After you have worked on your internal components, move to the external-vendors, customers, etc. Integration doesn’t stop just with the person who buys your product!

4. Integration can involve strong data mining. If you have ever needed to build a list for marketing outreach, you have probably done some data mining. And as you may have figured out, data mining can be critical in reaching the right folks with the right message to drive sales and awareness. So make sure you make time to data mine!

5. Integration means more than just posting matching messages. It means posting the right message(s) in the right place(s) at the right time(s).  Think about the power of that! If you have to touch folks 7 times to drive action, strategic timing and location are essential to make it happen!

So that, my friends, is integrated marketing in a (very small) nutshell.

Want more sites to look at on this topic? Enjoy below!

http://www.vitaminimc.com/

https://www.marketingprofs.com/login/join.asp?adref=rdblk&source=http://www.marketingprofs.com/3/roberts1.asp

http://jimc.medill.northwestern.edu/JIMCWebsite/site.htm

Practical budget planning is a crucial part of your planning process.  In this economy, most companies have tightened the purse strings, so practical budget application is key – you want to make sure you get the biggest bang for your buck!

Here are 5 savvy things to remember when analyzing your budget:

1. Repeat, repeat, repeat! Customers need to hear your message at least 7 times before their buying habits are influenced. So when you are considering what market to hit and how, remember you need to hit them over and over again and add that to your budget planning.
2. Variance! Switch up how you get your message to your customers. Afterall, don’t YOU hate seeing the same ad over and over again on TV? It’s a softer sell if you vary your marketing mix to reach the same customer a variety of ways.
3. Pack a punch! Make sure your advertising is effective. Can you think of an ad that is memorable…except that you can’t remember the brand? That’s all great and dandy that it makes someone laugh, but if it doesn’t make them buy its a wasted bunch of funds!
4. Know your customer! Make sure you identify the right market. Not sure how to do that? Check out some of our other posts or call us for a quick strategy session!
5. Maximize referrals! Make smart investments in your business by reselling to existing customers. Making an effort to sell to someone who has already given you a word-of-mouth benefit is another smart investment!

There are, of course, many other things to consider. So keep an eye on what works, how your money is being spent, and what gives you the biggest bang for your buck. Be open to other ideas, such as co-branding with other companies or leveraging non-profit partnerships. And if you can’t do something this year, make a note to drop it into the plan for next year!

What is one crucial, critical and often forgotten element of marketing planning? Building a targeted list! Targeted lists allow for stronger marketing implementation and can save an immense amount of resources. Yet it’s the thing that many marketers forget to plan for when preparing their marketing activities.

Here are just a few highlights of proper list planning:

1. Use me, use me…just don’t abuse me!

How will your list be used? Email campaigns? Direct mail? Cold calls?  Determining how you will use your list affects what data you need to collect for your list.  That can save you a lot in regards to time and money!

2. If you build it, more will come!

Start collecting data as soon as possible and keep it up! If time constraints are an issue remember that a small, targeted list is preferable to a huge, random list.  Offer ways for people to opt-in to your list so that the list grows with potential clients wanting to receive your messages!

3. Remember the “collective!”

Pulling together a new list? Make sure you consider adding in past business contacts. These people have already been your customers and are more likely to buy from you in the future. Just make sure what you are marketing is appropriate for them! Otherwise, save that past client list for another time.

4. Tell All!

Meet someone who may be interested in your services? Invite them to join your list. Put opt-in options on your website. Mention it on your email signature. Talk about it through your social media. Avoid high pressure tactics, but make sure people know you are happy to share your information and invite them to join your list!

5. List P’s & Q’s

Lists are business goldmines and require care and management. People may opt-in, opt-out, update, provide wrong info, and more. Make sure you schedule time to spend managing your list properly or risk upsetting potential customers!

And of course, what do we always say? Integrate, integrate, integrate! Don’t forget to think about all elements of your services and how best to integrate your lists for maximum exposure and oomph!

“Integration, integration, integration!”

If you’ve been following our posts, you know that we are strong believers in traditional marketing + social media integration (but only if the choice is right for your company!).  If you’ve been thinking through your own efforts, then you’ve also considered a lot of the elements of pre-planning for a social media marketing launch. Now it is time to double check your integration planning!

Five key considerations for any social media marketing manager:

Does your social media marketing plan pull from your current marketing goals and objectives?

The social media marketing plan is just one spoke in your marketing wheel. Therefore, it should feed into your overall marketing goals and objectives. Make sure the excitement of working in social media doesn’t cause you to lose your head and skip this important piece of integration!

Will the brand elements be consistent between traditional and social execution?

Note everything has to be matchy-matchy, but your brand elements do need to be consistent to continue to build your reputation in the mind of your consumers. So make sure your logo is apparent. Ensure people can find your website.  Carry over campaign elements. In other words: I-N-T-E-G-R-A-T-E!

Does your brand messaging match, even if execution varies?

Messaging contributes to the tone of your brand.  If your brand is sassy, sleek or goofy, make sure that personality shines through your messaging. Got a strong call to action? Make sure it shows through your integration efforts!

Are you reaching your target audience?

Make sure your social media integration choices will continue to reach  your target audience. Just because you are familiar with Facebook and Twitter doesn’t necessarily mean those are the social media venues to use. What if your audience is active on LinkedIn? Consider starting a LinkedIn group. And consider integrating in niche market social media activities – there are sites for artists, nurses, and more!

Can you measure impact in a meaningful way so you can compare your efforts to determine ROI?

Measuring ROI can be a challenge with social media, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. On the flip side, you may not want to judge your social media marketing efforts through traditional ROI lenses. Consider your long term plan and objectives, evaluate your execution efforts and then judge from there.  There are tons of great tips on the web on ways to measure ROI through social media (and we’ll be hitting on this topic later!).

So that being said, we go back to our theme for your traditional marketing + social media planning: “Integration, integration, integration!” It can save you a lot of headaches, build your brand, and promote sales. What can beat that?