Archive for July, 2008

Are your marketing messages crafted through a business owner’s eyes or through a potential client’s eyes? 

A business owner sees the cost, the time, the effort and energy that goes into creating a marketing piece. The business owner’s perspective is that marketing is meant as a means to sell something. A potential client sees an opportunity – to save money, to learn something or to look or feel better – based on the offer, the ‘what’s in it for me’, and whether or not it captures their attention. 

If you get too caught up in the business owner’s need of marketing and selling vs. the potential client’s need to be educated and informed, you will be off-target in your messaging, making your marketing expenditures less effective.

Owner focused:  We’re offering a 25% discount if you buy before 8/31!
Customer focused:  You can save 25% if you act before 8/31!

Owner focused:  We’re the best in the country, and have won the grand-poobah award 10 times!
Customer focused: Our award-winning team will make sure you achieve fantastic results.

Now, what can you do about it? Start looking at your marketing from a different perspective – the perspective of the people that buy your product! Before you say it – yes, there are thousands of reasons that people buy your product, and no, you can’t realistically figure them all out, BUT you can ask your current clients why they buy, and then use those ideas to find more clients!

At 11:42am this morning a 5.4 earthquake hit Orange, Los Angeles and Riverside County.

When it hit, I was on a conference call, trying to absorb Microsoft’s presentation about a new marketing program being offered to Microsoft Dynamics Channel Partners. A big jolt made me decide to temporarily abandon the telephone for the security of the door frame.  The house seemed to shake forever…..but in truth, the Orange County earthquake only lasted about 20 seconds.  It was a scary 20 seconds to be sure, but in the end, a pretty harmless 20 seconds – just enough to get my heart racing.

After I calmed down, finished that call and the one that followed it, I started thinking about the earthquake.  An earthquake is not exactly a surprise, especially if you live in California. You always know that an earthquake could happen any day, but it’s always a surprise when the earthquake hits.  Orange County earthquakes are a predictable disaster.

Isn’t the same thing true for business?  For example, you know your employees will quit. Their departure is also a “predictable disaster.” It is a fact of business.  Employees move on; no one will stay with you forever, but you don’t know when they’lll quit or how they’ll leave. Typically employees provide two weeks notice, but what if an employee were to become (heaven forbid) deathly ill? You wouldn’t get 2 weeks. What would you do? How would you handle it?

What about your clients?  What would you do if the client that basically keeps your business in the black were to move on and work with someone else? Would your business leave with them, or could you survive?

After thinking about emergencies and business, I’ve decided there is something to be said for those elementary school drills that tell you what to do when emergencies happen.  The people – the companies – that survive are the ones who are prepared for the emergency. 

Are you prepared?

1. Do you have central files where everyone stores critical client data?
2. Do you back up all your data – even remote employees’ laptops?
3. Is your back up stored offsite or online?
4. Do you have your key procedures documented?
5. Do you have a network of other people you could hire if a key employee left?
6. Do you make sure to diversify your client portfolio? 
7. Do you have insurance?

The time to be thinking of these things is now – BEFOREyour company has a predictable disaster.  And to all my Orange County and Los Angeles friends, I hope you are OK.  Let’s NOT do that again!

My friend and fellow Duct Tape Marketing Coach Randy Vaughn of MarketingTwins.com sent me this hilarious video.  Well, for those of you who HIRE designers, this might not be so funny, but for those of us that are sometimes asked to deliver on impossible demands, this video definitely struck a nerve.

Graphic Design Process of Designing a Stop Sign

How could this team have produced a better outcome?  Here are 5 tips for companies hiring graphic designers and marketing agencies.

1.  Begin with the end in mind.  What do you want done?  Leave the “how” to the professionals.  For example, if you say, “I want a big, red blinking box that says STOP” – that’s what you’ll get.  But if you want someone to STOP, a graphic designer can often find a less obnoxious, but more effective way to accomplish that same objective.

2.  Every partner logo does not need to be on everything. 

3.  Every perspective does not need to be included.  You absolutely CAN get “too many cooks in the kitchen” and end up with nothing but stone soup.   (That’s a story from my childhood, where every kid comes in and asks for something to be removed from the soup recipe. “I don’t like carrots.”  “I don’t like onions.”  “I’m a vegetarian, no chicken please.”)   Pick a voice.  Stick with it.

4.  Marketing research has its place, but PLEASE apply common sense to your findings.  Just because you market to women doesn’t mean you have to make everything PINK. 

5.  Don’t feel obliged to have all the answers.  Give the graphic designer or marketing agency an opportunity to speak up.  They are trying their best to please you!  But they can’t read minds.  And they don’t want to be rude.  You may know your company and product better than anyone else on the planet.  But you have presumably hired a graphic design or marketing expert, someone who has spent years honing their craft.  Usually they are thrilled to tell you why they are making the suggestions they’re making.  You just have to ask, then come together as a team to make a collective decision.

If you continue to do what you’ve always done,
you’ll continue to get what you’ve always got.

Any other suggestions for working with a graphic designer or marketing agency?     

I was sitting and watching TV with my husband last night and one of the Volkswagen “autobahn for all” sales event commercials came on. We have a DVR so it is rare for us to watch the commercials, but I am actually entertained by the Volkswagen ones. They are clever, well put together and keep my attention. Unfortunately, my husband informed me (he works for VW) that they are going to be changing from their clever advertisements to a more ‘industry standard’. That means good buy unique messaging and hello car specifications and boring statistics.

Now, we all know that marketing is more than just a pretty graphic and a creative tagline. But, sometimes having something a little creative can help! It differentiates your messaging, and makes people think a little more. The problem is – marketing teams often get sick of their own advertisement before the message actually gets a chance to work. A company will test out a new message, and after a few tries, will give up if it is unsuccessful. This is the case for Volkswagen. They are not seeing the results from the advertisement immediately, so they are blaming it on the images and the messaging in the ad. So they are changing their messaging. But, are they changing the right thing?!? I think not.

I think they are forgetting the basic formula for any marketing campaign:
40% of the success is based on the target market/audience/list that you send it to
40% of the success is the offer that you are giving (see “Fishing without bait” for ideas of good offers)
10-20% of the success of a marketing piece is actually the creative/message

Volkswagen is looking at the 10-20% and making it the 80%. They assume that it isn’t working – so it must be the creative. What about the fact that you only see a Volkswagen ad once in a while vs Honda who bombards you every commercial break! Or what about their offer? There is no call to action – it just ends!

Now I know that this is a very high level example and that 99.9% of our audience will never run a television ad, but the message still holds. Before you discard your marketing piece because the first couple touches haven’t worked – take a look at ALL aspects. Are you targeting the right people? Do you have the right offer? Then look at the creative.

What do you think of the Volkswagen ads? Is there another company that you think has great ads?

So far in John Jantsch’s Duct Tape Marketing Coaching Excellence Series, we have had some amazing interviews, and the next session looks to be no different. On August 18th from 12pm-1pm CDT (10am-11am PDT) , John will be interviewing Stephen M.R. Covey.   They will be discussing Covey’s book “The Speed of Trust” and cover a range of topics including leadership and authenticity.  Stephen M.R. Covey is the son of the “other” Stephen Covey of Franklin-Covey fame.

Anyone who has been in business for any amount of time knows the importance of building relationships and building trust — especially in professional services.  Professional services are invisible to the eye, difficult to measure, and nearly impossible to compare in quality until you are a customer.  That’s what makes trust so important.  The more TRUST people have in you, the QUICKER you can convert prospects into sales.  The Duct Tape Marketing refrain is: Getting people to know, like and TRUST you is what marketing is all about! 

REGISTER/LEARN MORE:  Duct Tape Marketing Coaching Excellence Series

PURCHASE THE BOOK:  Steven M.R. Covey’s “The Speed of Trust”.

Today, John Jantsch, the author of Duct Tape Marketing, wrote a great post about Google’s Keyword tool that I just had to pass on! We have used it so many times for our pay-per-click campaigns and have just started using it for keyword suggestions for our websites, just like John suggests:

I’ve found that this tool is also a nice, low effort way to get some ideas for keyword phrases for your web pages and blog posts. The tool offers suggestions for ways that people are really searching in your industry and might spark some ideas for blog headlines. Of course, for local businesses, this can be a great way to identify terms that you might want to add your city name to.

For more insight about Google Keyword Tools, check out the rest of John Jantsch’s post

Simply put: marketing is one of the most important things that your business can do to get more business. And it can get expensive in a hurry. But, there are some easy ways to increase your marketing without increasing your marketing cost. Here are 3 of the tactics that we use, and suggest that our clients use, to improve their businesses.

1. Create an offer for your website: When you are trying to attract potential buyers, don’t make the initial offer a consult with your sales team. No one wants to be attacked by a piranha-like sales guy the minute they express some interest in a product. Even if you think your sales guys are sweet as puppies and would never be irritating – you are probably wrong. We love to give the example that when you are looking for someone to marry, you don’t walk around asking everyone to marry you. You start with asking them on a date, something simple like out for coffee. When it comes to selling, you need to approach it the same way. The best way to gain a potential clients trust is to give them baby steps to get used to you. Offer them a free guide (like our 7 steps to business marketing success!). Then offer them a free webinar. Then maybe a $50 commitment to a live webinar. THEN let your sales guys talk to them. If the potential client has been taking all the steps with you, the sales guys should have a much easier job, and a much more welcome reception.

2. Ask for referrals: As I talked about last week, sometimes the easiest way to get more clients is to ask your current ideal clients where you can find more like them. The biggest plus of referrals is they don’t cost you anything. Referrals are EARNED not paid for. You get referrals by providing the best service that you possibly can, and then asking your ecstatic clients to pass on your business card to a couple other people that can use your services. It really is that simple! But remember to thank the client that gave you the referrals (this may take spending a little money) so they will want to keep giving you referrals

3. Create a blog and start blogging: Lastly, if you’re not blogging about your business, you are missing out on one of the most effective and affordable ways to promote your business online! It is one of the fastest ways to improve your search engine optimization and to get potential clients to know, like and trust you. We are in a web 2.0 world which means more and more of your clients are going to be turning to the web to get to know the companies they are concidering working with. The more useful and positive information that they can find, the more that they will trust your business. Realistically, blogging is a topic that we could talk about every day, every post, and never get through it all. We have already talked about why we started our blog and tips on how to blog, the only thing I have left to say is GET STARTED!

Do you have a great free, or almost free, marketing tip to share? Let us know!

Orange County Marketing Agency, Tornado Marketing, introduces a new small
business marketing website Tornado-Tools.com

Self-Service Marketing Website for Small Businesses

ORANGE COUNTY, CA – July 18, 2008 – Orange County marketing agency, Tornado Marketing, recently launched a website advising small businesses on which marketing tools are most effective for small businesses. The ‘Tornado Tools’ website, www.tornado-tools.com, gives small businesses (one to five employees) the advice and tools they need to create systematic, effective marketing programs. The website provides a combination between free advice, links to great small business marketing tools websites and one-to-many seminars.

Adrianne Machina, Chief Velocity Officer of Tornado Marketing, says, “I talk to so entrepreneurs who really need our help – but they really can’t afford to hire a marketing consultant – at least not yet! When your money is still very hard-earned, and it seems like everyone has a hand in your pocket, you want someone to help separate the hype from the helpful. This site was designed for the do-it-yourself small business owner who needs the inside scoop of where to find good, reliable, affordable marketing resources.”

Social media sites can’t be ignored! Connecting online through social media has quickly become one of the most effective and affordable ways for regionally-based small businesses to connect to their target audience – at first virtually, and then hopefully off-line.   It wasn’t that long ago when most of the Internet advertising / promotional opportunities weren’t available to small businesses.  You could comment on forums one-by-one, or you could pay to blast the world, but few options existed in-between. 

In yesterday’s Duct Tape Marketing’s Coaching Excellence Call, David Meerman Scott likened social media to the bars and coffee shops in your area.  If you’re not hanging out with the in-crowd in your town, then you don’t have your finger on the pulse of what’s going on.  Social media sites are just the latest place to hang out with your friends, colleagues — and hopefully your ideal clients.

The problem is that there are so many social media sites that it is often difficult to know where to start – or where to end! It’s not like you’re a teenager that can spend the whole day hanging out on MySpace.  You have a job to do!  You need to make your social media updates as effortless as you can. 

The key is to have the social media sites connect to each other.  The ideal is to update on your blog, and have a feed that will automatically update the rest of your networking sites.  Tornado Marketing uses a variety of these sites to keep connected, including Twitter, Twitterfeed, LinkedIn, FriendFeed, Facebook, Plaxo Pulse, Digg, YouTube, RSS, and of course, blogging.  Now when we update our blog, our social media sites are updated too – easily and effortlessly. 

There are plenty of social media sites we haven’t really investigated yet, but that goes back to our goals.  We’re not blogging and using social media sites to create world domination.  We just want to be able to communicate with our extended circle of friends, clients and colleagues.  

We are working on a map that shows how we connect our blog to the social media sites we’re involved in.  We plan to have it completed for the blogging event we’re doing with OCEntrepreneurs.com here in Orange County next month. 

Do you have any hot tips to share?  Any online tools that have made it easier to keep all of your social media sites connected and current?  Any social media sites that you see gaining significant traction?  We’d love to hear from you!

At the Tornado Marketing blog, we work hard to always provide you with quality content that will help you grow your business. Blogging is also an easy and fun way to promote your business – BUT if you don’t have your blog set up right, you won’t be getting the full business benefits. And as we have talked about in many past posts, blogging is one of the essential tools for growing any online presence. So, we are joining together with ElaborateSEM to host a half day session in Orange County on the tools and techniques to really make your blog successful. This isn’t a high level theory based seminar – this is a down and dirty, in-depth, ‘create your blog today’ seminar.

And now, for more about it and a little bit of self promotion (sorry, but one of the benefits of having a blog is that you can self-promote every once in a while!):

For more information about the event, please visit http://www.ocentrepreneurs.com/workshop/