Marketing Tips & How-To's

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Start with the "Marketing Mix" for Better Marketing Results

The marketing mix, otherwise known as the 4 Ps of marketing, includes product price, place (AKA distribution), and promotion. You may often see this listed as the 7 Ps — that is, some clever people add people, packaging, and process. Of course, any business as a whole includes people and process. Packaging is definitely part of marketing, but I would suggest that it falls neatly under promotion. No matter how you slice the framework, the main thing to remember is that you shouldn't think strategically about marketing, rather than focusing on promotion alone (like advertising, sales, or social media).

To drill down further on the mix idea, there's also the "promotional mix." As one of the 4 Ps, this mix is for defining marketing communications strategy. I'll use the example of what a podcaster might do to promote themselves.

The promotional mix has 4 components as well. Each has a role to play, but it's important to understand the differences between them. For example, how your listeners respond to an ad vs. a blog post. Applied to someone with a podcast, they might include:

Personal selling — Speaking at a networking event and letting people know about the show.
Advertising — Including any type of paid media, such as paying for ads on Facebook to promote the show.
Public Relations — Including any type of "earned media," such as getting a blogger to write a story about them or simply posting on Twitter. 
Sales promotions — This is typically sampling or discounting, but in this case, it could be applied to giving away clips of a show to entice them to listen to the longer program.

But the first step in any good strategy is to write down your goals, i.e., the number of listeners or subscribers you want to gain within a particular time frame. Start by clearly defining your target audience. Then, think about a budget (time and money) and the best way to allocate it. And finally, put together a promotional calendar, so you're promoting at the ripest moments. 

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Social Media Strategy

When it comes to social media marketing, you can spend a lot of time playing online and never sell a thing. That's why it's important to think about social media strategically, so you can make the most of your marketing budget. Which in the case of most small businesses is measured by how much time you want to devote to it. Read more about the components that make up a good social media marketing strategy, along with some of our favorite tools.

Also see Target Marketing as it applies to Social Media marketing.

Read Robbin Block's answer to What is good advice to adopt when using social media for marketing and branding? on Quora

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Strategy-Driven Creative Ideas & Case Studies

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How to choose a website designer

Before you can choose a website designer, you need to understand what type of site you need, how much money you have and how much you can do yourself. Then you need to vet them like you would most vendors. Read more 

How to do market research

We launched a website called Dempsee to help startups and small businesses learn all about market research. It also contains helpful links we've find to low and no-cost consumer and industry data. There are a few surprises too.

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Create an integrated marketing plan that consists of "traditional" and "digital" promotional methods for best results

The difference between traditional and digital marketing is that the latter defines techniques involving computerized devices, such as computers and smartphones. Everything else is considered traditional: TV, radio, print (i.e., newspapers), out of home (i.e., billboard), signage, printed materials, etc. To promote a business successfully -- target an audience, build awareness, generate leads and sell more products, both methods may be used to great effect, depending on the marketing strategy. They work best when used as part of an integrated marketing plan.

Read Robbin Block's answer to How do I find topics for content marketing? on Quora

Use Email Marketing to Yield a Higher Marketing ROI

Email marketing ROI will always beat other methods, like advertising, because it is a direct marketing technique. It's purpose is to communicate with existing customers or ones who have signed up for your mailing list. They already know who you are, are interested in what you do, and want to hear from you periodically. Email therefore will always yield a higher ROI. The latter is used for mass marketing, and of course will have a lower ROI. It's important to understand this difference when determining what promotional methods to use for your business and how to allocate your resources. Your mailing list is always going to be low hanging fruit, and that's why it's important to continually work to grow your list. Learn more about email marketing

How to get a press release in your local paper

It's all about the Hook and the Peg. Get tips for writing and sending your press release.

How to follow up with someone you met at a networking event

• Address the person by name (check your spelling).
• Start by reminding the contact how and where you met.
• Mention something in common or something you talked about; perhaps an issue they had that related to what you offer.
• Explain very briefly how what you do fits in with that — like one sentence.
• You may want to provide them with links or attachments to information that's helpful to them or relates to what you discussed.
• For the "call to action," depending on how hot the lead is, you could simply suggest they look at your site’s home page…or, if you think there’s a better page to link them to within your website, use that. This is where having an article they could read would be a great follow on. And that’s where the whole idea of the FAQ’s come in (writing articles to answer what people ask most). For example, if people really have a problem with "X" and want to know what can be done instead, put your response down in written form as an article — a quick read. Include simple bulleted suggestions to help them fix that problem. Then, create a web page or blog post with that article, and link them to that next step on their “buyer’s journey.” And while they’re there, the hope is that they take a look at the rest of your site. It also gives you an opening for a follow up…i.e., ”I hope you found the article useful. If there are any questions I can answer, let me know."
• And then of course, if they’re a hot prospect, you may want to try to arrange a meeting instead.

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Why marketing outranks sales

• Marketing strategy starts at the top of the organization, taking into account the 4 P's. Sales doesn't deal with product development, pricing or distribution (place). And as everyone should know, if you have a product that a certain target customer wants to buy, that makes selling it a whole lot easier. 
• As for the 4th "P", sales is just one part of the promotional mix, which takes into account advertising, PR/social media/earned media, sales promotions and personal selling. They must work together to bring about a sale, i.e., where would sales be without leads and sales materials? 
• Personal selling is the most expensive part of the promotional mix - labor, training, travel, commissions, etc. There may be better ways to drive revenue than relying on sales, i.e., ecommerce. A live salesperson is better saved for more complex/high involvement products. 
• These days, the salesperson is the last in the chain of events, since most people will search the Internet for product info first. It's marketing's responsibility to create this consistent total user experience; not the job of sales. I could go on and on, but those are the major points I can think of at the moment and should be more than enough to win a debate.

Should I advertise on Yelp (or other online directories)?

​The first rule of advertising is be where your customers are. If you know your prospects are searching on Yelp, advertising could work -- heavy emphasis on could. You need to evaluate it against others advertising opportunities in terms of audience, cost and effectiveness. And is it appropriate for meeting your goals (which you need to know what those are first).

Once you have determined your audience is using Yelp to find businesses like yours, and before you consider paying for advertising there, make sure you're fully optimizing your organic presence (in other words, make the most of your profile and get reviews). Then, check your website traffic and see if you're getting any from Yelp. That may give you a clue as to whether advertising will work or not.

​Another good idea, before you pay for advertising anywhere, is to make sure your website is converting. In other words, what percentage of people visiting your site are taking the action you want (signing up for your newsletter, buying or making a reservation, etc.)?

​Also before you pay, make sure your website is optimized organically, so you can drive as much traffic as possible before paying for advertising on something like Yelp.

​Of course, these are general rules. How they apply to your business will depend on your type of business, business model, etc.

Radio can drive immediate purchase at a low cost

Teasing out the impact of one medium in a mix of marketing activities is a challenge. Any medium will have both financial and emotional, and therefore, memorable results -- which are all dependent on the unique qualities of a particular medium and where it fits in an overall marketing strategy -- from business model, through positioning, branding and messaging, to marketing, promotional and media mix.

Radio can impact the bottom line by both driving immediate purchase and building brand recognition over the long-term. Its qualities give it a unique spot in the media mix -- relatively low cost enables high frequency. It's a passive medium, yet the right blend of audio and storytelling can create a connection with people's emotions. In our world of media overload, the impact of any communication can be fleeting, particularly without incredible creative. To sustain those relationships, a business needs a long-term budget.

Stop worrying about getting blog comments, and do this instead

Comments on your blog are no longer the measure of the value of your blog, so they're not as essential as they once were and you don't have to allow them. Some pretty famous bloggers have removed them. However, there are still reasons for allowing blog comments, for example, as a way to build community, as explained in this post from Solo PR Pro.

You may want to build community on your social networks instead, although sometimes it’s just easier to allow people to comment below your post. You could test this by asking people to “get together” on a social network of your choice rather than commenting right there. Then see if that drives the conversation and increased social and website traffic you're after.

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