Marketing

Ah, St. Valentine’s Day, when thoughts turn to romance and finding the right partner. So much time and energy is spent chasing the object of your affection, only to find the feelings aren't mutual. And worse, you see that special someone holding hands with someone else.

We’ve all been there. We’ve all felt the pain of rejection and wondering to ourselves “What’s wrong with me?” Generally, there’s nothing wrong. In business we often feel the same. Why are my customers choosing a competitor over my product or service. The issue may not be what you are offering, but how it is being offered and perceived by you customers.

Who doesn't love good cake?  It tastes great, smells wonderful, can be absolutely beautiful and is the center piece of many celebrations. All you need is a good recipe, good ingredients and a decent baker.

If you were to taste each of the cake ingredients on their own, most would  be downright awful. A poor recipe can leave you with a cake that is flat, dry, dense or in many other ways unpleasant.

So why so much talk about cake, no it's not the mid-afternoon need of a pick-me-up.  It's that marketing is very similar to that of baking a cake. Marketing components do not function as well individually as they do when implemented together under a single strategy. 

As you move forward with any marketing plan consider how outsourcing marketing to a company with full oversight differs from outsourcing each piece ad hoc. 

I get it, marketing is frustrating.  It's not fast, it can be unpredictable and even with modern analytics it can be difficult to measure.

What I can tell you is that if you don't put together a marketing strategy, you are as good as hiding.  If your website isn't mobile friendly and optimized, it can been like finding a needle in a haystack on Google.  Yes, people can type your business name in, but what if people don't know your name or they misspell your business name? Then what?

It's week three of the Girl Scout cookies sales season.  It's hard to miss these little girls, decked out in sashes and aprons outside of your local supermarket, drug store or restaurant.  What you may not see is all that goes on behind the scenes of this truly entrepreneurial experience.

My daughter is a third generation Girl Scout. The tradition of selling Girl Scout cookies dates back to 1917 (for the organization, not my three generations) and cookie sales has been many girls' first experience in business, sales, marketing and entrepreneurship.  Few organizations have stood the test of time like Girls Scout cookie sales. 

Here are the amazing skills each girl learns as part of being a Girl Scout...

Last week I wrote a blog about blogging; I know that sounds slightly ironic.  After speaking with a few people who read the blog , the one question I kept  receiving was, "How do I use this blog to help me generate leads?"  After you have spent your valuable time working on a blog, that you feel will be helpful to your audience, you need post that article in a place that will get read by your intended audience.

If you read last week's blog, you know that your blogs should be more informational and not a sales pitch.  Go with the 80/20 rule on informational vs. sales blog.  Add some personality, keep the word count at a reasonable level, make the blog readable and blog consistently.  You can find more about blogging here.

For this article, I'm going to assume you load your blog to your website.  It's not only a great component of your SEO (search engine optimization) strategy, it's the place you want to drive traffic (assuming you have a good website).  It's the website that will do your sales pitch, not the blog.

The blog is written and posted, now let's get the word out...