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Archive for the ‘Marketing Ideas’ Category
Monday, February 8th, 2010
When planning your social media marketing, there are a few questions that you need to ask yourself before you dive in. Who am I targeting? What are their needs?
I don’t know about you, but at the end of every year, I receive a myriad of promotional calendars in the mail. Considering there is little space on my office wall and the fact that I carry a hard copy day timer (which I affectionately refer to as my PDA!), I feel guilty that I cannot make use of all the wonderful calendars I receive, I decided that one way to provide an answer to my questions is to create a content calendar, using one of my spare calendars. You can use a spare calendar to perform the same exercise.
Use tools such as Twitter search or Google Alerts to find out your customers’ needs. Are you seeking attraction or attention? Develop a content marketing plan –mark in your calendar when to Blog, when to send out Press Releases, when to write a White Paper. Consistency is the key to every marketing plan. Create consistent information and stick to your plan. If you cannot perform the marketing initiatives yourself, then look for someone who can assist you with implementation.
Outsource to a qualified content consultant who understands your industry and can help to write a Blog post in a timely manner. Or, assign an internal project manager to work with an outsourced content manager. Just be sure your content manager understands your industry and is an expert in their field.
Once you have put together your content marketing plan, work the plan. Consistency is the key! (Consistency is the key!).
Tags: articles, Blog content, blogs, content marketing, Google Alerts, outsource marketing, press release, social media, Twitter Search
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Friday, February 5th, 2010
Social Media – mind your P’s and Q’s!
Remember your mother’s advice about basic manners when attending a dinner party? Be polite, hang back until you look around the room and then zero in on one or two people to approach. Ask about them and what is going on in their life and then slowly, reveal what is going on in your own life. No one likes a “pushy” person who brags about their own accomplishments and does not show any interest in anything but their own agenda and anyone but themselves!
The same advice is true for social media. Approach the common venues such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook much as you would when you first walk into a room at a dinner party. Look around the room, see who is there, find someone with the same interests, hobbies, etc., ask about their life and then offer information. Do not begin to push your product or services to everyone the minute you walk into the room.
It is not socially acceptable in the social media world to constantly tout your own accomplishments or to sell your products and services without first building a relationship. Look for people like yourself if you are looking for a way to get started. As in real life, in social media, the old adage “give before you get” works very well. Offer information on blogs, articles, links to helpful sites, and share tons of great content before you begin to talk about you and your business. Keep the personal information and updates to a minimum; do not push your products or services right off the bat. A little promotion on you and your business is ok but if you are tweeting more than four or five times a day, you are just adding to the “noise”.
Tags: articles, blogs, content, facebook, linkedin, social media, Twitter
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Tuesday, January 19th, 2010
e-newsletters are one of the most economic marketing tools today. Anyone can benefit, whether you own a service business or are a manufacturer, e-newsletters are inexpensive to deliver to your database and a great way to establish yourself as an expert in your field. A short, succinct newsletter can be used to touch your customers once a month but bear in mind the content has to be more than an ad for your company. Give your customers or potential customers information that they can use in their business. One good tip will get your targeted customers to open your e-newsletters on a regular basis, just to see what you have to say in each issue.
How do you decide what topics to include in your e-newsletters? Listen to your customers. Look at your daily e-mails to see what questions are top of mind for which you have provided an answer. If some of your customers or potential customers are asking the same question about your industry, chances are it’s a question that is probably on most of your customers’ minds. Keep your information short and sweet (KISS principal), give your e-newsletter a catchy heading and you will have great success with opening rates and response from your targeted database.
Once you have designed the template for your newsletter, prepare a few ahead of time so that you can push them out on a regular basis. Repetition is the key to a successful e-newsletter campaign. It is one of the marketing tools in your marketing campaign toolkit that is low cost and effective.
Tags: database, e-newsletter, marketing campaign, marketing expert, marketing tool, targeted database
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