E-mail: A low cost solution or an annoyance and obstacle to productivity?
February 26, 2009 by Mary Ellen · 1 Comment
Policing e-mails gets to be a job, especially when the in-box exceeds 200. (My goal is to make it through the list.) As more and more businesses use e-mail communications, the need to grow our effectiveness becomes critical.
According to Forrester Research, eight out of 10 broadband users delete most commercial e-mail without reading it. Six out of 10 say most e-mail offers nothing of interest.
Sid Liebenson, Executive Vice President and director of marketing for Draftfcb, offered basic e-mail guidelines in an op-ed piece in DMNews:
To make it work effectively, use your company name and/or a real name in the “from” field. Personalize and customize content as much as possible. Segment e-mail content so that recipients get information that most interests them – if you don’t know what interests them, ask. Include interaction, like polls or quizzes. Offer reports and whitepapers. Keep messages short, simple, and focused. A text-heavy appearance is deadly. Read the complete article.
I continue to recommend e-mail to clients. In addition, I continue working to improve my own. Post your good e-mail hints (or your worst e-mail examples) here in the comments.
Join the Launch Party for just-published Life Simplified, a one-day only opportunity!
February 23, 2009 by Mary Ellen · Leave a Comment
I’m participating in the launch of a new book, Life Simplified, published by Life Coach Leslie Gail. Buy Life Simplified Tuesday, February 24th and receive $800 in bonus products. Leslie’s goal is to achieve best-seller status in just one day. Find out more.
Why am I part of this? Three reasons: first of all, a simplified life has more and more appeal to me and to virtually everyone I know. Leslie’s comments caused me to review my own feelings when I went through a career change six years ago. Readers of this blog know I experienced similar overwhelm when I started working on a content management system for my website.
Have you ever procrastinated making changes in your life because of feelings of fear or overwhelm with the process? Are you tired of struggling or feeling like you are constantly swimming upstream? Would you like to live a more purposeful and passionate life?
I joined this launch secondly to walk my talk. I regularly recommend entrepreneurs align with those who have similar interests and goals. Leslie Gail meets the criteria. She’s reaching out, bringing a focus to me and to more than a dozen other experts with her product launch. Read the list of bonus offerings totaling more than $800. Leslie is providing value-added and I support that type of offering.
Action advocate, Coach Rachelle Disbennett Lee, a friend, advisor and associate referred me to Leslie and presented her as yet another person who “walks their talk.”
Finally, I see this launch as an additional way to create valued experiences for my readers. I look forward to reviewing Leslie’s book for myself and reporting on it to you. Her book points to specific steps you can take now to simplify, including these and more:
Be in the Moment
Embrace more gratitude in your life
Learn to get your own needs met first
Handle stress with ease
Learn the key to success
Live a life of no regrets
Bring more passion into your life
If you want more of any of those things, buy Life Simplified. Best of all, get $800 in bonus offerings when you do this. Check it out Tuesday February 24, 2009 and let me know what you think.
Customer Service, Search Engine Optimization and Public Relations Top Seminar Recommendations
February 22, 2009 by Mary Ellen · Leave a Comment
More than fifty people from service providers to construction companies to restaurant owners got together on a Saturday to talk Small Business Survival.
The event, sponsored by WESST and SCORE included a panel discussion and breakout sessions plus networking with a number of service providers.
Panelists emphasized the importance of humor, customer service and old-fashioned relationships. John Garcia of HospiTotally talked about making remarkable experiences memorable, using El Pinto’s chile roasting efforts as one example. (The restaurant roasts chile every day so customers relive and enjoy a fall tradition – the smell of fresh chile – whenever they visit.) Garcia’s handout suggests:
Great service, consistently delivered, generates loyal customers and word-of-mouth public relations for your business or organization. In addition, service is a gift given of one’s self to others. It benefits the giver by reinforcing positive behaviors, it benefits the organization to ingrain those behaviors of service, and it has a positive effect on people who observe such actions.
Clare Zurawski of WESST pointed out search inquiries for Google increased 38% in January 2009, a sign that Internet marketing importance continues to increase. Even if you’re not selling on the Internet, you can’t ignore it. She offered as a resource an article “How SEO and Social Media Can Help Small Businesses Combat the Recession.”
I talked about public relations and used specific examples from local businesses who are members of the Albuquerque Independent Business Alliance. In my book, PR is more than just traditional outreach to the media. It’s everything you do, public relations. My three-point formula to market more effectively in this economy:
- Plan. Be on budget and on message. Have strong positioning and a specific offer for your business.
- Evaluate. Use the 24-hour rule and check references.
- Act. Do one marketing thing every day.
The group responded favorably to my “24-hour rule,” a suggestion that entrepreneurs wait 24 hours before making any advertising purchase. My Tip Sheet, Do it Yourself PR 5-Day Project, a takeaway for attendees can be downloaded from my ProfitMeister website.
What struck me about the event: the sense we’re in this together.
Let’s get after it! Let me know what you’re doing to more effectively market your business today.
What can I do to improve business in this economy?
February 18, 2009 by Mary Ellen · Leave a Comment
My recommendation is to focus and simplify. Think of a maximum of four “channels” or pillars or ways to categorize your efforts.
I use four as an example because there are four directions, four corners in a square, four legs to a chair. So pick your four marketing channels.
For service professionals, I suggest:
PR – Public Relations especially, the vital Online Media Room
Direct Print – Publishing for your audience
Digital Word of Mouth or, Social Media and the Web
Event Marketing or Networking – Connecting with customers on and off-line.
Within each channel there are numerous tactics. Again, concentrate on developing three or four that appeal to your personality. Develop and expand a small group of tactics. Rather than trying a dozen different things, get good at a few.
Do one marketing thing every day. Consider these examples:
Public Relations
- Set up an online media room
- Implement a systematized public relations plan
- Write a news release
- Contact local newspapers and magazines with a news release
- Add an event from your company to one of the many media calendars
- Investigate appearing on talk shows or morning show segments on radio or tv
- Set up a digital media kit
- Feature client success stories on your website
Direct Print
- Build a mailing list and develop a postcard or direct mail campaign
- Offer a special report, tip sheet or white paper to your prospects and customers
- Publish articles online
- Write a column in an industry newsletter or in your own
- Use e-notices to let your best customers know about new shipments, specials, etc.
- Use direct mail letters to communicate with customers and prospects
- Produce a catalog of your offerings
- Develop and post a benefits list
Digital Word of Mouth – the Web
- Plan text campaigns, especially if your target is younger and mobile
- Update your website
- Respond to email quickly
- Use social media in conjunction with other advertising channels
- Launch a company blog
- Add an executive blog to a company one
- Develop a company page for Facebook
- Use Ad Sense to boost your website traffic
Event Marketing or Networking
- Network easily, frequently and tirelessly
- Always have business cards with you – use them as mini brochures
- Try C-commerce – that’s customer care
- Talk with customers; engage in a dialogue with qualified prospects; find out what they want from you
- Ask your customers for referrals. Be quick to offer referrals
- Smile more. People prefer to do business with positive, upbeat people
- Participate – get seen being involved in your community
- Answer your phone faster
- Form an alliance with nearby businesses – promote them and ask for their support in return
- Be easy to do business with
Note: These options can work for any business. Choose a few and with a consistency you’ll see results.
In fact, with little effort, I’m sure you can add to this list. Most importantly, let me know how this system works for you!
Keep Complacency at Bay! Make every interaction count.
February 16, 2009 by Mary Ellen · Leave a Comment
“I’ve done no marketing for the past seven years. And now I’ve just lost some big customers. What can you do for me?”
Those words make me cringe. It could be too late for this business. After all, the game of business works like tennis. Take your eye off the tennis ball – even for a second – and you lose. Ignore marketing for seven years and …well, you get the idea.
At a minimum, your customers expect good service. While they may not question easy dollars during the good times, all expenditures get re-evaluated during a crunch. Customers and prospects vote with their money. They move to another vendor if they feel abused neglected or taken for granted.
I had the perfect opportunity to see service in action this weekend. Four of us visited Matt’s Big Breakfast, a small, (seats 25) independent restaurant in Downtown Phoenix just across from the Downtown Phoenix Public Market. We waited two hours.
Okay, that’s excessive. It was tolerable because we were visiting, and because Matt was nice enough to check with us a couple of times when he could have seated us in ones or twos rather than our entire group.
Matt’s Big Breakfast, featured on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, gets more rave reviews than not: quality ingredients, attentive waiters, wonderful people watching, overall good experience. Matt told me he doesn’t do much advertising. He opened in 2004 and is currently part of Local First Arizona’s “Small Wonders” map.
“We just try to do good for every customer every day,” he said.
That’s marketing.
Respond to the Economy with Inexpensive Grassroots Marketing
February 13, 2009 by Mary Ellen · Leave a Comment
Talk of cut-backs and stimulus plans dominate today’s conversations. Most businesses adjust spending to compensate for flattening revenues. However, expenditures by themselves don’t tell the whole story.
Grassroots marketing becomes MORE important in a tight economy. I talked with a number of businesses about the changes they’ve implemented to respond. Local restaurateur Myra Ghattas told me Slate Street Café is doing simple things more effectively and, in the process, enhancing its marketing efforts:
- Table tents advertise events and specials in the dining room. Customers can read these items as they wait to be served.
- Waiters and waitresses collect email addresses from their guests. The growing e-mail list is used to announce new menus, wine tastings, and special events.
- Most importantly, as owner, Myra walks the floor and talks with her guests.
Smart operators, like Myra, know relationships are key to success. At Slate Street, or in most retail operations, customers like to see and talk with the owner. This means an investment of time and yet this solution is often overlooked as an idea too simple to make a real difference. Myra points out the importance of talking with customers and letting them know you need their support. In addition, she emphasizes the necessity of providing talking points for the staff, sharing information they can discuss with their guests as appropriate.
I asked Myra what advice she’d give to other businesses:
“…if you are an owner or general manager you will need to work more, smarter, and harder. You have to set the example by putting in extra effort. You have to show your employees and your customers that you want to be here and you want to survive and that you are going to do whatever it takes to make it.”
During the coming weeks ProfitMeister will share other tips from businesses responding to the economy. Share your comments here or email us with your tip. In the meantime, feel free to join the Slate Street group on Facebook!
Three Myths of PR or, What You Always Hear About Public Relations
February 9, 2009 by Mary Ellen · Leave a Comment
Myth One: You need a big budget.
Advertising sales wisdom suggests you buy the audience. “Run more spots.” “Mail more prospects.” “Buy more display.” That’s PUSH sales. The solution for too much product and not enough traffic: buy more advertising. In traditional public relations, businesses look at clips. Every time your story gets published somewhere you add it to the clip pile. Meanwhile, the PR specialist PUSHES your pitch to dozens or hundreds of journalists. (In the email world we call this spam.)
These techniques fail more often than not today. PULL marketing means consumers select their medium and in some cases even their message. You purchase an appliance like a washer, return the warranty card, check the box to receive direct mail offers, and hear about soap from a different company. In this scenario, you choose to no longer receive washer offers. “Dear Occupant,” mail is the opposite of Pull marketing. (NOTE: Impersonal email blasts are today’s “Dear Occupant.” Emails to 10 people may save you time, but they hardly get the message across.)
My Dad, a farmer, used to make an analogy about one-quarter inch. A quarter inch on the end of a mile-long fence line is nothing he’d say. Then he’d add, “A quarter inch on the end of your nose is a LOT!” So, treat your pr as if it were your nose. It is. Make your quarter inch count. Talk specifically and emphatically with two journalists, not twenty. Spend more time in the planning stage than in the outreach stage. It will pay dividends. Remember, it’s relative.
Myth Two: You can’t reach journalists.
Blasting 700 messages out on the web doesn’t work. It’s unlikely you’ll get seven responses, let alone 70. What to do? Develop your points and then send seven targeted, specific pitches. You’ll likely get three to four responses.
Who do you know? Posting your question on a FaceBook page would be more effective than unsolicited email blasts. I’m suggesting you develop a specific strategy and it begins with thinking. Less is more in this case.
One committee chair, for example, assigned each person to contact someone they knew at media outlets. She provided a flyer with talking points. The result? Her event received widespread coverage. The power of personal relationships added an oomph she couldn’t achieve on her own. How can you think differently about contacting the media.
Do you have a favorite columnist? Is there a particular publication you follow all the time? Focus on making your message relevant for the publication’s or the column’s audience and you’re on the way to success. Do your research and make the contacts. Journalists want to hear from business people like you who have a story to tell.
Myth Three: You must have special expertise.
It doesn’t work that way. You know your product or service. With a little focus you can put together a pitch that works. Scratch expertise and replace it with passion. You must have a passion for getting the word out. In the words of Calvin Coolidge:
Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan “press on” has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.
Act now. Move forward in some small way and get the word out.
Do-It-Yourself PR: The One Week Project
February 4, 2009 by Mary Ellen · Leave a Comment
“PR” – public relations – seems so BIG it can stop you cold. In the midst of running your business, doing what you do best, self-promotion can take a back seat to sales. And yet, promotion can maximize sales.
The vicious cycle of thinking about the many aspects of promoting your business leads many entrepreneurs to overwhelm, worry and finally, analysis paralysis. I worked with one artist to tackle perceptual problems and make PR a realistic part of her week. We developed this calendar:
Day One:
- Identify three print and three online targets. List your own website as #4 online. Research to discover your best contact at each target.
- Check every target’s website.
- Download editorial calendars where appropriate.
- Make a list of deadlines.
- Note the reporter covering your industry. Google them and read their work.
Day Two:
- Develop a paragraph – three to five sentences about you, your event, your reason for seeking publicity.
- Now, change this paragraph slightly for each target outlet.
- Re-write the same paragraph for your website.
Day Three:
- Prepare a background sheet about your event.
- Answer each of the five W and one H questions: who, what, when, were, why, and how.
- Edit each answer to a short bullet. Elaborate only if necessary.
Day Four:
- Contact your six targets via email.
- In a simple statement, make your request.
- Include your contact information in each email: name, phone number, email and address.
- Paste your fact sheet in below your signature line. Do NOT add an attachment to your email.
- Post your fact sheet on your website in your online media room.
Day Five:
- Evaluate your daily efforts on a scale of one to 5, with one being the strongest and five the weakest. Note where you might increase your effectiveness.
- Begin to formulate your next “story.”
- Focus on an upcoming event, product launch, anniversary or other opportunity.
- Consider why this story is of interest to each target. (HINT: Think about that target’s audience.)
Busy and overwhelm aside, get your public relations project moving with this simple, one-hour-per-day calendar plan and let me know how it works for you.
