Marketing Consultation and Planning on the Digital Spectrum
In a previous blog post we have established that you can’t ignore your business competition. But putting them under the microscope once and then just leaving it is not enough. Things change and develop very fast in today’s world, so you always need to keep your finger on the pulse.
Analysis of the business competition varies greatly between businesses and markets but there are always basic things to consider such as: [Read more…]
I met a friend and former colleague the other day. She asked me what reaction I had got to my last blog post and email I sent out to my followers. The reason she asked was that someone had come to her and expressed her dislike. That person did not know how to react to my email, whose subject was: “No one wants to be an ass, do they, …?” It was clear that this person was offended by this.
My friend did ask them whether they had actually read the email, and it turns out that they did not, so there was no way they were going to get the joke – oh well…
My reaction: Sheer joy! I thought it was great! OK – please don’t get me wrong. It was not my intention to make that person feel bad in any way and I am sorry for that. However, I am very very happy when someone really hates the stuff that I do. Why? Because if someone hates it, it is more likely than not that someone completely loves it! And that is what I want.
I have said it before and I’ll say it again. Marketing is all about building relationships. The stronger a relationship you* can forge the more likely people are to buy from you, buy from you again and to create more business by telling others about you. You want some people to hate you and others to love you. Let’s be realistic – no everyone is going to love you – it’s just not possible! Those that love you will not want to do business with anyone else but you, and those that don’t, well, if they hate you enough, you will definitely be talked about ;)
If everyone thinks you’re just ok, you* won’t matter enough to people for them to choose you over anyone else. If you are ok, and that one is ok and the other one is ok as well, people may as well use eenie-meenie-miney-moe to choose who they do business with. Or even worse, make their choice solely based on price – and that is when business will start to get really tought!
* please note that when I say “you” that refers to your business, product or service – but can also refer to you yourself if you are what you are marketing.
Most of us are good people. Most of us would be happy to do things for other people and that is, of course, a very good thing in many ways. However, when it comes to your business, it can be a deadly sin. What?! I’ll tell you why.
What are you good at? Why? Usually you are good at what you enjoy doing, and enjoy doing what you are good at. The two go together – it’s a kind of a chicken and egg thing. Then you set up a business to do what you are good at. And it is not easy. There are a lot of things to think about and it takes a lot of time to build a business. You are bound to be very conscious of the fact that you need to have an income. This won’t really work if you don’t make any money. So you start to sidestep. The graphic designer who wants to specialise in brand identity does a few pamphlets for a low cost store. The dress maker who wants to do evening dresses takes on a few jobs of fixing suites. The marketing director who loves to work on strategy and branding concedes to assisting with some Facebook marketing and AdWords campaigns.
And what happens? [Read more…]
One of the things I keep telling people, that need to market their product or services, is to be different, be special, be interesting, be something that matters to people. I think one should always aim for making a certain group of people love your business, product or service. Some think I am crazy ;)
But you know, I am not. Mom always said to me, “if a job is worth doing, it is worth doing well”. Your business, product or service is not a small part of your life that you can just plod along with. If you have your own business, don’t you want to do the best you possibly can with it? Get as much as you can out of it? And don’t you want to have fun doing it? The fun comes with doing things well, aiming higher, creating something exciting, unusual, something interesting. Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaase don’t be boring! [Read more…]
Marketing is changing. It has changed a lot since the start of the 21st century. With the internet, social media, mobile etc. marketing is less and less about one-sided broadcasting of marketing messages, like we know from traditional media like TV, print and radio, and more and more about pulling people in – attracting them.
Marketing is becoming less about grabbing people and more about being there when people are looking for what you have to offer, or anything related to it.
Marketing is less about pushing things on to people and more about pulling people in.
The marketing jargon is that we are moving from outbound marketing to inbound marketing.
A lot of marketing today is [Read more…]