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When the economy
is booming, marketing your business is easy. Just about anything you do will produce
some positive results. But what do you do when the economy heads south? How do you
know what will be the best venue for your marketing money? What happens when every
customer is researching the internet 19 ways from Sunday, even while shopping in
your store? How do you determine where and how much to spend on marketing when no
one seems to be buying? In this episode of Working the Web to Win, we will explore answers to these questions
and more. We will provide the listener with a system to follow that maximizes their
return on their marketing investment by helping them choose the best marketing channels
for their available budget.
It's easy to make
money when the economy is soaring, especially if you’re selling that hot new product
or in an industry whose time has come. But what do you do when you’re on the downside of an upmarket?
The answer is not a simple one, especially if you haven’t done your homework.
Any business built to last
has done its homework. What I mean by homework is simple. You need to fully understand
the target market and industry in which you have chosen to do business. All too
often, business people jump in on a product or service that is really hot. In fact,
usually when it is peaking. This usually leads
to being too late to achieve maximum returns and you end up holding the bag with
excess inventory or spending too much to break even on your investment. We see this
a lot when people spend too much money on AdWords or other pay per click media because
the heated bidding drove the advertising price too high.
So, What Should You Do?
You need to do what
you should have done in the first place. Engage in research and
planning!
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All seasoned entrepreneurs
have learned the hard way that there is no substitute for proper planning and research
(other than the grace of God or dumb luck). Being a good steward of your marketing
money requires that you learn and understand your target market, your unique selling
proposition and that you create an irresistible
offer to make sure sales take place.
What is Proper Planning and Research?
Proper planning
and research require that to learn the demographics
and psychographics of your target market, you need to have a clear picture of your
ideal customer's profile. This includes age,
where they live, how much they make, how many people are in their family, how far
they drive to work, where they shop, etc. In other words, you need to be able to
describe this person in such detail that making an ad for them would be easy. By
fully understanding their needs, wants and desires, you can create advertising that
connects with their needs for your product or service. You must then create an offer
that that takes the risk out of the transaction, making it easier for them to take
the next step toward making a purchase. Meeting their needs must be a no-brainer
for them when the economy is scary. Not understanding
these elements is like shooting blanks. And
that leads to frustration and failure.
Testing Helps You Create Realistic Smart
Goal
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But You Say You Have No Money to Do Market
Testing?
Well, if that's
the case, you will have to resort to guerilla marketing tactics. This means word of mouth and social media posting. Both face to face word of mouth, and social networking are not new, but they are very cost effective. You
can also use them to do test marketing of your advertising message, assuming you
have built up credibility and trust with the groups and venues you're attending.
If you’re looking
for low-cost marketing venues to participate
in, Word of Mouth Networking is where
it's at.
I highly recommend joining your local chamber
of commerce and attending their meetings as often as possible. If you’re not a skilled
social networker, I suggest that you join a BNI chapter (Business Networks International).
They will teach you how to be an effective word of mouth marketer in an easy to
digest, well tested and organized way. BNI has a system that generates referrals for its members who immerse themselves
in it. I have been a member for over 24 years,
and it has been a blessing for me and my business. However, like any system, it
is only as good as how well it is utilized.
The Benefits of Engaging in Word of Mouth Marketing
- You will be a better communicator. All word of mouth venues requires some speaking, usually to a group. This provides practice and practice leads to improvement, including better speaking skills. This in turn leads to more referrals and sales.
- You can learn and utilize a system. A system is more effect at producing results, and it can be tested and measured. It is low cost.
- Most word of mouth venues requires a minimal investment (chamber membership fees, BNI dues, and meeting room/meal fees, etc.).
- Some even offer free webpages and closed garden social media websites to connect with other members.
- Training - Many referral networks provide some level of word of mouth marketing training. BNI is the leader in this category. Members are required to attend success training, and advanced training is also available.
Other Cost-Effective Marketing is Out there.
Websites - Anyone can get a free website today. You
generally have to pay for the domain
name, and there is usually an ongoing low-cost fee
for your hosting, but building a website can be free. Sites like WIX.com
and others offer these services with the idea that they will be able to sell you
premium add-on services (even some necessary
services) and features because you are saving
so much on the site. In many cases, they will
want to sell you access to more storage, templates, ad-free space, analytics and more. The big caveat I always like to point
out is that you don’t own anything you build on WIX.com or any other free website
providers. They own everything in their system. If you decide to move, you will
be forced to build a new website. Make sure you check out our article called; What Your Webmaster Should be Telling You!
to get more insight.
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Blogging - Most have heard of blogs and blogging,
but did you know that most blogs can also double as your website as well! The most
popular blogging/website platform is WordPress. It can be hosted free on their site
and can be upgraded with premium features.
Most hosting companies like GoDaddy.com also offer low-cost WordPress hosting. Blogger
owned by Google provides free hosting for your blog and the web pages you create using that platform.
It has Google juice because it is a Google property. It is easy to use and has the
advantage that every page and article you write gets indexed in Google search as
soon as you press the publish button. A blog can give people a reason to come back
and learn from your articles. Articles are a great way to showcase your expertise,
build credibility and get more business. A blog can do most anything a regular website
can do (including eCommerce, showcase videos,
and podcast, etc.) and in most cases, it's free or next to free. On top of this,
consistently producing new blog post soon creates a library of content that can
become the outline if not the actual material for a book you authored. Blogging
is also a great way to build an audience and is the perfect fodder for your social
sites. If you want to learn more about blogging, check out our article called; Blogging Secrets of the Pros.
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Video Marketing and
WebTV Shows - Video marketing is hot right now. You can engage in free video
streaming on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and
other social networking sites absolutely free of charge. These can be marketing
messages, educational videos, and even WebTV
shows. If you want to provide high production value videos, you will need to invest
some time and money to learn video production skills, purchase more sophisticated
video production software and learn how to use it effectively to create high production
quality videos. The nice thing about high
quality videos is that they are a perfect subject for a social post and can be recycled as an advertising medium. It’s a great
way to teach, build credibility and show off your industry expertise. A good article to check out would be: The Guide to The Working The Web Universe.
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Digital Press Releases - Believe it or not, you can engage in FREE
Press Releases (as
long as you are willing to share space with other advertisers).
A Press Release is a great way to get the word out about news in your company. Stories
must be newsworthy for them to have an effect.
If you want to create a low/no cost short term web page that will create some SEO
ranking effects and get the word out of a new and significant change in your business,
Press Releases are a great way to go. This
is especially true on slow news days as a local news service could pick up your
story and ask you to come on local TV, Radio or be
interviewed for a newspaper. Check out my article called “Using Press Releases to Promote your Business.” It contains links to digital press release sites
with Free and low-cost services.
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Search Directory Listings - There
are literally hundreds (if not thousands)
of internet directories. Google Search is the leader of the pack (controlling over
70% of all searches)
but is only one of many. Most have heard of Yahoo and Bing,
but there are literally hundreds more that
are free to use. You just must take the time to post your business profile with
them. This is a time-consuming endeavor, to say the least. You can subscribe to
aggregation services like YEXT, but these
can be expensive depending on how many directories you sign up for. We use a product we call Search Directory Push
that will publish your business information to the top 100 search directories for
a one-time fee of $300. That amounts to
$3/directory. In our opinion, this is a much better proposition than spending 300
hours finding and posting your information to a hundred internet directories. If
you’re looking for more cost effective internet marketing products, check out:;
“Marketing 101 – What you need to Know before
Buying Advertising”
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Fix Your SEO On and Off Page - You will hear people throw around the term
SEO like it has some single meaning. In fact, SEO has several moving parts. There
is on-page SEO,
which has to do with making sure your META and ALT tags provide
accurate and congruent content information on your web pages. It is also important
that the content be congruent as well. Then there is Off-Page SEO that can be free
to produce. This has to do with anything that
points back to your webpages or content that mentions you and your business. On-Page
SEO is relatively simple to create. It is simple to do, but not easy to create the
perfect terms that make Google and other search engines happy. On the other hand, it is easy to produce a variety
of social posts that point back to your site. The main drawback is that social posts
need to be
consistently produced and this is a time-consuming affair, to say the least. If you’re looking to improve
your website SEO, make sure your read; “Understanding the SEO Paradigm Shift in Business“.
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Understand that
the word FREE often means you will be providing the labor to produce the advertising.
All of these FREE and low-cost marketing venues provide the ability to test and
measure your effectiveness and produce positive results. It’s up to you to make
sure you do your due diligence along with the testing and measuring to make sure
you’re on the right track. Skipping these steps, even in free marketing venues means
that you're flying blind with little chance of success. By understanding your target
market, creating goals, testing your message and monitoring the results, you will
be able to steer your way to higher levels of success without flying blind. The
FREE and low-cost guerilla marketing venues mentioned in this article are great
advertising opportunities courtesy of the internet age. However, Free does not equal
success. Only by being immersed, diligent and engaged in the marketing process will
you realize your goal and reach prosperity in a down economy. If you find you don’t
have time to engage in these marketing venues, then hire a competent marketing agency
like ours to create your plan, execute it and then hold them accountable for achieving
the results in the plan.
That's my opinion;
I look forward to reading yours.marketing tip
In this article,
I have discussed what you need to know about your target market in order to be successful in a down economy. I have
also talked about a dozen free or low-cost
marketing venues that can help you when marketing
money is tight, and every penny must yield
useful information or a positive result. This article also contains many links to
other resource articles that will help the
reader delve deeper into this subject.
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If you feel your business could use some help with its marketing, contact
us at 904-410-2091. You can also fill out the form in the sidebar of this
blog where we will provide a free marketing analysis to help you get better
results. Our claimed to fame
is that we are one of a few companies who actually
provide real guarantees.
If you found
this article useful, please share it with friends, family, and co-workers. I
recommend checking out the links in the blog, along with checking out other
related articles on our Show Notes Page. Also,
don’t forget to listen to the BlogTalkRadio show on this subject.
If you have a useful comment or opinion related to this article, leave it in
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Hector Cisneros is COO and Director of Social Media
Marketing at Working the Web
to Win, an award-winning Internet marketing company based in Jacksonville,
Florida. He is also co-host of the weekly Internet radio show,
"Working the Web
to Win" on BlogTalkRadio.com, which airs every Tuesday at 4 p.m.
Eastern. Hector is a syndicated writer and published author of “60 Seconds to Success.”
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