Marketing Is A System, Not An Event

Small business marketers love the chase. Love the new fangled way to make the phone ring. They love to think of a marketing promotion as a single event. But it's precisely this view of marketing that holds most small businesses back. They fall prey to the "marketing idea of the week" and never fully explore what it takes to create and build a completely functioning, consistently performing, marketing system.

In this article I am going to outline the basic steps that any business can follow on the way to creating their very own marketing system. But first let's explore this word system in the context of marketing. Small business owners have no problem thinking systems when it comes to say, accounting or hiring. When it comes to marketing though, all bets are off. It's as if they are waiting for magic fairy dust to fall upon them with the next great marketing innovation.

Look, effective marketing is little more than creating and operating an effective marketing system. Now, when I use the word system I mean several things. 1) The system is documented - You can't have a system or a step in a system unless you write it down. 2) The system is built on sound marketing principals and 3) You constantly measure, innovate, and refine the system.

Okay, so on to the system building steps.

1) Narrow and define a target market - Small business owners love to say yes. "Sure we can do that." The next thing you know the target market is roughly anyone they think will pay them. You must commit to a narrowly defined target market and you must focus all of your attention upon serving that market like no one ever dreamed of. A narrow marketing focus might be - Estate Attorneys - as opposed to Law Firms.

2) Discover and communicate a core message for that market - Until you can show how your firm is different and offers something unique, you will always compete on price. You must find a way to tell your newly defined narrow target market why you have something to offer that they value. Your core message might be - We show estate attorneys how gain all of the business they can handle - as opposed to: We help law firms.

3) Develop multiple forms of permission based lead generation - No one like to be sold to and more and more advertising is falling on numb ears and eyes. Your lead generation system must be built on several fronts, such as public relations, referral marketing, strategic partnerships, and targeted advertising. Your lead generation message must offer the target market a reason to want to know more. Forget about the sale, look for ways to build trust.

4) Construct a lead conversion and customer reselling process - No amount of leads in the world will help your business if you don't efficiently turn those leads into clients. You must have a plan that maps out what you will do when phone rings, when you make the sales call and when it's time to do more business with the clients you already have. Most small businesses completely ignore this aspect of their marketing, but this is where the real success in marketing lies.

5) Create educational based marketing and presentation materials - Forget about the glossy sales brochure, use your marketing materials to teach how your firm is different, how you solve real problems, how you work, why you work, what you believe and your marketing will be much more successful. Your web site must come from this point of view as well.

6) Define the most important marketing success indicators - Setting marketing goals for such things as leads, appointments, sales, phone calls, referrals, impressions, mentions and anything else you can think to measure is how you turn marketing into a game and how you keep score of the game. Everyone loves and game and the only way to improve something is to measure how well you are doing in the first place.

7) Build an annual marketing calendar and budget and stick to it - Once you have spent the time and energy to think through steps 1-6 you need to commit your plan to a marketing calendar and then allocate (or at least think about) the money it will take to implement your plan. Once you create a calendar it is much more likely that you will look at the tasks assigned to each month like a "to-do" list. So, instead of whining that you should do more marketing, you simply scratch each item off your list and plan for the next. It's an amazingly simple but effective device.

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Prepare Your Drafts Properly For Sheetfed Printing

You cannot print good quality materials through sheetfed printing if you do not prepare your drafts properly. Even if you hired a great sheet fed printer for the job, they will still be stuck working with the material you sent them.

That is why it is actually important that you prepare your drafts properly yourself. You are in luck though. This guide will give you the key questions that should let you determine if you did indeed prepare your draft designs properly. There are a few specific things that you must check and know.

1. Are you using the right template? - Templates are important. This is because you will need your prints to match the sheets that will be inserted into the printer itself. So try to double check and see if you are using the right kind of printing template. Make sure that the dimensions match a certain standard paper size that the printer can of course insert into their machines. If possible, just adopt the template that the sheetfed printer actually uses. It is better to correspond your templates with the paper and printer to be used.

2. Are the guidelines and layouts in the right place? - Also, even if you have the right template, you will still want to check if your layout and overall design elements are in the proper place. You should basically have set guidelines in your templates that mark the boundaries of where certain design elements should be. Also make sure that there is a design printing bleed out there to assure yourself that the background and fill colors do not have odd cuts or misalignments.

3. Is your content properly checked out? - Of course, also make sure that the content is properly checked out. Do not just check your content once. One should check it at least three times, checking for spelling and grammar errors, as well as any inaccuracies in the main content of your prints. If possible, you should also have others check your content with a cold stance so that all the errors can be weeded out and corrected for the better. So do not forget to do at least three proofreading sessions, with other people if possible checking your content as well.

4. Have the design elements been reviewed and tweaked? - It is also prudent to have the design elements in your prints reviewed by others and of course tweaked when necessary. This not only entails checking their alignments and such. This also covers the actual choices in graphics style as well as the vivid quality of the colors and the photographs of course. If these are not up to par with professional printing, you may want to acquire the proper design elements first so that they will be ready.

5. Did you choose the right materials? - Finally, you better check and see if you chose your paper materials well. Make sure that it is of moderate thickness and with a smooth finish when possible. Also, try to specify that you want to use the four-color ink process for the best and most vivid quality color prints. It should not add too much cost to your printing order so make sure that you go for the best that you can.

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Having Fun Networking

Networking can be quite tricky. You need to have the time and knowledge of the Internet. If you use Twitter and let's say YouTube, you must connect them. I am an author and have my own author page on Amazon. My Facebook remarks are tweeted automatically and they show up on my author page.

When I upload a YouTube video it goes on Facebook automatically because I have connected the two sites by allowing them to do this. The YouTube video also gets 'tweeted.' Every time I reply to a comment made on my videos or others videos on YouTube, they get put on my Facebook page automatically as well as getting 'tweeted.'

When I post on my blog, it gets tweeted because I have allowed the connection by clicking on allow. Now Twitter will 'tweet' my blog to wherever I have allowed Twitter to do so.

My articles here on Ezine have the URL posted on Facebook and Twitter as well as my blog. They now expand those posts. In doing this you have increased your audience.

It does not hurt that I own an interactive poetry site where I have a forum for 'Articles and Press Releases.' That means I can post the URL to this article there as well. Now all the members have the option to click on the URL and read this article.

I know all this sounds hard to do for some people. There are those who pay others to 'network' for them. 'Networking' gets your name and the things that you do out on the Internet and makes it available on a search.

For instance, I can do a Google search on my name and all my Internet connections are working for me. I just did a search on my name just an hour ago. At page forty-six I stopped looking. With that many pages coming up on just my name, I consider myself a professional 'networker.' I have fulfilled my expectations.

There were things from my life and the people I do business with as well as my videos, my publishing and poetry sites, articles and of course my books being advertised free for me.

 

Every person who had put my name in print comes up with what they said about me. It gives them some promotion to be 'tagged' under my name and in general people tend to say nice things about me and my work so this is good promotion for me.

A tag can be a review that someone gave me on a site which sells my books or a poem someone wrote about me on Facebook or an interview with me.

There is one thing that pops up, which says I am dead. Normally that might bother someone. Dead writers sell, right? So, even negative things can prove to be useful.

My sister was murdered many years ago and her body was never found. The police found a way to contact me through the Internet to ask me more questions so they could expand their search and keep the 'cold case' open. To me, that is important. (Could that be another article, another time maybe?)

If you are going to 'network' don't go gang-ho into it. Take your time and pick your sites that will promote what you are selling. Even someone like me, who has been 'networking' for years, signs up on a site where I have been invited and can get annoying emails. You see, the more you 'network' the more sites want you to be on them.

Some sites use your profile and stick it into a dating site that is affiliated with them. I am married and do not want to date. I state that, but still get those annoying emails. That means deleting a lot of junk every day. Setting certain emails as 'junk' generally works, but many do sneak in. You have to be on top of things all the time.

In summarizing, you can connect all the dots; for example connect all the sites you are on to give you interaction, if you want to promote yourself. It is important to know that once you are a public name and get some expose, once hidden information, can come out as well. Also, if you are not well liked, people may put out some false information. Generally the good over rides the bad. If doing all this seems a bit time-consuming and you are not ready for this, you can hire someone to do it for you.

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Objectives of Advertising

Fundamentally, the only purpose of advertising is to sell something- a product, a service, or an idea. Stated another way, the real goal of advertising is effective communication. That is, the ultimate effect of advertising should be to modify the attitude and/or behavior of receiver of the message.
The broad goal of advertising is better reached by setting specific objectives that can be incorporated into individual advertising campaigns. Of course, specific advertising objectives will be determined by the company's overall marketing strategies - especially the strategies related to the firm's promotional program. A few examples of specific goals are as follows.



1. Support personal selling. Advertising may be used to open customer's doors for sales people, and to acquaint prospects with the seller's company.
2. Reach people inaccessible to the sales force. Sales people may be unable to reach top executives, or they may not be certain who makes the buying decisions in a company. In either case, there is a good chance that these executives will read a journal that carries the ads.
3. Improve dealer relations.
4. Enter new geographic market or attract a new group of customers.
5. Introduce a new product.
6. Increase sales of a product. An advertising campaign may be designed to lengthen the season for the product (as has been done in the case of soft drinks); increase the frequency of replacement (as is done in campaigns for spark plugs and light bulbs); increase the variety of product uses; or increase the units of purchase.
7. Expand the industry's sales.
8. Counteract prejudice or substitution.
9. Build goodwill for the company and improve its reputation (a) by rendering a public service through advertising or (b) by telling of the organization behind the product.
Advertising is part of every company's marketing plan. Companies spend millions in their advertising ad because it is proven to be very effective. It is being used for brand recognition if you are launching a new brand, and also used to keep your company visible to the public. Just keep in mind that it takes study and research before you come up with a plan to have a successful marketing campaign. Keep in mind the objectives of advertising for you to be in the right path when deciding for your advertising and marketing campaign. It is one of the crucial part of the business because a bad marketing campaign can ruin everything.

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How to Find A Housekeeper That's Right for Your Property

Finding a housekeeper is not just as easy as calling the first housekeeping service you find on your local directories. Aside from checking the credentials of prospective housekeepers, you also have to consider whether the housekeeper is right for you, your family, and your property. Your housekeeper should also match you, your lifestyle, and your cleaning preferences.

So before you sign ona housekeeper, take time to talk to them at length. If you are getting more than one worker, you should talk to all of them. The most important thing is to make your expectations clear to them, especially your desired cleanliness level. Are you satisfied as long as your home looks neat enough, or do you want every surface cleaned and every fixture disinfected? Do you have any preferred cleaning protocols? Do you have any special instructions, such as not to touch your precious China collection? Your conversation with your housekeepers will help you build a relationship with them, but it's also your best opportunity to clarify what you want from them.

Some housekeepers also have their own preferences. Some only accept indoor cleaning jobs, while some specialize in outdoor cleaning. Individual housekeepers also have their own cleaning techniques and specialties. Some only sign up for light cleaning, while some can help you with heavier tasks. If you take the time to explore these factors, it will be easier for you to find the best match for you.

Then you have to make sure you and your housekeeper has compatible schedules. Tell them your preferred schedule, such as once every week or once every month. Then they also have to tell you how much they will charge you for the schedule you prefer and the types of cleaning you will require.

Usually, different cleaning jobs are also charged individually. So take stock of what components you have in your home, such as windows, carpets, tiles, gutters, and so on. Once you specify which of these you want cleaned, you will be given a price for window cleaning, another for carpet cleaning, and another for tile cleaning. Based on market averages, window cleaning costs around $245 for a 5-hour job, carpet cleaning costs around $200 for a 4-hour job, and tile/grout cleaning costs $466 for an entire day. Ultimately, you and your housekeeper has to arrive at an agreement that's fair to both parties, and one that meets your cleaning needs as well as your budget.

More often than not, the process of finding the right housekeeper takes a bit of trial and error, especially if you don't make all these important considerations. But if you take time to find the housekeeper best suited for your property, you will save money and save yourself from a lot of trouble by finding the right housekeeper the first time.

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