Success Fanatic Blog

Marketing Plan Elements - Pink Ibis

I took the weekend off – no marketing strategy or marketing plan, just relaxation. Saturday morning we went out for a walk, and Mark wanted to sit on a swing by the lake.

I tend to be impatient. If I’m walking I want to walk. But I agreed and we sat. When I looked ahead, there was a huge oak tree across the lake, and it was covered with what looked like pink flowers – until one moved, and I realized that it was an entire flock of pink ibis.  Beautiful birds! Mark reminded me that if I hadn’t taken the time to sit, I would never have seen them.

This same thing happens in business. We get focused on what we’re doing and forget to look up. Your marketing plan must allow time to look up, not only at your customers, but at your employees, too. Look at your customers and your employees as if you’ve never met them before. That way you can see new things about them that you may have missed.

This part of your business plan is the Pink Ibis strategy. If you do this, you’ll learn great new things which will help your business grow. So stop and look at the birds sometimes. It rates right up there with stopping to small the roses.

Marketing Strategy - The Pink Bellied Dolphin

Marketing Strategies should have great titles, so they are easy to remember, just like your business. My aim will be to name these strategies from now on.

This weekend we cruised up the intracoastal to Fernandina Beach. As always, I was thinking about different marketing strategies adn I noticed some dolphins as we got to Nassau Sound. There were a lot of them! At least it seemed that way.

And that's when I realized that, just like businesses, I couldn't tell one from another. They were all the same.

Until i saw it. One pink bellied dolphin. Dolphins like to swim in the wake of the boat. Sometimes they will follow you for miles. And that's just what happened. A whole group of dolphins, with the pink bellied one along the port side. It was beautiful! I didn't stop watching until it stopped and turned back.

Marketing strategies require that you differentiate your business in just the same way. When customers are looking at you and your competitors, you need to stand out. Grow a pink belly - make your business so attractive that no one can resist you

And by the way, when you're planning your marketing strategy choose your color carefully. The wrong colored belly won't have the same effect. If you like yellow, others might not find a yellow belly quite as attractive.

Marketing Strategies - Let's Get Together

Although many people want to tell me how bad their business is, there are some great ways to get attention and referrals for your business that are extremely cost effective.

Some people used to know these things and over the last few years, they've gotten comfortable with all of the business that's been around. Now we're going back to basics.

Have you looked at your business plan lately? That's the obvious starting point.

If you had a business plan 5 years ago, look back at that plan to see what you did for marketing that worked well.

If you didn't have a marketing plan, it's time to deveop some new strategies that will work. These days you need a web presence. Chances are that if you're reading this, you have some web presence, but not a great one.

Are you on Facebook? That needs to be your starting place. If you're already there, please add me as a friend so we can get to know each other. My facebook address is http://profile.to/wealthinstigator/

Work through your social media issues with me.

Branding as a Marketing Strategy

I was out walking my dog earlier. He is only 12 pounds, but thinks he's a german shepherd. He thinks he has to pee on every single tree, bush and firehydrant we come to, except that by his fourth leg raise, he's out of fluid.

I liken this to business owners who se marketing strategy is to want to appeal to every one. They can't pee on every tree either. That means they must pick and choose and decide which ones are the best for them and give them the most bang for the buck.

Terrible analogy, but you get the point - you must know who you want to attract, if you don't you'll wear yourself out before you get to where you want to go. When it's time to really show what you've got, you won't have anything left - no energy, no brain power, no joy, no confidence. By then you may not even be able to recognize the right client, because you've diluted yourself trying to please everyone.

You'll never be able to please everyone, anymore than Bruiser can pee on every tree. Choose your target market. It's a marketing strategy that will make you happy, confident and wealthy.

Are You Using The Nickel Drop Marketing Strategy?

Used to be some business owners only wante big money. Their marketing strategy was to get big amounts from just a few people. Less work that way.

Most of those business oweners, at least in my neck of the woods, tried to hold on to that marketing plan even when the economy started to tank.

I could walk in their office and see the indentations in their desks from their handprints! They were holding on soooo tightly to that plan and just couldn't let go. They couldn't even feel their fingers at that point. They, not only their fingers, were numb.

 Some of them had only been around in the good times. The others had forgotten the theory that a good taxi cab driver uses: Don't sit around and wait for the long distance fares, take the locals! When you take a cab, there is a minimum fee that you're charged as soon as you leave the curb. If the cabby does enough of these, he can make a lot more consistent money than the guy who sits and hopes for a long distance fare. At this point in business, it's a whole lot easier to convince someoneto part with a little money than it is to convince them to go for the "Whole Enchilada" .

If you can get a million people to give you one dollar, you'll have a million dollars, but if you sit around and wait for ten people to give you 100 grand, you might still be waiting a year or two from now. I'm not telling you to underprice your services. I don't want you to work for less than you're worth. I just want you to devise other services that you can sell to those who don't have or who don't want to spend big bucks right now.

Think about what you can offer as an addition to your other services. Inexpensive options should always be part of your marketing plan.

 If you're an accountant, can you offer forms for potential clients to use that will save them money at the end of the year? Can you teach them to file their own forms with you charging less and just checking them over? Can you add this to your marketing plan?

If you're a house painter, can you teach homeowners how to do any of the specialty painting so they can do it themselves?

Think about what you can do and start collecting those nickels.Volume as a marketing strategy really works well

The Best Marketing Strategy Of All Time

Somehow, I keep thinking that if I talk about this enough, people will finally get it. So I've said i a few different ways here, and I've taken it a step further as part of MY marketing strategy.

I just published an article about this. This is the shortened version.

Everyone wants to know what marketing strategies are working RIGHT NOW to get new business.

It's so simple it's almost astonishing.

Here's the link to for the full article:

http://EzineArticles.com/?id=2618931

Seth Godin Is Wrong Today

I like Seth Godin. I read him daily. About once or twice a year I think he is totally off base, and today is one of those days.

His request for companies to "tell the truth" can be extended to any company anywhere. By his standards, we would all be incredibly specific about how we describe our produts. Marketing cannot be that specific. No one wants to read that much. I don't think that he can be that specific about HIS products either.

Anbesol's marketing plan is to sell to people who have tooth pain. If he didn't have a tooth, then he could have poured the Anbesol on the tooth itself to help it, but he could not put it on the empty hole in his mouth to take care of a toothache when there was no tooth. It would seem to me that if I were going to use a new produt, I would use a small amount to test it.

His complaint about the mixing bowls also seems petty. If you've ever bought anything online, you find ways to get a good description of the size or look at the piture to see if you can relate it's size to anything around it. If you can't figure that out, you either don't buy it, or expect to take the chance that you might be disappointed. Their marketing strategy is to sell bowls. If they advertised wood bowls and sent you plastic bowls, it would be a justified complaint. They didin't do that. Besides whih, you get to read the reviews. If you don't want small bowls, don't order them.

It's easy to rant about someone else doing you wrong , but the real truth is that "Buyer Beware" is even more is still in effect, and anyone who thinks the world should take care of them is wrong. Sorry, Seth!

To read his post, go to  http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/07/gotcha.html

 

Marketing Strategy #3 For Small Businesses

Most service professionals get very involved in their work  and rightfully so since that's the part they really like about what they do.

Then they look up and realize that they don't have enough clients. The they scramble to come up with a marketing plan to get more clients.

After a while, they're satisfied that they are making enough money, so they stop thinking about marketing and go back to doing what they like to do. then they look up and realize that once again, they don't have enough clients.

They scramble to thik of a new marketing plan, because the last one didn't work.

Sound familiar?

Insanity at it's best - repeating the same thing and hoping for different results.

UNLESS - you are repeating what works. Then it's success at it's best.

The answer is simple. Set aside a specific number of hours every week for networking. or speaking or writing, whatever works best for you. Obviously you'll need to spend more time initially, then cut those hours back. You'll just have to monitor what you're doing to see how many hours it takes you to maintain your customer base at a full level.

When you schedule your marketing time, it needs to be written in gold on your calendar and you cannot miss it! The dollar value is too high! The return on investment for this time is too valuable. It will also save you from anxiety later.

Treat your marketing time the same as workout time for your body. If you aren't doing that either, you've got a lot of work to do! I'd say the first thing on your list is to buy a daytimer and start scheduling.

Celebrating and MOurning All At The Same Time

Today was the last day for one of my clients. This is the part I'm celebrating. She has become wonderfully successful, and she now has enough momentum to carry her without anymore help from me.  She is now a machine that is barreling down the hill at full speed so that when this hill is gone, she will automatically continue up the next one. Her momentum is so great, that it will take her to the top of the next hill and then down and up the next, etc. into eternity.

She has a wonderful internet strategy and a business plan that is solid. I'm completely proud of what she has done for herself.

On the other hand, I had a difficult situation this week with a different client. I chose to work with this person because this person had many of the characteristics I believe are great for success. However, this person also had some personality traits that I found difficult, and I realized that it was not allowing me to do my best work with this person. And so, following the strategies for business that I teach, I severed the relationship.

It's so difficult for me to do that, because I want everyone to succeed beyond their wildest dreams, and yet, it isn't my decision to make. I feel like I gave up. I know in my brain that I didn't, but my heart is heavy.

What I teach seems so simple, yet I'm caught in my own web - as I tell everyone I work with, you can only work with those who are right for you, and try to find help for the others. But saying it and doing it are two different things.

Here's to both of my former clients! I salute them both and know that they will both do well in their own ways.

Have a great weekend!

Branding is a Marketing Plan

I was out walking my dog earlier. He is only 12 pounds, but thinks he's a german shepherd. He thinks he has to pee on every single tree, bush and firehydrant we come to, except that by his fourth leg raise, he's out of fluid.

I liken this to business owners who want to appeal to every one. They can't pee on every tree either. That means they must pick and choose and decide which ones will soak up the urine the best and give them the most bang for the buck.

Terrible analogy, but you get the point - you must know who you want to attract, if you don't you'll wear yourself out before you get to where you want to go.