Cleaning Up Your MarketingWritten by Charlie Cook
Has your once well-organized marketing plan come to resemble jumble of stuff in your closet (not to mention garage and attic)? If you are like most people, each time you come across a new marketing idea you try to adopt it and add it to your existing approach.Strategies and tactics tend to accumulate and linger even when they may not be working as well as you'd like. Like ill-fitting clothes that accumulate in your closet or broken tools still in garage, they are hard to get rid of, whether because of habit, emotional attachment or just plain not getting around to cleaning them out. To improve your marketing, you'll need to clean out some old ways of working. While I don't want to get anywhere near your closet, and in fact I could use some help with mine, I can show you how to clean up your marketing plan so you're ready to take advantage of New Year to grow your business. Cleaning Up Your Marketing Plan Every morning my friend Michael Angier of SuccessNet.org sits down at his desk and asks himself following three questions about his business. 1. What's working? 2. What's not working? 3. What can I improve? You may not want to review your marketing plan five times a week, but it is a good idea to do it at least once a year. So take out your pencil or fire up your computer and assess your marketing plan: Your Marketing Plan 1. Is your plan working? 2. Do you have a well defined marketing strategy that helps you achieve three phases of marketing: Getting Attention, Positioning, and Selling? 3. Do you need to write or rewrite your marketing plan? 4. Do you need additional information or coaching to complete your marketing plan? 5. What are you going to do to improve your marketing plan?
| | SIX Trade Show Marketing Mistakes and How to Avoid ThemWritten by Mitch Tarr
Six Trade Show Marketing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them.Trade Show Marketing has changed a lot in past few years. As they say, there is easy way and hard way. I learned my trade show mistakes hard (and expensive) way. I didn’t know what I didn’t know. You may be in that situation too. If you use trade shows as a way to promote your business, you should think about what I am about to tell you and discover if these strategies can help you get better trade show results at a lower cost. Trade Show Marketing Mistake Number One: Not having a clear purpose and plan for each show. This seems to be fairly obvious but so many companies I talk to are in trade show rut. They have been in a show in past and continue to stay in. Even if show has shifted its focus, redefined its market, or has competition of its own. If you have people in your company who say “We can’t miss this show, what will people think?” or “What message does this send to market place?” you may be in this rut. It’s clear it’s not their budget they are talking about. A client of mine did a show for years and had a new product to launch. It was a product intended for a new market. The show they had done for years, didn’t suit their market. But, they couldn’t let go and couldn’t afford to add new shows to roster. So instead of selecting a different show, one suitable to their new target market, they stayed in same show, launched their product and puzzled over poor reception of their product. Trade Show Marketing Tip. Do you do a continuous review of your shows to ensure they stay in touch with your market, products, competition, and strategy? Trade Show Marketing Mistake Number Two: Investing heavily in a new (expensive) booth without knowing your show ROI. What’s an ROI you ask? It standsfor Return On Investment and is a tool best marketers in world use daily. Simply it means I am doing a particular show and expect a certain number of (hopefully qualified) leads and my budget is X amount of money. Your cost per lead is leads divided by budget. How does that compare to other marketing strategies you run? Other shows? Past shows? Or if your expectation is to do a product launch? What is number of interviews, media mentions and write ups you expect to achieve? Trade Show Marketing Tip. No matter what your trade show goal is . . . measure, measure, measure. Trade Show Marketing Mistake Number Three: Not thinking about your competition. Trade shows are great. Delegates can go to show, see what suppliers are doing in their industry, look for products that offer competitive advantage and incorporate them into their buying plans. That’s good news. The bad news is that while they are there they can make a direct comparison of you and your competitors. How they look, how they behave, how they represent themselves, and what they offer. Now, people aren’t looking for sameness. They are looking for difference. You all have same professional booth, same well trained professional staff, same glossy brochures, and same give-aways. So what is your competitive advantage? You must know first of all, how you separate yourself from your competition and have a clear message but you must also ensure you appear to be different on show floor. That’s what’s great about internet these days. All of your competitors will have a web site with coming events in it. So between last years exhibitor list and your competitor’s web sites there is no excuse for not knowing who will be there at show. Trade Show Marketing Tip. Figure it out! And separate yourself from pack--your results will improve.
|
