TARGET PRACTICE: GETTING YOUR MESSAGE TO THE RIGHT PEOPLEWritten by Meredith Pond
Classified ads, sales letters, press releases, and other written marketing materials can be very effective tools when you're trying to get word out about a product or service. While we all know this and have all used these methods with probable success, how often to we think about WHO our message is actually getting through to?Placing ads and sending out sales letters is fine, but if you're offering a dog walking, how much success are you going to find if only a small percentage of those reading your message actually have dogs? Instead of blanket mailings, choose communities or neighborhoods that seem to have a high population of dogs. Perhaps even better, take your fliers to local humane society and ask to place them by entrance. That way, you'll be sure to get your message through to dog owners. If you have a press release written about your business opportunity (usually not best subject for a press release anyway), but only have it sent to general interest media, what kind of results should you expect? I mean, maybe you're trying to reach general public, but how many of those people would really be interested in what you're offering? Unless your business is so revolutionary that EVERYONE would want to know about it, you'd probably be better off to send that release to online or print publications whose audience is primarily made up of businesspeople or online money-makers.
| | Redefining Distance to Market Products or ServicesWritten by Lee Traupel
The recent terrorist attacks here in US have caused many companies and individuals to rethink how they want to market to and work with others. As a result, web-enabled presentations and or collaborations are finally coming of age – technology works with a minimum of hassle, it's an efficient way to give marketing presentations, hold meetings, provide training and do product demonstrations. The cost savings can be significant, especially when contrasted with all of burdened costs of holding conventional meetings; i.e. travel, hotel, transportation, facilities and "time out of office issues." Here is a quick primer on some baseline issues to consider when weighing effectiveness of virtual marketing presentations and meetings. 1)There are a broad number of vendors, although "virtual presentation and meeting" market segment has undergone consolidation in last few years. I'd recommend assessing these four market leaders: www.webex.com (well established with diversified terms of services), www.placeware.com (corporate focused), www.centra.com (provides a good client plug in that enables Voice over IP ("VOIP") communications, www.raindance.com (emphasizes teleconferencing). 2)PC configuration, Internet access and firewall issues all need to be considered when your assessing effectiveness of this process and technology. Port settings need to be "tuned" or optimized, PC must have multimedia capabilities if your using VOIP, just about any speed of internet connection will work, but experience for attendee can vary depending on connection speeds and how "heavy" your presentation is with graphics. 3)Web presentations offer a lower cost model versus traditional presentations or meetings, but there are burdened costs for web- enabled marketing – phone conferencing can be anywhere from $.15-35 per minute per user, presentation uploads for a standard power point presentation (which is defacto app for virtual presentations), can cost $10-30. per presentation, costs per attendee can vary tremendously but average $50-500. per session, depending upon number of users. 4)One of most expensive parts of virtual meetings is always teleconferencing component. All of market leaders have some VOIP component (voice over IP) but most are not publicizing this technology or service, as they don't want to cannibalize a significant contribution to their revenue streams. One exception is Centra – they are offering VOIP integrated services with their standard web presentations or meetings. The audio quality is good, analogous to voice quality of a standard cell phone call – but there is a client download (small under 250K) to deal with and you must have a multi-media enabled PC.
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