Thursday, November 18, 2010

Marketing Automation

It seems that a lot of the problems with CRMs stem from the fact that users don't completely know what the system offers, or how to obtain that information. If you're coming in through an authorized reseller partner or consultant of the vendor, that helps the lines of communication to be much more open and convenient, but still, this does raise the following point. If we are to get the most out of our investment in CRM, we must not only know which features are available, but also how to use them. And that's the subject of our article today.

This article will focus on understanding some of the features a good CRM program offers for marketing automation. While some CRMs do not focus too heavily on marketing automation, this is a crucial part of your relations with clients as many times it is the initial communications that you will develop with them.

So let's take it chronologically. Are you taking advantage of your CRM's web-to-lead capture? Do you have to manually enter leads instead of having them flow into your system automatically? Why is this feature such a crucial part of your marketing/sales process anyhow?

We all know that managers have a ton of work to do. They oversee the progress and success of the individuals in their sales teams; they focus on their own monthly, quarterly and yearly goals; they report their findings to upper management, and so on. For smaller companies, in addition to all the above they must play the role of system admin to their sales software, which is usually a CRM. Anything that we can do to minimize the work they manually have to do, the better.

If you haven't already, make sure you take advantage of your system's web-to-lead capture. This can result in hours per week saved, which adds up to days per quarter saved.

Once your leads are in the system, now you'll need your marketing people to send out messages to your leads and warm them up. Are you doing this manually? Is there a dedicated marketing person who selects a group of people every Tuesday and Thursday and sends them literature via email and other marketing collateral? If so...why?

Your CRM should have an email automation feature. With this feature, you can automate all your outgoing emails to prospects, based on the date that you first enter them into a certain track. Thereby, you ensure that they receive emails at specified intervals, and should they respond you could pause their participation in the track at anytime. Fast, easy, and best of all, it's all automatic! And that marketing person who does everything manually can spend his or her time on more revenue generating opportunities.

Now that your leads are on an automated drip marketing track, you'll also want to keep track of who is reading your emails, how many times they've opened the email, thus tracking the interest level and purchase potential. This is a crucial feature that you'll need to differentiate your A level leads from your B and C leads and turn those A leads into sales quickly.

And finally, you or your marketing team will want to make sure that you're getting the most bang out of your marketing bucks, so make sure you utilize the system's marketing reporting features. If your system is built for campaign management and analysis, you'll be able to quickly report on the ROI of all your marketing campaigns and activities and ensure that your company is spending its marketing dollars wisely.

Story' Marketing

People love a good story. This is a cold hard fact of life. This, however, is not a new phenomenon. Anthropologists and historians believe that the art of storytelling has been with us since the beginning of human existence. In fact, much of humanity has been defined by stories.

This fact holds true today as well. When you want to relay the events of last night's hot date to your best friend, how are you going to do it? Are you going to blather off a list bullet points about the evening? That's not very likely. Chances are you will tell a story about how the date went.

We can use stories to talk about the past or the future. Stories help us to relate to one another in a powerful way.

When it comes to marketing your business, there is tremendous power in your story. In fact, as a small business owner, one of the greatest assets that you have in your marketing efforts is your story.

Your story will help to humanize you and is the ultimate tool for differentiation in a vast sea of similar products and services.

Employ "my story" marketing by being willing to let your audience know about the origins of your business in real depth. You can outline what led you to be a business owner in the first place. You can let your audience know more about who you are as a person and what your values are.

All of these things help people to lower their guards and see you as a human being. You wont just seem like another company looking to separate their money from their wallets.

"My story" marketing will allow you to lay the foundation for your audience to trust you. This is very important. Think about it. Lets say you are looking to buy a car and you go online to so some research on two different dealership websites. On the first is just a page that shows some pictures of cars. The 'About Us' section has some generic info that about when the dealership was founded and how many cars they sold last year.

The second site has the exact same pictures of the exact same cars. But in their 'About Us' section, they tell the story of how the dealership came into existence. It talks about the owner and his family. It lists the values and mission statement of the business with their views on the importance of treating the customer like family.

Who is more likely to get you business? It's a no brainer, right?

The best part about 'my story' marketing is that no one business is alike. Every one has its own distinct story. Put together your story and have somewhere online where you display it. This can be your website, a blog, a Facebook fan page or even a YouTube Channel. Videos work extremely well for conveying you story because your audience will not only hear your story but also see you delivering it. This resonates even more strongly with people.

You may not think you have a compelling story but that doesn't matter. As long as it is yours, it will be effective.

My Story Marketing is a VERY useful and valuable tool to put in use in your own marketing system. Start utilizing it today.

Are you looking for increased success in marketing your small business?

Professional Videographer

In some cases, you may need to do a presentation and you only have a few days to do it. You might think that the best thing to do would be find someone who owns a camera, or if you know someone who knows a thing or two about using the camera and hire that person to do the video presentation for you. This could be an option, if your only goal is to take videos of an office party or celebration.The fact of the matter is, if you want to have a video presentation that will surely impress your colleagues, especially your boss, you need to have more than that.

The person you decide to hire might not know as much as you thought he does, and just knowing when to press the record button is just not enough. Hiring a cameraman would be your best option, someone who knows what to do and is an expert at documenting video.

There's nothing wrong with being a beginner in videography, but when you need your video to look like it's been professionally done, then you need a professional to do the job. Someone who has the skills and the experience.

If you are a cameraman or a videographer, it is not enough to just know how to operate a camera. You should also know how to listen to a director and follow his directions so that the outcome would be better. In case that there is no director, a good videographer should know how to best use his camera to tell a story. Cameramen are also storytellers, and the means they use to tell the story is video.

A good videographer considers many aspects about filming first, like framing, using artificial or natural light and optimizes as much as he can about the video to create the best shot possible. Knowing his angles and how he will position himself for the shoot is also a very important aspect. Whatever the situation may be, a professional videographer knows how to handle his camera and make the situation work for him.

If you take a look at a home video and compare it to having a video that's professionally done, then you would realize that hiring a professional to do the job is really worth it.

Friday, May 7, 2010

Exhibition Stand

Lighting is playing a more important role in the trade show or exhibition stands than in previous years. In the past, most exhibitors relied on the lighting from the exhibition hall itself and very few exhibitors added extra lights to the stand. Now, the trend is to use lighting to feature the stand and to attract attention from passersby.

New trends in the use of lighting for exhibition stands go beyond simply highlighting a particular product, although exhibitors still use lighting for that purpose. Now, regular exhibitors consider lighting to be one design element of the stand that complements all the other elements. There is little point in selecting signage, if no-one can see it. Lighting the signs to show the signage in a more dramatic or attractive way is a common use of lighting.

When you meet with your exhibition stand designer, you need to answer questions about your intentions and expectations for your stand. This will help your designer to incorporate all the design elements, including lighting, to ensure the finished exhibition stand achieves your business and marketing goals for the trade show.

While lighting is one of the main design elements one can use, exhibitors who tend to focus on signage and colour often overlook it. However, lighting can make the difference between a boring stand and one that attracts the crowd. With technological advances in lighting options, there are many ways you can use lighting to attract attention to your stand.

Use a spotlight behind a fabric sign to create a highlight of the stand with the colours of the fabric shining around the sign. Use a downlight to show off a particular product from a pop up display or mirrored lighting behind the display to create an atmosphere of depth and dimension to the product. Use coloured lights to emphasis the colours of the theme of your exhibition stand.

With so many options in lighting now available, your exhibition stand designer can help you to create areas of shadows and light to highlight the specific areas of your exhibition stand as will best suit your needs.

When you design the lighting into the stand, consider the electricity requirements and where the electricity cords will go to be unobtrusive and not create a trip hazard for the staff manning the stand or the customers. Consider how to hide these items in the shadows to prevent ruining the effect of the lighting.

Judicious use of lighting as a design element for your display stand is as important as the design of your whole exhibition stand. Neglecting the lighting leaves you open to loss of interest in your stand. Use lighting to attract the attention of passersby and highlight different areas of your stand. Create a warm and inviting atmosphere for your potential customers and you will reap the benefits. The latest trends in exhibition stand design all use lighting to great effect.

Exhibition Co. are based on Sydney's Northern Beaches and housed in over 3000 sq metres of workshop, office and storage space.

We stand apart from other exhibition companies by providing you with a unique 'One Stop Shop' for all your exhibition and trade show requirements. Everything is done in-house, from concept and design through to construction and build.

As a company, we have been in the exhibition and trade show industry now for over 25 years and have built on our knowledge and experience.

We have a dedicated team of professionals ready to help you with your event. Our sales team offers you a solid knowledge of all areas of exhibitions and exhibition stands, as well as understand your marketing needs. Our experienced industrial designers will help you to visualise your stand design. Our production team will answer any concerns and keep you informed across the entire process. Our graphic designers, project managers, AV and logistic specialists will all work together to make your exhibition or trade show experience as seamless as possible.

Marketing Strategy

A lot of companies who have websites don't have marketing strategies. They fly by the seat of their trousers, so to speak. But, a business marketing strategy is essential. It doesn't have to be set in stone from day one but it's important to create a strategy, be consistent, and analyse results so you can continually work at improving. Businesses who don't work to continually improve will become obsolete. What's your strategy?

Create a Strategy

How do you strategise for success? In order to create a strategy, you'll have to think about what it is that you initially want. Do you want more traffic because you believe it'll lead to more customers? Do you want to up your conversion rate so you convert more of your existing visitors into customers? Do you want to retain more customers who've placed an initial order? Do you want to de-throne your largest competitor by grabbing top search engine listings for the most powerful keywords in your industry? The first step in creating a web marketing strategy is to define what you want. Creating a multi-phase strategy is a good idea. Reaching individual milestones can position you to reach bigger ones in the future.

Be Consistent

When you create a business marketing strategy, you need to be consistent. Once you define what you want, you need to define how to get it and then consistently do what it takes. Want improved search engine rankings? You may opt for a link building campaign. In terms of link building, you may create a strategy to improve your websites inbound links that includes publishing weekly articles. You need to make sure you prioritise that and ensure it consistently happens.

If you are determined to spend 3 hours a week optimising your site through social marketing channels, make it a priority to spend time doing that or delegate the task to someone reliable. Determined to gain exposure through regular press releases? Allocate resources to make sure that happens.

Analyse Results

Not all strategies are good ones but it sometimes takes a "fail" to help you forge ahead. You need to analyse your results on a regular basis to help you determine if you are on the right track to meeting your goals. When setting your goals and creating your online business marketing strategy, be sure that the plan you initialise is something you can measure. If it's measurable, you'll be able to see whether or not you need to tweak that strategy.

Need Help?

Executing a business growth strategy, particularly online, can require a lot of time and resources. You can find business marketing specialists who can help you with various things, including: defining your goals, strategising, creating an actionable plan, and then helping you reach those goals through doing outsourced services to help you reach them.

Comedy Night

When you go to promote your comedy night, know that with all the advancements in technology there are plenty of options for getting the word out. The rise in popularity of the internet has given multiple avenues to spread awareness and connect with potential customers. Also, designing and printing your own fliers has become remarkably easy with the help of computer technology, and printing costs have decreased over the years.

The internet is flourishing with a variety of websites that will list your comedy night for free. People often go to the internet in search of entertainment around town, the upcoming weekend, or that evening. Posting your event through these different available avenues online can provide multiple benefits for your business.

First, by posting you're creating an online presence that through time people will become familiar with and recognize. Perhaps they won't come out to your event the first time that they see your online posting, but in the back of their mind they'll recognize it as an option and will try it the next time. If you update these websites regularly with your comedy night details, people will naturally begin to trust your brand and will come to your comedy night for their evening of entertainment.

Creating a presence on facebook.com is highly recommended, as it is now the highest visited website on the internet. Creating a page for your business and creating events for your comedy nights is fairly easy: all you have to do is sign-up, create a business page and begin to list your events with the relevant information.

Craigslist.org is a free, online classified listing that one can post information for their event relevant to their state and city. Craigslist is fairly popular and regularly used by people, and it would be a good idea for one to post their event details there.

Search around the internet and see if any local newspapers or local internet resources allow you to list local events. Usually newspapers or other media websites allow you to do this for no cost. This is another way to create awareness and establish presence within a community listing that is tightly relevant to your business' location.

There are several online websites you can use to list your comedy night, all of them being free. There are small differences between these four websites, but essentially they all provide the same basic function. I would look into and use all of these resources to promote your comedy night:

eventbrite.com
eventful.com
upcoming.yahoo.com
zvents.com
There are ways to promote your comedy night other than online internet postings. Unlike internet postings, these options may not be completely free of cost - however, they are still quite effective. Digital media creation has made it incredibly easier for the non-professional to create professional looking posters and fliers. Printing the digitally crafted media can be done with your own laser-jet printer, or by a printing service location like Kinkos or Office Depot.

Once you have printed your digitally crafted media, it's time to make your presence known around the city. Spread the word as much as you can without being too excessive. It's good to post your fliers around town, but you don't want to wallpaper the town - it will turn people off.

Also, a good tool to promote your comedy night is printing out small hand fliers that a street team can hand out and promote a few hours before your event. Hand fliers can bring in a lot of people, especially if you offer a small discount if people bring them in.

The combination between internet postings and digitally crafted posters are a great way to promote your comedy night. It'll spread awareness on the internet and around the city. Posting and promoting are a great way to establish a presence within your community and create a brand that people will begin to trust.

John Yoder of Funny Business Agency has been involved in booking comedy clubs and comedy night for resorts, hotels, casinos and nightclubs for over 25 years. Their experience has made the them the experts on starting and booking successful comedy nights.

Marketing Power

The concept of free has been employed in the business atmosphere since the start of marketing due to the powerful hold it has on consumers. It's stunning to get what individuals will do in order to take advantage of attaining a free opportunity. Higher prices are often paid so as to receive a free gift that actually services no purpose for the potential buyer.

Several customers develop shopper loyalty and regular repeat businesses when a company provides free promotional opportunities and items. With this development of the free concept in marketing, the next step is to spot what free promotion best works for your company's interests. When considering your promotional opportunities, inspect the many benefits that are found with personalized stubby holders.

Personalized Stubby Holders and their Selling Power

PRODUCT USE: Their feature an advantage that is not offered by many other product, the opportunity for use. When you place your company name on pens or random promotional items you run the chance of those things being discarded or hidden. With personalized stubby holders you're providing your clients a product that they can use in their everyday lives.

ENVIRONMENT FLEXIBILITY: Another feature of personalized stubby holders is that they're not limited by environment. Most promotional things are found in office or operating environments however with these holders the promotional gift can be taken home, left in the workplace or used touring each day.

BRAND RECOGNITION: When you utilize these holders you are not solely providing your clients with the benefit of a free gift but also are guaranteeing that your brand is presented to them on a regular basis. With these holders you're marketing in their workplace with every beverage they purchase, you're advertising in their home on an everyday basis and even on vacation your brand is being presented while they're relaxing with a cool drink. The flexibility of personalized stubby holders makes them a perfect marketing tool that you'll be able to expect to be often accessed.

EXTENDED PROMOTIONAL OPPORTUNITIES: Additionally to the regular complete recognition you're developing through the gifting of personalized stubby holders, you furthermore are developing shoppers to become your walking advertisements. When people visit your client's home or work atmosphere your brand is being presented all. Whereas traveling, your company is consistently being marketed to inquisitive individuals seeking a lot of info on your company emblem and personalized stubby holders.

RESULTS: You can't argue with the revenue opportunities you're creating with the distribution of personalized stubby holders. You're developing repeat business through complete recognition additionally to make new clients through shopper endorsements.