This week, I take pot shots at webinars and why I think they are a waste for speaker, and the virtual attendee.
Webinars, where a speaker presents over the Internet, at a predetermined time to an audience sitting at home or at their desks, have always seemed to be a classic example of having your cake and eating it too. By the way – that expression makes no sense whatsoever. If I’m having cake you better believe that I want to eat it!
Anyway, I digress…
The problem with webinars is that they have all the disadvantages of actually going to see someone speak, with none of the advantages. The timming of the webinar is decided by the speaker, or organizer. The transfer of information is limited to that timing window and whatever notes are issued.
From the speaker side, webinars offer the possibility of actual interaction with participants. However, because the interaction is one way, unless initiated by the viewer, the speaker has no idea as to how well the presentation is going and therefore how to tailor it to address potential issues.
I also cannot help shaking the notion that webinars are, for the most part, the lazy way out. If online delivery is what is required, let’s have proper content. Presentations that can be downloaded, shared, and watched again and again on the viewers schedule. YouTube, Slideshare, or even PowerPoint all make this very easy.
While saying all this, I do think there is great value in physical meetings and presentations- particularly for the conversations that happen before and after the meeting. Social media, is an excellent way of approximating this offline interaction of a physical meeting- online, but the realtime contraints of a webinar don’t really lend themselves to this interaction.
I was reminded recently that there is huge confusion about trademarks and copyright – particularly the use of those funny symbols and letters. Which is a lot of ways, is really surprising since they are there to protect everyone – particularly in marketing and business. There is no point in creating a distinct brand, complete with logo as part if your marketing program, without protecting it is some way.
Before we start, I should stress that I am not a lawyer, or even an expert – I can just read the US Patent and Trademark Office website and have been dealing with copyright and trademarks for a very long time. I would urge you to click on the link above to confirm how copyright and trademarks effect your business – what follows is really just a primer. If you are outside of the US you should check your own local laws, but by and large they follow the same kind if thinking.
TM -Trademark
Possibly the most misunderstood of everything we are looking at today. That little “TM” after a logo or brand name simply means that an entity is asserting that the name or logo is a trademark used to identify their business. ANYONE CAN DO THIS, AT ANYTIME, FOR ALMOST ANYTHING! The “TM” has no legal standing in its own right unless you choose to go to court to enforce it. If you did go to court you would have to prove that the person, or business, who violated your trademark did so knowingly – in other words they saw your “TM” and ignored it. If you did not have the “TM” next to your logo it would be much harder to claim a violation of your trademark.
However, if you do not protect your trademarks and they are widely violated by lots of people but you decide to try and enforce your trademark against one entity they can claim that your trademark is irrelevant. You have to protect your trademark if you are claiming to have one.
You also have to be careful that trademark is actually unique. For example, if your animal hospital has a large generic sign saying “animal hospital” outside of it, you can’t trademark “Animal Hospital” or get bent out of shape by the animal hospital down the street having a similar sign. If your sign says “Town X Animal Hospital” you could trademark that (as long as someone else was not already using it). You could almost certainly also claim a trademark infraction if the animal hospital down the street put up a sign saying “Town X Animal Hospital” after you had put up yours.
The UPS logo – notice the “TM” in the bottom right hand corner.
® Registered Trademark
This mark has legal standing. To use this mark you must have registered your trademark with the patent office. They will have conducted their own research and concluded that your trademark is unique and will help with enforcement of your trademark rights should there ever be any issues. You cannot use this mark until the patent office says you can – you can be prosecuted if you do. Registered trademarks are normally the purview of major brands, mutli-nationals and very clever logos that might be abused by third parties without the added protect of being a registered trademark.
The Starbucks Coffee logo - notice the "®" in the bottom right corner.
The “all rights reserved” phrase is normally used alongside the copyright symbol and basically states that all rights to the material are reserved for the copyright holder and you’d need explicate permission to use the material in any way.
(Click on the image above to view the book on Amazon!)
With possibly the longest subtitle ever: “Move your business forward through the convergence of search, social & content marketing,” Accelerate! cannot be accused of false advertising.
Quiet simply, Accelerate is a blueprint for successfully using 21st century tools for small business online marketing. Written by Arnie Kuenn, the president of Vertical Measures in Phoenix, and a co-founder of the Arizona Interactive Marketing Association; Mr. Kuenn certainly knows his stuff. In fact, it is one of the few criticism of the book that I have, is that it gets a little dense at times, particularly early on. The Search Engine Optimization (SEO) section while being very detailed gets to be a little much and will require a couple of readings for all but the most experienced of readers. However, the style does settle down, and it would be a mistake to give up on the book as and what you are left with in the end is, a user friendly handbook for search, social media, and content marketing.
The book covers all the major players as you might expect; Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google; but is also covers a lot of the less mainstream sites. Accelerate! plucks a number online tools out from the magic geek SEO toolbox to help with almost every aspect of the radical overhaul of your marketing strategy that will undoubtedly unfold once you have finished the book. I myself, am already looking carefully at how I put posts together for my site and have joined a number of social bookmarking sites directly because of this book.
A self published book, also available in a Kindle edition, I was initially concerned about the physical binding on Accelerate! I’ve had problems in the past with the spines of self published books cracking and then loosing pages after a single reading. I’m happy to report that this is not the case with Accelerate! I did take care not to be too absusive to the spine, but i needn’t have worried, the book is in great shape and looks the same as when it arrived.
I mention the self publishing issue, not just because of quality, but also because the text of the book directly references it as well. With a subject such as search and social media marketing, it is easy to get very out of date very quickly – Google+, for example, is not mentioned once. As the text explains, being a self published book, in addition to being an E-book, allows for easier updates than traditional publishing. I, for one, hope we do get new editions on a fairly regular basis, because this a great resource and one I know I will be referring to for quite some time. In fact, I found it quite odd to see URLs in the footnotes and be unable to click on them – should have got the Kindle version!
Mr. Kuenn’s book will not tell you how to brand and create a marketing strategy for your business – hopefully that is why you read my blog! What Accelerate! will do, however, is tell you how to navigate the waters of the increasingly complex world of search, social media, and content marketing. This still might not mean that you still don’t need to hire someone of Mr. Kuenn’s caliber, or the man himself, to work with you on these magic things. But if you do you’ll at least know what they are talking about and why.
If you want to get serious about search, social media and content marketing, you need to buy this book – it does what is says on the cover!
(Clicking on the cover above will take you to the book’s Amazon page and contribute to my book buying habit / problem.)
So far in this series we’ve looked at how your brand and marketing strategy are perceived and reacted with by your clients – but what about your staff?
Without your staff on-board no marketing program will succeed. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that probably one of the most important elements of any marketing program is having staff buy-in. But how to get it?
Simplicity
This is not a dig at your staff, but rather those overblown and meaningless missions statements that seem the populate the corporate world. Your brand and your mission statement should be one. They need to work together and be given as much thought as each other. A mission statement should also be able to be understood by mere mortals and, in an ideal world, be able to be remembered.
A great example of this is talked about at length in Stick, a book by Chip and Dan Heath that I reviewed here. Southwest use the slogan “The Low Cost Airline.” This slogan, which is the central part of their mission statement, informs the decisions that both management and staff make everyday –
“Should we have sandwiches on this flight?”
“Does that make us the Low Fares Airline?”
No because the added cost of the sandwiches might increase the fare price.
“Should we joke about a flight attendant’s birthday over the intercom?”
“Does that affect us being the Low Cost Airline?”
No it doesn’t – so go ahead.
Having an overriding statement, that is the building block of your mission statement helps, give your staff a sense of mission and purpose. If you use it to define your decisions everyday, and tell them why it fits into that statement, they will soon see the benefits of this kind if thinking and hopefully adopt it as their own.
Keeping Staff Informed
It is a surprisingly common mistake, I’ve made it myself several times, but your staff should not be the last ones to find out about any kind of marketing program. Not only does it frustrate the staff, it upsets the client and creates the exact opposite impression in their mind that you were probably trying to create in the firs place. It is also a great idea to have staff involved in the planning stages of any marketing program. This stops it from being “your” marketing program and makes it “our” marketing program – a much better solution all round.
Explain What is Out There
It might come as a shock, but staff do not cruise their employers website, social media pages, and review sites at night, when they get home from work, as a method of relaxation. Take the time and effort to explain these resources to staff so that they, in turn, can be knowledgeable to clients when they ask.
Provide Reminders
If you are promoting particular products, ensure that staff have the tools, training, and reminders to be able to effectively do their jobs. What do I mean by reminders? Well it could be as simple as a poster or you asking about their progress on a daily basis and it could be as technical as power point presentations running where both clients ad staff can see them. As Seth Godwin says “Competence is the enemy of change.” In other words, when you give your staff new products, protocols, and ideas to work on, you are making them less efficient for the time it takes them to learn all the new things. Naturally, they might be a little resistant to that. All the help you can provide will make the transition to a new state of competency as straight forward as possible.
Be Emotional
If you care about an idea, concept, or product – show that you do. Tell stories about how this product, idea or concept will affect your clients, your staff, or whom ever. But if you cannot show that you care about something, how are your staff ever going to care? You don’t have to have them high fiving and lifting you on their shoulders, and there is an element of risk with putting yourself out there – they might not respond. But without that emotion and, for want of a better word, passion your pitch to your staff will become just as important as the text from an instruction manual.
How do you promote your ideas and strategies to staff? Have you found some other great ways to get people onboard? Leave a comment below to share with me (seriously, I don’t have all the answers) and other readers.
Over the past few weeks we’ve looked at creating a marketing strategy, branding, social marketing and the various ways of creating an online presence, whether it be websites, social media and some of the other online tools that allow you to market your business. Traditional advertising, however, should still have a place in most marketing strategies.
Where traditional campaigns fail is when they are not part of a much larger effort which includes online social media efforts and the client’s experience in your business. Think about how you, or even better, your clients, find businesses and products. They will probably see a traditional ad, and then do some research online. But if there is not an ad for them to see then this initial driving force never happens.
A well designed ad, whether it be online, in a newspaper, on the radio of television will solve a problem that your potential client has. Your entire branding strategy, in fact, should be geared around this not enough to tell customers that you exist – you have to tell them why and why that matters to them!
Newspapers
Yes, there are people who still read newspapers, and even some who buy them.
In smaller towns, newspapers are still the main source of local news which can be difficult to find from the major media outlets. Newspapers in smaller towns, also recognize that the game is changing and have pretty comprehensive websites with pay walls. If you are in a major metropolitan area you may not have experienced this, however, even in bigger cities, newspapers still have their place.
Ads in newspapers can have a spotty reputation, but a lot of this has traditionally been due to badly designed campaigns and a lack of metrics to track results. Lucky, the internet and new technology is there to help you. A specially tailored URL (website address) for your campaign, or a QR code (bar codes that can be read by a smart phone), in a traditional printed ad that leads the reader to a specially designed landing page on your website makes for easy tracking. A good example of this is on my desk in front of me. It is a piece of junk mail trying to get me to subscribe to the Arizona Republic and offering me a special price for Sunday delivery. If I want the offer, I am told that I should visit “J7.AZCENTRAL.COM,” scan the QR code or call a special number. If I go to that address I am taken to a special landing page with an electronic version of the prepaid card I might have filled out in the past.
Where you appear in the newspaper is incredibly important. I personally stay away from any special section like TV listings or “weekend” sections, unless they are targeted at your audience – pet adoptions sponsored by a veterinarian or pet shop are a good example of what can work. The main part of the paper is where you want to be – that is why people are buying the paper! That is the bit they, in general, read the most. It does tend to cost a little more – that alone should tell you something – but it is worth it.
Radio
Radio, although facing some serious competition, can be a relatively inexpensive way to reach a large part of your client basis. Your radio station will look after production of your ad and can make some really helpful suggestions. Small radio stations may also be willing to work with you on infomercials, which can dramatically increase your exposure for little increase in costs. The trick with infomercials is to have a great idea. I’ve used a weekly vet tips section, which combined with lost and found pets from the local shelter gave dramatic exposure at an excellent price and also gave the radio station some great content that their listeners were interested in.
The great advantage that radio has is that listeners tend to like the station, not the individual programs. That means your ad / program has a far greater chance of being heard because it will not get glanced over (newspapers), or fast forwarded through (Television).
Metrics and tracking with radio can be tricky, but again a URL that is geared to your campaign can work wonders.
Television
With the advent of cable and the fragmentation of the television market it is now possible to have a TV spot running on a popular network for less than you used to pay for a yellow pages ad. This, of course, varies greatly on the market, the cable company and the channels and show you want to be associated with. If you do get an ad – make sure that the cable company will let you use it on YouTube – thereby you can embed it on your website and get the maximum value for your television budget.
A word of warning about YouTube, Facebook, and combining them with traditional campaigns. Don’t make your potential clients go to Facebook or YouTube to get “exclusive content” or to view your new ad. Because once they are there, the chances are that that website will entice them onto something else and they’ll forget about your website that you were hoping you would go back to. Embedding is your friend, and it helps keep the customer where you want them – looking at your content or advertising.
Yellow Pages
As my friend Dave Nicol puts it so sucictly in the title of his excellent book: “The Yellow Pages are Dead” (you can read my review by clicking on the title but not until you’ve finished this article please!)
With all the respect in the world to Dave, I think it is probably nearer the truth to say they are dying. When was the last time you picked up a yellow pages? And if you did, did you then go look at them online to see what you could find out about them? Being in the main yellow pages directory for your area is important, however, the days of the full page ad are over. A listing – maybe a small box ad, depending on your target customer, will be more than enough. Of course, ask your customers, or look up your existing measurements of how people find you and then make your own decision. In areas where there are multiple books pick the best one, or if you can find out, the one your customers use.
Do not buy enhanced online packages from the yellow-pages companies. They are not very good at it, on the whole, and you can find much lower cost solutions. If your marketing budget is an issue the yellow pages are a great area to cut. Don’t be swayed by the “your competition is in our book” argument. Let your competition waste their advertising dollars – be smart about where you place yours.
Directories, Maps, Etc.
These really are a waste of money and probably always were. My favorite I saw recently was a printed directory which had an enhanced picture of smart phone on the cover show what was inside the guide. And no they did not have an app. This cover, all sense of irony removed, was just trying to be hip, and was actually showing off why the publication was irrelevant.
Finally, the Internet
The internet is an incredibly powerful tool, and it is possible to have a marketing strategy and a marketing campaign only using just it. A traditional marketing campaign, however, must have an internet and social media component and all the elements show be designed and work cohesively.
It is also important to remember that ads, even if not very successful in their own right, can help with your general brand awareness – your internet and social media components should be able to tell you if this is the case.
I believe that a good marketing strategy combines lots of elements and disciplines – including the running of your business. If your potential clients know the name of your competitor, but not yours they are not going to be looking for anything other than your competitors name online, …or even in the phone book.
It is interesting to note that in retrospect the lessons of “Stick” have had such an impression on the authors that their follow up “Switch” (which I reviewed here) is all the better for it.
The concept of “stickiness” is lifted wholesale from Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point, but its practical applications go further, from my understanding that Galdwell’s popular work.The basic premises is that stories, personal connections, are what make ideas stick not great raw facts. This has huge implications for marketers and managers. The book delves very deep into why this concept works and does give some great real world examples as you would expect from a book with such a central theory.
Where the book really succeeds, is in it’s ability to predict where ideas will work or not. There is a great example about a journalism class and being able distill ideas, or stories, down to their most basic essence. Another frequently used example is Southwest Airlines who’s most basic mission statement “The Low Cost Airline” informs everything they do. This mission statement becomes a simple idea, that can answer complex questions and can direct behavior.
An intriguing part of the book, and also an excellent framing device, is the use of urban legends and why they succeed where other news items, education, and presentations don’t. If we could make our ideas like urban legends our work as managers, marketers and educators is 90% done.
Switch is the better read, but stick is the more intellectual and deeper work and also have the potential to be significantly more important.
(Clicking on the cover above will take you to the book’s Amazon page and contribute to my book buying habit / problem.)
You might have heard, but getting your business online is kind of a big deal. It is not everything when it comes to marketing, but it is a significant component of any, and all, marketing strategies in the 21st century.
An online presence, more than any other area, is the one piece of marketing you must have. You must have a website, period. No ifs, no ands, no buts.
An online presence, more than ever, has always been about content. Even in the days when there was no term “content marketing” you could have someone build a website for you, but someone who knows your business inside out (that means you) still would have had to write the content. These days content, and particularly, new content, is king. The return on investment of a website is directly related to the effort, not necessarily money, that is poured into it. Your clients will be much more impressed by the effort, and the creation of a useful tool, than by flashy graphics. There was a time when a website could be a “set it and forget it” proposition (however the good websites were never this) and today that is almost impossible to do unless you want to be thought of as irrelevant. Your website will need to included the tools, and you will have to devote the time and energy, to keep it updated on a regular basis.
A lot the content of your website will be informed by your marketing strategy, branding, and your ability to market to your strengths. But it is also worth talking with your staff, and clients, about what they want to see and what they would find useful to have access to. Make a plan of action consisting of what you must have, what you would like to have, and things you might want to experiment with at some point. This will allow you to have a real idea of what you will be buying from your website designer. It will also give you some stages to work with so you can get started, see how it all works, and then make any tweaks before moving on.
Notice I said “what you will be buying from your website designer,” not: “what you will be buying from your website designer- if you use one.” If you are thinking of breaking out the books and learning to code your own website to save a few bucks, please stop. If you are bored with your current job, and web designer is your new passion, then please go for it. If not, please spare the internet, your customers, and yourself, the pain – do not go there. I’ve made quite a number of websites in the past, and today I just do not do it enough to be remotely good enough to satisfy myself – let alone anyone else. There are just too many browsers, platforms, search engine optimization tools, social media plug-ins, user interface issues, and a host of other magic things, to make it worth your while. Hire a professional and get something that you might actually want to use.
Spend your time actually writing the website content and thinking about how that tool, that you can direct customers too, is going to be best used. If you really know what you want, and have the content ready to go, your designer will quite probably cut you a deal on the price of the site. The content of a new website is always the killer, from a designers point of view, when creating a website – particularly when it is not your business.
How much is your new website going to cost? Well that is a good question, and one to which I do not have a good answer. The bottom line is that you can spend as much money as you have building the world’s greatest website or you could spend very little indeed. I’ve always used as a rule when it would just be cheaper to employ someone, with then all the added benefits of having them around, it probably means it is too expensive (or i should just hire someone). That is, of course, unless you want something really special, in which case you’re paying a premium because of what that designer can offer you. Another good barometer is to look at what you are paying, or have been paying, for a yellow pages ad. Take all that money you have been paying to the yellow pages and make it your website budget. The only issue you’ll have is that your yellow pages rep(s) will be mad, and you’ll have a website – which will serve you a lot better in both the short and long term (we will address the yellow pages in a future post; but I don’t thing I’m spoiling any surprises by saying it will not end well for the yellow pages.)
If you must do it yourself, please use one of the blog creators, such as WordPress or Hubspot . They will give you a good looking website (this is a wordpress site) will hold your hand through the process, and do allow for a certain amount of customization if your really want to go there. If you can’t do what you want to do with these tools, then you need a designer.
Finally, I’ve started seeing a habit of businesses having only a Facebook page and not having a website. This is a disgusting, lazy habit and your clients will see it as such. Search engines will have a hard time finding you, and many people do not think of searching Facebook when looking for a business – maybe your existing clients might but they are already your clients. Facebook is also quite limited as a platform, unless you a going to go to the same level of trouble that you would encounter building a website.
Have fun and if you have questions please leave a comment!
A brilliant book on change and how to apply it in the real world. Over 250 real world examples and ideas underline the authors basic concept – getting people to change is like someone riding an elephant. Appealing to the logic of change is like appealing to the rider of the elephant. The elephant itself is the emotional connection to change. Finally, the path is the environment which can either help or hinder change.
Through numerous examples, the authors show that by appealing to the rider of a situation (the logical argument), the elephant (emotion), or the path (the environment) change can be effected by addressing these disparate elements individually, or together.
An excellent example of this is provided with nurses making errors in the dispensing of medications to patients. The hospital used in the example had an error rate of 1 in 1,000 – pretty good, but still a lot of errors. The nurses understood the need to not have errors, so the rider / logical part of the problem was not at issue. Likewise, nurses directly saw the effect of errors in medication had on their patients and so had a direct emotional connection – the elephant was on board too. The issue was in the environment or path. Nurses are constantly interrupted by doctors, and other nurses, while they are working and found it difficult not to help when asked, thereby distracting them from their main task. The solution? Tweak the environment / change the path so that nurses did not get distracted.
A bright orange vest was employed whenever a nurse was dispensing medications so that everyone else on the floor knew that they were not to be disturbed. The program was universally hated – the rider element thought it was unnecessary, the vests got lost all the time and hated that they could not help their doctors and colleagues. The elephant part of the problem felt that they might as well wear a dunce cap – the nurses felt demeaned and that the vest drew attention to the fact that they made mistakes.
This might have spelt doom for the program until the data came back. Over six months every department that employed the program saw a decrease in errors of 47%. Needless to say the change in the path / environment won over the rider / logical objections and the elephant / emotional objections because it worked.
The book is also a great champion of checklists which have gotten bad name precisely because they work so well. They can be seen as dehumanizing and giving rise to the idea the checklists mean “a monkey could do it.” Like most objections the book deals with this argument deftly. “Well, if that is true, grab a pilot’s checklist and try your luck with a 747.”
There are a number of other elements that I can’t do justice too here: black and white goals, precise clear instructions, the power of action triggers, and the how to harness the herd to improve culture. But these elements are really tweaks to the fundamental concept of the logical, emotional and environmental components of enacting change.
At the back of the book is, essentially, a manual for enacting change complete with a web link to resources and PDF of a one page overview that the authors encourage you share! It is here by the way. This alone is worth the purchase price of the book and will ensure that the book stays on my desk rather than on a bookshelf.
Wonderfully researched, well thought out, and very smart. “Switch” is essential reading for anyone who want to understand why change can be difficult and what it takes to implement change against the odds. It should also be a template for other business books – ditch the theory unless you can prove it I the real world and show how it applies to the real world. Authors please take note.
Can’t recommend this book enough and owe a huge favor to the person who bought it for me.
(Clicking on the cover above will take you to the book’s Amazon page and contribute to my book buying habit / problem.)
As big as the pile of paperwork on your desk might be, getting out of the building is an important part of any marketing strategy. Marketing is, after all, a discussion with your clients and potential clients about your business. It is not always possible to do that from behind your desk.
What do I mean by getting out of the building? Where will you go? Well that very much depends on your community, your business, and your marketing strategy in general. The idea is to engage with your clients on their own turf – so were is that? If you are a veterinary practice, you might find that there are pet oriented events in your community on a regular basis. Can you go along to them? Can you have a little information booth? Can you sponsor the event?
Once you start looking for events you’ll see them all over your community, and as long as you can come up with a connection to the event, the organizers will always be happy to have another booth. In retail and service industries, the businesses are often recognized just by their brick and mortar exteriors. Getting out into the wider community allows you to meet with your clients, and potential clients, on ‘neutral’ ground and for them to see the people who are in that building. It also proves your commitment to being more than just a business, but to actually being part of the wider community.
In addition to events, become a good corporate citizen. Join the local Chamber of Commerce, or other similar organizations, and actually go to some of the networking events and meetings. Yes, it can sometimes seem like an ‘old boys club’ at organizations like the Chamber of Commerce, but go anyway. You’ll be surprised at the wide cross-section of your community who attend, you’ll find out a lot about what is going on in your town, and how that might affect your business. You’ll also make connections with local officials, the media, and other business that may become useful. If you are in a larger metropolitan area, there may even be industry specific groups, or groups that relate to your daily tasks (like marketing) you can join.
It is easy to say “I’m too busy to go to that!” Make going to events just another part of your job – like doing payroll. You can’t say “I’m too busy to do payroll” – or at least I hope you don’t say that.
Before embarking out in the big wide world do have, for want of a better expression, and elevator speech ready. An elevator speech is basically a distilled version of your marketing strategy, and branding efforts, that only takes up a couple of minutes to recite. Why should someone come to your business in other words. The the good ones don’t sound like that is what you are saying, but at the same time they hit all the salient points. If you are going out and doing events you probably need a little more than that – a reason, beyond just self-promotion, to be out in the wider community. Of course, if someone asks about your business, that is when your elevator speech comes into play. In the veterinary field, zooanosis awareness (the transmission of disease from pets to humans) or the importance of vaccination are great examples of public information subjects. Fire departments, often do outside events with excellent themes such as the importance of emergency plans or checking the batteries in smoke detectors.
A booth for a vetererinary practice that includes a dog to pet, information about zooanosis and the promotion of a pet ambulance.
Whatever you choose, don’t try to do too much. Have a theme and stick with it. It is also important that this theme resonate with your strategy in your business as a whole. There is not point, for example, in having staff promoting the importance of zooanosis awareness out in the field if you also do not promote that in the veterinary clinic itself.
Social marketing and networking, which is effectively what this entire blog post has been about, is an excellent way connect with the community and promote your business without promoting your business. It can pay huge dividends in the long term, is inexpensive as long as you are sensible, but it is a long term strategy – don’t expect immediate returns. That way you’ll be pleasantly surprised when you get them!
Marketing your business is all very well, but what are you marketing?
As we looked at here, developing your marketing strategy should have given you some ideas as to what your clients are wanting to buy. By marketing to what your clients are wanting to buy, as we looked into here , you are already defining certain things about your business. But what about your competitors? How are they marketing, branding,and running their business? You need some business intelligence – don’t just assume you know what is going on actually take the time to find out for sure!
Step one: Online Research. The great thing about the Internet is that you can now research a business to your heart’s content, for the most part, online. Look your competitors branding, how do they sell themselves? Are their hours better than yours? Do they promote how low their prices are? Do they have much of an online presence at all? Is their style very informal, or very corporate?
Step two: Physical Research. There is nothing wrong with sticking your head in, say hello to one of your local competitors, as long as there is not huge animosity between the businesses. You can learn a lot by just waiting in the lobby. There is nothing sneaky about this, this is the store front – essentially a public space. If you are in the veterinary business you can tell a lot if the building smells nice- you can bet the clients can too! Do the staff greet you as soon as you walk in the door? Is the waiting area comfortable? Is the waiting area well laid out? Does the office seem like a model of efficiency, or is everyone running around like chickens with their heads cut off? Take the time to phone your competitors – not from your business, use someone else’s cell phone. How is the phone answered? How do their prices actually compare? They might say they are low cost but in reality…
Step three: Opinion of clients. Hopefully, when planing your strategy, you already figured a lot of this out already, but there is nothing wrong with talking discreetly some if your clients about why they like your business over your competitors. You might be surprised by the responses! What can this tell you about your business and your competitors?
Step four: Look at yourself and your plans. How does your business compare? How can you differentiate yourself? Maybe you need to be the low cost option in town? Maybe you need to be the premium option in town? How do your clients currently think of you? Are there simple things you can change about your business, now that you know all about your competitors, that will make a difference in the minds of your clients? These don’t have to be huge changes, but the more you can neutralize and respond to what your competitors are doing, the more you will begin to control the marketplace and define what it means to be in that market.
A couple of short examples:
Do you close for lunch? Do your competitors? Would your clients like to be able to come in during lunch? A staggered schedule could mean that you become the known as the business that is open and available at lunch time – that could be huge in the veterinary world, where if a pet is sick, and your client has to work, their lunch hour may be all the time they have! It is not a lot, but it is those little things that can start to differentiate your business.
Do you encourage communication? Do you make it easy for clients to come and talk to you? Do all the principles in your business have email addresses? Will they use them? Sounds strange, but the mere concept that businesses want to communicate with their clients – on the clients terms – can be seen as quite a radical concept.
If you have ideas along these lines feel free to add them in the comments section.
(Click on the image above to view the book on Amazon!)
Mike Falconer 