Creative Marketing: Just Your Style
You've enlisted some of the traditional marketing
methods to sell your services: you received some
publicity in your local paper; your website is up and
running; and you're listed in the Yellow Pages. So
why isn't the phone ringing off the hook? Maybe
you're marketing strategies need to get more creative! Creative marketing will allow you to attract new
clients, as well as remind past clients that you're still
around. You'll also stand out from the other
professionals in your field: creative marketing gets
you noticed, enticing people to want to know more about
you! And the beauty of creative marketing is that
there is no one right way to do it. Methods that
work -- and feel comfortable -- for you might not
work for others. Here are a few ideas to get your creative juices
flowing: Staying In Touch Rather than relying solely on the phone to stay in
touch, utilize mail and e-mail. It's fast, easy, and tells
your clients that you took the extra time to think of
them. Send birthday cards on your clients' birthdays, or
better yet, send an anniversary card to celebrate the
date when you first worked with a client. Another great option is to send postcards or
newsletters filled with tips. This establishes you as
an expert in your field. Be sure to include an update
of your current services or any special offers you
have. Give-Aways that Work Everyone loves a little gift now and then. Promotional
give-aways can boost your business by showing
appreciation and offering a reminder that you're ready
to help. Steer clear of pens, notepads, and keychains. Your
clients have enough of those. Brainstorm with friends
and your local advertising specialties representative
to find affordable, unique ideas that represent you
and your business. (Look in the Yellow Pages under "Advertising Promotional
Products" for companies near you.)
For
example, at Time to Organize,
my company found an affordable, colorful travel alarm
clock that can double as a desk clock. Imprinted with
my logo and website address, it's a gift that was
useful to my clients and beneficial to my business.
Remember that memorable and useful items are most
appreciated. Getting Visibility Try to draw a little attention wherever you go.
Depending upon how shy (or flamboyant) you are,
you might try something as simple as wearing your
nametag in public to driving around town with
magnetic signs attached to your vehicle that tout your services. Don't be shy about
tooting your own
horn. If you tend to downplay your strengths, fearing
you'll sound brazen, squash that feeling now! As a
small-business owner, you don't have a marketing
department, so you must be your own loudest advocate!
Making others aware of your products and services is
NOT bragging. I hope these ideas jump start your creative thought
process. I would love to hear from YOU about your
creative marketing strategies. What worked best?
What bombed? Happy thinking... Copyright 2005 Time to Organize. All rights reserved. Sara Pedersen, author of the FREE e-zine "The Marketing Fairy's Guide to Simple Self
Promotion," is a professional organizer and marketing specialist. She helps small
business owners make their marketing dreams come true. Sign up today at
http://www.time2organize.net to receive your FREE monthly subscription. Copyright
2004
Time to Organize.
Related News
|
 |
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Using Business and Greeting Cards Effectively
Business cards and greeting cards almost go hand in hand when being used for marketing and business purposes. With a few exceptions. One is bigger than the other, and needs a postage stamp in order to get to it's desired location, as opposed to the business card which is handed directly to a person or dropped into a fish bowl in the hopes of winning an office party.
There Are Benefits... And Then There Are Benefits
Not all benefits are created equal. Knowing which ones to use when can make a big difference in the credibility -- and success -- of your marketing campaigns.
Spice It Up! Rib Festival Teaches Us About Product Value
The Rib America Festival is a fun filled family event featuring award winning BBQ and live entertainment from national, regional and local talent. Each rib cooker features their very own special cooking strategy and recipes that make for a truly unique food festival experience.
How to Write Fundraising Letters That Motivate Donors To Make Donations to Your Non-Profit
Motivating strangers to give their money away is one of the hardest jobs around. It's difficult to do face to face. And it's even tougher to do in a letter. But it can be done. And your chances of receiving gifts in the mail increase once you employ some of the tested methods that are used by leading non-profit organizations around the world.
Small Business Marketing; Abstract Philosophical Discussion
Our bodies work like our small businesses. They work best by word of mouth, networks, referrals, etc. The Internet also works this way to serve the most good thru networks, portals and referral links; of course the Internet could work better, but all in all we are well served by using such systems and we are most hurt when those systems are used against us. For instance a virus in the blood stream, an International Terrorist in an airliner, a drug dealer in your neighborhood or a computer virus which worms its way through your system doing its dirty deeds like the evil doers or an evolving organic virus on our bio-systems.
25 Ways To Make Your Next Direct Mail Campaign Work
This list contains 25 powerful strategies to improve your direct mail results. It would be wise to use this as a checklist to ensure you've included as many as possible in your advertising. Any one of these strategies could measurably boost your response. How many of these are you using?
5 Tips for Getting the Most out of Exhibiting at Trade Shows
Exhibiting at trade shows can be a cost-effective way to generate business, whether you are a new entrepreneur or have been in business for years. Some exhibitors, however, do not experience the success of others. The success of the exhibitor is the responsibility of the exhibitor, not the trade show organizer. The organizer's responsibility is to promote the show, fill the exhibits and fill the show with large numbers of visitors. Being at the right show for your business is the first step. Attracting visitors to your exhibit is the next step and may be a challenge. Once the visitor is there, getting them to buy your product or service, or agree to a future contact is another challenge. Bring to mind a time when you either participated at a trade show or were a visitor at a trade show what attracted you to an exhibit, and what turned you off?
Signage for Mobile Car Wash Vehicles
If you are in the mobile car wash business and you should be. Then you know that your clean work vehicles is your best piece of advertising. But what type of signage should you put on it? Your work vehicles will be very visible in the parking lots while you are working. It will be seen all day long as it is driven around town and when it is parked and you are working. The truck should be used as a sales tool. This brings us to the topic of signage on the van or truck. How can we sell car washes, recruit new customers and at the same time provide a proper image for our customers and the corporations where we clean cars at?
5 Tips on Establishing Yourself As An Expert In Your Community
Wondering how to get new patients into your practice? Wondering how to distinguish yourself as unique from the other practitioners in your community? Here are 5 surefire ways to get visibility in your area.
Insiders Secret to Selling Mailing Lists
If you've got a mailing list of at least a thousand names or more, you're
sitting on a gold mine. All it takes is for you to get the word out that you've
got a mailing list for rent, at a competitive price, and you should be home free!
Communication Breakdown - Dont Let It Happen To You
Do you have Communication breakdown?
Baby Boomers - Marketing to the Me Generation
Unless you've been in a dimly lit cavern for the past several decades, you know that "Baby Boomers" is the collective name given to the 76 million people born in the United States between the end of World War II and 1964. Often described as the largest, most knowledgeable and most fiscally influential demographic group in American history, their motto could very well be: Where does a 750-pound gorilla sit? Anywhere it wants!
Marketing Discipline and the Joy of Success
Discipline Is Important.
What You Must Know When Marketing Your Business
Marketing is both an art and a science. Anyone who says differently probably isn't doing very well marketing his or her business. On the art side, intuition definitely plays into the equation. On the science side, it is about systems, strategies and plans. Outlined below are some areas of consideration when you decide to market your business.
Fertilizer For Your Grassroots Marketing
Looking for a great way to drive traffic to your business? No million dollar ad budget last time you checked? The solution may be to harness the power of grassroots marketing.
Your Elevator Speech ? Have You Updated Yours Recently?
Do you have an elevator speech? Does it get people's attention? Do they ask you lots of questions when you tell them what you do?
Preventive Marketing Offers Small-Mid Sized Business Owners An Ideal Way To Maximize Their Results
As the owner of a creative services boutique - I have realized that at least 9 out of 10 prospects/clients have suffered from one or all of the following (very detrimental) symptoms of trying to grow their businesses:
Developing a Contact List- Part One
One of the most essential things to successful networking is your Contact List. When you start a business, developing one is the first step in promoting and marketing your company. As you write your business plan, it is helpful to make this list to start to develop an idea of who your customer base will be.
Learn How to Market Your eBusiness in Real Time: Dissect, Study, Emulate
Everything you will ever need to know about internet
marketing is plainly available to you everywhere you
go on the internet. All you need to do is dissect, study,
and emulate these methods and you invariably will become
just as successful as the people who created them.
Direct Mail
Do you have a website? A Web Newsletter? A mailing list of e-mail addresses for customers? Do you track and test everything? You can use the web to get sales in lots of exciting ways which are dependant on technology that's available at the time. Whether you budget is 600 or 6000, I can show you how it's done effectively time after time after time! So here's what I do when I start working with clients and I would like to offer it to you as a gift now. Have a look at this list of ten great ways of marketing. I guarantee, that nearly all web site owners will not have every one of these simple methods in place right now. Please pick at least two that you're either not doing, or not doing that well - and MAKE A DECISION to add them to your marketing mix in the weeks ahead: Direct Mail Internet Marketing Email Marketing Advertising Telephone Marketing Direct Sales Strategic Alliances Referral Systems PR Additional Products/Services We will tackle these in order Direct Mail Direct mail is often overused and badly done. It's got a bad reputation over the years, mainly due to spammers, used instead of the telephone or by con artists seeking their next victim. There are a lot of myths and nonsense about mailings. You may want to print this out, because in my continuing efforts to help you reach success ? I am about to share the secrets of direct mail - I'd be surprised if the contents of this mail does not save you thousands of pounds over the next 12 months. By the way, if you are totally new to Direct Mail - "It's anything sent by post, sales letters, electronic mail or brochures etc" I want to dispel some things about DM to you. "Direct Mail doesn't work" . This ingenious conclusion is arrived at by the fact that most people throw most of the mail we get directly in the bin - therefore the thinking is that it's a waste of money. The truth is that 90 out of 100 people might throw your mailing in the bin, but if 5 people look at it, 5 more read it and one of those 5 buys from you - you may well have a highly profitable mailing. Last week I sent 400 emails to potential clients, and got 37 replies. That's to say that 37 people actually read my mail, and I got exactly 9 new clients as a result. Now what would happen if I doubled my mailings next week? I could expect from 800 mails, about 80 replies and maybe 20 sales! And that's easily doable by the way, because I've done it. But saying that, your mailing may not work ? it depends on what you say, price involved and some products may just not be suited to an email campaign. It's very much a numbers game, but one thing is certain, email is free! You have to enter this knowing that most of your mailings will go unread, but at least it's cheaper than other advertising methods. Large companies like Capital One, know their mailings DO work ? they've spent a fortune fine tuning and testing these campaigns. But just to warn you ? direct mail can fail, and they are the ones, usually, small to medium businesses send out, because they don't understand what they are really doing. If it's done right, it will make your profits increase dramatically, and when it's done badly ? it can eat into a budget, so be very careful! There are 2 types of mailings: Potential Customers Existing Customers If you don't do much mailing ? start doing some now. It's easy to not email out of fear of upsetting clients, scared of bombarding them with too many mails, thus losing a sale. That's crazy and it's to nobodys advantage. Actually, most sales emails are helpful and quite genuine. I was once told "You've got to be mad to not listen to a salesman ? they might have something you need!" So next time you receive a mail or telesales call, consider that it could well be in your favour. And there really is nothing wrong with sending out 2 mails each week.. So don't worry. I have noticed that many clients are sitting with 1000's of email addresses ? yet they aren't contacting these clients. That's like throwing money down the drain. They could say NO, then again they could say YES to your product. Imagine if a further 10 bought your services next week ? how do you feel about not emailing those customers now? Try it today?.. Think of something you can offer these customers, you must have something you can offer! Even something for free. Send them a letter and measure the response. If it works, mail them and measure the results. If it keeps on working, keep on doing it! The best email is a personal communication with a customer you know. It may read as follows: Dear----------- I wanted to follow up after your purchase of (your product) on (date) to see how it's working out for you and to thank you for your continuing business. If you have any questions or concerns, please let me know by return email, or feel free to call my private phone number. Many Thanks Regards Mr X Your customer is going to open, read and appreciate an email like this. They may even respond to it, and even if they don't, it doesn't look like spam or bug anyone. And they probably will appreciate that. ------------------------------...Give it a go ? you'll be surprised. Regards Christopher Given www.busigen.com
|
