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The Marketing Rx B/Vlog

MARKETING, WHERE DO I START?

11/29/2017

1 Comment

 
If you’re like most business owners, marketing can be quite overwhelming because there’s so much to wrap your head around and keep up with. And then when you throw in the fact that you have HR, accounting and a variety of other daily duties to take care of, marketing can easily be placed on the back burner. We’re here to lay out the essentials so from this point on, you’ll have a resource to help guide you and keep you on track.
​ 
Facts to Remember
  1. You may have the most amazing product or service in the world, but if your target audience doesn’t know about it and you’re not marketing to them, they’ll never know it exists.
  2. Marketing isn’t complicated, keep it simple.
  3. Keep focused and don’t spread your marketing efforts too thin or else it will become ineffective.
Steps to Follow
  1. Make sure your product or service is viable and profitable
  2. Know your target audience(s) who aligns with those products or services, inside and out. Talk to them so you know how to reach them.
  3. Develop a brand that resonates and captures the attention of your target audience(s)
  4. Determine your bandwidth that can be devoted to your marketing program
  5. Decide how much time both you and your team members can devote to marketing each week
  6. Schedule the time you can devote to marketing on your calendar
  7. Find a mentor, colleague, or stakeholder that will hold you accountable and offer an objective eye
  8. Create your marketing plan for a given quarter, season or year
  9. Do this by prioritizing your business goals
  10. Align the target audience(s) associated with each business goal
  11. Determine how you can best reach those specific people so you can achieve the goal
  12. As an example, if social media is a strategy, use only social media platforms your target audience uses
  13. Create an action plan specifically for each marketing strategy including how to track each strategy’s effectiveness
  14. Create a “file” where you can keep emails, photos, and details regarding this strategy that is easily accessible
  15. Map out the steps needed to complete those strategies, those responsible and specific due dates
  16. Remember, you have a marketing production crew in your back pocket, aka your smart phone, so use it daily
  17. Document the entire project so you don’t need to recreate the wheel in the future, always keeping in mind how you can repurpose photos, videos and other content you create so it can be used in other ways
  18. Once a week, unplug and go into airplane mode to evaluate your progress and step into your customers’ shoes (speak with them if possible) to confirm you’re on the right track
  19. Evaluate your programming and promotions to determine their effectiveness and document this information
  20. Schedule regular “walk-throughs” or audits of your customer experience to ensure you’ve created a path for them to get what they want and make their lives easier and happier
1 Comment

STOP! DON'T SPEND ANY MORE ON MARKETING UNTIL YOU READ THIS...

10/7/2016

0 Comments

 
On a regular basis, we listen as new and seasoned business owners share how they ran a couple print or radio ads to help generate foot traffic and tell the world they’re open for business. And the story usually ends with the fact that they weren’t able to determine whether these marketing strategies worked or not, but they do know that they’ve now spent too much of their marketing budget. In today’s article, we want to provide you the steps to ensure that you’re properly approaching your marketing strategy before your extra time and budget is gone.
 
In our write ups, we like to give you the bottom line on best practices and when it comes to “getting your name out there,” there are ten essential steps to follow first. Keep in mind that we’re making the assumption that you’ve already conducted a decent amount of market research as well as brand development. With that said, here we go:

  1. What are your business goals and milestones you want to reach?
  2. In many cases, sales and foot traffic are top choices, so you’ll need to determine your core product(s) and/or services(s)
  3. Who is your target audience for these products and services?
  4. Write down all the places, activities, hobbies, likes & dislikes and the overall day to day lifestyle that would be part of a typical week for your target audience
  5. Create a realistic marketing budget (don’t worry, a lot can be done with close to nothing)
  6. Figure out which marketing vehicles will help you reach your target audience during a given week, i.e. events, strategic partnerships, advertising, PR, etc.
  7. Form a marketing plan that outlines the specific marketing vehicles you’ll be using, which months you’ll use them and how much they’ll cost
  8. Investigate each of these strategies to price them out to ensure your estimated costs are realistic
  9. For each marketing vehicle, create an action plan where you drill down into the details of what needs to happen to make them work efficiently and effectively
  10. Always build a tracking component into your marketing to determine what’s working and what isn’t
 
We realize this involves some work, but your efforts will certainly pay off. You may very well determine that your marketing can reach your target audience with very little money, which could be contradictory to the cold calls you receive on a regular basis. And one of our top tips is to make sure you’re always tracking your marketing, just be sure your employees are doing this for each and every customer. If you need assistance developing your own marketing program, we would enjoy the opportunity to simplify this process for you, provide an objective perspective and help make great things happen for your business.  

We have a variety of resources we've developed too, so be sure to check out our line up as this component of our Small Biz Marketing Rx program gives you a completely free way to get real results in true DIY style.    
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    As founder of The Root Group, Bryce Root has a sincere passion for helping small business owners via his 20+ years of diverse marketing experience.


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