As mobility and the speed and availability of connectivity continue to increase, local search is becoming much easier and much more efficient to accomplish online, rather than having to sift through the yellow or white pages. Besides that, they are adding value to their services through partnerships, user reviews and ratings, and more.
So is the Phonebook dead or nearing its death? What online services do you get the best return from? Please leave your comments below or on our Facebook page.
Welcome to another edition of 5 Question Friday! Today I sit down with Ken Zakovich, WestmorelandFlint Creative Director, to discuss brands that inspire him, the creative process, keeping up with changes in the advertising world and life outside of work including birding and playing guitar. Enjoy!
In the ever competitive world of business, companies are constantly seeking bigger, better, faster, more. Trouble is, many companies lose focus while trying to attract more business and more customers. You can see the evidence bleeding from marketing materials every day.
While clamoring for more customers, some marketers make the grave mistake of trying to appeal to a wider audience by broadening their marketing message rather than zeroing in on what truly differentiates their business from the competition – all the while diluting their message and brand perception along the way.
You’ve seen and heard it before, “For all your [so and so] needs,” or the exhaustive list of specifications or services. What do you suppose sticks in the mind of the consumer when they are exposed to such generalizations? Absolutely nothing.
So what do you need to do to get your marketing message to stick? Find the “one thing” that sets you apart from the competition, zero in on it and make it the absolute focus of every aspect of your business. If you are a low-cost supplier selling low price, completely own the “low price” category in everything you do. If you believe your service differentiates your company, let “service” prove itself by being at the center of everything you do. Own the category so hard that no one else can duplicate what you do.
The key here is brand differentiation. Do one thing and do it well. Take Bobcat Company for example. Focused on providing the toughest, most reliable compact equipment and tools, everything they communicate is “tough and agile.” You will never see Bobcat market a BIG piece of equipment. Or how about Disney theme parks? Completely focused on “family fun” (When was the last time you saw Disney LIST all their theme park rides vs. Six Flags? You won’t!) And there are local examples all around you – the furniture company that has touted “best selection” for the past 20 years, the restaurant that serves “open pit steaks,” the broadcast station that is the “region’s new source.”
As a marketer, if you want to truly grow your business, broaden your appeal by differentiating your brand CLEARLY in the marketplace. Choose what sets you apart, then live, breathe and communicate it through everything you do. Don’t muddy your marketing materials with a mix of messages. Say ONE thing, say it loud and clear and say it often. By giving customers fewer things to process you’ll be giving them more information than ever before.
What local brands can you point to as great examples of clear brand differentiation? Or others that you think might be failing at differentiation? It’s always great to learn by observing others.
Grand Forks, ND (Vocus/PRWEB ) March 16, 2010 — A public policy news and information website published by Praxis Strategy Group of Grand Forks, N.D., has been named as a top site for 2010.
Planetizen, recognized as one of the world’s most popular urban planning websites, included newgeography.com on its 2010 list of the best planning, design and development websites for 2010. The sites named to the annual list are said to represent some of the top online resources for those interested in planning, design and development.
Websites are nominated by Planetizen readers and staff and judged against a common set of criteria including content, design and usability.
In citing NewGeography.com, judges commended its fair and balanced content, even though it sometimes goes against the grain of popular thinking among planners: “It was inevitable that certain voices that reject the current belief system of urban planning – people like Wendell Cox, Joel Kotkin, and Michael Lind – would band together. What wasn’t inevitable is that their collaboration would be readable, fair, and dare we say, balanced. With a bent towards the libertarian, Kotkin and crew cover urban issues, housing, politics and the suburbs with a hefty dose of demographics and GIS maps.”
Launched in 2008, NewGeography.com includes analysis and commentary on economic development, demographics, economics, politics and other public policy issues. It features writing and research from authors across the U.S., Europe, China and New Zealand and publishes an annual “Best Cities for Job Growth” in partnership with Forbes.com.
Flint Interactive is proud to announce the addition of Jason Lotzer and Ashley Jauss to the team.
Jason graduated from the Minnesota State University, Moorhead in 1998 with a degree in Graphic Communications. His career began as a graphic designer in 1996, primarily in the realm of print but that quickly changed in 1998 when he immersed himself in the web. With many years of experience in the digital world, Jason joined Flint Interactive as an interactive designer on March 1, 2010 and will be located in our Fargo office.
Ashley, also joined the Flint Interactive team on March 1, 2010, as the fourth interactive web developer. Ashley graduated from the College of St. Scholastica in December of 2006 and worked in Minneapolis for a couple of years before making the jump to Duluth.
Please join me in welcoming both Jason and Ashley to our family!
From left to right: Alissa Pesta, Andy Ganoe, Jon Seykora, Jan Christenson, Nicole Sandman, Mikaela Krenzen, Jenny Barthen, Jason Lotzer and Ashley Jauss. Missing: Jennifer Strickler (she was taking the photo).
Growing your small business can be a difficult and frustrating process. No matter how talented, experienced, or proficient you are as a leader, business development may not be one of your core skills.
So, how do you develop the business leadership skills necessary to grow your business and achieve the success you envisioned when you started the business? You need a growth strategy. Here are a few ideas:
Leveraging. Every leader should look for ways to leverage everything they do in multiple ways. If you have a satisfied customer, they are one of your best resources for new business. Simply ask them “who else do you think would benefit by using our product?”
Relationship-building. Relationships are key to growth. Build high-trust, high-integrity relationships with everyone you do business with – clients, vendors, bankers, colleagues, alliances, etc.
Clarity. A key business leadership skill is clarity. Clarify what your company truly is and what you want to accomplish. Clarify job functions, performance metrics, ethics and more. Defining these and a multitude of other factors that will impact performance and growth.
Infrastructure. Many small business leaders overlook this critically important aspect of doing business. They manage by the checkbook method, thinking, “if there is money on the checkbook, I must be doing ok.” But if you don’t plan your growth, and measure against your goals, how will you know where you are headed? Your infrastructure must include goals, budgets and planning at a minimum. Measure everything that you can so you can notice improvements as your small business grows. To help, hire the best people you can afford in key measurement areas such as accounting, finance, sales leadership, manufacturing and all front line personnel
Business Development. Everyone is responsible for business development. Everyone is a salesperson… regardless of their job title. If you know the challenges that keep your clients up at night, all that remains is to provide your clients with solutions that will work for them. That is, after all, what a growth strategy is. Identify the problem; provide the solution that will meet or exceed your client’s expectations and your business will grow.
Ask for expert advice
As a small business owner, you have vast resources available to you to assist in developing and growing your business:
The Small Business Administration (SBA) website has a section that provides proven Strategies for Growth. They also have a vast library of resources for you as a small business owner to learn from and utilize. Let them help you.
You small business lender is also a great resource for you as you develop and grow your small business. They have probably seen it all and can give you great ideas on how to expand and grow with the right financing products for your business.
Always keep in mind your small business lender has a vested interest in your success. There is no need to fear the client/lender relationship as they can be of great help to you and an ally in you realizing your dream.
To your success.
This article was written by Praxis Strategy Groupand originally appeared in Small Business Connect, an online resource for small business from Alerus Financial. For more information, go to Alerus Small Business Connect.
Praxis Strategy Group is a partner with the Flint Group
The Center for the Study of Government and the Individual will be co-sponsoring the Annual School of Public Affairs Leadership Conference at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs on Thursday, April 8, 2010. The Center will be bringing in David Osborne and Delore Zimmerman.
David Osborne is the author of the best seller “Reinventing Government” and co-author of “The Price of Government: Getting the Results We Need in an Age of Permanent Fiscal Crisis.” He also served as senior advisor to Vice President Gore.
Delore Zimmerman, Ph.D., President of Praxis Strategy Group, is a strategy consultant with twenty-five years of domestic and international experience working with local and regional economic development groups, businesses and universities. He is the publisher of http://www.newgeography.com/, a website devoted to analyzing and discussing the places where we live and work. As a researcher he has been awarded eight Small Business Innovation Research awards to develop leading-edge practices and tools for use by development professionals and community leaders to work more effectively with entrepreneurs and to build competitive, innovation based economies in the global, networked economy.
The conference will be held on Thursday, April 8, 2010, 8:00am to 5:00pm.
To reserve a spot in the conference, please contact Jane Muller, jmuller@uccs.edu or 719.255.4093.
Today Andy and Alissa Pesta sit down to discuss her tenure at Flint Interactive and the Flint Group, staying on top of new trends and advancements on the web and what the future of digital marketing looks like. We also talk about her family, working remotely and coming back to work after her first child.
I’ve been there, about to present our communication audit findings to the client team and truly understanding how an IRS auditor must feel. But unlike the dreaded IRS audit, a communications audit is better compared to a complete physical at a doctor’s office where routine health indicators are reviewed and tested to determine “how you’re doing” or where improvement is needed. That may make you cringe as well. But the opportunity to take the time to examine how well you are communicating with key audiences is an investment in your organization’s future, and just like an annual physical, it is a smart investment.
What is a communications audit?
A communications audit is a method of research, where we focus on the process of communications. We look at the exchange of information between you and your audience (think internal or external, customers or members, potential customers, those who influence your audience, volunteers, employees and more) and examine how well you are achieving your communications goals in reaching each critical audience. We define the audit scope based on the audit objectives; some have included interviews with key audiences or review of media coverage, others focus solely on advertising and communications materials.
The hardest part is getting started
Actually, the most painful part of the audit is the process of pulling together representative samples and lists of all audience touch points, both internal and external. Once you strip away the different silos, department ownership or rationalization that can surround communication and advertising, and review all your communication collectively, you’ll discover consistency or inconsistency, strengths and weaknesses, gaps and opportunities.
This process also helps you analyze how effectively you’re telling “your story” and most importantly, can serve as both a benchmark and a roadmap for your future. Just yesterday, I read a client’s 2010 communication plan that was developed from our 2009 audit findings.
What about your company or organization? Do you cringe at the thought, or are you ready for a communications audit?
Marketing communications, in simplest terms, helps put a customer or prospect in the right frame of mind to buy. It can educate, inform, advise, recommend, encourage, scare and influence a prospect, but it cannot make them buy. At some point someone or something (e-commerce for example) has to close the sale. A recent presentation by Datacore Marketing describes this as “The Last Four Feet.”
The Last Four Feet represents the final steps that a customer takes as they approach the sales counter (or online checkout). Without question this is the most important part of the process. Can you close the sale?
Marketers place great emphasis on campaigns to the end-user or customer. Significant, sometimes huge budgets are invested to help put the target audience in the right frame of mind to buy. But too often, after marketing communications has done its job with the customer, the process falls down at the sales counter.
Picture a customer who receives direct communications on your product, investigates online, reads the reviews, talks to their friends and decides “I want to buy.” They enter the “store” to purchase, approach the checkout, and the salesperson (or process) says, “Have you seen the features on alternative product #2 over here?” At that point, in the last four feet, all of your marketing communications efforts are shot down by one missed communication.
So how do you avoid losing your customer at the sales counter? Here are four sure-fire steps that will help with “the last four feet.”
1) Educateyour sales channel first – before any external customer communications begin. Be sure products and processes are easily understood (this applies to e-commerce too).
2) Let the channel in on the process early, ask for feedback and implement suggestions that will strengthen the relationship with the channel. If using e-commerce, be sure to test the checkout process to make sure it is intuitive and without distraction.
3) Involve the channel in the product or campaign roll out. Give the channel an active stake in the process that encourages their engagement. A kickoff event, an incentive, an interesting (but not burdensome) program.
4) Reinforce the sales process within your marketing communications. Suggest to the customer in your messaging the easiest route to purchase while reinforcing the same “easy route” to the channel audience.
Marketing communications can put the customer in the right frame of mind, but it can’t ring the till by itself. Include a solid channel strategy to make sure your marketing investment isn’t lost at the sales counter.
Have you ever dropped out of a sale at the counter? If so, what could the marketer have done differently?
The professionals at AadlandFlint are always hungry for new marketing trends, techniques or hot topics that we can share with friends and clients. Watch for a regular stream of insightful information – or join in the conversation.
As mobility and the speed and availability of connectivity continue to increase, local search is becoming much easier and much more efficient to accomplish online, rather than having to sift through the yellow or white pages. Besides that, they are adding value to their services through partnerships, user reviews and ratings, and more.
