Give Your Business a Jolt!

Common Sense Tips for Successful Marketing [Pt. 2]

Posted by Javier on Feb 27, 2013 in Blog, Email Marketing, eNewsletters, HTML Emails and Templates, Marketing, Marketing Consulting, Marketing Strategy, SEM, SEO, Social Media | 0 comments

2. Targeting and Offers

Success in marketing is driven by these factors. Execute them well and success is yours.

Today I am writing about targeting and finding your “target market”.  This term is used in the industry to specify a group of like-minded individuals that have the highest probability of purchasing your product or service.  A well-defined target market is the foundation of a solid marketing strategy.

Your target market can include prospects, current customers, or most (most likely) both.  To reach those individuals effectively you must define who they are and where they are.

Below are the most common ways to find your audience:

• Internal Database - Where you store contact information on customers and (hopefully) information requesters.  Anytime someone inquires about your product or service, their information should be captured some how.  You can email these folks or develop a direct mail campaign via snail mail.

• Purchase a Mailing List - Renting a targeted mailing list from a reputable list broker can prove to be a smart investment in some marketing campaigns.  You can do this if you need more names than your in-house list can provide you.  Going this route gives you a high degree of accuracy too.  You get access to their addresses for mailing purposes.

• Ads - Purchase ad space in a magazine, newspaper or trade publication that your target audience reads.

• Broadcast Media - Radio and TV if leveraged correctly can be very powerful tools to reach your audience. It can be expensive but again, if used correctly it can prove beneficial.  Think it through and plan!

• Grassroots/Guerilla - Targeting prospects in a specific location  (handing out postcards with specific messaging at an event).

• Optimizing Your Website for Search Engines (SEO) – Write and structure your website content in a way that will allow your site to come up in search engine organic searches. > Click Here for More Info About SEO

• Paid Search - Bid for key words in Google so that you come up at the top when an individual enters the words you bid for.  This is a very simple way of explaining what is called PPC or “Pay Per Click” campaigns.  You pay when someone clicks on the link. > Click Here for More Info About Paid Search

• Social Media - I could write forever telling you how and why you need to be leveraging social media in your business.  Well, for one, it’s free.  You can build an audience and have the ability to reach a large number of people very quickly.   Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Google+ are a few of the many social media platforms that businesses are using as part of their everyday marketing strategy.  If you are not on Facebook, get on Facebook…PERIOD! > Click Here for More Info About the Use of Social Media in Your Business

There are specific strategies, methods and techniques for each one of the above areas and a successful marketing campaign can use one or more of these methods.  Your decision on what method(s) to use would have been determined in your “Planning and Preparation” stage.

I’ll end my post with this…take care of your database.  Nurture it, grow it, and clean it up!  Gather a lot of information about the people you want to reach.  Reach out to them often and not always trying to sell them something.  A perfect place to begin is your current customers and clients.  The more you know about your audience, the better you’ll know how to reach them.  More than “building your brand”, you want to focus on building relationships.

On my next post I will touch on “Offers”

GIVE YOUR BIZ A JOLT TODAY!

Common Sense Tips for Successful Marketing [Pt. 1]

Posted by Javier on Feb 26, 2013 in Blog, Marketing, Marketing Strategy, Time Management | 0 comments

You don’t need to spend big bucks on a fancy agency to produce a highly successful marketing campaigns.

Over the next few weeks I will be sharing with you tips, steps best practices and concepts that will show you how you can achieve your company’s goals…without breaking the budget.  Let’s get going!

 

 

1. PLANNING AND PREPARATION

It starts with a goal.  We’ve all heard it and read it before countless of times.  Why would it be any different here? 

Figure out where your company is and where you want to go.  Begin by thinking beyond the marketing piece itself and really define what you are trying to achieve, what is your ultimate goal?  Articulate it.  Say it out loud.  Write it down. To be more specific, what actions do you want your customers, clients, prospects, leads to take?

Here are a few examples of responses that you might want from your marketing piece:

• Create awareness about a product
• Create awareness about your business
• Generate sales leads
• Increase sales
• Sell a widget
• Increase walk-in store traffic
• Build your mailing list
• Increase web traffic

Next, you will need to crunch some numbers and finalize your budget.  Getting your desired response is, and should be your number one goal, however you need to be realistic about what you can spend.

Also, evaluate where you are already spending money. What is you return on investment on your current marketing expenses? Do you have a mechanism in place that allows you to track and know the effectiveness of your current marketing efforts?

Here’s the good news.  If the campaign is done right, those dollars that you “invest” will come back and more.  Know if your marketing is working or not is vital to it’s success.  Seems logical but you will be surprised how many companies advertise with no clue how effective those marketing dollars are.  You don’t have to throw money at everything. They key is to maximize the effectiveness of that dollar you spend.  Spend a dollar, it brings in 3…that seems like a good return, doesn’t it?  There are also many strategies to reach your audience that are free, we’ll talk about those in future posts.  The key is to be deliberate in your planning and understand that there is no magic formula.  Being patient and your willingness to “adjust your sails” is the right to run a successful marketing campaign.

Once you have identified your goals you can decide the best way to reach your audience.  Who is your audience? Where is your audience?  Will they respond best to an ad in a industry magazine? How about a letter from the President?  An email campaign?  Direct mail?  Newspaper ad?  Social media?

On my next post I will give you some guidance on figuring out the “target” audience for the campaign and how to reach them.

GIVE YOUR BIZ A JOLT TODAY!

Don’t forget to subscribe to the blog simply by entering your email address in the top right hand column of this page.  Also, please “Like” us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter and Pinterest.  Thank you!!!

 

Santana Creative is Open for Business!

Posted by Javier on Jan 24, 2013 in Blog | 0 comments

Santana Creative is marketing and design agency that delivers big business design and marketing services for small business budgets.

Santana Creative may have just launched but we’ve been around for a long time! Over the last 18+ years, we’ve learned a lot about advertising, marketing and consumer mindsets.  A lot of mistakes have been made along the way as well. The most important thing we’ve learned is that customers do, in fact, come first. You hear it all the time. You may have even begun to doubt whether anyone really believes it anymore. Just think back to your last trip to the grocery store. Was the cashier friendly, or just counting the seconds until the next break? How about the groceries? Did they pack your eggs on top of your bread—again? As an antidote to your countless experiences with rude waiters, long lines, and endless “press 4 for customer support” we’re out to prove that the best way to gain a clients trust— and return business—is to get back to basics. Deliver an exceptional product, at a fair price and in a timely manner. And, oh yeah, let’s not forget the smile.

If you have a small business and/or know someone who does, we can help give your biz a jolt! Some of the services we offer are:

Whether it is planning, integrating, executing or measuring your businesses marketing plans and strategies…or all of the above, Santana Creative is there for you.  Feel free to click around and learn what we are all about and what we can do for you.