As a business owner, you have the option of taking several different approaches to handling your Marketing and Advertising. You may choose to handle the responsibility yourself, with the idea that no one understands your business quite the way you do.. You may also consider hiring a full time marketing manager or even assigning the tasks, as they arise, to someone already working within your organization. Consider this… When your business needs plumbing work do you do it yourself? Hire a plumber to be on staff full time? Or ask your accountant to handle it?

Call in the Experts.

Though some advertising and marketing ventures seems simple enough to be handled ‘’in house’’, nothing is as costly as a marketing misfire. Not only may you be sending out the wrong messages, to the wrong markets, but also by the time you catch it, your budget may be in no shape to recover and redirect. The truth is, no one can do the job as effectively and efficiently as someone who lives and breathes the industry everyday. Plus, the added perk of consistent media contacts that will prove to be financially beneficial to your business.

Seeing the forest and the trees.

When you hire a consultant you hire an objective opinion, as well as a fresh point of view. Sometimes a business may lose perspective on itself by being too heavily immersed in the day-to-day operations, and lose itself in the big picture, missing the small details… or vice-versa. Sadly, sometimes a business’s marketing will clearly reflect this. The president of a private jet company’s focus is on the bells and whistles of his fleet. It’s what he sees as important in his view of his business. Inevitably, his marketing may also focus on this portion of his business, ignoring what he is really selling to his potential clients: The feeling and the status of private jets.

If you add another ball, technically it is juggling.

If you, as a business owner, or an employee take on the added tasks of the marketing of the business, attention is being taken from other projects and responsibilities. Inescapably, focus and demands are bound to pull from one and take away from others until something falls to the floor. Consultants are dedicated to one, and only one, portion of your business. Their focus is committed, and they allow you to keep yours where it should be.

The Gumby Factor.

Consultants are very flexible. Immediately ready and available to take on assignments at a moment’s notice. Accessibility to getting a new project off the ground is just a phone call away. On the other hand, trying to hire a new employee specifically to handle your marketing needs takes valuable time to places ads; conduct interviews and then sort through applicants, hoping to find the right person for the job.

The M –Word Money.

When you total up the actual cost of bringing on a new employee, you will most likely find that hiring a consultant is much more cost effective. The hourly rates may seem to favor a full time employee, but when you factor in employee benefits, training time, vacation/sick time, 401(k), the added overhead involved in situating a new employee, and the sheer fact that you may be paying full time wages for something that may not need full time attention, the cost effectiveness will fall in favor of a consultant. Which bring us to….

The C- Word Commitment.

Hiring a full time employee is a commitment. And bringing on an employee to handle a special marketing project, or set up an initial marketing plan, may in the long run leave you scrambling to find a new project or position for that employee. Or worse yet, you find yourself paying a full time marketing director to do basic maintenance. Hiring a consultant requires no long-term commitment. When a consultant completes a project, they have the flexibility to move into whatever position you need them, from quarterly analysis, to basic maintenance, to completely out of the picture, but on the sidelines when you’re ready to take a new step forward.

"There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still." -Franklin D. Roosevelt

Mary Ellen Martelli
MareMax Consulting
http://www.maremaxconsulting.com
Mount Laurel NJ 08054
609-413-0248
Advertising - Marketing - Public Relations - Web Design & Content

What about me? Are you asking yourself this question? If not you should be. Don’t wait until you are in crisis mode when you are losing your job or your business before you think "what about me?"

Here are a few points to consider.

No one is indispensable. What’s your best option to make yourself essential?
What would happen if you lost your job?
Are you expecting a raise this year? How much?
What would happen if you were asked to locate?
What would you do if you suddenly decide you can’t stand your job anymore?

Get the picture. Keep these considerations in mind and put yourself in the forefront of this thought process.

So what about you? Are you waiting for the ax to fall or are you sitting on the sidelines letting events carry you along? Are you actively pursuing avenues that will help you manage your destiny rather than it managing you?

I’m always amazed but the number of colleagues who come out of the woodwork when they get in trouble. I have been providing them with a game plan for years, but it has fallen on deaf ears. When the going gets rough they then call for help.

The best advice I can give is to be proactive. Get a routine established in self- promotion before it’s too late. Plan a self promotion activity every week so that you constantly focus on your visibility.

Here are some self promotion ideas for consideration:
Write an article.
Make a speech.
Write a press release.
Enter a competition.
Get an interview.
Start an e-zine.
Get a personal website.
Pick up the phone and call old contacts.
Send out a clever "how are" you card.
Give a testimonial.
Attend a conference.

Does that give you enough ideas? Every week you should schedule at least one of the above activities. The summer is an ideal time to get started because work is a little less hectic. Here’s a hint. Use the dog days of summer as a theme. Have a lot of fun with this one with great cards, funny dog cartoons and other creative ideas.

FYI: Dog Days is the name for the sultriest period of summer, from about July 3 to Aug. 11. Named in early times by observers in countries bordering the Mediterranean, the period was reckoned as extending from 20 days before to 20 days after the conjunction of Sirius (the dog star) and the sun.

So happy dog days of self promotion. Get busy because the next time I hear from you I don’t want to learn you have "gone to the dogs."

JoAnn Hines’ specialty is PACKAGING PEOPLE. Whether you want to be paid more, you just lost your job, or you want to progress in the one you have, Ms. Hines advice and expertise can help you transform your personal brand. She can show you how to package yourself and make your brand a hot commodity. It’s easy once you know the ropes and begin to utilize her insider’s secrets. She shows you step by step how to increase your visibility, credibility and marketability with easy to use tutorials and templates.

It is time to get started "Packaging Yourself." Email me the Chief People Packager @ pkgcoach@aol.com

When you read the newspaper, do you read advertisements as closely as you read news stories? Do you believe advertising as readily as you believe news stories? I don’t and neither do most people I know.

Because we have advertising shoved at us from every angle we tend to ignore it, but we pay attention to news or public interest stories. Not only do we pay more attention, we also are more likely to believe news stories than your basic advertisements. When your news is published either online, on the radio, TV or in newspapers people automatically feel that since it’s being published it must be worthy information.

I read somewhere that “Advertising is what you pay for. Publicity is what you pray for”. This is so true. You can spend a fortune on advertising and yes, it will bring you some traffic but traffic is only part of what you need and it stops when the advertising stops.

What you really need is PUBLICITY - free publicity so that your information reaches your potential customers and people will begin to get to “know” you. When people see and hear your name over and over they will begin to think of you as an expert in your field. They will trust your judgment and buy your products or the products you endorse. They will also recommend you to others which in turn cause a chain reaction and the process starts all over again. One of the best ways to get free publicity is by writing articles and press releases then submitting them to the third party sites and newspapers for publishing. Plus with a price like FREE, why not take full advantage of it?

The most important thing to remember when writing news is to write a STORY not a sales pitch. Don’t you hate it when you ask someone about a product and instead of them telling you what it is and how you could benefit from it they go into this “elevator speech” about its features and why it’s a good product (“it comes with this and that, plus as an added bonus you get….”) Please! If I wanted to hear a sales pitch I’d turn on the TV.

Sales people call it “selling features instead of benefits” but among news editors this is called, “selling the store, not the story” and it’s the WRONG way to get your news published.

You should be trying to sell a STORY connected to the product instead of trying to sell the product itself. Why you ask? Because people love stories! We’ve been listening to and telling stories for centuries and we will continue to for a long time to come. People will pay attention if they think they’re going to hear a good story but will turn away if you give them a sales pitch.

By writing like a storyteller, you will get free publicity which will increase your traffic and your sales.

Melody Spier is a work at home mom of two teens. She is the owner of Ballyhoo Virtual Services a Virtual Assistant business catering to women in business. She specializes in business marketing and promotion with article and press release submissions, blog maintenance as well as many other services.

You can contact Melody by visiting http://www.BallyhooVA.com or by email Mel@BallyhooVA.com

Ever had one of those conversations where you wondered what the topic was and the only word you could identify was “I”?

As a marketer, I often recommend marketing yourself. However, there comes a point, rather quickly in any conversation when the other person tires of hearing “I”. So, the problem is…

How’s the weather over there? Is there life after “I”? Can we change the topic? Is there someone else who wishes to speak now? Check please?

If the only person you are qualified to discuss is yourself, your listeners will be heading for the exit rather quickly. Your self-marketing won’t get you very far if you can’t talk about anything or anyone else.

Self-marketing works best when you learn to focus on your listener. Ask questions. Encourage your “audience” to tell you about themselves. Offer solutions for their problems. Focus on them.

So, how do you sell yourself? By promoting, motivating, and encouraging the other person, you will find they are attracted to you.

While it’s important to be sure they get your name (so they remember who you are and what you do), it’s more important they know you have their name and know what they do. When you contact them later for networking purposes, they’ll know you were sincere.

Copyright © 2005 - Jan Verhoeff

Jan Verhoeff recognizes opportunity for advancement, personal marketing, and networking in most any location. Putting your name on the market, being able to achieve your goals, and knowing how to reach your potential is brand performance. Brand your market with eBiz Brand Performance.

Part one looked at telesales, yellow pages and other directories, using mailing lists and advertising in local papers and journals. In this article I will be considering direct selling techniques, leaflet drops and internet advertising.

1. Direct Approach

You could simply cold call on a company and hope you can get to talk to somebody. My experience of this is that it is quite a daunting task and by and large relatively unsuccessful in gaining new business. A lot of time, effort and fuel can be wasted as well as damage to ones morale which could take quite a severe battering as you experience one knockback after another. Not a technique to be recommended. However with regard to builders cleans it can be successful. What this entails is visiting any building site and passing your details, normally in the form of a business card on to the site manager. You may not be successful on that site but invariably companies will hang on to your details and may contact you at some time in the future.

2. Leaflet drops

If you are targeting domestic customers then these can be quite successful at increasing your client base. They are not to be recommended for commercial companies for reasons discussed in the first article. So I will presume that you wish to target the domestic sector. In which case you have to design a very professional looking leaflet, preferably in full colour and have it commercially printed. Do not try and print them off on your office or home printer because they will look less professional. The second and most important element in achieving success with leaflets is to target your areas very carefully. Do not necessarily aim for the most prosperous areas with the most expensive houses in, these in our experience do not provide the rewards that you might imagine they would. The middle income families are the most rewarding in terms of generating new customers. Having targeted your areas and had your 10 or 20 thousand leaflets printed use the services of specialist company to carry out the delivery for you. Under no circumstances consider doing it yourself! If you don’t believe me then try it and you will soon find out why you need professional help to deliver them. Then all you have to do is sit back and wait for the calls to come in. We have in the past worked on a ratio of one in two hundred producing a customer provided the target area has been wisely chosen.

3. Internet Advertising

This could command several articles by itself, but for the purposes of this article it outperforms all other forms of advertising. So get a website, promote it, constantly update it and watch the referrals pour in! You could employ the services of a website designer and an SEO expert or you could do it yourself. How will be left to another article in the future.

David Andrew Smith is the owner of http://www.wesparkle.co.uk a contract cleaning company who specialise in the care and maintenance of natural stone flooring such as marble and limestone.

As a graphic designer, I work with clients that range in size from a few people to tens of thousands. If you are reading this, you probably work for an organization somewhere in between. No matter what size your company is, you need a cohesive system that simplifies marketing and communications while building your brand. Implementation is always more difficult in large companies — there are more people who need to understand the importance of branding standards, more people who are resistant to change and more people who really don’t care about any of it. It’s easier to get all five employees in on the same page than all 5,000.

Small or large, high quality consistent design is imperative to the success of a company. Actually, I have seen great success with poor-quality consistent design. I was recently in Las Vegas, and for those of you who have never been, Las Vegas is at once a creative Mecca and cesspool. On every sidewalk, every ten feet, someone in a smock is handing out cards. The cards are poorly printed, cheap, loud and ugly. With a photo of an excessively proportional, mostly naked woman on the front and an 800 number, I bet these cards get a higher response rate than all the design work I’ve ever done and will ever do in my life. At the other extreme is the incredibly well designed digital wine list at Aureole Restaurant, a posh restaurant at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino. Customers use a tablet PC with a stylus to touch through wine characteristics (red or white, dry or sweet, cheap or the cost of a yacht, etc.). Rather than an ungainly wine manuscript that would include Aureole’s 10,000 bottles, the process is efficient, beautiful and fits perfectly into the restaurant’s style and theme. Whether quick and dirty or slick and high-tech, both systems work for their specific audiences (which, only in Vegas, is the same audience).

With marketing and communications, your goal is to make sure everything that leaves your company is consistent. When Sally in HR is sending business e-mails with smiley faces in a kid print font with a quote from Family Circus in her signature and she works for a chain of funeral homes, there is a problem. Or if Jim the football freak in sales is signing off all his proposals "Are you ready for some football!" on paper pre-printed with the face of his favorite quarterback, his corporate accounting firm really needs to review its communication standards. In a more subtle example, if one employee sends out a formal proposal printed on letterhead in a company folder with her business card, and her cubicle neighbor prints a proposal on paper from the nearby fax machine, staples it and sticks it in a manila envelope, both are weakening their company brand. The strength of your brand relies on consistency — you’d be better shape if everyone sent out proposals on fax paper.

The following list aims to help you get organized and save time and money. Use it to conduct an inventory of your marketing and communication materials. You may have a killer brochure but never thought about your company e-mails. You may have letter templates in Word but no easy way to communicate with your customers or donors on a regular basis. You may have gorgeous letterhead that you send out with a flash presentation on CD, but you are missing digital letterhead for letters you send via e-mail with the flash presentation. You may have your bases covered or you may discover some gaps. The list should help you develop a comprehensive, efficient marketing and communication system.

MARKETING & COMMUNICATION CHECKLIST

Print Marketing Materials

• Folder: Cohesive way to hold all materials. Includes no specific information. Can be a simple two-pocket or a funky plastic envelope.
• General Brochure: Describes services/products in a general way; is easy to distribute.
• Product/program specific brochures, product sheets or postcards: Easy to reproduce, update and change.

Digital Marketing Materials

• Website: Looks like your print marketing materials, easy to update, keep it clean, update it often.
• E-newsletter: A cheap and efficient way to stay in contact with your public on a regular basis. Have recipients’ permission, have a professional HTML newsletter template designed and update the content each month.
• Product Demo: A digital presentation you can e-mail or mail on a DVD (like a little company movie). Staff at a sales meeting can use DVD to introduce a new product or service.

Internal Communications

• Internal Newsletter: Can be digital or photocopied or printed. Relax your standards, content includes what employees need to know and what they will enjoy knowing, give employees a forum to voice their own ideas.
• Memos: Use a template consistent with your stationery.

Printed Stationery

• Letterhead
• #10 Envelopes:These are standard envelopes for general correspondence
• Business Cards
• Forms: Invoices, donation forms, order forms
• Printed Notepads: Gives employees a way to insert a quick, informal note on something other than a napkin. Post-its with logo work well, can be used as leave-behinds.
• Fax Forms: Half sheets are fine, use photocopied forms not printed letterhead.
• Blank Cards and Envelopes (with your logo): Great for thank-you notes or reminders
• Window envelopes for Forms
• Large Envelopes: preprinted with logo and address, used to send folder
• Envelope Labels: If you use a lot of different size envelopes, these prevent you from having to preprint multiple envelopes. Preprinted with logo and address, get sheets that can go be printed or handwritten

Digital Stationery

• Letterhead Template: When e-mailing proposals and letters, Word files or PDFs can look like digital versions of your letterhead with your logo and address in the same color and location.
• E-mail Templates: You can design e-mail in most programs (Outlook, Eudora, etc.) Get everyone on the same page with font, color, and signature. Use a custom signature to include a monthly message.

©Artifex Design Inc.

Audrey Nezer is an award-winning graphic designer in Seattle, Washington. Her company, Artifex Design, creates playful, edgy and effective marketing and communication materials for companies and organizations throughout the United States. Visit http://www.artifex.net to learn more (and win a prize!)

The recent “Got Milk?” TV spot produced by Goodby, Silverstein & Partners has been under fire by Major League Baseball for making light of the steroid conflict within the league. The scene opens upon a player who was pulled from the game for “testing positive for a performance-enhancing substance.” The substance turns out to be a carton of milk found within the player’s locker. Major League Baseball claims the ad is a cruel mockery of a serious problem within the sports sphere, but Jeff Goodby suggests that their parody is “goofy enough so that people didn’t get upset.”

Milk is in universal demand while MLB is working to please and maintain a rather tempestuous audience, otherwise known as fanbase. It is no secret that MLB has taken a hit with the exposure of steroid scandals. Without a doubt, baseball’s entire history has been littered with scandal, whether it be drugs, gambling or even fixing the World Series. The brand of MLB ebbs and flows every year, but somehow still manages to sell tickets and fill stadiums. In fact, sales are actually up in 2005, boasting an overall season record attendance of nearly 75 million people. So why is Tim Brosnan, the VP for business for baseball, up in arms? What does this milk commercial say to the customer, and does MLB have good reason to protest?

Famous “Got Milk” ads continue to appear on TV and in the most widely read publications. Various celebrities from multiple industries sport the “now cool” milk mustache while striking a sexy pose for the camera. The campaign was an immediate success, and a seemingly staple consumer product now had a face, a personality and, more importantly, a brand position. From a brand perspective, milk most certainly has permission to produce this form of advertising. In addition, Major League Baseball needs to recognize the healthy, rejuvenated exposure it receives from this “parody” ad.

You can draw a couple conclusions from this ad. First, that Milk has deliberately chosen Major League Baseball as a positive marketing vehicle during the MLB play- offs. Regardless of the parody or face value of the commercial, the TV viewer immediately connects with baseball; it becomes top of mind during a very crucial time period in the baseball season. The viewer thinks about baseball before he even sees milk.

Using something as popular and powerful as MLB is actually taking a risk for milk. Association can actually even be a mistake for the advertised brand. For example, Napster currently has a commercial where an iPod is seen as the object of focus before Napster’s logo even appears on the screen. Directly positioned against the iPod, Napster makes a large promotional mistake by even showing the iPod on the screen during their ad. milk, in this case, is certainly promoting baseball rather than discouraging it.

Secondly, milk has gathered enough brand muscle to put itself in the realm of sports while being “funny and cool.” For once, Budweiser could not have done it any better. Sports teams never refute a silly beer ad that may or may not reflect poorly upon the sport (and its fans) because “it’s beer, and it’s cool.” If Major League Baseball has an issue with a beverage, they should go after the alcohol served in all of the stadiums that cause injuries, drunk driving and improper fan conduct.

Major League Baseball should not take offense to this ad. It certainly was not meant to target Major League dissenters and to take shots at the league’s current steroid debacles; it was created to both promote the use of the product for athletes, contribute to the October play-off hype and to use the performance enhancing drugs as commercial foil for milk, “the real thing.” Similar to the physical characteristics of the product itself, milk can only aid in the strengthening of the brand of Major League Baseball.

Molly Sunderdick
Brand Strategist
Stealing Share Inc

The concept behind the Holiday Inn Express brand certainly should be “smart.” Customers are supposed to feel an increased sense of intelligence after staying at Holiday Inn Express because they have recognized and capitalized upon good quality for a great price. With the reputation of Holiday Inn’s quality for reasonable prices backing the brand, Holiday Inn Express should have a win-win status in the mindset of the consumer and should also boost the efficacy of the Holiday Inn parent brand. Does the current messaging for Holiday Inn Express accomplish this status? We think not.

Many brands use messaging that makes the customer feel smart and as though he has made the right choice. Wal*Mart and Target are examples of brands that ensure the customer that if he shops at their stores; he is avoiding the embarrassment of overpaying and not finding what he wants/needs. Customers not only like to know that their purchases matter; they like to know that their choices matter. Brands that give customers real affirmation that they have “done the smartest thing” will succeed. This affirmation must be evident through effective brand execution, which also includes marketing and advertising. The message must be both clear to the customer and clearly shown by the brand.

Does Holiday Inn Express have a sure-fire brand message? Yes. Does Holiday Inn Express convey and execute this message properly? According to our brand model at Stealing Share, it comes up a short. In fact, if you read how the “Stay Smart” campaign began, the brand is more superficial than it even appears. According to customer questionnaires conducted before the campaign, the two reasons why customers felt more savvy for staying at an HIE were free breakfast and free local calls. Perhaps these two elements created a little more of an advantage for HIE over other limited-service establishments, but these kind of table stakes are not what fuels real brand. Clearly the right questions were not asked. The customer’s connection to the brand should go deeper than cinnamon rolls.

Furthermore, the commercials for the “Stay Smart” campaign contribute to the shallow continuum of brand execution for HIE. For example, one commercial opens on a group of scientists hovering around a microscope, observing a strain of the Ebola virus. The man standing in front of the microscope explains the characteristics of the virus and proceeds to knock the sample off of the table, assuring the group that it was not airborne. When his colleague asks him how long he has been studying the virus, the man responds, “Well, I’m not actually a scientist. But I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.”

Several other commercials followed in a similar pattern. One commercial showed a man who had not graduated past the seventh grade winning Jeopardy because he stayed in a HIE the night before. While the commercials are humorous and borderline ridiculous, they demonstrate a rather narrow interpretation of the brand. Although the commercials are effective for short-term brand awareness and recognition, this brand execution is overall unsatisfactory because the customer will not consider the brand a serious option. If anything, the brand has become more of a joke among consumers because of the blatantly ignorant people portrayed as customers in the commercials. The brandface, or the customer’s perception of himself when he uses the brand, is not one of intelligence. In fact this brandface mocks intelligence rather than reinforcing it. This failure to execute is more at the fault of brand management than advertising creation. Unfortunately, in all industries, one directly influences the other.

Humorous commercials are memorable and entertaining, but does the brand directly reflect the customer and benefit from this type of execution? In the case of Holiday Inn Express, we argue against this method. The brand execution began with category benefits rather than the belief systems of the customers. The advertising had to rely upon a general campaign focus of “Stay Smart” without knowing what being smart really meant to the target audience. In order to correct this problem, Holiday Inn Express would need to take a few steps back, observe what their customers want/need from their brand and challenge their brand to accommodate these expectations. They would need to get a full outside-in perspective from the market.

The “Stay Smart” campaign was effective in getting HIE’s name out in the market, but that is where the effectiveness remains. Real brand success goes beyond the reiteration of a funny punch line. The “Stay Smart” messaging does not reinforce the brand as a tangible option for the customer. The humor, in this case, actually creates distance between the brand and the customer.

Overall, Holiday Inn is all about quality for a sensible price, and Holiday Inn Express can make that message work as well. Holiday Inn Express needs to convey this message with a little more honesty and customer perspective in order to own real estate in the mind of the customer looking for reasonable hotel accommodations. In short, “smart” needs to be more about intelligence of the customer than the cleverness of the business and its agency.

Molly Sunderdick
Brand Strategist
Stealing Share, Inc

Whether you’re a startup or an established small business, one of the toughest decisions that you will make is how much money you are going to spend on your advertising and marketing communications. Prospects need to be acquainted with you, need to know what you do and how your product or service will benefit them. They need to know where to find you, and how to contact you. But how much should you spend to get that word out?

For companies who are just beginning a communications program, the tendency is to decide where you think you need to advertise, and then spend whatever it takes to get to be there. You rely on your instincts to tell you what communications vehicles you ought to be using, and then price out what it costs to use them. Perhaps you do know your market very well, and you won’t waste a lot of time, money and energy in the wrong places. However, this approach has a definite flaw. You are not taking into account either what your company can really afford, or the dynamics of the marketplace, both of which are important factors that should play strongly into your thinking.

There are other, better ways of determining your marketing budgets, and at least one of them just may fit better into your company’s strategies.

1. Take a look at what your competitors are spending, and establish your budget based on the competitive marketplace. This approach works well when your competitors are around the same size that you are, and when they are pitching the same size accounts that you are pitching. If everyone is spending at a fairly similar rate, then you can be comfortable that you know what the price of entry is into the market. You don’t necessarily need to use the same promotional vehicles that your competition uses, but you do want to try to capture a comparable share of voice in your prospect’s mind. The downside of this approach is that it really cannot be implemented effectively if there are only one or two very big spenders in your particular area. As a smaller business person, you cannot outspend or even match their big budgets, and so you must find a more creative way to gain mindshare among your prospects.

2. Take Approach #1 one step farther, and factor in your relative position in the market compared to the competition. For this method, you still have to be aware of what your competitors are doing, but now you must also acknowledge that you need to be spending somewhat more if you are a late-comer to the market, or if your goal is to improve your market position. Conversely, you can spend less if you are already one of the leaders in your market. Take a look at what the average spend rate is in your product category, matching your geography and target audiences, if you can. Then think about using a dollar range that is 5% plus or minus that average, depending on whether your position is where you would like to be or not. Once again, you can be successful here if everyone in the market is around the same size, and you can be comfortable in their spending patterns.

3. Base your communications budgets on a percentage of your projected gross revenues. Now you are taking into account what kind of monies you will have available for communications, and also you are leaving yourself the flexibility to revise and adjust your budgets as your situation changes. If your program is very successful and sales increase, you can increase your budgets. In slow times, you can cut back, but still maintain a presence in your marketplace. You won’t spend yourself out of business, but you still need to take into account your particular market. The percentage that you will want to work with will vary by industry, but you should think about what it will take to be visible in the advertising media that your industry uses.

Any of the three methods outlined above will bring a sense of discipline to your marketing program. Whether you choose one of these options, or choose to work out a combination of techniques, you can feel more confident that your marketing efforts reflect a prudent business base, and that they integrate well into the personality of your company and the dynamic of your marketplace. And those are ultimately the keys to a successful marketing communications program.

Linda Riley
Linda Riley Media Services

http://lindarileymedia.com

For over ten years, we have been providing our clients with creative media strategies and cost-effective media buys. We don’t stop until you have the best possible program for the lowest possible media costs. For more information, email Linda at lriley@lindarileymedia.com.

Have you mistakenly trained your branding to fall over and play dead? Do you know how to use psychology to create branding that lights up with the voltage of a thousand neon bulbs? And can you play Scrooge with your budget, yet get huge branding mileage? And if so, how? Read on and find out how you can be a Leonardo Da Vinci with your brand!

It’s Raining 3000+ Messages a Day! I have a friend. Let’s call him Eugene. Partly because that’s his real name. Eugene positions himself as a pitch manager. Very effectively, he shows CEOs and executives (who make pitches for new and existing business) how they can use simple steps to get a powerful presentation across.

Eugene had a problem that all of us do. His brand (or his company’s brand) was just one of three thousand new messages that bamboozle us every day through various media. To get his name welded in his customer’s brain was like being on a rocking chair. You feel the movement, but you go nowhere. Eugene’s brand was going places, but it was a slow tedious process.

He needed to get some prime real estate in his customer’s brain really quickly and without the benefit of Daddy Warbucks’ deep pockets. All he had to do was get their attention…

13 Boxes. Does That Get Your Attention? Doesn’t your brain go nuts wanting to ask what is the significance of 13 boxes? That’s the new brand name of Eugene’s company. Can you see that immediately catching your attention? The brain is dying to know the significance of this strange sounding set of words. And it won’t let go till it gets an answer!

In this case the answer is simple. Eugene has a system of 13 boxes in his training process that takes you from the start of your presentation to the final crescendo. The 13 boxes form the structure and the route you must follow to get results.

His company brand could be something like XYZ Training or have his own name (like accountants and law firms do) but why on earth would that excite his customer’s brain?

Another Branding Example called KeyGhost… Here’s another example of vivid psychological branding called KeyGhost. KeyGhost is a powerful but simplistic device that monitors every keystroke on your keyboard. This spy-like product evades the scrutiny of the unobservant eye. A name like KeyGhost immediately ruffles the brain forcing it to stop what it’s doing. Then it drives all its attention in the direction of this unusual sounding product.

This is exactly what you need. Once you’ve got a spotlight-hogging brand name, you start to own a tiny part of your customer’s brain that is yours to keep forever.

Forever Starts With a Trigger… A trigger called Curiosity! Curiosity sounds a deafening red alert in every neuron of the brain. The brain is at its curious best when faced with something that seems irregular or uncommon in some way.

If your brand name doesn’t create a curiosity factor, you’re wasting gobs of money to just trying to cut through the communication clutter. The sooner you get psychological exclamation marks into your brand name, the sooner you get the attention you crave for.

But What If You Have a Boring Company Name That You’re Stuck With? Hey it happens! You inherited the brand name and there’s not much you can do with it without the shareholders going for your jugular. Well don’t fret. First you’ve got to realise that branding is not restricted to just your company name. A process/product that your company has or follows could become bigger than the company itself.

Look For The Power Of Your Processes… With Eugene, his process was sitting under his nose all along. In the case of 13 Boxes, it’s quite easy to draw up a dramatic scenario of how 13 boxes can get you out of your ‘box’ and give you immense confidence in your presentation skills. In his case, though, the process actually defined the company.

With KeyGhost, it’s a cinch to describe how the hardware works just like a ghost and yet link it back to your keyboard and computer.

You can be an accounting firm with a company name like “Boring, Dead and Co.” and still brand your prize-winning process and call it ‘Goodbye Extra Tax’ or ‘Corporate Loopholes.’

Do you think your clients will see you in a better light? You bet they will! So get going, get out and get working on your brand naming canvas right away!

Nonsensical Names Work Too… One Red Dog, The Loaded Hog and other such names flout the basic principles of process and logic. Yet they seem to work powerful imagery on the brand name. It’s the story that goes with it that creates a sense of immortality and distinctiveness around the brand.

Even if you choose to have a name that means very little and can drum up a story to match it, you’ve got yourself a winner. Which place would you rather frequent? ‘One Red Dog’ or ‘Joe’s Café?’ With a vivid name you’ve got the opportunity to weave a story — even a story that you made up all by yourself!

Shazaam! It’s Branding With Drama! Don’t just Mona Lisa your brand. Put some Shakespeare in it as well. Push the limits of your brand name and make it an action tool. For example, 13 boxes could be presented as 13 different boxes placed on a CEO’s desk. Can you visualise the curiosity factor? What if the boxes were different shapes and different colours? Can you see the website name? The t-shirt design? The ad on TV? Can you see how extendable a picturesque brand name can be?

Go ahead; make the effort to Mona Lisa your brand name.

You’ll make Leonardo really proud of you!

Wouldn’t you love to stumble upon a secret library of small business ideas? Find simple, yet electrifying ideas on marketing strategy,psychological tactics and branding. Judge for yourself when you read these small business ideas.