Monthly Archives: July 2009

Local Marketing Strategies & Tactics

In this episode of Power to the Small Business, we focus the lens on local marketing. What can local and small businesses do to increase the effectiveness of their marketing and advertising. Bob Lauck is owner of Lauck Marketing in Woodway, Texas, just outside of Waco. He joins host Jay Ehret as they discuss marketing ideas for local business. Listen to the show and view the show notes below.

Guest: Bob Lauck, Owner of Lauck Marketing, a local marketing firm in Central Texas.
Length: 25 minutes

Email subscribers and feed readers – Click here to listen if you don’t see the player
You can also download the mp3 file here: Download Power to the Small Business #33 (for personal use only)

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Local Marketing Show Notes

 

Bob Lauck – Lauck Marketing

Customer service is number one. If you have a customer service issue, it doesn’t matter what kind of marketing you’re doing.

Ideas:

  • The owner should take personal interest in customer service. Handle some service calls, call customers.
  • Develop a staff training program. Train on specific situations. Your employees have likely never received the service that you are asking them to give.
  • Take immediate action when a customer has a complaint or issue.

Get some outside advice – Don’t try to do everything yourself. Get a professional opinion on your branding and marketing plan.

Get involved with the new media and social media tools – Make sure you apply them the right way. Social media is largely over-hyped. Put social media marketing into perspective. Remember the lessons of the internet boom and dot.com bust. Social media is at that stage right now.

Ideas:

  • Have a clear strategy
  • Define how it will fit with what you are already doing.

Traditional Media is not dead – It is changing and does have to be used differently than in the past. It can still be a powerful form of marketing on a local level.

Improve your product – Are you presenting your product the same way you always have? Is there a new and improved version of what you’re selling? What is different, remarkable and unusual?

Local community marketing – Getting involved selectively with causes. Make sure you maximize your involvement in those causes. What can you get out of a sponsorship to increase your exposure. Be important in the cause you are involved in and be recognized for your contribution.

Show Links:

Bob Lauck – Lauck Marketing
Register for the free webinar: What is a BRAND and how do I get one?

 

Personal Branding with Peter Montoya

Peter Montoya says there are three types of brands. Corporate branding is where you’re branding a corporate entity or a business. Product and service branding is branding the product or service itself. And then there’s personal branding where there is a human being at the center of the brand. In episode 32 of Power to the Small Business, personal branding expert Peter Montoya gives practical advice on building your personal brand. The author of The Brand Called You defines what a personal brand is, gives us the steps to building a personal brand, and then describes the tools that make up our personal brand identity.

Guest: Peter Montoya, Personal branding expert and author of The Brand Called You.
Length: 22 minutes

Email subscribers and feed readers – Click here to listen if you don’t see the player
You can also download the mp3 file here: Download Power to the Small Business #32 (for personal use only)

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Personal Branding Show Notes

Peter Montoya – Personal Branding Expert

“The easiest way to define a personal brand is your specialization and the relationships you have with people who know you.”

“The number one goal of an identity is to make sure people remember it, can find it, and can refer it.”

“Branding really has two goals. The first goal is to get clients. The second goal is to keep clients.”

Steps to Personal Branding:

  1. Specialize the brand – Refine your products and services to a defined target market.
    – The more competition you have, the more specialized you should be.
  2. Identify the unmet need.

Branding Tools:

A. Website – It’s your credibility building tool. You must have one with at least four basic pages:

  1. Home page – Explains who you are and what you do.
  2. Product or Services pages – Information about your products and services
  3. History / Personnel page – Talks about the people inside your company
  4. Contact page – Map, phone number, address.

B. Logo – The logo has three components. All three combined becomes your coat of arms.

  1. Name
  2. Slogan
  3. Icon

C. Stationary

  1. Business Card
  2. Letterhead
  3. Envelopes
  4. Mailing Label
  5. Note cards

D. Presentation Folder Essential for professional services business with a multiple-step selling process.

E. Personal Brochure – Use as a prospecting tool for a referral-based business. Have one created using a non-standard size.

F. Personal postcard or personal flyer

G. Advertising

H. PowerPoint Presentation

I. Billboard

J. Building signage

Show Links:

Buy the book: The Brand Called You
Peter Montoya’s Website

 

 

Baking, Making, Faking Word of Mouth

Word of mouth may be the most powerful form of marketing. ft that’s true, then you need a plan. John Moore has a recipe that can spark conversation for your business. In this episode of Power to the Small Business we discuss how you can create word of mouth that gets people talking.

Guest: John Moore, WOM Enthusiast at WOMMA, The Word of Mouth Marketing Association, and Marketingologist at Brand Autopsy.
Length: 26 minutes

(Email subscribers and feed readers – Click here to listen if you don’t see the player)
You can also download the mp3 file here: Download Power to the Small Business #31 (for personal use only)

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Word of Mouth Show Notes

John Moore – WOM Enthusiast, WOMMA

“A company’s personality is its best form of advertising.”

“It comes down to five simple words: Remarkable things get remarked about.”

“There are two ways to generate word of mouth. You can bake it, or you can make it. You just don’t want to fake it.”

Bake it: You bake it inside how a company does business every day. It’s a part of a company’s culture.
Make it: Layer it on to the marketing mix of activities your company is doing.
Don’t fake it: Not deceiving consumers and being truthful.

  • 90% of word of mouth happens in the physical world / 10% in the digital world.
  • 76% of consumers believe that companies are untruthful in their advertising.
  • 78% of consumers trust completely or somewhat, the recommendations of other consumers.
  • 91% of people would be likely to use a product recommended by someone who had used it themselves.
  • 22% of all word-of-mouth conversations are the result of interesting ads a person sees.

Word of Mouth Books:

Anatomy of Buzz Revisited – Emanuel Rosen
Word of Mouth Marketing – Andy Sernovitz
Creating Customer Evangelists – Ben McConnell & Jackie Huba
Secrets of Word-of-Mouth Marketing – George Silverman

Other Resources:

WOMMA downloadable resources
Word-of-Mouth Tips from Jackie Huba podcast
Creating Your Word-of-Mouth Message – from The Marketing Spot Blog
The Conversation Playbook – from The Marketing Spot Blog

Find John Moore on the web:
All Things WOM Blog
John’s Brand Autopsy Blog
Brand Autopsy Marketing Practice
Twitter: @BrandAutopsy