Short and Long Term Marketing Strategies

Whether you have a formal written plan for your business or just a bunch of great ideas in your head, there are always going to be goals you set out to achieve. You will often think in terms of what do I want to accomplish in the next six months, as well as where do I want to be in five years. These short and long term goals are what drive your business. From a planning standpoint, you must also develop short and long term strategies to reach these goals.


Short term strategies revolve around cause and effect actions. You will institute an action and then measure the result. For example, if you run an ad in the paper, or send out a direct mail coupon, you can easily track your response rate. Depending on the amount of new business you generate, you can measure the effectiveness of the campaign. Most of the times these strategies involve costly advertising, so you must be sure you are reaching your target market, as well as creating a “call to action” for your potential customers.
Other examples of short term strategies are Internet websites, informational brochures, press releases, trade shows, and samplings. All these can be used to create a cause and effect reaction from potential customers. These are crucial in launching a new business as well as growing an existing one. As long as you’re reaching your target market, these activities will provide an immediate return on investment. If they don’t, then your overall advertising message needs to be reevaluated.


Long term strategies are much more subliminal in nature. They encompass all the activities that reach people in a subtle way. Networking is probably the best long term strategy you can engage in. Many people have misconceptions about networking. It is not about going to events to drum up customers. Rather it is all about developing relationships. People tend to buy from people they like or feel they have something in common with. Much like planted seeds, if properly nurtured, these relationships will grow over time and yield incremental business. Other examples of long term strategies are participating in trade and civic organizations, giving presentations, and donating time to charitable events. All these activities will generate positive goodwill for you and your company. Word of mouth is your best form of advertising. While this is an overused cliché, it will generate more business than many other tactics.


By incorporating both short and long term strategies into your marketing plan, you will lay the proper groundwork for short and long term success. While very different in nature, they are both effective in building a solid approach to accomplishing your goals. The key is to make sure you properly balance your efforts in order to maximize all the benefits these strategies can provide.

Creating Brand Ambassadors

Everyone in business understands the power of "word of mouth" advertising. There is nothing more powerful than having someone provide unsolicited approval of your products or services to a potential customer. Just think about how you purchase products and services in your own life. I guarantee there is something you bought based upon the recommendation of a friend, family member, or business associate. As a business owner or manager the trick is to harness the power of suggestion by creating your own team of Brand Ambassadors.

A Brand Ambassador can very simply be someone or a group of people that you enlist to spread the word about your products or services to their particular circle of influence. A good starting point to find such a group is always with your current customers. As long as they are happy and completely satisfied with you, they would make an excellent spokesperson to spread the good word to others. To compensate their efforts, you could offer a discount off their next purchase, a referral fee based upon new business, or something as simple as a gift certificate to their favorite restaurant. You are not out to buy their opinion as this may lead to unwanted tactics on their part, rather you want to reward them for spreading the word about your company.

Another approach to developing a Brand Ambassador program is to hire and train individuals to professionally promote your product or service. What makes this tactic even more impactful is to find people whom already have positive influence among their peers. Why do you think someone like Tiger Woods makes more money from endorsements than he does from playing golf. You do not have to go out and hire a celebrity, but rather seek out the people in your local community that are well respected as well as well connected.

The most important aspect of a successful Brand Ambassador's program is to fully leverage the power of influence. Traditional advertising is no longer breaking through to the listening or viewing audience. The old ways of reaching potential customers are rapidly becoming obsolete. Social interaction and an open exchange of information have a far greater impact on buying decisions then a radio or billboard ad. Given the way information is exchanged today, it presents a perfect opportunity to utilize Brand Ambassadors as an integral part of your overall marketing plan.

A Novel by Jeff Onorato-The SIN of Addison Hall

An old college buddy of mine from Lehigh University, Jeff Onorato has just published his first novel, The SIN of Addison Hall. Let me be one of the first to congratulate Jeff on a job well done. Below is a brief description as provided by the author.



Review

Shari Goldhagen, Author of Family and Other Accidents, says, “With echoes of Vonnegut, Jeffrey Onorato creates a vivid, chilling dystopia where beauty rules. What's even scarier is how close to home his world hits”. --Direct from ARC review



Description

Breaking the Mold of a Traditional Hero Results in a Gripping Tale of Fiction... First-time author soars with his spellbinding story of a man fighting with human nature... Residing in a country where beautiful people are considered superior, Addison Hall is an anomaly. A mildly repugnant man, he is forced by the twisted hierarchy of his dictator to live in less than adequate living situations. The days become increasingly arduous as he toils in an unpleasant job, stricken with the disappointment of his current situation. Besides the dark comedy of his disastrous attempts at romance and his friend’s antics, Addison s life is fairly dull. Then he meets Otka, a beautiful woman who owns the local coffee shop. After witnessing a chance encounter where Addison risks his life to save the life of a dog, Otka takes an obvious interest in him. Addison is perplexed by her reciprocated intrigue. Past experiences with such a valued creature of the opposite sex has left him tainted and doubting her motives. Jeffrey Onorato sensationally draws us into his world of relatable characters and witty dialect. He victoriously shatters the conventions of the true-blue hero to create a story that has both depth and originality. The SIN of Addison Hall entrances the reader with delicious conflicts of human wanting and wavering uncertainty with an ending that will leave you begging for more.

If you are interested in purchasing the book directly please go to Block Island Books or it can also be found on Amazon.

Making Customer Service your Top Priority

Most anyone will agree that customer service is one of the most important parts of your company’s overall strategy to conducting business. Without customers you really don’t have a business. If this is the case, why is it mostly everyone as consumers can easily cite examples of poor customer service in their daily lives? I believe every company either has or thinks it has good customer service. However, if certain steps are not taken to ensure this, the reality of their situation is often far worse than their perceptions.

The level of customer service begins at the top in any organization. The company’s leaders must buy into the fact that they not only need to meet their customer’s needs, but actually strive to exceed them. They must develop a company culture that understands this concept. In today’s world competition is tougher than ever. If you can’t provide goods or service when somebody wants them, there are often four or five other companies ready to fill this void. You rarely get a second chance once you drop the ball. If the company’s leaders do not accept this fact, or are not willing to provide the necessary resources to meet their customer’s needs, they will soon find themselves scrambling for business.

Proper training is one way to develop a company culture that embraces excellent customer service. Every employee must understand what is expected of them when interacting with customers. Is there a uniform way to answer the phone? Are there set procedures in place when a customer has a question or problem? Is there an established chain of command to make sure that issues are handled in a timely fashion? And most importantly is everyone trained to carry out these company procedures? How you handle the problem is far more important than the problem itself. A customer must always feel their best interests are being taken into consideration, even when you can’t give into their demands. It is far better to say no with a smile, than yes with an attitude.

Getting feedback from your customers is an excellent way to track and measure your level of service. You should not only benchmark your company against your competition, but also against the goals you set for yourself. Once again remember you are trying to not only meet, but exceed your customer’s expectations. Written surveys are one way to gage customer satisfaction. This can be useful to obtain feedback on a wide variety of company functions. Always allow for written comments, as these usually will help shed light on problem areas. Management’s interaction with customers is an excellent way to not only measure the overall efforts, but to also show the level of commitment the company has towards their needs. You always feel better if you have the chance to talk to someone who actually sets policy, not just someone who carries it out.

In today’s world of bigger, faster, better you need to be the company that gets it right the first time, and if you don’t, you quickly rectify your mistakes. If you consistently make this part of how you conduct business, your customer’s loyalty will continue to grow. Meeting and exceeding the customer’s expectations in the products and service you provide today is the best way to ensure future growth and success.

Turning a Dream into a Vision

No matter if you own your own business or work for someone else, everyone has dreams of what they want their future to be. Maybe you want to expand your current business, start your own, get promoted, or sell your company and retire. What ever the case may be, these dreams are an important part of your current life as well as a guiding force for your future. What most people do not realize is that without a vision, these dreams will simply remain what they currently are; a dream.

If a dream is thought of as an idea, then a vision would be the plan. It is not enough to simply want to do something, you have to develop a road map that carefully plots how you will achieve it. You have to be able to visualize yourself in your new role as you work towards making that dream an actuality. You have to put aside all doubt that may be holding you back, and develop the confidence you will succeed. Fear of failure should not be seen as a deterrent to your dream, rather it should be incorporated into your vision as a motivational tool.

In life, too many dreams go unfulfilled. Time marches on and the window for making them come true tends to close. If you have a vision, and remain truly committed to the task at hand, you give yourself a good chance to make your dream a reality. You may not achieve everything you set out to accomplish, but I guarantee you will not let that dream die.

Take some time to review your current situation as well as your plans for the future. Write down where you want to be this time next year, in three years, five years and so on. Then write down how you think you are going to get there and be as specific as possible. Make sure you account for all the obstacles that stand in your way, as well as the benefits derived from getting there. By completing this fairly basic exercise, you will have taken the first important step in turning your dream into a vision.

Key Elements of the Marketing Plan: Setting and Allocating the Budget

In order to create a comprehensive marketing plan, you need to incorporate certain key elements. Once you have determined your goals and objectives, you then develop strategies to achieve them. Having done this, you can assign responsibility and set time lines for tasks to be completed. The next step of the process is setting and allocating a budget.This allows you to align your financial resources with your overall plan.

There are several ways to determine an appropriate budget that provides a cost effective way to market your business. One way is to allocate a certain percent of your sales towards your media and promotional plan. This method allows for increased spending as your overall sales volume grows. As long as there is profitable sales growth, this approach makes sense. Another way is to institute a “cents per unit sold” budget. For example, if you sell 100,000 boxes of product, and you allocate .10 per box, you would have a $10,000 marketing budget. If you have a set margin per unit, this is a good approach to use. For smaller companies another way to determine a budget is to use a monthly figure based on available cash flow. This will give you better control of your spending, however you must still allocate enough money to support the marketing effort.
Whatever method you use to set the budget, it is important that you allocate a realistic amount that enables proper execution of the plan’s strategies.

Once you have a total budget, you need to determine how much is going to be spent on media (i.e. print, radio, direct mail) and how much on promotion (i.e. samplings, special events, customer entertainment). This will largely depend on the particular business you are in. The main idea is to develop a mix that allows you to allocate resources for the activities that will be most effective in growing your sales. Understanding your product and the marketplace you compete in will make this process easier to implement.

An important part of the budget process, is to build in ways to maximize the money spent. If you are buying radio, negotiate additional promotional value that ties your product or service into their on-air activities. Form “trade for mention” opportunities with all your media partners. Develop cross promotional programs with complimentary products and services. There are numerous ways to leverage the money you currently spend. By doing this on a consistent basis you will stretch your marketing dollars.

Setting and properly allocating a budget gives you the best chance to utilize the financial resources you have to grow your business. While this process will take some time and effort, it will provide a solid return on your investment.

Effectively Manage your Accounts Payable

In today's economy it is vital that all your business processes are as efficient as possible. Many times there are hidden cost savings in analyzing how you are currently running your business and finding better ways to perform many of the basic functions that are involved on a day to day basis.

One area that is often over looked are your accounts payable. We are sometimes all to aware of our receivables and the problems they can cause, but have you ever stopped to think about over payments and erroneous billing? Chances are you are losing money through your current payment procedures and not even aware of it.

APEX Analytix is a company that specializes in developing audit software that can effectively manage your accounts payable process. It is designed to detect over payments, billing errors, and potential billing fraud. With APEX Analytix audit software you can have the piece of mind knowing that every payment you make is being closely monitored for accuracy. As one of the fastest growing companies providing accounts payable audit software, APEX Analytix is on the cutting edge of the latest technology designed for error prevention and fraud detection.

The best part of their audit software is that in a relatively short period of time it can actually pay for itself by detecting existing errors and through continuous monitoring, preventing future ones. For more information on this dynamic cost savings tool, please visit; APEX Analytix. They can provide everything you need to know on how to provide peace of mind that your accounts payable are accurate and safe.