Product or Service
Strong Company Brand
Strong Personal Brand
Established or Create the need
Long or Short Sales Cycle
Known Industry
Established vs. Startup
Tech Savvy Customers

At each step, we analyzed the company and the customers to make sure we understood who people think we are, who we know we are and who we want to be.  That is the core of a good marketing plan.  And while no one knows your company better than you do, there are many details that have not been put into words.  That makes a huge difference when trying to target marketing.  The last thing we want to do is throw a bunch of stuff at the wall and see what sticks!

We’ve talked in the past about buyer personas and that is really the next step to your marketing plan.  Create 5-7 characters in your marketing story that are typical of your best customers.  What are they like?  What do they do in their spare time?  Married?  Children?  Where do they live?  Give these characters as much dimension as you can.  Then, when reviewing marketing options, ask “does this attract Scott” or is “this answering Mary’s concerns”.  Since you know so much about the characters, you should be able to answer the questions.  And we all know what my answer will be if you say you don’t know your customers that well. GO ASK.  If you are local, go sit down with them and if not, get everyone in your company together and put together what you know.  Then, the next time you talk, find out what’s missing.  Otherwise, you will not be able to tell if that new technology is the best thing to use or if traditional advertising works better.

Your marketing plan is vital to know how to steer your ship in 2010.  Many people are forcasting changes to social media this year with a tightening of networks and more depth in relationships.  If you have a strong plan, you will be able to adapt to those changes as they come and handle them immediately.  Bring on the plans!

As you are working your message, there will be many times people catch part of it. That might be your company but not your location, your name but not your comany, etc. If that person wants to buy, they are going to go to their favorite search engine and try to find you. Even if they are holding your business card or material, they may want to go out and search for you to see what comes up. It is vital you know what they will find and control it as much as possible.

The easiest way to own the information is to spend three hours building your profiles. And yes, this does take time the first time you set everything up. So what do you set up?

Facebook – Facebook is up to you – many people prefer to separate their business profiles from their personal (myself included) but having the profile means you get found more often.

Google Profiles – these are great and we’ve talked about them before. You set up a profile for yourself and they are almost always first page results on a Google search.

Google Local Business – Another great tool, this is a business listing with your information.

Jigsaw – A directory of business contacts. By enterng your contact details you will get to download a name of someone you wanted to find!

LinkedIn – Set up both an individual profile and your business profile. Fill them out COMPLETELY. Your LinkedIn profile is a marketing tool so write to help answer why YOU are uniquely qualified to help your customers.

Naymz - This is the same as Plaxo. Use the same information and help get more connections.

Plaxo – Much of the information you post on LinkedIn can be used on Plaxo as well. Plaxo does a nice job to make sure your profile comes up high on search engines.

Spoke – A directory of business contacts. Again, be sure your information is correct.

Wink – Wink is a social network search engine and building a profile will help users find you.

Yelp – Yelp is a local business listing service that allows users to post reviews. If you do business locally, getting those recommendations can be gold. But you need to be listed first!

ZoomInfo – ZoomInfo has just added a company profile section so you can own both. Be sure to claim your personal information and make sure it is accurate.

There are many more places you can choose to list, but doing these will ensure when someone finds you, they are finding YOU and not information someone else put up about you. Owning your information is the first step to managing your on-line brand.

• LinkedIn – LinkedIn is a must in my opinion.  Being out there so you can be found and find others is critical no matter what your business.  I recommend getting your profile to at least 80% and joining a group or two that are relevant.  Some of the people I have met in the groups are truly facinating!
• Plaxo – I like Plaxo for the search engine optimization benefits but haven’t gotten as involved there as I do on LinkedIn. One extra feature I do like on Plaxo is they send you reminders of your connections birthdays.
• Naymz – This one is also good for SEO but I haven’t found it really useful on a day to day basis. Definitely not a replacement for LinkedIn.
• Ryze –  Have not been impressed AT ALL. I found the people there have been weird and the site very unresponsive.

There are other places you need to list your business / profile so that you can be found.

• Google business – Google offers businesses the ability to post a local business listing. These listings are guaranteed to show up on the first page of results for a Google search for your company so clients will always be able to find you.
• Google profiles – Google also offers profiles of individuals and those are guaranteed first page results as well.
• Wink – wink.com is a site that is trying to summarize people’s profiles on social media.  It is a good idea to own your profile.
• ZoomInfo – ZoomInfo currently allows you to claim your individual profile and say in the near future you will be able to claim a business profile as well. Be sure to set those up!

There are many other services out there under the social media header, but these are the primary places I recommend all businesses list under.  While I personally like Twitter and use it to stay on top of trends, I still do not recommend it as a business-generating tool.

I hope this helps and if there are other sources you like, let me know and I’ll update the post!

The way I identify what makes sense for you is to first discuss who are your target customers or “buyer personas” as David Meerman Scott calls them. Who are we trying to find that is the right person for YOU to contact?  Why exactly are they the right person?  And these descriptions aren’t for general consumption. I would never post them on a blog because some of the ways we describe people may not sound flattering.  If you are bad with people who are sheep, we aren’t going to look for followers.  We’ll look for leaders. But we certainly aren’t going to build a marketing message saying “no sheep need apply” because people don’t think of themselves that way.

Next, we’ll find out where those people are. I mean, there is no point it trying to reach neurosurgeons through an on-line game. Just like you wouldn’t use a healthcare magazine to find a programmer to work on a manufacturing app. That sounds pretty obvious, but when it comes to social media, it seems like EVERYONE is EVERYWHERE. The reality is they just aren’t.  And there are ways to identify the right venue.

Finally, we’re going to determine the right vehicle.  Again, you wouldn’t advertise on a billboard to attract subway riders so use the same logic for how to communicate. Many of my clients need information that is more thorough than a blog entry or post somewhere and they like to print things so I write a newsletter. I am sure there are some clients that keep each copy and print it when they need to read an article again. There are others that read it on the screen and others that don’t read it at all (some on purpose, some who intend to get to it and don’t).  That’s fine – I have other ways of getting to them as well. Most of the time it is by PHONE.  My favorite social media tool, by the way.

So I am not claiming to be an expert so please don’t lump me in that category.  I am just a person trying to help you market your business as effectively as possible.

An infomercial is so different than the type of marketing we all do every day.  We don’t get to talk to people who don’t even realize they have a problem or even who know they have a problem but haven’t focused on it to find a solution yet. We are talking to people every day who know their problem intimately, know what solution they want, and know what they don’t want. So what do we do differently than the guy selling the chopper that requires you to be a body builder to operate?

Traditionally we have tried to convince them that we have the solution to their problem. We have tried to convince them we know what they don’t want and we don’t do that. AND we’ve tried to convince them that we will fix it. This kind of discussion put the customer and the sales person on opposite sides of the issue.  The prospect still had the problem and it becomes almost a game of tug-of-war; give it to me! I want to take it away!

Now, with the new tools available we have the opportunity to show people we really mean it. We are on their side, we arent taking things away, we’re making them better. And we show them not when we interrupt what they were doing that was important to them – we get to tell them when they come looking. Now, we are like the person at the front of the store who hands the person walking in exactly what they came to buy. Wahoo!

Granted, selling through relationship-building takes a lot more time. It is time-intensive in fact.  In prepping for the economy to come back, what are you doing with your time?  Doesn’t it seem like a good way to spend some of the time you have now in building these avenues?  Start by determining who your target customer is or the Customer Persona as David Meerman Scott calls it. Once you understand that person, make sure you are where that person will look when they are ready. Can they find you? Does the information that comes up reflect who you are as a person and company? Because I promise, when they are ready, they will come looking and when they do, you will be better than a ginsu knife!

What I really loved was his pointing out that the new media doesn’t “kill” the old.  While there are some people out there saying Twitter will replace everything, I just don’t see it.  In fact I think in the not-so-distant-future, Twitter will be incorporated into something else and be a part of something more concrete. Now, if you want to take a conversation off line, you go to another media. I think in the future you will have an option to move to a longer dialogue format.   Also, while LinkedIn and Facebook are great, what I have found is they have led to more phone calls and getting together.  It doesn’t matter if it is a member of a LinkedIn group that is local or a Facebook connection that will be in town for a meeting, I have met more people in the last two years that were new people and I met them in person because I met them on line first.  That is a whole different side of social media than I’ve read about lately.

Finally, his other big point is to consider the source of the information.  I recently was solicited to buy the newest, greatest Twitter tool and it was pushed by the creator of the tool but disguised in a training seminar. The entire talk was about how you can’t live without this tool and you really had to dig to find out the guy had written it. He has since updated his materials to be more clear but at the time, it felt shady.  So always know who is providing the information.

I do enjoy social media and think it has a significant place in any marketing strategy but which programs that means or where you have profiles depends on your goals.  Thanks to Scott for putting that out there!

Be sure to check him out!!

Social media is all about listening to people one-on-one. It is also about individuals, not companies. This is great news for small business owners who ARE the company. All this time you have tried to look bigger than you are, conveying messages of size without stretching the truth. Now, your on-line presence needs to be all about you—who you are, what you do and why you can help someone. THAT you can talk about!

In social media, there are the big “parties” like LinkedIn and Facebook, and then there are the smaller “events” that don’t get as much traffic but are still worth checking out. Both serve their own purposes and can be useful. Just like a party, a smaller party offers more opportunities to talk to people while a larger one offers more individuals with whom to talk.

In addition to all the benefits, it is very important to “own” the information on the web that is about you. If someone met you, remembered your name but not your company, phone or email address, what would they do? Most people would throw what they knew into Google and check out what came up. So what comes up about you? Shouldn’t there be a whole page of results about a person as interesting and unique as you are?

So how to get started….. First, do just that—put your name and location into Google and see what comes up. How many results on the first page are about you? Next, make sure you have a LinkedIn profile. It should have some details about you—even if it is just former companies and titles. Your next step is to set up profiles on other sites. There are MANY to choose from so decide which ones you want to use and fill them out. The nice thing is once you’ve written a short bio, you can use it over and over again. At a minimum it is recommended to be on Plaxo, Google Profiles (google.com/profiles/me ) and Yahoo. It sounds like a lot but can be done in about two hours. You don’t have to put up much information, but once this is done, when you Google yourself the next time you should own the whole first page of results. Be sure to check that out periodically.

Now, wherever a person is they can find you. You will appear connected, technologically savvy and well-connected. Who doesn’t want to work with that person?