Small Business | Forum « Strategic Marketing – What’s important now

Strategic Marketing – What’s important now (8 posts)

Topic tags: planning, small business, strategic

Colin Williams said
7 months, 2 weeks ago:
Hi AllI would appreciate your thoughts for being ‘strategic’ with small business marketing.
With the web and social media being so prominent and changing the face of marketing, what tips would you give for small business to implement now for their long term success.
From my perspective, a couple of key issues that need to be addressed are
1. The need to be Tactical – Things move quickly so you need to be aware of what is going on and make a decision. Or to put it another way, build flexibility into your planning
2. Individual (personalities) versus brand names – From what I can see, individuals rank strongly on social media but business brands struggle. This is good if you are a small business as you can stamp your personality on the business.
Cheers
@colintwilliams | # | Top
Karl Morris said
7 months, 2 weeks ago:
@colintwilliams a great request and one that involves probably a bigger answer than we have space for.
John Battelle (The Search) breaks business marketing/advertising into two categories. ‘Intent’ and ‘Content’. Yellow Pages is intent ie. when you pick up the book you have ‘intent’ to spend. (You have pretty much already spent your money). TV, press, radio, magazines is ‘content’ advertising. You attach your advertisement to particular content. This is to raise brand awareness and attempts to influence a purchase decision.
Most small businesses typically started with Yellow Pages and progressed through to radio, Magazines, TV etc. So replicating this in a didigital world is truly affordablesimply following a 4 step process.
The tactics should be simple – why are you doing this? the typical answer for small business is to make your phone ring or bring customers through the door. Keep this in mind, implement the following plan and you can’t go wrong.
1. Website (Google friendly with analytics) – Intent
2. Blog regularly (typically this is for Google) – Intent
3. E Newsletters – Content
4. Social Media Bespoke per you industry (Basic set up being, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and maybe Youtube,) such as Trip Advisor for tourism or accommodation related fields
Once you have the basics covered you can then investigate personality versus company. I am big on pushing company with personality shining through. Google + (places), LinkedIn revamps of late, Facebook Pages would all suggest that companies will feature highly moving forward in social media.
http://www.goop.com.auhttps://www.facebook.com/goopwebdesign
@karlmorris | # | Top
Colin Williams said
7 months, 2 weeks ago:
Thanks Karl for the great response.
I like the way you have kept is simple for people to follow with the four steps.
I think the challenge of promoting the company brand is much harder for large businesses than it is for smaller ones. As you put it, ‘Push the company with personality shinning through’ is great. Small businesses can do this, big business struggle, if for no other reason the CEO gets changed regularly and he/she brings in a new direction. All the more for small businesses to get on board.
Cheers
@colintwilliams | # | Top
E N Brown said
7 months, 2 weeks ago:
Hello. @colintwilliams @karlmorris
Good information – I completely agree about pushing company with personality shinning through. However, some personalities don’t do well with the written word and also don’t respond well.
I think I’d include a caveat about WHO should attend to social media to item 4. A very important part is communicating well.
Eileen
@supereb | # | Top
Colin Williams said
7 months, 2 weeks ago:
Hello @superb @karlmorris Good points raised. As for who should attend to Sopcial media, I make a point of highlighting that the ‘boss’ and other senior staff should be very involved and have regualr updates. Also, there needs to be an understanding as to what stage social media commenets are eleveated up through management
@colintwilliams | # | Top
Denise Rubright said
7 months, 2 weeks ago:
@colintwilliams Thanks for starting this topic. It is one that is very important to understand in working with small business marketing
@karlmorris Your feedback karl was spot on. I am going to keep the information for future use.
@supereb Eileen I do think it’s super important to find the right person to handle the social media portion of a marketing campaign. The upkeep is too much of a burden for the small business owner, and they are not writers. Finding the “right” copywriter for your SMM is key.
@deniserubright | # | Top
Colin Williams said
7 months, 2 weeks ago:
@deniserubright – Thanks for your comments and feedback to the topic. I agree that you need the right copywriter. That copywriter needs to be briefed well to ensure that the culture and values of a business carry through in all the material.
Cheers
@colintwilliams | # | Top
Karl Morris said
7 months, 2 weeks ago:
@supereb, @colintwilliams, @deniserubrightWHO? what a great question on item 4. We are working with many clients that when we started working with them they had their 18 year old receptionist look after Facebook because she ‘loves Facebook’. It’s a bit like making my 12 year old daughter an advertising executive because she loves watching TV.
If you have an objective (small business is typically to make the phone ring or have clients walk in the door of a retail premise) you then need a strategy and a process.
The boss needs to control this but you can appoint someone else to do the posting etc. as long as they work with in the guidelines to achieve the stated objectives /goals. Make sure the owner / boss monitors this though. Regularly through tools such as Hootsuite just to make sure you are on the right track in conveying the right brand and meeting objectives.
Great discussion and points raised.
@karlmorris | # | Top