In your company, is marketing seen as a strategic contributor to business success or are they strategies that put “a pretty bow on it”?
Multifaceted Marketing
Marketing is exceedingly more than that pretty bow. And it’s up to us to exploit marketing’s true power. But to do this we must become multifaceted because our discipline is multifaceted. Let’s build and run dynamic organizations that drive business growth. Read More…
Golden Nugget for Networking
Identify people you would like to get to know better. Then, always invite them to something. Invite them to a class you are offering, another networking opportunity, or a chance to meet for coffee. (As a marketing consultant specializing in working with creatives, I’ll often invite creatives to Creative Connections Meetup.com/creative-connections).
This gives you another chance to stay in touch. Remember, it takes 7 to 12 touches for them to hire you. Keep moving the relationship forward.
The good news is that eventually the benefits you provide will someday be a priority. Something in your potential client’s life will change. Or they will refer someone to you who would benefit from your services. If you haven’t kept in contact with them and followed up, they’ll find someone else to help them reach their goals. When you have called, cared, followed up, and if you’ve let this system work its magic, you’ll be the one waiting in the wings to work with them.
These golden nuggets of networking tips will raise your level of success and assure productive use of your time in building business partners through networking.
How can you market to everyone?
We cannot market to everyone unless we have unlimited time, money, and energy. Decide who to target. Identifying your niche and describing their recognizable characteristics is the first important step to prevent wasting time with people who cannot help you in obtaining new clients. Identify your niche by reflecting on your ideal clients or perhaps even just one special client. Your ideal client is the person who is most likely to buy from you, and whom you most want to serve. They are the people who:
Here’s what my clients expect from me:
Be happy to meet everyone
First impressions are worth a thousand words. Your impression determines how you are perceived as a successful business professional. It also determines if someone will build a relationship with you.
Be intentional about what you are communicating non-verbally. Pay particular attention to dressing professionally and acting that way, too. Practice self-awareness and monitor your body language and facial expressions. That’s where the mirror comes into play. Positive facial expressions and body language are contagious and attractive. Avoid crossing your arms, frowning, scowling, and using other negative facial expressions. Recently, I toured the Denver Art Museum. It was quite obvious which kids were not enjoying themselves by the scowl on their faces. Make sure you are projecting the right image.
Maintain an open posture and upbeat expression. Watch your body positioning and never close the circle. This means, always keep an open spot for others to join your conversation. If you are speaking to just one person, stand in front of them at an angle so there is a space to welcome someone else into your conversation.
When you meet just one potential alliance partner at an event, you hit the jackpot. A great networking event is Creative Connections on MeetUp. We meet on the first Friday of every month at the Innovation Pavilion in Centennial, CO. If you are in a creative industry, please come and meet other creatives. Network your way to success. Here’s another tip:
Enjoy networking
Set a goal for the event
It is so much easier to just hang out with people you know. However, the more connections you make, the more potential opportunities you have to develop future business transactions. When you set a goal of how many business owners you want to meet, you have an incentive to circulate and meet as many people as possible. Remember this is not a time for selling. This is an opportunity to plant some seeds and learn how you can help people you encounter. It is a time to offer to help introduce them to someone they want to meet or send them a helpful article.
Let’s Network
Networking is one of the best strategies for meeting future clients, prospects, alliance partners, and new friends. Marketing Coach Carol Naff uses the most effective and up-to-date networking techniques to help you reach your marketing goals.
It is well-known that many people do not like to network. Many people think it is a waste of time because they are not achieving the results they want. Therefore, it is important to learn the most effective techniques of networking so mutual relationships are created to benefit both sides in growing and prospering in business.
As Carol’s client, Anne Randolph, said, “Networking is now fun and so much more effective when I apply the techniques Carol taught me.” You can learn how to make the most of every networking event if you use these tips. These powerful tips will raise your level of success and assure productive use of your time in building business partners through networking. A new tip will be published each week here on my blog and will be sent in Carol’s Business Building Tips enews. Register at Marinerco.com to receive the enews.
Learn the difference between networking and selling
Networking is not sales. Networking is meeting people to develop relationships that may lead to future clients, alliance partners, or new friends. Sales tactics come in when you’ve established a need for your services or products. A networking event is never a place for sales. As a matter of fact, people are going to avoid you if you sell at a networking event. When someone expresses an interest, offer to send them an article or set an appointment to meet with them. An exception to selling at events is where businesses have booths and are selling products and services. The participants came there to learn about the products and services being offered. If you have a booth, be sure to collect names and contact information so you can follow-up with them. Remember it takes 7-12 touches to make a sale. These are not networking events; they are trade shows.
Strategy: Send a quick enewsletter to people you meet to stay in touch. Constant Contact is very reliable and a good resource. In addition, as a Constant Contact Certified Expert, I’ll help you set up your template to get started quickly. Use this link to get started at Constant Contact.
Microsoft is teaming up with GlacierWorks to launch Everest: Rivers of Ice, an interactive website that lets you explore the areas around the world’s tallest mountain. Built entirely in HTML5, Rivers of Ice contains gigapixel panoramas that capture life in the Himalayas, and depict the daunting task for mountaineers wishing to climb 29,000 feet. The site launches in honor of the 60th anniversary since Sir Edmund Hillary’s first successful summit, and the 50th anniversary of the first American to successfully summit Mount Everest. David Breashears, a mountaineer and filmmaker, who became the first American to reach the summit of Mount Everest twice, founded GlacierWorks as a nonprofit that’s designed to highlight the changes to the Himalayan glaciers. While there’s a debate whether they’re melting or not, Rivers of Ice includes comparative photography and high resolution imagery to let you make your own mind up about climate change.
Marketing with PR and Pinterest
The most popular social media site is getting pooh-poohed by many marketing experts. What they don’t know is how to use it for PR. These images and photos on Pinterest drive traffic to your website. Are your photos conveying your brand? Are they exciting, colorful, interesting, pertinent, relevant, repined, or dull, sedate, boring, and ignored?
Read this article and implement just one or two ideas each day for marketing and pr. PR Daily
Plant seeds for growing relationships
Adopt a mindset that building relationships is part of your job and development. Is this a mind shift that you need to make? Do you eliminate your marketing activities when you get too busy?
No matter what you do, building relationships should be part of your development planning and marketing strategies. Anywhere from 5-10% of your work week should be dedicated to building relationships. If you are growing your business and want more clients, then 50% or more of your time should be used to network and cultivate the seeds of alliances. If you’re too busy and heads down in your work or always spending every day in your office, it’s time to take a different view. Now is the time to do the activities that result in more clients. It is just like the person who is hunting for a job. Often they spend all their time at their computer sending resumes that don’t result in the desired outcome. Then blame the economy and everything else for their failure. Seek the help you need to become successful. We would all be millionaires if we could learn it at a seminar or from reading a book.
Set realistic goals and make sure that you make the calls to reach them. Then track your results. If you need to reach more people to realize your income goals, then make sure that you increase your goals and get out there regularly.
Social Media
Why reinvent the wheel when you can just swipe a page or two from some of the top brands on social media? PR Daily published an article on tips for business social media. Read it here PR Daily
Carol Naff, Marketing Coach 