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Oiling Your Marketing Machine
September 2, 2008

Last week, I was in Chicago for the Creative Freelancer Conference, a new event cosponsored by HOW magazine and Marketing Mentor. It was designed to offer business and marketing tips to creative professionals (that is, designers and writers). I posted at length about it over at WhatTheyThink’s PrintCEO blog, but there were some lessons that I think are applicable to just about any business.

One of the sessions was called “Building a Well-Oiled Marketing Machine,” and was conducted by Ilise Benun of Marketing Mentor and Colleen Wainwright, self-described “communicatrix.” The session addressed five broad marketing “categories.” (Basically, this is what I have often written and spoken of as the “media mix” or “multichannel marketing,” albeit in vaguer, less concrete and actionable terms than were presented in the session.) While these were specifically targeted toward creative freelancers, how could you apply any or all of these to your own industry or market?

In this post, I will be adding my own two cents (adjusted for inflation, which these days is rather substantial!) to what was discussed in the session, and in future posts, I will revisit these areas with new and expanded ideas.

Networking

Basically pressing the flesh, chatting people up, going physically where your customers are. This doesn’t just apply to industry-specific events such as trade shows and conferences, but also general mixers and social events. For example, local Chambers of Commerce mixers are a great way to meet local businesspeople in your community (here in upstate New York, the Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce to which I belong has monthly networking mixers). Rotary, Kiwanis, and other service organizations are also good networking events. I have also posted in the past about Toastmasters clubs; not only does a Toastmasters club help you develop your public speaking skills, it is a great way to meet others in the community and you even have speaking opportunities to pitch your business. I can’t say enough about Toastmasters (so to speak)(doh!).

One exercise during the CFC session was to come up with a 10-word “blurb” with which to introduce yourself at a networking event. This is typically formatted something like, “I work with _______ and I help them ________.” So, for example, if you were a freelance designer, you would say something along the lines of “I work with marketing managers and media buyers and I help them design and develop their identity and branding materials.” If you were Darth Vader, your blurb would be something like “I work with the Dark Lords of the Sith and I help them destroy the last vestiges of the Jedi and conquer the universe.” (As it turns out, that is exactly the same as my own blurb.)

Also, it bears mentioning that online social networking such as Facebook and LinkedIn—of which I have posted previously—should not be discounted as part of the networking equation.

Cold Calling

No one likes cold calling, and in today’s age of mobile phones, cold calling can be more intrusive than ever. After all, who wants to receive a cold call while they are driving (and you shouldn’t be talking on your cellphone while driving anyway!) or are otherwise out of the office and out in the world.

The best strategy for cold calling (which the session leaders called “research calling” to perhaps take the curse off it a bit) is to simply start a dialogue; don’t expect to make a sale right off the bat. They key is to be prepared; you don’t want to sound as if you are reading from a script (you will also need to be able to respond appropriately should your callee not respond as you have scripted unless you have sent them the script in advance, which would just be weird), but you do want to have a set of talking points.

Cold calling can also be replaced if need be with cold e-mailing, if phones aren’t your thing. This might be a better idea, as e-mail tends to be less intrusive than the phone and can be answered at leisure. But whether calling or e-mailing, try to avoid inundating them with messages. There can be a fine line between marketing and stalking.

E-Mail Marketing

E-newsletters are becoming more and more popular, as they are often easy and inexpensive to produce. The tools for producing and managing lists are also getting better, with Constant Contact and Emma two leading e-letter management providers (Emma was a sponsor of the Creative Freelancer Conference). Unlike print newsletters, which can be expensive to print and mail and often require a lot of content, e-newsletters lend themselves to quick tips and other short snippets of information. It’s not like having four 8-1/2 x 11 pages to fill. (This is not to say that there is not a place for printed newsletters in your marketing plan. See below.)

Some pitfalls with e-mail marketing include various federal regulations—such as CAN SPAM—that made it difficult for real companies to market themselves while doing absolutely nothing to curtail actual spam (big shock, that). For example, users have to specifically request an e-newsletter before you can put them on a list. So it pays to do some research so you don’t run afoul of the law.

This sounds like a good topic for a future post, dunnit?

Web Sites

You do have a Web site, right? If not, in this day and age that’s kind of like going to a conference and not having any business cards. A Web site is now the first place people go to get information on your company—or any company. Entire books can be (and have been) written about making Web sites effective, but at the very least they should be easy to navigate and should have contact info on every page. Users should not have to hunt for an e-mail link or a phone number. Sites should also not be so laden down with rich media content that they take forever to load. People have minimal patience for waiting for pages to load that every second someone has to wait to see your site increases exponentially the chances they will bail. And while Flash movies are nice, remember that there is a reason why the phrase “skip intro” has become part of the new media lexicon.

Your Web site is also where you can have visitors sign up for your e-newsletter. This way, you have some sense of who is visiting your site and can capture leads. (In the near future, I will post about how the ability for users to anonymously surf Web sites has changed the nature of the lead generation process and how companies can rectify that.)

Print Marketing

This is probably the one area that will vary greatly by industry or market. In the context of creative freelancers, it referred largely to having printed samples of a portfolio or past work to show prospective clients, but not all companies will have such materials.

At the very least, you should have a printed business card. You do have a business card, right? If not, in this day and age that’s kind of like not having a Web site. One of the best things about going to a design conference was collecting a wide variety of really cool-looking business cards. Don’t skimp on your business card design and printing. I admit, I design my own business cards (I think they look pretty good) but I admit that I skimp on the printing (I do them myself on my own color printer and Avery business card stock I pick up at Staples). I never thought badly of them in the past, but at the conference, they suddenly seemed woefully inadequate. Next conference, I will get them professionally printed. VistaPrint among other commodity printing companies offer a variety of templates and pre-canned design options as well as inexpensive busines card printing.

Printed brochures are a good promotional tool, especially at events. Direct mail postcards and other items are good, too. (And Heidi has written extensively on this site about all the benefits of variably printed materials.) And you may even have it within your means to produce a printed newsletter. Remember, as I have written on this site in the past, effective marketing is often about promoting yourself or your company as experts in your given field. And nothing communicates “expertness” like a printed publication such as a newsletter.

Anyroad, that is a general overview of five marketing categories. Look for more detail in the posts to come.

Posted by Richard Romano on September 2, 2008 | Comments (0)