Link This | Email this | Blog This | Comments (2)

Make Your Marketing Resolutions for the New Year

December 31, 2008 A friend of mine is a hardcore gym rat. The time of year he likes the least is January, as all the gym swells with crowds of all the people who have made New Year’s resolutions to get into shape. However, he says, that usually only last about three weeks, and by the end of January, everyone has given up and the gym is back to normal.

In our own lives, New Year’s resolutions are ephemeral, and usually last about as long as we keep writing the old year on our checks. But then some people actually do stick to their resolutions. Here are some suggested “business resolutions” we can try to make for the new year—and hope we have better luck keeping than getting rid of that holiday weight.

Don’t panic. In these troubled times, it’s tempting to curl into a ball and wait for things to get better—or worse, start cutting costs, laying off staff, etc. While it’s important to run a lean business, remember that it is impossible to make money by saving money. The old saw “a penny saved is a penny earned” is not necessarily true in the business world. Businesses never grow by cutting back on investment or marketing.

Try new things. Both Heidi and I have written in this space often about new media, platforms, and channels, and while it can seem like a Sisyphean task keeping up with them all, it doesn’t have to be. Make a realistic goal of investigating something new. That is, set aside some time—like, say, once a quarter—to start a blog, or a Twitter account, or a simple Facebook page. Subscribe to a digital magazine or an e-letter—or even a print magazine (depending what it is you normally do). Maybe you got an Amazon Kindle for Christmas; if so, buy some e-books. The point is to slowly immerse yourself in something you have not been exposed to before. No, you’re not going to fall in love with all of these things, but even being slightly conversant in them goes a long way to some day seeing how they can be incorporated into your business. Using these platforms, channels, and technologies in one’s personal life also makes it easier to someday incorporate them into one’s professional life.

Network. While online social media is increasingly important, don’t forget that offline, flesh-based networking can be just as, if not more, vital. Do you currently take advantage of all the networking opportunities in your industry or local community? That is, do you attend trade shows and seminars in your industry? Are you a member of your local Chamber of Commerce, and, if they offer them, do you attend any networking events they may sponsor? What about local chapters of the Small Business Administration, American Marketing Association, or other groups and organizations? There are also other groups in one’s community; I have written often of the advantages of belonging to a Toastmasters club. There are also service organizations such as Rotary, Kiwanis, etc., that can provide useful networking opportunities. Oh, and they help you give back to your community at the same time. Even better.

Understand Your Customers’ Businesses. Do you understand your customers’ needs, and are you attentive to them? Do you know what their problems are and what solutions they may require? We may think we do, but when it comes down to it, we probably aren’t as attuned to them as we think we are. Who are your biggest customers, and what vertical markets are they in? Do you subscribe to trade publications in their industries, or a the very least read Web sites specific to their businesses? Have you been to your customers’ Web sites? You’d be surprised how valuable you can be to your clients when you are conversant in their line of work.

Focus on Marketing that Is More than Just Lead-Generation. Leads are easy to get, but then so are leads that are just names and contact information. Are they qualified leads? That is, are they leads that will result in new business or will chasing them down be a waste of your sales staff’s time? For example, I attend many printing industry shows and events, and every so often I get a follow-up call from vendors who saw my name on the attendee list and thought I was a printer in the market for new equipment. A simple visit to my Web site or other quick due diligence would quickly indicate that I am an industry analyst, not a printer, and thus I’m not going to be buying an offset press in my lifetime. You want information, not mere data. What steps can you take to qualify your lead-generation process?

One final resolution:

600 dpi. Yeah, that’s my standard geek joke this time of year, but there is a serious point to it. When producing advertising and marketing materials, pay attention to the quality of the assets used to create those materials. I do occasional design and layout for various non-profit organizations’ newsletters, and you would be shocked and appalled at how often advertisers send me an ad or logo as a 4 KB GIF file grabbed from their Web sites. That is, the resolution is far too small to reproduce in print without looking really bad. Look through any newspaper these days and you’ll see more and more horribly pixellated ads, logos, and images. On the other hand, you’ll sometimes go to a Web site and the images there are the high-resolution files used in print and thus the page takes forever to load. Understand the technical requirements for each medium in which you are advertising and marketing. This is not to say that you need to be an expert in computer graphics, but just knowing that each medium has different requirements can go a long way to ensuring that your marketing materials are subject to some sort of quality control. It’s all about ensuring that you put on your best face to market and creating a favorable impression.

These are just some ideas for the new year; no doubt you can think of more. The key is to not just think them up now and ignore them by February. At the end of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge vows, “I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.” We should strive to do the same with those “action items” that will help our businesses thrive and grow in the new year.

And on behalf of everyone here at Expert Business Source and Making Marketing Work, I wish you all a very Happy New Year.

Posted by Richard Romano on December 31, 2008 | Comments (2)