Advertisement Ideas: How To Be Perceived Positively In The Market Place!!!
I recently goggled Peggy McColl after hearing her speak at The Superstar Summit in Fort Lauderdale, FL. I found many articles on the front page that called her a scam artist preying on the likes of aspiring authors.Other articles were written by her where she gave advice about becoming a best-selling author. I have never worked with her nor purchased any of her products thus I can not make a definitive judgement about her, however if I based my decisions on the articles I read I would have to think twice about giving her my money. This led me to the question of what are people saying about you? I also asked what is my reputation like? This then led me to give you tools for creating a positive image in the market place.
Advertisement Ideas: Tools To Create A Positive Image In The Market Place
1: Your greatest tool is yourself and how you interact with others. Maya Angelo wrote the following and I believe this tool can help you in creating a positive image in the market place.
2: Utilize your satisfied customers to tout you with written and video testimonials. If you click on the testimonials on this page you can see what people are saying about me.
3: Address the negative press immediately, For example when I was featured in the newspaper several years ago for a monopoly game that I was developing for The Coral Springs Jaycees that didn’t come out on time. I immediately addressed it and then when the game was produced and distributed a retraction was printed from the initial story. This issue taught me that you must be upfront and transparent especially when dealing with the press. Continue reading Advertisement Ideas: How To Be Perceived Positively In The Market Place?
You may be asking yourself what does this have to do with advertising? The answer is simple as you should pledge to yourself to be committed to strengthening your brand through advertising. In many cases entrepreneurs and marketing directors wonder why their ad campaign is not working and the answer is simple they did not honor their commitment to build their brand. I have been selling advertising for many years and I have heard let me try it once and see how it works. This approach is not effective, you might as well just through your money into a public place with your business card attached because a one time ad may spike traffic or make your phone ring, however the key in advertising is frequency and consistency. The idea is to be fully committed to the campaign and find the proper venues to advertise in that will be synergistic with your message and reach your desired target audience.
When you make a commitment to promote your business you will see the positive results. I often visit my local Starbucks and have my business cards at the ready as you never know who you may meet and how you can be of service and value to each other. This is part of my commitment to promote who I am and what I do. Through this commitment to put myself out there I have picked up a few clients, secured announcing gigs, and strengthened my brand. Continue reading Advertisement Ideas: Stand Out By Honoring Commitments!!!
Advertisement Ideas: Dominick’s Pizza: What Not To Do!!!
Those of you who read this blog know my affinity for Pizza and you also know my passion about promoting Pizza Restaurants that treat me right when I am asking for help with Relay For Life. Well this is an example of what not to do as illustrated by my recent trip to Dominick’s Pizza. It was about 1:15 PM in the afternoon on a Friday I was out collecting for The American Cancer Society Relay For Life of West Boca Raton and walked into Dominick’s Pizza and was promptly told “We are not interested,” to which I replied I guess you’re not interested in selling me 2 slices of pizza a garden salad and a unsweetened iced tea. I was told no and to leave the restaurant. I guess my purchase and the good will I would have brought to them wasn’t important. Each person I shared this with said the same thing oh Dominick’s their tough. So The lesson here is to realize everyone who walks through your doors is important and has the potential to be a customer and create new customers. Dominick’s gets a fail in this department and will not be receiving any of my business. Continue reading Advertisement Ideas: Dominick’s Pizza: What Not To Do!!!
Advertisement Ideas: KISS Delivers Important Message About Building Your Brand!!!!
I remember when I was younger and my younger brother Joshua was a big KISS fan and we would listen to this song. Today as I listened to the lyrics I thought the message is to SHOUT OUT About who you are, what you do, and give people a reason to use your product or services. I started to think why do people buy NIKE Products when there are other brands that are just as good? The answer is because NIKE Shouts the loudest and is constantly on the top of the mind of the consumer. Every where you look during a sporting event NIKE Has some type of presence. NIKE has also aligned itself with very well-known celebrities and athletes to build credibility.
You may be thinking but I don’t have a NIKE type budget. I am here to tell you yes it would be nice to have a NIKE type budget, however you can shout it out loud with your budget. I visit with many smaller businesses on a regular basis and the biggest excuse I hear when it comes to advertising is I don’t have a budget for that. I then ask do you have a marketing and advertising budget and yes there is a difference marketing is about building a brand so that when someone is ready to purchase your product or service they will choose you first. Advertising is promoting offers to drive traffic so you see a return on your investment. Many times I am told no. This is one of my pet peeves as I ask in mind how do you open a business and stay in business without setting aside some money to reach your desired target audience? I have encountered many people who don’t know who their target audience and I then ask them to give me a profile of who their customer is and they say everyone to which I reply your target audience can not be everyone for this is to broad of a spectrum to tackle. One must have a budget and know who their target audience is of they are to be successful. I ask businesses all the time how are you marketing and advertising and they tell me word of mouth. Word of mouth is okay however it must be augmented with other strategies because not everyone who needs your product or service is going to know your current customers. In order to shout it out loud you must have a strategic plan and you must find what your potential clients/customers are reading, watching, listening to, visiting on-line, and what they desire. A great way to shout it out loud is to answer the question of what problem do I solve in my clients/customers lives? Continue reading Advertisement Ideas: KISS Delivers Important Message About Building Your Brand!!!
In his seminars the first thing Rev. Ernest Chu teaches is the concept of being open to receive. As I thought about this concept I began to think how many businesses may be struggling because they are not open to receive. So many times when it comes to advertising and marketing a business will respond with a programmed response I am not interested, or it is not in my budget, or I tried something like that before and it did not work. Do you see the pattern here? Each response contains a closed word such as not. Each time you say not or turn away from an opportunity you may be closing yourself and your business off from receiving better name recognition, more revenue, and a positive reputation in the community. In today’s market place it is important to understand that everyone you come in contact with can be of value and service to your business. Continue reading Advertisement Ideas: Be Open To Receive!!!!
As you begin to develop you advertising program you must recognize your problem and understand how a properly planned and implemented advertising program will solve the problem. When I approach people to advertise with the many avenues that I represent like www.labonitakidz.com, www.miamifuryfootball.com, or www.spicemiami.com, I hear I am not interested or that type of marketing and advertising won’t work for me. That is a part of the problem as your lack of interest may have just cost you the potential to reach new people and thus strengthen your brand or you may have decided that it won’t work for you and lost out on an opportunity to work with someone who can make it work for you. I hear I can’t afford to ad more advertising at this time to which I say what if you were to cut what you are doing with someone else in half for example instead of a full-page ad with them runs a 1/2 page with them and run a 1/4 page with me and then you can run 1/4 page somewhere else thus giving you more exposure in the market place. I hear things are slow and I can’t afford to advertise. To this I say advertising should be done when it is slow and when it is busy as the consumer perceives that a business that is advertising is a strong business. So now what is your problem? Continue reading Advertisement Ideas: What’s Your Problem?
Advertisement Ideas: Greetings, Salutations, And The Bottom Line
It was a Wednesday Morning a week before Christmas when I found myself out making sales calls for La Bonita Kidz and Teenz with the owner and ceo Shanta Tanksley as we are gearing up to launch the magazine in March 2013. We both knew it would be difficult as most business owners were not thinking of marketing let alone planning their marketing for the Spring of 2013. We encountered many people who seemed pre occupied who seemed to think that we were imposing on their day when in reality we were there to help their business. One particular encounter at Third Federal in Coral Springs, FL as we walked in we were immediately greeted with a women standing up and saying NO SOLICITING. My response was mam we are not soliciting we are meeting with local businesses to start to build a relationship so as to see how we can be of service and value to one another. I also made it a point that we could have just come into money and were looking for a bank. She began to explain that corporate instructs them to do this when it appears that someone maybe soliciting. She then gave us the branch manager’s card. Shanta said to me you are amazing you kept your cool and made a great point. We both came to the conclusion that many businesses are missing out on potential by not understanding how greetings and salutations affect your bottom line. Continue reading Advertisement Ideas: Greetings, Salutations, And The Bottom Line
I walked by a few businesses that I had once approached about advertising when I worked at Forum Publishing and then when back to them when I left Forum to see if they were doing any advertising.These businesses were so busy finding reasons not to advertise that they are now boarded up. Why is it when sales are down the first thing that a business wants to cut is advertising? If people do not know who you are and you are not promoting your business you will eventually go out of business. In today’s market place a business has many chances to advertise and those that choose not to advertise choose to die a slow death. I have seen this cycle happen many times in the last 2 years. I approached a local yogurt shop about advertising and marketing their business and was told I don’t have a budget. Hello the first thing to think about after opening a store is to think how am I going to get the people to come to me and spend money and then come back to me. This yogurt store ran an ad for 1 week in a local community paper expecting an influx in business well guess what a one time ad is not going to work you need frequency and consistency. The key is to have people see you and get to know your brand. Advertising needs to be proactive and not reactive. Think of what is coming up and how you can capitalize on upcoming events. You Know from The Day After Thanksgiving until December 23 that the consumer will be geared toward buying and that is a great time to run an ad wishing everyone a Happy Hanukkah, A Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year with some other incentives to shop. Continue reading Advertisement Ideas: Advertise or Die!!!
Advertisement Ideas: How To Make Effective Marketing Choices!!!!
When you begin the marketing process you first understand the complexity of it and a great way to get a grip and make effective marketing choices is to us the 7 P’s Marketing Mix Below. When you know each phase and you truly analyze the plan you can then implement the plan and evaluate and adjust accordingly.
Advertisement Ideas: Forget The Salesman Approach!!!
When discussing sales people I often hear they are pushy, full of themselves, and will say anything to make the sale. This perception has led to many people programming themselves to say I am not interested from the first interaction. Sales is an integral part of any business be it a sole proprietorship or a large corporation a brick and mortar business or a home based business and mastering sales is a key to success. I have found that over the years it is important to overcome the perception of being a salesman because of the misconceived notion that sales people are sleazy and out for themselves. The best way to avoid being perceived in a negative way is to forget the salesman approach and become more interested in the people you are interacting with.
The first thing you are instructed to do in sales is to make cold calls. I believe this is the wrong approach as you can see from the chart that most people are not receptive to cold calls. Cold calls can be a part of the process, however there is an art to the cold call. In my 20 plus years of experience in the for profit and non-profit sectors I have found that when cold calling it is best to simply do your research and find out who the decision maker is, this can be easily done by google searches or using sources like The Hoover’s Guide To American Businesses. Many times know who to ask for will get you past the gate-keeper. I also suggest you get the gate keepers name and make friends with him or her so next time you call they will put you through. After you get to the decision maker do not begin your pitch right away tell them that you chose to contact them as you are looking to assist businesses like theirs and would like to set up an appointment to show them what you are offering. The appointment can be done via phone or in person if they are local. The key is to begin a relationship as we all know people will do business with those they know, like, and trust. Continue reading Advertisement Ideas: Forget The Salesman Approach!!!
