{"id":11814,"date":"2019-11-12T09:04:08","date_gmt":"2019-11-12T09:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iheartblank.net\/old\/?p=11814"},"modified":"2019-10-23T21:06:43","modified_gmt":"2019-10-23T21:06:43","slug":"marketing-and-your-online-presence-part-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iheartblank.net\/old\/marketing-and-your-online-presence-part-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Marketing And Your Online Presence, Part 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

I gave a speech to the local Business Improvement District<\/a> in Hackettstown titled, “Marketing and Your Online Presence<\/em>.”\u00a0 I thought I’d share my talk in a few parts to everyone! Take a look at Part 1<\/a> and Part 2<\/a>!<\/p>\n

Campaigns \/ Promotions<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Your advertising, marketing campaign and\/or promotion is really the sales force of your business<\/a>. Rather than hiring someone to go sell your business to people, you use a campaign to get the word out and attract people to your business. When coming up with a campaign for your business\u2026remember that it\u2019s for a set amount of time. Sometimes they can be reoccurring. Once you\u2019ve done one you can always go back to it a year later, 5 years later\u2026whenever.<\/p>\n

So let\u2019s say you\u2019ve come up with a campaign. Let\u2019s say you\u2019re planning a hashtag promotion that gives away a product a week. Let\u2019s say you plan on running this promotion for 13 weeks. That\u2019s an important one. You can\u2019t just run a promotion for a week and say, \u201cWell that didn\u2019t work and I don\u2019t want do this again.\u201d Let your campaign marinate. Often times, it takes one person\u2026or it take one post on social media to help get it really going. If it doesn\u2019t work right away you can look at why it didn\u2019t and use that for the next one\u2026to make sure the campaign gets off to a good start right away. Everything is valuable.<\/p>\n

Another tip I would give is to ask for feedback when brainstorming your campaign, but don\u2019t actually bring too many cooks in the kitchen. Feedback is great! Someone can offer a better hashtag than you thought of, or someone could suggest a better time of the year to do the promotion. There was a quote from Forbes that says:<\/p>\n

Nothing destroys a good idea faster than a mandatory consensus. The lowest common denominator is never a high standard.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Think outside of the box. I know this one can be a little tricky but it can be pretty easy to get inspired. A quick example is to start reading books related to the subject. The Roy William\u2019s book I spoke of earlier can really help to inspire you. Take his successful ideas and relate them to your business.<\/p>\n

Another idea is to look at other businesses. This works on two levels\u20261st is to take a look at the \u2018big dogs\u2019 in your industry. If you run a jewelry shop, look at what Jared\u2019s is doing. They\u2019re companies that hire advertising agencies, who run demographics and do marketing research to find the best way to sell. Their final ad is a result of all that. So look at their promotions and look at who they might be targeting for yourself. They\u2019ve all ready done the leg work\u2026you can benefit off that. The second is to look at the \u2018small to mid sized\u2019 businesses in your industry. Ethically, I would say to start looking up businesses in other states. It looks really bad if you rip off a promotion idea from a competing business in your own town. It\u2019s tacky, you\u2019ll probably get called out, and we\u2019re all in this together. But, for example, if you find a jewelry shop in Wisconsin who thought of a really cool promotion for their business\u2026why not take inspiration from that!<\/p>\n

It\u2019s okay to fail<\/a>. A huge thing that a lot of smaller businesses are scared of is failing. Some of it has to do with money, and while everything is going to take either time or money, failure is still something that\u2019s hard for people to deal with. It should and it shouldn\u2019t. Failure is Inevitable\u2026for one it\u2019s a lesson in how not to do things. It\u2019s a step in the right direction\u2026failure\u2019s effect on your life is all how you deal with it. John Wanamaker\u00a0once said\u00a0\u201cI know half of my advertising isn\u2019t working. I just wish I knew which half.<\/em>\u201d\u00a0He\u2019s knew he was making wrong decisions, but he didn\u2019t know when. He saw the\u00a0value\u00a0in\u00a0trying\u00a0and\u00a0failing, along with probably every self-help book that\u2019s ever been published.<\/p>\n

On a different scale, do you know how many companies that you might respect or cherish have, just, constantly failed. An older example of failure actually turned into an amazing advertising campaign for Avis, the car rental company. The campaign started in 1962 and it was the \u2018We Try Harder\u2019 campaign. Avis would come in 2nd at Hertz car rentals every year\u2026so they built a campaign around, them failing to come in #1. Get it\u2026we try harder\u2026cause we\u2019re number 2. One ad I remember had a headline that just read, \u201cIf you find a cigarette butt in an Avis car, complain. It\u2019s for our own good.<\/em>\u201d The ad goes on to talk about how they try harder and their customers should essentially help them get to number. Do you know how many times Apple launched a huge product that have failed. Even when Steve Jobs was at the forefront? Examples include; the hockey puck mouse, the Newton, Eworld, iPod Hi-Fi, iPod Socks, and a whole\u2026whole lot more. If that doesn\u2019t get you here\u2019s 12 McDonalds products that failed over the course of 15 years. That\u2019s almost one per year\u2026and there\u2019s a lot McDonalds has to do in terms of product launch:<\/p>\n