Are Your Promotions Delivering Results? (Recon Thursday/Promotion)

Hello, I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy, for Once a Day Marketing.  It’s Recon Thursday and today we’re going to take a look at effectiveness of promotions.

Which one of these scenarios best describes you:

1.       You are not running any promotions

2.       You are focused only on traditional promotions, such as television, radio, print or billboards

3.       You are only devoting resources to social media promotions using tools like LinkedIn, Twitter or Google at words

4.       Your campaigns are some combination of traditional and social media

There are many scientific ways to measuring the effectiveness of your advertising campaign.  Large companies such as Procter & Gamble have whole divisions devoted to the analytics of the data associated with their marketing efforts.

For a small company with limited resources, what make work best is a simple “gut check”.  Review the promotion you are running and ask yourself how it is working.  Is it driving results?  If so, continue using it.  If a campaign needs to run longer to assess results, then give it more time.  When enough time and resources have been devoted to a promotion and it’s not working discontinue it.  Advertisements may also run their course, ads and promotions can become over used or stale and that is another reason to end them.

One thing I like to do is use repetition.  I believe that a promotion needs to be seen several times before it begins to stick in the mind of potential customer.  Don’t be afraid to let something repeat over and over and over again.

Don’t be afraid to try something new.  I just shared guidelines around when to continue with a promotion and when to pull it.  So, go ahead and try new ideas and monitor to see if they are working.  That’s the key, pay close attention to whether or not phone calls, web inquiries and/or sales are increasing or if there is an increase to the bottom line.  If you are promoting heavily and none of those items are increasing that is when it’s time to rethink your promotion strategy.

That concludes Recon Thursday.  Be sure to stop by tomorrow for Digital Friday.  To discuss an online or face-to-face service engagement and enhance the marketing and branding for your organization, contact James Glover: (505) 501-1330 or onceadaymarketing@gmail.com.  I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy, for Once a Day Marketing and we’ll see you next time.

Creating Your Marketing Action Plan (Action Wednesday/Process)

Hello, I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy, for Once a Day Marketing.  Today is Action Wednesday and we’re going to take a look at creating a marketing action plan, or, something I refer to as a MAP.

The marketing action plan is a valuable tool to identify the important marketing action items for your company.  What I love about a MAP is that it centralizes all of these items in one place.  Then you are able to prioritize which items you want to do first and which will be completed at a later date.

A documented marketing action plan enables you to ensure accountability by assigning responsibility as to who owns accomplishing each action item.  Lastly, the MAP provides flexibility.  Circumstances may change in the market place or in your company; the market action plan allows you to be responsive to an ever evolving environment.

Let’s take a look at the elements of a good marketing action plan.  I use project management software, such as FastTrack, to maintain my MAP and break tasks down into three categories: short term, intermediate and long term.

Working with key members of your organization, first create a column for tasks and describe each task is in as much detail as required.  Next, include a column for responsible party. This is the individual in your organization who is the champion of the task and owns its timely completion.  Ensure start and finish dates are determined for each item.  Include budget or cost where applicable so you know the amount of resources to allocate toward the task.

When the marketing action plan is complete, share it with the appropriate individuals in your organization and review it regularly to establish progress.  When your team members have input into developing the marketing action plan and have committed to a timeline for task completion, hold responsible individuals accountable for missed targets.  In my opinion, that should to be done more in small organizations.  When people know they are going to be held responsible they are going to get things done.

Your task for today is to do is build your marketing action plan.  The very first task should be marketing every single day with Once a Day Marketing.

That concludes Action Wednesday.  Be sure to join us tomorrow for Recon Thursday.  To discuss an online or face to face service engagement and enhance the marketing and branding for your organization, contact James Glover: (505) 501-1330 or onceadaymarketing@gmail.com.  I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy, for Once a Day Marketing and we’ll see you next time.

100th Blog: Celebrating Your Marketing Accomplishments (Strategic Tuesday/Process)

Hello, I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy for Once a Day Marketing.  It’s Strategic Tuesday and this is a very exciting blog for me because this is my 100^th blog.  I want to celebrate our accomplishments working together since the beginning of the year to market every day.

I started Once a Day Marketing to provide you with knowledge, strategy and the inspiration to market every day.  If you have been following my blog, congratulate yourself because that means you are making the commitment to market every single day.  Evaluate your progress so far this year, are you implementing and getting results?  Are you doing the things you need to do to drive your business forward through marketing?

Once a Day Marketing now has followers in 44 states and 79 countries.  We are building a community of like minded people who want to improve their business marketing every day.  My commitment to you is that I will continue to do my daily blogs to inspire your efforts.  Your job is to read the blogs to build your knowledge base, find inspiration, develop strategy and market every day.

Please share this blog with as many friends as possible.  I would love to be reaching more businesses and organizations to inspire their marketing efforts.  They can view me on YouTube and Facebook, they can find me on Twitter and the Once a Day Marketing LinkedIn Group.  Also, please comment, Like and let’s build our community together.

That concludes Strategic Tuesday.  Join us tomorrow for Action Wednesday.  To discuss an online or face to face service engagement and enhance the marketing and branding for your organization, contact James Glover: (505) 501-1330 or onceadaymarketing@gmail.com.  I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy, for Once a Day Marketing and we’ll see you next time.

Being Digital: Negroponte Was Right! (Digital Friday/Product)

Hello, I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy, for Once a Day Marketing.  It’s Digital Friday and my blog today is prompted by a story I heard recently on NPR Radio about a sheepherder in Mongolia who is following the NBA Orlando Magic via the internet.  That’s a big statement on being digital.

In 1995 I had the opportunity to hear Nicholas Negroponte discuss about his new book “Being Digital.”

Nicholas hails from the MIT Media Lab.  He is also well know for the model of One Laptop per Child and something called the Negroponte Switch where he states “everything that is wired should be wireless and everything that is wireless should be wired”.

In his book “Being Digital” he talked about things that we take for granted now.  He predicted the world of smart phones and touchpads.  It’s nice to see that it has all come to fruition.

The one topic raised that really made me think was that there are numerous advantages to being digital and having a digital product.  You have no manufacturing, packaging, warehousing or shipping. The product can be shipped electronically anywhere in the world.  Negroponte’s final point was just that, with the digital product there are no boarders, the world is one big market.

Seventeen years later I now have my digital product with Once a Day Marketing.  I have no borders constraining my product distribution.  I see people from all over the world, in fact 76 countries, following my blogs.  They are able to access it instantaneously 24/7.  I don’t have any packaging, shipping or warehousing.  Many companies, myself included, are moving toward being digital.

Nicholas Negroponte said that being digital would change the world.  No one following this blog would dispute that.  So the stretagic question is, are you being digital?  What are you able to enhance within your company to take advantage of the power of digital technology?

That concludes Digital Friday.  Join us next week for Smart Monday.  To discuss an online or face to face service engagement and enhance the marketing and branding for your organization, contact James Glover: (505) 501-1330 or onceadaymarketing@gmail.com.  I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy, for Once a Day Marketing and we’ll see you next time.

Product Strategy: FishDuck Wins Big

Hello, I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy, for Once a Day Marketing.  Today is Recon Thursday and we’re going to elaborate on one of the philosophies for introducing a new product into the market that we discussed on Monday, the Marketing Concept, by sighting the example of FishDuck.com.

You may recall that the marketing concept revolves around the identification of a product to fill a customer need.  Today’s example demonstrates how a new website vying to capture market share of internet college football coverage leveraged the marketing concept.

Charles Fisher, the founder of FishDuck.com lives in Eugene, Oregon and is a huge fan of Oregon Ducks football.  Over the last few years Oregon’s offense has been one of the most prolific in all of college football.  If their offense is complicated for coaches and players to follow, what about fans?  Charles’ goal was to create a very simple way for loyal Ducks fans to be able to understand the plays as they followed their team.

The concept began when Charles noticed there was something missing on the numerous websites covering college football.  He observed that despite all the coverage of the Ducks, no site provided in-depth analysis of how Chip Kelly’s offense was scoring all those touchdowns.  Charles created FishDuck.com to fill the gap and began sharing videos with Xs and Os clearly explaining how Oregon’s offense was working, the inside read, the outside read, and other techniques.

Over the last year FishDuck.com has gained many followers including ESPN and Bleacher Report, two of the prominent websites that cover college football on the internet.  They are now linking to his videos.

Using the marketing concept, review your products and determine if there are things you could be providing to your customers that they want and you aren’t currently providing.

As Charles identified the fact that fans wanted more information about the Xs and Os and created FishDuck.com, consider the possible Xs and Os you can deliver to your customers.

That concludes Recon Thursday.  Be sure to stop by tomorrow for Digital Friday.  To discuss an online or face-to-face service engagement and enhance the marketing and branding for your organization, contact James Glover: (505) 501-1330 or onceadaymarketing@gmail.com.  I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy, for Once a Day Marketing and we’ll see you next time.

Prompt Responses to Customer Engagement (Action Wednesday/Process)

Hello there, I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy, for Once a Day Marketing.  It’s Action Wednesday.  So how’s that branding and marketing going?  I hope you’re out there every day doing making the effort because in time it’s really going to pay off for your business.

Today we’re going to talk about how to improve your brand and profits by quickly responding to customer needs.  I’m sure you’re not this kind of person but there are many people in organizations out there who really work hard developing their businesses to get more customers and then they fail to reaction in a timely fashion when customers make inquiries.  It’s important to your brand, your customer relationship, and also to eventual sales, that you follow up with customers and make that favorable impression.

Let’s take a look at some of these engagement opportunities.  When your customers come into your store, are you immediately recognizing them and saying hello?  How about you office space?  People love to be recognized and even if there’s a delay they just want to know that you noticed them.

How about the phone?  When the phone rings do you make the effort to answer it immediately?  If they leave a voice message how quickly do you return the call?  A fellow consultant of mine makes it his mission to call back his customers within one hour no matter where he is in the world.

How about email replies?  When customers email you are you getting back to them quickly with the answer to whatever their question might be?  How about social media interaction?  You’re creating a social media environment using Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.  What happens when they respond?  Are you responding back in a timely fashion?

How about something as simple as a business proposal?  You go into a meeting, present your services, and the prospect likes your offering and requests a proposal.  Are you getting back to them quickly with that proposal because they’re in the mode to buy.

And then delivering a product when ordered?  Your customer wants it and paid for it.  Are you shipping ASAP?

Getting back to your customers promptly really shows that you care about them.  It also creates a favorable experience which enhances the brand in their minds.

So your action item today is to look around your company and make sure you are responding quickly to all the touch points with your customers.

That concludes us Action Wednesday.  Be sure to join us tomorrow for Recon Thursday.  To discuss an online or face to face service engagement and enhance the marketing and branding for your organization, contact James Glover: (505) 501-1330 or onceadaymarketing@gmail.com.  I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy, for Once a Day Marketing and we’ll see you next time.

A Strategic Look at Logos (Strategic Tuesday/Physical Evidence)

Hello, I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy, for Once a Day Marketing.  Today is Strategic Tuesday and I know by following us and implementing marketing every day your business is getting stronger.

Today we’re going to talk about logos, one of my favorite subjects.  I love logos.  I love seeing logos on signs and business cards and products and so forth.

The purpose of a logo is to remind consumer of your company.  You want it to be unique and distinctive so people recognize and remember it.  The objective of that logo is to entice customers to gravitate to it and your product when they make a purchase.

When I mention Nike, Chevrolet or McDonald’s, can you clearly see the logos in your mind?

Here in the state of New Mexico a Zia (left) is very popular logo.  It’s the symbol on our state flag and many companies use it as their company logo.  The goal of your logo is to separate you from the crowd, it doesn’t make sense to use a symbol that many other companies are already using.

As you are developing or analyzing your logo, consider how distinctive it is to your customers.

Below is the logo for my company The Idea Group.

Take a close look.  It’s an “i” and a “g”.  It may not pop out at you instantly and it’s not critical that you detect the i/g.  It has accomplished the objective of being distinct and unique.  I’ve been using the logo for ten years and when people see it, they remember it.  I’ve have people remember meeting me years earlier before because of that logo on my business card.

That’s what you want to accomplish, make it memorable.

That concludes Strategic Tuesday.  Join us tomorrow for Action Wednesday.  To discuss an online or face to face service engagement and enhance the marketing and branding for your organization, contact James Glover: (505) 501-1330 or onceadaymarketing@gmail.com.  I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy, for Once a Day Marketing and we’ll see you next time.