Marketing

Unlock the Potential of Summer: Effective Marketing Tips for the Summer Season

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Summer brings not only sunshine and vacations but also unique opportunities for businesses to connect with their target audience in a vibrant and refreshing way. While many companies and firms take a break from too much marketing activity, this is actually a great time to increase your marketing and business development efforts. In this article, we’ll explore key steps to create a successful summer marketing strategy that will help your company shine. 

Here are a few strategies below:

  1. Understand Your Target Audience: To create an effective summer marketing strategy, it’s crucial to have a deep understanding of your target audience. It’s not just about knowing their title or the type of company but it is also considering their pain points during the summer months. What are their summer aspirations, pain points, and purchasing patterns?
  2. Embrace the Summer Vibe: Summer is always a great time for some company swag.  With so much fun, relaxation, and adventure, it’s a perfect time to connect with current clients or put your brand in front of new clients with some fun gifts at golf outings or other events your company may sponsor during the summer.
  3. Leverage Seasonal Events and Holidays: Summer is packed with special events and holidays, such as Independence Day, summer solstice, music festivals, and sporting events. Align your marketing strategy with these occasions to maximize your reach and engagement. Leverage social media, email marketing, and influencer partnerships to amplify your message and connect with the audience who are already in a festive mood.
  4. Collaborate with Referrals and Partners: Partnering with referrals or other companies with similar audiences can amplify your summer marketing efforts. Identify those referrals and raving fans of our business whose audience aligns with your target market and collaborate on networking events or content.
  5. Monitor, Measure and Collect Feedback: Regularly monitor the performance of your summer marketing campaigns and track key metrics to evaluate their effectiveness. Utilize analytics tools to assess website traffic, social media engagement, conversions, and client feedback. Adjust your strategy as needed based on the insights gained from the data to optimize your results and prepare for a great final quarter of the year.

A well-crafted summer marketing strategy can help your business leave a lasting impression on your target audience. By understanding your customers, embracing the summer vibe, and collaborating with referrals and raving fans, you can create a strategy that drives brand awareness, increases sales, and fosters customer loyalty.

Be Visible

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With the world changing so rapidly, now is not the time to scale back and hide your magic, your business or your brand.  Now is the time to let the world (your audience ) know how you are able to solve their problems and add more value.

Below are a few quick tips on how to raise your visibility in your industry:

  1. FB and IG Stories:  If you are on Facebook or Instagram, we are discovering there is a lot of power in the stories feature of each platform.  Using stories more often (and strategically) can help your visibility.

  2. Add More Content:  Do not get overwhelmed with the word “content.”  It doesn’t always mean creating a blog or newsletter.  Content can mean tips, videos, interesting pictures, quotes, etc.  Content helps create an emotion.  What emotion are you creating with your audience?

  3. Get Consistent:  Consistency is key.  People notice and trust brands that are consistent.  How are you being consistent?

  4. Invest in Paid Ads: Targeted ads can help gain visibility for brands or a new campaign. Careful keyword selection, targeting and ad copy creation will help keep budgets from getting out of control and make it affordable.  

  5. Don’t Ignore SEO: This will help potential clients and customers find your company or organization when they are looking for solutions and may not know whom to turn to. If you can identify the types of terms they are looking for, you will broaden your audience and reach. By using keywords within the copy and headers of your web pages and in the way you talk about your services, you will bring people to your website and social media.

These are just a few recommendations.  I’m certain there are more things you can add to your list.  The key is not to second-guess yourself or hesitate on your greatness.  That is one of the biggest hurdles we often face.

Just go for it!!

How to Get Excited About Marketing Again Despite Our Crisis

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Wow… the past several weeks have been surreal.  So much has happened in our lives, so much emotion and uncertainty.  Even as we get used to the “new” normal, the uncertainty of the future still looms over us.

Admittedly, the first few weeks during the pandemic, I struggled emotionally and mentally on how to approach my business. People were dying at rapid rates, companies were furloughing and laying off employees, a worldwide financial destruction was looming. 

Who really cared about marketing, right?

Now that I’ve come out of my fog (slightly) … I am starting to see things differently. As I listen to news reports about the importance of small businesses to our economy and more phone calls from new clients begin to come in for marketing help, I realize that this was not the time to back down from marketing, but to ramp up marketing efforts. 

Below are a few lessons learned over the past several weeks:

1.) Digital Marketing – Every business should seek to have a digital presence.  Even if the presence is not perfect, it is important to be found and connected to your audience in various ways.  If you are relying on your audience primarily by events, networking lunches or dinners, you probably found yourself a little lost.  Digital marketing is more critical than ever. 

2.) E-Commerce – Creating something to sell online and extend your services and brand is important. Most of my clients sell or offer a service.  However, I do encourage all my clients to think of a product to add to their services.  This can be a book, candle, clothing, hair products… anything.  Having another option for selling is critical. 

3.) Social Media – When the world shuts down – everyone turned to social media for content and information. LinkedIn usage increased by 52% over the past month.  Many people who had a presence on social media, but was not actively using it, suddenly found themselves trying to figure it out. 

4.) Business goes on.  It truly does.  And it needs too. The economy is a powerful thing and affects everyone in varoius ways (financial, emotionally, physically, etc.) But even in the depths of a recession, there is continued investment and new spending.  We want to be a part of that spending, therefore NOW is the time to build your pipeline. 

Go visit and like my FB page this weekend.  I will share a video on tips to improve your marketing during a crisis.  There are may things we should consider doing. 

Oh.. and if you have time – check out my online time management course for working marketing into your business and life.  Lots of practical tips!  Click here to start your online course. 

If you need assistance with your marketing efforts, please reach out to me! I would love to chat with you. 

Tips for Small Businesses When Managing a Crisis

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With the recent outbreak of the COVID-19 virus, many businesses and organizations are panicking on what this means for their business and their growth opportunities for the remainder of 2020.  How does a small business owner prepare for a recession or an economic crisis?  Below are 6 tips for managing a crisis or potential downturn in the economy. 
1.) Don’t panic.  This sounds very simple, but extremely important.  So often, we become reactive, instead of proactive.  Our response to a crisis will often determine how we manage, how large the crisis becomes and how much it affects our business and clients.  Although we may have some anxiety, we know there are always opportunities within a crisis. 

2.) Look for the Opportunity.  As you stand back and look at the crisis or problem, which issues are not being addressed?  If you do not know your clients or industry well, this may be a challenge for you. (HINT: Know your clients and your industry).  What can you contribute or solve?  Get creative and gain a different perspective about the issues at hand. 

3.) Feel Your Clients Pain.  What are your clients/customers feeling right now?  Are their businesses on hold? Are they doing well (some businesses are thriving right now)?  Will they need to focus on other issues for a short time? Whatever the pain or issue, know it.  Feel it… and then act accordingly.  

4.) Talk to Your Clients:  If your business or society is facing a crisis, assess the situation by speaking directly with your clients.  Ask about their concerns and effectively communicate how you are dealing with a crisis.  Clients want to know that they can still trust that their business is being handled. 

5.) Be a Thought Leader: This is the time to show your value and expertise to your audience, if applicable.  If there is any aspect you know about the crisis, now is the time to write, blog, speak and teach about the subject in various ways. Look at the situation from different angles and determine how you can be of value to your clients.

Which Social Media Platform Is Best for You?

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I know… social media can be daunting.

Today, there are so many social media platforms. In addition, there are so many features ON each platform.  It all can be overwhelming.

However, if you are in business, a solopreneur, author or speaker, social media is a African american woman using computer laptop at kitchen serious face thinking about question, very confused ideanecessity.  It is the fastest way to reach your audience, establish your voice and create a brand.  It is a critical vehicle for promoting your products and services and taking your brand to the next level.

But which platform should you use?  Below are a few tips when figuring out which platform to use:

1.) Focus on One.  Yes, I’m on several social media platforms, however, I put most of my energy and strategic efforts on one platform. You will make more impact and can dig deeper instead of going wider.

2.) Know Your Audience.  Once you know your audience and what they really want, then you can make a decision about where to plant your social media feet.  Some platforms are more visual, some rely on more content.  How does your audience consume information?  What do they want?

3.) Clarity Comes from Action.  Your audience may be in several places.  So if you are confused and realize they are all over the place, choose one platform and keep going. Stay consistent with one.  You just need to put in the work and the effort… every day.

4.) How Do You Communicate? Perhaps you are not a writer and very short with words, but you like video – then you will know that YouTube is critical for your brand and communicating to your audience.  Think about what works for YOU, your strengths and how you most effectively communicate.

If you are struggling with your social media platform choice and need to talk it out, feel free to contact me for a complimentary 15 minute session and let’s CONNECT!! Or perhaps you need a clarity session because you are unaware of your target audience or how you best communicate, contact me!

 

The Magic of Having Clarity

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Life can get so busy, with a million distractions every day.  These constant distractions can easily lead to a lack of clarity in our life, business and even relationships.

Each time I engage with a new client, my primary objective, despite their business or industry, solopreneur, author, minister or executive, is to help them find brand clarity.

What is Brand Clarity?

Brand clarity is the core values, feeling and purpose of your brand, whether it is your personal brand, business or organization. Once you are aware of your brand, your values, your purpose, your why… it is critical to make sure this is communicated throughout your brand consistently.

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Why is Clarity Needed?

Confidence. I am convinced, that true clarity equals confidence.  And when you have confidence, you also have courage.  Just imagine where your business or career would be if you had ultimate confidence in yourself, your business and your brand.  The things you would do, the people . you would approach and where you would network.  How big would you dream?  What would you go for?  The words you would say to yourself.  It would be the ultimate courage, right?

Storytelling.  Brand clarity is also needed to to tell your story to your clients and customers. Storytelling is the foundation of branding. Have you ever heard someone tell a story and get lost in the details, miss the punchline or critical points to the story.  You tune out, right?  The story becomes less interesting and the storyteller loses credibility.  You should know your story, connect your dots and tell it in a concise and interesting way.

Personality. You also need brand clarity because people buy from people. A buyer wants to fall in love with YOU.  Your brand needs a personality and style.  This comes out in your logo, your colors and even your content.  But when you are not sure of who you are and your core values, then you may communicate several different messages and voices.  You will talk too much, to too many people, in too many different ways.  This creates confusion.  When there is no clarity – people either do not buy or take longer to buy.  Let the personality and style of your brand shine.

Time & Money.  When you are clear in your branding (or any aspect of your life), you can easily make decisions. You know what to say “no” to and who to align with, which events to attend, where to invest your time and money.

Clarity is priceless. Take the time to find clarity with your brand, business, career, relationships and even your money. When you are clear, things change.

If you are struggling to find clarity,  consider a session with me.  Sometimes we are too close to our brand to see it clearly.  Feel free to contact me for a session.

 

Get Your Business Ready for Summer

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Summer is almost here! Yay!

Time for vacations and to slow it down a little.  But hey, don’t slow it down too much. This is the time to build your pipeline so that you can finish strong in 2019.  Time to think about what you will offer and sell for the holidays.

So how do you build a pipeline?

Below are some quick tips on building your pipeline to create momentum in your business for the rest of the year.

1.) Focus on a Few.  You may have been doing mass marketing all year – social media, watts marketing challengespublic speaking, etc.  Who stood out during your efforts?  Were some potential clients more engaged than others?  If so, focus on those people for the rest of the year.  What do they need?  What services can you provide?

2.) Create Your Bag of Tricks.  What are those things of VALUE that you can offer to your customers or potential customers that don’t require a lot for you to create?  Perhaps its an audit or a top ten list.  Create 3-5 “trick” or value adds that you use to create more relationships with your current or new audience.

3.) Use Your Referrals.  Referrals are sooo important in growing your business.  Using your referrals is a brilliant marketing strategy.  Be sure to take time to put your referrals on your mailing list, check on them, talk to them, engage with them.  The more they trust you, the more they will talk about you.

Don’t let the summer pass you by!  If business is slow, that is the time to focus on marketing and growing your pipeline.

Podcast: Saving Marketing Dollars when Starting a Business

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On today’s podcast, I discuss how to save marketing dollars, especially if you have a start-up or launching a new business, organization or even if you are an author.  Marketing find-work-online-fbudgets can spin out of control quickly, however, if you are strategic and focused, you can grow organically and save marketing dollars.