Creating and Implementing Marketing Ideas to Build Your Business

IEEE Consultants Network Meeting

Your Speaker: Lori Gertz

Does this describe the momentum of your business?

• Ebb and Flow

• Fits and Starts

• Feast or Famine

• Drought or Deluge

• Abundance or Lack

• Stop or Go

• Overwhelmed or Underwhelmed

The Ten Million Dollar Question is…

How, as a solo practitioner, can you create more consistency and growth in your business?

What does your pipeline look like?

How do you build a business the most effective way?

Goals of Today’s session

• Understand marketing

• Visualize your pipeline

• Pick the best tactics that fit to your market and budget

• Identify measurements of success

The difference between marketing & sales

• Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. (Source: American Marketing Assn.)

Selling is just a piece of marketing.

Stepping outside your comfort Zone

• Be your own Marketing Department

• Skill set presentation• Writing• Teaching, sharing, working a

room • Trusting those outside your circle• Processes and templates

Marketing, what it’s NOT…

Human Resources

Crisis Management

Publicity

Product Support

Customer Service

Graphic Arts

Trade Shows

Marketing, what it is…

• Marketing, at its core, is about developing the strategies and tactics that support achieving an organization’s GOALS by building relationships with prospects and customers.

Strategy- Have a plan!Tactics – Have the right tools in place!

Goals - Success in business building and ROI!

Develop a template for the continuation of the flow of S+T=ROI

Let’s talk Strategy for a split second

• Expertise

• Target Market

• Market Demand

• Competition

• Differentiation

Now let’s talk tactics

Yikes…Now let’s talk tactics with consistent and accountable ROI

• Email

• Websites

• Technical Papers

• Social Media

Hooking them with Email

Did you know??????

• Emails that have been tailored to specific audiences through segmentation get 50% more clicks than their counterparts

(Source: Marketing Sherpa)

Your customized email must include :

1. Your core business strategy

2. What you know about your typical buyers' purchasing decisions

+1. Geographic Segmentation (or)

2. Industry/Role Segmentation (or)

3. Segmentation Based on Content Interests (or)

4. Behavior-Based Segmentation (or)

5. Segmentation by Brand Advocates (or)

How do you build an email list?

• Weave the email campaign into your white paper offer (which you will build using Social media)

• Offer a newsletter or other free download in exchange for their email address on website

• Build a database tapping geo, industry, interest, behavior, etc from other digital venues (eg; social media)

Professional Emails with ROI Tracking

• Constant Contact• Mailchimp• ExactTarget

Things to rememberAlways use opt-in/out language

Never SpamLink to your website or blog

Create custom lists within your account Start Small- Segment with thought

Website

• The days of 10K for website development are O-V-E-R!• CMS and WYSIWYG platforms make designing,

launching and managing a website a snap!• Responsive Design is key! • Feeding the

– Get away from static content with blog and social media widgets and applications

• Mirror sites, custom landing pages, etc. • Database signup• Aggregate content

Great places to start

• Godaddy.com

• Wix.com

• Shopify (e-commerce)

7 Steps to Creating your Website

1. Find a template that suits your needs, make sure it’s RD

2. Determine the mission of your site1. Awareness- Drive traffic2. Conversion – Lead generation3. Download of White paper- Lead generation4. Sale of tangible goods – Sales generation5. Culling Emails – lead and prospect id and generation

Your Mission = Your ROI

3. Create your site’s hierarchy and infrastructure

7 Steps to Creating your Website

4. Write the content using keywords that people will search to find your site

5. Edit it for brevity

6. Launch it!

7. Then start playing with the apps, widgets, and start blogging on topics related to your expertise

Ok, You Built it, Now What?

• Register with search engines• Build in analytics (Google, etc)• Online ads and banners• Social Media ads• E-zine and newsletter promotion• Article submissions• Cross promotion with other businesses• E-Book potentials• Organic vs. Paid Search

– Keywords

Organic Search

• What is a page rank and why does it matter? – Video – Keywords– Backlinks– Article submissions – Amazon.com – Rich content – Social Media

Content Rich White Papers

How can a white paper increase your popularity?

White Papers Work!

• In a recent survey of more than 1,400 IT professionals, the majority of them said they were more likely to download a white paper than product literature!

• More than 50% of the same IT professionals surveyed said white papers influenced their decision to buy the product or service. (Source: Whitepapersource.com)

Your expertise working for you!

• Your intellectual property has a huge value in the e-marketplace!

• You gain credibility and loyalty

• The challenge is establishing what your marketing objective is and then writing to that objective

Differentiating your White Paper

• Picking a topic • Call it something other than a white

paper• Put a price tag on it• Try alternative delivery venues • Don’t go overboard

Social Media is…

is a CONVERSATION…

What social media really is…

That is powered by …

A few quick stats on Social Media

• Companies that generate more than 1,000 Facebook Likes also receive nearly 1,400 website visits a day.

• 43% of all marketers have found a customer via LinkedIn in 2013.

• 52% of all marketers have found a customer via Facebook in 2013.

(Source: HubSpot) 

And how about these…

• 93% of marketers use social media for business

• 56% of Americans have a profile on a social networking site

Identifying which social media to embrace

Social Media Objectives: What do you want to accomplish?

PICK ONE OBJECTIVE TO START WITH…

MUST BE ABLE TO MEASURE*• Drive traffic • Meet new people• Find new customers• Build loyalty • Build awareness • Get Buzz and pickups

*a specific measurable result expected within a particular time period

*a specific measurable result expected within a particular time period

Facebook, Linked In, Twitter, Google+

ARE YOU

• Listening

• Participating

• Sharing

• Spreading Awareness, Generating Buzz

• Getting behind a cause for action

Online Participation

•Asking questions•Commenting•Complimenting •Forwarding

Are you Generating Buzz•Creating profiles on Social bookmarking and crowd sourcing sites •Promote others content through service like digg, stumpleupon, if it’s visual…Pinterest, Instagram

Community BuildingYour Peeps

•Create a network based on your objectives and strategy for growth.

•Establish credibility with your engaged network of followers and those you follow

•Once established, the group of people you are in conversation with will begin knowing where your expertise lies.

Twitter Case Point #1

Techcrunch is active, engaging and responsive in Twitter!

Twitter Case Point #2

Livestrong Foundation uses twitter for…

•Press releases

•Public relations

•Customer Svc.

Twitter Case Point #3

•Video on twitter

Linked In

• Every second 2 new members join LinkedInIt attracts and engages new business like a charmEXPERIMENT: Benchmark an article’s click thru’s and

conversions to your website traffic (Bitly/tinyurl)• Leverage recommendations and thank your

recommenders • Make the most of your product and service

section• Filter in lead generating content

• Target your posts

Facebook

Over a billion people & comment an average of 3.2

billion times every SINGLE day.

My best advice for B2B Marketing

• Be authentic!

• Be clever and creative but avoid pushy, flashy consumer approaches

• No hard sells, no gimmicks, no slick ad copy

• Highlight your expertise!

• Make relationships not sales

• Moderate your time on social media

Q&A

Thank you!