marketing effectively

Slip and Catch

So often clients connect with me when they are in a skyrocket mode…shooting up and fast, everything is clicking/working and they need the tools to be ready for when the emails start coming in and the phone starts to ring. It’s such an exciting time for them.

There are many times though when a client comes to me, either after that skyrocket moment and they feel the lull of regular business, which feels slow compared to the exciting and fast rocket time. I also meet with clients who begin their first conversation with apologies. They know they don’t need to apologize to me, but they are really apologizing to themselves.

“I have let my blog slip.” – Guilty here.

“I have not emailed my client list enough.” – So guilty here.

“I haven’t redesigned anything on my social media in forever.” – Guilty.

“I don’t use all of the social media channels I could.” – Guilty too.

A favorite was when a new client said, “I haven’t cleaned my house in months.” Not part of the business discussion…but she needed to unload. And by the way — Guilty too.

Yes, there is a level of therapy that can be part of the client relationship. So much about business and marketing is about relationships and interactions after all. So, whey the guilt about her home? People hold themselves up to unrealistic standards about running a business and a home. They get intertwined in our self-assessments – I find this especially true for women vis-à-vis their homes.

It is not only women. A male client told me that since he started his business his personal life had suffered, and he was hoping that as I took over some of the marketing responsibility, it would help him and his family carve out more time together. That was a priority for him because he felt like he was missing out.

However – NO guilt necessary. No self-blaming. We are a Love Yourself business. First of all, nobody succeeds and sells as well when they are depressed, self-loathing or negative. Secondly, when someone slips in their own business goals and knows it, they have likely caught themselves before too much damage has been done. So, a business that starts out with a healthy and regular blog schedule that slips and falls off the routine for a bit, but notices it and reaches out for my help before it’s gone on too long, can usually get back on the blog wagon and fix it.

Did they lose possible business during the down time? Probably. Does it mean the business is not savable? Unlikely.

When the guilt is about not taking all available opportunities, such as not using all available social media channels, or not using all possible sales channels, again – no guilt needed. Not doing enough, but doing some or a lot is still doing. It is a great platform from which to build. There are times when a client will tell me in a hushed voice about what they have not tried. That’s ok. In fact, it’s great. It means we have a starting point to assess and perhaps work from.

The bottom line is that we focus on the achievements of our clients and on their inroads towards success as much as possible. People catch themselves and we create support to help catch them.

Life is full of Slips and Catches. We all slip and then catch ourselves. Expecting perfection and no errors is unrealistic and doesn’t lead to much more than stress and disappointment. I think a goal of near perfection and no errors is great, as long as we understand that as people we are inherently engineered to slip sometimes. It’s more than ok. It’s just great. It’s real life. It is what gives us opportunity to reinvent ourselves, to try again, to work harder next time, to train more, to build, to learn.

People are perfect, but not because they are not flawed or because they err. It’s our mistakes and nicks and dents that make us interesting and experienced and wise. You’ve slipped? Bring it on – we’ve got you!

Data Before Decisions

There are so many decisions that have to be made every day in your profession: decisions about procedures (medical, legal, corporate), decisions about personnel, time management decisions, figuring out the best way to navigate interpersonal issues at work and at home, thinking about tax implications and paying for taxes, and of course, marketing decisions.

Too often, we are tempted to make marketing decisions based on a hunch. We would never pay our taxes on a hunch or start a patient’s medication on a hunch or file an appeal on a hunch or list a house’s price on a hunch or start a new product line on a hunch. But, we sometimes mistakenly feel that marketing is amorphous.

Yet, the tools are readily available to use good data to drive better decisions, even in marketing.

Perhaps, the most important question you and your marketing professional need to have answered is this:

What marketing are we currently doing ?

How do you find this out? Make a list of every marketing tool you currently are employing like:

listings in phone books and directories
online listings
your appearances (or your staff members’) at community and trade events (health fairs, business networking opportunities, community and residential boards and committees, professional organizations and conferences, charitable events)
a review of how you communicate with your clients throughout the year (do you send calendars, holiday cards, newsletters, coupons?)
an inventory of promotional material items you have purchased and produced, how many of these you have distributed and through what means (this spans the spectrum, everything from pens with your name on it all the way to professional brochures)
a record of your electronic presence including website(s), social media accounts like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, linkedin and Google+ accounts

The second follow up question, equal in importance to the first is this:

How effective is our current marketing?

Here is where data should be the driver. You shouldn’t just be guessing “people seem to like our website”, “I put a lot of time into Facebook”, “I have run out of pens with our name on it”, or “Does anybody use the Yellow Pages anymore?” Your marketing professional and you need to be sure that you are evaluating all of your marketing efforts with as much data as possible. Together, you should be able to figure out the following:

Do I have a reliable system that everybody uses who engages with new customers to determine how they found out about us? What is that data? What does it show me?
How many potential clients did you come into contact with at each community event? Did any of those contacts transform into future business?
If you have a dedicated phone line attached to a Yellow Page ad, how many calls come in on that line? Do the phone calls turn into legitimate business?
How much does my online listing and online advertising cost me (per click, per month?) and how many people are becoming customers, clients or patients?
What is my “reach” on my social media accounts? How many people engage with what is posted? Do they click on links to my website?
Can I figure out from my new customer data if new commercials or advertisements are effective? Are they targeting the right people? Do we need to make changes?
How do people traverse on my website? Which pages do they linger on? Which pages get the least amount of traffic? Is there a discernible pattern of how people interact with my website?
How does my marketing budget and my marketing output compare with my competition?
How do we track the effectiveness of client communication like newsletters or gifts? How can we figure out how these are received and if they are servicing our brand? Are they cost effective?

Grading Your Marketing

Small business owners, regardless of our line of work and our clientele, always have a shortage of time.

When our businesses are running somewhat effectively and we have enough income, we can hire others to help us get things done. One of the major time-consuming, but critical task in every business is marketing. That is why, frankly, K2M exists: to take on those time-consuming tasks so that our clients can focus on what they do best, whether it’s selling their products, serving their patients or supporting their clients.

One of the aspects of our work that we are putting more time into is creating a transparent reporting system for our clients. Every client (not just ours) who hires a marketing firm needs to know how their money is being utilized, what tangible results can be traced to marketing dollars, and where future monies should be directed or, if necessary, redirected.

Our reporting system is our own marketing report card. We thought we would share some elements of our report card. Use it to grade us or whomever you have entrusted with your marketing:

Research: How well does the marketing firm understand your line of work, your employees, your customers, your competition and your challenges?
Customer Service: How “reachable” is your marketing firm? Can you get answers and responses in a timely manner? Are matters resolved?
Brand Health? How attentive is your marketing specialist to your brand identity, in terms of logo usage, staying on message and creating marketing tools?
Social Media Presence: What is the quantity and quality of your social media presence? Are you utilizing the correct platforms? Do you have any data to indicate what the status and health of your “reach” is?
Strategic Planning: Do you have regular contact with your marketing professionals to talk about future marketing, whether it is about spending money, changes or growth in your business, new directions and phasing out old projects?
Integrating Marketing: Does your marketing professional give you advice and input about ways to conduct your business that also improve your marketing posture?

Marketing is complicated and ever-changing. For it to work well, you and your marketing professional have to communicate effectively, plan regularly and work in tandem with one another.

Data Before Decisions

Grading Your Marketing

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