Local Marketing Darwinism

Greetings all,

Remember how Charles Darwin put together a theory about the evolution of the species? He hypothesised that species that adapted to their environment would pass their genes on to a new generation thereby ensuring only the strongest survived. Those who couldn’t keep up would perish.

Not surprisingly the same can be said of your company’s Local Marketing activities. Simply put, you should cull campaigns that don’t work and replicate those that provide for the best return on investment. Of course, this implies that a formal review of each campaign is important. In the absence of a campaign assessment, companies tend to repeat activities that fail to produce consistent results.

You should cancel any advertising or promotions, above or below the line, which clearly don’t work. If you believe that your PR company is not pulling its weight, address the situation or move on.

The same can be said of sponsorship activities. By all means ensure that you keep repeating your sponsorship support for those that produce a reasonable return on investment, but call a meeting with those that have not delivered results and spell out to them in clear terms what is required of the relationship to see if things can be changed to achieve your goals. If the situation can’t be salvaged, don’t renew the relationship.

If certain events haven’t delivered the kind of results that you have expected, it’s best to review the situation with the organisers and determine whether you can salvage better results in the future or pull out altogether.

Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution is just as appropriate when it comes to local area marketing activities as it was to explaining the survival of the species. Your concentrated efforts to produce a return on investment are important to ensure that your business continues to be profitable and involved in successful activities. Constant review of activities, replication of winning campaigns and culling of non productive ones will ensure that your business prospers into the future.

For more Local Marketing ideas why not purchase a copy of “Local Marketing Secrets Cracked!” today at;

www.tinyurl.com/2949v6l

Best regards,
Greg Mullane

Advanced LinkedIn Strategies for Sales Teams

Greetings all,

I’m pleased to announce that here at LAM Plan we’ve just put the finishing touches on a new half day training course designed to really get your sales team or B2B Marketing into top gear!

As with all of LAM Plan material the course is designed to encourage new initiatives to create locally grown leads and sales – this time through creative use of the social media networking tool LinkedIn.

Specifically the course will cover the following topics;

1. Traditional Prospecting v LinkedIn Networking
2. Existing Connections: Contact v Prospect Ratios
3. Profile Completion Secrets
4. How to turbo charge your Contact numbers
5. Flexing your Expertise Muscle across Groups
6. Free Event Promotion
7. Advertising fun at $10 per day
8. Power Prospecting with Advance Searches
9. How to expand your offline eMail, Prospect and Database Listings
10. The 15 minute LinkedIn daily checkup

If you are interested in obtaining further information about the course please do not hesitate to contact Greg Mullane on 0417 060 833 or submit a course enquiry form.

Common Local Marketing Mistakes

Greetings,

I was recently asked by a client what were the most common mistakes made by small businesses when it comes to local marketing.

Having dealt with many large and small franchise groups in addition to major corporations with regional marketing teams and other entities with independent businesses like licensed stores, dealers, mortgage advisors and financial planners I think I was well placed to respond to this question.

It didn’t take me long to answer.

In fact, I don’t recall drawing too much of a breath before pointing out the following common Local Marketing errors amongst small businesses…

Firstly, Local Marketing – what Local Marketing? Mistake number one is that all too frequently there are very few active attempts by small business owners to undertake Local Marketing activities. Sad but true.

Then there is the ad hoc approach to Local Marketing which is sporadic and happens in an almost binary fashion – on, off, on, off, more off than on! Yes at least there is some activity but it is undertaken with little regard to who, what, why, when, where and how and most importantly – did it make any money?

A third mistake is that small businesses tend to undertake the same Local Marketing activities that they always have. Let’s face it they become very comfortable. After all the results were great in the past and any downward spiral can be quickly explained away by changes in the market place and increased competition. Indeed!

Another common Local Marketing error is that no formal campaign review is conducted to determine whether activities were successful, can be altered to win new business or dropped altogether. Reviews are seen as tedious, time consuming and cumbersome. But do they have to be?

The next error can be explained in two words: finger pointing. Local Marketing is seen to be the domain of someone else. Maybe it’s the franchisor’s responsibility or the supplier’s duty to do all the work so that the small business owner can just respond to well qualified leads. So we have a situation where both parties look at one another and throw their hands in the air and ask themselves the question “why aren’t they doing more to support me?”

Finally, and perhaps the most common Local Marketing mistake is that there is no systematic approach, framework or principles to guide the small business person in what to do. Too often the small business person is highly skilled in their industry or service but lacks Local Marketing training, knowledge and direction.

Ok, after all that what was the response by the client who asked the question?

“Hmmm, yep, you’re right all those factors apply to our group – you better come and see us.”

And that I did.

As you can imagine, there is some light at the end of the tunnel and thankfully the errors outlined above do not have to be repeated for years to come.

All the best,
Greg