by admin | Mar 22, 2011 | Blog, Promotion
Most small business owners are continually faced with the arduous task of achieving more with less.
Finding, attracting and retaining customers on an ever shrinking marketing and sales budget is becoming the norm, which makes the investment that you make into your people – your marketing human resources even more important and why measuring the return on this investment is crucial to your success!
There are numerous advantages of outsourcing or using marketing contractors for small and medium enterprises:
- Staffing is kept lean with no long-term commitments, whilst resources are available immediately – when you want them! Outsourcing gives you access to experienced marketing professionals who can quickly develop plans and campaigns on the tightest of schedules. Furthermore there will be no ambition, career progression or mood swings to deal with! If for some reason the marketing provider doesn’t perform to your expectations, you have a personality clash (it happens!) or for any other reason, you do not have messy labor laws to contend with if you want to terminate them – in the words of one Donald Trump – “You’re fired!” is all that is necessary.
- It is far easier and much more likely that you will be able to hold a 3rd party such as a contractor, consultant or marketing / advertising agency accountable than one of your own team members.
- Salary is just a tip of the “employment costs iceberg”. Outsourcing to an expert, means that you don’t bear the costs of recruiting, training and managing the employee, no furnishing an office, buying new hardware or providing employee benefits.
- Contracting means cost effectiveness and a mean balance sheet – no annual leave, sick leave or long-service accruals.
- Outsourcing strategic marketing thinking and creative expertise eliminates the “we’ve always done it this way” mentality and helps eliminate bias associated with internal politics, which means higher productivity from contractors versus permanent staff who maybe hampered by habits, hiding behind history or being haunted by it and who maybe short on haste.
- Inject new skills into your business with minimal risk. Since media is increasingly fragmented, communications programs are more complicated. You can’t be an expert media strategist, a technology expert, a marketing strategist, a market researcher, a promotional expert, a designer, a copywriter, a project manager or co-ordinator, and the list goes on!
- The most valuable contribution a marketing consultancy or an advertising agency can make to its clients is their capacity to demonstrate a new perspective about a product or a service that people inside a company may not have. The best marketing consultants, those with experience across product and service categories, see similarities and differences in communication problems across different industries and help clients see problems better than they can see them themselves. They are able to draw on their experience across multiple brands and various categories and more readily recognise unlikely connections and hence more readily provide creative and strategic solutions that may not be self-evident to the clients themselves. Outsourcing marketing services especially those of a strategic and creative nature helps both the company and the consumer discover new ways of looking at the problem and the solution. It is one of the most cost effective ways of introducing fresh ideas (innovation) into your business.
- Outsourcing will help you to focus on the core competencies of your business; talk to the people that are on your front line – your customers and your sales team. By outsourcing your marketing you will be able to work on your business instead of in it and this will help you to maximize returns from your marketing investment.
A sample case study at the end of this paper will illustrate the superior cost effectiveness of hiring a contractor or consultant versus those associated with employing even a single part time in house marketing resource.
So you are still not convinced and in all fairness, there are times when it is more cost effective to have an internal marketing resource. The question is what type of marketing resource should you have in house? To answer this, let’s look at HIRING or EMPLOYING a marketing consultant in house.
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by admin | Jan 13, 2011 | Blog, Promotion
However much we would like advertising to be a science, because life would be simpler that way, the fact is that it is not. It is a subtle, ever-changing art, defying formulation, flowering on freshness and withering on imitation; where what was effective one day, for that very reason, will not be effective the next, because it has lost the maximum impact of originality.
Bill Bernbach
by admin | Dec 13, 2010 | Blog, LinkedIn, LinkedIn Training
A fascinating debate recently took place on the pages of Anthill, the summary of which can be described as follows:
- Should you aim to get as many connections as possible?
- Is Linked In suitable for B2C Marketing or only B2B?
You can find the article and readers responses here:
http://anthillonline.com/so-you-have-300-contacts-on-linkedin-well-im-not-impressed/
Doesn’t the question of how you should connect and with whom all depend on your product or service offering?
Although I see merit in both arguments, I am partial to side with Jen Bishop. Obviously by definition, Linked In is more suitable to B2B, however “all of us” are consumers and now there are 80+ million on there who are a marketer’s dream demographic! Which raises the question of reward v effort and ROI of targeted ads in this medium versus building your personal network…but that’s a whole other debate.
To support Tom’s point, I know of a Marketing Consultant (Self Proclaimed Linked In Guru) who has 17,000+ connections. Although he is undoubtedly a very smart guy who seems to be very successful and have his heart in the right place providing a lot of free education, I do not agree with some of his tactics and “teachings”, in fact I have reported one of his tactics to Linked In as I see them akin to “black hat SEO” …
I digress…the point being he is selling “educational product”, CD’s, Pod/Video Casts, PDF’s etc…The more connections he has the better for his business! In that respect he is doing a great job – satisfying customer demand and making a profit without doing anything wrong!
SO LET”S ALL BE CLEAR ABOUT OBJECTIVES – HORSES FOR COURSES! We should not make sweeping statements but instead spend a little time working on our strategy, value proposition and then worry about evaluating the media channel, it’s advantages and limitations and the process with which you will maintain DIALOGUE in your chosen channel.
Success on Linked In and in fact in all Social Media channels, to be specific VIA NETWORKING & WORD OF MOUTH, NOT ADVERTISING, relies on the principle of leveraging and building your reputation with your existing professional (and personal) connections as well as building new connections that will also hold you in high regard. Now how you will do that is the big challenge and not one of technology but strategy! What will you offer them to make their lives/jobs easy and what do you need to do to attract people to your profile in the first pace?
Many Linked In users damage their reputations because they forget the simple rules of engagement when it comes to interacting with their existing and prospective audience online.
I received two Linked In invitations in as many weeks, from individuals that indicated they were friends and gave no specific reason as to why they wanted to connect with me and used standard “templated” invites. In fact, having searched my electronic databases as well as my “super computer” called the human brain; I could not remember how or where I MAY have met these two people. These two invites were great examples of what not to do on Linked In. This doesn’t mean that these individuals can’t add value to my network or I to theirs. It does mean that I will wait to accept their invitation until such time that they can illustrate the value in connecting with them, and either choose to be more honest or learn how to better use the technology!
My Linked In connection policy is based around either one or both parties being able to POTENTIALLY add value to another. It’s a decision process that most PROFESSIONAL Linked In members should be able to answer in a matter of 30 seconds (in this case deciding whether to connect or not):
- Has the person inviting me illustrated a clear reason for doing so?
- Is this reason of value to me?
- If there was no clear reason stated, they have one last chance. I look at their profile for 20 seconds and decide for myself, read between the lines how connecting with them may benefit either me or them:
– Are they a potential prospect or referrer for my business?
– Am I a potential prospect for theirs? Is what they sell so unique (are they a real expert in their field) so as to interest me, even though they may not have given me an initially strong reason to connect.
– Am I a potential referrer for their business?
- Finally, if the answers to most of those are negative, I will not connect with them, as they are likely to fill my inbox and those of my network with useless junk and be a time sucking vampire!
Your CONNECTION policy maybe vastly different, BASED ON YOUR SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES, but the bottom line is you NEED to have one, and the only way to do so is to have a well thought through strategy.
For a Free and No Obligation Discussion about your specific needs contact us today.
by admin | Dec 2, 2010 | Blog, Promotion
Success on Linked In and in fact in all Social Media channels relies on the principle of leveraging and building your reputation with your existing professional (and personal) connections as well as building new connections that will also hold you in high regard. Yet many Linked In users fail to do this effectively and damage their reputations because they forget the simple rules of engagement when it comes to interacting with their existing and prospective audience online.
This blog entry was prompted by two Linked In invitations in as many weeks, from individuals that indicated they were friends and gave no specific reason as to why they wanted to connect with me and used standard “templated” invites. In fact, having searched my electronic databases as well as my “super computer” called the human brain, I could not remember how or where I MAY have met these two people. These two invites were great examples of what not to do on Linked In. This doesn’t mean that these individuals can’t add value to my network or I to theirs. It does mean that I will wait to accept their invitation until such time that they can illustrate the value in connecting with them. I am confident and hopeful they can do so after reading this.
Below are 5 great articles by Linked In “power users” that discuss the strategies of building your professional network on Linked In as well as the specific do’s and don’ts of Linked In Invitations.
I define Power Users as those that use Linked In to develop and grow their network (and consequently personal brand & business) in a strategic manner – they have objectives, systems and processes. They are thought leaders who have a deep understanding of the medium and the technology and use it to their fullest advantage. This is personal branding.
Here is my long held view and summary of the below articles:
1. DO NOT write anything that you wouldn’t otherwise say in person, on the telephone or in an email. You wouldn’t call up anyone, regardless of your relationship to him or her and utter the standard Linked In template words “join my network” as your opening remark! Then why do so many people do so in the medium of Linked In?
2. Remember that everyone listens to radio W.I.I.F.M – What’s In It For Me? Have a compelling reason for connecting / sending an invitation (in marketing terms – your offer and call to action) or use one or multiple principles of persuasion. As you read the below you will see that appealing to one’s ego in the form of flattery works as well!
Prevalent attitude to accepting and refusing Linked In invitations as well as some great tips on social media networking etiquette:
The official Linked In view and procedure on “how and who to connect to” can be found here:
Perception is Reality. Make sure perceptions of who you are positive and profitable!
Gene Stark
http://au.linkedin.com/in/genestark
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