by IMC | Sep 4, 2012 | Blog, Online Video
“Kate, I read that when Mitt Romney made his speech in prime time, there were 23 percent fewer television viewers than four years ago when John McCain spoke. Am I wasting my money advertising on television here in Connecticut?”
With so much change in media and so many more choices, Image Marketing Consultants is receiving an increasing number of questions like this one about how to spend marketing dollars. The answer to this business owner is: It depends. That means that for every promotional campaign, B2C enterprises have to start from square one in investigating options, their costs, the probability of success, and how to test out tactics before making a significant commitment.
Television advertising, for example, may seem to some B2C enterprises to be too much to risk in terms of dollars and possible conversions. They have a hunch that it would be cheaper and more effective to create their own online videos to distribute on YouTube and through their own digital platforms such as their website, blog, Facebook fan page, and twitter account. Not so fast, at least not in isolation.
For example, personal injury law firms have to dig around for how their most successful competitors are navigating the marketing mix. A major personal injury lawyer who started out in Connecticut and now dominates New England emphasizes television and ads on public transportation and billboards. His web presence is just developing. Therefore, a competing firm could view digital as the space to pounce, not attempt to compete toe-to-toe with him through other mediums.
Image Marketing Consultants recommends: Slow down, study the terrain, experiment. Monitor results. Approach marketing as the work in progress it has become.
Kate Sirignano, Millennial founder of Image Marketing Consultants, provides complimentary consultations in Marketing including Advertising, Partnerships, Public Relations, Social Media, and Special Events kate@imagemarketingconsultants.com, 203-404-4868
by IMC | Aug 30, 2012 | Blog, Media Relations
Many press experts, including Dan Gillmor who published “We The Media,” told small businesses, large businesses, and even lone entrepreneurs that they could be the media. Thanks to digital technology, you could have the reach of a multi-national corporation with a promotional budget of billions.
For some of you who have been early adopters of websites, webinars, blogs, podcasts, videos for YouTube, photo-sharing, setting up a Facebook fanpage, and tweeting, that has worked out well. Your outreach converted into actions such as more guests at your restaurant and more emails to your state senator to lobby for or against such and such a regulation
. In addition, since attention gets attention, the external media started coming to you, particularly your special events.
For those of you who haven’t taken that digital leap into being the media, there’s urgency. More constitutencies, ranging from prospects and current customers/clients to elected officials and local and regional media, are coming to your website. There they now expect you to have a “Media Center.” For some that is their first stop instead of “About Us.” In addition, if there is a crisis, your own Media Center provides one of the platforms from which you will handle it.
What should be in your Media Center? Everything which tells your story. That includes videos you put on YouTube, external coverage by the press, press releases, announcements, case studies, clips of ads, white papers, podcasts, webinars, speeches, earnings reports, blog posts which have gone viral, live-tweeting, and photos. The beauty of the Media Center is that you tell your story in your own voice, on your schedule.
Kate Sirignano, founder of Image Marketing Consultants, provides complimentary consultants on Public Relations, Social Media, Marketing, Partnerships, Advertising, and Special Events kate@imagemarketingconsultants.com, 203-404-4868.
by IMC | Aug 26, 2012 | Blog, Celebrations
Every week some organization, both private sector and non-profit, is celebrating an anniversary. They do that because years in business or serving the needs of the homeless is a platform for marketing, fundraising, getting media attention, attracting partners, and hosting special events. More importantly, you have the opportunity to reach out to your current constituencies and thank them for being there all those years.
So, yes, if this is your second or 34th year in buiness or being a helping hand in the commmunity, consider positioning and packaging that for reinforcing your branding, increasing sales, gaining access to new funding, and staging an activity which the media can’t miss.
Here are 3 tips from Image Marketing Consultants:
Highlight theme of gratitude, show it. You wouldn’t have made it to yet another year without the customers/clients, employees, vendors, contributors, public services, elected officials, and the media. Show how grateful you are through a special event such as a complimentary ice cream social, a steep discount, or free training in your expertise such as decorating cakes.
Tell the world. Few will know that it is your anniversary unless you spread the good news. That in itself can be leveraged as a brand enhancer if you create a special symbol and/or graphics for the announcement. That can be communicated through all your digital sites such as Facebook, blogs, Twitter, and Google+ as well as your newsletters, store/office windows, and tags employees wear. If the community permits, members of your organization can dress up in thematic costumers and distribute flyers and maybe some goodies in target areas.
Introduce New Whatevers. Attention gets attention. Since you have that attention, use it to feature new products, services, funding objectives, kinds of community outreach, expansion of territory, and celebrity support.
In addition, participating in other organizations’ anniversaries provides you with what could be a productive networking activity. From it could come partnerships, incremental sales, and a fresh source of funding.
Kate Sirignano, founder of Image Marketing Consultants, provides complimentary consultations for Marketing, Partnerships, Advertising, Public Relations, Social Media and Special Events Kate@imagemarketingconsultants.com, 203-404-4868.
by IMC | Aug 24, 2012 | Blog, Branding, Credibility
“What a dumb thing I did and it was a risk I didn’t have to take.”
That’s a regret we at Image Marketing Consultants are hearing more often. That’s because just about everything, ranging from the economy to social norms, is in flux. That means that much of what involves public interaction involves some degree of risk. Of course, it’s not possible to avoid all risk. Play it “too safe” and you can come across as inauthentic.
Yesterday, we at Image Marketing Consulting listened to a webinar that proved puzzling. The expert who presented material about media, from the get-go, used industrial-strength profanity. The audience numbered over a 1000. Therefore, we have to assume some of them might have been quite turned off. One of our staffe noted that the presenter’s credibilty was deep-sixed by that incredible lack of sensitivity about who might be in the audience.
Here are 3 tips from Image Marketing Consultants on how to approach risk in smart ways:
Know the audience. It might consist of one, the job interviewer, or a 1000 as with the webinar. Research their values, especially social norms and the organizational culture. Then align what you say and write with those. The best salespeople do exactly that. They call it “mirroring” the prospects.
Trial-run everything. In marketing, even small businesses test out several kinds of email communications before they launch a major campaign. In your head or on a piece of paper a certain approach may seem great. In reality it could fail to resonate or offend those you can’t afford to irritate. Find trusted allies you can run material by and role play for.
Everything changes. Just because a tactic worked last month or in a robust economy doesn’t mean it will be effective today. That’s why it’s shrewd to investigate the mood of the audience. If the company just lost a major defense contract and you are trying to sell your products to it, you will have to frame your sales pitch accordingly.
Kate Sirignano, founder of Image Marketing Consultants, provides complimentary consultants for Marketing, Partnerships, Advertising, Public Relations, Social Media, and Special Events kate@imagemarketingconsultants.com, 203-404-4868.
by IMC | Aug 23, 2012 | Blog, Publish or Perish
Elena Cahill is an attorney, Certified Energy Manager (CEM), owner of Globele Energy, and convinced planet earth doesn’t have to worry any more about energy.
Today, she published a think piece about the technology and business of trash-to-energy on the syndicated site of financial information company Motley Fool. Here you can read it. Since there is plenty of garbage – in the U.S. each person produces more than four pounds a day – there will be plenty of energy.
Elena is a client of Image Marketing Consultants. We are mighty proud of this publishing accomplishment. She is also a columnist for the syndicated legal blog Law and More, which is housed in the Library of Congress.
As the Globele Energy website says:
“Our mission is to teach and implement strategies for our clients throughout the world that will conserve energy, create energy, purchase cost-effective energy, and then save money.”
You can reach Elena at elena@globeleenergy.com.
“Kate, I read that when Mitt Romney made his speech in prime time, there were 23 percent fewer television viewers than four years ago when John McCain spoke. Am I wasting my money advertising on television here in Connecticut?”
