Share Economy – Image Marketing Consultants Talks About Implications for Your Organization
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL covers how The Share Economy, thanks to the Internet, is creating fresh opportunities for entrepreneurs.
The “share” concept is based on the reality that people thrive on sharing themselves, their talents, and their passions with others. The business owners and the middlemen who facilitate that process are earning revenue and building brandnames by bringing everyone together. Those brought together might be a woman who loves to make mac & cheese in a variety of flavors and those willing to pony up about $20 to enjoy a meal with other mac & cheese fans.
Image Marketing Consultants has these three tips on how your organization can piggyback on the sharing movement to achieve your objectives, whether they be to increase sales or raise more funds for a worthy cause.
Special Events. Your prospects and customers/clients love to meet in person. You might be sponsoring a complimentary seminar on retirement plans. Invite those attending to share on your Facebook fan page their retirement dreams, through photos, videos, and/or text. Let ’em know that materials will be on display at the seminar. Start out the tutorial with sharing from the attendees.
Being a Connector. Societies have always had special people able to bring together those who need to find each other. One may be searching for a traveling companion for his aging mother and the other for a way to tour Europe for free. Such special people were known as “connectors” or in some ethnic neighborhoods as “yentas.” A perk you provide your customers/clients is that ability to share your contacts throughout the community beyond the focus of your business per se. You will be in demand.
Ecommerce. Both web and brick and mortar enterprises can be extended into new kinds of businesses based on sharing. For example, your current focus is a mobile grooming service for dogs and cats. In addition you can establish an exchange for certified sitters for houses, pets, children, and the elderly, with revenues derived from both facilitating the transaction and from selling advertising.
Kate Sirignano, founder of Image Marketing Consultants, invites you to a complimentary consultation for your marketing, public relations, partnership, special events, and social media needs kate@imagemarketingconsultants.com, 203-404-4868.Board of Advisors: Why It Can Help Your Business, Explains Image Marketing Consultants
Putting together a Board of Advisors is becoming a standard part of the marketing mix.
That’s because this tool helps both your business and the professional objectives of the advisors. With some economists predicting GPD growth of 3 percent in 2013, this might be the time for you to consider this tactic.
Unlike a Board of Directors, the Board of Advisors is an unofficial, informal group. The members come together to provide guidance, access to their own networks, and the power of their own individual branding to your business. In return, you give them exposure on your website and in your other communications, introduce them to others useful to their own enterprises, and make it possibible for them to become insiders in a field they might want to be associated with. Although they usually don’t receive monetary compensation, they tend to enjoy perks from your operations such as entertainment and discounts, an enhanced network, and the branding side effects of your success.
How to put together a Board of Advisors? Here are some guidelines:
Clarify Purpose. Potential members are busy people. So you have to be clear why they are there and what their roles/duties will be.
Clarify Incentives. Those should be detailed. For example, you would state that the industry is growing 21 percent and your particular enterprise is growing 42 percent. Explain what’s in it for them to be part of that high profile niche. Also indicate the networking opportunities since the membership will include other proven professionals, maybe even celebrities. Then spell out the concrete perks such as exposure in your promotions, tickets to sports events, discounts, and possible referrals.
Be Attentive. Figure out what the members want before they even ask. That will keep them happy participants in your business.
Kate Sirignano, founder of Image Marketing Consultants, invites you to a complimentary consultation for your marketing, public relations, partnership, special events, and social media needs kate@imagemarketingconsultants.com, 203-404-4868.
Winning Back Former Customers/Clients: 3 Tips from Image Marketing Consultants
New customer/client acquisition is expensive. A more cost-efficient route to get your business growing in 2013 is to win back former customers and clients. Actually, that’s not all that difficult or stressful. Here are 3 tips from Image Marketing Consultants.
Get in touch. Often customers and clients simply drift away for no reason. Finding a reason to contact them, preferably with an incentive, will remind them that you are still around and care about their business. Anecdotal evidence shows that most people buy from the last person who has contacted them with an attractive offer.
Remember, you might be thinking about your business night and day. Customers and clients don’t. That’s why the burden is on you to be innovative in coming up with reasons to be in touch.
Ask what it will take for them to return. Successful salespeople frequently close a deal by asking, “What will it take for me to get this sale?” That forces the prospects to either move toward buying or to signal that they really aren’t serious. Either way, the salespeople are better off. That’s because they will get the information they need or they will view the situation as dead-end and move on to the next opportunity.
Likewise, you can “force” the issue and either have win backs or accept those accounts as gone. When you discern that your former customers or clients are doing business with your competition, let them know you will go the distance to have them return. One effective approach is to ask, “What will it take for you and us to do business again?” Be ready to listen. Be ready to compromise. Be ready to demonstrate that you can learn from the past.
Show what’s new. Since the beginning of marketing as a discipline in business, companies have been advertising what’s “new and improved” as a sure-fire way to get attention. Hope is a primitive instinct and it’s driven by what promises to provide fresh experiences or solutions. So, use it.
The challenge is to figure out what you can put out there that will both appear new and will attract interest. For a retailer it could be the technology to check out purchases right in the dressing room. For a restuarant, it could be a special menu that aligns with the most recent weight-loss approach. For a public relations agency, it could be the e-book that’s researched, ghostwritten, produced, copyrighted, and distributed for X dollars.
Kate Sirignano, founder of Image Marketing Consultants, invites you to a complimentary consultation about your marketing, public relations, partnerships, special events, and social media kate@imagemarketingconsultants.com, 203-404-4868.
Baby, It’s Cold Outside – Image Marketing Consultants Recommends Ice-Breakers
Snow, winds at 40 miles an hour, and temperatures in the 20s swept into the Northeast Corridor. Most minds were less on how to celebrate the New Year than on how to get from Point A to Point B without suffering too much.
That sort of frame of mind is a great opportunity for retailers, professional services firms, and nonprofits to “break the ice” with propsective buyers and donors. And this marketing tactic costs very little.
Just put out a device to dispense warm beverages and maybe some mini treats. All the better if you bake them yourselves. Or for that spread you can partner with another organization such as a bakery, car dealer, or public relations firm which wants its brandname out there. Yes, next to the goodies, there’s a cute sign identifying the warmer-uppers as from X or Y organization.
Warm, no pun intended, hospitality truly does melt the hearts of even cynical buyers. This tactic is especially effective when they have just endured the brutality of frigid weather.
Happy New Year from all of us at Image Marketing Consultants.
“Downton Abbey” – Image Marketing Consultants Advises on Marketing/PR Opportunity
“Downton Abbey” returns to PBS on January 6th. Americans have fallen in love with this idealized version of the past, ranging from formal dining every evening to cooperative arrangements between the employer and employees.
Clients and prospects ask us at Image Marketing Consultants how they can leverage this amazing bit of pop culture for marketing and public relations. Well, there are infinite possibilities to capture the good spirit and style of the series and use those to bond with customers and prospects, get the attention of media, and produce engaging material for your own social media.
For example, eating establishments can christen a certain dish or snack after a character in “Downton Abbey.” A fine chocolate or elegant dessert could be listed as “Mary’s delight.” In addition, there can be an evening a week designated for serving all the courses the family at the Abbey traditionally eats. Formal attire required. Invite the media to sample the sweet fare and settle in to an old-fashioned dining experience. Owners can also promote this special event through their social media. Have members of staff live blog and tweet, video tape, and take photos. Some of those can be takeaways for guests.
Another approach is to partner with one or more other businesses and nonprofits for a contest to depict in print, digital, video or audio the specialness of “Downton Abbey.” Through this kind of alliance the prizes can be significant and the media could be attracted to the story. There are also fun ways to play with this meme on Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and Google+.
A third suggestion is to declare a “Downton Abbey” day or retreat in the workplace in which management and labor try fresh ways of becoming an authentic team. That could include guest speakers, panels, and role playing. Your communications department can generate plenty of internal coverage on this experiment.
Every so often, a bit of pop culture embeds itself into the national consciousness. That won’t be forever. Yes, it’s a use it or lose it.
Kate Sirignano, founder of Image Marketing Consultants, invites you to a complimentary consultation about your marketing, partnerships, public relations, special events, and social media kate@imagemarketingconsultants.com, 203-404-4868.
Holidays 2012: Use the pause to think, advises Image Marketing Consultants
A client told us at Image Marketing Consultants, “Things slow down during the holidays.” He said it, with an undertow of apology.
After all, the American brand of capitalism is to be always doing, always on the go. Because of that, too many leaders of organizations don’t approach so-called “slow times” as opportunities to think about emerging opportunities and threats and how to deal with them.
There is an often-repeated anecdote about Bill Gates, current global philanthropist and founder of Microsoft. His mother called down to him when he was in the basement and asked him what he was doing. He answered, “Thinking.” She didn’t understand why he would be doing that. He and his mother had a difficult relationship.
Thinking is not a trait encouraged when we are young, at least not in America. Yet, it’s frequently exactly what successful people do and a lot of it. The late Steve Jobs was always connecting the dots in his head, in new ways. Hillary and Bill Clinton have been able to “think” their way out of crisis. When he was studying at Oxford, News Corp head Rupert Murdoch learned game theory, that is to plan his moves in context of what he thought his opponents would do. President Barack Obama, TIME Person of the Year, is sometimes criticized for being in his head so much but, despite the economic problems of his first term, he won a second one.
We at Image Marketing Consultants hope that you will take the time during the next few weeks to reflect on how you could make your organizations more successful.
We invite you to a complimentary consultation about your marketing, partnerships, public relations, special events, and social media. Please contact Kate Sirignano kate@imagemarketingconsultants.com, 203-404-4868.
Small Business Can Thrive Amidst Big Boxes, Reassures Image Marketing Consultants
Small businesses tend to tremble when they hear the rumor that a big box is moving into their neighborhood. They fear that big box will crush them.
Image Marketing Consultants is not the only one reassuring you that you can survive. In THE HAMDEN JOURNAL, Christopher LaTorraca wrote the cover story “Local Retailers Compete Against the Box Stores.”
In it LaTorraca explains that the little guy has been thriving by making business personal. That is, they go the distance in customer service. That includes knowing their customers so well that they have in their inventory exactly what will be purchased. There is no need to wait.
Other initiatives which have been effective for clients of Image Marketing Consultants is hosting special events. Online fatigue has set in and people are again eager to go out, especially if the event is free. The cheese shop can put on a cooking demonstration of how to make a cheese soup and the clothes retailer can stage a fashion show for one demographic such as women over-50. In addition, small businesses can partner with each other as well as larger companies to sell products and services they couldn’t manage to do alone.
According to American Express, 100 million will shop at locally owned business. The challenge is to ensure that your shop will be among them.
Kate Sirignano, founder of Image Marketing Consultants, invites you to a complimentary consultantion on marketing, partnerships, public relations, special events, and social media kate@imagemarketingconsultants.com, 203-404-
Numbers: They Can Provide Tipping Point, Advises Image Marketing Consultants
Anyone who has made a presentation to a board of directors at a corporation, a group of venture capitalists, or security analysts on an earnings conference call knows the importance of numbers. Although sophisticated professionals understand that numbers can be manipulated, they still demand them – lots of them.
Because of the so-called “creativity” involved in marketing and public relations those heading organizations might have held back on including numbers in messaging. Mistake. Numbers seduce. They are entities which prospects and current customers and clients can put their arms around. Also, digging them up and putting them out there show you care.
One set of numbers which get more than the average share of attention is this: results from a survey. For example, an expert on employment law includes in her communications the numbers from ManpowerGroup which found that 86 percent of employees in America plan to look for a job in 2013. In higher education, Quinnipiac University developed a powerful brandname through its Polling Institute. And you can also harness this power of the survey.
How to conduct a survey? You can Do It Yourself (DIY) through a free mechanism such as Survey Monkey. Or, you can seek out a partner to share the cost and enhance the opportunities for promotion. You can also use a professional agency such as Image Marketing Consultants.
Kate Sirignano, founder of Image Marketing Consultants, can help you with collecting and presenting the numbers which could be the tipping point in your marketing, public relations, and partnerships. Contact Kate for a complimentary consultation Kate@imagemarketingconsultants.com, 860-863-5861.
Generational Divides: Image Marketing Consultants Looks at Market Segments
Is your residential real estate agency targeted toward the professionally established Generation X house hunters or the under-30 struggling to find property they can afford? If you don’t know that, neither will your potential customers. With such severe competition in just about every industry it is key to be clear about what your business is as a brand and what segments it can most profitably focus on.
That applies whether your business is residential real estate, dining, driver education, or affordable housing. The most common mistake businesses make is attempting to be all things to all possible buyers. That confuses the shopper. It also dilutes the brand message.
For the new year, please go back to the drawing board and determine which are the most profitable market segments or single segment. Then develop your strategic plan and tactics for reaching them effectively and cost efficiently.
Kate Sirignano, founder of Image Marketing Consultants, invites you to a complimentary consultation on your marketing, public relations, partnerships, special events, and social media kate@imagemarketingconsultants.com, 203-404-4868. This holiday season give yourself the gift of a more successful business.
Why “No” Leads to “Yes” in Sales, Explains Image Marketing Consultants
Experienced successful salespeople frequently reassure those just starting out in selling of this: “No” frequently leads to “yes.” This may seem to make no sense.
After all, a no is a no. That no means that the couple didn’t buy the car, the man injured in a car accident didn’t sign up with that particular lawyer, and the 12-year-old decided not to spend summer at Camp X.
However, for those open to analysis of what they might have done differently and willing and able to change, the no provides important information. Many whose living depends on selling or promoting know this. That’s why they ask the prospects who didn’t buy from them the reason why. Usually the prospects are touched by the seller’s humility and eagerness to learn and they will candidly explain why they made the decision they did.
Even without the prospects’ input, ambitious salespeople have plenty to reflect on. They might ask themselves:
- Are we in the right market segment?
- Was there a powerful enough incentive?
- Did we not spend enough time assessing the buyer’s needs?
- Is our service/product no longer perceived as top-of-the-line?
- What about our price point? Should we be willing to match competitive pricing?
- Should we have found ways to keep the prospect on the phone longer?
Salespeople and promoters who are aggressive about mining a no for all the information they can are on their way to receiving the yes on a regular basis.
Kate Sirignano, founder of Image Marketing Consultants, invites you to a complimentary consultation about your marketing, partnerships, public relations, special events, and social media kate@imagemarketingconsultants.com, 203-404-4868.