Want to learn how to do your own marketing instead of paying an expert to do it?
If so, you’ll love the new website from Ivana Taylor called DIYMarketers. She is looking for about 30 more folks to enroll in her do-it-yourself program. This is perfect for the entrepreneur who wants to do their own marketing.
A word of warning: Ivana has more energy, more ideas and more intensity than just about any marketing professional I’ve ever met. She will keep you on your toes, I promise!
When should you rebrand your company? Here are times when my company has been asked to lead the rebranding effort:
Rebranding is more than just updating a logo, refreshing a website or reprinting a new sell sheet. It may involve a new potential customer list, a new system for providing estimates, and should include a system for tracking and analyzing sales results.
Rebranding means answering these questions first:
Businesses evolve over time, but sometimes the branding and marketing efforts have to play catch up. Does your business still have the old outdated tagline in materials that was “before ______”. Maybe it is time to look at rebranding your marketing efforts.
More Rebranding Articles:
Keep a Fresh Face on your Branding
Rebranding a Chrysler into a Nissan? Or more likely a Nissan into a Chrysler!
Are You Rebranding? or Just Updating Your Look?
Rebranding to help Marketing the Message
Rebranding: Fast, Faster, Fastest
Most business professionals have a working knowlege of marketing, but some are less sure about the ins & outs of branding.
I was lucky enough to learn the branding world during my 14 years in the toy industry by working on brands like G.I.Joe, Transformers, Playskool and Little Tikes. I even created the first stories for the back of the blister card packaging for the original My Little Pony toys back in 1983. (Talk about creative writing!!)
There were many many people working on those brands. Nothing happens as the result of just one person. As you can imagine, there is a lot of strategy that goes into creating a strong brand. You’ve got to have all your bases covered, or the result is a weak brand that doesn’t stand for anything.
So how does a smaller business apply the principles of big brands to their brand to achieve all the benefits of branding? I think one way to start is to identify the terms and key phrases of branding.
I was inspired this morning by another marketing consultant who cut his marketing teeth like me, in Fortune 500 companies.
Jay Lipe’s recent article at his blog Smart Marketing identifies the most important terms in branding.
* Value Proposition
* Brand Equity
* Differentiation
* Brand Attributes
* Key Messages
* Targeting
* Segmentation
* Core values
* Integrated Marketing Communications
* Metrics
There are only 10 terms here…Which branding term do you think is missing?
Jay’s criteria is:
1) must be a popular term used in everyday branding work and
2) it must be an important facet in the art of branding.
So, nothing too obscure or insignificant.
So what is missing from this list?
Added bonus: Jay’s company website, Emerge Marketing has a great glossary of marketing terms and lingo. This is a great resource for learning more about marketing as well as a great Search Engine Optimization technique for Jay’s consulting business.
The other day I had breakfast with a business owner who is a great sales person. He was very quiet, but people always lean in to hear what he has to say and consult with him about how to solve problems in their business.
I asked him how he got so good at sales. He said it’s simple. Most people think that sales is telling other about the product, but sales is about listening.
“We have two ears to listen, one mouth to talk,” he told me. “Selling is not telling. Selling is listening.”
Marketing is actually more about telling, building awareness, advertising and PR. Marketing is direct mail and brochures and flyers. Marketing warms up the prospect, but sales makes them a business partner.
He has 4 steps that sales people must go through before they begin “doing sales.”
Then… only then, talk about your product/service’s features.
Do you agree? Marketing is about telling and sales is about listening?
More discussion about the difference between sales & marketing:
Spell Brand: Marketing is going out… Sales is exchanging.
Lead Response Management: Timing is the difference.
Peak Sales: Where to invest your money when times are tough
Here are two new technologies that I just learned about this morning thanks to comments from readers to this week’s posts and three “old” technologies that I’m reminded about from an email. All 5 of these tools can help you market your products, services and brand:
Pheedo RSS Advertising using Pheedo. I always thought of RSS as just subscription, not advertising so it’s new to me!! Thanks, Melanie! Respectful Workplace .
About: Pheedo creates new kinds of profit driven advertising services through distributed content, like RSS, for our publishers and advertisers. Our pioneering efforts have resulted in triple digit revenue growth for leading publishers and have connected millions of content hungry readers to top tier advertisers.
Twitpic This is my new Twitter picture sharing account — Which gives me a place to post photos like Flickr, but somehow is woven in with Twitter. Thanks Mark at Neutron Interactive
What is TwitPic? TwitPic lets you share photos on Twitter
You can post pictures to TwitPic from your phone, the TwitPic API, or through the site itself.
I’m still learning about TwitPic and Pheedo, so for those folks who aren’t ready for those technologies I offer something that isn’t really a new technology, but actually a three-some: Email, Blogs & SEO. I wanted to mention it because of an email I got from an author (Content Rich: Writing Your Way to Wealth on the Web) last night reminded me the power of writing a blog on the internet to help an author with getting SEO about his new book:
Again, it would be great to have you take a look at the book and blog about it. In return, I would love to help you out in any way I can with reviews of your products or services on my blog, http://contentrichbook.com/blog/.
So Jon Wuebben at Custom Copywriting, here’s your blog post about your book. You’re walking the talk, send an email, ask for a blog post, offer a favor in return to help. Isn’t social internet marketing the greatest? (er, Jon, I’ll have to get back to you about how you can help me, later…)
So, tell me, which of these 5 tools will you use today to improve your marketing?