Last night I had the privilege of seeing Gary Kunath, founder and CEO of the Summit Group speak at Miami University.  While Gary is like a father figure to me, it was extremely impressive and motivational to see him up in front of a large crowd. 

Gary spoke about being marketable.  About how experience and interaction among consumers is what is driving business these days.  Rather than enticing people through advertisements and creating a brand through traditional marketing strategies, it is time for us to switch gears and build our brands based on experience. 

For small business marketing, this is especially true.  To gain the repeat customers you desire, it is important that companies create a strong in-store or online experience.  By offering interactive marketing where consumers can not only see the product or service, but can use the product/service, or talk to the employees and other consumers, consumers tend to become brand loyal.  In addition, having pages out there on MySpace and Facebook that allow consumers to engage actively in a company's interactive marketing, makes it easier for consumers to talk to one another about the product, trust one another about the benefits of the product, and it also allows them to be reminded each day that the product/service is out there and ready for them.

The same hold true with the employees within the business.  The more they interact and have fun with those they can relate to their colleagues, the more loyal they become as well.  So, as you begin to build your company's marketing strategy remember that is important to have fun, be yourself, and entertain the consumer through positive interaction and communication. 

I heard the other day that "marketing costs for small businesses are just not justifiable."  Many businesses often think that marketing is not one of the more important costs within the business--small businesses especially.  However, small business marketing is often what makes or breaks companies. 

Small businesses should have a very cost effective marketing strategy.  It should include email marketing, building a website, maintaining SEO, and blogging for sure.  While in the office, I help a lot of mainstream businesses who can afford at least a good majority of the marketing services that we provide, there are companies and groups I deal with outside of work don't or may not want to devote as much money to their marketing as they should. 

Since I am very involved in the horse world, I will use that market as an example.  As the horse world continues to grow rapidly, it is important more than ever now that riding stables, show facilities, and trainers use marketing to their advantage.  It is important to create websites and pages on MySpace and Facebook for them since their main target market is teenagers.  Especially for those barns located near college towns and major universities, SEO and website enhancement are EXTREMELY important.  High school students looking to ride after school often make sure that their university either has an equine program or has a riding facility near by. And how do they find that....the Internet of course!

So while people may think that marketing is not always worth the money put in, I'll tell you from a market that I never thought would make it online, it is! Marketing is important to all businesses--especially small businesses who think that they cannot afford it.

In addition to a strong blog and website content, one of the leading small business marketing strategies is email marketing.  Email can not only get pertinent information out to clients/customers, but it can be a personalized message to clients that make them feel like a large part of the company and its motives.  While the information that goes into the email is important to get right, it is also important to get the design of the email correct so that it is aesthetically appealing and has easy usability.  While building the template for a new client of ours, I began looking through articles that could give me email marketing tips about content and layout.  I came across the following:

8 Email Marketing Tips
Email Marketing Tips, Tricks and Secrets

Just reading through these during the email marketing design phase helped me think about what was important to candidates and to the business writing the emails.  Once I got into the mind set of what each party would like, it was a little easier to create the layout and content.  Without searching through email marketing content, I felt as though I was just building emails and learning through trial and error what works and what doesn't.  However, once I took the time to look through why email marketing was positive for companies and clients, and different email tips, email marketing became easier for me to understand.

Search Engine Optimization is becoming a vital part of small business marketing.  In order to increase the amount of visits to a website each month, businesses must focus on making their websites the best they can and add enough new content that SEO becomes easy.  While SEO seems relatively simple, there are a lot of different areas that business can focus on whether it be content, blogs, PPC, linking to other pages, etc. 

After working at a small Cincinnati marketing firm for a month and a half now, I am starting to understand why each of the areas of SEO are important to small business marketing.  Blogging for business is probably one of the most important SEO strategies that a company can implement.  By having quality content on the main pages, blogging keeps the rest of the content fresh and up-to-date. Having this constant changing content, Google then recognizes this and puts the website higher on the search rankings.  In addition, adding links within blogs to other sites will help drive referral visitors to your site. 

There are several other SEO strategies that businesses can implement as well to help their website become higher in the search ranks.  If you'd like more search engine optimization tips, contact us.  Also, check out the following articles. 

For a list of SEO tips: http://seoarticles4u.com/Tips_On_SEO_-_Search_Engine_Optimization_a4662.html

For SEO focus for Google:
http://seoarticles.seoforgoogle.com/local-search-engine-optimization.cfm

Frequently asked SEO questions:
http://www.rankforsales.com/seo-seven-most-often-asked-questions.html

I just finished writing an article for one of our clients, Partner Finance, a local finance and accounting executive search firm.  Entitled Staying Marketable in a Down Economy, the article proposes what finance and accounting professionals should do to weather this current storm, whether they're looking for a job right now or simply trying to stay in the one they have given the market turmoil. 
   
Unfortunately, it's times like these that many realize the need for a personal marketing strategy.  It's now that so many kick themselves for not doing what it takes to be prepared before the storm hit.  Kind of like a company that spends nothing on a marketing strategy and execution plan until sales dry up, and then they wonder why the results don't come immediately.

Spend some time on your own brand development exercise.  What makes you, well, you?  Find your strengths.  Then put them to work, and insulate yourself to market fluctuations.



The advice is suitable for just about anyone today.  Check it out.  I'd love your feedback.

After just over a month, I think I'm finally settling in.  I've begun to learn enough of the marketing strategies to begin venturing out on my own now.  Rather than having to be helped every other minute, I am finally feeling more confident in my abilities and the work that I am producing.  In fact, even client phone calls are becoming less intimidating and more fun.  I feel as though my learning curve is beginning to subside and I can finally use my learned marketing knowledge in my extra marketing activities outside of the office.  I am able to apply concepts from the office to websites that I have created and now feel more confident in measuring the success they are producing.  While I still have a lot to learn about small business marketing and different interactive marketing, email marketing, and event marketing strategies, I at least feel as though I am not in the dark as much when we do sit down with clients.

Phew! I thought this might have been a long, rough road, but the reality of the matter is, when you put your mind to it...I guess it is achievable. 

This week, I have been working on researching B2B marketing strategies for one of our clients.  Upon trying to find information, Brian directed me to a site called SlideShare. I had never used this site, let alone heard of this site, but was pretty amazed at the amount of content that was on the page.  SlideShare is a site that allows users to upload slide presentations on just about any subject.  The presentations, range in size and depth, but are great tools when trying to research certain subjects.  I wish that I had known about this site while I was still in school because of the vast amount of information that you can find.  I suggest you check it out!

This weekend, Ike, that lovely hurricane that has caused so much tragedy and strife, hit the mid-west.  While it seemed like just a rainy day for me at a horse show in Nashville, TN, the tri-state area was experiencing extreme winds and tornado-like weather.  Power in homes in the Cincinnati area turned off and, for some, still has yet to come back on.  Since this area has not experienced this in some time, you can only imagine how much the day-to-day activities were affected. 

For me, our house remained with power, but my body did not.  While the storm affected others' days, I got a sickness with enough power to lay me out. However, with the ability to work from home, this did not affect my work time (thankfully!). 

In my last post, I discussed my liking toward the ability to work from home.  This was proved yet again this week when I felt terrible and didn't have to go to the office, but still did not have to take a sick day either.  While sipping on hot tea, taking prescriptions, and putting my feet up, I was able to accomplish a large load of work this week from my couch.  I was able to continue learning more about my clients, how to work the mysteries of creative suite, and experience the lovely joys of VPN's. 

I think more companies should seriously consider letting employees work from home for parts of the week.  Rather than getting behind during times of long gas lines with little gas at the station or sick employees, companies could capitalize on work by allowing their employees to have some face time from home.  After all, through all of this, Brian and I were able to have meetings twice a day and get a plethora of work accomplished while not in the same vicinity.  If I had to guess, working virtually is going to grow in the future when people see all of the benefits it has for both employees and the business as a whole. 

One of our newest clients, KeenHire, has just launched a new software solution to aid hiring authorities, executive recruiters and search firms in conducting behavioral interviewing and selection that helps to dramatically reduce the negative impacts of a bad hire.

The release just hit the wires today.  As someone focused on ROI marketing, I'm interested not only in measuring the marketing results of a campaign, but also in using that data to predict future performance.  That's what the study of marketing analytics is all about - using what you know about the past to make more informed future decisions.

As an employer, I find it fascinating there are proven solutions and tools out there that help companies predict the future performance of a candidate before they are hired.  I've always understood that a person's skills and experience are truly only part of the determination of whether someone is qualified for the job.  However, by working with KeenHire, I've learned that the candidate's values, motivations, likely reactions to business scenarios, and ability to learn new skills - what many consider to be the most important hiring criteria - can actually be measured and predicted with a great degree of accuracy.  Suddenly the concept of 'the right fit' takes on a whole new meaning.

So in the future if we interview you for a job with this Cincinnati marketing firm, don't be surprised if we spend less time on your resume and much more on figuring out who your favorite Little Rascals, Looney Tunes, Sponge Bob or Family Guy characters are. 

In the words of the great Stewie Griffin:

"Come, ice cream. Come to my mouth. How dare you disobey me!"

After almost a month with R.O.Why! Marketing, it is time for the fire hose to be turned on.  Rather than doing small tasks and fighting my way through piles of client information, it is now time for me to take the bull by the horns.  From acquisition marketing plans to search engine optimization, from email marketing to blog reviews, from end of the month reports to clinging to my sanity, this week has seen it all.  I never thought that a month into the work force after college I would have such an in-depth and educational work load.  Rather than being just another person in a large corporation pushing paper, I can safely say, being part of a small team, certainly allows you to learn more and take on more responsibility. it certainly makes working in the Cincinnati marketing profession entertaining and on its toes. 

At R.O. Why! Marketing, one of the things we do for clients as part of our blogging for business solution is to review their blog posts before they go live.  It's all part of an effort to make sure that as an organization, the client sends a consistent and clear brand message to the market.  In most cases we catch a couple of spelling errors or we recommend rewording something so the brand development police won't worry about competing messages.  Not a big deal and pretty easy to deal with.

Today, in reviewing a post that included an image, I saw something fuzzy in the image and when I blew it up larger, it was a copyright watermark.  Yes, the client had used Google Image Search to find a picture to help illustrate the point in the blog post.  Harmless enough, but they didn't realize that it was a copyrighted image.  OOPS!

We quickly removed the blog post, notified the client, and the image was replaced with another royalty free photo.  Luckily our client wasn't approached by the photo's owner, but this was a good lesson for them to learn.

Don't assume that images you find on Google are free for you to use as you wish.  Google doesn't own these images, but simply stores a thumbnail in its cache.  When you click on one, Google splits the screen to show you the thumbnail and the page that the full size version appears on.  The site that the image appears on is (or should be!) the rightful owner with license to use the image.

The better route would be to seek out royalty free image sites, or better yet, purchase credits to a stock photo site like iStock and purchase inexpensive web resolution images as you need them.

Be careful.  Just because it's freely accessible, doesn't mean it's free!

Blogging...It certainly is an interesting marketing tool.  Effective...yes.  Yet, not taught often enough.

Throughout college, I learned about both traditional and nontraditional ways of marketing.  I even learned about many of the new strategies within social media tools, but yet, blogging and the importance behind it were left out of the curriculum.  Sure  professors taught students the definition of a blog and where we can find them, but they left out a lot of pertinent information about their ability to strengthen businesses. 

In the last week and a half, I have been working a lot with this concept of blogging for business.  I find the marvels behind the importance of blogs to be mind-blowing.  It is amazing to think that these small writing times allow for interactive marketing between business and consumers and to help companies with their search engine optimization. Had I known all of the benefits of blogs, I would have suggested them within small business marketing plans I have developed for the other employers I have worked for.

Blogging not only allows businesses to get a step up in internet marketing, but they allow bloggers to throw around ideas with others interested in the same areas.  This alone has the potential to create an area where new marketing ideas, concepts, or strategies can develop further.  They serve as a great way to get feedback or suggestions. And they certainly are a way to get what is in your head out on paper (figuratively speaking anyways).

Had I known what I know now about Blogs, I probably would have created one a lot sooner and I certainly would have informed other small business owners about their ability to help businesses grow.  I also, for the sake of future business owners or motivated employees, will be contacting several University professors and reminding them of the importance of a Blog.  I believe that more time should be spent teaching students about these new nontraditional and social media strategies since the wave of the future lies within technology and the importance of being unique and buying unique items within consumers.

The old phrase "you learn something new everyday," does not even come close to the amount of information that I have acquired during my first week on the job.  Coming into the office, I knew a lot about the theories and definitions of many marketing strategies, however, I had never really been able to apply them completely to the real world from a small business marketing firm's point of view.  Now, though, I am beginning to feel extremely comfortable about blending theories and applications together with a hint of creativity and a new perspective. 

Not only do I feel comfortable sharing my ideas within the office, but after a meeting with one of our clients, I feel as though my fresh ideas will spread like rapid fire with our clients as well.  While sitting in a meeting, I couldn't help but sit back and listen as to how other businesses operate and brainstorm ideas.  I really took the time to immerse myself in their culture to understand exactly who they are, how they operate, and what is important to them.  This not only allowed me to feel part of the group as we discussed new marketing strategies, but made it easier to come up with ideas that matched the positioning and brand development of the company.  While each company is ultimately unique in its processes, I found that my adaptability to create ideas or suggestions works in other settings that I am not used to.  I now realize that whatever setting I am thrown into, I feel confident enough with my ideas and intuition about the culture of the company to be able to create some solid ideas.   Whew! I was hoping this would be the case!

In addition to feeling confident within the office, I now feel confident with taking my ideas out of the office.  I have now even been able to take a majority of concepts out of the office now and apply them to the other areas of my life.  After learning more techniques regarding search engine optimization and email marketing tips, I have been able to continue creating a strong marketing tool for a local horseback riding facility.  Even the knowledge I gained from our client's perspective, has allowed me to help this same facility with its brand development and creatively sharing this positioning with its clientele. While i could do this to an extent before working with ROWhy! Marketing, I have a lot more to offer knowledge wise to other passions within my life. 

Who knew that even after one week of work and the immersion into a small business and its culture would not only tell you about the type of worker you are, but would give you enough knowledge to begin applying techniques to other areas of your life?

Today was an exciting marketing strategy day for us at R.O. Why! Marketing.  I began the day with an intensive marketing strategy session with a client that focused on brand development and market segmentation.  After weeks of analysis, we came together to put things in motion toward achieving the company's $100MM revenue goal.

Some of the questions on the table were:

• How do we differentiate ourselves in a market that is cluttered with like firms?
• We know what's unique in our business model, but do customers value that?
• If they don't value what we feel is unique, is it truly a differentiator?
• Do we continue to serve broad markets or should we tailor our solutions for niche markets, as the The Long Tail professes?
• The path to $100MM has several different, but equally valid approaches, as proven by larger competitors.  Which marketing strategy is best?
• What is our brand today, and what should it be in the future?

All good questions, and together over the next few weeks we'll answer them, and create a go to market strategy that delivers on the brand promises.

In your business, which approach prevails?  Single solutions delivered to broad markets or multiple product variations tailored for smaller, but potentially more lucrative niches?  Pursuing The Long Tail takes courage.

Are you willing to ignore the masses and differentiate, tailor to smaller niche markets, and say no to some business in order to own your niche?  Perhaps Macy's is starting to embrace this approach.  Will you buy more?

Would your customers?

Since graduation I have spent a majority of my time this summer focusing on horseback riding and my tan...not so much on my business skills. However, in the last two days I have been reminded of how the real world actually works. 

While in class at Miami University, I sat through many lectures in which i came out thinking: "That was useless."  I never thought I would actually have to use a majority of the small bits and pieces of information I learned from the classroom.  Boy, was I wrong!  Coming out of college I had every intention of joining a smaller, more entrepreneurial work atmosphere--preferably one that focused on marketing tools that help other small businesses get on their feet and get their name out to the public. 

Upon my arrival here at R.O.Why! Marketing, I have had to not only learn the ropes of working in a marketing consulting firm that specializes in internet marketing consulting and search engine optimization, but I have had to reach far into my memory for those small skills I obtained within the classroom.  I used to joke with a buddy of mine about his over abundance of knowledge in IT and computers, but now I am envious!

These first few days on my new feet have been a lot of fun, yet extremely tiring! The amount of knowledge I have acquired within the last three days has been nothing short of monstrous.  yet the amount and the different levels of difficulty have only left me wanting to come to work and learn more about ROI marketing and internet marketing.  I have a feeling this will be a fun and long journey here in the office!

Several months ago I took the plunge and signed up on Twitter.  Unsure of what to expect, I started sharing what was going on at R.O. Why! Marketing, some of the email marketing, interactive marketing and blogging for business efforts we're delivering for clients.  At first, very similar to blogging for business, it feels like you're simply talking to yourself.  Few followers, not many replies, but I found that after some effort and a focus on sharing valuable information (vs. the all to common 'I'm eating a sandwich' Twitter updates,) the followers started to come in droves.  I'm several months into it now and with over 100 followers I can say that my tiny little universe seems actively engaged.

I also have a couple of very tangible benefits to share.  My efforts on Twitter have delivered big for R.O. Why! Marketing, connecting me with a contact that has since become a new client in Chicago called KeenHire (a company that does some amazing things with behavioral interviewing, assessments & targeted selection,) - thanks to CincyRecruiter & smheadhunter for the connections - and in addition, this small Cincinnati advertising agency has just found its newest employee.

A few things I've learned that are worth sharing:

-  Twitter is for business too. Think smaller & Get creative.
-  If you're going to tweet, respect the audience & deliver valuable updates.
-  Save the 'I'm in Cincinnati' updates for SMS messages for Brightkite.
-  Engage those people you'd like to attract as followers.  Read & comment on their blogs, etc.
-  Avoid the temptation to follow everyone that follows you.  It's not required, nor is it always recommended.  Make sure those you follow add value.
-  Share more than you feel comfortable sharing.  Invite the universe in & build a relationship.

Just like other social networks, you reap what you sow.  So far I have found Twitter to be a worthwhile investment of a small amount of time, and given it's recent payoffs, I think I'll keep tweeting.

Have an experience to share?

I'm excited this morning to welcome Kaitlyn Kurtz to R.O. Why! Marketing as account coordinator.  Kaitlyn comes to us from Honeytree Stables in Oxford, Ohio, where she developed marketing and public relations campaigns, including the company's website, various market research projects and print advertising.  Kaitlyn also recently completed her Bachelor of Science degree in Marketing at Miami University in Ohio, where she also served as Marketing Director of her Laws, Hall & Associates team that developed an advertising campaign for Foot Locker.  After presenting to the CEO of FootLocker, her campaign was chosen to be launched into 5 major European markets and voted the best due to its through the line consistency and overall creativity.

Kaitlyn has a big job ahead of her here at R.O.Why! Marketing.  As account coordinator, she will focus on managing client projects ranging from email marketing, interactive marketing, search engine optimization and our blogging for business solution.

Please join me in welcoming Kaitlyn to the team!