Archive for the ‘Contributor’ Category

Small Biz Strapped for Cash? Don’t Stop Promoting.

Wednesday, February 25th, 2009

It’s been said that necessity is the mother of invention. To paraphrase, tough economic times call for creativity in promotion.

Essentially, you have two choices when it comes to marketing and promotion: find creative, cost-effective methods or crawl under a rock. For most of us, there’s no in-between.

The general idea is to balance reach, frequency and impact with cost. And now, more than ever, the value quotient is driven by cost.

But there are some possible avenues for small businesses to pursue. Here are a few that have worked for us, our clients and our peers:

  1. Speak whenever possible: Seek out speaking engagements with groups, associations and companies, and create your own opportunities to get in front of people. You shouldn’t necessarily demand payment. Put yourself in front of lead-rich groups. That’s your compensation.
     
  2. Get some ink: Whether you do it yourself or hire a low-cost provider, you owe it to yourself to try and get your business written up in the newspaper and industry publications. Give us a call and we’ll show you how. It’s not that difficult and it’s not as expensive as you might think.
     

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The C.U.R.E.

Wednesday, February 18th, 2009

Get the C.U.R.E.: a zero-cost way to make your ad dollars go farther.

These days, we all want to find the Holy Grail of low-cost marketing tools. Here’s one that doesn’t cost anything more than just a little added effort.

Recently, I had the pleasure of speaking to a group of nearly 100 non-profit professionals who wanted to know how to make their messages more impactful and memorable.

In essence, I told them to package their messages in the form of stories, which are easy to relate and plentiful in the day-to-day of most non-profit groups.

Here’s the C.U.R.E. I gave them for solving boredom, ineffectiveness and interference.

 C is for credibility. 

Any story that names names and has celebrity endorsement of some sort is going to make a bigger impact and give listeners and viewers permission to believe.

U is for unique.

Try and put a novel spin on your story by approaching it from a different point of view.

R is for relevant.

Your story should follow a “this is how it was, this is what happened, this is how it’s better” format. It should also demonstrate how the listener or viewer will benefit from whatever you’re asking them to do.

E is for easily repeatable.

The reason stories survive for generations and jokes get told over and over is because they’re easy to remember and easy to repeat. Make sure your story is rich, but simple.

Written by David Mace of letmaverick.com

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