Archive for marketing
How to Maintain a Positive Attitude in Difficult Economic Times
Posted by: | CommentsI believe that keeping a positive mental attitude is essential when you’re a solo-preneur, particularly during these troubled times. If you’re feeling desperate or scared it’s really hard to keep going. It’s hard to make plans and even harder to implement those plans. When speaking to potential customers, it’s harder to make the sale if you’re worried about making the mortgage payment.
And although in the fall I wrote a blog post called Survive a Recession? Some Businesses Are Thriving!, I too am having days where it is a struggle to stay positive.
How can you not worry? Unless you bury your head in the sand, you’re being told from all sides that the sky is falling. Turn on any newscast and you hear about the auto sector, job loss statistics climbing higher, retail sales figures plummeting. People keep dropping the “D” word. It’s not good!
And for baby boomer entrepreneurs, the situation is exacerbated by our looming retirement. We don’t have decades to make up for any losses today. We need to make our money now.
So how do we keep from being overwhelmed by the doom and gloom?
At the risk of sounding like a Pollyanna, I have to say that a conscious and strategic use of the Law of Attraction is what’s helping me through.
I’m not suggesting ignoring what’s happening in the world. However, throwing up your hands in despair doesn’t help. You can’t change what’s happening around you. But you can change your actions and thoughts. And changing your thoughts and actions can have a big impact on your success.
Try this experiment. Say the following aloud (with feeling):
“I can’t do this.”
Then try:
“I wonder if I can do this?”
And finally:
“I don’t know how, but I’m going to do this!”
Notice the difference in energy, how you feel when you say each of these statement? If you’re like me, I’ll bet the last one feels a whole lot better than the first one.
That’s what the Law of Attraction is about; focusing on what you want, rather than on what you don’t.
And it’s not just about feeling good. Changing your thoughts from negative to positive has a real impact on what happens.
If you go around thinking “I can’t” then your subconscious is going to help you be right. You’ll have less energy for your business, be half hearted in your marketing efforts (after all, they won’t work anyway) and you’ll overlook unexpected opportunities that arise because you’re focused on what’s not working. You’ll wonder why you went in business in the first place and start checking out the want ads in the paper in order to find a “real” job.
On the other hand, if you tell yourself you’re going to succeed no matter what (and you believe it), you’ll have more energy to devote to marketing and running your business. Because you believe things can go right, opportunities will seem to fall into your lap. And you’ll take advantage of them.
Now some Law of Attraction practitioners will say those opportunities arise because of your positive thoughts. I personally think that’s crap. I really believe that opportunities arise all the time, but we don’t always recognize them as opportunities or worse, don’t always act on them. But when you’re focused on success, you’re mentally prepared when something appears that will help you reach your goals.
As part of using the Law of Attraction to overcome fear about the economy, we more then ever need to have a profit motive in our business. It sounds obvious, but often times we can get distracted by administrative tasks, tidying our offices, and doing things we’ve always done. But if you’re really focused on building your business and making money, you’ll make sure you’re spending the majority of your time doing things that earn money – selling, delivering services and marketing!
It’s very simple. Have an expectation that your business will succeed. Take positive actions every day that move you towards your goals. Be open and receptive to unexpected opportunities that will help you get ahead. It won’t always be easy, but it will get you to ahead faster than giving up.
Andrea J. Stenberg
So, tell me what you think? Does keeping a positive attitude really make a difference? Do you use the Law of Attraction to get through difficult economic times? Please share your thoughts and experiences by leaving a comment below.
My Favourite Podcasts
Posted by: | CommentsI was at a networking meeting this week and we began talking about our favourite podcasts. For the uninitiated, a podcast is an audio recording distributed over the internet. It’s like radio except you can download episodes, listen at your convenience, pause and re-listen at will.
For business people, business podcasts can be an invaluable learning tool. Instead of having to travel to attend a course, you can download a podcast on almost any topic and be learning at home.
You can listen in your office while you work or you can upload them to your MP3 player and multi-task – listen while you workout, commute or do housework.
If you’ve never listened to a podcast, here are some of my favourites:
1. The Podcast Sisters – this weekly podcast features discussions by Krishna De, Anna Farmery and Heather Gorringe. These three women discuss Web 2.0, social media and other technology for “non-geek” businesses.
2. Street Smarts Marketing – Marketing expert Kathleen Gage interviews a variety of industry experts on topics to help you run your business better. You have to register to get access to get the downloads but it truly is worth giving up your email address.
3. Wonderful Web Women – Janet Beckers interviews successful women on the internet to learn their secrets.
4. Marketing Over Coffee is a new podcast for me … recommended by an internet marketing colleague. Hosts John Wall and Christopher Penn record it every business Wednesday at 5:30am Eastern at a coffee shop in Natick, MA, just outside of Boston.
5. Andrea’s More Effective Marketing Podcast. Yes, this is a shameless plug for my own podcast. I interview people who have knowledge to offer on subjects that I want to learn about. I learn tons from these people and hope you will too.
Andrea J. Stenberg
Do you listen to any podcasts that help you run your business? Please share the links by leaving a comment below.
Key ingredients of a good marketing campaign
Posted by: | CommentsMonday I had the pleasure of being a judge in the Construction Writers Association Marketing Communications Awards. It was an interesting experience as I don’t think I’ve ever looked at so many promotional pieces in one day – over 60 in three different categories.
After looking so closely at such a large number of marketing pieces I really got a feel for what works and what just blends into the woodwork. By the end of the six hours I spend judging, something had to be really stellar to stand out in my mind.
What makes a great marketing, promotional or advertising piece:
A very clear goal
Before you sit down to create something, you need to know what you are trying to achieve. For example, one campaign was aimed at letting customers know about a financing program that was available. All the copy was about the financing, not selling the product. This campaign was very effective.
Another company produced a piece that was trying to promote new products, push an existing line and celebrate an anniversary. It was trying to achieve too many goals and as a result, it didn’t achieve any of them.
Great graphics
When you’re competing for your audience’s attention, it had better look good. You need great images, good use of white space, the right colours and fonts. It doesn’t have to be full colour on glossy paper to be effective – although it sure helps.
With the proliferation of graphic software available, too many people are trying to do it themselves. If you’re willing to spend $300 on printing, why would you scrimp on the design?
One piece that stood out was for portable lights that could be configured in multiple ways. It was a simple square flyer that folded out three times showing how these lights could be extended to reach difficult spots. This visual illustrated the versatility of the product in a way words never could.
Some of the bad ones didn’t do any one thing wrong. It’s just they were cluttered, with too many photos and colours, too much text and everything looking the same. When it comes to graphic design, often less is more.
Simple, clear copy
Copy – the words – are essential. But they need to be the right words. Some of the most effective pieces had few words. Others had pages of copy. The key was they all were working to achieve the stated goal of the advertisement. There was not fluff. And they were in a language the audience used and understood.
The best pieces all had great headlines – short phrases that grabbed attention and made the point. None of the winners used lots of hype. No “Amazing offers” or “once in a lifetime opportunities”. Some used humour, some didn’t. But all the winners had headlines that helped achieve the stated goal of the ad.
One product had a fairly lengthy campaign – they submitted 30 pages of materials. But they had blatantly copied from a very well known national campaign. And it wasn’t as if they were trying to be tongue-in-cheek. This was a serious and somber campaign. This obvious plagiarism completely ruined the credibility and tone of their campaign.
In the copywriting world, everyone has a “swipe file” – a collection of advertising and promotional pieces that are truly stellar. Whenever you go to write something new you pull them out for inspiration. You don’t copy them exactly. Particularly from an advertising campaign anyone who has watched tv in the last three years will have seen.
When writing copy for a promotional piece, ask yourself if every sentence, every word is helping you achieve your goal. If not, leave it out.
Technology that works
These days few businesses create promotional campaigns without at least considering a multimedia or web component. Audio, video, and animation can literally bring your advertisement to life. If it works.
If you are planning to send out CDs or DVDs to prospects, you’d better make sure they work, on a variety of platforms. We received a few that wouldn’t work on any of the computers we had available. They were tossed without being looked at. A prospect would spend even less time trying.
Another entry was an off-line/on-line campaign that consisted of some clever mailers whose purpose was to drive traffic to a very cool website. The website was fun, funny and interactive and showed how the product in question beat its competitors. The problem … the library where we were judging didn’t have high speed internet so the audio and video was very choppy. It was frustrating to try to watch.
Then I realized – the majority of customers for this product would also live in rural areas. Many – if not most – of them would not have access to high speed internet. Yes, even in Canada and the US, there are rural areas were not only do people not have high speed internet, they CAN’T get it at all. If you are creating a web campaign, you’d better be sure your audience can actually view it.
If you want to create a promotional campaign that really gets results, you need to have all the pieces in place. Miss even one and you won’t get the same results.
Andrea J. Stenberg
