Purple Diamond Marketing Blog

As a small child the word I probably heard the most was “no”, but as an adult I am hooked on the word “yes”.  “Yes” opens the door to possibilities that lead to opportunities that brings us to more success in both our life and our business.  Sounds simple, but the majority of people today have been raised on the word “no” from their childhood and “no” is an ending to dreams.  And, for people who like their life to be in order, the word “no” is easier than ‘yes”, because it doesn’t challenge us.  Once you get the no you are all done and you can then go home and give up.

If you are the owner of your business or an employee who wants more out of life, you must put down the fear of success and embrace it.  Take “no” out of the equation and look for solutions so that when you are asked to do the impossible, you answer YES!  Growing as a business requires being “bold” and “brave” and the willingness to try new things when the old is no longer working as you wish it would.  Right now there are probably several small business owners who are reading this and thinking that they just do not have the staff to handle taking on new things or larger projects, but that is “no’ thinking.  Stuck in the fear of failure will keep you from ever succeeding.  Embrace the “yes” and consider your options for taking on a part-time person or temporary help or maybe going to the local colleges and asking for an intern that is studying in the field you are working in.  Look to your family and friends and see if they can offer help to your business. Consider the network of other businesses in the area that might be a partner to your new idea or bigger client.  Look beyond yourself and recognize that when you say “yes” you are breaking through your past fears and on to an exciting new venture that is filled with possibilities.

Purple Diamond is in the business of helping business owners say “yes”.   Your marketing plan and your advertising campaigns will never succeed unless you embrace the “yes” language and see that it opens more doors and helps to increase sales.  Make 2010 the year you bury the word “no” and jump at the opportunity to say “YES”.

All my best to your success!

~Charlene

“Success wears the Purple Diamond!”

As Purple Diamond is winding down their short work week with the holidays fast approaching there is one question that popped up yesterday at a holiday open house that I attended at the Cummings Center in Beverly, “is it over yet?”  2009 was not exactly an easy year for local businesses, but it was still a year with growth. Ok, so you are asking yourself….”growth? huh???”  Yes, if you are still moving forward and you did not close your business under this interesting economy, then you grew.  You might have launched a new service that addressed a direct need because of the slow economy or you could have bundled your services or products in a way that stimulated sales.  You might have trimmed spending, asked yourself and your staff to take on more work, got creative with your marketing; hired Purple Diamond as your marketing coach, started a blog, published white pages about your trade and industry, had several business press releases get in print, joined Twitter and Facebook ,  reached out to local networking groups as a speaker in your field and stayed positive when so many others were running scared. Yes, you and your business grew and so did your staff and customers!

Purple Diamond would like to wish all of you Happy Holidays! Please share with us how this year has been for YOUR business and be sure to post about your company, along with a link to your website so that others can find YOU!

All my best to YOUR success!

~Charlene

“Success wears the Purple Diamond!”

The last 50 years TV advertising has had some significant changes. Fifty years ago, you would find entire TV shows that were sponsored by one company like Phillip Morris or Firestone. This was a branding form of advertising that helped keep the name recognition there. Then in the 1960’s and 70’s there was a shift to the networks selling commercial time during their programming schedule. The ads were short and the cost of the commercial time were determined by CBS, NBC and ABC. When cable TV networks like ESPN, CNN, Lifetime and TNT became popular in the 1980’s and 90’s there was now an opportunity for local businesses to advertise their products on TV with the major national brands that had dominated TV. Cable had found a way to make target marketing affordable with groupings of towns and cities to make up zones. This was great for a small businesses that only wanted local shoppers because their advertising dollars stretched further with buying only their immediate zone. Cable networks expanded rapidly and by 2000 there were so many choices that even cable TV found themselves looking for more alternatives for advertising opportunities with interactive TV ads, creating their own cable networks, and longer “paid programming / infomercials” opportunity during slow times for the networks.

Television advertising, much like the newspapers, has had to recognize that their market is changing with TiVO, Google, Podcasts, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Email Marketing etc. Where does a smart business get the results it needs today? What really works? Since advertising is about creating a desire for a brand or product, it follows that we will see a combination of several sources for smart campaigns. The consumer today is tech savvy and easily bored so the message has to be clear and clever and reaching them on many levels. The days of “just” buying radio and TV are over. But, “just” doing a website, Google Ad Words, and on-line social networking will not be enough for all businesses, either. Be ready for catchy Guerrilla Marketing combined with the best of the old and new to reach tomorrow’s potential consumers.

All my best to your success!

~Charlene

“Success wears the Purple Diamond!”

Today is Saturday and next week is Christmas and Purple Diamond will be closed for the holidays. When I started my blog a few months ago I was clear that I would keep it to the work week only and not blog when I was off for vacation, but my stats show that there are still quite a few hits on the days I have not even posted a new topic. There are many types of blogs, but the key to knowing whether or not YOUR blog needs to take weekends, holidays and vacations off is in the strategy of why you started the blog and what your current stats and activity from the blog is!

If you are not looking at your stats and seeing the growth to your site then stop reading this and go to your Dashboard of your own blog and please get to know your own site.  I use WordPress so it is very easy to see it in the “At a Glance” section.  If only your IT support person has seen the backside of your blog and you are just writing and having them post this to your site you should be requesting reports from the person who is assisting you.  You need the numbers to help you make an informed decision on how frequently your company needs to blog. As a marketing professional I will share that the more frequently & consistently you blog, the better stats you will have providing what you are posting is worth reading and sharing with others. And, if you are not using other sources like Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, etc, to give a “shout-out” to your own blog topic you are working hard and not smart.  I do not post a topic without Tweeting about it or sharing it with my fans on Facebook and friends on Linkedin. I also have the link as part of my signature for my emails and I verbally talk about my blog ALL the time. It is not a personal diary, though there may be some blogs that people are using as a journal without focusing on getting readers, but if you are using this as part of your business marketing strategy you have to self-promote and ask others to share.

So, for myself, I will still be blogging over the holidays and vacations, but it might not be as steady as I do during the work week.

All my best to your success!
~Charlene

“Success wears the Purple Diamond!”

There is a huge focus these days on internet marketing and how to effectively use social media, blogging, email marketing and search engine optimization, but is this shift to setting up an internet marketing strategy enough? If you clicked through your website and 4 of your competitors, would yours stand-out? How about your blog or your Fans page on Facebook? Have you positioned your message, graphics, photos and other content in a way that is memorable and offers a clear reason to choose you over the next site they click to?   Do you have a video or something that catches the eye of the potential client that is different and keeps them from being bored? Can your on-line message make me pick-up the phone or, better yet, motivate me to order right on-line? And, is your on-line order/check-out procedure quick and easy to navigate? How does your marketing message stand out or compare to your competitions?

A clear message that catches my eye and motivates me to call YOUR business is essential to your success.  This is where consulting a marketing specialist will improve your ability to capture a greater share of the target market.  Please do not fall in to the  mistake of handing over this important side of your marketing to your IT specialist/web designer because they are good with the internet or to the youngest employee on your staff because they understand how to post to their friends on Facebook and Twitter. To get great results it requires working with professionals who understand how to sell and build relationships that are memorable and makes people buy YOUR product.

All my best to your success!
~Charlene

“Success wears the Purple Diamond!”

So you decided to jump in feet first in to the sea of the social networking on the internet with your business and you are proud of the profile business pages that you have set-up, but where are the fans and followers? Sure, we all saw the movie with the famous line, “…if you build it, they will come!”, but will they? Most likely unless you are a company that already has a loyal following or you are a famous person like Martha Stewart, you just won’t get the numbers you were expecting right away. So, how do you get fans or followers?

Offering a special to every fan or follower is one way. If you are a restaurant you could have a free appetizer or a percent off your meal for new members of your fans page or Twitter account. Or, you could have a drawing for all your members after you reach a certain number of fans or followers like a new laptop or netbook or really great gift basket. If you are a large travel agency you might be able to offer a drawing for a trip and that would be ideal because you would definitely reach the people who are wanting to travel. Once you decide what you are offering you then share the information EVERYWHERE. You tell people you meet at business groups. You post it on your website and all marketing material and on your profile pages. You can choose to use the sites you are on to promote your page with an ad with a paid advertisement about the drawing…just spread the word and allow for a long enough period of time for the message to get out, but not so long that people will lose interest. Be sure while you are running this special deal or drawing that the content on your profile page is fresh and that you keep the fans you are gaining with new info posted to your page or tweets out to followers.

Beyond running a special or having a drawing to give a person an enhanced reason to follow you or be your fan, you can utilize the relationships you have made and your staff have made both in business and in your family life. Connect…connect…connect!!! Reach out to as many people as possible and ask them to follow you and then offer great content to keep them interested. Use the chamber connections you have made over the years you have been in business and encourage customers to be on your pages on-line. If you already have a email marketing list and are sending newsletters be sure to mention about your sites and becoming a fan and have your administrator to your website add the buttons to your site so anyone on your website will find an easy access to your Facebook and Linkedin and Twitter accounts with one click.
Building a following takes time unless you choose to spend some money to advertise a drawing or special give away. It is similar to a business on a remote street opening their doors without ever advertising the grand opening. You will get friends and family, but it does take more to build a steady traffic to the door. Just don’t give up!

All my best to your success
~Charlene

“Success wears the Purple Diamond!”

I am often asked how I find time to attend chamber events, business networking groups, keep up with social networking like Twitter/Facebook/Linkedin , write my Purple Diamond marketing blog AND help my clients with their own marketing and advertising and the short answer is that I work long hours which is made easier with a home office and I have a smart phone so I can access my accounts easily from anywhere. However, beyond having the tools in place to make everything possible, I still recommend creating your own strategy for what your business is able to handle for face to face networking and on-line social networking.

Part of the strategy must include writing down your objectives and prioritizing them. This is when knowing your target market is important. If you have determined that you are a business that is going after only the local market, you might choose to spend more face to face time in your community, then someone who needs to reach a global market. The more you narrow down who in the local market or what verticals are your best prospects, then you will be able to target the networking groups and business associations that they belong to. I do caution, though, to people who think you can “just” do face to face networking and ignore the on-line trend of social networking and marketing. The target market you are trying to reach is using the internet daily for their business and in their personal life. They are gaining on-line friends and making strong business alliances with a few clicks and tweets a day and they find that they can touch more people faster with this technology so they use it for their business. How do you reach them? You connect with them in person at a local event and then friend them on the various on-line social networking sites and keep your relationship active so that you never have to do “cold calls” again.

After you have written down your objectives and goals in the order of importance, be sure to then list the tasks that you will do to help achieve your objective and have an end date for achieving them. For instance, if you have determined that creating and maintaining a business blog is a great way to help you with your on-line marketing and to build your image as an expert in your field, then you need to give a realistic date to have your blog in place. This requires researching what program you want to use to create it, developing a schedule that will allow for time to be blocked off during your day or week to do your writing of blog posts, and then to use the other social networking sites to promote your topics so that there is traffic to your blog. Having a schedule for tasks and networking events you choose to attend will keep you focused on achieving your goals.

Finding time is easier when you have organized your work space. I have blogged before about having your office set-up for success and having help from a professional organizer. My company uses Organization Plus since it is easy to be lost in a sea of papers and lose the energy you need to remain focused and avoid procrastination. Small businesses live or die on using time efficiently and knowing who their target market is and how to avoid being distracted away from the end goal they are reaching for.

Finally, if you are like most small businesses today you are wearing many hats in your company. Be sure to hire your weaknesses so that you have the energy to tackle the projects that will help your business grow. I was amazed at how getting some help with my bookkeeping and hiring a great accountant allowed me to sleep better and feel more energized to handle growing my business at a rapid rate. Success comes by making a plan and keeping to your plan!

All my best to your success!
~Charlene

“Success wears the Purple Diamond!”

When is the best time to ask for help? Too many businesses wait til their in really bad financial shape before they contact a professional to help with their marketing and advertising. Maybe it is fear of what it costs to hire a marketing professional or an advertising agency, or maybe it is that you honestly do not see that you need one, but choosing to go it alone during tough economic times is not the best solution for serious minded businesses.

Marketing is not something that you choose one day and then forget about for a year or two. Marketing is an ongoing process that includes market research, customer service, targeting, packaging, pricing, advertising and on-line marketing. Since you work and sell your products in a fast paced changing world, your marketing must reflect the understanding of those changes and be able to anticipate and deliver what the consumer wants in a way that satisfies your own company needs. In short, you are able to turn a profit by marketing your product or service to the consumer with a strategy that works.

So how do you know if you need help with your marketing? Most businesses do, but the clear sign is when you are not reaching your conservative sales goals or you are a new business without a marketing plan. The businesses that grow during tough economic times do not sit by and wait til the economy improves, they hire marketing professionals that save them time and money and get the results they need to remain a leader in their field.

All my best to your success!
~Charlene

“Success wears the Purple Diamond!”

Most businesses cut way back this year and did not give raises or bonus money for employees, but now they must decide if their annual holiday customer gift giving and tipping to the mailman and other service providers will be eliminated, too. The good news is that your struggle with this question has been one that Talk Radio and many business groups have been discussing and the majority says that if your business can no longer afford to offer raises and bonus to your employees and you have not had a good year then most clients will understand and not expect a gift. But before you chalk this year up to one in which you are just not going to do anything for your employees or clients or even the mailman, consider the positive impact that holiday gift giving can offer to your business.

First, if you choose your gifts in the local area you will help the local merchants during this difficult year and that will be appreciated and remembered by the store owner. Second, if you feel the receiver doesn’t need the gift you could still offer money to a local charity in the person’s or company name or, better yet, allow them to choose the charity. It is not the amount that you give, but it does go a long way to offer something to those people who have worked all year to help your business. The employee who will not have a raise, but most likely is doing twice the work of last year, might appreciate tickets to a movie or a gift certificate from their local coffee shop with a note saying that you wish it could be more but that they are appreciated. And, your client, who even though their business is struggling, still chose to continue buying from you over your competitors, might be thrilled to have a small gift. It doesn’t have to be a big gift, but offering something small and a note of appreciation will build a positive relationship with your employee, client, mail carrier, etc. The goodwill you offer in 2009 to the key people in your business will carry you forward to 2010 and make it the best year ever!

All my best to your success!
~Charlene

“Success wears the Purple Diamond!”

This morning I attended a local ribbon cutting for a new business at the Cummings Center in Beverly, Il Tramezzino Place. Since I am on the Board of Directors of the Beverly Chamber of Commerce I try to attend as many networking events as possible as a way of supporting the community and the chamber members, but it is also smart marketing to connect with the key players in your community. Knowing the local mayor, the director of the chamber and the other business owners in your community is part of strategic word-of-mouth advertising plan. Like a grass roots campaign with a limited budget, you hit the streets and shake hands and connect with the community. Support the community and businesses locally and you will find that many will do the same for you. Allow time for the relationships to grow and avoid high expectations for immediate results that will make you frustrated. Having a consistent presence at the local community and business events will help spread the word about your business and give you a positive attitude about actively marketing your business services.
All my best to your success!
~Charlene

“Success wears the Purple Diamond!”