Purple Diamond Marketing Blog

“Facebook…facebook….facebook….do I really need to use this social media service to help my business?”  That depends on YOU!  Being a business owner offers you a choice of what you want to do for getting the word out about your product and/or services.  However, with over 300 million users on Facebook and a growing number of  businesses using social media services like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and Blogging daily, it is hard to not reply with a loud YES to that question!

“But does anyone REALLY get clients from having a profile set-up?”  This is a mixed answer and for anyone who actively uses Facebook or multi social media services they understand why.  A profile is just a place holder.  It is like a name card that sits on a table at a wedding reception in front of an empty seat…without the guest physically showing up at the event and conversing with the other guests they are not seen.  Building your contacts, posting daily updates and interacting with the people you have on your  personal page and posting content to your business page is what will bring business to your door providing your product or service satisfies the needs of the targeted group and is at a price they are willing to purchase it at.  Social media marketing only works if you work at it!  There is no exact science to how many posts or comments you need to make in a day, week or month to attract business, but if you do nothing it has no chance to work.  Today, I mentioned a friend’s book on my personal Facebook page and included a photo of her and I got an email through Facebook from another friend saying she bought the book on-line after seeing my update.  And, last week I bought tickets to a concert because I saw it on Facebook.

The holidays are coming and right now people are on Facebook more than during the summer months when the weather is so nice. Be sure you are, too!

All my best to your success! ~ Charlene

“Success wears the Purple Diamond!”

Networking these days goes beyond attending a Chamber event or Trade Show.  Today’s businesses need to recognize that the marketing and sales process extends beyond attending networking events.  The key is to not only connect with potential clients at events in your geographical area, but to reinforce and build a relationship with these same people on-line through Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter and your own Blog.

Creating a strategy of what Business Events and Networking opportunities work best for your business is the first step to being an effective net-worker.  Time is the most valuable resource you have as a business owner and to waste it will cost you money and potential sales.  Consider if the people who attend the event are good prospects for your business or if there are better opportunities that put you in a room of potential key accounts.  The second thing to consider is what is the right number of events per week for you as a business owner.  This will vary depending on the type of business and the time you have to attend networking events which includes follow-up time with the new prospects you meet.  If you are out every night and spend zero time with follow-up calls, one on one meetings with the people you meet and extending invites on Linkedin and Facebook and other on-line social media sites this time was not well spent.  And, if you are someone who never ventures out of your office and you are not getting as many clients as you would like, then it is time to join a few groups in your area and get more involved.

So, after you have made a strategy for what networking events you wish to attend be sure to go with a positive attitude and a clear thought of what you wish to achieve for the time spent and wear a name badge with your company logo clearly displayed [have one made up and handy for all events].  If you can find out who will be attending ahead of time be sure to check out their company website so that when you connect with them you can make a great impression and possibly secure a follow-up meeting all within the same 5 to 10 minutes.  Make sure you have your business cards handy and your smart phone ready with your calendar if the person happens to want to schedule a time right there.  The key for the night is to connect and leave a positive impression on all those you meet.  Do NOT revert to the “pushy salesperson” approach since that is the quickest way to watch people leave to go get a drink or visit the restroom, but allow the conversation to open opportunities for asking if they are on Linkedin or Facebook or if you can call them later in the week to go for coffee.  Be sure to come to the event already fed because if your hands are occupied with food you will not be able to shake hands and give or take a business card.  The time for eating is before or after the event, but standing near the food table does offer you a chance to connect with people since most people will go directly for food or coffee at these events.  Look for the people in the room who attract others to them and find out who they are and when possible introduce yourself to them and see if they are a good potential client.  These people are usually well respected and often influence others within the group so  by securing their business you can quickly be recognized by others within that networking group as someone worth doing business with.  Make them your target for future networking events, add them to your on-line social media accounts and this on-line networking application to keep your relationship with them current by reading their updated profiles and posting on-line to them daily.

Finally, following up with every key person you have met at the event…this is the most important part of why you attend networking groups.  You want to change the contacts or prospects you have made to sales and that requires building the relationship and helping the people you meet know why your product or service would be the right fit for their business and asking for the sale!

All my best to your success! ~ Charlene

“Success wears the Purple Diamond!”

The Purple Diamond Marketing Blog was launched a year ago, Oct. 6, 2009.   It started as my own experiment to see how time intensive blogging would be for a small business with limited staff and if it actually generates new business.  Ninety-six articles published in a year on this Blog and our stats were strong with a significant following for a small business that goes after a local market.  Purple Diamond’s blog  started off with 5 marketing posts per  week last October, but dropped off to once a week as business grew tremendously as a result of my own marketing efforts on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and attending local business networking groups and being a speaker at several events.  The average time for writing the blog post and then promoting it on other sites directly after was estimated at 35 minutes to one hour with most articles being a couple paragraphs in length.  And, posting the blog articles on weekdays in the morning seemed to get more attention.  So, what can I offer about Blogging for Business to someone reading this and considering launching a Blog for their own business right now? Create a Marketing Blog Plan and understand that you need patience and willingness for the process to work!

Today there are over 144 million blogs and many Bloggers quit within 2 years.  Why is a Blog important for your business today even if you are a small business in a local market? Well, it will definitely help to generate exposure for your business if you are also using other social media tools in which you promote it from and it will increase traffic to your website and business and increased search rankings.  You will generate qualified leads because they will know more about your business by your Blog posts and you will stand out in your field if you are the only one who is Blogging.  Business partnerships and connecting with other Bloggers is also a helpful plus for why you might want to have a business Blog.  Finally, my own Blog helped me to recognize what were the hot marketing topics that Business owners were interested in by watching the higher traffic to those articles.  I then used this information to adapt my services and product offering and marketing collateral to include this so that I gained more clients instantly.

It is important to have a strategy for your Blog and a business goal and metrics to measure if you are meeting these goals.  Other key points to consider before you launch your Blog: know your Blog topic or industry well, enjoy writing or have someone on your staff who is a decent writer, keep your Blog active even if it means having shorter Blog posts, use key words that support your marketing strategy and PROOF READ! Finally, be sure to thank those who read your Blog and ask them to share it with others.

Thanks for reading the Purple Diamond Marketing Blog~ Charlene

“Success wears the Purple Diamond!”

October is here and this past weekend I actually began my Christmas holiday shopping for my in-laws who live in Canada.  Why is this part of my Purple Diamond Marketing Blog?  Because being prepared and launching your holiday sales and marketing campaign early will capture the early shoppers and help brand your products as the holiday solution that potential shoppers are looking for.  This does not mean you need to start playing holiday music in your store or change your entire website to festive holiday colors and graphics, but a business that has products or services to offer that are perfect for gift giving should be including a message about holiday gift buying and specials that are perfect for corporate gifts on their website, email newsletters and strategically placed throughout your retail store or business. In addition, be sure to have your sales staff be proactive in contacting your top clients to give special incentives to have them shop with your company.  End of the year sales are essential to the success and growth of your business.  Do not wait to see if people will choose to shop with your business over contacting them via the phone or with a direct mail piece or an aggressive advertising campaign.  This is the time to ask your marketing staff or advertising agency for creative ideas to help sell more products during the holiday season.

How about businesses that do not have products or services that could be used as holiday gifts?  Can these businesses ignore the 4th quarter for sales?  Of course not….if your business does not  sell a product or service that can be sold to the holiday consumer market then your efforts to close business must be increased 100% to be heard over the noise of the holiday season.  If you sell computer services, financial services, personnel services, legal services, medical services or even products that just don’t often sell during the next 3 months, then I suggest you create incentives for businesses or consumers to do business with you now.  You might wish to offer an added bonus or a discount during this time or an extended warranty. The key is to get businesses or consumers to see the merit in hiring your company now.

Finally, be sure to use the next 3 months to connect with your key accounts. The new year is often a time when businesses reflect on what is working and what needs to be changed.  In years where the economy is sluggish or sales are not as strong as in past years, business owners are quick to make changes of vendors and alter the way they do business.  Do not hesitate to connect with your clients face-to-face and do your own review with them about your service.  Often even a client who was thinking of dropping your service could be saved with the face-to-face meeting that allows them the opportunity to be heard and positive changes made to improve your offerings.

Yes, the holidays are coming and the end of 2010 is less than 90 days away. Are you ready? If you need help please consider calling Purple Diamond!

All my best to your success! ~ Charlene

“Success wears the Purple Diamond!”

When was the last time you read a book or an article that left you inspired or gave you insights in to a subject matter that you knew right away that you wanted to share that literary work with others?  Have you ever considered reaching out to your top clients or prospects with the gift of knowledge or an inspirational story that you know they would enjoy? Consider giving a book or article with a positive message attached and signed by you.  Personal marketing goes a long way with relationship building for your business.  Sending hand written cards and thank you notes, attending events with clients and taking the time to offer them a gift with a nice note attached is a great way to bring your business to the front of the vendor line when it is time for clients to renew contracts or choose who they wish to work with.

Often businesses will have promotional products with their company name and logo imprinted on them to hand-out, but this is just s small part of building a relationship with your key accounts and top prospects.  Standing out from the crowd and being the contact that is elevated from vendor status to friend is what often separates the businesses that just survive in today’s market  or thrive.  Do your top clients or potential “A” list prospects connect with you regularly on Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter?  Do they read your blog or even know that you have one? If they were out tonight at a business function and someone asked them about who they most enjoy working with would you be one of the first people they mention? Do their spouses and family know you?  Have you ever been invited socially to go out with them when it wasn’t just business?

Relationship building and personal marketing has to be part of what you do as a business owner.  Consider doing something out of the ordinary for your key accounts and prospects and extend that personal touch. Don’t just wait til the holidays to send a card or gift.  Take the time throughout the year to build a personal relationship with the people you do business with!

All my best to your success! ~ Charlene

“Success wears the Purple Diamond!”

Today, I attended a business seminar in Salem, MA. that addressed the financial challenges of new businesses and what they needed for a business plan to receive funding from a bank or other financial source.  In the audience there were mostly people looking to start new businesses that had never owned a business before and a few of us who have established businesses that were looking for new information. As various attendees asked several questions about how they were suppose to start a business with no money and how would they pay themselves in the first couple of years, I realized why so many businesses fail within 3-5 years.  The idea of investing in your own business or using your home as a way to secure a bank loan seemed like an outrageous request to some of these people sitting in the room. And, as a marketing coach/advertising agency, the reaction in the room pointed out one of the key reasons why so many businesses fail….if you are not willing to invest in your own business, then do you really believe in your success?

If you start a business and your first thought when you receive your first payment from a client is to pay yourself out of that check you are hurting the foundation of your business.  Cash is essential to the operations of your business and marketing and advertising costs are something business owners hate to spend money on, but they are the driving force to helping you make sales.  If you cannot go without drawing a paycheck for at least a year or two so that you can build a reserve of cash for your new business and use the money from your sales to generate more sales with a marketing strategy and an advertising campaign, then chances are you will never get your business off the ground.  No matter your great ideas, if you do not have the cash flow and the belief in your company to invest in your business,  your company will probably be one of those statistics that you hear in the news about the percentage of businesses that fail within the first few years.

So, as you are reviewing your business plan, do you have a marketing strategy and a real budget for advertising your business? If I called you today would you know how many items you have to sell or services you need to provide in a week, a month, or a year to hit a break even point in your business so that you could actually know when you are making a profit? Do you have set sales goals in place and a sound marketing plan to help you reach these goals? Do you have money in the budget for advertising? In short, do you truly believe in your own business and are you willing to make positive steps to building a strong foundation to grow on?

If you are still not working with a marketing coach or an advertising agency, perhaps it is time to invest in an area that is key to your success!

All my best to your success! ~ Charlene

“Success wears the Purple Diamond!”

If you have ever looked at the bottom of my Purple Diamond business card you will notice that I have “advertising / marketing / sales” listed as a way to help define Purple Diamond.  We see that each of these components are essential to helping your  business be successful so we look at all 3 parts of your business to make sure they are both efficient and effective to yielding the success you are counting on.  That said, how many business owners truly get what each of these components are and why no one component should be left out of your sales process?

The order that I see these 3 components is the following: marketing, advertising and then sales.  Though there are numerous definitions to these key terms, my definition for “Marketing” is the process of creating an interest for your product or service by defining  who is  your potential customer  and what value does your product or service offer to the client and what sets you apart from your competition.  “Advertising”, often paid,  is the process of communicating a persuasive message to a large group of people or audience to purchase your goods or services. The advertising should be in-line with your marketing message and strategy so that it will help to support the brand of your business.  Finally, the last component is sales. “Sales” is simply whatever it takes to close the deal or get a contract with a signature on it.  Some organizations create a team approach to selling and some decide that they prefer the one on one process that might have a commission incentive attached, but either way it is when you engage with a potential client on a more personal level.

Having a strong background in all 3 of these areas of expertise  is why Purple Diamond continues to offer their own brand of success for business owners north of Boston and beyond.  Whether you are a sole proprietorship or the CEO of a large corporation, consider the benefit of working with a company that understands the entire process of how to get you more sales and can easily identify where you need the most help and offer you a strategy that works within your budget.  Even if you have a marketing director and a sales manager in your employ this does not mean that you have all 3 areas covered effectively.  Often I have seen large organizations have a breakdown between the marketing and sales departments and it has cost them potential clients.  Bringing in an outside agency as a consultant who specializes in this area will improve the performance of your business and help you to close sales and improve the working relationship between departments.

All my best to your success! ~ Charlene

“Success wears the Purple Diamond!”

Last weekend was the “TAX FREE” Massachusetts Holiday and the first place my husband and I thought to shop was at our local BEST BUY store to see what types of savings we could get on components to upgrade our computer systems.  As I looked around the crowded store I commented that consumers are addicted to computer technology and smart phone systems and it has become an essential part of our world in much the same way that the automobile replaced the predominant use of the public transit system in the 1950’s and 60’s.  Most families today grew up with at least one car and many had two and they watched the landscape of their communities move to offering shopping malls and other stores with large parking lots to accommodate their customers who all owned cars, while we watched a deterioration of the railway system that never reached the new shopping malls.  So, what does the comments about automobiles in the 50’s and 60’s  have to do with the impact of technology on consumers today and how you can relate it to help you market  YOUR own business?  Cars and computers both replaced something that once were considered essential and it directly affected how consumers shopped and will shop in the future.
Just like when the automobile became the popular choice of transportation over the railways, computers are now replacing the old systems of finding information like libraries, magazines, newspapers, and waiting for the news or weather report on TV.  Today’s consumer is directly influenced by the breakthrough in computer technology and faster internet services which allows them to be more informed and able to research quickly on-line items that they are considering buying.  Why wait for a commercial or printed advertisement to tell you about a product, when you can quickly find information on the web from your phone or follow the company that offers the product on their social media page, Twitter or blog?  Have you heard that today’s consumer doesn’t like to be “sold” and they often fast forward through commercials?  If you have been to the movies recently or watched any of the new TV shows, you will see that the larger corporations are incorporating product shots in the actual movie or show.  Last night as I watched SyFy’s hit summer show, “Warehouse 13″, they had several product shots of the candy “Twizzlers”.  This use of branding products with popular programming or media is to help “sell” the consumers who do not wish to be sold.

So, what does a small or medium size business do when they do not have the budget to have their product appear in a new hit movie or popular TV show and they need to find a new way to get their message out?  Create a bigger than life splash with the target market you are trying to reach using the resources you do have. Make sure your website looks great, comes up high on SEO rankings and that you are creating current blog content and using the popular social media marketing sites like Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin.  Be sure to look for ways your product or service can align itself with larger corporations that already have strong brand recognition.  If your business is B2B in the local area, seek out the most successful businesses in your network and make them part of your inner circle of businesses that you attend events with, “friend” on Facebook and sign-up for their email newsletter.  If you’re trying to extend beyond the local market, take the time to join targeted networking groups on-line and be aggressive on Twitter and other sites for promoting your own blog so that you start to develop a loyal following.  There are many ways to use the technology of today to enhance your business and it will keep changing so be sure to work with a marketing specialist that will help you to understand what you need to do right now to help your business grow. Don’t ignore how much today’s technology has impacted the way your clients shop!

All my best to your success~
Charlene

“Success wears the Purple Diamond!”

This week I was happily surprised when one of my marketing clients posted a recommendation for my services on my Linkedin profile.  Though I have not really actively solicited recommendations for my work as owner of Purple Diamond on this site,  I have coached several clients on the importance of having a complete profile on social media sites like Linkedin which includes at least 5 or 6 solid recommendations and right now I have 12 listed on my own profile page.  Does  a recommendation on Linkedin get you noticed and more business? It could, but having a business profile on Linkedin without any recommendations might be hurting your image as a trusted professional.

Do you know how many recommendations you have right now on your Linkedin Profile?  Have you even taken the time to build your professional contact list on this site or actively joined groups that might lead to more business in your field? Think of Linkedin as a professional resume that you are posting for the world to see.  If you were applying for a position at a company or sending a proposal to a potential client do you think you would be taken seriously if you left out the offer of recommendations? Worse, what if they are requested and you honestly have none.  Marketing your business requires more than a logo, tagline and a fancy website.  Reputation and the willingness for other business owners to recommend your services will trump all the glitz every time.

Between yesterday afternoon when the recommendation went up live on Linkedin from Al Temkin  of  Temkin Financial Group and today, I have already received  7 responses from local business owners who read the testimonial! Great press comes from more than getting your name in the paper so please make sure that your own Linkedin profile page is ready for the world to see.

All my best to your success! ~ Charlene

“Success wears the Purple Diamond!”

Recently the question was asked in a LINKEDIN group of marketing professionals what they have found has been the best way for a  starter business to market their business with a limited budget beyond the obvious word-of-mouth,  asking for referrals and collecting names for a database list. Today, I reviewed the 40 pages of answers that have been posted by professionals in the industry and it spoke to what I refer to as  the need for “true marketing”, there is no one solution that fits ALL businesses so please consider hiring a professional to help analyze your needs!

A cookie cutter approach to one of the most essential parts of your business with the belief that it will bring you instant paying customers is just like buying a lottery ticket today with the belief that you will win and have the money that week for your mortgage. The answers that were given to this question on Linkedin ranged from: email marketing, SMS Text Messaging, YouTube postings, social media marketing with Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter, SEO [Search Engine Optimization]for your website, Cold Calling, Press Releases, Chamber Memberships and Business Groups, Creative Marketing Message that stands out, Cross Media Marketing, Ad Targeting, Get Bank Loan and Invest in Real Advertising, Blogs and Contributing to On-Line Discussion Groups,  Ad Swaps, Direct Mail, mail Articles to Prospects, no one tool works/target marketing is key, Analysis and Tracking with a good CRM system, Business Card, and Branding Your Business consistently with a clear message. [Note: some of the suggestions offered were from people who sold that one product so Purple Diamond has posted the list as what were offered and not what we believe you need to do.  Purple Diamond believes in a one on one approach in which your business is seen as unique and deserves your own marketing coach/consultant.]  There were even more suggestions than all the ones I have posted here, but what was clear from all the responses were that even the experts have their own thoughts about what is the best low cost method to market your business.  So, if there are so many different views from marketing professionals, how does a business owner who has never worked as a marketing professional know what is best for his business? My first response is to call in an affordable consultant, like Purple Diamond,  to help YOUR business that does not have ties to any one product and has knowledge to what is working in your area and for your industry.  But, if you are not comfortable with hiring a marketing coach, then please look to free services in your area like SCORE or ask key people in your circle of business friends to help you brainstorm ideas.  In my own area there are CEO groups that many of the local business owners have joined that give them direct insight in to what local business owners have tried and found useful.  Please do not leave marketing up to chance.  Today’s economy is one that requires skillful analysis and creative ideas that get results!

All my best to your success!

~ Charlene

“Success wears the Purple Diamond!”