Warren Buffet once said, “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” Let that sink in for a bit. It doesn’t matter if you have endless dollars for marketing including the best website you could possibly imagine, because if you don’t service your clients well resulting in a bad reputation, you may as well light that budgeted money on fire.
Do you ever wonder how in the world you will ever keep your marketing or any business projects straight? After all, there are so many things to keep up with as a business owner, marketing manager, salesperson or general manager of a company and keeping up with them can get to be quite overwhelming. The key to maximum productivity is staying organized. A little work on the front end will make things run much smoother. Many successful businesses are using a great FREE tool called Trello. Trello is a powerful tool used for project management. It is versatile enough to be used by a small business used by one person or a powerful engine for large companies where several hundred people use it.
FOMO…. Have you heard of it? Do you suffer from it? You know that anxious feeling that an exciting or interesting event is happening somewhere else, typically documented by social media. If you have ever experienced this, then you (along with myself) have suffered from the fear of missing out at one time or another. A marketing strategist, Dan Herman, claimed to be the first to identify FOMO in the 1990s, but it really wasn’t even a major “thing” until social media has become so dominant in our lives. Businesses can use this phenomenon to create desirable marketing results…enter Facebook Live!
I am sure you have all heard the term “bean counter” or the phrase “it looked good on paper”. They aren’t just funny comparisons; both have a lot of meaning and truth. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a numbers person at heart. Heck, I even have an Accounting degree, so I guess, technically, I’m a bean counter. I love a good Excel spreadsheet because they can tell a great story about a business and how they are doing. Speaking of a spreadsheet, successful marketing is more than just a formula and analytical analysis. Yes, you need all of these tools to know how successful a campaign is, but it’s easy to get wrapped up in the numbers and forget that they actually represent a real human being. This is an especially easy mindset to fall into when you don’t have a brick and mortar store and sell almost exclusively online.
In January of this year, Social Media Today published an article about why visual search will be one of the biggest digital marketing trends of 2019. They described visual search as having the potential to revolutionize how consumers find and buy products moving closer to offering instant gratification demanded by today’s customers.
Facebook Live is relatively new as it has only been around since 2015, but has recently become one of the best ways to engage with clients and a target audience. There are many ways to utilize this amazing marketing tool. You can encourage people to get involved in the community and come together, show them how to do something, offer clients a questions and answers session, give the audience a unique perspective behind the scenes and create an engaging series.
When you hear artificial intelligence marketing, you may think that is something for large companies with big budgets or some kind of term used in the movies, but it’s really something every business owner can utilize. Think about your daily life, we benefit from artificial intelligence every day—Amazon and Netflix use artificial intelligence to recommend products or television shows based on what we search or watch.
Who is guilty of being sucked into someone’s story on social media? I’ll admit it…me! It never fails I’m just going to take a quick scroll through Facebook or Instagram and BAM the next thing I know; I’m engrossed in a story. There is something about quick little snippets that can hypnotize us, particularly for me, if it is someone or a business that is continually offering tips and advice on something I am interested in.
“Hey, Siri! Find nearby gas stations.” How many of you have asked Siri a similar question when you’re out and about? I bet a lot of you depend on Alexa and Google Home devices to help you accomplish many of your daily tasks from setting alarms to reminding you to pick up flowers at a nearby florist. Voice search is growing at a rapid pace and gaining ground on traditional search applications. According to a business study conducted by Bright Local in 2018, 58% of consumers have used voice search to find local business information in the prior 12 months and 46% of voice search users look for a local business on a daily basis. Did you hear that…local and daily! That’s you!
Back in 2015, Think with Google published an article about how micro-moments are changing consumer behavior forever. Maybe you have heard the term, maybe not, but I’m certain you’ve participated in a micro-moment or two or million. Google defines micro-moments as “moments when we turn to a device—often a smartphone—to take action on whatever we need or want right now.” In marketing terms, they are moments that allow you to target a consumer seeking quick, practically instantaneous, answers or solutions to their problems. Think of your business as being there in your consumer’s time of need. This can be a fantastic opportunity, if you are ready, willing and waiting.