Management Consulting

Last month, we at Sydcam Marketing Communications spoke to you about why we felt social media was a critical and viable marketing strategy for most small (and medium-sized) businesses in this country. Today we would like to talk to about what we believe are the key social media tools small businesses need to consider in executing on their social media program.

The key elements in your social media strategy

With the myriad of social media tools, resources and options available to small business, the question many owners ask us is which tools are best for our needs? While this is sometimes a difficult question, and one that may vary from one client to the next, the most common recommendations we make at Sydcam Marketing Communications are the following:

Blog: Your social media strategy needs to be centred on the creation of a blog (just like us!).  The ability for a blog to provide fresh, new content to your website on a regular basis is one important reason for its value, especially given the impact it has on your search engine rankings.

Twitter is another fabulous tool that enables businesses to send short, targeted messages of interest to their ‘followers’.

Facebook is great resource for promoting your business to clients – old and new – and most importantly for creating a community of people that ‘like’ your business for what you do, how you do it and what you stand for.

YouTube: No one can deny the power of video in capturing an idea or a moment and bringing it all to life. YouTube does this and so much more by creating a medium to house all your company videos in one neat area, and to then use the video content to put a whole different light on your business. Love that Google juice!

LinkedIn: The odd one in the bunch, LinkedIn, while perhaps not the most obvious social media tool for promoting your business, provides an incredible avenue for promoting yourself, your background, skills and credentials and enabling you to connect with colleagues and associates around the world. It helps to build that personal credibility that so many small businesses thrive on for their success.

So there you have it, a multi-pronged approach to social media that can have a noticeable impact on the success of your small business in the near term. And to be clear, it is not essential that you go an open an account tomorrow for each of the services mentioned above. Pick and choose those that you think can benefit you the most, or better still those that you feel most comfortable implementing yourself.

If you’re looking for help and advice on devising your social media strategy for your business, please contact us at Sydcam Marketing Communications. We’d love to hear from you and provide you with some insight, guidance and support to help you grow your business’ presence in this growing area.

Collaborating with our clients probably isn’t that foreign to most of us – we’ve likely done it at some point in our careers. The real question is how often do we do it? Is it just something we do only when it’s convenient or when the client insists upon it? Or is this the approach we often engage in, one that forms a fundamental way to we meet our clients needs?

At Sydcam Marketing Communications, we develop collaborative marketing strategies, plans and communications by working closely with our clients. In this blog we’ll explain to you why we feel so adamant about it.

Collaboration delivers results

As we’ve seen with the explosion of Web 2.0, social networking is all about collaborating with clients to better understand their needs and to provide them with products and services they want. Bottom line, collaboration with clients has been proven to achieve better results and bigger successes. Why you may ask? Well, it can simply be the result of the old adage “two heads are better than one”.

It would be difficult to dispute that our clients possess considerable knowledge about their industries, markets and ultimately, their clients. We need to proactively tap into this wealth of knowledge to deliver superior results for our clients. Engaging them in the planning and decision making process can only benefit us in developing products and services that will truly “wow” them.

How can we make this work?

Many readers may think “this can’t work in my business”. Truthfully, collaboration can occur successfully in a variety of different ways, and with many different players. Employers and employees can collaborate as a team, and industry and academia can also collaborate together.

The most important element to successful collaboration is the willingness of both parties to work together, appreciate each others unique perspectives, be able to contribute and engage fully in the process, and finally be willing to compromise where necessary.

Collaborating with Consumers

In marketing, collaboration can be taken one step further by engaging consumers in the development of marketing strategies, plans and tactics. Through the use of surveys, feedback from social media and “old school” concepts such as focus groups, the consumer can become an integral part of the conversation, identifying what they feel would be the best way to satisfy their needs.

By working collaboratively with either clients or consumers, we’re able to create very practical and pragmatic solutions, and gain a fresh perspective on how best to apply marketing concepts and strategies for maximum affect. In our highly competitive and ever evolving marketplace, it seems inconceivable to ignore this input and information.

If you’re interested in working with a firm that wants to develop collaborative marketing programs with its clients, contact Sydcam Marketing Communications by email at info@sydcamcommunications.com. We want to hear from like-minded businesses that see the value in building stronger relationships as a means to creating better solutions. Let’s work together to build even better mousetraps!

I came across a rather interesting article in the June 30, 2010 edition of Marketing magazine that I wanted to share with you. The article talks about one of the more challenging tasks many established businesses face – whether or not to rebrand themselves, and if so, for what purpose (i.e. to go after existing clients in a different way or to target an entirely different client segment).

 Oftentimes businesses rebrand for the latter reason in order to go out after a more lucrative or attractive target market. In the case of East Side Mario’s (ESM), this was indeed the case. Having developed a strong brand as a “family friendly” restaurant with a gregarious New York City theme, it symbolized an affordable, convenient and comfortable place for families to eat out.

 However, ESM was eager to move its business model up-market by appealing to a more upscale client. As a result, it removed its Statue of Liberty logo and replaced it with a more traditional Italian symbol – the tomato. It also got rid of its infamous marketing jingle, “Badda Boom Badda Bing” due to its association with NYC.

 What happened next is an age-old problem that occurs when rebranding involves an attempt to enter a new market. By changing its target market through changes to its marketing messages, restaurant appearance and menu, ESM alienated its existing clientele while failing to make significant inroads with the upscale segment it was attempting to go after.

 So what can be learnt from this experience? First of all, rebranding should never be entered into by any business without considerable deliberation and analysis. And while going after a new and perhaps more lucrative client segment is always tempting, it may not necessarily be the best option, particularly when the new market you’re entering is as competitive as the restaurant industry.

 Indeed the competitive landscape should always be a primary consideration in any rebranding exercise. Always ask yourself this question – does the image I’m trying to portray or the market I’m trying to appeal to create any competitive challenges for my business (i.e. are there existing businesses with similar ‘brands’ going after similar or identical customers, and if so how successful are they?).

 The key to rebranding – and the key to developing a sound marketing strategy– is finding a niche in the market you can profitably compete in and exploit, one where your products and services effectively align with the needs and expectations of that particular target market. When you find that niche and are successful in exploiting it, you’ve latched onto the proverbial golden egg. And that’s why going after a new segment may not be the most sound business decision, and in fact can be highly risky. At the least, make sure your rebranding strategy is based on sound business fundamentals, and that these support the objectives of the firm.

Are you a sales professional or business owner, who wants to maximize your business development and triple the prospects in your sales funnel?

Every business I have ever worked with wanted to generate more prospect leads for their sales pipeline. My clients tell me this all the time. The disconnect occurs when I investigate the process used to process new prospect leads gathered at trade shows, networking events etc.

As a Sales Support Specialist, many times I find marketing is generating so many prospect leads that sales is cherry picking and choosing to follow up only the hot leads. Hot is defined by sales as leads they believe will close within the near future and contribute to this month’s target. Sales does this because they have monthly and quarterly targets to hit. Does this practice sound like what is going on at your business?

The question I asked is “What happened to the remaining cold and warm prospect leads?” Usually I find they are stacked on a desk or lost in a folder somewhere. No one is following up and talking to them. You have to wonder about lost potential.

When sales prioritizes the hot leads they are harvesting only the low hanging fruit to reach short term goals for this month’s or next quarter’s sales target. Continuing this practice plays only your A team and does not develop your farm team. How much money are you leaving on the table for the competition who offers a similar product or service and is communicating with every prospect?

To develop hot prospects for tomorrow when today’s hot prospects are gone, you need to implement a follow up strategy today. That way, you can leverage the numbers, triple the prospects in your funnel and maximize the potential business development brings to your doorstep. A follow up strategy puts in place a system to not only organize, build and manage a prospect database but also communicate and educate to build future sales. Implementing a long term follow up strategy gets those cold and warm prospects, currently lost to follow up, into the sales funnel and a chance to bake from cold through warm to hot. Hot and ready for you to close that deal tomorrow.

The result? Minimization of the feast and famine cycle you may have been experiencing in your business. By adding cold and warm prospects to your sales funnel you triple your prospects. Following up with EVERY prospect allows you to mine incremental growth and revenue that can be added on top of your current business.

Here are 5 simple things you can do today to start building your follow up strategy and a system to leverage your time and information.

• Put every business card you currently have into a database.
• Start marketing and educating about what you offer and how your solution can help solve problems.
• Insert hyperlinks directing prospects back to your website where they can find more information.
• Commit to communicating on a regular basis and ask for feedback.
• Utilize drip marketing to communicate over time.

Once you get going you can optimize your time and money by expanding your system and utilizing automation and email marketing to reach even more prospect leads.

Let’s review how your prospects are processed with a sales funnel optimization consultation. Discover the hidden road blocks that are preventing you from cashing in on the opportunities already on your doorstep.

Contact me at Cheryl [at] Executive Sales Support.com.