Secrets of The Queen of Free – Part 2: Productivity and Marketing Tools

Some expenses are unavoidable for your business – utilities, supplies, equipment.  Some expenses are avoidable and The Queen of Free is back with suggestions, this time in the areas of productivity and marketing.

My favorite thing is free stuff.  I’ll take anything.

Cindy Margolis, Model

Email Marketing

Mail Chimp

An overwhelming majority of online consumers use email and the main reason they sign up for newsletters and emails is to get discounts.  In addition, the return on investment for email marketing is substantial.  So, what are you waiting for?  Mail Chimp is free for the basic “Entrepreneur” package of 2,000 subscribers and 12,000 emails – enough the get your campaign started or restarted.

Presentations

Awesome Screenshot   

How many times is the information you need for your screenshot not in alignment – you need to scroll up or down to get it all and print screen just can’t capture it.  This problem is solved with Awesome Screenshot, a scrolling screenshot maker.  It has an added feature to annotate and highlight various passages and obscure unnecessary information.  The Queen loves this one so much, she’s including the video:

Graphics and Stock Photos

Kaboompics (high resolution stock pictures)   

Cupcake (common license high-end photography)   

Befunky (photo editor, effects and collage maker)  

If you’re like us, you’re always on the hunt for pictures, photos and graphics and sometimes Google images just doesn’t seem to understand your search criteria and yields results that just don’t make sense.  Kaboompics and Cupcake offer interesting, unique and visually appealing pictures and Befunky has an editor and effects maker that’s easy and easy to get carried away.

 Event Marketing, Small Business Sales

Square Reader  

Your silent auction or your food truck needs a way to accept credit cards that’s efficient and affordable.  The Square Reader hardware is completely free and hooks into your mobile phone.  It’s fast to use and your money is deposited fast.  Bonus – it can be used offline.

Stats and Analysis

Quill Engage   

You have your Google Analytics code inserted on your website and blog and yet it’s meaningless because you don’t have the time or patience to analyze the data – sound familiar?  Quill Engage will do it for you in the form of a weekly, sensible summary.

Content Marketing

Infogram  

Polldaddy   

Is your blog tired?  Are your enewsletters sad?  As much as the information is important, the appearance counts too.  Infogram allows you to create those great infographics and PollDaddy helps you craft surveys from your customers or audience that coordinate with your business and brand.

As always, these items are completely free, although some of them offer an upgraded version with monthly or per unit fees.  Enjoy and please share your favorite free stuff.

Leisa Chester Weir

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In with the Old and the New: the Best Small Business Marketing Tool for 2015

For small business marketers, there is no shortage of 2015 trends and forecasts, motivating many of us to rewrite our resolutions and re-evaluate new tools for the current year. The tools, especially those with the potential of increased productivity and enhanced lead generation, are tempting, tantalizing and well worth a review, trial and possible buy. There is one tool; however, that is both old and new. It is one that should never take a back seat to the latest CRM, CMS or SaaS. It is the best you’ve got and will ever have: Relationships.

In a previous post, we explored a few classic rules of maintaining connections and growing relationships. In the Network Solutions article from a few years ago, How Relationship Marketing is Important for Your Business, Monica Jansen underscores the importance of relationship marketing for small businesses. The following excerpts prove as relevant today as they were when the article first appeared in 2012.

Thanks to social media, marketing communications have become more interactive and personal, creating opportunities to engage in relationship marketing to build brand loyalty and increase customer satisfaction.

Relationship marketing includes social media, blogging, email marketing, direct mail and offline events. The key is to create communications that come from a place of providing service and adding value. Relationship building involves asking customers how you can help them, and not having an agenda when you communicate with them.

Businesses that excel with relationship marketing take the time to listen to their customers rather than simply talking at them. They ask customers what they need and what they would like, as it relates to their business and its services and products.

Read the article at networksolutions.com.

May these sage words of wisdom convince you to make relationships a timeless small business marketing tool.

Happy New Year!

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Small Business Primer for Success in the Era of Data Democracy

Photo credit: Infocux via Flickr under Creative Commons license

When it comes to data, many small businesses are like Dorothy in the Land of Oz, not exercising the power from within to discover or apply their power – invaluable internal insight. Many rely upon sophisticated software and robotic numerical conclusions to lead the business down a complicated, confusing and conflicted yellow brick road: analyses and decisions tied to pure numbers instead of analyses and decisions tied to the goals and objectives of the company’s business and marketing plans. Even a pair of ruby red slippers did not guarantee Dorothy’s return to Kansas and numbers alone will not provide 100 percent validation of the right direction for your business. Before making any investment in business analysis platforms or programs and being overwhelmed by the sheer volume, variety and velocity of information, get a handle on the insight from within the organization. Then, put that existing data in perspective. Evaluate and analyze the influence and impact upon your organization, customers and stakeholders in accordance with your current goals, objectives, strategies and tactics.

Nancy L. Hohns

In a previous post, Nancy L. Hohns, LGK in-house strategist, reviewed the best marketing tools within your reach. As we embrace the era of Big Data, Nancy has a few suggestions for integrating data and gut instinct in a meaningful way to maximize your marketing momentum. Read her latest white paper, In the Thick of It: Big Data versus Gut Instinct. Select the image below for complimentary download instructions.

Click this image to access the white paper download instructions

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3 Often Ignored Elements of a Simple Marketing Plan

Billy Bob would be proud of your simple plan! Photo Credit: guardiantv.com under Creative Commons license

A simple plan may not have been of any benefit to the sibling characters played by Billy Bob Thornton and Bill Paxton in the film of the same name, but if you are a small business owner, you can ill-afford to not have a marketing plan and at the very least, a realistic, simple one. In a timeless post, 10 Reasons to Create a Simple Marketing Plan, Debra Murphy lays the foundation and lists key elements for one of the most important documents for your business. Many components, such as vision, mission, goals and target audience, are familiar; however, here are three that small business owners and marketers often ignore:

What makes you different

The secret to defining what makes your business different is to understand what your ideal client really wants and make sure you deliver it better than anyone else. What do you uniquely offer that your clients find amazing?

Usually what makes us different may not be a complicated process or service but in fact, it may be something that is simple but has the effect of wowing our clients. We are taught to believe that things of value have to be hard or complex. Just because these things we do are easy for us does not mean they are easy for others. You need to become consciously aware of this value you provide and use it to your benefit.

Your marketing road map for achieving your goals

You wouldn’t take a trip without planning your route. Marketing your business is no different – you need a plan to guide you towards your destination. This plan defines the marketing strategies and the tactics within each strategy that you will use to achieve a particular goal.

To create an action plan for what you need to do and when

A marketing action plan eliminates random activities that create haphazard results. It takes your road map one step further and assigns dates, topics and other activities to each activity so that it eliminates the guess work – you always know what you’re doing and when you’re doing it.

Read the original article at Social Media Today.

Do you have a realistic, simple marketing plan? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section of this post.

Need to take inventory of your business and brand? Download the Marketing Assets Toolkit, LGK’s free self-evaluation checklist.

For daily marketing communications news, subscribe to LGK’s free, online, MarCom Digest. Maximize your momentum!

Inventory Your Marketing Assets to Maximize Your Momentum

Photo Credit: AJC1/Flickr under Creative Commons license

Every company – sole proprietorships, mom and pops, startups and corporate giants- has them: marketing assets. All content and related materials, from the obvious to the obscure, used to educate, inform or generate interest in the company are marketing assets. The Marketing Assets Toolkit is a complimentary guide to identify and evaluate the various components, their continuity and effectiveness. It will prove useful as a preliminary step in creating a set of guidelines and standards to promote and present the company to internal and external audiences.

So what are you waiting for? We have done the work of listing many assets and evaluation criteria to start your inventory process and maximize your marketing momentum. Select the image below for download instructions.

Confessions of a Former Twirl Girl and 4 Lessons about Marketing

Photo credit: Wystan/Flickr under Creative Commons license

A Face in the Crowd is a 1957 film classic that strikes a chord with many in the entertainment, media and marketing professions. It is the story of a hobo who becomes a media icon with an inflated ego and a false sense of fame and power. It features an all-star cast, legendary director and captivating signature sequences. That’s Hollywood, always a signature sequence – think the Deer Hunter’s wedding scene, Gone with the Wind’s Atlanta Depot burning scene, The Godfather’s baptism scene. I cannot count how many times I’ve seen A Face in the Crowd, but watching it again was like being hit over the head with a silver stick. There it was: an “aha” moment and squad full of marketing insight from a four-minute baton twirling scene. Small businesses, too, can learn a lot from twirling a baton. Here are four signature lessons and references to maximize your marketing momentum.

1. Focus
Many business owners know what they want but do not have a plan, which is a recipe for disaster. A plan, whether or not it is in the form of a list or comprehensive document, holds you accountable and keeps you focused on using time wisely and spending marketing dollars most efficiently. Read LGK’s entire post on marketing focus, which includes five suggestions, here.

2. Agility
The digital era requires companies to move with quickness, fluidness and nimbleness, combining all facets of the operation (e.g., marketing, technology, sales, production, etc.) to meet customer expectations and the needs of the business. Being agile is also about being collaborative, customer-centric and responsive. We have to be able to chew gum and talk at the same time or in drill team terms, toss the stick in the air, turn and catch it without missing a beat. Here’s a post from CMO.com which profiles four brands’ use of agile marketing.

3. Precision
It is tempting to indulge in the smorgasbord of marketing channels and opportunities, but marketing with precision is a well-coordinated drill – a process – to connect customer insight with efforts and ultimately results. According to an excellent overview of precision marketing on marketingsherpa.com, a successful application includes sending the right message to the right person at the right time in the right channel. Read this overview to sharpen your strategy.

4. Timing
It is pretty obvious here. Try throwing a baton in the air with no sense of control – it drops. The same is true for marketing. Timing is everything, from plan development, implementation, execution and evaluation. It is central to your success and vital to optimizing exposure and customer engagement. Here are five tips to create a timely marketing strategy via marketingthink.com’s Gerry Moran.

So there you have it, a purely professional, yet somewhat self-serving and hopefully helpful post linking a silver stick to marketing insight – that is what happens over a long holiday weekend. In the spirit of full disclosure, I am an unabashed classic film buff and former “Twirl Girl” who served as captain of her high school squad.

LGK’s GB O’Brien (Former High School Twirl Girl)

Have any childhood confessions and marketing insight to share? Feel free to reveal your thoughts in the comments section of this post. In the meantime, here’s that mesmerizing signature sequence from A Face in the Crowd.

GB O’Brien
Principal, LGK

For daily marketing communications news, subscribe to LGK’s free, online, MarCom Digest. Maximize your momentum!

A 2014 Marketing Proposition

For many marketers of small to medium-sized businesses, the start of the year means new budgets, modest projections, a cap on expenses a list of goals and a few resolutions.  As you dive into your 2014 marketing strategy (what you want to do) and plan (how you’re going to do it), here’s a proposition to execute differently and, perhaps, more effectively. Put the goals and resolutions on a back burner and commit to a system for long-term results.

Recently, a colleague shared an insightful article that makes a very convincing case to forget about goals and, instead, focus on the system – the process of doing the work. To summarize, goals serve a useful purpose in providing direction and planning for short-term success; but systems allow you to focus on a practice instead of performance and provide a long-term process for making progress. It motivates you to commit to a mindset of continued improvement and lasting results; as well as, to adjust to situations and circumstances. The entire article (visit the Articles and Videos section of LGK’s Resources website page to access Forget Setting Goals. Focus on This Instead) is well worth the read to maximize your momentum this year and beyond.

Think about this concept using the example of a social media platform. Would you rather have thousands of followers, a preponderance of whom may be fake, versus a smaller engaged community with a high rate of conversion? Should you choose thousands of followers –and we don’t know why-, once you achieve the magic number, what’s next, especially if there is zero engagement or CTA (call to action) responses?

So what do you think? Ready to commit to a system rather than goals and resolutions? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section of this post. In the meantime, the only resolution we’re holding onto is to play more of this anthem of strength and empowerment, courtesy of Katy Perry. With the eye of a tiger and spirit of a champion, have a great year and roar!

For daily marketing communications news, subscribe to LGK’s free, online, MarCom Digest. Maximize your momentum!

Marketing Momentum Monday: Better Life Shark Tank Pitch

Better Life

Settle in for the week ahead, power up your marketing engine and maximize your momentum with a quick review of this company pitch from two life-long friends who created Better Life, a green line of cleaning products.

A company/elevator pitch is an essential weapon for every company. Having a solid elevator pitch can make the difference between an opportunity seized and an opportunity missed. It opens the door to a more formal encounter that could possibly seal the deal. For those who think it is merely for startups and those seeking investors, think again. You’ll find that having and delivering a succinct short summary of what you have to offer in less than two minutes is an effective marketing tool for creating favorable impressions and top of mind awareness. A good elevator pitch offers the following information:

• The company name, category and a brief description of what the company does and the problem it is attempting to solve
• The service market/target audience
• The proposed solution (product or service)
• The business model
• The key benefit of the solution service or product
• How the company compares to other familiar companies
• Why the company will succeed
• The vision for the company

We stumbled upon Better Life in a recent episode of ABC-TV’s Shark Tank, a reality television series featuring pitches from aspiring entrepreneurs to a panel of potential investors. You’ll see what is a successful pitch for their line of natural household cleaning products. We’re eager to follow the company’s journey and hope that the shark partnership pays off.  What do you think?  Let us know in the comments below. In the meantime, we found an insightful Forbes article on raising capital in a shark tank.

For daily marketing communications news, subscribe to LGK’s free, online, MarCom Digest. Maximize your momentum!

Classic Rules of Decisiveness – Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun

There’s a saying that the more things change, the more they stay the same, which we will aptly apply with a marketer’s sensibility to the skill of decisiveness. Whatever your business focus and whether you spearhead the marketing effort for a company or client, the critical marketing decisions you make influence your ability to create, communicate and deliver value to target audiences in a competitively advantaged way that scores a win or a fail.

In a digital era with new realities and exciting opportunities of real-time engagement, it is, at times, tempting to bypass a thoughtful and measured approach to decision-making. Before you decide on an approach of “Do it now, deal with the consequences later,” let’s open a chapter of Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun by Dr. Wess Roberts for timeless counsel on decisiveness. Below you’ll find several excerpts just perfect for marketing “chieftains.”

• Wise is the chieftain who never makes a decision when he doesn’t understand the issue.
• The circumstances of a given moment are not to be used as an excuse for being unprepared to make decisions incumbent to a chieftain. Indecisiveness is bred by failure to accept the responsibility of office – be it great or small.
• A chieftain who fails to accept full decision-making responsibility – or who blames others for his own bad decisions – is weak and lacking in an essential, inherent quality of leadership.
• Rarely are there perfect decisions. The best decisions are usually the more prudent of the logical alternatives. When you must be overly persuasive in gaining support for your decision, it’s usually a sign of a bad one.
• Next to the importance of knowing when to make a decision stands the insight to know when to forgo making one. Impatient chieftains often precipitate premature action.
• Perhaps the most critical element of decision making is timing. Prompt determination after appropriate deliberation is a worthy principle of decisiveness.
• In selecting an alternative, wise chieftains look for the choice in which the benefits outweigh the risks and costs of the decision.
• Wise chieftains often extract from obscure places the critical elements for making the right decisions.
• Skepticism has value in that it delays premature decision making. When a chieftain can’t make up his mind, it’s worthwhile to restate the problem.
• Chieftains grow to understand that the wisdom of a particular decision can change with time… Improve future decisions by learning from those you’ve already made.
• It takes less courage to criticize the decisions of others than to stand by your own.

To read the entire chapter or book, it is sold on Amazon.com or available as a free download from the Internet Archives. You may also find interest in reading Models for Decision Making, great advice we stumbled upon at creativemarket.com as we were developing this post.

So go forth, be a great leader, make sound decisions and maximize your marketing momentum. We leave you with a classic scene from the Mad Men television series in hopes that the coming week is as easy as Don Draper’s ability to decide and Bert Cooper’s ability to forgive.

For daily marketing communications news, subscribe to LGK’s free, online, MarCom Digest. Maximize your momentum!

LGK Tuesday Toolbox: Pocket

How many times have you stumbled upon an online article or post and wished you had saved it for later? With so many distractions, many of us actually spend more time retracing our virtual footprints in search of content we shoulda, coulda saved. Yours truly was among those who spent hours of lost productivity in the backspacing trenches until stumbling upon Pocket, a service that lets you save what you find on the web to watch and read on any device at any time.

Photo credit: Pocket

With last year’s more than 240 million saves and 7.4 million users, Pocket is a multitasker’s dream app. It has certainly helped yours truly become more organized and productive.

Give Pocket a try. Leave a comment to let us know what you think or to suggest some great content we should save for later.

GB O’Brien
LGK Principal
For daily marketing communications news, subscribe to LGK’s free, online, MarCom Digest. Maximize your momentum!