2009 Marketing Trends in brief

So much has been going on for me that I have neglected this blog. I plan to do better in 2009.

I could not leave 2008 without commenting on all the trend articles that are out there. So many viewpoints, so little time. To that end, her eis my last bit of help in 2008… here are the 2009 marketing trends articles I found most thoughtful, thought-provoking and pretty on target from what I’m seeing in the world.

Many blessings for business prosperity and talk to you in the new year!

BEST MARKETING TRENDS of 2009 ARTICLES

1. Felipe Korzenny’s Hispanic Marketing Trends for 2009

2. KEY MARKETING TRENDS FOR 2009 (Canadian but definitely going to see south of the border too)

 

3. PART 1: 50 Youth Marketing Trends for 2009 by Graham Brown

 

4. Strange Corporation – News – Online Marketing Trends in 2009

5. Greg Verdino: Marketing, Media & Trends: If 2009 will be the ‘year …

6. Email Marketing Trends for 2009

 

7. Cliff Allen on Marketing: 9 Marketing Trends for 2009

What does your brand smell like?

Okay… too tough for you? How about… what does your company sound like? If I picked up the fabric of your culture what would it feel like?

This week, I’ve been conducting internal interviews for a hotel looking at its branding. Industries like hospitality need to understand their brands from all five senses and more. People want the “experience” of your brand and if it is a fabulous time, they’ll come back again and again.

Take a tip from hotels and explore your brand from more than just sight. Make it really come to life.

SEO and the rest of your marketing efforts

A new report from iProspect, conducted by JupiterResearch,  says that 45% of search engine marketers do not integrate their search marketing efforts with offline channels.

In addition, it uncovers a big disconnect between search engine marketer strategy and search engine user behavior…The study finds that just over half of search engine marketers (55%) intentionally integrate their efforts with at least one offline marketing channel.

Other key findings: The two integration techniques most frequently employed by search marketers are prominently including the company Web address (84%), and the company name (66%), in offline marketing initiatives.

Only 26% of marketers utilize the same keywords in offline campaigns as are used in search marketing campaigns in their integration efforts.

24% of companies do not participate in offline marketing at all.

Can you hear me grinding my teeth on this one.

It’s articles like this that bother me as a marketing professional. I have been saying for years that it is not about Search Engine Optimization but Web Optimization that must happen which includes getting your PR efforts and branding materials to all be utilizing the same language, content, tone and keywords.

It irks me more to know that small business owners everywhere get sucked in by some so-called SEO expert that this will solve their marketing woes when in reality what they get in sales goes right back out in word$.

If you are working with an SEO “professional,” challenge them on this. Question how they plan to cross-train your SEO with your direct mail piece planned next month. If they give you a deer-in-headlights look or it’s silent on the phone, cut your losses and find a true marketer that gets it the first time.

See full article here.

Done ranting.

Five sites for inspiration

I have just returned from a long weekend in Michigan. Headed back to visit with old friends and made some new ones. I needed to turn off, shut down and reboot… don’t we all sometimes?

It’s important, especially in one-person operations, that we keep our creative juices flowing. To that end, here are five sites I visit for daily inspiration. Stay passionate!

1. Direct Daily: Great blog that highlights great direct mail and grassroots marketing tactics from around the world. Complete with photos.

2. MelissaJill.net: I think this woman is an amazing photographer and fun human being. Photography is not only a personal passion of mine but I also visit because it shows what happens when you look form a different angle. When I get married, I’m calling her.

3. Logopond: Search and discover logos. Rate them, praise them, add your own. Helps rev up the design juices.

4.  CrazyLeaf: Always sharing new Adobe techniques, design trends, etc. Uber design geeky and I love visiting their world for awhile pretending I fit in.

5. MediaPost.com: Mega-ton site of research and marketing knowledge galore. So much to read! So much to absorb!

3 steps to take this week

Finish out the year: Create a marketing calendar for the remainder of the year. I like to use Word and create a table with four columns:

1. the month

2. product/service specifically to push then

3. what 2-3 marketing tactics I plan to use (pr, direct mail, etc.)

4. creative notes – brief timelines keys, maybe the headline has already come to me, etc.

Review your headlines: Take a look at upcoming marketing materials you have. Direct mail, website, ad, sales letter. What’s your opening line? 90% of the receiver’s decision is going to be made at the gut level by what that one line says. Make it compelling! Irresitible!

Ask for quotes: Contact 3 clients for testimonials this week. Two sentences will suffice. But get them! And then start using them on your site and in collateral.

3 marketing tips of the week

Got coupons? According to a recent analysis Scarborough Research, Internet coupons are of increasing interest to consumers, 11% of households currently obtain coupons via the Internet, and this has increased 83% since 2005. The Sunday newspaper remains the number one place for acquiring household coupons. Fifty-three percent of households get their coupons from the Sunday newspaper.  Cannot afford to be in the Sunday paper? You can afford to create a simple pdf of a coupon that tells customers to bring it in for a discount or free gift and post this to the home page of your web site.

LinkedIn: If you haven’t already, get your business on LinkedIn. It’s another easy way to get your business promoted and out there.

Human Resources Tip: Take time this week to examine your HR practices. What’s the process for posting a position? Is there some templated information to keep it consistent with what you say in your advertising? Do you respond to every employment inquiry? If you do not, you should. People remember what companies were gracious and what companies didn’t even have the time for them… they may not make the time in the future to buy form you when they’ve landed a new job. Make the effort! This is free word-of-mouth for you — and it’s up to you if it’s bad or good WOM.

My Tenets of Good Branding

1. BE CONSISTENT. You need to communicate key messages to audience segments on a regular basis in order to get their attention and create a lasting impression.

2. BE PATIENT. BE FLEXIBLE. Creating awareness takes time, so be patient.

3. BE CREATIVE. Create ads, brochures or other forms of communication for audiences that get the right messages heard — the benefits of who you are and what you do.

4. DIVERSIFY EFFORTS. Not all the eggs in one basket. I would rather plan for smaller ads consistently placed over the course of the year than blowing an entire marketing budget on one insert. I like using free publicity to stretch a marketing budget.

5. MEASURE RESULTS.

Information Architecture: Why You Need It

Information architecture determines the overall structure of a web site – the flow from home page to sub-level pages to thank you pages. Usability is a large part of information architecture. Does the visitor feel oriented? Do visitors know where to go for the information or functionality they want? Is the navigation intuitive? Is the user interface empowering and informative? The nomenclature and organization of that information, the ability to sort through and customize it, will determine the success of the visitor’s experience. Like any good sales pitch, it’s anticipating the question before it is asked and presenting a thoughtful answer.

The major content categories should be easy to grasp and they should align with specific target audiences. It is also important to surround any individual document or issue with related materials. This approach helps pull users into the material and establishes broader relationship to your brand, even if they originally pursue very specific information.

The information architecture will also form the basis of the guidelines for content length and layering. Information should be presented in a layered manner, allowing users to get a solid overview and then choose to drill down to more detail if they are interested. Supporting information to the primary text on any page should be presented as second reads on the page, drawing users to pertinent facts and recognizing the propensity of Web users to skim as they read.

Information architecture for the web is much like the design of a library or supermarket. The idea is to provide paths to information by showing relationships. Of course, web sites do not consist solely of linear relationships. Pathways through sites can be varied and few users will take the exact same path. Navigating is subjective, based on someone’s own preferences, interests and experience. Sites must be designed with a full understanding of the medium. Vertical pathways through the information must be straightforward and reliable, while lateral pathways should surface related information elsewhere on the site. Finding a balance between the way information “wants” to be organized and how the users want to find it is the key to successful information architecture. Once the relationship between the major content groups, the target audiences and the audiences’ expectations are established, the site mapping can begin.

Web Site No-Nos

As we enter into 2008, I want to once again encourage those businesses that have put it off for another year to get their web sites up-to-date. You do not have to do much to make your site 200% better for your current visitors and prospective buyers to want to enlist your products and services. 

If you don’t want to hire a professional (like myself), please consider making sure your site:

1. has a white or light background color. Your background should not be competing with your words or images.
2. uses limited blinking/flashing/animated objects. It hurts downoad time and distracts people from what you’re trying to sell. 
3. uses proper spelling and grammer. Print out the pages and proofread!
4. that every page has navigation. Nothing is worse than sending a prospect to a page where the only way to leave the page is to leave your site.
5. where all the links actually work especially those going to outside sources. A few poorlinks and people wonder how updated your material is.
6. update your copyright at the bottom to 2008.

 Web sites have proven to be one of the easiest and viable ways to gain new customers. Isn’t it worth your time and some investment? Just having a programmer who can code your site is not enough. Invest in a professional to develop a site plan for you that includes how to keep it fresh, compelling and create a look that says this is a professional company you should trust and buy from.

is your booth a money drain? fix it!

Whether in the trade show sea of 100 booths or a parking lot event, it’s important that your booth stands out from the rest. After all, that’s why you invested the money and time to exhibit. Why fall short once you are there? 

Here are some quick reminders on turning up your booth’s volume.

Reminder #1: Your own experience. Think about the last show/event you attended. How many of the booths and displays stick in your mind? How many stopped you, or at least slowed you down? Make a list of what caught your attention. Next, visit a favorite retail location and walk the aisles. Notice again what packaging catches your eye. Write these down. Review your lists for ideas to improve your own display. 

Reminder #2: Kill the “me toos”. Too many don’t pay enough attention to their competitors’ marketing messages and end up with a generic look and feel. Think of how many black/leather/chrome booths with hot chicks in tight outfits you see at a male-dominated show. That’s dollars down the drain.  To truly stand out AND BE MEMORABLE, take another piece of paper and put two columns on a sheet of paper; title the left “My Booth”; title the right “Their Booths.”  Under “My Booth,” list all the things that you think you might have in your booth (Photos, charts, hoochies, tube tops, etc.) Then, under “Their Booths,” list of all the things you think your competitors will have. Now, cross everything off your list that appears on their list. You can’t use them. Period. Which leads us to… 

Reminder #3: Be bold. One of the other issues at a show is booth size. Everyone is pretty much working with the same equipment. As people are strolling down the aisle, you need to throw them a visual wham! The goal of your booth design is to get them to stop so that you can sell. By being bold (not necessarily goofy or offensive), you’re going to usurp your competition who’ll be doing the expected. 

Reminder #4: Be clear. Did your last booth kind of look like a garage sale? A canvas banner here, a glossy photo there, a display panel that doesn’t match anything else? Once you stop them, you can draw their eyes where you want them. So minimize the messages for a clean, dynamic impact.  

Reminder #5: Collect data. The whole reason you are there is for sales. Maybe they don’t by today but they could buy tomorrow. So invest in collecting data. Train the booth personnel to watch, listen and ask closely for those people who can’t contain their enthusiasm for your brand experience. These are your future brand ambassadors and word-of-mouth royalty. Treat them well. Have people fill out surveys, sign up for future notices and remember these are leads – don’t toss them! 

Sound like too much? Feeling overwhelmed? Hire a professional consultant (like me). How much does it cost to have a pro strategize & design your display? Probably less than you think. How much does it cost not to? Way more than you want to know.