Our very own Gail Z. Martin spoke last week at The Millionaire Woman Club in Edmonton. Here is the video link from her interview with founder Debra Kasowski:
Category Archives: Gail Z. Martin
The Millionaire Woman Club Interview
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More Ways to Ramp Up Your Fall Marketing
By Gail Z. Martin
New year budgets—Managers who ran out of discretionary budget before the end of the fiscal year just ending may be counting the days until the new year’s budget starts and they can buy what they need. Make sure your business is top of mind by getting your message out early, before the holiday clutter. September and October are not too early for managers who are budgeting purchases for January.
End of year panic—Fall can be a moment of reckoning for managers who realize that there is more project left than there is calendar to complete it in. That can lead to forced spending on extra resources, productivity-enhancing tools and outsourcing to meet year-end deadlines. If your company can help with the last quarter crunch, start getting the message out in September!
Back from the beach—Some companies take a break over the summer. They put projects on hold, and set few deadlines. Then, as soon as school reopens, managers are back at their desks and everyone is recharged and ready to get down to business. That can include making decisions about purchases that have been deferred over the vacation months. Early Fall is the perfect time to follow up on proposals and close those deals with fresh sales materials or customized direct mail pieces.
Get ahead of your competition by revving up your marketing engines in the Fall. Use the pressure of the business cycle to your advantage, and market your goods and services relentlessly as the year counts down. By helping your clients have a successful year-end, you’ll also be doing your own bottom line a favor.
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Marketing Tips For Autumn Profits
By Gail Z. Martin
Is your company’s marketing ready for Fall opportunities? If you plan to make a big splash about an early Fall event or promotion, remember that it requires four to six weeks advance notice at the least to prepare marketing materials without incurring rush charges. Even if you are expecting big things from the winter holiday season, the time to start the marketing machine is when the kids go back to school!
Why is Fall such a great marketing opportunity? Think of it as a side effect of the traditional business cycle.
End of year budgets—Some managers are cautious during the first half of the year, hoarding their budget. Then during the second half, they realize that year-end budget planning and deliverables are coming up, and the purse strings loosen to get key projects completed on time. This is especially true for companies with a “use-it-or-lose-it” budget approach, where managers have an incentive to spend down before the end of the year.
Ramp up for the holidays—It is a wonderful thing for business that so much of the world celebrates a holiday of some kind during the last few months of the year. Between October and January, almost everyone has a reason to buy gifts, stock up on special groceries and entertain. If your business sells gift items, food, entertainment services or home décor, this is the season to make sure everyone knows about you! You’ll need some extra marketing savvy to cut through the clutter.
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Track Email For Better Marketing Results
By Gail Z. Martin
Today’s email marketing programs also include tracking. Take the time to review these reports, because they will give you valuable information about how your readers are responding. If you see a lot of people opting out, you may be sending information too often, or you may not have a good match between your content and your readers’ true interests. Are people clicking to open your newsletter? That’s a good sign, but it may not tell the whole truth about the number of people who are actually reading the newsletter, since many people can preview an email without clicking to open it. Look at your report to see how many people are clicking through on the links you provide. This will give you insight into which offers and what kinds of information are of greatest interest. Refine your newsletter by eliminating the parts that don’t work well and doing more of the elements that are capturing your readers’ attention.
Building your opt-in email newsletter list is an essential part of your online marketing strategy. Offer a free, downloadable bonus item on your Web site and on your social media sites. This might be an article, white paper, case study, tip sheet or quiz. Make it clear that receiving the free bonus item also includes a free subscription to your monthly newsletter, with the ability to unsubscribe at any time. Change your downloadable bonus offer every few months to keep it fresh and to entice new visitors to subscribe.
Ideally, you want to build a list of people who like what you have to say and have given you permission to stay in touch with them via email. Never purchase or borrow an email list compiled by someone else. Sending mass emails to people who did not request to hear from you is spam and it can reduce your businesses’ credibility and even get you dropped from your Web hosting platform. If you want to reach someone else’s email newsletter audience, work out an arrangement for that person to feature an article with your by-line, or run an ad with an affiliate link to your product. You gain credibility by being recommended by the list owner, and you keep yourself out of trouble. Make sure as well that you manage your emails efficiently.
Excerpted from 30 Days to Online PR and Marketing Success, coming in November from Career Press and available for pre-order now on Amazon!
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Getting More from Your Email Newsletter
By Gail Z. Martin
Make sure your email newsletter focuses on reader value rather than hard-sell pitches. Most of your content should provide information and tips, along with a featured offer or event invitation from your company. Avoid sending email newsletters too frequently. Make sure the email won’t bounce by verifying with https://www.zerobounce.net/free-email-verifier/. Most companies do well with a monthly format. Some utilize a very short weekly tip or motivational quote along with one or two brief links to their own products or events.
Engage your reader by making your newsletter interactive. Give them a reason to click on links to see videos, hear audios and read more beyond the short tip that’s posted. Include polls and surveys. Give readers incentive to visit your Facebook page, Twitter feed and blog by mentioning the topics you’ve recently covered or will talk about soon. If you’re promoting an upcoming event, include a link to the event sign-up page. Promoting a “special of the month” product or service? Make sure there’s a “buy now” link handy to make it easy for readers to purchase.
Don’t reprint your press releases in press release format, but do make sure to report your news, awards, upcoming programs, and participating in community and industry events. Make sure to include your own ads for products or events. If you have something big coming up, add a special banner ad to get attention. It’s your newsletter; make it work hard for you.
Excerpted from 30 Days to Online PR and Marketing Success, coming in November from Career Press and available for pre-order now on Amazon!
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Business Hoarders Beware!
By Gail Z. Martin
We’ve all seen the reality TV shows about hoarders, people who just can’t throw away anything. Sadly, their houses are often filled to the ceiling with junk and their lives become more and more constrained by their precious stuff, things they won’t get rid of but can’t actually use.
Professionals theorize that hoarders get some kind of psychological comfort from all their stuff, feeling safe because they have more than they could ever need. Maybe they were deprived as children; who knows? In the end, whoever inherits the stuff usually ends up carting it off to the donation bin or the junkyard, because it’s past the point of being useful to anyone. Hoarding is a waste of time, money, space and things.
Maybe you don’t hoard stuff. But could you be a business hoarder? Here’s the profile—if it sounds familiar, you’ve still got time to change your ways!
- Do you hoard information and connections? Are you afraid to share tips, make referrals or pass along helpful news? (Your precious information has a shelf-life. If you’ve already used it, hanging onto it without sharing guarantees it will be stale and useless then next time you need it, and no one else will benefit from it either.)
- Do you hoard ideas and opportunities? If you hear about an opportunity that might benefit someone you know, do you ignore it or pass it along? How about an idea that you can’t use but that might be useful to someone else? When you hoard ideas and opportunities, we all lose out, because someone who might have made something out of them may miss a chance to create something of benefit to everyone.
- Do you hoard help and collaboration? Some people are so fearful of being taken advantage of that they get paranoid about offering help or working together with others. Some like to hoard control, refusing to take part in anything where they aren’t the boss. Both approaches waste personal and professional opportunities for growth and exposure, and make the community that much poorer because of your lack of participation. Overcome fear and a need for control, and contribute!
It’s an interesting paradox: what gets hoarded ends up being wasted, while what is shared seems to multiply endlessly. Share information or contacts with someone, and odds are that they’ll not only share with you, but that their sharing will lead you to others who will do the same. Share ideas and opportunities, and the person who you share with just might offer you a way to participate and benefit, or the outcome of the information you shared might create something that opens up unexpected new horizons. Share your help and be willing to collaborate, and you can gain a network of friends, contacts and resources that will keep on giving for years.
So conquer your business hoarding tendencies and see what blossoms!
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Simplifying for Success
By Gail Z. Martin
It’s not rocket science, it’s…well…marketing. So if your marketing plan looks like the details of a space launch, maybe you’re trying too hard.
Oh, I’ve been part of large company marketing roll-outs that have massive strategies and huge hour-by-hour timelines. That’s OK if you’re truly a huge company mobilizing hundreds or thousands of people for a synchronized launch. For a solo professional or small company’s marketing needs…not so much.
Many business owners get immobilized by what they perceive as the required effort for a marketing campaign. If you’re one of those people with the deer-in-the-headlights look when it comes to marketing, I’d like to offer this advice: do a little, and then do a little more.
Start by getting clear about your #1 business goal for this year. Make it tangible, and make it measurable. Don’t just say “I want more business,” say “I want to see 25% more revenue.” Instead of “I want more clients,” say “I want to land 10 new clients who spend an average of $2,000 each.” See the difference?
Once you’re clear on your goal, hone in on the target audience that will help you achieve that goal. Be very specific, and get to know their likes, dislikes, their usage habits and their spending patterns—create a very detailed picture of your ideal client. Make sure that you also figure out what your ideal prospect really, really needs, and what problem he or she thinks is urgent to solve. That will help you craft your message.
Once you know your #1 goal and your ideal client, your first marketing effort should be to figure out where those ideal prospects are already congregating, what they’re reading and listening to, what clubs they’re joining, what events they’re attending—you get the picture. Now put yourself in front of your ideal prospects where they’re already gathering, and communicate the message that you have what they need to solve their big problem. That’s the heart of effective marketing, in a nutshell.
Complicated? Not really. People often make marketing more complex than it needs to be because they’ve skipped steps one and two and they begin thrashing around, sending out messages hither and yon because they don’t know where to find their ideal prospects, or they secretly believe everyone is a potential customer (they’re not).
If you’re feeling overwhelmed at the very idea of marketing, back up, breathe deeply, and simplify. You’ll be glad you did! If you need help, you can click this link to get support from a business expert.
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One Day at a Time Marketing
By Gail Z. Martin
I’m a big believer in having a marketing plan, especially when it comes to being clear on your number one goal and your key target audience. It’s also important to have a vision for where you want your company to go, so that your marketing can help you build toward that dream. Being clear on the big picture is important so that you can make sure your efforts are all building toward a common end point.
But in other ways, marketing is a one-day-at-a-time activity.
When you attend a marketing event and chat with the people you meet, you’re making a marketing impact. The same is true when you send out an email, write a newsletter, or make posts on social media. Yes, your message should align with your big-picture goal. But at the same time, at a grassroots level, your marketing adjusts with the needs of each person you talk with or interact with online. Attending events like SEO conferences can give you fresh insights and tactics that help you adjust and enhance your marketing strategy. You can find more about how SEO conferences can boost your strategy at https://enterpriseleague.com/blog/seo-conferences-can-boost-your-strategy/.
You’ve got to keep your balance between now and later in order for marketing to do its best work. Without keeping your eye on the long-term goal, you’ll never get where you want to go. At the same time, achieving that goal will come as the result of the accumulation of day-to-day achievements, messages, connections and proposals.
Planning is important, but a single day can upend the best of plans. A major announcement by a large company in your industry can completely change the playing field. Natural disasters can wreck supply and distribution lines, manufacturing facilities, or retail outlets, forcing you to re-think what you say and how you say it—and whether you can deliver your product at all. A scandal or crisis can hijack your news cycle, or, if it’s your crisis, completely derail your marketing message. What a difference a day makes!
On the plus side, inspiration strikes when it will, not according to plan. Tomorrow might be the say you get your million-dollar idea, or an insight into a brilliant marketing approach. On any given day, you might meet a new client who places a huge order, discover an amazing new online marketing tool, or find a new supplier who can make magic happen. So make your plans, but be open because marketing is always a day-to-day adventure!
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Decluttering Your Marketing
By Gail Z. Martin
You hear all about organizing your office and your closets, but when’s the last time you decluttered your marketing?
Over time, many businesses hang on to marketing strategies that they’ve outgrown or stick with advertising contracts long past their usefulness. Like the clothes in the back of your closet that don’t fit and are out of style, marketing clutter ties up space that could be working harder for you. Not only that, but outdated marketing probably isn’t representing your business at its best and might be giving an outdated impression of your services. For businesses in creative fields like architecture, embracing tailored architects marketing can refresh your approach and ensure your brand reflects the quality and innovation you offer. Similarly, if you’re operating an arkansas s corporation, updating your marketing strategy could be a key factor in staying competitive and aligned with your business goals. And if you have a cbd business that needs an effective advertising strategy, then you may trust the experts from client verge cbd advertising agency to do the job for you. If you want to offer the best-in-class service over email, then you should invest in Outlook email analysis.
How do you begin by declutter your marketing?
Start off with a check-up on your top business goals. Make sure that they’re in line with your current vision for the future. Now think about who the best audience is to help you reach those goals. Which of your marketing actions are helping you reach that audience with an up-to-date message? Those are the actions to keep. If you have other marketing that is no longer serving your goals, save time and money by canceling those actions and reassigning the effort and budget to more productive activities. Seek 3d rendering services from https://www.fuseanimation.com/what-are-interactive-graphics/ to help boost the quality of images and videos of your marketing content.
Now think about any marketing actions that may cost more than they’re worth. Look hard at special events, which can be a huge waste of staff time. For example, do you know how many hours it really takes to put on your annual golf tournament? How much are those staff hours worth in dollars? Does you break even in the amount of new business gained from the tournament? If not, it might be smart to retire the event and look for a new outreach. You can save more money when investing in scalable SEO automation services. The same is true from tradeshows that you’ve been attending year after year. Do a cost/benefit analysis to see if the event is earning its keep. Alternatively, you could use an ai video generator from image data to create promotional videos with minimal staff time, offering a more efficient and cost-effective outreach strategy.
Get rid of brochures with outdated addresses, business cards without email addresses or with incorrect phone numbers, and product information that is not longer current. Pitch out-of-date photos, video cassettes, audio cassettes and old trade show booth materials that don’t represent the modern version of your business. Purge your files of multiple copies of magazines and ditch old clipping files except for a few big national placements. Free up space on your hard disk by purging old client files, especially audio, video and photo files that slow down your system.
Start off the Fall with a clean slate by decluttering your marketing, and watch your results soar!
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Take it Out of High Gear
By Gail Z. Martin
How much time did you spend relaxing this summer?
Many entrepreneurs—in fact, I’d say most of us—get so busy building our businesses that we forget to take time off to nurture our souls.
The dog days of August are a good time to kick back for a few days and schedule yourself some free time. You’ll be surprised at the payoff.
Busy people tend to look at downtime as a loss or a waste. Nothing could be further from the truth. Downtime can be incredibly productive, but in a different way from the daily grind. Here’s how I reap value from my downtime.
- Strengthen your base. Our jobs take a toll on our families, between long hours, travel schedules and distracted attention. Use your downtime to nurture your bonds with the people you love most by switching off and unplugging to give them total attention.
- Dream, vision and fantasize. Are you too busy to daydream? If so, you’re cheating yourself. Skipping sleep? You may be missing out on some of your brain’s best ideas. I find then when I step away from the full-court press of daily business, I start to be aware of more intuitive things like ideas, connections, and possibilities. When I relax, my subconscious kicks in and gives me my best ideas. The same is true when we get deep, REM sleep.
- Renew and restore. No resource on Earth can give continually without taking in nutrition. Your work requires physical and psychic energy that creates an enormous drain. Without time to relax, renew and restore, you will eventually deplete your reserves. How do you restore yourself? Everyone is different, but I love periods of silence, good books, permission to do absolutely nothing for a while, good food, and the company of people I love. Other people like to hike, dance the night away or do other activities. Just make sure whatever you pick leaves you feeling renewed and restored and not just tired.
Give yourself permission to unplug and see the difference in yourself and your business!
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