Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Distinguish Your Company with Marketing

Whether the current state of the economy has affected your industry or not, the reality is you are probably more careful on how and where you spend your marketing dollars. To be cautious is understandable but before you make any moves consider this analogy by MarketingSherpa.

Imagine you’re a broker on Wall Street and your client’s stock is plummeting across the board. Would you sell the plummeting stocks, ride out the storm, or invest in even more stocks?

If you answered ‘invest in even more stocks’ you are right! Don’t stop investing (or marketing). The goal is to buy up as many stocks as you can now so when the market turns around you own a greater share of stocks.

This same concept applies to investing in your branding and marketing efforts during this downturn. By innovating your products or services now you'll discover non-traditional customers in new niche markets, resulting in a larger slice of the market share pie when the market comes back to life.

So although times may seem tough, take this opportunity to break away from the pack. Your next question may be ‘how do I begin?’

Dig for the Truth
Your first step is to immediately uncover new markets and new customers since your local and traditional customers are probably cutting back on their purchases. Start by researching and analyzing your current customers and their spending habits. You could identify a new trend and then respond with a new service or product to meet the changing needs.

By adopting this philosophy you are automatically setting yourself apart from your competition.

Example: Plastic Surgery Specialist (PSS) of Annapolis took notice of moms coming to them for certain procedures that would give them back their pre-mom bodies. Therefore we created the ‘Mommy Makeover’ where several procedures are wrapped up into one nice package.




Implement your Innovation:
Step two includes implementing your innovation. Take the research you gathered and formulate a strategic plan to implement your new product. In today’s economy where money is tight and gas is at a historical high people tend to stay home more. And when they’re home, they’re online – shopping, e-mailing, looking for entertainment and searching for ways to save a buck. With this in mind, make your marketing dollars work harder by using online marketing tactics such as search engine marketing.

Online campaigns are more cost-effective and quantifiable unlike traditional TV, radio and print campaigns. Since you’re launching a new product or service in a new market, you will be able to reach a broader audience at a lower cost. Plus you are able to quantify the leads better against your marketing dollar.

Example: Annapolis Lighting discovered their audience is mainly the high-end niche. Based on this we created the ‘Lighting Supremacy’ brand that targeted this audience. This new brand was launched in several integrated campaigns such as the Pink Ticket and Holiday Campaign in the fall and winter of 2007. Each campaign included a microsite, search engine marketing and an email component. These campaigns generated a 95% click-through rate, which was significantly more revenue than recent past promotions.

Visit our site, www.TheCyphersAgency.com, to contact us for help with your search engine marketing and advertising.

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