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Find out where your ideal client is hiding

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My parents used to live near a famous fishing stream, the Yellow Breeches. Over the years, I noticed that on certain days, there would be a lot more fisherman out there in the water, decked out in their waders, waiting hopefully.

Turns out it wasn’t coincidence. They stock the stream periodically, and the fishermen know when that happens, so they show up to fish when there is a newly stocked stream.

(This seems like cheating to me, but whatever.)

fisherman in stream

The point is, fish where the fish are biting.

It’s so important to find out where your ideal client likes to hang out.

Once you have established a strong picture of the person or business that will absolutely love and benefit from your service, go out and find where that person spends time.

How to find out where your ideal client hangs out

1. Ask Them

This seems obvious, but many business people forget to actually talk to their customers.

Either do a formal survey of your existing customers, or do it more casually. Next time you’re in conversation with a prospect who you think fits your ideal profile, ask them what their go-to social network is, what magazines they read, what association they belong to, what conferences they attend.

2. Look at Available Data

There are resources online that will help you sort through the demographics and composition of most of the social networks. Check out the Pew Research Internet Project for yearly updates on social network usage. Edison Research has a wealth of information on social habits.

3. They Gather in Pools

If your ideal customer’s industry has a trade association or magazine, this is a good place to find them congregating.

Look for the association website and see if they have an online community. If it’s open, you can join the community and be helpful (no promoting, just be useful). See if they accept guest posts on their association blog.

Don’t ignore print magazines–many associations have print materials that present an opportunity for articles or advertising.

Another offline opportunity is the time-honored trade show. You don’t have to drag an exhibit with you, just attend and form some relationships. Seek out the chance to be a presenter if the show includes sessions or workshops. Just keep your “knowledgeable expert” hat on and leave the “sneaky marketer” hip waders at home. The more helpful you are, the more leads will naturally flow in your direction.

And then maybe you’ll land the “big one!”

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for social strata — a top ten company to work for on the Internet . Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee

Photo Credit: Chris | christopherharrison.net via Compfight cc

A Mission Bigger Than You Are For The New Year

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By Lindsey Tolino

Blake Mycoskie’s TOMS is an amazing business feat, no?

It’s a business set up with enough profit margin that a pair of shoes can be given away for each pair purchased. Even more notably, it’s a business that sells itself because customers have an immediate role in the mission through a simple purchase.

It’s amazing how much time and money people donate to organizations they want to support. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 62.2 million people volunteered through or for an organization from Sept 2012 to Sept 2013. Additionally, Americans gave away $335.17 billion in 2013, according to the National Philanthropic Trust.

Why would people give away this much time and money?

It may be as simple as this – for a chance to make a difference.

blue sky

Maybe people do it to feel better about themselves, maybe to become who they want to be, maybe they want to spend time with others who are volunteering, or maybe it’s guilt-motivated. But all of that pales in comparison with the motivation of feeling like you’re making a difference. We all have lofty thoughts and ideas of how we’d like to change the world, but we have limited resources and time. Consequently, we are happy to give to organizations that are changing the world in a way that we’d like to do.

We want to have a role in a mission that is greater than ourselves, that has an impact bigger than ourselves and that benefits more people than just ourselves.

What does this have to do with your business?

When you have a mission statement that your business can accomplish on its own and that benefits only your business, you create no space for customers to play a role in a greater mission. You limit their role to only profiting your business, rather than to being able to change the world with their dollars.

Selling great products with quality service is admirable. But if that is your mission, then it limits your business, your impact and your customers’ buy-in. An internal-profiting, able-to-accomplish-on-your-own-effort-mission is not really a mission, it’s a business goal.

However, if your grand mission is to change the ethical standards of developing world suppliers by the way you do business — how much more motivated are customers to support you?

A mission that is seemingly unattainable and requires support and action from multiple parties creates a clear role for customers to play. When it is clear that you need customers to accomplish your mission (like TOMS’ one for one – no shoes could be given unless they were purchased), customers can see their role and assume it. Where there is no obvious need for customers to get involved, they won’t.

I’m not telling you to create a manipulative business model with a mission that cons customers into buying in. It should be genuine. People can, and are often looking to, sniff out fake promises.

Yet, at the end of the day, do you really want your business to have been all about your own profit? Or do you want it to have made some bigger impact in the world? If it’s the latter, simply say that. Make it your mission. You can’t do it alone. When you create room for others to help, those who want the same world impact will buy in. They’ll support the business and market it with more credibility than you can. You’ll be in it together. Only then will you make a difference in the world beyond your own profit.

The upcoming new year is reminder that the future is a chance to make a change. If your business’s main mission is self-profit, 2015 holds the hope to make it about a bigger purpose.

Author’s Bio: Lindsey Tolino is a young creative who helps make businesses better. She serves business owners with her words at ToBusinessOwners.com. Follow her on Twitter @LindseyTolino or connect with her on Google+.

Image info: Royalty-free image by Ryan McGuire from http://www.gratisography.com/

Evaluate your visual branding with this quick project

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Grab a cup of egg nog, some masking tape, and a Sharpie. It’s about to get old-school in here.

It’s the end of the year, and you’re hopefully knee-deep in planning your budget and strategy for 2015. You’re evaluating how your 2014 plans went (fistbump).

Here’s one quick branding project that you can do in about 30 minutes, and will help you spot any weaknesses in your branding picture.

Step One – Make a List of Online Outposts

Compile a list of every place your business has a presence online. Include social networks (FB, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.), review sites, your own web site.

Step Two – Fire up the Printer

Print at least the first page (anything above the fold) from each place on the list. If you send out corporate emails, print one of those too. If you placed any ads online, print them.

Step Three – Deck the Halls

Tape all of the items you printed on one wall. Tape up any pre-printed items too, if you have them. Include business cards, corporate brochure, direct mail pieces, a picture of your trade show booth, go nuts.

Step Four – Stand Back and Soak it In

As you step back from the wall, and sip some egg nog, what do you see? Is it a jumbled mess? What are the messages you’re sending? Are they the ones you want to send?

Step Five – Sharpie It Up

Use the Sharpie to circle and make notes where you see weaknesses. Do you need to add a cover image on LinkedIn (what, you haven’t done that yet?), do you have an outdated profile blurb on SlideShare, is your old logo showing up on that product’s Twitter page?

Step Six – Take Action

You can use the last week of the year to update and tweak these branding issues, consider hiring a branding expert to sort it out, or add action items to your 2015 plan.

You’ll be starting the next year with a crystal clear picture of your visual brand, and a plan to move forward!

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for Social Strata — makers of the Hoop.la community platform. Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee

First Grade Jelly Donut Marketing

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By Lindsey Tolino

First grade jelly donut day was legendary. Our teacher put a jelly donut on each student’s desk. She explained how squeezing out a little jelly from the donut was similar to how we squeeze letters out of words to make contractions.

I have few memories from that age, but I will never forget sitting at my desk, in awe of the donut and my teacher’s wisdom.

jelly donuts

Every time I think of elementary school, unique teaching methods, contractions or jelly donuts, I think of my first grade teacher. I think of how she cared enough for us to buy us donuts and how she made a correlation to contractions that I will always remember. No other elementary school teacher is as memorable to me.

In grad school I learned that you need potential customers to see an ad a certain number of times before they retain it or it influences them in some way. After too many impressions, it essentially becomes white noise and makes no impact on them.

To have your customers truly remember your business, you don’t need to follow traditional advertising and bombard them with typical sales copy.

You simply need to create a personalized, memorable experience.

That seems impossible though, right? It sounds like you don’t have the time for that. But it actually can be more simple than you think.

I had a personalized, memorable experience at a business just the other day.

I don’t think I had talked to anyone that morning except via text. It was late afternoon when I parked at the cafe. I was going to do some work. I felt fixated, machine-like. I walked up to the counter.

“Hi, is that your white car out there?” the cashier asked.

Expecting her to say my lights were on, I replied “yes” and looked outside at my car. No lights on.

“Oh, are you from Pennsylvania?”

“Yeah.” Oh, she had seen the license plate.

“Me too…”

We talked about where we were from, why we moved to Raleigh and how we were liking it. Through that short conversation, she moved me out of my one-minded, lonely, mechanistic mentality into feeling like a human again.

I was so thankful for her initiating that conversation. It was such a simple thing she did and yet it felt profound and memorable to me.

Traditional marketing has value, but creating a personalized, memorable experience for your customer is incomparably better.

So what is the key to creating a personalized, memorable experience for your customers?

The simplest, and perhaps the best way — you treat them like people.

My first grade teacher didn’t see us as students that she was obligated to teach contractions to. She saw us as children with senses (taste!), emotions and abilities. She created an experience she knew would be memorable for us that fit with her teaching objective.

The cashier didn’t see me as simply a customer she was obligated to wait on. She saw me as a person, from Pennsylvania like her, with experiences and a story. She reached out and connected with me as a person, when she wasn’t obligated to.

We simply need to see that our customers are not obligations to serve in order to make money from them. They are people with senses, emotions, abilities, experiences and stories. They are people that desire connection, respect, relationships and love.

If you thoughtfully care for them as people, you will naturally create personalized experiences for them. When customers feel cared for by you, it will be memorable.

They will come back because they will remember you.

Jelly donuts changed my world in first grade. A simple conversation with a cashier changed my perspective that day. It may take a smaller action than you think to be memorable to your customers. The key is simply caring for them as people.

Author’s Bio: Lindsey Tolino is a young creative who helps make businesses better. She serves business owners with her words at ToBusinessOwners.com. Follow her on Twitter @LindseyTolino (https://twitter.com/LindseyTolino) or connect with her on Google+ (https://plus.google.com/108697943813402809826/posts).

Image credit: via Steve Campisi (http://www.freeimages.com/photo/758304).

Real World Marketing Tips for a Digital Generation

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By Diana Gomez

There are some serious advantages to networking exclusively online. You have full, thoughtful control over your image. You can create content according to your calendar—even posting things on social media through a third party, right on time.

Handshake

These things carry over into your personal approach. You feel more confident, more at ease with your marketing strategy. After all, no one is rejecting you to your face. And this would be all well and good… if your business is already perfect and you don’t need to grow or create any new business relationships.

The truth is, customers are more engaged, feel more understood and valued, and are more likely to return to your business if you show your face in public. After all, even when buying online, customers are abstractly aware that a human is pulling the strings. Lifting the veil creates trust—and what’s more important to a successful, long-lasting relationship than trust?

According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, the six keys to successful communication are:

  1. Engagement and focus on shared content
  2. Tone of voice*
  3. Facial expressions*
  4. The words someone uses
  5. Subconscious body language*
  6. Conscious movements or gestures*

Arguably, all of these may be more effective in face-to-face interaction than through online communication. Indisputably, the four starred items are exclusive to such.

Critical opportunities for face-to-face interaction include:

  • Resolving problems efficiently.
  • Fostering long-term relationships.
  • Creating new relationships quickly.

Don’t worry! Even the shyest networker can step out from behind their computer screen and capitalize on these opportunities.

Networking events

I thought I’d start big and ease you down the anxiety escalator. But don’t skip this just because it’s a lot of work—it’s also the most effective way to get your name out there.

If you are interested in giving back to your community, partner with a local organization or charity. Not only will this increase your local visibility and give you a platform to advertise your business, but you will also be raising some money and doing some good—and that doesn’t go unnoticed by the public.

Trade show booths

You don’t have to throw a benefit with 500 attendees right off the bat. Trade shows and expos happen year round for various events in your area—marathons, festivals, health food expos. Sign up for a booth and gain instant visibility within an existing market with similar interests.

Publicity stunts

I’m not saying you need to paint the entire side of a skyscraper or organize an impromptu dance routine—publicity stunts can be small and tasteful, but should always be in the tone and interest of your brand.

Hire a celebrity look-alike to pass out advertisements on the street. Hold a pie-making contest and garner attention for the entire three months leading up to it. Use your imagination, remain politically correct and tactful, and the rest will be local (or even viral) history.

Local sports teams

Children’s’ sports leagues are always looking for sponsors. Pardon my objectification, but you’ll practically have little billboards running around, even after the season has ended. They had fun, you gained visibility. What could be better? Added bonus for introverts: very little salesmanship is required from you.

Referral incentives

A great way to ensure repeat business is to have your customers do the talking for you. Create referral incentives—in other words, if a customer refers a new person to your store, they get a bonus product or discount. This creates a sense of community and, literally, word of mouth.

Handwritten notes

When it can’t be face-to-face, make it face-to… hand? Nothing adds a personal touch like seeing a real person’s handwriting in all its weird, ink-smudged glory.

Handwritten touches are great as often as you can muster them. If you are pressed for this kind of time commitment, create a protocol for special occasions—if it’s indicated that it’s for a gift, for example, or if you can see from the customer registry that it’s their birthday or anniversary. If you find it really works for your brand, consider hiring a part-time student worker for just a few hours every week.

Hashtags

A great way to tie these personal communications into your social media strategy is with everyone’s favorite thing to hate—hashtags. Include your chosen hashtag on your packaging, on all your products at networking events, even on those kids’ soccer tees.

The key is to choose a hashtag that is going to be relevant to your business for eternity. Don’t include a year or any other limiting qualities. This is a huge part of your branding, and has the potential to be that bridge between your real world relationships and digital interactions.

The fact is, in-person conversation accounts for only 40 percent of business communications. While most business owners are aware of this, convenience and the demand for multitasking leads to overblown amounts of screen time.

This is an opportunity for you to step up. When everyone else is hiding behind e-mails, you can be the one to go above and beyond—and make your customers feel like they’ve been seen and heard as the whole person that they are.

Author’s Bio: Diana Gomez is the Marketing Coordinator at Lyoness America, where she is instrumental in the implementation of content marketing strategies for USA and Canada. Lyoness is an international shopping community and loyalty rewards program, where businesses and consumers benefit with free membership and money back with every purchase.

Ice More Business with Solid Digital Marketing

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amarketerUnless you crawled out from under a rock, you had to have heard about the recent ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.

You may have known someone who participated. You may have even been challenged yourself. It was so widespread that you couldn’t miss it, especially if you spent any time on Facebook or YouTube.

Businesses should pay close attention to the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.

They can learn something about marketing from it. In fact, it was a brilliant way to promote a cause.

Here are some tips you can take from the challenge and apply to your own business….

1.  Single Goal

One main reason the campaign was so successful is that it focused on a single goal – to raise awareness and money for ALS.

The early expectations were not that it would go viral but that it would benefit a cause the originators cared about. They were personally involved and knew someone with the disease.

Businesses must set goals they care about and focus on those instead of getting sidetracked with too many ideas.

2. Simple Rules

The Ice Bucket Challenge was simple.

You didn’t need a lot of fancy equipment or to go to a special place. Just a bucket of ice water and a video phone would do. Since most people have a social media account, it was easy for them to participate.

Businesses must make their marketing campaigns simple with rules that are easy to follow. They can appeal to more people if the challenge isn’t difficult. It gives the mental message of “anyone can do this.”

3. Short Deadline

Perhaps one of the biggest secrets to the Challenge’s success was that you only had 24 hours to do it. This was long enough that anyone could find time to participate but not so long that it would be forgotten.

Businesses must promote a sense of urgency with their marketing methods. If there is no deadline, there will be little motivation to do anything. In the person’s mind, he or she can always do it later. This often results in not doing it at all. Any successful marketing campaign should include a deadline.

4. Make It Fun

As the article, “18 Reasons the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge is Your New Standard in Digital Marketing”, says, it’s important that the challenge is fun. After all, who wouldn’t want to be doused with ice cold water on a hot summer day?

The fun doesn’t stop there.

Every participant can be a little creative in making the video as long as the basic criteria are met. And when it is over, you get to challenge your friends to do the same thing.

Businesses must remember that it is easier to get people to do something that they want to do. Convince them that your challenge is fun and they will get on board.

You may never achieve the level of success with any digital marketing campaign that the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge had, but you can learn a lot from it.

Use those tips in your own marketing efforts and you will see better sales results.

Photo credit: Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

About the Author: Joyce Morse is an author who writes on a variety of topics, including business and marketing.