Weekly Tip
Marketing Your Business: Three Things You Should Do Right Now
By Scott Moody, Director of Public Relations at Marketing Matters
Your company’s marketing strategy is an important weapon in your arsenal and keeping it on track is vital to your success. However, as you get bogged down in the day-to-day activities of managing the company, it may be easy to push your marketing projects to the back burner.
To help you refocus your attention back to your marketing plan, here are three things you need to do right now to ensure you aren’t falling behind the competition:
Know Your Message
Stop reading this right now and pretend someone just asked you, “What does your company do?” Give your elevator pitch. If you even remotely hesitate to craft the right words to say, your company is already behind. You, and everyone involved in your business, should be able to deliver your company’s message at the drop of the hat.
Take time to evaluate your company’s key competitive advantages and how they are presented to your customers. Develop a 1-2 sentence statement that effectively communicates what your company does and how you are different from your competitors. Then present that pitch to everyone in your company and make sure they understand it and commit it to memory.
If you want to take it a step further, print up posters to place around your office or warehouse so that your staff keeps it top of mind. You can also coordinate time to allow them to practice delivering the pitch with other employees.
Check Your Website
A few years ago, there was a major emphasis on designing a company website that included as many “bells and whistles” as possible; the more elaborate and animated, the better. Most websites were built primarily with elements of Adobe Flash, which certainly was, and still is, a great design tool. However, with the increasing number of popular media channels, such as iPads and smart phones, these Flash-based sites failed to keep up and are unreadable by many of today’s most popular devices.
Take a few minutes and round up as many different types of computers, operating systems, mobile devices—basically anything that can open a webpage—and visit your website. If it doesn’t look exactly perfect on any one of these formats, then you’re not maximizing the potential of your website. Consider simplifying your website and focusing more on content such as copy and images rather than big “Flashy” intro pages.
Get Involved in Social Media
Whether you choose to accept it or not, the reality is that social media is here to stay. By now, it shouldn’t be a question of “if” your company is involved in social media, but rather “how” is your company communicating with this segment of your audience?
If you haven’t already established social media accounts, at the very least, go and plant your company “flag” on the biggest ones: YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Go and register for accounts on each to try to secure your company name and brand.
Once established, develop a social media strategy to determine how you plan to use each of these platforms for your business. When it comes to social media, the three rules to live by are 1) Inform 2) Engage and 3) Entertain. Try to do all three with your audiences.
Like any plan or strategy, your company’s marketing efforts need constant attention and evaluation because how you market your company will generally dictate how the public and your customers will view your brand. Make sure you don’t let any area of your marketing fall behind.
Scott Moody is the Director of Public Relations at Marketing Matters (http://www.marketingmatters.net), a communications and design firm specializing in technology, consumer and custom electronics, audio-video, and related industries.
