Marketing; The Magic Pill

Because we all just want to offer our great services (or products) to clients who really need us, we've all hoped for a magic marketing pill at some point. After 30 years of helping businesses grow, the only truly magical pill I know for marketing is really good strategy with consistently diligent work to reach one's goals. If a company has a few million to spend on some great tv ads, I've certainly helped with some of the best heart-wrenching campaigns for Coca Cola, branding for Honda and launching call-waiting for SBC (then Pacbell) which acted like magic 'attention getting' pills.

But for businesses without multi-million dollar marketing budgets, an affordable & useful business evaluation that generates great customer testimonials is really the key to optimally understanding & promoting one's services.

LUCK CAN HAPPEN
That's not to say luck doesn't happen. Remember all the dotcom boomers who had enormous funding from venture capitalists? They were able to afford enormous broadcast tv, print & publicity campaigns to try to generate a large enough buzz before their competitor launched a similar tech solution. While so many went bust, certainly there were the lucky ones who had the right idea with the right funding at the right time in a lucrative market. So, there's luck in your timing, too.

FINDING A PERFECT MARKET
Sometimes a business can find a totally unfulfilled market while trying to promote their core business. I had a client who was a web design firm (of which there were almost a million competitors in their region who offered basically the same exact service). Once we recommended the strategy to focus on their web optimizing services --something they really enjoyed that didn't have nearly the same level of competitors-- their business took off. But they still have to work at it: return calls, meet with clients, send proposals, educate their target market to keep an influx of work coming in, stay abreast of current technology and search engine requirements, continue their networking & speaking plus follow up on all the great outreach they'd already started.

MARKET NICHE
When a business has their market niche and they have a great service that is well defined in fixed price packages, good customer service and a marketing plan they can actually launch, then they are well on their way to finding that "magic pill" of attracting the customers who are truly appreciative of their service and who are right for them. The 'comfort level' of this marketing that really works (and is profitable) is just as tasty as any kind of magic pill.

One of the businesses we helped demonstrates that this success really is possible with good strategy coupled with their diligent work: "When I first met Allison I was near tears with frustration. I did not have the clarity of action to grow my anemic business properly to the agency model I dreamed of. Now, with her consulting, I feel confident that I have a viable agency that is competitive and ready to move past our launch and gain some real success. Allison figured out how to take it to the next level."- Cynthia Mackey, Winning Strategies

HOW IT WORKS
This optimizing business, for example, targeted medium-sized companies with websites that ranked low in the search engines. We had them create package pricing so they weren't selling vague, hourly service that no one knew if they could afford or not. And once we showed them how to start educating the market with some great introductory 'elevator speeches' and great follow up processes, the sales started rolling in. Best of all, they're truly happier with optimizing than basic website design where they were just being price-shopped rather than being valued for their intelligent web design. They've been able to take advantage of some of our low cost marketing tools & special reports and put a plan into action that they really feel good about, ahhhh what a nice feeling. http://www.allisonbliss.com.

WHAT ARE YOUR STRUGGLES?I'm interested to learn what companies are really grappling with in today's market. I plan to submit a business article on this topic to some top publications later this year. So, please let me know what your biggest problems are. Who knows, maybe I'll even have a magic pill to offer you by then!

Sincerely, Allison Bliss 510-864-8500

Why specialize OR FIND A NICHE?

In marketing, it is often recommended that a company specialize to 'target' a specific niche of clients. I think this can be effective for many companies because they can narrow their market thereby gaining name recognition, credibility, marketing focus or 'vertical marketing' which takes less time to promote and generates more sales. However, newer companies (1-5 years of growth) need a certain amount of growth time and experience, and it's invaluable to explore offering all their talents, products or services to anyone they feel could benefit. This is how one learns which market(s) to focus on ultimately.

While it might ultimately slow down their focus on a more profitable niche, it allows a company to explore what THEY like to do, what services or products THEY most enjoy offering, enables them to get staff trained, systems worked out to fulfill their offerings as efficiently and affordably as possible, gives them time to hone those products and most importantly -- to get client feedback, so that when they do decide to find a particular market, they have finessed how they'll deliver their service or work the kinks out of their products.

Client feedback is the key to positioning, helping companies stand out from the crowd, know what to say to promote their services or products and it can actually be as much fun as it is valuable. Our knowledge is bliss package offers just that, when a company is ready for it: href="http://www.allisonbliss.com/services">


STIFLING A BUSINESS IS LIKE STIFLING A CHILD
Just as a parent wouldn't stifle a child from trying baseball, soccer, tetherball, and ice skating, I think a marketing director/consultant or coach shouldn't pressure a growing company to 'play pro baseball' or 'target in one specialty' until they've had time to play the field a bit. I'd like to hear from business owners who have had this advice to squelch their offerings too soon and find out what happened to you. That might just be the subject of one of my next articles.

Look forward to your comments, Allison Bliss