Marketing is more than placing an ad in a circular, sending out a brilliant piece of direct mail, or cold-calling clients about your product or service. While those are great things to be doing for your small business, embracing your marketing as a total communication strategy is even more effective.

Here’s why: 

Convincing your patrons to respond has become a little more time-intensive. They’re not so eager to just act on a good tag line. They want to know who they’re doing business with, and they need to know they can trust you.

But that’s the thing. No one really knows they can trust anybody. What you need to know is how to manage perceived trust. Perceived trust isn’t established easily or overnight, but it can be achieved with ‘ISYOT.’ I See You Out There is a way to look at effective brand recognition. We’re not as quick to buy from those we’re unfamiliar with. Recognition feeds trust, that’s why a strong web presence is so important. It’s much easier to develop an ISYOT presence online using iPhones, iPads, Kindle Fire, and others like them.

Still, it’s not a quick thing, and it will take a diligent effort.

How does communication strategy relate to your online presence?

Marketing is all about strategy, but adding the component of communication ups the game. The only way to be effective – and by that I mean not work 24 / 7 and still do a great job for your clients – is to come up with a strategy that gets people talking. Automation will really help. Tools like HootSuite, SocialOomph and Ping.fm make it easy to get messages out to many places at one time.

Learn how to be effective in these areas:

• YouTube
• Twitter
• Facebook Business Pages
• Blogging
• Commenting on industry blogs
• Article marketing
• Networking
• Online press release

Seem impossible? It’s really not, if you go about it strategically. Use an egg timer and Excel, schedule your email posts and status updates – know what time is going where, and track everything from passwords to returned responses. Track for at least 60 days to see what works for your company, and where you can improve your efforts. Taking a couple of hours a week on this will help familiarize a public audience with your brand.

All your direct response mail, advertisements, and trade show event marketing improves when people know who you represent, what they can expect from your company, and ultimately – what they can expect from you.

When you focus on developing a trustworthy reputation through marketing, communication, and  strategy, you’ll be where you need to be when customers are looking for you.

Leave us your comments, our CommentLuv plugin pulls your latest blog post into your response for our viewers. We love to hear from you! Are you using scheduling tools to help you communicate your brand?

Related Post: Your Small Business Should be Blogging

Ever Wonder If Your Press Release Is Getting Picked Up?

You’re not alone. While writing a press release is only half the battle, getting it picked up and read continues to haunt industry professionals everywhere. This doesn’t have to be the case, say the authors of Press Releases Designed For Effect. Not only will recognizing new dynamics re-energize your small business marketing campaign, but here at Zero To Sixty Marketing, we believe working smarter includes producing better results in less time.

Pamil Vision’s 13-page white paper on press releases is an enlightened perspective on both traditional use and newer methods of distribution. Small business owners, this is good news. You’re no longer limited to writing releases that are only read by news media journalists and columnists, now your information needs to capture the attention of professional bloggers and online readers. While some journalists still prefer a traditionally structured media release, many are finding online resources valuable for finding their information as well.

Recognizing the shift in today’s communication and public relations campaigns makes a big difference to the size and geographic location of your audience. The authors of this informative white paper clearly explain the differences between the way we’ve written press releases before, and how to do it better now when considering an online audience. If you’re mindful to steer clear of industry noise, you can tackle actual newsworthy issues much more effectively with an understanding of where your target will find that information.

For example: Take into account both SEO and your social media strategy for promotion. Should you decide to take your release to the online world, recommended, you will have to use your keyword phrase in your title, and limit the length of your title to 60-100 characters. Social media exploits like Twitter and Digg only allow a certain character length in their submissions, so leaving room for the reader to comment and send on is integral. Furthermore, using keywords in your attention-grabbing title causes your release to be seen where new media is trained to search in those arenas using keywords. This method gets the information out to more people faster than traditional press releases.

The rules have changed, and small businesses need to know it. The information here is fully resourced and credible. I found the do’s and don’ts listed here for comparison a helpful and easily understood ‘cheat sheet’ for the independent and small business press release writer.

Getting your story in front of the right people still requires newsworthy content adhering to Associated Press style guidelines. It should be well-written with correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation. A small business press release should avoid hyperbole and emphatic expression, while still appealing to the interest of your reader. Transparency necessary before is even more integral now with a savvy reader and viral marketplace. You won’t get away with incorrect facts or poorly drawn conclusions. Consumers want the truth, not keyword-stuffed hype that reads more like an advertisement. Pamil Vision’s white paper takes the press release writer through the thought processes and steps that, if followed, causes his newsworthy item to be broadcast to the specific readership necessary for success, whether using traditional or online distribution methods.

I give this paper 5 stars, and strongly recommend it as a ‘cheat sheet’ in your marketing arsenal. You can pick up your copy here:

Pamil Vision’s White Paper: Press Releases Designed For Effect

Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn: These and an abundance of smaller social sites are gaining ground as searchable resources. Their value as search engines is directly related to their value as social networking sites. In fact, if you want to know what’s being said on any given topic, your quickest, most accurate resource would be one of Twitter’s many social search tools, such as Twitter Search or Tweet Grid. Why? Because Twitter is where the conversation is happening.

Leigh of Leigh’s Blitherings says, “Twitter and Facebook both are becoming filters where my network are kind enough to only tweet and link to the most interesting content. And Twitter in particular has become a place where I can ask a question and in no time flat have my questions answered in the form of links, referrals and juicy bits of insight.”

I’ve definitely found this to be true. My search habits have changed drastically in the past year. I don’t rely any less on Google, but frequently it’s not my first pick for information retrieval. My personal #1 search engine is Delicious, a social bookmarking service. Why? Because I save 100% of my bookmarks there, and I only bookmark things that I want to return to. My Delicious network appears to feel the same way about it, resulting in highly relevant search results nearly every time.

Close on the heels of Delicious is Twitter. If it’s conversations I’m looking for, this is my first choice. One of our Zero To Sixty markets is the hobby consumer. I can tap into what that market is talking about by simply tapping into the Twitter information stream.

Want to know what people in your area are talking about online? Use Twellow, a Twitter directory, searchable by locale. Or add your locale to a Delicious search and subscribe to the results. Tap into your local network on Facebook. Find and join a local business group on LinkedIn.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. There are so many ways to find information in addition to Google … and be sure that I’m not diminishing the importance of Google. For comprehensive search results covering news, blogs, Web sites, etc., Google remains the industry leader. But they’re not the only game in town, and like marketing itself is changing, so is the way we find information online.

Consider the marketing implications for your business. How many different ways can your market find you? Are you visible online today? What are you doing to ensure that you’ll be visible and viable a year from now?

Related Articles (Off-site):

Social Activity Becomes Significant Source of Website Traffic (My inspiration for this article)
It’s Time to Start Thinking of Twitter as a Search Engine
Why Twitter is My Personalized Search Engine
Future of Twitter
Using Delicious for Social Bookmarking

It’s very important for me to know how my business is doing – not just by watching the financial ledger, but also by watching the environment around me. What are our neighboring businesses doing? More importantly, what are our competitors doing? Has their business grown at the same rate as ours or has it accelerated past ours, without my noticing?

Keeping up with the Jones’ does have a relevant place in business. Some of what the Jones’ are doing are simply gimmicks that yield no returns. But if you ignore everything they do, you’ll soon learn that you’ve been left in their dust, wondering why and how it happened. 

How Does Your Brand Image Stack Up?

Observation of your competitors might reveal the need for an image makeover – possibly the redesign of a very dated logo, sign, storefront or advertising campaign. Mundane becomes boring; boring becomes unappealing; unappealing leads to slack sales. You have to constantly work to attract customers.

It’s also important to observe noncompeting businesses. Many businesses experience similar or parallel situations to yours when environmental and economic changes occur. Business owners/managers who take notice of and learn from the experience of others are better poised to quickly take action as needed. The more knowledgeable you are about your business and those things affecting your local business climate, the better your chances for success.

New Strategies for the New Marketplace?

Image courtesy of mil8 on flickr.

We see a paradigm shift in the marketing strategies being employed to lure current and future generations. Are you “hip” to these strategies or relying only on “old school” methods to carry you through? What about Facebook, Twitter, blogging – all forms of new media that allow you to reach out to and interact with a local or global customer base?

There are many resources available to help you get up to speed or stay current: Local schools offer classes/programs. Manufacturers’ associations and local business organizations (such as the Chamber of Commerce) offer seminars. Trade publications provide articles to help you understand and cope with the changes and challenges in business. Be sure to take advantage of these resources!