Marketing Matters Blog

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Category Archives: Sales and Business Development

What We’re Thankful For: Productivity Tools

By Scott Moody, Director of Public Relations

There are no shortage of things we all should be thankful for. Whether you’re thanking the sales gods for helping you to close that deal, giving a courtesy nod to that thoughtful driver who let you cut in front of them, or counting your blessings for amazing family and friends, there’s so much around us that we are thankful for.

When it comes to work-related matters, the tools we use nearly every minute of every day are certainly worth praising. In the fast pace world of marketing, PR and advertising, great productivity tools can be your best friend.

As a public relations professional, one service I’ve grown to love is Help A Reporter Out (HARO). If you’re unfamiliar with the awesomeness of HARO, think of it as your daily dose of fresh PR opportunities, served to your inbox three times a day. HARO collects queries on a range of topics (“a range” is an understatement—there really are stories on EVERYTHING) from members of the media, including broadcast, print, bloggers and more, and aggregates them into an email that is sent out three times a day.

From a PR perspective, having possible media placement leads handed right to you is invaluable. We’ve found a number of great placements for our clients and our company through HARO. Personally, I’ve also sent leads to friends and colleagues who aren’t clients and those kinds of favors go a long way with folks.

For more ideas, the rest of the team at Marketing Matters have shared some of the resources they are thankful for below. Hope you find them as helpful as they do.

Kyle Glass, Marketing/PR Manager
About 80% of my job involves managing projects, so the tools that help me handle our 40+ marketing projects (at last count) more effectively are the tools I’m most thankful for. Two come immediately to mind.

The first is Google Chat. Coordinating with colleagues is paramount making how I communicate with them the most important. Email and telephone have their place, but in the ever increasing speed of the business world email can be slow (I can’t believe I just said that) and telephone can take minutes with all the pleasantries and formalities. Gchat gives me the communication I need in an instant.

The second is a new tool I’ve been working with called Workflowy. There are a few programs we use to keep track of our projects, but for me I’ve never found anything better than the good ole’ pen and paper for my current personal project list – until recently. Workflowy is a web-based list management/organization tool. Very simple in nature—which adds to its beauty —it allows me to keep a running list of projects that I can tag with who’s responsible for getting it done. It tells me every morning which jobs I completed yesterday via email, making it beneficial for my end-of-day reports to the boss, and I can simply export the list to Excel or text to work off of for weekly staff meetings.

Craig Roloff, Operations Manager
We all spend hours each day in front of our computers. Many of us actually use multiple computers. If you’re like me, your desk is cluttered with notes, pens, coffee mugs, and half-eaten sandwiches. There is hardly room for multiple keyboards, mice or monitors.

I use two computers to maintain my productivity. My laptop is my “command center” where I reply to emails, type up necessary Word docs and do all of my web browsing. On my second, more powerful computer, I run Adobe Creative Suite. Between the two computers, I have three screens in front of me: my laptop in the middle flanked on either side by 23″ LED monitors. To be honest, it’s a bit much for a home office, but it is a really cool set up.

As you can imagine, with this amount of hardware there is hardly room for keyboards and mice…not to mention my five-dollar-footlongs. To solve the problem, I use Mouse Without Borders. This great little piece of software from Microsoft allows me to share my mouse and keyboard between the two computers. It is a simple network connection that is incredibly easy to install. It is impressive that I can move my mouse from my far left monitor, completely across all three monitors, all the way to the far right. The most useful feature, however, is that I can copy a file from one monitor/computer and drag it over to the other computer.

I’m thankful for great, simple solutions like this that allow me to maintain my productivity.

Coleen Sterns Leith, President
I am most thankful for my iPhone and iPad. With these two tools, I am able to easily stay in touch with clients, vendors and our team from virtually anywhere. I have access to my desktop, our network and can easily get information I need, when I need it.

The apps for each are icing on the cake. TripIt has eliminated the needs for printed travel documents. If one of our team members is on the road, I have their travel information at hand. It’s one of my favorite apps.

RedLaser is another favorite as it acts as my QR code reader and barcode scanner allowing me to find a product I need at the best price.

And the Magic 8 Ball is always there to help with those subjective decisions.

Technology has greatly improved our team productivity and we’re all grateful for that.

So there you have it, a few resources we’re thankful for from some of the team here at Marketing Matters. We would love to know what some of your favorites are.

 

Kevin Costner, Underwear and a Smooth Road

In 1997 Kevin Costner starred in The Postman. If you’re not familiar, it was set in a post-apocalyptic America where Costner stumbles onto a USPS uniform wherin he begins an elaborate con game that ends up rebuilding  America. During the flick, Costner has to lie and bsay that he’s been in touch with the (non-existent) President of the Restored United States. And what was the Prez’s motto in this post-apocalyptic thriller? “Stuff’s getting better everyday.”

 

Times have been tough, and although it’s not quite post-apocalyptic tough, at times you may begin to wonder. But, stuff’s getting better everyday. For the last month or so I’m happy to see that indicators show that the markets are beginning to improve. All kinds of news stories, stocks are up, the Federal Reserve says retail sales and manufacturing is up, and men’s underwear sales are rising – time to upgrade fellas. 

 

Although we’re far from comfortable, budgets are beginning to loosen which means many companies are going back to aggressively gaining market share through marketing – whether they should have ever stopped is another post.

 

We’re working with companies that have decided it’s time to pick up the marketing pace. Here are some of the things that we think you should be doing in preparation for the improving economy.

 

1)      Take a hard look at your branding – Most companies have been hit hard, and throughout the turmoil they have probably been more concerned with avoiding layoffs than deciding if their brand is as effective as it should be. Many marketing tools and techniques have changed over the past few years.  Are you digital ready?  It might be time to get rid of the flash on your site and make it mobile friendly. Update your literature to include quick response (QR) codes to tie your print information into product video and other assets on your website. Get this stuff out of the way so you can focus on exploiting them in the future.

2)      Think long term – If you’ve been reading our blog, by now you’ve learned some inexpensive ways to get publicity for your company and its products. This is great, and now you need to build on that. It’s time to look at your long-term communications plan. If you’ve neglected it, you need to build one soon or be left in the dust.

3)      Upgrade your toolbox – There were a lot of technical advances in 2010. Smartphones sales and use are increasing dramatically, a flurry of new tablets have come to market, and wireless connectivity is increasing. This brings a lot of questions to mind that wasn’t necessarily there a year ago. Is your catalog tablet-friendly? Are you using social media to more easily communicate with your customers?  Have you considered creating an app for your customers?

 

The economy is getting better, and now is the time to get your marketing back on track. Start looking at your company’s needs now to make this new road a little less bumpy.

Generating Sales Leads in the Custom Installation Industry

By Kyle E. Glass

In this industry (as in most industries), it’s all about being profitable. One of the biggest parts of making money is finding the right person to sell it to. Generating sales leads is an on-going process, and at times can be a bit frustrating if you’re not marketing your business right.

Below I cover ideas that will generate sales leads if done correctly, and I’ve provided some tips to help you on your way. If you have enough customers and you don’t need any more, consider not reading this. Your time would be better spent playing with your children or reading up on how to build a better snowman. On the other hand, if you want more sales leads, read on.

Relationship Marketing
One of the most important things you can do is to keep up consistent communication with your clients and interested audiences. Although there are many ways to do this, one tactic I’m surprised I don’t see more often is E-newsletters. They are relatively inexpensive to produce, and if done well, you can build a base of clientele and potential customers that are interested in reading more about your offerings. The key to this is being informative and engaging.

If you don’t know where to start, begin with collecting your own information. Although it may take awhile to amass a list large enough to be beneficial, it will pay off in the long run. If you don’t want to wait, consider renting a mail list from some of the trade publications. Nearly all of them have a loyal following, and you can build your list significantly by asking folks to “opt in” to your E-newsletter. Offering the right premium with opting in will increase the response significantly.

Print Advertising
Print advertising is a very effective tool in keeping the brand of your company in front of your audiences. When done well, it can also be a very useful tool in collecting sales leads.

Focus on what the product or service does and how it can help. Specifically, put the benefits in the headline. Don’t use a lot of text, but make sure to point out what makes your product or service better than your competitors.
Finally, make sure there’s a call to action, and saying something like “You can save 25% off your first order by mentioning this ad” will increase your response rate dramatically and help the return on your advertising investment.

The Internet
Internet is so prevalent in our society that most of your potential customers will turn to the Internet before any other medium. Not only do you have to be there, but you have to be findable. This makes Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and other Internet marketing strategies critically important.

There is simply no getting around the fact that social media is one of the most effective activities in generating sales leads. It is the best place to listen and interact with people who are specifically interested in your product. If you don’t have a social media campaign, start one immediately. It doesn’t take a lot of time or money to create, and not a lot of either to maintain.

My school of thought is that no one tool is right for every situation, but these will be the right tools for the lot of you, and using these tips as the foundation for a larger marketing plan can set you on the right path. Good luck out there, and keep us in mind if you ever need some help.

Kyle E. Glass is the Public Relations and Marketing Manager at Marketing Matters (http://www.marketingmatters.net), a communications and design firm specializing in technology, consumer and custom electronics, audio-video and related industries.