July & August is Your Critical Marketing Strategy Window

This Summer is the critical time where your marketing direction -- right now -- determines your business' success, not just for the rest of 2009, but your business' survival and market share for the next 5 years. Yes, that is what I said, it is THIS time of change, where your course and marketing approach will determine the next five years.

Now is the Ideal Time to focus on marketing because it will determine feast or famine.

Sometimes businesses take it easy in the Summer. But THIS Summer, that is a big mistake. Now is the ideal time to position your company for success. You see, as business kicks into gear come September (for psychological, economic, and sociological reasons), your company has to be ready for that. Get up to speed and positioned now is vital, or else your company will be lost behind those better positioned than yourself. People will be doing business with whichever company they see serves them best -- will that be your's?

I do not want you operating out of fear or scarcity, but rather to simply realize the vital importance of wisely shifting with the times. Market trends, economic trends, and the shift in communications through Social Media is happening so quickly that if your marketing goes on vacation in July and August, you will be so far behind those companies who Marketed through the Summer, that you will be eating their dust. Again, I stress that THIS particular Summer is unlike any previous summer because of the non-stop growth of Social Media Marketing even since May 2009.

When I say to "move forward" with marketing, I am not necessarily saying to spend a lot of money buying visibility in July and August. I am saying to put in the smart strategies now or you will soon be too busy simply reacting in survival mode to do so in September.

Here are Your Most Important Assets as A Business.
1• Your Name & Reputation (your brand and its PR)
2• Your Network of other businesses and customers that know, like and trust you.

It used to be that the big companies could get away with being selfish or minimally innovative and simply throw enough advertising dollars at their Image and maintain a positive reputation. That is no longer true for two reasons:

(1) People have wised up to this scam. They distrust overly slick advertising and are no longer naive to the fact that money has often been used to spin the facts for ulterior motives.

People don't believe it when you praise yourself. A generation ago, customers gave you the benefit of the doubt; today they see it as a red flag.

(2) The blog and social media commentary and online reviews let customers find what the community and global reputation has experienced from their business and customer-relationship with your business.

This underscores the fact that companies are not islands to their customers. Companies are in relationship with their clients and NO company (large or small) will survive long without serving those that feed the company through the money they give in exchange for goods and services.

You see, your business survives (or dies or thrives) based on cashflow. Cashflow depends on customers wanting what you offer. Customers wanting what you offer depends on if it really is of value to them -- satisfying a current need or desire. Your customers have what you want - money. If you are not serving them, they will easily go elsewhere where they are served, leaving your money sources cut off.

It is so simple, but many companies are absorbed by looking out for their own immediate interests to truly focus on how to gain an edge in the marketplace by understanding the motivatioins of their customers and by out-servicing their competitors.

Thus hype is less and less effective to falsely boost the benefits of a company, service, or product. A company cannot be inauthentic and get away with it anymore becuase technology allows information to flow more and more freely. Thus your business either sincerely commits to serving others or it will die.

Servanthood Marketing
Attraction marketing means giving your prospects a real reason to want you and choose you. It means compelling benefits that solve a problem or fulfill a need/desire.

Contribute to your prospects and they will give you their attention. Teach, inspire, and spread positive influence in others. This climate of giving, generosity and service will attract business. Companies with a self-serving orientation can no longer get away with it and will be bypassed for companies that give more value.

Social Media Marketing is about leading and attracting through spreading positive influence. It is about empowering instead of dominating. It is about recruiting those around you to support your cause, to see things your way. It is about positive persuasion. Today's customers will not care about what you know, unless they first know you care.

How people talk about your business (and they ARE talking) is your brand. Future posts will explore how to genuinely enhance your reputation. They will talk about how impulse buying can no longer sustain a business model. And we will address how your marketing has to be innovative to keep generating profits.

To put Promise Productions to work with innovative strategies for your short-term and long-term prosperity, call 972-822-3587.