Driving Sales

Getting More Bang From Your Business Blog

In what seems like the blink of an eye, blogs have risen to the forefront of the online landscape as a powerful and personal tool for businesses. Quickly and cheaply, a blog enables you to reach out to prospective customers, create buzz for products, services and ideas, and enrich understanding and appreciation for what you have to say and offer. 

As easy as blogs are to set up, seed with content and update, using them to build trust, visibility and mutually rewarding relationships takes a host of ingrediants and techniques that add up to initial and ongoing success. Here's a few choice tips that can make the process of blogging to build your business more productive.

Make the title of your post a "grabber" that will get people to stop and take notice. "Canned Advertising Kills" was the title of our recent post on the low readership and recall of generic, recycled advertising. We could have called it "People Don't Pay Attention to Uninteresting Ads," but the "grabber factor" was missing in action.

As a rule, brevity is a blog's best friend. More people are drawn to blog posts that offer them something useful, entertaining or interesting in a "snack-size" portion than those that read like a State of the Union Address.

Write "open-ended posts." By not structuring every post with a beginning, middle and end, you encourage others to jump in and add to the discussion. This increases participation in your blog and the growth of an engaged community of potential customers and partners. Sometimes all it takes to open the lines of communication are ending a posting with a simple "What do you think?"

Link out to other blogs as often as possible and comment on other blogs when you have something to contribute. Nurturing relationships is one of the most reliable ways to expand your community and build traffic to your blog.

Be committed and consistent in your blogging. Blogging daily may not be a realistic goal, but once a week should be a minimum and more is better.

For more ideas to drive sales check out archives or visit Ambit Advertising and Public Relations.

Shift Your Thinking and Jump Start Your Marketing

When dollars are tight and alternate options are needed to keep your business top-of-mind, it pays to take a fresh look at every aspect of your marketing. Consider nothing sacred and open your mind to all possibilities - you never know where a new idea or unconventional approach might lead. Food for thought . . .

This may be the time to renegotiate your contract with the print media. They are hurting, too - and there are deals to be made.

Maybe your ads have to change their emphasis. Ads during a recession need to reflect the current consumer mentality. Can you reformat your offering? Is there a price program you could offer that would help you hold on to your existing customers? What about special discounts or temporarily lower pricing?

What about taking a booth at a trade industry show or community event?

Have you used social marketing to promote your business on FaceBook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other popular social media platforms?

Are you creating and using press releases to increase exposure for your business and drive visitors to your Web site for more information?

What about partnering with a sponsor who would benefit from reaching the same audience you are?

Marketing during a recession is smart business when you approach it with a fresh eye for opportunity and an emphasis on resourceful alternatives.

Find a way to keep your name out there. It will bring back dividends to you now and, most assuredly, when the market heats up again.

For more ideas to drive sales check out archives or visit Ambit Advertising and Public Relations.

"Canned" Advertising Kills

You can gain market share and increase sales in a tough economy. But not if your advertising is doing the same old, same old.

Smart companies have changed the way they get new business, and "canned" advertising is the kiss of death in an era where hatching fresh ideas  and harnessing the power of new technology are the keys to survival and resurgence. 

What is canned advertising? It's the generic trash that 90% of the ads, Web banners, landing pages, radio spots and TV commercials produced today are made of. The worn-out generalities and trite cliches used to describe products and services could apply to any business. Worse yet, such advertising fails to separate you from your competition.

Today, the best way - the only way to - to get your audience's attention is by packing substance and originality into every message and spreading the word through media that they're personally invested in. If a promotional idea or marketing strategy feels familiar, recycled or just flat-out boring, roll it up into a big ball and toss it in the trash.  

If a zero tolerance policy against canned ideas makes your ad agency uncomfortable, maybe it's time to can your ad agency. 

For more ideas to drive sales check out archives or visit Ambit Advertising and Public Relations.   

Gaining Business in a Sour Economy

To market or not to market during a recession - that is the question.

The straightforward, historically-proven answer is:

When the economy dips, opportunity knocks for those who view marketing as an investment, not an expense.

It has been demonstrated again and and again that businesses that have expanded their marketing during downturns positioned themselves to benefit when the upturn occurred.

Kellogg's, Campbell Soup, Coca-Cola, Pillsbury, Levi Strauss and Chevrolet are just a few familiar companies that can vouch for the benefits of maintaining or increasing their ad budgets during recessions.

The fact is, advertising during a downturn provides an ideal window of opportunity to reach new customers and re-energize your existing customer base; build brand equity and get your name recognized; and make inroads on your competitors who have cut their advertising.

Ambit can work with you to:

• Make your marketing budget more efficient by merging social marketing opportunities with your traditional advertising and public relations.

• Refocus your marketing messages to be more responsive to changing consumer needs during the recession.

• Find new places and ways to promote your business and gain exposure.

• Explore partnerships with other companies or sponsors who would benefit from reaching the same audience as you.

Why wait for better days when you can raise your visibility and sales results now? For strategic marketing ideas designed to bring you real bottom-line breakthroughs in difficult times, contact us today at (954) 568-2100.

For more ideas to drive sales check out archives or visit Ambit Advertising and Public Relations.

A Little More Conversation, A Little Less "Puffspeak"

Marketers take note: Wordiness has been confirmed as a leading cause of grogginess and excess verbiage has been linked to loss of audience, sales leads and customer conversions.  All of which is a high price to pay for falling into that insidious trap that causes  otherwise well-spoken, down-to-earth people to write copy that sounds like the cryptic disclaimer at the bottom of a car ad.

Good marketing and PR writers avoid the pitfalls of "puffspeak"by writing in the same natural style they use when having a conversation.

So instead of saying "at this point in time" they say "now."

Instead of saying "with reference to" they say "about."

Instead of saying "in the event that" they say "if."

Write Like You Talk

In capturing the nuances of real conversation, short sentences are best, including the occasional one-word sentence (Guaranteed.). Don't pile on too many adjectives (amazing, colossal, spectacular) and follow the rules of grammer except when a slang word ("tunage" for "songs") or technical jargon ("loan modification" for "refinancing") would ring truer with your target audience.

Breaking your copy into as many short paragraphs as possible will also improve you success rate as copywriter/conversationlist. The pauses send a reassuring signal to your reader that you're not going to lecture at them and that they can trust you to be direct, honest and interesting before returning them to their regularly scheduled day already in progress.

A reliable trick of the trade that keeps copy flowing in a smooth, easy rhythm is to act like you're writing a letter or personal email. By visualizing the person you're writing to, you create a more intimate, human connection ("Dear Tina") that keeps you from drifting into the artificial commercial voice ("Attention all women, 18 to 34") of someone pitching a product or service to the masses.

For more ideas to drive sales check out archives or visit Ambit Advertising and Public Relations.

When the Economy Gets Tough, the Tough Get Marketing

Remember when you were a kid lobbying your parents for permission to chase your next adventure? The last words you wanted to hear were "let's wait and see," which you correctly interpreted as "permission denied."

Ironically, that wait-and-see attitude, passed down from mom and dad to a legion of cautionary economic and business observers,  is keeping many anxious marketers from pursuing opportunities that are theirs for the taking.

Instead of playing the perennially unsatisfying "waiting game," consider these sound reasons to zig while so many marketers are zagging during the economic downturn.

Big Fish, Smaller Pond. As companies cut marketing budgets and wait for better days, your opportunity to stand out in a smaller field of active competitors can increase dramatically. Less marketing clutter translates into a more direct connection between you and your audience, which can have an immediate impact on your sales performance.

What's more, your investment in marketing during a transitional time can swing brand awareness and preference your way for a gain in market share that holds steady even after the economy recovers.

Shake up your marketing mix. While opportunities to do business exist in this tough economy, "business as usual" doesn't. Success goes to those who take a fresh look at their marketing dollars and find innovative ways to get more out of less.

By redirecting a percentage of your budget to technology assisted marketing tools like email promotions, search engine optimization techniques, Google Adwords, and business blogging, you can tap into more cost-efficient channels of delivering your messages and expanding the influence of your traditional advertising and public relations efforts.

One final word of parental caution: For the best results, use these new tools wisely with guidance from marketing people who know how to blend technology and creativity to impact your bottom line. If you don't, as mom and dad use to say, "don't come crying to us."

For more ideas to drive sales check out archives or visit Ambit Advertising and Public Relations.   

  

Hungry for Web Site Traffic? Feed a Search Engine

Web sites are like faces; everybody has one. Which is why it's so easy to be just another face in the online crowd: anonymous, overlooked and unappreciated. 

So what can you do to draw attention and traffic that makes your Web site a source of curiousity, customer conversions and sales? The answer can be summed up in a four-word rallying cry of self-preservation: "Feed the search engines."

If you're new to the ways of search engine optimization (SEO), or just haven't gotten around to implementing the basic necessities, here are four simple things you can do right away that can make a major difference.

Identify your keywords. Singling out those select, highly-popular keywords that search engine users type in to explore your particular category every day is a vital part of creating effective, traffic-building content for your Web site. Google has a keyword tool that will show you the average number of keyword searches matching your category online so you can fine-tune content to include the most searched for, relevant words on your Web site.

Install Google Analytics on your Web Site. Many of the mysteries of who is visiting your Web site and how they're finding you can be solved with this free tool. How much traffic is your site getting? What portion of it is coming from Google, Yahoo or MSN? What portion of it is coming from referring Web sites? What keywords are people using to discover you? Put Google Analytics to work and start getting the answers you need to make your site more search friendly for prospective customers.

Think global, act local. Even on the world wide web, local coverage can be your springboard for greater visibility and business. Local directories and search submissions are a great way to increase your rankings and results. Google has an excellent "Local Business Center" that lets you put your business on a map, get customer reviews and more. You may also want to investigate and take advantage of some of the many other free and paid for local directories that you can register your site on.

Distribute your press releases online. You can maximize your Web site's exposure by using an online distribution service such as Send2Press.com to syndicate your press release at a local, regional or national level. When your release, which includes links back to your Web site, gets syndicated out to other Web sites, those sites include an inbound link to you, increasing your site's relevance in search engine rankings.

For more ideas to drive sales check out archives or visit Ambit Advertising and Public Relations.  

The Upside of Branding Cities in a Down Economy

Is your city's brand image strong enough to promote your strengths and attract new opportunities in today's highly competitive environment?

If you have any doubts, take advantage of the down economy and get busy building a brand that puts you top-of-mind with all the right people. 

While that reasoning may seem counterintuitive at first, in the current tough economy, the branding climate is actually ideal to step up your efforts to attract and retain businesses and residents. While other cities cut back on marketing activities until the economy improves, a strategic move now to update your brand:

• Commands the full attention of your target audiences who are far less distracted in a world of reduced advertising budgets and marketing "noise."  

• Builds a distinct identity that can differentiate you from your competition and expand your reputation in the region.

• Creates a revenue-producing asset that attracts investments, businesses, visitors, residents, talent and events.

• Boosts community pride and inspires residents and businesses to be enthusiastic "ambassadors" of your city's outstanding qualities.

Over the past 20 years, Ambit Advertising and Public Relations has had the honor of helping develop positive, brand-specific images for numerous Florida cities, including Delray Beach, Hallandale Beach, Boynton Beach, Tamarac and Oakland Park. We have worked collaboratively with key stakeholders in the public, private, civic and cultural sectors to build city brands that position our clients to achieve greater economic and quality of life benchmarks over the long term.

If you're interested in raising your city's profile (while giving other municipalities an identity crisis), consider the practical and competitive advantages of investing in a strategic branding process.

For more ideas to drive sales check out archives or visit Ambit Advertising and Public Relations.

Rise and Shine Online: A Multi-Pronged Approach to Business Exposure

Thanks to advances in technology, the opportunities to forge productive connections with customers and prospects online have never been greater.  So what's the secret to building relationships, producing leads and orders, and increasing quality business exposure? The simple answer is this: Never miss a chance to let people know who you are, what you think, and what you're doing.

To get your name, brand, news and ideas in front of the groups and people you want to reach and influence,  commit to a multi-pronged approach to online communication that uses every available means to achieve your objectives.

Here's four core tactics that can start a buzz and bring you attention and results that pay dividends over the long haul.

Join in on forums and discussions. Regularly exchanging views with potential customers in various online communities can earn you and your business the "insider" status that leads to bigger things. Add insightful comments to blog postings, answer a question raised by another member of a forum, post a link to a resource on your Web site or blog.  It all adds up to stronger lines of communication and more possibilities for doing business.

Put your press releases online. Each time you send a significant release to the media, maximize your potential exposure by including online distribution services, such as Send2Press.com. At the same time, add the release to the media room of your Web site to establish an official and robust repository of all news and information relating to your company.

Post articles online.  Add original content to your blog or Web site and invite readers to comment. Take opportunities in your everyday business communications to encourage people to link to specific articles of interest.

Start a Facebook business page. Having a Facebook business page is like having an e-mail database of super-interested contacts, only with one major difference. With Facebook, you're providing the tools for them to stay connected, be engaged, personalize their communications, and be ambassadors of your brand wherever they go.

For more ideas to drive sales check out archives or visit Ambit Advertising and Public Relations.

Flop-Proof Rules for Making Memorable Speeches

Whether they like it or not, most business executives and community leaders need to make speeches from time to time. It's an occasion that casts a singular spotlight on their ability to stand and deliver (or flop and fall flat) and few go it alone in crafting the right words to have a memorable impact on their audience. 

Those who are wise in the ways of speechwriting know that a good script with a strong theme, clear purpose and conversational style can make even the most reluctant public speaker connect with their audience. If you want to inspire instead of perspire, work with a PR pro or copywriter with proven speechwriting experience and follow these flop-proof rules.

Know your audience.  Knowing as much as you can about the group you'll be speaking to gives you a huge advantage in winning them over by customizing your talk to their specific interests. For example, a speech we prepared for a city official to give at the groundbreaking of an affordable housing project was heard by  an audience comprised of county government officials and local residents. It appealed to both groups with a mixture of facts about how the city's overall affordable housing program was made into a legislative mission and an emotional message about turning the American dream of owning a home into a reality for hard-working residents.

Write in a conversational style. The best speeches sound like someone talking "off the top of their head," not like a dissertation or academic thesis. Maintain a conversational tone by using short words, short sentences and even some casual language or slang here and there. Once you have a draft together, test the conversational flavor of the speech by reading it out loud. If it doesn't sound natural, rewrite it until it talks the talk of real people with warmth, wit, humor and passion.

Keep it simple.  Speeches are effective at expressing ideas and opinions in ways that inform, persuade and (if you really knock it out of the park) inspire. They're far less effective at delivering complex theories or relaying a large volume of facts, so be realistic and stick to one main theme and just a couple of central points. Give your listeners bite-size nuggets of information, friendly persuasion and advice and they'll likely stay with you for the duration of your speech. Weigh them down with a complicated line of thinking, scholarly arguments or too many numbers and statistics, and you might as well be making the last portion of your speech to a brick wall.

For more ideas to drive sales check out archives or visit Ambit Advertising and Public Relations.