Examine each of these items and determine if you have the best mix, we have an opportunity to experiment now. Take it.

Do you have the best possible product? In a bull economy, you can have a so-so product, and still have great gains, but when the market turns bear and it becomes a buyers market, you must make sure your product stands up. Can you honestly say your product is the best on the market for its chosen niche? Seriously, be honest.

Is your product priced right? Are you in the right pricing category? Do you have a high quality item that is priced similar to low quality… If so, it’s likely you are being bought based on price. This may be an opportunity to increase your price, and see sales increase because you are now in a different price category.

Is your placement right? Real Estate can be a great marketing tool, do you have a good location? Or are you hidden and people must hunt you down. Or are you in the right stores? In retail products, many people try to be in the big stores, but sometimes finding the smaller stores that will give you better placement are much more valuable.

Are you promoting yourself? In a slow down many  businesses go into hibernation mode. Take advantage of this. Market the hell out of yourself and see your market-share increase. Even if you don’t see a huge gain in total volume right now, increasing your market share will benefit you when the market rebounds.

There are plenty of times to pull out the big guns, and get real creative in your marketing, but other times going back to basics will have the biggest gains.

A Daisy... how creative

Now, how did I know you would draw that? Because its simple and easy, and didn’t take too much thought. Unfortunately, many marketers design their ads the exact same way. Why not break the rules for once?

The lesson here:

Stop it already!

Do your tools look like this?

If you are trying to be a fashion photographer you wouldn’t show up with a camera like this. So as a marketer, what tools do you show up with each day that shoud actually be retired? I was going through all my tools recently and have identified some areas to address.

Software:

• What are you using to create graphics? If you are still using an original version of photoshop, it might be time to upgrade. There are so many advances in software these days, its amazing what you can do.
• How about your office suite? Still using Office 2003? Office 2007 or my preference Office 2008 for the Mac is heads and shoulders above its predecessor, its time to upgrade.

Computers:

• Are you still rocking an old Pentium 3 with Windows 98, if so, its time to upgrade. Or better yet switch to a Mac and never worry about your computer again.

Hardware:

• If your camera looks like the one in the picture above its time to switch. Try something like the the Nikon D90 if you need a pro level camera, its a full digital SLR with the ability to shoot digital video. Or if that is too much, try the Nikon Coolpix P80, you get a lot of the pro features in a more easy to handle point and shoot body.
• If you are still backing up files on CD’s, you are wasting a bunch of time. Hard drives and DVD burners are cheap. Use external hard drives as much as possible, but if you absolutely need a hard copy, use a DVD.
• Are you still using that free plastic flip phone your cell provider gave you. If so, its time to invest in a professional level phone. Take a look at the Blackberry, iPhone, or the Treos. Your productivity will thank you.

So is this whole post about just going out and buying new stuff? No, its about saving time and producing better results. If you waste a bunch of time fighting with your tools, then that is time you could have been devoting to creating better campaigns and greater results.

If you are a business, give customers a reason to try you out. Give them a reason to try a new product. Guide them through your store.

As a great example of coupons spurring sales, take a look at CVS Pharmacy. With the extra care rewards care card you can scan your card when you walk in the store and get coupons for that purpose. Talk about an opportunity to guide a customer through the store, and spur sales that you might not normally get.

How can you increase your traffic with coupons?

As a marketer this rings truer everyday. What are you doing to break through the clutter and reach your customers. Do you have the weapons necessary to win the war for your customers mind?

First off, I explained to him that if he really wanted to, finding dollars for marketing would be easy. I know what kind of vehicle he drives…

But I said that if he didn’t want to divert dollars from more important things, (his BMW), then he needed to get creative and plan on putting some work in. As they say, you invest Time or Money, but you always have one. So since it was time, I told him he needed to get writing. Send out press releases to all the local media, as well as any trade publication that he could find. He also needed to guest blog on some blogs in his niche.

Simple enough… Then we talked about using a tool like Twitter to communicate to past customers… But I told him just spewing info wasn’t enough, he also needed to seek out people with a problem on Twitter and help solve them. By doing this he would get more interest and more followers.

Finally I told him to find a conference where a lot of potential customers would be (he’s in the B2B field), and then he needed to book the biggest suite he could find at the host hotel, and have a networking event every night.

Ok, so I know the last one cost some money, but with a quick search online I found a suite for 249$ per night for 3 nights. He couldn’t even buy a decent sized ad in his favorite trade magazine for that.

I told him to make friends with local liquor store, and make his room the networking center. It wouldn’t be easy, but he could make a ton of contacts in a short time.

So what can you do that is different than just throwing up some ads and hoping?

Palin has a unique story, she’s a normal person who got into politics to make a difference, she has 5 kids, one who is serving in the armed forces. Let’s not forget she’s a woman, and McCain is trying to win points based on recent trends of a certain female politician. There is plenty to talk about here. But even more timely was this shocking news. Right after the end of the Democratic National Convention.

So what’s the marketing lesson here.

• Add something unique and worth talking about to your brand.
• Time the release to draw as much attention away from your competition as possible. (Especially at a time when you competition has something worth talking about.)
• Appeal to current trends and the desires of undecided customers in your niche.

The problem though, is that this can backfire. A flash in the pan is impressive, but you need to have the firepower to follow up. And if you read the commentary, right now that is still really undediced. So only time will tell if that’s the case for this brand. And the biggest questions is whether a well placed marketing move could end up spelling the end of a campaign, or the beginning of a presidency.

If you really want to be prepared to dominate your market you must come up with a system to market to your customers, and organize them appropriately. Behold color coding…

Customers are simply a color.

Customers will enter your organization as yellow, and depending on how you interact with them will move towards either green or red.

So here’s how it works:

Yellow

These are your new customers, they are brand new and have no brand alliance and no preconceived notions of your business. They are interested in what you offer, but aren’t sure if you are right for the long term. These customers are hard to attract and cost a lot of money. So make sure you provide them with good experience.

Blue (Positive)

With a positive interaction and experience, yellow customers will slide up the scale to blue. These customers are satisfied with your offering, but aren’t loyal yet. They have no reason to stray, but if your competitor gives them a reason, they can be tempted. You’ll need to work a little harded to make these customers super loyal.

Orange (Negative)

With a negative interaction at the yellow stage a customer will slip to Orange. Negative interactions can come from many sources; poor customer service, higher than expected prices, poor shopping experience, etc. But once a customer is Orange, it will take a little work to get them back to the positive. As a Orange, the customer is looking for alternatives, they are examining your competitors to see if they will offer better services in future transactions, but all hope is not lost. They did choose to interact with you, that means there was something about you that they initially liked. With the right followup they can be salvaged. Make sure you keep your ears to the ground to listen for these types of customers. And do what it takes to solve their problem. Bribe them if you have to. A discount on their next purchase is a small price to pay versus investing in the advertising necessary to attract a brand new customer to replace them.

Green (Positive)

If a customer has multiple positive experiences at the Blue level they will eventually transition to Green. This is the goal, every Green customer is super loyal, and will talk positivly about your business. Greens are also more forgiving of less than perfect experience. They begin to see your company as a partner, not as an adversary, and this is crucial to keeping long term customers. Greens are also the most profitable customers, so do whatever it takes to keep them, and learn from them so you can create more of them.

Red (Negative)

Red is the final step on the negative chain. These customers are very dissatisfied with your company, and they aren’t afraid to tell everyone about it. They are happy to shop with your customers, and are more than willing to beat up your staff over price any chance they get. These are the customers you need to remove from your marketing lists, and forget them. They can’t be salvaged. The only thing to do is learn how not to have your customers hit this color again in the future. With Reds it simple, you screwed up, you let a perfectly good customer go to waste. But, it is what it is, move on and count that customer as what they call stupid tax. Hopefully you learned something, and will do better the next go around.

The dip between real and slick.

Seth Godin posted a topic on his blog called “The Dead Zone of Slick” . I’ll give you a quick summary, but if you haven’t read it, you should head over and read it.

Basically Seth was saying that when people or companies are used to operating in the hump of real and they try to migrate to slick, they get stuck in the dead zone in between.

This is very true of small businesses who don’t always have the skills to make the migration to slick. They may be the most honest, real business, but when its time to put a large presentation together to woo a large potential investor, they often fall short. The opposite can be true, a company could put together the slickest marketing materials, the best website, the best looking office, but when its time to become real and deliver the goods, they fall short. This exact problem caught a lot of business in the original dot com bust.

There is a lesson to be learned here. Master the real first, without it you will fall of the slick hill very quickly.  But what I think Seth forgets to mention is that the real skill is the person or company who can migrate quickly from one hump to the next. This company would be like a talented skateboarder, gliding down one hump, and up quickly the next. The person or company who can not only do this, but also understand when they need to do this will have a distinct advantage in the marketplace.

A bad skateboarder would just sail down one hill and get stuck… and that’s exactly what Seth points most people do.

So the lesson is if you want to grow your business online and off. You need to know when its time to be a slick marketer and when its time to be real marketer, and you need to make sure you are good at both.

Now before everyone thinks I’ve gone nuts, let me explain. In this movie there are three key elements that, if applied, will dramatically improve any business or marketing program.

Key Message Number 1:

If you build it, he will come.

Opening the doors of your business is simply not enough. You must create a strong stable platform on which you can compete. You must be the best in your market, or have a good reason someone should buy from you. You’ve got to give them a reason to pay attention to you.

When Warren Buffett is looking for a business to invest in he says he is looking for, “Durable Competitive Advantage.” Durable Competitive Advantage is about creating a platform to compete on for the long term. Most small business say they compete on Customer Service. And usually the ones who preach that the loudest are often the worst at it. If you pick something as your competitive platform, make sure you are able to be the best, and sustain it. Measure it. Keep an eye on your competitors, and make sure you are ahead of them in your platform.

Only once you master your platform will any other marketing work. Simply started, if you don’t build something worth coming to for the long term, people will not come.

Key Message Number 2:

Ease His Pain

Your main goal in business is to identify and solve your customers pain. Consumers love to create pain. They need new clothes, new cars, new golf clubs, new jewelry, whatever you sell. And that pain burns deep. It’s your job to identify those pains and solve them.

Finding a pain and solving it is not as simple as saying, “I’ve got golf clubs for sale, buy from me”. People don’t buy golf clubs because they want them, they buy them because they want to outdrive their golfing buddies, or out putt their spouse, or join the golfing team, or be like Tiger. They have a reason, and you need to understand that before you can even begin to ease it.

Keep in mind, consumers often have multiple pains. The more you can solve at once, and the better you understand them, the more prospective customers will trust you.

Key Message Number 3:

Go The Distance.

Once you understand what your customers are looking for, and you know how to solve that pain, it does you no good unless you can communicate that. Too often businesses just run an ad when they feel like it. Or just because their ad rep tell them its time.

Running an ad campaign must be strategic. You must make a plan to communicate your new found pain solving methods. Customers need to know that you have the ability to make their pain go away, that you sympathize with them, and that you are the best solution to solve their pain now.

To do that you need to have a strategic plan to run a series of branding and action ads. Branding ads position you as an expert in your field, and action ads show how you can solve specific pains. You need to run both, and run them consistently in order to make an impact. Running a sale on every third friday won’t cut it. It’ll just make your ad rep money. Stop wasting your money on stupid one shot ads, either commit to a real plan or get out of the way.

Later on I will go more in depth on each topic and give you some ideas on how to put each into play. If you have questions in the meantime, feel free to contact me.