Expansion Marketing's BlogMarketing for expansion in a troubled economy

It is common knowledge that if all of your marketing is working right, then you should have sufficient business coming in.  But what if you have a slow-down?  Saying that the economy is bad might be a good excuse, but it doesn’t give YOU something that YOU can do to turn things around.

I can tell you from personal experience that I have had good times and bad times in this same economy.  In both instances it is very key to find out what you were doing right if the production went up and what you stopped doing right when it went down.  In my own company, I can ALWAYS find something that I or one of my personnel  have changed or omitted right before sales went down.  Unfortunately, or fortunately, looking in the mirror is always the best policy when confronted with a lack of sales or production.

If you have a dip in sales, stay calm, make a list of all successful actions from when things were going well and then work out what you are going to do to fix it.  Simple, but sometimes overlooked when things are frantic.

Expansion Marketing’s  Free Marketing Analysis can help you isolate the things that were successful and not successful in your marketing so that you have that list in case you need to do an analysis.  Visit our web site to sign up for the analysis!

Market research is actually a science.  Gathering information about your target market and what they need, want, like, or desire about your specific product takes a LOT more knowledge than the ability to go to a trade show and chat.  There are specific questions that must be developed that will elicit specific types of responses, informational and emotional.  These are best done in person, or at least directly on the phone.  The surveyor must be knowledgeable in what to look for in the person being surveyed and record it correctly so that final analysis will be correct.  This is the majority of the surveying that Expansion Marketing does.

Internet marketing is a good way to get general information from your target market that will be helpful demographics and  some information.  In fact, Expansion Marketing does internet surveying, as well as our direct surveys.  In fact, please take our Internet survey.  It will help us give better service.  

Correct market research is almost never done by the small business person, even though it is almost always done by large corporations.  This puts most small business into the category of hit and miss when it comes to marketing. 

 Do not have hit and miss success with your livelihood’s marketing.  Have Expansion Marketing do research and strategy that will really work!

Expansion Marketing is adding a fresh new fact to its web presence with its fresh new web site.  Please feel free to go onto our new site and take our survey and sign up for the monthly marketing newsletter. 

http://www.expansionmarketing.net

The buzzword going around in business circles today is branding.  Let’s develop branding for the company.  Let’s get our branding together.  We are working on our branding before we get into marketing.  Okay…

What does that mean?  It means that the “branding” is being developed without taking the needs, wants, hopes and desires of the end user, your potential client, into consideration.  This means that whatever brand you come up with could miss the mark in your marketing communications.  This is unfortunate because you really do want your brand to identify you for what you are and best communicate to your target market that they can get what they need and want from you.  They will see your brand before they see copy.

As you enter a new decade, you should definitely use correct branding.  Developing your brand should be done AFTER market research to find what will communicate correctly.  Otherwise, branding efforts are a shot in the dark at a supposed target market that may or may not respond to your brand.

 Expansion Marketing is happy to do a free marketing analysis to determine if your branding has been done correctly, how your marketing is working for you and what you can do in this decade to get a greater market share.

Deciding what you are going to achieve in the following year is something that you should be doing right now.  This exercize will help you get a focus on the future, but then you need to take it a step further and plan out exactly how you are going to achieve the goal.  What are YOU going to do so that you actually get where you want to go in the following year.

A vital part of reaching goals in a business is correct marketing.  Financial goals are tied to numbers of clients. 

 Organizational growth goals are tied to increased sales and productivity.  Even quality of product goals are dictated by what is found in surveying existing clients to find out hwat they like about what they buy from you.

Make sure that a sound marketing plan is included in your planning for the following year and actually do the planning.  If you need help with this, Expansion Marketing can do a Free Marketing Analysis and show you how to have a great marketing year in 2010.  Visit us at http://www.expansionmarketing.net to sign up for a free marketing analysis.

The certain way to have a happy holiday is to have certainty on what is going to happen in the future.  There are many ways to acheive that, but the most effective way is to have proper planning in place.  Sounds boring, but unfortunately, it is true.

NOW is the time to sit down, in between egg nog and Christmas shopping and parties to plan out and predict what will occur with your business in the following year.  Get a marketing plan.  Get an overall strategy.  Make sure that any marketing strategy is based on market research. 

If you have things outlined for what will occur in January, you can actually relax more over the holidays.

Expansion Marketing can help you outline what you want to acheieve in the following year and help you get a plan to get there.  Contact us at info@expansionmarketing.net and we will set an appt!

Okay, Thanksgiving is over and we are officially into the most intense marketing, shopping, and buying time of the year.  Is in the most commercialized and sense-bombarding time of the year where everybody is trying to get your attention have you spend money for whatever widgets they are selling.

As things move into a feverish pace, punctuated only by one day Christmas Day, after which the after Christmas sales start, we have to take a look at how effective marketing works.

Is it meant to annoy? inspire? grab attention? or just entice you into its frenzy?

Marketing is a communication.  It is meant to communicate to the target market that the product will fulfill a need.   It is done in such a way that it might also do all of the above things (annoy, inspire, grab atttention, entice you into the frenzy) but a good effect is created only if you truly know what it is that the target market needs and wants.

I cannot say that I have never aspired to sell something to someone that they truly do not need.  Heck, I used to sell metal musical sculpures that played plinky little tunes (door to door, no less).  Who REALLY needs that?  I can tell you that 30 years later those pieces of “art” or “junk” are probably in a landfill or an attic.   They have gone the way of “pet rocks” and other such novelties.

Meanwhile, right now the small business person is here trying to survive in a challenging (if nothing else) economy. He/She wondering what and where to communicate so as to get enough of his needed and wanted and valuable product or service into enough hands that the business survives and produces enough income to maintain mortgages, car payments, food and other accoutrements of modern day life.

The solution for the small business person is correct market research to find out the needs and wants of the target market so that an impelling marketing communication can be created which will result in reaches and leads to sell to. 

Go to http://www.expansionmarketing.net to get a free marketing analysis and find out how.

I have worked with many businesses over the years and have found that unless the business has a passion for what it is doing or has a passionate reason for carrying on, no amount of marketing will drive the business to the heights that it should go.

Originally, I started working with business owners who were worried about the economy or desperate to get in clients to keep their business afloat.  Some of these did well, but an equal amount did not have the passion necessary to carry forward the market research findings and take the steps recommended by Expansion Marketing to get the marketing strategy in place.

Now, one of the first things I ask a business owner is “What makes you passionate about this business?”  “Why are you doing it?”  This gives me the real, core reason that they want to expand, (or not).  This will let me know immediately if there is enough carry-through with the business owner to actually get the program done.  From there, I can tell the business owner whether I can help him.  Basically, no passion, I can’t help.

The new breed of clients that I am bringing on are doing what they are doing because of a higher social consciousness, a desire to help, and a desire to make a difference in the world.  They are passionate about their goals and need help to communicate to their target market correctly so as to achieve those goals.

In the hum-drum day to day business world of phones, appointments, accounts receivable, accounts payable and service demands, it is easy to forget about the passion of what you are doing.  The larger goals that you are striving for.  And, I can tell you that the larger goal really NEVER has to do with money.

Look for your passion in life and in your business.  Find that product that you really want to communicate about to the world. Communicate to the target market with a fervor.  You will do well.

Now how does marketing fit into all of this?  Marketing is a communication.  Market research tells you who your target market is and what they are looking for.  With your passion for your product and an ability to fill their needs, you can have a powerful marketing communication which will bring in leads to sell to.   If you have the passion, it is also easier to sell.

Contact us to help you with this at info@expansionmarketing.net.

DEFINITION OF MARKETING:

“The action or business of selling products or services.”

Now that seems simple but what does a whole marketing cycle entail?

ACTUAL MARKETING CYCLE

1. Conceive of a product.
2. Determine the want of the product by the target market.  (market research)
3. Find the communication channels to communicate about your product.
4. Determine the best communication channel to communicate to the target market that you have what they want.
5. Create the product and also work out how to keep creating the product. (Organizational machine of some sort)
6. Meanwhile, based on market research, create the promotion for your product.
7. Get your promotion out.
8. Get leads and interest in.
9. Follow up on the leads.
10. Sell the product
11. Continue the cycle.

The area of the marketing cycle that is continually short-circuited is step 2, determine the want of the product by the target market.  Then step 6, based on market research, create the promotion for your product.

Skipping the market research step so you cannot create promotion based on market research can lead to the following problems:

1. Insufficient leads to sell to.
2. Incorrect target market leading to insufficient leads to sell to.
3. Slightly incorrect product communicated poorly, leading to not enough business.
4. Wrong communication channels used for promotion.
5. Promotion that does not communicate well to the target market.
6. Frantic actions on the part of the business owner to get in business.

Doing market research and then using the data will result in more qualified leads for you to go sell to.  Market research will not guarantee your sales ability, but it should help in your presentation of your product so that you can sell more of it.

Expansion Marketing takes responsibility for the entire marketing cycle from the market research, the promotional concept, the promotion creation, to the leads generation.  We work with graphic designers, web designers, printers and other professionals to ensure that your promotion is the communication that will get you the most leads so that you can sell your product.  We work with a wide variety of business types and this expands every week and we are now starting to work with slightly larger companies.

Our introductory service is a Free Marketing Analysis this would be done with anyone who is a business owner and who has questions about what to do with their marketing or does not have enough business in general.

Contact us on the web at www.expansionmarketing.net or email casey@expansionmarketing.net.