In business, it’s the origin of the idea that 80% of your sales come from 20% of your clients. 

That 80% of your time should be spent developing the top 20% of your staff, because they’re the ones who will actually generate majority of your business’ success, sustainability and growth.  That 80% of your marketing should be spent on the top 20% of your customers – because 20% of your customers are responsible for 80% of your repeat business, add on sales, referrals and other good things that ideal customers do for your business.

The 80-20 idea abounds in business!  But what if you could have more. 

What if the ratio of returning, higher ticket purchasing and referring customers in your business were 30%, 40% or even more?  You can get there, but you’re going to need to get greedy when it comes to your customers, especially your ideal customers and ideal client types.

You’ll need to be greedy when it comes to gleaning information about what makes your most ideal customers tick, and then put that to use to build buyer profiles.  And once you have defined some of the traits shared by your best customers, you’re going to need to get greedy about finding more just like them.

Think about your best customers.  What traits do they share?  There could be all kinds of commonalities that will help you attract more of your ideal client types; such as:

• Geography.  Do your best and most engaged customers all come from one or two neighborhoods?  Plan a marketing campaign targeted to the zip codes, areas of town or even the unique neighborhoods where your best customers live.
• Employment.  Do your best, most engaged and loyal customers work for certain employers or in certain types of jobs?  Plan a marketing campaign targeted for outreach to those employers or those types of employers.  Create special offers for the employees of large companies in your area, for teachers, health care workers, emergency responders and other niche or industry groups that tend to produce more referrals.
• Hobbies or interests.  Do all your best customers love wine tasting?  Skiing? Comedy clubs?  Cooking?  Hiking?  Crafts?  Games?   Create incentives for purchase that connect them with their interests or hold events that bring the two together in some way.
• Passions.  Do they support fundraisers for the same schools?  Give to the same charities? Race for the same cures?  Find out what types of causes and charities motivate your best customers to action and make your own involvement in the community, charitable organizations or other interests of the heart known within your community.

Every customer interaction provides you with opportunities to get to know at least one more piece of information about what is important to your best customers.  And you can use this information to build buyer profiles that will better help you serve existing customers and get you more customers just like them. 

Don’t be satisfied with 20%: Get greedy, and get more ideal customers! 

RELATED ARTICLES:
The Secret to Getting More Customers in 2013 (365daysofmarketing.wordpress.com)

Many visionaries, including a large number of entrepreneurs and small business owners suffer from BSNT disorder.

The Marketing Doctor is In!

BSNT is serious, and it can kill.  BSNT has the ability to seriously limit your effectiveness, derail the returns you need to get from your marketing investments and stand between you and the success you so strongly desire.

Sounds serious, doesn’t it?  But even though BSNT is easy to identify and treat, it’s still the number one momentum killers out there when it comes to marketing.

BSNT, or Bright Shiny New Toy Syndrome, severely inhibits your ability to focus.  It keeps you from achieving the consistency necessary to attract internet traffic through online blogging and website content, build a following and engage on social networks and engage prospects and customers by means of consistent, scheduled email communications.

Bright Shiny New Toy Syndrome can be almost completely disabling!   It makes it impossible for you to build momentum through consistency in any area of your marketing.   And it is this lack of consistency that keeps you from getting the return on your marketing investment you need to grow your business, attract new customers and engage the ones you have.

You may be aware that you suffer from this debilitating business disease or a concerned staff member, friend or loved one may be bringing BSNT to your attention for the first time.  If this is you, there’s good news.  BSNT is treatable and need not leave any lasting negative effects!

If you’re ready to get on the road to recovery, there are a few simple ways to stop BSNT Syndrome in its tracks, so that it can no longer derail your marketing ROI:

1.  Remember, resistance is not futile, but you need an annual marketing plan.  This will help you remain focused on the marketing tactics and strategies that you have chosen to meet your marketing goals.

2.  Embrace accountability.  Tell people what you are going to do.  It’s remarkable how much more accountable we hold ourselves when we’ve gone on public record.  As entrepreneurs and leaders within our own businesses, it’s easy to believe that we don’t answer to anyone. If you want to set a mark, set it publically, and keep that goal in the forefront of your mind as you go about your business each day.

3.  Love systems.  Systems and routines don’t sound all that sexy, but the results you can achieve through them are.  You don’t get 6-pack abs without systems and routine. You don’t get amazing arms, legs, stamina and health without systems and routines.  It’s the same in your business.  Your business can’t get fit, attractive, strong and healthy without consistency in marketing that is focused on the goals you want to achieve.

4.  Admit that you need help.  If you’re ready to fight your BSNT Syndrome head on, you might need some help.  And it’s ok to admit that you need some help.  You might be a great home builder, a great stylist, a great mechanic, a great dentist or a great professional of some other kind.  That doesn’t automatically translate into your being a great business person or marketing expert.  Great business leaders hire to their weaknesses and follow good advice. They surround themselves with people who have strengths that they lack.  In your case, this might mean partnering with someone who loves systems and routine to work your marketing and business operational plans.  It’s not a sign of weakness to ask for help, it’s a sign of wisdom and strength!

Forget bright shiny new toys.

You have good ideas and good instincts; you need to follow them through to success.  Give your customers the consistency in marketing they need to believe that you will follow through on your promises to them and deliver on their expectations time and time again.  Give your staff the ability to invest themselves in your marketing strategies and see them through to completion.  Give your business the systems and processes that allow for the time it will take to receive a return on your marketing investments.

***

Need some help getting systems in place?  Download a free marketing goal worksheet from my website that provides a one-page way to track each of your marketing goals in the coming year.  Tack it to your wall.  Hang it up in your staff lounge or meeting room.  Give your staff the opportunity to see that you are going to stick with the marketing initiatives this time, rather than launching new programs that are never carried through.

You can also use the 2013 Small Business Marketing Calendar: 12 Ways to Cheat at Marketing as a marketing plan workbook to get consistency into your digital and print marketing communications to attract new clients and engage your customers during the year.  It’s easy to use and the tasks outlined will take just a few minutes each day to execute.

And if you need to build a real marketing plan, and don’t want to tackle the project alone, I’d love to help.  Contact me for a no-obligation quote for building and implementing a marketing plan for your business.

Related articles

• Tipping Points and Starting Points in Small Business Marketing (365daysofmarketing.wordpress.com)

Sooner or later, we all have to cut hair for one reason or another.  When I was about 7 years old, I picked up a pair of scissors and trimmed my 2 year old sister’s bangs. It was… bad.  And since then I’ve left it to the professionals apart from the occasional necessity of a tiny fix here and there in between appointments.  And even that is only done with fear and trepidation.

Cutting hair with scissors is scary enough. I can’t imagine trying to cut hair without scissors – without the right tool for the job. 

So if we’re agreed that we need the right tools to cut hair or color hair or curl hair or blow dry hair, why is it that we don’t see the need to do so in other areas of business?  Say – something like – just pulling a topic out of thin air – marketing?

You can’t cut hair without the right tools and expect to get the results you want.  

You can’t do marketing without the right tools and expect to get the results you want.

In 2013, to get the marketing results that you want, these are some of the tools that you need:

• A defined, identifiable brand including visual brand imagery (logo, colors, style and feel)
• Unique selling propositions – things that clearly differentiate you from direct and indirect competitors
• A marketing plan designed to attract, engage, motivate and retain people to your business
• A clear understanding of your current customer base, target markets and ideal client types
• A search optimized content marketing strategy for online marketing across multiple internet channels: website, blog, social networks, email and other strategically chosen content creation and curation sites

Cut hair isn’t worth much, but a haircut might be.  When you go out to get a haircut, you’re not buying cut hair, you’re buying the outcome you receive in appearance, confidence, self esteem, professionalism, customer experience – wherever your payoffs lie.

It’s the same with marketing.  It’s not about the exercise of “doing marketing,” it’s about the payoffs you get when you’ve done marketing right.

The point of writing a mission statement isn’t for its aesthetic value in a pretty frame hanging on the wall.  The point of writing a mission statement lies in its outcomes:  your ability to infuse your business with purpose, set expectations for your customers, inspire your team or even hold them accountable.

The point of having a website isn’t to build a digital mausoleum, a tribute memorial to you and your team.  A website guided by marketing strategy produces payoffs:  newly attracted prospects, engaged customers, and people motivated to respond to take the actions you want them to take (a.k.a. buy stuff).

The point of knowing who your customers are now and who you’d like to attract in the future isn’t about generating statistics or feeling like you’ve got your own little CIA operation.  It’s about getting the information you need to design and execute marketing strategies that will get you those new customers and help you keep the ones you have, over the long haul. It’s about identifying new target markets to expand your customer base and knowing how to attract them to your business.

Trying to do marketing to grow your business and make it sustainable over the long term can’t be done without the right tools anymore than cutting hair without scissors and expecting a precision cut outcome.  Give yourself and your business the right tools and you’ll be that much closer to the outcomes that you really want!

Related articles

• Are You Selling Salon Services or Outcomes? (thesavvystylist.wordpress.com)
• What’s So Special About You? Finding Your USP (365daysofmarketing.wordpress.com)

Most Americans could probably tell me the make, model and year of the car they last purchased without having to think about it very hard, but I’ll bet  only a few could tell me who built the house they live in.

Why is it that we know more about something that cost us fifteen grand than something that cost us one hundred and fifty grand (or more)?  For that matter, I’ll be most coffee drinkers could identify the last $5 coffee they had in detail (for me, a venti, non-fat, no whip, Starbucks cinnamon dolce two and a half pump latte) but I can’t tell you the makers name of the last $50 piece of clothing I purchased.

The answer can be summed up in one very special word (and no, it’s not marketing).  The reason we know more about our last car purchase than our last home purchase is this:  differentiation. 

Differentiation, real or perceived, is the reason people pay more for brand names over store brands on even everyday products, like toilet paper. Both essentially get the same job done; logic would seem to indicate that shoppers should choose store or generic brands in order to minimize the amount of money spent on such an unglamorous product.  Differentiation is what leads to someone perceiving the brand name toilet paper as softer as and stronger than a store or generic brand.

And back to the point: More of you can probably tell me what brand of $3 toilet paper you purchased last than can tell me who built your $300,000 home.

Differentiation.

When it comes to brands that have not differentiated themselves, labels don’t matter.  We don’t choose homes based on the builder’s brand or reputation (which seems crazy, given the importance of the product); rather, we assume that all of the builders providing product in our local marketplace are more or less the same. Instead of making choices based on the quality of work and reputation of a specific builder, we choose homes based on which we perceive is the best value that meets our needs that we can afford.

Whether the product you sell lists at $3 or $300,000 and lasts for 3 minutes or 30 years, differentiation is the key to growing your business, gaining market share and besting competitors. 

If customers don’t see a real difference in the quality and type of product (or service) you provide, and more or less believe that they can get the same desired outcome from you as from your competitors, you have not succeeded in differentiating your business for one of three reasons:

• Nothing about your business sets it apart from the competition
• Customers don’t know what differentiates your business from competitors
• Customers don’t actually care about the things that differentiate your business from those of your competitors

Unless your business is totally unique, and no other businesses exist that provide the same products, services or customer outcomes as yours, differentiation simply isn’t going to happen by accident. Nor can you expect customers to recognize the ways in which the customer experience, products or services you provide are superior to others in the marketplace by accident.

Unlike other areas of your business, this is one area where you can take control to identify the ways in which your business exceeds that of your competitors and even to create unique customer experiences that help to set you apart from the competition in your market.  And it’s vital to the health, profitability and longevity of your business that you do so, and that you periodically analyze the marketplace to ensure that your competitive advantages continue to set your business apart.

As you seek to discover your USP (or unique selling proposition, also known as a unique value proposition) and begin to analyze possible areas where you can differentiate your business and create both real and perceived differences in the minds of your clients, keep this in mind.  It’s possible to differentiate your business in ways that won’t matter to your customers.  And a difference that doesn’t differentiate simply doesn’t matter.  Focus first on improvements which your customers are most likely to notice and which will matter most to them.

Finding your USP:  Here is your differentiation homework:

• Make a list of 10 ways in which your business experience, services or products are better or different than those of competitors in your market
• Make sure that you are educating customers and prospects about the most meaningful ways in which your business, services or products – the experiences and/or outcomes enjoyed by your customers – are different and better than those of your competitors
• Make a list of the ways in which your competitors have differentiated their businesses in the minds of customers in your market and think of ways to close the gap, from public education to real process, service or product improvements.

What’s so special about you? 

Feel free to leave a comment below sharing your business’s unique selling propositions or contact me for a Differentiation Consultation where we can begin to identify and develop points of differentiation for your business.

Related articles

• Understanding Your ‘Unique Selling Proposition’ (entrepreneur.com)

One of the fastest ways you can undermine your customer promises or claim that your customers are your #1 priority is to MAKE ME WAIT.

A point driven home to me last weekend, when I took my daughter to the optometrist for a routine checkup, booked a whole year in advance.

The office had a WHOLE YEAR to plan my experience. They had a WHOLE YEAR to ensure that they weren’t overbooked for the day.  But at least all that time spent waiting gave me a chance to write this blog post.

Arriving 5 minutes before my appointment, we were checked in and paperwork complete by 9:45.  And we waited.  10 o’clock rolls around, and we waited.  10:15, still waiting.  At 10:23, 38 minutes after they promised to provide us with professional services, a waiting room finally “opens up” where we wait for another 5 minutes.  Finally the good doctor comes in, spends a whopping 10 minutes with us, pronounces that there aren’t any changes to prescription and asks us to rebook in — get this — another whole year.

Wonder how much I’m looking forward to that?

The theme of my 2013 Marketing Calendar for Small Business is “12 Ways to Cheat at Marketing,” and after my experience last weekend, I simply had to add this 13^th way to cheat at marketing.

Because your competitors are making people wait.

It is sad to say, but you can differentiate your business and make your customer experience exceptional by simply being on time.  Doing what you said you’d do, when you said you’d do it.  Getting that patient to the chair, that client to the service area, the car, home or other big ticket item done and signed over when you said you would (or even better, when the customer said they needed it!)

When you overbook or over-promise and I wait, I know who you think is most important in our relationship. 

Whether I’m spending $3 on a coffee, $30 on a bang trim and brow wax, $300 on an eye exam and glasses, $3,000 on major dental or medical, $30,000 on a car or $300,000 on a house, you tell me, by making me wait without explanation, that your time is more valuable than mine. That you are more important than me.

Nothing tells your customers that they truly are your #1 priority as does your attention to their time and convenience.  And nothing drives away your customers faster than the feeling that you simply don’t care (as a reminder, in an article I wrote last year about how you can make employees care about your business, I shared that survey after survey says the #1 customers stop patronizing a business – 68% of the time – is due to the perceived indifference of the business owner or employees).

Here’s how to prove that customers really are #1 with your business:

• Be on time and never make people wait without explanation, apologies and amends
• Be open and available at times convenient for your customers
• Empower staff to make exceptions, create flexible policies and allow for judgment calls
• Address and resolve dissatisfaction as quickly as possible
• Go even further for your best customers

Make it as easy as possible for buyers to:

• find you
• schedule with you at their convenience
• contact you for information
• provide you with feedback – good or bad – and suggestions for improvement
• speak to decision makers when there’s a problem
• share what’s awesome about your business with others

Be on time.  Doesn’t it sound so very basic?  And yet, think about all of the times that you wait. And wait.  And wait. 

Think about all of the customer experiences you have where you don’t feel like customer service is a high priority. 

Maybe the secret to being amazing isn’t doing amazing things so much as it is actually doing all of the little things that you say you’ll do, fulfilling on all of the promises you make to customers, including a scheduled appointment time.

Get 12 Ways to Cheat at Marketing, if not for the help of the marketing calendar inside, for the 12 marketing cheats within!

Coming Soon:  A Free PDF Worksheet that will help you discover your “Customer Convenience Score”

RELATED ARTICLES:

Why 70% of Your (Former) Customers Disagree (365 days of marketing)

Most probably recall the book titled, The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell which talks about magic moments when ideas, trends, or social behaviors cross a threshold; “tipping” and spreading like wildfire through society, the economy, politics and other environs. 

But none of those tipping point moments could have occurred without starting points.     

And it can be harder to find the right starting points, and more difficult to get started, than to find the tipping point.

You may be at a personal tipping point where you have momentum, time and resolve to launch the marketing programs that your small business needs (and deserves).  In order to capitalize on your momentum and resolve, though, you need to know where to start.

Without knowing the right starting points to put your plan into motion to attract more web traffic, get more customers, engage or retain them, you could end up spending energy, time and money on marketing that doesn’t help you get to where you want to be.  Worse, you might give up before you start, simply because you can’t sift through all the options to get to where your marketing ROI will be.

If you’re searching for small business marketing ideas with the goal of finding starting points, you’re going to see results that could overwhelm you.  If you haven’t ever sent an email marketing blast, thinking that your starting point has to include email segmentation, personalization and A/B testing will keep you from ever starting at all.  If you don’t have a website, thinking that your starting point has to include hundreds of indexed pages, landing pages with forms, and optimized content may cause you to shrug your shoulders and wait until you have the forty grand needed to “do it right.”

Don’t wait.  Don’t quit.  Don’t be discouraged.  Don’t give up before you begin.

Action is relieving, and to do something is nearly always better than to do nothing, when it comes to marketing. 

You just need to know the right starting points to get your small business marketing ideas out of your brain and into action!   

While there are hundreds of options when it comes to marketing media, social networks and sharing sites and communications, it should help you to know that the foundations of marketing remain what they’ve always been:

• attract customers
• engage them, so they’ll be
• motivated to take the actions you want them to take and
• retain them – keep them coming back for more

And the strategies haven’t changed much either; you still need:

• to create awareness of the existence of your business and brand
• to address real, meaningful needs and wants of your customers
• to price, position and promote your product, compellingly

It’s where we get to tactics and tools that many of today’s businesses get stalled, either from a lack of understanding of the importance of new media or lack of information needed to utilize them effectively.  So here is your quick list of starting points across the board when it comes to small business marketing (or any size business marketing!).

You can do these yourself, but remember that you can also ask for help, hire help, trade for help, engage tech savvy teens for help – heck, you could ask the local high school or tech school to take on your website as their senior project!  You won’t know if you don’t try! 

Small Business Ideas – Small Business Internet Marketing Starting Points

Your Small Business Website

You can start small!  Your small business website should have a landing page, page/s describing your products and services, a contact form so people can ask you questions, directions for getting to your business if it’s a brick and mortar, and – this is really important – reasons for visitors to come back to your website and to share content with others.  What will make people want to come back to your website?

• Frequently changing content that interests them – these could be special offers, educational information on topics they need to know about or something truly unique, such as your own app that lets people “play with” or personalize some aspect of your product offering.
• Unique and compelling content – if the content on your small business website could be written equally true of any business in your town or any of your competitors, it’s a fail.  Your website must differentiate you from the pack if you want to get noticed, shared and visited!

Your Small Business Email Marketing Plan

People who give you their email address expect you to send them email. They want you to do so.  They may not be in the market now but may be later. They may not be in the market personally but know someone who is.  Email marketing is still one of the best and lowest-cost ways to:

• Educate prospects and move them through the decision making, buying and repurchase cycles
• Manage your customer relationships
• Maintain top of mind brand awareness
• Reengage customers or former prospects who were not ready to buy
• Stimulate sharing and engagement online

Your Small Business Social Media Marketing Plan

It’s been said that “social media IS the internet.”  In an article titled “22 Social Media Statistics You Need to Know,” we learn that 91% of online adults use social media regularly and that internet users spend nearly one quarter of their time on social networking.

What’s more, we live in an age where the majority of product and service research and vetting is now done online, with many buyers reaching buying decisions before they ever speak to a sales person or set foot in a store.  In fact, 79% of online shoppers spend half of their online shopping time researching products.

You simply can’t ignore social networks.  Maybe you already know that – maybe what’s keeping you away from social networks is not knowing how to use them effectively for marketing (and wanting to avoid wasting your time) or not knowing which of the hundreds of sites available would bring ROI that justifies their use.

Your small business social media marketing starting points have to be where the majority of users are, and where ROI from participating using best practices is proven.  As of today, these include:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Pinterest
• Google+
• A blog

On each, you’ll find a different audience, which means you will likely find different types represented in your target markets on each.  In an upcoming article I’ll provide starting points for people who are just starting to use these social networks and talk about content curation tools that can help you get even more traffic to your website.

Even when you love marketing, if you’re a single shingle, small business owner or a business with no bench players when it comes to small business marketing, sooner or later, your marketing may come to a grinding halt. 

This could happen because there’s a squeakier wheel, business emergency, personal emergency or illness, or – heck – it could happen because you had the nerve to take a vacation.

I’m a one man small business marketing band.

Not just for http://www.12monthsofmarketing.net and the marketing calendars that I write, but in order to do things like pay pesky bills, right now I also have a “day job.”  Like many other entrepreneurs, it puts me in that category of business owners who are simultaneously responsible to build not just one business, but two, as quickly, efficiently and profitably as possible.

In the waning months of 2012, of necessity, my focus had to be on writing and publishing the 2013 marketing calendars:

• 2013 Small Business Marketing Calendar: 12 Ways to Cheat at Marketing
• 2013 Salon and Spa Marketing Calendar:  The Art of Attraction
• 2013 Marketing Calendar for Dentists: Word of Mouth
• 2013 Restaurant, Bar and Caterers Marketing Calendar: Marketing Bites

In case you’re keeping count, that’s two more niche or small business marketing calendars than I did the previous year. On top of that, for the first time, I also created digital kindle store versions of each.  And all of that, in addition to a full time job.

I’m not saying this to brag, because there are lots of people working more than one job and I’m grateful for the day job I have and all that it’s enabling me to learn about real estate marketing, marketing for loan officers and marketing for construction companies like the regional new home builder I work for.

I’m saying it to let you know that – if you’re a small business owner who would think that 40 hours a week is a “part time job,” I understand.  And I’m saying it to apologize, because having to spread myself so thinly precluded other important small business marketing activities like publishing an email newsletter and connecting with friends and fans on Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, LinkedIn and other social networks at the frequency I prefer .

And so here we are, and my own small business marketing has come to a grinding halt.  And since I know that this happens to other entrepreneurs, I’m offering this up.

Whatever the reason, rather than throwing in the towel or berating yourself for shortcomings, here’s what to do if your single shingle or small business marketing comes to a grinding halt, and a few things that you can do to make sure it doesn’t, or minimize the impact when it does:

Put your focus where your best small business marketing ROI lies.

• Know where do you get “instant” small business marketing results:   Blogging?  Social networks?  Outbound phone calls, letters, postcards or emails to your best customers with exclusive opportunities?  A mailing with a compelling offer and easy-to-do call to action?   And do them!
• Have a boring, repetitive small business marketing to do list.  That’s one of the beautiful things about the 2013 marketing calendars I publish – it gives you a day-to-day repetitive reminder of things to do. In most cases, it means about 5-10 minutes of tasks that will get you back in the game, or keep you in the game, if you don’t have a lot of time to spend on more time-consuming marketing events or programs.
• Cheat.  12 Ways to Cheat at Marketing lays out a year’s worth of ways that you can give your small business marketing an edge through marketing cheats.  Only they’re really not cheats in the negative sense of the word, they’re mostly things that most businesses aren’t bothering to do  (but should be) in order to give customers word of mouth marketing fodder (things they will actually tell other people about), differentiate your business from your competitors, and give you short cuts to help you get your business found online, more often.

If your marketing came to a grinding halt, for whatever reason, get back in the game.

Skip right over beating yourself up or assigning blame and do something because action is relieving.  To do something is almost always better than to do nothing.

Don’t wait until you have the perfect small business marketing plan, a bag full of genius small business marketing ideas, or even the perfect small business marketing manager, assistant or department.

Get in the small business marketing game. 

Doing that, alone, will be enough to put your business in front of most of your competitors.  Because if you take a look around, you’ll see that many small business marketing plans are stuck in a rut or haven’t even left the gate.  Start small and start smart – but start!

RELATED ARTICLES:

4 Ways to Tweak your 2013 Small Business Marketing Calendar (365daysofmarketing.wordpress.com)

What To Do When You Need – But Can’t Afford – Marketing Help in the Salon or Spa (thesavvystylist.wordpress.com)

You don’t get paid for the hour. You get paid for the value you bring to the hour.  (Jim Rohn)

It begs the question, when was the last time that you thought about whether you’re bringing value to the hour?

No matter whether you’re the boss or the person in the entry level position on the job, we all get paid by the hour in one form or another.  We often do spend more time thinking that we’re not getting paid what we’re worth than we do evaluating whether we are bringing value to the hour.  We often spend more time doing busy work to make the hours pass quickly than we do in making the hours count when it comes to the success of the organization or even our own businesses.  In some ways, it’s hard to fight, because it’s human nature.

But if we focus more on adding value to the hour, we set the stage for change, and send very strong messages:

• We tell our employers that we’re worth more.  When your employer knows you are worth more they are more likely to value you to a greater extent.  This might mean more pay now or at some point in the future, but recognition of worth may also come in other forms, such as thank you notes, improvements in working conditions, increased flexibility in working hours or choice of assignments, education and training, and so on.
• We tell our employers that we can do more.  Bringing value to the hour tells your employer that you want more, and that you’re ready for more.  You don’t get to be “next in line” for a promotion simply by showing up and putting in your time.  Smart business owners promote and reward employees who add value to the time they’re putting in.
• We tell our customers that we care about them.  If you’re just showing up for the paycheck, believe me, customers can tell.  Employee indifference accounts for customer defection in 7 out of 10 cases (which also tells you that there are an awful lot of people just showing up for the paychecks out there!)

And this is not just a message for employees.  No one, at any level of an organization, gets to rest on their laurels if they want their business to be successful.   The same rules that apply in a small organization, where it’s easy to see who is bringing value to the hour, apply in a large one.

Because the people who bring value to the hour aren’t just investing in the organization, they’re investing in themselves. Whether or not their success comes in that organization, or in another one, or within their own business in the future.  The question is, are you bringing value to the hour?

RELATED ARTICLES:

The Secret to Getting More Customers in 2013 (365 days of marketing)
How to Make Employees Care About Your Business (365 days of marketing)

In these last weeks of 2013, I hope that you’ve found a few moments to sit down with your business plan for the new year and map out your own 2013 marketing calendar (or mark up one of mine, by adding your own events, holidays, offers and promotions) all of the ways you plan to work to attract new customers, engage them, motivate them to take the actions you want them to take and keep them coming back, and hopefully keep them coming back more often than they did before.

Because isn’t that what marketing is really all about?  If you’re spending time on activities that aren’t meant to achieve one (or more, or all) of those 4 goals:  attracting clients, engaging clients, motivating clients or retaining clients, then you are spending time on marketing activities that aren’t about marketing (and may be a waste of time and money).

With that in mind, I’m going to suggest that during the coming year, you tweak your 2013 marketing plan in four ways that will get you more focused on those four marketing goals, so that the time and money you spend on marketing activities actually helps you get more customers.

So that your marketing plan helps you get your customers more engaged with your business, so that they are more likely to purchase more stuff from your business and to return for your services more often.

So that these customers that you have attracted and who are now interested in your business will then be motivated to take the actions you want them to take, like referring friends and family to your business, attending events, participating in rewards programs, purchasing packages or signing up for long term commitments.

And so that these customers you’ve attracted and engaged and who are now motivated to take the actions you want them to take then keep coming back, identify themselves as connected with the brand of your business and begin to feel like they wouldn’t, couldn’t possibly go anywhere else.

Here are 4 ways to tweak your 2013 marketing calendar so that you can attract, engage, motivate and retain more customers in the New Year:

1.  Make it more systematic.  While it doesn’t sound very marketing-sexy, consistency of brand presentation and frequency go hand in hand. Building a bigger role in the lives of your clients depends on your actually being present in their lives, and you can’t do that if you’re not engaged in systematic, scheduled and timely communications both online and off.

2.  Make it bolder.  People are busy. Even if what your business provides is something they desperately need, is far superior to competing products or services or can make the lives of members of your target markets infinitely better, you still have to break through the marketing clutter in order to get their attention.

3.  Make it more seductive.  People don’t want to be sold, they want to be seduced.  They want to be attracted, to feel the allure of something, feel the desire for something and then choose to obtain that something for themselves.  No matter what business you are in, your business needs to be attractive – irresistibly alluring – to members of your target audience.

4.  Make it more focused.  Gas stations and grocery stores have broad target markets, in fact, they can afford to be “everything to everyone” when it comes to their approach to marketing, advertising, events and promotions.  But it’s likely that your business cannot.  Make sure that your 2013 marketing plan is focused on marketing that is specifically tailored to members of your target markets and ideal client types.  Being more focused in your strategy and tactics is the only way to attract more individuals who fall within these categories.

It’s very nearly 2013 and my hope is that your 2013 marketing calendar will help you build a bigger role for your business in the lives of your clients, prospects, employees and community.  It’s going to be a great year!

RELATED ARTICLES: Want more marketing secrets for small business?  Find out what’s in 12 Ways to Cheat at Marketing: The 2013 Small Business Marketing Calendar

Elizabeth