Grassroots Marketing: Not Only For Political Campaigns

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If you are not a believer is grassroots marketing by now, then we do not know what rock you have been hiding under. Many times it is not as glamorous, it does not take a huge budget, it simply takes a strategic approach to understanding your audience.

I recently read the story of how Pandora’s Tim Westergren got his company off of the ground. If you have time, you should look his story up. After maxing out his credit cards, he turned to the faithful approach of working his ground game. As you will be able to see if you look up the Pandora story, this approach is not just for politicians. Tim Westergren decided that he was going to connect with his audience, find out what they like, and strategically share that with others.

The take-a-way is that communication campaigns do not have to cost a fortune. With the onset of social media, one can run an international campaign from their home office anywhere in the world. The key is understanding your audience and how they like to be communicated with on a regular basis.

Your homework is to take a step back to examine every facet of your audience. Many have worked with what they feel is the same core audience for years. A communicators worst mistake is assuming that their audience will stay the same forever. From taking a step back and looking at your audience objectively, you may find the need to tweak a few elements of your strategy. It’s amazing how a few simple adjustments can change the success of a communication campaign. If you have reassessed your audience recently, let us know what you learned and what changes you made. This type of information is what helps us all to grow.

Expand Your Business Literacy

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As marketing and public relations professionals (or someone that may wear this hat), it is extremely important that you increase your business literacy. In order to have a stellar marketing and communication plan, it is necessary to have an in depth understanding of the business.

Here are a few suggestions on what you can do to learn more about the business that you are in:

1. Understand the hierarchy. Who reports to whom and who makes what decisions.

2. How does your organization make a profit? Which products or services have the largest profit margin?

3. What is the length of time it takes to turn a profit in your organization?

4. What are the short and long term goals of your company?

5. How can you add value to the organization?

America’s Top Brand –At Least for 1 More Day–The Race to the White House

Brand managers can learn a lot from this election!

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When asked what the top recognizable brands are in the United States today, one might say Apple, Coke, or even Dell. Actually, what is dominating the consciousness of most Americans at this moment is ‘The Race to the White House.’ As brand managers, it does not matter your political affiliation when it comes to analyzing the communication strategy choices made by each campaign. Here are some lessons that I have pulled from all of the political excitement:

1. Stay on message. If you run a business that has several spokespeople, then you will need to review your key messages and disseminate that information accordingly. Think about the many examples that have come out of the campaign when individuals veered off message.

2.Fully define your product or service. Romney struggled in the beginning because many had an impression of who he was, but did not KNOW him as an individual. Once his campaign began to better define his personal brand, he merged to the forefront of the other republican candidates. Make sure that your product or service is defined in a way that your target audience can fully understand what you are offering.

3. Brand advocates are your friend. You can not be in multiple places at one time. One thing that we can learn from the Obama camp is the art if growing your brand advocates. These individuals can work areas of your target market that you may not have the time to work.

4. Fact check everything. It is not worth tarnishing your brand by including false information in your communication strategy. Once your target audience realizes you are giving out false information, you may never get that person to trust your brand again.

5. React quickly. No one can tell your story like you can. When something is publicly stated incorrectly about your brand, correct it quickly and with facts. To sum it up, abide by this rule: Accept responsibility where appropriate, reinforce what you stand for, and emphasize the positive.

I know that there are many more lessons that a PR specialist can pull from the current political contest. Please respectfully share your lessons learned in the comment section. We are not looking for political preference, but simply the communication strategy elements that we can all apply to our PR functions.

Marketing is Visual

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The popularity of sites like Pinterest and Instagram have added to the importance of visual marketing. Take this opportunity to review your brand visually. Look at the images that you are putting forth. Are the images saying what you would like them to say about your brand?

It is also important to look at the fonts you are using, the colors that are associated with your brand, and the artwork that you may use. People by nature are visual, take this opportunity to align your visual image with your brand.

Customer Experience

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Have you ever thought about the experience that your customers have when they engage with your business?

One of the keys to creating a loyal customer base is to make sure that each time the customer concludes an interaction with your organization, he/she leaves satisfied. Many of us are fortunate enough to eat at nice restaurants regularly. One of the tactics that the best restaurants use is the idea of creating the best customer dining experience that they can create.

No matter what type of company you work in, work to make sure you are creating the best customer experience that you can create. You can work on anything from the way the phone is answered to providing fresh baked cookies to everyone that comes in your store. Take some time to think of ways to make your ‘customer experience’ tie into your brand identity. This change could be the difference in a one time customer and a customer for life.

Feel free to leave a comment about how you are currently managing your customer experience, what you plan to do in the future to better manage the customer experience, or a company that you feel provides the ultimate customer experience.

100 Days of Blogging

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It’s time to put what the experts say to the test! You probably hear all of the time that ‘content is king and consistency is vital.’ So, Selsi Enterprises has come up with a simple project. We are going to put out great content on a consistent basis for the next 100 days.

We would like to have some of you join us in this effort. The more people that join in, the better we will be able to test our theory. Leave us a comment if you are interested in diving in with us. When you share your blog post with the world, use the hash tag #100Days.

Happy blogging!