Just as leftover Thanksgiving turkey has been remastered over the years, your marketing also needs to be reviewed periodically for freshness. Now while we at I2D are sticklers for promoting brand consistency, that’s never to be at the expense of blending-in with the wallpaper.  People are creatures of habit. If your advertising is part of that habit, it’s like driving to work and trying to remember if you’d locked the front door. When you do something over and over, or see the same thing over and over, it becomes just background noise.

Just take a little extra time before reordering that printed material, before clicking “Send” on your Email  newsletter, before signing off on the contract renewal. Take a few minutes to step back from your desk, and really look at what you’re about to do to market your business. These days, it’s tough enough to drive customers to your company. So, taking the time to really look at your creative, your message, your medium, and your overall marketing plan makes more sense than ever.

Don’t get leftover laziness, breathe new life into your marketing efforts! Call Inspired 2 Design before setting the timer on your Microwave Marketing … we’re here to help!

Best Bet: place the Flash elements inside an HTML page. The HTML content, metatags, and offsite SEM
make the site lighter and search engine friendly.

Look to Inspired 2 Design for the right advice on how to get the most from your print and internet advertising.

Our team consists of Burke O. Archer from Thompson & Cline PC attorneys at law in downtown Canton, Kathy Stroup Assistant Vice President and Branch Manager of First Cherokee State Bank in Canton, Wendy Corlett of Acclaim Professional Services, myself, and our new addition: Jey Willis, independent State Farm agent located in Riverstone on Reinhardt College Parkway.

We had a great time getting to know one another better, and growing in mutual respect for each other’s talents and experience in their respective fields.  We each presented our outlines and critiqued each other’s material and presentation method, and it was unanimous: we’re in it to help people succeed. We’re very excited, and look forward to a great turnout, then to taking it on the road west to Cartersville and south to Woodstock, and who knows from there.

The seminar is designed for two groups: the person considering starting his/her own business, and the person who’s already begun. With the turbulent economic times we’re all dealing with, what better time to build a team of experienced, willing professionals to help guide you through.

Look for more information to come as we finalize the details and get the marketing out there. In the meantime, mark your calendar for Tuesday, February 3rd, from 7-9pm at the new Best Western on Transit Avenue in Canton. Our website is ready to take registrations - don’t wait because space is limited. Go to www.newbusinesscherokee.com and reserve your seat - the event is totally free! We’ll also have door prizes to give away, and refreshments.

Be sure to stop by 2960 Marietta Highway in south Canton with your donation, or they’ll accept cash donations of $5 or more too.

What a great way to promote your business AND offer something back for the community! Healthsprout is joined by HOCOA Atlanta, Edward Jones - Kelly Geiken’s Office, Cartridge Depot, Cherokee Trophies, Clear Conscience and Inspired 2 Design on this event. Contact us at 770-781-3452 for information on how to plan a promotional event at your business!

The environment was of course, friendly and festive. The food was great (great marketing too as each dish featured a box, jar, or bottle of some delicious food gift featured at the shop), the door prizes were abundant (love the ornaments I won), the 20% discount was generous (but I had a hard time making a choice tonight), and the hostess was so attentive to her guests.

There was a great turnout as is the norm for the chamber, lots of new faces to welcome in, and familiar ones to catch up with.

Congratulations Ben Duncan of Power Promotions on the birth of your son!

Welcome:
Joe and Cindy of Caden Inc - general contractors focusing on interior build-outs and remodels for stores, offices and homes - Joe makes a great Santa for naughty OR nice.
James Dault of Sweetwater Growers - fabulous Canton-grown herbs and herb infused oils - available at Whole Foods, Kroger and Betsy’s!

We look forward to more great networking events! For info about the marketing benefits of joining your local chamber, or info about the Southeast Cherokee Business Network (SECBN), contact Inspired 2 Design.

• Sales Sales Sales - even the newest merchandise will hit the shelves at a discount
• Perks - look for retailers to add customer service extras like gift wrapping, bonus buys, special events…
• Internet usage- with the demise of direct mail, and the expense of catalogs, retailers and specialty stores will be focusing on email marketing, online only discounts, and free shipping.  The quick-change ability of the internet makes the medium ideal for reacting to competitors, late trend development, consumer preferences and overstocks
• Huge inventory - because retailers didn’t see the economic downturn coming, they ordered for a typical season. This means the selection will be incredible, and the prices too.

Bottom line, this year is a year to watch the marketing efforts of stores nationwide. Look for highs and lows, keep up on the news, and hold off on shopping until Black Friday or later, you’ll likely be able to scoop up incredible buys. After Christmas, buy big, because you can bet on inventory reduction sales below cost, and you won’t see future inventories or selection anywhere near what we’ve seen in the past.

10 step plan:

1. Describe your target market.
Be as specific as you can be in identifying and describing what the ideal customer looks like, and how they make buying decisions.

2. Gather information that describes the current market so you can position yourself correctly.
Who are your competitors? What they are doing? What they aren’t doing? What are the current trends?
Sources:
Trade publications
The public library
Small Business Development Center (like the one at Kennesaw State)
Government websites
Industry related blogs, news, articles and newsletters

3. State your marketing objective.
Describe what you want your customer to do after hearing, seeing, or experiencing your marketing message, may be requesting more info, an estimate, an appointment, a purchase, a consultation…

4. Describe your competitive advantage (some call it your USP - unique selling proposition).
Why is your product or service THE one to buy? What problems do you solve that no one else does?

5. Position yourself (branding comes into play here…)
How will you be remembered? What will customers and prospects think when they hear your name? Who are you and who do you want to be? Your brand must be believable.

6. Identify your message vehicles.
How will you deliver your message? What are competitors doing and what will you do? Include advertising, publicity, public relations, networking. How will you create buzz?

7. Develop your identity/look, and flaunt it.
Customers learn to trust you based on your actions, not your business card. However once you develop a reputation, people will judge you by your looks and remember you by your logo, your business card, your storefront, signs etc.

8. Set your marketing budget, most often as a percentage of projected gross sales.
In 2007 the average U.S. business reinvested 4% of gross revenue in marketing. You may need to double that in the first few years of your business, in spite of any economic downturn.

9. Create a marketing calendar for the year ahead. Revist your plan quarterly. Consider what has worked and what didn’t. Make appropriate adjustments.

10. Call in a professional, like Inspired 2 Design. We help small businesses make the right choices for all 9 of the marketing steps listed above.

The key to the success of phone directory advertising lies in the fact that people who call you or visit your store after finding your business in them, are actively seeking a product or service. Chances are very very good that those people are ready to make a purchase. Because of that, there’s a FEAR that if you’re not in the book, and your competition is, well… you know who’s going to make THAT sale.

All else being equal, that fear is often realized. If a customer is ready to buy and they don’t know about you, but find your competitor, they will not buy from you. The question is then, do you need to list your business in the printed yellow pages directory (where you’ll contract for 1 year and pay dearly (oops, I mean monthly) for the ad).

So, what’s a business to do?

Considering that times have drastically changed since 1883 and the fact that the internet has grown faster than any other media in history, why would any business put hundreds of dollars a month into print directory advertising? The newest research shows that print directory references are dropping, while internet searches (using search engines, internet yellow pages, and local search sites) is increasing exponentially.

So where should your money go?
>Google Adwords is tough competition - and why pay for what you can get organically with the right SEO (contact Inspired 2 Design for info on optimization). We have three clients who’ve tried Google Adwords without much success (more clicks, but no additional sales), or
>Superpages.com is worth a look, but even local search returns national, unrelated results that pop to the top, above your listing.

Our pick:
>Hyper-local mini-city sites like CantonGeorgiaDirectory.com and WoodstockGeorgiaDirectory.com make a lot of sense for small and medium sized businesses around town. Offering low cost banner ads, coupons, events, search engine optimization, AND the added feature of email marketing to OPT IN consumer lists - you’re getting so much value for the money. They’ll even provide you with statistics.

The value of consulting with Inspired 2 Design? Help in determining where to spend your advertising dollars. Consult our blog, our articles, or call us BEFORE you make the move.

1. Feel it needs some updating (Coca-Cola, Walmart, Starbucks etc.) all have updated their logo to keep up with the times and trends, or

2. Never received all the files you needed from your designer (you need an .eps file and a high res jpg at the very least), or

3. Created the logo yourself, and really always planned to have a professional one designed, or

4. Don’t have a logo mark or slogan/tagline to brand your company…

Now may be just the time to take care of issues like these. Your company, no matter how big or how small, will benefit from creating, nurturing, and promoting a brand identity. If you aren’t using your logo on EVERYTHING you put out there…you’re missing out. Inspired 2 Design can help you get your existing logo updated, formatted, and polished for use in putting your company’s best face forward.

And if you have a logo and haven’t had it federally protected under U.S. Copyright law… contact Brad Crose at Crose Law. He’s an attorney who specializes in trademarks, copyrights and patents.

Today, MSNBC ran an article on Wal-Mart’s new store design. The Bentonville group watched how customers shopped their stores, then developed a new look and feel to to the store lighting, colors, layouts, displays, and merchandising to give the appearance that customers were getting through the store faster. Not that they actually are, but so that they believe they are… Colors are softer, lifestyle is a focus, as is a distinctive target to women shoppers. All with a focus on low prices, and a personal shopping experience. Clever.

Also today I met a woman who stages homes for a living. Clever. The Realtor says you need to make your home stand out apart from the rest (all else being equal) or lower the price. The stager comes in and strips out personal touches, thins out personal possessions, and generally focuses on making the home look roomy, customizable, and ready to move into. Interesting… seeming is believing here too. The house hasn’t changed, the layout, the lot, the room sizes, yet something is definitely different.

Don’t take this the wrong way, I’m not knocking the industry. I’m not saying either of these techniques is smoke and mirrors. What I am saying is that it’s a great idea to dress up everything you’re selling - no question about it. I’m merely pointing out the subtle ways that marketing makes “seeming into believing” in many cases.

As Halloween approaches, it’s a good time to look around at the marketing masks around us. EVERYTHING is marketing. (Take the political campaigns for instance).  It becomes a sort of challenge trying to determine the marketing goal of everything you’re exposed to. And when you find things that are actually what they seem to be, take notes! You’ve found the best and most effective forms of marketing. Need Help? Contact Inspired 2 Design to discuss your business marketing plan.