Increase Your Market Reach by Using Marketing Campaigns

A well-planned marketing campaign is a great way to generate revenue. A marketing campaign is a series of contacts with your market that delivers a key message.

It takes anywhere from 5-7 contacts (or impressions) before someone will remember your company and your message. The best way to get your audience to remember your contact is to spread it out using different mediums, so you don’t cause burn-out with your audience. How many times have you received an “offer” email that has nothing to do with you, like trying to sell igloos when you live in Florida? And then get another email the next day with the same offer?

Thankfully the CAN-SPAM laws have cut back on the junk mail, but the point is that we need to be creative in the mix mediums we choose to use to reach our audience with those 5-7 impressions.

Marketing campaigns include many different types of media, such as:

• Online marketing (email, online newsletters, blogs, search, banners viral messages)
• Public relations (press releases, direct pitches, media interviews, speaking engagements)
• Direct mail (brochures, flyers, premiums)
• Events (seminars, networking, trade shows, web events)
• Traditional media (advertising, radio, television and other “traditional” media)
• Telemarketing
• Sales Force

Experiment with different media for your campaign. For instance, for a particular segment of your customer base (perhaps by industry or region) and develop a tailored message and deliver it thorough 4-5 different mediums. Craft a press release, develop a flyer, email message, webcast and telemarketing effort. Find out what works and run with it!

I will be giving a webcast on this topic on Wednesday, June 6th at 1PM EDT. I will be going through a case study to show the various steps a marketing campaign goes through, and how to track the ROI. You can find out more about the webcast or register at Marketing Campaign Webcast.

Why is thought leadership so important?

Welcome to our OnMarketing blog. Here is a place to share and receive marketing kernels of truth, tips and advice – and pass on the passion we have for ideas that work (i.e. generate revenue).

Online Thought Leadership Reaches Buyers When Advertising Doesn't, Says Viral Marketing Expert

I found this release this week, and it reminded me of the importance - especially for professional service firms - thought leadership plays in the strategic marketing role.

Many service firms sell themselves on their "expertise" and yet, when you dig through their websites, there are few, or else old, articles published, and you can’t find any current speaking engagements. If you are going to sell yourselves as an "expert,” then you need to be giving advice regularly. Whether it is through media mentions, authored articles published in trade publications, books, seminars or webcasts - you need to demonstrate that you are an expert HERE and NOW.

This release caught my eye when I read how "The content that they create will be a solution to those people's problems and will not mention the company or products at all!"

One of the best ways to "impart knowledge" is to demonstrate through case studies, or technical examples, how or why something is the way it is. You don't have to "sell" your product or service, if the audience realizes you are an expert in what you are talking about, guess what? They're going to call you to fix their problem.

A few ways to spread the viral marketing word…

• Authored articles and white papers (technical papers)
• Media interviews
• Press releases
• Webcasts (or Webinars or Online Seminars – whatever you prefer)
• Blogs
• Podcasts
• Electronic newsletters
• Target emails
  

All of these can demonstrate to your market that you really ARE an expert, and not just because you say so.