Video – video marketing is becoming more and more mainstream. Use them for testimonials, to explain a concept on your site, for product tutorials, or even to share great content on your area of expertise. The good news is you don’t need to necessarily invest in high cost camera work or production. Instead you can use a good webcam or video on your phone and edit with low cost software yourself.  You can house your videos for free on your own You Tube channel (also the second largest search engine after Google) and embed from there onto your site or blog.

Engagement - with the economy still being vicarious, solidifying relationships with your network, prospects and clients is key. It’s not enough to just have a Twitter account without posting, following and engaging others. Plan ways to get people to truly connect with you – ask questions, respond to comments, hold contests, and automate some of your communications to ensure you don’t drop the ball.

Leverage Mobile Technology – it’s interesting to look at your Google Analytics for your site and see how much traffic is coming these days from mobile devices. Converting your site to operate correctly on smartphones should be your next major web development. Consider creating useful apps and make sure you take advantage of QR codes to share information, not to mention for better tracking of your marketing initiatives.

Moving the Free Line – if giving something for free has become the norm in your industry, consider upping your game. Look at your products and services. Are there some low cost opportunities that you can now give away, something your competitor’s would actually charge for? Consider giving this away for free and offering an even better quality paid product or service. Crazy, I know, but effective!

Whatever you do, make sure, as usual, you focus on your sweet spot and you differentiate yourself from the competition. Strategy before tactics is like an ounce of prevention for a pound of cure!

Killer … see below.

•  Look outside your industry. I love the story my friend and peer Troy White once told me about a lobster ranch in Maine. Instead of competing against all the other lobster ranches to get local business they adopted an unheard model of membership. That’s right you bought a membership and a share of your very own lobster trap. You could receive updates on how your trap was doing and of course you received your share of lobsters. Now of course, memberships aren’t new….think time shares as a great parallel. What made this is so original was integrating this great experience into a new market.

•  Create services for your products or products from your services. Are you limiting what you offer as a small business? A great creative way to not only wow your customers but to continue to engage them is by offering that complimentary service or experience to a product, or a product to a service/experience. Look at Starbucks. Do you really think it’s their coffee that made them successful or was it the atmosphere and flexibility around the product offerings that make it so popular? Of course you have to look at Apple as well. Think about the commercials you have seen lately. Do they focus on the features of the iPhone or more about the apps you can use to make your life easier, more productive or just plain old fun? This same principle can apply to a small business. Remember these companies started out small too!

• Throw in the Kitchen Sink. I love this simple yet effective concept from Martha Beck. If you are trying to solve a problem and can`t come up with a creative solution, stop thinking about the problem. Instead engage in random activities. Read blog posts on the arts, business and medicine. Take your dog for a walk and then start knitting that sweater. When you get those great epiphanies they usually come when you start focusing on something else.

• Get outside feedback. I recall hearing Malcolm Gladwell speak and someone asked him how he came up with his brilliant ideas. He stated that quite frankly his original ideas weren`t all that good. But when we share our ideas with others and get their insight, our ideas become great. The problem in business is that we are scared to share our ideas in fear that someone will inherit them. Get over it and start asking for feedback and turn your ideas into gold.

While many of the examples or individuals mentioned here are famous or have gone on to achieve considerable success, this doesn`t mean that you have to hit a creative ball right out of the park. But I do know this. If you stop trying to think out of the box, your business is highly unlikely to get to that next level. Success is about growth and growth is about change and change comes from adapting a different approach. So it`s time to put on that thinking cap.

Do I need a Google+ Business page now? I don’t even know what Google+ is.

I’m on Facebook and posting regularly but not seeing any results.

I hate my website! Should changing it be my main focus?

I am 10 pages away from the first page of Google – I need to fix this now!

Direct Mail is dead.

I will NEVER Twitter.

I’m on LinkedIn but I really don’t want to connect with ½ those people approaching me!

I’ve tried EVERYTHING and NOTHING works!

It’s sad. There have never been more affordable and effective marketing tools at the fingertips of small businesses, and yet here we are – overworked, overwhelmed and feeling completely FRUSTRATED!

You know I’m going to tell you to start with strategy. Strategy always pays off. You know I’m going to also tell you to get your branding and content strong and consistent so you are effective in converting leads. ONCE you have done this and are READY for TACTICS then…..

Take a deep breath, relax and regroup. There is a great analogy you may have heard. “How do you eat an elephant (or for you vegetarians, think an entire vegetable patch)?” The Answer – “One Bite At A Time.” It’s time to stop trying to eat the elephant for tonight’s dinner and determine what bite you want to take first.

In other words you want to avoid being the Jack of all Marketing tactics, the master of none. You don’t need to master them all to be successful. Pick 1 – 3 you want to master this year – that’s it!

So where do you start?

Start with one(s) that you enjoy

 and

one(s) that provides you a big bang for your buck (and your time)

You might be thinking okay I know what I enjoy, but how the HECK do I know if it’s going to pay off?

Ask yourself this:

Do I feel I have control over the results (in other words, where I do it, how much I do, when I do it, etc.)?

Can I afford to do it consistently both in time & money – day or week in & day or week out?

Do I know other business owners similar to me who have had results doing this activity that I can glean advice from or pay to help me?

If you can answer yes to these 3 questions…you are on the right track to finding a high pay off activity. Start there, stick with it and let the other shiny objects sit in your toy box for now!

•  Look outside your industry. I love the story my friend and peer Troy White once told me about a lobster ranch in Maine. Instead of competing against all the other lobster ranches to get local business they adopted an unheard model of membership. That’s right you bought a membership and a share of your very own lobster trap. You could receive updates on how your trap was doing and of course you received your share of lobsters. Now of course, memberships aren’t new….think time shares as a great parallel. What made this is so original was integrating this great experience into a new market.

•  Create services for your products or products from your services. Are you limiting what you offer as a small business? A great creative way to not only wow your customers but to continue to engage them is by offering that complimentary service or experience to a product, or a product to a service/experience. Look at Starbucks. Do you really think it’s their coffee that made them successful or was it the atmosphere and flexibility around the product offerings that make it so popular? Of course you have to look at Apple as well. Think about the commercials you have seen lately. Do they focus on the features of the iPhone or more about the apps you can use to make your life easier, more productive or just plain old fun? This same principle can apply to a small business. Remember these companies started out small too!

• Throw in the Kitchen Sink. I love this simple yet effective concept from Martha Beck. If you are trying to solve a problem and can`t come up with a creative solution, stop thinking about the problem. Instead engage in random activities. Read blog posts on the arts, business and medicine. Take your dog for a walk and then start knitting that sweater. When you get those great epiphanies they usually come when you start focusing on something else.

• Get outside feedback. I recall hearing Malcolm Gladwell speak and someone asked him how he came up with his brilliant ideas. He stated that quite frankly his original ideas weren`t all that good. But when we share our ideas with others and get their insight, our ideas become great. The problem in business is that we are scared to share our ideas in fear that someone will inherit them. Get over it and start asking for feedback and turn your ideas into gold.

While many of the examples or individuals mentioned here are famous or have gone on to achieve considerable success, this doesn`t mean that you have to hit a creative ball right out of the park. But I do know this. If you stop trying to think out of the box, your business is highly unlikely to get to that next level. Success is about growth and growth is about change and change comes from adapting a different approach. So it`s time to put on that thinking cap.

There actually is a price you can put on that question (and it’s a cheap one!). On November 7th at Jack Singer Concert Hall in Calgary, there will be a very special event called the Art of Leadership.

Here is who you can see speak live and in-person:

Patrick Lencioni

Teamwork & Organizational Development

Founder of The Table Group & New York Times Bestselling Author of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team & Getting Naked

Robin Sharma

Lead Without A Title

International Bestselling Author of 11 Books Including, The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari & The Leader Who Had No Title

Susan Scott

Fierce Leadership

New York Times Bestselling Author of Fierce Leadership

Leonard Brody

The Myth of Generations

Two Time Emmy Nominee & Bestselling Author, Innovation Nation

Stephen Shapiro

Leading a Culture of Innovation

Innovation Consultant & Bestselling Author of Personality Poker & Best Practices Are Stupid

General Rick Hillier

Leading Change & People Development

Former Chief of the Defence Staff of the Canadian Forces & Bestselling Author of Leadership

How much would you expect to pay for a day like this?

The good people at The Art Of Leadership wanted to make a special offer to those of you who are connected here in this community, so here’s the deal you can save $50 per ticket or $100 per ticket when you book 3 or more simply by adding the promo code SFS23 when you register

What are you waiting for? Register for The Art of Leadership here and leave your comments below.

Then as the months and years go by our focus becomes first on survival and then on sustainable growth.

As we grow, we might add some different service or product offerings, change our pricing, hire more staff, and even make operations more efficient. As a result of our efforts, our companies continue to tick along nicely.

Except for two things:

1. Our company still isn’t #1, and
2. We still aren’t taking the world by storm.

Typically at this point, we find ourselves stuck in the mediocrity trap, frustrated that our businesses aren’t making the money we feel they should be for the efforts we are putting in. So how can you shift from blasé to brilliant? For a start, you need to take a closer look at how you are servicing your customers and what you can do to enhance the “Wow Factor.”

Now, you might be asking how this relates to marketing. After all, I’m suggesting you focus more after the sale takes place and marketing is typically considered a pre-sale activity. Yet think about the amazing success stories you know about businesses out there. Maybe it’s Starbucks or a particular business book? Did Starbucks really become successful because of their coffee or was it the great experience people had… lounging around on comfy couches or being able to order their own customized version of what can only loosely be called a cup of coffee? Did you buy that last business book because of the content or because two or three people found it impacted them in a positive fashion?

According to Economy Watch one of the leading successful characteristics amongst industry leaders is brand awareness. They explain that the brands of industry leaders are requested more often because of their acceptance and popularity. In other words, there is a belief that these products or service will better fulfill their customers’ needs. While certainly some of this brand support comes from advertising channels, think about your own buying habits. Aren’t your most powerful influences coming from what OTHERS have to say about their experience with that product or brand?

Believe me if there is an area where most people miss a big and inexpensive marketing opportunity it’s finding ways to WOW their customers. So why not spend some time asking yourself,

“What can we do in the next year to be EXCEPTIONAL?”

• Start by asking your customers where they feel you could improve or, if they ran your company, what changes would they incorporate to take it to #1?
• Look for more ways to thank your customers and show your appreciation.
• Enhance your communication strategy to stay in better contact long term with your customers even after you finish servicing their needs.
• Look for ways to hone your offerings to provide a better and unique experience.
• Look for ways to pleasantly surprise your customers.  In other words, what can you do to OVERDELIVER and then OVERDELIVER again?
• Have another look at your competitors and other innovators in your industry and grade yourself against what they are doing?
• Look outside your industry for something truly creative?
• Bone up on books or blogs about enhancing the customer experience.

You can see there are a myriad of activities you can do to pull yourself and your company out of settling for “just average.”  Even if you were to focus on incorporating one improvement every quarter you would be well on your way to that number 1 spot.  The challenge you need to put forward to yourself is am I willing to take a few steps towards excellence starting now?

After all…

“The most splendid achievement of all is the constant striving to surpass yourself and to be worthy of your own approval.”

Denis Waitley

Step One – Let’s start with an easy one. Put it up on your website. Make sure you have some common search terms in there so Google can index it and increase your relevance for these terms.

Step Two – Send it out in your newsletter. Don’t have a newsletter? Set one up now. Constant Contact offers a free 30 day Trial and has templates pre-built.

Step Three – Post it on your blog.  Don’t have a blog?  Set one up now. WordPress is by far the leading blog software and will allow you to set one up for free in 5 minutes. You can also get some help and have it integrate right into your site.

Step Four – Submit it your industry or regional publications and to the media. Don’t have a list of relevant publications or media contacts? Call up your library and ask them if they carry a recent copy of the Gale Directory of Publications and Broadcast Media or if they have a local list of such publications (if your focus is the local market). Gale Directories cover media and publication listings all over the world. See if the library can create a list otherwise make time now in your calendar to go down there and compile the list yourself.

Step Five – Submit it to online article sites like http://www.ezinearticles.com. It’s free to sign up and takes only minutes to submit and link the article back to your site.

Step Six – Take out 5 – 10 little one sentence snippets and create small posts. Post these snippets on Facebook and/or your Facebook Business Page, Twitter, Linked In and Google +. If you don’t have any of these of profiles, set them up.  If you want to make posting to these sites easy, set up a tool such as HootSuite (again free) to submit posts to all your social media sites in one click of a button.

Step Seven – Insert into a Word File titled “MY Book” or “MY e-Book” or “Another great free report”. Place it into the chapter where it would belong so that over time you have created a larger publication and also so you start to put themes around future content (to fill in blanks).

Step Eight – Create an online Ad – This could be on a Chamber online newsletter, Google, Linked In or Facebook.  Link back to the article on your site and have a call to action at the top and the bottom such as subscribing to your Free Tips or a Free Assessment or a trial product or service.  Set it up for one week only and put a small budget on it like $40 – $50 and then watch the traffic to your site and measure results.

Step Nine – Send it out in the mail to prospects.  Include a nice introductory letter outlining your interest in servicing business like theirs, a special offer and this very helpful article. Don’t have a mailing list? Try InfoCanada or InfoUSA and create one today. Dun and Bradstreet also has great lists.

Step Ten – Use it at your next live event (networking, tradeshow, sales presentation). Think of it as a large business card and include your contact details and a call to action on the back.

Content is valuable.  It takes you time to create and is designed to help both your present and future customers.  Make sure you take advantage of ALL the avenues available to you or you aren’t marketing as effectively as you can.

Well you’re right.  If you are in fact exceptional at what you do, have a ton of experience or are sitting on a leading edge breakthrough it’s time to start adding some PR to the mix.

What exactly is Public Relations?

According to Wikipedia, it is “The practice of managing communication between an organization and its publics.  PR provides an organization or individual exposure to their audiences using topics of public interest and news items that provide a third-party endorsement and do not involve a direct payment.”

That’s right, public relations is when a third party endorses your public interest and news stories for FREE!  It differs from a referral which refers your products and services and differs from advertising because you don’t pay for it.  But it can be one of your strongest tactics for attracting and closing business.

Who are your Publics?

Typically a small business owner is trying to position themselves as an industry leader to:

• Customers
• Prospects
• Circles of Influence (Peers, Media, Strategic Partners, Industry leaders)
• The general public, and possibly
• Investors and/or employees

There are 4 key activities you can leverage to reach these publics.  Some or all of these may apply depending on your personality, speaking skills and level of expertise. They are:

1. Speaking online (webinars, videos) and offline (conferences, associations)
2. Writing online (blogs, online publications) and offline(magazines, newspapers, newsletters)
3. Working with the media
4. Social media engagement

Let’s have a look at each of these.

Speaking

Unless you are looking to become a professional speaker, speaking should be a way for you to capture leads (see Speak for Leads). Speaking allows an audience to not only get to know you, but to determine if they like what you have to say and if they think you really know your stuff. If you are worried about your speaking skills, look into public speaking courses through associations like Toastmasters. Chances are there are plenty of industry and special interest groups that can benefit from your wisdom and a lot of stressed out events people who will be relieved to have a great speaker for their audiences. Speaking can take many forms. It’s not only about being invited to speak to a group live.  It can also include recording yourself with a webcam or smartphone and posting it on YouTube, your site and other company’s sites. You can be a guest on a webinar, or blog radio show. The possibilities are endless and the other great bonus is, it provides you with new content you can use for our next section…..

Writing

You’re hearing it everywhere now, and I know I keep saying it over and over. Content is king. For service based companies this is how you SHOW your expertise. Even product based firms can benefit in sharing product specs, testing and demos. Start by creating your own articles for your own newsletters and posting those articles:

• On your site
• Via your social networks
• On your blog
• On article submission sites, and
• Via strategic alliance channels (newsletters, sites)

Don’t shy away from approaching free magazines and publications (online and offline), to see if they might like to make you a regular contributor.

Working with the media

The first key step to working with the media is to identify exactly who you should be talking to. This means you need to start collecting the names of Newspaper reporters for relevant sections, TV and Radio Producers and editors of magazines and publications. Don’t forget those important thought leaders online as well!

Secondly start to listen and follow these media sources.  Set up RSS feeds for their name in Google News Alerts, follow their blogs, connect with them on social media sites and lastly subscribe to HARO.

The third step is to start communicating with them via their blogs, social media, online press releases and through pitching them your ideas. Share new trends, an interesting angle to a topical, major event, awards or recognitions or new innovations.

Once you get coverage, you can post this on your site and share it with your networks for even more credibility power. Don’t forget to also follow up and thank them for the coverage and measure your results.

Social Media and Online

While I’ve touched on this throughout the article, you should be looking for ways to increase your own star power via Social Media. A great place to measure where you are and where you need to go is through a site called KLOUT. Find influencers in your industry and look for ways to get more engaged online.  Many of today’s top experts are products of a strong online presence. It shouldn’t be an area you overlook.

Upping your PR may be adding some major to-do’s to your list or to the list of an already overworked employee, but these are important and effective actions every company should take. Assuming you are passionate about what your company does for a living, doesn’t it only seem right that you should be educating the public on the benefits you can offer to others and the problems your products or services can solve? Find a way to get it done!

If you think “Why? It’s less than a month old. How big can it be?”

You need to know that in its tiny life span it has already exceeded 20 million users (something that took both Facebook & Twitter 3 years to do). That means Google+ might be the newest entry in the social media ring, but it’s definitely in the “heavyweight” division. It has created a platform that quite frankly melds the worlds of Facebook, Twitter, and Skype.

So why would a business look to jump on the Google+ bandwagon?

Reason #1 – It’s another place to claim your online real estate. If you haven’t already, you should start by setting up a Gmail account and then your personal Google Profile and make it public. If you have one and it’s private, Google may have already deleted it. Not only does Google+ revolve around your Google profile, but once you set it up, it will probably rank at the top of the first page of Google with links to your site, blog, etc. How great is that!

Make sure to fill your profile out with a ton of valuable information about you and your company. By the way, at this point Google+ is set up to work with People profiles only…their business version of this tool is expected to hit later this year, so you need to start by creating a personal profile first.

Reason #2 – Getting in early makes it easy for people to find you. When you launch Google+ you will see that it immediately lists a ton of possible people you might know and within seconds you can drag and drop them into groups called “Circles.” These mean you can segregate and communicate with different sets of contacts from Family, Friends, Co-Workers, Acquaintances, etc. If you join late and people don’t see you or can’t find you, you’re going to be the one doing all the legwork to find them later on. Right now, Google+ has made connecting with contacts even easier in that you can upload contacts – up to a 100 at a time per day. 

Reason #3 – It’s a haven of business minded individuals. Google+ is attracting an incredibly high percentage of business people and entrepreneurs. This makes it a great arena for B2B companies and for online networking. I certainly don’t just mean small business owners either. I was immediately able to connect with the likes of Michael Dell and Mark Zuckerberg (Not surprisingly, he isn’t saying much, not to mention that Google+ hasn’t started to verify famous profiles so who knows if it’s really him). Unlike Facebook where you have to put out a friend request and then be accepted, Google+ works more like Twitter, where you can add anybody to your Circles. When that person provides updates, they can choose if they want the world to see it or only certain circles. So it’s a nicely structured online networking haven.

Reason #4 – Your Own FREE Virtual Soapbox and Meeting Space – Google+has a function called a Hangout. It’s got some glitches, so you will definitely want to have a test run before you get too carried away with this. But let’s say you want to share a concept about your business (think webinar) – you can start a hangout and either invite people in your circle or publicly. You can only have 10 people on a hangout at any time, but it’s free and it is video chat. Talk about an inexpensive conference call tool.

You can also use it for meetings with collaborators or to present to prospect. It’s not perfect yet, so be careful on the importance of the presentation, would hate to rely on it for a million dollar deal just yet!

Reason #5 – MOST IMPORTANTLY – It can drive a ton of traffic to your site – Since joining Google+, John was saying he’s astounded with the amount of traffic it’s bringing to the Duct Tape Marketing site. Ventureweb.com noted that 67 percent of its online referrals came via Google Plus in one day. The beautiful thing about this is it’s free! Of course it doesn’t just happen. You need to be active on Google+ in terms of posting, and following people and adding them in your circles to see the results.

So I hope if you are completely new to Google+, I have convinced you to a least take a look at it, and for those of you heavily entrenched, I look forward to connecting and hearing about your discoveries.