Man turning knob with different stages of sales process to convert strangers into promoters. Successful inbound marketing campaign concept.

ARE YOU WINNING THE 4TH QUARTER

by ArticlesCommunications
Winning Customers

The Christmas creep is once again upon us and Pumpkin everything is being taken over by early Black Friday sales. Businesses are keying in on how to drive sales, increase consumer interest and create limited-time offers. Where in the mix is Thanksgiving?

If your company is looking to take advantage of seasonal marketing ideas, it’s best to look at some of the biggest brands in your space to see what they do to drive sales and pique consumer interest in your own business. Small businesses can compete by delivering unique products, outstanding customer service and using hashtags in posts that will pop up in social media when consumers are searching.

1. Look for easy seasonal hype
One of the easiest ways to jump into seasonal sales around the holidays is to prepare for and participate in Black Friday sales and holiday shopping days such as Small Business Saturday, which encourages people to shop locally. These days are already ingrained into people’s minds as shopping events, so it’s an easy way to jump on the bandwagon. When plugging into the seasonal sales events be sure to hashtag your social media postings.

We recently worked with a hair salon to help them plan the remainder of the 4th quarter. This included a food drive collection, special pricing on gift cards, bundling of unique products for sale on Small Business Saturday, and posting holiday hours well in advance to ensure clients were able to get their services done. Branded social media images can help increase awareness days and prescheduling posts can save time and eliminate the pressure of last-minute planning.

2. Develop an annual marketing plan
How are you incorporating monthly awareness events and fun days into your social media plan? For example, we worked with a mobile dog groomer and in her social media plan, incorporated “National Cat Day”. Restaurants have “National Taco Day”, “Chocolate Day”, etc. Think about how you can align your business. Did you know in November that it’s Military Family Appreciation Month, Men’s Health Awareness, National Hospice Month, National Literacy Month to name a few? December brings about Cat lovers month, Write a Business Plan Month.

If you are a B to B or a B to C – aligning with some of these causes and adding hashtags will help to increase your brand awareness.

3. Capture Emails and Go from Seasonal to Subscription or stay in touch with news updates
By increasing your email list, you can touch your “fan base” with news, offers, and discounts. Use the list to create a subscription service. For example, restaurants may have a VIP wine club that members pay a fee to belong. What does that get them?  Perhaps access to specialty wines nonmembers can’t experience, wine pairing events, as well as other perks.

If you are a B to B, we utilize a given process to increase your newsletter subscribers. Why is that important? It keeps your company top of mind to supporters and people who you want to do business with. For our construction clients, we share news on new projects, project updates and community involvement.

4. Plan your own seasonal sale
It’s planning ahead to take advantage of one-off discount days. Where I see businesses fall short is they lack the advanced time to promote and plan. Think about your celebration and consider offering this on an annual or quarterly basis.

We work with an eye doctor and they have an annual back to school sale. Every year in August and September they promote this sale. Their customers know it is coming and they are booked solid. They don’t discount prices throughout the year, only at this event.

The holidays may be right around the corner, but by planning ahead, your business can create its unique holiday promotions that will help you increase sales, grow brand awareness and connect with customers. Need help in pulling a plan together? Email us or call 724-612-0755 and ask about our Business Marketing Planning Package.

About the author: Autumn Edmiston is the CEO and owner of the Edmiston Group. The Edmiston Group is a multifaceted Pittsburgh based marketing consulting firm providing senior-level marketing management services to businesses and non-profit organizations on a short or long-term basis. Core areas of service are business development strategies, website creation and management, social media management, marketing, strategic planning, and public relations. The Edmiston Group has consistently delivered and implemented real-world, proven business marketing ideas and strategies for business.

Email Marketing Tips for Effective Newsletters

Email Marketing Tips

by BlogCommunications
Email Marketing Tips for Effective Newsletters

No matter if you are a B2B or B2C, email marketing is a great way to stay in touch with current customers and business colleagues. There are numerous ways you can provide value to your recipients. They can receive special deals or coupons as part of a VIP program, or tips and education as a trusted resource provider.

Engagement makes all the difference with those who receive your email. Often I’m asked by clients, “Why can’t I just buy an email list and send it?” Businesses must stay compliant with the CAN-SPAM Act which was created to protect consumers from unsolicited email. This allows subscribers to opt-in from a signup form or text message program and a way to opt-out from your email. By not abiding by the CAN-SPAM Act, you run the risk of having your email blacklisted by the service delivery providers.

The value of information in your newsletter is key. We write content for our clients and it is important to research relevant topics and create content that’s personalized and relevant. For example, in our marketing calendar, we offer the first of the year we share monthly awareness events and marketing activities. By taking the time to plan out your strategy you know what you will focus on in the months ahead.

Subject Lines Count
Emails start with a strong subject line. Be specific on what the email is about and use a familiar sender name. Actionable subject lines inspire recipients to click on the email by instilling urgency. Make the subject line short and to the point. Shorter is better, and if the message is about an upcoming sale, delineate the specifics in the subject line. If it’s about something else, be specific once again. Bad subject lines are one of the main reasons why emails don’t get opened, so don’t be among that group.

Be Concise And End Strong
As an entrepreneur who does a fair amount of email marketing, I’ve learned that being concise and brief are the keys to success. Breaking up long pieces of information into short paragraphs and bullets help the reader scan the email and read and interpret the most important points.
Email marketing shouldn’t just be a bunch of words. Graphics, pictures and video help to increase click rates.

Include A Single Ask
The reader should know exactly what it is that you want them to do. Some actionable items may include

  • Click on a link to a specific blog post or website
  • Schedule a call with you using a calendar link
  • Redeem this coupon
  • Grow your social media followers.

The goal of your email is to prompt the reader to perform some follow-up action.

If You Aren’t Measuring You Aren’t Marketing – Track Engagement
Look at your reports. If you’re tracking engagement on your email marketing, you will typically be able to send the right amount of information to the people who are engaged the most. Lack of response to a potential customer signing up to learn more and the potential customer receiving a response weeks later, doesn’t leave a good first impression. If a valued client’s email starts bouncing as non-existent – it’s a good time to reach out to see who the new contact would be.

Solve A Problem
What is your customer looking for? Where are their pain points? Offering advice on solutions to problems faced by your customers or colleagues will provide valuable content to those who receive your email.
If your email campaigns are lacking luster, or you struggle with content ideas, we offer marketing strategy programs to help you get started. Want to learn more – give us a call at 724-612-0755.

About the author: Autumn Edmiston is the CEO and owner of the Edmiston Group. The Edmiston Group is a multifaceted Pittsburgh based marketing consulting firm providing senior-level marketing management services to businesses and non-profit organizations on a short or long-term basis. Core areas of service are business development strategies, website creation and management, social media management, marketing, strategic planning, and public relations. The Edmiston Group has consistently delivered and implemented real-world, proven business marketing ideas and strategies for business.

Save time and energy with these productivity strategies

Business Productivity Hacks

by BlogCommunications
Save time and energy with these productivity hacks.

How productive and focused are you in your day-to-day activity – at work and at home? Are you a night owl whose energy kicks in after 9 pm or an early bird who rises at the crack of dawn? Regardless of how your internal clock functions, you can always be busy, but not necessarily productive.

Does being busy equate with being productive? If you ask anyone what is the biggest challenge they face in trying to be productive, a likely response will involve something about a “lack of willpower”, or perhaps a difficulty staying focused.

If you think about it there are so many shiny objects that pop up to distract you throughout the day. Social media, email, phone, and personal issues. Any of these distractions can lead to lost productivity.

Build up good work habits for saving time and effort and alleviate some stress. Here are some productivity hacks to help you understand how to work smarter, improve the quality of your work life, and build habits that will save you time, energy, and mental strain in the long-term.

Productivity Begins With Your Goals…Focus On What’s Important To You
Where do you want to be 3 months from now? What about 1 year, or 5 years out? Not just your business but your personal life too. Aligning your work goals with what’s important to you is crucial in creating the motivation required to stay focused. Writing down your goals on a vision board will keep them top of mind.
It’s not by chance that I’m starting with this one. Understanding what’s important to you, not only in terms of your immediate work goals but also looking at the bigger picture. This can help you to focus and set the stage for how you approach wor

Routines Count – Develop Them
Build out a routine, and stick with it. Get into the habit of working at specific times (this is especially true if you work remotely) and you’ll find yourself wasting less energy on figuring out what to do next. Making a To-Do List for the next day allows you to focus on specific tasks and prioritize your time. There are various apps and scheduling tools for you to utilize. Personally – I use Asana, but some of my colleagues like Monday.com.
Monthly routines and processes can be documented and put into these programs. By creating the process, as your business grows or staffing changes, you can easily transition the steps to another individual.

Engineer Fake Pressure
How often have you told someone they will have a report you haven’t yet started by the end of the day? For some people, pressure can help to kick-start them into work mode and perform to a higher level of productivity. If you’re one of those people who finds that the pressure of a deadline or review helps you get more work done, consider engineering some fake pressure into your routine.

Email Check
Just like notifications, sometimes you can’t just ignore your inbox. This is one I struggle with – especially if I’m waiting for proofs from my graphic design team or feedback from a client. The trick is to set a time every day, where you check-in and clean up to inbox zero. The more consistent you can be with this task, the weaker the urge will become to randomly check your emails, and by sticking to the same time each day, you’re building good habits around self-discipline.

Record Each And Every Task
Following on from the to-do list, you can optimize this kind of task-based productivity approach by making sure you clearly and attentively record each task that is important to you. By keeping an up-to-date list of tasks, you can be sure you’re not overlooking certain factors when deciding on priorities and planning your workload. You could use a good old pen and paper to record your tasks and to-do-lists; many people work like this, and it’s perfectly suitable for personal jotting and keeping track of small-scale projects and priorities. This also allows you to track the amount of time spent on a given task. Having this information helps you price services accordingly.

Set Deadlines
Deadlines help you to get work done. This allows you and your team to measure and stay abreast of milestones needing to be met in completing a complex project.

Eat Your Frogs
We all have unpleasant tasks to deal with daily. “If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.” – Mark Twain. By completing difficult tasks first thing in the morning, you will feel a sense of accomplishment and other things will feel easy in comparison.

Stop Wasting Time In Meetings
Do you start a meeting with a purpose, goals and an agenda? Often, meetings are scheduled according to some arbitrary value like 30 or 60 minutes, and the structure is an afterthought. Define the purpose and outcomes of the meeting before the meeting. Some managers have a stand-up meeting that doesn’t allow for meaningless time spent. Objectives, assigned tasks, and outcomes are to the point.

Time Blocking – Stop multitasking
Focus on one task at a time and set a block of time to complete the task. This goes back to scheduling, prioritizing your TO DO LIST. Instead of trying to split your brain between multiple tasks, rapidly switching between activities and working on each of them simultaneously, you’re better off committing your focus to a single task at hand. Work for 25 minutes and take a 5-minute break and get up and stretch and you may find your brain remains better focused.

Consider some of these tips as you form new work habits. You may find yourself being more focused, able to better prioritize and execute your tasks at hand. We’d love to hear your success. Share your most successful habit on our Facebook page.

About the author: Autumn Edmiston is the CEO and owner of the Edmiston Group. The Edmiston Group is a multifaceted Pittsburgh based marketing consulting firm providing senior-level marketing management services to businesses and non-profit organizations on a short or long-term basis. Core areas of service are business development strategies, website creation and management, social media management, marketing, strategic planning, and public relations. The Edmiston Group has consistently delivered and implemented real-world, proven business marketing ideas and strategies for business.

business-lessons

Lessons Learned

by BlogCommunications

business-lessonsAs a business owner, you wear a lot of hats. When you opened your business chances are you were the bookkeeper, marketer, as well as the person who worked in your business. You opened your business with a strong vision but the road to success isn’t always easy. You go to battle every day against:

  • Tough competition
  • Evolving markets
  • New technology
  • Employee turnover

The good news is you don’t have to find ways to grow your business and find balance all on your own. Instead, you can find a business mentor or even look for advice from industry titans that came before you. There are a myriad of options through webinars, podcasts, Ted Talks, and books for you to gain knowledge from the titans of business. You may find value in their words of wisdom that will bring new passion and growth to your business.

Successful business people may sell different products, but they often follow some of the same advice. Common pieces of advice successful business titans swear by include:

Work-life Balance is key to burnout prevention

Work hard and play hard – it’s important to set space in your schedule to do both.

If Something Isn’t Working – Make a change

Technology and trends are in a constant state of flux. Unless you are willing to take a risk with the changes and pivot, you may find yourself lagging behind.

Value and Inspire Employees

Employees are the lifeblood of your company. Think about it, they interface with customers that choose to spend money with you versus a competitor. Attracting and retaining top talent is a challenge in today’s market. Building relationships and a sense of community helps employees feel appreciated, builds morale and increases productivity.

Learn From Others

Embrace lifelong learning through online classes, webinars, workshops, or a mastermind group. It doesn’t matter if you sign up for a new class or learn new ideas from others. You never know when a new skill can help your business.

Experience Growth Through Failure

Lessons are learned by failure and are an important part of success for businesses. Each time you fail at something you learn and grow. Perseverance is the difference between failure and success.

Trust Yourself

Trust your instincts and have faith in yourself. Make sound decisions based on knowledge and move forward.

Step Out of Your Comfort Zone

We all have things that are uncomfortable but stepping outside your comfort zone leads to growth. Many successful business people emphasize pushing past what makes them comfortable. Are you willing to take the risk at something greater?

Small Opportunities Can Lead to New Business Growth

Saying yes to small opportunities along the way can eventually lead to greater opportunities. For instance, you may say yes to a dinner invite where you make a business contact that helps you grow your business later on.

Customers Come First

Are you listing to your customers? A customer complaint no matter how harsh they seem can help you improve your products and services. We aren’t perfect and sometimes mistakes are made but acknowledging the complaint tells your customers that you’re listening.

Don’t Sacrifice Quality

Customer satisfaction is key to raving reviews both online and word of mouth. You want to produce products and services that people are truly satisfied with. This can help your business build a stronger reputation.

If your business isn’t growing and you’re feeling stuck, it may be time to take a risk. Stepping out of your comfort zone through innovation is one of the most important things you can do – and that’s according to who succeeded before you. Are you ready to take the next move? We’re here to walk with you on that journey give us a call 724-612-0755 or email us for a 30-minute complimentary phone consultation.

About the author: Autumn Edmiston is the CEO and owner of the Edmiston Group. The Edmiston Group is a multifaceted Pittsburgh based marketing consulting firm providing senior-level marketing management services to businesses and non-profit organizations on a short or long-term basis. Core areas of service are business development strategies, website creation and management, social media management, marketing, strategic planning, and public relations. The Edmiston Group has consistently delivered and implemented real-world, proven business marketing ideas and strategies for business.

crowded-market

Stand Out In a Crowded Market

by BlogCommunications

crowded-marketBusiness owners often find frustration in being found in a crowded market. There will always be someone with a larger budget and more resources. Think of how Amazon and Walmart are going head to head. Who will come up with the most unique strategy? A national eye care company such as Pearl Vision or America’s Best compete against an independent optometry office. Making a dent to gain market share is never easy but using a blend of strategy, tenacity, and innovation is the key to winning.

The Pricing Race to the Bottom

Business owners often feel they need to try and compete on price. Crowded spaces often result in a race to the lowest price. Because market leaders can survive the deepest cuts, smaller players need a different strategy of cooperation if they want to compete.

Cooperation can set you apart. What do we mean by cooperation? Take two complimenting businesses who serve similar types of customers and create a joint marketing program. How can you differentiate your combined services? For example… a marketing company may partner with an event planning company. The event planning company may handle the logistics, equipment rental, be the event’s project manager, but they still need the support of social media, graphic design and perhaps marketing strategy. Together the two companies are stronger and each has their client base that they can market expanded services to. So, in essence, you’ve doubled down on your client base by marketing each other.

Create Your Own Raving Fans

Not many big companies retain a reputation for stellar customer service. Industry giants have time and money on their side, but growth often comes with a price.

Smaller businesses can set themselves apart by delivering outstanding customer service. That could be in the form of birthday acknowledgement, personal phone contact, surveys, and a philosophy of customer service as part of your company’s DNA. Everyone involved with that customer from the receptionist to the CEO should play a role in helping their customers.

Find a Pain Point and Create a Solution

Agility is a key component of this concept and starts with active listening. Smaller companies can make their brand heard by improving on something people didn’t realize companies could fix. Get to the root of a problem by saving people time, money or hassle, and you could quickly gain ground while established players scramble to keep up.

Think about a recent invention you saw and said to yourself, “I wished I thought of that!” Those people are often seen on Shark Tank. They have found a pain point and developed a solution to solve the problem.

People deal with thousands of inconveniences they would love to ditch if they had better options. Provide those options in an easy, non-interruptive way, and the masses will toss aside existing solutions in favor of your smarter method.

Find Your Edge and Keep Sharpening the Blade

To maintain a competitive edge, smaller companies need to bring something special to the table. What’s not always easy, however, is figuring out what that something special should be.

Limit your focus and efforts to one innovation at a time. Set some time parameters as to how long you will focus on a given effort and measure the results. When I worked in commercial sales, we would take a given vertical and work that vertical for a quarter focusing on new business efforts in only that space. For example, one quarter would be hotels, another quarter restaurants, another quarter retail, etc.

When that innovation doesn’t take off, make a note of the experiment and move on to the next. When something works, invest a little more money and keep sharpening your tactics. If the extra budget doesn’t produce extra results, pull back, but if you see more success, keep sharpening the blade. You may be surprised by how much people like what you create.

In today’s crowded market space, it is possible to have a voice and be recognized. If taking on big businesses and winning were easy, everyone would do it. Successful startups earn their reputations because they achieve the improbable. You can overcome the odds and establish your business in the face of stiff competition. To do so, however, you need innovative tenacity and an idea worth your unconditional commitment.

Struggling with your differentiators or how to compete for market share, give us a call 724-612-0755 or email us for a 30-minute complimentary phone consultation.

About the author: Autumn Edmiston is the CEO and owner of the Edmiston Group. The Edmiston Group is a multifaceted Pittsburgh based marketing consulting firm providing senior-level marketing management services to businesses and non-profit organizations on a short or long-term basis. Core areas of service are business development strategies, website creation and management, social media management, marketing, strategic planning, and public relations. The Edmiston Group has consistently delivered and implemented real-world, proven business marketing ideas and strategies for business.

holiday-planning

PLANNING TIPS FOR THE REMAINDER OF 2019

by BlogCommunications

holiday-planningWith the 4th of July closing with a bang, it is hard to wrap your mind around the fact that it is time to begin planning for the fall and winter holiday seasons as you end 2019. Whether you offer B2B or B2C services, planning is essential for growth.

As a B2B, identify your target companies in your given verticals. Know their business cycles. For example, if you want to work with government entities, know that they are already starting to think of their budgets for 2020. If you wait until October to establish a relationship, chances are you have missed the budgeting window for the next year.

Although July may be prime vacation time, it can also be a time to reflect on the first half of the year and target potential prospects for the remainder of 2019. Perhaps there are networking events to attend and with potential businesses follow-up. Add people you meet to your newsletter list to regularly touch base with them. Set the reoccurring events in your calendar and regularly attend to establish a business presence.

For B2C, the holiday season is one of the largest spending holidays for consumers. Consumers are shopping online more than ever. Give them a reason to come into your store. Look how Kohl’s has established a relationship with Amazon returns. They are betting when people come into the store with an online purchase return, they will also purchase from Kohl’s.

With shopping days such as, Back to School Sales, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, and all the other special sale days, it’s important to have a plan in place. The Edmiston Group has already planned a B2C sale for one of our clients for their August/September ads. It’s hard to think about Back to School in early July.

There are some important steps and planning that are required to have a successful holiday season.

  • Set clear, obtainable goals. It gives both you and your employees something to work toward. Have different rewards for reaching company goals. Keep everyone focused on the prize while working together to achieve the goal. Determine and communicate to your staff the different reward values for achieving larger and smaller goals. This will help keep everyone motivated and excited about the holiday season. Be certain to deliver the promised rewards. A pizza party or some Starbucks gift cards can go a long way. Always remember to thank your employees for a job well done.
  • Financially planning for the holidays is important to being successful. Most businesses or companies have inventory in stock, especially if you are a storefront or goods-based company. Perhaps establishing a line of credit will allow you to have extra available finances that are important to be able to purchase holiday inventory. Moving into the holiday cash strapped can leave a company short on funds to purchase the number of goods needed to get through the upcoming holiday.
  • Plan out any special events for each holiday. Will your office or business have a party for each holiday? If so, what is your budget for the party, where and when will it be held? How will you notify your customers about the special event? Do you offer customer reward programs and VIP events such as early bird sales or special discounts for family and friends?
  • Make sure your team is educated. Holidays are often a time of stress for consumers. Enable your customers to enjoy a pleasurable shopping experience with you by delivering a strong customer service experience. Keep your employees educated on your company’s goods and services, along with any specials or sales you plan on having. This type of communication enables them to deliver a strong customer experience to frenzied customers.

In summary… B2C make sure you have a plan in place for the delivery and sale of the newest, most popular products on the market. Financially prepare for purchase of needed inventory. Educate your employees on new products and upcoming sales. Communicate upcoming events to your customers.

B2B know your client verticals and their sales cycles. Target your message and identify pain points to become a problem solver. Be consistent in your marketing efforts – via shared articles, newsletters and social media.

You will find that with proper planning and execution, your business will yield the results this upcoming fall and into the holiday season.

About the author: Autumn Edmiston is the CEO and owner of the Edmiston Group. The Edmiston Group is a multifaceted Pittsburgh based marketing consulting firm providing senior-level marketing management services to businesses and non-profit organizations on a short or long-term basis. Core areas of service are business development strategies, website creation and management, social media management, marketing, strategic planning, and public relations. The Edmiston Group has consistently delivered and implemented real-world, proven business marketing ideas and strategies for business.

scaling-your-business

SCALING YOUR BUSINESS

by BlogCommunications

scaling-your-businessAre you ready to scale your business but don’t know how to bring on the right team? Don’t base decisions on where you are – base them on what you want to become. One of the first things to determine is what type of company do you want to become.

Most of us can remember a time where our parents questioned our friends as we grew up. While it was an annoyance, it taught us the important lesson of making sure that we surround ourselves with the right people. By selecting a strong group of friends, you create a circle of people that are there to support you, cheer your big accomplishments and help to pull you up when you fall. That same mindset of surrounding yourself with the “right” people is extremely important as a business owner.

Trusted business partnerships can be an important part of small business growth. Recruiting might not always be the answer. Often it can be better to outsource tasks and functions to ensure the best outcomes. Also, realize when you need to delegate responsibility. Perhaps you can outsource particular functions to a fractional CFO, Marketing Director or HR professional. You can build a virtual management team that can offer focused services and strategy for company growth.

When your business starts to scale up growth, it is hard, and things can begin to creak. Weaknesses can be exposed, and you can’t always fix them quickly once the journey is started. You could be held back by your IT system, processes, cash flow, team or all of the above.

Do you know the difference between management and leadership? While managers plan, organize and coordinate, leaders have a vision; they persuade, inspire and motivate others. Think now about how you can build your leadership capacity to grow your company.

Create the right culture and an environment where people want to be and want to excel – then get out of the way and let them get on with it. All team members must be properly engaged, valued, motivated, recognized and rewarded. Everyone must pull in the same direction.

Small business is a fast-paced environment. With the onslaught of social media and other changes in technology, it’s a never-ending quest to stay abreast of new trends. Hiring the wrong person or a non-team player may take your already overwhelming workload and increase it, causing more pain than relief.

  • References. It is amazing how many companies ask for references and never even look into them. References are an important part of finding out who the person is that you are looking to hire. It’s also important to check out the person’s social media platforms. Find out who they are outside of the workplace. This will help to determine if they are right for your company’s culture.
  • Proper interview. As you interview your prospective employees, take the time to find out who they are. Questions like: What are you passionate about? What is your greatest accomplishment? How do you handle conflict or challenge? Why should I hire you over someone else?
  • Trust your gut. While the prospective employee may seem “nice”, what does your gut tell you? As a business owner, you have followed your gut on many occasions and it has led you to this point in your business career, so don’t stop listening to it now.
  • Multiple rounds of interviews. Be sure to have more than one interview with the person. Include other people in the interviews such as other employees, partners, or mentors. This will help you to get a better perspective on the person being interviewed. Remember that your employees are the ones who will be working with the recruit every day and valuing their opinion can help to make a more cohesive workplace.

While being a business owner is a rewarding experience, surrounding yourself with the right people, can help you take your business to new heights. Take the time to properly vet consultants and prospective employees. Building a strong team and leading with a vision to inspire your team can help make your business a success.

About the author: Autumn Edmiston is the CEO and owner of the Edmiston Group. The Edmiston Group is a multifaceted Pittsburgh based marketing consulting firm providing senior-level marketing management services to businesses and non-profit organizations on a short or long-term basis. Core areas of service are business development strategies, website creation and management, social media management, marketing, strategic planning, and public relations. The Edmiston Group has consistently delivered and implemented real-world, proven business marketing ideas and strategies for business.

Content-Marketing

WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?

by BlogCommunications

Content-MarketingWe create original articles for a number of our clients to help them keep their name in front of potential referral sources, current customers and potential customers. Working in tandem with business development staff, we have helped businesses systematically grow their email lists in given market segments.

Content marketing with a targeted message can help you stand out, but are you solving a problem or pushing your own agenda?

Are you asking the right questions to identify the problem and offer a solution? If you are not listening to your customer, then how can you identify what they need? Here are some things to think about.

Are you original? There is certainly a place for stock photography, but customers want to know the person behind the business. When we share staff birthday photos or photos of the owner’s children – it puts human elements into the business. Many of our construction clients share job photos that depict their work. Show what you do and be proud of your work. Share reviews others leave. There is nothing better than a third-party telling others how great of a job you’ve done.

What Do You Know? Sharing knowledge helps to set you apart as an expert. Sure you may share tips that others could use, but how often will people go to the extent of replicating your process when you’ve already figured it out. The exposure of this process and your expertise will help grow your business.

Who Are Your Customers? Know who your ideal customer is. I challenge you to write down your top 3 customers and then list why they are your best customer. Once you know your ideal customer ask them what keeps them up at night. Offer a solution to their nighttime worries and don’t be afraid to give away some of your secret sauce. Some of the most successful business consultancies in the world give their entire process away in book form or an e-book.

Is your Content Meaningful and Engaging? By allowing your potential clients and referral sources to know you as a person and your company’s brand, it makes you reachable. Keep your audience engaged, curious and wanting to learn more.

How Are Your Providing Value? Content strategy is important in providing value to the consumer. Are you communicating in a clear and concise manner without utilizing terminology that your audience may not understand? Does your message offer insight into what, why and how? Does it represent your brand message?

Not only is content important, but the importance of regularly touching an audience with valuable information keeps you and your business top of mind. By housing your blogs on your website, it also prevents your website from becoming a static site and when done correctly is beneficial for SEO.

Regular content, relevant information offering solutions to what keeps your BEST customer up at night is key to an effective content marketing program. Need help developing a strategy, give us a call 724-612-0755.

About the author: Autumn Edmiston is the CEO and owner of the Edmiston Group. The Edmiston Group is a multifaceted Pittsburgh based marketing consulting firm providing senior-level marketing management services to businesses and non-profit organizations on a short or long-term basis. Core areas of service are business development strategies, website creation and management, social media management, marketing, strategic planning, and public relations. The Edmiston Group has consistently delivered and implemented real-world, proven business marketing ideas and strategies for business.

Business-Continuity-Plan

BUSINESS CONTINUITY PLANNING – PREPARING FOR THE UNEXPECTED

by BlogCommunications
Business-Continuity-Plan
Benefits of Business Continuity Planning

Are you preparing for the future? Is a Business Continuity Plan a part of your company’s growth? If your business had a disaster, could you be up and running within hours, days, weeks, months, or never recover?

A Business Continuity Plan (BCP) is a proactive plan to avoid and mitigate risks associated with a disruption of operations. It details steps to be taken before, during and after an event to maintain the financial viability of an organization. Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) is a reactive plan for responding after an event. This plan should provide guidelines for emergency responses, extended back-up operations, and post-disaster recovery.

There are many components to a BCP to be considered and here are some key pieces to the plan.

Personnel is your company’s greatest asset and one of the first things to consider. If disaster has struck – has there been loss of life? Has a key member of your management staff had a crisis? Did you have an active shooter situation at your place of business? How are the staff coming together following a crisis? Do they have the proper training to know what to do in the event of a disaster? As a leader having a plan is critical. Your staff looks to you for guidance on what happens next. They can remain calm and execute a plan if a plan exists and they are properly trained.

Communication – how will staff, vendors and the company as a whole communicate if all phone lines are down? What is your plan if you have no email access? Do you have a phone chain or text message chain established?

Technology – is your information in the cloud or is there a secondary data center outside of your building? How will staff access email and critical information to keep your company running? This includes A/R and A/P, proposals, proprietary information, etc. Who can access what information?

Facilities – have you made arrangements for housing of key personnel and employees if necessary? Taking care of your employees and their families will help them remain calm, committed to business recovery and ultimately create loyalty to you as the business owner. If your building was destroyed – do you have a backup location in mind or will staff be able to work remotely?

Have you set up electronic payment systems to continue to send and receive payments? Will you need to resort to manual operations? If so – what might that look like?

Different than a BCP, a Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) is a documented process or set of procedures to recover and protect a business IT infrastructure and other operations necessary to run your business in the event of a disaster. Such a plan, ordinarily documented in written form, specifies procedures an organization is to follow in the event of a disaster.

The City of Baltimore has made national news recently regarding their vulnerability in regard to a cyber-attack, but businesses and government should also consider other types of risk such as fires and flooding that could affect their day to day operations.

As we have recently seen of the floods and hurricanes in various parts of the country, in Western Pennsylvania we think we are safe from disaster. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. Every day there are new stories of flooding, burst pipes, fires, landslides, hacking, tech outages, downtime, and data loss – even at the best of companies. Are you prepared to do business if today you walked into work and there had been an electrical surge that fried all your computers?

No matter what the cause of the disaster, the organizations that manage them most effectively, and with the least amount of collateral damage, are those with a strategic Business Continuity Plan and a comprehensive, easy-to-follow, and regularly tested Disaster Recovery Plan.

No one wants to think gloom and doom, but I hope these questions will offer food for thought as you look to put together a program for Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery testing. Execution of a best thought out plan will ensure your business can remain “Open for Business” should disaster strike.

About the author: Autumn Edmiston is the CEO and owner of the Edmiston Group. The Edmiston Group is a multifaceted Pittsburgh based marketing consulting firm providing senior-level marketing management services to businesses and non-profit organizations on a short or long-term basis. Core areas of service are business development strategies, website creation and management, social media management, marketing, strategic planning, and public relations. The Edmiston Group has consistently delivered and implemented real-world, proven business marketing ideas and strategies for business.

Text-Messaging-for-Small-Business

TEXT MESSAGING TO MARKET YOUR BUSINESS

by BlogCommunications

Text-Messaging-for-Small-BusinessIf you’re good at what you do, you will have no problem keeping customers happy and coming back to use your services time and time again. But it’s getting the word out there to obtain those customers in the first place that can be challenging.

One less familiar way that businesses are driving engagement is through text messages. Promotional text messages cost pennies to send, and depending on the platform you use you may not be charged for any messages you receive in return. That makes it possible to have two-way text conversations at a low cost, making it easy to engage customers.

Text Messaging referred to as (SMS) or Short Message Service is often overlooked when promoting your business. Millennials prefer text marketing. They don’t mind receiving marketing messages on their phones.

There are a number of applications where SMS can be used in business.

  • Discount Coupons
  • Order Confirmation
  • Appointment Confirmation
  • Last Minute Cancellations
  • Targeted Sales
  • Surveys
  • Alerts and Notifications

Similar to an email list, you’ll only want to text customers who have signed up to receive communications from you. Pittsburgh North Chamber of Commerce utilizes a text message program to send reminders of Business After Hours events, networking opportunities and other announcements. With effort and a small investment, you can grow your text messaging program to generate many repeat customers.

Target your ideal customers.

It’s incredibly difficult to try to reach every potential customer out there, especially if you’re a small business. It’s much more effective and realistic to take a look at who your target customers are and focus on marketing directly to them. If this works with your business strategy and marketing plan, you can instantly reach thousands of contacts and engage with them, promote your services, or make announcements.

In today’s noisy world, text messages go directly to the customer on a device you know they use every single day, so you know they will see your message. Because… people very seldom leave home without their mobile phone.

About the author: Autumn Edmiston is the CEO and owner of the Edmiston Group. The Edmiston Group is a multifaceted Pittsburgh based marketing consulting firm providing senior level marketing management services to businesses and non-profit organizations on a short or long-term basis. Core areas of service are business development, marketing, strategic planning and public relations. The Edmiston Group has consistently delivered and implemented real-world, proven business marketing ideas and strategies for business.