Alberta Business Marketing

Some old marketing things will simply never go away.

Have you given any thought to your Unique Selling Position when designing your web marketing strategy?  Only after you have designed and crafted it with your team, can you successfully implement your vision/strategy with your online marketing, search engine optimization tactics and social media activities.   This will help position you in the business market?

If you have answered no, you have some work to do.

At Ulistic, our USP is totally zeroed in on empowering our clients to do their own online marketing using the solutions, services and tools the entire Ulistic team use ourselves.  We help our clients understand and master the fine art of marketing business online.  The clients we serve win because of our focus on training how they can either elect to do their own social media and search engine optimization or at least have a complete understanding of the process before they outsource the work to our team of Calgary SEO professionals.

Do you know what your USP is?

Many small businesses have no clue on what makes them unique or even why they exist in the first place?  Some have an idea but can not clearly share it.  Many times it ends up being a personal communications challenge vs. anything else.  If you need proof just go to your local Chamber of Commerce breakfast or networking event and you can see examples of both those who don’t have a clue what positions their business and who may know but have a disconnect from what they think to what they share verbally.

Why would I do business with you over the other guy who sells the exact same piece of hardware or provides similar types of services?

Sometimes it just comes down to communicating with you clients, teaching them something new, showing them a new way to do things and provide that extra amount of care and attention the other guy doesn’t offer.  Sounds pretty simple, however most companies fail at the simple tasks of communicating effectively.

Enter the endless money pit!

I have a tough time sleeping when I know someone is going down the wrong track and they are blind to everything around them. Helping the clients we serve understand their own unique selling position is critical.  My intention is to never work with a client until they know where they want to go. I can simply help them get there.

Before you embark on any social media campaign or even speak with a social media consultant you need to have a clue on why your business exists in the first place.  There are plenty of coaches and mentors or simply speak with someone who can assist you in crafting your message.

What makes your business unique in the marketplace?
Why is your business here?
What pain can you cure that no one else can?

Lots of questions, can you answer them?

Having David and Helen alongside me at Ulistic really allows us to help small business in Calgary with a total marketing and even basic coaching package.  Plus, when you combine all of our experiences including my experience with Calgary Small Business computer support and the IT business in general.  Well you have a complete team to help you.

What does the next 12 to 18 months look like for you?

Tags: Business, Business Success, Business/Finance, Calgary, Internet Marketing, personal communications, search engine, search engine optimization, search engine optimization tactics, social media, social media activities, social media consultant, Technology/Internet, web marketing strategy
Posted in Marketing, Online Marketing | | Comments Off

I met Marty Neumeier (renown speaker and author of Zag, Brand Gap) when he was conducting a workshop at the Design Exchange. In conversation, Marty shared that he began his career implementing brand strategies only to realize there were a lot of flawed strategies that execution couldn’t fix. This prompted Marty to focus his effort on brand differentiation – the #1 strategy of a successful brand in Marty’s eyes. If you’re looking for verification of the power of differentiation think IPOD. 4th to market in the MP3 player category, Apple has 72% market share, a price point that is 2 to 5 times higher than the competitors....well I think you get the idea. High performance brands are way out in front in terms of loyalty, profitability and they’re tough to beat – unless of course you find your own unique way of differentiating.

One of the first rules is you can’t be all things to all people. In the session Marty talked about knowing your “tribe”. I caught up with Marty to get further clarity on why the tribe matters. “You have said the emphasis today needs to be on the Unique Buying Tribe rather than the Unique Selling Proposition. Can you explain that?”

Marty Neumeier: The Unique Selling Proposition was the brainchild of Rosser Reeves, an advertising genius from the "Mad Men" days. He worked for the Ted Bates agency and wrote a bestseller called, "Reality in Advertising." His thesis was simple: Advertisers need to focus all their energy on one strong claim or one strong concept. In a time when the industry believed "the more you tell, the more you sell," this was a refreshing idea that caught on almost immediately. It was so powerful, in fact, that to this day advertisers search high and low for "the big idea" to hang their campaigns on.

There's nothing inherently wrong with this inclination, as far as it goes. Without a unique value proposition, your campaign---and your business---will lose focus and have no compelling point of differentiation. The problem is that the principle now seems dated. Customers today don't like to be sold. What they like to do is buy, and they buy in tribes. Every brand has a tribe that supports it. If you talk WITH your tribe, they may well continue to support it. If you talk AT your tribe-using manipulative one-way conversations-they'll tune out in a New York second.

So rather than focusing on a Unique Selling Proposition, focus on a Unique Buying Tribe. If you find the right tribe and give it the right stuff, you'll get enough love to sustain your brand. People crave tribal identity. What they want to know is, "If I buy this product, what will this make me?"

Thanks Marty for sharing your insights. Marty is currently Director of Transformation at Liquid Agency.

Tags: Branding
Posted in Alberta Business | | Comments Off