Alberta Business Marketing

Why is football so popular?

Is it the brutal tackling, amazing catches and exceptional athletes?

This year I am volunteering to coach the Calgary Bantam Wildcats as an Offensive Line coach.  I played Defensive End when in high school, so it will be interesting to be on the other side of the ball for a change.  Football for those who follow this game closely must be approached in a strategic manner.  You can’t expect to take the field without a plan of how you are going to play the game.  The best teams throughout history have always used strategy to fight for every yard and to win championships.

Lately, I have been looking at social media from a very strategic approach.  I first started out with tactics and dismissed strategy, however as I mature as a business consultant who focuses on helping Canadian small business with Online Marketing, strategy is crucial to everyone’s overall success online.

Many Canadian, US and Tech firms simply attempt to leverage social media by going at it very tactically and I am not sure why online marketing often skips over the planning and strategy phase.  Perhaps it is the ease of access and even because it requires little or no financial investment to get started.  What a mistake as I have learned over my time in the industry.  Tactical is crucial during the execution phase however long before you send out a tweet, post an update on Facebook or write your first blog post you have to look at the strategical approach to social media.

Social Media is a relationship marketing tool and the best relationships are always part of your strategic plan.  Over the past few weeks I have spoken about the importance of a plan and what my friend Arlin talks about “The Four Plans That Change Everything“.

Do you have a business plan?  Many businesses don’t.

How about a marketing plan?  Nope, even more business don’t have a plan to execute their marketing.

Are you getting the results from your online marketing? Maybe it is simply a failure to plan.

Many businesses here in Calgary and across Canada are not getting the results they were promised by their social media consultant.  Why?  Because they have no plan to attack the market, just like in football…no plan, how can you ever succeed?

Yes, Social Media is exactly like Football.  You need to battle to develop every strategic relationship just like you need to take the field in football to win each series, each quarter, each half and then each game.

Need a hand planning your online marketing…give me a call 403.775.2205

Tags: 403.775.2205, Arlin, Business, business consultant, business plan, Business Success, Business/Finance, Calgary, canada, Defensive End, Facebook Inc, football, Internet Marketing, Management, Marketing effectiveness, marketing plan, Media consultant, Offensive Line coach, relationship marketing, relationship marketing tool, social media consultant, Sports, Strategic management, United States
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I am reading a very interesting white paper today on “10 Key Marketing Trends in 2010″ which covers the overall adoption of online marketing strategies in small business.  Number 9  jumped out and hit me on the side of head and something that at one time in my life was very near and dear to me.  Last week when I was at Spring Training For Business in Arizona with MSP business coach Stuart Selbst I mentioned during my lunch presentation on exactly this topic.

IT Bottlenecks Drive adoption of on Demand Marketing solutions

In this published report (you can download here) the author report on the disconnect between IT and Marketing, especially how IT and marketing are not seeing eye to eye on the whole online marketing momentum.  The marketing folks see IT as a complex bottleneck and IT sees marketing/sales as an expense or risk to the organization.  To be completely candid in my opinion, no wonder so many small business IT shops are horrible in their own marketing efforts and struggle with this important part of business.

Also in the report, the author identifies how more and more marketing folks are starting to use software as a service (SaaS) offerings where the IT departments, MSP or IT Pro are bypassed and not involved in the process of choosing a solution.  67% of those surveyed complained about their IT service provider (or in-house IT) and are moving towards other online or web-based solutions to bypass the complexities put in place by IT and also the high costs demanded by some technology firms.  Marketing solutions are moving towards the “on demand” model vs. the old on-premise models.  These include social media platforms, CRM solutions and even email technologies.

By the way, how does IT respond – they invest in more complex solutions to block applications or web services, building more of a separation in the organization.

During Spring Training I mentioned to the group that consulting with their clients on marketing and removing the barriers will bring additional value to those they serve and position them truly as a business consultant and not just another techy firm.  This is why Ulistic launched the Ulistic Partner Program to help those Managed Services Providers and IT consultants help serve their clients in a different way and with services they are looking for.

Tags: Arizona, author, Business, business consultant, Business/Finance, even email technologies, Internet Marketing, MSP business coach, online marketing momentum, online marketing strategies, Social Issues, social media platforms, Stuart Selbst, technology firms, Technology/Internet, web services, web-based solutions
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