Alberta Business Marketing

Nothing better than investing an hour with two of your best friends.  It is always great to have allies and friends across the globe who share the same mindset and goals in life.  This is what happened on July 28th, my good friend Daniel Gutierrez who hosts a business webcast each week on blogtalkradio.com invited me and my mentor Bob Burg onto his program.  Danny’s show is similar to what I do with the Ulistic Orange Files, a small business webcast focused on delivering practical business advice to small business owners globally.  I was blessed to be even consider by Danny for his show.

You can listen to Daniel, Bob and I by tuning into the recording of the show.

Besides listening to Bob and Danny speak on the Go Giver philosophies and the critical stratospheric laws of success.  I had 30 minutes to chat with Danny about social media and the future of online marketing.  Lots of stuff to cover and 30 minutes is hardly enough time to really dig deep into the key points that business must really look at in order to really hit a home run with social media and all their online marketing.

I did share with Daniel the importance of having your business plan and your marketing plan figured out first.  I may sound like a broken record here and I know I have mentioned countless times on my blog about the importance of your plans prior to moving to execution phase.  However, many still simply jump to execution and have no real business plan.

Another topics we discussed was the continued importance of meeting people face-to-face and how we can leverage social media and other strategies to enhance our overall business communication strategies.  Social Media doesn’t replace face-to-face, it enhances what we do today with our business communications and even those relationships outside of business.

I also shared with Daniel on the importance of your small business doing your homework before rushing out and hiring the first living or breathing social media consultant.  You need to do your homework and find the right fit for your business.

Thank You Danny and thanks Bob for being my partner in crime.

Tags: bob burg, Business, business plan, Business Success, Business/Finance, Daniel Gutierrez, Danny, Homework, Human Interest, Management, social media, social media consultant, Strategic management
Posted in Marketing, Online Marketing | | Comments Off

Saturday, July 24 is the only date on the CFL regular season schedule this year that typical normal everyday Calgarians turned into green monsters from Saskatchewan.   The Saskatchewan Roughriders played the Calgary Stampeders at McMahon and lost 40-20 to Henry Burris and the Stamps.  To put this game into perspective for my readers south of the border or outside Canada…Henry Burris says this game is as big as Florida vs. Florida St in College Football.

Back to the fans…it is true…Saskatchewan fans lurk amongst every day Calgarians and once or twice a year they come out of the closet to support their “GO RIDERS”.  Look over your shoulder and you will see Roughrider fans mixed into everyday Calgarians.

Have you heard of Saskatchewan? It is the only province in Canada that is easy to draw but extremely difficult to spell for the non-Canadian, in our schools we learn how to spell Saskatchewan…sometimes over and over and over.  OK, I am poking fun at the thousands of Saskatchewan transplants now living in Calgary and according to the Edmonton Eskimos President, the same thing goes up in the only CFL team not to have a win so far during this season’s campaign.

I am talking about Football and our game, the CFL.

Rider Pride…for those who support it is a beautiful thing and those who don’t well they may not be the biggest fans of the cutout watermelons and the strange get ups that come out of the closets to those who support the green.

RIDER PRIDE IS A MARKETING SUCCESS STORY!

Why is Rider Pride important?  Like many CFL teams, they had their struggles when it is uncool to like Canadian Football. Their has been a tremendous amount of change in the CFL since those days across the entire league.  Maybe we owe Saskatchewan some credit.  CFL football is once again cool, fun and extremely exciting to watch.  3 downs, 110 yard field and 12 guys banging it out on our turf.

Here is an interesting fact about Saskatchewan though.

Did you know that the Saskatchewan Roughriders (aka RIDERS) sell more merchandise than all the other CFL teams combined!  Why is that?  What is happening in those small towns and in their big cities throughout our central prairie province?  What did the Riders do to attract raving fans?  And what can we learn in our own businesses to do the same thing?

As a Calgary consultant who focuses on marketing the Riders just maybe a great study.  One thing I can assume very easily is that the Rider brass doesn’t care about logo infringement with their fans who paint the Rider “S” on almost anything that can hold a coat of paint.  Cars, houses, chests, Pilsner boxes…you name it, if it can hold an “S” it gets painted on.

I see so many companies and recently had a discussion with a colleague of mine who works for a MLM.  The directors of the Multi Level Marketing firm have dictated to their loyal supporters that they are not allowed to use logos, verbage or product descriptions on any outside marketing material.  Here they have an army of sometimes brainwashed raving fans who can’t share their story online or make their own marketing materials.

This I simply don’t understand and never will.  It is mind-boggling when you look at what happens in Saskatchewan and how the fans are raving about their team and organizations like Harley Davidson who never frown upon people painting their bodies with Harley tattoos.

It is obvious Raving Fans are the best thing for your business.  Never, ever stop them from promoting you in their own way.  Let them rock and roll and make things happen.

Tags: British Columbia Lions, Business Success, Calgary, Calgary Consultant, canada, Edmonton, Edmonton Eskimos President, football, Harley Davidson, paint, President, Pride, Rider, Roy Shivers, Saskatchewan, Sports
Posted in Alberta Business | | Comments Off

Earlier this week I had the wonderful experience of serving my good friend Denise Deveau from the National Post and Financial Post with some information on “social media in Canadian business” for a recent article of hers which appears in the National Post and Financial Post recently.  The article “Sweeten Sales with Social Media” focused on how Canadian Small Business can use social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to improve overall sales performance.  But more importantly, the article really touched on the importance of engagement and listening.

Kim Gans from Toronto’s Sweet Flour Bake Shop was the focus on the article.  Kim shared how her business uses social media services to connect with clients and her community.  I was there as the Canadian Professional who can help other Canadian Small Businesses figure this out but the real star of the article was Kim and her business.

Kim shared in the article how her business uses social media each day to engage in the community and work with her customers.  ”For us, social media tools are incredibly useful and a huge component of our marketing. We do very, very little advertising, with the exception of a few local placements.”

Her story is just like many of the businesses we serve daily at Ulistic.  Many Canadian small business are weathering the recession OK but they have next to nothing for a marketing budget but still want to make a big splash.  Luckily for many Canadian small business owners, the barrier to entry is nice and low and the Internet is the perfect vehicle to help them succeed with their marketing.  It is almost the perfect storm for many of my peers to take advantage of the Internet to help grow their businesses.

But it takes commitment, authenticity and persistence. This is not something you can do once and say “there, I did it…business come to me now”.  It is just like business networking face-to-face, it takes work and it takes hard work to run effective online marketing campaigns.  I am sure Kim will share with you that it didn’t happen over night.  Just to repeat, it takes work and this commitment to working on the business marketing for many often dies off over time.  Just look around and you will see “stale blogs” littered all across the Internet.  When was the last time you wrote something on your blog?

Kim summed it up “We have added a lot of different mixes based on feedback. We’re not just asking people, we’re listening to what they have to say online. For example, we found out that a lot of customers wanted gluten-free choices so we added that. Our new ice cream and frozen yogurt sandwich cookies were their idea.”

It takes effort, it takes engagement and you must listen and listen all the time.  Social Media effectiveness is more listening than talking and most of us have this backwards.  We spend more time publishing than we do keeping our finger on the pulse of what is happening around us.  We really need to shift gears back into listening and engagement mode.  Just like Kim did when her customers shared with her about the ice cream and frozen yogurt sandwich.

What is your ice cream and frozen yogurt sandwich?

________________________________

Ulistic focuses on serving the needs of Canadian Small Business, REALTORS, and Information Technology firms across Canada and United States. Helping your business understand, deploy and leverage social media, search engine optimization and online communications to generate business opportunities and make an impact inside your community and industry.

My business partner David and I are business professionals first. We understand what it takes to run a successful small business.

I invite you to reach out to me personally at 403.775.2205 or email Stuart at scrawford@ulistic.com.

Tags: Business, Business Success, Business/Finance, Communication design, Denise Deveau, Facebook Inc, financial post, Kim Gans, LinkedIn Ltd, little advertising, Mass media, media services, media tools, social media, Technology/Internet, the National Post, toronto, Twitter Inc
Posted in Advertising, Communication, Marketing | | Comments Off

What a pleasant surprise at today’s Mind Over Marketing day here in Calgary.

Greg from “The Engaged Entrepreneur” was a pleasant addition to the speaker lineup at the Mind Over Marketing boot camp today and shared some great strategies on marketing for our small businesses.  Greg had a great question on “Why is so much marketing screwed up?” What a great question!

I shared this belief with a number of my fellow Canadian small business owners on why our marketing simply doesn’t work.  Here is the main issue…we are all focused on “IMAGE MARKETING”.  You know or maybe you don’t know.  Drive down any highway and you will see classic examples of image advertising…just look for all the billboards.  The biggest challenge with image-based advertising is this…you can’t measure it.  Lesson of the day – If you can’t easily measure it…DON’T DO IT!

Here are a few great small business marketing ideas I learned from Greg.

Never drive traffic to your main website – David and I talk about this all the time.  Domain names are cheap and people who specialize in Internet Marketing are plentiful.  When you run a campaign or do some marketing, register a special domain at godaddy.com or your favourite registrar and then have everyone go to that specially registered domain name.  Why?  So you can measure how effective your marketing is.  Ulistic can help with strategy around this.  There are many ways to implement this, so before you spend a dime…call me at 403.775.2205.

Not everyone is your target market – Most entrepreneurs are afraid of limiting their target market.  Well, the opposite is the reality.  With Ulistic, we focus on hi-tech organizations, IT Professionals, Real Estate Agents, Real Estate businesses and keep our focus aligned on what we do best.  Not everyone is in your target market.

Keep it simple – Avoid high prices imaged-based marketing.  Keep your marketing simple and targeted.  Always think about the target market that you are serving and think about them some more.  People are always asking “Who cares, what is in it for me?”. Simple marketing works, put yourself in the heads of the market you are looking to serve and then serve, serve, serve them.

What does this have to do with social media or online marketing?  Lots!

As I mentioned in my talk yesterday at Mind Over Marketing…the barrier to entry is extremely low and never before has access to the market been so affordable for small business.  Don’t bring in the mistakes of image-based marketing into the online world.  Put yourself in the shoes of your prospect and market and then serve them.  Position your marketing, your blogs, and social media to serve and offer great advice and service.

If you need some help with online marketing and position yourself online as a servant to your community give me a shout at 403.775.2205.

Tags: 403.775.2205, Business, Business Success, Business/Finance, Calgary, Engaged Entrepreneur, favourite registrar, image advertising, image-based advertising, Internet Marketing, Marketing research, online world, Positioning, Return on marketing investment, social media, speaker, Technology/Internet
Posted in Advertising, Business Marketing, Marketing, Online Marketing | | Comments Off

Tags: bob burg, Business, Business Success, Business/Finance, Calgary, canada, dallas, EMMY award, Human Interest, jeffrey gitomer, Scott Schilling, Shawne Duperon, Social Media Ventures Inc, speaker, Wisconsin
Posted in Marketing | | Comments Off