WELCOME TO THE WEB!

We love announcing new websites and we have three that have been launched this month:

Hockey’s Resource (center) at www.HockeysResource.com is a new website that provides hockey news and information from both amateur and professional leagues around the world. Aimed at the hockey industry, articles vary from general interest to game reviews, scouting reports, camps, tournaments, drafts and more.

Desert Security (right) is a home and business security monitoring and installation company. They also provide home wiring, automation systems, networking and audio-video services. Desert Security has been protecting Arizona home and business owners for over 17 years. They’re service is top-notch and price is hard to beat. Checking out the JDE-designed website at www.DesertSecurityMonitoring.com.

www.AllHomesArizona.com (left) is home to HUD Home specialists Alex and Matt, a team of REALTORS here in the Valley who primarily serve the HUD home buyers. Their new website provides up-to-the-minute listings of HUD homes around the Phoenix area. They have a questions-answers page with a ton of useful information on it, and they also provide comprehensive real estate services for non-HUD clients.

WELCOME TO THE WEB!

SOME FREE / LOW-COST MARKETING IDEAS

This economy sucks for most of us. Sure, there are reports that the "recession" is "coming to and end", but while you’re waiting for hell to freeze over, here are some low cost and free ideas to keep your marketing afloat…

• Update your website :Not only is this a good mental exercise, it helps your search engine interaction. Editing your site content is a good way of taking a fresh look at what your marketing message is and how you’re putting it across. Updating the content lets search engines know that your site is being updated, and to come back and re-index it.
• Update your blog / Start a blog :If you don’t already have a blog, START ONE. They are free. You can link them back to your website, helping your search engine exposure. You do not have to be a best-selling writer. Everyone has an opinion about something in their industry, even if that opinion is the opposite of everyone elses. Share advice and express yourself. Take a few minutes once a week or every couple of weeks, and put the word out.
• Email Signature :Is your email signature up-to-date? Is your website/blog and contact information in it? No? Then what are you waiting for?
• Social Media : Do you have a Facebook page for your business? This is different from your personal FB page – it’s one that is for PROFESSIONAL purposes only. Seriously consider having one of these, even if all your do is post links to your site/blog in it. It’s a good SEO tool and a free marketing tool. Take a look at Twitter and other social media tools. They may not be for you, but taking a look won’t hurt….
• Online Ads : Use free services such as Craiglsist to place free ads, with links to your website. Don’t put contact information in them, just links to your site/blog. In addition to search engine exposure, you can drive traffic to your website. Make the ads eye-catching and interesting. Just keep them honest. If you have products to sell, consider an eBay auction. You can set a reserve price, and put links back to your website, giving you instant access to a global audience.

Coming up with free / low cost marketing ideas can take a little imagination, but they are out there. Your investment won’t necessarily be financial, but you will need to invest something, even if that "something" is a bit of time.

I’d love to hear about any others. Until next time!

ONLINE MARKETING IS A LABOR OF LOVE

This brief post came as a result of a conversation with a client. She was frustrated by the amount of work she was having to put into her online marketing, feeling that is was an effort with an uncertain reward…

…and of course it is! Last time I checked, there were no guarantees that just because you built a website it was going to be visited by the masses. No one promised that anyone was going read your blog, reply to a tweet or "like" you Facebook.

Whether you’re online for pleasure or business (or both), nothing is certain. There are ways to help improve the potential audience, and by extrapolation potential market, but don’t assume if you build it they will come.

This is why I repeatedly tell clients that online marketing, whether with your site, social media, a blog, emails…however you do it, has to be a labor of love. If you don’t feel passionate about something then why the heck should anyone else?

You started "following" people on Twitter but they didn’t all seem to follow you back. No one seems to retweet your posts either…and sheesh, no one commented on that blog post. It was all good stuff; useful information. Why doesn’t anyone care?

You have to find your online voice and message. Call it a "personality", but your online "self" is the person you are in cyberspace. That person may be just like you in real life, or very different. Yet that person has to have a voice, and a message. If you have no voice, no one will hear you and if you have no message, you have nothing to say. Think, for a moment, about all the crap you see in an average day online…how much of it is really useful or meaninful?

In my opinion, your message needs to be something that means something to you. You can’t always be clever. You’re not always going to have success, but if you care about what you’re "speaking" about, if it’s a labor of love, it will grow.

It’s a bit like gardening. You till the earth (set up your Facebook, website, blog etc) and you plant the seeds (start developing content). You nurture (follow others, leave feedback, interact), weed (unfollow, remove excess or irrelevant content) and harvest. It’s a rare gardener who doesn’t have some casualties along the way, but one hopes, in the end, that is was worth it.

If it seems too much like work, then perhaps you should ask yourself if this is something you should be considering and, by extrapolation, ask yourself if any of this is really what you wanted to do in the first place. Better to find out now…
We gave my client an online “makeover”. She found her niche and passion and her online presence is growing like you wouldn’t believe!

ACTIVE RAIN AS A DATING SERVICE? EMAIL SECURITY 101 REFRESHER

I received this in my inbox this morning :

Hello sweetie


My name is judy, i am 25yrs old, i’m a free minded, open hearted girl, i like to take life as easy as i could, i’m one of the few that still belives in friendship,love, trust and signs, am very much single and ready to mingle. was browsing through the internet and came across your contact at (www.activerain.com) belive me i like what i see,it will be my sincere pleasure to be your friend if you don’t mind, i hope you will not take my request for granted, feel free to email me, i will appreciate it if you can send me some pics, i look forward to hear from you soon.
Take care.


Judy.

I didn’t open the attached photograph, but it made me smile; there is nothing hackers and scammers won’t try.

I’m sure we’ve all received emails from some generous person in Africa or Eastern Europe offering to pay us a healthy cut if we’d accept a deposit of several million dollars into our bank account…."just send your bank account information". These sorts of emails are all covered under the term Nigerian 419. The FBI has a good description of it in their website (http://www.fbi.gov/majcases/fraud/fraudschemes.htm#nigerian).

It seems that the temptation, or impulse to take people at their word can often override common sense. We’ve all done it, myself included. Spam and anti-virus filters don’t always catch these emails. So, here’s a refresher….TO OPEN, OR NOT TO OPEN? THAT IS THE QUESTION…

• Never click on a link in an email unless you know for sure that it’s genuine. If it’s from someone you know, then it’s probably okay, but there is always a chance that someone’s email address book has been compromised and there are viruses that replicate and forward themselves. Sometimes a link looks almost real. For example "account.bankofamericaa.com" or something along these lines. Almost, but not quite the real thing…




• Any organization worth it’s weight in salt will not ask you for personal information by email, so don’t ever send information that could compromise you by email. This includes passwords, birthdays, social security numbers…you get the idea.




• Don’t open attachments. You may know the sender, so this can be a tough one. Recently, there have been compromises to PDF security, so there’s no guarantee that an innocent-looking PDF might be more than it seems. Of course, we all know never to open an attached ZIP file or executable program…




• Never reply to a "phishing" email. These are the kind that offer you something like a million dollars if you furnish some information, or "you’ve won the European lottery". It might be tempting to reply with "ha ha ha" or something stronger, but this confirms that the email address is active and being used. The next email might not be so easily recognized.





• Email attachments are a fact of life, so protect yourself by ensuring that your anti-virus / spam filter is up-to-date. Generally that means you’ve got to pay for it. I’m not a fan of freebies, especially when it comes to security products.




• If you usu products like Outlook, you’ll have a Spam folder. Yes, the occasional genuine message will go in there, but it won’t let you open links, so you have to make a conscious decision to do so.




• Never click on pop up windows. I’ve seen a lot of these lately that say things like "Your PC security is not up-to-date. Click here for a scan". The next thing you know your PC stops working until you "register" for the software.




• Instead of clicking a link in an email, if you believe it’s genuine and you absolutely have to click it, copy and paste it into your browser. In phishing or virus-laden emails, the text you see might not be the link that lies beneath.




• DON’T USE THE SAME PASSWORD ACROSS MULTIPLE SYSTEMS / WEBSITES.




• DON’T USE OBVIOUS PASSWORDS (ie "password" or your name).




• Keep your software up-to-date. With Windows, ensure you are doing your "Windows Updates" regularly. Be sure your virus software is current. Download the updates for products that you use a lot. Ensure your PDF reader is updated with the latest versions. Software companies do their best to react to breaches as soon as possible, but you have to keep yourself protected.

Computer security doesn’t stop at emails and browsing. There have been umpteen reports about social media links and compromises recently. Every new tool and technology seems to spawn it’s deviants…

Ultimately, security is like insurance. It’s a "best effort" approach. It will work most, if not all of the time. Sometimes, you’re going to be compromised because the stars aligned "just so". If so, then:

• Disconnect your computer from your network / Internet connection immediately.




• Call in the experts (Geek Squad, or your Technician or whomever…).




• Change all your personal security information as soon as possible.




• If you bank online, let your bank know your computer was compromised.




• Don’t try and work around the problem. If you think your PC has been compromised, listen to your gut feeling and take the appropriate precautions.

In many places, if you use Cox Internet, you get McAfee for free – worth checking out to save money. Like insurance, you hope you never have to use it, but a few bucks up front could save you a fortune later one…

Be safe.

Some useful links:

• PC World’s page on PC security (http://www.pcworld.com/topics/security.html)
• Indiana University PC security tips (http://kb.iu.edu/data/akln.html)
• Microsoft Windows update (http://update.microsoft.com)
• Symantec (Security) (http://www.symantec.com)
• McAfee (Security) (http://www.mcafee.com/us/)
• Adobe Acrobat Reader updates (http://get.adobe.com/reader/)
• Microsoft Internet Explorer (you should have the latest version) (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/default.aspx)
• Mozilla Firefox Browser (http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/)
• Google Chrome Browser (http://www.google.com/chrome)
• Opera Browser (http://www.opera.com/)

Talk to your IT / Security person about getting your PC / Mac secure. This information is not intended as definitive in any way….

HOW DO YOU REFURBISH A WEBSITE?

When many people hear the word “refurbish”, they tend to think of electronics that have been rebuilt or repaired and then sold at a discount as “almost, but not quite new”. While this is one of the variations of the word, I prefer the dictionary definition (Merriam-Webster) for “refurbish”…

to brighten or freshen up

…especially when it comes to websites.

These are tough economic times, no disputing that fact. In addition, many small business owners or self-employed individuals are watching every penny. I include myself in this. As a web designer, I fully appreciate the decisions that people make to build a website. It’s an expense and a risk. One one had they know they need it, on the other hand there are no guarantees.

For others, however, there is a middle ground that I call a website “refurbish”. Simply put, it’s a clean-up and refreshing of an existing website. It’s not a rebuild, it’s an update. Here are several things that I do and you can do too:

• Update your photographs. Good quality pictures can make the worst-designed website look good. Bad pictures can ruin a well-designed website. Updating your photos periodically is like redecorating a room.
• Change your page colors. Web design color schemes seem to go in cycles. Many people are going back to a more simple, white-or-light scheme with the colors coming from the artwork.
• Take a look at some of your competition and see what they’re doing. I’m not condoning plagiarism of course, but there’s nothing with a little creative “window shopping”.
• Check the formatting and spelling of the content. Have someone else give you sincere feedback. Yes, the truth hurts, but wouldn’t you rather know the truth?
• Dynamic content. If you have a blog, does it “feed” into your website? Getting a “feed reader” from your blog plugged in to your website is, in most cases, very easy. It’s a great tool for search engines because when you update your blog, you website content is also updated.
• Get some basic SEO (Search Engine Optimization). You don’t have to spend a fortune on high-end programs. If you maintain your own website, you can do this yourself. If not, have a web designer update your “metatags”. These are pieces of code on each page that are used by search engines to index your page. Have him/her make sure your “headers” are correct. Headers are (usually) the big titles you’ll see in a page (ie YOUR WEB DESIGN COMPANY). Work with your webmaster to ensure that both your tags and headers are relevant to your business. Have them also check the image “alt tags”. These are pieces of text that display if a browser has trouble showing a picture on your site. They’re also used by search engines because search engines can’t “read” pictures. This basic SEO should NOT cost a lot!!!
• Make sure your website is in at least the “big three” search engines. These are Yahoo, Bing (MSN) and Google. You can see how your sites are being indexed by going to the home page of each search engine and typing SITE:[www.yourwebsitename.com].

These are a few things you can do that don’t cost an arm and a leg, or at least shouldn’t, but can make a huge difference to your online presence and hopefully help you feel brightened and freshened up.

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING? 10 THINGS TO CONSIDER…

The term "social media" has become so widely used (and abused) that the meaning behind it has become rather generic. But remember that the "social" in "social media" should be just that. It suggests interaction and communication…TWO way. There are many many many people out there standing on their little platform shouting out their message and never listening. While this might work for celebrities, in my opinion it’s probably a dubious marketing strategy. If you’re going to use social media, then use it the way it was intended.

1. Understand the terms and tools. Facebook is what I would consider true "social" media. Twitter is more a social commentary tool, little updates during the day. Blogging is more analogous to journaling, or commentary on a bigger scale. Social "bookmarking" means sharing found information with others…and so on. For each of the "classes" of social media tool are dozens, if not hundreds of tools to use. Need go get an idea of how many? Check this link out to AddThis.com.
   
   
2. Be prepared to spend resources. A "resource" is time, effort or money in this case. You’re not going to be able to sit back and do nothing, unless you have someone doing all your social media for you (in which case you’re probably paying them). You’re going to have to make an investment of some sort, but with a solid strategy, you can yield returns.
   
   
3. The tools. Pick the tools and stick with them, at least for a while. I see so many people who flit between products like a bee in a summer field; a bit here, a bit there. Yet they accomplish little to nothing. In this day of the web, trends come and go overnight. You’re not always going to be able or want to use the latest gadget. While I think new technologies and tools should be considered as part of a plan, picking the "latest" thing should not be the plan. Picking the right tools will also depend on what resources you can put into them. Take a product like Twitter. The way it functions, in my opinion, requires a little more "hands on" during the day that some of the less dynamic products such as Facebook or a social bookmarking tool.
   
   
4. Integrate. Bring your social media tools together. Integrate your blog with your Twitter, Facebook or website. Keep your look, personalities and message coherent among the products. There are so many ways to integrate social media tools that I will probably write another article on them.
   
   
5. Separate your lives. Keep your online personalities separate. Your business dealings should be kept apart from your personal dealings. You don’t have to "friend" all your clients on Facebook. If you feel you should, then set up a business profile or page and use that. Do you really want your clients or colleagues to know you "got totally wasted dude"?
   
   
6. A game plan. Sounds obvious doesn’t it? A plan isn’t just a vague idea along the lines of "hm, I think I’ll set up a Twitter account and tell people about my products." A plan includes a goal, milestones, a method for achieving them and a way of measuring success.
   
   
7. Be careful who you listen to. It’s easy to sit there and say "social media brings me 98% of my business and I mad $10,000,000 last year thanks to Twitter." It’s also easy to see that message and be disheartened by it. There seem to be more people who are successful online than there is money in the system, have you noticed? I’m not saying that people don’t have success using social media marketing, but if they’re so busy shouting about it…you get the gist.
   
   
8. Learn. Read blogs. Visit websites. There is so much information out there. Check out trends, not just in your industry, but others. Look for what people are doing out there and consider how you can adapt it for your social media plan.
   
   
9. Manage your time. 60 hours a week online might be overdoing in. Depending on what your tools and plan call for, plan to spend x number of hours a day or week online, and stick to it. Split your time between writing, reading and interacting (remember the "social" in "social media").
   
   
10. Give it time. Rome wasn’t built in a day. With a plan and realistic goals, set over a 3 or 6 month time frame, you can evolve your online presence. It is not going to happen overnight. You need to stick with it, which is why picking the right tools is important.
    
    

With the right tools, mindset and a plan, you’ll be amazed at what you can do. Just take your time and invest wisely. Feel free to email me at Dave@JDELtd.com. Emails are free I also offer training programs, marketing services and support.

Good luck!

A CHEAP HOME MAKEOVER, SPRING CLEANING, CALL IT WHAT YOU WILL, YOUR WEBSITE MIGHT NEED IT

Especially in the current economic climate not everyone can afford to dramatically update their website every year or two. This is true especially for those of us who are self-employed or small business owners. Several of my most recent clients have been very honest. "We just don’t have the money to do what we’d like," said one," what can you do to help?"

Now granted, I’m in the web design business, so there may be more that I can do than our clients, and we do. In the aforementioned case, I did some cleaning up of the page content, streamlined tags and titles, did some SEO, and using some spit, polish and elbow grease gave the site a refresh without a rebuild.

In some cases, I don’t even actually get hired. If I can give a couple of ideas away for free and send the client on their merry way, so much the better.

Anyway, that awfully long-winded introduction leads me to today’s topic: things you can do yourself or have done relatively inexpensively to get or keep your site in good shape…or at least up-to-date.

1. Update the main page content. If you don’t have a lot of time to keep your page updated, at least change the front / main page article. Depending on what business you’re in, it should be current, addressing current concerns or industry developments.




2. Check every page. Do all the internal links work. Does the "about me" link on the menu take you to a working "about me" page? Check the spelling on every page. Better yet, have someone help you. Sometimes we suffer from the "wood through the trees" problem and don’t see simple typos or grammatical errors.




3. Verify and test your contact information. Has your email address or phone number changed? It has? Did you change it on your site? If you have forms on your site that people can fill out and send to you (or somewhere else), test them.




4. Check your links. Do you link to other sites from yours? Have you checked those links recently? Websites come and go. They also change. I’ve seen a previous domain name that someone no longer used assigned to an adult-themed site. That’s great for the new site, but imagine if someone was linking to it…and not expecting that.




5. Check your feeds. Do you have a news feed on your site? Do you have IDX? Anything that brings external data to your site is subject to the same problems as links. Sites come and go. Check all the incoming feeds.




6. Is your site in the main search engines? You can read my ongoing series SEO 101 for more information (here’s a link), but your site should probably be showing up in the "big three" search engines: Google, Yahoo and MSN (Bing). How can you tell? Visit each of the sites and type in site:www.jdeltd.com (substituting your domain name for mine). Read the results. Does that look like yours? If not, update your titles and tags.




7. Get some fresh photos. Stock photography is inexpensive (sometimes free) and can make a world of difference. The worst-looking site can be given an "extreme makeover" with some nice photos. Conversely, bad photos can ruin a good site.
   




8. Get some honest feedback. Ask some friends or colleagues for feedback. It may not all be good, but if it’s honest, you can see which of it you can afford to fix now and what needs to be done later. Websites are all about perception.




9. Get that date current! You know the date at the bottom of each page (often with the copyright notice)? Nothing says "not worth visiting" than a site with a date of pre-2009. The information may be more recent, but people do notice that date. Anything pre-2009, in my opinion, makes the site look old.




10. Resolve to repeat 1 through 9 at lease once a month…

Some of this is perhaps a little obvious, but I think it’s rather essential. There’s nothing here that has to cost a lot in terms of time or money, and it’s certainly a worthwhile investment.

When you’ve done your updates, write a quick press release and send it to one of the many free press release companies. Not comfortable writing? Have someone do it for you. A press release doesn’t have to be an editorial, just a paragraph telling people "DAVE’S HOME PAGE MAKEOVER COMPLETE", along with some links to your site. Send some emails out announcing the update, perhaps even some postcards.

Your website is your online store front, accessible by millions. It’s open 24x7x365. It may not be the coolest, trendiest store front in the world, but it’s well-maintained, clean, friendly…and yours.

OIL AND WATER: INSTANT GRATIFICATION AND MARKETING

In a world of instant gratification, instant messaging and instant coffee, some things take time; a day is still 24 hours long, the seasons (at least for now) come and go in rotation, and building a good reputation doesn’t happened overnight…though destroying it can, but that’s another post.

Especially in the online world, so many people seem to think that it’s all about flooding everyone with tons of information and hoping some of it will stick. Unfortunately, in some cases it seems to work and this encourages others to try the same.

Over 90 percent of email is spam. That’s an amazing amount; 9 out 10. Much of this unwanted garbage is “marketing”, whether for a male “enhancing” pill, someone who wants to pass $2,000,000 through your bank account (have you noticed that the dollar amounts seem to have dropped lately), or people wanting to tell you how to get out of debt.

Look at social media. The “social” part of that term implies interaction and communication. Alas, from Twitter to Facebook, blogging and beyond, the social media world is becoming like the email one, lots of people shouting their message and few listening.

Television, door-to-door salespeople, various causes outside well-know stores, advertisements, banners, signs, business cards…they’re all one-way. YOU MUST BUY / GIVE / USE. If you’re lucky you may hear the “why”.

In my humble opinion, and I don’t profess to be an expert, this isn’t marketing. In my (still humble) opinion, marketing is about having a product or service (or whatever) and informing people about it.

But hang on, isn’t that what everyone is doing?

To some degree, but many seem to have lost the focus that the relationship is as important as the product. It seems to be more about the hit-and-run approach and on we go.

Perhaps I’m a little old-fashioned, but I’m not in the business of trying to ram my products down anyone’s throat. Much of my marketing effort is focused on working with and helping clients, expanding my network and giving.

Did he say “giving”?

Relationships are built on trust. Many first dates don’t start with a kiss, but if all went well, they might end with one….after people get to know each other just a little.

Marketing is no different. Perhaps getting to know me a little and being sincere might lead you to realized that I don’t need or want your product, but you know what, I might know someone who does…and you might learn something…

That is marketing.

POWER OF THREE (part iii)

If you’re seeing this subject for the first time, you can catch up with parts 1 and 2:

• POWER OF THREE (part i)
• POWER OF THREE (part ii)

The topic of today is next next part of “TORCH”, the “R” or “Resources”. Thus far, you should have:

• 3 target audiences (“T”);
• 3 objectives (“O”), 1 for each;

Now we need to determine what resources (time, money etc) that need to be applied in order to achieve the objective for each target.

I call this “reverse engineering”. We know ultimately what we want and who we want it from, but in order to get from here to there, what’s it going to take?

Now is the time to put down what you realistically are going to have to spend to get from here to there. I used the term ”spend” a little loosely. A resource is anything that has to be used in order to achieve a goal. This does not have to be money. It could be time and effort. It could be another person or company.

In order to really understand what resources you’re going to need, you’re probably going to start formulating your plan or “how”. This means jumping around a little between the “R”, “C” (Calendar) and “H” but that’s okay.

WIDGET INC

I’m going to continue to use “WIDGET INC” as my example, but so as not to run on forever, I’ll focus on just one of their three items. If you remember, WIDGET have decided on:

Target: plastic dinosaur factories

Objective: $100,000 in new income

So, they now have to ascertain what it’s going to take to generate $100,000 in new income. They figure that every five leads turns into an actual paying client. The average paying client spends $5,000 in a given year. So, to apply the reverse engineering strategy, this means they would need 20 paying clients (20x$5,000=$100,000) in a year to meet their target.

In order to get 20 paying clients, they’re going to need five times as many prospects (1 in 5 becomes a paying client). So, they’ll need 100 prospects. A “prospect” in WIDGET’s case, means someone who has made contact, whether by phone, email or in person.

WIDGET’s marketing team determines that they’re going to use a three-pronged approach: a mailer, coupled with a blogging campaign and email incentive. They figure that if they can get email addresses then they will have an audience they can marketing to repeatedly. However, in order to get these email addresses, they’ll need to do something a little different, so they’re going to do an old-fashioned mailing to all the plastic dinosaur factories in the US (1,000).

They’re also going to set up a blog to discuss elements of their widgets aimed specifically at plastic dinosaur manufacturing called “AGE OF THE DINOSAURS”.

Money at WIDGET is tight, so they don’t have a lot to spend, but:

• The blog is free to set up, it’s just going to take some time to write the content;
• If they do a clever postcard mailer, they can hopefully grab attention enough to get people to visit their website and sign up;
• The website is already in place, but they’re going to set up a separate page with domain name so they can track respondents to the mailer more accurately.

POWER OF THREE

As you can see, a lot of the “how” is covered in the “resources”, so you’re doing some work ahead of time, but in order to accurately develop a plan, you need to know what’s going into the recipe.

Also, in your case, like that of “WIDGET”, you’re going to have three different plans. Hopefully you can see the benefit of spreading your resources and risk around.

HOMEWORK

The next assignment is to begin developing your plans. If you find that three plans are a little too much, start with one. You can always repeat the exercise for other plans.

What you’ll need at the end is a good idea of how much time, effort and money is going to be needed to achieve the goal.

• Be realistic and honest with yourself. If it takes more than you first thought, at least now is a good time to find out.
• Don’t allow the process or resources intimidate you. You’ve still got to do the “how” in full, and you’ll probably be surprised.
• Consider all resources, paid and otherwise. What “freebies” are there out there?

Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Please let me know if I can be of any help.

POWER OF THREE (part ii)

In my last post(part i) I began discussing the “Power of Three” and TORCH, a marketing acronym (Target / Objective / Resources /Calendar / How). I left you with step one homework, selecting three different “T”s or target audiences for your marketing program.

I’m going to use WIDGET INC as my imaginary clients. WIDGET INC makes…you guessed it! They’ve decided they’re going to market to (1)factories, (2)construction companies and (3)janitorial companies. My first question would relate to number 1 – “factories”. That is a potentially vague market segment. After all, there must be thousands of different types of factories. It may very well be that WIDGET INC has a product or service that spans every conceivable industry, but they don’t, so I’m going to ask them to narrow the first item down. The second and third are just fine. So instead of “factories”, they’re going with “Factories that make plastic dinosaurs”.

STEP 2 : OBJECTIVE

The objective has to be measurable. “Making money” is not terribly measurable. How much money? $10? Okay, that’s more measurable. Remember, we’re picking an objective for each of our three targets. Things to consider as measurable objectives might include a certain number of sales, or a monetary return. It should be tangible and achievable. While I’m all for “the sky’s the limit”, I firmly believe that the easiest way to eat an elephant is “one bite at a time”.

WIDGET INC has decided on the following:

Target: plastic dinosaur factories
Objective: $100,000 in new income

Target: construction companies
Objective: 5 new clients (possibly with income)

Target: janitorial companies
Objective: $100,000 in new income

The second objective, “5 new clients” is a big deal for WIDGET. The construction industry is a new one for them, so there’s going to be some learning time. Their goal is 5 new clients in the first 6 months, something that’s realistic to them.

POWER OF THREE

Another reason we pick THREE different targets, clients, plans etc is to allow for backup. If one plan isn’t working as well as it might, we have two others to support us while we sort out the third. Not only is this a matter of spreading risk, it’s helpful (we hope) when it comes to motivation. While one or two plans might be having trouble, we have a third that should be doing at least “okay”.

YOUR MISSION…

…should you choose to accept it, is to now pick three business objectives for your three target companies or industries. These must be measurable goals. If they’re not measurable, how do you know you’re succeeding?

As always, feel free to contact me and I’ll see you for part iii.