Hafenblog

Trade Shows - Beyond the SWAG

 

For some people, trade shows are little more than an excuse to get out of the office—maybe to take a “free” trip to a different city. Of course, stocking up on bouncy balls, LED flashlights, and other free stuff is also a primary objective. For others who know better, trade shows provide great opportunities to grow their business.

 Even though the economic challenges of the past few years have negatively impacted the trade show industry as a whole, as the economy continues to rebound, trade shows are moving right along with it. Tradeshows are market microcosms. There is still no better venue than a trade show to see and be seen, engage potential clients, and to keep up with best practices and trends in your industry.

 Last month, we witnessed the trade show resurgence firsthand. Hafenbrack was the marketer of record for the Dayton Tooling & Manufacturing Association’s (DTMA) annual Advanced Manufacturing & Technology Show (AMTS). We worked with DTMA to develop a show strategy and creative marketing elements including a website, a video, direct mail and email campaigns, and event signage. Exhibitor and attendee audiences were both targeted by the marketing efforts, and when it was all said and done, substantially more people attended the show this year than last. This increase was due in part to awesome marketing, but also to ongoing, albeit slow, economic growth. Obviously, there’s still quite a ways to go, but even modest growth is still growth, and as far as trade shows are concerned, it’s always good when companies are looking to buy equipment or enlist vendor services to meet rising demand.

 In addition to our role as marketer for the AMTS event itself, we also purchased a booth and exhibited at the show. Traffic was steady and interest was high. We interacted with attendees and fellow exhibitors, and learned a lot about what’s going on in our region’s manufacturing sector including its current challenges and opportunities for growth. Would some of the people we spoke to have been there last year? Maybe, but a lot of them wouldn’t have been. It was evident that with businesses starting to come back to life, trade shows remain a useful endeavor in today’s economic climate.                              

Jon Brooks Addresses SAA's Graduating Class of 2010

The regional marketing community is grateful for the School of Advertising Art and the excellent design professionals it produces evey year. And Hafenbrack counts itself among them. Nearly every one of our designers studied at the school, including our Art/Creative Director, Jon Brooks. Jon was a member of the first graduating class of SAA some 23 years ago. And this weekend, he was invited to address this year's graduates. His remarks:

So let me start with a little story. There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and asks, “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” The two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and asks, “What the hell is water?” The point of that story is merely that the most obvious, important things in life are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about. So as you continue on life’s Journey, make sure you take the time to enjoy what’s going on around you. Greetings and congratulations to SAA’s graduating class of 2010, enjoy your day kids, you’ve earned it.

I’m honored to be chosen as the commencement speaker for this the 25th anniversary of SAA, I would like to extend a special thanks to Tim and Linda Potter, the class of 1986 and the entire staff of SAA past and present. This is quite an honor for a shy kid who once was scolded by Paul Behrens, Linda’s father who taught figure drawing at the time, for emasculating the male models. Paul was quite the stickler for detail. Thank you SAA, you are an integral part of my success. As part of the first graduating class 23 years ago, I was sitting right out there where you are, nervous and excited about what lay ahead. Actually I’m a lot more nervous today then I was back then, so feel free to sweat because I sure as heck am.

But this isn’t about me it’s about you. And as I reflect on the last 25 years of my life, I thought I would share not my accomplishments but some of the lessons I accidentally learned along the way.

LOVE HARD AND MEAN IT.(not nearly as provocative as it sounds)
 
First, love what you do and do what you love.
Technology has become a great equalizer in our world. True talent is much tougher to recognize. It’s much harder to stand out amongst your peers. The playing field has effectively been leveled. And we’re part of a shrinking world where everything is becoming outsourced or automated. Sounds kind of bleak, but the good news is that the jobs that can’t be automated are the ones that require creativity, passion, imagination--jobs that can only be done by people who love what they do.

Second, work hard.
Once you’ve discovered your true love, pursue it with vigor, passion and, of course, hard work. Work hard at your craft. It’s what will separate you from everyone else, talent and a great portfolio are just the first steps the real measures are how much you’re willing to give or sacrifice for your love. What we do isn’t easy. Each of our designs is part of us. They’re like our children, and believe me you don’t want someone telling you that your baby’s ugly. So the harder you work at what you do, the more rewarding the results.

Third, mean it.
You can’t just say you’re going to love what you do and work hard at it to be successful--you have to mean it. Talent gets you in the door but determination keeps you there. It’s what makes you do the design one more time to make it perfect. It's what keeps you from settling for a job you don’t want. It’s that “I’ll show you!” attitude that drives parents and teachers crazy, but it's what every successful creative has. Start low and reach high: You can fail without being defeated, as long as you have the determination never to give up.

I guess what I have been trying to say here this morning can be summed up by the old saying that “happiness is a journey, not a destination.” Bringing joy and passion to your work is not what you get to do when you get to the top. It’s what gets you there. If I have had any success in this business since I was sitting down there where you are 23 years ago, it’s because I found a way to enjoy the journey as much as the destination. Life’s way too short to sit around and watch it go by. Sometimes like the fish in the story you have to stop and look around to see the water. Believe me I’ve had my failures over the years but more often than not I found ways to learn from, and enjoy, some part of each job. With that, I’ll leave you with a quote from Mark Twain: "Always work like you don’t need the money. Always fall in love like you’ve never been hurt. Always dance like nobody is watching. And always -- always -- live like it’s heaven on earth."

Thank you.

Grammatically Incorrect Latin And Its Value in the Post-Recession Bounce.

I had to take Latin for three years in high school and nearly ended up majoring in it in college. “Nearly” in the sense that I was runner-up at two different universities for full-ride classical languages scholarships. “Runner-up” in the sense that anyone who entered and didn’t end up winning received that designation. Coming in second place in a scholarship contest is about as lucrative as coming in second place in an agency search. Ample experience guides my writing.

The scholarship committees knew what they were doing when they mercifully sent me packing. I’m sure my high school Latin teachers, if they remembered my classroom exploits at all, would describe me as a guy who worked hard in his studies—not as a Latin whiz whose performance demanded subsidy from an institution of higher learning. Latin is an extremely logical language, but my strength wasn’t in picking up on the logic. Instead, it was in figuring out the global meaning of what I was reading, and writing well enough to communicate that meaning. It didn’t take me long to realize that, when in doubt, as long as I wrote something about a master and a slave and field—whether the master saw the slave in the field, or the slave saw the master in the field, or the field saw the master and the slave—I was going to get credit for a somewhat right answer.

It’s amazing what a poor knowledge of Latin can do for you.

A few months ago, in the depths of the recession, I wrote about a trend in the marketplace that I referred to as the Responsibility-Authority Paradox. Traditional buyers of products and services found themselves still employed and knew that in order for their companies to be successful, they were going to have to invest in the services that had historically supported revenue growth. So they contacted their historical vendors to solicit bids. And with winning bids in hand they confidently completed purchase requisitions, only to have them denied by a risk-averse financial type higher up the food chain. For vendors, it took a team of bloodhounds to track down their buyer, who was hiding for shame under his cubicle desk.

Fortunately, the Responsibility-Authority Paradox has started to loosen its grip on the sales process. Buying authority is slowly making its way back to traditional buyers whose bosses have more confidence in short- to mid-term growth and who wore themselves out trying to manage every dollar that left their coffers. But those bosses aren’t letting go entirely. So the Responsibility-Authority Paradox is now being replaced with another phenomenon I refer to, calling on my poor command of the Latin language, as Emptor Caveat: Beware of Your Buyer. (Technically, reversing the order of words in Latin does nothing to change their meaning. It should really read something like, Cavete Emptorem, “Beware, implied second-person plural, of the buyer!” But that doesn’t read nearly as well.)

The reality in strategic selling—at least for the time-being, probably from here forward, and perhaps all along anyway—is that you have two strategic targets: one whose interest is in the differentiators your product or service will demonstrate in its execution, and another whose interest is in how your solution impacts the bottom line. One appreciates your thoughtful description of your corporate philosophy, organizational history, and benevolent Hawaiian-shirt policy. The other wants to know why you cost more than another competitor and how that could possibly work in your favor. Unfortunately, you know which one makes the final decision. Fortunately, you also know which one influences that decision … and you have the ability to market smartly to both throughout the sales process to say what needs to be said when it needs to be heard.

Here are six quick tips for identifying your buyers and influencers and using that knowledge to land new business.

1. Do your homework. If you’re targeting a new client, segment or industry, find out what challenges your solution solves for features-focused buyers and for bottom-line-focused buyers.
2. If you haven’t already done so through organic networking or LinkedIn, use a list development service (or an agency that provides that service—I can think of one) to identify the various buying types within your prospective client by name and title. Create tools (e-mails, eblasts, direct mail or personal letters) with messaging unique to each contact and his/her motivations. In many cases, these tools are passed directly from the decision maker to other influencers, starting a conversation and setting the stage for your contact.
3. After you’ve created awareness for your organization within the prospective client, connect personally at multiple levels. If it’s a new client, try to secure an appointment with whomever you can. The process takes a little longer, but it’s worth it in the end.
4. Once you make a contact within the client, talk with him or her candidly about all of the people who play a role in the vendor-selection process. Work for an appointment with all necessary influencers and decision makers, avoiding the appearance of going “behind the back” or “over the head” of influencers as you try to find the buyer. That’s an easy way to lose the support of people who play a critical role in the selection of your company.
5. Craft a sales presentation that speaks concisely to the motivations and concerns of all the influencers present, while remaining mindful of the concerns and patience of the ultimate buyer. You have a limited amount of time to make all of the points you need for all of the people who will be in the room.
6. Don’t take for granted that you have an hour to present. Ask what amount of time and presentation format are preferred by the audience. (Just last week, at the request of a mutual friend, the CEO of a manufacturing company whose background is in accounting allowed me to test my theory by delivering a presentation that had recently won us a major account whose decision makers were predominantly marketing VPs and directors. The CEO with the financial background was good for about fifteen minutes before his eyes started to glaze over. “You gotta get to the point with me,” he said. “You get thirty minutes. Ten for introductions. Fifteen to show me what you’ve done for other clients and why it matters to me. And five for my questions.” That may not be the way you’d prefer to do it, but you’re not the one calling the shots. And what you really want are the shots called in your favor.)

Being aware of your buyer is critical in this market. The Emptor Caveat phenomenon, if understood and prepared for, can work to your advantage. Aside from the admonition in the photo at the top of the post (sage advice whatever language you speak), that’s all the bad Latin I’m good for anymore. 

The Game within THE GAME (and its relation to Seinfeld)

It’s the biggest Sunday of the year. The perfect opportunity for the Indianapolis Colts and New Orleans Saints to put their best feet forward on the one of the world’s biggest stages.  A whole season’s work will come down to a few critical seconds, making the difference between a win and a loss, a hero and a goat, relevance and irrelevance. 

 

While it’s true that Super Bowl Sunday is the most anticipated sporting day of the year, it’s also the most anticipated advertising day of the year. Super Bowl advertising supremacy has really become the game within the game. It is the ultimate battle for market share, built around incredibly expensive 30-second spots. For some viewers, the commercials are more interesting than the game itself. And that’s not lost on ad agencies. Even in this miserable economic climate, companies are shelling out upwards of $2.8 million per spot for the chance to make an impression on the viewing public.

 

There’s a lot riding on a Super Bowl spot. Some agencies pull off a great spot and achieve advertising immortality (best Super Bowl commercials of all time), while others miss the mark, blowing a whole lot of client cash and spending the ensuing weeks juggling damage-control and business-development responsibilities (worst Super Bowl commercials of all time).  

 

There are several vehicles advertisers will employ this Sunday in their spots: comedy, innuendo, endorsement, and emotion. They all have merit, but which ones will work? Indeed, what is it that makes a great Super bowl ad?  Well, it’s the same thing that makes any advertising campaign a success: relevant and compelling ideas (almost always backed by research) that address the needs and wants of consumers and drive them to action. It sounds simple enough, but I can’t count how many times after watching a commercial that I found myself asking; “Okay…who and what was that about?”  

 

Hafenbrack didn’t place any ads for clients in the Super Bowl this year. (The economy.) Still, we’re happy to share a few key questions you should always ask yourself before deploying your own advertising:

 

• Sure, this is funny, catchy, shocking, whatever … but will it matter to the people I want to buy our products or services?
• Does it convey the value of those products/services clearly?
• Is there a clear call to action? Does it drive ideal customers to a visit a website, pick up the phone, and ultimately affect a sale?
• Will it stay with customers beyond their first viewing?
• Is it consistent with our company’s culture, and is it something that our owners, associates and partners will feel good about?

If an advertising idea doesn’t address those questions, it’s probably better left as a storyboard on the conference room table.  And to prove that every aspect of life—including relevant and compelling marketing—can directly tied back to an episode of Seinfeld, I offer the following. Episode 143, “The Abstinence,” originally aired on November 21, 1996. Kramer sues a tobacco company after smoking their cigars has left his skin dull and leathery. (His good looks are his livelihood, he argues.) Kramer eventually accepts a settlement—in classic Kramer fashion—that places his image on a billboard displayed in the middle of Times Square. Funny? On a TV program, yes. Valuable as advertising in any way other than averting a lawsuit, not really.

 

 When you watch the game this Sunday just remember, the winners and losers will be determined not only by the scoreboard but by next day’s water cooler buzz and the next quarter’s earnings statements. 

"Should I Keep My Yellow Pages Ad?"

It's a question I hear more and more. In an increasingly digital world, customers are questioning the value of spending marketing dollars to cover an ad in "The Book." You can't argue that Yellow Pages have gotten thinner and thinner in the last decade. Still, for some businesses, they're a good fit. Here's a summary of recommendations I made to a client as he was preparing to meet with his Yellow Pages rep.

• Is this ad doing anything for you? Do you get any clients because of it? Have any clients told you they found you in the book, or do they come more reliably from other sources?
• What kind of information can the rep provide to you about the success of your particular ad? Is he able to demonstrate to you how effective it has or has not been? This will tell you whether he knows your challenges specifically or whether he's just trying to sell you ad space like he will the next door he knocks on.
• Can he offer any recommendations for enhancing the effectiveness of your ad based on work they’re doing with other businesses in your industry {in this instance, professional services} around the country? It’s good to know “best practices” for your industry.
• Yellow Pages providers have created Internet advertising programs. Is a combination of a print listing and Internet listing a good solution for you? Or should you do Internet advertising alone? Or should you do print alone? The rep. should have plenty of answers to this question.
  
  You may have stopped reading after the first bullet. If you can say confidently that you’re getting no business from the print ad, drop it and redirect the money to some more promising initiatives. However, if you feel that the ad may have value, but you don’t how to measure it, I have some advice:
• Have the rep outline a plan to make the ad more effective and more measurable. If it makes sense, go with it. If not, consider redeployment of your dollars.
• Create ad-specific contact information, e.g. a special Web address that you can redirect to your website and/or a unique phone number that will roll over to your office. You can check these monthly to determine if anyone has been using them. That will give you a pretty good idea of whether to continue or not when the next printing rolls around.
• Make sure you ask people who contact you how they found you.

I don’t have anything against the Yellow Pages reps. On the contrary: They are professionals providing a service that may be valuable to you if done correctly. At the same time, it may no longer be the right fit for what you do. Either way, as long as you work from measurable data (as much as possible), you and your rep should both be on the same page about whether you should continue investing your marketing dollars with them.

 

The New Year, Narcissism & The Impact On How You Market

I saw this cartoon a few years ago and copied it from the Internet to my computer’s desktop. I’m not sure who drew it or where it first appeared. All I can say, to the credit of the artist and in avoidance of rights infringement, is that it wasn’t me. When I first saw it, I felt as if its drawing and posting to that page had been ordained from the beginning of time uniquely for me. The irony of my reaction to a cartoon admonishing ego-centrism isn’t lost on me. Still, it left its impression and is consulted as regularly as I need to. As we undertake this New Year, I’m not alone in benefitting from its message.

2009. The final year of the first decade of the new millennium. You would expect more out of a year you describe that way. Instead, by nearly all accounts, 2009 was a dud. All of the excitement. All of the promise. All for naught. Instead of celebrating this new gilded age of MarCom, I spent much of the time thinking about my humble condition. And when all external measures—revenue, cash flow, sales funnel, bathroom scale—indicated otherwise, I turned to social media to remind myself how great I truly was. Turns out, I wasn’t the only one.  According to a recent SDSU study featured in Mashable, “57% of young people believe their generation uses social networking sites for self-promotion, narcissism and attention seeking.” Ouch. And perfectly consistent with my own experiences. As evidence, here are a few of my generation’s best status updates from 2009:

· “I cannot believe it is 85 degrees at our resort in Venezuela!”

· “Hey man, it’s great to see you after so many years. Is your career going well? Because I have a fool-proof way for you to make money from home.”

· “I just finished A LOT of work for charity!”

· “Doctor’s visit: I have 30-inch waist and seven percent body fat.”

And these don’t even include the seemingly harmless, “Going to work out, “ or “Ate THE BEST sandwich ever today,” variety of tweets and status updates that reveal just how much we Gen Yers think the banalities of our daily lives mean everything to everyone else. I admit guilt.

So me and my ilk, we’re all self-obsessed navel gazers. What does that have to do with you? What does it have to do with your business? And what does it have to do with marketing? Precisely this: The Gen Yer you’re going to hire to revolutionize your business through social media is likely as tin-eared as everyone else in our generation.  That shouldn’t dissuade you from experimenting with these technologies. Just keep a few simple things in mind as you embark on a promising year of proactive MarCom.

1.    Balance your marketing mix. Social media utilities are free to use. But they shouldn’t be all you use. For a lot of our clients, whose prospects don’t consult social media, spending time and money on these utilities makes little sense. Let social media play a role in a broader marketing program that leverages a host of tools your prospects consume. Let each tool prove itself before you invest further in them.

2.    Make it relevant. Whether it’s a Twitter post, an eblast, a direct mailer, or a print ad, anything you push out to the market should have value for your customers and prospects. Features, benefits, promotions—it’s about them, their success, and their satisfaction. Anything else is a waste of their time.

3.    Make it manageable. There’s a lot of great information to share. But there are only so many hours in the day. You wouldn’t call a prospect every ten minutes to offer updates on your capabilities or industry trends. The same is true of your communications via social networks. Think about what is manageable consumption for your prospects and deploy your communications accordingly.

4.    Use it to listen. Ahh. Listening. Not a strong suit of my generation. But the thing for us to keep in mind is that using social utilities for monologue is valuable when it’s coming from a direction other than our own. And if it can turn into a dialogue—how you hear, respond to, and/or anticipate the needs of your clients—even better.

With a few weeks of the New Year under my belt, my assessment of 2009 is changing. No one is out of the woods quite yet, but I’m actually grateful for the year that recently ended. I learned a lot in those 12 months—not the least of which is that there are a lot of great people who simply want to help others during challenging times. And, thanks to their model, we all recognize that same obligation of ourselves. And I haven’t thrown in the towel on my generation and our use of social media, either. It took one minute in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti for us all to realize what really does and does not constitute suffering. And just as fast, a hundred friends updated profiles and blogs to let the rest of us know the best ways to donate and volunteer.  Here's a good place to start.

Standing Up In A Down Economy

Sure, times are tight. But there is opportunity in any market for smart businesses to grow. Here are eight simple things you can do for free to grow awareness and revenue opportunities for your company, or to reduce your current marketing spend.

1. Resist the Urge to Run Away From Prospective Clients.
   When markets tighten, short-sighted business owners shore up the bottom line by contracting marketing. It seems like a good strategy, but in truth it’s the worst thing you could do. Why would you want to hide from your prospective customers when you need the business so much? You’re competitors are probably doing the same thing, leaving you with unimpeded access to loads of prospective customers. Instead of dropping marketing dollars, think of your marketplace like the stock market: When the markets are at their lowest, it makes sense to invest. Those who have capital in the markets, reap the rewards when things take off again.
   
2. Check Your Strategy With The Experts: Your Customers.
   A soft market provides the perfect opportunity to take a step back and analyze your strategy. If you don’t, you risk trying to selling what nobody wants to be. So take some time to ask a few pointed but critical questions. Are your products and services really meeting the need that exists in the marketplace? Are your customers optimized, or are you selling to too many customers who buy little and suck the margin out of every sale? And once you know who ideal customers are, are you targeting the right people within their ranks? The best way to get quick answers to these questions is to survey your current (and former customers). They’ll give you accurate and valuable feedback, letting you know things you can do to make you more competitive or things that you do exceptionally well. (This is great material for testimonials and case studies.)
   
   Does all this seem daunting? You’re not alone…or at least you don’t have to be. As a part of your strategy review, consider creating an advisory board. Recruit experts whose specific talents align with your growth strategy. They’ll leverage their talents on your behalf for a nominal fee—they just want to help. Then they’ll keep you faithful to your strategy. If you want to start a board, www.aileron.net can help.
   
3. Focus Your Message On Value.
   Your clients will naturally try to focus discussions on price. Don’t go down without a fight. Find out why your products or services address challenges unique to their business and focus on the value of what you deliver—not the price. In the end you may have to sharpen your pencil a little, but you will have enhanced your brand equity in the eyes of the customer by talking about the value of your services. That’s a little better than being forced to try to beat the “other guy’s” price.
   
4. Best Clients First. New Clients Next.
   There’s an expression in the world of coaching: You dance with what brung you. That means that what has worked in the past has validity now. Your best historical customers know you, like you, and are easier to get in front of than cold prospects. So go to your best historical customers first to talk about the challenges of their businesses and how your new, refined, market-relevant service offering can help. Consider creating customer continuity programs that reward them for sales to date by offering them incentives on additional purchases. Personalize the business relationships wherever possible And openly ask them to refer you to businesses they know that might be able to use your services, if you haven’t already.At the same time, you should be identifying new market segments and prospects. Find the lowest hanging fruit and target them first. (See #5.)
   
5. Be Mindful of the Authority-Responsibility Paradox
   Although it may not be fair, it's not uncommon in a tough economy for your historical contacts to lose the spending authority you both used to enjoy, in spite of the fact that they've probably been tasked with more work as their employers have laid off their co-workers. That's the Responsibility/Authority Paradox: all of the responsibilities an employee used to have and then some, without the ability to pull the trigger to get anything done. It makes your job harder for sure. And guess what: It's not going away. Your historical contacts are going to do whatever they can to keep their jobs. In fact, don't be surprised if your proposal for services elicits a response from executive leadership of, "If we engage this service provider, then why should I pay you?" So you're going to have to refine your approach to develop new business. Here are some strategies.
   
6. Go Small Or Don’t Go At All. (Experiment and Measure)
   What do Albert Einstein, Jonas Salk, Marie Curie and Sir Isaac Newton all have in common? For the purposes of this list, not a one of them worked in marketing. That’s because marketing isn’t a science, and it shouldn’t be approached that way. Marketing is a calculated risk, a best-bet prediction of customer needs and behaviors. Get it right and there is great reward. Get it wrong and you lose your investment. So in this slow economy, when you know you need new customers, commit yourself to bringing them on board—but do it in a way that protects you financially. Experiment with prospective customer segments in small numbers and use marketing tools that are MEASURABLE. If you’re using direct mail or any type of advertising—print, outdoor, broadcast—incorporate unique URLs and phone numbers for each medium so you can track the progress of the individual tools. Consider search-engine marketing to drive qualified traffic to your website. You can run activity reports daily to see how an online program is working for you. In short, give new markets a try. Do it smart ways that can fail without hurting you. If an initiative proves not to work, don’t do it again. And if you find a winning formula, redirect budget in it grow revenue and awareness.
   
7. Deals Abound. Take Advantage of Them.
   If all of your competitors are cutting back on marketing, you can be sure that the advertising outlets you all use are feeling the pinch. Now is the time to save some money by locking in some great deals. Renegotiate your insertion rates. Shop your business around if it makes sense. Chances are that you’ll a) save money on your current spend and b) make a more meaningful impact on your target audience since you’ll be communicating in a less crowded competitive space.
   
8. Become A Believer In PR. But When You Can’t Afford It, Try “Free-R.”
   You have experts on your team—let people know about them. There is a host of outlets that allow you to generate awareness about your organization at little or no cost, other than your time. - Identify the groups and associations that have an interest in the expertise of your associates, and then send those team members out to speak to those organizations. The engagements won’t be a commercial for your business, but they will keep your associates front of mind with people who can influence the purchase process at your prospective clients—especially if their presentation-specific genius is being delivered on a PowerPoint template.-Create relationships with the leading trade publications for your industry. Send them articles written by your associates and news releases about exciting product and service developments at your organization. Before you know it, those same outlets will be proactively contacting you and your associates to ask for your insights as they develop upcoming publications.- Start blogging. Blogs offer an easily updatable forum for the presentation and exchange of information relevant to your prospective customers. They deliver insight and entertainment, all the while adding credibility and dimension to you and the experts in your organization. They’re also free. Start a blog in five minutes by visiting a free site like WordPress or Blogger.
   
9. Mine Your Vendor Network.
   Every day, your business relies on the talents of vendors and professional services providers to keep you in cash, in service, on time and, in some cases, out of jail. These are your bankers, attorneys, and accountants, along with the myriad of vendor partners who are critical to your businesses success. These partners have a vested interest in helping you build on your success. They know a lot about your business. And they have exposure to a lot of your prospective customers. So it’s good practice—in good economic times and in bad—to schedule appointments with all of them to talk about ways they can help you grow. Sometimes, it takes little more than a phone call to get their wheels turning on your behalf.

So we’ve shown you eight things you can do for free starting today to drive revenue and power awareness for your business in a tight economy. Just imagine the kinds of services we deliver to paying customers! Check out some case studies at our website.

Fishing for ideas

Thinking “outside the box” is really thinking “inside the boat” to me. Being a resident of Indian Lake with access to some of the best fishing in Ohio gives me time to do two of my favorite passions outside of family – marketing and fishing. Like most of us, I am running 100% of the day getting work done, putting out fires and trying to make appointments on time. Just ask my wife, I run too much and don’t sit nearly enough. Fishing gives me the luxury of both sitting and working – or more importantly...thinking! Thinking about life, marketing and just finding better solutions for our company’s customers. There is no better way to generate ideas than to do something that is the polar opposite of trying to generate ideas. We all know how ideas pop into our heads the moment our heads hit the pillow at night. Walla, we just answered the world’s problems as we slumber off to LaLa land.  
 
The world of marketing is changing fast. I just read an article where the author stated that she needed to get out of the mindset of marketing in 2007 and get into the present.  Have things changed that much in two years? In many respects yes. I just read an article titled Marketing to Moms. It rated and benchmarked ten ways Moms receive their information.  All the traditional avenues ranked at the bottom and were essentially off the radar. TV, radio, print - forget it. You are spitting into the wind spending money here trying to sell products or services to Mom. And we all know Moms make 85% of the buying decisions in most homes. My wife Teresa does in ours, actually 95%. What Moms use to make critical buying decisions is: 1) Friends (no surprise), 2) Online reviews, 3) Expert reviews and 4) Online friends, in that order. Teresa was looking for a coffee pot for our church. She hit the web, of course. She was not swayed by traditional ads or even thought about looking there. She investigates travel, loves EBAY, buys quilting supplies, orders home furnishings, special coffee, communicates with our daughters and sons through Face Book – all online.  And I believe she is a typical Mom.
 
I like to think about the objective of the marketing campaign, then look for technologies and mediums to deliver that message. If you start by saying I am going to do TV ads and Twitter posting for this campaign, you are destine to fail. Technology changes and evolves, but core objectives should not. I don’t fish with my favorite lure every time I fish, I look for the bait or lure that is getting the job done that day for the type of fish I am looking for. In fact, I asked a friend once what his favorite bait is. He said, “My favorite bait is the one that is catching fish that day.”  Hum..kind of reminds me of marketing. I don’t have a favorite marketing medium or fishing bait. I analyze the environment I am about to enter and pick a suite of media that will work. It could be TV, web, social, tradeshows, whatever. Don’t fall in love with a medium, pick and choose the one that works to the particular campaign.
 

Hafenbrack Featured In Industry Publication!

There's no greater honor than the selection of your company for inclusion in a respected and reputable industry publication. And when that doesn't happen, the only thing left to do is to create your own. That's why we've come up with HQ, Hafenbrack's quarterly publication offering all the insights your business could ever need in these three months to get a leg up on the competitive market. This edition features tips for marketing in a down economy, details on search marketing for healthcare, and a host of tidbits that will push you ahead in these tight times. Similar publications retail for obscene amounts, but HM is yours for little more than the calories you'll burn by clicking here.

Beating the Responsibility/Authority Paradox

Tell me if this sounds familiar: You've been slogging through a miserable economy for the last six months, trying to convince prospective clients that the only time better than now for promoting their services to their prospects was six months ago. They agree completely. They know this is no time to run away from new business, and they know the value you will bring to their efforts to grow awareness and revenue opportunities for their products and services. They commission a formal proposal for services. They even go as far as asking you to fine tune it ever so slightly to circumvent some internal political issues. They receive it with great excitement. And then ... nothing. No feedback. No response. No return phone calls or e-mails. Weeks and maybe even months go by before you finally track them down. And it's then that you learn that, as much as they agree with your approach, they've been told by executive leadership that your services are simply not in the budget. Denied by executive leadership? Since when has a CFO been making decisions about effective marketing? Since this economy, that's when. And its' then that you realize, you've just fallen victim to the Responsibility/Authority Paradox.

Although it may not be fair, it's not uncommon in a tough economy for your historical contacts to lose the spending authority you both used to enjoy, in spite of the fact that they've probably been tasked with more work as their employers have laid off their co-workers. That's the Responsibility/Authority Paradox: all of the responsibilities an employee used to have and then some, without the ability to pull the trigger to get anything done. It makes your job harder for sure. And guess what: It's not going away. Your historical contacts are going to do whatever they can to keep their jobs. In fact, don't be surprised if your proposal for services elicits a response from executive leadership of, "If we engage this service provider, then why should I pay you?" So you're going to have to refine your approach to develop new business.

Here are some quick strategies for beating the Responsibility/Authority Paradox.

• Interview your best client contacts. Find out how your services can help them achieve their objectives, and how the economy and changes at their company have had an impact on their ability to work with vendors. Then get creative. Could you tackle smaller projects now? Could you bill an amount each month that would keep you from billing a larger (more scrutinized) amount at the completion of the project?
• Push for referrals from decision-makers. If you don't know executive leadership at your current top clients, work with your contacts to meet them. Along with using the opportunity to thank them for their business, talk to them about the Responsibility/Authority Paradox and ask them for their thoughts on how to best deal with it. Finally, ask if they know other business leaders/decision makers who could benefit from the same services you've already delivered to their business.
• Create awareness for your services at multiple levels at the same prospect. Mind you, this doesn't mean going over your historical contacts' heads, nor does it mean pestering multiple contacts in the same company. Your messages will need to be crafted to the level of contact and his/her perceptions of how your services can be valuable. The idea is to hedge your bets by softening both sides of the decision-making process: the person who advocates for the decision and the person who makes it.
• Pick a target and swing for the fences.  In select instances, with new prospective clients, move up the food chain, bypass your former historical contact and go after the person above him/her. Worst case scenario: You're sent packing for wasting the time of a c-level. A more likely outcome is meeting with the c-level or being directed back down the chain to the historical contact, with the c-level's endorsement to move ahead.

No one knows how long this economy will last, or if it will ever be what it was before. If you believe in your services, smart strategies for new business development will pull you through.