Marketing Commentary from interlinkONE
Multi-channel marketing communications - all in one!
Head-Scratcher
Posted by 
on Tuesday, June 16, 2009 
at 1:44 PM 
in If you are a business owner, a chief marketing officer, or in anyway responsible for the marketing efforts of your company, I am sure you have the best intentions when it comes to your marketing efforts.
If your company is doing good, bad, or simply staying alive, you know that it’s important to keep marketing… to keep promoting your company, product, or services.
Well, despite these great intentions, we often still fall short when it comes to meeting our own expectations. Our marketing plan may have called for sending a newsletter once a month…. Or we may have planned on updating our website once a week. Or we may have created a blog 3 months ago – and it we are currently still thinking of our second article idea.
How do you react to this situation? Where you seem to have simply run out of ideas on the content for your your next marketing effort?
The following advice may sound simple… But I promise, it can help when your “creative” bucket seems to be running low.
Check the calendar: Yes, the calendar can provide inspiration for marketing topics. Look at the holidays — is there something that you can provide related to a specific holiday to your customers? Earth Day comes around once a year. Could you generate a postcard, a webpage, or an email that provides information on your company’s green initiatives? Or perhaps on how your product or service can help another company “go green” with their marketing efforts?
Share what makes your life easier: The internet is full of tools that can help us with our daily routine. Perhaps we read about a tool or a service somewhere, and have been enjoying its benefits. Sometimes we assume that if a tool is so great, everyone else must know about it, and be using it. Well, that’s not always the case.
I am a huge fan of Google Alerts. It allows me to enter a variety of terms that I’m interested in. Perhaps “multi-channel marketing”, “personalized URLs”, and “Print ‘09″. Well, Google sends me an email once a day with links to new pages that mention those terms. It helps keep me updated on a lot of things that I would have missed otherwise. Well, if you haven’t already tried it, Google Alerts is certainly a tool that could possibly help you in your business.
Ask yourself: What can I help someone accomplish: Keep it as simple as possible! Sometimes we worry so much about finding the magic words to sell oursleves. Well, try to break it down – what is one simple way that I (or my company, product, or service) could help a customer today? Then, write a little story about that.
Check the Recycle Bin: Okay, you certainly want to produce fresh content for your audience, as much as possible. But don’t be afraid to look in your archives. Open up the cabinet that contains your old mailers, the printed version of your old website, etc… There will most likely be a topic that catches your attention. Simply review and update the article, and then push it out again.
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