For the most part, I try to refrain from discussing the economy in our blog posts. We all know the economy is bad and customer spending is down (although recent reports show it’s increasing slowly). However, it does need to be reiterated that even in a down economy, you need to continue with your marketing… and, there are some great reasons to increase your small business marketing now and not wait until the market goes up. I’m just listing three here… if you would like to hear more, contact us at The Envision Agency, Small Business Marketing 800.441.1319.

Now, I do want to stress before we go into these reasons, that we are not suggesting that you increase your marketing budget across the board. At The Envision Agency, we always suggest that you spend money on what’s working and try to improve what is not… and if you can’t improve it, you shut it down. If you are ready to increase your marketing budget we recommend increasing spending on channels that are performing within your expected metrics or trying out new channels that you have not yet tested.

Reason 1: Studies have shown that companies that continue to market during tough economic times often see growth during those times, where businesses that cut their marketing budget will often see a decrease in sales.

Summary of Studies Reported by the American Business Press

Recessionary Periods Studied	Author / Sponsor	Conclusion
1920s recession	Vaile, Harvard Business Review	Biggest sales increases come from companies that increase advertising.
1949, 1954, 1958, 1961 recessions	Buchen Advertising	Companies that cut advertising during recession experience dropped sales and profits.
1970 recession	ABP and Meldrum & Fewsmith	Increased advertising during recession leads to sales or profit advantages (or both) in years following recession.
1974 – 1975 recession	McGraw-Hill	Advertising during recession creates 132% subsequent 5-year sales growth.
Undisclosed recessionary periods	Cahners Publishing Co. and Strategic Planning Institute	Profit Impact of Marketing Strategies (PIMS) database; advertising during recession creates greater market share gains than decreases do, but there is no “statistically significant difference in the level of profitability [ROI]” (as quoted in American Business Press, 1993, p.5).

Source: All studies as summarized, quoted and/or cited in American Business Press (ABP, 1993). ABP changed it’s name to American Business Media in June 2000. For complete report, contact The Envision Agency, Small Business Marketing.

Reason 2: Most companies have decreased or maintained their marketing. That means that there are fewer messages out there for customers and if you have a great campaign, you have an easier chance to break through the clutter. And, that leads me to Reason #3.

Reason 3: Since everyone has decreased their marketing, you have a greater opportunity to get your marketing at a lower cost. And, some marketing channels, such as social media and SEO are extremely cost-effective if you outsource.

The Envision Agency, Small Business Marketing is offering a free marketing plan review and competitive analysis for Arizona Small Businesses. This package typically would cost $370. To take advantage of this great deal, call 602.697.2209 and mention that you saw the offer on The Envision Agency, Small Business Marketing blog. If you’re ready to increase your marketing efforts, or open a new channel, contact us today!

Market research firm Gartner has come out with a report suggesting that:

“As individuals and organizations progress in their adoption and leverage of the Web, new work streams and needs will arise, resulting in companies utilizing social sciences for next-generation technology.”

To be on the leading-edge of online marketing, you should be looking at your website as a sociologist looks at the world: examining and identifying each online interaction your customers and potential customers have with you and your competitors. Two things you can start to consider immediately are:

User Experience
How does your visitor experience your website? Are they finding everything they need easily or are they struggling? Are the conversations they are having online with you giving them what they need? Your online presence, not just your website, should be focused on the user experience. This requires you to put on your sociologist hat and examine how your users experience your online presence.

Behavioral Analysis
What type of behavior does your user show when interacting with you online? Do they show up and leave or are they spending time digging around your site? Employ and analyze website analytics and review the online conversations you are having to analyze visitor behavior. Consider what your competitors are giving the same visitors. Are you better?

The Envision Agency, Small Business Marketing can help you analyze your online presence and compare it to your competition and then devise marketing strategies to put you at the top of your local market.

Companies are understanding more that online marketing is an important aspect of their marketing mix. In fact, a recent Forrester Research study found that interactive marketing spending will reach nearly $55 billion by 2014, representing 21% of all marketing spend.

If your company hasn’t already added online marketing to your mix, you are missing out on a world of opportunity. You can see from the Forrester Research study mentioned above, businesses are finding success in online marketing and are continuously increasing their budgets.

For small businesses, online marketing is a great way to gain more customers at a lower cost than traditional media. Even if you have already started some online marketing, you should consider all the aspects such as search engine optimization (SEO), paid search marketing, email marketing, social media marketing, online video marketing, etc. These all have huge potential for small businesses. However, you may face a few challenges when you first try to implement some of these channels.

If you are not the ultimate decision maker, the first challenge you may face when trying to add online marketing to your current marketing mix is achieving buy-in. You’re not alone if you get push-back from many people in your company. Getting buy-in from Upper Management, your Sales Department, and your IT Department is often a challenge when a company wants to add online marketing to their marketing mix. Make sure you are prepared to answer each department’s concerns.

• Upper Management: Focus on how everything is black and white: it’s completely measurable and you can see what is, and is not, working. Also review what your competition is doing. If they are invested in online marketing, you have another reason: to stay competitive, you need to work with this medium.

• Sales Department: Focus on their involvement. Get their input on a prospect profile and keywords. They talk to the customers more than you do and know them better than you.

• IT Department: Focus on how you’re defining success and that they will receive their fair share of success for their help on the channel. Compromise is key, but changes to your website and implementing an analytics platform are two things a consulting company will need to do.

Educating your company on the importance of online marketing is the first thing you need to do to create a successful campaign. In our next blog, we’ll discuss some of the benefits you can see from involving the challengers of online marketing in your implementation process.

If you’re ready to take the plunge into online marketing for your small business, contact The Envision Agency, Small Business Marketing. We’ll review your business goals and current marketing and sales process and identify implement the best opportunities for your company.

Have you considered creating an online video series? Whether it’s a training program, a video blog, a comedy sketch, etc., it’s something to consider.

ComScore has released a new study showing more than 25 billion, yes billion, videos were viewed in August 2009. These online videos reached over 161 million U.S. viewers. Of all the video sites out there, Google sites (which includes YouTube) hold 39.6% of the online video viewership. They are the #1 online video provider.

How can you use online video to get more customers? A great example is Blendtec. They created a huge following starting in 2007 by trying to blend pretty much anything that would fit into a blender, including the iPhone, to show you how well their blenders worked.

There is a market out there for your company’s online videos… have you tried to capture it? If you’re ready to start a new marketing strategy, give The Envision Agency, Small Business Marketing a call at 800.441.1319. We can help you start a video marketing strategy that fits into your current marketing plan or revise your marketing strategy all together.

For small businesses, email marketing has many advantages.

First, it gives you an easy, cost-effective way to contact your customers and potential customers. You can use this to encourage up-selling, repeat ordering, events, new product offerings… the possibilities are endless.

Secondly, you have the ability to use email marketing to push your leads through the buying process. Rather than depending on a sales staff to make the necessary follow ups, you can schedule the appropriate email follow ups to be sent out automatically – never having to worry that a lead will go cold because they weren’t “touched” often enough.

These are just two reasons small businesses should invest in email marketing. If you’re ready to get started with your small business email marketing plan, or are looking to expand your current email marketing, call The Envision Agency, Small Business Marketing at 800.441.1319.

Right now? Absolutely nothing.

If you’re a technology geek like us at The Envision Agency, Small Business Marketing, you’ll be excited to see if it works like they’re promising and to see how it can be integrated into your current marketing and business plans. If you’re not, then once it’s open to the public, you can consider integrating it into your marketing plan or in your business as a project management tool.

Google Wave, for those who don’t know, is a “real-time communication platform.” It combines the online media you are currently using: email, wikis, web chats (instant messaging), social networking, and project management into one browser to help you manage everything. It has a ton of features that, if speculations prove to be correct, will change the way we use the web. For more information, read this article from Mashable.

A note for small business owners: the Google Wave release is not a reason to stop your social media marketing campaigns or to postpone implementing social media marketing. Because it has not yet been released to the public, in fact, it will be released to 100,000 testers tomorrow, 9/30/09, you should continue on as normal with your current social media campaigns. There is still a lot of testing to be done before the general public can adopt the product.

We at The Envision Agency, Small Business Marketing want you to know that right now is a great time to see what’s coming up in the future and make plans on how you will test this channel and integrate it into your marketing campaigns.

It’s important to know your best demographic. If you’re trying to market to teenagers your marketing will differ greatly from marketing to 30-something stay-at-home moms.  Nielsen Claritas, part of the well known Nielsen Company, has just reported a new finding: about half of the U.S. visited a social networking website last year. And, not only is this number consistently growing, these social networking users are growing more engaged.

What does this mean for small businesses?

According to Wils Corrigan, AVP, Research & Development at Nielsen Claritas, “The rising popularity of these sites and the deep engagement consumers have with them has advertisers and marketers asking for more and more detail as to which lifestyles should be targeted for their online advertising and promotions.”

As a small business owner, get ready to jump into social media marketing. It’s no longer considered a temporary phase. Interested in what the Nielsen report found? Check out this link to read more on the report.

If you’re ready to start your social media marketing campaign, or are in need of additional help, contact The Envision Agency, Small Business Marketing. We can review what you’re currently doing and focus the efforts to reach your best customers.

Some Arizona small businesses recently found success supporting a nationwide cause, Portraits of Love, to give overseas soldiers professional portraits of their families. So far, 20 Arizona photographers have joined the cause – and already have a story written about them, and their support of our troops, in the Arizona Republic.

Sarah Kerkian at Cone, a brand strategy and communications agency, supports the point of cause marketing for small businesses. Her research shows that 85% of consumers find cause marketing to be acceptable – you don’t need to be humble about doing good for your community.

“American consumers continue to have high expectations of companies to support important causes, even amid the recession, and they are quite supportive of cause marketing…It’s the time to build authentic and lasting relationships with important organizations and causes and to engage consumers and employees in your efforts.”

As a small business owner, your biggest hurdle is building trust and respect for your business: through the community and your employees. Cause marketing is an easy way to build immediate trust and respect and generate a huge amount of word-of-mouth buzz.

Here are a few tips for a small business ready to start cause marketing.

• Find a cause. It should be one you are passionate about and that fits well into your business and customer base. Consider examples like General Mills and their “Boxtops for Education” or TOMS Shoes and their shoe donation for every purchase.
• Be authentic. Only use cause marketing if you truly want to help support a cause. Your customers will know if you’re trying to be “fake.”
• Give it support. Once you’ve determined to go forward, make sure you give this campaign the time and money to make it successful. This is still a marketing campaign, treat it as such to keep it successful.

Cause marketing can be a successful avenue for small business owners… and it really helps your local (or global) community. If you’re ready to start cause marketing and need some help, contact The Envision Agency, Small Business Marketing.

It’s all over the web: Facebook made a couple announcements yesterday that are great news for small businesses looking to invest in social media marketing.

1. Facebook now has 300 million users worldwide. In just two months they have been able to increase their subscriber base by 50 million users.
2. Facebook is now cash flow positive: a goal they were hoping to hit by 2010. “This important to us because it sets Facebook up to be a strong independent service for the long term.” Facebook plans to stay an independent service and not to sell to Google, Yahoo! or any other major player.

This is great news for small businesses who want to know that the money and time they invest in building up their fan pages and communities on Facebook won’t change… and Facebook is doing everything they can to continue to grow and be an independent service.

If you are ready to start a social branding campaign on networks like Facebook, or would like to take your campaign to the next level, contact The Envision Agency, Small Business Marketing. We will put together a strategy that will help you build your business goals.

Social media is the new big thing of online marketing. Businesses are reaching out to get on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and more. That’s great. As a marketer, I’m excited to see businesses embrace the new technology when there is such great potential. With over 100 million active Facebook users and over 8 million tweets daily, these are channels businesses should be active on.

However, I have noticed that many companies will chase the new “shiny object” and leave their other channels on auto-pilot. These businesses that have caught ’shiny object syndrome’ are missing valuable contacts with their customer base, and in some instances, can be abusing their customer relationships.

Does your business have shiny object syndrome? Here are some questions to ask:

• How much time do you spend on your “new” marketing channel?
• How much time do you spend on your old marketing channels?
• What is the trend of your old marketing channels since you implemented the “new” marketing channel?

These questions work for any type of new marketing channel, not just social media. Any time a new marketing channel is implemented, it is expected that it will take up more time than any other channel because it is new. And, if you’re working with the same amount of manpower, it’s going to eat into the time you originally spent on your old channels.

But, if your old channels are starting to trend down because they’re not getting the TLC they need, it’s time to reevaluate your situation. Here are some solutions to get out of ’shiny object syndrome’.

• Review each channel performance on a regular basis. When you start noticing a slight difference, immediately look into that channel.
• Reevaluate your department’s responsibilities. See if you can restructure responsibilities to better handle all the channels.
• Hire a new employee. This should only be done if you know the work level will increase.
• Consider hiring an outside firm to handle the start-up phase of the new channel or some of the old channels until the new channel is up and running.

If you need help implementing a new marketing channel or are looking for a new marketing strategy, contact The Envision Agency, Small Business Marketing. We specialize in helping small businesses build and revise their marketing strategies to work with their target customers in their local communities.