Part II: Inspiring Story

Inspiring Story: Team RadioShack

Don't Get Carried Away on Social-Media

There is a lot of hype out there on how social-media can help your business grow. While this is true in some respects, it is very important to realize the effort required to maintain a social-media campaign is quite extensive. The appeal of social media is quite enticing to many businesses, and for good reasons. Social media is the only medium in the electronic world that provides the exposure that some advertisement mediums can never promise. Moreover, social media is a tool that you can initiate instantly with minimal costs. So what’s not to like? While social media can provide a great marketing platform for a business, the demand of maintaining it for a reasonable return is not negligible. The most common misconception about a social media campaign is that it will operate with minimal involvement from internal resources of your business. So as you consider the social media as a tool to promote your business keep the following in mind:

• Dabble Most of us probably have an account with one of the social-networking sites, but if you have limited exposure go ahead and explore. This will at least provide you with an idea of what is involved.

• Develop a social-media plan Don’t just jump straight in, but DO evaluate and develop a plan that captures your goals and objectives with a timeline.

• Who’s in charge? Are you going to directly manage the social media efforts (ie tweeting, responding to Facebook fans, blogging, etc.). To be effective, you must spend considerable time on all the mediums that you select, so it is crucial that you have someone allocated to be the social media manager. Otherwise, like anything else, if it is not assigned, it will fall through the cracks.

• Topics Establish your topics for the at least the next month. You can maintain the same topic over a period of one day to one week, but it is essential that you change it up. Keep in mind that your fans or followers are looking for something interesting that can impact their day.

• Measure Think of a few ways that you can measure success. This can be the number of fans you have on Facebook, level of interaction on your wall page, followers on Twitter, conversion to purchase from any of the above, etc.

• Measure again Now that you have a lot of followers, how many are buying, what revenue if any is being generated from your efforts on social media, do you need to make an adjustment. Or maybe you don’t have a lot of followers, what do you do next?

It's Not an Overnight Thang

We are creatures of immediacy. Our world today has been intricately developed to cater to our incessant desires of “NOW MATTERS”! The less time we spend somewhere and the quicker we can receive the service or product, the more satisfied we become. UPS and FedEx can deliver a package practically to any point in the world overnight. We can purchase almost anything we want without ever taking a step outside of our home; scratch that, you can purchase anything you want in the world, anywhere you are in the world, as long as you have an internet connection or a smart-phone. When using your credit card, you no longer have to sign for some purchases. The fact is, we are evolving with an infrastructure that serves and conditions our expectation of instantaneous return. While this is rewarding as consumers, this concept and expectation becomes problematic for business owners.

For business owners or entrepreneurs this concept of immediacy is in direct conflict with the reality of growing and nurturing a model that realizes return over a period of time, which may not be aligned with our conditioned expectations. This is problematic within a majority of circumstances in the business world, and we have to ensure that our strategic plan does not integrate objectives and goals that are unrealistic in relation to the timeline.

At the highest level, your planning should consist of short and long-term objectives and goals. This categorization should provide a means in simplifying your expectations for your tactical initiatives. Furthermore, it provides you the ruler to measure your progress and helps to calibrate your expectations and minimize the tendency to react to situations which were previously perceived as a threat.

Within each short and long-term objective, ensure that each is practical and achievable. With marketing activities, it is essential for a small-business to consider budget and resources. A simple evaluation of activities in regards to impact and ease-of-implementation is beneficial, as it provides a process to prioritize your marketing. Practical and achievable, this will set the tone of your expectations.

Change: How Will You Get Noticed in 2010?

My wife considers me “Metrosexual”; I won’t define it but you can look it up at Wikipedia. I am no longer as concerned about my appearance as I used to be(okay maybe a little), primarily because I live in Central Oregon (being athletically fit is more of a concern here), have four children and have now been married to my beautiful wife for 13 years! However, in the last few months, I have decided to engage in a little experiment. I have been making a few changes to my fashion and appearance without going “over-the-top”, all the while keeping tabs on how my family, friends and acquaintances react or do not react. Keep in mind that in the last four years I have maintained a fairly simple approach to my wardrobe; however, with a little bit of flair that is not always within what is considered normal in Central Oregon, thus... metrosexual.

The changes I made were to wear a scarf more regularly, a hat that is not of the baseball variety (duckbill), ankle boots that would not be considered formal in metropolitan cities, and a hairdo that is not my typical style. I, of course, wore these at varying times in different combinations, and never all at one time, so as to minimize the “make-over” impression. Needless to say the reactions were plentiful.

The most interesting observation I made were the repeated comments to the changes. Even after two to three weeks into the change, my circle of family, friends, and acquaintances continued to comment. The hat of course was probably the most popular, garnering the most comments, while my wearing the scarf and changing my hairdo were not far behind. The shoes certainly made an impression but were not nearly as successful in soliciting praises as the previous three. I could go into detail into each one, but the take-away from the story is that change gets attention. No matter how minor the change, your audience takes notice.

Integrate an element of change into your business in 2010 and get noticed.

12 Tips for Social Media Marketing

Social networking is an investment for the future. Sites such as Twitter and FaceBook could be a nonprofit's dream market - millions of users engaging in activities and all interconnected.. But just setting up shop and collecting "friends" will not necessarily result in donors and supporters.

1. Pick the social network that is right for you. Don't just pick sites based on the fact that everyone is on them. Pick a site if it makes sense for your organizations. And if you have time to manage the interactions. It may pay to start small, with one or two social networks, rather than trying to take the entire virtual world on at once.

2. Find an 'expert' to help you. Look around your organization, the web or your community for someone who has experience with social networking. Apogee Marketing Partners offers an excellent and affordable Social-Media start-up plan. For a reasonable price, we can get you started and train your staff on how to keep the ball rolling.

3. Extend your reach. Select a social network and then use a 'scattershot' approach. Go beyond a standard profile and create a group as well to generate multiple channels to market your business. On Facebook, for instance, you can be a group and/or an event. Just make sure you understand the site's Terms Of Use. For a fee, some social sites will allow you to become an official sponsor of a group or community. Many large companies, such as Victoria's Secret and Apple, sponsor groups.

4. Prepare for negative feedback. There is no way you can control every word of every person who wants to be your friend or join your social networking group. If you or your lawyers are not comfortable with that fact, social networking probably is not for you. You can set up an approval process for 'comments' that people post but if you go this route, make sure the process is reasonable and efficient.

5. Search for similar groups. There may be Twitter or Facebook groups for your organization that you did not set-up such as unofficial profiles created by enthusiastic supporters. If you locate such a profile, reach out to that person. He or she may be a committed supporter who might be willing to promote your content.

6. First impressions are everything. Try to make a good impression right out of the gate with your social network. Make your profile visually exciting. Control what your organization will look like on other people's friend lists--pick a great picture and title that will get you the attention you want that is appropriate for your organization's personality.

7. Be edgy! And post your most viral content. Social networks are at their best when people are retweeting or linking content to their network. However, they will only pass around topics that are fun, interesting, topical or exciting. Come up with fun profile names, use video or Flash animation. If it does not make you think 'Cool!' then it is probably not viral and you need to go back to the drawing board. You might do better with a campaign or a specific gimmick rather than just a generic page plugging your business. Try to plug something that is timely or is action requiring. By action I mean, ask them to respond to a request for a survey, perhaps a re-tweet. It gets your friends involved and committed.

8. Find out which of your clients are already on social networks. Survey your clients and find out who has your network accounts. Send them an e-mail inviting them to become your friend or to join your group.

9. Communicate on a regular basis. Update your pages with new content as often as possible. If you send email updates, or news feed updates, do so in a regular basis and keep it to a weekly or bi-weekly event. You don’t want to have people “tune you out”. On Twitter, this doesn’t apply, more tweets the better. As long as the info is useful, people will be interested and follow. Use common sense.

10. Get staff involved in making your social networking effort a success. Assign a staff person to accept friend requests, post comments on other people's pages, and invite others to become friends. That is what social networking is all about.

11. Engage your social network supporters. Eventually, you will want to start turning your 'friends' into customers, activists, donors, or volunteers. Make sure your social networking pages always feature lots of opportunities to get involved. If you are a nonprofit, include donation opportunities on your social networking pages. Even if you do not raise much in the short run, it helps to set expectations for the future.

Be specific when you do ask your friends to do something for your organization. And always let people know what happened at an event or with a campaign even if they did not participate. They might get involved the next time.

12. Social networking is an investment in the future. Many of your friends on these networks will take time to develop into financial donors and supporters of tomorrow. Get into the game now and learn how to use social media or you might be left behind for good.

For more information on Social Networking , please contact Apogee Marketing Partners www.apogeemarketingpartners.com for more help. info@apogeemarketingpartners.com

Manage a To-Do List

Do you work with a To-Do list? Whether you realize it or not, most of us work with some form of a To-Do list to manage our business. However, we probably don’t manage this list enough strategy to ensure focus.

I admit that I have fallen in the trap of the “busy-ness” of managing life, but it is very important that as a small-business owner that our efforts are focused. And this can easily start with our To-Do lists that we utilize to check things off. Some of us may use these ritually, others not so much, in either case, here are some helpful ways to contain that To-Do list.

Define Strategy and Objectives for 2010

After all, we can’t begin to put together a meaningful list of To-Do’s if we don’t have a goal for 2010. Keep it simple if you have to, but ensure that your business is operating under a strategy to maintain that focus, otherwise, you will find yourself wandering for most of the year and it will yield only a series of frustrations.

To-Do List

Let this list be a product of your strategy and objectives planning for 2010. However, be very careful and ensure that this list is distilled to only about 3-4 main To-Do’s. If you have any more than this then it is crucial that you evaluate each and ensure that each item on your list contributes greatly to the advancement of your objectives. This is where focus is crucial.

Start a To-Don’t List

Your list will likely start to be longer than you expected. And that’s certainly okay, but go over it one more time with the idea that there are such things as a To-Don’t list. Try identifying a few of these off your list and determine how each one can qualify for your To-Don’t list. Chances are you have a lot of ideas for 2010, however, these ideas need to be closely reviewed for their applicability in achieving your goals. Notice a pattern here? Your goals and objectives are paramount, only list items in your To-Do list that pushes this!

Prune Your List

Review your list every time you put one together! Continue with the concept of a To-Don’t list. They do not necessarily need to be eliminated but simply categorized as less urgent items. This behavior of prioritization will immensely help your day to day activities within your business.

Marketing Lessons from Susan Boyle Stardom

If you have not seen it yet, go to YouTube.com and find the Susan Boyle video. This is the very first time that she appeared on the UK version of the America’s Got Talent show. I did not really pay attention to Susan Boyle and her signing talent until last week when a client urged me to view the video. Incredible talent, needless to say!

I have recently been doing a little work on uncovering her journey since that evening with UK’s Got Talent and her statistics are some that most artists covet. Her video on YouTube has been viewed over 3 million times, a feat that 99% of videos uploaded on YouTube will never achieve, a true viral phenomenon. Susan Boyle has reportedly sold over 700,000 copies of her album in the United States and over 3 million globally (Source: Nielsen Soundscan). Her album “I Dreamed A Dream” is expected to remain in the top 10 for the remainder of the year.

Why I am talking about Susan Boyle? First, what an inspirational story! As we focus on planning for 2010 look back to the initial phase of your business. Recall the inspiration that fueled your motivation. I am sure that for the most of us 2009 was not a stellar year and as a result, it probably emptied most of our motivational tank. Incorporate some key objectives that are achievable and will provide you the appropriate runway in setting the tone for a great 2010.

Second, focus on your strengths. Susan Boyle had one-key strength, her voice. And she capitalized on that in one evening in front of her target audience. For 2010, focus on one or two strengths and integrate it into your planning. Create a marketing communications plan around it and launch it to your market.

Forgotten Marketing Tool

Contrary to traditional advertising thinking within the small-business world, there are actually many opportunities out there that exist that do not break the bank. And one of those options is press-releases. This is probably one of the most underused tools among small-businesses, primarily because they are not well understood.

Press-releases, if used properly can be a powerful tool to boost the presence of your business in your target market. With most press-releases you can target an audience locally or globally. With the ubiquity of the internet, you are able to target with precision on who you want to hear about your new business or product. It is most effective, however, to target your audience with specificity as your press-release will get more attention from the media, whereas if you cast a wider net and attempt to capture all markets and regions, the likelihood is that visibility will decline.

There are several reasons for utilizing press-releases and this may include the announcement of a new office, new product or service, an event involving your business, new employee or better yet any business awards that your company has been recognized with for the year. Ensure that the press-release is one that will capture the eye of the media as they have a slew of releases that stack on their desks to review and it is essential that you keep your message dynamic and exciting.

Here are a few websites that provide you with a portal for Free press-releases. Take advantage of these and put a plan together for your company to integrate press-releases in 2010 as a component of your marketing plan.

• PR.com
• i-newswire.com
• Free-press-release.com
• PRlog.com
  

Email Marketing Opportunities

Email marketing, certainly something within my background of medical devices and diagnostics that has not been employed. But in looking at it as an opportunity for other industries that are not as highly regulated as the medical arena, the following statistics are intriguing and certainly should support some thought into developing a strategy in evolving your efforts in possible employing an email marketing campaign.

Marketing Tip #1: Business cards

Chances are that you have a stack of business cards that you have collected in the past, either from a networking function or a meeting. Do you remember what you have done with any of them? This stack of business cards is a gold-mine for your business...how you say? Out of these cards may be new clients, strategic partners, new vendors or maybe a new employee.

Start out by making a few categories that you can put each card into--strategic partner, prospective client, vendor, etc. There will probably be a few others that you can include but begin to place the cards that belong to each category. In each category, pick the top five candidates that you have the greatest chance in achieving your objective. In the strategic partnership, these five may be contacts that can help you expand your service or product offering. The vendor category may be contacts that can help you optimize your cost. An so on and so forth...

This will afford the ability to identify some "low-hanging" opportunities that you may have not previous been aware until you took a look at your contacts.

Visit our Tools section to peruse through some of the tools that we can offer to your business.

Apogee Marketing Partners Launches

After a lot of late nights, we have now completed the website for Apogee Marketing Partners. Once the dust settles...oh wait...we can't wait until the dust settles! We have to get working now...this is where the true work begins. And I will post some key learnings here about the journey of designing the site and optimizing it to be found on the vast world wide web.

In the meantime, let me speak about the memberships and services that Apogee Marketing Partners offers on our site. The concept is simple...as it stands in our economy, small-business and non-profits have very small, if not, non-existent budgets for marketing. Therefore, their ability to plan for growth is very limited. Our goal is to provide our marketing expertise available to companies with limited resources and budget. Obtaining access to experience like this is not readily available at an affordable price.

Visit our website to learn more about Apogee Marketing's memberships. We are confident that there is a membership that will fit your budget.

Apogee Marketing Website Overview

My first attempt at utilizing iShowU. Not quite the best quality as I imported into iMovie, but I will get better at doing this I am sure. Enjoy the overview of our website.

Facebook for Businesses: A Beginner's Guide Part II

Upon reading this post, hopefully you will have had a chance to set-up your Facebook Fan Page for your business and have been navigating it to learn its functionality. By now, you may have a few fans, if not, go and invite your friends to become fans of your new page. In this guide, I will go over the elements that can optimize your existing Fan Page.

Wall Page
Let's begin by looking at your Wall page. This is where you and your fans can interact. This is a neat feature in that you have the ability to update your fans without spamming them. They can view your wall at their convenience. Consumers can now choose when they want to engage, and this is the beauty of social media, like Facebook. With that in mind, you will need to keep your Status Updates interesting to ensure your fans have a reason to keep coming back. In your updates, you can insert Links, Photos, Videos, Events, etc.When you are ready to share, simply click on the "Share" button to publish. This will now show on your all your fans wall.

Customized Link
When you initially establish your Fan Page, Facebook assigns you a fairly complicated URL that you often can't use for distribution unless you create a hyperlink. However, once your Fan Page achieves 25 fans, you can apply for a customized link at facebook.com/username. After completing this I was able to get facebook.com/apogeemarketing, much more simple.

Landing Page for Non-Fans
When visitors that are not yet fans of your Facebook Page, they will land on your Wall page, which is not the best welcome page for someone who knows nothing about your business or product. It's probably more appropriate to have them land on your Info page or another page that you create from FBML (we will talk about this another time as you will need some coding experience to get this going). But for our purposes here, we will have them land on the Info page. You can achieve this by selecting Edit Page and go to the Wall settings to edit. Now you can select the landing page for everyone who is not a fan. In doing this, you are now giving visitors a chance to learn about who you are.



















Applications
Facebook is great in that it has many applications that you can add to make your Facebook more dynamic for your fans. If you have a Twitter account (if you don't, you should), you can link your Twitter account to your Facebook Fan Page. You can selectively tweet to your Facebook page by ending your tweets with the hashtag #fb. That simple...this way you don't flood your Facebook fans with non-relevant tweets that may not apply. Just go to Selective Twitter Status to add this application to your page.

Do you have a blog? Well, now you can include your new posts to your Facebook Page. This is automatic, so anytime you post it is included in your Wall. Be patient, it is not instant. If you don't see it immediately because it will take time. Go to Networked Blogs to add the application.

Did you find this useful? Well, be on the lookout for our Screencasts of tutorials to help get you going on all your marketing.

Facebook for Businesses: A Beginner's Guide Part I

I have recently been speaking with a few small businesses and it has become apparent that Facebook and Twitter are not easy to set up for those who have spent minimal time interfacing with them. I figured that a quick overview of the basics is necessary before even talking about how to optimize it.

Set-up, like anything else new, can be somewhat daunting, especially if the environment is unfamiliar. However, after a few times navigating Facebook or Twitter, it becomes really easy. We will start this series with Facebook Page set-up for your business. If you don’t have a Profile account already with Facebook, we will need to begin with this first. Keep in mind that your Facebook profile may not be used as a page for your business, this is against Facebook's Terms of Use. However, your Fan Page will be connected to your personal profile.

Once you arrive at the Facebook homepage, set-up your account with your personal information as shown below.

Once you have been provided access to your profile homepage, now you can generate your business page. If you scroll to the bottom of your homepage, you will see an “Advertise” link.

After clicking the link, the first thing you will see is create an ad link. You don't want this, click the “Page” tab (now we are talking business…no pun intended). The following page will appear and you will need to select create a new page. You will now have to define your business or product with the appropriate options. What you select on this page will determine some of the functionality of your business page. For example, if you have a storefront, you will have the capability of entering store hours in the “Info” section of your Fan Page.

One thing to note is that you don’t have to finish all of this in one sitting. You will have the opportunity to select, do not publish, which is what you want so that you don’t publish once you finish. In most cases, prior to publishing you will want to become comfortable with the functionality of the page.

Select the “Info” tab on your homepage and click on Edit. This will give you the opportunity to give some background information on your company, products, and services. This is a good area to have links to your website, blog, Twitter, etc.

Now for the fun parts…customizing your Fan Page! You can upload your company logo on the upper left screen. Select that area and you will be able to upload your logo. When you complete this step, go back to your homepage and enjoy your customized fan page.

Just below your logo, is an area where you can write a brief description of what your business offers. This is a critical area as Google searches this space for key words and determines your ranking. Complete this and voila! Your very own Facebook Fan page for your business. But before you celebrate, go ahead and publish for the world to see.

Congratulations, now you can start writing on your wall and inviting your friends to become fans! We will have an advanced post with more information to optimize content and add additional features to your web page. In the meanwhile, enjoy your Fan Page and begin engaging with your target market.

Five Marketing Planning Topics

Well, it is now October and most companies are planning their marketing activities for 2010. As you plan, the following are topics that you should consider evaluating and integrating into your marketing activities for 2010.

1. Social Media This is an important topic that you must consider as inbound marketing has contributed significant growth to those companies who developed a cohesive plan.
2. Website Have a look over your website and determine if there are any weaknesses in the content. There is a difference between a good website and a great website...if you lose your audience when they arrive at your homepage, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to bring them back. Also, visit Grader.com and you can grade your website, blog, twitter, and many more.
   
3. Metrics Did you measure that right aspects of your marketing in 2009? Consider looking at internal and external metrics. Are you using Google analytics? If not, sign up, its FREE.
4. Webinars These are great educational tools for your customers. It is cost-effective and you can accomodate your customers or prospects schedule. Consider having multiple topics.
5. Surveys Prior to the end of the year, conduct a survey of your existing customers. Utilize this data to strengthen your planning for 2010. Ensure that your survey is focused on a specific topic.

This should help you to get your creative juices flowing. Happy planning!

Maximize your touch-points

When was the last time you thought about a marketing campaign and didn't know where to start! This is probably one of the more crucial points in your planning because what you decide here will determine success in the future. At the outset, it may not seem easy, but reviewing your customer touch-points may help in identifying the most appropriate initiative and as a result more effective in your planning.

The crucial aspect of evaluating customer touchpoints is to look directly at the buying experience: pre-buy, buy, and post-buy experience. In looking at each phase in-depth, a proper assessment of what is lacking or weak can strengthen your value proposition to the customer at that stage. These three insights will help you to narrow your marketing initiatives.

Pre-Buy

How many times do you think you are able to touch your prospective customer at this phase? This is probably where you have the widest opportunity of touch-points. Think of this as the span of time where the target market is simply evaluating their options. So consider how you can be included that short list. This is, of course, a crucial time because if you don’t make it on that list…well you know the result. The following should be evaluated:

First impressions count
What are the means that you are currently employing to reach out to your prospects during this phase? (eg Sales calls, advertisements, website, etc.)

• Sales team – training on communicating with their customer. What is your sales team talking about? Are they properly communicating the value of your service or product? Are they presenting the appropriate materials?
• Sales collateral/brochures—Is the content of the brochure driving the value proposition of your service or product?
• Information—Is it easy to get information about your company and product portfolio? Is your website the only way to get information?

Buy
This is where the actual transaction occurs and it is the whole process up until the product or service is exchanged. Evaluate your current position on the experience of your prospect during the purchase. The following should be evaluated:

• How easy is it for your prospects to purchase the product or service?
• Are they provided up to date status of their order or transaction?
• Is there a follow-up from customer service or sales?
  

Post-Buy
This is where the prospect becomes a customer. Evaluate the following:

• How easy is it for your customer to obtain technical support or customer service in case of product issues?
• Are there any established communications with the customer that can be leveraged?
• How are you maximizing their product or service experience to ensure repurchase?

Writer's Wanted

We are looking for contributors both for Apogee Marketing Partners. We are seeking marketing professionals who are able to write about relevant marketing topics today that can have an impact on how our members drive their marketing initiatives.

If you or anyone you know is interested or have any questions please feel free to contact us directly on our Facebook page, and send us a message.

Otherwise, here are some basic guidelines:

1. Article being submitted must be original and written by the applying author. It must not have been published previously.
2. Articles will not be an advertising for a service, product or company that you have any affiliation.
3. Topic must be current and relevant to the marketing industry.
4. Author will retain copyrights to the article. Apogee Marketing Partners will have rights to produce reprints or use of article in our website.
5. Materials can be in the form of a case-study, know-how guide, a novel marketing template or tool.
6. Topic is not limited to any one element of marketing, we are looking for writer's who can write about product innovation as well as value pricing.
7. We reserve the right on where your article will be featured (eg newsletter, news, case-study, etc.)
8. If we like your work, you may be invited to be a regular contributor. Compensation for each article will be reviewed on a case by case basis.

What are you waiting for? Contact us and let your voice be heard.

What contribution?

As marketers, we are continually evaluating the contribution of our initiatives to the business. It seems our perpetual existence is to determine what is working or not working, what to continue or discontinue. So one of our main objectives is to determine the most effective way of revealing the profitability of our marketing activities. Once we are able to assess profitability we are able to prioritize. So what is the answer?

Three words: Net Marketing Contribution (NMC)

NMC = [Market Demand x Market Share x (Revenue per cust - Variable cost per cust)] - Marketing Expenses

NMC can be utilized to evaluate overall marketing profitability, it is a means to determine the the impact of each strategy in relation to the business. This is by far one of the most useful tool that a marketer should learn to use in their professional career. This tool allows a marketer to maintain visibility of a few key strategic elements:

• Market demand = Grow market demand
• Market share = Increase market share
• Revenue per customer = Grow customer purchases
• Market demand = Enter or exit markets
• Variable cost per customer = Lower variable cost per customer
• Marketing expenses = Increase marketing efficiency

Controlling the components above in relation to its contribution to the NMC will provide more insight as to how you need to change your strategy.

Visit our website and learn more about NMC and the tools that we have available to facilitate

Apogee Marketing Partners Launch

Are you a small to medium sized business? Looking to add marketing to your business or to complement your existing team with affordable professional marketing resources? Stay tuned...Apogee Marketing Partners will change how you approach marketing. Meanwhile, feel free to follow us on Facebook or Twitter for the latest updates.

$FREE.99

For most companies, business is probably down for 2009, and as a result dollars for marketing budget is also down. What does this mean for 2010 initiatives?

The outcome of this economic downturn impacts small to medium businesses most siginificantly, and as a result marketing campaigns are either significantly reduced or completely eliminated. Unfortunately, in both cases, exposure of a business within a market is drastically reduced. This may very well send an already troubled business into an unrecoverable tailspin. Reality is that cost containment is a must in these circumstances to improve bottom line performance; however, you can only manage bottom line if you have a revenue stream to maintain business viability. So marketing activities must remain in some form to ensure income.

Fortunately, there are many resources available in the market today that can be utilized at practically no cost. If you audit your existing marketing efforts as it relates to the suggested activities below, chances are there will be numerous FREE marketing initiatives that you can launch without ever reaching for your checkbook.

Website

If you are in business today, the likelihood is that your business will have an online presence in the form of your website. If not, consider the numbers: in 2000, there were 361 million users of the internet; today there are over 1.7 billion users, a 325% growth (Source: Nielsen Online).

Your website is your storefront for your business in this virtual world; it’s the portal to your product or service. It delivers the value proposition to your customers, and if your visitors like what they see, then they may become customers. Review your website with these things in mind:

• Content
• Keyword optimization—make sure your copy includes keywords that are relevant to your business
• Ensure keywords are at the top of the page, preferably in the beginning and end of a paragraph
• Bold and underline key words where appropriate
• Ease of navigation
• This will allow you to reduce your bounce rate (bounce rate is the percentage that your visitor will leave the website upon hitting a page in your site)

If you don’t have it already, sign up for Google Analytics; it is FREE, http://www.google.com/analytics. This tool will help you to analyze the traffic that is visiting your website, and therefore make some informed decisions when the time comes for you to re-arrange your plan.

Social media

Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn are just a few of the social media sites available to you at no cost to join. Facebook just announced that it has over 300 million registered users! Twitter is predicted to have 18 million users by the end of 2009 (Source: Mashable.com). Access to these users is all for FREE!

With a social media plan your business can target specific target markets. Facebook, for example, allows a business to target within specific parameters such as gender, age, region, etc. Blogging is also another channel to reach your market. In most cases, start-up companies today will employ a blog prior to actually setting up an official web page for their business. Why? Because they can create content that helps to improve their position in search engines.

Not free, but not expensive either

Affiliate marketing is a good alternative to those expensive print ads that require design and insertion dollars. The cost of printing an ad in most magazines, newspapers or any printed medium is generally about $2500 to $5000. However, you can research numerous websites (e.g. msnbc.com, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) and most have reasonable fees that you can limit on a per-day basis. Meaning you can cap the amount of money that you want to spend in one day, so if you determine that $50 per day is your budget, then your ad will remain until a quantity of click-through equivalent to $50 is achieved.

The cost to design a banner-ad for an affiliate marketing is generally $300-700 depending on complexity.

You can obtain more information on the above topics through our Know-How guides and marketing tools and templates at http://www.apogeemarketingpartners.com/.

You complete marketing toolbox

Anticipating and meeting the needs of your market profitably is the role of your marketing department.

Like a Rubik's Cube, however, this is no easy task. Consider the sides of cube as the major elements of marketing in our world today, and the individual squares within the sides are the possible variables to be considered as you plan and execute your initiatives. The possible combinations is astounding and the following equation illustrates the enormity of the possibilities, which represents the possible combinations of a Rubik's Cube.

Realizing the complexity of marketing, it is essential that your team has the right tools to develop and effectively execute all their initiatives. And that is why we have developed Apogee Marketing Partners. It is simply a resource for businesses seeking to maximize their marketing efforts, but also for marketing professionals that want to implement novel tools and strategies that can make an immediate impact on their overall plans.

With our combined experience of over 20 years in marketing, we deliver proven tools that will expedite your growth objectives.

Spend more time implementing and executing by becoming a member of Apogee Marketing Partners. Become a fan on our Facebook page, follow us on Twitter and be a part of the launch of Apogee very, very soon!!!!