The Wax Blog

I got so involved with answering comments on my Toyota post I neglected to write a new post before I took a long weekend. Interestingly enough, that's the time I've gotten the most comments! Thanks to everyone who is reading this blog - please don't...

Watching the Golden Globes last night and hearing all the references to Haiti made several questions come to  mind. Were they really "sad" to be there chugging champagne and getting awards? Did they really (like director Lee Daniels of Precious) think their work was suddenly 'unimportant'? Or were most of them spewing talking points from their publicists so they didn't look selfish in the light of a disaster?

There are a lot of business owners that despise marketing as much as some people despise working out. Just like going to the gym, it's easier to stay on track if you've got a someone you're accountable to. Some business owners use groups on social media sites like LinkedIn to ask questions and find guidance but I think it's important to have a live person you know that can be a sounding board for your marketing activities. There are tons of great networking groups where you can find potential contacts. Here's a list of some of the small business social networks you can tap into locally to help find your marketing workout buddy.

It's important to change up your marketing efforts and try new things...without throwing out the things that work.One of the hardest things to measure is the synergy that develops when you combine marketing mediums. It's the basis for integrated marketing communications (IMC) concepts but no one has really captured where the actual motivation occurs to get your customer to buy, call, whatever.  To keep tweaking your marketing recipe you constantly have to look for new ways to get your message out there...here are a few ways to do that each month that won't take much time.

Marketing - as opposed to sales remember - is one of those proactive tasks that seems to get pushed aside for more urgent ones. An astute commenter in my last post mentioned you need to always be planting seeds for future business to grow. Just like your workouts if you put marketing time on your schedule each week and hold it sacred, you'll see the benefits very quickly. Here are some tips for finding the right time to work on your promotions, social media, advertising, whatever you consider 'marketing'.