Positioning

Hi everyone, long time no blog. I hope everyone has been surviving this winter crush successfully and enjoying it to the best of your ability.

I want to talk today about positioning. Positioning is key to every successful marketing campaign. Positioning is how your target market thinks of you in comparison to your competitors. For example, are you the “Forever young” personality that Pepsi is after or do you prefer the tried, tested and true “Always Coca-Cola”? Either way, you see how they set themselves apart from one another despite having very similar products. Think about the car industry for a moment. What is the difference (in your mind) between a Volkswagon and a Cadillac? These differences represent the respective positions held by each automobile dealer in the marketplace. Similar products (although some would argue differently, in reality they are both cars) with very different market perceptions.

Where does your business sit in the minds of your marketplace?

Are you the newest business on the block and offering the best intro deals? Is your business consistently outselling everyone else? Are you the local real estate expert that
specializes in a particular aspect of the industry? What sets you apart from your competition – find that answer and you have started to position your company.

Other aspects you will need figure out are:
- what do you do better than your competitors (competitive advantage?) & how does this difference benefit your target market?
- is your business distinctive and is this distinction superior to your competitors in any way?
- can this distinction be repeated and understood in your marketplace easily?

Take the time to think about your business and where it relates to your competitors in your customer’s mind. Then decide if this is where you want to be, and if it isn’t, then figure out how to get your business to the position you want.

For more information, contact Keelan at keelan@marketingforgood.com.

Marketing for Good's Philosophy

Hi everyone, Happy Holidays and best of the season to all! Here’s wishing you a prosperous 2007!
I wanted to post a quick blurb about the philosophy that Marketing for Good operates upon. I recently met with a new client and was discussing this and I decided I should make this info more public. So here goes...

Marketing for Good believes that its clients are the very best at what they do. They are the experts who run their businesses each and every day and they are the ones in touch with 'front line' operations. Our clients are individuals (or partners) who largely develop their business themselves. At the end of the day, this means our Kootenay clients are the true authority on their respective businesses and MFG takes that most seriously.

Marketing for Good exists to help these clients implement the best possible strategy which fits and flows with their existing knowledge. The end goal is always to increase business to make more money, more often, for all parties involved. Our clients know what they require and MFG believes these small business owners just need assistance in making these goals a reality.

The marketing ideas which clients have will always be in the best interest of their business, so it is our charge to take these ideas and work them into an action plan that produces successful results. We are not here to sell you a campaign you don’t need or want, instead, Marketing for Good is here to deliver what you want, with techniques you didn’t know were available.
Contact us today for more information.

Where do you advertise?

Marketing for small business
By Keelan Murtagh, Marketing for Good

Today, let’s talk about advertising. You already know, how you spend your advertising dollars will have a huge impact on your bottom line. So how do you decide to allocate your budget when there are so many choices and great salespeople everywhere? The best advice I can give is; look for the return. What are you being promised in exchange for you money? Is it going to make money for you? Remember, marketing is an investment and it’s involved in everything you do. Keep your message consistent and make sure you get something measurable for your expenditure. If you are using print advertising, provide a coupon for people to bring into your store. Or create a series of coupons that readers have to collect in order to redeem a reward. This way, you will know how effective your advertising was (you can count the coupons that were returned) and you will understand if the money was well spent. If you use radio, use it to create hype by holding contests or giveaways. Create interest by offering listeners consistent updates regarding your latest business development. (People always want to know the latest and greatest.) In cyberspace, the internet is in operation 24/7. This is possibly the most cost-effective way to advertise as your information is always available to your clients. And most importantly, your info will be available at your client’s convenience, which means they will be in their most receptive state to hear your message.

In summary, I would like to emphasize that all advertising mediums have their place. You just have to know how to maximize the impact of your message with the proper delivery. Make sure to consult an expert before you go ahead with any advertising in order to ensure maximum impact.

Free tip: If you have a website, be sure to include the address in the signature of your email. This will go to every person you correspond with and consequently the people your messages get forwarded to. Hey, it worked for Hotmail.

Personal Time

Happy Gobble Gobble everyone!
This weekend usually represents my favourite holiday of them all - THANKSGIVING! To me it is a time to get together with friends and family to enjoy great food and wonderful drink and all the things we like about each other - with none of the corporate stress of being forced to spend money and buy presents. I love turkey! (did you know it's a natual prozac?)

This year, this weekend was very different for me. I was finally able to secure some space in a local park - Rotary Nickleplate Park- where I planted a tree in memory of my two wonderful grandparents: Nan & Gramps. :-) My Grandmother passed away in 1997 and my Grandfather, just last year. So after walking through the park with a friendly city guy who knew the sprinkler and snow removal system, I decided upon one spot from the three available. The digging of the hole didn't take as much time as I had thought and the tree was planted in under an hour.

This is the first time I have done something like this and I really like the fact that I feel like I can travel only a few hundred meters from my house and be close with them. I also get to care for the memorial by watering the tree every day to make sure the roots take hold. To anyone thinking of doing this in their own life, I highly recommend it.

The image on the side represents my planting experience and the different stages of completion.
I love you Nan & Gramps and I thank you for everything you gave me in life and in death. -your adoring grandson.

Hey Ladies

I would like to say another thank you to all of you lovely ladies who came out to the Women in Business networking and marketing presentation last night. I met lots of wonderful new people with great ideas and I'm happy to see such driven talent here in the Kootenays. For a first time event, we drew a crowd just shy of 30 people (which is really great) and we talked about what marketing is (EVERYTHING YOU DO!) and what elements make marketing more effective. We also discussed new internet trends and how to foster women's natural ability to market by word of mouth.
From the feedback I heard, most people learned at least one new thing and had a couple of concepts reinforced. All in all, I would call last night a big success and I'm already looking forward to the next one!
For those of you who are still a little foggy on what a BLOG is, this is it. You're reading one right now! If you scroll down the rest of this page, you will see other postings of mine and how I 'slant' my entries. Mostly geared towards supplementing my business Marketing for Good. Blogs are quick to set up and easy to use. Click here to set up your own blog

Wikipedia explains as follows.. "Blog is the contraction universally used for web log, a type of website where entries are made (such as in a journal or diary), displayed in a reverse chronological order.
Blogs often provide commentary or news on a particular subject, such as food, politics, or local news; some function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. Most blogs are primarily textual although some focus on photographs (photoblog), videos (vlog), or audio (podcasting), and are part of a wider network of social media.

The word blog can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog."

I would also like to ask you to post a comment about last night's presentation. If you liked it and learned lots, please let other people know the value in understanding how good marketing works! Your endorsement means so much to me and my company. THANK YOU!

Hope this helps - Please follow up with me on anything that is not clear or that you would like help with. Remember, I specialize in successful low cost marketing solutions for small business!

What is Marketing?

Anthony O. Putman - who is a marketing coach and teacher- defines marketing in his book "Marketing Your Services" as;
"Marketing is the intentional process of creating and maintaining a customer relationship."
Seth GodinMarketing Guru defines it as;
Spreading ideas that you believe in, sharing ideas you're passionate about... and doing it with authenticity.

Marketing for Good'’s definition of marketing falls somewhere in the middle and has been broken down into two main parts;
Philosophically speaking, “Good marketing is the intentional process of sharing ideas you'’re passionate about, believe in, and which create an authentic relationship between your business and the people who use your business.”

Practically speaking, "Marketing is the way you answer the phone, your letter head, your business card, the way you describe yourself and your company, staff uniforms, store cleanliness, return policies and essentially every type of interaction between people that goes on. Even management-to-staff treatment, which filters into unsupervised customer service is a form of marketing."

The 'practical' part is inspired by Seth Godin, but it also reflects a lifetime of my beliefs about how life operates. Everything in life is marketing. "They" say everything in life is politics, and it's true. But politics is marketing. How people identify and relate with your image is called positioning. The amount of people who buy into your promises, and on what scale, is called many things: customer service, advertising, trust-building, through to promise-delivery.

Non-professionals do this as well, unintentionally. Instinctively you know it's always wise to ask your spouse for a favour at the right moment. You also know that it's an even better idea to offer an incentive (e.g., back rub) in exhange for this favour if it involves them helping on an already busy day. This is the same concept as a store owner asking something specific of their clients (e.g., buy MY product, use MY services) and then realizing the value and benefit of offering an incentive. E.g., buy two bottles of expensive hand lotion and receive a free massage. This random example employs incentive offering and understanding your market.

Women in Business

exciting news! Marketing for Good is going to be putting on a marketing presentation at the Cornerstone Cafe in Warfield on Sept. 27. Have a look at the poster for details- it's for you professional ladies only!