Archive for marketing
With the launch of my new LinkedIn eBooksnear, I’m ready to get out into the world with my “250 speaking engagements in 250 days” project.
Over the last year, I’ve had the opportunity to offer hundreds of groups either an introduction to, or in depth training on LinkedIn.com and how it applies to growing your business – especially in this economy.
Specifically, I’ve been talking to professional groups – groups of people who need to be developing business but who are not especially Social Media savvy. They’ve had traditional businesses with a traditional clientele and have mainly grown their businesses via referral. They may be attorney groups, public accounting professionals, sales groups, financial services professionals, etc. Often they have some kind of regulatory or ethical environment they work inside of that requires them to be relationship oriented instead of “marketing” oriented.
What I’ve found is that LinkedIn offers a bridge between their traditional “offline” sales, marketing, and business development strategies into an allegorical equivalent online and the results have been remarkable.
What I didn’t do – was be systematic about it. I didn’t have a clear plan.
Over the next quarter, I will be systematically reaching out to groups and individuals with whom I have a relationship and offering to partner with them to present various levels of LinkedIn Training.
I’m open to working with anyone who works with these kinds of professionals.
I’ll also be sharing via Twitter and Status Update (on LinkedIn, Facebook, Plaxo, etc) the progress and insights of the project – so make sure you’re connected with me on LinkedIn or following on Twitter. And if you haven’t already, subscribe to the blog! Here’s to a prosperous 2010!
Raymond Chip Lambert
Network 2 Networth
A week ago today I had the pleasure of speaking at the Realty Executives Quarterly Retreat in Phoenix, Arizona.
As I was listening to the panel of presenters speak before I took the stage, I heard them share that some of them had completely abandoned their offline farming activities – ie sending a hard copy print newsletter to their previous clients and farm area. One of the presenters shared that he didn’t want to send them to his blog until he had enough content. So he did nothing.
BIG MISTAKE in my humble opinion.
While it’s true that there is a massive movement of people and resources to the online environment, it’s a fallacy that your offline marketing strategies are going to be replaced completely by them.
Direct response mailing continues to dominate in terms of effectiveness with regard to marketing that works. Granted, you have to know what you’re doing and track your results very carefully to fully unlock it’s value. But it still works. Why would you abandon it for something that is emerging and still being worked out?
With my clients, I recommend that they look at the full range of options that are available to them to reach their markets.
- Referral Marketing
- Print Advertising
- Direct Mail
- Traditional and Online Newsletter
- Blog / Website
- Online Social Networks
- Social Media Tools
Not every one of these is right for every client. In fact, with our attorney clients, some of these are ethically off the table.
The point is that you need to look at what you are trying to accomplish, look at the media that will get that message into your market most effectively given your marketing budget.
THEN, you’ve got to look at how you’re going to bring those leads through your sales process; online, offline or in some sort of combination – and yes, lawyers and CPAs have a sales process.
For goodness sake, don’t stop doing what already works because you think you NEED to be using online Social Media. And don’t be afraid to drive your offline clients to your online presence and your on-line leads into your offline pipeline development process.
People consume their information the way that they consume their information. Make it all available to them.
That’s the point of marketing.
Engage your prospects. Engage your clients. Engage your past clients.
And do it with both the proven and emerging methods. It’s not a matter of ‘either/or’. It’s a matter of engaging them where they are with multiple and sometimes layered methods.
Without those people engaging, you don’t have a business.
