by Justin Grensing, Esq., MBA
On February 14 – Valentine’s Day – Amazon announced a break up with New York City. The company faced intense backlash from community members after it was announced that the much-anticipated HQ2 would be split between New York and Arlington Virginia.
Here are some takeaways from a marketing perspective on the tech giant’s big decision. (more…)
(excerpted from 21st Century Secrets to Effective PR: Tips and Best Practices for Gaining Media Exposure)
In the “old days,” there was advertising and there was PR. Advertising was paid communication that we created about ourselves. PR was communication that we earned through creating relationships and clever pitches to the media gatekeepers who would then share information about us on our behalf. Social media represents a new communication option that has had, and will continue to have, a marked impact on both advertising and PR. (more…)
There’s a raging — and quite interesting — debate that I continue to see taking place in various online forums about the relationship between PR and marketing. I’ve found it especially interesting because I recently was engaged in the same debate while teaching PR courses at a local university. Surprisingly to me, there is a group that believes quite strongly that PR is not part of marketing: that it is a separate and distinctly different function within an organization.
Frankly, that’s just “crazy talk” to me. (more…)
Most of us in the marketing business are familiar with the concept of – if not necessarily the term – pull marketing. Pull marketing refers to using your business development strategies to attract customers actively seeking out a product or service to your particular offering. For example, a pizza company might work on increasing its page ranking through search engine optimization (SEO) so that it shows up prominently when a hungry potential customer searches for “pizza near me” in their search engine.
But there’s another type of marketing that takes a more aggressive approach. “On the other side of the coin is a push campaign,” writes Rocco Baldassarre – Founder & CEO of Zebra Advertisement 1DollarAd.com – In an article for Entrepreneur. “A push campaign presents products and services to an audience without serving an initial demand.”
Baldassarre writes about push marketing in the context of online marketing and offers four tips for maximizing the outcome of your efforts. (more…)
by Justin Grensing, Esq., MBA
At first glance, it might seem like a ridiculous strategy to price a product below its cost. Wouldn’t you just be losing money? While this is true, many companies do just that, and they do lose money. On that specific offering. This is part of a strategy known as loss leader pricing. As defined by Inc., “loss leader pricing is an aggressive pricing strategy in which a store sells selected goods below cost in order to attract customers who will, according to the loss leader philosophy, make up for the losses on highlighted products with additional purchases of profitable goods.”
A great example of a loss leader is razors. (more…)
Marketing is key to not only getting the word out about your products and services but also for convincing potential consumers that your offerings provide the best quality, best value, are the trendiest, etc. Influencers can be a huge benefit in this respect. Influencers are individuals or organizations that have the ability to influence the beliefs, attitudes and actions of others. An influencer might be a popular professional athlete who touts the efficacy of a particular shoe, supplement or clothing brand. Or it could be a celebrity who shows up on the red carpet wearing a particular fashion brand—one that carries your label.
These are examples of large-scale influencers. Small businesses typically don’t have access to such individuals unless by pure good fortune. But in an article for Forbes, Dinah Wisenberg Brin writes that some businesses have found success using “micro-influencers” to achieve similar effects, albeit on a smaller scale. (more…)
by Justin Grensing, Esq., MBA
One of the more tedious activities that falls under the broad umbrella of marketing is responding to requests for proposals, or RFPs. RFPs are typically issued by large organizations — like large corporations or government entities — that are looking for a vendor for a large expenditure or project. It’s basically a way of telling the public or a specific group of pre-screened vendors, “Hey, I want to buy something! Send me a pitch!” The sheer number of interested vendors they often receive responses from and the need to objectively compare them means they are also telling these vendors, “But…send me a pitch in this precise format.”
The process can be time-consuming and convoluted, but a winning bid can be extremely lucrative. Fortunately, there are some basic tips and strategies that can make the process more efficient. (more…)
Savvy marketers are always on the lookout for new media through which to promote their companies. From print media, to radio, to television, to the Internet, it hasn’t taken long historically between the development of a new media technology to the adoption of that media by marketers.
In an article for Entrepreneur, Aj Agrawal makes the case for podcasts as the next potentially lucrative marketing channel. (more…)
Most small business owners are heavily focused on their core skillset. They are bakers, event planners, lawyers – insert job – first, and accountants and marketers second. As Pamela Slim writes for Entrepreneur, “Most small business owners aren’t marketers by trade, but almost all (95 percent) do some form of marketing for themselves, and many need to master what can feel like a very steep learning curve quickly. Most entrepreneurs and small business owners (64 percent) are self-taught and less than half (46 percent) consider themselves ‘marketing savvy.’” (more…)
There’s an old saying that has been used to describe exceptional salespeople: “They’re so good that they could sell ice cubes to Eskimos.” The point being that Eskimos, living in a cold climate, really don’t need ice cubes, and are likely an audience that is going to be tough to crack. But, great salespeople could crack them.
Our perspective: Why? (more…)
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