Every business owner wants to see their products, services or expertise featured in the media.

After all, positive editorial coverage is an incredibly valuable endorsement of all your hard work and can bring in a tonne of sales.

But scoring great publicity is no easy feat.

Here are six steps that will have your business basking in the media spotlight:

1. Do Your Research

Research the media you would like to be featured in, the specific sections that are relevant to your business, and the individual journalist or editor responsible for the editorial.

Media kits are also an excellent source of information such as circulation and readership details, a profile of the target audience, upcoming features and deadlines.

Most magazines will have a media kit you can download from their website, so jump online and look for any information directed at advertisers.

2. Plan Ahead

Good PR takes time, so don’t expect to fire off a few emails and be in the media next week.

Look at what’s coming up in your business over the next 12-18 months, seasonal topics, and events on the calendar that you can work a story around.

Magazines, in particular, work way ahead of deadline so you need to be contacting them several months before the issue you want to be featured in.

3. Build Relationships First

You wouldn’t ask a stranger for a favour (unless you were desperate!), so don’t do it with the media.

Take the time to introduce yourself to journalists, familiarise yourself with their work, follow them on Twitter, and retweet their stories, before launching into your pitch.

Remember, great PR shouldn’t be a one-off. The aim of the game is to get ongoing editorial coverage, so focus on relationships first.

4. Offer Your Expertise

Journalists are always looking for great sources for stories, so once you’ve introduced yourself, share your experience and credentials and let them know you’re available anytime to provide expert comment.

You may not secure editorial coverage right then and there, but by taking the time to connect with the journalist from a ‘how can I help you’ point of view (as opposed to a ‘please feature me in your publication’ one!) there’s a very good chance you’ll get the call up to comment on a story sometime in the future.

5. Adopt the Right Style

When you’re writing your story pitches, always adopt the ‘voice’ of the media outlet you’re targeting.

Make a note of the tone and language used in stories and headlines, and write your pitch in the same style.

For instance, the language used in a bridal magazine is going to be very different to a daily newspaper, so it’s important to make that distinction when you’re pitching to them.

6. Be Prepared

Have a press pack at the ready that includes all the relevant information about your products or services, your business story, and high resolution images.

It’s a good idea to have a couple of testimonials from clients who are happy to be quoted in the media. Make sure you include their full name, location and any other information that may be required for a story.

You can also give yourself a head start by coming up with a list of suggested story ideas relevant to your business or tip sheets (e.g. 5 Tips for Planning a Romantic Mini-Break) that can be used by journalists in sidebars or breakout boxes.

Written by: Emma Lawrence

How do I choose a suitable website designer for my small business?

This article has been written as a basic guide for small business owners in New Zealand who are currently at the stage of wanting to establish or grow their businesses online. This is a topic that is fairly complicated and can take up a lot of time and research. However, there are a few mistakes that many businesses make when deciding who to choose as an internet partner, and I would like to bring them to your attention. Like most small business owners or entrepreneurs with a new idea you are probably bursting at the seams to get online! Although this may seem like a fairly trivial topic, reading this article and taking into consideration its key points could save you a lot of time, money and frustration!

Firstly I would like to explain the term internet partner. I say ‘partner’ because the company you choose to design and service your website is essentially the primary holder of one of the most important tools to your business. This makes them your partner. If you and your internet partner run into relationship problems, and this happens more frequently than you would like to believe, than there is a high chance that the online part of your business will be jeopardized. Why? Because your internet partner is the only one who can control what happens to your internet site. They have the ability to make it live, change its functionality and design, take it down, and in most cases they actually OWN the internet files. That’s a huge loss of control on your part, not to mention the enquiries and / or potential dollars that may be lost if your website is down or dysfunctional.

Top reasons for disagreements between internet designers and their clients

Too often internet designers and their clients run into disagreements, and when these disagreements are unresolved, the online part of your business suffers.

Common disagreements are as follows:

• The client fails to understand that they are purchasing a ‘basic’ website package, and that any extra features (such as social media integration or a photo gallery) will cost extra. If you are not largely website business savvy than these extra features may not seem important at first, but once you log in to your new website and start using it, you will realise how important these extra features are for running your business successfully, and you will now be looking at spending more money to upgrade. This can be very disappointing.
• The web designer employs sales staff that has limited technical knowledge, and the sales consultant sells you a product that the technical team can’t fully deliver for the price originally agreed on – PROBLEM. For example you asked if they could design you a website that has a negotiating wizard for designing online contracts and you agree on a price with the sales consultant. The sales consultant than emails you with an invoice for almost twice the amount with the simple explanation, ‘it took longer than I expected to design’. Lame.
• The website doesn’t have the correct tools to function as you need it to. What you think you are purchasing, and what you actually get can be two very different things. For example you may want a website that has a self updating feature product on the homepage (i.e you want the latest uploaded new product to feature on the home page) but the website you have purchased doesn’t offer this function, rather you have to update the homepage manually which takes up extra time. I know people who have spent $10,000 on a website only to find it is completely useless for what they need to successfully run their business.
• The client approved the final design not realising that any ‘small’ extra changes they may want made to their website AFTER they have accepted the final design will be charged at an extra cost. Website designers often charge their labour time in half hours and hours. Once you have approved the final design all other changes may be charged out at an extra cost.  You may think that the changes are ‘small’ for example changing the background image or colour, or the position of your business logo but depending on the type of website and the method of website design used by the company this may take a couple of hours to change. You will probably be charged for these ‘small’ extra changes, so be sure to look at every small detail before approving your design (and don’t forget the final design may also include functionality aspects of the website such as payment methods etc).

Choosing an internet partner can be hard work, if you have already googled around for an internet designer you will see just how many choices and options there are!

Whether your business is solely internet driven for example an online shop, or whether you use a website primarily to attract enquiries, or simply to promote your business, your website needs to function at its maximum potential to best service your business.

How can I best avoid these common dissagreements?

• Always meet with your website designer face to face, you can learn a lot about a business from interacting with their key personnel. Are they a large business or are they a small operator? How is their customer service? Are they on time to your meeting and do they make you feel important, or are you just another number? Do they respond to your email and phone messages in a timely matter (within 24 hours is ideal)? How they deal with you as a customer in person can mimic how they will deal with you on the phone and via email later on down the track once the money has been handed over.
• Find out who the key decision maker in the business is; who has the final say and oversees the running of the day to day business in the company? Although it may be a sales consultant dealing with your account, they may have limited control over dispute resolution and negotiating. You want to know who’s in charge!
• Ask to see their portfolio of clients and have a look at the work they have previously done. Ask to see a number of testimonials, and ask if you are able to have the contact details of a few of their client references. I recommend speaking to two or three. It’s amazing what you can find out about a company through these reference checks!  If there is a problem giving you these references then I would be cautious.
• Ask the sales consultant to sit down with you and explain what all of the extra features on a website are. Ask them to show you a physical version of the site and ask if you can log in to the backend of an existing or trial website.  If you don’t understand what a particular feature does, get them to show you. There’s no better way of learning then hands on! Once you know exactly what features you would like to have, then ask the company to bulk package them and present them in a written itemised list complete with a set single price (including GST). You can then use this list to compare products across a number of providers; it also can help you to negotiate a better deal.
• NEVER pay for the internet site upfront. Only go with a company that will accept the payment in parts. I would suggest a three part payment as follows:

1. An initial deposit of 1/3 of the whole price (this usually comes at the design brief stage and AFTER you have had your face to face meeting and agreed on the itemized list of what the total price will include). Only hand over the deposit once you are 100% sure this is the company you want to work with. There’s nothing worse than handing your money over to someone and then getting into a disagreement on price and design etc, this does happen!
2. Next you will receive the ‘final’ design. This usually comes after a number of draft designs and shouldn’t take any longer than 6 – 8 weeks maximum. Don’t hand over the second payment until you are 100% happy with the design, layout and functionality of your website. Be sure to login and have a play with the backend to ensure the site functions as requested (this is your prerogative as a paying customer). Also be sure not to ‘accept’ the final design if there are a few minor things wrong, as this may cost you to change down the track! Once you are happy to continue, hand over the second payment (another 1/3 of the whole price).
3. The third and final part payment should be made approximately 2 weeks after the site has gone live. This gives you time to test the site and to ensure that there are no bugs or errors and that the site is functioning to 100% of its promised ability.

• Stick to your budget! Ask a consultant (or two) to explain the difference between an e-commerce site, content site, blog site, promotional site etc as these all have varying costs and features. Also, it’s wise to get a number of different quotes for the cost of your ideal site (usually three or four minimum). When I first started looking around for a website for Etch Magazine I was quoted between $2,000 and $20,000 for the same brief  – a big difference! I eventually ended up spending $2,800 and am now very happy (although I did initially pay $3,800 for a website that I didn’t like so I have had my share of mistakes!).
• Get a contract lawyer to have a look at the agreement before proceeding. This may seem like an extreme measure but there are all sorts of clauses in the fine print that can affect your business.  Some can be costly.
• Lastly, hire a local company, one that has a physical office and is a registered company name (you can check the New Zealand Companies Register – it’s FREE). Although there are some great overseas website designers I wouldn’t recommend out sourcing the job to an overseas company unless of course they come highly recommended by a trusted friend or associate. The reason for this is that you don’t ever fully know who you are giving your money to, and if you run into problems it can be tricky to recover your files and/or get a refund. There is also the time difference meaning that getting that quick instantaneous support that you may need if your website is down or has a bug may not be available. A local designer will also usually have a better insight into affordable and quality extra features and products that are available in New Zealand.

There you go! Not such an easy ordeal after all, in fact this article is considerably longer than I first planned, but with the right guidance you can end up with a great website that you love! There are many great designers out there and hopefully this article will help guide you to your perfect internet partner.  Good luck!

By Heather Le Grice  – Founder and Director of Gear Shift

The big trend online right now is social media for business and there are plenty of business owners and people with an opinion opposing the idea and others advocating it. Social media hasn’t convinced everyone but for the majority it has, including myself. The issue is in the understanding of exactly how social media can benefit your business and how to go about creating your social media community.

Social media is a social instrument of communication. It is a way for you to communicate with the input and have your say. Unlike the newspaper or a show on television, you can make comments, interact and put your two cents worth in on the matter. If it’s a two-way street then it is social media, and it’s hard to avoid.

One issue with social media however is the ability it has to consume all your time. Many others and myself justify their lengthy time using social media as input into their business and yes that is right, but only if you are using it productively. Getting all your friends to join your Facebook page isn’t as useful as contributing to blog posts and creating credibility in your field to establish genuine Facebook “likes.”

Exposure, customer service, sales opportunities, increased traffic and target market knowledge are just some of the important reasons to be using social media for your business. This is done by being present on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin and linking these all up to your blog and website. Blog posting and contributing to blogs via comments is also an effective social media practice. The social media sites you are present on do depend on the nature of your business and where your target market is. If your market is aged 60+, using social media to generate leads is not going to work.

Gear Shift is a small business recently developed in response to the growing trend. The focus at Gear Shift is business growth through connecting and communicating in the online social space. It has been developed to work in conjunction with small business owners to reach specific goals they hope to achieve with social media. It may be to create a more professional image; it may be to increase traffic to your site or to increase the number of customers who walk through your door. Gear Shift blogs, tweets, updates and shares for you while you are delivering to your customers or working on your next product/service. Making it look like you’re doing a lot of work with your arms tied behind your back. Gear Shift has developed packages and tailor made solutions to cater for all small businesses so do check them out.

You can find out more about social media and Gear Shift at www.gear-shift.co.nz.

Everyone is looking for an easier way to message people. We’re tweeting, texting, and emailing, but does this really compare to ‘ye old snail mail’?

Online messages are simple to create and easy to send. Offline messages (letters, cards, notes) take time, are harder to send and are much more expensive; but tell me, what impresses you more, a thank you email (with little or no thought) or a hand written thank you note? I’m sure everyone would agree that the latter wins.

Ben Bruce, a good friend (and even better Chiropractor) from Bays Chiropractic knows how how to make his clients feel special. In 2009, Ben wrote ‘the card of cards’ to all his clients for Christmas. The card that I received from Ben was three paragraphs long, thanking me for my advice, friendship and lastly, wishing me a Merry Christmas. Amazing! Does your chiropractor care this much about you?

Ben wouldn’t tell me how much time he spent writing, stamping and addressing 150 plus cards, but i’m sure a weekends work was the minimum. As expected, Ben generated lots of referral business from this and kept his existing clients away from the competition.

If you’re still skeptical about sending out thank you cards, I have a challenge for you. Try sending out one card every day (before you go home) for a week. This can be to a client, a prospect or even a member of your own team – it doesn’t matter. People rarely write cards anymore so It’s a pleasure to receive one when you do.

Oh yea, i’m taking the challenge too. In 30 days I’ll be writing a follow up post about my ‘journey’. Stay tuned.

Everywhere you look people are networking. You’re on LinkedIn now, networking. You have sushi with an old colleague, networking. Tomorrow, you’ll be meeting a friend for coffee, once again, networking. But are you really networking, or are you just socialising?

Socialising is a casual catch up. There’s no real agenda – you’re just happy to be there. Networking has a purpose – or at least it should. You can’t network without being social; that’s obvious. You can however, socialise without networking: so how do you differentiate?

Plan ahead. If you’re meeting for business, make that known. If you’re meeting for a beer and a casual catch up, be clear about that. Sending false expectations is rude and can leave you both confused and embarrassed.

In other words, networking is socialising with a purpose.

Meeting one person or meeting one thousand; attending one group or attending ten; it’s the effort and impact you make before you arrive, while you’re attending and once you’ve left that truly speaks about your ability to network.

Just remember: The proof is in the pudding. When networking, stick to your plan and don’t deviate (some flexibility allowed of course).

Price offers a fast and direct way to communicate to any buyer the basis of comparison between brands.

When consumers cannot easily evaluate the quality of a product eg; perfume or a high end alcohol beverage, price can be used as a signal of the products value. The importance of convincing your demographic is establishing why your product  is superior compared to other brands. Do not rely on consumer’s to automatically think that your product is high end due to all the zeros in the price tag.

How do we do this? Quality packaging, advertising, exclusiveness, dependability, reliability of product and service can all be used to state why this is a high end product.

A lot of first time businesses try to sell their products at the high end of the market, only for the consumer to discover that the product breaks, dissolves, rusts, rips, melts or fades, faster than a similar product that is 1/10th of the price. This is the perfect way to scare off any return business.

How do you know you have a high end product?

Have you tested what the consumer needs or wants to pay for your product? A good way to do this is to see how much people are paying for a similar product on auction websites, like Trademe or Ebay.

Why High?

Maybe you are selling to a niche market where there is some or no competition. Possibly you have such a unique product; there is no set bar as to what the price should be.

Personally I like to deal with fewer consumers, depending on the product. Selling to a niche market eliminates hours each day of answering my phone or replying to potential buyers who are just curios. With a high end product, I can sell fewer quantities, and still make more profit than my other mid range price products.

Tim Ferris author of “The four hour work week”, makes mention in his book about eliminating workload such as this when selling a high end product, I highly recommend this book.

I want to position my brand and my product as high end value, but how?

Creating brand awareness is one of the key steps in promoting a product.  There are alternative ways to build your brand as a high end, we will look at multimedia advertising:

High end celebrity endorsement

Understanding your demographic helps you to decide who the right celebrity would be to endorse your product. Google ‘celebrity endorsement’ and you will find dozens of celebrity endorsement websites where you can find and contact the celebrity agents to negotiate deals. 

Product photos and catalogues

Spend a little more on your product(s) photo shoot so that it looks like it came out of a designer catalogue. You can shop around to find the right graphic design studio that can transform your product to look and feel like a high end product.

Advertising

Advertise in premium areas where your demographic will most likely notice you such as demographically specific websites, magazines, posters and billboards.  If you choose to advertise in a magazine make sure you get a full page or double spread so as to make it appear that you can afford an expensive advertising campaign. If you choose to advertise online make sure your ad banner is stationed above the fold, (top half of the website).

Sponsorship

 Sponsor an event so that it looks like your brand is associated with the particular event that your chosen demographic would attend.

You are probably thinking, hold on, this is getting too expensive to advertise, well there is a reason why your prices are premium right? Having done your maths and knowing what your total fixed costs are, use a high mark up so that you can put the profit from your sales into to paying for your advertisements.

In recent years I have learnt that advertising in certain magazines, or websites is not as expensive as you believe, and don’t forget you are targeting directly to your target market! Make sure you evaluate the amount of orders or sales leads you are receiving from the advertising you are spending. Was the advertising worth it? If the answer is yes, go again, and penetrate your market with your brand.

Most NZ businesses are dabbling in online marketing; typically they will be running AdWords and do occasional email marketing. Here’s a guide for these businesses and those new start-ups targeting NZ web traffic that have a functional website.

USPs and keywords

You should know what your unique selling points (USPs) are. Jot them down then try to come up with a dozen keywords for your business. These will likely comprise of USPs and products. For example, a winery selling organic wine might have ‘organic’, being a USP and ‘pinot noir’ being a key product line.

Website

Looking at your keywords, ensure you have a landing page for each (where appropriate). In the winery example, they might have a page on organic wine and pinot noir (separate to the product page).

Ensure you have calls-to-action (e.g. ‘Buy now’ ‘Click here for a free trial’ on the key landing pages. Remember, not everyone will land on your homepage.

Get your web developers to set-up Google Analytics and conversion tracking so you can track orders and enquiries (you might want to use a unique 0800 number on your website to track phone enquiries).

Industry and social media monitoring

You will likely receive emails from relevant publications. The problem is getting emails throughout the day can be distracting. We prefer to subscribe to RSS feeds and use a tool like Google Reader (reader.google.com) which we check at the beginning of each day.

Whether you are actively engaged in social media or not we recommend monitoring relevant conversations.

As well as industry publications we recommend you monitor the following across all channels (email, websites, blogs, and social media):
• Your company and brands
• Your products and categories e.g. ‘organic wine’ ‘pinot noir’
• Your competitors

Steps to set up monitoring:

1. Set up RSS feeds for generic phrases and from competitor’s blogs etc.
2. Use social media monitoring software to track brand, product and competitor mentions. We use Viralheat but there are a number of cheap options out there.

Tip: Specify a geographic location using Twitter’s advanced search
Tip: Use a geographic qualifier like ‘trademe’ when you can’t specify a geographic region

Driving Traffic

Directories

Get a free listing on the following directories:
• Google Places
• Finda
• NZS.com

Adwords

Set-up a basic AdWords campaign based on your target keywords. Ensure that you can track sales and enquiries.

Tips:

• Link your AdWords account with Google Analytics
• Set a reasonable daily spend limit
• Set a target cost per acquisition (CPA) i.e. what you are prepared to pay for a sale or enquiry. For an eCommerce site this would be based on average order value and average lifetime value.
• Ensure you specify the regions you want to target. You can for example just target Auckland
• Google automatically adds you their ‘search partners’ and ‘display network’. We recommend deselecting these and start with ‘Google search’. Once you are happy with the performance of the Google Search network then you can turn on other networks.

Influencers

One of the most effective ways to promote your business is have others promote it. By monitoring various publications you will quickly learn who the influencers are. These could range from journalists, bloggers and individuals with large followings. Try to build relationships with these people. Ford recently loaned 100 Ford Fiestas to influential social media users so they could blog and post about the car online.

SEO

Once you have set-up landing pages for your target keywords etc. have an expert review them to ensure they are optimised for the search engines.

Quality external links are the best way to improve your rankings. Have an expert run some analysis to identify the best sites to target. Approach these personally, one-by-one. Aim to add one quality link every month.

Tip: if you are able to post an article one every week or two get your web developers to create a WordPress blog using a sub-folder e.g.www.online-marketing-agency.co.nz/blog

Email marketing

The first step is to ensure you have permission to market to your customer base. Try and capture email addresses for as many people who visit your site as possible. An incentive works well e.g. free whitepaper or free samples.

Although many businesses still use Outlook to send their emails we recommend using a mail service. The two key benefits of a mail service are:

1. They enable you to measure the effectiveness (e.g. open rate, click-throughs, unsubscribes)
2. They enable you to send professional looking HTML emails which should render properly in all mail systems.

Social media

Social media is becoming increasingly important but before you jump into it ask yourself:
• What are my objectives? – Fans? Sales? Leads?
• Do I have the resource to manage another channel?

Remember, when you enter social media you are opening another channel for complaints.

To be successful in social media you need to:
• Engage
• Educate
• Entertain
• Entice

Engaging your fans and followers is the most important, and the real strength of social media. In its simplest form it is chatting and commenting. Other ways to engage your audience include polls and voting.

Once you’ve built a nice Facebook and Twitter page you’ll be wondering how to drive traffic to it. Start by letting your friends and families and business partners know about it (if all your friend’s like your page then their friend’s will be notified). We recommend trialing Facebook Advertising because you can be very targeted e.g. age, gender, marital status.

A goal of your Facebook advertising should be to build your fan base. As a rule of thumb, Facebook advertising is not effective at driving traffic outside of Facebook i.e. to your website.

Tip: if you are going to do Facebook advertising do it sooner rather than later. More and more people are accessing social networks via smart phones, meaning less advertising exposure.

The above is by no means an exhaustive guide. We’d love to hear your views and tips.

Need help? Call Steer Online Marketing.

I love getting ‘naked’, and I don’t mean removing my clothes. If that’s what you were thinking, get your mind out of the gutter!

‘Getting naked’ is a choice we make everyday! Getting naked means getting real. So what is ‘getting naked’ and why should I be ‘getting naked’ with my friends, colleagues and clients?

If you’re anything like me, and I suspect some of you are, it doesn’t matter how polished your presentation is, how good your reputation, or how many recommendations you have – unless you’re genuinely interested in me, I’m not feeling it.

Confidence, authority and knowledge are great skills, but they come second to candor, humility and authenticity. Someone who understands and befriends me is always going to come up on top in my books because I know that they’ll always do the right thing, even if that means a smaller commission on their sale or passing the business on to someone more suitable.

I’m a pretty simple guy to understand. I’m not complicated and I am who I am – what you see is what you get. If you need my help and I don’t have the answer, i’ll find it. If you want to meet someone and I don’t know them, i’ll try my best to make it happen.

Patrick Lencioni, President of Table Group says “Even before landing a client, a naked consultant will demonstrate vulnerability and take risks. They will give away their best ideas and start consulting to a prospective client during a sales call. In fact, they’ll do no real selling at all, foregoing that activity in order to find a way to help potential clients even if they never actually become a real, paying one.

‘Get Naked’ today. Here’s how:

1. Confronting clients (kindly) with difficult information and perspectives, even if the client might not like hearing it.
2. Admit your weaknesses and willingly acknowledge your mistakes.
3. Ask potentially dumb questions, and make potentially dumb suggestions, because if asking those questions or suggestions might help your clients, then it is worth doing.

The world of sales & connecting people is (slowly) evolving. People are learning to become more client focused and less ‘me’ focused.

How would ‘getting naked’ work in your business?

Recommended Resources:
Patrick Lencioni www.tablegroup.com (whos article I have picked pieces from)
Keith Ferrazzi – Who’s got your back (www.keithferrazzi.com)
Ari Galper – www.unlockthegame.com (changing the way people ‘sell’)

When considering your brand or re-branding these are some of the main things to consider;

1.  Who are you and what do you do?

How are you and your business different to your competitors? what unique thing do you offer your customers? What is the purpose of your business? and finally what is your personality?

2.  Who are your customers?

It is very important when considering your brand to know who your customers are and what they look like, what are their buying motivations?  Does your brand suit your customers needs?  Consider their demographics, things like their age and gender and also their pyschographics, their values, their consumer attitudes and their behaviors.

3.  Make a list of all your touchpoints.

Touchpoints are any point of contact that you have with your customers or prospects.  For example phone calls, email’s, your car, face to face meetings, your premises, your Website etc.  Are all of these up to scratch and do they match the brand/image that you are trying to portray?  For example your aim for your brand is to promote your company as happy and professional but you or your staff answer the phone in a monotone voice and say “Hello, what do you want?”, is this the right message? is this consistent with the message you want to send out.  Brand Challenge: check out your answer phone message on your mobile phone – how do you sound? like you’re smiling and happy to receive a call and genuinely sorry you missed it, or uncomfortable, short and brash? perhaps it’s time to think about re-recording because even something as simple as this can turn off a potential customer.

4.  Be Consistent

It is very important to make sure that your brand is represented consistently across all your touchpoints.  Make sure your colours and logos are the same on your email footer as the ones on your stationary.  How up to date is your Website?  If it hasn’t been updated in a while think of the message that this could be sending to your potential customers.  The key to building a strong and successful brand is to be consistent.  Brands help us to build trust with our customers, and if customers get confused because a brand isn’t being consistent then this can lead to mistrust.

If you are in need of any Sales and Marketing advice specific to your business call Aimee on 09 918 3690 or email me at aimee@resgroup.co.nz.

Today I want to talk about the difference between “Push” and “Pull” marketing, how they are different, and which one should you be using.

Push Marketing:

With “Push” marketing the person doing the marketing is in control of the message they are sending out and how it is received by potential customers – think of “pushing” your message into the consciousness of the prospects. “Push” marketing involves the active engagement of a target market through methods like advertising on relevant Websites, email marketing or cold calling or cold emailing a prospect. In summary “Push” marketing involves:

*A focus on features of a product or service
*seeks a direct response
*prospects either buy in or they don’t, can opt in or opt out for permission based marketing
*Advertising is an example of “push” marketing
*Short term, event or time based campaigns
*Pro-active
*Goes out directly to the market and normally interrupts them
*Includes methods such as banner advertising, Ezine Ads, Email Marketing, Cold Calling, Pop Up’s etc
*Generally gets faster results

Pull Marketing

With “Pull” Marketing the recipient of the message is in control of the message and their decision to act or not, here the customer “pulls” your content or product towards themselves because they are interested in learning more about it. “Pull” marketing involves the active development of a highly visible brand. This encourages customers to actively seek you out, because they believe you can fulfill their needs. In summary “Pull” marketing involves:

*Brand awareness campaigns
*Generating publicity for the end users to find you
*Long term campaigns, build trust and awareness
*Seen by many people
*Very evident in the world of social media
*Includes methods such as testimonials, social networking (Facebook, Twitter etc), directory ads, media interviews, word of mouth, conference
speaking
*Positioning yourself as the expert

So which method is best? This depends on your needs, if you have a time sensitive offer you would want to use a “Push” marketing strategy, however in general for most businesses it is better to use a combination of “push” and “pull” you need to used “pull” marketing to establish brand awareness in the marketplace and position you as an expert so that your brand can gain recognition and trust, whilst using “push” marketing to market specific and short term offers.

If you need assistance with push vs pull marketing campaigns or need any other specific advice to do with marketing your business contact Aimee at aimee@resgroup.co.nz