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| A Note From Wendy |
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Greetings! ,
I know you are not use to reading my ezine on Thursdays! I must apologize for the 1-day delay but, I had such a relaxing weekend that I put my pen and paper away and did absolutely no writing over the weekend. For those of you who really know me - I know you are shocked! I love writing and am always carrying around a notebook and pen. I have been accused of being a work-aholic a few times, as well. I would have to debate that. I just HATE when I don't have anything to write on for spontaneous thoughts about article topics, product and service ideas, or if I have a business brainstorm. Are you like that too? I find many entrepreneurs are. That can be a good thing and a not so good thing at times. It's great to have the creative juices going and purge ideas about how to be more in service to others through our businesses. However, it is also common for entrepreneurs to experience B.S.O.S. - Bright Shinny Object Syndrome. That is a state where every new idea becomes a distraction. Good - bad or indifferent, it can create a sense of distraction and overwhelm because we easily load too many great ideas on our entrepreneurial plate but, never really finish anything we start. Unfortunately this causes frustration that we can not move things forward the way we would like. In this week's edition of On the Edge! I wanted to tackle this idea in regards to marketing. It is often a place that people have good intentions but, little happens as a result of feeling it's too big to handle or too late to implement. The article is entitled How to Eat a Marketing Elephant. I hope you enjoy it. By the way, here are pictures from this past weekend of me just hanging out with my dog named Senor Nacho Bandito, or "Nacho" for short, and my husband, Tom, and our boys Connor and Ethan! We are enjoying our beautiful back yard after a wonderful BBQ dinner. Have a great week everyone!
 Me with my dog "Nacho"
 My boys, Connor and Ethan, and my husband Tom. |
Radiantly Yours,
Wendy Burge
P.S. I would love to hear your feedback, questions, or current business challenges. Feel free to contact me by clicking here.
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| May 21, 2009 |
Vol 1, Issue12 |
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| Featured Article |
 How to Eat a Marketing Elephant
by Wendy Burge
A big challenge for small businesses is often having the time to stay on top of their marketing; the planning, prep time, and implementation. Marketing can be the white elephant in a business that needs to be addressed because it has the largest impact on the growth of the business. However, like the old saying goes, to eat an elephant you take one bite at a time. So, how do you eat a "marketing elephant"? By breaking it down into bite-size pieces to allow for more efficient and effective marketing strategies without overwhelm. The following steps will help you capture, tame, and maintain the marketing elephant in your business.
Bite 1. Commit to the end goal
What kind of growth do you want to achieve over a calendar year within your business?
Your objective will directly impact how and why you are developing a marketing plan. If you are in a start-up phase it may be as simple as acquiring a certain number of new clients, addition of client resources and services, and a specific dollar figure that gets you up and running. If you have been in business for a while, your goals may focus on higher profit -margins, positioning yourself as an expert within your industry, and leveraging your time more effectively. Understanding your goals also allows you to track and monitor how effective your marketing is in helping you reach them. Knowing what you want and, more importantly, why you want it, will increase your personal investment into making it happen.
Bite 2. Break it into quarters
How do you want to achieve your goals for each 90-day period? Once you know what you want, it's just a matter of working backwards at making it happen. Take a 12 month wall calendar and break it into quarters; within each quarter work on a specific goal. If you want to increase your client volume early in the year, then over a 90-day period all your marketing focus can be on targeting this goal with special incentives, offers, and referral programs. Maybe you want an infusion of cash in your business at specific times of a year because your work is seasonal. Determining which quarter to focus your marketing to do this is, now, defined and, again, all efforts are then focused on making profits grow during a specific period of time. Working this way also allows you to be flexible and able to insert special announcements or last minute sales to increase your quarterly profits. As well, extending the launch time of a special marketing campaign can grow the anticipation and excitement of your customers about the upcoming promotion or special sale item which planning like this can create. Whatever your goal, you now have more power in making it happen when you take each quarter to develop, launch, and track your marketing efforts.
Bite 3. Map out notable events, holidays, and specials
Mapping out when to schedule events and sales promotions proves to be more effective when you plan ahead of time what you will need to create a 'rolling' campaign for an annual or semi-annual event. Furthermore, every quarter is filled with all kinds of marketing opportunities which you can take advantage of. The most obvious are seasonal holidays where marketing can be easily tied into the collective consciousness of the season. However, what if there are special events or days that are relevant to your industry? You can now build them into your marketing campaigns to help support your overall objective. Let's say you have a chiropractic office and you know that in September the profession celebrates it's 'birthday'. This can create a great educational opportunity, as well as, a profitable one if leveraged as a special birthday savings to patients which schedule appointments on that day. Great days to honour for your business would be business opening anniversaries, owner or employee birthdays, special days important to your industry, and current or annual events that happen in your community. Have fun and get creative when it comes to making your marketing map!
Bite 4. Build in multiple contact channels
Knowing what kind of marketing campaign you are going to host and when it will occur over a quarter, now maximizes your marketing prep time. Instead of rushing last minute to pull something together, you can plan out a series of email, direct mailers, and phone or social network announcements ahead of time. This is where saving time and money becomes possible because you now have time working on your side. Direct mail pieces can be put together for the quarter by having them printed, labelled, and stamped ahead of time. As well, email marketing can be programmed ahead of time to automatically go out on specific times and dates which can co-ordinate with the direct-mail marketing pieces. If your marketing plan includes social network marketing there are applications that can now be used to schedule posting on your selected sites ahead of time, too. Leveraging time like this allows you to create more ways to get your message across effectively-- instead of a one-time hit at the last minute. Furthermore, the more ways you can reach people and stand out in their busy lives the more success you will have with your campaigns. © 2009 Wendy Burge - Radiant Edge Consulting. WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include this complete blurb with it: Conscious Business & Marketing Coach Wendy Burge publishes the On the Edge! weekly ezine--Where business, marketing, and lifestyle meet. If you're ready to have radiant marketing, make more money, and have more freedom in your small business, get your FREE tips now at www.RadiantEdgeConsulting.com |
| Who Is Wendy Anyway? |
Wendy Burge is The Radiant Marketing and Business Coach and ezine publisher, author, speaker and entrepreneur. She helps solo-professionals and (primarily women) entrepreneurs like YOU take your businesses to the next level using creative, effective, and affordable Relationship Marketing Systems & Strategies - online and offline! 
Wendy helps you:
- build your database of clients and prospects and determine the best ways to market your business to your unique target market
- network effectively plus develop follow up systems to stay on top of mind with contacts at all times
- create marketing and advertising plans and campaigns that get results
- design and help you write your website copy in order to bring you leads
- delegate and automate in your business to give you more free time to do what you love and to live your dream lifestyle
- find creative ways to get in front of your clients which all lead to more customers and increased sales
- develop information products, membership programs and other residual forms of income to leverage your expertise and resources
- add elements to your business model such as speaking, writing a book, holding live events and wherever and whatever will get you where you want to go
Not sure where to start with your small business and marketing challenges?
"Give me 47 minutes of your time and I will help you...
Clarify where you need the most help,
Establish a starting point for best results,
And offer resources, tools, and programs to help you take
the best action for your business all for $47."
Test-drive my services. For less than the cost of a tank of gas I will help you discover the best place to invest your time, dollars, and energy in your business and marketing.
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Wendy Recommends |
VistaPrint.com - My secret marketing weapon 
Printing can be a large expense to incur for custom marketing pieces. Everything from business cards to promotional postcards, and brochures.
I use an online printing site called VistaPrint.com that helps me get the jobs done easily and effectively often with a substanial savings over tradtional printing. I can creat my work on line- preview and order then have it drop shipeed right to my door.
Best of all, they have great customer promotions where you can get certain products for free and all you have to do is pay for shipping. I love that!! When I get those offers I will stock up on a series of promotional postcards, extra business cards, and anything else that I may need in upcoming promotions or events.
Check them out for your business!
VistaPrint Canada 
Take a look at them even if you live outside of Canada. On the headline tab bar at the top of their home page you will see it says: Select Country this will update the site to adjust currency pricing and promos. |
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