Red Zone Marketing's Blog

7 Steps for Releasing Valuable Content through Social Media

Valuable content is the key to getting and keeping people interested in your social media sites. You can put endless amounts of time and effort into creating your social media profiles, but if your content is lacking, so will your following. And, your social media is an extension of your brand so it needs to be representative of who you believe your firm is. Here are 7 steps to prepare for the development of consistent and valuable content:

1. Take 1 hour and go through pre-approved or pre-written content available to you (or have a staff member do this) and create a list of potential topics for inclusion into your social media.

2. From your list, determine priorities based on the timeliness of the topics and the potential interest level of your target markets.

Read More

Forbes Interview with Maribeth Kuzmeski

Overqualified for the Job? Not Anymore.

“Free” can get your clients going wild! But what’s in it for you?

Blog from Maribeth Kuzmeski of Red Zone Marketing

If you create a surprising offer, people will pay attention. If you offer something of real value for free, people will listen (and oftentimes share with others). In fact, “free” can convert price shoppers into loyal clients. This is the model that online print company Vistaprint used to generate over $500 million in revenue in 2009. The “free” offer the company makes has a certain appeal to their target market: small businesses. While these companies need printing, they’re often very cost-conscious customers. So Vistaprint offers 250 business cards for free, with a nominal $5.67 shipping and processing charge. Today, 66 percent of Vistaprint’s business comes from returning customers. In the first quarter of FY 2010, they acquired 1.4 million new customers—many who started with a free order. Yet most printers would never make an offer like this. It is giving it away!

What could you offer for free that is of value that people want and also would introduce them to your firm?  What would make you stand out in their minds? I know a financial advisor who gives away an investment organizer to everyone who attends his educational presentations. It costs him $7.00 a piece for the folder organizer and then he emails the accompanying organizer document to fill out. He says it has been the key to getting clients to remember him over other advisors and he ends up doing business with more than 55% of those who have his organizer. That results in an insane return on investment and a business with gross sales over $1,000,000. Not bad for free!

Check out the new book, …And The Clients Went Wild! for more helpful tips for growing your business.

| More

Killing Your Competition with (Client) Kindness

Blog from Maribeth Kuzmeski of Red Zone Marketing

Five Core Principles for Turning Clients and Prospects into Raving Fans

Once upon a time customer service meant more than pressing 2 to wait (and wait and wait) for “the next available representative.” Companies valued those who bought their goods and services and went the proverbial extra mile to make them happy. Today we’re more likely to hear about a company that’s ripped off its customers.

Failing to make your customers happy is more than a shame. It’s slow-motion corporate suicide. If you want to make it in today’s crowded, recession-wracked market, you absolutely must create clients and customers who rave about your company the way they would their favorite sports team.

Obviously, making raving fans out of your clients is easier said than done. If it were easy, then corporate giants that have plenty of money to throw at such a concept would be overrun with happy customers.

In my new book, …And the Clients Went Wild! How Savvy Professionals Win All the Business They Want (Wiley, 2010, www.AndTheClientsWentWild.com), I lay out a blueprint for cultivating loyal clients and generating growing sales through a collection of principles and tactics that have proven successful for others in business.  These businesses have effectively created a loyal following of passionate vocal clients, and with the execution of these principles, you can too.

1st Principle: What Are YOU Doing That No One Else Is Doing? In order to gain exposure, it helps to be or to offer something unique—or do something that no one else dares. It’s true that standing out from the crowd is probably the riskiest of the five principles. However, it may be equally risky to run a conservative, “under‐the‐radar” firm these days—you risk becoming an anachronism. While successful firms stick to their values, they also find ways to be so exciting that people don’t have a choice but to pay attention…and buy.

2nd Principle: Focus Your Marketing on Benefits, Results, and a Call to Action. Another way to gain success is to ensure you are answering the question, What’s really in it for me? for your clients. Too many businesses accentuate the features of their products or services rather than the benefits—what your clients really care about. “Open 24 Hours” is a feature. Benefits are value statements about the features of a product or service, with an emphasis on what the customer gets. For example, a benefit might be that a product makes you look slimmer or saves lots of money on gas. Too many companies leave it up to their prospects to figure out the benefits of their products or services.

3rd Principle: Go Viral! A viral message is an idea, notion, or practice that’s transmitted from person to person through speech, gestures, the internet, email, or other media. It ignites and motivates people to move the message. Most viral marketing programs give away valuable products or services to attract attention—free benefits, information, software programs, or downloads. It’s essential that you do everything possible to make it easier for people to access information or material that may go viral.

4th Principle: Leverage Your Business Network for Incremental Growth. It takes a plan, but using your network—business and otherwise—can be the miracle alternative to the typical grind of cold calls and prospecting. A productive business network is filled with respected, well-connected, influential people—called “Centers of Influence”—that share your target market and have a complementary rather than a competing service or product. You can capitalize on these connections by creating strategic alliances or by simply sharing your networks and making referrals.

5th Principle: The Ability to Execute Is Critically Important to Your Game Plan. In today’s fast‐moving, completely networked world, superior execution is clearly driving success for business. Small business owners are great at adopting many new marketing ideas. What they are not so great at is finishing. The best marketing strategy is the one you can pull off completely.

Perhaps more than ever before people want to do business with those they feel they can trust. They are attracted to businesses they feel will go out of their way to provide them the absolute best products or services available. And the absolute best way to elicit that trust in prospects is by having clients who cheer you on at every turn. So, don’t waste another second waiting to develop a marketing plan that will influence your clients to go wild for you.

| More

Successful Marketing Strategies for The Job Seekers

Blog from Maribeth Kuzmeski of Red Zone Marketing

I have several friends who recently found themselves in the market for a new job – and, fortunately, have successfully landed another job. Watching them through the process, I’ve concluded that finding a job in today’s job market can be like conquering a new frontier – and not just because the job market is flooded with stiff competition. The days of mailing in your resume and receiving a phone call to set up an interview are over. It’s actually very similar to the changes that have been happening in marketing your business. If you want someone to notice you, your business, or your product or service, you can’t do things the same old way. Today, searching for most everything from a new job to a new refrigerator begins - and sometimes ends - online.

Now you need much more than just an experience-filled resume, a cover letter and crossed fingers to land a great job. In order to get noticed, you need to think like a marketer. It requires looking at yourself as a brand that needs to literally grab attention.

Here are 3 quick tips I learned from my friends who went from under-employed to gainfully employed.

1.    Networking and connecting is clearly the number one way to get the best job. People hire people they know. So, get to know more people. And, great networkers are capable of leaving something behind with everyone they encounter—a thought, a memory, or a connection. The key is to get face to face with a potential employer before, during and after the interview. They have to see for themselves why they NEED to hire you. Attend everything!

2.    Forget the Traditional Resume. Try bucking the traditional resume format to include eye catching (but informative) headlines. This is one headline I saw used: “Responsible for a 20% Increase in Sales Over Past 5 Years.” Also make sure you speak in benefits and results. Put your picture on your resume. Turn your resume into your personal brochure filled with interesting reading for your prospective employer. Give them what they want to see, but stand out from the rest. What’s the downside?

3.    Use video. If you really want to capture the attention of a potential employer, record a quick video. Use it to get an interview or as a follow-up after an interview. Instead of just emailing a resume or a post-interview thank-you note, include a link to a video of you. Carefully script your response and record the quick message using a Flip video camera or even a web cam. Post it on YouTube or some other service and send a link for the video to your potential employer.

 Standing out is the way to be heard above the competition – in marketing and in your job search. Good luck! 

| More

Generic Answers Lead to Lost Opportunities

Blog from Maribeth Kuzmeski of Red Zone Marketing

If you find yourself constantly resorting to generic answers when people ask you questions about yourself – it’s time to rethink your approach. We can so often drift through our day, not even seeing the opportunities in the conversations with others.  From the simplest Hey, how are you? to the more complex questions you are asked throughout your work day - how often do you take time to answer the questions fully?

Many try to get by answering in as few words as possible, but in a world where relationships are a key to success, I’m not sure this approach is really helping.

A critical question we so often shy away from giving a powerful answer to, one that can open doors to a world of opportunity, is: What do you do?

I have heard even the most seasoned professionals use the old standard, black and white description of their business. As an example: “I am a financial advisor.” Although you are concisely stating exactly what you do for the person that asked, you are also opening the door for all of the stereotypes and preconceived notions they associate with that title or profession. For many, you would be tossed into the broad category of salesmen and forgotten in their minds. Simply said – the real benefits are being left open to hope (I sure hope they know what a financial advisor does). But in order for action, they must WANT what you have (and it’s your job to make them want it). 

However, talking about yourself and your products often come across as sales-y or boastful. For example, if a financial advisor says, “I have a special expertise in building portfolios through my CFA designation.” Ok, so what does that really mean to the person you are talking to? Instead, try using a phrase that I have heard some of the top advisors we work with use. Follow the black and white feature statement with an absolute home run sentence that gives you the right to talk about your expertise or other benefits of your services: Follow: “I have a CFA designation” with “And let me tell you why I think that’s important.”

The statement gives you the right to share why something may be important to them. It will still be a factual description of what you do – but this time with meaning directly for the person you’re talking with. And it may be just the opportunity you have given yourself to put preconceived notions to rest and build your value – without coming across “sales-y.”

| More

People ARE listening! The question is – Are you saying anything worth hearing?

Blog from Maribeth Kuzmeski of Red Zone Marketing

From years of experience, I’ve learned that if I leave a voicemail message for my husband, I have to get to the compelling and important information at the beginning of the message. If I leave it for the end, he never really makes it there. He begins doing something I call “light listening” (i.e. He’s bored with his own wife’s rambling message and can barely pay attention).

How are your voicemail messages? How about your email communications? Are you communicating something compelling that is short and concise? Does it give anything of value? Or are you becoming a victim of “light listening” as you fail to get to any point in a timely manner?

A serial entrepreneur I’ve worked with, who seems to turn most everything he touches into gold, told me his secret to communicating well on the phone. He told me he writes out the voicemail message before he makes a phone call. And he does it before just about every call he makes. Then, if he has to leave a voicemail, he is ready. And, if he speaks live to the person that he’s calling, he is much more prepared. It is especially important when talking with a prospect, a strategic alliance connection, or a networking contact. Because if you don’t give them your best, you have left them with a lasting message that may have them questioning you and your abilities (it happens)!

These days I text my husband and get right to the point with information like… “Can you please pick up Shane at 6pm or he will be stranded at hockey practice?” Best to get the important messages delivered without the fluff. And, it’s hard to be that boring in 160 characters.

| More

What Does a Connector Do?

 

Click on video to play  

A Business Success Tip From a 13 Year Old (Sort Of)

Blog from Maribeth Kuzmeski of Red Zone Marketing

Recently, I heard my son Shane’s friend whisper a “success tip” to him so that he could get what he wants. At the time I was reprimanding Shane for not doing his chores like I asked and that he agreed to do. Through our discussion I asked him if he really wanted to have a sleepover with his friend that night. If he couldn’t do the things he agreed to then maybe he shouldn’t go. He proceeded to tell me that it was a lot of work and he has been so busy with hockey, etc that he just didn’t have time. That’s when his friend, who was sitting next to him, noticed the conversation was taking a turn for the worse. He whispered (loud enough for me to hear), “Shane, just do what you need to do. And apologize. Then tell your mom how beautiful she is and how much you love her. That always works with my mom.”

Well Shane ended up doing his chores, apologizing for not doing them when he was supposed to and for arguing with me. Then he did what I knew was coming. He said, “Mom you look beautiful today. You know I love you.”

 

Do you think it worked? 

Hook line and sinker – and I knew what was coming! He ended up getting what he wanted, and maybe I got what I wanted too. Every son thinks his mom is beautiful, but how many say it – contrived or not? Moral of the story – it never hurts to compliment someone. Even if it’s manufactured.

How often do you tell the people in your life and your clients how much you appreciate them? Trust me, it goes a long way – especially if you think for a moment it could be true.  

www.redzonemarketing.com

Maribeth Kuzmeski, is the author of the new book, The Connectors: How the World's Most Successful Businesspeople Build Relationships and Win Clients for Life(Wiley, September 2009, ISBN: 978-0-4704881-8-8, $22.95)

| More