Question: In a rapidly changing media landscape - let alone a brutal economy - how does a business owner know if their marketing program is effective? Answer: if you can’t afford to pay for measurement, it’s hard to know; but there are indicators.

Standard thinking is that a minimum of 4% of your gross revenue should be allotted for marketing. Let’s hope that you are monitoring that program on a quarterly basis. Now, more than ever, is the time to: 1) market yourself, 2) experiment. It has been said that a successful program combines advertising (radio, TV, print) and public relations. But now, in the 21^st century, with technology leading the way, an online presence is vital – if not necessary – for any program. That online presence can take the form of banner ads on websites, having a social media program (Facebook, Twitter – even YouTube) or email blasts. Smart operators are utilizing all these tools as traditional media outlets shrink in size and effectiveness. Crain’s New York Business recently noted that the New York Post’s circulation has declined by 20% since last year, the Daily News is down 14% and The New York Times and Newsday both down around 3%. We think they’ll survive – because they, too, will adapt. They’re all scrambling, but who isn’t?

Get Ears.

Measuring return on investment (ROI) is an exact science. Most small companies can’t afford measurement programs done by professional measurement firms that charge a minimum of $20,000 or more per year for that service. Therefore it’s imperative to have your frontline people – those who interact with your customers/clients – ask the all-important question, “How did you hear of us?” in order to track your marketing investment. And you may want to ask that question too if the call or customer comes to you directly. Coupons or “mention this ad” are always reliable but not necessarily in line with your concept. Sometimes a large piece of press – a feature article or review of a product or business – will have the phones ringing the moment it runs. When that happens, recognize it for what it is: powerful. Now the onus is on you as an operator to deliver. Online marketing also has its advantages: metrics are somewhat easily available to monitor a spike in engagement – whether it be increased fans to a Facebook page, or number of unique visitors to a website. As well, an increasingly recognized merit of Twitter is its search capability, enabling one to monitor one’s brand.

Take a Chance.

Now would be the time to stick a toe in the water of online marketing; it’s where marketing is headed because it’s relatively less expensive and it appears that customers are spending a lot of time online – whether it be at home, office or elsewhere. The other night, I was watching a ballgame that was broadcast from a small-market Midwestern city. As the cameras scanned the crowd, I noticed how many people were fiddling with their Blackberry’s or iPhones. Maybe they were checking their email, their Facebook page or checking out their favorite local website. I wonder what marketing messages were imparted to them in-between pitches?

Are you monitoring your marketing program? Have you embraced Internet technologies? Are you speaking regularly to your communication specialists? Do you feel the media . . . shift? What do you think? Comments welcome.

All indications are that there is light at the end of the tunnel and it ISN’T the proverbial oncoming train. But that doesn’t mean that we should return to our free-spending ways. It simply means that perhaps the economy is saved from utter ruin, that we are all still in business and that there are enough customers out there spending money - in fact, those same existing and returning customers have been frequenting our businesses all the long (maybe spending less, but still spending).

As we emerge from the darkness of the last several months, we must continue to drive the market ourselves, yet be fiscally responsible. For us, this has meant examining each advertising expenditure. (Yes, even PR firms advertise.) We always felt we were pretty lean in terms of where we advertised and why - so we continued our presence in PR Week, and in O’Dwyer’s and maintained our presence in the local paper.

We kept our membership up in most chambers that we belong to but decided not to renew with some others - for now. We have committed to a renovation/updating of our website. And we continue to promote ourselves via our own public relations program and have created a presence for ourselves on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.

The latter marketing - aka social media marketing - remains a pretty cost-effective manner of communication and we would urge those of you yet to take the social media plunge to re-examine your ad spending and maybe swap over some funds to SMM. Already, my propensity (and love) of Twitter and Facebook has paid off for clients. How?

In one case I was able to mend a situation that I read about on Facebook as per someone’s bad experience with a business that resulted in a “save” and a repair. Another time, by letting those folks who follow me on Twitter know what I was up to, I ended up sitting next to someone who saw my “tweet” about a restaurant and went to that very restaurant later that evening! (That was pretty cool, I have to say.)

We realize that you can’t know or do everything - nor do you have the expertise. That’s why so many businesses have come to us for marketing counseling (besides PR) and why so many are now on social media sites. In the coming months, we will offer seminars to the public at large on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn and more. If you’re an existing client, you may already be availing yourself of our expertise. If you are still on the fence, it might be time to jump in!

What about you: Do you see the light at the end of the tunnel? Have you seen any positive traction yet from having a presence on any social media site? Are you considering adding it to your marketing mix? I’d love to hear your comments.

An edit for our company’s Facebook page gets done within 10 minutes of it being pointed out by me to Lindsey via email - on a Saturday. Megan routinely stays until 7 p.m. each Friday to finish up press kits and to clean up her to do list each week. Lady Foster took four days off to be with an ailing family member - she basically worked via her new iPhone three of those four days.  Nicole (aka Super Mom) and I often communicate after 9 p.m. Our newest teammate (Chris) worked for free for two months just to get his foot in the door.  I call that Collective Dedication and it’s what makes WordHampton PR a top shop on Long Island.

Forget the Dow, there are positives now.

 

There are still traffic jams on the L.I.E., a wait for table on a Saturday night in restaurants and all Starbucks still seem crowded.

Forget the Dow, there are positives now.

 

Other positives: credit card deliquencies are down about 10% as people are curbing wanton spending and learning to adhere to a budget. Alcohol sales are up as are fast food sales. Warehouse club stores, the repossession businesses, auto repair shops, cobblers, resale shops and foreclosure auctioneers have all experienced positive growth in this economy - as has any kind of e-commerce.

Forget the Dow, there are positives now.

 

Citing finger-pointing and hand-wringing on both sides of the aisle over the AIG bonuses, The President decides to take the blame– a mess he didn’t start, but he takes RESPONSIBILITY, stating “I’ll take the blame, I’m the President.”

Forget the Dow, there are positives now.

 

Look. I know things are tough. They are tough for everyone.
I met a guy last week who when asked if the glass was half empty or half full, he responded, “There’s no glass!” Ya gotta love a guy with a sense of humor. Or the woman who said she’d invest in the stock market right now - if she hadn’t lost all her money in the stock market! And both of these people uttered these wisdoms with a grin.

Forget the Dow, there are positives now.

 

What do you think? Any positives to share with us here? Comments welcome below!

 

Cheers!

For the last several months we’ve all witnessed – if not personally experienced – upheaval and change. We have downsized, made painful cuts, seen our savings account dwindle and made personal and professional sacrifices that we wouldn’t have imagined making a year or two ago. The actions we took were necessary for the survival and strength of our businesses. But now what to do? Do we simply hold on, try to ride out the storm, a storm that has no foreseeable abatement?

Perhaps.

But we cannot afford to congratulate ourselves, stand idle or even exhale. Because we have one other problem/situation (whatever you want to call it): the ever-changing forces of THE MARKET. Through this economic malaise, know this: the market changes ever day. The market – the all-encompassing word I’m using to describe your customers, trends, consumer patterns – is a pulsating organism that never dies, that lives and breathes, that makes decisions that affect us. It’s up to us to adapt – or die. Whenever there’s a push, there’s a pull; a cause, an effect. These market changes are rapidly taking place in the world of media.

Because The Media is Dying

In fact, it’s been dying. There are at least three market forces contributing to this funeral march:

1) The rapid advances in technology that has your customers tethered to laptops, iPhones and Blackberries. They no longer wait to get the morning paper, they log on. They no longer send letters, they email. They Google for information instead of using encyclopedias, and they use OpenTable to make restaurant reservations. They trust Zagat or TripAdvisor (both feature user generated content – NOT editorial) more than they trust Food + Wine or Conde Nast Traveler. They bookmark certain blogs. They want instant answers; they want convenience.

2) The tsunami called social media (Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, and Twitter). These online communities are just that – communities. And they are now sources where people get their information; it’s where they are influenced, where messages are sent and received – in many cases, marketing messages.

3) An imploding economy that has paralyzed print advertising spending, let alone newspaper and magazine sales, let alone increasing the costs of printing. Paper costs money. Printing a paper does too. Having desks and offices for editorial staff costs money as rents rise.

So how bad is it? Is the media really dying? On Long Island, Distinction Magazine, Long Island Weddings and Parents & Children have ceased publishing. Ditto Builder/Architect. Nationally Domino, Lipstick and dozens of smaller magazines have folded. The Wall Street Journal, LA Times, Chicago Tribune, Newsday, New York Observer, Denver Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Newark Star Ledger have all cut staff and eliminated sections – so have scores of others.

It is the smart business owner – you who have already survived – that needs to now completely rethink your marketing approach. Is your ad buy really effective? How about your entire marketing program? The media may not be dead, but it sure as hell is changing. You, like them, must adapt – or die.

Have you adapted? Are you willing to adapt? Have you seen changes in yourself as per how you get your news or information? Does your company have a social media marketing plan yet?

Tell me what you think. Your comments are not only welcome, but necessary for this conversation.

Blogger’s Note: It’s definitely a depression and not a recession and I don’t care what definitions economists use. Now that I got that off my chest, here are 4 Reasons I Love This Depression. Hint: all of them are designed to make me a better leader.

1) We Got Lean and Mean. Everyone loves that expression and right now it’s a necessity. If for some reason you haven’t gotten lean, you better get on that diet now. For us, the leanness was found in looking at the smaller expenditures – the habit of, let’s say, always ordering a case of paper, when in fact we already had 3 cases. We cut all unnecessary expenses and then went over everything again in a month and found more. You’d be surprised what you might find is slowing your cash flow down (uh, unnecessary purchases). In 2009, we will make more online bill payments, conserve energy by monitoring the thermostat and hold off on major purchases. We will survive. Period. And I get to walk around saying, “We got lean and mean.”

2) We Made Ourselves Pause and Plan. All retail companies take inventory at the end of each month. But the kind of inventory I’m talking about is much more drastic: it involves pausing and stripping down the basic direction and focus of one’s company to see if it is, in fact, still viable. It’s called a visioning – and it takes stock of where we’ve been, where we are now and where we want to go – from a position of strength and focus. Who are our best customers? What makes them the best? How could we lose clients? What are our strengths and our weaknesses? Why will clients hire us? Fortunately for us, we have Lady Foster in our employ (Account Director, Suzee Foster), who led us in ours. We argued over words; we ached to go back to our desks and check email. Each time we do our visioning we come out of it an enormously stronger and more focused company. It is a gift we gave ourselves – and our clients.

3) We Acknowledged What Really Matters. We had a rough fall. Who didn’t? What’s the old saying? Revenue = vanity; profit = sanity; cash flow = reality. Well, I was humbled, insane and brought my loose change the Coinstar machine at the local King Kullen. (It wasn’t that bad, but you get my point.) But what really matters? Health, family and friends. I’m a better leader when I’m spending time with my family (mom is 90), swimming at the Y, reading a really good book (Brisingr) or navigating abstract art at MoMA. Yes, it’s a balancing act. But having balance helps me sleep well. And when I sleep well, I lead well. And I’m a better father to my son and son to my Mother. And that’s what really matters.

4) We Made a Decision: Lead or to Bleed. So this lousy, stinking, rotten economy has given me cause for thought: am I going to lead or bleed? Am I going to whine or inspire? Are we going to give our best efforts for our clients and for each other? I think you know the answer.

What about you? Do you have any reasons you love this depression? I’d love hear about them.

Ok. So the inauguration brought us all a sense of hope, right? But that darn bad news just keeps on a comin’. Here’s what I say: ignore the bad economic news. Forge ahead. Lead.

And get through the first quarter.

Lead your company, your team through this storm. Be an example. Take out the garbage, come in early and stay late. Reward all efforts with that simple two-word medal: thank you. Say it early and often. Thank your employees for all their efforts large and small. Now thank em again.

No doubt you’ve already pared budgets, staff and controllable expenses. Take another look.

And get through the first quarter.

And here’s another thought: get on board the e-train before it leaves the station. Have a presence on social networks like LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace and even Twitter. But before you do, have a REASON and a MESSAGE to be on those sites. Know that your clientele is either on those sites or will be. This year. Yup, it’s happening fast. Don’t have an iPhone or Blackberry? Get one. You’ll need it come 2010. Use this “down time” to explore this e-world or schedule a meeting with your marketing team or PR firm to find out what THEY are doing on your company’s behalf. Rumor has it that there might not even be newspapers in two and a half years. Well, there might not be a physical newspaper but there will be an Internet entity of that media. You can bet on it. We have - and so have they; that’s why an online hit is now just as important as a print hit.

If you don’t understand emerging media, it is YOUR JOB as the leader of your company to take the lead (which might mean “following” a junior person’s advice) and learn about it. Don’t have “down time” because your staff is thin and you are overwhelmed? Take a nap. And get back after it.

And get through the first quarter.

Be aggressive with promotions. Give your customers a reason to do business with you via give-aways, price reductions, events or value-added packages that your clientele “can’t say no to.” Silence is deadly. Keep your name out there.

And get through the first quarter.

Love. Service. Honesty. Create. Breathe.

Five words to live our office lives by. Five words, perhaps, by which to live our personal lives by.

Love: We vow to love. That means to love each other in our smallish space. To love our spouses, SO’s, kids, parents, pets, work and play. Even if we don’t feel like it. We acknowledge that ultimately love will conquer all. And does.

Service: We commit to serving our clients. We will be “aggressive” servants making that extra phone call on their behalf – or to THEM. (Sometimes an email doesn’t cut it, does it?) We vow to think better, work smarter and deliver for them in 2009 and to anticipate their needs. We vow to serve each other as a team.

Honesty: We take an oath of accountability, of transparency, of admitting mistakes to each other and to clients. And we take an oath of telling a client the raw truth – delicately delivered – about their business, all in the name of better serving and counseling them. We take an oath of honesty with each other too.

Create: We shall create – programs, ideas, revenue, goodwill, spirit and trust. We shall re-create too: by taking time off, by painting, drawing, playing music, vacating, reading, writing and cooking. To create is to live.

Breathe: We will remember to breathe. We will breathe in-between phone calls, meetings, days, moments, stresses, deadlines and text messages. To breathe is to honor life itself.

Love. Service. Create. Honesty. Breathe.

Five words that will shape us in 2009; now only if I can remember them in week!

Hats off to social media authority, Chris Brogan at ChrisBrogan.com for this idea. You can follow him on Twitter (@ChrisBrogan) and you can also follow me if you like: http://www.twitter.com/stevehaweeli.