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October 2, 2023 Comments

Where do you focus?

If you’ve been feeling overwhelmed, even confused, about where to focus your marketing energy, you’re not alone. The options seem unlimited. Just ten years ago, a fine strategy for a business owner’s marketing and promotional plan likely included some direct mail, print, broadcast and outdoor advertising options, some type of community outreach program, compelling sales materials, and a brochure-style website. Today, we can engage with prospective customers almost anywhere, so businesses include interactive websites, blogs, mobile apps, social media, digital advertising, video channels, email campaigns, and more. Luckily for most of us, just because we can [try to] do it all, doesn’t mean we should. It’s very easy to spread yourself too thin, which can actually dilute your message, reach fewer customers, and exhaust you and your resources in the process.

Where do you start and how do you select the most appropriate avenues for your business? How do you do it with clarity and confidence? First and foremost, be selective. Be critical and objective. Don’t be dazzled by analytics unless you’re seeing an impact on your bottom line. Make a plan. Build your plan on a foundation of the basics. Make sure you keep your core vision in mind. What do you do for your customers? Who are they? Where do they get their news and entertainment? Why do they choose you over others?

Interested in a guide to help market your business?

For a modest fee, Stone’s Throw provides MarketingCare, a custom marketing plan roadmap to get you started. Click here to learn more, or contact Deanne at 609-395-0650.

August 23, 2023 Comments

More successful partnerships?

No surprise – communication is key.

We’ve learned and relearned a couple of things. Honest, direct and informed feedback makes for a smoother, more efficient process. A smoother process often breeds mutual respect. And, with mutual respect, all partnerships can succeed.

Here are two-and-a-half tips to help build trust, foster innovation and achieve more in any successful partnership between you and your creative team, whether they’re in-house, an outside agency, or freelance contractors.

Define.

A professional creative team will guide you through the strategy-building process, but whether you’ve hired an agency, a freelance or an independent contractor, you may want to provide your own creative brief as well. A good creative brief or communications strategy will inform and direct the work at hand. It will answer questions about the project, its audiences, its purpose, its timing and its distribution or end use. Be clear and concise with your direction. Don’t just define the project – website content, print advertising, sales education iBook, inbound marketing; be clear about what you’d like the project to do for your company. Feel free to share the successes and shortcomings of previous projects and campaigns.

Trust.

Once you’ve clearly defined your objectives, explained your company’s vision and mission, and provided information about the intended audience’s culture, let your team employ its skills and talent to create on your behalf. When each conceptual draft meets the communications strategy, or answers the creative brief, you’ll know that you’re working with folks who get it; you’ll feel more confident trusting their professional expertise. And, when their insights and ideas gain your respect, you’ll have earned their tireless involvement and steadfast commitment.

Repeat.

Clearly, communication fosters confidence. When we gather good information, ask relevant questions, define where we’re going – together – and then deliver ideas, content and designs that reflect that conversation, we’ve created one of the keystones to a provable, successful partnership. We’ve heard each other, seen evidence of understanding, and trust that it can and will happen again.

Now, that bears repeating.

To help you communicate the details of your next project, contact us by email for a communications strategy worksheet.

“Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.” Helen Keller

May 3, 2023 Comments

Are you avoiding a marketing audit?

How do you know where you are and if what you’re doing is in alignment with what you’re trying to achieve? We recommend an audit – not a financial audit – but an audit of your current marketing practices. Some think they don’t have marketing practices to audit, but they do. (See “I don’t do marketing”.)

When we’re called into a prospective new client, we typically see one of three different circumstances. The first, and most common is a scenario in which the firm owner or company leadership sees the need for better marketing and doesn’t know where to start – or restart – or doesn’t have the internal resources to sustain the effort necessary to create forward momentum. The company may even have exhausted its internal team already and cracks in performance are beginning to show, either because the internal resource is crying uncle or opportunities are being missed.

A scenario we encounter less often is when the company owner believes that better marketing will help grow her business and to that end she’s been marketing the firm herself. She doesn’t want to invest more money in marketing, or any money in marketing, but she believes she’s willing to invest her own time in the process.

A third common scenario is when the company leadership does not believe that they need to improve their marketing efforts, but internal forces (sales people, business development folks) are demanding some kind of action or support.

In all of these situations, we ask the same questions in order to quickly audit the company’s marketing status. We ask questions that inform our internal assessor and judge. But before we can do that, we ask them to show or tell us what they’re currently doing to market the organization. Let’s list what we’re talking about so you know what to put out on the table in front of you.

Your company name
Your logo
Your tagline, if you have one, or any often-used “brand” language
Website
Social media accounts – profiles and posts, including curated (or reposted) content
Advertisements
Email marketing
Letters and communication to clients and colleagues
White papers or blog posts
Capabilities package
Sales materials
Proposals and qualifications packages
Videos
Etc.

All of this should be collected and put out in front of you in some way.

Now, ask the following questions:

What do you do?

What markets do you serve?

Who is your ideal client or customer? Describe her workstyle, education, type of business or industry, etc.

Why does that client prefer to work with you?

What makes your relationship work?

As we ask these foundation business questions, we look and read the current marketing materials against the answers. Do the answers to your questions appear in your marketing materials either explicitly or in images, tone, and style? If you only had your marketing materials as reference, could you answer these questions>

Ask further: What feedback have these materials garnered? Do prospective customers respond to any of your marketing tools? How? How are you measuring the success of your marketing materials?

Right away you may be able to see where there’s accord and traction, and where there’s a disconnect. That should begin to give you insight into your next steps.

This is something that any business can do for itself, whether you’re a solopreneur or run a fully staffed team: audit your marketing.

Pro tip: Be honest with your audit answers. When approached with an open mind, the process can yield stronger, more resonant marketing communications that move your audience closer to your organization.

March 21, 2023 Comments

Are you missing key marketing pieces?

For your small to mid-size organization, you’re probably not going to invest in a sustained national television ad campaign; you’re going to TARGET your efforts to more likely potential clients, members, donors, or customers. Do you have the tools to do that?

Those tools may fall into three major categories:

Foundation: Tools that help you create a presence for your firm that appeals to your target audiences:

A revealing logo
A tagline
A CRM to track your customer and potential customer contact and contact information
A website and online presence

Outreach: Tools that provide support as you reach out to your target audiences:

Advertising
Email marketing
Direct mail
Press releases

Engagement: Tools that provide support as you build stronger relationships with clients:

Trade show or conference participation
Blog contribution or white papers
Social media and/or online communications
Capabilities materials, like PowerPoint presentations, a quick snapshot of your capabilities, a brochure – all the things that you might share with prospects as you have conversation about what would help solve their problems, make their process easier, or otherwise assist them in accomplishing their mission.

Do you see any obvious holes in your marketing toolbox? Missing any tools? If you want to reach members of a particular trade organization, have you joined the association? attended functions? sponsored events? taken advantage of member outreach? What tools do you need to support those efforts? You’ll need tools from each category. Once you’ve identified any disconnects in your messaging (see “ Are you avoiding a marketing audit?”) and any missing tools in your marketing toolbox, it’s time to develop a communications strategy. A communications strategy serves as a guidepost to ensure that your messaging stays on track and is exposed to the right audiences in order to help meet your organization’s objectives. Learn more about a simple and fun technique to get started. (See “What am I?”)

February 13, 2023 Comments

What are you learning from your social media efforts?

Most social media platforms and social media management tools provide some recommendations for the kinds of metrics (measurements) we should be tracking. There’s a lot of information available. Much of it is very helpful for influencers who attract advertisers and sponsors based on the number of followers and interactions they have on their social media accounts. For those of us who work business to business or organization to organization, we have to temper that information with more meaningful questions.

We may not find ready answers to these relevant questions by looking at the numbers provided by social media platforms and social media management tools:

• How can we look at social media metrics and understand how they translate into advancing our professional relationships or earning more business?

• Does engagement with a follower on Facebook convert to the submission of an application for employment, a consultancy project, or a contribution from a donor?

• What should we measure to give us a better idea of the success of our social media campaigns?

• How do we define social media success when it comes to our overall communications or marketing strategy?

Why measure?

Two words: budget and accountability. For some, social media can become a time eater. For some who pay to boost posts or advertise on social media, that time eater can also eat cash. There’s no “set it and forget it”.

We’re looking for correlations.

All social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.) provide basic analytics for your organization’s social media pages’ performance, including measurements for post engagement, impressions, and click-throughs. Most provide those analytics through a dynamic administrator dashboard accessible by those who have been expressly authorized by the owner of that social media page.

Most subscription-based social media management tools, like Hootsuite, consolidate and overlay your social media activity across several platforms and individual social media profiles into one dashboard. Additionally, they suggest optimal future posting times based on computer-analyzed past performances of posts. By offering a consolidated picture of posts and post performance, management tools aim to foster efficiencies in scheduling and reporting. As social media features continue to evolve, social media management tools continue to expand their service offerings to remain useful.

For those of us not engaged in retail transactions, we must find the correlation between social media performance, other communications initiatives (advertising, direct mail, etc.) and our ultimate growth (transactional) goals (securing contracts, forming partnerships, increasing application submissions, etc.) to understand the effectiveness of our activity. To do that, we must also work outside social media management tools for the most meaningful analytics.

Common social media terms simplified

New to social media?

Considering advertising on social media?

January 23, 2023 Comments

A few helpful terms

Social media is typically used to describe the universe of branded interactive media platforms that allow users to publish to and interact with each other by means of the Internet. Popular social media platforms include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, and Instagram.

Post is the term used to describe a message (text and/or photo) published on social media by its users.

Newsfeed is the term used to describe the posts recently published by the people and pages a user follows (subscribes to). They can often be viewed by chronology (most recent) or engagement (most popular). A newsfeed often appears as the center column of posts on a social media page.

Social media metrics refers to using the data linked to an organization’s social media activity to gauge its impact. Metrics are simply points of measurement and they include data relevant to a social media profile and its posts: the number of followers (or subscribers) to the page, number of post likes, number of post comments, etc.

Engagement refers to how the public interacts with a social media page and its posts; it typically refers to shares, likes and comments. Reviewing and understanding engagement helps us determine how your content is perceived by your audiences. Users that view your posts may engage with your post, either by clicking on a small pictogram referred to as an emoji (for example, a heart or thumbs up), sharing your post to their own page, or commenting on your post or a post comment. Each social media platform offers different symbols for engagement, but they primarily function the same way.

Impressions is a term used for the number of people who have been shown the post in their social media newsfeeds, even if they did not engage with the post.

Click-through refers to the number of times users have clicked on a link in your post in order to navigate to another page on the Internet.

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are the set of quantifiable metrics or measurements used to gauge effectiveness over time.

Why is there a kitty in this blog post image? Adopt a homeless pet

November 28, 2022 Comments

#Hashtags

Using hashtags helps you reach your target audience. When you use hashtags, think of them as keywords. Your posts become searchable by anyone on that platform. Many people search specific hashtags, so by using hashtags that are of interest to your ideal customer, you increase the chances of being found.

There are no definitive answers when it comes to which hashtags you should use or how you should approach your strategy. Start by searching on the hashtags you’re thinking of using and review the results – or visit the hashtags used by those businesses you follow or admire.

You can also start your own hashtags and organize your branded content under hashtags with your distinct messaging, service area, or brand names. A successful hashtag strategy starts with knowing your audience and taking the time to be familiar with what works on each platform.

Best, Janice

#Hashtags #StonesThrowAway #QuickTip

November 14, 2022 Comments

Stone’s Throw recognized by national LGBT chamber and New Jersey chapter.

We are honored to be spotlighted by the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC) – and we’re proud to have achieved LGBT Business Enterprise certification.

“Certification as an LGBT Business Enterprise represents a big step in any business’s journey toward greater authenticity. We are proud to be aligned with others who also recognize this step as creating more opportunities to work toward equity with compassion and excellence,” explains Janice Mondoker, Partner.

Many thanks to the New Jersey Pride Chamber of Commerce (NJPCC) for featuring Stone’s Throw in a Member Spotlight. We’re lucky to be a part of the Chamber and celebrate its good works supporting equity and inclusion.

April 27, 2022 Comments

Stone’s Throw officially certified as LGBT Business Enterprise

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Washington, DC – Stone’s Throw, Inc. is proud to announce its recent certification as an LGBT Business Enterprise (LGBTBE^®) through the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce (LGLCC) Supplier Diversity Initiative. The NGLCC is the business voice of the LGBT community and serves as the nation’s exclusive certifying body for LGBT-owned and operated businesses.

“We are so pleased to welcome Stone’s Throw to the ever-expanding network of NGLCC certified LGBT Business Enterprises and the hundreds of corporations and government agencies eager to put them to work”, said NGLCC Co-Founder and President Justin Nelson and Co-Founder and CEO Chance Mitchell. “According to NGLCC’s groundbreaking America’s LGBT Economy report, America’s estimated 1.4 million LGBT business owners, many of them NGLCC certified, add over $1.7 trillion to the GDP and create tens of thousands of new jobs. We are proud to count Stone’s Throw among those who prove every day that LGBT businesses are the future of the American econonmy.”

Stone’s Throw is now eligible to participate in the NGLCC’s corporate partners’ supplier diversity programs, can take advantage of the vast educational opportunities promoted by the NGLCC, and can work to foster business-to-business relationships with other LGBTEs.

Stone’s Throw Partner Janice Mondoker said “Certification as an LGBT Business Enterprise represents a big step in any business’s journey toward greater authenticity. We are proud to be aligned with others who also recognize this step as creating more opportunities to work toward equity with compassion and excellence.”

About Stone’s Throw, Inc.

Established in 1991, Stone’s Throw is a marketing communications boutique providing consultation, copywriting, and design services for complete programs and individual projects that range from advertisements, brand identities, websites and online content, and capabilities materials.

April 26, 2022 Comments

At every level – planning

Whether creating a single promotional piece or an integrated marketing campaign, all marketing communications efforts benefit from planning. Of course that planning might take place in a very compressed time period (“You need that by tomorrow?”), but experienced marketers consider brand, positioning, communications objectives and audiences (among other factors) before they ever put pencil to paper or cursor to blank screen.

The plan is never written in stone (pardon the pun); it lives and breathes, allowing for changes when new data comes in or new opportunities arise. Mapping it out ahead of time simply sets our primary direction, but it goes a long way toward reducing the intimidation factor.

For some clients, we have the privilege of planning full multidimensional campaigns that build over time on the successes of key components. We often begin with the marketing activities that help create a presence for the company or product – perhaps brand identity (logo, tagline, positioning statement), key brand messaging and language, capabilities materials, website, print and online advertising, and press releases. The second phase may include activities that soften the market for business development or sales efforts – always leveraging relevant content development – email marketing, direct mail, seminars or community programs and social media. Finally, we explore activities and materials that will be used to fulfill the inquiries generated by the new marketing efforts – maybe product- or market-specific sell sheets or product information, packaging, newsletters, blog posts and white papers.

For others, we’re tasked with creating one special element of their marketing or promotional material. Even in that case, we ensure our work dovetails into the overall plan and the communications strategy. It often takes only a few moments to confirm that we’re on track, and that can make all the difference.

For a select number, Stone’s Throw provides virtual CMO support, functioning as the business’s marketing department. As a Chief Marketing Officer would, we initiate and guide marketing plan recommendations and develop communications strategies that align with the company’s overall growth objectives. As a marketing manager and department would, we also provide the creative services, design and copywriting, art direction, production and programming that bring the company’s marketing plan to life. From broad goal setting, to day-to-day marketing tasks, we work side-by-side with you to build forward momentum. It all starts with a plan, even if that means determining a few loose parameters now, and establishing more focused guidelines later.

Over the course of 30 years, we’ve had the privilege of working with many fine businesses and organizations. Those most successful at engaging their target audiences — and manifesting brand language that resonates with customers — have one important characteristic in common; they understand the power of planning.