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?”)

March 7, 2023 Comments

In a world of overwhelm, be enough.

In conversation with Deanne Napurano, Creative Director, Writer, Editor

Perhaps I’m being a little too esoteric with this line, but that’s even part of the point. We are all inundated with information and data. News flows constantly. We can dip our toe in the news river or dive in head first just by looking at our phones or our watches. Wherever we get our stories, the newsfeed continuously scrolls from critical global events to celebrity fashion to laundry-folding hacks to cute puppy videos and back again. Some marketers’ ads look like they could be personal videos of a friend of a friend giving you earnest advice on vegetable storage bags, lash-lengthening gels, or gaming apps. As a marketer, how can you hope to be noticed in the midst of so very much? My thinking? Stay in your lane. Do you. Don’t meet the overwhelm. Know the problem you solve. Communicate it clearly, honestly. Know that your efforts represent something worthwhile for your optimal client…and tell that story. That’s enough. Be steady, authentic, and clear. In a world of overwhelm, being enough stands out.

February 15, 2023 Comments

As with all marketing communications, set goals for your social media efforts.

With any planning, we are taught by our own efforts during the process of articulating goals, selecting paths toward fulfilling those goals, and determining how to measure our progress. Planning uncovers obstacles and opportunities. Planning teaches. Because it’s ongoing and subject to strategy shifts and market influences, it will always require navigational tweaks (and sometimes even U-turns).

Set general goals for your social media activity.

Increase website traffic.
Grow an audience.
Increase engagement.
Build brand awareness.
Generate leads.

Set goals specific to your organization.

Increase contact us form submissions.
Increase whitepaper downloads.
Attract your target audience to a special event.
Increase registrants for a seminar or conference.
Garner more donations.
Attract more qualified applicants.
Earn new business.
Grow email list.
Leverage as a real-time channel for improving customer service.
Increase video viewership.

For each goal, use the SMART framework – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timely – or another goal-setting framework to help determine, record, and track expectations and achievement in a document or a preferred software program.

What does success look like?

For each goal, identify the key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics (measurements) that will help show when that goal is reached.

General goal examples:

For a goal of growing social media audience, we would look to metrics that include:

Follower count
Impressions
Post reach

For a goal of increasing website traffic, we would look to metrics that demonstrate conversion, like:

Website analytics for social media referrals
Link clicks from social media post to website and/or blog

Look for correlations; ask questions.

In the two examples above, we would watch the numbers associated with each metric and their relationship to each post on social media.

Do those numbers show more people have seen the post? Engaged positively or negatively with a particular post?
Was that a positive performance based on our goals?
Should we increase or decrease a certain type of post? At a certain time?

Watching the metrics assigned to these general goals tells us a lot. But increasing this kind of performance may not get customers, partners, or applicants close enough to the organization to begin the kind of conversation that leads to doing more of what your organization is built to do.

Specific goal example:

A goal of attracting more qualified applicants is an example of a social media goal designed to bring a segment of your audience closer to you, so close that you would be engaged in a transaction that supports your organization’s purpose. The metrics to measure the effectiveness of social media activity around this goal may include:

Determining the criteria for qualified submissions
Tracking the number of qualified applicants received daily and overlaying that with the timing of social media posts encouraging submission
Tracking website analytics, click-throughs/referrals, post link clicks, and post-engagement metrics

We have to go outside the metrics provided by social media platforms or social media management software to understand the full story.

Beyond metrics: Listening for voice-of-consumer (VoC) data

Social media metrics can help bolster decisions that have been made based on more traditional methods of collecting feedback from your audiences
- surveys
- feedback forms
- roundtable discussions
- interviews
- process-related comments
- content-related comments
Be wary of relying solely on social media metrics to change course in business or communications strategy
- does social media capture all of your optimal audience?
- does your optimal audience use social media exclusively for its news and communications?
Use social media to listen and learn beyond your own posts’ metrics
- audit social media posts for topics relevant to your organization’s offering
- audit your industry’s thought-leaders for their hot topics
Despite its popularity, social media may not reach all of your market

What are you learning from your social media efforts?

Common social media terms simplified

New to social media?

Considering advertising on social media?

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

January 11, 2023 Comments

RFP go/no go

You’ve received an RFP. Great. Fantastic.

Oh, wait a minute…now what? While helping clients weigh their options, and determining the value of responding to RFPs ourselves, we’ve come up with a few guidelines that help make this process a bit less stressful.

1. Scan for response deadlines. Sometimes RFPs offer flexibility. Don’t allow scheduling conflicts to dictate an instant no thank you response. Before calling for extensions on deadlines or for alternate arrangements for pre-bid meetings, finish the Go/No Go decision process.

2. Scan for scope. Do the services requested fall within your company’s core strengths? If the majority of services requested are peripheral to your primary area of expertise, or would have to be outsourced, this contract may only be right for your company if the industry, or particular client, fulfill other business growth objectives.

3. Scan for contract value. If the services requested appear to be out of line with the contract budget, you may not be the only respondent to notice. If the scope of the contract otherwise appears to be aligned with your company’s core services, feel free to call the RFP contact (often the Contracting Officer) for confirmation of the facts presented. If your understanding is correct, you can choose either to decline or to modify the scope of services or the budget in your proposal. Including a succinct rationale for the revision in your proposal will underscore your professionalism and experience. It may also disqualify your proposal.

4. Scan for client industry, type and location. Do you have set parameters for appropriate clients? Audit current clients for industry, type and location. Edit the resulting list as a guide for business development. Add industries, business types and locations in which you’d like to grow business; delete industries, types and locations that have proven less desirable.

Okay, the RFP captured your interest. Should you respond? Can you respond well?

5. How did this prospective client learn about your company? Compare referrals from a trusted client to contacts made “blindly” through advertising or business directories. One of the comparison points should be the conversion rate (from proposal to signed contract to ongoing client relationship) of other companies contacting you in the same manner. Keep in mind that government agencies and some other organizations are required by law or institutional procedure to request bids from several resources.

6. Does the prospective client’s RFP process match your company’s standard process? How much customizing will the proposal require? What investment will you be required to make to deliver a quality proposal package consistent with your company’s image? (Employee time, resources, expenses, etc.)

From this point, you can either trust your instincts and your understanding of the project and its demands, or, if you’re still not convinced, use a simple rating process to help tip the scales.

Rate the following statements from 1 to 5 based on their accuracy. Award a 1 for statements that are not at all true and a 5 to those that are absolutely spot on.

__ The timing is right.

__ The services requested speak to your company’s core strengths.

__ The budget allows for the smooth and timely completion of all service requirements, advancing the client’s objectives, and providing positive revenue for your company.

__ The potential client requesting the proposal would be a good match with your company’s mission, culture, philosophy, industry focus, defining values, etc.

__ The RFP makes sense. It asks for information in a way that reveals good things about the potential client (intuitive, articulate, complete, industry-savvy, process-oriented, etc.)

__ Your company can follow its standard process for responding.

Once you’ve given each statement a rating, add ’em up.

A total of 24-30 means the RFP in question should likely get a green light. The client and scope of work sound like an excellent match for your company and its services. You should take the next step, which is to read the RFP thoroughly to ensure that the opportunity is as good as it appears at first blush.

A total of 20-23 may mean you need to dig a little deeper. RFPs that score in this middle zone may either require considerably more work to prepare, or require your company to make requests for alterations in budget, scheduling or approach. If alterations are not possible, or if they’d put your proposal at a disadvantage, RFPs with this score may not be a good match.

A total score of under 20 means there are too many red flags. These RFPs may not be worth pursuing unless special issues are at play. If you choose to say no thanks, be sure to decline by letter unless otherwise directed.

Let’s get good things done. Give us a call or drop us a line. We would love to hear from you.

January 3, 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.

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