We’re not coming out of this recession.  Get over it and embrace the new norm.  Customers don’t come into your store “just to shop” any more.  Those that still visit you are on a mission for something specific.  You have to engage with your community differently now to be successful.

Your new job is to make it easier than ever before to buy from you.  That’s where your sales growth is to be found.  Your job is also to relentlessly root out any expense that doesn’t translate into better value to your customer - all of them.  Because that’s where your profit is to be found.  My job is to help you understand this new landscape so that your business can thrive once again.

We can start anywhere you want on this wheel, but the point is to START!  Some of my advise will feel counter-intuitive to you.  The rules have changed and so then have the solutions.

“If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less,” – General Eric Shinseki, Chief of Staff, U. S. Army

So unless you’ve been living under the same rock that allowed me to miss the whole Book of Eli thing – what a great movie, why didn’t someone tell me – you’ve by now seen the Old Spice Man commercials. The buzz around them is how much “free” exposure this campaign has received. But here’s the thing. They actually spent a ton of money and effort to prime that pump.

Almost every client I speak to is lured by the potential of free internet marketing. “I’ll just build a Facebook page and my business will go through the roof” is involved in nearly every conversation I have these days in one form or another. And while Facebook and YouTube were critical to the success of the Old Spice Man, it didn’t happen the way our local businesses think it can.

Here’s some comments from someone I respect to which I’ll add our local spin for you.

When Old Spice, W+K et al, made the decision to produce extremely rapid custom content based on the popular character, they changed the very way we will look at advertising going forward. The big question for everyone is: What does it all mean? Here are a couple of thoughts.

1. Creative and production matter (still)! It seems that the death of high-quality content in the advertising world has been greatly exaggerated. With the Old Spice Man, we saw that a great creative concept and high quality production work can still trump most challenges facing advertising.

Since the local advertising bar is much lower, you can leap over your competition with just a little extra effort. (more…)

When I was a teenager, I learned a valuable lesson about dating from one of the Wise Men in my life.  He told me if my goal was to get a girl to go on a date with me (I know quaint, huh?  Oh for simpler times), I had two options. 

Strategy Number One involved asking as many girls as possible.  If I asked enough girls enough times, one of them was bound to say yes.  You gots to love those odds – although maybe I was going to have to sacrifice a bit on “quality.”

Strategy Number Two involved focusing in on one single girl, spending the same amount of effort as in #1, but completely focused on a smaller “market.”  The odds were lower,  but oh man, she was perfect.

I’ve realized two funny things about this lesson over the years.  First, he was right.  Really these were my only options that weren’t depressing – who wants to wait for a friend to set you up with someone?  Does that ever really work out?  Second, these same two strategies are what I get to choose from when looking at search engine marketing.

The principle holds true whether you are talking about Search Engine Optimization or Paid Marketing such as Google Adwords.  In either case, you can pursue your customers with as very broad net, or stalker-like precision. (more…)