Ponderings of a Marketing Consultant

The type of business you have depends on how you should attract customers. Using ‘any’ way possible is not always the right answer. Today using social, mobile and email tools are very inexpensive and sometimes free, so why doesn’t everybody use them?

Why is it that businesses still do not have a customer email list after all this time, and will they treat mobile lists the same in the future? Then, if it’s free why hire a marketing firm? No matter which method of marketing or marketing mix best fits your company, no matter how affordable – it’s value is in choosing a tool or mix of tools which has the best opportunity to reach your best customer or clients and that you invest in consistently.

Many times a company will fail to use tools, or will use them incorrectly resulting in failure. Sometimes it is the tool that fails but more often the problem is that the tool was not used properly. Let’s use websites as an example.

When you build a website to represent your company you might expect that just having one is enough. Or perhaps you hire a company to build a gorgeous flashy website with slick looks and then it fails to get any attention at all. This is where having a marketing firms expertise would come in handy.

At DirectionWorks for example, we understand that an attractive website is not enough to sell your goods and services. You need a site that works through use of proper SEO, Social Media, Personal Referrals, and other essentials. In fact we have a rather extensive checklist that every website we create goes through, and even after all that there is the matter of fresh relative content.

Businesses and customers are very connected in today’s market. The way people find you amongst millions of your competitors is ever-changing. It is literally a job unto itself to keep up with all these trends, blogging, videos, social, mobile, PPC, and on and on the list goes.

You could do it yourself if you have the time to learn… or you can let professionals handle it for you which is more ideal when you have a business to run! If you need to know what tools are right for your business we are happy to consult with you and lend a hand.
Call us at: (386) 935-4280

We wish you success be it with us or your own efforts.

The DirectionWorks Inc. slogan is “Marketing for Small Business”. So, what is a small business anyway? The Small Business Administration (SBA) shows most industries as having less than 500 employees and/or no more than 7 million dollars in sales (see: www.sba.gov/content/summary-size-standards-industry).

A Micro Business or micro-enterprise is a firm with fewer than 5 employees. A Mom and Pop business is considered a non-employer business (because the only employed are the business owners). Some growing businesses think of themselves as medium sized business when they get to certain goals set for their business.

Small businesses represent 99.7 percent of all firms, they create more than half of the private non-farm gross domestic product, and they create 60 to 80 percent of the net new jobs (source: usgovinfo.about.com/od/smallbusiness/a/sbadrives.htm). It’s easy to see when you look that small businesses are very important. Small business owners are what “truly” makes this country run effectively.

“Small business drives the American economy,” said Dr. Chad Moutray, Chief Economist for the Office of Advocacy in a recent press release. “Main Street provides the jobs and spurs our economic growth. American entrepreneurs are creative and productive, and these numbers prove it.”

In fact small business is sill so important that in March of this year the U.S Small Business Administration and the White House Business Council invited over 300 small business owners to the Urban Economic Forum in Birmingham, AL. According to the SBA; “The Urban Economic Forum is a multi-city series designed to help urban small business owners create an economy built to last.”

As a small business ourselves we understand the importance of serving small to medium sized businesses with the same level of professionalism given to big business. We combine current cutting-edge marketing tools and services together with successful traditional marketing techniques to provide the most effective marketing programs for our clients. Just because a method has been used before does not always make it ineffective in today’s technological business world, it’s a marriage of old and new.

Our clients are sole proprietors, partnerships, micro-businesses, start-up companies, mom and pop, family owned, small businesses, corporations, incorporations and medium sized businesses ready to grow. Contact DirectionWorks, Inc. today for marketing resources, ideas, tools and help with getting started on your amazing future.

Call Us: (386) 935-4280

The second strategic business development statement is your Vision. What started you in business? When creating your vision statement include a detailed description of your passion, how you envision your company product and/or services playing out into the future. A Vision Statement is your foundation, your constitution, your dream – where you see your business in the future.

The DirectionWorks, Inc. vision is to serve small to medium business ready to grow with the best and most comprehensive direct marketing services. We stand apart from other traditional marketing agencies because we understand, care and strive to help our clients reach their long term goals through marketing. Our vision is to be the resource for marketing services to small and medium sized businesses throughout the United States.

As Diana Scharf Hunt once said, “Goals are dreams with deadlines.” What are your goals and dreams, the ones that make you want to run around laughing and dancing like a kid in a candy store? Any business that has celebrated any great successes in life started first with clearly defined goals.

Writing a vision statement coincides with a mission statement and they go hand-in-hand. Where a mission statement is crisper and targeted to your end-goal, a vision statement should stir emotions, and engender a get-to-it attitude in people. Vision statements are truly meant to be bold, to inspire clients and customers, to energize your employees, and to create a mesmerizing picture (vision) of where you see your business going in the future.

There are strategic business development statements that should be part of your business; the first is your Mission Statement. No matter how long you’ve been in business having this in place is great foundation for your company now and for its future. A Mission Statement tells what the company is about and where the founders want it to go. It’s not written in stone and can evolve over the course of the business.

At DirectionWorks: Our mission is to be the marketing firm where small to medium businesses can access marketing experts, tools, resources and solutions all in one place: To diligently create, innovate, learn and evolve as a company and service to our clients. To always bring the most effective services to our clients we must also give the very best of ourselves through our work, approach challenges as opportunities and recognize the importance of marketing to our client’s success.

A mission is about more than just business goals of course. Your mission statement should describe the legacy you wish to leave behind. The mission statement should reflect the core of your inner-most values and should motivate you and your employees when read. It should be the jumping-point from which all other decisions are made for the company.

Why does your company exist? (Don’t say to just make money that’s only partially true and you know it…) What is it supposed to do to better your life, the lives of others, for your country, and even for the world? If you think a small business can’t impact the world you only have to do a little research to find out that some of the smallest businesses in the world can have big impacts.

Small business and big corporations alike were stepping up and making donations to Japan and the Tornado devastated communities after the natural disasters of 2011. I (Victoria @ DirectionWorks) know this because I live in one of those communities. Just down the street from me were entire subdivisions destroyed by an EF4 tornado, thankfully we were not in a badly damaged area ourselves. I will never forget how both the tiny local business owners and corporations were working side-by-side to bring relief and help to my neighbor’s families.

The point of that story is that it is those moments that change the world and have the biggest impacts. It’s not how much a company made that year, or how big the office building is that will be remembered, it’s that free benefit concert that restaurant held to raise donations while at the same time freely feeding the displaced families in need. It’s the smiling faces of those families when trucks full of volunteers from the big corporations showed up with chain saws and water to help get things cleaned up and sorted.

Your mission is about who you are, not what you could make.