actionable marketing guide

Dear ,

Despite having studied political science as an undergraduate, I’m generally not politically active beyond voting. (Bear with me—This isn’t a political rant.)

Last week, I attended a local community board meeting. This is true grassroots politics.

If you’re a small business owner with a retail establishment, you may need to deal with a number of similar local organizations and related laws.

A local bar owner wanted to add a new venture in my New York City neighborhood. (The non-New Yorkers among you may be surprised to discover that the city is composed of many small neighborhoods in Manhattan and the other 4 boroughs.)

On the surface the bar owner’s request appeared to be for a new restaurant with rooftop service in a 3 story building, which is very low in this area of Manhattan. He was seeking the committee's approval for a license to sell liquor until 2am.

The owner told glowing stories about his family’s experience in Paris and their bistros. He hoped to transfer this yearning to the audience.

Based on his presentation, you’re probably thinking a good bistro restaurant is a nice neighborhood addition.

But this residential New York City neighborhood cared deeply about its location’s character. A deeper examination of the plans revealed that it was a bar parading as a restaurant. 

I was amazed that 3 generations of residents showed up in opposition to the proposed bar/restaurant. Grandmothers to granddaughters said leave my neighborhood as it is. There were 2 millennials who spoke with love about the hood where they grew up.

What the owner or the lawyer said didn’t matter to these 70+ residents who showed up for the meeting. (If you’ve never been to one of these meetings, they can be long and mind numbing. This one was 3½ hours!) 

They knew that the owner was a partner in clubs notorious for having endless problems with the residents and the police. He made a similar proposal a few years ago for a light food restaurant-bar near us but transformed it into loud club when it opened. 

Here’s the marketing lesson:

• In business, you are your reputation. Like influence, your reputation is acquired over time, based on your actions, not what you say!
• Influencer marketing is a hot trend. Known author Mark Schaefer explained how to achieve influence based on hard work and building your presence. Barry Feldman has also written a book on the topic called The Road To Recognition.

RECOMMENDED READING:

• Influencer Relations
• How To Influence The Influencers

Actionable Marketing Tips:

• Assess how you act in business. Determine what you want to be known for.
• Select your business location with care. Do your homework. Talk to the people in the neighborhood. What do they think of your business? What happened to other businesses in that location?
• Do your research. Take photos of the neighborhood at different times and days of the week. Who’s there? What are they doing? How will your business affect them?

Included in this week’s articles is my roundup from my Social Media Marketing World 2017 blogging workshop and Lunch and Learn students.

I offered them the chance to contribute to a roundup based on writing a blog post using the post format I taught them in the workshop. (BTW, this blog doesn’t take guest posts!)

When I made the offer, I didn’t expect to learn from creating the post but I did!

I learned that you can’t throw a bunch of links with attribution onto the blog page and call it an article. You need to think beyond the listicle!

RECOMMENDED READING:

• 5 Core Types of Content

Big tip of my hat to everyone who contributed to the roundup!

Also to Phil Mershon for selecting me and to Lisa Jenkins for her help with the presentation.

Happy Marketing
Heidi.

Heidi Cohen
Actionable Marketing Guide

Monthly Content Themes: Get Your Blog On Track In 2017

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, names are important especially where brands are concerned.

I love this spelling-play that Sauve, Unilever’s mass retail shampoo, made.

They tested the “new” shampoo with by changing the name (Evuas, Suave spelled  backwards) and adding upscale branding.

The results: Influencers thought it was a high-end shampoo! 

• ExcoB2B, a Montreal based agency, selected Heidi Cohen as a Top 30 Influencer In Marketing.
  
  
• Small Business Tools named Heidi Cohen as a Top 50 Marketing Influencer. It’s another list worth checking out.
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• Grey Campus named Heidi Cohen a Top 10 Influencer in Digital Marketing. Wow—check out her peers!

9 Simple Steps to Master Social Media for Events

The Definitive Guide to Social Media Event Marketing

Nearly 25% of traffic to ticketing and registration pages comes from social media. With the right social media event marketing strategy, you can drive even more traffic — and turn more of those views into ticket sales and registrations.

In nine simple steps, you’ll learn how to develop and improve your marketing strategy across the six most popular networks, including how to:

• Prioritize which networks to use, and how to save time while using them
• Increase engagement on social media during promotions and the event itself
• Measure results and see which of your efforts drove ticket sales or registrations

Offered free from Eventbrite.