Actionable Marketing Lesson of The Week

► The Lumpy Economy

COVID has created uneven supply issues across the US and the world.

Additionally, COVID has caused problems with the job market. According to the US Labor Department, employers added 194,000 jobs in September, less than they had in August. "It's just a bumpy recovery,” ADP’s chief economist, Nela Richardson, pointed out. “And it's a recovery that's still linked to the pandemic and the delta variant." (NPR - October 8, 2021]

Along with changes in their lives and lifestyles, people’s needs from and attitudes towards work have changed.

38% of households across the US have faced serious financial problems during the past few months. Look closer to see that 50+% of Latino, Black and Native American households had serious financial problems. (NPR - October 12, 2021)

The Economist ( October 9, 2021) stated:

“The immediate cause [of the world economy’s shortage problem] is covid-19. Some $10.4trn of global stimulus has unleashed a furious but lopsided rebound in which consumers are spending more on goods than normal, stretching global supply chains that have been starved of investment.”

What does this mean for your marketing?
COVID has created a lumpy economy and it has a direct impact on your business as well as your employees, customers and community.

Actionable Marketing Tips:

• Plan for uneven deliveries of supplies and finished products. As a marketer, use your content marketing and communications to keep customers engaged and excited about their purchase(s). Want to see how to do this? Watch this video by my friend, Drew Davis.
  
  
   
• Create special augmented products to drive new revenue streams to offset shortfalls due to a lack of product. For example, use content and other resources you control such as customer education or a community to add value to your buyers.

Voice Notes

Wondering whether you should add voice to your marketing mix?
Don’t worry--You’re not alone!

Just realize that voice-first usage via smartphone has reached the majority of US adults according Pew Research Center (via Marketing Charts). This means people can talk to their phones and get responses. Often this appears as “Near Me” searches.

But, home broadband is often a gating factor, at least for low income and geographically sparse locations.

Despite representing a paradigm shift for your business, start to explore taking a voice-first approach. So you don’t risk losing prospects and customers to voice-first competitors and near-substitutes.

And understand that voice marketing adds business challenges since it expands brand and functionality at every customer touch point.

Actionable Marketing Tips:

• Provide audio content. Let your audience consume your content when, where and how they want.
• Offer audio product instructions. Help customers put together and/or use products.
• Extend product use. Aid retention by staying in touch with existing customers.

Social Scene

► 2021 Blogging Research

As one of the early forms of social media, blogs continue to thrive and yield measurable results for bloggers according to Orbit Media’s 2021 Blogging Survey. BTW, here’s AMG’s analysis of last year’s Blogging Research.

From a marketing point of view, blogs are an owned form of social media. By using a blog, you establish your thought leadership and content marketing on a platform you control. So, you don’t risk building on “rented land” to reference Joe Pulizzi’s book, Content, Inc.-Revised Edition.

1 in 5 bloggers get strong marketing results from their blogging efforts. By contrast, 1 in 2 bloggers or the majority of respondents get some level of results

Based on an average of the 1,000+ bloggers who participated in Orbit Media’s survey:

• It takes 4 hours and 1 minute to write a blog post and

• The average blog post contains 1416 words.

The 2021 blogging bottom line:
Since there’s NO “one-size-fits-all” solution, drive measurable blog results by:

• Developing keyword-focused content with visuals and data,
• Publishing consistently on a regular schedule, and
• Promoting top posts across devices, platforms and formats over time.

Actionable Blogging Lessons:

• Directly measure the results of your marketing efforts. Use of calls-to-action and connected content.
• Continue to promote your best performing blog posts overtime. In addition, transform and re-imagine your blog posts into other content formats and publish them on other platforms and devices. Also, keep blog posts visible through content curation.

NYC Marketing Marketing Minute

► Mission Statement States More

To haul away the stuff we no longer wanted after renovating our floors, we ONLY called Junkluggers without comparing prices.

Why Junkluggers?
Because we had used them twice before. In addition to doing an amazing job, the employees were nice and a pleasure to work with!

How did we first find out about Junkluggers?
Our real estate agent recommended them highly and gave us a discount coupon.

Junkluggers are committed to giving away and recycling whatever they can. So, they send you the receipt within 14 days for whatever they donate.

In addition, Junkluggers could be a case study for Dan Gingiss’s The Experience Maker since the customer experience is so amazing. To-date, we’ve used them multiple times.

Also, as John Jantsch suggests in new book, The Ultimate Marketing Engine: 5 Steps to Ridiculously Consistent Growth, continue to build relationships with your current customers so they refer you to their friends.

Junkluggers shows how a small business can dream big and, unlike many large corporations, they’ve documented it in their Mission Statement:

“Our Mission is to Enhance Lives, Our Community, and the Environment by Donating, Recycling, and Supporting Local Charities.”

To support their Mission Statement and underscore being a purpose-driven company, Junkluggers has 8 company values followed across their organization.

• Be a mensch.
• Build a positive team and family culture.
• Deliver "WOW" through service.
• Be a force for good in the environment and the community.
• You're either up or you're getting up.
• Raise the bar.
• Hustle.
• Celebrate the wins!

“Our biggest dream is to be landfill-free by 2025. To get there, we'll always try to donate your items first. When that's not possible, we'll do our best to repurpose and recycle as much as we can.” (Source: Junkluggers)

Actionable Marketing Tip:

• Create a mission statement and company values that your employees, customers and community respect. Like Junkluggers, you have to state and follow your mission statement and values to make them real and believable.

Marketing Reads

New Posts on the Actionable Marketing Guide:

► Content Creation Skills: 10 Fundamental Abilities Your Team Needs To Succeed

Want to improve your content marketing?

Of course you do since it: 

• Builds audience trust through thought leadership;
• Supports search and social media marketing with limited extra work; and
• Yields measurable brand, house file and sales results that add to your bottom line.

Then make sure your team has this set of 10 content creation skills. (BTW, we have you covered with examples!)

► Author Interview: Felix Velarde, Scale At Speed: How To Triple The Size of Your Business and Build A Superstar Team 

Want to massively increase the size of your business by 2 or 3 times?

Then read this interview with Felix Velarde (as well as his clear step-by-step book!)

This one chart snapshot of Velarde’s message. BTW, for Velarde, both customers and employees matter! 

Plan Ahead: Mark Your Calendar

Join me at these marketing events: