It's so beautiful when a plan comes together. For example, I'm heading down to Terre Haute this evening for a long weekend and my buddy Weir's wedding. There are lots of elements I've got to have in place it order to be sufficiently prepared. I need to pack, gas up the car, coordinate with everyone else who's going, pick up my guitar amp from a friends house, and all of this has to be done in time for me to arrive in Terre Haute at a descent hour this evening.
When it comes to planning it's all about organizing a lot of little details so that they come together to form a cohesive whole picture. Here's one example as it applies to marketing. A new restaurant called Zing opened here in downtown Indianapolis a few weeks ago. I first learned about it from their unusually branded sign that they posted in front of the building about a month before the opening. A few weeks later I received an email announcing the opening. I hadn't opted in to their mailing list so my interest was starting to grow. Then, a few days later at a networking function my friend Brian Graham mentioned that he was doing their marketing, and that he had opted me in for the email. Interesting, I thought. As the weeks before the opening came to a close, I kept hearing about it more and more. Guess what I was doing on the day they opened. Yeah, I was there.
My point is that it takes a lot of careful planning in order to reach new customers. It takes several 'touches'. Your email marketing might not be enough, but your email marketing + your search engine optimization + your direct mail campaign + your outside sales + your referrals will end up paying huge dividends. It's true that you can buy word-of-mouth, but it's worth a lot more if you earn it. You earn it by planning smart and executing flawlessly. Good luck.
email
permalink
