Hello. Judging from the response to last month's e-newsletter, our marketing vitamins struck a chord. So, we'll offer a new prescription this month.

Also, local online search is growing. We'll explore that subject in our second article.

Please forward to a friend. Let's get started.

Cordially,

Harry Hoover
harry@hoover-ink.com

Ink Briefs
Truth in advertising: is that an oxymoron? Take a trip to the bad old days - and the tobacco advertising - of yesteryear.


Are you an entrepreneur? Or, do you know one who has hit the entrepreneurial ceiling? Friend and client Brent Dees is starting a new Focus Four class in Charlotte August 18.

Focus Four is a three-year executive coaching system based upon the methods of Andrew Carnegie that helped make him, and the people around him, millionaires. I've been enrolled since January.


It's time you took a good, long look at yourself. And there is no better place to do it than Queendom, a site that hosts more than 225 different personality and compatibility tests. Forget the introspection - test your employees! Here's another source of tests, if you just can't get enough: Similar Minds


Friend and client Joe Grant is a trusted advisor to ad agencies, but his excellent advice spans industries. For some good counsel, see his Defrag Your Hard Drive article on this page.


TouchPoint is a cool, new service that can totally automate a direct mail program for small business. It allows you to personalize and send high end direct mail pieces right from your desk. Use the TouchPoint tools to design cards, postcards, invitations, tri-fold brochures - you name it.


Online word-of-mouth gets all the glory, but face-to-face WOM does all the heavy lifting. When asked how they make recommendations, 80% of consumers say they make them in-person, followed by 68% who say they make them over the telephone. This phenomenon is even stronger among the Influentials: the one in ten Americans who tell the other nine how to vote, where to eat and what to buy.

That's according to a new study by NOP World.


About Hoover ink PR

Hoover ink PR helps position businesses that are serious about their success. Then, we craft and deliver bottom line messages that ensure it.

Who are we? We're a marketing communications firm with more than 25 years experience in providing services to financial, high tech, real estate, tourism and consumer products companies.

From employee relations and media relations to collateral material and e-newsletters, we develop the programs and communication tools that will differentiate you from your competitors. And that's the bottom line.

 
  More One-A-Day Marketing
Response to last month's one-a-day marketing vitamin list was so good that I've developed a few more ideas.

1. Do what you say you're going to do and do it on time. If you do nothing else, this is the one that can make a real difference in your business and in your life.

2. Hold a monthly session with employees or associates to discuss marketing strategy and to solicit marketing ideas. Ask employees about what is happening in the field. Your customers often have the best new product and service ideas.

3. Hire a marketing consultant for a day just to brainstorm on your business and its opportunities. Do some homework beforehand and develop some guidelines for the discussion so that your day can be most productive.

4. Select a charity in which to be involved. Give money, time and the time of your employees. Focus all your efforts on a single charity to get the most bang for your buck.

5. Take two clients who don't know each other to lunch. Try to find clients who have compatible businesses and who you believe could help each other.

6. Use your clients' products and services and provide a testimonial that he can use in his marketing materials.

7. Ask your customers to provide testimonials. Here's a good one we just received for Ty Boyd's Excellence in Speaking course: "I now possess the tools to speak to thousands - but more important - to listen to one."

8. Develop a 30-second commercial and use it to introduce yourself and your business at every opportunity. It should say who you and your business are, what your company does, how you can help customers and should include an immediate call to action.

9. No matter what your business, you are an expert at something. Develop tip sheets that showcase what you know. Consider making a brochure out of your tips, set up a tips telephone hotline, or even do an e-newsletter providing tips.

10. Find a buddy. Select a business whose customers are similar to your. You do a mailing to your list and include information from your buddy business, and your buddy does the same for you.

11. Ask your vendors if they have any co-operative advertising programs and then participate. When I worked with Levolor, we developed high end marketing material just for small, independent window treatment and interior design firms. And, there were programs to help pay for a portion of their media costs if they used the material provided.

12. Perform an online survey of your customers to find out what they think about you and your products. I use SurveyMonkey.

13. Review all of your stationery and collateral material, as well as your website. Make sure your message is consistent, and that all of your contact information is up-to-date.

14. Find an example of where you knocked it out of the park for a client and then write a case study about it.

15. If you'll forgive my redundancy, hire me.

16. Send your marketing vitamin idea to Harry Hoover so it can be showcased.

  Go Local

Seventy percent of US households use the web when shopping locally, and about 25 percent of all searches are looking for local information. As more and more households make the switch to broadband connections, this trend will continue to escalate.

Search engines have eclipsed print and TV ads as the primary way consumers find local products and services. But until now large national and international brands had a stranglehold on Internet search marketing. Only they had the manpower or outside resources to plan and implement a multiple site, online search marketing program.

Why should your business get into the online search pay-per-click (PPC) arena? Let's do the math. A recent US Bancorp Piper Jaffray study indicates that the average lead from a search engine costs $0.29. Yellow pages and direct mail leads cost $1.18 and $9.94 respectively. So, a search engine delivers four leads for the price of one Yellow Page lead and 34 for the cost of a single direct mail lead. Read the rest of my article.