Marketing to Your Past Present and Future

On April 3, 2024   /   Featured Article, Success with Local Marketing  
Marketing to Your Past Present and Future

When experiencing a downturn in business, the tendency is to cut or reduce your marketing budget. Most business experts would agree that quitting your marketing will lead to greater losses down the road. When cash flow is tight, or the economy is changing, you need to change your marketing tactics. If the economy is doing great, you can invest more marketing dollars toward success in the future. Building reviews, adding more emails to your list, or expanding your website’s content will help you be found on Google now and in the future. But, when things get tight, and your cash

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Your Networking Momentum

On July 19, 2020   /   Success with Local Marketing  
Your Networking Momentum

Networking Expectations Many people view networking as a once in a while activity.  The truth is, you need to apply yourself to the process to gain momentum and referrals.  Here, we review some guidelines to make your networking mindset and your marketing plan more effective! Keep Making Mistakes My son, who was nineteen at the time, posted something on social media. He must have been down on himself. He asked for forgiveness for making mistakes and not being perfect. My response was that I was proud he had made so many mistakes. I explained the only real mistake would have

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Quotes from Main Street

On July 19, 2020   /   Success with Local Marketing  
Quotes from Main Street

One of the advantages of being a leader in successful local networking is gaining insight from leaders in business.  I’d like to share with you a collection of quotes that I’ve put together over the years.  I hope you get as much benefit from them as I have. “Entrepreneurs are #1 Open to Learn #2 Optimistic #3 Accountable.” ~ Paul Riecks, InSight Paul leads several professional peer groups in the Baltimore region. After interviewing hundreds of entrepreneurs over his career, Paul says that these are the three most prominent commonalities. “Don’t let the distractions become the attraction.” ~ Casey Coven

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Four Ways to Measure Success

On July 19, 2020   /   Success with Local Marketing  
Four Ways to Measure Success

Often, we busy ourselves with the activities of marketing, but don’t stop to evaluate and measure success. If you don’t measure success, how do you know you are achieving it? There are certain formulas you can use to check and see how your marketing is (or isn’t) working for you. Are you familiar with the term “floundering”? My Dad used to tell me I was floundering. I wasn’t sure what he meant, but now as a fisherman, I understand the analogy. Think of a fish swimming in the water with direction. Now, think of a fish flopping around on the

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Too Many Social Media Sites?

On July 19, 2020   /   Success with Local Marketing  
Too Many Social Media Sites?

With so many social media options and platforms available today, how should you go about deciding where and how to post? It’s probably not a good idea to post to all of them. You should be more targeted and strategic. There are several factors to consider. One factor is the type of business you have. A marketing company can benefit from showing great graphics on a visually based social media platform like Instagram or Snapchat. A business that is best represented by words will do well on Linkedin or Reddit. Arguably the most important thing to consider is your target

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Creating Fantastic Content

On July 19, 2020   /   Success with Local Marketing  
Creating Fantastic Content

What’s The Point of Creating Content Anyway? You’ve heard that you need to be blogging, but why? They say it is hard to get motivated when you do not know what the result will bring. We all know success rates plummet without planning and motivation. You are about to spend a considerable amount of time and effort creating content and  “blogging,” so there better be a game plan! Google Search Traffic When you are blogging, you are creating pages that will be listed in Google’s Search Results. When you search for a keyword, Google attempts to connect you with a

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Build or Buy Website Traffic?

On July 19, 2020   /   Success with Local Marketing  
Build or Buy Website Traffic?

Getting Social Trying to increase Website Traffic? Use social media, but be in control of your sales funnel. When boosting posts on Social Media, ALWAYS LINK BACK TO YOUR LANDING PAGES! All of those likes and shares DO VERY LITTLE to get visitors into your sales funnel. Linking back to your content is crucial to controlling the environment and promoting a higher conversion rate. You’ve installed proven conversion elements. You have Strong Calls to Action, and you have Quick Contact Forms on every page. You have tested your site, and you know your conversion rates. Your site is the best

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Google Rankings! What Does Google Want?

On July 19, 2020   /   Success with Local Marketing  
Google Rankings! What Does Google Want?

How can you increase your Google rankings? Let’s put a little personality behind Google. For instance, what does Google want? Google wants to keep people using its search engine. For that to happen, useful search results are a must. So, in turn, Google wants you to be an excellent result for their customers, the searchers. Therefore, becoming a consistent and trustworthy source of good results is the best way to grow your monthly search traffic. The Manual – Just the Facts Ma’am! In October 2015, Google released a one hundred sixty page manual for all to see. It gave some

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Turn Your Website Into a Sales Funnel

On July 19, 2020   /   Success with Local Marketing  
Turn Your Website Into a Sales Funnel

Think of Your Website as a Sales Funnel. You load your prospects at the top of the funnel and expect a certain percentage to convert into a lead or sale. This percentage is referred to as the conversion rate. The rate at which prospects become clients. There are things you can do to your website that can drastically improve your conversion rate. Working at the shoe store, we had to learn some tough web site usability lessons. We created a website that sold New Balance Shoes based on which foot problem you had. We couldn’t compete on broad keywords such

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Leveraging Email and Automation

On July 19, 2020   /   Success with Local Marketing  
Leveraging Email and Automation

Email  & Authomation is Still #1 Give your customers what they want. When polled, over ninety percent of people wanted to receive an email from brands they have an interest in. Eighty-six percent wanted an email monthly. Shockingly, fifteen percent asked for daily emails. When you are leveraging email and automation, you’re getting fantastic ROI on your marketing budget, and you’re giving your clients and prospects what they want! Over 3.7 billion people are using email, and that number is growing fast. By 2021 the projected number of email users will exceed four billion. In contrast, in 2019, Facebook reached

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Leveraging Mobile Business Apps

On July 19, 2020   /   Success with Local Marketing  
Leveraging Mobile Business Apps

In the early ’90s, many resisted computers. Folks thought they didn’t need to adapt. Today, everyone walks around with one in their back pocket. Cell phone technology and the race to the “next best” has advanced our toolsets (and mindsets) greatly. Here are eight types of apps available both on Google Android phones and iPhones that can help us tremendously throughout our day. #1 To-Do Lists & Note-Taking Apps Taking notes, making lists, and adding contacts on the fly is crucial. Making sure you have the ability to record information with the swipe of your finger will come in handy

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Do You Even Network?

On July 19, 2020   /   Success with Local Marketing  
Do You Even Network?

Attitude is Everything If you think that building your network can’t bring results, then read on and learn how to leverage your network to find prospects and clients.  When it comes to attitude, you are in control.  Remember… Positive Thoughts Create Positive Feelings And Positive Feelings Create Positive Actions Then Positive Actions Create Positive Results Are you facing a huge challenge? A milestone you are unsure of? How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time! To keep a positive mindset, track your daily behaviors. Meaning, track your at-bats, not your home runs. Million-dollar professional baseball players miss

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Your 8 Second Elevator Pitch

On July 19, 2020   /   Success with Local Marketing  
Your 8 Second Elevator Pitch

Before we started training people to do an eight-second elevator pitch, many folks had very long elevator pitches. These thirty-second commercials would often drone on into ninety seconds, and sometimes longer. At the time, everyone was talking about building the perfect thirty-second commercial. Workshops were revolving around the subject, and professionals were even charging folks to help them craft their own. So, there I was, trying to build a system around my “perfect thirty-second elevator pitch.” How Long is Too Long For an Elevator Pitch? I remember writing and re-writing my speech, preparing to present it in front of a

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Asking for Warm Introductions

On July 19, 2020   /   Success with Local Marketing  
Asking for Warm Introductions

I was feeling enthusiastic after a LinkedIn Workshop from Steve Hall, and another Aha moment occurred. Steve was showing us how to search our contact’s connection lists to look for possible prospects. Maybe that LinkedIn contact would be willing to send out a warm introduction message to their connection. I asked myself, why not ask the people from networking for warm introductions? Learn to Ask for Warm Introductions Immediately I called Chuck MacDonald and asked him for a coffee. Everyone loved Chuck! With a bright smile and brighter disposition, you were lucky to have some of Chuck’s positive vibes rub

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Building Your Sales Funnel

On July 19, 2020   /   Success with Local Marketing  
Building Your Sales Funnel

If you are new to networking, hopefully, you already know that you cannot “hard sell” the other members of the networking group. If you have experience with networking, you can spot the newer guys and gals from a mile away. Many start networking, but eventually lose interest or feel that they do not get the results they should. The secret to successful networking is taking things one step further, and developing a sales funnel. Here’s an old networking question to ask yourself before an event. How many people came to the networking event to sell something today? Everyone, yes? How

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A Networking Sales System

On July 19, 2020   /   Success with Local Marketing  
A Networking Sales System

How We Started Hawk Marketing It’s important to be aware that everything can change in an instant. For me and my sister Michelle, that’s what happened when our good gigs at a large local marketing company disappeared. Like many other people, we were disappointed when we lost our jobs as the company self-imploded. We had no idea that networking could turn things around for us… and so many others. We went to Baltimore immediately to file our trade name, so that we could start our new company, Hawk Marketing. Choosing a name was easy. You see, our Dad owned a

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A Marketing Mindset to Win

On July 19, 2020   /   Success with Local Marketing  
A Marketing Mindset to Win

If you don’t have a plan, all you have is a dream. Having a marketing mindset to win means keeping your mind positive, maintaining momentum, and staying on track. Big Goals Lead to Big Success If you want to have awesome success in achieving big goals, you must have a PLAN. A BIG PLAN! It has to be bigger than any plan you’ve had before. If you’ve achieved the same goal before… that’s not the type of goal we are talking about. If you accomplished a goal last year, and you want to do ten percent or fifteen percent better…

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