Keep Marketing Simple and Personal

Social Net­work­ing seems as though it is grow­ing at the speed of light these days. Con­nect­ing with fans and friends on Face­book and cre­at­ing an email blast is a piece of cake. Social Net­work­ing and Media is becom­ing the nor­mal way to com­mu­ni­cate. Although there is a place for Face­book, Twit­ter, LinkedIn and Email mar­ket­ing for your busi­ness, have you asked your­self, ​“Is my com­pa­ny still per­son­al, approach­able and real?” Can they sched­ule a meet­ing where they meet a real live per­son? Can they sched­ule a meet­ing where they meet a real live per­son? With tech­nol­o­gy at our fin­ger­tips (lit­er­al­ly), it is becom­ing hard­er for com­pa­nies to remem­ber the good old days of old-fash­ioned mar­ket­ing. One old-fash­ioned mar­ket­ing tech­nique I’d like to rein­tro­duce is the ​“hand­writ­ten note.” Yep. That’s it. Let me explain how it works. It is where a busi­ness own­er or esti­ma­tor spends 5 – 7 min­utes of his or her time writ­ing a thank you or fol­low up note to a prospect or past client using a pen and sta­tion­ary. This con­cept is not just mar­ket­ing. It is rela­tion­al, per­son­al and real. Peo­ple buy from peo­ple they like. They want a rela­tion­ship. Face­book start­ed as a great tool to recon­nect with long lost friends. Now it is a social online chat club…sometimes enabling chats with peo­ple you’ve nev­er met or can’t remem­ber if you were once friends. Go back to the basics this spring. Dust off some old sta­tion­ary and get start­ed today. By the way, for the remod­el­ers and painters read­ing this, try a cus­tom sta­tion­ary with a fea­tured home you’ve worked on. I’d rec­om­mend talk­ing to a water­col­or artist to paint a pho­to or two you can use on your sta­tion­ary. Check out this site: Water­col­or Artist: Cath Howard.