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Little Did You Know

Are we in the glory days of marketing? Why do I get the feeling many of you may be having trouble reading that because you’re rolling your eyes.

Cross Media, Social Media, Content Marketing, Media Relations, Search Marketing – there are so many different ways to get your message out there.

Maybe these don’t all apply to you. For instance, we use social media channels each day but it’s not the core of our efforts.

Perhaps it will be six months from now, or twenty years from now.

You may not have a dedicated marketing team –or maybe you are a department of one. Either way, before you venture too far down the line, sometimes it’s better to start small.

Here are some little ideas that can make a large impact.

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Let Your Editorial Calendar Lead the Way

Put Together an Editorial Calendar
Go ahead, differ with me, but it has been a useful method for pushing marketing efforts forward.

Create a spreadsheet, if you like, nothing fancy.

Think about the next 6 – 12 months. Get your team together for a brainstorm.  And then brew a pot of coffee, take your five hour energy etc. and start hammering out items you can write about.

At Cushing, we booked the conference room for over two hours and jotted ideas on large note pads labeled: April, May, June etc.

Some topics to consider for your calendar:

  • Industry trends (in your city or nationally)
  • Tie in a season. We wrote about printed material at baseball games around opening day
  • Client challenges you can address and writing about potential solutions
  • Upcoming projects you can talk about (or things you have learned from previous ones)
  • Receive the same questions over and over? Write blog postings to answer them

Break it out monthly, list potential topic ideas and contributors (internal and external). These could be staff members and clients.

Once you send out content through your email newsletter, use cross media to understand which articles are generating interest. Make note of the topics or ideas. See if you can write about that topic or a variation of it 3 to 6 months from now.

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Go in a Different Direction

UnComfort Zone
Client spotlights have been a part of Cushing’s website content for a while.

Writing even more of them last year, I was so focused on securing one each month, it didn’t occur to me we could go in a different direction.

This goal was definitely helpful but not helping us venture in a new direction.

So what did we do?

Discuss printing on wood paper and potential printed applications. Spotlighting material changed it up and we heard from a handful of graphic designers.

Tracking activity with cross media marketing, we saw a bump in readership and generated business development opportunities.

Explore your UnComfort zone.

Goals

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Don’t Forget To Determine Goals

Sometimes this might be the last item we think about.  What are you trying to accomplish?

  • Have sights on blogging twice a month? Good – make it a target and hit it.

  • Need 20 new client quotes/testimonials to support service pages? Compile a list of customers you think may provide and start calling them.
  • Seeking one or two guest bloggers to provide content for you, find writers among your vendors or accounts.  Pitch and secure them!
  • Want 50 new subscribers to your email newsletter this year? Go to networking events, ask clients if you can add them to your list and evaluate your email opt-in sign up page. Get there!

Even if you don’t reach them all, they provide purpose, targets to achieve and spur additional goals.

What are some smaller facets of your outreach that can make a big impact? Tell us more in the comments below!

Jon Davis

Jon Davis is Cushing’s Marketing Manager. From blogging to online communications, Jon writes about client developments, environmental branding, and much more. Connect with him on LinkedIn.

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