Category Archives for "Technique"

speaker with flipchart and audience

Secrets of Great Speech Design

You want to know the secrets of great speech design?  There’s really only one.  It’s what you know.  To stand in front an audience and deliver a cracking speech that leaves them asking for more – you need to know … well what exactly?

Know Your Audience

Your audience is the great unknown.  It’s the hardest to know but the most important.

Imagine you’re asked to stand in as a speaker at the last minute.  You know nothing about your audience, walk into the room and …

You could deliver your proven keynote.  Is that really for the best?  The chance you’ll connect with your audience is low.

Why not take time getting to know your audience?  They could discuss a question in pairs and share conclusions.  This need not take long. It offers you an opportunity to find out what they know and to gauge mood and responsiveness.

Usually, you have more information but it is still helpful to gauge your audience’s mood.  There are many ways to build a positive relationship with your audience, even where you already know a lot about them.

Your audience could be people you know well. Your hosts may provide information. Can you rely upon this knowledge?  Pre-meeting research may be as valuable as direct observation at the meeting, eg if you know they are people in the same profession.

Know Your Business

You deliver your speech as a business owner.   So, you need to know your business.  Most business owners know aspects of their business but have blind spots.  What do you know about your branding, products and services, proposition, problem and market?

Be clear about the basics.  What business are you in?  I coach business owners in local marketing.  I position myself as a coach but I could be a marketer or storyteller.  Because I talk about marketing and storytelling, some people believe I do one or both.  You see the potential for confusion?

When you deliver a speech as a business owner, keep your business in mind.   You aim to do justice to yourself and your business.  Your speech should leave your audience hungry to know more.  You can do this without spending a lot of time describing your business.  Be in command of your material, particularly as it relates to your business.

Know Your Topic

Research your topic.  One frequent mistake is to focus solely on one type of raw material, so here is an overview of possible sources.

  • You can learn a lot about how to structure your talk from traditional stories. How to introduce emotion and tension, add relevant detail.
  • Historical material provides ideas for stories.
  • Experiences of friends, family, customers and others.
  • Case studies show how you work with customers.
  • Personal stories introduce yourself and the values underlying your business.
  • Business or product origin shows how you and your associates built your business or a new product or service.
  • How things work, including recipes and instructions.
  • Data and statistics – how do you present these to make a point without overwhelming your audience?

You see the range of skills you can bring into play, to compile a compelling talk.

Know Your Desired Outcome

Be clear about what you want from your audience.  If you sell from the stage, you are clear.  Your problem is how, not what.  You are likely too, to be in a minority.  Many people dislike the idea of selling from the stage.

If you seek significant commitments of time, money or energy, learn how to sell from the stage.  “Buy from me because I’m brilliant” is unlikely to be effective.  Use a narrative that brings some in the audience to the point where they’re ready to buy.  Your narrative shows you understand their problem and offer a solution.

For smaller commitments, selling from the stage is easier.  You may have a story to tell and your speech from the stage whets appetites for your book.  The challenge is not persuading people to buy so much, as suggesting what they might do if they buy the book.  Is there a next step and if so, what is it?

Sometimes it’s better to find interested people and offer a smaller step.  This helps where your offer may not suit everyone.  Arrange to meet face-to-face and find out whether there is a good fit, to tailor your offer to each need.  Coaches often use this approach.

You don’t want to make a sale or get the audience to do anything?  Think again!  Why deliver this talk?  What change do you seek in your audience’s thinking?  What new insights do you want them to take away?  It’s your responsibility to guide their thinking.  Could you offer a question to discuss or think about at home?  How can they follow up your talk?  Your keynote is not an information dump, get your audience to take action.  Otherwise, what is the point?

Conclusion

To deliver a brilliant keynote, understand your audience, know what your business offers, assemble material to use during your talk and decide what change you want to see.

As you dig deeper into one, it implies changes in all four.  You may find you circle around these four several times.  When your plans are good enough, try your keynote with a real audience.

Maybe you need a step-by-step plan? Come back next week to find steps to create a brilliant keynote.

What is a Keynote Speech?

Public speakers often talk about a keynote speech or address.  What do they mean?

A Classical Music Concert

You feel tense as you take your seat at a classical music concert, for the first time.  What if I’m bored?  What if I want to cough?  When do I applaud?  Can I stand up and whoop?  Will I want to?

A man with a stick arrives to tumultuous applause.  He raises his stick and silence falls.  The music starts.

A new world opens up.  How is it these sounds, so far from human language, mean so much?  Why do I and others feel these emotions?  What is at stake?  What is it that brings me to the edge of my seat?  Why do I sense jeopardy as the music approaches its end?  Why do I feel relief as the music resolves and finishes just so …?

When music finishes just so.oh.oh.oh, it returns to its original key, a familiar place, subtly different.  We have been on a journey and return to and recognise ‘same but different’ resolves the music. The composer sets out and we experience tension until we discover how the composer finds their way back.

The key not only sets the music’s boundaries, it also sets the theme and tone.  Without the key we cannot make sense of the music, just get frustrated.  The key-note is the first note in the scene-setting chord.

Conference Keynotes

The word keynote in public speaking best applies to a conference or event.  The keynote speech sets its theme.  It could be at the beginning, setting the theme and tone for the conference and is likely to be delivered by an inspirational speaker.  Or else it could be at the end of the conference, bringing together insights from the conference and clarifying what happened.

You attend a conference and its theme is British Mammals.  You expect the keynote to state the aim of the conference, perhaps setting the tone by highlighting issues facing mammals.

Next up, you hear a lecture about freshwater fish.  Why?  The keynote set the boundaries.  You thought you were here to find out about mammals.  Just as you think you might leave for a coffee, the speaker resolves the tension.  We need to understand the ecology of fish, to understand the lives of otters.

Perhaps some of the most intriguing and so powerful keynotes, do not address the theme directly or set boundaries.  They set the tone by uniting the audience around a concern or emotion.  Their concern is not so much about content, as the approach to the topic.  Where there is fundamental disagreement in the room, setting the tone may be important.

Business Keynotes

It would be an appalling speaker who delivered the same keynote, whatever the conference!  The conference keynote belongs to the conference.  The keynote speaker cannot change the theme of the conference.

However, we do speak about business keynotes.  These set the theme, tone and boundaries for a business.  A business owner may deliver a similar talk in many places and circumstances.

Here the talk belongs to the speaker, invited to deliver that specific talk.  It may set the theme for a  meeting.  Often questions and answers follow before the meeting moves on to some other topic or activity.

There is nothing wrong with this approach. However, don’t forget, the difference between conference and business keynotes resides in ownership of the theme.

Usually a conference keynote requires more work because you need new material and to build it into a new talk you deliver only once.  Nevertheless,  it is an opportunity to build your business’ reputation, through access to a new audience.

Finally, there is the formal pitch.  This is where you set the theme, by pitching an idea to a small group, who if persuaded might support your idea.  There is likely an understanding about the nature of the pitch but it is yours to deliver.  It falls somewhere between conference and business keynotes but is likely far more stressful than either.

Before we get down to practicalities, can you think of other types of keynote address?

Burgers

How Telling Stories Supports Your Business

Everyone seems to be telling stories these days.  Stories are a fantastic way to market your business.  A good story told well makes a big difference.  There is a lot you can do to shape your story, to get your message over.

I am leading a lunch and learn meeting about business story telling, starting next month.  If you are in the Sheffield area and can get along to The Rude Shipyatd, 89 Abbeydale Road at 12.15 on 2nd and 4th Thursdays, you can join a dynamic group of story tellers and business owners.

One thing I shall do is explore how we use stories in all aspects of businesses.  Here are five approaches to business story telling.

Your Personal Story

If someone visits your website or hears you speak, they don’t really know you as a person.  So, telling a story that speaks about your values, what really matters to you, is an effective way to become known.  A powerful personal story speaks on many levels and can help you find people who belong to your tribe.

This is perhaps the most common way business-owners apply story to their business.  A problem for some is they have no big story to tell.  In truth though, everyone has not one but many stories.  The challenge is to find a good story and make it compelling.

These stories work really well at step 4 of the awareness ladder, where your prospects seek more information about you.

Case Studies

Case studies are stories that draw on the experiences of your target audience.  They may be stories about your clients or people like your clients.  They may be accounts of their work with you as a coach or stories about problems they face.  Sometimes case studies can lead to questions: what would you have done under these circumstances?

The purpose of case studies is to show you understand and can solve your clients’ problems.  They can be used between steps 3 and 4 of the awareness ladder.  Testimonials may be a source in your clients’ own words or you can write a case study with your client.  They can also be effective at step 2, where you need to show there are solutions to the problems your audience experiences.

Business Origin Story

This is a story about the origin of a product or service.  You may be at the centre of the story and can show how you observed, identified a problem and developed a solution.

These are step 3 stories, where you show how your offer differs from other people’s’.

Cause

Many businesses have a cause, where they not only deliver a product or service but use it to change their wider community.  This may be a story about a neighbourhood or some issue you know your audience cares about.

This may be a step 1 story, a story that establishes a problem exists.

Your Marketing Plan

If your marketing plan is a story, everything you do is part of that single coherent story.  The story needs to be in all aspects of your business, its design, website, logo, advertising, packaging.  Everything points to the central story that makes your business stand out.

The aim is to build a business that stands out in people’s’ minds, so that they remember you and can find you again.

Conclusion

Telling stories and so making business can be a challenge, if you are to present a coherent narrative to the world.  We can all benefit from spending time together, working on our stories and as we explore each of these types, build a lively approach to business story telling.

So, please let me know if you can think of other story types businesses can use.  And if you can, come along to “Telling Stories: Making Business” and join in the debate!

In-Person Marketing: Advertising

One common misunderstanding is that marketing and advertising are the same thing.  Marketing is the strategy you employ to bring your product, service or cause to your market’s attention and then convert prospects into customers.

Advertising is one method you can employ as part of your marketing strategy.  All an advert does is say: “Here’s a thing and here’s what to do next if you’re interested in it”.

Another misconception is advertising cannot be an in-person approach.  Clearly a great deal of advertising is impersonal, eg hoardings, television, most online advertising despite its alleged targeting.  But advertising can be a step towards a personal business arrangement: “I saw your advert in the window, can you tell me more, please?”

In this post I am not going to write about advertising copy.  This is an enormous topic and I have covered it in various ways in several posts.

Also, I’m not going to write about how to purchase advertising.  I have mentioned this in a few posts as an option in certain circumstances.  The question is do you really need this and if so how can you find expert support?

Local Advertising Opportunities

It is worth asking what advertising opportunities you have in the local marketplace:

  • If you have premises, a good external sign is essential. You need to display your business name, possibly a logo and/or by-line and essential contact information.
  • Shop windows are opportunities to advertise what you sell, through a window display.  I suspect many of the principles of website design apply equally; show them what you sell and tell them how to get it.
  • Printed materials such as business cards, flyers and posters. These can be used in different ways and can be most effective if you can encourage others to distribute them.  The others might be family members and supporters, customers, other businesses especially where they have a complementary offer.  Businesses may expect you distribute their promotional  materials in return.

Collaboration is Important

Let’s pause here and consider the value of helping each other out.  This is really a species of referral marketing.  If you display a poster from another business, you endorse that business.  This is how local business communities can develop, each supporting the work of others.

More Advertising Opportunities

  • Local newspapers and magazines can be effective. Many are free and paid for through adverts.  If they go through every letter box in a neighbourhood, they may be effective sources of publicity.  Usually they include articles of local interest and if you can offer to write for the magazine, you may find another opportunity to get your name known.  Remember though, they are unlikely to accept articles that actively promote your business.
  • Stalls at local events, fairs and markets.
  • Gifts and other items that can carry your business details, eg paper bags.
  • Vehicles can be effective means to advertise.  Cars with well-designed external advertising can have greater impact than vans or lorries.  Perhaps they attract attention because they are less common.
  • Buses carry both external and internal advertising.  Internal advertising may be effective on routes that pass your business premises or bring people into your area.
  • A-boards, sandwich boards and the like can be a nuisance.  However, if they are well-positioned they can make your business premises visible to people walking alongside them.  I am very inclined to read chalk boards – I suppose they imply someone has made an effort and are likely to feature up-to-date offers.

What advertising do you find effective reaching local customers?

In-Person Marketing

This is the final post for now in this sequence about in-person marketing.  I shall add more as new possibilities come to my attention.  My next post will announce what’s coming next!

Using Social Media to Promote Your Business or Cause

A few years ago I re-read Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland” and discovered how bad-tempered all the characters (including Alice) seem to be.  Users of Social Media are a bit like Alice.  Perhaps when they first fall down the rabbit hole, this new world is amazing; it affords glimpses into so many worlds!  But as the novelty wears off and Alice explores, this world becomes increasingly infuriating.

There are millions of people out there and most seem to be angry.  The Brexit vote is a recent example.  Annoyed Remainers blame Brexiters for the pointlessness of their enterprise and annoyed Brexiters blame Remainers for not seeing the reasonableness of Brexit.  The debate has rumbled on over the months and Mr and Ms Angry are still out there, although for the moment they seem to occupy the left of the political spectrum.

I’m inclined to respond to the question: how do I use Social Media to market my business? with “are you out of your mind?”  But perhaps that is an angry response.  So, I’ll offer a few thoughts that might be helpful.

A Few Social Media Guidelines

  • Remember, you do not own your chosen platforms and businesses can have their membership suspended.  Usually, this is because someone (or more likely a robot) has decided the business is spamming.  If this is not true, it can still take a long time to have your membership reinstated.  So, the message is: don’t allow your business to depend on social media alone and certainly not one platform.
  • One way to mitigate the risk is to encourage followers and friends to visit your website.  Once they are there, the ones who are interested will sign up to your email list.  You have a lot more control over your email list than you do over any social media account.
  • Have a clear goal for your social media activity
  • Be clear about your business identity on your social media site.  It is better to have at least one platform solely dedicated to your business.  Don’t mix in personal stuff or things like politics or religion.  You could decide to use Twitter for business and Facebook for personal.  Linked-In will always be a business site.  You can have personal and business Twitter accounts and on Facebook you can have a business page as well as your personal account.
  • Use your business social media to build brand awareness.  Use your website to sell stuff and social media to present your identity – preferably helpful and not angry like Alice.
  • Always post useful stuff and don’t spam, ie don’t try to sell stuff through social media, except through recognised sales channels, eg Facebook adverts.
  • If you know of businesses making similar offers to yours, look at how they use social media.  Don’t just copy them, do it better!
  • Once you’ve worked out your approach, get content posted – keep in the public eye and don’t worry too much – your postings are ephemeral and so be realistic about the time you devote to each.
  • Link your blog posts to your social media sites so that your posts appear automatically on your chosen platforms.

Do you have any tips for using social media to promote businesses or causes?

 

In-Person Marketing: Interviews

There are different types of interviews.  They can be part of a referral marketing strategy or an enrolment conversation that leads to sales.  This post is about interviews that convey information.

Some aim to draw out information from clients or prospects that can be used in a marketing campaign.  Others to interview you about your business and you need to convey what it is about effectively.

Interviews of Clients or Prospects

The great thing is you have control over the questions asked!  This does not mean you necessarily ask the questions.  You could ask a consultant to interview your clients or prospects on your behalf.  This way you would discuss what you want to find out with the consultant and then leave them to it.  The advantage of using a consultant is your clients may be more willing to open up to them than they are to you, especially if they are still in a working relationship with you.

The important thing to remember is you will record this interview and published it.  The way  you use the interview needs to be negotiated with the interviewee, even if they are happy to collaborate and want to help you.

Possible Uses for Interviews of Clients or Prospects

  • The interview is recorded on video or audio and then displayed online. There may be a camera or sound recorder in the room or the interview can be online.  For marketing purposes, the interviewee must give consent not just in general but to the recording they make.  If there is a part of the interview they are not happy to broadcast, edit it out.  Remember, recording can be done by taking notes and these still need consent if you intend to publish.
  • You plan to display extracts from the interview on your site. You still need consent and there may be an issue about how you attribute the extract.  It is a good idea to get permission even if it is not attributed, if the source is sensitive you must make it impossible to work out who said it.  Usually you will want to do this for social proof and if so a name, designation and photo all help to convey this is a genuine person.  You can ask someone for a testimonial, however there is value interviewing someone in-depth, as they will often contribute helpful comments even ones they haven’t thought about before!
  • Using interviews to inform your marketing strategy. You may find some people would be willing to be interviewed for this purpose because there will be no direct quotes from them on the site.  No-one need know they were ever interviewed.  This purpose can run alongside your search for social proof.  See my posts about testimonials for more information.
  • Finally, interviews can help you find accessible language for your site. Many website owners write in fluent jargon and would benefit by translating their offer into words their market actually uses!

Interviews of You

Much of the above applies to you too!  An interview can be used in similar ways and might draw out of you new and surprising ways of describing your offer.  I want to consider three types of interview you might encounter.

The main thing to remember is answer the questions.  I know politicians never answer the question but you have a business or cause and you do yourself no favours by seeming evasive.

Friendly

This is where you arrange an interview for your own purposes, perhaps so you can display a video on your website.  You choose someone who knows about what you’re doing and is willing to sit down with you, plan the questions and guide the interview to the conclusions you want.

This is not to say the friendly interviewer can’t be tough with you.  It is best to allow them some space to ask follow-up questions because they might draw new insights from you.  Unless you’re live, you can edit out the worst moments!

Incompetent

This is where you might consent to an interview, perhaps on local radio or TV, and discover the interviewer has not been properly briefed or has no understanding of your field.  You need to be ready for this happening.  As soon as you are in the hands of a third-party, you have less control over what they do.

Prepare for the interview by rehearsing answers to some basic questions.  This equips you to sound as if you know what you’re talking about, even if the questions are not terribly helpful.

Try to help the interviewer by explaining, as soon as you can exactly what you do and the benefits of what you offer.  Hopefully, most interviewers will then get on track.  You may need to feed them ideas, especially if they struggle to find sensible questions.

Don’t assume your interviewer is incompetent.  The reality may be they have not been properly briefed.  Once they understand what you are talking about they may start to ask more searching questions.  Remember, they may conduct several interviews every day and not always get the briefing they need.

Hostile

Most of us dread the hostile interview and tend to think just about any third-party interview is likely to be hostile.  Most interviewers want to give you an opportunity to talk about your topic and they are not trying to catch you out.  Take any opportunities you can to discuss the interview beforehand and all should be well.

Hostile interviews are rare.  They may happen if you are accused of something.  If so, your aim will be to either clear your name or else apologise and explain what happened and what you are going to do about it.  Either way this nightmare scenario can sometimes be turned to your advantage.

The reason I mention it here is to make the point it is unlikely.  Your interviewer is more likely to be either friendly and competent or friendly and incompetent.  Either way you can make your business or cause better known.

Have you experiences of interviews that have gone well or been disastrous?

In-Person Marketing: Articles in Formal Media

A few years ago, an article in formal media, eg newspapers or magazines, or a feature on television or radio was a breakthrough for businesses or organisations.  Everyone now has access to the Internet and so the value of formal media has changed.

That does not mean they are without value.  Perhaps the way to think about it is the Internet has introduced new possibilities and advantages that complement formal media.  Like everything else, to enhance the value of using formal media, ensure it is part of a considered marketing strategy.

Pros and Cons of Formal Media

Using Formal Media to Reach New Markets

The big advantage of formal media is its potential to introduce your enterprise to new markets.  You are likely to encounter people who do not go online so much and those who have not found you online.

The big disadvantage of formal media is it’s ephemeral.  The article in this week’s paper will be forgotten by next week.  Radio and TV may be temporarily accessible online but will soon be forgotten.  The same material on a website might be seen by the same number of people or more but over a longer period.  There are occasions when something goes viral and the world beats a path to your website but these are rare and can’t be counted upon.

Formal media means exposure to regular consumers of that media.  They are not forced to read it or listen but those who do may become new prospects.

Editorial Control

Another disadvantage of formal media is you do not have editorial control.  The reporter, interviewer and / or editor will have significant control over content and presentation.  This is not to say they will make a bad job of it but there is a problem if they don’t like what you’re offering (or it’s not for them) or they don’t understand it.  Even if you write an article or press release it has been known for its main point to be edited out!

Another advantage of formal media is it gives you authority or social proof.  Edited media works like third-party endorsement.  Many restaurants display newspaper articles in their window.  These include information about the restaurant and boost its credibility.  You can report your published item and perhaps link to an online version if it exists.  The fact that formal media value your work sufficiently to publish it still counts for something!

Using Formal Media to Contact Your Market

You will usually be able to invite readers or listeners to contact you.  On a website they can do this through the click of a button.  Whatever means of communication you offer in formal media is likely to be more effort.  However, those who make the effort are likely to be genuine prospects.

One thing to consider when offering contact details is the best mode of contact.  If you have a shop front, its address is likely to be helpful.  Otherwise consider the likely readership of the paper – are they more likely to use the phone or contact you online?

How to Access Formal Media

If this is likely to be a major part of your local marketing, eg if your market is likely to be older people, then you will need specialist help.  Developing a plan to get you out there, assessing whether it will be worthwhile and then making the contacts are all specialist skills.

Here are a few thoughts to get you started:

  • Be clear about your market and the media they are likely to use.
  • What is it about your offer that is likely to interest your market? You will interest formal media  if they think you will interest their market.
  • Is there anything eye-catching about your offer that can be photographed or filmed?
  • Do you have a story that will engage media outlets?
  • How do you present as a person? This is not necessarily about how you look.  It is also important to consider how you interview, when filmed or in writing.
  • Do you have a marketing plan and are you clear about how formal media will contribute? For example, do you want to increase traffic to your website or increase visitors to your shop?  Are you offering something to people who respond?
  • Are you promoting an ongoing enterprise or a one-off event?

When you have thought through and consulted about these issues, you can approach your media.  You may have contacts who can help you or else you could try a press release.  Visit their website first and find out if they have any guidance for organisations approaching them.

Advertising

By the way, don’t forget advertising.  Like everything else advertising should be part of your marketing strategy.  The issues in the list above apply equally.  The main point to remember is to do it only of you can afford to lose the costs.  The price is an investment and all investments have their attendant risks.

Conclusions

Many local businesses manage perfectly well without formal media coverage or, more likely, occasional and ad hoc coverage.  When occasional opportunities arise, take them and integrate them into your marketing strategy.

One final point, formal media features more in non-local campaigns.  If you are marketing nationally or internationally, it is a real albeit possibly expensive option.  Many successful businesses manage marketing online as an alternative.  Lots of businesses use both.

How have you used local formal media and how did you integrate it into your marketing strategy?

In-Person Marketing: Video and Audio

It may seem odd to include video and audio among in-person techniques.  The chances are you will feature them on websites or in social media as the main point of access.  However, recordings can be used locally in various ways:

  • Recording videos and audio can be an excellent way of building relationships. I have written about testimonials elsewhere but they are only one approach.  People may be willing to speak about problems they face or issues that concern them.  They may be able to illustrate your product or service in action.
  • Recordings of live events can be a way of sharing ideas locally, beyond those who are able to attend.
  • Whilst podcasts, downloads, websites and social media have become the most frequent ways of accessing recorded material, DVDs still have some utility. This is particularly true of audio recordings that can be listened to whilst the listener does other things such as driving or jogging.  Podcasts and downloads are taking on some of this role but longer material might still benefit from being recorded on static media.
  • Recordings can be used for presentations. Short illustrative recordings are perhaps best for talks, so the speaker can pick up issues and develop them from the recordings or open discussion about them.

Of these the possibilities of recording material that can be used online may be most attractive to local businesses and organisations.  Such recordings are opportunities to build relationships between the people involved.

YouTube is the most popular site for storing videos.  You can create a channel for your organisation and keep all your videos there.  Members, customers and other interested people can be encouraged to subscribe to the channel.

The search engine in YouTube is the second most powerful after Google (who own YouTube).  So, if you can highlight keywords for your video, you can use YouTube to publicise your organisation and point viewers to your website.  If you have a lot of relevant videos, you can build your list through this route.  Maybe show videos on your premises or during presentations and offer people the url for the video or your channel.

There are options for storing your recordings online that enable you to restrict access to selected groups.

Recording Video and Audio

The first step is to decide why you want to make a recording and what you need to record to meet your purpose.

Types of Recording

You will have a number of options.  Live videos are perhaps the easiest to record, although some people find speaking to camera daunting.  The head and shoulders shot is popular and if you are using an editing suite, such as Camtasia, you can illustrate a talk by adding animations.

The same person can talk over a PowerPoint presentation.  This can be a better approach for those who are nervous of cameras.  There are alternatives to PowerPoint, such as Prezi and it is also possible to film MindMaps, using applications such as xmind.  You can in fact film any screen on your computer and zoom in on details.

You can also film events, where people are working or talking together.

Equipment

You don’t really need any equipment in addition to the camera in a mobile phone or tablet.  Videos from these are usually adequate.  Obviously if you use a purpose-built camera you may produce a higher quality video but it depends on how important quality is.  For example, a video intended for the home page of your site might benefit from additional attention to quality.  Teaching videos, hidden deep within your site, perhaps do not need to be such high quality.

Sound is absolutely crucial, if viewers cannot hear your video, they will switch off.  Most video cameras have good microphones, so the main problem is external noise.  Be aware of this particularly if you are filming outside.  Traffic or people talking in the background can drown out the sound you are seeking to record.  Also wind can overpower a speaker and you may not be aware of this whilst recording.

Lighting is also important but less so than sound.  You can usually see if the image is ridiculously dark.  If you want a particularly sharp image or the film includes whiteboard images, then you may need to invest in lighting.  This is not terribly expensive.

Editing

It is worth spending some time editing your film.  This can be cutting and splicing, especially if you have a number of takes to consider.  Camtasia and other video editing suites offers a massive range of special effects that are not hard to include.

It is always worth offering a transcript of the video.  This is easy if you film a speaker reading from a script and may take more time if you need to transcribe it yourself.  Some listeners like to follow a transcript, especially if they are hard of hearing.  Also, Google likes transcripts because the words, if they are on the site and not in a pdf, can be picked up by search engines.  You can sometimes include these in sections that open out at the viewer’s request.

Perhaps this is the least in-person of these in-person techniques but I’m sure there’s still plenty to explore about the potential of recordings for building community groups and businesses.

Do you have examples of recordings that have helped build community?

In-Person Marketing: Your Printed Media

This post is about your printed media for local marketing.  I shall post about printed media produced by others in a couple of weeks’ time.  So, how can you use printed media to promote your business?

Printed media is a key way to drive traffic to your website.  If you can persuade visitors to subscribe to your site, you have a way to keep in touch with your local contacts.  If you are mainly concerned about local marketing, this can be the best way to build your contact list.  It can work faster than SEO if you get it right.

Printed media works for marketing beyond the local of course but it depends on circumstance.  If you travel a lot, for example, printed media can be a good way to promote your services beyond the local.  However, most businesses marketing beyond the local, would support in-person approaches with online methods such as SEO and ads.

The Value of Printed Media

Building your list is as important to local marketing as it is to any other approach.  Printed media is a key element of your approach and assists you in other ways.  Printed media

  • is an excellent short-term aide memoire. It presents useful information and saves you having to dictate complex contact details and your contact does not have to write them down.  It is easy to lose printed media, though.  This does not necessarily mean dropping it somewhere.  Business cards accumulate and finding a particular card becomes increasingly difficult.  Persuade contacts to sign up to your email list because it’s a good way to maintain contact a long time after they forget your printed media.
  • can include information about your business. This might range from a sentence on the back of a business card to a full colour brochure.  All these can link to your website in various ways.  The advantage of such media is its physical presence for a short time, allowing a contact to relax and read about your business at their leisure.
  • well-designed, assists branding. It can tell your story and help contacts become familiar with your logo or house style.
  • can reach large numbers of people who would not search for your services online. Hand it to people in busy places, or post it through letter boxes.
  • can provide support for talks and presentations. It can point to follow-up online information, contacts can get in exchange for their email address, for example.

Types of Printed Media

Here are some basic types of printed media, available for use in local marketing:

  • Business cards are an essential means to establish contact
  • Use leaflets to tell the public about your offer
  • Use more elaborate brochures are to help prospects decide between your offers or to pitch for support from established businesses
  • Information leaflets, can be left around in your shop, for example
  • Notes following a presentation
  • Books can also be a valuable source of information, although they may be a tall order for a small business

Essential Features of Printed Media

Whatever printed medium you use, make sure it includes these basics:

  • Your name and business name should be clearly visible
  • Your website url – on a business card this will be your call to action
  • More than one way to contact you. You might prefer people to call you on your mobile.  If they are reading your documentation late at night they are more likely to choose email and not risk disturbing you by phone or forgetting to call you next day.  Don’t forget social media!
  • If necessary, a brief explanation of what you offer. Depends on space.
  • A call to action, which might normally be to visit your website and sign up for something. It could take the form of an invitation or opportunity to buy something.

The more you think of your printed media as an extension to your website, the better.  This should include branding, so that when someone transitions from paper to online, they know they have found the right place.  Bear in mind, it is better to provide a url that takes the contact to the right page on your website.  If you are making a particular offer, the url should take inquirers to a page about that offer.  Don’t offer them the home page and hope they can navigate to the correct page.  Also, you have to print out the url in full on printed media and so if the page is deeply embedded on your site, you may find the url is very long.  This increases mistakes either in your printed media or when the contact copies it into your browser.

Mistakes in Printed Media

Finally, mistakes …  Get your printed media proof-read.  You may be able to proof-read a business card on your own but anything else, at least ask a few people to read it and look out for errors.  There are professional proof-readers who will help you get everything correct.  Get people to copy any urls into browsers and check they work!  We’re used to the ease of correcting web pages and the full force of a disastrous error in printed media perhaps doesn’t occur to us until we experience it.

How have you experienced effective use of printed media?

In-Person Marketing: Shop-Fronts and Buildings

There are advantages to having shop-fronts or buildings but not always.  I have written about how buildings can be a liability for community groups.  Many of us have experienced arriving at a cold, dark community centre, sitting on uncomfortable chairs and wishing it was over and we were in the pub.

Well-run, comfortable centres can be an asset but it is hard work.

Shop-fronts can be an asset for businesses, especially those that specialise in products that can be carried away.  However, there are issues such as costs, security, theft, safety that need to be addressed.  However, my interest here is how shop-fronts and buildings can work as marketing tools.

Footfall

The key to any successful on-street business is footfall.  If plenty of people pass by, it is the equivalent of traffic for a website.  The way you lay out your shop, present your goods, resembles conversion.

Increasing footfall is something you can do with others.  Sales are mostly your responsibility.  So, how do you increase footfall and sales?

Collaboration with other traders or organisations can help you increase footfall near your shop-front or community centre.  Community centres can collaborate with local traders to bring people into the area. If it is clear about what it is offering, then it has a role to play in supporting local economic activity.

So, here are a few things to consider doing together.  Some of these activities may be possible alone, but usually they work better where there is collaboration.

  • Shared website promoting the local area.
  • Campaign for local amenities, eg public toilets
  • Support other businesses so they can collaborate. This might involve encouraging businesses likely to draw new people into the area.
  • Events such as an occasional street market. If there is a community centre in the area, events there may draw in new people.
  • Invest in local economic development initiatives, eg an app that helps people find local businesses that sell what they are looking for. This will work better if all the local businesses and organisations can join in.
  • Support initiatives such as local currencies.

Sales

Whilst nearby shops might direct customers to your shop, the sales you make are largely your responsibility.  Here are a few things to consider:

  • Window dressing may be an important way to draw people into your shop. Perhaps if you are a grocer most people will know what to expect but otherwise show them what you sell.  Special offers may entice people over the threshold and then they will see what else is on offer.
  • Think about how you build relationships with local customers. If you know what they like, they are likely to come back.  This sort of service can be radically different to the impersonal supermarket experience.  A fifteen minute conversation may mean a customer comes back for years, especially if you remember their preferences.
  • Ask customers to sign up to your email list. This might be a collective list for traders in your area or your own.  This will allow you to tell customers of special offers.
  • Consider a blog! This might not work for everyone but if you can find an angle, combined with an email list, you can publish valuable information.  For example, a food shop could publish recipes and stock the ingredients, a fashion shop could write about style, a jewellers could write about provenance and craft.  Remember lots of people are interested in how to make things and what goes on behind the scenes.

Note how you can introduce online approaches to support your in-store activities.  This is an effective way of using a website or social media, in support of what you are doing on the ground.

How have you promoted your business using a shop-front or building?

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