GEEKNOTE: Marketer-In-Chief

GEEKNOTE:  One of the joys of owning a small business is that you get to wear quite a few hats.  At Gulfcoast Networking, I've always worn multiple hats.  One of those hats has been the marketing hat.  In spite of holding an MBA, marketing is NOT something that comes naturally and it has been one of the things I have struggled with. 

Over the past ten years, we've tried all sorts of things to get the word out about our business and what we do.  The fact that we were given a Bronze award for "Best Kept Secret" in last summer's Suncoast News "Best of the Suncoast" compeition says we've still got our work cut out for us.

Admittedly, I spent a considerable amount of time on city business the last six years.  Now that I've completed my term on city council, my primary focus at work is improving our marketing.  This is absolutely "Job 1" for 2013.

The first key to marketing is to figure out how to measure your results.  We ask how people found out about us.  Interestingly enough, the number one answer is "the phone book".   There are some excellent reasons why the phone book works for us when it doesn't do much for other businesses.  The most important reason is that it is hard to search for computer help online if your computer is broken. 

We went years without an effective yellow page ad.  A few years back, we found a combination of copy and placement that worked and we've stuck with it ever since.  As the old expression goes:  "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".

Other than the yellow pages, the paid advertising part of our marketing in the past has been a bust.  Newspaper and other ads just haven't seemed to motivate our target audience to pick up the phone and call or come in to visit us.

The second most common answer to the "How did you hear about us?" question is "our friend told us about you".  We try to encourage our customers to talk us up to their friends and we are working on some ideas to encourage more word of mouth referrals.  Referral networking is a variation on this theme.

Not quite two months ago, I wrote about referral networking.  My experience belonging to the West Pasco NPI chapter has been positive:  I have received enough referrals to cover the cost of my participation and, probably more importantly, I'm learning how to comfortably promote my business in a small group setting.  Staring into the lens of a TV camera or speaking in front of hundreds of sometimes angry people isn't nearly as intimidating as making a sales pitch to an individual or a small group.  If you could use some help honing your elevator pitch and getting comfortable making sales presentations in front of groups, then you might benefit from joining our group.

Now that I've got a little more free time, I'm getting more involved in the West Pasco Chamber again.  I'm looking at my participation now from more of a marketing point of view than I did previously.

A distant third answer in response to the question about how people found us is "the Internet".  I've been making a concerted effort to make this a better source of new customers.

I've been writing for the New Port Richey Patch for the last couple of years.  I make a point of avoiding any hard sales pitches here, but I certainly hope that you will be comfortable enough after reading my articles each week to contact me when you have a computer problem or need help with your office network. 

You can find all my GEEKNOTES here on the New Port Richey Patch website.  I've tried encouraging others to consider blogging on Patch, but so far none of them have gotten up the courage to contact Alex.  It has been a learning experience and a lot of fun.  I HIGHLY recommend it.

I've also spent a considerable amount of time working on our company websites (there are two Gulfcoast sites, three if you count the old one that will be retired shortly).

I have been learning the ins and outs of social media. I am more or less active in several facebook and Linkedin groups.  Some of the groups provide excellent examples of how NOT to do things.  One facebook group in particular appears to be composed of nothing but self serving advertisements.  The group is disappointing because it could be so much better if it weren't always full of advertising pitches by folks I know nothing about.  Like most people, I prefer to do business with others that I have gotten to know.  Fortunately, other groups have a higher signal to noise ratio and I find myself looking forward to some of the discussions.  I expecially look forward to hearing from several of the individuals who are active in these latter groups and I've signed up for some of their email lists.

My twitter involvement remains a work in progress.  Interestingly enough, I seem to be further along than some much larger companies who ignore twitter.  You can learn quite a bit about a company's customer focus be mentioning them on twitter.  FedEx is a great example of a company that has done an excellent job incorporating twitter into their customer service operation.

I have never believed any of the claims that you can make millions overnight with little or no effort by using the Internet.  It simply isn't true.  If you want a quality Internet presence for your company, you are going to have to invest quite a bit of time and effort into it, or you are going to have to pay someone to do it for you.  You can't just toss up a $5.95 a month cookie cutter website with canned text and expect results.  Actually, you can.  The results will be disappointing.

What new marketing approaches will we have this year?  <grin>  You will just have to wait and see.  I promise you won't have to wait too long.

In the mean time, you can follow Gulfcoast Networking on facebook and me on twitter.  You can also sign up for periodic emails that will, among other things, let you know when I've published a new GEEKNOTE here.

What are you doing to market your company?  Feel free to post a comment here and share.

What do you look for before deciding to do business with a company?  How do you find them?  Please post your thoughts in the comments section.

As always, feel free to drop me a note or give me a call (847-2424) if you have any questions about your computer or the Internet.

Rob Marlowe, Senior Geek
Gulfcoast Networking, Inc.
http://www.gulfcoastnetworking.com