Beyond Big Marketing» small business marketing

It is not illegal to have an entertaining website

Mark Cramer — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 14:42:39 +0000

As a marketing agency in Chicago, we work for all sorts of clients. The main goal is to make them profitable. But it’s OK to have some fun along the way.Bouse House is in the portable toilet business. There I said it. If you live in the Cape, Islands and Southern Massachusetts you already know of them. They are smart clients and are in a competitive area.

The products are not complicated to understand. You see, you go, you move on. What’s interesting about these are that they are usually at some of the most fun places you can imagine; Weddings, Concerts, Marathons, anywhere you want to go. So Beyond Big Marketing decided to brand “Portable Toilets in Massachusetts” As Bouse Houses. Kind of like the Klennex of Facial tissue.

Will there be Bus signage and billboards for Bouse Houses? Who Knows? But if you are in the cape and the urge strikes you. You might want to say. “Keep your eyes open for a Bouse House.”

If you are looking for a creative marketing agency in Chicago, You might want to say. “Keep your eyes open for Beyond Big Marketing.”

Old School social media works wonders today.

Mark Cramer — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 02:18:06 +0000

Social media isn’t new, we’ve just forgotten just how effective it can be. Here’s an example my Wife shared with me.

Grandma’s Direct Mail Program

Throughout the 1960′s and into the 70′s, my dear grandparents owned and operated a resort on a small, quiet lake in northern Minnesota. Grandma and Grampa were thirty-six miles from the nearest town, and only came into town once a week to stock up on groceries and resort supplies such as fishing bait and licenses, pop and candy bars.

The name of their rustic establishment in the middle of nowhere was the Frontier Resort, and they kept seven cabins full of guests from mid-May until Labor Day weekend every summer for nearly twenty years. Surprisingly enough, nearly one third of their returning guests were from the Chicago area, 616 miles from the Frontier.

How did people eleven hours away find this quaint wilderness sanctuary where walleyes would practically jump into your boat, and sunfish were plentiful for the kids?

Here’s Grandma’s secret to success: handwritten responses to the leads she got from the local Chamber of Commerce.

Every week she would receive in the mail a list of possible guests – people who had contacted the Chamber of Commerce and had specified what they were looking for in a vacation stay near Bemidji. She would sit down immediately and qualify her leads with either a big X over the lead or numbering down the side of the page all of the potentially good prospects.

Then together we would stuff envelopes with her brochure and a short note – a personal invitation to visit the Frontier Resort on beautiful Balm Lake. She could have typed the addresses on the envelopes – they had a really fine Underwood and that would have looked pretty slick and professional. But with her perfect old school handwriting, she would carefully address the envelopes. And I’d lick and stick the stamps.

It was a different time. A time for good penmanship, personal notes and invitations. Her weekly direct mailings would be approximately twenty letters to people who had never been to her resort, but who had simply expressed an interest in her geographic region.

I would say that her response rate was incredibly high – she’d answer her phone with “Good afternoon. Frontier Resort.” always assuming that if her phone rang (on a party line, by the way!), somebody must want to make a reservation. She was usually correct in that assumption!

Marketing success is still measured by reservations booked, sales closed, leads converted, or profits maximized with expenses minimized. But Grandma’s success was based on her passion to make a resort vacation a personal, one-of-a-kind experience for her guests. She always made it a memorable one, starting with the initial contact, the invitation to the Frontier.

What’s your marketing passion? Contact Beyond Big Marketing and find out how to build your brand, one customer at a time.

(All photos ripped from Google images. Thanks!)

Beyond Big Marketing launches a new website for Griffith Airport

Mark Cramer — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 17:19:15 +0000

This Indiana airport is keeping our Chicago-based marketing agency on our toes. This is the third website we’ve created for them in the last six months and it makes navigating around Griffith airport easier than ever. Based on strategies from Google’s wdyl beta site, everything you need to find is at your fingertips. Get directions to the airport, search airport weather, destination weather, flight status, airport news and additional airport services. It’s easy and fun to use. If you are into customer satisfaction 2.0 contact Beyond Big Marketing and let us make your customers happy too. What’s next … look for the first dual website launch from Beyond Big Marketing next week. We will be launching a traditional website plus a unique mobile website for one of our newest clients. If you only have one of these, who are you missing?

Spoiler Alert!!!!!!! Griffith Airport Now has a Mobile version of their web site. check out this …

What do you love?

Are social media high school antics right for your marketing mix?

Mark Cramer — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 18:49:02 +0000

We like everybody!

Will you go to the prom with me?

Do you remember when you were in high school and people would ask you to vote for them for this or that? Or would you “like” me or “follow” me? Social media marketing often includes a mixture of democratic content and manufactured popularity. How can you provide what your customers need and also satisfy the new ranking factors of the search engines?

There’s an interesting image from search engine land that might help you keep good chemistry on your website. If you are looking for a good marketing match with your company, give us a call.

This Chicago Marketing Agency launches a great new website for a Wisconsin Bike Rental Company.

Mark Cramer — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 19:18:02 +0000

Take a look at www.zuzupedals.com.

Can you Zu Zu?

ZuZu Pedals is a great website for a great new company in Port Washington. Ride along the lake front on a cool rented cruiser or stop in for a yoga class or a cool t-shirt. But make sure to stop in for sure!

This small business web site features eCommerce, scheduling and an easy to change content interface. And it didn’t break the bank. This website design has everything you need to start up a new business or grow an existing one. Brick and mortar or exclusively online, Beyond Big Marketing will help your business succeed in Chicago and beyond.

Chicago marketing agency is teaming up with Chicago Photographer to offer marketing packages to small and medium sized local businesses

Mark Cramer — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 15:01:27 +0000

Image is everything

Why is this Chicago marketing agency and Chicago photographer offering marketing packages to small and medium sized local businesses?

There is a greater need to promote a professional and quality image online now more than ever before.

Beyond Big Marketing and Bart Harris Photography have bundled a unique marketing package that is an ideal “Phase I” package. Our small business solution package handles your startup marketing, branding and photography needs.

Bart Harris Photography (773) 975- 0070

Beyond Big Marketing (312) 437-4332

This Chicago marketing company is stealing their client’s ideas

Mark Cramer — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 13:11:03 +0000

Visit www.cranecomposites.com

Well that’s not exactly true. Beyond Big Marketing recently teamed up with Crane Composites to make their website dream, a reality. Their website was well thought out and well designed. The problem was, like many large companies, the site needed to function in IE6 along with most current browsers. The site was ready for development but needed expert coding and trouble shooting to make the website concept come to life. Taking existing files and making them compatible and functional is often more difficult than constructing the files from scratch. (which is exactly what we ended up doing) But solid communication and attention to detail helped us deliver this project on time, on target and on budget. The client remarked. “Beyond Big Marketing is great- all went well and we are up with new website now! Thank you again, the site is fabulous!” All we can say is … Thank you Mindy. Look for an innovative on site SEO strategy for Crane Composites in the coming month.

Facebook or Google | What Paid Search platform is best for your Chicago business?

Mark Cramer — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 02:56:39 +0000

Paid Placement programs are the microwaves of the Internet. Google Adwords can literally thrust your website to the front of the search engines. Google provides you with a captive audience and displays a list of their selected advertisements on the top of their search page. These ads link directly to your website or landing page immediately guaranteeing a focused audience. This is totally text based paid search. The revenue model of choice is CPC. You bid on what you want to pay for a visitor.

Facebook on the other hand, offers you paid search with a banner. You can add an image to your ad. Another big difference is that Facebook allows you to select user profiles and demographics. You have the choice of either selecting CPC or CPM (cost per thousand viewers).

Both of these paid search models allow you to turn on and off your ads with the click of a button. You are also able to modify your ad content to change your audience mix. Both of them also give you transparent tracking models so you can manage your spend online and track your conversion rates. They both can be targeted geographically as well.

I have a small marketing business and rely on organic marketing but, I am considering using both Facebook ads and Google Adwords. This will be a split test and my guess is that I will be happy using both of them to generate leads. The reason that I think both will have their advantages is, even though very similar in revenue models and account management, both attract different types of customers.

Google Adwords will attract immediate buyers who are more immediate in the purchase cycle. The competition will be higher for these customers but they are ready buyers. Facebook ads visitors on the other hand, are not actively seeking your services. You have to create a value proposition that is different than those you might offer an Adwords customer. The good news is that your competition is not ad great. These people only now decided that they needed you.

The real beauty of both of these services is that they are like marketing taxicabs. The meter is running and you can get out wherever you want. These are ideal ways to get customers to your business. I am going to test my website with these similar marketing channels once my website is completed. Leave a comment and I will respond.

Use the 5 phases of listening to make your customers happy

Mark Cramer — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 01:07:01 +0000

Your customers are your lifeblood. A happy customer is a repeat customer. Are you taking the time to listen to what they say? Barriers to listening can be a lack of focus or as I like to call multitasking.

I am also sometimes guilty of reading emails while listening to phone messages or worse yet, during a phone conversation. This almost always results in a long pause in the conversation and then me apologizing for not listening and that is insulting.

Actual verbal communication is becoming so rare lately that I am going to make a vow to drop everything I am doing to listen and not just hear what my customers are saying. You should schedule a more appropriate time to meet if I don’t have time to properly execute the five phases of listening.
1.    Receiving
2.    Understanding
3.    Remembering
4.    Evaluating
5.    Responding

Finally sometimes I am guilty of premature judgment. I believe that I know what someone is going to say after the first few words and stop listening and try to prepare an appropriate answer. This is a habit that is difficult to break.

Communication breaks down when you don’t even take the time to listen to what others are saying. If I take the time to actually listen and summarize the information when responding everyone in the discussion will be able to see that I: understand the message, am keeping an open mind and that my questions reflect my understanding of the speaker’s meaning.

If you are looking for a marketing company that will listen and not just hear you … contact us.

3 reasons why more small companies may be leaning towards an Intranet solution

Mark Cramer — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 16:46:31 +0000

One of the nice things about owning a small business is you can respond quickly, effectively and personally. But as you grow, it is impossible for effective communication to be handled only in this manner.

Often an Intranet is a good solution to keep people connected. Your company’s information can be secured behind a firewall and access can be provided in a variety of levels of security.
Information distribution is a daunting task for companies with thousands of employees but now it is starting to make sense for smaller companies as well.
3 reasons why more companies may be leaning towards an Intranet solution
Communication suffers when dealing with more than one person

Unfiltered communications in informal company settings lead to confusion. If you add individuals who travel frequently or employees telecommuting communication is further diluted and misconstrued. An Intranet can enhance communication through message boards, instant messaging and moderated chats. Using these tools to collaborate before scheduled meetings allows for democratic contributions and more focused meetings.

A single source for relevant content saves time and money
There is no better way to distribute time-sensitive information, scheduling information, policies, benefits etc. A single source of information combined with a company knowledge base arms each employee with all of the tools they need to succeed.

Email has its limitations
Email is a horrible way to manage projects. Imagine your team is working on a single proposal and each of you has an individual task. The project manager emails the proposal out t each person on the team. Keeping track of the most current document would be much easier if the master was on the Intranet. Scheduling and deliverable responsibilities would also be more effectively managed. Remote contributors to projects and project leaders could also manage projects and people more effectively.

Bite the bullet and get started
It’s not that expensive. Some packages, such as Instant Intranet Builder, use Microsoft Access as the core database and can cost as little as $5 per month per user.
Before you set up an intranet, set goals. Understand how employees will use it and adhere to good design principles.
You need to designate someone who owns the content and you will need to train your employees on how to use it. Once your company’s Intranet is up and running, the ROI will be significant and it will be measurable. If you need help setting up your intranet, find a marketing agency that understands and is willing to help.

Komando, Kim (2008). Why your business needs an Intranet, Small companies can act quickly. Retrieved November 14, 2008, from http://www.microsoft.com Web site: http://www.microsoft.com/canada/smallbiz/issues/running/streamline/intranet.mspx