And no wonder, with everything else we have to juggle on a daily basis. Email becomes another source of frustration that we can’t ignore because we might miss an important message from a customer or supplier.

I know people who refuse to take vacation because they don’t want to tackle the piles of emails waiting for their return. Or they feel compelled to check email every day even on vacation – just in case.

Here’s a 3 step technique I use to tame the email monster:

1). Open your email application and create a new folder. Call it anything you want – OldMail, Pending, Defer etc. You only need to do this step once.

2). On a daily basis, quickly browse the subject and sender lines of your in-basket, however, don’t open any of them. Note any that Must be answered today. Use a very stringent criteria, such as only those from a customer, supplier or partner. Don’t be mislead by those that are labeled urgent. This is the sender’s priority, not yours.

3). Take all the emails that you didn’t select in step 2 and move them to your Pending folder.

You should now be left with a very small list of items which need an immediate response. Tackle those and feel the sense of relief and accomplishment that ensues. Close your email application and move on to the top priority project you’ve determined needs your attention today.

Finally, schedule a time to open your Pending folder, maybe twice a week to view those non-urgent emails. You may find that you can just delete them. Just like a newspaper, if it’s a couple of days old, it’s value is probably close to zero.

Technorati Tags: email, small business

A crowded diner and lines around the block is a good thing, right? In the case of episode 1 of Season 3 on Celebrity Apprentice it wasn’t enough to win the Food Fight challenge.

The challenge was to manage a New York diner for three hours. The team who collected the most money in food purchases and tips would win the challenge with the winnings going to charity. The “rock solid” men’s team chose a strategy of creating a high priced menu with a $100 truffle burger as it’s showcase. The ‘tenacity’ women’s team chose a strategy of lower priced $10 burgers to attract the average person off the street and supplementing that by inviting high rollers from their rolodex who would give them large tips.

At the beginning of the challenge, it looked like the women’s team would win because they had a line waiting at the door as soon as they opened. The men’s team on the other hand were scaring walk-in’s away with their high prices.

But as the challenge progressed, the women became more and more overwhelmed with the volume of customers. They couldn’t effectively execute their strategy and many of their high rollers were left waiting on the sidewalk unable to get in due to the large crowds.

The men on the other hand started attracting people from Wall St. and other customers with lots of discretionary funds who liked the prestige of being able to order a $100 burger. Their diner was busy but not overwhelmed and in the end, the men brought in twice as much money as the women and won the challenge.

There were two keys to the men’s success. First, they focused on the ultimate goal which was making the most money in a short period of time. The diner was only open for 3 hours.  The other key to their success was in emphasizing that the proceeds were going to charity and justifying the high prices based on that. Ultimately, it allowed their ideal clients to self-select themselves.

Each of us has to answer these critical questions as we develop our products  and services:

• Who is my ideal client and what will encourage them to take action and purchase my products?
• How do I plan to reach my revenue targets? Will I sell a few high priced products or many lower priced products?
• Do I have business processes which will  support my revenue model and allow me to handle my expected volume?

Whether you have a store front or are an expertise based business, if you haven’t thought through these questions, you may hear from your clients: “You’re Fired!”

In 43 years, a lot has changed in the way that football is played but even more so in the way that companies are spending their marketing dollars.The average cost for a 60 second spot is now $3M. Some companies, such as Pepsi Cola decided to pull out of the Super Bowl this year and spend their ad money on social media campaigns and other projects instead.

While I’m an advocate for social media marketing, there is still plenty of opportunity for traditional marketing channels such as print and TV. We have changed the way we watch television. We no longer sit and watch passively. We are browsing the web with our laptops and cell phones and posting comments in real time to Twitter and Face Book while we watch.

One very smart company, Homeaway.com seems to have figured that out. They combined the instant and widespread reach of a superbowl ad with an innovative social media strategy to extend the value of their spot and increase their return on investment.

The leader in online vacation rentals, Homeaway.com generated 1 million views to their website immediately following their ad which was based on National Lampoon’s Vacation movies.Visits to their web site continue to go up today and are currently tracking at 500% more than before the ad aired.

Homeaway.com did several things very well.

• They captured people’s interest with a funny ad which tapped into our common experiences of hotel stays gone horribly wrong.
• The timing of the ad was perfect because many people are starting to plan their spring and summer vacations.
• They tapped into an immediate  need for reliable and reasonably priced lodging and positioned themselves as the solution to that need.
• They combined the on air ad with a website campaign for consumers to share their stories of hotel horrors for the chance to win one of four $10,000 family vacations. They set up the campaign beautifully for widespread viral participation and sharing by inviting the public to vote on the worst stories.

We can incorporate these same strategies into our marketing plans regardless of the size of our budget. Let me know in the comments if you try any of these and how they work for you.

For more inspiration and examples check out the  Mashable blog which has a review of some other super bowl- social media strategies.

Technorati Tags: marketing, marketing strategy, social media, super bowl

In their example, they talk about a Mercedes dealer who provides loaner cars to their best clients but the loaner cars are Hondas. The customer is left wondering why they didn’t receive a Mercedes loaner. If they have a good experience with the loaner, they may start thinking that it might be OK to consider another brand. None of us wants to be in a position where we are highlighting the value of our competitor’s product, but that’s exactly what this dealer is doing.

Just think about this. Their best customers are also repeat customers. They have bought from this dealer in the past. Due to the economic environment today, they may be thinking of postponing that next purchase decision. What a perfect opportunity to provide them with a later model Mercedes loaner and some information that would entice them to say: ” I gotta get one of these!”.

We each have the risk in our own businesses of falling into the trap that this car dealer did. We ignore opportunities to put ourselves in our customer’s shoes and come up with new ways to entice and amaze them. This week, look at all of the ways that you touch your customers and identify at least one area where you are missing an opportunity to extend your brand or where you are sending a mixed message and correct it. You’ll be rewarded with more loyal customers.

Technorati Tags: brand definition, branding strategies

“With so many raisin bran choices, what does one smiling sun offer that generations have loved? Why, Two Scoops® of delicious raisins, of course!”

You know immediately what distinguishes them from their competition. They’ve chosen to call out a feature of their cereal that makes them unique from all the other cereal brands and is almost impossible to challenge. Notice they don’t say they are the best tasting. Maybe they are, but that claim can be easily attacked by their competitors.  They also don’t say that they’re the cheapest. They’re not interested in making a claim which could force them into a price war.

The other thing they do in these two simple sentences is to focus on the benefits of their brand to their customers. They’re letting customers know that they will provide not just a handful, but two big scoops and they reinforce that image right on the front of the box.

I challenge you to look at the marketing and advertising for your brand and see if they pass the tests of demonstrating an ‘obvious value’ to your customers and making it difficult for your competitors to challenge.

Technorati Tags: branding strategies

Now I’m energized to cross a few more things off of my action list in the next 99 days. One of those things is to build up readership in this blog. My previous blog was very successful with lots of readers, but the title and content no longer matched perfectly with the direction that I want to take my business brand. So I’m starting at ground zero again both with content and readership.

What do you plan to do before year end to raise the visibility and profitability of your brand? Here are few questions to start your thought process:

• Do you have a mission statement for your business?
• If so, does it link back to your life mission statement and your personal brand?
• Do you use social networking to establish yourself as an expert and generate leads?
• Do you have a marketing plan and is it up to date?

These are some basic, but often overlooked areas that every business should have. Remember that the new year will happen regardless of whether we take action or not. When you look back at 2009, what will your assessment be of the progress you made in defining and enhancing your brand?

Technorati Tags: branding strategies

After you create your mission statement, the next step is to tie it to your business brand. It will do you no good to create a wonderful mission statement and then sit in your office waiting for the phone to ring. You must actively brand yourself and pursue your prospective customers.

One of the first things I recommend in branding yourself is to create a tag line and use that tag line as much as possible. It’s a quick way to tell people what to expect from your brand. Add it to your email signature line. My email signature line says: Showing you how to rise above the competition. It reflects back to my overall brand and business name which is ClearWind.

You want to tell everybody you encounter and work it into the conversation during networking events. Pretty soon, people will start to remember you by your tag line. Use it when you’re in line at the post office, when you’re traveling, after church when you’re socializing and at parties. Every interaction with another person is an opportunity to publicize your brand.

The second way you can brand yourself is with your business card. Business cards are one of the easiest ways to showcase your brand. They’re very inexpensive and you can change them frequently or have multiple versions that focus on different aspects of your brand. The key to having a memorable business card is to let it reflect your personality. Go beyond the standard templates and add a photo or graphic that highlights your unique traits.

The third way to brand yourself is with a web site. I believe that in today’s environment of widespread social networking, everyone should have a personal web page. At minimum you should have a profile on one or more social networking sites. Why? So that you control your brand image. You probably don’t want the pictures of you at the family reunion to be the first thing that pops up when a potential client is performing an online search on your name.

Try these three techniques and let me know how you make out.

Technorati Tags: personal branding, social networking