By Elizabeth (Bette) Frick | Fellow
This column explores the joys and challenges of managing your own technical communication business. Please share your experience and ideas. Contact Bette Frick at efrick@textdoctor.com.
In my last two columns, we covered the first twelve blocks on the Marketing Bingo card, available at www.textdoctor.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Marketing-Bingo2.pdf. In those columns, I argued that independents would benefit from a coherent marketing plan and that Marketing Bingo can provide twenty-five tactics to use in your plan. In this column, we will cover tactics 13 through 18 (cold calls, targeting industry sectors, joining industry groups, offering coupons or discounts, underwriting, and podcasts/webcasts/blogs).
13. Cold Calls
Cold calls are like gardening; you have to plant seeds and nurture them before you get any crops. Cold calls have been very productive for me. I don’t like to make cold calls, but I recognize their value as a marketing tactic.
I define a cold call as any experience of picking up the phone to call a stranger to pitch your services. It differs from “warm” calls where you offer the name of someone else as your lead: “Hello, Mary, I was given your name by Joe Schmoe, and….”
“But I hate to make cold calls,” you say, and your fear is evident. As with most fears, it helps to make a plan to walk through the fear:
- Define your objective. (“I need to place X number of cold calls to locate X number of new clients to bring in X amount of new business in X time frame.”)
- Build a list of X targeted clients using databases, phone books, library research, your local business journal, and newspapers (see tactic 14 below).
- Define the steps in the process:
- Place your first call (speak directly or leave a message).
- Mail some marketing literature.
- Place a follow-up call (speak directly or leave a message).
- Repeat steps a through c for each potential new client.
- Schedule rewards for having placed X number of calls (order a new book online, get a latte at your favorite coffee shop, spend an hour not marketing).
If you choose not to use the tactic of cold calls, don’t fret—you have 24 other Marketing Bingo tactics to use. Remember, however, that cold calls can be productive in generating business faster than networking or merely sitting in your office hoping someone will call you.
14. Target Industry Sectors
This marketing tactic is complex but rewarding! Consider what would have happened to your business in this last recession if you had had only clients in the construction industry. You’d probably have watched your business dry up.
Diversification to spread risk is just as important for independents as it is for investments. If you have one client who engages your services, you are in a very risky position. If you have several clients in the same industry sector, you are still in a very risky position. Instead, if you had a few clients in each of the GICS (Global Industry Classification Standard) or NAICS (North American Industry Classification System) sectors, you’d be fairly certain to still have clients when the next bubble bursts.
15. Join Industry Groups
I know you already belong to professional groups such as STC where you learn more about your art, craft, and profession, and that’s a good thing! But to be a good marketer of yourself, you must join groups where you will constantly bump into potential clients. Find target groups, attend a few meetings before you join, and then begin to volunteer to gain the maximum visibility and more business!
16. Offer Coupons and Discounts
I love coupons: They are scattered through my purse and over my office desk. Half of these coupons expire before I can use them, but I love them anyway.
How could you use coupons and discounts in your independent business?
- Introduce a new service or product line
- Reward clients for their loyalty and business
- Effectively lower your rates for a limited time during a downturn or recession
Not everyone will use your coupon, just as I inadvertently let coupons from my favorite stores expire. But those who do use your coupons will be very happy, and so will you.
17. Underwrite or Sponsor Events
You don’t have to be a huge corporation to underwrite events. For example, you might underwrite an STC dinner (or buy the desserts) and bask in the recognition.
Be creative. Where could you invest a few dollars to get a lot of recognition? Try it once or twice and then track your results. If you get a “BINGO” client or contract or purchase from this tactic, try it again. If you get nothing, don’t give up. Try another organization, or just wait patiently. Marketing results don’t happen overnight.
18. Podcasts, Webcasts, Blogs
Technology-delivered marketing, if done well, will reflect well on you. Podcasts and webcasts can showcase your technical knowledge. I use two vendors for my webcasts and webinars:
- Eventbrite is the vendor I use as a registration tool. After a bit of a learning curve, the system is easy to use and the registration fee is minimal for a seamless registration system.
- Citrix GoToMeeting is easy to use for delivering simple and stable webcasts. I’ve used all the other major providers and they all have their benefits (and extra costs), but GoToMeeting and GoToWebinar are wonderfully easy and the least expensive of all the services.
Nearly all webinar providers offer a free introductory month. Try all of them, and you’ll quickly see which one meets your needs best. Once you select a system, keep working to learn its features until they become automatic.
Try recording your webcasts and review them after the broadcast. If you can, get someone to give you feedback on your technique and skill. You can always get better!
Marketing professionals who sell their services tout the benefits of writing blogs. They may be right that blogs create business for businesses, but I think that may be truer for a business that has a dedicated marketing person or department.
I was a slow adopter of blogging. For one thing, blogs seemed so, well, narcissistic. Once I realized that I could do all my prewriting for articles and newsletters and even books in one place and not have to search my computer (where is that article), I became a blogger. It is easier than I thought!
In fact, I did all the prewriting for these Intercom articles on my blog, five blogs a week for five weeks. It was great discipline, and it seemed easier to write the blog than to write in a paper journal. In addition, I became more conscious of you, my reader, when I was blogging. Finally, I got feedback from wonderful readers and search-engine optimization at the same time (search engines love new content).
I use WordPress integrated into my website, but there are many different platforms (most free for the simplest version). Check with friends and colleagues to see who recommends what platform. Sign up on RSS (Really Simple Syndication) to follow the blogs of your colleagues and make comments when appropriate (this affects your SEO, too).
I know I’ll never make any money as a blogger, but that’s not my goal; instead, I hope to find some steady readers and generate all the text I need for my articles, books, and newsletters. Read a really great blog by a fellow STC member, Tom Johnson, at www.idratherbewriting.com.
In part 4 of this series (the home stretch), you will learn more about the last seven Marketing Bingo tactics: write articles; volunteer in industry groups; network and give and get referrals; attend trade shows; be elected leader of an industry group; offer free consultations; give presentations; and get awards and other recognition for your work.
Yes, marketing IS a lot of hard work. But then, so is starvation, and not nearly as much fun as playing Bingo. And if you are still afraid of failing at any tactic, remember the words of Samuel Beckett, which should inspire all marketers: “Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
Elizabeth (Bette) Frick, the Text Doctor (efrick@textdoctor.com), teaches technical and business writing in companies and organizations nationally and edits medical documents. She holds a PhD in English from the University of Minnesota and is board-certified as a medical editor by the Board of Editors in the Life Sciences.
