So yesterday I was again asked to defend this statement which sort of goes against all that is holy in the world of sales and advertising.
Unless you are selling a product or service that is entirely unique, and you have no competition in the market, your message of how great your product or service is will always be overshadowed by those that are Kings of Delivery.

Kings of Delivery

Kings of Delivery

Those that are able to identify the medium from which their products or services will be best sold from, inherently win the day regardless of their marketing budget. These entrepreneurs my friends are called Kings of Delivery. YOU want to be a King of Delivery too. These sultans of selectivity have determined which medium to advertise in, whether it be a particular newspaper, TV commercial, radio or Internet advertisement. They have also ensured that their medium is not compromised by the competition. They do this by going hyper-local. If you decide that you get your best return on investment from newspaper advertising for instance, and your competition is also advertising there, you should move your ads from the large market metro publication to the small market publications in the City or Township. While the royal advertising net may be smaller, these rulers of the rational find a greater return on their marketing investment here. This move to hyper-local advertising is not something new, just something protected by those who wield it’s power.

Awesome Results

Have you ever tried to figure out how wide-market advertising works? Spending large sums of cash to reach tens of thousands of consumers and then returning fractional results many times not equaling the initial advertising  investment. The pain you feel comes from two things folks. Not Knowing.. and Cash Investment. Smaller market advertising allows you to take the pain from your advertising efforts providing you with measurable results (that allow you to KNOW) and smaller marketing budgets (reducing the size of your cash investments) You’ll be able to then sleep soundly at night knowing that your advertisements are working, and that you can make payroll next month. So how do you accomplish Awesome Results? Well you have to play the field. Catering to smaller networks of consumers allows you to recognize the results of your advertising efforts however your business may rely on quantity of sales to move the needle forward. That’s when you start to involve “multi-modal” advertising. **Yes, another new word from Bash Foo.

Multi-modal Advertising

Consider what the demographic of your key customer is.

Are they wealthy or poor? Where do they live? Where do they worship? Where are they buying groceries? Where do they go for fun? From there you need to extrapolate all of the various niche advertising opportunities are. The church bulletin? Pee-wee baseball jerseys? Sidewalk art? Bus stop billboards? Books of matches? The opportunities are endless and advertising in multiple modes (print, direct mail, lit, signs, etc.) focused on your key customer demographic helps to ensure that those you want seeing your advertising.. Do.

You also accomplish something else with this technique, you stop wasting your time, effort and resources on advertising to those who WON’T buy your product or service.

Consternation Free Advertising

Bash Foo really works to provide small businesses with “consternation free” advertising. We don’t want our clients investing in things that don’t have a remote chance of success. We even waive off those who request that sort of advertising tomfoolery. Only you know what is best for your company, while we know what sorts of marketing efforts will benefit your company. If you are advertising with us, and have anxiety or fear about the dollars you are investing in your marketing campaign, we are doing something wrong. Again, you are either not receiving measurable results, or your campaign expenses are larger than you desire. If you find  yourself in this scenario, give us a call to find out how you can invest in “consternation free” advertising and lose that worried look on your face. Call: 937-573-8535 for a free analysis.

Small business owners often know what they want.

Some owners would like to summon more customers into their store, others would like to close more lucrative deals, still others hope that their web site would convert more visitors into buyers.

All of these wants are completely valid. The selfish motivation of these business owners is the energy that drives the gears of  our economy. But what about the grease?

Earlier today a friend of mine mentioned the age-old adage “it is the squeaky wheel – that gets the grease”. While he was busily running past his analogy and on to another subject, in my mind I was constructing some thoughts that were entirely different. So what is this grease that you speak of? Well.. let’s check the Bash Foo Dictionary::

Grease: n [griːs] is the set of decisions, procedures and actions (or non-actions) that we take to make our business more available and more attractive in order to increase the volume or velocity of cash flow.

- from the Unabridged Dictionary of Bash Foo

While you might contend that this is not the true definition of the word, you probably are nodding that it makes sense. Often company owners are left clueless as to why their sales or marketing people take any of the actions they do as they all seem tangential to cash flow. So, why can’t marketing folks just work on projects that involve grease? If I knew that, I’d have to kill you. No really… I would have to kill you.

Successful businesses in the 1950′s and even today have one single thing in common.

They have identified the action or combination of actions to take that increase the volume or velocity of cash flow. For instance, WalMart is successful thanks to being ever present, always having what you need in stock and ensuring that they receive the lowest price from their suppliers. WalMart’s financial statements bear out that WalMart does a terrible job of increasing the volume of their cash flow, however their velocity of cash flow (items of small margin but with large quantity) is unmatched. Nike on the other hand does a fantastic job of taking a shoe that costs maybe $8US to produce and selling it to us for $129US. They are masters of cash flow volume however they are not even sold where cash flow velocity (WalMart) is king.

Those businesses that have identified what the “grease” is for their product or service won’t ever share with you what the formula is for their success. They may hint at it or provide a shotgun description of their process but they will never reveal it. The great thing about grease, is that it is very simple to manufacture, is available from a variety of sources and only requires someone with a relentless desire to succeed to find it.

Help! This sounds interesting but..

Back to the definition… The actionable items in the definition of grease is “making our business more available and more attractive”. Consider the first adjective.. Available. WalMart is a good example of a company that makes their goods readily available to consumers.. everywhere. If you recall, they are the masters of Velocity. Now.. Consider those businesses that make their products most attractive. Ethan Allen Furniture, Gucci Handbags, Diamond Jewelry. All of these items, while magnificent to look at, come at a high price (and large margin) and these companies all are kings of cash flow Volume.

Take Action!

What if your company is currently struggling with cash flow? While I cannot provide you with the formula for success of your business, I can suggest that you take steps to modify your cash flow Volume or Velocity through changes to how you market the Availability and Attractiveness of your products or services.

HIGH MARGIN, LOW VELOCITY

If your margins per sale are high, but your # of sales each day are low.. consider increasing the Availability of your products. Are they catalog-only sales? Do you have enough on hand to meet every request? Can you demonstrate that better to the consumer? If it is a catalog sale, can you deliver it in 7 days or does it have to take 14 days? (I love seeing a single handbag on a pedestal at Coach.. It may be the only one they have in the store!) The last change that I suggest would be to lower your prices to make your products and services more Available to a larger group of consumers. While it is one way to do it, it may be unsustainable in the long haul as it could cause your brand leadership to fail. If else all fails however… reductions in price will increase Availability.

LOW MARGIN, HIGH VELOCITY

If your products and services are flying off the shelf because you found a way to make them available to every possible consumer out there, you are raking the cash in.. one penny at a time. If you struggle with a situation like this, consider making the products and services you sell more Attractive. Watch how Proctor and Gamble deal with the hundreds of toothpastes on the market. They have saturated the market with brand after brand and have shot themselves in the foot by doing so. Now, their marketing tactic to combat the $1.75 tube of toothpaste that works just fine is to come out with an ELITE toothpaste, one that 11 out of 10 dentists recommend. One that will make your teeth whiter just by bringing the tube in close proximity to your mouth. For this.. they can charge $14.99 a tube. Now every $1.75 tube will have to compete with their new premium pasty elixir for the mouth. You too can help out your measly margins by making your product more attractive, strategically highlighting its advantages or demonstrating it in a unique way that makes people take pause. (a construction worker super-gluing his hardhat to a steel beam is one good example)

Good luck with it. And if you find your grease.. Drop me a line and share your story.

Blogging is an extremely popular social media technique in use today, and almost any niche on the Web has a vibrant blogger community developing around it. Your niche blogs can be one of the best public relations and advertising platforms you can find for your website. Third party blogging helps your business in many ways.

Build trust with your potential customers

• Publicity in the ‘blogosphere’ is essential for building trust with your potential customers. The more positive reviews and endorsements of your business people see online, the more they trust you and your company

Generate traffic to your website

• Getting traffic to your website from the blogs that talk about your company is one of the natural outcomes of your blog marketing campaign
• We find you visitors who already have an affinity for your products and services and serve tehm up to you

Get through to your target audience

• The power of niche blogs is in their very solid readership. You can get your message through to thousands of blog readers that are potentially interested in becoming your customers

Generate buzz about your company

• Getting your company name mentioned on blogs over and over again creates a buzz around your business.
• It helps you win the attention of some industry experts who can then endorse your company and recommend it to people

Improve your search engine rankings

• Like many other online public relation activities, third-party blogging helps you score valuable in-content links to your site, and consequently, improves your positions in search engines

 

Bash Foo will help you develop a successful blog marketing strategy, get connected with your blogger community, create unique and inspiring content, and promote your website on your niche blogs.

Press release marketing can be very effective for generating publicity and attracting public attention to your business. We can help you write and distribute your press releases to the major online news media outlets, including Google News, Yahoo! News, Topix.Net, PR.WEB and smaller industry-specific media, blogs and RSS groups.

Reach major & industry specific online media outlets

• Reach the most popular online media outlets with your press release. Pick local or industry-specific media and we will send your press release there

Generate publicity and improve brand recognition

• Use your press releases to communicate important events that your company is involved with and attract public attention to your brand

Generate massive traffic from local, regional or national news media

• Get your press release published in the most visited news media and provide active links for people to get to your website.

Increase link popularity and search engine rankings

Press release marketing is most effective when combined with other online marketing techniques, such as Article marketing, PPC, and SEO.

Gain hundreds of new links to your website and improve your standings in the organic search results of search engines

OK, I thought I would never do it.. In fact I have taught those in my marketing classes that you shouldn’t have to separate your business and personal persona’s online. This evening I created a business Twitter account @bashfoo separate from my personal twitter account @Delta40 (which has over 3,500 followers)

After some recent conversations with peers and some detailed analysis of online conversations (particularly ones on Twitter) I have identified a couple of reasons why separating your personal and business personas may be a good thing. (and they are not the reasons you would think)

1. Number and Frequency of Messages. A funny thing occurs for people with 100 followers that does not occur for those that have many thousands. If you are a frequent tweeter, you may add updates to a followers queue faster than they are willing to accept them. While I usually tweet 20-25 messages a day, they cover a myriad of themes and topics. Even if the topics are varied, all of my low count followers get inundated with updates from … well mainly from me. Separating personal from business messaging theoretically cuts my number and frequency in half. A smart choice.

2. High Expectations. Those that expect to hear my funny quips and business conversation have also had to endure my political rants, family goofing-around and local sports and entertainment news. While these conversations are all 100% genuine, they do not serve to baseline expectations for an audience. And unlike #1, this is not an issue about “Too Much Information”, this is all about “Staying on Target”.

3. Conversational Depth. I have always been hesitant to dip too deeply into complex marketing topics, business strategies or client profiling with my wide array of personal followers. Really, they don’t care and could very easily start tuning me out and then blocking my stream.

Therefore, learning from these shortcomings, I have decided to crack open another Twitter account to converse on business topics and retain my primary account to handle all my “eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich” updates. Fans of @Delta40 will continue to receive my frequent and fun conversations. Fans of my company, Bash Foo Social Media will get treated to a much deeper conversation to help progress their business or their “social life”.

When you choose Email Marketing with Bash Foo you gain the strength of Constant Contact®, the easy, effective, and highly affordable way to get your message out to your customers, clients, or members. Bash Foo provides Email Marketing services from a very affordable self-serve option all the way to fully managed solutions. You’ll quickly begin creating high-impact, professional-looking emails — with no technical expertise. And, most importantly, you’ll build strong connections with your audience that lead to referrals, repeat business and loyalty.

With Email Marketing from Bash Foo and powered by Constant Contact®, you can:

* Choose from more than 300 easily customized email templates—or create your own from scratch.
* Create highly visual, professional-looking email newsletters and promotions in just minutes.
* Drive more traffic to your website with focused, targeted email communications.
* Build and manage your email list: import existing customer lists, add names individually, or capture contact information from website visitors.
* Measure your email campaign results instantly-check click-through rates, review new subscribers, and see who opened and clicked on each link so you can tailor your follow-up communications.
* Send automated communications to new sign-ups via an auto-responder tool.
* Communicate with your audience with confidence, knowing that Constant Contact® will take care of getting your email delivered and keep you CAN-SPAM compliant.

Discover how the power of Email Marketing services from Bash Foo can help you better connect with your customers, strengthen your relationships with them, and grow your organization.

Bash Foo provides a number of email marketing services for its customers, from self serve to fully managed options. Call us today! +1 (478) 227-4366

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Search is a bit of a confusing business for many marketing professionals. Site rankings are based on both analytic and arbitrary site information. Much of what search engines look at today is the value of the content you put on your site in comparison to what others are offering up.

Site navigation, key words, key phrases, image weight, page load speed, site age, inbound and outbound links and amount of value-added content (video or application) can all either benefit or hamper your site rank. We understand the “alphabet soup” of it all and are skilled at finding the right combination to add your site rank relevance and be found.

Example: A client of ours was looking to build their page two results into page one results. As you may know, page one Google results can bring tens of thousands if not millions of additional views of your site. We were able to drive keywords to page one through analysis of the current results along with a strategic campaign to build keyword and key phrase relevance resulting in additional sales for our client.

Want to improve your search results so more people can find you more times? Bash Foo has earned it’s position as site optimization experts in the Dayton market through a strong commitment to ensure that the dollars you earn as a result of our search engine optimization efforts far exceed the amount you invest.

The health and profitability of your company is our #1 concern

mike@bashfoo.org

Bash Foo provides its clients with a serious (yet fun) look at marketing their brand to clients across the web. We are experienced in programming  local micro-targeted campaigns to massive web marketing initiatives.

Here are just a few of the areas of expertise we use to build your brand relevance:

E-Mail Marketing  – Promote your business, boost sales, engage your audience, and reach out to your potential customers with newsletters, special offers, surveys and event management. Bash Foo has teamed up with market leader Constant Contact to deliver affordable and effective email marketing campaigns. Don’t underestimate the continued power of email messaging to drive sales for you.

Press Release Management. No matter how big or small your company is, we can help you write and distribute your press releases to the major online news media outlets, including Google News, Yahoo! News, Topix.Net, PR.WEB and smaller industry-specific media, blogs and RSS groups.

Third Party Blogging. Blogging is extremely popular today, and almost any niche on the Web has a vibrant blogger community developing around it. Blog sites built around your niche products and services are one of the best public relations and advertising platforms you can find for your website. Third party blogging helps your business in many ways.

Media Buyer. Are you interested in buying up advertising in website, search engines, social media, radio and television? Have you ever tried to use Google AdWords and become totally confused as to how it works and worried that you will waste your precious marketing dollars? We make the purchase decisions simple and streamlined. Bash Foo also works to negotiate the best prices for you and combine the multiple efforts into a coordinated sales campaign for your brand(s).

The best way to show potential clients true business value is to provide a clear demonstration of benefits from the use of strategic web marketing. Most everyone I meet with understands that the Internet can be a very powerful way to market their goods and services, however many have tried and failed to attract interested customers to their website(s) and quit focusing on web marketing.

Here are a few current projects that I am engaging in:

The Get Social! Radio Show

My very first business was a small DJ company in Oxford, Ohio. I “spun vinyl” at local dances, weddings and parties. From there I worked in a number of radio stations, learning the trade. Now twenty years later, I pick the mic back up as host of the Get Social! Radio Show. Internet radio is really a great way to share news, information and create a “following” for your brand. As host of the Get Social! Radio Show I have created opportunities for Ohio businesses to connect with and share information about them and their products with listeners. Callers can ask business owners questions and owners can share the reasons why their brand is important to consumers.

Read More About: The Get Social! Radio Show

Why Buy Ohio Alliance

This has to be the most rewarding project for me. I am fiercely territorial and seek to support all Ohio businesses who have made a choice to Buy Ohio themselves. Dollars spent in Ohio should go to Ohio businesses and not “out of town”. Big Box stores take Ohio income and distribute it somewhere else. When Ohioans choose to “Buy Ohio” they make an economic decision to support Ohio businesses and help our state economy and employment.

Read More About: Why Buy Ohio

TippNews DAILY

Back in 1988 I was the editor of my high school paper. Even then I appreciated the value of the English language as well as the powerful freedoms that Washington, Adams et. al provided for us in the Constitution. Now many years later I pick back up the Editor cap and have produced a citizen journalism site where local residents can speak their mind and share stories about their families, their organizations, their businesses or the things that make them smile. No one gets paid to write an article, but everyone benefits from the availability of swift and frequent information dissemination within our community.

Read More About: TippNews DAILY

If you would like to get involved in one of these great opportunities to highlight your business or your brand, give me a call!

This is the first of a series of new blog posts covering the Get Social! Radio Show topic and guests.

Our guest for the next Get Social! Radio Show will be Dan Harris, founder of Taste Casting. Our radio show listeners have been learning all kinds of new vocabulary thanks to our guests and this show will be no exception.

Taste Casting involves the invitation of socially networked individuals by independent restaurateurs to a complimentary food tasting. In exchange, this Taste Casting team broadcasts to their collective network of friends, followers and linked connections via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, WordPress, Flickr, etc. Their cameras, flip video, camcorders, and smartphones tell the story of their experience at the restaurant. They communicate the story of the menu, smells, tastes, specials and overall ambiance that makes up the venue.

I am fascinated by Taste Casting not necessarily for the opportunity to glom onto some free eats, but rather to gauge for myself the interest of small business owners in participating in this new social form of marketing and advertising. The concept for me is interesting because it teams up the act of what is natural and understandable about public socialization (eating food and then chatting with others) with the new social media tools that can share opinions, photos and video in a lightning fast manner with hundreds or thousands of others.

Restaurant owners that invite a “Taste Casting” team to their establishment have already stepped out of the box because if they had any concern about the food quality or cleanliness of the establishment these are exactly the WRONG folks you would want to have in your restaurant. Their voices of the Taste Casters are loud and resonate in all sorts of social media platforms. This adds a level of credibility to not only the Taste Casting team, but it also demonstrates for consumers that the restaurant is prepared for a critical review. Unlike a major metropolis, cities like Dayton, Tipp City, Vandalia, Centerville don’t have culinary reviewers or critics coming in to check out the establishments.

A bit about Dan Harris

Dan is an Idea Guy. He is full of energy, ideas and resolves to make those ideas happen. This critical trio of skills makes him a force to be reckoned with. Dan is also a serious marketer who likes to say “We are not making mistakes fast enough” Yep, mistakes. Dan believes that you should make them, learn from them and then do not repeat them. “That’s how you become the best.”

So now you know why a guy like Dan gets on the Get Social! Radio Show, Wednesday August 26th at 9PM. He fascinates me and I know he will do the same for you!