OCTOPUS,MARKETING,Create,Commu marketing OCTOPUS MARKETING - Create a Community of Opportunity
Automation technologies represent a fundamental aspect of any modern industry. The major types of industrial automation solutions, such as DCS, PLC, SCADA, and MES, are used on a large-scale in process and discrete industries.DCS technologie Awhile ago, I got an email from one of the "gurus" I follow and it shocked me. The gist of it was this person wanted to trade services for a household item.To say it floored me would be an understatement.What was worse was a few days later t
Yesterday as I sat down to get a haircut, I noticed that for the first time that I was the only customer in the shop. My barber anxiously asked, "Are the stores empty where you work?" He told me that 40% of his business has eroded; half of his customers had moved away and the others had been laid off.Reality has hit his small business. Business is off in most sectors. People are staying home, seeking comfort and familiarity. I hear the same cry everywhere I go"We need more customers!" Small businesses don't have the advertising budgets of large companies to lure customers back with special deals. And the government's messages to "go spend more" have the rightintent, but do not direct customers to the doorsteps. How can small businesses reach these customers?STRETCH YOUR TENTACLES!With some imagination, will power and a technique I call "OctopusMarketing," small business owners can create new opportunities to increase sales. Octopus Marketing is the ability to make one marketing effort producemultiple effects, increasing returns without increasing effort. By tapping an Octopus on the head, its tentacles stretch out and reachin different directions. Business owners can do the same thing. By leveraging their own value and partnering with other businesses or organizations, a single marketing event can pay off again and again.The head of the octopus is any organization or group of business owners that partners together to reach more customers. Each member of the organization or business is one of the tentacles. It works like this:First break the rules. View other small businesses as partners, not competition. In these uncertain times, small business owners need to band together and develop a unique marketing program that will pullcustomers to the neighborhood, into stores or onto web pages.Observe how other merchants, whether they are florists, produce stands, café owners or optometrists, offer services and goods that benefit and support the community. All of these products and servicesbring comfort and familiaritywhich is exactly what customers areasking for right now! For example: My barber can join the local bakery, video store, pizza parlor, coffee shop and florist to develop a "Neighborhood ComfortCatalog." The catalog simply lists each store and the benefits they provide (plus discounts on products and services!). Each partner places the catalog in their respective stores and uses it to referbusiness to each other. Octopus Marketing starts with an effective message. Businesses mustdefine how they uniquely contribute to the community and translate that into an effective story. By developing a message based on theirpassion, businesses reveal the benefit they offer to themselves andtheir customers. After identifying their own unique benefits, a business owner can then partner with others and define the main benefit that the Octopus Network offers to the community. This benefit is what will move customers to action.With the message identified they can then discover unique ways to market each other's businesses or conduct joint promotions. Itcan beas simple as asking customers if they have tried the fresh pizza nextdoor or passing out coupons that offer discounts on their goods and services. The result is that reach of their tentacles grows.To stretch the tentacles of the Octopus even further, businesses can partner with larger organizations to get the word out. Combine thecommunity octopus with a neighborhood church, temple or community organization. These organizations reach a lot of potential customers.Businesses should continue to tap the Octopus to keep the network thriving. They can approach the local neighborhood paper to publish the comfort catalog in a special community page. Or find out if the local gym or YMCA will distribute it to their members. What about the Chamber of Commerce, isn't it there to help?By uniting together, small businesses can strengthen community, deliver what customers need plus help create opportunity for the nation's collective future. One small business at a time, we will build a compassionate nation that spends money on good stuff.
OCTOPUS,MARKETING,Create,Commu