GoHuman Blog

What would it would be like to try and build a house without a blueprint.

Put a few bricks over there.  And a window on that side.  No, maybe a door…

It would never work.  It’s certainly not a house you’d want to live in.  No proper structure.  No trustworthy foundation.

So, when it comes to your business’s foundation, why would you invest in marketing without a plan?  Without a marketing plan, you’re chances of realizing a strong ROI from your marketing investment decrease significantly while the likelihood of wasting valuable resources increases.  Here are 3 reasons why you’ll be more successful with a Marketing Plan.

Provides Focus
A Marketing Plan provides focus for your organization.   As a result, you are less likely to jump onto the latest trend just because “everyone’s doing it.”  If you develop a reasonable plan that aligns with your sales and budgetary objectives, you can keep your organization focused on the initiatives that will achieve these goals, as opposed to those that seem interesting, but don’t really relate to your business.

Provides a Checklist
A Marketing Plan provides a checklist you can use to ensure you’re executing all your planned initiatives.  Having that record allows you to plan and budget more effectively as well as ensures you have stayed the course per the Plan.

Saves Money
A Marketing Plan will save you money by ensuring you systematically try and evaluate your marketing initiatives.  Each investment in direct mail, email campaigns, public relations, etc., should come with an expected ROI.  Measuring that ROI will allow you to determine which campaigns are the most cost effective.   More importantly, an effective measurement structure (as part of your Plan) will allow you to eliminate those initiatives that do NOT meet your expectations.

1. Decide the role your website will play in supporting your sales and marketing process. Do you want the site to be used by prospects just to learn more about your product or service or do you want the site to generate leads and even process sales?
2. Map out the pages you need and any “functionality”, such as forms you want visitors to fill out, “contact us” email forms, video or audio elements.
3. Write your content for each page, include a page name, page title and a brief description of the page for SEO (search engine optimization). When you are writing your copy for each page think of how you can incorporate keywords or phrases that people might be searching for related to the page topic and your company. This will help you increase the ranking and visibility of your site.
4. Decide who will host your site. You can use www.redspotdomains.com to set up a basic hosting package and register your site. Or you may want to use a service that has complete content management built in so you can make changes and get analytics from your site.
5. Register your domain name. Choose one that is as simple and obviously connected to your company or product as possible. In order to get your website online you need a domain name and hosting. 
These are two separate items but it makes things easier if you register your domain and hosting at the same place.
6. Always make sure you register and pay for your domain name yourself. DO NOT allow a web designer or marketing company to register it for you.  If they do, they legally own the domain name. Register your domain for as long as you can (you can choose annual or multi-year registrations).  Search engines look upon long term registrants favorably. Register as many extensions (.com, .net, .uk, etc.) as you feel you may need for the long term as well. You may want to expand your company and may need to own these domains, so no one else registers them.
7. Hire a web designer or developer or marketing company to help you build the site. Web design is a field where you can pay as little as $20 per hour or $100s per hour. You need to match your budget with your design needs. Depending on your business, product or service, and the type of business or consumer you are selling to, design is often not as important as content (the information and options for response) that you have on your site.
8. We advise clients to work first, and hardest, on the content of your site, rather than spend thousands on expensive design. Ask the designer you select what they will charge you to make updates to the site. Also consider a simple Content Management System so you or your marketing team can make basic updates and add pages yourself.
9. Have your site built and have a demo site put online for you to test. Go through and make sure all your links and forms are functioning correctly before you “go live”.
10. Once your site is live, make sure all your staff, suppliers, partners and clients are aware of it. Do a promotion and send them links to instantly get connected. Start working on how to generate more traffic, so you will be moved up in the rankings on search engines (Google®, Yahoo®, etc).

Twitter is a micro blogging website that allows users to post  very short (up to 140 character) updates, comments, thoughts and links  to other websites.

Once you have an account with Twitter you can find other Twitter  users who could be anyone from your sister to companies, or to  celebrities such as Larry King . Once you follow these other users their Twitter updates will become visible in your Twitter “feed”.

How To Create Your Twitter Identity

1. Go to www.twitter.com click on the “Sign Up
2. Create your personal or company account, you only have 15 characters so you may need to get creative with your name.
3. There is not a limit to how many accounts you can sign up.
4. If you have unique or special products or services it is worth registering an account for these also.
5. Personalize your profile by adding a photo, brand your background  add your location, link to your website, and write a short bio.
6. Start using Twitter. Use the “Find people” option to find someone you know on twitter and follow them.
7. Use the reply function to talk to a friend.
8. Send a direct message to someone.
9. Re-tweet a message you found useful that someone posted.

So if you would like more info feel free to email me at jon@redspotmarketing.com

Developing a Marketing Plan will keep your marketing efforts focused, more effective and more cost effective.  Each business’s Marketing Plan should be unique to that business’s market, goals and competitive environment.  However, the most effective Marketing Plans will include a number of critical elements:

1. Value Proposition
Your value proposition, simply stated, tells your market why they should buy from you.  In other words:  What makes you the best option for them?  Are you less expensive than their other options?  Will they get better customer service?  Do you offer more for the money?  Are you a local business versus a national chain?, etc.   Your value proposition must be articulated in simple language that gives a clear picture of why your prospects should do business with you.

A good rule is to keep it to 25 words or less.  Here are some examples for a variety of businesses:

“We sell office supplies for less than any national chain.”

“Every bicycle we sell is backed by a 2 year end-to-end warranty.”

“We have the world’s largest selection of hard-to-find parts for every foreign car on the road.”

“We guarantee on-time arrival of our repair technicians or your repair is free.”

GoHuman.com celebrates the small business owners helping us build a powerful new kind of Marketplace for the 21st Century.   We know you depend on us to help you grow and expand your business, the marketing guidance you so sorely need in today’s world.

To further our mutual goals, GoHuman.com is proud to add a noted marketing professional, author and successful small business owner/manager as a regular contributor to our Blog.  Starting this week, Jon Johnson, CEO and President of Red Spot Marketing will be providing invaluable advice in a “Monday is for Marketing” blog series.

Jon has marketed hundreds of small businesses in over 10 countries, including Australia, UK, Canada, USA and Thailand.

His success lies in bringing a simple approach to each company’s marketing and helping them implement more elements of the marketing mix to get better results.

“Blended” is Jon’s first book and draws upon his experience from marketing vastly different types of companies worldwide and seeing the challenges they all face.

Jon holds a BA Hons Degree in Marketing from Bournemouth University in England, and lives in Ontario, Canada with his wife Dr. Joyce Johnson and their two daughters, Olivia and Charlotte.

GoHuman supports local businesses and communities through a unique integrated approach to distributed ownership and responsibility. One of the ways we help is by bringing together like-minded companies who are working to achieve the same goals in their communities.

The Seattle Umbrella is Seattle’s only “Local Certification” service. Committed to promoting a sustainable and environmentally friendly local community in Seattle. Once your business is certified local, The Seattle Umbrella is your source for promotion to a highly targeted audience of people who genuinely want to support local business in Seattle.

Use their logo to gain recognition as a local business, as a marketing point, and as a statement that you support your community. Local businesses are the backbone of our community, and they are working to support practices that keep Seattle green, diverse, and sustainable.

Respond by Friday, June 4, and receive a 20% discount on your Seattle Umbrella membership and 6 months free basic subscription to GoHuman.com.

Whom do you trust most when making a decision to hire someone or buy something?

Most likely, you trust people you know: friends who have given you good recommendations, colleagues who have particular expertise, family, etc.

This type of trust has taken on a new form through the Internet and social media. Reviews for products and services are prevalent on GoHuman and elsewhere. These are useful, to be sure, but are subjective in nature.

GoHuman is allying with trusted organizations that promote local businesses. To represent this trust in a reliable and intuitive fashion, we have added a Trust Badge feature to GoHuman, which allows you to showcase your earned certifications, affiliations, and partnerships right along with your business postings, endorsements, and feedback.

Our first Trust Ally was the Green Business League, that provides Green Business Certification. We are working with several organizations to allow their members to proudly display their Trust Badges with GoHuman.

You can help by telling us about the organizations you trust and want to show off with GoHuman. We’ll work together to provide more exposure for you and all your fellow members.

Ultimately this will help your online reputation, which will lead to more trust, which helps get you more leads.

James Wood, of Abbotsford, B.C., Canada just earned one of the coveted Founding Member positions at GoHuman. James is responsible for bringing 200 new members into the GoHuman community. We reward people for contributing value to our community and are pleased to give James this well-deserved award.

James said, “Since being a part of GoHuman.com, it’s changed my life. I’ve met so many small business owners that have enriched the world I live in. They have inspired my own growth, they have rekindled my artistic flame within me, they have dared me to be not good..but great in what I do, each and every day.

”GoHuman.com is not a passing fad. It truly is a family of like minded individuals concerned with the communities they live in, bringing out the best in all, and realizing that we are ONE!”

James, you are truly one of a kind. Thanks for everything you’ve done to support GoHuman over the past year!

If you are interested in becoming a Founding Member of GoHuman.com by joining our grassroots marketing team, just email us.

James is a local business consultant. Call him today for help finding new business opportunities!