While it may be possible to outsource management, the abilities required of a successful management team often cannot be outsourced without significant loss in quality. Real understanding of the unique blend of skills a company requires and the best way to combine those skills with the appropriate personnel, innovative technology and experienced market campaigns cannot simply be dumped in the laps of a company halfway around the world with no long-term ties to the ideas, strategies, tactics or organizational models they hope to manage. Having experienced managers who know how to distribute workloads among foreign and domestic labor pools is critical for smooth company operations.

Modern technology has allowed us to diversify and expand with global conditions. We now can have boots on the ground and fingers on keyboards without being confined to the same physical location. Technology has provided the means to find labor globally, train labor efficiently and ultimately save the bottom line. The ties of understanding must, however, have “legs.”

In today’s global community, there is more to running a business than finding personnel or understanding SEO guidelines. World-class companies need to understand how to draw from the growing resources the world has to offer. Understanding a company’s unique needs and evaluating the market so as to develop and implement successful strategies, tactics and organization is a first step towards empowering a company to operate even more effectively.

Effective marketing campaigns center around management that understands how to use these resources effectively. Management is the key through which global members can coordinate every venue as fast-paced changes in demand occur. Knowing where to turn and how to disseminate crucial information at all levels in a company’s process helps hone the competitive edge that is so critical in today’s economy.

Once the business learns to leverage skilled employees, wherever they may be, in the service of strategic goals, and incorporates them into the business’s tactical operations, the company and its employees will in turn be able to spend more.

Successful businesses can adjust to changing business environments or risk falling behind their competitors. Profitability gained by leveraging world resources can strengthen the national, state, regional and municipal economies by giving the business and its employees the ability to spend locally.

Understanding when and where to outsource can make all the difference.

How to Harness Your Unique Knowledge.

Running your business has given you a very unique and specialized expertise that can be leveraged to grow your business. List all the facts you have about running your business, helping your clients, customers or patients.

This is specialized information that only you have, and it can be spread via blogs, online article sites, and social media. Used wisely, and sprinkled with keywords like names of cities or states or types of customers, clients or patients, this information will become a powerful magnet for exactly those clients, customers or patients who need the very skills you provide.

A good social media marketing (SMM) and search engine optmization (SEO) company will be able to disseminate your message among exactly the kind of people and/or businesses you want to attract, and, ultimately, help.

Want to take it a step further?  An information specialist or competitive intelligence (CI) professional will help you research and analyze your market, adding greater depth, scope and weight to your knowledge. The information specialist or competitive intelligence pro will also develop strategies, tactics and

organizational plans for growing market share, starting with a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats).

You already have the greatest tool for growing your business — your own expertise. Are you use it to your best advantage?

Learn more:

Click for Social Media Marketing (SMM) information or  for more about Search Engine Optimization.

Click for a custom quote.

Click for more about information specialist or competitive intelligence information.

1. Print Ads: Single message that is a driver to a landing page on your website. The landing page needs to contain the same message as well as the design of the print ad. The customer needs to instantly understand that this is the same offer as that they saw in the paper/magazine or online.

2. TV Commercials: Branding or offer message visually and verbally that once again drives to a landing page on the website. You have piqued their attention to visit the site – give them what they want … the offer.

3. Radio:  Single message that emotionally connects with the listener to create a mental idea of the offer, with either a phone number or website or landing page.

4. Outdoor: These by far have to have the simplest messages as you have a few seconds to grab their attention and the message has to be enticing enough for them enough to visit the site.

5. Real Life Networking: The opportunities are almost endless here. Business cards with social media profiles, ability to describe what you do in 60 seconds or less to pique interest (or move on). Bringing your offline community online helps, not only to grow your online community, but offers the opportunity to teach a newbie the ropes or interact with a local in a new way.

The overall consensus is that the use of social media by the industrial sector is experiencing a very slow adoption rate.  Industrial professionals such as engineers, technical managers, purchasing agents and research/development personnel, tend to sit on the sidelines and observe the conversations rather than taking part in them.  Having a work related conversation via social media is easy, but to the engineer with 20 projects going on at the same time along with several “hot” production deadlines, posting a Twitter comment or a Facebook status just doesn’t fit into an average day.

However, social media usage is likely to grow among industrial professionals. Those starting a Facebook account grew from 59% in 2011, almost a forty percent year over year increase.  Statistically this appears to be the hottest social media trend, however more than two-thirds of these professionals indicate that less than 20% of this content is work related.  Long term indicators are that the increased use of Facebook has the potential of becoming a viable marketing tool.

According to a recent study done by GlobalSpec, participation in social media by industrial companies is as follows:

•    40% provide an online discussion community for customers
•    33% provide one internally for employees
•    26% use video
•    24% now have a company blog
•    9% are using Twitter

The world is becoming smaller as conversations become more and more international via the use of the social media. As this happens, companies have the opportunity not to just produce and sell a product, but to become a part of the conversation. For long-term stability and maximum growth, it is not only imperative for industrial companies to jump on the social media band wagon but they also need to get behind the wheel and start driving.

You might think that once you have your video done, you’ll have your web guy or gal slap it up on the old web site and your done. Time to put your feet up and wait for the world to show up with fistfulls of dollars.

Don’t be disappointed if this does not occur. We all tend to have unrealistic expectations, though as an  advertising executive, this is not a phrase I would recommend using with clients. My point is that we may look at our products or services the way we look at our kids or our pets: they are utterly perfect and can do no wrong.

This may be, but we need to convince the buyers — and we’ve just made a video that does just that.

But now what? How do we get it in front of folks?

There are at least 5 ways to use your video to get the most bang for your buck:

• As a DVD to give out to prospects
• On your web site (consider both full length versions and segmented by topic)
• On air
• You’d be surprised at how little it costs to buy time on major network and cable channels, where competition is fierce.
• Consider Paid Programming: half hour programs run in the low to mid 4-digits for air time.
• At trade shows, both as giveaways and running continuously at your booth
• For presentations in front of business groups (of prospects, chambers of commerce, peers, etc.)
• Running in office
• On video sites like YouTube and Vimeo with proper tags that will steer the viewers you want to watch the video.

Add a little social networking: listen to the conversations on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.

Gently chime in with some positive helpful ideas now and then, and include links to your video.

If you build it right, they will come.

Located in Long Beach, NY, eFace media provides advertising, web design and video production services to Long Island and the New York City metro area.

Few companies seem to understand which businesses, and there are many, lend themselves to growth via video, and which do not.

As a business video provider for Long Island and the metro New York City area, we have had the opportunity to strategize with clients of all kinds — industrial, medical, education- or organization-related, and corporate — all smart businesspeople seeking growth, better visibility and market penetration for their goods or services.

The guidelines we suggest to each are the same:

Consider who your best target audience(s) might be. Who uses your product or service? Who might benefit the most from what you do? The answer is: probably more than just one type of person or business.

Put yourself in each of their shoes for a few minutes.

What information do they need? What mis-information might they have, that needs correcting?

How can you help them?

If you have been at all successful in your business relationships, someone someplace is benefiting.

You cannot be everywhere. Let your video talk and help them for you, using a little Hollywood magic:

• show how others have been helped (testimonials). The best kind are real people using their own words.
• show how they can be directly helped (how-to videos), and, most importantly:
• show how much better their lives, their health or their work will be as a result of using your product or service

The key word in all of the above is show.

Saying is okay. Showing is much better.

Consider gearing a segment of your video specifically for each type of person/industry who benefits from your product or service. This way, everyone understands his or her need as soon as he or she sees the video.

Or, if cost does not allow, include at least a sentence or two pointing out how everyone you can think of — specifically! — can and will benefit from your product or service.

In Part II: How to Use Your Video To Grow Your Business

It isn’t.

The next time you finish work on a job or segment of a job, ask yourself if you gave 100%. This doesn’t not mean that you need to be panting on the floor, having exhausted all your mortal strength providing your service. It does mean that you have genuinely done all you could have, and all the customer is paying you to do, in the service of what you were hired to do.

Before you say “Sure I did my best,” stop and put yourself in the customer’s position; imagine you received the level of service you have just given. Would you be satisfied; would you recommend someone who had given of him/herself to the level you just did?

Did you, perhaps, give 75% and rationalize that your competitor gives 50%, if that? Do you really know that to be the case, or is that an assumption based on some negative quality you may have internalized because he/she is your competitor?

While you might feel inclined to move quickly to the next client or account so that your business will grow and do well, consider the possibility that you will actually be more successful if you develop a reputation for giving better service. Think of the doctor who gives you all the time you need to talk to you about your problems, concerns and fears. Wouldn’t you be quick to recommend such a doctor?

For better business health, always do your best!

photo courtesy of Flickr

In business, as in nature, if you can’t evolve with the times, you run the risk of becoming extinct. Scientists believe that, as the climate changed, dinosaurs were unable to adapt, so they became extinct and were replaced by life forms better adapted to the climate.

When I started E. Face Graphics in 1989, our main business consisted of typesetting take- out menus and the occasional brochure. Before printing a job it had to  sent to a service bureau to print out a “repro,” or  very high quality proof, then meticulously pasted up on boards to be “shot” for printing.  Now, almost 20 years later, jobs are “FTP’d” for printing (uploading all the digital files onto a server, and then downloading the files for printing). Those service bureaus have gone the way of the dinosaur.

In the years since we started E. Face Graphics, there have been many changes in our industry, which we have embraced and incorporated into our business. In the early 1990s we met with a representative of an “internet” company to discuss this thing called “the internet.” Needless to say, web development and design became a key component of our services. With improved web technology, internet video has become very common. E. Face Graphics now specializes in video production of all types, from web content, school, industrial, and corporate videos to full length feature films.

A few years ago, no one heard of Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, or blogging. Now these social media have become ubiquitious. While changes in the business climate are challenging, they are also exciting – they provide an opportunity for discovering new talents and opening new doors. So, for now, we will leave the dinosaurs in the museum!