Zig When They Zag: Recent Episodes
Jessica Scanlon and Kevin Ring
Zig When They Zag is a podcast that encourages a growth mindset for business leaders. Hosts Jessica Scanlon and Kevin Ring discuss leadership, marketing, and sales topics that help small and middle-market businesses scale. Each episode equips listeners with new resources to help businesses move forward when they feel stagnant. Jessica Scanlon is the founder and CEO of Hot Dog Marketing, a marketing agency in Austin, TX that has served hundreds of growing service businesses in the last eight years. Jessica and her co-host Kevin, Hot Dog Marketing's Director of Strategy, interview each other and discuss topics that CEOs, Founders, and Operational leaders at organizations trying to achieve their next phase growth will find interesting, thoughtful, and inspiring.
Whether it's creating a Facebook page for your business or jumping on the hottest new social media or marketing trend, the answer is (unsurprisingly) "it depends."
However, each business is unique. There's no "one-size-fits-all" approach that can yield consistent results across products, industries, and demographics.
What to Ask Instead
Platforms and marketing tactics will change over time, but one thing that remains consistent is your business's need for a website.
Why is your website so important? You own your website (as opposed to content posted on social media platforms), and it's the 24/7 digital salesperson for your business. Some better questions to ask:
- Is my website working?
- What's wrong with my website?
How to Get People to My Website
- SEO
- Social Media
- Content
The Bottom Line
Instead of asking "should I be on Facebook," ask these questions:
- How can I make my website work better?
- How can I create better content?
- What's the overall strategy that ties it all together?
- What are the overall channels we'll utilize?
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Hot Dog Marketing is a digital marketing agency in Round Rock, TX serving small and medium-sized businesses. We excel in delivering marketing strategy, digital marketing, website design and development, and outstanding customer service.
"How long will marketing take to start working?"
The truth is that marketing takes time to produce results because it's not a switch you flip on and off. It's more like an engine you have to get going up to speed slowly.
1. No One Knows Who You Are
As with person-to-person relationships, becoming familiar takes time. You wouldn't jump right into marriage on the first date. The same applies to developing a relationship with your audience before they become customers.
2. Your Customers Have Different Timelines
The typical customer journey looks like this:
- Awareness
- Consideration
- Decision
- Delight
Marketing effectively meets people where they are in the customer journey and guides them to the next step at their own pace. Your marketing plan should address all the different stages of the customer journey and be flexible enough for someone to drop in and out as necessary.
3. Show Up In More Than One Place
Have you ever seen an ad online for a product and realize later that you have no idea how to find that company again? Businesses that don't effectively use their marketing to hold their audience's attention and turn them into qualified marketing lead end up losing customers.
Instead, a brand can better retain its audience's attention by showing up in front of them in many different places.
4. Brand Messaging and Visual Identity are Wrong
Poor functionality, lousy design, irrelevant messaging, and an outdated look in your website can distract your audience from considering your solution.
If a competitor's website looks and works ten times better than yours, customers will likely go back to the competitors when making a purchase decision.
5. You're Not Optimizing Your Marketing as it Runs
Unfortunately, many treat marketing as a 'set it and forget it' lever they can let run and revisit next year. However, to optimize your marketing (and marketing budget), it's vital to course-correct as you go.
The Bottom Line
The longer you take to start marketing, the longer it takes to start working. Don't waste any time. Get your company or brand in front of the right audience with the right message.
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Hot Dog Marketing is a digital marketing agency in Round Rock, TX serving small and medium-sized businesses. We excel in delivering marketing strategy, digital marketing, website design and development, and outstanding customer service.
5 Reasons Why Your Marketing Isn't Working
In this episode, Jessica and Kevin discuss how brands that are pursuing growth may be missing the mark when it comes to some of their marketing efforts.
1. Incorrect Brand Positioning
Are you talking about your business in a way that your customers are willing to learn about it? Many business owners struggle with marketing because they didn't position the company from their customer's perspective.
2. Lacking a Customer-Centric Approach to Messaging
Who is the best at communicating the value customers get from the business? Why, customers, of course!
3. Your Investment is Too Low
A business owner may see a new company (or competitor) with a great marketing strategy that makes them very successful. However, this competitor is only "new" to the business owner; they don't understand how long and how much planning and execution it took that company to get to that point.
4. Not Enough Time Has Passed
Similar to point number three, your marketing may not be working simply because you haven't been doing it for long enough.
5. It Doesn't Look Good
A B2B IT company around for 40 years may have an outdated website and branding that doesn't connect with a modern audience. This poor customer experience leaves the audience wondering whether the company is trustworthy and can deliver on the promises they make.
The Bottom Line
Just because you haven't been successful with marketing in the past doesn't mean it won't work for you in the future. The issues plaguing your marketing efforts are often difficult to identify from inside the company. That's why companies hire marketing experts and professionals to help them.
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Hot Dog Marketing is a digital marketing agency in Round Rock, TX serving small and medium-sized businesses. We excel in delivering marketing strategy, digital marketing, website design and development, and outstanding customer service.
5 Marketing Things You Should Be Doing Right Now
Jessica and Kevin discuss the 5 Marketing Things You Should Be Doing Right Now. Why do them now? Remember the "Roaring Twenties?" Well, we're about to enter another "Roaring Twenties" in this century.
Here are the five marketing things you should be doing right now.
1. Talk to Your Customers
We've been asking our clients what they need now and what they think their business will need in the future. In addition to current clients, we also ask these same questions to people who would be ideal clients but don't work with us yet.
2. Focus on How You're Going to Reach Business Goals
Concentrate on taking steps towards your goals every day or risk being in the same position this time next year.
3. Get Your Website Working for You
Customers demand a fast, beautiful website, but your time is better spent elsewhere than maintaining a website.
Also, your website should speak to the customer's needs and desires and paint the picture of a better future for them. Customers visit your website because they have a problem to be solved.
4. Show Off Your Employees in Your Marketing
Communicate to your audience that your team is there to help make things better as we all adjust to the new normal.
5. Outmarket Your Competitors
Many businesses have permanently closed, leaving many customers without the solution they need. Let them know you're ready to serve them.
The Bottom Line
Get in front of your audience and talk to your customers. If you find talking to customers challenging, Hot Dog Marketing can handle it for you. We love talking to the customers of our clients.
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Hot Dog Marketing is a digital marketing agency in Round Rock, TX serving small and medium-sized businesses. We excel in delivering marketing strategy, digital marketing, website design and development, and outstanding customer service.
Difference Between Brand Building and Lead Generation
There’s more than one kind of digital marketing approach. While most companies will benefit from brand building activities, not all businesses are a great fit for digital lead generation. In this episode, Kevin and I discuss the differences between the two styles of digital campaigns. Enjoy!
What is Brand Building?
Brand building is delivering a consistent message, look, feel, and story through consistent channels to the right audience. Many companies haven't thought through what their brand message is.
What is Lead Generation?
Lead generation is getting new people into your sales funnel so they develop into customers. Having a lead generation program setup can be much more effective in terms of reach and costs than hiring another outbound salesperson.
Effective Lead Generation Needs Brand Building and Vice Versa
If a movie is uninteresting, it doesn't matter how much it turns up in front of people, they won't want to watch it. On the other hand, a fantastic movie needs the word to be spread.
Do Both
Build your brand with audiences who aren't ready to buy yet. Use lead generation to provide a clear path for those who are ready to buy.
The Bottom Line
Most small businesses don't have the bandwidth or expertise to focus on both brand building and lead generation activities. They don't have the time or resources, either. The best option is by sticking to what they do best and trust their marketing actions to an expert partner like Hot Dog Marketing.
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Hot Dog Marketing is a digital marketing agency in Round Rock, TX serving small and medium-sized businesses. We excel in delivering marketing strategy, digital marketing, website design and development, and outstanding customer service.
What are Marketing Goals?
How can a company set intentional growth goals for the year after simply making it through the year 2020?
In this episode, Jessica Scanlon and Kevin Ring dive into marketing goals.
Know Where You Want Your Business to go this Year
Most business leaders have their goals in mind and know where they want to go, but they don't know how marketing applies to those goals. Even more so, they often aren't aware of the marketing tactics available.
Preparing the Business and the Leader
Along with putting together the marketing machine that drives growth, we help our business leader clients level up their marketing knowledge and skills.
Favorite Business Goals We See
- Grow by $10MM in 7 years
- Diversify channels where leads come from
- Diversify client base
- Move to a higher-value client base
Examples of Good Marketing Goals
- Building brand equity
- Increasing the value of leads
- Increasing the quality of leads
- Diversifying leads
- Account growth
Examples of Bad Marketing Goals
- Ranking #1 on Google
- 10k Instagram followers
Bottom Line for Setting Marketing Goals
Social media and SEO will certainly be a part of the strategy, but they are just tools to use to help a business achieve its true, underlying goals.
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Hot Dog Marketing is a digital marketing agency in Round Rock, TX serving small and medium-sized businesses. We excel in delivering marketing strategy, digital marketing, website design and development, and outstanding customer service.
The Importance of Doing Things in Order
Why not jump into all the marketing services at the same time?
Is marketing strategy worth it?
In this episode, Jessica Scanlon and Kevin Ring discuss how important it is to do things in order when it comes to executing on marketing.
Focus on How You Deliver the Maximum Value
Jessica talks about the early days of Hot Dog Marketing when she began charging for the strategic aspect (instead of doing all that work for free!), she had some clients that would choose to skip the strategy and move straight into services.
This would always end up in poor performance in the client's marketing efforts and, predictably, disappointment.
Don't Market Without Planning
It's important to follow the steps and do them in order because marketing works best that way. It seems simple to jump right in with ads or another marketing service, but the outcomes will fall short of the business goals. Leading to either abandoning marketing, or having to pay even more to redo the services.
Bottom Line for Following the Marketing Steps
The main idea is that as a business leader, you don't want to miss any opportunities in acquiring customers because of a poor acquisition process.
A typical gap for small businesses is having a poor website. At Hot Dog Marketing, we often use the analogy of a website (and entire marketing plan) being like a house. For people to feel comfortable entering and walking through the house, they need to know what to expect. Have a marketing plan that walks people through the whole experience, one step at a time.
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Hot Dog Marketing is a digital marketing agency in Round Rock, TX serving small and medium-sized businesses. We excel in delivering marketing strategy, digital marketing, website design and development, and outstanding customer service.
How do you balance a strategic plan and flexibility?
How can you plan for a year that already seems like it'll be unpredictable?
Jessica Scanlon and Kevin Ring discuss how to win in business in 2021. They talk about how to take the lessons learned from the wild ride that was 2020 and apply them to have a successful year in business, even when things don't turn out like you expected (or wanted).
Business owners and decision-makers that lead teams and companies through 2020 saw many projects that weren't finished and deadlines that weren't met. This can be a very emotional experience as business leaders may find themselves reassessing their business's direction due to diminished demand (e.g. event venues), or even a disappearing audience (e.g. office workers).
Focus on the Goal, be Flexible on the Method
Although the means and methods might change, being solidly rooted in the end goal of meeting customers' needs will be a much more worthwhile perspective.
Don't Put It Off - Act Now
Stopping marketing and communication efforts with customers will disconnect businesses from their target audiences, losing points and making them much more difficult to win back.
Bottom Line for Winning in 2021
Key takeaways for surviving and thriving in 2021:
- Stay alive
- Understand the value that you provide
- Don't hold too fast to your plans to deliver value
- Remain flexible
- Give yourself a break
- Plan for success
Remember to focus on the big goal-the light at the end of the tunnel.
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Hot Dog Marketing is a digital marketing agency in Round Rock, TX serving small and medium-sized businesses. We excel in delivering marketing strategy, digital marketing, website design and development, and outstanding customer service.
In this episode, Jessica Scanlon and Kevin Ring discuss the customer experience aspect of a company's brand. Customer experience is the holistic experience customers feel and encounter with your brand, product, or service.
It's important to have a framework built around the customer experience so it can be protected, no matter who the customer is interacting with.
Customer experience can include:
- Logo
- Website
- Color palette
- Business materials
- Customer gifts
- Messaging
- Product/service delivery
- What customers say when talking about the brand
How to Create a Customer Experience Aligned with Your Brand
The brand identity informs the customer experience. Identifying your particular brand elements takes a mix of organic and constructed components. You'll want to tie in your brand's mission, vision, and values, as well as the value proposition you offer customers.
Messaging Strategy and Visual Brand Strategy
After deciding who your brand is, you can then put the words in place that communicate that. That's where having a messaging strategy comes into play.
Visual brand strategy typically comes after messaging because the words used in your messaging strategy will give your designer direction. In addition to aligning with your brand identity, the visuals need to be easy enough to comprehend yet exciting enough to hold someone's attention and be memorable.
Bottom Line: When Your Marketing, Messaging, and Visual Brand Work Together, Your Customers Become Better Customers
Using your messaging and visual branding as the foundation of your customer experience will inform your customers on what to expect when working with your company.
Great marketing helps to retain customers and make them more valuable to your company.
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Hot Dog Marketing is a digital marketing agency in Round Rock, TX serving small and medium-sized businesses. We excel in delivering marketing strategy, digital marketing, website design and development, and outstanding customer service.
To work with us, visit www.hotdogmarketing.net
What is a Brand?: Value Proposition
What do customers value from your company?
In this episode, Jessica Scanlon and Kevin Ring talk about the value proposition aspect of a company's brand. The value proposition is what the customer needs to be done and what your company does.
A value proposition is not just meeting the needs of the customer, it's creating an experience.
Knowing where you can deliver the most value helps you craft a marketing message that communicates that to your audience.
Bridging the Communication Gap
Kevin says marketing messaging is like taking care of household chores when living with someone else. We've all experienced where one person's definition of a chore being completed differs from the other person's.
In business, owners may think they know and understand what the customer wants and values, but their audience interprets their messaging or value proposition differently.
How to Know When Your Value Proposition Messaging is Off:
- Your sales team has to spend much time explaining your product or services to leads.
- Incoming leads aren't qualified
- Too many leads are turning away because they're initial understanding of your product or service was misaligned
Get to Know Your Customer
This can be difficult because customers will likely hold a bias when communicating directly with you. Bring in a third party to conduct surveys and interviews that provide genuine, helpful feedback.
Bottom Line: Know What You Do For Your Customer
Instead of guessing and testing, smart marketing homes in on your specific audience with a compelling, specific message based on customer feedback.
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Hot Dog Marketing is a digital marketing agency in Round Rock, TX serving small and medium-sized businesses. We excel in delivering marketing strategy, digital marketing, website design and development, and outstanding customer service.
To work with us, visit www.hotdogmarketing.net
Wondering how your brand is perceived?
Trying to figure out what should be at the heart of your brand?
In this episode, Jessica Scanlon and Kevin Ring talk about what branding truly is. Many business owners think branding simply means what their logo looks like, but there is much more to it than that.
It's everything that your employees and customers come in contact with in regards to your company.
When you have a clear idea of what you're trying to accomplish with that brand, you can make better decisions on product and marketing.
The 5 Components of Branding:1. Purpose
2. Value proposition
3. Personality
4. Branding
5. Customer Experience
Know Where You're GoingHaving a brand goal to shoot for helps get everybody (including employees and customers) on the same track.
Finding Your Purpose in BusinessJessica explains that "vocation" is when that thing you really enjoy dovetails with what the world needs from you. Your vocation has to be more than just what you like doing. In business, this means that what you're offering needs to be something that people are looking for.
Be About What People Care AboutAs much as you may not want to believe it, you can't force someone to care about something.
Instead, design your brand about what people already care about. Align with their vision for a better world.
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Are you ready to get strategic marketing the helps your business reach its goals? Don't wait, contact Hot Dog Marketing to get started.
https://www.hotdogmarketing.net
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Is Now the Right Time?
Short answer: yes.
In this episode, Jessica Scanlon and Kevin Ring talk about knowing when the right time is to make marketing moves. Kevin mentions a line that our marketing director at Hot Dog Marketing often uses with customers; that she can tell a customer exactly where they'll be and what they can expect if they implement the marketing plan and follow through on the steps in the given timeline.
Many business owners don't know how long it will take for their marketing efforts to begin making returns. This uncertainty creates inaction.
Why is Now the Right Time?
Essential businesses still provide much-needed solutions, while on the other hand, disrupted industries such as hospitality offer a sense of return to normalcy for the population.
Even with high unemployment rates, your customers still exist and still need their problems solved. Although, how you interact with customers and deliver your product or service will be different than in the past.
Don't fall victim to the 3 I's of inaction
- Indecision
- Incapacity
- Ignorance
Why are you stuck?
Do you feel overwhelmed? Are you blocked by an outside force? Do you have no idea what to do next?
Asking yourself this question helps you identify the root causes keeping you from acting.
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Hot Dog Marketing is a digital marketing agency in Round Rock, TX serving small and medium-sized businesses. We excel in delivering marketing strategy, digital marketing, website design and development, and outstanding customer service.
To work with us, visit www.hotdogmarketing.net
Are you hesitant to engage in marketing campaigns during COVID-19?
Do you know what the penalty for inaction is?
Turns out, the cost of doing nothing can be really high.
In this episode, Jessica Scanlon and Kevin Ring talk about what can happen to a business when there is so much change going on but the business owner chooses not to take any action in the midst of it.
Recently, many business owners have become hesitant when making decisions about medium or large investments. This hesitation can turn into getting stuck and taking no action. Arguably, inaction is even riskier than any other feasible option.
Key Takeaways:
- Action Yields Information
- Inaction Yields Negative Market Share
- Turn It Up Now
When competitors are pulling back their marketing resources, it creates a gap that you can fill to grab attention.
Engaging with your customers through marketing gives you better insights and, thus, you can spend your future marketing dollars more wisely.
According to a recent poll, business leaders are trending optimistic about the near future.
While this optimism is a good sign, it doesn’t mean that business owners should rest on their laurels. The time to prepare for the future is now. Making smart investments through marketing lays a foundation for your brand to springboard off when the times change again.
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Hot Dog Marketing is a digital marketing agency in Round Rock, TX serving small and medium-sized businesses. We excel in delivering marketing strategy, digital marketing, website design and development, and outstanding customer service.
To work with us, visit www.hotdogmarketing.net
Do you have an unsolvable marketing problem?
Did you know a marketing agency could probably solve this issue?
In this episode, Jessica Scanlon and Kevin Ring talk about why great business leaders, people who solve all sorts of problems, often get stuck on marketing.
Kevin describes three reasons that get people stuck:
- Ignorance - Decision-makers are blocked by all of their unanswered questions.
- Indecision - An internal crisis prevents the decision-maker from taking the next step.
- Incapacitation - There is some external blocker preventing the decision-maker from having a full picture or following through with their decision.
Many business owners don't have expertise in the supporting aspects of the business. Business owners know how to create the foundation value the business provides, but often don't know how to communicate that value to customers.
How Business Owners Can Win
- Ask for help
- Don't get frustrated with customer interactions
- Customers aren't out to get you
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Hot Dog Marketing is a digital marketing agency in Round Rock, TX serving small and medium-sized businesses. We excel in delivering marketing strategy, digital marketing, website design and development, and outstanding customer service.
To work with us, visit www.hotdogmarketing.net
Do you think marketing is just creating content?
Or do you think you need to know the solution before approaching an agency?
In this episode, Jessica Scanlon and Kevin Ring discuss the misconceptions many clients have when they start working with Hot Dog Marketing. Many times this means not knowing what a strategic marketing agency provides or incorrectly thinking they already know what they need.
Common Misconceptions:
I need to solve all of my marketing problems before coming to an agency.
Some business owners think they need to know the solution and then find someone to fulfill it for them. Instead, a great marketing agency (like Hot Dog Marketing) solves the problem for their clients and then builds and applies a strategy to address it.
A marketing agency can just take over managing and executing on my marketing efforts.
The truth is, it takes time to learn what those marketing efforts are and identify what works best to reach your business goals.
Hiring a marketing agency is just purchasing labor.
While that may be true at some companies, at Hot Dog Marketing we focus on providing value for clients. That often comes in the form of expert strategy that requires thinking, creativity, and revising.
Everything will move faster if I hire a whole marketing team than trying to do it on my own.
Building your business didn't happen overnight. Your marketing plans, executions, and results won't either. Many business owners are surprised (and don't believe it) when they hear that we have a marketing process.
Why?
Simply because they've never heard of a marketing process before. But it's this thoughtful, strategic approach that achieves the results clients want.
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Hot Dog Marketing is a digital marketing agency in Round Rock, TX serving small and medium-sized businesses. We excel in delivering marketing strategy, digital marketing, website design and development, and outstanding customer service.
To work with us, visit www.hotdogmarketing.net
More marketing myths dispelled? You got it!
See/Listen to part 1 here: https://hotdogmarketing.net/zigzags/common-marketing-myths-part-1/
In this episode, Jessica Scanlon and Kevin Ring take down more marketing myths that many small business owners believe. These myths can stem from not having the full picture of what's driving traffic or nurturing your leads.
Common marketing myths, and the real truths behind them:
- I don't need a website. We use social media.
- The problem with relying heavily on social media is that you don't own any of the content on other platforms.
- Using your website as a hub, and social media as just one spoke, you aren't subject to algorithm changes or app abandonment.
- I have a good-looking website, I don't need to do social media.
- Even with a great looking website, you need to drive traffic there. Social media, SEO, and paid ads are all great ways to do this.
- Marketing and advertising are the same things.
- Marketing is the big-picture of the business and how its story is told.
- Advertising is just one way to market your company.
Jessica explained the key differences between advertising and marketing companies. Advertising companies typically work on a single campaign and make a commission on ad placements you buy. At Hot Dog Marketing, we create a strategic, holistic plan for you to build your brand and grow revenues long-term.
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Hot Dog Marketing is a digital marketing agency in Round Rock, TX serving small and medium-sized businesses. We excel in delivering marketing strategy, digital marketing, website design and development, and outstanding customer service.
To work with us, visit www.hotdogmarketing.net
Internal marketing teams: do they actually work for small businesses?
Are they worth it?
In this episode, Jessica Scanlon and Kevin Ring talk about how small businesses can suffer when they choose to use internal marketing teams.
Hiring one or two marketers to play the role of an entire marketing team spreads your employees much too thin. Unfortunately, these small internal marketing teams are often tasked with huge marketing projects with a wide breadth and become overloaded.
For small businesses, hiring an internal marketing team sinks a lot of their marketing budget into the people, rather than into lead generating activities.
What small businesses miss out on when using an internal marketing team:
- Specialists - A small business can't afford, nor does it need, a designated CMO all the time. But, having access to a CMO will come up occasionally.
- Objective third party - Valuable insights can come from an external team that doesn't feel like their job is at stake.
- High-level input - Most small marketing teams don't have the insight into the rest of the business to make real, changing impacts.
Solutions to level up a small internal marketing team (if you already have one).
- Don't just fire them!
- Bring them into the high-level meetings. Bring them to the table, so they can make impactful decisions.
- Empower your marketing people. Give them money for customer and market research.
- Know what your goal for marketing is. Growth? Innovation? Implementing marketing systems? Generating awareness, i.e., for COVID-19 protocols?
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Hot Dog Marketing is a digital marketing agency in Round Rock, TX serving small and medium-sized businesses. We excel in delivering marketing strategy, digital marketing, website design and development, and outstanding customer service.
To work with us, visit www.hotdogmarketing.net
The term "brand equity" is thrown around a lot, but what does it really mean?
In this episode, Jessica Scanlon and Kevin Ring focus on brand equity. They discuss not only what it is but how you can obtain brand equity for your small or medium-sized business. Having brand equity means that your brand is the one that comes to mind when people think about your industry/product/service.
Earning brand equity can come before the sale (like in advertising or clever marketing) or after the sale (through remarkable product delivery-not just fulfillment).
Your brand equity should be woven into your company's messaging, marketing, and business strategy. Be conscious of it in each step of your sales pipeline and service delivery. Having positive brand equity can put you first in mind before competitors since they know your business is trusted and reliable.
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Hot Dog Marketing is a digital marketing agency in Round Rock, TX serving small and medium-sized businesses. We excel in delivering marketing strategy, digital marketing, website design and development, and outstanding customer service.
To work with us, visit www.hotdogmarketing.net
Who is your ideal customer? (Hint: it's not everyone)
In this episode, Kevin Ring and Jessica Scanlon dispel some of the marketing myths we hear often. Unfortunately, there are many occasions where business owners fall into the trap of one or more of these marketing myths. Often, the effects are expensive and can also be creating much more work.
The marketing myths businesses often believe:
- My customer is everyone since my product is for everyone.
- I know the value we bring our customers and what they're looking for.
- We don't do marketing.
- Our business comes from government procurement so we don't need marketing, just a low price.
Jessica and Kevin talk about what happens when companies believe these myths and how to identify misbeliefs and turn them around.
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Hot Dog Marketing is a digital marketing agency in Round Rock, TX serving small and medium-sized businesses. We excel in delivering marketing strategy, digital marketing, website design and development, and outstanding customer service.
To work with us, visit www.hotdogmarketing.net
In business, you solve a problem for your customer. Pivoting means that you anticipate your customers' new concerns and adjust to solve their problems in a new way.
Customer effort score: the harder it is for customers to interact with you, the quicker they'll abandon the purchase.
Kevin discusses the framework we use at Hot Dog Marketing to help clients craft their strategic marketing plans.
- Who is your customer?
- Who is your buyer?
- Who is your user?
- How do they use your service?
- What value does your service create for them?
Kevin discusses the "value chain": the process of developing, producing, selling, and delivering your product. Knowing the entire value chain of your product, including who the buyers and users are, can help you identify how COVID-19 has impacted your customers.
Key questions:
Where are the new needs that are arising?
How is your customer's plight impacted by the complexity of the pandemic?
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Link to Pivot Workshop Download
https://sales.hotdogmarketing.net/pivot-workshop-download
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Hot Dog Marketing is a digital marketing agency in Round Rock, TX serving small and medium-sized businesses. We excel in delivering marketing strategy, digital marketing, website design and development, and outstanding customer service.
To work with us, visit www.hotdogmarketing.net
What happens when your annual business plan goes out of the window?
In this episode, Jessica Scanlon and Kevin Ring discuss how business leaders should reevaluate their business and marketing plans during times of crisis.
Before a crisis occurs, make sure you are keeping an updated dashboard of your business goals and key metrics. Jessica mentions that a few of the key indicators for Hot Dog Marketing are website visits and how many proposals the sales team is writing and sending out. Check in with this dashboard periodically to see how things are shifting and how to prepare for future shifts.
Kevin discusses how the health of small businesses is often tied to their cashflow. Unexpected changes in cash flow can have severe consequences. Business owners can retain confidence by tapping into unused lines of credit or government assistance programs (like the Paycheck Protection Program).
The third topic discussed was that sales cycles will be longer this year. Businesses and consumers will take longer to make decisions due to uncertainty. This doesn't mean your marketing efforts should halt, but your messaging should pivot to address customers' new concerns.
Key questions for adjusting to "new normals":
- What do you need to optimize to stay productive in this time?
- What does your marketing pipeline look like?
- How are you able to align marketing with the sales cycle in the new economy?
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Link to Pivot Workshop Download
https://sales.hotdogmarketing.net/pivot-workshop-download
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Hot Dog Marketing is a digital marketing agency in Round Rock, TX serving small and medium-sized businesses. We excel in delivering marketing strategy, digital marketing, website design and development, and outstanding customer service.
To work with us, visit www.hotdogmarketing.net
Who is your best customer? Hint: it's not just anyone with money.
In this episode, Jessica Scanlon and Kevin Ring discuss how to identify your ideal customer as a small business owner. Many business owners incorrectly think their ideal client is "everyone."
Ideal customers value what your business does. They have a problem that your business is uniquely situated to solve.
Ideal customers:
- Value what your business does
- Are easy to work with
- Understand how your product or service serves them
Action Steps:
Ask your sales team who the easiest clients are to close. Those are the clients that understand the value quickly. They are eager to work with your business.
Ask your client support team who they connect best with. These clients are happy with the value you provide and don't create problems or put up hurdles.
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Hot Dog Marketing is a digital marketing agency in Round Rock, TX serving small and medium-sized businesses. We excel in delivering marketing strategy, digital marketing, website design and development, and outstanding customer service.
To work with us, visit www.hotdogmarketing.net
Having a customer-centric value proposition is critical to making a real impact with your audience.
In this episode, Jessica Scanlon and Kevin Ring discuss focusing your messaging on the customer's values, instead of your own. Kevin compares this to dating, you don't want to spend the entire time talking about yourself. Marketing is similar. Instead, as a small business owner, communicate the value you can provide to your customers.
Many small businesses believe they simply need to communicate how much experience they have and how good they are at what they do in front of more people. However, this self-focused messaging is ineffective.
When your marketing is aligned with the value you provide, your customers come to you primed to purchase and sales teams don't have to work as hard.
Identify the value you provide to your customers:
- What is the one thing you do that makes you stand out from your competitors?
- What is the perceived value that your customers experience?
Your customers won't see your product or service as a path to a better future without you painting the picture for them.
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Hot Dog Marketing is a digital marketing agency in Round Rock, TX serving small and medium-sized businesses. We excel in delivering marketing strategy, digital marketing, website design and development, and outstanding customer service.
To work with us, visit www.hotdogmarketing.net
Community involvement helps your business build trust, accountability, and authority with your audience and the community.
Jessica Scanlon and Kevin Ring discuss how community giving can build brand equity just like consistent marketing. Beyond brand recognition, positive brand equity increases trust within the community for your business.
Even when times may seem difficult, give what you can because people are going to notice.
- Network in your community - Host virtual meetings with non-profit or other community leaders and find ways to meet the needs of the community.
- Leverage your business's resources to help the community - The community around you likely serves you with procurement and laborforce. Find creative ways to use those resources to sustain the community.
- Invest in programs that build up the community - Set up programs that will have positive, lasting effects on the community you serve.
Ask yourself and your team: "Who should help right now?"
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Hot Dog Marketing is a digital marketing agency in Round Rock, TX serving small and medium-sized businesses. We excel in delivering marketing strategy, digital marketing, website design and development, and outstanding customer service.
To work with us, visit www.hotdogmarketing.net
In this episode, Jessica Scanlon and Kevin Ring discuss how to dig into your company's mission, values, and vision. Just because a crisis hits doesn't mean your mission, values, and vision should be thrown out the window.
Mission: Your value proposition-the problem you set out to solve for people.
Values: the guide for how you do business-what people expect when they do business with you.
Vision: how the world will look once you've achieved your goals-how customers' lives will be transformed.
As a business owner, it can be tough to identify your mission, values, and vision, these help:
- Get laser-focused on what your business does best and who you want to serve.
- Ask your team about some of the best examples.
- How is the client better after working with you?
Without a clear mission, everything will be a struggle. Mission statements anchor you in how you are making your customers' lives better.
Downloadable Mission Statement Worksheet:
https://sales.hotdogmarketing.net/mission-vision
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Hot Dog Marketing is a digital marketing agency in Round Rock, TX serving small and medium-sized businesses. We excel in delivering marketing strategy, digital marketing, website design and development, and outstanding customer service.
To work with us, visit www.hotdogmarketing.net
Episode 1: originally recorded April 10, 2020. The first in a two-part mini-series about leadership in crisis finds Jessica Scanlon, Founder and CEO of Hot Dog Marketing, and Kevin Ring, our Director of Strategy, discussing what it means to be a leader in these uncertain times. What does being a leader mean now? What should leaders focus on? How should they adapt? What is really important to businesses now? All this and some pretty funny banter!