By Donna Olmstead
For the Albuquerque Journal

Revamping
Joanie Griffin, president of Griffin and Associates, a local marketing firm, says she has completely revamped her lifestyle since she turned 50 three years ago. “I have to work harder than I ever have in my life. But now I weigh 125 pounds, what I weighed when I graduated from high school.”

Everything in her diet has to work to support her active lifestyle, she says. She has a Greek yogurt and fruit or a high-protein smoothie most days for breakfast or as a recovery drink after working out and has a serving of chicken or fish with salad or green vegetables for lunch and dinner. She’s cut back on alcohol to one glass of wine a week.

If she has a craving, she gives into it once in a while. “I had a craving for Lemonheads and black licorice. So I ate that and I was done with it.”
Griffin credits her partner, Rob Durham, for getting her interested in biking competitively. She says she had not ridden a bicycle as an adult, but had previously worked out at the gym three times a week.

Now she works out from 5:30 to 7 a.m. before her workday begins and goes for a bike ride of several hours one day of the weekend, usually with her cycling club, Women Riding Well.

Setting an athletic goal and training to compete in an event keeps her motivated, she says.Griffin does triathlons and century bike rides of 100 miles, as well as the recent 50-mile Iron Horse Bicycle Classic in Colorado.

Full Article

Many boomers are discovering that a rewarding Act III in a happily-ever-after life requires rewriting exercise and diet plans.

“Every time you hit another decade, you feel the challenge to stay in shape. My husband and I were stuck in a routine that was not as good as it needed to be to keep us healthy,” says Joan B. Woodard, 59, a consultant, who retired from her full-time engineering position at Sandia National Laboratories a couple of years ago.

Jim Woodard, 63, also an engineer who retired a year ago, says the couple made specific changes in diet and exercise to continue to enjoy activities they love like snow skiing and trekking through Europe.

“We skied opening day at Taos,” he says, offering that as proof that their intensified exercise program with Jenny Gibson, a personal training manager at New Mexico Sports and Wellness, is working.

“She makes it really fun,” Joan explains, adding that Gibson created a special strengthening program for them to get them physically ready for ski season. “It made a huge difference.”

Joan says they work out about five days a week at the gym and recently have added yoga for flexibility and spin classes for cardiovascular endurance. They also work on balance with Gibson.

Jim says that he also has modified his diet to get his cholesterol levels under control: “I’ve avoided taking Lipitor.”

He says that they’ve also added a new golden retriever, Aspen, to their family: “We take her for a walk three times a day, rain or shine.”

Challenging aging

Karen Baker, the city’s 50+ Sports & Fitness supervisor, says she’s escalated her fitness plan. “I feel better than I have in a long time. I’ve always played tennis, swam and worked out, but never at the level I’m doing now. I’m mentally and physically better.”

Baker, 57, who enjoys an active lifestyle with her husband, Mike, 60, says she works out at least an hour a day, usually riding her bike before she goes to work. Several times a week she adds another hour of weightresistance training.

“When you get older it seems like something always hurts. Moving around takes the soreness out for me. I feel better after I work out,” Baker explains.

Recently, she worked out with seven women in a weight-lifting class. They challenged each other to see who could lose the most weight in 12 weeks, Baker says. She lost 7 pounds and took inches from her hips and waist. “I like looking better and fitting into nice clothes,” she says. “I think it’s OK to say that.”

“I basically still have those last 10 pounds to lose,” she says. “I think I work so hard because I want to stay young. I don’t want to be crippled and limited. I want to change that image of aging.”

Baker says her husband, Mike, is responsible for the couple’s better eating habits because he cooks delicious, healthy food.

“I’m in construction so these days I have plenty of time to work out and cook,” he says.

Mike, who loves skiing, golfing, hiking and biking, also does yoga many days of the week. This past summer he broke his collarbone when he flew off his bike and over the years he’s had 10 orthopedic surgeries on his knees and shoulders. He often has pain in those areas, he says. He’s found some relief for his aches and pains with acupuncture, he says.

“I can’t lie anymore. I’m 60. My body doesn’t respond like it used to,” he says. “I’m out there fighting the best I can, but I’m not sure it’s a winning battle. But I have to keep fighting as best I can, otherwise I’m toast.”

Revamping

Joanie Griffin, president of Griffin and Associates, a local marketing firm, says she has completely revamped her lifestyle since she turned 50 three years ago. “I have to work harder than I ever have in my life. But now I weigh 125 pounds, what I weighed when I graduated from high school.”

Everything in her diet has to work to support her active lifestyle, she says. She has a Greek yogurt and fruit or a high-protein smoothie most days for breakfast or as a recovery drink after working out and has a serving of chicken or fish with salad or green vegetables for lunch and dinner. She’s cut back on alcohol to one glass of wine a week.

If she has a craving, she gives into it once in a while. “I had a craving for Lemonheads and black licorice. So I ate that and I was done with it.”

Griffin credits her partner, Rob Durham, for getting her interested in biking competitively. She says she had not ridden a bicycle as an adult, but had previously worked out at the gym three times a week.

Now she works out from 5:30 to 7 a.m. before her workday begins and goes for a bike ride of several hours one day of the weekend, usually with her cycling club, Women Riding Well.

Setting an athletic goal and training to compete in an event keeps her motivated, she says.

Griffin does triathlons and century bike rides of 100 miles, as well as the recent 50-mile Iron Horse Bicycle Classic in Colorado.

Serious training

Her fellow cyclist in Women Riding Well, Diana Tuggle, a program manager with Hewlett-Packard Co., says although she did aerobics classes, she didn’t start training seriously until she was 49 and had moved to San Diego from Los Alamos.

She had a good friend who ran marathons, she says. Her friend just didn’t accept no for an answer.

“I race-walked my first marathon,” Tuggle, now 61, remembers. She decided to challenge herself to another marathon for her 50th birthday, this time in Anchorage, Alaska.

Next came a 100-mile century bike race. “I had never ridden a bike, let alone ride 100 miles,” Tuggle says. “I hated the whole day. I suffered the whole day, but I finished.”

Tuggle says she decided to try another century event near Lake Tahoe. “That’s where I fell in love with cycling. I was well-trained and I loved it.”

Tuggle says she eats to support her cycling ambitions and trains most days of the week on her bicycle. Her diet when she’s racing is something her body can use effectively for fuel. When she eats before an event, she has a high-protein smoothie for breakfast and usually salmon, vegetables and a salad for lunch and something similar for dinner.

She competed in the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic this past year.

“I started crying. I was hurting terribly, but I finished. It was the most amazing feeling in the world.”

Tuggle, who moved back to Albuquerque to be near her six grandchildren, says she doesn’t see herself slowing down. “If I slow down, I will get old and I won’t let that happen. I know women who are 75 and 80 and still do century rides. That’s where I’ve set my goals.”

Halting aging

The effects of aging are real, but reinvigorated exercise and diet programs can halt or reverse many of those natural, debilitating changes, says Dr. Laurence R. Laudicina, a sports medicine spokesman with the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.

Laudicina, who practices with ABQ Health Partners, says, “Everybody can do this. It’s never too late, even for an octogenarian, to learn to do these things to improve ourselves physically.”

For many reasons, including reduced sex hormones, muscles begin to decline, sometime around 50 years of age, he says.

Without a weight-training program, an average person would lose 33 percent of his or her muscle mass between the ages of 50 and 85.

“That’s a stunning number,” Laudicina says. Muscle loss and “wasting,” called sarcopenia, has become a hot research topic.

“There are 187 research studies and counting that demonstrate that weightresistance training can halt or reverse muscle loss. Weight-resistance training is just as effective for Grandma and Grandpa as it is for a younger person,” he says.

Along with muscles, bones also lose density, and can result in a disease of brittle bones, called osteoporosis. Aging also brings declines in flexibility, cardiovascular endurance, balance and the ability to absorb adequate nutrients from food, Laudicina explains.

“We have a higher requirement for protein as we age. Boomers should eat about 400 calories of highquality protein everyday,” Laudicina says.

He recommends cardio training most days, like swimming or brisk walking, that is easier on the joints. Endurance exercise should be followed several days a week by a weightlifting session of about two or three sets of 10 exercises that work all the major muscle groups. He says warming up and cooling down adequately helps prevent injury. Consistency, cross training and working slowly toward a new exercise goal all help prevent injury, he adds.

Boomeritis or inflammation that causes pain is also a reality, he adds. “We need a workout that is welltailored for the individual. We need to keep our bodies tuned up.” If pain flares up after a workout, Laudicina recommends icing the area.

If the physical decline is unchecked, falls and resulting injury are the sixth leading cause of death in people older than 65, Laudicina says.

“We slowly realize we can’t do what we were able to do back in the day. We don’t recover like we used to. Our bodies don’t function as well as they used to,” he says. “As we mature, we have to work harder to maintain a certain level of fitness. No one is immune. But we have control over this. That’s what’s so awesome. We have control over this. We can train physically and improve in all these areas.”

1) Value Is the Deal

Differentiated and believable brand meaning – emotional, rational, functional, and experiential – becomes a more effective and profitable surrogate for value than low-lower-lowest pricing strategies. But only the consumer gets to say how “valuable” is actually defined. Employ effective systems to listen to them and then figure out ways to tune in the consumer’s frequency.

2) Social Network Security

Friends have an even greater influence on purchase habits than before, but the trust in the community outside the brand space will only be extended to the brand if truly understood and properly incorporated into brand outreach strategies. More connected consumers won’t call, text, or email, but will use social network streams to talk about brands, create personalized content, and increase brand engagement – all necessitating a deeper understanding of what drives a brand’s category and how social network platforms play their part. But watch for more powerful peer-to-peer recommendations coming in the form of subject and feedback blogs – more targeted, more trusted, and more motivating than advertising, promotions, sponsorships, or celebrity endorsements.

3) Inward Bound

Differentiation will increasingly come from a brand’s emotional offerings and finding what will best resonate with consumers. Doing what others do signals commodity, not brand. This is one suit that needs to be custom made. Personal connection and engagement will be more and more critical especially in today’s weakened economy.

4) Great Expectations

Brands aren’t able to keep up with consumer expectations and haven’t for a while now. Every day consumers adopt and devour the latest and greatest, hungering for cutting-edge innovations and enhanced experiences. Accurate measures of real category expectations can provide both ‘roadmaps’ and significant advantages for brands that understand their value.

5) Now Entering the Statusphere

Status remains with us, but the definition continues its shift. The curtain has been pulled back on labels without meaning. Increasingly, meaning is defined far deeper than simple ownership and ubiquitous logos. Producing, selling, and shopping based on environmentally “green” production and design, and fair-trade and socially conscious consumption is the trend for brands and consumers. To discover their best tactics here, a brand will need to investigate the components of important category drivers. Spot them. Understand them. Leverage them.

6) Appvertising

As a result of growing smartphone/tablet ubiquity, look for more and more apps and their effective use to create an interactive nexus to increase consumer engagement and brand differentiation. It’s not just about games anymore.

The future may not be what it used to be, but on Thursday we’ll reveal the final six trends for 2012. We can tell you now that marketers that have loyalty and engagement metrics in place will have a handle on the trends that are going to show up in their offices. And in 2012 that’s more important than ever because to be prepared is always half the victory.

Statistics

3-year growth: 76%
2007 Revenue: $2.2 million
2004 Revenue: $1.2 million
Employees: 8
Founded: 1990
Industry: Advertising & Marketing
Industry Rank: #313

via Inc. Magazine

July 2010

The Taos Town Council voted unanimously Tuesday (May 10) to renew the town’s marketing contract with Griffin and Associates.

The Albuquerque-based firm has been doing marketing for the town for four years. Ten companies responded to the town’s recent request for proposals, which procurement officer Tina Torres said will not be made public until a contract with Griffin is signed, likely later this month.

Owner and President Joan Griffin said a marketing plan should be complete in the coming weeks, though the firm plans for “a lot more social media and online media.” She also said Griffin and Associates will be using new technology to track results and get better, more “concrete” data about the results of its marketing efforts.

“That’s the other big push,” she said.

A budget has not been set, but town public affairs and tourism director Cathy Connelly said the marketing budget is proposed to be $410,000 in the next fiscal year.

Connelly prepared the following items relating to Tuesday’s council meeting:

1) Approved – Budget adjustment request involving the water rights fund, $100,000, to repair a major water valve leak at the intersection of Kit Carson and Paseo del Pueblo Norte/Sur (intersection of US 64 and NM 68).  It is anticipated that the repair will take one week, and will have to occur during June, 2011.  This is an emergency procurement action to repair this leak.  The Town of Taos will do its best to complete the repair in a fashion responsive to off-visitor timeframes, and understands that June is not optimum for area merchants.  However, this is an emergency situation, and could become much worse if it is not attended to as soon as possible.  Traffic will be interrupted, but this interruption should be restricted to the identified intersection.  However, using alternative routes as possible is recommended (i.e., Camino de la Placita).  Taos Police Department traffic control assistance will be scheduled.  The exact dates for this repair will be communicated as soon as they are ready, and the selected contractor will be working with the Town to inform all merchants of the situation/closure.  Public Utilities Director Amos Torres indicates that his team is working on not having to turn water off for this procedure – with confirmation pending.  Originally, it was hoped that the leak could be repaired through ‘pipe bursting’ techniques, where one relines the existing pipe, which would be less disruptive.  However, further investigation revealed that the leak went beyond the ability to be repaired in this manner.  Again, this is an urgent situation, and the faster it can be remedied, the better for all.  Questions should be directed to Mr. Torres, atorres@taosgov.com.

2) “Allen Vigil Day in Taos” was declared today by the Town Mayor/Council.  Mr. Vigil has served the Taos community his entire life, through his family, music, church, civic contributions, and professional involvement in the Town of Taos Planning & Zoning Department, including playing a major role in historic preservation, land use development codes, master plans, and support of the Arts & Cultural District, as well as being involved and instrumental in the Taos Project and the development of Taos Plaza Live.  Mr. Vigil has resigned his position with Town of Taos Planning & Zoning Department.  Thank you Allen Vigil!

3) Approved – New restaurant beer and wine liquor license for El Gamal, LLC, 112 Dona Luz, Taos.

4) May 20th – Town Spring Clean Up by All Staff – Join us and make Friday, May 20th a focused, collected town-wide effort to clean up your yard or business frontage — as Town of Taos staff tackles public roads, parks and other areas.  All 176 staff, except those assigned to essential services, will be out cleaning, picking up trash and repairing areas throughout Town to kick off our summer season.

6) Tabled.  Consideration of an ordinance amending the Town’s water policy – to clarify situations in which connection to Town water and payment of hook-up fees along with transfer of water rights or payment of water rights user fees are, or are not, required.

7) Chamisa Verde Affordable housing ordinance — discussion delayed for more information; back on agenda end of May, 2011.

8) Approved – Taos Regional Airport – pavement sealer and rejuvenator program.  This is 95% paid for by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

9) Planning Director William Morris, Planning & Zoning Director, reviewed the petition that is being presented to the Municipal Boundary Commission to annex various infill parcels around the Town as directed by the Town Council.  This was brought up last Council meeting, and is focused on cleaning up confusing and problematic “pockets” in the Town of Taos service boundary.

10) Accepted – Convention and Visitor Services Director Ron Yachinich secured a grant for the Town, which was accepted by Council, in the amount of $44,345 from the NM Environment Dept., to pay for the replacement of existing pea gravel and wood mulch surface areas beneath playground equipment at Kit Carson Park, Fred Baca Park, and Taos Youth and Family Center with recycled tire rubber mulch.

11) Approved – Appointment of Planning & Zoning Commissioners for two year terms – Jim Thompson, Douglas Patterson, Justin Lea, and Mario Suazo.

12) Council has been asked to examine jake-brake and boom box ordinances issues from a nuisance (noise) approach.

12) No action – pay proposals related to Town of Taos reorganization (item out of Executive Committee).

via The Taos News

May 10, 2011

But Taos economist Bill Stevens says the emphasis on tourist dollars is overblown — and he has the numbers to prove it.

To gauge the tourism industry’s contribution to the Taos County economy, Stevens combines revenue numbers reported to the state from four business categories: eating, drinking, lodging, and amusement and recreation.

It’s not a perfect picture, he says, but it gives us a good idea.

According to this model, tourism had a meteoric rise in the 1980s and early 1990s — from about $20 million in revenue in 1980 to $75 million by 1994.

But in the subsequent 17 years, income from tourism has been relatively flat, hovering steady between about $72 million and $78 million.

While tourism held steady, the county’s economy as a whole went from $500 million in 1994 to nearly $1 billion in 2006.

As such, tourism contributed less and less. In 1994, tourism accounted for 12 percent of the total economy. Last year it was just 8 percent.

It’s not that tourism dollars haven’t exactly been plummeting. It’s just that other parts of the economy left the tourism industry in the dust.

So what’s responsible for the swelling Taos economy over the last 15 years?

In Stevens’ opinion, an enormous wave of “in-migrants” caused the big economic boost.

Between 1994 to 2005, the county’s population went from 25,000 to almost 32,000 people, and 35 percent of those people were 55 and older. Using data collected from IRS tax returns, Stevens notes that the majority of these “in-migrants” were older, out-of-state newcomers to Taos.

The majority of them were well-educated and were coming to Taos with retirement and savings to spend.

They bought or built homes. They filled their homes with furniture and art. They skied and shopped for groceries. And many started small businesses.

The biggest boom, by the numbers, was in construction.

From 1990 to 2006, the construction industry rose by an average of more than 8 percent per year, and building permits in the town and county were flying off the shelves. The housing craze employed a lot of locals, and had the effect of beefing up the economy as a whole, Stevens says.

But when the nationwide recession crippled the housing market, it stopped the boom dead in its tracks. The construction industry as a whole dropped by 30 percent from 2006 to 2009, and general contracting fell by more than half. Hundreds of construction workers are still out of a job.

In-migrants stopped coming in droves, and Stevens thinks local businesses in all areas are now feeling the hangover.

The end of the massive influx may be exposing the vulnerability of the Taos tourism business, or at least highlighting how small a role it now plays.

More importantly, Stevens argues, people should recognize that the minor ups and downs in the visitor tally have little to do with the general health of Taos businesses. All of them.

Consider this: Numbers provided by the town show that more people walked into the visitor center last year than in any of the previous five years. But many businesses, especially those in the historic district, are struggling to stay afloat.

Meanwhile, Taos is losing at least half its local dollars to retailers and businesses outside of the area. According to a 2006 study, less than 50 percent of the purchases made by Taos County residents were local. And the percentages for higher-priced items like construction materials and vehicles were even lower.

Stevens thinks Taos has been left aimless amid the economic maelstrom. Few people understand what really drove the economy in the 2000s, and decision makers and business owners don’t fully understand what needs to be done to save Taos from slipping further into despair.

Whether it’s a renewed focus on tourism, or an approach that explores burgeoning industries and sectors that could find a home in Taos, Stevenssays something needs to change.

Marketing matters, but how much?

Since 2007, the town of Taos has steadily increased the amount of its marketing contract from around $100,000 to more than $400,000 this year. Each year, the contract has gone to the same marketing firm: Griffin and Associates based in Albuquerque.

Some people think its too much. Others, not enough.

Joanie Griffin, who heads Griffin and Associates, says the firm has effectively leveraged its annual budget and spent it in ways to get the most bang for the buck. But that claim is hard to quantify.

It isn’t easy to draw a correlation between what the town shells out for magazine ads, online campaigns and other marketing, and what it gets back in tourist visits. According to numbers provided by the town of Taos and the Taos County Chamber of Commerce, 119,558 people walked through the door of the visitors center in 2006.

While the marketing budget went up, the number of visitors dipped slightly to 115,933 in 2008. Last year, visitor numbers climbed back up to 126,863.

By comparison, the visitor center counted 138,000 people in 2003. Town of Taos lodgers tax numbers — a reflection of overnight stays — are similarly varied. Aside from a spike to over $1 million in 2007 (the same time visitor numbers were going down), lodgers tax revenue has hovered around $900,000 a year.

The 15-year trend shows revenue improving since 1996, but the rising cost of a room and the fact that the tax went up by 0.5 percent in 2002 could account for at least part of the increase.

Meanwhile, the international effects of the recession (gas prices, decreased disposable income, etc…) and wide-swinging weather patterns have likely had an impact on the number of people coming to town.

Griffin admits that there is no way to be sure that advertising is working. Instead, she said the real incentive is the marketing maxim that if you don’t advertise, the consequences could be dire.

“You have to stay in front of people,” Griffin says. “And if you don’t, they’re going to do something else.”

With the recession, Griffin says more destinations are competing for the same visitors, and those visitors are more picky with how they spend their cash. Though there are an infinite number of factors that affect someone’s decision to visit Taos, it helps to get the name out there and remind people why they should come.

Griffin thinks lodgers tax is the best barometer for the health of the tourism industry, and compared to numbers in Albuquerque and Santa Fe, she thinks Taos has faired better than those areas over the last few years.

But what’s unclear is how much in public funds should go into advertising, especially if it’s hard to prove that the town and its businesses are getting a direct return on that investment.

jrlogan@taosnews.com

via The Taos News
September 1, 2011

• Discount (okay if it’s used as a trial device)
• Delegate (don’t just pass it off to a secretary to do and hope it turns out okay)
• Try to be all things to all people (Be a specialist.  People are willing to pay more for specialists
• Use too much copy. Trying to say it all in one ad. Try to get it down to one 9-word thought.

DO include in all ads and marketing materials:

• Awareness about you and your firm
• A main idea
• A decision they need to make
• A call to action

What this means to you is that the majority of your marketing effort should be placed on relationship building – both with existing clients and those people that are in a position to refer work to your firm. You’ll need to put some effort into other marketing/business development activities as well. And with a systematic, scheduled approach to marketing, you’ll keep the pipeline full with new prospects.

Before beginning any business development activities, you must first identify who your target market is. The best way to identify your target market is to look back at your own accounting records for the last five years. Look at the top 20% of your billable clients and see if there are similarities. Are they from one type of business sector, one geographic location, do they all have similar accounting issues? Once you answer those questions, you can hone in on which types of clients are the most profitable prospects for you to pursue. Remember, you will spend the same amount of time marketing to a client that nets you $100 as you will one that nets you $1 million. So focus your energy on the larger, more profitable clients.

As you can see, direct mail, advertising and cold calling will yield a 1 in 1,000 positive response. I recommend you put little resources into these activities other than perhaps very targeted advertising. For instance, if many of your new clients come from attorney referrals, it would make sense to advertise in your local State Bar publication. Or if the majority of your profitable clients are woman-owned businesses, there may be an opportunity to advertise in your local National Association of Women Business Owners newsletter. If the advertising is very targeted and inexpensive, it would make sense to consider it. Do not mass advertise, unless your target market is the general public.

Moving up the pyramid to organizations and seminars. It is important to put part of your time and resources into strategic alliances. Now that you’ve identified your target market(s), you’ll want to participate in organizations where those businesses/individuals are members. One caveat, joining an organization won’t automatically mean more business coming your way. You will need to make the commitment to be an active participant. So find the one, two or three organizations that you can commit to and become active – join the board, volunteer to be the treasurer, write the newsletter. Find a way to be a visible, contributing member, and you will see that investment in time translate to new business.

Also on  the same rung on the pyramid is seminars.  Many professional service organizations have success in marketing via seminars. If there is a topic you are an expert in, it might make sense to host seminars on that topic and invite people/organizations from your target market(s) to attend. The seminar must be informative, not a sales pitch on your organization. You can expect that for every 25 people/organizations that attend, one will become a new client.

Putting on successful seminars is time consuming on the front-end. But once you develop a successful format, it can be duplicated. Another way to maximize your investment and minimize efforts is to partner with other non-competitive organizations for the seminar. For instance, there may be a law firm or stock brokerage firm that would be interested in partnering. They could share the cost of the seminar with you and by co-marketing, you will get your name and firm in front of their clientele. Make sure whomever you partner with is of the quality you would want to refer your clients to and be sure their target markets are similar to yours.

Another activity that shouldn’t be overlooked in this section of the pyramid is earned media or public relations activities. This is where you get news stories/articles written and placed on your firm. The media can be a very powerful tool in positioning your firm as experts in the marketplace and give you instant credibility.

At a minimum, I recommend sending out press releases to the local business publications and the business editor of the daily newspaper on major activities at your firm i.e. new hires, promotions, awards, being appointed to a non-profit board, etc. Then set as a goal to have at least two articles a year with you quoted as an expert. Or even better, if you can have your firm featured.  There are various ways to achieve this goal: you could write a guest column in your local business section or in one of the newsletters that reach your target market on a topic that is timely and that you have an expertise in. You could talk to the business editor about running a feature story on your firm and the successes you’ve had.  You could send a media kit to the local media so that you are a resource for them when they’re doing business articles.

Next is staying in touch with clients and referral sources so that they refer new business.  The first thing to consider if you haven’t already done so is a useful, informative, easy to navigate web site.  This is a way 24/7 that people can learn about your firm. On the website, be sure to include a section with recent news on the firm. This is where you would link to the articles and mentions we discussed above.  The benefit is that it gives you instant credibility when the media is writing about you.

In addition to the website, I recommend sending out periodic e-newsletters.  I’d send them at least quarterly, and more frequently if you have timely information to disseminate.  Be sure the newsletters are light and easy to read (not too much tax information). The purpose is to stay in touch and encourage people to call and be in touch. Don’t be afraid to use graphics to tell the story as well. If it’s too overwhelming to figure out how to do it, hire a professional. It will be money well spent.

Find other ways periodically throughout the year to stay in touch with clients. Be willing to be different here. Don’t just send out a holiday greeting. Be different, so that people notice you. One of my CPA clients does an event at her office every April 15^th called the Wine and Whine event where people can drink wine and whine about having to pay taxes. It’s a fun event and last year, the media covered it as well.

Instead of sending a holiday card and gift, which typically gets lost in the hub bub of the holidays, my firm celebrates an unknown holiday every January.  In January, no one is thinking of gifts and ours always stand out. This year, we celebrated January 20^th, National Do Nothing Day. We delivered custom teas and mugs and a cute card to our clients.  They loved it.

Lastly, when someone does refer, don’t forget to take the time to write a hand-written thank you  note.  It’s a dying art. But people do appreciate being recognized for their good deeds.

With the advent of the internet and email, its possible and probable to spread the word on a new service around the world in literally days.  The possibilities are limitless for utilizing the internet to spread the word of a company’s services and products.

Other effective means of viral marketing include public relations (creating a media buzz), special events, direct marketing.

E-mail marketing allows the advertiser to do several things that traditional direct marketing won’t. For instance, some e-mail marketing software will update the users’ database automatically. If a message is forwarded to friend then that friend’s e-mail address is automatically entered into the database. Additionally, if an e-mail address is incorrect then the software will automatically make that address inactive.

Another benefit of e-mail marketing is the cost. Thousands of e-mails can be sent out for less than half the cost to mail out 1,000 direct mail pieces and there are no additional printing and handling costs.

These statistics may shock you:

• Facebook added 100 million viewers in less than nine months
• If Facebook were a country, it would be the fourth largest
• The fastest growing segment on Facebook is women 55 to 65
• There are over 200,000,000 blogs
• 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations
• Only 14% trust advertising
• We no longer search for the news, the news finds us

Watch this You Tube video to continue being shocked.