Doing Business 2.0 Explores Marketing Techniques
October 3, 2013
On September 11th, a panel of marketing experts presented local entrepreneurs with insights on the best practices for marketing their businesses. This panel, part of the monthly Doing Business 2.0 seminar hosted by WDCEP, included tips for the best uses for social media, rethinking your marketing strategy, and how to connect with your customer base.
Anthony Shop, chief strategy officer and co-founder of Social Driver, covered the topics of digital marketing and responsive web design as well as content strategy and the importance of it. Shop illustrated his digital marketing approach by showing a picture of a man looking at his cell phone in the middle of Times Square. Old and in your face marketing no longer captures the public’s attention as it used to. He explained that great web design lets the customer find what they are looking for more easily and involves thinking about how the customer thinks. Reaching those customers used to be much more of a company simply giving information about itself. However, now it involves a guided dialogue that is analogous to a conference call. Each aspect of marketing a business: talking, listening, sharing, and engaging, must be performed with purpose and with a specific goal in mind.
Ann Pinaso, Marketing Coordinator at McShea & Company, Inc. Commercial Real Estate and a Digital and Social Media consultant, explained the basics of social media and some important Do’s and Don’ts to remember. Pinaso said that businesses should use social media because it is an excellent tool to build a community around your product or service, expand your target market, and listen to what your customers want. Each social media outlet (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) can be used for different things, and they are not all necessary for a business to use. Pisano said that one of the challenges for social media is content creation. Therefore, one of her don’ts is to not try to be everywhere. A couple of important do’s include: planning a strategy, researching, and knowing site etiquette.