Two chances to improve your marketing in time for the important Fall Season.

   Digital Marketing - Join with Bill McCurry and the Connecticut/New York PMA Division on Wednesday, October 9 in Waterbury, CT for a dinner meeting and discussion with Bill on Digital Marketing, Making During Chaos.
   Keeping Specialty Stores Special will help you focus your energies for maximum leverage. Connect with the New England PMA Division on Wednesday, October 16 for an afternoon Marketing Idea Exchange and an after dinner discussion led by Bill McCurry.
   Uncertain if you should attend these sessions? How's this for an offer you can't refuse? Bill McCurry will personally refund your costs (including the delicious meal!) if you don't make at least that much additional profit within 30 days of the meeting. Invest in yourself and in your business. Come, listen, learn and exchange the ideas that will boost your profits, guaranteed!
   More info? Call McCurry Associates (800) 553-1332 or PMA (800) 768-9287

Idea #1 - Customers Pay Us To Tell Them What and How to Buy
Brian Noble, Nobles, Hingham, MA, www.noblescamera.com

   The best digital product we sell is our Digital School. Cost is $150 per person, 2 hour class over three nights. Minimum class size is 10, the maximum is 15. After we reach 15 we sign them up for the next month's class.
   It's amazing how a customer sitting in a class will buy whatever you tell them. The same customer won't buy when you suggest the same product over the counter. The impression an instructor makes on product sales is overwhelming. Fill your class with profitable accessories and watch your sales grow.
   Our classes are really one big walking ad. The customers are paying us to show them how to transfer and print pictures using Windows XP. We also show them how to upload their pictures to our Photogize site for online ordering. It's great to have our customers pay us to build a relationship with them and show them how to give us money.

Idea #2 & 3 - Marketing Issues For Smaller Firms
Ted Dickens - Oxford One-Hour Photo LLC, Oxford, MI, (248) 628-2818

   I think the hardest part about marketing for non-marketing folks is to keep at it. I go to a seminar, get great ideas and all charged up -- then get back to the real world and get slogged under. Guerillas rarely operate in the kind of vacuum a sole-proprietor would think of as normal.

   It's a challenge. The people close enough to meet regularly are probably close enough to be considered a competitor. We probably need to recognize that our true competitors are the chain-store labs -- not each other!

   I'm seriously considering advertising free baby announcements, with as few strings as possible. My goal is to get something that is easy to advertise, not too expensive, but will get people through the door for the first time. If it works, I'll share the results with the newsletter.

Comments From Bill McCurry:

   The truth be known, our competitor is probably other leisure activities that take the consumers time and budget. Meeting with industry peers should generate ideas that help your business. Investigate the PMA division in your area as well as buying groups for a great source of idea exchanges.
   We all share your frustration with the pressure of maintaining marketing presence. Guerrilla Marketing was founded by small businesses and works well for them because of the unique forces on the entrepreneur.
   Guerrillas don't try to do everything at once. They don't "set themselves up to fail" but instead schedule one marketing function to do at a time before starting a new one. The most common mistakes Guerrillas In Training make is to think they have to do everything perfectly now. Start no more than one project each month and see that project through to a satisfactory conclusion. (Not perfect conclusion, remember the adage, "Incremental improvement is always better than delayed perfection.)
   This brings up a critical component of Guerrilla Marketing . . . repetition, repetition, repetition. Mediocre marketing done consistently will always outperform outstanding marketing done sporadically. Keep your messages out there.
   Hints for your free baby picture. Remind you staff that even though it's free, the customers need to be treated like they are paying top dollar. Too many customers redeeming free coupons are treated like second class citizens. Of course, they never return. Also, give them a reason to return. Send them out the door with information about the next logical service they should get which could be framing, birth announcements, thank you for the gift photo cards, albums, new camera, whatever.
   We'll be waiting to hear how your promotion works.