One of the things we preached all last year was to prepare your business for a rainy day. In 2019, when the economy was on fire, it was easy to ignore such urgings. Today, though, we can all see that every prospect is gold and having mechanisms in place to prospect for that gold would be hugely helpful right now.

Digi Hammer Social Media Marketing works with clients all over, although most are centralized in the greater Seattle and Tacoma geography. One such local client we have has been highly focused on building their marketing engine, even long before we showed up singing that song. It turns out that despite the coronavirus lockdowns, their business is booming. In fact, they are probably having the best year they’ve ever had. And the main reason has nothing to do with the virus quarantines. It has to do with the marketing engine they’ve built for themselves.

Their approach starts off with a philosophy that one of my favorite podcasters, Pat Flynn of www.smartpassiveincome.com, touts: “Be Everywhere.” Give the impression to prospects that you are everywhere they look through smart placement of your marketing materials. Reinforce your messages by having a consistent communication plan that drives the same messages across channels at the same time.

This particular client has identified their target audiences and identified marketing vehicles to reach those audiences. These vehicles include traditional, offline channels. They include online channels such as permission email marketing, social media through channels like Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google My Business and YouTube. The client participates in trade shows. They repurpose the same content across multiple channels – using blog pieces as articles in offline magazines, for example. They’ve done billboards. They bought print advertising. They bought social media advertising. They participate in their local chamber of commerce. They build relationships with referral sources and participate in a local networking group.

In short, they built an engine that is now delivering the best year they’ve ever had in the worst year possible.

What sort of engine are you building? Are you relying on one or two channels to deliver everything? Is that working for you? Have you had the foresight to identify the audiences you’re trying to reach and then married that up with the marketing channels that can deliver those audiences? Have you identified the messages you will need to deliver that will resonate with those audiences?

You probably wish now you had done all that work. It’s easy to play Monday morning quarterback. Don’t look backwards. Look forwards. Start today. Build your engine. And if you need assistance on where to start or on filling those pieces in, call professionals such as Digi Hammer and we’d be happy to discuss what such a plan should look like and help you implement it. And where we don’t provide services, we’re happy to introduce you companies and providers who can assist.