PITCHING SMALL BUSINESS FOR RECURRING GIGS AND INCOME

Small businesses from restaurants to hardware, boutiques to pool supplies need to market now more than ever.

This is opening up an opportunity for you to find on-going accounts. Ones that pay you monthly for work to keep their social media campaigns on track and on-brand.

You could charge anywhere from $1000 per month to $5000 per month doing these marketing shoots.

That is recurring income.

What if you had 1 at $1500, and one at $2000 and then picked up another at $2500… now pushing $6K from three recurring gigs?

I am not promising that will happen, I am saying it is possible and very likely IF you market your asses off.

But we need a way to put this info out to our potential clients and leads.

I have written a script to consider. You may use it to create a web page, direct mail piece, leave-behind… whatever. Feel free to change it, alter it, rewrite it. Whatever. (If you come up with some awesome stuff, share it with your peers here. No one is in the same market, so it is all good.

I tried to keep it plain and without a real ‘voice’ so you will want to add your brand to it. (There are no f-bombs, so you know it is mild for me… heh.)

Here is the script.

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A Madison Avenue Advertising Plan on a Main Street Budget.

Wow… things have sure changed a lot over the past few months. So much talk of the “new normal” and how our businesses are changing, or ‘transforming’ as is the current lingo.

But as important as that is, we must focus on what has not changed. That is where the gold is, and how advertising and marketing will continue to thrive.

The mediums are changing, but the message, authenticity, and brand continue to need a place to express themselves to your customers and clients.

Madison Avenue has seen the changes and quite frankly, they are frightened of what it means to them and their revenue. But unfortunately, they are focused on saving their butts instead of wondering how YOU will survive.

We want you to thrive, not just survive.

Most small businesses on Main Street (USA, FRANCE… wherever) cannot afford luxury magazine ads and they don’t work all that well for small business anyway. Purchasing local TV ads means being on at 3AM sponsoring someone hawking a new ‘Fat Burning System” that entails eating only ice cream and broccoli. It’s just too expensive to be seen when most viewers – and your customers – are watching.

Direct mail still works, but it must be connected to a solid on-going media campaign to give it a sense of urgency and consistency.

Where do you turn to get your message out without spending more than you should, but getting a return that makes sense?

Social Media.

Instagram and Facebook are becoming a preferred method for small businesses competing with larger ones, and for boutiques and specialty shops that want maximum bang for their advertising dollars.

A consistent Instagram feed and targeted Facebook advertising are affordable, measurable, and powerful.

And those ads and campaigns are built on images. Photographs. Great photographs.

Advertising agencies know great photography works in every medium. Some ad campaigns will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on the images they use for advertising. Because they know photography – amazing photography really works. It sells ideas, services, and products.

And great photography sells products and services online as well. Amazon knows it. Etsy knows it. Email retailers know it. Even Madison Ave knows it. And believe me when I tell you they are already moving toward this new way of advertising, although they will still be expensive.

Engaging photography, solid messaging, and consistent connection can build relationships. One or two posts per month from a random customer’s iPhone is not a marketing campaign. Taking photographs of your food out on a table in the sun is not appetizing. Shooting your neighbor’s daughter with a camera phone is not going to sell fashion. It just isn’t.

You need a professional who understands how to create the kinds of images that your clients expect to see, and you want to represent your brand.

One or two posts per day, with a solid plan for growth and featuring images that pull your clients in is the way forward in this crazy environment of uncertainty. And it is totally affordable – especially for small businesses in challenging times.

Let us show you how you can harness the power of Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and other social media using the best imagery you can possibly find while spending less than you would on a single traditional magazine ad insertion.

Call for a consultation (we’ll use ZOOM) and find out how you can spend less, engage more… and create raving fans for your products or service.