Your Small Business Marketing, Self Promotion

The core premise of Authentic Self Promotion is that showing up, serving, and thriving are interrelated. Promotion, or putting yourself forward, is part of showing up and is essential to having a successful business. Having a successful business is essential to being and sustaining an offer of service. In other words, you cannot serve if you do not take care of business.

Authenticity is the cornerstone of effective, sustainable self promotion because being authentic draws on a renewable resource, i.e., your core values and strengths. Put it all together, and you have Authentic Promotion.

Authentic self promotion is grounded in the conviction that you have something of unique value to offer the world and that you are willing to discover how to embody that offer, to show up and serve, and to thrive in the process.

Authentic self promotion reconciles values of service and integrity with the tools and practices of effective small business marketing. Authentic promotion of your small business rejects the easy dismissal of marketing and sales as shallow, manipulative, and inauthentic. Instead, Authentic self promotion claims that marketing and sales are vehicles for creating enduring relationships and delivering substantial value. If you choose the path of authentic self promotion, you will learn that marketing your small business effectively will challenge you to evolve continually as a person and as a professional.

Authenticity is intimately involved with creativity, evolution, and change. It is closely allied with the notion of authorship, thus of owning and being accountable for one’s actions. Authenticity acknowledges that we are always creating or writing our life stories. Expressed in business, such authenticity will step up to the challenge of making strong, clear, valid offers to prospects who are likely to benefit from those offers.

When we do business in an authentic fashion, we understand that we will be affected and even changed by the processes of doing business. Authenticity is dynamic. When you extend yourself authentically in the world, you expect an authentic response—one that may touch you deeply and influence your future decisions. There are risks, then, in authenticity.

Egocentric business practices, on the other hand, declare, “I don’t need to answer to anyone. I have no intention of being changed or affected by you as we do business together. Either you like me or you don’t. You’ll either find me or you won’t.”

Often this egocentricity is masked by a pseudo-authenticity, one that pretends to stand for immutable values and unassailable principles but that is really a declaration of self-absorption, “My way or the highway.” A better test for authenticity is whether or not we are willing to be affected by our transactions. The authentic expression of our deepest values and most closely held principles will always open us to the risk and blessings of new possibilities.

Authentic marketing and self promotion says, “I’m here to connect with you. I expect that we will both be changed in the course of our relationship. I am willing to discover you and myself in new ways as we do business. Come on down, let’s see what we can create together.”

I propose that the very real excesses and evils of some business practices can be countered in a powerful way by independent professionals and artists who use their businesses as a vehicle for showing up, serving, and thriving. It’s about more than making a living. Though, unless you do make a living, you will not be able to express your gifts to the fullest.

Authentic self promotion is about trying on business and marketing practices and adapting them to fit your values, your resources, and your unique gifts. It’s about having enough integrity and courage to welcome the inevitable breakdowns as occasions for learning and platforms for future success. In order to be truly authentic – in other words, to authenticate our values and our standards—we must act in the world. We must show up to serve, and we must stop pretending that commerce is something the bad guys do. In this way, we will shine a light on unfamiliar or inadequate practices for the sake of devising better practices.

Innovation in the advertisment

“Android” jump bravely into the future ! – In the base of every innovation, every small or big step in the progress of the technologies is the human, human brain and aspiration for progress. This is the leading message of new communication campaign “Android” of trademark JOHNNIE WALKER. Official distributor of Scotland whisky number one in the world – Diadjio Bulgaria sent in the new advertisment conception in the cocktail for partners, guests and medias.

The event was in the National art gallery, with objective to reproduce symbiosis, which was attained in the television videoclip “Android”, between classic science atmosphere and hi-tech innovation from the future. Official presentation of the new communication platform was gesture of attention to innovative managers of big companies in Bulgaria, who are the base of the technological development.

The leading of the event - 3-D variant of “Android” of the videoclip, sent in some of the most innovatives and interesting technologies inventions, known as Hi-Tech gadgets. BeoCom 2 – Unique and ergonomical telephone of the Danish genius Bang & Olufsen, the mobile PC “Acer Ferrari 5000″ with peak productivity, the revolution mouse “Logitech MX Air” and mobile phone “Vertu Ferrari Limited Edition” for collector was represented with assistanse of Hi Comm.

Promotion- push and pull strategies

“Push or Pull”?

Marketing theory distinguishes between two main kinds of promotional strategy – “push” and “pull”.

Push

A “push” promotional strategy makes use of a company’s sales force and trade promotion activities to create consumer demand for a product.

The producer promotes the product to wholesalers, the wholesalers promote it to retailers, and the retailers promote it to consumers.

A good example of “push” selling is mobile phones, where the major handset manufacturers such as Nokia promote their products via retailers such as Carphone Warehouse. Personal selling and trade promotions are often the most effective promotional tools for companies such as Nokia – for example offering subsidies on the handsets to encourage retailers to sell higher volumes.

A “push” strategy tries to sell directly to the consumer, bypassing other distribution channels (e.g. selling insurance or holidays directly). With this type of strategy, consumer promotions and advertising are the most likely promotional tools.

Pull

A “pull” selling strategy is one that requires high spending on advertising and consumer promotion to build up consumer demand for a product.

If the strategy is successful, consumers will ask their retailers for the product, the retailers will ask the wholesalers, and the wholesalers will ask the producers.

A good example of a pull is the heavy advertising and promotion of children’s’ toys – mainly on television. Consider the recent BBC promotional campaign for its new pre-school programme – the Fimbles. Aimed at two to four-year-olds, 130 episodes of Fimbles have been made and are featured everyday on digital children’s channel CBeebies and BBC2.

As part of the promotional campaign, the BBC has agreed a deal with toy maker Fisher-Price to market products based on the show, which it hopes will emulate the popularity of the Tweenies. Under the terms of the deal, Fisher-Price will develop, manufacture and distribute a range of Fimbles products including soft, plastic and electronic learning toys for the UK and Ireland.

In 2001, BBC Worldwide (the commercial division of the BBC) achieved sales of £90m from its children’s brands and properties last year. The demand created from broadcasting of the Fimbles and a major advertising campaign is likely to “pull” demand from children and encourage retailers to stock Fimbles toys in the stores for Christmas 2002.

Promotion – part of the marketing mix

Promotion: This is the P that most non marketers are familiar with, as it includes the elements that most people believe to be marketing such as selling and advertising etc. Unfortunately it is these same people who underestimate what marketing can do.

A huge amount of work should have been done prior to arriving at this stage in the market planning process if a promotion is to be successful and profitable.

Too many managers who have not been exposed to a market led approach all too often jump straight to this stage in the process and commence to waste large sums of money and effort. Even worse, they recruit a full-time marketing person to sort out the ailments of the company and then expect the marketing person to produce a new corporate brochure which will suddenly turnaround the fortunes of the company.