CreativeXchange Marketing Blog

Every business needs to have a SWOT done annually. NOTE - before you embark on a SWOT Analysis, you need to have a thorough knowledge of your target market and have completed a competition analysis of your top three competitors. So what is a SWOT Analysis? SWOT stands for: STRENGTHS - what are your company...

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In our last blog we discussed the importance of knowing your competition and of conducting competition analysis. Here are 10 brief tips to review: Be a customer. Shop your competition and buy something. This will give you the most thorough view of their strengths and weaknesses. Research their website...

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Have you taken a good look at what your competitors are doing? Have you ever thought – I don't have any competitors, my product or service is one-of-a-kind? Well, we all have competitors. If you think you don't, you do. It's true, you may have a very specific niche or one-of-a-kind product or service...

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In our last blog we discussed the importance of clearly defining your target markert. This blog will cover how to determine your target market. To start, first determine why someone would buy your product or service. Why did you create the product or service you did? Once you know this, there are three...

Read more about Target Market Review - Part 2

Your Ideal Client or Customer: How do you know who they are? Often times when I ask my clients, "Who will buy your product?" or "Who is your ideal client?" they either do not have a clearly defined customer, or they think everyone will be interested in their product or service. Typically...

Read more about Target Market Review - Part 1

Our last few blogs have addressed the need for defining your 4 P's of marketing. As mentioned in our first 4 P's of marketing blog , the 4 P's are: Product/Service Pricing Promotion Placement/Positioning Let's discuss the last P, "Placement". Placement typically refers to the location where...

Read more about Placement - A "P" with Different Meanings

Our last few blogs have addressed the need for defining your 4 P's of marketing. As mentioned in our first 4 P's of marketing blog , the 4 P's are: Product/Service Pricing Promotion Placement/Positioning Let's discuss the third P, "Promotion". There are so many traditional and non-traditional...

Read more about Best Practices of Promotion

Do You Have an Effective Pricing Strategy? Our past couple of blogs have addressed the need for defining your 4 P's of marketing. The first "P" discussed in our last blog was the "Product" (or service) "P". As mentioned in our previous blog , the 4 P's of marketing are:...

Read more about Pitfalls of Pricing Strategies

Do you know your 4 P's of Marketing? Whether you have a start-up business or established business, clearly defining your 4 P's of marketing is critical to success. It will help you develop a strategic marketing plan . Without this strategy, any marketing tactics you implement could be ineffective. As...

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Marketing is the process of researching, developing, promoting, selling and distributing a product or service. Advertising is just one of many marketing tactics to promote a business, product or service. I often hear, "I don't need to do any marketing." Or, "Marketing doesn't work."...

Read more about Marketing - that's advertising - right?

There are many social media companies popping up left and right - some very well schooled in it and others not. The ones that are not well schooled in it know just enough to be dangerous. I was talking to a referral partner on the phone today and he mentioned how a friend of his has spent tons of time...

Read more about When Social Media Doesn't Work

This is a loaded question. Pricing strategy (one of your four P's of marketing ) is often overlooked in marketing plans . Your pricing stratgey is critical to your success. Heavily discounting your products and services can de-value the worth of your products/services and recovering from this after the...

Read more about Should You Discount in a Recession?

Keeping up with the latest studies on web usability is imperative for a web and marketing company. In doing our weekly research of the latest technology and web trends, we uncovered another great resource from Samashing Magazine . Test you own web site against it....

Read more about More Great Web Design Usability Tips

As we discussed in our previous blog, working in collaboration with clients is most important. It is a requirement for a successful relationship and client satisfaction. Being collaborative avoids misunderstandings and surprises are eliminated. So, we know collaboration and teamwork is imperative, but...

Read more about Is Collaboration that Important? Part 2

Recently I have been hearing of more horror stories about how people are not satisfied with their vendors. Work was not performed to their expectations, misunderstandings and errors occured throughout the project and complete aspects of the project were not delivered. Just last week, a new client came...

Read more about Is Collaboration that Important? Part 1

The Official Google Website Optimizer Blog released a webinar video on the 7 Deadly Sins of Landing Page Design . Page down to this great video and test your own website against the 7 deadly sins. If you are driving traffic to your site, make sure your design will get you conversions and drive business...

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I recently heard a couple of people talking about what permission based email is. I wanted to step into the conversation, but the one person was handling it quite well. The quandary was, can you add someone to your email newsletter database if you simply meet them at a networking event and exchange cards...

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Recently, I have talked to several people who are leary to get close to their competition or let their competition get close to them. Here are some of the examples I have heard in the last couple of weeks: I'm not going to have a one-on-one with my competition - they are just trying to find out how I...

Read more about Keep your business partners close, but your competitors closer

I am a stickler for getting and giving exceptional customer service. Today I had yet another bad experience at our local Safeway store. I have one of those Club Member cards that allows you to receive extra savings when you swipe your card through the machine at the check out. Well, my card strip has...

Read more about Customer Service Horror Stories

Just this week I heard from two Denver-based companies who used vendors who were not local. One vendor was out-of-state and one was actually out of the country. In both cases they had less than desireable outcomes and were contacting me for assistance. The first company I heard about this week was a...

Read more about Reaping the Benefits of Working with Local Vendors