News
Welcome! Join us for client publication news and updates, plus explore our thoughts on publishing, marketing, and customer service, as well as new technologies and ideas to make your next project soar!
See you at WCA’s Get Smart!
We’re getting ready for the 2013 Women Communicators of Austin (WCA) Get Smart Conference on September 13th where our own Chellie Thompson is speaking at one of the break-out sessions! The theme of the conference, Fail Forward, means not being afraid to fail but instead to focus on how you can learn and grow if you do.
Chellie is delving into the topic of “Missing Your ROI” and giving some examples of personal, hard-taught lessons on how to recover the project should you miss your ROI. She’s ready with tactical advice and steps to identify when the investment is not paying off.
WCA’s Maria Cammack caught up with Chellie last week to ask her a few questions on entrepreneurship, her experience in sales and her Get Smart session topic. For Chellie’s full “Meet the Speaker” interview, click here and go to www.getsmartaustin.com today to register for the half-day conference to be held on Sept. 13 at the UT Commons Learning Center from 8 am to 1 pm.
We’ll see you there!
Expo Evolution: Don’t be Afraid of Change
We recently read an article written by Samantha Whitehorne with Associations Now that described how the Associated General Contractor’s of America turned their tradeshow on its head in a radical move that would either make or break the event.
AGC’s Chief Marketing Strategist Jeff Wilson and Patrick Wilson, president of The Profitable Association, Inc., shared the turnaround story earlier this month at ASAE’s 2013 Annual Meeting & Expo. Whithorne extracts three lessons:
- Set goals for change, but know your limits.
- Don’t be afraid to change again.
- Create an expo brand.
This is a great example of how sometimes you need a little courage, a little faith and a brilliant idea to take a dying show to a thriving show.
AGC’s idea took a second look at their venue in Palm Springs and their 55+, male audience, recreating the format to one that fit both. A golf-inspired expo called “Back in the Swing” strategically put vendors on an 18-hold miniature golf course with sponsors at each hole. They also provided additional larger opportunities for those vendors who wanted more engagement with attendees. Brilliant! And the idea paid off. The AGC exceeded its revenue goal by more than $50,000.
So, if you find yourself in this boat with your current tradeshow, take a few minutes to read the full article. If you’ve recently made extreme changes to your tradeshow, please share what you did here.
Making the Leap: A Personal Journey
Today we’re taking you back in time on a personal journey. A great slideshow provided by the McCombs School of Business at UT recently reminded us of the challenges and excitement we experienced as we decided to become business owners. And the advice is solid–not just for the development stage, but for the growth stages as well. Entrepreneurship is in our blood and it was a big part of both of our families. People ask us: “How did you make the leap?” Well, here is Chellie’s story.
Planning & Patience
When I graduated from Baylor in 1998 with a BBA in Business Management and Real Estate I had one goal – to one day own my own company. School loans overrode that goal and I took a decent paying job working for someone else. The goal grew to a desire long about the time my husband and I started talking about growing our family. You see, I grew up in a household where my mom owned her own business. She was a beautician and had a quaint little shop much like the one portrayed in Steel Magnolias in our garage. I would hop off the school bus, run home and plop down in a big comfy chair she had in the corner of the shop. I’d listen to the ladies gossip about anything and everything. Then when the last customer left looking beautiful, we’d start our evening together.
I have wonderful memories of my mom’s shop and the fulfillment it brought us all; I wanted my child to have a similar upbringing. Decisions had to be made and a future of steady paychecks and 401k contributions become a thing of the past. A contract position was coming open at my current employer that would allow me a work-from-home opportunity with flexibility in the number of hours I worked in a day. It was a huge leap of faith, but I went for it! We prepared for this change six months in advance with a rigorous savings plan. More than half of my monthly paycheck went into savings and all major purchases went on hold. The first three months were tough until the commission checks started coming in. To top things off, three months into this job change, I was pregnant and my childhood memories were now put in motion for my own daughter. The first year had its fair share of financial challenges since the previous salesperson sold the base for the year. It was up to me to go above and beyond in sales to make a decent living. I ended year one making about half of what I had made salaried, and it was fine. We survived it, and it was a great learning year for us.
Six years later I took on a bigger challenge – being a business owner of a corporation. I left being a solo practitioner for the big leagues, complete with a business partner. Once again the monthly pay changed back to a steady paycheck, but on a smaller scale. When you start a business, you have to take time to grow your client base, grow the bank account and sometimes you have to make sacrifices. The first year of life as an owner of Monarch Media, I worked two jobs to keep our household finances in check. It was tough. But again, we survived. So my advice to someone thinking about making the leap is to plan as much as you can by putting money into savings and be patient. The wait is well worth it!
— Chellie Thompson, Cofounder, Monarch Media & Consulting, Inc.
The Closer
None of us like to admit that we are in sales, but as a small business owner we are always on the lookout for another great client or another advertiser for a current client. Very rarely will the perfect client or advertiser walk in your door with a checkbook in one hand and a long-term relationship in the other…am I right?
Since we all have to go through the challenges that come along with finding clients, we all go through trying to close the deal as well. Some deals end well, some fall apart in the middle, and some become almost unrecognizable through this process. CNN Money ran an article titled “5 Ways to Close Big Deals Now” and it was a nice refresher on how to take a potential client or advertiser to a sold status. They also have a few new twists to consider as well. For instance, they suggest doing a little research ahead of time so you can relate your pitch to something that will genuinely help the decision makers. It takes the “this is what I do, do you need my services” and changes it to “you need help with xyz and this is how I can help you with that.” Reminders like this keep us selling and moving forward towards our next goal!
— Chellie Thompson, Cofounder, Monarch Media & Consulting, Inc.
Pause Before You Post: A Facebook Rule of Thumb
I think we can all agree that Facebook was created to be a personal social network more so than a business social network. That has long been reserved for LinkedIn (or so that’s what I think). But now we have business Facebook pages, Facebook ads–the need to be liked on two levels both personally and professionally. On top of that, we have the issue of what to post, who to friend, who likes us, how many likes makes our business socially accepted, etc. The list could go on and on. Andrea and I both have personal Facebook pages and we both maintain Monarch’s Facebook page. We have seen peers post politically charged comments on both their personal and professional pages, and given the political atmosphere it’s not hard to have something to talk about. When we see one of these posts, we will usually have a conversation that goes something like this, “Did you see what so-and-so posted? Wow, what were they thinking? Let’s not do that.”
If you’re a business of one, does your personal page differ in tone and style from your business page? Ours certainly does, but we do have a hard and fast rule that we use for both personal pages and the business page. Never post anything you wouldn’t say in a group of your peers. I like to think of my friends list and then I think of my oldest friend who is well into their 80s. Before I post anything, I think of how this person will receive my post. If I think they will receive it positively, then the post goes up. If not, then I keep it to myself. We were wondering what your rule of thumb is for posting on your personal and business Facebook pages?
— Chellie Thompson, Cofounder, Monarch Media & Consulting, Inc.
Is Readership “Buy-in” Necessary?
We’ve encountered a few companies during our growth with thoughts of publications—publications with potential and publications that needed to be rethought. So we’ve had several conversations amongst ourselves and we want to share some key thoughts that continue to surface.
Do readers “buy into” your publication? By this I mean do they pay for a subscription to receive your publication? Do they place a value on your product? (I don’t want to get into the conversation regarding e-magazines. I’d rather stick with printed magazine for this post.) We’ve come up with several conclusions, but the main idea is if you ask your readers to make a monetary contribution to your publication in the form of a subscription, then you are more likely to be self-sustaining through the years and your readers will be more loyal. What this means is when you first begin talking about producing a publication, you need to also assign a subscription rate to, one, offset the costs to produce a printed publication, but also to put a value on your publication. Think of it in these terms. If you pick-up a free magazine at your local eatery, are you likely to read it or toss it? If you subscribe to a magazine and it arrives in your mailbox, are you likely to read it or toss it? My guess is you’ll read the magazine you paid for. Why? Because you spent money on it, and nobody wants to throw money into the trash.
Don’t magazines with subscriptions take more time to get off the ground? Yes, it is challenging to produce a new magazine with a subscription attached. You will need to do lots and lots of research before the first issue hits the press to make sure you are investing your time and monetary capital in something readers want. Partnering with groups, associations, or other magazines is a great first step towards securing and growing a readership. But always keep the subscription at the forefront of those conversations. If you find a market in which to launch your publication and the subscriptions are there, then you know you have a viable product. If you don’t find this, then you may want to rethink your publication before launching.
But why can’t I just offer my magazine for free? We have found it is more challenging to quantify your readership if your publication is free, especially as a start-up. Why do you need to quantify your readership? Well, my guess is since your publication is free, you are relying solely on advertising to subsidize your production expenses. Advertisers want quantifiable readership data to determine if their investment is worth it. They also want to know who your readers are so they know they are reaching their market. Your publication is one of many depending on your market, and if advertisers are comparing you to your competition and your competition has solid readership data, then my instinct tells me their advertising dollars will be spent with your competition. What this means to you–it will be harder to produce your free publication without or with little support from advertising.
So, let’s summarize. When planning a publication, it’s always better to research, research, research. Ideally, determine a subscription rate to build value in your product and to help offset production costs, allowing you time to build your advertising base with solid, quantifiable readership data.
Email Etiquette
When this PR News article by Steve Goldstein landed in my inbox, I thought I was reading my own thoughts! I’m glad to know others share my high standards on email etiquette. If you know me personally, you know No. 8 (not replying within 24 hours) will put me on my soapbox. Polite, 24-hour response time is best for business email, but is essential when you’re in sales. Read through the rest of the list and if you have a few more, please feel free to share them here.
— Chellie Thompson, Cofounder, Monarch Media & Consulting, Inc.
Direct Mail Marketing: Tips for Success
Here at Monarch Media we embarked on our first-ever mailed marketing piece. It’s been exciting to pull together this postcard and see it garner a new client for us! As we were writing the copy, a very timely article on direct mail copywriting landed in our inbox. We used it as a guide to ensure our postcard had the best chance of success. If you are preparing a marketing campaign this spring, you may want to read through the “9 Rules for Direct Mail Copywriting Success” from Target Marketing. Ask yourself these nine questions before you finalize your next direct mail piece – the answers made all the difference in the return on our investment!
Association Publishing Niche Thriving
There have been numerous articles and news stories lately talking about the downward spiral of the publishing industry. Of course being in this industry, these do peak our interest, but ultimately keep us focused on our target market. If you’re a colleague of ours, you know we are looking for association publications with whom to partner. When asked why this group, the answer is simple. Associations have a built-in audience that thrives on relevant information delivered in the form of a membership publication or magazine. But there is another reason we chose this niche. It is best explained through the recent article by Katie Bascuas with Associations Now. She writes “many associations are creating content without such short expiration dates.” Meaning where the consumer titles’ information is outdated the second it prints, associations have the ability to give their content a decent shelf life, even becoming a type of reference resource for months to come. Finding your niche is important, and if you choose wisely, you might just be able to withstand a volatile industry like publishing!
— Chellie Thompson, Cofounder, Monarch Media & Consulting, Inc.
Growing Your QR Code Success
Is incorporating a QR Code into your marketing efforts on your To-Do list? We ran across this article, “Five Good Uses of QR Codes” on digiday.com that offers five success stories for QR Codes.
It got us thinking about how our publications’ advertisers could use these tips to gain even more ROI from their print ads. We hope it might get you thinking in an innovative way to garner more interest in your brand or product through the use of the QR Code marketing tool. If you have successfully implemented a marketing campaign with the use of a QR Code, we’d love to hear about it in the comments section below.