by Kirby Hasseman
As we approach the New Year, it’s a great time for organizations to take a hard look at their marketing. Do you love your brand? How do you feel about your website? This is why we created HMC Marketing Pyramid. It’s a simple tool that helps you look at your organization and decide where to start. The Coshocton County Chamber of Commerce is one organization that will be starting the new year with a new website.
Coshocton County Chamber of Commerce Website Is Live
We are excited to announce and share that the
Coshocton County Chamber of Commerce is starting the new year with a new website to better serve the Coshocton County community and its members.
We were honored to be asked to create this new website and want to thank Amy and the Coshocton Chamber for allowing us to build and maintain their new website. The task was simple. The goal was to create a more modern site that will make it easier for residents, visitors, and tourists in Coshocton County to find and connect with local businesses. Additionally, we wanted to build the website so that businesses and organizations can join, pay, renew membership, and update their profiles.
With the automation built into the website, the chamber can now accept new members 24/7, maintain an up-to-date
directory of members, and free up time for staff to do more direct service and less administrative tasks. Are you a member of the Coshocton Chamber (or do you want to be)? Make sure you bookmark the member directory and use it to find your next service, restaurant, or entertainment venue in and around Coshocton. If your business isn’t listed,
join today. And thank you so much to the Coshocton Chamber for letting us help you on this project!
Yes…Hasseman Marketing Does Websites
by Kirby Hasseman
If you are a marketer or an entrepreneur, you likely have more than a few challenges. But one of them is most likely, where to spend your time and resources. There is finite time and money, and you want to make sure you are doing the thing that will bring you the most return. Mike Michaelowicz turned me onto this idea in his book “Fix This Next.” Mike created a “Business Priority Pyramid” so that entrepreneurs can decide what is the right thing for them to be working on each day. I found this to be a powerful tool in order to make sure my efforts are going in the right direction.
But I find this to be a challenge for marketers too! There are so many marketing options to spend your time and resources on, it can be tough to know what to work on next. In addition, it seems like every day, a shiny new marketing tool comes out. As marketing professionals, we want to stay on top of the latest trends. But you don’t want to spend all of your time distracted by the newest toy…and lose out on the foundation.
That is why we created our HMC Marketing Pyramid
The concept is simple. We have created our HMC Marketing Pyramid as a worksheet for marketers. We have created levels so that you know where you are on your marketing journey. It also helps you prioritize what you need to work on next (or budget to work on soon). As you go through the pyramid, you want to check each box where you feel you are strong (or at least comfortable) where you are. After you go through the whole checklist, go to the lowest part of the pyramid where there is an unchecked box. That is where you need to start! You need to have a strong foundation if you want a pyramid that is going to last.
Rookie Level
If you love sports metaphors, you are going to dig this. If not, think of this as the foundation of your marketing plan. You might be starting a new venture, or you want to get back to basics. You start at the Rookie Level. At that level, you want to make sure you are happy with your logo, basic branding, website, and more. If you leave something un-checked here, no problem. It just shows you that it’s time to work on that to move your marketing efforts to the next level.
Starter Level
And speaking of the next level, now you are a starter! At this level, you have mastered the basics and you want to begin to be more intentional and more consistent. This is when you “up your game” on communication and letting your best customers know you love your fans.
All-Star Level
All-stars take it to the next level, and that is exactly what this ranking means. Once you have completed all of the tasks at Rooke and Starter, you can take bigger swings. Sure you have social media pages, but do you have a plan? Have you made the transition from rented media to owned media? I talk about what that means here. This is what happens at the All-Star level.
Hall of Fame
Marketers and entrepreneurs at the Hall of Fame level are truly building brands. They have custom events to showcase their services and to connect with their tribe. Many also feature custom apparel that their customers actually pay to wear! Now THAT is a brand!
So where do you land on the HMC Marketing Pyramid? This is a jumping-off tool to help you plan what should be next for marketing your organization. Let us know if you want to meet with one of our Hasseman Marketing reps to go over the pyramid…and plan the next steps!
And in case you missed it, feel free to sign up for our FREE 5 Day Marketing Course. We would love to help you get your marketing back on track!
by Kirby Hasseman
There I was, standing in front of a skeptical-looking group of local leaders. They were eyeing me strangely, with heads cocked to one side and eyebrows up because I had just said something strange. What sentence had made them look at me that way? What had I said? Simple.
“The haters help us.”
I was working with this group of amazing local leaders on an issue in Coshocton County. We were placing a tax increase on the ballot to fund a local Justice Center. It was a tax increase. So of course there were detractors! In every community, across the country, new taxes are (and should be) looked at skeptically.
Let’s Define Haters
To be clear, those that simply disagreed with the tax levy are NOT who I am calling “haters.” We have redefined this word to include everyone that disagrees with us. That is not the case. Civil discourse is incredibly important. In addition, for your business, haters are not people who don’t like what you have to offer or those that ask questions. Both of those are important for you to make your offer better. Even those that actively complain about you online can add value if you deal with them properly. I even wrote about 3 simple steps to deal with those complaints (or haters) here.
In this context, I am talking about the trolls. These are the people who are overly negative about any issue, service, or product you are promoting. This group of people is often the smallest but the loudest. They are mean-spirited, caustic, and intensely filled with vitriol and hate. No matter how often you try to (kindly) address their concerns, they keep piling on the negativity. They even sometimes go so far as to create clearly fake accounts so they can make accusations without retribution.
These, my friends, are haters.
So with that definition, you might be asking, “How can the haters help us?” I am so glad you asked. They really can help a cause or an organization, believe it or not. Here are two ways.
They Increase Our Reach
This is just delicious. Here is a simple secret when it comes to social media. Facebook (and other social media channels) want to keep you on their platform. In order to do that, the algorithm works to show you things that it believes you will find interesting. They are in the attention business and in order to keep yours, they want to show you interesting things. How do they determine what is “interesting?” While there are many factors, a simple way it is determined is through engagement. Engagement is measured by likes, shares, AND comments. So when a “hater” goes off on your page by commenting over and over again, they are telling Facebook that this is interesting and important…so it should show more people.
When managing the page, your first inclination might be to block them or delete their comments, I often advise against it. I would rather address any legitimate questions to show them (and the rest of the audience) that I care about the engagement. That shows the algorithm more activity and the audience a genuine desire to address the situation. The only time I delete comments is if they are profane, threatening, or libelous.
So by “hating” on us, they increase the reach of the message they say they are against.
They Decrease Their Credibility
In addition, this type of character is often a bit obsessive. They might comment over and over again on different posts saying the same thing. Or they might attack other people that support your business or offering. Basically, they are a hater to everyone…not just you and your organization. This sort of activity decreases their credibility in the rest of the discussion with the rest of the audience. The more they comment or “hate,” the more they do it.
So if they are decreasing their own influence, and they don’t like what you say, it tends to raise your reputation in the process.
That leads me back to the original sentence. While this type of person can be frustrating, “the haters help us.”
As a side note, congratulations to all of the community members that worked to pass several levies in the Coshocton community. It was a good day and I am proud to have had a small part in helping move these initiatives forward.
Make sure you never miss an update by signing up for our VIP newsletter here. Oh…and as always, we have all of our content here on our blog page…check it out!
by Kirby Hasseman
At Hasseman Marketing, we are all about creating content that provides you value, inspiration, entertainment, and (hopefully) some joy! It’s about “Giving First” and we are big believers! But we have heard that sometimes, it’s hard to keep up. We get that. And while it’s totally okay if you are not able to see every piece of content we create, we don’t want it to be because of a lack of effort on our part. So I wanted to take just a moment to highlight a few pieces of content we are consistently cranking out.
Oh, and if you want to sign up for our VIP newsletter, you can do that here too.
The Monday Minute
Each Monday we create a motivational video for PromoCorner. The idea is to give you a quick boost of motivation to start your week off on the right foot. And because it’s quick-hitting…we hope you can find the time! If you have never taken the time to listen, you can find them all right here. Feel free to binge-watch them all and get fired up!
In Stock and Ready to Rock
As we write this, inventory is a challenge in nearly every industry. We have been talking about it a lot because we want to spare you some stress and headaches. But we didn’t want to just complain…that’s not our deal. So we created the “In Stock and Ready to Rock” shop. Each week we will feature one item that has deep stock and is ready to be branded with your organization’s logo! Click here to check out the latest!
The Kirby Hasseman Blog
Each week I work to create a personal development article that might help you move your business in the right direction. I often file these under “messages I need to hear,” as they resonate with salespeople, entrepreneurs, and leaders that want to level up. Here is my most recent (as I write this) about 3 Things To Do Every Day if you want to be more productive and happier. If you enjoy that one…there’s plenty more where that came from!
Delivering Marketing Joy
This is what I call the “OG” of our online content. With over 350 episodes, that means we have been doing Delivering Marketing Joy for nearly 7 years. Every Wednesday we interview leaders, marketers, entrepreneurs, and authors from (quite literally) all over the world. This is one of the pieces that updates to our blog page each week, but you can head here to binge hundreds of episodes on PromoCorner.
Thirsty Thursday
One of our newest pieces of content has quickly become one of our most popular! Each week we try a mystery drink in a different piece of branded merchandise. Sometimes the drinks are good…but not often! The reactions and the cool branded merchandise make it all worth while. This is posted on our Facebook page and is just one reason why you should follow us if you are not already. Watch the latest episode here!
Oh…and if you are interested in any of these pieces of drinkware for your organization, you can head to our shop here!
Fashion Friday
Each week we have some fun featuring a simple apparel piece for our Fashion Friday! This is another Facebook/Instagram exclusive, so head here and give us a follow.
Ohio’s Heart
Finally, I want to highlight Ohio’s Heart. Some of you may remember that we created OhiosHeart.com to highlight positive things going on in our region. While I have been a bit distracted from this site, I still believe it has a great opportunity to spread the good word! So we have been posting more to it recently (like this drone footage of a local expansion)…and I want to continue that trend. So if your organization has some good news, please feel free to share with us! Please add us to the list of press releases you are sending out to lift up the good news!
Whoo! That’s a lot of content…but we do it for you! If you want to have most of this content delivered directly to your inbox, join our VIP list here. Each week we send ONE email to the members of our list so you have it in one place!
by Kirby Hasseman
I was on a call with a bunch of amazing content creators the other day and the topic of “re-posting content” bubbled to the surface. The people on this call are talented. They create great content that is created for the audience. They “give first.” That is to say, they create content that provides value. Even this group struggles with this simple question.
Is It Okay To Post Content More Than Once?
Let’s start with the assumption that the content is evergreen. In other words, it’s a blog post, podcast, or video that is just as timely today as it was when it was created. We also can assume that it was well-done.
If the answer to both of those questions is “yes,” then the answer is very simple. Yes.
To me, this is a funny discussion. And the reason most people struggle with it is a combination of hubris and insecurity. It’s a funny mix, I know. The hubris comes from the idea that everyone has already seen the content. Intellectually, we know this is not true. Even the best blog post is not read by even a tiny percent of the population! That is why I mentioned the group of content creators. This group understands the metrics better than most. Most of the time, we are frustrated because only our “25 readers” are seeing our blog post. But somehow we can’t repost it because “everyone has already read it.”
That is silly. If you believe the post has value to your audience…share it again.
But that leads to the second reason, our insecurity. We don’t want to re-post because we are fearful we will get called out. Or even worse, we think people will notice and think we are being insincere. These fake opinions of imaginary people hold many people back in life. Don’t let them hold you back from sharing (or re-sharing) your content in the world.
- We watch movies and television shows again all of the time.
- The same commercial airs on a loop, and no one thinks the advertiser is not being creative.
- Facebook has even created “memories” to share because we like revisiting things from the past.
So set yourself free from the chains of insecurity. If you have a great piece of content, share it with the world…again and again.
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