A few years ago I signed up for Pilates classes to get in shape and to build my core. I finally quit when my flaky instructor showed up on the first day and then missed a few classes. She had a great core, but a bad planning system.
In a recent blog post, New Marketing Labs, LLC president Chris Brogan stresses the need to develop a strong core. In this case he’s referring to your database, your email marketing, and some kind of community of prospects. He describes his four core tools of marketing.
Database – Your client and prospect list, your database, is the base of everything. If you don’t know who your customers are, who your next customers will be, then that’s where you start. Brogan uses BatchBook by BatchBlue for his contact database. Constant Contact is another database manager to consider but a product endorsement by Brogan carries a lot of weight.
Email Marketing – Done well, email marketing is still the best, most effective marketing tool the digital world has ever created. The information you include in your e-mails needs to offer helpful information instead of endless sales pitches.
Message Boards/Forums – I co-launched Third Tribe Marketing with some of the world’s best bloggers, and we’ve got a thriving community going there (we talk about online marketing). I joined the program yesterday. Their sales pitch was too hard to resist plus I’ve learned so much from the folks at Copyblogger (love their blog!) who are involved in the program.
The Frilly Stuff – I write a blog (actually several), and I shoot video reviews and interviews all the time. Multi-media including videos, photos, podcasts and other media are going from optional to mandatory. It’s time to shoot some videos this week!
What are you doing to develop your core?
