Take A Look At Your Competition

When you’re in it – you’re in it deep. It is hard to see out of it – when you’re in it that deep. You are good at what you do – and you know it. What you are doing is great, if not brilliant. But sometimes we need to come up for air, and look around at what everyone else is doing and assess the situation.

We have all heard people say that they are “too deeply connected” or “too involved” or “too close to the situation” to see what everyone else is seeing. Truly, that is the case in so many small businesses. They are extremely busy, taking on every role they can in their small business, and they can’t, or don’t have the time, to look around and see what everyone else is looking at. This is a big problem that we have seen time and time again. You must, not only take a peek at your competition, but you need to study them. You need to know what their branding looks like, where they are advertising, what information they have on their website, what their showroom looks like, who are their customers, etc. The more you know about them, the better your chances of beating them to the punch.

You can start by doing a SWOT Analysis. This helps you look at your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. It forces you to figure out what you are good at, what you aren’t good at and what your competition is doing that you aren’t. Don’t be discouraged by the results – or boastful if your analysis looks exceptionally positive. This is a learning experience that is meant to help you “see the light”. Once you complete the analysis, you will know what you need to work on and can set goals to get where you need to be, and that is a much better place to be than sitting in the dark not knowing what and who is going on around you.

Open your eyes. Look around. Be aware and adjust.

Too afraid to do this on your own, let Tarte Advertising assist. We will work through the SWOT Analysis with you and help you decide what your goals and priorities should be in taking your business to the next level.

"Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance"

Growing up, and even still today as I consider myself grown, my father loved to spit out quotes.

“If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything”.
“Remember, you are a Duren” (that is my maiden name).
“Bloom where you are planted”.
“Prior planning prevents poor performance.”

I have heard these, and many more of them, hundreds, if not thousands of times in my 30-something years. Now that I own my own business and have my own family, I find it very interesting and even touching, that I not only remember these quotes from my father, but I am putting them in to play.

In my business, planning ahead is crucial and poor performance is not accepted nor tolerated. If my father hadn’t taught me this a long time ago through a simple quote, I would have learned it by now. If you plan ahead and have all your ducks in a row, your performance will be greater than if you didn’t plan ahead.

I know this isn’t always the simplest thing to do. How many things do you have on your to-do list – 20? 50? More? There is always something immediate that needs to be done – bills to pay, emails to write, phone calls to make, etc. But when you take the time to sit down and make a plan, to plan ahead, you will be amazed at what will happen to that to-do list. Somehow, it seems to almost magically shorten itself – very quickly. You figure out your priorities and what items can wait to be dealt with. You look at the long term and what needs to be done now to ensure that your goals are met. You are able to delegate to others. You can breathe.

Marketing, advertising and PR require prior planning in order to assure the best ROI possible. It is something we work very hard at with our clients and we have seen it pay off many, many times. Planning ahead and knowing what is coming up before it is even here can be extremely effective in attracting new customers, increasing your sales, staying on budget and elevating your brand. One of the optimal ways that we do this with our clients is to create a full marketing plan that details all advertising, marketing and PR opportunities that will take place during a given time frame (usually a year) and how much each of those line items will cost. The benefits to having this in place are extraordinary and abundant.

I know you are busy, but time and time again we have seen what prior planning will do – help to prevent poor performance. Take the time. You are worth it. Your business is worth it. Your employees are worth it. And your bottom line will show it.

“Prior planning prevents poor performance”.

10 Reasons To Use An Agency - especially Tarte Advertising, Inc.

1. Tarte believes that people should do what they are good at and not try to do everything. Let us take care of the advertising, marketing and PR so that you can do what you are good at – running your business.

2. It can and will save you money in the long run.

3. We have resources and contacts that you need to help grow your business.

4. You have enough to do without worrying about negotiating rates with themedia.

5. We are great at what we do and we want to make you look great too.

6. We will help you stay on target, on budget and on time.

7. You won’t need to meet with or answer calls from sales reps anymore – we will take care of that for you.

8. We keep up with the trends in your industry to make sure that you are on top of things.

9. We keep up with the trends in the advertising industry to make sure that your advertising is the most effective.

10. We are experts at what we do.

Advertising is NOT going away - despite the economy

The past few weeks have brought about a fear to many Americans – many of whom are business owners. We are seeing businesses tightening their payrolls, if not closing their doors for good. Am I concerned – yes. But do I think we (Tarte) are going anywhere – no. And neither is advertising as a whole industry. Will some of our tried and true advertising methods be more difficult to utilize – absolutely, but we are creative people, a creative agency, and we will find creative (and effective) methods to help our clients through this unstable time in history. We are going to have to think outside the box a bit more and I believe that viral marketing, guerrilla marketing and WOM is going to become even more important than it has already become in the past decade. There will be some, if not many, who will not be able to ride it out, but Tarte believes that “prior planning prevents poor performance” and we are planning now with our clients. 2009 is right around the corner and we know things will be different for us and our clients than what we have seen and experienced in 2008. However, we are thinking and acting positively about these changes. We are excited about brainstorming new campaigns and digging down deep for new answers and methods. We love being creative and this is just another extension of it for Tarte. Other businesses may be leaving the market, but Tarte is here to stay and we believe, so is advertising.

Communication is Key

Yesterday was the fourth day without internet access and although I knew that I depended on email quite a bit, I am now acutely aware of it since I did not have it. I came in to work yesterday thinking “I can’t do anything without internet access”, and while things were running much slower than normal, things are at least still moving. One thing I did much more of yesterday is making phone calls – to vendors, partners, freelancers and clients. So many of these people I email on a daily or weekly basis and rarely “talk” to them. It was actually nice – and my clients really enjoyed “hearing” from their agency.

Communication is so key to our business whether through email, phone, fax or face to face. The more we know about what is going on with our clients (new hires, new products, new competition, sales increases/decreases, upcoming sales, changes in business processes, etc) the better we can do our job which is to help you communicate and connect with your target audience. Sure, we have clients that are so busy they can only “chat” once a month, but the clients we communicate with more regularly, seem to reap the benefits of Tarte Advertising much more wholly.

While actually picking up the phone and dialing a number may be becoming slightly “ancient”, I do believe it is something people enjoy and find important every once in a while and I am going to make it a point to do more often.