Five marketing ideas for 2012

If you are looking to pour some new energy into your marketing efforts in 2012, here are five ideas I think are especially worth pursuing:

1) Start a blog – Why? A) It can help establish you as an expert in your field, showing you thoroughly know your investigative specializations. B) Very few, if any, of your competitors are probably taking the time to write about their professional endeavors and knowledge, so you immediately set yourself apart from the crowd. C) It’s free! Yes, it takes time, but it does not take money. Start one up at www.blogspot.com. Then include a link to it in every email you send out, on your facebook page, website…everywhere.

2) Advertise on Facebook – Some tech pundits are starting to predict the decline of facebook. I think they are only doing it so they can say they were the first to announce its demise. But the truth is that facebook is still ginormous and still growing. And if you want to market your services, you need to be where people are, right? This technique is not free, but you can monitor and adjust your bids, set a maximum as to how much you want to spend, and set the parameters so you are reaching the people you want. (It's so easy even I have managed a facebook ad campaign.) Make sure you only pay for clickthroughs to your website, but you will also be promoting your business by the number of times your ad is seen (impressions).

3) Spend time on your marketing efforts – Sounds obvious, right? But admit it, if your workload is fair to decent, you don’t spend any serious time actually marketing your services, right? Don’t wait until things get slow to suddenly decide you need to devote some time, energy and funds into viable steps to feed your business. Make time to market and to routinely implement your marketing plan. Which leads to idea number 4…

4) Develop a written marketing plan – Chances are you don’t have a written marketing plan. (Am I right again?) If you rely on a bodiless voice telling you which way to turn while driving through a satellite gps system, why don’t you develop and use your own map to business success? It is not enough to just make a few phone calls when you think of and have time and call that effective marketing of your business. You need plan, a written plan. (You’ll find the steps to take outlined in my PI Marketing CD.)

5) Don’t be too enamored by technology – Technology is wonderful. Two of the above marketing tips in this post alone focus on use of technology. And many PIs love technology, as I have observed them spend hours checking out new equipment. That being said, you don’t have to have an iPad to present a comprehensive report to your client. Don’t get caught up in technology for the sake of technology, especially when it comes to marketing your services. Your regular clients do not have to read tweets from you, but they may enjoy a sincere letter of thanks at the end of the year for their business. If you like high-tech, great, but taking regular, even low or no tech marketing steps is what is important.