Toronto, Canada -- (SBWire) -- 09/14/2012 --Its been said that when business is good, spend on marketing to grow. When business is bad, spend on marketing to grow. It seems that the time to spend on marketing is always now – unless you aren’t looking to grow your business. If you’re a business owner in that boat though, you may want to rethink your strategy, or toss over a donation!
Companies are seeing the benefits of their ad money too. Direct customer acquisition is great and usually cheaper than “branding,” especially since building your company’s image is often reserved for larger scale businesses. Direct acquisition would constitute things like cold calling, direct mailing, targeted internet advertising, and other targeted ads. Branding is a broader scale – from commercials to radio ads to online branding, which usually consists of ads reaching a much broader audience.
Living in a city with a population that exceeds two and a half million like Toronto, you are bound to face all kinds of advertising every day. You can’t get to work without being presented with at least a few forms of advertising anymore, and as intrusive as that sounds, people gain much brand recognition through it. From oil changes to the sub of the day at your favourite sandwich joint, brand recognition is at an all time high. Even companies you wouldn’t expect have lodged themselves into that subliminal part of your brain.
Large insurance companies, lenders, and credit bureaus have been known to throw their advertising weight around for a long time now, but lately, with developments in technology, law firms, small universities, and even small software companies have been able to make a huge marketing impact. As expected, social media and viral content have a lot to do with the success, enabling smaller companies to increase their presence and branding.
A great example is the field of personal injury law here in Toronto. Just a few short years ago there wasn’t a single advertisement on the radio, TV, or online for one of these firms. Now you can’t avoid them. Marketing has become localized, as in you can target specific regions or cities with your campaigns. Each day we get a dosage of Diamond & Diamond personal injury lawyers online and on the radio, hopefully never forced to call them.
Diamond & Diamond is not the Walmart of the personal injury industry, by no means are they small, but they are not the largest either. They just do an effective job of sending their message – not a simple feat for a company who wants you as a client if you happen to be injured in an accident. How do they do it? Education. Educating their clients on complicated insurance law and policy helps establish them as the authorities, encourages people to interact with them (even if they are not prospective clients), and keeps them memorable to anyone who may need legal assistance in this area.
“We want our clients to trust us, and we gain that trust by enlightening them through our marketing efforts. It has always been our policy to do something more with our marketing to remain competitive…” Said Jeremy Diamond, Director of Marketing at Diamond & Diamond. “It is such a competitive landscape out there, you need to really make an impact in the few seconds that you have someone’s attention” he states. But is it enough to just advertise via traditional sources?
“We really try to contribute in our community, host events, charity work, just recently we worked with the Ontario Safety League to promote education and prevention, as well as doing things like fitting children with bike helmets and taking the Scarborough Girls and Boys Club to an Argos football game.” Jeremy continues “The benefit is two-fold for us, we get to make an impact and help out in the community, while building up our recognition. Nothing is greater than checking my business email to find thank you notes from the people we touched.”
Take a note for your business. Get involved in your community, use your knowledge and expertise to help others and you will solidify yourself as an authority, as well as a trustworthy community member. Gain a following, and keep them interested. Host a Q&A session on a topic that you can help others with, speak at local events, or just help the community under your business name. Marketing is so much more than placing ads these days, so whatever you do, treat your community as you would your customers, and your customers as your family. Growing your brand is becoming synonymous with enhancing your image as a responsible, friendly, and capable company.
About Jeremy Diamond
Jeremy is considered to be amongst the best marketers in the Toronto area. For years he has been able to innovate and has left his mark on a handful of professional industries that otherwise lacked creative marketing. For more information, please visit: http://www.diamond-law.com
Contact
Jeremy Diamond
jeremy@diamond-law.com
http://www.diamond-law.com
1-800-567-4878
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