Where would you spend your dollar?

I think spending it on website design and development would be smartest. Being able to send people to a well-designed website is invaluable. Getting people to know about you is the easy part - just join Biznik and go to some meet-and-greets! Of course, it does all depend on what field you are in and what you're selling, but websites are the best generally, in my opinion.

Regards, Andy

Direct mail is a crap shoot, especially if you have no where to send them too (many people use the direct mail piece to head to a web site). Develop a logo, I think not. Developing your web site first, in general makes the most sense.

I dont use the phone book and havent for a very long time (years). My first instinct when I hear about a company is to see if I can find them on the web. If I cant then I move on to someone else.

So my answer would be to get a really good website built and have it seo perfect.

Go Free Marketing First ie. Facebook, LinkedIn, Blogs, etc. and do avoid Print Advertising!

great topic folks. @ trendesigns, we actually encourage folks to answer this typical question in phases. Phase 1, develop a logo and brand. Phase 2, utilize the resources out there first, such as the 'business page' of Facebook, LinkedIn, Wordpress and more to get the searches and exposure first; especially with so many of our clients being new businesses and entrepreneurials. Phase 3 would be to develop a website, whether through some of the sources in #2, or after 3-6 months of driving starter traffic... then it can all be pointed to the new website that's clean, to the point and effective.

after all of this, the client can then decide on other styles of marketing that can be used for effective door to door, mailers, or website optimization techniques to drive customers to their company!

~ B

I agree with Andy that it would depend on the field of business, but I would generally say spend it on a website. I don't look in the phone book either and I usually prefer products/services that I can review online first.

When I began my Virtual Assistance business I created my website, then my logo and sent direct mail last. Direct mail has brought me my biggest client. I hand wrote the envelopes and sent a brochure and business card.

What works for some may not work for others. Dawn

Hi Keath,

I think all of these things (Brand and logo, free resources, then website) are important to build your marketing foundation for the long term. Very important. And I've invested considerable time and effort on these, but if you had only one thing to do, I'd advise strongly against this approach as you may wait a verrrrry long time to get clients.

If you are an Indie, especially offering a professional service, I'd recommend getting out there and doing presentations. Sure, it would be great to have a web site to support that and add to your credibility, but even if you didn't have that, a focused effort to give talks to professional groups, to hold your own events, even give teleclasses or to do a teleclass interview to someone else's group, will give you results much faster.

In the old days (before the Internet) I used this strategy to get out there and did several talks and presentations to professional groups over a few months. This resulted in 26 new clients in 26 weeks. And I was just average at presentations, barely adequate at follow-up, and not great at sales.

Nevertheless, this strategy was powerful and effective. If you tie this strategy to Internet Marketing such as a great web site and email newsletter, you can build your business extraordinarily quickly.

I still use this strategy by giving talks and doing teleclasses and it still works.

This is the strategy I recommend to all my clients, but of course, I don't limit it to that. Doing multiple marketing activities in a focused campaign can generate extraordinary results.

The thing I like about Biznik is that they support this kind of activity. Post an event or class and see what happens!

Cheers, Robert

Hey Robert, do you think Biznik should support webinars on our calndar? We've received a lot of requests for that, but so far, I've avoided it because part of our "brand" is online meets the real world. We all about getting away from behind the computer and meeting face-to-face. I'm concerned it'll weaken our brand if half of the events you see posted in the calendar are "real" and half are "online." Thoughts?

Hi Dan, I'm not sure. I think teleclasses are better overall and simpler for the average Indie to set up than webinars (but sometimes a webinar can be an extension of a teleclass). As to whether it would dilute your brand or not, I don't know. You might want to do a poll of this.

One of the great things about Biznick is it's local quality. On the other hand, most of my clients are all over the country and I'm a 100% virtual business. So offering teleclasses would be a big bonus for me.

What I'd want to do is set these up so that it had a unique Biznk spin on it. That will take some brainstorming and testing.

But I think it would be cool to be able to go into Biznik and find a long list of teleclasses on a wide variety of topics that I could attend no matter where I lived.

I'd also look at how I could generate some revenue for this. I think most will want to offer free teleclasses, so you might have a listing fee for each teleclass. This way, those who wanted to do a teleclass would be more serious about it. I'd happily pay $25 to $50 to list a teleclass. And this would also pay for the person (plus some) who had to review and approve the teleclass.

Cheers, Robert

P.S. And, of course, if you add the "Notify" feature, people could indicate whether or not they wanted to be notified if a new teleclass was posted.

My guess is that overall this would add to the activity on Biznik and therefore the viral impact.

We're going to add your notify feature, Robert. The only question is when. We currently have only one developer, so we have to be ruthless about prioritizing our to-do list.

Sounds to me like what you're suggesting here is a different part of the calendar. Maybe we could split the calendar into real events (the default view) and virtual events (under a tab perhaps, or in a different column). We'll have to give it more thought.

I like the idea of providing a way for Biznik members to make money this way - that was our thinking with paid events all along, although it hasn't worked out very well, as paid events so far have a harder time getting traction on Biznik here in Seattle at least.

I think anyway you can expand the benefits of using this site, you should do it, Dan. =)

I don't think offering everything "business networking" hurts your brand. The tele/web sessions fit that category quite nicely as a bonus to the standard face-to-face.

Yes to website and branding, however many people spend a lot on a beautiful website that poorly markets their business because they are not clear how to articulate what they are offering and to whom. The very first step is to get help and be able to clearly focus on what your specialty is and who needs it. People often skip this important step and have to re-build their website and therefore spend more money.

@Robert: With the launch of the new Groups feature, I expected to see someone create a group called "Virtual Events".

This would be a place for people to host their teleclasses, webinars, etc.

Bizniks who were interested in participating in virtual events could join that Group, and see all the offerings there.

This would keep "Biznik Events" as the face-to-face kind of events that Biznik is known for, but it would give an outlet for people like you to hold virtual events as well.

Group members are self-selecting as well, so my expectation is that you would have a much higher attendance rate, since you would be promoting the event to people who have specifically asked for that kind of contact.

And finally, in the Discussion area for that Group, members could request particular kinds of virtual event. "Hey, I'd like to see an event on XYZ... anybody else?" People could respond to that, and potential event hosts could see a demonstrated demand for a particular topic.

This is not Biznik policy or anything... this is just what I expected somebody to do as soon as we launched Groups, and I am surprised it does not exist yet.

Thoughts?

Keath I don't see how you could do those other things without a logo. So if that's the only thing you can spend on your dollars have to go their. That being said you have a decent logo; put your dollars into your website. those other marketing systems don't work that well any more. If you notice who does advertising in magazines its all big companies that need you to see their name over and aver again. Direct mail only starts to work if you send out 100,00 pieces and then the response is statistically about 1-2%. Art T.