Frame It Bigger

You kind of lost me on the make it bigger to find a smaller action step. Or are you suggesting to not get so focused on the 'problem' but instead to see the underlying, or overarching, issue and beging to solve that with the smaller action?

Hi Chris – very inwardly looking thought provoking question.

Sometimes, its important to stop and remind yourself why you're 'attempting to drain the swamp.

Our biggest challenge is reaching that target audience that is most likely to buy from us in the most cost-effective way.

Like many others (i'm sure) we are a small company with big aspirations – we've been going about two years now – built up a loyal customer following that keep coming back (so we're doing something right – right?) and have more recently started to offer our customers an even wider selection of personalised gift ideas.

I've been blogging for two years now, as well as other social media and making good networking connections on my travels – all with the intent of engaging others, sharing what I've learnt about social marketing etc and of course gaining more potential customers.

Now, we're taking that inward look I mentioned at the beginning and we're exploring more direct methods – local community advertising, posters and flyers as well as targeting specific groups and businesses who we feel may benefit from a low-cost quality personalised goods service.

It's rewarding but does cause sleepless nights when you wake up and think “am i sure i'm doing it right?” – trial and error plays a part – we learn by doing after all – but i'm reasonably confident we are doing all we can – we're certainly trying to do everything right with our online presence and our offline activities to back that up.

Tweak, add, build, tweak again, measure response, tweak, add etc seems to be the current treadmill. How about others?

The longest journey starts with the first step. Not sure if this is where you were going with this post, but what I thought after reading it is that the Frame of the Bigger Picture is the culmination of all the small actions.

In Fabulous Photo Gifts' comment here it struck me as odd when I read the sentence:
“Our biggest challenge is reaching that target audience that is most likely to buy from us in the most cost-effective way.”

Not that there is anything strange about what he's saying, just that this isn't really a “challenge” it is just “business”. If businesses keep in mind that people don't care about their company or products, they care about their own wants and needs. Fabulous Photo Gifts' business seems to be custom photo products. Instead of trying to figure out how to reach the target audience who is “most likely to buy” from you, think in terms of why would people buy what you sell? Not because they like your company. They would buy from you (or another vendor) because they want a gift with a photo on it for a friend or they need promotional items made with a photo of their product on it, etc.

I would venture to bet that if Fabulous Photo Gifts' turns his thinking in this direction, then when he blogs it will be more interesting to readers then if he talks just about what he offers. And, it might send him in a direction to utilize online groups, communities, social sites, with a conversation marketing approach–go talk to the photo-loving communities about their photos and why it is special to put photos on something like a mug? Don't worry about “advertising at people”, talk to them about how to fulfill their wants and needs–in this case, help them see how special their photos are and how others might find them special too if they find an interesting way to share the photo.

Chris,

Challenge 1 – most organizations continue to use traditional communication vehicles in an ever changing world, namely email and sending files back and forth. It is incredibly inefficient and wasteful.

Challenge 2 – most organizations rely on “spam” emailing and static websites to communicate with their customers. Unfortunately, their customers are becoming more demanding and get frustrated when they can't find what they need quickly.

I wrote a blog post on this very topic yesterday if you are interested:

(http://blog.groupswim.com/2009/04/22/3-ways-to-…).

Thanks.

Thanks Christine for your thoughtful answer.

Yes it is business as you say but this is the challenge that every business faces, whatever the economic climate.

I wanted to say thank you for your suggestions and I'll certainly be trying to incorporate more of that kind of style of writing.

You see – I knew 'hanging' around here was a good idea.

Often we lose the trees for the forest. Ha.
In my line of work, folks are often so caught up in the 'big picture' that they miss the easy victories along the way.

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