Small Business Marketing with Impact (Part 2)

IMPACT will help you have a voice and a unique presence in the marketplace that goes far beyond a brand or made-up persona. In the first post of this series, we looked at what IMPACT is for smart online marketing. IMPACT helps you connect with your ideal audience beyond the visual, to connecting with them on the emotional. It is the glue that helps you build a bond with your audience — whereby they recognize you and your business as being a true, valuable member of their community.

Note: This post is an excerpt from the 30 Days 30 Ways Free Online Marketing Program

Understanding the components of IMPACT

The 4 E’s of creating IMPACT in your online marketing:

Experience: Experience includes every aspect of how your customer/client interacts with your business. From the visual presentation of your brand, to the events that occur during the sales process and beyond into customer service. It’s made up of the total experience, over time, of being connected to your business, from beginning to end — from the time we connect online, to the message I receive via your email marketing, through the purchase process and how you continue to nurture our relationship past the sale.

Educate: Educate is not only about sharing your knowledge, but also sharing the knowledge of others and helping your audience grow in their knowledge. Again, and worthy of repeating, showboating your own knowledge is not the point here. Rather, sharing and facilitating the spread of knowledge that is a benefit to the community you are serving. When you educate, you become a valuable resource within the community, seen as a valuable contributor. Educating helps you build credibility, authority, and influence.

Entertain: Entertaining your audience in meaningful ways can be a very powerful point of IMPACT. On the social web you can not be about “business” all the time. The value of entertaining your audience can mean the difference between being “sharable” and being just another voice in the market. Entertaining is about the emotional response, not always about laughter, but always about connecting to the human side of your audience.

Empowering: Everyone has a story to tell, IMPACT stories inspire their audience. Even the most ordinary businesses, plumbers, realtors, and others, have the ability to empower their audience. Empowering is all about investing in your audience, inspiring and motivating them, and simply being on their side. This should reflect in every point of contact you have with your audience.

IMPACT strategies and tactics might look like…

Producing parody videos that entertain and educate your audience about a problem they may be experiencing.
Creating a Facebook Application that empowers your audience to share their passion for a cause or similar interest.
Hosting a weekly podcast that entertains and educates your audience with interviews of thought leaders in the market.
Create a viral video that empowers your audience by telling your inspiring story of success.
Create a 30 day program to educate and empower your audience, that goes far beyond how your competitors offer value

There are many ways to create IMPACT… with no right or wrong answer. Your Target and Engage activities will help you understand how to create your IMPACT in the market, as will your expertise and experience in your market.

What IMPACT means for your business…

IMPACT tends to be the part of the Formula that businesses overlook the most. Yet, it can have the biggest impact (pardon the pun) on the bottom line. IMPACT is the kind of factor that does not show its value until you’ve actually received the benefit of it. Yes, you could receive results from your online marketing. No, those results will never be what they could be with IMPACT.

Like Engage, IMPACT is the factor that benefits every aspect of your online marketing. When you’ve used Engage to build leads and nurture relationships and you’ve used IMPACT to build a bond by creating an experience that educates, entertains, and empowers your audience — the money always follows. Your audience will be more likely to purchase from you. Your audience will be more loyal to you. Your audience will become your ally and ambassador.

Like Engage, typical marketing terms that relate to the benefits of IMPACT, include:

Increased word of mouth referrals, increasing leads.
Increased positive branding and awareness levels within target audience.
Increased feedback and communication with audience, leading to more customer insight.
Increased online visibility with benefits across entire presence, including SEO and beyond.
Increased credibility and authority within your market.

Bottom Line: The IMPACT will benefit almost every area of your marketing, when it becomes integrated into how you do business and market to your customer/client.

Image Source: SouthernPixel on Flickr

About the Author...

Maria Reyes-McDavis is a colossal geek brainiac, certified genius IQ with university degrees in Finance, Economics, Business Management and an MBA. Maria has served over 300 pro-level, digital marketing clients as founder of online marketing firm Digital Peas & Carrots. Maria is Founder and Editor of Hyphenated Americans, a conservative politics blog and Proverbs 31 Project an online women's ministry. Most importantly, Maria is a wife to her king, mother of 3, lover of basketball (Go Lakers & Clippers!), classic cars and is currently training for professional women's roller derby!