Our product series is a year old & is building brand equity. We are consolidating the series from 5 financial products to 3 as a means to better organize them based on how clients use them. Therefore, the product brand is not changing but the individual names are due to this reorganization. Do I move forward with a campaign message that includes the old product names or move towards the revitalize names sans explanation and focus on the benefits of the consolidation? It seems simpler to exclude the mentioning of the old names and focus on the brand & the simplification of the reorganization to focus on the new product names.

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Jay’s Answer: Do your clients care about your reorganization? If so, then explain the rationale and educate on the renaming’s strategy. If not, then simply phase in the new name (version “2”), explaining the consolidation from a product/pricing perspective.

I am a mental health author and I am looking for advice on how to find well known people in my field. Once I find these “experts” I would like to tap into their huge network of fans by contributing helpful advice to their fan base through guest blogs, social media posts and article/blog comments.
 
Do you have any advice on how to find these people and the process itself would be appreciated or know of someone who could help me? If so I would appreciate the help.

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Jay’s Answer: Since you’re asking a large favor from people, you need to provide a great reason for them to help you. To start with, why should they trust your advice? What special knowledge do you possess that they would gladly share with their network? If your advice is incorrect, then that may affect their credibility in their network – what promise will you make to shield them from risk? What makes your request especially hard is that the health field is very sensitive to fakery.

To find these people, start by identifying who specifically is reaching the audience you want to connect with, and then offer to write a guest blog article for them. You’ll need to provide samples of your work for them to ensure that the quality meets their criteria.

I am a Marketing Executive in children education. I work in the headquarters dealing with kindergartens branding & marketing. We have 32 kindergartens which are
company own,  in the coming year we are looking ahead to venture into franchising.

At the moment my team mate and i are working on the branding, all kindergartens are heading in for a major renovation to achieve a new look. We are also working on the strategies to enroll more students.

We are different from other kindergartens, we are known as the Multiple Intelligence-based Preschools. We teach children using Multiple Intelligence. The founder of Multiple Intelligence was Dr.Howard Gardner from Howard University.

Being different is good but at the moment we have many competitors which may market
their kindergartens as technology base kindergartens and so on.

Due to that I would  need some advice on how to attract parents to our kindergarten. What can we do or say in our marketing strategies that will boost enrollment. Our tagline is Learning, your child’s way. We believe every child is different and it is important for us to discover their approach  towards learning.

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Jay’s Answer: As a first step, I’d suggest talking to your existing clients’ parents and finding out why they chose your organization. After all, they could have chosen one of your competitor’s kindergartens, but they didn’t. It may be because of your Multiple Intelligence curriculum, or it may be something else (price, location, safety, etc.). By asking a number of parents, at a number of different schools, you’ll get some initial insights. From these insights you’ll have some clues about your best path to improve your marketing and build your franchise.

We are an investment company offering a free seminar to publicly traded company employees who may receive stock options as compensation. The seminar or lunch and learn would showcase our ability to help explain options to their employees who receive them. We obviously want to start at the Director of Human Resources level. How best to reach these Directors? A professional letter and follow up phone call?

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Jay’s Answer: It’s vital to understand why the HR staff would allow you to sell to their employees. Once you figure that out, then a letter + phone call is a great approach to start with. Or, if there’s a organization for local HR professionals, perhaps you can present your offer to them group of them?

We are a small investment firm. Just opened a new office in an area where we are not as well known. We had one large open house primarily for clients in that area. We do not do a lot of print advertising or billboards. Other then the individual brokers gradually networking to build their lists, is there any other ideas to gain greater awareness of a new office in a new area? The branch thinks another open house would work but I am not so certain unless there is a huge draw i.e.athlete and autographs, etc.

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Jay’s Answer:  Instead of an open house meet-and-greet, why not offer a series of classes for different audiences: children, new parents, seniors, newlyweds, etc.? Make the classes not about selling, but about truly empowering the attendees to understand more about their finances and future.

I typically do a PR releases of different articles.  I also send an email with the focus being that same article as in the PR release, however, just have an overview & a link. My
question: Is it better to do the PR release before or after the email blast?  Or
does it not matter?  Which is more effective?

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Jay’s Answer: In general, I suggest measuring the results of your actions to see what works best specifically for you.

As for “What’s more effective?” – it matters what you’re measuring. If your press releases are getting picked up by editors, then you’re doing much better than average. Editors are inundated for requests for free coverage of their product/service/event and in most cases, is poorly targeted to their readership. So if your goal is getting press coverage, you’re likely to have better results by developing relationships with editors, and targeting press releases to their readers. But if your goal is to get more SEO juice, then it’s likely not to matter which you do first. Also, if your goal is to get people to open your emails, split test your subject, copy, formatting, and timing to see what produces the highest number of opens (and even better, inquiries & clickthrus).

Opening another location for my wedding flowers and decor business on top of a bridal store. What are some creative ways to get brides and promote the new location?

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Jay’s Answer: Depending on the new location, you could do some guerrilla marketing activities such as:

• A bridal parade (from one location to the other).
• A free wedding (at your new location) for a lucky bride
• Bridal-themed parties (you don’t have to be a bride to attend)

These activities are good for getting some attention, but ultimately you’ll want a longer-term marketing strategy to identify potential clients, build awareness, and articulate your store’s unique qualities.