actionable marketing guide

Dear ,

Yesterday was Gay Pride weekend painting New York City in rainbows.

I believe it’s important for everyone to be respected for who they are regardless of how they look, their beliefs and points of view and life choices.

This is one of the wonderful rights of being an American and living in the United States.

Ironically, these principles were conceived by men, many of who were wealthy and some of who owned slaves. They didn’t foresee a world where women, people of color, individuals with different sexuality, and people who retained diverse cultural practices and languages would live together.

Despite these core rights, people and institutions are not always open to treating with respect individuals who appear different.

It can take years, sometimes generations for individuals and society to change. In the bible, the people of Israel wandered in the desert for 40 years so that those who experienced slavery didn’t enter the new land.

It takes time for us to become our best selves.

While we like to think that we as a people or a company change all at once. The reality is we change slowly, day by day, relationship by relationship.

Therefore, each of us is responsible for doing our best to be accepting of those around us.

As marketers, this means showing your audience, prospects and customers respect regardless of how they look or their background. If you don’t, they’ll find another business that does.

In my New York City neighborhood, retailers have slowly evolved to embracing gay pride. Regardless of their clientele, many of the windows proclaim gay pride.

From a marketing perspective, this is important.

Place is one of the 4 Ps of marketing. Place not only refers to choosing the best location to establish your business, but also to supporting the community in which you operate.

Finding reasons to keep your marketing and your retail establishment looking fresh can be challenging.  Use your front window to stand out and get seen while merchandising your current inventory to make passersby stop and want to go in or check your website (if you’re closed). (Related reading: Window Dressing)

Holidays and occasions are an easy way to capture attention. As a newspaper publisher, my dad created special holiday issues that were thicker with ads. The centerfold was a collection of small greetings ads from non-advertising businesses. It was highly profitable since people had extra time to read these papers.

The caveat: These events should be relevant to your business, audience and community.

When you use holidays as a marketing hook, your content can be updated and repromoted in the following year.

Think like my dad, consider how you can work with other businesses in your vicinity to expand your holiday promotions. This is the logic behind old fashioned sidewalk sales.

Ask yourself how you can create marketing content hooks and promotions that are relevant to your audience. The summer is chock full of ideas. Which ones will you use?

Here are some of our summer related columns to help you:

• 50 Free Summer Titles
• Get Your Content In Shape For The Summer
• Summer Branding Tips

Due to the Fourth of July holiday, there will be no newsletter next week.

We want to wish our Canadian readers a Happy Canada Day on July 1^st and our American readers a Happy Independence Day.

Happy Marketing
Heidi.

Heidi Cohen
Actionable Marketing Guide

Use Interconnected Content To Maximize Content Marketing Results

How Your Small Business Social Media Can Compete

Content: The Atomic Particle of Marketing – Book Interview

• Heidi Cohen gave her top link building advice in this roundup. What is your top link building tip?
  
  
• Heidi is also one of 17 Digital Marketing Experts Share Their Most Successful Lead Generation Strategies in RealPhoneValidation roundup post.
  ​​​​​​​
  
• Heidi Cohen was one of the experts tapped in JohnTP's roundup post: How To Skyrocket Your Blog Traffic: 31 Experts Share Their #1 Tip