Author: Amanda Evrard

JTE Communications is Moving

Post author By Amanda Evrard
Post date May 4, 2022
No Comments on JTE Communications is Moving

JTE Communications is excited to announce that we are moving from New Mexico to Oregon. After two years in Santa Fe, New Mexico the company is relocating to Beaverton, Oregon.

Existing Customers

Fear not, the move will have zero effect on our existing clients. We will still provide the same remote offerings as we always have, and there will be no interruptions to your services. The move will actually save a bit of money for our for-profit clients, as we will no longer be charging state sales taxes as soon as the move is complete in June 2022.

New Clients

Due to the chaos of moving, we will not schedule any new client consultations through June 6, 2022.

Why we’re moving

It’s nothing personal, Santa Fe. JTE Communications will never forget it was born New Mexico True! But part of the excitement of owning a home business is taking it with you when you move your family across the country. Tim has accepted a great new position with Intel so Falkor and Amanda are packing up the office and resettling. We look forward to mingling with the Beaverton business community and sharing our marketing and communication know-how with the Pacific Northwest!

We’re moving from New Mexico to Oregon.
JTE Communications

Nonprofit Fundraising

Year-End Fundraising

Not every nonprofit organization plans a year-end fundraising campaign. Did you know that 30% of all annual donations to charity are made in December? And that nonprofits receive 10% of their total annual giving donations on December 29, 30 and 31?

There are two ways to interpret this information. Many nonprofit leaders decide that it makes more sense to relax during the holidays and only focus their fundraising efforts on the bigger piece of the pie. I would argue that this is a mistake because there are two pieces of data you should be considering side-by-side. Your nonprofit mission deserves a strong fundraising strategy, and choosing to spend more than 90 percent of your time fighting for only 70 percent of the profits is not good strategy.

To be clear, I in no way advocate that anyone stop fundraising throughout the year. What I am saying is that if you are not engaged in year-end fundraising you are missing out on a huge opportunity.

Year-end fundraising in January?

Yes! Now is the perfect time to craft your 2022 fundraising plan. There is no reason to wait until November to think about your year-end giving campaign.

JTE Communications offers marketing consulting for small nonprofits with big dreams – and that includes planning and promotion for fundraisers.

A Case Study

In 2021 JTE Communications managed NOWCastSA’s year-end-fundraising campaign. Using only email marketing, a website and social media we surpassed the amount raised over the same period in 2020 (November 1 to December 31), earning an unofficial total of $13,944. And that is not counting the additional $13,000 in matching funds earned from a challenge grant that will arrive in 2022. Results like this are huge for and organization with an annual budget of less than $100,000.

We’d love to help you reach your fundraising goals in 2022. Schedule a free consultation now.

This above is affiliate advertising. JTE Communications may receive a kickback if you use this link to purchase Canva Pro.  Canva Pro is already free for nonprofits and schools/teachers.

Tags fundraising, marketing strategy, nonprofit

Strengths-based Marketing

Post author By Amanda Evrard
Post date December 1, 2021
No Comments on Strengths-based Marketing

Are you familiar with the CliftonStrengths assessment (formerly StrengthsFinder)? No, it isn’t one of those Facebook quizzes meant to lure you into surrendering all of your data. It’s actually a pretty neat tool from the folks at Gallup. It is meant to identify your talents and what you are naturally good at.

It is still available as an actual hard-cover book that explains what each of the 34 possible strengths are and ideas for action, as well as tips on working with other people who excel in each area. The book is still called StrengthsFinder 2.0, but newer versions also include the CliftonStrengths branding. You will find all of the same information if you take the assessment online and use the e-book, and the price is about the same either way.

No, I’m not paid to sell any of these products, but I recommend them just the same. I have not gone in for the premium CliftonStrengths 34 results, which apparently shows you how you rank in all 34 categories and gives tips for improving in the areas where you are “weaker.” I am personally only interested in the original, and coincidentally more affordable, Top 5 CliftonStrengths. (Here are resources on similar exercises that are actually free!)

No business or nonprofit is too small to benefit from investing in this activity.
Amanda Evrard, JTE Communications

CliftonStrengths is one of several strengths assessments or personality tests executives assign to their employees as a team-building exercise. Some companies even require one of these tools as part of the application or onboarding process. I believe these assessments in general and the CliftonStrengths Assessment specifically are useful tools for teams of all sizes, including solopreneurs. No business or nonprofit is too small to benefit from investing in this activity.

Why should I care?

Why? Because when asked point-blank what our greatest strengths are most of us don’t really know. We can probably say which Harry Potter house we would belong to, whether we are more of a Carrie or a Charlotte, and maybe come up with a few things we think we are good at. Knowing what we are naturally good at and understanding these things at a deeper level is not only personally fulfilling, but it can also help you to successfully lead and market your organization.

To date I have used the knowledge from the original book as well as the book Strengths Based Leadership to better understand my coworkers as well as to write cover letters and resumes and to prepare for job interviews. I continue to use this information to build my business.

Two of my Top 5 fall under themes that are arguably innate ways of being that cannot be taught or gotten rid of. I understand that I am driven by core values that I believe give purpose to my life. I accept that I think strategically, I am mindful of patterns and evaluating potential obstacles, and I most often make decisions based on what I believe the most likely outcome will be. I find that these strengths are the driving force for my approach to marketing for myself as well as for my clients.

Marketing and PR are fields that are not widely known for their ethics, altruism or integrity, but I know it doesn’t have to be that way. As a consultant I choose to work with people and organizations that are mission-driven and have big dreams of improving our world (I lovingly call them do-gooders). I love consulting because I know that I am good at helping others see the big picture and proposing solutions that they can put into action.

My other three Top 5 all fall under the Relationship Building theme. While I am at my core an introvert, I am still drawn to people because I enjoy seeing the potential in others and nurturing growth – both personal and professional. I am empathetic and flexible. These are traits that make it easier for me to facilitate clear communication between organizations and their target audiences. Marketing truly boils down to relationship building between an organization and its clients/customers, and I am grateful to be working in a field that values my strengths.

The next time you are wondering how to best market your organization, take a moment to reflect on your own strengths. Are you using your talents to develop your marketing plan?

Tags Marketing, marketing strategy, strengths

Social Media Marketing Sponsorship

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

Post author By Amanda Evrard
Post date September 9, 2021
No Comments on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

Chewy - the Santa Fe Humane Society Featured Critter, sponsored by JTE Communications

orporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is not just a marketing tool – it is our opportunity as business owners to contribute to the well-being of of the world around us. If you have not yet considered how you can use your small business to give back, what are you even doing?

There are several schools of thought on what CSR is and how it can (or should) be implemented, so it is not surprising that CSR may look differently for you than it does for others. I would implore you to think strategically when it comes to your own CSR and consider how you can align your do-gooder efforts with your brand marketing.

I was recently inspired by the efforts of Fortina Solutions, a senior living information and referral service provider. Founder and owner Allyson Nathan must be an animal-lover, as she found a way to support animals while promoting her brand in a way that makes sense. The company contributes to Santa Fe Animal Shelter to spotlight a senior pet each month, and the shelter includes information on the company in its related social media posts.

I can’t lie – I went ahead and copied them. JTE Communications now sponsors a Critter each month in a similar sponsorship/marketing deal! Critters are the non-cat-or-dog residents of the shelter, such as house rabbits, guinea pigs and the occasional snake, bird and other small animal.

Meet Chewy, the spotlight Critter of September – a five-year-old guinea pig with a heart of gold and a love for all things veggie:

I volunteer at Santa Fe Animal Shelter every week, often working with the critters. You might even say that I love small animals as much as I love small businesses and nonprofits! Making sure I keep time open in my work schedule to volunteer is one of the ways I promote CSR, and sponsorship to promote the adoption of small animals is another.

Will this drive new business to my agency? I sure hope so! I know that the shelter’s social media pages have followers of all ages from Santa Fe and beyond who happen to love animals and rescue just like I do, and some of them are also business owners who may have marketing needs.

Just last week during a consultation when I asked a client how she heard about JTE Communications she said she was Googling marketing agencies in the area and saw that I had posted photos with a dog and wanted to know more. Sharing your interests with your community is an often overlooked way to connect with target audiences.

Not sure where to start on your CSR journey? Ask yourself what are you passionate about, and what community activities are you already engaged in? Connect with the organizations doing work that you find meaningful and see how you can get involved. Schedule a meeting with their director or development manager and see what kind of partnership you can create together. I should know – you don’t need a huge budget to find a partnership that can work for you as well as the organization you support.

Want help figuring out how to best allocate your marketing budget to support your community? Schedule a free 30-minute consultation with me now and lets brainstorm together.

Tags corporate responsibility, critters, guinea pig, Santa Fe Animal Shelter, sponsorship

Recognition

JTE Communications Recognized as Top Marketing Strategy Company in New Mexico

Post author By Amanda Evrard
Post date July 22, 2021
No Comments on JTE Communications Recognized as Top Marketing Strategy Company in New Mexico

There are infinite ways you can run a marketing campaign for your company. At JTE Communications, we remove the guesswork from your end. We are a marketing strategy and social media marketing company that helps businesses tell their story online and offline. We offer a variety of affordable, reliable, and professional services that focus on helping small businesses and nonprofit organizations.

Our goal has always been to help your organization reach your marketing goals! Thanks to this drive and our passion in serving our clients, we were able to reach a new high for our company.

We would like to announce that we have been recently named as top marketing strategy company in New Mexico.

Thanks to Clutch for recognizing our talent and for this amazing award. In case you didn’t know who they are, Clutch is the leader in connecting global service providers with corporate buyers from around the world.

Their ratings and verified review platform publishes the most extensive and referenced client reviews in the B2B services market.

We are truly honored and overwhelmed to be named as one of the top companies in our state. But we would also like to give our clients and partners a huge shout out! We wouldn’t be where we are today without your partnership.

We can’t wait to meet you. We offer a free 30-minute consultation where we discuss your organization, goals, and budget. Schedule a call with us and let’s start working together to reach your goals.

Tags award, marketing strategy

Social Media Marketing

Twitter Basics for Newbies: Is Twitter Enough?

Post author By Amanda Evrard
Post date June 29, 2021
No Comments on Twitter Basics for Newbies: Is Twitter Enough?

Today in a consultation a client asked me whether Twitter was enough to be found on the Internet and spread their message, or if they should be utilizing additional social media platforms. The answer to this question may differ depending on who is asking, but the short answer is: Yes, one social media profile can be enough, and Twitter is as good as any.

If you have the means to invest in a robust social media marketing plan and engage with an expert to manage and implement your vision then by all means do not limit yourself to a single platform! There are real drawbacks to choosing just one social media platform, mainly that you are limiting your audience size. Some folks might maintain active profiles on all of the most commonly-used social media platforms, but most of them are only engaging in one or maybe two. If you want to cast the widest net possible, you should reach out to multiple platforms.

However, most of us live in a place called reality where we do not have the social media marketing budget our vision deserves. We need to be strategic in our planning and intentional in our actions. If you are brand new to social media and doing it all on your own you are likely limited in the amount of time you have to dedicate to creating profiles and generating new content. It is better that you pick one and do it well than to try to do too much, not be able to keep up and give up on social media entirely.

There are apps out there that claim you can create one post and it will automatically share it with multiple platforms, but please do not believe them. Each platform has different character limits and image size requirements. More importantly, each platform is its own community with a distinct audience and culture. People are not going to Twitter to see links to your Instagram post, and they are not going to Facebook to sift through a pile of hashtags. An occasional cross-platform post may be called for every now and then, but checking the “also post to…” box is not winning you any followers.

What is @?

In the Twitterverse the @ (at symbol) signifies a username or handle. You can change your username, but you should not do so willy-nilly. Your username is a big part of your Twitter identity, and also used in the URL for your profile page. For example, my twitter username is @JTEComms and you can find my profile at https://twitter.com/JTEComms.

When you are composing a tweet (post) you can “tag” other accounts by including their username with the @ symbol. This is known as a mention. When you mention an account in your tweet the handle will automatically become a hotlink to that user’s profile, and that user will be able to see that you mentioned their page in their analytics. Think of it as a shout-out or a namedrop. It alerts them that you are talking about them while drawing their attention to your account, and allows your followers to easily connect with their content.

Alternatively, if you start out your tweet with a username it is as though you are speaking to that person directly. This is not the same as a direct message, which is a private message that goes only to them. This is more like calling out their name in a crowded restaurant to get their attention, and everyone else in the room can hear it, too.

What is #?

Twitter is all about hashtags (#)! Similar to the @ sign, when you put a # in front of a word it creates a highlighted hotlink. Clicking on that link will bring up a list of every tweet that contains the same tag. You can use hashtags to find people who are talking about the subjects that are important to you and your brand. And you can put hashtags in your posts to help other people find you.

Another way to think of hashtags is like an exclamatory summary of your post. If you have any millennials in your circle you may have already heard this leak into conversation. “Molly’s dad just bought here a new car. Hashtag daddy’s girl!” (In Tweet form that would be #daddysgirl – no spaces or punctuation in your hashtags).

Don’t go crazy – try and keep it to a max of three. And don’t feel like you need to use them in every post.

Engagement

In order to build goodwill on Twitter and create your own community you need to engage. This means you need to follow relevant accounts, reply to their tweets and retweet their posts (share their tweet on your own feed for your followers to see). Follow a few topics relevant to your industry and join in the conversations!

Do try to remember when using Twitter for your business to stay on brand. This is not your personal Twitter account, and unless you are an animal-related organization you should not flood your feed with cat pics. Remember what your vision is and ensure that your posts, comments and retweets reflect that.

Have more questions about Twitter? Or other social media? Let’s talk!

Tags @, #, hashtags, social media, twitter

Uncategorized

Women-Owned Businesses

March is Women’s History Month, and Monday, March 8 is International Women’s Day. It is officially time to celebrate female achievement, recognize the women who have paved the way, and raise awareness of women’s equality! What better time to talk about women-owned businesses?

To be clear, “women-owned business” is a technical term in the realm of federal grants and contracting. To provide a “level playing field for women business owners” the U.S. Federal Government aims to award at least 5 percent of all federal contracting dollars to women-owned businesses each year. (If this sentence leaves you scratching your head, believe me you are not alone.) In order to qualify for this designation, you must register your business with the US government System for Award Management (SAM), and then create an account with the Small Business Administration (SBA) to become certified. It’s a whole thing – and there are other less-free ways to go about it, too. There are far better sources than this blog to find information on what all of that actually means! I’d suggest checking out the SBA, your local Small Business Development Center (SBDC) and/or SCORE for more info.

Federal funding and contracts aside, most actually small businesses know whether they are women-owned without needing a certification. But can that designation actually help us? This optimistic woman says yes!

The number of women-owned businesses increased by 21 percent between 2014 and 2019, while all businesses increased by only 9 percent. And the rate of growth for businesses owned by women of color grew at 43 percent! It isn’t all good news, as there are growing revenue gaps for women-owned businesses, and an even wider gap for most minority-women-owned businesses. For every dollar that a privately held company generated in 1997, women-owned businesses generated only 37 cents. That went down to 30 cents in 2019.

SUPPORT NETWORKS

There are a host of nonprofit associations advocating for women entrepreneurs and providing resources and services to support them. Here are just a few:

The Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC) offers its own certification program for women-owned businesses. In addition to using the “Women Owned Logo” and the “Women’s Business Enterprise Seal” to market your business the program provides access to supplier diversity and procurement executives at corporations as well as various levels of government. For businesses with consumer-facing products and services they publish an online directory of certified businesses. The annual cost of certification is $350 for businesses with revenue under $1 million.
National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO)
American Business Women’s Association (ABWA)
US Women’s Chamber of Commerce (USWCC)

If joining an association or getting certified is not in your budget, there are free and lower-cost opportunities available as well.

FREE – highlight your business as women-led on your Google Business Profile.
$2/day – highlight your business as Women-owned & operated on your Yelp for business page
FREE – join free networking groups for women business owners and entrepreneurs on LinkedIn and Facebook

Tags international women's day, women's history month

Analytics Social Media Marketing

What are Your Social Media Marketing Goals?

Post author By Amanda Evrard
Post date January 15, 2021
No Comments on What are Your Social Media Marketing Goals?

Before you ask yourself how to measure social media results you need to take a step back and examine what your social media goals are. Research shows that setting goals leads to better performance for both teams and individuals (van der Hoek, Groenveld, & Kulpers, 2018) (Latham, Seijts, & Slocum, 2016), and this principle definitely applies to social media marketing. And knowing what your goals are will help you determine what data to track and how to interpret it to improve your results over time.

You may want to look at your analytics results by week or month to get a big picture view of what is going on. When you see big changes in either direction you can go back to that period and look closer to find out what actions may have led to the change.

BRAND AWARENESS
A common social media goal is to increase brand awareness. If this is your goal you will want to pay attention to the number of people who have shown interest in your social media accounts and the actual reach of your posts. You can find this information in the analytics tools provided by each social media platform or via a third-party tool.

Followers or Likes
Reach of posts

BRAND ENGAGEMENT
Are your followers just looking at your content and scrolling by? Or are they stopping to engage with you? Tracking engagement will give you an idea of how many people are interacting with your content and how often. When you see an individual post that has received a lot of attention you can determine what caused the engagement and replicate that strategy. You may also find that different types of posts have a warmer reception on different platforms, which can allow you to better target your content for your audience in the future.

Likes
Shares/RTs
Comments/Replies
Mentions

DRIVE TRAFFIC
You might have tons of followers and huge reach, but are those viewers making it to your website? If your goal in using social media is to drive traffic to your website you will want to track how many visitors are coming to your website from your social media pages. Google Analytics is a powerful and free tool that allows you to look at how many of your website viewers came to your page from a social media site, how many of those are new versus repeat users, their average session duration, how many pages they are visiting and your bounce rate. And you can dig deeper to find date for each of your social media accounts. Look for trends and see what changes you can make to your social media posts not only to lead more people to go your site but to keep them there longer.

GENERATE LEADS
Are your social media fans signing up for your newsletter or otherwise providing you with their contact information? You can use Google Analytics again to set up conversion goals that show you exactly how many social media users are entering their lead information on your website or landing page. If you have a lot of social media followers visiting your website but they are not signing up or giving you a way to contact them you can try making changes to your social media posts to generate more engagement, or try making changes to your website/landing page to encourage more people to participate.

MAKE MONEY
Similar to lead generation you can track whether your social media content is resulting in sales or donations. This may be easy if you are selling or collecting donations directly on a social media platform! But using Google Analytics again you can also set up conversion goals or use Ecommerce Tracking features to measure how much of the revenue from your website you can attribute to your social media activities.

CUSTOMER SERVICE
If you are using social media for customer support you should measure how often customers are engaging with you, how efficiently you are responding to them and how effectively you are meeting their needs. You can track the number of questions you receive, your response time in getting back to them, and customer satisfaction. You may want to ask customers to rate their satisfaction after each interaction or ask for feedback on how to improve to track qualitative data.

PUTTING IT INTO CONTEXT
In order to better understand trends in your social media data it is a best practice to track your own production. How many posts did you publish during the week or on that day? Are there any correlations between your posting frequency and the goals you are tracking that you can take advantage of? Are you seeing more website traffic from social media when you post more videos on Facebook, or seeing more engagement when you post more stories on Instagram? Is there something different about the way you worded the post that saw the most engagement that you can replicate?

Setting goals and tracking data will set you on a path towards a comprehensive social media strategy that works for you! It will save you from tracking numbers that do not tell you anything or from focusing on metrics that aren’t supporting your bottom line.

WORKS CITED
Latham, G., Seijts, G., & Slocum, J. (2016). The goal setting and goal orientation labyrinth: Effective ways for increasing employee performance. Organizational Dynamics, 45(4), 271-277. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orgdyn.2016.10.001

van der Hoek, M., Groenveld, S., & Kulpers, B. (2018). Goal Setting in Teams: Goal Clarity and Team Performance in the Public Sector. Review of Public Personnel Administration, 38(4), 472-493. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1177/0734371X16682815

Tags Analytics, Goals, Measuring, Monitoring, Social Media Marketing

Social Media Marketing

Five Social Media Myths Busted

Post author By Amanda Evrard
Post date January 1, 2021
No Comments on Five Social Media Myths Busted

While no longer new, social media continues to be misunderstood by many who seek to use it for their organizations. Whether your goal is to reach donors to support your mission, connect with people in need of the services you offer or sell your products to new customers here are a few misguided beliefs that could lead you astray:

1. Social Media is Free

I can set up free social media accounts and instantly reach thousands of people and build my brand – for free! As the old saying goes, if it sounds too good to be true, it is. Signing up for an account may be free, but “free” stops there.

There is a learning curve for each social media platform and creating a presence on any of them takes time. Whether that means your own time, a junior staffer’s time or a consultant’s time that time costs money. And no matter how you slice it, maintaining an active presence on any platform will continue to take time. The number one pitfall among new and experienced users alike is underestimating the amount of time coordinating social media will actually take and how much that time will actually cost.

2. If You Build It, They Will Come

There may have been a time when building a Facebook or Twitter page and regularly posting engaging content was enough to gain followers – but that time has passed. Building an amazing page will not do you any good if no one can see it. Social media platforms are for-profit corporations and they know exactly how valuable their services are, which is why they each come with their own marketing tools. When used correctly those tools exponentially increase your odds of having your material seen by the exact people you are targeting. A well-crafted post advertised to the right people will get you further than any click-bait gimmick, especially when you are first building your social media presence. And while not free, these tools can garner impressive results for very little cost.

3. More is More

Not every organization needs to be on every social media platform. Too often we are conditioned to look only at the big picture and we weigh decisions too heavily based on the larger scale. It sounds logical that the more social media platforms you are on the more people you can reach, and the more followers you have on every platform the more effective you are. Unfortunately focusing only on that big picture can lead to a massive waste of everyone’s time.

You need to start by defining who exactly you are trying to reach, what message you would like to deliver and with what medium. It is important to remember that your target audience is not the Internet at large. For example, if you are trying to sell a product to men over 65 you probably do not want to invest time in creating an Instagram account because only 31 percent of Instagram users identify as male and only 8 percent are 65 or older 1 . Similarly, if you do not intend to regularly create new video content you probably do not need to create a YouTube Channel. You can literally buy Twitter followers online 2 , but having more followers does not mean anything if they are not the people you are trying to build relationships with. The total number of followers and the reach of your content are important, but what is more important is understanding who those people are and how you can connect with them so that you can meet your communications goals.

4. Some content is better than no content

Some high-quality content may be better than no content at all, but no content at all is definitely better than bad content. “Bad” may be a subjective term, but a good guideline is to verify that your words are spelled correctly, your images are attractive and your message is reflective of your brand and meaningful to your viewers. It is better to take more time to make sure every aspect is polished than to rush out something sloppy to meet your own arbitrary deadline. You should plan ahead with a posting schedule that you can realistically meet and always value the content more than your schedule. This means you also have to recognize when your schedule and/or expectations are unreasonable and adapt accordingly.

Each social media platform is unique so how often to post varies. If you can only commit to one or two posts per week then do not bother with Twitter or Pinterest but instead focus on Facebook or Instagram. Use scheduling tools to post consistently, and monitor your analytics to post when your followers are most active.

5. Instant results!

You cannot expect instant results from social media. The hard truth is that whether you are doing it in person or online building relationships with people takes time. It is not realistic to expect to see the end result of more sales or donations in a week or a month. The more strategic you are in managing your social media accounts the more likely you are to see positive results, but you should still expect this to take time. Bottom line – social media is not a magic bullet for fundraising or sales, it is a medium to connect with people and build relationships. If online relationship building is not a priority you want to work towards then you may not need to include social media in your marketing plan.

If you are not able to invest the time and resources needed to regularly share quality content on social media then social media may not be for you, and that is okay! A better approach may be to produce a monthly electronic newsletter for your clients, to advertise on a specific website or to focus on print advertising in relevant publications. Social media is just one of many tools available to help you communicate with your clients. Whether you are already on social media, just getting started online or headed in a different direction JTE Communications would love to work with you to craft and implement a communications plan that meets your specific needs. Click here to get started with a free 30-minute consultation.

1 https://sproutsocial.com/insights/new-social-media-demographics/
2 https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2013/05/16/buying-twitter-followers-cheap-price-friendship

Uncategorized

What is Marketing?

And why do I need a consultant?

The term “marketing” has many definitions and subsets, but broadly speaking marketing is anything you do to persuade people to buy your product or use your service. It is all of the activities and tools you use to connect your target audience with your special sauce.

No matter what your industry is – if you manufacture widgets, serve food, provide professional services or human services – you have a special sauce, something about your organization that distinguishes it from all of its competitors. You could be objectively producing the greatest sauce the world has ever known but it isn’t going to do you any good if no one else has ever tasted it and no one wants to buy it. You need marketing to find out who your potential customers are and to convince them to engage with your product and support your business. Paid advertising, printed materials, branded swag, earned media coverage, public events and social media posts are all examples of marketing tools you might choose to promote your special sauce to the sauce-lovers in your community. Marketing communications is using those tools to tell your story and to build relationships that will allow your business to succeed.

Large companies and nonprofits have big marketing and communications teams on staff to create and implement marketing plans and to monitor and analyze their activities. They may also employ full-service marketing firms to do all or some of this work for them. According to The CMO Survey (https://cmosurvey.org/) released in August 2019 US companies allocate between 7.1 percent and 11.1 percent of their budget to marketing.

That is all fine and well for multi-million-dollar corporations, but what about the rest of us? If your budget is closer to $500,000 a year you probably can’t afford to hire a marketing team or a contract with Epsilon (https://us.epsilon.com/). If you are not a marketing pro and 7 to 11 percent of your budget is not enough to support a full-time or part-time salary plus marketing expenses it probably makes sense for you to consider working with a smaller marketing consultant.

Working with a consultant means you get all of the benefits of a marketing professional but only pay for what you need when you need it. You do not need to worry about hiring and training staff or investing in marketing tools that might not end up working the way you expected. You might want to have a consultant create a marketing plan for your organization and provide coaching to your existing staff to help you implement it on your own. You can work with a consultant to identify which aspects of your marketing plan are feasible for you to do on your own and have the consultant focus on the elements that you can’t do yourself. Or you can have a consultant do most of your marketing tasks so you can focus on the rest of your organization.

JTE Communications would love to schedule a free 30-minute consultation with you to learn about your special sauce and see how we can help you persuade more people to try it, to buy it, and to tell their friends to do the same. Click here to get started.

Tags Marketing