Archive for the ‘Strategic Marketing Articles’ Category
JBacklund Designs – Totally Custom Guitars
These guitars are amazing. You pick every little detail out, and then they custom make it for you. They are made to an incredible degree of perfection, and are “lifetime instruments” in that you won’t have to replace them with another guitar… ever. We’re working now on the website, which will also allow for custom orders. Check back soon!
Beaver Fleming
Pro skateboarder, Beaver (Christopher) Fleming is about to hit it big. Soon to be a household name, Beaver is an incredible young man both in the skate park and around the conference table. We’re honored that he chose us to develop his visual brand, as well as his new website. The site should launch in the next week, and as you can see, the logo turned out really well.
RainTree Senior Care
RainTree Senior Care has enlisted our help with their brand identity, as well as their new website. The logo, as well as the letterhead, envelopes, business cards and more are now complete, and we are full-steam-ahead on their new website. Stay tuned, as it is yet another fine example of what we can do with a smaller budget. $3,000, and they’re going to have a site that looks and works like a million bucks.
Eye Center of St. Augustine
We were hired to develop a new, fresh website that would represent the experience that the Eye Center of St. Augustine offers. They have many offices throughout Northeast Florida, and truly are an amazing outfit. This site, believe it or not, is built on our $3,000 website package. There were no other add ons. We invite you to check it out at by clicking here. If you’d like a site like this, be sure to call or email us at jcullop@vpi-advisors.com. We even have payment plans.
BioFlo Urinary Catheter Management System
We at VPI have been working on this project since its inception as an idea. This revolutionary product is a urinary catheter that allows the bladder to stay strong by building up tension while the catheter is in, instead of leading to bladder fatigue while the catheter is in. The result is a greatly reduced stay in the hospital, saving the patient or the healthcare provider THOUSANDS of dollars. On top of that, its Quick Disconnect system allows the catheter wearer to be far more active, with specific Day and Night bags, the Day bag allowing it to be worn covertly on the leg. It’s a huge advance, and we’re very proud to have been a part. We have developed their logo/brand, as well as their soon-to-be-launched website and store. Additionally, we have been responsible for Medicare/Medicaid applications, as well as getting it approved by all necessary governing bodies. This is the perfect example of what we at VPI can do; pretty much anything that needs to be done to turn an idea into a true business.
You Can’t Market Without A Message
What is marketing? Putting forth your message to an audience (hopefully a receptive one) with the intent to educate and/or entice. The most effective, organic and oldest form of marketing is the word-of-mouth or third party referral. It is more trusted and generally more accurate in its audience target than anything else a marketer could hope to create. But, the number and influence of the “mouths” doing the referring necessarily limit it. The smaller you are, the narrower your reach until momentum kicks in and scale develops. This results in true, organic growth based on the quality of your offering, level of customer or client satisfaction, and your ability to scale up to handle the new business as it comes in. This is the natural way for a business to grow. But that’s too slow, right? “We need growth now, and fast. We just opened a new location, developed a new product, started a new firm based on work we’ve been doing for years, etc. We need an executable marketing plan that will grow us faster!” Assuming the quality of your offering is good, your current clients or customers (if you have any) are happy, and you have the capacity for growth, what do you do to grow your business? How do you market beyond word-of-mouth?
There are several questions you need to ask yourself about what you are planning to market, but that’s the topic of another post. For now, we’ll address the how, not the what. The foundation of the marketing plan is the message. What is your message? How do you relay your offering? How does your intended audience truly perceive it? Chances are, the message you put out isn’t the one that best attaches itself to your audience and resonates with them, assuming you have identified the right audience. Why is word-of-mouth so powerful? One reason is because it comes from the mouth of a satisfied client, in her own words, relaying a message of client experience from the candid standpoint of a client. What was important to her, how did she feel about the experience, was the outcome what she expected, did the job get done at a fair price, or was the experience worth the premium that was charged? This is what matters to a potential client – what has been the experience of the clients that went before them, and can they empathize with that experience through the message being relayed.
To effectively market, your message needs to be based on what is actually important to the potential client. The best way to determine that is to understand the message being relayed by your existing patrons, both the happy and disappointed ones. You have to “message” from the viewpoint of your actual client, not from the viewpoint of the offering provider. This requires a high level of empathy and willingness to hear the good and bad, willingness to dig and understand what makes your target group “tick”. Too many businesses are arrogant in their approach to messaging. They come at it from the wrong side. You have to determine what actually made the difference in the mind of the client when they chose you, and why they came back for more, or made it a point to refer their associates to you – or why they didn’t come back and told their associates to stay away from you. You must capture the message of existing clients in all its trusted power, all of its experiential and relative resonance, and all of its emotive qualities. Once your message is based on the actual experiential message your clients relay, then you have something powerful to put forth. The message is the foundation and it is the most critical part of your marketing plan. Once you have it nailed, spread it as far and wide as you can in those areas where your target audience frequents. Everything they see or hear about you needs to tie back to the core message that resonates with them. It becomes what your brand is built on. It becomes you. Your message is your foundation; you must get it right before you spread it.
So where do you spread it? That’s the topic of yet another post.
Susan Carter, MD
We just launched another website from our $2,500 complete Content Management System package. That’s right. Everything you see on this website cost only $2,500. PLUS, we train you or your staff to update the site themselves, as this format is as easy to update as Facebook! If you think that you’d like a website but don’t have $10,000 to spend on it, give us a call. We’ll see what we can do for you. Click the image to the left to be taken to the site for further perusal.
Titin Tech
Congratulations to VPI Client Patrick Whaley, CEO & Founder of Titin Tech! He has been featured on the cover of April 16th’s Houston Chronicle Business Section, having just secured third place and taken home the “Most Bankable Award” in the acclaimed Rice University Business Plan Competition. The Rice Competition is the world’s largest and richest business plan competition. Patrick was invited to participate and showcase his revolutionary and patent-pending hyper-gravity training shirt that integrates hydro-gel inserts to add weight as well as comfort. It differentiates itself from the rest of the market by strategically placing gel weights over each major muscle group to increase caloric burn and provide a targeted, muscle-endurance workout. Its uses range from performance training to rehabilitation and beyond without hampering the body’s quick twitch and stabilizer muscles, as traditional weighted training gear has done. The shirt can range in weight from 1 to 30 pounds, preferably 10% of the consumer’s body weight. The full 10% is only recommended for those of extreme athletic fitness in order to avoid injury. The unique nature of its hydro-gel weighting allows the shirt to be excessively cooled or heated depending on the needs of the consumer. Weighted vests in today’s market contain iron or heavy metal that slips and slides in their retention pockets. They are also big, bulky, and uncomfortable; whereas Titin is a slim, fitted shirt that provides comfort and aesthetic appeal to its user.
Patrick’s product is based on such a complete rethinking of the industry that he has already garnered the attention and demand of several nationally known professional athletes, police enforcement agencies, the U.S. Military, as well as physical therapy and rehabilitation professionals. His efforts with Titin Tech have thus far earned him top honors and the People’s Choice Award at the Georgia Tech InVenture Prize Competition as well as The Business School at Georgia Tech Most Fundable Business Plan. His first, small production run sold out within a few hours and he has an established backlog of users anxiously awaiting delivery of the next round of product. He is an incredibly talented young man & even better person with a life story that is truly amazing.
He is currently in his second round of capital acquisition, having nearly exhausted the seed money he accumulated through personal funding and multiple award winnings.
Titin Tech is about to round the corner into serious mass-production and national awareness with incredible momentum.
Contact David Hinkle, CEO of VPI Business Advisors for more information on Titin Tech or Patrick Whaley.
Alumni Hall – Signage Design and Package Printing
Alumni Hall is a successful retail store with over 14 locations throughout the country, and it’s growing rapidly. Focusing their locations around large Universities, they offer clothing and such for local fans to outfit their families with school pride. With more stores always popping up, they needed to consolidate their displays into a uniform set to be sent to the stores from Corporate for each season. The challenge here is that they need to make sure that the signage doesn’t favor any one school’s colors. Here in Knoxville, the displays will be sitting amid a table stacked high with orange and white, where in Lexington, the store seems more like a sea of blue and white. We were set to task to design signage that effectively relates to each demographic, and yet can be printed in bulk and used throughout each store. Attached here is a small sample of what we’ve come up with. Our Print Services department will then produce these in a manner that will be durable, very classy, and relate Alumni Hall as a large national brand… all at a very competitive price.
CenLa Urgent Care – Brochure Design
With a new Urgent Care Clinic opening next month, CenLa needed to be able to let all the doctors in the area know. Their extended hours (till 11pm weeknights) mean that they will be fielding minor emergencies, and the family doctors won’t be called out of their beds at night. In order to not be woken up by a Mom whose 4 year old keeps coughing, the family doc has to let his patients know about CenLa. That’s where we come in. This brochure will be distributed to Family and General Practitioners throughout the area. Sleep tight, MD’s!
(The first image is the outside, with the right side the front and the left the back. The second image is the inside. This has one vertical fold.)