What bees can teach us about marketing today

We’re all looking for that sweet nectar, right? Exposure, good press, qualified sales leads. Ultimately, steady repeat customers.

Bees are, too. For them, it’s honey. So they flit from flower to flower to find it. To gather enough, they make multiple stops, and something amazing happens. The flowers they touch along the way are activated. They respond. They benefit from the interaction. In fact, so much so that plants that are touched more often develop better fruit., like the photo shown here of a not-so-often pollinated pear and a happily pollinated one.

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It is the same with marketing your business. In order to grow, others need to know about what you offer, what you stand for -- continuously  -- or you’re the lone weed, easily trampled.

And I don’t mean spending a lot of money or time doing that, especially if you’re a small business. I believe in planning it, maximizing it, and yes – doing it as an active part of your sales job -- not a “when I have time” line item on your to-do-list. It should be as high priority as returning phone calls or keeping your pipeline full… not an afterthought.

A client of mine recently had the wonderful opportunity to appear on a radio show on a major market radio station talking about the success of her business, and the future of healthy business in the area. She immediately asked me to feature it in her social media feed.

But that’s just one flower. And one social medium is only seen by a very limited number of her followers and very few prospects. (Let’s face it…. FREE only goes so far!) In order to maximize the exposure of this publicity event, I suggested a press release to local publications, trade media, other social media, including an update on her LinkedIn page and the pages of all staffers, and of course including it on the company home page of her website, or their email signatures, etc., etc.

Basically, to cross-pollinate the event. To let her target audience know she is an authority – THE authority - in her marketplace.

Sound like a lot? It can be. But consider this… there are a lot of flowers – your prospects - out there. They can only be touched by so many bees (their choice of media.)  We can no longer just “have an event” or “promote a product or service” and hope our audience hears about it from a one-shot notice.  It takes a village of communications to get the desired branding effect today.

Don’t have that marketing resource on your team or the time yourself to do that? No sweat. There are plenty of queen bee marketers who know how to do that routinely, efficiently, skillfully, and economically FOR YOU. (Wink, wink.)

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