The Cascade Effect, is a one-stop-guide for small businesses, startups and those who want to learn how PR can grow your business, making you a successful entrepreneur!



Thursday, April 03, 2008

Keep Your Business in The News With Growth

Over the years I've worked with a wide variety of businesses. Corporations that missed the mark in communicating to their customers and shut down, those that refused to put money in to appropriately making a mark in their industry, those who've been successful all around and businesses that went to market with one product, and one product only to wonder within five years why they're going belly up.

This last group, while successful initially, begins to decline and fall off consumer's radar because they failed to grow their business and keep their key messages in front of customers. They fail to continue generating their brand.

When you start a business with a simple idea you can't forget to consider where your company can go. Becoming a successful long-term entrepreneur, or business owner, is defined by your ability to grow; to look forward and branch your company off into including new products and services.

This is really important not only to overall success but to the success of ongoing marketing programs.

Understand one thing about public relations, if you don't have a story or a new story you will stop generating press. The same can be said for other forms of marketing where your messages can become stale over time. While media outlets will be more than happy to take your advertising dollars, the message will begin to bounce off consumers with no impact whatsoever.

One of the first things I consider when I talk with a new potential client is whether or not they have a vision for their business and ideas to grow it by creating new products and services to meet the needs of a broader audience. For me as a publicist it means two things: the company will either become a one-time client or a long-term client. I prefer long-term clients.

To be honest, you can get all the media in the world when you launch your business and become outrageously successful, but the reality is that unless you keep that momentum going by developing new brands for your business then that success will begin to reverse and you'll be left wondering why your customers aren't returning.

Starting and owning a long-term successful business in today's world demands ingenuity, drive, passion, and the desire to become everything you know the business can become. It also requires actively marketing your business. You can't afford to manage your business any other way.