Pulse marketing offers private marketing clinics to 15 businesses for free

BANGOR – Tis the season for merry making and gift giving. Pulse Marketing is offering free, 90-minute private marketing clinics to 15 local businesses that are looking to build a marketing strategy for 2013 or to simply revamp their existing marketing strategies. The clinic is called Planning Ahead: Marketing Guidance for the New Year and is being offered one per day from Nov. 26 until Dec. 14.

“We were brainstorming about how we can help the community. We wanted to give back and we’re so small and so young … Donating cash is a concern for us because we don’t have a lot to donate,” said Cintia Miranda, the president of Pulse Marketing. “We can donate our time. We came up with the idea. We usually offer complimentary first visits for clients, but this is different.”

Small business owners and sales people are usually very good at summing up the benefits of their products/services in a way that triggers the start of a more in-depth conversation. This skill, also known as "the elevator pitch," has been in practice for many years, and it can pave the road to successful business development – that is, if you have a winning message.

The main purpose of an effective elevator speech is to capture your audience’s attention quickly. Following are some ideas to help you craft a new elevator speech or check if your current one is as good as it can be:

1. Always begin with your name, job title and affiliation

2. Explain your business offer and how your audience could benefit from it – think value or solution to a need.

3. Explain with carefully chosen words what sets your business apart from the competition – what makes you unique, and why should the listener care?

It seems that being a marketer has become fashionable - perhaps even a fad - lately. People with little or no qualifications have opened their “agencies” (often in their homes) and are promising the world amazing returns - typically via social media. But how can a customer have confidence that they are doing business with qualified professionals if a marketer has no credentials? Of course, one can learn on the job, but would you trust a doctor without credentials? How about a lawyer? Prior to becoming a marketer, I spent eight years of my life in a university classroom pursing my undergraduate and graduate degrees, and have continued to invest heavily in my professional development over the past 15 years.