May 4th Meeting Minutes - Marketing Tips & Tricks

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President Kim Boaz opened the May 4th meeting by having the board introduce themselves.  Each member present then introduced themselves and provided shout outs to group members who were helpful during the last month. Today’s speaker was Josh Willner with GNSA speaking on the topic of marketing tips and tricks.  Josh covered the importance of having a web presence, which includes a website, social media, blogs, marketing and networking.  He also discussed a social network for local business networking called Alignable.  It is a truism that first impressions count and we should start with a strong web presence.  Our websites must include the products and services we offer.  Having video content on the website is a great medium and easy to send out to prospective clients and other contacts.  Consider adding a picture or business card on your site and including referral sources.  For out-of-state clients, reaching out through linked-in or by telephone call be a great first step prior to meeting face-to-face. If you have a booth at a conference, including pictures of your activities provides helpful content on your website and shows your involvement.

Next, we discussed various marketing automation platforms.  Kim Boaz mentioned that her clients often use MailChimp instead of Constant Contact.  Josh explained that GNSA distinguishes mailings to business partners versus prospective clients.  Customer Relationship Management (CRM) can be used by anyone reaching out to prospective clients.

Josh’s plans for the future entail development of a case study to target an industry.  Satisfied current customers can be a helpful resource for future customers.  You may wish to collect testimonials from your best clients and use to attract future prospects.  He recommended keeping the testimonials to 2 to 3 sentences and requesting referrals from happy current clients.

Josh had our members break into small groups and discuss the following questions.

  1. What has been your biggest marketing success?
  2. What has been your biggest marketing flop?
  3. How much time do you spent on marketing per week?
  4. Have you worked with companies that help create marketing campaigns?

Josh stated that he would make his presentation available to those interested.

It was mentioned that we need a speaker for the month of October.  Karla DeSantis volunteered to be the speaker that month.

Terry Marsh has organized the next All-Star Accounting Professionals social event to be held on June 8 (Thursday) at the Punch Bowl Social from 5 to 8 PM.  The location is 340 SW Morrison Street in Portland 97204.  We look forward to seeing you there!