As the harsh winter weather makes its final stand, we wish everyone the best start to the spring season. And through changing seasons and warmer days, we hope you keep Tailored Marketing in mind for all of your marketing needs.

Sincerely,
Taylor G. Abbett
President

We are proud to announce Cara Lindberg as the newest member of the Tailored Marketing family. Cara has accepted the position of Marketing Coordinator. She graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Mass Communication and a minor in English from Point Park University. Welcome aboard, Cara!

Our most sincere welcome is extended to our newest clients: Coldwell Banker Real Estate, Dollard Publishing, Party for a Purpose, and Champions for Sustainability (a program of Sustainable Pittsburgh).

We also send a special thanks to Kerri Allen, our fantastic fall intern for her hard work last semester. Now studying in Spain, Kerri was a valuable asset and we wish her the absolute best!

2008 Pittsburgh Pirates Home Opener – April 7 at 1:35pm – PNC Park – With the leadership of National League Batting Champion Freddy Sanchez and All-Star Jason Bay, the Buccos look to improve on their strong finish of 2007. The combination of this exciting team and the most beautiful ball park in the Majors is sure to please any fan. So take the field with this impressive roster as the new season gets underway! Call 1-800-BUY-BUCS or visit www.pittsburghpirates.com for info.

BODIES: The Exhibition – Through May 4 – Daily 10am-9pm – Carnegie Science Center – Touring the world, this fascinating exhibit features real human bodies as they’ve never been seen before. Take a close look at the systems that support life on every level and learn of what makes us who we are! Call 412-237-3400 for ticket info.

2008 Pittsburgh Wine Festival – May 3-8 – Heinz Field East and West Club Lounges – For the sixth year, over 100 of the finest wineries in the world will be showcasing 300+ varieties of their most premium wines. Proceeds benefit the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute and, with a target fundraising goal of $4 million, don’t miss out on this great event for a great cause! Visit www.pittsburghwinefestival.com for ticket and event info.

Marketing Audits - Review, Evaluate, Optimize

Branching into various industry clusters, Tailored Marketing has extended its services to include a new Specialized Marketing Consultancy Program. By recognizing that customer perception is constantly changing, this new service provides expertise in the adaptation and enhancement of current marketing strategies. When a complete overhaul of advertising and web-design is not necessary, look to TM to help mold and adjust to your customers’ needs and expectations.
Services include:

• Analysis of uniformity in print and online material
• External Perception – What your customers have to say?
• Evaluation of effectiveness – What your company is doing right and wrong?
• Optimization of current strategies – Where to reduce spending and areas of emphasis?
• Web Evaluation; From aesthetics to functionality and everything in between
• Continuous monitoring and support for all advertising and marketing utilities

Why Is My Marketing Not Working?
By Helen Dowling

There is nothing more frustrating than doing some marketing and finding it doesn't work for your business - especially if you've spent money on it. Not only is it annoying, but it's also demoralising and pretty soon when you've exhausted all the ideas you had for marketing your business.

But why isn't your marketing working for you? Let's look at some common reasons and see if we can put them right.

REASON 1: TARGETING THE WRONG PEOPLE
The most common reason why your marketing isn't working is that you don't know enough about your customers. Far too many businesses say that anyone is their customer or are appealing to the end user rather than the person who buys their services (i.e. the employee rather than the HR manager who will pay for what they're selling).

Solution: Go back to basics. Really define who your customer is. Think about what motivates them and what frustrates them.

REASON 2: NOT EVERYTHING YOU DO WILL GET YOU CUSTOMERS
Whenever you do any marketing, there are three objectives:

a) Get awareness of your business
b) Build your reputation
c) Get customers

Problem is that many of the marketing ideas you're doing already are probably better at getting awareness of your business or building your reputation.

You can get business from these methods, but you need to take it an extra step - capturing contact details. If you do some PR, you've no idea who has found your press release really interesting but didn't get around to calling you, let alone who might have looked at it. Therefore, you need to build some mechanism in each of your marketing methods to get contact details of people who are interested.

So in a press release, you might offer a free sample or service; in a talk you might offer a free summary of your presentation and so on. If people give you their contact details, they're telling you they're interested - then all you need to do is follow-up.

Solution: Without contact details your marketing ideas will do little more than build your reputation and the awareness of your business. In each marketing activity you do, find some way of capturing those contact details.

REASON 3: NOT DOING MARKETING
We all have 1001 other things we need to do. But, the simple fact remains that most small business owners who say they aren't getting as much business as they would like are not doing any marketing. They may dabble in it, but they probably aren't doing it consistently.

If you really don't have time, find a marketing person to do it for you, which frees you up to do other things.

Solution: Do marketing (or if you really don't like it, find someone to do it for you).