by Maryann Smith Little
Business owners are constantly faced with the challenge of delivering their product or service in a timely manner. What separates a successful business owner from an unsuccessful one is the successful owner knows he can’t do it all, so he has to outsource the little things that aren’t the foundation of his business. That includes marketing.
Marketing can be cumbersome and confusing to many people. It’s tough to know where to begin, even if you have a full time person dedicated to help improve the marketing of your business. Often times advertising is not well thought out, so results often fail. Money is spent on frivolous advertising without a return and too many times countless hours are spent on the phone calling to various advertising resources. Business owners are wasting valuable hours calling back and forth trying to coordinate their advertising efforts when that time could have been spent focusing on the core competencies of the day to day operations of the business.
Harvard Business School professors Gail J. McGovern and John Quelch both agree in a March 1, 2005 article that outsourcing marketing can lead to better quality and lower costs.
“If businesses in the Merrimack Valley could focus on what they do best and outsource marketing and other responsibilities, their productivity would immediately increase and their focus would be on growing their business rather than mundane details of marketing,” explains, Lynn Goldstein of JLM Marketing Group in Haverhill Massachusetts.
Eight area companies saw an opportunity to streamline a business’ marketing by forming together and offering services to assist those businesses save time. Each company has their own unique identity in the marketing arena, however they came together with the common goal to service companies efficiently, effectively, and obviously to streamline the amount of time people spend trying to pinpoint what type of marketing to concentrate on for their business. Merrimack Valley Marketing was formed and consists of a sign company, website hosting and design company, promotions company, marketing company, direct mail coupon company, graphic design company, online video streaming; email, broadcasting, blogs, and podcasting company, newspaper advertising company (Area News Group) and TV advertising with Comcast. The owners and representatives for each company saw an opportunity to work with each other and help new and established businesses in the area with advertising and marketing and above all streamline a company’s marketing process.
“The beauty of working together is our partnership with each other. I have a resource for all my clients right at my fingertips and I have more than quadrupled my contact base for my clients if I need something for them,” said Maryann Little, owner of Big Bull Creative Design Company. “Each company represents a different advertising field and our clients have so many choices the average advertising company can’t give them.”
Scrubs Gala owner Pauline Racicot from Deerfield knows the benefits of working with the Group. She just opened her custom scrub business this past year and was able to work with several members of the team. She didn’t have much marketing experience and was able to coordinate some planning, a website with online store, logo, flyers, business cards, all from different members of the group with ease.
“I was able to meet with Lynn, and spoke with Pat and Maryann online who in turn coordinated with Sonny and next thing you know, everything was done,” describes Pauline.
Pauline is still working with MVM to complete signage for her company.
“Customers can work with one or every member of the group depending on what their needs are,” claims Christine Tarpy owner of Sign Tech in Bradford. “If a customer needs to place a grand opening ad, we can have Mike (Area News Group) contact them. If they need a banner, I can service them, or if they need everything, we can all coordinate together, so the client isn’t making 25 phone calls to get everything done. It saves countless hours making phone calls and wondering where to go.”
The goal of Merrimack Valley Marketing is to make a company’s advertising and marketing more efficient by working hand in hand, therefore saving the company time and money. The company may already have a marketing staff on hand, but most likely will still need to outsource some services, such as television, newspaper or promotional advertising and that’s where Merrimack Valley Marketing can bring combined experience of over 100 years of marketing and advertising to their clients. One or several members of the group will work with a company to develop their marketing and pinpoint effective solutions that capture the business’ target market. MVM becomes a partner in your marketing and provides constant communication, allowing a business to reach their marketing objectives.
Eight representatives comprise Merrimack Valley Marketing and include; Pat Cirino of Cirelle Enterprises Website design/hosting, of Windham, Sonny Tylus of Advertising & Business Services, Inc. Promotions, Salem, Maryann Little of Big Bull Creative Graphic Design, in Plaistow, Mike Falzone of the Salem Patriot Newspaper, Maryellen Duchesne of Effective Coupons and VM Direct of Plaistow, Lynn Goldstein of JLM Marketing Group in Haverhill, Christina Tarpy of Sign-Tech in Haverhill, and Demetra Pagiatakis of Comcast Spotlight Television Advertising.
Any New Hampshire or Massachusetts company wishing to further develop their marketing can log onto their site for more information; www.merrimackvalleymarketing.com.
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