Prioritize, then Diversify

While many business professionals say the kiss of death is the inability to sustain growth, the over-diversification of a company can also be a death nail. Diversification without time, money and employees can stall a company's growth. Too many companies fail because of one simple reason; They try to do too many things instead of focusing one or two products or product lines and making that product the best it can be.
Don’t get me wrong, I think offering a lot of products is great. Diversification, both horizontally and vertically, is something a company should strive for as it creates jobs, cuts cost and increases profit. But this should be done once a company has created and perfected their niche product.

For example, it took Ray Kroc nearly fifteen years to add the Big Mac to the McDonalds menu. Until that time, it was hamburgers, cheeseburgers, fries, sodas and milkshakes. Twenty billion or so customers served later, McDonalds is one of the most recognized brands and best business models in the world. I believe this is because they decided that instead of creating new companies or expanding too fast, they laid out their simple plan and executed that simple plan to perfection.

Build one brand, unite the company in one vision instead of breaking into separate companies, separate divisions. I have seen this more than once in companies that I have worked for. And they fail dramatically. They waste resources, employees and worst of all, time. Jobs are lost, investors are lost, all because the primary vision for the company was lost. It is time that can better be used defining one product, creating that product and selling it with all hands on deck.

If your company ever gets into this situation of over-diversification, ask yourself to revisit the reason you got into the business to begin with.

Was it to create ninety brands of ketchup or one amazing brand? Was it to create a company that simply served corporate travel clients or did you want to start your own wholesale travel company with thousands of clients with only one agent?

So ask yourself if you have a company ready and profitable before you add more and more. If you need investors to make that move possible, maybe wait a few years and save enough to pay for it yourself. Diversification is great, if you can sustain it.

Scheduling E-mail Marketing

When is the best time of day to send an marketing email, eblast, or press release to a prospective client? It is important to know roughly what your client's schedule looks like (i.e. always in meetings in the morning, takes long weekends), preference of message delivery (loathes email but loves to Twitter!), and what level in the company he/she is. For example, if you send an executive (CEO) an email that is intended for a management level employee (Marketing Manager), you could irritate the executive and may even have him/her lose interest in your product.

Here are some easy guidelines to remember:

1.) Do not send important emails on Mondays and Fridays. Especially Monday morning and Friday afternoon! Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday afternoons are your best bet to get your client's attention.

2.) Do not rely on email marketing alone. Use social networking sites and if need be, the United State Postal Service. You might have audiences varying in size from large to small but not everyone communicates the same way.

3.) Do not bury the lede. Make sure that your message is "above the fold." Email programs have many different viewing options and this is important to take note of in your email design.

4.) Keep pictures to a minimum. Emails with a lot of flashy pictures are tough to get through Spam filters. Simplicity is the name of the game.

5.) Finally and most importantly, Keep your emails short. You have 5-10 seconds to get your clients attention before they dump your email into their deleted items bin. 100 words or more is too much! 60 word emails are about as long as they need to be.