Happy Hump day and welcome back to Bedford Street Marketing Insights!!!! We are fast approaching a year since we officially became an LLC and are taking this week to blog about our products and services. It’s our way of letting you know – our unique marketing approach, strategy and pricing.
Let’s start with our tagline – Intelligent, Innovative & Idiosyncratic. When I first coined that tagline in 2018, I was looking for a way to encapsulate the approach I wanted to take in this new venture. I didn’t want to be in the box or offering marketing ideas that a client could get from any consultant. While the first two terms were important, the last one – idiosyncratic – was the key concept to our approach. Sure, we offer intelligent and innovative ideas – I mean, that’s generic as hell. What consultant doesn’t say that?
But idiosyncratic – in addition to being a 50 cent word – is key to our marketing and consulting style. The word has two connotations – “a mode of behavior or way of thought peculiar to an individual” and “a distinctive or peculiar feature of a place or thing”. The word reminds me of one of my favorite movie quotes of all-time- see below.
Intelligent, Innovative & Idiosyncratic
Going into it, I knew that the term might make some clients uneasy. The idea of peculiar marketing ideas is something that might make conservative thinking individuals a bit leery. After a very brief pause, true to my idiosyncratic nature, I decided to keep the word in my tagline. It was important to let prospective clients know that as a marketing consultant I will push boundaries. My ideas are going to be, well I’ll say it, a bit peculiar.
Armed with 20+ years of direct marketing experience, I’ve watched small clients with interesting creative do extremely well and I’ve seen large monolithic corporations play it safe and have their result decrease in all marketing channels. It’s from this experience that the idea of being a bit odd and fun in marketing is a recipe for success.
This is the approach I bring to the table. Sure, I’ll offer up the media channels that others will push – direct mail, print media, social media ads, digital ads, banner ads, email promotions or a mixture of all of them – but I will offer up the idea that your content has to be idiosyncratic and unique. It can’t be all promotional or selling at all times. It has to incorporate fun and content that, at first, may seem non-sequitur. However, these peculiar posts and promotions build brand awareness. They show another side of your business or brand. Talking to customers and prospective clients about issues and topics that matter to them, while not necessarily your core brand, creates a relationship with that end user.
Let me offer an example from Bedford Street Marketing’s recent social media posts. At our core we are a full service marketing agency, yet we post a mixture of promotional, sales and idiosyncratic content. One post last week was about National Clams on the half shell day. You might say, what in God’s name does that have to do with your core business? Let me tell you – that Facebook post reached 192 people, had 10 engagement and drove about 8 people to our website.
A post that had no marketing pretense, no Website Builder offer and wasn’t pushing our services connected with a large audience and drove response. It was talking to prospective clients about their peculiar tastes and it resonated with them. That is the idiosyncratic approach I embrace in my own marketing and what I want to offer to clients. The message is simple – don’t be afraid to be a bit strange!!! Clients and prospects are not just lemmings, whose only purpose is to line your pockets – they are valued friends of your brand and you need to reach them on a visceral level – a level that makes them see your brand as something they connect with and want to share.
Last but not least, we come to the topic of pricing our consulting services. I like to take the approach of premier services at affordable pricing. Over my years in the marketing industry, I’ve seen people charge $150/hr up to well over $300/hr for mundane marketing services. Ideas and promotions that most anyone can run on their own and pay way less than what the consultant charges them. This always seemed like a waste of the client’s money and marketing budget.
Using my idiosyncratic approach again, I decided to go against the capitalist grain – and offer truly premier services for fair rates. For instance, on marketing and branding projects, my rates start at $45/hr with a monthly minimum of $1,000 – that’s 22 hours of consulting!!! Compare that to say $150/hr, you are only getting 6 hours of a consultants time. The idea here is to maximize the time spent with a client- getting to know their needs and business goals and preparing a comprehensive marketing plan for them. If you think that can be done in 6 hours, then I have a bridge in Brooklyn that just came on the market!!!
Our Social Media management services start at $25/hr with a $350 monthly minimum. I’ve seen competitors propose up to $1,000 a month for this service and only promise 2 posts a day!!! Our services offer up to 80 posts a month (and probably more) and management of all events, advertising and whatever else the client needs.
In closing, our approach is Intelligent, Innovative & Idiosyncratic.
Bedford Street Marketing Insights 