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Make Hay While the Sun Shines
This time of year a drive past farm land often brings scenes of wide fields dotted with hay bales. The contrast of the yellow hay, the green field and the bright blue summer sky seems idyllic.

But behind that postcard snapshot is the hard work that went into making it all happen. It brings to mind the saying, "Make hay while the sun shines."

In order to make hay when the conditions were right, the farmer had lots of preparation work to do. Tractors had to be in good working condition with plenty of fuel. Hay mowers, rakes and balers had to be serviced; they'd been in the barn since last summer. And long before that, the fields had to be cared for, fertilized, thistles removed and so on.

Most of us aren't baling hay in the literal sense this summer, but we can see the parallels to our own jobs. We all have peak times when we are welcoming a rush of visitors, or hustling to meet a sales deadline. We all have our hay-making times.

And these crunch times are not the right time to be worried about broken down equipment or thistles in the field. Those items should have been addressed long ago. We've got enough hard work to do just to get the hay made, to get the guests greeted, to reach that sales goal.

Our guests, customers and clients don't want to see us checking the hydraulic fluid levels, they just want to see that idyllic field of perfect hay bales.

What’s Left After Budget Cuts
Budget cuts are flying fast and furious these days. The axe is falling in all areas from locally-owned restaurants in small towns to national retail giants.

For those facing the challenge of how to pare down a marketing budget, some of the first items to feel the cut are TV, newspapers, magazines and radio. These mediums are falling in part because they don't offer marketing professionals the tracking to prove their worth. And direct mail is getting fewer dollars because it has a long track record of lower ROI.

When dollars are this tight, areas that are actually seeing an increase in spending deserve a closer look. A recent report on marketing budgets shows that increases are being seen in social media, website development, online advertising and e-mail.

Read full report here.

It's a Long Term Thing
When you think Twitter, you think short. Only 144 characters to get the message across. It took a while for you to adapt to that abbreviated length. But the strength of Twitter and other social sites is not in the short, but in the long. Long term commitment.

This can be a tough concept to tackle in the marketing world. We are geared toward deadlines and campaigns. This online ad runs for 4 months. That campaign is for the holiday season. And so on. We like things to have a beginning and an end.

Social sites are more like an information desk at a major airport. The traffic never stops. The questions are always changing and hard to predict. You never know who you'll meet. It is a wonderful place for a marketer to be—if he or she is prepared.

Thank you for spending a few moments with our newsletter. We appreciate your time and encourage you to contact us to continue the conversation. At Global Marketing Solutions our goal is to offer affordable marketing advice and services. Give us a call or an email - we'd love to hear from you.

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April W. Boone             April@GMStheBest.biz
John Boone                  John@GMStheBest.biz
Laura McGill                Laura@GMStheBest.biz