everything you ever wanted to know about marketing...but were afraid to ask!
TRANSCRIPT
Everything you wanted to know about Marketing… …but were afraid to ask!
The Obvious
Well, you’d think it would be obvious!
Always carry business cards
Check emails every day
Keep all logos/branding the same
Contra DealsBarter, barter, barter!
Double or triple your marketing budget without getting your chequebook out
Advertising – radio, newspapers, magazines, corporate hospitality, etc.
Photography, web design, graphic design, restaurant, training, etc.
… virtually any service!
Help A Charity – Help Yourself
Cause-Related Marketing (CRM)
Support a charity
Win, win!
- Inca Trail for the Children’s Hospice South West
- Crimestoppers Golf Day
Client ReferralsWord of mouth is the best form of advertising!
Let your happy customers spread the word
Simple postcard design – referral details on the back
£25 M&S voucher, bottle of champagne, petrol voucher, etc.
Memory jogger, e.g. Sky TV
Keep An Eye On The CompetitionEssential for success – their campaigns, news,
changes in pricing or policies can affect your customers’ perceptions.
Stay ahead of the competition – pre-empt /react to their news: Where do they
advertise?
How do they advertise?
‘Borrow’ good ideas!
Video FootageAdding video to your website boosts your Google
ranking.
60”/90” introduction to your company
Gives people a sense of security – they can ‘meet’ you before initial call/purchase
Promote on your email signature
Upload to YouTube
Personal TouchPeople buy people!
Photos of you (and your team) on your website
Photo on LinkedIn
Personal
Approachable
Testimonials
‘Don’t just listen to what we say – listen to what our customers say about us’
Video testimonials?
Be honest – your customers will be!
Market ResearchWhat do you think your customers think about you
and your business??
Find out what they really think
www.surveymonkey.co.uk
Professional
Invaluable
Free of charge!
Positive Mental AttitudeAs Henry Ford said:
There are two types of people in life: those that think they can, and those that think they can’t… and they’re both right.
Glass half full or half empty?!
FacebookLaunched 2004, currently 400 million +
Set up a business profile
Use status updates to promote your business
Fan pages – indexed by Google, searchable outside Facebook
Your fans’ profiles display: “Joe Bloggs has become a fan of…”
Fan pages can spread virally
LinkedInLaunched 2003, 60 million + registered users
Why are you on LinkedIn?
Investigate your connections’ connections
Position yourself as the expert in your field
Join groups
Reply to threads/ blogs
TimingE-newsletters
Mailshots
January 1st – new calendar year = new financial budgets
April 1st – new financial year
Public Sector – use it or lose it!
Sense Of HumourBecause life’s too short!
Attention To DetailFirst impressions
count!
Don’t forget to check the details …
TwitterLaunched 2006, one billion tweets per
month, number of active accounts??How to use it
Small businesses are using Twitter to:Network with suppliers, trade groups and
other businesses.Recruit staff. Success stories.Quality not quantity.
Set GoalsHow do you eat an elephant?!
Set manageable goals
If the idea of selling 10,000 widgets a year overwhelms you, think of it as selling 27 widgets a day
Sales – cold calling
Just 5 calls a day = 100 per month = 1200 per year
E-NewslettersDid you know it costs six times more to make a sale
to a new customer than to an existing one?
Seasonal or monthly?
Content – latest news, new technology, recent awards/press coverage, photos, special offers, client testimonials…
Data protection
www.mailchimp.com
Statistics
Networking BNI (Marmite?!)
Federation of Small Businesses (Lloyds)
GWE Business West
Prepare a memorable 60” presentation
Women in Biz, Ladies Who Latte, Business Inspired
EventsBusiness Link events
Learn
Networking
Sign up to Events newsletter
Two Heads…Ask the team
Brainstorm
What would you do if I gave you £100 to spend on the business?
What about £1,000?
Who Are You? What Are You?
If your business was a car, what exactly would it be?!
Mercedes? Vauxhall? Aston Martin? Kia?
A 30-year-old, rusty Trabant?
Do your staff/customers share your opinion?
Free Listingswww.yell.com
www.thomsonlocal.co.uk
www.freeindex.co.uk
www.gumtree.com
www.hotfroguk.co.uk
Diary date to revisit sites every 3 months
The Shop WindowFirst impressions matter!
Blu-Tack all over the office walls?
Pirelli Calendar?!
Messages to staff?
Dead plant in the corner?!
Promotions
Star FM chocolate campaign
The Queen of Hearts
Reverse Psychology
It makes sense!
If you wanted to guarantee that you made zero sales in the next 12 months, what would you do?
Signage
Branding
High-profile
Focus GroupsA focus group is a form of qualitative
research in which a group of people are asked about their perceptions, opinions, beliefs and attitudes towards a product, service, concept, advertisement, idea, or packaging.
Questions are asked in an interactive group setting where participants are free to talk with other group members.
WebsiteOffer live help to make more sales on your website.
Use simple live chat on your website
www.olark.com
Photos for your website
Do you ever take images from your camera, and try to use them on your website? Modern digital cameras produce massive, high-resolution images which will use up all your webspace allowance. What’s worse, they will make your website slow to load, and drain the user’s bandwidth.
Resize your images with www.imagemerger.net so you can use them on your site. Just specify by what percentage you want your images reduced, and the site will do the rest.
FREE OF CHARGE!
How others view your websiteDid you know each user sees a slightly different
amount of each website? Computers have lots of different screen sizes, and users set up their browsers with a range of toolbars.
See how users actually view your website with www.screen-resolution.com
Type your website address into the main box, choose the size that you want to investigate, and click ‘go’
It then launches a new browser that shows your website in the exact size you specified
FREE OF CHARGE!
Get feedback on your website
Bounce rates are one of the biggest problems for web designers. Visitors to your site need to be able to see what it’s all about in the first 5 seconds – if they can’t, the chances are that they will leave.
Test whether your design is clear and easy to understand. Submit it to www.fivesecondtest.com
Your website is revealed to volunteers for 5 seconds
The community of web designers will give you feedback
FREE OF CHARGE!
File ConversionHave you ever wanted to convert files without the
need to download software? You can change almost any file to almost any other:
Word doc to a PDF? Excel file into a jpeg?
www.zamzar.com
It works with most document, video and music files:
.rtf; .docx; .doc; .ods; .odt; .ppt; .pptx; .odp; .wpd; .ps; .pub; .xls; .xlsx;
.cvs; .wps …
FREE OF CHARGE!
Joint PromotionsReach a whole new pool of potential
customers and achieve a large number of sales for a very low cost – set up joint promotions with other small businesses!
Contact some non-competing small businesses serving customers in your market
Offer to publicise their products or services to your customers in exchange for their publicising your services to their customers
Measure Your SuccessWhatever activity you choose, set targets to
measure the impact of your actions:
Monitor enquiries from a direct mail campaign.
Increase hits to a website.
Increase sign-up for your customer newsletter.
Do Something Unexpected!How amazing would it be if your supplier rang
to say they had dropped their prices by 10 per cent, for no reason?
Or an owner rings to say thanks for your continued business?
In the internet age, business can be so anonymous that even picking up the phone now and again can be seen as unexpected.
Mystery ShopperFocus on how your staff represent your
company
People will judge your business on the people within
Use mystery shoppers to work out what the experience is like
Ask An ExpertMake use of FREE resources!
www.businesslink.gov.uk/southwest
www.cim.co.uk
www.brave.org.uk
www.googleanalytics.co.uk
12 Month Marketing PlanSimple
Effective
Memory jogger
Seasonal E-newsletters, Networking, Event attendance, B2B shows, LinkedIn, Twitter
Marketing is an ongoing process – the key to successful marketing is to analyse, review and adjust. It should be tweaked, tailored and updated regularly.
Thank You!Dev Chakraborty
Business LinkM: 07501 039402
Slides available from
www.businesslink.gov.uk/southwest/eventspresentations
Your Business Success is Our Business Objective
Business Link
08456 00 99 66
www.businesslink.gov.uk/southwest