The A-Z of Marketing (Part 1)
A - Announce yourself (but to the right people).
Make sure you know exactly who your product or service appeals to. Don't go for a blanket coverage, not everyone will need or want or buy your product or services, no matter how easy it is to assume that (we all do it). Do some detailed research into what kinds of people buy your kind of product or service, where they are based, where they currently shop and how much available cash they usually have in this particular demographic for your service. You can do a survey through your website to achieve this (try www.surveymonkey.com or get a group of people that you think are the right people together in a focus group - offer free tea, coffee and cake and a chance to meet other people) Then look at what they read, what websites they use and target these publications only. It will save you a lot of cash and make that cash work harder for you if you do your research first. You might also want to test your advertising on the types of people you are looking to target before you finalise it (maybe put a few up on your website and ask people to vote). Research shows that images that allow people to understand how things are used and that enable them to imagine the product or service in their lives are the most effective - so save that beautiful abstract advertising concept for when you are better known.
B - Be different, but not in a weird way.
Ok, so it's not that easy to reinvent the wheel but the good news is, you really don't have to - but you do need to stand out. So how can you be different? Well, think about the idea that you are an individual and different from everyone else, even though you are also essentially the same as everyone else. It is not so different in marketing. Think of the things that makes your company or service different because it has you at the helm - you will be the difference. What do you do that others don't do? What do you offer that others don't offer? What combination do you do well that others cannot combine in the same way? What qualities do you bring? What values? What concepts? What ideas? Any of these things can be the difference that you are looking for - then you just have to make sure people are aware of it. Make sure you are not being different for the sake of it though - not many people will go to a mechanic just because he has the biggest collection of hats known to man, they might go if you make your workshop the most amazing thing to wait around in because of its different interior though...
C - Conceptualise yourself
This leads us neatly onto looking at the concept behind your business. What led you to start the business? What do you understand about life and business that led you to this idea? Do you understand parenthood, design, people, what it is like to be in a certain situation, how people feel, what looks good on people, what tastes good?
Concept is defined as:
Noun
| |
Synonyms
|
So what is your initial idea? What is your general notion about this area you want to work in? What is your plan or intention? What can you conceive of in this area? Set your unique intention and your unique way of bringing this concept to life. Once you know your concept you can be clearer on your difference and your way of expressing that difference through your marketing campaign. Say you want to set up a business selling a new stationary range - your concept may have come from the idea that you love to keep old letters and you think it is a valuable part of our social history to have a record of the written word. So you take this concept and you create a marketing campaign around some old letters you found. Maybe you found some love letters between Ernie and Mabel, the pair of them are dead now and you never knew whether Ernie was reunited with Mabel after the war - your company name could be Ernie and Mabel, your slogan 'The love story continues' and your marketing campaign will be based around people buying your stationary so they can keep the love story going between each other and never be lost to each other as Ernie and Mabel were.
D - Design, but not too much.
Once you know what your concept is and how you will be different you will want to come up with an overall design that you can have as your marketing 'look'. This look should be in line with your values and your concept. If you are targeting women between 20 and 30 look at what colours and images appeal to them, look at how you can integrate your concept neatly into this demographic by combining the knowledge of what they want and what you offer. It is worth getting professional design advice but you should go armed with your own ideas first or they will simply come up with what they believe looks good and not necessarily something that fits with your concept. Your design should be used across all your marketing efforts to make sure that you become recognizable through it. Some logos are so powerful that we do not even have to see the entire logo in order to know exactly what the company is - recognise any of these for example?
E - Email your way to a fan base
F - Focus like a foxy fiend
You need focus if you are going to follow your quitting the 9 to 5 dream, your marketing plan needs focus and you need to get out of the rut if you fear what will happen if you focus. So, what do I mean by focus exactly? I mean that you need to concentrate on one thing that you do really well. Don't be the Virtual PA who also does book keeping and website design, or the fashion designer who also markets dieting products. Concentrate on what you do best and do ONLY that! It is so tempting when things are just starting out and business is patchy to try and add on a few things to your services so that you have a bigger pool to fish in, assuming that more services attract more people and that one of them will eventually work. What happens instead is that you become all things to no one in particular - this is a recipe for disaster. Decide what you want to offer and then trim it down to its essence, try to do it in a way that no one else is doing. If you want to make be a Virtual PA then be a PA that works specifically with accountants or mums or start-ups or something else really specific. Then be the very best in that field.
G - Gifts and other incentives (bribes?)
People love a free gift but make sure you are not doing it so often that people always just wait for you to come up with the next offer before they will buy (think DFS..who would buy anything full price?). Offering something worthwhile is a good idea to get your marketing efforts off the ground. Lets go back to the Virtual PA example - they could offer a free hours worth of work when someone signs up to a monthly standing order (for a predecided amount). Make sure people don't feel too tied in - 'Cancel whenever you like' is music to my ears and chances are I won't cancel because I'll just put it off another month safe in the knowledge that I can cancel anytime (clever how they get you isn't it?!). Offer a free half hour for every referral that you get from that customer (the more they give you the more free time they'll get, good for you, good for them). Don't offer rubbish free stuff, no one is going to sign up with you because you'll give them a free biro - they can get a handful of those everytime they go into Barclays Bank! Do give gifts and incentives but make them worthwhile and don't offer them all the time. Loyal customers should get incentives to stay loyal, treat them as your special guests and look after them well - these are the exception to the rule when it comes to giving incentives often, lavish them and they will stay and tell others, neglect them in favour of the new customer who only signed up to get the pen and you will soon find yourself customer less and pen less.
H - Happy you, happy customers
Don't underestimate the power of good customer service. We all moan when someone has ignored us as they take our purchases and put them through the till and many big companies are now training their staff to make sure they interact with the customers, ask about their day and smile lots! So make good customer service something you always strive for and people will talk about you - in a good way! Answer emails promptly and politely, give more than people expect of you, be a happy person and people will want to buy from you and recommend you. Be more interested in them and how you can help them than worrying about how you are coming across though - listen, talk little, empathise and then really try to match what you can do with their needs. Never sell them something they clearly don't need, however much you are tempted - don't sell them anything if thats the best thing for them. If you take their needs into account they can leave happy that you are genuine and helpful and they will not hesitate to recommend you to the nearest person they see, who could turn out to be your best customer yet! Plus, if they ever do need you in the future, guess who they will call?! Yup, YOU!
I - Invest in investigation.
You will need to do a lot of investigating in order to finely tune your marketing plan and its subsequent efforts. First you will be investigating your market, then you will need to investigate the result of your advertising and marketing campaign. Find a way to track where customers have come to you from, this is easy if you are selling online but if not you will need to come up with your own system. When you give out an order form, a contract or a contact form, have a question on there ready that asks where they heard about you. You need to know if 'Bill' from down the road is giving you loads of work (in which case thank him with a case of wine, or a meal or whatever Bill likes God love him) or if its through an advert you placed in the paper or from a press release that went out last week etc. When you have a good idea of where most of your customers are getting to know about you (particularly those who buy from you rather than just quietly check you out) then put more money and more effort into that referral stream. You will also need to investigate number stuff like how much each sale has made you versus the cost of getting that sale in the first place. If you went to a trade fair and made one sale and no other further interest was forthcoming that sale cost you one hell of a lot...of course you can offset some of that against the exposure that you will have got for your brand name...but when you are starting out you can't afford to do too much speculating without some accumulating. Take into account how much a client is worth to you as well - did they just buy once, will they buy often, do they know loads of other people who might buy from you, did they pay really promptly? All these things count towards a thriving business for you and you want to put your time, effort and cash in the right place...so become an investigative ninja.
J - Jump off a cliff.
Doing something memorable can be a planned part of your marketing campaign (even jumping off a cliff if its got a point to it...and you have the appropriate safety measures in place...and you have told people about it first or at least taken footage...maybe just don't jump off a cliff...). I remember the days when Innocent Smoothies were the cutting edge of doing things in a memorable way (they are more corporate now but still inventing the wheel when it comes to what we drink) and we know how well it turned out for that lot after their days of testing smoothies at festivals! Think of Red Bull and the way they have invested in their core concept of 'it gives you wings' - they now have a F1 racing team that's doing very well, that's diversification for you! Make your memorable statement something meaningful and linked to your core values. If you have the core value of 'bringing order from chaos' as a Virtual PA (I'll come up with another business in a minute...) then why not do something like helping those whose lives are really in chaos by offering free services on a wednesday afternoon to people who wouldn't otherwise afford it in a workshop? If you run a bakery and your core value is to 'bring the love of baking back to tums everywhere' then take your best buns round to the biggest office building in the area and give them all a free bun (whilst leaving them with a menu of things on offer and a loyalty card that they can use when they come and visit you every morning..). Think wacky if you want but make sure you are giving the potential customers a tangible link to what it is that you do, otherwise they will remember the event but not who you are or how to buy your products.
Tomorrow will cover from K - Q, to make sure you don't miss it sign up to get updates emailed directly to you. Find the email widget on the sidebar and put your address in, easy as that!
What is the best marketing thing you have ever done?
Love Nova xxx
No comments:
Post a Comment