Better Marketing in Just 7 Days by Jo Sealy, To Market by To Market Times

Better Marketing In Just 7 Days

Jo Sealy

A step by step guide to practical marketing for small businesses

A really useful e-booklet â&#x20AC;&#x201C; very concise, informative and easy to digest. Tracey Edghill, Knowledge Transfer Manager, Waltham Forest College

CONTENTS Introduction

Day 1 – Tune Into Your Market and Understand the Competition

Day 2 – What does your customer have for breakfast?

Day 3 – Think Small to Get Big

Day 4 – Got The Right Message?

Day 5 – What’s Your Route To Market?

Day 6 – Keep Your Eyes On the Main Prize

Day 7 – Speculate to Accumulate

Conclusion

Feedback

Reference

Your simple, seven day marketing plan! Introduction

To Market has written this guide to help you develop your own business marketing strategy in just seven days. It contains a full seven days of ideas and work plans for you to achieve success which you can dip into gradually, or work through over the space of a week. Brilliant marketing gurus often get bogged down with complicated marketing solutions often geared to big business. It’s not that they’re not relevant to small businesses too. It’s just that a lot can be trimmed from the rhetoric, taking the best of what the big companies do, translating the remaining nuggets into everyday accessible use by small businesses. Small businesses that are switched onto marketing hold many advantages: i) they can respond more quickly than their slower competitors ii) the personality of their brands can be more rapidly conveyed to their customers iii) personal touches can be direct and immediate.

Getting started

This e-booklet is designed to get your marketing juices into action. It should get you thinking about how you can make your business stand out amongst the crowd and create a successful plan for your business. It’s only designed as a guideline to get you started; there are plenty of great free resources out there to help you further (see the reference page for useful resources and websites). To make life easier – and so you’ll have no excuse for not doing it – I’ve included some simple starting forms that you can use to begin to gather and record your information. Don’t feel you need to stick to their formats; tailor them to suit your own circumstance. The To|Market Tips are pockets of information to help you. Where you see the “To do” instruction you need to get your thinking cap on and do something towards your plan.

Concentrating your marketing planning in this way requires some work on your part – commitment to making the time to gather the facts to shape your marketing. So over the next seven days it’s a good idea to make a morning start with each subject and dedicate the day to that specific activity. Aim to have some tangible information in relation to your business about the day’s subject. Take time nearer the end of the day to walk away from what you’ve done, take a break. Then return with a fresh eye and finish the subject for the day, ready for the next. Try not to over-complicate things. Start with a clean notepad or sheets of paper. Summarise the day’s subject in a maximum of a single A4 written page. Don’t worry at this stage about the writing style or graphic design. The aim is to make a start. Ready? Let’s get marketing! Jo Sealy

Day 1 – Tune into your market and understand the competition Is your product or service something that people actually want? If you understand your market and what it wants (not what it needs) then you are in a position to be able to sell your product or service to that market. (More on this later). By identifying wants that are being unmet, you find your profitable market. This consists of people who will then jump to buy your solution (product or service). To get an understanding of your market you should ask yourself questions like:

To do:

| A re there segments in my market that are being underserved? | A re the market segments for my product or service big enough to make money? | What are the weaknesses in my competition’s offering that I can capitalise on? | How much share of that market do I need to capture, to just break even?

TIP City Library and the British Library hold Cobweb and Keynote industry reports which can be accessed free of charge and provide an overview of a wide range of industries.

| Does my market want or value my unique competitive offering? And be honest: | Is there too much competition in the segment of my market to be competitive?

Summary of the market Key points

Size

Type of operation

Example: There x types of operator in this market

Example: The business model

Location

Other

ÂŠ 2007/2008 To Market

Summary of the competition Name

Product/service

Unique selling point/s

Profile of customers

Market perceptions

ÂŠ 2007/2008 To Market

Day 2 – What does your customer have for breakfast? It’s a fact that the business that knows its customer intimately will steal a march on its competitors. So to ease the journey of easier sales, it is essential to get to know and understand your customer. You need to: 1. Know who your customers are 2. What they want, and 3. What motivates them to buy Without this information, you can’t prepare an effective marketing plan. Try not to confuse ‘wants’ with ‘needs’. People will buy what they want, not what they need. To really get to know your customers you’ll need to ask yourself questions such as:

To do:

|H ow does my potential customer normally buy similar products (i.e. in a store, on the web, door-to-door)? | Who is the primary buyer and the primary buying influencer in the purchasing process (i.e. husband or wife, finance director, project leader, secretary)? | What kind of habits does my customer have? For instance, where do they get their information (i.e. television, newspapers, magazines)? | Where do they eat breakfast, lunch or dinner? | How do they get to work? | Are there after-work pubs or restaurants or coffee shops where they tend to stop off before going home?

TIP Pretend to be a Customer Ask yourself who your average customer is and how you can attract their attention. Put yourself in their shoes and live their life for a moment. Take yourself through their typical day and imagine what processes they might go through when they decide to buy something. If you understand them you can start to see which communications might have an effect and which might not.

| How do they spend their evenings? | W hat are my target customer’s primary motivations for buying (i.e. look good, avoid pain, get rich, be healthy, be popular etc.)

Buying Decisions

If you have an understanding of your own sales and marketing process, you’ll know exactly what a customer really needs to know at the time that they read it. It’s surprising that so many companies try to incorporate their entire sales information into their brochure or a website, without considering what exactly a prospective customer really needs to know at the time that they read it.

Understand your customer’s purchasing process and you’ll be able to create appropriate marketing for each stage.

Here’s an example of a company’s sales and marketing process: Direct Mail Re-brand

Advertising

Website

Brochure

Sales Call

To add credibility and allow individuals to find out more before having to endure an unwanted sales conversation.

This is an opportunity to impress, in addition, it is an opportunity to collect data from interested parties via the website.

At which point the experienced sales team call these “warm” leads.

SEO To create awareness and engage the target audience.

Purchase

To do:

Profile of my customer Where are they located?

When/how often do they buy my product/service?

Where do they shop? Eat? Socialise?

What matters most to them when buying my kind of product/service?

What issues do they worry/care about?

Of course, once you start thinking about it, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll probably be able to add more questions to this, to suit your own customers.

ÂŠ 2007/2008 To Market

To do:

1. Draw up a purchasing flow chart for your potential customers. Use this flowchart as a starting point:

Trigger

Target 2. Draw up a chart of your company’s sales and marketing process. Use this flow chart as a starting point:

Trigger

Target

How to draw a flowchart There are no hard and fast rules for constructing flowcharts, but there are

3. Note each successive action concisely and clearly

guidelines which are useful to bear in mind.

4. Go with the main flow (put extra detail in other charts)

Here are six steps which can be used as a guide for completing flowcharts: 1. Describe the process to be charted (this is a one-line statement such as,

“How to fill the car’s petrol tank”)

5. Make cross references to supporting information 6. Follow the process through to a useful conclusion (end at a ‘target’ point)

2. Start with a ‘trigger’ event

Day 3 – Think small to get big We’re talking about niches here. Note - the word niche doesn’t mean small, it simply means off the mainstream and less crowded. There’s no point saying that you’re marketing to everybody, because you’ll end up capturing nobody. You’ll spread your marketing budget thinly, have little focus, be hoping for the best, be disappointed with results and ultimately capture very few clients in a huge market. Smaller businesses need to focus and work in identified niches. They need to become experts in their field to make them stand out. Carve out a specific niche and dominate that niche, then you might consider moving on to your next chosen niche. Think ‘Sheila’s Wheels’ – car insurance for female drivers, ‘Outsize’ – a specialist outsize fitters for men in E17 or Briffa, a specialist intellectual law firm with a niche around creative businesses. Make sure that you choose a niche that interests you and that is easy to contact. By that I mean that you know how to get in front of that particular market, and in a cost effective way. Otherwise you could end up spending lots on trying to attract clients and frustrated because you can’t do it properly.

TIP Adaptation is key when creating a successful niche. It’s simply looking at what another successful business, product, service, or person is doing, and then finding a way to adapt it to your own business, product, service, or self. Look not just at your own industry but others for ideas.

To do:

Think about the potential niche markets for your business. Looking at your current client base, industry experience or business location might help you. When deciding on a niche, ask yourself some questions:

Customer Type 1

Customer Type 2

Customer Type 3

What types of customer do I want to target? Why these groups? Is this group easy to contact?

Be strategic with your PR efforts! Once you have discovered your niche you are in a position to consider your PR activities. Publicity for its own sake is rarely worth your time and effort. Any efforts to secure publicity on behalf of yourself, your staff and your organisation, need to form part of a carefully thought out strategy which supports your broader commercial objectives.

For example, you may have ambitious expansion plans which rely on you being able to attract and retain high calibre staff. You therefore have two pressing needs: firstly, to position yourself as a highly successful, forward-looking employer that looks after and invests in its staff, and secondly, to ensure that existing and potential customers know who you are, what you do, and why you are better at it than any one else.

PR Objectives – why are you doing the marketing/pr? 1. 2. 3. PR Strategy – what is your plan to achieve your objectives? 1. 2. 3. PR Strategy – what is your plan to achieve your objectives? 1. 2. 3.

21 Killer Ideas Here are 21 killer ideas you can use to make publicity a major part of your marketing mix; 1. Be the first, the newest, the oldest, the biggest, the smallest: Different is great. Journalists get sent a constant stream of “average” all day long - so make sure you stand out 2. Introduce something new or improved: Make it clear what’s better and why, and what problem it solves 3. Mark the passage of time: Has it been a year, 5 years, 10 years since something significant happened? 4. Announce a new member of your team: Doesn’t have to be anyone senior, even junior staff can sometimes make the business pages. Pinpoint the thing that made them the right person for the job and publicise that 5. Win an award: Don’t just rely on publicity sent by the award organisers, send out your own 6. W in a big contract: Don’t be afraid to boast – big contracts attract other big contracts 7. R eact to a current story: Give your opinion on something in the news (national or local) that’s relevant to you 8. Announce other publicity you’ve had: If you’ve been featured in your trade magazine, tell your local paper. And vice-versa 9. Re-launch your website: Tell journalists what’s good about your new site, and why 10. Offer free information: Free reports like this one are quick and easy to write, and can be incredibly valuable to readers. The years of experience you have in your industry makes you an expert. Journalists and readers appreciate an expert’s opinion 11. G ive something free to readers: If you have an actual product, give that away. You can use it to drive traffic from the newspaper to your website. Consider an exclusive deal with one newspaper to get more coverage

12. Offer a series of articles: Share your expertise and help a newspaper fill column inches with interesting new content. Don’t worry too much about your writing skills, newspapers employs sub-editors to worry about that. 13. Survey your customers: Find out what people think about specific issues (related to your business). Ask enough of their target audience, and the newspapers won’t be able to resist 14. Get involved with a charity: Don’t just give cash, that’s dull. Instead give your time, product, or better still use your staff and resources to do something exciting and different that will also raise cash for an exciting charity 15. Solve a problem: What’s everyone talking about? What can you do to fix it? 16. Create a problem: Can you make things better by rocking the boat? 17. Do something in a different way: Particularly if it’s “always been done this way”. That’s what Richard Branson and Stelios do 18. Spot a trend and comment on it: Turn yourself into a commentator on a specific problem or industry 19. Be anti-corporate: Journalists can get a constant stream of boring, predictable corporate press releases. Be anti-corporate. Don’t be afraid to stand out. 20. Be refreshingly honest: If you expose the hidden secrets of your industry, will you get the credit for that? Will you lead the change or follow it? 21. Attempt to set or beat a record: A publicity classic, for a reason. Everyone loves a record attempt. And there are plenty of records to go for. Ensure your record is relevant in some way to your business.

Press and relationships Know your market

Coming up with newsworthy material is one thing – understanding who the information is aimed at is another. It’s important to develop a clear and realistic understanding of your target audiences: Who are the decision-makers? What size companies do they work for or run? Where are these companies based? How are they influenced? What publications do they read? You can only really hope to make a meaningful impact on people if you know what makes them tick.

Focus on the message you want your PR to get across

Once you’ve established why you want to create ‘noise’ about your business and you’ve identified and prioritised your target audiences, it’s worth giving some thought to what you want to say and how you want to be positioned. Seeing your company’s name in print can be immensely satisfying but if the article does not position you in the right way, create the desired impression or communicate specific aspects of your service and expertise, it’s unlikely to have the required effect. By consistently describing your company in the same way and communicating three or four key ideas which differentiate you from others in your field, you are much more likely to succeed in getting your message across.

The importance of being targeted

The days of press release driven PR are over. Instead it is important that your activity is very focused, targeting the publications and pages that your potential clients or customers are likely to read. Take time to get to know these sections of the press, become familiar with their needs, and only offer ideas and news that is relevant to them. This specifically targeted way of working will have a far greater impact than a blanket approach, as you are

TIP Newsworthy Articles The first thing to understand is that journalists are not in the business of providing free publicity. Their role is to produce newsworthy articles that are of genuine interest to their readers. The aim is to build productive, working relationships with journalists that will help you provide relevant information that they genuinely want to publish. And the word ‘relevant’ is key. Different journalists write in different ways for different audiences and it is essential that you develop a good understanding of their requirements before submitting any information to them. A Bath newspaper, for example, is unlikely to be interested in the fact that you’ve opened a new office in Bristol – but it may well prick up its ears if you explain that you’ve had to recruit specialist staff from Bath to address local skills shortages.

helping the journalist to envisage where your company will fit within their publication.

Spread the word with good press releases

Press releases are a useful means of providing journalists with information and a good proportion of business articles begin their life in this way. However, journalists are bombarded with hundreds of press releases on a daily basis so it’s essential that yours stands out from the crowd. If you’ve done your homework, it should. How? A good headline and powerful first paragraph which clearly identifies the news angle and its relevance to the readership, are fundamental.

Avoid jargon at all costs and remember the acronym KISS: Keep It Short and Simple. Press releases are by no means the only way of disseminating information. Pick up the telephone and discuss your story with the journalists you want to target. They will be quick to let you know whether it’s of interest and in what format they require the information. Don’t lose heart if your story gets a cold or indifferent response: think of the discussion as a door opener: an opportunity to introduce your business to an influential opinion-former and to gain a better understanding of the type of stories and expert commentary most likely to press their buttons.

Don’t be too salesy. Your information needs to be newsworthy and relevant to the publication’s readers. It is not an advertorial. Stay current. Get up to date with newsworthy topics in your industry. This will help you to think of subjects that will interest the press and will make your comment more attractive to journalists.

Hints & Tips for Press Releases

How to write an eye-catching press release So how do you write a press release which will catch the eye of a busy editor or journalist?

Journalists are very busy and may be up against a deadline when you ring; if you get brushed off first time, keep trying. Remember, pro-activity and perseverance are key.

The key to writing a good press release is to keep it short, to the point, well structured and relevant. The perfect press release would not only be related to the recipient’s business area, but should also be newsworthy.

How to approach journalists – basic hints and tips

Here are some key steps to writing that perfect press release:

Do your research - only speak to the kind of journalist that is likely to write about your type of company. It is no use talking to the arts desk if you run an accountancy firm. Don’t leave messages on answerphones. It is much better to talk with the journalist in person. Some journalists do not like being called and prefer to communicate via email. If this is the case, make sure you remember this and don’t try calling them again. Be strategic – get to know each journalist’s work. Make sure that you read some of their writing and work out what information would fit into their pages. Only send relevant information, otherwise you are wasting your time and theirs. Don’t overload them with information. Journalists are busy people; you need to get to the point, quickly. Make life easier for the journalist. What can you offer them to accompany your news or idea? Hints + tips, case studies, or pictures will all help to make your story more appealing.

1. Make your Press Release Newsworthy Most journalists are interested in writing interesting news pieces and features for their target audience. They are not particularly interested in finding out how your company works or who the MD is - they simply want interesting, fact-based news. Bear this in mind when penning your press releases and try to be objective in the balance between providing an interesting story and providing background to your new product or service. A good example would be to commission a survey related to your new offering and make the findings the subject of the release. 2. Write a Good Headline Believe me, unless your press release has an eyecatching subject line, it is likely to end up in the delete folder very rapidly. Most editors will not even open a release which doesn’t relate to their area of business, especially if the subject doesn’t hold their attention for at least two seconds.

3. Summarise the key points Before the first paragraph, you should aim to write some key bullet points to summarise the benefits of your product or service. 4. First Paragraph is crucial Try to insert a very short, punchy first paragraph summarising the aims of the press release - this can be either before or after the key points. Your press release should start off strong, followed by the detail. You may decide just to write a strong opening paragraph and not to use bullet points - that’s entirely up to you. 5. Quotes Rather than expecting editors or journalists to call your company for quotes related to your press release, do the leg work for them and include several quotes from suitably important people in your company. 6. Notes to Editors Ensure you include contact email addresses and phone numbers, and ensure the relevant people are on hand to take calls if you are running a new campaign to promote a product or service.

2. Style & Formatting Make sure you write your release in the third person... spell check several times and ask colleagues to proof read before pressing the “send” button. Clearly mark the publication as a “Press Release”, and write “End of Release” following the content. If you are sending a press release via email (most likely), I’d recommend using plain text and not HTML. The simpler, the better. 3. Hire an Expert If you want to make sure you hit the nail on the head first time with your press release, why not hire a professional to write one for you. A single page release shouldn’t cost more than a few hundred pounds to create. If your “news” is worthy of a press release in the first place, this could be money well spent.

If a journalist wants to follow up on your press release and can’t easily contact your company, he will bin the article and go on to the next possible news piece. If you are including facts or statistics in your release which have been provided by a third party, make sure you include credits or source for each piece of information in this section. 7. Keep it Short and Sweet A press release should be several paragraphs long, and certainly no longer than 500 words in total. Remember, you are trying to provide a snapshot rather than an essay. Interested journalists/editors will contact you if they want to find out more. 1. Relevancy Just as job hunters may write several CV’s in order to maximise their chances of securing roles at various companies, you should take time to tailor the press release to each recipient’s area of interest.

Be Prepared! The following rules don’t tell you how to become the next Max Clifford, however it will prepare you for that call at 1730 on a Friday night when a journalist calls and says; “Hi, I know it’s last minute but do you have an image to go with this press release you sent me, and do you think your MD might be able to answer a few further questions?”. So here are the golden PR campaign preparation rules: 1 - Prepare photography - this includes spokesperson shots, product shots, screenshots and anything else that might be relevant. The more pictures the better, there is nothing worse than seeing a news piece printed 20 times over and they all use the same picture! Also, make sure the images that you have prepared are of high enough quality. These days most journalists use digital images, a rule of thumb is to provide images at over 300 dpi (dots per inch) but don’t expect a picture from your digital camera you got at Christmas to be enough. Likewise the 4x3 print or digital image of you at the office party or on holiday will not be good enough either. 2 - The elevator pitch - Make sure your spokesperson has a couple of quotes in preparation for a journalist interview. Journalists will often call and follow up some news with a further quote, make sure that you have something prepared so that the journalist can call you and get some value from a conversation with your PR person or spokesperson, this will encourage the journalist to call back for comment in the future. Also, if you are making an announcement in conjunction with another company, make sure your PR person briefs the other spokesperson to ensure that your messages and quotes all tell the same story.

3 - Corporate profile - If you are launching a new company or adding to an existing product range, make sure you can provide a journalist with some company background. Another golden rule of PR is not to assume a journalist’s knowledge, remember they deal with hundreds of different companies everyday and many of them have similar products so it would be understandable if they occasionally got it wrong. One good PR technique is to always reiterate your company services and products when appropriate each time you meet or talk to a journalist. Remember, your company is growing and changing all the time, each time you meet a journalist your company will have changed. 4 - The press pack/online press office – Journalists often like to receive background information when writing a story or preparing for an interview. The two best mediums for providing this information are the traditional press pack, or the press office online. Both will essentially provide the same information, including, corporate background, images, biographies of senior personnel, current press releases, product/ service datasheets, cases studies and company brochure. Obviously this information changes depending on company to company but the basics always need to be there so a journalist can easily find what is required in the manner they are accustomed. When it comes to announcing your products and services to the media, perception is everything, which is why preparation is ultimately so important.

Newsletter/Press Release checker: 1. Which Journalists are interested in your product/service? 2. What is the best way to make contact with them? 3. Is your newsletter/press release newsworthy? 4. What is the headline? Would you want to know more? 5. What are the key points? 6. What exactly is it about? 7. Do you have a good relevant quote? 8. Do you have a photograph is needed? 9. Have you included your contact details? 10. Check grammar and spelling.

You’re ready to write…

Day 4 – Got The Right Message? Your marketing message is a powerful, clear, concise and distinct statement of what your business does. It should differentiate your business from all others. Think about creating two types of marketing messages. The first should be short and to the point – your ‘elevator speech’. It’s your response to someone who asks you, “So, what do you do?” Whilst its origins are based on face to face networking, it forms the basis of all promotional communications. The second type of message is your complete marketing message, the one that will be included in all of your marketing materials and promotions. To make your marketing message compelling and persuasive and it should include the following elements: | An explanation of your target prospect’s problem. | Proof that the problem is so important that it should be solved now, without delay. | An explanation about why you are the only person/ business that can solve your prospects problem. | An explanation of the benefits people will receive from using your solution. | Examples and testimonials from customers you have helped with similar problems. | An explanation about prices, fees, and payment terms. | Your unconditional guarantee.

To do:

Create Your Short Marketing message (elevator pitch): Point 1

Point 2

Point 3

Know your audience target it to the individuals you are speaking to Know your business - key strengths - adjectives that describe the business - What is it you are trying to sell or let people know about? - Why are you interested in the target company or the person representing it? Outline your message use bullet points. - Who am I - What do I offer? - What problem is solved? - What are the main contributions I can make? - What should the listener do as a result of hearing/reading this? Finalise your speech/words - Make a sentence around each note youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve made - take each sentence, connect them together, and add further phrases to make them flow. - Go through what you have written, take out any jargon and put it into everyday language - Go through the material and cut out any unnecessary words - Go through your text and make sure itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not more than 100 words long. Now create your fuller marketing message using the pointers above.

ÂŠ 2007/2008 To Market

Day 5 – What’s Your Route To Market? Your marketing medium is the communication vehicle you use to deliver your marketing message. It’s important to choose a marketing medium that gives you the highest return on your marketing pound. This means that you want to choose the medium that delivers your marketing message to the most niche prospects at the lowest possible cost. It should come as no surprise that the vast proliferation of media we have seen in recent years has been wreaking havoc with traditional approaches to marketing and promotion. So how best can you navigate these increasingly troubled waters—or, better yet, build a bridge over them? A partial list of the media available to marketers includes, but is not limited to: | print direct mail | print advertising (magazines, newspapers) | Web sites | Web advertising (banners and other ads) | e-mail direct mail/e-letters | search engine marketing (sponsored links on Google, e.g.) | broadcast/satellite radio | broadcast/cable/satellite TV

TIP Websites Your website is like your online shop. In the same way that you expect to find goods and items in a logical order, easyto find and in a logical order, make your website follow suit. It should have a clean cut layout, a perfect search function, top quality pictures, short and informative descriptions and a clear, limited number of categories in your online store.

Starting out with Social Media Social media is an interactive platforms which individuals and communities create and share usergenerated content. It’s important to understand what social media is and how it fits into your marketing. There are a range of social media activities which can help your business.

The purpose of marketing is to create the opportunity to sell. Basically underpinning the sales process. It’s an all-encompassing term. The Key Principles are Product, Price, Place, Promotion, People. If you combine these it will constitute the BRAND and Brand does matter.

Branding Matters Your brand has a life beyond the owner and increases awareness and communication. It provides a clear core proposition. There are four areas that help represent your brand:

TIP

1. Signs by which you are known and remembered

•

3. A reflection of personality 4. A statement of position

• Good Value: Mr Site, Vistaprint, Clever Little Site

These all need to factor into your social media marketing.

• Bespoke: Create a clear brief for a designer, ensure you have access to the site

2. A bundle of explicit/implicit promises

Your website What is its purpose? With a website your product or service is accessible globally, to prospective customers 24 hours, 365 days a year. More and more people these days are using the internet as a first port of call because of its convenience and to save time. MYOB Business Monitor Report has stated that 64% of SMEs without a website lose business. Customers and the general public almost expect that a company has a website. If people want information on a product or service, they are now saying, “They must have a website, I`ll check that out first.” Websites are quicker, easier and more cost-effective to update than print based media; therefore, you can have pictures, details and prices of your products, the very latest company information, or maps indicating the location of your companies outlets on your website. A website can play an integral part of your companies promotional and marketing strategy. It also makes a powerful statement about your business, showing that you have planned for the future by securing your online presence today.

Free: Microsoft office live, Google Sites, Weebly

• Create a sign up to your newsletter from your website!

The Top 8 Advantages of having a website are: 1. You can publicise your business, service or products to millions of potential customers, so having a website can increase your sales.

2. You can update your website with your latest news or prices much easier and cheaper than print based media. A website can save you a lot of money in communication and administration costs. 3. You can link your website with other advertising campaigns therefore creating brand awareness. 4. Your business can advertise and publicise on the internet 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year. 5. Your business now has an extra outlet for taking orders.

6. Websites make it easier for customers to do business with you. These customers can be global or local. 7. You can compete with other companies in your market area. 8. You can use your website to network with other companies and build better business relationships, locally and around the world. Imagine the scenario whereby customers ring you requesting information on a product or service - there`s only so much you can do via telephone and delivering brochures via postal services takes time. It would be great to say, “If you take a look at our website, I`m sure you`ll find what you need there.” You would be surprised how many extra sales you could have by developing an online brochure or virtual store. Having an internet site also speeds up the time taken to react to customer queries, which can be done via e-mail.

Does your website reflect your brand?

In business the consistency of your brand is vital. Every marketing effort should reflect who you are as a business and the image that you wish to project. This includes your website. It’s easy to weaken your messaging through ineffective design tools.

Here are three concrete ways you can make sure your website is sending the right message.

1. Consistent and/or appropriate colour scheme If you’ve had a brand identity designed for your business, this is an easy one. Be sure to have your website designer design your site around your business brand colours. If you don’t have a logo and brand identity system in place, now would be a good time to choose some colours, even if it’s for the sake of consistency. Try and think of the personality your business is trying to project and choose colours that correspond. Try and keep it between one to three colours. Any more can get too complicated and messy. Keeping things simple will help with brand recognition. If you are launching your colour palette on your website before any other marketing materials are created, be sure to base your print materials, signage and other internet

marketing pages (Facebook) around your website’s colour scheme. Remember, consistency is key. 2. A more personal About page This is one that gets overlooked all the time. Having an About page that gives a window into you and your business is vital. Be sure to include a photo or two of you and your staff. With so much mistrust on the internet, this helps to show that you’re a real person, and a legitimate business. This will add a great deal of value to your brand in the area of trust. 3. Have an original design You are unique and so is your business. Think carefully about the template you use or invest in a professional web designer who will tailor for your specific needs and goals. If your visitors have a good experience they will talk about your business to their friends. If they get frustrated when visiting your site, they will relate that to your business, which will damage your brand. Avoid this by spending time on your brand and therefore template. Your website is the one thing that you should invest time and if you have it money, as it’s often the first contact many people will have with your business. Preserving your brand’s integrity should be at the forefront of your mind. Your website is one place that you have tremendous power to ensure and maintain that integrity. Be proactive.

How do you get people to see it?

Actually, the solution may be a lot easier than you expect. Writing less and styling your text so it’s easy to read could be all you need to do to attract and hold attention. Think about how you use the web. You’re in search of information. And if you don’t find it on the page you’re visiting, you click away and look elsewhere. The web is a ‘lean forward and participate’ medium. Television, by contrast, is a ‘lean back and let it wash over me’ medium. What can you do to engage your readers so they lean into your content, stay on your pages and interact with your information?

Make it snappy

To write successfully for the web, you need to forget some of what you learned in English composition class. Accept that people scan web pages rather than reading them in detail, and work with this reality rather than fighting it. If you want to cover a complex topic, consider breaking it into a series of posts. It’s a great way to keep people coming back for more, and your reader will find it easier to digest your content if they get it in portion-controlled sizes. Structure your paragraphs by stating your conclusion first, then supporting it with the sentences that follow. This helps Readers to move from point to point, and decide where they’d like to dive in deeper. Once you’ve done that, use the following easy design techniques to make your content much more readerfriendly. It takes just a few minutes to turn a post from an overwhelming mass of gray text to something that engages the reader and pulls you in. 1. Embrace the line break There are few easier ways to make your content more readable. Even complex content can be made much more reader-friendly with the simple introduction of lots of white space. Feature one idea per paragraph, and keep them short – three or four sentences at most. And try writing some paragraphs with one sentence only. 2. Break up your content with compelling subheads Try writing your headlines and subheads first. A strong headline (and therefore a strong premise) is vital to getting readers to check your business out in the first place. And solid subheads keep the reader engaged, acting as ‘mini headlines’ to keep them moving through the rest of your content. Make your subheads intriguing, but informative, too. Don’t exaggerate or you’ll lose credibility. ‘Compelling’ is not the same as ‘hypey.’ Once you’ve written your subheads, review them to see what your reader will understand if he or she reads only that part of your article. Is there a compelling story? Will they get the gist of your information?

3. Use bulleted lists They create an appeal your readers can’t resist. They’re an easily-scannable way to present multiple points. They look different from the rest of your text, so they provide a visual break for your reader 4. Use deep captions Studies have shown that image captions are consistently some of the most-read copy on a page. Try pairing a strong image with a ‘deep caption’. Deep captions are two to three sentences long. That’s long enough to intrigue your reader to dig in to your whole article. 5. Add highly relevant links Internal links back to your own content will keep people on your site and reading your best material External links demonstrate that you’ve researched the topic and want to highlight other experts Good content uses both to expand your reader’s understanding and add value. Another advantage of internal links is they make it less frustrating when someone scrapes your content (cuts and pastes it to their own site without attribution). 6. Use strategic formatting Add emphasis to your web copy by bolding important concepts. Your reader will be able to scan through and pick out the most important information at a glance. Don’t highlight everything (which would have the same effect as highlighting nothing). Instead, emphasise the key points, so the reader can quickly pick them out. 7. Harness the power of numbers Think those numbered list posts are tired? Think again. Numbers are an incredibly effective way to both capture attention and to keep the reader oriented. You can often make a post more compelling just by numbering your main points. Give it a try.

8. Check your dual readership path Once you’ve used subheads, numbers, bulleted lists and other formatting to highlight the key elements of your post, read through it again – looking only at the text you’ve called special attention to. Does the reader get the gist? Have you pulled out the most interesting and relevant words, the words that will pull your scanner in and turn her into a reader?

Search Engine Marketing

• This is Marketing with the purpose of increasing website visibility in search engine results

• It can be an online and an offline activity

• Google adwords (inward)

• Facebook (outward)

• Pay per click (PPC) – paid components only

Search engine marketing (SEM) is a form of Internet marketing that involves the promotion of websites by increasing their visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) through optimisation (both on-page and offpage) as well as through advertising (paid placements, contextual advertising, and paid inclusions). Depending on the context, SEM can be an umbrella term for various means of marketing a website including search engine optimisation (SEO), which adjusts or rewrites website content to achieve a higher ranking in search engine results pages, or it may contrast with PPC, focusing on only paid components.

Search Engine Optimization process

It is important to understand the process involved in an effective SEO campaign. In order to have ongoing success, it is important to continually monitor results and build meaningful content into your site. In short, it is a process, not a project.” • Keywords Keyword phrase research involves identifying a group of keyword phrases that will be used in optimization. This step is critical and requires a considerable amount of time to find a good set

of phrases that offer a balanced combination of two important factors: high usage by searchers and relatively low competition within the search engines. Determining the most used phrase that contains your targeted keyword(s) is relatively easy. Online tools allow you to enter a particular keyword or words and will return all the ways in which that word(s) was used by searchers in the last month and in what volume. However, the most used phrase(s) is also likely the one with the greatest competition within the search results and may, therefore, not be where you would want to devote your optimization efforts. • Images with information Page optimization and content development are critical to search engine success. Content is king in search engine optimization. The search engines love text and images; high volume, high-quality content related to your business will serve you in a couple of important ways. First, a site loaded with high-quality content of interest to site users will give them a reason to stay and a reason to come back. After all, the reason they came to your site was to find information. Second, you will receive the added benefit of serving up exactly what the search engines want content. Search engines will have more information to store about your business and products; that information will translate directly into the ranking they give your site for related keyword phrases.

• Reciprocal links Link Popularity is the term given to the number of other sites linking to yours. Make a list of related businesses with whom you have a relationship, as well as professional organisations, vendors or suppliers that may agree to place a link to your site on theirs. Email your contact in those organisations requesting the link. Each new link to your site increases the likelihood of both the search engines’ spiders running across your site as well as searchers looking for services or products like yours.

Email Marketing Email marketing systems:

TIP A word of caution: free for all links sites and other low quality sites of that nature are of no use and can, in fact, detract from your progress with penalties from the search engines. Do not waste your time on such sites; stick to respectable, high quality sites in related businesses or industries.

This is directly marketing a commercial message to a group of people using email. In its broadest sense, every email sent to a potential or current customer could be considered email marketing. It usually involves using email to send ads, request business, or solicit sales or donations, and is meant to build loyalty, trust, or brand awareness. Email marketing can be done to either cold lists or current customer database.

Four benefits of using email marketing:

1. Building up your mailing list is crucial. These will be people who have bought from you or are interested in your business.

2. It’s one way of being able to stay in touch with your clients or potential clients

3. E-marketing systems provide much more than just a message. They allow you to segment your mailing lists, schedule your mail in advance and see who is opening your mail.

4. They’re inexpensive – or sometimes free!

• constant contact

• icontact

• patronmail

• mailchimp

Email campaign frequency? From various email marketing research is it clear that sending emails too often is one of the leading factors that leads readers to unsubscribe. This is a rough concept for some email marketers and business owners, because it’s very tempting to think, “If I send out more emails, I’ll get more click-throughs, and more sales!” Alas this is not necessarily the case. In fact, sending out more can lower every email marketing metric you care about. First of all, it’s worth being clear that there isn’t necessarily one answer that fits everyone. Generally, you should send an e-blast once a month. However, if you have important news to share you can send an email with this information more frequently.

What should I say?

The most important factor is the quality of the content. The best way to lower unsubscribes and increase click-throughs is to increase the value and quality of the content of your email campaign. Don’t try to come up with “filler” content just to justify a more frequent email schedule. Be sure that your e-blast is providing useful information to your customers – not just information that they may not know, but information that they care about. Then make sure that information is presented in an attractive, understandable way and that it includes calls to action that allow you to measure the results.

Social Media

Figure 1 The power of social networking cannot be ignored

Facebook, Twitter, Linked In all have a place to play in your marketing activity but first decide:

• What the purpose of using your selected social network will be.

• Is your product or service part of a lifestyle for your clients?

• Is it a professional service?

This may help you to decide which networks you champion. Facebook more social, Linked in more business. Link your email marketing messages to your social networks so that they provide access for your clients to find out more about your business – and keep your presence strong on the search engines. They are wonderful tools, but keep in sight why you are using them and how they fit into your business mix.

Linked in

This is a social networking website for people in professional occupations. It is mainly used for professional networking. As of June 2012, LinkedIn reports more than 175 million registered users in more than 200 countries and territories.

Twitter

Twitter is an online social networking service and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based messages of up to 140 characters, known as “tweets”. The service rapidly gained worldwide popularity, with over 500 million active users as of 2012. Since its launch, Twitter has become one of the top 10 most visited websites on the Internet, and has been described as “the SMS of the Internet.” Unregistered users can read tweets, while registered users can post tweets through the website interface, SMS, or a range of apps for mobile devices.

Facebook

This is a social networking service. Facebook has over one billion active users, more than half of them using Facebook on a mobile device. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal or business profile, add other users as friends, and exchange messages, including automatic notifications when they update their profile. Additionally, users may join common-interest user groups, organised by workplace, school or college, or other characteristics, and categorise their friends into lists such as ‘People From Work’ or ‘Close Friends’. This is primarily used as a social service but business use has increased.

Managing Your Social Media

With every online marketing channel and discipline, there must be tools to make the task of marketing more efficient and effective. Social Media Marketing is no different. There are a variety of social media management tools that help with everything from source network connections to campaign and social content management to monitoring and measurement. While there are numerous tools that manage single platforms (like Twitter) there are many services that manage multiple social network accounts, content and measurement. Here are two different social media marketing management tools, platforms and services to help manage and scale your online marketing efforts on the social web:

Hootsuite

This is a social media management system for brand management. The system’s user interface takes the form of a dashboard, and supports social network integrations for all sites mentioned above. Additional integrations are available via HootSuite’s App Directory which includes support for Tumblr, Trendspottr, Constant Contact, Digg, Flickr, Get Satisfaction, InboxQ, and YouTube. As of January 2012, HootSuite has over three million users and over 700 million messages sent.

NutshellMail

NutshellMail is a social network aggregation service that allows users to manage and interact with updates from social networking services through a consolidated email digest and has released support for these services and made social network aggregation and interaction the primary focus of its development. NutshellMail’s aim is to keep users connected yet productive at the same time. NutshellMail supports Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Linkedin and Ning.

Am I ready? Website:

• Do you have a brand?

• Do you have a website?

• Does your website reflect your brand?

• Can your website be improved?

• Have you optimised your websites visibility?

Email marketing:

• Do you have the relevant content for e-marketing? • Which e-marketing system works for your product/service? • How frequent will you send your e-blast? Do you have enough quality content?

Social Media:

• Why are you using social media?

• How will you use:

o Linked in?

o Twitter?

o Facebook?

•

Do you need them all?

• Do you have the right social media marketing tools to help manage them? You don’t need to use them all...

TIP Websites Your website is like your online shop. In the same way that you expect to find goods and items in a logical order, easy to find and in a logical order, make your website follow suit. It should have a clean cut layout, a perfect search function, top quality pictures, short and informative descriptions and a clear, limited number of categories in your online store.

Remember when on day 3 I said that it’s critical to choose a niche that you can easily contact? When you go to choose your marketing medium(s) you’ll understand why that is important. Firstly, consider carefully who your target audience is and what will be the best medium to reach them. Different demographic groups (age, gender, income, even geographical location) have different media habits. Print may not be the best way to reach certain groups, while the Internet may not be the best way to reach certain other groups. Second, combine media. Relying on just a print direct mail campaign may garner some new business, but

combining that with a direct e-mail hit, an outdoor advertising campaign, radio spots, or some other combination of media will help build brand awareness. Day 3’s PR section will have given you more to think about. Third, be sure to keep your advertising message and design elements consistent across media. Use the same logo and logo colors, the same fonts, the same tagline phrasing, the same or similar text, etc., in all of your media. This helps with branding and reinforcing your message. At the same time, the adoption of a “design-once-reuse-many-times” strategy helps save costs on design.

To do

Create your media plan. List the media you will use to reach your target markets, bearing in mind your target audience. Media

Why here? Rationale

When/how often? Weekly, Monthly, quarterly. Seasonally?

What cost?

Day 6 – Keep your eyes on the main prize Research and planning of marketing activities is of course - crucial to success, but it’s important to understand the end goal too. Your goals and objectives are simply the hard facts describing where you want to be a year from now, or five years from now, or whatever your time frame may be. If you haven’t written down your goals, you’re still just wishing for success. Your sales goals should include financial elements such as annual sales revenue, gross profit, sales per sales person, etc. However, they should also include non-financial elements such as units sold, contracts signed, clients acquired, articles published etc. Once you’ve set your goals, implement processes to internalize them with all team members such as reviewing them in sales meetings, awarding achievement prizes,etc. When creating your goals use the SMART formula. Ensure that your goals are: (1) Specific, (2) Measurable, (3) Achievable, (4) Realistic, and (5) Time-bound.

How do you set your Sales Goals? There are a number of ways of doing this: 1. Look at total industry sales over the past five years for your product category. Estimate total industry sales for the next three years for your product category. From that number, figure your market share and extrapolate your annual sales estimates for those years. 2. The second method is more limited to your business itself. Basically, you go through the same procedure, but you use your own product’s sales figures instead of the total product category for the market. 3. The third method is important because it is based on the sales levels you need in order to meet your expenses and product costs and make a profit. After all, that is the ultimate goal, right?

Link Goals to Strategies Once you have set your annual sales target. Break it down to monthly, weekly and daily targets. Put in place a plan to achieve those targets with a specific number of daily, weekly or monthly phone calls, emails, promotions, etc. to support your target. Carry this out consistently at a specific time every week. You may not have complete control over your goal achievements, but your marketing goals (the next stage) will support you in achieving them. Here are examples of a poor goal/strategy/tactic combination and a good goal/strategy/tactic combination. Poor combination Goal: Increase sales in 2011. Strategy: Increase visibility among clients and prospects. Tactics: Do more networking. Do more speaking. Join more industry associations. Good combination Goal: Increase sales by x pounds during 2011. Strategy: Increase visibility among clients/ prospects in y industry. Tactics: Go to one networking event per month. Secure five speaking engagements during 2011. Join one new industry association during 2011.

The key difference is that the good combination is specific and has measurable goals, while the poor combination does not. Each goal should be linked to strategies and tactics that follow the SMART format.

To do:

Set your sales goals!

Sales Goals 2011

Jan

Feb Mar Apr

May Jun

Jul

Aug Sep Oct

Nov Dec

Total Sales For 2011

Product/service 1

Product/service 2

Product/service 3

Total Sales

ÂŠ 2007/2008 To Market

How do you set your Marketing Goals? Your marketing goals may deal with different elements of your business but should always support your sales goals. You may wish to: | increase awareness of your business |

increase visitors to your web site

get more repeat clients

move into a new area of business

increase your ethical profile ...

When you are clear about the reasons for your marketing, then your medium and creative approach to your marketing become more targeted, relevant and, most importantly, more cost effective.

Today, think about what you really want your marketing to achieve. Then write this down:

Goal

Strategy to achieve the goal

How you will measure that goal

ÂŠ 2007/2008 To Market

Create your sales and marketing plan. Transfer your media choices from your media plan and combine this below with the activity you need to carry out to ensure that everything happens to achieve your sales and marketing goals.

Marketing Activity

Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr

TIP Branding Your brand resides within the hearts and minds of customers, clients, and prospects. It equates to much more than just your logo - it is the sum total of an experience and perception. A strong brand is invaluable as the battle for customers intensifies day by day. Think of companies such as Marks & Spencer, Innocent Drinks and Google. It’s important to spend time investing in defining and building your brand. It’s one of the cornerstones of your marketing communication.

May Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

Main heading: Activity 1: Type of activity here, frequency, dates Sub heading: Activity required for this to happen (printers, write document, appoint designer …) Activity 2: Type Activity required Activity 3: Type Activity required

Day 7 – Speculate to accumulate Develop Your Marketing Budget

There are a few ways to determine what your marketing budget should be. The effectiveness of these will be determined by the type of business and the desired outcomes of marketing. Often, small businesses estimate their sales revenue, cost-of-goods, overhead and salaries, and then gross profit. Anything left is considered available funds for marketing support. That’s not the best idea; the funds may not realistically support your sales ambitions. The following are some more rational approaches. If you are a new business owner it is a good idea to start your budget with all the money you can afford. This amount, even if it is small, will give you a start in a positive direction. Another way to go about deciding a marketing budget as a percentage of your sales. This works especially well for an established company that can look back over records and see how effective their budgets have been in the past. One more way that you could look at your budget is simply by matching the competition. Be sure that you are not being out done by keeping up with your competitors. All of these ways will give you a good place to start. There are many factors to keep in mind that will also help in determining your budget. Here are some things to think about when doing your planning. Spending on marketing support—promotion, advertising and public relations—varies widely, from less than 1 percent of net sales for industrial businessto-business operations to 10 percent or more for companies marketing consumer-packaged goods. If you are the new competitor in the marketplace, bear in mind that you will have to spend more aggressively to establish your market share objective.

Marketing Budget - Case Study

To Market

www.to-market.co.uk

Here’s an example case study demonstrating how one small business set its marketing budget. Joe is the owner of Roti Riot, a mobile food delivery service selling hot West Indian rotis (meat and/or vegetable food parcels) to office workers. He wanted to market rotis using popular media such as local TV, radio and newspapers to advertise, along with promotional free product samples and coupons. Joe learned from his suppliers that his competitors serving his key office area locations were spending little or no money to promote and advertise their mobile luncheon businesses. He estimated that the most successful equivalent deliverer spent 5 percent of net sales revenue for promotion and advertising. Joe decided to spend at least 10 percent of his net sales during the first year. Joe ranked all his possibilities in order of probable effectiveness, with costs:

Advertising TV (£500/30-second ad/station) Radio (£50-£100/60-second ad/station) Newspaper ads (£500/ad) Van signage (£100) Flyers (£100 @£0.10 each)

Promotion Free samples (£25/day @£0.25 each) Coupons (£5/day @£.025 each) Frequent purchase book (£15/day) Soft drink premiums (supplied by drink companies.)

To MarketTIP www.to-market.co.uk

How to get competitor information a) look at competitor websites b) call them and request their information To Market c) go onlinewww.to-market.co.uk and see if they’re registered at Companies House d) search for the company online and see if there’s any information written about them. Joe found that:

i) any broadcast ad required additional production costs that were at least as much as the cost of a single ad. ii) he needed to run at least four or five ads per station to be effective. Breakeven cost coverage would be exorbitant, with over a year’s estimated sales needed just to pay for a small TV and radio campaign. iii) I t’s difficult to advertise with the available media just to his target group of office workers within a radius of six key office complexes.

Joe needed to think again and decided to:

a) have the company’s van painted (£100) with a clever message (“Let Roti Riot fill the gap at lunchtime”) b) hand out 1,000 flyers (£100) over three months to offices c) do the soft drink premium promotion (collect can tabs for free gifts provided by local soft drink distributors) d) try to get a free PR article mention in local newspapers and local TV and radio stations by sending free samples to editorial staff before lunch. He estimated that he could afford to hand out flyers and samples all year long and stay within his 10 percent budget limit.

Conclusion There you have it, better marketing in just seven days. With careful planning and by getting into the minds of potential clients you will be able to market confidently to your target market and build a successful business.

Final words

Aim to market every day. Your marketing effort for the day (all written into your plan of course) may be simple: you may simply send a stay-in-touch email message to a client you haven’t spoken to for a month.

Fit your marketing around whatever else you’re doing. If you make marketing part of your everyday life, it doesn’t seem like such a chore. Nor do you get hung up on whether people respond to an email message, or a message you’ve left on their voice mail. People often don’t respond, unless they have work for you immediately. The key, as you will have learnt by now, isto make contact regularly and consistently.

So. form relationships with as many potential clients as you can. Even if your prospect has no work for you right away, stay in touch. Contact them every month or two. Be interested in them and their business. When they do need your product or service, you’ll be the person they call. You’ll also find that your prospects will pass on your contact details to others. So communicate, a little and often.

Don’t be a hit and run marketer.

You will not build your business this way. You’re selling to people, and people buy from those whom they know and trust.

Commit to your marketing campaign

Being committed to marketing means exactly that. Make just one more phone call. Send just one more email message. Every day. Jo Sealy

Feedback FEEDBACK PLEASE!

Has this e-booklet been useful? Let me know how it has helped you. Send your comments to: hello@to-market.co.uk Have you enjoyed this book? How could it be improved?

You can provide me with your opinion at hello@to-market.co.uk Refer a Business Friend

If you know other business owners that might benefit from reading this book, please spread the word by passing the book on to them or providing their contact details to us and we will forward it to them directly. Free Marketing Appraisal

If you need further help with your marketing activity or simply donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have the time to actually do it, contact hello@to-market.co.uk to arrange for a free marketing appraisal. Following the meeting you will receive a report that will outline what your marketing activity should look like. It will also provide an indication of costs should you wish to work with To Market. Happy Marketing!

ÂŠ 2007/2008 To Market

Reference sources and recommended information sites: City Business Library http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/ British Library http://www.bl.uk/ Business Link www.businesslink.gov.uk Cobweb http://www.cobwebinfo.com/ Keynote http://www.keynote.co.uk/ Companies House http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/ The Branding Workshop http://www.thebrandingworkshop.com

Marketing on at budget: Website services:

www.mrsite.com www.moonfruit.com www.supadupa.me www.weebly.com www.wix.com

Logos:

www.logofresh.com www.logomaker.com www.vistaprint.com

Printing:

Social Media: http://emailmarketing.comm100.com/email-marketing-tutorial/email-marketing-tips.aspx http://smallbizbee.com/index/2010/05/28/75big-marketing-ideas-small-marketing/ http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/26-tipsfor-writing-great-blog-posts/ http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/32851.asp

www.printing.com www.vistaprint.com

http://www.royalmail.com/greetings-business

E-Marketing:

www.wordpress.com www.blogger.com

www.constantcontact.com www.icontact.com www.mailchimp.com www.ymlp.com

Web/Blog

Accounting

www.crunch.com

Other:

www.socialmediaexaminer.com www.hubspot.com

ÂŠ 2007/2008 To Market