Mind your own business

Marketing – A Work in Progress

Although I’ve successfully marketed my own businesses for almost fifteen years I often enlist the help of others. Someone who is excellent in this area is marketing coach and consultant Julie Lawford, who has given me some great advice. I saw the following article by Julie and she has generously allowed me to re-produce it here.

Julie publishes her Ezine called Smart Moves, which you can sign up for absolutely free at www.julielawford.co.uk

Many smaller businesses make the mistake of thinking that ‘marketing’ is something you do every now and again, when you need to drum up a few leads. When they come to do a bit of marketing, they might write a direct mail letter or an e-mail to their database, or if they’re feeling really good, they might spend a day on the telephone, making cold calls. And when their spurt of activity yields disappointing results, they often draw the conclusion that marketing doesn’t work for them.
But executed properly, and continually, marketing works for every kind of business.

Think about a large purchase you may recently have made for your home or office – a piece of technology or domestic equipment, a car, a service you may have contracted for, for example. Did you snap up the first one you saw, or sign up with the first salesperson who called you, the very first time they called? Probably not. You probably researched for your purchase, talked to friends and colleagues, or read a relevant magazine. You might have spoken with several suppliers, met with salespeople more than once, seen advertisements, looked through web sites, and browsed in shops, before finally deciding what you wanted.

Now go back a step further, say about 6 or 9 months before you made your purchase. Did you know you were going to make that purchase? Was it in your budget? Had you talked to people about it, or done your research at that point? I imagine the most you might have done by then was to have spotted a couple of relevant advertisements, or stared a few moments into a shop window display. Or maybe you weren’t even thinking at all, of your future needs.
Whatever people buy, they go through a buying process. For larger products or more important services, that may take weeks, or even months. The longer the process for the products or services you’re selling, the more important it is that you regard your marketing programme as a continuous, ongoing ‘Work in Progress’.

If buyers need to plan, research, build confidence in you, and feel they know and trust you, before they buy, you can be guaranteed that this won’t happen after a single letter or phone call. If people buy what you’re selling only once in a while, your single letter or phone call may hit your target, but miss their date-line by months or even years! And by the time they’re planning to buy what you want to sell them, if you’ve only contacted them once, they’ll have forgotten all about you.
Unless you’re very lucky indeed, the first activity in your marketing programme is unlikely to yield anything very much at all. An ongoing marketing programme however, builds familiarity and trust, and dramatically increases your potential for getting your message in front of a prospect at the point when they’re ready to start contemplating their purchase.

The more people who see a marketing communication from you, and the more often they see it, the more likely they are to consider you as a possible supplier, when they’re ready to buy. So build your target database – companies of a certain size, in a given geography or industry sector, for example – but don’t expect it to deliver up all its fish in one catch!
An ongoing marketing programme which builds interest and confidence over time will have some important characteristics:

Targeting: The more tightly you target your marketing, the easier you make it for your future customers to recognise themselves. Do you offer your services to a particular industry, or to companies of a certain size, or to certain types of people? Do you cover a specific geography? Even if you can sell to any company, anywhere, it will benefit you to target your marketing to smaller sub-sectors, as people will feel you are a specialist in their area or field.

Relevance: When you target your marketing communications such as letters or e-mails to a particular group, you have the opportunity to be specifically relevant to them. For example, you may sell to any small business, but write specifically, say, to independent retail outlets, car dealerships or software companies, and you can focus on the specific problems and benefits experienced by each individual group. A relevant communication is far more likely to be read and even kept for future reference, than a general cast-about.

Variety (‘marketing mix’): Marketing is about connecting with potential buyers in a variety of ways. Some ways (such as a mailshot, newsletter, e-mail, or phone call) will register consciously and other ways (such as a magazine advert or a press announcement) may make a more subconscious impact. Your aim should be to connect with your potential buyer regularly and in a variety of ways – letters and e-mails, phone calls, a newsletter or product update, advertisements, a stand at a trade show, a web site, a piece of publicity in an industry magazine. All of these approaches combine to build a positive impression of you, in the minds of your potential buyers.

Courtesy and Good Practice: These days, people are encouraged through organisations such as the Mailing Preference Service and Telephone Preference Service to reject unhelpful or unwanted marketing communications. It is important to use data which has been checked against such databases, to avoid contacting people who have expressly excluded themselves. Reputable agencies will provide such data. Direct marketing e-mails, even to those people who have ‘opted-in’ to receiving communications from you, should always courteously offer the recipient the means by which to exclude themselves from future mailings.

Value: People will want to hear from you, if you offer them something which is of value to them. For example, write to your targeted sector with news of how your products or services are developing to meet changing demands; Offer a free report which will be of interest to people planning to purchase what you’re selling; Keep your prospects and customers updated on industry trends, new terminology etc, or provide useful advice on a topic related to your products or solutions. Being seen as offering added value is an excellent way to build trust and confidence.

Calls to Action: No marketing communication is complete without a Call to Action. Put simply, for every piece of marketing communication that you put out, what do you want your potential buyer to do? Should they phone you? Respond to a special offer? Collect coupons? Click-through to your web site? Whatever it is, state it clearly, otherwise you run the risk of building interest and leaving the customer wondering what to do next.

Does it sound like there’s a lot to do? Yes, there probably is. However, you don’t need to do it all at once. The whole point of marketing is that it is ongoing – a Work in Progress. It’s far more important to do a little, every week or month, than have a big push and then do nothing for months on end. By drip-feeding your potential buyers with opportunities to connect with you, you dramatically increase the likelihood that you will contact the right person, with something useful to them, at precisely the right moment. Once you’ve laid some foundations, you should see results begin to come through, and if you’re connecting with people every week or month, then you should find you will gain a steady flow of interested prospects in return.

If you would like some support with planning or executing your marketing campaigns, contact me to schedule a no-obligation exploratory chat.

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