Marketing Help

The hardest marketing?

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I have been asked this recently, “what is the hardest marketing to use.” When I questioned as to what this particular prospect meant, he elaborated by saying that he meant that he had real trouble in using Social Media and “was it easy?”

I have written a similar post as a result of being asked about the “best marketing platform to use” but, when looking at Social Media, I think using it as part of your marketing strategy is essential. Not necessarily because it is a sure fast track to early retirement. No. It is because, when used properly, it really can allow you to network incredibly effectively without incurring the costs usually associated with networking. Don’t get me wrong, interacting with human beings around a fry up is a great way to meet new people, but platforms like Twitter allow even the shyest person to network.

If there are any problems with Social Media, they are usually down to small businesses jumping straight in with both feet without any real strategy as to their objectives. For example, apart from the networking side of Social Media, what else does it do? Well, for me, it has allowed me to demonstrate my knowledge of the sector I work in, find new associates to work with, make friends and……….really build my brand to a global audience. Not bad for a platform which is pretty much “free” to use!

Another platform which can be hard to justify using is advertising. Again, I have written a post dedicated to what I feel are the best ways to get the best from advertising which will help you, but the key thing is to decided what type of advertising you want to run – brand awareness or direct response. For either campaign type, provide enough information to the customer so that he/she can make a decision rather than trying to be clever with words and pretty pictures.

In sum. When it comes to marketing and what platforms/initiatives work best, it is all about doing what works for your business. Test everything and speak to people rather than just diving in! If need be, give me a shout and we can have a talk.

How to cope with rejection!

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When touting for business, do not underestimate the benefit of picking up the phone. We all know how thick skinned you have to be to undertake this sort of activity, but, with preparation and a calm head, you can really make your mark and experience good returns from making a cold call.
What I thought I would do in this post is put together a way of dealing with some of the most common “rejections” you will encounter when making the “cold call” as a way of helping you feel more confident about making one.
Avoid rejection

So……what is the most common objection made to the cold caller?

In my experience, it is the “I am happy with my current company.” NEVER say otherwise or try and put down the existing supplier. A way of opening the door is to say “Fine, they are a good company and I know of them. However, I’d simply like to meet you to show you our new services so that in the future, you are in the best position possible to evaluate between agencies……”
Secondly, another main objection I have encountered is the “I don’t have the budget” reply when asking for a meeting. Again, acknowledge this objection, but counter it by saying something along the lines of “I take your point and appreciate budgets everywhere are not as they used to be, but we have made some changes in the way we price our services and I think that, when we meet, you will be pleasantly surprised at how competitive we are.”
Thirdly, the next in line is usually, the “I am too busy” objection. A reply could be “I understand that diaries can be very busy at this time of year, but mine is open for 3 months so how about we put something in for 3 months time and speak nearer the time? That way we will both be able to clear the decks and hopefully be less busy.”
Fourthly there is the old “put something in the post” reply when asking for a meeting. What I would do is let the prospect know that your services are tailored (as Bath Marketing Consultancy‘s are!) so you would prefer to meet up even it is just briefly to find out more about……..”
Fifthly, and by no means lastly in terms of it use, is the “I’m not in the market” response. My suggestion would be to flatter the person at the other end of the phone and say “I would have been incredibly fortunate to catch you at the exact time you were reviewing your XXXXX, but there are several new aspects to what i do that I would like to make you aware of for the time when you are reviewing.”
There are many more including getting passed the dreaded pa/secretary or answerphone (see my previous post on this http://www.themarketingexpert.net/2010/12/overcoming-dreaded-answerphone.html) but the above represent what I feel are the most common.
Hope they help.

Seasonal marketing

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Do you experience seasonal fluctuations with your business? If so, you are not alone! One of the trends that Bath Marketing Consultancy is experiencing right now is enquires from people experiencing just this; a period of downtime in their businesses due to the (supposed!) British summer.

Summer?


What these people seem to be saying, quite correctly is, “yes, I know the summer impacts on my business, but I am going to lay the marketing foundations for the Christmas period and get in touch with a marketing professional to help me.”

Fluctuations in a business are very hard to predict exactly, but there are times of the year when traditionally businesses will be quieter than others. For example, December and January tend to be quiet as the “silly season” is in place. In addition half terms, school holidays and then summer holidays. In fact, there may well be less of a buzz about in business when major sporting events are on like the Rugby World Cup, Football Cups, Olympics etc.

 During these times business is likely to be slower, enquiry rates may well fall and invoices take longer to be paid. We are all in the same boat! The trick is to make sure that you have a consistent marketing plan that will continue marketing your business during these quiet times.

You could look at bursts of marketing activity before these times or incentivising prospects to commit to working with you before they go away or take a holiday. Similarly, there is always the option of you mirroring these quiet times by taking time out too. 

One key area I would suggest is do not go quiet yourself with your own marketing or you risk going of radars. Yes, there is a possibility that the markets you appeal to may well become smaller in seasonal fluctuations, but there will still be a market there for you to talk to. So do not stop Blogging, Tweeting, Advertising, Link Building etc as continued marketing and brand awareness activity over a sustained period of time really pays dividends. 


What makes up a brand?

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Bath Marketing Consultancy has been asked a number of questions recently about the word “brand.” These questions usually relate to whether a logo is a brand or whether a brand is more than that and if so, what?

Therefore, below is my take on what makes up a brand and, if you invest time, money and resources into your brand, you are very likely to reap the rewards. Branding, Brand, MarketingA brand will be made up of a collection of different perceptions that will have been built up after exposure to every aspect of your business. This can be a myriad of different things:

  1. Product design and experience
  2. Packaging
  3. Sales experience – your sales people or distributors
  4. Service experience – during the sale and after
  5. Advertising messages and straplines
  6. The way you look and sound – imagery, colour, fonts, personality and tone
  7. Your website, blogs or mentions on social networking sites
  8. The price, and how you discount
  9. Your reputation
  10. The shop, office or factory experience
  11. Uniform, badges, vans and trucks
  12. Your people
  13. The logo
  14. Your name

Bath Marketing Consultancy is an expert at developing, building and then marketing brands so please let us know if you need any help.

Technology means you CAN take time off.

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Worldwide access

I cannot tell you all how much better I have felt this week while away from my business than last time I took a week off back in October 2010. After that week, I wrote a post about the merits of working while officially off which provoked a number of comments as I found myself working every night and very stressed, but this time, things have been very different for me.
Why?
Well, for a start, the investments I have made in technology have made a huge difference. I now have a “proper” office so am able to separate work time and home time much better. Even better is that, in my office I have a VOIP phone system that takes messages and emails me the voice mail message via Quick Time so I never miss a call.

In addition to this, Bath Marketing Consultancy has grown significantly over the last 6+ months and I am now in a position to work with a creative director who can act as my back up while I am away and/or out of the office. Although not an “employee”, he is a retained freelancer with a Bath Marketing Consultancy email address and we have been working together for over a year on a project by project basis anyway so he knows my business, my brand and most of my clients.

The final ways that have helped me relax (well, I say relax, but I have 3 children under the age of 5 so I use the expression loosely!), is that the house I have rented has wi fi which allows me to access the PC in my office remotely via a system called “Team Viewer” if I need to and of course, no business would be complete these days without the obligatory iphone which syncs with my email system via an external email exchange.

I cannot tell you how much easier it is to have a few days off knowing that all phone calls are covered and that there is someone else to help if need be and the investments my business has made in technology make breaks far easier to take. I wont lie and say that this week has been client free. In fact, I have had 2 new enquiries, worked on a new logo for a client, produced 2 new A4 folders plus started putting together a new website, but I now do it with a smile on my face rather than a look of frustration and panic!

What do you think? Are you able to take time away from the “coal face” or are you a slave to your business? Let me know by leaving a comment below.

Search Engine Optimization – what not to do.

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Play with a straight bat.
Following on from my previous article about what to do for SEO, please find Bath Marketing Consultancy’s list of don’ts –
1. Avoid cloaking – Cloaking is when you give your visitors one page and then give search engines another page. Google and its friends want to see and index what your visitors see. Getting caught cloaking can have dire consequences on your site ranking.
2. Avoid keyword stuffing/spamming – This is stuffing your webpage with keywords that are only intended at tricking the search engines. Google is wise to this so, to get the best outcome, just write your text, with keywords in mind, towards your audience.
3. Avoid using flash or javascript for your navigation methods – Search engines usually can’t read these, or read them well enough to be dependable. Always use standard html links to be sure your site is easily walk able by search engine spiders.
4. Don’t submit your webpage url too often, if at all – You can submit your url directly to search engines, though search engines prefer to find your website via a backlink or incoming link. Resubmitting weekly or monthly can heavily damage your ranking with the search engines.
5. Avoid the “quickly get submitted to thousands of search engines” deals – While many of these do what they say, keep in mind that 98-99% of all search engines are powered by Google, Yahoo, or MSN. Just keep these 3 in mind and you’re covered.
6. Don’t forget backlinks – Link popularity plays very large into how your site is ranking by search engines, and is always a key element of SEO. Miss the backlinks part, and your SEO will suffer quite a bit.
7. Avoid excessive graphics and flash presentations – This is not to alter how the search engine looks at your site (directly), but at how your visitors view your site. There are many ways to make an effective website without overloading your visitors, and if a website takes more than 5 seconds to load, you will likely lose your visitor before they even get to visit your website.
To me SEO is about ticking the right boxes and making things relevant and easy for Google. Yes, there are tricks of the trade, but playing with a straight bat and making your site relevant, trustworthy and, above all, trustworthy will really help in effective SEO.

Keep Sight of the Bigger Picture in SEO

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Having a website that ranks in the top 5 or 10 search positions for competitive search terms can be very lucrative especially as a single marketing initiative. As such, there are numerous highly successful organisations who market this one thing: rank pages in the top 10 for various competitive search terms. Yet for most companies, the huge effort that it can take to achieve a top position is not worthwhile unless there are secondary marketing goals.


Secondary goals may be to actually sell your goods/services, or get people to register on you site etc.  A very important distinction that you should always keep in mind is that some search terms may be highly converting (get the users to do what the webmaster wants them to do) and some search terms that seem like they should convert, do not.

So…..sometimes a customer “sign up” following a specific term might be the best way of converting a browser to a customer as you will then have the email address to run dedicated emarketing. 
Get your SEO ducks in a row!

Either way, my suggestion is to make sure that your site will actually be capable of ranking in a top10 position for some searches; maybe look at regional terms initially (feel free to do a search for marketing company bath and see who dominates the first page of Google – me!), but………..be warned, there are many things you can do to influence where your website appears so be sure to tick as many of the SEO boxes as possible and do not expect to be there within weeks of going live. 


Marketing. A cost or an investment?

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With pretty much any marketing activity that is undertaken, it is likely that there is some sort of cost to the organisation either as a physical cost or as time spent. Either way, you must feel confident that everyone within your organisation is committed to the long term and perceives what you are doing as an investment.

Plan marketing.

As stated previously, marketing is not a “quick fix” born out of a time when business is slow. It is not an activity to be regarded as a distressed purchase. It should be seen as a fire that needs constant attention to keep burning and without it, it is highly unlikely to stay lit. 

If you are the person at whose door marketing has landed, you must become a centre of excellence covering all sales and marketing skills. It is therefore, highly unlikely that you have all the skills needed to facilitate effective marketing and sometimes engaging outside help is required. This does not mean that you are a failure! Quite the opposite. This is actually a good thing as you have identified that you need help and can then survey a number of companies to see which one fits with you and your organisation.

Whether you are doing the actual selling activity yourself or motivating others to do it, always see marketing in the context of your overall plan and believe in its ultimate success! Remember marketing is not just about putting together a pretty brochure! In fact the actual process should include:

Winning new business
Understanding your market
Building your brand
Planning your strategy
Managing existing clients
Internal marketing

When putting together your plan, I tend to use the following:

S – make it simple
M – make it measurable
A – make it achievable
R – make it realistic
T – add a timescale
……but above all, markting is NOT a cost; it is an investment in your business!

Need help? Get in touch with me…

Talk about the benefits NOT the technique or features!

Paul TagentLeave a comment
The Laddering” approach

Bath Marketing Consultancy received a call recently from a lovely lady I have met at Networking asking my advice about a new venture she is looking to launch. One of the questions she posed was about “cold calling” or “tele marketing.”

I have written an article previously on my top tips when making a cold call, but I think it is worth re emphasizing the importance of stressing what benefits your product or service will bring to the organisation you have called.

As a professional, features interest you. As a potential buyer, the prospect may share your interests – but equally they may be solely interested in the end result. It is YOUR job to make that benefit clear and unambiguous – “and this is what you get” rather than “and this is what it does.”

For many clients what you actually do (or offer) may be of no interest (to be honest, I have a client in the legal sector who goes to sleep when I explain HTML or Social Media!), so the results and what is in it for them are the top of the list.

My suggestion is to adopt the “laddering” approach; moving from feature to benefit with transitions. For example – 

“…..and this provides you with…..”
“…..which means you’ll be able to….”
“…..allowing you and your company to….”

Why not give it a try? Oh, one more thing, remember to use the “you” or “your company” words for that personal focus!

Good luck and if you feel like it, why not leave a comment re any results below.