Transcript Mike Shannon(Business Link) on "Top Tips to Improve Marketing"

Business Link Yorkshire
Mike Shannon
Business Adviser
Top tips to improve
your marketing
Top tips to improve
your marketing
Throw your old marketing guide in
the bin
If you want to avoid wasting stacks of
money and missing countless sales
opportunities, throw your old marketing
guides in the recycling bin!
You need to know what works today; where
even the smallest business can advertise
itself to millions online for less than the cost
of a one-off trade journal advert – and –
where you can email thousands of potential
clients in a few hours for just pennies.
Top tips to improve
your marketing
Be different
In any sector or industry it's natural for businesses to
copy other ventures - the same products, price-cutting
offers, sales messages and other promotions. Its easy
to be a copycat, but this doesn't make any sense if you
want your business to outsmart and outsell your rivals.
Simple methods of differentiation include:
•Be quicker to respond to customer requests.
•Focus on quality, rather than lowest prices.
•Provide faster delivery.
•Offer more accessories, add-ons and related products
than others do.
Top tips to improve
your marketing
Start taking your website seriously
Most small businesses are unaware that
they could receive stacks of high quality
enquiries, leads, phone calls and sales
from interested prospective clients; if only
they had a professionally designed
website that has been properly search
engine optimised.
When a website is well optimised, it’s like
moving a little shop from an unused dirt
road in the middle of nowhere and
relocating it in the middle of the High
Street.
Top tips to improve
your marketing
Match your fees to your promises!
You cannot promise the marketplace a high quality
service and yet charge a bargain-basement price! If
you do, you will send people a mixed-message and
it will lose you business every time.
Everyone knows that quality never comes cheap –
that if something looks too good to be true, it
probably is too good to be true! Make your services
as valuable to the marketplace as possible and
then charge accordingly.
Top tips to improve
your marketing
Do some competitor research
It’s impossible to effectively sell or
market your services unless you have
researched your competitors. You need
to know what offers, guarantees, prices
or fees you are selling against, in order to
make your offering the most attractive to
potential clients.
Find out what you’re up against and then
beat it by adding massive value!
Top tips to improve
your marketing
Don’t mistake movement for progress
The owners of under performing businesses almost
always work just as hard, and sometimes even harder,
than the owners of successful ones! In other words,
they work hard and put in an insane number of hours,
doing the wrong things! A well written advertisement,
placed in the wrong section of the wrong publication will
still fail – no matter how hard you work at it!
If you find yourself working hard on your marketing and
not getting the sales results you want, STOP! Make
sure you are doing the right things, then ensure you are
doing them correctly.
Top tips to improve
your marketing
Do more of what works
If you can, identify the marketing activities that are
producing the best results for you at the moment, or
have done the business for you in the past, and then
work out how you can do this again.
What was it that worked to get you that new contract,
big customer or surge in website visitors? How can you
replicate that and make it work again or succeed
elsewhere?
Top tips to improve
your marketing
Start using email marketing
It’s a fact; email marketing is extremely
cost effective and perhaps the single
most powerful marketing tool available
to small businesses. This is because it
provides predictable results and costs
little or nothing to use!
Top tips to improve
your marketing
Be Precise
Being precise with your marketing means making sure
you are focusing on the value and benefits of your
product or service from your customers' point of view.
This will also involve making the buying process and
customer experience as easy, uncomplicated and free
from hassle as possible. Communicate the benefits of
your offer and how you are different from your
competitors, and have a clear call to action that helps
your customers order from you.
Don't waffle, don't confuse and avoid saying things from
your own rather than your customers' point of view.“
Top tips to improve
your marketing
Finally
Don’t just find these marketing tips interesting – use them!
The best marketing ideas in the world will not work unless
you use them.
Business Link Yorkshire
Ring our customer information centre on 08456 048 048
Go to our website www.businesslinkyorkshire.co.uk
Contact us on [email protected]