Tue, Sep 22, 2009
What a fantastic example of social media marketing check out what Starbucks are up to. They are asking you to share, help and vote. I wonder how quickly it will take them to bring a suggested product or service to a store near you??
I am a huge fan of Starbucks and I since moving home from London I really miss having one on my doorstep.
Let me know if you have taken part and joined in.
The first question people normally ask me is what can I do next to market my business?
Before we start with something new, you need to unearth the goldmine’s that are in your business right now that will generate you money and build loyalty with your customer base.
The last 18 months have been hard on the economy and businesses. Companies are holding on to their purse strings tightly. I have seen a lot of businesses who have reduced their prices in order to stay in business. But this is a very dangerous strategy, which will ultimately harm the business and is often unnecessary.
FACT: Very few people actually buy on price, even in a Recession. If you have sold something on price that customer didn’t fully understand the benefit or value of what they have bought.
Don’t get me wrong, there are a few products and services which are very much price led. But for the majority of businesses, right now there is a goldmine of opportunity by offering the customer real value. Convince them of the value and they will paradoxically be prepared to pay you MORE in the Recession than before.
RULE: Don’t cut your prices look first at how you can increase value.
TIP: One of the quickest and easiest ways to increase value is to offer a Guarantee that is really powerful.
Simply really, when you stop and think. Guarantees reduce risk and fear.
When a customer makes a purchase, they are initially taking all the risk. By eliminating the risk you remove the barriers that stop them from making a decision to buy from you.
The truth is the customer can’t lose.
When I tell my clients that I offer “Money Back” Guarantee, the first thing that they say to me is that they couldn’t afford to do that. They would be out of business within a week. Their customers would take advantage. Really!
Over the last couple of years I have worked with a number of companies. I offer a 100% Money Back Guarantee – No Questions. When I tell clients this, they think I am mad. But the truth is, this simply guarantee has brought me more word of mouth work then I could actually do. Yes, on a number of occasions I have given the money back. On reflection, at the time, there were two problems at play:
i) The client didn’t under the value of my work, no matter how hard I tried to communicate it to them.
ii) Long term, these customers would have ended up costing me more money than I was invoicing them for.
Can you relate to this kind of business?
So what do I mean by “give a great Guarantee?”
Where possible, offer a full unconditional 100% money-back Guarantee. If a customer is anything but completely and utterly delighted with your products or service, you give them their money back. No questions, no arguments, no delays!
And yes, I really do mean a 100% unconditional Guarantee.
It is a quirk of human nature that the longer you offer the Guarantee, the less you’ll have to honour it. i.e. if you offer a 30-day guarantee, by the time day 21 arrives, if they’re not sure… they’ll come back for their money. If the same Guarantee is for 12 months, the customer relaxes and the risk to your business is reduced. .
I can still hear you staying I am mad and questioning why you should even consider giving a Guarantee like this?
When companies I work with really push on this point, I get them to look at their business and potential problems which could cause a client to ask for their money back. But that is a totally different post to this, which I will follow up with shortly.
I won’t lie to you…. I know sound like Nessa from Gavin & Stacey…. Yes, you will have to honour your Guarantee. At the end of the day, business is a numbers game. You work out the maths – if someone asks for their money back on X sale, but you make an extra XYZ sales, who is the winner?
Goldmine No.1, Guarantees are one of the best ways to strengthen your business in the Recession and set you apart from your competition.
Please test a strong Guarantee and let us know how it goes.
Plus watch out for next week’s Goldmine.
Today you are the Brand. Check out the damage to Tiger Woods bottom line.
Most businesses I talk to tell me that when it comes to marketing, they feel overwhelmed. So many decisions, options and tools to use. Which one will work, which one will not cost much, which one will take up the least of my time??
With so many options and decisions to make, fear creeps in and this then stops a business in its tracks when it comes to their marketing.
To be truthfully, working on your marketing is one of the most important tasks you need to do in order to be successful. I want to share with you 10 tips that have been tried and test over the years with my clients that you can use today, to build your marketing plan and reach more potential clients.
You don’t have to do all the steps above. Start off with one and take it from there. The key is to focus on the steps. They will help you develop a winning marketing plan.
If you have any questions, drop me a comment and I will get back to you
Did you know that internet marketing covers:
So how do you get started….
Let me know how you get on. If you have any questions, drop me a note and we will get back to you a.s.a.p.
The number one reason that I receive from a potential new clients is because they have spent a lot of money on marketing and received absolutely nothing in return.
When I first start wi
th a business, the first thing we look at is what they actually sell. Nearly 99% of the time, business owners (or the people doing the marketing) are marketing what you deliver, not what your product or service can actually do for a potential client. These two things aren’t the same.
The second thing I hear from a business owner is that it is obvious what I need to market.
Or is it? For example
If you’re a financial advisor, you probably think you’re marketing financial advice. If you’re a HR advisor, you may think you are marketing HR advice. If you own a clothes shop, you may assume you market clothes. If you market a restaurant you may think you are selling a meal.
In each case, you’d be right in terms of your deliverables, but you are wrong about what they are buying.
What you’re marketing and what you actually deliver are two different things. The key to increasing your sales is to realise that what you are really marketing is hope – your clients’ hope of achieving their goals.
I have worked with a variety of business owners from design agencies to bridal shops. They have all faced the same problems when increasing sales. They have confused their marketing with what they deliver.
For example, if you are financial advisor, yes you deliver financial advice, but what the client really wants is hope. Hope that you can help them with their money and deal with things that they don’t really understand. Ultimately, they want to make money, which you can’t promise, but you can offer hope. If you sell carpets, you deliver the carpets and lay them in the house, but what you are selling is hope. Hope that at the end, the room/house is going to look better then the owner has visualised it in their heads and also practical for their needs – you are helping to create a home. If you own a restaurant, you are not selling a meal, you are selling hope. Hope that the evening will be something to remember, that the meal will be better then what they can do at home. That for once, they don’t have to do the dishes! The meal may be for a special occasion i.e. birthday, reward, celebration.
You’re marketing to your prospects’ hopes that they’ll be happier, more successful, more attractive, smarter, richer, more comfortable, and more secure, etc. Target you’re marketing to the real reasons people buy and you’ll be much more successful in motivating them to make a purchase from you.
Do you see the difference? Let me know your thoughts.
If you are anything like me, then you are eager to help businesses. I am always giving away free advice.
A lesson I have learnt over the last couple of years is that you can give too much free advice or information away. This then leds to less time to spend with customers who really need your product/service. Plus a lot of time running round trying to find my next customer!
What was I doing wrong? I was failing to prescreen my leads. I was giving away valuable advice and service to the wrong people. More importantly, I was giving away advice to companies who couldn’t afford my services.
Don’t get me wrong, it is great to be able to offer something and get leads, but are people REALLY interested in what you have to offer and can they affort it, now? If not, you are just wasting your time and money.
Prescreening is easier to do then you first think. Late last year I worked with a client who was offering a “free 1 hour consultation” to every person/company who would commit to a meeting. Great, he had a full diary and was running around making new contacts. When he reviewed his sales a month later, he had only converted 2% of the people he had seen. Spent a lot of money travelling and invested considerable time.
He called me and asked for help. We put togehter a prescreening questionnaire, which covered 5 questions in total. Based on the replies received, the then worked out who to see and who his PA could follow up with.
Currently his conversation rate has gone up to 8000%
Think about the service/product you provide and list out a set ot 3-5 questions which will pre-qualify leads. For example:
This simple exercise will also lower your costs and provide valuable information for you to provide a better service in the future. (More about that in a later article).
Don’t worry about refusing to provide a “free” service to all. You are not in busines to offer valuable information and services for free.
Let me know how you get on.
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September 29th, 2009 at 10:03 pm
Hi, I’m the community manager of the My Starbucks Idea site. We have launched 47 ideas so far since we launched the My Starbucks Idea website just 18 months ago. Just recently we launched 2 iPhone apps. and we took input from our customers’ ideas shared on the site.