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. 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/golf/article-1245538/Tiger-losing-million-dollars-day-Woods-pays-price-fall-grace.html

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.

1. Give them what they want. Most businesses market what they deliver. The key point is to find out what your clients really need. Understanding people will unlock potential profit doors for you. What you do is the solution, find the problem.
2. Emotionally engage your audience. You need to keep them interested and coming back for more. Story telling is an age old success story, look at the success of Hollywood and TV. Find out what their questions are and answer them, provide them with tips, advice and back up with case studies and testimonials.
3. Competition. Look at the marketing methods used by the companies in your field that you look up to. What are they doing? What can you copy. Analyze their techniques and apply them to your own business?
4. Action.  Simply knowing the right business model or the right techniques will not give you the edge. It takes more than just knowing what to do in your business to achieve extraordinary results. You have to take Action!
5. Dig deeper. Find out what it really is that makes your business unique. I can assure you, you will be very surprised. Make this the focus for your marketing. Don’t get into the routine of just doing marketing for the sake of checking off boxes on your “to do” list.
6. Personal. Uncover your story, what’s your background and history. People buy from people.
7. Transparency. Tell the truth. Become the expert. Reveal things about your business and include the problems and weaknesses you have overcome. This really adds to your marketing.
8. Keep it simple. I client I started working with late last year, started calling his clients and picked up additional work. Simple!
9. Don’t be afraid. As you engage people, there will be some who are going to like you and some who don’t. This is just a fact in business. The truth is that if you engage people you can sell more. It is easier to sell to someone who likes you then someone who does!
10. Change.  Remember that things change.  Find what works for your business, implemented and keep going back to your customers to find out what they want.  As their needs change, look to see if you can adapt to their needs.  Great if you can, if not, you need to find new 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:

• Your website(s)
• Blogs
• Electronical sent newsletters
• Email
• Search Engine Optimisation
• Social Media i.e. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube

So how do you get started….

1. Find out what your clients are using to stay in touch with what is going on.  You could simply just ask them or put together a quick and simple questionnaire and offer a prize – bottle of champagne.
2. Work out what your objectives are.  Do you want to go your mailing list?  Do you want more visitors to your website?  Do you want to be seen as the expert in your field/areas on a blog?  Keep focused on them.
3. Test, Test, Test.  Set yourself a goals.  For example if you are going to use email marketing than make sure it comes with software for you to see who opened it, who it bounced to, who forwarded it and who asked to be removed from your list.  Without these simply facts, you don’t know if your email campaign is working and you could be spending valuable time doing tasks and it isn’t giving your any results.
4. Keep it simple.  Is is obvious I know, but it still surprises me, how many people use technology just for the sake of it.  Check that what you are doing is adding value.
5. Add Value.  Today’s customer is very savvy, and they know when the are being sold to.  Your customers are using the internet, right at this very moment to find out information.  You could provided this information from one of the many articles you have read recently.  Tell people, help them out.
6. Don’t expect instant results.  With everything in life, consistency and persistence is what counts.
7. Perfect as you go.  You don’t have to be a expert on using internet marketing techniques.  Learn as you go, watch your results, listen to what your customers are asking for and help them. out.

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 with 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:

• How much to do you have ??? to spend/invest?
• What is your primary goal for using our services or product?
• Who do you currently use to provide this service or product?
• Why are you not happy with the service you are getting?

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.

Are you looking for more clients or visitors to your website?  Below are 10 steps you can use to build your following on Twitter.

1. Social.  You have to remember that Twitter is a social network, People first – Business second. 
2. Helpful.  Look for questions and answer them.  ReTweet stuff you find interesting and most importantly, connect people with your contacts.
3. Contacts.  Work out who you want to connect with?  Who are the movers and shakers in your industry?  What information are people searching for?  Can you help them? Do you want to connect with them?  The key is to follow people first and give out information.  They will then follow you
4. Give.  The truth of the matter is that people are not really interested in you!  They want to know what you can offer them.  Give them useful and helpful advice.  Be Helpful (point no.2)
5. Transparent.  You have to share information about yourself.  But this doesn’t need to be “what you had for lunch”.  It is part of human nature to want to know more about a person. i.e. what are your interests, hobbies etc? What makes you do the work you do?
6. Engage.  You have to join in and become part of the conversation.  Your contacts will very quickly realise by your Tweets if you are engaging with them or just selling to them.
7. Find your Voice. Think about what you want to be known for. How do you want to be seen?  For example, informative, humorous, controversial!!!
8. Time.  Twitter is a real-time tool.  Most people only read their current timeline due to the flow of conversations.  Think about the time you want people to see you messages.  React quickly if you see something or read a Tweet you want to reply to.  You can’t add it to your “To Do” list
9. Commitment.  Think about the time you have to send Tweets.  You need to be updating frequently.  For example – if you are going to provide daily tips, you have to send one out each day!
10. You’re Website. Upload information to your site that is going to be helpful and interesting.  For example “How to use Twitter to Attract Clients” and then ReTweet (RT) these messages.

Don’t just jump in.  Find your voice and start the conversation.

Follow us on Twitter for daily tips and advice http://twitter.com/marketing4sme

The point about social media is that it relates to people rather than businesses.

 This personal touch has filtered through to marketing strategies, as lessons are learnt about how people brand themselves. 

The idea of ‘brand me’ has always been based on self-promotion, but with digital marketing people can do this even better through blogs and social media. Now marketers are trying to use these techniques in business.

Air New Zealand based its ads on a Twitter post which praised the airline because it “allowed its staff to have a personality”. 

To learn more on ‘brand me’ dos and don’ts and case studies of Adidas and Eurostar check out Marketing Week, 3 December 2009, Pp18-22.

This extract is taken from the Article in Marketing Week.

The six large film studios, including Warner Brothers and 20th Century Fox, have supplied film clips to Movieclips.com, a new online service that allows users to watch 12,000 clips free of charge and to place them in blogs and social networking sites.

The site also allows people to buy or rent the full film.

This is believed to fill a gap in the market, particularly at a time when DVD sales are in decline.

For the full article – see P27 – The Financial Times, 3 Dec 2009.

SEO experts are in great demand.  So, how do you hire an expert and not a sleaze?  Tom Pick’s recent post on WebCentral blog has a list of points to consider:

1. He has the irrelevant experience
2. He guarantees results – impossible….
3. He promises instant results – SEO is long term, Adwords is short term

Read the full SEO article here