Marketing vs. Gardening - is there a difference?

Here's a picture of our latest garden bed... ready for a fresh crop of vegies. But what's this got to do with marketing.

You see, when I put in the first set of garden beds (you can see them behind the new one) I learned a few lessons.

What I Learned...

I learned about how to keep the frame level. Especially about cutting the sleepers to match the sloping ground so there are no gaps for soil to leak out of. And how to use nail plates on the inside to keep the sleepers tight and create a good-looking finish.

I learned about how long it takes to actually finish the job. In fact this one new bed took about 8 hours in total. This takes into account measuring out the bed, taking up the grass, digging up the earth (hard work with a mattock), measuring, cutting and assembling the frame, shifting the soil from the pile into the bed (more hard work) etc etc.

In many ways this is similar to creating marketing activities for your business.

What You Can Do...

You need to understand the tasks involved so you can allow enough time to get it done properly.

Plus, there is always a learning curve. And always the opportunity to improve what you have done before. Never expect to get something 100% right the first time.

Too many businesses start marketing activities without full knowledge of what is required to complete the job. Then, when it all becomes more difficult and time consuming than they expected the activity gets dropped. Result: wasted time, effort, and money.

If you are serious about your sales improvement initiatives you will:

• Plan ahead so you aren't in a reactive mind-set - being reactive usually limits your thinking.
• Assess what you have done before - see what you can learn from that.
• Plan your tactics so they are in the correct sequence - for example understand your market before jumping at the latest promotional idea.
• Pay attention to the details - examples: make sure you follow up all leads that are generated; accurately track budget expenditure; update your website or other material to reflect current marketing activities, offers and promotional messages.
• Be sure you have the skills to do the job - for example if you're not good at working with words and writing, outsource that part of the process to someone who is. And if you're not good with technology, use someone who can do it for you.

Marketing vs. Gardening... actually there are quite a few similarities.

3 Tips for Writing Reader-Friendly Marketing Messages

I've borrowed these 3 tips directly from Harvard Business Review that recommended them as 3 Tips for Writing Reader-Friendly Memos. The exact same advice works excellently for marketing messages.

1. Avoid complex phrasing. Writing elegantly is not important; delivering smart content is. Let the message stand out more than your language. (perfectly said)

2. Be concise. Many memo (marketing) writers get hung up on "flow." But flowing sentences tend to be long and dense. You don't need choppy sentences, just hardworking ones that deliver content concisely.

3. Skip the jargon. Jargon can be a useful way to communicate among experts, but you should never use jargon if it's meaningless, if you don't understand it, or when your audience isn't familiar with it. (Hint: be sure you understand your audience.)

My advice: Too many people think for marketing you need to write to impress people. Really you should be aiming to write in a way that persuades people. Keep it simple enough for your audience to easily understand - and be sure to include a clear call to action. Let them know what they should do next if they want to move forward.

Great Example of Temporary Web Page

It is one of the worst marketing sins these days - to promote a new website and have a lazy 'under construction' message displayed. But I've just seen a great example of how to do it properly. Even if your complete website is not written, make sure you project a suitable image, and at least have basic contact details.

Kombi Love is a specialist car hire website that was mentioned in this article on Sydney Morning Herald website.

It looks good, includes the main details, a contact enquiry form and phone number all easily displayed. It aslo shows the future pages in the navigation bar - encouraging for people to know what else could be available from the business.

Creating Effective Local Promotions (part 1 of 2)

This is Part 1 of an article I wrote for 'The Science of Beauty', a national magazine for the salon industry. However the message applies to all businesses that promote locally.
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Creating Effective Local Promotions

The first thing you need to consider when planning a promotion in your local area is… Who is in your local area?

You need to have a clear image of whom you will be speaking to through your promotion. What type of person do you expect to attract?

Most salons service a distinct local area – usually within about a 5km to 7km radius from the salon. Have you actually mapped where your market is? The best way to do this is to review your client data and create a list of all clients by postcode. Then you can sort the postcodes (using a spreadsheet) and determine the actual geographic spread of clients.

Understand Who You Are Talking To

You might be surprised at the results. I have seen salons that have 80% of clients within a 5km radius. This has a huge impact on which marketing communication tactics you should use. There is no point promoting to people who live 10 or 15km away if they aren’t going to travel to your salon.

Once you know the geographic coverage of your local market area consider the demographic and socio-economic profile of the people living there.

Demographics means the age, lifestyle, family size etc of the local residents.

Socio-economic means the financial status of residents including what type of jobs they do and average household income.

If you’re new to your market area, or simply not sure about the different areas, why not hop in the car and take a drive around and see for yourself. You can also access census data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics if you want even more detail (visit www.abs.gov.au).

Part of your assessment of the local area should also include a competitor analysis. Who are your competitors? How do they compare to you for presentation of the business, services offered, pricing etc? Know your enemy!

One of the main reasons you need to have an understanding of the demographics and socio-economic factors is that it can help you decide what you should be promoting - which services and products, and at which price-point.

What to Offer?

I’ve written before about not offering a discount. Why is it bad? Because discounts undermine the perceived value in your services and products. It also makes it harder to get new clients to re-book at full price.

The best thing to do is to think about the purpose of the promotion. Then you can decide what to offer.

* Is it to attract more first-time clients?
* Is it to promote a specific service/product?
* Is it to fill a gap in your booking schedule?

For example if your aim is to attract more clients for any/all of your services, then you would want to promote the most popular services. Give people something they want.

Create a Package – Promote Value

Then think about how you can create a package combining a number of these services and/or products. Don’t simply reduce the price on your popular services. That’s business suicide!

The idea of offering a package is two-fold. Firstly, it creates a high perceived value. In reality you may have more margin to play with on services than on products. So by making smart decisions about your package you can still make your offer profitable for you.

Secondly, offering a package makes it difficult, if not impossible, for your prospects to easily compare you to competitors. This way you don’t need to offer the lowest prices to get attention.

Keep the focus of your offer on ‘value’, not on ‘price’.
And be sure to include a reason to respond NOW. Consider using a limited time offer, or a limited quality offer. Be specific about the time frame or number.

Stay tuned for Part 2...

The 24-7-30 follow-up approach

Here's a great tip on how to stay in touch with people you meet at networking events. From Andy Lopata in the UK...

I'm often asked about how to follow up contacts you meet at a networking event.

One of the most popular processes I share was outlined by a delegate on one of my workshops a few years ago. The 24-7-30 approach is based on the principle that interacting with someone three times in the month after meeting them cements your relationships.

The approach dictates that you follow up with someone 24 hours after an event, 7 days later and again after 30 days.

Although I don't practice this as a matter of course, if I look back at the people who have become an integral part of my network after meeting at events, this pattern definitely applies. It may be an email, phone call and meeting. Or email, meeting and follow up. But those three touches in a month are certainly present.

6 Simple Tips for Effective Promotional Flyers

See these real-life examples

1. Consistent Use of Colours (not too dull; not too many colours).

Don’t try using a rainbow of colours. Usually you should focus on colours that are part of your company’s colour scheme or logo. Figure out what will work best and stick to it. Consistency is the key – but ensure you have a colour that can be used to highlight the important points. Contrast is always helpful in attracting attention.

2. Interesting Main Graphic/image to Grab Attention.

Think about the newspaper. You look at the pictures first, then the headline. Then read the story (maybe). Make sure you use a relevant and interesting graphic, cartoon, picture, drawing or image. Don’t be too clever in your choice of graphic – make sure everyone will understand what the image is and how it is relevant.

3. Use a Clear Headline Stating the Benefit.

Lead with your strongest points. Your headline will grab attention – make the most of it. Think of the most important and attractive words to use such as Free, Save, Bonus, Guaranteed, Easy, Lose, Win, Limited, Exclusive, Easy… and more.

4. Include an Offer.

Give people something to respond to… NOW! Don’t assume they will call you. Give them something they can’t refuse. For many services a free report is a good offeras people want to be educated about what they are buying. Or a free trial. Or a value-added offer (buy 1 get one free). Try to avoid using a straight discount – it cheapens your service or product.

5. Include a Direct Call-to-Action.

Tell people how they should respond. Be very clear. Give them multiple options. People love going to your website to check you out before they contact you. Make sure your website is listed as well as phone, fax or email response options. Make it quick and easy to respond.

6. Contact Details or Location Clearly Visible.

Don’t make recipients hunt for your details – they don’t have the time. Many people won’t be able to read small print, so keep the font size at least 12 point or larger. Make it bold. Make it obvious.

Good luck with your next flyer!

By the way, most of these tips also apply to creating effective advertisements and brochures.

More sales and marketing tips here

Westpac Upsets Advertising Agencies - and why small businesses shouldn't fall for the glitz of 'great ideas'

“In the industry we work in, the person who comes up with the idea is seen as the hero and the person who implements it, second class.” - a statement by Jacques Burger, CEO of The Campaign Palace (a major advertising agency).

Small business owners often get carried away with the excitement generated by advertising creative people and overlook the hugely important aspect of how to implement an idea and get results for their business.

The quote above confirms that agencies usually put emphasis on 'great ideas'. That's not all bad - we need great ideas. But we also need great implementation.

Westpac (a leading Australian bank) has decided they want to be able to get the best ideas, and the best implementation - even if it means working with seperate agencies, and getting those agencies to cooperate and collaborate with each other.

That is a great idea. But it's one that many agencies won't really like. After all, most suppliers (providers) don't like sharing their client with competitors!

Tourism Australia gone wrong - a marketing lesson

Even large organisations get their marketing message mixed. Tourism Australia now says they want a longer term approach for their advertising campaigns. They want to copy what New Zealand and Victoria have done.

Boy... You'd think that with their history, the amount of money they spend, and the expert help they get from advertising agencies (charging a fortune for advice and creativity), they would have made this decision years ago.

But they didn't.

They've been using a bits-and-pieces approach. Trying to hook on to the latest fad (such as the ill-fated Australia movie).

The difference is now they say they wnat their own identity for Australia - like New Zealand has done with '100% Pure' and Victoria has done with it's 'Jigsaw' campiagn - both of which have run for many years.

Lesson: How can you create your own business identify? Be smart... Don't leave yourself to the ebb and flow of the latest fad or market trend.

3 Lessons From Business Survivors

According to a study done by the Small Business Administration (USA), two-thirds of all new small business survive the first two years but only 44% will still be operating by year four.

Here are three very important lessons from business owners who have survived, from an article in Business Week:

Lesson #1 - Recycle money early.
"during the crucial first years I learned you really always need to recycle money back into your business instead of taking money out of it. A new business needs to stay fresh..."

Lesson #2 - Diversfy your clients.
Rather than rely on one type of client for revenue, early on Niemeier decided to make sure he launched a firm with a diversified clientele working on educational, corporate, health care, and hospitality projects

Lesson #3 - Qualify and eliminate clients who don't 'fit'.
"But what I learned from that is that I really had to do a better job of screening and qualifying our prospective clients. Not everybody is a good client and when they don't pay their bills in a timely manner I realized we had to fire them."

Read the whole article.

Are You Any Different?

Do you claim any of these:

- We offer the best customer service.
- We really care for our customers.
- Established for 25 years.
- We guarantee the lowest prices.

I hope you don't.

You see, too many small businesses try making big claims about the same stuff everyone else is saying.

So what?

To make an impact on your potential clients you need to connect with their problems. Then show you have clear options to help them.

Making big generalised claims may sound impressive. But nobody really believes it.

How can you identify the problems or pain your prospects are feeling?

Try thinking through these scenarios and how your prospects may be feeling.

(Note: These steps are a small part of a detailed process covered in the Marketing Mentor Program.)

1. Your prospect has come to a crossroad. They have reached a defining moment when they need to make a decision. What would that moment be for your clients - for your business?

2. Your prospect is feeling, or wants to feel, some emotion. What will your prospect feel as a result of using your products or services? Communicate in their language from their perspective - not yours.

3. Your prospect is ready to choose a service or provider. They are wondering if they can trust you. Will you really deliver what they want or expect? Identify the risks they may perceive and
explain how you will avoid that happening to them.

Then consider how you work with clients. What is your focus? You need to easily explain how clients will benefit from what you offer. Why will they feel good about it?

Importantly, you must create a 'flavour' for your business.
A way of working that sets you apart from your competitors.

Now you are ready to create a meaningful 'point of difference'.

You will be able to communicate your difference (sometimes called your USP) in a unique and compelling manner across all your marketing materials.

To create an effective marketing action plan, and get regular support to stay focused on results, join my Marketing Mentor Program.

SME Marketing Success = Consistency

It's a fact that smaller businesses are stretched for resources. And to be successful at marketing you need a consistent schedule of suitable marketing activities. Today I was reading this article that lists '20 ways to attract traffic to your website'.

Guess what... none of the strategies are really expensive. But they do require time and knowledge. And knowledge often takes time to acquire (and that can make it expensive!).

Many of the strategies listed are the same as what I recommend to clients, like:
* Having an email newsletter.
* Presenting seminars and speaking to groups of people.
* Attract quality inbound links to your website.

(Read the article if you want to know all 20)

Whilst the tactics aren't really expensive in dollars, they do require dedication and commitment to fully implement.

The challenge for SME's (small-medium enterprises) is to focus on the marketing tactics that work.... and KEEP doing them.

It's easy to get bored or distracted and not follow through with investing in the future of your business. But if you want a consistent stream of business you must market in a consistent manner.