Marketing Ideas

[C.A.B.s]

having run my business for nearly a yr, and using numerous marketing ideas from direct mail, door to door leaflet drops, newspaper ads, small ads, nothing has ever become of all the hard work i have put into it, let alone the cost (ie envelopes, stamps, paper ink).
i am fast running out of ideas as to where and what i should try next, any ideas would be greatfully apprecaited, as my budget is small to non exsistant. thanks:(:confused:

[Andrew Ludlam]

This is an interesting post, and something I often come across with clients. I think all these marketing strategies are valid -- and do work, however it might be the proper application of these strategies that is not.

Obviously I'm going to make some big assumptions, going on the information I have, but my guess is that you may be starting at the 'wrong end'. Let me explain...

Many business owners I meet, who are in a similar situation, start with the 'medium' i.e. what method of marketing should I use? Then they concern themselves with the 'message', which often is all about them, the business and in most cases (particularly with local newspaper advertising) nothing more than a big version of their business card. Then fingers crossed, they hope their 'market' will stumble across this form of promotion and contact them. It rarely works...

Instead, you need to completely reverse this model.

Start with identifying your market. 'Fish where the fish are' Get a real sense of exaclty where your prospects hangs out. In fact, and even better, concentrate on a particular segment of this market. Then...

Create a message that speaks directly to your market. A message that addresses their concerns, solves their problems. Clients are only ever thinking one thing 'What's in it for me?' Does your copy do this - do you ensure that your company, and your company alone, is the only choice? This section alone can take a lot of time to get right. For example, what's been at the top of the newspaper ad, your business name (hope not), or a compelling headline that draws your targeted prospect into the body of the copy?

Finally, you then determine the best way of getting in front of your market. Is it a leaflet drop, or could it be something more impactful?

I hope this helps.

[watto]

Andrew has some great points. However I found I wasted a lot of time and money advertising in Newspaper advertisements, flyers, Yellow pages, etc.

I would like to know if you have an online presence? Do you have a website?

If the answer is no, I would suggest investing in a website and start promoting online. Optimise your site to rank for particilar keywords ie, shelving, retail shelving etc. Alternatively you can advertise with 'google adwords'

Kind Regards

watto
http://www.business-trader.com.au

[Claire Freer]

We have also been trading for about a year now and have tried all of the above methods of marketing. Some have worked and others haven't.
The best marketing method that has worked for our business is business networking. My business partner and I go to at least 4 business networking events per month.

You get to meet loads of interesting people and the best thing about it is, they are all there for the same reason. Don't forget though, it might not be the people you meet at these meetings that buy your products/services, it's the people they know and so on!

There are loads of networking groups out there and I have found Peer Group Learning to be great and free! They are part of Business Link.

Happy Networking!

Claire

The Bateman and Freer Partnership
Outsourced Credit Control Specialists

[lady macbeth]

Hi there

I think for us word of mouth is the most important. Ours is a niche market but we know that they all talk to eachother and although we do magazines and trade shows we still get people coming to our stands as 'our reputation has preceeded us'. If you do a good job and have a happy customer could you leave some cards with them to pass on - dont be afraid to ask them to recommend you to others.

Does your local paper do articles on local businesses? Esp female run businesses? Ours has a business supliment and a womans supliment on different days - could you get yourself into something like that? Can you join the chamber of commerce or some local organisation that would give you access to more people? Potential customers as well as access to training and people in the know which might help you with ideas generation. Like Claire said above networking can work wonders - choose what gets you to your target market.

Oh and if you are worried about the cost of a web site you can get a free one from microsoft and build it yourself (with a tool they provide). http://smallbusiness.officelive.com/GetOnline

Hope any of that helps.

:)

[Got2Go]

Hi there,

Any ideas for those of us in a cut throat competitive market?? That bad out there that people are prepared to sabotage your business for daring to take some of their market share!!!

Natalie

[C.A.B.s]

hi
i do have a website, which can be found at www.carolinesadminbookkeepingservices.co.uk.

i am already a member of a couple of network groups, and none of which has generated any business yet.

i am aiming in the next couple of days to contact my local village magazines, local trade paper and a few others in order to see if they would allow me to place a small free press release.

[Claire Freer]

Hi,
I went along to one network group in particular (CandoCanbe.co.uk) for about 9 months before we got any work from it. You have to build up a reputation and gain trust from people and that takes time. I would stick with 2 or 3 networking groups for at least 6 months. Plus, don't go to the meetings wanting to sell your services because if everyone went there to sell and no-one wanted to buy, that would cause a huge problem!!!!

Remember, it takes on average 7 contacts before someone buys from you.

Another good online group to join is Ecademy.

Claire

[PaulSimister]

Jay Conrad Levinson, author the Guerrilla Marketing books says that it takes on average nine contacts with a new customer to turn them into a buyer (provide the message is clear, benefit focused and relevant to them).

The bad news is that we have so much clutter, only one in three marketing messages will be seen unless you do something to stand out.

So if you send a direct mail letter out, the first time it turns up, people will think "Never heard of " and put in the bin but by letter four you could be starting to build a little name recognition.

Chet Holmes, another American marketing expert teaches that you should target a Dream 100 group of customers and relentlessly market to them in different ways each week, two weeks or month (whatever is suitable and you can afford).

It is the repetition that is important.

I hope that helps

[C.A.B.s]

Hi Paul.
Having already been told about the books Jay Conrad Levinson has published, i thought i would give them a whirl to see what all the hype was bout.

so i went ahead and purchased Guerrilla Marketing and Guerrilla Marketing for free.:).

Having only read a quarter way through i can see that it is gonna be a long read.

but i shall perserver and finish it one day.

thank you for the tips and advice though

[watto]

I just visited your website and noticed it needs a lot of Search Engine Optimisation.

If you are wondering why your site gets little visitors it is because you do not rank for any of your keywords (as I suggested in my earlier post). This is vital.

For starters your META tags do not exist. A site without meta tags is useless.
Have someone upload the following meta tags to your homepage:

<title>Bookkeeping Services - Admin Services - Bookkeeping Business</title>
<meta name="description" content="Bookkeeping services online. Quality bookkeeping business uk. Get a free quote for your bookkeeping services and admin services.">
<meta name="keywords" content="bookkeeping services, admin services, bookkeeping business">

Once this is complete, you need to start getting related websites to link to your site using the keywords in your title tag as the anchor text. This should really get things going for your site.

I hope this helps.

Regards

watto
http://www.business-trader.com.au

[strategic]

Something I found useful when I market is to work out what I am trying to achieve with each STEP in my marketing or advertising.

The biggest mistake we all make is that we expect to be able to close the sale when we talk to someone at a business gathering and hand out our cards, or send a letter, or place an ad.... we expect to be 'taking orders' next step, and it just doesnt work that way...

We were targeting employers within certain industry sectors, eligible for govermt funding to train their staff... and to make it profitable for us, we needed to know there were at least 6 eligible employees in the business before we would contact them to make an appointment to present the package to the business.

So..
1) have staff making screening/qualifying calls to find out who the decision makers were, and how many staff they had, and how many of those were eligible.... nothing else required from that call, other than to tell the people to be expecting a letter from us explaining to them just how much money they were eligible to receive... guess what, they looked out for that letter!


2) The letters were sent to the business. This reminded them who we were and what we were offering, and outlining the package. They could then contact us direct to arrange a meeting and take the next step. It also prepared them for a sales call from us.

3) Only the businesses with at least 6 staff got a call from us. It was easy for us, as we already knew who to ask for straight away, by name. We were able to begin the conversation already having some insight into their business and staff numbers, and could talk about just how much money they were eligble for etc. We could then ask for the appointment ... the purpose of this step.

4) Meet in person, make the presentation, and close the sale... at the very least, this step determined whether there was purpose in any ongoing communication with this business.

So our steps were to:

1) Identify clients from the phone book, contact them to screen out and qualify the businesses we WANTED to talk to... no wasted time by reps, as these calls were made by admin staff who then prepared the letters to mail out.

2) The letters whetted their appetite, brought many to contact US instead of us having to 'chase' anyone. Main job was to prepare them to be receptive for our call.

3) The call was to once again qualify their eligibility and make an appointment.

4) close the sale, arrange to process paperwork or to meet with next level of decision maker.

You can break down your marketing campaigns into steps for every kind of advertising or marketing or networking.

Do you expect the ad to make the sale, or do you set clear 'actions' in your wording and steps.... to get them to ring you for a free consultation, to get them to look at your website for information, to go download a free report you offer, to send in a coupon for free quote....?

When you go networking, is it more important to hand out your card, or to get their card? What EXACTLY is your goal in attending the event and cornering people.... ?

Once you set realistic expectations / goals for each step, each advert, each mailout, each STAGE of your campaign and process - only then can you say whether or not you actually wasted your time or money where you are doing solo marketing.

One of the best marketing strategies is to piggy-back with another business servicing the same sector, but not in competition.

1) How can you help someone with an existing client base to make their job easier or more profitable Eg: promote bookkeeping services to an accounting firm. They will then mailout to their clients telling them how your affordable bookkeeping service will make their own work more efficient and less costly.

or a real estate agency might promote your cleaning or garden service to their sellers, so that the properties are more presentable without relying on homeowners to get their act together.

2) Or Offer a free gift to someone with an existing client base to promote you... eg: find a computer retailer, or local widely used IT service , and offer an incentive to them to promote you. Eg: you can have an ebook or report about your service subject, that their customers can get for a free download, all they have to do is subscribe to get the download line (build your marketing list)

That way the retailer / service provider can give their customers a free Bonus high value product by just handing over your flier with the website details and your business contacts etc. or a voucher for a free first consultation etc etc etc. and you get a list of leads all interested in your business subject, from your download email subscriber list.

3) You can also find one or more similar but non competing businesses targeting the same market, and create a marketing flyer / ad / booklet download / freebie that promotes all of you, and you SHARE the costs of advertising, printing, mailing etc.

4) Bribe some other local businesses with payment for leads/sales. The reason this is good is that it is a personal recomendation from the business the customer already has a relationship with... priceless.

5) What is your customer's lifetime process / needs.
Find the businesses that are a step before yours in your customers lifetime. Find the business that is the next step after your service/product.
JV with them to help create the 'whole package' and promote that.

You can share each others leads and move your clients along the process line, and you can share the marketing and advertising costs. This concept is painfully obvious in examples for businesses like ones in wedding industry... package the cars, catering, printing, hair/makeup, dressmaking, photographers, honeymoon travel, etc.

You could then take the process all the way to include the real estate agents for their new home, the decorators and gardeners, the financiers for their cars & mortgages, right through to the lawyers for their divorce. LOL!

Use that creative thinking and you will be surprised how that flows.

It also helps to create greater credibility for yourself, as they see you as PART of the bigger picture, not just one little step in their bigger process, or that they might 'out-grow you' soon since you are instead part of the process and actively encouraging them to 'move on and upward' instead of holding anyone back.

I used this thinking in putting together and representing for commission all the business service steps in my last business... I was getting paid from every direction, almost no matter which direction the prospect went, I had a finger in the pie... and as a result I'm now retired and working from home for fun. It works.

6) create a campaign 'package' of what incentives & motivators you can offer.
For a client with cleaning services I created a flyer promoting her service...
- the flyer introduced her
- outlined her services point by point,
- offered the first half hour cleaning free - showed the discounted $ for 2 hour job, (makes sure she gets a minimum 2 hour booking)
- gave a couple of short written references,
- and offered a free 'Housekeeping Tips' ebook that I collated and published for larger 'spring clean' 6 hour jobs.
- offered a no-obligation quote for the job.

Then the back of the flyers had promotional messages and website links about her special interest websites, so that householders could also be motivated to visit her websites and buy products or go to her advertiser affiliates... that way the flyer served two purposes to generate income for her.

The next thing I would have recommended is for her to piggy back her flyers with a gardening or home maintenance or painting services business, so that they each have one side of a flyer, and share the printing and distribution costs...

7) Get serious about creating a top quality online presence... your website should be paying for itself with advertising eg: google & yahoo & advertorial pages & affiliate product sales.

It should offer free reports and ebook downloads in return for subscribers.

You then send your monthly ezine to these people as a subtle 'knock on their door' and remind them of your services, while you offer an article to help them in your subject... your ezine also offers products you earn affiliate income from.

Put good quality content on the site for visitors and Google and Yahoo will then send you organic free leads every month.

The latest site I'm working on, not yet even finished, is getting hundreds of visitors every day, and generating around one new lead every day... and this will only multiply with good natural social network marketing.

think of your website as the "yellow pages" directory that will be promoting your business for the next 40 years... it just gets bigger and stronger and more effective with every year that passes. It will create huge credibility for you and your 'brand' over the years.

Just some thoughts in the pot for you - now you start stirring it.

- Helene Malmsio

[Got2Go]

having run my business for nearly a yr, and using numerous marketing ideas from direct mail, door to door leaflet drops, newspaper ads, small ads, nothing has ever become of all the hard work i have put into it, let alone the cost (ie envelopes, stamps, paper ink).
i am fast running out of ideas as to where and what i should try next, any ideas would be greatfully apprecaited, as my budget is small to non exsistant. thanks:(:confused:


Yep - been there done that!!!! The cheapest and most effective way we have found over the last 5 years is through both Google Adwords campaigns and through an email marketing system - we use Vision 6 but there is another called Aweber also. Have a look on the internet for these two.
Forget the papers - old school and soooo expensive. We have also wasted thousands on printing and postage - waste of time too.

[C.A.B.s]

Hi Stategic

thanks for those tips about about step by step marketing, unfortunetly being just a sole trader / propritetor, i am not so lucky in having marketing staff to be able to screen calls, that i have to do by myself, but being busy doing other things to do with the buisness i rarely get the oppourtunity to make personal sales calls, and being the nervous kind when on the phone to people i do not know as well doesnt help.
but shall give them some thought and maybe i will use them later on down the line.

[C.A.B.s]

Hi Got2go
You are right in several areas there, you are not the only person who has told me to forget the papers and to try doing it electronically.

i did try to place an ad with google adwords, but because my URL was to long (only 35 letters permitted) they wouldnt allow it, so i was forced to not only cancel the ad but the account too.
If you can think of any other ways in which you think i should try then please get in touch

[PaulSimister]

Hi C.A.B.s

I think Guerrilla Marketing is a great book but I haven't read the Guerrilla Marketing For Free book yet.

I am biased because I am a certified Guerrilla Marketing Coach.

One problem with books is that it can be difficult to move from ideas into action.

If you like the Guerrilla Marketing ideas and you want to put it into action, there is a very nice product put together called the Guerrilla Marketing Toolkit (or Guerrilla Marketing Jumpstart) which is a six week program which teaches you to apply it.

For more details see
Guerrilla Marketing Toolkit (http://www.onlinemarketingsuperstars.com/cmd.php?af=648573) (affiliate link)
Guerrilla Marketing Toolkit (http://www.gmarketingcoach.com/gmtoolkit.htm) (straight to the site)

[watto]

Hi,

In the short term, adwords is a great tool, however it can be quite expensive. This is why I can not stress to you the importance of optimising your website to rank on page 1 in google.

If your site ranks on page 1 in google naturally, this will have a better effect than adwords and best of all, it is FREE!

I used to spend around $1500 per month with adwords, but once I started to rank on the same page naturally, I cancelled adwords, saved $1500 per month and generated more traffic and more sale.

I can't believe my post with my suggested META TAGS didn't even get a mention????

Oh well, if you do not think what I am saying applies to you, it will only be a matter of time before you realise you are throwing your money down the drain.

Cheers
watto
http://www.business-trader.com.au
http://www.business-sale.com.au

[lady macbeth]

Watto you are obviously very passionate about meta tags but I thought the general opinion was that these no longer actually affect search engine rank?

[C.A.B.s]

Hi Watto

:confused: i am sorry i forgot to mention ur post, but as i said before i tried google Adwords but because of my Business URL being longer than the 35 letters permitted,i decided against having one run in the end.

As for your meta tags, although they were very good, without a google adwords advert, i dont actually see the point in running them, but might give them a 2nd thought further down the line.

i may sound a little nieve here, but i dont actually know how to implement them or what they actually do? :confused:

If you can explain them in simple terms and how to do them, i might even try them. ;)

[mgot]

I understand your problem. From what I have seen with several businesses I have started for myself and friends, marketing is the most cumbersome, tiem consuming, and expensive part of starting up or making a business successful. There are a few things you can do. The most important thing though is combing forces with other businesses that share the same customer as you do. You can thumb through the phonebook, do web searches, or by any other means you have to establish simple relationships with these other companies to market your products/services through them. This I have found allows you to find new marketing channels at a very low cost.
In other words, contact these other companies and ask them directly to exchange your promotional materials and website links with them. The results are always great! Oh, try this link. This is a web-based company that has this process down to a science and has always done good by me.

www.b2bmatchtoday.com

[greenw]

When I started my business five years ago I joined several networking groups. It took a while to get business but once the members knew me, business came to me regularly.

Please remember that you will need to bring something to the group as well. Use the member's services, introduce visitors, help with the running of the group, etc., etc. Just sitting there and hoping that you get business won't do.

I 'networked' for approx. three years till my business was established and didn't have time to be actively involved in the groups.

Being a member of FSB and the local Chamber of Commerce helped as well. Mainly networking at the start and then using the mailing service of the Chamber. A lot of Chamber members use Chamber members when they need a specific service. I get enquiries from people telling me that they kept my leaflet just in case.

Nowadays, a lot of my business comes from recommendation which is the best advertising you can get.

Yellow Pages has worked for me as well but I think this is industry specific.

greenw

[bsfweb]

Gain Customer Confidence

Customer indecisiveness, skepticism, indifference, or confusion are among the top sales killers in the business world. It's up to you to project an image of experience, quality, dependability, excellent customer service, and/or added value to your prospective customers in order to win their confidence and overcome sales objections. If you haven't clearly communicated the advantages and solid reasons for them to do business with you, then they'll be hesitant to commit and the sale will go to your competitor.

Penetrate awareness of your target audience by using integrated marketing strategy, which in many cases would include a well-planned website marketing strategy. Stated simply: the more ways the public hears about you, the better your chances are for achieving brand recognition, credibility, and greater market share. Effective marketing strategy is partly the result of exposing your target audience to your name and your selling points (unique selling proposition) as often as possible (frequency), in as many ways as possible, and as cost-effectively as possible.

[ponnyfig]

"bsfweb" This guys idea are favourable these days, as people intend to ignore promotion so we have to give our 100% and make good strategies before going into each other

[anisia]

making a new religion

[michael6]

having run my business for nearly a yr, and using numerous marketing ideas from direct mail, door to door leaflet drops, newspaper ads, small ads, nothing has ever become of all the hard work i have put into it, let alone the cost (ie envelopes, stamps, paper ink).
i am fast running out of ideas as to where and what i should try next, any ideas would be greatfully apprecaited, as my budget is small to non exsistant. thanks:(:confused:

Hi dude,
Don't worry about. Do you have a a website to your business if yes why don't you contact an SEO company so that you can get lots of profits or consult a business expert to raise your business

[Sinclair]

I use the internet for a lot of my marketing. I send out emails, payperclick ads on search forums, social media marketing like Twitter and Facebook, and SEO for my web site.

[Terryds]

I agree with some of Andrew's points. You need to identify also which areas you have generated the most sales/enquiries. Then ask yourself how you got them/what you did to get them?

Direct mail can be effective if you know a bit of good copywriting. But you may want to follow up with some sort of telemarketing campaign to ensure your message is not diluted.

Incidently, check out Michel Fortin, Clayton Makepeace and gary Halbert on google. They are exceptional copywriters

[aladamap]

Marketing plays a vital role while promoting your product and services. There are a lot of marketing method, like internet marketing, direct marketing and email marketing, etc. But the most important thing is best management of these marketing strategies.

[andremoo]

I am also reading this book these days, quiet long, i also thanks you for sharing info

[janeycot]

business is very helpful for those people who seek for a job, if there are a lot of business in one country a lot of people may have a chance to have their very nice job that can give the m a amount of money where they can spend it in buying those things that they really need to stay in this world

[nitin705]

First of all tell me what type of product you have? most important is select tragate market and promot their at starting level targate small area , may give them free samples or inform them about your product make it so attractive taht insist them to buy it