2. Getting your product right
Decide the market you’re in. What can you provide to people, what do
you do best? Niche yourselves.
Identify the gaps in your market or what is nobody else offering?
Decide what you’re offering and keep it to what you know best…don’t
be all things to all men.
If you don’t have a USP… create one (just an SP is good enough).
Write your marketing plan and get external professional support on it if
you don’t already do so.
Get your end product right first and then test it.
A solid product and great customer service are the foundations on
which to lay your marketing.
3. Marketing Your Brand
Every business is a brand, don’t be afraid to think you are too.
Always think from a customers perspective.
80/20 principle.
Market your products simply and consistently. What marks a great
brand out from an also ran is their ability to be consistent in both
message and quality of goods – two things have to go hand in
glove
Your brand is not just what people experience of what you sell
them, it’s the customer service, your website, how you interact
with them, your literature, in other words…all communication –
every contact is a ‘Moment of Truth’.
Brands strive for new clients when actually the bonus is in existing
clients. Costs you 8 times as much on average to bring in a new
customer rather than service & keep happy your current ones.
4. Marketing For Peanuts
Have an ‘elevator speech’.
Market yourself.
Gather testimonials and share them.
Use your contacts shamelessly.
Service your existing clients shamelessly.
Consider lost leaders or sampling of your product.
Build a database and send out free e-letters.
Build your own website.
Network like a pro (that’s professional, not prostitute)
5. Social Media Marketing & Networking
Business Social Networking:
LinkedIn.
The rest….
Generic Social Networking:
Facebook.
Twitter.
StumbleUpon.
Blogging:
Your own website.
Separate blog site.
Viral Marketing:
YouTube
Vimeo
Flickr
Regular networking clubs:
•BNI.
•Thirsty Thursdays.
•Pink Link Ladies.
•National Womens Network.
•Forward Ladies.
•Networking 4 Business.
6. How do I do it?
Service.
Benchmark against the competition.
Clarity on customer needs and ROI.
Always deliver what I promise.
Quality ‘goods’.
Show integrity and build long term relationships.
Network shamelessly but effectively.
7. What three things would you like people to remember
about you? Ask yourself:
“What do I want your lasting impression of me to be?”
Write your elevator speech.
Editor's Notes
80/20 principle revolves round 2 ideas – law of focus:less is more Law of progress: we can create even more with less 80% of what we get comes from 20% of what we do In retail 20% of sales staff will make more than 80% of the value of sales Studies consistently show that 20% of customers lead to more than 80% of profits for any particular organisation Apply this thinking to your current client base….who are your 20% customers? And what would happen if you took other people’s 20% winning ideas & applied them to building your client income?
Not a finite list of where and how to network online and off but may give you some ideas you haven’t done before The ‘also rans’ in business social networking are sites like naymz, ecademy & plaxo – smaller & less effective than linkedin which is now the 17 th biggest website in history, focus on it as it’s eclipsed the others social networking sites like facebook and twitter mean you can write blogs about your business and link them through, have your own page/group on FB and invite people to join. FB is going nowhere, in fact their plans for the next 5 years are incredible. However, if you’re going to use FB justify your reasons, don’t just jump on the bandwagon For viral marketing to work, you either need to be creative or have creative people around you. Take the Orange royal wedding example, you can a) post it knowing it will get forwarded or b) invite people to it. Its got to be quirky or say something about your brand to position it, it doesn’t sell product Nb vimeo – VT community, flickr – photo community Regular networking clubs – 2 here are mixed sex, rest are women only. Word of caution, long term marketing strategy to build business for most, got to build rapport, trust & relationships generally before the business comes in, definitely worth considering and easier to build business the easier your business is to understand. I’ve often tried ‘new’ networking events and if they’’re of no use, ditch em and try the next.
