If you’re in the Hertfordshire area, and are sick of going round in circles with your marketing, you might want to check this out…
I’m running a 90 Minute Marketing Plan Seminar on Thursday 11th June.
Full details and booking at:
http://marketingplan.eventbrite.com/
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Image credit: markhillary's Flickrstream
Just under 10 years ago I built my first ‘commercial’ website, for the computer consulting company I ran back then. After spending 2 days looking around my competitors’ sites for inspiration, I sat staring at a blank page and wondering what on earth to say about my company.
Eventually, I decided that as my competitors were clearly pretty successful (because their websites said so), I should probably follow their lead. I diligently wrote about the history of the company, what kind of qualifications we had, and how dedicated we were to providing the absolute top notch computer support service money could buy.
I sent a copy to my friend, who also worked in computer consulting, for review. He was suitably encouraging. I uploaded it to the website, submitted it to a few search engines, and sat back, eagerly awaiting my slice of the great computer consulting ecommerce pie. [click to continue…]
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This morning, I’m driving up to visit my parents in Birmingham. I haven’t had breakfast. I’m really, really, really hungry. I stop at the petrol station and at look the array of flaccid 2-day-old sandwiches on offer. I’m not that hungry.
I get back in the car and resign myself to a 2 hour drive with hunger gnawing away at me the whole time.
Not fun.
Suddenly, I spot a little trailer by the roadside. Is it? I can’t quite make it out. I slow down hopefully. It can’t be. Wait. Yes, yes, it is! A bacon butty bar! A shining oasis in the tarmac desert of the A41. I can’t believe my luck.
I bring the car to a swift stop and head over. All my hopes are fulfilled. They even have nice sausages and crusty bread. Freshly cooked, and less than half the price of petrol station ‘food’. I’m overjoyed. It’s going to be a great day.
Whilst I’m waiting for my order, the owner asks me what I do. “I help business owners win more clients”. At this stage, people either change the subject, or tell me they wish someone would help them win more clients. She does the latter. “I wish I could get more customers. I don’t want to make a fortune out of this place, but it’s a struggle.” [click to continue…]
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Are you thinking of using telemarketing?
A lot of business owners (including me) have tried telemarketing to get appointments before. A few swear by it. A lot more swear at it. Some know that it can be very effective, but haven’t worked out how to make it pay for them.
I’ve had several experiences of telemarketing, both buying it for my IT business(with mixed results), and project managing for a telemarketing company.
What I learned was that there are 3 reasons why telemarketing campaigns can fail:
In this post, I focus on making sure your choice of telemarketing company is a good one. I’ll cover the others later.
(If you’re planning on using a self-employed freelancer instead of a company, not all of these will apply) [click to continue…]
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Imagine setting out on a long mountain trek, with no guide, no map, and no clue if you have the right equipment. That’s how I used to approach marketing when I started in business. I didn’t have a mentor, and I didn’t know where to look for ‘experience’. So I read as many books as I could, took a guess, and got going.
Unsurprisingly, I made a lot of mistakes, had a lot of failures, and learned a lot of lessons. Here are the 10 that would have saved me the most trouble, if I’d know then:
What are your most valuable lessons so far?
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When I started in business in the 90’s, I knew of only two sources of market research available to a budding entrepreneur with no funding: reading out-of-date “market reports” for free in the library, and cold calling people from Yellow Pages and asking them questions.
The first, although interesting, didn’t give me a great deal of useful information. The second was more valuable; it gave me direct experience of what my prospective clients were like, and I even won some business from doing it. But it was very time-intensive, and only gave me a narrow view of my market.
Things are better these days. A lot better. There are dozens of free market research tools that give detailed, usable information. You can find out the size of your target market, exactly what they want, and the level of competition with relative ease.
In this short series, I’m going to discuss a few of these tools. You’ll notice that a lot of them are keyword tools. I’m keen on these because as more and more people use search engines as their first port of call for information, keywords give you unparalleled insight into what your prospective clients are thinking.
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You already know how important referrals are to building a business.
You probably know how meetings from referrals are 3-4 times more likely to turn into business than those from a cold call.
You may even know that referred clients, on average, generate 40% more ongoing business than cold-called clients.
Because you’re already aware of this, you’re probably doing everything you can think of to generate more referrals.
You’ve spent hours at networking events, drunk several gallons of overpriced coffee, and spent a fortune on lunches. You’ve collected business cards, called back, followed up, and seen the same faces again and again and again. And sometimes it feels like all you’ve got to show for it is a backlog of paperwork, chronic insomnia and a ‘spare tyre’.
If you’re feeling let down and frustrated that you’re not getting all the referrals you want, try asking yourself these questions: [click to continue…]
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Do you send out an e-zine or email newsletter to your prospects and clients?
I don’t suppose you’ve ever found yourself staring at the screen the day before it’s due to send with not the slightest clue what to write?
Or you’re just not convinced that your audience gets any value from what you have to say?
If you have, you’re not alone. I hear the same concerns from a lot of people.
I was talking to a bookkeeper recently who diligently send out a monthly newsletter to her client. Although she quite enjoys writing it, she found it tough to keep coming up with new and interesting articles about bookkeeping to send out. She was worried that people weren’t interested enough in what she did.
And to a degree, she’s right. People will get pretty bored of reading about bookkeeping news. They’re just not all that interested in bookkeeping. After all, that’s why they hire a bookkeeper to handle it for them.
So how should you keep your readers engaged and informed, whilst at the same time reinforcing the value that you can offer? Here are some ideas that might help… [click to continue…]
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I’m working with a client who is excellent at what he does, and makes a good living out of it. He’s now looking to expand his business, to increase his income and enable more people to benefit from his expertise. How should he go about it?
Two obvious options are to take on more employees, or subcontract the work to others. However both of those have considerable risks, and can be damaging to cash flow and reputation if they go wrong.
The first; if you employ someone, you have to trust them, train them, and are committed to paying their salary (plus tax!) whether or not you have the work for them. Employment is fraught – I’ve yet to find a business owner who hasn’t had a few staff nightmares over the years.
The second, subcontracting can work well, but finding reliable people is tough, and they aren’t always available when you need them. Again, most people who have done this for any length of time have been let down at some point.
Do you really want take that sort of risk in the current economic climate? He doesn’t. [click to continue…]
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Like all good habits, consistent marketing activity can be difficult to keep doing regularly, especially when things start to get tough.
Then that little voice in the back of your head keeps giving you good reasons to put it off to another day. And then another day. And then another.
The range of different excuses is vast, but they all lead to the same end result – an empty sales pipeline for your business, and no income for you.
I’ve been guilty of most of them at one time or another. And I’ve found there’s only one sure-fire cure.
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