10 Marketing Secrets I Wish I’d Known when I Started

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:

1. Your time is at least as valuable as your money. When I started out, I attended every networking event, trade show, supplier get together and whatever else I could think of.  After all, it’s networking, and it’s free, right?  I shudder to think how much that cost me in lost time when I could have been doing far more productive things (or having fun).
2. “Now and nearly right” beats “next month and perfect” every time. In the early days, misplaced perfectionism delayed my brochures, websites and telemarketing campaigns because “they weren’t quite right yet”, costing me tens of thousands in lost sales.  Most of the time your idea of perfect won’t work anyway.  You won’t know until you test.  Nowadays my rule is: launch quickly, improve continuously.
3. People don’t buy features and benefits. They buy pain relievers to get them through the day.  I took a long time to really understand what this meant, but nearly every purchase has an element of pain-avoidance to it.  You just need to dig a little deeper to find out why your customers really buy from you. (see point 7.)
4. Lead generation: Little and often works. To be successful, lead generation has to be a habit, not something done in panic bursts 5 times a year when you realise that your sales pipeline is empty.
5. People need proof that you are good as your claim. They need to see how other people like them have benefited from working with you.  That’s where testimonials come in. I used to feel awkward asking for them.  I’m not now.
6. Happy customers want to help your business grow. Make sure you go out of your way to make  them happy, then ask them for referrals!  As with testimonials, I spent a long time being shy about asking for these too, but I’ve grown out of it.
7. If you want people to buy from you, you’d better be able to say why your business is different. Without mentioning quality, reliability, service or price.  If you’re not sure what I mean, type “computer support services” into Google.  Can you tell the top 5 companies apart?
8. You can try all the tactics you want, but without an effective strategy to back them up, you’re doomed to hit and miss results. You need a plan which allows you to continuously measure and improve everything you do.
9. Don’t rely on just one form of marketing. Have a plan which involves several channels, measure what works, and cross-fertilize.  I used to try some cold calling, then some email, then some networking. The results were lumpy to say the least.
10. If you’re not truly passionate about what you do, stop right now. As a business grows, it’s easy to get distracted by things that seem appealing, often for financial reasons.  If you don’t stick to what you really get excited about, the world isn’t getting the best of you, and it shows.

What are your most valuable lessons so far?

How to do FREE Market Research (without leaving your seat) - part 1

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.

Google market research tools

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What Everyone Ought to Know About Referrals

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: Read more