Entries Tagged 'marketing' ↓

What’s your idea of an effective marketing message?

BUY FROM US BECAUSE WE’RE BRILLIANT!

Hmm, I’m guessing your marketing campaigns haven’t been very successful then.

Contrary to popular belief, your marketing message isn’t actually about you.

Nope, it should be about your customers because, at the end of the day, they are far more important than you. Without them you don’t have a business.

You see marketing should all be about education – gently nudging the reader to the realisation that your product or service is the thing that’s going to change their life for the better by solving the issue/challenge/problem they’re facing.

Back to the classroom

Recently I’ve been working with a long-standing client to produce a series of case studies to highlight the diverse work they do.

During an interview I conducted with one part of the business, the interviewee spoke about some conferences they’d arranged to encourage sharing of best practice and knowledge with other departments within the same organisation.

Although this an example of interdepartmental education the same principle applies for any marketing strategy.

My client knew that if the value of their work was to be recognised throughout their organisation they had to find a way to educate their peers and the conference was the perfect solution.

The same goes for your customers.

Education is the key to any marketing strategy. Sales messages like the one above (the shouty one) will simply turn your readers off. For starters they won’t like being told they have to buy from you; they want to be wooed.

You have to tell them you understand the problem they have (they must have one otherwise they wouldn’t be searching the Internet for a solution) and the benefits your product or service can offer them and how it will enrich their lives.

This ‘educational selling’ is far more subtle as they will believe they have reached a buying decision all by themselves without being sold to.

Sally Ormond, Copywriter and blogger

The following guest post was written by Lucy Harper. The author’s views are entirely her own and may not reflect the views of FreelanceCopywritersBlog.com. If you are interested in producing a Guest Post for this blog, please get in touch with your ideas.

Many small business owners, especially those whose businesses are primarily online, can find themselves existing in a bubble, far removed from the community around them. While your focus may be in reaching out through social media marketing to expand your global reach, don’t forget the consumers in your immediate surroundings. By tipping the scales a bit so they balance community and global focus, you can build your small business while benefiting your community. As you endeavour to do both, you’ll enjoy the opportunity to gain loyal customers and followers around the world and in your own backyard.

• Incorporate Traditional Marketing Techniques. Although you can reach consumers in your community with social media marketing, traditional marketing methods can help you target those in the surrounding area. Leave no stone unturned by incorporating methods such as flyers, radio commercials on local stations, advertisements in your local newspapers and word-of-mouth marketing.
• Participate in Community Exhibitions. Throughout the year, communities host all kinds of exhibitions, from those promoting small local businesses to theme-based expos, such as health and education exhibitions. Most of these are planned a year in advance, which allows you to plan your participation in advance, too. Bring marketing information to pass out to attendees, and spend the day meeting and talking with those present, as well as other vendors.
• Attend Neighbourhood Festivals. Small neighbourhood festivals and gatherings can be a great place to promote your business if it fits the theme of the festival. Check with small town commerce centres and home-owner associations to see if your participation might be mutually beneficial. Rather than merely showing up to the festival and standing there the entire day, plan some activities or give demonstrations the community members would be interested in.
• Become Involved in Community-Based Networking. Networking is essential for small businesses, but most owners limit their networking efforts to the Internet. Get to know other small-business owners in your community and find out how they extend their local reach by attending regular networking meetings. Research networking groups available, and see if you can attend a meeting to ensure the group is right for you.
• Give Back to Your Community. As your business grows, it’s important to give back to the community. Choose a local organization or charity to be the recipient of your gifts, and then find out how you can best donate. Some organizations might prefer a donation of your time, whereas others will benefit from products, services or cash donations.

As you reach out to the community around you, you’ll find that your investment comes back to you in the form of loyal customers. In today’s technology-based world, small-business owners are often so focused on obtaining the global reach enjoyed by other businesses that they neglect to see the value in establishing a community connection. Balance your efforts to achieve both and benefit consumers in your surroundings. The efforts you put forth in reaching out can help you grow your business in ways you wouldn’t have been able to solely through Internet marketing.

Guest post contributed by Lucy Harper from TouchPointDigital.co.uk

When you run a business you have to self-promote in one way or another. All your marketing, networking and social media activity is aimed at boosting your profile. But how you go about that self-promotion will have a huge impact on how you are perceived by others.

My business is fantastic

If you go around telling people at networking events and through your online content (website copy, articles, blogs and social media) how amazing you are, you’ll come across as big headed and disingenuous.

No one is going to want to know you or do business with you (probably) because they have no reason to believe your claims.

But if you leave it to others to praise you through testimonials, online reviews etc., your company will be seen in a different light because third party praise is seen as being authentic and believable.

Our products are great

Really? Do you think people are going to believe that your products are the best on the planet just because you say so?

If your website copy bangs on about how amazing your products or services are, how they are the best on the market and how everyone thinks they’re the best thing since sliced bread, it will be taken with a pinch of salt.

Have an independent writer, company or researcher review your products and services and you’re on to something.

Or, how about asking one of your clients to be the focus of a case study? By giving a real life illustration of how your company helped someone, you’ll be adding extra kudos to your marketing.

I’m almost embarrassed by how great I am

We’ve all met them, haven’t we? At a networking event there’s always one person who swans around as though they were the bee’s knees. They’ve done everything, achieved everything and succeeded at everything – leaving you wondering why they then feel it necessary to attend the networking event.

People like that have a tendency of getting the backs up of others. They’ll be seen as being very up themselves and instantly disliked and possibly mistrusted.

But if someone else recommends you to someone because they’ve done business with you, then you’ll be seen as someone to know, someone who’s passionate about what they do and who cares about their customers.

So the main thing to remember about self-promotion is that third party testimonials, reviews and case studies are worth their weight in gold. Yes, you need to let people know how good you, your products and your services are, but in such a way that it’s believable, genuine and trustworthy.

This is it.

The New Year is almost upon you, so it’s time to take stock and stop kidding yourself.

You’ve been working like a Trojan all year and your marketing efforts are starting to pay off. But because your activities have been pulling in more customers, your workload has increased making keeping up with the marketing really difficult.

Every week it’s the same; day after day you’re the one working late desperately trying to get all those blogs scheduled and articles written. You’re the one eating lunch at your desk as you try to keep up with your Twitter feed and Facebook comments.

Why?

Because either

• You are the business owner and don’t trust anyone else to do it, or
• You’re the only one daft enough to have shown a bit of gumption about content marketing and social media and knew enough about it to give it a go

Well now’s the time to stop – get off that eternal hamster wheel.

You have a perfectly good team around you, so it’s about time they started pulling their weight too.

Marketing a business has to be a team effort, so don’t be put off by their ‘but I won’t know what to say’, or ‘what shall I write about?’ excuses – if you can do it, so can they.

Yes, it’s time to delegate.

Blogging

The most common reason not to blog is not knowing what to write about.

Tosh – for a start, anyone in your company that deals with customers should have a shed load of stuff to write about. Just think about all those queries and questions that come their way – instant ‘how to’ guides.

What about all the advice they offer – perfect ‘top tips’ material?

How about issues customers have and the way you, as a company, resolve them – ideal case study material.

See, there’s no excuse – everyone in your team should be contributing at least one article a week.

Social media

Before you delegate your social media activities, make sure you have a social media policy in place so everyone knows how they should react to comments, what they can and can’t say etc.

Then you just need someone to monitor your Twitter and Facebook accounts so that all comments are responded to in a timely manner.

But make sure they understand the importance of building relationships and that they engage with your followers and fans; providing a stream of interesting and relevant tweets and status updates will boost your company’s visibility.

By the way, if you think by delegating all this stuff you can take the year off, sorry, it doesn’t work like that.

All this regular activity is going to be driving more business your way, leaving you to do what you do best – sell.

Remember, no one is Superman or Wonder Woman – by spreading the workload you’ll achieve your goals much faster, you’ll be less grey, far calmer and will also get to enjoy lunch away from you desk.

Sally Ormond – overworked professional copywriter, blogger and social media addict

Most marketing strategies concentrate on email, direct mail, social media, print marketing and web marketing.

That’s good news for us professional copywriters as it means there’s plenty of work to be had.

But there is one other stream of customers that’s not been mentioned – referrals.

Referrals (or word of mouth marketing) are worth their weight in gold. After all, people are coming to you as a direct result of someone else recommending your products and services.

As a result, they already know about the quality of your work, your level of customer service and what makes you stand out from other providers – so most of the hard work has already been done for you.

So how to you get more of them?

Sowing the referral seeds

Put simply, there are no short cuts to generating referrals.

If you want people to talk about you favourably to others, you’ve got to provide them with good reason.

1. Above and beyond

Every contact you have with a customer before, during and after making a sale has to be perfect.

You must constantly exceed their expectations and make them feel valued.

That’s easier said than done, especially when faced with one of ‘those’ customers, but it will be worth it in the end.

2. Staying in touch

Once you’ve completed a sale and your customer’s gone away happy, it’s very tempting to move onto the next person. But what about the relationship you’ve just spent weeks (months or even years) developing with the person that’s just walked out the door?

The relationship is far too valuable to let slide, so make sure you keep in touch with regular newsletters, offers and great information.

How about offering an incentive for referrals – perhaps a discount on future purchases for every person they introduce to you?

How ever you decide to approach it, keeping the relationship going is vital  – after all, if they’ve bought from you once, the chances are they will again.

3. Engage

Marketers band around the term ‘Engaging with your audience’ quite frequently. So what exactly do they mean?

Well, if you want someone to buy from you and develop a long lasting relationship with your company, there has to be something in it for them. You could argue that the product/service they buy is enough, but today’s customers are far cannier than that and expect much more.

Offering them useful, relevant and interesting content will help you engage with them. They see it as getting something for nothing; you see, it as a way of maintaining contact and keeping your company’s name firmly lodged in their mind.

But more than that, if your content is really useful to them, you will be opening up the opportunity of it being shared with their friends and colleagues. Facebook ‘Likes’, re-tweets and other social media sharing tools will help spread the word about your company – and that can’t be bad.

So you see, if you want to boost and encourage referrals, you must engage with your customers and go above and beyond what they would expect.

Take some time out to review your current procedures; what efforts do you make to retain customers and stay in touch? How many referrals do you receive?

Perhaps it’s time to give some of these suggestions a try.