Top Marketing Tips

Your markets contain a variety of different types of customer located in different places, behaving in different ways.  Some of these customer groups are much more valuable to your business than others.  But how can you be certain which are most important to your future success?  Better Market Segmentation can provide the answer.

Your business has finite resources.  These should be totally focused on carrying out those activities where you are better placed than your competitors to provide what your customers really want.  But how do you know that you are doing this? Business Segmentation will point the way.

Market Segmentation

• Think about all the dimensions along which your customers may differ, especially those which will make them more or less attractive to you. 
• Common segmentation approaches include by demographics, product(s) purchased or geographic location, but there are often more subtle and insightful alternatives, perhaps by customer needs, buying behaviours or business model.  And is your segmentation detailed enough to separate the best customers from the rest?
• Recognising the different P&L performance of different segments, and understanding the underlying reasons for this, can transform the way you manage your business by helping you identify in detail areas of value creation and destruction, and by flagging up things you do well – and not so well.

Business Segmentation

• Most businesses use this approach to measure and compare internal performance – e.g. of different sales teams, or call centres, or production facilities. 
• You can and should go further and apply it more broadly to the activities that take place in the end-to-end process of producing and delivering your products or services – the “value chain”.
• First identify and map out these activities, right from sourcing materials and services, all the way through to maintaining after-sales relationships.  Then ask: what do the revenues and costs of each stage in the chain look like?  Which of them add the most value for your customers?  Which of them do you do better than your competitors?  Are there any which would be better outsourced to cheaper/more expert providers – or brought in house to increase your degree of control?

“69% of B2B buyers use social networks …for business networking and development" (KnowledgeStorm)

In most B2B sales ‘The Relationship’ is a key contributor to the buyer’s decision.  Social Media is all about relationships.

Here’s how to use Social Media to generate sales...

1. Put your ear to the ground:  In the online world this means using tools such as Hoote Suite and Tweet Deck to pick up chatter relating to your market sector - problems you can solve / products and services you can supply.  For example; if a complaint is voiced on Twitter about a competitor or their product – get in fast with advice and insight (but dont "sell").  If someone is seeking a recommendation of a supplier, offer a link to a resource that presents useful information (directly promoting is a no-no in Social Media).  ...If you read a complaint about your business – get in even faster to solve it! 
2. Engage:  Only 13% of people who consume content on social networks join one - and 60% will just gather information, never adding their own input ([Universal McCann/]).  This offers a huge opportunity to influence opinion for the few that do engage. 
3. Lead mining: Participating on social forums and using sites like LinkedIn is a great prospecting technique.  See who is talking about your area of expertise and might be good potential contacts.  Then learn everything you can about them: what are they interested in? what is their role? …This will provide valuable insight from which you can create customised offers that speak directly to their interests. 
4. Make sales:  71% of business people are using online media in some form to acquire new customers ([McKinsey/]).   How?  Through integration of your communications channels.  Social Media integrated with your PR, Blog(s) and email marketing increases marketing ROI by driving more interested prospects to your website - and to direct contact.

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To discuss Social Media services:  Click to request a call.

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If you can't measure it - you can't manage it.  Organisations go in the direction of what they measure...  So what are YOU measuring?

The three types of measures required to ensure short and long term success are:

1. Things that make your organisation better to do business with.  These are the outcomes and benefits for your customers.  To be able to measure here you need to be 100% clear about what customers really value (not necessarily what you believe they value).
2. Transactional.  Visible measures that are crucial to the running of your business i.e.  cash flow, the time it takes to deliver or support what you do, staff turnover.
3. Measures that give your organisation stronger relationships, with staff, customers, the community and other stakeholders.  These include the success of your organisational values or of environmental and community based initiatives.

Get the measurements right and you will experience the following:

• Customers that are committed to you as a supplier - and become advocates of yours
• Staff who are more productive
• Staff who are fully engaged with your organisation
• Staff who enjoy their work more
• Overall, a more sustainable business

Businesses follow their measure - that is why they have them - so it's vital to measure what makes an organisation better - not just busier.

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To discuss research:  Click to request a call.

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The secret of Online Marketing?

INTEGRATE EVERYTHING. Why? – because online, joined up means you are truly creating a web of interaction - and: “the whole… really is, …greater than the sum of the parts”.

Attracting real potential customers to your website - to understand more about your proposition, or to contact you, is the goal.  Therefore your website is the ‘Mother Ship’.  For it to function to maximum effectiveness it must be both technically attractive to the [search engines!] and also give the [individuals!] in your target markets who reach it, exactly what they are looking for.

The search engines evaluate how relevant to a given search each page of your website is (based on complex scoring systems). To appear at the top of search results requires keyword analysis and correct implementation of: the website meta content: the website structure: what you say on every page: how many relevant inbound links, directory listings, blog entries, social media buzz, media articles there are.

An individual arriving at your website within 4 seconds will decide if they stay to find out more, or seek their answer elsewhere.

So here, in a step-by-step 10 point prioritised list, is how to integrate your online marketing:

1. Use website analytics each month to review where the traffic is coming from.  Then see where the visitors go within your website.  Then keep tweaking and updating your content with the goal of channelling the visitor to the response outcome you want.
2. Optimise your website code and content – for the human visitor AND the search engines.
3. Gain inbound links from as many relevant websites as possible - linking is highly valued by the search engines and is also a prime way to lead people to your website. This must be an ongoing process as links go stale quickly – and there are always more you can get.
4. Distribute as much PR online as possible, all with links to your website.
5. Engage in business networking on the social websites.  These are increasingly becoming popular for business connections.  Monitor and contribute to the key industry online forums.
6. Send HTML and text emails to your customers and prospects, containing links to further resources within your website - and always include a call to action for further information.
7. INTEGRATE EVERYTHING by using content with embedded cross-linking throughout.
8. Pay for premium listings with the top business directories – these are really important for search ranking and are used by searchers seeking specific products and services.
9. Pay for banner adverts in your target markets’ leading online media – this is great awareness advertising and will bring qualified visitors to your website.
10. Register your organisation on every free relevant directory and portal website you can find.

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To discuss Online Marketing:  Click to request a call.

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Here are ten tips to help you through tough times:

1. Follow the money.  Act fast to focus on the profitable customers.  Find more of them, through targeted business development actions.  What is their profile?  Where are they?  How do you target them? 
2. Lock customers into longer contracts.  Use concessions to encourage them.  Reward (renewed) loyalty.
3. Maintain market share.  The businesses that came out strongest from the last recession were the ones which increased their marketing.  More than 20 studies, dating as far back as the 1920s, show that brands with sustained promotional expenditure through recessions have a competitive advantage by stealing share from brands which reduce their budgets.  It also demonstrates that the sales impact of budget cuts is long-lasting.  A brand that stops promoting for one year will take three to four years to return to a level of sales had its budget been maintained.  And even halving budgets for one year requires two further years to recover fully. 
4. Insist on measuring ROI from marketing.  Examine every aspect of your marketing and make sure it is achieving SMART objectives (Specific, Measurable, Agreed, Realistic, and Time-bound).
5. Understand customers.  There could not be a more vital issue.  Find that edge through constant research and discussion with your customers.
6. Offer guarantees and fixed-price deals.  Do everything you can to make buying from you a safer decision than your competitor.
7. Be prepared.  Every business owner we have spoken to who experienced the downturn of the early 90’s said they are already looking at cost base, credit terms and cash position.
8. But only cut back on the right things – not the easy things.  It is all too easy to hold back on expenditure such as technology upgrades or marketing.  But your operational efficiency and new business pipeline are mission-critical – especially in a downturn.  Don’t put off the hard decisions on head count and accommodation costs.
9. Gift-Horses can be dangerous.  Firms in financial difficulty often switch supplier – so be cautious of easily-won big orders from new customers.  Run credit checks!
10. Acquire the struggling.  Tough times always offer opportunities to cheaply grab customers and grow market share through acquisition of a competitor.

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