You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to come up with a good business marketing strategy, and it needn’t cost that much either.
At its simplest, a marketing strategy is all about improving your chances of making sales – usually by making more potential purchasers aware of your products or services, or by making them aware of its desirable qualities (perhaps including its price).
In any case it makes sense to optimise your budget. Given the choice between big-bang and little-but-often, good business marketing is less about getting big bangs and more about producing smaller amounts very regularly.
The impact of your marketing will also be improved greatly if you can use multiple channels.
Prospects in particular are more likely to become buyers if they read about your business in their newspaper, see your ads, find your website, enter your competition, take home a brochure, hear you speak at a seminar, and learn what a great company you are from a third party.
So you should spread your activity. You should also maintain the momentum: Business marketing is a long-term activity.
You don’t however need to spend big; most of the ideas in your marketing strategy are likely to involve moderate costs.
But it will require quite a lot of time and effort from you on a regular basis.
Most (but not all) take advantage of the fact that you have a computer and an internet connection.
The editorial content in newspapers and magazines carries a lot more weight with readers than the advertising.
Send out regular press releases, try to identify individual journalists to cultivate, offer your services to publications as an expert commentator, propose that you’ll write a free series of useful (and short) articles, sponsor newsworthy local events.
are a surprisingly powerful marketing tool, though its effectiveness may take time to become effective. If you have a local market, you probably read the same local newspaper as your target audience – and both of you probably read the letters page.
React to news items with letters to the editor: comment on new government policies and legislation, local issues (traffic and the environment are good candidates for a business’s viewpoint). Your letter can apply a spin that reflects your business’s concerns, and make sure your business’s name is part of your signature.
Collecting the names is the hard part, so give your prospects a reason for them to provide you with their name and address – competitions, an emailed newsletter, the promise of advance information and discounts, maybe even a loyalty card. Work at keeping your list accurate and up to date.
Try to get hold of email addresses as well as (or even in preference to) landmail contact details: email is cheaper and more versatile than postage, and it can be integrated more efficiently with other aspects of your marketing – notably your website.
If your database of names has been gathered in the normal course of business, you might not have to register under the Data Protection Act. This is a complicated area, however, and you should check the situation with the Information Commissioner (www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk).
Concentrate on customers more than prospects: they will be more valuable to you, both for repeat business and because they’ll act as a reference.
So be personal. Remember birthdays and anniversaries. Say "thank you” when they buy (if only by email). Offer them the chance to comment and criticise. Give them special offers not available to anyone else. Make sure they know that your Christmas ‘thank you’ gift is going to a selected few, and they’re in the group.
Ask them to check out new products or services: they appreciate being treated as special, and the risk is lower because they're more likely to buy. Look at their past purchase history if possible, and tailor special promotions to them.
Find out whether they prefer Christian names or a more formal mode of address, and make sure all your mailings and other communications use the appropriate salutation.
can be a good way to bump up sales volume, but they can also send a message about your business. It could be customer care (distribute them to favoured clients only) but coupons work better as a value-for-money flag. Distribute coupons in print advertising (cut here), by direct mail, by hand (on the street corner? At trade shows?), and even by email or on the web --“quote this reference to get your discount”. You can also include ‘next purchase’ coupons with customer orders.
Because the selling point is (usually) price, the coupon itself can be a simple quick-n-dirty production in terms of design and print.
are cheap and easy to produce, especially if you use colour on one side only. They can be mailed to prospects and stacked in help-yourself dispensers. And you can use them for a variety of marketing messages – see our new product, gasp at our new prices or our short-term cut-price promotion, enter the competition or the free prize draw (and get two entries if you give us a friend’s name and address).
A reply-paid licence makes it simple for someone to return the card; these are easy and economical to set up with the Post Office.
People love them, even if someone else is the winner. They are an excellent way to garner mailing list names while sending branding messages: the kind of contest your run implies the kind of company you are. Contests can also make for good PR, especially if there’s a fun element that will attract media coverage.
Give them something for free. People like to get gifts, even if they have to pay a premium price for a more expensive item to qualify for the freebie - a free makeup purse with purchases, wine and fruit in your room if you book the weekend break, a CD of business tips with every seminar booking, a pizza with every DVD film rented.
The aim here is both to boost sales and to tell the world that you’re a generous, value-conscious supplier. It also improves your competitive sell, since it becomes more difficult to compare like with like.
The customer gets a good deal, you get a keen customer (and their contact details). A simple approach is to give customers a card that is marked after each purchase and results in a free or reduced-price offering after a specified number of regular-priced purchases.
Easier to operate is a loyalty card scheme where regular customers get a discount on purchases on presentation of the card.
