Marketing Manner

Marketing is tricky. While marketing efforts are supposed to be what turns your small business’s product into a household brand, marketing can also become a money drain if not conducted correctly. If you find yourself quickly sinking down the drain of inefficient marketing, turn your efforts around by following a few steps that will increase results, not increase your costs.
Trade More Expensive for More Effective
Any marketing that isn’t bringing in leads and making an impact on consumers needs to be eliminated. For instance, brochure printing and mailing to your most encouraging prospects or in response to direct inquiries are more promising rather than continuing to air lots of radio commercials that aren’t bringing in leads. Also, look at those areas in which you can increase exposure while cutting costs, for instance, a weekly email newsletter rather than monthly print newsletters.
Go After the Right Consumers
Don’t waste your valuable marketing dollars chasing those consumers who will never be interested in your products or services. Rather than sending your print brochures to everyone in town, reserve them for your target market. Instead of hanging print posters on every street corner, post them in the path of your intended audience.
Prepare a Better Message
Is your sales pitch all it can be? Does it really tell consumers why your product is the best, how it can solve their problems, make their life easier, and then some? If not, then you will need to revamp your message and print brochures and business cards and re-design your website to include this new approach. When making a purchase, customers don’t care about the history of your business and other irrelevant information. They want to know why they should be purchasing this product from you.
Use a Combination Approach
Limiting your marketing to only a few different media and materials will limit your results. Combine print brochures, email blasts, social networking, and more. Get creative and try some new methods of exposure. Accept speaking engagements, attend a trade show or two, hand out your print brochures during carnivals, if your target market will be there. Just remember to choose those marketing efforts that are bringing in new customers, otherwise your marketing will suck your pockets dry rather than increase revenue.
Commit to Daily Marketing Tasks
Write a portion of your newsletter. Send greeting cards to customers with birthdays this month. If you are the only one doing the marketing in your business, you may need to complete several tasks a day. What if you don’t have time to keep up with it all? Instead of hiring a new employee for marketing purposes, divide marketing tasks among current employees. Or, for less than hiring a marketing department, you can outsource your efforts to a marketing firm. You just need to decide which path will give you more for your marketing dollars.

Whether you are a new company looking for ways to make sure your brand is successful or a company that has tried and tried again but just can’t seem to get your brand to stick, there is a solution. When a brand flops, it is usually due to the same few mistakes. Your business can create a successful brand simply by knowing the most common reasons for branding failure and know how to correct them.

No Memorable Image – Some companies make the mistake of creating a logo without a memorable image. Make sure that the image in your logo is something that is uniquely yours and is appropriate for your company. The Nike swoosh image not only is one-of-a-kind but also appealing to their target audience – the swoosh looks athletic.

Inconsistency – In every single item that is associated with your company, whether color posters or packaging materials, consistently use the same core branding aspects. The same logo, company name, tagline will reinforce your brand over and over to the public. For the same reason, you will need to give employees the same business card design for further branding consistency.

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Word of mouth advertising is effective because it is trustworthy – when a friend or relative recommends a product or service, you know you can trust their opinion based on the history you have with them. Word of mouth advertising fits well into any budget because it is inexpensive, but it does take a concentrated effort. Here are some tips on how to encourage word of mouth advertising among your customers.

Give Rewards
The most obvious way to get your customers talking about your business is to offer them something in return. This should be a carefully thought out promotion or you may end up spending too much money in your promotional offers. Referral postcards are a great way to keep promotional offers within reason. Offer customers a few of your postcards at checkout. For each new customer who comes in with a referral postcard, the existing customer named on the card could be given 10% off one item or 20% off a purchase of $100 or more. You may want to offer the same special to the new customers as well. Continue reading »

When you read or talk about how the marketplace is changing, it’s generally linked somehow to the Internet, and technology that connects people to the Internet. The Internet has changed how businesses conduct their sales and marketing, as well as how they whole business operates (online-only businesses). The Internet has also changed how consumers research and buy products and services. The Internet has changed how people find and apply for jobs, and even what is sold. (What did Google start out “selling” anyway? Nothing. And Craigslist stays afloat without charging anything for classified ads (although, that’s starting to change in Craigslist’s bigger cities.))

Who would have thought that Wikipedia would render your parents’ Encyclopedia Britannica set useless? Wikipedia is not only as accurate as Encyclopedia Britannica, but is also over a hundred times larger.

Consumers also make recommendations to each other and discuss pros and cons of products and services in ways online that was never possible before the Internet. Now you can compare notes with people across the country, or even across the ocean. Homebuyers don’t have to consult realtors any more to browse available houses.

What do all of these changes mean for the marketing industry?

Plenty.

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Marketers need a blog. These days, blogs are more popular than forums or product review Web sites, and anyone can have a blog. It’s up to the marketer to find out what consumers are saying about your company on these blogs, and to either give out info that consumers need, or do damage control and correct the record when bloggers get something wrong about your brand.

Your company should already have some sort of Web site; a blog is the next logical step. But in addition to just having a blog, you should also be keeping closer track of the traffic to your blog. You need to have good visitor metrics and ways to find out what kind of people are visiting your blog. You should also think about video blogging, as that’s becoming more popular as well.

Texting. Texting consumers cell phones is also a new trend that seems to be growing. Many people say they don’t want marketing texts, but some marketers are having such success with texting that they keep doing it. This is an iffy trend right now that we’ll have to wait out to see how it flows.

Increasing your marketing budget, or better allocate your budget. If you can’t increase your marketing budget to include Internet ads, text messaging and newer technology, then you need to allocate your budget to include these tactics. Traditional marketing techniques like brochures, postcards and billboards still need to be used in addition to the newer marketing tactics. And if you can afford it, tweaking traditional tactics, like a billboard, into an electronic billboard is a great way to get consumers’ attention while integrating technology and traditional marketing.  

It didn’t occur to me until I read a recent blog about Army advertising that the Army shouldn’t really be advertising. Who else advertises for a chance to get yourself killed, and if not, you’ll get some money and good health benefits later? 

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not bashing the Army or any of the armed forces and I’m very thankful for all the women and men who are out there fighting for us and those that have been wronged. This post isn’t about whether the Army is right, I just want to talk about the Army’s advertising. 

In 2006 the Army recruited the McCann Worldgroup to come up with a new slogan, which is now “Army Strong.” You know how much this is costing the Army? $1 billion for five years. That’s right, the Army spent a billion dollars to use that slogan for five years. I hope that McCann is also doing all the advertising, which I would assume, but I know it’s dangerous to assume anything. Military.com just says that McCann signed a five-year contract with the Army, with $200 million guaranteed each year for the first two years. 

The Army did away with its previous slogan “An Army of One,” which it only used for six years. They decided to get a new slogan in 2006 because in 2005 they missed their recruiting numbers by the widest margin in more than 20 years. 

I guess it worked because in 2006, recruitment of 80,000 new soldiers was met. The “Be All You Can Be” slogan was used for almost 20 years, so the “An Army of One” slogan was just in infant stages before it was pulled. According to Military.com, the slogan “Army Strong” was “developed in numerous tests with focus groups and interviews with soldiers, is meant to convey the idea that if you join the Army you will gain physical and emotional strength, as well as strength of character and purpose.” 

The new slogan, along with an enlistment bonus topping out at $40,000 rather than $20,000 also helped the Army meet recruitment goals. Oh, and not to mention that they’ve lowered the bar on their standards. Many people that usually wouldn’t have made the cut are over in Iraq, fighting for us. People that don’t know how to shoot a gun straight, among other things. Scary, huh? Of course, I’m not going to talk too long about this, because I don’t see my butt getting up and going to Iraq, but it’s just sad that we are even in this situation. 

Anyway, back to my point. Most people know that the Army isn’t as glamorous as the ads make it out to be, yet these kids at 18 years old, seem to think it could be. They’re hoping it could be and they’re hoping for a change, and they see the possibility of that change that generally isn’t real in these commercials and ads. To me, the Army ads seem like any other kind of company, touting its benefits and hiding its negatives. Being truthful is at the top of the “required” list for a good ad. I wish the Army ads would just let people know what they are in for from the beginning.

The concept of a print and mail service is simple: you send a digital ad file to a company that will print and mail your ad, usually along with many others to make up a packet of ads, and the company will use their own mailing list for your ad. Bam! – thousands of new clients, just like that. You pay them one fee and they do all the work. If you use a few services at a time, you could potentially mail your ad to thousands of prospective buyers within weeks.

Sounds good, but unfortunately, it doesn’t work quite that smoothly.

Many print and mail companies don’t have a high level of return on the offers they churn out. I say churn because these companies often take as many advertisers as they can without care about the quality of the ad presentation. That means that you’d have to reach tens of thousands of people to get the same return on your offer that you would if you mailed out your postcard or print ad yourself. If you get a 3 percent return from mailing your offer by itself, you can expect to get about .5 percent return if you use a print and mail company, and oftentimes it’s even lower than that.

Why Such a Low Return?

The reasons for the low return rate are speculation from many differing Web sites and marketing experts. No one has done any official research into why the print and mail companies have such a low return rate. Here are a few reasons:

They have a non-targeted mailing list. For products or services that only a chosen population needs, a print and mail company’s list won’t do just because it’s not targeted. The list might be geographically targeted, but that’s about it. The mailing list is one of the most crucial, if not the most crucial, part of a successful direct mail campaign. Your ad can’t do any good if you don’t get it into the hands of the people who are likely to be interested in it.

Poor quality materials. Many print and mail companies use the thinnest paper they can and don’t use quality inks or quality printers. Many of the ads come out looking amateurish or even worse, smudged from the printer.

Double-sided printing. To cut costs and make a bigger profit, many print and mail companies will use double-sided printing, with two ads on one piece of paper. This makes the consumer have to choose between the two ads if there are coupons on each side: which one will the consumer give up? There’s a good chance it’ll be yours unless your product or service appeals to everyone, which is pretty hard to do.

Dishonesty in number delivered. There is no way of knowing if the company actually sends out as many ad packets as they say they do. If the company says it’ll charge only $3 per 100 ads sent out, how do you know that they are actually sending out 100 ads? Many companies cut costs and pocket profit by sending out a smaller number of ads than promised.

With all of these negatives associated with print and mail services, it’s smart to research the company before you hand over any of your hard earned money. Your best bet is to look for complaints on forums and Web sites and to compare the price of the print and mail service with the separate prices of using an online printing company (which is generally cheaper than an offline printing company) and mailing the ads yourself. It might take some time, but time is money and you don’t want to waste either element.

The low cost and easy design and printing of postcards is not the only reason that they tend to be one of the most popular direct mail ventures. They can also be incredibly easy to mail. Just follow a few simple guidelines to avoid returned mail or information covered by postal markings.

Mailing Layout

The back of the postcard can contain other information besides the mailing information but must follow postal placement rules. The bottom 5/8^th inches of a standard 5×7 postcard should be free of information, since this is where the post office prints bar codes. Keep the mailing address on the right, preferably no higher than 2 3/4^th inches from the bottom of the card. Also be sure to keep it above the bar code area. Leave enough room for the postal stamp in the upper right hand corner along with the postal date that the post office will stamp onto the card. If you include any other address on the back, besides the return or mailing address, be sure to leave off the state and zip code. The post office scans the lower 2/3^rd of postcards for the mailing address.

Mailing List

Whether you address the postcards yourself or use a mailing service, an updated client mailing list will save both time and money. One way to keep this list current is by including your return address. That way, the post office will be able to return the postcards with invalid or outdated addresses, and then you can delete those from your list. Two programs that can also help keep your list current are the NCOALink 18 and NCOA. These two programs alert you to whenever a change of address has been made at the post office. The difference between the two is that the NCOA keeps track of 48 permanent address changes, while the NCOALink 18 only provides information of 18 changes per address.

Use these guidelines for easier mailing whether you do it yourself or hire a mailing service. Just be sure to check with the service providers for their postcard mailing requirements, if you do decide to use help.

1.       Keep it interesting.  Obviously, your readers are not going to like your newsletters much if you throw in a bunch of junk material.  Make sure you use fresh and interesting content in each and every newsletter printing campaign that you send out. 

2.       Write short articles.  While all of your newsletter content must be interesting, it also should be short.  The simple fact is that most people have very short attention spans, especially when it comes to advertising literature.  Write short, interesting articles that your readers can digest quickly.

3.       Use some interesting visuals.  As important as the words are within your newsletters, the visuals are just as important.  Add some visually stimulating images that will attract the readers.  Be careful not to overdo it, though.  Too many images will simply overwhelm your readers.

4.       Organize your newsletters.  Make sure you design your newsletters in an organized format.  Use headings and subheadings, lines and bulleted lists.  Keep everything structured.  If you allow your content to look disorganized, it will confuse your readers and make you look unprofessional.

5.       Utilize lists.  Bulleted lists are easy for the reader to see and read.  If you can put some of your content into list form, it will really stand out to your readers.

6.       Offer free advice.  If you can add in some advice for your customers, and make it relate to your company in some way, your newsletters will be more effective.  People like to read things that help them improve some area of their lives.  This is especially true if you can offer money making advice.  That is always in demand.

7.       Make white space your friend.  A lot of businesses try to fill up every millimeter of available space when they design their newsletters.  Do not make this mistake.  White space is what makes the pages readable, so do not be afraid to leave plenty of white space in there.  Leave some room between all of the portions of your newsletters, and it will be much easier to read.

8.       Calendars are nice.  If you can add some type of calendar to your newsletter, it will make it more useful for your readers.  If you write a monthly newsletter, simply throw in a month-long calendar and list business related events on it.  Many of your readers will use the calendar for their own purposes, meaning your newsletter will be looked at quite often.

9.       Don’t forget the offers.  Every one of your newsletter issues should include some kind of benefit for your readers.  Include a special offer or a coupon or something that will make reading the newsletter worth their while.

No one buys anything from a person or business he doesn’t trust. You wouldn’t buy a car from a dealer you thought was ripping you off, or from a salesperson who you thought wasn’t being honest with you, right?

Most people have always gone into a skeptical mindset when they make big-ticket items, like televisions and cars, but that skepticism is leaking into smaller purchases too. With all of the hyped-up advertising, with promises that can’t be delivered, you can’t really blame consumers for being cautious.

It’s precisely this reason that you need to use marketing techniques that put customers’ minds at ease. Here are a few ways to get trust from your customers, which is a first step to making any sale:

Testimonials
People believe what other customers have to say about you and your product more than they’ll believe what you have to say.

Using testimonials in your catalogs, brochures and other marketing materials is what will convince people that your product is the best, that it works and that it won’t break.

Get testimonials by asking customers what they liked about your product or service and how it helped them. Ask if you helped them solve a problem – these kinds of benefit testimonials work especially well. Write down their comments, and get their written permission to use them. It helps if you offer a discount or something valuable in exchange for their time. But, be sure you get the testimonial before you offer the discount or you might be called out for bribing your customers!

Write articles to establish yourself as an expert
Writing free articles for your local newspaper or magazine can be a great source of getting trust from the community. Write about what you know – your industry or your type of product – but don’t only talk about you and your product. In fact, it’s best if you don’t mention your affiliation at all in the article. Your name, occupation and/or business name will most likely be in the credit line. You might also get a headshot to accompany the article. People want to buy from those they think are knowledgeable – knowledge equals trust.

Ask for referrals
Give out your business cards to your customers and ask if they know anyone who might need your service. You can also ask your friends and family to ask their friends and family for referrals. Also, try some networking events like social industry dinners – they can be great places to strike up a conversation and find someone that might need your product, or knows someone that might need your product.

Personalize your direct mail
Use people’s names on letters and postcards – people will be more apt to read something that is addressed to them by name rather than to “Dear customer.” You trust someone that you know personally, and using names are an easy way to evoke trust. Also, try to get to know your target market – whether they have kids, pets, etc. and use that info in your direct mail pieces. “Now that your kids are about to go back to school …”. Make people think your direct mail is talking directly to them.

Lastly, once you establish a contact, keep following up periodically. Once a month or once every other month is good – enough for them to remember you, but not enough to annoy them. Once you earn consumers’ trust, the rest of the sales process is much easier!

How much money do you have to blow on marketing? Unfortunately you’re going to need at least a little money set aside to take care of your marketing, so how can you make that budget stretch as far as possible?

Let’s look at posters as a good example. First off, posters are a rather cheap form of marketing to begin with; you just have to put more of your time into it. Time isn’t the easiest thing to come by, but often you’ll have more time on your hands than you’ll have money, or that’s how it usually is for me.

But before I go into the footwork of posters, let’s go back to the ways of stretching your marketing buck. If you’re going to buy posters you’re going to want to go with wholesale printing and get the biggest order that you can.

See, the thing about printing is that the most expensive part of the printing process is typically going to come from actually printing the design as opposed to the number of posters you’re getting done.

To make it a little clearer, when a company first prints your order they need to set up the equipment to get your order going, and this start up is where the bulk of your costs will lay. So let’s say you’ve designed a poster that promotes your company but isn’t limited by any kind of timeframe—no upcoming sale or something like that.

What you can do is get the biggest order possible and set aside the extras for future use. You can get a massive order of color posters for cheaper than it would’ve taken to do two orders. Really, it comes down to planning ahead to what you’re going to need later on rather than just what you need at this moment.

Ah, the horrors of planning ahead. I swear a lot of people seem to fear this concept as if it were a virus. They live so thoroughly in the moment without any care for what tomorrow holds.

If you want to save your cash, then you need to know about these kinds of things and get the proper sized order.

Now, as for the time investment I mentioned earlier, the other great thing about posters is your ability to go yourself and put them up at various locations. You don’t have to pay to mail them out to a bunch of different people when you can just go yourself and have them at specific locations.

It might not be the fastest way you can get those posters up, but it will get them up, and the only thing you will have lost is time and a little bit of gas—or just walk if gas prices are getting you down.

Welcome to the world of inexpensive marketing. It isn’t the most entertaining thing, but it still works.