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Chartered Marketer
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from The Sorath Partnership answers your marketing questions, 1 or 2 of which are featured in each issue of the cluster e-newsletter: December 2009/January 2010 Issue Q. My marketing manager keeps telling me that we need to capture more data on our customers that is personal. I am not sure how to do this or even why it is relevant. A. First of all this data is highly relevant as it will help you to build closer relationships with your customers. Once this happens you can lock out the competition more effectively and they will become less price sensitive. Collecting it is as simple as having discussions that cover wider issues than business. Ask how they got on at the weekend and encourage them to talk about themselves. Keep this information on the customer database for the sales and marketing teams to use in the future, both personally and for events. For example you may discover that a high percentage of your customers like golf and therefore a golf day may bring high returns in the form of a marketing event.
Q. I am looking to send out a direct mailer to the local business community offering some great support packages that I have recently put together. I have been a database that the previous marketing assistant of the company used so I thought I would use that. I have put together a letter with some information on the offer but it looks a bit bland. Can you please give some advice?
A. Of course. First of all make sure that you database is the right one to use - don't just use it because it is there. If it is more than a year old it is probably out of date now and it may not cover your target market. First of all you need to decide what the objectives of the mailer are; then what benefits your target market will get. From there you can confirm your target market and make sure that you have the right database. Make sure that you can measure response so you need to have the right 'call to action' or response mechanism in place. Finally make sure that your message is crisp and understandable.
Once you have all of this in place put together something that fits with your brand image. If you are sending to a business audience make sure that it is professional and clean looking - a covering letter will give more information but keep it to one page. Try to follow up with a phone call a few days later but not on a Monday or Friday!
I hope this helps you. If you don't think you are getting the right image across call in a design agency - that's what they are there for. October / November 2009 Issue Q: How important is it for everything I send out to have the same look? I hear so much about branding but don’t really understand why it is so important on everything. Isn’t it just a logo? R: Great question. Branding is VERY important and it is more than just a logo (although that is a good start). Whatever goes out to your audience gives an impression about your business. Individuals (including those in businesses) get thousands of marketing messages every day and it is important that any you send out not only stand out in the crowd of other messages, but also get reinforced by any other media that goes out from your company. For instance, you may have a yellow pages ad, a yell.com ad, something in the local paper, website and send out a flyer. If all of these have the same logo, colour scheme, font and theme they will be reinforcing the others, giving your company a lot more chance of being recognised when your audience are in the market for whatever your services are. You will get the opportunity over rivals who fade into the background because their image or brand isn’t so strong. So the short answer is that it is very important for everything to have the same look and feel. Q: I work for a company with quite a few staff. Many are ‘back office’ and just don’t seem to care about our customers – because they never see them. I read a lot that says everyone must be focused on the customer. How can I change things?
R: Unless you are the MD or have the ear of the MD you may struggle. Try leaving relevant articles in front of him/her, or emailing your concerns. You are quite right. Everyone has to be focused on the end customer and work as a team in order to make the company more efficient and effective – especially in today’s climate. This has to be driven from the top however, otherwise it won’t work. Customer based targets (such as customer satisfaction ratings) are a good start. Trying to get the back office team actively involved in some customer facing projects may be a way to make things change a little. There are many things that can be done from streamlining work processes to implementing targets that can have a positive effect – but culture change has to be high on the agenda too – and this starts at the top.
August / September 2009 Issue Q: We send out a lot of marketing literature – either as e-shots or mailers and never really get much in the way of return. Can you please help?
R: Well, there are three things to consider here. The first is getting the segmentation right and making sure that you are not sending out generic messages. The second is to make sure that you follow up the mailers with calls wherever possible. We know that the response rate for mailshots is around 1% – this goes up to 12% if follow up calls are included. Finally, make sure that you track the responses that you do get. Measuring your marketing allows to make sure that any ‘mistakes’ are not repeated and successful campaigns are. This saves money and resource as well as generating revenue.
Q: We’re really finding it hard in the recession to break even, never mind make a profit. What can you suggest? We are a small web developer and there are a lot of competitors in this area.
R: If you are a small company then you are likely to be better off as a niche company rather than trying to go for all sectors of business. You do not say whether you host sites as well, but if so this should give you some residual income. Is there a market sector that you have a greater number of clients in? Or, is there one that you feel more comfortable working with? If so, and if this is a large enough sector then why not specialise? Do you design your own sites or work with a designer (or both)? Partnering with a specialist design house can often help to generate throughput.
As you know, you need to make every penny spent worthwhile. Therefore it makes sense to really understand your current situation, where you can cut costs and what will give you the most opportunity. This includes looking at where your competitors are strong or weak, so that you can see where you can get into markets that they are not involved in or cannot compete.
I am sorry that I have asked more questions than I have answered, but if you can answer them you will be on the way to understanding the best way forward for your company.
June/July 2009 issue Q: I would like to do some more marketing but have very little budget. What can you advise? R: First of all understand who your target markets are. These markets may be corporates, other small to medium sized businesses, home users or public sector organisations (dependent on your services). Do you have a good story to tell – have you expanded, taken on new staff, launched a new product etc? Have you recently secured a significant deal with a client that would make a news story? Local PR, and better still trade PR, can be a good way of getting your name around for little money. Once you understand the market(s) you are in start by segmenting it between current customers and prospects. Understanding your current customers and what works for them will help you to market to prospects in a more targeted way - getting better results for your marketing budget. Keep in contact with your current customers via newsletters and the odd phone call – tell them what is happening in the industry and what you are doing as well as finding out how they are – don’t try and sell, just keep in touch. Knowing their buying cycle will also tell you when to just ‘chat’ and when to start selling. Give them an offer for introducing someone.
Make use of your customer database – and if you don’t have one then get started! Remember that people buy from people and just as your relationships with friends started with nothing and built up as you got to know each other – so it is with customers. A smile costs nothing and can reap rewards! (and make sure that all of your staff smile too as they represent your company and its image to your customers and prospects). Q: How do I go about building marketing messages about my company? R: In order to get the right messages you first must have knowledge of the audience's needs so that you can describe the benefits in relation to these. Then you need to know these benefits in detail in relation to competitor offerings and other unique selling propositions you have. Armed with this you can then build your basic message to market, tailoring it to meet the needs of each segment so that it hits the spot.
April / May 2009 Issue Q: I am a hardware reseller in the main and am finding it very difficult to compete against the large retailers. Do you have any ideas please?
R: You don't tell me what your other offerings are, but working in a commoditised market such as hardware, if is very difficult to get differential advantage without constantly dropping prices - which of course is not sustainable. In this current economic climate everyone is expecting a bargain and my suggestion is to take a step back and look seriously at what else you can offer. You must add value to your customer base and this usually happens via perceived service and high quality products. If you look deeply into what you do and what your customers want, I strongly suspect that you will find something other than pure hardware that will give you more to offer them. If you do this and give good value then you will have satisfied customers who will grow loyal and remain so - as long as you are delivering against their expectations.
Q: As a small web development company working with designers, I often feel that I am at a disadvantage and am thinking of taking on a designer in-house in order to compete more efficiently but am a bit concerned about the risk. Can you advise me please?
R: This is a difficult one to answer without knowing more detail about your circumstances. Sometimes it is better to have all the functions in house and other times it is better to stick to your core competencies and work with others. How much of your business comes through the designers that you currently work with? If it is a large amount, how easy will it be for you to go out to market to find new customers? How do people buy their websites? Often it is via a design house and so you would have to market yourself very differently from how you do today. A lot of the answer also depends on your company's financial circumstance - how much money is available to effectively re-brand and re-launch at least a part of the business? February / March 2009 Issue Customer Service – the ONLY differentiator Many companies react to slow times with price cuts and other monetary offers. Although these may result in a short term trickle (or flood if they are lucky) of business, this isn’t sustained. Even worse, their brand starts to become devalued as they compete on price not benefit to their customer. Whilst innovation in the form of new products and services can also help to keep a company ahead of the market, the only sure fire way of keeping a customer is to treat him or her how they want to be treated. There is an art to this but it starts with pleasant, polite and professional people (a different set of 4 P’s for the marketing people amongst you) who own problems and get them resolved – when they say they will. Q: Dear Julie, We introduced a small call answering system recently and have noticed that the number of calls (and therefore business) has dropped off quite dramatically. We have an 0845 number and so can track calls. We have found that nearly 50% of the calls only last for 10 seconds and are a little confused about this. Can you please shed some light on this? R: Of course. There could be a few reasons for this. First of all the calls are not getting past your call answering system which could mean that you have a message that customers simply don’t like. You may have your list of departments in the wrong order and people cannot be bothered to hang around, or they may not like the fact that there is not a ‘real person’ at the end of the phone. You should try and call in to see what you think – and get some friends to do the same and give you an honest answer about the system (and your staff when they get through to them). You could even try disconnecting the system to see if this makes a difference (but make sure that if you do, you cover every angle so that customers are not left hanging around waiting for people to answer). A phone call is the first introduction to your company for many people and so the service they get at this level determines all service in their perception. It is important that you get this right because so many companies do not. |
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