30 RANDOM MARKETING STRATEGIES
Believe you can do it
This may seem obvious but a lot of people don’t believe they can be successful. You must completely believe in what you are doing. It will almost certainly be hard work but you must keep your eye on the prize and persevere. Other people may criticize, turn their noses up or laugh at you (this may even be jealousy because others may not like it if you become a success) but ignore all of this and stick with it. You may also need to be patient because as the old saying goes “Rome wasn’t built in a day”. It may take months or even years to achieve your goal but, keep focused, don’t lose sight of the fact that you need to believe in what you are doing and enjoy it!
Manners cost nothing and can earn you a fortune
Respect and politeness and generally being nice to people costs you nothing but can be greatly valued by your customers. A smile from you, thanking them for their custom or just for their time will make them feel better about themselves and about you!
Make time for everyone, thanking people for their business or just for the time they have taken to speak to you. Also thank the people you work with, or who work for you, because if you make them feel good they will do their best for you and you will also be leading by example. Make sure that you instill this into the people that work for you. The philosophy of ‘treat others how you wish to be treated yourself’ can go a long way to making the day for you, and everyone around you, a whole lot happier!
That little bit extra
Try to think of everything when it comes to servicing and looking after your customers. Try to position yourselves above your competitors by adding something a little bit different and better than what they are doing. Ask your customers what extra service they might like or come up with a list of extra services you could provide.
Even something as simple as taking a little bit extra time to clean up properly after a job will leave a lasting impression with your customers and will go a long way to ensuring repeat business and recommendations
You can also learn from other businesses, in fact you can learn from businesses of any type, by taking note of what they are doing and then do it your own way but better. Just be aware when you purchase something what little extras you are being given or offered and in the different ways that they are being offered to you. Are they offering something extra that makes all the difference to you? And if so, could you apply the same kind of thing to your business?
This also works the other way round, if you experience something that you don’t like and you realise that maybe the same things are happening in your business, take note and use this as a positive message to change.
Be more aware of the ‘added extras’ and how this could be applied to what you do.
Don’t be a sheep!
More often that not in life we are ‘sheep’, we follow the flock – we do things because everyone else has done them or because it’s the easy option. People who are successful are the leaders – they make the breakthroughs and others follow. Don’t be afraid to follow your own hunches and have a go – others may laugh at you and you may fail but at least you can say – ‘I tried’. You never know it could be the key to your success.
99% of business owners are doing the same as everybody else, the other 1% of business owners are doing things a little different and as a result have very successful businesses.
Be the best (not the cheapest)
Position yourself as the best in your area of business and adjust your prices accordingly. It is all very well when competitors try to undercut each other but the only person that wins out at the end of the day is the customer! It is better to offer top quality products and services at realistic prices than trying to cut corners to undercut your competitors.
You do you want to end up providing low-quality goods/services, and making minimal (if any) profits, to customers who want to pay the lowest price and often keep you waiting for your money for as long as possible.
Most customers will not always go for the cheapest. Remind your customers that you are the best and always strive to be the best. Once people start using a product or service that they are happy with they will tend to stick with it even if they have to pay a little more to get it.
You must test putting your prices up by a small percentage across the board - just think how that will add to your profits over a year!
Get a Mentor
There are a few reasons why it is a good idea to use a mentor or coach.
The first is if you use a mentor it will help you stick to your goals. If you make a plan to do something important in your business but only make this plan with yourself, the chances are that you will not do it and let yourself and your business down. If you have told a mentor what your plans are he will come along once in a while and ask how you are getting on. If you have done nothing, you will not only have let yourself down you will have let them down as well. So to save yourself the embarrassment of telling your mentor you have failed to carry out your plans you will make things happen.
The second reason is a mentor will probably be impartial. If you have some outrageous ideas your mentor will almost certainly tell you. If your ideas need a bit of tweaking, through their experience and knowledge they will be able to offer their ideas to help.
Thirdly, a mentor is someone who has been there, done it and made all the mistakes that are waiting for you ahead, a mentor will not only help you avoid some of those mistakes they will also help you get to your goals a lot quicker than you would have done without them.
Don’t be self-important
Avoid the tendency to talk down to your customers. Some people in business think it makes them look good if they create a veil of superiority and self-importance around themselves. This couldn’t be further from the truth. You will get on much better in business if you talk to your customers in everyday language, explaining what you can do for them and what it means to them.
Remember this; The customer is not always right, they just need to think they are!
Don’t be afraid of success
There are many factors that contribute to success or failure. You can’t become successful unless you really believe in it and are not afraid of it.
Although many people are hungry for success, they often have beliefs that prevent them from achieving it. Developing a successful business can be a massive responsibility, which some people may not be able to deal with. It is no wonder that people are scared of success. To achieve it requires discipline, determination, a strong self-belief and a lot of hard work! People who are really successful do not blame themselves if everything doesn’t work out the way they planned. The fact is that you are already successful. When you can accept this fact you will be able to expand on it and live a satisfying and abundant life.
And finally, don’t be afraid! Fear is one of the hardest obstacles to overcome when embarking on a new project. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Just do it!
Employ people with the right attitude
Your employees are the people your customers meet and deal with on a daily basis. Make sure you employ people with a positive and happy attitude. This will please your existing customers and encourage new customers. The right attitude is the most important asset your employees can have – other skills can be taught – attitude can’t!
I recently attended a seminar with a guy called 'Felix Dennis' (look him up on Google) who at the time was worth well over £500 million and ran numerous worldwide businesses. Someone asked Felix what he felt was the most important thing to look for when you are considering hiring a new member of staff, his answer was Attitude. He went on to say you should hire the best possible people you can afford, and above all they must have the right attitude.
Build a good reputation
A good reputation can take a long time to build but it can be lost in an instant. Be honest – customers like nothing better than dealing with businesses they can trust. Sympathise and listen to your customers needs and develop good business relationships with your customers. Do not 'bad mouth' your competition – it only makes you seem bitter and unprofessional.
Ensure that you give the best customer service possible at all times. Supporting local good causes is also a good idea, it won't cost much but can generate lots of goodwill and often valuable advertising.
Guarantees
A great way to dramatically increase potential customer confidence is to offer a guarantee. This could be in the form of a 30 day money back guarantee, a guarantee that if the customer is not happy they are not under any obligation to pay or you could also guarantee that your products or service is delivered within a certain time frame. This will make your customer feel really confident about the quality of your products and service and will assure them that you care more about the service you are giving than just making a one-off sale.
Free surveys
This is a service you can also offer to your existing customers and prospective customers. It means carrying out a free survey of their needs and presenting them with a free report which would also include a quotation for any works you feel is neccesary.
For example if you are an electrician you could visit your customers home and carry out a no obligation free survey of their existing electrical wiring, noting any repair work or updates needed to meet new legislation. You would then provide them with a properly presented report outlining an estimate of what it would cost to carry out the work and the guarantees that you offer.
Offering your free surveys in your Yellow Pages adverts or in any of your other advertising can give you the edge, especially if your competitors are not doing it.
Offer something of real value for free
Instead of just trying to sell to new customers it can be very effective to offer a free product as a way of generating new leads.
What can you offer for free? It is well worth spending a couple of hours brainstorming ideas about what you can offer to potential customers for free.
You could compile a report containing important and interesting information relating to your businesses that your potential customers would find valuable. ie. if you ran a Property Maintenance company you could compile a report called '10 Top Tips to Impove the Value of Your Home' every home owner would be interested in it and you could give it away to potential customers in exchange for their contact details.
If you offer something of perceived value for free to all of your potential customers in all of your advertising or communications it will massively increase the response rates of your marketing and advertising, once you have the contact details of your potential customers you can sell to them forever.
Systemize
Your business, like any part of your life, needs to be highly organised in order to run smoothly. A lot of the things we do on a day to day basis are repetitive and therefore it should be possible to get someone else to start doing some of that work. You want to make the time to work on your business to make it more streamlined, rather than always working in your business doing the technical work.
If you get your business more streamlined and organised it will be easier to delegate more work to others. Ideally you want all areas of your business to run like clockwork so that you can concentrate on creating new products/services and explore new marketing and income opportunities.
Use these points to help you build your business around a system so that you are able to efficiently use your own time to its optimum effect.
> Hire good employees. Having people who are smart and on the ball allows your business to work to its utmost effectiveness. When you must delegate an important task you can be confident it will be completed in time and be done well. You will not be tied up working on a task that could easily be done by someone other than yourself.
> Should you enroll your employees on a training course? If you want your work carried out quickly and to a very high standard you will need to get some staff training. Training on the job is an option but it my take longer and slow up production. Out of hours training given by yourself is the best option if you have the time, and you can instill all of your experience and knowledge into the training which will help your member of staff get a feel for how you like things to be done.
> Create company goals. Having company goals makes it very clear to your employees and clients (and to yourself, if, in the hustle and bustle of life you ever forget what your business is all about!) what your purpose is. It will also help you and your employees to remember where the company is going and the kinds of things you stand for as well as the kinds of things you want out of life.
> Have a plan. If you have a plan for things, you will be prepared and your business will run smoothly, regardless of what happens.
> Create good procedures. Each kind of business has a set of processes associated with it. McDonald's has a set of procedures that they follow to the letter. All McDonald's franchises follow a certain set of processes, from recruiting to taking orders to opening and closing. Each employee has a duty and once they accomplish that thing they move onto the next one. If your company could function in a similar way it could almost run without you.
Think about if you had to give your business over to someone else tomorrow, would that person be able to run your company smoothly, based on the systems you have in place today? If the answer is yes, then you probably already have a good system in place. But if your answer is no, then you should seriously look at the suggestions above to help your business run to its ultimate potential which will free up your time.
Delegation
This follows on from the previous point. If you have systems that others can follow, you must delegate this work to them. It might feel like you are getting rid of the work you don’t want to do by palming it off onto your employees but it is important that you free your time up so you can plan and manage your business.
Give it a try, the benefits will clearly be as follows:-
Benefits to you
Eased work pressures - not dominated by minor details
Increased time for planning and management responsibilities
Increased time for product development and marketing
Benefits to your employee
Challenge and interest
Increased motivation
Increased opportunities to learn and grow
Build trust between you and your employees
Building a trusting relationship between you and your employees can only help to oil the cogs of your business and make the working day run more smoothly.
The following are suggestions that will help you build trust with your employees:-
Do not monitor every aspect and moment of their working day. When they realise that you trust them to do their jobs effectively without supervision it will motivate them to be more independent.
Do what you say you are going to do. This is probably the quickest way to obtain trustworthiness. Do you do what you say you are going to do? If you tell someone you are going to do something, write it down so you don't forget and then do it. If you tell someone else to do something for you, write it down so you don't forget and then check up with them to make sure the task has been completed.
No surprises. The more you can get rid of negative surprises from your dealings with your employees, the more trust you will build. IE. The sooner you tell your employees that a particular job needs finishing before you can all go home the better, if you leave it until 5pm before telling them the good news you will only lose respect.
Communicate. One way to quickly build trust is to improve your communication with your employees. The more open and frank your communication, the more trust you will build with your employees. The amount of communication you have with your employees should not be underestimated. The more often you communicate with someone, the more opportunities you have to build trust.
Determine expectations. Clear expectations are critical to building trust. The more clear you are on what you expect from others, the easier you will find it to build trust.
Make em laugh
Most businesses would not dream of using humour as an asset in marketing their business or products. Instead they send out dull and uninteresting information that is read and then forgotten. Using humour may just make the difference in making your service stick in the customers mind. People are more likely to remember something that makes them smile and feel happy. Take a light-hearted approach – but do not be rude or offensive. Let your customers know that although you have a serious job to do you do still have a sense of humour!
Does humour always work? Nothing works 100%, but it’s good to have the odds in your favour and humour can only help.
Using good humour is all part of the job of customer service. The customer should enjoy their dealings with you. When things go right, it’s great. When things go wrong, good humour and attitude can help us tough it out.
Have a mission, your customers will appreciate it
What is a mission statement? It is a short, memorable and believable sentence that states what your company stands for. Your mission statement is an opportunity to define your business at the most basic level.
Why have a mission statement? It can give your customers and your employees a belief in what you are doing, I personally know what I want and I don't need a mission statement to make me feel good, however it doesn't hurt to remind yourself every now and again why you do what you do and what/who you are doing it for.
Here are a few pointers on how to get started with writing a mission statement:-
> It should be about you, your company, and your ideals. Have a read of some mission statements of other companies to give you some ideas, and then write your own but make sure you actually believe in what you’re writing.
> Your mission statement should be able to stand up to changes that may come up over time in the products or services that you offer. A bubble wrap producer is not in the business of producing bubble wrap; they are in the business of supplying protection for items that need to be stored or shipped. The broader understanding helps them see the big picture.
> Make it short and sweet, three or four sentences long max.
> Ask your employees for their thoughts and input. Is it a clear and an easily understood statement?
> Do not just say how great you are, what great quality and what a great service you provide.
> Having a mission statement outlines the focus of what your business is about, for you, your employees and your customers.
Diversify - Building your 'back end' of products and services
Diversifying is a really good way to grow your business, as it allows you to have multiple streams of income that will increase sales and profit margins.
Here are several different ideas of how could diversify in your business:
Sell extra products or services that complement what you are already selling
Offer coaching, training or other types of classes in what you do
Sell other peoples products/services to your existing customers
Write reports or books about your area of expertise
Target other markets
Your current market may be serving you well but are there other markets you could target - of course there are! Think about where these people spend most of their time, could you introduce your business to schools, clubs or colleges? You could offer discounts to special-interest clubs or donate part of (your profits) to schools and associations. Let your imagination take you where you need to be. Then take your product to the markets that need it.
Expand onto the Internet
Bill Gates said that by the end of 2002, there will be only two kinds of businesses: those with an Internet presence, and those with no business at all. Perhaps this is slightly exaggerating the case, but an effective web site is being seen more and more as a vital part of every businesses marketing mix.
Getting your web site recognized on the search engines results is essential. More than 80 percent of traffic comes via search engines. As there are now more billions of web pages and traffic on the Internet is increasing at an alarming rate, making sure that your customers can find your web site is an absolute must.
The design of your web site is also important it should be simple and easy to navigate but it is the content of your site that will get a visitor interested.
Write the content based on researched keywords this will get you excellent search results and in turn meet the needs of your customers.
Increase your customers
You can increase the number of customers you have by reaching new customers with what you already offer or by developing a new product or service. Some questions you need to ask yourself to increase your number of customers are:
> Who has a real need for the product/service you are selling? Does my product meet that need in a manner that either saves money or provides additional value?
> How much, if anything, are my customers spending to address that need today?
> How many of those potential customers are there? How do I reach them?
> Do my existing customers know any potential new customers?
> Who already has my potential customers on their customer list?
Answering these questions will help you in your quest to seek out new and exciting opportunities which will bring you the new customers you need to grow your business.
Customer research will give you a keen understanding of their needs and can help you to develop your marketing materials that will help you to communicate more effectively with your existing and new customers.
Increase your customers’ frequency of purchase
The fastest way to increase your customers’ frequency of purchase is by making it as simple as possible for your customer to do repeat business with you. If you make it as easy as possible for customers to buy from you, in relation to your competition, then they will continually come to you with their business. This is, of course, assuming that your products or services are comparable to, or better than, that of your competitors.
Here are a couple of pointers you could consider improving upon:
A quicker response to enquiries, calls or emails
Follow-up and follow-through from meetings
Follow-ups after quotes have been given
Accurate and timely billing
These points may seem like common sense, but just think about how many suppliers you do not use anymore because they were too difficult to do business with. Do not let yourself become one of them to your customers.
Referrals
One of the easiest ways of getting new customers into your business is through your existing happy customers recommending you. This is also one of the cheapest ways of marketing your business as it costs practically nothing. If you can build a referral system into your business it will help you to maximise the amount of referrals you receive. You need to make your existing happy customers aware that you would like them to recommend you. Mention this in your emails or telephone calls to your existing customers and you will find that your referrals will increase. Ask your customers if they are happy with your work and if they are if they know of anyone who could benefit from your services - if you don't ask you don't get!
Service (the most important thing)
More often than not we are so busy focusing on getting the product right that we forget about service. Great service costs very little or nothing but the returns that you get from giving a good service are huge.
Handle complaints positively
In a perfect world we would not even have to talk about receiving complaints but as we are only human (and mistakes happen) we will undoubtedly, at some point throughout our business lives, receive a complaint. However, we should try to look on a complaint as being an opportunity rather than a problem. If a complaint is handled and sorted properly it can lead to a stronger bond between yourself and the complainer.
Here are a few pointers to dealing effectively with complaints:-
> Listen carefully to the customer and let them know that you are listening. Repeat what the customer has said to make sure there are no misunderstandings.
> Let them know you understand how they feel and that you take the complaint seriously - be sympathetic and show that you want to help.
> Apologise for any inconvenience caused and admit that there is a problem or you made a mistake.
> If there is no clear course of action (ie. replacing faulty goods) ask what the customer would like you to do or offer an explanation and other solutions.
> Do not blame anyone or make promises you can't keep.
Benefits, Benefits, Benefits
Most companies get it wrong when quoting for work, the last statement on the quote is usually the price. You really need to follow the price with a list highlighting the benefits and guarantees that the customer will receive if they place their order with you. This will leave them feeling that they are getting more than just the product from you and will make them feel that they are getting more for their money.
Testimonials
Most people do not like asking for testimonials but they are a very effective way to let your prospective customers know how good you are without blowing your own trumpet.
Positive comments given by your existing happy customers can be worth their weight in gold and are more believable than your own PR.
Just ask your customers if they are happy with the work you have done for them and, if they are, would they mind putting down a few words to that effect so that you can use it in your marketing materials. Most people will be flattered that you have asked them for their views and will be willing to help. You can also use these testimonials on your web site and offer to include a link to your customers web site to encourage them to give the testimonial - again if you don't ask, you don't get!
Communicate with your customers
Never underestimate the power of communication. You should constantly be in contact with your existing and potential customers, ideally every couple of weeks either by phone, email, direct mail etc. You need to be constantly reminding them that you are there should they need you, keeping them up to date with any new products or services you have to offer, or even just wishing them Happy Valentines Day or whatever, just don't let them forget about you. Using something that is currently in the news or something that people are talking about is good. For example I once sent an email to all my existing customers the day after we had had a particularly stormy night making sure that they had not blown away - I was amazed at how this prompted people into contacting me about placing orders that had been at the back of their minds - just give it a try and see.
Fulfill your dreams
Make a list of the things you want to achieve and keep it somewhere safe. Take a look at it regularly and update it as necessary – if you’ve got no written plans of what you want to achieve in your business and in your life then you will find it more of struggle to get to where you want to go.
You wouldn't build a house without any plans, if you did it would take longer to build and it would cost you more money, if you have some plans it will make life a whole lot smoother.
Now, Fight the Credit Crunch...
Your business or its profits will not change overnight. You have to start somewhere and the ideas given here will hopefully give you some useful and informative ways to make that start. Even if you just pick the points that most appeal to you and give them a try, I am convinced you will be pleasantly surprised!
Don't hesitate, just do it, if you take action on all of the above it will make a big difference to your profits and I am sure it will help you to Recession Proof Your Business.
As I have said before, it does not matter if you have heard about the strategies contained in this site or not, all that matters is...
ARE YOU DOING THEM !
