Tag: marketing

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It all came down to a customer mailing list

An upmarket stationery business moved its location in a shopping mall for a smaller space because of the economy.

All well and good but business in the new location has been slow.

What’s happening, I asked.

I was told that the business was slow in the new location but they were hoping that things would pick up. After a few questions, I found out that the stationer had not informed its customers of the move, except for a sign on the outside entrance and word-of-mouth. That’s it. Oh, one other thing, they had developed a website to attract customers. How? Continue reading “It all came down to a customer mailing list”

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How to promote yourself and your business without TV appearances and display ads?

We’ve all seen the rise of the celebrity entrepreneur, business people who have been able to create public personas that help them promote their products, services and brands.

The exposure of a company on TV is worth millions. Just think of entrepreneurs such as Sir Alan Sugar, Donald Trump, Sir Richard Branson, Simon Cowell and Martha Stewart who have chalked up many accumulated hours’ worth of television coverage. Continue reading “How to promote yourself and your business without TV appearances and display ads?”

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Direct sales by local farmers can help slay yucky-tasting greens

I have a big problem with vegetables that I eat in restaurants – and that’s if you can find them anyway. The restaurants I go to – and these are nothing fancy let me assure you – are really a mixed bag when it comes to vegetables.

Most of them have no vegetables on their menu – can you believe it? Now I’m not talking about salads. I’m talking about real vegetables such as carrots, green beans pumpkin and so on. Another chain restaurant serves its “vegetables” but they are heavily spiked with sugar and cream sauce (if I really wanted to eat flour I would ask for it). Others drown their “roasted” vegetables in so much heavy oil that you wonder the impact on the environment let alone your stomach. Continue reading “Direct sales by local farmers can help slay yucky-tasting greens”

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Glib green marketing gets sustainability crowd all frothed up

A digital ad campaign for Clorox Green Works mocked people who are conscious about their impact on the environment and the products and services they buy. If you’d like to see the ad, check it out on the Internet.

While many sustainability professionals are calling for boycotts of the product, perhaps what needs to be looked at more closely is the publicity people. They need to be better informed about what eco-friendly products are really all about. Continue reading “Glib green marketing gets sustainability crowd all frothed up”

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What a start-up really needs to know about marketing

Original Recipe Chutney

What does an entrepreneur need to know about marketing to win with their new product or service?

Let’s first see what marketing is and what it isn’t for the start-up business.

Marketing is about offering a potential customer a product or service that meets or fulfills a need, want or desire that they already possess. Don’t let statements like marketing “develops a demand for your product or service” mislead you. Demand must already exist in your potential customer, even an unmet need. For a small business to try create demand is simply foolishness. Yes, you can offer potential customers a product and service that satisfies the need that they already have but you really can’t create the need, want or desire in them. You need to channel their demand towards your product or service. Continue reading “What a start-up really needs to know about marketing”

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Is your business personality out of whack with your customers?

When the personality of a business matches its customer profile success follows. But a mismatch can spell trouble. Find out what business personality disorders to watch out for before they hurt your business performance.

A small business reflects the personality of its owner. This can be advantageous when the business owner’s personality enhances the business by attracting customers. But when the personality of the owner and the business are out of sync with prospective customers, poor performance is often the unfortunate consequence.

The personality of a business maybe isn’t so important when it has little competition but when competitive intensity increases, business owners need to examine and assess their business personality. They need to make plans to shape it into a clear, deliberate and visible identity that carefully selects the customers they wish to attract.

A match made in restaurant heaven
Let me show you an example of a business owner whose personality is working for his business. I’ll take you to a restaurant in a competitive main street where many similar restaurants are competing for the same market. The owner, a young chef who recently bought the business, decided not to make sudden changes when taking over the restaurant. He first wanted to get a feel for what his customers want. Yet his personality, friendly and enthusiastic is already projecting a fresh vibe, retaining existing customers and attracting new ones.

When personalities clash
Take the opposite end of the spectrum. Here’s another restaurant that had an attractive name, fresh approach and was growing until the new owners decided to change everything – the name, décor and menu — to match their personalities. Don’t get me wrong, the restaurant is a wonderful eatery with a New Age vibe of harmony and colour. But the problem is that it is located in an area where they don’t have customers to fit this profile. Competition is brutal leaving no room for mistakes like this. A trickle of customers frequents this restaurant and it’s sad to see their live musician in the early evenings playing to no-one.

How long can they go on this way? This is the kind of business that adds to the high small and medium size business casualty rate of more than 70% business failures in the first five years.

Projecting your personality onto your business without conscious awareness of your market can backfire badly.

Compare this restaurant to another that is quiet, clean, well kept with instrumental music from yesteryear playing and an efficient, attentive, old style service restaurant owner. Many people would find this place boring. But he’s selected his customers. By 10:00 am the place is packed with patrons, mostly retired women.

This restaurant owner has matched his business personality to his customers perfectly. He has created the ambience his customers want. It feels like being in a time-warp with crack sharp service, soothing old music and pristine cleanliness but it is working.

A business can establish its personality to attract the customers it wants. The right approach can entice a profitable section of the market. For example, a new band has broken into an overtraded market with a unique three-piece instrumental outfit. It is working, having drawn a niche from the younger customers looking for something different. But this strategy could have easily backfired. The risk is knowing that the market has the right type of customers in sufficient numbers.

Coherence counts when customers have much choice
Whatever your business personality, you need a unified through-line across your business so that it has a coherence in the mind of your customers and prospects. All the little inconsistencies can add up to a pretty disjointed, chaotic business personality which will be off-putting to customers. If you have these inconsistencies, they will stand out for all to see. For example, if your business projects friendliness but you are rude to customers and keep them waiting for their orders, then your business personality is inconsistent.

Putting it all together
How does a small business owner, once aware of their business personality, manage all these elements? It all starts with a close inspection of everything that makes up their business. Sometimes it would be good money spent to bring in a pair of fresh eyes to assist. But the consultant would need to have a proven track record, and more importantly, a passion for this type of work. For small and even medium size businesses managing all these elements can be challenging at first. But once the business owner understands what personality their business is projecting and how it affects customer buying, they are well on their way to make the necessary adjustments to match their business to their customer profile.

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Generate publicity without breaking the bank

Recent reports reveal that small business closures are up dramatically. Publicity plays a vital role in gaining the right sort of attention for your business to keep existing customers and win over new ones.

Winning the attention of customers and prospective customers is one of the more important priorities as small businesses fight for survival in these difficult economic times. Publicity helps businesses get noticed without forking out a lot of money. Though the attractive thing about publicity is that you don’t need to invest a lot of marketing cash to get results, you need to invest your time. Doing publicity yourself involves thinking about your strategy, coming up with unusual ideas that fit your business and implementing them with consistent follow-through.

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How to free your creativity to generate ideas

Warning: using your creativity is risky. © C Bradshaw 2011

Need to produce ideas to start a new venture, come up with a product or service or promote your new business? Do you want to release your latent potential? Is there a low-cost way to quicly learn how to produce ideas almost instantly?

A simple but effective technique for producing ideas has been around for some time and it is finding new applications in business whether you run a kitchen table outfit, small business, consulting practice, work for a corporate or in manufacturing.

Before you stop reading because you erroneously believe you are not creative or that this technique is for creative people like artists and writers, consider its new applications for business. Let me explain.

Silence your internal critic

The technique is freewriting and involves writing quickly without stopping for a set time (ten minutes or longer once you’ve got used to it) without regard to spelling, punctuation or grammar. Even writing gibberish or babble is OK. In fact, you don’t need to write complete sentences — just keep your pen or keyboard moving as fast as you can but without rushing. The process of freewriting helps you to prevent your internal critic getting in your way while you are creating and generating new ideas. Your internal critic can be useful afterwards when you need to evaluate, assess and judge.

Freewriting is private but it’s up to you to share what you’ve written. Private writing frees you up to write anything you want without constraining or censoring yourself for an audience even if it is only one person.

Standout practitioners

Some standout practitioners include Julia Cameron (The Artist’s Way), Natalie Goldberg (Writing Down the Bones) and Peter Elbow (Writing with Power). These breakthrough books lead the field. The Artist’s Way has broad application — it can trigger ideas for creative works but its freewriting and other tools can help to shape, refocus and transform your life. Bruce Ballenger and Barry Lane (Discovering the Writer Within) promote freewriting to release creativity and spark fresh ideas.

Freewriting can be useful for any person, artist, writer, advertising specialist, scientist, business person, manufacturer or consultant.

Creativity can’t be commoditized

A recent addition to the freewriting field is Accidental Genius by Mark Levy, founder of the marketing strategy firm Levy Innovation. Levy covers using freewriting to explore ideas and concepts for writing projects (blog posts, articles and books) but also for a wide range of applications in business.

Freewriting can be used to generate ideas for marketing, promotion and sales to name just a few. What I found helpful were some of his applications like researching new products, investigating business opportunities and exploring your best ideas.

His suggestions for freewriting are helpful to generate new products and services, develop business plans, devise business models and ignite marketing programmes. Levy also shows how you can use freewriting to keep your focus on what you want to make of your life.

All this guidance aside, the real test of your freewriting progress is to come up with your own ways to use freewriting to create ideas and to solve problems or explore solutions. Your first freewriting forays may not generate breakthrough ideas but repeated attempts (at least three times a week) should yield pleasant and profitable surprises.

Open up your thinking

Levy’s methods are also useful for consultants and trainers who wish to help clients unlock their creativity and help them to solve problems or come up with new ideas. He advises to teach freewriting to a client, a colleague, a team, an audience. “Don’t, however, just teach it as an intriguing skill,” he says. “Teach it to them as a means to open up thinking about a specific problem.”

Freewriting is a valuable technique for coaxing those ephemeral thoughts and insights, teasing the unconscious to delight with epiphanies. It is one of hundreds of many creative techniques that can help you to draw valuable insights and ideas from your effervescent unconscious mind.

Knowing which technique to use in a given circumstance or to meet the particular needs and interests of an individual or team takes experience and understanding. Freewriting whether performed on your own or under the guidance of a creativity consultant or ideation expert enables both entrepreneurs and corporate employees to sharpen their ideas for starting new ventures, revitalizing their business and winning new customers.

 

Copyright 2011 Bell & Cray Business Research™. This material used with special permission from Bell & Cray Business Consulting™. Bell & Cray Business Consulting™ is a division of Bell & Cray™. All rights reserved. No part of this material may be duplicated or re-disseminated without permission.

Copyright 2011 Bell & Cray Business Research™. All rights reserved. No part of this material may be duplicated or re-disseminated without permission.

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