 Top ten 'off the wall' tips to marketing your business on a shoestringPublished Date: 2008-04-04 16:03:02 WorkOnInternet.com
People do business with people they either like, trust or have a loyal relationship with.It also costs far more to get a new client than it does to keep an existing one.Hence keeping clients by using a proactive Customer Relationship Management toolis crucially important. Building relationships comes from face to face contact,although there are acceptations to the rule, where one will buy over thetelephone or on World Wide Web, but that relationship is normally judged onprice, with quality and delivery being important secondary considerations. Your business has no dedicated marketing budget, so what should you do to promoteyour business that can be effective, fun and fruitful. The following ten tipsmay just make the difference you are seeking. 1.Know where to sell. Define your market. It’s no use trying to appeal to a market sector that doesn’twant to buy from you. What is a typical client and what service does he want.Get the demographic right. This may also effect the location of your business 2.Know what to sell. Refine your product. Are you sure the products you are offering is the product yourclients want to buy? Has your product got the right price point for the marketyou are targeting? 3.Be different. What is your USP, your unique selling point? The more specialised you are, the lesscompetition you have. The more products you offer, the less easy it is for yourclients to make a choice. Look for a cash cow. This is the product that keepsyour lights on, where there is a lot of stability, but perhaps little chance ofdevelopment. Avoid cash dogs. These are products or projects that have littlefuture, are a cash drain and can be ego driven. Do what you do best at all times 4.Fail to plan or plan to fail. Write a simple marketing strategy. This may even be a ‘back of a postcard’ scribblethat says “make 10 new cold calls each week”. Once you have done this, stickto it and keep sticking to it. Write down all the things you can do to marketyour business and form a monthly strategy. Look at the strategy each month andif you can improve on it do so, especially as increased sales will give you amarketing budget. 5.Every one is a salesman. If your budget is tight, set incentives for your clients and staff, rewarding them ifthey look for business for you. Every one knows somebody who may want to dobusiness with you. If you have a delivery driver, when he goes to deliver to acustomer, ask him to go into the two businesses either side of the customer.Introduce the company and leave some promotional literature on what it is youdo. Get him to ask for a business card and put that info on a database. This canbe used at a later date. Ask clients to recommend and reward them with adiscount off the next purchase. Now you have a large sales force working foryou. 6.Stay in touch. Build a database from your current client base. Add to it from the contacts yourdelivery guys bring back each day, as well as the name your current customersrecommend to you for their incentive. Now you have got a growing prospect andclient list communicate each month by either: telephone (hi how are you), e-mail(latest sales promotion), quarterly newsletter (what’s happening in thecompany), direct mail (new products) or by sending a Christmas or Easter card (yo,ho, ho, I'm the Easter bunny). 7.Networks Join a business-networking organisation, to build a network of business referrers thatcan recommend you and potentially bring business to your business. There aremany such organisations around such as: BNI, BRE, Chamber of Commerce,Federation of Small Businesses, the Institute of Directors, Business Link and so on. Such business networks are relatively cheap to joinand can quickly return high levels of good quality work. 8.The ‘80-20 rule’ rules 80% of your business will come from 20% of your clients. True. Don’t be afraid to eitherloose or ditch a bad client that doesn’t pay well or wont deliver good cleanbusiness. It means you now have room to bring on board new and more profitablebusiness to take the place of the culled clients. Remember, you can work toohard for too little return. 9.Don’t be too English. If you meet anAmerican, he will inevitably introduce himself by saying, “Hi, my name is Bob,from Orlando, and I work in print consumables”. In the UK we will probably say “Hi, I’m Bob”. You don’t have to turn into a Yank,but be prepared to talk about your business and exactly what it is you do. Tryto always think about your business and be prepared to give your ten-second‘elevator speech’ where ever possible. The elevator speech is when you getin the lift with some one and they ask you what you do for a living. By the timeyou hit the basement they should know exactly what it is you do and be holdingyour business card. 10.Don’t leave home with out them. Always, always, always carry your business cards with you. Be prepared to give them out,even at social functions (but do tread the fine line between being a businessbore and an innovative networker). Those cards that you are given, write on theback where you met the giver, and a memorable thing about them. Put them onto adatabase package on your PC and ensure you ring the individual within a coupleof days. Arrange to meet up for a drink, or meet at one or the others office.Ask how ‘we’ can do businesses together. You will be surprised how quicklythe recommendations come flooding in, but ensure the flow of business is notjust one-sided. These ten quick tips will help you to market your business more effectively, especially ifyou have no marketing budget worth talking of. Put them in place and you willget new business and your business will grow. If you determined to succeed andprepared to put in the effort then these simple tips will prove more thaneffective. If, on the other hand, you feel that there are simply not enoughhours in the day and you need a helping hand, call in a marketing professional.With the ROI it will more than pay for itself.
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