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Evolutionary Business Design

Author: BrightBiz

7 Client-getting strategies even if you think you’re no good at marketing

Let’s get rid of the head –trash first. Marketing is not difficult. Stop thinking of it as “Marketing”, start thinking “Getting to know the people you’d like as customers”.

Here are just 7 ideas – there are a million more, I’m sure.

The trick is to IMPLEMENT a strategy or two, don’t just passively read this then let yourself off the hook. Marketing only works if you work it.

1. Collaborate

Gone are the days of thinking you have to do everything yourself. There are plenty of ways to collaborate with friends and colleagues in business.

Organise a brainstorming session to work out what you could offer each other’s customers. Share your databases ethically – no spamming. How about putting together an irresistible offer as a package of products or services.

2. Work your network

Join a Meetup group, a business networking group or your local Chamber of Commerce. Immerse yourself in a group of proactive business owners to swap stories, strategies and ideas and give each other encouragement.

Get to know your peers and GIVE referrals before you expect them back.

3. Offer a freebie

You have information or product and services that other people want, otherwise you wouldn’t be in business.  While you’re out networking and brainstorming come up with ideas for “freebies” you could give to potential customers.

Can you give the equivalent of samples, taste tests, try-before-you-buy offers? Can you give simple yet desirable information in the form of checklists, guides, reports, whitepapers, PDF downloads, videos. The list is endless and it won’t cost you a fortune.

It could be a 1 page document printed from your office printer and posted or emailed out. Develop a library of useful freebies and every time you’re talking to someone listen carefully and offer to send them something irresistibly good that will help them solve a problem.

4. Co work

If you work in a home office on your own, find out what co-working spaces are available in your local area. Hire some desk space for a day or two a week and get to know the other business owners. You’ll soon build up your network of friends and colleagues.

Apply the Collaboration strategy with your new network.

5. Get your work out there

If you never had a stand at an expo, now is the time to give it a go.

Google what’s coming up, there are often national, international and local expos you can participate in. The big expos can cost several thousand dollars to participate but if you sell a high end product it can be very lucrative.

If at the lower end, often business networking groups and chambers of commerce will run business expos .

The secret with expos is not to stay behind a barrier in your stand. Go out and meet people, have a chat. If you’re on the shy side, get a friend to help you, someone who loves talking to people.

It’s also a great way to do a survey.  Make sure you have a way to capture prospective customer’s details – make an offer and put them in a draw for a prize or two.

6. Get some publicity

Make your business newsworthy. Find a way to link your products or services to something topical and send a press release to your local journalists in the press, radio and TV.

The media are always hungry for stories. Get to know journalists who are looking for stories like yours and consistently send them good newsworthy material. Always be ready to comment on an issue to be seen as an expert in that area.

7. Speak wherever you can

One of the best ways to get noticed and therefore get customers is to develop your speaking skills.

When you join a networking group you will be expected to speak at every meeting to introduce yourself and your business. You’ll get better with practice.

If you know how to do something others don’t then offer to teach them – preferably in a group setting. Use your networks, co-working space, chambers of commerce, meetup groups – anywhere you can think of to get more experience.

If you’re already an experienced speaker, try getting a little publicity and connect with people who need speakers. If you think about the thousands of conferences, industry expos, networking events and boardroom “lunch and learn” meetings you’re sure to find something that fits well with you.

Good luck, let us know how you go and feel free to share your own ideas on ways to get customers.

13 myths about marketing that can actually damage your business

Apart from the mysteries of financial management, one of the most misunderstood components of running a business is the need to “do some marketing”. It usually ends up being the knee-jerk reaction to suddenly finding you’ve run out of work and need more customers.

Instead of randomly throwing money around or letting yourself off the hook by telling yourself that marketing doesn’t work or that you don’t like marketing, let’s deal with some of the myths and show you some better alternatives.

  • I don’t need to do any marketing – I get my customers by word of mouth.

If you are doing a decent job of things in your business you’ll be getting Word of Mouth referrals. Which is nice but it’s a passive strategy and usually means you have to wait for the referral. You’re not actively in control of this; it’s unpredictable as to when the referrals will come in.

Referrals should be one of the marketing strategies you use, but not the only one. A more active referral strategy is to recognise and appreciate the referrers – people like to be thanked – and be consistent in asking for referrals from all of your customers. Give them incentives if necessary.

You could also set up some good industry-related strategic alliance partners who will send you a flood of new customers. Return the favour.

  • I need a new website – that’ll bring me all the customers I need.

A common myth is that websites are the Magic Pill of Marketing – if you have one, people will flock to it. Which is not quite true.

A website is like a billboard, no one notices it until they happen to be driving by. So your mission is to drive traffic to your website from your social media, your offline marketing and your email marketing. Make it the go-to place for your ideal prospective customers; give them irresistibly amazing content in exchange for their contact details.

You’ve just started a relationship with them. Value it and respect it to keep them coming back for more.

  • Everybody is our potential customer – we don’t discriminate

If you’re feeling exhausted and overwhelmed it could be that you are trying to be all things to all people. That’s a hard way to run a business – hard to systemise, hard and expensive to market, hard to stand out in a crowd.

The easier way is to choose the kinds of customers you want and tailor your business to suit them. That way you can be recognised as the Go-TO Business for whatever your specialty is. It also means less expense in carrying a variety of stock or more staff than you can afford.

  • Having the cheapest price is our best marketing strategy

If you can win a customer on price, you can lose them on price. Nobody wins price wars.

If all things were equal and you and your competitors had exactly the same price what would make the customer decide in your favour? THAT is your marketing strategy.

  • We’re too busy to worry about marketing

At some point in every business the work slows down or dries up. There’s an ebb and flow. You might lose a contract or a major customer moves away – then you’ll need some good solid marketing strategies to replace them. Never take customers for granted.

  • SEO will do the trick

SEO is great but it’s not THE ONE answer. It’s not a quick fix. Results are sometimes slow. The job of SEO is to make you visible, then it’s your job to convert that visitor into a customer or at least a prospective customer before they flick away. They may only give you their attention for 3 seconds!

Try combining SEO with irresistible offers on your website. Get people to interact with you, offer them something enticing like a lead magnet to get the relationship started.

  • I can’t do any promoting until everything is all set up

Nothing will ever be perfect. But you can attract customers before your website is finished, before your brochures are printed and before you even have business cards.

Business has been done for a very long time without all these trappings. Get out there, use the phone, collect their details and get in touch. Having genuine conversations with people works a treat!

  • My products are great, they sell themselves

They may be the best thing since sliced bread but this is the lazy person’s excuse for not marketing.

Imagine what you COULD sell if you applied a little bit of strategic marketing to it. Push yourself to get creative and set targets. You can probably do way better than you think.

  • I’ll copy what the opposition is doing – it seems to work for them

How do you know if their marketing is working? They might not even know! The big companies spend squillions on marketing… your budget might be a bit more modest.

Things are not always whet they seem. There’s a misapprehension that someone is making a killing because they are doing a lot of marketing.

Keep an eye on your competition but don’t copy them. Be realistic about what you can spend on marketing and expect a return on investment. Make sure you keep track of everything, from leads generated to conversion rate to the average dollar spend.

  • Our customers know where to find us – we shouldn’t have to keep telling them

This is a bit like telling your partner that you love them – only once – and expecting it to last forever. Doesn’t work that way. Did you know that 68% of customers leave you because they think you don’t care about them anymore?

Look after them, show you appreciate them and see if you can keep your customers for life. It will save you a fortune on lead generation to get more customers. This is “internal” marketing – looking after the ones you have.

  • You can’t contact your customers too often, it annoys them

If you only ever contact your customers to say “buy my stuff” then yes, you’ll probably annoy them.

But if you provide useful information to them – the kind of info they really want to get then your emails and blogs, social media posts and mail-outs will be welcome. The rule is to never be boring, always be helpful and, by digging deep into their wants and needs and the problems that keep them awake at night, you’ll understand what they want/need and be able to give it to them.

  • Marketing is complicated – you always need to come up with new ideas

Have you ever had a marketing strategy that worked but you got bored with it so you canned it? Often business owners get bored with a strategy long before the prospects do.

While new ideas are exciting and fun to play with, if you keep chopping and changing your strategies without actually measuring the results you could be on a winner but not even know it.

Try a strategy for 90 days and measure everything – then you’ll know if it works or not. Go deep – get all the juice out of it.

  • If you just keep learning new stuff from the net, something will work

You might have fallen into the BST trap (Bright Shiny Tactics). If you are constantly trawling the net for new and different marketing strategies, looking for that perfect one that will make you a fortune, therefore you’ve fallen for the biggest myth of all.

There is NO “One-Thing-Magic-Bullet” that will do everything you want. – Marketing is a series of well-planned strategic actions taken consistently over a period of time and the results measured to see what worked and what didn’t.

Now if you’re a highly creative type who feels like the joy just got sucked out of it, don’t fret, there is room for your brilliance.

A good marketing team is made up of two types of people: creative people and “implementers” – Implementers are those wonderful people who make your ideas happen.

If you can’t seem to get your amazing ideas off the ground, get rid of the myths, find a good implementer and go get some clients.

If you need a hand to set up a marketing calendar and a measuring system we can help.

Click HERE to book a 10 minute phone chat.

What you should be doing everyday to manage your social media channels

Managing social media channels for your business can be very time consuming. By getting organized at the start of the month, you will save yourself a lot of time throughout it! Each month you should take some time to plan out your social media schedule. We recommend you do this 2 – 4 week in advance to ensure that you’re organised. Stay on track with your posting schedule and deliver engaging content to your followers.

Here is a list of daily social media must do’s

  • Check your notifications in the morning and randomly throughout the day. Turning on your notifications makes this process easier as you can monitor if any comments or reviews are made to your page while your not actively on social media and respond in a timely matter or re-tweet anything that is relevant. Monitoring and management of your pages are very important when working to maintain credibility online.
  • Post everyday! This of course depends on what social media channel you’re on BUT at a minimum most require daily posting. As an example, we recommend posting to Facebook once per day and Instagram 2-3 times per day.
  • Follow the posts and comments within the groups you’re a member of. It is important to be an active group member so other members get to know who you are and you can do this by posting within the group or commenting on any posts that have been made since you last visited.
  • To grow your network and increase brand awareness it is important to follow, engage and share from other pages/accounts you’re following. Go through and like, comment or share interesting posts you read that may be of benefit to your own network.
  • Review & Report. You should be checking each day how well your channels are performing. This will ensure you keep on track to achieving set KPI’s and give you time to tweak future posts. In effect, making sure your getting the most out of your efforts.

So how long should this all take each day – that’s hard to answer as it really will come down to how active you want to be and how quickly you want to grow your brand and awareness. If you stick to the daily tips listed above and plan your calendar in advance, then aim for 30 minutes to one hour (broken up if needed) each day.

Katrina Giura – Gloss Marketing Communications

The best ways to grow your customer database without spending a fortune

Size. Isn’t. Everything. When it comes to a customer database, having thousands of thousands of people on a list doesn’t mean anything unless you have a relationship with them.

So don’t go getting all scammy and spammy with the latest tricks to build a list of people who are not now, or never will be, your ideal customer. You’ll find no joy there.

A small intimate responsive database can be a beautiful thing and it’s really enjoyable to serve those people by offering them interesting relevant information, intriguing offers and genuinely helpful content that they can’t wait to receive. Develop a “No Junk Mail” policy when you contact your database or they will bin you for wasting their time.

Here’s how to grow your list without resorting to sneaky underhanded tactics.

You cannot just put someone on your list because they gave you their business card – you’ll need to ask permission. But better than that, have a real conversation with the person and offer to send them something helpful – and NO that is not your brochure or catalogue unless they have specifically asked for it. It might be a newspaper clipping or a referral to your dentist or a great website you discovered. It can be anything as long as it is helpful.

If you were clever you’d be building a bank of your own useful information to share.

Here are a few favourite places and ways to find the best people to add to your database:

  • Networking events and industry groups – local chambers of commerce are a good place to start.
  • Business networking groups – go regularly and make friends. Get to know these people, they are your best referral sources and there are things you can help them with too.
  • Meetup Groups cost next to nothing – choose carefully before you commit the time but you will definitely meet people – even if it’s a walking group.
  • Attend workshops and chat to the people you meet there. There are plenty of low-cost- to- no-cost business seminars out there – and you’ll learn a thing or two as well!
  • Online in social media groups – find groups with similar interests to yours and start contributing. But don’t sell unless the rules of the group say you can – it’s SOCIAL – no-one likes a pushy person who is always selling.
  • On holidays, at the shops, in elevators, at the beach – start talking to people – you’ll be so surprised at the connections you can make.
  • Have a lead capture form on your website – offer something they consider valuable and highly desirable in exchange for their contact information. It might cost you nothing.
  • Do direct response marketing – everything you put out needs a call to action to get the person to take some action i.e. contact you for that highly desirable “thing” – not the super big things, just a little taste test. Why do you think supermarkets offer free samples of something yummy in the aisles?
  • As people to share your content, your business cards, your highly desirable offer, let it go naturally viral. If you are in the women’s market you have inbuilt viral marketers. They will naturally tell friends when they find something of value.
  • Get over your nerves and learn to speak in public – give talks and presentations. When people see you as an expert they’ll give you their contact details to get more of what you have.

We’ve just scratched the surface.

You’re only limited by your imagination. Get together with a group of other business owners and brainstorm this – there are hundreds more answers. Then put the strategies into action and hold each other accountable to getting results.

Best of luck. Let us know how you go. And if you have a unique way of adding genuinely interested people to your database, we’d love to hear it.

If you’re not using a 5 step follow up process, you’re leaving thousands of dollars on the table

Marketing is like a game of tennis; you hit the ball, the other person hits it back.

But what if they don’t hit it back? Do you abandon the game, take your racquet and ball and slouch off home?

Well you could give up, but where’s the fun in that?

So, why do business owners get dejected when they put out ONE piece of marketing and they don’t get a response? The game has just begun – get back in there and hit a few more balls!

The 5 Step Follow-up Process will capture your prospective clients and encourage them to play the game with you.

But, if you keep hitting the same shot at them and they’re not responding then you’ve got to question the shot. Is it what they’re ready for? Is it what they want? Is the timing right or are they metaphorically tying their shoe laces?

Nothing is more annoying for a prospective client to keep getting the same “Are you ready yet? Are your ready yet? Are you ready yet?” message from you. They stop listening – and you waste money!

You’ve gotta get more creative and mix it up a bit. Entertain them at least so they look forward to hearing from you.

Here are the 5 Steps:

Assuming that you’ve done your homework and you know your Ideal Customer INTIMATELY – (you have done that haven’t you? If not back up a step and get the Target Market worksheet) you’ll be sending the messages over a period of time, increasing the urgency each time.

The messages will be sent to specific people via online media, emails, direct mail in their letterbox – whatever your ideal customers’ favourite media is – it MUST be something they regularly pay attention to.

Anyway, I digress…

The steps…

STEP #1

Send all 5 messages to the SAME group of Ideal Customers. Once you’ve tested and refined it you can gather another group, perhaps in a different location.

First message: The intro. Make an offer: something interesting, just a little taste perhaps, not the whole box of doughnuts. This is not all about you – it’s about them, their problems, desires and what keeps them awake at night.

“Get inside your prospective customer’s head. Show them you know them!” – Pauline Bright [Tweet This]

Step # 2

If they’ve responded, get back to them as soon as you can.

If they’ve ignored you don’t get despondent, try another ball…

Send them another message – make sure they know it is from you – it has to have the look and feel of your business.

Approach the problem or desire from a different perspective – hit them something they can return. Ask them to take some action. “Perhaps you’d like one of these… [insert solution] they’re great for fixing [insert problem to be solved]”

Step #3

Rinse and repeat but don’t punish them.

I see some very sleazy marketing out there that says the equivalent of “hey, you didn’t respond to X are you crazy, why not?” Might work for some but it’s not my favourite approach.

Send them something else they can respond to.

By this time you should start to see some response.

Step # 4

YEP – rinse and repeat again. But vary your message. Educate them a little, tease them a little, if your offer has a genuine “use-by” date let them know that time is running out or that you have limited places or whatever the real reason is that you are making this offer at this time.

Step #5

Send Piece # 5. Do not let this slide – send the 5 pieces of contact, keep increasing the value to them of what you do and asking for a response.

Those who don’t need you yet will remember you but if you don’t keep up some momentum someone will come along and eat your lunch! Everything you have so carefully prepared can be lost in a moment if you don’t stay top of their mind.

I’ve had clients who have been on my contact list for TEN YEARS before they are ready to buy. NEVER give up.

After the first 5 contacts, keep the people who have not responded on your long term nurture list. Don’t forget them – keep in touch at least a few times a year or monthly or whatever your marketing budget allows.

Always give them great value and never pester them just to buy. Be useful or be gone. You are building a long-term relationship with them.

Coming Soon: Bright Business Academy launches in 2017

We’ll dive into your marketing in more depth and help you map out not only the plan but write the exact pieces of content you need.

Email support@brightbusiness.net.au to get on the Bright Business Academy list.

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Perth Western Australia       All Rights Reserved

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