Hi from the team at www.consulttheguru.com

[Arlo]

Hi all,

I'm a marketing and PR consultant with about eight years experience of charging a small fortune to a number of blue chip multinational companies.

Then the eureka moment - there are lots of small companies out there who have the resources to carry out their own marketing projects in house, but just need a good strong creative marketing idea to get them going.

Problem was that the only way to get that sort of advice would be to ask a marketing agency to pitch for the business, which assumes you want to, or have the budgets to retain them afterwards.

So I got together a team of talented creatives and launched www.consulttheguru.com (I know, it's not exactly what you would call self-deprecating, but it has a 'call to action' and we thought it a bit more confidence-inspiring than consultthehalfwit.com)

You can come to our site, complete an online marketiing brief, pay a ludicrously low consultation fee (introductory), and within two business days, our award-winning team will brainstorm your marketing challenge and return with a tailor-made creative solution. Simple as that.

Anyway, Gary Baker - who started the ukbusinessforums a few years ago - used consulttheguru.com, gave us a fabulous testimonial, and pointed me in the direction of this site.

Which leads me to why I'm here. Bottom line, of course I want more people to know about www.consulttheguru.com and use it. But I hope I'll be able to contribute something to these forums, particularly where it involves marketing through PR, the Internet, direct mail or events.

[RSL]

Hi there,

Welcome to forum. I've just launched my second business and am brainstorming all the ways in which I can market the service. I know it can succeed though, just need to get the marketing right!
Hopefully you can offer words of wisdom or else I'll just pay you for your services.

:-)

[Arlo]

Hi RSL, I'm afraid you'd have to pay for our services for an answer to a very specific question such as this (I've explained why in answer to your other post)! It might be some consolation, though, that our current (introductory) consultation fee is probably less than it would cost to go to meet and brief an offline marketing agency, let alone get their advice!

All the best

Arlo

[Jayne]

Hi Arlo,

Welcome to the forum :D Scratching backs on here, is also a good marketing technique :lol:

Best Wishes

Jayne

[Magsite]

Hi Arlo.

Welcome, I am considering your offer and may be in touch soon. With so may helpful people on ths site I'm sure we can all help each other.

Lisa

[Arlo]

Hi Jayne

There are two reasons why I didn't weigh in with some free advice for RSL:

The first is that the question was too broad for me to offer useful advice. In other words, it's impossible to recommend marketing ideas without knowing what the budget is, the target audience, the key message, any additional objectives etc.

The other thing is that we are currently charging £130 per consultation on consulttheguru.com, which is already a hugely discounted fee, in order to encourage people to try us out.

Having said that, in the spirit of back-scratching, I'll offer a completely free consultation to 2 members of this forum.

One to RSL, and the other to the first person that posts a marketing brief for us on this forum.

However, one caveat. Both consultations, and the results of both consultations will be published here. Hopefully, we'll develop an idea which might be useful for others. Secondly, it'll allow people to judge the merits of our service.

To take us up on this offer, post the answers to the following questions under a new thread in "PR and Marketing":

1) Describe your product in no more than 50 words (provide links to further info / website)

2) What is the target audience for the product or service (as much detail as possible e.g. age / socio-economic group / geographical location.)

3) What is your objective in communicating with this target audience? (Sure, increase sales. Any other objectives?)

4) Do you have a preferred method of communication? (Internet / Public Relations / Events / Direct Mail) Or would you like us to recommend the most cost-effective for your marketing brief?

5) What budget do you have available for this project?

6) Any other information.

I'll then put it to the team, and we'll come back with our answers within two business days.

How's that for back-scratching?

:D

Arlo

[RSL]

Hi guys!

Really wasn't asking for a free consultation just a few tips but its OK I've been brainstorming more and have lots of back up. What I've found on this forum is that general tips are quite useful and willingly given. I haven't as you said been very specific as it was a very general and open request. I would have PM-ed you for more info. Also I did say that I'd probably end up paying for a full consultation if need be.

So no worries!

welcome to the site once more and good luck with it (not that you need it!)

:-)

[Jayne]

I was only joking :lol: You'll get use to me :lol: :lol: :lol:

You seem to know your stuff though! But I haven't got an itch yet to scratch :lol:

Jayne

[Magsite]

Oops I've deleted this and put it under marketing

[Arlo]

Hi RSL and Jayne - well, the offer still stands. So if anyone else needs a full blown creative marketing consultation from an award-winning team, post your brief under "PR & Marketing" and PM me so that we know it's there.

[americatelefon.com]

Welcome to the forums!

[FE]

Welcome to the forum

FE

[Arlo]

Thanks all! Very much enjoying it.

[FE]

I have now used the services of consulttheguru.com and have to say was very impressed. I required a service slightly different from the normal offering but it was handled professionally and within the allocated 2 working day time frame. As for the results then i am very happy and would say it has saved me at least 5 days worth of oppurtunity cost and issued a far better result.

I certainly will be a repeat customer.

Can not speak highly enough

Well done and thank you to UKBF forums as would neve have though to use or look for such a service

FE

[Arlo]

FE - THANK YOU. It has always struck me as a shortfall of the English language that there are just the two words to use regardless of the amount of gratitude.

Hence the capitalisation ... we really are enormously grateful that you came and posted such generous feedback. Our business lives or dies on the reputation we earn for doing a good job. So we were dead chuffed to read that and very much look forward to working with you again.

Arlo

[Arlo]

We've just given our homepage a major facelift (still a couple of minor tweaks yet to make, but 99% there, and the rest of the site will shortly come into line with the new look)

Would welcome any feedback anyone might give us.

[SillyJokes]

I suppose my main problem with marketing is that it always seems like a gamble. You pay out money but it can sometimes be very hard to quantify the results in increased business.

Also when asked for a budget I'm never sure how much is reasonable.

Do you think you could out line what might be achieved for various pricepoints? Ie witing and distributing a press release, promoting a new product

[Arlo]

Interesting points. Hmmm. I think failure to be able to quantify the results of marketing is largely a consequence of failing to include a mechanic for measurement in the original marketing idea. This a widespread problem in the profession, particularly in the field of public relations. One we try and avoid!

Marketing seems like a gamble? Yes, I'd agree with that to a point. But a necessary one all the same. After all, if you don't market your product, nobody is ever going to buy it!

Why is it sometimes a bit of a gamble? Largely because marketing is a mixture of art and science. With all the stats in the world, there are just too many variables in the human decision to buy. So some ideas which would seem at first glance to be unworkable (like the milliondollarhomepage), take off in a way that would have been hard to predict. Others, which may seem like complete brilliance at the time, ultimately flop. The key to mitigating the gamble is research and testing, though even this is not infallible.

As to how much seems reasonable, that is another good question - but one that is probably better answered by a management consultant or an accountant than a marketing consultant. Our job as a creative team is only to develop the most effective tactics and strategies for a given budget ... not to advise on what that budget should be. But I grant you, that's a question that I think it would be useful for us to provide more guidance on within our website, so I'll go and research it with some business consultants.

As to what can be achieved at various different price points, that is really very difficult to do, given the huge number of variables involved.

What does a press release cost? Well, depends on whether you have a story worth writing about in the first place (and if you don't, how much you are prepared to spend creating one), how many journalists you're sending the release to, who you are going to get to write it, how you are going to send it and whether you are going to include something with it to grab the journalist's attention.

At one end of the scale, assuming you have a story and you can write well, you could simply distribute a release via an online service (a good one is www.pressdispensary.co.uk) for £135. If, on the other hand, you need to create a story, and you need an agency to handle it (like Pepsi painting Concorde blue in 1996: http://www.concordesst.com/history/events/pepsi.html) you could end up spending seriously big bucks!

Likewise, there are so many different ways of promoting a new product, it is very difficult to try and give worthwhile advice as to the cost. Is the product aimed at trade or consumers? Would it benefit from a launch event? A special introductory promotion? Is the product itself going to be a story for the media. Or does it need something extra to get written about. All sorts of things to be considered.

Again, though, an interesting question, and one which I will try and address in a new 'Guru Guide' on our website in the next few weeks.

[webit]

I would also like to add that we have used the service from CTG and are very pleased with the results. This was certainly no off the shelf appraisal. Our log files show the amount of time and effort they put into the preparation for the report and it certainly provided us with a lot to think about and consider. Trust me when I say that they haven’t taken an easy option with their recommendations and that they have been pleasantly changeling in their summary and in areas that we would never have considered.

Will we use them again? Yes. Both I and my business partner agree that it has been money well spent. A valuable input to our business from a fresh and focused pair of eyes.

[Arlo]

Wow, to say that we're pleased would be the understatement of the century. Thank you, webit, for such kind comments. Really spurred us on.

Nobody has said anything about the new look of our website ... Whaddyathink everyone? We like it, but we're probably too close to our own product to be objective about it ...

[Rob Holmes]

Your website looks good Arlo,

I was a little surprised that you didn't include (what I thought was) the biggest USP of your service which I understood as..

Custom Marketing reports written by marketing geniuses with a 2 day turnaround

As for the service.. tempting at £150 - but I would expect it to go up as you get more popular - the decent marketing people I know charge £350 per hour.

Rob

[Arlo]

Thanks Rob :)

I'm a little unclear about your first comment, because we do include all those things (although not in exactly the same words).

I think perhaps you mean that we don't say it in the first paragraph. There's a long story here about how our whole service / proposition has evolved. I won't bore you with that, but suffice to say that we started with the proposition: we offer 'creative marketing ideas' (which is where the real value lies in any marketing initiative), and have evolved more in the direction of 'creative marketing reports'.

As to price - I certainly hope you're right! Offline, my agency has always charged the sort of fees you are talking about. However, we felt that people would not pay the same online unless the service had gained an excellent online reputation. That is something that seems to be coming along very well. But meantime, the price is set at a level that we hope will tempt more people than it discourages.

[Rob Holmes]

Hi Arlo,

I guess I was saying that yes you are a first stop for pr and marketing ideas - BUT EVERY Marketing and PR company can say that.

To me you're not highlighting what you do differently, quickly enough.

But if theres a story behind it then maybe you've already considered this :)

Rob

[Rob Holmes]

ps.

I like the daily price feature - an excellent way of price testing once the site gets more targetted traffic :)

Rob

[Arlo]

Thanks again Rob :D

That point raises a whole big debate!

Originally, our thinking was that nobody (or as near to nobody as makes no difference), sells PR ideas as a stand alone 'product'.

Ideas are developed by PR agencies and given freely for the purpose of winning the business of executing them.

But that presupposes that you have the budgets available to hire the PR agency, and don't just want to execute the idea yourself.

So 'your first stop for creative PR and marketing ideas' does highlight something not available elsewhere. A USP.

Also, if you look for marketing ideas on the Internet, you won't find another consulttheguru-type service, but rather a whole load of generic advice of differing levels of quality. But generic advice is only moderately helpful (people usually need to know how it applies to their business). This lack of any comparable service is why we hope people will agree that CTG is 'your first stop'.

The purpose of that strapline was also not to sell the service in a sentence. Rather the aim was to pique the interest of anyone that is searching for creative marketing ideas for their business, and drive them to find out more.

That does seem to be working, in that visitors are generally going on to click the 'How it works' and 'Who we are' pages (although whether that's because of the strapline is open to debate).

Nevertheless, we have been going more in the direction of 'marketing reports' in recent times, and I agree we probably have further to go. The trick will be to make a 'marketing report' sound as sexy as an 'inspirational marketing idea'!

[Rob Holmes]

Hi Arlo,

Unsure what to say without me sounding pedantic.

You've obviously got a good handle on things.

The only thing I would add is I am a bit slow sometimes but if I am others maybe too.

If I was searching through PR agency style sites and sped read yours (gave it a 3 or 4 second glance) it did not tell me that you do a 48 hour turnaround online inspirational marketing report that I can do with what I want etc etc

Sorry to go on :(

Rob

[Arlo]

Hi Rob,

Don't worry, I completely understand the point you're making :D

Underlying all of this is whether we are selling good marketing ideas (which happen to be bundled in a report), or marketing reports (which happen to contain good ideas).

Essentially the same thing, just a question of how it's packaged to meet the desires of the largest number of people. Do they want creative marketing ideas/tactics for their business? Or do they want an inspirational marketing report with a 48 hour turnaround?

When we started, we thought 'ideas' are more exciting, and (despite their slightly intangible nature) are ultimately what people want / need. However, we had no available budget to test that proposition, so we had to go on instinct. Funny thing is that our original site made absolutely NO mention of 'marketing report', '48 hour turnaround time', or 'online'. It JUST said 'ideas'. And all the feedback we got was that people completely understood and bought the proposition.

However, as we have gained more customers, it has been become clear that the value we add is not limited to the creative marketing idea we develop in response to a given brief, but the rationale we give for each idea (i.e. an analysis of the marketing challenges in a given situation).

And so our product has developed into more of a report, and we have started making changes to reflect this.

Will we go as far as changing the site such that it has a huge great picture of a report on the home page, and says very little except "48 hour turnaround online inspirational marketing report that you can do with what you want"?

Well, we might! But we'll only do it if feedback and stats show it is the best way to communicate the proposition.

So far, nobody else has said they don't understand what we offer. But that doesn't mean that you're wrong. It just means that we need more feedback and data!

ATB

Arlo