Marketing tips you can all use

[Real World Hypnotherapy]

Hello everybody, it is just Matt from MK Printing here again. I apologise if people think I am spamming this board as I post so often, the object of my posts is to help pass on advice and learning that I have researched in the business world.

I would just like to share with you a few strategies that can be implemented into your business to help you become more effective, more efficient and more successful.


Create, realise and market your USP

Regardless of what business or industry you are in, you have to a unique selling point (USP). If you just do exactly what your competition does then you are just another company, you have to make yourselves different in some way and give yourself an angle for your marketing and business philosophy.

For example my company (MK Printing) is a printing company that offers similar services to a lot of similar printing companies, my USP is customer service. I have recognised that without customers, I do not have a business! To ensure that people not only buy from me but come back in future and also recommend others, I make sure that MK Printing offers customer service that can not be rivalled by any other printing company. For example when someone calls to place an order I always ask why they are ordering that certain product and what they want that product to do for them. If I believe that they are ordering the wrong product I will advice them on the alternatives and also how to use the product to its full potential. When I do this I do not “up sell” or push higher priced products onto the customer. The advice I give is for the customers benefit and it is because I believe it will produce better results. If they take my advice and the results are better then they write me a testimonial, they recommend others to me and they also become a long time client.

Think about your business and what thing, regardless of how small, that you do different or better. When you have clearly identified this then you have an angle for all your advertising, marketing and business activities.



Investigate advertising and marketing in other industries

Some of the best marketing ideas have come about because of people in one industry investigated what others were doing and then incorporating it into their own business. Look at the selling techniques of other companies, talk to sales people and start to read more adverts and junk mail.

When you see how other industries advertise or market, bring that into your own industry. The ideas may seem crazy to start with, but if they are proven to work elsewhere then they can usually be transferred across industries and markets.
Networking

You do not have to go to networking functions to network. Due to the internet, networking has become easier and faster just look at this website for example. One thing I am doing at the moment I writing a list of 50 people in Manchester that I want to meet and class as a friend. These people include magazine editors, club owners and musicians. By just arranging to have a coffee with these people it is amazing what you can learn and the opportunities that arise from it.

I am inspired by successful people, they are the kind of people I like to spend my time with. People I used to spend time with were quite negative and always made excuses for everything, these people do not interest me anymore. Instead I try to spend more time around people that are positive, motivated and more importantly successful. Spending time with people like this has a profound effect on people, likewise with negative people.



Website

In a technological world you have to make the technology work for you and not the other way round. If you sell a product then a website is a crucial selling tool that works 24/7, doesn’t call in sick and does what you want it to. Not only can it sell your products but it can also tell the story of your business and have testimonials.

I advise to invest in your website and research selling methods used by others. This might seem really obvious but I never used to do this and now it saves me a lot of time. If your website takes orders and payment for you, then it is more than likely that all you have to do is process the order and post out the product. My old system was, when an order comes in process it straight away. What I do now is at certain time every day I process and send out all the orders at once. This saves me so much time it is unbelievable. I simply put all the order e-mails into one folder thought the day and then during the allocated time I go through them all.



Outsourcing and concentrating on what you are good at

Ask yourself “what is my job?”, why are you being paid and are you doing everything you need to and to a satisfactory standard. Outsourcing of time consuming takes such as taking calls, replying to e-mails and processing orders can all be out soured very easily and cost effectively. This then allows you to do the more important things to the highest standard possible.

You need to break your yearly salary/profit and work out how much an hour is you being paid and does the work reflect it. For example I want to make £100,000 next year in a 48 hour week. If that is broken down 100000 / 52 week / 48 hours = £40 per hour. If you are doing an activity that is not worth £40 per hour then you have to delegate or outsource that task. You then work on the £40 per hour work, the work only you can do.
In a technological world, the personal touch is king!

Although the internet and other technological revolutions have made setting up and trading faster and easier, never loose site of the personal touch. People buy from people, not machines. This is exactly why I spend a lot of time talking to my clients, why I am taking the time to go and see 50 people I don’t know and why I spend so much time networking. MK Printing is owned and run by me, Matt Kendall. My company reflects me and my personality, people buy from me.

You have to apply this in your own business and make sure you make a connection with you customers. Always remember that your prices are set by your customers! People will pay a premium for outstanding products and personal service rather than a faceless company.



Help others

Help others, it has a great effect on you and your business. When you help someone, not only does it make you feel great but it also makes your business more personal to you so you will want it to succeed even more. You will also be amazed at what helping people can do for you and long term the amount of business it will bring your way.

An example is helping a business with their marketing. Because of your help that business may grow and start to do a lot of research into marketing itself. If they do a lot of research they will come back to you to share their knowledge with you and just one of their ideas could make you millions!

You reap what you sow. Never expect results without first putting in the time and effort. If you lay careful plans, help others and create a USP, then this will be reflected not only on your balance sheet but the whole way your business works and in your personal life too.



I hope that this post has given people some great ideas and they you start to really research and implement them as soon as possible. Please remember to share both good and bad marketing and advertising you have encountered so everyone can learn from it.

You can make 2006 your best ever year, remember that if you do not change your methods then your results will never change either!

Happy New Year

Matt, MK Printing

[lgylsen]

Thanks for these tips Matt, I personally do not think that you are spamming because your posts always have nuggets of information that are useful.

I am trying to make my presence in the market, so if I need any further tips I will definitely be contacting you.

Happy new year.

[Magsite]

£40 an hour would be great!!

Lisa

[Coding Monkey]

Spaaaaaaaaammer

Nah, only kidding

[bwglaw]

Hmm... constructive advice, why are you not running your own marketing consultancy?....where you can offer a range of services, including printing, web design etc.

I would have put the above advice on MS Word and PDF'd it for others to download. You can adapt it for other purposes.

A spammer in my opinion is someone who has just joined and then promotes their business in an off-hand manner without an introduction.

[directmarketingadvice]

Another excellent post, Matt.

I agree with 90%+ of it.

One thing I would like to point out is

When I do this I do not “up sell” or push higher priced products onto the customer. The advice I give is for the customers benefit

Up-selling has a bad reputation with a lot of business people (particularly professionals) because it's seen as "hard-sell" or "manipulative".

I disagree 100%.

For example, last year my father decided that, at the ripe old age of 63, it was time to buy his first computer.

He asked me to go along to the shop with him and while we were buying the PC, the salesman offered to include a printer at a discount.

I knew that, at some point in the future, my father was going to need a printer, but we had decided to buy it at a later date.

However, because we were offered a lower price, we bought it there and then.

Say, for example, the printer normally sold for £80 (of which, £30 was profit). If the salesman added it on for £60, the customer saves £20 and the shop locks in a profit of £30 while the client is in the shop rather than letting the client buy it from a competitor.

That's up-selling done the right way i.e. for the customer's benefit.

I'm 100% with you on your consultative approach - giving the client the best advice, regardless of the impact that advice has on your bottom line.

However, sometimes the best thing for the client is to make him aware of volume discounts, point-of-sale offers or higher ticket products/services that will give him a better return for his money in the long term.

Anyway, excellent stuff. Maybe others will start posting these kinds of lessons they've learned about business.

Steve

[Cornish Steve]

You've covered a wide range of topics - from strategy to marcom to networking and more - and you make some valid points.

Each topic, of course, is a subject in its own right. From my experience, the most difficult - and the most important - is strategy. This encompasses unique selling point and much more. It's really tough to come up with a good strategy. You have to keep abstracting, checking out competitors, listening to customers, watching for trends, etc. Everything else flows from your strategy.

In a recent strategy session, we kept reducing strategy to fewer and fewer words. In the end, we summarized the major competitor's strategy as 'safe'. We were tending towards our own strategy as being 'progressive'. This sounds so simple, but it can take months to distill information into a meaningful strategy.

[confused]

I dont hink its spamming, I find your posts very interesting. With regards to the upselling, I agree with you as well, often I have the opportunity to offer a customer something "better" that what they have asked for, but like you, I'll advise them on what they need, not what they think they need, even if it means not making as much profit, the way I see it, the customer will be grateful that they saved a few £, and most importantly will say to their friends "that guy is great, saved me money and didnt try to con me"

[fastfences]

Why is it that some people view 'upselling' as a con?

Certainly, in some instances, it is absolutely infuriating because it is a 'sell'; the infamous catchcry comes to mind: 'Would you like fries with that?' I'm sure we've all felt like saying, 'If I wanted fries I'd bloody well ask for them!'

But in reality, upselling is just providing a better service. We are appraising our client of further features and benefits to be enjoyed from our product.

Directly related to my business, I will ALWAYS 'promote' (much nicer word - see the difference?) the use of 4inch fence posts over 3 inch. 'The benefits are that they last much longer, hold the fence more secure and look better (I could go on) AND are on offer at the moment at only £2.00 each.' This is done for the customer's benefit, I am not 'conning' them.

So is the case for most 'upselling.' In other areas, is a person really going to buy a 42" TV instead of a 28" if they don't want it?

Cheers, Nigel

[Coding Monkey]

Why is it that some people view 'upselling' as a con?


Probably because they haven't correctly been informed of what they're getting and the benefits of it. I've never had a client contact me knowing exactly what they want, how it works, what security they require etc etc so they always spend more. Yet at the same time, I've "lost" thousand of pounds by telling clients not to go ahead with ideas they have that they might have read somewhere else. I could gladly take their money and watch them achieve nothing, but that's not how I work.

If I didn't upsell, my company would have no real purpose and have few satisfied customers. Consultation? No point in that. Marketing assistance? Don't bother with that. You want 5 pages? Sorry, what do you do? Oh, alright, see you in a few weeks.

[KateCB]

We had a problem with upselling - our company is an onlines supplier of martial arts wera dn equipment for all disciplines, karate-kid.co.uk; we have customers who buy punchbags - we KNOW they will need a bracket to hang it on, but when we try to advise them on this and point out that if they buy it later they will have to pay a second shipping charge, we have been accused of trying to take 'advantage of them'.....without exception all customers who buy punchbags come back (sheepishly!) a week later to buy the bracket - and then complain they they are having to pay shipping again! Well! if they had taken the advice to start with they would have got their bracket with their punchbag and only one lot of shipping!
We can't offer the bracket in with the ppunchbag as there are 3 versions - we don't know which one they will need!

You can't please everyone can you? Upselling is hard, even when you are trying to save them time, frustration and of course the dreaded £4.75 shipping cost to get it to them....

Kate Carter-Brown

[Cornish Steve]

Can you sell the punchbag and the bracket as a single combined offer at your site? That would point out to your customers that both are needed without making them feel you are trying to upsell.

[directmarketingadvice]

Steve's right.

If the bracket is an essential part of the product, then it should be included in the package.

By trying to "add it on", you're presenting it as a "hidden extra charge" rather than an additional benefit.

And people resent that.

It's up-selling used the wrong way.

Steve

[ltw]

Matt,

As a printing firm do you ever purchase direct mail data for your clients? The company i work for as my day job (TheyDo Ltd) own a database fior direct mail of 52 million consumers. it has huge cost savings for marekting companies that can use it on behalf of all of their clients for one cost. it can be accessed for 12 months!

Get intouch if you are interested,

Kate
kate@lead-the-way.co.uk

[Spiritas]

I think the £100k target would require an hourly rate of more like £100/hr. Its not realistic to consider a 48 "productive" hour week and a 52 week year. Even that £100 rate isn't going to turn in 100k a year, to get that you are going to need a lot of residual business (where some of last years customers repeat their orders without any extra effort on your part) (arguably how most companies manage to grow), or high value deals (like headhunting or real estate which deliver big commissions) that have to be repeated continuously and create the classic high pressure/stress job role, which few people can sustain for long and often has negative side effects on family and friends.

Not that I'm saying this to be negative about the ideas, I just thought it was worth chucking in another perspective on the 100k scenario. It's important that people distinguish between highly motivational, inspiring potential scenarios and what's realistically required to achieve very high earnings.

That TV programme "What Britain Earns" with Peter and Dan Snow summed it up the other day when they worked out you need to earn just £46k to be in the top 10% of earners in the uk. Aiming for that as a starter and taking some time to congratulate yourself when you get there is therefore factually more than realistic for 90% of the population since they may not get there but aiming high is a good thing.

Being realistic avoids disappointment and actually means goals get achieved.

One other thing to add is that in my experience the one single thing that almost invariably helps people push up their earnings is formal education or training. Genuine knowledge will boost peoples personal confidence and opens doors and opportunities in many ways. I'll wager there's a large correlation between university graduates and people who earn more than 46k......

Cheers

Spiritas

SME Marketing (http://www.sussex-marketing-websites.co.uk)