Guaranteed marketing services

[S-Marketing]

Hi,

Very interested to know if anyone has used a marketing consultant or a similar service, who has actually guaranteed their results.

There are many marketing consultants about who promise the earth, but how many actually do work based on it giving an actual financial benefit, such as a guaranteed increase in turnover or profit?

 

[telemax]

Hi,

Very interested to know if anyone has used a marketing consultant or a similar service, who has actually guaranteed their results.

There are many marketing consultants about who promise the earth, but how many actually do work based on it giving an actual financial benefit, such as a guaranteed increase in turnover or profit?

If a company doesn't want to invest money and pay for our marketing services alarm bells start ringing. It tells me that they are probably skint from having a crappy product in the first place.

However, living in the real world we are not averse to basic plus reward.

 

[S-Marketing]

Thanks for your reply, but I was meaning actual marketing consultants not telemarketers.

 

[Newbus]

Marketing is an art rather than a science. Results are a combination of:

• Your definition the target market.
• Your identification of USP’s / marketing message.
• Your competitive advantage
• Supporting marketing tools (accuracy of data base, CRM software etc)
• The type of marketing you apply.

Different parts of the marketing mix (direct mail, telemarketing, email marketing, advertising, PR etc) will draw on all of these factors to a greater or lesser extent, just as any marketing consultant will. Although I understand that some consultants, companies will provide "guarantees" these need to look at within the commercial framework they are offered. I would also be aware that often the most experienced, and those with the long proven track record are unlikely to offer guarantees, but they will provide SLA'a (service level agreements) out lining what they will do, achieve and when.

In my experience I have chosen the marketing partners who I believe are most likely to achieve the business objective I am setting out to achieve rather than those that "guarantee". In my assessment they more often than not those guaranteeing results have a weaker proposition, and the only way they feel able to demonstrate their business case is to provide a "Guarantee" where others with more experience have been able to demonstrate successful case studies which have been referenceable.

 

[directmarketingadvice]

Newbus is right, there are a lot of things that are outwith your control as a marketer.

I guarantee some of my services and the secret is choosing the clients. Pick the ones that have both proven business success but, at the same time, could be doing much better if they just made a few simple improvements.

I would never guarantee anything for a startup or a business that's failing. There are just too many non-marketing reasons why they won't succeed.

Steve

 

[S-Marketing]

Newbus,

Thanks for your input, very interesting. You seem to be talking about a promotional or communication mix and refering to it as a marketing mix though. The marketing mix has much wider scope than anything you have mentioned.

I suppose from what you are saying, the best scenario to find when looking for a marketing consultant would be one who is qualified, experienced AND offers a worthwhile guarantee then.

 

[S-Marketing]

Newbus is right, there are a lot of things that are outwith your control as a marketer.

I guarantee some of my services and the secret is choosing the clients. Pick the ones that have both proven business success but, at the same time, could be doing much better if they just made a few simple improvements.

I would never guarantee anything for a startup or a business that's failing. There are just too many non-marketing reasons why they won't succeed.

Steve

Excellent points. It is very much about making sure that the clients are worthy of decent advice and are able to act upon it.

What kind of 'non- marketing reasons' do you think there are for a business to fail?

 

[Newbus]

Newbus,

I suppose from what you are saying, the best scenario to find when looking for a marketing consultant would be one who is qualified, experienced AND offers a worthwhile guarantee then.

Not Quite. experience, proven performance, references I can speak with is what I look for. The value of any guarantees can not be measured in advance due to the variable factors that effect a marketing campaign. Focus on only those that will guarantee results will limit your search of potential suppliers / partners. More likely than not excluding those most likely to deliver what you need.

SLA's are vital. You buy a services which includes only time. You need to know how that time is going to be spent and what specifics they will be doing for your money.

Finally you need to measure the result so that you can accurately calculate your Return on investment. Depending on the form of marketing you may be measuring lead generation, or brand awareness for example. Do not underestimate the tools needed to measure marketing results. I find that I have a collection of different software to accurately assess the value I get from each marketing technique.

 

[S-Marketing]

Not Quite. experience, proven performance, references I can speak with is what I look for. The value of any guarantees can not be measured in advance due to the variable factors that effect a marketing campaign. Focus on only those that will guarantee results will limit your search of potential suppliers / partners. More likely than not excluding those most likely to deliver what you need.

SLA's are vital. You buy a services which includes only time. You need to know how that time is going to be spent and what specifics they will be doing for your money.

Finally you need to measure the result so that you can accurately calculate your Return on investment. Depending on the form of marketing you may be measuring lead generation, or brand awareness for example. Do not underestimate the tools needed to measure marketing results. I find that I have a collection of different software to accurately assess the value I get from each marketing technique.

Very good points but it still seems mainly focused on promotional type activity, or marketing campaign, as you have refered to it.

I am trying to look at the wider picture. As an experienced and CIM qualified marketing consultant myself, I am often involved in such things as new product development, pricing strategy, target market evaluation, competitor analysis etc etc. A good marketing consultant can advise on improvements in almost any area of a business. As you say, ensuring a good ROI on the services is essential for customers, this is why I am looking into various guarantees of results which we can use.

I was asked a while ago by a business owner if we could offer such a service, and I thought ok, why not. It actually worked out very well and I went as far as to guarantee a significant increase in his profits. Since then I have offered this service to several clients and it has been very succesful.

My reason for starting this thread was to guage how many other consultants offer this service, and how they have found its popularity among their clients.

Many thanks to everyone who has replied so far.

 

[directmarketingadvice]

What kind of 'non- marketing reasons' do you think there are for a business to fail?

The list is huge.

It starts with the usual reasons businesses fail: no-one wants what they're selling, or they don't want it at that price, or there's no obvious way to profitably get it to market, or the business owners are clueless, or they don't have the money to do it properly, or the whole thing is pie-in-the-sky "this will be the next facebook" stuff...

Steve

 

[S-Marketing]

The list is huge.

It starts with the usual reasons businesses fail: no-one wants what they're selling, or they don't want it at that price, or there's no obvious way to profitably get it to market, or the business owners are clueless, or they don't have the money to do it properly, or the whole thing is pie-in-the-sky "this will be the next facebook" stuff...

Steve

I have to agree with the owners being clueless being a bit of a problem, but the other areas you suggested can all be remedied with effective marketing advice.

If I had a pound for every time I spoke to someone with a new idea for a website that thought they had the next Facebook, and were going to sell it in 3 years for millions, I dont think i'd still be working.

 

[directmarketingadvice]

I have to agree with the owners being clueless being a bit of a problem, but the other areas you suggested can all be remedied with effective marketing advice.

I'm not sure I'd agree. If a business is based on nothing - and many of them are - then all you have is nothing.

Of course, that doesn't mean there's no market for anything. But it might mean that every single thing about the business needs to change.

In which case, you're not offering marketing advice, you're creating a business from scratch for someone else...

...And gambling that, once you've done that, the person will actually want that business.

Steve

 

[Newbus]

You are right that the strategic marketing you provide may have a better basis for guarantees.

Its also interesting to understand that you are the consultant rather than the buyer that I presumed sorry.

Some area's as you describe, pricing in particular are quantifiable and researchable in advance and can be submitted based on a business case and thus performance becomes far more predictable and the guarantees / performance remuneration become attractive based on hitting core objectives.

However, marketing consultancy is not always that clear. The additional value that it can bring, greater turn over and profitability are still exposed to external factors out side of any marketers control.

It would be challenging to deliver upon a guarantee and then discover that one af a myriad of factors turnover drops or profits have to be reduced demand subsides due to external factors etc prevent you achieving your guarantee.

Over the past 8 years as a consultant I have learnt to rely on me and my team. We are the only variables from which I have control. Everything else is not in my control. I can predict them and model them and design hypothesis, but I can not rely on them.

 

[S-Marketing]

Newbus, sorry my fault, I should have made my position clear from the start. The reason I didn't is because I am trying to do a bit of research without being accused of promoting my services. It annoys me when someone asks a loaded question on the forum, when it is blatantly obvious they are seeking to drum up interest in their business.

Steve, completely agree about businesses sometimes being based on nothing. I seem to constantly tell people that a website isn't a business, its just a website.Its what you do with the site and how it generates income that's the business.

Many thanks for your replies guys, you have been very informative.

 

[GeorgeM]

Hi,

Very interested to know if anyone has used a marketing consultant or a similar service, who has actually guaranteed their results.

There are many marketing consultants about who promise the earth, but how many actually do work based on it giving an actual financial benefit, such as a guaranteed increase in turnover or profit?

Hi Stretchy

There are several ways to measure marketing success. It could be enquiries received, traffic to your website, leads generated, publicity obtained, and more.

All of these are a measure of making the market aware of your product or service - and to some extent can be guaranteed, with certain caveats.

Actual financial benefit means profitable sales, so the measure there is actual sales generated.

If your question is can a consultant guarantee your sales - then I would say the answer is likely to by NO. Because no one can do that.

I'd be suspicious of anyone who claimed they could.

Sales are driven by a combination of how good your product or service is, price, and the market demand.

Your product may be the best thing since sliced bread today.

Next week a new product may come along which is ten times better and suck away all your sales.

A supplier can guanantee to build you a website, but they can't guarantee that website will generate sales.

One way to measure the potential success of a new marketing / sales approach is to use pilot campaigns, assess the outcome, and then fine tune the campaigns - that way you can ensure costs don't get out of control if the campaign is not going to be successful.

 

[S-Marketing]

Hi George,

Thanks for the reply. Another angle on the whole idea. Certainly gives me something to think about.

As far as the guarantee goes, its much more about offering clients a low risk opportunity to try the services as they will know that they will only have to pay for the service if it works.

Obviously no-one can guarantee 100% that an idea will work, I do think, however, that having the confidence in your abilities as a marketer to offer a full money back guarantee, based on easily quantified results, can only be a good thing.

Again I think you are looking at marketing in quite a basic sense, many of the problems, or reasons, for failure can be remedied by effective strategic marketing.

 

[GeorgeM]

Hi George,

Thanks for the reply. Another angle on the whole idea. Certainly gives me something to think about.

As far as the guarantee goes, its much more about offering clients a low risk opportunity to try the services as they will know that they will only have to pay for the service if it works.

It all depends what you mean by if it works, doesn't it ?
I highlighted some of the ways in which this could perhaps be done in my last post.

What sort of service are you seeking to market ?

 

[S-Marketing]

It all depends what you mean by if it works, doesn't it ?
I highlighted some of the ways in which this could perhaps be done in my last post.

What sort of service are you seeking to market ?

As far as the if it works goes, I assume you mean how do we measure the success of the service. With businesses we have done this for so far, we have agreed, by negotiation, an agreed level of increased profit that will be used to determine success or failure. To date we have exceeded all targets.

I offered our service to a new business the other day which had just started to turn over a very small amount. I gave them a price to increase their turnover to 10 K, 20 K and 25 K. This prospective client was very focused on turn over above all else, so this seemed like the best measure for her.

The service would not be suitable for every type of business, as you mentioned if you have a brand new, ground breaking product with a huge chance of being 'blown out of the water' any day, I couldn't guarantee results.

For more normal businesses, online shops, traditional off-line businesses, trade type businesses etc etc, I am more than confident enough to offer a target based marketing service.

There a very few reasons why a business will fail if decent marketing strategy is used. Actually, more than that, there are very few businesses that cant be a success, if exceptionally good strategic marketing is in place.

 

[ooh]

My reason for starting this thread was to guage how many other consultants offer this service, and how they have found its popularity among their clients.

I'm considering offering marketing services, the payment of them based partly on the success of the marketing, which is another way of looking at "marketing consultant or a similar service, who has actually guaranteed their results."; it's a way of shouldering some of the risk myself rather than a guarantee.

What I'm thinking of is: an initial fixed payment which wouldn't be a full fair amount for the work I'll do. On top of that, payment attached to success of marketing, e.g. percentage of each sale from the marketing. If the marketing is an entire failure, the fixed initial amount would be the full amount I'd get. Semi-successful, I might get roughly the amount I'd have got if I'd charged by the hour. Blinding runaway success, I'd get more than if I'd charged by the hour.

I've been advised by several people not to do this but I keep coming back to it. There's a few things I really like about it; helps people take a punt with me, and, makes me more of a stakeholder therefore more attached to the outcome of the marketing thus having a good effect on the marketing I'd do. The devil would be in the details though. Also good trust between me and my client, both ways, would be necessary. It's something I'm considering for only very local to me small business's at the moment.

Another thing I like about the payment idea is, because my payment isn't attached directly to the time I spend on the work, it'll give me a bit of leeway; e.g. if I think interviewing some people who fit the target market is worthwhile but the client doesn't think it's that worthwhile, seeing as I'm not charging by the hour it wouldn't be such a problem for them. To cut costs often clients cut corners in a way which negatively effects the work. The payment scheme I'm sketching would be a way of getting round that.

Would be interested in any thoughts, opinions, experiences of this type of payment scheme.

Oh yeah, just to add: I wouldn't be offering this blindly as it were, it'd be subject to who/what the client is.


Useful looking book (which I haven't got round to reading myself yet):
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470504544

 

[S-Marketing]

OOH, Thanks for the info mate,

Sounds like we are thinking along similar lines. I think starting small in your local area is the way to go. Thats what I did. The first client I had, to take advantage of the money back guarantee offer was a landscaper who was just about to take over a business. He was worried that he needed to make a certain amount of profit each month to pay all his personal outgoings and make the business work. I guaranteed to him that he would make a certain level of profit each month to cover all his expenses, which as you can imagine, he is quite happy about. It worked out great, he makes more than he could ever have done, on his own, and I got paid, happy days

 

[ooh]

I think starting small in your local area is the way to go.

Part of the process I'm going to use intends the client to take a very active role, especially during the early stages; rather than me working for my client, it'd be more me and my client working together collaboratively for their customers (making marketing which serves my client's customers' purpose in itself is a main idea). Working together can't work remotely I don't think, not with someone you don't know first at least. Face to face is the only way to do what I've got in mind so local only option really.

The first client I had, to take advantage of the money back guarantee offer was a landscaper who was just about to take over a business. He was worried that he needed to make a certain amount of profit each month to pay all his personal outgoings and make the business work. I guaranteed to him that he would make a certain level of profit each month to cover all his expenses, which as you can imagine, he is quite happy about. It worked out great, he makes more than he could ever have done, on his own, and I got paid, happy days

Right, a "win-win" as they say. I've got to say I wouldn't be happy about offering a guarantee like that. Marketing success comes down to some other people's actions, so not guaranteeable. I suppose a guarantee and the payment scheme I sketched are just different ways of describing the same thing.

Thanks.

 

[S-Marketing]

Part of the process I'm going to use intends the client to take a very active role, especially during the early stages; rather than me working for my client, it'd be more me and my client working together collaboratively for their customers (making marketing which serves my client's customers' purpose in itself is a main idea). Working together can't work remotely I don't think, not with someone you don't know first at least. Face to face is the only way to do what I've got in mind so local only option really.



Right, a "win-win" as they say. I've got to say I wouldn't be happy about offering a guarantee like that. Marketing success comes down to some other people's actions, so not guaranteeable. I suppose a guarantee and the payment scheme I sketched are just different ways of describing the same thing.

Thanks.

You are right mate, you need to think seriously before guaranteeing someones income. In this case I guaranteed the work would come in for the right price, and we would convert enough enquiries into sales to ensure a steady stream of income. Obviously how he completed the projects also had an effect on his income.

 

[GeorgeM]

Good luck with your approach.

Be interested to hear how it progresses.

 

[S-Marketing]

Good luck with your approach.

Be interested to hear how it progresses.

Ill keep you informed, many thanks for your input.