Best Marketing Methods

[PaulLangham]

Hi,

I would like to open a thread concerning the marketing of a start up business.

Would it be possible for people to comment on their success and failures? What worked for and what has not worked and why not ?

I have noted already the following ideas:

- Simple flyers delivered to the catchment area.
- Simple flyers delivered with news papers
- Flyers with a twist - presented in a novel or interesting way.
- Letters addressed to householders.
- Letters addressed to local businesses.
- Small business size cards placed on the driver's side door to cars within the local supermarkets.
- Leaflet delivery drops at local sports clubs, sandwich bars, doctors surgery etc
- Advertise in local free and paid newspapers.
- Advertise in paid 'advert' magazines.

Are there other ideas?

- Added - Forums relevant to the product/service in question.
- Online marketing - contributing to forums relevant to your business area.

I also have a more detailed question concerning flyers. What sorts of flyers have worked best for you, what size, colour, and format? Is detail more important that punchy message? How to ensure that the flyer is even read?

I recently saw a flyer in the form of magnetic business card, the type which you can stick to a fridge, radiator or radio even and wondered if anyone has used such an idea and what the response from it what ?

Regards

Paul

 

[Mat.Hughes]

Hi Paul

This is an excellent idea for a post, the ammount of hours i spend thinking of ways i can promote my website. Some of them involving a lot of money.
Another way of advertising which you can add to your list is in forums, i read that this can work realy well. If you become a good member (lots of posts) then people will "trust" you and you can refer them to your website. This would obviously have to be done in a forum in your field though.
Good luck with the post ill keepy checking back for more ideas!!!


Mat

 

[PaulLangham]

Hi Mat,

i have added your idea inline.

regards

Paul

 

[scooter]

Paul

What type of business are you in

Regards

 

[Write My Site]

I was in the same position when I started up two years ago. I had a marketing budget of only £2,000 and as a result I couldn't afford to blow it all on something that wasn't going to get me a decent ROI. So, I spent little bits of money on lots of different things to find out where the profit lay. For me at that time (and the business has changed a lot since then) the best ROI came from networking. It can be tiring but it's cheap - in some cases free - and it leads to word of mouth referrals and repeat business.

 

[jholden]

Marketing, well I guess first thing to say it depends on the industry. In the accountancy profession this is an area often covered, and there are many organisations set up to take the money from accountants who want to know how to market.

Speaking from my personal experience of my business/profession, leaflets don't work, I guess your reliant on it hitting the door mat offering your service/product at the same time someone is thinking about it, also, and this is the big one, I think to really get anything from leaflet you need to drop a lot of them and regular, not something most of us have time for, unless you find someone who offers this service.

Yellow pages etc waste of money and dam expensive.

Direct marketing, letters addresses the business/house owner, mixed results, and depending on what you do worth a try.

Online marketing, again depends on what you do, but as we operate as a business online we find this is a great way to get new work, so we invest heavily in time terms in seo and forums like this, our blog etc etc, but this is very time intensive.

Word of mouth, my favourite, this is the most successful and cheapest method of marketing.

Networking events, again in my profession does not work, however, i have heard a few have used it and it worked. But it has to be said a lot do get a lot of work from networking events, those that meet weekly, but it is dependant on who else is in the group and you have to put a lot in, but it can and does work.

Other than the above, you have (which we can't afford) newspapers, radio and TV.

Hope this is of a little help, I can't wait to see what everyone else does.

Good luck.

Jason

 

[PaulLangham]

Paul

What type of business are you in

Regards

Hi Scooter,

I am in finance but this particular project is to launch a property portal in Belgium.

regards

paul

 

[PaulLangham]

Online marketing, again depends on what you do, but as we operate as a business online we find this is a great way to get new work, so we invest heavily in time terms in seo and forums like this, our blog etc etc, but this is very time intensive.

Hope this is of a little help, I can't wait to see what everyone else does.

Good luck.

Jason

Hi Jason,


Intresting you mentioned online marketing as in fact this item was completely missing from my original alist and I have done alot of it.

This project is to launch a property portal, so contributing to home decoration, DIY and similar forums will help. And yes it is very time intensive I agree !

regards

Paul

 

, leaflets don't work, I guess your reliant on it hitting the door mat offering your service/product at the same time someone is thinking about it, also, and this is the big one, I think to really get anything from leaflet you need to drop a lot of them and regular,

I dispute that.....

The key is to offer something immediate everyone will want in order to get them on your list, so that regular contact with good information will convert them to customers when the time comes and your mailing is not wasted


Most leaflets I see say

JOE BLOGGS ACCOUNTANTS
( first mistake is thinking the name of the company matters a damn to the customer! )

Specialists in x y z ( not uintil you prove it you arent!!!)

Parntners
Mr Wanttoimpresswithmyqualifications L.L.B ACA XYZ DOG B.O.R.I.N.G
25 years experience ( and the photo looks as though hes got 85 and should have retired 25 ago)

We do this
We do that
We do the other
Established 1922
Excellent service
Quality

PLEASE CALL US ON...


And you are left with the question....WHO CARES!
and WHY SHOULD I?

I must get 5 of those through my door every year from accountants.


Successful flyers say things like.


DONT
PAY GORDON ANOTHER PENNY IN TAX!

At least, dont pay a penny more than you need!

(better still if you attach a penny to the flyer!)

3 Tax Loopholes Our Customers Used To Reduce their
Tax Bills by an average of £3456 last year

And since 83% of our customers were able to use one of these.
The chances are you can too....!

See How to do it in
Our Free Tax-Squashing Guide!

www.tax-specialists.com/freeguide

which asks for an email address to send out...

(And dont hold back. Give them great info, and that way
prove you are good at waht you do...oh...and your conversion
will increase a lot, if there is a short video message explaining
why it is worht signing up, and that you will never send spam)

Or if it is urgent we are happy to take your call
Call robert on qwetqwetqwertqrwe

ie ,,,it is all about what you can do for them. not all about you.

Get a good copywriter to do it and response can go through the roof
It isnt just about the medium
The message and OFFER matter a lot.

 

[jholden]

admagic, that sort of message is what we used in the early days on our direct marketing letters, it had mixed results, which I was personally very pleased with as it meant from one letter and then a follow up phone call we beat (by a large margin) the usual hit ratios we were told about.

We have never used leaflets as I personally consider them too hit and miss for what we do, and the clients we want. That said, applying the same marketing approach for wording we used on direct mail it may be something I reconsider as we have just relocated our office and it may be worth a marketing splurge in the new area.

Thanks for what I consider a bit of a wake up call on leaflets.

Jason

 

[christine aken]

hi paul ,

i think the best ways to your is adverst by interenet ,you can looking for someone to help you to do your website seo.

 

[PaulLangham]

Admagic, I have to say I prefer this type of approach. The whole thing feels better as you read it. Thanks.

 

[Eleanor]

Well, I must say, I came here struggling with ideas of how to find customers and actually get some sales. I've only just launched my website and I must say, not a single person has signed up or ordered anything (yes, this could be to do with my lack of products but I am working on making more).

Anyway, reading this, especially Admagic's post, I had a bloody brilliant idea, and quite frankly, I'm not entirely sure it has been done before, so I'm gonna get busy!

Thanks for the great thread, Paul.

 

[Mat.Hughes]

admanic is absolutley right, leaflets have to be memorable to work not just a long list of boring facts. In my opinion leaflets don't work well for online companies where things like online networking and online ads work much better.

 

admanic is absolutley right, leaflets have to be memorable to work not just a long list of boring facts. In my opinion leaflets don't work well for online companies where things like online networking and online ads work much better.

Agreed...

I wasnt singling either leaflets or accountants out.
the same is true of direct mail, online ads and landing pages

I was making the points that.

(a) The message and the offer, are as important as the medium.
(b) Getting people to sign up is an important part of the sales process
(c) Giving in the first instance can be a great way to build relationships
(d) Copy should be about benefits to the customer, not about the seller
(e) Whatever approach is used should be designed to minimise advertising resistance

 

[The Panda]

A bit of everything generally works best. Keep your name in the public domain. Usually the things you put effert into and expect results dont produce and then you go and do something half hearted that you dont expect anything from and presto.
An example, 35,000 leaflets, professionaly produced and destributed through the local paper, double sided glossy.A cost of over £1.5K. Nothing, not a single call.
Then 30 leaflets put out in one road printed of my computer that looked like my 10 year old son had drawn them and in comes a £1k order. You can never tell.
Same thing happened with local newspaper adds. A nice big one to compete with all the big boys and nothing, not a whisper.
Then 4 weeks later a much smaller one that to be honest was messed up by the paper and looked terrible and guess what, 3 orders came in from that giving me a profit of over £1k. Maybe not trying to be smart and slick works better. Its a funny old world.

 

[PaulLangham]

A bit of everything generally works best. Keep your name in the public domain. Usually the things you put effert into and expect results dont produce and then you go and do something half hearted that you dont expect anything from and presto.
An example, 35,000 leaflets, professionaly produced and destributed through the local paper, double sided glossy.A cost of over £1.5K. Nothing, not a single call.
Then 30 leaflets put out in one road printed of my computer that looked like my 10 year old son had drawn them and in comes a £1k order. You can never tell.
Same thing happened with local newspaper adds. A nice big one to compete with all the big boys and nothing, not a whisper.
Then 4 weeks later a much smaller one that to be honest was messed up by the paper and looked terrible and guess what, 3 orders came in from that giving me a profit of over £1k. Maybe not trying to be smart and slick works better. Its a funny old world.

Hi Panda,

I agree with what you are saying, much of this is simply trial and error.

I had an interesting thrown at me the other day - walk through a crowded train handing out leaflets, people will normally read the headline of your piece as they are 'trapped' on the train.

Hand out the same leaflet/flyer as they come off the train and it will be thrown away more or less instantly.

I haven't tried the above though but will add it to my list.

Regards

Paul

 

[PaulLangham]

Hi,


I have noted already the following ideas:

- Simple flyers delivered to the catchment area.
- Simple flyers delivered with news papers
- Flyers with a twist – presented in a novel or interesting way.
- Letters addressed to householders.
- Letters addressed to local businesses.
- Small business size cards placed on the driver’s side door to cars within the local supermarkets.
- Leaflet delivery drops at local sports clubs, sandwich bars, doctors surgery etc
- Advertise in local free and paid newspapers.
- Advertise in paid ‘advert’ magazines.

Are there other ideas?

- Added - Forums relevant to the product/service in question.
- Online marketing - contributing to forums relevant to your business area.
- Online form on website - capture emails and use Aweber/get response to follow up
- Leaflets distributed on trains

I have updated the list

 

[al_manchester]

Hi Paul,

There are some great ideas here (particularly admagic), all of which sound like they could work very well.

In my experience, there are no real golden rules for advertising though. The direct mail examples in the previous postings (which are very good) may work very well for, say, accountants, but disastrously for solicitors for example, or maybe even the other way round.

The key, it seems to me, is testing. Take your marketing budget, spend 50% on what you ALREADY know will work, and split the rest over 5 to 10 new ideas, perhaps trying Panda's idea of a 'childlike' advert (not dissing your ad here Panda - just echoing your words!).

The real key though, I find, is your* approach.

Try to approach sales much like you would dating. You could ask every woman you meet (or man) if they will sleep with you and I suspect you would get a 1% success rate, no matter how good you were in the sack. But if you asked another 100 women/men if they would like to go out on a date, I suspect you might get a 10% success rate. And of those you are out with, it's not unreasonable to estimate that half of them will sleep with you eventually (perhaps after the 10th date)… making an overall 5% success rate.

Does that make sense?

So try not to get people to buy/sign-up/call you/browse your brochure. Just aim on getting them on a date.

For example, if you know that your target market likes Interior Decoration, and that your portal has a big section on that, then advertise a free link to allow them to download a map of Bruges where the 5 best 'Hidden Gem' antique shops are**. The download is sent via email. Then, the following week you might ask them (via email) if they want a guide to buying property in Belgium. Then, the following week, you ask them to vote on a design for a house. Then the next week you ask them if they want an 'Insider's guide to Property Prices in Belgium - How to get a cracking deal'… and so on).

Oh, and don't buy too much advertising as it rarely works!

Good luck with it all.

Al Elliott

*Not YOUR approach, but ONE'S approach.
**You can think of something MUCH better than this, I'm sure.

 

[PaulLangham]

Hi Al,

Some good ideas here. I like the examples at the end- if you don`t mind me asking what is your background ?

Regards

Paul

 

[al_manchester]

Hi Paul,

Glad you liked them!

My background is in sales, however at present I have a (very ethical) Sale & Rentback company (no, we're not ALL con artists!). When I started, I found it almost impossible to break into the market, as it is very well covered by the big boys, so I had to research different ways to get leads to convert, hence my slightly different approach to promotion. (I'll PM you the web address if you are interested).

At present, I am concentrating on my new venture which is, funnily enough, sales outsourcing, where we help companies increase their sales either on a consultative or outsourcing basis.

Were you/Are you an IFA? How come you thought to start your forum in Belgium? How is it going so far?

Al

 

[PaulLangham]

Hi Al,

In fact Iam a financial trader who started off in IT working for banks etc over in Europe.

The idea for the property prtal came form the fact that i was looking for a house and decided I could do better than what was currently on offer.

If you are in property then the Belgian market is very under developed in my opinion.

regards

Paul

 

Hi Paul,

In my experience, there are no real golden rules for advertising though. .

Agree there is no "guaranteed" formula

Although - There are a lot of common threads through most successful ads...which are in a sense golden rules

- first grab attention and make a big promise -
that generally means a headline with a benefit - although attaching attention grabbers to direct mail is becoming more and more necessary

- second get them to read to the end...
that means speaking in short conversational english, and telling a story is a good way to lead in

- make an irressistible offer...and give a reason why you can do this
and embedded in that is a USP...unique guarantees often help with this.

- prove the value of the offer

- establish credibility using testimonials, facts, and so on

- ask for them to do something, and preferably make the hurdle low - I agree with those who say all other things being equal - a two stage process in which something is given in exchange for sign ups.

- give a reason why it has to be now!

Also...decreasing advertising resistance, by making it look more like an article, advertorial or story, always helps!

The key, it seems to me, is testing.

Agree 1000% with that!

 

[al_manchester]

Also...decreasing advertising resistance, by making it look more like an article, advertorial or story, always helps!

That is so true. the best response I get from adverts are if they are written as if they are editorial, and I mean EXACTLY like editorial (as much as the publication will allow).

The comments I got were, "Manchester Evening News Would not have printed something about you if you weren't to be trusted."

Fantastic way to build up trust, and let's face it, that is the primary reason people do what you want them to do.

However, I would readily concede that admagic is right (and I was perhaps a little bit hasty with my "no golden rule" comment) and those rules s/he cites are INVALUABLE when building a persuasion model.
Al

 

[PaulLangham]

Here is "one" that happened some years back her in Brussels.

One of the cheap no frills airlines was setting up and placed an advert in the four national newspapers, inviting all drivers of white cars to meet at a certain well known supermarket car parking area at a certain hour on a certain day. All drivers, upon certain conditions, would get a free ticket to Barcelona.

On the day, thecompany brought in many students who met the hundreds of of cars that turned up and they invited the drivers to sign a contract. The details of which were as follows: drivers would drive around over the next two weeks with stickers promoting the company attached to the driver and passenger doors. If they covered a minimum of 600km in the two week period they were invited to come back to the car park where after their milegae was checked; they would then receive the free ticket.

The airline company obviously laid on the large stickers/auto collant for the cars, they had a line of students doing the sticking on,ditto for the explanation and signature of the contracts.

Likewise after two weeks they had another mass of students checking the mileage and issuing the actual ticktets.

The result of all this was that after two weeks there was hardly anyone here that did not know about the launch of the new airline.

Rgds

Paul

 

[in2town]

What I would say as a PR and Marketing consultant is, do not quickly jump at the first offer of advertising that comes your way, no matter how cheap it seems. Look at free ways to get your message out there, speak to your local newspaper and see if they would be interested. Think of something about your business that they would be interested in. Think of something unique about your business and also speak to your local radio stations. Always look at the free options first before paying for advertising. People are more likely to read an article about you and your business rather than read your advert.

 

[PaulLangham]

Hi Paul,

Glad you liked them!

My background is in sales, however at present I have a (very ethical) Sale & Rentback company (no, we're not ALL con artists!).
Al

Hi Al,

Actually I don't se why you would want to apologize about the persuit of profit - I also used to be somewhat prone to this, aplogizing about prices etc.

if you run a legitimate business, provide a service at a level which attrcats people then there is nothing wrong with that.

Rgds

Paul

 

[adventurelife]

Before you try anything in marketing. Sit back switch off all phones etc and think about it long and hard. There is so much money and time wasted in marketing because it has not been thought out properly.

Below is some of a post I made some months ago for a guy struggling with marketing.


Allocate a couple of days, do not do anything else and document what you are doing.

1st Stage

1. Decide how much you want for the business by this time next year
2. Discover your average order value and average order GP from your previous bookings
3. Divide the amount in point one by the average order value
4. This will tell you how many bookings you need to create each year to hit your financial goal
5. Discover you conversion rate for your enquires. If you have not kept records you will have to best guess with your gut feel. Example if you get 10 enquiries how many bookings do you get? Lets say for purposes here 6 so you conversion rate of enquiry to booking is 60%
6. You know now that you have to create X number of enquiries in order to get the 60% booking that will deliver your financial goals.

Now the above should not take that long but the essential thing is to create a SYSTEM to record every enquiry and every booking from now on. The simpler the system the better. I still use a simple spreadsheet for doing this.

2nd Stage

Time management, decide how much time each day you are going to spend on marketing and sales, and yes I mean each day, 7 days a week. The more the better but the main thing is if it is 2hrs or 4 hrs a day you stick to it and if you miss a day you make it up on another day. I suggest you record it.

3rd Stage

This is where it gets harder and where it is 100% essential that your record everything. You are going to have to discover the marketing mix that works for your business. The marketing mix is an ever moving beast but each business should discover their own marketing mix and then work it hard and hone it as the marketplace changes.

This is where the marketing experts on here could help you but as funds are tight you can discover the mix that works for your business yourself. This is time intensive and is based on trial and error, but as long as you record everything it is an exercise that all small business owners should do anyway.

a.Decide what marketplace you are in
b.Decide what channels are you going to use to market to that marketplace.
c.Decide what marketing routes are you going to use in each channel

Example

I am in the entertainment marketplace which a niche in adventure sports

I use the following channels. Direct B to C and trade B-B within these two main channels I market to Corporate Groups, Stag and Hen, Schools, Charities, Youth Groups, Birthday Parties, Family Groups, Couples,

Routes to market. Websites, email marketing, referral marketing, social media marketing, film marketing, printed brochure marketing, direct marketing, event marketing, stunt marketing, PR,

4th Stage

Once you have decided on a,b,c from above you need to decide what proportion of your time and effort that you are going to dedicate to each channel and each route to market within that channel. Then record it on the SYSTEM that you have created. Do no worry if it is wrong it will be as the trial and error period will let you know where best to spend you time and effort is. However, you will not know that if you do not have a SYSTEM and record it.

5th Stage

This is where the hard work starts. Pick a channel each day and pick a route to market. Then spend the whole day working that route and recording what you did in your SYSTEM so when the enquiries come in you know what is driving them.

Examples

Today I am going to work my B-B channel and phone 25 potential resellers of my products and services

Today I am going to work my B-C channel and visit 25 accommodation providers in my area to get them to stock my leaflets and when I am their I will give them a box of chocolates when they say yes to my leaflets, and when they email me back to say thank you, I will reply and say how nice their website is and can I have a link from it please.

On my way home all that chocolate has made me hungry so I stop of at Asda and quickly stick a few hundred flyer's in cars and trolleys.

Then after tea I phone my mate with the teenage boys who are out going and offer them a free driving session. They take flyer's to school next day for their mates.

I could go on but I am sure you get the idea. The essential thing in the 5th stage is to pick a channel and a route each day and work it hard then record it in the SYSTEM

6th Stage

After a few months of working the above it will be time to do detailed study of your SYSTEM and the results that all that hard work created. This will let you see what is working and what is not doing so well. You then make adjustments to the SYSTEM and work it even harder.

7th,8th,9th etc I am afraid it never ends no matter what size of business you get to

In summary if there is a marketplace for what you do and you apply the above you will make a business no question. The only difference out their is those that have a SYSTEM and those that do not and for those that do how hard are they working it.

 

[am:pm graphics]

Face to face networking is one of the best. Yellow pages works for us, as does website promotion (SEO). From these we now get a lot from word of mouth/recommendations.

Pauline

 

[al_manchester]

I also used to be somewhat prone to this, aplogizing about prices etc.

Good point. I was apologising for the other companies that have been portrayed in the media over the last week or so, though. As soon as I say Sale & Rentback most people assume, thanks to the Daily Fricking Mail that I mean "buy and rip off", so I try to distance myself from them!

Hwever, in my very first business, i too used to apologise for prices and that is why it didn't work very well!

PS. Check your PM

 

[stato77]

The first common mistake that people make when it comes to marketing is confusing it with promotion.

Promotion is a very important aspect of the marketing mix, but it is not the be all and end all.

Before you do anything, you need to plan what you are going to do, you need to research your marketplace and analyse your findings. You need to know your potential customers.

Only then can you begin to segment your marketplace and to begin to think about targeting it effectivley.

You need to find you own unique postion in the market place by using promotion, thinking about your product range, pricing etc.

You need to analyse the competition and differentiate yourself.

Promotion is important but it will not get you anywhere unless you know where you are going