Marketing strategy Help

[ryian]

Hi guys.

I have had some good advice from the forum before and would appreciate some more pls. I own a small business in Hertfordshire, approx 12 people work for me. We provide a manufacturing service in the sheet metal fabrication field. We have been very lucky over the past few Years. The company has grown considerably but I have now noticed a slow down. The feedback from our customer base and similar companies that do the same as me is that quotation are still coming through but orders are not being placed for some reason.

The marketing we have in place at the moment does not seem to be providing many results. I will give a breakdown on what we have done and hopefully you guys can help.

Advertise with 3 directories that cover our sector.
Employ a lady 2 times a month that has worked cold calling in our sector. (Targeting industry but results are not great. We have got 2 clients in the last year. The spend so far does not cover her cost).
Employ an Seo company called the JDR GROUP. Not proving a great monthly investment.

We have a meeting with the manufacturing advisory service later this month. They provide advise and maybe grants towards marketing.
We also spoke to a company that provide marketing strategies in our sector.

I hope you can look over this and advise. We spend approx £10000 a year on marketing.

 

[TelesMedia]

Which sectors do you target ?

 

[NextPoint]

Hi Ryian. The first thing I'd say is that marketing strategies often need time to produce the results. Also, you need to engage in the types of activities that are suitable for your targets.

Cold calling: This is always going to be a numbers game. Having someone who is good at telesales is a factor, but cold calling will always produce a low percentage of conversions, so don't judge your telesales person too much if they are not making massive numbers of calls. A better way to do telesales is to get warm leads that can be followed up by your telesales marketer - you will see much better results with this.

SEO: This is a long term strategy - i.e. don't expect to fully see the benefits for up to 6 months. If you are wanting to make sales immediately, SEO isn't the option.


My suggestion on what I've said of the above two marketing methods would be to use a pay per click campaign to generate sales leads, then pass these to your telesales woman to follow up. This will produce much better results than cold calling and gambling on SEO that at the very best will take time, and at worst will produce nothing. You should also make sure that your pay per click campaigns and their associated landing pages are highly targeted, strategically written and designed to be optimised for converting visitors to become enquirers - i.e. the focus shouldn't be on making your web pages to look pretty in your own opinion, you should adapt them based on results you get from split testing to see which design features/changes improve your enquiry results.

 

[telemax]

Employ a lady 2 times a month that has worked cold calling in our sector.

Not enough time to build any momentum

 

[Jester]

Have you tried chasing any of the people you gave quotes to? Best case scenario you phone them and get an order confirmed. Worst case you ask them what stopped them placing the order.

You shoukl also take contact details down of anyone who you supply a quote to, then you can do some direct marketing to build a relationship with them.

 

[CarlosRealOnline]

Hello,

I have heard your problem many times before, especially about not seeing seo results. The other people in this thread have already outlined that SEO is a long term strategy but I do think that for the amount you are spending you should be at least slightly pleased by the results, given that you are in a relatively niche industry.

Cold calling isn't going to work if you are only doing a few days a month, I would recommend either having someone do it full time, out source it, or don't do it at all. Telesales can provide great results when done by the right people.

If you want me to have a look at your website and give you a bit more advice I'd be happy to, just send me a private message and I'll have a quick look for you.

All the best,

 

[JonathanSEO]

The other people in this thread have already outlined that SEO is a long term strategy but I do think that for the amount you are spending you should be at least slightly pleased by the results, given that you are in a relatively niche industry.

If you want me to have a look at your website and give you a bit more advice I'd be happy to, just send me a private message and I'll have a quick look for you.

The original poster didn't specify what they were spending on SEO.

 

[CarlosRealOnline]

The original poster didn't specify what they were spending on SEO.

No they didn't, however I think its fair to assume that at least 50% of the £10k marketing budget is being used on seo and ppc.

 

[Spinoza]

The feedback from our customer base and similar companies that do the same as me is that quotation are still coming through but orders are not being placed for some reason.

So the interest is there but it's not being converted in orders. You need to find out why so you can rectify the problem and the simplest way is to ASK.

The lady you employ for cold calling, tell her to contact the customers, tell them she's new and wants to make an impression with her boss (you) and could they give her some advice on why the quotation (thats Quotation not Quotations you don't want them to think others aren't buying) you gave them wasn't acted upon. People love giving advice to others and you'll get a horses mouth breakdown of everything you want to know. An old sales technique is to ring after 5:00 pm as the "gatekeepers" have usually gone home and you're much more likely to speak to a manager. After you receive the information tailor a new quotation addressed to the same manager using THEIR own criteria and knock a little of the price for the advice and state that in a handwritten amendment on the bottom of the quotation.

This plays on the old Cialdini principles of: 1/ Consistency- They will wish to be consistent in what they specified their purchasing specifications on. And 2/ reciprocation, people like to pay back favours, we're neurally programed to do so.

 

[ryian]

Great response people. The sectors we target are as follows. IT Furniture, control panels, lab furniture and so on. We look at industries that sub out sheet metal work. We pay £165 a day to the lady that does the telesales, which I think is a bit much but she knows the area. I have spoke to the local university and asked if a student in last year of their degree would like to work in a part time base and use our company as a portfolio tool for themselves. But I haven't followed it up. I am not in marketing so employing someone and providing them with material to find work is not my field. I know my boundaries and marketing is outside them!!

I have a company coming to see me so hopefully they can advise on what I'm doing wrong. If any of you guys have worked for or still work for companies that can help and have some case studies I can see than I would be more then welcome to speak.

Regarding feedback on quotations I am on that and find I get good feedback on the price. It's the lack of quotations I am doing at the moment that bothers me. A recessions means work is harder to come not impossible! I believe if I quote it I will have a high chance of winning the job. I can build up a good relationship with a client.

 

[directmarketingadvice]

So the interest is there but it's not being converted in orders. You need to find out why so you can rectify the problem

Agree 100%.

This is the step in the selling process where things grind to a halt. No point in coming up with a bunch of different ways to fill the funnel if the funnel has a big leak and you don't know why.

Steve

 

[telemax]

Have you tried chasing any of the people you gave quotes to? Best case scenario you phone them and get an order confirmed. Worst case you ask them what stopped them placing the order.

You shoukl also take contact details down of anyone who you supply a quote to, then you can do some direct marketing to build a relationship with them.

Absolutely, often people will get 3 or 4 quotes in every time, sometimes with the pure intention of using it as leverage with their current supplier. It really can't do any harm to ask if you can stay in contact by phone and email every 3 months. It's way more likely that they will remember you if their current supplier lets them down.

 

[DomainsRegistrar]

I personally would never pay anyone £165 a day if they didn't cover their cost regardless of how well she knew the area, this is crazy in my opinion.

It seems that you have enough coverage in the area in terms of ad presence so I would suggest that it is a conversion issue, your staff provide a quote to an interested party and then thats it a no or no contact. This would say to me either they don't like the cost, they don't have a rapport with the contact in your office or the world is wrong!
Sorry that was a closed statement but true, you obviously have interest in the products or you would have no enquiry so it must be the person or the price.

Experiment, take a trial employee, focus in a new geographical area and if the figures beat the local lady then there you go. £165 per day, poor figures and so where is the incentive? I would say to her "if you generate £165 per day profit then you get your £165, if not and recurring so then you could have a fresh recruit or apprentice that would work for two weeks at that cost and incentivised too.

In short, no sales or very little, high cost and no incentive = a happy salesperson that can't sell and unhappy business that relys on a salesperson that can't sell = A rethink.

She may know the area but obviously not the product or the people she deals with.

ps. sorry if it's mom or wife helping out but I doubt it

 

[ryian]

When we quote we always get feedback from the client. If we are too expensive they inform us. We can if they allow us to look at the price and adjust accordingly or say no to reducing the price because it's not worth it. But we always ask to bare us in mind for the next project, which in most cases they do.
£165 a day is to expensive like you said but as I am not a marketing person it took me a while to realise I was throwing away my money. I have giving her one more opportunity to get some results, so let's see what happens. She did complain that she spends most of her time looking for customers to approach for me and that I should give her telephone number to call. She mentioned if I would like to buy a data from company's house. All companies have SIC codes that relate to their industry but I looked at that and it was over my head...

I am meeting with a company next week so let's see what they say.

 

[Electric Alley]

Hi Rylan,

Have you done any research into your customers and how they buy your products? I don't know anything about your particular industry but I used to work in Engineering and we focused less on search marketing as found people weren't searching for our products - you can actually check this by googling 'google external keyword checker' and you can see how many people are searching for your keywords.

In my opinion, rather than relying on SEO, you should find what events and what publications/web sites your customers attend/read, and getting involved in those. Maybe getting a spot in an industry newsletter or buying a solus email to a list of your potential customers, offering a discount or something useful to them.

 

[paulstewart64]

There's a number of good points raised so far.

To me the key issues are based around

1) the marketing funnel and that it would appear to be slow and relatively expensive

2) the sales funnel which is in-effective.

There could also be a bigger picture here that needs addressing surrounding the use of the company's existing resources and how to look at these resources in terms of profit centres. This takes us into high level strategic development. After all, old markets can deteriorate and if the business isn't looking for new markets then this adds to the issue i.e. chasing business in declining markets.

Whilst fixing either point 1 or 2 will certainly help, without undertaking the strategic work, the business may only be putting a plaster over what could potentially be a deep wound.

 

[ryian]

Hi Rylan,

Have you done any research into your customers and how they buy your products? I don't know anything about your particular industry but I used to work in Engineering and we focused less on search marketing as found people weren't searching for our products - you can actually check this by googling 'google external keyword checker' and you can see how many people are searching for your keywords.

In my opinion, rather than relying on SEO, you should find what events and what publications/web sites your customers attend/read, and getting involved in those. Maybe getting a spot in an industry newsletter or buying a solus email to a list of your potential customers, offering a discount or something useful to them.

We provide a service. When checking on google we come under. Sheet metal fabrication, Cnc laser cutting, sheet metal work. We are on the first page for our area but not nationally!

 

[XanderMarketing]

Hi guys.

I have had some good advice from the forum before and would appreciate some more pls. I own a small business in Hertfordshire, approx 12 people work for me. We provide a manufacturing service in the sheet metal fabrication field. We have been very lucky over the past few Years. The company has grown considerably but I have now noticed a slow down. The feedback from our customer base and similar companies that do the same as me is that quotation are still coming through but orders are not being placed for some reason.

The marketing we have in place at the moment does not seem to be providing many results. I will give a breakdown on what we have done and hopefully you guys can help.

Advertise with 3 directories that cover our sector.
Employ a lady 2 times a month that has worked cold calling in our sector. (Targeting industry but results are not great. We have got 2 clients in the last year. The spend so far does not cover her cost).
Employ an Seo company called the JDR GROUP. Not proving a great monthly investment.

We have a meeting with the manufacturing advisory service later this month. They provide advise and maybe grants towards marketing.
We also spoke to a company that provide marketing strategies in our sector.

I hope you can look over this and advise. We spend approx £10000 a year on marketing.

Hi there,

We work with many businesses in a similar situation to yours. There are a number of tactics you could consider for example AdWords, email marketing, content marketing, social media, PR direct mail, improving your website etc...

If you're interested we offer a free one hour marketing consultation where with a bit more information we'd be able to give you some support and guidance with how best to move forwards with your marketing.

Send me a PM or visit http://www.xandermarketing.com/book-a-free-one-hour-marketing-consultation/ if this is of interest.

Thanks,

Alex

 

[PIngels]

Hi Ryian

We've just finished this short animation called Online Spaghetti Demystified. It gives you an short overview of how lead generation and lead conversion and the elements that empower those processes fit together.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQ-v5BcKzv4


I hope it helps

 

[JonathanSEO]

Hi Ryian

We've just finished this short animation called Online Spaghetti Demystified. It gives you an short overview of how lead generation and lead conversion and the elements that empower those processes fit together.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQ-v5BcKzv4


I hope it helps

News flash. It doesn't.

I gave up when you said you only have 3 seconds to capture someone's attention and realised the video was 5 minutes of waffle.

 

[PIngels]

News flash. It doesn't.

I gave up when you said you only have 3 seconds to capture someone's attention and realised the video was 5 minutes of waffle.

Thanks for the feedback Jonathan. I'm sorry you experienced it as 'waffle'.

The principles mentioned in the animation has had positive results whenever we've applied them.

The 3 second statistic, as I am sure you are aware of, is based on Nielsen/Norman Group's article explaining Weibull Distribution in online marketing terms. In theory you want to capture interest (not attention) as quickly as possible as there is a steep decrease in visitor retention unless you are able to capturing initial attention very quickly. Their report suggested that “bad” websites would be abandoned in the first 10 seconds but ideally you want to push that time closer to 3 seconds as this results in a significant increase in retention.

 

[ryian]

Hi guys.

Had my first meeting with a marketing consultant 2 more to go. Pls read through the proposal he sent and give feedback if possible.

Marketing plan
Prepare a marketing plan for Out company, containing the following components:
 Analysis of your current market position (industry sectors, customer base, competition, potential new sectors etc)
 SWOT analysis
 Identification of marketing objectives and future marketing approach (segmentation,
your USP etc)
 Communication Plan – what marketing tools to use to achieve your objectives, including
setting a budget and measurement KPI’s etc.
Prepare website content
Produce the new website content using the marketing objectives to ensure you are portraying the right messages to your potential customers. Also maximise SEO using the right keywords and ensuring a regular process of updates and new content is in place. The key focus for the website will be to persuade visitors to make contact i.e. move them from interested visitors to genuine sales leads.
Launch the new website
This is an opportunity to generate some PR for Us, with a press release and an email campaign and/or direct mail campaign to current customers and prospects.
Implementation of communications plan
Launching the new website will be the first stage of implementation of the communication plan. It will then be necessary to consider what tasks are required on a regular basis and how you wish to proceed with those. This would be an opportunity to introduce your university student who could help with social media postings, Directory listings, latest news, press releases, telesales, database management (if appropriate et

 

[JonathanSEO]

Hi guys.

Had my first meeting with a marketing consultant 2 more to go. Pls read through the proposal he sent and give feedback if possible.

Marketing plan
Prepare a marketing plan for Out company, containing the following components:
 Analysis of your current market position (industry sectors, customer base, competition, potential new sectors etc)
 SWOT analysis
 Identification of marketing objectives and future marketing approach (segmentation,
your USP etc)
 Communication Plan - what marketing tools to use to achieve your objectives, including
setting a budget and measurement KPI's etc.
Prepare website content
Produce the new website content using the marketing objectives to ensure you are portraying the right messages to your potential customers. Also maximise SEO using the right keywords and ensuring a regular process of updates and new content is in place. The key focus for the website will be to persuade visitors to make contact i.e. move them from interested visitors to genuine sales leads.
Launch the new website
This is an opportunity to generate some PR for Us, with a press release and an email campaign and/or direct mail campaign to current customers and prospects.
Implementation of communications plan
Launching the new website will be the first stage of implementation of the communication plan. It will then be necessary to consider what tasks are required on a regular basis and how you wish to proceed with those. This would be an opportunity to introduce your university student who could help with social media postings, Directory listings, latest news, press releases, telesales, database management (if appropriate et

Sounds alright but it's hard to assess when none of us have met the company you went to see.

Not really anything specific in it though - could apply that proposal to any number of businesses.

How are all your competitors getting their customers? Web? Cold calling? Connections? Or are they in the same boat as you?

 

[XLIN.Ltd]

I have read through your original post and the responses to them.

I understand that you are sheet metal fabrication (b2b) company supplying to other manufacturers

If I was to try and help you in marketing, my course of action would be as under:

My first step would be to analyse your web site content and check analytics data to find which keywords bring visitors to your site and how many visitors contact you.

Since you are involved in sheet metal fabrication and supply to IT Furniture, control panels, lab furniture, my second step would be ask you to find out if the industries / sectors you supply to are facing any problems due to recession.

My third step would be to ask you if you can try and find clients / buyers in other industry sectors with the same manufacturing / fabrication facility or with some slight changes.

I would also analyse how you communicate with your existing and prospective clients offline i.e. through sales literature, newsletters, meeting clients in person or at events etc.

I would also analyse the web sites of your competitors and their offline communication strategies.

While you must be working hard on reducing your costs, your clients also would be working hard to reduce their costs. Do you communicate with them about your proactive actions?

You should talk to your clients regularly to find out if you can change something in your product / service to help them meet their goals. This does not need to be sales oriented but if your clients perceive you as an expert and knowledgeable person, they would come back to you.

Cold calling in your case does not seem to be a good idea unless the person who calls is an expert in your industry and who can provide vital information and suggestion to your prospective clients.

Marketing for technical products and services to other manufacturers is not same as marketing products and services to individuals. Also, Marketing involves so many things - one of which is Sales - so I would suggest to have a full review of your marketing strategy keeping these factors in mind.

I hope this helps

Regards

 

[bharatbooks]

XLIN.Ltd

You have described Marketing strategies very nicely and understandable.
We should thanks for it, Marketing process is never ending process which always needs some innovative and dynamic styles for the attracting customers. above mentioned steps are very useful but along with these awareness about the current market and market flow is also important.
Getting knowledge about the trends present in the market will get you advantage for deciding right place, time and marketing strategy with the specific targeted audience which will be potential customers group.

 

[altboost]

LinkedIn would probably be a good starting point for new marketing activities. Identify your potential customers then start networking with them. LinkedIn ads would also be pretty good for your business since you can target exactly the type of clients you're looking for. Hope this helps.

 

[Lucan Unlordly]

Hi guys.

Had my first meeting with a marketing consultant 2 more to go. Pls read through the proposal he sent and give feedback if possible.

Marketing plan
Prepare a marketing plan for Out company, containing the following components:
 Analysis of your current market position (industry sectors, customer base, competition, potential new sectors etc)
 SWOT analysis
 Identification of marketing objectives and future marketing approach (segmentation,
your USP etc)
 Communication Plan – what marketing tools to use to achieve your objectives, including
setting a budget and measurement KPI’s etc.
Prepare website content
Produce the new website content using the marketing objectives to ensure you are portraying the right messages to your potential customers. Also maximise SEO using the right keywords and ensuring a regular process of updates and new content is in place. The key focus for the website will be to persuade visitors to make contact i.e. move them from interested visitors to genuine sales leads.
Launch the new website
This is an opportunity to generate some PR for Us, with a press release and an email campaign and/or direct mail campaign to current customers and prospects.
Implementation of communications plan
Launching the new website will be the first stage of implementation of the communication plan. It will then be necessary to consider what tasks are required on a regular basis and how you wish to proceed with those. This would be an opportunity to introduce your university student who could help with social media postings, Directory listings, latest news, press releases, telesales, database management (if appropriate et

Any marketing professional could have written this....have they asked you to double your budget yet? Like Sarah Beeny or Phil Spencer...'to sell your house you need to make it more appealing, show the rooms in a better light, tidy the garden.............oh and knock £20k off the price'...

Going back to your opening post. Employing a salesperson for 2 days a month is madness. They call, the buyers on holiday but will be back tomorrow 'sorry i'll call back next month'!!!!!!!! Sales is about timing, seasons and persistence. 20 calls = 5 contacts and 15 call backs, the one's your salesgirl MUST be missing.

 

[PURPLE BUBBLE]

Do you have a website link?

 

[amac]

Whoever you decide to hire - make sure they know about analytics - specifically, web analytics.

You need to measure your marketing spend in order to add to your bottom-line. Analysing and measuring is as important as creating and targeting content.

 

[ryian]

amac Whoever you decide to hire - make sure they know about analytics - specifically, web analytics.

You need to measure your marketing spend in order to add to your bottom-line. Analysing and measuring is as important as creating and targeting content.

The above statement I don't understand!! I don't have a marketing background so web analytics and measuring it I don't understand. I am worried that after meeting the 3 marketing companies I pick the wrong one and spend money needlessly! I have my last meeting Friday so with ur feedback hopefully I can pick the right one. My new website is not finished yet so giving in guys the link won't help bit I will anyway so u can see the layout. illustrationgraduates.org.uk

 

[JonathanSEO]

Is that your actual domain you use for your business or a temporary one?

 

[ryian]

Temp one still building it.

 

[Kernowman]

It is threads like this that want to make me tear my hair out!!!!

What the heck did we did before the internet????

SEO. PPC, BBC, ITV, internet, shminternet, it's all a great way NOT to communicate with your target audience and here is the reason why . . . . . .

Take away the mask of "running a business" and you are back to basic communication from person to person and that is the key to unlocking business success.

So, so, so, many times on this very same forum have I read that budding business people have created a product or service, created a website and sat back waiting for the business and money to roll in. Dream on. Nothin happens, so they try this wonderful web analytics, SEO and PPC caper and end up being poorer still and mighty disenchanted too.

A long while back I wrote a ditty for the forum's members called "The Zig Zag Sales Plan" and I was hoping it would be made a sticky, so you could probably search and find it if you are interested. It dealt with start-ups mainly but could equally apply to the OP who is finding the momentum of his business slowing down.

It basically says you should not just look from the inside looking out FROM the business, but start from the outside looking IN from the prospect/consumer/customer point of view and start your research from there. If you were in the market for a widget, where would you go to find it, how would you go about getting it, how much would you be prepared to pay, how would you like it to be delivered and so on and so forth. Now, would the journey take you back to your own business (a very valid point) or would it lead to countless others? Hmmmm, that needs some thought.

I also said that instead of sitting at your computer seeing how your website is/isn't performing, put your hat and coat on and select an area between one and two miles radius for you to wear some shoe leather out, press the flesh and see face-to-face your intended prospects. You would be amazed just how many business have their customer base all around the country and all around the globe, yet they do no business AT ALL on the industrial estate they are located in!

Internet, my foot!

 

[telemax]

It is threads like this that want to make me tear my hair out!!!!

What the heck did we did before the internet????

SEO. PPC, BBC, ITV, internet, shminternet, it's all a great way NOT to communicate with your target audience and here is the reason why . . . . . .

Take away the mask of "running a business" and you are back to basic communication from person to person and that is the key to unlocking business success.

So, so, so, many times on this very same forum have I read that budding business people have created a product or service, created a website and sat back waiting for the business and money to roll in. Dream on. Nothin happens, so they try this wonderful web analytics, SEO and PPC caper and end up being poorer still and mighty disenchanted too.

A long while back I wrote a ditty for the forum's members called "The Zig Zag Sales Plan" and I was hoping it would be made a sticky, so you could probably search and find it if you are interested. It dealt with start-ups mainly but could equally apply to the OP who is finding the momentum of his business slowing down.

It basically says you should not just look from the inside looking out FROM the business, but start from the outside looking IN from the prospect/consumer/customer point of view and start your research from there. If you were in the market for a widget, where would you go to find it, how would you go about getting it, how much would you be prepared to pay, how would you like it to be delivered and so on and so forth. Now, would the journey take you back to your own business (a very valid point) or would it lead to countless others? Hmmmm, that needs some thought.

I also said that instead of sitting at your computer seeing how your website is/isn't performing, put your hat and coat on and select an area between one and two miles radius for you to wear some shoe leather out, press the flesh and see face-to-face your intended prospects. You would be amazed just how many business have their customer base all around the country and all around the globe, yet they do no business AT ALL on the industrial estate they are located in!

Internet, my foot!

Not a lot to disagree with here, it's amazing what knocking on a few local doors can accomplish. I think there has been a huge backlash towards local business recently, if someone is doing work the paying customer is much happier knowing that the contact has taken the trouble to actually come and visit and is just down the road in case anything goes wrong.

Spending half a day knocking on doors is a heck of a lot cheaper than chucking money at expensive SEO/adwords campaigns that might or might not work.