- Original Poster
- #1
Hey all
I have been reading some messages on here and a lot of them are moaning about this credit crunch and how sales are reducing etc etc. Well I have a different view and I think that instead of just talking about orders dropping, we should instead be talking about the importance of continual marketing.
I help a lot of businesses with marketing ideas and one think I try to hammer home is that you have to continually market. The best method is to research, implement, test, improve (this can go on for a long time) and then finally systemise and start other systems.
So what do I mean about continual marketing? I mean that this is stuff that you do on a regular basis and also promotional drives. As always I will give examples from my own business and how I have implemented some systems. BTW my sales have increased over the last 6 weeks and not dropped like so many other businesses.
I have several continual marketing systems, one of my favourites is testimonials. I collect testimonials for all of my businesses (networking events, Hypnotherapy and printing) and I have systemised it all. Lets take the networking events company as an example. We knew that we wanted to get video testimonials for this business so we just set out and did it. The first testimonials we took were great but we knew places where they could be improved. We came out with several changes, we asked the participants questions and they answered, before we gave them 60-90 seconds to just talk.
Each time we did an event and we took testimonials we streamlined the system. We knew how long it would take to film, edit and upload onto youtube. As we did more events we just naturally got better and better at doing them and we now have a refined system. This is something that we will continue to do at each event and so far the testimonials have increased our mailing list by 50+ and also we get lots of people attending events on the strength of them.
So now we have this system in place we simply monitor it. We just need to make sure that we properly maintain the system and make sure they remain top quality. If you want you can look at the testimonials and see how the quality of them improves from each event. The videos are here http://www.brookfieldnetworking.co.uk/Testimonials.html
So referrals are continual marketing because they are something you should always be doing. What I find with many people is that they dont actively market until they actually need work. When people are busy with work they often let their marketing slip and therefore orders drop off. When you are in a business like this work comes in live waves. It can make running a business difficult when you have really busy and really quiet times. By systemising your marketing and having a structure, work is always coming in and at a rate that can be controlled.
Another continual marketing system I do is networking. I think it is important to always attend networking events regularly, even if you have to miss taking an order to attend. When you attend networking events regularly you get to form strong relationships with key people. People are much more likely to do big business with someone they have been speaking to for 6 months, rather than a newbie.
So my advice is to make sure that you attend 1 2 events per month that are either networking or at least some business event. There are always free talks, seminars and workshops so why not go along? I have met loads of great contacts events like gallery launches, Q&A sessions and by talking at events myself.
As well as attending events I also run Brookfield Networking. We have an event once a month and it working out really well for us. Have you thought about starting a local business type of event? It is really easy to find venues for networking and most places are free. You then just need to work on inviting people and maybe putting together a website or at least something on your own.
We love putting on events as we get to meet so many interesting people. We have not only got work directly from the events but we have also done several joint ventures. When you run events you always get people approaching you for various things, so it really keeps our options open and there are new doors opening all the time.
If you want to start a local networking event then I will spend some time on the phone with you and tell you how we set our events up. I will also give you my networking ebook and you can also distribute it and make it available on your website so to build a mailing list. We also have regular speakers at our events and this is a great way of getting people there. Again most speakers will give their time free of charge and there are plenty about.
So to the next type of marketing and this is what I call promotional drives. A great example is where I do my hypnotherapy sessions. I work out of a large gym chain in the beauty and treatment salon they have their. It only recently opened and a lot of time it was very quiet and the others the girls were mad busy. What had happened is when they were quite the spare girls would go and hand flyers out. They also attended several business events and handed out lots of flyers which caused a massive response.
When people think about flyering for their businesses, it is either when they are just starting up or they need to drum up new clients. Not that many businesses have flyering as a continual marketing method which I believe is a mistake. Like I mentioned before, when you market sporadically it is hard to control the flow of work. This is often the case with flyering and other direst response methods.
Like with all marketing systems, flyering has to be implemented, tested, measured and improved. There are several ways to do this and my favourite is having promotional codes that people use for a discount. One of my clients is a florist and she flyers in 10 different places. For each location she has a code to gain a discount. The discount is the same in all venues, only the code changes. By doing this she knows exactly what venues are working and also how long the time lag is before the work comes in.
If done properly flyering can be a very inexpensive and highly effective marketing method. I could talk for pages on how to design flyers, but not today. Instead I want to look more at the system itself rather than the content.
My main point here is that flyering isnt just something to do when you launch or when you are short on work. One great way to make sure you do flyering several times a year is to do them by season. One of my clients owns a deli takeaway in a really nice small town. Each season she comes out with a new food range and makes a flyer to promote it. She includes a voucher to get a free sample of one of the new items. She then has the flyers distributed door to door in certain residential areas.
This system has worked amazingly well and her customers always comment on how they even look forward to the flyer arriving! So think about how your business can offer a range of flyers throughout the year or at least just one flyer but distributed throughout the year instead.
I could write pages more and give many more examples but it is late o clock and I have an early start tomorrow (5 hour coach journey, as least I get to read a book). If you have any questions about the post then please put them here or send me a PM. I will always spend time with people helping them get their marketing systems sorted. I actually enjoy helping people and I might even make an information product about it.
Byeeeee
Matt
I have been reading some messages on here and a lot of them are moaning about this credit crunch and how sales are reducing etc etc. Well I have a different view and I think that instead of just talking about orders dropping, we should instead be talking about the importance of continual marketing.
I help a lot of businesses with marketing ideas and one think I try to hammer home is that you have to continually market. The best method is to research, implement, test, improve (this can go on for a long time) and then finally systemise and start other systems.
So what do I mean about continual marketing? I mean that this is stuff that you do on a regular basis and also promotional drives. As always I will give examples from my own business and how I have implemented some systems. BTW my sales have increased over the last 6 weeks and not dropped like so many other businesses.
I have several continual marketing systems, one of my favourites is testimonials. I collect testimonials for all of my businesses (networking events, Hypnotherapy and printing) and I have systemised it all. Lets take the networking events company as an example. We knew that we wanted to get video testimonials for this business so we just set out and did it. The first testimonials we took were great but we knew places where they could be improved. We came out with several changes, we asked the participants questions and they answered, before we gave them 60-90 seconds to just talk.
Each time we did an event and we took testimonials we streamlined the system. We knew how long it would take to film, edit and upload onto youtube. As we did more events we just naturally got better and better at doing them and we now have a refined system. This is something that we will continue to do at each event and so far the testimonials have increased our mailing list by 50+ and also we get lots of people attending events on the strength of them.
So now we have this system in place we simply monitor it. We just need to make sure that we properly maintain the system and make sure they remain top quality. If you want you can look at the testimonials and see how the quality of them improves from each event. The videos are here http://www.brookfieldnetworking.co.uk/Testimonials.html
So referrals are continual marketing because they are something you should always be doing. What I find with many people is that they dont actively market until they actually need work. When people are busy with work they often let their marketing slip and therefore orders drop off. When you are in a business like this work comes in live waves. It can make running a business difficult when you have really busy and really quiet times. By systemising your marketing and having a structure, work is always coming in and at a rate that can be controlled.
Another continual marketing system I do is networking. I think it is important to always attend networking events regularly, even if you have to miss taking an order to attend. When you attend networking events regularly you get to form strong relationships with key people. People are much more likely to do big business with someone they have been speaking to for 6 months, rather than a newbie.
So my advice is to make sure that you attend 1 2 events per month that are either networking or at least some business event. There are always free talks, seminars and workshops so why not go along? I have met loads of great contacts events like gallery launches, Q&A sessions and by talking at events myself.
As well as attending events I also run Brookfield Networking. We have an event once a month and it working out really well for us. Have you thought about starting a local business type of event? It is really easy to find venues for networking and most places are free. You then just need to work on inviting people and maybe putting together a website or at least something on your own.
We love putting on events as we get to meet so many interesting people. We have not only got work directly from the events but we have also done several joint ventures. When you run events you always get people approaching you for various things, so it really keeps our options open and there are new doors opening all the time.
If you want to start a local networking event then I will spend some time on the phone with you and tell you how we set our events up. I will also give you my networking ebook and you can also distribute it and make it available on your website so to build a mailing list. We also have regular speakers at our events and this is a great way of getting people there. Again most speakers will give their time free of charge and there are plenty about.
So to the next type of marketing and this is what I call promotional drives. A great example is where I do my hypnotherapy sessions. I work out of a large gym chain in the beauty and treatment salon they have their. It only recently opened and a lot of time it was very quiet and the others the girls were mad busy. What had happened is when they were quite the spare girls would go and hand flyers out. They also attended several business events and handed out lots of flyers which caused a massive response.
When people think about flyering for their businesses, it is either when they are just starting up or they need to drum up new clients. Not that many businesses have flyering as a continual marketing method which I believe is a mistake. Like I mentioned before, when you market sporadically it is hard to control the flow of work. This is often the case with flyering and other direst response methods.
Like with all marketing systems, flyering has to be implemented, tested, measured and improved. There are several ways to do this and my favourite is having promotional codes that people use for a discount. One of my clients is a florist and she flyers in 10 different places. For each location she has a code to gain a discount. The discount is the same in all venues, only the code changes. By doing this she knows exactly what venues are working and also how long the time lag is before the work comes in.
If done properly flyering can be a very inexpensive and highly effective marketing method. I could talk for pages on how to design flyers, but not today. Instead I want to look more at the system itself rather than the content.
My main point here is that flyering isnt just something to do when you launch or when you are short on work. One great way to make sure you do flyering several times a year is to do them by season. One of my clients owns a deli takeaway in a really nice small town. Each season she comes out with a new food range and makes a flyer to promote it. She includes a voucher to get a free sample of one of the new items. She then has the flyers distributed door to door in certain residential areas.
This system has worked amazingly well and her customers always comment on how they even look forward to the flyer arriving! So think about how your business can offer a range of flyers throughout the year or at least just one flyer but distributed throughout the year instead.
I could write pages more and give many more examples but it is late o clock and I have an early start tomorrow (5 hour coach journey, as least I get to read a book). If you have any questions about the post then please put them here or send me a PM. I will always spend time with people helping them get their marketing systems sorted. I actually enjoy helping people and I might even make an information product about it.
Byeeeee
Matt
