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Marketing Resources Q&AThank you all very for participating in last week’s marketing information meetings at the Comfort Inn. As promised, I have attempted to provide you with brief answers to all of the questions that you asked. Please keep in mind that the real answers to these questions fill the shelves at Barnes & Noble and the public library. Therefore, these short articles don’t even scratch the surface of the magnitude of these questions. What is provided will only get you to thinking a little bit more about marketing your business. Sincerely, Roger Gallerini
top Question: How do I get more customers? Answer: Perhaps we should approach this question in another way: How do I increase my sales? There are only three ways to increase sales:
In most cases a marketer should have separate components in their marketing plan that addresses each of these sales building options. Increasing the traffic count for a business is usually the most expensive approach to increasing sales. The reason for this is that traffic count increases have a direct relationship to the degree of awareness that a business has among the group of people who are in the market to purchase the product or service that the business is offering. In most cases “Awareness” increases come about through advertising, which can be expensive. To minimize the expense of advertising and to make your advertising more efficient and effective, a marketer must fully understand who is most likely to purchase the products or services offered by the business and seek out advertising vehicles where such prospects are likely to consume on a regular basis, or the customers seek out the advertising vehicle when they are in the market for your product or service. There may be times when an advertiser may want to combine their advertising with a sales promotion. This method provides the prospect with awareness of the business plus a specific reason to come to the business. For instance: Grand Opening Sales; Holiday Sales; Buy One Get One Free Offers; etc. This method is probably more successful in the retail category. Keep in mind that this approach increases your marketing cost, due to the fact that you have to both advertise as well as offer discounts on your products. Most national chains track their customer count on a daily basis and then translate the daily traffic count to a graph. This allow you to compare your business health from month to month, year over year, and after two years of tracking a seasonality trend will prove itself out. Frequency is the fundamental success indicator of a business as it is tells you how much your customers like your business and product offerings. Frequency is also the least costly of all marketing strategies. This is especially true if you have a product that has a short consumption cycle: restaurants; groceries; ongoing services such as lawn care; cleaning; etc. However, this is not to say that products or services with longer consumption or emergency consumption cycles should not pay attention to frequency. The primary determining factor of frequency is the degree that your customers like your product or services in the context of the price value relationship compared to all others offering similar products or services. To understand frequency and how to market for frequency, you must understand the cycle of product or service consumption. Hair salons have a cycle of perhaps every three to four weeks; insurance agencies quarterly, bi annually, or annually; auto repair and service, every 6,000 miles or as needed and dictated by emergency situations. Think of your own purchase cycles and try to come up with the natural frequency patterns for different product and service categories. To increase or maintain your frequency, you must keep track of your customers. Try and predict when they will be needing your services again and just before that time comes, determine a method to get in touch with them to say hello or tell them about a reason why they should come to your business. Just as you track traffic count, you should also have a tracking method of customer frequency. From this tracking you will better understand your business. You will know when you have lost a customer, giving you an opportunity to call them. You will know such things as “20% of your customers represent 40% of your sales,” the average customer coming to your business makes XX number of purchases a year. You will also be better equipped to better target your direct mail or e-mail marketing efforts. Average Check is the average amount of money that the average customer spends. To calculate this is very simple: Total Sales divided by total customer count. Average check increases or decreases are dependent on both external and internal forces. An external force may be the four seasons. Our utility bills are much greater during the colder and reduced daylight months than the spring or summer. But with this external force come opportunities to sell products that take advantage of this seasonality. For instance: auto collision shops most likely will increase all three of the sales building fundamentals during bad driving weather conditions and have seasonally low sales during the spring and summer. With that said, when do you think would be the best time for a collision shop to advertise and make themselves known to their trading area? Probably, the easiest and least expensive method to increase your average check is through your pricing strategy. Just as the cable companies offer a reduced price for cable TV, Phone, and Internet – when you subscribe to all three, do you have any natural bundling capabilities with your product line-up? Suggestive selling is the most popular method of increasing total sales and average check. What products or services do you sell that have natural companion products or services? Never, let a customer complete a transaction without you or your staff attempting to sell them another product that assists with the functionality of the product that they purchased. Would you like fries with that order? top Question: What is Targeting? Targeting is comprised of three primary components:
Potential customers most likely to purchase your product The fundamental of targeting is to define “ON PAPER” who is the best prospect to purchase your product or service. Some of the most common criteria used by marketers are:
For large considered purchases such as insurance, carpeting, major home repairs you must explore and find out who the primary decision maker in the family is for such purchases. Seek out industry sources or go on-line to help you with this. These are just a few examples. The key to targeting is to get as close to a definition as possible to whom is most likely to purchase from you. If you sell multiple lines of the same product, it is possible for you to have multiple targets: one target definition for your low end product line and another target definition for your more upscale product lines. When you get to advertising one product or another, the advertising appeal may vary from one target audience to another. The low end target may respond better to a value based message “The most they can get for the fewest amount of dollars.” On the other side of the coin, your upscale customers may want to hear about quality, product benefits, or prestige. Don’t forget that everyone likes to hear about customer service. Once you have decided on your target audience(s), you are now in a position to better select the media vehicles you will use to advertise to them. If you have ever watched Dancing With The Stars, did you ever pay attention to the commercials? What kind of commercials and what types of products advertise on the show? Tires? No. Men’s Health and Beauty Aids? No. Honey Nut Cheerios? Maybe. Women’s Shampoo? Absolutely. You see, more women watch Dancing With the Stars than men. Therefore, national advertisers who sell men’s products stay away from such programming. If you are inclined to advertise on radio, cable television, or even a local newspaper, make certain that your advertising is placed where the target is most likely to be exposed. But, what if you don’t have a marketing budget sufficient to employ mass media such as radio, TV, or newspaper and find that Direct Mail or Marriage Mail print such as coupon books or Valassis is all that your budget will allow? In these situations and for most of you reading, you must clarify with the salesperson selling these media vehicles the audience who will most likely pay attention to the advertising vehicle. If you are still uncertain after going through all of this, trial and error may be your last resort. Here, you may want to test a number of different media options with small investments for you to determine what works best for you. Adwords Learning Center For the past 20 years, the internet has progressively become a premier method to market goods and services. The growth of the internet is a primary reason why many newspapers have ceased publishing. The internet has taken advertising dollars that were once invested in newspaper. This coupled with the gradual decline in newspaper readership in favor of getting news from the internet has become the combination punch that have put the newspaper industry in trouble. I am not saying that it is wrong to advertise in newspapers, especially the home town newspaper, as the hometown paper has not been as deeply impacted by the growth of the internet as the major daily papers. However, the point that I am making is that the internet is something that you cannot ignore and must consider if it’s right for you. If you are interested in marketing on the internet, you really need to visit the Adwords Learning Center. All that you have to do is “Google” those words and your browser will take you to an on line course that will help you learn about how to advertise on the internet. By the way, it’s free. Speaking of other free services, you may want to check out the SBTDC e-mail newsletter, "SBA Offers New Online Resources for Small Businesses to Help with Economic Recovery.” FREE online training -- "surviving in a Down Economy" (revising business plans to reposition with current conditions, winning customers in a slowing economy, and restructuring existing debt)
top Things to Consider when Marketing on a Small Budget When you decided to go into business, you should have included a line item on your business plan for marketing as it is just as important as the equipment package or other start up costs that you invested in when you opened the doors. However, even if you did acknowledge and put away funds for marketing, it seems that your marketing budget is never enough. So now we must figure out a way to go to market with less funding than you think you really need. With a small budget, it will not be easy for you to develop broad scale awareness due to the expense of advertising. This means that frequency and average check must be the foundation strategies of your marketing efforts. Since this paper has been underwritten by the Canton Township DDA, I would be remiss if I did not start off this section with a major endorsement for the marketing initiatives underwritten by the Canton Marketing Partners. A fundamental priority for the Canton Marketing Partners is to offer marketing programs to the businesses of the Canton DDA at opt in prices that cannot be duplicated if you were to duplicate on your own or purchase from another source. For instance, the Coupon Book that was discussed at the March 10th Marketing Partners Meeting is priced out at about $10 per thousand. That’s 1¢ per coupon delivered in a marriage mail coupon book to every household in Canton – 35,000 coupons for $350. As a bonus, your coupon will be included in the Shop Canton web site for internet shoppers to download. Keep in mind our web site is supported with Television advertising and it receives 1,000s of hits and downloads. Another program that costs even less is the 5,000 coupon bags that will be distributed at the Liberty Fest Parade and the summer Jazz Concerts. You can’t beat this price either – it’s Free. All that you have to do is supply the Chamber of Commerce with up to 5,000 coupons that will be stuffed in the bags. Over the course of the year there will be many more programs offered by the Canton Marketing Partners, so stay informed by contacting the Chamber of Commerce on a regular basis. If you are a member of the Canton Chamber of Commerce, you may want to consider advertising in the Networker, the monthly newsletter of the Chamber. There are many programs available that fit into a variety of budgets.
top How to Get Your Press Releases Published As a general rule (and this is only my opinion) when newspapers publish a positive story about a company they do so because they believe the story:
With this said, it would behoove a small business to approach any story that they want published to fall in line with item #3 above. Therefore, the challenge for you is to create news about your business that demonstrates why your business benefits the community. Even if your story does tell how your business will benefit the local area, you still are faced with the challenge of attracting the attention of a reporter or an editor of the paper. This is a task that will require some work. It is always best to develop a relationship with the reporter, far in advance of the story ever being conceived. Although the newspapers will never admit this, I have found (with first hand experience) that advertisers have a better chance of getting a story planted than non-advertisers (especially when the business that the story is written about will benefit from the story). You will also have a better chance of getting a story published if your presentation of the story to the news outlet is as complete as possible. Make it concise and to the point. Include multiple photos for the paper to use. When you write your story understand that all stories fall under a space limitation because the paper only has so much space. Therefore, write your story in the format of “Who, What, When, Where, and Why.” Fill in the details in subsequent paragraphs. Before getting a story published, do a little bit of research if possible. Papers plan special sections months in advance. Often times they may have a plan to publish a story that somehow is related to your business. For instance, if you operate a greenhouse, there may be a spring issue of the paper with a special garden section. This would be a natural place for the paper to include your article. In the end, the best advice that I can give you is to keep trying. Just because several of your stories never made it to the paper, may not mean that the paper did not want to publish them. It may just mean that there was limited space or some other legitimate reason that was not in the best interest of the paper. top How Can I Attract and Maintain Quality Dependable Employees? This is not a question of marketing, but a question of your skills in the arena of Human Resources. Let’s start from the time that you determine that you need to hire more help. What is the first thing that you do?
I am not an HR expert, but I do know from personal experience that these five points will put you on the road to a better experience. There are many books on this subject. Please refer to them if you want to be come a better employer. top Should I Participate in Trade Shows? I believe that trade shows can be an important component to the marketing mix, especially if your product or service is a big ticket considered purchase that needs a lot of discussion or personal demonstration. The primary purpose of trade shows is to put the buyer and seller into personal contact with one another. Therefore, you have a better than average chance of getting your business in front of the people who are most likely to buy as they wouldn’t be there or stop at your booth if they were not. When participating in a trade show, expect your competition to be there as well. Your job is to always have the best booth in your specific category as your potential customers are not responding to an ad. They are actually seeing you in person and conducting an interview with the company that they may eventually spend a lot of money with. Because of this the better you look and are prepared, the better your success will be. If you are going to participate in a trade show you should start planning for the event at least six months ahead of the show. There are so many things to prepare that you don’t want to short change yourself by skimping on prep and planning time. When you arrive at the show, arrive prepared. Think of the trade show as a wilderness camping trip where there are limited facilities. Everything that you think that you will need for the show should be in the vehicle that brought you there. The only thing that you should expect from the exhibit hall is what they promise in the application that you fill out before the show and maybe an electric socket. top What is better print or electronic advertising? The only answer that I can provide here is that it depends on your personal situation. Both have advantages and disadvantages. If you got this far, everything that you have read up to this point will help you determine your media mix? top How do I determine my signage needs? Your signage must first conform to the local ordinances of the community where you will want to do business. Before, you agree on a building lease you must understand what you will and will not be able to do with your signage. Make certain that you have this in writing and take the time to discuss uncertainties with the appropriate people. But, before you get into the paragraph above, take time to write down what you require in signage. If the local community will not allow you to meet your needs, then don’t rent the space and look for a community that will. And it isn’t just the community that will dictate the specs of your sign. You must also consider the building and surrounding area where the sign will be erected. I knew a person who rented space in the winter and failed to see the oak tree that bloomed in the summer in front of his sign. How will your sign show in the daytime without the assistance of neon lighting? Just because the design of your sign looks great on paper, how will it translate to the real thing to a driver 100 yards away traveling 45 MPH? top What Happens When a Competitor Moves into the Neighborhood? If you are in the business of selling Chicken Lip purses you probably won’t have to worry about competition. Everything else count on competition coming into the market. Look at this problem like getting prepared for winter. It’s going to come – guaranteed. Therefore, you have to prepare for that day now! How to prepare? It’s not easy. It takes a lot of planning and work. The first group of things to do is make certain that you facility is the absolute best that it can be. Your employees are the best that they can be. The quality of your products and how you stand behind them is top notch. Next, if you were keeping good records on customers, customer counts and average check start planning to meet and exceed our customer expectations and your key metric numbers. If you have been collecting a data base of names, addresses, e-mail addresses and what your customers purchase you need to step up your communications with them. Inform them of upcoming sales. If you sold them a big ticket item, call them and ask if there is anything else that you can do for them regarding the product they purchased or additional service that you can provide. Believe me they will tell others of your exceptional service performance. top Should I Partner with Another Business and Co-Promote? If it makes sense to do this and you have a willing partner, by all means leverage each others customers so that you both benefit. The easiest thing to do is put your literature in their location and theirs in yours. Just make sure that both of you live up to your respective end of the bargain and fulfill your distribution responsibilities. Sometimes you can partner with another business with direct mail. If you can’t afford a full run, perhaps the direct mail company will allow you to share the costs with a partner business, with each of you getting a 50% run….or you may be able to put two different messages on a single post card. If you are in a strip mall, does it make sense for a number of merchants to come together and share in the cost of a full page newspaper ad with each participant taking their fair share: Something that you could not afford to do by yourself. top Does it make sense to look for marketing partnerships? Absolutely. Just ask Oreo’s and Milk. |
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Home | Calendars & Events | Living Here | Member Information | Visitors | Business Resources | About Us | Contact Us | Sitemap | Login Canton Chamber of Commerce | 45525 Hanford Rd., Canton, MI 48187 | Phone:(734) 453-4040 | Fax:(734) 453-4503 |
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