Your offering

Have you ever stopped to ask yourself what you’re “actually” selling? Yes, you may well be selling website design services or holiday accommodation, but in your buyers mind, your offering is often something very different. Buyers associate qualities or benefits to your offering that makes it stand out in their minds from the competition. Have you identified these essential elements of your offering (by consulting with your clients if needs be)? Do you make those essential elements clear in your publicity material? When your offering changes, do you change your publicity messages? Could you package your offering to add more value? Could you use different distribution channels to make your offering profitable to a wider market?

Why bother with a logo?

A well designed logo will help your biz to:

Look established
Be more memorable
Differentiate you from your competition
Attract more clients

Once you’ve got your logo, get it everywhere –use it consistently across all your business communications – this gives your business the look and feel of a big business and needn’t cost a fortune!

Never give up!

Nothing will kill your business faster than “waiting” for something to happen! You must be proactive and persistent. If you apply a marketing mindset to your business, you can make sure that it’s YOUR business that grows during tough times, it’s your business that survives whatever's thrown at it. It’s tough when all the news around you is bad; it’s tough if you’re trying things that don’t work first time, but with planned and logical persistence, you will win through – and you know it! Keep on going!

Your target market

How important is your target market? When it comes to marketing, it’s tops! It's a fact that only a proportion of the whole market is likely to buy from you. This limitation comes about because of any number of factors, but there’s no getting away from it! By firstly identifying and secondly by keeping your target market in mind at all times, you can pitch your sales and marketing efforts to suit. By being creative in how you get the attention of your target market, not only will you save yourself fortunes, but you’ll begin to become a pretty serious player too. Do you know yours?

You CAN cut costs!

Make today the day that you have a really good look at your business costs. Look at everything you spend out on and figure out where you could make savings. Don't forget to look at payments set up on standing order, direct debit or credit card - it's all too easy once they're set up, not to review them. Tough times are great times to re-negotiate. Do you have contracts coming up for renewal? If so, use the renewal as an opportunity to either reduce the price or negotiate better value. There's so much competition out there: shop around - you're 100% certain to save money if you keep your wits about you. If you employ staff and have three employees doing the job of one, you may need to make job cuts - it's a tough one! If you have two product lines and only one is successful - you need to make some hard decisions there too. When times are tough, it's best to focus on your core markets and invest in developing those areas. Either way, take a bit of time out and really look at where you can make savings - it's a great way to boost your bottom line.

Newsletters - good news or bad?

Did you know it costs six times more to make a sale to a new customer than to an existing one? The good news is that Newsletters are a great way to focus your marketing efforts on past customers. The bad news is that if your Newsletter is dull or doesn't address the needs of the recipient it'll do your biz more harm than good. In this day and age, don't even think about producing a printed Newsletter - it's not worth the investment. Produce a Newsletter that resembles your website and fire it out by email. So, if you send (or are planning to send) a Newsletter, make sure it's interesting to your audience and make it as personal as you can. Final tip on Newsletters, NEVER, EVER send them on a Monday - they're sure to end up in the deleted file!

The magic five

No single marketing channel works all the time for any business. The best idea is to rotate several marketing tactics and keep your message fresh. Your customers get bored if you bang the same drum month after month! Don’t just fritter your money away though….make a plan, try out low cost strategies, test them and rotate the ones that produce results. Aim to have at least 5 channels working for your biz at any one time.

The Google race

Having a great website is only the beginning – once you’ve got it, your customers need to be able to find it! If being found on the search engines is important to you, one of the main factors in assisting your website to get to the front of the Google natural search race is carefully planned content and regular updating. It is now, more than ever, essential to plan and continuously develop your website. This is a great way to attract the search engine “spiders” as it keeps them coming back to check out your website and keep up to date with your products and services. It is this process that helps you climb the Google ladder.

Do you factor in "chill-time"?

However much you love our biz; however much you rely on it to get food on the table for your kids, one thing you mustn’t forget is “chill-time”. Use your chill-time to take in a film, walk on the beach with your family, do a high energy sport…it doesn’t really matter – it’s just important that you have it. A bit of chill-time won’t just re-charge your physical batteries; it’ll create space in your brain for the ideas and energy you need to fire you up when you get back down to biz. So if you’re a slave to your desk, try a bit of chill-time today – even just 15 minutes, the end result might just surprise you.

Do you experiment?

When was the last time you tested a new way of promoting your biz? There are hundreds of ways to market your business in this day and age. From social marketing at one end of the spectrum to door-to-door sales at the other, make it your priority to test at least one new marketing method every month - it's not as difficult as it sounds!

Got a buddy?

Buddy marketing is a great way to promote to markets that you mightn’t otherwise reach. All it involves is an agreement with another small business owner to send out each other’s publicity materials. It’s a great way to tap into a whole new sector of the market. Go on, get yourself a buddy...