Make it happen 2009

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test post 2

suzie@limegray.fr (Suzie Larcombe) — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 08:26:00 +0000

this is a test post 2

Have you got a plan?

suzie@limegray.fr (Suzie Larcombe) — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 15:27:00 +0000

Every business needs (amongst other plans) a marketing plan. Ideally it should come before you make the investment and before you take the risk, but if it’s too late for that, don’t wait too long to get your marketing plan together. Look at your objectives and how you will measure them. Then look at your offering: how you can communicate it to your potential clients and how you will differentiate that offering from what your competitors are offering? Identify your target market: who are they?; where are they?; why do they buy?; when do they buy?; how will you get in touch with them? Set aside a realistic budget to get your message out. There’s no point in investing thousands on your offering if you leave nothing get your message out! Keep your plan alive, keep it interesting and most importantly, keep it current.

Don’t put off ‘til tomorrow what you can do today

suzie@limegray.fr (Suzie Larcombe) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:03:00 +0000

If you’re putting something off, there’s usually a good reason. Be honest with yourself about why you’re putting off an activity: it might be fear of rejection; lack of time or energy, but whatever the reason if it’s something important you need to do: you must stop putting it off! Set a time to do it. Prepare beforehand. Then do it! Reward yourself afterwards and appreciate the feeling of getting it done. If you’re procrastinating in many of areas of your business, it might be time to ask yourself if you’re still in the right job: a tough question, but necessary to ask sometimes.

Do you blog?

suzie@limegray.fr (Suzie Larcombe) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:27:00 +0000

Blogging is a great way to show that you know what you’re on about; or to share information. Blog sites can be created totally free of charge. That said, the most effective way to use a blog to promote your biz is to have it integrated into your site. That way, everyone who visits your blog, visits your site too – in turn helping you climb the Google ladder. Once you’ve set up your blog, make sure it’s full of your personality – there’s few things worse than a boring blog! Make sure you blog regularly and over a long period otherwise your effort is wasted. Keep your posts relatively short and let people make comments if you can.

What percentage of your website visitors convert to leads?

suzie@limegray.fr (Suzie Larcombe) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 17:39:00 +0000

In order to answer this question, you absolutely must analyse your site traffic. This is easily done and will be explained to you by your web designer. For now though, lets assume you know you have 10 visitors per day to your site, so that’s roughly 300 per month. Sounds OK, until you count the number of times your phone rings or your email has pings to tell you there’s a client (or potential client) wanting to investigate your offer further. If you have 300 visitors and 1 contact, today’s the day to ask yourself: “why?”. Look carefully at the overall image of your site; your offering; your prices; your competitors. If needs be ask friends or clients (who are prepared to be brutally honest!) what they think of your site – it’s time to take action.

Fancy putting a film on your website?

suzie@limegray.fr (Suzie Larcombe) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:09:00 +0000

When it comes to marketing, video can be a great way to get your personality and business offering over to potential customers – but you must do it properly, otherwise you risk frightening them off! Think carefully about what you want the video to do for your business: it might be a “how to” video; it might be entertaining; it might be purely informative – either way remember it has to add value to your offering. Finally, don’t forget that YouTube is a great way of hosting your video – and might get you in front of a whole new audience at the same time!

Does your landing page do you justice?

suzie@limegray.fr (Suzie Larcombe) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 16:04:00 +0000

Your landing page is the first page your visitors see when they come to your site from adverts, Google, your promotional documentation etc. The ideal is to have mind-reading landing pages that fit your customers needs so perfectly they’ll think you’re psychic! Although this is not always entirely possible, this should be your aim. If you’ve paid for an ad promising “red shoes”, don’t give your customers a landing page with "black handbags" otherwise you’ve thrown your hard earned advertising budget down the drain! Make sure your landing page delivers what it "says on the tin"!

Offer your business as a franchise

suzie@limegray.fr (Suzie Larcombe) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 07:43:00 +0000

Franchising can be a highly profitable way of growing your business (although not suited to all small businesses of course!). Franchising will allow you to get to markets that would otherwise be outside your financial capabilities. The secret with this option is really good advice (legal and financial); a mind-blowing offering and top notch promotion. None of this comes cheap, or easily, but is well worth the effort if you get it right. The winning formula is to be a great leader with a vision strong enough to be passed on to others.

What about pay-per-click advertising?

suzie@limegray.fr (Suzie Larcombe) — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 14:50:00 +0000

Pay-per-click advertising is arguably the most revolutionary and powerful marketing tool of all time. Nowhere else can you take out an ad and only pay if someone takes a closer look! Pay-per-click allows you to target your ads, test new concepts and control your budget in ways that’ll leave you speechless. That said, it’s also a great way to throw away a ton of cash, if you don’t know what you’re doing! If you’re going to embark on a pay-per-click campaign, invest your time or invest in an expert; start small and test, test, test.

Do you have a squeeze page?

suzie@limegray.fr (Suzie Larcombe) — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 14:30:00 +0000

A squeeze page is one web page which is used much like offline direct response marketing to help you develop a list. A good squeeze page will reassure the visitor that their details will not be abused and will make clear to them what they’ll get in return. This page is pure sales: it’s a teaser page, with your best success stories presented in their full glory, to entice people into your kingdom! A well designed and optimised squeeze page will give you prospects for a range of selling and cross-selling activities. The one thing to be sure of here is that you give what you’ve promised; otherwise you’ll be ignored by your contacts and penalised by the search-engines!

Do you frequent "niche forums"?

suzie@limegray.fr (Suzie Larcombe) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 14:33:00 +0000

Participating in niche forums or message boards is a great way to promote your business. These are places where like-minded people with similar needs get together online to solve their problems. They share a common interest and want to help each other. Many forums will let you have a link to your website in your sign-off. That said, it’s important to respect the rules of the site you’re using – becoming a spammer will do you more harm than good!

Don’t fight the market

suzie@limegray.fr (Suzie Larcombe) — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 10:31:00 +0000

...and where it is in its life-cycle – you will lose! If you are operating in a mature market and you continue to try to launch as if your product/service is new or innovative, you’re knocking your head against a brick wall. You can re-develop or re-package products/services to look more up to date, but if you’re seeing sales declining as a result of the maturity of your marketplace, it could be time to be moving on to your next idea!

License your product

suzie@limegray.fr (Suzie Larcombe) — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 10:36:00 +0000

Licensing can be a very effective and low-cost growth strategy particularly if you have a branded or highly valued service product. Licensing will often allow you to get money upfront or royalties on the use or sale of your product. If you want to go the licensing route, look for logical partners but most importantly make sure you don’t weaken your offering by losing control.

Do you have a permission marketing website?

suzie@limegray.fr (Suzie Larcombe) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 16:14:00 +0000

Is there anywhere on your website where you offer your visitors something in return for registration? No? You could be missing a little goldmine of contacts there…think about it…if you’re getting good traffic this is a great way for you to build a list of potential customers. Be innovative in what you offer: newsletters are getting a bit old-hat, but possibly something for FREE, a sample, some of your time or expertise, give it some thought…

Your position

suzie@limegray.fr (Suzie Larcombe) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:10:00 +0000

Positioning in marketing is all about where people perceive your business in relation to your competitors. Where you position yourself will affect not only the success of your business, but your whole marketing strategy. There’s no point aiming to be the “thinking man/woman’s” product/service and then adopting a communication strategy that sounds as if you’re speaking to kids! It sounds obvious, but like all things, it’s worth testing. Image is extremely important here too. What does your image say about your position? What do your sales force (even if it’s just you) say about your position?

Do you adopt a “one size” marketing strategy?

suzie@limegray.fr (Suzie Larcombe) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 13:17:00 +0000

Whatever your business, there’s sure to be more than one “type” of buyer for what you offer. If you adopt a “one-size fits all” marketing strategy you’re highly likely to be missing out on what might be meaningful business. Hunter wellies are a great example. Hailed as the country-folks' boots for decades, they suddenly realised that it’s not the wildest idea in the world for townies to wear them! They changed their colour range, showed townies in their products and saved their company. OK so they had the advantage of Kate Moss, knee high in mud at Glastonbury, but most businesses can pull in new markets by implementing only minor changes to their strategy.

Who do you test your ideas on?

suzie@limegray.fr (Suzie Larcombe) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 08:10:00 +0000

Although life is full of ups and downs, we all have moments when we think we’re invincible! In business these moments can be extremely dangerous! Although it would be completely "off the wall" for most small businesses to spend thousands on research before launching an idea, it’s absolutely essential that you don’t invest your life savings on a hunch that you haven’t tested at all. Criticism is one of the hardest things to face, but objective, constructive criticism could save you an absolute fortune. Even if your business is up and running it’s worth re-testing your offering to see where improvements can be made. Ask people's opinion! At the end of the day, if people you respect can’t find any potential improvements in your offering, they’re probably being too polite – it might be time to find some new bods to test on!

Are you building a list?

suzie@limegray.fr (Suzie Larcombe) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 07:17:00 +0000

Every time someone makes contact with your business, you know they’re a potential customer. They may not buy from you straight away but their contact means that what you’re offering has meant something to them at some point. This is really important. What’s even more important is that you retain their contact details (with their permission) and stay in touch with them. This way you can start to compile a list before you’ve even signed up a single deal! Build your list throughout the life of your business and use it to “launch” products/ideas/concepts or use it just to stay in touch. Once the list becomes wieldy you can separate it into groups. You’ll see, your list will be one of your most powerful assets!

Do you sell the sizzle?

suzie@limegray.fr (Suzie Larcombe) — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 12:56:00 +0000

A 16-valve, 2.5 litre turbo engine doesn’t mean a great deal to me! 0-60 mph in 13.36 seconds – wow that speaks! That’s selling the sizzle, not the sausage! Although the sizzle can sometimes be extremely difficult to identify, you simply won’t survive by relying on FEATURES to sell your business. A great way to turn features into benefits (or sizzles) is to add the phrase “which means that…” eg. a feature of cashmere socks is that they are made from the hair (hand plucked) from the under-belly of Himalayan goats – the benefit is that you won’t find a better or more luxurious way to keep your feet warm! Today’s a great day to revisit your sales communication and see if you’re selling the sizzle!

Solve your customers problems

suzie@limegray.fr (Suzie Larcombe) — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 06:50:00 +0000

Do you think of yourself as a sales-person? If you do, are you happy in that role, or does it make you feel like a square peg in a round hole? Many of the most successful sales people in the world, don’t think of themselves as sales people, they think of themselves as “problem-solvers”. As a marketing consultant, I can “sell” you the notion of marketing consultancy ‘til I’m blue in the face, but what you really want is more paying customers for your business. I give you more paying customers as a result of my marketing consulting skills and I’ve solved your problem. By identifying your potential customer’s problems, you’ll make your sales job not only more enjoyable, but 1000 times more successful.

Open another location

suzie@limegray.fr (Suzie Larcombe) — Thu, 28 May 2009 16:06:00 +0000

Although physical expansion is rarely the best option to expand your business, it can be a logical way to grow. First, make sure you’re making good (growing) year-on-year profits; look at the economic trends (although the trend isn’t always your friend, its worth a bit of studying for this option). Make sure you’ve got the funds, energy and vision to make it work. Finally, choose the location for your business, not your wallet. If you can only afford a new site in a location that doesn’t give you footfall of your target market – don’t even consider it!

Define your niche!

suzie@limegray.fr (Suzie Larcombe) — Tue, 19 May 2009 15:32:00 +0000

Some business people think niche = negative, a restriction to where they can take their business. Generally speaking, in small business the opposite is true. If you can define your niche accurately and target your message directly to their needs, niche marketing will give you even more power to your business elbow. To define your niche, ask yourself: What do my buyers have in common?; How do I differ from my competitors?; What are the unique benefits I offer and What do I offer over and above the standard? Don’t try too hard with this one; the best answers are usually the ones on the tip of your tongue!

What’s your product or service worth?

suzie@limegray.fr (Suzie Larcombe) — Wed, 13 May 2009 07:56:00 +0000

In order to work out the correct price for your product or service, you need to take into account (amongst other things): your fixed and variable costs; your competitors prices; your objectives; your proposed positioning and finally your target market’s willingness to pay! Once you’ve mixed all these elements together, you should be within about a 20% margin of error! One final thing that many small businesses forget when setting their prices is the Perceived Value of their product. What special attributes do consumers associate with your product, what do they believe it's worth to them? This is a bit of trial and error, but with flexible pricing and ongoing monitoring, you should be able to maximise your return on investment.

Fancy a go at email marketing?

suzie@limegray.fr (Suzie Larcombe) — Thu, 07 May 2009 14:34:00 +0000

First and most importantly, get the permission of the recipient. Second, make sure your email has a “hook”: a good reason for being sent. Get your hook into the first couple of sentences and continue the theme throughout your email. Be succinct, keep your email short. State your most important facts first: some readers won’t scroll! Allow plenty of “white space” so your email is easy to scan. Write in the first person and personalise your email as much as possible. Avoid excessive use of capitals and exclamation marks: they are just “noise” for the reader. Always offer an option to “unsubscribe”; finish with a captivating p.s..and finally make sure you follow your email up - otherwise it's effort wasted!