| This Month's Recommended Reading List
|
|
|
Our Partners
|
|
| Suggestion Box
|
Have a suggestion on how we can improve the
IF Newsletter
Click Here |
|
Greetings!
What is Marketing? If you ask 100 people, you will probably get 100 answers. Many will tell you Marketing is defined by four "Ps" (Product, Price, Place, and Promotion). And others have even expanded those four "Ps" to include three more (People, Process and Physical Evidence). To me, seven, or even four, "Ps" are too many. To keep it simple, I believe Marketing comes down to one P - PROMISE. That said, the promise of marketing could include one or a combination of all the "Ps" stated above. But it is the act of finding and delivering your promise to your potential customer that is the essence of marketing. So, to me, Marketing is defining the "promise" you want to make to the market place and delivering that promise to your perspective customers. Or in other words, Marketing is getting customers to stand out of the crowd, and say, yeah, I'm interested in what you are promising to deliver. To a pizza restaurant, it might be getting someone to walk through the door. To a plumber, it might be getting someone to call you on the phone. And to a online store, it might be getting someone to come to your website. But in all cases the goal is to get people to understand what makes you different and voluntarily present themselves to your business so that you may personally deliver the promise (sales) and then deliver on the promise that you made (operations and customers service). So this month's Newsletter is all about Marketing and increasing your awareness of its importance to your business. It's not the most exciting topic, but if there is one thing that you, as a small business owner, should be working on in today's troubled times, it's Marketing. JJ Reich CEO, Impossible Futures If a company is failing, it is the fault of top-level management, and the problem is probably this:
they're running a company, not marketing a product.
Seth Godin, Purple Cow |
Video Clip of the Month
Seth Godin:
Sliced bread and other marketing delights
This month's video is a presentation from Seth Godin, author of Purple Cow. It is a fantastic video that explains a lot of the concepts that he introduces in the Purple Cow. It is a bit longer than most of the video clips that I have on here, totaling about 18 minutes. But it is well worth the time to help you understand how to make Marketing work for you in today's world. Click here to watch the video. Enjoy it and feel free to share it with your entire support team.
|
|
The Question That Provides All Your Marketing Answers
By JJ Reich  Every day all over America, every man, woman and child is bombarded with thousands of marketing messages. And most of these massages are flat out ignored. So how do you get your message to rise above the noise? This is the number one question that every business owner asks herself.
Believe it or not, I find the answer to this question is easier to find by asking and answering a different question:
What must my business be, in the heart and mind of the customer, to get them to choose me over every other option out there on which they can spend money?
- If you are a flower shop owner, ask yourself, why would someone choose me, over the flower shop down the street?
- If you are a carpet cleaner, why would someone choose me over getting new carpets, using any other carpet cleaner or going out and renting a cleaner at the local grocery store?
- If you are a restaurant owner, why would someone choose your restaurant over McDonalds, Applebees, Le Bec Fin, or ordering a pizza from Dominos?
If YOU think the answers to these questions are obvious, then my question to you is . . .
Does your potential customer and existing clients think it is just as obvious?
Probably not.
For the rest of the article, click here.
|
This Month's Book Summary
Raving Fans
by Kenneth Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles
Raving Fans is another great book by Ken Blanchard, who is a master of delivering his business lessons in parables. Specifically, Raving fans is the story of a Customer Service Rep who wants to know how best to deliver customer service and as it turns out, he gets a "fairy godmother" to help him.
So, how does Blanchard and his co-author pull it off? The same way he always does - though the use of parable and the usual three simple secrets that are the hallmark of his other stories. In Raving Fans, the authors point out that most business neglect and abuse their customers. So most people have very low expectations and even more are left unfulfilled in their purchasing experience. They come back only because they haven't found a better product / price yet. But don't kid yourself, they are looking. As you read Raving Fans, you will learn that businesses don't need "satisfied customers", who hold allegiances to them only as long as someone better doesn't come along. They need "Raving Fans" that not only love their product, but see real value in the process and are conveying that to everyone they know. Secret One - Decide What You WantWhat do you want? Nothing magical here. Before you can move forward to understanding the concepts laid out in, it's important to grasp the concept of vision. And in this book, Blanchard has you grasping the concept by having you focus on the "vision" of perfection centered on the customer. What is perfect customer service look like? By asking that question you start taking the steps necessary to not only answering the question, but also to implementing the process of creating the perfection. Secret Two - Discover What The Customer WantsThe first secret was finding out what you want, and the second secret is discovering what matters to the customer within the context of your vision. Normally, customers focus only on two or three
needs. Find out what those needs are and focus on them. Focus on those needs. Because you know what concerns them, it is
easy to match your vision with theirs.
The process of finding out the needs of your customer revolves around listening. Listen to what they say and what they don't say. Listen to the customers that don't say anything to you as well as the ones that do. And listen carefully to the ones that just say, "fine" or "good", because they are the easiest for your competition to steal. Secret Three - Deliver Plus One
The final secret of the book is actually Deliver Your Vision Plus One Percent, but Blanchard creates a little story to shorten it to Deliver Plus One. The truth be told, this secret is in fact the combination of two different secrets, Deliver Your Vision and Improve Plus One Percent every day, week, month or year. The first half is Deliver Your Vision simply means just that - deliver on what you say you are going to deliver on - and do it every time. You customer will appreciate your commitment to the promise and love you for actually delivering on it. The second half of the the secret is Improve Plus One Percent, literally meaning to slowly, but methodically, improve on what you deliver. But don't ever try to improve in such a manner that you can't deliver - just 1%. Although the concepts in this book are simple, it is written in a manner that truly helps you grasp the power of the concepts. Blanchard and Bowles hit a home run. I recommend this book to everyone who owns a business or is thinking about owning a business. As well as having their employees read it as well.
|
Consistency:
The Key to Marketing . . .
The Key to Business Success
So many people start their "marketing" journey with a big burst of speed like the fabled hare - with great ideas and lots of energy. Unfortunately, like the hare, they tire of the process and eventually quit before they reach the finish line - resting by the side of the road, until they fall asleep from boredom. The tortoise on the other hand, with his slow and consistent mindset, never gives up. And in the end, even though he doesn't always see immediate results with each step, the tortoise reaches his goal. It's not how fast you start, but how you finish.
So are you the Hare or the Tortoise? If you are like about 95% of all small business owners, you are a hare - always looking for the quick fix, the answer that will turn your business around today. Unfortunately, there isn't one. And if there is, I haven't found it. And, if you want my opinion, any one who tells you differently, is selling you something. So what is the answer. I've found the best answer to this quandary is.... Consistency, Consistency, Consistency!For the rest of the article, click here. |
|
Tip of the Month
Measure Twice, Cut Once
We've all heard the adage, "Measure twice, cut once", when it comes to construction and woodwork, but did you know you can use the same premise to kick start and guide your marketing efforts as well.
Reality is that most small business owners have no idea whether or not their marketing is working for them. It's not a matter of not spending money on marketing. They spend it just fine. The problem lies in the fact that they don't know what they should be expecting from their investment. And unfortunately, they don't know what they should be measuring or how best to measure it, to decide whether or not it's working. So as important as it is to market your business (akin to cutting the wood), it's just as important to make sure that you are measuring what you want to improve through your marketing dollars.
Most small business owners measure one or two things: gross revenue / sales (how much did I collect) and / or net profit (how much did I make). So when they spend money on marketing, they expect their numbers to go up. But unfortunately, no matter how much money you spend on marketing, only measuring the end product will not yield the answer you are looking for, because marketing doesn't increase sales or profit - marketing increases the chances of making a sale by increasing the numbers of customers that volunteer to become potential customers. It is the entire business system, working harmoniously that builds on your profits.
An example of that is a mass-mailer campaign. If you invest $1000 in a mass mailing campaign, you would expect both your sales and your profit to go up, right? Unfortunately, business systems aren't that simple - odds are you increased the number of perspective customers walking through the door, but did your sales team have the skills and training in place to convert those new leads to actual sales? Was there an increase or even possibly a decrease in returning customers during that same period, because of a perceived drop in customer service (with less time and energy spent on taking care of existing customers)? Was the increase in sales large enough to compensate the increased costs of the marketing campaign?
That's not to say that measuring sales and profit aren't important - they absolutely are! However, there are other things to measure as well. The following are just a few examples of things to measure the effectiveness of your marketing dollar:
- new customers walking through the door
- number of times the phone rings per day
- number of website hits
- number of return visits per customer
- average price per sale
- number of referred customers
- where the customer heard of you
So before you go off and spend all of your hard earned money on marketing - that may or may not help you - start measuring the one or all items above (and any others that relate to the effectiveness of marketing). This will help you determine which marketing elements are working, and which ones aren't. And give you a better sense of control over what in most small businesses is completely "out of control".
_____________________________________________________
If
you are interested in learning more about how and what to measure inside your busines, please call toll-free at 888-439-6843, ext 101 to set up a "no obligation" appointment.
| |
|
|
|
|
|
