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Think of business as a skirmish….competitors are your enemies, clients are the targets. The more targets you hit the greater your chance of victory.
Remember, most competitors are constantly trying to expose your weakness. They want your clients as much as you want theirs and often they’ll do anything to get them, it’s called “market share”. Your goal is to make this task as difficult for them as possible. |
The sure fire way to protect your customers from competitors is to envelop them with bullet proof customer service levels, from the moment you take an order to the moment you deliver the goods. You have to develop and nurture the relationship to a point where they only want to deal with you - effectively locking out any external threats. To achieve this you need to ensure that you have correct and continual procedures in place.
Your sales team must be equipped with the tools to simplify the sales process and cement the relationship. The days of relying on pen, paper and memory are gone. Today’s technology allows you to offer more – customers can place an order today and recieve the delivery tomorrow, no excuses. Sales reps are your shopfront they must have the means to immediately and accurately answer every question thrown at them by the customer.
The importance of customer service cannot be underestimated. It must be regularly measured and maintained, weekly sales meetings, constant feedback and accurate reporting. Great customer service is the most cost effective way to build your brand.
The definition of great customer service is simple – When a customer asks a question you have “the right” answer 100% of the time.
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Publicity vs advertising: the bang for your buck
By Sally Romano
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While publicity and advertising both involve the media, they are vastly different.
Advertising is ‘paid space’ within the media – it’s when you buy an agreed amount of ‘column centimetres’ in newspapers and magazines, or 15, 30 or 60 second ‘slots’ in radio and television.
As the owner of the advertising space, you are entitled to do with it what you will – include your logo, product features and benefits, your contact details, a photograph – whatever you think will help you make the most sales. |
Publicity however is managed by journalists and they have total control over what information of yours is published and when.
Journalists are responsible for filling the media with news to keep readers, listeners and viewers engaged and coming back for more. This editorial content is based entirely on the editors’ and producers’ professional discretion as to what will best meet the entertainment and informational needs of their target audiences.
Publicity is when a journalist covers your news and writes a story about you or your business in the available editorial space. This publicity is completely free and will generally highlight an interesting angle about you or your business rather than being an obvious commercial endorsement.
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Publicity
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Advertising
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Cost
Free space in the media |
Cost
Paid space in the media
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Credibility
Viewed as third-party endorsement |
Credibility
Recognised as business' own message/s
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Control
Appearance based on journalist's decision |
Control
Appearance based on commercial transaction |
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Marketing get the most, spend the least
By Graham Thomas
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To the uninitiated, Marketing and saving money may appear to be an oxymoron - an unachievable dream like having your cake and eating it too.
But when you think about it, marketing is the art of achieving your goals WITHIN budget. |
In most cases the marketing goal is increasing sales. There are many ways to achieve this from the sometimes esoteric benefit of branding through to having a well designed store layout. Not all marketing strategies need to depend on totally reinventing your brand image then pushing it down the consumers’ consciousness by mass advertising.
New Products or Services
The business entering a market place with a new product or service will maximise the benefit of the marketing dollar by following these simple steps:
- Understand your offering (what do we provide that is unique, or stands out from competitors)
- Use research to isolate a compatible market niche and understand your niche customers’ needs. This needn’t be expensive and should be based on facts, not just a gut feel.
- Market to this smaller niche. Associate with their needs and legitimately fulfil them.
A good example of this is when Macintosh entered the world of desktop computers. Macintosh did not target the corporate world when they entered the market place as IBM had a stranglehold on that arena. What Macintosh did was to target the under-serviced graphics customer. They knew their target, how to reach them and as this was a (relatively) small niche, the marketing costs were significantly less than the shotgun approach. Once they had established a firm beachhead in the graphics environment, they could then expand their activities into the larger business community.
Targeted Niche marketing is a cost effective way to increase your sales without breaking your budget.
Existing Products and Services
A good promotion - you needn’t spend a bundle on a promotion for it to be successful. Try partnering with an ancillary business and both market to current clients. You will double your exposure while splitting the costs. A good example of this is Ski-field accommodation and a gift shop / restaurant teaming up to provide summer-time day tours. The bus trip and scenic tour was “free”, and the customers only had to pay for the restaurant lunch. The cost of the meal was split to pay for food and bus, the shop made profits from the increased custom and the accommodation had reservations from interested visitors who previously did not realise they could holiday in the mountains during summer.
Communication Technologies - Develop a relationship with your customers using the technologies available. Use your website to obtain an email list of interested parties. Communicate with them to establish an ongoing relationship. When they need to purchase they will think of you. You can provide this information as an email or SMS and the costs are now extremely affordable (cents rather than dollars.)
The brawn of the big budget can not be denied, but it is losing ground to well defined, targeted niche-marketing campaigns. In order to maximise your marketing spend, you need to employ creative thinking that will excite your target niche into knowing that you are the only solution for them.
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SMS - A powerful business tool, too
By Nick Hutchins
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Most people appreciate the convenience of using SMS to send quick messages to friends and family. But few people are aware that SMS is an extremely powerful business tool, and can save companies tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in wages and telephone calls.
Businesses that utilize SMS technology realize that you do not need a mobile phone to send SMS messages – they can be automatically sent from your computer system.
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This can replace many expensive hours on the telephone and makes staff more accountable because there is a record of every text message sent out.
How it works – if you have any sort of internal business management system or a database, you can have ‘rules’ set up in your system to automatically send SMS messages as needed.
Here are some examples of when a business can benefit from sending automated SMS messages:
- To remind customers of upcoming appointments
- To let customers know their order is ready to be picked up
- To advise their customer base of an upcoming event
- To let staff know of an upcoming meeting
What is also powerful about SMS is that SMS replies can be captured and can then trigger another action. For example, if you wanted to invite customers to an upcoming seminar, you end the SMS with “Reply YES if you would like to come”. The system can then capture that reply and the people who reply with an SMS of “YES” would be flagged in your database as wanting to attend.
Digital Tree has been involved with some very interesting applications of SMS. Not many people could imagine a funeral company utilizing SMS to improve staff accountability and KPI measurement when they are delivering bodies to the morgue! For more information on this story or to discuss if your business can benefit from SMS then drop me a line at
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or call our office on 03 9682 0968.
