Archive for the ‘Marketing Small Business’ Category

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Do Small Businesses Really Have Time For Marketing?

Thursday, May 6th, 2010

I reviewed a consultant’s LinkedIn profile the other day and after I had emailed over the report, we arranged to speak on the phone to go through my advice and recommendations.

Unfortunately, to make his LinkedIn profile work harder for him, it became apparent that this consultant was trapped by the “time excuse”. He felt he was so busy he didn’t have the time to make the necessary changes I had recommended. It was a Catch 22. He knew LinkedIn could prove to be a profitable marketing platform for him – many of his target clients where active users. But even though his profile was poor and if a potential client was to Google his name, it would probably put someone off from contacting him, he felt he didn’t have the time to do anything about it.

He wanted new clients, but was too busy with day-to-day “stuff”.

But was time the real reason for not taking action?

Probably not! As small business owners, it is easy to feel there is not enough time in the working week. But if a new client was too call you’d make the time to speak with them, wouldn’t you?

Time is not genuine excuse for not getting on with your marketing. And I think the reason why you may use the time excuse is that you don’t really know what you should be doing first.

You have no plan of attack.

It’s too easy to wade through hundreds of emails that have been stacking up in your inbox. Perhaps you have lots of paperwork and invoices to send out or sort out.

These are just excuses. If you have no plan of attack, then it’s not surprising that all your good intentions are just left by the wayside. It’s not surprising that you will find yourself at the end of each month having drifted along, not having attracted any new clients or moved ahead with any new projects.

So, before you let yourself drift through the next month and allow your competitors to be one step ahead of you, follow these simple steps.

Step One. Get Clear on Your “Big Plan”. Where do you see your business in 6 months or 2 years? What do you want to known for in your industry? What product, programme or book do you want to create before next year?

Step Two: Map Out Your Journey. Your “Big Plan” is your long term plan. However, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed before you’ve begun the journey, if you have failed to chunk your plan down in to more manageable time frames. It’s easier to climb several hills than go straight for Mount Everest! Good milestones to have are 3 months, 6 months and 1 year.

Step Three: SMARTen Up Your Milestones. Classic goal setting tips here! Make sure each milestone is SMART. SMART means Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timescale. If each of your milestones can be each of these, then you have a great goal that is easier to achieve.

Step Four: Create Your 3 Month Action Plan. By focusing now on just your 3 month milestone (rather than your “Big Picture”) you should find it far easier deciding what to actually do over the coming weeks. Remember though, this isn’t a to-do-list (that’s for your daily brain dumps). I suggest no more than 3 daily, 3 weekly and 3 monthly actions because this is will ensure your plan of attack is simple and easy to follow (and will also allow you to manage other parts of your life so you are not working 24/7!).

Step Five: Diarise Your Action Plan. Work out how long your daily, weekly and monthly actions should take you and diarise 30 minute or 1 hour chunks in to your diary. It can be tough allocating a whole day every week to marketing. Little and often fit better in to a working week.

Follow these five steps and the time excuse will no longer be needed as you will now know exactly what you need to do get on with your marketing.

As for the consultant I mentioned earlier – I’m looking forward to seeing what he has managed to achieve from my checklist in the one hour chunk I challenged him on!

If you want help in chunking down your “big plan” or even with the “big plan” itself, then call me on 01428 607745 or click here for more information on how working with me could help you and your business.

Posted in Business Attitude, Marketing Small Business | 7 Comments »

Cool tools: Tungle, the online scheduler

Tuesday, May 4th, 2010

I love my tech tools so I am always trying out this, that and the other to see how different web based tools work for small businesses.

Many seem great to start with, but then the novelty wears off and before long I have forgotten my login details and never go back.

But there has been one web tool that has become an integral part of the way I do business.  And that tool is Tungle.

Working from home, most of my 1-2-1 client consultations and sessions are over the phone or via skype.  And setting up times to speak has always been a game of email ping-pong. Quite often if a client has taken more than 3 or 4 days to get back to me, the times I have suggested have already been confirmed with someone else.

I had dabbled with a few online diaries but most were too clunky.  And for many of my clients who just weren’t as tech savvy as I was (hence why they work with me!), some of these systems would actually work against the process, rather than improve it.

But then I stumbled on Tungle.  I can’t remember where I saw it first.  But having used it now for the past two months, it has not been integrated in to my business processes.

The other person doesn’t need to sign up for the service.  It is a simple click and drag application.  Plus it works really well on my iPhone as an app!

At the moment it is still a free service – although I am sure there will be a subscription tier coming in at some point – so it’s worth checking out if you schedule lots of meetings and still like control of your own diary.

Here is the link:  http://www.tungle.me

There is one negative I have to point out though.  The Tungle confirmation emails have occasionally got caught up in client’s spam filters.  So it is worth confirming the time yourself, too (I only needed to get caught out once when a client hadn’t expected my call, even though I had confirmed it via Tungle.  As it got stuck in her spam filters, she hadn’t realised I was able to confirm a time and thought I had ignored her suggestions!)

Let me know what you think.

(Quick note – I have no affiliation or business interest in this tool.  Just wanted to share something with you that works for me)

Posted in Cool Tools, Gadgets & Widgets, Marketing Small Business | 2 Comments »

Does the ease of using the internet mean that we can stop the harder face-to-face stuff?

Friday, April 30th, 2010

As you may have realised, the UK is in the middle of an election.  I know, I know! You don’t need reminding, but I did want to put this situation in to context.

We had a knock on the door the other day and it was my neighbour canvassing for our local Conservative MP.  We had a quick chat and we shared a few of our thoughts on the Live Leaders Debate programme.

And then she said something really interesting.

“You would have thought with all this internet technology, I wouldn’t have to do all this door knocking.  It would be so much easier to do this canvassing through an online form.”

Now this lady was in her 60’s so not your typical web-tech geek (unlike me!!) so suggesting that the canvassing she was doing was easier online was a surprise to me.

Yes, it may be easier to send out emails asking people to go to a website where they could register their support.  And yes, it is probably a great way of adding to marketing campaign of a MP (or any other product or service).  But to suggest the face-to-face door knocking is replaced would be a poor change in marketing strategy.

Using email and website can be easier.  And it can certainly be cheaper than printing, postage and spending time getting out and about.  Helping small business owners use web-tech tools effectively in their business is something I do all the time.

But many small business owners go online as a replacement rather than an addition to a marketing strategy.  They replace the face-to-face networking with Facebook and Twitter.  They stop picking up the phone and send more emails instead.

The ease of the internet does indeed increase your opportunities and help raise your brand awareness.  But before you take the easy way, just make sure it is the most effective way.  Because, much as I love the web, nothing beats a bit of face-to-face when winning votes – and business!

Posted in Business Attitude, Marketing Small Business, Online Networking, Selling You & Your Business, Social Media | 3 Comments »

Are you being ignored in the Twitter playground?

Tuesday, April 27th, 2010

Last week I got an email from someone who saw me speak on the subject of using Twitter for small businesses.  It was titled “Help Please – slightly ranty and desperate”.

Having been a Twitter for some months, this small business owner was feeling like a child coming home and saying “no-one wants to play with me”.  She was frustrated that she didn’t seem to be able to attract new followers, nor be able to get her own tweets retweeted.

This is what I emailed back:

Sounds like you need to stop focusing on the numbers and start focusing on the results that you are looking to achieve on Twitter.  Twitter is never going to be successful as a business tool if you are only trying to increase your follower numbers and increase the number of Retweets you get.

Step away and take time to sort out a strategy for Twitter.  What are you trying to achieve, who do you want to be connecting with and what impact is Twitter going to have on your business?

If it feels like no-one wants to play with you, it is probably because you are hiding in the corner. Most children ignore children who do that, don’t they?  Get out there, introduce yourself, have conversations – join in with the party and people will want to play with you.

The following day, I got tweet back from this small business owner.  It simply said:

“I was missing out the “social” bit of social networking, you are such a clever girl!”

That’s exactly right!  The all important word is social.

If you feel you are being ignored, then don’t wait to be asked to play.  Start your own games and join in with the party.

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Posted in Business Attitude, Marketing Small Business, Online Networking, Social Media | 13 Comments »

Spray and pray marketing: the problems and the solutions

Thursday, April 22nd, 2010

When a few long term clients begin to “evaluate” their current contracts, it is easy to feel a sense of anxiety.  Perhaps your motivation and confidence is starting to wane as one after another potential lead dries up.

When business is good, you are king of the hill.  But when business gest tough, it is easy to start panicking.

And when this panic starts to filter in to your marketing, the lack of business leads only gets worse.

Why?  Because the 2 biggest mistakes you can make when business gets tough is to reduce your prices and to widen your market.

I’ll come back to reducing prices at another time, but let’s deal with the widening of your market first.  I suppose it kinda makes sense to feel you must widen your market if your business leads are drying up.  After all, you want more clients.

But never get confused with wanting new clients with wanting to have any-new-client-who-will-have-you.

When you start to widen your market, it is easy to lose your focus, your speciality and your ability to compete with other businesses.

The more niche you are and the more focused your marketing is, the more successful you will be in winning more clients and customers.  And if there is one thing that you are more likely to win over other cheaper competitors is by being a specialist.

When you try to win any-new-client-who-will-have-you, your marketing starts to become spray and pray.  The more letters, emails, calls and tweets you can get out, the more chance you feel someone will come back to you.  Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case.

Here are some of the problems caused by spray and pray marketing.

Sending everyone to the same website

Problem – the attention span of your average website visitor is less than 3 seconds.  People are not as patient online and scan web pages, rather than read them. If they can’t see the right information for them, they hit the back button.  And if you are sending everyone, online and offline, to the same home page, are you giving that potential new client the right information to make a decision on whether to buy from you?

How do you know if you have this problem? – check your web stats and look at your bounce rate.  This will show you how many people click away from your site after viewing only one page.  Also keep track of your conversion rates.  If you sell products and services online, how many visitors do you need to attract to your website to make one sale?

Solution – Having a separate website for each of your target clients is ideal, but not always practical.  Start off by having separate pages relevant for different clients and give out a dedicated web address to the right clients. For example a training business could have www.yourwebsite.com/retail if they have decided to target this sector.  When a potential retail client clicks through to this page, they can read about the problems retail businesses have, what specific solutions are on offer to them and what targeted results can be achieved.  There is a greater chance that this training company is going to be perceived to be a specialist in the retail sector, thus improve their chances of winning business.

Sending everyone the same letter & brochure

Problem – 1,000 letters and brochures are sent out to a mailing list which results in not one enquiry.  Expensive!

How do you know you’ve got this problem? – When the invoices for the printing and postage start hurting your bottom line.

Solution – Break down your database in to smaller lists, for example by industry sector, location or common problem.  Spend time modifying your letter so it is written specifically to that person.  The aim is to have each person read that letter feeling that it is written personally for them.  It focuses exactly on a problem they may have and gives them a clear call to action that is desirable enough for them to act on.  Save your printing costs and do away with the brochure, unless of course you have the budget to design a specific brochure to every target client.  And keep the mailing small enough so that you (or someone in your team) can follow up each and every letter by phone.  Follow up is key!

Sending everyone the same email

Problem – Emails are being ignored and possibly even reported as spam.

How do you know you’ve got this problem? – If you are using a subscription based email service, check your unsubscribe and open rates.  It may be easier to send every email to the whole of your database, but if it is resulting in your subscribers ignoring you, you are in danger of damaging your brand.  Remember, useful emails to some may be spam to others.

– Again, break down your database in to smaller lists.  Can you define people by the products they have bought?  Or where they have subscribed from?  Is there an opportunity to make a special offer to just those who signed up for a free report you offered last year?  If you want a lesson on targeted emails, just buy something from Amazon or Tesco.

Spray and pray marketing may feel like the right thing to do when you desperate to find more clients.  But don’t!  Take the time to focus on your target clients, focus on their common problems and focus on providing a solution that is right for them.

Niche is the key to successful small business marketing.

Got a comment to make? Do take a few moments and leave your thoughts.

Posted in Business Attitude, List Building, Marketing Small Business, Selling You & Your Business | 4 Comments »

3 reasons why you shouldn’t be using Twitter

Thursday, March 18th, 2010

Twitter isn’t right for everyone.  I know – shock horror!! But it’s true.

There has been so much hype about Twitter over the past year that it can be easy to get sucked in to and feel that everyone is on Twitter already and you should be doing it too.

I was speaking at the 1230 AOB conference yesterday in Bromley to a group of ladies about Twitter.  In the morning Claire Young from The Apprentice gave a very interesting talk about her career and the journey that made her a TV star.  It was great that she referred to Twitter – but I had to cringe as she stood there in front of the audience to tell everyone that Twitter was to become THE most important marketing tool within the next 2 years and as she made £10,000 of business from it in the last 2 months, everyone should be tweeting too.

These are dangerous words and I worry that for every hype story like this, there are a dozen or more so being banded around.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love Twitter. As many of you who read my blog may know, I use Twitter in my own business and help many clients integrate it in to their marketing and business plans too.

But to be telling everyone that they should be on Twitter is not something I recommend, and especially to an audience of self-employed professionals and small business owners.  And these are reasons why.

Don’t use Twitter if:
 
1. You are a Magpie. A magpie is notorious for swooping down and collecting sparkly, shining objects and taking them back to their nests.  And many business owners act like magpies too.  They see a new sparkly toy (Twitter!), swoop in and spend the next few days and weeks playing around with it.  It’s easy to start wasting time, but also to forget to spend time with the stuff that actually works already, such as networking, sending out their next email newsletter or making those follow up calls.  So not only does Twitter distract them until the next new sparkly toy turns up, the stuff that used to work for them, stops working for them.

2. You don’t know your target client.  Like any marketing and business tool, if you are not totally clear on exactly who your target client is, don’t go near Twitter.  Using Twitter without understanding your target clients will be like throwing mud at a wall to see what sticks.  Start with your clients first before deciding whether Twitter is a tool for you.

3. You hate being “you”. If your website is very “corporate” and talks about your business in terms of the “royal we” without any photo or mention of you – the business owner behind the business – then Twitter is going to be a hard slog for you.  Twitter works best when your Twitter profile is humanised.  For example, the avatar is a picture of the person behind the tweets, rather than a logo (or even worse, a clip art image!).  The tweets are mixed in with real-life comments, rather than a series of bot-like tips & article links.  And there is conversation in the form of @replies, rather than a series of scheduled adverts.

So be careful of falling for the Twitter hype.  Twitter can be a very powerful business tool, but like any other marketing or business tool, it has to be right you, your business model and, more importantly, your clients.

What are your thoughts on using Twitter?  And where would you recommend starts if they plan to start using Twitter?

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Posted in Marketing Small Business, Social Media | 8 Comments »

LinkedIn: Offline + Online = Make Sense Networking

Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010

LinkedIn is proving to be one of the more popular social networks for business; a safe haven where “normal” business rules seem to apply.

Facebook is great for your “water-cooler” chat and sharing photos. Twitter works for the “cocktail hour” chat, buzzing with link sharing and playful banter.  But LinkedIn is the platform that many professionals and business owners feel “safe” online.

LinkedIn is your suited-and-booted business networking environment where people are there to talk business.  And more and more of you are signing up.

But, for some reason, most business owners seem to think of their LinkedIn networking as a completely separate activity from their “real” face-to-face networking.  Once you are sat in front of your PC, it’s easy to slip into virtual mode, isn’t it?

But if you make the time for “real” networking, how often do you look up the people you’ve met on an online network such as LinkedIn?

Virtual relationship building does work.  But what really turns up the power on your virtual networking is making is real.  And what better way of making it real than by reaching out and connecting with people you’ve already met.

It’s quite simple really and yet very few people I meet at networking events do it.  After each event, look up the people you’ve met and wish to build upon that initial meeting and invite them to connect on LinkedIn.

Your online world becomes much friendlier and works far better for you when you link it up to your offline one.

Have you got any more LinkedIn tips? Leave a comment and share your thoughts

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Posted in Marketing Small Business, Neworking Tips, Online Networking, Social Media | 2 Comments »

How to get talked about when you are not in the room

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

Networking is one of the most effective forms of marketing, especially when you run your own business.  Even with the explosion of sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn, nothing quite beats being able to get in front of “real” people, shaking them by the hand and having a face-to-face conversation.

But, let’s be honest here.  The big downside of networking is time.  There are only so many hours in a working week and, although it is very easy to attend networking events from breakfast right through to evening drinks, it doesn’t allow you, the business owner, much time to manage your day-to-day business.

One of the best definitions of successful networking I have come across is “being talked about when you’re not in the room.”

So if this creates an opportunity to use the power of networking without physically networking,, how can you come up in these conversations?

The secret to this is in what you offer.

Getting yourself talked about is not about defining yourself with a job title but helping others clearly understand how you may benefit specific people.  And the clearer and more specific you are in what problems you there to solve, the easier it is for people to bring you up in conversation.

That’s right – I’m talking niches here!

Let me give you an example:  Coaching.

You can’t go to a networking event without bumping in to at least 2 or 3 coaches in the room, can you?  And what do they all tell you what it is they do?  Yup, that’s right – coaching.

But what makes them stand out from each other?  Not an awful lot, to be honest.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  I am sure that a lot of coaches are lovely people!  And yes, some of them say they are career coaches, business coaches or help people with their work/life balance.

But come one – how many coaches have you met in the last few weeks who stand out enough for you to have specifically talked about them to someone else?

Let me ask you another question.  Of the people you have met over the last few weeks, who have you talked about to other people?  And let’s go one stage further.  Who have you talked about to someone else, only to find that 2 other people also know their name?

How powerful is that?  Instant social proof that this person must be someone to be contacted if not just one person mentions them, but 2 others do as well.

More often than not, the real reason behind you remembering this person is because they were “niche” enough for you trigger a “oh, really – that’s interesting”.

They were “niche” enough for you to check them out on LinkedIn or have a read of their blog when you were back in your office.  Perhaps they were even “niche” enough for you to sign up for their newsletter or follow them on Twitter.

Telling people what you do is not enough to get you remembered.  And being “niche” enough is not just about targeting a particular client type.

Being “niche” enough is about being able to clearly define yourself in terms of what problems you solve and the results that your clients achieve.  The more specific and niche you are in the results you create, the easier it is for someone to “get you”.  And thus talk about you.

And remember, it’s not just about the conversations that happen in networking events.  The share-ability of social media makes you being talked about online even more powerful.  Someone’s comments about you become evergreen, staying right there for others to read and share too.

So stop telling people about what it is you “do”.  And start getting clearer on your “niche” so that others remember the problems you solve and the results you create.

Got a comment to make? I’d love to read your thoughts and ideas

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Posted in Featured Articles, Marketing Small Business, Neworking Tips, Selling You & Your Business | 5 Comments »

How grateful are you for your clients?

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

I met up with a new client last week and was blown away by her photography.  A self-taught amateur turned professional, it was obvious – even from someone who knows nothing about the art of photography – that she had a real eye for capturing startling images.

But talent, a business does not make!

When she started to tell me about the story behind her business and where she was at today, it became clearer and clearer to me that it wasn’t a lack of business skills that was holding back her business.

What was holding her back was her business attitude.

Her pricing was so low, that even she couldn’t quite believe what her hourly rate really was once we divided her commission rate by the number of hours she took to do the project (and I know I was being generous with the actual time she spent!).  What was her reason for charging such so low prices?

“I am just so grateful for any work that I can get,” is what she replied.

Grateful is very dangerous word to use when talking about your clients.  Thankful and even appreciative are great words.  But grateful – never!

Grateful puts you in a place where you secretly beg for a client to work with you.  When you are on the phone to them, you find yourself crossing your fingers and talking randomly to fill up the silence while the potential client decides whether to hire you or not.  And when you do get a “yes” from them, you throw yourself in to the project, nothing being too much for you to do, despite the number of hours you end up spending.

Grateful will make you bend over backwards for a client who never pays you on time.

Grateful will make you drive for miles just to have a cup of coffee with someone who picks your brains and then says goodbye, leaving you to pick up the tab.

A grateful mindset must be left well alone and you must be able to speak with potential new clients with a “I’ve got a full diary this week” mindset.  Even if you have to pretend to flick through your calendar to arrange a meeting (I did this on many an occasion in my first couple of years!!), you’ll notice a huge difference to how your potential clients make their decisions and how much you are able to charge.

Have you found yourself being too grateful for clients?  And how has a grateful mindset affected your business? It always great to read your comments, too.

Posted in Business Attitude, Marketing Small Business, Prices & Charge Rates | 1 Comment »

Getting started with social media: where to begin?

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

how to get started with social mediaThere is no doubt that social media is having a huge impact on the way we communicate.  Now that Facebook is cited to be the 3rd largest country in the world, having more registered users than the population of USA, and social networking has become the number one activity on the web, taking the place of … well, you know what was number one before, don’t you? (don’t dare type the word and get shown up in the wrong kind of keyword searches!!), it looks like that social media is not a fad.

Social media is here to stay for the foreseeable future.

So rather than bury your head in the sand and try to pretend it will all go away, at some point you will have to acknowledge these new ways of communicating with potential clients.

But where to begin?

Just because social media is technology based, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by it.  But social media is just like any other type of marketing tool in that it needs proper planning, objectives set and a timeline planned out to make sure it is an effective use of your resources.

And like any other marketing tool, the place to start with social media is with your clients.

Too many business owners get sucked in to “all that glitters” and before you know it, they are tweeting, facebooking and blogging all hours of the day.

But how many of you have considered your clients first?

You wouldn’t dream of placing a £5K advert in the Sunday Times without thorough market research to gauge the return on your investment.

You wouldn’t dream of getting in to your car and driving 500 miles to see a potential client without having a phone conversation with them first to understand what it was they were looking for.

And yet, there are business owners all over the world who are jumping on the social media bandwagon – without taking the time to consider how their target clients use it.

It actually doesn’t matter what you like or dislike about the different social media tools, such as Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube.  What matters is how your target clients are beginning to use social media and what they like and don’t like about them.

So before you tweet, poke or blog – STOP! Take the time to understand how your target clients use various social media tools.  Once you’ve done that, your investment in integrating social media in to your marketing strategy will be spent more wisely.

What thoughts do you have about getting started with social media? It would be great to read your comments

Posted in Marketing Small Business | 2 Comments »

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