I came across an article online the other day about a slimming club. It gave the most amazing stories about people who had lost a lot of weight by changing the way they think about food. Then it occurred to me that this mind-set could apply to marketing. We’re all guilty of thinking that the hill is impossible to climb and that, in itself, puts obstacles in our way.
After doing some research, I found that there are some marketing mind-set mistakes that are quite common – they’re definitely among the comments I’ve heard when talking to people with small businesses.
- Marketing is mysterious and unpredictable. Lots of people feel that marketing is just something they can’t get their heads around. It’s something you either can do or can’t and it’s too hard to do it effectively.
- Marketing doesn’t work for my business. Most of the time, this is not that it doesn’t work, it’s just that you may have the wrong approach or you’ve tried so many different things and had little success. This is a hard one, because it will feel that no matter what you do, nothing seems to work.
- I’m rubbish at marketing. I’ve heard this loads of times from customers who come to me to help them. But the truth is that everyone can learn and improve by learning new techniques, sometimes very simple ones. There are very few small businesses who start out as great marketers…they just learn over time what works best for them and their business…and learn as much as they can about how to get better results.
Change your marketing mind-set to achieve more
Do any of the mind-set mistakes above strike a chord with you? If they do, you are one step closer to more marketing success – once you have identified what it is that is holding you back, you are ready to think about a new mind-set approach.
- No matter what kind of business you have, be it a crafting business, shop owner, builder, hairdresser…you need to realise that as a business owner, you are constantly looking for new customers and trying to attract new customers, so you are already in the marketing business. You are a marketer!
- Secondly, it’s important to believe that you can become more effective at marketing your business. You can learn how to do this, it’s not an impossible feat. It’s about being positive. I remember when I worked at a big insurance company in the UK in
the Marketing and Communications department, I wanted to go for a promotion. In a meeting with my boss, she told me that if I wanted to go further and get my next grade, I needed to act like I already had that grade. So I looked at the criteria for the next grade and started learning how to do some of things that required and started acting like I was doing the job. After a relatively short time, I was promoted – my behaviours had changed and, instead of sitting there wishing I was the next grade up, I worked and thought as if I was already there. Applying this to small businesses, by learning the right marketing behaviours and practicing them, over time you will become more successful at marketing. - The most important point is that marketing your business is the key to growing your business. As you become more efficient and effective as a marketer, your business will naturally grow.
A good start is to write down what your current mind-set is regarding marketing and then look at what you can do to improve your mind-set and change your current behaviours. If you need help with your marketing strategy, please feel free to contact me … I’ll be happy to help you.
If a free ‘gift’ is being offered, such as the cookery cards, they are giving you something to try in the hope that you’ll be impressed, like them and then buy their product. Similarly, if you sign up to a monthly newsletter, it might be that you get some great information, but at some point there will be an opportunity to try a training course, or buy an e-book. Of course, there is no obligation to do this and you’ll still get the information, but it’s a great marketing ploy to plug your business. And the way the CTA is written doesn’t give you time to think – the ‘do it now’ approach with no obligation means you have nothing to lose – it encourages you to respond straight away.
You may find someone or a few people who you could collaborate with. For example if you’re a hairdresser, you might want to team up with a make-up artist, so you can pull together a package for weddings or prom events. You can put a link to their website on yours and vice versa.
If you’re a blogger, arrange to interview an influential person in your niche…someone who is an expert or leading authority on the kind of thing you do. You could interview them as a podcast or use it for a blog post. Either way, once published, that person will tell his/her contacts about the interview and point them to it…and you will get more traffic to your blog/website and the possibility of them using your products or services.
adding this to your resolution list.
As more and more people rely on their mobiles for everything, from ordering fast food, the supermarket shop, to clothes, shoes and gifts, it makes sense to make sure that your small business is online and easy to find.
Search engine optimization (SEO) continues to be important in order to ensure your business ranks highly in search engines, so it is easier for customers to find you. Content marketing is more important than ever – the Google search engine looks for new and original content for their ranking, so it’s vital to keep your website up to date, ensure that blogs are posted regularly with fresh and engaging articles. For example, customers love to hear a real-life story, so writing about how you have helped someone by solving a problem they had, is a great way to show that you care and value your customers, and it promotes trust and loyalty to your brand.
You will have noticed how much more video you now see on your social media sites, especially on Facebook and Instagram. According to research conducted by livestream.com 80% of audiences would rather watch live video from a brand than read a blog and 82% prefer live video from a brand to social posts. This tells us a lot about where marketing is going in the future, customers are no longer happy with faceless marketing, they want to see real people giving them real information. So, it’s going to be very important in 2018 to incorporate video into your marketing strategies, whether it’s for a product launch, running a webinar or talking about product reviews or your services, it’s a fantastic opportunity that none of us can choose to ignore. You can use Facebook ads and YouTube to help you or just go ‘live’ on Facebook in real time. You may make some mistakes or stumble over a few words, but your customers will be able to relate to you much more easily.
demographic and gender. It’s not ridiculously expensive and has proved to be very worthwhile – definitely worth thinking about. Facebook has a 
If you can’t afford to use someone for all of your marketing, you could just outsource your blogs and get someone to write one or two a week for you – this will keep your business publishing new and fresh content, which will bring more customers to your website or highlight your brand…and it’s a much more affordable option.
It’s September already and it never ceases to amaze me how quickly time seems to pass. When I was a kid and it was the summer holidays, they seemed to go on forever…nowadays the year seems to pass quicker than those summer holidays! Must be an age thing!
Anyway, I digress! Whilst I’m waiting for the second baby to arrive, I will be reviewing both our businesses. This time of year is perfect for doing this for everyone…you’re coming to the end of the summer season and, dare I say it, Christmas will be fast approaching, so now is the time to look at the business plan you did at the beginning of the year. If you’ve been very efficient, you may have already reviewed it once or twice already. So, are you on track to do the things you wanted to do? If not, what are the reasons? It could be that some of the goals you set yourself are too big, so you could cut some of them down into sizable and achievable chunks. Maybe the goals you set were too adventurous…in which case, you could put one or two on the back burner for next year…of course, you might just need to push yourself that little bit harder to achieve them. It’s totally up to you how you approach goals that have not yet been reached.
Now is also the time to plan for the rest of the year – what are you going to do on Social Media? What blogs are you planning to write? Make a list and try and stick to the schedule. Do you have any events coming up, such as networking events, markets, craft fayres etc? If you do, plan how you can be more efficient and get more sales or meet more people.
Finally, we all like to learn new things, so make sure you are up to date with the latest news and technology – is there a social media site you’d like to learn more about? There are lots of free courses online so take advantage of them and learn something new to help your company progress. If you don’t have time to do this or learn new things this year, put them into plan, so you add them into your business plan for next year.
The key word here is ‘valuable’ content; content that will speak to your customers, content that they want and need, maybe information that solves a problem they have. In order to do this, you need to know your existing customers and research and get to know your prospective customers, so you can deliver that all important content. It may take some time to get it right, but when you do, you will have the opportunity to expand your business, build your reputation and ultimately be known as an expert in your field.
Depending on what you do, that could lead to a sale or a request for your services…and they are likely to return to your site in future.
business, they are not in the least bit interested in your brand, no matter how hard you’ve worked on it. They are more interested in what you can do for them. If you provide something that makes their life easier, less stressful, and cost-effective and generally entertain them, they will then become interested in your brand as they will see it as something they relate to.
When you publish your content on your blog or website, make sure that you promote it on every social media site that you have…with maybe a jig around of the title or introduction. You can also contribute to larger sites to get your name out there.
We all want our businesses to stand out from the crowd. Although it takes some time and effort, it’s worth it to have a unique identity that is instantly recognisable. Here are a few ideas that can help you along your way to having your own brand identity.
The first thing to do is to think about a mission statement for your business, which is a short sentence about what your purpose is. We all know Nike’s tagline, ‘Just Do It’ but did you know that their mission statement is ‘To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world’. So their mission statement encapsulates everything that the company is about and wants to achieve in one short sentence. This is no mean feat, but achievable for your business with a bit of thought. You could always get a few friends round and have a ‘get my mission statement’ party…but make sure you work on the statement before you start drinking…or you could have some very interesting stuff!
Brand Colours – The colours you choose are more important than you might think – according to research by web design and marketing company, WebPageFX, people make a subconscious judgement about a product in less than 90 seconds of viewing, and a majority of these people base that assessment on colour alone. In fact almost 85% of consumers cite colour as the primary reason they buy a particular product and 80% believe that colour increases brand recognition. Wow! That’s quite powerful.
Fonts – When looking at your brand for the first time, people will notice the colours and also the font – the way the brand name is written. There are so many different fonts, so try and choose one or two that enhance your business name…for example if you sell vintage jewellery, look at a vintage font.
Our customers are the lifeblood of our businesses, so it’s crucial to gain new customers and to retain the existing ones. At this time of year, I’m always thinking of ways that I can grow my customer base, so after a brainstorming session, here are some of the ideas I’ve come up with…
Develop a calendar for your newsletter, planning specific activities that run throughout the year, for example, something around special times of the year; Valentine’s day, Easter, Christmas, Halloween etc. It’s also important to promote your newsletter everywhere; on your website (via an opt-in link or ‘sign up to our newsletter’ page; put it on the bottom of your email signature or on invoices and receipts; include details in any order you send to customers and if you speak to a customer on the phone, ask if they’d like to receive regular updates from you about your products.
Ask for your customers’ opinions on your products or services. Is there something you could be doing better? Customers like to feel valued and it is good customer service practice to ask a customer what they think, listen to their answer and act upon it. It shows you listen. You could run a short survey and ask opinions – again, give an incentive to reply. You could put something like this at the beginning of the survey in the introduction… “We place a high value on our customers, so we would like to ask you to take five minutes of your time to answer a few questions about the products and services you receive from us. If you complete this survey, you will receive 10% off your next order as a thank you for giving us your opinion.” People like to be asked to help, like to give their opinion and most of all, like to get something in return so they feel that their opinion matters to you.
How do you ensure you provide good customer service? Well, firstly make sure that there is a clear and easy way for customers to communicate with you – in person, by phone or email and that when they do contact you, you reply in a timely fashion. Always have a positive and friendly outlook and attitude to your customers. Pay particular attention to any customer concerns or complaints. If a customer complaints, they are giving you the opportunity to resolve a problem – if you do this in a fast, effective and friendly manner, they will remember that and refer you to their friends and family. Always remember that the reputation of your business relies heavily on providing excellent customer service.
Photo – First of all, make sure you upload a good photo of yourself – preferably a professional one. Don’t just go with the grey Avatar.
Network – join groups that are in your niche and make comments and join discussion threads. This is a great way to get to know people – answer questions as these groups are a great source of information. Someone always knows the answer to your problem and may even have experienced something similar that they can share.
As well as all of the above, there is also space for
The Write Way 