Ideal Marketing Company Blog

Marketing Mentor – Stand alone above the competitors

I was at a meeting yesterday with a great company who may or may not turn into clients.  They have grown well and are now expaning into a new area and I was happy to drive to their offices and give them some thoughts on how they could grow the new part of the company.  We talked for an hour or so and they told me of their plans and showed me their existing marketing material.

When it come down to it I gave them a lot of ideas, a lot of ways they could expand, but of them all there were just 2 ideas that would really make the difference. 

The first one is to been seen as sector specific.  Rather than claiming to be all things to all men, show that they really understand a specific sector.  They were opperating in about 5 areas and so it would be easy to create (or adapt) material for each of these areas.

The second idea is to be seen as experts in what they do.  Tell – don’t sell.  Explain clearly to a prospect that you know the problem they have (cost, time, bad previous suppliers etc) and you will overcome that issue.

Two simple marketing ideas – specialise and solve the problem.  All else will fall into place with a little planning but by using these core ideas at the heart of their expanding empire they will make a million.  

I’m pleased to say that they are coming to my November marketing seminar where I’ll be able to go into these issues in more details, but in the meantime they have some ideas to work through.

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Marketing Seminar on how to be an Expert

This morning I completed the marketing presentation that I will deliver next Thursday at the IOD in Leicester.  The event takes place at the Leicester County Cricket ground and I’m delighted to have been asked along as a guest speaker.

The IOD hold a monthly meeting and each time ask speakers from different areas of business to attend.  Last time it was Pete Gould of Punch PR and this time it will be me. 

I firmley believe that everybody is an expert at somthing from a type of cookery to turning around failing companies.  This 60 minute presentation talks about what people can do to position their company as ‘experts’ in a particular niche areas.  It’s a great way to have people come to you for advice.  It’s a low cost marketing idea that works very well and I’ve used it many times with clients.  I have covered areas of it in past marketing seminars, but this is the first time I have been able to expand it into a full one mini hour marketing seminar in it’s own right.

For tickets go to the IOD website – the event stats at 7.15am with a breakfast and my part runs from 8am till 9am.

Ask yourself – what aspect of your business do you know more about than your competitors?  Could there be tips booklet or report that you could create on that subject?

They say that marketing people are full of hot air and they are probably right.  However I was delighted to come across some characters on Friday evening who had a lot more hot air than me.My clients www.heartoftheshires.co.uk ran a wonderful event for about 600 guests and the star attraction was not only a series of hot air balloons, but Bertie Bassett himself all 300ft of him towering down on me as I struggled to take pictures of him that did justice to his sheer size.  A of the pictures reminded me of The Goodies episode with ‘Kitten Kong’.

The main point is that event was a great  success and I hope will be the start of great things for Heart of the Shires and their new owner who seemed to be having a great time on Friday.  ¼/p>

Have you ever been to a time management seminar? One of the things they talk about is treating each working day as if you are about to go on holiday they next day.  The idea is you get lots done.  Well I’m going on holiday on Tuesday and I can’t remember a week (never mind a day) when I’ve worked so long and got so much done.  I keep going though the lists of stuff that I need to to do and for every thing that gets ticked off another 2 get added.  Monday of course is the day when I’ll just have to say ‘enough’ and accept that I can’t do everything, but I hope to have done most of the things I need to.

On Friday I had another idea to use in my new marketing seminar.  I want to run an put some of the mareting ideas onto cards and get people to pick them out at random.  That means instead of me doing all the talking delegates will be able to talk about specific points and this will act as a reminder of the content.  I heard it work well on a CD called ‘How to stop worrying and start growing your business’ conducted by Jamie Smart at www.saladltd.co.uk

The Ideal Marketing Company supports Leicestershire and Northamptonshire companies as well as companies from across the UK with marketing, PR and direct mail. The Ideal Marketing Company helps support companies with marketing consultancy in order to generate new business wins as well as making the most of existing customers.

The reason that most people don’t do things is because they don’t ever get going.  They wait until everything is just right, and of course, that time never arrives.   Well dispite everything that is going on at the moment and being in the middle of finalising my new marketing seminars, I’m setting out on the big new world of blogging.  So my first thought is that when it comes to trying somthing new make a tiny step – just commit to spending 10 minutes on a project and then 10 minutes the next day and so on.  Before you know it you will have achieved momentum and will be compelled to carry on. I won’t promise to update this blog every day but will commit to doing so at least once every week.

I’ll let you know about development of new clients, new marketing ideas, sales ideas, I’ll update it with thoughts about the marketing seminars I run near Market Harborough and put in thoughts about effective new marketing ideas that you can use on your business.  

My first thought is about a great example of one of the most basic priniples in marketing and selling – the principle of demonstartion.  If you have a product that does somthing demonstarte it so that potential customers can see it for themsleves.  My friends at www.cagedfish.co.uk sent  me a link to www.willitblend.com this site was set up to prove that the Total blender could blend just about anything.  The results ahve been incredable for the company and the short videos of the blender shredding everything from wood to iphones (yes really) have put the company on the map and rightly so. 

 This is a brillinat idea, carried out simply inexpensivly and using the latest technology, but adhering to one of the simplist marketing principle – demonstate your product. 

If you attended one of my recent marketing seminars you might remember I talk about putting some ‘action and drama’ into your adverting. Well Total blenders have done this to great effect.  

I’ve just heard some great news from a client.  Over a year ago a group of us started a ‘Mastermind Alliance’ group. The idea is that we meet up once a month for half a day to discuss how to grow our companies, get rid of bad habits and generally become more productive at the things we want to do and achive. 

During a meeting with this client the other week we discussed the idea and now he has just e-mailed to say it looks likely that he is going to set up his own group. 

The idea came from a book called ‘Think and Grow Rich’ and it is certianly working for our group. See www.mastermind-alliance.co.uk for details of what we did and the format we follow.  It is probably the single best was to make steady progress towards your dreams and goals and I’d highly reccomend it.  Let me know if you want any help in setting up your group.

The Ideal Marketing Company supports Leicestershire and Northamptonshire companies as well as companies from across the UK with marketing, PR and direct mail. The Ideal Marketing Company helps support companies with marketing consultancy in order to generate new business wins as well as making the most of existing customers.

What’s the best way to spend a lovely sunny weekend in the middle of August?  That’s right, by completing the notes and the power point for a new marketing seminar. 

Although I had put aside the time to do it, this was the only chance I will have to complete the material  before going on holliday next week, it turned out to be quite enjoyable.  As well as adapting some marketing ideas that I’ve used for my clients I researched some really big companies to see what they had done to grow so rapidly and – surprise – they used many of the same ideas.

The extensive notes will now speed up my book – The 50:50 Prinicple – which argues that people currently spend their marketing budgets in the wrong places.  About 50% should be spend on retaining existing customers and 50% on aquiring news ones.  This way you keep you clienst for longer. 

I talked about this idea in a newsletter a while back and a friend of mine called Tim Baker at The Design Chain came up with some interesting calulations which he e-mailed over to me again yesterday.

In the newsletter I had suggested that a customer bought from you 4 times a year with an average value of £50.  What would happen if that customer reccomended you to 2 new customers a year who also bought from you 4 times a year spending £50 each time and in turn each reccomended you to 2 customers etc etc. This is what Tim worked out:

I have imagined how much you could potentially generate over ten years if each customer spent £200 annually and you got a 100% success rate of each customer then generating another two new customers the next year, and so on… …by the end of year ten you would have 19,683 customers and total sales over the ten year period of £5,904,800, with a turnover of £3.9 million in year 10 ! And that’s without inflation.

An intereting thought and one to make you appreciate the importance of treating your existing customers well! 

The Ideal Marketing Company supports Leicestershire and Northamptonshire companies as well as companies from across the UK with marketing, PR and direct mail. The Ideal Marketing Company helps support companies with marketing consultancy in order to generate new business wins as well as making the most of existing customers.