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What is Marketing? And How are you Marketing?

What is Marketing?

Branding

Your ‘brand’ is more than a clever name, logo and colour scheme.
Although these things are crucial to your brand, you must also think about the culture of your business where your clients are concerned.
Your customer service is a large part of your brand — this includes how that phone is answered, how you treat customers and how you meet their needs and wants.

Promotion

Promotion is how you communicate your brand.
Promotion can include simple networking and word of mouth, sponsorship opportunities, and events.
Promotion often includes sales collateral like brochures, pens, pads and any material that you create simply for the purpose of keeping your brand in the customer’s line of sight.

Advertising

Advertising is specialist promotion for your business which entices the customer to contact you.
Advertising is how you let your customers know that you are running an event or opportunity and generally has the sole aim of getting them through your door.
This can include print media, TV, online ads and radio.

Direct marketing

Direct marketing is putting yourself in front of your customer and telling them about your product or service and promoting directly.
This can include telemarketing, e-marketing and sending good old-fashioned letters.

Marketing vs Customer Service vs Sales

Marketing is how you attract new customers or remind existing customers that you are still around.

Customer service is how you keep customers happy and make them feel valued, once you have convinced them to engage you — whether they have simply made an enquiry or have bought your top-level product or service.

Sales is the process you endeavour to funnel them into, to purchase your products or services or encourage them to purchase more.

Statistics

Always remember that it costs six times as much to attract a new customer as it does to retain an existing one.
Another important principle is the Pareto Principle, which is that 20% of your customer base provides 80% of your business.
Another very informal statistic is that a happy customer will tell three or four people about their experience, whereas an unhappy customer will tell everyone they know!

The customer is King

It is imperative that your customers enjoy their experience with your business.

They must feel valued, cared for and also have an affinity with you that keeps them coming back.

In this day and age of cheap overseas labour and cost-cutting, it may well be your excellent customer service that keeps your clients coming back for more.

There will always be the customers who prefer a good deal over a good experience, but most of the time these will not be the customers who fall in your 20% (see Pareto Principle above).

Nurture your clients, get to know what they want and provide it to them. This is what will keep your business going through the good times and the bad.

Never ever underestimate people. The person who emails you with a basic query may come back in a year’s time and engage your full services. Or they may have friends who will become your customers.

Don’t be afraid to go the extra mile either, even if you don’t make any money from it directly. Again the client may come back in future and bring friends with them.

Sales

Sales is the process that a customer becomes engaged in once they step through your door and decide (whether consciously or not) to buy something from you.

The sales process involves letting the customer know what you can provide to them and how it will benefit them. This may start with a quote or a proposal, or may go straight into an order or purchase. It may also include follow-up.

Balance

The customer experience is a delicate balance between marketing, branding, selling and customer service.

Sometimes these can barely be divided.

Your brand image includes the layout and cleanliness of your premises, the friendliness and helpfulness of your team, the end product and the way in which queries, and even complaints, are handled.

Everything from staff uniforms to company vehicles to salespeople will reinforce your brand and image, so always ensure that your customer service is up to scratch, and that you are selling the right things to the right people, or no amount of marketing will keep customers coming back time and time again.

E-marketing

Marketing in the 21st century

It is a lot harder to effectively market yourself now than it was 30 years ago. We live in a world where we are so constantly bombarded with images and advertising that we tend to tune out.

On the upside, marketing and advertising can be done far more cheaply, and without wastage, when done online.

E-marketing (electronic marketing) is suitable for most businesses and it is as simple as asking for your customers’ email addresses.

E-newsletters

An e-newsletter is a great way to keep your customers up to date with what’s going on in your world.

Consider having regular features that inform your customers of things outside of your business, so that it’s not just about sales.

Your e-newsletter should be easy to read, easy to follow and beneficial for your customers.

NB: Your customers must give you their email addresses and have the ability to unsubscribe, or you risk violating the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007 (Spam Act).

E-marketing software

If you already have a website it is highly likely that you have access to an e-marketing module even if you’re not aware of it.

You may have to pay extra for an add-on to your website but it’s worth it.

If you have a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system or another client database system, this also may include the ability to send e-newsletters.

There are also many professional-looking low-cost options available online.

Most email marketing programmes will enable you to see how many people have opened your newsletter, so you can get an idea of how popular it is. If over 25% of your subscribers open your email you are doing well.

Collecting email addresses

It is against the Spam Act to use software that harvests email addresses, or to buy lists of email addresses for marketing use, or provide your list to a third party without express permission.

The best way to build up your database is simply by asking customers if they would like to join your mailing list and obtaining their email addresses.

This is called ‘opt-in’.

If they have already done business with you, and you have their email address, you may email them. But only about business related to them.
It is illegal to use an opt-in list for a purpose your customers didn’t opt in for, unless you made it clear when they signed up.