Category

A Helping Hand

A Helping Hand is a category aimed at doing just that – giving small business owners a helping hand in improving their marketing performance.

Blogs written by a small business marketing consultant that will help small businesses grow.

These blogs normally look at one of two things:

  1. how you can improve an aspect of your small business marketing
  2. how you can stop making a mistake with your small business marketing

If you need further assistance with any aspect of your marketing, simply call us on 020 8634 5911

image of Case Study Ninja logo

Marketing Planning – a case study

By A Helping Hand, Marketing Performance

This month’s blogs have all been around planning your marketing.  Obviously I’m going to say marketing planning is essential, but let me give you an example of what can happen when you do.

Case Study Ninja started in 2016 and I met Sarah, the founder, at a Croydon Tech City event.  For those of you who know Croydon (not the Kate Moss and Tiger Tiger version), you know if has a rapidly growing tech scene and is one of the fastest growing economies in the country. Croydon Tech City hold regular events aimed at new tech entrepreneurs, to help them launch and grow their business ideas.

As you must when networking, Sarah and I followed up our brief chat and business card swap with a further conversation.  I found out that she’d already been talking to other marketing agencies, but I still had an opportunity to pitch. Thankfully I won the work and we set about planning how to take Case Study Ninja to the world.

Who

We brainstormed who to target, why that person and the pains, needs and issues they had.  We matched how Case Study Ninja helps them to their needs and finally looked at the what would stop them buying.

How

The second session looked at what channels and how we would take Case Study Ninja to market. Of course, we considered what social media channels to use, but also what other online, and offline, channels would be used.

The Result

Case study Ninja now has over 70 clients and is thriving.  More detail can be seen in our case study here, but I recommend you also check out their website. If you use case studies as key evidence to help you win new clients, you should seriously consider using them.

Planning your marketing isn’t something you can leave to your marketing consultant. You must be directly involved, for a number of reasons:

  1. You know your business better than your marketing consultant will. Your input is vital.
  2. How will your consultant know what skills you have within the business, and what needs to be found?
  3. Have you been truthful about the budget you have available and what could impact that budget? If not, how can your marketing consultant know what is going to happen?
  4. Finally, you get more from your marketing being a success than anyone. It’s in your interests to be involved.

I hope this helps

March 27, 2017
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social media likes

Likes don’t pay the bills – a targeting case study

By A Helping Hand, Customer Understanding

social media likesSocial media is a wonderful thing. Used well, it will drive brand awareness, maintain connections with your stakeholders and generate leads. But used poorly, it can chew up your time for very little return.

As you will see every 4th week, going forward from here, we will be using a case study to demonstrate what our blogs have been discussing for the previous three weeks.

An e-commerce company I have worked with has been using social media as part of its marketing mix for several years now. They would run competitions monthly to engage their followers and encourage them to interact and increase the reach of their brand. It seemed to be working too. The number of Likes continued to increase.

However, there was a problem. Our research showed that their typical buyer was a middle-aged man. This man lived in a suburban or rural location with a fairly big house and garden.  With an average unit sales value of around £300, the buyers needed to be fairly affluent.

When we ran the same research within their social media audience, the results were somewhat different. Middle aged women in urban locations were entering the competitions to win prizes that they would rarely use.

The audience they were attracting on social media was not there to get to know the brand, to flow through to their website and buy from them. They were simply there to win the prizes.

So what does this say about their social media?

They are attracting the wrong people!

But they have 1000’s of Likes and Follows I hear you say. The problem is that they aren’t getting what they really want: sales.

There is little point in spending time and money running social media campaigns that attract the wrong people.

The solution:

  • Post content that will attract their target audience.
  • Perhaps run Q&A sessions around what they sell to help people use their purchases more effectively.
  • Encourage customers to follow them on social media and post comments/images of their purchases in action.

What they need is their customers’ peers to engage on social media, so that they are tempted into buying. I’m not saying this is easy, but it’s got to be better than wasting money giving away stuff that isn’t encouraging others to buy.

I hope this helps

 

February 27, 2017
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Moving from Ideal Client to Target Audience

From Ideal Client to Target Audience

By A Helping Hand, Customer Understanding

Moving from Ideal Client to Target Audience

Last week’s blog defined an Ideal Client and the fact that having a solid definition of who (it is always a who) is your Ideal Client helps you to focus your marketing and be more effective. Now let’s look at what happens when you market to this highly focused group.

Let’s define your target audience as HR Directors of UK companies in Information Technology.

Let’s imagine your service helps HR Directors to assess the skills and attitude of developers via an online portal. Although there are lots of developers out there, finding one with the right mix of skills is not easy. Your reason for targeting companies with HR Directors is purely size.  These companies probably recruit developers regularly as they look to grow their development team or simply replace those that leave.
LinkedInAccording to LinkedIn, there are currently 532 in the UK-based HR Directors of IT companies.

You have developed a series of key messages that talk of how you can help these HR Directors. You have a convincing set of evidence which proves you can walk the walk. Your marketing programme aims directly at these 532 (or more) HR Directors of UK-based IT companies.

Let’s now look at who else your key messages are likely to resonate with:

 

UK HR Directors

Depending upon just how your application is written, I am sure that every other HR Director in the country also worries about recruiting the right people with the right skills and attitude.

Maybe you’ve done some work for companies who aren’t in the IT sector and could use that evidence to talk to other HR Directors if they get in touch.

There are 4,066 HR Directors in the UK.

UK HR Managers

Companies that don’t put enough credence into the HR role may only have a HR Manager, or they may be a little smaller than your Ideal Client. They still have issues in recruiting good staff and your application may be able to help them.

There are 58,932 HR Managers in the UK

So far we haven’t even left the UK and the marketing programme you develop to focus on just 532 people may resonate with a further 63,000 people.

Your outbound marketing will be aimed specifically at your core audience, but the supporting content marketing and inbound activity is highly likely to generate 78 enquiries from within this audience of 63,000.

Would you turn them away?

February 13, 2017
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Small Business Tips from the Golf Course

By A Helping Hand, Marketing Performance

As an an old cliche, many say that lots of business gets done on the golf course. If this was the case, I’d be playing much more, but here are a few business tips from the golf course that can help your business.

The Driving Range

The driving range is there for golfers to practice their game and to work out what needs to be done to improve. It’s also where they will warm up and get prepared for their game.

In business, as in golf and every other sport, you need to be prepared. You cannot simply go out and do stuff and expect your business to improve. You need to get prepared. You need to identify what isn’t working and then develop a plan.

Which Club?

Are you using the right tools? Many golfers, when trying to get their ball to the target (the green and the hole) will take Driver every time. After all, if they can get the ball as close as possible to the green, there is a better chance of getting a birdie (a good score), isn’t there.

Professional golfers, on the other hand, are more likely to take a shorter club and then another one they can fit well and increase their chances of the birdie. The shorter club increases their chances of staying out of the rough (not good).

Are you using the right marketing tools to reach your target audience? Just because everyone else uses Facebook (for example) doesn’t mean you have to if it won’t get your key messages in front of your target audience.

In the Rough

Using the wrong club often means you end up in the wrong position for your next shot. That usually menas the rough – or worse, the trees. Even if you have a good line to the green, the shot becomes harder and you’re much more likely to score a bogey (bad) or worse. All you can do is take your medicine and try not to do it again.

In any small business, you’ll make mistakes. Sometimes you’ll try out marketing tools that don’t work for you. The trick is to learn from your mistakes and try not to make them again.

Your Scorecard

Every golfer has to keep a scorecard, showing the score achieved at each hole. Personally, I also keep track of where I hit my tee shot (did I hit the fairway?), the number of shots I took to get to the green, how many putts and whether I went into a bunker or incurred a penalty. I use Golfshot to track my performance on the golf course.

What are you using to record your marketing and business performance? Whether you invest in a CRM and marketing automation tools, or simply use Excel spreadsheets, make sure you are measuring your performance so you can use the information to improve.

A Caddie

Professional golfers use a caddie to help them. Not only does the caddie carry their bag, they will advise on club choice, on where to hit the ball to and how the weather will impact their strike. They act as dogsbody, psychologist and nutritionist (ensuring they eat and drink on the way around to maintain energy levels) to help the golfer make the best score they can and (hopefully) win the competition.  Without the caddie, the golfer’s chance of winning are slim. The caddies are generally on 10% of winnings.

Having support, specifically to fill the gaps in your knowledge or preferences, will help you improve your performance. Whilst you aren’t likely to be paying 10% of turnover, you should expect to pay for their expertise.

Those of you who know me will know I can go on about golf forever, but I’ll stop there. I hope these help.

Golfing Terminology:

  • Driver: big headed club which will generally hit it further than all other clubs in your bag
  • Par: the number of shots you are allowed on any specific hole.
  • Birdie: using one shot less than Par (good)
  • Bogey: using one shot more than Par (not so good)

We hope these business tips help.

August 22, 2016
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The unmanaged mountain of opportunity

By A Helping Hand, Marketing Performance

Somewhere in your office is a big pile of opportunities.

It’s probably just by your monitor or it may be in a desk drawer. If you use hotdesk, it’s probably in your bag or it may even be a series of images in an app on your phone.

What I am talking about? that pile of business cards you’ve collected over the past few months and done little with.

Within this pile of business cards could be your next 5 clients. What is five new clients worth to your business? How do you make sure you don’t miss out?

Filter them

If you’re an avid networker, you’ll have a number of cards which were “forced” on you by the card collectors and distributors that inhabit every networking event. They have almost certainly added you to their mailing list, you’ll have unsubscribed and now forgotten what they do.  The B1N file is the best place for them.

Look for the ones that are most likely to be prospects or be able to introduce you to prospects.

Now add them to your database, but make it very easy for people to unsubscribe.

Segment them

Providing everyone with the same information will not help you. Dependent upon which tools you use, segment your contacts into different groups.

  • MailChimp: use data columns and segments or add them into different groups
  • For Infusionsoft, use Tags
  • For Hubspot, it’s Personas and Smart Lists

Every automated marketing tool will have its own set of tools that allow you to segment by geography, product sales, lead source,, industry sector and any number of personal criteria.

Talk to them

Finally, use the information to talk to them. Use the segmentation tools to ensure that the information you send them is relevant:

  • For clients: what other products can they buy from you?
  • For prospects: what evidence can you show them so they see you can help them with their needs? Are you running any offers to tempt them into buying?
  • For nurturing: do you have white papers or recorded webinars showing your knowledge and expertise?
  • For introducers: do they know what your Ideal Client looks like so they can introduce you?

The unmanaged mountain of business cards on your desk can deliver new business, but it takes some effort and it takes real consistency.

I hope this helps.

March 14, 2016
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Be Honest

By A Helping Hand, Marketing Performance

…or your marketing will suffer!

During February our blogs were about your target audience, identifying them and about getting the right key messages in front of the decision makers.

For March we’re going to move onto developing the right marketing programme. Let’s start with a little housekeeping.

If you are going to get the right marketing programme that then delivers the leads you want, you need to be honest.

Time

We’ve discussed in the past about the amount of time you have available for marketing your business. You know you have to do it, but what time is available within the business to do it properly.  If you are tight on resources, be honest about it. If you say you can do much more than you really have time for, your marketing (and its performance) will suffer.

Skills

Everyone can do social media can’t they! Some people struggle to admit they cannot do something because they believe they should be able to do it. Social media is a prime example of this, but there is a big difference in being able to use Facebook to keep up with your mates’ habits, and generating awareness, interest and engagement with your target audience.

If you have the time to learn, all is good, but that may not be the best use of your time so think carefully about the skills you have and the skills you need. Engaging with your target audience on Twitter and LinkedIn can be lots of fun, but your role as the business leader may mean you should leave this to someone else, whether within your business or externally.

Budget

To generate and deliver a consistent marketing programme, you need to invest. The investment needs to be over a period of time and so there is no point in starting a programme that you aren’t sure you will have the money available to complete. It will be better to start on a small budget and then build up as the returns are developed, rather than start high and have to try and cuts corners when there is less money about.

Your marketing budget needs to be a combination of time, cash and skills. Your honesty when developing your marketing programme will help to manage expectations but also deliver a better return on investment.

 

I hope this helps.

March 7, 2016
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5 Things the political parties are promising us small business owners

By A Helping Hand

Enterprise Nation’s small business debate on March 2nd was an interesting event. Although the questions were given to the politicians beforehand – open questions would have been much more fun – and so they had time to prepare, some of the responses seemed ill-thought out.

Let’s have a look at what they political parties taking part (the Conservatives, Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party – UKIP decided not to show up) are promising us, as small business owners:

Business Rates

All parties agree that the current setup is simply too expensive. The Conservatives are reviewing the arrangements and, from next month, the retail discount is being reduced by a further £500 a year. Labour promises to cut these rates by £1 billion, but this money is coming from not cutting Corporation Tax.

The LibDems are scrapping Business Rates and replacing them with a Land Value Tax, based on the value of the land rather than the building value. The Greens are agreeing with them.

Childcare

A question about how female entrepreneurism is being limited by the cost of childcare raised some tensions. The question was aimed at getting a commitment to capping childcare costs and nobody would do this – market forces!

Labour’s commitment is to have all primary schools open from 8am to 6pm, thereby freeing up many mothers to be able to work “normal” business hours, with an additional 10 hours of free childcare for 3 & 4 year olds. The Lib Dems plan to extend the current 15 hours of free childcare, for 3 & 4 year olds, to two-year olds as well.

Manufacturing Support

There seemed to be little real response to this, with Labour looking to encourage more interaction between industry and higher/further education to ensure the skills they want are being delivered. Apparently there is too many courses for what people want to learn, rather than what industry wants.

Export Support

I spent too much time chuckling at the Greens’ comments, about the same apples being imported from The Netherlands and also being exported to The Netherlands, to note much on this bit – sorry!

Enterprise Investment Scheme

EIS and SEIS (Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme) were both heavily praised by all parties with nobody wanting to make any changes. The Conservatives commented about the level of investment available being capped by the EU and Labour want to encourage alternative business lending to provide real competition to the banks, thereby getting them to lend more.

 

To be honest, there was a lot of hot air flying about, with the expected cat fights on occasions, as they competed. I would have preferred much more open questioning, but I would not have wanted Emma’s job in managing this and controlling the tone.

What do you want from the next government?


March 3, 2015
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I want to talk to…

By A Helping Hand, Customer Understanding, Social Media

In the UK there are 689,890 companies[1], 190,978 of them meet the EU definition of an SME and so, theoretically, they could be my target market, bearing in mind my company name.

In reality the vast majority of them I will not be able to help. This is why you will rarely hear the word “anyone” uttered when I’m networking or asking clients for referrals. Why is it, therefore, that so many business owners believe they can sell their services to anyone?

The problem with anyone is that it is simply too wide a scope and what happens is that you end up with no-one being referred to you.

A chiropractor said to me, at a networking event recently, I can help anyone with a spine. Whilst this may be true, it doesn’t help me help them. I’m not going to mention them to everyone I know with a spine.

I need, and so will all your clients and connections, a little more to go on. Have you seen the latest eHarmony advert where they show a man on a couch with a camel? The advert goes on to say they were matched because of two matching criteria, but eHarmony uses more to ensure a good match.

You should use the same approach when asking for referrals. After all if 438 couples get married every day after being matched on eHarmony, they must be getting something right.

Whilst I am not suggesting you have 29 levels of compatibility with your clients, you must make it easier for people to refer you. Give them more information: industry sector, geography, company size, job title and, most definitely, reasons why.

The good thing about getting this pinned down is it also helps you work out what marketing to do, but I’ll talk about that next time!

 

[1] LinkedIn; as of 13/1/15

January 19, 2015
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Marketing by numbers

By A Helping Hand, Marketing Performance

measure your small business marketing Numbers can suggest different paths depending on the calculations you do

What do I mean by this comment?  Let me use a recent client project to provide an answer to look at how different calculations can lead to different decisions.

As I am sure you know, the first stage in any engagement SME Needs has with a new client is to help them measure their small business marketing performance, providing the data they need to make decisions about what they need to do to improve their marketing performance.

I started working with this company a few weeks, after they contacted me because they had received a Growth Voucher. I must admit I was quite impressed by the amount of marketing measurement they were doing.  Most of my clients were doing little, if any, measurement when I first engaged.  They already knew what marketing was bringing in what sales and how much each sale was costing them in marketing costs.

What this means is that knew what was definitely working and so could continue using those channels:

  • Word of mouth was generating good numbers of new clients and was costing them nothing
  • their advert in a local online community cost less than £10 a time and had generated a high-spending client
  • Their website was sending a lot of new clients their way

This was all great and it was gratifying to see a small business measuring their marketing.

However some of their marketing activities were costing quite a bit:

  • a local magazine listing was generating clients but they were spending around £100 per sale to acquire them
  • Facebook advertising was costing over £50 per new client
  • Another magazine advertising campaign was costing over £200 per new client

As they are a relatively new business, they are being very careful with their resources, but they have set a target for what they wish to pay: £30.  Although this is an ambitious target, it is great to see they have one.

This cost per client calculation led them to believe that the local magazines were a poorly performing route to market; for one they were right.

I took the calculations one step further: what was the cash being generating by each marketing channel?

This painted a different picture, particularly for one of the magazines.  They had spent nearly £700 on advertising but it had generated over £3,500!  It was actually a very profitable route to market.

This local magazine is now part of the marketing strategy they are moving forward with.

I hope this shows how marketing numbers can be misleading and lead to incorrect decisions if you don’t look at the carefully.

Of course, if you would like me to help you analyse the marketing numbers within your business, please get in touch.

November 2, 2014
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which supplier - from the buyer's perspective

The most powerful question in marketing

By A Helping Hand, Marketing Performance

which supplier - from the buyer's perspectiveClue: it helps you improve your marketing resource allocation

I had someone contact me through LinkedIn the other day, asking to talk about what SME Needs does and, in particular, about marketing ROI.

At this point I must admit I was a little sceptical, seeing as he described himself as a strategy and marketing consultant; why would I want to talk to someone who is a competitor?

The conversation started with a question about how you track the performance of a specific marketing activity. Is it possible?  Now of course this depends. Pretty much anything digital can easily be tracked; direct mail can simply use promo codes and you know exactly what happens if you are using telemarketing.

The conversation moved forward to how to attach specific sales opportunities to marketing activities.  For me that brings up a conversation about the most powerful question in marketing – that is:

Q: How did you find us?

All you then do is ensure this is recorded for every sales opportunity you have.

From there, its a few calculations to understand your marketing performance.

1. How many enquiries do you get from any particular channel and how much does it cost per enquiry?

Obviously the more you get, the better, but only if they are costing an amount you can continue to fund through sales delivered through the channel

2. How many enquiries do you need for each sale?

This will give you a great idea on just how much marketing you need to do in order to achieve the goals you have for your business. Do you agree with this? Do you believe this is the most powerful question in marketing?

I hope this proves to be useful and if you need anymore help on measuring the performance of your marketing, give me a shout.

October 20, 2014
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Key social media tips

By A Helping Hand, Social Media

There are nearly 12 million people in the UK on LinkedIn, 37 million Facebook Pages worldwide and nearly 40 million UK Twitter accounts. To be noticed amongst all these and to develop quality sales opportunities, here are a few social media tips that either I know to work or are tips that I have been given by people I trust who use them everyday. I hope they prove useful for you.

Social media is about helping people, it is not simply about broadcasting your sales messages.

  • There is a clue in the name in what you have to do to be successful – be socialable.
  • Build relationships so you know what interests your connections and what they are looking for in business terms
  • Provide useful and interesting material that shows you know what you are talking about
  • Be consistent so that you maintain the relationship and maintain your position in their minds for when someone needs your services.

Don’t sell – help

  • We have media recording devices at home in order to avoid most of the adverts. Your connections on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook will simply disconnect to avoid your adverts.
  • If you help people by making useful connections for them, they will return the favour – think Givers Gain.
  • Provide evidence on how you’ve helped others so your connections start to trust you.

Automate and outsource sensibly

  • Social media tools such as hootsuite or tweetdeck are useful but they cannot build relationships for you. Use them for scheduling some activity but remember that you have to interact to build relationships
  • There are lots of companies that will do your social media for you but they will never know your business as well as you do. Outsourcing does not mean letting go!
  • Use tools such as Tweriod to find out when your followers are online. Be active when your connections are active so that there is a greater chance they will see you.

Volume is only sometimes useful

  • 50 connections with good relationships on LinkedIn is better than 1,000 people who you know nothing about.
  • You won’t generate interested followers simply by following 1,000’s of others. They will only follow you if you can be useful to them.

Personal and business are different

  • Don’t set up a business using a personal profile on Facebook. There is a good chance they will find it and then simply delete it as it breaks their terms of service.
  • Personal profiles are about you. Talk about you and do it in the first person.
  • Business profiles/pages are about your business so use appropriate language and images.

 

I hope these prove useful for you and I will endeavour to update this when I find other useful snippets.

 

February 19, 2013
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Don’t Bottle – Share!

By A Helping Hand, Marketing Performance

If you follow SME Needs on Twitter, you will have seen a few tweets based around common sayings such as A problem shared is a problem halved or Two heads are better than one.

These sayings are often considered as old-fashioned or twee, but they’re still so true.  Think back to the last time you went – Oh Yeah. Was that when someone added to a conversation or discussion and then, suddenly, things made more sense?

See, I told you two heads were better than one

Let’s think of some examples:

  • Napoleon had his Josephine
  • Susan Ma has Lord Sugar
  • even Tony Blair talked with Alastair Campbell!

At the other end of the scale, Nero spent too much time talking to his fiddle, proving that it is better to have someone to talk to about your issues and if you talk about them, chances are they become less of a problem and great things can happen

I hope this is useful – talk to you soon.

 

June 20, 2012
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How to qualify your prospects as a small business

By A Helping Hand, Marketing Performance

Are your properly qualifying your prospects?

As a small business, of course you want to generate as much business as possible. Your marketing is aimed at generating as many prospects as possible. However, not every prospect is going to bring their business your way, and so it is vital that you identify which are worth your time and effort and which are not. Being a small business, you don’t have the time to entertain every single prospect; you have other tasks that need attending to. So how should you go about qualifying your prospects?

Can you provide a solution?

The prospect needs to be clear as to the exact nature of your products or services. Similarly, you need to grasp precisely what it is the prospect requires or how you may be able to provide a solution to a particular problem. There is no point in proceeding any further if the prospect is looking for something you simply do not provide, so it’s best to just walk away at the first possible opportunity. Ensure your website and any marketing material is clear and updated regularly so anyone who comes across it can easily understand what it is you offer.

Do you have the time?

This is something that is often overlooked with qualifying prospects. Yes, it may be very nice to receive an enquiry, but if you don’t have the time to fulfil it, then you need to say so from the outset. If you take on the work but know that you already have more than enough to fill your time, then some or all of it is going to suffer, and you could ultimately lose out on future business. Check with the prospect first what sort of timelines they have and then consider whether your schedule will permit the work. It is believed that most businesses have 15% pipeline close rate efficiency, meaning that time and resources go into something that 85% of the time doesn’t drive revenue – don’t let that 85% include time wasted on prospects.

Does the prospect have the funds?

The last thing you want is to press ahead with the deal only to find that they cannot pay you for the goods or services. One way of ensuring that a prospect is likely to pay is by running a credit check or gaining access to company credit reports. This can be an incredibly useful way of highlighting whether a prospect has a healthy credit history and could save you a considerable amount of time and money in the long run. Company credit reports can let you view important information such as credit rating and limit, 5 year accounts, CCJ information and full director information, as well as links through to debt scores to find which of your outstanding debts are most likely to be paid, and access to any media stories about that particular company.

Are you speaking to the decision maker?

A sure-fire way to waste time and effort is to do your dealing through someone who isn’t the main decision maker in a company. If you only speak to an assistant or someone who is not the decision maker, then you will likely have to wait for them to feed the information back to the relevant people, which takes time and could be misinterpreted. Always ask to speak to someone in authority, such as a Sales Director, and question the sincerity of a request from someone who is not willing to talk to you themselves.

These are just a few points you should consider when qualifying your prospects, and each prospect will have to be handled slightly differently, but they should give you a good basis from which to start.

 

December 5, 2011
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Five great sources of market information

By A Helping Hand, Small Business Marketing

When looking to expand your business, it’s vital that you research the market and the opportunity.  If you don’t there is a chance that your business expansion plans don’t deliver the business growth you are looking for.  The question is: where do you go to understand the size of the opportunity?

Here are five really good sources of quantitative information:

1. The Office Of National Statistics

Want to know about the businesses in your county, borough or town; look no further. ONS will provide information by industry, by size, by age and a whole lot more.

2. LinkedIn Search

How many, for example, solicitors are there within 10 miles of your office? Don’t know – used LinkedIn to find out.  With over 7 million people in the UK on LinkedIn and 141,842 UK companies  it is a great source.  Want to know if they are in private practice or within a commercial organisation – simple use another filter.

Just in case you wanted to know, there are 5,404 solicitors within 10 miles of my postcode.

THERE WAS ANOTHER ONE HERE, BUT WE DELETED IT

 

4. Companies House

Don’t want to subscribe to an annual service – go PAYG instead at Companies House. Annual Reports direct from Companies House are just £1 each.

5. Facebook Ads

You don’t need to spend any money to get numbers from Facebook.  With 35 million UK adults regularly using Facebook where’s better to get information about the consumer market?

Set up a Facebook Ads account (no charge) and use the plethora of filters to understand how big your target market is. If you think of all the information you put into Facebook, that’s the number of filters you can apply to really target your search.

November 9, 2011
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The 6 things Potential Buyers are looking for before they will consider buying from you

By A Helping Hand, Focus

There are 100’s, if not 1,000’s, of potential buyers of your products/services out there right now and you want them to buy from you.  This is what they are looking for BEFORE they talk to Sales.

  1. Visibility – fairly obvious but if you’re not visible to them, they cannot buy from you.  They will often look to see if they can find you in other ways.  If they find you on Google, are you on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook etc.?
  2. Cleanliness – I don’t mean proof that you use a lot of soap.  What I mean is a clean website; one that is easy to read, to understand and to navigate to find the information they are looking for.
  3. Headlines – Newspapers tell millions of copies based on the headline that day, with some of them employing dedicated headline writers.  When you’re found through an internet search your landing page(s) have seconds to grab their attention or they simply bounce.
  4. Pain Relief – Buyers rarely go shopping if they are happy with what they’ve got.  Does your marketing material make them believe your solution will make their life easier or better?
  5. Evidence – You can talk the talk but can you walk the walk? Evidence, in the form of case studies, testimonials, published articles etc. develop confidence in the mind of the buyer and draw them towards you.
  6. Experience – Even new companies have experience of delivering the product or service they sell and they’re usually more passionate about it too.  After all, how many people do you know who started up a company to do something they hate?  Buyers want to know that you know what you’re doing so talk about your previous experiences to increase their confidence in you.

70% of the buying process is complete before anyone talks to Sales.  Are you helping people to make the right decision and buy from you?

 

 

September 30, 2011
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The importance of two little words

By A Helping Hand

Consultants produce a great deal of information for your business.  Indeed, that is what you pay them to do.  The role of a marketing consultant is to assess the performance of your marketing strategy.  It is to identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities & threats (SWOT) that affect your business and to help you understand your customers.

This information is great and can be really useful but there are two little words that must come into play every time.  If they don’t what is the point?

The two little words are:  SO WHAT?

It is the power of so what that identifies what may be done with the information and help you take the business forward.

March 29, 2011
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