Archive for Marketing
The “Word-of-Mouth” Paradox
Here’s a fun conversation I have with small business owners. It usually goes something like this… ME – “..so how much of your new business comes from referrals and word of mouth?” SMALL BUSINESS OWNER – “We get around 70-80% of our clients from referrals” (note – any good company gets a tonne of referrals…it can range anywhere from 50-100% depending on the industry) ME – “How much of your marketing budget do you allocate for word of mouth and referrals?” SBO – “Huh? What? What do you mean? I guess, nothing…they just happen.” ME – “Amazing. So, 80% of your business comes from referrals, and you spend all of your money chasing the other 20%?” SBO – “Doh.” The moral of this story? Maybe its time to invest some of your hard earned marketing dollars into a form of marketing THAT ACTUALLY WORKS FOR YOU. (Sorry…I’m a little passionate about this). : )
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The “Word-of-Mouth” Paradox
DNA – The Evolution of The Unique Selling Proposition
In the 1940′s, advertising legend Rosser Reeves developed the term ‘USP’ or ‘Unique Selling Proposition’. Many sucessful businesses develop a USP as the basis of their marketing campaigns. Well, I say USP’s aren’t good enough anymore…with so many companies, products, brands, and a bombardment of media, being ‘unique’ isn’t unique enough. A classic example of a USP was the Domino’s 3o minute guarantee. Fantastic. But how many other pizza joints offer a time guarantee now? Is it truly unique? Saying that you’re the fastest or cheapest or biggest might work, but what truly makes you different – not only from your direct competitors, but from EVERY company? I developed the term DNA, or ‘Distinct Natural Advantage(TM)’ to describe this process of becoming truly unique. We all know what ‘DNA’ means in terms of science and heredity. Its what makes each of us ‘one of a kind’. I propose that, in business, to succeed in the long term, you need to be ‘one of a kind’ as well. I’ve created a process to help a business develop their DNA using what I call the Seven P’s… (1) Purpose (2) People (3) Pain (4) Promise (5) Proof (6) Positioning and (7) Packaging. In future articles I will go into more depth for each topic. Stay tuned!
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DNA – The Evolution of The Unique Selling Proposition
Copycat Marketing: The Sequel
The other major ‘copycatting’ mistake I see is that small businesses look to big businesses for advertising ideas…and they end up using ‘awareness’ advertising. Listen…your marketing budget is not $100,000,000 (if it is, give me a call…lets talk!) Which means that every dollar you spend should be tracked. If you do ANY form of advertising you should be able to calculate the return on investment. And now with all the online options like pay-per-click advertising you really have no excuses to create an ad that says ‘Here’s my company name, here’s a pretty picture of what we do, and here’s a life size replica of our company logo’.
Copycat Marketing: Small Business Marketing Mistake #1
So one of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to small business marketing is what I call ‘copycatting’. Here’s what happens… A small business owner knows they needs to market and promote their business, so they look to others in their industry to find out what they are doing and figure ‘Hey, that guy is doing well…so whatever he’s doing must be working…and I’m just going to copy him’. The fact is, 80% of companies within any industry all copy each other..WHETHER THE TACTIC WORKS OR NOT. If you want a true competitive advantage, do what I call ‘Synergizing’. Don’t just look at the major players in your industry – start looking OUTSIDE your industry for success practices, strategies and tactics that you can apply to YOUR business. Your competition will be too busy copying each other to realize what you are doing and that you are slowly stealing all the business away from them.
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Copycat Marketing: Small Business Marketing Mistake #1
The “Word-of-Mouth” Paradox
Here’s a fun conversation I have with small business owners. It usually goes something like this… ME – “..so how much of your new business comes from referrals and word of mouth?” SMALL BUSINESS OWNER – “We get around 70-80% of our clients from referrals” (note – any good company gets a tonne of referrals…it can range anywhere from 50-100% depending on the industry) ME – “How much of your marketing budget do you allocate for word of mouth and referrals?” SBO – “Huh? What? What do you mean? I guess, nothing…they just happen.” ME – “Amazing. So, 80% of your business comes from referrals, and you spend all of your money chasing the other 20%?” SBO – “Doh.” The moral of this story? Maybe its time to invest some of your hard earned marketing dollars into a form of marketing THAT ACTUALLY WORKS FOR YOU. (Sorry…I’m a little passionate about this).
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The “Word-of-Mouth” Paradox
Why being different will win you more customers
Identifying Points of Difference
For small business, being different is a good thing. In fact it is probably a great thing. When it comes to marketing a small business I often like to do an exercise with clients to help identify what are known as ‘Points of Difference’. It is often an enlightening process for the business owner because all too often I find that business owners are way too focused on making sure they do exactly what their competitors do… only better.
While doing things better than the competition does have it’s merits, I would suggest that doing things differently from what your competition does is a far more effective strategy when it comes to winning over customers. You see if a customer (or prospect) can’t distinguish you from your competitors than you have a problem. A very big problem.
What most small business owners don’t realize is that when a customer makes a switch to a new service provider (or even a product for that matter), more that half of the time it has absolutely nothing to do with the level of service they are receiving (or functionality of the current product). In the majority of cases, customers make the switch simply because the new provider is offering something that is different.
Offering something that is different gives the customer a very specific reason to do business with you. This is the very essence of marketing. On the most basic level, marketing comes down to identifying a problem, finding a solution and then formulating an offer that prospects can understand and relate to. Good Points of Difference are easy for prospects to understand and relate to and will provide that very specific reason for them to do business with you.
When it comes to communicating or marketing your Points of Difference there are two things you want to focus on. First, you want to differentiate what you do from what your competitors do. Second, you want to differentiate how you tell people what you do. Be sure to be as specific as possible because a confused prospect will always say no regardless of how good your marketing or Points of Difference are.
Take a good look at your own business and try to identify the things that you do (or could do) differently from your competition. With some effort and a little bit of creativity you will easily find good solid Points of Difference that your prospects can understand and relate to and when you do, more prospects will choose to do business with you instead of your competitors.