Total Marketing Solutions

1.    Think fluid. Don’t get stuck to a rigid strategic plan. Instead, see where the water flows and trust your instincts — not your spreadsheet — in pursuing new options. Make sure your business is agile enough to react to market trends or new innovations in technology. If you spot a new opportunity, you don’t have to check it’s on the plan first — just go for it.

2.    Prototype. Test your ideas in the real world. Better to launch beta versions of your website, so you can evaluate and tweak as you go, rather than trying to perfect the model before you launch. Otherwise you might never get the site off the ground.

3.    Reinvent. Learn to love change and be prepared to rethink what you do and how you do it. Maybe your business feels a bit stale, a bit stuck. You might need to shake up your organization so your clients start thinking differently about you. Re-energize your organization by taking your team on an ‘away day’ to brainstorm new ideas; think laterally about how you can re-engineer your offering to grow the business.

4.    Think goals, not plans. Set objectives for the year: deadlines to meet, products to launch. It’s important to know what you want to achieve — if not necessarily how you’ll get there. This allows you to think big without initially worrying about the details. A goal may be “I need to get a new client every month.” Perhaps you don’t have a strict linear plan for how you’ll actually achieve that — you just start off the instinctive way: word of mouth, social networking, client meet-and-greets, and so on.  You can’t chart this activity on a graph, but mentally focusing on the goals will help you reach your desired outcome.

Ian argues that a timeline or a spreadsheet can’t capture those opportunities that arise from serendipity and random meetings, but if you remove the traditional business planning mindset, you’ll be liberated to grow your business in line with how the world really changes — not with what it says on a spreadsheet.
It’s a brave stance and not for everyone, but it certainly seems to suit the way Joe works and has been able to develop his business. So perhaps in this new economic landscape of 2010 it’s time to take a look at how you work and how you are best able to grow your business - choosing the appropriate path somewhere between “planned to within an inch of your life” and the rather freer approach adopted by Joe.

Following on from last week’s post, what happens once you’ve got a clear idea of where you want to take your business and have a carefully crafted business plan? If it’s early days for your company then it’s time to think about developing a clear, concise marketing strategy to help you achieve your objectives. If you already have a marketing strategy, given the significant changes in the economic landscape over the past year, it’s also a good idea to revisit your strategy to check for relevance. You may well have been treading water for the past year or so in terms of marketing activity. But during this time, how far have you deviated from your initial marketing strategy in order to survive? And how do you get back on track?

Whether developing a marketing strategy from scratch, or helping clients find their way back to where they want to be, as marketing consultants we ask our clients to think about three key areas:

1. Identify just how much your competitive landscape has changed. Have any new competitors emerged? If so, what are similar services of products are they offering? How have your existing competitors changed in how they tackle this new geography? Understanding how your existing and new competitors are looking to tackle the new landscape of 2010 will help you better position yourself in the market and ultimately better compete against all competitors.

2. Re-examine your target market. Time spent researching any changes amongst your target market in buying trends will give you a clear picture of who your customer is, what influences their buying decisions and what changes they are facing. Again, a clear understanding of your customers will enable you to position yourself appropriately and compete more effectively.

3. How relevant is your product or service? Whilst you may have been chasing every sale at all costs in recent times - and understandably so - this can sometimes dilute the unique set of  benefits you are able to offer. Rewriting your positioning statement can be a very useful way to make sure you are clear about what you offer, who to, and why people should buy from you. Being clear about what you offer makes it easier to communicate your particular benefits to your chosen target markets, making for more effective marketing.

Once you have a clearer strategic marketing direction, you can then set about developing appropriate marketing plans to bring real results. To find out more about how to develop effective marketing plans and marketing planning, click here.

When we’re asked to meet with potential customers to help them develop a suitable marketing strategy for their business, rather than hitting them with a “death by powerpoint” presentation on the virtues of tactical marketing,  we always ask what their plans are for their business and if they have a clear, well-defined business strategy in place. And in many cases, the answer is a rather resounding “No!”

But why do we ask about a business strategy if all the client wants is some help with their marketing? The answer goes right to the core of how we do business. Every piece of marketing advice we give our clients is designed to deliver results - and if it’s not part of an overall strategic direction, it’s impact will not only be severely limited but also a potential waste of valuable marketing budget. It might also be entirely inappropriate if it doesn’t reflect the strategic objectives of the company.

Our starting point for developing a marketing strategy always has to be a clear understanding of what our client wants for their business - how do they see their company developing in the future? Are they perhaps looking to sell the company in the next couple of years and enjoy an early retirement? Or are they looking to secure a steady 10% growth over the next five years with a secure dividend stream? Both directions of course have totally different mindsets and both will require a completely different marketing strategy designed to help achieve their own specific outcomes.

For many smaller, owner-managed businesses, the business strategy is inextricably intertwined with the more personal objectives of the business owner themself. Rather than looking for the quick marketing fix (there isn’t one by the way!), we take the time to listen - to their hopes for the business, the issues they are facing and the potential barriers preventing them from achieving their objectives. We first of all help them to bring clarity to their thinking and ask them some searching questions about what they really want for their business. Once we have achieved a clear view of where they would like the business to be in 2,5 or 10 years time, we can then help them develop a clear business strategy.

Once the business has a clear strategic direction to follow, we’re off and running. We can then develop a specific, appropriate marketing strategy which really will deliver the required results. It’s not a quick fix, but it works - that’s what makes us experts at what we do. To find out just how we go about developing effective marketing strategy, take a look at our resources page here.

The Chartered Institute of Marketing’s autumn 2009 Marketing Trends Survey has revealed that optimism amongst the UK’s marketers has grown since reaching a low point in 2008. Apparently, UK marketers are now confident that they’ll see economic growth in 2010. They’re even feeling positive about their own organisation’s prospects in the year ahead.  A total of 51% of the 1198 respondents indicated that they were predicting an improvement in 2010.

Interestingly, a total of 35% of of those surveyed said that the recession had even created some new opportunities for them to exploit. So what new opportunities have you identified - and more importantly, are you ready and able to exploit them to your benefit during 2010? It’s worth taking the time to reassess your current product or service offering to see if any new growth areas warrant a change of focus. As marketing consultants we invest time in understanding our clients’ markets and how they are changing - and - crucially - what that means in terms of new opportunities in the new yet unpredictable economic landscape of 2010.

For many it’s the start of a new sales year and those sales targets might seem like an impossible mountain to climb - particularly with the UK still in a state of economic flux. So just how should you attempt to achieve what might seem like unrealistic targets?  There are many different avenues to explore - some old, some new and some which you just might not have tried before. As strategic marketing consultants, we don’t get bogged down in marketing theory or stop working with clients as soon as the ink on the marketing strategy has dried. We often get involved in analysing sales processes and helping our clients change the way they sell to achieve greater efficiency - and of course results!

We always find with our clients who are looking to change the way they sell that a little change can often make a big difference to their sales, so why not try a new approach?

Time - spend time EVERY week prospecting for new business. Sounds blindingly obvious but it’s so easy to get bogged down with existing clients that prospects get forgotten and suddenly the sales pipeline looks empty. An allotted amount of time every week will help to avoid an empty pipeline and contribute to a smoother supply of prospects.

Spread your wings - time spent identifying new markets and applications for your products or services can really pay dividends, particularly if your current sector or sectors are reaching saturation point or are being squeeded by competitors. One of our clients has to date focussed on a particular application for their product in the NHS. Given the impending budget cuts they have identified a potentially lucrative new application for logistics companies - all by thinking about new possible applications.

Improve the “value” in your proposition -  increased competition in a crowded market means you really need to stand out from the crowd - and quickly. Make sure your customers get what you do better and how this really benefits them. Don’t overload them with information - streamline your communications to drive home just how good you are and why it makes sense to do business with you. Be specific for each customer by investing time to find out what makes them tick.

Front of mind - you might deliver a fantastic sales presentation. So might 8 other competitors. Make sure you stay in your prospect’s mind by communicating with them - it might be an email newsletter, relevant tweets, follow-up calls. It goes without saying that in every communication, reinforcing the strength of your value proposition will add weight to your argument and bring you closer to winning the customer.

Define your sales role - It might all sound like basic stuff, but it’s very easy to get sidetracked by customer service issues, which eat into valuable selling time. Whilst it can be difficult to let go or to take a back seat once a customer is up and running, it’s always surprising how much selling time is spent servicing an account - even when a more than capable Customer Service department are waiting to get involved. Finding the right balance is tricky, but it’s essential that the job of selling to new customers remains the focus.

Buff yourself up - it’s true that the business landscape has changed in the last 18 months and so have customer expectations. So sales people need to keep smart - listen to that new podcast, get some coaching, follow your competitors on twitter. In short, spend the time keeping up to speed with what’s going on in your customers’ lives and you’ll be better positioned than your competitors to react to and exploit any changes.

A few tweaks in your sales approach now could put you in good stead for the potentially rocky road that lies ahead for the rest of 2010. None of the above suggestions are hard to implement, but they could result in a significant change in your sales pipeline and bring some light to the end of the tunnel.

We’re always keen to stress just how much work we put into the initial research stages of any project we undertake, how getting and then interpreting the right information informs how we develop an appropriately effective marketing strategy further down the line. But just what do we mean by research - and is it really worth investing time and effort into finding out stuff our customers might already know anyway?

The answer is yes! As strategic marketing consultants we strive to ensure we get the strategic thinking right, and to do this we need to have a clear understanding of the market and of our client’s customers. Whilst we also dig deep into the hidden recesses of our clients to gain a profound understanding of how they work and why, we also take the time to really get to grips with the outside world too. So just what sort of information do we look for and where do we find it?

Firstly, we identify who we want to talk to. Current and lapsed customers as well as potential customers all provide valuable insight from different angles - some not always favourable but nevertheless critical to understanding the role our client plays in their lives. We also might speak to industry bodies or organisations as well to build as full a picture as possible of the landscape in which our client competes both in the present and in the future.

Once we’ve identified our targets, what are we going to ask them? Generally, in order to really make the most of each contact without eating into too much of their day, the information we gather falls into 3 main categories:

1. Their take on the particular market sector - any trends, issues, challenges which are impacting on them.

2. Specific issues to them within their organisation relative to the are we’re researching - their opinion, understanding, experiences in order to build a full picture of the challenges they are facing.

3. If they are/were a customer, an in-depth, warts-n-all look at their take on the client in question. Here it’s important not to shy away from asking any questions which may elicit a negative response. A client needs to be able to respond to all feedback, positive or negative. It’s surprising how many clients who perceive no real issue with their current service offering find out just what their own customers really think about them when they talk to a third party! Painful but necessary stuff.

And there you have it - hopefully an honest insight into how a particular customer perceives a product or service. Armed with this information, we can then set about interpreting just what this means for our client. But without this information, any strategy  development would remain a meaningless, academic exercise with very little chance of successful implementation in the real world. And that’s from our own research, not just a wild guess!

Setting the right price even in boom times is a hard enough task, but getting it right when times continue to be tough is even trickier. Many companies have reduced their prices over the past few months, offered discounts and further incentives to encourage their customers to buy. If the sales pipeline is still looking rather empty, now really is the time to take a long, hard look at your pricing strategy. Management consultants Accenture have produced a free report, which highlights the need for companies to outperform their competitors in a weak economy - and not just by continuing to drop prices. Instead, companies should take time to analyse their strategic focus by asking the following questions:

• Where in our product or service portfolio do we offer a significantly differentiated advantage? In other words, what do we do better than our competitors?
• Which services/products will still be essential for our customers when the dust settles after the economic downturn?
• Which services or products will most easily lead to sales of other goods or services?

In order to better manage the ongoing effects of this recession, focus on these products and the opportunities they provide. Aim to minimize the costs associated with promoting this product or service group and then, according to Accenture, price strategically around these products or services. As Marketing Consultants, it is this strategic approach to pricing which we find offers the best route to growth for our clients. A quick fix is just that - and will only bring limited results, compared to the more sustained impact of a strategic approach. Time and again we find that the key to developing a solid pricing strategy is to get the converation away from price and to focus on “value”, ensuring that your customers see the value you add above and beyond the products and services you provide. Once they understand the value you offer, it then becomes easier to lock customers in, whilst at the same time making it more difficult for them to suddenly switch when a slighly cheaper offering comes along.

There’s no getting away from the fact that it’s difficult to target the right set of potential customers with exactly the right offer, value proposition and, of course, price. The Internet now provides our customers with more information and more choices than ever. To be able to meet the challenges this brings means businesses need to continue to revisit and refine all elements of their marketing mix - including the thorny issue of price.  Take a look at Accenture’s free report here for further insight in how to get your pricing right - Accenture’s approach to pricing strategy

The Chartered Institute of Marketing in the UK has recently published a paper on the future of marketing and how it can deliver results for businesses in what is now a very different economic landscape than this time last year. They have interviewed a wide selection of business and market leaders across a whole spectrum of industry to find out just what role marketing has to play in the future. They have identified five drivers for growth which can achieve greater marketing and business performance. The first of these capabilities is “The customer centric organisation.” They point out that the days of simply talking about adopting a “customer-focussed” approach - without actually implementing it - are now well and truly over. In the past, many companies claimed to have their customer at the centre of their business - without really understanding what this meant and sometimes without any real understanding of their customers.

Gaining an understanding of your customers and ensuring that understanding permeates your organisation at every level is now key to driving future growth and achieving value. This sits firmly at the heart of how we do business here at Total Marketing Solutions. As marketing consultants, we always use the customer as our starting point for any strategy development. If we can achieve a clear understanding of our clients’ customers from the outset, we can then develop an appropriate strategy. Without putting the effort in at this early stage, we avoid the risk of basing our marketing strategy development on assumptions. This crucial customer research forms the first building block in our overall strategy development, enabling us to develop robust strategies capable of delivering growth and value for our clients. To find out how we make it all fit together, take a look at our approach for building a customer-centred marketing strategy here.

It’s been a while in the making but we are now ready to launch our new website. It’s taken us quite a while to get this far, lots of blood, sweat and tears - but we’re sure it will all be worthwhile now we’re live. To find out what all the fuss is about please visit the site and take a look around:- www.totalmarketingsolutions.co.uk

So how have we gone about it? We’ve literally followed our own advice - the advice we give our customers if a new website is one of the strategic recommendations we make following our usual rigorous review and audit of their business.

Step one, obvious though it seems, was to identify our business objectives for the site. It’s surprising how many companies decide they need a website “because everyone else has one”, without thinking about what they want it to do for them. Your objective might be to increase new customer account registration, it might be to increase the number of sales leads or enquiries generated. Whatever your objective/s, you can use your web analytics to measure any improvements and then tweak your website further if required. As strategic marketing consultants, our objective for our new website was to primarily increase the number of quality leads generated - we needed to make sure we clearly communicated how we work, with the emphasis on strategy development.

The next stage is to look at how customers will use the site and how their experience can be improved. Again, web analytics plays an important role here. You can look for potential problem areas like drop-offs and take steps to solve them. We found that whilst we had a significant number of visitors to our existing site, this didn’t translate into the number of enquiries we would expect. And a large number of enquiries were from companies looking for an advertising agency - our message was not as clear as it should have been. We want our new website to scream “marketing strategy development” from every page, whilst leaving potential customers looking for strategic help convinced we are the right company for them to do business with.

The final - and perhaps the most challenging  - stage, is to go through each page with a fine toothcomb, ensuring each one works as best as it can for you. We’ve taken a close look at each one of our existing pages, re-written or tweaked it, added new pages and content - it’s still a work in progress and the good thing about websites is that they are never cast in stone and are always a work in progress.  So what have we been looking at on each of our pages?

• We’ve stepped up the optimisation of the site, making sure all copy, titles and labels are able to improve our natural search results.
• We’ve also removed content that just wasn’t getting visited and focussed on improving the content on the key pages, making it easier for visitors to the site to get the information they need quickly.
• We’ve also used our web analytics to make sure we cover as many search terms as possible to avoid any “No results” keyword searches - so if you type in “marketing consultants”, you’ll find TMS at the top of the page. You’ll also find us under “marketing strategy consultants,” “marketing consultancy,” etc - you get the point! Don’t just think of the one search - try to think of as many different permutations of what you do and use web analytics to identify the main ones. Then build them into your site.
• We’ve also taken time to improve our home page - making sure we communicate our core messages quickly, whilst making it easier for visitors to find out the information they need in order to progress to an enquiry.
• We’ve also reduced the number of steps visitors have to take from our home page to begin key processes, like looking at case studies, finding our what we do and - of course - making an enquiry.
• We also hope that, having tweaked the layout, design and colours used on each page, this will improve click-thru rates and encourage visitors to visit more pages - in other words, to really get to know us and ultimately, gain a greater understanding of how we can help them.

Time will tell of course and rest assured that, as with any new website, we shall be monitoring our web analytics very closely after launch to see just how our new website is working for us.

We’ve just come across a fantastic free ebook courtesy of John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing. With so many people talking about the impact and importance of social media, it’s great to find a really clear opinion on what is proving to be for some a rather confusing medium. In this free ebook, John talks about the importance of  social media for business. It’s well worth a look and should provide some valuable insight into how to use social media for your own business. Let us know what you think!