Should I save money and stop my marketing?
Do not reduce your sales and marketing activity. Invest in cost effective campaigns to increase your company profile to attract potential new clients and continue to communicate with your existing client base. Focus on PR, e-marketing and Search Engine Optimisation and emphasise your Unique Selling Propositions.
Whether you’re bagging new customers or looking after existing ones, no amount of technology will cover up a badly written message. Here are ten pieces of essential advice for good customer communications:
Ten tips for customer communications
– use your logo and slogan! These are important parts of your brand.
Market more effectively
1. Be consistent
2. Design matters
3. Spell-check everything
4. You know your business inside out
5. Always finish with a "call to action"
6. Make sure you’re ready for the rush
7. Stick to your commitment
8. Testimonials are gold dust
9. Treat new and existing customers differently
10. Keep it simple
In a small business we all look for ways of generating an income. One such way is the placing of adverts onto your website which provide a ‘click-through’ capability. This means that someone visiting your website finds a product or company of interest, clicks on the screen and gets put through to the provider’s website.
Generating revenue through online advertising
Some website providers and hosting companies will often offer you cheap web hosting or other services if you agree to have adverts on your site. However you must take care when doing this or you may damage your business brand with inappropriate adverts.
Search marketing
Search engine optimisation has been sited as one of the best ways to target customers as your organisation ranks high on search engine lists. Many organisations know what they are looking for online but are likely to be open as to the vendor they choose.
There are a lot of websites out there so you need to show prospective customers where you are. Fighting your way to the top of the search engine rankings can be tricky, technical and time-consuming. But these days, you can buy your way to the top. Here are 4 top tips:
1. Carefully examine what your bid gets you - some search engines don’t list strictly in bid order. Some use previous click-popularity as a guide which favours high-click ads.
2. Start small and measure constantly - by running several small campaigns side by side, you’ll soon find out which search terms and which descriptions of your services yield the best response.
3. Every search engine placement is as good as the customers it reaches - find out from each search engine whether its customers match your audience.
4. Look at your PPC results - weekly is the norm, but if you have more time, daily is even better! It helps you understand which keywords or campaigns are working best for you and where your budget could be working harder.-paragraph email may be all that’s required to gain your reader’s interest. If you haven’t got anything more to say… it’s time to stop! - you might not be able to give everyone an individualised email, but split the two audiences and recognise existing customers for the contribution they have made to your business. Write differently for each of these two groups. - use them wherever you can. An independent endorsement of your product, or your quality of service, is the best sales tool. - if you start a monthly newsletter, make sure you’ve got something interesting to say every month. - If you’re sending out 1000 emails announcing a special offer, make sure someone’s ready to answer the phone if the calls come flooding in. - if you want the reader to visit your website or call you up, tell them clearly exactly what to do. - try out your emails and flyers on friends before you go to print or send out an email newsletter, to make sure you’re getting the message across. - it costs nothing, and spelling mistakes are an instant turn-off.
If you would like help with your Marketing call the Chamber for a free Business Advisory Session on 01233 503838 or email business@kentinvictachamber.co.uk
*Source: Microsoft Small Business Centre
