Suffolk Marketing Blog | Questions Questions...

You have some lovely customers and you have probably spent a certain amount of money ‘buying’ them. You have probably purchased and given out some business cards. You may have paid for a website and domain name. You may have invested in an advert. You may have attended a networking event or two.

As many people know it is much easier and more cost effective to keep your existing customers and sell to them again, than it is to do all that hard work all over again to get some new customers. Don’t waste money acquiring customers only to ‘throw them away’ after a single sale.

Two years ago, a study by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) revealed that four out of five executives believed that companies were losing sales every year because of a failure to engage with their customers. Furthermore, eighty percent suggested that increased customer engagement would translate into improved customer loyalty, and three quarters said it would translate into increased revenue and profits.*

In the 'Do You Listen to your Customers Survey' conducted by Research Plus+ in 2010, over 50% of businesses that had obtained feedback from their customers said that their turnover and their profits had increased as a result.
How are you communicating with your customers? Are you listening to what they say? What have you done as a result of what they told you? Customers are increasingly sophisticated. In the past you might have told a few people if you had experienced bad service or a poor product. The internet has transformed this. A quick message on Twitter or Facebook could quickly reach hundreds if not thousands of people.

Yes you can ask the questions where you will get praise for things done well by you and your team. Although this is encouraging and can be useful when you want to boost the team, these are not the responses that you really need.

To improve and be able to find out what your customers are looking for, you need to hear their other comments. You need to ask the difficult questions and find out their ideas on how you could improve.

So what are you waiting for? Ask your customers how you are doing. You might be surprised at what they say, both good and bad.

“Embrace the difficult questions and welcome any disappointing answers.”

* Study reported in a blog by Pam McGee ‘Don’t Focus on the Customer; Engage the Customer’ see community.dynamics.com.

Mark Barton helped to set up Research Plus+ in 1993. Research Plus+ specialises in undertaking business research and research on contemporary social issues. This includes customer / client satisfaction surveys and consultations and staff surveys. Most of the research undertaken is designed to help develop an organisation’s policies and practices.

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Suffolk Marketing Blog | Knowing When To Let Go

In this month's Business Vitamins blog, we have a guest blogger, Jane Cattermole of 'BayTree VA'.

Over to you Jane...

I recently posed the question ‘how easy do you find it to delegate?’ on the LinkedIn East Anglia SME Business Forum group. It resulted in some thought-provoking comments, which showed that delegation is something that’s far from easy for small business owners. This isn’t surprising given that we’ve started out by trying to do everything ourselves, whether for cost reasons or because we’re still in the process of shaping our business and don’t feel confident about briefing others.

However, there comes a time when you’ve got to step back, reassess and acknowledge that it’s fool-hardy to try and do it all. If you find that you’re regularly working into the early hours, then you’re not going to be doing the best by your business or yourself. Indeed for your business to grow you have to recognise that ‘you need to work on the business and not in it’. This means you need to find people that you can trust and delegate to. In the current economic climate, it’s understandable if small businesses are wary of employing a member of staff, particularly if the company has fluctuating work flow or could benefit from expertise in a number of areas.

Therefore, delegation tends to mean coming to terms with outsourcing areas of work, saving you from grappling with tasks that take too long, are beyond your level of expertise or are distracting you from your key areas of business.

A common concern is that delegation leads to a loss of control. But delegation isn’t about abdicating responsibility, but assuming the role of overseer rather than active participant. When deciding to try your hand at delegating, manage your expectations. Delegation is a shift in the way you work and isn’t a quick fix, so acknowledge that “delegation takes time before it makes time”.

Once you start, you may find that delegating becomes addictive, so here are a few tips that might help:

• Write/work out a detailed brief setting out what needs to be done, why it needs to done, who it is being done for and when it is needed.
• Be realistic about the timescale. Allow enough time to take account of queries, other work commitments etc.
• Make yourself available to answer questions and provide clarification. By encouraging communication you are more likely to end up with the result you want.
• Give constructive feedback. You are building a relationship here, so be diplomatic and give praise where praise is due.

You may think, ‘it would be easier to battle on myself’! But when you can delegate effectively, you benefit from an additional member of your team who understands your business, who can be more proactive and altogether more useful, and who gives you the gift of time. Whether you decide to outsource to a virtual assistant, marketing expert, book-keeper, graphic designer or social media expert, it’s worth taking the time to induct them about your business. Have a structured approach to communication, and there’ll be a good foundation from which trust will grow.

Delegate with confidence and you can then concentrate on the strategic and fee earning areas of your business.

Jane Cattermole runs Bay Tree VA which provides freelance PA and secretarial support to business owners, home-based professionals, project managers and consultants. Drawing on over 20 years experience working with senior management, Bay Tree VA provides a wide range of services and was also awarded Best Young Business in Bury St Edmunds 2010. www.baytreeva.co.uk

 Do you need to outsmart your competitors? Contact us now on 0845 310 2457 to discuss what you want to achieve and how we can help you meet your goals.

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Suffolk Marketing Blog | The King Is Dead; Long Live The King

For a long time, there has been a business mantra that the customer is king. Today I had a situation where it felt clear to me the customer was clearly in the wrong. So as a business owner, I had to make a decision to go against the grain.

We’re a small marketing and PR agency based near Bury St Edmunds in rural Suffolk. Although we’re not exactly Saatchi & Saatchi, neither are we a one-man band company, and we have a rich and varied client base across East Anglia.

One such client, who shall remain nameless, owed us money for a website we’d designed and built for his business. The site had been live for nine months and the client had still not paid us all the money owing for the job. Initially, we spent some time chasing invoice payment in the routine way. Then we had a call to say the client was experiencing financial difficulties. We worked out a payment plan that suited us both. We felt happy that we had behaved admirably and with understanding. But when the time came to make the first payment no money appeared. So we chased again. You can see the pattern.

After some time, the client offered us a token gesture payment, still pleading poverty. We listened again and extended his credit terms. The story goes on and nine months later, there is still 20% of the invoice outstanding.

So, here is the question. When do you decide enough is enough? For me today, it was not about the money. It was about a feeling I had towards the client. Something was just not right and I felt there was more to this than met the eye. I felt he was trying it on. So, we took the decision to turn off the client’s website until the account has been settled. In doing so, we have clearly lost the client who was angry and accused us of not being understanding of his situation. But why should I accept the sob story any longer? We don’t need clients that cause us this amount of trouble and cost us time and money.

As a small business owner, where customer service is crucial, when do we stand up and say:’ You know what, the customer isn’t always right and I’m going to tell him’. We are conditioned to be afraid to lose a client, and so we bend over backwards to be helpful. But there has to be a limit. We also have the right to say;’ I don’t want to work with you’. That is one of the delights of being a business owner.

So for the first time today I took the decision to abandon a customer and not bend over backwards anymore. And you know what, it feels good.

Do you need to outsmart your competitors? Contact us now on 0845 310 2457 to discuss what you want to achieve and how we can help you meet your goals.

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Suffolk Marketing Blog | Ensure Radio Doesn’t Drive You Ga Ga

Unfortunately, radio can often be brushed aside or added to a PR campaign at the very last minute. Given the power of the radio to influence opinion, it is a grave mistake to simply ‘whizz the press release’ over to the local radio to ‘see if they might be interested’! There’s no ‘might be interested’ news for radio. It is clear when you have an opportunity to go on air, and here are a few pointers:
By far, the majority of radio stations are local. They are interested in hearing about stories that have an impact on the local community. Time and time again, the news desks at radio stations receive numerous ‘generic’ press releases not specific to that particular area. If your company has a product that could impact every household in the UK, it is no good just telling a local radio station that. You need to find a way of relating that ‘fact’ to their target audience. It might be that there is a local body that recognises the problem your product is designed to overcome or you may have conducted a survey that proves people in that area need to take action. Be careful though, radio journalists have very little ‘air-time’ to play with and even the slightest hint of product promotion will stop them from even considering your story! They are interested in straight-forward news.
It is no good sending a press release aimed at newspapers and magazines over to a radio news desk. It is always advisable to prepare a radio advisory story. Basically, it is a much shortened version of your initial press release and is much more colloquial in its tone. If you are not sure whether it is right for radio, try reading it out aloud – if it sounds like there are too many words and you stumble when reading it, go back to the drawing board and have another go. Make your sentences are short and ensure that each one links with the next so that it reads more like a story. Always try to summarise your story in the first paragraph though, making sure it takes no longer than 30 seconds.
Before you approach the news desk you need to think about exactly who is capable of going on air. They need to be able to speak clearly and confidently and about your company and be unflappable when questioned by a reporter.
It is always best to take note of all the times when your spokesperson is available and if you are aiming to appear on to a live show, you need to be able to tie-in with their schedule.

Consider a third party spokesperson. Somebody willing to talk objectively about the issues you wish to be broadcast will go a long way to making your points more credible. Make sure this person is fully informed about the content of your radio advisory and that they know what you intend to say. Again, you will need to know their exact availability in advance.

Remember, if you cover all these basic rules all that’s left to do is pick up the phone and speak to the radio station. If your story is not time critical, consider asking to speak to the radio’s forward planning desk. They are quite often the best place to start!

 Do you need to outsmart your competitors? Contact us now on 0845 310 2457 to discuss what you want to achieve and how we can help you meet your goals.

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Suffolk Marketing Blog - GL Building Services

GL Building Services is a small family owned and managed construction business based near Newmarket, Suffolk. The owner of the business was proud to have been selected by Forest Heath District Council as an approved provider of extensions and small building services - but had no website to link to from the Council website.

Business Vitamins were selected to design and build a new website. Working with another local service provider who wrote all the website copy, Business Vitamins created the new website in double quick time and set up all the hosting and domain registration as well.

Do you need to outsmart your competitors? Contact us now on 0845 310 2457 to discuss what you want to achieve and how we can help you meet your goals.

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Suffolk Marketing Blog - Hardcastle Burton

Business Vitamins are pleased to annoucen the launch of the new Hardcastle Burton (.eu) website. Specially designed to target prospects in Germany and Holland, the new site has been crafted to appeal directly to the northern European market.

Business Vitamins designed and built the entire website as a bespoke website design, specifically tailored to our clients exact requirements.

Do you need to outsmart your competitors? Contact us now on 0845 310 2457 to discuss what you want to achieve and how we can help you meet your goals.

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Suffolk Marketing Blog | How to Make a Business Succeed

Once your business is up and running how do you move on to the next stage, bring in more customers and increase your profitability?

So you're pretty sure that the initial hard work is all done. Your business is up and running. It has a name to be proud of, rather than an embarrassing innuendo and you've got a handful of happy customers. Some of them are even returning for more so you must be doing something right! Fantastic! So it's all plain sailing from here, isn't it? Well maybe not. There are several business experts that frequently state the first year in business is hard, but the second and third years are the hardest.

Just when you thought you could sit back and have a well-earned rest, even if it's only for a day or two, that's actually the time to pick up the pace. You should be re-visiting your initial business plans & looking at your objectives. Are they still relevant to your blossoming business? If not, now is the time to consider some revisions to help you move on to the next level.

For many companies, the initial projects that go hand in hand with establishing a new business include finding premises or vehicles, setting up a website, printing business cards, sending out flyers, the list goes on. So whether you realised it or not at the time, you were starting to market your business. You wanted to tell the world you'd arrived and were ready to start trading. And that's all important activity but once it's done, what next?

First, take a step back and re-visit your initial marketing projects. Chances are, you set up your website in the early days of your business and printed your stationery as soon as you'd settled on a company name. But is everything on display still relevant? Do you provide the same products and services as you did on Day 1 or have you added to your offering? Are your flyers still generating new customers and are they the type of customers you really want? You should look at these points in a logical order to make sure that nothing is left out of your review.

If you didn't generate a marketing strategy at the outset, now is the time to create one. If you did, now is the time to re-visit it. You wouldn't organise a wedding without arranging a ceremony, sending out invitations, or choosing the flowers. So why would you run your business without any research and forward planning? The very business that probably puts a roof over your head and food on your table needs to be carefully nurtured to ensure its continued successful development. Without a comprehensive marketing strategy, reaching your business goals will be much harder than you'd ever anticipated. But where do you start?

First things first, carry out a marketing audit. This will give you an accurate snapshot of how your marketing looks today. The audit will provide you with the fundamental building blocks for the next step - developing your marketing strategy.

When putting a strategy together, think about such questions as whether there have been any changes in your industry that impact upon your business. Does this mean you need to change anything? What do you want to achieve? What about your competitors? Could you improve your customer service? How does your pricing fit in with those around you? If you change your products or services will you see an increase in profitability? And how will you measure any of this?

If undertaken properly, your strategy will highlight your strengths and weaknesses and give you a clear direction as to where your future marketing efforts should be concentrated. This in turn will enable you to write a comprehensive plan that allows you to play to your strengths and seize new opportunities. And why wouldn't you want to do that!

In the current economic climate starting a new business is difficult enough. Making it succeed is even harder. By following these few simple guidelines, you will greatly increase your chances of success. By having a clear marketing strategy, you will be head and shoulders above everyone else that does not. You put everything into starting your business, now is the time to make it grow and stand out from the crowd.

Do you need to outsmart your competitors? Contact us now on 0845 310 2457 to discuss what you want to achieve and how we can help you meet your goals.

Why not find out more about Business Vitamins, Strategic B2B marketing agency Suffolk.

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