| twelve marketing days of christmas |
| Written by Trevor Heley | |||
| Friday, 11 December 2009 00:00 | |||
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On the 1st Day of Christmas. Make sure you have a plan for 2010.
On the 2nd Day of Christmas. Listen to your customers. However, make sure you do it well otherwise your carefully constructed email will just be content in a spam bin. The best way to gather email addresses from people you have not yet spoken with is via your website or blog! You need to make it as easy as possible for people to give you their email details, (have a “sign up here” box for your newsletter. Better still, offer something in return for giving you their email). Remember though it is all about permission so make sure you have it and make it easy for them to take it away (most people do not unsubscribe but want to know they can). On the 5th Day of Christmas. Do some competitor research. On the 6th Day of Christmas. Be consistent in how you present your brand. You’ve spent a fortune on a brochure but your letter headed paper is printed in the office on 80gsm paper. You say ‘we care about what customers say’ and then you give them an expensive 0870 number to report a fault. You claim to be a “green company” but post out tons of leaflets when you could email. The list could go on. On the 7th Day of Christmas. Revisit the presentation material you give your sales people. On the 8th Day of Christmas. Think about telemarketing. For a lot of people it’s almost a swear word (if you are a recipient) or your worst nightmare (if you are the one having to make the calls). Even in this digitally connected world, there is no substitute for this for getting you in front of new customers (other than pounding the streets). This applies equally well in a limited market (few end users/ targets) or a potentially large market (where reliance on field sales activity would be very expensive). Done well, telemarketing is still a very good way of building a business and getting a message across to the right people. On the 9th Day of Christmas. Shout about your success. On the 10th Day of Christmas. Review the 4 Ps (product, price, place, promotion). If they are working well than add another one ‘people’. Social Networking and Personalisation are the buzz words of today but frankly not new (just forgotten). Build personal contact into your business, encourage staff to avoid sounding like actors, get the MD to show their character (within reason) and remember being professional does not mean you have to be impersonal. Try Twitter or Facebook although they can be hard work they do teach you how to communicate (and they also help your search engine rankings). Just remember we buy from people. Even huge online retailers spend a lot of effort to tell you about their people not their processes. On the 11th Day of Christmas. Remember to talk with your own staff and not just at Christmas. Do they know how well you are doing, what new products you have, what the best words are to describe what you do? (it’s amazing how many different answers you will get in most companies) and most importantly why they are all sales people. On the 12th Day of Christmas. Don’t stop marketing your business. In difficult economic times, the marketing budget is always one of the first casualties. Unfortunately the approach is usually a sledge hammer to crack a nut. Spend the time reviewing your spend and what it is actually achieving, cut out the things that will not damage your brand, client relationship or ability to win business. Ask your suppliers to see what ideas they have (it’s a good time to review that relationship anyway). Finally, remember your competitors (both existing and soon to appear) will be looking to see what you do. If you follow all, or even just some of the above, you’ll have a good chance of having not only a happy Christmas but also a prosperous 2010.
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