Small Business Marketing Guide - DIY (do-it-yourself) BRAND MARKETING STRATEGIES to HELP YOU GROW YOUR BUSINESS

How NOT to Do Direct Marketing Campaigns

You have spent time and money developing and implementing your direct marketing campaign in the expectation that your targets will be excited and take the action you want.

You wait and wait and nothing happens — no responses, no interest and no sales.

This can be quite typical with direct marketing campaigns and could be because you fell into 3 common traps that should be avoided.

Trap 1 – One Size Fits All

This trap often occurs when you use a large list of potential customers without taking the time to research which potential customers will actually have a need or desire for your product/service and the offer you are promoting. You can pick these campaigns pretty easily as they usually have a generic message and quickly start talking about their company’s products or services.

To avoid this common mistake make sure you have a good understanding of your key target market, their interests, attitudes and buying behavior. By doing this you can tailor your campaign to meet their needs, arouse their interest, engage them and lead them to actually to take up the offer. By understanding your customers you are also in a position to select the type of direct marketing that will be the most appropriate, for example printed mail or email.

Trap 2 – No Call To Action

Have you ever received a letter with just a brochure enclosed and nothing to indicate what you should do with it? Or you may have seen a direct marketing campaign that has an offer hidden in the copy without clear specifics and the details such as timing or conditions hidden or listed in 6-point type at the bottom.

A direct marketing campaign needs to have a very clear call to action. It does not have to be in the biggest font, all in caps or highlighted.  It just needs to be clearly noticeable and simple to understand. Having a clear call to action that is enticing to customers, will build and strengthen the relationship and help you achieve a return on your investment.

Trap 3 – Not Tracking a Campaign’s Results

You can clearly see this trap if you ask someone about the results of their campaign and you receive an answer of “quite good I think”. Not tracking direct marketing campaign results is often accompanied by not setting objectives nor having a customer database in place.

As with every marketing tactic you need to set objectives up front as to what you want to achieve with your customers as well as be able to calculate the return on your investment. One of the easiest ways to do this is to have a customer database so you can clearly track who has taken up the offers and the results achieved. By tracking your campaign results you are able to see what worked and what did not work so that you can refine your future campaigns and offers to achieve better results.

Direct marketing campaigns can be very effective for small businesses.  If you are thinking about conducting a campaign, start by keeping it simple so you do not fall into one of these three traps.

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Susan Oakes is a director and cofounder of Marketing for Business Success Pty Ltd., which developed M4B Marketing Software.  She blogs at M4B Marketing Blog.

Does Your Brand Have a Strong Identity?

Your brand identity should be the basis for all your communication with your current and potential customers. When you have developed a strong brand identity, you will find it is much easier to stand apart from your competitors and win the hearts and minds of your customers.

There are three key areas that you need to think about when you are developing your brand identity. These are:

1. Who are your Competitors?

Every brand has competitors and you want your key customers to buy your brand over theirs. Therefore, when you are developing your brand strategy you need to have a very good understanding of your competitors and their activities.

Collect information about them including their website content, products, services and promotional literature. This will help you understand their strengths, weaknesses, who they are targeting and importantly what is their key point of difference. Also have a look at their logos, the colors, font and images as this will give you further insight.

2. Who are your Customers?

At the centre of your brand strategy and identity is the need to understand your key customers, how they think, feel and behave. The important word in the last sentence is “feel”, because your customers are people and you need to tap into their emotions to truly develop a connection between your brand and their needs, wants and desires.

There are many ways to do this and one of the easiest is to talk with them, listening and observing how they communicate; what they look like; what words they use; how they express their needs, desires and their likes and dislikes.

3. Your Key Point of Difference

Once you have gained a better understanding of your competitors and customers you are now in a position to determine your key point of difference. Your key point of difference is what makes you stand out from your competitors and contains the most important benefit from your customers’ point of view.

You also need to determine you brand’s personality as this brings your brand to life.

When you are thinking about your brand’s personality, as a starting point think of comparisons with other things such as animals, cars, trees, drinks. Compare your competitors, also. For example you might describe your brand as a Labrador; friendly and faithful, whereas your competitor could be a German Shepherd; direct and fearless.

Ultimately if you can have your brand convey the emotional connection with your customers, then it is much more difficult for your competitors to steal them from you.

When you have established your brand identity it is then time to work out the elements you will use to communicate visually with your customers, such as logo, its colours, fonts etc. Here are a few tips you may want to consider:

• If at all possible work with a designer who has experience in this area. We did this when we developed our image with Oliver Goodfellow from a green orange and we achieved a better result than if we had developed it ourselves.

• A logo is a combination of elements that must all work together and help bring your identity to life. If you can it is a good idea when you have a few designs to obtain feedback from your customers or potential customers.

• Colours can say so much and when you are choosing colours try and get a sense of the emotion you wish to portray such as red = passion, dark blue = responsible.

• There are so many fonts to choose from, so as a suggestion choose one that is simple, clean and can be easily read whether in colour or black and white and different sizes.

• Ensure your logo is used consistently across all communication with your customers, such as your business cards, letterhead, website and promotional material.

• If you can get someone to smile when they see your image then your brand can appear to be more engaging. Examples for me include Google and Twitter.

• If you are going to use a device or image (think of the Nike tick) ensure that it is relevant, compatible with the other elements of the brand image and actually can be easily understood by your key customers. If in doubt do not use one.

One example of a brand that I believe conveys their brand identity well is FlyingSolo, a small business community from Australia, where I’m from. To me the brand is all about approachability, friendliness, and being straight forward. This is communicated with the colours, style and font of the logo through to the look and feel of the website.

Although developing a brand strategy and identity takes time, it will help you build and strengthen your key customer relationships.

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Susan Oakes is a director and cofounder of Marketing for Business Success Pty Ltd., which developed M4B Marketing Software.  She blogs at M4B Marketing Blog.

Encourage Interaction Through Marketing Materials

Last week, I shared a few ideas for original and creative marketing materials. Here are some more ideas for high-impact ways to connect with your customers.

Interactive Business Cards
Time: 10 min
Cost: $9.99 for design, $13.98/100 + shipping
Customer Interaction and Playing with Your Business Card: Priceless

After brainstorming, one of my clients came up with the visual analogy of a Rubik’s Cube.

Here’s how we used his brainstorming and combined it with Marketsplash’s business card creator. Using one of the many pre-designed templates, we uploaded a picture of a Rubik’s Cube and used it as a logo. Then, on the back of the card, we put an abbreviated “Rubik’s Cube Solution” which we found on the web (and not subject to copyright). The point is to have the person experience how hard it is to do the solution on your own, and how much faster it is when someone who knows how teaches you.

Welcome Kit
Time: 5 days
Cost: About $50 per kit
Customer feeling fabulous about choosing you: Priceless

A buying decision is a lot like getting into a hotel room after a long, hot, dirty trip. Will the room be cozy clean and ready for you with some candy on the pillow and maybe some luxury bubble bath and a bottle of wine? Or will it be stinky, damp with nothing there for comfort other than cable TV. Your customer’s path to choosing you is that long trip, how do you want to greet them?

Put your resources into creating a “Welcome Kit” for your customers.

1. Put yourself in their shoes. If that’s too hard, literally give someone your product and ask them what questions they have. From the moment that someone has purchased something what are they thinking or asking? Example: where is the power switch? How do I use your product? Where can I put it?
2. An obvious, easy to spot,bright, fun to read “Quick Start” guide. Let your personality shine through, make this a single sheet or a book with big letters. If it’s so easy to use that a child could do it – make it child-like and fun.
3. Other products. You’d be amazed at how little your customers know about all the other things you offer – give them a FREE sample.
4. Cool Container – Go beyond the folder and the inserts. Think three-dimensionally. What kind of cool container can your customer use and display? If you sell security, think of a safe. If you sell comfort – use a basket. If you sell fun, put it in a party box.

Have any great ideas for encouraging customer interaction in your marketing materials? Share them in the comments!

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Ivana Taylor is the Founder of www.DIYMarketers.com , a place where in-house marketers go to get low-cost, high-impact marketing strategies. She is also a contributing expert for Small Business Trends.

Not Your Grandmother’s Marketing Materials

Marketing materials are NOT what they used to be. Websites have taken a lot of focus and attention away from traditional printed pieces like tri-fold brochures.  But that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t create them.  You still need many of the traditional pieces; you just need to give them a new function and purpose.

If your prospect uses the internet to get basic information about your product and your company, your printed materials are now the second stage of helping them decide if your product or service is the right choice for them.  Take them to the next step and have them start interacting with your product.  Your marketing materials need to “pop” and make the recipient think “I cannot live another day without this product or service.”

That is a tall order for most of us.  But not impossible.  Here are the first two ways you can get the “gotta have that” response from your prospects.

Think Before You Print
Time: 40 min
Cost: $0
Clear Differentiated Position: Priceless

Don’t make the mistake of just sitting down and creating business cards, flyers and brochures.  Answer the following questions first.  You can do these exercises as an individual business owner or if you have associates and employees, do them as a group activity.  Either way, you’ll find the results enlightening and useful.

1. “Who are you?”  This will quickly identify the “personality” of your marketing materials.  If you’re doing this for a company, “Who are you – as a company” Sit across from a partner – or include a team. Then ask “Who are you?”  Use adjectives and nouns to answer the question.  If you or your company were a color, which would you be?  If you were an animal, which would you be?  At the end of 10 minutes, sit back and listen as your partner or team members tell you what they heard.   What images or analogies come to mind right away?
2. “What is it about our ideal customer that makes them so attractive?” Take out a piece of blank paper and draw a line down the middle.  Draw a picture or an icon representing an ideal customer on the left side, then explain what it is about them that makes them ideal for you.  What do you provide that’s just what they need?

The Super Two-fer
Time: <5 hours to write the content
Cost: DIY = $0, Professionally designed & printed about $1.25 +postage
Customers laughing and buying more stuff: Priceless

Here’s an idea I got from super direct marketers Dan Kennedy and Bill Glazer. Get twice the use out of your business envelopes and letterhead. Celebrate your customer’s ½-Birthday or Anniversary of being your client! For example, if your customer’s birthday is on January 10^th, then on June 10^th you’d send them a ½-Birthday letter. Likewise, if a company became a customer in January, you’d send your contact(s) at the customer a ½-Anniversary letter.

Create a special 50% off “gift” offer and mail it in ½-letterhead and ½-envelope. Here are some shots of the example mailings I received from Bill Glazer. You can see that the envelopes are literally standard business mailing envelopes cut in half and sealed with a clear label.

This is a great way to stand out from the crowd, build loyalty with your customers and get twice the use out of your envelopes and letterhead!

To get chosen in today’s cluttered marketplace takes some upfront creative effort on your part, but once you have the ideas, and concepts outlined, the DIY marketing tools are there to help you put them together for very little investment. And that means that you are free to experiment. Get started today.

Next week I’ll share two more ways you can wow prospects with your marketing materials.

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Ivana Taylor is the Founder of www.DIYMarketers.com , a place where in-house marketers go to get low-cost, high-impact marketing strategies. She is also a contributing expert for Small Business Trends.

Brainstorm photo by: Marco Arment