2 minutes in an elevator – what marketing tips would I give you?

Often when people find out I am a Marketing Consultant they immediately ask me what they should do for their business (or walk sharpish the other direction, understandably). The first thing I tell people is that there is no easy answer, otherwise we’d all be doing it. The second thing is that effective Marketing is not free, and if you pay peanuts you will get monkeys. The third, slightly more insightful thing I tell them is that in my experience the most effective marketing comes from carrying out a range of activities, and not one single act.

Even though I’m not able to give them a one word answer, I do always run through a few of the basics with them to make sure there’s nothing that they’re obviously missing. So, if I met you in a lift and you picked my brains for 2 minutes, this is what I’d be telling you.

1. Is your website up to scratch? Whether you have an e-commerce website or not, ensuring the customer journey is good is absolutely vital. The rule is to try to keep the clicks down – strive for a maximum of 3 clicks to task completion. Stats suggest 36% of people visit a website before making a purchase decision. Also consider is your website accessible across multiple devices? 90% of people use multiple devices to complete a task, from phone to tablet to laptop to desktop. How does your website look on a phone? Are all the buttons visible? And clickable? And don’t forget to make it AA compliant. With around 20% of the UK population have some sort of disability, you’re missing out if you don’t make it compliant with screen readers or speech recognition tools.

2. Are you making the most of your social media channels? I get a lot of people who are quite despondent about social media, claiming it doesn’t really work for them. This is likely to be because you don’t have a strategy in place to make the most if it. True, not all businesses are suited to every social space, and I’m the first to warn people not to do it just because you think you should. However you cannot escape the fact that Facebook is the 2nd most used site in the world, only beaten by Google. Which leads me onto Google+. It’s frustrating, if feels useless, but Google’s Search algorithms puts a high emphasis on Google+ activity. So get your business a page, put it on the map, start posting and see your natural SEO magically start to improve.

3. What are you actively saying to people? This goes back to my dating analogy that you need to nurture relationships with your customers and clients. I often recommend email programmes because they’re very effective and one of the cheapest methods of engagement around. Also consider what content you’re putting out on social media. It isn’t easy to create content, so take some time to do it properly – write short news stories, write a few blog posts at a time, take photos, invest in video, or something well-designed. Whatever it is, sit down and work it out in advance, save yourself a daily headache and vacuous gaps between posts. (Btw, I am aware I am guilty of this!).

4. Are you doing a variety of activities? Social media, advertising, CRM, promotions, SEO, SEM, events, networking, advertorials, promotions, sponsorship, PR, press, apps, widgets, games, microsites – there’s so much you can do in Marketing it’s difficult even for marketers to know exactly what’s going to work and what’s not. But what I can say is if you use a variety of ‘touch points’, that your message remains consistent, and you repeat that message frequently, you’ll see a better result than putting all your money into an expensive ad in a single newspaper (for instance).

At this point we’d probably realise that the lift was broken as clearly Marketing isn't something that can be summed up in 2 minutes... The absolute bottom line is that you know your business better than any hired marketer, so go with your gut instinct. However if you ever need a bit of advice or guidance, then please do get in touch.

Visit the website at www.cherryfusion.co.uk , email us at info@cherryfusion.co.uk or call 0117 959 5198. 

The additional 4Ps of the marketing mix

The 4Ps (product, price, place & promotion) are perhaps the first thing we are taught about marketing – I was personally introduced to the concept when I was only 14, but I have encountered kids aged 10 who also seem to know this! As marketing is in it's essence collection of activities, it cannot be easily approached systematically, however scientific certain elements are. 

So we need a ‘check-list’ to make sure we've covered all the basic controllable elements. The concept of the 4Ps came about in the 1940's and quickly developed into 7 Ps (people, physical evidence and process) as our industry increasingly embraced service-based companies.

Business operations have moved on so much in the last 5 years, let alone the last 70 years, that it’s a wonder the 4 or 7Ps are still a valid tool. The 4Ps have in fact evolved and adapted to become more relevant to modern day marketing, for instance the SAVE model (Solution, Access, Value and Education). And now there are additional or alternative Ps that I believe play a part in modern marketing:

Platform – by Platform I mean in its basic terms, an online method of information dissemination and collection. A platform will give you search & directory facilities, CRM (customer relationship management) tools and/or CMS (content management system) tools. The question you’re really asking is where online do I want my business to be? what information do I want to have in each location? How do I want that information to get to all these places? Some examples include market automation systems such as Marketo or CRM systems such as SalesForce, but you could also consider social media platforms here.

Partnerships – It’s not essential for us to form partnerships in order to create a business offering, but the fact is we’re all at it, from the smallest link-baiting through to a brand-link up. It's an opportunity to create a competitive advantage. Search engines actively favour websites that link with others, affiliate marketing (in layman’s terms, paying companies and networks to drive clicks to your site) is now a multi-million pound industry and for small businesses, partnering with complementary services is a major opportunity to differentiate your business offering and beat the competitor. So if you’re operating totally solo, perhaps you should ask yourself if there are any possible link-ups that might enhance your business.

Philosophy, or Personality – What are your morals, ideals and rules? What philosophy is the cornerstone of your business? How do you portray the culture of your business to your customer?  The company culture or philosophy can in itself define a business offering, the company’s philosophy or personality can be the thing that sets it apart from its competitors. Think about companies like Google, Apple or Virgin and what makes them appealing to customers – it’s not just the product, it's their culture that oozes out and attracts us to them. As morality and ethics becomes an increasingly important factor in people's decision-making, getting your company's philosophy correct becomes vital.

Proposition – This is the fundamental backbone of your business offering. It’s not as simple as saying ‘We produce X Y & Z’ or ‘I offer X Y& Z services’ these days we need a new term for what the business offers. A proposition can encompasses all products & services, it tells the customer in a single sentence what your business is all about. If you’re not sure what your proposition is, start with what the audience wants from your business and then create the proposition in terms of a solution to that problem.

There are many ways you can skin the marketing cat. The most important point of the 4, or 7, or 11Ps is that you are able to critically analyse your marketing approach using each P, with the hope that in the absence of a mathematically precise method for approaching marketing, you are able to cover all possible aspects of your business.

At Cherry Fusion we help guide businesses through their marketing planning, building plans that help with any marketing objective. To get in touch call 0117 959 5198, email hello@cherryfusion.co.uk or visit www.cherryfusion.co.uk.