A (very) Short Guide To Real World Marketing

**What is Marketing?**

One definition is "'the management process which identifies, anticipates and satisfies customer requirements efficiently and profitably". Less academically, marketing is everything you say and everything you do.

From top level strategic planning through to a junior employee speaking to one of your customers, marketing principles should be part of your organisation's thinking. Your company's culture, how your company and its employees present this culture to the outside world, and how you communicate internally and externally are all aspects of marketing.

**Marketing Strategy**

To market effectively you need a strategy. It's not good making a few snap decisions andl launching on regardless.

You may at first need to research markets so that you can develop a full understanding of your customers and your competitors. You will need to establish your overall business objectives as well as your marketing objectives, and from there use various tools (eg a SWOT analysis or an Ansoff Matrix) to construct a set of marketing objectives. Using these as a basis, you can then agree marketing tactics and decide on the appropriate marketing mix for your target customers.

Only then should you implement the plan, and crucially you should set a system of monitoring and controlling the entire marketing process to ensure that you get a return on your investment.

**Market Research**

How much do you know about your customers or competitors? What developments are there which may impact on your business, for good or for ill?

A market research deepartment can help you to answer these questions by trawling a range of sources. With the growth of the internet, there are often a wide range of secondary sources readily available from government organisations or publicly funded bodies. An expert's skill in searching helps not only to find these sources in the first place, but also to identify which of them are of relevance to the questions you are seeking to answer.

Sometimes primary research is what is required. This need not be an expensive campaign of focus groups and hundreds of telephone interviews: half a dozen meaningful conversations with key decision makers may well produce enough to help you to make an informed decision. You can also get information from your competitors without them realising it (legally, of course!) which could be vital in helping you to target markets or set prices.

**Corporate Branding**

Corporate branding helps you to present your company in the most positive light to its target audience. Whether or not you are a start up requiring a new identity, or a more established company requiring your brand to be updated and refreshed, the aim of branding is to create something which makes you stand out from the crowd.

A brand invariably includes a logo, but can be much more. As well as this there may be a range of supporting imagery - graphics, photography, colour schemes - which support the visual identity of your brand. You may also wish to develop straplines and slogans for use in promotional campaigns.

Your branding can affect many other areas as well: your house style for preparing internal and external documents, for example, or your choice of on hold music for your telephone system.

**Graphic Design**

As well as branding, graphic design will be required for leaflets, corporate brochures, stationery packs, catalogues, and the full range of printed promotional items. You will also require professionals for design shop displays and fascias, vehicle liveries and other external banners and displays.

Eye-catching design usually requires good photography. there is an excellent supply of stock images available online, but sometimes you need your own photography to enhance your brand - to show your people, your premises, or your products. Don't be tempted to do this on the cheap because somebody who works for you as a digital camera and likes photography. You also need to consider lighting, angle, etc which is the realm of the professional photographer.

**Copywriting**

How you say something can have a major impact on your business. Whether it is a simple strapline or slogan or an entire brochure, well written copy can help your customers to understand what it is you are providing and what differentiates you from the competition.

Well written copy also reflects on the professionalism of your company. If your grammar and punctuation are questionable, what does it say about your product or service?

Writing simple, persuasive copy which delivers a crystal clear message in a readable and entertaining way is something you may not be able to do - be honest, and get a professional if you can't!

**Website Development**

From a simple brochure site to a multi-user access, content managed site, website development services can provide an online presence for your company of which you can be proud.

Many web development companies can design sites with content management systems which you able to fully update and augment yourself. These sites can incorporate attractive animated galleries of products, interactive maps, or areas where only registered users can access and download documents.

With the advent of 'Web 2.0', which involves a greater level of user interaction with the outside world, you can construct websites to which your own customers can contribute, creating a user community to whom you can sell your products and services.

There are many separate but interdendent services related to website development - domain name and hosting management, search engine optimisation and Google Adwords campaigns to name but a few - which should form part of an effective online marketing strategy.

**Direct Mail**

What is the difference between junk mail and direct mail? Simple, really – junk mail always ends up in the bin, and direct mail usually ends up in the bin.

But there is a big difference between 'always' and 'usually'. It can mean a difference of thousands or millions or pounds.

There are two things which you must get right to conduct a successful direct mail campaign. The first is targeting. The more you segment your target customers and tailor your message to their needs and aspirations, the greater the chance of your letter or leaflet being read before it is discarded. The second is what you say to get their attention. This is partly a matter of Copywriting (do you know the order in which a typical person reads a letter?) and partly Graphic Design.

**Telemarketing (Cold calling)**

We have all received irritating calls from somebody wanting to sell us something. They are irritating, however, because they are poorly targetted and the caller is poorly trained, not because telemarketing itself is irritating.

A professional approach is to carefully target companies or consumers, and to develop a strategy and script which is unintrusive and which is not overtly attempting to sell. Those calling muse use a range of non-verbal communication techniques in order to establish rapport with a person over the phone, either as a cold call or as a follow up to a targeted Direct Mail Campaign. Some companies specialise in volume, mass market cold calling, others have expertise in talking to senior decision makers and generating appointments where you or one of your team can visit the prospect and have a serious conversation about your products or services. Choose carefully when deciding which company to use - if you are a professional services company, it is unlikely that you want your organisation to be represented by a school leaver or somebody with a minimal grasp of the English language (assuming you targets speak that language).

**Press Coverage / Public Relations (PR)**

Although press coverage benefits from being 'low cost' in comparison to print advertising, many companies' experience shows that it is no marketing panacea.

Whilst readers may trust editorial content more than advertising, press coverage usually requires support from other media to have a measurable effect on sales growth. We have all heard of examples of small businesses getting a favourable article in a national newspaper, and being snowed under with new business, but these examples are rare and are often down to a large dose of luck!

That said, well written press releases, placed in the right print media, can generate additional brand awareness which can be tied into a direct mail or telemarketing campaign in order to boost the campaign's overall effectiveness.

**Recommendation and Referral**

Often neglected, this is one of the most effective means of generating new business for your company. Why? Well, you're obviously going to have a higher conversion ratio if you are speaking to people who have heard of you from somebody who they know and trust. So the bit that most of us hate - talking to somebody cold - isn't required but your contact has already warmed them up and has identified that they may be in the market for your products and services.

Networking can be done on an informal basis, using some tried and tested techniques, or can be done in a formal networking environment, where members have built up a level of trust.

**Product Development**

Depending on your market place, product development can eat up a significant proportion of your budget. It's essential that you follow a structured process to ensure that good ideas aren't wasted, and that bad ideas are rapidly discounted!

It is useful to use a product development professional lead you through the path of ideas generation (using a suite of structured techniques), ideas screening, concept development and testing, product development, test marketing and final launch.

Only if you follow this path can you ensure that you retain your competitive edge by offering products and services which your competitors don't have.