Touching A Nerve

My previous post, Dear Customer, I Love It When You Complain, really touched a nerve.

I've never had so many comments, emails and shares before - all of them positive.  Joe Reevy of Legal RSS, even included it in his latest client e-newsletter, thanks Joe.

As Rob Dando of DCD Web Services in Canterbury commented "It's also at times of complaint you can discover many things you were not sure about in a company and ask questions to begin putting them right".

Regular readers will know how strongly I believe in effective integrated marketing communications. The Chartered Institute of Marketing [CIM] define marketing communications as, "all methods used by a firm to communicate with its customers and prospective customers", interestingly they do not differentiate between external and internal and quite rightly so. Also, their definition starts with "all methods used" not just "methods used".

So no matter what communication methods you use, make sure that they integrate and are brand consistent with your other marketing activities. Furthermore, remember that there should be a two way street between your internal and external marketing communications - it's no use getting feedback, positive or negative, if you don't act on it and share it and it's outcomes.

Dear Customer, I Love It When You Complain. Honest!

Do your customers complain? 

No?

Then you probably have a problem!

No matter how good we like to think our customer care is, we cannot satisfy all of the people all of the time, it simply isn't possible.

But what happens when a customer or prospect is unhappy? Do they tell you, their friends or no one?

We're all human and love it when people are happy with us and tell us so. However, when they're not the worst thing that they can do is vote with their feet and walk away in silence. Why do I say that? Well these are the ones that have got away and you've lost - most likely forever.

So what about those whining horrible people who have the audacity to complain to you? Yes, of course there will be the small minority who love to complain and demand COMPENSATION OR ELSE! but they're fairly easy to spot and in most cases you're better off to let your competition have them. Yet the vast majority of people who complain aren't actually complaining. They are saying "I like dealing with, you've looked after me in the past, but this time you have let me down, please speak to me so that we can sort this out and I can justify to myself why I should continue to use you".

The moral of this story is don't be afraid of criticism, it's usually constructive.

Do You Measure Your Marketing?

It was supposedly business thinker Peter Drucker who coined the phrase "You can't manage what you don't measure" back in the 1950's.

Irrespective of who first came up with it, the adage still holds true today and it is something that I work closely on with all my clients' marketing activities.

Yesterday was the first anniversary of me going freelance and being a marketer who endeavours to practice what he preaches, I have been closely measuring the results of my own marketing activities over the past year.

Prior to becoming a freelance marketing consultant I had represented my former employer very successfully at Faversham BNI, a group of like-minded business people who meet once a week to generate business for each other in a structured networking environment. BNI is a bit of a Marmite organisation, but I can guarantee that it can work and for this reason when I left salaried employment, one of the first things that I did was to apply to join the group and represent myself in my new role. After all, aside from having an excellent track record in generating business through the group, I had 5 years of know-like-trust equity built up with its members.

Yet the return on investment from this particular element of marketing mix simply hasn't  worked for me in my new role. It could be the climate, me, my business model, the other members of the group, or any combination of these and other reasons. However, no matter how hard  tried it simply didn't generate income and that is the crux of the matter. There were half a dozen reasons why I could have continued with my membership, including the camaraderie, friendship, social occasions and it being my "day in the office" with like minded people, but the maths dictated otherwise.

So unlike Doctors that smoke, I took my own advice and cancelled my subscription. I'm now investing the money saved into other areas that have worked over the past twelve months along with a few others that I have been wanting to test but didn't have the budget for.

Sometimes we have to bite the bullet and change things because, to end on another business quote "If you always do what you've always done, you always get what you've always got."

Not much to do with marketing

OK, so I know that this post is not much to do with the marketing stories that I usually regale to you on here, but hey, it does say these are random ramblings and anyway I am marketing my favourite Daughter's (I only have one, by the way) efforts to raise £4000 to fund a month long trip to Ecuador in 2013 where she will be working on environmental projects with the local population.
 

As you can see from the poster below, we are hosting a quiz night with a difference in Faversham on Saturday January 28th 2012 - what better way to spend a dark, post-Christmas winter evening.
 
The quiz is a general knowledge one with ten rounds of ten questions and the tenth question in each round is always the same, "What connects the previous nine answers?"

Spaces are limited, so dust off your brain cells and book a table for you and up to eight friends & family and come along and join us for a fun evening with a few surprises.
 

Marketing is just common sense, anyone can do it, or can they?

It's a truism that most marketing is simply a matter of logically applying common sense principles to your business.

The thing is, there are lots of common sense principles out there, so which ones do you apply?

Take your health as an example. You may know from experience that both sleeping drafts and laxatives can work to solve particular problems, but would you contemplate taking them both at the same time? I thought not.

The same experience and thoughtfulness needs to be applied to your marketing activities as two tried, tested and proven methods may work well in isolation but not when combined. Alternatively, you may have tried two marketing methods that have produced limited results and discarded them, yet they may prove the old adage that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Wherever possible you should always consult with an expert in their field. For example, when I was explaining this principle to a personal trainer friend of mine, he said "did you know that magnesium is a useful supplement to help you sleep, but that magnesium sulfate is a laxative?"

There are lots of other ways to improve the effectiveness of your marketing strategy and transform your business. Call me if you'd like to know how.
 

Until next time.

Ps. The inspiration for this blog post came from my good friend Roger Waltham of Manhunt Recruitment, follow this link to find out more about him and his dynamic and highly focused management and executive recruitment house.

How often do you talk to your staff?

Marketing is job for everyone in your business, so why do so many businesses fail to nurture, care for and communicate with their employees?

When all is said and done your employees are your business. You employed them so it follows that their values are your values.

Internal marketing communications can deliver one of the fastest and most cost-effective improvements in customer satisfaction and profitability for many businesses. For a start it is largely neglected and most businesses don’t even have a budget for it.

I have blogged on numerous occasions that proper strategic marketing sits at the heart of any business and touches every department, including HR. Yes that's right, even HR!

Often the only time HR & Marketing speak is when designing and booking a recruitment advert. At this stage they get together and construct an advert in the house style, telling prospective employees, plus others, how great they are and why they should work for them (and so they should but that's a different blog topic all together).

Yet if you ask anyone in HR to name their biggest headaches, high up in the list will be staff retention. Although it will never go away, it is a problem that can easily be alleviated through the more effective use of internal marketing communications. In the early days of a business' life internal communications are easier as there are less employees and everyone regularly speaks with each other to ensure that the job gets done and the business achieves its targets and goals. But as a business grows and levels of supervision and management are introduced, it becomes less effective.

As your business grows, and remember that it's growing because of you and your people, don't forget to continue to communicate with them along the way. Internal communications don't have to be difficult or complicated. Yes, you can hold away-days, Christmas parties, summer barbecues and the like, but you can do just as good a job by  simple things, such as stopping to say hello as you walk past someones desk or by making sure that you include your staff on the distribution list of all external marketing communications.

There are lots of other ways to improve your internal marketing communications and transform your business. Call me if you'd like to know how.

The Gravy Train

Businesses, like the people that run them, come in all diffrent shapes and sizes and the way that they position themselves from a marketing perspective should reflect this.

 

Why do I say this? Well, because if your brand positioning implies that you are something that you are not, you will get found out &/or not get the business that you are looking for.

Put yourself in your customers shoes. There are countless supermarkets for you to choose from, but why do you invariably return time and again to the same one? Is it price, convenience, range of stock, location, value for money, image or perhaps snobbery?

Even when you step within the supermarkets, who are experts in the field of brand positioning, you have other choices to appeal to your needs as a customer. The images below show us just some of the choices Tesco offer us when it comes to buying something as mundane as gravy.

So what does this mean to you and your business?

Quite simply, it is just as important for you to define who you are, what you do and how it is that you do it. Only then can you position yourself within your target marketplace and hope to maximize your turnover and income.

To use Tesco gravy as an example, there is nothing wrong with being a value product, just so long as you don't present yourself as being finest, as you will alienate your customers and not generate repeat purchases. Likewise, if you produce a finest quality product but only charge value prices you will be underselling yourself and potentially go out of business.