So – if we are to “out market” the competition it makes sense to consider “what is Marketing?” – indeed I often get asked something similar. Although just as often people struggling to understand will tell me their own limited idea couched as ” well of course Marketing is …….” usually followed by “telesales”, “e-marketing”, “advertising”, “promotion”, “content marketing”, “sales promotion”, – now of course “social media” and even on one occassion “constantly repeating the corporate message ” or otherwise some similar quite specific technique that they have picked up from the marketeers toolbox.
Perhaps because I came into Marketing in the early 70′s when Marketing was developing as a philosophy of business I see all of these aspects and more as part of Marketing. A good definition I have heard is that “Marketing is everything that a company does that does not involve personal contact with the customer.”
However for me I would say that Marketing is an approach that encompasses everything a company does based on an understanding of the market and how the company can best opperate within the market.
So that far from leaving Sales people out in the cold I would say that Sales is part of Marketing and even the way that corporate finances are derived form part of the corporate Marketing philosophy. So promotion and sales and finance can be seen simply as ways of working to achieve the company’s overall marketing objectives.
This approach enables one to balance all the company resources, inputs and outgoings, so as to optimise performance – connecting the marketplace to financial results.
To Grandiose for an SME? Well little acorns and all that – we can start by considering where to put promotional spend – into a new product that has already had a lot of effort behind it or into re-enlivening a moribund cash cow?
Would your resources be better in stock or an exhibition? Staff morale or a new machine? Interest on a loan or investing in enquiries? Which will enable you to best surf the waves of the Marketplace and to optimise your financial results long term?
So to Out Market the Competition we first have to think differently – about how to connect our resources with our markets. This is not always possible within a small very pressured environment and in my experience industrial SMEs are run by either from an engineering or a sales perspective – which generally brings a specific focus and timescale – a Marketing approach tends to be wider and longer term – this added perspective can be extremely advantageous in developing a strategy to take a company forward over the long term. It focuses on growth in good times and out-marketing the competition in the down times. You may not need a marketing dept full time but you are likely to need access to one.
One of our clients expressed the view recently that “it’s always the right time to out-market the competition” – something we forget at our peril. And interestingly he has proved it with outstanding growth over recent years – partly of course with the support of our activities. In the down times we go for market share and prepare the ground for better times. Then in the good times we work hard to maximise our growth.
We should remind ourselves that the choice of possible marketing approaches has never been better or cheaper to execute:
- PR
- online directories
- Social Media
- e-marketing
- Advertising
- Exhibitions
- and we come back to another saying that bears remembering – ie “work smarter not harder”.
Whatever the socio-economic climate it really is “always the right time to out market the competition” – talk to us to see how.
I recently had a rush of blood to the brain and got my act together with some scripts and a video camera – the results can be viewed on our website - subjects and content are taken from the seminars which we ran this year and which will be available in 2012 – register your interest here without commitment and we will send you information on next year’s program.
On Nov 4th – the day before Guy Fawkes day we will be running our last free Industrial PR and Social Media seminar. These 2011 seminars have been a great success with those attending taking away new information and ideas to enhance their businesses – so we have decided that next year we will charge – probably £200 per head and that means Nov 4th will be the last opportunity to attend for free.
Testemonials include:
“We found the session interesting and thoroughly thought provoking. Whilst I believe our company’s marketing effort is comprehensive, the session certainly opened our eyes to more possibilities especially in the field of digital marketing. We look forward to engaging with Ian and his team to realise the full potential of our efforts.”
“Possibly the best three hours training I have had in a very long time. Helped to focus on what can be done free or at reasonable cost, how to get the maximum benefit from minimum effort and convinced a sceptic of the need to use social media.”
“The seminar was conducted in a very relaxed style with plenty of time and encouragement for questions. Being a comparative novice in some of the subject matter I was delighted to learn new things and have to restrain my enthusiasm to experiment with what I have been shown but hope to put it to good use very soon. The small group enabled networking opportunities and an open forum to learn from each other. The venue choice was excellent and refreshments most appreciated. I had a thoroughly enjoyable and educational day, thank you.”
“Thank you for an incredibly useful and informative day! We have already begun to brainstorm how we can incorporate your advice into our overall marketing plan. The information that we gained from this seminar is invaluable and I would highly recommend it!”
Click here to register for your place at the Nov 4th free seminar and learn about Industrial PR and Social Media.
I am often amused by people’s fascination with getting themselves on page one of organic searches – as an agency we have never tried to achieve this – rather it has beeen a pleasant and surprising side effect of what we consider as “just doing the job right”.
To the point where we have clients with from 100 to over 200 keyword searches that we check 3 monthly and find them on page 1 of organic searches for anything from 50 to 100 of them. It is quite a buzz to put in an industry relevant search term and find our client on page one 5 times - the client is pleased too!
There seems to be confusion over what is important and what we are trying to achieve – yes it is great to get your own website high up the listings – but there are a number of other considerations:
1. 3rd party listings gained through PR, Content Marketing and Social Media will get listed much more easily and more quickly because the directories and journals are more valued than a single manufacturers site – and their listing for you will still take people to you. Such listings will also keep out your competition. We frequently find our clients listings appearing on page 1 a number of times eg 3, 4 or 5 times for a single search string. These listings seem to get picked up very quickly and to stay relevant for many months.
2. Your blog is likely to get higher value than your website if you are keeping it active – not only does a blog get picked up quickly it can be quite a stable listing.
3. Your website can get up the listings supported by the value accrued from your total activity and traffic. Once there it is usually quite stable if you maintain your online activity.
Well lets think about this logically -
1. How much did you/would you spend on a brochure/literature? – £10K per year? £20K? £30K? More?
2. How much do you spend on a sales rep including salary, car, expenses? £50K per year? £60K? More?
3. How much did you/would you spend on a national exhibition? A shell scheme for £10K? A space only site at £100K – plus, plus, plus?
Now if you have a website then you don’t need a brochure - and if you think that you do for customers that do not like the internet ( we are talking about technology company customers, but there are some who don’t get on with computers ) then you can easily print one from your website - and the website should at least be up to date, unlike a brochure or manual which goes out of date the day before it is printed!
Well your website and blog are not sales people but they do manage to do a whole lot of things that sales people do – and they do it 24/7/365 - coupled to PR reaching a couple of hundred or more publications and Social Media reaching hundreds or thousands of customers and prospects, they do a lot lot more than your best people ever could on their own.
And with the right approach to photography, graphic illustrations and video demonstrations your website and blog can between them do most of what you normally achieve at an exhibition – with the exception of shaking the customers hand and offering a drink.
Don’t get me wrong the personal touch is very important – I have personally sold £1M pa on commission and know well that people still buy from people – and I’ve yet to meet a website that can negotiate, research a client application or respond to a customers emergency problem - but let’s understand the sales function is expensive and lets get things in proportion – your other marketing/sales/promotion tools should have a budget in proportion to their value.
So now - how much should you spend on your web/blog sites?
Are you spending £10Kpa – roughly the minimum cost of a catalogue?
Are you spending £50Kpa – the minimum cost of sales rep?
Or are you spending £100K plus?
The internet and our ability to use websites to substitute for these other sales tools has enabled businesses around the world to hugely cut costs, survive, protect profits and to do much more with less resources – but you should still be spending appropriately and not penny pinching on these valuable internet based tools.
So how much are you spending on your website/blog – enough?
I have heard a lot recently about the value of adding video to your website home page – as you know I have been keen on clients using video for at least a couple of years – for its intrinsic value as a good way to get information across – although as you see we don’t have it – but some really useful videos are in the pipeline as soon as I can face the camera!
Following the success of our early 2011 program of seminars, registrations are invited at www.id-marketing.co.uk/free-seminar-registration for a free seminar on 23rd September on the subject of “Industrial PR and Social Media Marketing”. We are delighted that these free seminars are proving so successful for the delegates, since all seem to go away with a much better insight into the roles of PR and Social Media in the industrial marketplace – which is very different from the mainstream perception – and since we are an active and experienced company we are passing on what we actually do and what we know works – not just a theoretical training.
The seminar will cover the basics of Industrial PR and how to do it for yourself – press relations vs. public relations, keywords, directories, printed and internet media, press releases, features, building a database, web profiling, with “hands on” exercises. Other topics will be Marketing for Industrial SMEs – building a cost effective Promotional Pyramid – blogs, newsletters, website SEO, video, advertising, exhibitions and social media – with a guest Social Media Manager from our associate Lesley Whiteman Social Media Agency.
We believe that PR is cheaper and more effective than ever, PR is the cheapest promotion a company will ever do and that based on a solid foundation of PR a company can build the other major elements of online marketing, content marketing, social media, exhibitions and advertising into a worthwhile long-term investment that will protect a company through the downs and leverage growth in the ups of the economic cycle.
One day free PR seminars are planned for September and October 2011 at a quiet relaxing venue near our offices in Bedfordshire, with complementary networking lunch and free car parking. To register for the September seminar please go to www.id-marketing.co.uk/free-seminar-registration
For some time there has been a question about east-west balance – which is to say “what will happen to the eastern economies when the west cannot afford to buy so much?”
Personally I think it will be a bit bumpy but these things have a way of finding their own equilibrium and that the Chinese and Indian consumers will pick up the slack where the USA and Europe drop off. So when we cannot afford to buy from China we will find that we can once again afford to make things ourselves – we are already strong in specialist niche and local/regional markets and the re-balancing of the forces of east-west trade will also provide an opportunity for UK manufacturing to sell to the eastern countries if we are prepared to take it. Indeed China in particular is likely to positively encourage it as they find a need to reduce their own export/import inbalance.
I have been talking quite a lot about the difference between Public Relations for B2C and Press Relations for industrial B2B companies – so it was good the other day to get a comparible perspective in the form of this link.
Also of course may I refer you to previous items in this blog plus our main website.
