by admin | Dec 16, 2011 | Blog
If you have a small budget and your marketing agency is suggesting email marketing – consider the benefits of a direct mail piece instead. The payoff between the better marketing tool can make the difference.
The main difference is that direct mail is considered a more acceptable form of communication for new leads, especially if you have a great offer. Whilst email is a cost effective was of keeping in touch with people who know and love you, but is often dismissed as spam when it arrives in the email inbox of a prospect.
If you have a decent budget, then hedge your bets and do both! But, if you don’t then you have to know the facts before you make your decision
At qubePartners, a marketing agency and advertising agency, all in one, we understand that you can’t have it all, on a small budget. So we suggest that to really get your brand noticed, consider the old fashioned way – snail/direct mail. The rationale is quite simple.
• Firstly, you are putting your brand in the hands of your target market.
• Secondly, it engages all the senses, plus addressed mail has an emotional component (i.e. it’s addressed to me, I feel special).
• And lastly, the letterbox is the least cluttered promotional channel. The inbox is full and the letterbox is quite empty!
On a small budget, it makes sense to look for a channel that is less cluttered, allows for a high degree of creativity and has a far higher chance of getting noticed. A direct mail that ends up in the bin was read first!
by admin | Oct 16, 2011 | Blog
It’s easy to feel that we are all at the mercy of market forces. They affect individual consumers and enterprises. Daily we are bombarded with statistics, most of which are useless to us as consumers and entrepreneurs. Why? Because we as individuals cannot control the market, so rather than feel helpless, I say why even worry about them?
People sell shares and companies lay off staff, all based on their perceptions of what will happen, while our governments attempt to “talk up” the economy!
This article is not about all of the empirical data that shows companies who continue marketing during a downturn, increase sales and come out with greater market share and improved brand loyalty when the good times return. No, enough has been already been written about that, although the majority of manufacturers have not heeded the advice. So, I’ll try to simplify it:
“When everybody goes one way, you should go in the opposite direction.” Words to that effect have been attributed to some pretty successful entrepreneurs like Richard Branson. So why do we as a business community react so emotionally and irrationally? Because humans are emotional beings and because emotions are much more powerful than logic. If you are smart then you can use this knowledge to your advantage and connect your products or services to the emotional needs of your customers! It’s called branding!
I say ‘who cares’ to the “SAGE SME Business Sentiment Index 2011” quoted in Manufacturer’s Monthly:
- 4 in 10 feel business is performing better than in 2010.
- 1 in 10 feel it’s performing worse
- 5 in 10 feel there is no difference
How does this information help the individual enterprises? It doesn’t.
The conclusion is that manufacturers are realistic about their situation, but really who cares that rising costs and cash flow have become less important while sales and efficiency are now at the top of the priority list. I would have thought that they should always be at the top of the list.
As a marketing consultancy we ask our clients to be ‘unrealistic’. If you do what you have always done, that is be a follower of the market, then you will get what you always got!
According to “SAGE SME Business Sentiment Index 2011” twice as many manufacturers want to invest more money into sales than other types of businesses, if only they had the budget!
So what does this mean to you?
- Manufacturers tend to invest less into Marketing and Sales activities in the first place
- Not having the budget just means the manufacturer’s objective is actually not that important to them.
- Manufacturers that do invest into Marketing and Sales activities wisely will be going ‘against the market’ and should prosper.
Australian manufacturers need to start taking marketing seriously, to remain competitive and relevant. They need to become educated about marketing disciplines, at least to a level where they can effectively engage with marketing professionals. Manufacturers need to adopt an attitude that has long been adopted by smart job seekers looking for a position in a tough employment market – what matters is not the % unemployment but whether you can land that one perfect job.
So stop looking at ‘the market’, stop following others, stay positive, and develop strategies to create positive perceptions in the mind of your customers and prospects so as to find, attract and retain customers and then continuously test, increase and improve them.
Manufacture your future; whether it’s a failure or a fortune, it’s up to you!
by admin | Jan 7, 2011 | Blog, Promotion
A 2008 PwC survey, “Private Business Barometer IV” paints a depressing yet realistic picture of the Australian small business state of play – about 92% considered cutting their marketing budget. Gregory Will, partner at PwC, rightly points out that these are the very areas that are the source of most small businesses’ competitive advantage. 3 years on and nothing much has changed!
The reality seems to be that we’ve gone from riding on a sheep’s back to acting like them at a time when we need leaders, not followers!
You can call farmers “battlers”, but not the majority of SME business owners – their droughts are mostly self inflicted. The following is a statistic I found on the CPA Australia website – 3 years ago – and it estimated that one in three new small businesses in Australia fail in their first year of operation, 2 out of 4 by the end of the second year, and 3 out of 4 by the fifth year, with only approximately 8% of small businesses succeeding beyond five years.
Failure to plan is a plan for failure
Conducting a business without a formalised plan is much like trying to drive a car to an unknown destination without a map. Yet the estimates are that only 3% to 5% of Australian small businesses starting from scratch prepare a business and marketing plan; that is, know that their business is feasible and have a formal plan to steer that business towards success. Based on the fact that a Feasibility Study, a SWOT Analysis and a Marketing Plan are a part of any Business Plan, I suggest that approximately 70% of all business failures and almost 100% of lack of business growth are due to inadequate Marketing.
Peter Drucker, the grandfather of modern management said business is about 2 things and 2 things only – innovation and marketing! A number of studies conducted since WWII showed something that marketers have known all along – keep marketing through the downturn. The following quote is from Professional Marketing, Oct-Dec 2008 – article titled “All Hands On Deck”: “…companies that increased marketing spend (relative to market size) during a recession, increased their return on capital employed by 5% in the recovery, compared to a 1% decline for the budget cutters”
Most businesses are either ignorant or choose to ignore the empirical evidence for maintaining or even increasing marketing investment in a weak economy
– Competitors tend to cut spending, creating opportunities
– Maintaining promotional spend will sustain or even grow market share
– Stealing share of mind is a bargain during a recession
– Consumers don’t “go away” during a recession, they become more conservative
For most SME’s marketing is an expense and not an investment.
Most SME business owners do not understand the meaning of marketing or branding let alone have any basic understanding of advertising principles to effectively and efficiently reach their target audience. Much of the SME marketing efforts are wasted anyway – just open your local paper, look into your mailbox and see the standard or the lack of it in SME marketing communication. Only a few weeks ago the ABS released a frightening statistic that 66% of Australian businesses do not have a website!
Attitudes have to change
“Ego and advanced ignorance have killed many a business, and continue to do so. …ignorance is acceptable because it means we don’t know. Advanced ignorance, however, is ‘knowing we don’t know’ and doing nothing about it! It’s deadly….there’s information readily available on every conceivable issue relevant to growing a healthier business, but it’s far easier not to seek anything at all.” Says Brett Lowe of Business Planning Works.
There are businesses still around today, that perceive customer service to be a “Thank You” on the invoice
A study of 460 B2B organizations that employed 100+ people, conducted by Strike Force Sales, found that only 6% of Australian companies pick up the phone and respond to a web generated sales inquiry with a phone call. The MD of the company, Chris Moriarty brings this reality home with another statistic that shows 46% of the time auto-response emails are never followed up.
In the last 5 years, I have met hundreds of SME proprietors and completed over 70 SME marketing projects. I have discussed the SME challenges with colleagues and other consulting professionals and have to say that there are glimmers of hope. These generally lie with the younger more entrepreneurial SME business owners who have grown up on the ‘brand rich media diet’.
There is plenty of professional help out there, admitting you need it, is the hard part…
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