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What was the best type of marketing you have ever done...

Power Lunch Club

Power Lunch Club

New Member
Question to the SBFers

What is the best type of marketing you have ever done for your business and what kind of results did it yield?

Regards

Gordon
PLC
 
nothing does

nothing does

New Member
hmmmm good question. For me I did a direct marketing campaign when I started my company and followed it up with emails and phone calls which proved very successful. However I should warn about the uptake of a DM campaign. Normally uptake is about 3-2% and then making those contacts clients reduces it's effectiveness to minute amounts. I WAS LUCKY.

In the long term word of mouth is best for myself.

Marketing campaigns have to be engineered towards your target market and there is never a 'one size fits all' approach. A garage will never do well with a on-line viral campaign but a door drop just might work. But still word of mouth is the best marketing anyone can have.
 
Wills

Wills

Member
Over the years I've tried various methods of getting the word out there, there is no quick fix, right place right time is key.

What works with me is getting the product in front of my target market, on-line would appear to fit that bill but has a long lead time and even with the best SEO seldom hit your intended market.

In 2006 I bit the bullet and went back to basics with a high street presence aimed directly at my market, it worked literally from day one. Sure it's expensive and risk is high but planning your strategy is vital.

So my best marketing tip is direct and make it something they want not necessarily need - Steve Jobs does a good job of his marketing.
 
Scottish Business Owner

Scottish Business Owner

New Member
I had a Google Adwords campaign for one of my businesses that had at one point a click through rate of 8% which was generating around 20-25 leads per week for that particular business. Admittedly it didn't last wrong but it made us see the potential on online marketing.

As i've said many times on here before you have to measure your marketing to see what works and what doesn't, if you dont measure then you might as well throw the money out the window. Admittedly some avenues are harder to measure than other but it's crucial you find some form of measurement :)
 
Power Lunch Club

Power Lunch Club

New Member
Did anyone use copywriting services for their marketing?

Gordon
PLC
 
nothing does

nothing does

New Member
Did anyone use copywriting services for their marketing?

Gordon
PLC

ALWAYS. I'm not against a DIY approach but the professionals are always better at this kinda thing (as are the designers) :D
 
S

ScottJ

New Member
I carefully constructed an email to Sir Alan Sugar when he ran a column in The Mirror (Spoonfull of Sugar) on a business idea which I had already started but wanted free press so asked for his advice, knowing what he usually responded to and liked, he picked my email and responded which gave me a quarter page feature in his column in The Mirror, was then mentioned another 3 or 4 times and after a year or so was awarded Excellence in Enterprise by him and another half page feature, lots of doors were opened and business from it all for free and flown down to have lunch with him.
 
Power Lunch Club

Power Lunch Club

New Member
I carefully constructed an email to Sir Alan Sugar when he ran a column in The Mirror (Spoonfull of Sugar) on a business idea which I had already started but wanted free press so asked for his advice, knowing what he usually responded to and liked, he picked my email and responded which gave me a quarter page feature in his column in The Mirror, was then mentioned another 3 or 4 times and after a year or so was awarded Excellence in Enterprise by him and another half page feature, lots of doors were opened and business from it all for free and flown down to have lunch with him.

What was the business Scott? Editorial....you just can't beat it!!

And what was he really like to meet?

Oh and more importantly....What did you have for lunch?
 
S

ScottJ

New Member
It was putting up websites with hosting and a domain for a monthly fee rather than a one of charge, so I'd do a local business info site for £35 per month type of thing. I sold it to give me more free time a few years ago and concentrate on my own sites, unfortunately back then even with a half page I thinkg I only got a couple of hundred visitors. He certainly had a presence when he arrived, I met him at his then Park Lane office/residence, he was friendly enough and really enthusiastic about his Amstrad phone/emailer at the time..showing it off.
002855.jpg

Just goes to show even Sir Alan can't win them all ;)
 
Neil

Neil

New Member
Here is a type of Marketing you might not have seen before. This is a "Bugman" from Alpharetta, Georgia. Hal Coleman is a local pest control company and he has put up a sales page with a difference. Remember to click on the video to start it.

North Fulton Exterminating

He also has a video blog

Yucky Nasty Bug Facts - North Fulton Exterminating Altanta GA, Georgia

In the blog he explains, in video, about all the yucky, nasty bugs. If you didn't think you needed pest control before you watched it you will now.

This is fantastic Local marketing. The same principles can apply to any local business. By having a great site and driving traffic to it through classified ads in the local paper or leaflet drops you can pick up a whole lot of business.

If a Bugman from Alpharetta, Georgia can do it so can you.
 
Adventurelife

Adventurelife

New Member
I use a range and mix it up all the time as well as trying new ideas.

Normal mix is

Website seo
PPC
Printed material
Beermats
Online networking
Video production and distribution
Making sure every client leaves with a CDR full of photos of their event
Giving events away
Films on large screens in good locations

Without doubt the website seo brings in the most new business though
 
andrewburnett

andrewburnett

New Member
Marketing campaigns have to be engineered towards your target market and there is never a 'one size fits all' approach. A garage will never do well with a on-line viral campaign but a door drop just might work. But still word of mouth is the best marketing anyone can have.

Word of mouth most definitely is the best marketing anyone can have - largely because the person being given the word does not consider the mouth to be a marketer, but rather a happy customer.

That marketing needs to be engineered toward the target market is without dispute, but I can't agree entirely that an on-line "viral" campaign cannot work for a garage - let's take a moment to analyse this:

Take a garage in Edinburgh, any garage that has a website. Let's say this website ranks #9 for "edinburgh garage" (the worst position you can have on the front page) and are looking to improve their rankings for this search term.

They do a video of a mechanic trying to pull the wool over a "blonde babe" motorist's eyes only to have her show herself to be more knowledgeable than them. The video is promoted cleverly and gets so many views it damn near buckles their server. People link to the funny video using relevant anchor text in their links and the garage now ranks #2 or #1 even - attracting 20 times as much relevant search traffic as it did before.

Just as in word of mouth marketing people don't get the feeling that they're being targeted in a marketing campaign - and that my friends is the best marketing technique. Nobody likes to feel they're getting marketed at.
 
That marketing needs to be engineered toward the target market is without dispute, but I can't agree entirely that an on-line "viral" campaign cannot work for a garage

Quite so.....

Wheelie Cheap

Or remember the wee Chinese lassie that came on to Dragon's Den

LINGsCARS DRAGONS' DEN BOOK

She came on looking like a cross between a bag lady and an errant twelve year old. Spoke Chinglish throughout the show and appeared to be half mad with her nuclear missile truck et al....

I met her at a CNY do a year or two back. An elegant young Chinese woman who spoke perfect English and is so sharp she'd cut you to ribbons!

She shifts a lot of motors too!
 
Adventurelife

Adventurelife

New Member
I agree that word of mouth marketing is by far the best ROI for a business.

However, if it is why do more businesses not focus on improving their WOMM?

Most businesses think that WOMM happens because of good service and having satisfied clients. I agree that that does happen and that should be the minimum a business should strive for.

In other areas of business we have systems. Systems for finance, operations, HR, sales etc so all businesses should have a system for WOMM. In my experience most do not.

Each business needs to innovate and produce a system that will work and DRIVE their WOMM and then measure the results then hone it .

Example.

I take clients on adventure experiences. The minimum I can do to provide good WOMM is ensure that we provide a experience from start to finish that exceeds their expectations and provides excellent value for money.

Achievement of that minimum objective will provide WOMM but to really drive it we need to provide reasons for the clients to act as walking ambassadors of our business.

To get that to happen we do the following some examples included.

Each client leaves with a CDR disc of photos that we know get shown to other and posted on social media websites etc etc

At various times of the year we contact past clients with the news that they have won a free weekend with us etc. We always ensure these are of high value normally around £250 and up. ( The individual may for example work in a very large call center and knows it is a genuine prize as they know who we are, WOMM is driven far an wide quickly around the work force)

A female client raves about about here weekend break with us and how she must get here husband to come along. In response to her thank you email we sent a free half day gift voucher for her husband for her to give as a xmas present. With in two weeks we had sold 14 gift vouchers to her friends for their husbands xmas presents. Husbands , then seen this as an excuse to get a weekend away so the booking ended up as a full weekend package.

Long drawn out way to explain, but hopefully you will get my message. WOMM can be improved by a system:)
 
A female client raves about about here weekend break with us and how she must get here husband to come along. In response to her thank you email we sent a free half day gift voucher for her husband for her to give as a xmas present. With in two weeks we had sold 14 gift vouchers to her friends for their husbands xmas presents. Husbands , then seen this as an excuse to get a weekend away so the booking ended up as a full weekend package.

Long drawn out way to explain, but hopefully you will get my message. WOMM can be improved by a system:)

This is very true....

Time permitting I often re-cut footage into little client profiles which I simply give to the client. Likewise if a potential client's very close I'll occasionally spend an afternoon doing a very simple free profile for them. As I have client confidentiality policy which means that I generally don't use pad-for programmes for promotional purposes this is not only a way of yielding material for demo policies but invariably generates 'good karma', fresh leads and more often than not 'paydirt' business that vastly outstrips what I've given away.
 
andrewburnett

andrewburnett

New Member
Actually I've just been reading through a report by Universal McCann which shows that the motivation for sharing an opinion through social media channels is higher for:

Good personal experience
Someone you trust having a good personal experience
The brand is high quality
A friend’s recommendation

than Bad personal experience.

Are we facing an age where positive messages are passed on by word of mouth more than negative ones? (This flies in the face of the conventional wisdom on word of mouth which states you tell 9 people of a bad experience and 1 of positive experience)

Ultimately if your (online) marketing efforts entertain / offer a resource / provoke thought and do not directly put the hard sell on people you will have more success. In the digital age these more abstract methodologies can also be quantified....
 
Are we facing an age where positive messages are passed on by word of mouth more than negative ones? (This flies in the face of the conventional wisdom on word of mouth which states you tell 9 people of a bad experience and 1 of positive experience)

No, no a zillion times no! It's EXACTLY that notion that floats around many big corporations and it's simply an excuse to abdicate responsibility for real customer care.

I DO however think people are more willing and able to take what are far more effective and powerful platforms which means that there is far MORE feedback 'out there' both positive and negative.

A good example. The other night Heather (Idea15) felt the need to let off steam after a bad experience with a retailer. She posted of her experience on her blog. Personally I've pointed a good dozen folk to that blog entry. If she'd posted of a positive experience I'd have made a mental note and only passed the positive message on when I heard of someone actively in the target market....
 
andrewburnett

andrewburnett

New Member
A good example. The other night Heather (Idea15) felt the need to let off steam after a bad experience with a retailer. She posted of her experience on her blog. Personally I've pointed a good dozen folk to that blog entry. If she'd posted of a positive experience I'd have made a mental note and only passed the positive message on when I heard of someone actively in the target market....

Haha, I caught that steam on here... some internet marketeer or another suggested she write it as a blog post ;)
 
andrewburnett

andrewburnett

New Member
No, no a zillion times no! It's EXACTLY that notion that floats around many big corporations and it's simply an excuse to abdicate responsibility for real customer care.

Big corporations that think this evidently have seen the Universal McCann report and failed to realise that it only applies to one channel of influence!
 
Big corporations that think this evidently have seen the Universal McCann report and failed to realise that it only applies to one channel of influence!

There do seem to be a lot of them though. Witness the crap service from RBS, SKY, Littlewoods et al....:D Tweak their noses and they'll all scream 99% customer satisfaction. It's like standing in a hail of bullets quoting the statistic that 99.99% will miss.

It only takes one and you're a gonner!
 
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