In the same way that DNA defines our individual, unique characteristics your brand captures the DNA of your business.  I’m not talking literally of course but think of your brand as a combination of the personality characteristics, traits and beliefs of your business – the aspects of your company that make it unique.  Pull these elements together and you have an image that your business is giving to the outside world – your brand. 

When your company image doesn’t accurately reflect your business DNA you should seriously consider a rebrand!   This can occur for a number of reasons but a key one is that your business may have changed significantly since the original design was created.  Major developments can affect your brand such as mergers, the launch of new services or even downsizing.  Generally speaking in these instances it is immediately obvious that the existing brand needs to be reinvigorated or a new one developed.  However, there is a less obvious but more common reason for your brand becoming dated. 

In my experience many businesses tend to invest very little time in the constant development of their brand.  Instead they only update it when prompted by a key business change (such as my examples above).  If there isn’t a business critical reason to evaluate and update the brand it is rarely given priority.  You really must incorporate an ongoing, regular update of your brand into your marketing strategy though.

One issue that I hear frequently from companies is that brand development is expensive and not a priority so they shy away from it.  This will only have a longer-term negative effect on the businesses. The longer you leave it the more dated it will become consequently you will be left with a much larger, more expensive project when you finally face up to addressing it!

So how can you keep the costs of developing a brand right down?

1. Often the most subtle of changes can make all the difference.  For example frequently adding new copy on to a website or the introduction of a slight change of colour scheme.  This approach will help drive more traffic to your site , keep your messaging and image up to date and help ensure that your brand continues to evolve.  Apply this technique across all of your marketing materials and it will help you to avoid the cost of a complete rebrand too!
    
2. If you do need a complete rebrand I strongly advise you to invite at least 3 design agencies to quote for the project. This applies even if you already use a trusted designer.  Informing your incumbent designer that you are putting the work out to tender may well encourage them to provide you with a more favourable quote!  You might even find that this process introduces you to a new agency or consultant with a fresh perspective on your brand.
   
3. When you have selected your chosen designer or agency invest the time with them to brief them properly on your requirements.  If possible plan your envisaged design needs out for the forthcoming quarter and share those too.  You can then work with your appointed agency to develop the core marketing materials that you are likely to need for the immediate future.  This will help identify possible work that can be designed for a number of projects.  For example if you plan on focussing your direct marketing on an email based campaign but are targeting a number of different audiences, your designer can prepare one master email template for you, all you have to do is change the copy for each different market.  The result is a lower cost of design!
    
4. Spend time with your designer, consider them a genuine extension to your team, brief them properly and ensure they have a thorough understanding of your business.  Do this and you should find that they are better equipped to offer advice to you and develop a brand that is right for your business objectives, audiences and most importantly your budget!

To find out more about brand building contact me at ctucker@sterlingmarketingmanagement.co.uk 

When was the last time that you stood back and reviewed your brand?  Take a look in the mirror and ask yourself, in all honesty does your company image accurately reflect the quality of service that you provide and is it appropriate for your target audience.  If not then it’s time for a change.

Your brand is far more than just a logo.  It incorporates everything relating to the image that your company is looking to achieve.  This includes your logo but also incorporates the quality of your marketing materials, where you operate from, the manner in which you deliver your product or service and the people who you employee.  All of these elements combine to give an impression to the outside world of your company and the quality of its service.  So you must make sure that all of these components of your brand give the same consistent message, otherwise you risk confusing your potential customers.

It is essential that your company brand is appropriate for your target audience.   You must ensure that your logo and marketing materials are of a quality and image that is appropriate for the audience that you are looking to attract. Consider Argos, the company focuses on competitive pricing and value for money combined with a convenience-based service.  Buy a pair of earrings from Argos and you might not even see them before you buy, you certainly don’t expect a personal service or quality of product that you would expect from Tiffany & Co for example.  So it’s appropriate for Argos to develop a brand that reflects this value market whilst Tiffany & Co must ensure that their brand clearly portrays the same quality as its exclusive jewellery.

There is nothing wrong in developing a value based brand but it must be because you are delivering a value based product.  My advice is if you are unsure of the perception that your own brand portrays, then conduct some form of research.  Find out from your existing customers and suppliers how they perceive your company and what your brand says to them and act on the feedback.

If upon reflection you find that your brand is not suitable for your target audience, inconsistent or simply in need of a revamp then don’t panic.  Many companies that I meet dread the thought of a ‘rebrand’, it fills them with fear of escalating costs and an administrative nightmare.  It doesn’t have to be either of these.  Managed properly a company rebrand can be a relatively stress-free, inexpensive exercise and actually a very satisfying project, you just need careful planning, a vision and a realistic budget.

The good news is that you can introduce a high quality brand without blowing your marketing budget!  In next month’s article I’ll take branding one step further and offer some advice on exactly how to develop a new brand, including some hints and tips on keeping the costs down and working with design agencies. 

When it comes to business to business marketing, particularly for those of us in the SME space, relationships really do count.  Love or hate networking, you really should include it as a key marketing tool. But why?   

The simple fact is that people buy from people.  Therefore, the wider that your network of connections is, the greater your referral business will be.  It’s the ripple effect; if you provide a great service for a client then they will recommend you to their contacts and so on.  However, building a network isn’t as easy as might think. 

It takes time and effort and you have to have 100% confidence that you can deliver a great product/service, otherwise it could all backfire on you.  In the same way that good service can have a positive effect on building your referrals, one negative experience can seriously damage your reputation and erode all of your hard work to build those important new connections.

 The good news is that networking can deliver immediate results and provides a cost effective marketing tool.  From my own experience, I find that the sales cycle can often be much shorter when leads are acquired through networking.  Attending just one event can generate that golden nugget of a new prospect that turns into a customer far more quickly than other methods.

The reason for this is that you have met someone who already acknowledges a need. You do not have to spend time trying to convince them that they require your product/service as you usually do with ‘cold’ marketing such as direct mail.  Secondly, you have already made a ‘connection’ with that person, so your barriers have been removed.  For example, only this week I secured a new client not because they were desperately in need of my services but because they liked me and my approach and I came recommended.  It is purely for these reasons they have engaged me, I simply need to ensure that I meet their expectations now!

Networking comes in many forms; it isn’t just the pre-organised ‘networking event’ that so many fear or hate.  Informal networking is just as powerful.  Meeting people in your building, making new contacts at meetings, socialising, friends and family, they are all forms of networking.  It’s also about giving to receive.  I go out of my way to proactively connect my clients, suppliers and trusted contacts to each other.  I sing their praises to others and even have a page on my website specifically for this purpose.  There’s nothing in it for me but my contacts appreciate that I am promoting them and driving opportunities their way, in return I hope they’ll do the same for me!

So give networking a go, the traditional face to face networking that is.  Combine it with building your online network and you will have developed one very powerful, cost effective marketing tool.

When looking to build your brand one of the areas that you should review is your business address.  If you’re running a professional business from a home address for example, are you giving the right impression to your customers and prospects?  Could your residential address and mobile answering service be putting off potential clients?

You don’t necessarily need to move to a physical office address in order to give a more professional image.  There is another option which will be especially appealing to home based companies who are eager to build a strong, professional imagine but are not yet able to justify the cost of a physical five-day-a-week office.  It’s the virtual office.

A virtual office?  Well not really, it’s a real office in a real building with real people and it really does cost as little as £4.50 a day. The main difference between the virtual office and the traditional physical office is flexibility and affordability. 

Virtual offices are the perfect solution for home based, owner managed businesses or companies needing a small regional office.  They provide the perfect route for a risk free, gradual transition from a residential address to that of an established, commercial entity.

The beauty of the virtual office is flexibility allowing you the freedom to choose how and when you work.  Virtual office providers generally offer a variety of packages from a just a business address and call answering service to use of hot desks other facilities like meeting rooms.  This enables growing companies to benefit from the best of both worlds – completely virtual or a low cost presence in a building on an ad hoc basis.
If you’re a home based company and you need a professional image, my suggestion is go for a virtual office.  It’s a perfect, cost effective way to start the gradual transition from home to office and it will make a real difference to improving your brand.

 Clare Tucker is the Managing Director of Birmingham based Sterling Marketing Management, a specialist company helping growing Midlands business to realise the benefits of strategic marketing.

One of the most frequent comments that I hear when talking to businesses about their marketing problems is this:  ‘My marketing isn’t delivering enough.’   Now that’s a pretty broad statement to make.  There are any number of reasons that a company might feel that their marketing isn’t delivering but one of the most common is simply that they are expecting far too much.

First of all I would be looking to ascertain exactly how a company is measuring the success (or failure) of their marketing campaigns.  All too often I find that marketing isn’t actually being measured, instead it seems to be  a case of putting all of the effort into actually pushing the material out the door but not actually tracking results.  Not only is that a waste of time, resource and valuable funds, it also makes the entire marketing exercise pointless.  You must measure the results of each campaign, that’s the only way of tracking where your leads are coming from and improving the chances of success from your marketing activity.

Another area that I would explore is exactly what the business objectives for the company are.  You have to have these in place in order to establish exactly how much marketing activity you will require over the course of a year.  If you’re expecting to generate 10 new customers each month and all you are doing is attending the odd networking event combined with issuing say 20 prospecting letters at a time then you simply won’t achieve the 10 customers you need each month.  The general rule of thumb is to expect a 1 - 2%  response rate as a direct result of any marketing campaign, that’s not a lot!  Either your objectives are unrealistic or you will need to spend more on your marketing to meet them.

I would also want to know what kind of timescales the company works to with regard marketing activity. There seems to be a common misconception that a website can be up and running in hours or that an event can be organised in days and achieve good results. 

Whilst there are tools out there that will help you get a basic website up and running in hours, you have to question the quality of the image that a template based website will project to your target audience.  Fine for some companies but if you are targeting professional businesses you have to ensure that your own brand, including your website is of equal quality.

And yes you can pull off an event in a relatively short space of time but it’s unlikely that it will bring the same results as one that has been carefully planned to ensure the best possible return.  When it comes to planning your campaigns, from concept to delivery, I generally suggest that whatever timeframe you have in mind you should double it, then you’re hitting a realistic zone!

One of the concerns that many smaller businesses have when they start marketing for the first time is the cost.  There seems to be a perspective that marketing is an incredibly expensive exercise.  There is no doubt that it can be, certainly in the corporate world the marketing budget can be mind blowing.

But you don’t have to spend very much on your marketing to start reaping the rewards.  It’s more a case of understanding how to develop a cost effective marketing strategy that has the best possible chance of delivering results.  Furthermore, there are some great ways of starting to get your message out there and develop your brand that are free or cost very little.  So here are a few of them:

1.       Revisit all of your existing contacts, who do you know who might need your product/services or has connections that might be interest to you?   Think about who can build possible alliances with.  Are there companies you know of who offer complementary services to yours that you can join forces with for a joint marketing effort?  A joint approach can enable you to keep costs down whilst increasing the potential to reach a wider audience and deliver stronger messages.

2.       Attend some networking events.  Whether you prefer regular weekly meetings or more ad-hoc networking it doesn’t matter.  The most important thing to remember is that people buy from people.  Networking costs vary depending on the group that you join.  Many, such as WIBA (Women in Business Association, see www.wiba.co.uk) enable you attend as a visitor from as little as £15 for each event.

3.       Look at the image of your company and its brand.  Does it accurately reflect the market that you are trying to target?  If you’re home based and targeting professional companies you could quickly improve your image by using a business address.  You can opt for just a business address or take advantage of professional call answering, access to meeting rooms and hot desking from as little as £1.50 per day (+VAT).  It’s a great, cost effective way to improve the image of your company.

4.       Get yourself online.  Start working on increasing your company’s presence on the web by driving more traffic to it.  There are a number of simple techniques that will bring your Google ranking right up.  Try some of the social networking sites such as Twitter, ecadamey, Linkedin and Facebook.  They are growing rapidly and becoming a great way for businesses to connect with each other.  Best of all they’re free!

5.       Take advantage of free marketing workshops, articles, blogs and podcasts.  There are plenty of marketers out there offering you the benefit of our experience, so why not take it!  

For further information on cost effective marketing visit The Vocational Marketing Academy website at www.the-vma.com

So there you go, 5 marketing tips that will cost you less a night out!

Here’s the thing, if you have responsibility for marketing within your business but you’re not a marketing specialist and it’s not your full time role, you may well be wondering right now how you can balance the need to increase your activity but without spending!

Don’t panic.  There are some very simple changes that a business, even one with limited marketing experience and a small budget, can make immediately and these changes will help you to kick start your marketing.

So I have a challenge for all of you out there who need to get their marketing off the ground quickly but cost effectively.  If you take me up on it, in just 24 hours you’ll start realising the rewards.

First things first, block a day out in your diary over the next couple of weeks and make sure you keep it 100% free.  If you can’t find the time in the week, put a Saturday or Sunday aside, I promise you it will be worth it.

Right then you’ve blocked the day out, here’s what you’re going to do with it:

1.       Review your customer base.  It’s a proven fact that it’s far easier to encourage your existing customers to buy more from you than it is to find new ones.  Split them into 3 main categories:

a.       Your top customers (by spend, relationships and those who pay on time).

b.      The customers who don’t buy from you very often or spend very little.

c.       The rest should fall into the middle ground.  They are neither your top nor bottom customers.

2.       Ask yourself what new products or services can you communicate to them?  How frequently you should be sharing information with them about what you do and what methods will be best suited to them, email, newsletter, seminars and so on.  What special offers can you pass to them to encourage them to repeat buy.  Is there anything you can offer your top customers over and above the rest and what can you do to encourage the smaller ones to spend more with you.

3.       Now turn to your prospective customers.  First of all you need to establish who you want to target.  So look at your products or services and who buys them.  Don’t keep it broad though, segment your audience as much as possible.  Build a picture in your mind of your ideal customer.  Consider what type of business they are, geographical location, number of employees, turnover and who within the business will be responsible to make a decision to buy your product.

4.       Next decide how to find that data.  Do you already have it, if so you need to make sure it’s clean and up to date.  If not, look at online data providers such as www.marketingfile.com.

5.       Now you need to plan your activity.  So ask yourself what can you afford to spend on marketing and how much time can you dedicate to it?  Do you have any existing material that you can update?  What is going to be the most convenient and cost effective method for you to reach your target audience?  Don’t just opt for emails because they’re quick and cheap if your potential recipient rarely sits in front of a computer.   I’m a big fan of traditional letters, newsletters and hard copy material.  They land on a desk and have a good chance of being picked up again rather than an email that is deleted straight away.

6.       Make sure you set up a basic spreadsheet to start monitoring where your business comes from.  You need to know how your new customers are finding out about you.  Is it from your website, mailshots, emails or networking?  Get in to habit of asking the question every time and recording it.  It’s easy then to evaluate which marketing methods work best for you.

7.       Now you’ve looked at your existing customers, identified your target markets, worked out the best methods to use and set up a measurement tool.  All that’s left is to commit your ideas it to paper.  Prepare a simple spreadsheet that covers the activity you will carry out over the next 6 – 12 months for your customers and your prospects and outline the costs.  Print it off, put it in front of your PC and make sure you stick to it!

If you do all of that in one day and you stick to the schedule that you prepare making sure that you are pushing campaigns out regularly to the right audience, you are on your way to successful marketing!

If like me you are the owner of a small, young business I’m sure that you can relate to some of the frustrations that I have!   Here I am trying to prosper as a fledgling company at the worst possible time.   My budgets are tight, my customers are struggling and it’s difficult to secure financial support on any level. 

Ever the optimist and as someone who enjoys a challenge, I remain of the opinion that young businesses can grow in this difficult climate and reap the rewards.  We just need to be wise in the decisions that we make and careful where we spend. 

You must invest some of your resources into marketing activity.  Marketing is vital to the success of any company but right now you need it just to stand still.  Take heart though, it doesn’t have to be a costly exercise, there is plenty that can be done on the smallest budget. 

Plan ahead.  This will help you manage expected marketing costs and reduce your outlay on branded materials.  

For example, you will be able to advise your agency of the planned activity.  Because you know that you intend to send a series of postcards out during the course of the year, you can instruct your agency to design one basic concept that can be used as a template for the other postcards.  This will save you the cost of paying for a brand new design for each campaign and also ensure consistency. 

Build a network of alliance partners.  Working with other companies who offer services that naturally complement your own is a great way to keep your marketing spend down.  It will enable both companies to pool their resources and split costs on marketing activity for mutual benefit. 

Look out for offers.  There are some great opportunities to benefit from reduced costs at the moment.  Advertising, which is so often written off as an expensive option, is now more affordable than ever.  

Keep it targeted.  Always consider your target audience and ensure that your marketing campaigns are aimed at them.  But keep an eye on the associated costs.  I still regularly issue business letters in preference to glossy flyers.  A professionally written letter, signed by hand and written 100% with the recipient in mind is such a powerful tool and it’s a lot less expensive than producing a flyer.