By gareth morgan

Because marketing has no on/off switch it is easy to fall into the trap of always doing the same things each year, but some time spend planning and putting down on paper your knowledge can provide some real surprises and useful knowledge.

These guidelines suggest the main areas you should review to achieve your goals and to increase sales and profits

Customers and Prospects

Anaylse and categorise by:

• Business type. This will help to identify the areas you are strong in and to concentrate on.
• Number of employees, base this on relevant employees, those who will actually use your products.
• Ease of doing business with, for example prompt payers
• Timewasters
• Pricing and discounts
• Sales and profit
• Potential for growth. How much of the potential business are you getting? Who else is getting business for the products or services you provide?

Next develop plans for each category.

Your lapsed customers. How many are there? What is the potential of this group who have purchased from you in the past? How can you reactivate them and make them loyal customers once more? Aim to contact some and ask them why they stopped doing business with you and what would you have to do to win their business back?
Features and benefits. What does the service you offer really mean for the customer?

Think about the key features of each service or product you offer and then what are the benefits the customer receives from each. Draw up a list of all the services you offer and do a feature and benefit analysis for each one. Do this by completing the statement: ” which means that” or identify the problem a customer faces and explain how you solve it.
Competition. Who are your main competitors and how do they market themselves and what do they offer.

Web site. Review your web site and web statistics. Make sure the site is working for you and develop a programme to keep updating the site.
Sales and marketing literature. Now is the time to review your material and decide whether any of it needs reviewing. The purpose of the material is to convince potential customers that you can help them and they should contact you to do business.

Try some new ideas. If you always do what you have always done you will always get what you have always got. Many businesses use only 2 or 3 marketing activities. To really grow their business they should combine several marketing methods at the same time. Which of these do you use or could you use?

• Web site with section and case studies for each niche market
• Industry specific brochures
• Leaflets and flyers
• Articles for trade press
• Referral programme
• Direct mail
• Fax marketing
• E-mail marketing
• Telemarketing
• Networking
• Advertising
• Press releases
• Sponsorship
• Entertaining

I suggest you try one new idea each month and monitor its effectiveness and success

Marketing is vital for survival and growth. There are as many ways as customers.As you learn more about your customer base you will come up with more persoanlsed, powerful and exciting ways to market your business.

Out of sight out of mind. People are busy and quickly forget. Brochures that you sent 6 months ago are forgotten or lost. Develop a programme of regular contact with prospects without becoming a pest. Follow up with newsletters, articles etc.

Time. Allocate time to improve your firm’s sales and marketing activities.
Measuring your success. Tracking the results of your marketing activity is vital to help you plan your efforts in the future. Always record when your new customers come from.