Marketing for SMEs – A Check List
| Date Added: Fri November 14 2008 |
The hottest topic on the Internet right now is how to survive and thrive during a recession. Here are ten strategies to help you:
1. Keep working on the business, not just in the business. Some companies in your sector will slow down or cease their marketing activity, but do not pull marketing expenditure as a knee-jerk reaction. Think Lewis Hamilton - those businesses that accelerate their marketing activity as others brake will prevail over the distance and emerge stronger as a result.
2. Differentiate yourself from the competition. Give your customer the "Reason Why" they should do business with you versus your competitors.
Create a distinctive attribute that you alone can own. Apply your key messages consistently and creatively across your chosen media.
3. Measure your marketing. Set objectives and implement systems that measure and track the results of ALL of your marketing, advertising and publicity efforts. Add weighted measures such as relevance and importance as well as the numbers to understand more about the dynamics of your business.
4. Communicate more regularly. Issue regular email updates on products, services and successes and drive traffic to generate enquiry. Be smart with segmentation by market, job title and interest. Make sure that you gain the commitment of everyone in the organisation to continue to feed you these gold nuggets of information.
5. Create alliances with complementary businesses. Joint marketing partnerships can enable you to increase your distribution, reduce your costs and gain trusted valuable referrals.
6. Increase your average transaction value. Ask yourself the question "How can I increase that amount by 10 percent by bundling services or adding extra value?”
7. Position yourself as the "Authoritative Voice". Become the recognised expert and authority in your field and create informative features and articles for newspapers, trade press and radio.
8. Test new channels. Take the opportunity to assess whether there are more effective marketing options. Pilot online marketing strategies such as search engine optimisation and pay per click for more measurable results.
9. Structure a planned customer referral programme. Make it easy for your clients to refer prospects to you. Think of ways of delighting your customers, to create raving fans that stay longer and refer more.
10. Create clear brand guidelines. Be consistent in terms of the look and feel of your brand. Inconsistency leads to the dilution of awareness and message retention. If you don't think you can commit to this look deeper, maybe it's time to refresh your corporate identity or image before you drive forward with your planned regular communications. If you're proud of your brand, you will want to see it out there all the time.
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