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Small Business, Big Opportunity
Winning the Right Customers
Through Smart Marketing and Advertising
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Sensis offers small business a big opportunity
Sensis is helping Australia’s small business owners to harness the
power of marketing and advertising through a new book, Small
Business, Big Opportunity and a new website,
www.smallbusiness.sensis.com.au.
Sensis is offering the 234-page guide and educational website free
of charge with the aim of helping grow and strengthen the small
business sector in Australia.
Co-written with small business guru, Rob Hartnett, the guide covers
basic principles of how to recognise what makes a business special
and how to identify potential customers. It also provides simple
advice on advertising in different mediums including how to make the
most of print directory advertising and the rapidly growing areas of
online directories and search engine marketing.
The website
www.smallbusiness.sensis.com.au provides business owners
with important news and events, a range of marketing tools and
templates and handy tips from other small business owners who share
their experiences.
Editor of the guide, Karina White said: “Through Sensis’
relationship with more than 600,000 small and medium business
owners, they often tell us how hard it is to find helpful and
relevant information to help grow their business.
To order a FREE copy of Small Business, Big Opportunity visit
www.smallbusiness.sensis.com.au or call 1800 886
680.
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Excerpts from the Guide
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Developing and promoting your brand
Here are some ideas that may be helpful in developing your own
brand:
• Simplicity – identify the vision and goals for your brand name.
These need to be easy to remember, popular, easy to pronounceand
likely to stick in a persons mind.
• Validity – public perception of your business is very important.
Consider how the public relate to your business: what things
represent your business to the public?
• Distinction – your business identity should make you stand out.
You should be proud of it.
• Protection – before you make the final decision on your name, seek
expert legal help to determine if you can use or register the brand
name. This is essential.
• Likeability – seek feedback from your key customers. See what they
relate to. Make sure you ask why, as this will tell you about the
image your brand is purveying.
• Extension – does it have legs? Can you see it being used in a
number of visual executions and being able to stretch across a
number of products without a complete re-design? For example, if
your name has the word ‘budget’ in it, will this stop you offering a
premium-priced product down the track?
Here are some ideas that may be helpful in promoting your brand:
• Train your employees to be champions of your brand. Explain the
relevance of your image and brand to the success of your business.
Explain how their roles impact the business’ image and brand, both
positively and negatively
• Make word of mouth easy. Provide incentives for your staff and
customers to tell friends and relatives about your business
• Communicate your values to your customers. You could do this by
displaying your mission statement, customer service standards and
policies, using slogans, signage and store design
• Lead by example. How you act toward your customers and the
public, both on a day-to-day basis and during extraordinary
circumstances, helps to cement your business image and brand into
the customer’s mind
• Business history. Where did your business start? If you are a
local, family-owned business competing with the large multinational
giants, make sure people know that.
Developing your Unique Buying Reason (UBR)
Do these sound familiar?
‘Fresh, hot pizza delivered to your door within 30 minutes, or it is
free.’
‘When it absolutely, positively, has to be there overnight.’
These slogans clearly spell out the companies’ UBRs – why a
potential customer should do business with them instead of their
competitors. It is a concise statement of their unique offer to
their customer.
According to Marty Neumeier’s The Brand Gap, the easiest way to
develop your UBR is to look at your business from a customer
perspective and ensure you have answers to the following questions.
In fact, you should have these answers before you contemplate any
advertising or promotion activity:
Who are you? – Most organisations are able to answer this one
quickly and easily.
What do you do? – This question begs some more questions and, if you
have a committee looking at this question, get ready for some varied
responses and a few surprises. One of the most important points to
consider is what industry category you are in. Consider your
competitors not only in terms of your immediate industry, but the
broader industry too.
Why does it matter? – This question is confronting but fair, and
possibly the most important question to ask. The answer to this
question is the one your customers care most about.
If you are answering this question with regard to a specific product
or service, try applying the three Ds of product marketing:
1. Can you differentiate your product from your competitors?
2. Can you defend your product in the market place?
3. Can you distinguish your product in a crowded market place? This
is vital in retail.
Don’t overcomplicate it, but don’t oversimplify it either. When you
solve your particular UBR puzzle, you will be in a better position
to challenge your competition. Develop it, test it and re-work it
until it says what you want it to.
If you are unique, then by definition, you have no competitor! You
tell your customer who you are, what you have and how you benefit
them. Identify your potential customer’s primary frustration,
problem or need, and provide a unique solution. Your UBR might be
based on location, 24-hour availability, better ingredients, better
processes, better staff and faster delivery.
Remember – the more memorable and emotionally compelling your case
is to your potential customers, the more mileage you are likely to
get out of it.
Marketing to Gen Y and X
Generation Y
Generation Y, born between 1976 and 1994, is known as the youth
generation. When selling to Generation Y, you should be authentic,
be honest and don’t try to be cool to appeal to them. They actually
understand they have to pay extra for solid reliable service.
Remember this is the group that most likely had their mobile phones
disconnected by One.Tel and lost their flights with the collapse of
Ansett. Generation Y most importantly communicates via multiple
methods, and most of them not face-to-face. They are generally
comfortable with SMS text, email, instant messaging, blogs and
podcasts, and they like to feel they can interact with your brand.
The danger with some of these classifications, and especially
generation Y, is there is an amazing difference between early and
late generation; i.e. a 15 year old and a 25 year old. So your
target marketing needs to be much more tightly defined or broken
into sub-groups.
Generation X
Generation X is almost the forgotten generation. This generation,
born between 1965 and 1975, is an entrepreneurial group that has had
to deal with some major shifts in the world and economy over the
years. No more ‘jobs for life’ and only one or two career changes,
for starters. Keep in mind their baby boomer parents stressed the
values of loyalty, trust in big brands and family values.
Generation X-ers have lived and worked though the dot-com boom and
many have embraced the entrepreneurial lifestyle and started
businesses on their own. Many have their own family, tend to be
business/marketing savvy and are usually busy. When selling to
Generation X-ers, it is important to get straight to the point. They
are busy and won’t hang around to see through the hype.
Generation X-ers are part of the computer age and, like Generation
Y, are usually very comfortable communicating via email and SMS.
They especially like to use online tools. Before you approach
Generation X-ers with your marketing, you are best to ask which
method they prefer to use and then communicate that way.
Word-of-mouth marketing programs
Word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing programs have generated some real
momentum in recent times. In the United States, they have even
established the WOMMA, Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association. WOM is
all about recognising that one of the best forms of advertising you
can have is a recommendation from a friend or a trusted source. So
WOM marketing is all about educating that person or trusted source
about your product or service so they refer it to others. This
method requires a strong understanding of your ideal customer, who
they listen to, and who they consider their mentors. Coca-Cola
recently employed WOM with the launch of Coke Zero. The company
provided Coke Zero to key ‘influencers’ in its target market a few
weeks before it started its mainstream advertising. You can do this
in your business. For example, a sport equipments manufacturer might
provide some free products to the leading sports clubs in their
area. They can give them for free or for a trial period, and they
can ask for feedback in return. This is not the same as sponsorship
which we will discuss later.
WOM also covers areas such as people talking about your product in
emails, blogs and at social gatherings. A key point is that you, and
whomever you select to trial the product or service, should be up
front about your relationship. This only enhances your name as it
shows honesty and integrity. A downside of WOM is that if your
product is not up to scratch, you may receive negative feedback,
which tends to spread faster than good news.
· Melbourne based, Ben xxx is an excellent case study for this
piece. He runs underground clothes warehouse sales and has a massive
database built via SMS and WOM marketing. He gets 3000 people to his
sales, without a piece of advertising. He’s 24 and his business is
growing. We can set this up for feature in the new year if you like.
Why people buy
Let’s discuss the decision-making process.
People generally use their emotional right brain and their rational
left brain when making decisions, but vary in which they use first
or more often. As a rule, people also like to avoid pain. Various
worldwide research suggests that, more often than not, people buy
emotionally and explain rationally. This applies to wants versus
needs. Take a customer customer whose hot water service has expired.
In that case: wants = hot shower, and needs = hot water service.
In his book Welcome to the Creative Age, Mark Earls talks about his
involvement in some research for a leading women’s brand which was
trying to re-ignite its brand. Initial feedback from focus groups
indicated the number one reason women said they bought shoes was
because the others had worn out. That was the rational reason.
Further questioning revealed the emotional reasons: because I had
nothing to wear; because it was a special occasion; he had seen all
my other shoes; I had just bought this great new skirt and none of
my shoes went with it. You get the picture. People are overwhelmed
today with statistics, figures and rules: don’t do that, don’t eat
that, have more of this, try a little of that. We have learned to
filter our information according to our needs and wants.
Some of the reasons why people may not buy from you:
• No trust – you have not established trust with the buyer
• No need – they see no need for your product at this time
• No help – they cannot see how you can help them
• No hurry – they may like the solution you have but don’t need it
now
• No money – they don’t have the money. This reason is last, as the
availability of finance and the level of credit card debt in this
country suggests that when the want is strong enough, most people
are able to find the money.
So the important message is: when you are marketing, don’t try to
squeeze into the rational side first. Emotional engagement is what
people are usually seeking. Have a personality they can respond to.
Sell the emotional connection first and then provide rational
reasons for the purchase.
Guarantees
Why use a guarantee? Because humans are naturally programmed to do
two things: avoid pain and gain pleasure.
Every time a customer is in your business, they are surrounded by
products and services that could bring them pleasure. The reason
they don’t buy everything in sight is because there is some
perceived pain in the buying process. Often this perceived pain is
more than just the money. They are happy if the money is worth the
benefit. In order for someone to make a decision to buy, the
perceived pleasure must be greater than the perceived pain.
A great way to change the perception of your products and services
is by offering a strong guarantee that reduces or addresses the risk
perceived by the customer (i.e. a large part of the perceived pain).
Here are just some of the things that customers could be thinking
about at a subconscious level:
• If this product does not work, I will have wasted my hard earned
money
• If this person does not deliver what they promised, I am going to
look like a fool
• If I get sold a bad product, I will feel cheated and gullible
• If this does not turn out the way I planned, I’ll have wasted my
time and risked my ego.
These are all very real risks in the minds of customers. The
customer needs to know, at the moment of purchase, that risks have
been weighed and addressed.
There are four steps to designing a guarantee.
1. Make it very specific
2. Make it better than money back
3. Make it unique
4. Make it relevant.
When designing a guarantee, you should not design one that puts the
company at risk legally. You should consult your lawyer to check
what your legal obligations are with respect to your proposed
guarantee. Put yourself in your clients’ shoes. Consider first what
you do when you have a faulty product or service. What are your
obligations according to law? What is the minimum action you would
take, without a second thought, to rectify the situation? Obviously,
you will also need to be comfortable that you are able to satisfy
and meet the relevant guarantee that you are making.
Then consider what you do as a matter of course in your everyday
business that your customer does not realise, or simply takes for
granted.
The most common fear business owners have of offering a strong
guarantee is basically ‘being ripped-off’ by the general public.
Provided you are comfortable you are able to meet the guarantee you
are making, this should not cause you concern.
To order a FREE copy of Small Business, Big Opportunity call 1800
886 680 or visit
www.smallbusiness.sensis.com.au |
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