Marketing Advice Grab Bag

The new year is in full roar already and many business are thinking about their marketing plans for the year.  If you have questions on your marketing plan please email then in and we will try to cover them in a future column.  This month I will cover a selection of smaller points and ideas that may have not been completely covered in previous articles – each one could be a bigger article, so let me know what peaks your interest and we’ll cover it in more depth another time.  Here are 6 ideas to tease you into something new:

Using gift vouchers to get stale clients back and spending money

I recently got an email from an online business that have purchased from on a regular basis. I had not bought anything from them for several months so out of the blue they sent me a gift voucher to spend with them. The amount was only $10, time to use it was limited, and they had a minimum spend limit. Yet despite the conditions I’m still going to use it.  You can also bet I’ll end up spending much more than what they ‘lost’ in profit by giving me the voucher, so they make a decent profit from giving me the voucher. So why not have look at the clients you’ve not seen in a while and try the same method with them, you’ll could be surprised.  We call this general strategy “customer reactivation.”

Market to your prospects BEFORE they are ready to buy

We’re keen on Direct Response Marketing here, but your customers and prospects are not always ready to buy just because you are ready to sell.  It is important to think through the buying process that a prospect goes through and see if you can inject yourself into this process BEFORE they are ready to make a buying decision.  Real Estate agents do this (well – the good ones that we work with do) through Just Listed flyers (peaking your interest about what is available on the market), Just Sold flyers (“Ooh – the Smiths just sold their house – I wonder how much they got – we’ve been thinking about moving so maybe now is the time”) and Free Appraisals (people selling a house are usually “just curious” before they are ready to list).  Using a free report offer or something similar to get your prospect to put their hand up and get on your mailing list now is an important part of building a sales funnel.

Make sure that your customers know EVERYTHING that you can do for them

One of the reasons why we run a variety of articles and specials in our newsletter is so that you can see the full variety of work that we do.  Sometimes we hear that a customer buys business cards from us, but letterhead from another printer because they didn’t know that we did that.  It’s important to communicate regularly and often with your clients so that they know they can come  to you for a wide range of needs.  You can use email  newsletters (like this,) printed newsletters, new  customer “welcome” packs and follow-up direct mail.  There are hundreds of ways.  We can help you set up any of these.

Always get a second opinion on your marketing

Designing marketing can be a complex and challenging task. Planning what you promote, figuring out the costs of doing it, working out how to promote it, what it should say, when it would work best – it can be a daunting task. This is why the big companies hire those very expensive advertising agencies.  As a smaller business you don’t have that sort of budget so you have to do it yourself. The risk is that you spend so much time looking at it that you become ‘blind’ to the details of what you are doing and miss out vital details or make mistakes. So get someone in to have a look at it with fresh eyes long before you roll it out. Why not even talk to someone before you start, to test ideas and get feedback to know that it will work. At Copy Express we often do that for our customers, from quick picking of our brains to full marketing consultations.

Put marketing in everything you do

It’s very easy to put a little bit of marketing every part of your business with only a little investment. It goes well beyond branded stationery. Do you put things into bags or ship things in boxes, then why not seal them with sticker carrying your brand and contact details. If you service equipment, then branded service card or sticker attached to the equipment will remind them who to call when time to do it again. Selling a big ticket item, then why not include a voucher to get a discount on the first consumable or servicing. Turn your business card in to quotation form or promotional voucher so that they have a reason to call you again. These are just four examples of what you can do for low cost and effort to promote yourself.  At the end of the day you need to see EVERYTHING you do as a marketing opportunity – think through your ENTIRE business and ask how can you enhance your image and awareness through that aspect.

Work with others to cross promote

This is a powerful tool for marketing that a surprising numbers of people don’t seem to use for their business. The process is simple enough, find business that relates to yours but doesn’t overlap then work an endorsement deal with them. It’s powerful because people often rely on recommendations for services and products, so to be given it by a business they already trust is a great motivator to try them. The classic example would be a hairdressers who cross promotions with a beauty salon and masseuse. All three are in the beauty and well being marketplace but each of them has their own unique area. This cross promotion can be as simple as just having flyers or catalogues of the other business on their counters, it can go as far as promotional package deals.

That’s all for now. These are just some of the simple things you can think about for your marketing over the coming year. If you want to look at using any of these, why not give us a call at Copy Express and I’ll be happy to talk about it more.