Translate your features to customer benefits

Have you ever caught yourself thinking “so what” when somebody is telling you what makes their product or service so amazing?  This isn’t an uncommon reaction because most people are only telling you about the features of their product or service, and forgetting to explain the benefits entirley.

Relying on your prospective customers to extrapolate the benefits to them of using your products or services is risky.  They may not understand your products and services well enough or it may even seem too much like hard work – especially if you have a savvy competitior who has done all the hard work for them.

In marketing we have a phrase called FABfeatures and benefits.

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What makes you ‘Different’ or just ‘different’?

What makes you different? Better yet, what makes you Different? Have you really sat down and thought about what makes your product or service Different? Now, I don’t just mean what you THINK makes you ‘different’, but what REALLY makes you ‘Different’ (note, this is a capital ‘D’ type of different). Continue reading

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11 tips for customer acquisition

Set time aside to implement your customer acquisition strategy

Acquiring new customers is all about opening up new relationships and that is all about how you present yourself and your company.

Here are eleven tips for acquiring new customers: Continue reading

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Branded content (PDFs) for effective communications

We’ve developed a checklist of sorts to walk you through the process of content generation – this should help you avoid making it a real chore. We recommend that you consider using PDF documents as they are a good platform for your branding and your message.

PDFs are universally accepted and displayed and are not dependent on the type of machine or operating system used by the recipient. Access and content can be controlled through a variety of security features and this helps to ensure that the ‘look and feel’ – as well as the content – of your document will be preserved. Continue reading

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3 magic words that boost ad response

Key to success is avoiding hype

For the small business owner, advertising is a critical expense that helps to drive customers through the doors or to a website on the Internet in the hopes that they will spend their money. With tight ad budgets, small businesses need their advertising to payoff every time. Ads that result in no sales are simply wasted money.

There are countless online articles that tell you to use the words “free”, “guaranteed”, and “limited time offer” in your advertising to boost sales. They work, however the ongoing overuse of these words has reduced their effectiveness somewhat. When you’re writing your next ad, keep the following advice in mind when if you plan to use these key advertising terms.

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No two services are exactly the same

No two services are exactly the same

They can’t be, they are delivered at different times by different people, circumstances alone dictate that they must differ.

When you ask a director/partner of a service company, “What makes your service different?” you often get an unclear response.

“Honestly, nothing.  We’re all pretty much the same.”

Well, that’s wrong.

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If you can’t change it, then use it to your advantage

We hear people say all the time, ‘we’re going to position our business as the market leader.’ We say to them, ‘good luck trying.’ You might think that’s a bit dismissive or unfair on our part. It’s not as simple as a business deciding it’s just going to change its positioning. There’s more to it.

You see, your market position is something that your customers and prospects decide for you. You can try to influence them, but they ultimately decide where your business sits within the market hierarchy, not you. Once they have weighed up your offering and decided how your business compares with your competition, your position is fixed. Continue reading

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What is strategy?

We are often asked to define what we mean as strategy.  It provides a sense of unity, direction and purpose for an organisation and the marketing strategy should seamlessly plug into the business strategy, embracing the objectives of the organisation.

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Be patient – not everyone is ready to buy right now!

When you decide that you are embarking upon a business development/sales drive, remember that not all of your prospects are ready to buy on your timetable… in fact, very few will be!

The “build and they will come” mentality rarely works – you have to tell people why they should buy from you and give them a reason to think of you at the time they are ready to purchase.

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Webinars – the basics

Webinars have been around for at least ten years now and have advanced from the “dubious” dial-up connection, where people were unsure how much it would cost them to attend once call changes etc had been applied, to today’s very savvy online events where you simply click to show you have joined – you would usually have registered in advance.

You can attend a webinar from the comfort of your own office

In essence they are an online version of a traditional seminar.  They can be used for training, promotion, corporate announcements, press conferences, focus groups, presentations and much more.

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