Top
Tips From the Marketing Experts
This
Week's Top Tip
Crisis PR - Don't Panic !!!
You never know when your organisation
will receive press attention for the wrong reasons, seemingly out of
your control. If your factory burns down, a vehicle causes a major incident,
an employee flips and attacks a bus queue with an axe, a piece for your
equipment injures a celebrity (or worse still, their child), you could
be in big trouble. The sort that can damage your reputation irreperably,
make a massive dent in your company value.
How would you cope? Do the right
things and you could even end up with an enhanced reputation, mess it
up and there's no way back.
The key is to do the right things
very quickly. Don't hide (you can't) or hope it will all blow over (it
probably won't). Better still, have a plan beforehand that can swing
into action the instant you need it - it pays to buy an umbrella before
it starts raining.
Luckily, The Marketing Office
will soon be launching a Crisis PR Guide and Programme, available to
purchase over the web, which you can put into practice in your own organisation
- preferably before you have a rainy day.
Other Top Tips
Can Hate be Good?
If your customers hate you, that's
bad. But it is also good, provided they tell you. Customer feedback
is a great way of pointing out the weaknesses in what you do, giving
you the opportunity to improve.
As the Honda Diesel TV commercial
says -
Hate something, change something,
make something better.
Know Your Press
If you want to get into the press,
whether it is your local media, trade press, nationals or broadcast,
get to know them. Read (or listen), understand what sort of stories
they cover and how they treat them. If there is a journalist who often
comments on your area of business, know who it is.
If you know what they want, you can be there to provide
it. Remember, it is their paper / magazine / TV newsroom, not yours.
Your Favourite Colour?
Companies can take weeks, even
months, agonising over the company or product name, having endless debates
over the subtle messages conveyed by every syllable. Then they give
the brief over to a designer for logo and literature.
Yet they forget how important
visual clues are as well. The chosen colour for a logo or background
can mean a lot. Here's a few colours and possible conveyed meanings;
Red
- passion, power, confidence, danger.
Yellow
- Friendliness, happiness, warmth, optimism.
Green
- Money, growth, security, wellbeing, natural, relaxing.
Blue
- reliable, stable, dependable, trust.
Purple
- fashion, intelligence, prosperity, royalty.
That's just a few - there a re
plenty more. And then there's the shade. Bright or dark? Then again,
in different cultures, colour messages vary. The right colour is just
as important as the right name. Choose carefully.
Believable Marketing
'People may doubt what you say - but they will believe
what you do'
This wise old saying has important implications for
marketing. Firstly, it is important that you deliver what you say you
will - the real life experiences must match the promises. It is the
only way to make sure people will listen to anything you say in the
future.
Secondly, customer experiences, well related, are invaluable.
They are a reflection on what you DO, rather than your own sales patter.
So seek out customer testimonials and use them to back up your claims.
Better still, detailed customer case studies provide others with real
life experiences of the benefits you provide - what you can do for new
customers. Use these as PR stories, in newsletters, in advertising and
on web sites to give real credibility to your claims.
Don't be tempted to fill the page with text and graphics
every time. In advertising, brochures, mailers, even on the web less
can be more. Careful use of blank areas around your key headline or
picture will attract the eye, too much clutter and the brain has nothing
to latch on to, the eye is forced away and the reader never reads your
expensive advertisement.
What's so Funny?
Humour is used heavily in marketing - look at advertising
on the television, radio, in press and magazines, even mailers that
come through your letterbox. You'll find jokes and humour in many of
them. Jokes get our attention, we like them. They make the advertising
more memorable.
But wait. Just because you remember the joke, do you
remember the company? Are you more likely to buy the product? Perhaps
not. Worse still, if you use humour in your marketing are you offending
anyone? Will potential customers who do not share your sense of humour
get the joke at all? Do you run to risk of being the friendly salesman
who everyone likes but nobody takes seriously? Humour has its' place,
but should be used with care. Talk to The Marketing Office - we have
a good sense of humour, but know when to get serious.
What
Makes You So Special?
There
are so many businesses that people can go to, why do they go to yours?
Clearly define what makes your business so attractive, what makes it
stand out from the competition. Just as importantly, use this in your
marketing promotions - unless people know why they should be coming
to you, they'll just as easily go somewhere else.
This
also gives your advertising, PR, web site etc. consistency with your
customers' actual experiences - they wont be disappointed.
You're the Expert
Chances are, you know far more about your type of business,
technology or particular market than the editors and journalists in
the media. Use this to give them helpful informed comment on topical
issues.
For example, if the oil price rises and this will affect
your industry, communicate that with the media - they are all bored
of 'price of petrol at the pumps' type stories anyway. If you know about
domain names, issue a warning about the risk of companies having their
domain names taken, and give some advice on what to look out for and
what to do about it.
Don't Let Your Budget Restrict You
If a promotion is working, you should do it again. For
example, if some advertising costs you £2,000, but you gain £4,000
in extra profit from it, you really should repeat it. If you can't because
you have run out of 'advertising budget', it is the budget that is wrong,
not the campaign.
Allow enough flexibility in your budgeting to cater
for such 'self funding promotions'.
|
