It is All About Value
Do you know what your product/service is worth? Are you charging the right amount? Most small business owners, me included, struggle with this question. Why? Because we often confuse the cost of producing the product with the value it brings to the customer.
Establishing a price for your goods or services has nothing to do with the production cost and everything to do with the value. A great example of this in action is software.
A few years ago I bought a copy of the Adobe Creative Suite. I opened an attractive box which contained a CD and a small manual. There was less than $10 worth of material in the box, and yet I happily have paid $1,000 for the software. Why? I paid a premium, well above production cost, because the software fulfilled a need.
A few months ago I upgraded the software, through an online download. I didn’t even get the CD or manual, but I was extremely satisfied with the benefits I purchased.
Calculate Your Value
The same is true for your product or service. Your value is based on how much you help clients save, increase, reduce or improve. If you can quantify these benefits, then you have a foundation for establishing an appropriate price for your goods or services
- Use these questions to build your value:
- How much can my product save my customer? Savings may be in time, money or effort.
- How much can my product earn for my customer? Can you help them increase their income; directly or indirectly? Does it create a foundation for future opportunities or establish valuable personal relationships?
- What intangible benefits might customers realize, and is it possible to quantify these benefits? Will your product improve their abilities, confidence, appearance or peace of mind?
Focus on the Benefits
Remember, your customers buy benefits and solutions to their problems. If you can associate a dollar value with specific benefits, you have a powerful message to include in your marketing material and a solid foundation to charge a premium price for your product!
Productive Direct Mail
We seem to be doing quite a few direct mail campaigns for client right now. While not for every business, direct mail campaigns, can be a very powerful marekting tool for many small business. However, a poorly planned campaign, can be disapointing and expensive. How do you make your campaign more effective?
While design is an important component, and our designer Taylor has created some really fun designs lately, a productive campaign needs more then just good design.
A productive campaign should include:
- A well researched, narrowly targeted list.
- A realistic timing schedule. Don’t send 10,000 cards, then nothing for six weeks. Space them out so you have time to respond to the inquries.
- Follow up with both additional mailings as well as telephone calls.
- Test your messages and offers. Instead of one huge mailing, send out smaller, test groups. Vary layout, message and call to action, till you find the one which makes the phone ring most often.
- Be sure to include a strong call to action, or incentive for your prospect to call you now – Consider time senstive offers, special pricing or free stuff.
You Can’t Judge A Book By Its Cover… But You Can Judge Mail By Its Subject Line
Written by Christine Maley
Early this week I wrote a post on email marketing so I thought it would be interesting to follow up with a look at how to get people to actually read the mail you send them.
We all receive so much mail and email, that we rarely read the majority of what we receive. Many items are automatically trashed because their heading or format fails to capture the interest of the receiver. So how do we get people to actually read what we have to say?
Half of the battle is simply getting the consumer to open your piece of mail. There was a post in Marigold’s Technologies Direct Marketing Blog that I think is very relevant to this:
“Far too often I have seen email creative efforts focus 99% of their time on the body of the email, that is, the copy, layout and graphic design and only 1% on the subject line. This is a huge mistake. Sometimes the subject line is a mere afterthought. In our experience conducting B2B email marketing campaigns, sometimes we receive the creative with beautiful images, HTML design, good copywriting and no subject line at all. We then ask for the subject line only to have one thrown back at us with minimal consideration. It is my opinion that 50% of the creative effort should go into development of the subject line itself and I will tell you why.
It does not matter how good the content of the email is if it does not get opened.”
To read more of this article and for some tips on good subject lines, click here
The difference between direct marketing mail and directly-to-trash-marketing- for me- is making them short, sweet, and any of these three things:
- Personalized
- Interesting
- Relevant
Your business is all of these things to the customer. The heading of your mail needs to demonstrate that.
Round Up Your Prospect/Client Data
When I put out a request for guest bloggers, I was delighted by the responses, from friends and associates across a wide range of industries. Today’s post is by my good friend Barb Jones of Stellar Training. Here is her post on organizing those contacts you have worked so hard to find!
Round Up Your Prospect/Client Data
Okay small business owner, be honest. Are prospect business cards stashed all over your office? And handwritten notes about prospects or clients? Are your people getting frustrated because it takes so long to figure out who talked to a prospect or client last and about what?
You need a home for all of this information. One that is accessible to everyone 24/7. You could assemble a set of business card files and some sturdy boxes but it’s probably time to look at digital options. The search tools alone are worth the cost. There is a wide range of software options available from Contact Managers to Client Relationship Managers.
First, a note to those of you who have put all of your contacts in an Excel file. Excel is a kind of database but it is not intended to be a contact manager and has none of the labor-saving tools almost every CM or CRM has. I know you are working around that fact but you are working entirely too hard.
Shop carefully and weigh what you really need. Contact Management software tends to include the contact database and a few other tools like calendars and email. Client Relationship Management software tends to include the contact database and several other tools like email, calendars, multimedia publication, web form generation, sales force management, automated marketing and others. Prices vary widely. Expect that a low price means you spend your own time doing the integration built into a more expensive product.
Every choice is a trade-off, but your reward is the time reclaimed and the security of knowing you haven’t lost track of precious prospect or client information. Peace of mind and free time. Wonder what you could do with that?
4/3/09 by Barbara Jones, Stellar Training Products and Certified Infusionsoft Coach
CRM for Small Business Success
About a month ago, I put out a call to other bloggers who offer tips for small business owners to share what they do here on Business Notes from Roundpeg. I was delighted when Linda Daichendt offered to submit several posts.
Linda Daichendt, is Founder, CEO and Managing Consultant at Strategic Growth Concepts, a consulting and training firm specializing in Start-ups, Small and Mid-sized businesses. Linda is a recognized small business expert with over twenty years’ experience in assisting small businesses in the areas of Marketing, Operations, Strategic Planning and HR. Linda can be contacted by email at linda@strategicgrowthconcepts.com. The company website can be viewed at www.strategicgrowthconcepts.com.
As we have become more and more technology-oriented in recent years, one of the trends I’ve noticed is that small business owners seem to assume that any task needing to be done to run their business requires a software package to facilitate it. Customer Relationship Management is no different. The multitude of CRM software packages available today, such as ACT, Outlook Contact Manager, Salesforce.com, SugarCRM, FreeCRM, SalesBoom.com and many others have encouraged this trend. Unfortunately, what frequently occurs is that the programs are so complicated, or so work-intensive, that the already over-worked small business owners eventually stop using them; and then assume that they can’t proceed with a CRM program since they don’t have time to manage it with the software program.
I would like to propose that small business owners go back to the basics as listed below:
- A database of your customers, in Excel, that can be sorted and updated and includes a comments section.
- Follow-up steps, including “Thanks for your time/business” letters or e-mails.
- An inexpensive e-mail vendor such as ConstantContact, SwiftPages, Ennect or any other similar online service that can cost as little as $15 per month to manage up to 500 contacts.
- A solid communication schedule, with a customer feedback loop that captures and logs in the customer contact history.
- Buy-in from every employee in your company to execute the strategy.
The list of basic tasks above comes from an article that recently ran in Forbes.com that discussed CRM from a similar standpoint (the complete article can be found on our website), the premise being that CRM programs don’t need to be complicated to implement to be effective. Nor do they need to be costly or time-consuming. Make a plan, have a basic database to track your efforts, some simple tools, and you’re on your way to increasing business from the most cost-effective and profitable customers you can have – the ones who already know you and have done business with you. Try it and see if it doesn’t have positive impact on your business!
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Marketing Organization Chart – A Closer Look at Strategy
In December, I introduced a graphic of a Marketing Organization Chart I found on a blog post by John Jansch of DuctTape Marketing .
This post has been extremely popular, and I thought it would be valuable to take a closer look at some of the elements of the diagram
So in a series of post, I am going to explore in a little more detail each of the four elements: Strategy, Lead Generation, Lead Conversion and Customer Service.
There are three main elements of Strategy:
- Ideal Customer
- Core Message
- Marketing Material
Ideal customer. This is the element most small business owners wrestle with the most. They are always afraid if they define the target too narrowly, they will be leaving people out.
The trick is to focus on your IDEAL customer. This is not your ONLY customer. But the more tightly you define your ideal, the easier it is to build the other elements of the strategy. If you are too broad your marketing messages are too vague.
Core Message. Once you identify your ideal customer it is easier to decide what to say. What does your core customer want most? What will they value, what problem can you help them solve. The more closely you can articulate their pain, the more likely it is they will listen to what you have to say.
Marketing Material. This is more than a brochure or web site. At the strategy phase it involves thinking about the most effective way to get the attention of your idea client. Is it print or electronic communication? Will you need to reach your client face to face.
Spend some time thinking about just these elements. Making tough choices on the front end of a marketing campaign can help small business owners create more effective lead generation programs.
Three Keys to Marketing
As I have become more involved with social media, I have found a number of people who’s posts I enjoy reading. I recently asked some of the people I follow to share a guest blog post with me.
One of the people I follow is Scott Howard. His blog Collective Wisdom is an eclectic mix of information. You never know what you will find when you drop by. he pulled to marketing articles from his archive at my request. The first is found below, and the second post will be shared on April 24th.
- Think like a customer. Too often we know all the ins and outs of our business and we have our areas of expertise, but that does not translate into what the customer wants. A long time ago someone pointed out that folks that buy a drill, really want the end result, a hole. If your drill can make it easier for me to make a hole, great. But don’t try and get me to care about all the technical stuff about the drill.
- Everything is a part of your marketing. Perception is reality. Cigarette butts on the ground near the front door; the gum smacking receptionist; the attitude of the head honcho; these are just as important, (or more) than your paid advertising.
- Dig Deep and Find Your Niche. I was in a meeting filled with business leaders and owners and they were trying to describe their niche. Words like Customer Service, and Prices, were mentioned. Look, everyone is supposed to offer that. If you don’t, then you are on the fast track to failure. Dig Deeper, and discover what makes your Customer Service different than your competitors. Discovering this is not easy. Do it anyway.
If you improve these 3 things, you will become 10 times better at marketing
Internet Marketing Trends :#11 Innovation
Tom Now, Writing for StartUp Nation wrote an interesting post about the 20 hottest Internet Marketing Trends for 2009.
Every few weeks I have gone back and looked as his original post, and selected one of the trends to write about. It has been interesting to look at how companies are incorporating these trends into their marketing efforts.
Today’s Trend: Innovation: In the original article Now said:
With the recession will come a greater intensity of competition for the fewer available purchasing dollars. With this will bring a surge of creativity and innovation in the online marketing world.
Do not let your competition out-innovate you.
This was more of advice rather than a trend. And has it played out? Clearly the Skittles Twitter Promotion was an example of innovation. The jury is still out as to whether they will actually sell more product, but lots of folks are talking about them.
What about you? Aret you ready to try something new?
Success Begins With Failure
Too often, I meet business owners who are afraid to try something new, because they are afraid it won’t work. They are afraid of failure. But as you can see from this short video, great success comes from failure.
As a small business owner, I often wish I could get it right the first time. But that is not how life works. To win big, you have to take risks, try new things, and often those things don’t work out exactly as planned. But if you pay attention and learn from your failures next time is less risky.
My first year in business was a complete failure, but look at what I would have missed out on, if I had let that first year defeat me!
Do You Hear the Noise?
Too often small business owners get distracted by conflicting input. This conflicting input or Noise can set you running in absoluetly the wrong direction if you let it. In a recent post Seth Godin talks about the “Noise” He says:
I’m not encouraging you to ignore the noisy edges. Far from it. The noise makes it far easier than it has ever been before to hear the thunder in the distance, to get early indications of what the fringes of the market are about to spread to the rest.
I think the trick is to listen to the noise, through filters. What is important to you? Who are your customers? Screen out irrelevant input, even if it comes from well meaning friends and family. Continually watch for trends and new ideas, but if they don’t relate to your core mission, give yourself permission to ignore the noise. Seth concludes by saying:
What I’m encouraging you to do is to constantly readjust your balance. Figure out the difference between early warnings and selfish noise. Figure out what’s loud merely because it’s angry and personal, and what’s loud because it’s important. And most of all, get straight on who you are trying to please, and why.
I use Twitter and Google Reader to monitor the “noise” and watch for new trends. I add the occaisaional survey to my enewsletter or blog post to see what my clients and prospects are thinking. What about you? How do you stay one step ahead?
