Free Marketing Guide

Getting your marketing campaign right so you increase sales is a crucial part of your business. The following is a guide to the numerous methods of marketing currently utilised by businesses today.

Over 30 billion pounds of retail spending is now done online, to find out how your business can take advantage of online marketing visit our Marketing page for more information. We provide online marketing help in the form of
E-commerce Solutions, Pay Per Click management and Search Engine Optimisation to companies in Swansea, Cremate, Cardiff and throughout South Wales.

Marketing Quick links
>	Your product
>	The price
>	People power
>	Funding
>	Branding
>	Promotion
	>	Direct mail
	>	E-mail campaign
	>	Tele marketing
	>	Flyers
	>	Newspaper or magazine advertisements
	>	Radio
	>	Your website
>	Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
>	Pay Per Click advertising (PPC)
>	Customers
>	Advice
>	Links

Your Product

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You need something to sell. You will need to do your homework, research your target market and make sure there’s a need or gap in it that your product can fill. Don’t forget to use your own experiences to brainstorm with colleagues.

The Price

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Too high and they won’t buy! Pricing is a tricky one especially if you have no competitors to use as a guide. Work out how much it actually costs to make your product, don’t sell for lower unless it’s a loss leader. Talk to people and find out what they would be willing to pay for your product, look at your nearest competitor and see how they charge. People like to feel that their getting a good deal.

People power

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Well its people after all who will buy your product and sell it for you. Make sure you come up with a target customer type so you know who to market too. Test your prototype product out on as many colleagues as you can to make sure you’v got it right. Use your network of contacts to push it forward, word of mouth or viral marketing can be a huge marketing tool if you get it right. But be warned get it wrong and your reputation is on the line. Check out the subservient chicken http://www.subservientchicken.com/

Funding

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You might want to check out http://www.j4b.co.uk/ to see if there are any grants or soft loans available to fund the development of your product.

Check out your local council website for funding help and visit your local
business link or business connect for advice.

Make sure you look into the tax breaks for research and development of new products, check out HM Revenue and customs website http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/cirdmanual/CIRD81000.htm

Branding

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Choosing a product identity is tuff, what should you call your product? If you make it too long nobody will remember it and it’s hard to put in print. Make it too short and it’s gone before you say it. Make it funky and it won’t relate to the actual product, but sometimes that doesn't’t matter look at Google and Amazon. Try and relate the name of your product to the actual product that helps people remember it. Use imagery, strong branding utilises imagery. It can sometimes stand alone and be recognisable everywhere without the name of the product. Check out the yellow pages http://www.yell.com the image of the fingers walking is instantly recognisable.

Direct mail

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This usually takes the form of a letter with information regarding your product. If you choose direct mail try and obtain the correct name and position of the person best suited to make a decision regarding the purchase of your product. There are lots of companies out there that can provide you with a list of potential clients if you provide them with a client type. Check out http://marketingfile.com/ for more information.

E-mail campaign

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We all dislike being sent unsolicited spam emails and there are countless email blocking systems used by businesses today which block legitimate emails let alone speculative selling emails. If you must use email marketing, telephone the company before hand to get the exact name and email address of the person most likely to make a decision regarding purchasing. Also try and get their permission to receive your email message. Telephone them again in a couple of days to get some feedback.

Tele marketing

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You’re in the middle of making dinner and your bank rings up trying to sell you a new interest free account. Timing is everything! Tele marketing is hard, if you can obtain a list of potential clients who might be interested remember to have a loosely worded script ready before you call. Have a clear call objective in mind, don’t ramble on, listen to what they are saying and if you’re getting nowhere take the hint and end the conversation respectfully, don’t be rude.

Flyers

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If you’re product’s the type to appeal to almost everyone you could try a maximum exposure sales method such as flyers through the door or on car windscreens (check out the legal requirements with the owner of the property the cars are parked on) but most will end up in the bin. Try finding out if you can include them with an evening paper, people open the paper when they are ready to read it they might read your flyer too.

Newspaper or magazine advertisements

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Careful of these ones they cost lots and if you get the tone of you’re ad wrong you will see no return. This method can be good for letting people know about a sale or promotional campaign. Check out your competition, see what there add says. Remember positioning is very important, three lines at the back of a magazine may be cheap but who reads the back of a magazine. Make sure you double check the copy before it goes to print. A misspelling or wrong telephone number means you literally threw your money down the drain.

Radio

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Radio ads bug everyone but if you have a catchy tune they will find themselves humming it all day. They are usually expensive but considerably cheaper than TV ads and they do reach a wide audience. Check out www.radio-now.co.uk/main.htm for a list of radio stations in the uk.

Your website

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I saved my favourite until last! Get yourself an ecommerce website, the right website can turn your business around and its open 24/7. However get the wrong one and its good bye customers. Here’s some facts about online marketing you may not know:

>	The UK is Europe's biggest market for online retail.
>	The total online spending in the UK is £6.69bn.
>	Internet sales grew by 51 per cent compared to last year to a total of £27.48bn.

Feel like your missing out! Check out our E-commerce solutions and ecommerce guide on our free website resources page for further information.

Promotional offers

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There are so many types of marketing offers you can utilise to sell your products. Buy one get one free (BOGOF), get 3 for the price of 2, buy now pay 6 months later, VAT free deals, 10% off next purchase, buy one item and get a related item at half the price, store credit cards, rebate offers, cash incentives, freebies, prize draw entries and so on... Choose the right one that suits your budget and product image.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

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Search Engine Optimisation is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to your website from search engines. Search engines use crawlers and bots to surf the net and index website. For improved site traffic you'll need to optimise your website so its crawler friendly. Once your site is listed on the main search engines you should receive more traffic. Be very careful of disreputable SEO firms who claim top rankings. If you go with the wrong firm you'll end up blacklisting your website from all search engines. Check out our SEO Solutions and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Guide on our free website resources page for further information.

Pay per click advertising

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You can advertise your products on search engines so that when people search for products yours will appear. Check out our Pay Per Click solutions and Pay Per Click (PPC) Guide on our free website resources page for further information.

Don’t forget to track the results of any marketing campaigns you run, this will let you know which ones work and which ones don’t.

Customers

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Listen to your customers they know what they want. Just ask them, send them questionnaires with a free sample or discount offer. Include a short postcard product questionnaire in the packaging of every product you sell, people love to let us know what we get wrong. With the results prepare a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) of your product.

Advice

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Above all get yourself some professional advise, there are numerous free agencies out there staffed by competent business people who are there to help you.

Check out these websites:

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http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/
http://www.businesseye.org.uk
http://www.startups.co.uk/
http://www.bizhelp24.com/

Well I hope these marketing tips help. It's not a definitive guide but it should point you in the right direction.

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