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Understanding Marketing and Getting Customers Wednesday 9 November 2011 Clare Griffiths
Agenda • • • • • • •
Intended Learning Outcomes Introductions – Who are we all? Beepurple – What’s it all about? What Is Marketing? What Are You Offering? Who Are Your Customers? How Can You Get More Customers?
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Agenda • Who Are Your Competitors? • What Makes You Unique? • What Can You Do To Stand Out From The Crowd? • Marketing On A Small Budget • Developing Your Own Marketing Mix • Your Marketing Plan • Closing Words and Reminders
Intended Learning Outcomes Knowledge An understanding of marketing An understanding of how to analyse your customers and competitors An understanding of how to retain and acquire customers An understanding of how to draw up a marketing plan Skills Thinking creatively Thinking analytically Listening to others Communicating with others Networking
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Beepurple Services • Enterprise skills workshops • Entrepreneurship master classes in collaboration with MD Hub • One-to-one business support sessions • Business start-up summer school • Annual ideas competition (The Enterprise Awards) • Charity Challenges • Open Mic sessions • Guest lectures on entrepreneurship • Beepurple Champion volunteering scheme
Attend any ten sessions for your certificate (and book)!
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Some of our student and graduate ventures
What is Marketing?
Customers Promotion and PR
Sales
Advertising
Research
Pricing
Marketing
Brand
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Defining Marketing
Selling and advertising is NOT EQUAL to marketing “Marketing deals with identifying and meeting human and social needs. One of the shortest definitions of marketing is “meeting needs profitably”. Kotler (2006) “The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that the product or service fits and sells itself”. Drucker (1973)
Selling and Marketing Concepts
The Selling Concept Factory Existing products Selling and promoting Profits through sales volume
The Marketing Concept Market Customer needs Marketing Profits through customer satisfaction Kotler (2006)
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What Are You Offering?
What Are You Offering? Features = The characteristics of your product or service Benefits = The ways in which your product or service solves a problem Remember, people buy benefits not features!
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What Are You Offering? Features
Benefits
Who Are Your Customers?
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Who Are Your Customers? What Are Their Needs?
Your Products and/or Services
Your Customers and their Needs
Who Are Your Customers? •
What is the total number of customers in your market? How will this number change over time?
•
Are there any particular groups of people who will be interested in your offering? Who are they and why?
•
Considering all of the above, how many potential customers can your business realistically attract? How will this number change over time?
•
What evidence do you have that customers will buy from you?
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Who Are Your Customers? An AIDA Analysis can help you work out how many potential customers you could acquire. (See the example below).
Overall Market Size Aware Interest Decide Achieve
100% 3% 30% 25% 20%
450,000 13,500 4050 1013 203
How Can You Get More Customers?
Markets
An extended ANSOFF Matrix can help you work out how you can acquire new customers (markets) by developing new products and services. New
Market Development
Partial Diversification
Diversification
Expanded
Market Expansion
Limited Diversification Partial Diversification
Existing
Market Penetration
Product Extension
Product Development
Existing
Modified
New
Products and Services
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Who Are Your Competitors?
Who Are Your Competitors?
(Remember you will have direct and indirect competitors!)
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What Makes You Unique?
What Makes You Unique? How do your benefits compare to those of your competitors?
Your Benefits
Competitor 1’s Benefits
Competitor 2’s Benefits
Competitor 3’s Benefits
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What Can You Do To Stand Out From the Crowd?
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Marketing On A Small Budget
Marketing On A Small Budget Ideas for Offline Activities • • • • • • •
Offer free (or reduced price) taster sessions or a trial period. Use your professional network and contacts, and ask them for potential contacts. Network at local business events and training sessions. Host competitions for your potential customers (e.g. business card draw, e-mail sign up draw). Enter competitions and award schemes. Write a press release, which is personable, or tells a story. Look at things from a different angle. Piggy back others (their events, their news) etc. (e.g. The Icecreamists; James Bond film – Daniel Craig lolly).
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Marketing On A Small Budget Ideas for Online Activities • • • • • • • •
Develop a Twitter profile and build a Twitter following. Write a blog (e.g. Wordpress). Write an e-zine (or offline newsletter) and send it to your existing customers. Send seasonal greetings cards to existing customers e.g. for Halloween, Christmas, and Easter, as well as for business anniversaries. Register with free online business directories, to help your search engine optimisation. Make your own promo films and put them on a Youtube or Vimeo channel. Write an e-book, and offer it to potential customers for free, or for a fee. Submit your ideas to crowdsource funding websites such as http://www.sponsume.com.
How will you get customers to listen to you in a crowded marketplace?
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YouTube Twitter
LinkedIn
Press releases Focus groups Online social media
Google Ads
Networking Market stalls
Online Marketing e.g. Join social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, and create your own online space for discussions etc. e.g. Develop a website with a ‘shopfront’, including all your contact details etc. e.g. Write blogs and frequent enewsletters, including special offers etc. e.g. Network in relevant forums, online discussions, and formal networks such as LinkedIn.
e.g. Write about your recent work, events you have attended, if relevant.
e.g. Make informative and educational videos and short films and upload them onto your own YouTube channel for free.
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Product Place
Physical Environment
Developing Your Marketing Mix
Process
People Promotion
Price
Task: Develop your own marketing mix, using the handout to help you.
Your Marketing Plan
A good marketing plan will consist of ‘the 4 Questions’
• • • •
The Market – Who will you be targeting? The Message – What will you say to them? The Media – How will you say it? Timing – When will you say it?
Task: Write down your key marketing tasks, using the handout provided.
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Your Marketing Plan A formal marketing plan should contain: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
Executive summary Vision – What/Where do you want to be? Market niche analysis – Where are you now? Internal analysis – Where are you now? What are your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats? Marketing strategy – Your justification for using the appropriate marketing mix. Key marketing tasks – What you have to do, by when, by whom, and within a set budget.
Final Tips 1. Know who and where your customers are. (Split them into different customer groups). 2. Know the needs of your customers. What do they want? Are you responding to their needs? (The needs may be different for each group). 3. Work out how you are going to reach your customers. (Identify your key marketing tasks; Revisit and reassess your marketing efforts regularly). 4. Work out how much you can afford for your marketing activities, and stick to this budget. 5. Use a mixture of both on and off-line marketing efforts. 6. Keep an eye on your competition. What makes you unique? 7. Keep an eye on the external environment regularly. What are the opportunities and threats your business is facing? What trends are you responding to? 8. Be creative in your marketing efforts. Even if you have a very low budget, what can you do which helps you stand out from the crowd? 9. Be consistent in all your marketing efforts and messages.
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Next Workshops! The Perfect Figure (Getting Your Numbers in Shape) 5.30pm – 7.30pm, Wednesday 23 November 2011 Room 228 Mithras House, Moulsecoomb Selling & Negotiating 5.30pm – 7.30pm, Wednesday 7 December 2011 The Boardroom (M2), Grand Parade
To book your place on these workshops, please email Brad Crescenzo at
[email protected].
Contact Details Clare Griffiths • • • •
E-mail:
[email protected] Phone: 01273 644727 Mobile: 07944 052799 Website: www.beepurple.co.uk
Like us on Facebook and follow beepurple on Twitter too!
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