Why no Preparation and Planning?

14.03.10It never ceases to amaze us how little regard SMEs seem to pay to preparation and planning, when considering their marketing.

Our market research found that 100% of the businesses we spoke to in Hampshire felt their marketing could be more effective and weren’t happy with its performance.

When we asked why they thought it wasn’t performing as well as it should, nearly 80% said they felt it was because they didn’t have enough time and money to invest in it.

You might feel your marketing is not delivering the results you need for the same reason.

We have another theory.

One of the most interesting trends to come out from our research was how little (if any) time and money, is invested by small businesses, into proper marketing planning, before they start investing their time and money in specific marketing activities.

With businesses now beginning to see those precious ‘green shoots’ of recovery, after a difficult few years, it is vital that every penny is used effectively and that should be no different when marketing your business.

What better way to make those important marketing decisions, than by basing them on facts and figures, instead of assumptions and guesses.

Big businesses and corporates spend millions of £s each year on the marketing planning process. The question one must ask, is why? The obvious conclusion, because it works.

The next question that springs to mind is this; if big businesses and corporations value the results delivered from their investment in marketing planning, why do small businesses think they won’t?

As yet, we haven’t got an answer for this. But what we can confidently say is:

Small businesses that invest time and money on the marketing planning process – SWOT analysis, competitor analysis, customer surveys, market research etc. – will get a direct return on their investment through more effective marketing activities and massive savings on ineffective marketing campaigns.

As the old adage goes, ‘Fail to plan and plan to fail’. The same applies to marketing.

 

/0 Comments/by

How Does Your Marketing Measure Up?

22.03.2010 Part 4: The TLC Business Marketing Formula

Here we are, it’s part four of the TLC Business Marketing Formula.

It’s results time.This is what it all boils down to. Has your preparation, inspiration and perspiration paid off? Has it delivered a return on investment (ROI)? Surely you want to know where all the time and money has gone and what it has achieved?

Well, it’s amazing how many businesses don’t ever find this out. Sadly, very little marketing is actually measured, with the success of far too many campaigns simply rated according to gut feeling and assumption.

This is where businesses seem to get stuck in a cycle of marketing that doesn’t work or achieves very little. It’s usually because they’ve never spent any time evaluating why, and taking steps to avoid making the same mistakes again.

Like preparation, evaluation is critical but all too often neglected. Many small businesses seem to overlook it because they deem it too costly and time consuming, or see it as something that only applies to the ‘big boys’ with their multi million pound marketing budgets. Wrong! Measuring results should be doubly important to small businesses because success, and often survival, depends on their marketing delivering a return.

It’s all about being rigorous, organised and putting systems in place to do the job. It needn’t cost a great deal of time or money. Google Analytics is free. Putting a code on a piece of direct mail is straightforward. Asking your customers for that code shouldn’t be common practice. Tracking who’s opening your emails is all down to using the right software and taking full advantage of the tools available to you.

There you have it – results! We love them and you should too, because nothing beats seeing your hard work, time and money pay off.

Rebecca Pash, Marketing Manager, TLC Business

 

/0 Comments/by

TLC Business Team Up with the Fresh Ideas Network

We’re really excited to announce plans to work with Fresh Ideas Network as part of their mentoring and support programme. This fantastic initiative supports community food projects in their quest to make healthy/local food more easily available, accessible and affordable to local communities, particularly in areas of disadvantage.
The mentoring programme aims to provide participating food projects with tailor-made support so as to help increase their sustainability and ability to generate income. Many projects have identified a need for marketing support so as to help them raise awareness of their offering, and this is where we come in! We’ve been linked up with the Healthy Living Centre in Aylesbury and will be provide marketing support to specifically help promote their Community Café and catering service. We can’t wait to help out and support this superb project and we’ll keep you updated with our progress.

For more details on the Fresh Ideas Network visit their website
http://www.freshideas.org.uk/home/index.htm

/0 Comments/by

Bucket Loads of Perspiration

02.03.10 Part 3: The TLC Business Marketing Formula
We’ve reached part three in a five-part blog all about our TLC Business Marketing Formula.

This is where it all happens. It’s time to get busy and put all the preparation and plans into action. We like to call this ‘doing’ part the ‘perspiration’ phase because, believe us, it takes a great deal of hard work, commitment and perseverance.

If you’ve done sufficient preparation and planning, which we swear by, (see part one and two) then you have a head start. You can be confident that the carefully considered campaign you’re about to embark on is saying the right thing to the right people.  Now it’s about committing to your plan and ticking all of the boxes; ensuring you’re doing the best possible with the resources available to you.

Needless to say, it’s often easier said than done. It’s a common mistake that in ‘doing’ marketing, businesses get bogged down with the detail, carried away or sidetracked. This is where the commitment and perseverance come in.

Make a concerted effort to stick to the plan and keep your objectives in mind. Try to work with clarity and consistency throughout the lifetime of a campaign and ensure that everyone involved has a clear understanding of what you’re trying to achieve. It requires attention to the tiniest details; checking and testing to ensure that everything’s working and looking as it should. Errors, inaccuracies and poor quality will only deflect from the campaign’s objectives and undermine a business’ credibility.

Last but not least, part of delivering a campaign is ensuring that systems are in place to measure its results. A campaign’s success cannot be rated according to gut feelings or assumptions. Without the correct tools in place to measure results, the campaign will never meet your business objectives and give you something to feel smug about. We love results, and we’ll teach you to too…next time.

Rebecca Pash, Marketing Manager, TLC Business

/0 Comments/by

Time to Get Creative

23.02.10 Part 2: The TLC Business Marketing Formula
This is the second in a five-part blog where we’re pulling apart the TLC Business Marketing Formula.

This is where it gets interesting. We’re talking about inspiration. Flair and imagination –yes, but it’s got to be careful, clear, precise and concise. It’s surprisingly difficult to get it right. And if you haven’t done your preparation (see part one) then you’re likely to be lost before you start.

It’s about taking the research, analysis, knowledge and understanding you’ve gathered and making decisions about the best way forward.

To start it’s about defining your unique position within the market, what will make you stand out. We’re talking USPs and MSPPs. Textbook stuff maybe but it’s surprising how many confused and mixed messages there are out there. Your MSPPs and USPs are things that need to be clearly defined, and understood by you and your organisation before you can start trying to communicate them.

It’s funny how widely misunderstood marketing is. For many, marketing means advertising; a costly marketing tool that is hard to get right and thus rarely delivers the desired results. Techonology continues to shape the marketing landscape and there are many new and exciting ways to reach out to and communicate with your target market that are relatively straightforward and inexpensive.

Be imaginative. This is the time to get creative; to come up with that quirky direct mail or e-marketing campaign that captures people’s attention and pushes all the right buttons. Be careful not to get carried away though. You might come up with what seems an exciting idea for an innovative marketing campaign, but if it isn’t tailored to your target market and doesn’t address their requirements then it’s simply not going to work.

Commit your ideas to paper and work them into a clear and logical plan of action that sets out exactly how and when everything is going to happen. Be realistic about time and money, and what’s possible with both.

Once you and your colleagues are happy that everything is in place it’s time to get on with the ‘doing’. But that’s for next time…

Rebecca Pash, Marketing Manager, TLC Business

/0 Comments/by

The Importance of Being Prepared

16.02.10 Part 1: The TLC Business Marketing Formula

OK, so this is going to be a five-part blog where we walk through the five phases of the TLC Business Marketing Formula.

Today we start with ‘preparation’ – perhaps the most important, and most overlooked, phase of all. We know for a fact there are a lot of you out there who could really do with investing some time in a bit of preparation.

There’s always a lot of  time spent ‘doing’ marketing – a lot of hard work – or ‘perspiration’ as we like to call it. Now there’s nothing wrong with that except all too often this perspiration fails to achieve the desired results.

It’s at this point we say STOP! Please don’t spend any more time or money undertaking marketing activities that are destined to fail. It’s time to take a step back and do some thorough preparation. It’s not about looking at the ‘how’ and putting a plan in place. This goes further back. It’s considering the ‘what and ‘why’ which will define everything that goes after.

It’s all about doing research, identifying your target markets and listening to your customers, whilst reviewing your current position. We’re talking competitor analysis, market research, customer surveys, SWOTs and PESTLEs; systematic and thorough research and analysis that provides solid facts on which to base marketing decisions.

It always surprises us how many businesses gloss over this phase and undertake a variety of marketing activities (that usually don’t work) based on assumptions or ideas; it’s a ‘if one thing fails, try another’ sort of approach and it usually results in a lot of time and money being wasted unnecessarily.

At TLC Business we place a great deal of emphasis on the sort of preparation we’ve mentioned and we will continue to stress its importance until we’re blue in the face. Investing time and resources at the outset, will  save you both in the long run and will go a long way to achieving the marketing results you want.

You’ve heard it here, prepare or beware. The first rule of the TLC Business Marketing Formula.

Rebecca Pash, Marketing Manager, TLC Business

/0 Comments/by

The TLC Business Marketing Formula

We’ve spent a lot of our time recently asking a lot of questions. We’ve blogged and tweeted and spent time in marketing forums. We’ve grilled all the people we’re in touch with and listened closely to their answers.
Our aim – to really gauge businesses’ marketing needs and identify areas where people feel more could be done. It’s been a very interesting exercise and provided us with some fantastic insights.

Almost everyone told us they spend a great deal of time and effort on the ‘doing’, and this clearly makes sense as you don’t get results without hard work. But what about when you work hard and don’t get the results?

Interestingly enough, a lot of people admitted this was the case, whilst also mentioning they probably don’t spend enough time preparing or planning. Now, this is an area we have always put a lot of emphasis on, and we will continue to do so, because without thorough preparation and careful planning the rest simply doesn’t add up.

And thus we have it, The TLC Business marketing formula.

 

 

Marketing-Formula-v

 

 

 

We wanted to break down the marketing process into distinct and logical phases of action so that we are able to meet our client’s expectations and our own in the most effective way.

The sum is, we listen closely, plan thoroughly, think imaginatively, work harder, measure obsessively and deliver more for less. It all adds up to help you achieve the most from your marketing.

If you would like to hear how our marketing formula can deliver marketing results for your business please contact Rebecca on 01962 600 150 or email rebecca@tlc-business.co.uk.

/0 Comments/by

Stationery to Smile About

We’re very excited here at the TLC Business office. Our new business cards, letterheads and comp. slips have just turned up!
Now, new stationery is always exciting, but our new stationery is extra pleasing which is why couldn’t help shouting about it!

Not only does it look lovely but it’s got some serious green credentials which we put top of the priority list when deciding on paper stock, ink and finish. Everything’s been printed on TCF (Totally Chlorine Free) recycled card/paper which is both 100% forest sustainable and 100% recycled. All of the inks are eco inks so use vegetable oil instead of mineral oil, plus we’ve avoided any lamination so no nasty plastics involved.

Smug, us?

If you too want stationery to feel good about then email rebecca@tlc-business.co.uk

/0 Comments/by

Five Minutes and Fifty Business Cards

Five Minutes and Fifty Business Cards

01.02.10 The Golden Rule of Networking

Today we’re off to a speed networking event, and we’re going smugly prepared, determined not to fall into that trap. You know how it is. You come away having met some great people, made some really useful contacts and then several months later you find a pile of business cards gathering dust at the back of your desk.

It’s a fact. A massive 95% of attendees will fail to follow up after a networking event. It’s easily done as we struggle with seemingly more pressing commitments, but no more excuses. None of us are in the business of wasting time so let’s start 2010 as we mean to go on. I’m not in the habit of teaching grandmother to suck eggs, but there’s no harm in a quick reminder here and there, especially when we’re talking golden rules.

1. SET OBJECTIVES: We know what we want to achieve. We’ve had a good think about the connections we want to make; the connections that will help us move our business forward in the next few months.

2. DON’T SELL: We’re not going to win new clients because nobody goes to a networking event to be sold to. If we happen to generate new clients, then that’s an added bonus but it’s not our prime objective.

3. BUILD ALLIANCES: This is what effective networking is all about. We’ve identified who we might be able to build win-win relationships with. They’re people with whom we can share experiences and ideas and build a referral and support network.

4. FOLLOW UP: Needless to say, networking events are a waste of time if you don’t do this. We’ve already set aside some time in our diaries for following up later this week. It doesn’t need to take long. Be selective and only follow up with the people who fit with your original objective for being there.

5. STAY CONNECTED: It takes time to reap the benefits of networking. It’s all about building long term relationships, so make ongoing efforts to stay connected. Set a monthly reminder.

So there we are, the golden rules of networking. I’ll let you know how we get on!

Rebecca Pash, Marketing Manager, TLC Business

/0 Comments/by

New Year, New You: FREE Marketing MOT

Does your marketing need a kick-start? Not sure where to begin? Need to re-focus your efforts in 2010 or put a plan in place?
TLC’s Marketing MOT is the perfect starting point. This one-hour session with one of our Marketing Managers allows a systematic examination of all of your marketing activities. We’ll put your marketing under the spotlight and get to the heart of your business by asking lots of questions that will help re-examine what you are doing.

The subsequent MOT report provides an invaluable overview of your marketing in the context of your wider business objectives. It is designed to offer fresh perspectives, ideas and inspiration that will form the basis of your future marketing activities.

In the spirit of the New Year, we’ve allocated a limited number of FREE MOT sessions in our diary. To nab one of them for your business, get in touch with Rebecca Pash, at rebecca@tlc-business.co.uk

/0 Comments/by