How can you increase your revenue?
IT is easy, forget waste...
Every Euro or Dollar that you payed for marketing, pr, press release, advertise, etc.. which never generated the necessary revenue is a waste. Time, money and energy. What did you do really? You missed the chance to win new partners and sell products...
What we know: The aim of the marketing is to sell. Sell solutions/products and increase your revenue. That's it.
Two typical mistakes that sales people do:
1., Don't know the target group
2., Start immediately with an offer
If you want to be efficient, you can define your target.
If you create a good marketing campaign that you like, your secretary likes and your family likes, who cares?... They ARE NOT your target group. You have to focus on your target group, because they will buy your solutions/products and they will give you the money. If you want gratulations from your friends and family, collecting votes, go to be a politician. Politics is all about votes.
The amateurs are trying to sell products to everybody, but the professionals select the target. Later I will tell you how.
If you know your target exactly, then you can communicate to her/him directly, personalized.
If you think that you sell bread and everybody needs bread, YOU ARE WRONG! A lot of people has bread cooking machine at home. They are not your target.
A small example: In Toronto there is a tatoo saloon. In the window you can see the following text: "What are you looking? If you want a tatoo come in, other case go to hell..."
Yes, this is aggressive, maybe... I imagine that the old couples walk around and they see this slogan in the window: It 's awful... For them yes, but they are the real target for a Tatoo?? No, I do not think so. The saloon found the target, they created the perfect style and they are full with teenagers, who want tatoo. It was an excellent marketing strategy.
If you know your target, do you thing the price is important? No!!! Never!
My question: Remember, when you bought your last car, did you buy the cheapest one? Did you say to the dealer that you need the cheapest one, no matter what the colors and options no are? I do not think so... Why? Because everybody is different and everybody has own feelings, subjective decisions. Just like you!
Please never fall in love of your products or your advertisements, your main aim is the result that they give you.
I know 63 types of marketing. The people who finish the university they know around 3... But one thing is common in everybody: we always forget why we are creating marketing campaigns...
Never forget:
marketing = helps to sell
sales = brings revenue and money
You should memorize now the right steps:
1., Solution/Product
2., Define the target group
3., Creating marketing campaign
4., Knowing the reaction of your target, know what they really want
5., Offer
6., Sell
7., After sales
If you miss one of these steps you will lose 70% potential money. Believe me.
I have a friend who has an event management company in Europe. They are creating luxury events for the high end people. His problem is, how can you reach your ideal target?
They made the biggest mistake ever! They gave the whole marketing to a big marketing and communication company for fix monthly payment.
RULE: Never trust a company who is working for fixed money. If they work for fix they are not motivated and 99% they just want your money.
So this marketing company created a lot of media campaign for 75.000 Euros. The result was 2 types of flyers, 10 advertisements and only 1 buyer. The whole job lasted for 3 months. 3 months for only one buyer who just payed 15.000 Euro. The event management company just wasted the time. They missed the chance to win new partners and sell products because of the wrong strategy they chose. In this case they spent around 75.000 Euro easily without any result.
Before you start a marketing campaign first define your target.
The real marketing is to catch the attention of your well defined target group. If you just put advertisements into some magazines it is the same as hunting blind. If you stay in the border of the forest, you close your eyes and just shoot into the trees maybe you will hit an animal. But the chance you hit is very small...
Never forget:
marketing = helps to sell
sales = brings revenue and money
So this guy payed for big media advertisements, merchandize materials, and for some press articles. When we talked he said he is disappointed in the people because nobody wants to buy. He said everybody is afraid of economy crash.
I said to him this is bullshit. So we started to work a little together. I said to him work with me for two days and we will find 10 ways how can you communicate to your target group without paying for marketing...
So what can we do in this situation with minimal budget?
Advertising? NO! I said minimal budget!!! You can pay for any advertisement but you will not communicate to you target group.
Let's find the target group, the real target group.
The background of the company: luxury travels, European car tours, race track days, etc...
We defined the target group and we started to work. I share you two ideas from the ten what we created:
They focused on everyone who read Playboy, Financial Times, Vogue, etc... They used the blind hunting in the forest strategy...
We picked each programs separately and defined the best target group for them.
ADVICE 01:
So first we picked the exclusive travel program.
The target group was the wealthy people.
The main aim: find potential partners, create a big marketing e-mail list for the future promotions
Facts: everybody likes traveling but nobody wants to spend a lot of money for an exclusive travel.
From 2003-2008 I worked with IBM and we used a "You pass, we pay" program. The main point was that if you start a course and after you pass in the exam you get back your money. So this was our starting point.
So we created the "You travel and we pay" program.
What we needed first were the personal contacts. We do not want to waste our time for cold calls. If somebody calls you from the street to sell you something usually you do not listen to her/him. But if somebody calls you, that your friend gave her/him your contact then you will listen to the offer. Why? Because your friend offered and you trust in your friend.
So the campaign was the following. Register to our travel and propose us people. If somebody registers from the people you have proposed we pay back to you 15% from your travel price.
The result was amazing. The people wanted to came for free so within 2 weeks we had an over 5.000 names marketing list with the requested target group.
Yes we gave 15% discount after every new person but the margin was bigger because of the lot more registered people. Remember: The people want to get things for cheap or free...
ADVICE 02:
After we chose the European car tours program.
They focused until now on rich and wealthy young guys. Yes they were right, but...
I started to focus on another target group the new car owners.
What we did was we started to create connections directly with a lot of luxury car stores in Europe. We contacted them first via e-mail, just checked the reactions.
This was not a cost and after if they were open, they could call them with Skype for example.
The only investment was 4-5 hours research and 2-3 hours Skype phone calls. That's it.
The possible revenue was around 70% higher than any kind of advertisement! Why? What's the offer?
Everybody who buys a new luxury car wants to try it and show everybody that he has a Ferrari/Lamborghini/Porsche/etc...
After we agreed with the dealer, they gave a bonus or gift for the customers.
Gift: Because the customer bought the car, he got a possibility to a luxury car travel in a better price. He payed the standard price and the passengers were free. He won, and they also won!
The only thing what was important that they motivated the dealer as well, because the dealer brought them the opportunity.
The dealer won a possibility to be an official sponsor or got a free travel, etc... The travelers were potential luxury car buyers and when they know the dealer's name maybe the dealer will have a good business later. This is a long term investment for the dealer which brings media attention, marketing, public press and potentially new clients. BUT!!! The most important it does not cost any money for the dealer! WIN-WIN situation! Marketing without money investment in the whole Europe.
CONCLUSION:
These two advices do not cost money only time. Around one day each.
I had a lot of other practical examples and ideas but I can not share my best ones here in Facebook.
The most of the marketing and PR agencies want money for advertising and media (TV, press, online) campaigns. These campaigns are very beautiful and powerful, but never reach the maximum potential. But the marketing company never cares because they created and they got the money... It is usually bad only for the client.
The only way when the marketing is good if it gives more...
The worst that you can do if you push yourself and then usually the answer is: "OK, I am thinking, maybe I will buy it... But there are a lot of other products..."
Result: 15-30% of buyers, maximum
The hardest thing if you communicate that you need money. This never works. The best way if you can show to your possible customer that you want to help him, you want the best for him. Never give an offer first!!!
If you do something and you believe in your product you can not be cheap. Remember the people DO NOT WANT CHEAP things. The cheapest wins is a bullshit, it is just a legend, it is just for amateur marketing companies. Remember your car buying... You bought the cheapest? NO! In this generations sometimes the cheap things are sticky... If you are more than half cheaper than the others that case you can communicate well: WHY??
If you just communicate: Because we are better. Who cares? A small example.
You are going to the sport store because you want a new ball. There are pink balls for 5 Euro and blue balls for 7 Euro. The pink is cheaper but you hate pink. The sales guy tell you that these balls are the same quality maybe the pink is better, all made in China, but blue is a unique color, but everybody buys pink. You will be everybody or you will pay a little bit more for the color that you want?
If the product is good and your marketing communicates absolutely to the target group, your customers are ready to pay more, believe me. This is very important, sales is not price fight, NEVER!
What I really wanted to show you that sometimes you pay more than necessary for marketing, maybe without results.
What you should memorize in this time the right steps:
1., Solution/Product
2., Define the target group
3., Creating marketing campaign
4., Knowing the reaction of your target, know what they really want
5., Offer
6., Sell
7., After sales
The marketing is full with opportunities.
The Creating Business Value book is available in International distribution.
Amazon.com: http://amzn.com/1447870670
Official website: http://www.creatingbusinessvalue.com
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