Do Your Cards Do The Business?

I am sure you are aware by now that everything you get printed, everything you say, everything that appears on the internet and everything you do reflects back to your business. No pressure then! There is certainly a lot to think about but lets firstly take a look at something simple. Your business card.

What I would like you to do is for 2 minutes pretend you have never met yourself (bare with me!) Imagine you know nothing about your business or what you do. Now imagine you are given your own business card at a networking event. What do you see?

What does it say about you? Is it clear what you do? Does it create a talking point? Is it in keeping with your brand? Does it have all the correct contact details on it? Does it make the most of the opportunity to be the only piece of communication the people you meet will walk away with after your name and face is a distant memory?

There is not a one-off blueprint that all businesses should follow but below are a few ideas to help you if your business card does not meet the first impression test:

• Could you use it to create a talking point such as asking a question on it?
• Could you use it as a promotion? Eg. “Ring this number for a free….” to encourage follow up.
• Would it help if you put your picture on it to help people remember you?
• Could you have different cards for people to choose from as a discussion point?
• Could it speak in benefits rather than facts about your business? Remember – you, you, you, not me, me, me!
• Could you use the back more effectively?
• Could it be used to tell people of your mission?
• Could you make it bolder, simpler and more eye catching?

Take a fresh look at your first branded impression you are likely to make at networking events and see if yours could be improved.  

A bit of extra care and attention can have a dramatic effect on your marketing. Step by step, you need to make the most of every opportunity you have to communicate with your new and existing customers so get that card out of your pocket and see if it needs a re-fresh!

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Pucker Up! Time to learn about the marketing kiss.

Do you know how many marketing messages you see every day? Actually no, neither do I because everyone is different (you may be a hermit crab) but I guarantee you would be amazed how many messages some studies have calculated the average person sees.

Just think about it. While watching your TV, in the car, in the supermarket, in the post, on the Internet, on the radio, on the phone, by email…the list is endless. Hundreds of messages all competing for your attention all day long.

So how has the human race adapted to cope with this bombardment? Well it’s a bit like Darwin’s law of natural selection. Only the strong marketing message will survive!

Your customer simply does not have the time to read all the fine print, nor the inclination so what do you do about it? Easy. You make sure you sense check your message first with a KISS.

Keep It Simple Stupid. Simply presume the person seeing or hearing your message is as busy as you are and does not have the time for complicated messages & you will not go far wrong.

The moral of this tip is simple. Keep It Simple!

Coo’s mission is to make marketing simple for you. Need help? Just shout.

Claire XXX

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Do you go on holiday with a destination in mind? I don’t know about you but I adore traveling. I have been feeding the addiction for years and been fortunate to experience hundreds of interesting destinations along the way. Chatting to a friend recently, I realized my way of traveling has changed along the years & there is a lesson in here for marketing your business too…(bear with me – I promise not to get the holiday snaps out!)

As a little girl, my parents would decide where I was going on holiday & I would sit there as a passenger enjoying the ride, but not being in control.

When I was 17 I bought a 1975 red Beetle with a tartan gear stick & air conditioning in the form of a rusty hole in the floor… I used to drive wherever I fancied but with no real plan of how I was getting there or even why I was going.

Then at University, after saving up with (random) part time jobs, I visited exotic countries with my belongings strapped to my back. All I knew was that I wanted to “Experience India” or ”Experience Japan” so I got off the plane to see what happened.

I still love to travel but due to running my business, time is now more precious so I always have a firm destination in mind first & a plan for what we will do when we get there.

This is where the tenuous link comes in. How do you approach your marketing efforts? Like a passenger? A wanderer? A thrill seeker? Or like a professional?

A. Do you let other people like competitors drive you somewhere you may not want to go? If so you are a marketing passenger.

B. Do you randomly zoom around from one project to another going no where in particular? If so, you are a marketing wanderer.

C. Do you put all your effort into one big campaign then shelve marketing again for the year? If so, you are a marketing thrill seeker.

D. Or do you focus your attention on a specific objective and then put a plan in place to get there? Congratulations! You are a marketing professional.

The moral of the story is this…

It can be exciting to flit and flirt from one project to the next but sometimes you need to just sit down and get your thoughts in place first to figure out your marketing destination. Leave the wanderlust spirit for your holidays rather than letting your business wander off all over the place.

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Perfectionism Gets You Nowhere…Slowly

I guess I am a bit of an odd ball when it comes to marketing. I love it! I love the testing, the measuring, the creativity and most of all watching the results  that  can  completely turn businesses around. So it sometimes confuses me when people put marketing to the bottom of their to do list!

I’m not sure if you fall into this category but a big reason that some people never seem to get round to doing more marketing is because they get a dose of “perfection-itis”. What if someone doesn’t like the new design? What if I do a promotion and it doesn’t work? What if nobody visits my website? What if I ask for feedback and I don’t like what I hear back….

Let me share something with you that is an antidote to perfection-itis.

Whatever you do, nothing will ever be perfect. You will never create a marketing campaign that 100% of the world will love or respond to. Sorry, but NEVER. The biggest brands in the world have the biggest numbers of critics. In my experience, businesses that never make mistakes – simply are not doing enough business!

So to steal a memorable marketing slogan, sometimes you have to get out there  and JUST  DO IT! The secret to great marketing is listening and learning so as long as you are prepared to change direction every now and then to continuously improve, you will be just fine.

The moral of the story is this…

If you want to be perfect, that’s great but don’t let it stop you getting your message out there. Sometimes good is good enough & much better than not doing anything at all.

I would love to hear what you think. Feel free to post your comments.

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Can you believe it? Christmas is in sight and a new year just around the corner….

So how was it for you?

I really hope 2010 has been a good year for you. With the world in panic and press busy spinning doom and gloom, it has been our duty as business owners and leaders to move and shake in the right direction. So what direction have you been going this year? Did you get to your destination? Got stuck in traffic? I hope you didn’t get snowed in!

And the coo marketing journey? Well there have been a couple of hoola hoop circles along the way but overall an amazing journey of a year. A brilliant chance to learn, win awards, meet inspirational people and grow thanks to my supporters.

Thank-you!

Are you getting your free tips?

Coo has been receiving inspiring comments from business owners who have been motivated to take the marketing bull by the horns and follow the simple advice in our free coo marketing tips. However, a handful of people have not received them recently….Please let me know if they are not arriving in your in box every fortnight so that I can sort it out by hitting reply.

A favour to ask..

Thanks to everyone who has filled in the survey about new coo products and services. If you have not done so already, please could you spare 5 minutes by clicking here?

A simple Christmas message…

Finally, I have been busy thinking up a witty marketed-up Christmas message to sign off but sometimes the simple messages are the best….so here goes…

Happy Christmas!
Claire x

Twittering? @clairenield
Mailing? info@coomarketing.co.uk
Surfing?  www.coomarketing.co.uk

Need marketing help? Well you need to learn how to become a marketing GITT. The last blog was all about the FOWTW principle to marketing – Find Out What They Want.

But the principle does not stop there. You see finding out what your customers want is a critical step towards success but some businesses I have spoken too end up getting a bit stuck at this stage. Have you heard the phrase “paralysis by analysis”? It’s jargon for getting so hung up with so much fact finding and research that you end up doing nothing. This is when you have to become a marketing GITT. A marketing GITT is someone that finds out what their customer wants and then Gives It To Them! Being a Marketing GITT distinguishes businesses that are customer focused from those businesses that are production and product led. You see in my book (and the books of the greatest businesses such as Virgin, Google, Microsoft etc etc…) the customer is much more important than the product!

I could have the newest, shiniest and most fan-dangle-diest (if that is a word??….) product in the world but if nobody wants it….I haven’t got a business! By being a marketing gitt however and giving customers what they want rather than what you want to give them, all of a sudden….wallets are opened, the good will is flowing and your business grows.

The moral of the story is this.

A crucial step to marketing help is to remember to give customers what they want. So have you taken time out of your busy diary recently to ask the killer questions to find out what your customers really want? Have you then figured out a plan for how to give it to them? If not, this is a great time to open up to a new way of doing business that involves many more happy customers, no hard sales &….MORE PROFIT!

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