5 marketing ideas you may not have thought of

This post was last edited by Alex Cohen, on the April 29, 2010 @ 11:01 am

1. PURLs A personalised URL is a website which can be personalised for each visitor. It would look something like this: http://john.doe.wow-your-customers.co.uk. Using a URL like this in direct mail campaigns gives a greater incentive for someone to visit a website and also allows you to report on who’s been to the website.
2. Retargeting Have you noticed recently you’ve been to a website and you start seeing banner adverts popping up around the web from that website, maybe even with the exact items you were looking at. This is retargeting, a technology that tracks visitors who have been to your website and puts banner adverts up around the web.
3. Podcasting Podcasts are a way to get your information across to customers. Blogs, websites, papers and guides are all very useful but people have too much to read. People listen to podcasts at the gym and in cars, you can get your personality across and most of your competitors won’t be doing it.
4. Billboards Do you think billboards are just for the big companies? Think again, a well placed billboard at your local train station doesn’t cost as much as you may think. Sharing the billboard with other local companies is also a smart way to save costs.
5. Video If you like talking and have the personality for video, do it. Talk, tell you views, get them across in quick, digestible snap bites. Videos could offer how-tos, interviews or your thoughts on an interesting subject. Look at Gary Vaynerchuk for a great example of personal branding or Will It Blend from Blendtec.

Commission only marketing – is it possible?

This post was last edited by Alex Cohen, on the April 22, 2010 @ 7:48 am

Something lots of marketing and sales companies are asked regularly is would you do what you do on a commission only basis? The argument being that if they say they can deliver certain results it should put its money where its mouth is.

This is an approach many companies try however soon shy away from. Here are some of the reasons why:

• Only lead generation can directly contribute to being paid on commission. This may be generating meetings for a professional service company or sales for an e-commerce company. Building websites, brands and a presence on social media sites will all contribute to sales but are very hard to measure
• Taking aside time marketing has fixed costs – AdWords, advertising, direct mail fulfilment, email marketing tools etc. Who would pay for those?
• An agency would want to make more money on a commission only deal than a normal deal. Why? Because the risk and reward is being shared. When buying ‘time’ you are taking a risk in that investment may not pay off. However you will also be convinced you can get a decent return; two, three, ten times what you paid. However if the agency is taking all the risk they would want possibly double what it would have cost normally if it can deliver your desired results. Why? Because if it doesn’t work it will get nothing!
• There is only so much control in marketing. If your product is highly commoditised or if commission is based on sales and your sales people can’t convert everyone loses out.

These reasons are fairly factual. However the real reasons are more philosophical:

If you set your business up to succeed and grow you will appreciate the importance of sales and marketing and value it. You would have allocated a budget which would help you increase your sales. Therefore you wouldn’t need to work on a commission only basis.

Businesses that haven’t thought about marketing and see it as an afterthought are the ones that want commission only marketing. The fact they haven’t planned their business like others or aren’t making enough sales because their product isn’t good enough or aren’t in the right places are the ones that want commission only marketing. These businesses would be harder to market in general. If you had the cure for cancer the business would be making enough money from sales that you could afford marketing.

There is then the company. Taking hard facts, if you wanted a sales person do you think the best sales person who could earn a good salary and commission elsewhere would work on a commission only basis? Probably not. Therefore if a marketing agency would work with you on a commission only basis are they really the best marketing agency? Furthermore who do you think would get most attention – the ‘full paying customer’ or the commission only ones?

In summary we appreciate starting up a business on a budget can be costly and a commission only deal can look attractive to a business. However it is not as simple as ‘we’ve got this great product, it just needs some marketing, can you get us leads or sell it for us?’. What we are saying is that planned, marketing, where everyone is working to agreed targets would work best for most businesses. And marketing can be affordable for all businesses. Our Marketing Diagnostic for example is just £75.

Marketing is easy for SMEs

This post was last edited by Alex Cohen, on the April 14, 2010 @ 9:02 am

Is your marketing a struggle? Do you just not know where to start? We believe SMEs have it easy…here’s why.

It’s up to you what goes on your website. You have an online brochure for customers to find you.

You couldn’t do this 20 years ago. 20 years ago you had to pay to send out brochures and letters. Now you can create a website and an unlimited number of customers can find you, not costing you money for each additional customer. You control what goes on your website, how big it is and how customers will interact with you.

If you’re on Google people will find you

If you’re number one on Google for your key search terms people will find you. You don’t need to spend days cold calling; people will come to you. If you can’t rank highly on Google, use Google AdWords and only pay a small amount of money for people to view your website.

You can interact with your customers and find new ones through Twitter

It can be impossible to get through to a director of a large company, it can be impossible to interact with all 500 of your customers. Through Twitter you can interact with those previously un-reachable prospects or communicate to all your customers in one go.

There are more networking events than you have time for

For people who like networking there are hundreds of networking events in the UK. Join some, go along, meet other business people and grow your businesses together.

Email marketing is a cost effective way to target

Before email there was direct mail. Costly, and you only knew if someone had read your direct mail and liked it if they responded. With email marketing there are no costs of paper, ink, postage etc and you also know who has opened and interacted with your email. It’s instant and lands in front of people. A well crafted, targeted email can have quick results.

Knowledge is what is important and there are tools to spread it

You’re an expert on your business, or at least you should be. In the last 10 years tools have been developed to spread this knowledge cheaply and efficiently to a mass market. Blogs, podcasts, YouTube and email newsletters have all helped make this possible. Use this knowledge to position your business as an expert.

There are more marketing companies and freelancers to support you

With shifting work patterns more people have gone freelance or set up their own companies. You have a choice of support, whether you want a one stop shop like Xander Marketing or a freelancer with a specific skill, it is easy to find people to support you with your marketing.

Why bother with a Marketing Strategy?

This post was last edited by Alex Cohen, on the April 9, 2010 @ 9:47 am

When it comes to marketing many businesses want to rush straight in; they have lots of ideas, 20 different marketing channels and they want to pursue it all… now!

By spending some time writing a Marketing Strategy up front you can:

• Provide a rationale for what marketing channels your business should pursue based on which will provide the best ROI in the short and long term
• Think through your competition and how your business is positioned
• Gain an understanding of your target market, segmenting it where appropriate
• Develop an annual month-by-month plan allowing you to spend the rest of the year executing the marketing, rather than deciding quite what to do next
• Bring people involved in marketing together
• Use the findings to propose a marketing budget
• Determine the marketing that will get you quicker results vs marketing that will take longer but in time will deliver a greater ROI (for example Google AdWords vs SEO)
• Plan your campaigns so they are relevant to the time of year and not rushed with last minute ideas

What should you put in your strategy?

This is individual to each business so we have created a free Marketing Strategy template to help you. To download the Marketing Strategy template click here.

If you want a Marketing Strategy but don’t have the time, resource or know how to write it yourself we may be able to help. Call us on 0118 321 7620 or email us.

Xander Marketing decides to stop charging its customers

This post was last edited by Alex Cohen, on the April 1, 2010 @ 7:11 am

Xander Marketing has today announced that it will offer all its marketing services for free. Businesses who engage with Xander Marketing will never have to pay a penny again for marketing.

Managing Director Alex Cohen said on this decision “people are always coming to us with their grand plans for marketing, how they want world domination and have £50 to achieve that. They want the world and don’t want to pay for it…today we are giving them the world”.

Xander Marketing is waiving all fees saving customers thousands and thousands of pounds.

When asked how the business would make money Cohen said “if a customer doesn’t have the budget for marketing why shouldn’t they have marketing? We’ve made the decision as a team to move out of our houses, sell our cars and one day live on the street…if it makes our customer happy though that’s what matters”.

This monumental move may cause a stir in the marketing industry. How will other companies compete? Will one day marketing agencies become charities? “We hope the move will spur our customers to do the same thing…if they offer a professional service like accounting and expect a commission only deal or to build them a website for 10p hopefully it will spur them on to offer their services for free. Who knows where this might lead – maybe a return to communism?” Cohen remarked.

So if you’re a business and don’t want to spend any money on marketing but want the best website, hundreds of leads a day, a presence in social media and press coverage throughout the country get in touch today: fool@XanderMarketing.com