Creating Value

Creating value is the number one key if you want to be successful in most businesses. You need to find a way to sell core products or services at a price that is under the competition but still with quality and profit.

Mission Statements

Mission statements are important to communicate the core purpose to your staff and customers, and to form the foundation for marketing strategy. A good mission or vision communicates what you do and what you think about your business and customers, also where you want to be in 10 years.

Customer Focus

Marketing is about providing a product or service that fulfils customer needs the way they want it, e.g. assisting a first time customer with extra service or ensuring a customer understands the service process. If you look after your customers well the business will take care of itself.

Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

Successful marketing and advertising communicates a strong uniqueness about the product or service and the main consumer benefit from the purchase. Creating a USP will differentiate what you are doing from your competitors and reinforce why customers make the purchase.

Competitive Advantage

One of the key elements in a successful business is an advantage over the competition. From offering unique products or services, value for money, quality products and service or atmosphere that the competition can't match. When you find a competitive advantage make sure you promote it as much as possible.

Branding

When you start in business your logo and corporate identity are the foundations for building a brand. It is important to develop a logo that symbolises your product and services and to set corporate colours and style guidelines if you want to make higher-value sales. After your identity has been created, the next step is building a set of values and positive feelings (in some cases love or tribal associations) associated with your brand.

Positioning

Clearly communicating a marketing position is an essential part of being successful. Often companies attach a positioning statement or point of difference to their logo or identity, e.g. we use 2020 Impact – Design and Marketing for our logo and strengthen this position with ʻperfect visual impact for your design and marketing communications' and 'strategic creative design' to promote our competitive advantage. If you push your positioning to prospective customers they will understand who you are and what you are offering more quickly.

Research

Whatever you are doing in business or marketing, research is always important and should come first. There are no excuses today with the availability of information on the Internet and there is always the old fashioned reconnaissance into a competitor's business to review products, prices, and service. It is amazing how many people jump into business or marketing without much research.

Quality Materials

Your marketing materials should always reflect a similar quality to your products or services. Next time you are doing a promotion ask yourself does this material match the quality of our products or services and will it last the required time? Remember customers perceive your quality from the quality of your marketing materials.

B2B Referral Programmes

Business-2-Business referral programmes are a great tool for generating new business leads and usually only cost you contra dollars. If you give something of value for free to the referred customer, e.g. first hour free, they are happy and you will get instant credibility from the referral process. Don't forget to give incentives to the referral agent as their efforts make or break the programme.

VIP Programmes

VIP marketing programmes are a low cost marketing strategy that can deliver ongoing and regular sales growth. Customers love to feel like VIPs and you only need to give away small bonuses to attract customer business. We look for groups of potential customers and develop VIP offers and programmes that appeal to them.

Loyalty Programmes

A loyalty programme can be an appropriate tool if you are looking for repeat business from existing customers. Many business use loyalty business cards with free offers on the 6th or 10th item purchased to keep their customers coming back. If you are not convinced look into your wallet or purse and chances are you will have at least one loyalty card.