Last week, something occurred to me, which I would like to share with you.

I suddenly realised that right now, in 2010, many software companies STILL use that little image of a floppy disk, as the icon for the “save” feature on a software program!

It’s years since computers came with floppy disk drives as standard and many more years, since they were the primary way to save information.  As a result, there is a whole generation of young adults in the workplace, to whom that floppy icon will be pretty irrelevant.

Marketing and relevance

In marketing, we know that our message needs to be relevant to our marketplace, if we want it to resonate with them and motivate them to; buy from us, call us, visit us, click our links or email us etc.  This means that we need to avoid making assumptions and base our marketing around the challenges and opportunities, which are currently facing our prospective clients.

However, it’s NOT just about your marketing message…

You see, no matter how good your marketing is, its effectiveness (and your sales results) will always be capped or limited by the value of your services or products.  This means your marketing AND your products and services need to me relevant to today’s marketplace.

The bottom line: Great marketing by itself is NOT the secret to sales success.  For any company to enjoy sustainable sales success, it needs to be marketing something that is just what the marketplace needs.

If you offer a range of services or products and they have remained fairly similar for a while, it might be time to review them and see if they are still 100% relevant to your clients and prospective clients.  Speak with people in your target market and find out what their challenges and opportunities are today and moving forward.  Your commercial success will always be linked to how well you adapt to, and service, their requirements.

Photo: Pcardoso

Related posts:

1. How to discover what your prospective customers want
2. Blowing the lid off your potential!
3. Focus, focus, focus!

This post is all about how you can increase your sales and enquiries, by using a targeted approach to your marketing.

A great product or service, with an excellent marketing message, will still fail to generate sales – unless that message is reaching a targeted group of prospective customers.  That’s why it’s so important for you to target the marketing of your services, to the right people.

Targeted marketing

If Bob gets a well-written marketing message in front of 10,000 people, who have no need for his services and no ability to pay or obtain credit – he’s unlikely to make a single sale.  However, if Bob gets that same great message in front of just 10 people; each with a real need for his services and the ability to pay – he’s likely to make a number of sales!

Blogging and targeted marketing

Fortunately, one of the best ways to get an extremely valuable, targeted audience for your business, is either free or very inexpensive.  I’m talking about blogging!

Whilst it takes time to set up a blog and add regular, interesting content – the financial cost of blogging is extremely low. Great news for any small businesses who are struggling financially right now, yet still have time available for marketing.

So, how do blogs attract targeted prospects?

There are two main reasons why blogs attract such targeted prospective customers / clients.

Firstly, there’s SEO
A nicely designed blog, with good SEO, (search engine optimisation) and interesting content relating to your profession, will attract people who are interested in your area of expertise.  Although the numbers will be low to begin with, you can develop a great audience or marketplace for your services over time.

Secondly, blogs are read by bloggers
I read stacks of blogs each day and it seems I am not alone!  I’ve been running a Reader Poll on jimsmarketingblog.com for the past 2 weeks; asking my readers if they own a blog.  Interestingly, around 90% of the 300 or so people who voted, said “YES!”

So, someone reads something of interest on your blog, which they then mention on their blog.  Suddenly, their readership is alerted to your work and you get a stack of new, targeted readers!  Many of these new readers will be bloggers too – helping you reach more and more people.

This kind of targeted readership is ‘marketing gold dust’ for you and your business.  These people are reading your blog because they already have an interest in, or need for, your subject.  So, if they see you as someone with the answers they need in your area of expertise, who better for them to call / email when they want to hire someone?

Targeted readers come from focused content

In my experience, the blogs that attract the most targeted readers, are the blogs that offer the most focused content.  Some blogs suffer from diversifying too much.  As a result, they attract a fractured readership.

Conversely, by blogging about subjects directly relevant to your services / products, you get to attract not only a readership, but a community!  Jimsmarketingblog.com is an example of a community blog. That’s because the blog’s readers, commentor’s and myself all share a common interest in sales, marketing and business development.

How well do you target your marketing?

If you want to improve your sales figures, a great place to start is by looking at how well you target your prospective customers / clients.  If you are a commercial blogger, (blog as part of your business), and you want to attract a more targeted readership, ensure your posts are ‘on topic.’

If you are not already blogging, this might be a great time for you to start! Just make sure you are committed to investing the time required.

No related posts.

Isn’t it strange how people think about money? There are people who happily spend £3 a day on a coffee at Starbucks, but who wouldn’t dream of investing that same £60/£70 a month on SEO for their website / blog or even a private health plan or gym membership!

For those of us involved in sales and marketing, there’s a valuable lesson here!  It’s all down to the way people perceive money.

If you sell a service, which has an annual cost of, let’s say £500 – you are asking people to make a £500 purchasing decision.

However, if you tell people they can have that same service for the equivalent of just £42 a month, you are helping them to focus on a far smaller, more manageable figure.

By further chunking that figure down to a weekly investment of just £9.62 or a daily figure of just £1.30, you change their focus completely. Especially if you use something like the Starbucks example I gave earlier, in your marketing.

In today’s economic climate, your prospective clients are thinking REALLY hard before spending their money. This is why it’s important for you to put the cost of investing in your service, into terms that show it’s relative value.

For example, an SEO provider might say:

“For half the price of your daily cappuccino, your business could be getting stacks of targeted leads & enquiries through your website!”

The bottom line?

To a business owner, worrying where her next sales lead will come from, it’s clear that the cost of the SEO service above is infinitely more valuable to her; than the coffee she is currently paying twice as much for!

Find something that your prospective clients / customers already buy, which compares favourably with the cost of your product or service. Then, use it like in the above example – to showcase what GREAT value you offer!

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No related posts.

Here’s a quick tip, which can help you MASSIVELY increase the effectiveness of your marketing!

It’s all about focus

Whenever you write any form of marketing material, it’s extremely important that your message is focussed 100% on your core prospective client base.

Many small businesses use a scatter-gun approach to their marketing messages and as a result, they write copy, which is vaguely relevant to everyone who reads it but directly relevant to no one!

By diluting your marketing message, you always reduce it’s effectiveness.

For example, let’s imagine that Bob provides a ‘Virtual Assistant’ service.  He is particularly keen to work with  web designers, software developers and SEO experts.  Bob will get a far, far better response from his marketing if he writes a tailored marketing letter/email for each individual group – rather than a vague, generic one, which is aimed at trying to be relevant to all three industry types.

Bottom line

Vague marketing messages will not motivate people to respond to you!  However, a marketing message that clearly shows how your service will solve the readers problem, is extremely attractive and will inspire far more people to respond to you!

There are 10 GREAT marketing tips for you here!

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