Are you putting all your Eggs in One basket

Are you putting all your eggs in one basket?

Do you do Digital or Traditional Marketing? A lot of marketing advice these days is to “go digital”. The rise of digital marketing companies is staggering and a lot of them are young companies that only think in one direction and that is how to market for Google. Or how to be found on Google. But is this the only thing that the modern small business needs to do?

Increase your business without the hard work

Digital marketing is a great way to increase business without doing all the old-fashioned hard work. And that is great. You can build a company profile by using Search Engine Optimization techniques and approaches to get your message out there. The only thing is that this takes time. A lot of small business do not have the luxury of time.

When the time comes to purchase

The thing that digital marketing does so well is it gives you the opportunity to be in front of a potential customer when the time comes. What I mean by this is that when someone decides they need your product they will look online and hopefully find you. Or they have seen your digital activity and approach you for your products.

Digital marketing creates the situation so that if you are doing it correctly you will be on the top of the lists i.e. high placing on Google. What it also does is put you up amongst your competitors.

Control is in the hands of the buyer

This is considered passive marketing. It also means that the control is all in the hands of the buyer. What if you wanted to be in front of a potential buyer before the decision time giving you the control? Then you must look at a more traditional type of marketing approach.

How to take control

Here are some marketing ideas that will help you take the control:

Industry events
Industry publication hard media advertising
Sales and Business Development techniques such as cold calling, dropping in on business

There are more, and the majority are offline. It is hard work. But what it will do is put you in front of a potential buyer without your competitors being there. By building a direct relationship, giving you a stronger position to get them to buy your product.

Perhaps a different strategy

To do this you need to look at a different kind of strategy, a more traditional one. I’m not saying ditch the digital marketing but look at other ways to market your business. Don’t fall into the trap of putting all your eggs in the digital basket.

Sales Channel Communications

I have been working with sales channels for quite a while now and I find that there are simple approaches that make it easier to obtain good sales results. The first thing to do is ask what the best channel for your products is. I will in this instance talk about the industrial sector as it is where I have done most of my work. But this does not mean that we are only talking about B2B sales. Many of the industries I have dealt with have a many-tiered approach to the channel. For example a manufacturer, distributor, the retailer then end user.

Knowing this, who do you communicate to? The simple answer is all of them. If you do not let all segments of this channel know and understand your product then it will fail. I will explain why. The key to a successful sales channel is ease of flow. You have to make every stage flow on the next stage with ease. This is done through good communications to every stage.

It is a simple case of the “Chinese whisper” game that we all learned at school. Not so sure on the political correctness of that term these days, but I only remember it being called that. This is a case of every story changes from one person to another. This is human frailty of communication as we will all put our own spin on it so as to find the easiest way to communicate.

The way this works in channel management is:

The manufacturer must train and help promote the product to the distributor to give the best possible chance of promoting your product to the retailer. If he gets any of this message wrong then the message has changed.

The distributor will then train and promote the product to the retailer to give the retailer the best chance of promoting your product to the end consumer. If he gets this wrong then the message has changed.

The retailer will then educate and promote your product to the people who are going to finally put it in their homes or car and so on. Get this message wrong and you lose the sale.

So the retailer lost the sale and tells the distributor that they don’t want their product in their product line. The distributor tells you the manufacturer that they don’t want it because they can’t sell it to the retailer. The manufacturer now has no one to sell their product. How did it all go wrong?

The fundamental issue here is communication. Once you, the manufacturer, tell the next person in the process it is up to them to continue that message. Now it is important to note that there are three steps in this process that involves salespeople. You, the distributor and retailer.

There is something important you need to know about salespeople and that is this. Their living is dependent on one thing only. That thing is getting the sale. Wage, commission, self-esteem the lot, is all dependent on their end goal. They need to be focused on this or they will fail.

Salespeople

This is why I look at salespeople in the following way. I can say this from many years of sales living myself. They are like water flowing down a hill. The water will find the easiest path to get to its goal. The Goal being the bottom. The water will cut through weak dirt, around rocks sometimes over things to get to the end. Now water is controlled by gravity, which builds momentum and forges its way through by the easiest path.

The salesperson has a similar goal, not driven by gravity but in a not too dissimilar way, a need to survive. So like the momentum of water and gravity a salesperson needs knowledge and confidence. So many times have I seen a salesperson sell a product that he knew more about (confidence), overselling an alternative product, even if that alternative was the better item. Thus you need to make his job (flow) easier.

This is done also in a multi-tiered approach. Tell the right message to all stages of the channel. The distributor knows the right message, the salesperson has the right message but the end user should already know about your product. How easy is it for a salesperson to get to his goal when the buyer says “I’ve heard about this particular product and what it can do, can we talk about this product”.

Thus it is not a simple case of manufacturing the product and saying I will let my sales channels do the work of selling for me. It is up to the manufacturer to have control on all the stages especially when it comes to communication. Have your message right so as you don’t create confusion, misunderstanding all of which destroys confidence. Good communication comes from understanding your end user and the reasons why they will need your product. Ask this question: What need does my product fulfill? The answer will define your communication message. The message from this will help the process flow through your channels which will increase sales.

How to gain Word of Mouth

It is often said that word of mouth is the best way of getting business. This is true. But how do you get word of mouth? The best way to get word of mouth is by reputation. You work hard and do the right thing for your customers. They will then talk about you and recommend your business to their industry peers or colleagues. That’s because they trust you.

It’s important to note that word of mouth cannot be fabricated. People will either love you or they won’t. It can’t be forced.

So, what is word of mouth? It is that feeling that someone has about your business that impels them to let their world know about. It reflects on them. They have found this product/service that they are proud of because it helps them do what they do. They now want to share it with their contacts.

So, what if you wanted to enter a different market or segment where you have only done a little bit of work in. How do you get word of mouth then? You can’t ring someone and say “Hey Bill, is there any chance that you can tell Harry about our great reputation, although you may not know about it? You know I want you to send the word of mouth down the line”. If Bill did do that, then it is a referee not word of mouth and that’s a different thing. Word of mouth is a natural circumstance of doing the right thing.

Content Marketing Strategy

There is one way of getting word of mouth going and that is with a good Content Marketing Strategy.

Content Marketing is a type of marketing that involves the creation and sharing of online material (such as videos, blogs, and social media posts) that does not explicitly promote a brand but is intended to stimulate interest in your products or services.

I know most people will say, “we do post on social media, so what’s different?” Well, the difference is what you post. Most people will post things about what they have done. They built something or sold something that someone has got value out of. This is ok, but all it is doing is telling people what you do. That works well when a potential client is referencing you. But, if they are referencing you it means they have already found you. What if they haven’t found you yet?

A good Content Marketing Strategy will first work out what your business is all about. Your “why” or “purpose”. When you find out ‘what you are about’ then you will know what is needed to help someone else with what you do. To explain. Let’s say that your company is all about making sure that people can get the best out of something. There is no point just talking about what you have done. What you need to be telling them is what you know about how to get their desired outcome. Stories like, “here are some pointers on how to do this”.

Looking at wider industries

Here’s an example. I have a client who is a personal trainer. His “why or purpose” is to help people with degenerative nerve conditions (such as Multiple Sclerosis) have a better quality of life. Most of his reputation is within the mainstream personal training industry. Although he has been helping people with these conditions for a while, he is still not in that industry’s word of mouth.

How does he move from training the general population to a different market?

The strategy would be that he does not tell people about who he trains. That is just experience. What he tells people is how they can get more out of life. In his media posts, he gives hints, stories, videos on what people with these conditions can be doing to get that better quality of life. This comes from his experience and knowledge. He is not a medical practitioner but he has the experience and works with the practitioners. Now he is giving a helping hand to the people who need it.

Here’s how the word of mouth works. Because he is helping and not selling, a potential customer will read (view, hear, etc.) his advice and get some value from it. The more they read (view, hear, etc.) the more they trust.

When they trust, they start to own the information then start to share it with their community. Thus, the word of mouth begins. More on his business here

It does take time and a considerable amount of thought. But that is all in the planning. This is a coordinated strategy that has timelines and dates when each post is done and where it is posted. There must be nothing left to chance, it all must be planned and organised.

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