In-Person Marketing: Video and Audio

It may seem odd to include video and audio among in-person techniques.  The chances are you will feature them on websites or in social media as the main point of access.  However, recordings can be used locally in various ways:

  • Recording videos and audio can be an excellent way of building relationships. I have written about testimonials elsewhere but they are only one approach.  People may be willing to speak about problems they face or issues that concern them.  They may be able to illustrate your product or service in action.
  • Recordings of live events can be a way of sharing ideas locally, beyond those who are able to attend.
  • Whilst podcasts, downloads, websites and social media have become the most frequent ways of accessing recorded material, DVDs still have some utility. This is particularly true of audio recordings that can be listened to whilst the listener does other things such as driving or jogging.  Podcasts and downloads are taking on some of this role but longer material might still benefit from being recorded on static media.
  • Recordings can be used for presentations. Short illustrative recordings are perhaps best for talks, so the speaker can pick up issues and develop them from the recordings or open discussion about them.

Of these the possibilities of recording material that can be used online may be most attractive to local businesses and organisations.  Such recordings are opportunities to build relationships between the people involved.

YouTube is the most popular site for storing videos.  You can create a channel for your organisation and keep all your videos there.  Members, customers and other interested people can be encouraged to subscribe to the channel.

The search engine in YouTube is the second most powerful after Google (who own YouTube).  So, if you can highlight keywords for your video, you can use YouTube to publicise your organisation and point viewers to your website.  If you have a lot of relevant videos, you can build your list through this route.  Maybe show videos on your premises or during presentations and offer people the url for the video or your channel.

There are options for storing your recordings online that enable you to restrict access to selected groups.

Recording Video and Audio

The first step is to decide why you want to make a recording and what you need to record to meet your purpose.

Types of Recording

You will have a number of options.  Live videos are perhaps the easiest to record, although some people find speaking to camera daunting.  The head and shoulders shot is popular and if you are using an editing suite, such as Camtasia, you can illustrate a talk by adding animations.

The same person can talk over a PowerPoint presentation.  This can be a better approach for those who are nervous of cameras.  There are alternatives to PowerPoint, such as Prezi and it is also possible to film MindMaps, using applications such as xmind.  You can in fact film any screen on your computer and zoom in on details.

You can also film events, where people are working or talking together.

Equipment

You don’t really need any equipment in addition to the camera in a mobile phone or tablet.  Videos from these are usually adequate.  Obviously if you use a purpose-built camera you may produce a higher quality video but it depends on how important quality is.  For example, a video intended for the home page of your site might benefit from additional attention to quality.  Teaching videos, hidden deep within your site, perhaps do not need to be such high quality.

Sound is absolutely crucial, if viewers cannot hear your video, they will switch off.  Most video cameras have good microphones, so the main problem is external noise.  Be aware of this particularly if you are filming outside.  Traffic or people talking in the background can drown out the sound you are seeking to record.  Also wind can overpower a speaker and you may not be aware of this whilst recording.

Lighting is also important but less so than sound.  You can usually see if the image is ridiculously dark.  If you want a particularly sharp image or the film includes whiteboard images, then you may need to invest in lighting.  This is not terribly expensive.

Editing

It is worth spending some time editing your film.  This can be cutting and splicing, especially if you have a number of takes to consider.  Camtasia and other video editing suites offers a massive range of special effects that are not hard to include.

It is always worth offering a transcript of the video.  This is easy if you film a speaker reading from a script and may take more time if you need to transcribe it yourself.  Some listeners like to follow a transcript, especially if they are hard of hearing.  Also, Google likes transcripts because the words, if they are on the site and not in a pdf, can be picked up by search engines.  You can sometimes include these in sections that open out at the viewer’s request.

Perhaps this is the least in-person of these in-person techniques but I’m sure there’s still plenty to explore about the potential of recordings for building community groups and businesses.

Do you have examples of recordings that have helped build community?

Understanding Your Offer

Making your offer readily understood by your target market is not always easy.  There are several barriers to your prospects understanding your offer.  Your task is to find out what they are and address them.

Why Prospects May have Difficulty Understanding Your Offer

Your offer may be difficult to understand.  Even though you are describing your offer very clearly, there may still be barriers to understanding.  Where you have a specialist market, it is possible your prospects will understand your offer.  It doesn’t matter if other people don’t because they are not your prospective market.

You may have difficulty because you approach a problem from a unique perspective.  This can mean your prospects make assumptions and read your offer according to those assumptions.  So, they may have difficulty grasping your unique perspective.

Again, you may have an offer that addresses a problem many people have but do not recognise as a problem.  So, many people who are overweight do not see it as a problem.  You will need to persuade them not only that they are overweight but also it is a problem they need to take seriously.

And of course, you may find your explanations are not compelling for one reason or another.  You may provide too little or too much information, poorly expressed, too technical or too simple.  You may inadvertently put people off by expressing something that has a negative impact.  A common mistake is to attempt to market your offer on features, neglecting its benefits.

How to Help Prospects Understand Your Offer

Be clear about the distinction between features and benefits.  If your offer is technically complex, does your prospect really need all the detail?  They are going to pay you for your knowledge of the technical complexities.  Initially everyone will want to know the benefits and that’s where you should start.

Some customers will want a lot of technical detail, while others won’t.  Be prepared if they ask and have technical explanations to hand.  But usually, even those who ask are not seeking all the details.  They are most likely seeking reassurance you understand what you are doing for them and how they can make best use of it.

Use case studies where prospects may have difficulty grasping your offer.  A story may be more effective than a theoretical account.  You can back up your story with testimonials, providing social proof.

Illustrations, diagrams, tables and statistics may help convey information more effectively than a written account.  Of course, it depends on what your offer is.  A product is something you can photograph whilst a service may be harder to convey visually.

Where you have a lot of information to impart, remember marketing is educational; there is a significant overlap between marketing and education.  If your marketing material includes ideas your prospects can apply immediately, it will enhance your offer’s credibility.  These are the ideas behind the product launch.

Which Media Should You Use to Communicate Information?

We have far more media available to us today to communicate information about our offers and so it is important to think about the best ways you have to market your offer.

If you market locally, you can meet prospects and explain your offer, picking up when things are unclear and answering questions as they come up.  This may be the best way to market a complex offer.  However, you still have to find your prospects and persuade them to meet you.  Also, this can be more difficult if they are too far away for you to meet face-to-face.  Skype and similar services, can be almost as effective as meeting face-to-face.

Some Other Options

  • A single sales page on a website or in a letter. Paper-based marketing is rare these days; a few years ago we all received several long sales letters a week.  Most long sales letters are found online these days and they are still an effective marketing approach. Structure the letter properly and know how to use it online. People who understand the benefits are actually likely to read a relevant long sales letter, so don’t knock it.  Think of the times you have read a long sales letter and how you responded to it.
  • I would not normally send a long sales letter by email; a short email with a link to a long sales page is probably more effective.  Once the reader is on the web page, they are more likely to respond by signing up to your letter.  If they are on your email list, you can keep track of whether they open your email and follow the link to your website.
  • Video and audio can convey a lot of information effectively. Normally a 10 minute video is ample.  I find very short videos, especially if there are a lot of them, somewhat irritating.  Longer videos can work but you need more experience to convey a compelling idea over perhaps 25 minutes or longer.  If you want to go for length, it may be worth considering audio.  Some people will listen in the car or out jogging and so be able to set aside the time.
  • White papers, DVDs and books – are physical means of getting your ideas across. There are online equivalents of these and they are worth considering as less expensive alternatives.  An ebook for example might be all you need to find the space to explain your offer.  However, physical media can be compelling in their own right.

Conclusion

You will note this is a mix of online and physical resources.  Remember, the Internet is relatively recent and many marketers are still experimenting with approaches to getting their message across.  So, join in the experiments and persist until you find an approach that works for you.

How have you successfully marketed a complex idea?  Are there ideas you have struggled to market effectively?

The Power of Fascination

Everyone in business wants to draw their market’s attention and hold it.  For the small business person, stories are a powerful way of doing this.  They’re not the only way but perhaps the most accessible approach to promoting a distinctive offer.  But perhaps stories are not enough.  To draw attention is a start but you want to hold attention and turn it into action.  This is the power of fascination.

There are some ethical considerations here.  The world of marketing is full of attempts to manipulate markets.  The goal is sales and where sales are the sole aim, manipulation appears to be the only option.  This may seem to be a harmless irritant but actually a powerful story can become dangerous.  History is full of brilliant rhetoricians who became tyrants.

However, sales are a small part of marketing.  It is legitimate to have a good product or service, find your market and draw their attention to it.  We’ve all experienced the pushy salesperson who we have repeatedly to tell “No”.  Good marketing should avoid that by making a genuine offer that will really help  with some problem the prospect cannot solve on their own.

With a complex offer you need to draw and hold your prospect’s attention .  This allows for a conversation that will sometimes lead to a sale.  I have recently found public speaking can be a powerful way of doing this.  I’ll report back on how I followed up on this experience and the results at a later date but I’m hoping to build some good working relationships from this experience.  My aim is to have the marketing conversations and arrive at a decision to work together or else a positive “No”.

Fascination

Anyway, my aim today is to focus on fascination by reviewing a book by Sally Hogshead, “Fascinate: How to Make Your Brand Impossible to Resist“.  This is a revised edition of a book that has been around for a few years.  The revision is significant and took about 3 years.

The book is a good read and the real power in the writing comes from the way it deploys stories, dozens and dozens of them!  These stories alone are worth the price of the book.  They are not just entertaining but show many tactics businesses use to place their offers in the minds of the public.

As a result this is a book that will repay re-reading a few times to not only understand Hogshead’s principles of fascination but also to get a feel for how they might work for your business or cause.

Seven Advantages

Hogshead suggests there are seven advantages available to businesses.  These are strategies you can use to market your offers.  Some are approaches that immediately capture your market’s attention.  You can be innovative or passionate about your offer.  Here you, as it were, make a lot of noise and make sure everyone hears about you and your offer.

Alternatively, you may be more interested in a quiet, apparently unassuming approach.  You may have an old trusted brand or believe attention to detail.  Most people seeking insurance are not really that interested in razzmatazz – they want to trust you or believe you will exercise due diligence.

And quiet brands can be alluring; a little mystery can actually draw in customers who like that sort of thing.  Mystery can add prestige to a product or service.

You will note some things work better for established businesses, such as trust or prestige, while others might work better for new businesses.

Seven Tactics

The power of this approach lies in the ways you can combine the seven advantages.  So, if you are innovative you might use tactics inspired by trust to show how your innovations do not mean you will be here today and gone tomorrow.

Now, if you have seven advantages and they can each be combined with tactics inspired by the other six, you have 42 different approaches to branding your business.  This may be good news if you are looking for an approach that’s right for you, the chances are you might find one.  However, they can be somewhat daunting.

I recommend this book because it opens up a distinctive dimension to marketing, written by someone with significant experience in brand promotion.  However, it will leave you wondering where to go from here.  There is a supporting website and the option, I suppose, of contacting the author.  For my part I plan to read it again and work out how to digest it and apply it in my business.

What are the positive reasons for using fascination in marketing?  How can fascination help business owners enjoy their marketing?

In-Person Marketing: Your Printed Media

This post is about your printed media for local marketing.  I shall post about printed media produced by others in a couple of weeks’ time.  So, how can you use printed media to promote your business?

Printed media is a key way to drive traffic to your website.  If you can persuade visitors to subscribe to your site, you have a way to keep in touch with your local contacts.  If you are mainly concerned about local marketing, this can be the best way to build your contact list.  It can work faster than SEO if you get it right.

Printed media works for marketing beyond the local of course but it depends on circumstance.  If you travel a lot, for example, printed media can be a good way to promote your services beyond the local.  However, most businesses marketing beyond the local, would support in-person approaches with online methods such as SEO and ads.

The Value of Printed Media

Building your list is as important to local marketing as it is to any other approach.  Printed media is a key element of your approach and assists you in other ways.  Printed media

  • is an excellent short-term aide memoire. It presents useful information and saves you having to dictate complex contact details and your contact does not have to write them down.  It is easy to lose printed media, though.  This does not necessarily mean dropping it somewhere.  Business cards accumulate and finding a particular card becomes increasingly difficult.  Persuade contacts to sign up to your email list because it’s a good way to maintain contact a long time after they forget your printed media.
  • can include information about your business. This might range from a sentence on the back of a business card to a full colour brochure.  All these can link to your website in various ways.  The advantage of such media is its physical presence for a short time, allowing a contact to relax and read about your business at their leisure.
  • well-designed, assists branding. It can tell your story and help contacts become familiar with your logo or house style.
  • can reach large numbers of people who would not search for your services online. Hand it to people in busy places, or post it through letter boxes.
  • can provide support for talks and presentations. It can point to follow-up online information, contacts can get in exchange for their email address, for example.

Types of Printed Media

Here are some basic types of printed media, available for use in local marketing:

  • Business cards are an essential means to establish contact
  • Use leaflets to tell the public about your offer
  • Use more elaborate brochures are to help prospects decide between your offers or to pitch for support from established businesses
  • Information leaflets, can be left around in your shop, for example
  • Notes following a presentation
  • Books can also be a valuable source of information, although they may be a tall order for a small business

Essential Features of Printed Media

Whatever printed medium you use, make sure it includes these basics:

  • Your name and business name should be clearly visible
  • Your website url – on a business card this will be your call to action
  • More than one way to contact you. You might prefer people to call you on your mobile.  If they are reading your documentation late at night they are more likely to choose email and not risk disturbing you by phone or forgetting to call you next day.  Don’t forget social media!
  • If necessary, a brief explanation of what you offer. Depends on space.
  • A call to action, which might normally be to visit your website and sign up for something. It could take the form of an invitation or opportunity to buy something.

The more you think of your printed media as an extension to your website, the better.  This should include branding, so that when someone transitions from paper to online, they know they have found the right place.  Bear in mind, it is better to provide a url that takes the contact to the right page on your website.  If you are making a particular offer, the url should take inquirers to a page about that offer.  Don’t offer them the home page and hope they can navigate to the correct page.  Also, you have to print out the url in full on printed media and so if the page is deeply embedded on your site, you may find the url is very long.  This increases mistakes either in your printed media or when the contact copies it into your browser.

Mistakes in Printed Media

Finally, mistakes …  Get your printed media proof-read.  You may be able to proof-read a business card on your own but anything else, at least ask a few people to read it and look out for errors.  There are professional proof-readers who will help you get everything correct.  Get people to copy any urls into browsers and check they work!  We’re used to the ease of correcting web pages and the full force of a disastrous error in printed media perhaps doesn’t occur to us until we experience it.

How have you experienced effective use of printed media?

Third-Party Prospects

It is sometimes worth considering whether you can sell your offer to third-party prospects.  A third-party is someone who makes a purchase for someone else.

Gifts

Usually, we call this a gift and for some businesses gifts are a major source of income.  Before you move on to consider some other aspect of your business, it worth asking whether your business has potential in this market.

Let’s consider the range of possibilities for a gift.  Remember sometimes third parties make a purchase and we would not think of it as a gift.

  • The personal gift is where someone buys a present for someone else. The person to receive and use the gift might have no knowledge of the purchase when the purchaser makes it.  If the recipient is present, it is likely to be similar to selling to them direct.  You need to work out who will make the decision.  A parent buying for a child, when both are present, may need convincing as much as the child, for example.
  • The corporate gift is where someone purchases a service and receives a surprise gift as a thank you and perhaps to encourage them. A corporate gift relevant to the transaction could be a book that will help the client understand the subject area.  Alternatively, they might offer a gift as a thank you.  The gift might be a meal, for example, or else a card and a token such as a box of chocolates.  Gifts personalised in some way are even better.
  • Another type of corporate gift is for marketing purposes. We’ve all received pens, pencils, diaries, usually embossed with the name, logo and contact details of the business.  A particular category of this type of gift, is the gift for business associates.  For example, at Christmas a business might give away bottles of wine or spirits to people they work with.  Take care, as some public servants must register gifts in case they are accused of receiving bribes!
  • Businesses also purchase gifts for employees, eg a Christmas dinner or a works outing. A training event may be an opportunity to offer a special meal or a drink.
  • A third corporate gift is the incentive to sign up for something. So, you might offer a video or a pdf in return for an email address.  The target person opts for this gift if they are interested in it and so may become a prospect later.

An Example

One mistake businesses make is to assume their market is solely their users.  Jewellery and make-up are good examples.  Women usually purchase these for personal use.  However, a jeweller, for example, may find they sell significant amounts to men who are buying a gift for a woman friend or relative.

This business may need to ask: How can you encourage men to purchase from you?  Do they feel comfortable in your shop?  Can you help them decide by asking questions that will help them work out what the recipient might like?

Celebrations

Parties are opportunities to sell large quantities of all sorts of things.  They are opportunities for bulk sales and so it is worth deciding whether you have opportunities to sell in this market.

Obviously there is food and drink but also other possibilities, eg venues, transport, decorations, music, invitations, toys, etc.

Be aware of different types of event.  This will influence the budget, eg a wedding is likely to have a bigger budget than a children’s party.

Some events resemble celebrations, for example a training event might need food, accommodation, equipment, handouts, etc.

Prices

I’m not entirely convinced by the argument that gifts and celebrations are an opportunity to ramp up your prices.  However, there are legitimate reasons why you could charge more:

  • Where your services are at a premium. For example, if you organise wedding receptions, you could charge lower prices mid-week.  Most people want to be married at the weekend and so there will be more competition for your services at those times.
  • If you sell 100 cupcakes, most people would expect the unit price to be lower than if you sell 10. This is to do with economies of scale.  Most caterers over-provide and there are some good reasons for this.  However, it is worth looking at what you are actually providing.  Is it the cupcakes or convenience, where someone else provides the food so the event organisers have time to concentrate on other things?  The food you provide might be costed at the lower bulk buy rate but you must also charge for service; knowing everything will be there at the agreed time and place.
  • If you’re selling a product it may be difficult to ramp up gift sales because you won’t always know who is purchasing a gift. But how about selling a special gift package?  You could bundle a few things together or offer a product with a service, eg come in for a fitting or one-to-one tuition about how to use it.  How can the recipient feel even more special?  If you do this type of thing, you are helping the purchaser plan a quality gift.  What you really must do is show the person who receives the gift will value the additional service.  If they are unhappy, you can guarantee word will circulate with amazing speed.
  • If you are marketing a cause, a gift may seem inappropriate. But it is worth considering whether supporters might appreciate relevant information and support.  For example, if someone who makes a donation, might receive updates or a book about the cause.  It’s a way of saying thank you, increasing understanding of the cause and possibly staying in touch.

Can you think of ways you can adapt your offer for third-party prospects?

Speaking About Community-Based Marketing

This Tuesday evening I presented my keynote talk, “Four Community-Based Marketing Cornerstones for Your Business”. This was my first time speaking about community-based marketing.  It took a lot of rehearsing and I was completely “off the book” – I spoke for about 40 minutes without access to notes (they were at home).

Overall the response was very positive.  The presentation was to the Sheffield Coaching Exchange and 25 people were present.  Eleven signed up for my Community Marketing Conversation and several others have indicated they will be in touch with contacts and possibilities for future presentations.  See my recent post about public speaking events for the theory behind what I did.

I won’t dwell on the feedback from the session, primarily because I would like to see how it pans out over the next few weeks.  This is a new experience for me and like everything else, it is important to take time to work out the best approach and learn the lessons.

In this post I’ll break down my talk, show how I structured it and explain the decisions I took.  I am not going to go into detail about the content: book me to speak if you’re interested!

Introduction

This was practically the same as the excerpt from my keynote talk I published a couple of weeks ago.  The recording was from the Public Speaking Academy‘s retreat weekend.  Since then I performed it for a group of friends.  The feedback from Tuesday suggested this was the least popular part of the talk.  Some people thought it was too long and some could not see how it related to the rest of the talk.

It comprises three main parts:

  • a teaser about the general theme of the evening
  • biographical information about me
  • introduction to the four cornerstones (and one keystone) for community-based marketing

The purpose of the biographical section is to establish my authority as a speaker, so it is important to include it, especially with an audience who did not know me.  (No-one present was previously known to me.)  Previous feedback was that it sounded impressive – which is the point after all!

The feedback was not particularly negative and I suspect, part of the problem was it paled in the light of the rest of the talk.  I shall consider ways of making it shorter.

Teaching

The aim of this section is to offer substantial memorable teaching.  I deliberately chose not to use PowerPoint or written notes.  My thinking here is something memorable is more likely to stick in people’s minds and influence their thinking about their own coaching business.  Of those who responded when asked about this, 12 indicated they were happy not to receive notes and 8 would have liked them.    This is something to think about further but it seems I may be on the right lines.

I explored the four cornerstones in turn.  The first is use of stories and I illustrated this with three imaginary coffee shop proprietors.  I acted out each one, allowing them to tell their story.

My intention was to model the prospects for the three businesses.  I divided the room into three groups, according to the coffee shop they would most like to visit.  I was then able to ask questions for the other 3 cornerstones of prospects for the 3 businesses.  This was highly participative and people entered into the spirit of it.

Conclusion

The conclusion fell into 5 parts:

  • I reviewed the 4 cornerstones and the keystone and suggested two ways to approach the keystone (how to market your business)
  • first, by applying the coffee shop model to their own business.  I invited them to jot down insights about their own business during the break and then we had a few minutes to discuss issues arising in small groups before a final plenary to discuss what came out of the discussions.
  • second, by signing up for a Community Marketing Conversation.  I prepared a matrix of available dates and times and allowed people to sign up who couldn’t make the times I suggested.  This approach simplifies arranging meetings.
  • An example from an existing client.
  • Various ways they could support my work, eg by signing up for a conversation, signing up on my website, completing an evaluation form, etc.

Feedback

All of this will be subject to review, particularly as I meet participants face-to-face over the next few weeks.  It will be interesting to find out how helpful the talk was to them as they reflected upon it.

To finish this post, I’d like to share this testimonial from Lisa Read, the Leader of the Sheffield Coaching Exchange:

“Thank you for an inspiring and thought-provoking talk at Sheffield Coaching Exchange last night. You got us all thinking about how we can market our businesses to our local communities more effectively. You also reignited our passion for how our coaching contributes to our city. I’ve come away entertained and with lots to think about. I’d recommend your services to other small, local businesses, and I’d encourage all to listen to you talk.”

This is an overview of what I did.  Please feel free to raise questions in the comments or discuss some of the issues.

In-Person Marketing: Shop-Fronts and Buildings

There are advantages to having shop-fronts or buildings but not always.  I have written about how buildings can be a liability for community groups.  Many of us have experienced arriving at a cold, dark community centre, sitting on uncomfortable chairs and wishing it was over and we were in the pub.

Well-run, comfortable centres can be an asset but it is hard work.

Shop-fronts can be an asset for businesses, especially those that specialise in products that can be carried away.  However, there are issues such as costs, security, theft, safety that need to be addressed.  However, my interest here is how shop-fronts and buildings can work as marketing tools.

Footfall

The key to any successful on-street business is footfall.  If plenty of people pass by, it is the equivalent of traffic for a website.  The way you lay out your shop, present your goods, resembles conversion.

Increasing footfall is something you can do with others.  Sales are mostly your responsibility.  So, how do you increase footfall and sales?

Collaboration with other traders or organisations can help you increase footfall near your shop-front or community centre.  Community centres can collaborate with local traders to bring people into the area. If it is clear about what it is offering, then it has a role to play in supporting local economic activity.

So, here are a few things to consider doing together.  Some of these activities may be possible alone, but usually they work better where there is collaboration.

  • Shared website promoting the local area.
  • Campaign for local amenities, eg public toilets
  • Support other businesses so they can collaborate. This might involve encouraging businesses likely to draw new people into the area.
  • Events such as an occasional street market. If there is a community centre in the area, events there may draw in new people.
  • Invest in local economic development initiatives, eg an app that helps people find local businesses that sell what they are looking for. This will work better if all the local businesses and organisations can join in.
  • Support initiatives such as local currencies.

Sales

Whilst nearby shops might direct customers to your shop, the sales you make are largely your responsibility.  Here are a few things to consider:

  • Window dressing may be an important way to draw people into your shop. Perhaps if you are a grocer most people will know what to expect but otherwise show them what you sell.  Special offers may entice people over the threshold and then they will see what else is on offer.
  • Think about how you build relationships with local customers. If you know what they like, they are likely to come back.  This sort of service can be radically different to the impersonal supermarket experience.  A fifteen minute conversation may mean a customer comes back for years, especially if you remember their preferences.
  • Ask customers to sign up to your email list. This might be a collective list for traders in your area or your own.  This will allow you to tell customers of special offers.
  • Consider a blog! This might not work for everyone but if you can find an angle, combined with an email list, you can publish valuable information.  For example, a food shop could publish recipes and stock the ingredients, a fashion shop could write about style, a jewellers could write about provenance and craft.  Remember lots of people are interested in how to make things and what goes on behind the scenes.

Note how you can introduce online approaches to support your in-store activities.  This is an effective way of using a website or social media, in support of what you are doing on the ground.

How have you promoted your business using a shop-front or building?

How Many Questions Need Your Prospects Answer?

You need to know whether your product or service will benefit your prospect. If your charges are high, you don’t want to sell to someone who will not benefit from your product or service.  So, where you are selling something complex, you need to ask questions.

Questions Commensurate with Commitment

If you want someone to download your ebook in return for adding their email address to your list, you do not need to find out much to sign someone up.  Downloading an ebook, they may choose not to read, is not worth too much effort!

You really must ask for their email address because you are using the ebook to build your email list.  Strictly speaking that’s all you need!  Most businesses ask for a name as well.  This helps you personalise your emails.

You do not ask a lot of people on your list.  You hope they will read or view your offer and open at least some of your emails.

If someone shows interest in your premium products, they will understand you don’t want to sell them something that will not help them.  So, a few more questions can help you both make a good decision.

Classification Questions

Ask questions to work out which products or services are likely to be suitable.  You aim to find out more about the prospect and use the information to discuss a couple of products or services that may be helpful.

I do this through my Community Marketing Conversation.  I ask four main questions and have several sub-questions to ask if relevant.

My main aim is to find out whether I can help the prospect.  If I cannot, I aim to give them at least one good referral.

My second objective is to work out which of my services are most suitable for the prospect.  I usually offer a choice of two services.

Qualification Questions

Ask these to decide whether the prospect has the qualifications they need to take up your offer.

They are not always necessary but examples include, where you:

  • offer training validated externally
  • offer a product or service regulated externally
  • need to find out whether the prospect can pay for the product or service.

So, how many questions do you need?  It depends.  You need to think this through for your own business and be able to explain to prospects what you are doing, why you’re doing it and what you will do with their answers.

What questions do you use to recruit customers?

The Positive Power of Saying No

My main interest is in marketing and for many people the point of marketing is sales.  Many business owners struggle with sales and fear a prospect saying no.  I’m convinced a prospect saying no has positive power.

Of course, a prospect saying “Yes” delights most business owners.  After all this is the objective of their marketing and possibly months of careful work building trust with their prospect.

So, it is obviously a disappointment when the prospect says “No” – or is it?  Actually there are not two but four options and we should be aware of all of them.  Here they are in order of positive outcome.  The three first all have positive aspects, less so the fourth.

When Yes Means Yes – The Genuine Yes

You cannot be certain from the outset that the yes is a genuine yes.  You cannot be sure until you receive your first cheque or indeed until you have completed the contract.

Things can go wrong and the responsibility for that rests primarily with you.  The client is genuinely interested and so you need to arrange another meeting where you can discuss the details of your contract and arrange payment if everything is satisfactory.  This is a crucial time in your relationship with your client and if it goes wrong the fault is most likely with you.

However, we all learn from mistakes and if you do lose clients at this stage, you need to review what you did and work out where you’ve gone wrong.  The main thing to remember is keep communication open and arrange another meeting soon to cement the relationship.

When No Means Yes – No for Now

Your prospect says “No” but wants to maintain the relationship.  Sometimes they’ll tell you it is no for now and maybe there will be a deal some time in the future.  Other times you intuit they want to keep the relationship going.  What you need to do is agree some future meetings.

You could do this by inviting them to join your referral networking group, for example.  Alternatively, you could arrange to meet again and catch up at a later date, maybe 6 months later.

The key to this prospect may be they need to build trust with you.  It seems many businesses find they need between 4 and 10 one-to-one meetings to change that “No” into a “Yes”.  The thing is to cultivate the relationship, maximise the opportunities to get to know like and trust each other.

When No Means No – The Genuine No

You will have a good idea when the “No” is final.  And actually this is a good place to be.  If you do not have any common ground (and it can be you who says “No” to the prospect) it is better to be honest about it.

It is not a good idea to allow this “No” to be tacit.  You can ask if they know anyone who might be interested in your business.  This allows them to say “No” but also, if they do want to support you, they have an opportunity to find you a referral.

It is always worth having some reserve ideas for those who say no.  Perhaps they would sign up to your email list?  The point would be to remind them of you and so they can make referrals at a later date.

Just because the person in front of me is not a prospect, it does not mean they don’t know others who might be.

So, an honest “No” can have positive power.  It doesn’t mean you have to lose touch.  The main problem is finding constructive ways of keeping in touch with perhaps many such contacts.

When Yes Means No – The Silence

This is the worst possible outcome.  This Yes raises your hopes  but then your prospect goes silent.  Sometimes this happens part way through a contract.  Usually though it is soon after this first “Yes”.

Reasons?  Perhaps the prospect changed their mind but sometimes it happens because the prospect doesn’t know how to say “No”.  They say “Yes” to get out of the room.

Unfortunately, you may spend several hours preparing paperwork, planning how to handle this client and then find it is all for nothing.  When I started I had several such prospects and some of them lasted for weeks.

The key is to follow-up immediately the prospect says “Yes”.  You don’t know if they mean it or if they mean it now and will have second thoughts later.  So, here are my suggestions:

  • the key is to arrange another meeting sometime soon.  If they are genuine they’ll be keen to get started and so be ready to have some detailed proposals as soon as possible
  • send details in advance of the meetings, primarily of your proposal.  At the meeting they can raise their concerns.  This may be the best time to discuss prices.  Start high and watch out for reasons to offer reductions
  • tell them what to do if they have doubts – ask them to contact you or tell you at the meeting.  Say you hope they will stay in touch even if they change their minds.  Hopefully they will agree that if on reflection they’re not sure they will want to keep contact in case they become sure in the future.

Keep communication going while you’re waiting for your first payment.  Sometimes there are management committees and the like to negotiate and these all allow time for doubts to set in.  I’m more inclined to be firmer about these issues than I was, given the amount of preparation a new client requires and that you are not reimbursed for the work you do until the first payment.

Conclusion

Notice how saying “No” is actually no bad thing.  It does not imply a termination in your relationship.  Sometimes it is a “not yet” and sometimes you may have an ally who can pass business your way.  Remember in a one-to-one, you may also be saying “No” to their offer.  The issue is not selling services to one another so much as finding working relationships that are mutually beneficial.

Do you have examples of good practice for fielding these four types of response?

In-Person Marketing: Public Speaking Events

When you use public speaking as part of your marketing campaign, you need to plan more than your speech.  Here are three things you need to consider, when organising public speaking events:

How to Find Public Speaking Opportunities

This is, I find, the hardest part of using public speaking for marketing.  You need to be clear about what you’re offering and who you are marketing to.

Ideally, you’re seeking an audience made up of several prospective customers.  So, this is not the same as addressing a meeting of people from the same business or organisation.  You could deliver the same speech to them but you have only one possible customer.  Such an organisation, if impressed by your speech, might refer you to others and so such a meeting might be worthwhile.  However, you need to be clear whether they are able to do that and confident they’ll find your performance worth passing on.

When you set up an event, be clear in advance what you will offer your audience as a call to action.  It is not a good idea to go for a hard sell.  Discuss your call to action with your host in advance.  It is a doubly bad idea not to tell your host if you do go for a hard sell!

As a call to action, it is helpful to offer an opportunity to explore your topic in more depth.  I offer a Community Marketing Conversation, where the participant takes away next steps for their marketing campaign.  Usually this will be a referral and occasionally I make them an offer.

What to Consider When Delivering Your Speech

Your aim throughout the presentation is to build relationships with your audience.

See my previous post about the practicalities of public speaking.  Be clear about whether you are providing notes, especially if you use PowerPoint.  Notes are useful because you can include contact details and details of your offers.

As you approach the end of your talk, ask those who are interested to sign up to your offer.  You can ask them to provide their name, mobile number and email address so you can contact them to arrange a meeting.  Or you can offer dates and times and encourage people to sign up for them.  It is perhaps best to combine these two as people who get to sign up late may find no slots remain they can attend.

You don’t necessarily need to provide your contact details to those who sign up because you will contact them within 48 hours to confirm your arrangements.  If you do want to make sure people can contact you, a handout that lists ways they can support your enterprise will do the trick.  Many people use business cards and these can be the best way of passing on details.

Follow-Up to Your Speech

Hang around and talk to people.  There may be opportunities to ask people to sign up who have so far hesitated.  In any event it is better than making a dash for the door.  You may also be able to find referrals from the people present, if they can think of potential customers for you in the light of your presentation.

Don’t forget to thank your host and check out they are happy with your performance.

Don’t forget to email those who signed up, confirming their meeting.  Don’t assume they entered it in their diary.

On the day, text them with details of the meeting.  This serves as a reminder but also puts your number near the top of their list in case they get lost or delayed.  See my post about sales conversations for more information about what to do when you meet.

And don’t forget to review your presentation as soon as you can.  This way you will remember elements that didn’t go so well.

Have you any experience of presentations and tips you would like to share?

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