As an example… we’ve just had Easter bank holiday.  Traditionally this is a very busy weekend, with people spending money on tourist attractions, gardening, campervans, motorbikes, trips away and everything associated with that.  If you’re in a related industry, it would be worthwhile considering the promotions you’re running and how relevant they are to what people are buying right now.  If you can tie in with those trends, you could boost your profits.

This weekend, we travelled for two hours to look at a motorbike only to find that two minutes earlier it had been sold (at a discount) to a dealer.  Despite us calling about the bike that morning.  The bike was already the cheapest of its kind on the internet – It seems the seller hadn’t taken into account the effect of the bank holiday and the warm weather on bikers – they were out in force this weekend, spending their money.  But he lost at least £200 in net profit after he’d already offered the bike at the cheapest price anywhere in the country – and you know I never advise being the cheapest to start with; especially when timings are on your side.

Friday brings yet more opportunities for plenty of businesses.  Are you watching your timings?  If people are buying in force, are you opening longer / opening on days you wouldn’t usually open / running timely promotions / taking advantage of the fact people are spending??  The companies who are will be the first ones out of the recession.

The secrets to the success include creating likeable characters, entertaining adverts and the designers have also managed to cleverly repeat the brand name several times – without being annoying.  What’s even better is the follow-up to the campaign – it’s not just a TV advert; the meerkats have their own web page and Aleksandr has his own Facebook profile.

Whilst the campaign’s a huge amount of fun, you know I’m always focused on the profits from marketing – so what about the results?  According to a recent edition of ‘The Marketer’, the results speak for themselves:

• From January – August 2009, there was an 83% increase in traffic to comparethemarket.com’s website
• Direct traffic rose from 30-50%
• Aleksandr Orlov’s own Facebook page has 600,000 fans

If only all advertising could be so effective – and so entertaining!

But what does it mean for your business?

Tesco posted profits of £3.17 billion for 2009, but for the vast majority of British businesses, profits will be well below that level and many have sustained heavy losses in the last year; in terms of redundancies and customer / supplier losses.  So what can most businesses look forward to?

Recent information from the Chartered Institute of Marketing has been looking at how customers have changed with the recession.  They give trends to look out for, as follows…

• People are still wary of spending.  In spite of some customers being better off due to falls in interest rates, they are still watching their cash.
• That said, credit card borrowing is rising again, as we find the credit habit hard to beat (despite the fact that living beyond our means helped create the recession).
• DIY and ‘Make Do & Mend’ Trends are still popular
  
• Consumers seem to be hunting for value for money – both Next and John Lewis recently posted rising sales figures, although some other high street retailers are struggling.  It seems people are buying fewer items, but looking for quality and items that will last.  The question is whether this will be a long-term change in buying habits.

With these trends high in the minds of many consumers, your business needs to review its sales messages, as the country starts to recover.  Are you selling what people want?  Are you giving people the best value for money that you can?

There will be plenty of opportunities – you just to ensure you position your business to take advantage…

Music companies such as EMI and Warner Brothers viewed online music downloads as a threat and used legal sanctions to pursue those who downloaded.  The British Government has now outlined a bill to try and stop illegal downloads – but in a Talk Talk survey published this week, 83% of 18-34 year olds said they would defy the law and continue accessing music for free.

Over 7 million people are allegedly file-sharing illegally, according to a recent study by the British Phonographic Industry.  It’s estimated this costs the industry £200m a year.

Marketing Opportunity?

Whilst EMI and Warner Brothers viewed downloads as a threat, Apple saw an opportunity.  They created the iPod and iTunes to take advantage of the new market and last month, they celebrated their 10 billionth music download.

Increases in the number of legal digital music services also pushed income from online sales up by almost 73% to £30.4 million for PRS for Music.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but teenagers have always shared music.  I remember swapping CDs with my friends when I was younger and, if we found a really good one, we’d both buy copies.  And, in fact, in a recent report for Panorama, DJ Jo Whiley found that people who illegally download music are also the biggest buyers of legal music.  It seems they download and listen, share good tracks with their friends and then buy high quality versions – legally – just like we used to.  A survey conducted by Davos showed that 42% of illegal downloaders were listening with a view to buying and that Person to Person pirates spent an average £77 per year on legally acquired music, compared to just £44 shelled out by those who comply with copyright laws.

The Future..?

Online shopping has also changed the way teenagers are asked to buy music – gone are the days when we would save our pocket-money and head down into town.  With online downloads, teenagers now need to borrow a parent’s credit card – if they’re under 18, they can’t have their own.  Perhaps that’s one barrier that needs removing?  And perhaps that’s one opportunity for mobile internet?

There’s no doubt the digital economy has changed the music industry – but are companies really taking advantage of the opportunities that present themselves, or are they throwing their toys out of the pram – and with them the chance of even larger profits?

You will no doubt have heard the phrase ‘it costs 7 times more to find a new customer as it does to keep an existing one.’  But how many of us take that to heart?

Do you keep a record of the people who buy from you?

If so, do you use that information?

If not, you have an untapped pool that you can use for marketing – and it’s much cheaper than running an advertising campaign, or trying to attract new people.  And your returns will be much higher.

Here are just a few ideas of how you could use that data -to benefit you and your customers

• Send details of special offers
• Create a loyalty club
• Offer vouchers
• Send birthday / Christmas cards
• Run competitions
• Give customers useful information
• Invite people to events that might interest them

The key to keeping in touch is sending things that are relevant, interesting and of benefit to your customers… more on that tomorrow.

It’s believed that just 20% of your actions each day generate 80% of your results – Pareto’s principle.  What you need to do therefore is try to work out which actions are important – and generate results.  These are often those that generate profits and are usually time spent with customers.

Why not spend the next 24 hours jotting down everything you do and the way you spend your time.  We can then have a look at whether that’s efficient use of time tomorrow and help you get more out of your day.

If you can use your time in a smarter way, you can improve your results and spend more time with family and friends.  As an example, in my first job when I was just 13, I took a weekly paper-round.  I soon realised I could deliver the three weekly papers in a similar amount of time to delivering just one – but I was paid three times as much.  Simple!

This doesn’t have to cost any money – a simple, personal and sincere ‘thank you’ can often be enough – but it’s the one thing we often forget to do, or run out of time to complete.  Or worse, we fail to understand how important it is…

Internal marketing is one of the most under-appreciated forms of marketing, but your staff are often the first point of contact with customers.  They can make or break a sale.  And we’ve all had plenty of examples of poor customer service.  Happy, motivated and polite staff can make all the difference to your net profits, but it has to start with you.  (I’m afraid your staff are simply a reflection of your management skills.)

Put yourself in their position  – they may have seen people come and go over the year.  They may have survived redundancies.  They may have worked over-time, or brought new customers to you when they didn’t have to.  Some may have had tough times in their family this year – maybe loved ones have lost jobs, or suffered with the floods or the snow.  We all struggle through the roller-coaster that is life and a simple ‘thank you’ can make all your hard work seem worthwhile.

If your team has gone the extra mile for you this year, make sure you thank them before they leave for their Christmas break – you want their lasting memory of work to be a good one.

As this can have such an impact on your sales (and profits), what can you do to ensure your first impression counts?

Showing Off’s Top Tips:

• Dress appropriately for your business
• Check your appearance before you enter a room (teeth, breath, buttons etc.)
• Make eye contact
• Smile
• Give a firm handshake

Unless first impressions of you are spot on, this can massively affect your profitability.  As a result, it’s worth practicing your handshake and asking friends and colleagues for an honest assessment of your appearance – are you creating the right image for your company?

We’ll cover different elements of first impreessions in more detail over the next few days, beginning with top tips for clothing that makes you more money!  Check back tomorrow…

• Intangibility

As we mentioned in yesterday’s post, services cannot be seen, or touched.  So, you have to market them in a slightly different way and try to incorporate some tangibility into your promotional methods.  For example customer testimonials, brochures and guarantees that reassure the customer of the quality of service you offer.

• Inseparability

Services are produced and consumed simultaneously, for example a haircut.  The service provider is therefore crucial in the marketing process and can make the difference between a one-off sale and long-term repeat business.  You therefore need strategies for selecting, training and rewarding staff to ensure customers receive great service that will bring them back again, and again.

• Variability

Because services are delivered by people, standards will vary between different personalities.  It’s therefore difficult to standardise what is delivered.  This again highlights the importance of your team and their selection, training and incentives.  It also raises a question of systems and equipment to reduce differences in the service provided.

• Perishability

Services cannot be stored – if a hotel room is not filled one night, that bed-night cannot be sold again tomorrow.  This increases the importance of matching supply and demand closely, to maximise profits.  You can use prices as one way of controlling demand, but we would recommend having a number of strategies to deal with this issue.

This post hopefully gives you some areas to consider if you are marketing services.  It’s slightly more challenging, but the solutions can provide some fantastic returns.  I hope it helps your business.