Hey everyone, I am starting a marketing campaign for a new design business over the coming months. I have already registered my business in Northern Ireland and I was mainly wanting to focus on local and regional businesses. I was planning on doing a lot of brochures and sending letters to all businesses that I think would be interested in the region. I want my money to really help with the marketing, not only to get sales, but to get brand awareness. Has anyone done a marketing campaign with around this amount? I would like to get some good advice on past experiences. Thanks John
Hi John, Local and regional businesses is kind of a vague target market. Why not pick a couple of industries and do up some great samples and the hit these industries? Advertising would be more effective and less costly because it would be targeted. You could advertise in magazine, trade shows, newsletters, etc. that reach your target audience. You can also promote your services for free in my Free Traffic Bar at http://www.freetrafficbar.com. Garland Coulson, "The E-Business Tutor" Creator of the FREE Traffic and Research Toolbar for FireFox and Internet Explorer http://www.freetrafficbar.com
Hi John ... Firstly you can do lots with little if you put a little work into it. From my past experience I would go with including some sort of contest/giveaway in your brochures/letters and hand-outs. For your giveaway, focus on something that is HOT at the moment and try to build a good prospect client base using that giveaway. This may seem like a lot of work and IT IS, but it is relatively inexpensive and generates GREAT results. My last campaign I ran generated 1887 prospects in 1 week. So what would this look like? 1) Select a HOT product to give away. – Lets pick a IPOD Nano 2) Create/design a survey/entry form on a postcard type size paper. Use both sides of the postcard if possible. Design it in such a way that you gather as much relevant information as possible. While you go door to door and do your sales pitch ask them to help you out by filling out a simple survey. On the survey ask they to provide complete information including (make it mandatory for qualifying for the draw): company name full name position full mailing address website AND EMAIL. Also create some simple questions like: What is the nature of your business? How long have you been in business? Is your current design company meeting your needs? Are you planning any projects in the immediate near future? If so, when ( ) within 2weeks ( ) within 1 month ( ) within 3 months Fill it out for them as you go door to door and take it with you. Or have them fill it out send it in to qualify for the draw. When you start getting your postcards in you will need to add them to a prospect list. Now here is a little trick to help in the data entry, provide an URL for them just in case they prefer to fill it out online and save on the postage. Parse the results of your online survey into a prospect list/database. 3) As you are going to door to door and talking with folks, ASK if they have a preferred vendor list and if they do, ASK to be put on it. 4) Contact your local chamber of commerce and advise them that you are now in business and OPEN FOR BUSINESS! 5) Another little trick is to contact your local radio station. Radio stations love to give away FREE stuff to their listeners. Pick a fairly popular radio station and offer your free gift. Most radio stations have member lists that they email frequently. Word your offer in such a way that qualifies your contestants. For example: Small Business Giveaway – Win a IPOD nano. Have them place a banner or ad about your free give away. They should link to the URL of your online form or a similar one BUT with an additional field in it that asks for business registration id or VAT number. Doing so will eliminate lots of kids and teenagers from entering your business contest. 6) OH YAH! Don't forget to give your IPOD away once your contest is done. 7) Continually market to your prospect list! 8) Repeat steps as needed! Hope this helps! Frank PS. If you don't have time to do it, hire an college or university marketing or business major and pay him for every QUALITY lead he/she brings in.
Sayles, that was amazing information. It will really help and you can be sure it is something I will be running very soon I am targeting small to medium size businesses but no specific market. Ireland has many cities a lot smaller than most countries so targeting specific markets can really limit my potential customers. I think I could do ok by marketing a broad range and I have done quite a lot of marketing research for this.
$2000 dollars really isn't a whole lot. I'm in a similar situation and $2000 can get me approx. 1 month of advertisement on a good website. The magazine that would work for my business costs $5000 for 1/4 of a page. Direct mail costs around $2000 for 5000 postcards. I haven't done anything yet since everything costs so much and since not all ad campaign and businesses are compatible, trying anything prematurely is pretty much the same as throwing the money away. I've tried things like overture, they didn't work too well for me. I think I'm going to try to really boost up my conversion rate before I dare to attempt any of these money burning marketing campaigns.
Hi John D, I have done this many times and have ALWAYS had a great response. Sometimes more than others. One thing I forgot is to ask in your questionaire when they actually COMPLETE their yearly budgeting ie: September of every year. Then do up a spreadsheet and knock on their doors for business every year. This will also give you an opportunity to update the company profile and information. I am glad I could provide a little insight! cheers Frank
Thanks Jellyfish, The way I see it --- if you're gonna do some work do it right and "work it" as best and as long as you can! I'm currently testing a similar idea I'll keep you folks posted as to how I do. cheers Frank
Since you are focussing on business deals i would suggest the following: While you are growing i would suggest a coop ad partnership. You need to get hold of small partnerships with complementary business owners. What i mean is pooling money into the same contest is a great way to extend marketing dollars. For example a toothpaste company uses the local dental association to promote both their products for a free consultation and a coupon for the purchase of a toothpaste. The other thing to try out is "NEGATIVE SURVEYING" please include this as part of your other campaign where you drive a need for your business. Like how much a business looses because of lack of a good design partner... Use the negative surveys to drive value to your business if it is something new in the market and people dont understand the need "much". good luck with the campaign... 8000$ could really go a long way if you play it right
Hello john How are you, ok we will do your marketing compaign with $2000, we will provide quality links. let me know if you interested. Thanks Classic-SEO