WMF's blog

by Biana Babinsky, Marketing Salad

Many times when a business owner tells me that they are not getting the marketing results that they want, I ask them whether they have a marketing plan and what's in their marketing plan. More often than not they tell me that they do not have a marketing plan.

A national magazine for real women between the ages of 30 and 55 would like to hear from you. We want to know some real life experiences under the following headings:

- The funniest fancy dress costume you have ever worn (a picture would be
helpful)

- Something you have made that you are proud of (could be something
seemingly insignificant that was an achievement to you, a picture of your
creation would also be helpful) [perhaps your business, if there's a great story behind it?]

-The worst present you have ever received

Heather Gillam runs personal training company Fitbiz Training, http://www.fitbiztraining.co.uk

Heather, tell us a little bit about your business and what you do.

My business is providing Personal Training and Nutrition Advice to a wide variety of clients in the Surrey / West Sussex area. I write tailor-made exercise programs for each client to get them to their goals as quickly and as safely as possible. We do their training in their house, to make it easier and more accessible for more people to get a healthier lifestyle.

If you've already my other posts on marketing as building relationships, you'll have an idea of how important it can be to keep in regular contact with your prospective, current and past customers.

So try and avoid untargeted ‘image advertising' and use relationship-building tactics instead. Make sure you keep in touch with your past customers on a regular basis with useful information, such as books, tips booklets, articles of interest, press releases, as well as cards or postcards to mark specific occasions such as the anniversary of their first purchase.

To build a relationship with anyone, one key thing you need to know is what they like and what they don't like. So to get really close to your customers (not to mention be in position to serve their needs better) find out what your customers really want, what they like, what they don't want, etc.

There are a number of different ways of doing this.

Rather than constantly looking for new sales from new customers, like the majority of companies, focus on your past customer list from your chosen niche. Concentrate your marketing activities on building relationships with the people in your target market and make sure they don't go anywhere else.

It's important to remember that if they enjoyed a positive buying experience, existing and past customers are likely to buy from you again. These people have already trusted you to deliver a product or service.

If you ask the average business owner how they would approach growing their business, they would tell you that they would do some advertising to get in some new customers. Fair enough answer, right?

Well, yes and no.

It probably would bring in some new customers and grow the business to some degree. But, here's the bad news. This is the probably the hardest, slowest and most expensive way to build any business.

By Alice Elliot, Alice Designs, http://www.alice-designs.co.uk

Here's a concept that is big in the US. Think of a small, bijou, concise form of communication that is quirky, eye-catching, yet still packed full of information. Of course the Americans have a larger version of the postcard, something resembling an A5 so there is more space for the designer to play with, but I still think it could work with our British sizes if you're clever.

How can you fit a newsletter onto a postcard?

The types of information offerings you can provide your prospective and current customers are many and varied.

Here are just a few ideas:

• Tips booklets
• Articles and ‘how to' reports
• Newsletters/ezines
• Reports of new research, surveys, etc.
• White papers, case studies
• Check lists, statistics
• Questions and answers
• Formulas and calculations
• Quizzes and puzzles
• And many more...