Understanding the balance between art and science when it comes to marketing a small business is at times tricky. There is a fine line between the creative and the message. Ensuring that the creative is powerful is essential but getting the message right is far more important.
The thing that every small business owner needs to grasp is that marketing is the process of “buying” your customers.
So first of all who are your customers? Do they come from a variety of genres? If so, will your marketing speak directly to each of these groups as a collective or will you have to tailor your message to each group?
Think about the ART of marketing to your customers in two parts
1. The creative – your brand, corporate colours and general style needs to be consistent throughout your marketing tools – whatever your message.
2. The message – the copy style should have a similar vane, but the actual message you are sending can and should alter if you have more than one defined target market group.
Think about the SCIENCE of marketing to your customers in two parts
1. How are you going to spread your message? What vehicle will you use to convey your message? These needs to be though about carefully as whatever you choose must target your defined customers and it must work in with your set budget.
2. How will you measure the results? – Its important to know what works so you don’t make costly mistakes again and again.
It is simple when you break it down, but often it is over complicated or not thought through enough and that is when results are low or non existent.
Case Study
A new company puts together an eye catching double sided DL flyer and sends out 10,000 copies for distribution across various residential suburbs. A few weeks pass and no calls are received and no hits to the website are received.
What went wrong?
The DL looked great – but it didn’t have the target market in mind. It spoke too generally about the product.
There was no call to action on the flyer – so there was no real reason for the recipients to rush to make contact with the company. A call to action is vital. Give them a reason to contact you.
The spread was too far and wide – concentrating on one area and saturating that area first is a better idea before casting the blanket further afield.
Residential unaddressed direct mail outs yield low success rates so volume is key here. Generally you can expect a 2-3% success rate (if there is a call to action). This means that if you send out 10,000 flyers expect 200 – 300 enquiries, if you are great at sales expect to convert 25% into sales so that is 50 – 75 sales.
Let’s say that the design job costs $400, the Print of 10,000 flyers costs 800 and the distribution costs $750 – that is a total of $1950 to tell 10,000 residential homes about your product.
If we work on the worst case scenario = 50 sales – the product you are selling needs to be worth over $39 in profit to break even on the marketing exercise. If you have a call to action with a discount on it – you need to deduct that % from the final amount.
Bottom line is – ensure what you are selling whether it is a product or a service is going to get a ROI (return on investment) for your marketing dollar spend.
What the Mail out did do
The Company was essentially exposed to 10,000 residential homes.
Some of the recipients may have kept the flyer for later use.
It has started some brand exposure – but the only way to keep that brand exposure going is to continue the mail outs. It is documented that a person only recognises and reacts to a brand after the 7th time they see it. That is a lot of saturation for a small company to commit to for one sale. This means that the sale of one item to each customer costs 7 x one flyer distributed, so work out the cost of your marketing against the profit per sale and decide if this vehicle is worth the effort for your one sale.
Summary
• The creative and the message really need to speak to your target market.
• The creative needs to work with the rest of your marketing tools so brand recognition starts to work.
• Think outside the box when it comes to your marketing, doing something that has low % success rates may not be a good way to expose your business.
• Understand that you are buying customers so spend your money wisely. Like any major purchase, shop around to get good deals and ask for advice from experts.
• Break down your marketing into the Art and the Science and decide strategically what is best for your business.
Need help with any aspect of your marketing?
Helping small businesses is what we do – so contact us for your free consultation
07 3482 4286
angie@garnish.com.au
www.garnish.com.au
January 17, 2011 at 1:25 am |
This is a great article Angie.
You really explain the REASON why business owners need to look at the science. I loved how you brought it all back to the bottom line – $39.00 profit on each sale to justify the costs.