Do you have an advertising budget? If so, is it considered an expense? If you answered yes to those questions, you are letting the wrong person control your marketing.

Accountants and Marketers are notorious enemies in the corporate world. Accountants are constantly fighting to keep budget control, and Marketers keep singing the old "spend money to make money" tune.

Treating your marketing budget as an expense is completely wrong. It should be considered a form of credit line if anything. You should certainly start by setting aside an amount that is to be used for marketing. But in order to make sure that you are not shooting yourself in the foot, this amount must be allowed to replenish on its own merit as it earns money. This will allow your marketing to become self funding and it will also give you much better insight in what works, and what doesn’t.

If you run an ad, costing you $500, then that money should be taken out of your marketing/advertising budget. Just like the accountant would want you to. That’s however where the accountant is right for the last time.

If you have a $1200 advertising budget, you can afford to run a $600 ad twice if you work on a straight budget. After you’ve run it twice, you are out of money and have to stop. However, if that ad brought you $800 in profits, you are bidding for a dunce cap if you don’t run it again and again.

When that ad brings you $800 in profits, start by replenishing the marketing budget before you consider what your real income was. In essence, you made $200 but your marketing budget is back to its original level.

Should the Ad bring $500 in revenue, don’t run it again, but stick that money back into the advertising budget. "Pay" your marketing account first, and you will always be able to continue your efforts.

Doing this carries two major benefits.

1. It gives you a better understanding of your marketing ROI, Telling you which efforts are good and which are bad.
2. When done over time, it allows you to compare several ads. In other words it allows you to find the ads that are outperforming the others, tweaking your message so that you will slowly see better and better results from each ad you run.

You should end the year with the marketing budget at the same amount as you started. That will be your best indication that your advertising has justified itself.

In “Creating customer value ” I discussed the need to meet expectations. This continues to be the key portion to any customer relationship. The problem is that value is considered to be something on its own. Almost seen as something completely separate, and this is of course asinine at best.

Instead of fixing the product or service to match the promises we make the customer, we add other things to the sale hoping that this will be the value they are looking for. It isn’t and that simply doesn’t work. Unless you are adding something of direct value to the purchase itself, however, that is hardly ever the case.

Although I appreciated the travel coffee-mugs that came with my car; the “value” added to the purchase is negligible. I know that the $0.99 per cup this dealer paid for them is not going to hurt him in the least. Not mentioning that they have the dealership details on them. So now I am supposed to feel that I got value out of becoming their advertiser?

If they had simply put the box in the car, not mentioned it, and left it at that. I would probably had thought more of the gift than them acting like they gave me something really special. It starts to look more like a bad joke when they present a couple of plastic cups with the ceremony of it being the Nobel Prize.

The simple fact is that adding value is not that easy, or even possible. Value is still going to be measured, by the meeting and exceeding of the customers’ expectations. Few customers will equate the value in their purchase with the free gifts that come with it. If you are going to add something to a sale, it has to be of relevance and carry a direct connection to the use and enjoyment of the product or service.

This concept of “adding” value is a disconnect that prevails in sales today. If you own a business, you probably get these 900 page catalogs with everything from branded post-it’s to pens and bottle openers. By all means, use them. Just don’t think that they will be what bring your customers back. These items bring value to you in terms of advertising. Don’t confuse that with them making a difference in your customers’ experiences.

We can pack on coffee mugs, key rings, and other marketing giveaways, and sales / marketing gurus all over are claiming this to be of great value. I think it has a place, but that place is not to cover up our failure to live up to our promises.

Next time someone tries to sell you these items as “marketing” materials, ask them to show you example of conversions, new business brought, customer satisfaction surveys that improved dramatically or any other metric that would prove their often very lofty statements.
These items are only a small addition to what should be your real business.

Meeting and exceeding customer expectations.

How to get your customers to do the selling for you

Sometimes, what everyone else is doing isn’t necessarily the right thing. Many businesses have fallen into following the leader when it comes to high pressure sales tactics. Trying to keep up by copying their methods. A person that broke this mold is Australian media commentator and motivational speaker, Craig Harper - who also owns a personal training center.

Craig says in this article that he has no marketing budget (note that he doesn’t say he doesn’t do any marketing.. there is a huge difference), he does no hard selling and he has no memberships for his gym. No upfront commitments or high pressure tactics like most of the competition does. He also states that this is against all his marketing connections advice.

But what traditional marketing, and especially the “gym mold” is missing is exactly what Craig has been doing. What so many businesses today have been trying to create is exactly the situation that allows him to be successful. When every big player in the area is doing the same thing, (and in this case that thing is to force the customer to to sign a long term membership that Houdini couldn’t get out of),the simple answer is to do something different…

What’s the key to creating this success?

He DOESN’T SELL! … no hard sales ever. He also does something completely moronic if you were to look at the approach of his competition. He LISTENS !

This part from his article is very telling as to why he is successful.

“I spoke to an older gentleman recently who was interested in being trained by one of my team. I spent twenty minutes with him, had a few laughs and he booked in for three sessions per week.” … “Why did he choose Harper’s? Because he had visited eleven centers (we were number twelve) and I was the first person who listened, didn’t ’sell’ and spent more than two minutes with him. I would have happily spent the time with him no matter what the outcome was. If the first eleven businesses had half a clue, we would never have met.”

Craig has grasped the basics of relationship marketing and turned it into an art. He knows that in his case, just doing what the opposition isn’t doing will go very far in earning him a client. He also knows that in his particular case, a happy and satisfied customer will be the best advertising he can get. In the business of personal training, getting satisfied customers creates more business because it creates a walking, talking advertisement for you.

As Craig puts it

“Get a fat bloke in shape and ten things will happen:”

1. He’ll be a slimmer, healthier, satisfied customer.
2. People will want some of what he’s got.
3. He will sell you and your business (verbally and visually).
4. He will create ‘brand awareness’ for you.
5. You will have more people walk through the door.
6. He will boost your credibility.
7. He’ll bring five of his fat buddies, who in turn will bring fifty of their buddies.. and so on.
8. Your business will grow.
9. You’ll make more money.
10. You’ll buy a boat.

There is an old saying that sales is 90% listening and 10% talking. This is what the Hard Sell promoters out there have been missing. They aim for quantity, not quality. They strive to hit as many customers as possible in order to cover the ones that are ready to buy or prone to be pressured into buying a standard sales pitch. Then move on and find another one. They don’t spend enough time to make sure that the customer is getting what they are looking for. Which is why they lock them down into contracts and payment tricks. Since they don’t care about customer satisfaction, they have to ensure repeat business in other ways. For these businesses, return business is the same as repeat billing.

Do you think their customer satisfaction rating is high or low?

Next time, try to sit down, and actually listen to a customer. Maybe you are not that far away from becoming a Craig Harper, who gets business without spending a fortune in advertising because people want to deal with him, not because they got pressured into a contract they can’t get out of…

Or think about what kind of business you would like to run in terms of taglines.

“Your business” - #1 Because once we get you to sign, we own you!
or
“Your Business” - #1 Because our customers come back for more

If you are currently employing the Hard Sell, trying to lock down your customers into long term contracts, you should ask yourself this.

If I met the customers’ needs and expectations, would I need to enforce ironclad contracts? Possibly ruining dissatisfied customers credit and creating bad will for myself in the process?

I would venture to guess that the answer to that question is No!
I would also dare to guess that in the long term, your business will be growing way past what skinning dissatisfied customers out of can ever accomplish.

Not to mention that you will spend a lot less money on call centers trained in how to tell the customer that they can’t stop doing business with you.

Money that you could actually spend on bringing more first time customers through your doors so that you can listen to them too.

Or you could buy a Boat.

Spring is in the air, summer is almost here and this is the time to start thinking about creating an event that a whole community will see and rally behind. There are hundreds of worthy ideas and causes that you can create a charity event for. And make no mistake about the impact that doing such a thing can have.

This is a tip that takes a little more time and energy than others, but can be a great branding tool for you and your company. It is best suited for small companies with a few employees. But you can also get together with other companies and co-host the event, which is also a great networking opportunity. If you are unable to create your own event, don’t miss an opportunity to sponsor one with either your special skills, or your products.

You will:

- Send a very powerful message of Civic engagement
- Get connected with new people that can function as a future network
- Build new business and strengthen your customer relationships
A few years back I helped a small company organize a soap box derby. The goal was to raise money for a children’s hospital. They had other companies donate necessary items like the safety barriers. They also sold the advertising space on these barriers to advertisers.

Community organizations stepped in and helped with manpower.

The positive community image that resulted was incredible. The company was featured on the front page of the local newspaper three times. State media picked the story up and broadcasted the name of the business and interviewed the owner.

The trick is to ensure that you really are focusing your efforts on the charity or cause that you are supporting. You can and should of course make sure that you use available space to place your logo, but by actually doing something for someone else, media will be much quicker in giving it coverage than they ever will if they assume that you are doing it for the publicity.

Make sure that you craft a strong press release and media package, having this ready for the initial announcement is crucial to make the most out of your coverage.

Event Ideas could include: Soap Box Derby, Outdoor concert, Flea Market, Chili Cook-off, BBQ competition, Movie night in a park, Rubber Duck Race, Raft Race, Golf or Tennis tournament, Bingo Night, Silent Auction. The list is endless.

Press Releases are becoming popular marketing tools to many businesses. Not only does it provide a chance to get some great and low cost coverage through news outlets. It also helps accomplish what most businesses are looking for right now - Search Engine Optimization.

The SEO Angle

A well written press release provides you with increased visibility for your Website. Once it gets posted, it will add a series of keywords to your listing on search engines. Do this enough times and you will be much more likely to end up on the front page of Google, Yahoo and the others. Because it is a relevant text, this is a perfect White Hat approach to SEO.

An Image of importance

When you release news, you are projecting an image of importance about your company to the public. News are by definition about something that people should know, the mere fact that it is a press release makes it appear more important than basic Ad Copy. It becomes a matter worth noting. Press releases are powerful because of just this tool. It is information that in itself isn’t trying to sell the reader anything. When you are not trying to sell, the reader will drop their guard and note the information much more readily.

Communicate and Motivate

Press releases are a form of communicating, if you post them on your own website, chances are that customers will read them and know more about your company and what you are accomplishing. By having a steady stream of Press Releases appearing, you are showing that your company is on the move. This creates an image of success that will not be lost on your customers.
You can also use press releases to communicate milestones, new hires etc. When this happens, you are sending a strong message to the employees. Showing employees that they are important and that their accomplishments are noteworthy is a great way to build moral.

Get going
Press Releases are powerful tools, well written and newsworthy releases can give you more bang for your buck than most other forms of marketing activities. You will build awareness, improve your brand and build your business without having to spend a fortune doing it.
There is little or no reason to miss an opportunity like the press release, the cost is low and the rewards potentially very high.

You are a startup and/or an entrepreneur. Money is tight and you are thinking about how to make the most of your marketing budget.
The business card should be your first step. It’s like a pair of pants; you never leave home without them, and just like pants, even though having them won’t mean you are the new mogul. Not having them WILL make your customers think you may be just a little strange.
Do yourself the favor of getting professional looking clean business cards. By all means, be original if that is something that you think describes you and your company. However, there are a few do’s and don’ts to consider.

1. Don’t use “cool” materials.

Plastic, metal, cloth, even the high gloss cardstock will definitely make a statement. However, you can’t write on them. And writing on your card is something that you will want to do at one time or another. This is something that I will guarantee you. If you have a good quality cardstock for your cards, writing an extra phone number, a personal note or something else on it will be easy. Try that one on a piece of Tartan Cloth.

2. Don’t get fancy with the text.Use clear and readable fonts, try to stick to one or max two font choices for the card. There is nothing worse than needing bright task lighting and a magnifier to find out what your phone number is. It might be a conversation topic, but it won’t help you get a sale when the customer tries to get in touch with you.

3. Avoid the photo background

The photo background can if used correctly be very effective. However, more often than not I get cards where the picture and text haven’t been placed with consideration to each other, making some parts of the text disappear in the background. Again, not the thing you want from a business card. It also normally means you get a glossy card – the ones you can’t write on.

4. Use the real estate

If you owned a lot in Manhattan, you would quickly find something to put on it. Just letting it sit empty wouldn’t make any sense to anyone. Incredibly, most people leave the back of their cards blank. This is prime real estate; you can put any number of things there to make you stand out. Anything from a company description, your mission or vision statement, a motivational saying or quote, the potential is endless.
One of my favorites for startup businesses is to put a “coupon” on the back of the card. This not only makes you stand out, but it makes your prospects more likely to actually call you.

5. Get help

Almost all of us know someone with artistic talent, and professional graphic designers are not that uncommon either. Maybe you know one that you can get help from. Maybe they will want you to pay them but you’ll get a reduced rate, maybe they will give you a boost for free.
If nothing else, ask as many people as possible what they think of the card before you order it. Do your own marketing research before you spend the money. You might not be seeing what the rest of the world sees.
As a perfect example, I was recently working with a startup company that did their own design work. The logo looked great in full size, but when scaled down to fit on a business card, one part of it stood out to look like a certain part of the male anatomy. If they were selling Viagra, this could have been a fun trick. For a web design company it might not have been the best.

6. Pick your poison

There are plenty of places online that will print good looking business cards for free (charging only shipping and handling is common. They are definitely a viable option. They will create much better quality cards than your home printer can normally spit out, and is an extremely strong cost/benefit solution.

If you have a little more available in your budget and want more design options, it may actually be a better investment to get a designed card and print them at a local printer. This however normally involves design fees as well as much higher printing costs.

Regardless of how you do it, not having a business card would be your worst mistake.

Marketing, and specifically advertising has for a long time worked with the concept of AIDAS.

Attention – Being aware of the product or service
Interest – Seeing how it solves a particular problem or need
Desire – Wanting to solve that problem or need
Action – Obtaining it
Satisfaction – Perceiving that the purchase had value

Customer value is directly linked to perceived satisfaction. It is important to realize that not every purchase is made thinking that the product is the best one in the marketplace. Satisfaction is obtained when the customer feels that the purchase met or exceeded their expectations.

This is all connected to trust. The customer makes a purchase based on a cost/benefit calculation, and when they evaluate the benefits, they rely on the communication of the company producing or selling the product. This trust is placed in that the advertising, sales pitches, and product descriptions are true and honest.

Once we realize that trust is imperative to the perception of value, the need for an ethical approach becomes obvious. You cannot sell value without trust, and you cannot gain real trust without being ethical in the presentation of your product or service.

Perception is Reality

In order for the customer to perceive value, it is important to know that their expectations are not exceeding the capabilities of the product or service. This can actually mean informing a customer that their expectations are too high. Although this might sound like a death blow to an automatic sale, this is nothing compared to the long term effects of having displeased customers. It is better to educate the customer who is in the process of making a decision and possibly lose a sale than to have them experience a lack of satisfaction and the resulting bad relationship because the purchase did not measure up to the expectations.

The White Knight Intervention

The reason for not making a sale that is unable to deliver satisfaction to the customer is called the white knight syndrome. Once a customer feels that they were saved from making a mistake by the sales staff they have gained a level of trust that is hard to achieve in any other way. Losing the initial sale by informing the customer about the true performance of the product or service will build a level of trust that has a much greater potential of bringing future return business and referrals.

To build the trust, there are five stages of communication that takes place:

1. Initial communication - Attention and Interest phase

This stage of communication is seller initiated. It includes advertising, sales copy, product descriptions, blurbs and all the other things that address the first two letters of AIDAS.This communication is normally one way. Printed, recorded or otherwise distributed to a customer that at this point isn’t communicating back. It can also be a cold call, or an unplanned sales visit.

2. Customer initiated contact – The desire phase

This is when the customer somehow approaches the seller. At this point, they are either looking for more information, or are preparing to make a purchase. Achieving consensus now is imperative; this is when the customer asks questions as to quality, performance and price. This is the time when the seller can make sure that the customer is in fact purchasing a product that is equal to their expectations, and the time for a white knight intervention steering the customer away from a purchase that will result in a bad experience. This communication can be either one or two way. If the customer does his or her research outside the control of the seller, it is again imperative that the information available matches the true performance of the product or service. If the customer has contacted the seller, the information should be just as honest, but the benefit here is that the seller can ask questions back, ensuring that consensus exists.

During this phase, ensure that disclosure exists for the customer to get a fair perception of the real purchase.

3. Action – The Sale

During the actual transaction, the real last chance of ensuring customer value exists. This is not the time to disclose additional fees, extras that are needed etc. If that occurs when the customer has decided to make a purchase - the trust is lost immediately. This signals that the seller understands that the deal itself isn’t so good. So they chose not to disclose the true cost of the item. Many companies employ this approach in order to make a sale, but do so knowing that return business is not likely.

4. Satisfaction – Customer Feedback

A seller interested in long term relationships with its customers should pay specific attention to the follow up. Give the customer a chance to communicate their feelings after the purchase. And should their perceived value not be up to standards, be prepared to make corrections. Listening to a customer that has already spent their money in order to ensure that they experienced the value and satisfaction is the one of the best ways to build trust. When a customer has a legitimate problem, be swift and reply with force to correct this problem and your trust will be raised even higher.

5. Follow up

To nurture a customer relationship, maintaining contact with the customer is imperative. The ways to build return business through value added offers differs from industry to industry. If you are selling cars, oil changes, tire wear and other maintenance can be predicted. Contacting the customers at the right time with deals that are of additional great value to them will continue to build trust. If you are a roofer, keeping in touch before seasonal changes with maintenance offers will make sense.

In short, satisfaction relies on the perception of value obtained and customer value is the one main reason that customers return. Return business should always be on the forefront of every deal since it is much less expensive in time and effort to obtain.

Alienating a customer through lack of value can for many businesses be the death blow. Their customer base remains essentially the same, but the available customers keep declining because the unsatisfied customer will create negative publicity for the seller. The word of mouth damage that can be caused by bad relationships is not to be underestimated.

The importance of value will only increase as time goes on because of the internet and the increased customer capacity to write reviews and warnings to other potential customers.

Marketing in today’s world, where the rules change by the minute thanks to the web and new methods of social marketing creates confusion to many. Most people know about the phrases relationship marketing, social marketing, viral marketing, Web 2.0 and all the other terms floating around. But when you ask them, they all fall into the old trap of defining marketing as selling and advertising.

Defining marketing as sales and advertising is like defining Ford Motors as bumpers and speedometers. Ford makes complete vehicles, marketing makes (or breaks) complete Businesses.

Marketing has been defined in many ways, one popular definition is David Jobber’s “The achievement of corporate goals through meeting and exceeding customer needs better than the competition.”

The problem with all these definitions is that they attempt to define something but only succeed in limiting it. Marketing is indeed about meeting and exceeding customer needs, it is also about understanding, predicting and creating customer needs.

The only way I know how to explain and thereby define marketing without killing its real potential is by leaving the definition broad.
Marketing Is: Everything and Everyone that comes into contact with the customer.

If you leave it this broad, it will help you understand how for instance branding works, Branding isn’t about needs, branding is about perception, it is about value and quality. You can ruin the customer’s views of your company based on what paper you use to print your invoices. That is not a need, it has little to do with the competition. It’s just a matter of perception. And perception IS reality to a customer. An invoice printed crooked because your printer is bad, on cheap paper won’t give the customer the view of professionalism. It may create questions as to your legitimacy and intent.

Most commonly when I ask people about their perception on a company that uses cheap looking stationery, business cards etc.  Their answer is that they don’t believe this company will be around long. It has little or nothing to do with whether the company has what they want at the price they want. It simply diminishes their perception.

A customers perception will determine their expectations, and that in itself will determine both if they want to do business with you, and also if you can meet those expectations. Meeting and exceeding expectations is the true definition of value, not needs.

Needs only create an intention to look for something. Expectations determine what they will perceive as good value.

This is why small Businesses Fail to the tune of over 80% in four years, they lack the long term view of keeping customers, and keeping them happy. A happy customer will return, and will bring other customers along for the ride.

Referrals are the true path to sustained and constantly growing revenue. This long term perspective of marketing will bring you far greater returns than the best written sales copy ever will if it is only intended to sell an item, not focus on the customer experience.