I do however use it a little too often to explain to small business owners that their product or service offerings simply won’t sell. It’s a marketing disaster.

If you’re facing quiet and tough times, take the time to review your actual product or service offering.

Questions to ask yourself:

1. Am I offering a product or service that people in my area actually want to buy?
2. Does my product/service price meet the expectations of my customers? Too cheap? Too expensive?
3. Do I clearly promote my key product or service offering in my advertising?
4. Are my potential customers familiar with this product? Have they had or used one before?
5. Do my customers need to be convinced of the concept of the product/service before buying the actual product/service? (think selling Ipods to people who own CD Players)

I think you’ll be quite surprised at the answers you give yourself. Here is a little scenario.

Bob owns ABC Coffee shop. He is certain the coffee is the best in Bunbury. His price  is lower than everyone else. Much lower. His coffee shop looks lovely, has friendly welcoming staff and in a location with passing foot traffic. Bob is puzzled at why he has no customers?

After asking himself the above questions and surveying a few customers, Bob realised that his price was too cheap. Customers expected a coffee in his local area to cost between $3 and $4. If it was less than this, they deemed it to be “bad coffee” and if it was higher than this, they deemed it to be “a rip off”.

There is an important lesson to be learnt here. Make sure your product or service offering is one that customers will actually want to buy.

But what could YOU be doing?

Well how about preparing your 2011-2012 marketing plan – yes the new financial year is here and what better time to work out what you’re going to do differently this year.

Now before you say “I don’t need a marketing plan”, check out our easy five step marketing plan:

1. Budget. Allocate yourself between 5% and 10% of your turnover for your marketing budget. Anything less and you’re not spending enough. Anything more and you’re spending too much.
2. Analysis. Work out what you did last year. What worked? What didn’t? What didn’t you try?
3. Calculate. For the bits that worked last year, do more of it. Drop the advertising that didn’t. And try one thing new.
4. Plan. Draw up a 12 month calendar. Now work out all the key dates, Valentine’s Day, Christmas, Easter etc including any industry specific events that are relevant to your business and start filling in what marketing/advertising you are going to do, when and where.
5. Contact. Now you’ve worked out how much you’re going to spend, what you’re going to spend it on and when you’re going to spend it, it’s time to make the call. Or the email. Whichever you prefer, just get in contact with your marketing partners and get your marketing plan into action.

It really is as simple as 1, 2, 3 with two extra steps! As the year rolls on, and the reps start calling, don’t get badgered into “revolutionary ideas” or “once a year specials”, stick to your plan.

At least once a week I read an article that says “spend more time on your business than in it” so use this morning to draw up your marketing plan. You can still have your coffee, just don’t spill it on the plan!

So many business names are (person who owns it) + (what they do). Some examples include Bob’s Plumbing, Jim’s Mowing, Fred’s Drainage.

BORING!

These names have no thought behind them. No sense of growth. What happens if Bob sells his business to Fred. Call it Fred’s Plumbing ..?

Don’t be ridiculous!

Come up with something catchy, something exciting. It really isn’t that hard, coming up with a good business name just requires a little bit of effort. Go and grab a dictionary, find a word that you like and join it with another word that you like.

That’s my two cents!

Wrong.

Let me give you a few names. Bunnings. McDonalds, Westpac, Holden, Versace. None of these brand names describe what the business does. So how on earth did we come to associate hardware with Bunnings, fast food with McDonalds, banking with Westpac, cars with Holden and super expensive fashion with Versace?

The obvious answer is “because that is what they do.”

Wrong.

The correct answer is through the power of branding. Each of the above mentioned companies have spent millions of dollars on developing their brands. A brand is not a logo. A logo is the artistic part of a brand. A brand is the identity of the business.

A brand is set of values, ideas and emotions connected to a business. That is why our brains associate hardware with Bunnings, fast food with McDonalds and banking with Westpac. These companies have continued to push their brand values, ideas and emotions through their shop fronts, their advertising and their websites.

So what does this mean for your business?

Well it means you can’t just expect people to know who you are and what you do. You need to ensure your points of difference, your ideas and your values are promoted through your logo, your website, your advertising, your signage, your shop fit out. Do this right and you will have your brand.

Then everyone will know who you are and what you do.

A carton will set you back anywhere from $60 – $80 and will be priced between $9 and $12 in a bar or restaurant. Now you can imagine my surprise when just recently I witnessed a $16.20 sign at a well known Belgium pub in the city. I muttered a few words in disgust, inappropriate for this website, to my fellow beer lovers who were equally amazed. Naturally, we refused and drank something else. Stellar I believe at a far more reasonable $10.

There is an important business lesson to be learnt here. It is related to your pricing strategy.

Whether you are just starting out in business, are introducing new products and services or are reviewing your pricing structure, always remember this simple rule;

SET YOUR PRICE TO WHAT YOUR CUSTOMERS WILL BE WILLING AND ABLE TO PAY.

That was one major fail for the well known pub who have completely out priced themselves from the average beer drinker. Who would pay almost 50% more than the average? I drink a lot of beer, and a lot of Hoegaarden and I have NEVER seen it anywhere near $15, net alone $16.20!!

So how does this relate to your business?

Play with your pricing a little. Keep putting your prices up until you get to a stage where your customer no longer feels comfortable in handing over the cash. Then bring them down a bit and check that your competitors aren’t undercutting you for the same level of service.

But be careful not to overinflate or you’ll lose good, well paying customers and earn yourself a bad reputation around town. Just like our friends at the pub.

Only this morning when I was stacking the dishwasher was I refreshed of the value of a brand. Allow me a few moments to set the scene.

I’ve grown up using the super amazing, Finish 5 in 1 Power Boost action with Powerball dishwater tablets; yes the name really is that over marketed! So the last time I went shopping, I decided to buy the cheap brand. I pondered over the product, I analysed the price variation and eventually picked up the smallest box of no-name dishwasher tablets, just in case it was rubbish and ended up washing our dishes by hand. Can’t have that can we!

However, contrary to popular belief, our dishes came out just as clean and just as sparkling. Guess who’s buying the big box next time!

There are a few lessons here…

1)      It is the wonderful performance of Mr Advertising and Mrs Marketing that has made me believe that the completely over the top named, Finish 5 in 1 PowerBoost action with Powerball dishwater tablets (breathe) are actually a better product. Which they aren’t.

2)      I was so hesitant to purchase the so called ‘inferior’ product (again thanks to Mrs Marketing) that I almost, almost didn’t purchase it. How silly.

But the biggest lesson here is how the value of a brand is unmeasurable. How many others on their weekly shopping trip, all around the globe choose Finish 5 in 1 PowerBoost action with Powerball dishwater tablets over the cheaper, just as good, brands? Millions. And why? Because of the power of branding! The marketing department have created such a formidable brand that is so well trusted by consumers, its competitors don’t get a look in.

What does this mean for you and your business?

It means you need to push your brand to a level where your competitors can’t compete. If you achieve this, you will be the chosen provider of your product time and time again.

Create trust in your brand and your product will walk off the shelves.

Now in the perfect world, your Christmas website strategy would go something like this:

1. Log into your website content management system
2. Make a short and snappy post on the front page of your website about your Christmas specials and opening hours
3. Let your website automatically feed into your Facebook and Twitter accounts letting everyone else in the world know about your Christmas cheer
4. Use your website content management system to also alert your email/SMS database of clients

And now enjoy a busy and fruitful Christmas without spending a cent!

Of course without the clever website and email/SMS systems this would be impossible but thats where Concise Creative comes in. Simple, effective and low cost website/database/social networking/client interaction.

Make your 2010 Christmas message count by using your website to its full potential.

What does this mean for small business websites?

Very soon, everyone in Australia will have always on, instant access, incredibly high-speed broadband. Australians will want information faster than ever before. Now is the time to upgrade your website, update your content, improve your search engine rankings.

Be prepared for a new move in the way in which Australians use the internet and consequently your website. To find out more about the National Broadband Network, please click here.

To get started on your new website plans, please contact us.

Our Mandurah team would like to thank all of our Mandurah clients who have trusted their website design and online marketing services to Concise Creative.

We now have a dedicated Mandurah Website Design page which you can look at by clicking here. If you would like us to add your website to this page, please email mandurah@concisecreative.com.au with your website address.

Thank you again to all of our Mandurah clients for supporting our web design business over the past four years. We are looking forward to many more years of designing websites as the web evolves over time.

Cheers!

So here is a simple guide for helping you write content for your new website.

1. Prepare a list of all of the pages for your website – ie: Home, About Us, Services, FAQ, Contact etc
2. Open up a Word document and make each of your website pages a heading
3. Then start making notes under each one.
4. Once you have had a ‘mini brainstorming’ session start putting the ideas and notes into paragraphs. Keep your sentances short and straight to the point. We don’t want waffle! 3-5 paragraphs per page is about right.

Paragraph one should be an introduction and include your key services. For example:

“Welcome to Concise Creative. We provide website design services for small and medium sized businesses in Western Australia.”

Paragraph two should include your point of difference. Ie:

“Concise Creative are award winning web designers. We practice what we preach, using the same systems and techniques to promote our own websites, as we provide for our clients websites.”

The third and forth paragraphs (if used) should be an explantion of your services. Example:

“Our online based services include website design, website development, online marketing, search engine optimisation, domain names, web hosting and site analysis.”

And finally, your last paragraph should be a call to action or link to your contact page as that is what you want your prospects to do! Contact you! Ie:

“If you would like to find our more about our website design services, please contact us.”

Its as easy as that!

Now to help maximise your website in Google, take note of all of the keywords i have used – website design is repeated a number of times and in various ways (website design, website designer, web design etc) which helps our website rank well in Google. I also recommend you include suburbs (Mandurah, Rockingham, Perth, Bunbury etc) as a lot of people search that way. Finally, make sure you link your keywords to the rest of your website. Google loves this too!

And don’t forget to save your work. You don’t want to write it all over again! But after reading this article you should be able to write your website content with ease!

If its still too hard, just contact us. (this was our conversion line)