Kinetic Marketing and Design - Grimsby Graphic Design, Advertising and Marketing

For any B2B company effective marketing is about building long standing client relationships, relationships that are built on trust and an understanding of the products and services you can provide.

So how can email with its fleeting messages and spam hangover be something that can help this? For SME business who are in the B2B or industrial sector, email may not seem like a particularly useful tool, after all you rarely have special offers or sell from your website. Yet as a relationship building tool, when used effectively, email can be extremely powerful. Keeping in contact with prospects through a lengthy sales pipeline. Keeping clients informed about the full range of services and products provided. Above all, keeping your business ‘font of mind’.

So if we accept that email can be extremely useful for B2B companies, I thought it would be useful to look at some specific pitfalls that B2B email marketers can fall into, plus a few reminders of best practice that apply to all.

reminders of best practice for all emailers.

In December 2010 I wrote a blog called ‘2011 Marketing New Year’s Resolutions’ - not sure where that year has gone, but here we are again first day back in work in 2012 and looking to make changes to the way we run our lives and our businesses. Looking back at last year’s blog, the resolutions still stand, so please check it out, but I have added some more.

In challenging times, when so many things in the wider economic environment seem out of our control, the one thing you do have control over is your marketing.

Having worked with SME businesses for the last 4 years, one of the most satisfying aspects is the immediate and tangible impact the marketing decisions can have on their business.

One of the frustrating aspects, however, is the fact that often good ideas can lose momentum and opportunities be missed because there is no ‘marketing infrastructure’ in place. Or to put it bluntly, with marketing an add-on to someone’s role (often the business owner) they often lack the time and know how to fully implement and capitalise on the marketing that they could be doing.

If you are like me you will have noticed the increasing momentum and prevalence of those funny black and white squares. They are popping up on business cards, ads, posters and banners and last week even a featured on radio 4’s You and Yours (so they must becoming mainstream).

QR (or Quick Response) codes originated in Japan and were used in manufacturing to tag parts so that they could be machine read. In effect they are like bar codes, but unlike the traditional bar codes we all know, they can hold far more data. By using a smart phone you ‘take a picture’ of the code (using a QR reader which is easily downloaded) and the information embedded in the code is revealed.

It hasn’t been until the spread of smart phones into the population, however, that QR codes as a marketing tool has really started to take off – after you need people to be able to read them!

We may be technically out of recession but for many businesses, times are still tight and with squeezes in both consumer and public sector, it is often the B2B businesses that are stuck in the middle, beings squeezed from both sides.

So what can businesses to business organisations do to make the most of their marketing in these testing times?

Recession, credit crunch, economic downturn - call it what you will there are few small businesses that have not been affected in some way or another.

In tight times the need to cut costs can often result in reduced marketing spend, especially in light of cash flow concerns but when times are tough it is even more important to keep promoting your business.

Now you may be thinking ‘well of course she would say that, marketing is what she sells’ but if you consider what is actually happening in a recession, you see why it is so important to keep up the momentum of your promotions.

1. 1)  Your customers (people or businesses) have less money to spend
2. 2)  They are looking to make more careful purchasing decisions
3. 3)  You will need to demonstrate how your product or service provides real value and is a better choice than your competitors.
4. 4)  You need to stay ‘front of mind’ so that when customers are looking to purchase, they come to your business.

Sounds like a job for marketing.

So if we accept that marketing is something all businesses need to do to survive, then what can be done when cash is in short supply?

I came across a great phrase which I am going to share - ‘pimping your content’. This is a phrase coined by John Watson, CMO of ShipServ and 2010 B2B Marketer of the Year. He talks about the intelligent re-using of content.

Create some content that supports your proposition. That demonstrates and substantiates what you want to be known for, what you are experts in and what the benefits your clients are left with. Once created, make sure this is intelligently recycled across all media and contact points of your campaigns.

So if you have written a blog or white paper, make sure you post it on social media sites. Email it to your client and prospect base. Add onto your website. You may even be able to get media coverage.

Most businesses do a number of things – multiple products, services and markets. So you want to make sure you are talking about as much of this as possible in your marketing communications so as many people as possible know as much about you as possible ... right?

Well there is a problem with this. In terms of advertising we are taught to have a ‘single minded proposition’ to be specific about what the campaign should achieve and the specific message it is communicating.

This ‘clash’ of principles is one of the most common I come across, especially for SME businesses. They want their marketing budget to stretch as far as possible so they try and make every activity have as broad appeal as possible. The result, all too often is bland, confusion and lacking impact.

I know we haven’t had Christmas yet, but as I was thinking about what New Year Marketing Resolutions I can think of and my first one, “Start Planning Early” prompted me to not wait until January to send this out but strike whilst the iron is hot!

Resolution #1 – Start Planning Early

It is a fact of life (and marketing) that things always take longer than you think. Yes, in this world of email, digital print and social media it is possible to turn some marketing communications very quickly, but there are still things that deserve, and need, to be taken a bit more time over.

There can be no doubt that the recent and sudden freeze has caused massive disruption to the lives and work of people across the UK, and especially in Scotland, the North and East of England. I am reminded of my ill fated comment of a couple of weeks ago that ‘we don’t get snow on the coast in Lincolnshire, last year was just a fluke’ when the next day about 15 inches fell and we have been snowed in for about a week!

So what about the impact on businesses, more specifically on marketing your business?

How sensibilities have changed in advertising.

A lesson in how important it is to understand consumer attitudes, values and peer environment.

Like everything, advertising has its fashions and some examples of old ads from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s I came across this week got me thinking about just how much has changed in terms of not only design trends but more importantly the attitudes of customers.

However fondly we remember the 50’s. 60’s or 70’s there is no denying that things we find unacceptable today such as racism, sexism and homophobia were endemic and was reflected and magnified by the advertising of the day.