The Five “R’s”

I have worked with many business leaders who employ a shiny new Marketing Director to help transform their marketing function and then provide them with a “To Do” list of all the initial things that the MD feels “needs” to be done rather than what actually “should” be done.

The new Marketing Director, desperate to impress, resorts to type and begins to “restructure, repackage, redesign, relaunch and then resign” mainly because they did not begin at the right starting point and ask the right questions.

A new refreshed logo, a new funky website, a few new promotions, and some funky social media campaigns, may tick all the boxes initially with your MD, but if it fails to engage with your core customer base, then it will not deliver long term success and growth for the business.

Understanding Your Market & Customers

Marketing is the process of understanding your marketplace and competitors, which helps to define your company’s market positioning, pricing, and service. All of this helps to promote the company effectively to your target audience and explain clearly how they might benefit by working or buying from you.

Every successful Marketing leader should always have funds allocated in his annual marketing budget for structured systematic research that explores questions about the company’s competitors, products, and services, which then helps to build up a knowledge base about the environment the company is operating in. Simply put, without this core understanding of your “market & customers” the marketing team are just churning out the same activity they have always done in the past, which will flat line results and hamper true long-term growth.

Knowledge Drives Strategy & Growth

Creating a knowledge base within your business is essential, and is derived from effective research and planning tools, both qualitative and quantitative,  which once in motion, helps to craft a successful marketing strategy which continuously evolves over time to drive long term business growth.

Fail To Plan, Plan to Fail.

There are many recent examples where companies have failed to understand their customer or taken their customer base for granted and paid a high price as smart competitors move in on their complacency. The assault by Aldi and Lidl on the UK grocery market whilst Tesco was looking the other way at expansion in the USA or the refusal by Arcadia Group to adapt quickly enough to their customers online buying habits are two classic examples.

When I joined CK Tools in 2012, my very first starting point was extensive International market and consumer research on the brand, competitors and the products. This then helped the brand team create activity growth plans for their categories that kickstarted the programme for significant company growth over several years, in what was a mature and competitive marketplace,

If you need help in reviewing if your marketing team are working on the right things PMF Marketing can help. Please call me today for a FREE 30-minute call and let’s get building your business back to growth together.

Do your products stand out from the crowd?

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The software of choice to deploy your message is typically Mailchimp or Constant Contact and both have their own pros and cons.

The biggest challenge you have is getting you message opened and heard over the typical spam your customers receive. So here are a few simple tips to make sure your emails are opened and read.

Target email list – make sure it is up to date

Making sure your email list is up to date is not only important for GDPR it is also essential to avoid any issues with your email software provider. Make sure you have the correct  business email address and make sure it is of an individual person rather than a general sales or info address to ensure it gets through to the correct decision maker.

Subject line – make it stand out!

Do not underestimate the importance of the subject line to catch the customer’s eye. It really can make the difference if its opened or not, so take some time drafting a subject line that is really going to stand out against the rest.

Make sure content is relevant

This may seem obvious, but it is one of the biggest frustrations your customers will have if it is the email content is not relevant or interesting to them or you will soon have them heading for the unsubscribe button and they are gone forever.

Responsive to all mobile devices

Typically, 85% of your clients will view your email on their mobile devices, so it is essential that they are optimised to be viewed on different mobile devices as well as a laptop. Otherwise, you could be missing a huge share of your target audience. Also make sure you send a test email before the final version is despatched and view it as your customers will see it on their mobile device.

Lets get personal

Personalisation goes a long way in email marketing. Without it, people will be reminded that the email is just one of many, but with-it people can just feel it is them you are talking to. Make sure, not only do you open the email copy with their name, but you can also add a member of staff’s name as a personal recipient, once again adding that personal touch that your customers crave these days from digital communications and will make them much more likely to respond

In life … timing is everything!

There are “sweet spot” times that you can send your emails out to ensure the best chances of them being opened and read. Typically, this is between 9am and 11am and 3pm and 5pm, however this might not always be right for your business, so do not be afraid to experiment, you will soon realise what works best.

PMF Marketing recently handled a project to set up some e-marketing activity for our client Kraftwerk Europe which resulted in securing a new online customer, so it does work! If you would like a free 30-minute consultation how we can help your business contact us today.

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In 2021 many businesses have had to “adapt” what they do to remain relevant to their customers or look at their business and see how they can “innovate” to drive new business growth.

Stand Still and Get Left Behind

One key aspect of marketing is to ensure that your target audience knows exactly what your product or your service can do for them. This may sound relatively easy to do and many businesses have already found some success in their current approach to market. However, the thing to remember about the business environment you operate in, is you need to be constantly “innovating and changing” – if you stand still, you can often get left behind. Just look at the recent examples of Debenhams, Topshop, Laura Ashley, all great brands, but they failed to keep their ranges fresh and adapt to the new buying behaviour of their consumers. By the time they realised they needed to change, it was too late.

Don’t Hesitate to Innovate

Henry Ford once said, “If we continue to do what we did, we will always get what we got” and the moto is even more relevant today. If you look at the truly inspirational brands that innovate and excite consumers like Apple, Dyson and Tesla, they put new product development at the very heart of what they do to drive their growth.

Where to Start

In previous blogs I have covered off the importance of Market and Consumer Research to ensure as a business you understand your competitor environment and identify your niche to help shape your future plans. Innovation ideas can come from a variety of sources; Competitor Patent Reviews, New Legislation, Competitor Range Audits or even running an Ideation Session within your business, all of these initiatives can really help kickstart your innovation plans. Simply picking a problem area for analysis and improvement and using business models like De Bono 6 hats  to view a problem from different angles or writing a SOSTAC to really hone in on a problem area, can help to tease out new ideas. Internal Range Review programmes are also essential to ensure your product offer is match fit.  Some of the best ideas can come from looking within your own business teams, the trick is how to encourage that engagement and keeping it simple. One of the most successful schemes I have run in the past was to introduce a companywide Innovation Hub via a WhatsApp group, where any new ideas proposed from employees that resulted in a new successful product, would win a company award. The best ideas come from those who are close to the company products and customers, but recognition and reward are key to driving continued staff engagement.

PMF Marketing can help assist your business with a new or improved Product Development Process, running an Ideation Workshop Programme or help launch a New Product Idea Generation Scheme to kickstart your business and drive future growth. If you would like to understand more how I can help your business, please call me today for a FREE 30-minute call and let’s get building your business back to growth together.

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Creating an effective customer loyalty scheme for your business can help protect against this and it can be done quite easily by taking a structured approach.

Understand your Customers

This may seem like an obvious one, but you would be amazed how many clients I deal with who do not have an “intimate knowledge” of their customers. By understanding your customers business, helps you to understand their challenges and needs, which in turn will help you achieve their loyalty as they view you as a trusted solutions provider.  A great starting point in understanding your customers is to segment and structure your customer base via a CRM system and then filter it by business type, turnover, services, products supplied etc…

Understand What Makes Them Tick

Before you can target your customers effectively to drive more business from them and create more loyalty, you need to develop an understanding of their challenges and future business objectives.  It may be improved pricing, added value goods or services or even rewards like free vouchers or gifts. Customer surveys or regular face to face meetings helps to build up your relationship with them as well as this intelligence. This can then help you to develop a clear picture of what you can offer them going forward that others do not.

Clear Communication

It is essential once their “needs” have been identified, that you are clear and concise with your client how you can add value for them, what their loyalty means to you, and what they will get in return for their commitment to you as a business. Many businesses put some controls around this such as an annual rebate agreement for reaching a certain level of business, or free vouchers if the customer spends a certain amount of turnover with you. It is essential that both sides agree on what will be provided and what is needed to achieve it.

Delivering On Your Promise – Exceed Expectations!

Most important of all is to deliver on your promise and if possible, exceed it. The best example of a loyalty scheme I have done previously involved free  love2shop vouchers which were provided to retailers if they hit different spend levels in a product promotion I was running. In addition, new products were added to create some extra excitement and the products offered were tailored to appeal to the different customer base through channel segmentation.

It had a fantastic impact on sales, growing the promotional sales consecutively by 40% each year, for 4 years.  The reason why it was so successful was that the Retailer was getting a “ free reward” for his business, along with exciting new discounted products in a promotion. The supplier was getting “increased revenue” from the promotion, along with “extra cash margin”.  Long term, the supplier had secured the future business loyalty from his customer as they became more entrenched with the supplier and his new products, and a delighted customer who was seeing his business revenue grow from the exciting new products introduced.  Everyone was a winner.

If you believe your business would benefit from a market audit and some fresh thinking developing a new sales and marketing strategy, contact PMF Marketing today for a free 30 minute consultation.

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Identify What Will Add Value

In 2008, working as a Category Manager for Holts Car Care, I was responsible for an emergency puncture repair sealant product called Holts Tyreweld. A fantastic product which would seal and inflate a tyre if you incurred a puncture. The main benefit of the product, was that it would help you get back on the road and to a tyre repair centre quickly and safely.  One of the negatives however, which was holding back the products growth at the time, was the reluctance of the UK tyre repair outlets to repair the puncture once the latex sealant had been put into the tyre.

Make Sure The Alliance Is A Good “Fit”

The solution was to approach the management at National Tyres & Autocare and strike up a strategic alliance agreement. This would ensure that any of the 235 NTA branches would repair the puncture of any tyre treated with Holts Tyreweld. NTA were quick to see the commercial opportunity of having their brand and contact number tagged on over a million cans of Tyreweld in Tesco, Halfords etc.. and the benefit of delighting the customer with a solution. The initiative grew the products sales by over £500k in the first year.

Communicate Why The Alliance Works

Fast forward to today and one of our clients Kraftwerk Tools has joined forces with Franke Sinks to help complement its Mobilo Workshop Storage solutions. The new product package introduces a Franke sink, detergent, hand sanitiser gel and paper towel dispenser, alongside their existing range of storage cabinets, all in one neat solution. PMF Marketing has then developed the concept further, with new advertising in the automotive press, which not only communicates the alliance, shouts about getting your workshop “organised”, but also reinforces the government guidelines on hand washing and keeping Covid-19 safe at work. The new ad will go live in Professional Motor Mechanic (November 2020). The complete package offers a unique, quality solution for the customer and has fantastic standout in the magazine delivering a powerful yet clear message for the consumer.

If you believe your business would benefit from a market audit and some fresh thinking developing a new sales and marketing strategy, contact PMF Marketing today for a free 30 minute consultation.

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That was the question posed by a well established tool company from Switzerland who had been trading successfully across Europe for the past 40 years who turned to PMF Marketing for help in understanding the UK market and to develop a new sales and marketing strategy for the UK market for them.

Where To Start ?

The client wanted an initial outline of how the project would be approached and  to understand what they would get at the end. PMF Marketing provided a timeline of workflow activity along with timescales, that would not only set out defining the UK market and analysing the opportunities, but would then develop an action plan, so there was something tangible at the end of the project which the client could use if an opportunity existed.

Defining The Market

PMF Marketing had a rich understanding of the routes, channels and customers in the automotive aftermarket and quickly set about mapping out the picture for the customer to develop an understanding of how big the market opportunity was and who were the big players in the market that needed to be approached. Various market data reports were used to put “scale” on the opportunity and a customer profile of each account was created.

Analysing The Opportunities

Various  business development models were then applied to identify the barriers to entry, using SWOT Analysis, Gap Analysis, Competitor Analysis and Price Benchmarking to ascertain what tactics would need to be employed to create a sales story. It was essential that there was clear identification of product USPs which would set the company apart from what already existed in the marketplace.

Some field research was then carried out to speak to potential end users about their purchasing behaviours, attitudes to the existing brands in the market and if they were open to a new brand coming into the UK. It was clear from this research that an opportunity did indeed exist to provide something “new” from a credible, quality supplier and despite some economic challenges, the market was ripe for further development.

Time For Action

Pulling all this information together in a digestible format with language barriers was not an easy task, but again PMF Marketing had experience working within the International markets, so were aware to keep the language simple. The “UK go to market plan” that was finally delivered was over 80 pages long, but was clearly structured in a way that the client could understand and could dip in and out of the different sections easily, with the executive summary, recommendations and  next steps clearly summarised.

Six months on from this exciting journey with the new client, not only was the UK go to market plan implemented, but we also helped them to open the doors to their first UK National Account with many more in the pipeline.

If you believe your business would benefit from a market audit and some fresh thinking developing a new sales and marketing strategy, contact PMF Marketing today for a free 30 minute consultation.

https://www.mpdonline.co.uk/userfiles/images/flipbook-promos/MPD-VDE-Kit.pdf

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Many suppliers have gone into liquidation, customers who were earmarked for growth are sat on months of stocks due to their premises being closed, new markets that were identified for development are not accessible due to travel restrictions and looking at your P&L account, you face the dilemma that your existing marketing budget cannot sustain the low level of sales you are now seeing. But where do you start and what exactly do you need to do to grow your business again ?

To help kickstart your thinking there are some simple steps you can do to help get the business fired up again.

Fail to plan, plan to fail

Now is the perfect time to review the business plans you had in place for 2020 to ensure you are set up for success in 2021. Look at your sales and marketing plans, do they need to change?

The use of simple business models like a SWOT or a DMAIC may help you to explore new ideas or new markets which are now a necessity if your home market is under stress. Do you need a strategy day with your sales teams to understand the new trading environment? Perhaps you need to conduct some research about how your customers are now buying your products, has it changed? Do you need to prioritise your business growth opportunities? do you need to look at new products to cater for a market segment that you know is now in growth, but you are not equipped to service?

Think Digital
Without doubt the crisis has accelerated the shift to digital and many of the better companies are going further, by enhancing and expanding their digital channels. They are successfully using advanced google analytics to make better and faster decisions about improvements to their website or using e-marketing to strengthen their links to customers.

Is your website representative of your business? are you regularly updating content to give visitors the information they need when they visit your website? are you actively promoting your goods and services on all possible social media channels?

Video Is King
With many of your sales team having to work remotely or talking to their customers via video conferencing, the importance of good video content is now more important than ever before.

Infomercials about your latest new products or promotions are quick and easy to make and deployed across social media or sent out as links in an email to your customer database, can provoke real customer engagement and get those phones ringing again with those sales leads coming in.

The above are just a selection of business growth solutions that are available from PMF Marketing.
If you would like to understand more how I can help your business, please call me today for a FREE 30 minute call and lets get building your business back to growth, together.

https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/future-of-work/from-surviving-to-thriving-reimagining-the-post-covid-19-return#

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However, in an age where 60% of the world population now use social media, it really is something that businesses can no longer choose to ignore, but where do you start?

Decide On Your Objectives
The starting point before you even set up your various social media pages is why are you doing it? Is it to generate fresh sales leads? Is it to raise awareness of your company’s services? Is it to share news of what is happening in the Industry? Although all these points are relevant, the most important thing is that your followers achieve something from reading your posts, so there needs to be something in it for them by following you.

Identify Your Target Market
It may seem an obvious one, but I know so many agencies and indeed companies that fail to set the correct tone of voice with their activity by not tailoring their content of their social media to the relevant target audience they are trying to reach. There are a number of tools available to increase engagement with your followers, such as Geo targeting your Facebook advertising by occupation or location or becoming active on Facebook Groups and Forums and then sharing content. Becoming relevant and targeted in your approach, will all help to make your social media activity engaging and on message.

What do you want to say?
Nobody knows the industry as well as you do, so why not tell your followers about things which are going to help them?  It might be a new product that you have just launched? It might be new legislation which will impact on their working practices? It might even be a new promotion of discounted products that will help your followers save money?.  If you can help solve a problem for your followers, then they are much more likely to share your post and engage with your activity, especially if you are original with what you are posting. Creating fresh, original new content is often referred to as “Thought Leadership” as you are simply leading the way on providing new knowledge for your followers. This also enables you to become the source of the truth and the new ambassador of the industry, building trust and respect for your brand along the way.

Measure Its Effectiveness

There are a number of tools which you can use to track what is working and what isn’t once you have put a social media plan in place. Google Analytics can help show the number of visitors to your website following recent posts and it will also track what sections of your website are being visited. Linked-in also can profile the number of views that your post has received, and it also provides the company profile of your visitor for lead generation. Facebook provides a very detailed summary of users who has seen your latest campaigns, enabling you to increase or decrease your spend activity to increase your audience reach  from a local to a national level.

Social media success will not happen overnight, it takes time and skill to build your presence, but it can be an extremely cost effective way of getting your brand and services in front of new people. PMF Marketing can set up your social media channels, write your content and manage your communications strategy to build your presence and maximise your audience reach across Linked In, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. social media management services

If you would like to understand more how I can help your business, please call me today for a FREE 30 minute call and lets get building your business back to growth together.

Top10 social media benefits

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Irrespective if you are a manufacturer, a wholesaler, a retailer or a consumer, effective category management is important for us all.

A Category is a collection of similar products, which when managed effectively in a retail environment, enables manufacturers to get their products effectively selected by consumers, enables retailers to secure a sale in their stores and enables consumers to make the right purchase decision over the choice that is available.

If we take a closer look at the process, it will help you understand if your products are being effectively category managed or if you need to add some focus with your retail customers.

Sales Review
The starting point for any category managed approach is reviewing the current brands listed in store, the different product ranges available and the prices and promotions that are in place, to help understand if the “product offer” is correct and working as hard as it should. Many manufacturers will work with retailer buyers to assist in this process, reviewing category sales, not only of their own products but that of their competitors, to put forward a final category management proposal which will work effectively for both the retailer and the consumer.

Research
Many brand owners will also work with their retailer customers to commission accompanied shop research, where consumers will be observed shopping the fixture, pre and post purchase, to get an understanding of what motivates the consumer to purchase that product. Was it price? brand? promotion ? or something else?

Point Of Sale
Many consumers are influenced by promotional deals or branding. To help with this many brand owners will pay a premium to block a space in their store or locate their products in a particular section of the store like the end of an aisle, often called a “power end”  as these areas enjoy the most amount of consumer footfall and awareness, which then leads to their products being purchased.

Are your products working as hard as they can in the retailers they are listed? PMF Marketing has a number of solutions for businesses that manufacture and distribute products and has ideas that can help drive your products off the shelf.
If you would like to understand more how I can help your business, please call me today for a FREE 30 minute call and lets get building your business back to growth together.

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Knowledge Is Power

The starting point when looking across your products to understand what is working and what isn’t, key statistics like sales numbers or customer reorder patterns across the various years provide a valuable insight into where your various products are in their lifecycle of introduction – growth – maturity – saturation or decline?

Analyse, Analyse and Analyse

A deep dive into the numbers will help form the framework of what action a business needs to take, are the various product categories in growth or decline? if its the latter why is that? is ? is it too expensive? are their modern day improvements that need to be made ? is the packaging not communicating what it does or does it simply lack some focus and communication out to the market. What is the distribution of the product like? are customer numbers falling ? why is that? Is the product margin too low due to cost increases or a change of supplier or excessively high because it has not been looked at in a while?

Time For Action 

Understanding where the product is in its lifecycle from an audit of its sales and distribution may raise further project work in terms of sourcing new suppliers for new or improved products, promotional plans may need to be drawn up, packaging or point of sale improvements may be required, additional field research to shape new ideas or sometimes even product obsolescence.

PMF Marketing has a number of marketing tools which can help businesses shape their future product development plans, from carrying out a basic range review to full feasibility documentation including research, supplier sourcing, product forecasting and the production of new product launch collateral.

If you would like to understand more how I can help your business, please call me today for a FREE 30 minute call and lets get building your business back to growth together.

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