We’ve had questions from the listeners themselves!

Brilliant! That’s what we’ve been encouraging everyone to do. Let’s get straight into it then. What’s the first issue?

Right, so we have a question from Leanne. How much should you spend on a marketing budget?

Good question! And one that probably affects every business, particularly at the beginning.

Basically, there is no one size fits all. We need to consider things like ‘time’ and allocate a cost to it. Are you best placed to be running this activity? What stage is your business at - start up, growing or changing?

Am I right in thinking that it’s quite usual for a business to allocate a percentage of actual or projected gross revenue?

Yes, that’s right - usually between 3-5 percent for established business marketing and between 5-10 percent for start-up marketing. But that allocation depends on several factors: the industry, the size of your business, and its stage of growth. For example, during the early brand building years, retail businesses spend much more than other businesses on marketing – up to 20 percent of gross revenue. plan - the marketing budget is a component of the marketing action plan split between brand development costs and promotion increased confidence leads to growing expectation Once you’ve developed your marketing plan and budget, it shouldn’t be fixed or inflexible.

I guess there may be times when a business may need to throw in some unplanned activity, so at the end of the day, knowing whether the spend is helping to achieve marketing goals is more important than sticking to a budget.

True. Think back to podcast 1 when we talked about the importance of a marketing plan and action plan. This will help determine a budget. You have to know what your objectives are so you know what actions you need to take to achieve them. Then you can allocate cost to each action.

It would probably be helpful to break down your marketing budget into categories so you know where your money is likely to be spent. So, pen and paper at the ready, here’s what a typical budget might include:

Website – designing or updating it, adding new content or images and hosting costs

Search Engine Optimization – expenditure on tools and consulting

PPC ad expenditure – pay-per-click ads on Google or Bing

Video and photography

Graphics – web banners, infographics etc.

Events/ trade show costs – e.g. pop-up banners, handouts, freebies, travel and accommodation

Social Media tools and services

Social Media ads and paid promotion e.g. LinkedIn or Facebook ads, promoted posts,

PR costs

Telemarketing

Print advertising

Direct mail / direct marketing including print & postage costs

Marketing technologies – marketing automation, email marketing, SEO tools, web analytics etc.

Seminars and training

That’s an extensive list, Liz, and I’m sure listeners can think of other categories too. Or some that don’t apply but it’s a good guideline and then costs can be allocated. You can then calculate a budget based on what you really want to do.

Hope that’s answered your question, Leanne! What’s next, Nicky?

Well, here’s another question from Sarah. As a new business, how can I get my name out there?

I would say the first thing to do is to really spend some time building your social media accounts. For me, when my Twitter account started growing and I was communicating with followers, it really made me feel that I had arrived! The trick is to use the best channels for your business as not all of them will be appropriate. I always say be where your customer are so if they’re not on Instagram, don’t waste energy posting there.

I so agree, it’s about quality, not quantity.

Today’s Marketing Menu Podcast is all about the sometimes thorny area of business networking, and how to get it right so that you build trust and rapport with potential clients and contacts.

Why’s it thorny?

Well, I think it terrifies an awful lot of people so I guess I’m really keen to either help listeners who have yet to try it out or to help those who still feel uncomfortable. I know it took me a good few months to actually say I enjoyed it.

Certainly, the networking world has exploded in recent years with many national organisations springing up as well as a wealth of local business groups. I don’t know about you but when I started out on my own it was my first step into the bigger world so that I could just get out there and meet potential clients. But surely networking is not going to be relevant to every type of business listening in is it?

Well, that actually leads me on to an important point really about what I see as the value of networking.

On the networking circuits I’ve been on, I’ve been amazed by the diversity of people attending, and yes I have met builders and plumbers and colour experts you know from Colour Me Beautiful say, and even the marketing manager for some London strip clubs.

Strip clubs, seriously?

Yes, she was looking for people planning a stag do or wanting to run, shall we say, alternative corporate events. Although I would suggest, there is always a range of accountants, lawyers, recruiters and marketers in the room there can be some interesting surprises.

That’s a good point, Nicky. And I think it’s worth mentioning here that it is worth checking out the different types of networking meetings. They’re not all the same. Some are strictly business-focused, some are more social. They’re all at different times, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Some require you to make referrals, others are more casual and leave you to it. If you can check the membership of a group beforehand, you’ll get an idea of the other types of businesses represented. So, it really depends on what is right for your business.

That’s right. We know a funeral director who regularly attends a group we both go to. Now he self-confessedly is not looking for clients in the room but what he is doing is building trust and rapport with others who may need his services because of some sad or unfortunate situation. what I like is he is really thinking outside the box. What I like is he is really thinking outside the box, if you’ll pardon the pun! I know him and how enthused he is about his business and the obvious care he takes over his client relationships. I think I’d say I’d definitely call him should I need or know others who may have a need.

So, you mentioned how you see the value of networking, what do you mean by that exactly?

Well yes okay, so I may be a little provocative here but after several years of networking, I don’t necessarily value networking as a means of getting new clients.

But hang on a minute, what’s the point then?

Well the way I see it is that when I go out networking, quite often I find the people in the room who know they could, or should, be doing better marketing, but once they have a website, be it that they’re often in the early stages of developing their business, they often don't have the resources to employ my services. In reality, they may not be at that point for a couple of years, so it’s my job to make sure that I stay in touch long enough for them to get to that point, which may be challenging too, as often they are going to leave the networking circuit as their businesses gets bigger and they've less time to commit to it.

Well yes, I get that particularly for our field say, but that's not always likely to be the case?

Oh for sure, because let’s say I need a plumber.

Successful businesses know who their ideal customer is. They may even have created a buyer persona which is a semi-fictional representation of their ideal customer. This may have been created through market research, on their existing customers, or market research about potential customers. But how can you use this idea for your business if you want to develop in this area?

So, what we’re looking at today then is how you go about creating a buyer persona, and why you should if you haven’t already done, is that right?

Yes, it is, and if you think about is it’s so important, isn’t it? Speaking the right language, otherwise there’s a danger that all that marketing budget we’ve spent on new marketing leaflets is just going over most people’s heads. Every communication needs to be consistent so the message is heard.

Yes, put like that I guess it's a no brainer, but what I’d also add is, by taking the time to do this you can start to frame the way you talk to those people in a way that will make your message more persuasive.

Yes, but I think Nicky you’re talking more about a marketing term called tone of voice. Perhaps before we get onto that, and that could well be another subject for another podcast, we need to look at our typical client profile in a little more detail.

So, you could look at any manner of things, the simplistic like where the customer lives, their age, their work situations, buying patterns, and what motivates them and their aspirations. Once a business knows this type of information, they can be more cleverly targeted in their marketing communications because they know they will be pushing the right buttons and speaking the right language.

Yes, exactly. But to be clear, a business will probably need several different buyer personas for their different products and services so they can create messages that will appeal to each one.

So how do you go about creating a buyer persona, Liz?

We need to know what the customer’s goals and aspirations are, what’s important to them, what problems do they have, where do they go, or what do they do to solve their problems, how can we reach them and what media do they use?

We could start by looking through our existing customer database to find out customer trends or learn how customers found us in the first place.

That’s assuming of course we have collected that information in the first place! I suppose, it does highlight the importance of collecting this kind of data, doesn’t it?

Absolutely! We need to collect this information whenever we have contact with an existing or new customer. Talking to the sales team, who are on the front line, is essential in finding out more about the type of customers we have. If they’re not recording this information, they should be!

You could also interview either in person, one-to-one or hold a focus group, or by phone, to discover what they like about your product or service. You probably only need up to 5 people for this but the questions you need to ask are quite specific to gain as much information as possible.

So, listeners, if anybody would like to create their own buyer persons and would like some ideas for that, do get in touch about that by emailing [email protected] and we can send you something.

Ok Liz, so now we’ve created our buyer personas, what’s next?

Well, to be able to sell our products or services effectively and successfully, it helps to know how our customer actually makes their buying decision. So, a useful model to use here is called the 5 Stages of the consumer buying decision process. So, if you are familiar with our previous podcasts, these are a series of headings to help you create this document.

Stage 1 is Need Recognition. We need to recognise the needs of the customer as well a...

Content marketing is the marketing and business process for creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.

But what is ‘relevant and valuable content’ that you can create to get your audience engaged? Surely that’s just providing information in an accessible form as people often do by providing blog content, fact sheets and information from their market right?

Well, it is, and indeed that may work for many and certainly for professional services or technical products where people need to understand the nuts and bolts. But for the majority of us who perhaps don’t need to write evidence-based documents or those of us who want to develop a bit of following, that’s not going to be enough to encourage people to come back to us time and time again.

So what are you proposing if say I don’t have loads of interesting titbits at my disposal or say loads on time to throw at developing vast amounts of useful content?

That’s where storytelling comes in. Every one of us business owners has customers or clients. Each of those customers and clients has a reason for coming to us – a story behind their decision to choose us.

So we’re going to talk through on today’s Marketing Menu about how to create those stories and how perhaps we can be a little more creative with our content right? Join us to find our more.

Today’s Marketing Menu podcast is all about pricing strategy and how to get it right so that you can be comfortable that you have the right pricing structure for your products or service.

As with our first podcast, this issue underpins your business success; it is important to get it right. In our previous podcast we looked at planning, and how you’re going to put plans together over various stages of your business and how you need to consider them throughout the lifecycle of your business. I guess the same can be said for this subject.

Copyright The Marketing Menu 2017 | All rights reserved | If you wish to copy or distribute this content please get in touch with [email protected]

Yes, so one of the hardest things I had to wrestle with when setting up a business was arriving at the right pricing structure, and being honest, I still debate this regularly, what are your thoughts?

It’s a tricky one isn’t it because unfortunately, there is no one size fits all and it is as we’ve said a weighty subject.

I think initially when starting out it is very much a confidence thing. I found myself taking cheaper jobs because I knew my business pipeline was weak and then there was doing things for free just to build my credibility. Particularly in our field, I found there were a lot of businesses offering services for free to get in front of potential clients, even though I could see that these businesses were offering an awful lot of value.

I did the same but, actually, we were undermining the value that we should place on our experience. After all, you've been in the industry for over 25 years, and that knowledge and experience is worth an awful lot.

I often undervalued my own service and therefore I suppose my credibility.

Okay, so what did you do, did you copy the competition and go with the flow?

Well, to start with yes but I did try to differentiate, add value and build this into my pricing strategy, I know we’re going to talk about this more in future Marketing Menu podcasts.

Well, I guess I also struggled with what I like to call, some you win, some you lose and some you should lose.

What, you mean working on jobs that you know are either undermining your pricing or jobs which end up being a complete time suck or which wreak havoc with your stress levels.

Oh, Nicky,

you’re referring to that hideous but valuable marketing term cost per acquisition there aren’t you?

I am and I guess it took me a long time to realise that I could and, more importantly, should have been saying no when the time is right, as it freed me up for those more profitable jobs.

Okay for sure but that brings us back to how to set your price, how did you go about that?

Well, I guess there are the traditional ways of looking at pricing structure and then there are the bits you’ve got to be mindful of.

The three things to be mindful of are:

* What your product or service will be worth to your customers - its value.

* What it costs you to produce your product or provide your service.

* The price your competitors charge.

So successful businesses maximise their profits by matching their pricing with the value customers put on their products or services. Whereas product pricing is often built on a ‘cost-plus’ basis, while service pricing is created on perceived value, so to arrive at either of these you have to understand:

* The cost is the total outlay required to create a product or service.

* The price is your financial reward for providing the product or service.

* The value is what the customer thinks the product or service is worth.

Yes, so for example,

Today's podcast is all about the plans you need in place to grow your business. Business, marketing, and action plans. And as a tough subject, we’re going to talk about what you really need as headings in the plans because, let’s be honest, if you’re about to produce a huge marketing plan, it’s just going to sit on the shelf and never be looked at again.

I think a lot of people in business fear planning; they think it's a bit of a time suck, or that it's only needed when you need to go to the bank for finance.

But I believe that by having a plan, it's as much about telling you what you’re doing right just as much as about saying what’s gone wrong.

Yep, you need a plan whatever stage your business is at, whether it’s just starting out, growing, or exiting, and it should be the blueprint for everything you do. It is simply too important just to stay in your head.

But there are different plans for different exercises so let’s look at that. Nicky, what do you think they are? As we’ve said, this is a meaty subject but it is, of course, the bit of your business that underpins everything, right?

Well, I’m a firm believer in smaller plans over larger, time heavy business plans. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a place for each, but I guess I like to break the idea of planning into smaller chunks.

So what are those?

This is a meaty subject so pin back your ears.

So, first off there’s the business plan, which will probably look at a period of between 3 and 5 years. This should provide a thorough examination of the way in which the business will start and develop to fulfil your goals and aspirations, whether that’s simply to turn enough to make a good salary, whether it’s sustaining it to employ others or whether it is to build a portfolio.

Then there’s the marketing plan which supports your goals, which is all about how you’re going to get your product or service to market, what your strategy is regards pricing, product placement and then, finally, there’s the hugely important marketing, smaller month by month action plans. I guess the marketing plan is the master document of where you want to get to, and the action plan is the more immediate actions as to what you’re going to put into action to achieve this, but we’ll come on to this in a bit.

Preparing any one of these plans will help you to set clear objectives for your business and clarify your thinking. They also help to set targets for future performance and allows you to monitor finances and profitability. It should help to provide an early warning for when you might need to reconsider the plan.

Ok, I agree, so what goes into each? I guess we should ask people to have pen and paper at the ready here? Remember, these are the bigger more strategic of the plans and always bear in mind that anyone reading the plan will need to understand the essentials of your business quickly and easily.

Now we’ve said we’re not believers in long plans, but this sounds like quite a heavy document to me?

It doesn't need to involve oodles of paperwork, but it does need to be a concise, easy to follow strategy for your way forward that you can tweak over time. I recommend the plan being no longer than 4-6 pages for the business plan and 4 sides for the marketing plan. But that’s enough from me I guess. Liz, what would you aim to put in a marketing plan then?

So, pen and paper at the ready these are the standard things you need to include

The first heading is Current Position. Where are you now? Your sector, your market, state of growth and future potential.

Next heading is Future Changes. What changes will you face? Competitors, technology change, buying habits, legislation, stuff like that.

The ever popular SWOT is next. It may be a pain to do,