Pendragon Straight Talk: Episode Thirty-Three

 
TRANSCRIPT
 
JOHN GLOVER: Hello and welcome to another Pendragon Straight Talk. This week somebody asked me the question what is my marketing strategy or thoughts. Now that’s a biggie, what is my marketing strategy or thoughts but I think there is just two areas you’ve got to look at, you’ve got to look at two types, which is public relations marketing, or PR, and direct marketing.
 
I would say be very careful with your social media. Work out what it is you’re trying to do with your social media, what is it you’re trying to get to, who is you’re trying to get to.
 
Social media is, I believe, more for public relations, getting the name out there, but it can be time consuming and obviously costly and you may not get the reward or be able to track the reward form your social media, so just be careful with the social media side. But if you look at it as public relations, it’s pretty cool.
 
Direct marketing on the other hand, and this could still be through social media depending on the social media you are using, should target the audience that you want to get to. Not everybody and anyone, just those people that would want or like your service or product. Find out what they are looking for not what you are wanting to sell them is a good key, you might think you want to sell them something but they might not want it in that format, so find out what they want and then really focus that target on the age or demographic or area, whatever it might be is the real focus. The more you focus, the less waste on marketing you will have.
 
Google Ads and LinkedIn can be used for your marketing, but if you do not have that focus, or that pinpoint audience or target, then this can be you know, waste a lot of money and be a very expensive thing and get the wrong people replying or coming in to buy your product because they misunderstand what it is they are trying to get from you.
 
Test your ideas on a small scale first, then when they work, ramp them up. So just do a very small, you know try two or three things first and see how they work and then ramp them up a bit. But you’ve still got to keep thinking of changing it cause, you know, the market changes, and peoples minds, and there may be three or four different ways you could do it.
 
Make sure your marketing department or company that you are using, your outsourced company, understand your product. They’ve got to be able to understand your product to help you sell it. Make sure your marketing department/company understand what you make, e.g. what profit do you make per unit or per service, that way you can work out what marketing outlay needs to bring in, what your marketing outlay needs to be to bring in your new customers and you can work out if that is working for you.
 
So, for instance, if you are spending $1000 on marketing, let’s say you’ve got to have a return of $3000, so 3 times 1000 of profit. So, to spend $1000, how many units do you have to sell and how many services do you have to provide to get that $3000 back, because you want to make enough money to pay the marketing company, pay your staff, pay the costs and obviously the profit because that is what we are in business for.
 
Marketing, I believe, is part of sales, it’s very close to sales, it crosses right over sales these days, so make sure the two areas, marketing and sales, are talking the same language and targeting the correct audience, otherwise it will be a very expensive exercise.
 
Have fun, enjoy your marketing, and as Richard Branson said earlier this week, even look at your competitors and have a bit of a laugh and a giggle with them and play with some of their marketing in your marketing and see where you go.
 
Enjoy the week and I’ll talk to you next week.