Promotion serves two important functions. First, it reassures your existing customers that they made the right decision in choosing to do business with you. And second, it informs potential customers about how you can help them and encourages your personal contacts to make referrals to you.
There are two basic types of marketing communications. The first is by personal contact, which includes networking and taking part in clubs and associations (a form of networking). The second kind of marketing communications is what might be called planned communications. This involves using techniques such as speeches and formal presentations, seminars and workshops, advertising, direct mail, and public relations as vehicles to communicate specific information to specific people.
Whatever else you do, you should incorporate networking as a marketing strategy. But apart from networking, no one approach works equally well for everybody. It is important to select the approach or combination of approaches that work for you and your business.
Who Should You Tell About Your Business?
Why Tell Them?
Essentially there are two groups of people for you to reach. First, you must talk to your clients. Note that this category also includes clients for whom you have provided good or services in the past. In talking to them, you will provide them with information that confirms the rightness of their decision to do business with you. You will also want to inform them about new developments, encouraging them to continue to do business with you.
The second group includes potential clients, that is, those people for whom you have not yet provided goods or services, and your network contacts who do or could make referrals to you. It is important to ensure that your contacts know enough about what you do so that they can promote you to their contacts. In communications with your contacts and potential clients, you can also demonstrate your skills and expertise, again encouraging new business from these two sources.
Essentially there are two groups of people for you to reach. First, you must talk to your clients. Note that this category also includes clients for whom you have provided good or services in the past. In talking to them, you will provide them with information that confirms the rightness of their decision to do business with you. You will also want to inform them about new developments, encouraging them to continue to do business with you.
The second group includes potential clients, that is, those people for whom you have not yet provided goods or services, and your network contacts who do or could make referrals to you. It is important to ensure that your contacts know enough about what you do so that they can promote you to their contacts. In communications with your contacts and potential clients, you can also demonstrate your skills and expertise, again encouraging new business from these two sources.
Building Block
It is important to keep in touch with your customers—including past customers—as well as your network of contacts, so that they know you are still in business. The principle “out of sight out of mind” applies in business relationships. If you don’t keep in touch with them, your clients and contacts might forget about you and deal with the com-petition instead.
Making Personal Contacts
The primary means of communicating with others is through personal contact.
This helps to establish and maintain personal relationships with clients, potential clients, and referral sources. The most common means of doing this are by networking and participating in clubs and organizations.
Networking
Networking is the practice of establishing and maintaining personal contact with a broad range of individuals. It is one of the most effective marketing techniques available because it has many long-term benefits. The personal contact goes beyond mere social interaction. Relationships with individual
contacts are maintained primarily for the purpose of exchanging mutually beneficial information. Regular contact with members of your network also enables you to monitor new developments affecting your clients. You can then respond effectively to shifting client needs and demands.
Membership in Clubs and Organizations
This strategy is actually a form of networking. It includes membership and participation in sports, social, community, and charitable organizations. It does, however, require constant participation in the organization. Like all networking techniques, it yields long-term benefits.
To learn more about networking and participating in clubs and organizations see Networking Is
More Than Doing Lunch: Big Networking Ideas for Your Small Business .
Building Block
Networking is the basis of all successful businesses. It expedites the process of matching customer needs with the people and resources. Effective networking involves more than simply maintaining casual rela-tionships with others. To promote your business, your conversations must move beyond small talk and focus on exchanging information about business activities so that you can become aware of and respond to new opportunities as they arise
Planned Communications
The purpose of planned communications is to present messages about yourself and your ability to assist clients. These messages are directed to specific individuals or groups and are carefully planned and organized.
Entrepreneur Beware
When you participate in clubs or organizations, you must be commit-ted to the goals of the organization and enjoy your involvement. If
you join for business purposes only, other members will see your partici-pation as a sham and be reluctant to deal with you. You will have the opportunity to meet potential clients but you must develop that part of the relationship outside of the organization to ensure effective marketing.
Speeches/Formal Presentations
These are presented to specifically identified groups. They are ideal opportunities to demonstrate your knowledge of a particular subject and can be used to confirm your expertise in existing service areas and to introduce your expertise in new service areas. The benefits of these approaches are usually short term.
Prior to the presentation you should obtain information about your audience so that you can address their level of knowledge of your subject matter. It is also a good idea to obtain a list of people who attend your presentation so that you can follow up by providing more information.
Conducting Seminars and Workshops
In contrast to speeches and other formal presentations, seminars and workshops involve more interaction between the presenter and the audience. The audiences are often smaller.
The interactive format enables you to exchange information with those in attendance and for them to exchange information with each other. Short-term benefits can be expected from seminars.
The same comments made regarding speeches and formal presentations also apply to seminars and workshops. But on top of that, because these formats are more interactive, they will enable you to develop more personal relationships with individual participants. Good communication skills and group leadership skills are required.
Hot Tip
You can still make use of speeches, formal presentations, seminars, and workshops even if you are not a skilled speaker or instructor. By sponsoring an event at which a qualified person speaks to your cus-tomers or potential customers, you can enhance your profile and are perceived as someone who cares about customers. These kinds of events make excellent value-added services for existing customers and they provide an opportunity for potential customers and new per-sonal contacts to meet you.
Print Communications
Included in this category are brochures, circulars, flyers, and similar printed material. This format can be effectively used to communicate unique features of your business to clients and potential clients. You can distribute your material in person when you meet new contacts, by mail as part of a follow-up strategy, or in a direct mail program. Benefits will be long term. With appropriate computer equipment, you can produce some of these materials yourself.
This approach is very effective when combined with oral communications. The print communication reinforces your spoken message and serves as a reminder of you and your presentation or workshop.
Advertising
Advertising is paid promotion of your business. Because you control the message, advertising is potentially very effective. Benefits will last only as long as the advertising continues.
There is a wide range of advertising media available. These include print and electronic media, billboards, and transit advertising. This broad choice enables you to select the appropriate advertising vehicle to reach your target audience.
Before undertaking any advertising—whether a one-shot advertisement or a series of advertisements— make sure that your customers, potential customers, and contacts are likely to be familiar with the media you choose.
Entrepreneur Beware
Advertising can be very expensive. It is also most effective if undertaken continuously
Direct Mail
This approach involves mailing specific information to individually identified contacts. Newsletters are currently a popular form of direct mail. This technique is a very effective means of telling individual contacts about new developments in your business. It is also a good way to keep in touch with all of your network contacts: existing clients, potential clients, personal contacts, and referral sources.
Hot Tip
Direct mail can be a very effective communication tool. For best results, you should avoid using mailing labels and print addresses directly onto the envelopes. Experience has shown that the use of postage stamps rather than stamped meter postage increases the effectiveness of the mailing, since recipients are more likely to open and read that mail.
Writing for Publication
This includes preparing written articles for publication in journals, magazines, newsletters, newspapers, etc. published by others. It also includes writing books for publication by others or yourself. This is an excellent approach
for increasing your personal profile and professional credibility. It also enables you to demonstrate your specialized knowledge and expertise.
Public Relations
Public relations involves using the media to generate free publicity for you and your business. It might take the form of an article written about you and your business or an interview with you on radio or television.
Unless you are well connected to media people, your best approach to media relations is to hire a public relations specialist. These people have a network of media contacts to whom they will promote you and your business. Their job will be to set up media interviews for you.
What Approach Is Best for You?
All of the above approaches will allow you to provide useful information to clients, potential clients, and referral sources. Some approaches will enable you to demonstrate your skills and expertise. Networking should be used by every business owner to maintain and expand your business. The other approaches work for some people and some businesses, so choose the methods that are right for you.
Select the approach that is most consistent with your reason for communicating, your personal strengths, and the nature of your business. Also consider the approach that will best reach the people to whom you are communicating. For maximum effectiveness, it is best to use some combination of approaches, as shown in the real life examples below.
Situations may arise in which although one approach is perfect for your purpose, you lack the personal skills to implement that approach. For example, you might want to introduce a new service to your existing and potential clients and decide that a direct mailing is the best approach. Unfortunately, you lack the computer software or writing skill to prepare the material. You can probably find someone who is in the business of providing the exact services that you need. Ask your network contacts; they can probably refer you to someone who can help you prepare the materials and complete the mailing.
Or you might believe that a news release is a good approach to announce a new service but you lack the know-how and media contacts. Again, ask your contacts for help in locating someone who runs a public relations business. Just because you personally cannot undertake an approach that seems right for your purpose, it should not stop you from finding someone else to complete the work for you.
The table below summarizes these approaches and compares their relative strengths and weaknesses
Approaches to Promotion Communications
| Approach | Strengths | Weaknesses |
| Networking | Helps builds a third-party | Requires discipline, an |
| sales force. | outgoing personality, | |
| Provides round-the-clock | and careful follow-up. | |
| marketing. | Very time consuming to | |
| Can sell yourself without | establish and maintain. | |
| being perceived as selling. | Seldom produces instant | |
| Can extend your reach | results. | |
| and image beyond your | ||
| immediate circle of | ||
| friends and acquaintances. | ||
| Participating in clubs | If you are committed to the | Participation in an |
| and organizations | goals and objectives of | organization should not |
| the club or organization, | be primarily undertaken | |
| participation can be | to enhance your | |
| personally rewarding. | marketing strategy. | |
| Can help to increase your | Active marketing activities | |
| personal profile and to | must take place outside | |
| connect with possible | of the organization’s | |
| clients and potentially | activities. | |
| influential individuals. | Competitors may also | |
| belong to the same | ||
| organization. This might | ||
| limit your marketing | ||
| potential. |
| Speeches/formal | Very flexible activities: You | Requires good oral | |||
| presentations | can tailor your message | communication skills. | |||
| and delivery style to | Also requires considerable | ||||
| meet the needs and | preparation time and | ||||
| expectations of the | organized follow-up. | ||||
| group you are addressing. | |||||
| Workshops and | You can demonstrate your | Requires well-qualified | |||
| seminars | personal skills, and it | and prepared speakers | |||
| can help you to develop | addressing current topics. | ||||
| relationships with | Requires considerable time | ||||
| individual participants. | to prepare and develop. | ||||
| Excellent opportunities for | Requires effective | ||||
| distributing printed | follow-up. | ||||
| material about you and | |||||
| your business. | |||||
| Can deal with a large | |||||
| volume of complicated | |||||
| material. | |||||
| Print communications | Can be professional sales | Are sales tools only; still | |||
| vehicles that can | requires personal selling. | ||||
| enhance your personal | Must use continuous | ||||
| image and increase the | distribution of materials; | ||||
| profile of your business. | could be costly to | ||||
| develop, produce, and | |||||
| maintain with up-to-date | |||||
| information. | |||||
| Advertising | Very flexible market | Not appropriate for all | |||
| approach. | businesses; can be very | ||||
| Can target specific market | expensive. | ||||
| segments. | Your advertising must | ||||
| Can increase awareness of | compete with a large | ||||
| you and your business. | number of commercial | ||||
| Will help promote existing | messages from other | ||||
| services as well as new | advertisers. | ||||
| services. | |||||
| Can reach a potentially | |||||
| large audience. | |||||
| Direct mail | Relatively low-cost | Requires a versatile |
| technique, especially | computer program. | |
| when using appropriate | Must compete with the | |
| computer programs. | growing number of | |
| Mailings can be customized | direct mailings to | |
| for various contacts, | business people. | |
| including specific clients. | Results in a very low | |
| Can be very effective in | response rate: A 1% | |
| yielding prospects. | return rate is considered | |
| good. | ||
| Writing for publication | Can provide useful | Requires a considerable |
| information to clients | time commitment to | |
| and to potential clients. | properly research and | |
| Can maintain a long- | prepare the material. | |
| lasting presence. | Difficult to have material | |
| Reprints of your writing | published by others; | |
| can be used as additional | and the alternative— | |
| marketing tools. | self-publishing—is a | |
| very onerous task. | ||
| Public relations | Comments by third parties, | Requires considerable |
| especially in the media, | time and effort. | |
| are thought to be more | To attract the attention of | |
| objective and credible. | media people—editors, | |
| reporters, writers, | ||
| columnists, etc.—you | ||
| must provide information | ||
| that is newsworthy. | ||
Communication Priorities
The following chart will help you to determine which approach is best for you and your customers. (Instructions are listed below the chart.)
| Assessing the Best Approaches | ||||
| Effectiveness | ||||
| with | ||||
| Approach | My Ability | Customers | Total | |
| Networking | ||||
Participating in
clubs and
organizations
Speeches/formal
presentations
Workshops
and seminars
communications
Advertising
Direct mail
Writing for publication
Public relations
1. Using a scale of 1 to 7, with 1 being the highest and 7 being the lowest, rank your own ability to undertake each category of the planned communications. Enter the number in the column labelled My Ability. For example, if you have good speaking skills but lack the resources for direct mailings, you would rank speeches/formal presentations 1, and direct mail 7.
2. Using the same scale, rank what you consider would be the effectiveness of each category in communicating with your particular client base. Enter the number in the column labelled Effectiveness with Customers. For example, if you think your clients would respond well to seminars and workshops, rank that 1; if they would not respond well to advertising, you would rank that category lower, possibly 6 or 7.
3. Add the two rankings for each category. The lower the total, the higher the priority should be.
There is no hard and fast rule about how much money and time you should devote to marketing communications. One common approach is to commit a portion of forecast sales, usually 5 to 10 per cent. If you would like more detail in your approach, subdivide your proposed advertising by media, using such categories as print and electronic, and within those categories specify individual publications and radio and TV outlets.
When preparing your marketing communications budget, remember to include an estimate of the time that will be required.
The Least You Need to Know
It is important to communicate with customers to reassure them that they made the right decision in choosing to do business with you.
It is also important to communicate with potential clients to inform them about how you can help them and with personal contacts to encourage them to make referrals to you.
Networking is the best approach for telling others about your business.
Apart from networking, no single approach works for everyone: Choose the approach or combination of approaches that work best for you and your business.
