Great product innovation

Posted on October 12, 2012 by admin

Just seen a press release in the Metro for a brand new textile product.  Smart textiles can now help patients undergoing chemotherapy to deal with hair loss issues.  It will be interesting to see if this very worthy ‘question mark’ product (new product in a new sector) makes it to become a shooting star.

In marketing terms any new product requires development research at the start of the business.  The successful ones that grow into becoming shooting stars also put time and energy into promotion and communications – delivering the right key messages to the right target audiences on a never ending basis.

The customer out there in the market needs to be educated and informed about the product and where to get it.  The implication of this is that investment in promotion and communication need to be weightier at the start of the business than they do at later stages.

Do all companies with a will to grow allocate expenditure and/or personnel resource to their marketing comms??  Hope they do!

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Measured marketing

Posted on October 12, 2012 by admin

Measured marketing (a trending topic) through web analytics and research can provide actionable insights including:

  • Key search words to influence visibility on page one of Google
  • A list of sites of value you might want to link with to inform search engines
  • Understanding of how your customers are interacting on your site (length of time on page, bounce rates etc.) to allow you to tweak and improve your offering and engagement levels
  • How customers find what they want on the site, when they land on your page from Google?
  • Breakdown of the typical customer journey on the site
  • Helping to define where your traffic is coming from and what you do next

All this information is just sitting there waiting to be mined.   The tools to do the job are free.   The expert analysts to mine the data and the strategist are at RFM/Aillum to align to the business and website KPI’s.

Measured marketing start pack – 3 months with all information provided to client.

For more information, contact graham@rfm.co.uk

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RFM marketing – as current today as then

Posted on October 5, 2012 by admin

As of October 1st, we enter our 30th year of trading, – providing external specialist assistance to companies large and small on a host of marketing and sales topics.  Sometimes, we act as research suppliers and partners, advising and delivering high quality research projects. Sometimes we act as a boardroom adviser on marketing and sales for companies who do not have the expertise in house. We even work with personnel who need greater sales and input.

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Good market research reduces risk – bad market research risks your investment

Posted on October 5, 2012 by admin

People often say – our research tells us….

1. What is important is to realise when your sample size is correct and reflective of your target market

2. That the questions are being asked in an unbiased way that reduces conflict

3. That extreme responses at either end of the spectrum are not taken into account

4. That sample sizes are statistically correct in terms of numbers as a representative sample of the total

5.That a blend of different techniques is used to find threads of information coming through from different sources

Always find a company who are members of the MRS and more importantly adhere to their guidelines.  Often we hear of untrained researchers undertaking work, perhaps as a project and then a company basing decisions on what has been found.

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Get on the road!!!

Posted on September 28, 2012 by admin

Just read from the Hillington Innovation Centre that there is a shortage of product availability in the supply chain for wind equipment in East Scotland.  In the same week, we had a client in a related sector with a superb plant list, tell us they could not attend a programme as they had a real sales shortage and it was all hands to the pumps!

Someone clearly needs to get their marketing and sales act into gear and keep their antennae on the market!

Time spent on developing relationships and sales links with key buyers is time well spent.  It does take some time and resources — but if you have the product hidden away, you often need to get out and tell the story to the world.

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Queuing for an Apple

Posted on September 28, 2012 by admin

Judging from the press this week, there has to be plenty of disposable income around!  There were queues at the Apple stores as customers were desperate to get their hands on the iPhone 5.  Normally, people queue for hours for sales not to pay premium prices for the products.  The key of course is in the branding and planning undertaken by the company to create a scarcity and a demand that is underpinned by a well thought through marketing strategy, scheduled and timetabled to maximise effect and result in sales.

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It’s not the product, it is the flower of service

Posted on September 28, 2012 by admin

A friend who runs a Mr Handyman home and office maintenance service franchise in Glasgow believes that the key to building a sustainable and repeat business in this sector is not just the quality of the job but also customer service.  The franchise has undertaken research that revealed business success is made up of something like one third technical skill on the job, one third clean administration and availability of service and one third customer service.

This is similar to the well-publicised ‘flower of service’ run by BA.  The safe flight is of course the most important element but the decision making process of the customer is made up of the ancillary elements such as attitude, baggage handling, the lunch, seating etc. Most of us are involved in delivering service on a regular basis.  Maybe a double check on the quality of service will retain more business.

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Check out your Sales Skills

Posted on September 21, 2012 by rfmblogadmin

Some people are involved as sales people, on the road, on the phone, on e commerce. They of course are ‘selling’ every day either transactional sales (sales farming with existing customers or transformational sales (sales hunting for the next big opportunity) Their sales skills need to be honed constantly to enhance their ability to close etc. The good sales person is never totally happy with their performance and can always identify room for improvement.

There are also many people whose main role is NOT in sales. This group have to represent their company and gain contracts, sell in new ideas etc, either as the business clincher or as part of the team making sales and new business presentations etc. They are the group that need to have a basic format to follow , to improve their confidence and their skill in that all important one to one interaction – on the phone, at an exhibition, on line, face to face.

If you want to increase sales, simple let us take a look. We currently work with a wholesaler client and a one day session, watching and examining the existing sales process in the business has identified a number of ‘quick win, no cost’ wins that will start to increase the order value, as well as some medium term activities that will involve a little more time in implementation. The value of this is immense and will have a direct result on the sales of the company.

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There is always a queue at Greggs!

Posted on September 7, 2012 by rfmblogadmin

Every where you go in the UK , you get a pleasant smile and often a joke or a laugh when at the counter in Greggs the Bakers They encourage a queue – and it builds an even longer queue, but the queue moves quickly. Service is ALWAYS friendly – first thing in the morning and last thing at night.

Have often seen the queues at Greggs while there is no one at the competitor food outlets.

Greggs understand the consumer, at different times of day, they train their staff superbly well and generally just get all the ingredients of the marketing mix working all together, all the time. Maybe that is why they are expanding their stores!

For more information on a marketing mix that competes well against the competition, contact russ@rfm.co.uk

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Methods of Measuring Marketing

Posted on September 7, 2012 by rfmblogadmin

This is emerging as a trending topic, – finding out what communication formats work and what doesn’t. It has always been possible to measure response to advertising and communication. It is just that online makes it nice and easy. Here are 6 measures – 3 online and 3 offline!

1.Website tracking – who visits which pages, how long they stay how many pages they look at etc – reported in Google analytics.
2. SEO tracking – what words and phrases get you to the top of search engine results pages – Google analytics!.
3. Converting visitors into orders – the link between the first hits to your site and the number of conversions. If you don’t convert, maybe you need to look at your sales process and the sales wording and copy
4. Track your enquiries in – where did you see us? (informs communication selection) You just have to get your sales team to ask the questions and then record them!
5. Quantify lead conversion into quotes (informs on lead to response, internal sales/ business development skills, quotes to conversion, sales closing ability- your team and internal marketing). Your sales records will tell you this – it measures effectiveness of sales process and sales technique.
6. Traditional awareness survey (informs on generic communications campaigns – e.g. traditional poster sites, sponsorship, social media campaigns etc.). If assessing awareness and recall, this is more in the research survey field where you are testing unprompted and prompted recall.

All of this is worthwhile as it provides huge insight into how to attract customers and how well you interact at various stages of the sales process.

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