Marketing/Advertising Help Required.

[jconsta6]

Hi All,

I know some of you are in the Marketing and advertising field of things so I'm wondering if anyone can offer any pointers.

I'm looking to actively market a new business to local businesses. The target businesses are the types found in thompsons local or yellow pages - eg builders, plumbers, mobile hairdressers etc etc....

I've thought long and hard about this, about all sorts of different ways of doing it, but I'm finding it hard to find "comfort" with any of them.

What I'm after is an initial hit. I'm sure that once going I will be able to maintain intrest with local press and radio etc, and then the periodic bigger hit, but its just this initial push I'm struggling with.

The other thing is that I'm not all that keen for the public to be aware of it - at this stage. Without going into too much detail it's a service that will be offered to the public, however I need to sell the service to businesses first, which is why I don't just do a large public event for example.

I've looked into paying companies to basically go through a list of local businesses and telemarket them, which would be ideal, but the costs are just rediculous. I could employ my own full time staff for cheaper.

I've talked with local radio stations too an this I think will be great for getting the brand across on a daily basis, but not the inital hit I want.

As I say the telemarketing appears to be the best way, but the profit won't justify the cost.

I realise that in the wrong hands you could easily blow 100k+ on marketing and not see a single customer in return.... Which is why I'm looking to you guys/gals.

Any thoughts, help or suggestions appreciated.

Cheers,

JC

[GarrettMacD]

Instead of going for one big 'hit' to all of the business sectors, could you not start by targetting a specific sector. Plumbers Merchants, for example??? Assuming you want a contact name at each company you will be compiling your own prospect database. Unlike any rented database you can mail/use this list as often as you want. It takes a bit longer to compile the list, but in fact you'll learn a lot about the market/s as you do this. Then, rather then being jack-to-all-trades, you start as jack-to-the-plumber-trade.

Local radio stations are always looking for experts to do a Q+A session, there's nothing to stop you from being the local expert giving advice/guidance, and of course you can use your radio celebrityness in all of your marketing.

Also, what about giving a talk at your local Business Link???

Are you targetting your businesses by locality or sector???

Is the business unique or are you offering better service? What is going to differentiate you from your competitors???

I know you want to do the 'big hit' thing, but I think you would be well advised to thread cautiously if (a) it's a business you're new to, and (b) you don't have unlimited marketing funds.

[jamesuk28]

Contact your local paper editor especially if it has a "business supplement" and ask for some free editorial. Try your local chamber of commerce for the same angle.

[J_S_G]

It's the end of term... get yourself down to the local University/6th form and put some flyers up on the wall offering cash-for-cold-calling (only you might want to market THAT better, too). Would give that a shot first and vet the applicants. If nobody seems up to the task (given they've got to be credible talking about your business, at a guess), I'd get on to a temping agency and find someone similar with a bit of experience. Can't imagine you'd be paying more than £5 an hour for a student or £10 an hour for someone a bit older & wiser.

An alternative is a mass fax/mail-shot to the businesses if you can get more details about the companies than just their phone numbers. (And that you definitely could pay some monkey to fill in a spreadsheet of to do a fax/mail-merge, or just buy a database of it...)

Hope that helps.

[srebbe64]

You haven't said what it is you want to sell, but here's where I'd start bearing in mind the lack of info provided:

Direct mail
Followed by a phone call (monitor the enquiry percentage)
Arrange a one-to-one presentation
Offer a quote (monitor percentag take-up of offer)
Send quote (monitor percentage of quote to order)
Monitor your repeat business / client retention (percentage over time)

All of the above are both measurable and can be costed. Chuck some numbers at it, then reduce them by, say, 30% to be conservative, and see if it delivers decent margins.

[jconsta6]

Thanks all for your comments.

I realise the product description was missing, this was deliberate. I don't want any sort of national awareness at this stage and I'm keen to keep it quiet outside of specific areas I'm targetting.

However many thanks for your advise, I think that taking a mixture of ideas above may be what I'm after. Does anyone know any reputable database suppliers at all?

Or as suggested I know a few school leavers who would happily create a database for me for a for quid.

Cheers for your comments so far.

JC.

[audicab]

Hi JC, you have certainly picked a difficult market to go after, databases in this area are very difficult to get hold of good ones so you end up going through the yellow pages and getting the right people to contact.

I would certainly recommend what Strebbe64 said, find the right contact at each of the companies you want to target, write a good letter with a good relevant offer, this doesn't need to be money off but could be relevant information etc.

On this letter include a definate "call to action" and ways that the recipients can get back to you, a fax back form, telephone number or email etc

Follow this up with a phonecall yourself if you have the time and try to arrange a sell of face to face meeting.

You certainly need to be aware of data protection laws, communication laws andthe Telephone Preference Service (TPS) and the Corporate TPS. A lot of the people you will be targetting may not be limited companies so the rules surrounding communicating with them and holding data are a lot stricter than if you are dealing with Ltd or plc's

For more information go to
www.businesslink.gov.uk
www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk/
www.tpsonline.org.uk/tps/

One small point on telesales, you said
"I've looked into paying companies to basically go through a list of local businesses and telemarket them, which would be ideal, but the costs are just rediculous. I could employ my own full time staff for cheaper."

Of course you could, that isn't the point. We still have to pay the staff and make a profit, what you pay a telesales agency for is for us to provide skilled staff (and telesales is a real skill that not every student on £5 an hour has) we do the training, motivation, monitoring, reporting, follow ups, you don't pay sick pay, recruitment costs, holiday pay you don't have to deal with office politics and any of the other hassles of employing full time people.

[jconsta6]

audicab said:

Follow this up with a phonecall yourself if you have the time and try to arrange a sell of face to face meeting.

You certainly need to be aware of data protection laws, communication laws andthe Telephone Preference Service (TPS) and the Corporate TPS. A lot of the people you will be targetting may not be limited companies so the rules surrounding communicating with them and holding data are a lot stricter than if you are dealing with Ltd or plc's

One small point on telesales, you said
"I've looked into paying companies to basically go through a list of local businesses and telemarket them, which would be ideal, but the costs are just rediculous. I could employ my own full time staff for cheaper."

Of course you could, that isn't the point. We still have to pay the staff and make a profit, what you pay a telesales agency for is for us to provide skilled staff (and telesales is a real skill that not every student on £5 an hour has) we do the training, motivation, monitoring, reporting, follow ups, you don't pay sick pay, recruitment costs, holiday pay you don't have to deal with office politics and any of the other hassles of employing full time people.

Thanks for the information - very useful.

Reading through the virual sites on TPS, I don't seem to be able to find anywhere that says where you can check if someone you are about to call is part of TPS..... which makes life a little tricky.

Please don't get me wrong, I realise that may have come across as a dig at telesales companies. It wasn't supposed to, I'm all for companies making a profit etc, and I do realise all the advantages of outsourcing and the extra value you are adding - I've been an IT contractor for over 10 years, so I'm all for people outsourcing What I was trying to say is that it just isn't cost effective for me to use them. Which is sad, as ideally that was the way I wanted to go. MAybe I was just picked the most expensive agency in the country when I was ringing round

However if you are in this line of business I'd love to have chat.

Thanks again for the advise any other comments always welcome.

Cheers,

JC

[audicab]

Hi Jc, outsourcing telesales isn't cheap but at least you know exactly what you are getting for your money, every pound you spend is completely visable, or at least should be if you use a reputable company. If they company you use aren't getting the results you can do something about it very quickly, additional training listening to calls or as a last resort pulling the campaign.

In terms of the TPS they used to offer an online service where you could check one number at a time free of charge, they seem to have stopped this and charge either 25p per search using a touchtone phone or a minimum £50 per month for up to 500 searches. http://corporate.mpsonline.org.uk/CTP

For access to the whole database which is updated regulaly costs around £3k per year, not cheap, especially for a small company.

[AquilaEagle]

Contact the local chamber of commerce?