Marketing – Page 10 – Business Plus Baby

August 28, 2012August 24, 2012

Finding PR Angles for your business

Today I have Julie Sherwood’s (of Get In The Press) second guest post on PR. In this article she looks at the often overlooked subject of finding an angle for your press release.

(Don’t forget to take a look at her first post, So what is PR… exactly?)

Over to you, Julie!

The trick with PR is to find a news-worthy hook for your press release. Easy if you have something obvious to shout about; a businesses award you’ve won, a major new contract or a new product line. But there are plenty of other ways you can find an angle too.

You can get creative by linking in subjects relating to your business. This can lead to two things: it opens up potential features you could be featured in AND it positions you as an expert in your field. Don’t be afraid to pitch a feature or article idea to a journalist – just be sure you can back up your idea with stats, facts or expert opinion.

Another option is to keep up with trends in the news, and get in contact with the journalist offering additional statistics, a different view or findings. If an announcement has been made about new health findings, can you offer a supportive view or a case study for a feature. Continue reading “Finding PR Angles for your business”

August 16, 2012

Using technology to make sales

I thought I’d just share how JJB Sports are using technology to join together selling their products both offline and online. These days, customers don’t really see a gap between buying in a shop and online, they just want the item. And they want the same price online and off, too. Take a look here…

Sponsored post

August 6, 2012August 6, 2012

Freebies you can use to get people to sign up to your mailing list

It’s not easy to get people to sign up to your mailing list these days unless you give them a freebie as an incentive. This article looks at ways you could create your own freebie e-book, plus audio and video.

And it’s not as difficult as you may think.

By the way, if you’re not sure why why you need a mailing list, I have the perfect post for you here: Why you must have a mailing list.

I have a free e-book and it does bring in subscribers to my mailing list (have a look here). But e-books have been floating around the internet for a long time now, so it’s well worth considering something different, like video or audio, to pull in your audience.

Creating freebie e-books

A word of warning, though. Any freebie is better than no freebie at all, so if you find yourself procrastinating because creating your freebie is just too daunting, just get stuck in and get an e-book done. Continue reading “Freebies you can use to get people to sign up to your mailing list”

July 24, 2012July 25, 2012

Do I need a website if I’ve already got a Facebook page?

Is a website an essential tool for small business?

That was the question asked last week by Beth Murrison on a Facebook small business networking group that I belong to.

(In fact, you’re welcome to join the group! It’s hosted by PR Emma Collins and you can join here facebook.com/groups/EmmaCollinsPR/)

The responses to Beth’s question fell somewhere between ‘YES!’ and ‘it’s not absolutely essential, but you really ought to seriously think about it’.

Beth creates artwork for children on name plaques and canvases, plus other items like cushions and cotton bags. Up until last week she’d been selling from her Facebook page, but hadn’t found Facebook as effective for sales as she’d hoped. Continue reading “Do I need a website if I’ve already got a Facebook page?”

May 14, 2012April 20, 2015

Sales: are we giving it the attention it deserves?

I read a lot of small business blogs. That means I read a lot about marketing, especially marketing online.

But it’s unusual to find much written about sales or selling. Don’t get me wrong, marketing is important – sales is part of the marketing process after all – but I’m surprised how little attention is given to sales compared to how much I read on marketing.

Last week I picked up a copy of Sales On A Beermat from my local library. (Yep, despite being a Kindle fan, I do still read paper books and visit libraries. Mostly for toddler story time, though!)

The Beermat books were written a few years back now, about ‘beermat enterprises’ – that’s the kind of business that starts out with a few mates having a great business idea in a pub.

According to the Beermat business model, three things must be defined straight away:

The elevator pitch – what you intend to do, for whom and why they should buy it.
The mentor – a senior person to give advice and open doors.
Your first customer – start-ups should have a customer in mind from day one, and be actually speaking to this person.

The business then needs a team with specialists in these areas:

Sales
Finance
Innovation
Delivery

As most of us mums with business are ‘solopreneurs’, we don’t usually have a team. But even if you do all these roles yourself, it does show the areas where we need to focus your attention. However, I’d strongly recommend anyone that wants a business to succeed to consider reading up on the subject at a minimum or getting some expert help from a professional sales training provider.

So sales is there, but why is there no mention of marketing?

Authors Mike Southon and Chris West explain:

Note we say ‘sales’, not marketing. The strategic ‘who are we selling to?’ aspects of marketing should be understood at the start and encapsulated in the elevator pitch. Once that has been sorted, the start-up needs relationships and actual customers and these are best created and sustained by good salespeople. Marketers who have a sales instinct are, of course, ideal for this job, but they should call it sales and do it with pride.

So are we just not ‘doing sales’? Are we promoting our products and hoping that the sales part will sort-of-happen at the end of it all? Looking on the positive side, maybe we are ‘doing sales’ but calling it ‘marketing’ instead. If that’s true, wouldn’t we make more sales if we, as the authors say, “call it sales and do it with pride?”

Many of us have a problem with the the concept of sales – it feels pushy, like we’re trying to convince people to buy stuff they don’t need. Maybe we’re letting that squeamishness, fear or whatever it may be get in our way? Perhaps if we face up to it we’ll make more sales and therefore more profit?

What’s your opinion? Please do leave me a comment (better still, leave me a comment AND tweet this!)

Image: Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net