Has Your Advertising Stopped Working For You?
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How Do You Get To Know Your Target Market?
Rachel Wadsworth
How Do You Go Forward When You Don’t Know Where Your Heading?
Have you reached a point in your personal or business life that you don’t know the way forward or the next step?
When I was younger I always knew which direction I was heading. Perhaps this was not by great planning, but I always had a sense of where I was going.
By that I mean I finished school, went to university and studied hospitality, started at the bottom in the industry and worked my way up. I eventually became a General Manager at a young age and I started to wonder if this was it. Was this all that life was going to bring.
So I moved onto the next logical step, got married, had children, and so on. Only I discovered that I wasn’t happy with this, I wanted more. When I really looked at it, it is not that I don’t have a great family, and I live in a beautiful part of the world. What I wanted was the challenge to strive to do something exciting and new.
Have you ever had the feeling that you needed to do something different, that perhaps your business has become stale, or just needs something new to give it a burst of life?
The first step in navigating any new journey through murky waters is to know exactly what your strengths and weaknesses are, and that of your competition.
J. Abraham in ‘Getting Everything You Can Out Of All You’re Got’ highlights 50 questions to ask yourself in relation to your business or career. You will be surprised at the relevance of the questions, and it will make you analyse how you got to where you are and what paths are available to you now.
You can’t make the best decisions, pursue the best strategy, or focus on a big goal until you first recognize and evaluate all the options, opportunities, and business intelligence you have available to you.
What’s important is to first identify what you’re doing right and what you’re doing wrong. What you could be doing better, differently, more effectively, and more profitably. And what you know but don’t act upon.
You can’t know what area of your career or business to focus on improving until you know the realities of these areas.
Take the first step. Challenge yourself by asking yourself the 50 questions. You will surprise yourself.
Rachel Wadsworth
Rachel.wadsworth@bigpond.com
www.rachelwadsworth.com
50 QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF;
1. What initially got me started in business?
2. Hen I first started, where did my clients or promotions progress come from?
3. Why did clients originally buy from me?
4. Why do clients buy from me now?
5. What primary method of generating clients was used to build my business?
6. Which of my marketing or sales efforts brought in the bulk of my sales or clients? What percentage of my business comes from this particular effort?
7. Do I test the various aspects of marketing and selling activities to make sure they’re producing the best and most profitable results?
8. How well connected or how involved am I with my clients at the sales/ networking or transaction level (do I still sometimes take orders or sell or follow up)?
9. What ongoing sales/ networking efforts do I personally perform today? How do these functions differ from those I perform when I started my business?
10. Where do my clients come from specifically (demographics)?
11. Would you rather attract more new clients or garner more money from existing clients, and why?
12. Who else benefits from my success, excluding my clients, my employees, and my family members?
13. How many of my suppliers/ business colleagues would be motivated to help me grow my business more because it will directly benefit them at a very high level? Who are they?
14. When I create a new client for my business, whom else have I directly created a new client for?
15. Describe completely what your business does (What do you sell, how do you sell it, and who do you sell it to by industry, commercial category or specific niche).
16. What is my business philosophy as it relates to my clients?
17. How have my methods for doing business, or the product or service lines I market, changed since the inception of my business?
18. What are my sales per employee or departmental performance levels? Is that above, below, or equal to my industry average?
19. What is the lifetime value of my typical client?
20. What is the biggest client complaint about my company, and how does my company successfully address this problem?
21. What is my Unique Selling Proposition or USP?
22. Is my USP a consistent theme in all my marketing and sales efforts? If yes, how, and if not, why not?
23. Briefly describe my marketing program or marketing mix?
24. Who are my biggest competitors and what do they offer that I do not?
25. What steps do I take to offset their advantage? Are they working?
26. What are my competitors biggest failing, and how do I specifically fill hat void?
27. What do my clients really want (be specific, don’t just answer ‘a quality product or service)? How do I know?
28. Do clients buy from me exclusively or do they also patronise my competitors? What steps can I take to get the main portion of their business (pre-empt & dominate)?
29. What does it cost me to get new clients?
30. What are my market potential (universe) and my current share of the market?
31. What is my biggest and best source of new business and am I doing everything possible to secure this business?
32. What has been my biggest marketing success to date (define as a specific promotion, advertising campaign, sales letter etc)?
33. What is my biggest marketing problem or challenge today? Describe it in its entirely as candidly and directly as possible, including personal financial and transactional implications it may impose.
34. How many better ways could I reduce the risk of the transaction, lower, the barrier of entry, or reduce the hurdle for my clients to make it easier for that person to do business with me?
35. After the initial sales, are they systematic, formal methods I use to communicate and resell to my clients – strengthening the relationship and bonding them to me?
36. Do I have an adequate supply of client testimonials, and is there a system in place for their capture?
37. Do I actively solicit referral business?
38. Have I ever tried to reactivate my former clients and unconverted prospects? Do I maintain systematic contact?
39. Have I ever tried selling a list of my unconverted prospects to my competitors, or turning enemies into allies?
40. Do I make consistent efforts to communicate with my clients about what my company is doing to help them?
41. In what ways do I try to up-sell my clients?
42. Do I need to make money in first time buyers, or am I satisfied with only making it on the backend (reorders) short or long-term strategy.
43. Do I ever barter my products, services or assets with other companies in exchange for their products, services or assets
44. What kind of guarantee or warranty do I give my clients, to take away the risk of the transaction?
45. What is my client attrition rate?
46. How do I capture the names, addresses, and phone numbers of all my clients and prospects? DO I use them in my marketing programs?
47. What is my average order; transaction size, amount and what are the steps I can take to increase it?
48. How much is the initial sale to a new client worth?
49. Do I use a list broker or data experts? If not, where do I get my prime prospect names?
50. Do I joint venture my client names with other companies? If so, what where the results?
Are You Enthusiastic About Your Copy?
Everyone at some time or another has experienced a waitress, who would rather chat up the chef than serve you.
To ask her a question about a product and receive a vacant stare in return, or even worse a stock standard answer like…I don’t drink wine, or I don’t eat fish. This experience leaves you not only thinking how unhelpful the waitress was but also you are more likely to choose a cheaper wine, or perhaps have a glass of wine rather than the bottle.
Is this waitress enthusiastic about her job, or the product she is selling?
Writing copy is the same as the waitress talking to a customer, you have to be enthusiastic about the product you are offering.
Think about the waitress again.
If she had been compotent in her knowledge of wines and the flavours that were in a particular meal, you would be a lot more likely to order a bottle of wine she has recommended and enjoy it.
So how can you avoid writing poor, emotionless copy?
- Don’t sit down to write copy with a string of ‘musts’ and ‘cants’ dangling in your mind.
- Get to know the product you are selling and love it. Be excited about it! Get worked up! Enthusiam is contagious.
- Write fast as if your life depended on it. It may not be perfert the first time put somewhere in the copy you write will be the copy that sells
As John Caples sums it up… What is important is to take ACTION it’s the vital quality that emotional copy possesses and that ‘reason why’ copy lacks. ‘Reason Why’ copy appeals to the readers intelligence and makes them nod their heads in agreement with you. Emotional copy goes deeper into the portions of the brain where love, hate, fear and desire are.
The combination of the two will make the readers get off their butts and come to your restaurant.
So imagine if your copy was as passionate as a good waitress selling an expensive bottle of wine.
Copy that possessed fact, with a friendly tone, and a little chrisma. I would be persuaded to by anything your were offering.
Are you the bad waitress or a informed and excited waitress?
Rachel Wadsworth
What’s So Important About A Client List?
Do you hear people constantly talking about a client list and wonder why they keep going on and on about it?
You are probably thinking I have customers who walk through the door and some of these people are loyal customers who keep coming back for their coffee day after day, week after week, month after month…
What would happen if a restaurant opened down the road and had a new Italian Coffee that was fantastic, and your customers started going to them? How would you go about getting them back? If you had a contact list of their emails you could build a relationship with them and develop a deeper level of loyalty.
What if every time a customer went to pay, you asked for their business card to put them on your preferred – client mailing and announcement list. Promote to the customer that you mail out advanced notification of what’s coming up, new menus, events and theme nights.
It is important that you follow up with your customers, send them an email once a week with information on ‘What’s Happening at Your Restaurant’?
Once you have developed your list you have the ability to analyse the buying patterns or interests. The key is to determine which customers are buying what category of products or services and which ones return more frequently to your restaurant.
An example of this might be the Lawyers office down the road, a group that come every Tuesday and have a team building lunch. What possible incentives can you offer the firm to ensure that they return every week? Perhaps a certain table, an advance copy of the menu so that the staff don’t need to waste time ordering, or a special voucher for each of the participants to bring a friend and receive a free dessert.
The key to building your list is to value it as a commodity.
Once you have it and can start to analyse and interpret the data, it will potentiallt display a significant variety of opportunities that perhaps you may not have considered. It will help you start to target businesses and individuals who have similar the purchasing patterns and characteristics to the customers you already serve.
Building your list is easier than you think!
Why not start today by asking your clients to leave their business cards!
Rachel Wadsworth
Rachel.wadsworth@bigpond.com
www.rachelwadsworth.com
What Makes You Desire A Product?
What kind of advertisement would make you pick up the telephone and call to make a reservation in a restaurant or purchase a product?
Just think of an advertisement that has a beautiful restaurant, with sexy people, holding elegant glasses and nibbling on a great looking platter of food, and laughing. With a great caption like ‘We missed you on Friday!’ You would want to be a part of the action wouldn’t you?
It’s the appeal the advertising has on you. It is reaching that point within you that meets an underlying desire. This appeal is based on one or more of the following four emotional triggers;
- Sex Appeal – How sexy is the advertisement on a physical, love, affection and friendship level.
- Greed – The world is centered on greed and the desire to have what you want when you want it.
- Fear – Of losing what you have or never getting what you want or your secret desires.
- Duty/ Honor and Professionalism – Not what’s in it for me, but what is the best for those I serve – the right equipment, the most effective solution.
There is no element in advertising that is more important than the appeal – the reason you give the reader for frequenting your restaurant. Therefore understanding your target market is imperative to ensuring that you are appealing to them.
There is no point selling expensive wine to a beer drinker, or baby nappies to a single business executive with no children.
There are many different ways you can find an appeal to reach your audience, some of these include;
• Increase Income
• Reduce Spending
• Retirement Security
• Health and Fitness
• Security in old age
• Prestige
• Enjoyment
• Easier Chores
• Gain more leisure
• Comfort
• Reduce Fat
• Freedom from worry.
Once you have established what will appeal to your audience you MUST ensure that the appeal is featured in the Headline. There is no point having copy filled with great appeal if you didn’t catch them with the headline. It would be like fishing with bait but no line.
In choosing the angle of appeal, ensure that you know why you choose an appeal and test a number of different appeals, analyse the results and make a decision for you campaign based on the evidence.
Now it’s time for work… What appeals to your customers, what will make them take ACTION?
Rachel Wadsworth
Rachel.wadsworth@bigpond.com
www.rachelwadsworth.com
