List of questions
Face your marketing fears!
Marketing is an essential and integral aspect of any management role. Why? Because a business needs enquiries and sales, a club needs members and any event needs an audience. And, it is the role of marketing to generate enquiries, attract members and bring in the audience. It is the manager's responsibility to ensure sufficient planning, money and skill is available to make the marketing work. Too often it's too little, too late!
- > Why do I need a graphic designer?
- > Are staff uniforms worth the money?
- > Do promotional gifts really work?
- > What is copywriting?
- > How do I go about marketing?
- > Is a logo really important?
- > How do I get more business?
- > What is a concept document?
- > What is business development?
- > How do I choose a designer?
- > What is a print buyer?
- > Any cheap ways to promote?
- > Do I need a business plan?
- > I just want a chat about my business. Will it cost me a lot of money?
Frequently Asked Questions
What is marketing!
Marketing is everything you do to attract customers and keep them coming back. So marketing deals with everything from customer service, staff manners, pricing, product design, service standards, promotion, sales, advertising and so on.
I don't need marketing. I can do all that stuff myself.
Unless you are a particularly gifted person, the likelihood is that your marketing skills are amateur at best. The only person who doesn't see that is you. When you have a legal problem you call a solicitor and accountant when you have issues with tax. It is good commercial sense to call a marketing expert when you want to to promote and bring in enquiries. No matter what it costs, good promotion is less expensive than poor promotion. If you spend money on something that underperforms you are wasting money and missing opportunities.
What does promotion mean?
Promotion is any form of advertising, therefore it covers newpaper, magazine, radio and television advertising plus signs, brochures, leaflets, banners, van graphics, posters, websites, email fliers, digital brochures, DVDs, shop fronts, window displays, menus, text messaging, exhibition displays, postcards, printed envelopes, letterheads even invoices.
How much should I spend on promotion and marketing
The general rule of thumb is 7.5% of turnover. So if you turnover £100,000 your promotion and marketing budget would be £7500 per annum including advice, design and production. The important thing is to include a budget in your business plan otherwise you will spend money haphazardly and therefore inefficiently.