Bright Light Marketing

Marketing is about telling a story

Well here we are nearly at the end of March and Easter is upon us. Business wise we are now at the end of the first quarter of the year. A quarter that was predicted to be tough for businesses as people cut back after Christmas.

You do still need a crystal ball to predict the economy and what the next couple of months is going to bring with experts offering different opinions on whether we will see improvement and encourage more consumer spending or not. What is true though is that customers are being careful on how they spend their money and there is a trend on spending it on companies that they know and trust and this can benefit small to medium businesses like you. But only if you communicate with your customers and potential customers as to why they should spend money with you. So this months Bright Light Marketing newsletter looks at how you can communicate with your customers and make sure they spend money with you.

Congratulations also to our clients, Kate and Gordon Innes at the Tontine Hotel in Peebles, for winning the Scottish Town Hotel of the Year and receiving a Staff Management Excellence Commendation at The Scottish Hotel Of The Year Awards on Sunday.

Yours, Fiona, Janice and Fiona

The Five Times Message

As you know we are bombarded with adverts and sold to on a daily basis, it may seem harder and harder to get your message across. Equally you cannot confine your marketing to one communication tool. For example there is a huge buzz just now about Social Media and as experts in this area Bright Light Marketing would recommend using it but this should only be used as part of your communications and not your only way of communicating. As it can take customers up to five times of seeing your various communications from e-newsletters to a leaflet to social media before they decide to buy your product.

So what do you do? What marketing communication tools do you use? Well there are two main areas to consider. Firstly and by far the most important is sitting down and taking the time to consider who your customers are and what type of communications they would like to receive. From there you can then decide which ones to use and that means you can decide to not use other marketing communications. For example a small professional business might realise that their clients want to meet with them face to face regularly, receive relevant e-newsletters and be linked with them on LinkedIn. Whereas a retailer may find that yes e-newsletters are an important way of letting customers know about new stock and products but that their customers also expect to read about them in press releases or adverts in the local press.

Marketing is simply about telling your story and the way that you do it will be different from the business next door to you as you will have different customers who as outlined above will want to hear from you in the various communication channels relevant to them.

The second consideration is your budget. It is sensible each year when planning your finances to set money aside for marketing. Set a budget and then stick to that budget. At the same time look at what marketing communication tools you can use for that budget. But do set aside money for marketing as if you don’t tell customers your story they won’t have reason to buy from you and tell others. Also new customers are unlikely to know about you unless you tell them.

Once your budget is set you can decide how you are going to spend it. It is also a good time to decide how much time you are going to invest in marketing and take the time to plan it out. Treat your business as a customer and give it the same attention as you would a customer. It will reward you with keeping and getting new customers. Some aspects of marketing such as press adverts and releases, print and updating a website do cost money. But other things you can do yourself such as Social Media and updating your website. And others like e-newsletters can be done by yourself or are reasonably priced from companies like Bright Light Marketing. All of them though are effective particularly if you sit down and consider which ones your customers will look at and make sure that you don’t just stick to the one communication tool and think that the job is done.

Clients of Bright Light Marketing benefit from our advice on marketing. This can be quite simply sitting down and talking with you about who your customers are and what your budget is and advising on how to market to them by producing an easy to follow action plan. If Social Media is appropriate for your clients we can teach you how to make the most of Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter and start you off with followers and an easy to use guide. We can manage your database and produce your e-newsletters from content and writing copy, to sending them out, to giving you a report on who did and who didn’t open it. We can write a press release for you and liaise with local and national press or handle your print from design and copywriting to distribution. Or you can as many of our clients do take us on as the marketing team for your business. We are here to make your marketing get you noticed from small scale to larger projects and as marketing experts are here to help you, so that you know that when it comes to marketing you have considered all angles and that your customers are planning to spend their money with you in the next quarter and well beyond.

For more information on how Bright Light Marketing can get you noticed contact Fiona Drane on fiona.drane@brightlightmarketing.co.uk or phone 01750 505053.

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