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• Great marketing tips & information
• Five questions to ask yourself about your marketing planning
• Top tips for re-branding
• Top Tips for thinking outside the square
• How to build your P.R. message efficiently 
• Free sales tips - ten top telemarketing tips

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Great marketing tips and information:

• Don’t go into battle without an up-to-date marketing plan.
• How to re-brand the easy way.
• How to think outside the square.
• How to build your P.R. message efficiently.

1. Don’t go into battle without an up-to-date Marketing Plan!

Every business, large or small, can dramatically increase their chance of success by following a marketing plan. A marketing plan sets out the sales and marketing steps for the year ahead. It should focus on the 'what, when, where, who and how much' questions.
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Five questions to ask yourself about your marketing planning:

• What are our competitive advantages?
• When will we spend money on marketing initiatives?
• Where will we spend our marketing budget?
• Who are our target markets?
• How much expenditure and what volume of sales and profits can we expect?

First seen in the Taranaki Chamber of Commerce Newsletter, June 2006

 2. How to Rebrand the Easy Way!

While not every company needs to change its name, it should consider re-branding in some way from time to time. However, this should not simply be a cosmetic exercise.
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Top Marketing Tips-Top tips for Re-branding:

• Involve all staff in the process - they know you best.
• Plan the process before you dash out and order new stationery!
• Ask: What does your brand mean? What values do you want to convey? What do your target clients expect?
• If you re-name: Is the name memorable? What does it mean? Is it limiting? Will it be abbreviated?
• Search: Conduct a legal and trademark search - visit www.iponz.govt.nz.
• Ask your stakeholders for feedback. 
• Do an audit of existing material in order to plan using up your old material before your re-launch.
• Re-launch your new brand to all your existing customers and the market.  If you don’t want to do it yourself, hire an expert!

First seen in the Taranaki Chamber of Commerce Newsletter, August 2006

 3. How to think outside the box:

Many people base their ideas of marketing on those of similar companies. Never be afraid to try something new, so long as it meets the same basic requirements of being appropriate, memorable and of value to clients and prospective customers.
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Marketing Tips - Top Tips for Thinking Outside the Square:

• Think about how you can increase the impact of a campaign before sending it out.
• Ask if you can tailor the campaign to your clients’ likes and hobbies.
• Think about how you can add that extra little touch that will make you stand out from others.
• Should you add a chocolate, a treat, a lotto ticket, some sparkle..?
• If you were to send an invitation for lunch, you could perhaps send them a knife, fork and napkin together with the invitation!
• Follow up the campaign to measure its effectiveness.

 4. How to build your PR message efficiently:

Public Relations, or P.R., focuses on communication between your company and the media channels available using such tools as news stories and press releases. Such media include T.V., radio, newspapers and magazines. Smart P.R. can be a cheap and very efficient form of marketing. However, be aware that poor P.R. can potentially be a huge risk.
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Free Marketing Tips - Top Tips for building your P.R. message

• If you cannot employ a P.R. firm, consider ways in which to maximise your own P.R. presence.
• Ask the media representative what stories are of interest to them and their readers and tailor your articles and press releases to fit.
• To increase the impact of a story, develop an interesting angle.
• In order to be interviewed more often become the expert in your industry.
• Re-use on your website and in any other future marketing material every article you produce.
• To maximise the benefit from articles, send copies to both your existing and prospective clients.
• Be honest and reputable in all your P.R.

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Free Sales Tips - Ten Top Telemarketing Tips

Telemarketing is a form of direct marketing. Unfortunately, it is true to say that the word ‘telemarketing’ does seem to conjure up heartfelt resentment among many people, because of the seemingly pestering calls they may have experienced at home. It is a combination of this negative feeling and the fear of rejection which leads many business owners and sales reps to avoid telemarketing entirely. However, given how measurable and affordable it is as a marketing strategy, it is ideal for businesses of all sizes: small, medium and large.

Telemarketing simply means ‘promoting your business by phone’. There are four forms of telemarketing: outbound calls, lead generation, direct sales, and inbound calls. Telemarketing used to be predominantly focused on direct sales (telesales) and some businesses (satellite TV, telecommunications, etc) still use it in this way, although this is seldom appreciated by the recipient of the calls!

Negative connotations aside, however, telemarketing works well for most businesses. Did you know that the success rate of sending to a prospective client an item of direct mail (e.g. an offer, a flyer or brochure) can increase up to tenfold simply by making a follow-up call to the prospective client? In most cases, telemarketing should focus on the relationship you wish to establish and upon the person to whom you are speaking, rather than the product/service on offer. For this article we will focus on business-to-business selling.

5. Key points in marketing:

1. Be clear about your objectives: if all you are aiming to do is to set up a meeting, you don’t have to sell everything on the call - you simply have to ‘sell’ the idea of having a meeting. 

2. Always clearly state where you’re calling from and the purpose of the call. 

3. Always work from a prompt/script. This needn’t be read word for word (except perhaps for the first line, in order to help you start confidently), but used as a guide to ensure that all the key points are covered. 

4. Concentrate on the benefits: always focus on ‘what’s in it for them’ (e.g. it may ‘save them time’ to meet face-to-face). 

5. Don’t forget that telemarketing is also a great tool for helping to retain existing clients. It’s much cheaper to retain clients than to bring on new ones. Four calls per year is a cheap and effective way to retain clients. 

6. Be persistent. The secret for a lot of marketing strategies is to keep going. It’s often better to contact a hundred people five times each than to contact five hundred just once. 

7. Set yourself goals/targets. Review your success afterwards and identify areas of improvement. 

8. Don’t forget the competition: if you don’t call a prospective client or existing client, your competition may do so and will, therefore, win the business. 

9. When booking appointments by phone, always leave your contact details in case they cannot make the meeting. There’s nothing more frustrating than arriving at a meeting only to find the client absent. 

10. If you ask the client to get back to you, always give yourself permission to call back yourself. For example, at the end of the call, sum up your conversation and keep the right to call back: “Great. You’ll call me back next week to book a time to start work and if I don’t hear from you, I’ll give you a call at the end of next week.”

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