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Your EnterQuest Bulletin - 02 November 2005
| Thought for the week: "Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude." Anonymous |
In this week's issue:
Small business answers
If
you have any questions about your business idea or target market,
or need help tracking down a grant, subsidy or business support
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Send
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To
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Weekly stir 
Why does a small business need a marketing strategy?
When you ask just about any new business owner what their marketing strategy is, the chances are they won't be able to answer.
Why? Because they haven't really got one.
They might mumble something about having a marketing strategy or a marketing plan that vaguely says they are going to 'sell to more customers' or 'spend more on classified ads', and might even brag about 'having products on our website'.
If this sounds like the way you would describe your own marketing strategy, you might as well chuck a rock into the middle of the Atlantic and see if anyone notices the splash.
Let's look at this another way.
The key to business success is in making sales. And the key to making sales is in understanding the needs of your target customers and persuading them to buy from you and not someone else. This is the essence of any marketing strategy.
Marketing campaigns that are successful, sustainable and profitable are invariably strategic. In other words, they are focused on the needs of the target customer, and on continuously communicating to the customer the benefits of your products and services over those provided by your competitors.
Approaching your marketing strategy like this will also help you with 'positioning' your business in your sector or industry. In other words, your strategy is essentially seeking to influence customers and prospective customers into thinking that there is something different, special or unique about your business.
However, if you fail to persuade people that there is anything different or unique about your product or service, your customers' buying decisions will invariably just boil down to price. To put it another way, your product or service will be little more than a commodity in your market, with no perceivable added value.
Now in any new business this isn't something that you can just do easily or quickly. But it's a darned sight easier to do if your marketing activities are focused on a strategy, and that strategy involves establishing your position in the market.
So what are the steps you can take to start to do this?
Having a focused marketing strategy requires a process of continually explaining to your target audience how and why your business is different to everyone else in your sector.
If you're still at the start up stage or in the early months of trading with your new venture, you almost certainly won't have been able to establish a market position yet, so here's a brief checklist of the main steps you need to follow to start making this happen.
- Examine your target audience in great detail. What exactly do they want?
- Look for a gap that you realistically believe you can fill. Make sure you look at this from the point of view of how your customers will see it.
- Identify what your business rivals are offering, and the position that they've already established or appear to be trying to establish.
- Communicate clearly the benefits of what you are offering your market, and ensure they are hearing the message.
- Focus only on filling the market gap you have identified. Don't get distracted. This will begin to establish a foothold for your market position.
- Test and analyse whether your strategy is working, and that you are delivering on what you have promised in your marketing messages. Adjust what you are doing to reflect what you find.
In general terms, these are the fundamental steps in every marketing strategy. But the success of any business will ultimately be dependent on having a marketing strategy that is aimed precisely at its target audience, that is uncomplicated and easy to understand, that can deliver what it promises, and that not only generates interest from customers but turns that interest into action and orders.
Check out this guide to creating a marketing strategy for more guidance on developing your approach. And for hundreds more practical tips and tactics to improve your sales and marketing efforts and results, read the UK Small Business Marketing Bible.
Marketing
tip
Trend watching and finding a business idea
Trends and demands in your business sector can change frequently, so it's important to keep up with developments and continually review your idea for new opportunities.
The following useful resources provide information about researching and explaining your business idea, as well as helping you keep up with trends and spot new opportunities and ideas in your sector.
- The Trendwatching news site offers frequently updated and fascinating information, news and articles on new business ideas and market trends across a range of sectors. Similarly, the Trends Portal lists market trends and different ideas, and is usefully categorised by sector.
- This white paper on finding a business idea provides step-by-step information about researching, assessing and explaining a new idea for an enterprise. It also offers some useful free trials of planning software covering issues like cash flow forecasting.
- This Canadian directory profiles the most popular home-based business ideas.
- Finally, new ideas and articles about trends can be posted and browsed at the Global Ideas Bank, regularly updated lists of social enterprise ideas can be found at the UnLTD Ideas Bank, and the Idea A Day inspiration service offers daily updates of at least one new business idea.
You can also check out the top sellers on our Scavenger research resource to see the most popular business ideas being started in the UK, as well as the key issues that are most important to our small business subscribers.
Legal
tip
Avoiding discrimination when hiring workers
New businesses often find that writing a job advert is one of the trickier aspects of recruitment. There's a host of legal issues surrounding discrimination, and the result is that the wording and presentation of an advert is important and hard to get right.
In brief, the law forbids direct or indirect discrimination against employees at all stages of the recruitment process, and for all sorts of grounds. Racial, religious and sex discrimination are three of the areas where employers frequently get into difficulties, and age discrimination will be outlawed in October 2006.
- An example of direct discrimination might be deciding not to hire a single mother because you feel she would be unable to devote her time to your business properly.
- Indirect discrimination might happen if you set a written test for an exclusively manual job, with the result that candidates whose first language is not English are at a disadvantage.
Fortunately there's plenty of guidance on the minefield of recruitment and discrimination.
The UK Red Tape Buster also has more information on the legal aspects of recruitment, as well as hundreds of factsheets, scenarios and frequently asked questions about all aspects of small business law.
IT
tip
Mail merge for mailing lists
In previous issues of EnterQuest, we've described how to build e-mail mailing lists, but old-fashioned paper mailshots can be equally useful in a direct marketing campaign. Instead of typing out individual letters to each customer, though, Microsoft Word's 'Mail merge' function can automate the process.
First prepare and save your standard letter in Word, and enter a list of your prospects' names and addresses into columns in an Excel spreadsheet. Each column needs a header - for example 'First name', 'Surname', 'Address line 1', and 'City'.
- Open your letter in Word, then click on 'Tools', followed by 'Mail merge'.
- Click 'Create form letters', using the 'Active Window' option.
- Stage 2 involves retrieving the name and address data from the spreadsheet you set up. Click on 'Open data source' and find the Excel file with the mailing list.
- Now you should see some extra buttons at the top of your document. You can add 'Fields' to your letter, using 'Insert merge field'. The fields are the headers you originally placed at the top of each column in your Excel file - for example, the name and address lines.
- Once your fields are in place, click the button marked 'Merge'. Word will create your merged document, with a new letter addressed to each name on your mailing list.
It sounds fairly complex, but once you're used to the process it's worth noting that mail merge can do plenty of other similar things, including printing out labels and envelopes, and checking for missing names. For more details, the Microsoft website has a guide to mail merge and this About.com article shows how you can do a mail merge for e-mail using Outlook. Finally, this checklist for organising a mailshot covers the key things you need to do before despatching your mailing.
And if you're looking to develop your own business website to sell to customers via the Internet, why not check out the Small Business Builder, a unique tool to enable a complete novice to set up a website or online store.
New business idea
Each
week we provide you with summaries of some popular or emerging business
ideas in the UK.
Here
is this week's idea:
Just one word
Regularly improving your vocabulary is not just about learning a new word and its meaning. It will improve your general knowledge and make you feel and act smarter in all sorts of personal and business situations.
Do you know what the word 'neophyte' means?
a) afraid or unsure of technology
b) a novice or beginner
c) an expert or professional
d) marketing jargon for a second-time customer
Answer at the end of the Bulletin.
Website review
The Trade Association Forum (www.taforum.org)
Billing itself as 'the gateway to UK trade associations and business sectors', this organisation provides information about the UK's trade associations, including news, events and contact details. But how user-friendly and accessible is the website?
- Navigation
and presentation - there's a bit too much happening on the homepage, with the result that things appear cluttered and confusing. There is an attempt at a blog-style rolling news index, but this is interspersed with links to directories, diaries, events and job ads, which makes the whole thing hard to follow. The trade association directory is easy to use, however.
 
- Accessibility - there's a how-to guide for logging into the site, and help with using its search function, but sadly not even a nod is given to accessibility options. Everything is displayed only in English, and without the choice of changing text size, using access keys or viewing the site in text-only format.
- Content
and usefulness - the trade association directory is a really handy resource for business owners, and there's also a great practical section on setting up your own association. The quality of the publications on the site is mixed, but there are some useful guides to codes of practice and the like.
-
Relevance - news is available via an RSS feed, but unfortunately it can only be viewed by registered members of the site whose trade associations are registered members of the Forum. Unfortunately the news stories listed on the homepage can't be read in full unless you fulfil these criteria.
Some helpful tools for small business owners, but poor presentation, a complete lack of accessibility options and a rather Masonic approach to disseminating relevant news result in a below average score for this site.
Our rating - 8/20
Did
you know?
E-tailers are in for big Christmas rush
New research from the Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG) has predicted that consumers will spend £5 billion online this Christmas, a rise of 40% on the amount spent on the web in November and December last year. The research group's report has been released to coincide with the publication of a useful 'Christmas Retail Readiness Guide' for retailers, produced by Royal Mail, which aims to provide practical tips on how to capitalise on online shopping.
Worth
a visit
Toolkit for green entrepreneurs
The Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) has produced a new 'Pub Glass' toolkit for aspiring entrepreneurs and existing businesses considering setting up glass recycling ventures. It estimates that 600,000 tonnes of glass bottles are discarded every year by pubs, restaurants, hotels and clubs, and suggests that this resource is worth around £9 million. The toolkit aims to provide practical tips on how to set up a simple recycling service.
Get Safe Online information resource
The National High-Tech Crime Unit has launched the UK's first national awareness campaign warning of the dangers of Internet crime. The Get Safe Online initiative has been under development since August, and focuses on providing information about avoiding Internet crime to small businesses. The initiative is sponsored by private sector stakeholders including BT, Dell, eBay and Microsoft, as well as several of the UK's leading high street banks. The resource is packed with practical guidance on securing your PC, training employees and controlling access to data.
Worth
a read
This book, which is accompanied by a useful Q&A from the author on the Amazon site, is written by two people who have both run part-time home-based businesses. It explores the emerging trend of running a business in this way, providing inspiration, tips and advice on all aspects of getting your at-home venture up and running. Check out:
Just one word answer
The answer is b).
A neophyte is a novice or beginner.
If you aim your products or services at neophytes or newbies, they will appreciate you providing them with practical how-to guides and instruction manuals. |
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Good
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The EnterQuest Team
This information is meant as a starting point only. Whilst all reasonable
efforts have been made, the publisher makes no warranties that the
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for any errors or omissions in the information nor any consequences
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