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Your EnterQuest Bulletin - Issue 202
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| Thought for the week: "Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. Accordingly a genius is often merely a talented person who has done all of his or her homework." Thomas Edison |
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In this week's issue:
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Ten questions to ask before you write your marketing plan
Many new start ups and existing small business owners get their business into a mess by 'doing' the wrong marketing activities the right way, or 'doing' the right marketing activities the wrong way.
If you want to 'do' the right marketing activities the right way, you must begin with a marketing plan.
In fact, if you're just starting out and you're writing or have been advised to write a business plan, you won't go far wrong if you write your marketing plan first.
After all, your business plan will be meaningless if you haven't got a market to aim your product or service at, and a practical plan describing how you will reach it.
Your marketing plan doesn't need to be dozens of pages of intricate detail about every single marketing tactic, sales activity, ad campaign and press release you are going to run.
What it does need to be is a concise, clear and coherent document that will answer a number of key questions about where your market is, who is in it, how you will reach it and how you will compete in it.
A useful way to approach this is to look at it from the point of view of someone who is trying to understand your business strategy, and the questions they would ask you to help them do that.
Here are ten examples of the types of question someone might ask:
1) What is your number one source of new business going to be and how will you get it? In other words, is there a particular type or group of customer, or a specific marketing or sales channel, that will be your top revenue generator, and what will you be doing that specifically focuses on this?
2) Can you explain what your business is going to market? In effect, what are you going to sell, how will you sell it, and who will you be selling it to?
3) After you've got your first sale from a customer, what proactive communication and marketing methods will you use to sell to those customers again?
4) What is your competition's biggest weakness or failing and how will you exploit this?
5) What is your competition's biggest advantage over you that you seriously need to do something about, and how will you do this?
6) What is your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) in your market that will make customers prefer to buy from you rather than your competitors, and how will you communicate this in all your sales, marketing and advertising activities?
7) Is your strategy to make money on the 'front end' of your business from first-time customers, or are you planning to make it on the 'back end', where customers repeatedly buy from you over and again?
8) What is the lifetime value of your customer? In other words, how much revenue will be generated over the entire period that your customer has a relationship with your business? Can you explain how you have calculated this?
9) How will you test all aspects of your sales and marketing activities to ensure they are working effectively and profitably? How will you change and adjust things to reflect what is working and what isn't?
10) Who is going to be responsible for the selling and marketing of your product or service (who will do it), and what budget have you allocated per month over the next year to make it happen?
Of course there are many possible questions that can be asked about your market and marketing strategy, but answering key questions such as those above will provide you with a clear focus and some very useful pointers to begin writing your marketing plan.
Designing your own leaflets and brochures
Paying for professional design and print services can be prohibitive for a new business, but with the help of desktop publishing packages and colour printers, it's possible to produce promotional leaflets and brochures yourself quite cheaply.
When designing promotional literature, you'll need to make decisions about the following issues:
- Photography and images - photos will make your leaflet or brochure look more interesting. You could pay a professional to take pictures for you (photographers cost from around £50 an hour) - see the directory on the British Institute of Professional Photographers website for listings by area.
You could use photo library images if you're just looking for something general, such as a picture of a house or a garden (see Fotosearch and Getty Images as examples). You'll need to be aware of copyright law in this case.
A third option is to use clipart images. You can often download these from your computer or from a clipart website. Using clipart is also covered by copyright regulations.
- Typeface - there are lots of different typefaces and fonts to choose from, including modern sans-serif fonts such as Arial and more traditional serif fonts such as Times New Roman.
Whichever font you choose, make sure it's clear and easy to read (avoid curly and cramped typefaces). See Linotype, Identifont and Fonts.com for examples of sites where you can buy the rights to use particular fonts.
The Microsoft Publisher software package provides templates for a variety of leaflets and may be worth buying if you are going to produce them on a regular basis. It costs from around £145.
See our practical factsheet on producing your own leaflets and brochures for more information.
Each week we provide you with summaries of some popular or emerging business ideas in the UK and elsewhere around the world.
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Lonely heart animal lovers get own site - a Dutch business owner has set up a dating website with a difference. As well as finding partners for lonely hearts, it ensures they're also compatible with each other's pets. Users of Animal and Human write descriptions of their animals as well as themselves.
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Hitching a ride online - hitchhiking websites work by encouraging users to list their forthcoming road journeys online and allowing other users to get in touch if they want to travel to the same destination at the same time. Drivers can find passengers who are willing to split the costs of travelling to their chosen destinations, or simply seek companionship during a long journey.
Most-purchased types of business insurance
A study by specialist insurer Hiscox has found that the majority of small businesses are not protecting themselves with adequate insurance cover. Less than 20% of the firms questioned had employment practices liability cover, despite increasing concerns expressed among survey respondents about the UK's litigious culture.
The study identified the top ten most-purchased types of small business insurance as follows, with the percentage take-up given in brackets:
1) Public liability (80%)
2) Office contents and computers (66%)
3) Employers' liability (66%)
4) Professional indemnity (59%)
5) Buildings (58%)
6) Motor (52%)
7) Portable equipment (49%)
8) Legal expenses (46%)
9) Business interruption/loss of income (44%)
10) Consequential loss (30%)
For more information about different types of business insurance, check out our introductory factsheet.
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 the meaning of the word 'byzantine'?
a) ornate or heavily embellished
b) backward or under-developed
c) modern or trendy
d) complex or difficult to understand
Answer at the end of the Bulletin.
The following topical business issues have been recently reported in the media. Did your radar pick them up?
1) Which market sector is set to experience growth of more than 40% in the next decade, according to a new report?
a) The buy-to-let property market
b) The market for organic food
c) The second-hand car market
d) The designer children's clothing market
2) Seven out of ten chefs in food businesses don't comply with HACCP hygiene rules, according to a recent survey - but what does HACCP stand for?
a) Hygiene and Contamination Cleaning Procedures
b) Hazard Analysis of Critical Control Points
c) Health and Cleaning Compulsory Processes
d) Hygienic and Clean Catering Preparation
3) Which Government department has announced a major name change and site overhaul from 2 April?
a) The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI)
b) HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC)
c) The Patent Office
d) The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO)
Answers at the end of the Bulletin.
There's a new Companies Act 2006
If you operate your business as a private limited company, you'll be affected by the introduction of the Companies Act 2006, which the Government has confirmed will start coming into force in April this year, with additional provisions taking effect between now and October 2008. The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has produced a useful guide to the implications of the Act for private companies.
Snacks market sinks as healthy eating soars
Government attempts to tackle obesity by persuading people to eat a healthy diet are affecting the snacks market. Fewer sweets and savoury snacks are predicted to be sold year-on-year until 2011, with sweet products expected to see the biggest downturn. Market analyst Key Note's figures show that between September 2004 and May 2005, sales of salty snacks fell by 3.3%, and sweet snacks dropped by 2% in the year to May 2006. The research is reported on the Bakery and Snacks site, which contains plenty of useful market facts and data.
Dragon's advice for aspiring business owners
Dragons' Den panellist Theo Paphitis is writing a five-part series of articles for the Sunday Times that aim to provide advice and inspiration for people thinking about making the leap into self-employment. The first article focuses on finding a business idea - or, as Paphitis recommends, putting your own original spin on an existing concept. The rest of the series will feature in the newspaper for the next four Sundays, and will also be available on the Times Online website.
New online farmers' market forum
An online forum has been launched for enterprises that sell goods at farmers' markets. The Farmers Market Forum already has more than 50 registered users, who can share expertise, and find out more about produce and venues. It has been put together by the people behind Market eStalls, a virtual farmers' market where small businesses can create online 'stalls' to sell their goods.
Top e-marketing tips
Small businesses are being offered help with making the most of online marketing to coincide with the Mad.co.uk Search Engine Marketing (SEM) conference, which takes place in London today. Mad.co.uk has published a press release containing ten top tips for making the most of e-marketing opportunities for a business website. The tips include creating a user-friendly design, writing effective copy, creating a buzz, and keeping track of pay-per-click (PPC) results.
Written by a well-known expert on communications, this book explores how the words you use can be influential in business, politics and everyday life. It examines the tactical use of words and phrases to affect what people buy, who they vote for and what they believe, taking a practical approach and providing plenty of rules and checklists that you can follow in your business and personal life. Check out:
Just one word answer
The answer is d).
Byzantine means complex or difficult to understand.
The Government is often criticised for devising laws of byzantine complexity. |
How's your business radar answers
1) The answer is a) - the buy-to-let property market is set to continue its meteoric growth, according to the 'Changing UK Household Market' report by Alliance & Leicester and the Centre for Future Studies.
2) The answer is b) - HACCP stands for Hazard Analysis of Critical Control Points, and is a legal requirement for all food businesses introduced by the Food Hygiene Regulations 2006. Seven out of ten chefs were found not to be complying with HACCP in a survey by food safety consultancy Shieldyourself.
3) The answer is c) - the Patent Office will become the UK Intellectual Property Office (UK-IPO) from 2 April, in an effort to make it clearer that it deals with a range of intellectual property issues such as copyright and trade marks, as well as patents. |
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Good luck
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 information is accurate and up-to-date and will not be responsible for any errors or omissions in the information nor any consequences of any errors or omissions. Professional advice should be sought where appropriate. |
