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Your EnterQuest Bulletin - 22 February 2006
| Thought for the week: "Success is a science; if you have the conditions, you get the result." Oscar Wilde |
In this week's issue:
Small business answers
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Weekly stir 
More tips for producing better sales letters
It's a fact of business life that a bad business with naff products (poor quality and poor value for money) can succeed, while a great business offering high quality and fantastic value products can sink completely.
Why can this happen?
Generally this is down to the effectiveness, or more precisely ineffectiveness, of their marketing.
With really good marketing, a business with duff products is just as likely to succeed as a business with great products or services.
But the problem for too many businesses with great products is that useless marketing will result in their market potential never being realised, and eventually in the failure of the business altogether.
When small business owners look jealously at their competitors or other small businesses' levels of success, they usually make the mistake of wishing they had their products or services to sell instead of their own.
But in fact what they should be doing is looking at how good their competitors' marketing is, and what they can learn from it.
You see, the key factor that will determine whether you're going to succeed in your small business has probably got little to do with what your product or service is.
It's more likely to be about how good you are at marketing it.
Being effective and successful at marketing for a new small business owner is as much about avoiding mistakes and pitfalls as it is about anything else. And one particular area where these mistakes occur the most is in sales letters written by business owners who have had little or no experience of doing this before.
However, while being costly in terms of the lack of response and poor sales that will result, these mistakes are easy to identify, and can be easy to fix.
Here are the six most common mistakes seen in sales letters written by new business owners, and practical tips about how to fix them.
A letter that doesn't begin with an interesting and attention-grabbing statement is unlikely to be read at all. Every effective sales letter should start with a powerful opening headline or sentence that will compel or persuade the reader to find out more by reading the rest of the letter.
This is one of the most basic errors of all, where letters are sent out to no named person in particular, or just addressed as 'Dear Sir or Madam'. Tests have shown that people receiving sales letters are more likely to pay attention to them if they have been addressed to them personally. If you have a mailing list of named customers or prospects, make sure that the opening salutation of the letter you send to your customer or prospect called Joe Bloggs says 'Dear Mr Bloggs' instead of just saying 'Dear Sir' or having no salutation at all.
Your customers and prospects need to know enough information to help them decide whether to buy from you, or what choices they have when buying from you. If you were face-to-face with a prospect, you would want to spend as much time as possible explaining the advantages and reasons why they should buy your product or service. An effective sales letter should do exactly the same.
Too many sales letters go out looking like what they really are - poorly or cheaply printed letters or shoddy photocopies. The first impression and image this portrays to your customers can be a killer before they even start reading your sales copy. Do you want to give the impression that you are cheap, don't care or don't value your customers? Always send out a quality printed letter that looks like it's the only one that's been printed, just for that customer.
This may seem like an obvious mistake, but it's one of the most common. If you don't tell your prospect what to do next, calling them to take specific action, such as 'Call us now for a quote', 'E-mail us for more information', 'Visit our website to buy now', 'Request your free trial' and so on, then what do you expect them to do? What do you think they will do? The best sales letter will always have a clear and easy to follow call to action, and this should be reinforced at least once.
If your letter goes out unsigned, this is also a signal to your prospects that you don't care enough about them to personally sign it. It gives the impression that you're a cheapskate and don't view your customers as individuals that you personally value. And not following your signature with a PS is missing the opportunity to restate the main benefit or USP of your product or service, or to reinforce your call to action. Always sign your sales letters and include a strong PS.
It's often been quoted that sales letters are just salesmanship in print. And this is something that you should remember every time you write a sales letter - or any other written form of marketing communication, for that matter.
Your product or service may well be considerably superior to your competitors' in all sorts of ways. But if your salesmanship is poor and your competitors' marketing is better than yours, you are leaving the door open for your customers to buy from someone else instead of you.
Smart small business owners work on improving their marketing and salesmanship, as well as their products, every single day. Make sure you do, too.
You can find more tips and ideas in our practical factsheet about writing an effective sales letter.
Marketing
tip
Rules for writing an effective tagline
A tagline or sales strapline is a way of summing up your business and providing your customers with a phrase they'll remember next time they're looking for the products or services you can provide. Taglines can be catchy ("You can be sure of Shell"), intriguing ("Vorsprung durch Technik"), or just explanatory ("You'll never put a better bit of butter on your knife").
A good tagline should answer three questions:
- What solution or benefit do you provide?
- How do you provide it?
- Who do you provide it to?
What's more, a good tagline will be brief and to the point. You have only a couple of seconds to get your message across to busy people. "Time-saving software for the creative freelancer" says so much more than "Making life easier since 1995".
Finally, if you can make your tagline catchy or memorable, you're halfway to making an impression that lasts.
Short of inspiration? Try analysing taglines that already work, such as those in Wikiquote's list of taglines and advertising slogans.
And the UK Small Business Marketing Bible is jam-packed with hundreds of cheap, easy to implement ideas and techniques for promoting your business.
Legal
tip
Outdoor sales, markets and street trading - who's in charge?
Outdoor markets and street trading are still thriving in towns and cities all over the UK. It seems that many businesses still find the traditional ways of trading are the best.
But of course, there's a certain amount of red tape involved in running market stalls. So here's a quick guide to the most important issues to bear in mind.
Local authorities have the power to grant or refuse licences for street trading under the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982. They also control markets and decide who gets a pitch and how often markets are held.
To obtain a licence, you should contact your local authority's licensing department - there's a directory of names and addresses at the Directgov website.
Local authorities usually attach certain conditions to trading.
For additional general advice on the law affecting market traders, you can get in touch with the National Market Traders' Federation.
And the National Association of British Market Authorities (NABMA) website is a good source of news on policy and markets around the country.
Finally, our guide to local authority business regulations provides more information about the types of rules your business may need to comply with when starting up.
IT
tip
Microsoft beta version software
Microsoft issued its first anti-spyware program at the beginning of 2005. Now, it has released a tidied up version called Windows Defender which is available in beta (experimental) mode for the time being.
But remember that beta versions of freeware like this may be more likely to crash or cause complications on your PC. For instance, many people have been unable to install the latest spyware definitions because the Microsoft server refuses to recognise the request (see Microsoft's tech support pages if you get this problem).
Is the program worth downloading? Certainly, unless you're running a good anti-spyware application already. The damage and annoyance spyware, adware and other malware can cause means that an effective tool to get rid of them is essential.
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.
Many Latin words and phrases have infiltrated 21st-century English, and a lot of them are used in business communication. Do you know what the phrase 'inter alia' means?
a) in reality
b) on the face of it
c) among other things
d) between you and me
Answer at the end of the Bulletin.
Website review
The Disability Rights Commission (DRC - www.drc.org.uk)
This is the website of the group that lobbies the Government on behalf of people with disabilities, and provides guidance for employers about complying with the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) 1995 . But how user-friendly and accessible is the website?
- Navigation and presentation - a somewhat garish homepage is populated with a lot of images and colours, making the text easy to read but with rather too much going on to be easy to follow. However, the ability to browse the site by business sector is useful, as are the clearly marked sections for business owners.
 
- Accessibility - unsurprisingly, the accessibility options on this site are second to none. From different text sizes to foreign language options, it's all there. Browsing the site's description of its accessibility options could provide inspiration for businesses looking to improve their own websites.
- Content and usefulness - the business-oriented section of the site includes specific advice about providing access to products, services and premises; there are training materials and an FAQ section available to browse; and there are even practical publications offering accessibility tips for different types of businesses, from hairdressers to cafés. The legal guidance is a useful tool for those baffled by the DDA, too.
- Relevance - between two and five press releases are published per month, and many of these are focused around the public sector or the Government's debates about accessibility for people with disabilities, rather than genuinely practical news for businesses. However, the news section of the site provides some interesting comments about policy and potential legal changes.
An excellent array of accessibility options, and some useful guidance documents for small businesses. Improvements to the design of the site, plus the addition of some more topical news stories, would result in an even higher score.
Our rating - 15/20
Did you know?
Noise at Work Regulations are coming into force
6 April will see the introduction of new laws surrounding noise at work, affecting many construction and manufacturing businesses and meaning that risk assessments will need to be carried out to stay in line with the law. The Control of Noise at Work Regulations 2005 will reduce by around 70% the decibel levels to which workers can be exposed without suitable protection. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has a summary of the new provisions and guidance on how to comply.
Big rise in firms using illegal software
Research carried out by the Business Software Alliance (BSA) has revealed that there was a 24% jump in the number of firms reported to be using illegal software in 2005, compared with the previous year. The BSA blames the hike on the strength of the economy - it reckons that businesses often overlook software licensing during busy periods, and estimates that around 80% of cases are due to negligence.
Worth
a visit
Help with understanding employers' liability
The HSE has published a revised leaflet about the Employers' Liability (Compulsory Insurance) Act 1969. The leaflet explains how the law affects business owners in practical terms, covering who needs to have this type of insurance cover, how much cover is needed and what needs to be done with the paperwork.
All you need to know about business continuity
Continuity Central is a news and information resource for business owners interested in developing continuity plans to document how they would get back on track after a major incident such as a fire, flood or virus attack. The portal provides news articles, assessment tools and other practical resources.
Worth
a read
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Staying with the theme of business continuity, a number of useful booklets have been produced since the July bombings in London which explain what business continuity means in practical terms. The Business Continuity Institute's booklet, 'Expecting the unexpected: Business continuity in an uncertain world', looks at how to assess and analyse the risks to your business.
And AXA Insurance publishes a practical business continuity guide for small firms, covering how to analyse risks, case studies to highlight key issues, and a sample continuity plan. |
Just one word answer
The answer is c).
Inter alia literally means 'among others'. It has come to mean 'among other things'.
Your business plan should include, inter alia, a profile of your target market and a plan for how you will reach that market. |
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The EnterQuest Team
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