Marketing your business

You're now raring to go with your business! Here we share tips on how to give yourself the best chance of winning customers.

Planning
Planning is key. Planning research into your customers, competitors' products and price and working out a marketing and advertising strategy is essential before you even sell your first widget. Once all that's done, you can plan your launch. Remember, though, great marketing will never hide a bad product.

Market research
Market research is much more than just looking at what else is around in a given market. It can reveal where you have been too optimistic, it can tell you where you need to change direction and it can give you the edge in a competitive world.
Key points about market research:
Product, promotion, price and position
Know your market. What's your product, who else makes it, what do they provide, how big is it, how are you going to be different?
Know your customers. Who'll buy your product or service, what are their ages/profiles/interests/buying habits, and so on. How will you tell them about it?
Price. Will you be able to provide your product or service at a price that you can afford and the customer is willing to pay.
Location. Where are you going to sell your product or service. In a shop, if so where, from a factory, on the internet. What do competitors do?
You might feel you can do all this yourself, but if not then you hire people. A good starting point is The Market Research Society or Business Link. Doing a SWOT analysis is a good idea too, which is taking an honest look at your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. This will help you to steer your marketing and also point out where you need expert advice and help.
Also your image needs to be carefully thought out. Anything from stationery style to your logo will have an effect on the perception people have of your product. That's why so many big companies, such as Abbey National, change their look and possibly their name.

Marketing
You've done the research, now you want to market your company and its wares. How will you target your customers, and how much money are you going to spend doing so.
Depending on your business these are some of the main ways to market yourself.
Word of mouth. Happy customers are happy to recommend you, and it's free.
Mail shots. Quite expensive on paper and postage, and consider three per cent successful sales a bonus. However, it does work, so long as you've carefully thought who to send the blurb to. Your own website. This is now very cheap and easy to do and gives you a presence on the internet, and it's one more weapon in your marketing armoury.
Press releases: A well-written press release can get free coverage in newspapers, TV and radio and can tell millions of potential customers about your product or service.
Free give-aways. Either as samples, or competition prizes. Again this gets you mentioned and noticed.
Be a media expert in your field. Local radio stations and papers are hungry to fill their airtime and pages. If you have an expertise, offer yourself as a pundit to the local media.
Points 3, 4 and 5 can be done for you by a PR agency. There are many small, inexpensive ones around that won't cost you that much. It's worth considering using their expertise if you can afford it.

Advertising
Marketing can involve getting publicity for free, but the only guaranteed way of someone shouting about you is to pay for it. Advertising is a multi-billion pound business in the UK and big companies wouldn't spend millions on it if it didn't work. But you have to get it right. Here are some pointers:
What's your budget? There's no use spending so much on advertising that you go bust. You must be able to afford it, and as your business grows you can spend more if you want to.
Which medium? Radio is cheaper than TV, local papers can be very cheap indeed. Which will hit your target audience in the most effective way. It's very important to know the readership/listenership/viewer of the media you wish to advertise in. There would be little point advertising your stairlift product on a radio station playing garage music to 15 year olds. Also don't forget business directories, such as Yellow Pages.
Who'll make your advert? Will you write it yourself and pay the paper directly, or will you hire an agency? If so, shop around, find out what other ads the agency makes and ensure it fits your business style.
Little and often and not one big bang! A one-off ad, however good, will soon be forgotten as others come along. You need to market and advertise regularly to win new customers. So you need to spread your marketing budget accordingly.

The following websites have more information on research and marketing:

Chartered Institute of Marketing: www.cim.co.uk
Market Research Society: www.marketresearch.co.uk
Chartered Institute of Public Relations: www.ipr.org.uk
Advertising Association: www.adassoc.co.uk

Car of the Year nominations

The nominations for this year's European Car of the Year have been announced.

Instead of the usual shortlist of seven, this year there are eight contenders, whittled down from 41 entrants. The shortlist is: Citroën C4 Picasso, Fiat Grande Punto, Ford S-Max, Honda Civic, Opel/Vauxhall Corsa, Peugeot 207, Skoda Roomster and Volvo C30.

There is no obvious favourite this year, although French and Italian cars do disproportionately well in this award - winners in the past have included cars like the Fiat Bravo/Brava and the Renault 9.

Carphone buys AOL web unit for £370m

Story Can be found at the Finatial Times

By Andrew Parker and Tom Braithwaite
Published: October 11 2006 08:19 Last updated: October 11 2006 13:14

Carphone Warehouse on Wednesday agreed to buy Time Warner’s AOL internet access business in the UK in a move that will make it the country’s number three broadband provider.

Carphone will pay £370m in cash for the AOL business, and will have about 2m broadband customers after the deal is concluded in December.

Carphone’s shares surged 8 per cent to close at 360.25p.
Charles Dunstone, Carphone’s chief executive, hailed the AOL deal as “transformational for our broadband business”.
Carphone is currently the number seven broadband provider in the UK, and the AOL deal should bolster its ambition to become the main alternative to BT in residential fixed-line telephony.
In April, Carphone unleashed a broadband price war by offering “free” high-speed internet access to people who signed up to its £21 per month Talk Talk fixed-line phone service.
Carphone said it expected its group pre-tax profit for the year ending March 31 2007 to be £120m. The purchase of the AOL business, together with strong performance in Carphone’s mobile phone retail outlets, will offset an anticipated £70m operating loss in its broadband arm, which is £20m more than forecast in April.
The loss is a result of higher-than-expected demand for Carphone’s “free” broadband offering, which forced it to hire hundreds of additional call centre staff.
In a trading update, Carphone said 625,000 people had applied for “free” broadband by September 30, although it admitted 78,000 subsequently cancelled or switched to other suppliers. Consumer groups expressed concern over whether Carphone could cope with the integration of AOL’s internet access business.
“Every integration has its teething problems and the fact is that Carphone is still trying to put its own house in order following the unprecedented demand generated by the launch of its free Talk Talk broadband deal,” said Chris Williams, spokesman for uSwitch.com, the price comparison service.
Carphone insisted its existing broadband business would make an operating profit of £30m-£40m in 2008.
It said the purchase of the AOL internet access business, which would be funded through an extension to its existing debt facilities and is subject to clearance by competition authorities, would provide an additional £30m-£40m of profit.
Under the Time Warner deal, Carphone is entering into a revenue-sharing agreement with AOL that will give it a slice of online advertising.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006