The bilstein group shares its five most useful marketing tips to help you promote your business.
Marketing is one of the main tools you can use to stand out from your competitors and increase sales. The bilstein group has put together five top tips to help you get the most out of your marketing activities.
Top tip one: Take five and be smart
Setting objectives is a step that is often missed when carrying out marketing activity. This is understandable, especially within the fast-paced environment of a motor factor. However, taking some time to plan your objectives before going on to develop the actual marketing material will give focus to what you want to achieve and will be a future reference informing you if your marketing efforts have been successful.
Objectives do not have to be complicated, but should be SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely). An example of this could be to increase Blue Print filtration sales by 10% in June.
Top tip two: Be seen where your customers are looking
To get the most out of your marketing, you want it to appear in front of your customers as often as possible. Understanding where your customers are looking is vital information that will tell you what marketing material you need to create to be seen. By talking to some close customers, you may establish that they use emails on and off throughout their day, check Facebook throughout lunch, and browse through leaflets/flyers as and when they get the opportunity.
The information you acquire will then allow you to create the basis of your marketing plan. An example of this could be a monthly leaflet delivered alongside orders, with an email sent to your customers every two weeks, and two Facebook posts a week.
Top tip three: Stand in your customer’s shoes
The main point here is to understand what is important to your customer by viewing things from their perspective. This will allow you to create engaging marketing material which is focused on the customer for the plan created in tip two. An interesting exercise is to spend a few minutes thinking about what your customer’s day looks like and how you can help overcome any ‘obstacles’ they face in their daily jobs.
A phrase along the lines of “We stock febi timing belt kits” can easily turn into “For a hassle-free repair, choose febi timing belt kits. Call us on…”. This puts the focus on your customer and directly addresses an obstacle of repairs taking longer than they should if they don’t have all the parts they need.
Top tip four: Give them what they want
Running promotions is a great way of generating engagement around your business. They can be internal, where staff members are rewarded, or external, where the customer benefits. Great promotions will include aspects of both internal and external promotions. Promotions are the perfect opportunity to put marketing budgets to good use as they are usually directly linked to a sales performance objective. This makes it easier to record how well the promotion has performed. Working on the basis of reciprocity, it is likely the benefits of the promotion will also be seen in the months following.
An example of a combined internal and external promotion could be structured whereby customers are offered a free snack pack when they purchase Blue Print brake pads and discs. During the same month, internal staff are also rewarded with a free Blue Print jacket if sales of Blue Print brake pads and discs increase by 15%.
Top tip five: Go forward by looking back
Reviewing your marketing efforts is a vital step, as it forms the basis of continuous improvement where marketing activity can be tweaked and adjusted to be even more effective. This step doesn’t need to be complicated; the starting point is to understand if you have achieved your objectives and the potential reasons behind this.
It is often beneficial to involve customers at this point to ask if the marketing you are creating is well received and if they have any suggestions. You may be surprised at the good marketing ideas that can be formed from conversations with customers.
At febi and Blue Print, there is a wide range of marketing materials to make the process even easier. This includes flyers, brochures, adverts and Facebook posts, along with a range of merchandise for internal and external promotions. febi stresses that factors can get in touch with their account manager and work with the company to create joint marketing material that is tailored to their specific requirements.
