That said, you don’t need to spend a fortune on marketing. It’s all about using your budget in a targeted way, on implementing a bespoke marketing plan that’s aimed squarely at achieving your business objectives. Those objectives might be based on targeting new customers, persuading existing customers to spend more, building customer loyalty or encouraging lapsed customers to return to you. Whatever your aims, focus resources where they are most likely to get results.  

Marketing is about understanding your customers, persuading them to buy and giving them what they want. It’s not about spending a lot of money on adverts that don’t get results. You can successfully market your business on a tight budget.

Well-established companies often allocate a percentage of turnover for their marketing budget. If you’re running a small business, flexibility is important, so while it’s good to have a realistic figure to work with, it’s important to be able to react to changing circumstances and opportunities.

Don’t commit to big campaigns or ‘special’ offers that encourage you to bulk buy advertising space over a long period of time.  Always test your campaign first on a small, representative sample, or as a one-off rather than a series, then whatever works can be rolled out on a bigger scale.

Remember that your marketing efforts will affect your turnover and profitability. A good marketing campaign that is relevant to your customers is not an expense, it’s an investment in your business. If your marketing budget is set at the right level, your strategy is based on clear objectives and the marketing has been tested to work for your business, you are more likely to achieve a healthy return on your investment.

So to answer the original question, it’s not just how much to spend, but how to spend it wisely to get the best return on your investment.

Bright Ideas Marketing in Chichester, West Sussex works with clients across Surrey, Hampshire, Sussex and the south.

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock you have probably heard of Facebook and Twitter. These days you need to be on these sites from a business point of view even if it doesn’t interest you personally. You might think ‘Do people really care what I’ve had for lunch?’ Well no, they don’t – but by sharing about yourself, your insights and experiences, people will start to relate to you as a person and therefore be more interested in your products and services. It’s all about building a relationship, and with more than 500 million active users on facebook and 100 million Twitter users, you will most likely find your market on there.

Let’s take a look at five tips to start social networking like a pro:

Write interesting status updates
Think about standing out from the crowd – don’t just share what you had for breakfast, share an opinion that gives people an insight into your personality. Keep your status updates positive and interesting and they are more likely to be a conversation starter.

Participate in other people’s conversations
Participating in conversations will help people begin to notice you. Put comments on other people updates on Facebook, or hit reply on twitter to tweet a comment. Add value to what others are saying (it doesn’t need to be about yourself). Even clicking “like” on other statuses, comments, updates will show you appreciate the comment even if you haven’t added anything. The benefit of this is by commenting on a post or just by clicking like, you will be seen by your friend’s friends and so on.

Don’t bombard others with your promotions
Even though Facebook and Twitter are great business marketing tools, if you appear to be using them for that only you will turn people off as it’s a big social faux pas to continually push your promotions in the face of others. Adding a promotion only once every three or four updates or comments will keep the balance and show you are also there to give value to others.

Build relationships as you add friends
When adding friends especially if you don’t know them personally, write a personal comment to introduce yourself. Ensure you make the comment about them, not yourself, you will be more memorable that way. When accepting friends, adding a comment then will also help with relationship building.

Tag others to get noticed
On twitter and facebook you can tag someone by adding ‘@’ symbol in front of their name, This will appear on their page and in front of their friends which will help your visibility. It’s important to do this in a controlled rather than random way to avoid annoying people. Making a comment to that person by tagging them is the right way, randomly tagging many people on photos etc is the wrong way. Making it meaningful is the key.

Social networking is fast becoming one of the best and free ways to market your business, get traffic to your website and build your community. By following this simple list of etiquette tips you will make the most of this medium and be on the way to becoming a professional social networker!

About Vanessa

Vanessa Rothwell has worked as Shift Speaker Training’s in-house Web Developer and then later the Customer Experience Manager overseeing many aspects of Joanna Martin’s Shift Lifestyle Business for over 2 years. Nowadays, she runs her own business Your Online Success and is available to help you set up your website and software systems to support your speaking business. To contact Vanessa and her team, please go to: youronlinesuccess.

Bright Ideas Marketing in Chichester, West Sussex works with clients across Surrey, Hampshire, Sussex and the south.

Benefits of using a marketing consultant

• You can use them as an extra resource when it suits you, e.g. at busy times.
• They can help you set clear objectives, then will implement a strategy to achieve them.
• They will focus on marketing because it’s what they do best.
• Your time is freed up while they liaise effectively with your other marketing-related suppliers, including web designers, printers and advertising reps, so you’re not bogged down with the detail.
• They will see your business from an external perspective and add value to your marketing.
• They can supply specific skills that might not be viable or affordable as a full-time resource.

Points to consider when choosing a marketing consultant

• Is the person you meet the same person who will be handling your account?
• Do they take the trouble to understand your business and target market?
• Are they both qualified and experienced in marketing, with a sound track record?
• Do they make recommendations that are affordable and realistic?
• Can you trust them and do you like them enough to work with them?
• Are they happy to give you written recommendations before you have to decide?
• Is their approach joined-up, impartial and relevant to your business?

Bright Ideas Marketing in Chichester, West Sussex works with clients across Surrey, Hampshire, Sussex and the south.

Simon will be sharing secrets for harnessing social media and increasing your numbers of followers on sites like Facebook and Twitter, along with how to make your online promotional activities stand out.

Tell us about Evil UnLtd and where to get our mitts on a copy.

Evil UnLtd is an entirely new concept in series fiction. It’s a major new TV series in book form. That’s a little-known fact. Better-known facts are that the first book in the series, Vol 1: The Root Of All Evil is available for the Kindle, while a Special Edition, with a host of extra fun materials, is available for all other ebook formats via smashwords. For the fun materials, we were going to throw in an Evil colouring book but we’re reserving it for the print version for practical reasons.

It follows the exploits and adventures of a band of villains, led by the odiously charming Dexter Snide, who in launching their Evil empire soon come up against not only an indestructible action hero, but a shadowy enemy who seeks to put an end to Evil UnLtd’s enterprise before it has reached a fraction of its warped potential…

Rather than shower you with links, I’d recommend folks just pay a visit to the one-stop shop of my author website at www.simonforward.co.uk

Or visit the official Evil UnLtd website at 4devil.wordpress.com – and be sure to click on the FREE E-Shirt link: free-e-shirt  where we offer a FREE item of virtual clothing with every ebook purchase. Reading just doesn’t get better than that.

It’s added value reading. So what’s your approach to marketing?

I’d say my approach was a mix of laid back and hectic. That is, laid back because I’m generally making it up as I go along – mostly because I’m very new to this self-promotional aspect of a writing career – but at the same time I work hard at it. As with my writing, I’m constantly being struck by ideas. A lot of them are completely daft, but since I’m marketing a comedy in this case, very few are too daft to throw away.

With an advertising/marketing budget close to zero, I’m using every resource available on the internet that I can find. Facebook, Twitter, Email, MySpace, my blogs – and even other people’s blogs. My mother-in-law recommended I go on a virtual book tour – which involves asking other authors and bloggers for guest spots on their blogs – offering to trade, for example, and giving them a guest spot in return.

I’ve also been opportunistic, in that when I heard a local DJ talking about his Kindle on the radio, I dropped the station a line by email and – as luck would have it – they invited me in for a chat on air. Which was fantastic. Basically it’s about reaching as many people as you can and creating opportunities for yourself and your work wherever possible. If Evil was a kids’ book, for instance, I would definitely be arranging to do readings at schools.

It must be a challenge to promote an e-book, what do you do to grab attention?

It is tougher, I think, the fact that it’s an e-book I’m selling. Even here in the 21st Century, we’re quite happy to have our music as MP3s, and we’re more than happy to have all our visual thrills created digitally in the cinema and on DVD… but when it comes to reading, a lot of us are still sticklers for tradition. Myself, I love the feel of a nice new paperback in hand. But then again, I’d give up the tactile experience as long as the read was creative and original and fired my imagination.

Content is what really counts, but I appreciate it’s difficult sometimes to persuade people to spend their money on something that doesn’t exist physically. So for one thing it becomes important to emphasise price – a lot of ebooks are a lot lot cheaper than standard books. Evil UnLtd, for example, is £1.99 on the UK Amazon site, $2.50 on the US site. And that’s for a 100K word novel. Packed with, as Cilla Black might put it, a lorra lorra laughs. ($3.50 for the Special Edition on smashwords, by the way, but it does have those extras.)

Then you have to remind folks of the portability – not just that most e-readers are a lot easier to carry around than a chunky 100K word paperback, say, but also the fact that you can read it on your PC at home, or your laptop, Mac, iPad, iPhone, Blackberry, Android phone and, well, very nearly everything. There’s such freedom and flexibility with that.

But the real attention grabbing, well, I think I would be doing the same for a physical book – and that amounts to some of the daftness I was talking about earlier. On the Evil UnLtd blog, for example, I’ve done that FREE E-Shirt offer (as far as I know a first in the ebook marketing world), I’ve done a feature on making one of the Evil UnLtd characters out of marzipan, I’ve made a video trailer and posted it on YouTube

(cheekily inserts link here: youtube trailer)

and I’ve written supplementary articles and short stories and the like. With some of those, I’ve tied them into aspects of popular culture, with the aim of perhaps drawing in readers who wouldn’t otherwise be tempted to stop by. Interviews with the Evil UnLtd characters, for instance, on the subject of who they think will win the X Factor. As I say, daftness. But hopefully attention-grabbing.

There’s a school of thought that marketing is expensive. Your approach is more creative, how does that work for you?

Well, I daresay my job would be easier if I had more money for an actual marketing budget. You could take out one-page ads in SF magazines or what have you and reach a wider audience right away with less legwork than all the Facebooking, Tweeting and emailing etc. But to be honest, as an experiment I did an ad on Facebook, supposedly viewed by thousands of users, but it only won a handful of clicks. Now I only spent a handful of pounds, so I wasn’t expecting miracles, but it seems to me that sort of hit rate is what you’d expect from any paid ad. And of course if I splashed out on a magazine ad, I would probably have to raise the price of the ebook and that’s something I don’t want to do. 

So I’m heavily reliant on internet friends and contacts in spreading the word beyond my own circle. The way I look at it, it’s a mutual support network, and I’ll freely return any marketing efforts done on my behalf – because I figure a Retweet on Twitter takes all of two seconds, and forwarding on an email to your entire address book needn’t take that long either. At the same time, because I’m me, I do feel uncomfortable having to ask – especially if it’s any more than once – and there’s a fine line between gentle reminders and badgering. On the other hand, if my friends and contacts want me to stop pestering them they can let me know they’ve spread the word and tell me to shut up.

Seriously though, I’d hope that people understand how difficult it really is in getting word out about your works, particularly when a lot of people might view your recent e-book publication as ‘not a real book’. So it’s tough and it works for me in the sense that I get to keep the cover price down for readers, but at the same time a part of me would much rather have the money to splurge on some proper advertising so I wouldn’t have to go asking or – possibly – bothering nice people.

I like the way you have fun with it all – I’m thinking of the free e-shirts, Kindle in the Wind and the tutorial to make your own marzipan hatchling. Any advice for people who are nervous of marketing?

Ah yes, Kindle In The Wind. Really must do a video of that one. Yes, songs. I rewrite lyrics and pepper them with promotional plugs. That is pretty Evil of me. But the key for me is just to be entertaining, amusing. Because one of the things I try not to do is tell people my book is funny. (I broke my rule earlier there with the Cilla Black thing, didn’t I?) Anyway, why is that? Because when it comes to cinema trailers, whenever they label a movie ‘the funniest comedy of the year’ or ‘the scariest movie of the decade’, I tend to switch off. I think it’s far more effective a draw if the trailers are content to be funny or be scary and leave it at that.

My aim with the marketing is to be entertaining. To make people chuckle at the very least and if they get my humour, then maybe they’ll have a read of the sample chapters. (Samples are available free, by the way, on Amazon and smashwords – and on HarperCollins Authonomy website still, where the sample chapters were, at the risk of blowing my own trumpet – but this is exactly what you have to do and don’t be shy – hugely popular.) Then if they enjoy those, they might be tempted to find the £1.99 for the full book. And maybe the next book in the series (when I’ve finished it!) and so on.

What’s the best way to target potential readers, do you have a niche approach?

In the main, I’ve adopted a general blanket approach. There’s some comfort in anything called a blanket approach, no? But lately I’ve also turned to targeting more specific sets of readers. For example, I’ve signed up with forum sites that deal with Sci-Fi and of course, because in the past I wrote some novels and audio dramas for Doctor Who, I’m a member of Doctor Who-related online communities and mailing lists, where hopefully I can appeal to fans who perhaps enjoyed my Who work and might welcome something new and original from yours truly.

I don’t think I necessarily have to aim at SF readers per se, because plenty of people who’d never read sci-fi enjoyed Evil on Authonomy, once I’d managed to lure them into giving it a read they were generally pleasantly surprised. And no matter what the industry says, SF and SF comedy are part of popular culture, not only thanks to the mighty Hitch Hikers Guide, but also with the likes of Red Dwarf, Futurama and more recently – targeted at much broader audiences – Despicable Me and Megamind.

Digital movies in similar genres that, coincidentally like my book, are very much part of the digital age. So I think my real aim should be to somehow push Evil into the mainstream, and the main way I can think of to do that – until another dafter idea occurs – is to continue to guest blog on sites of other authors, who will have a diverse range of readers and followers whose curiosity I might then pique. By way of example, a good friend and great supporter of Evil from the authonomy days, bestselling authoress, Miranda Dickinson, allowed me to post a very silly feature on her blog, redefining Evil UnLtd as chick-lit. It was all true, mind you, but at the same time a lot of fun. And again it all comes back to that – being fun and entertaining: coffeeandroses

Any words of wisdom for harnessing social media to sell successfully?

The toughest challenge there is to expand your numbers of followers on sites like Facebook and Twitter. They’re key. I’ve garnered more than a few friends on Facebook by accident, through people who know other people and of course Facebook features a little side panel which suggests people you might be interested in friending.

As for Twitter, I think if you follow folks who tweet about similar interests – and not necessarily fellow writers, since a lot of them will be principally focused on their own agenda – and/or retweet tweets that catch your eye, you will steadily build up followers. The trick really is not to be constantly selling. Rather like ‘not telling people your book is funny’ (or romantic or exciting or whatever your book happens to be), focus on being interesting or entertaining. Post messages to your Facebook page or tweets on Twitter that will hopefully catch other people’s attentions.

Also it never hurts to tweet about popular topics, since a lot of people will be following those discussions and if you have something to say about The X Factor, say, or I’m A Celebrity or the way Jennifer Aniston is currently wearing her hair (and I stress, or whatever) then there’s a chance you’ll have earned another follower or two. It’s social media, after all, so the aim is to be sociable.

In a party you’d engage people in common areas of interest, not walk around wearing a sandwich board (although having said that I have printed myself a T-shirt with the Evil UnLtd logo, which I may well wear on special public occasions). So it’s the same in the virtual world. Be engaging.  Not even witty necessarily, because if you have something deeply serious to sell, then depth and insight is probably what you most want to be conveying. That’s not to say you can’t convey those with humour, but I think it probably helps to project a measure of the personality of your book. And after all, if you’re anything like me, there will be a lot of yourself in your book, so it shouldn’t be a problem. Like I said, I am no expert though, so this is all intuitive. Or, in other words, guesswork.

In your evil crystal ball, how do you see the future of the internet and social media?

In a relatively short space of time, it has demoted the phone to secondary importance. I mean, sure, we all have our mobiles, but phones are sold these days on the basis of all the added features. Does it play MP3s? What’s the camera resolution? 3G Internet? Apps? E-reader? Etc. I always think I should ask the salesperson if it’s a phone as well, just to make sure.

Now we don’t only live our lives, we can update everybody as to what we’re doing at any given moment. And there’s a strange addictive quality to that. To be in constant communication with the world. That’s not going away, not without the aid of an EMP blast from a global nuclear catastrophe. And even Evil UnLtd wouldn’t attempt that, not while they can use the internet to spread their wicked word.

The music industry is way ahead of the book industry in using the digital world to promote their wares, independent musicians have achieved a great deal via YouTube and so on. Authors stand to gain if they can do the same – as long as they can persuade readers to follow.

What about the future of e-books vs traditional publishing?

 That’s a greyer area, because while I do think e-books are the (forgive the curious choice of word here) natural future of reading. They make perfect sense. But we’re in a transitional period and I think people in general will be slow to embrace the change and certainly not ready to give up on the tactile aspect of paper books altogether any time soon. Which is fine, because CDs and MP3s exist perfectly happily side by side, just like ebony and ivory on piano keyboards. So why can’t e and non-e books.

Traditional publishing will in any case be kept afloat by the industry for the next couple of decades at least. There are jobs to protect. But I think we will continue to see a dramatic rise in independent and small-scale publishing – a quite possibly bewildering array of choice, which is going to make it even tougher for those with unique product to sell – but while the mainstream tries to stem the e-book tide by keeping their e-book prices as high as – sometimes higher than! – their paper book prices, well, we might very well see more readers turning to creative works that are more reasonably priced. And you will generally find those among the independent authors. And the dead ones. A lot of dead ones are having their books priced at zero pounds (or zero dollars in the States – quite a good exchange rate there). Clearly even Evil can’t compete with that, but we hope that £1.99 will tempt enough readers in to ensure their e-book future.

Thanks Dr Evil and good luck with taking over cyberspace. I know we’ve been talking specifically about e-books but a lot of your advice applies to any individual or business wanting to harness social media and market on a budget. Namely:

•  having an approach that reaches as many people as possible and that taps into your niche markets
•  creating opportunities wherever you can
•  by giving a personality to your marketing, through humour, wit or handy information – so long as it’s relevant to what you’re selling.  

Free e-shirt anyone?

Simon A Forward is an author of a number of Doctor Who books and audio dramas, as well as three novelisations for the BBC’s Merlin series and other works of licensed fiction, penned under a pseudonym to protect the innocent. These days he is primarily focused on developing and promoting his own original creations, which range from adult SF/Horror through children’s and YA fantasy to the downright Evil.

So what’s the difference between a feature and a benefit? A feature is a characteristic of a product, while a benefit is what the customer can gain by having the product.

Skincare companies have got it nailed. They don’t say ‘here’s a cheap plastic tub with some gloop in it that’s mostly water, with chemicals and fragrance mixed in.’ They say ‘This is hope in a jar. This will melt away your wrinkles, give your skin a soft-focus glow, make you younger and more attractive…’ Marketing is about selling the benefits that your customers want, rather than trotting out bland inward-looking features. You’re selling an experience rather than a product or service. We don’t buy a bed because of its technical spec, we want the promise of a good night’s sleep.

I went to see a potential new client who ran an insurance company. He thought marketing didn’t work, having paid an eye-watering £5,000 on an advert that drew no response. I asked to see the advert and it went on about the history of the company, his qualifications, who the underwriters were… zzzz. There was no mention of peace of mind – the key benefit of buying insurance. Even a fairly dry subject can be pitched to tap into people’s emotional responses. If I’m buying insurance, I want to know that firstly, I’m covered if the worst happens and secondly, that my claim will be handled quickly, fairly and with the minimum of hassle. Those are the benefits I’m buying.

Focus on how your product can solve a problem or improve someone’s life. If you talk about a feature, follow on with the benefit, for example, a marketing consultant can create a direct marketing campaign (feature), which can free up your time, create sales and increase profit (benefit). For a travel agent, being ATOL licenced is a feature. The benefit? You’re protected if the travel agent goes bust.

Don’t fall into the trap of trotting out dull old features. Consider what your customers really want, and how can you give it to them. Or use the services of a good marketing consultant, who will look outside your box. I put myself in the shoes of your target market and position your product or service to tap into their needs.

Now get sizzling!

Bright Ideas Marketing in Chichester, West Sussex works with clients across Surrey, Hampshire, Sussex and the south. Contact Bright Ideas for copywriting services.

Bright Ideas Marketing in Chichester, West Sussex works with clients across Surrey, Hampshire, Sussex and the south.