Tag Archives: marketing

The Big Issue is – it’s all about selling

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Quite a few of my friends, especially those in the fitness industry, are trying to start local businesses at the moment and seeing the guy selling The Big Issue this morning it got me thinking about spreading the word.

How often have you actually stopped and bought a copy of the Big Issue? I have to admit that for me, it is extremely rarely. It’s not that I don’t support the concept behind the magazine and the good job it does helping the homeless to help themselves; I just sometimes get annoyed by the tactics and spiel used by the vendors. Some just shout “Big Issue” and ram the magazine into your face whenever you get within shoving distance. Others stand blocking the doorway to sandwich shops and supermarkets and act as if the purchase is an entry requirement.

Unfortunately shoving and blocking is not selling and it is selling that is needed here.

I am sure that it is not the fault of the Big Issue vendors. Perhaps they are not advised how to sell the product and are just given a satchel full of magazines to hit the streets with. But there is one vendor in Edinburgh who is completely different. He doesn’t shout, ram or block. He sells the content and the benefits of the magazine. He’ll say, “In this issue read a great article on the new series of Doctor Who. Matt Smith’s interview is worth the cover price alone. Hear what he really thinks of predecessor, David Tennant.”

That sort of messaging does grab my attention. It makes you realise that the magazine has content you might want to read. This guy knows what he’s doing and I would bet that he sells many more copies than those working in busier locations. Perhaps he should be teaching the others how to sell.

It is one of the basic rules of business – sell the benefits not the product itself. When you open a new business you have to let people know you are there. Drop leaflets, advertise locally, talk to journalists, go on local radio and announce your presence and most importantly tell them what you can do for them.

If you own a shop you would change the window display frequently so that people who pass by everyday suddenly see a new reason to slow down and go in. If people weren’t coming into your shop you might stand outside and try and entice them in. Again to be successful with this you would focus on the benefits rather than the actual products. I can see that you sell fruit; that’s obvious and I might walk past. But tell me that you have the new yellow raspberries which are much less sour than the red ones and I might pop in and buy some.

Some products are less visible than even the most poorly sold copy of the Big Issue. Selling a service, like personal training may have no obvious “shop window”. Without a shop window we cannot expect people to know who and where we are. But the modern world of internet, social media and digital communications offers an amazing array of selling tools that can be become your shop window in the local area.

Use Facebook ads to target the local population and age demographic. Send regular press releases to your local newspapers and radio stations. Drop leaflets into doctor’s surgeries and and other places where people have time on their hands.

A Big Issue vendor wanting me to buy the latest issue has to tell me that there is something inside it that I really want to read as opposed to just reminding me that the publication exists. Awareness isn’t enough, but fortunately there are very cost effective tools that exist to enable you to turn that awareness into interest, then turn that interest into an opportunity.

Pippa’s posterior and the power of social media

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I saw a headline the other day proclaiming that “Yoga can give you Pippa’s Posterior”. This is just one of millions of references to this now famous rear, but one that attracted my attention more than most due to its link to Yoga and fitness.

Whether you are a fan of the monarchy or not, no one can deny the sheer spectacle of the Royal Wedding and the resultant media frenzy it created. With so much doom and gloom in the world at the moment – the endless talk of coalition cuts, natural disasters, wars and terrorist atrocities – the chance to have a day off work and indulge in some pomp and circumstance was for many the panacea to the winter blues.

The usual celebrities were on hand. Elton John lending his vocal talents to the hymns alongside Victoria Beckham who was actually thought to be singing live as opposed to miming. And as the Queen of PR and original wag she didn’t miss the opportunity to wear an outfit from her own collection.

pippa's posterior power of social media

There were fashion failures with some of the hats resembling rejected monster costumes from the latest series of Doctor Who. And there were fashion triumphs as well, with Pippa Middleton’s tight fitting dress creating a wave of admiration across the world. Many column inches have been devoted to her eligibility and to the quality of her attire. Facebook pages have even been set up in admiration of the shapeliness of her bottom.

I cannot actually believe the number of blogs and the pages of tweets that have been posted on the subject of the bride’s sister’s behind, some of which are incredibly well written and funny.

The power of social media

It has been like a viral marketing campaign beyond the wildest dreams of even the most accomplished marketeer, embracing multiple modes of communication, and once again highlighting the power of social media. It’s a fact that whichever industry we work in, we ignore this rapidly evolving and changing sector at our peril.

If you can create something of interest that grabs people’s attention, then the internet and the social media channel could take over and do your promotion for you. So whether you work as a fitness instructor, or if you sell widgets, as you strive to promote your business, ask yourself a question.

What is your equivalent of Pippa Middleton’s bum?

Over to you: What is your favourite example of something that has gone viral thanks to social media? Maybe it is a YouTube video or a funny photograph. Please post a link to your favourites by leaving a comment below.

Brand You – a Lesson from a Fleet of Lorries

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Keeping kids amused on car journeys is much easier in the DVD/Blu Ray and Apple iPad/iPod world than it was years ago when you had to rely on puzzle books and games of Eye-Spy! But there is still one activity that transcends cutting edge technology and that is ‘Spot the Eddie Stobart Lorry’.

You cannot avoid them as you travel up and down the motorways of the UK. Striking red and green haulage trucks each resplendent with a woman’s name painted on the front. Every name you have ever heard of from Jayne to Amelia, taking in double barrels such as Leah Caitlyn and Laura Flora. Children can download a list of the names and check them off as the towns race by. You can see Paige near Preston and Martha Alice near Manchester.

Eddie Stobart has made transportation ‘spotting’ cool. No more hiding on station platforms or on fields near runways. You can ditch the anorak and tick your boxes with pride.

The brand is so recognisable that it has its own fan club and a range of toys and clothing. This is incredible when you realise that unlike other well known brands like Tesco or ASDA, Eddie Stobart is not providing a service to any of the people who love the brand so much. The majority of us do not buy anything from Stobart directly. The nearest we get is buying something off a supermarket shelf that might have been transported in a Stobart lorry. But the company has successfully created a brand that has weaved itself into the social consciousness of the UK population out of something as mundane as a haulage firm.

The lesson we can learn from Eddie Stobart is that, in corporate land, one way to build a successful brand is to give it a strong personality. And you cannot get more personal than humanising trucks with real women’s names.

Some of my fitness friends have recently been looking to market their services and skills to a wider audience and want to create a brand of their own. It sounds like a tall order and an expensive one but it needn’t be. This is where individuals have a unique advantage over companies.

As a PT or a Group Exercise instructor you already have a great personality. You project your personality to your individual customers and your class participants and you can use Facebook and Twitter to project that personality into the local community.From that beginning your brand will develop.

Companies often spend millions trying to create a personality for their brands. You already have one! You have the relatively easier task of turning that personality into a brand.

What a big Elephant in the room!

The Crazy World in which we Live, , ,

elephant in the room

Management “buzz phrases” are getting worse. You know the sort of phrase I mean don’t you?

“We need to touch base offline in order to think outside the box so that we can pick off some low hanging fruit and take a blue-sky approach.” If you go onto the Internet and try Googling “management jargon” or “consultant speak” you can find whole websites devoted to translating these often-preposterous phrases. I am sure you have come across many yourselves, either in your own companies or at conferences, or when dealing with consultants.

So now that we are all singing from the same hymn sheet (sorry that one slipped in under the radar), let me tell you about this new phrase. I first heard it at a recent conference. The speaker was addressing an issue about underwriting that we have faced in the industry for many years and he described the issue as, “elephant in the room”.

I thought that this was a very strange turn of phrase. Funny thing is though for a phrase I had never heard before it suddenly seemed to turn up everywhere I looked. On the very same day as the conference, whilst travelling back to Edinburgh I read an article in the paper and low and behold here was another “elephant in the room” – this time in the context of the airline industry. The following day I heard a politician talking about an elephant in their room (The Elephant in the Commons?), and then in a presentation from a group of visiting consultants – there it was again.

The problem was that on none of the occasions I heard this phrase did any of the people using it ever actually explain what it meant. In exasperation I resorted to Google and found out that an elephant in the room is a way of describing a huge problem that everyone knows exists but pretends to ignore rather than trying to solve it.

Now it had been explained to me I suppose it made a sort of sense – but why not just call it “our big problem”? Inventing a witty and meaningless phrase to describe an issue almost reduces it to a figure of fun, which makes it even easier to ignore than before.

This method of communication is spreading. You see it in job adverts for ridiculous sounding positions, in pamphlets from local Government, and in letters from just about any organisation. We need to resist this nonsense.

There’s only one way to fight back. Let’s start by taking a helicopter view of the current paradigm, have a brain dump of ideas by thinking off the page, perhaps with a little river jumping until we all have our ducks in a row about how to finesse the paradigm to allow us to ascend to the optimal outcome.