Questions you should ask yourself as a business owner?
There are many things to think about as a business owner: Employees, Customers, Reputation, targets and many other aspects that affect your businesses day to day life, however, there are certain things that you can either underthink or just ignore completely.
Today I’ll give you just a couple of hints at things you could keep on your mind to improve your business potential.
What image do we give?
An obvious one coming from someone who runs a business based on improving company’s aesthetics and how it is perceived. It’s not only your businesses branding, website and social media that present an image to possible customers.
Slight tweaks can change the way a customer perceives your business.
However, you should always have subjects like this on your mind, what’s so special about your business? Do you have a unique selling point?
Always keep these questions on your mind to make sure you’re doing the best you can for your business:
- When was the last time I took a serious look at my competitors?
- What could I be doing to market my business differently?
- What will it take to grow my business?
- Is my marketing paying for its self?
- Are my business’ aesthetics modern and up to date?
- How can I do more for my clients?
- Do I have a business plan?
- Do I have a top 10 businesses I would like to work for?
- Why do clients come to me when they could use someone else?
What are our goals?
We all know a business must have goals. But how active are you in making your employees, customers, clients and the public know about these goals? Obviously, there are limits to this point as you do not want your competition to know your goal is to break into a new segment but anything innovative, charitable or service related is always a positive way to raise profile with customers, as long as you get the word out the right way.
Making your goals known is also a brilliant way to keep not only your team but yourself on track, these goals are now in the view of the public meaning you can be held accountable for failing to achieve them and not giving customers what they want.
What if?
Although we love to design websites and anything else that can get our creative juices flowing, we’re also fans of the logical side of marketing. Lead generation tends to be overlooked when a business is comfortable but a question that we tend to ask when someone enquires about lead generation is “What If?”. Time and time again it is made clear that if a business was to lose their biggest client it would have a drastic effect on the business. The saying “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” Is very true here. It is important to look at your business as though you are about to lose your biggest client, how will that affect you, if it is more than 50% of your work load, you might need to think about testing the water with keeping an active database of clients that you use to keep the buzz around your name.
We find that most business’ who rely on a simple 2 or 3 clients lose their buzz and find it hard to find another client or customer base later down the line.
As a business owner, I believe we should expect the unexpected and have a backup plan for every possibility. At JM I always try to keep both my team and myself aware of the points I have risen in this article. However, if you have a hard time thinking of targets or ways to improve your business, we will now begin offering a free marketing audit to all customers along with a meeting to discuss your marketing needs and how you can improve your business image.
Be sure to visit our site to enquire about our marketing audit: https://johnsonsmarketing.co.uk/services
Until next time
Lawrence Johnson.
Printing Still Prevails
The other week Conner posted a blog post talking about email campaigns and that got me thinking. As modern marketeers, it is our job to find new and innovative ways to sell and advertise a product or brand… or, what if, we could revamp old ideas and simply make them relevant again? After reading his blog post “The Lost Art of E-mail Marketing” http://bit.ly/2tg8Fl5, I started looking around and realised there is a form of marketing that is rarely done well. PRINT! Print has been around since the 1440’s and is still used today for posters, banners, flyers etc; But over the past few years since the commercial use of digital signage has increased massively, physical print seems to be looked down upon. So today I'll be telling you why I believe physical print, just like e-mail campaigns is a blast from a past that all businesses should look to market with.
Physical Presence
We live in a digital age, that’s a fact, but we all still seem to enjoy the physical interaction with brands and products. A shocking 60% of consumers still prefer to buy clothing offline because of the physical connection, it feels real, you trust the fit and sizing more; When looking at marketing in this same way we understand why people still interact with flyers and business cards. In this digital world people still do not trust most offers they see online thinking they are spam or even scams to steal your bank account details, but when it comes to a physical flyer or print you know it’s come from someone with intention, if it’s printed on cheap paper and poorly designed you may think twice but if it is well designed and printed to a high standard then you are more likely to engage with the content. This leads me onto my second point.
Production Quality
An old friend once gave me some very strong advice regarding business relationships: “A man’s legitimacy is only as strong as his business card.” Now yes it can seem rather vague at first but he had a point, if someone’s print work is printed onto single-sided A4 paper from your local paper shops printer then something may not be right. Yes, it may be a start-up but there are still many inexpensive ways of printing quality products. If you are passed a business card for example which is sturdy, well designed and clean then you instantly remember that individual and that’s what we consider when designing print and promotion products. How will the customer remember this?
Cost Effective
This may seem like a strange way to think of print and promotional products, but when you launch a website you renew it every year. However, if you print 1000 leaflets out in January 2018 and don’t change your prices for 2 years, you could technically still be giving out that first batch of flyers 2 years later. Granted that means that not a lot of people are showing interest but you understand the example, print work is a one-time payment per batch meaning that if you don’t want or need more, you have no more to pay.
Location
Another positive to print and promotional design is the location you can place it in. Digital signage needs either a screen or a projector to show your advertisement, yes you can change things occasionally but this normally comes hand in hand with a bigger bill than print. Whereas, print projects can be placed and stuck anywhere, inside, outside, windows, vehicles, anywhere that you can think of.
Possibilities are endless
Printers have evolved so much over the last five years, they can now do the unthinkable. What was once a simple one-sided business card can now use spot UV gloss paper, embossed, folded three page, rounded edge 600gsm business card with augmented reality...so yes you could printers are now designed for the 21st century. Little quirks that really show off the creativity and quality of your brand and give a great impact on your first impression.
Hopefully, this blog post has helped you in understanding my view on print and promotional design and why I believe it is still relevant in the modern world. If you have any questions on how you can go retro with print make sure to e-mail us here at hello@johnsons-marketing.co.uk
Lawrence, Johnsons Marketing.
New Sites for JM!
For a year now Johnsons Marketing has been kept in the dark, supplying marketing behind the scenes and building a team of superb marketers… As of May 3rd 2017 (our 1st business birthday) we have finally come out of the shadows to offer our marketing services to the businesses of the world.
Ok well... that sounds a tad dramatic but yes, we have launched a brand new website and moved to a new and improved, modern office. JM are officially publicly open for business and our new attitude to marketing is ready to help you improve your marketing in today’s hectic world, in which everyone is competing to be the best.
Our New Website
After many adjustments to create a website that is easily navigable and yet shows our design capabilities; We have finally launched our company website site, exactly a year after Johnsons Marketing founded.
Our new website features:
- Interactive Animation
- Information about our services & the team.
- Our Portfolio of work
- A new blog featuring topics about JM & the industry
- Live Chat where you can ask us anything…go on try it!
However, we don’t believe that a website should be left to rot, so we will be posting blogs every two weeks, helping you understand how we make, market and measure for our clients. Along with this blog, we will also keep you posted on the latest office pranks, news in the world of business, case studies, and any news that may affect your industry giving you the head start to prep for these changes.
Our New Studio
We’re also happy to announce that we’ve moved to a bigger and better office. Don’t worry, we’re still located in the center of Burton-Upon-Trent. In fact, our new studio is located in the brewing sector of Burton, Cross Street in the Cross Street Business Centre.
The new studio is now ‘client ready’ featuring a board table, tea pot & milk jug - with some added perks for ourselves (since being constantly creative can require inspiration) via a dart board and tropical fish tank with our watery friends: Tom, Hardy, John, Snow and 5-year-old Bruce! These guys put some life in the office when we have our heads buried in creating the best work we can.
The new office is open between 9-5 so make sure to pop in.
Our New Address: Suite 7, Johnsons Marketing, Cross Street Business Centre, 43a Cross Street, Burton-On-Trent, DE14 1EF
