FINDING THE SWEET SPOT FOR BRAND GROWTH.
What is the market craving?
What will make the market flow like rushing waters in your direction?
Keep exploring!
One day at a time.
It may be costing you money, but consider it as an investment in ‘research and development’. You will recover the money at the snap of your fingers when you hit that spot.
DEVELOPING AN INDEPENDENT SALES SYSTEM FOR YOUR BUSINESS
Blessed are those whose business is approaching a time when sales will be made without personal posts on social media, for they shall know sustainable growth.
NAMING YOUR BRAND RIGHT.
A brand name does not merely exist to reflect the idea of a business but to help in promoting and selling the brand to its target audience. If you have to keep explaining your brand name to people, you need to start thinking of another name. Your target audience should be able to connect with your brand name in some ways – pronouncing it, appeal, or nature of business.
You can use your business name as your brand name, but it is not a must. Therefore, if you have already registered your company and it is not suitable as the brand name, the company name can be different from the brand name. That is better than the continuous struggle to explain your name.
Think of the company Nestle and the brand names Milo, Nido, Goldenmorn, Purelife, Kitkat, Maggi, etc.
Think of the company Food Concept Limited and the brand name Chicken Republic.
There is the company Tech Premier Media Limited and the brand name Techpoint.ng
Think of the company Sundry Foods Limited and the brand name Kilimanjaro.
Think of the company Guaranty Trust Bank and the brand name 737.
Think of the company Transsion Limited and the brands Tecno and Infinix.
Same with Unilever and others.
Can you think of other examples? Service-based brands can also apply the same concept. It is important to mention that some companies become brands in themselves. However, our usage of the term “brand name” refers to the same thing as “trade name”, which means the name a company uses to promote itself to the market.
If your brand name is different from your registered company name, you will have to spend some money to trademark the brand name so that it belongs to you. By the way, even your company name is not really yours until you trademark it. In other words, the person who trademarks your company name has the proprietary right to the name even though the name is registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission.
Your brand name is part of your marketing, eliminate unnecessary hurdles with your naming. If you are looking at building something sustainable, get the naming of your brand right, and work towards protecting the name by all means necessary and possible.
DO YOU FEEL RELUCTANT SOMETIMES IN MARKETING YOUR BUSINESS? READ THIS!
There is a silent and internal conflict that we have noticed with some entrepreneurs.
On one hand, they want their business to grow in leaps and bounds and be known across the world.
And on the other hand, they don’t push their business enough like they should because there is the feeling of “should I be bragging about what I am doing?”, “shouldn’t somebody else do the talking of how good my product/service is?”, and so on.
It’s a conflict between market and social ethics.
In social ethics, you don’t blow your trumpet – this is why some people have concerns when donors at orphanages pose in pictures and broadcast it.
In market ethics, you blow the trumpet as loud as you can with support from customers’ testimonials – this is why some who have a default marketing mindset to pose in pictures at orphanages to let the world know their efforts and probably motivate others to also reach out.
We have left out the category of people who pose in pictures at orphanages just for show-off or clout.
In social ethics, it’s offensive if you offer money to a family that graciously showed you good hospitality when you visited. If you must give money, you disguise it as gift for the kids or something else but not as a reward for the hosting.
In market ethics, it’s irresponsible and wicked if you go to a dear friend’s restaurant to eat without the intention of paying for it or mentioning first that you don’t have money to pay at the moment.
Please, don’t stay quiet or modest about your business endeavour. Throw shame out of the window. Kick fear and timidity out of the door. We are not saying overhype it or promise what you cannot deliver. We are saying you should be more courageous, confident, and ready to talk about your business with every opportunity that you get.
Summary: There is nothing wrong with blowing your trumpet in business. Blow it or be blown out of business. It is called brand visibility and marketing, not boasting.
We hope this was insightful.
We are here if you need our support. Just send an email to wecare@mapemond.com
HOW TO GROW YOUR SMALL BUSINESS BEYOND YOU
When it comes to small businesses on social media, the personal timelines of the owners have more content and engagement than the official pages.
We think this happens for several reasons that are understandable.
But we would like to remind you to note that you would need others to drive the entire social media bit someday while you focus on other things. So in whatever you are doing presently, do not neglect the official pages. We see many business owners not responding to comments on their official pages or responding days later.
If building a sustainable company brand out of the business is your desire, keep thinking about putting structured systems in place, think into the future, and put things in place in the bits you can gradually.
A question to ponder on,
Can someone take over the social media drive of your business and move it to a level beyond what you have been doing or at least keep it at the same level?
No matter the amazing results you are getting now, don’t stay stuck with self-employment modus operandi.
You can build something truly phenomenal. Go for it and make it last.
We are a voice from the future speaking to you.
If you need support to get it right, send us an email at wecare@mapemond.com
You need your own marketing channels
Imagine that you own a salon and employed someone to help manage it while you focus on your 8-5.
The manager made a request for a dedicated smartphone that will be used for social media management and other communications with customers, but you said no, the manager should use her own phone. You want to avoid the cost of buying a phone.
Customers call the manager’s phone line directly. She takes images with her phone and puts them up on her Whatsapp status to market the salon, they chat with her, and engagement with customers is increasing.
She moves on eventually to another salon and each time your customers call or chats her up, she mentions that she is no longer with your salon but directs them there, most of them insist to use her new salon. They have gotten used to interacting with her and her phone line cannot be passed on to your new manager.
The cost of losing some of your customers is higher than buying a phone that was meant to be an asset to your business.
Employees will definitely have personal interactions with customers, but the business itself should have its own communication channels – Whatsapp, Telegram, Phone Lines, etc – and devices that will remain even when employees move on.
Take your communication channels seriously.
#DoBusinessBetter
SO YOU WANT A SUPER MARKETING TEAM?
We listen keenly to business owners as they vent their frustration about the marketing team not raking in revenue as expected.
We engage them further in the conversation and it turns out that the business itself doesn’t have a clearly defined marketing strategy or plan.
They pass the buck to the marketing team to take initiative, forgetting employees can throw in the towel anytime, if they get too overwhelmed, but you are stuck with the business.
The business MUST have all its strategies in place, what employees are primarily engaged for is the execution since the business owner cannot possibly do everything by themselves.
If you leave your responsibility to employees, then you have to take what you see. Set targets to the high heavens, folks will keep exiting one after the other. Firing and re-hiring won’t help much until the actual issue is fixed. Think strategy.
What is your marketing and sales strategy for 2020?
We are here if you need support.
Driving sales through visibility.
It appears that many entrepreneurs desire to make sales without investing in gaining visibility. We wrote this article to offer some perspective.
Unless your business is hinged solely on personal contacts and contracts, you need to keep investing in attaining better visibility.
At the point customers make a buying decision, they usually go for the options that are topmost on their mind at that time.
Visibility pushes you up to the top of people’s minds.
If you run a walk-in shop, make it obvious enough through your brand visuals – professionally designed and printed signage, WELL FRAMED banners, and so on.
If you are online, be intentional with your cover photos, DPs, e-fliers, photos, graphic images, colours, logo, and so on.
If you meet people often and give complimentary cards, make a statement with it, the right statement – clean design and print.
If your brand name is a hindrance to better visibility, change the name. An easy to pronounce name aids visibility. An easy to remember name aids visibility.
By all means possible, be more visible.
Working on visibility is like putting pipelines in place for revenue with ease.
If you need help, Mapemond is here for you.
BRANDING MISTAKES YOUR BUSINESS IS MAKING
Branding is never just about your logo. It is more about creating a unique identity, which actually requires time and effort. Sometimes it could mean working with consultants to get the expected response from your promotional materials and even more.
Anyway, the good thing here is, if you are reading this you will be getting free advice from us.
Not Investing In Your Brand Elements
Your brand elements are your Logos, Tagline, Colours, Fonts, Brand voice and icons. If you do not have a story behind these, you cannot attract people.
Ignoring Researching On Your Competition
There is no harm looking out for your competition and learning all there is to learn from them, especially if they are doing pretty well. Study their moves and you might get an insight to do something better.
Not Clearly Stating Your Offering to Differentiate You
It will do you good to digest the fact that there are alternatives to your product and services. You have to state what your value propositions are in a clear manner that will make them prefer you to the other brand. It is not always about lower price, it just could be the experience of a fulfilled dream.
Over Looking Your Inconsistency
What you say must match what you do; this is what makes you a brand to reckon with. Customers will quickly leave you if you cannot be consistent with all of what you say.
Neglecting Brand Experience
Brand experience is what fosters brand evangelists. Every contact with your brand should be a worthwhile experience; your product, service, customer care etc. Your greatest mistake will be not to create a positive experience for your customers.
Hope this helps you #DoBusinessBetter
Written by Donald Alaye
At Mapemond, we are your guys on all things brand identity creation, marketing communications, media relations, content development and more. You can reach us via wecare@mapemond.com
BUSINESS INSIGHT: THE MARKETING MIX PUZZLE
Quite a number of things influence what we see in the market. Though the market may vary and change from time to time, there are factors that remain constant. These factors are perceived as controllers of the market because they determine the changes that occur in the marketplace. The marketing mix or the 4Ps as it is popularly known is a factor that no entrepreneur can ignore.
Global business experts understand that the marketing mix is an essential ingredient for measurable growth. This group of persons have paid keen attention to their target market and are conversant with the ‘ins’ and ‘outs’ to raking in continuous profits.
The marketing mix is widely considered as the foundation model for businesses. It consist of marketing tools used to attain marketing objectives in any target market. The marketing mix further represents four levels of marketing that directs the decision of an entrepreneur. These 4Ps are Product, Price, Place, and Promotion.
However, there is an updated version to the marketing mix with the addition of Process, Physical Environment and People, making it a total of 7Ps. The relevance and influence of the marketing are inexhaustible. These 7Ps obviously sound familiar but many enterprises have failed due to lack of knowledgeable marketers. Therefore, the first step is having a better understanding of the concept.
The marketing mix concept is like a puzzle that entails you fix the right product in the right place at the right time and at the right price. The trick to it is to know the right combination that eventually leads to success.
PRODUCT
The first part to the marketing mix is the product. For any entrepreneur launching into the market, building or designing the right product needed in the market. During the process of developing the product, an extensive research on the product’s life cycle should be conducted. The life cycle of every product includes the growth stage, the maturity stage, and the sales decline stage. Studying any product’s life cycle will guide marketers in revamping a product when it gets to the sale decline stage, thereby retaining its position in the market.
PRICE
The second piece on the marketing mix puzzle is price, which is usually the amount customers pay to purchase the product. Pricing is a necessary part of the marketing mix because it is determines the profit margin of the company. Whenever price is adjusted, sales will be affected. Most business owners consider pricing very sensitive as it forms a perception of a product in the minds of customers. Pricing can be quite tricky, as a product with low pricing could be perceived as inferior while one with a high price could be seen as too expensive.
PLACE
After designing a great product and determining the best price for it, knowing where to place it is another crucial part of the puzzle. The product has to be positioned in readily and easily accessible places. To achieve this, entrepreneurs must first understand their target market and the best distribution channels.
PROMOTION
In order to gain more traffic and attention to a product, promotion must come to play in the puzzle. This brings more recognition to the brand, boost its image in the eyes of prospects, and communicate the values of the products. Promotion can be done through the following ways, advertising, sales promotion, public relations, sales organisation and the ever-effective word of mouth.
PEOPLE
Though this is an extension of the marketing mix, it is also an important aspect businesses should put into consideration. Researching about the people and their needs will help in designing a good market strategy. It is also necessary to hire and equip the right staff for any company seeking expansion. Basically, every person involved in making the business a success should be paid attention to.
PROCESS
Process is another addition to the puzzle but still is an imperative part of the business. The process of an organisation determines it execution. Any organisation thriving in the world has a well-detailed process that minimises cost. In defining the right process, every segment of the enterprise must be thoroughly deliberated.
PHYSICAL EVIDENCE
The last thing on the puzzle is physical evidence. After every delivery, there should be a physical evidence. Physical evidence refers to how a business is perceived in the market, or the impact of its presence and literally everything that help shape consumer’s perception about the product or brand’s.
There you have it; we hope you begin to fix these Ps rightly.
Written by Jennifer Chioma Amadi
Do you need help in developing a business strategy? Send us an email at wecare@mapemond.com
Do Business Better!
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