Business Leads
Business Leads are the lifeblood of your business and we want to help you get them. Whether it’s drumming up interest via telemarketing, a PPC campaign or driving traffic to a unique landing page, we can help you learn the right way to do this. If it’s more sales you need then you need to read on so your business gets moving forward and you can get on with putting all those plans, which need the cash generated to grow, into action.
Many of our clients turn to our blogs and programmes when their business is really busy and they can see their marketing efforts going by the wayside as their time is spent dealing with all the business that previous marketing campaigns have generated. These clients know that marketing yesterday brings in work but unless this continues there will be no work for the future. Marketing is really a sow to reap activity, but we know and understand how it can get put on one side. So, whether you need a day a month, or a focused campaign to kick start your business you can find it on here.
Will it work? Stop right now and take stock
Remember the comments made by Theo Paphitis on Dragons’ Den to a number of would-be business owners? ‘You have created a solution to a problem which does not exist. I am out’.
It’s wonderful when we have ideas; we plan them out, show them to friends and family and get a big thumbs up on the concept. We then move on to start the business basics, build the web site and start to sell. We might get lucky and sell some to the same friends and family who advised us it was a ‘clear winner, absolutely have to do it, you will make a fortune’. And then it all stops. It grinds to a halt and you go through the motions of seeking new markets, dropping the price, sitting in front of your screen night after night becoming more and more despondent about why your product or service is not selling.
Market research is often seen as boring and it’s not in the least bit exciting to measure responses and find holes in your wonderful new idea. It takes away the warm fuzzy feeling early on and tarnishes the way you feel about your new shiny venture.
STOP
Market research is core to business success. It’s essential to your future because if something does not work when you have spent £500 – £1000 researching and testing, it’s probably not going to work when you have spent £40K on it. The thing is we tend to be blinded by the light of the potential of our own ideas and sweep under the carpet the negative areas of the product. We get very involved in the beauty of the new web site and the initial rush of adrenaline which pumps through our veins and makes working late into the night seem like a great idea. Fast forward 12 months of working 18 hour days 7 days a week and you start to feel very differently about the idea.
Little step changes – tiny little changes as a result of good clear market research can make the difference between success and failure. You might have a wonderful product which works well, but when you test it with a focus group their feedback tells you they would not buy it and give you 5 reasons. All of these 5 reasons can be solved by a relatively minor fix, but that fix is needed before you sell to a wider audience. Cost with market research tends to be significantly lower than making changes post-launch.
Who are you selling to? Chances are without market research both your target market and price point will be based on what is already out there, the ‘I’ll copy A, they are making money’ approach, or plucking from the air what you believe is a good price for you to make a profit. Neither will get you very far, as both are based on perceptions not facts. A might be selling millions of their products, been in business 30 years and been restructured 4 times. You need to tread your own path sensibly! We talk to you about practical and affordable proof of concept research before you put your house on the line. There has to be a minimum viable product or service or you won’t have a business. It’s not what you want to impose on the market it’s what the market will accept and be keen to buy.
This is not about us preaching to you from a lofty position either, in previous businesses we have spent many years and many £1000s in the early days trying to push water uphill in business terms to get someone to buy what we thought was a cracking idea. It turned out the idea needed a lot of work and that meant asking the market place what it wanted. We liked the change those many conversations brought about so much we built this business around it. We only wish someone had told me earlier – one of us at least would be sporting a lot less grey hair.