Marketing Magic! Secrets from the April Meeting

Hi everyone and welcome to the update from the April meeting that took place on the 7th April at the University of Kent.

If you weren’t there, you missed a very special night as we were in the fortunate position of being visited by marketing expert, Barnaby Wynter, MD of The Brand Bucket company, www.thebrandbucketcompany.com.

Apart from the fact that Barnaby is a hilarious speaker, highly entertaining and engaging, he also gave us invaluable information about creating our brand.  In all honesty it’s difficult for me to capture everything Barnaby covered, but I will do my best to give an overview, if you weren’t able to come along.

Firstly Barnaby took us through the process of creating a one page business plan.  As he said, having such a plan gives us direction and of course, shapes our future marketing.  He urged us to read our business plan every single day. I know that for me, that will keep me focused and help me internalise my brand so that if anyone asks me what my business can offer them, I don’t have to give it a second thought!
Barnaby outlined the key headings for the business plan – Vision (i.e. who is your business aimed at, what is it about?), Business Strategy (detail some business objectives here about how you will achieve your vision), Business Plan (which really means identifying some key performance indicators) and finally Financial Plan (where you work out how much you should charge each client and what your targeted income is.)

Moving onto the brand itself, Barnaby said no-one could agree what the definition of brand really was.  His company define it as:  “Every experience that affects the relationship between a product or service and its consumer.”

Building the brand:

Barnaby advised us to build a relationship with our potential customers, i.e. let them know who we are and what we do. He advised us to become our consumers, so that we could envisage what they want from us.  Many companies make the mistake of listing their capabilities instead of focusing on the value of their service or product to their customers’ lives.

On your website, for example, you must answer the question, “why do I want to buy from you?”  So find out about your consumers in terms of what they want and what they are looking for.

Another key lesson from Barnaby was to communicate regularly with existing customers, the people who have already bought from you. He said that 68% of customers changed brands because no-one had spoken to them. Make sure you communicate regularly with yours via email or a newsletter.

Barnaby then took us through his brilliant Brand Bucket process of attracting prospects and converting them into loyal customers:

1. Raise awareness of your brand. (Ensure people have heard of you.)
2. Create an image match. (Identify what appeals to your consumers and create that image.  They need to know how you fit into their life.  If you are a good fit, they will like you and buy from you.)
3. Create the Facts match.  (Tell people what you do and stress the benefits of your service to them.)
4. Create a Response. (Somehow let people test your product – take a test drive.)
5. Usage.  When people do start to buy from you and use your product, you must replicate the promise you created at the image match and facts match stages.  Be as good as you said you would be.
6. Loyalty.  This is the final step because it has been built from the relationship and the experience of your service. You can encourage customer loyalty further by incentivising referrals but make sure you reward the person who refers you just as much as you reward the new customer, otherwise people will resent making future referrals.

This blog cannot do Barnaby’s talk justice but I hope it gives you an idea of what was covered.  If you are not a Women in Business member yet, I hope you can get a sense of the kind of quality talks we regularly hold for our members as we strive to support them in their businesses.  As usual, this meeting was lively and fun and very informative – all this for £7 a meeting and coffee and biscuits thrown in!  We provide a high value meeting, which truly aims to support you and pass on useful advice to keep your business on track.

If you would like to join the Medway & North Kent Group, contact our Chairwoman, Sarah Christie, at sarah@effectiveoutcomes.com.  Alternatively, come along to our next meeting on Wednesday 5th May, from 7pm to 9pm at The University of Kent, The Medway Building, Chatham Maritime, Kent ME4 4AG.

See you there!

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