MARKETING MATTERS

Marketing Matters MATTERS MARKETING Expert advice to improve how you promote and sell your products or services

DAN SAGER FOUNDED THE FAB-BIKER PR AGENCY IN 1996 AND HAS been advising businesses in the motorcycle industry on marketing matters ever since. fab-biker.co.uk

WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS

In a new series, Dan Sager looks at the specific challenges of marketing in a harsh economic climate

They say that a problem shared is a problem halved, but all too often we try to fix business challenges on our own. When faced with rising costs, the focus tends to be on making savings, which means there is less money to play with. Slashing your marketing budget will almost certainly lead to reduced sales, putting even more pressure on company finances. It’s a vicious circle.

Faced with such a dilemma, who are you gonna call?

How about your suppliers? After all, they’ve got a vested interest in you selling as many of their products as possible.

Before making that call, you’ll need to think about what sort of help to ask for. Broadly speaking, there are three choices – financial, physical and practical. In all three cases, the key to a successful outcome is convincing your supplier that they will increase sales of their products by supporting you. A quid pro quo arrangement. Hopefully several quid!

Asking for money is always a delicate business. Suppliers reasonably assume that you buy their products in trade quantities at a discounted price and sell them at a profit. They will spend money on national marketing and it’s your responsibility to advertise your own business. Having said that, perhaps they could be persuaded to contribute to an advertising campaign you’re planning if you offer to feature their products exclusively and commit to increasing your turnover with them. If they can’t be induced to hand over hard cash, they might be willing to provide financial support in the form of free product or additional discount to the same value.

Alternatively, they might be in a position to offer physical support. Promotional merchandise – things like neck tubes and beanies – can be used to stimulate sales in-store (free gift with every purchase this weekend, etc) or as competition prizes on social media or to newsletter subscribers. Maybe your supplier would be willing to dual brand these items with your logo? It’s got to be worth asking the question. Along similar lines, sometimes suppliers will offer products to be used as competition prizes, if there is a particular line they are pushing, or items associated with teams they are sponsoring, such as tickets to events or VIP hospitality. This is all free stuff that you won’t have to dip into your stretched marketing budget to buy.

Then there is practical support. Things that save you a huge amount of valuable time, like social media assets, which are basically readymade posts. They might also be able to supply interesting features for your blog or customer newsletter or templates for adverts, so you don’t need to pay someone to design them. Thinking outside the box, could they deliver some staff training for your marketing team?

It’s easy to get stuck in a rut with suppliers, focussing on getting the best deal for the products you sell. Ask the right questions and you might find they can deliver some extra marketing value too. 

Faced with such a dilemma, who are you gonna call?

NEXT MONTH

How to stretch your budget so it reaches further.

First impressions matter. So do the thousands after!

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