Website Help Needed aka Chris Denham Business Masterclass

[johnnyboy]

Would you agree however that a good product sells itself?

Wow, Chris. Why did I and the 3 million other businesses in the UK not think of this before?

I can now get rid of my sales staff. So can every other company. All we have to do is take orders over the phone now!!!

Thanks for that!

For those not living on Chris's planet, virtually everything of any value has to be sold at some time to someone, especially in business. A thing called competition exists in the world, and one company has to prove to a buyer why his or her product or service is better than everyone else's.

If I created a potion that made one look 20 years younger, even if I *HID* that product if someone found out about it I'd have people rushing to me... all the power of Word of Mouth. A much more... reputable... marketing technique.

Just think of all the millions being wasted by those stupid cosmetic companies on adverts and samples.

God, Chris, you are a true business guru! Let me worship at your feet!

Your recipe for success is never to advertise and hope you can grow business on the strength of one person endorsing a product to death to their friends so that they might just, at some undetermined point in the future, get in touch!

I'm going to get rid of my website, my fax adverts, press advertising, outsourced telesales companies and email marketing. I'm wasting all that money (even though they are profitable!). I'm just going to sit by the phone, tossing myself off waiting for it to ring!!!

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

Fax marketing is the most heavily regulated form of marketing in the UK. It's a very expensive business to get into, and requires a team of data specialists and technicians to make it work. A bit more reputable than other forms of marketing.

[johnnyboy]

Just exactly how is having a freephone number indicative of a company being desperate for business?

If a consumer wants a product he should not need to be enticed by the fact that the return number is free.

The Denham masterclass just gets better!

See my previous post about a thing called competition. You have to provide many different ways to distinguish your company, and providing a freephone number is just one of them.

Any other pearls of corporate wisdom you wish to share with me? After all, I have only run a company for 7 years, employing staff, paying suppliers, and so on. I am obviously a business fuckwit!

[Dr Lobster*]

i would be interested to know what sort of returns, say, sending 1000 faxes or emails would bring.

i say this because, i work in IT, and everyday i get faxes, emails and mailshots. many of them go in the bin, the rest, i read the first line and it usually goes in the bin after that (i don't think i've ever made a purchase because of a direct marketing)

you can usually gauge the quality of the product you are being sold by the marketing used.

companies which spam me with emails and faxes don't tend to inspire me with confidence.

this may differ with the industry you're in, but in IT, good products do seem to sell themselves (usually due to standards and common platforms etc), like i said, in my four years of being in charge of purchasing equipment where i work, i don't think i have ever even researched the product or service advertised by a direct mailshot.

i find it bizzare that the bigger companies which we deal with such as microsoft and hp, seem to have the least aggressive marketing stratagies. i think that says something. we have more of their stuff in our organisation than anything else.

[Nick Harvey]

Are you thinking about those diet/holiday/ringtone type faxes, Nick?

I'm talking around five years ago and about those awful "Do you know the colour of Dot's hair in last night's episode of EastEnders, if so fax the answer back to 09xxx-xxxxxx at £10 a minute and stand a (very remote) chance of winning the star prize of a pot of hand cream worth 35p".

[johnnyboy]

Are you thinking about those diet/holiday/ringtone type faxes, Nick?

I'm talking around five years ago and about those awful "Do you know the colour of Dot's hair in last night's episode of EastEnders, if so fax the answer back to 09xxx-xxxxxx at £10 a minute and stand a (very remote) chance of winning the star prize of a pot of hand cream worth 35p".

Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.

As I understand it, they sort of died out a couple of years ago. We've only ever had 5 customers who tried something like that with us.

The fax marketing industry is quite close, and from what I've heard from speaking with others, the margins on those pretty much disappeared in late 2002 when people simply stopped responding.

I'm sure people try them from time to time still, but never through us, I must admit.

[johnnyboy]

i would be interested to know what sort of returns, say, sending 1000 faxes or emails would bring.

It really depends on what's being sent out. I know that's a cop-out of an answer, but it does vary.

For example, our average car leasing customer spends around £400 with us per order, and on average places 7 cars, usually resulting in around a £2,100 profit. The only reason they don't do more is because of geographical restrictions. Unfortunately.

We make good money for the vast majority of customers, but the things we have always had trouble selling are telecoms services and low-margin mail-order goods.

The vast majority of our work involves offering a business-related product or service directly to the lines of business most likely to be interested in it.

i say this because, i work in IT, and everyday i get faxes, emails and mailshots. many of them go in the bin, the rest, i read the first line and it usually goes in the bin after that (i don't think i've ever made a purchase because of a direct marketing)

You've hit the nail on the head, but it covers a general truth in advertising. You have 3 seconds to grab the customer's attention, and then a further 15 seconds to get a prompt to action.

As is true with all direct marketing (fax, email, telesales, mailshot), the vast majority of people are not interested in the product at that particular time. They are at the wrong point of the mythical buying cycle.

you can usually gauge the quality of the product you are being sold by the marketing used.

companies which spam me with emails and faxes don't tend to inspire me with confidence.

This is a completely unsupportable statement, as some of the companies mentioned elsewhere in your post use *ahem* us!

Dell are the country's largest fax broadcaster, as I understand it.

this may differ with the industry you're in, but in IT, good products do seem to sell themselves (usually due to standards and common platforms etc), like i said, in my four years of being in charge of purchasing equipment where i work, i don't think i have ever even researched the product or service advertised by a direct mailshot.

Believe it or not, that's not actually true either. But I can understand why you might think it. You're obviously a very IT-literate guy, and can make considered judgements based on features.

The vast majority of people, and businesses, can work a computer with a relatively small degree of competence.

The IT-literate are sold on the features. The non-IT-literate are sold on the benefits.

i find it bizzare that the bigger companies which we deal with such as microsoft and hp, seem to have the least aggressive marketing stratagies. i think that says something. we have more of their stuff in our organisation than anything else.

Again, that's completely unsupportable. The largest companies have a huge spend on direct marketing, whether in IT or not.

The place that fax marketing and email marketing play in business-to-business marketing is economies of scale.

For example, doing 10,000 high-quality mailshots with the best printing, best data, best copy, etc, will probably not leave you with change from £4,000 or £5,000. Well beyond the reach of small and medium-sized companies.

Fax and email marketing exists and thrives because it allows one business to communicate with the same number of businesses at a hugely reduced rate.

This was the main reason the Gov't decided to legislate (ie make lawful) unsolicited direct business-to-business email marketing in Dec 2003. It levels the playing field and stimulates competition.

A remarkable fit of empathy (and I'm very grateful for it) from a distinctly business-unfriendly administration.

[Dr Lobster*]

i would be interested to know what sort of returns, say, sending 1000 faxes or emails would bring.

It really depends on what's being sent out. I know that's a cop-out of an answer, but it does vary.

For example, our average car leasing customer spends around £400 with us per order, and on average places 7 cars, usually resulting in around a £2,100 profit. The only reason they don't do more is because of geographical restrictions. Unfortunately.

We make good money for the vast majority of customers, but the things we have always had trouble selling are telecoms services and low-margin mail-order goods.

The vast majority of our work involves offering a business-related product or service directly to the lines of business most likely to be interested in it.

i say this because, i work in IT, and everyday i get faxes, emails and mailshots. many of them go in the bin, the rest, i read the first line and it usually goes in the bin after that (i don't think i've ever made a purchase because of a direct marketing)

You've hit the nail on the head, but it covers a general truth in advertising. You have 3 seconds to grab the customer's attention, and then a further 15 seconds to get a prompt to action.

As is true with all direct marketing (fax, email, telesales, mailshot), the vast majority of people are not interested in the product at that particular time. They are at the wrong point of the mythical buying cycle.

you can usually gauge the quality of the product you are being sold by the marketing used.

companies which spam me with emails and faxes don't tend to inspire me with confidence.

1) This is a completely unsupportable statement, as some of the companies mentioned elsewhere in your post use *ahem* us!

Dell are the country's largest fax broadcaster, as I understand it.

this may differ with the industry you're in, but in IT, good products do seem to sell themselves (usually due to standards and common platforms etc), like i said, in my four years of being in charge of purchasing equipment where i work, i don't think i have ever even researched the product or service advertised by a direct mailshot.

Believe it or not, that's not actually true either. But I can understand why you might think it. You're obviously a very IT-literate guy, and can make considered judgements based on features.

The vast majority of people, and businesses, can work a computer with a relatively small degree of competence.

The IT-literate are sold on the features. The non-IT-literate are sold on the benefits.

i find it bizzare that the bigger companies which we deal with such as microsoft and hp, seem to have the least aggressive marketing stratagies. i think that says something. we have more of their stuff in our organisation than anything else.

2) Again, that's completely unsupportable. The largest companies have a huge spend on direct marketing, whether in IT or not.

The place that fax marketing and email marketing play in business-to-business marketing is economies of scale.

For example, doing 10,000 high-quality mailshots with the best printing, best data, best copy, etc, will probably not leave you with change from £4,000 or £5,000. Well beyond the reach of small and medium-sized companies.

Fax and email marketing exists and thrives because it allows one business to communicate with the same number of businesses at a hugely reduced rate.

This was the main reason the Gov't decided to legislate (ie make lawful) unsolicited direct business-to-business email marketing in Dec 2003. It levels the playing field and stimulates competition.

A remarkable fit of empathy (and I'm very grateful for it) from a distinctly business-unfriendly administration.

1) i'm basing my views on the faxes, mails, and mailshots i recieve. the ones i get tend to be untargeted, the quailty of the layout tends to be poor, and when the same company keeps sending you the same product speal every week, you get the idea they are desperate, even if it's not true.

2) again, we buy a lot of stuff with ms and hp, yet we get very little marketing from them. we've probably spent the best part of £1 million buying goods and services from these companies over the last four years, and the last thing i remember recieving from microsoft was a sheet telling me all about service pack 2, with a cd. the worst offenders are it suppliers who "specialise" in selling to local government, yet seem to have prices well above generic business suppliers, such as insight.

i will reply to this properly tomorrow, but i must sleep!!

[Gavin Scott]

We receive fax marketing mailshots here featuring special offers and the like. Many of them are binned, but not before being read.

I can see why householders wouldn't want marketing faxes coming to them but the odd sheet of A4 is inconsequential for companies, especially as the right offer *could* save you significant sums of money.

Its worth mentioning that no product "sells itself" as Chris suggested, and the vast majority of goods and services on sale around the world are offered by more than one vendor. Then it is a case of price and service which the consumer makes his decision on.

To make an example of a 'miraculous cream which takes 20 years off you' is, frankly, nonsense. It hardly defines what *most* businesses are there to provide. We should all be so lucky to be in the business of selling miracles, but don't hold your breath.

[Dr Lobster*]

Its worth mentioning that no product "sells itself" as Chris suggested, and the vast majority of goods and services on sale around the world are offered by more than one vendor. Then it is a case of price and service which the consumer makes his decision on.

i'm not entirely sure that is true. i understand that perhaps yourself and jb see marketing from a different perspective, but there are some products, and some companies which don't really even *need* to market their stuff at me.


take this example: i've never had a fax, email or mailshot (which one could argue, is 'cheap marketing' about the apple ipod, but i know what one is, i know what it does, and i know that if i wanted to buy a mp3 player, no other company would even get a look in.

a lot of the software we use a work, we haven't purchased it because of marketing (how many faxes do you think microsoft sends out about isa server, exchange etc), either i've had specific requirements and researched the product myself, or i just *know* which product i need to do the job.

in my mind, there *are* some product which sell themselves to me. i know they work, i know they are reliable, and i know they are well supported.

[johnnyboy]

take this example: i've never had a fax, email or mailshot (which one could argue, is 'cheap marketing' about the apple ipod, but i know what one is, i know what it does, and i know that if i wanted to buy a mp3 player, no other company would even get a look in.

The idea of only having an IPOD is an example of successful marketing, if you discount all other MP3 players because of it.

The next battle for your business occurs by where you purchase it from. As there are multiple competing outlets with different prices and different terms of sales, Chris's somewhat "odd" theories are business become unstuck.

These companies now have to compete for your attention and custom. The only way they can do this is marketing.

a lot of the software we use a work, we haven't purchased it because of marketing (how many faxes do you think microsoft sends out about isa server, exchange etc), either i've had specific requirements and researched the product myself, or i just *know* which product i need to do the job.

in my mind, there *are* some product which sell themselves to me. i know they work, i know they are reliable, and i know they are well supported.

I understand that, particularly as you are very IT literate.

However, the vast majority of people are not and have to be swayed to using a particular program or application by marketing.

If a product really sells itself (and it doesn't), it is only because there has been intense brand-building and product awareness marketing behind it. You can't really compare Microsoft's products with a small software manufacturer's for example when it comes to marketing.

Microsoft's marketing budget, like all household names, is far greater in size and money than non-household names. The idea that they don't advertise is simply not true.

[Dr Lobster*]

Microsoft's marketing budget, like all household names, is far greater in size and money than non-household names. The idea that they don't advertise is simply not true.

i think the difference is perception. i know microsoft advertise, but most of it i see seem to be in industry magazines, but it isn't in your face or invasive. i think that maybe the difference.

for whatever the reason, these companies seem to be able to generate awareness of their products without shouting about them by direct marketing.

even as far as where you buy a product from, the bigger companies seem to win over price (not always in service, which is where the smaller companies have a massive advantage), smaller companies don't seem to have the buying power - this is as obvious in IT as it is in the tesco vs cornershop world.

when it comes to buying generic boxes products, i've always found the bigger companies more competitive. where the smaller companies are useful is if you want something bespoke or niche.

i've often said to my friends, i wish you could get a reseller indepentant catalog of everything, so you could see a list of products, the prices from different suppliers, as well as bespoke stuff all in one big book. that would be so useful.