CONVINCED that British-grown hemp seed could create a gourmet oil, Henry
Braham and his wife, Glynis, spent years developing crops capable of
producing a high-quality oil with a good flavour.
Their labour of love, however, left them with little money for marketing their
product, called Good Oil. What they did have, however, was a clear idea of
to whom they wanted to sell. “We knew it was a product for people interested
in food ingredients,” said Braham.
So the couple started visiting specialist food retailers in their area and
sent their products to celebrity chefs such as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
and Jamie Oliver. Testimonials from such household names were hugely
valuable.
The oil is now sold in Waitrose and sales are growing strongly. For the first
time the Brahams have created a more extensive marketing plan, signing up an
agency to help. They have also created a Facebook page for Good Oil to
generate more interest.
The Brahams’ success is proof that it is possible to create interest and boost
sales without spending huge amounts on advertising.
Entrepreneur and business mentor Jonathan Jay started a business providing
life-coaching training with almost nothing, but quickly made money with a
simple post-card-mailing campaign. “You don’t need a lot of money to start a
business,” he said. “At the time I had an overdraft of £20,000. I had £145
in cash to my name and I spent all of it on marketing.” Jay guessed that
people interested in personal development might also be interested in
becoming life coaches, a new concept at the time. He put together a mailing
list of people who had attended personal-development conferences. “We had
500 enquiries from the mailing and when my bank manager came back from
holiday he could not figure out how I was £20,000 in credit.”
The campaign worked, said Jay, because he targeted the right people, creating
a simple message that would appeal to them. “The most important thing is
identifying the market you are selling to, but once you have found the
market you have to craft the right message for it. You have to get inside
the heads of your prospects. The more specific your message, the better.”
Whether you have found the right market or not, using traditional advertising
to reach it is likely to be a waste of money for most start-ups, said Chris
Lovell, group chief executive of the marketing agency Golley Slater.
“Getting good PR, in the broadest sense of the word, is the key to getting
your product known. It’s about getting your product or service in front of
journalists and using web search tools to reach the communities that may be
interested in your goods.
“If the company you are starting hasn’t traded, hasn’t got customers or any
kind of track record, you don’t have a relationship. You have to build a
reputation as quickly and cost-effectively as you can. Trials or free-period
offers are good ways to get people to try your product and to get
testimonials.”
Acceptance by a big retailer can be a valuable way to build a reputation, said
Lovell. Getting into a supermarket as the Brahams did is not only good for
sales, it also gives your product instant affirmation and credibility, he
said.
“Unless you can build your reputation by selling to Waitrose or Sainsbury’s,
you have to build a reputation as fast as you can by word of mouth.”
Marketing your business online is becoming an ever more powerful way to reach
people, said Lovell. Creating the right structure for your website to make
it search-engine friendly can help drive people to your website.
“Half of all the money spent online starts with a search-engine hit. Devise a
single sentence that sums up the key benefits of your product or service.
Getting those key words right is important, so it is often worth spending
some money on a copywriter to help.
“Don’t forget, too, that search engines are continuously looking for updated
and new information, which shows your site is being used and looked at. A
lot of people make the mistake of thinking of their website as an online
brochure, but that’s static and not user-friendly. To move up the rankings,
update your website as often as you can.”
Setting targets and measuring your marketing efforts against those targets is
important if you are to ensure your efforts are working. “You have to
establish before you spend any money not only who you are targeting but what
you are trying to achieve, whether it is increased sales or increased
awareness of your product,” said Lovell. “Many start-ups become too focused
on starting the business and don’t concentrate on measuring whether the £200
they spent at that trade show delivered the goods.”
Jay said that taking the time to learn a few simple marketing techniques was
important for any start-up. “It’s all out there for free on the internet.
Just spend an hour a day learning something new.”
For Braham, however, all the marketing techniques in the world will not help
you if your product is not good enough. “We were recently asked by a
branding guide what our secrets were and, quite honestly, it was all pretty
instinctive for us. I strongly believe that, if you get the product right,
the rest will follow.”
For a free book on marketing see Freemarketingbook.org
