Newspaper advertising is usually charged by the column centimetre, so you can have as much or as little as you want to pay for. If you choose your publication carefully, and even the specific target area within that publication, you can reach a great many people and, more importantly, the right people. This can be a cost-effective way of promoting your product.

If yours is a service business, then the appropriate column of the classified pages could be used for an inexpensive advertisement, reaching the people who are looking for services.

If your product or service is of interest to women specifically, then a small display ad on the women’s page could work for you, especially if the publication has days on which they deal with specific subjects.

Tuesday fashion pages, for instance, may be a good choice for a business specialising in fashionable handknits. Or a regular cookery column and consumer information on Wednesday would be an appropriate day for someone who gives baking classes or cooks for other people’s freezers.

The growing number of free suburban newspapers (or ‘knock-and-drops’ as they are often termed) can be the ideal vehicle for products or services aimed at particular communities or suburbs. In addition, their advertising rates are generally much cheaper than the dailies.

If you are running a mobile hairdressing service, for instance, and you want to restrict your clientele to a manageable area close to your home, a suburban paper would reach the very people your service is aimed at.

Generally, suburban newspapers claim to ’saturate’ an area — meaning every household in their distribution area gets a free copy. So if your product is aimed at just such an area or community, theoretically you should get greater coverage for less outlay than you would need if you were using a daily or a weekend newspaper.

Whichever type of newspaper you choose, their advertising departments have copywriters and artists who will design your advertisement for you, as well as salespeople who will advise on the best rates and position for your product, but for your own information, you should bear in mind the following points when drawing up an advertisement:

*Keep the language and message of the ad simple. If you become too technical in your text and try to get too wordy an explanation into it, you will bore or confuse readers who may not then read on until the end.

*Keep the layout simple, but bold. The heading should `lead on’ — invite or draw — the reader to read the whole advertisement. It should also communicate the need or desire the product will fulfil.

*Don’t try to convey every attribute or quality of the product in one advertisement. An ad can never do the complete selling job for you — rather keep to two or three of your product’s most important qualities. Describe them as simply as possible, giving away just enough to provoke the interest of the reader into making further enquiries about the product.

*Study a variety of advertisements in all manner of publications. Select those ads which interest or intrigue you most — and then work out why. Most people find that it is the neat, clearly worded and simply illustrated advertisement that attracts the most interest. Ads that attempt to use up every atom of space with tiny print and several messy sketches both confuse the eye and irritate the reader.

*Choose the publication you use with great care. If you select the right one, the advertisement can really pay off — if not, you might get no return at all.

Newspaper advertising is not your only choice, even on a small budget. Alternatives are regional radio and society newsletters or circulars:

Radio advertising Regional radio stations have made radio advertising much less expensive and, while it’s still not dirt cheap, it could be the right choice for some small businesses, depending on the cost and the market you wish to reach. Some people even believe that, buck-for-buck, radio gives you a better return than other forms of advertising.

Once again, the radio station’s advertising department will advise you on how best to make use of the space or ‘air-time’ you are purchasing, and which is the right ’slot’ for your product.

Other types of publication that reach a much smaller, but more select market, and can also sometimes be effective, are newsletters and circulars for organisations — Rotary, Lions International, theatrical groups and sports clubs, etc. These go to specific markets and could be a useful vehicle for some small businesses. Their advertising rates are usually very reasonable, too. Check with advertisers who have previously used the medium, for their success rate.

Bigger companies usually have more money to plough into the presentation and promotion (advertising, publicity and selling) of their products. But this doesn’t necessarily mean they have the advantage. Careful thought and questions cost nothing and these are all you really need to ensure that you can design a product that satisfies your customers‘ needs and has a special place in the market.

Assuming that you are able to implement the design of your product or service properly, attention to your customers‘ needs is a far better guarantee of success than expensive advertising.

Zolia Rumble of Success Stories suggests the following ideas on marketing and how to locate and contact your customer on a small budget. Some of them you will already have worked through, but remember: the secret of success is constant revision and consolidation of your ideas, plus the continual questioning of your objectives and methods.

Plan your product or service: What needs will it meet? Marketing is based on the theory of consumer behaviour — what makes people act and buy as they do? The central idea is that people act or buy in order to fulfil unsatisfied needs.

To market your product successfully, you will have to try to classify the type of need that your product or service will meet. (If you’re not meeting any real need or want, or are doing so for only for a tiny group, you may need to think again!)

At the most basic level, there are the physiological needs — hunger, thirst and procreation. Then comes a need for security — shelter, a secure environment, assured income, etc. Then a need for love and belonging — social acceptance, family love, fitting in with people. People may also experience further needs for esteem — being looked up to by others — and self-esteem (concern about one’s own achievements, even ifthey are not recognised by other people).

Thinking about whether your product satisfies an ‘esteem’ need or a ’security’ need for example, will help you decide how to prepare, package, present and distribute the product.

For instance, if you want to start a catering service and can provide menus based on currently very popular foods, then aim your marketing and publicity at the people whose priorities are love and belonging — those who like to do the socially-accepted, ‘in’ thing and who feel most comfortable with a popular concept.

Or, if you intend to provide menus that are more ‘up‑market‘, exclusive and innovative, aim at those to whomesteem is important.

This is called targeting. If you analyse what type of needs you are best suited to fulfil, and make sure that your product or service does in fact fulfil a real need, you have the basis for marketing success.

Check your ideas — are they valid? Don’t assume that your potential customers have the same tastes and ideas as you. Check that there really are sufficient people with the needs you are setting out to satisfy and check their response to what you are offering — does your product actually meet their needs and requirements?

This testing is crucial and should provide much useful feedback and suggestions.

Targeting Once you’ve defined the needs your product will meet, and have researched reactions and whether there really is a need for what you are doing, you should pinpoint exactly who will react most favourably to your product or service.

Which age group, income bracket, personality type or occupation group seems to have the biggest need for your product?

Answering these questions will give you guidelines as to who fits into your target market, who are the people most likely to buy, who you should bear in mind when designing the way your product works and looks, and where and at what price it will be sold.

Price it right Your best guideline to price — given, of course, that you cover costs and give yourself at least a minimum profit margin — is the type of person who will be buying the product.

Is that person prepared to pay a lot so long as the product has the right image (and does the job, of course), or is that person more concerned with value for money?

A good rule is to look at what your target customer is prepared to pay or is already paying for a similar product. A lot of small businesses make the mistake either of thinking that they have to compete on a price basis — or they overprice because they haven’t found their cheapest suppliers — and sometimes they simply haven’t checked what everyone else ischarging.

There may be a very good reason why the price of a competitive product is higher than yours and it’s worth defining that reason to your own satisfaction before you start.

If you have competition at a similar price, don’t automatically go for a price cut to make sales, use other persuasions to secure customers. Base them on the advantages of your product over the competition — simpler design, higher quality, better delivery.

It is clever pricing — not over or underpricing — that will sell your product. The old adage that ‘Cheapest is not always the best’ still holds sway with a great many consumers, even in a poor economy.

Placing your product on the market A major decision about your product is how it will get to the customer. Will you sell direct to the end-user, or form a chain of people in order to get that product in position?

The more people who sell your product, the more profit you give away and the less control you have, but you can obviously sell far more of your product this way. You can sell to a retailer or to a wholesaler, either on your own or through agents.

Each person in the chain takes a cut — but don’t be put off by this. Established shops and wholesalers have existing clients, infra-structures and marketing ‘images’ which you may not be able to reach on a small budget.otion, sales

It’s well worth considering the potential increase in sales that you could achieve and the administration hassles you could save yourself by getting your product onto the market through a specialist distributor. But use your commonsense: if your product is not designed for a mass market, you don’t need to give those profit margins away!

Remember also that you don’t have to sell huge volumes to make good money. Many people are prepared to pay more for an exclusive product — if it’s really unique and good quality, don’t underprice yourself.

Some pointers in deciding how to get your product onto the market are:

*If you appoint agents, make sure they are well motivated people and that you provide a generous incentive. Provide a sales kit and institute a system for financial control.

*If you are selling to wholesalers or retailers, find out what the accepted discount is in your industry (a couple of well-placed telephone calls should suffice), before committing yourself. But don’t think twice about giving them the accepted margin.

*Research the volumes a retailer or wholesaler might be able to sell for you by asking both them and their competitors, and by finding published market/sales data if possible. Use this as a basis for comparison. How many can you sell at full price, compared to the volumes you can expect them to sell at 25%, 33%, 50% or whatever discount?

Now you need to take a look at promoting your product — by advertising and publicity.

PITFALLS TO AVOID

There are a number of reasons why people have difficulties in making a living from direct selling — that is, they don’t make sufficient sales:

Not following the company’s instructions.

• Not allowing enough time (you need to commit yourself for as long as 12 months to give it a chance).
• Becoming disenchanted with the cycle of selling and absorbing the company hype.
• Working for a company that does not have a code of ethics — this implies an unprofessional attitude and, if goods are shoddy or fail to arrive as promised, end-users become disgruntled.
• Working for a company that has unsaleable goods (a not uncommon problem).

CHOOSING A COMPANY

Joining a direct-selling company is usually quite easy. The relevant trade associations can give you the names of their member companies or you may already know a distributor. It is important that you like what the company has to sell and will use the products yourself, rather than just selling them to others.

NETWORK MARKETING

Some, though not all, direct-selling companies operate a multi-level system of sales where a salesperson can recruit other salespeople and will then receive bonuses depending on how well their recruits perform. This way of selling is called network marketing (networking) or multi-level marketing (MLM for short) and it accounts for about a quarter of total direct sales. It works like this: you sell the products to friends and contacts. One or two of them might think they can sell it to their friends and so agree to become distributors. By recruiting them, you earn bonuses that are dependent on their sales. If those new distributors recruit more people you get a share of their sales bonuses, too. This continues as the network expands. The people who recruit you are called your “uplines” and the people you recruit are your “downlines”.

For achieving high sales levels, most direct- selling companies have prizes such as holidays, appliances, even cars. This is usually related to recruitment success as well as individual sales. Some people (a small minority) do achieve high incomes from this type of selling and the companies they work with are huge multibillion-turnover concerns. Network marketing, along with other aspects of direct selling, is regulated by law.

Service refers to all the activities which create a bond between organisations and their clients or customers. This is a very broad definition, but it is fully justified because all organisations, be they manufacturers, retailers, restaurants, banks or government departments, have a service component. Certainly the extent of the service component varies from organisation to organisation, but everyone ultimately has a role in service.

Types of service

There are ‘assist me’ services:

* assist me to find and buy a house

* assist me to keep the books of my business

* assist me to regain my health

And there are ‘repair it’ services. Customers have come to expect and demand that a manufacturer’s obligation to guarantee the performance of a product should extend further than the date of delivery. The quality of a company’s ‘repair it’ service contributes significantly to its success in the marketplace.

The capacity of a motor manufacturer to deliver a high-quality repair service sets it apart in its industry. Numerous research studies have shown that the average customer who is happy with a product tells at least three people of his satisfaction. The average customer who has a problem with an organisation or product will tell nine or ten people about it! The implication for manufacturing companies is that service is an intrinsic part of the product.

There are also ‘guarantee it’ services. These relate to the product itself, be it a hacksaw blade, a motor car or a grilled steak. Factors that play a part are the basic design of the product, and the quality control in its manufacture. A poor design or a badly manufactured product leads to unhappy customers.

‘Help me buy it’ services highlight the sales activity in a firm and include the messages the company sends out to potential customers in advertising and promotion programmes. How it chooses and monitors sales staff, intermediaries or distributors must convey a positive attitude to the customer.

Protect me’ services cover after-sales activities such as parts availability, warranties, complaint handling and overall responsiveness to customer problems. These activities extend beyond ‘repair it’ services.

Yet another service is that of adding value.

Value-added service is more easily understood in terms of experience than in definition. It provides the feel of politeness and caring when delivered in a person-to-person context. The friendly waiter who calls you by your name when you sit down to a meal, or an airline stewardess who notices you are feeling a bit tired and brings you a rug, addsintangible value to the delivery of good service.

Regardless of the type of service, one thing should be abundantly clear: everything revolves around the customer.

The Cost of Bad Customer Service

Some companies may think that they can get away with bad service but there is no doubt that it is costly. Costs arise in handling complaints; in paying refunds or handling returns; in legal action dealing with customerprotection bodies; and in the necessary corrective public relations.

But indirect costs are likely to be far higher and will accrue from lost sales to those directly affected, lost sales to those who are told about the bad service and, above all, from the cost of acquiring new customers toreplace those lost. The latter cost can be ten times greater than the cost of retaining existing customers through good service. The greatest cost of all is the cost of lost opportunities.

Besides fresh herbs for use in cooking and alternative medicine, there is a demand for dried herbs for use in beverages, butters, vinegars and salts, as an ingredient in natural vegetable dyes, and making potpourri.

You could consider teaming up with a local potter who can supply you with small, decorative pots into which you can pack your herbs for sale.

Equipment

• basic gardening tools
• a trowel
• a fork or hoe
• a sharp knife
• seed and seedling trays and pots
• drainage material (gravel, perlite or broken crockery)
• growing mixture
• compost and fertilizer
• straw
• seeds
• fine sprays, hose or watering can
• containers in which to place your herbs for sale (small, decorative pots or little glass bottles with stopper lids, for example)
• self-stick labels to label them

Work space

You need very little space to grow a herb garden and, if you do not have a garden, you could even grow herbs in a window box. You should make sure your herbs get enough sun each day, however.

Marketing your business

• Sell your herbs at a Saturday market or craft fair.
• Contact restaurants and arrange to supply them with fresh herbs on a regular basis.
• Advertise a ‘herb kit’ in magazines featuring cookery, health or gardening. You could even put your herb kits on special offer. The kit could be made up as follows: four brightly coloured plastic pots, a sealed bag containing the right amount of soil, four small, labelled envelopes containing seeds, and a pamphlet explaining planting instructions, culinary uses and medicinal properties. The kit could also be sold by mail order.
• Approach gift and novelty shops with ideas for gifts in which your herbs can be used.
• Contact delicatessens, health shops and supermarkets and arrange a regular trade with them.
• Approach florists who may wish to buy nosegay bouquets from you.
• Advertise in your local newspaper.

You should meet prospective clients in their own surroundings so you can get a feel for what they like and how they live.

Work space

Furnish a spare room with a desk and chair; you should have a telephone.

Equipment

• A reliable car is essential. In your office you will need:
• business stationery and business cards
• a typewriter
• a camera

Money matters

• Remember to charge your client for:
• the services of an architect, if one is employed to examine the building plans and suggest alterations
• telephone costs if your client lives out of town
• photographic costs if you have taken photographs of suitable houses

Marketing your business

• Advertise in national newspapers and magazines.
• Let the Embassies know of your service.
• Let estate agents know of your service.

Prospective clients include:

• Executives

• celebrities
• people who are relocating to another part of the country
• older people who are looking for somewhere smaller to live
• young couples wanting to buy their first home
• couples with a growing family looking for a larger home immigrants

People in small towns and outlying farming areas often have a great need for products that are not easily available where they live. Also products are sometimes only available in one particular city.

So, if your products are appropriate – for example embroidery, tapestry or teddy bear kits, screen printed fabric painting kits, rubber stamps, paper crafts or hand made jewellery – you can provide a mail order service. Essentially any product that is easy to post is suitable.

Don’t attempt to do this with anything breakable. You can insure against loss but not breakage.

Mail order is also a good medium for teaching by correspondence.

To conduct a mail order business

Put together a catalogue of your range.

Black and white catalogues are usually quite adequate, as long as the products can be clearly seen or the description of the products is accurate and appealing.

Colour catalogues can be expensive to produce, even if you use photo copies, rather than printing. So if you do have colour catalogues, you should charge a small fee for them. This will discourage anyone other than serious customers.

How to do it

Once you receive an order for an article – fax or email the customer confirmation of the order plus an invoice with your banking details.

As soon as the customer has paid and faxed you a copy of the deposit slip, post off their order. DO NOT send off anything, until you’ve received payment.

Keep postal slips as proof of postage and always use a postal system where you get a tracking number so that if your parcel does goes astray, it can be traced. It is more expensive, but measured against the cost of having to replace a lost order, it is worth it.

Postage is included in the price and the customer is given the choice of normal post which can take a couple of days or overnight courier or counter to counter postal service, which is obviously more expensive.

To sell by mail order your products need to get known, so you’ll have to advertise.

Home exhibitions and markets are becoming increasingly popular. They are a marvellous way of selling, particularly if you link them to a special occasion like Christmas or even Easter or Valentine’s day or Autumn or Spring.

You need to have an open plan house or a fair sized garden which will allow a free flow of people.

Invite a selection of crafters to take part so that you offer a variety of goods. It is well worth your while to visit the many craft markets and galleries and track down different and unusual crafts. If you do, you’ll soon develop a reputation as an exhibition worth visiting. Remember, so much in the craft industry happens by word of mouth.

Crafters would hire their space from you. If your home exhibitions acquire a good reputation, crafters will also seek you out. So will customers!

It is customary to serve refreshments. If you have the space you can also have a tea garden.

Exhibition days like these are perfect to use for fundraising
for charities. It is quite acceptable to charge a small entrance fee.

Organizing a home exhibition and market

It’s quite a big project to tackle, so get helpers to share the organising – for which they get paid in some form or other. Dedicated and committed help is so much more reliable and useful than trying to wheedle favours out of friends and family.

Decide on a date. Choose a good variety and selection of crafters, and book them.

Book tables for the crafters. Book refreshment requirements like tables, chairs (if you’re having a tea garden) cups and saucers etc. from a catering hire company. Arrange for them to deliver and collect afterwards.

Hint: When you do have an open day, be courteous and prepare your neighbours for extra cars in the street and employ car guards for additional security.

Prepare a marketing/advertising strategy

When starting out with home exhibitions, you’ll need to advertise as widely as possible. Having a proper strategy means that you think it through and plan who does what.

This would include having flyers printed and arranging to have them handed out. Leave them at craft supply shops, put them in mail boxes in your area, put them on notice boards at the local library, supermarkets etc.

Have invitations printed and post them or hand them out. You can do both flyers and invitations using a computer and photocopier to save on printing costs. But also explore the smaller printing companies, their prices are often very competitive.

Advertise in your local newspaper, school and church magazines.

A banner on the side of the road or posters on lamp posts are very effective. You need to get permission from your local town or city council. Ask for the department that deals with Outdoor Advertising.

to be continued

The organisers have the responsibility to advertise the event. This is one of the most important things you should ask about before signing up.

Note: Promoting, marketing and advertising the event is the key to its success. If the advertising is poor, the show will be badly attended and you’ll have wasted your money.

You hire a stand for a fee, the cost of which depends very much on the reputation and popularity of the show and how long the show has been operating. Shows that have been running successfully for several years are likely to be your most expensive. But then you know that it has a proven track record.

The fee usually includes a designated space per square metre, walls (these are usually dry walling), carpeting, 1 x plug point, fascia board with the company name and a number of spotlights. Additional services are available on request.

Advantages

• Because shows and exhibitions are so niche market orientated, it is a very concentrated marketing exercise.
• You manage the stand yourself and do the selling yourself, which allows you fantastic marketing opportunities.
• Many of the shows have ‘trade-only’ days, which are quieter than the general public days, and give you an opportunity to discover business possibilities you didn’t know existed.
• Most shows and exhibitions include mini-workshops and demonstrations, all of which creates and increases awareness of crafts and hobbies.

Disadvantages

• This is the most expensive of all marketing exercises, particularly for someone starting out, but if you fit the exhibition profile it could be a very worthwhile investment. To make it more affordable, you could join forces with other complementary crafts or craft suppliers and share a stand or ‘rent’ space from a large stand-holder.
• If the show is not well advertised it can be a flop — an expensive flop!

Checklist of Things you’ll need at a Show or Exhibition

• A small fold up ladder

• Packaging tape (Duct Tape)
• Masking tape
• Prestick — lots of it, as you’re often not allowed to bang nails into the dry walling. So everything must be put up with Prestick or double sided tape; or you can get flat hooks that hook over the top of the walling. Display shops should have them
• Plastic rubbish bags
• Extension cord
• Multi purpose plug
• Calculator
• Notebook and several pens
• Price list

Change

• Money belt or money box
• First Aid kit (that includes headache relief, pain killer, antacid, anti diarrhoea)
• Cell phone AND charger
• Your personal phone book
• Tool kit with screwdrivers, hammer, nails, scissors, pliers
• A fold up trolley for carrying boxes

Hint: Have a special show/market box where you keep all these things. Make sure that it is NEVER touched at home! Then you know you’ll always have what you need, when you need it. There is nothing more infuriating than to be setting up at a show, miles from anywhere, and to find that your extension cord was ‘borrowed’ from the box and not returned, or you don’t have Prestick!

The whole point of a business plan is to chart the course an entrepreneur intends taking in the coming year. The information dealt with in the Viability Study and that gathered to complete the business plan must form one uniform analysis.

Planning is essential for every business, whether it is a major company or an ice cream stall on the beach front. The whole point of a business plan is to set goals and work out the steps towards attaining them. It should at all times comply with the following:

• be of good appearance
• be comprehensive
• be logical
• be simple and easy to read
• be based on irrefutable facts or evidence as far as possible

Some of the steps that should be followed in drawing up a business plan:

1. You should determine the profit you require from the business. You should work out, for example, the volume of sales needed, the cost of making up these sales and other operating expenses in order to draw up a statement of anticipated income for the year.
2. You should undertake a survey of the market so that, for example, anticipated sales volume can be ascertained. It may be difficult for you, as a potential business person, to do detailed market research, but it is possible to gain information on the market by tapping official statistics, published surveys and personal enquiry.
3. A financial statement is required, as well as details of how much money you are putting into the business. This statement must be realistic and not underestimate what is required. Details should be supplied of how a loan from the bank might be used in the business.
4. You should prepare a merchandising plan which details sales promotion, advertising, pricing policy, etc. and include it in the overall business plan.
5. You should draw up as comprehensive a budget as possible, which is simply the translation into money terms of the business plan, and can cover any period, to reflect an analysis of estimated running costs.
6. You should establish an adequate bookkeeping system for both internal and external reporting.