As a business owner, one of the most important things is to look inside your company and see all of the marketing assets available.
When business speaks of assets it is usually referring to those that are found on a company’s balance sheet. These would be cash on hand, accounts receivable, inventory, plant and equipment, etc. As you begin to think about Hidden Marketing Assets marketing within the setting of a business, there are other assets to consider. These are marketing assets which the Hidden Marketing Assets Marketing System employs and leverages to the fullest extent possible, for greater profit and revenue opportunities.
These marketing assets include:
1. Your company’s unique service: If you took time to think about all the things that your company offers and about why your company makes sales and creates a customer following, you’ll come up with reasons that people do business with you. This is your unique selling proposition. This asset is generally under-utilized.
2. The customers currently coming to your place of business and those who have patronized your business since you opened.
3. Employees. These include all staff, administrative personnel, sales people, managers, and owners.
4. Relationships. Included are relationships with suppliers, vendors, customers, fellow business associates, other business owners, as well as competitors.
5. Your current marketing strategy: This is an asset usually under utilized. Whatever the business is doing now to get customers in the door, is a marketing strategy. Hidden Marketing Assets marketing looks at these strategies and makes certain that they are as profitable and as effective as possible.
6. Alliances and Joint Ventures. You cannot be all things to all people, but must have a unique proposition with which you endeavor to serve most effectively. Hidden Marketing Assets marketing then looks to outside alliances which can compliment your product line and bring marketing profits to your balance sheet. Such marketing also looks for alliances to form in the community with groups and associations to help maximize your company’s productivity.
Let’s go back over each of these and discover some ways they can be leveraged to increase your revenues and profits.
1. Your company’s unique selling proposition.
Many times companies will do something freely or have a particular customer follow up approach that is unique, do something for the customer on their birthday, or have a financing policy that is unique. Many times companies do things and fail to tell the customer about it or why they do it.
As an entrepreneur business owner or manager, it is imperative that you determine what is special about your product offering when compared to your visible competition. If you’ll take time to consider the unique things you do currently, you’ll undoubtedly find some unique niches. Hidden Marketing Assets marketing recognizes that uniqueness and tells the public about it. I know of a clothing store that had an unconditional return policy. We simply redeployed that unique service into an asset that could start generating customers.
An auto repair facility indicated to me that they guaranteed all their work. The technicians knew it, and the owner knew it, but the customers never heard it. That asset is now an ongoing message that’s communicated to the prospects and creates new business! In addition it maintains loyal customers for the facility.
Hidden Marketing Assets marketing takes the current, unique assets your business has and turns them into communicated messages and increased revenue. They become marketing messages and marketing tools rather than closely held understandings by managers and key employees. Once your company has identified its unique selling proposition, that is the key message communicated in advertising. It is the message that becomes headlines for ads and radio messages. It is the message that’s communicated by employees, sales people, clerks and management.
2. Current customers and former customers.
Rarely do businesses look upon this asset as a marketing asset that can be leveraged for greater profits in return. Hidden Marketing Assets marketing considers your current customers and former customers and sees them as assets that can be re-deployed into a consistent marketing strategy and generate ongoing sources of revenue. Let’s say that you have 2,000 former customers who have done business with you in the past. Hidden Marketing Assets marketing includes an organized plan to communicate with them regularly and invite them back for more business.
If you don’t have products available on an ongoing basis, you might work with other businesses in joint ventures which assures your customer’s orders. Ask yourself what other businesses would like the same kind of customer that purchases your product and offer to have those businesses give your customers a chance to purchase and seek a share or split in the profits. Or if you can offer products directly, that’s even better.
You can rent or license your customer list to other businesses for a set fee.
The Hidden Marketing Assets marketer understands that the needs and wants of customer’s are changing every day. By staying in touch and utilizing the current and former customer base as a marketing center, one may keep abreast of the changing personalities and needs of the customers, and enjoy increased revenues and profits.
3. Employees
Take time to examine the talents and unique attributes of employees.
These unique talents which have brought business into the firm might be licensed to similar firms in other areas of the country. Perhaps one employee has some down time available and can become a marketing manager or implement ideas that generate additional profits.
Often the owner has brought to the business a unique talent that can be utilized in seminars and demonstrations. Information might be distributed in newsletters or cassettes. Hidden Marketing Assets marketing seeks out employee strengths, talents and capabilities and considers re-deployment of those as marketing assets. By implementing Hidden Marketing Assets marketing techniques the business owner can look at the employees and re-deploy many of their regular, current actives into more market oriented and profit-generating actives.
4. Relationships.
Hidden Marketing Assets marketing looks at relationships the business has with suppliers and vendors to see what ideas those suppliers have available for marketing. It seeks an increased participation in sharing marketing expense. The Hidden Marketing Assets marketer looks at models within their industry and relationships they have with similar businesses. But rather than having an acquaintance or relationship on a social basis, always look for ideas that have been successfully utilized by fellow businesses in the same industry or other industries and implement them into your own. Sometimes many of these ideas are shared without cost. If the idea has worked successfully for a business, license the idea, rent or purchase it for a period, or work out a deal where the idea is implemented and share in the results.
Look beyond the borders of your local community. Check other states and cities to see what marketing ideas are being employed by firms in your industry.
The successful entrepreneur looks at current relationships he can nurture and redeploy as marketing assets, by utilizing the customer bases and modeling marketing programs round those relationships. He understands that at any time he improves that relationship the possibility of profit increases also.
5. Current strategy.
You may be employing marketing strategies such as radio advertising, newspaper advertising or magazine ads. These are marketing dollars currently being spent to generate business. Examine that marketing asset to make certain the elements of the ads are direct response oriented to increase return and profitability.
Once you have found an idea that works, continue working that idea. Profits are the bottom line of a successful idea, not response. Gauge profitability by understanding the lifetime value of a customer. You may not make money on the first marketing attempt but if a customer is created, the marketer understands that the idea was a success because of the ongoing revenue that will be generated by the customer.
Re-deploy marketing assets of current strategies that are working and maximize them by learning the techniques that evoke response and measurability from the consumer. Make certain that all advertising communicates the unique selling proposition through a message that is clear. Benefits should be easily understood and a response mechanism included. Each ad should include a headline, copy, offer, bonus, guarantee, and test prices to determine which is most effective.
It is easier to keep a current customer purchasing over and over again than to acquire a new customer.
Look carefully at every dollar spent in acquiring a new customer and make certain that all ads and all marketing strategies are as low cost as possible.
Do not re-invent the wheel. Look for models of current strategy that are being employed and used by businesses similar to your own and copy successful ones.
6. Alliances.
Look for ways your business can align itself with others to increase numbers of customers.
For example a real estate company understands that real estate sales to a family are made probably once or twice in a lifetime. Because these purchases are far apart the real estate company aligns itself with complimentary services and complimentary product lines from other companies and offers them to those same customers. A real estate salesperson after selling a home would have contacts with furniture sources, lawn care sources, security systems, swimming pool manufacturers, etc. He would then set up a relationship with those sources as a finder’s fee or as a commissioned sales representative.
If your company manufactures the component of one particular end product and you know your customers also need other products, you might align yourself with appropriate companies that allow them access to your customer base. You gain access also to their customer base in marketing complimentary and additional products.
If you have an insurance company that specializes in one particular form of insurance and have a customer base of two or three thousand, you’ll want to make certain that you allow or provide access to all other insurance services and financial products to offer either by creating access to your customers for another company or working out a joint venture to provide those products and get a share of the revenues.
Alliances are a way you can leverage current resources advantageously. This is important as expenditures do not have to be incurred to set up additional product lines.
In this marketing system we look at these assets and discuss them. You will learn how to leverage these assets for maximum revenues and profits.