The Language of Small Business Texts and Vocabulary Training (for students of Economics) Part 2. Учебное пособие

Getting the Message Across

−generate action;

−improve the reputation and general impression of the product.

You should not expect one particular form of advertising carried out at one particular time to achieve all this. To expect it might be counter-productive, if it leads you to cram too many objectives into one small piece of advertising. Your strategy should be to use a mix of different forms to achieve these aims over a long period of time.

And if you can sell as much as you want by personal contact, do not waste your money on advertisements, PR or literature. With large-value items sold to a few buyers, spending more on direct selling might be a better use of your money.

Apart from the obvious form of advertising – advertisements in newspapers and magazines – there are other forms which small businesses will probably find more useful.

BROCHURES AND LEAFLETS

Brochures and leaflets can be used to send out in response to sales queries or ad mailings to generate interest. They can be given out by sales people to reinforce the sales message and shown to suppliers to give credibility about your business. They are relatively cheap, although it is important that they should look consistent with the image you are trying to build. So they should not look tatty and the style should follow on from letterheads, packaging and labels.

A brochure can be used to describe your product as well as drawing attention to the benefits. Beware of filling a brochure with a mass of technical details; if the only recipients are going to be highly technical people, consider cheaper forms of advertising, such as leaflets. If necessary, keep the brochure jargon-free and tuck a one-page sheet in the back with all the technical details.

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Leaflets are cheaper still, as they may be only one or two pages or a fold-over. But again, the style should be consistent and the leaflet should not look low-quality. A leaflet can be used more widely than brochures, given out at exhibitions, sent out in mail shots or dropped through letterboxes. As with brochures, a leaflet should not be crammed with technical detail, unless it is specifically for technical people; instead, it should try to attract attention and increase awareness of your name and product. What is likely to catch a target reader’s eye will be the benefit which can be obtained from using your service or product.

PUBLIC RELATIONS

This can be a low-cost method of getting across a message to the marketplace, although it can be time consuming. The basic aim is to get information or news about your business in magazines or newspapers, in the form of an article or news item. If you can achieve this, such items are seen as very credible and «true», in a way that advertising is not, because readers place greater trust in the objectivity of journalists. Sometimes the newspaper or magazine will only accept editorial material if it is accompanied by an advertisement, which obviously you have to pay for. The main ways of achieving this use of the press are to:

– issue press releases when there is a news item. You will have to write this yourself, or pay someone else to do it. If you do the latter, you are losing one of the benefits of public relations, which is its low cost.

To write a press release yourself, keep to the facts, brief and salient. The length of the press release should be as short as possible and summarize all that you want to say in the first paragraph, as this may be all there is room for in the journal. Somewhere on the press release, put a name and the telephone number, where editors and journalists can speak to someone about the release.

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If there is a good quote which you can include from yourself or person in your business responsible for this item, this can be an excellent way of lightening the copy and making it more readable. If there is any other personal or human angle, which might appeal to the public, do not forget to introduce that. Do not be too optimistic about the chances of getting your press release in – hundreds will be sent to the journal or newspaper each week.

Press releases stand a better chance of publication if there is a photograph attached. It can be a good investment to have some interesting photos of you and the business, which can be appended to the release:

−get to know the editor or journalist. In this way, if you have a story, you could ring your contact before issuing a press release, to see if they would be interested because it is «exclusive». This may well be a more successful way of publicizing your story than issuing press releases;

−try writing suitable small articles, for example, for trade or technical papers, and sending them in.

MAIL SHOTS

There are many ways of trying to ensure that your communication reaches vour target market in the most efficient manner possible. These are:

1.Using a mailing list and sending leaflets or a letter through the post.

2.Putting an insert in a trade or regional magazine.

3.Delivering by door-to-door distribution agencies, such as postmen, free newspapers. Alternatively, you could see if teenagers or retired people might be interested in the work.

4.Sending direct mail shots with other companies. This would work if you are doing a joint promotion, or, if you are not competing with the other company but are aiming at the same target market.

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5.Leaving your leaflets or whatever at a sale outlet, for example, a shop, to be picked up by customers.

6.Delivering your communication by a salesperson. This is very expensive.

The most personalized method in the list above, apart from

delivering by sales staff, is sending your message through the post using a mailing list. The other methods might work best for fairly general notices to raise awareness of the existence of the business or product.

The success of a mail shot depends on:

−the accuracy of the mailing list, or other means of distribution

−the impact of what you have written.

To have a successful mail shot by sending to customers through the post, the accuracy of the mailing list is paramount. Why waste the postage and cost of printing letters or leaflets to send to customers who have died, moved away or gone out of business?

Here are some steps to help you organize a mail shot:

1.Build up your mailing list from all past, present and potential customers. You can get names from personal contacts, through existing customers, following up requests for information, from exhibitions and so on.

2.Add to your mailing list by checking trade directories, members of trade associations, in fact, any likely place for finding potential members of your target market.

3.Consider renting or exchanging mailing lists with other organizations. If you can buy a list it means you can use it as often as you like, but few organizations sell them. If you are going to rent or exchange, the other organization may insist on using a specialist mailing service, so you cannot copy the list. The organization may also want to see what you are going to send out, so that they can approve what is going to

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their customers. If necessary ask a list broker to help find suitable lists for a fee.

4.Weed out all «gone aways», «cannot be founds» and «died» from your mailing list. To achieve this you need to keep working on your mailing list on a regular basis and feeding in any information which comes in. But keep a separate note of old sales leads that appear to have gone away, in case they resurface.

5.Find out the name of the most suitable individual to receive your message. If you are sending to businesses, do not simply send to a company or to a position, for example, the chief accountant. Finding out names may mean telephoning the company first.

6.Always include a letter addressed to the individual and, if possible, signed personally by yourself or someone in your business, not pp’d (that is, signed by someone else on your behalf).

7.Remember what image you are trying to build. Choose good quality literature, paper and envelopes. Make the style consistent with all your other correspondence.

8.Look carefully at what you are sending. If it is a letter, do not make it too long; probably one or two pages is the maximum. Nor should it be too cluttered with jargon. Try to grab your reader’s attention in the opening sentence or headline. Make sure that the letter ties up with any other material, such as leaflets, catalogues. If you are making some special offer, make sure it is understandable.

9.Consider how you can increase the response. Would reply cards or coupons be a good idea?

10.Test your mailer first, if you think it necessary. Learn from your mistakes and improve your full mail shot.

11.Work out the cost. Try to assess your likely response rate. Only one and half per cent is considered to be a normal re-

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sponse. A poor mailing list could mean even less inquiries. Calculate the cost for each response by dividing total expenses by number of likely inquiries or follow-ups. Is this a cost-effective way of reaching potential customers?

If the mail shot is expected to achieve awareness rather than instant sales, this could only be checked for cost effectiveness by researching afterwards. This could be done by contacting a sample of the mailing list to see if the mail shot was received and to get a reaction.

12.Do not forget to find out about any cheap rates on offer to new businesses and for large postings from the Post Office.

ADVERTISEMENTS

You can advertise in:

−local and national newspapers;

−national, technical or special interest magazines;

−reference handbooks, trade directories;

−local radio;

−cinema or TV.

However, small businesses are unlikely to find that advertis-

ing in this way meets their needs, apart from advertisements in technical or special interest magazines or local newspapers.

Before embarking on an advertisement, every small business has to decide six things:

1.Which newspaper or magazine?

2.What size and position of advertisement?

3.What goes in the advertisement?

4.When do you advertise?

5.How often do you run this, or any other, ad?

6.Advertising agency or not?

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1. Which newspaper or magazine ?

Choosing the right place to put your advertisement is crucial. To be cost-effective, the ad must be placed where it reaches the biggest possible section of your potential customers. The journal or paper must be read by the people or businesses you want to talk to and by people at the right level in the organizations or in the right class grouping in the population.

Two important statistics you need to find are the number of copies sold and what is the readership. Rates charged for space usually bear some sort of relationship to circulation. Do not assume that the cheapest or the most expensive will be the best bet. Try to estimate the cost per reader for any ad you want to put in.

2. What size and position of ad?

Clearly the cost of your ad is affected by its size and its position; the bigger the ad and the better the position, the more expensive it will be. For example, an ad on the front page will be seen by more readers and an ad which does not have to compete with others on the same page will be more easily seen, too. There is no clear-cut advice which can be given about whether to go for bigger and better.

In a trade magazine, a good rule of thumb is:

−in first third of magazine;

−on a news or editorial page;

−on a right-hand page, and;

−one third the size of the page.

3.What goes in the ad?

Here are some general guidelines, none of which is sacrosanct:

−have a clear, straightforward message;

−do not be afraid of white space in an ad;

−use as few words as you can to get your message across;

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−steer clear of humour; readers may not share your sense of what is, or is not, funny;

−do not copy other people’s ideas;

−remember you are speaking to your customers, not competitors or yourself;

−the reader is more interested in the message than in your name, so do not put your name at the top of the ad;

−an ad is easier to read if the words go from left to right and from top to bottom.

4.When do you put the ad in ?

There may be seasonal fluctuations in your business and an advertising strategy may need to take this into account, using ads at the start of the summer for summer goods and at the start of the winter for winter ones.

5. How often do you run this, or any other, ad?

One isolated ad on its own may, frankly, achieve little. If that is all you can afford, you may be better concentrating on the other ways of getting your message across. To achieve objectives such as increasing awareness, generating further action or reminding existing buyers, an ad may need to be repeated several times. A different ad my be required to follow the first one up and to consolidate the improvement in awareness, and, ultimately, in sales.

6. An ad agency or not?

You do not have to use one, but your objectives are more likely to be achieved if you do select one. There are lots of small agencies who are willing to work for small businesses, and you may be able to find one you can work with and can afford. Negotiate what fee is payable before you commit yourself. Very often, what you pay is based on a percentage of the advertising space you take in newspapers and magazines. But the agency may re-

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quire a minimum fee. There may also be a percentage charged on the cost of items like brochures and leaflets if the agency is involved in helping you design those.

DIRECTORIES

It may be important in your type of business to pay for entries in various directories, the commonest of which is Yellow Pages. Before you commit yourself to paying for an entry, investigate how many copies of the directory are sold and to whom. The longer-established directories may be the ones with the biggest usage by potential customers. Directories tend to be published once a year and entries need planning a long time in advance. For example, if you want to be in Yellow Pages, you need to apply many months before it actually appears.

DECIDING THE ADVERTISING STRATEGY

For most small businesses, the single most important determinant of what advertising is done is the cost. If you cannot afford much, there is one area which should not be skimped on: good letterheads, good quality paper, labels, product packaging and, possibly, this should be extended to include a professionally designed logo. Other ideas you should consider are the effect on van liveries, uniforms and premises.

Once you have established this as a priority, what advertising forms part of your strategy will vary depending on the nature of your business. However, it would be a mistake to think of each type in isolation from the other.

A successful strategy will include a mix of advertising. Each form of communicating your message will support the other forms, and will be consistent with the image of your product or of your business which you hope to sustain. A strategy should also be considered as extending over a long period of time, rather that isolated actions.

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Vocabulary