Hi all :)

[Amphrax]

Ok,

I just wanted to pick some brains or ideas from you guys.

I recently (beginning of April) bought a company thats on the border of its last legs but more than capable of getting back on its feet again.

I have so many ideas on marketing but its too far down the line. For example... I'm running before I walk so to speak.

So the question is:

How would one go about the Marketing side of things.

I wont go into too much detail and I'm sure people here have experienced 'bringing in a new client' maybe, not sure.

Do you guys have any ideas how to start the Marketing side of things?

 

[Moriath]

hard to say without knowing what you are marketing

Trade shows , mailing lists , advertising

 

[Lamp]

web site

 

[Tasslehoff]

Who is your target group? And what is the product? We really need this kind of information in order to give you advide, there is no real generic advice for marketing, it's pretty different depending on what you want to communicate and to whom

 

[megadave]

publicity stunt?

 

[Ezteq]

aye, though not a racist sandwich board lol, but publicity is certainly the way to go, local newspapers and radio...though what is the company lol some details would help us to help you....grats on buying a company though man lol tres impressed!

 

[Amphrax]

Ok what my job does...

DTP - desk top publishing
translation (all langauages)
for example ...

Booklets
leaflets
business cards
manuels
etc into different languages

using programmes like

indesign
Photoshop
illustrator
quark xpress
Microsoft word

that's basically in short term what the company can do.

 

[Toggers]

put in the very basic terms

1) identify your customers

2) find a way to reach them

3) make youre service/product attractive

not sure i understand really what your company does so i couldnt comment on which type of marketing in my opinion would work best, direct mailouts are cheap and ive often found the most cost effective, telesales is a good way to get a foot in the door but you need a certain type of person for that, newspaper ads arent too bad, obviously web is good but thats really after theyve heard of you.

 

[Marc]

Can you explain a bit more what the company actually does? Your description was very brief and I dont really understand what it does?

 

[Marc]

Ahh is it just basic desk top publishing? ie you will graphic design and publish leaflets etc and convert them into different languages if necessary?

 

[Amphrax]

Let's say 'you' the customer has a leaflet in English that you need translating into 7 languages. You then send this leaflet electronicly over email by PDF or actually send the artwork (quark file/indesign file, images, fonts ect...) my company works out a price and then if the client 'you' are happy with the quote we then send the English over to the translators who then translate into the right language (obviously). Once the translation is done the translator then sends the translation to us by email in word format and then what we do is put the translation into the artwork supplied by the customer.

That's not all we do but about 80% of our work load.

 

[Marc]

Genuine question. What is the market like for this kind of stuff?

 

[Amphrax]

It's quite high alot of specialised companies are in this industry. My company has been around for 40 odd years. But my previous boss who ran the company into the ground lost us about 60 customers.

 

[Marc]

Ok, first of all, do some market research. You have to be sure that you can compete with prices your competitors offer for the same quality. You will be surprised how many people come to me with their business plan, only for me to pull the figures apart and show them they wont be actually making any money for themselves. The fact your company has been going for 40 years its a marketing tool in itself especially if you can show to persepctive clients, it evolves as technology evolves.

You spoke about losing 60 customers? Get yourself suited and booted and visit them personally if possible. Make it clear the management has changed hands and you want to rebuild the bridges the old management burnt and convince them that your company is best suited to their needs. Put your company across as best you can to them and if you have any, take some brochures to give to them. Rome wasnt built in a day and the chances are none of them will agree to use you there and then. What you do then is every few months give them a curtesy call. Just chat to them, ask how things are etc and to bare you in mind. Keep your company in their minds. Over the years I have brought in thousands of pounds in fees for my firm, simply by keeping in touch because the minute the company they use pisses them off for whatever reason, they think of you and im not even a salesman!

Speaking of sales men, a good salesman is worth his weight in gold. One of my clients does something similar to you. They design and print sales brochures for businesses. 2 of their salemen are on a basic of £100 a week, the rest 10-20% of any contract value. They both earn £100k+ a year, so you can work out the amount of sales they bring to the business.

As for actual marketing, there is no point spending money on markets that will have no interest in your business. You have to pinpoint businesses that will have a need for your service.

Running your own business and making it a success is a very difficult thing to do and whilst it will all be very exciting to you, it will be a long hard slog, especially turning a failing business around.

Also, when you said you have bought the company, i take it that its a limited company that you have bought with the goodwill and equipment. Did any property come with the company or will you be trading from rented premises?

 

[Amphrax]

Thanks for the reply.

Well this is an odd situation and I'll try and explain.

I'll tell you about the old boss ...

When I first started at my company I was at the rock bottom and worked my way up and up. Our boss owned 4 companies within the building. 2 stationary companies, 1 printers and my company. The boss basically never earnt any of those companies as he got it given to him from his parents who put alot of time and effort into them. He was like -don't care attitude- having 3 hour lunches, no management skills ect... Quite a lazy boss who took everything out the companies he possibly could without putting any effort or input into the companies. Our boss was also like this... Let's say we had a customer who gave us 50% of work and he didn't like them he would tell them that he didn't want to do any business with them not realising the damage it caused.

Anyway over time this carried on going losing customers because of his actions and the workers suffered in the long run by being made redundant etc... Each company was sold cheap over time and that's when my company was left and at this point my company was doing extremely well untill he come over to it. It took my work mate 13 years to get to where it was. Was to a point we were getting so much work we had to turn work away because we had too much. But within 6 months the boss completely destroyed it and lost us so many customers it was untrue.

Anyway I won't bore you with the entire story.

This is how myself and my work mate got the company itself.

Our boss wanted 20,000 for the company to begin with but myself and work mate had no money so there was noway for us to raise that type of cash in a short time. After a few weeks went passed he gave us another option. What he said was he wants 20,000 for the company and he will give us 20,000 working capital and all we would need to do is use the company to pay him back a certain amount each month until the 20,000 is paid off.

The 20,000 he wants is all down to 1 contract which at the moment gives us about 75% work flow and runs out end of June. Now if this contract runs out our boss said that he will minus the 20,000 asking price to 0.

So myself and work mate agreed to take on the company as we were the ones that built it up from scratch long time ago knowing we are not using our own money. We are using the company itself to buy the company from our boss.

So since the 1st April and contracts signed the company is mine and my work friend.

I'm tired now and need to sleep. I have also left quite abit out above as I find it hard to write all of it down. I find it alot easier to talk in person hehe

 

[Zede]

marketing is easy, hiring ppl you can trust is a different matter. Get that sorted & it will be hard to lose.

 

[Ezteq]

dude that's awesome lol!!

I think you really do need a good advertising campaign, mail shots etc to companies that are likely to use your service. Also (have just done my marketing module so have some ideas and stuff about this thing, no expert just what I've read) but maybe a referral reward scheme so if one of your other customers passes on a recommendation to use your service to another company and you get money from it you could maybe give the company that recommended you a discount from their next order?

Lots of companies do this the 'tell a friend' system and offer things like amazon vouchers or something but I think you would do well enough just to offer a discount on what you do anyway then that comapny will be sure to come back for future work.

Do you have a website? because just having a good informative website and then getting links to it on other relevant sites would be useful and get your company seen.

I really mean this mate, good luck with it I love to see folk succeed when they do something like this, well done!

 

[Amanita]

I work for a similar agency I think, we do a digital, (I am a website developer), print and motion although we're part of a bigger group that is centered around events.

From what I can tell from our busy account handlers we market ourselves with mailing lists, attending networking events, sending our sales guys into the world to meet prospective clients and coldcalling.

Maybe your first step could be to create yourself an awesome profile pack and send it out to the list of your old clients telling them that your company has now changed hands and you're worth dealing with them again.

Oh, and buy a website from us

Good luck with your company!