Please critique my biz plan & direct mail piece for new text marketing business.
OK so I've decided to add text marketing to my business as I truly believe it is going to be very popular very soon here in the UK.
If anyone is interested here is my plan and how I have set it up.
Gone with Trumpia white label reseller program
Mobile Marketing White Label and Reseller Program for SMS Text Message Marketing & Advertising. Leader in Mobile SMS Marketing | Trumpia.com
Managed to secure a discount that they offer to warriors only. This reduced the setup fees to £200 and they threw in the marketing collateral as well. Pretty good of them I thought - They told me over the phone that the reason they do this is because warriors tend to do very well! I found that quite encouraging.
Decided to keep things completely separate to my existing business that offers websites/SEO and bought new domain UpText.co.uk
They ask you to point the DNS to their server and I just used the landing page they provided and customized it myself to something unique. The whole system is then branded to you.
So far all looks good. The support at Trumpia seems pretty good, the system is all up and working and I'm ready to start prospecting!
So as you gathered I'm UK based and it's a double edged sword really. On one hand I feel that I'm positioned really well in the fact that there is very little competition here - only a few bigger companies and medical places seem to have really started using this. On the other hand it feels like very new territory. I have no existing models to copy/compare to establish my pricing structure and people seem a little sceptical about text marketing. I think it's to do with a few rogue companies that have been in operation here in the past giving it a bad name.
I'm willing to work with this though because if it turns out how i think it will then it will be more than worth the effort.
So to start with I am going to target two niches that I believe are going to be the easiest sale; Pubs and Salons - here's my reasoning:
Pubs. There are pubs everywhere in England, it's a massive part of our culture and I have spent a lot of time in them! Due to the recent economic downturn a high percentage of these have closed and as a result the ones that are left have been forced to up their marketing game to survive. This has essentially weeded out those landlords/ladies that are not willing to move with the times and so what you find now is that are open to new marketing ideas and they offer lots of promotions on a very frequent basis.
This includes live music at the weekends, food being offered at the premises, and other events such as partys, BBQ's, Quiz nights etc. A lot of rural pubs use their restaurants as the main draw to get people out there to them.
These places are usually quieter in the day and the landlords are normally around so I'm just going to walk into these places and start talking. The only thing I'm unsure about is the actual pricing of my service and how much I can get away with charging whilst keeping their campaigns profitable. This is undoubtedly the key to this being successful. If they can't get a positive ROI then it aint gonna last!
So I've decided to approach my local pub and just sit down and ask him to reveal his operating figures and try and work out what is going to work. Once I have a few places up and running successfully I think it will be an easy sell after that.
The other niche is salons and this is going to be a different approach. I am going to use the appointment reminder service as the main benefit, and then add in the fact that they can also market to this list as well. There are reminder services operating here in the UK but they seem to be for dentists and doctors surgeries only. I think this is because they integrate with the medical/booking software via an API and this appeals to them immensely even if it is at a much higher price.
There are plenty of other places such as hairdressing salons, chiropractors, nail bars, physiotherapists etc that make lots of appointments but don't seem to use text reminders. These are my target and I think they will be an even easier sell if you work through the figures on how much they can save on missed appointments. It would go a bit like this:
OK Mrs business owner, how many appointments go to waste every month due to people forgetting? And how much is an appointment worth to you? Multiply those two figures together and that's how much you lose per month. Now if that figure is more than the £50 I'm going to charge you to fix this then it looks like my service could save you money! Plus you are building a subscriber list and can market to them whenever you want.
The problem with these places though are that you can't just walk in an expect the decision maker to be able to talk. They are usually cutting hair and can't just drop things to chat. So I've decided to use a direct mail piece to start things off. Here it is.
Basic theory I have followed.
Keep it short - no more than one page
Headline to catch attention - borrowed from Jason Fladlien
Get the pain on the table - try to identify the problems they may have
Offer the solution
Call to action
This will be sent in a standard white envelope with handwritten address. I don't have names of the owners so just going to address it to the business name.
I intend to follow up with a call to see if they got it and what they think and try to book an appointment.
So there's my business plan to date. Please feel free to tear it to shreds and give constructive criticism. Can't wait to hear your replies! Hopefully I'll come back and give you an update on my progress. Wish me luck!
If anyone is interested here is my plan and how I have set it up.
Gone with Trumpia white label reseller program
Mobile Marketing White Label and Reseller Program for SMS Text Message Marketing & Advertising. Leader in Mobile SMS Marketing | Trumpia.com
Managed to secure a discount that they offer to warriors only. This reduced the setup fees to £200 and they threw in the marketing collateral as well. Pretty good of them I thought - They told me over the phone that the reason they do this is because warriors tend to do very well! I found that quite encouraging.
Decided to keep things completely separate to my existing business that offers websites/SEO and bought new domain UpText.co.uk
They ask you to point the DNS to their server and I just used the landing page they provided and customized it myself to something unique. The whole system is then branded to you.
So far all looks good. The support at Trumpia seems pretty good, the system is all up and working and I'm ready to start prospecting!
So as you gathered I'm UK based and it's a double edged sword really. On one hand I feel that I'm positioned really well in the fact that there is very little competition here - only a few bigger companies and medical places seem to have really started using this. On the other hand it feels like very new territory. I have no existing models to copy/compare to establish my pricing structure and people seem a little sceptical about text marketing. I think it's to do with a few rogue companies that have been in operation here in the past giving it a bad name.
I'm willing to work with this though because if it turns out how i think it will then it will be more than worth the effort.
So to start with I am going to target two niches that I believe are going to be the easiest sale; Pubs and Salons - here's my reasoning:
Pubs. There are pubs everywhere in England, it's a massive part of our culture and I have spent a lot of time in them! Due to the recent economic downturn a high percentage of these have closed and as a result the ones that are left have been forced to up their marketing game to survive. This has essentially weeded out those landlords/ladies that are not willing to move with the times and so what you find now is that are open to new marketing ideas and they offer lots of promotions on a very frequent basis.
This includes live music at the weekends, food being offered at the premises, and other events such as partys, BBQ's, Quiz nights etc. A lot of rural pubs use their restaurants as the main draw to get people out there to them.
These places are usually quieter in the day and the landlords are normally around so I'm just going to walk into these places and start talking. The only thing I'm unsure about is the actual pricing of my service and how much I can get away with charging whilst keeping their campaigns profitable. This is undoubtedly the key to this being successful. If they can't get a positive ROI then it aint gonna last!
So I've decided to approach my local pub and just sit down and ask him to reveal his operating figures and try and work out what is going to work. Once I have a few places up and running successfully I think it will be an easy sell after that.
The other niche is salons and this is going to be a different approach. I am going to use the appointment reminder service as the main benefit, and then add in the fact that they can also market to this list as well. There are reminder services operating here in the UK but they seem to be for dentists and doctors surgeries only. I think this is because they integrate with the medical/booking software via an API and this appeals to them immensely even if it is at a much higher price.
There are plenty of other places such as hairdressing salons, chiropractors, nail bars, physiotherapists etc that make lots of appointments but don't seem to use text reminders. These are my target and I think they will be an even easier sell if you work through the figures on how much they can save on missed appointments. It would go a bit like this:
OK Mrs business owner, how many appointments go to waste every month due to people forgetting? And how much is an appointment worth to you? Multiply those two figures together and that's how much you lose per month. Now if that figure is more than the £50 I'm going to charge you to fix this then it looks like my service could save you money! Plus you are building a subscriber list and can market to them whenever you want.
The problem with these places though are that you can't just walk in an expect the decision maker to be able to talk. They are usually cutting hair and can't just drop things to chat. So I've decided to use a direct mail piece to start things off. Here it is.
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From one business owner to another... How would you like to learn about text message marketing and how it can help your business? Do you ever lose money from missed appointments? Do you wish you could keep your existing customers in the loop and update them with your offers, events and promotions? Are you struggling to find new customers without spending a small fortune? If so then Text message marketing can help you. Mobile is the FUTURE Your message gets SEEN- 93% of all texts messages are opened and most of those within minutes. Think for a minute...Who do you know that doesn't have a mobile phone? Text marketing gives you a direct line to your customers for instant communication. It's cheap - Texts are sent for just pennies and it's very difficult not to get a positive return on investment from any campaign It's easy - Build your subscriber list over time and market to them anytime, you can even send a message to your whole list directly from your own phone. It doesn't get any simpler. If you want to see how my text marketing service can save you money and find you new customers then I'm just a phone call away. My name is Paul Martin and my company is called Uptext.co.uk. I'm locally based and if you would like me to pop in and chat with you just give me a call and we'll arrange a time! My number is XXXXXXXX and email XXXXXXXXXXXXX |
Keep it short - no more than one page
Headline to catch attention - borrowed from Jason Fladlien
Get the pain on the table - try to identify the problems they may have
Offer the solution
Call to action
This will be sent in a standard white envelope with handwritten address. I don't have names of the owners so just going to address it to the business name.
I intend to follow up with a call to see if they got it and what they think and try to book an appointment.
So there's my business plan to date. Please feel free to tear it to shreds and give constructive criticism. Can't wait to hear your replies! Hopefully I'll come back and give you an update on my progress. Wish me luck!
Deliver Bigger.
www.Trumpia.com
Trumpia: The Most Completed SMS Text Messaging Software & API Solution.