Advice needed from small business owners or anyone that can help with ideas on how to turn a business around!

[bodiddly]

I am really after some fresh ideas if anyone has any ... I run a small interior design retail shop in London that sells curtains, blinds, kitchens, bathrooms, flooring .. does interior design and total property refurbishments. We are REALLY struggling at the moment with getting work in and if things dont buck up then I will be out of a job as we will be forced to shut up shop. We do not have much to spend in terms of advertising/marketing but just wondered if anyone had any experience of how to get trade up! We have some professionally produced card/leaflets that we can mailshot in the local area but from past experience this doesnt really bring much in. Our web site isnt up and running yet and we know this is a factor so are remedying it at the moment. We tried a few months ago to mailshot local estate agents, architects and designers but with no luck. What are we missing? Desperately need a fresh perspective on this .. PLEASE!!!

anyone?

What about branching out into staging homes for sale?

Is there a professional association you could join to network in? Stall at a trade fair or an advertorial in a local paper?

Hi bodiddly

Firstly - your cards/leaflets - what do you have on there? The most effective thing you can have in a mailshot ime are testimonials from people in a similar field. So if you're mailshotting architects, have testimonials from architects who've used your shop before & will put their name to a rave review.

Target everything - make it personal to the people you've sent it to. People spot & bin a mass-mailout straightaway - you have a much better chance if you've bothered to know who you're sending it to. So do your research & start your letter with something personal eg. Dear Mr. Jones, I noticed in the Ham & High that your architectural practice has recently landed the contract for... etc etc Dear Mr Smith, I recently noticed the photoshoot in XYZ magazine of your work....

Don't EVER start with 'Dear Madam, we are writing to introduce you to our new service...' or even worse, just send a leaflet with no covering letter. Make sure your marketing materials aren't all about you, but all about your clients.

Avoid 'brand awareness' marketing - CocaCola and Nike can afford brand marketing - small businesses can't. Concentrate on personalised messages with a clear call to action.

Do you have contact sheets with an ongoing strategy for building the contacts - updates etc.?

Erm, I could go on for ever - small business marketing is my thing! Feel free to ask me some specific questions if what I've said seems helpful.
Best of luck - it's a scarey time for all business owners at the moment.

thank you all ...

ninedragons ... I have done a few show homes etc for developers but that is nigh on impossible to get into at the moment ... developers just aren't building things. We have a sister company which is an architecture practice which I worked in for 10 years! Staging private homes for sale is an interesting idea but it is how to go about getting to people to get them to use our services that I am finding tricky!

SimplySally ... London trade fairs etc are soooo expensive - something we really cant afford at the moment. I have been wondering about the whole ad in local paper route but I am not sure whether people look in their classifieds section for high end goods? Do you think they would?

becstarlitsea ..I have to admit the cards/leaflets are more a "drop through people's front door" leaflets about 1/3 of A4 sheet with our name, address, a listing of our services and photographic images and a message saying Call to arrange your free consultation. They were produced a couple of years ago and are largely given out as a reminder of the shop when people pop in with a quick enquiry. They serve a purpose but we would not use them to approach professional architect/designer clients.

You are right about the mass mail out letters we have addressed them to Mr or Mrs and in some cases been in and asked to see them when delivering the letters but they probably are too generic. Will start scouring the papers/magazines with people to approach I guess.

We are in a difficult position as the majority of our clients are walk by trade and everything from a person from the estate opposite wanting a roller blind to £150k worth of refurbishment work in Kensington. Our best business comes from city boys (sorry about the stereotype) who buy a flat, want it done up but dont want anything to do with it ... so hand us a big lump of money and let us get on with it. They then live in it/rent it/move on to the next one. Our main problem is how to get to these people to let them know about our services. I know times are tight but there is still the theory that people who cant afford to move are spending the money on extending or improving their homes instead. Any ideas on how to target individuals like this?

I agree London trade fairs are expensive (I'm in London too), and I suspect most of the free business link events wouldn't have enough people from your market there. Worth watching the events bulletins though as they are quite varied.

I wouldn't spend on advertising. My motto for marketing small businesses is 'Be lavish with the time & attention you spend on your marketing, but be stingy as hell anything which costs money in cash'. Better to do two hours research, write a crafted personal letter followed up by a phonecall and and occasional e-mail of the 'saw this information and thought it might be helpful to you' variety (cost - lots of your time, and about 20 pence in cash), rather than paying a few hundred pounds for an ad which might not reach your key buyers and might not 'speak' to them as an individual even if they see it. Do some PR rather than paying for advertising - offer newsworthy stories to your local paper. If you're not sure what's newsworthy for them, phone the features editor and tell them what you do and find out what they'd be interested to hear about - if you can supply high quality photos that helps too.

Ideas to target those individuals -
I'd advise that you contact those clients you worked for before. Say that you're checking for customer satisfaction (which is good practice anyway) and want to find out if are still happy with the work you did for them. They might want something else, who knows... Include in the survey questions which will help you target 'people like them' ie what bar do they drink in? what websites do they visit? where do they do research before making a purchase? Then use that information to find more people like them.

thanks becstarlitsea ... very helpful - if you have any more ideas they would be gratefully received. I will look into contacting the local papers and magazines ... do you have to pay when they do feature profiles/articles on companies where there is no news story as such? We have had offers from them in the past but only when we have been considering/paying for other advertising with them.

How about getting in touch with the marketing/HR depts of some big 'city boy' companies and offer them a small discount to any company employees in exchange for the HR dept emailing out info about you (that you will prepare) to all their employees?
A lot of companies like things like this as it makes them look good to their employees by getting them various local discounts.

bodiddly - if there's no story, and no content that's really interesting to them, you do usually have to pay (it's 'advertorial' rather than 'editorial'). But if you are charming to the features editor they will give you some clues about how to know what is news - eg. interiors trends? local property trends? Ask the editor lots of questions and be really, really nice

It's also worth checking out minority publications - there might be some which your potential clients are reading but which you would never realise even exist.

Since you're in London, have you checked out the business centre at the British Library? If you take your business card then it's free to join for all UK business owners. The membership card gives you access to all their databases and the staff are really helpful. You can find professional & trade organisations, databases of thousands of magazines & newsletters. Only danger is that I find I spend hours there - I enjoy researching a bit too much....

thanks everyone .. will come back later and read everything properly .. am just taking a mini order from a client! wahey ... its a start!

IME of sales, nothing works better than the personal touch. Everyone ignores mailshots. Follow them up with a phone call and ask for a meeting. Take along your portfolio and pitch yourself. Try and build up a personal rapport with the people who can give you the work.

People are much more likely to give you a go if they've met and spoken to you than if they've just seen a flyer.

Good luck! I really hope things turn around for you.