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March 2013 Update

TheMonster Under the Bed

Ordering his sandwich he struck up a conversation with the owner who proceeded to tell him how bad business was. “It’s the recession you know!” The owner said. My friend was stunned. The recession was so bad people had stopped eating now?

Interestingly, it turned out that business had dropped off dramatically since the owner had invested in a brand new caravan and cooking equipment… what they hadn’t invested in was signage!

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out why they had seen sales drop off, they couldn’t have been harder to find if they’d parked up behind a hedge. But in the owner’s mind, it was down to the recession; that monster under the bed that devours businesses.

So here we go again. What are we in now? Recession? Double dip recession, Tortillas and dip recession? New and improved recession? The name changes more often than I change my socks; I just can’t keep up! This constant barrage of dramatic, bad news got me thinking about a story a friend of mine told me.

One early morning, while travelling home, my friend had an overwhelming urge for a bacon sandwich so he went in search of a ‘Butty Van’. Taking the A road rather than the motorway the miles rolled past but no van was to be seen. Finally, just as he was about to give up he spotted a caravan parked up at the top of the hill. The closer he got the more it looked like a family on holiday, until, at the last minute, he noticed the tell-tale cut out at the front.

Bestof-Lowestoft-March2013.indd 1 22/02/2013 14:42

Offer of the MonthFree Pure Bliss back massage worth £28 with every facial.

Offer of the Month Details: GlamR Make Up, Beauty and Hair is one of the best beauty salons in the area and offers a wide range of beauty treatments at great prices!

Ladies will feel pampered and gents nicely groomed with this great offer from Maria and her team at GlamR in Oulton Broad.

Valid until 30th April 2013

Call 01502 541342

Have a great month...

Ian & Wendy

www.thebestof.co.uk/lowestoft Update March 2013

The recession makes the perfect monster. It is invisible to the naked eye and utterly silent. The media can attribute everything that is wrong with the business world to it

because it never answers back. It is the bogeyman of the adult world and a perfect scapegoat!

Now I’m not going to deny that our economy is not as buoyant as it was 6 years ago. That would be ridiculous. But assuming the demise of a company is purely down to the recession is also ridiculous and, quite frankly, irresponsible. Note the word I use…. irresponsible. To me, irresponsible doesn’t just mean unreliable, it means ‘the inability to respond’. While business owners sit back and lay all their woes at the feet of the monster under the bed, they are not finding out the true reasons as to why sales are dropping or customers aren’t returning. Whether it’s signage, failure to utilise new technologies like social media, not recognising the changing requirements of their customers (see HMV for details), or owners simply not marketing their businesses because they haven’t had to before, all of these issues can be dealt with. Sadly, the Butty Van probably won’t be there the next time my friend craves a bacon sandwich. A real shame as there are plenty of people who not only want them but will take a different, and often longer, route home to find them.

So, before you feed yourselves, your businesses and your bank balances to the monster under the bed, ask yourself a few questions:

Do I really know who my customers are and what they want?

Do I know why my customers buy from me?

Are my customer’s needs changing?

Do I provide my customers with what they want, or what I think they want?

If I wanted to buy from me, how would I find me?

How many customers do I actually need?

Am I doing everything I can to encourage customers, new and old, to keep coming back?

You will probably find, a small change in your marketing, your offering or the type of relationship you have with your customers will consign the monster under the bed to the media’s and your children’s imagination, where it belongs!

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The People Behind The BusinessWe’re right made up about Lowestoft’s Maria GilesMaria has had a passion for make-up since she was a little girl and in 2001 she decided to make her dream of becoming a make-up artist a reality. She trained at the Jemma Kidd School of make-up in London. Her children were very young at the time so she was constantly back and forth from Lowestoft to London but her efforts paid off when she passed with flying colours.

After graduation, Maria assisted Samantha Chapman who immediately booked Maria with clients. Maria’s skills were honed alongside the elite of the beauty world where she prepped, primed and polished to perfection.

Maria then opened her own small make-up shop in 2008 where she was a stockist of bare minerals, sleek and pixi make up as well as Moroccan oil hair and van-t. This was definitely new and innovative for Lowestoft.

She built her reputation in East Anglia as a makeup artist but also worked on many magazines and in TV in London and the surrounding area. As if working on famous faces and weddings wasn’t enough she also started offering make-up lessons and advice.

Due to the popular demand of the salon Maria decided to take the plunge and opened GlamR just a few shops up from her first salon in Bridge Road, Oulton Broad. This new salon, in the old Hayden Chemists, has 3 treatment rooms, two nail stations a double pedicure area and a large shop front with a wide range of make-up, tanning, hair and skincare products.

GlamR is the largest stockists of make-up in the area and also has a popular hairdressing area with a stylist with over 20 year’s experience.

Just to prove how good Maria and her young team are, the salon has been nominated as one of the Top 5 Beauty Salons in the East. Maria has also been nominated in the Best Make-up Artist category.

Assisting some of the top artists, Maria made a name for herself in the industry, securing the position of key make-up artist for the Sandra Reynolds agency and has worked on such projects Find Me A Face (ITV2), Ass on Wags boutique, Miss Sixty Jewellery, Loreal, Argos, Chapelfield and many other publications.

And a little bit of name-dropping now… Maria has worked her magic on Sara Cox, Denise van Outen, Jo Wiley and Anna Ryder Richardson.

It’s great that we’ve got someone as talented as Maria right here in Lowestoft because with her talents she would not be out of place in the swankier parts of London.

If ‘looking good’ is ‘feeling good’ then Maria’s customers must be feeling fantastic!

It could

be you!

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We’re always looking for ways to showcase our business members and spread the message about what thebestof Lowestoft is achieving locally. Here’s just a couple of ways that we’re doing just that…

Success with Social MediaBack in November we decided that we needed to get to grips with Facebook. To some people Facebook is the epitome of time wasting. We’d have to disagree wholeheartedly. That’s where your customers are spending time – you should be there too!

Since mid-November we’ve added over 1000 ‘Likes’ which gives us a growing audience of local people that we can interact with on a daily basis. And it’s not about ‘selling’, it’s about engaging with people, making them more aware of our brand and what we’re doing in Lowestoft.

And we’ve had success with Twitter and YouTube too. A video we made to promote our 14 Days of Love campaign went viral with over 9000 views after local Olympic boxing hero, Anthony Ogogo, retweeted our message to over 50000 followers.

Social media does work. Give us a call to discuss how it could work for you and your business.

14 Days of Love warms up a cold old February...Now in its fourth year, our national 14 Days of Love campaign is the ideal way for local people to show some love for the businesses they like to use.

And for our business members they get to feel all warm and fuzzy when they get reviews from their happy customers.

It gets very competitive too!

Some of our local member businesses achieved amazing results nationally in their category:

Flowers by Sarah Jane – most loved Florist in the UK. Well done to Ann and Paula.

NG Training – most loved Training and Development business in the UK. A great result for husband and wife team, Nigel and Lynne Gilham.

Anchor Smokehouse – most loved delicatessen in the UK. Gemma Raven from Anchor Smokehouse was chuffed to bits to get the top spot. Well done Gemma, John and the team...

Little surprise that these great local businesses took the top three positions of Most Loved businesses in Lowestoft too.

They were closely followed by Robert Owen Haircutters, Café Grand, GlamR Makeup, Hair & Beauty, Knight Vision Optical Ltd., Country Chiropractic Ltd., Donna Bidwell Travel Counsellor and Gooch Accident Repair Centre Ltd.

Around 500 reviews were received by our Lowestoft member businesses in just 14 days!

These are just two of the ways that we help to showcase and promote the truly great businesses of Lowestoft.

Want to know more? Call us on 01502 512888 to arrange to meet for a coffee and a chat.

www.thebestof.co.uk/lowestoft Update January 2013

Working Well...“Share your

successes and let

Ian & Wendy

know what bits

of thebestof are

working

for you.”

At thebestof Lowestoft we are on the lookout for other great members. This month we are looking for....

• MOT Test Centres

• Locksmiths

• Nails and Manicure

• Electricians

If you know a business that fits the bill please contact the team...

01502 512 888

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Give them a call & make them feel welcome

We’ve uncovered more hidden gems over the last few weeks. A big welcome to the following businesses who have joined us recently:

WOW GREATSERVICE

fab

what acompanyVERy

helpful

East Coast CinemaEast Coast Cinema in Lowestoft has four screens and shows a wide range of films to suit all age groups. See all the latest blockbuster films at Lowestoft’s only digital and 3D enabled cinema.

Call: 01502 564567

Happily Ever After PhotographyHappily Ever After Photography is run by experienced photographer, Sarah Carter. She provides weddings and portrait photography to clients throughout Lowestoft, Suffolk, Norfolk and Essex.Boasting fresh, creative and innovative photography, Sarah knows how to capture special moments and emotions as they happen.

Call: 07810 833522

Skin GraphicsSkin Graphics offer a professional tattooing and body piercing service in a friendly and relaxed environment. The qualified staff have a reputation for being some of the best tattooists in the UK.

Call: 01502 543156

Cooper and Meadows Plumbing & Heating LtdCooper and Meadows Plumbing & Heating Ltd in Lowestoft specialise in providing plumbing and heating services to clients throughout the area. They are also an installer with the Government backed Green Deal energy saving home improvement initiative.

Call: 01502 543153

Bestof-Lowestoft-March2013.indd 5 22/02/2013 14:42

www.thebestof.co.uk/lowestoft Update January 2013

Awards and accolades take this a step further. In my eyes, only the excep-tional win awards; they are a marque that says you’re better than all the others. Switch on the TV any night of the week and you’ll see Aldi proudly displaying their ‘Which Supermarket of the Year’ accolade at the end of each ad. This is particularly important in the current economic climate. It’s not that people aren’t spending money anymore; it’s that they are more dis-cerning about where they spend it. We only have to compare the demise of Woolworths and the consistent year on year growth at Argos to see this in action.

A few years ago Boost Marketing did a survey called “Awards – Vanity or Sanity?” Not only were they looking at whether there was a commercial importance to awards, but also whether the economic climate had increased interest in awards in general.

80% of respondents said consumers were influenced by the presence of an award.

Ok, it seems like a bit of a no brainer, but let’s actually look at this for a moment. Say you need a plumber and none of the people you know can recommend one. You find two on the internet that ‘look’ trustworthy and professional; one has the City & Guilds logo, Guild of Master Plumbers logo, BPEC logo and a Subcontractor of the Year award. The other one doesn’t. Which one are you going to ring first?

49% of respondents said that award winning companies provided superior product and services.

Now this is a biggie! These respondents didn’t just think award winners were superior suppliers, they knew it. How much would you pay to ensure your potential customers knew that you provided a superior product or service?

70% of respondents believed awards were important for generating new business.

The British Quality Foundation take this one step further and state that, on average, small businesses show an increase of 63% in operating income. Let me just say that again…. an increase of 63%!

In truth, that isn’t even half the story! The list of benefits an accolade or award can bring goes on:

There is nothing better than receiving recognition for the work that you do; a sincere well done from a work colleague or a heartfelt thank you from a customer can change a not so good day into a brilliant one!

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TrustIn any business relationship, trust is the most important thing. It’s the thing we spend more time on than anything else when creating a relationship with our prospective clients. Awards build trust immediately because someone independent has judged your business by a set of fixed criteria and found you to be something exceptional. Money simply cannot buy that!

Customer and Employee LoyaltyInvariably, when people talk about the benefits of awards they concentrate on the new business they can bring in, completely forgetting the people you’re already working with.

Employees gain a real sense of pride from awards; after all, their work has contributed to the achievement. Customers also share in the pride; the award gives ‘social proof’ to what they already know, their printer/ accountant/driving instructor is the best.

Marketing OpportunitiesIf 80% of consumers are influenced by the presence of an award, then the fact you have one should be shouted from the rooftops. Every letter, every email, your website, Facebook, Twitter, the local Press should be hearing about it. For press particularly, a success story for a local business it exactly the kind of good news story they want. If you’ve been kind enough to write the story for them on a press release, they don’t have to!

DifferentiationIf you’ve ever read any marketing or sales books you will have come across the word ‘differentiation’ or ‘how is my business different to my competition?’ As I said earlier, in my eyes only the exceptional get awards, that differentiates you straight away because you are better than all the rest. That is a Unique Selling Point that all marketers would kill for!

Validation & TestimonyAnybody who’s ever had a conversation with me will tell you the importance I place on reviews. Once again, it’s all about social proof. ‘If all these people believe this business is good then it must be’. An award strengthens this even further as it not only confirms the reviews you already have, it then states that you are better than the rest as well.

My question to you is this. When did you last enter an award or shout about your own accolades? If you don’t do this you can guarantee nobody else will!

Take a look at our recent 14 Days of Love winners on our loveometer www.thebestof.co.uk/loveometer to see just how our very own have stood out from the rest!

I encourage you, today, to start shouting from the rooftops about your own accolades. It will boost your business in every way!

Bestof-Lowestoft-March2013.indd 7 22/02/2013 14:42

Coming Soon

Our aim is to provide the best businesses in Lowestoft with aworld classmarketing service.We’ll raise your profile, connect you to new contacts and customers - and maximise your business potential.

We really do care about every one of our Business Members and we are there every step of the way to ensure that thebestof works for you.

Our 17 marketing tools

Thebestof Lowestoft is run by Wendy Takman and Ian Carter

Here at thebestof Lowestoft, word of mouth just got louder!

Every business we feature has been checked out by us AND recommended by other local people so you can use them with confidence knowing they truly are one of the best at what they do...

Call Us: 01502 512888Email: lowestoft@thebestof.co.uk

GlamR Pamper Night – 27th March from 6.30pm. [Members only]We know this will prove popular with the ladies so get your place booked right NOW! Meet Maria and her talented team as they let you try out many of their pamper treatments. And guys, you can come too… More and more gents are turning to grooming to make them look and feel great.

Join the Conversation - Mid-April [date and venue TBC]Social media is here to stay – whether you like it or not! This is word of mouth marketing for the 21st Century. You’d be bonkers not to be using it to engage with existing and prospective customers.

Together with Beccie Amer, our Social Media expert, we’ll explain why it’s so important that you join the conversation…

1. Testimonials

2. Dual-branded postcards

3. Mix and match

4. Commercial photos

5. Certificates

6. Brand Awareness

7. Campaigns

8. Call Tracking

9. An Evening with

10. Social Media

11. Blog

12. Events

13. Video

14. Special offers for members

15. Quote me

16. Mobile Website and App

17. Website feature

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