The Kingdom Of Fife, Scotland

Local Marketing In Action

Our World has changed in many ways during the last fifty years. Technology has become a major part of our lives whether invited or not. Social patterns have changed too as a consequence and with direct impact upon the marketplace we once knew and accepted as normal. Many of these changes are described elsewhere on this web site and need no further description or detail in this column. Suffice it to say that we are unlikely to see British manufacture or new large employers emerge in the near future. What remains are many more localised businesses than previously existed. Around 1985, Fife had around 6,000 businesses whereby today, that figure has blossomed to around twice that number. The time when hundreds were employed in Fife factories has been and gone. Self Employment is at the highest level ever recorded.

Marketing Methods For Small Business

By far, this huge expansion of businesses in the region owes origin to many people made jobless or facing a time of crisis in mid-life when employment opportunites are rare. The braver ones among our community have decided to venture into the World of entrepreneurship where long hours of labour and competition do not always guarantee a rosy or generous future. According to statistical data available from several sources, most of these new enterprises will be small companies and sole traders by definition. They are typically more limited in terms of resources than established competitors and sadly, many will fail within the first few years.

One of the greatest problems for any business is how to attract customers. Typically, this will involve some form of marketing and advertising. There is no doubt Television and Radio advertising carry the greatest impact but both methods are costly. From start to finish, your advert might last a few seconds and it is impossible to know how many potential customers actually saw or heard the broadcast. To make sure of getting the message across, repeats of the original broadcast might be necessary, and since prices are charged per second, the overall campaign might prove costly. What's worse is that media adverts of this type is likely to address areas where smaller companies do not operate. Similar comments can be applied to many newspapers and magazines.

Traditionally, newspapers have been the leading source of advertising for many companies, and long before either television and radio were invented. Within their pages, adverts range from full page to much smaller classifieds; the latter comprising just a few lines of text. Depending on the size of advert and the readership estimates of the paper, the rates charged for advertising vary greatly. Like television and radio, the adverts are transitory and may require repeating over several issues before making an impact. From a consumer viewpoint though, it is news and articles that influence the decision to buy - not adverts. The practice of having adverts placed towards the rear of the publication and separate from the editorial text minimises the effective value of many adverts. A large proportion of readers will read the editorial and discard the rest!

Newspapers and Magazines have other problems in that electronic media means declining readership while costs of production and distribution are rising rapidly. Already, the age of specialist magazines has largely evaporated and the level of readership needed to sustain such publications is getting higher. Despite modern technology, the cost of publishing local newspapers means collective journalistic talent with several newspapers clubbed together into one with a single printing press. Printing on paper means that whatever is produced is static and cannot readily be updated. Even if wholly created from recycled paper, printing ultimately means waste. Distribution of newspapers and magazines is highly inefficient and is inherently prone to inflationary costs perhaps more than other forms of media. Fife has about seventeen newspapers in current circulation.

For some companies, mailshots are still a popular form of advertising but despite the hire and usage of specialist mailing lists, an element of the 'scatter gun' approach remains with low returns being typical for most industries. The vast bulk of mailshots are never read and quickly discarded as waste. To cover these losses, companies must be buying cheaply and selling at much higher prices else they will make a loss. If the price is too high then they risk being uncompetitive. Mailshots also invite resentment from many people and who regard unsolicited mail in poor light. Mailshots delivered by mail is increasingly expensive as postal service charges rise to cope with inflationary pressures such as fuel costs etc. Mailshots still have a place in marketing but work better with existing customers keen to learn about new products and services.

For local companies, some of the cheapest forms of advertising involves eye-catching signage on buildings and vehicles associated with the business. In the latter case, some additional insurance premiums may be involved and changes in excise duty charged by the government. These days, it is possible to design a very good poster on a home computer, save it in postscript form, and then have a local printer run off thousands of copies far more cheaply than any other method. Distributing such posters often means walking around the areas where business might hopefully be gleaned, yet even here, care is needed. Don't place flyers of this kind on car windscreens since you may be breaking the law. In fact, it might be wiser to seek legal council before starting on a campaign of this kind!

Of course, there is another way to get company recognition and sales. It can turn out to be hugely expensive or else the most effective investment ever made. It all depends on how the issue is approached. We're talking about the World Wide Web of the Internet. Going it alone using systems like Adwords can be horrendously difficult for some businesses and fail to reach the local audience in sufficient quantity to justify the expenditure. This is one area where FifeServe can help tremendously.

Cost Effective Marketing For Small Business

Nobody can deny the Internet has come a long way since inception. This has been due to better communication using digital technology and necessary standardisation of page design codes to ensure greater accessibility. The hardware necessary for such a system to work is now far more reliable, has greater capacity and yet costs far less than a few decades ago. Usage of the Internet is no longer a cyberspace where 'geeks' hang out but where a growing number of all ages are regular visitors. 'Silver Surfers' of post retirement age are within the fastest growing area of the Internet and many now prefer shopping online than any other alternative method. The rapid growth of home delivery services is testimony to the fulfillment side of Internet trading. It's a trend set to continue as motoring costs rise. Supermarket chains are investing in their web sites and some have begun ordering new generation electric powered delivery vehicles to service increased need in the future! Using expensive pay-per-click campaigns, large companies can afford to ensure premier ranking in most search engines.

By contrast, smaller business operators are rarely in the same league. A single Google Adwords campaign lasting just a few weeks, can quickly run into thousands of pounds without one single positive result! Large companies can afford to write off such failures but smaller businesses typically cannot. Pay-Per-Click systems are also designed to maximise the amount of revenue gathered by the operator and that can mean adverts appearing in usless places where the chances of getting sales is virtually zero. An advert for a plumber based in Fife is unlikely to benefit from paid adverts appearing in New Zealand!

The Internet offers a price competitive platform for many Fife companies to look beyond local frontiers and do business on a more continental and global scale. We're proud to say we've used the Internet to help local companies turn zero earner web sites into significant growth areas of their business in the past and will doubtless be called upon to do so again in the future. Such work helps generate growth, employment, stability, income and yes, taxation revenue for the benefit of the community. If your business is in this category and based in Fife; you might benefit from giving us a call or an email! Just realise, we're not your average suit-and-tie brigade and accept we've been down this road many times already!

For smaller businesses in Fife, the road ahead is hard because it seems there is no ideal medium in which good results can be obtained at reasonable cost and with sufficient longevity as to promote real and lasting results. An advert missed on radio, television or in print is gone forever but an advert within the FifeServe Project can last up to a year and far beyond. The 'trick' to acheiving such powerful advertising is via feature and sponsorship of a project dedicated to the local readership. By creating a new localised marketing brand on the Internet and among a local population, opportunities for reaching a more local audience is more attainable and at far less cost than any other form of advertising available.

FifeServe can deliver more customers to your business in Fife than any other Internet Based System and at far less cost than almost every other form of advertising!

Of course, there have been promises and Internet websites before that listed local businesses and where a few went on to describe Fife and Scotland in significant detail. Unfortunately, such web sites had no hope of delivering additional business to their sponsors because material describing Fife, Scotland and local history is likely to engender a readership among people who do not live in the region. By contrast, the FifeServe Initiative is designed to raise awareness and readership within the region. We plan to use a number of ways to make local more aware of FifeServe and how it can help them on a regular basis. We intend to support this with important articles and news affecting the region and help with commonly encountered problems. As stated elsewhere, people do not buy newspapers, or use radio and televsion with a view to being influenced into buying products but rather with a view to gleaning useful information. Companies with adverts on FifeServe pages stand a better chance of getting business from local people. Extra business can also mean more employment and opportunities within the region.

Of course, we haven't forgotten the waste aspect of conventional advertising, and which explains why we have chosen the Internet as the best medium to deliver our messages and advertising. Using the Internet means we are able to constantly expand the range of articles available and modify older items at minimal cost and effort. The result means advertising can be charged at a fraction of what other media systems cost. In addition, we can retain adverts on the web site for as long as needed. Updating the adverts is also far less costly and there is minimal waste from an environmental viewpoint. Our competitive rates, discount options and simple rules are presented on another page in this section. We think you'll be pleasantly surprised to learn how we can offer business advertising lasting a whole year from as little as £2 per week!