Beware of Barketing

Check your marketing for signs of barketing. Does your competition say “Buy from us. We have the best service, best price, best quality, blah, blah, blah…”?

Now compare that to your marketing. Are you echoing the same message? If you are sending the same message as your competition, then what your prospects hear is, “Woof, woof, woof, yap, yap, yap, bark, bark, bark…”

What is Barketing?

Barketing is a cross between marketing and barking like a dog. Barking is often repetitive, annoying and loud, and always a one-way message. You annoy customers with your message attempt, sound like the rest of the pack and display no finesse.

Barketing is any form of marketing that looks and sounds like “me too” to your prospects. It feels to your market like you are competing for attention by shouting louder.

Why is Barketing Bad for Business?

The best you can hope for is to confuse your prospects. (Duracell and Energizer batteries did this to each other with their too similar TV ads.)

A barking dog is probably not your friend. Your customers might conclude the same thing when you bark at them. People will ignore or shut out the noise.

If your marketing appears to only send the same message as your competition you are annoying your prospects with your noise and deflating your perceived value. Plus that wasted a pile of money and resources.

What do you think when a new potential supplier approaches you with the selling phrase, “I’m as good as the one you use now”? Why would you change?

Examine Your Marketing for These Signs of Barketing

As good as brand “X”
Clients speak of you in terms of being “as good as brand x”. That suggests that they see no noticeable difference between you. It’s a danger sign when your staff confides this to clients.

You advertise where your competition is
The ad rep taunts you with the words, “Your competition will be there”. Your blood boils – you immediately take the bait and sign up.

Your marketing appears to be an echo of the competition
Do you design your ads while looking at the competition? Change a colour and the contact information? Might a prospect look or listen to your promotions and not distinguish between you – if not for the name?

Twins – people get you confused
Clients call you by the name of your competition. A colleague introduces you incorrectly by citing your competition’s product line. You receive prospect calls for the competition and find yourself saying “No, that’s not us.”

Your brand is indistinguishable from the competition
Is your differentiation summarised in terms of colour? You’re the blue. They’re the gray. Do your slogans and tag lines sound similar to the competition?

You get locked in one-upmanship with your competition
They announce a 15% price reduction and you respond with an 18% reduction (and hold your breath). You hold a donut and coffee day and they volley back with a pancake breakfast. They give away an ipod and you consider giving an iphone.

The market is growing but not for you
New competitors are growing but in a different space of the market. They are avoiding your overcrowded customer space and harvesting more profitable specialised niches. You are so focused on your established but perhaps fuzzy target market that you ignore the newer opportunities and miss the rising threats. If you don’t watch out you might be blindsided.

Instead of Barking

When all the other dogs in the pound are barking, trying to bark louder will only get you noticed for the wrong things. When everyone else is barking you need to do something other than bark. Perhaps you should “meow”.

Notice the differences between the TV ads that you don’t skip and the ones that bore or annoy you. Make note of those differences and apply those techniques to your own marketing. Do the same thing as you are flipping through a magazine or perusing your mail.

Compare your strengths against their weaknesses

This is the best way to stand out from the competition and turn boring and annoying marketing messages into attention-grabbing and memorable. This is a strategic executive decision. This is not something that you delegate to your marketing coordinator.

Arm wrestle Paris Hilton but not the Hulk. Point out how beautiful you look next to the Hulk and how frugal you are compared to Paris Hilton. Watch the TV ads for Mac computers. The one with the two guys, “Hello I’m a Mac, Hello I’m a PC”. These ads focus on the differences – in particular the strengths of Mac and weaknesses of PC. They are bold, direct, and memorable. And it’s unfair to PCs. I encourage unfair marketing for my clients.

Are you able to list your strengths and promote them against the weaknesses of your competition? That will probably take some intensive probing. Do not take this lightly. Get outside help with this if it makes sense.

The next question is, are you bold enough to do it? This is where you discover, “How hungry are you? How big are your cajones?”

Domino’s Pizza never talked about the taste of their pizza just the speed of delivery. They built a hugely successful business on that one competitive difference.

Meow.

© George Torok – www.torok.com

Infinite WP: Log in once and for all!

If there one thing we know you all hate whiles browsing online, its logging and logging out.  There is a way of solving this little but taxing issue and that is by using ‘Infinite WP’.

What is Infinite WP? 

Infinite WP is your way of logging in just once to open up all of your WordPress dashboards. Yes, you heard right! Enter your login id and pass word just once and watch how you can attain access to all your WordPress dashboards on the same screen and in the same frame.

Infinite WP is a self hosted platform.

It’s also not just about logging in.  You can use their additional plugins to use things like backups, Google Analytics and much much more using their add-ons.

Save time: 

With an Infinite WP account you can save yourself all the time you would have otherwise used in logging in and logging out to switch from one account of WordPress to another.  Use your time more productively now.

Update all:

Infinite WP features an ‘Update all’ button. This facility allows you to sync your updates to all your WordPress accounts so that you don’t have to log into each site manually and update the site. An all round update is just a button away.

It’s time to back up a bit

Infinite WP also offers you a way of creating a back up for your WordPress installs, which we have used extensively. This way your content stays safe and you will always have it secured. Check out the Back up section of their site to know more about how one is created, deleted and restored. You can also download your back up as and when you require it.  They also now have an add on that can allow you to duplicate a site easily and efficiently without having to worry about that pesky SQL modifications after the site is live.

Infinite WP just works.

Let unnecessary clicking get out of you way and make way for the future in quick and efficient networking.

New Business Management System Solution

We’re finding it hard to keep quiet about our new offering which is in the pipeline!

Keeping secrets is always a challenge but there is no harm in letting you in on a little bit of exciting news we are struggling to contain. What we can tell you is that a Business Management System that will drive your business to achieve it’s goals is just within your reach. Currently in final phase is “BackboneBMS” (check the company out in our Portfolio) – an exciting project that assists in developing, documenting & implementing management systems for Business Processes, Business Disciplines and Business Forms with a focus on the achievement of corporate goals and continuous improvement.
Website Launching Soon

Stay tuned for launch date or get in touch to hear more about this exciting venture!

Props for BSP

So stoked to receive this testimonial from our fun and fabulous client Peachy Clean!!
“Absolutely LOVE the team at BSP Corporate! We trust them with all of our graphic design needs and they never disappoint. I’d tried so many graphic designers before going to BSP and was so frustrated at being charged like a wounded bull for every minor change and receiving artworks that were just on a different planet to what we had discussed. The BSP guys get it spot on and are so great and truly helpful to deal with – it makes everything so much easier knowing I can just get my graphic design done quickly and easily. I’ve even questioned a few of the bills because I thought they’d missed something! Nope – just awesome pricing. Good service can be so hard to find – Great service? Forget it – unless you go to BSP. Can’t recommend highly enough”

Facebook vs Website

While there are a few success stories of businesses who have foregone a website in favour of using Facebook, in reality this is quite rare.

It’s very unlikely that potential customers will simply stumble across your Facebook page through a search engine. Generally, they need to either know your Facebook address or find it virally, such as via Facebook itself.

With a website, potential customers don’t have to search for YOU; they only need to search for WHAT YOU DO.

A website can be optimised for search engines, meaning that on a website you can write your own page titles and page descriptions, control the page design and submit a sitemap to search engines. None of this is possible on your Facebook page.

Facebook certainly offers a great way to communicate directly with current and potential customers, but that is its main purpose. A website offers that and much, much more thus you should consider using Facebook to compliment your website when planning your online marketing strategy.

5 questions business owners should know the answers to

Many times when start-ups or even businesses that have been operating for awhile get asked some relatively simple questions to which you would assume they would know the answer to.  Could this be the business owner’s fault, their advisors or even the business they are in?  Usually this is an indicator that the business does not have vision or clarity in its plan to achieve success.

Marc Peskett throws out the 5 questions business owners should know the answers to in order to try and achieve business success.  Read it here.

Olympic Fever

CAUDO VINEYARD

 

 

After months of hard Caudo Vineyard have finally completed setting up our orange packing facility. As we can not sell our oranges for an reasonable price Caudo Vineyard is donating its entire 65 ton crop of navels to Foodbank SA to help families in need and children that go to school with out lunch each day. At current market price this is equivilent to $65,000 dollars of fruit not including labour, transport and set up costs. Lots of time and effort has gone into this project, please show your appreciation by liking the Caudo Vineyard Facebook page.

 

6000 dESIGN

 

6000design

6000 dESIGN is Perth based styling company for all things DESIGN!!! Check out the Blog page on Facebook with design inspirations and things you will love! Recently the creative genius behind the brand Sammy Tatulli completed another amazing style shoot for Scoop Magazine. This style blog is the cream of the crop and serves up multiple posts every day about interior design, art, style and general gems! BSP is excited to get collaborating on the upcoming website design which will also reflect the unique, creative view of 6000.

 

PEACHY CLEAN & NATASHA WALKER

 

Styleaid 2012

Peachy Clean Organic Beauty Boutique together with Natasha Walker Mobile Hairdresser will show their support for the a WA AIDS Council (a non-profit organisation) who will be turning the focus inward to celebrate the 15th birthday of its most successful fundraiser, Styleaid. The beautiful girls at the forefront of these businesses are sharing their organic expertise with a lot of brown berries gearing up to strut their stuff on the Catwalk this weekend. Check out the must have organic product used by the girls Eco Tan… “Don’t bake it, fake it.”

Coke Olympics, Beat 2012 – Mark Ronson

Superstar producer Mark Ronson made headlines working with artists from Jay-Z to Amy Winehouse. Now a celebrity in his own right, Mark was voted the most stylish man in the UK by GQ magazine, and has produced some of the world’s most popular tracks. His previous hits cross genres, including vintage, polished pop, and even punk rock. His latest project sent him around the globe to record athletes in training for the London 2012 Olympic Games. The sounds of their sports, mixed with Katy B’s vocals, became “Anywhere In The World.” It’s Coca-Cola’s® Anthem for the Olympic Games. A beat the whole world can move to.

Coke Olympics, ‘Beat 2012 Documentary’ from Somesuch & Co. on Vimeo.

Get Paid with BSP Referral Rewards

Make money easily and get paid to recommend our services to prospective clients!

Send us a new project and you can earn commission ie: 1 successful referral = $25 payment 10 = $250… unlimited cash earning potential. You can take advantage of this offer and recommend us as much as you want! The more you refer us, the more you earn!

If you know a friend or colleague that needs a website, some graphic design, or other BSP service we will pay you for successfully referring them to us

  • Existing Clients: $25 Prepaid Visa Credit Card for a successful referral plus a $100 BSP voucher to use on new services.
  • Non-Clients: $25 Prepaid Visa Credit Card and credit your account on file with a $100 for use against next service.

Read more about this offer plus the terms & conditions here.

 

Effective Business Referrals

One of the most powerful ways that you can use to promote your business is by using your built in sales team – your clients! We regularly encourage our clients to refer like minded colleagues, businesses or friends & offer incentives to do so. We’ve enjoyed a great working relationship over the years and I’m confident in our ability to continue to serve you in the future. Like any company, we need to grow to stay strong. We’d like your help.

 

Occassionally we ask all our customers to share with us the names of colleagues who might benefit from using our services. By asking our existing customers to recommend us to potential new customers we do two things: first we’re able to reduce our advertising costs and spend more on customer support, and second, we bring more people like you into our “family” of clients, and we love that idea.

 

Click here and you can read 10 Do’s and Don’ts for an Effective Business Referral Network.