Target marketing ‘hits the spot’
In the current business climate the old methods of selling businesses no longer work. The scattergun approach to advertising businesses for sale no longer draws the desired response.
The solution to adopted is target marketing, which is a combination of direct marketing to identifiable potential buyers, backed up by directed advertising in specialist publications.
Target marketing is based on the premise that the most likely buyer for a specialised business is someone from within the industry, or in a synergistic business. Telemarketing can be used to ensure that our expression of interest letters are properly and individually addressed to reach their target, the potential buyer, and to maintain maximum confidentiality.
Target marketing is backed up by directed advertising in the most appropriate publication or trade journal, to pick up any potential buyers that may have been overlooked, and to reinforce the tender to the targeted buyers.
Steps to a successful sale
The steps to achieving a successful result include:
1. Learn as much as possible about your business, so that we can:
- Produce a credible selling document
- Value the assets and intellectual property involved in the business as a going concern
- Develop a profile of the most likely type of buyer
- Identify the individual key selling points and synergies for each likely buyer, and
- Most importantly, identify any potential “turn-offs” for each potential buyer, and devise a strategy that could convert each from a negative to an opportunity.
2. We attack the most obvious buyers first. We research our buyer database, and the web, to come up with a list of prospects who would have the most to gain from acquiring your business, and approach them directly, on a highly confidential basis.
3. We back this up with directed advertising on the web, and in selected media, such as the “Australian Financial Review”, which, in our opinion, provides the most economical means of reaching the largest possible number of qualified buyers.
In over 70% of cases, this strategy results in a buyer, usually within six months.
If these efforts do not produce a buyer, then more drastic action is required. This would begin with a de-briefing, and a survey of the prospects approached, to find out what went wrong, and why they did not proceed to purchase.
Possible reasons could be:
- We approached the wrong class of prospective purchaser
- We did not identify the right buyer benefits for the prospects
- We could not demonstrate the value to them
- There could be some perceived problem with, or threat to, your business, that we were unaware of, and that would need to be addressed with an appropriate strategy, in the business profile.
Once reasons have been identified for the problem, we can attempt to rectify them, and continue with a revised marketing plan.
