With this bill in place, it will be nearly impossible for firms to continue with interruption marketing. As such, permission based marketing will be taking over. What is permission marketing? Well, permission marketing is what I consider to be respectable internet marketing. At least, it’s the e-mail marketing that I’ll actually consider reading. Permission marketing means that in order to receive the e-mail/message in the first place, you have to provide your information. This means that before they send you anything you have provided them your information, or shown that you have some interest.

How will this affect your business? As spam has become so extreme in the past few years, it is making electronic communication more inefficient, and wasting our time. In 2003, it was actually recorded that the number of spam (unsolicited commercial) e-mails had exceeded the number of legitimate communications (http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/ecic-ceac.nsf/eng/h_gv00246.html). By regulating the e-mail marketing world, this will make your overall day more efficient. Also, since the regulations of the Bill seem to be fairly easy to follow (provide contact information, have an unsubscribe option, etc), this should not limit businesses any more than the Do Not Call List has. By only e-mailing people that have shown some interest in your company, you may actually benefit as you are contacting people who will likely spend time looking at what you’ve sent them. Focusing your efforts on these people who have expressed interest will actually likely increase your number of electronic marketing sales leads.

P #1 – Product

When considering introducing the product to others, it’s good to have a prototype. Before you consider a prototype, you’d have to consider what your product is in great detail. For example, I decided I want to create picnic table kits, what would that entail? You can’t simply tell a bank that you need a loan to create picnic table kits!

When providing the Product information of my marketing mix, I would say I wanted to make Cedar picnic tables kits with precut wood and included hardware. I would want the kits to be available in 2 sizes, which are 6’ x 2’ and 4’ x 1.5’. The kits would include all the materials required to make the table, as well as printed instructions.

Without that detailed information, you’re leaving everyone in the dark about your ideas. People can’t read minds, and without the proper mental picture, most banks would likely pass on your loan application.

P #2 – Place

Now that you’ve decided exactly what you’re going to make, where are you planning on selling it? Are you considering mass shipments to a chain of hardware stores, or would you prefer to sell them from your backyard? This information shows people the size of your project, as well as the amount of resources are required to put the project in motion.

P #3 – Promotion

I’ve decided I want to sell my picnic table kits to the big hardware store chains, and that I’m going to mass produce them in Canada and ship them to the store’s distribution centres. Great! Now how are my potential customers going to know my product exists? Beyond advertising in the hardware store’s flyers, I need to get my company name out there. Other advertising though any media would be a great thing to consider at this point.

P #4 – Price

After I’ve determine all of my potential costs, I have to consider what my unit cost is for each kit. Considering an expected production rate, as well as my fixed costs (the cost of renting my factory, utilities, etc.) as well as my variable costs (materials, packaging, etc.) I can determine what each kit is going to cost me. From there, I would consider the amount that other picnic tables and kits are selling for in stores, and that will allow me to determine my Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price. From that, I can determine what would be my best starting price to charge my stores per unit, and what sort of discounts I can offer them when they purchase in volume.

Before considering any business plan, you need to brainstorm and determine the 4 P’s of your marketing mix. This will provide all the important people with the proper information about your product, as well as how you intend to sell and market it!

Benefit #1 – You get to know your customer
When first starting a business, or launching a new product, you first need to determine if there is a market for this product or service. This is where market research comes in. By completing surveys, collecting statistics and product testing, you will learn who will use your product, where they are, what they like, and where to advertise that will get their attention. Often if you test the product with your target consumer, you will discover ways that consumers use your product that you hadn’t even considered – which in turn builds your marketing and aids in advertising endeavors.

Benefit #2 – Referrals
In completing your market research, you will have developed a database of names, addresses and phone numbers. Not only are these people that participated in your surveys, these are your customers, and your sales people! After completing a survey if you were to send out a simple “thanks for participating” postcard, you’ll leave an impression with this consumer. Not only will this make them more likely to buy from you, either for the first time or again, but if your product is successful, they will refer friends and family to it. Word of mouth is a wonderful thing, and market research is another way to get your name out there.

Benefit #3 – Enhanced Products
Market research can help you to determine more about your consumer, but it can also tell you more about your product. What would your customers change about your product? Is the packaging keeping the product safe, and yet still appealing to them? Is there something missing from the instructions? Market Research can help lead you to product development, and continue to better your company and products.

Benefit #4 – You can save money!!
Market research can save you from making a poor investment. While market research is an investment in itself, spending the time to learn that no one really wants to use aerosol toothpaste isn’t such a bad idea. When you consider the costs of market research, think of it this way – You COULD pay whatever it costs for market research, OR you could spend the money to produce the aerosol toothpaste, it’s packaging, as well as put money into storage, shipping to stores, sales people to find the stores to distribute, and the advertising and marketing campaigns. Which do you think would be more cost effective? Saving yourself from a failed product launch, or dealing with the aftermath?

Remember to keep your market research on the priority list. Some things that appear to be good ideas, are easily rejected by the consumers, and can end up being very costly. While I personally have nothing against clear cola, the market likes what it likes, and brutally rejects what it doesn’t.

A brand image is, in the most basic sense, everything that a person thinks about your company. So, if we were to take Tim Horton’s, for example, what’s the first thing that pops into your mind? For me, it’s fresh coffee. I also think of fast service, a (healthier) alternative to fast food, and (of course) hockey.

Brand identity is how you want a person to think about your brand. Brand image and brand identity are not always the same thing – usually the most challenging part of branding is making the brand identity and the brand image consistent.

So, now that we have a bit of background on branding, why did we redesign our website? The easiest answer is that we wanted to make it more consistent with the other marketing materials that we use, and to make the underlying messages across all marketing materials conform with each other. So the website had to reflect this too.

In order to do this, we made some changes to the design (the colour scheme, as well as streamlining the organization and appearance of the content being the biggest changes design-wise). But most of what we changed had to deal with the content itself – we’ve made it more readable. Each page was broken up into several smaller, more coherent pages. We’ve made the text less technical and easier to understand. And we’ve added content that we feel is important for those looking into SR&ED and other federal funding.

So, how would something along these lines help a company’s brand identity? In our case, we want people to think of us as an authority on SR&ED and federal funding. We want people to know that we are working with them to help them further their business. And we work towards putting those values in everything we do, whether it’s marketing materials, our seminars, or our face-to-face meetings with clients.

Because in the end, a company’s website is only one small piece of brand identity, and needs to work well with everything else your company puts out. As a whole, branding comes down to everything that is used to get in touch with your clients – newsletters and bulletins, customer service, the quality of your product and, of course, your service.

On Thursday, January 29th, 2009 Northbridge Consultants will be holding our very first free breakfast seminar, to provide a meaningful information session on the SR&ED program. There will be a free, fully catered breakfast  buffet, and the seminar is of no cost to attend.

The primary focus will be to provide a complete, thorough understanding of the SR&ED process, and how companies can use this to take advantage of Investment Tax Credits for work performed within Canada.

The seminar on January 29th will be held at the Cambridge Hotel & Conference Center, in the Dorset Room. The address is 700 Hespeler Road in Cambridge, ON.

Breakfast will be served at from 7:30am, and the seminar will run from 8:00am to 9:30am (with an intermission at the 45 minute mark to allow for a break). The Northbridge team will be staying after the seminar for you to approach us with questions.

The speakers at this event will include:
Sol Algranti, President & CEO of Northbridge Consultants
Ajay Sinha, VP of Operations of Northbridge Consultants
Gerry Fung, Account Manager with Northbridge Consultants
Ashley Demers, Sales & Marketing Specialist with Northbridge Consultants

also in attendance will be our special guest speakers:
Ken Lancaster, Tax Principal at MacGillivray Chartered Accountants & Business Advisors
Larry Vokes, Community Development Advisor with EMC Canada

To register, or for more information, contact:
Ashley Demers at (519) 623-2486 x 231 or ashley@northbridgeconsultants.com

You may also feel free to pass this information on to anyone you feel may be interested in attending.

Register soon, as seating is limited.

We hope to see you there!