Is the Sugar Industry all that sweet? - learn how to translate your business journey into a story

Always remember that facts tell but stories sell. 

Your business story is one of the greatest tools you can use to create an emotional connection with your business. As soon as you share the journey of your company, an emotional connection is formed. 

It is crucial to create that emotional connection and experience for your customers as this will help with loyalty. So many companies are pushing their message to your customers as to why they should buy from them and not you, but with that emotional connection to your company, this makes the persuasion more difficult. 

Tip: Create a picture with your story because visuals always have more impact. Read all about my companies sugar story below and the journey we have gone on.

The story of how our family business started:

When we first started in Swaziland, we had lost absolutely everything. We had managed to negotiate a sugar quota of 1000 tonnes with the Sugar Association. The Sugar quota was an unbelievable opportunity, but we were unable to buy a 34 tonne truck of sugar. We managed to get somebody else to buy 34 tonnes and we bought 6 tonnes of our own sugar from them. We then processed it for our bread premixes and would sell them in South Africa. We only had 5 products that we sold and those are still some of our popular products today.

When we fast forward to present day: All four of our family run the business which we currently manufacture 56 products, sell 250 products and have a sugar quota of 4500 tonnes. What started off as one 34 tonne truck once every 2-3 weeks to South Africa has grown to 7-9 trucks every week.

We are a company only growing from strength to strength and with second generation having joined, we are only growing stronger as a business and as a family.

A lot of people ask us "what is the potential of your company?" and our answer is simple: ENDLESS. 

Easy tips for educational marketing

 Educational marketing has received a lot more attention with the increase of competition in each industry. The need to educate the customer on your company and your product and services has become more crucial for your success. 

The key principle behind educational marketing is educate your customer on WHY to use your company or your product/service.

When you develop a product or service, you have specific wants and needs that your product or service is there to fulfill. All you have to do is highlight these needs you fulfill. 

Very often your customer does not see the full value or potential of your product until you have told them. This is all about reaffirming your company in your customers mind.

For example: In our bakery industry, a large problem in the bakeries is they want to do everything from scratch and not use a premix. If this becomes a trend in the bakeries then this will adversely affect our company so we have to actively reaffirm our customers on the NEED for our premix. I have highlighted 7 of the most crucial reasons for using our premixes and made it into a campaign.

To see more about my business go to: www.marisadasilva.co.za 

                      

3 tips for you to start your educational marketing:

1. Make it easy: 
• Make sure the customer remembers it when you are done. 
• Pictures always works the best BUT make sure your pictures are appropriate. Your images need to reinforce what you are saying. 
• Nothing to complex and keep it short.
2. Make it relevant to your customers: 
• Make sure that what you choose to showcase has your customer in mind. 
• Your customer always wants to know "what is in it for me"-> make sure that the message is for them or else educational marketing is useless. 
• Do not speak AT your consumer but rather engage WITH your consumer.
3. Educate, Educate, Educate:
• Add value to your customers and they will add value to you.
• Everybody loves knowledge and education so make sure you do this often. 

The more you educate your customers, 

the more they know WHY you are different.

To see more about my business go to: www.marisadasilva.co.za 

Showcase your signature line

A signature line for a business is your product line that you are most renowned for. 

This is often the first item that comes to mind when you think of your company. 

Some examples: 

• ABI: Coca-Cola
• Samsung: Galaxy Phone Series
• Kellogs: Corn Flakes
• KFC: Chicken Pieces

When you showcase your signature line remember that 
stories sell. 

"Welcome to our original product line that still has the exact same recipe as 34 years ago! This is the very first product that we manufactured as the lead innovators of a wet premix. we will be showcasing each line so that you can see the diversity of our bread premixes and see what has made it stand the test of time. We would love if you would join us while we go down memory lane."

1. "Original recipe", "34 years," "stand the test of time" - All these words reinforce the history behind this product.
2. Telling people it is our very first product is all about adding to the story of the company.
3. Lead innovators provides status and establishes authority within the industry.
4. Provide a call to action by asking to be a part of the journey. 

Then look at each product individually to showcase each as its own story.

6 tips for a call to action incentive

When you are introducing your product for the first time to prospective buyers, give them a call to action incentive.

Unfortunately, human nature passes onto business practices and we get caught up in what we doing and we end up saying I will do it just now. Very often, just now becomes never because we allow ourselves to continuously get distracted. Very often, someone may be interested in your product but keeps putting it off which is why you need to have a call to action.

This is an incentive to act NOW and try your product or service in a short period after your first point of contact.

Infanta Foods Introductory Voucher Example

1. As you can see, we use the word EXCLUSIVE. This is so that they feel special and that you personalized this just for them. 
• Other adjectives that can be used are rare, once-off, one-time-offer, never seen before etc. 
2. Provide 2/3 incentives that make them want to buy more to gain more benefits. Use the words: IN ADDITION, so that people know it is extra. Tell your customers that because very often they will just scan over the offers so these words make it stand out and catch their attention.
3. Give them a time period! This is the most crucial so that you give them a "Call To Action". 
4. Must be presented to be redeemable: You need the proof that they were actually at a specific event and physically received it. This gives you an indication of your return for particular events/tradeshows, for particular promotional bundles etc. 
• This can all be used for analytics of your advertising return.
5. Have a signature for authenticity and so that they can not just photo copy your voucher and number the voucher so you know how many you gave out and for tractability purposes. 
6. Always have CONTACT DETAILS. Make it easy for your potential customer to contact you.

Tips On How To Generate Organic SEO's through "Set pages" settings

This is something so simple to generate SEO's for multiple websites that you have in an organic way.

On your search engine, go to your "Settings" and got to "Set pages". Add all of the URL's for your websites so that they automatically pop up when ever you open up your search engine. Do this for all your office, home and personal computers to organically generate your SEO's.

Raising the objection before they do

In any presentation, you need to know what objections people could potentially raise about your product or service and YOU raise that objection before they do. 

This helps you to answer the question for them. This makes the rest of your pitch more receptive because their objections have already been answered.

Example: "I know this is expensive but, the benefits of having these specialized breads outweighs that because of its ability to lower cholesterol. Can you put a price on health?" 

You control the message which is key!

Preparation, preparation, preparation

Preparation is crucial for any event! 

Never underestimate the power of preparation and visualization.

Any time you are having to do a particular presentation for a particular product to a particular organisation, ensure you are ADDING VALUE to them! It is crucial to either

1. identify a problem and solve it for them or
2. identify an extension of their current products or service that they have not seen yet.

Throughout your presentation, you need to reinforce what value you are adding so that their is no question with regard to what that value is. When you are able to demonstrate that you can add value to them, then you are already 3/4 of the way their. 

Remember: people are only interested when you add value to THEM!