Dragon breathes fire into
ENTREPRENEUR, Dragon’s Den investor and marketing consultant Gavin Duffy proved himself a master of the motivational speech on the move during a lunchtime event in the Talbot Hotel on ‘How To Grow Your Business Through Smart Marketing’.
Hosted by Wexford Chamber and sponsored by the Wexford People, the entertaining talk was attended by over 200 business owners and representatives from around the county who were invited by Gavin to bring their products along for promotional photos.
People queued for the chance to have selfies taken with the guru who set up a local radio station at the age of 18. Now aged 58, he made a family occasion of his Wexford visit by bringing his wife, the former journalist Orlaith Carmody and two of their sons along.
As he worked the room with energy and humour, walking around the tables, telling stories and engaging directly up close and personal with individual guests, including Samantha Tweeting Goddess, his sons Lorcan and Cathal stood at the door, iPad and mobile phone in hand, recording their dad as he spoke.
‘We’re an equestrian family. When we think of Wexford we think of horses. Wexford produces great eventing horses and we’ve bought some of them over the years’, said the former part-owner with his wife for many years, of HRM, one of Ireland’s largest recruitment companies which he left last September.
Having grown up on the Main Street in Drogheda, a town with ‘seven shopping centres, four of them empty, a Main Street with broken teeth and numerous out of town centres’, he said he looked with envy at Wexford which has retained the vibrancy of its Main Street.
‘You’re probably the only provincial town in Ireland that has such a vibrant Main Street. That it is still intact is very special. You are lucky to have it’. said Gavin who has a ‘madcap idea’ with the Council in Drogheda to put a roof on the Main Street there. ‘I think that is what we are going to have to do on main streets, although in Wexford it’s too long, you could only roof part of it’.
Getting down to business, he said people talked about everyone shopping online nowadays, but ‘You can’t get your hair cut online and coffee doesn’t come online’, he remarked.
Offering advice on how much you should spend on advertising, he said most businesses spend 2% or less of their turnover on marketing. ‘You’re not in the race unless you spend 6%, that would mean spending three times more. That’s for small businesses. Big businesses should be spending 10%.’
‘I’m trying to get businesses to think about stretching it out a bit. People say ‘I don’t have the money’, he said, adding that many companies don’t realise how much they are already spending on what he called ‘arm-twisting advertising’ - sponsoring golf classics or other community and sporting events.
‘If you look at the stuff you are doing reactively and instead do it proactively.’
There were laughs of recognition when he addressed the topic of ‘wordof-mouth’ advertising. ‘Young people don’t even talk to each other today. That’s 1970s and 1980s stuff ’, he exclaimed.
Introducing the first of his buzz phrases for people to remember, he asked, Are You Top of the Mind? ‘If you ask people to name three supermarkets and you’re not in the top two, you have a problem. That’s the way it has to be for your business in the locality’.
Continuing the theme with the aid of a bullet point presentation, he told guests: ‘You are Not a Circus’. He said the circus comes to town once a year and puts posters up all over the place. It works because they are only in town for a few days. If you’re around for 365 days, circus advertising is not enough.
‘ These are mistakes I’ve made myself ’, he said, asking people to think of a third generation, family business in a provincial town that finds itself with unsold stock and puts a big sign in the window saying ‘Clearance Sale’. ‘What you’re telling your customers is: ‘don’t shop here until we’re really desperate and have to sell it to you at half price. A week later you’ll have people going around saying, ‘do you know, I think so-and-so is closing down’.
‘If you want to improve your sales, what I’m recommending to you is you’ve got to advertise, market and promote consistently. A slow drip is better than a big splash. We’re not talking big money here,’ he said, outlining a specific ‘Magnificient Seven’ strategy for consistent advertising over 38 weeks during the year in a local newspaper at a cost €4,000 or less. ‘Never has advertising been such good value in Ireland’.
He said ‘Brand, Boast, Bait’ are the three essentials of an effective advertisement and he offered samples of ones that caught his eye in the Wexford People, including Kelly’s Hotel, Wexford Bike Shop and Wexford Home Preserves promotions.
‘If you are going to advertise regularly on local radio, use a jingle or get a professional voice-over’, advised the master, as he played a few successful jingles to prove the point. And if you want to reach people through social media, find someone who knows what they’re doing, he suggested.