Posted on by George Robotham

Marketing Safety

Marketing safety

By the late George Robotham

Make no bones about it, safety is a product that has to be marketed in ways similar to the ways the products your organisation produces are marketed.

A good OHS section on your organisations web site will help. It is best to treat everybody you interact with as customers whether they be internal or external.

Marketing goals

  1. Increased activity through creating an interest in my products
  2. Increased awareness of OHS though visits to the web site
  3. Get more repeat customers
  4. Raise safety professional profile
  5. Launch new products
  6. Increase client recommendations
  7. Improve relationships with customers
  8. Be a credible source of best practice information on Safety for employees

Marketing tips

  1. Have a Unique Selling Proposition
  2. Say thank you to customers
  3. Always give something of value free
  4. Give customers What’s In It For Me from their perspective
  5. Give them an offer they cannot refuse
  6. Show the customer how the product will benefit them
  7. Keep in contact with old customers much easier to sell to than getting new customers
  8. Have a call to action
  9. Always treat the customer like a King or Queen-If you do not your competitors will
  10. People buy benefits but want to know features
  11. Word of mouth from satisfied customers is the best advertising, if they are happy they may tell one person, if they are not they will tell 20
  12. Send regular e-mail updates
  13. Ask for referrals and put on web site, reward customers for referrals
  14. Have a regular newsletter to clients and make available through subscription on the web site
  15. Promotional flyer, biros, note pads, stubby coolers, business cards to hand out at activities
  16. Consider cost / benefits of setting up promotional booth at safety conferences ,quite expensive but a lot of exposure to safety decision makers, have a trade show discount, big bottle of scotch for prize for putting business card in the bucket, need booth advertising, tv, video & computer
  17. Enter awards in my industry, lots of free publicity if I win
  18. Publish papers / speak at conferences
  19. Put standard learning packages on web site and promote
  20. Get competitor intelligence
  21. Need to develop a time frame for implementation

 

 

George Robotham

George Robotham

George was a Legend in the Safety World who passed away in Sept 2013 but left us with a great legacy
George Robotham
I have worked in OHS for most of my working life, many years in the mining industry including over 10 years in a corporate OHS role with BHP. Since leaving the mining industry I have worked in a variety of safety roles with a variety of employers, large & small, in a variety of industries. I was associated with my first workplace fatality at age 21, the girl involved was young, intelligent, vivacious and friendly. Such a waste! I was the first on the scene and tried to comfort her and tend to her injuries. She said to me “George, please do not let me die” We put her on the aerial ambulance to Rockhampton base hospital where she died the next day. I do not mind telling you that knocked me around for awhile. Since then I have helped my employers cope with the aftermath of 12 fatalities and 2 other life-altering events. The section "Why do Occupational Health & Safety" provides further detail but in summary, poor safety is simply very expensive and also has a massive humanitarian cost. My qualifications include a certificate I.V. in Workplace Training and Assessment, a Diploma in Frontline Management, a Diploma in Training & Assessment Systems, a Bachelor of Education (Adult & Workplace Education) , a Grad. Cert. in Management of Organisational Change and a Graduate Diploma in Occupational Hazard Management. I am currently studying towards a Masters in Business Leadership. Up until recently I had been a Chartered Fellow of the Safety Institute of Australia for 10 years and a member for about 30 years. My interest is in non-traditional methods of driving organisational change in OHS and I have what I believe is a healthy dis-respect for many common approaches to OHS Management and OHS Training. I hold what I believe is a well-founded perception that many of the things safety people and management do in safety are “displacement activities” (Displacement activities are things we do, things we put a lot of energy into, but which when we examine them closely there is no valid reason for doing them). My managerial and leadership roles in OHS have exposed me to a range of management techniques that are relevant to Business Improvement. In particular I am a strong supporter of continuous improvement and quality management approaches to business. I believe leadership is the often forgotten key to excellence in most aspects of life. I hold the Australian Defence Medal and am a J.P.(Qualified). I have many fond memories of my time playing Rugby Union when I was a young bloke.

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