Marketing Blog - Ideas That Work

This weekend my wife and I took a trip to Maine to visit various relatives and do some kayaking. On the way up and down I tried to see what I could learn from billboards.

Why do I care about billboards, which I consider a blight on the landscape?

If you have or are planning a web site you should look at billboards too while you drive by at 60+ miles an hour. Ask yourself:

How much of them can you actually read?
Of the few words you can read do you understand the message?
Can you remember the billboard's message ten miles down the road?

The way you read billboards is the same way people read your web site. Ask yourself:

If people read your web site in the same amount of time it takes for you to pass a billboard, (2-3 seconds) do they understand what you do and how you can help them? If not then it's time to rethink your marketing message.
- Charlie Cook

Every web site has a "not found" page. This shows up when for a variety of reasons. You've deleted a page that someone is trying to link to, someone types in the wrong address, etc. Each time a visitor to your site sees this page its a dead end for them and you.

On one of my sites that includes a directory of newsletters I discovered I had a Not Found page that was showing alot, over 11,000 times a month. What could I do?

I added a sign up link for my free marketing newsletter on the Not Found page and now have a steady stream of new signups for my newsletter coming from my not found page. Click here to see it. For many more ideas on ways to generate additional leads and sales from your web site, Click here - Charlie Cook

Want to know what to put in your ads to pull in prospects like a magnet?

Think like your prospects. What is important to them?

Do they want to know your company name? (Eventually but that's not their biggest concern.)

Do they want to know how many years you've been in business? (Maybe but its not high on their list.)

What they want to know is how you can help them. Use the limited space in your ads to get to the point, to tell them how you can help them and how they can get what they want.

Do this and you'll see your sales go through the roof as one of my clients did when he changed his ad. His biggest complaint now is how to handle all the business he's getting.
- Charlie Cook
Discover what can happen when you have an ad that pulls in prospects and sales

Now there is an alternative to using Overture's keyword suggestion tool.

Keyword Discovery provides you with a list of the most frequent uses of the various uses of your keywords. - Charlie Cook

Your marketing information is perishable like a loaf of bread. Leave it on the shelf for longer than 7-10 days and its stale as far as the majority of your prospects are concerned.

I was talking with David, a client from Arizona who owns four physical therapy clinics in the Tucson area. I asked him how business has been since we talked two weeks ago. He said three of his clinics were booked solid but the fourth was suffering from a lack of clients.

When I asked him what he thought was the problem, he acknowledged that his sales representatives for that clinic hadn't been in touch recently with the doctors who refer patients to them. In contrast, the pharmaceutical companies have three reps assigned to visit each of the same doctors' offices every week.

Even though doctors in the area had used David's firm's services in the past, and their patients have a continuing need for these services, without recent contact the doctors had started referring their patients elsewhere.

As David had quickly learned, just because someone knows about your services doesn't mean they will remember you when they are ready to make a referral or a purchase, even if they were a satisfied customer.

According to a study by e-consultancy.com prospects cool quickly, at an estimated rate of 10% per day. In other words the shelf life of your marketing on average is about the same as a loaf of bread, 7-10 days. Click here to read the rest of this article ...

One client wrote to tell me,

"We have placed the marketing message you wrote for us on the back of our envelopes not knowing what would happen. Well, I have a complaint to make. You forgot to warn us!! The phone calls have increased leading to even more sales. We must and will blame you for our increase in sales".

Once you have a marketing message that you've tested and you know pulls in prospects, use it everywhere, on your business card, in your ads and on the back of your envelopes.

Discover how to write a marketing message that helps you increase your sales with,The 15 Second Marketing Guide
. - Charlie Cook

Ever run an ad or a send out a mailing and get hardly any response? I get calls daily from people who believe advertising can help their business generate leads and sales. What happens when they spend money on advertising? Too often, a whole lot of nothing.

Is advertising a waste of money?

I'm a skeptic about most things so when clients ask me to write ads for them I always wonder, will it work? I don't want to embarass myself by charging big money to write them an ad and then have it flop. So last month when a client called and wanted me to write a 35 word newspapaer ad for their property management business, I was skeptical. Their current ad wasn't generating a single response and I wasn't sure if their target market was paying any attention.

I'd never written a marketing piece for a residential property management firm and didn't want to embarass myself. I bit the bullet and wrote the best 35 words I could come up with.

Did it work?

The only way to know whether an ad is any good, is to test it or at a minimum quantify the results. Three weeks after the ad began running in a couple of local papers I called my client for the good or bad news. I hadn't heard a word from him since I'd delivered the ad copy so I was curious and concerned.

What news did my client have about the ad's performance. In the first three weeks it had brought in a flood of inquiries resulting in nine new clients and $180,000 of additional revenue for the year. He been so busy handling the new business he hadn't had a chance to call.

Now with those type of results its hard to be a skeptic about advertising!

Looking to bring in more clients and revenue with your marketing and your marketing copy? Give me a call at 203-637-1118. - Charlie Cook

"I want to pick one evening a week to devote to telemarketing for my home improvment business. Without making hundreds of calls on each night how can I find out which is the best night to devote to making marketing calls?" - Steve C.

It's true you'll get a highly variable response to your marketing depending on the day of the week and the product or service you are marketing. Few people are looking for small business marketing solutions on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. Of course, the opposite may be true for your home improvement business.

The best time to market your business is, ...

when your prospects are searching for the solution you provide.

How can you find out when this is? As you indicated, making hundreds of calls would be costly. Instead you can put up a Google AdWords ad and track the number of page views and clickthroughs you get. I show you how to do this in Creating Web Sites that Sell. Use the page view and clickthrough statistics to determine the best day of the week to devote to making your marketing calls. When you market on the days of the week people are looking for a solution, you'll generate more leads and more business.- Charlie Cook

When a prospect visits your web site you have 3-5 seconds at most to get their attention. What are the most common reasons web sites fail to do this?

1. Barriers to viewing. I love movies, colorful logos and pictures as much as the next person but its information that your prospects want. Research shows 80% of people find Flash movies annoying and will just go elsewhere instead of waiting it out. Other design elements may not be as much of a hurdle to your readers, but you've only got a couple of seconds to help your prospects understand why they should view your site. Make the most of it to focus their attention where you want it.

2. The over use of your company name, logo and generic taglines. The object of your site is to get the attention of prospects who don't already know and trust you, people whose biggest concern is if and how you can help them. Give them a headline which explains what you do and why they shoud contact you.

3. Marketing copy written by your webmaster or the people on your staff who developed the products and services. Webmasters are expert programmers but in most cases writing compelling marketing copy is not one of their skill sets. If you had the people who developed your company's products and services write your marketing copy, you may have found someone who can write in easy to read English but my experience is they don't write for the people you want to attract. As a company insider it is hard to realize how little your prospects know and most company authored marketing materials tend to bury the content that should be in the foreground for your prospects.

4. The absence of enough reasons to act. If you want your prospects to read your copy, to trust you, to call you or order from you they need reasons to do so. Don't assume your prospects will figure out that by calling you they'll learn more. Tell them how they will benefit from each action you want them to take.

Discover how to avoid these common web marketing mistakes and instead use your web site to increase sales with Creating Web Sites that Sell or if you're too busy to learn another skill set ask Charlie to show you how to write and structure your web site or have him write the copy for you so you can focus on processing more sales.
- Charlie Cook