Marketing Blog - Ideas That Work

Yesterday I was talking with a client, from California, who wanted to know how she could reduce her small business marketing costs. She was sending out 100 free pamphlets each week at $8 a piece or $800 per week. Sounds expensive right?

I told her, before she looked at how to cut this marketing cost, she should take a look at her ROI, return on investment. When I asked her how much business this weekly marketing mailing was bringing in she calculated over $4,000 of weekly revenue that came in as a result of her mailings.

That's a 500% rate of return on her small business marketing, which is, of course, outstanding.

Once she was able to evaluate the right numbers she came to the obvious conclusion, instead of trying to cut the marketing costs for her small business, the fastest way to increase revenue was to spend more on marketing that was working.
- Charlie Cook,

I love taking vacations from my small business marketing practiice for two reasons. Using the web marketing system I've developed over the years, my small business continues to make money when I'm away, often just as much as when I'm in the office. Secondly, while helping small business owners with their marketing is one of my passions, skiing is another.

In mid-March I took a week off with my son, during his college break, to ski in the southern Kootenays, a first for us to these particular mountains and it won't be the last. We had the most incredible tree and off-piste skiing of our lives. Expect for the first day, it snowed practically all the time providing us with fresh powder like nobodys business. We skied Red Mountain in Rossland (play the video), Whitewater near Nelson B.C. and did two days of cat skiing . Use this link to see more snap shots of our past ski trip to Kicking Horse in Golden B.C. and this year's trip to the southern Kootenays.

When I returned all I had to do was review the sales figures for my small business marketing manuals . Thanks to readers like you, I had a great week of sales while I was away skiing.
- Charlie Cook, Small Business Marketing Guru - Helping you attract more clients

How can you improve your small business marketing with your Google Ad campaign?

Before you rush into spending money on your google ads, it pays to understand how they work and their purpose in your small business marketing. With the right verbiage you could create an ad that generated hundreds and thousands of clickthrougths to your small business. Would that help your small business marketing?

Maybe - maybe not.

It depends on how many of the people who clicked on your Google ad actually turned into small business clients as a result of your marketing.

You could have the world's greatest Google ad with a clickthrough rate of 3-5%, but if the people who click on your ad aren't buyers then you are just wasting your money and lots of it.

To make sure your ads are not only working to attract prospects, but are also working to generate sales do the following once a month.

On a piece of paper list each of your Google ad campaigns. In the next column to the right, list the amount $ you spent on that campaign. Then in the third column over, list the dollar volume of sales directly attributed to that Google ad campaign.

Here's what you may find out about marketing your small business. Ads that get the most clicks and bring the most people to your web site aren't necessarily those that generate the most sales. Other ads that have a lower clickthrough rate may bring in more bonafide clients. Based on your monthly data analysis you'll discover which ad campaigns to cut and which to spend more on, resulting in more sales.

Create a monthly advertising ROI spread sheet and you can use the data to improve your small business marketing and see your sales soar. Find out how with this link >>

- Charlie Cook

"I hate long sales letters. Why don't you just tell me the price so I can decide whether I can afford it."
- Sheryl, Long Beach CA

How do you know which to use, a short succinct sales letter or a long one? The answer is without testing you don't. The only way to really know which type of sales letter works best is to test multiple versions. But keep in mind the following...

Price by itself can be a scary thing. $100 may sould like a lot to your prospect when they don't know what they are going to get for their money. On the other hand if they fully understand the value of your product or service and all the extras you provide at no cost, $100 may be an increible bargain.

Present price without the context of value and it will be deterent. Present it in the context of the value provided and it can be a compelling reason to buy.

Your sales letter needs to:
- Help your prospects understand how your product or service will help them,
- Why they should trust you,
- What the value of your offer is in terms they understand,
and
- Why they need to act now.

It needs to convince them they can't live without your product or service.

If you can do all of the above in a few words, great. Generally you'll need 4-10 pages which is why on average long sales letters work better than short.
- Charlie Cook

As the story goes, a Mississippi tug boat company had one key question they asked prospective captains. The owner of the company would ask, "How many times have you gone aground?"

If the person said, "Never". he knew he was a liar and would dismiss the prospective captain on the spot. Given the twisty nature of the Mississippi and its constantly shifting sand bars, every barge captain has "touched" bottom more than once.

The same is true in marketing your small business. Everyone has made a mistake or two or three. Recently I made yet another one myself. I don't look forward to making mistakes but each time I discover one, it gives me a chance to make my marketing even better.

The culprit in my case was my new subscriber autoresponder series. It had been working well to convert recent subscribers to clients but I was intent on increasing my conversion rates, so one day I fiddled with the copy of each of the messages in the series.

It would have been a good idea, but some days not every neuron is firing and by mistake I pasted two messages in the series together into one. The top of the message started with Dear so and so, then at the end it started again with Dear so and so, etc.

Of course I didn't notice this mistake for a couple of weeks because it just goes out automatically each time someone signs up for my marketing newsletter, something that happens almost 500 times per week.

What I did notice was that more people than usual were unsubscribing from the marketing ezine. Hmm! This prompted me to review the individual messages and correct the error. In the process I found a couple more ways to increase my conversion rates and sales.

If you haven't done so already, sign up and take a look at the autoresponder series. I can't share the exact numbers with you but let's say I've doubled sales in the last couple of weeks.

Here's the link to the site's free marketing stuff page
Free Marketing Resources
and the direct link to sign up for free marketing guide and the autoresponder series
Get the Free Marketing Guide
- Charlie Cook