“Car Incentives Backfire On Big 3”
“Rebates Can’t Halt Big 3 Sales Share Slide” were headlines in the Chicago Tribune.
For years GM, Ford and Chrysler have been using rebates, incentives, and Zero Percent financing to sell cars. Unfortunately for them, the auto-buying public aren’t motivated by these incentives any longer.
To get a car buyer’s attention they must create bigger – and more expensive – promotions. Read More »
2009 was a big year for social media! YouTube starting seeing 1 billion hits per day. Facebook topped the 350 million users mark. Twitter became the most used word in the English language. And, the big search engines recognized the power of the micro-blog and incorporated this content into their search results.
Watching all of these successes, the message has come through loud and clear that social media/networking/content is now a significant platform on which we, as business owners, must be present. Read More »
Creating a compelling sales letter or ad can be looked at as turning lots of small “yeses” into one big “YES!” That big “YES!” being an order for your product or service. Here’s how this works.
Just as in direct sales, you want to get the prospect to start agreeing with you early on. You start off by building rapport, which makes them more agreeable with you. Then you utilize various questioning strategies to get them to nod their head in agreement or verbally state that they agree with you so far.
And you keep pursuing that agreement, asking questions to make sure the two of you are on the same page until you ask for the order. Read More »
If you’re an expert who can share advice, write a how-to article, create a quiz, take a poll or survey, dream up a clever holiday, offer a Q&A, or show someone how to do something, don’t forget the kids.
I don’t have children. But while at the local library last week, I paged through three magazines for parents to see what kinds of publicity tips I could find. The exercise reminded me that experts in a wide variety of specialty areas should be pitching articles aimed not only at adults, but at children, or articles dealing with children. Read More »
There were about 45 sales people in the meeting and I was presenting them with one of my products, a hot dog. It was not a new product but it was new to them. After everyone was just about finished sampling the hot dog everyone seemed sold on the product.
Then, all of a sudden, someone said, “Man, these hot dogs are really salty!” Pretty soon everyone agreed, they were salty. I knew the salty hot dogs would never sell so I had to act fast. Read More »
Have you ever been on twitter felt unsure if you should send a communication as a direct message or @ reply? I’ve got your answer.
First a little refresher course – @ replies and direct messages are the two main modes of communication on twitter. For a detailed explanation of @ replies, check out the article Demystifying The Twitter @ Reply.
On to direct messages! Unlike @ replies which are public, direct messages are private. Only you and the recipient can see them. They will not show up for anyone else, including in a Google search. Read More »
If you’ve ever tried to write a sales letter or space ad, then you know from experience that it’s easy to make mistakes.
And it’s easy to forget critical copy elements.
With that in mind, here are “7 Deadly Copywriting Sins” I frequently encounter.
Deadly Copywriting Sin #1: Hyped-Up Headlines
It’s often a good idea to make a strong promise or challenge a common belief in your headline. But it’s not a good idea to cross the line into hype.
How do you know when you’ve crossed the line? Read More »
For your small business marketing you need to understand the tools and pick the right one for the right job at the right time. You cannot effectively compete without at least considering all the marketing channels and that certainly includes both SEO and PPC.
The issue is not “Either Or.” It is about the balance, frequency, and audience.
If you have a web site you need to consider playing on both sides of the SERP (Search Engine Results Page). As people debate the issue of SEO and PPC I hear some very interesting statements and my absolute favorite is “I never click on the ads.” The reason it is my favorite is it is so blatantly absurd. Read More »
The average business loses 15% of their clients on an annual basis. It’s safe to assume that some clients move away or sadly, pass away. If you sell to businesses, some of them may close. But, many simply stop coming. That’s because you haven’t established relationships with those clients. The clients feel no loyalty…no obligation to return.
With the cost of gaining new business five times that of keeping current clients, it’s wise to do all you can to keep those people coming back for more. Read More »
Imagine you could market like Santa. You’d be feeling jolly too. Find out what he knows in today’s article below.
What’s Santa know?
