If You Could Market Your Business Like the Phone Company…

You may not have the marketing budget of AT&T or Verizon or Sprint but imagine if you could borrow some of their marketing tactics how much money you could make?

What marketing tactics am I talking about?

When you sign up for cell phone service with the U.S. cell phone service giants you:

– Get a phone for free or almost free but to get it you,
– Can only use phones they sell with their service,
– Have to sign up for 24 months of service at a minimum rate and,
– Pay an activation fee so you can start paying them your monthly fee,
– Pay the minimum monthly fees,
– And if you decide you want to change services you pay a deactivation fee.

Let’s see how you can apply these same six marketing ideas to a few products and services.

You sell ebooks and your customers:

– Get the first chapter to free but,
– Can only read it on a computer you sold them,
– Must sign up to keep the ebook for a minimum of 24 months,
– Have to pay an activation fee to get the password to open the ebook,
– Pay you each month they have your ebook,
– Pay a penalty fee if they decide they don’t want to keep if for the full 24 months.

Sounds absurd doesn’t it!

Continuity marketing, marketing where people sign up for a membership or ongoing service is one of the best ways to bring in a steady cash flow each month but you can take it too far and alienate your clients.

Imagine if you owned a gym, would you force your members to buy all their sneakers and sports gear from you.

Of course not.

While the cell phone companies can force you into service contracts you may not like, as a small business owner you need to more careful about how you apply continuity marketing to make sure your prospects and clients still want to do business with you. There are only a couple of cell phone companies to choose from – but I bet you have lots of competitors.

Which continuity marketing ideas are you using and which could you be using to bring in a steady cash flow and still have your clients love doing business with you?

– Charlie
Small Business Marketing That Gets Results