- Part 61

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How to Differentiate Ourselves from Our Small Business Competitors?

By Charlie Cook | June 24, 2005

“We are one of 15 competitors in the NY area all selling the same product. There are no real differentiators outside of price. Working for a corporate entity — I cannot change pricing.” – B.K.

How you talk about your services, the marketing copy you use can help to differentiate your business from others.

1. Identify your prospects’ concerns.

2. Appeal to your prospects’ emotional needs relative to your product or services.

3. Use your business marketing messages to focus on how you help your prospects instead of some meaningless mumbo jumbo.

Your small business marketing can help you differentiate yourself from your competitors.

Many decades ago Miller beer sales were in the doldrums, hitting new lows. The came up with a new advertising campaign that step by step explained how they brewed their beer. Never mind that other manufacturers did the same thing. In creating an awareness of the what was involved in making their beer Miller was able to become the top selling beer within a year or two.

Marketing, how you talk about what you do makes a difference to your small business results.
– Charlie Cook

What’s the Best Way to Expand My Small Business Marketing Locally?

By Charlie Cook | June 22, 2005

“Up until now I have used my business website as a way for referred customers to view my work. I would like to expand my client base by marketing to people in my surrounding area for commissioned work. What’s the best way to do this?” – Kathy Swantee

Currently your web site features your artwork but does little to explain the problem you help prospects solve or why prospects should contact you. You need to start by adding some marketing copy to your web site that details why people might be interested in working with you, taking your classes and how you can help them. You also need to give them a reason to contact you. You might offer some free postcard samples of your work in return for people within your surrounding area filling in a request for a more information about a commissioned work.

Once you have your business web site set up to explain what can do for your prospects take this same marketing copy and put together a one page business marketing handout/ mailer. Then take an edited version of it and create a postcard to use in marketing your business. Of course if you want help with putting together your marketing information let me know.

Call each past client, let them know you are seeking referrals and that you’ll be sending them some information sheets to share with their friends. Then send them the information. Want to discover how to put your referral strategy into gear? I’ve detailed the whole process in The 5 Principles of Highly Effective Marketing for small business .

Do the above and you’ll have a low cost small business marketing strategy which will bring in all the clients you want.
– Charlie Cook

What’s the Secret to Improving Your Small Business Internet Sales?

By Charlie Cook | June 21, 2005

Want to know the one idea that will make the difference between making your web site a success or a failure?

Of course you do.

Your website has one purpose, to get people to contact you, whether it is to buy from you or to give you their contact information so you can follow up and get them to buy from you later.

So what’s the secret to writing and designing a small business web site that sells?

Your web site and every page in it are ads.

So what?

Each page of your site should be written and structured to work as a well written ad. It should get your prospects’ attention in the first 3-5 seconds, keep their attention for the next 10 seconds most people spend reading ads, and get them to contact you. Both the visual elements and copy need to work together to create a path for your prospect to follow so they view these elements in the order you want to do what you want, buy from you.

Does your small business web site do this? Does it grab your prospects’ attention and then in less than 15 seconds explain to them why they can’t live without your products or services and motivate them to contact you?

If it does you are proably making hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars from it. It it doesn’t work like a well crafted ad, stop wasting time and money and discover how to increase your marketing and your online sales with Creating Web Sites that Sell.
– Charlie Cook

Which Are the Best Low Cost Ways to Market Your Small Business?

By Charlie Cook | June 20, 2005

I grew up with a father who turned the heat down to 50 degrees at night, shut off lights practically before you left the room and took great pride in seeing how many miles he could get out of a gallon of gas even when it was only a dollar a gallon. Like my father, I don’t like to waste money on marketing my small business when there is a free or cheaper way of doing it.

Here are a couple no-cost, low-cost small business marketing ideas you can use to grow your business.

1. Get publicity for free
I write marketing articles regularly and then send them out to over 800 online and offline publications. This gets me a ton of free publicity, not to mention traffic back to my web site. You can use the same marketing strategy to get slightly famous, become known as an expert and generate traffic and leads.

Find out how you can get publicity for free.

2. Get web site traffic for free
I get almost a thousand visitors each day to my web site and that number grows each month. When I first launched my site I didn’t want to spend money on advertising I couldn’t afford and didn’t use pay-per-click at all. Instead I used a few simple search engine positioning techniques to move my site to top ten and top twenty positions in the search engines for dozens of keywords. This along with the strategy of writing and distributing articles brings me tens of thousands of visitors each month for free.

Discover how to get traffic for your web site without spending a fortune on advertising.

from the Small Business Marketing Expert– Charlie Cook

HTML or Text Newsletter for Your Small Business Marketing?

By Charlie Cook | June 16, 2005

“Which is the best format to send my marketing newsletter?”

Both newsletter formats have their strengths and weaknesses. Here are some of the pluses and minuses of each:

HTML Newsletters
+ Offer more control over the look and feel of what readers get.
+ Its possible to include live links and images.
+ Formatted type is easier on readers eyes.
+ Its possible to get better statistics on the number of people who opened the email.

– You’ll need to create an HTML page, though with a template this shoudn’t take more than 10-15 minutes.
– Odd things can happen to HTML sent through email systems. The HTML page which looks great on your computer may not arrive on your readers’ computers looking exactly the same.
– Mail merge functions, where the software is supposed to integrate the reader’s name, don’t work as well and HTML newsletters may arrive addressed to <$firstname$> instead the reader’s name.

Text Newsletters
+ Just, write, format to 60 characters width, check for spam words and send.
+ Mail merge functions work consistenly so its easier to personalize mailings.

– Harder to read plain text email.
– Not as distincive or professional looking.

Which to use?

One compromise solution is to use both, an HTML version early in the week followed by a text version.
Which do you prefer?
– Charlie Cook

How Often Should I Advertise My Small Business?

By Charlie Cook | June 13, 2005

“What is the critical frequency for running ads? My own opinion is that a prospect needs to be exposed to the ad at least 3 times per month. Is that right?” – Samuel Bernard

While frequency is important in advertising the first step is to make sure the ad you are using is written correctly to get prospects to contact you and buy from you. Most ads miss the mark and don’t do what they are supposed to do. It doesn’t matter how frequently you run them. Secondly timing, is everything. Run a B-to-B ad on Saturday or Sunday and you’d be wasting your money.

1. Start with an ad written to generate a lead and then a sale.

2. Run it when your target audience is paying attention.

3. Run it at least six to ten times. Better yet, run it twice a week all year long.

Find out how to write ads that sell and use them to generate leads and grow your business with More Sales with Less Selling. Better yet, have an expert write an add for you that sells. – Charlie Cook

Who Uses Your Marketing Manuals and Your Marketing Services?

By Charlie Cook | June 7, 2005

I get calls from a huge range of interesting people looking for help with their marketing plan and their marketing strategy, and people interested in my marketing services. In addition to VPs of marketing at Fortune 500 companies, typical types of small business owners, service professionals and marketing professionals, my customers and clients include some of what I think of as unusual occupations. For fun I’ve listed a few here.

If you ever questioned whether the ideas in my marketing manuals and marketing services could you help you grow your business, take a look at the range of people, below, who have used these ideas to grow theirs. Here’s the list:

A bush pilot in Alaska looking for ideas on selling ads during her traffic reports

Santa Claus. A jolly fellow in Utah (no not the one at the North Pole) who looks like Santa and changed his legal name to Santa Claus.

A cemetary plot salesman in Georgia.

A wholesale flower business importing roses and carnations from Columbia by overnight air.

A West Texas agriculture equipment salesman.

A consultant providing drumming workshops for corporate retreats (yes he lives on the west coast).

A kite store owner in Colorado.

The General Manager of an independent resort in Darwin, Northern Territory of Australia.

A fabricator of granite countertops.

A franchise consultant.

… more coming.

Have an unusual business that’s not on this list? Buy one of my manuals or use me as your marketing coach and I’ll add it.

– Charlie Cook

What Is A Landing Page And Will It Help My Internet Marketing Strategy?

By Charlie Cook | June 6, 2005

“I’ve heard the term landing page in regards to web sites. What are they and do I need one?” – Margaret F.

Landing pages are an internet marketing strategy some people use to increase sales. They are specialized web pages you can use for visitors to “land” when they link through from an ad or even somewhere else on your site. In general they include limited links and are designed to help your prospects take the action you want them to take, whether it’s signing up for a newsletter or making a purchase. You’ve probably linked through to a few that consist of a long page of marketing copy where your only option is to buy the product.

For example you might use a Google Ad for your product or service. When prospects click on the ad instead of taking them to your home page where they have lots of options, you could send them to a product page that lacks any links to the rest of your site where the only option is to make a purchase. Some people even use separate URLs for their landing pages to keep visitors from finding their primary site.

Are landing pages a good idea?

It depends. Take out all the links to the rest of your site for a page and you may be able to force some people to make the decision you want them to make. The risk is that many others may want to explore your site in order to get to know you and trust your company prior to commiting to making a purchase or even signing up for a free newsletter. If you’re not careful your landing pages could result in a high cost, low return advertising campaign. Not what you want.

Your results will depend on what you’re marketing online, the price, the content on the page, and whether you know how to create instant crediblity and prompt prospects to buy.

Find out how to Create a Web Site that Sells your products and services with this step-by-step manual.

Add a comment and tell me what’s your experience with landing pages as a site visitor and as a site owner.
–Charlie Cook – Use this link to signup and get the FREE Marketing Plan Ideas Guide immediately.

What Type of Web Site For My Business?

By Charlie Cook | May 31, 2005

“I’m a motivational speaker and trainer and work with community groups, churches, voluntary and professional organisations and individual clients. What type of web site should I build to attract clients worldwide?” – Trevor Carter, United Kingdom

The best type of web site to attract your prospects is one that your prospects will seek out and want to read. Instead of focusing your site on yourself and your services, focus instead on what the information your prospects want and are looking for.

Then when visitors come to your site give them helpful ideas they can use and they’ll want to learn more about your services. Of course you’ll want to use your site to help you with lead generation and to increase your sales. Learn which type of site to build to grow your business and how with Creating Web Sites that Sell– Charlie Cook

Want To Add A Thousand or More Subscribers Each Month to Your List?

By Charlie Cook | May 27, 2005

Have an email list of prospects you’d like to grow? One of the best ways to grow your list is to offer something for free that your prospects want and need. You proabably already know that. The problem is you don’t have the time or inclination to create the perfect giveaway. What do you do?

You could ask me to write an eBook you can use as one client is at a cost of over $6,000. Or you could offer my existing marketing guide for free.

My free marketing plan guide, “7 Steps to Attract More Clients and Grow Your Business” is what small business owners, marketers and service professionals are looking for. It prompts an average of 50 people a day to add their names to my mailing list and I’d like to help you use it to do the same or better for your business, for free!

If you provide a product or service targeted to small business owners, service professionals or marketing and sales professionals, your web site gets over a thousand visitors a day and your Alexa rank is 80,000 or less, I’ll create a co-branded version of this popular free marketing strategies ebook with a custom cover and insert that includes your products and services. I’ll show you how to promote it on your site and get 10-20% of your site visitors to give you their email address so you can market to them again and again.

Why would I agree to let you offer this guide on your site?

When you offer my free marketing guide on your site, your prospects get a great marketing tool, you get their email address and I get to add their names to my free marketing ezine mailing list. I’ll provide you with the code to include on your site and then send you the email address of each person that requests the free marketing guide. Depending on your site traffic this should generate 50-100 or more opt-in prospects each day.

Interested in using this proven tool on your site to capitalize on your traffic and build your subscriber list?

Contact me using this form with your questions and your web site URL so I can check your page rank and get a rough idea of your site traffic.

When you help your prospects improve their marketing for free, everybody wins. Please only contact me if your site gets over 1000 visitors a day and your target market is small to mid-sized business owners and marketing and sales professionals.- Charlie Cook

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