Charlie Cook's MArketing for Success Insider's Club

Small Business Marketing

What’s In a Name? How much does it affect your marketing success?

By Charlie Cook   |   May 27, 2007

How important are your product names to the success of your marketing?

Back in March after a ski trip, my son returned to college leaving his ski boots in our poolroom, that wasn’t the problem, the problem was they were highly odoriferous if you know what I mean. Other than dipping them in Clorox I wasn’t sure how to kill the smell.

With a short web search and I found the perfect product. It was marketed under the name, “Stinky Feet”, which got my attention and I whipped out my credit card and bought it. Amazingly enough the stuff worked, at least after a few applications.

How important is the name of your product or service to the success of your small business marketing?

Product names like Stinky Feet or Mold Away or Eliminating Obstacles to Sales or Creating Web Sites That Sell let your prospects know what they’re for or do immediately. That’s a good thing if you want the sale.

Want to get the attention of your prospects and attract buyers with your marketing? Does the name of your product or services contain a description of the problem or the solution?

If they do, they’re much easier to sell.

Know of other great product names or ideas? Submit them here by leaving a comment.

– Charlie
For Marketing Ideas That Work

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What’s the Best Definition of Marketing for Most Businesses?

By Charlie Cook   |   May 17, 2007

Recently the American Marketing Association proposed a new definition of marketing, which reads:

“Marketing is the activity, conducted by organizations and individuals, that operates through a set of institutions and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging market offerings that have value for customers, clients, marketers, and society at large.”

Is this the best definition of marketing?

Does it even make sense to you?

I’d say its a perfect example of what’s wrong with most marketing. It’s too cumbersome and hard to understand, and doesn’t communicate the message clearly. Here’s an alternative, my definition of marketing. Tell me what you think.

“Marketing is helping your prospects get the information they need so they can get the products or services they want and so they buy from you.”

– Charlie Cook
Small Business Marketing That Works

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What’s Your Favorite Small Business Marketing Tool?

By Charlie Cook   |   April 30, 2007

If you could pick only one way to market your business, what small business marketing tool or technique would you pick?

This seems like an easy question to answer, but then when I started to think about having only one tool to recommend to people to market their small businesses it gave me pause. There are a bunch of ways to market your business which would be on the top of my list including:
– Making it rain referrals
– A web site
– Direct mail
– Free seminars
– A free report
etc.

I’m sure you have your own list of small business marketing ideas you use, but is there one that you like above all others?

My hands down favorite is using articles to market my business.

Why do I think articles are the top small business marketing tool.

1. When you write an article it helps to focus your own ideas.

2. The act of writing forces you to think about how to create a conversation with your prosects. If you can get your prospect’s attention in an article, and get a virtual conversation going, when you need to do it in person, it will be easy.

3. Every article your write helps to position you not just as another competitor but as “the expert”.

4. Each time you distribute your article on the internet you generate both traffic and links back to your web site.

5. When others use your articles on their sites or in their publications, it’s like an instant recommendation or your expertise.

6. Compared to advertising writing and distributing articles as part of your small business marketing strategy provides a huge return relative to the cost.

7. It works!

Yes, articles are my top small business marketing strategy, one that I’d recommend to anyone to use to market their business.

– Charlie

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Should You Do Your Small Business Marketing On Your Own?

By Charlie Cook   |   April 9, 2007

“I’m better off if I figure out how to market my business on my own, right?” – asked by a prospective marketing coaching client

Are you better off trying to come up with the best way to market and grow your business on your own? What do you think the answer is?

Obviously I’m beyond biased since I make my living from helping people improve their marketing but let’s take a look at other areas of skill and knowledge.

If you wanted to pay the least amount of taxes but be in full compliance with the law would you do it on your own or would you get expert accounting advice?

If you wanted to become a master carpenter, would you be better off on your own or apprenticing for a master craftsman, someone who had been at it for decades?

If you wanted to even be considered for the Olympics would you train yourself or find the best coach you could afford?

You get my point?

No matter how bright, determined or hard working you are it always makes sense to find and work with a mentor. If you want to see your business take off the simple secret is find someone who is successful, find someone who has made all the mistakes before and pay them to show you how to take your business to the top.

Succeeding with your small business marketing isn’t obvious and it only makes sense to avoid reinventing the wheel and learn from an expert.

– Charlie Cook

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Who Needs A System To Market Their Business?

By Charlie Cook   |   April 2, 2007

What’s the benefit of using a small business marketing system?

If you live in an area where it rains sporadically but you want to keep your lawn green you may have or have considered installing an automatic sprinkler system. When you have one, your lawn and shrubs get the amount of water they need every week and keep growing.

Your business is the same. Without a small business marketing system the flow of your leads and sales is beyond your control. Install a simple system for growing your business and instead you could have a constant flow of new business every month. Isn’t that what you want?

The Insider Secrets to Highly Effective Marketing gives you a simple system for growing your business so that you generate more leads and sales each month with less wasted effort. Use this link to discover a business building system that works for you >>

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Small Business Marketing Secrets – Sneak Preview

By Charlie Cook   |   March 30, 2007

I regularly get calls from people asking me which of the Insider Marketing Secrets series they should start with. This is it, now for the first time available in print and audio.

The Insider Secrets to Highly Effective Marketing is ready to launch in print and audio in ONLY 3 DAYS! I’ll be including four bonuses from acclaimed marketing, sales and copywriting experts for those who act quickly.

This is the one marketing tool that works for authors, consultants, engineers, info-preneurs, marketers, publishers, realtors, speakers, and retail business owners, to mention just a few.

This is the only marketing program of its kind that gives you the 5 fundamental strategies you need to ramp up your lead generation. Use this step by step program to skyrocket your sales and your revenue.

The Insider Secrets to Highly Effective Marketing is a blueprint for success. It includes the entire system I’ve used to build my own thriving business and has helped others transform their businesses.

Watch your email for the big announcement on Tuesday, because I’m including four special launch bonuses for people who claim their copy in the first 5 days.

Look for it first thing on Tuesday, April 2nd! To get advanced notification, make sure you’re registered >>

If you can’t wait, use this link to listen to the first ten minutes of The Insider Secrets to Highly Effective Marketing >>

– Charlie
Small Business Marketing For Results

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Why Jim Cramer Is Such a Marketing Success Even If His Ideas Are Duds

By Charlie Cook   |   March 21, 2007

Jim Cramer is a huge marketing success. He has his own TV show dispensing financial advice and two books on the Business Week top seller list. He’s definitely made it despite the fact if you followed his investment suggestions you would have lost money last year.

That’s right Jim Cramer is a huge business marketing success even though he’s wrong more often than he is right according to madmoneymachine.com which tracked his investment suggestions last year.

How can this be? How can someone be so successful even though his ideas are typically wrong?

If you’ve ever seen Jim’s TV show you know he comes across strong. He rates and raves and is over the top in his commitment to his ideas. He doesn’t give nice dry analysis, he shouts and proclaims his ideas with undeniable passion. You’ll ever love or hate him for it. The bottom line is hundreds of thousands of people love him for saying what he thinks, even if his ideas don’t stand the test of time.

How can Jim’s approach help your small business marketing?

Most people are afraid to get up and say what they believe, to voice their opinions. This is even more true when it comes to marketing their businesses. Instead you could be telling it like you see it, not holding back. Do it and your prospects will love you for it. True, you may offend some people, but they probably weren’t going to buy from you anyway.

If you want to stand out from the competition put yourself and your personality in your small business marketing. Let people know your likes and dislikes, let them know your beliefs and you’ll generate interest and respect and sales.

Put personality into your business marketing together with honest performance of your products and services and you’ll be amazed at how much business you’ll attract.

– Charlie Cook
The Truth About Small Business Marketing

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How to Avoid The B to B Holiday Slowdown

By Charlie Cook   |   December 14, 2006

Typically businesses that market to other businesses blame the slowdown in December on the holidays. Business owners and marketers will tell you that December is just slow, what with most of their prospects being preoccupied with the holidays.

Is this correct or is it nonsense?

Yes, it’s true at this time of year most people’s minds are focused on the holidays and many people are preoccupied with spending money on gifts, which is actually a good thing for B to B businesses smart enough to see this as an opportunity, not an obstacle.

Think about it, your prospects have a mindset to spend money, and like most people who never actually get the gifts they really want, are more than willing to spend money on themselves. They’re ripe and ready for you to market to them, though you just need to turn one obstacle into an opportunity.

The obstacle is they’re thinking about the holidays and Christmas. The opportunity – use the holidays and Christmas to market your products and services. For example, many people have wish lists for Christmas presents, why not ask them to create a wish list for their business. Ask them what they want and need to grow business next year and then list the products and services you sell.

With the right strategy – December can be your best month ever. Instead of seeing the holidays as a distraction, you can leverage them to increase your sales and profits.

– Charlie Cook
Marketing That Gets Results

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How Can I Compete With the “Big Guys”? And marketing ideas I can use?

By Charlie Cook   |   September 11, 2006

“We’re a local car rental service and compete with the “big guys”, the nationally know car rental companies. Any marketing ideas or strategies we can use?” – Carla

1. List your prospects’ most common concerns, their problems and frustrations, the little things that drive them crazy.

2. Circle the ones that the “big guys” don’t address and that you do.

3. Use this list of prospects’ problems as the focus of your small business marketing.

Want more marketing ideas to help grow your business? Use this link to find hundreds of tips and marketing ideas you can use >>
– Charlie Cook, Small Business Marketing That Works

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When Hokey Marketing Works to Grow Your Business…

By Charlie Cook   |   July 25, 2006

“Isn’t the marketing copy too hokey? I can see that it might work for small businesses but will it work to attract and convince more sophisticated marketing managers?” – Mark

It’s true you don’t want your business marketing to be contrived or clearly not genuine. That will kill your chances of getting attention from any of your prospects.

What you do want to do is make a connection with your business prospects, get them thinking about the problems you solve and how much better off they’d be with the product or service your marketing.

One of the best ways to get your prospects’ attention and their interest is to tell a story about your clients, what they wanted to achieve, what you did for them and the results. Make it personal and interesting. Hokey? Maybe but it beats the typical boring business marketing that doesn’t get results.
– Charlie Cook
Small Business Marketing Guru Providing Results For Small and Large Companies

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