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What’s The Number One Small Business Marketing Mistake

By Charlie Cook | March 9, 2007

What’s the biggest barrier to small business growth? Is it your small business marketing or something else?

Yesterday I made a couple of phone calls to virtual assistants about a joint venture business idea of mine. Each week I get emails from small business owners needing help with their web site copywriting, web site design website marketing, managing their ezine, email broadcasts, providing customer suppport, making sales calls and a host of other tasks.

I’m not set up to outsource all these small business marketing tasks but obviously there is a huge demand and with 30,000 + small business owners on my list I get lots of requests. My idea was simply this: I was thinking of setting up a joint venture with a virtual assistant firm that could handle a ton of business and do all the above tasks.

So what happened when I called a couple of smart virtual assistants I know?

I asked them about their goals and this is where we ran into a stumbling block. The virtual assistants I talked to were thinking of growing their businesses to $60-70,000 per year in revenue. I was thinking instead of helping them build a six hundred thousand to six million dollar a year business.

Set your goals to low and you’ll never be truly successful. Obviously you aren’t going to make millions the first day in with your business but to make it you need to think big, make big plans and then get the help you need to reach them.

Are you goals too small? Are they limiting your success?
You can change this in an instant.

– Charlie Cook
Small Business Marketing That Results In Big Profits

Is 15 Second Marketing For Real?

By Charlie Cook | January 26, 2007

What questions are people asking about 15 Second Marketing?
http://www.15secondmarketing.com/48hours.html

Q. Is this just another long-winded pitch for a business marketing book that just has the same old information?

A. Absolutely not! 15 Second Marketing reveals the one technique that can help you triple leads and sales as it has for over a thousand businesses. It’s literally the key you need to open the door to new business.

Q. How complicated is it to use and apply this business marketing technique?

A. One customer took her copy out to her deck, read it and used the steps included to come up with a new marketing message in two hours.

Q. Once I start using this business marketing technique, how long will it be before I can expect to see results?

A. That depends a lot on how you use it and your business, but I get tons of emails from people who have generated sales almost instantly when they started using 15 Second Marketing.

Q. What if I’m not delighted with the book and the cds? Can I get my money back?

A. Of course! If after putting this secret technique to the test for a full 90-days you don’t feel you got your moneys worth or that the marketing technique that has made so many others rich doesn’t work for you, I’ll give you a refund, no questions asked. AND, you can keep the digital version for FREE.

Q. I’ve been in business for more than 20 years, is this anything I haven’t seen already?

A. If you’ve been in business or been in marketing for ten years or more it’s unlikely you’ve ever applied this technique. Only a small handful of people have ever heard of it or used it.

Q. My products and services are unique. Does 15 Second Marketing apply?

A. 15 Second Marketing works no matter what product or service you sell. I had an Anchorage bush pilot use it to ramp up sales of the advertising spots she reads while giving the Anchorage traffic report from the air.

I’ve had lawyers, bankers, real estate brokers, Fortune 500 companies, trainers,… use it to grow their business.

Q. I’m already making good money, why do I need this?

A. If you’re happy with your income you don’t. If you want a way to instantly generate more leads and more revenue 15 Second Marketing can help.

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GRAND PRIZE DRAWING – Ends in less than 36 hours!

By claiming your copy of 15 Second Marketing, you’ll automatically be entered into a drawing for THREE great prizes… but only if you make your purchase before the launch contest ends in less than 48 hours.

The contest absolutely, positively ends on January 26th at 1pm EST.

GRAND PRIZE – Island Vacation ($782.00 value).

One lucky winner will get to choose between A Vacation in the Virgin Islands on St. Thomas and a vacation on Hawaii both for 5 days and 4 nights on for two adults and two children.

2nd Prize 30 minute Coaching Call with Charlie Cook. ($275 value)

Thirty minutes of private coaching with me could literally help you save hundreds of hours of wasted time having to
reinvent the marketing wheel and help you make tens of thousands of dollars in additional revenue.

3rd Prize Highly Effective Marketing ($149.00 value)

This is the marketing tool that has helped hundreds of small business owners finally develop and implement a marketing plan that they can live with and that works to grow their business every month.

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To be entered in the contest, you must claim your copy of 15 Second Marketing before the clock runs out on this launch contest in under 36 hours. Don’t Delay! Use the link below to GET YOUR COPY NOW:

http://www.15secondmarketing.com/48hours.html

Charlie Cook

P.S. The contest begins at 1pm YESTERDAY and ends on January 26th at 1pm, no ifs ands or buts.

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

Don’t Make This Web Site Linking Mistake…It’s one of the most common web site marketing blunders

By Charlie Cook | November 10, 2006

“I am a real estate agent from Phoenix Arizona. I have previously sent you an e-mail concerning a link exchange between our BLOGS. Please let me know if you are interested.” Brian

I’m not interested in linking to just any small business site or blog and it’s nothing personal, it’d be bad for my web site marketing for me and in this case for Brian.

Just any link from another site won’t help your search engine positioning or help your web site marketing. You need links from other relevant sites. Get a bunch of links from unrelated sites and the search engines won’t know how to rank your site. You’ll just end up confusing them and reducing your chance for a top listing.

In my case that’d be other sites about small business marketing and sales or about web site marketing. In Bbrian’s case it’d be sites about real estate and not just any real estate site.

Not only do you want links from other sites that have related content, you want sites from popular sites, sites that get lots of traffic. The more popular the site the link originates from, the more it’s a positive and helps your search engine positioning.

Want to know how to focus your web site marketing linking efforts?

Do a search in Google for “real estate” or whatever keywords you want to to improve your search engine positioning for.

Then check out the sites that are linking to your top competitors and get these sites to provide links to your site. Find out the details in Creating Web Sites That Sell with this link >>

– Charlie Cook,
Providing Small Business Marketing Solutions That Work

What’s The Impact of Advertising on Sales?

By Charlie Cook | November 2, 2006

“I am going to be an expert witness on the impact of an ad campaign. The ad has already proven to show a great ROI with testimony that the campaign increased sales by 39% from the Director of Marketing. The problem is that I need general information on what ads should expect to generate as a ROI from high to low. To show the nexus between sales and advertisnig. Any advice?” – Ed

Any ad that can increase business by 39% is a success! Typically most ads bring in far less new business.

What’s the key measurement of ROI?

Cost of sales minus the cost of the ad campaign. If the numbers are positive then the campaign was a success, if negative, it needs rethinking, rewriting and redesign.

Could an ad bring in an even higher ROI than 39%?

Yes it’s possible. I wrote one newspaper ad at the beginning of my career for which I only charged the client $450. In the first 3 weeks the ad generated over $180,000 in sales, tripling the client’s business within a month. I’ve also rewritten clients web sites and increased their sales by 4-15 times.

What’s the nexus between sales and advertising?

A successful advertising campaign pre-sells the prospect minimizing the effort that needs to go into sales. I’ve detailed this approach in ‘Eliminating Obstacles to Sales‘. Use this link to get the details >>

– Charlie Cook, Small Business Marketing That Works

How Much To Spend On Small Business Marketing

By Charlie Cook | March 31, 2006

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,

Where This Small Business Marketing Guru Goes On Vacation

By Charlie Cook | March 29, 2006

I love taking vacations from my small business marketing practice 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 Do You Know When Your Marketing Isn’t Working?

By Charlie Cook | March 4, 2006

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

6 Things to Do In 2006 To Grow Your Small Business and Improve Your Marketing

By Charlie Cook | January 2, 2006

HERE ARE SIX THINGS TO DO IN 2006 TO BE MORE SUCCESSFUL

1. Hire someone to do all the stuff you spend time on that keeps you from having enough time to work on improving your marketing. I use a bevy of Virtual Assistants, web designers and programmers to sort email, submit articles, build web pages and f.ree up my time to develop products and improve my own marketing.

When you stop doing mundane time consuming tasks you’ll have more time for the fun and more rewarding ones. I’ve found some great virtual assistants with these resources.

International Association of Virtual Office Assistants
http://www.iavoa.com

The Virtual Business Group
http://www.virtualbizgroup.com

Canadian Virtual Assistant Connection
http://www.cvac.ca/

2. Listen to Your Prospects and Clients
Each time a prospect or client asks a question, write it down. Review these each week for new product ideas and for informational reports you could provide for free. You can use each client encounter to get ideas on how to even better serve your clients. Use these ideas and your clients will love you and your products and services.

3. Develop New Products by Thinking Outside of the Box
Set aside 10-20% of your time to develop new product and marketing ideas. Identify a problem your clients have and solve it with your products and services. When you do, even more clients will seek you out and you’ll sell more to existing clients. Need help thinking outside of the box? Here are some of my favorite books and sites.

How Customers Think: Essential insights into the mind of the market – Gerald Zlatman

Thinkertoys (A handbook of business creativity) – Michael Michalko

A Whack on the Side of the Head- How you can be more creative – Roger Von Oech

Weird Ideas that Work: 11 1/2 practices for Promoting, Managing and Sustaining Innovation – Robert Sutton

Why Didn’t I Think Of That? Think the unthinkable and achieve creative genius – Charles W. McCoy Jr.

Bill Myers Product Development Resource Center
http://www.bmyers.com/

4. Use Tracking Links to Test Every Variable of Your Marketing
When you make a change to your web site test everything from the words to the background color to where you put pictures on the page to find out whether it reduces or increases response. Using the test results you’ll know what works and what doesn’t.

My favorite testing tool is the ad tracker feature that comes with my shopping/ecommerce software.
https://www.marketingforsuccess.com/shopping.html

5. Get The Small Business Marketing Tools and Resources You Need to Succeed

Small Business Marketing Gold Special

Your Web Site Marketing Road Map

Your Marketing Plan

Your Marketing Message

A Marketing Mentor

6. Work Less and Earn More
Go away more often with your family and/or friends. Every time I take a couple of days off I come back with new ideas for growing my business and with a clear head get twice the work done in half the time. I use an automated online delivery system so I make just as much from product sales when I’m away anyways. You can too.
https://www.marketingforsuccess.com/shopping.html

Best Wishes for a Prosperous 2006,

Charlie Cook
Marketing For Success
www.marketingforsuccess.com
3 West End Avenue
Old Greenwich, CT 06870

/ Helping you get a better response, more clients
and more sales with your small business marketing //

What Santa Knows About Marketing

By Charlie Cook | December 18, 2005

What’s that ringing sound you hear at this time of year? It’s the sound of cash registers ringing up the sales generated by Santa Claus. Just because he’s old, overweight, long haired and unshaven and dresses funny, don’t overlook his marketing success. Santa is a marketing expert and you can become one, too, if you follow his marketing methods.

What’s that you say? You don’t believe in Santa Claus or you don’t celebrate Christmas? It’s true that Santa may be mostly mythical, but ask almost anybody who Santa is and what he does, and they’ll tell you. And there are millions of children who are convinced he’s real. So put your doubts about Santa aside for a moment and take a look at why he’s so good at marketing.

Knows How to Be Unique
Whether it is his trademark red suit, his unconventional transportation, his belly laugh or his occupation, Santa is different. He’s one of a kind, which makes him memorable.

Gets Free Publicity
He’s a master at getting free press. He’s mentioned in the media constantly during the winter holidays. Many songs, movies and books have been written about him.

Discover how to get free publicity for your business with your articles and on the radio. Editors and radio hosts are always looking for content they can use. Here’s the link to Opening Doors with Your Articles and
Getting Free Radio Publicity to grow your business.

Is Customer Focused
While everyone knows about Santa, his marketing isn’t focused on his credentials. He rarely talks about how long he’s been in business nor does he bore people with long discussions of his work processes. Instead, he makes a huge effort to learn what people want. It is estimated that each year over a million letters are sent to Santa.

Santa supplements this effort by appearing in thousands of shopping malls around the country, listening to an average of nine thousand children per mall. He does all this just to learn what his customers want.

Gives Something Away For Free
While most of the presents under the tree are from family, including the annual fruitcake from Aunt Bernice, typically at least one gift bears Santa’s name. How can you not love someone who gives so many presents away each year and whose only expectation is a couple of cookies and a glass of milk?

Knows What He Is Selling
Santa knows what he is selling, and its not just games and toys. Santa sells hope, whether it is for the latest video game, a warm sweater or happiness.

How can you market your business more like Santa Claus does his?

Learn the The 5 Principles of Highly Effective Marketing that make Santa a success. Santa didn’t write this marketing guide, but he could of. I wrote it to detail the marketing strategies that work for small business owners and entrepreneurs like Santa.

Here’s the link to get your copy of The 5 Principles of Highly Effective Marketing manual.

1. Clarify how you and your firm are unique, and what it is that separates you from the crowd. You don’t need to put on a red suit or slide down chimneys. Define yourself by the problems you solve, the expertise you provide and what your customers say about you.

2. Get free publicity for your business, not just during holidays but all year round. Sometimes imaginative stunts like appearing in a sleigh help.

3. Ask your prospects what they want and then provide services and products that give them what they’ve asked for. The better you understand their concerns, the better services or products you’ll provide.

4. Give something away for free. It could be an article, a report, a book or a workshop. Use your free offer to prompt people to contact you and demonstrate your expertise. It works for Santa and it can work for you.

5. Know what you are selling. Your products and services bring in the money, but what do they stand for? What do they represent to your clients? Sell your prospects on achieving their objectives and dreams and deliver with tangible results they can appreciate.

Whether or not you celebrate Christmas, market like Santa and you too, can have many happy clients this and every season, without having to squeeze down a single sooty chimney.
– Happy holidays, Charlie Cook

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