Charlie Cook's MArketing for Success Insider's Club

 

The Top Experts Reveal Small Business Marketing Strategies
That Get Results In This Economy

How Do I Get Leads for My Network Marketing Business?

By Charlie Cook   |   May 10, 2005

“I know you don’t favor networking marketing but I was hoping you could give me some advice. My partner and I are marketing a great product but we just can’t seem to get enough leads, what do we do?” – Don

Most network marketing companies sound to good to be true. They have a good looking product, they’ve developed all the marketing materials and all you need to do is close the sales and make a fortune with only a couple of thousand dollars of start-up costs. Why wouldn’t you want to do it?

Maybe some people are making millions with their network marketing and I’m only hearing from the people who aren’t succeeding, but I get a ton of requests from people who’ve signed up and aren’t. They’ve invested their money in the networking marketing program, are willing to work hard, can sell, but just don’t have enough leads.

The problem isn’t the hard working committed people who sign up, it is the way the networking marketing firms structure they’re marketing. In most cases it doesn’t follow the steps needed to get a prospect’s attention, demonstrate value and credibility nor prompt prospects to contact them. In brief, most networking marketing companies are designed to do a good job of getting people to sign up but do a poor job of giving these people the marketing tools they need to succeed.

I can’t change your company’s marketing for you but I can show you how to market get attention for yourself with your marketing messages and your marketing plan. To get started take a look at the 15 Second Marketing guide and The 5 Principles of Highly Effective Marketing manual.- Charlie Cook

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How Can I Double Sales and Profits?

By Charlie Cook   |   May 3, 2005

Want to double your sales and profits. Rethink the quantity and pricing of your products and services.

In 1987 Americans started eating twice as many carrots after baby-cut carrots hit the market. At twice the price per pound you’ll not only be seeing better in the dark when you eat these tasty carrots but the companies that produce them are seeing profits twice as large for a product that is less than half the original size.

Think about it. You could double your sales and profits by modifying the marketing of a product or service you sell – Charlie Cook

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I’m Getting Lousy Leads, What Do I Do to Improve My Lead Generation?

By Charlie Cook   |   May 3, 2005

“My company provides me with 18 leads each week, they even schedule the appointments. All the I need to do is to make the visits to each of the companies. They problem is that few of these leads are qualified and after spending a half hour or more to get to the company I find most of these leads don’t meet the basic qualifications for our services. What do I do?” – Paul Shaw

Following up on unqualified leads is frustrating and a big waste of everyone’s time. Imagine instead that every call or appointment you made was with a prospect that was happy to see or hear from you. Imagine they were interested, already aware of your qualifications, credibility and the value of your product or service? You’d waste a lot less time, improve lead generation and close a lot more sales.

Paying others to generate leads for you is generally a waste of time and money. I use a lead generation system that each week provides me with more qualified leads than I can handle. Each lead arrives on my desk with enough information for me to determine whether the prospect is a likely match for my services and worth following up with.

Instead of accepting unqualified leads, its far more effective to put your own lead generation system” in place. Learn how to improve your lead generation with “Creating Web Sites That Sell“. – Charlie Cook

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What Do I Do If I Don’t Have Time to Rewrite My Marketing Copy?

By Charlie Cook   |   April 27, 2005

You’ve got a web site, an ad or a brochure and you know it could be doing a better job of attracting prospects and converting them to leads but you’re too busy to fix it. What do you do? You could do nothing and you’d be leaving money lying on the floor. Or you could do something about it and get someone to rewrite your marketing copy so it follows the marketing strategy mapped out in 7 Steps to Attract More Clients.

Recently for a couple of clients I’ve been reworking their marketing copy so it does what they want it to, attract attention and prompt people to contact them. If you’re serious about improving your marketing but don’t have the time to do anything about it give me a call or send me an email describing your goals and the project you have in mind. – Charlie Cook

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Marketing Strategies to Put Yourself Out of Business

By Charlie Cook   |   April 20, 2005

Want to learn how to lose a billion dollars?

Just follow the marketing strategies used by GM , Ford and Daimler Chrysler. Yes some of the largest corporations in the world are missing some basic tenants of marketing and its worth taking a look at what they’re doing wrong so you don’t make the same mistakes. You don’t want the following headline written about your company.

“GM Hits Billion Dollar pot hole” – Miami Herald
“GM shares fell to a 12 year low.” – New York Times

What are some of the most glaring mistakes a handful of car companies are making?

1. Discount Pricing
GM and Ford offer free loans and rebates worth thousands of dollars to prompt people to buy their vehicles. Good idea?

When you need to resort to bribing people to buy your products or services, its a sign that something is terribly wrong. The idea is to provide value, help your prospects understand the perceived value and charge enough to make a reasonable profit. When you start discounting your product as a means to get people to buy it you’ve entered an endless downward cycle.

The next time a prospect buys, they’ll want an even bigger discount and there will always be somebody who will undercut you on price. Eventually you’ll end up like GM, losing lots, maybe not billions, but enough to threaten the life of your business.

2. Making Products People Don’t Want
According to the New York Times, “General Motors and Ford have swerved off course for a far more basic reason: not enough people like their cars.” Whoops!

The objective is to market a product or sevice people want.

3. Not Paying Attention to What People Want
If you want to make money you’d pay attention to what your prospects want? Right?

In the case of Daimler Chrysler you’d be wrong. At the Detroit Auto Show crowds loved the two-seat 8 foot long “Smart Car”. So logically Daimler Chrysler decided not to sell it in the United States despite booming sales in Europe for years. Zap, a Santa Rosa CA firm saw an opportunity especially with rising gas prices and went direct to the European Daimler dealers to buy the cars. Surprise! Ten thousand U.S. buyers put themselves on a list to order over $55 million worth of cars in just a few months.

Avoid discount pricing, provide products and services your prospects want and you can avoid losing a billion or instead make 55 million. I don’t know about you but if I lose ten thousand dollars I get upset and when I make a million in a year I’m pretty happy. – Charlie Cook

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Am I On The Right Path with my Online Marketing Plan?

By Charlie Cook   |   April 15, 2005

“I would like to set up an email direct marketing campaign to generate mortgage leads. I want something that will allow the prospect to respond by giving some personal info such as name, phone number, mtg payment, etc. Where do I start? There’s a bulk email company that will blast 2.7 million email a day, but I don’t believe the prospects can respond. I would need a link to my website I think. Am I on the right path or would a $29.95 lifetime membership or is it be a waste of time?” – Dante

If you want to annoy and alienate potential clients, you can easily do so by blasting emails out to people who didn’t request them. Its the best way to kill your business and shut the door to ever building a positive relationship with your prospects. This course of action is unethical and will immediately get you labeled as a spammer. Once you’ve started blasting people they will quickly catch on and add your email address to their spam lists blocking any future contact.

Don’t do it! It is a waste of time and money, bad idea, to be avoided at all costs, etc. You catch my drift.

If you want to generate leads and grow your business, build a web site, provide content that helps your prospects solve a problem and month by month you’ll attract more and more people interested in your services. Learn how to improve your web site marketing with “Creating Web Sites That Sell“. – Charlie Cook

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Why Isn’t My Web Site Marketing Working?

By Charlie Cook   |   April 13, 2005

“I’ve had a web site up for years but I’m not getting any leads or sales from it. What am I missing? Can I really expect to earn a living from business generated by my site?” – Chris, Sales Consultant

Marketing online can be frustrating especially if you don’t know know what you need to do to make it work. The first step for most people is to redo their marketing message and the content on their site so it focuses on helping instead of selling. Your prospects want help, not to be sold.

The second essential part of making your site work is structuring it to prompt prospects to contact you. One you know how to do these two things than you’ll need to drive traffic to your site. With enough visitors, you’ll begin to see a flow of inquiries and business. I’ve detailed how to write and structure your site to attract all the clients you can handle in “Creating Web Sites that Sell“.

If you do the above will you instantly be generating millions of dollars from your site? That depends. One company I helped was attracting 6,000 visitors each day to their site. With a few changes to their site they increased lead generation by a huge amount and started closing many more high dollar sales within the first week.

If you’re a small business without a steady stream of traffic to your site it can take months or even a year to build up a steady stream of prospects and buisiness from your site. Of course the sooner you put your site in order, fix your marketing copy and the site structure the sooner you’ll be generating profits from your site. – Charlie Cook

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Where Should I Spend My Marketing Dollars?

By Charlie Cook   |   April 5, 2005

“Where should I invest my marketing dollars to get the best return?” – Bill Nelson, Chicago

Most people worry about how much to spend on advertising, their web site, or mailings. If you really want to get the most from the money you spend on marketing, start with yourself. Invest in yourself and become a better marketer. Once you know how to market your business, how to get your prospects’ attention, position your firm as the experts and know how to convert prospects to clients you’ll be able to generate far more sales with less effort.

Invest in obtaining the knowledge you need to put your marketing in order so it does what you want it to do which is lead people to make a purchase and become loyal clients. To help you I’ve mapped out what you need to know in a series of marketing manuals, written for people responsible for marketing and attracting more clients. Learn more about the marketing tools you can use to attract all the business you can handle. – Charlie Cook

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How Do I Create A Budget For Building My Site and My Web Site Marketing?

By Charlie Cook   |   April 4, 2005

“How do I create a budget for creating, marketing and operating a web site?” – Arthur Doglione

Here’s a brief overview of what to do to get your web site marketing in gear.

1. Identify the objectives for your site, what you want people to do when they visit it. Map out the steps you want them to take based on how people make purchasing decisions.

2. Identify the problems you solve for prospects.

3. Write your marketing copy, focusing on your prospects concerns.

4. Create a list of the tasks involved in building, marketing and maintaining your site, such as:
– url purchase and annual fees
– paying someone to build “design” your site
– purchase of sit graphics
– maintenace costs (who is going to regularly update the site?)
– site hosting fees
– if you plan to sell services or products include merchant card fees, online transaction fees and shopping card fees.
– if you plan on using a service to help you manage your list building and email broadcasts, include these fees too.
– identify how you plan on attracting people to your site, and the associated advertising costs.

5. Determine which of the above you will be doing yourself and which you plan to pay someone else to do.

Learn how to structure and write your web site to attract prospects, position your products and services and sell more with the manual I wrote for you detaiing how to build or fix your web site so it helps you grow your business. Use this link to order Creating Web Sites that Sell and use your web site marketing to be more successful.- Charlie Cook

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Finding the Best Small Business Marketing Opportunities

By Charlie Cook   |   March 31, 2005

Finding marketing opportunities is like finding the best places to ski for me. Let me explain.

Five years ago we had the good fortune to buy a ski condo at Sugarbush in VT, a mountain we had only occasionally visited. The first couple of years I headed for the trails, skiing where everybody else was. I found lots of great terrain, but also lots of others competing with me for the same runs and the same snow. With lots of people covering the same ground, the condition of the trails often became less than ideal fairly quickly.

Once I knew the mountain and had found the ski trails I liked best, I started exploring the spaces between the trails, in the woods. With the help of friends and family and my increasing abliity I found hidden paths through the trees where fresh snow lingered untouched just waiting to be skiied.

With new confidence in my ability to navigate the unmarked and unexplored parts of the mountain, I spent much of this year skiing the outback. Starting from the top of the lift, with friends I explored headed out beyound the area limits to enjoy the fresh snow and the solitude of skiing the backside of the mountain. So how does this relate to marketing your small business?

The most obvious place to look for marketing opportunities is where everybody else goes. The problem is you’ll find yourself competing with lots of other people for the same space, just as I was on the ski trails.

Instead of focusing all your time on marketing in the same places as all your competitors, look for marketing opportunities in between the common areas others sell their products and services and you’ll be pleasantly suprised to find many untapped sources of revenue, often untouched by your competitors. Learn how to discover all the small business marketing opportunities you’ve been missing.- Charlie Cook

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