Marketing
5 Ways To” Get Lucky” With Your Small Business Marketing
In early-August, I got a call from Barbara at the Association of Management Consultants wanting to know whether I was interested in running a small business marketing workshop for their members. I asked how she had gotten my name; Barbara told me Jeff had referred me. When I mentioned that I had met Jeff over two years ago, Barbara said that I sure was lucky he still remembered me.
Luck had nothing to do with it. Jeff asked to be put on my mailing list after we meet. He gets my weekly ezine, full of strategic marketing ideas he can use. Over time, I’ve demonstrated my expertise to Jeff and he trusts me enough to refer me as a speaker.
Are you relying on luck to get people to remember you?
When Jeff had a need or when someone he knew wanted an expert in marketing, my name came to mind. Why? Because I have a SYSTEM for promoting my marketing products and services that helps people remember me when they have a need.
Do you have a system that generates a steady stream of clients?
Over the years I’ve perfected a marketing strategy that generates a steady stream of prospects, clients and income. It is based on five core marketing principles and associated marketing tactics.
Why use a small business strategic marketing system?
When you have a system, each one of your marketing efforts works to support your other marketing efforts. Each action you take builds on the previous action. Your marketing is cumulative. In my case this means that each month, I have an additional thousand or more qualified prospects interested in my services and products.
What are some of the elements of a successful small business marketing
system?
1. Attract Attention
Learn how to explain what you do so that people quickly see how you can help them. All you need is a one-sentence description of who you help and the problem you solve; a marketing message or elevator speech. Use it on your business card, in your brochures, on your web site and in your ads.
2. Establish Your Credibility
Provide proof of how well your services and products work. Testimonials describing results work well. Articles, case studies and helpful tips show people how you think and how you can solve their problems.
3. Prompt Qualified Prospects to Contact You
Use your free report, test drive, workshop, etc. to prompt prospects to give you their contact information. If they read your ezine, or visit your web site, give them a reason to tell you what they need and want so you can contact them.
4. Stay in Touch
Whether a prospect came to you as a result of an ad, referral, web search, or a mailing, regularly send them mail or email and demonstrate your expertise with ideas they can use.
5. Educate Your Target Market to Create Demand
One of the biggest barriers to sales. is that your prospects don’t know you, the range of your services you provide, or why they need your products and services.
Prospects won’t hire you if they don’t understand the need or the benefit. Use your regular communication to educate prospects about the problems you solve and to create a perception of need on their part and then they will want to use your services.
Still waiting to get lucky with your marketing? Use a systematic approach to marketing your business and generate a steady and reliable stream of clients and customers.
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4 Small Marketing Changes That Get Big Results
Last week we got the big one.
We got our first big winter storm and up north in Vermont where I ski, the mountain received over 48 lovely inches of fresh snow, enough to even convince my wife to leave a day early for the holiday weekend. Here on the coast in Connecticut where I live the same storm produced 2 measly inches of rock hard frozen crud.
What was the difference? Just a couple of degrees.
Your small business marketing is the same. Small shifts can make a big difference in your results and your profitability. With the right small business marketing plan you can get an abundance of business or with a slightly different approach hardly any business at all. Here are four little changes which can yield big results for your business.
1. What You Do With Your Goals
Everyone has goals for themselves and their business. Some keep them in mind and only a few commit them to paper. A small difference but it turns out the people who regularly identify and put their goals on paper end up making over ten times as much.
What are your goals for this year? Do they include discovering how to attract more clients? Find out how >>
2. Where You Focus Your Small Business Marketing
If you’re like most people your marketing touts your good name and your products, it’s focused on you. Typically this approach yields only minimal results and limited sales.
Your prospects’ biggest concern is their own needs and wants. Change a few words in how you talk about yourself and your products and services. You’ll find that instead of just getting a luke warm response you’ll be generating a ton of hot leads with your marketing.
This simple shift from a focus on you to a focus on your prospects could help you attract as many clients in one month as you did in the last six as it did for Denise Annunciata of Leaplaw or help you get your next $200,000 sale as it did for Bill Orser of SafePlay.
3. What You Do With Leads
Last week I got a call from John, a builder in Oregon who after ten years was still struggling with his marketing. I asked John how many names he had in his prospect list. He said he had a dozen or so.
Over ten years anyone in business will have helped, talked to and met 1,500 people or more unless they live in an isolated village in Alaska. Imagine instead of just giving someone your business card you asked them for theirs. Then take the next step and ask them to tell you either what they want and need relative to your services or for the name of one person they know who could use your services.
Do this small task and you’ll have more leads than you ever imagined.
Over ten years, using this easy marketing technique you could have built a database of thousands of people to contact with information about your services.
With the help of any contact management system or database program it’s easy to build your business network. It may seem like a small thing to do each week to take 2-5 minutes to add in the names of prospects but without this simple action, ten years down the road you could still be struggling like John.
Ready to stop struggling to grow your business or to take your business to the next level? If you keep using the same approach you have been you’re going to get the same results. You know that already, right? If instead you want to see your business reach its potential discover the small business marketing system that works >>
4. How Often You Contact Your Prospect List
80% of sales are lost due to lack of follow-up. Personally this drives me crazy when I hear a client tell me about their low lead to buyer conversion rate. More than 9 out of 10 times the problem is they don’t have the simple follow-up systems in place.
Think about it. You’ve done all the hard work to identify a qualified prospect. You know they want what you sell – yet all too many don’t buy. Don’t be satisfied with this!
I asked one client why they didn’t follow up inquiries by interested prospects with a series of helpful emails to engage their interest, help build credibility and create a sense of urgency. Their response was they didn’t want to pester the prospect and they already had a once a month follow system of contacts in place.
When someone contacts you they’re indicating an interest and what they want is to get all the information they need to get know you and trust you and buy from you. Wait a month and the prospect will have completely forgotten why they contacted you in the first place. It’s during the first week that they want to hear from you, again and again.
It may seem like a small difference, waiting to make contact over and over or doing it the first week, but it is often the difference between losing a prospect or adding a new client.
Can you see that if you made these four changes to your small business marketing plan you’d be more successful? Now imagine if you made a few more.
There are hundreds of little ways you can change your marketing that will make a big difference in your profits including ad copy, pricing strategies, product bundling, use of ezines, etc,. Each one could help you make 10-20% more this year.
Put a few of them together and you could easily see your income double from $750,000 to $1,500,000 in less than a year.
Small differences in temperature can result in over 36 inches of new snow versus 1 or 2 inches of frozen crud or 36 new clients versus 1 or 2 duds. While I can’t control the weather and have to take what mother-nature dishes out, you can control your small businesss marketing and how successful you are, it just takes making a few changes.
Want to know which little changes to make to get big results in your marketing and your business? Use this link >>
What’s The Growth Potential For Your Small Business…
Do you know how big your potential market is and how much more you can grow your business?
Last week I got a call from Janet, who wanted me to help her grow her Home Health Care business. She told me that her business grossed over six million dollars last year and she thought the potential exists to grow by at least 50% in the next two years.
Janet went on to explain that in one of the three communities she had targeted, she had only a small share of the business. She’d tried increasing spending on advertising, but it hadn’t provided any lead generation.
She knew the clients were there, but her marketing wasn’t reaching them. And she was sure that if she could make her ads and her follow up more effective, she’d have no problem reaching her goal of adding another three million dollars worth of business.
Ever wonder how big your potential market is and how much more you could grow your business?
Wouldn’t you like to know the answer?
People frequently assume that the reason their business isn’t growing is because of the lack of interest or small size of their potential market. But if you’re not getting all the clients you can handle, the problem could be your marketing strategies.
In The Insider Secrets to Attracting More & Better Customers you’ll find a system guaranteed to help you generate more leads and clients. My customers have used it grow their businesses by 50% to 100%. Claim your copy >>
If you’re only getting a small slice of the business in your target market, it’s not your prospects’ fault. It’s your lead generation that’s to blame. Janet identified one problem with her marketing strategies, the ads she’d written and paid for. Spending more on these wasn’t helping.
How can you tell if you’re getting all the business you could be?
1. You know what your target market is; if you haven’t already, do your homework now and get some hard numbers. Find out how many potential customers you have, where they live, and what their habits are. For example if you’re a home health care provider, find out the number of people between 65 and 100 in the communities you serve. Get as much information as you can on where they live and which media they rely on.
2. Clarify the benefits of the services you provide. No one really wants a nurse, a physical or occupational therapist. They want the benefits these services provide such as elimination of pain and increased mobility so they can get out of bed, enjoy their hobbies and get the most out of life no matter what age they are.
3. Calculate the percentage of your target market you currently serve. Most businesses serve a small percentage of their target market, leaving lots of room for growth.
4. Review each step of your marketing strategy and marketing tools to identify which are getting results and which aren’t.
How to Attract All The Clients You Can Handle
Why do some business owners seem to be so successful, pulling in prospects and profits? I’m sure you know it’s not by magic but because they know the most powerful ways to people who are eager to buy. Isn’t that what you want?
Now you can do the same. Claim your copy with this link >>
Do You Know How to Use Your Ads and Mailings?
Are you trying to sell with your ads, mailings, and cold calls? In general this is a big mistake. Your first objective is to engage your prospects’ interest; then you can build a relationship with them, get them to know you, trust you and buy from you. Start by providing your prospects with helpful information. Follow up with more helpful information and testimonials from happy clients.
What Freebie Do You Use to Generate Leads?
Do you have a free giveaway you use to prompt prospects to contact you? Whether it’s a free report or seminar or even a tea bag, giving something away for free is the most effective way to generate a reciprocal response and get a prospect to give you their contact information.
Are your ads, your mailings and your web site focused on you and your company? If they are, you’re making a fatal mistake. To attract clients and customers, focus your marketing on what customers want.
Are You Trying To Sell Prospects Too Soon?
Once a prospect responds to an ad, a mailing or your website, do you try to sell them? Don’t! Most people spend weeks researching a purchase. If you try to sell them right off the bat, you’ll be wasting your breath and missing the potential of a sale down the road when they’re ready to make a decision.
Prospects don’t care what you have to say until they know you care.
Instead of Selling Are You Helping People Buy?
Remember, people don’t like to be sold but they do like to buy. People love spending money to get what they want.
My daughter is like me; she shops around for good quality and value before she buys, whether it’s art for her new apartment or a pair of winter boots. She then gets great satisfaction from making a purchase.
I do a lot of research before I buy a new computer or a new pair of skis. When I do make my purchase, I’m a happy camper. You want your clients and customers to experience that kind of satisfaction.
Instead of trying to sell people and scaring them away, help them get what they want and your sales will soar.
Are prospective customers falling through holes in your marketing?
Are there holes in your:
- Ads; are you getting a strong response?
- Mailings; do prospects read them and call you?
- Website; is it about you or your prospects? Does it generate hundreds of leads and or sales a week?
- Follow-up communication; what is your follow up strategy?
- Your sales script; what’s your conversion rate, could you improve it with a more customer focused script?
- Other…
Want to discover how many more clients you could get? Find out what is and isn’t working with your marketing. Then find out what actually works to generate more leads and sales.
Take the next step to capture more of your market and get all the clients you can handle. Use this link to claim your copy of The Insider Secrets to Attracting More & Better Customers>>
The #1 Reason Most Small Business Marketing Fails
Is there something missing from your marketing? Is your small business marketing on target? Or could you be generating ten times as many sales?
Most small business owners know that to grow their business they need to generate interest and sales. Sounds simple enough. Then why is it often so difficult to do? Why aren’t you selling ten times as much as you are?
Selling is essentially a simple transaction. Your prospects give you money or a credit card to pay you for a product or service that they want to buy. The question is, how to you get more of them to do that?
The answer is simpler than you realize. To convert more prospects into clients, give them the marketing information they want. If you’re not generating a steady stream of sales, it may be for the top reason that most marketing fails; you’re not giving your prospects the information they want and need to become customers.
Do you know what your prospects want? Do you know what information to provide to convert them to clients?
Before a prospect will purchase from you, they need to:
• Want the product or service you sell,
• Know you exist,
• Like you and
• Trust you.
Most small business marketing is focused on getting attention and getting right the sale. This approach doesn’t help prospects determine whether they truly want the product or service or whether it solves their problems. It doesn’t help them get to know you, like you and trust you.
Imagine a determined young man looking for true love and marriage. Looking for immediate success, he decides to stand in the center of the local mall, jumps up and down and yell, “Marry me!”, “Marry me!” at the top of his lungs. Yes, he gets plenty of attention. But no customers (and he only needs one). No woman in her right mind would marry someone they didn’t know, like or trust.
Your clients are making a commitment when they make a purchase, exchanging their hard-earned dollars for your products and services. Before they plunge into this relationship, they’ll want to know you and trust you too.
Ready to find out exactly what to do to get more clients and customers? You could keep marketing the same way you have been, but you’re going to get the same results. If you’re serious about growing your business, discover how. Get the details >
Want more clients? Here’s how to get them:
1. Provide a product or service that people want
If you want more people to buy from you, do a better job of communicating to them through your marketing that you have what they want.
Use your lead generation system, ads, web site and mailings to get more attention by focusing on your prospects’ concerns and interests. Speaking to their needs will motivate them to contact you.
2. Help more people get to know you
Did you assume that sales would start pouring in because you sent out that mailing or took out that ad touting your product or service? If you did, you made the most common mistake made by small business owners.
One time ads or mailings rarely work to generate sales. People need to get to know you before they’ll do business with you.
Fortune 500 companies spend hundreds of millions dollars a year helping their prospects get to know them. If you had a marketing budget of a hundred million dollars, you could do the same.
If you don’t have that kind of cash on hand, focusing on building your brand image is a waste of time and money. There are other ways to help your prospects get to know you and buy from you that cost little or nothing and will get you the results you’re looking for.
Use your lead generation system to prompt prospects to contact you for your expertise, a free consultation or report. Then build on this first contact by continuing to provide your prospects with helpful ideas that will help them get to know you and like you.
3. Help more prospects trust you
The two best ways to help your prospects learn to trust you are to regularly help them by giving them information they want and have others vouch for you by using testimonials.
What’s the key to helping prospects trust you? Follow up! More than 80% of sales are lost due to lack of simple follow-up, calls, emails, and letters.
To get the clients you want, start by giving them the marketing information they want. Once you do, you’ll see your sales increase by two to four times or more.
How You Could Have All The Clients You Want
Selling more isn’t about luck. Truly successful business owners don’t turn prospects into sales by magic. They understand – and apply – a few simple marketing principles and techniques to pull in hungry prospects and convert them to clients.
Discover how you can get all the clients you want >>
Small Business Marketing That Gets Results to Grow Your Business
… More Small Business Marketing Stategies for Big Profits >>
