The 3 Unknown Steps of Marketing Success
To be your own marketing expert you first need to know where to begin. It's no good learning how to be a good copywriter, if you don't know what medium is best to promote your work through. So the first step of marketing success is understanding what strategies are available for you in your business. From my own years of research I have found 74 different ways to generate a potential customer for every industry and that doesn't include the dozens of ways to generate inquiries online. The 74 strategies are all used for offline promotion. I'll just share with you a few of the best, yet least known strategies here below. Do you know what strategic alliance, host beneficiary and proactive referral strategies are? What about piggyback invoice mailings, reverse host beneficiary, invitation closed door sales, loyalty programs and school newsletter ads? Of these strategies the ones I like the best are proactive referral systems, where you offer an incentive to your customers soon after they buy, to refer other customers to you and promote this through a letter to your customer within days after buying. This works a treat! One of my other favourites is a strategic alliance whereby you find a business that has a similar target market to your own and you meet with them to agree to send customers to each other. This could be with business cards, brochures, special coupons with offers on them or simply by using a verbal recommendation. I've had clients of mine grow by 150% in 9 months with no advertising cost at all over that time with strategic alliances. It costs nothing, you only have to do work once and you can make money from it forever. How can you beat that? When you have a strong alliance going, you can take it another step with an endorsed mailing whereby the business owner promotes your business to their database in the form of a letter. You can also use a host beneficiary where you talk to another business owner about mailing their database of clients where the letter talks about your business, telling them how great you are and including an offer to buy from you. You can work on a commission structure or simply reciprocate the favor with your own business, which is called a 'reverse host beneficiary'. So that's step one of marketing success, becoming aware of many of the hundreds of marketing strategies that are available to you to promote your business. Step 2 is knowing which out of all the hundreds of marketing strategies are best to use in the order of most effective first. This takes real skill and its what great marketing plans are all about. Too often in small business the owners throw away thousands of dollars on marketing with little to no hope of return. I don't know of many small businesses that can afford to throw away money on marketing that may not work. In business you always have time or money to promote your business and sometimes both. Deciding which strategies to use in order of best first depends on what's happening with your business right now. Sometimes (usually) its better to work on increasing your conversion rates and sales skills than it is to spend money on generating new inquiries. And before sales skills it's a good idea to try putting your prices up 10%. I guarantee you'd be amazed if you knew how many business owners I have persuaded to do this and the incredible profit results that have occurred as a result! This strategy again depends on your industry and advice from a great marketing person can help you to decide if it should be high on your priority list. So once you become aware, with some research of your own, what strategies are available to you to promote your business, then you've understood which strategies are best to put in highest priority order, then you're ready to start research on the best ways to express your businesses products or services with powerful words and copywriting. Again this step is a real science but reading books on the top authors in the world like Joe Vitale, Claude Hopkins and John Caples makes a huge difference. Or you can find yourself a great marketing person who can teach you to do it yourself. The choice is yours (I recommend being taught as then you have the skills forever, and you know your own customers better than anyone). Personally, I've found when you get your marketing priorities right, in the best order that's right for you, 50% and higher growth in 6-12 months in profit is quite achievable and common, whatever your industry type or situation. So there you have it, the 3 major steps to create your own marketing success. Start with finding out what you don't know on your own steam, or from an expert in marketing... its always a great way to get started. Tim Stokes is a business builder who trains people in how to market their own business. His results with clients are extroardinary with many making thousands of dollars profit per promotion without Tim's ongoing assistance, just by applying what he teaches them. To find out more about Tim's business and marketing education programs go to http://www.bbms.com.au
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Fails to provide the information directory users want Information trumps images and expensive extras, like color. Readers are looking for specific answers. Use your ad space delivering them. Words provide persuasion's heavy lifting. If your message applies equally to the other ads around yours, you haven't sharpened it enough. Keep honing the copy until it embodies why people prefer YOU.
Fades into background - doesn't get noticed While larger ads can be overlooked, smaller ads have to work harder for the same shot at being noticed. Overlooked ads cost just as much as chosen ones. The solution isn't about changing the size, but focusing the words to match what readers want to know. It comes down to saying something unique and relevant to them.
Treats the business name or logo like a benefit It isn't. That's probably the least relevant information, as far as directory users are concerned. Yellow Pages aren't the way to build name recognition. But if you've already developed name recognition in other ways, you have a major chance of getting called.
Inconvenient business location Half of all users scan for location before actually reading the ads' information. They only pay attention to businesses that are convenient (within driving distance) and easy to find. (That distance varies depending on the product or service.) So make sure your location is prominent and findable (maybe a map). Or compensate for an undesirable location with house calls or free delivery.
Expects more than an ad could possibly deliver This problem isn't about the ad, but the advertiser's frame of mind. There's too much hype and biased statistics about what the directory can deliver. New businesses, especially, have unrealistic expectations. The longer a business is in operation, the less impact their listing has upon drawing new business.
Treats the Yellow Pages like a stand-alone marketing method It works best for getting new customers, to capture the "undecideds." But relying on mostly new business is an inefficient way to operate. An enterprise also needs repeat customers and referrals to balance out the high financial and effort costs necessary to keep attracting new ones. Therefore, a business needs a variety of strategies to keep, as well as find, buyers.
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Fails to track the calls so you know why people call No getting around it, if you don't keep track of customers you can't tell how they find you. Or what's working (or not). Logging the source of new business shows how much credit to give to the Yellow Pages (or other marketing efforts).
Callers can't get information they want That ad did its job fine. But the customer still got away because the call wasn't answered or desired information wasn't forthcoming. Fielding calls effectively is crucial because unsatisfied callers just call the next ad. Develop a strategy that covers all your bases An attention-grabbing Yellow Page ad doesn't just happen. The business needs to back it up with additional promotion to get more than their share of calls. But when the directory works together with other marketing effort, they all do better.
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