Small Business Marketing

Category: Small Business Marketing

Learn to Do It Like the Big Dawgs!

Posted on October 10, 2016 by Andy Turner

Today we’ll take a look at how the kings of industry wine, dine and otherwise cajole prospects.

Most of successful professionals use a series of information based ads that build emotion and a call to action. These are much more effective than a standard company branding advertisements. The same principles that go into putting together a high impact (and, often, high priced) ad campaign can be adapted to fit your needs with similar results.

Here are some ways to put together and execute a professional, effective ad campaign:

Put together a short report that’ll you’ll automatically send to prospects when they contact you. This should include a short description of your business and what you specialise in. Don’t forget to include case studies, samples or other proof of your success.
Develop value-oriented yellow page ads.
Consider newsletters as a way of educating and informing customers about your industry and services offered.
Offer a free seminar, webinar or other lecture to build awareness of your business, but make sure you make the information pertinent to your target market and find speakers who are respected and known in the industry.
Buy an existing business, introduce better marketing and grow this new business faster than a “from scratch” business.
Always test different versions of your ads to find the most effective ones.
Use direct mail marketing to grow your business.
Put together a database of previous customers and send them new information.
Offer incentives such as frequent purchasing benefits, loyalty programs, referral programs or others.
Approach large firms who may need your services and negotiate a deal to be their exclusive expert in your field.
Offer a 24-hour information line with a regularly updated recorded message. Make this available to all past and future customers/clients.
Donate time or materials to local charities to show support in your area.
Offer public clinics for the general public to come along and discuss what they need that’s free and approachable.
Organise seminars your customers/clients can pay to attend by putting together a high-perception value package.
Approach local newspaper by offering to write a weekly column about your area of expertise. Don’t ask for money, just a byline and bio.
Develop a weekend or other destination seminar for customers/clients, not only does this give you an action-packed weekend with the most important people, it gives them a tax-deductible business adventure.
Take a good seminar and turn it into written form as a home study, member site program, audio or video program.
Approach large companies and offer to give seminars to their employees, investors or management.
Be proactive with your marketing plan.
Barter for your marketing. Offer products or services in lieu of payment.
Be willing to bring in new clients, even if at an initial loss because it will likely pay off later.
Regulate your marketing budget to maximise the potential income from them to hit the next year and try to push back advertising costs for the next year to offset your expenses.
Make offers to target markets or target market businesses to pay them for referrals or shared databases.
Offer loaner products to replace equipment that’s being repaired or refurbished.
Give away something free to everyone who brings in a print version of your advertisement. This is a great way to see which ads are giving you the most bang for your buck.
Continually consider what new products/services you can offer to current customers/clients.
Develop a mail order division of your company.
Offer a proposition to your competitors to trade customers/clients you were both unsuccessful in selling to.
Use different marketing tactics as an excuse to attract new customers/clients with new offers and goodies.
Offer a “you-choose-the-price” program. This is especially good for product you just can’t seem to sell.

So, there are 30 great ways to market to other professionals and businesses. Some other great ways to get your name out there for little or no cost are:

Get involved you in your community- volunteer, donate to local events etc.
Join your local Chamber of Commerce and attend the networking and other activities throughout the year.
Join local education and networking events e.g. BEN (Business Entrepreneur Network) Dublin & Louth
Join a local, state or regional professional associates for further networking opportunities.
Become a board member of a local organisation.

Advertising should never be your only method of marketing, there are a myriad of ways to get your name out there in a way that feels personal to potential customers/clients.

“Effective advertising…must be used to get your name out to the public. If your name is not familiar to people, they will not come to you.” Jay Abraham

If you’re not sure where you start with your marketing plan or how to reach out to your local community, competitors, customers/clients and others who could influence your business in a highly positive way, Click Here to try our FREE test drive to experience the tools and resources we have to boost your business to the next level and beyond.

Great PR Equals Free Publicity

Posted on October 3, 2016 by Andy Turner

There are three key areas of public relations you can use to boost your advertising results ten-fold over your paid advertising.

The key to public relations lie in:

Public relation or publicity
Merchandising
Promotions

With a solid plan in place that encompasses all these areas, you’ll have a great approach to use public relations in the best way possible.

Public relations include all that is the media. Don’t limit yourself. The attention of newspapers, television, radio, magazines, bloggers, ezines and more are all equally powerful. Online marketing is just as, if not more, important as conventional media.

Here are the steps to get noticed by the media:

Put together a press release for your company. The press release should be relevant to your target market and address consumer interest, not just announce your business.
Compact your press release to include one hook and one angle. Choose the most attention-getting to make sure the media person you are sending it to is interested in reading it.
Put your press release in professional formatting. With press releases you need a dateline, the most important information at the top, facts, figures and wrap it up with contact details including who and how. Print the press release on your letterhead.
Send your press release to all television and radio stations, local and metro newspapers, national newspapers, industry magazines, and any other form of media that reaches your target market. Don’t forgot to include relevant blogs, ezines, press release submission sites and to industry professionals.

More importantly than a perfect press release is to make sure you have addressed the needs of your target market in the products/services you offer and made that clear in the press release. If you are provided people a solution to a problem, a way to avoid a problem and an opportunity to enhance their life the media and public will be interested.

If you have a connection (or the ability to get a connection) with a celebrity, this can practically guarantee you’ll get attention. Make sure you are offered newsworthy information, and then follow up with media outlets to make sure they are publicising that information.

“One of the most powerful techniques every business should use is free publicity. As the name implies, there is no cost, just the time and effort required to attract attention to your business.” Jay Abraham

Click Here to use our FREE test drive to show you how to put together press releases that work! Check out how the pro’s do it and craft the perfect press releases for your business.

Do You Really Know Your Vendors?

Posted on September 26, 2016 by Andy Turner

It’s extremely important to build relationships with your vendors and those around you can bring in new customers/clients and increase awareness of your company branding.

The people you work directly with on your products and services are really the ones with the most to gain when you find success. By taking the time to get to know them, you’ll find a whole host of opportunities you didn’t realise were there.

Look for great ways to offer your vendors rewards for helping grow your business and everyone wins. One of ways you can do this is by offering performance based incentives that are much larger than their normal charges.

Here’s the step-by-step process to putting together a partnership with a vendor:

Approach all the vendors you work with and offer an incentive based on performance.
Put the generous incentive plan together from their perspective, even take suggestions.
Develop a clear, concise and easy to track incentive plan, this will increase competition between vendors and therefore higher performance levels.
Encourage subsequent sales instead of focusing only on the initial sale. By doing this you can give away more of the profit from the initial sale to your vendors and make higher profits off the back end products. Encourage:

Future sales
Upsell better and more profitable products/services
Cross-sell to additional products

5. Create an incentive plan that’s irresistible to your vendors by offering generous, exclusive compensation.

Think of all the vendors you work with and the creative ways you can put together an incentive plan that entices them to be part of your business. Use their talents, capabilities and connections and you’ll both be winners.

Putting together an incentive plan doesn’t have to be a complicated process. Click Here to use our FREE test drive to come up with some great ideas and put your incentive plan together for maximum results.

Why Telemarketing is NOT the Anti-Christ

Posted on September 19, 2016 by Andy Turner

Today you’ll learn how to use direct mail marketing and, yes, telemarketing to your full advantage. I know, the word “telemarketing” might as well be four letters, but there is a way to help customers feel like they are getting personal attention and keep them from blocking your number!

With the success direct mail marketing has had and the availability of computers, these can be used as a powerful marketing tool for your success. Telemarketing is best for high priced, high margin products/services.

Here are the key steps to putting together a highly effective direct mail marketing program:

List all benefits customers will get from the purchase of your products and services.
Pick the single most powerful benefit out of that list.
Build an attention-getting headline around that benefit. Remember to use emotion – fulfill the desire to be young, wealthy, desired, popular or successful.
Develop a sales letter using the headline you created to grab attention, provide information and motivate customers to act.
Put together supplementary items, such as a brochure, order form, reply envelope or note that encourages them to read the letter.
Rent or purchase a mailing list.
Compare cost of mailing vs. cost per order.
Continue to test and refine your direct mail marketing plan.

You can see how direct mail marketing can help you find a local or even country-wide target market to send letters or postcards to and draw in new clientele and customers. Fine-tuning your marketing campaign will bring better results and therefore lower the overall cost of the campaign.

To be successful in telemarketing you need to:

Put together a plan, so you know exactly what you want to accomplish during the call.
Develop a list of topics to discuss and the questions you want to present around these topics.
Input verbiage checking to see if you are calling at a good time.
Include enough questions to keep the conversation interesting, but not too many to sound like you are interrogating.
Start with broad questions and narrow your focus as the conversation continues.
Offer feedback to show them you are paying attention and appreciate their time.
Don’t insult their intelligence or manipulate them.
Listen first, talk second.
Be relaxed and conversational.

Telemarketing doesn’t have to be the trauma it’s made out to be. You can put together an honest, personal and effective telemarketing campaign that is endearing, informative and gets the job done. Think of how you would want to be treated on a marketing call. Ask your friends and family what they hate most about the telemarketing calls they get and work hard to craft your plan in a better way.

“When selling by telephone, you have approximately thirty seconds to convince the customer to listen to you. You need an opening statement that captures their attention, conveys who you are, what you want and why the prospect should listen.” Jay Abraham

It’s easy to see how direct mail marketing and telemarketing can positively affect your business by bringing in new customers and increasing the level of awareness about your products, services and company branding.

Click Here to try our FREE test drive that offers the resources and tools you need to work through these processes and put together the best marketing plan you can.

How to Turn Prospects into Customers Overnight!

Posted on September 12, 2016 by Andy Turner

Today I’d like to talk about how to turn prospects into customers and retain them for future marketing to. While, your marketing is doing its job, you need to be working on turning those prospects into customers. There are a few key ways to draw them in and seal the deal. You need to be:

Inviting
Informative
Enjoyable

The biggest fear of most new customers is the dread buyer’s remorse. You want to avoid this at all costs and this should be mitigated if you’ve provided a quality product/service that delivers on the marketing claims you’ve made.

However, this can still occur. There are two ways to deal with this:

Offer to refund money-no questions asked
Offer a bonus they can keep even if they return the product

These offers alone will also mitigate buyer’s remorse because the customer will trust you more, just for offering these things.

There are number of other ways to turn a prospect into a customer:

Offer a special price as an opportunity for you to test the market.
Offer a lower price with the reason of pushing inventory to pay a tax bill, for your kid’s’ braces, or another tangible reason. Customers love that this makes you feel so much more human.
Offer a referral incentive.
Offer a smaller, more inexpensive product first to build trust.
Offer package deals.
Offer to charge less for their first purchase if they become a repeat customer.
Offer extra incentives-longer warranties, free bonuses if ordered by a set date.
Offer financing options, if applicable.
Offer a bonus if they pay in full.
Offer special packaging or delivery.
Offer “name your own price” incentives.
Offer comparative data or other comparison tools.
Offer a trade-up or upgrade to something they already have.
Offer additional, educational information to help them make the decision.

The options really are as limitless as you make it. You can use these or other ideas to find what works the best for your business, products/service and target market. Remember this…

“By making it inviting, easy, informative, non-threatening, educational, inspiring and fun to do business with you, you’ll loft your company above the competition.” Jay Abraham

Need help with figuring out the best strategy for converting prospects into customers? Click Here to try our FREE test drive that gives you exclusive access to the mountain of resources and tools, along with information from some of the greatest marketing minds on Earth.

Make your Advertising Pop!

Posted on September 6, 2016 by Andy Turner

There are 5 major components to good advertising copy: (The order of these is essential to success)

Command Attention
Showcase Benefits of Products/Services
Prove the Benefits
Persuade People to Embrace the Benefits
Call to Action

Advertising is sales in print. So, you need to think about the unique benefits your products/services offer and showcase that in a persuasive way. You need to emphasise results, not features.

Let’s take a minute to talk about each of these components:

Command Attention: This is usually accomplished with the headline. You need an attention-getter that makes people want to know more about your products/services. The best headlines give a vivid portrayal of the benefits or show how a problem can be avoided with your products/services. The headline is the advertisement for the advertisement.
Showcase Benefits: You have to showcase the benefits of your products and services and, more importantly, show how they will solve or prevent a problem. They need to know what’s in it for them. Include useful, factual and clear information to show precisely what the benefits are and how they are going to help the customer.
Offer Proof: This is where you prove what the advertisement is offering. You need to establish you have a method to deliver. Consider information that establishes credibility and past performance.
Persuade: You need to add compelling reasons for your potential customers to purchase your products/services. Use a hard sell approach and create scarcity. This will enact your potential customers to feel like they have to act now. Which leads into the last component.
Call to Action: You need to compel your potential customers to DO something. They need to check out your site, sign up for your newsletter, purchase your products, contact you about services…something. Offer a freebie-a booklet, sample, product, bonus, demo, consult, limited time price…the list goes on. There are lots of ways to get potential customers excited about ordering and help them feel like they are getting an amazing deal.

Good advertisements include all of these components and are not complete without any of them. You can sit down and think through any one of these components, then figure out how to best place them together for the most effectiveness. We can help you with this too.

Click Here to try our FREE test drive to learn how to put together great advertisements from some of the best in the business

Demand a Direct Response from your Marketing!

Posted on September 2, 2016 by Andy Turner

Direct response marketing is a marketing that demands a direct response from your potential customers. This type of marketing is used to answer questions, present your branding, products and the reason you do what you do. Customers love this, as they are offered the opportunity to response, whether that be in the way of signing up for a newsletter, posting a comment on your site or blog, or purchasing a product from you.

So, what does direct response marketing look like? Well, it comes in many forms, including:

Direct mail
Print ads
Radio and TV ads
Coupons or other incentives
Telemarketing

Some of the advantages of direct marketing are:

A great way to use free time during lulls in business
Productive way to communicate and empower you to create more relationships
Great way to up- and cross-sell to current customers
Low cost way to rustle up new business
Used as leverage to turn small sales into large sales
Supplement your current marketing program
Cost-effective way to reach target markets
Offers measurable results
Reach outside your local area for new business
Increase the effectiveness of your sales force

These are all great things that can come from just taking a few simple steps to putting together a direct response marketing plan and executing it.

“I honestly don’t think you’ll ever find a safer, lower-risk, higher-profit method of increasing your business or profession than direct-response marketing.” Jay Abraham

Direct response marketing is one of the best ways to launch your business on a large scale and reach out to everyone in your target market whether they are in your local area or not.

Click Here to try our FREE test drive that can help you put together a great direct response marketing plan and get you on your way to heightened success.

Lessons I Learned from Conor McGregor

Posted on August 22, 2016 by Andy Turner

Today we’ll talk about shameless self-promotion. That’s right, I said it! Shameless! After all, we are learning from Conor McGregor here.

It’s all about self-promotion! Self-promotion comes in many forms and you can use different tactics to get your name out there. Look at politicians! Talk about self-promotion and in some not so discreet ways, at that. But, seriously, consider some of the major superstars we all know. Madonna, Donald Trump, Howard Stern and Bill Clinton, just to name a few.

We all self promote. Did you raise your hand in class to show the teacher you knew the answer? Of course! That’s self-promotion. This is the kind of self-promotion we are talking about. With dignity, class and the knowledge to back it up. If you self-promote only to prove you don’t really know what you’re talking about, you’re going to lose business.

Natural self-promoters are the former and I want to tell you about the three major traits they have and use to build themselves and their businesses.

The first is position. You need to position yourself around people who can make a difference in your life. You need to do this frequently. You need to wake up every morning and ask yourself “Who can I meet today who will make a difference in my success?” In fact, go a step further, write it in big, bold letters and tape it on your bathroom mirror.

Also consider:

Who can help me meet my goals?

Is it a prospective customer/client? A colleague with contacts? An association with key members who may become prospects?

Don’t settle into interacting with the people who are the easiest to access. You need to reach outside your comfort zone and there you will find a wealth of new connections that will bring you great success.

Now, let’s talk about Style. No, this doesn’t mean you need an Armani suit to bring in more business (though, let’s be honest-it wouldn’t hurt) What this really means is how are you different from your competitors and others in your industry. What makes you memorable with customers?

If you are meeting a lot of people and they don’t remember you once you leave the room, you have a serious problem! This means you have an opportunity to present yourself in a more memorable way.

There are lots of little subtle changes you can make. Reassess your:

Business cards
Company message
Your picture
Your wording

Maybe even, your hairstyle (of course, now we’re back to the expensive suit, but it really works!)

You get the idea. There are lots of little ways you can work on making your image and business more successful. Also, consider how you sound on the phone and how you greet people at meetings or other events. Think about your 30-sec elevator speech.

The third trait of natural promoters is repetition. You can’t say it once and leave it at that. Successful self-promoters say it as many times as they need until they get a response. Would you remember a commercial for Coca-Cola if you only saw it once, no! You see it over and over and eventually you head out to the store.

You, also, have to make multiple impressions on those you are networking with in order to build brand awareness. Repetition is in direct connection with positioning. Once you find people to network with, reach out and find hundreds more who can help in your success as well.

If you need help identifying potential money-makers, where to get the capital you need and how to put together a smart team, Click Here to try our FREE test drive to gain access to our resources and tools.

Learn How to Educate Your Customers

Posted on August 15, 2016 by Andy Turner

Educate them about what you may be thinking. Well, consider this, many businesses focus solely on attracting new customers, but you NEED to spend a good chunk of your time retaining current and former customers. These are people you already know to be a good sales potential…they’ve already bought from you!

Take the time to market and sell new products to your old customers and less time trying to sell old products to new customers and you will see a drastic change in your sales, customer quality and branding position.

Here are a couple of key elements to use to retain your current customers:

Stay in contact: This means by phone, email, e-newsletter, in person, by pigeon if you have to!
Post-Purchase Assurance: This means you need to follow up with customers. Your customers need to feel like they are being supported for their purchase and with the item they purchased. How many times have you purchased a product, then felt completely abandoned? Something as simple as a Thank You note with your contact or customer service information can go a long way in retaining a great customer.
Deals & Guarantees: Always offer your current customers the best deals and guarantees you have. Show them you appreciate their business or even come up with a club specifically to reward loyal customers. You can also do this with a preferred pricing option.
Integrity: Using good business practices and simply upholding integrity, dignity and honesty go a long way with customers. Let’s face it, there’s a lot of swindling and crap out there and the safer and more confident you make your customers feel, the more they will trust you and that makes for an amazingly supportive and loyal customer.

There are three cornerstone ideas to a successful business:

Quality product/service
Offering useful products/services that solve a problem for or enhance the life of a customer
Offer subjects your customers find interesting

Use this approach of educating your customers and offering them real information and insight and you will be rewarded with loyalty and success.

Stop wasting all your time on new prospects while your current customers fall by the wayside!

As Jay Abraham says, “Your best prospects are your existing customers. If you’ve been putting all your marketing efforts into acquiring new customers, stop and diverts some of your resources into reselling, upselling, cross-selling to those same customers. In every way possible – through package inserts, regular mailings, special offers – stay in touch with those customers and get them used to buying from you.”

So, there it is! Remember, Click Here for our FREE test drive can help you put together the resources and tools to do exactly that. We can help you educate your customers and you can watch the benefits pay off many-fold.

Time to Stop Wasting Your Resources!

Posted on July 28, 2016 by Andy Turner

Today you’re going to learn how to find a target market of potential customers so you aren’t wasting precious resources on blitz marketing. So, the two questions you have to ask yourself are:

• What do people really want to buy from me?
• What related products are they already buying?

Once you figure this out you will know who is more predisposed to purchase your products/services. Then, you find other businesses with the same customer base who you can customer share with. Come up with an incentive and great arrangement to encourage both of your customer bases to shop at both of your stores.

The basic concept is this:

You want to find existing businesses who have the customer profile that you are looking for to market your products/services to.

Then strike up a relationship with those business owners to work out an incentive for customers to purchase from both businesses.

As a result, you have an audience to market to and they generate an added value from their current base.
So, how do you figure this out? There is a great formula from Jay Abraham you can follow with great success.

LV = (P x F) x N – MC

Here’s what it all means:
• LV is the life time value of a customer
• P is the average profit margin from each sale
• F is the number of times a customer buys each year
• N is the number of years customers stay with you
• MC is the marketing cost per customer (total costs/number of customers)

Once you know how much you need to spend to attract a new customer, you will know how much of an incentive you can offer to a business to help attract new customers.

So, here’s your step-by-step process:

1. Find companies who already have the customer base you are looking for.
2. Negotiate an incentive for them to share that customer base with you.
3. Focus your marketing resources to this group of predisposed customers.

If you need help working through this process, check out our FREE test drive for the most comprehensive system of marketing tools and resources. Click Here http://vanguardmarketingacademy.com/myguidedtour/ to access the tools in our FREE test drive which offer these very same things.