Category: Startups

Put Them in a Trance

Put Them in a Trance

We will go through the 5 essential keys to a successful and reusable marketing campaign launch. Once you have these basics down, you can use them repeatedly.

The 5 essential keys are:
  • Define your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
  • Put an effective sales offer to work
  • Avoid the marketing pitfalls
  • Use a world-class marketing perspective
  • Get results!

We’ll go through each of these so you can see how to use them and how they affect the overall outcome of your marketing campaign.

Define your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

Take the time to ask yourself some questions from the perspective of your customers/clients. What would it take to get their attention? What needs do they have that need to be met? What are the promises they want fulfilled?

Once you know the answers to these questions, you can start putting together a plan to meet these needs. Then, take a look at the USP (Unique Selling Proposition) your competitors are using to help you develop your own. Your USP is the promise you make to your customers/clients. It’s what will set you apart from your competition.

Put an effective sales offer to work

To develop an effective sales plan, you need to:
  1. Put together a headline that gets immediate attention.
  2. Share the benefits of your products/services, speaking from the customers’ perspective.
  3. Identify the specific needs met by your products/services.
  4. Make it easy to do business with you by offering guarantees.
  5. Share your specific sales proposition.
  6. Walk your customers/clients through how they should respond and act.
  7. Motivate with a call to action.

What all this means is that you must assemble what makes your products/services special and compel customers to make a purchase. If they don’t feel like they NEED your product, they won’t buy. You must address a question, solve a problem, or satisfy an obsession.

You need to provide them with all the information necessary for an informed and confident decision. Buyer’s remorse is one of the worst outcomes.

Avoid the marketing pitfalls

There are 5 major marketing pitfalls many businesses fall into and you should avoid:
  • Ignore market testing and push on with an inaccurate plan.
  • Include incomplete information or reasons in their marketing plan.
  • Fail to notice the needs of their prospective customers/clients.
  • Fail to diversify their marketing options.
  • Fail to get market opinions on their offers.

These are all areas to avoid. If you’ve been working through these lessons, steering clear of these pitfalls should feel easy and natural.

Use a world-class marketing perspective

A world-class marketing perspective is crucial, especially if you aim to attract customers/clients from around the world.

You can do this a number of different techniques and activities:
  1. Keep a marketing journal and jot down any innovative ideas you come across.
  2. Keep encouraging your marketing department, or yourself, to try new things and discard what isn’t working.
  3. Place an order from your own company using a different name and analyze the entire process, including ordering, shipping, the online store, customer service, and the product itself. This will reveal areas for improvement in the customer experience.
  4. Read every quality ad you can find and keep a file for future ideas to consider.
  5. When out in public, watch how consumers behave in different situations and how they consider their purchases.
  6. Step down a notch or two and work on the front lines with your sales and customer service staff.
  7. Continuously acknowledge your staff, vendors and customers. Everyone works and shops better when they feel appreciated.
  8. Always listen to feedback from employees and customers.
  9. Continuously test markets, ads, and marketing techniques. This is the only way to remain successful and understand what’s working and, more importantly, what’s not.
  10. Offer more information in your marketing than anyone else. The more information you offer, the more products/services you’ll sell.
  11. A great marketing plan can always improve. Continue to fine-tune and refine your marketing plan based on testing results and feedback.
  12. Maintain classiness in your marketing. Ensure that your marketing and advertising align with your company image, products, services, and quality.
  13. Improve your best marketing areas and drop those that aren’t working.
  14. Focus on what you say, not how you say it. The best marketing ideas naturally evolve into the best marketing.
  15. Develop all your ads, campaigns and sales materials with an attention to compelling and factual information.

By using these techniques you can put your name out there to the world and become one of the top brands in your industry.

Get results!

The last area we will discuss is having the most satisfied customers. If your customers aren’t satisfied, you’ve wasted all your marketing resources and any chance of positive word-of-mouth advertising.

You can satisfy your customers by:
  • Providing quality products/services
  • Providing high quality customer service
  • Providing a low-pressure, highly informative sales experience
  • Taking all the risk away with a great guarantee
To generate more business there are a couple of simple techniques that work every time:
  • Build your database with a contest.
  • Do regular mailings with sales, discounts, or other incentives.
  • Find other creative ways to keep your current customers coming back for more.

“As long as the reward is directly related to your product or service, you can’t lose. Why not get started today? It’s so simple, it’s so seldom done, and it’s so profitable. And that’s the bottom line.” – Jay Abraham

It’s so simple! So, why aren’t you starting today? We can assist you in creating a great marketing plan that will yield results. Give our FREE test drive a try and discover the tools and resources built by some of the biggest names in the marketing world.

Do It Like the Big Dawgs!

Do It Like the Big Dawgs!

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

Most successful professionals use a series of information-based ads that build emotion and include a call to action. These are much more effective than 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:
  1. Put together a short report that you’ll automatically send to prospects when they contact you. This should include a brief description of your business and what you specialize in. Don’t forget to include case studies, samples, or other proof of your success.
  2. Develop value-oriented yellow page advertisements.
  3. Consider newsletters to educate and inform customers about your industry and services.
  4. Offer a free seminar, webinar, or other lecture to raise awareness of your business. Ensure that the information is relevant to your target market and invite respected industry speakers.
  5. Purchase an existing business, implement improved marketing strategies, and accelerate the growth of this new venture compared to starting from scratch.
  6. Always test different versions of your ads to find the most effective ones.
  7. Use direct mail marketing to grow your business.
  8. Put together a database of previous customers and send them new information.
  9. Offer incentives such as frequent purchase benefits, loyalty programs, referral programs, or other options.
  10. Approach large firms who may need your services and negotiate a deal to be their exclusive expert in your field.
  11. Offer a 24-hour information line with a regularly updated recorded message. Make this available to all past and future customers/clients.
  12. Donate time or materials to local charities to show support in your area.
  13. Offer public clinics where the general public can come to discuss their needs in a free and approachable environment.
  14. Organize seminars that your customers or clients can pay to attend by creating a high-perception value package.
  15. Approach the local newspaper and offer to write a weekly column about your area of expertise. Request a byline and a bio without asking for payment.
  16. Develop a weekend or another destination seminar for your customers or clients. This not only provides you with an action-packed weekend with the most important people but also offers them a tax-deductible business adventure.
  17. Take a good seminar and turn it into written form as a home study, member site program, audio or video program.
  18. Approach large companies and offer to give seminars to their employees, investors or management.
  19. Be proactive with your marketing plan.
  20. Barter for your marketing. Offer products or services in lieu of payment.
  21. Be willing to bring in new clients, even if at an initial loss because it will likely pay off later.
  22. Regulate your marketing budget to maximize 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.
  23. Make offers to target markets or target market businesses to pay them for referrals or shared databases.
  24. Offer loaner products to replace equipment that is to be repaired or refurbished.
  25. 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.
  26. Continually consider what new products/services you can offer to current customers/clients.
  27. Develop a mail order division of your company.
  28. Propose a trade to your competitors, exchanging customers or clients with whom both parties were unsuccessful in selling.
  29. Use different marketing tactics as an excuse to attract new customers/clients with new offers and goodies.
  30. Offer a “you-choose-the-price” program. This is especially useful for products 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 in your community by volunteering, donating to local events, and more.
  • Join your local Chamber of Commerce and attend the networking and other activities throughout the year.
  • Join a local, state or regional professional associate for further networking opportunities.
  • Become a board member of a local organization.

Advertising should never be your sole marketing method; there are numerous personal ways to promote your name to potential customers or 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 to start with your marketing plan, or how to reach out to your local community, competitors, customers/clients, and others who could positively influence your business, try our FREE test drive. Experience the tools and resources we have to boost your business to the next level and beyond.

PR Equals Free Publicity

PR Equals Free Publicity

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 lies 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 encompass all forms of media. Don’t limit yourself. The attention of newspapers, television, radio, magazines, bloggers, ezines, and more holds equal power. Online marketing is just as, if not more, important than traditional media.

Here are the steps to get noticed by the media:
  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. Format your press release professionally. For press releases, include a dateline, place the most important information at the top, provide facts and figures, and conclude with contact details, including the names of contacts and how to reach them. Print the press release on your letterhead.
  4. Send your press release to all television and radio stations, both local and metro newspapers, national newspapers, industry magazines, and any other form of media that reaches your target market. Don’t forget to include relevant blogs, ezines, press release submission sites, and industry professionals.

More importantly than having a perfect press release is ensuring that you have addressed the needs of your target market in the products or services you offer and have made that clear in the press release. If you provide people with a solution to a problem, a way to avoid a problem, and an opportunity to enhance their lives, the media and the 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 publicizing 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

Our FREE test drive can demonstrate how to create effective press releases. Learn from the pros and craft the perfect press releases for your business.

How Well Do You Know Your Vendors?

How Well Do You Know Your Vendors?

It’s extremely important to build relationships with your vendors and those around you, as they 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 realize were there.

Look for great ways to offer rewards to your vendors for helping to grow your business, and everyone wins. One way 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:
  1. Approach all the vendors you work with and offer an incentive based on performance.
  2. Put the generous incentive plan together from their perspective, even take suggestions.
  3. Develop a clear, concise and easy to track incentive plan, this will increase competition between vendors and therefore higher performance levels.
  4. 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.
  5. Encourage:

    • Future sales
    • Upsell better and more profitable products/services
    • Cross-sell to additional products
  6. 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. Use our FREE test drive to come up with some great ideas and put your incentive plan together for maximum results.

Telemarketing is NOT the Anti-Christ

Telemarketing is NOT the Anti-Christ

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 that direct mail marketing has achieved and the availability of computers, they can be used as powerful marketing tools for your success. Telemarketing is best suited for high-priced, high-margin products and services.

Here are the key steps to putting together a highly effective direct mail marketing program:
  1. List all benefits customers will get from the purchase of your products and services.
  2. Pick the single most powerful benefit out of that list.
  3. Create a captivating headline based on that specific benefit. Remember to evoke emotion and fulfill the desire for youth, wealth, desirability, popularity, or success.
  4. Develop a sales letter using the headline you created to grab attention, provide information and motivate customers to act.
  5. Put together supplementary items, such as a brochure, order form, reply envelope or note that encourages them to read the letter.
  6. Rent or purchase a mailing list.
  7. Compare cost of mailing vs. cost per order.
  8. 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. Our FREE test drive offers the resources and tools you need to work through these processes and put together the best marketing plan you can.

Turn Prospects into Customers Overnight!

Turn Prospects into Customers Overnight!

Today, I’d like to talk about how to turn prospects into customers and retain them for future marketing. While your marketing is doing its job, you need to work 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 of buyer’s remorse. You want to avoid this at all costs, and it should be mitigated if you’ve provided a quality product or 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 help mitigate buyer’s remorse because customers will trust you more simply for offering these things.

There are number of other ways to turn a prospect into a customer:
  1. Offer a special price as an opportunity for you to test the market.
  2. Offer a lower price with the reason of clearing inventory to pay a tax bill, cover your kids’ braces, or for another tangible reason. Customers love that this makes you seem much more human.
  3. Offer a referral incentive.
  4. Offer a smaller, more inexpensive product first to build trust.
  5. Offer package deals.
  6. Offer to charge less for their first purchase if they become a repeat customer.
  7. Offer extra incentives, such as longer warranties and free bonuses, if ordered by a set date.
  8. Offer financing options, if applicable.
  9. Offer a bonus if they pay in full.
  10. Offer special packaging or delivery.
  11. Offer “name your own price” incentives.
  12. Offer comparative data or other comparison tools.
  13. Offer a trade-up or upgrade to something they already have.
  14. Offer additional, educational information to help them make the decision.

The options really are as limitless as you make them. You can use these or other ideas to determine what works best for your business, product/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 figuring out the best strategy for converting prospects into customers? Our FREE test drive gives you exclusive access to a mountain of resources and tools, along with information from some of the greatest marketing minds on Earth.

Make it Pop!

Make it Pop!

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 them in a persuasive way. Emphasize results, not just features.

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

  1. Command Attention:
  2. This is usually accomplished with the headline. You need an attention-getter that makes people want to learn more about your products/services. The best headlines provide a vivid portrayal of the benefits or demonstrate how your products/services can solve a problem. The headline serves as an advertisement for the advertisement.

  3. Showcase Benefits:
  4. You must showcase the benefits of your products and services and, more importantly, demonstrate how they will solve or prevent a problem. Your audience needs to understand what’s in it for them. Include useful, factual, and clear information to precisely illustrate the benefits and how they will assist the customer.

  5. Offer Proof:
  6. This is where you demonstrate what the advertisement is offering. You must establish that you have a method to deliver. Include information that builds credibility and highlights past performance.

  7. Persuade:
  8. You need to provide compelling reasons for your potential customers to purchase your products/services. Employ a hard-sell approach and create a sense of scarcity. This will prompt your potential customers to feel the urgency to act now, which leads to the last component.

  9. Call to Action:
  10. You need to compel your potential customers to take action. Encourage them to visit your site, sign up for your newsletter, make a purchase, or contact you about your services – in short, you want them to do something. Offer a freebie, booklet, sample, product, bonus, demo, consultation, limited-time price – the list is extensive. There are numerous ways to excite potential customers about ordering and make them feel like they’re getting an amazing deal.

Good advertisements incorporate all of these components, and they are not complete without any of them. You can sit down and consider each of these components individually, then determine the best way to combine them for maximum effectiveness. We can assist you with this as well. Give our FREE test drive a try to learn how to create excellent advertisements with insights from some of the best professionals in the industry.

Direct Response or Bust!

Direct Response or Bust!

Direct response marketing is a form of marketing that requires a direct response from your potential customers. This type of marketing is used to answer questions, present your branding, products, and the reasons why you do what you do. Customers appreciate this approach because it offers them the opportunity to respond, whether that means signing up for a newsletter, posting a comment on your site or blog, or making a purchase 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

All of these are great outcomes that can result from taking a few simple steps to create and implement a direct response marketing plan.

“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 among the most effective methods for launching your business on a large scale and reaching everyone in your target market, regardless of their location. Our FREE test drive can assist you in creating an excellent direct response marketing plan, propelling you toward greater success.

Lessons I Learned from Shameless Self-Promoters

Lessons I Learned from Shameless Self-Promoters

Today, we’ll talk about shameless self-promotion. When you want to grow your business, you can’t be afraid of self-promotion. Self-promotion takes various forms, and you can use different tactics to increase your visibility. Consider politicians as an example. They often engage in self-promotion, sometimes in not-so-discreet ways. But seriously, think about some major superstars we all know, like Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, Donald Trump, Will Smith, and Michelle Obama, to name just a few.

We all engage in self-promotion. Did you ever raise your hand in class to show the teacher that you knew the answer? Of course, you did! That’s a form of self-promotion. This is the type of self-promotion we’re discussing—self-promotion done with dignity, class, and the knowledge to back it up. If you self-promote only to prove that you don’t really know what you’re talking about, you’re likely to lose business.

I want to tell you about the three major traits that natural self-promoters possess and use to build themselves and their businesses.

  1. The First is Position.
  2. Position yourself around people who can make a difference in your life. Do this frequently. Wake up every morning and ask yourself, ‘Who can I meet today to impact my success?’ Better yet, 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 or client? A colleague with contacts? An association with key members who may become prospects?

    Don’t settle for interacting with the easiest-to-access people. Reach beyond your comfort zone to discover a wealth of new connections that can lead to great success.

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

    If you meet many people, and they don’t remember you after you leave the room, you have a serious problem. This presents 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 many small ways you can enhance your image and make your business more successful. Also, consider how you sound on the phone and how you greet people at meetings or other events. Reflect on your 30-second elevator speech.

  5. The third trait of natural promoters is Repetition.
  6. You can’t say it once and leave it at that. Successful self-promoters repeat their message as many times as necessary to elicit a response. Would you remember a Coca-Cola commercial if you only saw it once? No! You see it over and over until you eventually head out to the store.

You also have to make multiple impressions on those with whom you are networking in order to build brand awareness. Repetition is directly connected with positioning. Once you find people to network with, reach out and connect with hundreds more who can contribute to your success.

Kick Start Your Marketing

Kick Start Your Marketing

Today, I’d like to teach you about the three most important startup marketing tools you need to acquire and retain new customers.

  1. In person:
  2. It’s essential to meet with customers/clients in person whenever possible. This demonstrates that you respect them and are willing to invest time in working with your clients to provide personal attention to each of them.

  3. Follow up Letter:
  4. Always take a moment to send a follow-up letter summarizing your discussion, any new agreements or partnerships established, and express gratitude for their time. Similarly, it’s important to send thank-you letters or small gifts to partners with whom you find success.

  5. Phone Call:
  6. Use a phone call to follow up with them, discussing the matters covered in your meeting, and offer any assistance to help their business run smoothly and more successfully.

None of these will work if you don’t have a quality product or service to back you up!

Here are the key steps for assembling your start-up marketing toolkit:
  1. Research potential customers, buyers, and competitors, along with their preferred methods of distribution.
  2. Talk to potential customers. Take a hard look at your product from their perspective and determine what it needs to be successful.
  3. Follow up with the 3-step process outlined above.
  4. Develop systems for contact follow-through, quality control standards, and customer service.
  5. Develop a post-sale follow-up system to keep lines of communication open with customers and build on your current relationship, which increases the likelihood of future purchases.

“Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs” – Peter Drucker, Management Consultant

Here’s another one I love from an icon:

“If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own.” – Henry Ford, Founder of Ford Motor Company

This lesson has provided you with the tools to assemble a start-up marketing plan that can be utilized repeatedly to foster the growth of your customer base and business in a manageable way. The tools offered in our FREE test drive provide these very same benefits.