September 29, 2007
Copy The Science in Coca Cola To Name Your Company and Products
Have you ever wondered how big brand names like Coca Cola, Google and Amazon
arrive at the name they give to their companies and products?
What about million dollar product names like Pixel Chick and Blueberry to name but two?
If you run a small business or you're about to start a small business the
tips in this video could literally make your business a world brand and I'm not kidding you!
Watch the video from start to finish. Have a pen and pad ready to take notes:
Wtach Fifth Video From The Top Down
Here's the same software naming companies use to create household names like
Google and Amazon and product names like Pixel Chick and Blueberries.
Posted by David at 2:50 PM | TrackBack
September 26, 2006
Small Business Marketing - How To Exploit And Milk Zero Cost Small Business Marketing
Everyone in business is talking about zero-cost marketing, but you don’t have to attend a high-flying seminar to know—and profit from—this important business strategy. Zero cost marketing is actually not entirely a new idea, but it has been repackaged into a more modern format, made to take advantage of tools common to the technology of our day.
Before embarking on an explanation, it would be good at the outset to explain the difference between marketing and advertising. Often, people confuse the two; while they are related, there is a significant difference.
Business Name. Marketing involves every action that you take to continually promote your brand in the minds of the consumers. Advertising includes only those activities that are specifically designed to promote your business. The difference is subtle, but suffice it to say, that even actions that do not fall under the banner of “advertising” can be part of your marketing campaign. For instance, one of the most powerful first steps to marketing a business is in its very inception, when you must choose your business name.
Why is this?
People remember names and their unique brands that they associate with specific businesses and their products or services.
We remember Toys ‘R’ Us as being all about toys; the name says it all, and the brand is impressed in our minds. If the owners of that company had chosen a more generic name for their business (Acme, Inc, to for example), it’s unlikely that consumers would long associate that name as being about toys (much less all about toys).
So make sure that your business name is specific, and that it identifies your niche—that is, you’re unique marketing position, that which sets you apart from your competitors.
Publicity. Publicity, the free kind, is the most common way for businesses wanting to promote their companies at little to no cost. This type of zero cost marketing has been often called “stealth marketing,” for the way that it flies under the radar of conventional, direct assault promotional campaigns—yet is remarkably effective. Publicity has both an offline and online component, but we’ll review the offline component first. Press Kit.
The press release kit is a staple of business promotion. Understanding the power of a press kit begins with first understanding how the press corps themselves do their work. Reporters do not comb the Internet or hang out at the local pubs looking for news stories. They find leads by council meetings, calling experts or public figures, combing through public records, and so on.
Sometimes reporters are approached by other people with potential leads to stories. In some cases, these sources are local business professionals in the community who are self-described experts in the arena which a news story might touch upon. These business professionals might agree to be cited as experts, and deliver pithy sound bites or even interviews as needed. In exchange, their business name is mentioned in the article.
Businesses put together press kits to deliver to news organizations, radio stations and print publications, both locally and nationally. Often the press kit contains professional photographs, brief sketches of the product/business, a biographical sketch of the business owner and a brief “success story” of the company.
These businesses will then distribute these press kits to media professionals, and will follow-up on delivery, to be sure that the material has been delivered. As appropriate, reporters may contact these business professionals to weigh in on stories that touch their areas of expertise. Begin now to put together a press kit for your business and prepare your contact list for distribution. You can get more information on writing press release and learn how to put a professional press kit together. As soon as you become known as the expert in your field, your advice—and your sound bites—will be sought out.
Press Release. In addition to a press kit, you will need to become versed in writing a press release. A press release, like any other news item, is all about story - a newsworthy story—but one that mentions your business in the process. A press release follows the usual who, what, where, and why of any other news story, and is a valuable way of getting your business mentioned in local and national newspapers.
An excellent web site with a tutorial about writing the press release is . Once you’ve learned how to write a press release for print publications, you will then want to ensure that you have a company web site, and then write a press release for the Internet. PRWeb is the premier online press release distribution services to newswires all over the world. Consult their website is at http://www.prweb.com, to learn how to get your press release accepted by them and circulated in cyberspace.
Community. You can also generate free publicity by agreeing to speak in local community events, or teach in a vocational school on a subject related to your business. Begin to give your time, and even a small sampler of your goods and services, to others in the community. You might also consider a “referral swap” with a business which does not compete with you directly, but complements your services. Agree to swap referrals of customers who need each of your services. In short order, word-of-mouth advertising from satisfied customers will become the biggest source of publicity for your business.
David
Small Business Resource
Posted by David at 9:58 PM | Comments (0)
August 17, 2006
Effective Small business Marketing Using Podcast And Blogs
If you run a small business especially in the IT sector recent survey by Marketing Sherpa is positive news.
The survey confirmed that podcasts and blogs are among the most effective marketing tools for generating technology related sales lead.
If your small business provides IT related products then you too should be adding podcasting and blogging to your marketing mix as the findings confirmed that 35% of software and ASP marketers rated their company blog as very effective, as well as 33 per cent of technology services companies.
The top five tools for generating sales leads are:
1. Free Trials - 54% calling trials very effective.
2. Webcast - 41% favorite for software marketers
3. White paper - 31% to 36% effectiveness
4. Blog - 35% of software and ASP marketers rated their blog as very effective
5. Podcast - 22% of software marketers say podcast is very effective
Although the survey by Marketing Sherpa relates to companies in the IT sector there's ample evidence that small companies can also take advantage of Bolgs and podcasts to generate sales leads. These are proven lead generation tools you should be using in marketing your small business.
Posted by David at 12:27 PM
July 22, 2006
Small Business Marketing Help For Home Businesses
Small business consultant Marketing Hawks announces launch of its new website, www.marketingworkouts.com to help small and home business owners learn to market as well as big companies. This internet based marketing web site supplies business owners a suite of tools to effectively market their companies.
Lincoln, NE (PRWEB) July 21, 2006 -- Marketing Workouts is a web marketing site designed to help small business owners become better marketers. The site offers a set of seven self-guided workouts specifically built for small business and home-based business.
Craig Lutz-Priefert, President, states: "The future of America in a globally competitive world relies on the increasing success of small business and home business. These are the companies that continue to innovate; these are the firms that our country counts on to produce new ideas and a steady source of revenue for the people willing to risk their time and effort in building them. Big companies used to hold all the marketing power: they could simply outspend little companies with mass media ads on TV and newspapers. Well, internet marketing and web marketing is quickly changing and the balance of marketing power is swinging back to the small businesses that built America."
MarketingWorkouts has recently launched on the ClickBank affiliate network, a premier web destination for internet marketing and affiliate marketing via safe downloading of electronic documents.
The company draws on several sources to build its marketing message. Well known authors on marketing such as Malcolm Gladwell and Al Ries influence the Workouts, but so do business authors with unique insights such as Laurence Vincent and Scott Bedbury on brand, Emanuel Rosen on buzz marketing and Harry Beckwith on marketing for service businesses.
The Marketingworkouts examine the three essential elements of a company’s marketing strategy: People, Brand, and Package. Using a special free downloadable tool called a SelfScore; the small business owner first examines their business marketing, determines where they are weakest, and then utilizes the marketingworkouts tools to focus on practical and affordable methods to outmaneuver the competition.
Continues Lutz-Priefert: "There are a hundred books aimed at home business or small business on how to get rich marketing on the internet, but our suite of marketing tools is uniquely engineered for the owner that needs a practical way to distinguish their company from their competition. There are thousands of traditional home-based and small businesses whose needs are being ignored in the internet ‘gold rush’ and we want to change that. Your average small business owner doesn’t have time to read a dozen books on marketing, let alone develop a comprehensive marketing philosophy. The small business owner is already close to her customer, Marketing Workouts supplies the owner the tools to market just as well as the big corporations."
Marketing Workouts is owned by Marketing Hawks, a Lincoln, Nebraska marketing consulting firm which also publishes the popular entrepreneurial webjournal, Journey Today.
Posted by David at 7:34 AM
March 23, 2006
The Power Of Product Naming, Business Name And Branding
The power Of titles whether a business name, product name can make all the difference to your business success
The Importance Of Names And Titles In Business.
In high school, I was in a play 'The Importance Of Being Earnest'. I thought it was about character. Turns out it was the guy's name. Anyway, mail-order veteran Melvin Powers once told me the most important thing about a book is the title.
Some titles are so powerful you can get something just by looking at them even if you never read the book. Think And Grow Rich. Magic Of Thinking Big. Tony Rubleski's new book: Mind-Capture Advertising. You say, well, that's right, I need to think! I need to think bigger! I need to advertise in a way that captures their attention and interest.
Some titles brilliantly convey the much desired promises of speed and simplicity. One-Minute Manager. (Wanda Sykes said she'd dated the author of another book in that series: One-Minute Lover). Some titles convey superiority. Ultimate Sales Letter. Ultimate Marketing Plan. Some convey an attitude or a position. Renegade Millionaire System. No B.S. Marketing Letter.
But this does NOT just apply to books or info-products. Or titles on free reports or other literature offered in lead generation.
Names And Titles Actually Applies To All Sorts of Things.
Names of businesses.
Budget Rent A Car's name conveys a position. Avis and Hertz don't, so I think more work is required to link those businesses with a position in the public's mind.
Naming A Product
I was always proud of a weed killer product I named: Kills Weeds Dead. (I took it from Black Flag, a bug spray with the ad slogan: kills bugs dead. Seemed to me the slogan was better than the name.) Hef's Playboy was a much better name than Penthouse.
Menu item names in restaurants. Homemade meat loaf. I've noticed at the grocery store I shop at, there are two kinds of macaroni salad sold at the deli counter Melch's and Grandma's. My informal survey says: everybody chooses Grandma's.
Ways guarantees are said. Bottom-of-jar satisfaction guarantee vs. satisfaction guarantee. Marketing 'things.' Free recorded message or Free Recorded Consumer Awareness Message.
If you're going to put a title on something your book, your product, services, process, entire business, guarantee, offer - you should give some thought to what you want the title itself to convey, to telegraph.
Get the cheapest and most popular tool for generating a business name, product name and also for developing a brand from Business Software
Dan Kennedy
Posted by David at 9:23 AM | Comments (0)
December 24, 2005
Successful Small Business Marketing Strategies: Word of Mouth Advertising And Customer Satisfaction
As a small business owner you should influence what your customers are saying about you.
The purpose of these articles on small business marketing is to improve your marketing which is often neglected or reduced to secondary importance. An aspect of your marketing that can have a multiplier effect is "customer word-of-mouth". To help you improve your marketing in this area let an expert marketer (Dan Kennedy) with invaluable experience on this topic guide you on towards improving your marketing in this area.
The main objectives of these articles on "customer word-of-mouth-advertising" and customer satisfaction are:
#1: To give you some ideas that may make your contact with your customers or clients more pleasant and enjoyable,
#2: To give you some ideas that may make your job a little less stressful,
#3: To give you some ideas that may give you an added edge in understanding other people and engineering cooperation from them, and
#4: To give you some ideas that may help you in advancing yourself.
These articles focus on you and the customer. Where we believe the action is in business today. The experts and the research behind best selling business books as, In Search of Excellence, have reeducated American business about the value of recognizing the importance of the
customer.
Quality is a frequently used business buzz word and much time and energy is devoted to talking about the quality of a company's products, quality of services, quality control in the manufacturing plant but probably most important is the quality of customer relations.
To begin let's look at the core of the problem then why the solutions are so important. In looking at all the available research data about customer and client behavior, we found that on the average a satisfied customer will tell about three other people about his satisfaction with a particular product, service, place of business or company.
That's often called word-of-mouth advertising and is widely recognized as the most effective kind of advertising of all. Think about it doesn't a trusted friend's recommendation or opinion about a place of business carry more weight in influence with you than all other types of advertising that business or its competitors may do. Obviously what a customer says about a business can have great affect on other people. From a positive standpoint it's possible for this word-of-mouth advertising to make a big contribution to the growth of a business.
Consider this little math game. If one happy customer creates three more who each create three who each create three who each create three who each create three who each create three you've got 2,217 customers.
This story has a flip side though. The same research indicates that on the average a dissatisfied customer gripes to eleven other people. This shouldn't be surprising. Bad news or negativity seems to spread faster and farther than good news. When you're irritated, annoyed or disappointed with a business you probably tend to tell that story to a lot of people too.
This negative or critical word-of-mouth advertising is powerful also. It can stop people from doing business with a company who might otherwise have done so. If you want to think about this in shear numbers it only takes one dissatisfied customer to wipe out the positive affect in the marketplace of four satisfied customers.
All this only serves to reinforce the obvious it's very desirable for you to do everything possible to insure that its customers have satisfactory experiences whenever they call, come in or transact business.
In the next SSuccessful Small Business Marketing Strategies article, we'll pick up with the third fact uncovered by all our research to reveal the truth about how to deliver customer satisfaction and just how challenging it is to do so.
D Kennedy
Posted by David at 11:25 AM | Comments (0)
December 23, 2005
Successful Small Business Marketing Strategies- Why 85 Percent of Small Businesses Fail
Why 85 Percent of small businesses fail?
Here are some specific ideas or processes that you can use to promote, to market yourself, your products, your services, your small business, whatever it is that you are involved with.
The next key concept is an 'organized presentation. There are some problems that we have to deal with today in communicating with people.
First is a thing called the attention span. There is NONE. It's very important for you to know that. Many years ago during a Super Bowl there was a big event that happened in television for those of us in marketing. It was the 15-second commercial instead of the 30-second commercial.
There are several reasons why this was done.
1. They could get more commercials in per hour than they could obviously before.
2. Although the 15-second spot will cost more per second than the 30-second spot does, the 15-second spot in dollars cost less than the30-second spot so some advertisers who could not before afford television advertising now can afford television advertising, which makes the pool of perspective advertisers bigger.
3. This is really an interesting reason why it was done. It was because of the declining attention span of the American public.
Think about it. How many TV watchers have a remote control for their TV? Everybody... right! Okay. How often do you click onto another channel when a commercial comes on? If you drive through a neighborhood at night now very quietly with your windows down you can hear click, click, click, click, click. Those aren't crickets folks; those are people clicking from channel to channel to channel trying to find a car crash.
The next key concept is a lost art which is salesmanship. Even sales people today don't really sell. The great masters of salesmanship generally tend to be older individuals not younger individuals. Every once in a while you'll run across one.
Unfortunately, most sales people today are order takers and you won't excel as an order taker.Great salesmanship is what Paul Parker called it in his book, which you can't find in the bookstores but you can find in the libraries, Tact and Skill in Handling People.
Contrary today, we try and get things done by brute force, partially because we're in such a hurry. We're so rushed and you practice salesmanship, the way you get great at salesmanship is you practice it all the time. You don't just do it in the narrow parameter of selling an item to someone. You do it in every relationship, you do it in every conversation, and you do it in every encounter with people.
Now Napoleon Hill made a recording many years ago called, "Sell Your Way Through Life." And he said that's the onlyway you will get through life and get what you want is if
you sell your way through life.
You know that the failure rate in small business in this country is very high. At least 85% and maybe as high as 98% of new small businesses fail before they hit the five year mark and the statisticians and the accountants will tell you that they believe that the reason for that failure is under capitalization and poor fiscal management.
I can point you to small businesses that have failed with enough money to do everything they needed to do ten times over. And some management consultant will tell you its poor management ability. I suggest to you what it is in most cases is that the small business owner decided that once he or she was in business they didn't have to sell.
Many people in many types of small businesses believe they don't have to sell. For example, Doctors believe that they don't have to sell. There are a lot of restaurant owners who believe that. There's a lot of retail store owners who believe that we open the doors and the customers come to us and we don't have to sell anyone. That's why we got business.
You obviously have some method you use to promote what it is that you do or you wouldn't even be in existence. But you probably only have one method or two methods or three methods thatyou use. The more methods the more business. Diversity is the creative opposite of laziness. So you need to think how can I use more methods to attract people to do business with me than any other competitor will use? The more methods the more business. Hopefully that thinking process has begun to take place for you today.
D kennedy
Posted by David at 8:28 AM | Comments (0)
December 15, 2005
“Why Small Businesses Should Leverage Their Marketing Through Joint Ventures”
If you're a small business owner with a limited marketing and advertising budget then you cannot afford to leave out joint ventures from your marketing and advertising mix.
I've just returned from a joint venture seminar / workshop held by Michael Penland in Orlando, Florida. I traveled eighteen hours roundtrip (London to Florida return) because I wanted to build relationships with small business owners in the USA.
Given the size of the USA small business sector and that many visitors to my web site are from the USA the decision to go to the USA was an easy one. If you are a small business owner marketing on the Internet and your web stats tells you that you should be leveraging your marketing by forging partnership with companies in countries where your traffic comes from then you better act on the intelligence.
The conference / workshop was a total success. Not only did I met and shake hands with real life millionaires; I was also able to discuss my business and how we could work together in the future on joint venture deals.
There were many highlights from my trip, perhaps the most memorable was discussing with Glen Turner (arguably the world's greatest speaker - according to Dan Kennedy) how he trained Anthony Robins, who is arguably the most popular motivational speaker / coach alive.
These are just some of the highlights from joint venture business trip to the USA:
1. Met with and discuss joint venture opportunities that could generate millions of pounds / dollars in 2006
2. While cash flow and profits are the currency that drives your efforts, the bottom line is financial freedom or "being able to live the life you choose with the independence that money gives you".
3. Being totally honest in the way you treat your customers, your business partners and more important, being honest with yourself.
4. You will fail if you try to do it all by yourself. This is perhaps the most important piece of advice I learnt. Leveraging is key to your success.
5. Outsource those activities that stop you from spending time being productive. If you're wasting time trying to do everything yourself when you should be marketing, your business will suffer and eventually fail. Look at the opportunity cost of your efforts and outsource those activities that can be done cheaper by someone else.
6. Emulate and Copy successful strategies instead of wasting time trying to reinvent the wheel. Develop and work a success oriented system.
7. Invest in your marketing education instead of investing in products that you file on your bookshelf or in your garage where they gather dust.
8. Develop your business plan and work you plan. Take incremental steps towards reaching your ultimate goals.
9. Develop mental toughness and train your mind (brain) daily to experience the full gratification and pleasure or your goals being realized.
10. Take action now, today and stop procrastinating.
David
Small Business Resource
Posted by David at 3:18 PM | Comments (0)
November 30, 2005
Small business Marketing for Smart Marketers
Are you a smart small business owner who puts marketing top of your list of priorities or are you a dumb small business owner who is educated but cannot see the wheat from the chaff?
Hopefully you're smart. Read this article just to remind you that smart marketers are the ones who are obsessed with adding value, usually in the form of cash in their bank accounts rather than business school theory.
Back in the 1980s, I agreed to help the owner of a small company grow his business. Within three years, it was the largest company in its industry.
By combining five key marketing strategies with kick-butt sales copy, we were attracting between 5,000 and 10,000 new customers every month. By 1988, we had more than 120,000 paying customers. Sales revenues and profits quadrupled.
At that point, my client decided to cash out - take his profits and retire - and asked me to help him sell his company. I created a 20-minute video and a comprehensive "company profile" to help attract prospective buyers.
The buyers - who paid top-dollar - turned out to be a team of three Rhodes Scholars with advanced business degrees from Oxford University.
Within a week after the papers were signed, the crackerjack marketing team we had built was placed under an oppressive bureaucracy: an "Executive Committee" made up of the new owners, their hand-picked CEO, the CFO, and the General Manager - none of whom knew one blessed thing about marketing.
Within days, we went from being obsessed with marketing to being infatuated with something called "Corporate Planning." Key marketers were sidetracked in day-long meetings - and, sometimes, week-long out-of-the-office marathons. Scores of crucial sales promotions were put on hold while the marketing staff diddled themselves silly with endless research and reporting tasks.
I, of course, went ballistic. I warned everyone who'd listen (at the top of my lungs) that de-emphasizing marketing was going to drive the company into bankruptcy.
That drew giggles all around.
"You're overreacting," said the new owners. "It's going to be just fine," chanted the Executive Committee.
It wasn't fine. Not by a longshot.
The flow of new customers faltered, then plunged. Our active customer file began shrinking. Sales to existing customers plummeted.
Finally, unable to make the new owners see the error of their ways, I fired them as a client. As I walked out of the office for the last time, I told the CEO, "Now I understand what being a Rhodes Scholar does for you. You'd have to STUDY to be this stupid."
I told the CEO that his company would be belly-up within six months. I was wrong.
He filed for bankruptcy 90 days later.
Moral: Smart Companies put marketing first.
Okay, I admit it. I'm a marketing chauvinist. (See Word to the Wise, below.) And it's not because I think we marketers are necessarily smarter and better looking than everyone else. It's because the only logical place for marketing is out front - leading the charge for your entire company.
It drives me nuts when executives who know nothing about sales and marketing mindlessly parrot phrases about "putting the customer first" - and then relegate the only people who actually talk to customers to an inferior position in the company.
Before the Rhodes Scholars showed up, my client had put sales and marketing first. And because their job was to respond to customers' desires and concerns ... it meant our customers were No. 1.
But the Rhodes Scholars and their preening "Executive Committee" wanted to be first - the masters of all they surveyed, at the pinnacle of the corporate pyramid. So they put sales and marketing in its place - under their thumbs, no more important than janitorial services or any other department in the company.
And by doing so, they turned my client's "Smart Company" into a dumb one in one fell swoop.
In a Smart Company, the Marketing Department exists at the top of the corporate pyramid. Armed with the freshest intelligence on the desires and complaints of prospects and customers, the Marketing Department directs...
. The development of new products and the production of existing ones...
. The scripting of the sales force and / or telephone customer service reps...
. The creation of sales promotions and the layout of the catalog and / or store...
. The shipment of products and the delivery of services...
. The management of the Customer Service Department, and...
Every other activity in the chain of events that begins with contacting a prospect or customer and culminates in the cha-ching of the cash register.
. In Dumb Companies, top execs fail to understand the supreme importance of sales and marketing - or, worse, see it as a "necessary evil." And their structure shows it. Marketers are kept under tight rein - slaves to multiple layers of bean-counters, bureaucrats, and other self-important gasbags who have long forgotten where the money in their paychecks comes from (if they ever knew in the first place).
Even worse, Dumb Companies make sure that marketers - the only experts in the company capable of boosting sales, revenues, and profits - are frozen into inaction and that crucial sales campaigns are delayed by corporate procedures requiring marketing-challenged morons at the top to approve their every move.
The CEO and top execs spend no more time or effort on sales and marketing than they do monitoring Human Resources, or any other department. Marketing is beneath them - something the weirdoes down on the fourth floor are responsible for.
In a Smart Company, every employee clearly understands that his / her job exists for one reason and one reason only: to help marketing sell more, more, more!
Accounting exists to ensure that sales and marketing has the financial resources it needs to attract maximum numbers of new customers and to boost sales revenues.
Human Resources exists to ensure that the Marketing Department has the best talent available and that supporting departments have what they need to help sales and marketing be more successful.
Information Technology (IT) exists to give the Marketing Department the daily reports it needs to monitor and analyze the effectiveness of its strategies and tactics.
The Legal Department exists to help marketers create promotions that are as effective as is humanly possible within established ethical and legal boundaries.
In a Smart Company, the business owner / CEO occupies not one, but two positions:
1. Leading the charge with the Marketing Department - setting goals ... monitoring key costs and response rates ... helping to innovate new products and sales approaches ... breaking logjams ... and providing the quick approvals needed to kick winning sales campaigns into overdrive.
2. Taking up the rear - constantly driving everyone down the line to make supporting sales and marketing efforts their No. 1 priority.
BOTTOM LINE: Dumb Companies think that the Marketing Department exists to sell products.
Smart Companies know that the only reason to have a product is to give the Marketing Department a vehicle with which it can attract new customers and produce revenues and profits.
My advice ...
If you own or run a Dumb Company, changing how you and your employees think about your business - the simple act of redefining it as a marketing business and ensuring that your corporate structure and procedures make sales and marketing No. 1 - is the first step to explosive growth.
If you're a marketing exec with a Dumb Company, you're never going to be as successful as your peers at Smart Companies. If you can't raise the company's IQ, pack your bags!
If you're a marketing consultant or copywriter for a Dumb Company, finding a better class of client will send your income skyrocketing.
Clayton Makepeace
Posted by David at 11:44 AM | Comments (0)
November 29, 2005
Small Businesses How To Increase Your Sales By Reducing Risks
If you run a small business you must learn how to reduce perceived risks or loose sales to your competition.
I had a costly experience in risk perception a few years ago when I was selling sales training programs.
I was introduced to the national sales manager of a large company in the computer field. They were looking for a program to use to train their entire sales team, and ours had been recommended.
The program I was selling had been used very successfully with other large companies overseas - and the sales manager seemed to really like it. But they were also considering another training program. One of the directors of the company had attended it and was happy with his experience. But it was a lot more expensive than mine - $200,000 more.
To my surprise, they decided to go with the more expensive program.
The problem with what I was selling was that even though it looked good (and was certainly far cheaper), it was perceived as being risky by the buying committee. It was risky, because no one in the company had actually attended it. In the minds of these business people, it was safer to pay far more and go with a proven product than try something new.
And that brings me to the purpose of this article.
For potential customers, there is a certain amount of risk associated with buying your product or service. And until you reduce this perceived risk, they will often "vote with their wallets" and spend their money with your competitors.
The number one rule with reducing perceived risk is this: "Everything counts."
In other words, everything you do or say when interacting with a prospective customer has an impact - positive or negative - on how risky they think it is to buy your product or service. Everything you say or do makes your customer think it's either more risky or less risky to do business with you.
Example:
Let's say you phone two trades people and leave a message asking them to contact you about their services. One trades person phones you back within one hour and the other one phones you back two days later.
The tradesperson who phoned you back in two days could be twice as good as the one who phoned you back in one hour. But because he took two days to make contact, you assume he is slow, sloppy, and not very good at what he does. You think it is more risky to do business with him simply because he didn't return your phone call promptly.
I had a similar experience a few weeks ago.
I wanted to buy a particular business program and found a company on the Internet that sold it. I sent a short e-mail asking a very simple question about it - and I never received a reply. So I automatically assumed that this company was too risky to do business with and decided to never spend my money with them.
I then e-mailed another business that had a version of this same program that was considerably more expensive - and received a reply within one hour. I happily gave them my money.
Here are some simple ways to reduce risk in the minds of your potential customers:
1. Reduce risk with testimonial letters.
The big question going through every customer's mind is: "Who else has purchased this product or service - and how did it work out for them?"
Testimonial letters from happy customers are a wonderful way to answer this question.
Example:
Many years ago, when I was selling advertising, I called on a real estate office in a small town. On the wall of the office were several hundred cards and letters from delighted customers. I read a few of them and thought to myself, "Boy, this company must be good. Look at all their happy clients!"
2. Reduce risk by having an excellent sales presentation.
Most of your customers will judge the quality of your product or service by the quality of your sales presentation. Just as they will judge the quality of medical professionals by how thorough their examinations are.
Example:
I discovered this concept by accident when I was selling sales training services.
A sales manager who bought my services referred me to her husband, who was a sales manager for another company. When I sat down with him, he told me that he knew very little about what I was selling.
However, his wife had told him that I was one of the best sales people she had ever met - and told him that he had to sign up with me. That was very flattering. But all I had done to make her (and other potential clients) think my services were good was get very good at my sales presentation.
3. Reduce risk by how you look and act.
Understand that customers often make decisions about the quality of most products and services based on tiny things. One of the things many customers will pick up on is how you look.
By "how you look," I mean everything that is associated with you. Your car, your place of business, your sales presentation materials, your clothes, your shoes, and so on.
If any of these things are not in keeping with someone who is good at what he does in your type of business, little warning bells will go off in your customer's mind.
For instance:
Is your presentation material neat and tidy or is it sloppy and messy?
Are your shoes clean and polished or are they dirty and scuffed?
Are there spelling mistakes in your written material?
These might seem like unimportant details - but remember that every one of them counts when you are interacting with potential customers. As far as they are concerned, it either reduces risk or increases risk.
If you have dirty and scuffed shoes, some customers will automatically think your product or service is not very good. First appearances have a powerful impact on the way people think about you.
What you want to do is examine every aspect of your appearance and how you act, and ask yourself, "In my customer's mind, does this reduce or increase the potential risk of doing business with me?" And if the answer on anything is "It increases risk," you need to do something about it. (Sometimes, it helps to ask people you trust if they can pick up on details about you that may be causing your customers some concern.)
Example:
When I first began selling sales training services, I had a pair of black sneakers that I wore to every sales presentation. They were very comfortable and I didn't think they had any effect on my sales.
However, a colleague who attended a presentation that I made to a group of 12 salespeople told me that four of the people spent most of the time looking at my black sneakers, rather than watching what I was doing. Needless to say, that was the last time I wore those sneakers to a presentation!
Graham McGregor
Posted by David at 1:58 PM | Comments (0)
September 16, 2005
Small Business Marketing
Successful Small Business Marketing Strategies- 4 Simple Promotional Ideas
4 Simple Promotional Ideas
In your last "Success Marketing Strategy" I wrote about the courage that a supermarket realized by giving away with 'no strings attached' offers for free products that they sold.
This was a great example of how anyone can succeed in promoting their small business by following these four simple ideas:
#1: Worry less about image than everybody else does.
#2: Write like you would talk - selling face-to-face, person-to-person.
#3: Be friendly, not stuffy
#4: Be courageous.
As a final comment on this subject, I'd like to encourage you to really work at putting together good direct marketing campaigns for your small business. Don't just hastily throw something together or just wholesale copy an idea you got from these emails.
It takes time, effort, research and sweat to make direct marketing work. One friend of mine in the business forces himself to write at least fifty different possible headlines for the same ad before settling on the best one.
I recently talked with a telemarketing consultant in Las Vegas who does a lot of work with banks and savings and loans across the country. When she goes into a market area to plan a campaign for a bank she first wants to see all the advertising and mailings being used by all the competitors. Then she calls every competitive bank pretending to be a customer inquiring about their advertised services to see how they handle things over the phone. That's research.
I have extensive files of samples and small business ideas and dozens of reference books and materials that I wade through, jotting down notes before even beginning work on each new project or campaign. I know one copyrighter who always tests his basic pitch either face-to-face, door-to-door or over the phone with fifty or more prospects before finalizing his copy.
Simply put I'm talking about paying a high price in preparation so that you get maximum results in the implementation. The payoff can be a predictable means of adding customers or otherwise increasing sales that you can use over and over
again for your business used to expand your business, even franchise, license or sell to others.
The competitive edge you can gain in your marketplace through this process is mammoth because odds are none of your competitors will have the knowledge and the discipline necessary to go through the same process.
I am often introduced at seminars and speaking engagements as a genius in direct marketing and I'm paid consulting fees in recognition of this genius but I assure you that genius is incorrect. My genius, whatever degree there actually is, has
manufactured purely through the same king of research, study, investigation, observation and experimentation available to anybody and everybody. Yet there are very few willing to pay that price for this priceless capability.
Direct marketing can be the tool you use to turn a small business into a big business, a struggling business into a successful one, a modest income into wealth.
In your next Success Marketing Strategy that will be arriving to you in just a few days, I'm going to switch gears and cover... my A-B-C thoughts about the formula of success.
Dedicated To Multiplying Your Income
Dan Kennedy
Posted by David at 1:14 PM | Comments (0)
September 2, 2005
Advertising Book Recommendation
I've spent the last two weeks in Brazil with family and during time gaps spent traveling on planes and waiting for the odd overcast day to give way to sunshine I continued my small business marketing education by reading the most complete book on advertising I've read to date; "Breakthrough Advertising" by Eugene M Schwartz.
Like any rare find especially one that your competitors could unleash against you if they were to get their hands on it, my inclination was to keep this magic gem to myself and file it in my burglar proof safe.
This gem on advertising appeared on Ebay auction for $900 but I purchased my copy for $430. I also have the reprinted version that cost $97.
Why would anyone spend so much money on this book, you might be asking?
The truth is I cannot find enough superlatives to describe this masterpiece on advertising. You can only appreciate this book by investing in your own copy. You won't be disappointed! Apart from Dick Benson's book that I recommended last month, "Breakthrough Advertising" will be the best investment in your marketing education that you're likely to make in 2005.
If you want to learn the art of selling, this book will be the best inventment you'll make as an entrepreneur.
Eugene Schwartz is frank about how he makes his living. He's a mail order copywriter who makes his living by writing persuasive ads that sell. This is his ONLY tool in trade. He does not pretend to be the greatest copywriter and gives credit to others ahead of himself.
What makes this book so special is how Eugene Schwartz takes you through the process of writing sales copy from how to capture desire in your headline based on the state of your market, how to get inside your prospect mind so you can sharpen and target your message to influence optimum desire and belief. You'll also discover six techniques of breakthrough copy that collectively builds and gives structure to ads that shatter tradition and sales records.
When you get this gem of a book on advertising you'll learn from a past master copywriter of hard-sell and soft-sell whose ads could be instantly spotted in any magazine or newspaper with their attention flagging headlines like: "How To Live To Be 100"... "How To Make Anybody Like You", "Smart-Money Secrets", "How To Double Your child's Grades", "I'll Make You amental Wizard..."
Gene Schwartz was writing pay-out copy at the age of twenty-one... became copy chief of one of the largest mail-order agencies in America at twenty four... started his own million-dollar-a-year mail order business at the age of twenty seven.
I cannot recommend this book enough. If you want to learn how to master the art of writing ads and direct response sales letters, put this book at the top of your marketing education list. Read it at least three times a year until the words fade from it's pages!
"In this long-awaited book-destined to become the bible of every copywriter who wants to consistently break records and shatter traditions-he gives you the pith of his understanding of the wordsmith's trade"
.........David Ogilvy
"Breakthrough Advertising" will arm you with the tools that will give an old product a brand-new slant; that will give a competitively battered product a new weapon! You’ll also learn:
1. Mass desire: the force that makes advertising work-and how to
focus it into your product
2. Your prospect’s state of awareness-how to capitalize on it when
your write your headline
3. The sophistication of your market-how to overcome the fact that
other products have been sold to your market before you
4. 38 ways to strengthen your headline-once you have your basic idea
5. How to make an idea grow: the art of creative planning
6. What makes people read, want and believe
7. Thirteen ways to strengthen desire
8. How to build a saleable personality into your product
9. How to verbally prove that your product does what you claim
10. How to destroy alternative ways for your prospect to satisfy his
desire
11. How to borrow conviction for your copy
Finally: I have no direct or indirect interest in any of Eugene’s Schwartz products and my recommendation is based purely on the fact that as an entrepreneur selling products and services for a living the material covered in “Breakthrough Advertising” unlike many other books I’ve read, deals with the “soul” of what advertising and selling is all about.
Final Note: Don’t just read this book… take notes and use it to your advantage.
David
Small Business Resource
Posted by David at 9:42 AM | Comments (0)
August 4, 2005
Small Business Marketing Is A Game of 'Know-how.'
The more you know, the more you and your bank accout will grow.
So how do you get to know stuff?
Well, you can try the 'School of Hard Knocks' which, frankly, is not a bad school. The lessons tend to be expensive, but they do make a lasting impression or you can ask random folks who may or may not have real experience. I consider many of today's 'overnight gurus' random folks.
They may know what they're talking about, but then again it's amazing how many of them talk through their hats (and charge you an arm and a leg for the dubious privilege of listening.)
The third option is to seek out the real masters. Very often these guys don't advertise. or appear at seminars. They just stay at home and collect big checks for their work. One such master of marketing is Gary Bencivenga.
Along with other top copywriters, I've had the 'unfair advantage' of knowing Gary and his work for many years. In fact, it was the 'Legend of Gary Bencivenga' that first inspired me to master copywriting twenty some years ago.
At that time, Gary was getting $25,000 per letter PLUS 5 cents every time a letter he wrote was mailed. One of his letters - a piece for Rodale - was mailed 100 million times which put 5,000,000 bucks in his bank account.
Just one letter. And over his career, Gary wrote DOZENS of winners. In fact, in one of his newsletters John Carlton graciously acknowledged that he and his friend Gary Halbert built their careers around NEVER going head-to-head in a competition with Gary Bencivenga. Why?
Gary did not lose very often. And in some categories he was absolutely lethal.
For example, he won EVERY SINGLE TIME he wrote a sales letter for Rodale's health publications. When you consider that writing a winning letter for Rodale used to be one of the richest prizes in the direct mail world, that's quite an achievement. So where did Gary get HIS 'know how?'
In an exclusive interview - the only one Gary ever gave in his 40 year career - he told me. The answer is instructive.
Hard work, of course. Plus he had the opportunity to rub elbows with some of the advertising world's greats like John Caples and David Ogilvy. But Gary disclosed that one of his true 'secret weapons' was a small handful of books. Note the word 'handful.'
There are hundreds of books on marketing and advertising and there's probably something good in all of them - but...Who has the time to read them all? I sure don't.
Gary took a very smart approach to this problem. Instead of trying to read everything, he put his energy into finding the really good ones - and then he read them over and over again.
I'm paraphrasing, but here's the gist of what he said:
"It's better to read ten really good books ten times over your career and really get to know them than it is to read one hundred so-so books." Think about the logic behind this.
After all, what would you rather do? Spend an hour each with 100 different people who don't know that much - or real time with a real expert?
One of Gary's favorite books is Frank Bettger's "How I Raised Myself from a Failure to Success in Selling."One of my key 'go to' books is...You guessed it.
But whatever books you choose to bring into your life and guide you in your career, I hope the lesson is clear. The difference beween the really good ones and the rest of the pile is night and day. Pick some good ones and dig in. The return on your investment will change your life.
Ken McCarthy
Posted by David at 5:40 PM | Comments (0)
July 30, 2005
Direct Mail Marketing Video
As a small business owner you should be marketing not just online but offline as well. Offline marketing is also known as "Direct Mail Marketing". Before the advent of the Internet direct mail marketing was arguably to main and cheapest form of marketing available to small businesses.
With the problem posed by email spam and introduction of laws in USA and Europe to regulate the abuse of spam more and more small companies are turning to direct mail marketing.
While direct mail marketing is making a come back you are still faced with the problem of getting the attention of prospect and to get them open your mail instead of trashing it.
Remember, your average prospect is more likely to standing over the trash can as he's opening him mail. If your letter does not stand out and gain him attention he'll trash it in a flash!
So how can you win! The answer is to make your letter lumpy.
How to Make Your Sales Letter Lumpy
First off in direct mail marketing "lumpy" is referred to when you include an object of some kind in the letter for example a pen, cd, video, golf ball or chain. In fact you can make your letter lumpy by using your imagination to come up with objects.
Any object that creates a lump in your letter to get your prospect's attention and curiosity so he'll open the letter.
Watch This Direct Mail Marketing Video
In this video you can learn more about creating and using 'lumpy letters'.
Watch Victor Urbach's free online video on the subject.
The video not only covers using lumpy letters, but is also an excellent example how you as a small business owner can stay in touch with your market and build a following by presenting an informative (and non spam) monthly video message.
Victor Urbach - The Secret of Grabbers
David
Small Business Resource
Posted by David at 9:17 PM | Comments (0)
July 29, 2005
SMALL BUSINESS SALES & MARKETING
Many small business owners are Woefully neglecting many opportunities for promoting their business at zero cost. If you're a small business owner operating on a shoestring budget you can market your business, products or services by keeping your eyes open to news events relating to your niche area. You can get FREE publicity that would normally cost thousands of pounds or dollars (USA).
Dan Kennedy has helped small companies to generate hundreds of millions of dollars and he's prominent on my reading list. In fact I subscribe to his monthly newsletter, a must if you're running a small business and want to generate sales through effective marketing.
This is what Dan has to say about marketing and promotion:
While you're sitting there trying to come up with ideas for your next marketing promotion, you're losing money. You'll get that promotion done faster - and out there pulling in sales - if you get a faster start.
How do you start fast? Simply by having lots of ideas right in front of you!
There are plenty of sources for good ideas that can get you going. One of the best is the news.
Take a look at this morning's paper, and what do you see? Political gaffs ... terrorist threats ... inspirational sports stories ... devastating storms ... medical breakthroughs ... celebrity gossip ... product recalls ... concern over Social Security reform ... the ongoing financial woes of the airlines.
Do you mean to tell me you couldn't find some way to use ONE of those stories in a timely promotion for your business?
I get a ton of mail. For my residences, my office, from local businesses, national companies - and I'm on the mailing lists of over a hundred different organizations. Incredibly, I can't remember the last time a sales letter crossed my desk using any of the above news items.
Every morning, you get up and the nutty world we live in graciously, generously hands you dozens of fine opportunities to promote whatever it is that you promote by entering the conversations already in progress in your prospects' minds ... by grabbing their water cooler, coffee break, lunch counter conversations and using them for your profit.
Every day, politicians, celebrities, other newsmakers, the national media, your local media, even the weather work for you, creating endless opportunities to be interesting, captivating, compelling, and entertaining in order to command the attention of your potential customers.
Surrounded by opportunity, most business owners sleep. Meanwhile, the entire world is engaged in a conspiracy to fuel your marketing and make you into a marketing genius.
But only if you light the match!
Get free Public Relations Guide
Posted by David at 10:47 AM | Comments (0)
July 27, 2005
The Proof Is In The Promotion - Or Should Be
Nowhere do some marketers think less like consumers than when it comes to proving the claims they make in their promotions. And to the reader, an outrageous claim that is not backed by one single iota of proof sticks out like a sore thumb.
For instance, I was writing a sales letter to sell subscriptions to a magazine covering the defense industry. When I asked the subscription manager what made their product different, she said:
"We aren't usually the first to report on a story. Since we are a monthly, TV, newspapers, and the Internet all beat us to the punch. But we analyze and interpret the news so our readers can make better decisions based on what the facts really mean."
"That's fascinating," I replied, scribbling eagerly. "Can you give me an example?"
Her reply: dead silence.
Imagine. The USP (unique selling proposition) of this publication was that it analyzed military events accurately and in great depth, so people in the defense industry could use their interpretations of the facts to make better strategic decisions.
And no one at the publication could give me a single example to prove it!
Finally, I did get a story from them ... just one story ... and it was a beauty.
One of their editors had analyzed a photo that had been published in the newspapers, and was able to correctly identify the model of an enemy tank in the picture - something the newspapers had gotten wrong.
Why did this matter? Turns out, it was an inferior model. The editor explained: "By knowing that a 'cheap' tank had been deployed, we knew the enemy did not consider that to be a strategically important area ... or else they would have deployed premium tanks there. The enemy's strategy was revealed, and our readers could plan accordingly."
Can you imagine claiming that you could help a general plan a victory in battle ... or help people get better jobs ... or help companies reduce their insurance costs ... without producing even one good story or example to prove it?
Sounds absurd, but dozens of promotions do just that. Often, these promotions have no proof for their major claim because the marketer never bothered to collect it.
If you're going to aggressively market your product through the mail or online, collecting such proof from satisfied customers should be your #1 priority.
It's easy to do:
First, identify the claim that you want to prove or demonstrate. For example: "XYZ is the only product that does [Benefit] for [Audience] by [Method]."
Then, send a simple letter or form to your customers. Ask them:
"Has our product [XYZ] ever helped you achieve [Benefit] by [Method]? We are looking for success stories from customers like you. If you have a success story to share with us, please summarize it below and send this form back to us. If we use your story in our marketing, you will receive a [NAME OF GIFT]."
Offer a nice gift in the $50 to $100 price range to anyone whose story you use. This will be sufficient to motivate people to take the time to think about your product and relay the story of how it helped them.
Do this until you have, ideally, 12 really good stories you can use. Then use them as follows:
1. In an ad, lead-generating letter, or e-mail, you can build your copy around a single compelling story.
2. In a traditional direct-mail package with a multi-page letter, pack your letter with proof. Tell three of the stories in detail, and three to six more in summary.
3. Reprint all of them as a single page of testimonials that you post on your website or include when you mail your sales literature.
The bottom line: The more thoroughly you demonstrate how your product delivers a particular benefit in a unique fashion - and prove that it has done so through user success stories - the more effective your marketing will be.
by Bob Bly
Posted by David at 1:49 PM | Comments (0)
July 22, 2005
Small Business Resource - Book Recommendation
Do you invest in your marketing education?
Everyday I'm reading and learning about marketing, whether it's small business marketing, marketing in general, irrespective of whether it's offline (direct marketing) or online (Internet marketing).
Every small business owner knows the importance of marketing and having a marketing strategy. If you weren't trained in marketing or have not served at the marketing coalface then you have to leverage from the experience of those who have.
I'm currently reading an amazing direct marketing book written by Dick Benson.
As soon as the name Dick Benson came to my attention I quickly made sure of buying my copy. It's an amazing book and it came as no surprise that many people'got' what's an important book.
About this book:
1. This Is A REAL, Hardcover Book. Not An Ebook.
You can take it to the beach, read it under a tree, or keep it by your bed stand. I recommend reading a few pages every morning for 30 days. In a month, you'll know more about the reality of direct marketing than most seminar gurus. No kidding. It's that good.
2. This NOT another 'me too' small business marketing book pieced together from other people's work by an Internet whiz kid. Benson had FIFTY years of direct, front line marketing experience behind him before he sat down to write this book. There is stuff in here you cannot find anywhere else. That's the difference when you get it straight from the original source.
3. Benson's Expertise was In Direct Mail.
This means he paid anywhere from 50 cents to a dollar or more for each and every individual advertising message he sent. Compare this with Internet marketers who can send mail for free. Who do you guess thinks harder, pays more attention and tracks results more closely? The Internet guy who can mail for free or the guy who writes a five to six figure check every time he sends a letter?
4. FACT: Most of the big Internet success stories you've heard about were accomplished by guys who tried marketing by sending physical mail first and then applied the lessons they learned to the Internet. One example, the late Corey Rudl. Corey had numerous paper and ink ventures before he discovered the Internet and he was one of the greatest practitioners of adapting tried and true direct mail techniques to the Internet.
5. Here's a simple way to visualize the difference between the intensity of direct mail vs. Internet marketing. Internet marketing is kind of like a pillow fight. Even if things go wrong, it's hard to get hurt too bad.
Direct mail is like crawling across a battlefield with live rounds whistling over your head. If you're careless, you're dead. Only the very sharpest survive.
6. Dick Benson was not just any direct mail marketer. He was The Master. All the big mailers - Time-Life, Boardroom, Ogilvy and Mather, American Express, Polk, Childrens Television Workshop, Encyclopedia Britannica, and many, many more - beat a regular path to his door. They shared the intimate details of the results of their multi-million piece mailings with him and hung on every word of advice he shared on how to squeeze more profit more from every penny spent.
7. If you're looking for a 'warm and fuzzy,' Chicken Soup kind of guy, Benson is not your man. He was legendary for his gruff, 'just the facts'approach to marketing.
But if you want to be able to dip into what perhaps is the deepest well of direct mail wisdom and experience ever collected in one book, I recommend you make getting Benson's book your highest priority. If you've already done so, three cheers. You already know what I mean. Books this good just don't come along very often and remember, this is a new special, limited edition.
Last time, it went out-of-print, it was gone for 14 years. Some good news...
If you had trouble ordering the book from Boardroom's web site, you can get it from the link below.
Note: I have no direct or indirect connection with the owners that are selling the book.
Click here while it's still on your mind:
David
Small Business Resource
Posted by David at 2:28 PM | Comments (0)
June 22, 2005
Sales Training: How To Improve Your Sales by Asking for Referrals
We all know that if a client refers us to one of his associates or friends, we have a much higher probability of making a sale and doing business with that referral than if we had no introduction. In fact, it is up to 10 times easier to sell to a referral than to a cold call.
How do you get a large number of qualified referrals? Most people do not volunteer referrals, so the key is to ask for them correctly.
Here is a 3-step method that has worked well for me:
1. Thank the client for his time.
"Mr. Smith, thank you for your time today. I look forward to talking with you again soon."
Saying "thank you" is not only common courtesy, it makes people feel good.
2. Ask for his help
"Before I go, I wonder if you could help me?"
This is a very low key and friendly approach. Most of us don't mind doing small favours for people if they ask politely and it doesn't take a lot of our time.
3. Ask correctly.
There are effective and ineffective ways to ask for referrals. An ineffective way is to ask a yes/no question.
Example:
"Do you know anyone else who could be interested in this particular product or service?"
This question can be answered "yes" or "no" - and it's often easier for the person to pick "no."
Think of the number of times you have walked into a retail shop and have been asked, "Can I help you?" only to reply, "No thanks, just looking" without even thinking!
A much more effective way to ask for referrals is to start your question with the word "who."
Example:
"Who are two or three people you know who may be interested in this product or service?" Followed with "Who would you suggest I talk with?"
When you start a question with the word "who," it is very difficult to get a yes/no answer.
Another tip: Give the person you are talking to the choice of giving you two or three names - not one or two. When given a choice, it's surprising how often people will go with the lower number you give them.
Example:
I had an amusing experience when I was selling sales training programs a few years ago.
I used to make it a habit to ask for "one or two" referrals.
"Who are one or two sales managers you know who may be interested in looking at some ideas to increase sales? Who would you suggest I talk with?"
I measured the success of this referral system by asking 100 people I spoke with these questions. I found that some gave me one referral, some gave me two, and some gave me none. I ended up with approximately 100 referrals - an average of roughly one referral per person, the lower number of the two choices I gave them (one or two).
A few months later, I asked another 100 people basically the same questions. But instead of asking for one or two referrals, I asked for two or three.
"Who are two or three sales managers you know who may be interested in looking at some ideas to increase sales? Who would you suggest I talk with?"
This time, I got appropriately 200 referrals - an average of two referrals from each person I asked. Again, some gave me none or one - but some gave me two or three or more. Yet I still averaged out at two per person, or the lower number of the two choices I gave them (two or three).
I then did a small test. For one month, I asked everybody I spoke with the same referral questions - but changed the numbers to seven or eight.
"Who are seven or eight sales managers you know who may be interested in looking at some ideas to increase sales? Who would you suggest I talk with?"
That month, I received over 415 qualified referrals who I could talk to about sales training programs. I actually had more prospects than I could handle, and had to give quite a few of them to other salespeople on my team.
One more thing to keep in mind about asking for referrals: You do not know who the person you are talking to could potentially refer you to. Plus, you can often get referrals from people who never buy from you themselves.
Example:
When I sold sales training programs, I was in contact for several years with a very successful businessperson. This person never spent one dollar on my services, even though he could have benefited greatly if he had. However, during the time I stayed in touch with him, he gave me over 50 referrals to other business people who could use my sales training services. And many of those referrals became clients.
Referrals are a wonderful way to increase your sales. All you have to do is invest a small amount of your time and get good at asking for them.
David
Small Business Resource
Posted by David at 10:27 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 3, 2005
Small Business Marketing And Positioning Not Branding
When many people think about branding and the life cycle of a business, they normally associate branding with established medium or large size businesses operating in a competitive market where brand recognition is considered vital for gaining competitive advantage.
Some would argue that branding in an important marketing consideration that should be considered early in the life of the business, for example, having a recognisable logo and imbedding this in all marketing documentation and communication both internal and external.
It's true that branding is important to small businesses but some successful small business marketers would argue that positioning is key not branding. Having a logo that looks good and glossy stationery may get you recognised but that alone won't cut it if that does not translate into real cash and bottom line profits.
Having a business or product name that distinguishes your business and products from your competitors, like household names like Amazon, Ebay or Google can ultimately lead to advantages but foremost in the mind of small business owners is how to start a business. Positioning comes later! Yet with product naming, business and domain naming tools being available, small business owners could quickly generate business name ideas and ideas for product and domain names.
Self made Internet Millionaires who market on the Internet have learnt lessons that small businesses can copy to great effect.
Key to the success of many small business Internet millionaires is finding out what people need, what solutions to problems they are looking for and how best to position themselves as experts to provide these solutions. They use the keywords entered in search engines like Google for their market research. Next they develop products and services as solution to these needs.
They then positioned themselves as the expert in that market who customers and potential customers come to trust and rely on thus setting themselves apart from any existing and future competition.
Using the Internet a small business entrepreneur can quickly and cheaply test the popularity or feasibility of a product simply by using pay-per-click advertising to send traffic to a web page and by tracking the results can determine whether or not to continue with that product or service. It's that simple!
In a matter of days and after spending as little as £20 on pay-per-click advertising an entrepreneur can measure the potential success of a product or service. This is powerful!
Traditional approach would have been to embark on market research, develop a business plan, looking for small business funding (bank loan, government grant, family finance or seed capital), securing an office, recruiting staff, marketing and advertising. Based on market research the typical small business entrepreneur would them consider how to position his or her business in his or her chosen business niche.
Compare the traditional approach to the approach taken by Internet marketers. Internet marketers combine marketing and positioning early on in the product or business life cycle. Furthermore they see branding as setting themselves as experts in their chosen market to win over customers and to extract maximum value from their customer base.
Recent research points to customers being more discerning in their buying habits preferring niche type markets rather than high street massed produced goods. This is where small businesses can cost effectively market and position themselves and in developing their brands by targeting by using direct response advertising.
David
Small Business Resource.
Posted by David at 12:07 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 4, 2005
Overture Just speeded Up Pay-per-click Ad Listing to Under An Hour
For years it would have taken you about five days to get your pay-per-click ads listed on Overture. All that has just changed because according to folks at Overture they've implemented new technology that has drastically cut the time it takes your ad to be listed.
Overture states: "80 percent of all search listing requests should now be listed within 60 minutes of being submitted and that the other 20 percent that require a greater degree of review by a human editor should take just one or two business days."
That's a massive improvement!
If only Overture could dispense with it's minimum deposit they might begin to challenge Google on pay-per-click ads.
Read the full Overture article here.
David
Small Business Resource
Posted by David at 4:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 3, 2005
Search Related Internet Marketing Has a Long Way to Go
The following letter appeared in the Financial Times "Leaders & Letters section on 25 February 2005. All small business owners who are using the Internet should take note. There's lack of knowledge and skills in this most vital area of Internet marketing.
I was interested in the article because it's about search engine marketing,a subject dear to my heart and small business.
The letter in factual in some respects but the writer's knowledge on the subject is about 4 on a scale of 1 to 10. I'm not saying this to sho off my knowledge and skills in this very important area of Internet marketing but on how easy it is to get articles published and free publicty on topics that you're not an expert.
The writer's has his name and company name published in the FT. In the popular "leaders & Letter column.
Here's the letter in its entirity:
From Mr Ian Saunders
Sir, it wasinteresting to read that recent research has shown that majority of FTSE 100 companies havefailed to make their websites visible to potential customers on leading search engines. While individual organisations could be accused of not running fully integrated online search advertising campaigns, some of the blame needs to be directed at existing search technologies.
Many existing systems are largely based on statistical algorithms and keywords. These are great for delivering significnt quantities of result but these are all too often include many that are in appropriate, bizarre and downright insensitive, which can compromise rather than enhance brand identity. This is a prime reason why some
top brands have so far shield away from search-related marketing.
To be truly successful, search needs to take into the semantic context of web pages. Only by analysing the linguistic content can searches become more accurate and deliver more relevant results. The
methodology can also be applied to online advertising, because if more ads are applicable to each user's needs there wll be an increase in clickthroughs.
A customer's ability to locate the products and services he or she wants is key to successful online sales. It is time to put some "sense" back into searching; otherwise potential sales will be lost.
Comment: I read this letter with disbelief! If this is indictative ofthe knowledge of search engine optimisation and advertising on the Internet in the UK then no wonder there's such a gulf between the USA and UK.
Credit nontheless to the writer who although lacking in knowledge about search engine optimisation and marketngtook the time to write a response and getting free publicity as aresult.
This web site has more free information on search engine optimisation and Internet marketing than you can read, understand and apply than anything you'll read in the UK press.
Do you have a comment? What do you think about the letter?
David
Small Business Resource
Posted by David at 12:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 7, 2005
News! Business Owners Don’t Be Caught Out By UK Anti-spam Act
With increasing focus on the sending of Spam or “Junk emails” by the FTC in the United States (“Can-spam Act”) and the courts in the United Kingdom it won’t be long before small business owners will begin to feel the might of the law. At least, those business owners who continue to flout the law.
In the UK, consumers have to give their explicit consent before companies are allowed to send spam, unless a prior subscription agreement existed. It doesn’t stop at emails because small companies will also have to give recipients the option to refuse Internet tracking devises, such as cookies, and there’s a requirement to make users aware if they are included in survey stats on the topic of Internet traffic.
Soon small companies will be able to opt out of telemarketing.
Companies who suffer loss as a direct consequence of spam can also sue the sender for damages.
It doesn’t stop there because any breach of the law will be a criminal offence, with fines of up to £5,000 if the case is heard in a magistrates court, or an unlimited fine if the trail goes before a jury. Spamming in 2005 may begin to finally cost the spammers.
David
Small Business Resource
Posted by David at 3:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 3, 2005
Use Images In Small Business Advertising?
If you use an advertising agency, your in house marketing resource or if you do it yourself this is the most important article you’ll read this year.
A Nursery schoolteacher in California has become an instant multimillionaire after recognising himself on a jar of Nestcafé.
It all started when a woman is a shopping market queue leant over and said to Russell Christoff, "You look like the guy on my coffee jar."
A few weeks later Russell Christoff came face to face with himself on a jar of Taster’s Choice Coffee: American version of Nestcafé.
It transpires that Mr Christoff spent years working as a model and actor. In 1986, Mr Christoff did a photo shoot for Nestle. Unknown to him Nestle was using his face on popular labels in the Untied States, Israel, Japan, Kuwait, Mexico and South Korea for about six years.
Luckily for Mr Christoff’s old modelling contract entitled him to $2,000 fee if his image was used. Nestle offered to settle for $100,000 on the basis that Mr Christoff was an employee and that it was entitled to use the photo. But Mr Christoff sued for $8.5 million. A jury in Los Angeles County Superior Court ruled that Mr Christoff is entitled to $330,000 for the use of the photo plus 5% of the profit from Taster’s Choice Sales from 1997 – 2003.
‘The image was used not only on jars but on posters, coupons and even a screwdriver’.
If you’re a small business owner who use images on your advertising material and products always question their source and whether they are subject to copyright laws. Failure to question could cost you dearly, as in the ‘Nestlé case’.
David
Small Business Resource
Based on article published in The Times, Wednesday, February 2, 2005
Posted by David at 9:26 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 23, 2005
Small Business Marketing That’s Niche And Bucking The Dot Com Bust
As a small business owner you’ve probably witnessed the demise on Internet startups in the mid latter part of the 90s and have convinced yourself that the Internet is not for you. Back then young people and their financial backers were caught in the frenzy of making lots of money out thin air. On the whim of an idea, dreams were been made possible; at least that was the belief!
If you were to look under the Internet façade of spam emails, viruses, spy ware and large Internet successes such as, Ebay, Google, Amazon and Home Depot to name but a few, you’ll find thousands of small businesses generating sales of millions of pounds in niche markets. This is the key: finding niche markets with will to buy customers with money to spend.
This is exactly what Nick Robertson of Asos has done. As a small business entrepreneur, Nick Robertson observed the phenomenon in the UK where young people are willing to spend their money on celebrity fashion. Nick had this to say, "I came across this statistic, in a TV guide I think. A lamp appeared in Friends and NBC got 28,000 calls or something ridiculous about where the lamp came from." He realised, as many have before, that people were obsessively interested in products and clothes used by celebrities. Read this
Small Business Internet success story
Although still a small business, Asos has become the second most popular clothing web site in the UK with nearly 100,000 visitors in December 2004.
"Because we kept so small we had nothing to lose. We had a business plan that didn't involve a huge amount of money. We only raised £2.3m when we floated. And we had fantastic original investors."
Nick Robertson’s story is not unique, there are thousands of small businesses that are marketing on the Internet and generating millions of pounds by applying “savvy Internet marketing techniques.” I am currently working with many companies like Asos. If you want to take advantage of leveraging your sales from “Least Cost Internet Marketing” just send an email to Small Business Resource. Click on the contact link at the bottom of this web page.
David
Small Business Resource
Posted by David at 9:59 AM | Comments (0)
January 22, 2005
"How Small Businesses Can Copy Airports In The Area of Marketing Communication"
It’s Monday 10 January 2005 9.20 PM and I’m typing the article from my hotel room in Manchester, England. I’ve just finished reading what is the definitive course on blogs. For the past six months I’ve been working for major public companies with offices in Germany, France and England. These are multi billion pound corporations that are listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
All these companies, bar one share the same recent history. The CEO’s and CFOs swindled these companies out of hundreds of millions of pounds.
You might be thinking what does this have to do with me?
Well, very little in fact if you’re a small company owner because this is outside your league. However, what’s relevant to you concerns the impact your communication and therefore advertising has on the image portrayed to your customers.
While the majority of these public companies have experienced reduction in their share (stock) price and market capitalisation. “The stock market has very short memory”. It’s forward looking and driven by collective psychology.
Changing bad management for a better one and making products that people need gets factored in the share (stock) price, which often leads to the recovering lost value. While this is true for the companies I’ve being working for, it’s not true for all companies that have being rocked by “fraud”.
One consequence that all these companies MUST live with is a tarnished reputation. This is where you as a small company entrepreneur should take note because whether you’re making widgets or offering services, having a tarnished reputation will be the death nail of your business.
So how can you preserve and therefore capitalise on having a good reputation?
In truth there are many ways to project and capitalise on having a good reputation. One way is in your communication and advertising messages.
Because I’ve been doing a lot of traveling recently for my company, Small Business Resource, I’ve come to rely on the flight messages that airports publish to passenger on their monitors.
I’ve noticed how, simple, consistent, reliable, timely and dependable the information transmitted by these visually signposted screens are. I’ve seen thousands of passengers and non-travelers of all complexion, race creed and colour pacing their lives on the information published on these monitors.
Without this information, airports would grind to a stand still. Unbeknown to the public, in the background there are expensive network computers and highly trained team of “airline professionals” making all this vital information possible.
As a small business owner how do you stack up when it come to communicating with your customers? Is your communication and advertising targeted to a captive audience? Is it simple, consistent, reliable, timely and does your customers see you as dependable? Your customers care less about what’s going on in the background. They are not sympathetic to the challenges you face, instead they’ll judge you by the messages you communicate or broadcast.
If you’re a small business entrepreneur, consider how your business can benefit in 2005 and beyond by being open to the simple yet effective processes you working effectively, whether in large or small companies or around you.
One medium you should definitely be using is the Internet. Use it intelligently to build relationships with your customers and prospects. Unlike large corporations who can regain their reputation through their share price, you have no such luxury, however, if you honestly care about you customers and you back that up with real value this will set you apart from the competition.
The trick is NOT just to read it; anyone can do that, but to take practical steps to implement it tomorrow, starting today.
David Davis
Small Business Resource
Posted by David at 5:01 PM | Comments (0)
