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A newsletter or ezine (electronically sent newsletter) is one of the best marketing tactics you can do.
It helps to build your credibility and expertise; it allows you to stay in regular touch with prospects and clients; it gives you a place to keep your products and services top-of-mind; it allows you to provide valuable information to people; it's low-cost; and easy to automate and delegate to someone else to do.
Here are some tips to making sure you get the most out of your ezine or...
•Are You in a Marketing Rut?
? Do you feel like your marketing isn't doing what it should? Do you feel uncreative or unexcited about your upcoming marketing? Do you feel like you're stuck doing the same thing over and over?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, you might need to take a look at your marketing. If you're feeling any of these things, you can bet your prospects and customers are feeling the same way!
The following questions will help you to evaluate what you're currently doing and give you some...
•Overcoming Marketing Fears
I just did a teleseminar all around how your marketing mindset affects your business success, the number of clients you get, the amount of money you make, how good your feel about yourself and your business, and so on.
One of the questions I was asked at the end of the call was what do I do to help my clients get a positive mindset about marketing.
My answer was it's all about taking action.
Many of us experience fear of being ridiculed, fear of being judged, fear of making a mistake and...
•Are you actively pursuing passive income?
? We've all heard the saying "passive income" but what exactly does it mean?
To put it simply, passive income really comes down to selling your ideas, not just your time.
For example, speaking, doing workshops, consulting and coaching are active sources of revenue - meaning you have to be physically present "doing" something.
Examples of sources of passive income are selling products, affiliate marketing, some membership programs and product/program licensing. You create something once...
•Are You Clear About Objectives of Your Marketing Plan?
? Your marketing plan needs to be based on your objectives or goals. The tactics and strategies that you put in your plan are supposed to "do" something that in turn fulfills the objectives you've outlined.
It's impossible to make up a map of where you want to go if you don't know your destination! What objectives and goals you choose to focus on - both overall and for specific periods of time - will determine what you include in your marketing plan.
You can have different kinds of...
•What exactly is marketing?
? If you do not understand what marketing is, you will not be able to market well.
It makes sense - doesn't it? How can you successfully do something if you're not even sure what that "something" is?
If you ask business people to define marketing, you'll get as many different answers as there are types of companies. Some people will start spouting jargon like the 4Ps of marketing, or go into detail about the different components of a marketing plan.
Others will say it's all about sales and...
•Figuring out your marketing message
Your marketing message is the central message in everything you do and say about your business, products and services.
Your marketing message is made up of 4 different components:
1. a description of the target market/niche group you are marketing to
2. the main problem or issue they need help with
3. what solutions and benefits you can offer to your target group
4. what is unique about you, your company, and your products or services - your USP (Unique Selling Proposition)
Once you've...
•Use a Mix to Get Your Marketing Noticed
People need to notice you, hear about you, "see" you, interact with you, listen to you, or watch you many times before they'll contact you or buy any of your products and services.
Conventional wisdom say it's anywhere from 7 - 15 times that people need to come in contact with you in some way before they'll make any kind of overture.
It would be pretty hard to reach people all these times if you were only using one marketing tactic. That's why a marketing mix is so important in connecting...
•Call to Action Ideas to Get Response
No marketing communication is complete until you have asked your prospect or client to do something. Whether you are writing an email, a web page, a brochure, a description of a teleseminar, a sales page, a workshop announcement - you need to always give your reader/audience some call to action.
I'm not talking about asking someone to buy something outright. I mean asking them to take the next logical action in order for them to get something, or do something, or find out something and give...
•How to Make Time for Marketing
To start getting business and success, you must make time for marketing. Most small business owners and solopreneurs know this...let's face it, they've heard it over and over again.
What I've heard over and over again from people is that they don't have enough time to do everything, and certainly not to do marketing!
I know that it's tough - believe me it's the same for me sometimes. But I have seen the results when I do make time to market and so that keeps me finding time, even when it...
•What's the Best Format for Your Teleseminar?
? Teleseminars are fast becoming one of the most valuable marketing strategies you can use to grow your opt-in subscriber list, your list of clients and your revenue. The power of teleseminars is that you can connect more readily with your audience and can do it easily, inexpensively and quickly.
There are several different formats for teleseminars and although they are very similar in many ways, there are subtle differences. You need to determine what your format is in order to do the most...
•Understand the Value of Your Leads
Many businesses and salespeople concentrate all their energies on the really "hot" leads - the people who want something right now and are willing to pay for it now.
I've seen it myself working in different sales departments at different companies. People only have so much time and energy to commit to making sales and so they concentrate on the leads that seem to be the most promising. The guy they saw last month who said "maybe" gets bumped way down the list in terms of importance and...
•Quick and Easy Ways to Create an Info-product
Having an information product is the best way to do something once and get paid for it over and over again. It is the way smart business owners and solo-preneurs stop trading time for money and start trading all that great, valuable knowledge in their heads for money!
So what exactly is an information product?
It is basically a product that relays some kind of information to people. It can be an ebook, a CD, a workbook, a how-to report, a book, a video, a whitepaper, a DVD and on and on....
•Why You Need a Blog
In case you're new to blogging, let's cover some of the basics first.
A "blog" is the shortened name for "weblogs". "Blogging" is the action of posting a message onto a blog - with dated posts displayed chronologically. A "blogger" is the person who is posting the message.
Blogging is simply the act the sharing information over the Internet. The first blogs were created for personal use. People used them like a personal online diary or journal where they wrote about any ideas, opinions,...
•What the heck should I write an article about?
? Coming up with ideas for your articles doesn't have to be difficult. It's mainly a matter of keeping your eyes and ears open!
I have both an electronic folder and a hard-copy file where I collect ideas about what to write for my next article. If I read something interesting, or jot down a comment a client makes, or make note of a question that seems to keep popping up - I'll put these bits and bites into my folders. Then when it comes time to sit down and write, I've got some ideas to...
•Build Marketing Relationships the Easy Way
Marketing is something we need to do everyday (okay, okay, we can take some days off!). Anything that needs to be done on a consistent basis can be made easier if you automate it.
That's why all successful online businesses put most of their email communications on autopilot. In this way they can build the marketing relationship between themselves and their prospects and clients with ongoing communications that are sent out automatically at pre-set times.
This allows you, the marketer, to...
•Share Your Expertise - Write Articles
Writing articles was one of the first marketing strategies I used and I still use today. This has worked really well for me - I've written over 100 articles and had them published in a couple print publications and numerous online ezines and websites.
I enjoy writing and can do it fairly quickly and easily (at least some days!). But even if you feel you're not that great of a writer you can always do up a draft and get help with the copywriting and editing.
I believe that writing articles...
•What to Twitter About?
? Twitter is a great marketing tool if you want to keep in touch with people on a quick, "in-and-out" basis. It allows you to build connection with your prospects and clients, as well as direct them to your website and blog for more detailed information - as Twitter only allows for a couple sentences each post.
Twitter is a great way to do research on your target audience. Pay attention to what people are tweeting about - what is important to them or causing them problems. You can get...
•Connect Your Lists for Maximum Success
In the online marketing world, we talk a lot about the importance of building our list. Usually what we mean by that is our email list (gathered by some kind of autoresponder program like Aweber) of prospects and clients.
But what I've figured out in learning all about online marketing and having some ups and downs of my own, is that there is definitely more than one kind of list. And just as importantly, you need to have all these lists working together in order to achieve maximum success...
•Tools to Figure Out Your Target Market
There are many reasons why we all need to spend the time, at the beginning of a new business, to figure out the main group of people we're going to approach.
But it's equally important to constantly monitor your target group as your business evolves, grows and changes - because you'll most likely need to make adjustments and refine your target group or niche.
When trying to figure out what group of people you'll market to, you pretty well have all the tools you need at your fingertips - with...
•6 Reasons to be all A-Twitter
Social networking is playing a bigger part in many small businesses' marketing and business strategies. Twitter is one of the networking tools to have popped up in the last year or so, and has gotten hotter and hotter.
Twitter is a program that you access via your computer where you type up a couple sentences and then post to a main site. Twitter is free to join (www.Twitter.com) and it's easy to set up an account in a matter of minutes.
Twitter is a sort of hybrid between social...
•Get a Correctly Shaped Marketing Funnel
The idea is to keep moving people through your marketing funnel. Once they've given you permission to market to them by providing their name and email address, it's up to you to woo them and guide them to a purchase.
You do this by ensuring that your marketing funnel is the right shape. What I mean by this is that you need to offer the "right" information, products and services at the right time in the funnel.
You want to start with lead-generating products or services such as a...
•Marketing Strategy: Pain or Pleasure?
? In order to gain your prospects' and clients' attention you have to appeal to their pleasure or their pain.
Your future and current customers are looking for products and services that will enhance their lives personally, professionally, spiritually, emotionally or physically. You will enhance their lives either through alleviating or eliminating some kind of pain for them OR providing them with something pleasurable and enjoyable.
You're probably thinking that I've "dumbed" it down too...
•Great Integrity is Necessary for Great Marketing
Many coaches, healers, wellness practitioners, artists and other solo-preneurs who are embracing the whole world of online marketing still have a real aversion to marketing. They confuse marketing with the stereotype of a pushy salesperson and with the thought of "selling" themselves.
But I believe that the marketing of your business is a clear symbol of your integrity and authenticity as a business person.
Marketing is like any other endeavour we do - if we do it with bad motives, lack of...
•Is This Marketing Tactic Right For Me?
? There are tons of different marketing tactics that are available for you to use and you get inundated with many "new" opportunities every week. How do you figure out if you should do a specific marketing activity or not?
Below are a few questions to ask yourself when confronted with a great, new, one-of-a-kind, stupendous, money-making, guaranteed marketing opportunity!
1) Will this marketing strategy actually reach your target market?
It goes without saying that any marketing you do...
•You Win When You Give
I know that many businesses feel that their main purpose is to make a profit and provide for their family and employees.
But I would say that your prime purpose is to give as much as you can to everyone you meet during the course of your business.
Many people wait until someone becomes a paying customer before they start adding value to that person's life. I think that's short-sighted thinking and definitely not in line with the idea that we are all connected, and that prosperity and...
•Have a hot relationship - with your prospects!
It's pretty hard to have a relationship with somebody if they don't ever hear from you!
That's why the cornerstone to creating an ongoing marketing relationship with your prospects and clients is to build a permission-based email list.
Only when people have given you their permission to market to them, and you have their name and email address, can you start to have any kind of business relationship with them.
In order to build a hot and steamy list....or at least a satisfied and happy list...
•5 Steps Towards a Marketing Tactic
There are 5 major steps involved in creating and promoting any marketing strategy: preparation, creation, production, delivery and release/launch.
Let's have a look at each of these 5 major steps:
STEP ONE: PREPARATION
The first major step involved in getting a specific marketing tactic up and running deals with preparation. In the preparation stage you need to answer questions such as:
* which format you will use?
* what is the content going to be?
* where will you get the content?...
•The 4 No-No's of Marketing Plans
We all know that we should have a marketing plan - that having goals and a path to achieve them is critical to our business success....and our mental health!
Most of us will take that next step and create a marketing roadmap...but too many of us fail to put it into action.
Action = results. That's the only way I know (and you know it too!) how to make something a success, is by actually taking some action. Of course, some days I dream about achieving great success without having to...
•3 Helpful Steps to Create Audio Products
One of the fastest growing arenas of Internet marketing is audio products. Almost every online marketer can now offer audio products in the form of CDs and MP3s as a part of their product offerings, due to the better quality and reasonably priced technology developments.
Audio products run the gamut from "talking" your ezine, to podcasts, to CDs to teleseminar recordings. Using audio in marketing is becoming a popular and profitable means of presenting products and information and it is also...
•Copy Writing Tips
Whenever you sit down to write any kind of marketing copy (email, sales page, flyer, etc.) use the following tips to guide you.
* ensure the copy is focused on your prospect's needs, concerns and problems - not on you or your services.
* you need to answer the questions: "What's in it for me? What exactly do I get? Why should I care?" for your readers
* make sure to emphasize the specific benefits they'll receive from your product or service
* try to avoid using jargon or industry-specific...
•It's YOUR Job to Educate Prospects
I believe that marketing is all about having a relationship with your prospects, customers and clients.
I also believe that having this relationship is based on educating them and not "selling" them.
Robert Allen, a famous real estate investor said, "No matter what your product is, you are ultimately in the education business. Your customers need to be constantly educated about the many advantages of doing business with you, trained to use your products more effectively, and taught how to...
•Get The Most Out Of Your Free-Giveaway
A free-giveaway is a vital first step in marketing your business and building a list of prospects that you can turn into customers and clients.
Once you create your free-giveaway, you don't need to touch it again. Remember, there will always be new people who "discover" you - new people you'll be getting into your marketing funnel, pipeline or pyramid (however you think of it).
Your free product is aimed at this constant stream of new prospects and is the vehicle you use to build the...
•Promoting Your Free-Giveaway
You need to promote your free-giveaway and let everyone know about it. There are several ways that you can market your free offering. Many of them are simple and inexpensive or no cost to do and set up.
Keep in mind that a lot of these methods to promote your "sampler" will be ongoing - some you set up once (like the link in your article resource box) and others you keep doing (talk about at networking events and presentations).
Take a look at the list below and check off all the ones that...
•Free-Giveaway Content
Once you've figured out what format you're gong to provide your free-giveaway in (audio, video, written), the second step is to figure out what the content is going to be.
Your free-giveaway needs to be something that your target group finds valuable and has need of.
The product (ebook, CD, etc.) you are giving away for free needs to be something similar to your other products and services (if you have any yet) that you will be trying to sell to these people later on.
So you need to choose...
•Free-Giveaway Ideas
The first step involved in creating your free-giveaway deals with preparation. You need to decide which format you are going to provide your free product in.
There are basically 6 different formats you can choose for your free-giveaway. You can also combine a couple of the formats for more advanced free-giveaways but I would recommend keeping it simple and using the combination formats for products that you are going to sell.
Determining which format to use is dependent on several things:...
•Your Objectives For a Free-Giveaway
In order to get the most out of a free-giveaway, you need to be clear on who your target audience is and what the objective is for this marketing tactic. By answering these questions, you'll ensure that you are focused and on-track with exactly what you want and need to accomplish in implementing a particular marketing tactic.
Who is your audience/target?
What group of people is your free-giveaway aimed at? Is it your main target group or a subset of them? Most free products are aimed at...
•Measure Your Results...Or You May Not Have Any Results!
Part of marketing is tracking and measuring how well individual marketing tactics are working.
The reasons for this are:
o to measure how well your tactics are working overall
o track individual marketing activities to see any patterns
o know how each marketing activity is contributing to your overall success (or not)
o determine what works best for YOUR business
Some methods for tracking are:
1) Ask your prospects and clients how they heard about your business, product or service when...
•Tactics for Your Core Marketing Strength
Pretty well every marketing strategy or tactic that exists can fall under one of these three areas: writing, speaking and networking.
Most of us usually have a clear "winner" in terms of which activity we enjoy doing the best or know the most about.
I call this your core marketing strength and I think it's important for you to figure out where your expertise lies. In this way, you can get started implementing marketing activities right away and actually enjoy them more because you can do...
•Know Your Core Marketing Strength
Many small business owners dislike marketing and do it grudgingly, even though we know it's absolutely key to having any success.
There are many reasons why people seem to procrastinate with their marketing: they don't really understand the tactic or strategy they are using, they don't feel comfortable doing it, or they can't figure out which marketing strategies to use.
What I've found to really work when trying to figure out which tactics to use - especially when you're just starting out...
•Marketing Framework for a New Business
Every business needs a marketing framework - but many new small businesses get confused about which steps they need to take first.
I define a marketing framework as the basic structure of your overall marketing action plan that also encompasses the core marketing strategies you need.
It's like when you're building a house (my Dad and brother are carpenters so I've seen a lot of houses being built!) and after you've poured the concrete for the base, you start framing...which means you start...
•Fast and Easy Marketing Tactics to do Today!
As small business owners it's easy to fall into the habit of believing you're too busy to market. However, this is like saying that you're too busy to invest in your ongoing success.
Below is a list of simple and quick marketing actions that you can start adding to your marketing framework today:
* schedule a marketing appointment with yourself to evaluate and track your marketing activities, research new opportunities, tweak your sales goals, write an article or blog post, conduct a client...
•Do You Follow Up?
? Follow up is all about giving people the valuable information they need and want; showing them you understand their problems and concerns; creating opportunities for them to get to know and trust you; and proving your credibility and the value of your products and services.
Many of us think that a follow-up strategy is to email or call someone a week or two after the initial contact and then maybe touch base occasionally over the next couple of months.
Also, many small business owners think...
•Success Mechanics of Follow Up
There are 8 components that will help you make the most of your follow-up marketing strategies and ensure they are as effective as possible.
Pay attention to these different components because they will help you to systematize your follow-up activities so that you can find the time to do them - quickly and easily.
1. Follow up needs to be timely
Always follow-up sooner rather than later. For every day you wait, you lessen the impact of the follow-up communication.
For follow-up strategies...
•Follow-Up Marketing is Crucial
There are 9 reasons why follow up is such an important part of your marketing strategy. I'll explain each one briefly below.
1. Build relationships
People need to learn to trust and like you before they'll enter into a relationship with you and that takes consistent connection. Follow up with people to let them know that you are sincere in wanting to form and nurture an ongoing relationship, that you understand their concerns and problems and that you're in for the "long haul".
2. Build...
•Follow Up: Thank You, Personal & Gather Information
There are 6 main areas, or reasons, to employ follow-up tactics in your day-to-day business life: thank you; personal; gather information; administration; provide information; and product and service sales.
In this article I'll look at 3 of these areas in detail. I've listed the marketing strategies you can use (under each key area) and also examples of the type of content for each of these follow-up tactics.
1. Thank you
Saying thank you is a key part of your follow-up marketing...
•Is there a Marketing Process?
? I believe that marketing is connecting with people and forming a relationship, and connecting on a consistent basis.
Having said that, is there an actual process for fostering this relationship? My experience has taught me that yes, there is definitely a marketing process.
People are strangers and do not know you and you do not know them. You need to "introduce" yourself to people in order to get the relationship started.
There are various ways to do this: speaking at community or...
•How to Schedule Your Marketing
There are different ways that you can schedule your marketing to ensure that you are doing it consistently and as easily as possible. What appeals to you depends mainly on the level of detail and structure you like to have. One person's organized is another's straight-jacket!
Some people like to keep their schedule more general by designating a theme of activities for each day. For example:
Monday is communication day - catch up on emails; return phone calls; meet with staff; post on...
•Marketing Activities You Need to Schedule
Scheduling your marketing activities is key to ensuring you are consistently and successfully getting the word out about you and your company and all the great services and products you have to share with people.
There are several formats that people use to schedule things - to-do lists, activity lists, calendar items, list of projects, sticky notes all over their desk, and so on. It doesn't really matter how you do it as long as it works for you.
There are going to be three general types...
•No Magic Bullet
I was talking to the owner of a new laser clinic that helps people quit smoking. He just opened his doors a month ago and like any new business, he needs an infusion of cash.
He knows the exact number of clients he needs for the next couple months in order to pay the bills and he wanted to talk about what he could do to make money fast.
This guy is a fantastic salesman - you intuitively trust and believe him, and in him. He had an assistant cold-calling businesses for him to make "lunch...
•How to Give Value to Your Prospects
I talked in a previous article about the importance utilizing "pull" marketing, which is simply drawing people into your business by ensuring you constantly provide value to them.
Sounds good, but how are you supposed to provide value to your prospects and your clients?
The best way is with content rich material - which is just a fancy term for information-packed material that your prospects want and need.
Some examples are:
* an interesting news article photocopied or scanned and sent to...
•Is Your Marketing Pushing or Pulling People?
? I was talking to a client the other day about the difference between push and pull marketing and why you want to use pull marketing.
Briefly, "push" marketing is as it sounds - you're pushing the prospect or client into buying your product or service. Your marketing communications are all about why your product and your service are so great and why they should buy now, purchase now, get it on sale now, talk to you now.
With "push" marketing, most of the focus of marketing and communication...
•Is your Marketing Mindset Helping or Hurting You?
? Your mindset, or attitude, towards marketing has a direct impact on:
* your satisfaction with your business
* the number of clients you find and keep
* the quality and quantity of the products and services you offer
* your sales - your bottom line
* how fast your products "fly off the shelf"
* how prospective customers and current clients view you, your business and your products and services
* whether you meet your sales targets and objectives
* your personal growth and lifestyle
*...
•Make Something Happen!
Make something happen...or nothing will happen. It's as simple and brutal as that.
You can sit around and complain - that you don't have enough time to market...that marketing is too complicated...too hard...that you aren't any good at it.
How to achieve success at marketing is to take action. How to demystify marketing is to take action. How to get good at marketing is to take action. How to enjoy marketing is to take action.
And of course, to achieve any kind of success with your small...
•Do You Need a Marketing Mindset Adjustment?
? I talked in my last blog post about the importance your marketing mindset/attitude has on your success. Whether your mindset about marketing is negative, positive, or most likely a little of both, I've found that an "adjustment" is essential every now and then.
Some of us feel that we have a "good enough" attitude towards marketing and selling our services and ourselves. While there seem to be many more small business owners who look upon marketing as something that is a necessary evil or...
•The Importance of Being Consistent
In an earlier article I talked about consistency being key to your marketing success. I was talking about the definition of consistency as steadfast adherence to the same principles, course, form, etc.
However, there is a second definition of consistency that is just as important for your marketing solutions. Consistency also means: agreement, harmony or compatibility, especially uniformity among the parts of a complex thing.
Why is this so important to your marketing and business?...
•What Is a Marketing System?
? You've heard me say over and over again that the key to marketing is to take consistent action. If you don't take any action with your marketing, then nothing much is going to happen in terms of finding and keeping your most profitable clients.
One of the ways to help you take consistent action is to have a system (or several systems) for your marketing.
What exactly is a system? There are several definitions but the ones that resonate with me are:
1. A group of interacting,...
•Schedule for Success
Life is busy and our business keeps us hopping too. There is never enough time to get everything we want done and need to get done - and there never will be enough time!
That's why it's so important to schedule things and especially your marketing activities. If you're a smart business person, you know that marketing is key to growing a wildly successful business. You're actually in the business of marketing - that's your prime role. If you don't market, no-one knows about you and...
•Consistency IS Sexy!
The main definition of consistency is: steadfast adherence to the same principles, course, form, etc.
One of the major reasons that small businesses (and large businesses) do not have success with their marketing is because they don't apply the principle of consistency to their marketing strategies.
Many people have a skewed view of marketing - they associate it with big-time advertising - which often looks sexy, fun, spur of the moment, like the much-anticipated commercials that air during...
•Get The Most Out Of Your Marketing Message
Your marketing message describes the core of your business and your clients. It's essential that it accurately reflect your offering so that new and future prospects and customers know exactly what you offer and how it can help them.
The whole idea of a great marketing message is that it helps prospective and current clients, vendors and partners understand quickly and easily how you can help them. So you'll want to use it in all of your promotional, sales and marketing materials and...
•What is Your USP?
? USP stands for Unique Selling Point or Unique Selling Proposition. It's a term used in marketing that is supposed to tell prospects and customers what it is about your product or service that is unique, valuable and relevant to them.
A great USP makes it clear why your business stands out in a crowd of competitors. It helps your potential customers understand how you are different and why this difference is an advantage or benefit to them. Your Unique Selling Point answers the question why...
•What Solution and Benefits Do You Offer?
? What is your solution?
Simply put, your solution is the flip-side of your target/niche group's problem. Your products and services are the solution to your potential and current clients' problem or need.
Another way to look at it is that the solution is what you are actually selling - what you are offering in your marketing, your website, your sales literature, and so on.
People don't buy things - they buy solutions to problems. You should have a clear idea of what your target group's...
•What is Your Prospect's Problem?
? Once you have identified your target or niche market, the next step is to determine what their unmet needs or wants are - in other words, their problems.
You need to answer this question in order to write your marketing message but also for the good of your business. If you don't know what people need, then how will you figure out what solutions your products and services can provide? If you can't figure that out, then you're not much use to your prospective customers!
The secret to...
•Know Thy Target Group!
You need to understand who they are and what motivates them. You want to paint a picture of who these people are - their habits, vital statistics (demographics), their character or personality (psychographics) and their buying habits.
Let me expand on demographics and psychographics.
Demographics for individuals are their vital stats such as age, gender, marital status, education, income and so on.
In terms of businesses, the demographics would be size of company, type of industry, number...
•Know Your Market Before You Figure Out Your Marketing Message
Who are you marketing to? Who are you trying to sell to? You need to be really clear about this - not just to craft your marketing message but for your overall business.
It is important to zero-in on a primary group of people and really understand who they are and what makes them tick. The better you know them, the more you understand how your product or service fits into their lives. You are able to determine if they have problems you can help them with, and then position your product or...
•Why Your Marketing Message is Critical
I believe your marketing message is the most important aspect of your marketing. If you don't have the "right" marketing message for your business and your intended customer, then everything else you do is compromised.
If your marketing message is weak, unclear or poorly crafted, then it doesn't matter what specific marketing tactics you use...your prospects and customers won't take notice.
Your marketing message forms the core of all of your offerings. Once you have crafted the marketing...
•Marketing is a Relationship
In all my years of marketing and helping people market their businesses, I've found that to successfully and easily market, it helps to view marketing as an ongoing relationship. Finding and keeping clients is another way of saying forming and having a relationship with your prospects and clients.
Marketing is not trying to get someone to buy something from you. Your marketing efforts need to focus on building relationships with prospects and clients rather than trying to "sell" them...
•Niche Market and Why You Need One
A niche market can be thought of as a narrowly defined group of potential customers - usually a portion of a larger target market. For example, a target market is working women, but a niche market is working women with kids at home, or working women in executive positions, or working women in the financial sector.
As a small business owner, you usually do not have the money, resources and time to market to a larger target market. You need to focus your marketing efforts on those people most...
•Follow-up or Fall out
A relationship isn't based on one date and a marketing relationship isn't built on one contact between you and your customer. It also works at the other end of the spectrum: a relationship won't be sustained without any contact and a business relationship will fall by the wayside if a client is ignored.
Keep in mind that the bulk of your future sales come from your current customers. Once you've made a sale, because your customers know, like and trust you, they are more likely to buy from...
•Mini Marketing Action Plans
Most small business owners do not have marketing plans. This means that their marketing tends to be inconsistent, ineffective and inefficient.
Some service professionals do have marketing plans for their business, but fail to actually put it into practice. This really isn't much better than having no plan!
The secret to consistently marketing your services and products is to have what I call a "Marketing Action Plan". A plan saves you time and money, brings in more prospects and clients,...
•Start a Conversation With Your Customers
The secret to making people sit up and take notice of you and your company is to identify and address the problems they are facing. This is really the only way that you'll get their attention and any resulting action on their part.
Sure, people may take a second glance at your flashy brochure or your great looking website, but they won't "stop to have a conversation" if you haven't shown them that you understand their needs and wants, and have a solution to offer.
The first stage in trying...
•What Benefits Do You Offer to Your Clients?
? To find your most profitable clients the first small business tactic that needs to be done is to figure out what exactly you have to offer to potential and current clients.
Many businesses make the mistake of thinking that what's important is their expertise, credentials, processes, or their products and services.
Yes, all of these are relevant but they are not the true motivator for your prospects and clients in determining whether or not to do business with you. Their biggest concerns are...
•Build the Marketing Relationship With Your Prospects
Congratulations, you've done the research into understanding your prospects' hot issues and have gotten noticed because you've demonstrated that you understand what solutions they are seeking.
Your prospect has given you their contact information in exchange for your great, solutions-packed free give-away. They may also have sent an email, filled out a contact form on the website, or come up to speak with you after a presentation you've given.
At this stage in the marketing relationship when...
•Build Trust with 9 Small Business Marketing Strategies
Marketing is all about creating and fostering relationships with your prospects and your clients. A big part of achieving this is that people need to know, like and trust you before they'll engage in a relationship with you or do any business with you.
Before a person will commit to making a purchase from you, they need to trust that your products and services will do what you say they are supposed to. Also, if you want to keep your profitable clients, they have to continue to trust that...
•Your Customer's Problems are Your Marketing Opportunities
The essential purpose of a small business or company is that your product or service provides some kind of solution to some kind of need or problem. In other words, people's problems are your opportunities.
That's pretty oversimplified but holds true. If you don't know what's bugging your prospects and keeping them up at night, then you won't know what solution your services and products need to offer them.
From a marketing point of view, you have to be very clear about what your...
•#1 Marketing Strategy: Your Marketing Message
Your marketing message is what forms the background of all your marketing strategies and communications. If your marketing message is weak, unclear or poorly crafted, then it doesn't matter what specific marketing tactics you use...your prospects and customers won't take notice.
The goal is to have a well-written, targeted marketing message that resonates with your target market. You want them to see or hear your marketing message and get an instant reaction of "Hey, that's for me". You...
•Advertising and Small Business: Should You?
? I worked in an advertising agency for 5 years and then in the advertising sales department at a radio and television station for another 4 years, and believe me, every client wanted to be on the front cover, above the fold, on during the Super Bowl, or air during rush-hour traffic.
For the bigger multi-national companies advertising was a no-brainer in many cases - it's what they needed to do to keep up awareness of their brand and keep top-of-mind.
The answer for small business owners was...
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