One of the biggest mistakes that I see small business owners make is to spend their money (or time) on marketing or advertising, not get the results they want and then conclude that marketing doesn’t work. Or they keep on spending their money and time on advertising, despite their lack of results and convince themselves that it’s “raising their profile”. (In reality, it’s probably just money down the drain.)
The main reason that their marketing doesn’t produce the results that they want is because they’ve usually missed out or half done one of the ingredients of their “marketing formula” or are doing things in the wrong order. Getting your marketing right is a bit like baking a cake – you need the right ingredients, in the right proportions, added in the right sequence and baked at the right temperature.
What can a good “marketing formula” do for you?
A good marketing formula can help you to:
* raise response to all of your marketing activities so that you have more leads in your pipeline for the same investment * make your marketing profitable (as it should be!) rather than an expense * secure more sales from the presentations you do and the appointments you attend
Once you’ve worked out your formula, most of your campaigns will be successes and you can use your formula over and over again to continually reproduce outstanding results.
To illustrate the point, one famous marketer claims to have done a direct mail campaign that got a 100% response! In other words, everyone that he sent his letter to bought his product or service. Now, that is unheard of in a world where a 3% response rate is considered to be good. Another marketer claims to turn 98% of all telephone consultations into business (and 40% is generally considered to be doing OK in her field).
These people have got their marketing formulas highly tuned and working very hard for them. Can you achieve the same results? Well, you may not ever achieve a 100% response to a mailshot, (that was probably an exceptional case) but you can certainly improve the performance of your marketing and start making it pay once you know and understand the ingredients of marketing success.
So what are the ingredients and steps of a good “marketing formula”?
Your marketing formula is comprised of two parts:
The ingredients:
This is really the foundation of your marketing – it’s the groundwork that allows whatever marketing activities you undertake to actually work and give you good results. The ingredients are:
* a very clear target market (preferably one that is hungry for what you offer) * a thorough understanding of your target market – what concerns them, why they would buy your services, what motivates them and how you can identify and locate them * a good value proposition (the tangible outcome you deliver) * an irresistible offer * an understanding of the competitive landscape and where your company fits in (or in other words – your differentiation and your positioning) * a strong, client-attracting message
You can have brilliantly executed marketing, but if the ingredients are wrong, then you’re either going to attract all the wrong types of people, or attract multitudes less than you are really capable of. Either way, you would be wasting your marketing effort and budget.
The steps:
These are the steps that you take to implement your marketing, and the sequence you move your potential buyers through en-route to them becoming loyal clients. These include:
* the strategy you use to get your compelling message in front of your target market * where and how you place your message for maximum impact in the budget you’ve allocated (your message can be delivered verbally or in written form) * the timing of your message * the steps your prospects need to be taken through to turn them from strangers into paying clients
A weakness or failure at any of these points will lead to reduced response and lowered conversion rates – and that means weak results and wasted investment. It’s somewhat like a chain – the system fails at the weakest points, so all points have to be as strong as possible.
So if you want your marketing to succeed, you need a good formula – the right ingredients combined in the right steps. Just like baking a cake – if you do things in the wrong order, or miss steps out, you’ll end up with a result you didn’t want – a burnt cake, a cake that’s rock hard or biscuits instead!
In part two of this series of articles I’ll discuss the ingredients in more detail – so look out for it in a couple of weeks.
Copyright 2005 Attractioneering
Jane Hendry helps professionals, consultants and coaches to create marketing systems that easily and consistently attract their ideal clients. To get your f*ree Attraction Marketing Starter Kit please visit http://www.attractioneers.com
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Marketing Planning Made Simple – Another Small Business Power Tool
Marketing planning must be really difficult and complex, otherwise why would there be so many books written on the subject … right?
Well, I’m just enough of a skeptic to believe that many of these books were designed more to make money for their publishers and authors than to make marketing planning simple and understandable.
I spent more than 30 years working with very successful small business people who never wrote a single marketing plan. Why didn’t they need complex, 100-page marketing plans chock full of statistics, charts and graphs like the experts recommend? It’s because they knew exactly where they wanted to take their companies and how to get them there and they were universally successful.
The fact is they basically carried their product “marketing plans” around in their heads. That’s how simple marketing planning can be. In fact, if you strip marketing planning down to its most basic elements, you could just about write your plan on the back of a napkin.
Okay, that might be a bit of an oversimplification, but let’s look at the six basic things you need to know for successful marketing planning.
1. The situation. Is this a new or existing product or service? If it has competition, how is it better than the competition? Bigger? Lasts longer? Easier to use? Offers more features? Priced better? You should be able to sum up your situation in a couple of sentences. If not, maybe you don’t really understand the situation.
2. The market. How big is the market for your product or service? This can be defined in terms of total dollars, number of units sold or any other quantifiable number. The important thing is to know the size of your market because only by knowing this can you define a marketing objective. You also need to define what the market looks like — Males, age 25-45? Soccer Moms? Working mothers? Seniors? Childless couples? A market isn’t just numbers, it’s people. And it’s important to understand where they are economically, what’s important to them, and what problems you can help them solve.
3. Strategy. Now that you have defined your situation and your market, it should be easy to develop a marketing strategy. For example, if your product is footless, control top panty hose, your strategy might be to “focus sales efforts on figure-conscience women age 34-45 during the spring and summer months.”
4. Tactics. If “strategy” is what you intend to do, “tactics” is what you need to do to accomplish it. In the case of the strategy example above, the tactics might be:
- Begin sales efforts against distributors by Feb. 1
- Have products in distribution pipeline by March 1 for delivery to retailers no later than April 1.
- Begin concentrated radio advertising in 12 key markets by April 15 …and so on
5. Objective(s). You can frame your objectives any way you want but you have to assign a number and a date. It’s no enough to say, “Successfully introduce the new product by year’s end.” In the immortal words of Yogi Berra, “If you don’t know where you’re going, you might end up somewhere else.” If you don’t include a number and a time, you will never know whether or not you were really successful. Write objectives like “sell 5,000 units by December 31.” Then, on January 1, you can count sales and determine how successful you were. Best case, you will find you sold 5,000 or more units and will know your marketing planning was right on. And if you didn’t meet the objective? You should be able to at least learn a lesson and do better next time.
6. Budgeting. The final thing you need to consider is how much money you can spend to meet your objective. The best way to do this is break down your budgeting by tactics. If you need to reach 100,000 women to sell 10,000 units of your product, do you have the money to do this – in terms or radio, newspaper, TV or direct mail? Do you need collateral materials such as brochures or in-store displays? How much will these things cost? Depending on your product or service, you may also have to hire a PR firm or an advertising agency. Be sure to budget for this expense.
Can you add more elements to your planning? Of course. Just go buy one of these marketing textbooks and you’ll find pages and pages of information that could be incorporated into your plan. The point here is that maybe you don’t have to make your marketing planning a huge and laborious project. Do what many of my clients have done – keep it simple, something you can just carry around in your head if that’s your style. The important things are your situation, your market, your strategy and tactics, your objective and your budget. Know these things and you’re well on your way to success.
Have you heard about HD radio technology? It makes AM sound as good as FM and FM sound almost like you were listening to a CD … and its free! To learn more about this amazing new technology, just go my Web site, http://www.hd-radio-home.com, to get all the buzz. Douglas Hanna is a retired marketing executive and the author of numerous articles on HD radio and family finances.
Debt Business Attitude and Advertising
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Marketing Aesthetic Dentistry
Doctors often wonder when and how to start incorporating marketing into their long-range business plan. There’s no argument that it is a necessity – the questions are more about the process.
Ideally, a practice should start marketing from its inception. Whether general, cosmetic or another type of specialist, the sooner you market, the easier it is to develop your brand as a quality dentist in your market. However, as more and more doctors are transitioning from a general practice to one with a greater aesthetic focus, the need to create a source of pre-qualified patients with an interest in aesthetics grows.
Getting Started
Far too often, doctors turn to marketing once they realize their practice is in trouble. Perhaps they have dropped insurance too quickly, or the competition has landed in their neighborhood. The number of new patients each month has declined, and panic mode sets in. It must be time to stop stalling and start marketing.
In reality, successful marketing efforts are built over a period of time. The practice needs a plan. The practice needs a brand identity (ie – logo, tag line/positioning statement and consistent “look”). The practice and associated brand need several months of consistent advertising before they can even start to grab hold of a position in the mind of a prospective patient. Using marketing to turn a practice around within a month is like trying to stop a flood with a single sandbag.
So when is the best time for the non-advertising practice to start incorporating marketing into their practice? From the moment you take your first course at LVI. Start with the internal projects first – developing a long range plan, a logo, determining your position in the market, a stationary package, new patient welcome package, etc. Make sure you’re your case presentation and case closing skills are well practiced. Then, as you continue to take more courses and further develop your skills and confidence, you’ll be ready to jump into external marketing without waiting.
Patience = Patients
When asked how long the process takes, I often refer to the history of my husband Larry’s practice. Before he even opened his doors, we had created a logo and communicated his opening with print advertising and direct mail. As his interest in aesthetic dentistry grew, print ads about aesthetics began appearing in our advertising schedule.
But it was not until he had completed several LVI courses that we pulled the trigger focusing on aesthetics in our advertising. Gradually, more patients began asking about these services. In his estimation, it took over a year of consistent advertising about aesthetic dentistry before our market came to regard him as the premiere choice for those services.
As a general rule, the more saturated your market, the longer the process takes. We were fortunate with Larry’s practice because we live in a rural area with virtually no established competition for aesthetic dentistry – and it still took a year. Of course, now the competition has caught on and competitive ads about cosmetic dentistry are infiltrating the market. But since he was established in his position, his brand has remained consistently strong. As a general rule, you have to spend twice as much money to achieve half the result if you’re trying to occupy an established position. Find a niche message and stay with it.
In a metropolitan area such as Philadelphia or Houston, advertising for aesthetic anything can be seen in every medium. Cosmetic surgery, LASIK, permanent makeup and salons are all competing for your prospect’s expendable “health and beauty” income. A myriad of ads for smile makeovers pepper the magazines, radio and TV. Your prospective patient now has to sort through all this clutter to get to your message, and with enough frequency that they remember you when the time comes to make a decision.
There is skill involved in knowing when to start promoting your talents. An old saying in advertising goes “Nothing can kill a bad product faster than good advertising.” In other words, have your clinical, case presentation and case closure skills refined before you unleash your message on the public.
Where Do I Start?
Once you’ve made the decision to market your practice, you’ll need to do a little homework. First, carefully evaluate the competition in your market area. This includes anyone promoting out of pocket health and beauty services as well as other dentists.
Look in the local paper, lifestyle magazines, yellow pages and check your mail. Watch the ads on TV and listen to the radio. Cruise the web for your market. Try to gauge the message and frequency over a period of several weeks. Rip out ads and make notes about what you see. Are these advertisers consistent or just looking for a quick fix? Those with a consistent and clear message are your competition.
Next, determine the best person to help you guide the marketing of your practice. There are many independent consultants who can help create a long range plan and schedule for program development. Give them appropriate insight into your business and plans, but make sure they do the homework to learn the nuances of your industry. There are also a number of excellent full service agencies who can execute the plans as well as develop them.
Unless your office manager has credible past experience, don’t frustrate her and make her learn a new industry. Work with an experienced marketing professional who looks at the whole picture. You or your chosen point person should act as the VP Marketing does in a corporation – manage the consultant or agency, but let them do what you hired them to do.
It Worked For My Best Friend, So…
We hear it often – “I’ve been hearing that radio worked really well in “X” market. Let’s give radio a try.” The key to marketing a practice lies in understanding the principles behind marketing strategy. Every market and message is unique. What you say and how you communicate it will not have the same results in Lewisburg, PA as it will in San Francisco. It totally depends on who your target demographic is (family age women, professional men, blue collar, Hollywood, divorcees, etc.) and where they are located (holistic S. California, power-driven D.C, health conscious mid-west). There is no single right answer for everyone. That’s why package marketing solutions work well for some people and totally bomb for others. The more your marketing consultant knows about your target market and competition, the more specific – and targeted – the message can be.
Pulling the Trigger
While you may have hired a consultant or agency, remember that ultimately, it’s your business. The agency has an obligation to give you recommendations based on their knowledge and experience. But everything you approve – logo, ads, website – will all reflect on you and your practice. Make sure you’re not only comfortable with what you approve, but that you love it. A good agency will keep working until you get a product that simply thrills you, as well as one that gets calls from patients.
Once you’ve made the decision to add marketing to your practice, be prepared for a long term commitment. Remember that it takes time to get results, but with good direction and a unique creative message, you will get the attention of your prospective patients. Don’t change directions after only a month – give it time. Keep an eye on the future. Strategies to market aesthetic dentistry will change as our society’s trends and needs continue to change. Evaluate the competition, track your results, and most of all, keep learning. Continual improvement will help to define your success.
Xana Winans is the owner and president of Golden Proportions Marketing (GPM), a thriving company that specializes in comprehensive, custom marketing and advertising strategies for the dental and medical fields. The GPM website can be found at http://www.goldenproportions.com and Xana can be reached at 866-590-4476 or xwinans@goldenproportions.com.
Marketing Strategy – Getting the Marketing Groove
Wouldn’t it be great to have a year where your marketing efforts were streamlined and got the results you were after? None of us want to struggle with marketing, and yet this is the one topic that continues to be highest in the minds of small business professionals.
Let’s really consider some of the reasons that can sabotage our marketing efforts, and how we can turn that around.
Lack of a marketing mindset
We don’t see ourselves as in the marketing game. The truth is, if you are out there running a business, thinking like a marketer has to become your priority. It’s no use having a great service if nobody knows about it, or you.
Lack of knowledge is your enemy. Start by reading whatever you can. Speak to successful people in your field and ask them what strategies they use. The information you need is out there for you to take.
Lack of investment
For many small business owners, the focus on cost control prohibits them from ever investing enough money into marketing and promotion. These activities are seen as costs rather than as an investment. So this year I encourage you to reframe your attitude towards marketing. Once you know what marketing activity to do, and have confidence that it will bring results, spend the money enthusiastically.
Lack of focus
Perhaps you do spend time and money on marketing, but you aren’t happy with the results. Or your efforts are ad-hoc rather than carefully planned. Whatever it is, 2005 is the year to take charge. If what you are doing isn’t working – stop doing it! Ask a professional for help (not your friends or associates!). Or put yourself in your customers shoes and work out what’s going to attract them to your business. If an ad-hoc approach is the problem, take the time to complete the marketing plan in the ‘How to…’ section and become ruthlessly systematic this year.
Lack of over-riding marketing strategy
Marketing activity and tactics are all well and good but it is like driving a rudderless ship if there is no grander plan. Part of creating a marketing strategy is to clearly understand exactly where you are right now, and where you want to be. Your goal may be to have sales of $1,$5 or $50 million. Or you may want to revolutionise your industry. Or you may want your company to be acquired within 5 years. What matters most is that you have a clear, precise vision of where you are, where you want to be in 1year, and where you want to be in 5 years.
Not surrounding ourselves with the right people
All of the great books on success advocate spending time with people who are already successful at what you want to do. Why? By surrounding yourself with people several steps ahead of you, you can absorb the attitudes and values that made them successful, as well as picking up new strategies and ideas. So If you are hanging out with people who also lack a marketing mindset then it’s time to think about expanding your professional network to include those who are already down the track to success.
Marketing is more of an art than a science. Often times you learn by systematically trying different activities and approaches. The experts don’t always have all the answers . . . and this is exactly why you need to give plenty of personal attention to make sure your marketing is working as hard as it possibly can. If you want to get serious about success in business, then understanding marketing is an ongoing priority.
Here’s a quick list of 10 ideas to get you into the marketing groove:
1. Commit to reading one new marketing book per month
2. Start learning about how to market online
3. Make a list of people whose businesses inspire you, and carefully study their marketing techniques. How many of these are you using?
4. Make a list of successful people in your industry and check out their marketing strategy. Why not offer to take one of them out for coffee to learn more about how they got where they are (what’s the worst that could happen?)
5. Revise your marketing budget. Look at your previous investment in marketing, and ask yourself if this is the amount a truly successful business would be spending
6. Review all of last year’s marketing activities. Work out which ones brought new business in the door, or were successful in some other way (building credibility for example). If you can’t quantify how successful the outcome was, stop spending the money!
7. Implement an ongoing ‘keep in touch’ program with existing customers
8. Ask 10 or more of your most loyal customers for a referral
9. Stop doing those marketing activities that you know don’t work, but you do them anyway
10. Market research – ask 20 of your customers what value you provide to them. Use what they say in your own marketing materials
Megan Tough – published writer, coach, facilitator and speaker – works with people to create outstandingly satisfying and truly successful professional lives. Make more money – have more fun! To learn more and to sign up for more FREE tips and articles like these, visit http://www.megantough.com
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Even when we are at an era where it seems that everything are done online
One of the most attractive regions of the world surely is Europe – with its 480+ million inhabitants, especially also Germany with its 80+ million thereof.
Insofar it is the ‘world market’ pure and simple (due to market sizes, buying volume, number of inhabitants, etc.). And it becomes for very many entrepreneurs more and more essential (= their survival) to get into/stay in foreign markets – but, of course, very thoughtful.
Concentrating on the home markets only will ´restrict – especially SMEs – to their ‘limited’ market places back home. Even if these are huge markets like e. G: USA.
Nowadays the sharp price competition needs companies/owners who strive to be ahead of their respective markets segments – not necessarily with regard to pricing but surely with regard to competitive advantages/customer ´benefits. (The marketing guru Prof. Kotler even argues a bit tougher: ,,We should get out of markets where we can’t be the first …”.)
If we do not concentrate on the clients’ needs and sell ‘our fingerprint’ (plus whatever such clients ask for !) which is always different even from the toughest competition, as well companies from Europe as from other parts of the world (especially SMEs – who still stand for the majority of a countries’ GDP) would only have a shadowy existence, which – due to their number of inventions and technical solutions – would not be justified.
On the contrary they should open themselves for new foreign markets and/or find foreign collaborators in order to broaden their market existence/shares.
Hereafter I touch therefore only four aspects – which in no case, however, cover the whole field of marketing of a specific company – which can give the entrepreneurs some idea though how to ‘better place the enterprise’ in the markets and by this initiate a better present and long-lasting ’starting position’.
We are on a ‘buyers’ market’, where it is important to have a detailed view and perspective for the own enterprise and the products produced – especially as the recession seems to be over soon and the economical development is seen ‘quite bright’ by the various institutions.
So, what can be done by an individual company – now ?
o I. Analysis
In my eyes that is the necessary starting position in general.
It has to be found out how the enterprise – with its present products – is accepted in the market place, where it is less successful than the competition, where the positive points are to be found (price, delivery – logistics timing -, quality, service, etc.) or simply:
“How the company for the time being is represented to its clientele and how it is valued”
Parameters for this situation are the own selling results, the profit-situation for all products, the total production/import/export statistics of such products in the area looked at, the buying structure, the advertisements/sales promotion done, etc.
Such an analysis should – normally – be executed by somebody not belonging to the company as then procedures followed so far are questioned, which may be existing without real reasons and/or new selling ideas can be elaborated/ added which are available due to the experience from other industrial fields – and being a consultant even from other companies where similar proposals reached good results.
o II. Targeting
The analysis has to be followed by a segmentation of the markets which are supplied by the company.
This segmentation has to lead to the question whether the company already supplies its clients on the best possible ways in order to really reach all segments in a way as accepted by the respective clientele and in the best possible manner, avoiding any unnecessary frictions.
o Possible catchwords are
o – core abilities -
Due to the multitude of different suppliers who all deal with various technological solutions but with just one problem (e. g. the IT-market, the automotive industrys, etc.) it is extremely important that a company finds/defines its ‘core abilities’ (the ‘fingerprint’ as said above) which are available – in this combination – only with them and that it concentrates on it and ‘markets’/cares for them. Only in this case a kind of ’sole selling position’ can be developed which in-turn leads to a sharper profile in the ‘market places’.
Now, many people may say that this is not relevant/true for them, but my experience says that it is – in many cases – just a matter of creative justification and formulation to reach such a target of ’sole position’.
o – research -
of the total quantity of prospective clients per segment/market locally and/or foreign, in order to define implement the strategic/ operational targets and control mechanisms in order to verify the results compared to the targets
o – sales routes multiplication -
i. e. that we have to find out if and when it may be advisable to sell our products (perhaps slightly changed in form/colour/packing and/or execution) to the different market segments following different sales routes
o III. Definition/implementation
- of procedures for the various market segments with a view to the various foreign markets/representatives/distributors, etc.
The results of these examinations has to be part of the overall ‘company planning procedure’ like the financial aspects, the sales organisation (> marketing plan) and all relevant costing procedures.
Especially the last aspect is one of the most important, as the costing procedure (starting with the optimal purchasing (even world-wide depending on the use of raw-/ready materials), the logistics needed, the suitable way of production (not to mention ‘lean-procedures>, the quality aspects, stock-keeping with the distributors, customer service, advertisement/sales promotion, etc.) will still be the finally deciding point for the pricing and this – provided all the rest is the same for different suppliers – will be decisive for the buying decision of our clients.
o Advertising/public relation
has to include nowadays an INTERNET-presence. That means, however, not only to have a site in the NET but also to publish it with relevant associations, client groups, etc., i. e. to ‘market’ it as a conventional means also but, if we want to be really successful it has – first and foremost – to be made-up in a way to lead the ’searcher’ directly to HIS solution/the solution to HIS problem, i. e. following also strictly marketing procedures as necessary for the respective product/market segment.
o IV. Control and correction
This step belongs to the ones mentioned before like the baby to its mother as only if it is controlled if/how the targets have been reached a correction will be possible and only then we will ‘answer the markets’ to our best.
This refers to the sales routes as well as to the ‘market presentation’ via representatives, advertisements, fairs/exhibitions, pricing, customer service, etc.
And it is as well understandable as logic that these parameters differ from market segment to market segment, from country to country, and I can say form my practical experience that in most cases the results from a deviation of the targets in one market/market segment not only have a real influence on the internal decisions (referring to production, organisation, finance, etc. ) but also gives perfect hints in order to correct and define new marketing ways for the rest of the segments/ markets, which again leads to an increase of sales and a more positive view of the future.
As stated in the very beginning it is not the aim of this article to present final solutions for everybody.
This is absolutely impossible as one company differs from the other nearly totally (even when producing the same final product) and only the detailed individual study gives answers to this – which then again leads to a more positive development of the enterprise.
However, the steps mentioned before – perhaps partly adjusted by further steps, like out- sourcing of different internal procedures, targeted customer service like key-accounting, special service offers to a few good customers/ products, etc. – can be used in general by all companies and as such lead to an increase of turnover and/or profit.
More details are available here;
http://www.marketing-und-vertrieb-international.com/en/marketing-and-sales.htm
Michael Richter – International Marketing- and sales consultant – concentrates for more than 35 years on marketing and selling of investment goods and long-lasting consumer goods to/in all 5 continents – since 1991 he works as an independent marketing consultant, especially for SMEs worldwide.
Michael Richter
Drehergässle 5
88499 Daugendorf/Germany
http://www.marketing-und-vertrieb-international.com/en/
michael.richter@marketing-und-vertrieb-international.de
Phone: +49-7371-93210, Fax: +49-7371-93217
Everything You’ve Ever Learned About Marketing Is Wrong
Everything you’ve ever learned about marketing and advertising is WRONG. Everything you’ve ever heard everything you’ve ever tried, everything you’ve ever done, it’s all WRONG.
Hello, my name is Rich Harshaw; I’m the CEO of Y2Marketing, the nation’s leading marketing consulting and fulfillment agency. What I want to do in this series of articles is teach you a system for innovating and marketing your company to a point that it’s instantly evident that you’re the obvious choice to do business with. I want to show you how to make those advantages of doing business with your company so obvious to your prospects and customers that they quickly and easily draw this one simple conclusion: “I would have to be an absolute fool to do business with anyone else but you…regardless of price.”
Let’s say that you own a moving company… and you spend $3,000 a month in the Yellow Pages for a full-page ad, and that ad generates an average of 70 calls per month. Is that good? Is that bad? Well, it depends….but, let me ask you this: What if you could take that same full page ad that costs $3,000 a month, and by just changing what it says, and how it says it–now, instead of getting 70 calls a month, you could generate an average of 955 calls a month…and the average quality of the prospect was quantifiably BETTER? Let’s say you owned that moving company. Would you be excited about that? 955 better qualified calls a month instead of 70? If not, we need to take your pulse and see if you are ALIVE! That’s what’s called getting more results–making more money–for the same time, the same money, and the same effort spent.
Or let’s say you’re the CEO of an up and coming bank that is trying to get a stronger foothold into the small business loan market. Let’s say you’ve got 22 retail locations supported by $370,000 a month in total marketing and advertising expenses for the small business loan program, including heavy telemarketing, direct mail, newspaper, and some radio and television…. as well as various brochures and collateral at each sales office. What if you’re that CEO, and despite spending a fortune on advertising and marketing, your efforts to generate leads and subsequently close loans are losing money and is actually getting worse as time goes by?
What if you could change the message being communicated in your marketing and advertising and in all of those brochures and other collateral materials, and by doing so you could increase the number of leads generated by 465%, increase the quality of those leads, and therefore increase your closing ratio from a paltry 8% to a healthy 31%? Not by changing the amount of money being spent on the program, not by hiring some expensive celebrity to say he gets his loans from you, not by doing anything substantially different than you’re doing now…. Just by changing what you’re saying in your marketing so that it WORKS BETTER.
Whether you spend $3,000 a month, $370,000 a month, or $3,000,000 a month on marketing, I’m going to show you how to use the “Monopolize Your Marketplace” system to leverage what you’re already doing and get those kinds of results for YOUR business by changing the way you do all of your marketing and advertising, including advertisements in all media, brochures, websites, trade shows, signage and everything else. I’m not talking about radical changes that are “creative” or strange or weird or anything else.
The process for getting these kinds of results is very systematic, and anyone with a strong business background can figure it out. But simply put, my purpose is to show you how to change your marketing and advertising, and allow you to leverage your marketing momentum. Just like the moving company and the bank in the examples, and just like the dozens of examples I’m going to give you in this series of articles. The result is you make more money for the same time, money, and effort expended.
Most companies simply don’t know how to do this. Some companies know their marketing could use some help and that it’s under leveraged, and as a result, they’re looking for solutions. Maybe that’s you. But there’s a larger group, a group that doesn’t really understand the untapped potential that lies in their marketing. They spend some money on marketing or advertising, get some results, make some money, and then decide that whatever results they’re getting are probably about as good as it gets… and figure that there’s not much they can do about it.
They figure that the 70 calls a month on the $3,000 ad is about what you ought to get for a $3,000 ad; they never imagined that 955 calls were even possible. Nothing could be further from the truth. If you just understand what you’re going to learn on this program, if you understand how to run what we call the marketing equation on a consistent basis, then you’ll always get predictable, consistent, and inevitably huge results every time you do anything called “marketing.”
The system is based on unchanging principles of human nature that dictate that people always want to make the best buying decision possible and therefore marketing’s job–your job–is NOT to YAK incessantly about how great you are or how low your prices are–but rather, your job is to simply facilitate the prospect’s decision making process, and allow them to feel like they’re in CONTROL of the decision, based on having enough quantity and quality of information. The system is truly a breakthrough in marketing and advertising, yet it’s simple and easy to understand. We have thousands of client successes to prove that it works literally every time it’s implemented, regardless of what kind of business or industry you’re in.
We compete head to head with marketing consultancies and large traditional advertising agencies who grub money from their clients with no accountability for results. These agencies hate our guts because we expose their ineptitude and reveal our results-getting processes to our clients so they can evaluate for themselves… just like we’re going to do on this program… and then we show them step-by-step how to make more money every time they run an ad, produce a brochure, create a website, show up at a trade show, send a sales person out in the field, or any other sales-generating activities. The ad agencies hate us so bad because we threaten their very existence; they even call us the “anti-agency.”
So how can I say that everything you’ve ever learned is WRONG? How can I accuse you, without ever having met you, of leaving huge untapped profits on the table that are easily and readily available just by doing what I’m about to share with you? How can I say, in essence, that you don’t know what you’re talking about marketing-wise–even given the fact that there’s a good chance that you’ve been doing marketing for 10 or 20 or 40 years–and you’ve been getting what most people would consider good results that whole time?
Well, I’m not going to answer that question right now….in fact, I’m going to let you answer that question for yourself as you read this series of articles; If I do my job, then I think that answer will become self-evident. But I’ll make you a promise right now: This is not hype, it’s not the same old stuff you’ve heard a million times repackaged…even though that’s what all the so-called marketing gurus and ad agencies would like for you to think. And even if you do think it’s the same old stuff, I’m going to give you some evaluations later on to prove to you, quantifiably, that it isn’t. Anybody who’s claiming we’re using the same old formulas and processes should be producing marketing and advertising that looks like ours does, works like ours does, and most importantly, makes money like ours does. They should have a specified set of rules and formulas and strategies that can systematically be applied to any kind of business across the board. They should provide a set of evaluations that will allow anyone to instantly and objectively judge and rate their own marketing and predict the success of a marketing campaign before spending any money. And guess what? Nobody does. That’s right, nobody. This information is exactly what you’ve needed and been looking for to take your business to the next level of profitability and success.
Rich Harshaw is the founder of the Monopolize Your Marketplace system and CEO of Y2Marketing Business Marketing Strategies [http://www.y2marketing.com]
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Combine traditional business marketing and Internet marketing strategies and increase your business revenues.
Business Marketing Works.
Without marketing your business has no revenues. This marketing may be from word of mouth of clients you’ve served already. Or it may be intentional marketing you create your self. Either way business marketing works. Marketing is the only way to your business success.
Traditional Business Marketing Techniques that Work
Traditionally, we know that ads in magazines, direct-mail postcards, direct-mail sales letters, business networking, telephone calls, and building business relationships all work. In fact, if you’re business marketing strategies are not working, take a look at the copy. What does each ads say? Are you tracking the results of the ad? Did the ad generate revenues for you? If not, you may have had an expense as a result of applying the traditional business marketing techniques. It could be costly to run the ad again using different copy until you find the copy that gets the result you want.
Combine Tradition Business Marketing with Internet Marketing Strategies that Work
Putting internet marketing strategies to work in your business can give you an opportunity to test your ads in a cost effective way. Using internet marketing strategies you can discover what works and doesn’t work with your ad for little or no cost.
Once an ad is getting results using internet marketing strategies, you can put the successful ad in magazines, postcards and even use it on your business card. With an ad that you know gets results the expense of the more traditional marketing techniques is viable.
Powerfully Effective Business Marketing
The combination of internet marketing strategies with traditional business marketing techniques is a powerful way to move your business forward and increase your revenues. It can take as little as three weeks to 90 days to begin seeing new results in your business.
It’s a Magical Combination.
Combining internet marketing strategies with traditional marketing techniques gives you a freedom for expressing yourself uniquely, unlike ever before. Your unique selling point can be easier to create. Your purpose becomes more defined. You are able to attract your ideal clients to your business more easily as a result
Just as business marketing is systematized and repeatable using traditional methods, internet marketing is repeatable and predictable as a clear system to follow. Learn these systems and surge your business revenues forward using the “magical combination” of traditional business marketing and internet marketing.
You’ll be smiling as you check your continuously increasing bank balance.
Juanita Bellavance is an internet marketing mentor with a focus on passive income streams combining internet technologies with other business models.
Create the Magical Combination of Business Marketing and Internet Marketing in 90 Accelerated Days!
Get More Tips on Easy To Do Business Marketing
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We’ve noticed that on a well known marketing web site, there is an article with a similar title – just what is marketing? This is a very good question and the answer typically ends up (as it is in the aforementioned article) being a lot of tactics, like advertising, brand management, sales, service, pricing, email marketing, etc. That’s a good start, but far from complete.
And that’s one of the problems with the web. There are lots of web sites out there with people claiming to be knowledgeable about marketing. In fact, if you go to search engines like Google and type in marketing, you’ll come up with over 16,000,000 web pages! By the time you’ve got that many people claiming to be experts in marketing, it’s difficult to even know what marketing means.
Marketing Is Not Tactics
When most people think of marketing, they think of marketing tactics. People associate marketing with tactics, partly because they’re fun. Advertising is fun, promotions are fun, and so is sending out email campaigns and every other similar tactic. But tactics, while the most salient aspects of marketing, are similar to the tactics of sport. They’re very important, but useless without having a sound basis of knowledge.
And so it is with marketing. Marketing is far more than tactics. Marketing is analysis, and a sound marketing strategy is based on this analysis.
Marketing Is All About Customers
What type of analysis are we talking about? Well, analysis about customers, for example. Having a solid understanding of customers means having a solid understanding about how customers behave, their motivations, their perceptions and preferences. It means segmenting the market correctly and not in the way that most companies think about segmentation (if they ever do).
It means having a profound understanding of their attitudes, their knowledge and their emotions. Without having this knowledge, the tactics of marketing are just blowing in the wind. You’ll hope that the tactics work, but be blissfully unaware about whether anyone would want to pay attention or listen.
Adding Competitive Analysis
Rarely do we see marketing sites deal with competitive analysis (we do!). Marketing is also about understanding competition. But not just listing off who the competitors are. It means thinking about their competitive reactions, their objectives and capabilities. It means understanding competitive forces in an industry as well.
Too often I see firms acting as though they were monopolists, as though their competitors were unlikely to react or had little interest in capturing a market. The Internet is a good example of this. How many Internet companies really seriously thought about the potential competitive reactions of the entrenched players? Did any of them consider long term competitive reactions? What about putting together plans that were robust to future competitive reactions?
No, marketing is also about competitive analysis, not just the “interesting and fun” tactics that permeate the web.
What About Capabilities
Once again, to think about marketing you need to also think about a company’s abilities to actually survive in the market. I’m not talking about financial abilities, although that is part of the story. What about a culture, the salesforce compensation, the relationships with distributors, suppliers, etc?
Some companies focus squarely on customers and even think about competitors. But these same companies often forget about their ability to provide what customers need, or the incentives in their distribution system to actually get the job done.
No, marketing is not just about tactics, it’s also about understanding your own company and it’s abilities and weaknesses.
So, What Is Marketing?
Marketing is, in fact, the analysis of customers, competitors, and a company, combining this understanding into an overall understanding of what segments exist, deciding on targeting the most profitable segments, positioning your products, and then doing what’s necessary to deliver on that positioning.
How to do deliver on a positioning? Well, this is where the tactics come in. By branding correctly, by advertising correctly, by communicating via email, letters, or whatever, but all done in a way that is consistent with the analysis that marketing is really responsible for.
If you want to get involved in tactics, that’s fine. But just think about artists, sports figures, doctors and scientists, and ask yourself whether in these other areas (which all, by the way, are as creative as marketing), it is just necessary to understand tactics. I think what you’ll find is that tactics alone won’t get you very far, but tactics along with a strategy based on great analysis will get you exactly where you want to go.
So before you go hiring consultants and network with other marketers (as suggested in this “other article”), make sure you understand what is marketing so you don’t just become a tactical pawn, but someone who can ultimately direct the entire marketing campaign.
Happy Marketing!
Tony Marino is not only the CEO of America Web Works, LLC., he is also host of the Marketing Antics LIVE Radio.He is also the author of the ePublishing Master’s Course. Additionally, he holds Email Compliance Officer status for many of today’s leading Network Marketing companies.
He has also worked with the likes of legendary Direct Marketers Ted Nicholas and Gary Halbert. Best-Selling Authors, Harvey McKay, Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen. ABC Television’s, Jimmy Kimmel and NBC’s, Carson Daly. Online Marketers, Dale Calvert and Jay Abraham just to name a few. His offices are located in Portland and Los Angeles and he’d love to hear from you anytime!
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A marketing strategy can either make or break your business. As you know, there are many different aspects to a good marketing strategy. You may be wondering which marketing strategy is right for you. Also, how do you know which marketing strategy really works? The best marketing strategy is the one that gains profits. In this article, we will discuss the various aspects of a great market strategy.
The first marketing strategy you should look into is your website. Make sure your web design is eye catching and easy to maneuver. A marketing strategy you can add to this is to have attractive pictures or illustrations that get your customers attention. This is always an important marketing strategy.
A second marketing strategy is to promote you product. Any marketing strategy will tell you to get yourself noticed. Different aspects of this marketing strategy are to send out flyers, business cards, post cards, etc.
A third marketing strategy is to use an autoresponder. This automated form of a marketing strategy is commonly used. Using an autoresponder to send out advertisements of your product is fast and convenient. Everything is done by email.
Another marketing strategy is to use a slogan or logo. This is a great marketing strategy because it is a way for people to easily remember your business. If they remember or recognize you, they are likely to use your website.
Another powerful marketing strategy is to use an SEO (search engine optimization). Using this will attract more people to your sight. This is because when they do a search for a particular service or product, the SEO will make sure your site is listed at the top of the search results.
A very important marketing strategy is to have a great price for your products or services. This marketing strategy is an absolute must. If your prices are not great, you will never have any business. Try to show people why your prices are so great to entice them to make a purchase.
Finally, the last marketing strategy is to have good public relations. With good public relations, your business will prosper through word of mouth. Allow customers to submit feedback of your business. Place positive feedback and testimonials on your website. It makes your business look good and customers tend to prefer to use businesses that have positive feedback.
As you know you what a marketing strategy that will not leave you with empty pockets. In reality, any marketing strategy is going to cost you a little bit of money. But if you look in the right places and follow some good advice, your marketing strategy should leave you coming out on top.
Jay Moncliff is the founder of http://www.marketing-rentable.com a website specialized on Marketing, resources and articles. This site provides updated information on Marketing. For more info visit his site: Marketing
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Making Sense of Marketing Models
Marketing can be bewildering for busy small business owners who wear many hats and are aiming to figure out the most effective marketing strategies while managing their day-to-day businesses. Daily we are bombarded with marketing messages from all directions-television, radio, SMS, internet and print media. The marketing messages may reach us via solicited or unsolicited (spam) channels.
Research on the internet reveals a multitude of marketing models and techniques, each claiming to be the best and most cost-effective one. There is Telemarketing – Bum Marketing – Niche Marketing — Metaphor Marketing – Guerrilla Marketing – Ambush Marketing – Fusion Marketing and Alliance Marketing to mention a few. Not surprising, more and more people complain about having too much information and choices vs having too little. A working definition of the Marketing Models is provided at the end of this article.
How do you respond to this avalanche of information? Do you feel overwhelmed and do nothing? Or do file the information away for review when you have more time? Maybe that time never comes and you end up not making the decision that could support your business growth.
Marketing Models – What do they have in common?
In its essence marketing models are a contest for your attention or the attention of your potential clients! They simply can be divided into Permission Marketing and Interruption Marketing Models.
Internet marketing pioneer and founder of Permission Marketing, Seth Godin says, “Advertising just doesn’t work as well as it used to – in part because there’s so much of it, in part because people have learned to ignore it, in part because the rise of the Net means that companies can go beyond it…we are entering an era that’s going to change the way almost everything is marketed to almost everybody.” This was in 1999. And while marketing with the rise of the Net has changed, the philosophy of permission marketing is as relevant to small business owners today as it was then.
Mass marketing, based on the Interruption Model, has become less effective because there’s too much going on in our lives for us to enjoy being interrupted anymore. Interruption Marketing, however, is still extremely effective when there is not an overflow of interruptions. No doubt, you have your own thoughts and feeling about having your favorite TV show interrupted several times by an advert or your family dinner by Telemarketing calls, or your email inbox overflowing with spam emails. Is it possible that your potential clients have similar thoughts and feelings about your marketing strategy?
The challenge for marketers, Godin argues, is to persuade consumers to volunteer attention – to “raise their hands — to agree to learn more about a company and its products.” This makes perfect sense. He calls the new model “Permission Marketing” because it is built around permission. Permission marketing, he claims, “turns strangers into friends and friends into loyal customers.”
Readers’ Digest use permission marketing by giving the consumer an opportunity to win prizes in their Sweepstakes in return for the permission to send marketing literature. Another example is your subscription to newsletters.
In the United Kingdom opt-in is required for email marketing, under The Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003. This came into force on the 11 December 2003.
Reflect and Act Marketing is a crucial aspect of your business success. If you are like most small business owners you will want to invest your marketing dollar wisely to maximize your marketing results. Permission Marketing is a powerful “be-in-touch, stay-in-touch” targeted relationship building strategy.
To get a better understanding of the effectiveness of your marketing strategies, I invite you to reflect on the following questions:
1. Am I maximizing my marketing opportunities?
2. Do my marketing efforts focus on the segment of the market that is likely to do business with me?
3. Are my marketing strategies based on the Permission Model or the Interruption Model?
4. How do potential clients perceive my marketing strategies? Do they welcome them? Do they create overwhelm?
5. How effective are my current marketing strategies?
6. What is the return on my marketing investment?
7. What is the most effective marketing strategy I can implement today?
To find out how consumers perceive your marketing strategies, I invite you to develop a five question questionnaire to conduct a mail or phone survey of 10-25 potential clients. Awareness is power when combined with effective action.
Marketing Models: Working Definitions
Alliance Marketing: “It’s about developing a well-oiled strategy between companies who are doing business with the same prospects on a daily basis but are not competing with each other. It’s a strategy that leverages each company’s strengths and database for each other while yielding major results at the end of the day.” – Matt Tommey
Ambush Marketing – “A deliberate attempt by a business or brand to associate itself with an event in order to gain some of the benefits associated with being an official sponsor without incurring the costs of sponsorship. – Blah La Word Press
Bum Marketing: Also known as article marketing.
Fusion Marketing: Is tying your marketing efforts in with the effort of others. It is a make-everybody-wealthy marketing tactic known in Japan and by guerrillas worldwide. It is also known as Collaborative Marketing. – Jay Conrad Levinson
Guerrilla Marketing: Is high impact low cost marketing.
Interruption Marketing: as the name indicates that each and every marketing strategy interrupts what potential customers are doing in order to get them to think about the marketing message. – Seth Godin
Metaphor Marketing: Is essentially Brand Marketing.
Niche Marketing: Is concentrating all marketing efforts on a small but specific and well defined segment of the population
Permission Marketing: As the name indicates, consumers need to grant you permission to send messages.
Telemarketing: Is marketing conducted via the medium of the telephone.
copyright©2007 Elisabeth Gortschacher
Authentic Personal Branding expert, MCC and Certified Guerrilla Marketing Coach, Elisabeth partners with entrepreneurs, leaders and professionals internationally to develop and market their distinctive soul-inspired brand. She is affectionately known as the ‘archeologists of the soul’ for her depth, passion and integrity she brings to her work. Elisabeth is the co-founder of the Guerrilla Marketing Universe, and the founder and leader of world leadership day. Visit her at http://www.GuerrillaMarketingUniverse.com
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