The Top Experts Reveal Small Business Marketing Strategies
That Get Results In This Economy

Understanding The Marketing Cycle To Increase Sales

By Charlie   |   March 16th, 2010

The three phases of small business marketing are as predictable as the phases of the moon. Work with the small business marketing cycle to generate a steady stream of prospects and to convert prospects to clients.

You want to attract more clients to grow your business, but you’re not sure where to start or where to focus your efforts. You’ve tried advertising in various media, a web site, cold calling, brochures, and direct mail, but none of these are generating as much new or repeat business as you’d like.

Marketing is costly and can be frustrating when its not working; to get more out of your investment of time and money, understand how marketing can and should work to drive prospects to your door.

Understanding the Marketing and Sales Cycle
Marketing progresses through a series of steps to get to a sale or repeat sale. No matter how much you might like to have a full moon on any one night, you can’t skip the quarter moon and half moon to get there.

The first phase of marketing is Getting Attention. People need to know that you exist and what it is that you do or offer before they can buy. The second phase is Positioning; before a prospect will part with their hard earned dollars, they need to get to know and trust you and learn the value of what you provide. The final phase of the marketing cycle is Selling, getting first time and repeat sales.

Unlike the moon, you can affect the marketing and sales cycle. You can influence your prospects to generate a steady stream of clients and customers.

Learn how to attract more prospects and convert them to clients by putting the marketing cycle to work for you. In “Earning More by Marketing Smarter” I detail what how do this.

In “Earning More by Marketing Smarter” you’ll learn how Get Attention and Position your business, and increase sales.

Getting Attention
Step 1 – Generating Awareness
Introduce yourself to prospects and tell them what you do and how you can help them. Make sure your marketing message addresses your prospects’ interests, and then use it to write ads that pay for themselves, whether you are using google/adwords, ezine ads, newspaper ads, or radio spots.

Step 2 – Motivating Prospects to Action
Use everything from your ads, to your business card to your web site to stimulate a contact or a conversation. Give prospects a reason to take the next step and respond by emailing or calling you or visiting your store.

You can get attention to grow your business in just 15 seconds. The key is having a brilliant marketing message, one that prompts people to contact you.

Positioning
Step 3 – Establishing Credibility
People won’t buy from you until they feel confident that they know and trust you. Use your articles, books, interviews, and testim0nials to establish your credibility and help prospects feel confident in buying from your firm.

Step 4 – Clarifying Your Value
Whether you are selling a $15 book, a $10,000 business consultation, or a $50,000 car, prospects won’t make a commitment unless they understand in their own terms the value you are providing. Use your small business marketing materials, your web site, and your conversations to help prospects define the value of your goods or services.

Selling
Step 5 – Receiving Commitments
Whether it is helping a prospect to sign up for your free ezine, scheduling a conversation, buying a manual or sending you a check for your services, to move the process forward you need to ask for and get a commitment.

Learn how to use your web site to get attention, position your business and increase sales >>

Step 6 – Providing Service that Generates More Revenue
You’ll sell your products or services if they solve a problem or satisfy a need. Your objective is to give people what they want. Do so and they’ll be happy. The second objective is to sell them what they need. Do this and they’ll come back to buy your other products and services.

Step 7 – Maintaining the Relationship
Once a prospect has become a paying client, you want them to stay with you and continue learning and buying from you. Continue to stay in touch, clarify the value of your products and services and prompt prospects and clients to buy from you and refer new clients to you.

Getting Attention, Positioning, Selling a three-step cycle that you can anticipate and influence using the seven steps outlined above. Put these steps in order and you’ll move many more prospects through the marketing cycle to increase sales.

How To Clean Up Your Marketing To Clean Up In Business

By Charlie   |   March 16th, 2010

Has your once well-organized marketing strategy, come to resemble the jumble of stuff in your closet (not to mention the garage and the attic)? If you are like most people, each time you come across a new small business marketing strategy you try to adopt it and add it to your existing approach.

Strategies and tactics tend to accumulate and linger even when they may not be working as well as you’d like. Like the ill-fitting clothes that accumulate in your closet or the broken tools still in the garage, they are hard to get rid of, whether because of habit, emotional attachment or just plain not getting around to cleaning them out.

To improve your marketing, you’ll need to clean out some old ways of working. While I don’t want to get anywhere near your closet, and in fact I could use some help with mine, I can show you how to clean up your marketing so you’re ready to take advantage of the New Year to grow your business.

Cleaning Up Your Small Business Marketing Strategy to Increase Profits
Every morning my friend Michael Angier of SuccessNet.org sits down at his desk and asks himself the following three questions about his business.

1. What’s working?
2. What’s not working?
3. What can I improve?

Discover how to write a plan that helps you get attention, improve lead generation, position your firm and sell. With “The Insider Secrets to Attracting More & Better Customers“ you’ll learn what works to get prospects to contact you and how to convert them to clients.

You may not want to review your marketing five times a week, but it is a good idea to do it at least once a year. So take out your pencil or fire up your computer and assess your marketing:

Your Marketing Strategy
1. Is your plan working to generate leads and increase sales?

2. Do you have a well defined marketing strategy that helps you achieve the three phases of marketing; Getting Attention, Positioning, and Selling?

3. Do you need to write or rewrite your business plan?

4. Do you need additional information or coaching to complete your small business marketing plans?

5. What are you going to do to improve your marketing?

Getting Attention
6. Does your marketing message prompt prospects to contact you?

7. Do your ads, letters, and web site motivate prospects to contact you?

8. What are your conversion rates?

9. What steps can you take to improve them?

Discover how to write a brilliant marketing message and elevator speech to get attention.

Find out how to improve your online sales lead generation with your web site.

Positioning
10. What are you doing to establish your credibility with prospects, to help them know and trust you?

11. Is it working as well as you’d like?

12. What could you improve?

13. Is the value of your products and services clear to your prospects or do they question you about merits and price?

14. Want to learn how to ensure that your prospects understand the value of your products and services?

Selling
15. How successful are you in selling, that is, in getting commitments for everything from appointments to orders?

16. What’s your conversion rate of prospects contacted to clients and customers?

17. Do initial sales generate repeat sales and referrals for years to come?

18. Want to learn how to generate more sales from each client?

Discover how to use your web site marketing to position your products and services and prompt sales >>

Evaluating Your Business Marketing
Use Michael’s three questions to summarize your comments about your marketing and your success in getting attention, positioning and selling.

1. What’s working?

2. What’s not?

3. What do you want to improve?

The hardest part about cleaning out your closet, attic, garage or your marketing is getting started. It may be time to straighten up or throw out some of your old marketing strategies and tactics and replace them with new more effective ones. You’ll improve your lead generation and sales.

Start with a well organized marketing strategy, one that helps you Get Attention, Position your products and services and Sell and you’ll find your business growing in leaps and bounds in the coming year.

Small Business Marketing for Service Professionals

By Charlie   |   March 15th, 2010

How You Can Use The Same Marketing Strategies That Win Elections

By Charlie   |   March 15th, 2010

Marketing your company may be more like running for President of the United States than you ever imagined. Even though you may not have over a hundred million dollars to spend to convince people, and you don’t want to kiss a lot of babies, you can use many of the same small business marketing strategies to grow your business.

Like the incumbent president and the democratic challenger, you want people in your target market to make up their minds to vote for you. The difference is that the presidential race is focused on getting people to go to the polls on one critical day. Your small business marketing involves getting people to vote with their wallets and buy your products and services on a weekly or monthly basis.

Your marketing plan can incorporate the same small business marketing strategies used by presidential contenders and other highly successful marketers. Discover the secrets >>

When you apply the 5 essential principles to marketing your services or business you’ll attract many more clients and see your business grow.

Learn how to get your marketing message across to get attention and win the hearts and minds of your prospects with “15 Second Marketing: Creating 0pportunity with a Brilliant Marketing Message”. You’ll find yourself and your firm generating more leads and more business.

Your business and the presidential contenders require similar small business marketing objectives and strategies. Your marketing plan should consider the following:

A. Marketing Goals
Presidential Contenders – To convince over 50% of voters to vote for them.

You – To help people in your target market make the choice to purchase from you.

B. Marketing Issues
Presidential Contenders – To appeal to voters’ greatest concerns, hopes and fears, whether it’s health, safety, or prosperity.

You – To appeal to your prospects’ greatest concerns, hopes and fears, wants and needs.

C. Solutions
Presidential Contenders – To demonstrate that their solutions to current economic, educational, environmental, and safety problems provide the greatest value to the American voters.

You – To demonstrate that your products and services provide high value to your prospects.

D. Credibility
Presidential Contenders – To establish their own credibility. Too often, politicians try to do this by undermining their opponents.

You – This is one area where I recommend your small business marketing objectives and strategies differ from the presidential candidates’ negative approach. Establish your credibility by standing above the competition. One of the best ways is by getting past clients to describe the value you provide.

E. Staying In Touch
Presidential Contenders – Repetition, repetition, repetition is the strategy here; staying “on message”.

You – To make sure your prospects and clients remember you when they have a need and want to do something about it. Regular contact works.

Want to save time, attract more clients and increase your revenue? Discover how to plan and implement an effective marketing campaign >>

Get your marketing message across to win the hearts and minds of your prospects with “15 Second Marketing: Creating 0pportunity with a Brilliant Marketing Message”. You’ll find yourself and your business generating more leads and more sales.

Your Marketing Campaign
You may not be running for President of the United States, but you are the one responsible for running your company’s marketing campaign.

Goals – What’s the percentage of your target market you want to win over this year?

Marketing Issues – Relative to the product or service you offer, what are your prospects’ primary concerns? What do they want and need?

Solutions – What is the solution you offer and how can you demonstrate its value?

Credibility – What do you do or could you be doing to help establish credibility with prospects?

Staying In Touch – What’s your strategy for making sure your prospects remember you when they have a need?

Want a winning marketing strategy, one that helps you save time, attract more clients and be more successful? If so you’ll find “Earning More by Marketing Smarter” a valuable training manual.

You’ll learn how to generate more leads and close more sales. In “Earning More by Marketing Smarter” I’ve mapped out in detail how to create a steady stream of prospects, referrals and clients.

Here’s the link to order Earning More by Marketing Smarter.

How do people get to be president of the United States? Regardless of their party or experience, the key is their ability to win voters’ hearts and minds. How do they do that? By understanding and being highly successful marketers.

Whether you want to be President of the United States or just part of a highly successful company, you need to win the hearts and minds of your prospects. Apply the marketing strategies used by the Presidential contenders and you’ll be a winner, no matter who wins on election day.

The Selling Secret Your Web Site Marketing Needs To Use

By Charlie   |   March 15th, 2010

You’ve got a web site, spent money on internet advertising and begun attracting lots of visitors, but hardly anyone is contacting you or buying your products and services.

What’s wrong, and what can you do to change this picture?

John from Wisconsin called with exactly this problem. He owns a firm that provides financial services to people planning to sell or pass on family businesses. Located in a small town, his business is steady, but, well, small. He built a web site to reach a broader market and signed up with Overture.com to advertise it and attract visitors. (Overture posts the sponsored links you see at the top of your search results on many sites.) This is when his biggest problem became apparent.

The problem wasn’t with John’s business idea or Overture. He had identified both a need and an underserved target market. His Overture ads worked so well they generated thousands of clicks to his site. In no time at all, John had run through his advertising budget but hadn’t translated any of the visitors into leads or sales.

What should he have done differently?

What can you do to create a web site that sells?

Discvoer how to structure and design your web site to generate leads and sales.

You want the people that visit your web site to buy your products and services. Making a purchase is the end point in their decision-making process. Do you know what the preceding steps are and how to move people through these steps?

If you are running a Web ad campaign, you will attract two types of visitors. The ideal prospect is one who is looking for a solution, one which hopefully your product or service provides. This should be an easy sale, but you still need to demonstrate that you understand their concerns and can solve the problem or meet their specific need.

The sequence of information you provide and the specific copy you use can either keep them reading and move them to buy or lose the sale.Take a look at your web site marketing. Is it obvious to you what you want them to do?

Can people see from the use of the page layout, use of type and graphics what they are supposed to do first, second and third?

You don’t have to be blatant in what you want visitors to do but the sequence should at least be obvious to you. Guide visitors by your placement of elements on the page and use of size, color and placement.

The majority of first time visitors to your site will browse your content following their whims or interests. If you don’t include the right elements on your site in the right places on the page, it may be the last time they visit your site. Even if you provide the perfect product or service, you can’t rely on people to make the effort to find what they need: give it to them.

Whether you sell consulting services, plus size clothing, business coaching, golf apparel, or manage recording artists, you can use your web site to generate leads and grow your business. The key is to guide prospects to take action to become qualified leads and clients.

Learn how to use your web site marketing to attract more clients and grow your business with ‘Creating Web Sites that Sell’

Make More With Less Effort Using These 6 Marketing Strategies

By Charlie   |   March 15th, 2010

Whether you’re just starting your firm or you’ve been in business for years, you have a good idea of the various small business marketing strategy tasks that you should be doing. You probably have a web site and are doing some advertising, and spend time on the phone talking with prospects. Each week you and your staff work hard trying to promote your firm.

All of these marketing activities can keep you busy, and take time and money. But if you’re not careful, these small business marketing activities will limit your growth or worse yet, put you in the poor house.

When I first talked with Judy in Chicago, her business was about to close. Despite having many satisfied clients, an active advertising campaign and a web site, she wasn’t developing a steady stream of new or repeat clients. Each week her spending on marketing was costing her heavily and her income wasn’t keeping up.

Judy knew that she needed to bring in more clients but her conclusion was that advertising and web sites don’t work, at least not for her business. She was busy with her marketing but it wasn’t working to grow her business.

Is your small business marketing strategy providing you with a steady stream of new clients and customers?

If you’re not attracting as many clients and customers as you’d like, there is a good chance that you’re busy with marketing but not marketing to grow your business. What’s the difference?

One is focused on day-to-day activities and separate marketing tools, such as advertising or a web site. The other is based on a business building strategy that helps you generate more leads and clients each month and each year.

Wouldn’t you rather be marketing to a larger and larger group of prospects each month?

Ron, who owns an electronics parts supply firm, business was growing, but he wasn’t generating new customers with his web site. While profits were rolling in from his telemarketing efforts, he was missing literally millions of additional dollars in revenue he could have been earning through online sales.

What’s your small business marketing costing you in lost revenue? How much more could you be making if you added ten new clients a month, a week or a day to your business?

With “15 Second Marketing” you’ll learn how to write a marketing message that prompts prospects to contact you. Using the step-by-step process you’ll have a marketing message and elevator speech you can use within hours and you’ll learn where and how to use it to build your business.

“Creating Web Sites that Sell“, shows you how to use the web to generate more leads and profits. If you’ve already got an under performing web site, you’ll learn how to fix it. With “Creating Web Sites that Sell” you’ll discover the simple steps you can take to grow your business.

Here’s how to earn more with a business building marketing
strategy.

1. Attract prospects by focusing your marketing on the problems you solve. Instead of talking about yourself, use prospects concerns to get their attention.

2. Use your advertising, web site and other marketing activities to prompt people to contact you and add them to your qualified prospect list.

3. Attract both buyers and potential buyers. For each person who is ready to buy, there are another twenty who are interested and you could convert to client status.

4. Focus on building relationships. If you want prospects to trust you and buy from you, it helps to create a dialogue and to demonstrate your expertise.

5. Regularly stay in touch with prospects, otherwise they’ll forget you and won’t buy your products and services even if they have a need.

6. Use helping instead of selling as your marketing model and you’ll convince many more people they need your products and services.

Want a business building marketing strategy you can use to attract more clients each month?

“The Insider Secrets to Attracting More & Better Customers” manual maps out both the strategy you need and how to apply it to increase your revenue. It’s been called the “marketing bible for small business owners”.

After shifting to this business building marketing strategy, Judy is no longer in debt; in fact her company is prospering. She still advertises, has a web site and spends time on marketing tasks but these activities now all reinforce each other and work to help her build more prospect and client relationships each month. Instead of being busy marketing, she is busy growing her business.

Don’t wait until you’re in debt or losing millions in potential revenue because your busy with marketing. Use a business building marketing strategy to generate more leads and you’ll be earning more each month and each year.

Eliminate Obstacles To Sales The Easy Way

By Charlie   |   March 15th, 2010

During the summer Olympics I watched the men’s and women’s hurdles. I’m always impressed by these athletes’ ability to run at full speed and leap the hurdles without breaking stride.

But each time I watch this track event, I have the same reaction. If they just went out on the track and removed those barriers, it would be a heck of lot easier to get around the track. The athletes could run faster, more smoothly and wouldn’t risk falling (as the accomplished Flo Joyner did).

If you are struggling to attract clients, you may feel like you’re running the hurdles. Obstacles like limited promotional budgets, ads that don’t sell, web sites that don’t generate leads, prospects that aren’t ready to buy or who think your prices are too high, all get between prospects and the sale.

Do you find yourself struggling to overcome hurdles to getting the sale?

You can clear the track of the hurdles that are getting between you and potential clients once and for all and create a clear path for prospects to become clients. If your target market knew you and how you could help them, understood the value of your services and contacted you when they were ready to buy you’d be rolling in revenue.

Is this how your business works?

Are you getting a steady stream of calls and new clients?

What can you do to remove these obstacles and increase your sales?

Learn how to eliminate obstacles to sales and grow your business. Open the door to more business with a small business marketing system that builds business each year.

Generate more leads and more sales with your online marketing. Learn how to use your web site and your emails to pull in prospects and convert them to clients.

If you haven’t already identified your small business marketing obstacles, start by doing so. The first step is to list them. Once you know what are your biggest obstacles to increasing sales, you can look for ways to get rid of them. (If you have other staff involved in sales, get their input too.)

Below are two common obstacles to sales For each I’ve included some simple strategies for removing these obstacles. Once you understand that marketing obstacles aren’t permanent you’ll discover that you can remove more and more impediments and clear the way for increased sales

Lack of Awareness
You’re just starting your business. No one has heard of you, and, given your lack of revenue you have little to invest in advertising. What do you do?

Use lead generation strategies that are free or almost free
During a severe downturn in the economy, a local financial services firm offered a series of workshops for free to private investors. Within a year the firm grew their assets under management from $5.5 million to $15 million.

Using an ezine I sent to librarians and online editors, I grew the value of a web site about search engines to almost a million dollars, without spending a dime on advertising.

This strategy works equally well for established companies. Les Schwab Tire Centers fixes flats for free, giving away over $10 million in repairs each year. Building goodwill with giveaways like this and an unusual dedication to customer service, this chain of 300 tire outlets earned estimated revenue of $1 billion in 2003.

Want to generate more leads and increase sales?

Discover how to use your web site to improve your lead generation and profits.

Lack of Results from Advertising
You’re not getting a positive return on your ads, should you buy more ad space? How much? Where?

In my experience, there are two obstacles to increasing sales with advertising. Its either the message or the audience. Both can be fixed and to increase sales

If you want people to respond to your advertising, get their attention and prompt them to contact you, write your marketing message, ads and marketing copy from your prospect’s perspective. Identify and address their concerns.

Learn how to get attention with your small business marketing message and your elevator speech. You’ll attract more clients when prospects know how you can help them.

No matter how good your marketing message is, it won’t help you unless its seen by people who want your products and services. Even if you do your homework up front, there is no guarantee your ad will improve your lead generation and draw sales.

Track each ad campaign and each sale to determine which ads sell. No matter how good your copy is or how many people see your ad, if the ad audience doesn’t include people who want your services and are ready to buy, it’s the wrong audience.

Drop those ads that bring in meager results and identify additional advertising opportunities, ones that will be seen or heard by people who want to buy your products and services.

Stop wasting your time struggling to jump over marketing hurdles. Instead, you can identify the obstacles that get in the way of lead generation and sales and eliminate them one by one. Make this shift and you’ll attract more clients and be more successful.

Marketing Ideas for Small Business Owners

By Charlie   |   March 15th, 2010

5 Easy Ways to Avoid The Roller Coaster Effect With Your Marketing

By Charlie   |   March 15th, 2010

Seeing the results of marketing and advertising your business can be like watching a roller coaster. The day you run your ad you see a flurry of activity; your phone starts ringing, your web site traffic increases and/ or potential clients visit your store. Your hopes soar. sales go up. Two or three days pass and the response goes down. You look at the bill for the advertising and your jaw drops. Your hopes descend.

Nancy called me from Portland, Oregon with just this problem. Every time one of her ads appears in a local publication, customers start walking in the door of her home furnishing store. A few days later the number of prospects and sales goes down. Her advertising gets results, but the thousands of dollars she is paying each month is killing her profits. What can she do?

Whether you advertise your consulting business in The Harvard Business Review or your interior decorating service in the Penny Saver, your ad will cost significant dollars.

How can you make your advertising pay for itself?

How can you use marketing and advertising to create a STEADY stream of business?

Learn how to create a steady stream of qualified leads with your small business marketing plan. Apply “The Insider Secrets to Attracting More & Better Customers” and you’ll find more and more people contacting you on a weekly basis.

Make your web site a lead generator. Learn how with “Creating Web Sites that Sell“.

Write Your Ad to Sell and To Generate Leads Of all the people who could benefit from your products and services, what percentage is likely to buy today? Hopefully a few, but the majority are more likely to need your services tomorrow, next week or next month.

Write your ad to prompt people to buy and if they’re not interested in making a purchase, to contact you. When you write your ad:

1. Sell your products or services by selling your solution.

2. Prompt prospects to buy. Include a call to action.

3. Motivate prospects to give you their contact information.

For each person who responds to your ad and makes a purchase today, you should be able to get ten qualified prospects to contact you. Once you have their contact information, you can send them a regular email or postcard for far less than it would cost to run your ad on a weekly basis.

Explain what you do in your ads, and with your elevator speech and marketing message so that you prompt prospects to contact you. Get your copy of “15 Second Marketing” and get your prospect’s attention and their business.

Follow Up On Your Advertising
An ad can be the first step in marketing your products and services but unless you follow up, it may be the last. Its what you do after your ad runs that determines whether you’re able to make it pay for itself in the days and months to come.

Let’s say your ad works in getting people to visit your web site, call you or come into your store. What’s the next step? How can you follow up to increase your sales?

1. Make sure you get their contact information so you can follow up.

2. Whether people stopped by your web site, left a phone message, emailed you or visited your store – follow up promptly. Get back to them within the day, if not sooner. A prospect is most likely to buy or start a profitable relationship when he/she is looking for a solution. Let your leads linger and they’ll go stale. If you wait prospects may contact other service providers or stores, and you’ve given them time to make their purchase through someone else.

3. Respond immediately. Use a phone call or an email to let them know you understand the problem they want solved and that you can help them. Even a personalized autoresponder message will do the job.

4. Market to your in-house list of contacts. If you want people to remember you when they have a need and are ready to make a decision to buy, make sure they think of you as the solution provider. The best way to do this is to regularly provide ideas, tips and information that your prospects want.

5. Create opportunities for personal contact, whether through your print mailings, ezine or web site, you want to prompt prospects to contact you to discuss their needs and / or place their order. Ask them what they want, what they are looking for. When they send you an email, follow up with a call. Tell them how to contact you, how to schedule a personal conversation and then follow up with a call.

Learn how to use your web site to prompt people to generate leads and get people to personally contact you so you can help them with your products and services. I use these web strategies to generate over a thousand new leads each week. Learn how with “Creating Web Sites that Sell“.

Advertising is an expensive ticket to marketing your products and services. Use these strategies to make sure you get your money’s worth and you’ll find your advertising paying for itself over and over. Instead of getting your thrills from watching your business go up and down, you’ll find yourself enjoying the excitement of watching your profits steadily move up.

Small Business Marketing Articles

By Charlie   |   March 15th, 2010

…Index
of Small Business Marketing Articles and Marketing Ideas & Tips

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