Marketing for Success Archives

How to Pull in Clients Like a Magnet

Monday, February 14th, 2011 at 8:59 pm  
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by Charlie Cook

Your marketing could be pulling in clients and profits like a magnet. Think about how many people could benefit from your products and services. Even if only a fraction of them bought from you, you’d be amazingly successful.

It doesn’t matter if the economy is headed up or down, there are plenty of people looking to spend money to solve their problems and meet their needs. People are happy to spend money on things they want, whether it’s a five thousand dollar painting, five-dollar cup of coffee, a golf lesson, a new computer or a new web site.

With all these prospects searching for products and services to buy, how can you attract more of them and increase your profits?

Makes sense that the best way to get people to spend money is to give them what they want. But, and here’s the amazing thing, most small businesses don’t market to what their prospects want. Too much small business marketing is about the business owner and what he or she wants, not what the client wants.

Typically, ads or web site pages begin with;

- The name of the business – A picture of the product, the owner, or the company’s headquarters – A list of product names – A company history – Company hours and contact information

Many small business owners use this format because they see everyone else doing it. While it may be the most common approach, it’s usually the least effective.

When a prospect views an ad or a website that doesn’t speak to their needs, they ignore it. Even if the prospect wants the product or service you’re selling, chances are they won’t respond. They’ve got too many choices of similar ads from competitors and will end up just choosing the last one they looked at. To stand out from your competition, get a response to your marketing and increase your sales and profits, you need to take a different approach.

To get attention and grow your business, you need to focus your marketing on what your prospects want, then once you’ve got their attention you can work on building a mutually profitable relationship.

Give Your Prospects a Reason to Buy

Your prospects are out there searching for your products and services but they’re doing so as fast as they can surf the net, flip the pages of a magazine, sort their mail or scan the yellow pages. Give them a reason to stop and read your ad, sales letter or web site. “Welcome” or a company name or simply naming your product won’t grab their attention.

Tell your prospects how you are going to help them. Tell them how they’ll benefit from your products or services. You want this information to jump out at prospects when they see your materials.

You may be thinking, “How can this work, when every large corporation in the U.S. features its brand name in their ads? Every magazine I read is full of these brand-focused ads.”

Focusing on a brand or company name is important for multinationals like Coke or Nike, but keep in mind that these companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year building brand awareness and maintaining their brand image in every media and every market. Without a hefty advertising budget, this approach won’t work for you.

Give your prospects a reason to stop what they are doing and read your ad or your web page. Give them a reason to read the first paragraph, then the second, and lead them to contact you and buy from you.

REI sells outdoor sports gear and apparel in stores and online. Their Christmas catalogue is a great example of giving prospects a reason to buy. They identified a problem that plagues their customers at Christmas time; figuring out which gifts to give friends and family.

REI speaks to that need on the front cover of the catalog with a great photo of a woman and a man climbing a snow covered mountain and a single line of text; “We’ll help you find great gifts for everyone on your list.”

Inside, below each product photo, they’ve listed the product benefit; “Keep him toasty even in winter’s worst”; or “Built for deep snow and bitter cold”; or “Keep kids happy on hikes with their own hydration”. Below that is the description of the product. Finally, below that, you’ll find the name and price of the product.

Getting your prospects’ interest and their business is simply about helping them get what they want. The first step is to give them the information they want. Your next step is relationship-building, helping your prospects get to know your business and to trust you.

Are you as successful as you want to be at helping your prospects get what they want? Do you know how to get their attention? Do you know how to get prospects to trust you? Then, do you know how to get them to take action and contact you? What are the crucial steps to getting a client to commit to spending money with you?

When you discover the answers to these questions you’ll attract clients like a magnet and grow your business faster and with less work than you ever imagined.

The author, Charlie Cook, helps small business owners and marketing professionals attract more clients, whether you are marketing in print, in person or online. I personally use Charlie's book, Insider Secrets to 15 Second Marketing and highly recommend that you do the same.

The article above was reprinted with permission from Charlie Cook. The link immediately above is an affiliate link, which means that if you buy the product, I get a commission. I have purchased the product and use its methods myself. I am a firm believer in the product.

3 Steps to Selling More With Your Web Site

Monday, February 7th, 2011 at 8:49 pm  
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by Charlie Cook

"What's the most important function of your web site?" Most small business owners will explain, "To tell people about myself and my services." This sounds like the right answer, and it's the one I hear most often. But it's wrong!

Build a web site focused on yourself or your products and it is doomed to fail from the start. No matter how hard you work to promote it or make it look impressive, it won't pay for itself, ever.

What is the primary purpose of a web site? Keep reading to find out.

There are 3 key steps in the web marketing process. Understand the purpose of each and you'll be able to bring in more new business with your web site. You need to attract prospects, convert them into qualified leads and then convert leads into clients.

The problem for most people is that despite their best efforts to collect thousands of leads, they only end up with a few clients. Sound familiar?

Your marketing is like New York City's water system. In upstate New York they use reservoirs to collect rain. This water is then piped down to New York City and finally when apartment dwellers turn on the tap, they've got clean drinkable water. The only problem with this system is that for every ten gallons of rain that falls into the reservoirs the city only receives eight to nine gallons of water.

What happens to the missing gallon or two of water? It's lost through an antiquated leaky piping system.

Is the same thing happening or worse with your marketing? Are you losing the majority of your prospects due to an antiquated marketing and follow-up system?

If you are, don't despair. There is a simple solution. You can use the 3 key steps below to help you plug the leaks in your marketing system and get new business pouring in.

The 3 key steps to improving your web marketing

1. Get More People to Your Site

Your first objective is to get the greatest number of people to visit your site. If you use pay-per-click ads such as Google Ads, take a look at your clickthrough rate. Are you getting at least 1.5 to 2% of the people who see these ads to visit your site? The purpose of any and all of your web advertising is to get people who might be interested in your services to visit your web site.

If your ads don't prompt at least 1.5% of viewers to respond, test alternative headlines and subheads. You'll have the most success with headlines and subheads that focus on your prospects' problems and concerns.

In my experience with my own sites and my clients' sites, changes in the wording of headlines and subheads makes a huge difference in response rates. You can double the number of people who click on your ads – and double the number of potential clients visiting your web site – by changing a few words in your ads.

2. Convert More Web Site Visitors to Leads

Let's say a hundred people a day visit your web site. How many leads do you generate? With the right copy (headlines and text), sales offer, and page layout, you could motivate 15 to 25% of the people who visit your web site to contact you. Instead of a handful of inquiries from site visitors each week, you could have dozens.

At the beginning of this article, I asked my client John what the main function of his web site is. This is it.

The primary purpose of your web site is to get the greatest number of visitors to email you or call you with their contact information.

Your site may be the best looking site in the world, but if it doesn't motivate your prospects to contact you, you've lost them and won't get their business.

Few people buy products and services the first time they visit a web site. Most look at dozens of options. Unless your site is as well known as aol.com or amazon.com, your prospects won't remember your site's URL ten seconds after they leave for another site.

Before another prospect leaves your site and forgets your business, start using your free offer and your site layout to prompt at least 10-20% of all site visitors to contact you.

3. Convert More Qualified Leads to Clients

If you've taken the first two steps above, you'd have more people responding to your ads and more people contacting you. You've probably guessed; the next step is to follow up and convert the greatest number of prospects to clients.

Depending on the type of business you're in, your follow up process may include a phone call, a mailing, a series of emails, or some combination of these. Whichever system you use, you want to increase the percentage of people who buy your products and services. It sounds obvious to both you and me, but this is where 80% of new business is lost.

Is your web marketing system leaking more than New York City's water system?

Take this Quick Quiz

1. Is the clickthrough rate for your pay-per-click ads 1.5% or better?
Yes or No

2. Do 15 to 20% of all unique visitors to your site contact you?
Yes or No

3. Do you have an automated system for following up with leads generated from your web site that generates sales from 4% or more of your prospects?
Yes or No

If you answered "No" to one or more of these, you're in the same boat as most business people on the web. Your web marketing is full of leaks and with a few changes you could be collecting a lot more leads and converting more of them to clients. Discover how to get a better response to your ads, get more people to contact you. Your sales could skyrocket within weeks.

The author, Charlie Cook, helps small business owners and marketing professionals attract more clients, whether you are marketing in print, in person or online. I personally use Charlie's book, Insider Secrets to 15 Second Marketing and highly recommend that you do the same.

The article above was reprinted with permission from Charlie Cook. The link immediately above is an affiliate link, which means that if you buy the product, I get a commission. I have purchased the product and use its methods myself. I am a firm believer in the product.

How Aggressive is Your Marketing?

Monday, January 31st, 2011 at 8:08 pm  
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by Charlie Cook

Cathy, a business writer, emailed me and said, “Boy, do I need to work on my Web site this year!” I gave her a couple of ways to improve her site and had her look at several websites that sell effectively on the Internet. Her response was a common one; she thought those sites were marketing aggressively and she worried about turning her prospects off with a “hard sell.”

Are you concerned about being too aggressive in your marketing?

No one in business wants to be seen as the stereotypical used car salesman, who tries to sell you a lemon by claiming the car was owned by a little old lady who never drove it. And are prospects really convinced by promises that are too good to be true? “Start your own business and make $200,000 in just two weeks!” Then there are the salespeople who drive everyone crazy with their annoying cold calls at dinner time…

You could try the “soft sell” approach; in your marketing materials, simply state your company’s name and include a list of the products or services you sell. This is a very common approach. But it doesn’t work. It’s true that if you’re too loud or annoying, you may scare your prospects away, but if you’re too subtle or you sound the same as the competition, no one will ever read your materials.

Let me clear up one misperception right away. Aggressive marketing does not mean deceiving your prospects or deliberately pestering them. Don’t make claims that you can’t back up, and don’t annoy your prospects. You want them to become satisfied clients, after all.

When you think of aggressive marketing you may think of being aggressive as “showing a readiness or having a tendency to attack or do harm to others”. Instead, think of aggressive marketing as “characterized by or exhibiting determination, energy, and initiative”. (Definitions from Encarta)

When people read your marketing materials, your sales letters or your web site, you want to grab their attention, to impress them and to prompt them to contact you and buy from you. To get attention and do well, you need an aggressive marketing approach that demonstrates your determination, energy, and initiative.

Remember your school days. If you sat in the back of the class and never raised your hand, never asked a question or participated in discussions, it was tough to get top grades. No matter how smart you are or how good you are at what you do, if you don’t let your prospects know how you can help them and convince them of your credibility, you won’t get their business.

You want the people reading your sales letters or visiting your web site to contact you, get to know you, see you as the expert to rely on and buy from you. It’s reasonable to expect at least one out of ten web site visitors to contact you.

Some of my clients are getting one out of five site visitors to contact them. If you’re not getting that kind of response, chances are that you’re not being aggressive enough in your marketing.

How aggressive are you in your marketing?

Take the 10 item quiz below to find out. Circle yes or no next to each question.

1. Have you written down your business goals for the next 12 months? Yes No

2. Is one of your goals to grow your list of qualified prospects by 5% each month? Yes No

3. Do you have a written marketing plan that guides your daily, weekly and monthly marketing activities? Yes No

4. Is the first and most prominent element in your marketing materials a one-sentence explanation of how you help your clients? Yes No

5. Do you feature client testimonials or case studies that provide proof of the results your products and services generate? Yes No

6. Is the first 50% or more of your marketing copy in your marketing materials focused on your prospects problems and concerns relative to your products and services? Yes No

7. In your s.ales letters and on your web site, do you use a free offer to prompt prospects to contact you? Yes No

8. Does your free offer prompt hundreds of people to contact you each week? Yes No

9. Do you follow up each prospect inquiry with an immediate response and at least 6 follow up contacts? Yes No

10. Do you continue to stay in touch with qualified prospects at least once a month, sharing an idea they can use and demonstrating the solutions you provide? Yes No

Your Marketing Aggressiveness Score and What It Means Count the number of your “Yes” answers and see below.

1 to 3 You’re a marketing wallflower. You may be brilliant, and you may have great products and services, but your prospects have probably never heard of you and aren’t buying from you. Make a marketing plan and discover how to create a steady stream of prospects.

3 to 6 You are on your way to becoming a successful marketer and to growing your business. You just need to discover how to generate more leads and more sales.

7 to 10 You’re an aggressive marketer. You’ve been in business for at least a couple of years and understand the core marketing techniques that provide results. Next discover how to further increase your conversion rates and sell more to new and existing clients.

Whether you scored 1 or 10 on the quiz, there are steps you can take to improve your marketing and grow your business. You understand what your prospects want; use your marketing to motivate them to buy from you. Remember that aggressive marketing is about demonstrating your determination, energy, and initiative.

The author, Charlie Cook, helps small business owners and marketing professionals attract more clients, whether you are marketing in print, in person or online. I personally use Charlie's book, Insider Secrets to 15 Second Marketing and highly recommend that you do the same.

The article above was reprinted with permission from Charlie Cook. The link immediately above is an affiliate link, which means that if you buy the product, I get a commission. I have purchased the product and use its methods myself. I am a firm believer in the product.

What Is the Most Powerful Way to Attract New Clients?

Monday, January 24th, 2011 at 8:30 pm  
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by Charlie Cook

Do you know what one of the most powerful incentives you can use in your marketing is? One that is guaranteed to capture your prospects' interest and attention?

You may be surprised to learn that it's not money or love. Is it making offers of products that are "guaranteed", "limited", "proven", "easy and simple to use", "on sale", "includes a free offer", or "new"? You're getting warmer.

Offers like the ones above are helpful in getting a prospect's attention and are some of the most important words you can use in your marketing, but they pale in comparison to the number one motivator that makes your products and services irresistible to your prospects.

What is it that makes your target market want to read your marketing materials, email you, call you and buy from you? Before I give you the answer, let me tell you a story.

I remember getting up at five on Christmas morning when I was six years old. I tiptoed halfway down the stairs and sat there in my pajamas looking at our Christmas tree and the presents underneath. I stayed there for hours until my parents finally got up sometime after seven.

What got me out of bed so early? Yes I was awed by the tall tree draped with lights and dripping with tinsel. But the presents were the key motivator. Not so much because I was dying to possess more toys or eat more fruitcake, but because I wanted to know what was in each one of those colorfully wrapped boxes under the tree. My curiosity was so powerful I couldn't sleep and I was up long before anyone should be on Christmas.

Whether you're six or sixty, curiosity is one of the most powerful motivators. What prompted you to read this far? You wanted to know the answer to the question I posed in the article's title.

We're all curious. Dorothy Parker said, "The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity." Spark a prospect's curiosity about your product or service, and there is no stopping them. They'll want to know if you can help them and how you are going to do it. Get them curious and you'll get their business.

How can you use curiosity in your marketing?

The headlines you use in your marketing are like the brightly colored wrapping on Christmas presents. With the right words, you'll grab your prospect's interest and it won't let up until they've satisfied their curiosity.

Below you'll find two ways you can use headlines to prompt prospects' curiosity.

Suggest a New Solution to A Problem. Use a question or a statement such as:

"Want to Attract More Clients and Grow Your Business?"

"How Much More Could You Be Making With These Ideas?"

"Discover How to Attract All The Clients You Want"

"Sign Up For Your Financial Analysis To Find Hidden Resources You Can Retire On."

Ask a question that is relevant to your prospects, and they will look for the answer to follow. Promise a solution to a problem and its guaranteed to get the curiosity of your prospects and prompt them to contact you. Then deliver on your promise.

Use unusual and provocative headlines to engage your prospects. Get their attention with a headline that is thought provoking or incomplete. Create a "cliffhanger" with your headline and prospects will read your marketing copy to satisfy their curiosity.

The tabloid newspapers use this strategy to sell papers every day. Take a look at these three samples:

"How to Use Liposuction to Repair Adobe Reader 6? And give it mouth-to-mouth respiration too" – from the Inquirer

"Monkeys At My Car!" – from the SUN

"February To Be Canceled" – from the World Wide Weekly News

Unusual, unexpected or incomplete headlines can generate interest. The problem with many of the tabloid headlines is they aren't always credible or accurate. Instead you can use the cliffhanger idea, but use it ethically and accurately to catch your prospects' attention. For example:

"My Prize-Winning Roses Would Wither Up and Die If It Weren't For"

"Soup on the rocks." – by Ogilvy for Campbells

"Have you ever seen a bald-headed sheep?" – from a 1954 ad for NIL-O-NAL, a lanolin cure for baldness

"They Laughed When I Sat Down at the Piano But When I Started to Play!" – written by John Caples for a mail order course

A creative headline will make your audience pause. It will prompt people to read your marketing materials and lead your prospects to buy.

Curiosity is a powerful motivator. Put it to work for your business. Create curiosity with your business card, mailings, s.ales letters and website. The more curiosity you create on the part of your prospects the more inquiries and sales you'll generate.
 

The author, Charlie Cook, helps small business owners and marketing professionals attract more clients, whether you are marketing in print, in person or online. I personally use Charlie's book, Insider Secrets to 15 Second Marketing and highly recommend that you do the same.

 

The article above was reprinted with permission from Charlie Cook. The link immediately above is an affiliate link, which means that if you buy the product, I get a commission. I have purchased the product and use its methods myself. I am a firm believer in the product.

What Santa Knows About Marketing

Monday, January 17th, 2011 at 8:43 pm  
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by Charlie Cook

WHAT SANTA KNOWS ABOUT MARKETING…

What’s that ringing sound you hear at this time of year? It’s the sound of store registers ringing up the sales generated by Santa Claus.

Just because he’s old, overweight, long haired and unshaven and dresses funny, don’t overlook his marketing success. Santa is a marketing expert and you can become one, too, if you follow his marketing methods.

What’s that you say? You don’t believe in Santa Claus or you don’t celebrate Christmas?

It’s true that Santa may be mostly mythical, but ask almost anybody who Santa is and what he does, and they’ll tell you. And there are millions of children who are convinced he’s real. So put your doubts about Santa aside for a moment and take a look at why he’s so good at marketing.

A. Knows How to Be Unique Whether it is his trademark red suit, his unconventional transportation, his belly laugh or his occupation, Santa is different. He’s one of a kind, and makes quite an impression, one your unlikely to forget.

B. Gets Free Publicity He’s a master at getting press. He’s mentioned in the media constantly during the winter holidays. Many songs, movies and books have been written about him.

C. Is Customer Focused While everyone knows about Santa, his marketing isn’t focused on his credentials. He rarely talks about how long he’s been in business nor does he bore people with long discussions of his work processes.

Instead, Santa makes a huge effort to learn what people want. It is estimated that each year over a million letters are sent to Santa.

Santa supplements this effort by appearing in thousands of shopping malls around the country, listening to an average of nine thousand children per mall. He does all this just to learn what his customers want.

D. Gives Something Away While most of the presents under the tree are from family, including the annual fruitcake from Aunt Bernice, typically at least one gift bears Santa’s name. How can you not love someone who gives so many presents away each year and whose only expectation is a couple of cookies and a glass of milk?

E. Knows What He Is Selling Santa knows what he is selling, and its not just games and toys. Santa sells hope, whether it is for the latest video game, a warm sweater or happiness.

Use these five ideas to market more like Santa all year long.

1. Clarify how you and your firm are unique, and what it is that separates you from the crowd. You don’t need to put on a red suit or slide down chimneys. Define yourself by the problems you solve, the expertise you provide and what your customers say about you.

2. Get media attention for your business, not just during holidays but all year round. Sometimes imaginative stunts like appearing in a sleigh help.

3. Ask your prospects what they want and then provide services and products that give them what they’ve asked for. The better you understand their concerns, the better services or products you’ll provide.

4. Give something away. It could be an article, a report, a book or a workshop. Use your free offer to prompt people to contact you and demonstrate your expertise. It works for Santa and it can work for you.

5. Know what you are selling. Your products and services bring in the money, but what do they stand for? What do they represent to your clients? Sell your prospects on achieving their objectives and dreams and deliver with tangible results they can appreciate.

Whether or not you celebrate Christmas, market like Santa and you too, can have many happy clients this and every season, without having to squeeze down a single sooty chimney.

The author, Charlie Cook, helps small business owners and marketing professionals attract more clients, whether you are marketing in print, in person or online. I personally use Charlie's book, Insider Secrets to 15 Second Marketing and highly recommend that you do the same.

The article above was reprinted with permission from Charlie Cook. The link immediately above is an affiliate link, which means that if you buy the product, I get a commission. I have purchased the product and use its methods myself. I am a firm believer in the product.

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