Top Small Business Marketing Tips – Spend Less to Make More

With the economy slowing, business owners are contacting me more frequently asking what they can do that is is new or different to spur on their business and turn things around.

“Paul, do you think I need a web site?”

“Should I advertise on TV or the radio?”

“Should I join BNI or another networking group?”

“I need something really kick-ass to get people buying more.”

These are all things that I am hearing.  Whether the economy is slow or not doesn’t impact my response.  It still comes down to the basics:

1. Set yourself apart from your competition and give your prospects and clients a good reason to buy from you now with a powerful Unique Selling Proposition. Here’s mine – I’ll increase your sales 20% or more in as little as 90 days, guaranteed.  That’s unique and it gets me business.
2. Be sure that every staff member who is in contact with a client understands basic selling skills. Each of them must kn0w and be given incentive to cross-sell and up-sell.  Focus on increasing the value of the transaction.  I’ve increased client sales by over 10% in 30 days just teaching this one!
3. Get a database program and develop a relationship with your clients.  Communicate with them monthly and ask them to buy from you again.  Ask for testimonials and referrals. Have a strategy to work the referrals.  Add a newsletter and start sending birthday cards and other greeting cards.  This can easily result in another 10% increase in your sales.
4. Get a few joint venture partners with whom you can share lists and market to each others clients.  You endorse them and they endorse you.  It’s that simple. Last year, I made over $24,000 in sales from joint venture referrals.  My total cost was less than $400.  If you aren’t doing joint ventures, you ar leaving a fortune on the table.

There you go.  4 strategies that can easily increase your sales by 25% or more this year. The key is to act now.  It’s smart marketing that can make you an absolute fortune and will save you an absolute fortune in advertising fees.

The reason I guarantee my work is that I implement the above 4 marketing pillars in my clients.  If you are wondering if I can do the same in your business, be sure to drop me an email or give me a call at 513-829-6368.

Small Business Marketing tips to Profit in a Recession – Advice from a Friend at the Small Business Development Center

I’m going a bit off topic with this post. My past few were about the importance of leverage and systems. I’ll be going back to the topic but I had a conversation with a Joint Venture partner today that I wanted to pass along.

He and I are both small business marketing and growth experts and are giving a Growth Strategy Seminar for our local Small Business Development Center (SBDC) clients. The SBDC is an organization funded by the Small Business Administration (SBA) that has a mission to help Americans start, build and grow businesses.

The Director of the local SBDC is a friend of mine who used to be president of a fairly large, worldwide insurance company. He’s working with the SBDC now because of his passion to help the small business owner succeed and prosper. In preparation for the seminar, we asked him what are the most important messages we need to communicate to seminar attendees (particularly in light of the tough economy).

Here is what he said is the most important marketing messages that business owners need to know:

1. Keep on marketing. This is no time to cut back on the life-blood of attracting and keeping clients.
2. Know your customers, their needs and why they are buying your product or service.
3. Have all clients and prospects in a database so you can regularly communicate with them and give them reasons to purchase from you. Use your database to build demographic and psychographic profiles of your target market.
4. Market to your target market. It is a huge waste of resources to be marketing to people who are not prospects. Unfortunately, most businesses spend the majority of marketing resources on people who will never buy from them.
5. Give clients a consistent experience. Remember that your product and service are elements of your marketing mix. For years, the buzz word has been “exceed expectations,” which is great but the first part is to provide a consistent client experience. Most people expect, and are satisfied if you do this.
6. Track and measure what marketing is working. If you don’t track, you don’t know if it is working. If it isn’t working, you are wasting resources. If it is working, you want to build on and improve it to maximize results.
7. Don’t try to find the magic bullet. Small improvements in different areas can yield exponential increases in sales.

There you have it. If you find yourself swimming against the tide or so overwhelmed with what you should be doing next, you want to give me a call. If you want to see how you can achieve dramatic increases in sales (or to just stop the bleeding!), you want to give me a call. I look forward to hearing from you.

Obama and McCain Grilled By Media for Giving Away Free Money!

Free money???

Well, if you’re a marketer, the campaigns are giving away the next best thing… Free marketing lessons!

As crazy as it sounds, the next U.S. President, whether it’s Obama or McCain,is planning to give you free marketing  lessons. He is also going to have some of the highest paid and most talented direct response talents in the country show you how to appeal to your prospects strongest buying emotions.

He will also show you some very effective social media marketing strategies.

“Oh really Paul?”  “How’s that going to happen?”

No seriously. Read this post for the complete scoop. It’s really some pretty good stuff!

Well, it’s election time again in the U.S. You folks Europe, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Canada and are also hearing a lot about it.

The candidates are bringing out the big guns so it’s a good time to talk the marketing of a President.

There’s a lot YOU can learn from this year’s election that
can show you the path to selling more of your products and services.

Isn’t it kind of strange that the most prestigious job in the U.S. comes down to one thing –

MARKETING

If you took marketing in college or read some books, they tell you about the four P’s – product, price, promotion and place (or distribution). The academics make it a bit more difficult to understand than necessary.

I need to make it a bit simpler.  You see, marketing is about selecting markets for your service, get the attention of a prospect, turn them into a client and then service the heck out of them so they buy from you and tell otheres to do so as well.

Bottom line:  Study a market and appeal to it so they buy from you.  That’s what marketing is about. I’ll be a lot of A lot of people who teach marketing don’t even get that.

If you’re in business, You are a marketer.  Who is in the market for your products or services?  Find out what’s important to them, tell them how your product is the solution is the answer and get them to buy, and do so frequently.

Let’s get back to the election.

The candidates are products being sold to diffferent markets.  What are the markets?

Hunters, gays, lesbians, Christians, Muslims, men, women, soldiers, artists, factory workers, office workers, millionaires, the elderly, the retired, the about to retire.

You will hear each candidtate talk directly to each of these groups and make a promise about how he is going to make their life better.

The promise is the headline: “I’ll take on big Oil.”  “I’ll end the Iraq war.”  “I’ll give all working people $1,000.”  “I’ll stop global warming!”  “I’ll support Israel!”  “I’ll open talks with Iran!”

Each of these sound bites is a carefully crafted headline written to appeal to a deep emotion.  Whether you like it or not, it works!  Think of how frustrating it is to watch a campaign commercial.  Sometimes you want to scream at the TV “YOU IDIOT!!!”  and other times you want to yell out the window “Finally somebody GETS IT!!!”

What they’re doing is appealing to powerful emotions.  Think of your reaction.  Whether you like or dislike the message, as a marketer you can learn from it.  You see, the candidates and campaigns are real good at hitting your emotions with a powerful PROMISE of a BIG BENEFIT.

The media picks it up and spends days analyzing and condemning the statement.   What’s that?  Free PUBLICITY to a target market.

Do you really think they are running around the country wearing holes in their shoes because they like PTA meetings, hot dogs and factories?

NO!  They do it to get free publicity.  If they come to your town, it’s in the headlines and is the lead story on the local news.  That’s called PR!  If they make some ridiculous promise or major goof, the comment is on the national media!

They also use all the possible media:  TV,radio, direct mail, telephones, the internet, billboards and newspaper.

They even offer joint ventures, strategic alliances and affilitiate programs.  “Elect me and I’ll send pork barrel projects out your way or I may even get you some cushy job!”

What’s the free marketing lesson?

Identify your market, target your group with the right product and message.  Make a bold promise and use free media to get it circulated.  Follow up and keep them happy.

Now that you can see how the people who are living and dying by the marketing message, can you see how you should be doing it as well?

This is Paul Flood and I approved this message.

P.S. In you want a crash course in marketing and promotions, take a look at this http://tinyurl.com/6plgf3.  I’m using it myself and am blown away by the program!