Global Marketing Plus

For your business to succeed, you need prospective clients to know that you are able to service their needs.  The challenge here is that many prospective clients have no idea if you are able to accomplish that!

Yes, you have testimonials on your website, but so do all your competitors!

These testimonials provide your prospective clients with little real insight as to your ability, because we all know they are usually written by the best clients.  You would never quote your upset clients, would you!

Yes, you have put logos from your industry organizations on your website or brochure, but they mean nothing to your prospective clients.  Since your prospective clients are not experts in your industry and have no idea if they have any credibility.  Even if they are credible, your prospective clients are likely to see them on your competitors sites and marketing materials too.  In other words, your prospective clients still know nothing about your knowledge or skills.

Show Them!

So, if you want your prospective clients to find out how awesome you are, show them!

Start writing blog posts or newsletter articles, which demonstrate your knowledge.  Show what you know and how valuable your information is.  Use your marketing messages to deliver information to your prospective client that has value; something they can use rather than just a sales pitch.  Educate them.  Cause them to position you in their mind as an expert in your field and the logical person to call, when they need help from someone in your industry.

Show your prospective clients that you are able to service their needs.

The good news? Very, very few of your competitors are doing this right now!

What does your client list look like?  Do you have a great client list or a so-so one?  To build a great client list, you need leads from your ideal profile of client.

If you want to see how well your marketing is doing as far as reaching your ideal target market, look at the leads you are getting from your marketing.  First, what kind of volume of leads does your marketing generate?  Do you get too few leads? Then look at the quality of the leads you are getting.  Does your marketing tend to attract, for example, leads from people who are fee sensitive?  Or maybe from people, who you know will be a nightmare to work with?

If so, then your marketing is clearly not effectively targeting the right people with the correct message.  If you plan on being successful, you need to fix that now!

You probably already know that the quality of your client base will have a direct impact on the quality of your business and also your quality of life.  Since I have been target marketing, I already know you are a small business owner and that you often work long hours too.  Working long hours on projects for low quality clients is stressful, unrewarding and frustrating.  You deserve better than that!

If you redesign your client list and your business, and then design your marketing to be directly relevant to these extremely valuable people, it will have a positive impact on your business and the quality of your life!  You business can be rewarding, fun and very profitable.

So get specific! Understand that for your marketing to work, it needs to be directly relevant ONLY to your ideal profile of client. This is what makes it powerful enough to inspire people to take action and contact you. Your marketing can only be that compelling, when you speak directly to the right people, with the correct message.

If you would like me to help you, let me know.  I would be glad to help.

Let me ask you a question.  If your car dies on the highway, and it won’t start, do you push your car everyplace you want to go, day in and day out?  No!  that is not the solution.  You need to fix your car’s engine and then drive where you want to go!

Well, the same is true with your business.  If your business is not generating the leads and inquiries you need, the solution is not to keep “pushing” ineffective marketing on people.  You need to fix your marketing engine!

Many business owners I meet seem to feel that all they need to do is more of the same marketing and that that will increase leads and customers.  For example, they fail to get the leads and customers they want from networking, blogging, email marketing, direct mail, etc, so they do more of it.  Many times they try new marketing techniques by copying others who are in just as big a mess as they are.  Then they wonder why they don’t have enough customers and sales!

You need to break free from those destructive actions?  You need to know what the right marketing for you and your business and then you need to know how to use it correctly!

You can get the help you need and stop wasting your time and money whenever you wish. 

The choice is yours!

How often when you are on the phone with a receptionist at a real company does she say “That’s ok, I’ll just let it ring”?

I bet never!  That call from a potential customer is too valuable!

However, if she says, “Could you wait a moment while I put that other call on hold?” I understand and it is no big deal.

Our focus groups results showed that once you missed the call, your odds of creating a good first impression with the caller are nill.

Plus, what is the caller doing? He has gone to the next call to find his information! We found that many times when you call back the call you missed, you get a busy signal because he is talking with your competitor!

When you do reach him, we found he has already found the information he needs and is satisfied with the information and will probably buy from the first person he talked to!

The best thing to do is be the first one to talk with the customer by taking the call!

What does your phone tell your customers about you or your business?  When someone searching for your services call you the first time, are they impressed or scared away?

Do you have your phone set up so that it is answered by a recording or with music?  Over the past couple of years it seemed to my team that more and more companies were trying to look “LARGE” by have the phone answered by a recorded message to allow the caller choose from 3 or 4 departments.

The team wondered how much phone made a difference to new customers.  During the last 3 focus group we held, we spent time testing this phone practice with 3 different groups of people. 

What we found amazed us!

We tested regular customers calling for estimates from companies.  We chose an equal number of companies that used automated phone messages and those who answered the phone with a live person.  The focus groups did not know what we were testing for.  Their instructions were to call from a list of businesses we provided to find the best price on a product.

By the end of the test, over 60% of the companies that used the messages resulted in hang-ups when the customer called those numbers.

Later, when asked, most callers thought that it was an answering machine telling them that the line was busy.  They didn’t stay on the line long enough to know that they would be connected to a live person nor did they wait to leave a message.  They quickly hung up to go to the the next number to get the information they wanted.

(This also tells us that if you only have one line and are using it when a call comes in, you may loose a potential customer).

We even had one recorded message that started right off explainingnot to hang up, someone would be with them within 5 seconds.  That recorded message also received over 60% hang ups.

The bottom line is avoid using automated phone messages.  I personally use Vonage for my phone system because I get a second number for $5.00.  If I am on the phone, instead of receiving a voice mail message, my other phone rings and I can put the first call on hold and answer the second call.

Unfortunalty this does not work the way I like when I am out of my home office and using my cell phone.  All my calls forward to my cell phone, but if I am on a call, it goes to voice mail.  But I minimize voice mail as much as I can!

Most successful brochures and other marketing materials we have created begins by hitting a potential sore spot with the prospect.

One of the main reasons an individual chooses to take action is that he is facing some sort of problem that what you are offering can solve.

Businesses that solve problems succeed!  Businesses that don’t know what the problems are won’t get business.

So find your prospects problem and then solve it!

The most effective brochures and flyers are designed to obtain one of these actions:

1. an order
2. a request for more information
3. a call for an appointment
4. make the prospect receptive for a future contact

A brochure should have only one of these purposes as it’s reason for existence.  If you do not make a choice as to which response you want and keep that goal firmly in mind as you prepare your material, you are simply wasting your money.

Because of poor design most brochures and flyers get thrown away!  It is better not to have something that people just throw away because they are unimpressed.

If your going to produce a flyer or brochure, make it worth the effort.

Many times I have told a person to go to my website to learn more about my services, only to have them tell me that they would prefer a brochure or other information he can look at at his leisure!

You might have a website that contains all the information about your company and product that you feel you need.  You might also have digital information you can send potential customers via email.  But there are many times you will need printed information for a prospect.

If you do not have this information ready to hand to him, you may not get in to see him.  You are unprepared and unprofessional!

Worse is to give him something you printed on your computer!  Even if you buy expensive paper with a nice background design printed on it and it says it is brochure paper, you will look cheap and unprofessional if you hand it out!  What ever your prospect sees in your information, whether printed or online (website, email, etc), he will relate to your business.  Cheap printing, cheap business.  Unprofessional website or printing, Unprofessional business.

NEVER, NEVER, NEVER use printed information like business cards, brochures or other items that was printed on your printer at home!

In case you didn’t notice the above paragraph, let me repeat it here:

To avoid looking unprofessional, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER use printed information like business cards, brochures or other items that was printed on your printer at home!

Besides, with the price of printing, you can’t afford NOT to have your printing items done by a professional.  At my print shop, I am running specials for brochures and other printing.  Contact me for more information at ron@cheap-business-printing.com or call me at 801-298-2336.  You can also order printing online by going to www.cheap-business-printing.com

For a small or home-based business, a business card is far more than a piece of paper with your name and contact information on it.  It should be thought of as one of your most important marketing tools!

It can be: 

• A mini billboard
• A brochure
• An advertisement
• or even an order form!

When well designed and well printed, your card makes an impression, establishes your credibility, and lets you stand out in the memory of those you meet for future business or referrals.

On the other hand, when designed poorly or printed poorly, it is sent to a pile of other faceless business cards that ultimately get thrown away.

Have you ever looked through a pile of business cards that you have had setting around and try to remember who the person was that gave it to you?  I do all the time, because the business card did not create an impression I can relate to.

Also, have you ever received a business card that is electronically produced (on a computer printer or a copier) and have the ink and images rub off or crumble?  That does not create an impression of importance or quality of the person or his company.

So with the pricing as it is for professionally offset printed business cards, (My company is currently doing them for $35.99 a thousand cards printed full color BOTH sides!), why even waste time and effort copying your cards?  Get some done that will impress your potential client!