Is Your Marketing Full of Holes?
You wouldn't try to collect water in a bucket that leaked or catch fish with a torn net, but that is what many service professionals and small businesses do. They work hard to attract clients and customers but too often their marketing is full of holes.The biggest holes in small businesses' marketing efforts are in lead generation. For those that don't know it already, identifying, attracting and building a steady stream of prospects is the number one marketing task for growing a service business. You need to know who is interested in your products and services in order to market to them, again and again.Every small business has some sort of lead generation strategy, whether its just handing out business cards, sending out press releases, writing articles, asking for referrals or, in more recent years, putting up a web site. The problem is that many of these approaches are used sporadically not systematically, and techniques aren't in place to capture the contacts made.Interested prospects are missed, or if contact is made, are pushed away by your materials, web site or phone system.
The result is that hundreds and thousands of potential prospects fall through cracks in your marketing and you can't profit from their business. If your lead generation strategy and systems aren't generating dozens or hundreds of new leads each week then your marketing strategy has a big gap in it.
Four common holes in marketing are:1. The Lack of Compelling ContentWhether it's the title of your web site and the description shown in the search engines, or the title of your article and the first paragraph, your content needs to pull in prospects. Too often marketing materials are written from the sellers' point of view instead of the prospects'.
Compelling content captures prospects' attention by focusing on their problems. Without good copy prospects won't be moved to become clients.
- Is your marketing content compelling from prospects' perspective?
- Does it lead with information about prospects' problems and concerns?
Using advertising, direct mail or cold calling to do this is in most cases cost prohibitive. PR, writing articles and having a web site are some low cost ways of getting attention.
The objective with any of these is to reach as many people as possible in order to find qualified leads.Despite effort put into creating marketing materials, building web sites and writing articles, independent professionals rarely get the visibility they want. Articles are only read by a handful of people and web sites are hard to find.To leverage the time and money you put into your marketing materials, articles, and web sites, you need to do everything you can to help people find them. This sounds obvious, but most service professionals write an article and just post it on their web site or send it to a few clients. With hundreds of online ezines and offline publications looking for content, you could be putting an article in front of tens of thousands of people instead of just a few.The same is true of search engine listings. Most people can't even find their own sites in the search engines.
Help the search engines put your web site on the first page or two for your keywords and you'll increase your exposure and reach hundreds of new prospects each week. Depending on your business, this is easier then most people realize and will extend the reach of your marketing dramatically.
- How many people per week see the marketing copy or articles that are meant to get them to make contact?
- What are you doing to increase this number?
- Does your marketing motivate prospects to come to you and give you their contact information?
Malfunctioning or Non-Existent SystemsIf your marketing is working, prospects will call your office or stop by your web site. You want to make it is as easy as possible for prospects to get in touch with you, and you want to collect their contact information. Again, this sounds obvious, but how many times have you been frustrated by menu -driven answering systems that didn't list the item you called about? (Or made you go through too many steps to find it?) Or a web site with no name, email address or phone number of a person who could answer your questions. And many phone systems and web sites aren't set up to capture visitors' contact information.
- Do you have automated systems that make it easy for prospects to contact your company?
- Do you have automated systems that make it easy for prospects to give you their contact information?
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The author, Marketing Coach, Charlie Cook, helps independent professionals and small business owners who are struggling to attract more clients.He can be contacted at In Mind Marketing via ccook@charliecook.net or visit www.charliecook.net to get a copy of the free marketing guide, '7 Steps to Get More Clients and Grow Your Business'.
Home Business Operation Basics
One of the least talked about, yet very important aspectsof running an online business is the organization andactual operation of the business.Any successful business, offline or online, needs to beorganized from the beginning. Even a one-man operationlike Red Lion Books needs to be organized. Here are a fewtips on staying organized and keeping your businessrunning smoothly.PlanBefore you jump into any online venture, you should takesome time to plan it out. I know from experience, thefirst draft of Redlionbooks.com looked totally differentthan it does now. I used the remains of the first,half-completed site as a plan for this site.
It was likea list of all the parts that were going to come togetherto make this site. I recommend that you start by making achecklist of the essential parts of your future site.Write It DownWhen I first started out, I thought that everything couldbe filed away on a spreadsheet in Excel. I had onespreadsheet for article promotion, another one for ezinepromotion,...
Home Business Operation Basics
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Welcoming Your Website Visitors
Imagine you're going on a blind date. You've heard wonderful things about this person, and in your heart of hearts you're thinking -- hoping -- this might just be "the one." Your heart beats a little faster as you pull into the driveway, and your stomach is all aflutter as you gingerly reach out and ring the door bell.The door opens, and suddenly you are facing one of the most attractive members of the opposite sex you've ever laid eyes on. Your breath is literally taken away. You become an instant believer in love at first sight.But your date just stands there at the door. No matter how much you chatter away, she doesn't say a word.
You are not invited in. You're not even smiled at. Eventually, you give up and get back in your car. Your date goes sadly back inside, wondering why her dates always turn out the same way.You see, your date desperately wanted to go out with you, but you had no way of knowing that because she didn't speak to you. She didn't invite you in.
So...
Welcoming Your Website Visitors
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When the Clock Strikes Twelve!
I just finished reading another sales copy ending with the Deadline Marketing!And it's the sixth I see today saying "If you order by midnight, blah blah blah...."I'm sure you've seen it. And I'm sure you're getting (if not very) a little bored.The deadline trick has proven itself to be overwhelmingly successful. It's a deadly-effective "countdown trigger" that pushes reluctant people to ACT at the scene.BUT right now the Internet is getting OVERCROWDED with sales letters that try to lure you in with the deadlines.And now what happens is when prospects get to witness this technique too often, they learn to catch up. They learn NOT to buy it!So be "extra careful". It's been OVERUSED!! Imagine how your prospects will feel when they come across your website and see that your sales copy is not different from others.
Imagine yourself in their shoes!What's WORSE is not keeping the deadlines...A lot of marketers specifically use the deadlines to explode their sales faster. And their sales...
When the Clock Strikes Twelve!
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* * * Dedicated T1 Line Costs Continue to Drop * * *
Global Value Connect ( http://www.globalvalueconnect.com ) continues to witness an erosion in the cost of T1 service despite the fact that many pundits predicted the end of price erosion for T1 bandwidth more than a year ago. T1 service providers are still experiencing severe price competition and are more than willing to reduce their pricing in an effort to fill their pipes and turn a profit. As recently as only a few years ago, the price of a T1 line was out of reach of many businesses, but these days a T1 line has become very price-aggressive, with prices that are very affordable and cost effective even for a small business.Many companies and individuals that entered into T1 service agreements 2-years ago may be spending much more and receiving less bandwidth then they could purchase today. And if they have had a T1 line for more than 3-years there is an extremely strong possibility and likelihood that they are paying too much for it.A...
* * * Dedicated T1 Line Costs Continue to Drop * * *
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Free E-book Shows How Anyone Can Easily Build An Online Business
Chicago, IL (ContentDesk) July 7, 2005 -- Calvin Toliver is now offering "How To Make Big Money On The Internet," a Free E-book that teaches anyone, step-by-step, the essential information necessary to succeed with an online business. The book, which is available completely free of charge, covers everything from placing free advertising on the Web to writing press releases and setting up an E-commerce site. Originally published by M.O.R.E., Inc., "How To Make Big Money On The Internet" has originally been sold for $19.95. Now, Calvin Toliver is making it available free to anyone who visits www.PowerPointersPage.com/164585 and downloads the publication. Even better, anyone who downloads the copyrighted book is now free to redistribute it to anyone they wish, any way they wish, as long as the entire contents remain unedited in any way.
"This is an amazing book," said Alan R. Bechtold, a 19-year veteran...
Free E-book Shows How Anyone Can Easily Build An Online Business
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Lyra Research Forecasts Digital Imaging Supplies Revenue Will Top $100 Billion in 2006: Adoption of Color Seen as a Key Driver
Newton, MA (ContentDesk) March 20, 2006 -- Lyra Research (www.lyra.com), the digital imaging authority, forecasts that the global digital imaging supplies market will exceed $100 billion in 2006. While the digital imaging industry has been generating more revenue from supplies than from hardware for some time, 2006 marks the first time the supplies sector will register 12-digit revenue numbers, exceeding hardware revenue by 68 percent (see figure: http://ww1.ContentDesk.com/prfiles/2006/03/18/360617/LyraWWDigitalImagingRevenue.gif). According to Lyras Hard Copy Supplies Advisory Service, the growth is attributed in part to the availability of more affordable, high-speed, easy-to-use color ink jet and color laser printers that enable users to print more graphics-intensive documents.
Rodger Reis, analyst for Lyra...
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Dvd copy Is Your Marketing Full of Holes?
Dvd copy Is Your Marketing Full of Holes?