Sunday, August 26, 2012

How Small Business Created The Internet Marketing Company

There are more than 23 million small businesses in the US, comprising 54% of all U.S. income. Despite the fact that almost all of these companies often have reduced marketing budgets in contrast to more substantial corporations, challenging versus the giant players develops into a vital aspect of any small company advertising and thereby an important emphasis for long lasting emergence.

Key reports collected from the SBA signify that since 1990, as mammoth business removed roughly 4 million work opportunities, small enterprises essentially supplied 8 million all new jobs. While small companies are necessary factors to the financial system, it is more and more tricky to contend in a global environment dictated by much higher leveraged businesses, until today.

Lower priced and significantly productive marketing instruments have moved into the current market and such instruments including social networks, mobile marketing, and even paid search components now find their way in to small business tactical organizing sessions. While these resources have proven to be incredibly strong for the small business world, there remains a major percentage of small business proprietors who are not wanting to recognize the change. Granted the reality that the average age of the US based private business owner is approximately 49 yrs old, this age bracket is typically hesitant to change their marketing techniques and add modern-day marketing and advertising, including employing smartphones versus t.v. and billboard ads.

There are at this moment 116,000,000 US smart phone consumers, a reflection of 37 percent of the complete population, as outlined by eMarketer. While mobile phone advertising and marketing has turned into a larger chip in the pile, research conducted recently signifies that only 20 % of local business owners claimed they are applying mobile marketing and advertising. The bottom-line is, businesses that totally focus the majority of their functions within a determined topographical distance are losing out on potential individuals, while larger sized contending companies are scooping up the opportunities. Take, for instance, a neighborhood coffee house shedding business to Starbucks or McDonald's.

Leveraging social websites is cost-beneficial and can also drastically boost the functionality of a small company marketing strategy. Customers reside on social media. They are not any longer tuned in to the radio and TV over the workday nearly as much as they are seeing what is going on via Google+, Twitter, and Facebook. The fact is that Facebook fairly recently crossed the one-billion user mark and Twitter comes with an average of 6.9 million active users every day. Building brand interest and maximizing presence through the use of social networks has turned into a big asset to small businesses.

Aided by the development of small enterprise advertising and marketing through the use of social networks, smartphone, and paid search, these organizations are going to comfortably reach out to their clients specifically, making use of a lesser amount of resources than big business. Lesser advertising and marketing expenditures can assist a small venture be competitive on price against the bigger firms which can ultimately improve their net profit and create continual emergence even in a recuperating overall economy.

Monday, August 20, 2012

How to Define Your Niche When Your Ideal Clients Are Women

Often my clients come to me with a very broad group of ideal clients and need help narrowing it down.
The more you get clear on who your ideal client is, the better your marketing message can speak directly to them and their concerns. This will significantly improve your marketing results as you pull clients in and they can more easily self-select to work with you.

One of the most common examples of a broad group is women. Think about women as a group - that is half the population right? So you need to narrow the field down. There are women who are moms, business owners, empty nesters, women who are divorced, addicted to sugar and the list goes on. How can you reach all these different groups of women with your marketing message without spending a fortune? That's not easy.

The smartest way to make your marketing efforts work harder is to focus on a particular niche. I'm going to make this really easy for you. The key is to look at where women are already assembled for you. One of the best target audiences for that is women business owners. Why? Because they must gather to get more clients and grow their businesses. So when you look for groups of women business owners, it's so much easier since they gather themselves.

There are so many places to find women business owners! Here are three national organizations:

1. National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO)

2. eWomen Network

3. National Association of Female Executives (NAFE)

There is a directory of women's associations that's available online and the last time I bought it, it was only $75. The directory is like a phonebook of all the women's associations in the US and it is amazing.

You can also do a Google search in your area to discover groups that are regional or even local to just your state or town. New women's groups and organizations are popping up all over and growing in popularity every day.

Finding these groups makes is so much easier to market to women since you can rub elbows with many all in one place. And there will likely be some of any type you seek in whatever group you attend.

Your Client Attraction Assignment

Do some research this week to discover women business owner networking groups in your area. Then make a list of everything available and when they hold their meetings. Pick the ones that sound best to you and schedule them into your calendar. Then make sure you attend.

My advice is to try a bunch of them before you settle into a routine of attending meetings. While it's good to be seen repeatedly at the same group so people get to know and like you, it's also helpful to make sure you find the right group with women who are receptive to what you have to offer.

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

9 Slam Dunk Ways To Get More Clients Into Your Business

Forget magic closing tricks, gimmicky marketing, or having to chase prospects and beg for business. Attracting new clients in today's economy is actually easier than ever, without having to sully your good name or resort to sneaky tricks to get people to do business with you.

Whoa, back up the bus a minute Nelly. Yes, I did just say that prospecting for new clients is getting easier (if you know what you're doing, that is), and here's why.

    Because most businesses are terrible at marketing (and getting worse, not better)
    Because most businesses drop their customers like a lead balloon once they've got your money (you never hear from them again, or their service is plain awful)
    Because most clients are hugely frustrated/disappointed with the companies they do business with. They're looking for that one little nudge, that one reason, to switch allegiances and buy from you.

Right? So how do you get new clients jumping ship to you?

It's simple. Here are 9 easy ways:

    Quadruple check that your product/service solves some pressing problem, terrible pain, or difficult issue. If you don't think it does, then you need to go back to the drawing board and reposition your service differently. Moving away from pain is a far more powerful motivator than moving towards pleasure.

    Make being one of your customers mean something. Do they get a special gift? Some kind of recognition? A membership in a rewards programs that's actually useful? If not, get your thinking cap on. This is huge.

    Offer exceptional customer service. Everywhere you go, you can't help running into companies who treat their customers like dirt. These businesses won't last (no matter how big they are - mark my words). Show your customers how much you care about them and you'll be amazed at how much more they'll want to buy from you.

    Show that you've helped people just like them (make liberal use of testimonials).

    Be of service first. Create a powerful opt-in magnet for people, that's free. It could be a free white paper, audio series or video. But don't give free stuff without a plan. That's just throwing your money away. Your opt-in magnet should help guide people along your sales funnel.

    Write a great sales letter. Still the most powerful form of marketing on the planet.

    Implement an referral program with incentives.

    Follow up, follow up, follow up. Before the sale. During the sale. After the sale. Get a follow up system in place that gets triggered at each of these 3 points.

    Give your website a "direct response marketing" makeover. No I'm not talking about having to use flash and fancy graphics. I mean rewriting and redesigning your website so that it accurately conveys the value you provide, your expert positioning in the marketplace and magnetically attracts the right kinds of prospects, while at the same time repelling the wrong kinds.

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

How Small Business Created The Internet Marketing Company

There are more than 23 million small businesses in the US, comprising 54% of all U.S. income. Despite the fact that almost all of these companies often have reduced marketing budgets in contrast to more substantial corporations, challenging versus the giant players develops into a vital aspect of any small company advertising and thereby an important emphasis for long lasting emergence.

Key reports collected from the SBA signify that since 1990, as mammoth business removed roughly 4 million work opportunities, small enterprises essentially supplied 8 million all new jobs. While small companies are necessary factors to the financial system, it is more and more tricky to contend in a global environment dictated by much higher leveraged businesses, until today.

Lower priced and significantly productive marketing instruments have moved into the current market and such instruments including social networks, mobile marketing, and even paid search components now find their way in to small business tactical organizing sessions. While these resources have proven to be incredibly strong for the small business world, there remains a major percentage of small business proprietors who are not wanting to recognize the change. Granted the reality that the average age of the US based private business owner is approximately 49 yrs old, this age bracket is typically hesitant to change their marketing techniques and add modern-day marketing and advertising, including employing smartphones versus t.v. and billboard ads.

There are at this moment 116,000,000 US smart phone consumers, a reflection of 37 percent of the complete population, as outlined by eMarketer. While mobile phone advertising and marketing has turned into a larger chip in the pile, research conducted recently signifies that only 20 % of local business owners claimed they are applying mobile marketing and advertising. The bottom-line is, businesses that totally focus the majority of their functions within a determined topographical distance are losing out on potential individuals, while larger sized contending companies are scooping up the opportunities. Take, for instance, a neighborhood coffee house shedding business to Starbucks or McDonald's.

Leveraging social websites is cost-beneficial and can also drastically boost the functionality of a small company marketing strategy. Customers reside on social media. They are not any longer tuned in to the radio and TV over the workday nearly as much as they are seeing what is going on via Google+, Twitter, and Facebook. The fact is that Facebook fairly recently crossed the one-billion user mark and Twitter comes with an average of 6.9 million active users every day. Building brand interest and maximizing presence through the use of social networks has turned into a big asset to small businesses.

Aided by the development of small enterprise advertising and marketing through the use of social networks, smartphone, and paid search, these organizations are going to comfortably reach out to their clients specifically, making use of a lesser amount of resources than big business. Lesser advertising and marketing expenditures can assist a small venture be competitive on price against the bigger firms which can ultimately improve their net profit and create continual emergence even in a recuperating overall economy.

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Ten Tips to Make Your Marketing More Effective

Marketing is often the land of the lost for many business owners. They see it as essential but because its not planned and tracked it often is left to chance. Effective marketing exists for one reason only, to generate the opportunity for revenue for the company. Marketing needs to fuel your sales efforts with potential prospects to attempt to close, and you should measure your marketing based on how many opportunities for revenue it generates. We often get asked to help business owners establish or improve their marketing efforts; here are a collection of tips that have proven to make major improvements to our clients.

    Plan & Measure - the first step to good marketing is good planning, every aspect of the campaign ought to be planned out ahead of time and then the campaign needs to be measured so it can be modified if necessary to increase the success rate. Planning encompasses who you are contacting, how you are contacting them, what you are saying, why and how they will contact you, and when you expect to see results. The measuring is tracking the campaign and its executables for the number of new opportunities it provides. If you are driving prospects to a website and your site averages 1000 unique visitors a month, then your campaign hits and your traffic hits 5000 a month you can easily see the effects of your marketing effort. Know your industry averages for response rates (will vary by industry, medium, and target market) and measure against those.

    Answer a Clear Problem or Question in Your Prospect's Mind - because of the massive amount of data we are exposed to on a daily basis we really only listen to things that address a clear problem or question in our minds anymore. Make sure your marketing is addressing something you know your prospect is thinking about.

    Be Visual - this is a visual world now. Use a visual to catch their attention, remember you are competing for that precious attention with an endless number of things now so catching someone's attention is harder than ever thankfully visuals give us a great way to do this.

    Have a clear call to action - drive them to a hub, your website, email or phone number and make communication with you easy. If your using your website make the contact form as easy to fill out as possible, CAPTCHA based forms aren't convenient for the prospect they are used for the benefit of the site owner.

    Target your audience - shotgun approaches to marketing are usable if you're dealing with million dollar budgets, but for most businesses a targeted approach works much better. Aim clearly at an easily identifiable group and market specifically to them. Better yet have multiple subsets within your campaigns that are specifically targeted to different groups addressing their needs in a language they understand and a medium they accept. Remember if you can't out spend you have to spend smarter.

    Communicate through their medium - consider who your prospects are and what form of medium they prefer. If your audience prefers paper then use it (you will find many of us in the over 40 crowd still prefer to have something on paper). Likewise if your audience is on social media than use that. Think of how they like to communicate, and then use that medium to get your message across.

    Have a clear message - you have 10 seconds to tell me why I should care about you, make sure your message is short, clear and speaks to a prospects internal problem or question.

    Don't get distracted by shiny objects - technology advances provide a host of shiny new objects to take our attention away from the point of marketing, generating potential prospects. Focus on mediums your prospects use and messages your prospects respond to and make your call to action a simple one.

    This isn't about art - you're not out to win awards, your out to acquire new business, remember that as your designing your campaigns. What you produce has to get a response from your prospects so design has to first be attention grabbing (remember how much competition you have for their attention) address a problem or question in their head and have an easy and clear call to action. Leave the high style stuff to the big companies brand engagement efforts; you can worry about brand engagement once you have built up a significant business through effective marketing. Also remember its not a matter of what you like it's a matter of what your prospects will respond to that matters.

    Give it Time - marketing takes times, planning can take 30 days, execution another 30 days and all marketing efforts should be given a good six months to measure effectiveness. Don't rush into anything, give your plan time to come together and give your efforts time to show results. Remember to have time set aside to measure your progress and many any changes that become clearly necessary. A good marketing plan continues to grow and change as the results dictate.