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Business Owners Marketing Brief
AUGUST 2012 Proudly brought to you by:
SMART B.O.M.B. M A G A Z I N E
What’s in this months magazine? Regular Features
CAREERS MAGAZINE Page 4
Welcome
Page 5
A word from Tom Poland
Page 59
Bargains4Business deal of the month
®
Profiles Page 66
Getting To Know You: Pricing Prophets
Special Features Page 6
C Is For Creative
Page 8
Seo Or Ppc For My Website – Which Is Most Effective?
Page 10
Link Pruning: Best Practice Or ‘Penguin’ Consequence?
Page 12
10 Principles For Winning Website Content
Page 16
The ‘C Word’ - Content
Page 18
One In Ten Are Ready To Buy From You - Do You Know Who They Are?
Page 20
‘Networking Systems Really Do Make A Difference
A U G U S T
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Special Features Page 22
Always Be Changing The New Abc Of Selling
Page 26
Face It. Social Media Won’t Work If The Brand’s Bland
Page 28
Need To Put Your Business On The Map?
Page 30
Are You Making It Too Risky For Your Customers?
Page 32
The Old Rules Of Marketing Are Dead
Page 36
Why The Gatekeeper Hates You
Page 38
Six Ways To Generate A Seven Figure Income: Corporate Sponsorship
Page 40
Wacky Marketing From The Field
Page 44
10 Ways To Boost Your E-Commerce Sales
Page 46
Building Your Marketing Funnel The Right Way!
Page 48
How To Master The Integration Of Your Sales And Marketing Department Pre And Post Merger: Understand The Target’s Customer Marketing And Sales Mind-Set
Page 54
Why Local Advertising Still Rocks For Small Businesses
Page 56
10 Principles For Winning Website Content
Page 60
The 5 Principles Of Retail
Page 64
7 Unique Ways To Get Massive Exposure From Your Articles
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Welcome Welcome to the August issue of the Smart Bomb. About Smart B.O.M.B. Magazine:
Written by some of the world’s most exciting
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on cutting edge marketing strategies that business owners can implement in their business today! The Smart Bomb is a for business owners to develop ideas and entrepreneurs and organisations. Boasting exceptionally high quality information, tips unparalleled levels of value added content including videos and webinars. Best of all, it’s completely free and open to
A message from Smart BOMB founder and owner, Tom Poland Greetings and a warm welcome to our humble marketing publication which is dedicated to your business success. As the Olympic games come to a close I’m reminded that there are two things that both Olympians and great marketers must do in order to perform with excellence. Firstly, both need a diet that supports their goals and secondly, both must exercise and practice.
Contributors for this issue: Tony Falkenstein James Hourigan Wendy Montes de Oca Terry Dean Scot Mckee Ron Carroll Ivan Misner Mark Matthews Naomi Simson Emily Cressy Eric Barton
And this publication is the perfect “meal” for marketers, providing as it does, a balanced and nutritious smorgasbord of marketing delights.
Timothy R. Pearson
As for “exercise and practice” – that’s what you do when you implement some of the ideas from this magazine. So grab a pen and paper and make a note of action items as you read and then schedule those actions into your planner. To put it another way:
Mark Rocket
Ideas + Implementation = Marketing Muscle!
Jessica Swanson
PS. Click here to subscribe to the Daily BOMB drops!
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Ian Altman Christine Clifford Troy White Rachel Henke Thomas H Kessler Dee Blick Terry Dean Antony Welfare Jon Manning Smart B.O.M.B. Magazine | 5
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C IS FOR CREATIVE By Tony Falkenstein “Creative minds are rarely tidy” - Unknown Author People who think they are not creative types, often prove themselves right by becoming librarians or civil servants. We are all born creative – the schooling process tends to dumb down our creativity, but it is inherent in every one of us. You do not see un-creative pre-school children. Give them a piece of wood and it will be turned into a rocket ship, a boat, a fence, a weapon; it can be anything that each child imagines it to be.
Unfortunately parent discipline and schooling starts giving boundaries to creativity – one plus one equals two... and a child does not get a gold star for arguing it is anything else. By the time kids finish their schooling, it is no wonder many of them think they are not creative. For those, who get: “doesn’t pay attention” or “needs to concentrate” on their school report, they probably have more chance of keeping their natural creativity alive. The wonderful thing about creativity is that it is inherent, and easy to get back. Edward de Bono has been at the forefront of teaching about lateral thinking, and his Six Hats concept suggests there is enough creativity in everybody to confront any challenge at all. Why not challenge everyone on your team to divide into two groups and each have a go at working out all the reasons why a nominated issue or solution to a problem will work and why it won’t work, then have each group switch and again argue the other side of the coin. You’ll be amazed at the creativity that comes out of such a brainstorming session.
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Tony Falkenstein Tony Falkenstein OMNZ has worked as an entrepreneur with multinationals and public companies, and now owns the majority share in publicly listed Just Water International Limited, as well as privatelyowned Bartercard New Zealand Limited. He founded Red Eagle Corporation in 1987, a week after the sharemarket crash...
80-20 KICK BUTT MARKETING PLAN Marketing Plan template Instant access FREE - No credit card required Sample answers included Proven step by step Live online Q&A support to help you customize to YOUR business
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SEO or PPC for My Website – Which is Most Effective? By James Hourigan Guaranteed Page 1 Listing.
Google Adwords Keyword Tool
Cost Comparison SEO / PPC
Google Search Traffic Calculator
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay Per Click (PPC) can both drive a multitude of traffic to your website, but do not assume that because SEO is about driving free traffic to your site that it has no cost. Most people new to internet marketing will believe that, as they cannot afford to pay to get people directed to their site, search engine optimization is the answer. While it is true that with PPC you do pay every time that a visitor clicks on your paid link, you ONLY pay when they click on that link. In SEO you are paying for someone to see your link on the search engine results page (SERP) in the hope that they will click through to your site. Even if you do your own SEO you are paying with your time. No one will see your link unless you are on page 1 of the SERP (Search Engine Results Page) as it is well documented that 90% of internet users do not go past page 1.
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PPC can Guarantee Page 1 Listing.
SEO Costs Compared to PPC Costs
Depending on which search engine you use, there can be as many as a dozen PPC ads on page 1 of the SERP and if your ad bid is high enough, your ad will be on page 1 (immediately). SEO activities could be ongoing for months before your site appears on page 1 of the SERP so consider your short term and long term marketing objectives when deciding which one to engage.
I found doing this comparison one of the most difficult marketing activities that I have ever undertaken, as charges for SEO vary enormously and the costs of PPC are dependent on many factors. If an SEO partner were to charge you $1000 per month to do SEO on your site, what could you expect in return? If you can buy clicks at $5 per click, then you can get 200 clicks for that spend. How many months will you have to spend the $1000 on SEO before you get to page 1 where people will see your link and start clicking?
For instance, if you have a special limited offer, then you will want to get your message to your target market as quickly as possible and PPC would be the best option of the two. However, if you are building core brand values, immediacy is not as important as the long term sustainability of your campaign.
Your PPC campaign will only show benefits while you continue to pay for the clicks while your SEO campaign will continue to drive traffic to your site after you cease the activities. However the traffic will not continue indefinitely; your site will gradually drop down the rankings as your
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competitors engage in their own SEO activities. You really must continue your marketing campaigns to see the continual benefits, which can be substantial when you are on page 1 of the SERPs.
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Google Adwords Keyword Tool
This is a very helpful tool for you to use to identify, not only the keywords that you should be targeting for your marketing activities, but the approximate costs of buying PPC ads for those keywords and the Subscribeamount of competition for your keywords.
m
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Another helpful tool is the Google Search Traffic Calculator which will help you estimate the amount of traffic you can expect from Google rank 1 to Google rank 10 for your keywords.
James Hourigan James is passionate about Subscribe eliminating the mystery surrounding SEO to enable business owners to extract the maximum return on their investment from this modern marketing activity. seo@searchmeseo.com www.searchmeseo.com Click to access your GST Calculator.
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Link Pruning: Best Practice or ‘Penguin’ Consequence? By Wendy Montes de Oca Prune and purge your links to avoid potential Google penalties
The ‘must do’s’ for superior backlink hygiene
Free sites to help your site avoid Penguin consequences
How to find and remove irrelevant back-links to your website
Since Google’s latest update, Penguin, targets low quality, irrelevant, spammy websites and links (which we’ll call ‘bad links’), it’s prudent to check your own website’s back-links to ensure those who are linking to your are relevant and synergistic to your own site’s content. To do this you can use several free back-link checkers, such as http://www.opensiteexplorer. org/, http://www.backlinkwatch. com/, or http://www.iwebtool. com/backlink_checker . Then, go down the list and see who’s linking to you. This may be laborious, but well worth it. Especially if you noticed your traffic and SERP presence drop in the last few weeks, you may have speculated that Penguin is to blame. Next, it’s literally a manual process of visiting the ‘bad
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link’s’ website and contacting them to remove the link going to your site. If there’s several ‘bad links’, it’s best to create a form letter. According to searchenginewatch.com, the letter should state that you are a website owner trying to recover from a Google penalty and would like the following links removed. Then, list the URLs where the links can be found, the URL on your site they point to, the anchor text ─ all the info needed to easily find the link you’re requesting removed. Sometimes, it’s easy to find contact information of ‘bad links’, you simply visit the site and can find email or similar information in the footer or ‘Contact Us’ area of the website. Other times it’s harder, and you may need to engage in some free tools to
help determine a ‘bad link’s’ website owner. According to searchenginewatch.com, such tools are: • Domaintools.com: If you want to find out who owns the site your link is on, visit domain tools or type ‘whois. sc’ in front of a URL. • C-Class Checker: If you have a list of all the links you want to get rid of, you can run them through a bulk C-class checker to see how many of them are on the same C-class. • SpyonWeb: If you only have 1 URL to work with, this tool lets you find out what other domains they are associated with. Just put in a website URL, IP address or even the Google analytics or AdSense code and you can find all of the websites that
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are connected to it. Keep a record of all efforts to contact ‘bad links’, as it will show Google you’ve been making a good effort to get rid of these irrelevant links. If you find that Google’s Panda & Penguin updates have affected your website and you believe there may have been an error of some sort, there is
a form on Google you can fill out to pinpoint search terms that you believe you shouldn’t be penalized for: https://docs. google.com/spreadsheet/viewfo rm?formkey=dEVxdmdRWFJRT jRoLWZVTHZkaTBQbkE6MQ&n dplr=1.
recent Penguin update? Would love to hear your thoughts. You can contact me at support@ precisionmarketingmedia.com.
What do you think: Is link pruning and purging a ‘best pro-active practice’ in lieu of
Wendy Montes de Oca, MBA Wendy Montes de Oca, MBA has 20 years of direct response, online marketing, media and publishing experience for top publishers and Fortune 500 companies. In her career she has generated over $150 million in total revenues for various corporations, consulting clients, and her own firm, Precision Marketing & Media, LLC.
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She is the best-selling author of Content Is Cash: Leveraging Great Content and the Web for Increased Traffic, Sales, Leads and Buzz [Que Publishing} which was #1 and #13 on Amazon.com’s web marketing and business bestseller book list and remained an Amazon ‘top 100’ bestseller list for 10 consecutive weeks. Follow her on Twitter @PrecisionMktg.
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10 Principles For Winning Website Content By Terry Dean Content marketing is the currency for free online traffic. Find out how to take best advantage of it.
How to grab attention with your emails, blog, and social media even in a competitive marketplace.
You need more than content. You need to establish a connection with your audience for online sales. Content is similar to currency online. It opens doors for you. It brings in visitors from both search and social sites. It becomes a foundation to the relationship you’re building with your visitors, subscribers, and customers online. Here are 10 quick tips for using content marketing on the web today to draw in more visitors and sales.
your business on them. Build a profile. Share your content there, but your home base is at your website. Even Youtube has kicked out business owners with zero warning and sometimes no explanation. Have a home for your content. Then expand out from your home by sharing across the web. 2. Find Your Message
1. Own Your Content The home base for your content must be a website you own. It can be Wordpress, Joomla, or any other content management system, but it must be on a domain you control. Facebook, Blogger, Twitter, and other social media sites aren’t owned by you. Don’t build
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This is your core message and the story behind your business. What primary benefits can you help people achieve? And how does your viewpoint differ from others in your market? Everyone wants an audience. Get a message. The message attracts the right audience to you.
3. Stay Consistent With Your Brand Once you find your message, stay consistent with it. Keep coming back to it in the content you produce. Here’s a key element that many business owners forget. The content you’re sharing is leading somewhere. It’s leading people to become customers and clients of yours. You’re often better off eliminating the overt pitch. Instead be subtle while sharing and adding value to people’s lives, but stay with your core message of the benefits you provide. 4. Share your content on social media. Take advantage of the extra exposure social media can bring
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to your content. Share your content on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Linkedin, and others. The center of everything is your website, but these are additional spokes to the wheel. Grow your email lists and customer lists first, but also grow your followers, likes, and other contacts. Every social media site is another entry point into your content funnel. 5. Connect with other brands & websites. You’re not an island. Find ways to team up with others. Write a guest post for a popular blog in your field, linking it back to your website. One of the best ways to generate traffic is to create a list of influential bloggers in your field. Write a short comment
about each and the content they produce, along with linking to their site. This is one of the best introductions you can make, when they see the visitors coming over from your site in their stats. And what happens if they decide to share this post with their audience? 6. Write For Your Customers You’re not writing for everyone. You’re writing for your customers and your future customers. You can’t and shouldn’t please everyone. Some people won’t like you. So what? Be bold with your message. Attract your audience. Be controversial. And be willing to “turn off” the people who shouldn’t be your customers anyway.
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7. Share Yourself. Your audience is overwhelmed by content. You need more than content. You need a connection. Tell stories from your life. If someone has read 5 emails or posts from you and still doesn’t have a clue about your hobbies, interests, your family, etc., you’re missing out on an opportunity. Share your opinions on the industry. Use analogies from a hobby. Remember connection, not just content. My Facebook timeline for example includes my photo, my wife, and my two dogs along with a background of a waterfall from a local area we hike at.
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8. Grab Attention With Headlines Concentrate on your headlines. Grab attention. My best results are usually a mixture of benefit + curiosity. What’s the best way to come up with great ideas? Pull ideas from what’s already working. Here are some sites with incredible headlines to model: www.digg.com, www.aol.com, www.weeklyworldnews.com. The front cover of any popular magazine is another secret weapon. The cover blurbs are highly researched and popular topics that draw interest in the market. 9. Write in simple terms It doesn’t matter if your audience is full of rocket scientists, they’re in a hurry
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when they’re online. Everyone feels rushed online because there are so many places they can go and more content is just a click away. Write in short sentences and short paragraphs. Eliminate jargon. Add white space. Make it easy to read and understand. 10. Become a reader. Terry Dean The best writers are voracious readers. They can’t get enough. Personally, I can tell when I haven’t been reading as much as usual. It’s tougher to come up with the ideas. They just don’t flow as well. Fill yourself up and it’s easy to share. Everything that happens in our life and business becomes a possible story to tell. These are just 10 principles to getting started with content.
Terry is a former pizza delivery driver and experienced Internet coach since 1996, coaches entrepreneurs to Earn More, Work Less, and Enjoy Life!
CLICK HERE TO CLAIM YOUR FREE GIFT! $716.83 worth of pure, powerful, proven information to get more clients, make more money and have more fun
For a limited time the Smart BOMB’s Publisher is giving away these cash-creating resources: Sent direct to your letter box: 2 x CDs on how to create a model business Report: How to get more clients, make more money Killer Marketing Report full of client-attracting tips “Insider secrets” CDs interviews from entrepreneurs Accessible online – start immediately: How to create a new client marketing machine How to get the time for money making things How to experience personal peak performance Full downloadable manuals 15 | Modern Franchise Magazine
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THE ‘C WORD’ - CONTENT By Scot Mckee
Forward plan your content strategy to ease internal pressure
Find your online audience instead of assuming they’re ‘everywhere’
Sharing good content from others works in your favour
Recycle your content to maximize ROE
There comes a point in every digital project when someone uses the ‘C’ word. Content. The content ‘C’ word is a bit like the other ‘C’ word, but ruder, and no one wants to say it. The conversation usually starts with arms crossed and the look of, ‘You can’t tell us anything we don’t already know because we’re SO all over this.’ And yet, when I ask what populates those many and varied digital platforms, the room either goes quiet, or just stays quiet.
“So, your Facebook community’s active and growing?” “Umm, actually we’re not sure what to do with Facebook for business.” “Oh. But Pintrest’s growth is stellar, your brand’s benefiting from that presumably?” “Well no. We’ve got the account, but, eh, well, you know...” “Right. So look, what have you got?” “A website.” “Good. And that’s a social, interactive, dynamic, community hub is it?” “Eh, no. There’s a blog. And stuff no one reads.” The issue isn’t the tools, the opportunity, or even the
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appetite for discovery. Clients are perfectly happy to adopt platforms and channels like medals of honour – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pintrest, Website… The issue is content. Originating good digital content is just part of the challenge. A 2-hour video of ‘Sir’ is of limited value if the customer community has the attention span of a drunken meth-head. It’s worse if the audience doesn’t even use video (or Facebook, or Pintrest or Twitter…) as their chosen channel of engagement. It never ceases to amaze me how few companies take the time to locate their online audiences before launching platforms. But the ‘where’ is still outweighed by the ‘what’. What content will the brand produce and communicate? And the ‘what’ is then eclipsed by the ‘what next’. The under resourced and over committed social media
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function is constantly chasing the next piece of content. The time consuming, painful and often expensive investment in content creation is gone – pfffrttt – in as long as it takes to refresh the screen. I would therefore offer two pieces of content advice before our next meeting. I’m hoping that your advance consideration might move us beyond the blank stares and/or the defensive rejection. The first is this: Other people produce very good content, often better than yours. You should use it. Creating content is only part of your strategy. Knowing about and sharing quality content with your audience is not only ‘social’; it greatly improves the perception of your brand and extends your reach. Bask in the reflected glory of others (and take the pressure off your own production schedule). When you eventually get your shit together, others may even pay
you the same compliment. The second is to recycle your content. Painful as it may be to hear, no one is sitting waiting for your next tweet. When you publish your content, only a fraction of your audience will engage with it immediately. Your message and content has been carefully crafted and has taken time and money to produce, so don’t waste it. Find other times, places and ways to re-communicate. Use all the tools you have available. Reedit, recreate, repurpose and reinforce your message. It’s only when you’ve exhausted the channels of communication for one piece of content that you need to worry about the next. Content is the gift that keeps on giving. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. And again. And again…
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Scot McKee Brand Strategy Legend, Managing Director Brand/Digital Agency Birddog, Author ‘Creative B2B Branding (no, really)’, B2B Marketing Columnist, Social/ Mobile Advocate & Rock God. Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ scotmckee LinkedIn: http://uk.linkedin.com/ in/scotmckee Slideshare: http://www. slideshare.net/birddogb2b YouTube: http://www.youtube. com/user/BirddogB2B Amazon: http://is.gd/ mckeebooks Web: http://www.birddog.co.uk
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One in Ten Are Ready to Buy from You Do You Know Who They Are? By Ron Carroll
Very few people are in the market to buy your product now
A system that worked for me, and may work for you
How to find the few who want to buy It is a brutal fact of business life that most people don't want to buy your product or service, at least not right now. However, don’t be discouraged. This knowledge could be used to improve the odds of your success. Let’s take a look. Is Knowledge Power? Marketing guru Chet Holmes declared, “Twenty years of research has shown me that there is always a very small percentage of folks ‘buying now’—three percent.” To an audience of twelve hundred executives, Chet asked, “How many are in the market to buy a car right now?” Roughly thirty people raised their hands. “How about office equipment?” Thirty different hands went up. “Home improvements?” Again, about thirty hands.
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they are definitely not interested because they are happy with what they have or don’t need the product at all (The Ultimate Sales Machine, 62-63). These facts are interesting, but of little value, unless you incorporate this knowledge into a working business system. Approximately three percent of potential buyers at any given time are ready to buy. “That percentage drives all commerce.” Chet’s research also showed that 7% of the population is open to the idea of buying because they may be dissatisfied with their current item or provider and are not opposed to considering a change. Of the ninety-percent that are left, approximately onethird are not thinking about the product or service, though not opposed or against. Another third don’t think they would be interested. The final third know
The Application of Knowledge A few years ago, I created a lead generation system for my accounting practice. I wanted to find those one-inten companies (3%+7%) that might be in the market for my services. First, I acquired a list of several thousand businesses in my community. I wrote a telemarketing script and had a person make phone calls for two hours every day. The telemarketer asked the business owner or a receptionist/
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secretary this question: “HAVE YOU THOUGHT ABOUT CHANGING ACCOUNTANTS? She sought a yes or no answer and noted the level of interest from strongest to weakest. We recorded their response as follows: Y3 - Yes, definitely thinking about it Y2 - Yes, somewhat thinking about it Y1 - Yes, secretary thinking about it N3 - No, but should think about it N2 - No, but might want to think about it N1 - Not interested Based upon the response, we developed a script to pursue the 10% hot leads and quickly passed over the low-interest responses. However, we also knew that in our industry there is often a growing dissatisfaction with accountants (especially those that lack good business systems). A company that isn’t thinking about changing
accountants today may be at a higher level of interest in six months or a year. This gold-mining system paid off. About three percent of prospects were anxious to meet with us immediately, and an additional seven percent wanted to know more. By the way, don’t underestimate what the secretary thinks. Many have influence and will help you get an audience with the decision maker.
improving SEO for your website? A great question like this is also effective with up-selling or cross-selling. “Have you thought about adding a humidifier to your new heating unit?” “Have you thought about the advantages of upgrading to granite counter tops? This system worked for me. Some variation of it might work for you. What are your thoughts?
The Secret Component of the System Our question, “HAVE YOU THOUGHT ABOUT CHANGING ACCOUNTANTS,” worked because it is low-key, nonthreatening, and gets to the point quickly. You may want to try it in your business. For example: Have you thought about outsourcing your computer services? Have you thought about getting a new copy machine? Have you thought about installing new counter tops? Have you thought about
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Ron Carroll Helping business owners dramatically increase customer loyalty, profitability, and growth by elevating the performance of their vital business systems and processes. rcarroll@BoxTheoryGold.com www.BoxTheoryGold.com
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Networking Systems Really DO Make a Difference By Ivan Misner
In networking, so many things need to be tracked: What organizations you belong to and what results you are getting from them? How much time are you spending networking and working your network? The old saying that we “treasure what we measure”—and vice versa—turns out to be highly relevant in networking. I created a survey of 12,000 men and women for one of my most recent books. As my co-authors and I explored the extent to which survey respondents correlated success and networking, we discovered that most of the people who credit networking for some of their success also maintain a system for measuring the dollar value of their networking activity. Conversely, most of the respondents who said networking played no role in their success had no system for tracking any money generated by their participation in networking groups.
How much money have you made as a result of your activities? Who is sending you referrals, and how much of your income are they responsible for?
In a world where news media frequently reports the latest sports scores, stock market numbers, and even the weekend’s top-grossing films, wouldn’t you think common sense would motivate business networkers to track how much they’re making from their efforts? Unfortunately, common sense isn’t all that common. In the survey, more respondents said they did not have a system than said they did have one. More importantly, women said that they did not have a system to follow up more than men did! It is easy to see that the more systematic you learn to make your networking the more productive you are going to be. Male or female, having a system is key to success. However, for
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women, this can really be a major key for them. Why is this? Women have fewer hours to actually spend networking. They have to balance family responsibilities from getting kids off to school in the morning to getting them to their after-school activities, home for dinner, and off to bed. Add to that all the other activities that they need to take care of in a given day and there is little time for networking. Having systems to follow up and stay in touch allows for more productive activities and results from networking activities. There is no way to create success if your success is out in “airy-fairy” land. Hard facts and data tell you what you are doing well and what you are not doing at all. Tracking is a key factor in success.
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Track Everything There are so many things that need to be tracked: • What organizations you belong to and what results you are getting from them? • How much time are you spending networking and working your network? • How much money have you made as a result of your activities? • Who is sending you referrals, and how much of your income are they responsible for? You must have systems around all the tracking as well as systems for:
• Following up with those people you meet • Staying in touch with your network members • Rewarding your referral sources • How you are going to help your referral sources Here is the key point: If you learn to use good systems, it will allow you to get better results in much less time. This will free up more of your time for family and personal life. The work and time is upfront developing and implementing the system. On the backside, you will spend much less time going out networking and more time working in your network.
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Ivan Misner Called the “father of modern networking” by CNN, Dr. Ivan Misner is a New York Times bestselling author. He is the Founder and Chairman of BNI, the world’s largest business networking organization. His newest book can be viewed at www. BusinessNetworkingandSex. com. Dr. Misner is also the Sr. Partner for the Referral Institute, an international referral training company.
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ALWAYS BE CHANGING THE NEW ABC OF SELLING By Mark Matthews
Become the architect of tomorrow’s business relationships. Create new and extraordinary customer experiences.
With the increased pace of technology bewildering many businesses it can be difficult to maintain focus on providing an extraordinary customer experience when your customers have embraced these new technologies but your business hasn’t. Many marketers still produce communications based around traditional marketing and sales strategies, disseminating messages pushing their brandlike in the old world sales mantra, ‘Always Be Closing.’ Customers Are Changing So Must You However, as your customers change and find information in new ways so must your marketing adapt to meet customers’ needs. In his book, “The End of
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Make these experiences intentional.
Business as Usual,” Brian Solis talks about the three types of customers:
informed through web sites and they are very comfortable with ecommerce.
1. Traditional
Connected
2. Online
They live in mobile & social networks…a key difference between connected individuals and the other two types of consumers is that connected individuals look for information in a different way, expecting it to come to them via their peers, so instead of going to Google, they’ll go to social networks and ask people “what do you think I should do?” They’ll ask for information or recommendations, read the reviews of their peers, they’ll do in-store research using their mobile phone – so they are much more empowered and much more informed.
3. Connected So what are the definitions of each of these customer types? Traditional They watch TV, read newspapers and magazines and they have conversations in the real world with other people and are not really going to change much in terms in how they influence and how they learn in the future. Online These are the customers we have come to know over the last 20 years. They start their search with Google, they are comfortable with getting
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Connected Customers - a $4.2 Trillion Dollar Opportunity The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) reported in “The Connected World - The $4.2 Trillion Dollar Opportunity,’ that businesses that have changed to become “high-web” are the most successful – increasing revenues and profits and creating more jobs. High-web organisations use a range of Internet tools to market, sell, and support customers, interact with suppliers, and empower employees. This is compared to medium-web businesses that market or sell goods or services online, lowweb businesses which have a website and/or social networking site and no-web businesses that have no web presence at all. Brands Are No Longer Created by Business One significant change is that Brands are now co-created through the experience of our customers. This is a huge and fundamental change that many businesses have found hard to swallow. It changes the way that a company has to market itself. Companies now have to
change the experience to meet customers’ needs. Engagement is the way that businesses change the experience. However, just adopting new technologies, having a Facebook page or a website doesn’t have an impact unless the customer experience changes. One example of this is the decline of newspapers. In Australia there have recent announcements of mass layoffs by the major newspaper publishers and a move to a greater digital presence, but none of that will mean a thing unless their customer experience also changes. In this example, one way the publishers could change the customer experience would be to provide easy access to apps for mobile users, on both apple and android platforms. Customer Journey Is Different To the Marketing Roadmap Recognizing that the customer journey is different to the path the business wants to follow is another key to creating extraordinary customer experiences. Putting customers in the sales funnel and progressing them in the
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traditional sense is no longer relevant because your customers are finding information in different ways. The customer decision-making journey for connected customers and how they influence others is different than for traditional customers. Connected customers look for information to make informed decisions and then they share that with their connections, who are in effect, their audience. When the new connected customer wants to make a decision about a product, they go online and start talking to others about what they want, so the touch points that businesses now have with these individuals are different to the traditional sales funnel. How businesses use the strategies and information they put into the various communications channels determines how successful they are likely to be. Unfortunately, many companies are still using traditional marketing strategies when communicating with connected customers. For these companies, when measuring social media marketing against brand engagement on Facebook the engagement level is only around 1% - because much of
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the marketing effort is simply not worthy of engagement. Influence Drives Outcomes Businesses also have to ensure that, when consumers find information about you, they find the information that you want them to find. Connected people find information about you one of two ways, because they either follow you now or someone they know follows you. Influence has become increasingly important and businesses can be influential, with what they share and what they say driving outcomes. Change Is a Cultural Thing If you want people to always say great things about you and recommend you then you must change. We all know that the process of change is hard, but first you have to recognise that you must change, then, decide on the process. With the increased pace of technology development, businesses must constantly adapt. Rigid business models are no longer working. In fact, moving forward, having an adaptive culture is one of the biggest foundations of business success. As Brian Solis pointed out, 40 per cent of fortune 500 companies over the past 20 years have gone, and that is because they failed to change.
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Many more household names are running the risk of disappearing in the near future because they have failed to change. It’s All about the Experience Customer experience is the next big trend in business. Experiential outcomes will become your new mission or vision statement. Stop and ask yourself what type of experience are you trying to create? Is the experience intentional? As a business owner you are the one who should be defining the customer experience, because if you’re not, then your customers will be when they share those experiences with their connections. Their audience and their audience, shares them with their audience and so on…
For business this means creating an adaptive culture within your organisation that embraces change and becomes predictive so that you create a customer experience that people will find extraordinary enough to want to share, over and over again. Connected customers make up a significant percentage of your potential market. In some sectors they are already the dominant group. So are you willing to change? Do you want a share of the $4.2 trillion dollar opportunity? Or, as Brian Solis put it, will you succumb to “Digital Darwinism”?
Connected customers look beyond the ordinary and don’t settle for uninspired products and services. Connected Customers Pay More, Buy More & Buy More Often Connected customers already buy more than traditional or online customers, they pay more for their products and services and they buy more often. But connected customers won’t settle for low value products, services or experiences.
Mark Matthews Mark is CEO of Maxiom Group. Maxiom delivers the Business information and advice you need - straight to your inbox. Best of all, it is completely FREE and open to everyone. Learn more at www.maxiom.com.au
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Face it. Social Media Won’t Work if the Brand’s Bland By Naomi Simson Traditional businesses are flocking online, and to social media in particular There is so much talk about social media and every business needing to be in the space; but social media is not a business strategy. Who’s interested? And who’s listening?
This space is not another sales device – do not extend your brand into a place that makes no sense and adds no value It all comes down to relevance. Where are your customers and how do they want to interact with you? Do they even want to interact with you?
I was introduced as a “social media expert” recently on Mornings on the Nine Network.
e-newsletter. What does that mean when the goal-posts are shifting by the hour?
This is not something I had considered. I’m merely a founding director of a business, and through some social media (I have written 645 blog posts at time of writing) I have sought a public voice to share what I am learning on my journey.
What I do understand is the motivation behind using social media, how it can be used as a listening tool, giving valuable insights into a customer base. Social media should not be seen merely as another sales device, and nor should it extend your brand into a place that makes no sense and adds no value.
Social media is merely a set of tools – it is not an outcome. I remember 11 years ago when considering the launch of RedBalloon, it was all about “automatically generated email newsletters”. Every business thought they had to have an
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I have always said the most important thing in business is to get clear on your personal definition of success. Why are you doing what you’re doing?
At RedBalloon our definition of success is delivering meaningful experiences to our customers. Success is different for everybody and until you have your own definition of it, you’ll probably flounder, wondering why you “can’t do it all”. When you’re clear about what your success means, make sure everything the business does is working towards that goal. It seems traditional businesses are rushing online, creating Facebook pages, Twitter accounts and seeking invites to Pinterest. There is so much talk about social media and every
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business needing to be in the space. But social media is not a business strategy. Yes, it’s a tactic when used as part of a larger campaign or strategy, but simply having a Facebook page, tweeting every now and then, and pinning pretty pictures is not a strategy. Who’s interested and who’s listening? It all comes down to relevance. Where are your customers and how do they want to interact with you? Do they even want to interact with you? You’re the local dry cleaner, do you really need a Twitter account? What are you going to contribute to the conversation? Maybe some tips on how to remove tomato sauce from silk. Some businesses have no personality by their very nature. Don’t try to be a square peg contorting into a round hole. Social media is not one size fits all, and in some cases it will never fit. There’s no point having a blog if you’ve got nothing to say. Writing
one article that is seen by three people will not make a difference to your business. Focus your energy on the important stuff that will deliver value to your business and customers. Don’t get me wrong, there are businesses and brands out there that use social media very successfully. Kikki K has almost 30,000 Facebook fans, and Michelle Bridges with her 12 Week Body Transformation revolution has more than 75,000. Then there are examples like 99 Dresses, the online service that offered customers the chance to swap their old clothes for an “infinite closet”. While it is presently re-building its site, the brand was initially launched through Facebook, winning tens of thousands of fans before it had launched. Social media can be very powerful when activated correctly and with the right motivation.
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Naomi Simson Naomi is founder of fast-growth experiential gifting retailer http:// www.redballoon.com.au. An employee engagement advocate and sought after employer, RedBalloon is listed as one of only six Hewitt Best Employers in Australia and New Zealand with an engagement score of over 90 percent. Comments and questions can be sent to Naomi via her blog at http://www. naomisimson.com Connect with Naomi Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Blog
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Need To Put Your Business On The Map? By Emily Cressy An attorney I work with told me he started getting 90% of his business inquiries from the Internet when his small-town legal practice started appearing on Google Places. (And yes, he was running MULTIPLE color yellow pages ads at the time!) Could YOU handle that type of increase in client calls in your business!?! So, check the Internet right now, and then come back... I want you to see if, when your prospective clients search for a business like yours on the Internet, a Google Map appears. (You know... the map with red pins showing business locations, and directory-style listings of several businesses in your area?) If not, you MUST make sure your business is RIGHT THERE, at the top of those listings! And you need to get it done ASAP. This type of “Google Places” listing is quickly overtaking the traditional heavy-yellow-phone-directorieson-your-doorstep as the way for prospects to find businesses to call. What Can You Do To Influence Your Position On The Map? Despite what Google would have you believe, these Google Places listings ARE something you can influence. I have created a stepby-step recipe for you to follow, to help you get your business to the top of Google Places. Here
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are a few pointers to get you started: 1) Claim your business on the Google Places dashboard and fill-out all the information there, sprinkling in keywords as you go. Be sure to upload the maximum number of videos and pictures. 2) Make sure your listing is associated with a website that is search engine optimized for the keywords you’d like to appear for. 3) Get your company’s information (Name, Address and Phone number) uploaded into all the big “business directories” you can find. I’m talking about sites like Yelp, InsiderPages, YellowPages, BetterBusinessBureau, etc. 4) Get as many high-quality links as you can pointing to your website and your company’s videos online. It’s like a popularity contest, where votes are links to your site.
Why? Because I know companies for whom mastering the Google Places Map literally generated hundreds of new client calls per month for their business. Whether you get that many will obviously depend on how many people are looking for your type of business, in your city, but DO NOT underestimate the importance of having a strong online presence. Get started today and take advantage of the FREE Google Places listing to put your business in front of hundreds or thousands of prospects each month. If you would like us to manage your Google Places listing and SEO for you, no matter where you are in the world, please contact The River Rock Group.
5) Encourage your clients to post reviews of your company. Have a business system in place to solicit reviews and reward clients for placing a review. More Detailed Instructions: For more detail, including step-bystep instructions and screenshots of this process, click here to download this Special Report How To Rank In Google Places Google Plus Local right now.
Emily Cressey Emily is the Amazon.com bestselling author of Online Business Marketing: Proven Strategies You Can Implement Yourself To Market Your Business On The Internet.
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Are You Making It Too Risky For Your Customers? By Eric Barton
What a pony can teach you about your business Putting the risk on you
With all the products or services out in the world, how would you stand out and at the same time, take all the risk away from your customers? How about in your copy? How do you make buying from you risk-free or less risky for your target market? This article is about risk reversal or, basically, your guarantee. No matter what you sell, there shouldn’t be any problem in guaranteeing what you sell.If you don’t have a good product or service or you get lots of complaints about it, you need to solve that problem before you start using risk reversal. Here is an old example of risk reversal that I think will drive the point home a little better for you. You may have heard this one, but either way, it’s important to read it again below.
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This strategy can easily cause customers to spend more with you
You see, a couple wanted to purchase a pony for their daughter. They went to one dealer who said if the pony she chose wasn’t right, she could bring it back and exchange it for another. The price of the pony was $1000.This is typical of horse dealers and is their idea of risk reversal. You might think that’s a great guarantee; a great way to take the risk away from the transaction, right? Nope! The customer is still locked into having to get another pony from that dealer. Now, compare this risk reversal strategy or guarantee from the second dealer. The next dealer says... “It’s important your daughter is happy with her pony in every way. Please take the pony, let your daughter look after it and try it out for two weeks. I’ll provide you with the hay to last during
this period. If your daughter is happy with it, pay me for it then. If not, I’ll come and collect it, and tidy out your stable.” This second dealer knows the pony is a good pony, the customer has a trial period and there’s nothing to pay until completely happy. The dealer also understands that once the daughter gets the pony home, she’s going to fall in love with it. You may have heard the old sales method of the “Puppy Dog Close”? I guess in this example it can be called the “Pony Close”. Once his daughter gets that pony home, do you think she’ll want to give it back? No Way! Even if the price was more at $1500, which one do you think the parents would choose to buy from? That’s the power of great risk reversal. Proper risk reversal gives you the
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competitive advantage to outsell your competitors many times over. The second offer to the man looking for the pony, made it a no brainer. Here’s my question for you: If you do have a guarantee in your business now, is it really taking most of the risk away from your customers?
You think on that and I’ll catch you next time.
Now, you may be wondering what else can increase customer buy-in.
Eric is the author of “Fast and Easy Steps To Marketing Succe$$”, a member of America’s PremierExperts, featured radio guest, marketing Subscribe strategist, SEO specialist, direct response copywriter and serial entrepreneur, who lives by the saying, “The True Definition of Success Is Helping Others Succeed”.
Whether you’re selling online and or offline, really know your target market, have the right targeted direct-response copy, have your message placed in the right medium or place, have a guarantee, and test… test…test.
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I have to go clean up after this pony running around my office.
Eric Barton
If you don’t have a guarantee or good risk reversal, what could you do to immediately start making your customers not only feel safer, but also feel that the risk is all on you?
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THE OLD RULES OF MARKETING ARE DEAD By Timothy R. Pearson The fundamentals of marketing have changed.
The memo marketers missed
There is both an art and a science to reinventing your marketing. In a post-Great Recession world of constant and unrelenting technology-driven change— change that has impacted so many around the world, not only in the developed countries and the emerging BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) but also the third world—one thing has remained firmly rooted and mired in the past: the way products and services are marketed and sold. Marketing Then You are undoubtedly familiar with the old ways of marketing. You were taught them in undergraduate or graduate school, as an intern or firstyear junior marketing or sales associate. Consequently, you have probably seen the old rules put into practice. The old way of doing things can be summarized as: (1) Budgets define strategy. (2) A brand is just a brand.
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(3) It’s all about the qualitative research. (4) Advertising is the answer. (5) Marketing results cannot be measured. (6) Technology isn’t for everyone. As a result of the rapid advancements in technology and the depth and breadth of information that is readily—if not instantaneously—available to buyers, as well as to marketers to power and propel profitable sales and increase revenues, marketing should have changed. But it hasn’t. It remains rooted in the not-too-distant past. The New Age of Marketing Marketing in this new dataabundant, Internet-oriented world order requires more than a shallow or superficial understanding of the customer or consumer—and more
than simply “getting on” the new technology. It requires understanding that the old ways of marketing are dead. The fundamentals have changed, as have the means and methods to define targets, to create more productive encounters that provide more opportunities to sell, to develop deeper and more significant insights, and to exploit singular points of difference. The Rules of Reinvention Reinvention begins at a brand’s core and is constructed from there. It is not change that is artificially created or imposed externally—nor is it change for its own sake. Rather, it is rooted in six overarching rules (and twenty-three underlying principles) that encompass a new way of examining and scrutinizing marketing—and undertaking and optimizing revenue growth initiatives.
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Rule One: The Core Is Everything Reinvention begins with understanding just what a product or service is at its core. More often than not, lost in the new go-to-market processes, distribution channels and sales methodologies is the need to define the essence of the product or service that is being marketed. Rule Two: You Have Nothing Without the Foundation Reinvention is not an art, nor is it a science. It’s both. Once the core essence of a brand, product, or service has been determined (that part’s the art), it’s necessary to develop the foundation for creating and reinventing a brand’s unique points of differentiation, positioning, value proposition and architecture (that part’s the science).
Rule Three: There Are Many Choices but Only One Customer Reinvention does a product or service no good if it’s not effectively and efficiently conveyed to the key audience— the potential buyer or acquirer of that product or service. In this new world of ever-propagating web sites and social networks it’s crucial to determine the allencompassing plan for going to market and creating the metrics (and on-going continuous evaluation and refinement) to ensure or exceed a targeted return on investment. Rule Four: Do The Right Things for the Right Reasons Reinvention requires an understanding of the circumstance and context in which the product or service is taken to market. There are no shortcuts or easy fixes. There is a need to make sure there are no unanticipated barriers or
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constraints. These could involve regulatory issues; reputational concerns; shifting customer, client, or prospect relationships, wants and desires; and new emerging technologies and competitors. Rule Five: Infrastructure Is More than Just Pipes Reinvention begins with a product or service, but it does not end there. It directly impacts and shapes the operating infrastructure that supports it. Today, as a product or service is taken to market, it becomes critically important to focus on the type of new technologyoriented support necessary for successful implementation. There must be a clear and undiluted understanding of the role marketing is to play in the company or enterprise and the creation of the right type of marketing organization—and utilization and exploitation of Internet-centric and business analytic-based tools.
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Rule Six: Lead and Others Will Follow
growing brands, and increased market share.
Marketing must demonstrate leadership, making certain that reinvention is not only seen as contributing to the bottom line, but in fact does so successfully. Beyond that, the reinvented marketing must continue to contribute time-and-time again over a long period with ever-increasing efficiency and effectiveness to drive profitable revenue growth.
Simply, there is a new way of doing things and when executed properly and successfully, marketing can help businesses reinvent themselves to win in this new global marketplace. But, it requires that marketers throw out much that they hold dear and embrace technology, a new role, and real accountability— wholeheartedly. Reinvention requires fundamental change.
The Memo Marketers Missed In this new world order, marketers have no choice but to reinvent their brands to keep pace with a changing and global marketplace. They need to know what those brands are at the core because if they don’t, in all likelihood target audiences won’t know either. The result of failure at any level is that audiences simply won’t buy the products or services— initially, or with the frequency that the company or enterprise desires. Remember, the allcritical goal is profitable sales,
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Timothy R. Pearson Timothy R. Pearson is founder and president of Pearson Advisors || Partners, a marketing management consulting firm serving Fortune 1000 and branddriven clients; a highly sought advisor to senior management and a frequent keynote speaker at industry conferences, at leadership meetings, and on the lecture circuit; and author of the New York Times and USA Today #1 best seller The Old Rules of Marketing are Dead: 6 New Rules to Reinvent Your Brand & Reignite Your Business. (McGraw-Hill) Visit www. pearsonadvisorsandpartners. com.
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Why the Gatekeeper Hates You By Ian Altman The gatekeeper can either help you succeed or seal your fate. The higher the executive, generally the more capable the gatekeeper. If you try to trick them, be prepared to be suffer the consequences Dave was the CEO of a large client of mine, and Mary was his executive assistant. Most people would have described Mary as the gatekeeper – there to prevent salespeople from reaching her boss. Anytime an opportunity came up in their large company, I knew that I could call Mary and determine whether or not the project was worth pursuing. I would simply call and say “Mary, one of the managers was speaking with us about project X. Is this something that is important to Dave, or are we just enabling a big waste of time by engaging in discussions with them? We want to focus on the items that are important to Dave. Do you think we could find 5 minutes on his calendar to know if it is worth our time to try and help?” Mary would often have insight about the project, which she was happy to share. If we
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Read this article to discover how to engage the gatekeeper, turn them into an ally, and ensure that you don’t overstay your welcome
determined it was appropriate to speak with Dave, I would be sure to never exceed the allotted time. And, after each conversation, I would report back to Mary so she knew what transpired. We did millions of dollars of business with their company, and Mary was a key element to each interaction. I often work with sales professionals who endlessly complain about the people they reach on the front lines for target clients. The salespeople whine that they can’t get “past the gauntlet” to reach the decision maker. So, why do some people have an easy time, and others have such a tough time? It comes down to three simple steps:
1. Their job is to project their boss’s time. The so-called gatekeeper’s job is to protect the executive from people who would waste their time. If your message is about you and not them, realize that you are not getting through. If you focus on the types of challenges you solve for similar clients, and you are specific about the short amount of time you would require to see if there is a fit, you might earn a few minutes to determine value. But, if you show up as a pushy salesperson talking about you or your company, you won’t be invited back; 2. Be honest. I was at home the other evening when a telemarketer called. They said “I’m not selling anything; I just wanted to ask you a few questions.”
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I responded “That’s too bad, I was hoping to make an impulse purchase, but I’ll have to get over it. What are your questions?” Nobody wants to buy from someone if the relationship starts off with a dishonest tactic. 3. Respect their position. The gatekeeper, executive assistant, receptionist, etc. wields incredible power. Many a salesperson has made the mistake of not treating their position with appropriate level of respect. Know their names, and wherever possible, ask them for their help: “Pat, I have been trying to reach Kathy for three months without success and I’m starting to look bad with my management. I don’t even know if we are a good fit, but within 5 minutes, Kathy and I will know whether or not we should
continue the conversation. For the right clients, the executives say we deliver exceptional value. What’s the best way for us to get that five minutes together, provided I stick to that timeframe?” When you ultimately reach the right person, be sure to give an honest assessment. If they do not have a need, or you don’t have a good fit, be direct in saying so. It will earn you the right to call on them in the future. In fact, they might even be inclined to refer you to someone who is facing that challenge. Don’t forget to circleback with the person who made it possible. Please share your gems for engaging the gatekeeper. I will stand by to respond to each idea.
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Ian Altman Ian Altman is the CEO of GrowMyRevenue.com. A speaker and author of Upside Down Selling, Ian helps companies become outrageously successful targeting and winning business.
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Six Ways to Generate a Seven Figure Income: Corporate Sponsorship By Christine Clifford Gain deeper penetration and accessibility to potential clients
Design benefits that attract corporations
Trade services such as compensation in exchange for putting up banners, signage, etc. Thus far, we’ve explored two out of six ways to generate a seven figure income: we’ve looked at becoming a Celebrity or Corporate Spokesperson (May, 2012) and we demonstrated numerous ways to use the media to gain notoriety and grow your business (June, 2012). This month we will look at developing corporate sponsorships. Corporate Sponsorship What exactly is “corporate sponsorship”? It’s when two companies come together— yours and theirs—to partner to gain wider distribution of products or services. You both benefit from such a relationship. If a related corporation or organization backs away from having you as a “Spokesperson,” present “Plan B”, which is to partner with that corporation for maximum exposure. By obtaining
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corporate sponsorship for your company, you in turn will provide their organization with deeper penetration and accessibility to potential clients that they could not obtain without utilizing your services. For example, I had corporate sponsorship with AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals for two years for my company The Cancer Club, which markets humorous and helpful products for people with cancer. By utilizing my public speaking and writing expertise, they were exposed to venues in markets that they might not have thought of, or may have had limited access to. They covered my full fee, expenses and public relations/media for events I spoke at on their behalf in the field of oncology. I, in turn, mentioned their sponsorship in all written materials, in verbal
acknowledgements and in point of purchase materials (banners, signage, hand-outs, give-always, etc.) that I put up on site for their products and services. The meeting planner for the venue, who was usually a client of both of ours (such as a hospital or oncology clinic) was relieved of the financial responsibilities for hiring a speaker and could concentrate on the facility, food & beverages, and the extracurricular activities for their event. Win, win, win. Develop Appealing Benefits Another of my companies, Divorcing Divas, hosts an annual all-day conference for people facing divorce. We structure various levels of corporate sponsorship from a $10,000 Presenting Sponsor to Platinum, Gold and Silver Sponsorships. We offer different benefits at each level of Sponsorship,
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depending on how much they spend, by offering different size ads in our event Program; providing links from our website to theirs; allowing them to bring a certain number of guests to the event; or featuring articles they’ve written in our free monthly eNewsletter. The benefit to them (attorneys, financial planners, realtors, psychologists, etc.) is that we have an audience—people facing divorce—that they want to reach. The benefit to us is that we then have the funds to stage a fabulous event, plus we get wider exposure for our event by having them promote us throughout their organization. Seek out companies that you think you could promote and partner with. It’s one of the ways to generate that seven figure income!
Christine Clifford, CSP Christine Clifford, CSP is an award-winning Professional Speaker, best-selling author of eight books including YOU, Inc. The Art of Selling Yourself, and consultant on branding and positioning. Visit her at www. christineclifford.com; linkedin. com/in/christineclifford; Follow her on Twitter. Don’t forget to ask! ™ Don’t forget to laugh! ™
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Wacky Marketing from the field
By Troy White
Timeless marketing and promotional tips from the weirdest of places.
What’s one of the most creative industries for fun promotions? …The sports industry. And YES, it does apply to you. No matter what field we are talking about (pun intended), the ideas behind these promotions could easily be changed to fit your own. The sports marketing industry is very creative and they have to draw a lot of people out to their games… so their marketing has got to be good! Imagine if you had to get 10,000 people to pay you money every single week or month… what would you do? Many with the marketing mindset aim for product launches and successful campaigns for single products. But what would you do if you had a weekly event to sell out that delivered pretty well the same experience? Here are some great ideas that sports teams have used to get people through the gates, money in hand. As you go through
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Unusual ways to get attention of those who matter most… your ideal buyers. Quick and dirty tips for standing out from the clutter that consumes your prospective clients.
these, PLEASE start thinking about how you could make one or more of them work in your business. I guarantee they could… if you try. The promotions could be • For a sale. • For a launch. • For a fun event. • For a customer appreciation party. • Just to get some free publicity. • As a co-operative promotion with other like-minded businesses • As a seminar or workshop • As a theme party you throw for all the photos and videos you could use Or any one of a hundred different incentives to get your customers and prospects interacting with you.
Wacky Marketing from the field • Bald head night: anyone who has their head shaved gets in for free. • Mustache Appreciation Night: Fresno Grizzlies fans were encouraged to grow mustaches. They also were incentivized to encourage their friends to contribute $ to a worthy cause as part of the promotion. Contests were also held for “best in show,” “best Tom Selleck look-alike,” and most pathetic attempt at a mustache. Great times – and great results. • Second Chance Night: Probation officers got in for free. As well, anyone who brought in a traffic ticket and promised to never do it again got in for free. • Kevin Federline Night: The first 3,000 fans got free temporary K-Fed tattoos. They also got to watch videos of K-Feds rise
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through the ranks, and a dance contest between the dance troop to which Kevin Federline once belonged and the Grizzlies’ mascot. • The Hagerstown (Maryland) Suns had a McDreamy Day: Everyone was encouraged to dress the medical part… and to know their medical lingo to win prizes. • What about Anger management night? Held by the Augusta (Georgia) Green Jackets. A rival team manager had a meltdown… so let’s turn it into a promotion! They offered the first 250 fans free stress balls and DVDs of the movie Anger Management. • [Look at all the new movies out and coming out on DVD - is there any way you can tie a promotion to the theme of the movie? The newest as of this week: 50/50, Money Ball, Abduction, Dolphin Tale, Lion King 3D, Courageous, Drive, Limelight, The Debt, to name just a few] • How can you go wrong with a Britney Spears promo? She certainly gives us all lots of great opportunity to make fun of her antics. The
Newark (New Jersey) Bears held a Britney Spears Baby Safety Night. Anyone who dressed as a baby, brought a baby toy, or brought an actual baby got in for free. Everybody else attending received a brochure about baby safety. • [NOTE: before you get uptight about how “hokey” or “unprofessional” these events sound... remember how many TICKETS they sold. Thousands and thousands of tickets sold per event. They didn’t worry about the “hokeyness” of the event... they cared about the newsworthy parts of the promotion only. News and buzz gets people talking about buying... these events did everything you and I should be aiming for!] • The San Antonio Missions held a Used Car Night and gave away a dozen luxury used automobiles randomly. • The Southwest Michigan Devil Rays had a College Course Giveaway Night. Each fan received a free three-credit course of their choice at nearby Kellogg Community College.
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• The Charleston RiverDogs minor league baseball team is a master at using wacky promotions to get people in the seats. Some of their events: a Run, Forrest, Run 5-K Race; My Hot Dog Is Green Night and Salute to the G-string Night in which select fans receive a G-string. • Get this… they even had a Vasectomy Night where a lucky male fan would win a vasectomy. That was canceled after management received complaints. Talk about getting some press! • One club even staged a Nobody Night, locking out fans at the door as the club attempted to set a minor league record for lowest attendance at a game. • Steal of a deal. Recessionary promotion gone wild with the Minnesota twins offering an entire season (81 games) for only $250. Comparable seats in New York go for $250 per seat – per game. • Hungry fans unite! The Athletics, Orioles, Rangers, Royals, Braves, Dodgers and Padres all have designated
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All-You-Can Eat sections for fans hungry to see more than a game. Ranging from $30 – $45 per person to eat their way through the game. • Musical fan fare. The Pirates have offered up REO Speedwagon and Collective Soul and the Marlins offer KC and the Sunshine Band. The Devil Rays have the most interesting series featuring The Commodores, Trace Adkins, Kool And The Gang, LL Cool J and MC Hammer. (Could you not offer something like this in any of your promotions with lesser know artists?) • Luring them in. The Twins promotion department hooked some new fans by offering a Joe Mauer fishing lure. Only available to the first 5,000 fans, this was a run away winner. How about some NON sports promotions? • What about the Beer-forBags event, in which the company promoted that they would accept beer for merchandise. They grew their sales by 20% using this promotion (as well as all the free publicity they received.) The company hopes to make
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“Beer For Bags” an annual event, as it is in Australia. • Gonigam’s World Furniture Mall near Chicago offered customers up to $10,000 of free furniture if the Chicago Bears shut out the Green Bay Packers (which they did). The company had prize reimbursement insurance to cover their backs. They saw huge traffic growth to their site and an increasing amount of new sales to people who never bought from them before.
Star, National Enquirer, The Globe, etc (those are the ones the majority of the population reads… and you should be finding a way to tie into them!) All it takes is some effort – and the results could be exceptional. You won’t know until you try… right?
• Long John Silver’s offered to give customers free “Giant Shrimp” if NASA found conclusive evidence of an ocean on Mars. This is a great list you could use anytime you need a promotion. The key is to MAKE IT FIT I realize 99% of those who read this article are NOT in the sports marketing business. So what? Why can’t you put some time and effort into this list and find some ways to use these ideas? Keep your eyes on the local news, industry news, Hollywood movies, strange trends, technology trends, and pretty well anything you see on the covers of the magazines like
Troy White Turning Your Words Into Wealth http://blog. smallbusinesscopywriter.com
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10 Ways To Boost Your E-Commerce Sales By Mark Rocket
Online stores are a rapidly expanding sector of the retail market and fast becoming a focus for many businesses. With many digital payment methods and e-Commerce site bases available, it’s not as hard as you might think to add this functionality to your website. However, online retail marketing requires a different tack to its physical counterpart, and this article will go over 10 ways to make sure you’re getting maximum sales. These techniques include:
1. Build focus on main products
• Focusing your sales strategy and directing customers.
2. Write great copy for your items
• Creating engaging content and images.
With no physical salesman there to make a pitch, the writing that accompanies your products should do the same job. If you write passionately and credibly, customers will be much more engaged than with a standard description. Furthermore they won’t have anyone to ask questions, so make sure all the information they might need including a clear picture is readily available.
• Improving the customer experience. • Maximising each sale. • Marketing your web store. • Experimenting and improving your techniques. The best way to think about online retail marketing is that it’s a balance between internet and product marketing techniques. Here are ten useful tips for improving product sales:
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Of course, one of the biggest advantages of e-commerce is that you can display a huge range of stock quickly and easily, but this degree of choice can easily become excessive. By directing them towards one or a few products in particular (by featuring only them on the main page, for example) you give them something to focus their attention on and consider.
3. Up sell. Just like you would in a physical store, indicate
matching or accompanying products that the customer may also be interested in. However, also just like a physical store, you don’t want to be too obnoxious or it will have the opposite of the intended effect. 4. Answer any queries immediately The biggest thing that people are wary of when online shopping is dealing with a “robot” or some far-off corporation with no human face to deal with. Prove this isn’t the case by dealing with any enquiries swiftly, with a friendly, non-automated answer. Having a local phone number manned by real staff also helps. 5. Think like a customer Who is the person that is coming to your site, and what do they want out of it? If they’re buying this product, what other products might they also be interested in? Are they looking for a businesslike, formal tone, or something more light hearted and friendly? You need to know your audience in order to sell to them.
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6. Check website statistics regularly Google Analytics provides detailed information on which pages are being visited and where people are losing interest in the sales process. Use this to find the weak link in your strategy.
9. Get visual Just like physical retail, many customers will do their shopping based on site alone. Large, good quality images that fully display the items as well as engaging photos and illustrations will pull readers in. 10. Format for attention
7. Keep the customer happy Being online isn’t an excuse to shirk on customer care. Send emails to confirm orders and update the status of shipping, and send a human response to any questions that come your way. Thank the customer afterwards for making a purchase, and offer to send follow-up emails about other products. 8. Use viral marketing techniques Create incentives for customers to share and recommend your website to their friends. These could include a few very limited deals that are so good they get spread naturally, or discounts or rewards for referring paying customers to the shop.
Similarly, the text on your website should be arranged and formatted to target skimming readers. Walls of text will be ignored in favour of bullet lists, headings and subheadings and varying text alignments. This is particularly essential on any main or landing page. For those used to physical retail techniques, it can be a bit of an adjustment to start incorporating online marketing strategies as well. With such a rapidly growing market however, it’s a process that is worth doing correctly. Revise your copy and images, put yourself in the customer’s shoes and ensure your store is easily to access and browse. Above all, monitor your progress and if something doesn’t work, change it. If it does, add it to your new e-Commerce strategy.
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Mark Rocket Mark Rocket is an Internet entrepreneur and space enthusiast. Mark kicked off Avatar, a web design and marketing company, in 1998 and the web directory NZS.com in 2000. Mark also co-founded New Zealand Tourism Online in 1998 and the company was purchased by Telecom Yellow Pages in 2006. Mark was the first Kiwi to book a ticket with Virgin Galactic and has a broad network within the international space community. He is passionate about developing the commercial space industry and is a former Company Director and investor of Rocket Lab. Currently Mark resides in Christchurch and enjoys his ongoing cyberspace adventures with Avatar and NZS.com.
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Building Your Marketing Funnel the Right Way!
By Rachel Henke
Avoid Get Rich Quick Tactics or Pay the Price!
Instant Tips to Develop Your Online Marketing Strategy
Choose a Solid Web Platform for Long Term Success Why Get Rich Quick Tactics Will Cost You I don’t know about you but I’m really tired of hearing about ‘get rich quick’ and ‘quick fix’, short term marketing strategies. I set out, a couple of years ago, to build a marketing funnel that will last and thankfully I’ve survived the Google slaps and all kinds of weird and wonderful challenges online. If you listen to people who teach gimmicks & tactics, you’ll repeatedly have to start again and learn the latest trick to be able to stay in business. Far better to create a solid foundation with an online marketing funnel that lasts and will allow you to develop your brand as your knowledge and success grows. Choose a Solid Web Platform Wordpress.org is the platform
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that enables you to easily create your website, blog, capture and sales pages, aka your marketing funnel. There are themes that make this even easier to do with absolutely no html or coding knowledge, which means that online marketing is accessible to all now. Marketing strategy is another important element for you to study and put in place. You need to identify your niche and your profitable niche keywords if you’re not clear on that yet. You’ll also need to think about your brand and how you’re going to connect with your ideal clients. How will you generate visitors to your site? How will you incorporate social media into your plan and will you also do some paid advertising?
It’s getting more and more challenging to be able to run paid adverts on Facebook and Google, so it really is essential to create a client attractive marketing funnel with all the key elements in place so that you rank high on the search engines for free. When you have a strong foundation for your internet empire you’ll be able to build your list with, or without, paid advertising. There are many ways to do so, and you’ll need to create your marketing game plan once your marketing funnel is in place. What value are you giving and how are you delivering it? A special report or audio is a great way to build your list, as people will just click away and forget about you if you don’t give them a good reason to leave their details and sign up to hear from you again.
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Capturing your visitors’ details is important because most people never buy on the first visit to your website. Using wordpress and a user friendly wordpress theme will help you to more easily create a highly converting marketing funnel that will give you a bullet proof platform for your niche business.
Implement some simple content and copywriting strategies Add in some simple content and copywriting know-how so that you can connect with your target audience in the right way for your brand, and you are ready to rock.
Rachel Henke Rachel is the author of The Niche Expert and founder of Rachel Henke Global where she helps entrepreneurs & small business owners create online businesses they love. Rachel ‘broke free’ of the corporate world when she started her first home based business. In 2007, tired of being out the house & away from her
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Build for the long term so you’re not a flash in the pan! Don’t waste time with tactics – build for the long term, and create your marketing funnel step by step, and you’ll still be around in your profitable niche many years from now.
children so much, she turned to the internet & social media & attracted a global following and became what she calls ‘an accidental expert!’ Rachel is an entrepreneur, author and online niche marketing coach. To receive Rachel’s free video series, ‘3 Keys to Creating an Online Business You Love’ visit http://www.Rachelhenke.com
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How to Master the Integration of Your Sales and Marketing Department Pre and Post Merger: Understand the Target’s Customer Marketing and Sales Mind-set By Thomas H Kessler Overview of the M&A lifecycle Downloadable detailed guide of what to do during the M&A lifecycle
As Fred was returning from his briefing with Michael O´Keen, CEO and the founder of the company, his mind was spinning. His task was to prepare a short and precise presentation about the six most important steps in integrating the sales and marketing department for a board workshop. The six steps are: 1. Understand the target’s customer marketing and sales mind-set. 2. Analyze the new market situation and key changes required. 3. Define the marketing strategies to be implemented post merger.
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Strategic selection criteria for an acquisition target, from the sales and marketing perspective Guide for conducting a Board of Directors briefing
4. Understand and consolidate the marketing function. 5. Co-ordinate and confirm the combined promotional effort. 6. Develop an integrated sales department for the new business. How to extract the value in the deal Step one and two were important steps, as he had learned from past experience. They, in his mind, determined whether the purchase of the business would be a good fit and would generate value if integrated well. A careful exploration prior to the acquisition could increase the chance of generating solid
growth significantly. Steps four and six were important as they were critical in order to retain those people who would generate growth, and thus value. How not to buy and integrate a company Boyden Chemicals, his former employer, a large Australian diversified chemicals company, had acquired Becket, the company at which he had started his career. Boyden felt Becket would be a good extension to their existing product lines, so they pitched for the business. This was Fred’s first time, being involved in an M&A transaction. He learned that acquiring a business was not only;
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a) Selecting a business that was up for sale and seemingly a good fit strategically. b) Doing some due diligence to check if the financials, tax positions and the legal situation were solid. c) Buying it, then implementing just a couple of integration initiatives, focused primarily on cost reductions. Not really! To the contrary! There were several steps that were paramount to ensure value generation before and after the deal. Fred felt that the best way to start the board presentation was a short overview of the major steps in the M&A life cycle, followed by a precise description of each step. “I should highlight what needs to be done before the board signs off on the deal and what we need to do afterwards, particularly afterwards.” His understanding from the conversation with Michael
showed that the board needed more clarification on what needed to be done in order to extract the value from the deal. He was clearly going to make the point that he did not want to be part of what he called the “Boyden” style of M&A. Identify! Buy! Throw it over the wall to the “operation guys” to deal with it! All too often he had heard the COO at Boyden say “Look it was our job to buy the business – it is your job to make money off of it”. Key sales people from Becket, most of them long standing friends of his, had jumped ship right after the deal was completed and Boyden announced that a major goal of the transaction was to eliminate duplicative cost and that they would expect a significant revenue increase through reorganizing the sales force under their leadership. However, there was no plan behind it. People were expected to accept new superiors and do business the Boyden style or
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leave the company. Frustration mounted, and Fred remembered how he had tried to start one integration initiative after the other to stop the bleeding in the sales and marketing department, but after a year and a half of endless discussions and many frustrating meetings he had just given up trying and started looking for a new position himself. Obviously with the attrition in sales people, the number of customer relationships defecting to the competition had mounted, and Becket was far from even coming close to its prior revenue levels. Quality had deteriorated and overall moral was at the lowest levels in years. The M&A lifecycle To avoid this scenario Fred was going structure the presentation as a workshop. The first item on the agenda was to give a short overview of the M&A lifecycle, demonstrating that there were three key steps of the deal, post signing, that needed significant
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board commitment for the transaction to be successful. For a full detailed chart with explanations of what needs to be done from an integration point of view during each step of the M&A lifecycle please click here Step 1: Strategic Selection The M&A life cycle was going to introduce the board to the main phases from an integration perspective. The first phase, the “Strategic Selection” phase was to focus the attention towards creating one common vision about the deal. Thus Fred would highlight the four most important steps with his key objective, to align potentially differing positions among the management towards one vision about the value in the deal. The four steps are: • Growth objectives.
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• Strategic fit. • M&A Mission-Vision. • High level integration focus. Growth objectives Michael O’Keen’s briefing was very valuable, as it had given Fred a sense of why the board was looking at the deal. With Fred’s knowledge about Southwest Tubing, he knew immediately that, beyond adding new product lines, the acquisition would also enable his company to open alternative distribution channels and to service additional locations. Strategic Fit Beyond the growth objective, Fred needed to pursue a discussion around strategic fit, largely from a marketing and sales perspective. His main objective was to reach a consensus on the various components that would indicate the company was a strategic fit.
Alternatively it would provide them with a list of the key questions to investigate further. What focus was Southwest Tubing’s marketing department pursuing? • Was it more focused around promoting the brand or specifically pushing product sales through campaigns? • What was the mix of both activities? • How cohesive was the marketing department internally? • How strong is the public perception of Southwest Tubing’s advertising and marketing communications? How was the sales force organized? • Where they structured by region, products and distribution channels? • How solidly where they
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involved in new product development?
• How capable were they in pushing new products into the market?
• How will Southwest Tubing use such results for continuous improvement?
What was the culture in the company?
Which marketing KPI’s was the company using?
• What strategies did they use to fuel their growth?
• Was it highly marketing driven?
• How successful was their marketing and sales planning?
• How strongly was market share ingrained in peoples mind?
• How were they integrated with the compensation schemes of the sales and marketing staff?
• What training needs would be there for his firm?
• Had they invested significantly in their brand?
How in tune with customer needs was the new product development?
• What was the market perception of Southwest Tubing?
• How frequently did the new product team dialogue with sales and customers?
• How strongly was the effectiveness of the marketing and sales department measured?
• How strong was their ability to build and retain customer relationships?
• Did they gain insights from the marketing information systems for new products? How effectively was Southwest Tubing’s distribution organized? • Was there any issue with delivery times?
Did they benchmark themselves regularly against the competition? • What information where they looking at in those benchmarks?
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• Were they used at all to drive the company’s direction? Had anyone on the board thought about revenue enhancement opportunities that could be generated from the deal? Synthesis: the merger vision Fred was planning to synthesise the answers during the discussions, to develop a clear merger vision that was measurable and value oriented. Focusing on what is necessary for the integration during the strategic selection
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In addition he was going to focus on singling out obvious integration challenges and important information that needed to be used for the internal and external communication strategy. Furthermore, he planned to emphasis the need for training the sales and marketing staff, as he felt this was a major stepping-stone towards fusing both groups together. However, probably most important to all involved
was a good discussion on how to join both sales and marketing departments from an organizational point of view.
requirements for the remaining phases because he wanted the board’s undivided attention on those critical initial points.
With this agenda Fred felt he had built a solid foundation for keeping the initial discussion on those topics that were important for the board to consider. He had decided to take the board step by step through the M&A life cycle, to keep the focus on what was most relevant at the time, knowing full well that he had not touched on a lot of the
To be continued next month with … “Analyze the new market situation and key changes required.”
Thomas H Kessler
covers telecom services and equipment, basic chemicals, capital goods, automotive suppliers, financial services and a broad variety of technology subsectors. Tom frequently speaks on the topic internationally.
Thomas H Kessler is founder and head of M&A integration at Kessler Praxis Consult, a consulting firm that specializes in M&A integration and member of Global PMI Partners. He has previously worked with clients in the US, Europe and Asia. His industry experience
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Why local advertising still rocks for small businesses By Dee Blick
The groundwork you must do before you advertise
Why it pays to negotiate
The fact finding needed before you commit Many small businesses embark on a rather hit and miss approach to their advertising, whether their sights are set on a local publication, or they’re aiming for the nationals. Whether you’re thinking big or small in the advertising stakes, you must think before you act. Why do you want to advertise? Don’t make the decision simply because you’re doing well or are worrying about a lack of sales. Decision made, you have the challenge of creating a benefit driven advert that will attract readers sufficiently for them to get in touch with you. Steer clear of creating the ad yourself. Dig out the number of the designer you’ve been meaning to call so you are putting your best foot forward from the word go. So, when I’m asked if local advertising works, my answer is ‘yes, but ...’
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The publication must have sufficient readers in the market to buy the products or services being advertised, or alternatively readers must be key influencers in the decision making and purchasing process. Ask the editorial team for a profile of their readers before you commit. Look at your customer base. Are there similarities between their readers and your customers? The distribution of the publication must be thorough and targeted. There’s a world of difference between a hand-delivered publication that reaches the desks or the doormats of readers and one that’s left for people to grab as they walk by. Again, ask the editorial team for their distribution channels and the number of publications that are distributed.
The content of the publication has to be relevant and engaging. If it’s crammed with wall-to-wall advertising and there’s not a glimmer of informative and punchy editorial that will appeal to the profile of readers chances are it will be skimmed before landing in the bin. It will have a reputation for being a thin read with little value. Review a copy of the publication, making a note of the editorial pages and the quality of the adverts. If the magazine looks shabby and unprofessional, you have to question whether you want your business to be associated with it. We are judged by the company we keep. The size of the advert must be big enough for you to communicate those compelling messages that will motivate people to respond. An advert the size of a postage stamp may be adequate for a takeaway, especially if they use the space
for a voucher, but if you have a more complicated product or service you need more space. The cost of advertising has to be reasonable. Calculate the total cost of advertising including design and copywriting fees. Then work out exactly how much business, new introducers or new clients you will need to get from advertising to cover those costs and tip you into profit. If the figures look impossible, you’re better off saving your money. Be prepared to negotiate. Most publications will offer you standard rate card. If you don’t negotiate, that’s what you’ll pay. Negotiate, starting with a price that seems very low. You can always move upwards! If the publication won’t offer a discount, ask if they can offer some additional editorial or an increase in the size of your advert. This can work particularly well when the
publication is nearing deadline date and they want to fill the empty space in the magazine but time is marching against them! Don’t dismiss the idea of advertising in free local magazines. For many businesses, especially trades people and retailers, local advertising can be a gateway to an army of new customers on their doorstep. You can usually get a feel for whether your business will be successful advertising in a particular publication by flicking through it and noting how many of your competitors are in there. The costs of advertising in a free publication are usually very reasonable which, of course, lessens the risk. Fewer new customers are required to cover your costs and move you into profit.
Dee Blick
Fellow of The Chartered Institute of Marketing. 27 years’ marketing experience. Won 10 copywriting awards. Author: The Ultimate Small Business Marketing Book. Genuine Amazon 1 best seller with 67 5 star reviews.
Is local advertising on your agenda?
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10 Principles For Winning Website Content By Terry Dean
Content marketing is the currency for free online traffic. Find out how to take best advantage of it
How to grab attention with your emails, blog, and social media even in a competitive marketplace
You need more than content. You need to establish a connection with your audience for online sales Content is similar to currency online. It opens doors for you. It brings in visitors from both search and social sites. It becomes a foundation to the relationship you’re building with your visitors, subscribers, and customers online. Here are 10 quick tips for using content marketing on the web today to draw in more visitors and sales. 1. Own Your Content The home base for your content must be a website you own. It can be Wordpress, Joomla, or any other content management system, but it must be on a domain you control. Facebook, Blogger, Twitter, and other social media sites aren’t owned by you. Don’t build your business on them. Build a profile. Share your content there, but your home base is at your website.
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Even Youtube has kicked out business owners with zero warning and sometimes no explanation. Have a home for your content. Then expand out from your home by sharing across the web. 2. Find Your Message This is your core message and the story behind your business. What primary benefits can you help people achieve? And how does your viewpoint differ from others in your market? Everyone wants an audience. Get a message. The message attracts the right audience to you. 3. Stay Consistent With Your Brand Once you find your message, stay consistent with it. Keep coming back to it in the content
you produce. Here’s a key element that many business owners forget. The content you’re sharing is leading somewhere. It’s leading people to become customers and clients of yours. You’re often better off eliminating the overt pitch. Instead be subtle while sharing and adding value to people’s lives, but stay with your core message of the benefits you provide. 4. Share your content on social media. Take advantage of the extra exposure social media can bring to your content. Share your content on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Linkedin, and others. The center of everything is your website, but these are additional spokes to the wheel. Grow your email lists and customer lists first, but also
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grow your followers, likes, and other contacts. Every social media site is another entry point into your content funnel. 5. Connect with other brands & websites. You’re not an island. Find ways to team up with others. Write a guest post for a popular blog in your field, linking it back to your website. One of the best ways to generate traffic is to create a list of influential bloggers in your field. Write a short comment about each and the content they produce, along with linking to their site. This is one of the best introductions you can make, when they see the visitors coming over from your site in their stats. And what happens if they decide to share this post with their audience?
6. Write For Your Customers You’re not writing for everyone. You’re writing for your customers and your future customers. You can’t and shouldn’t please everyone. Some people won’t like you. So what? Be bold with your message. Attract your audience. Be controversial. And be willing to “turn off” the people who shouldn’t be your customers anyway. 7. Share Yourself. Your audience is overwhelmed by content. You need more than content. You need a connection. Tell stories from your life. If someone has read 5 emails or posts from you and still doesn’t have a clue about your hobbies, interests, your family, etc., you’re missing out on an opportunity.
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Share your opinions on the industry. Use analogies from a hobby. Remember connection, not just content. My Facebook timeline for example includes my photo, my wife, and my two dogs along with a background of a waterfall from a local area we hike at. 8. Grab Attention With Headlines Concentrate on your headlines. Grab attention. My best results are usually a mixture of benefit + curiosity. What’s the best way to come up with great ideas? Pull ideas from what’s already working. Here are some sites with incredible headlines to model: www.digg.com, www.aol.com, www.weeklyworldnews.com. The front cover of any popular magazine is another secret weapon. The cover blurbs are
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highly researched and popular topics that draw interest in the market. 9. Write in simple terms It doesn’t matter if your audience is full of rocket scientists, they’re in a hurry when they’re online. Everyone feels rushed online because there are so many places they can go and more content is just a click away. Write in short sentences and short paragraphs. Eliminate jargon. Add white space. Make it easy to read and understand. 10. Become a reader. The best writers are voracious readers. They can’t get enough. Personally, I can tell when I haven’t been reading as much as usual. It’s tougher to come up
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with the ideas. They just don’t flow as well. Fill yourself up and it’s easy to share. Everything that happens in our life and business becomes a possible story to tell. These are just 10 principles to getting started with content. What other tips do you have to share? What concepts have created a content marketing breakthrough for you? Put it in the comments below.
Terry Dean Terry is a former pizza delivery driver and experienced Internet coach since 1996, coaches entrepreneurs to Earn More, Work Less, and Enjoy Life!
Content (or article marketing) is aedit
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The 5 Principles of Retail By Antony Welfare
Five important retail principles.
Principle 1: The customer is the most important person The customer holds the key to every successful retailer, and to master an understanding of your customer there are many processes and procedures you could follow. Based on my 20 years of experience in a number of different retail businesses, this article will help you to make your business customerfocused, and realise the potential you have to make your retail business a success. Therefore, the main retail principle to master is about the customer; the customer should be the centre of your business and everything you do must revolve around that customer. Knowing them, and focusing on them in everything you do, will help you grow your business and your team. The Customer is King. Principle 2: Retail is detail One of the most famous principles in retailing is, of course, ‘Retail is detail.’ This is where the challenge lies: how do you become more
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Using these will help you achieve your potential in retail.
detailed and what detail should you focus on? You need to address and improve your understanding of your customer, and the details of running a retail business. Every retailer must focus on the detail and get the detail right the majority of the time. Mistakes are OK, but you must learn from them, and not repeat them. Customers will allow you some mistakes, but too many will turn them away; understanding the detail is a key skill to master in retail. Principle 3: Understand the 4 Ps This is a very old principle but still has validity. The 4 Ps: Product, Price, Place, Promotion are the main areas you need to perfect for a customer, to provide them with the basic foundations of a successful retail business. Product – You need products that your customer wants to buy and a product range that will satisfy your customers’ needs, wants and desires. The products must also deliver a profit for you to have a successful business.
Price – Price must be consistent across the whole marketing mix and meet all requirements for your business. You need to price your product range at the correct level for the customers to be able to buy your products, and for them to gain value from your products. This could mean pricing high or low – this very much depends upon your customer offering. Place – You must provide somewhere for your customers to purchase your product, be that a physical store, a catalogue or an E-commerce website; there needs to be a place for the customer to visit (in person or virtually). Promotion – Once you have a product – at the right price, in a place where the customer can access it – you need to tell them about this and promote your business and your products; make sure your customers know that you and your products exist and are available for them to enjoy.
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Principle 4: Go the extra mile for your customer Providing great customer service starts with understanding and knowing your customer Having a total focus on the customer is the start, but to provide ‘worldclass customer service’, you and your team must continually go the extra mile for the customer, each time delivering just a little more than they expect. Doing this each time you and your team interact with your customers will win them over and make them loyal over a long period of time. Principle 5: Location, Location, Location We mentioned Place above and the final retail principle that is important is: Location, Location, Location. History has dictated that this is one of the most important factors in the success of a physical store and still, to this day, it will have a major impact on your success. The best location of your store will be dictated to by your brand and product strategies – i.e. what you intend to sell will affect the location of your store. For
example, a supermarket operation needs a car park and a high fashion store needs to be in a high fashion area that attracts the right customers for the store. I would argue that location has less effect now than previously, due to two main factors: the first being the flexibility of the customers; now we often travel more, to more varied locations than historically.
world is growing significantly and with new technologies, such as iPads and mcommerce (using mobile devices to access the internet and buy products), will continue to change the shape and opportunities in the world of retail.
Secondly, and most importantly, the internet has changed our shopping habits and will continue to do so. The internet and E-commerce websites have opened up the world of ‘nongeographic’ retail – a retail world without the need to visit the physical store. The emergence of ‘etail’ from ‘Retail’ has been the biggest change over the last 20 years and will continue to transform retail over the next 20 years and more.
Antony has been a retail expert for over 20 years, with experience from Marks & Spencer, Sainsburys, Dixons Retail and Homebase.
Antony Welfare
• Author – The Retail Handbook • Retail Management BSc Hons • 20 Years in Retail • Large Retailer experience
You will notice that ‘etail’ has always been part of the word ‘Retail.’ The journey from retail to etail has been quick, and we need to embrace the world of etail and ensure we understand its effects on our customers, today and in the future. The etail
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• Online Retail & Social Media expert • International experience
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7 Unique Ways to Get Massive Exposure from Your Articles By Jessica Swanson
As a small business owner, writing is a key component of marketing. However, simply writing an article and submitting it to top article directories isn’t enough. Discover how to: • Guarantee that your articles are working overtime for you. • Ensure that each article you write creates traffic back to your website. • Find dozens of underutilized, yet highly effective places to publish your articles. Discover how to ensure that each article you create brings you a heavy flow of traffic, new leads and interested prospects. As a small business owner, you understand the value of writing articles that educate and inspire your potential clients and customers. Therefore, you write an article and submit it to a few of the top article directories. Your article gets a few views and perhaps even a click or two back to your website.
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And, this is where reality sets in. You’ve just spent an hour or two writing an article that only brought you a measly trickle of traffic back to your website. It’s pretty safe to assume that you are not enjoying the process of writing articles. But, don’t give up too quickly. If you’re going to take the time to write an article, you just need to make sure that it works overtime for you. In other words, you want your articles generating massive exposure with the potential of bringing in hundreds of new visitors to your website. Here are 7 unique ways for creating extra exposure from your articles: 1. Offer to write guest blog posts. There are thousands of blogs actively looking for guest blog posts. You can either start by researching blogs in your industry through a blog directory such as Technorati or, you can join a service such as Blogger
Linkup that connects blogs and guest bloggers. 2. Submit guest articles to ezines. Start by searching for ezines that cater directly to your target market. You can find thousands of ezines at Jogena, the Ezine Directory or the Directory of Ezines. Subscribe to them and find out which of them accept guest articles. Contact the ezine publishers with a sample article that they can use in upcoming issues. 3. Research niche article directories. You’re probably familiar with the big article directories. However, most small business owners can find niche article directories that are specific to their target market. To find appropriate article directories within your industry perform a Google search using “your target market” + “article directory.”
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4. Offer to write for associations. There are hundreds of associations that are eager for content to offer to their members. Search for these associations through Google by typing in “your target market” + “association.” 5. Submit to document sharing sites. Turn your article into a .pdf document and upload it to document sharing sites such as
Scribd, Issuu or Docshare. 6. Upload to ebook directories. Take a few of your related articles and turn them into a 10-12 page eBook. Upload your eBook to e-book directories like Free-ebooks 7. Rebrand your eBook.
own, giving them incentive to distribute your eBooks to their own network. You can use a software program such as ViralPDF So, the next time that you write an article, make sure that it brings you massive exposure and hundreds of leads to your small business.
Rebranding your eBook is a way to help it go viral. This means that you let your readers change the affiliate-links to their
Jessica Swanson Jessica is the Founder and President of Shoestring Marketing University and Shoestring Marketing Solutions.
turns them upside-down, and makes them incredibly simple and outrageously straightforward.
Jessica has helped thousands of small business owners, all over the world, implement lowcost, high-impact marketing campaigns.
Known for her energy, passion and “get-it-done” attitude, Jessica shares her savvy marketing tips through her information-packed blog at www. ShoestringMarketingUniversity. com
Armed with years of teaching and a M.S. in Written Communications, Jessica takes complicated marketing concepts,
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GETTING TO KNOW YOU: PRICING PROPHETS Small business hasn’t had access to much good pricing information and advice in the past. Most people think that there is only one option when pricing their product or service. You work out the cost to manufacture a product, or the number of hours involved in delivering a service, add a percentage for the profit you would like to make and voila! You have your price. Talking to pricing expert Jon Manning to find out more about pricing strategy, we quickly learnt that value based pricing is far more effective. 1. What inspired you to start PricingProphets? What are you goals and values? In mid 2010, I was at a networking event where there were speakers talking about crowd-sourcing. Although, I wasn’t one of the speakers, I was asked a question about pricing and crowdsourcing. After the talk had finished, someone approached me and said “I’m selling this product, but I’m about to launch that product, what do I charge for it?” At that moment I realised that people had been asking me that question for over 20 years, and rather than answering “that depends”, I could provide a more specific answer if I created a platform that crowd-sourced the answer. [NB: crowdsourcing is an online movement where you get ‘crowd’ of people to solve a problem, such as, in the case of PricingProphets, what price to charge]
2. What was the driving force behind your decision to specialise in the pricing strategy sector?
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I have worked in pricing for almost all my working life, and it started by accident rather than design. My first job was in the oil industry checking the prices on invoices, and wondering where those prices came from. I don’t think anyone has solved that mystery yet. I then started pricing catering, and quickly worked out where those prices were coming from: the addition of costs, plus a desired profit margin. After that I moved into pricing airfares, where prices are primarily driven by the competition. And for the last ten years, I’ve been consulting to a wide range of companies, assisting then with pricing on the basis of value, rather than costs or the competitions.
3. What experience do you have helping small business clients? SME’s are the type of clients I like the best. I’ve helped many over the years, ranging from homebased business, entrepreneurs with start-up businesses, as well as retailers and wholesalers. Some of their products include
marketing and music recording services, websites and technology products, through to fresh flowers. The great thing about working with SME’s is that you can make a difference to the bottle line very quickly, and without having to worry about the bureaucratic baggage that comes with a large firm. You usually end up with both a relationship and a friendship with the people in the business as well.
4. Do you service other sectors as well? Of course! You know, one of the misconceptions of a lot of people is that you need pricing experience in their particular industry to be able to help them. This could not be further from the truth. People don’t ask an accountant if they have experience in their industry: 80% of what they need to do they are trained in, and the other 20% is worked out from the financial transactions they crunch for the client. The same applies in
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pricing…perhaps even more so, as we know what sort of pricing works in business markets or consumer markets.
5. What are the main reasons that someone would choose PricingProphets to assist with developing their business? There are several reasons clients use PricingProphets: • They realise that an incorrect pricing decision can mean the difference between profit and loss, but they have no idea where to start; • They think they are charging the right price, but they’re not quite sure, and they would like to validate the price, or; • They are going to be grilled on their pricing strategy by an investor or venture capitalist, and they want to speak from a position of informed authority.
6. What process, service and support do your clients receive? So using PricingProphets is relatively simple. The first step is to create a log-on and complete a simple, once-only business profile. Once that’s done, a client can run a project, which involves answering around 40 questions on the product they
want priced. That seems a lot of questions, but most are relatively straightforward. Clients then pay for the project, we do our stuff, and in about 7 days the client gets and email telling them the results are available to online to view or print. One of my personal dislikes is websites run by people who don’t want to talk to their customers. We’re happy to chat, and support is available on every step of the journey, either by email, telephone Skype or even Twitter.
7. What challenges did you face in setting up the business? I’m a very optimistic person, and I don’t believe in ‘problems’ or ‘challenges’, only solutions. So the biggest ‘challenge’ associated with setting up PricingProphets was self-imposed. I set my partner and myself a deadline of 100 days to set up the business and build the website. Did we achieve the target? No! The Australian Tax Office took longer than expected to give us our tax file number, and it took us 101 days.
8. Tell us about some of the expectations that you had. Have they been met? I tend to find people in business fall into one of two camps: those
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that have business plans and those that do not. I’m closer to the latter. I don’t have a formal, written business plan, other than the one in my head. There are two reasons for that. The first is that I can change direction quickly, without having to worry about that change of direction being in my business plan (or not). And secondly, if my expectations are not documented, then there is no disappointment if they are not achieved…but we are happy with the progress we’ve made with PricingProphets so far.
9. Who is the target market for your business? We’ve built the service for the hundreds of thousands of SME’s who have no dedicated pricing resources, who can’t afford to attend pricing workshops or conferences, who can’t afford expensive pricing research alternatives, such as focus groups or conjoint analysis, and who want to ditch cost-plus pricing.
10. Do you provide services nationally? Absolutely. Obviously Melbourne is our home market, but half of the projects we’ve completed to date have been for clients outside of Victoria.
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11. Do you have any plans for overseas expansion? That process has already started as well. We already have experts in (Australia, NZ, the USA, the UK, Singapore, India and the Netherlands), We’ve also completed projects for clients in the US and India, as well as Australia.
about safety, the schools were his channel-to-market, and if he priced his service as a percentage of school fees, there was only one way his revenue would go: up!
Watch Jon Manning, Founder & Managing Director of PricingProphet.com talking about Pricing and PricingProphets.com on Sky News Tech Report (2nd April 2012)
12. What would you say to someone looking to grow and develop his or her business? I’ve got a couple of tips. Firstly, look to partner with organisations that have already got the clients you want. It’s a lot more cost effective than going after all those clients individually. Secondly, identify companies that are either upstream or downstream from your business (i.e. what do your clients buy before and after they buy from you) and work with them. Finally, and not everybody can do this, but if you can, adopt a pricing model that grows with your clients’ business. One of the projects we recently completed on PricingProphets was for a company selling a safety services to parents of school children. The experts suggested the client stop selling the service to the parents and start selling it to the schools. It would not only make the schools look concerned
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Some more useful links...
Jon Manning Jon Manning has over two decades of global pricing management experience, and is the mastermind behind PricingProphets.com. To speak to Jon for further information you can email him at; jon@pricingprophets.com or phone 0405 629 141 (International +61 (0)405-629-141)
Ten Things Every Accountant (and their Clients) Should Know About Pricing
Find us online; http://www.PricingProphets.com
Youtube; http://www.youtube.com/user/ PricingProphets
Our Free Online Pricing Diagnostic & Newsletter Subscription; http://www.pricingprophets.com/ pricediag.php
Ten Things Every Entrepreneur Should Know About Pricing
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