I recentely started twittering ( follow me: promopower ) and it's an interesting challenge to create a message within the 140 character limitation.
It's a great test of copy writing skills, actually. It's a little bit like the old question: Can you fit it on a t-shert?
I highly recommend writing short messages. I still belive in long copy to make a complicated sale. But to keep in touch with your market and to establish yourself as a thought leader, succinct messages... Tweets... that people can read in a few seconds have become one of the most effective ways to make it happen.
Consumer confidence is at an all-time low. Businesses are cutting their expenses to the bone. So how are you supposed to sell anything to anyone in these challenging times?
The first thing I want you to do is get focused. It may sound counterintuitive to say that you should shrink your market at a time like this. People haven't stopped buying. They've stopped buying promiscuously. They're not taking big risks with their money.
That means they want to buy from specialists. Experts. If you are trying to be all things to all people, you're not resonating with anyone.
So tighten your definitition of a target customer. Who is your ideal customer? They're the people who want your number one product or service. They're the ones that will get the best results from it. They're the ones that will read the instructions and follow them... and the product or service will absolutely work for them.
Stop marketing to the fringes. Concentrate on the people you built your business to serve in the first place. Contact them often and keep your communications on message so they know you've built your business for them specifically.
You'll bring in more business and take home more money, even in challenging times.
If ever there was a time to be negotiating (and renegotiating) contracts with vendors for the coming year, now is it.
Before you read further, I want to state this: You should not look at this as an opportunity to take advantage of anyone. You should be looking to make deals that benefit both parties.
Let’s start with all of the places where you buy marketing support and/or advertising. The newspaper, your web site host, mailing house, radio and TV stations... anyone who has been receiving revenue from you on a regular basis is fair game.
They’re losing advertisers and customers right and left. If you come in with an offer for a longer contract but a lower per-unit rate, they’re going to go for the long term commitment. And don’t feel like you’re limited to their rate card. Make an offer - everything is negotiable. You’re not taking advantage of anyone, you’re creating a win-win deal.
Now look at your lease. How soon does it expire? If it’s within the next 18 months or so, it might be worth talking to Mr. Landlord. He’s losing tenants, if not now, soon. A new 5 year lease would give him one less space to lose sleep over. That’s worth some concession.
Let’s see, who else? How about your lawn care and/or snow removal service? Window cleaner? Cleaning service? Make a list of everyone that you contract with for services, and get in touch with them now.
Long term commitments. Guaranteed cash flow. Dedicated customers. They’re all things that your venders want. Go to them and offer all three, and you can practically name the price.
Think of it this way: If one of your good customers came to you and offered a contract twice as long as the one you have now in exchange for a 20% discount, would you take it? How about a 30% discount? Knowing you’ll have their business for twice as long is worth a lot, isn’t it?
One prime rule of negotiation:
Any settlement has to be beneficial to both parties. You should both come away feeling good about the outcome.
Will every vendor you talk to go along with your proposal? Maybe, maybe not. But if you don’t at least make a proposal, you’ll keep paying the same rates you’re paying now. If you want to increase profits next year, you are probably going to have to cut some expenses. Now is the time to start working on it.
If you're marketing on a finite budget... and aren't we all these days... it's important to be aware of the constant balancing act between reach and repetition.
Reach is how many people you are trying to put your message in front of. Repetition is how many times they'll see it.
A lot of my clients use direct mail, so the illustration is pretty simple for them. We're talking about how many pieces they mail out, and how often they do it. They have a specific amount of money in the budget, and they have a specific cost per piece for mailing.
For a simple example, let's say you're mailing post cards that cost $1 each including printing, postage and list costs. You are running a six month promotion, and you have budgeted $3,000.
With those budget figures, you may be tempted to mail one time to 3,000 people. After all, it's good to get your name in front of a lot of people, right? Well, yes. But with just one exposure, it's unlikely you're going to make much of an impact.
If people see you just one or two times, they don't know you. People don't generally buy from people they don't know, or at least recognize. Here's where repetition becomes important: You'll be much better off reaching 500 people six times over the six month promotion period. And I mean the same 500.
If 500 people get a post card from you every month, those 500 will at least recognize you. And depending on what you're saying on the post cards, they may well feel like they know you well enough to at least give you a shot at their business.
One important tip about repetion: Make sure you look the same every time they see you. Design a post card layout that will always look the same. Colors, type faces, graphic design... always the same look. You can promote different products or make different offers month to month, but maintain the same look.
If you don't look the same every time they see you, the repetitions don't accrue. You're starting over as someone they've never seen before every month.
Leads are the fuel that makes your financial machine run. You must constantly add new names of prospective customers to your pipeline, then work on taking as many of them as you can to the next step in the dance: customer.
Don’t just sit back and wait for leads to show up. Institutional advertising gets your name out, maybe even makes you "well known" in your market. But it does nothing to generate real live leads.
Lead generation advertising entices people to respond, to raise their hand and let you know that they’re at least somewhat interested in what you sell. To get people to do that, you have to offer something of value and make it free of cost and free of risk for them to get it. By the way, be sure to offer something that would only be of interest to the kind of people that you want to reply so you don’t spend a lot of time and money sending free stuff to people who will never buy from you.
Don’t confuse lead generation offers with buyer incentive offers. A buyer incentive offer gives them something extra if they buy. If someone who has never heard of you sees a buyer incentive offer, you are asking them to make the leap from "total stranger"to "ready to hand you their hard-earned money." If you sell pizza, that may be possible. If you sell kitchen remodeling services, it’s a big leap.
Do what do you offer to generate leads?
I love information products. It can be as simple as a checklist: "Ten easy, inexpensive things you can do yourself to save 20% on your winter heating bill." How about a book? If there is a title in the book store that would only be of interest to your prime prospects... and it has something to do with your business, it may make a great offer. An example would be a free book about kitchen design from that kitchen remodeling service.
I send you a free ezine every week. You are a lead for me. The information in my ezine is only of interest to people who are responsible for their organization’s sales and marketing - the kind of people who buy what I sell. I’d like you to buy one (or all!) of my books some day if you haven’t already. I’d like you to recommend me to speak at your suppliers’ annual meeting or your association’s convention. I’d like you to hire me to help with your advertising and promotion.
If you don’t hire me, recommend me or buy from me, I really don’t lose anything. This ezine goes out to hundreds of people. Some will never do business with me. Enough will to make it worth my while.
But if you send something physical, like a book, it’s different. Say I’m a financial advisor, and I offer a free copy of a book that I’ve written on trading options. After I mail that book, I am going to go after that lead aggressively. I’ve spent some money to get the lead, I’m going to go after it. Most people realize that you aren’t in the business of giving away books, so it should come as no shock to them when you come calling later.
Start taking the first step in the dance with your public. Offer something that motivates them to contact you. Then follow up with buyer incentives and you’ll build your business fast.
There's no doubt in my mind that 2009 will be a better year for business.
The economy will turn around, if it has not already done so before the end of 2008. Many businesses will disappear in the mean time, some closing their doors, some just dropping out of sight. It's those "dropping out of sight" businesses I want to talk to you about...and I want to make sure that you're not one of them.
When business gets slow, when money gets tight, the mistake many businesses make is to cut back on marketing. When they look at the profit and loss statement, marketing looks like one of the easiest "expenses" to cut. Hey, nobody gets hurt, right? It's easier to stop advertising than it is to let an employee go, or worse yet, start taking home a little less money yourself.
Here's what happens when you stop marketing: You disappear. You don't just drop out of sight, you drop out of your customers' recallable database. When people are ready to buy, the businesses that pop up from memory first get the first shot at the business. The business that stops promoting themselves, even if temporarily, falls off of that list. They've been replaced by the businesses that are still actively advertising and promoting themselves, keeping their name in front of prospective customers.
If you absolutely must cut back, cut back on the number of people you contact. Don't cut back on how often you contact them. In stead of buying space in the whole metropolitan newspaper, pick your best neighborhoods and buy space in their editions...just as frequently as you've always advertised. If you use direct mail, mail to fewer people (the best names on your list) just as frequently as you've always contacted them.
Don't think you can make it up with email marketing. I notice that many of the businesses I have given permission to email me are upping their frequency lately. I have unsubscribed to more ezines in the last two weeks than I can ever remember. If you get so frequent that people are asking to be taken off your list, you've over saturated them. Unfortunately, you may not even know it. You may just be getting added to blocked sender lists, which means your message will never be seen again.
Businesses that promote themselves consistently in tough times show their prospects that they are serious, solid businesses. When the economy comes back, they'll be the names that are at top-of-mind when the money starts to flow. Isn't that where you want to be?
Wouldn’t you love to be able to describe your company’s brand in a few words? What if you could say it in just one word? I believe that our presidential candidates can.
I usually avoid political comment. But this election is too important. First, I want to say this: VOTE. If it’s not convenient for you to go stand in line on election day, get yourself an absentee ballot NOW. I’ve already voted. There’s no excuse for any U.S. Citizen to not vote. It’s really important this time, so please do it.
Now, back to branding. I’m going to throw out two words. You decide which candidate could easily use which word to describe their brand. If you can see which is which without me saying names, then it’s clearly the case.
Socialist
Capitalist
Those are the words. Can you associate the candidates with their words?
Socialists believe the government should be in charge. The government can manage everyone’s lives, from health care to finances. And if there are people who just aren’t making it... even if it’s just because they’re lazy... the socialist will take more money from the ones who are making it and redistribute the wealth. Everyone can be comfortable. As a socialist system evolves, more people will choose to be lazy, leaving fewer ambitious people to support them (at a higher and higher cost).
Capitalists believe that if you give people the opportunity to accomplish great things, they will. If you create an atmosphere where accomplishment is rewarded, people will strive for the rewards. The down side of this system (in the socialist’s eyes) is that there will be winners... and there will be losers. Ambitious people tend to win. Lazy people tend to lose. As the capitalist system evolves, more people will be motivated to succeed when they see that it is possible.
So who will the lazy people vote for this year? They’ll vote for the socialist. In fact, the socialist will help them with the difficult task of voter registration, even provide transportation to the polls for those who aren’t otherwise ambitious enough or bright enough to do it for themselves.
It’s REALLY important that the ambitious people get out and vote.
Heaven forbid that we let the lazy people choose our leadership for us. Yeah, we’re busy trying to make money right now. It’s hard to make time to vote. It will be harder to give up an even larger portion of that hard-earned money to a government that will redistribute it to the lazy people later on.
Get an absentee ballot now, or plan your November 4 around voting. (Unless you’re voting socialist. Your day to vote is November 5.)
I want you to give some serious thought to a specific part of your branding: your personality. Not your own, that of your business.
Yes, your business has a personality. If you don’t know what it is, ask your customers. What’s it like to do business with us? Is it fun? Boring? Do we come across as overly eager? Not eager enough? Are we grumpy? Slow? Fast? Easy to work with? I bet you’ve bought from someone in your lifetime who was very difficult to work with. Do you ever want to buy from them again?
This is not a small issue. But it’s one that every growing business has to wrestle with.
When you started your business, every customer dealt with you. Your personality was your business’ personality. Then you hired some help. Odds are, the help became the first person the customer or prospect came into contact with when they called or stopped by. Did you tell them what personality your customers were used to dealing with? If you met each customer with a big smile, and the new help greets them with a terse "may I help you?" you may be in trouble without even knowing it. And the more help you hire, the more your personality can spin out of control.
Done right, personality pervades every aspect of your business. What you say to people and how you say it. How you decorate your facilities. Colors, voices, design and language in your marketing materials reflect your personality. Even the type of vehicles you drive - would your company name look more appropriate on the side of a Prius or a Hummer? Did you give it any thought when you bought company vehicles?
People prefer to buy from human beings they like, and who seem to appreciate their business. They’ll go out of their way to get there, buy unfamiliar brands on their recommendation... even pay more. That’s how important this is.
You need to decide what your personality is going to be, and everyone who works for you has to understand how important it is. You have a personality now, whether it’s intentional or not. It can turn prospects and customers on, or it can turn them off. It’s up to you to take control.
If you sell to anyone under about 30 years old (and that number gets bigger every year) you must start looking at mobile advertising.
Mobile advertising is placing your message on mobile phones. It can be as simple as sending text messages to a list of people who have asked you to keep them up to date on specials (How about a weekly special text message?), to as complicated as sending a widget that lets them play a game that features your brand.
Most people who read my stuff will lean towards the lower budget version. And that’s okay as long as you’re doing something to communicate with these people at the street level. Why do I say that? Increasingly, younger people are getting all of their contact with the world through their handheld device. Mobile marketing firm m:metrics says there are 92.5 million mobile phone users who text regularly. Whether you embrace it yourself or not, text messaging is how millions of people communicate. And it’s not just young people. The average age of active texters goes up daily as more people see the convenience and expedience of text messaging.
News, sports, entertainment, communications with their friends, online searches... even online social networking is now enjoyed regularly on what marketers call “the third screen” ( 1=TV, 2=Computer). For many people, their cell phone is their first screen. In fact, it may be the only place to reach them. They don’t watch that much TV. When they do, it’s probably recorded on their DVR so they can skip commercials. They don’t read newspapers. I don’t have to tell you that they don’t look at the yellow pages (they don’t even keep the phone book - it goes straight to the recycle bin).
So what’s your first step? Get educated. This sounds really scary, especially to some of us older folks who don’t even text message yet. Subscribe now to the free ezine at Mobile Marketer. You’ll see what other people are doing, plus see ads from companies that can help you create your mobile strategy and advertising. Start clicking on the ads to learn about all of the options.
As I said, your strategy can be as simple as asking your customer for permission to text them when there’s a special sale or offer. You can also send text messages or banner-type ads through networks that have already obtained the permission from millions of cell phone users. As with email marketing, you can include a link that takes them to your mobile site. I said “mobile site” because you must have a different type of web site if they’re going to be able to see it on their third screen. Your current web site isn't likely to be legible on that smaller screen. You can email coupons. They simply show it on their screen at your business to redeem.
You can target specific groups and even geographically. As things grow, you’ll be able to target people who are walking or driving within a few blocks of your business and offer something special if they stop in "right now" and show you their cell phone.
It all sounds pretty overwhelming right now, I know. But don’t sit back and wait on this technology. It’s already here. And for millions of people, it’s the only way to reach them so you’d better be looking into it. Start small. Start a list of people and their phone numbers so you can text message them with special offers. Like any new technology, you’ll have to walk before you can run. The sooner you start walking, the sooner you’ll be up to a full run. And as you grow in the technology, the number of subscribers who get more and more of their information from the third screen will be growing too. Who doesn't want to grab a piece of the fastest growing medium? Grab a small piece now and you'll be able to grab bigger pieces later.
If you sell to anyone under about 30 years old (and that number gets bigger every year) you must start looking at mobile advertising.
Mobile advertising is placing your message on mobile phones. It can be as simple as sending text messages to a list of people who have asked you to keep them up to date on specials (How about a weekly special text message?), to as complicated as sending a widget that lets them play a game that features your brand.
Most people who read my stuff will lean towards the lower budget version. And that’s okay as long as you’re doing something to communicate with these people at the street level. Why do I say that? Increasingly, younger people are getting all of their contact with the world through their handheld device. Mobile marketing firm m:metrics says there are 92.5 million mobile phone users who text regularly. Whether you embrace it yourself or not, text messaging is how millions of people communicate. And it’s not just young people. The average age of active texters goes up daily as more people see the convenience and expedience of text messaging.
News, sports, entertainment, communications with their friends, online searches... even online social networking is now enjoyed regularly on what marketers call “the third screen” ( 1=TV, 2=Computer). For many people, their cell phone is their first screen. In fact, it may be the only place to reach them. They don’t watch that much TV. When they do, it’s probably recorded on their DVR so they can skip commercials. They don’t read newspapers. I don’t have to tell you that they don’t look at the yellow pages (they don’t even keep the phone book - it goes straight to the recycle bin).
So what’s your first step? Get educated. This sounds really scary, especially to some of us older folks who don’t even text message yet. Subscribe now to the free ezine at Mobile Marketer. You’ll see what other people are doing, plus see ads from companies that can help you create your mobile strategy and advertising. Start clicking on the ads to learn about all of the options.
As I said, your strategy can be as simple as asking your customer for permission to text them when there’s a special sale or offer. You can also send text messages or banner-type ads through networks that have already obtained the permission from millions of cell phone users. As with email marketing, you can include a link that takes them to your mobile site. I said “mobile site” because you must have a different type of web site if they’re going to be able to see it on their third screen. Your current web site isn't likely to be legible on that smaller screen. You can email coupons. They simply show it on their screen at your business to redeem.
You can target specific groups and even geographically. As things grow, you’ll be able to target people who are walking or driving within a few blocks of your business and offer something special if they stop in "right now" and show you their cell phone.
It all sounds pretty overwhelming right now, I know. But don’t sit back and wait on this technology. It’s already here. And for millions of people, it’s the only way to reach them so you’d better be looking into it. Start small. Start a list of people and their phone numbers so you can text message them with special offers. Like any new technology, you’ll have to walk before you can run. The sooner you start walking, the sooner you’ll be up to a full run. And as you grow in the technology, the number of subscribers who get more and more of their information from the third screen will be growing too. Who doesn't want to grab a piece of the fastest growing medium? Grab a small piece now and you'll be able to grab bigger pieces later.
