Jim's Marketing Blog

Marketing tips and ideas to help you grow your business

Beating the credit crunch!

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Whenever times are hard and the economy heads south, people (and businesses) have to think a lot harder before they spend their money.  This is something we have seen time and time again during past recessions.

However, the ‘credit crunch’ has given us a MUCH BIGGER problem, because our potential clients not only have less money than before – they are finding it hard or impossible to access credit too.  As a direct result, generating sales or winning business is set to become increasingly harder, with potential clients understandably extremely cautious about spending their money.  Perhaps more cautious than ever before.

One thing we know with total certainty, is that the marketplace for YOUR services is about to become more and more competitive.

This means your marketing has never been more important

You must be able to get the attention of your prospective clients and then totally convince them that you offer the best possible option for them.  Any business today, whose marketing is ‘average’, is going to find the coming two years (some say three) increasingly painful. The only solution is to improve the way they sell and market their services.

Why is marketing so much more important now?

During a normal or strong economy, people don’t have to think too hard about making a purchase and are measurably less choosy.  As a result, until recently, even poorly marketed companies were able to generate a level of sales; just by ‘being there’ or contacting prospects at the right time.

However, during a bad economic climate, people think far harder before they buy anything.  As a result, we are seeing people and businesses now shopping around for the best offer before they spend a penny.  Thus, they end up buying from the best marketed businesses, because these are the businesses who know how to grab their attention and make their offer sound the most attractive or compelling.

Today, good timing and hard work is no longer enough. You must learn how to out-market your competitors if you want to survive – let alone thrive!

Marketing provides an answer – Thankfully

Amid the doom and gloom, there’s always a ray of light.  You see, as well as receiving a massive number of emails from readers who are really struggling right now – I have also received a small number of emails from readers who are experiencing their best year EVER.

When you understand why some businesses are doing so well right now, you will have an opportunity to do the same.  But first, you need to know what ‘the average’ business does when faced with an economic slump.  This is really important.

Most businesses do nothing

The ‘average’ business today will continue to sell and market their services as if nothing was happening.  Sure, they will moan about the economy and their lack of trade; but they will just keep on doing the same ineffective marketing they always did.

They pin their hopes on things ‘just getting better’ before they run out of money.

In essence, they will stay inside their comfort zone and refuse to move, as if they were a 60 foot oak tree.

But some businesses take action!

Some businesses realise that there is a real opportunity here!  They know that when times are tough, prospective clients always look for value – and making your services look more valuable is all about GREAT marketing.  So, they decide to get serious about their marketing and thus they reap the rewards.  The rewards are far greater than you might imagine.

Marketing lessons from recessions

We know that during past economic recessions, the businesses that improved their marketing and marketed their services the most successfully, managed to gain a disproportionately large share of their marketplace.

Also, when the economy improved, they were in the perfect position to continue growing at a super-accelerated rate!  If you choose, you can turn the credit crunch into a springboard for your business. You can grow at the same time as your competitors shrink.  You can use the coming months to transform the future of your business and your life – but only if you take action and do the right things in the right way.

So – what next?

First of all – STOP!

If your business is currently finding it a struggle to generate the volume and quality of sales it needs – Stop whatever marketing you are doing immediately.

Because…

If you keep using the same kind of marketing, you will keep getting the same results.  Your sales, profits and turnover will not ‘just get better’.  In fact, as the credit crunch continues, your sales, turnover and profits will drop unless you improve things.

Five steps to beat the credit crunch

Step one

OK – as I mentioned above, the first step is to stop all marketing activities that are not making you money.  No matter how ‘comfortable’ you are with whatever you are doing, if it’s not working STOP doing it.  Either find a way to leverage better results from it or discontinue it completely.

Step two

Start getting tons of business through your website. It’s a fact; a fully-optimised website is both the most effective and the least expensive way to generate sales, leads and enquiries. Your website can (and should) generate leads and enquiries for you all day every day.

I know people in just about every industry who now get the vast majority of their leads and enquiries via their website.

You can reduce your annual marketing costs by 90% and increase your sales by 100’s% (or more) at the same time!  Almost all of all MY marketing is now done online.  However, before you start enjoying all those leads and enquiries from red-hot prospective clients, your website needs to tick two important boxes:

  • Firstly, it needs to look professional and have all the functions you need in order to collect enquiries, collect email addresses and make sales etc.  If you want to know why some businesses get leads from their websites on an hourly basis (or better), whilst most websites generate almost nothing, you need the second and most important element…
    .
  • Secondly, your website MUST MUST MUST be Search Engine Optimised.   The reason most small and medium sized business websites fail, is because no one can find them!  So, you will need to get an SEO expert to make your site the one that people find when looking for whatever type of services you offer.

This is the most important step, yet hardly any small business websites are professionally optimised.  Interestingly, 100% of all large company websites are optimised.

Getting a website optimised, is like picking up a shop, that’s located down an old dusty road with no passing trade – and placing it BANG in the centre of Oxford Street or 5th Avenue!

Step three

Read the sales and marketing posts and articles here on the blog.  Everything is written by me, based on what’s proven to work.  I put the blog together because most small and medium-sized businesses rely heavily on free marketing advice – and as a marketing professional, the marketing advice I found online was often pretty awful.  I found that much of it was either shockingly poor , or very out of date. Look at this.

Step four

Download and listen to this FREE audio program.  It will tell you how to get regular referrals, recommendations & leads.

Step five

There are some superb ideas waiting for you right now at TheIdeasBlog.com.  It has often been said that you are never more than one good idea away from achieving a massive breakthrough – so take a look.

The credit crunch is really hurting a lot of businesses right now.  If you have found this credit crunch marketing report useful, please forward it to as many people as possible.

The power of attraction marketing

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I am going to show you how to use attraction marketing to attract leads and sales!  Please do not confuse this with the so-called ‘law of attraction!’

In fact, if you use the ideas I am about to share with you, you will never have to chase; business, income, sales, clients or leads ever again.

The power of attraction on people

Have you ever noticed what happens when a beautiful woman or a handsome man walks into a bar? That’s right – people look at them. In fact, people will often walk over and offer them a drink or simply strike up a conversation with them. The reason we call these people ‘attractive’ is because they (literally) ‘attract’ the attention and interest of other people.

What does this have to do with you and your business?

The most effective businesses use the power of attraction in order to attract sales, clients, readers and customers! Just like the attractive person who walks into a room and gets everyone’s attention, these businesses gain the attention and interest of potential clients by being attractive.

If you decide to use attraction marketing, you can quickly sky-rocket your results without having to make cold calls or ‘sell’ anything to anyone. It’s a wonderful, zero-stress way to grow your business.

Attraction marketing in action

For example, I use the power of attraction for 100% of my marketing! People find my blog and my marketing newsletter ‘attractive’, so they forward them to their contacts, colleagues and friends – helping me attract more people. These new people then do the same etc, etc…

Without me spending a penny on ANY form of advertising, (pay-per-click, affiliates or anything else), there are now millions of people who know all about my ability to help them produce great sales results. So, when my readers decide they want someone to look after their marketing, they give me a call.

Clients should be attracted NOT pursued!

Most businesses get it the wrong way around. They choose to ‘pursue’ new clients and customers; unaware of just how much they are damaging their chances of success and their reputation. Even though people are not responding to their mail shots, email marketing or calls; they just keep on grinding away regardless.

This approach costs a fortune and the results are dire!

That’s because people universally HATE being; pursued, pestered, hassled or chased.

  • This is why people are so rude when you cold call them!
  • It’s also why people hate being sent spam email!
  • AND why we all avoid over-eager salespeople!

Using attraction marketing in your business

Here’s an example, from one of the most competitive industries on the planet; the recruitment business. A client of mine used to call people and was often the 4th or 5th recruitment company to call that same person that same day!  He knew something needed to change, and quickly, because it was getting harder and harder to reach potential clients.

I suggested he set up a simple, low-cost website, aimed at candidates (people looking for work). The website was then packed with hints, tips and ideas that were designed to help people find the perfect job. He then wrote to the top 100 HR people in his target market – Not asking for business, but asking if he could interview them for his new website.

Guess what?

Not only did he manage to meet with stacks of powerful decision makers, many of them went on to become clients! The interview was an attractive proposition, which attracted a great deal of interest.  These powerful people actually CALLED HIM to arrange a time for their interview! It totally changed the way they positioned him and his company in their mind, compared to his competitors, who were hounding them for business in desperation.

A low cost website and the marketing power of attraction was all he needed, in order to achieve stunning sales results.

So, stop chasing new business

If people are not replying to your mail shots, marketing emails or returning your calls, they are telling you something.  They are telling you that your offer or marketing is NOT attractive to them!

Like my example of the recruitment company earlier, you must find a way to market your services so that you become irresistible.  You see, when you use the power of attraction to generate sales, you spend 100% of your time speaking with people who are:

  • Already interested in you and your services.
  • Already aware of the value you offer.
  • Ready to proceed.

Conclusion

No matter what industry or profession you are in, the power of attraction can slash your marketing costs, take the stress away from selling and transform the way your future clients think of you and your business.

Get YOUR mailshot letters opened!

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This post is all about how to get YOUR marketing letters opened.

When a company sends out a mailshot, it does so in order to generate enquiries or sales.  Of course, in order for these marketing letters to work, they must first be opened and read!  After all, you can have the strongest, most compelling and motivating marketing letter imaginable inside that envelope, but in order for it to generate business for you, the envelope must be opened.

Amazingly, although there’s stacks of information ‘out there’ about writing a marketing letter, there’s very little written about how to get someone to actually open the envelope (what some trendy marketing people call ‘the carrier’!)

Get your marketing letters in the right pile!

I was reminded of how poorly most companies deliver their mail shots earlier today, when the post arrived at my home.  My wife Sharon divided the letters into two, unopened piles.  I asked her what the piles represented and she said;

“The letters in the left pile are junk mail – the letters in the right hand pile are going to be opened”

Now, my wife has no marketing experience, yet she was able to spot junk mail without even opening the envelopes, with 100% accuracy!

Get YOUR marketing letters opened!

If you want to make sure your mailshot letters get opened, here are a few simple guidelines:

  • Make sure the name and address of the person you are writing to is displayed clearly.
  • Use ‘window envelopes’ with the name and address of the recipient printed onto the enclosed letter.
  • Don’t address letters to a job title or ‘the occupier.’
  • Be extremely careful about printing any kind of message on the envelope.  If you really must have a message on the envelope, make sure it is written by a professional copy writer.  If in doubt, leave it!  Get the message even slightly wrong and you could find 100% of your letters remain unopened!
  • Don’t address the letter IN CAPITAL LETTERS.
  • Never, ever, ever use printed labels for the name and address.  These tend to be mainly used for mass-mailings, so people tend NOT to open them.
  • Don’t use highly decorated envelopes unless you want people to know that there’s a sales pitch inside that letter.

Finally, here’s a quick marketing tip: Take a look at the mail you receive, which you instinctively think is either junk mail or a sales pitch. Ask yourself what it was that made you feel that way, before even opening the envelope.  Then, make sure you avoid the same mistakes. Then, check out the letters that you DO OPEN and ask yourself, what it was that motivated you to open those particular letters.

The bottom line here, is that you need to make sure that recipients of YOUR mailings are not thinking negatively about what might be inside your envelopes!

In written marketing – LESS is MORE

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Here’s a quick marketing tip for you, which will help you get a better response rate from all your written marketing.  To increase the success of your mailshots, advertising, email marketing and the number of leads you get from your website:

Use as few words as you can to get your message across!

Two powerful reasons why, with written marketing, LESS is MORE:

ONE: By using as few words as possible, you remove all the dross and keep only the key points of your marketing message.  This makes your message clearer, more focused and easier for the reader to understand.

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TWO: Just like you, the people reading your marketing have NEVER been busier!  When someone opens a marketing letter, or sees an advertisement, they do a quick scan of it.  If it looks too long, many people will decide not to invest the time required to plough through it!Most of the marketing letters, email marketing and advertising I see is AT LEAST 50% too long!

When your written marketing becomes clearer, more focused AND more people actually read the whole message – you significantly increase its potential!  This is a great way to leverage your results.

Your marketing mix part 2 of 2

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I am going to show you how to make your marketing more successful and more reliable, with something called your marketing mix. I am also going to give you a list and explanation of some of the most popular types of marketing, used by small and medium sized businesses.  I strongly suggest you read part one of this before proceeding.

This is a BIG marketing guide, with lots of great ideas, so please share it on your favourite social network or social bookmarking site.

In part one of this guide I shared one of the most common errors small businesses make with their marketing. The error is that they rely on just one or two different marketing activities in order to generate their sales.

This is a REALLY bad idea!

Firstly, if you rely on just one or two different forms of marketing, you are missing out on STACKS of new business and opportunities! No matter how good you are at getting the full leverage from a couple of marketing activities, you will be placing a very low ceiling on your business’s potential, if you limit yourself in this way. The most successful small businesses all use at least four or five different kinds of marketing – often 8 or 10 or more!

Secondly, by relying on just one or two marketing activities, you leave yourself extremely vulnerable when one of them stops working! A business owner emailed me to say that she relied on an advertisement in a business publication for over 90% of her sales leads. One of her competitors started advertising in the same publication and her number of leads (and sales) dropped by 40% overnight – That hurts.

So, your marketing mix should combine at least four or five different marketing activities, which compound and create a regular supply of sales for you. Here are some of the marketing options you should consider adding to YOUR marketing mix.

Advertising

A targeted message delivered through a great ad, which is read, listened to or watched by your core target client group is REALLY powerful! For a free advertising guide, click here.

Online networking or ‘social networks’

Online networking has great marketing potential. The key is to join a network that is best suited to your needs and to be selective with whom you network! Focus on the quality of people in your network and NOT just the quantity. If you develop a network of 30 well-connected, motivated, professional people and I develop a network of 3000 people who ‘just wanted to join my network’ – your network will be massively more valuable then mine.

A couple of the more popular business networks are www.ecademy.com and www.linkedin.com.  Other’s now use Facebook exclusively as a business networking tool.  I personally use Twitter and have found, like many others, that it is perhaps the most powerful of all.  Whatever network you choose, you are likely to see FAR BETTER results than through wasting your time at traditional ‘networking events’ (Click here to see why traditionasl networking is a waste of your time!)

Exhibitions

As an exhibitor at, (or visitor to), a well-attended exhibition aimed at your target client base – you can easily get to meet people face-to-face, who are almost impossible to reach using other forms of marketing. Depending on your industry or profession and the average lifetime value to your business of a client, you could find exhibiting at well-attended exhibitions an extremely valuable part of your marketing mix. I know companies who win most of their high quality work via exhibitions.

Email marketing

It’s a fact; email marketing is extremely cost effective and certainly one of the most powerful marketing tools available to small businesses. It works incredibly well – and costs little or nothing.

Here are a few things to consider before adding email marketing to your marketing mix. I recommend you build your own email database (mailing list) rather than buy one from a list broker. The best way to get started is to ask your existing clients and contacts if you can have their email address and if it’s ok for you to email them occasionally with news or special offers.

You also need to get people joining your email list from your website! To do this, make it as easy as possible, and offer something of value as an incentive for them to join your mailing list, like a free ebook. Also, only ask for their email address – not their life history, and let them know that you will never, ever pass on their details to ANYONE!

ONLY send people valuable information (like this free guide) or a genuinely special offer. I also strongly recommend that you don’t bombard people with email; just one message every week or 14 days is more than enough. I send my Newsletter out once every seven to 14 days, because people hate being bombarded with information; even great information! As a result, very few people ask to be removed from my subscriber list.

Finally, to grow your list, ask readers to forward your emails on. Obviously, making sure all the while, that you abide by the rules governing email marketing in your country.

Telephone marketing – Tele sales

Telephone marketing works – but it’s less effective than it used to be. Not that long ago, you could call someone’s direct ‘phone line and know that if they were in, they would pick up the phone. Today, people from even the smallest of companies screen all their inbound calls with voice mail; to eliminate unwanted interruptions and sales calls. This means you now need to make massively more calls to reach a smaller number of people!

I used to tell the owners of small businesses to learn how to make telemarketing calls and then set some time aside and make those calls! Today, I suggest you outsource the whole process to a proven telephone marketing company. Doing it yourself is now a low-leverage marketing activity, because it requires so much time.

Outsourced telephone marketing is still a high leverage activity, because you will usually only pay per lead or sale.

Traditional networking

Traditional networking is a total waste of your time – avoid it!

Your website

It’s not enough to simply ‘have a website’! Your website needs to work for your business 24 hours a day, 7 days a week; generating leads, making sales or collecting the email addresses of potential clients. If your website is simply an online brochure, it’s costing you a fortune in lost sales, lost profits and lost opportunities!

When your website is supported by a newsletter and some Internet marketing, the results can be transformational. Still not convinced? Without spending a penny on advertising, my Internet marketing often reaches over 2 million people in a week! I will be writing separate guides all about forum marketing, article marketing, pay-per-click and blogging shortly.

Joint ventures

Sometimes known as a J.V, a ‘Joint Venture’ is where you and another business or person get together to (usually) cross-market your services. The key to JV success, is to find someone credible, who offers a non-conflicting product or service to the exact same profile of person or business as you do.

So, if you sell recruitment services to the hospitality industry and they sell employee benefits packages to the hospitality industry – BINGO! They can include one of your flyers or letters in one of their mailings and you can do the same for them; everybody wins. Avoid doing a JV with ANYONE you contacts you via email – unless you know them or can check them out. If in doubt – leave it.

Endorsed relationships

An ‘Endorsed Relationship’ is similar to a Joint Venture – BUT with one BIG and POWERFUL difference! The person you do the venture with actually gives you their professional or personal endorsement. This is marketing gold dust.

For example: Rather than just slipping one of YOUR marketing flyers in with one of THEIR client mailings (as they would in a Joint Venture), they actually write to their clients and give you their full endorsement. This is easily the single most powerful form of referral and one of the most powerful marketing tools on the planet.

I have seen endorsed mailings return a 90% positive response rate!

Conclusion

Obviously, the above list does not cover every marketing option open to you, but I hope it gives you a few ideas.

No matter how good your service is, your future success will be determined by how good you are at winning and retaining good quality clients. As Robert Kiyosaki says, lots of people can make a better hamburger than McDonalds; but very few can sell hamburgers more successfully. In today’s super-competitive economy, your marketing is more important than ever before, so make sure you give it the time and investment it needs!

Your marketing mix part 1

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There’s a common marketing myth, which is REALLY hurting a lot of salespeople and business owners!  The myth is that there is a single, all-powerful marketing technique that they need to find; which will be the answer to their marketing woes.

Your marketing mix

However, successful marketing requires a multi-pronged approach – not a single ‘magic bullet’!  This multi-pronged approach is what we call your marketing mix.

Your marketing mix should consist of numerous different marketing activities (at least 4 or 5), which will combine to provide the leverage required to generate all the sales and leads you or your business need.  Most businesses rely on a single marketing activity or perhaps two.  Yet, when I speak with the owners of successful businesses, I always find they are using at least 8 or 10 high leverage marketing activities – often more!

By the way, when you hear the term ‘high leverage marketing activities’, it simply means activities that produce the ‘highest or best’ results for the least amount of effort and risk.

For example

Obviously, it costs you the same amount of time and money to send a mail shot or marketing email; whether or not it generates new business for you.  You leverage the mail shot or marketing email by making sure you it contains a compelling offer and that is is sent to a targeted audience, with an endorsement from one of their trusted contacts.

Compare this to the typical small business mailshot, which goes straight into the bin or is deleted; because it has a generic offer, sent to a group of people who do not know you and without any trusted endorsement!

Designing YOUR marketing mix

In the second and final part of this article, I am going to show you how to design a marketing mix for YOUR business.