Marketing powerhouse P&G developed a marketing plan in just 7 sentences!

In fact, in just five minutes you could create a top-notch marketing plan for your brand of chiropractic and get your practice ready for success.

Here’s the Plan

Building your chiropractic business without a marketing plan is a lot like going to battle under the command of a general who tells you, “Ready, fire, aim!”

Your marketing plan functions like a personal guidebook that has seven sentences covering the most pressing issues in marketing. We know that there are far more than seven issues facing a practice about to market it brand of chiropractic, but we also know the close correlation between focus and profits. By all means, scrutinize every aspect of your practice, but concentrate on these seven areas. Prove your concentration by writing one brief sentence covering each area. That’s not overly demanding. In fact, all the sentences except the fourth one are short and simple. The fourth one is a list.

A minute is a long time. Do nothing for one minute, and you’ll see how much time is packed into that little unit. For your marketing to succeed, you need to put a seven-sentence guerrilla marketing plan into writing in five minutes.

Read the entire article before you get started. Don’t try to cover everything or say too much in each of your sentences. A marketing plan is a blueprint, a framework, a map. What you’re about to create will serve you for three to five years. Although your commitment to this plan is going to make it work, you must still be prepared to make minor alterations to the plan.

A marketing plan this brief and focused has been the cornerstone of many businesses worldwide. It’s short enough to show to all interested parties without boring them with details.

It’s focused enough so that everyone gets the point. Procter & Gamble, one of the world’s most marketing-minded companies, creates a marketing plan for each of its products. These plans are as brief as we’re suggesting here.

Each P&G plan may be accompanied by 300 pages of documentation, but it begins with a clear marketing strategy. Do as you like with your own documentation. But get the seven sentences right first.

1. The first sentence tells the purpose of your marketing. Be very specific. What physical action do you want your Prospex to take? Pick up a phone and punch in your business’s number? Go to its website? Send an e-mail? Go to your office? Call a phone number and ask for Rose? What specific thing do you want Prospex to do right after they’ve been exposed to your marketing message? You’ve got to be clear about that, or your Prospex never will be.

In your sentence, don’t say something vague like “to grow” or “get more new patients” Instead, be very specific. What precisely is the desired outcome you want from your marketing? Begin by creating SMART goals: sensible, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound (must be accomplished before a specified deadline).

For example, maybe you want to develop 50 new leads by June 3, generate 1,000 web hits a day or cultivate 10 new Patients in the next three months. Don’t talk marketing or advertising in this sentence. Talk in plain English.

We’d write a couple of examples here for you, but starting up doesn’t mean hitching a ride. Close your eyes and visualize a Prospex who has just read, heard or viewed your message. The Prospex is smiling. What’s he going to do next? Watch him carefully. Then convince the world to do just what he did.

2. The second sentence states the competitive advantage you’ll emphasize. How will you accomplish your first-sentence goal? Why will your marketplace take the action we were just talking about? You’ve got a lot of benefits to offer your Prospex, but so do your competitive colleaagues. Fortunately for you, you’ve also got some benefits that only you offer. These are your competitive advantages. This is where you hang your marketing hat. If you have multiple competitive advantages, good for you, but pick only one to be the superstar of your marketing campaign. More than one might confuse an audience already besieged by marketing clutter.

Whenever possible, stress your competitive advantage so that it is seen as the solution to a problem. Marketers have long known that it is much easier to sell the solution to a problem than to sell a positive benefit.

3. The third sentence explains who your target audience is. The more specific you are and the more you narrow down the audience, the more accurate your marketing’s aim will be. Your marketing plan needs to be as precise and focused as possible.

Try to broadcast only to people with a very high propensity to want and need what you’re selling. It’s not a matter of high numbers so much as it is accuracy.

A thousand random Prospex won’t earn you as much profit as 10 of the right Prospex. For example, if you know that folks with a certain insurance plan have great chiropractic coverage… target them. Or, if you enjoy working with children, then focus your efforts on parents with young children.

It may be that you have more than one target audience. Most Chiropreneurs have several. Set your sights on all your target markets. But, have a “plan” for each target segment. If you don’t, someone else probably will, and you’ll have a devil of a time getting them back.

4. The fourth sentence lists the marketing weapons you’ll be using. Choose only those that you: a) can afford, b) understand, and c) can implement properly.

Because you’re aware of so many options, it ought to be easy for you to pack an arsenal of custom-chosen weapons that have demonstrated their firepower in real marketing battles.

Far more weapons are affordable now than at any other time in history. This is not your father’s century… this is your century, and by properly equipping yourself for the struggle to win minds and money, you’ll be in for a smooth ride.

5. The fifth sentence explains your niche in the marketplace. Now that you have determined your purpose, benefits and target market, it’s time to define your marketing niche.

When people hear the name of your practice, what’s the first thing that enters their minds? Is it chiropractic, wellness, economy, exclusivity, value, service, selection or one of a host of other good things?

That’s your niche… also referred to as positioning… and it’s what you stand for in the minds of your Prospex.

Chiropreneurs know the marketplace is cluttered with competition, so it pays to be a leader in a smaller pond. For example:

Back Pain Relief Without Surgery

End Back Pain Without Drugs

Each of these “targets” a different potential patient… one homes in on those considering spinal surgery and the other targets those who are looking for natural solutions to back pain.

Chiropreneurs carve out a position where they can differentiate themselves, and this differentiation is apparent in every marketing weapon they use. Niches can be defined in many ways, including through a specific target market or a distinct means of service. What’s your niche?

Once you’re clear about what your niche is, let it come shining through in all your other marketing. Your target market has a hard enough time understanding why it should do business with you. Don’t add confusion about yourself to the mix.

6. The sixth sentence sets forth your identity. Your identity is different from your image, because an identity is based on truth. An image is a facade, something phony. The far better “I” word is “identity.”

Your brand of chiropractic identity is automatically honest. If you communicate a real identity, people sense comfort and relaxation when they contact you. What they see in your marketing is ultimately what they get from your brand of chiropractic and that builds trust and rapport.

Part of your identity is your practice personality. Every practice has an identity, but many of them haven’t given it much, if any, thought. People are attracted to other people… and providers… who have pleasant or exciting personalities. Be great at your healing art, but don’t be all business. Let your identity shine through. Put it in writing, right in your marketing plan, so that it will apply to all your creative materials.

7. The seventh sentence states your marketing budget, expressed as a percentage of your projected gross sales. The beauty of marketing is that more than half of the marketing weapons are free. But remember: There are important reasons to spend money on your marketing.

Chiropreneurs know that the most important place to spend money is on your practice presentation, meaning the quality of your stationery, business cards, brochures, fliers and logos.

The public will get their first sense of your professionalism through your written materials, so make a strong impression. This may cost you more initially, but look at it as an investment in your future.

Now spend a few minutes deciding where you’ll get the biggest bang for your marketing bucks. Having a good idea of what your budget is will help you plan better and avoid misspending precious funds.

Calculate your marketing budget using your projected gross collections; this helps you operate in a growth mode. If you work off your current collections, you’ll be planning to tread water.

In 2007, the average U.S. business invested 4 percent of gross revenue in marketing. But you don’t want to be average, do you? At the start, when you have the least money, you still ought to invest generously in your debut. You might invest 10 percent the first year, but rising sales would make that absolute dollar mount only 5 percent the next year and 3 percent after that. Pin down a number and write it into your plan as the seventh sentence.

Now you’re ready to write a seven-sentence Chiropreneur marketing plan. There is no earthly reason why you should need more than five minutes to do it. But you’ve got to take an important step when you write your plan.

The step is encapsulated in two words: Trust yourself. The first sentence ought to flow from your mind to your marketing, and the next six sentences should go with that flow. Your unconscious mind knows the right things to say in your plan. These five minutes are when it reveals its brilliance to you.

The author may be contacted toll free at 877-935.6371 extension 201 or email at [mailto:ceo@wellnessone.net]ceo@wellnessone.net. Mr. Howell is the founder, chairman and chief executive officer of WellnessOne Corporation, a national alliance of chiropractic and wellness centers. http://www.wellnessone.net

Article Source: P&G Marketing Plan – Just 7 Sentences!

It’s a system!

And the beauty of a system is that it’s a specific set of steps that, when implemented in the correct order, produce a predictable result.

In business that predictable result is supposed to be a profit!

In order to get the best result out of a proven system, you must follow the steps exactly as the system outlines. Changing the system is fine, but you must track the effect of your changes on the end result to determine if the change was helpful or not.

Getting new customers, also known as “Marketing” is no different.  There is a system that, when you follow it, will lead you to a predictable result, which is business growth.

In our book, Make My Marketing Work: How to Win Customers & Make More Money, we share the complete system along with the required worksheets and exercises to help you do the research, homework and leg work required (yes, you actually have to do some work here ).  But to help you get started right now, while you’re waiting for your copy to arrive, I’ve listed the complete 7 step system below, along with a brief explanation of what it means and why it’s important.

IMPORTANT: Simply knowing the steps to take isn’t enough… for a system to work, YOU have to work.  You’ve got to follow the steps.  This isn’t a magic pill or silver bullet solution.  But it is a process that will work for your business if you’re really serious.

How to Get More Customers, Step #1 – Know Your Business

You must understand why you are in business, what your current strengths and weaknesses are, and you must have a vision for exactly where you want to take your business.  Without a strong vision of where you’re headed, you’ll never be able to tell if you’re getting there!  And you will tend to become sidetracked by every marketing opportunity (or “big shiny object”) that comes your way.

How to Get More Customers, Step #2 – Know Your Market

Who is your “perfect customer?” Being able to definitely answer this will enable you to speak directly to them with every marketing communication you send out. This feeling of personal connection will naturally and automatically attract people to do business with you.

Too often business owners think that everyone can benefit from their product or service and while that technically may be true (as unlikely as it seems) the reality is that when you’re marketing to everybody, nobody is buying it.

How to Get More Customers, Step #3 – Know Your Competition

Who else is fighting for the same consumer dollars? What are they doing differently than you are? Is it working for them? What are their customers saying about why they choose to do business with your competitors?

Answering these questions will give you insight into the ways you can differentiate yourself from your competition.  In fact, there are 3 types of competition: direct, indirect and variable.  How you handle each of them will ultimately determine whether you’re winning new customers… or having your lunch eaten by sharks.

How to Get More Customers, Step #4 – Craft Your Message

The right product and the right potential customer are the first two things you need, but having the right message will hook that prospect and turn them into a customer faster than you can say, “Do you want fries with that?” Do you have a clear, compelling marketing message that speaks specifically to your perfect customers?  Do you speak to their underlying fears, frustrations and unfulfilled desires or are you talking about YOU and YOUR PRODUCT all the time?

A unique message stands out from the noise and says something different about who you are and what you stand for.

How to Get More Customers, Step #5 – Deliver Your Message

Advertising, promotions, yellow pages, internet marketing, public relations – there are hundreds and hundreds of different ways for you to deliver your marketing message into the minds and hearts of your perfect customer. Knowing who your customer is and developing a psychographic profile of them will give you great insight into the types of advertising and promotions that will reach them.

Not every marketing tactic is right for every business.  Yes, you need a website and probably need to be on Facebook… but do you need Twitter?  What about LinkedIn?  Should advertise in national newspapers or more niche targeted local publications?  There’s no “right answer” for every business – your marketing mix is unique to YOU.

How to Get More Customers, Step #6 – Measure Your Marketing

What you measure improves. By tracking everything you can in relation to your marketing efforts, you will begin to see what works and what doesn’t work in certain specific situations. It also gives you a regular indication of where you are in relation to the key performance indicators that you have set out to track your progress.

Every time you implement a change in your marketing, you can (and should) test the effect of that change on your results. Anything that improves your results and gets you closer to your business vision should be kept, while anything that decreases your results or moves your business away from your primary vision should be ceased.

How to Get More Customers, Step #7 – Funnel Your Marketing

Having a marketing “funnel” that gently qualifies your prospect and squeezes them further down into a more intimate relationship with you will help you get more sales with less effort. The funnel is a system unto itself and allows you to respectfully communicate with each prospect uniquely, based on where they are in the marketing funnel. The final phase of the funnel is where you ask for the sale, close the deal and integrate your prospect into a customer relationship with your business.

When it comes to creating a marketing plan for small business, these are the 7 key things that you must address to maximize your campaign. When done in the correct order and when properly thought out and executed, these keys can turn up the heat and unlock your business success.

Are You Ready To Grow?

If it’s time to take your marketing more seriously and develop a strategic plan that can move you to the next level of business growth, it’s time to read Make My Marketing Work: How to Win Customers & Make More Money.  Order your signed copy today for just $20 including shipping and receive the following bonuses:

1. Downloadable exercises and worksheets to help you apply what you’re learning (you’ll develop the knowledge AND the skills, all while creating your customized strategic marketing plan)
2. Millionaire Prep School interview recordings to help you develop the right mindset for success (you’ll learn from 10 self-made millionaires and be the “fly on the wall” as I interview them about their successes and failures)
3. Private, 1-on-1 strategy session to help you answer any lingering questions and figure out the next steps to move your plan (and your business) forward!

In part 1 of this 3 part series on writing effective marketing copy, I shared that “attention” is the first thing you’re aiming for when writing marketing copy.  That is, you want to grab the attention of your target reader and compel them to read further into your content.

In this article we’ll cover the next thing you want strive for, which is…

B = Believability

Regardless of what element of copy you’re working on, or where you intend to distribute it, there must be a certain level of believability in your words, or readers will simply dismiss you as a crackpot (or worse) and move on their merry way.

Does that mean you don’t want to make bold claims or statements?  No.  Or at least, not necessarily.

Does it mean you can’t challenge your readers’ currently held assumptions, biases, predispositions and unconscious beliefs?  Not at all.

You just have to do it in a way that allows them room for belief in the idea or concept you’re trying to get across.

“You can make a 6-figure income in 24 hours!” is unbelievable (unless you’re open to robbing a bank).

“You can make a 6-figure income in the next 6 months!” is, while far fetched, at least theoretically possible.  If you can go on to outline HOW you will help them do this… then you are back in the realm of believability.

It’s a fine balance that has no hard and fast rules that you can follow when writing your content.  And it’s tough to analyze your own copy with a fresh perspective, since you’re already so close to everything and you know what you meant by what you said in the copy.

So I’d suggest that you get someone else to look at your copy before putting it out there.  Ask them specifically to highlight any phrases, statements or claims that do not resonate as believable to them.

When you do this, ask three different kinds of people to give you feedback:

1. People who are IN the business you’re in (either an employee or colleague)
2. People who represent your TARGET AUDIENCE and who could potentially be a customer or client
3. People who DO NOT represent your target audience and who are otherwise dissociated with your business

Doing this will give you a well-rounded view of how your copy is being perceived by readers and will allow you to make the necessary adjustments before putting your marketing campaign out.

Got Something To Say?  Please leave your comments below and let me know what you think!

My advice to all business owners is to understand the fundamentals of good marketing, including strategy, copywriting, target audience, etc., even if they are not going to the primary implementer of these marketing activities.

Why? So that they can properly evaluate the work of their staff or contractors and be sure that they are getting good value for their investment.

When it comes to your marketing copy ~ the words you use in your marketing collateral ~ many coaches, solo entrepreneurs and small business owners find it difficult to write compelling copy that attracts the attention of their target audience, persuading them to read more.

Where does this “marketing copy” reside?  Here are just a few places you’ll need to have effective marketing copy:

• Website
• Blog articles
• Brochures & flyers
• Newspaper & classified ads
• PPC or Facebook Ads
• Article marketing content
• Press releases
• Etc

There are many more places you’ll want to use effective marketing copy, but these are the essentials… and they are enough to get us started.

Many small business owners, solo entrepreneurs and coaches are probably wearing more than just the CEO/Owner hat and may be the one writing most (if not all) of your own copy.

Over the next three articles, I’ll share my ABCs of writing effective marketing copy so that you can be sure to produce the highest quality (and most effective) copy you can… or so you can evaluate the copy produced by your hired-gun copywriter.

Let’s start at the beginning with…

A = Attention

The first and most important outcome your copy must do is grab the attention of your target audience.

This is usually done by placing a captivating headline at the top of your copy that draws your reader in and makes them want to keep reading.

There are many formulas for writing an effective headline, but there are three types of headline templates that I have found work particularly well.

The Question Headline

The format of this type of headline is obvious, from its name – you are asking a question of your reader.

What type of question you decide to ask is up to you, but you want to come up with a question that your prospect will answer “Yes” to. The alternative to a “yes” answer is an unanswered question.

Here are some examples:

• Are You Ready To FINALLY Take Control of Your Financial Future?
• Who Else Would Like to Lose 30 Pounds & 10 Inches… While Still Eating Your Favorite Foods?
• Did the Government REALLY Open Up This Tax Loophole To Every Citizen?

Each of the first two questions invites a “yes” response from the reader, which makes them want to keep reading to find out HOW to accomplish the implied promise.

The third question is unanswerable for most readers, but it incites enough curiosity that they’ll want to read further to find out if the mysterious tax loophole applies to them.

The Secret Headline

The secret headline is also just as it sounds, telling the reader that there is information that has been kept from them, but that is now available.

This type of headline works particularly well for business development, investment and weight loss because it takes pressure off your prospect, essentially letting them know that their problem it isn’t their fault.

Here are some examples of the secret headline:

• Investment Secrets Your Financial Planner Doesn’t Want You To Know
• Secret Indonesian Herb Finally Passes Approval… And Can Help You Lose 30 Pounds in 30 Days!
• Tax Secrets of the Rich… Now Available to Every American!

The Numbers Headline

This type of headline grabs the readers’ attention because you are making a very specific statement and, as humans, we like specificity because it seems more believable.

It’s one thing to say that you lost weight on a particular diet.  It’s quite another thing to say that you lost 33 pounds in 27 days, removing a total of 54 inches!

Here are some examples:

• 3 Things You Can Do Every Day To Put $2,745.53 Back In Your Bank Account THIS YEAR!
• 7 Slim & Sexy Secrets of  Hot Hollywood Moms!
• A Proven 6-Step System for Protecting Your Income from Government Tax Collectors!

The key with using a numbers headline is to use actual numbers that you can back up… or to break down your system into a number of tips or secrets that you promise to reveal.

As you can see, each of these example headlines draws in your attention and makes you want to keep reading in order to find out more.  Once that happens, it’s your job to keep the reader engaged by delivering on your headline’s promise.

Because the headline is the part of your ad/article/website that is responsible for getting your reader’s attention, you should spend a large part of your time ensuring that it is as captivating as possible.

Often, I’ll write up to 50 different headline ideas for a single ad in order to narrow it down to the top 5, before eventually selecting two or three to test. (I’ll cover testing in a future post.)

I suggest you experiment by writing 3 – 5 of each type of headline for your next copywriting project and see what type of headline fits best for your particular purpose and style.

Got Something To Say?  Please leave your comments below and let me know what you think!

Every coach, author or solo-entrepreneur wants to get more leads (and eventually, more customers) through their website.  One way to do this is to have a highly-targeted free offer (also known as an ethical bribe) that compels your site visitors to enter their name & email address.

By submitting their information, your site visitors are effectively raising their hand and saying “I’m interested in what you’re selling.”

Their “lead quality” score goes up because they’ve self identified as having a problem and being willing to actively search out a solution to that problem.  The one big factor they haven’t yet confirmed is their ability (or willingness) to pay for your solution.

Like many people, when I started out I offered a lower-value, more general opt-in bonus… and my subscription rates suffered as a result.  But when I updated my offer and made it clear WHO it was for and WHAT kind of information it offered, my subscription rates skyrocketed immediately.

How to Make a Strong Opt-In Offer

Typically your free offer should be directly related to the problem or that your customers or clients experience. And it should offer a high perceived value.

In addition, you should “sell” the free offer using a clear, compelling call-to-action that is available on every page of your website… and which is highlighted in particular on your main landing page.

You want visitors to be immediately presented with a compelling offer and then you want to re-state the offer in case they decide to browse around.

A good example of this kind of high-value, highly targeted offer that has a strong opt-in rate (nearly 10%) is the one you’ll find on the sidebar of this page or on my homepage.  It’s a free video training series called “Double Your Coaching Income” and in it I share an unusual math formula that will allow coaches to double their profits, without doubling their workload.

When someone signs up for this training series, I immediately know a few things:

1. They are a coach (after all, the training series is called Double Your COACHING Income!)
2. They want to increase their income (they probably already have some coaching revenue coming in and they want to increase it)
3. They are interested in VIDEO (this will influence how I interact with them and what offers I present in the future)

After the video series is complete, those people who register for this training will have an INTIMATE experience of working with me (the videos are like having a conversation with me), they’ll know whether or not they like my style and they’ll know something about their business that they probably didn’t know before.

Of course, I still don’t know if they are willing or able to invest in the products and services I offer, but that’s a conversation for another day.

The important thing is that I know a lot more about the people who sign up for my training series because it was made specifically for coaches… and they know a lot more about me, providing they’ve actually completed the 6-part video series.

And, as a bonus for those who actually do complete the video training, I have a special surprise in store at the end.

So, make a strong, clear offer with a high perceived value to a specific audience and watch your lead capture rate increase.

These sites have become hugely popular lately in part because consumers are demanding better deals due the economy.

And, if you listen to the hype, these steeply discounted offers are perfect promotional opportunities for just about any business.  But based on my experience, I’m not so sure.

Here’s the thing.

I’m not saying that Groupon.com, LivingSocial.com or any other group buying website are specifically out to hurt any of the businesses who use them.  In fact, I believe quite the opposite is true.

But it  is often the result that businesses are crippled and hurt by their promotions with big group-buying sites.

If you’re considering jumping on board this “hyper-trending” promotional opportunity, there are three questions you absolutely MUST ask yourself before signing on the dotted line:

1. What are your costs to deliver the product or service?
   
   The biggest reason that businesses have a negative experience when using Groupon or LivingSocial to promote themselves is that they don’t know their numbers.Let’s do some basic math.

   Let’s say you normally sell your product for $100 but are offering it for $50.  And you have to give another 30% – 50% of the selling price to the advertiser.  At the end of the day, you’re going to get about $25 per sale, when you would normally get $100.

   If it costs you more than $25 to make the product or deliver that service, then you are going to lose money for every sale.Loss leaders are often used to get new customers, so this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but you have to know your numbers.

2. How much money can you lose on this promotion?
   
   If you’re using your Group Buy promotion as a loss leader, how much losses can your business safely cover?  You’ll need to know this so that you can set an appropriate ceiling (or upper limit) on the number of deals you’re willing to offer.

   Then you’ll have to negotiate this number with the advertiser (Groupon or other) since it is in their best interests to sell as many of your product or service as possible.

   When calculating how much you are able to lose, come from a frame of mind that you might NEVER recover this money.  It’s possible that all those new customers will simply move on to the next great deal and forget about you entirely.

3. How will you ensure the highest possible “second sale” percentage?
   
   The biggest value of group buying sites is that you can acquire a huge number of new customers with a single promotion.  But for this tactic to work, you must have a strategy in place to ensure that the highest possible percentage of your new customers make a second (and third) purchase from you.

   I recently had a cleaning company come and clean my house, which I booked through LivingSocial.com.  I was flabbergasted when they didn’t leave behind any marketing material about their recurring monthly cleaning services.

   This was a perfect marketing opportunity since they were literally in my house and could hand me a card, brochure or refrigerator magnet or offered me an instant “next cleaning” discount, of which they would keep everything and not have to pay a commission!

Daily deal and group buying sites can definitely have a huge impact on your business, but it’s up to you whether that is a hugely POSITIVE or hugely NEGATIVE experience.

Spend the time to answer these questions carefully.  Devise a follow-up marketing strategy that will maximize your second sales and put an appropriate limit on your offer so that you don’t put yourself out of business.

Are you considering using Groupon, LivingSocial or one of the other “daily deal” websites to promote your business?

In one hour, I can help you understand your numbers, develop your strategy and devise a foll0w-up marketing strategy to maximize the “second sale” value of all new customers generated through your promotion.

Don’t get sucked in by the hype! Know your numbers and how you’ll maximize your promotion BEFORE you sign on the dotted line.

But when it comes to marketing themselves effectively, those smart people tend to do some pretty dumb things that mess up their results and leave their business hurting.

Marketing Mistake #1 – Not Writing a Marketing Plan

By far, this is the most common mistake business owners make when it comes to effectively marketing themselves and their businesses – they just wing it!

The thinking, it seems, is that if they write a marketing plan then that will reduce or remove their ability to jump on marketing opportunities when they arise because they aren’t part of the plan.

In fact, the opposite is true!

When you have a marketing plan for your business you are better able to evaluate the potential effectiveness of an unforeseen opportunity when it arises because you’ll have more knowledge and awareness of who your business serves and where they go to find the solution you offer.

Having a marketing plan means you’ve taken the time to identify who your specific target audience is and what is most important to them. You understand their fears, frustrations and desires and have crafted a marketing message that speaks directly to those concerns.

Then, when an advertising representative calls you up and offers you a “great deal” on remnant ad space, you can quickly and easily evaluate whether or not that particular publication reaches your audience effectively.

If so, then you can go ahead with the confidence that this actually is a good opportunity. If not, you can politely decline and carry on with your existing marketing activities.

Either way, you win!

Marketing Mistake #2 – Not Implementing the Plan You Created

The next dumb marketing mistake that smart business owners make is actually creating a plan but then failing to implement it.

After taking all that time to develop a go-forward strategy to reach your target audience, they think that the rest will happen magically. Either that or they let the day to day “busyness of business” get in the way of completing the marketing activities that they have identified as being important.

Once you have a plan for your business, you absolutely must implement it diligently over a sustained period of time in order to determine if your plan is getting the results you’re looking for.

Marketing is a process, not an event and one-off marketing hits generally don’t produce very good results.

Marketing Mistake #3 – Not Tracking Your Marketing Results

Of all the dumb mistakes that smart people make, this one has the most potential to cause serious damage for your business because it keeps you in the dark about what actual results your marketing efforts are having for your business.

You have to create a marketing plan so that you understand, to the best of your ability, who your target market is and what they truly want from you. Then you have to implement your marketing tactics by making a best guess as to what efforts will effectively reach those people and persuade them to want ot do business with you.

But without the appropriate measuring devices in place, you can’t actually make improvements to your marketing efforts over time, particularly if you have several campaigns on the go.

Marketing campaign number one could be generating 5x return on investment while campaign number two is losing 3x ROI. This produces an overall 2x ROI on all of your marketing efforts, but wouldn’t it make more sense to reduce your investment in campaign number two and focus more on number one to maximize your results?

Measuring results means thinking in advance about the specific action you want your prospective customer to take (click a link, call for more info or mention this ad) and then being diligent about actually measuring those actions and running an analysis after the campaign has finished.

The reality of every business is that you need more customers coming in to your business and you need existing customers coming back for more. This is the definition of marketing: the acquisition and retention of customers.

By making even one of these 3 marketing mistakes you are adversely affecting your ability to grow your business.

Are you making any of these mistakes? If so then it’s time to write a marketing plan (or revise an out of date plan) for your business. Get a copy of my Amazon #1 bestseller Make My Marketing Work: How to Win Customers & Make More Money and have a strategic marketing plan for your business in as little as 10 days!

What is marketing?  Everyone, it seems, has a different answer.

In this short video, I share what I believe is the most practical definition of marketing… one that every business owner can use to qualify and quantify the advice you receive and the results you generate from your marketing efforts.

What is marketing to you?  Does this definition suit your business?

Leave your comments below.

Ah, Google.  The 800 pound gorilla in the search engine race, that shows no signs of wanting to lose any weight.

According to Google’s corporate philosophy published on their site, their number one driving principle or guideline is to focus on the user (that’s you and me) and all else will follow.

That’s important, because oftentimes as business owners and marketers, we think the gorilla serves us.  Sadly, that’s simply not the case.  They serve the person searching for information and it is their overriding goal to deliver the most contextually relevant search results on the first page.

They don’t really care if YOU show up on the first page.  Unless your page is exactly what their user is looking for.

While it’s true that advertiser’s pay Google lots of money every year to have the privilege of being “found” in the form of advertisements, there are other ways to leverage Google to find your customers and communicate with them directly… but to do it, you’ll need to become one of the people that Google has committed to serving above and beyond all else.

You need to think like a searchER instead of a searchEE.

Google Alerts, The Secret Tool For Finding Your Customers

Are you family with Google Alerts?  It’s an automated search function that you can “set and forget”… that is, until an email arrives telling you about any new pages with your specific search time have shown up on the internet.

Here’s the basic usage of Google Alerts:

1. Visit http://www.google.com/alerts
2. Type your specific search term in the field provided
3. Set the filters and email address to deliver the results to
4. Create the alert

I have an alert for my name.  Any time my name is used online, I get an email notifying me about it.  In fact, this post will generate an alert once Google crawls my site again.  This helps me because it helps to manage my reputation online – I know what people are saying about me and I can respond accordingly.

I have another alert set up for “Make My Marketing Work“.  That’s the name of my book and I’m interested in knowing when people refer to it in their blogs or other online conversations.  Again, I can enter the conversation if/when appropriate.  (Using that phrase will generate another alert to my inbox when this article is crawled.)

I also have alerts set up for certain keywords like “first marketing plan” so that when someone blogs about needing help writing their first marketing plan, I get a notification and can swoop in with some free advice and a link to my book page for more detailed help if they want it.

You’d be surprised at how much traffic you can generate to your website over time by being one of the “first responders” to blog posts or articles that contain one or more of your keywords.

How to Use Google Alerts to Find Prospective Customers On Twitter

Ok, so using Google Alerts to stalk yourself (or your competitors, by the way) may not seem overly valuable, particularly if no one is talking about you yet.  And getting email alerts and having to respond whenever someone uses your keyword could become a full-time job if you’re not careful.

But there are more interesting ways to use Google Alerts, particularly if you want to find targeted followers on sites like Twitter.

Let’s say your business serves people in the Vancouver, Canada area and you only want people on your Twitter list from around Vancouver.  You can set up an alert for that.

Or if you provide services to the small business owner or entrepreneur market.  You can set up an alert for that.

Or let’s say you want to know whenever someone uses the phrase “can’t lose weight” so that you can swoop in and offer some weight loss advice in 140 characters or less.  You can set up an alert for that, too.

And it’s not as hard as you might think.  The process is the same as above, but the trick is in “how” you search for information.  Using some of Google’s advanced search features, you can be finding people on Twitter all day long, without ever lifting a finger.

Here’s the search syntax you would use:

If you want to search Twitter by someone’s occupation you would search for:

allintitle:”*entrepreneur*” site:twitter.com

Of course you’d replace “entrepreneur” with the specific occupation you’re looking for.  The asterisk is a wildcard and allows for other words or phrases on either side of the word entrepreneur.

If you want to search Twitter by information they include in their bio you would search for:

intext: “bio* life coach*” site:twitter.com

Again, you’d replace “life coach” with the specific word or phrase you’re searching for.

Finally, you could simply search all of Twitter for a particular phrase using:

“*can’t lose weight*” site:twitter.com

The Skinny

Here’s the thing.  Google doesn’t care about you wanting to be FOUND by people.  They only want to help people FIND what they’re looking for.  Fortunately, if you want to FIND your customers, Google is more than happy to oblige.

You can set up an alert for that.

Do you have a powerful Google Alerts tip?  Share it in the comments below!

By Paul Keetch

Small business marketing can be distilled into two basic elements: the acquisition and the retention of customers. For many business owners, it’s not overly difficult to reach out and find their ideal target market. Where they often fail to achieve the kind of marketing results they are looking for is in converting those prospects into paying customers and in keeping them coming back for repeat purchases.

Since small business marketing can be broken into the basic elements of acquisition (the “getting”) and retention (the “keeping”) of customers, so too must conversion be broken down into the same two basic elements.

In this article, we will look specifically at three ways you as a small business owner or marketing manager can improve your new customer conversion rate.

Three Ways to Increase New Customer Conversions

The rate at which prospects can be successful converted into paying customers for the first time is the cornerstone of measured marketing. It is essential that you, the business owner or marketing manager, know precisely at what percentage prospects or leads are converted to paying customers for each of the marketing channels you employ.

Large “big brand” companies don’t necessarily have to worry about this metric and, in fact, have a difficult time even tracking it, because of the nature of their advertising.

Some of the biggest and most recognizable companies in the world employ a “brand marketing” strategy to remain in the forefront of our minds. But small business marketing managers don’t have the luxury of an eight-figure marketing budget and have to take a much different approach.

Customer Conversion Tactic #1 – Know Your Customer

Knowing your customer means understanding at a basic level exactly what fears, frustrations and desires motivate their behavior.

In many cases, business owners or marketing managers assume that they know what their customer needs, without ever asking them what they actually want.

Since people make most decisions from an emotional state of mind and then validate their decision with logic after the fact, missing this key point can be the difference maker for many businesses.

Of course, the easiest way to know what your customer wants is to ask them!

You can ask in the form of a survey that they fill out online or complete and send back to you, you can ask them directly while they are in your store or you can call them up and ask them.

Which method you employ will depend on the specific type of small business that you own or are trying to market.

Case in point: if people always purchased what they need instead of what they want, sports cars and beer sales would be overshadowed by economy cars and milk sales.

Customer Conversion Tactic #2 – Craft Your Message

One of the most common marketing mistakes that small business owners make when trying to create their own marketing materials is talking about themselves instead of talking about the customer.

Just like everyone else on the planet, including you, your customer’s favorite topic of conversation is them! So start your marketing efforts by talking about their favorite subject and you’ll go a long way to improving your new customer conversation rate.

You can tell right away if your marketing material is “you” focused or customer focused by seeing how many of your sentences start with the word “we” or “I” or talk about your own company’s history or credentials.

When first starting a conversation with your prospective customer, you want to focus on their needs and desires first. Proving that you know what you’re talking about and that your company is worthy of their business is important… just not at first.

Customer Conversion Tactic #3 – Measure Your Marketing

There is a saying that “what you measure, you can manage”. When it comes to improving your small business marketing conversion rate, this couldn’t be more true.

Unless you know at what rate your marketing is creating new customers, you’ll never be able to take steps to improve on it. Getting this data is vital to your success in business.

Fortunately, with many of the newer digital marketing mediums like mobile marketing, pay-per-click and other online advertising, tracking the conversion rate is relatively straightforward.

But how do you measure your marketing results using offline marketing tactics? You need a specific call-to-action that motivates readers (or listeners) of your marketing message to take a specific action and then you need to record that action.

For example, if you regularly advertise in a magazine aimed at your target audience, you could include a note to “mention this ad and save 10% off your first order”.

That way, whenever someone mentions that particular ad and completes a sale, you can place a checkmark on a tracking sheet under that particular advertisement.

Another option would be to have prospects call and ask for “Anna” when requesting more information. In this example, “Anna” is a tracking code for the specific advertisement. Once again, when someone calls asking for Anna you know right away where they heard about you and can make note of it accordingly.

As a small business owner or marketing manager, your number one priority has to be the acquisition of new customers. The best way to get the highest return on your marketing investment is to improve your new customer conversion rates incrementally over time.

Want better marketing results for your small business? You need a compelling marketing strategy that gives you the knowledge, tools and confidence to take the time to implement it daily.

Amazon #1 bestselling book Make My Marketing Work: How to Win Customers & Make More Money can help you write your first marketing plan or revise your existing marketing so you can start seeing improved results in as little as 3 days!

Order your limited edition sign copy at http://www.MakeMyMarketingWork.com today and make YOUR marketing work!

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