It’s finally here!  The first copies of our new book, Make My Marketing Work: How to Win Customers & Make More Money have arrived!

Watch as I open the package and get to touch and feel the book for the very first time!

A huge THANK YOU to David Hancock and Rick Frishman and the entire team at Morgan James Publishing for all their hard work on getting this book from concept to reality.

Get Your SIGNED, Pre-Release Copy Today for $20 Including S&H

Does the new digital era signify the end of publishing as we know it?

Enjoy this video which I originally found on Alex Mandossian’s blog and just had to repost.  (Just make sure you watch at least to the halfway point!!!)

What do you think?

Are you an author or publisher?  I’d love to know your thoughts, especially since I’ve got a book coming out this Summer – is there still going to be a book buying market for it?

Enjoy!

Howdy!

You’re probably wondering what these three very different items have in common… well, spend 5 minutes watching the video below to find out.  It could mean extraordinary new things for your business!

Learn more about Wishlist Member and how you can get a copy of Gary Vaynerchuk’s new book “Crush It” free if you act before the end of October.

How many marketing “touches” do you think you need to make before getting customers to respond?  And just how do you go about getting people to “follow” your marketing? (This is especially important if you’re marketing online using Twitter, Facebook or any other “social” marketing tactics.)

Watch this short video to find out the answers!

This video tip is taken from my monthly marketing Q&A call at www.MyMarketingQuestion.com.  If you have a marketing question you’d like me to answer, submit it today for next month’s FREE tele-training.

What do you think?  Submit your comments below and join the conversation!

Got Marketing Questions? Submit your most pressing small business marketing question today and get it answered for FREE on next month’s marketing Q&A.

How to Effectively Describe Your Business

To effectively describe your business, what you do and how you do it, you’ll want to discuss features, as well as benefits.  Watch this video to learn the most important question you must continually ask yourself in order to get through to the true benefit your product or service offers.

This video tip is taken from my monthly marketing Q&A call at www.MyMarketingQuestion.com.  If you have a marketing question you’d like me to answer, submit it today for next month’s FREE tele-training.

Got Marketing Questions? Submit your most pressing small business marketing question today and get it answered for FREE on next month’s marketing Q&A.

The key to building a successful marketing campaign is to really understand who your prospect is, what frustrates them and what they dream of for the future.

I would suggest developing a customer profile that clearly details the specifics about your most common customer.

Starting this process by taking out a blank sheet of paper and creating three columns:

1. Attributes & Characteristic
2. Fears & Frustrations
3. Dreams for the Future

Start by listing all the actual characteristics you can think of about your prospective customer – gender, age, geographic location, income, etc. Then brainstorm what bothers them, what keeps them up at night, what bugs the heck out of them. Finally, what do they want the future to look like? If they could wave a magic wand and create their perfect life, what would that look like?

Once that is complete, you can distill everything down into an actual profile sheet of your most common customer.  I would suggest even including a picture, either of a real customer (you’ll only use this internally) or find one online that represents your typical customer.

Define everything, including giving them a name! That way, whenever you write a new marketing message, you can look at the profile, get really connected to your prospect and write something very personal that speaks directly to them.

You need to really get into the mind of your prospect to find out what conversation is ALREADY going on inside their head… then you want to position your solution in relation to that conversation.

Too many marketers try to dominate their prospect. To really stand out, become a co-conspirator with them, helping them get what they want.

Got Marketing Questions? Get them answered FREE each month at www.MyMarketingQuestion.com.  Submit YOUR most pressing marketing question today!

Paul Keetch is co-founder and lead trainer at Make My Marketing Work.

The third element of your basic marketing plan consists of the specific objectives you will try and attain and the overall strategy you will use to achieve those objectives.

It is worth noting that the marketing plan objectives should always lead to actual sales revenue.  If not, you need to re-examine your marketing objectives and restate them so that they relate to sales results.

Marketing Objectives

Your marketing objectives should be:

• Clear and specific
• Tangible and measurable
• Be time-based, with a target achievement date

Some examples of a marketing objective you might include in your basic marketing plan are:

• Launch new product line on January 1, 2009 to target market, achieving sales target of $250,000 by December 31, 2009
• Re-launch “new and improved” product line to existing customer base, conveying enhancements and revisions and delivering 1,000 qualified sales leads by June 30, 2010.
• Increase product awareness among the target audience by 30% this year.

In many cases, you will have multiple, concurrent marketing objectives, in which case you should make sure that they are consistent with each other and support your overall marketing vision.

Marketing Strategy

In the marketing strategy section of your basic marketing plan, you should outline the strategic plan by which you intend to reach the objectives stated above.

You’ll want to specifically address the “four Ps” of marketing (also known as the marketing mix) to address four specific areas of your strategy.

• Product – the specifics about the product or service you will be marketing
• Price – your pricing strategy as it relates to the market conditions and your competition, specifying the exact pricing and offers you will make
• Promotion – the high-level plan of how and where you will advertise your product or service in order to reach your target audience, including TV, radio, print advertisements, direct mail and online marketing efforts
• Place (Distribution) – how the product/service and your prospective customer interact and engage in the selling process, including retail, mail-order, direct sales, telephone sales, wholesale or distributors, etc.

Although it may seem tedious, spending the time to carefully identify your marketing objectives and the overall marketing strategy you will use to reach those objectives will help you create the tactical marketing promotional plan that will ultimately inform and guide your marketing team on what specific actions need to be completed, when they need to be completed by and finally by whom they will be completed.

Got Marketing Questions?  Get YOUR most pressing marketing question answered free each month by submitting it today at http://www.MyMarketingQuestion.com.

Paul Keetch is co-author of the Make My Marketing Work home study system.  If you want to create your customized strategic marketing plan in as little as 10 days, visit http://www.MakeMyMarketingWork.com today!

To write a truly effective marketing plan for your business, you must have the basics in place first.  One of the most basic, yet often overlooked elements of a marketing plan is the situation analysis.

This situation analysis will provide the context for the proposed plan of action and must be fact-based, not theoretical.  This analysis will include basic market and product information, as well as current and anticipated market conditions, the implications they hold and any major opportunities or risks that may be forthcoming.

Your situation analysis will include the following sub-sections:

• Business/Product Review
• Market Analysis
• Competitive Overview
• Consumer Profile
• Distribution

Let’s look at each section in a little more detail.

Business/Product Review

Questions to ask and answer include: What product service am I offering? How does this meet the needs of the market? Do I have a core product with secondary or supporting products or a complete product line?

The key in this section of your marketing plan’s situation analysis is to clearly define exactly what your business offers and what value you provide to your customers.

Market Analysis

What factors will affect your ability to become and remain profitable in the current marketplace?  What is the size of your potential consumer market? Are there internal or external factors that affect your business’ performance? What sociological or economic factors may affect your customer’s ability to do business with you?

Competitive Overview

Who are your main competitors?  What approach are they taking to reach the same consumer profile as you?  What advantages do they have over you?  What weaknesses exist that you may be able to exploit?

Also consider what secondary competitors exist – those businesses competing for the same budget allocation, regardless of their specific product or service offering.

Consumer Profile

Who is your primary target market?  Who is your secondary target market?  What demographic (attributes & characteristics) and psychographic (preferences & biases) similarities exist that could help or hinder your ability to market effectively? What is the potential size of your market?

Distribution

How will you get your product to market?  Do you require distributors or other intermediaries or will you sell direct to the consumer?  In either case, what factors could impede your ability to deliver your product to market?

Although the situation analysis may seem complicated and involved, it is one of the most important marketing plan basics you will need to include in order to effectively develop a marketing strategy and tactical programs.

Got Marketing Questions?  Get YOUR most pressing marketing question answered free each month by submitting it today at http://www.MyMarketingQuestion.com.

Paul Keetch is co-author of the Make My Marketing Work home study system.  If you want to create your customized strategic marketing plan in as little as 10 days, visit http://www.MakeMyMarketingWork.com today!

If you’re currently in business for yourself or are considering starting a new business, marketing is a skill you absolutely must master, if you hope to be successful.  Although marketing can be a daunting prospect for many entrepreneurs, mastering the basics of writing a marketing plan can be easy and fun – and it can provide you with the foundation you need to successfully grow your business.  Let’s get started by defining the purpose and mission of your business.

The purpose and mission of your business is one of the marketing plan basics because these details will inform the rest of your marketing plan, as well as the team who will eventually be responsible for implementing your plan.

It should be said here that as the owner of your company, you should be intricately involved in the development of your overall marketing strategy and its implementation.  It is your primary job to ensure that you are effectively reaching your target audience with your marketing message.

The Purpose

The purpose statement details the objective (or objectives) you wish to achieve with the implementation of your marketing plan.  You may be introducing a brand new product or service to a market you already serve, re-introducing an existing product that has been improved or re-engineered, or taking an existing product or service into a new market.

In short, the purpose outlines exactly what it is that you hope to accomplish by implementing the plan.

The Mission Statement

In your mission statement you will want to identify the primary reasons that your company exists in the market in the first place.  This section often consists of several short, carefully worded statements that address some or all of the following questions:

• Why is the company in business?
• What market pain or problem does our product or service address?
• What markets do we serve?  Why do we serve these markets in particular?
• What are the main features, advantages and benefits we offer our customers?
• What is our general philosophy for doing business?
• What is our primary point of differentiation from our main competitors?

Being able to clearly convey the purpose and mission of your business is critical to ensuring your team is able to execute successfully on your vision, winning more customers in the process.

When you’ve mastered the marketing plan basics outlined in this and other articles, you’ll be well ahead of many of your competitors in knowing how to communicate effectively with your target audience and motivate them to take action and become your lifelong customer.

Got Marketing Questions?  Visit www.MyMarketingQuestion.com and submit YOUR most pressing marketing question for our next FREE marketing  Q&A.

Paul Keetch is co-author of the Make My Marketing Work home study system.  If you want to create your customized strategic marketing plan in as little as 10 days, visit http://www.MakeMyMarketingWork.com today!

Are you worried that your business is going to suffer because of the current economy?  In this article you’ll learn how to find customers in any economy by following a few simple steps…

It’s true – In a slumping economy consumers are spending less.  But that doesn’t mean they’ve stopped spending!  Your job as an entrepreneur or marketer is to position your product or service as a priority in the mind of your prospective customer.

Here are some tips to help you do just that:

Tip 1 – Speak in their language

When you speak about the pain you solve, the “perfect picture” of the future your prospect envisions and how your product or service is uniquely positioned to help them faster, better or cheaper, pay careful attention to the words you use.

Try to use words that you know your customers use and they will respond much more favorably to your marketing message.

“Lose weight quickly” says one thing.  “Trim belly fat forever!” says another thing entirely.

If your customers have a specific set of complaints, use their words to show you understand their pain and their desires and they’ll respond in your favor.

Rule 2 – Go where they are already hanging out

There is no sense trying to market to people in places where they are not already looking for a solution.  You wouldn’t advertise your dog product in “Cat Fancy” magazine, so why advertise “anywhere” unless you know your prospect is already there?

Newspapers, radio and television seem to have mass appeal, but how much of the viewing audience is really in your target market?

Niche magazines, websites and specialty television channels might be a better bet since a higher percentage of the audience is there specifically for information related to what you are selling.

(Not sure where they’re hanging out?  Ask them using an online, telephone or mail survey.)

Rule 3 – Create a “recession” package

Instead of trying to discount your existing products or service, thereby devaluing them (and you) why not put together a lower priced package that includes only the essential items your prospect would need in order to get started with you?

That way, you can eventually upsell them to the complete package at a later time and still win a new customer, even during tough economic times.

Have more marketing questions?  Then now I would like to invite you to get your questions answered for FREE each month during our live marketing Q&A.  Ask your question today at http://www.MyMarketingQuestion.com.

From Paul Keetch – Co-Author of Make My Marketing Work