You must have an effective marketing strategy for promoting your products and services. For most people, marketing is hard – but it doesn’t have to be. Unfortunately, marketing seems ineffective because business owners use traditional marketing strategies that just don’t work. One example of outdated marketing activity is cold calling.

I know of some business owners who use cold calling to get new customers, but the bottom line is that there are only so many hours in a day that you can be on the phone, which limits how many people you can contact in a day. Besides this, you also have to face the fact that most people will say no to your offer.

The bottom line is that there are so many other ways to get your message out there instead of cold calling. I’m willing to bet that vehicle advertising is more effective than cold calling. These ineffective strategies need to take a back seat to better and more proficient means of doing business.

Before you start doing marketing of any sort, the first thing that you will want to do is to analyze your target market. You don’t want to spend a lot of money targeting people who are nowhere near being close to your targeted audience. For example, some business owners think that some sales should come in immediately because someone lives close to their establishments. This simply isn’t true.

I was one of these business owners who thought this way. But I was relying on old and outdated ways to market my business, so I didn’t experience much success. However, you don’t have to go
down the same road that I went down. Target your ideal audience and make it easy for them to say yes to you.

One way that you can create value out of thin air is to demonstrate your credibility. Provide testimonials and case studies from people who you have serviced. No one wants to do business with a low credibility business, so now is a good time to flex your muscle and show prospects that you are a truthful and reliable business owner.

You could even let one of your customers run an ad for you. It will more than likely be one of those scenarios where your customer is telling everyone how you helped them and the positive results that came from your service. This is a very potent strategy if done right, and it can bring in a lot of extra business for you in a hurry.

The last thing that you will want to have is a strong offer. Nobody wants to respond to a me-too product. Instead, offer bonuses, create value and make a strong case for why someone should want to do business with you. If you can do these things, then more than likely, you will close the sale nine times out of ten.

Identifying the best prospects for your business

If you were going to promote your product or service to a group of people in your city who come from different backgrounds and niches, how would you go about marketing to these people? Well, believe it or not, it’s kind of hard to market to a group of people that aren’t in your niche. So this is why you need to segment the group of people that you sell to.

So how do you go about segmenting a group of prospects? One way to do it is by using a mailing list. When you go into the SRDS (standard rate and data service), you will see many mailing lists that you can choose from. And believe it or not, the more specific you go with your mailing list selection, the higher your chances are that you will succeed with your campaign. And it makes sense when you think about it.

I know of some marketers who will pay out the nose for a high-quality and niche-specific list. Lists like these are expensive, but they tend to be profitable more than 80% of the time. One thing that you don’t want to do is acquire a list from a list broker. List broker’s job is to sell you lists. The broker doesn’t care if your marketing campaign is successful or not.

Because of this, it’s in your best interest to select a mailing list for yourself. One way to do this is by the use of something called the SRDS. The SRDS stands for the standard rate and data service, and it contains lists that are far more profitable than a list from a list broker. And you don’t have to wander around looking for the SRDS. Surprisingly, you can get it from your local library for free.

I can remember when I first discovered the SRDS. It had so many lists in there that I didn’t know where to start. But I took a look at my marketing plan and truly asked myself: Who is my target audience? This required some thinking on my part, but it’s nothing to be afraid of. You, too, can select a good niche if you know how to look for a good one.

Another way that you can implement segmenting in your business is to segment your customer list. You see, you probably have a group of businesses or customers who buy from you regularly and another group of customers who don’t buy just as much.

You could segment your list by spending more money on advertising to the more responsive list and not spend so much money on the group of people who don’t buy so much. This is market segmentation 101, and I urge you to start segmenting these techniques right away.

Once you’ve successfully segmented your lists, it’s time to start running some campaigns. Start with a mixture of direct mail and newspaper advertising to get the word out about your business. Initially, you should be spending money to attract the group of people who will buy from you the most. Then you can implement direct mail campaigns that are intended to reactivate customers who don’t buy as much.

Proper list segmentation is pivotal if you want to improve your sales and profits. It’s not hard to do – it just takes a while to segment customers into different groups. Once you’ve done this, the hard part is done. Now it’s off to marketing to these people.

What is market segmentation?

Do you know what market segmentation is? It’s the process of segmenting your customers into groups and analyzing each group in terms of revenue. If you’re not segmenting your lists, then you probably don’t have a good understanding of how much time you should be spending on a specific group of people.

You will want to implement market segmentation for a variety of reasons. Here’s the first reason why you will want to use market segmentation in your business:

Carve out a niche for your business

Instead of spending all of your money to market to everybody, you’ll spend less money and spend less time by serving those who have proven to be the most responsive for you. This is something that should make you jump for joy, because you’ll turn a profit in your business, instead of “throwing money in the dark.”

If you didn’t already know, niche marketing is a very good way to get more sales in your business. When you go into a niche, you lower your overall costs of doing business, and you can even raise your prices in some niches – simply because your prospects and customers feel that you’re a “specialist” in what you’re doing. Here’s another reason why you want to use market segmentation in your business.

Market segmentation allows a business to spend less time on marketing

This is something that I mentioned above, but it’s very important. You always want to find ways to spend less time on marketing – all while making it profitable for you right away. So by using market segmentation to your advantage, you’ll be able to focus on those people who spend a lot of money with you while spending less time (and money) on those who don’t buy so often. So here’s another reason why you want to do market segmentation.

Improve direct mail response with market segmentation

If you’ve ever thought about renting a list from the SRDS or a list broker, then you need to know that you will become more profitable by getting even more specific with your list selection. Although I don’t recommend going to a list broker; you should be able to find what you need in the SRDS.

I know of a guy who spends a lot of money on renting out a list. But in return, he earns a lot of money on his campaigns. So you see, this guy knows that the more specific he goes with his list, the more money he’ll more than likely make. Now renting out a very specific list will cost you a fair bit of money, but when compared to how much money you will make, it’ll more than likely be worth it to pay a high price for a list.

Market segmentation is very important, and don’t let anyone tell you differently. The bottom line is that if you want to remain profitable in your business, then your best bet will be to go into a niche and carve out “sub-niches” that you can advertise to. This is something that I highly recommend.

Marketing tactics pivotal for business success

Are you at a loss for words when it comes to marketing your product and services? Most business owners are, which is why many of them visit seminars and conferences that are all about marketing and advertising. Sure, you could spend $5000 on a marketing seminar, but you should know that you don’t have to.

There are a lot of marketing activities that you could be doing to market your business. For example, one of the fastest ways to see results in your business is by networking with other business owners in your area. The fastest way to do this is to go down to your local chamber of commerce and network with business owners there.

If you’re not a people person and would rather stay to yourself instead of networking for others, there are also solutions for you. For example, you could send a letter to a similar business owner in your area and ask them if they would like to participate in a joint venture with you.

Some will say no, and some will say yes. For those business owners who say “yes,” make sure you lay out the dynamics of the joint venture campaign and the percentage of the sales they will be receiving. You generally will want to offer your partner 60% to 65% of the total profits.

Networking is the core model of any MLM business. But their networking is the business model. They usually tell you to invite friends and family to join your “downline,” but most people who join will find themselves exiting the business within their first 30 days.

Luckily (and hopefully), you don’t have an MLM business. All people in MLM hate it and find that it’s a lot of work to succeed. If you feel the same way about your business, know that your situation can be turned around immediately. It all starts with your customer list.

Your customer list is the group of people who have bought from you and already know you and like you. If you’re not attempting to sell more of your products and services to your customer list, then you’re missing out on a ton of profits.

You see, in any business, 80% of its income will come from sales from the backend. The “backend” is simply selling more to your customers. You’ve spent so much money to get these people in the door, so why in the world would you stop talking and communicating with them? This is where your profit sources lie.

Hopefully, you aren’t neglecting your customer list because they’re the fastest and easiest way to make more money in your business. If you’ve gone a while without mailing to your customers, send them a cleverly crafted letter to reactivate them back into your business. You will more than likely find yourself with an instant surge of new sales.

Take these marketing activities and implement them in your business today.