Do you have a marketing plan for getting more customers?
It doesn’t matter what you do for a living and what kind of business that you own. But, you have to have a plan for marketing your business. You see, some people think marketing and advertising your business is the same thing. This is simply not true. And right now, I’m going to differentiate between the two.
Advertising is all about finding new venues to promote your business. Marketing is all about creating a strategy for closing new prospects. You see, most of the time, your prospects don’t want to order right away. Instead, you have to give them time to respond to your marketing efforts. In addition, it takes at least three contacts to turn a prospect into a customer, so keep this in mind as you go about turning lookers into buyers.
Part of the plan for your business should be if you want to use a wide variety of marketing techniques to promote your products and services. For example, I used to use only one marketing method. Still, I soon realized that this one marketing technique could freeze up on me at any time – so I incorporated more marketing techniques into my arsenal of promotion strategies.
If you’re like most of the business owners I know, you run ineffective yellow page ads, poor newspaper ads, and run no direct mail campaigns at all. Direct mail is an excellent way to find good prospects for your business, and even though it’s getting more and more expensive, you should still, find a way to incorporate this method into your business.
So how are you supposed to run an online ad? It’s all about standing out from the crowd. Design your ad in the form of a coupon, and tell these lookers that they can get a free gift if they come into your store or call you on the phone. You will want to do the same thing with Facebook, and Instagram ads -, have prospects scan the coupon to have it redeemed
in the store. The implications of this are awesome.
Part of your marketing plan should definitely include the internet. The internet has given business owners a great way to promote their business for a fraction of the cost of promoting a business offline. When marketing your business online, you will want to do various things to attract potential new customers. Luckily, online advertising isn’t that expensive.
Design your website in a way that it’s geared towards obtaining prospects’ contact information. You want to do this to follow up on this free lead with your marketing materials. And believe it or not, people who opt-in to your form are great buyers. Leads that you obtain from the internet are excellent groups of people to sell to.
The bottom line is that you need a plan to market your business. It doesn’t matter if you’re advertising or running a backend marketing campaign – always proceed with a thorough plan. If you don’t have a plan, your business cannot succeed. So keep these marketing tips in mind for business success.
What is the most powerful FREE marketing strategy for getting more customers?
What are you doing to earn more and work less in your business? Well, I have come up with two great ways to get more new customers for free. The bottom line is that if you can attract more new customers for free, you’ll lower your customer acquisition cost and wind up keeping more of the profits you make.
Getting new customers for free is something that you should be enthused about. When I first discovered that I could get a customer for free, it changed my whole outlook. Suddenly, I saw myself coming up with more ways to get customers for free because my advertising costs were taking a toll on me.
Would you like to know one of my favorite ways to get a new customer? If you answered “yes,” then great! Here’s one of the most powerful marketing tactic for getting new customers:
Referrals
This probably isn’t a complete “shocker” to you, but it was for me when all of a sudden, I got inundated with a surge of new leads to my business. What I did was I offered a gift for those members who would refer one of their friends and colleagues to me – and I implemented this marketing for their business (since it’s like a zero advertising cost).
The next day when I woke up, I saw that seven people had referred someone to my business because I saw the stats in the email program that I was using. And if you didn’t already know, online leads are incredibly profitable. These are the type of people who will go above and beyond and jump through hoops just to receive something for free. This is a strategy that you shouldn’t
overlook.
Every lead that you get is worth something. So if you’re selling a $5000 service, and your conversion rate is 1 out of every 100 (1%)… then for each new lead that you acquire, each lead will be worth $50.00 to you. You can easily boost this response rate in the offline world by simply mailing to these prospects more than once, and it’s a great idea to add these people to your email
autoresponder list just to stay in their minds.
Now let’s back to talking about referrals. Once you get a referral, it’s in your best interest to do everything that you can to keep this referral for the long run. They have probably heard such great things about you to their friends, so their friends are looking to see “what the fuss is all about.”
This is your time to shine. Treat these new referrals like royalty, and you will find yourself with more money than ever before. Plus, for each new referral that you get, you will want to offer them the opportunity to refer someone else to you also — building a referral snowball that doesn’t stop. This is a powerful marketing technique and is something that you should implement in your business today.
How to get more customers for your business?
Business owners in today’s economy are feeling the pinch. Even in my business people aren’t buying the way that they used to, and I had to readjust my strategy to bring profits back to an acceptable level. If you’re feeling the same thing in your business, what’s your plan for staying alive and getting more new customers or clients?
Fortunately, it doesn’t take a lot of hard work to get customers in the door. The key is simply being a little creative with your marketing approach. For example, if all of your ads try to sell someone a product, you may want to rearrange this strategy.
Instead of selling your products in a small ad space, focus on generating a lead. This way, you can follow up on prospects with your full sales presentation, and more than likely, you’ll be able to ramp up sales.
If you think that you can’t earn more money in your business and that your business seems futile to have, then I’m here to change your mind. Remember I said that you have to be a little creative with your marketing approach, so that is where I’ll start. Here’s one way to boost your business profits now.
Give away something for free
People love free offers. Using a free offer in your advertising campaigns is sure to boost the response rate of your ad. What you want to do is simple:
Make sure your headline is solid and that the body copy of your ad sells them on taking advantage of your free offer. Once you have your prospect’s information, it’s time to take action.
Inside of your mailing piece, make sure you include the free offer that you promised them. One of my favorite things to give away is a free website review or marketing strategy review.
All they have to do is contact me – and they can take advantage of the offer right away. If you include a brochure with your sales letter, they’ll read the entire mailing piece more than likely. It’s something to give a try. Here’s another thing that you can do.
Offer a free webinar or workshop
A workshop is a great way to demonstrate your credibility, along with connecting with other business owners in your area. One of the best places to lead a workshop is at your local chamber of commerce. There are sure to be many business owners there who have some sort of relevance to your business, so this is a great place to meet new colleagues.
At the end of your workshop, give everyone your business card, and be sure to get theirs also. With the right partnership, you could form a joint venture project that can make you and another business owner very profitable. So don’t overlook the power of a workshop – it can do a lot for your business.
Take these tips and use them to have major success in your business. Marketing isn’t hard, and don’t be overwhelmed by the different ways to get a customer.
How do you identify your target market?
Pinpointing the right target market requires research. One way to conduct this research is by using the internet. You can go online and search on forums to see what the major complaint in your market is. After you have pinpointed the want and need of your target market, you can create or license a problem that can act as a solution to their problems.
It doesn’t matter how good your product or service is. If you don’t narrow down on the group of people who will more than likely buy from you, how do you expect to make any money in your niche? If you have a product right now in your hands, know that it was created for a reason. There are obviously some people in your niche who need a solution from you. So figure out what this need is, then supply your goods. This is supply and demand 101.
How do you define a target market?
I once heard of a story from this excellent marketer before. He said, imagine a competition going on, and you could have an advantage that you wanted. You could hire a celebrity, hire a mascot, run thousand-dollar ads, etc. But, he said that with all of those advantages, he would still beat you because the advantage that he would have is a starving crowd.
You see, people who are beyond hungry and are starving will choose almost any solution to satisfy their hunger. The marketer said he could run an automotive vehicle servicing the food and would still beat you. And there’s proof that he’s right. It’s called the Roach Coach.
Now I know it may be tough to imagine that you could still beat someone with all of the advantages listed above. But it’s absolutely true. You see, the starving crowd is the only reason why you would have success. Otherwise, you would be struggling like most business owners trying to make a living in today’s economic climate.
What is a target market example?
So how do you go about finding a starving crowd in your niche? Well, one thing that you can do is rent a mailing list. A mailing list is a particular group of customers who have an affinity in the marketplace for one reason or another. These are people who aren’t afraid to spend money on things that could potentially change their life. But with that said, when you rent a mailing list, you will have to know a bit about direct mail.
Since direct mail is getting more expensive nowadays, you have to be clever in your approach. Instead of mailing out letters, use postcards to get your message out to the public. Generate a lead and follow up on this person until they order. Of course, not everyone will buy, but you have to keep a consistent marketing approach when selling to these people. So be patient, and let the letters work their magic.
Finding hot target markets is essential to any business. Try and make it a point to do your market research before spending any money on advertising or marketing.