How not to choose the wrong client

Don’t get seduced by a potential customer with a fat, bulging wallet. Remember the old saying: “all that glitters is not gold”.

My husband is working on a tender for a job in the Far East. Of course the businessmen concerned are rich, and want large, expensive work to be done, which adds to the attraction of the job, but they are proving to be nightmare clients.

Why so? Well, these particular kind of businesses are used to asking for things to be done immediately, which is generally accomplished for them because of their financial power. As long as the job is completed within the requested time, then they’re happy. Trouble is, to get the work done within such a time frame, it usually is rushed and of poor quality. Then another commission is made for a repair job to rectify the first one, and again it needs to be done now! So the same thing happens again.

Now if proper attention was made from the beginning to properly analyse the job needed, with appropriate materials and an adequate time span, then everything would be completed in less time and with fewer expenses. Ideas should be fully discussed, and understood, even starting as jottings on the back of an envelope right up to fully developed proposals put out to tender. If all the details are not fully explained, don’t then wonder why your workers haven’t completed your commission to your expected standards.

To have an idea and then click your fingers towards a likely candidate isn’t the answer: careful consideration and well thought out procedures put into place will save money as well as time later. Don’t wear out your task-force by expecting them to drop everything and produce at short notice. Respect your workers and how they operate, be mindful of their needs and understand why certain things are ‘not possible at the moment’.

I know this is hard, but if you find you are out of your depth, sometimes it’s better to say ‘No’ to a such a client if you want to keep your sanity (and in some cases your business) rather than to run yourself ragged trying to fulfill a job that isn’t possible. This is especially prevalent during a recession when there isn’t a lot of money around, and it is usually desperation that causes bad decisions to be made.

And especially be aware of the client hasn’t coughed up yet, in spite of all their supposed wealth! – remember to get a deposit first to prove their good intentions. If they don’t show good will through a down payment, then leave them well alone. You’ll be saving yourself from a huge amount of hassle later on.

Enhance how customers feel, not your product

Watching the ads on telly, the Dulux paint one caught my attention.  It was very short, and it consisted of a sad girl with a green background, and then her emotions were reversed as the green changed to a cheery yellow.

Dulux were playing with how the girl felt towards her newly decorated walls. It didn’t need to say which paint to use, as it’s logo is universally recognised (very useful) but it was working on the result of her choosing a better, happier colour. It was a method which was understood by all, didn’t require too many words to cloud over the issue, and played with feelings rather than the hard sell.

That is the way to go during a recession, reverting to how are your customers going to feel if they buy your product or use your services. What tangible thing will they have in their paws they can appreciate, understand, feel good about, show others and talk about?

Word of mouth is an inexpensive and extremely powerful form of advertising, and gathering testimonials as well as warranting good comments and reports will serve you no end. Spruce up your customer relations, provide a tip top service and ask for referrals! Use the social side of your business without getting bogged down with paperwork or selling scripts!

Oh, and another good technique is to produce case studies that will explain your business – if customers can see how you’ve improved the lives of others, then they will want a piece of the pie too!

Combine price and quality to attract customers

While visiting Nottingham we decided to go for a Chinese meal. Just down from our hotel was an restaurant called ‘Big Wok’, which looked enticing at £10 for all you could eat.

Now normally these ‘pile it high and sell it cheap’ establishments skimp on quality for the sake of price, but we were pleasantly surprised. For the nominal price you could go up several times with your plate to a buffet section in the middle of the restaurant to help yourself to a variety of well presented Chinese food. And that also included a ’sweet’ section for afters.

So how did they make their money, being so cheap yet good quality? Well, they probably made a bit on the drinks, which were not included in the main price, and the place was absolutely buzzing, with all the tables occupied. We worked out that at least 200 people at £10 a head per weekday (and more at the weekends) would soon result in very respectable profits, certainly compared to other places that charged more but had less covers each night.

I had seen this phenomenon around the corner at a local restaurant chain which offered main courses for as little as £5, but then you knew they were making up for it on the drinks and other courses. They were also packed during prime hours, being a very popular haunt for taking the family out for Sunday lunch.

What’s the verdict on this? Can you afford to reduce your prices down during this economic downturn to get the punters in? If what you offer continues to be exceptional value, not tainted or reduced in quality to accommodate the cheaper prices, then you will maintain your status and keep your clientelle who will stand by and support you, and will still be there once everything starts to improve.

Both these businesses are working on their customers’ greed, understanding the state of their wallets, and providing a solution which is plentiful food at very good prices in convenient surroundings at suitable times.

Now – can your company adapt to this mind-set? Hmmm, not all of us are in such a position to accommodate this practice, but we can all be aware that offering a few good quality products at low prices can act as a lost-leader towards gaining more in up-selling or by increasing the ‘bums on seats’ capacity. Both seem to win in the end.

Customers’ copy outweigh your business profile

All copywriting, whether for web or paper, should be biased towards one thing: the customer.

Blabbing on about the company is a total waste of time, customers don’t give a tinker’s toot about the business, they only care about “what’s in it for them”, how will they benefit from the product or services offered, will it make them feel better, look good, improve their life, or whatever.

So much promotional material uses the wrong slant; if they were to adapt the way their descriptions were written into the customers’ point of view, talking about how the customers will benefit, then they will achieve more sales.

Analyse the successful ads on TV: the one’s that work don’t even mention the product, they go on about the effect it will have on their customers, how their hair is thicker and glossier, how much the decor of their house has changed, how soft their skin has become, how good their feet now look, what a fantastic two weeks their children will have on holiday, etc.

Stop being selfish and start thinking about who you are actually selling to. The customer is king, not the content.

Saying exactly what in the tin

Following on from my visible networking material idea I came across this business card from Jill Wigmore-Welsh. I wanted to share it with you because it stood out from all the other business cards at this networking meeting I went to.

Why? Because the first thing it said is what she does, but in a way that was beneficial to the customer. There isn’t much room, and she even managed a rhyme, but the aim of her business was the most visible element on the card, whereas her details took a back seat.

I like this idea, because the customer should always come first. Why should our networking material bang on about ourselves? The customer cares only about themselves and what they can get out of you and your business, not actually your business. Use the fact that we’re all naturally self-centered, so by turning the tables we can take advantage of this fact and steal a march on our competitors.

What do you think of this idea – your comments are always welcome!

‘Blackberry’ doesn’t say ‘babies clothes’ to me

One young entrepreneur was asking for advice on her babies’ clothes business on a women’s business forum. She had decided to call it ‘Blackberry Babes’ and wondered if it was a good name or not. This is my response:

I’m still a little confused why you need to use ‘blackberry’ – is there some underlying reason for this? I immediately thought of the hand-held electronic system. I certainly agree that ‘babies’ is better than ‘babes’.

I should take a good luck at the USP of your product. What is special about it? What does it have that your competitors haven’t? Does it use special fabrics, are the colours significant, does it cater for specific kinds of babies’ requirements, or what?

Then I would think about how it change the lives of the babies, or their mothers. Concentrate on that phenomenon when you do your marketing. For example, an ironing service shouldn’t talk about what they do, ie your ironing, but what their customers can do if their ironing is done by the company, ie free time with the family, weekends free from household chores, no more ironing piles towering on your washingmachine! You should be describing ‘what’s in it for them’, not your product, because customers couldn’t care a tinker’s toot about you or your business, they only care about how it affects themselves.

What is so special about your babies clothes that marks it out as different from all the others, has a special element that makes the recipients lives better, and offers excellent value? Take these facts, work out your ‘keywords’ and create a name using them. For example, a courier service called ‘Fetch it now!’ – says exactly what’s on the tin.

Why this and not ‘blackberry’? ‘Blackberry’ doesn’t suggest to me baby clothing, it suggests to me more of food, or blackberry stains on sticky babies. If you are going to have a website for your company (hopefully an e-commerce one where mothers can buy on-line) by having a keyword rich name will not only make it easier for the search engine spiders to find your company, but easier for search engine users who type in those ‘keywords’ in their searches for baby clothes, not to mention the mothers who will understand exactly what you can do for them.

The result may be a little more boring than ‘Blackberry babes’ but if you want to survive on the internet, being cute and pretty won’t cut the chase.

3 ways to successfully market your messages

OK, without the multi-million pound marketing budgets the big corporates have, how can SMEs compete? But you can accomplish it just as well within your sphere by using these three simple, common sense marketing techniques that needn’t cost the earth.

First, make your messages regular, repetitive and always upbeat. There are plenty of ways to achieve this: blogging is just one of them, and now with the rise of social networking, Twitter in particular, there are other media where we can bombard our followers (or potential customers) with carefully constructed marketing messages frequently posted to gain maximum effect.

The good thing about Twitter is that is you only use 140 characters (or 120 to leave enough room for, hopefully, retweets) so you have to think about what you are going to say before submitting it. This is a very good practice all marketers should adhere to. The same should apply when posting on your blog, or playing with Facebook, LinkedIn and other social networking sites: keep it short, sharp and sweet, making it obvious what you’re talking about from the beginning, and be appropriate, relevant and newsworthy.

Second, turn your marketing around so you don’t mention the product or service directly, but how it will affect the customer, how they will feel, who it will change their lives for the better, what impact it will have. This is a concept most successful businesses employ, and it works! Customers aren’t interested in your product, they only care how it will affect them: will they get their money’s worth, will they look good, feel good, be the envy of their friends, raise their social status or whatever?

Third, be consistent with your marketing messages by creating a routine. OK, this is difficult for SMEs who may not have enough personnel to spend time on this, but try and make it part of your 40% a week marketing activities; I’m sure you can slot in a few tweets and calendarise a blog post now and again? It will pay dividends, as large successful businesses promote their new products at least 27 times, in the hope that their customers will see it between 7 and 9 times.

Frequent marketing tactics will eventually sink in: this is all part of building your relationships with your customers (which is what marketing is all about), either for immediate effect but definitely for the future. Remember, you don’t want them to forget you, or be seduced away by your competitors, do you?

You don’t buy gifts with yourself in mind, do you?

When you choose a present for a friend, I hope you don’t choose it because you really like it?

When you choose the colour, you don’t choose your favourite and not your friend’s?

When you choose the size, you don’t see if it fits yourself, do you?

Think about these facts and compare them to how you treat your customers.

Long ago, when I was creating my totally unsuccessful wedding stationery, I was making stuff that I liked – what I would have chosen for my wedding stationery. Unfortunately I did not think whether it was anything that anybody else would have preferred. OK, I thought about the kind of card it was on, the matching envelopes, the accompanying reception stationery like place cards and favour-boxes, I even tried to consider what colours where fashionable and how much brides were prepared to pay (grossly undervalued as I was not creating them in bulk [thankfully] so I made a BIG loss), but I didn’t understand the way brides thought, where they got their ideas from, what really was in fashion, what their friends were using, what was already in the shops and catalogues.

The moral of this blog is: you must truely understand your customer. Get inside their heads, find out what makes them tick, look at the world through their eyes – and the way to do this is by asking questions. Only your customers know what they want. You must get outside of this naturally selfish trait we humans have, and start being Mother Theresas in the marketing world – consider others before yourself. Strip away any preconceptions you have, and reform your marketing strategy totally from your customers’ point of view.

Then do something about it. Action the reactions – change and adapt your business, products or services according to your market research. I met a market researcher who told me she had saved one particular company tens of thousands of pounds because she had found out what their customers were really thinking, and it was totally the opposite of their new advertising campaign. A big shock, but also a big wake-up call – and now their new adverts are spot on, with the inevitable results.

Ask questions > analyse the results > action the reaction = success in business!

How can questions help small businesses?

If you start thinking in questions, it will benefit you to:

• focus your mind on what your customers really want or need
• ask your customers what they are asking for
• work out what your own business should be asking for
• then aim to provide what your customers are searching for

This sounds deep, but it isn’t really. It’s not worth providing something nobody really wants.

Years ago I designed wedding stationery which many people told me was beautiful. But it wasn’t what brides wanted. It’s no good designing beautiful stationery that 99.9% of brides don’t want. I spent 2 years of my business life churning out stuff nobody wanted because I didn’t ask. The trouble was, when I eventually found out what brides wanted, I didn’t want to produce it because to me it seemed so tacky. If only I’d known, I wouldn’t have wasted all that time and effort for so little return.

Do you really know what your customers want? Do you think it would be a good idea to ask questions to find this out? Are you willing to adapt or change it if necessary? It might make all the difference to your profit margins…

Think of five questions that would provide you with all the information you require. They should be designed for you to find out whether you are giving your customers exactly what they want. Make sure the questions are open ended so they aren’t replied to with a single word, and are carefully structured so the answers don’t go off on a tangent.

Go to a questionnaire source like surveymonkey.com to compile your questionnaire and send it to all your contacts. If the questions require a full answer, put them onto separate pages: it will facilitate a better response. Include an explanation as to why you are asking these questions, and provide some sort of incentive to get a reply, like a free gift or prize. And once they’ve been completed, don’t forget to take heed of the answers and undertake some sort of process in analysing them.

More information = better informed = higher value = greater success

Should you blog, tweet or start an e-newsletter?

Guest blog by LisaMarie Dias, e-newsletter diva

As a designer of e-marketing materials, people will often ask “Should I blog, tweet or start an e-newsletter?” While the question is usually posed as ‘which one’, I will often answer “Yes” in an attempt to help them re-frame the query. There are valid reasons to start any one of these and in my opinion, often very good reasons to have all three!

First and foremost, you need to be very clear about the message you are trying to share. The mode of transport – and that is all that these choices are, different modes of transport for getting your info out into the world – depends on what, exactly, you want to say and to whom.  Are you selling a product to a new customer or disseminating information to establish your expertise?  Are you speaking to someone that knows of you and your product or are you introducing yourself?  Once you clarify the message and the recipient, it will usually be easier to determine how to share it.

Each mode is best suited for a different type of message with some working well in multiple situations.  An e-newsletter gives you the time to introduce yourself and to provide detailed information.  It also allows you to define your ‘tone’ and to post upcoming events. But it is not a good medium for sharing time sensitive information or for last minute reminders.  Blog posts are excellent for distributing daily and timely comments, insights and musings but work best when they are sent to someone that already knows you. The same goes for tweets.  They are the perfect way to stay on someone’s radar with quick observations, retorts and reminders but only when received by someone that is ‘following’ you.  They are not a very good vehicle for introduction and certainly not for explanation.

One client, a financial planner, offers a tremendous amount of timely and valuable financial information and advice each month complete with references, charts and foot notes.  This is obviously not a message suited to a blog post or ‘tweet’.  His e-newsletter offers the space and time to deliver this information properly.  Blog posts are a great way to define your tone and to grow your following.  By posting frequently, people get a feel of who you are and over time, you can build a level of trust.  This same client might blog about the daily ups and downs in the market as well. It would not necessary conflict with the e-newsletter and, if done well, could certainly support it. And I suppose he could tweet too, though I am not sure if financial advice via tweet is in anyone’s best interests. My point is that these modes are not mutually exclusive.

Sometimes I will hear the question, “I have a blog and I am active on Twitter, do I need an e-newsletter/ e-zine as well? “

I believe that, if you have the stamina – and do not underestimate the amount of time and effort each of these endeavors will require – it is often best to combine all three modes, using e-newsletters to introduce yourself and define your area of expertise, blog posts to build on that expertise and tweets to ensure that you are on your reader’s radar.

Promoting an event is a great opportunity to use the strengths of all three modes.  An e-newsletter calendar, posted regularly, makes someone aware of the event and allows them to register and plan to attend. A blog post can then be used to discuss the event and build anticipation followed by a ‘tweet’ to remind them when the date arrives.  Working together, in a coordinated timeline, these three tools will increase the likelihood of having your message received and in this case, ensure event attendance.

Pick the format that works best for your message.  Or better yet, try all three. This is not an ‘either – or’ proposition.  They are all useful tools which should be created and designed to work together to ensure that your message is broadcast and shared.

LisaMarie Dias works with people to create dynamic online marketing materials using Constant Contact.  She offers individual and group classes for those that are interested in doing it themselves and full packages for businesses that want it all done for them.  Give her a call and let her help you get your message online and into your client’s in-box!

How to use your customers to promote your business

Customers are extremely important to your business, where would it be without them? This may sound obvious, but there are some businesses that trundle along taking no notice of this vital element.

When analysing a business promotion, take notice of to whom they are talking to. Who is the main objective in their marketing message? Who is placed at the top of their advertising? Who are they describing when they talk about their services or products? Who is first, the company or the customer?

Humans are naturally self-centred; it’s in our nature to look after ‘number one’. But for business purposes this needs to be turned on its head: you need to think about who you are selling to, rather than banging on about how great you are. Customers don’t give a tinker’s toot about your business, they only care about what’s in it for them. How are they going to benefit from your product or services? Will their lives be improved, and by how much? Will they get value for money?

This concept should be prevalent in all your visual marketing: website, promotional literature, advertising, shop front, merchandise, networking: pitch, presentation and social on-line, sales patter with your customers – in fact any visual outlet of your company. The customer always comes first, as it is they you are promoting to, and it is they who will ultimately buy.

Another factor to take notice of is time. Don’t go mad trying to explain everything, especially if it’s really dull stuff about your company. The 21st century is a fast moving world; customers won’t (or even can’t) spend time reading cluttered and over-long descriptions; they usually make split-second decisions and can be very cruel if it doesn’t match their requirements.

For example, visitors to your website usually spend up to eight seconds to make up their mind whether it the right one, what they can do (go further in, click on something, sign up for a newsletter or download a free report) or just decide to disappear. Your leaflets have even less time to make an impression as to whether they are picked up or discarded: is this relevant to me, does it have the information I want, do I understand all of it, what’s in it for me, who do I contact to find out more?

OK, customers are self-centred, but they are also greedy. You may have got an idea of this from the website reference above. If there is something they can get for nothing, they will have it. Take advantage, and offer an exchange of their details in return for something they want, is of value, is relevant and will benefit them. You now have their details in a secure database for future communication; they are now at your mercy to be promoted at! And customers like being kept in touch, especially if they will have first hand knowledge of any new promotions and can benefit from early-bird discounts!

Use your customers’ opinions, comments and feedback. Write a questionnaire to find out more about their wants and needs. Encourage them to respond to your blog posts, tweets, social networking walls, on-line articles, events and workshops, teleseminars or whatever, and use this incredible source of information to find out how you can make your business even better for them. If customers feel they are appreciated, empathised with, understood and you are willing to adapt for their gain, then they will come back for more, tell their friends, spread the news and even provide testimonials and references (I have a great referral postcard designed specifically for this).

Create your unique selling proposition

Guest blog post by Jessica Swanson of Shoestring Marketing

In order to succeed in your small business, you simply cannot be like everyone else; you need to stand apart from the crowd. Always keep in mind that you don’t want to be ‘just another fish in the sea’. You want to be the biggest, brightest and fastest fish in the sea!

So how do you accomplish this? You create a Unique Selling Proposition (USP). A USP differentiates you from your competition and gets you noticed.

Here are a few examples of companies with clear, concise and memorable USP’s:

Head and Shoulders: We get rid of dandruff

Dominos Pizza: Pizza in 30 minutes or less – or it’s FREE

FedEx: When your package positively, absolutely has to get there overnight.

M & M’s: The milk chocolate melts in your mouth not in your hands

Olay: For younger looking skin

In order to be effective, your USP must contain the following three components:

1) You must offer your customers a specific benefit (if you buy this product, you will receive this benefit).

2) Your offer must be unique and different than your competition.

3) Your offer must be compelling enough to pull in new customers.

Once you create a USP that truly stands out, you will find prospects and customers lining up at your door! With all of the competition out there, you must find a way to make yourself unique.

Use The Following 7-Step Formula To Create Your USP:

Step 1: Describe the Benefits of Doing Business With YOU

Describe 3 benefits that customers will receive by doing business with you. The reality of the situation is that your customer doesn’t care if you offer the best quality, service, or price.  These are simply features of your business or service.

Your customer only cares what your business can do for him/her. For instance, will the customer be happier, healthier, wealthier, or smarter if they use your product or services? 

Take some time to write down three benefits that your business/ service offers to your customer/client.

Step 2: How Are You Unique?

Remember, you MUST offer your customer something that others DO NOT offer him/her. Basically, your USP separates you from the competition so that the prospect feels that clearly the best option is to do business with you (as opposed to your competition).

Write the different ways in which you can differentiate yourself from your competition. What unique qualities, attributes or skills do you have to offer?

Step 3: What Problem Can You Solve?

At this very moment, there are numerous problems in your industry that customers would like to see solved.
•    How to write great ad-copy
•    How to reduce your mortgage
•    How to train your dog in 7 days or less
•    How to find a date in 30 days
•    How to find inexpensive health insurance
•    How to find leads…
Obviously, the possibilities are endless!

Start by identifying pressing problems that exist in your particular industry. Brainstorm various ways that you could help solve or alleviate these problems.

There are always ways that you can help solve your customers’ problems, you just need to be creative. However, always make sure that you can deliver on your promises!

Step 4: Be Specific And Offer Proof:

Do not simply proclaim that you are “the best.” This means virtually nothing to your customers. Remember, people in today’s world are often skeptical and need specific examples and proof that you can fulfill your promises.

Tell your prospects exactly what they can expect by doing business with you. Do not be vague or ambiguous. The more precise and accurate you are, the more your prospects will trust you.
In addition, you should also offer testimonials from satisfied customers. This is important proof that helps your prospects believe that you will deliver on your promises.

Step 5: Use Your USP In ALL Of Your Marketing Materials:

Variations of your USP should be included in ALL or your marketing materials such as:
•    Advertising and sales copy headlines
•    Business cards, brochures, flyers, and signs
•    Your “elevator pitch”, phone, and sales script
•    Letterhead, letters, and postcards
•    Landing Pages and Websites
•    Newsletters and Ezines
•    Social Networking Sites and Other Internet Marketing Efforts

Final Step: Write Your USP!

After going through some of the above steps, take some time to write out a USP for yourself that you will use in conjunction with your business. Your USP should be clear and concise. You want your prospects to see the benefits and unique qualities that you have to offer so that they feel compelled to do business with you!

Once you discover your Unique Selling Proposition, your business will never be the same!

**************************

Jessica Swanson, ‘The Shoestring Marketer’, has helped entrepreneurs, all over the world, explode their businesses using cutting-edge, proven, NO-COST internet marketing strategies. To receive your FREE Marketing Kit,  which has helped thousands of entrepreneurs, just like you, learn the exact techniques for marketing their businesses for NO-COST, visit: http://www.ShoestringMarketingKit.com

How to use e-newsletters for effective marketing

Marketing is about long term relationship building, and a superb way of keeping your customers informed about your business over a long period of time is through a newsletter.

I have written at length about paper newsletters in the past, but now is the turn of the electronic version or e-newsletter. These are a very effective way of communication with a selection of recipients who should have expressed an interest to receive your publications (these things need to be permission based so not to be classed as spam), with the purpose to inform, educate, publicise and maintain a connection with your customer base so they don’t forget you and go off with someone else.

The first thing is to collect your customers’ contact details via an autoresponder, preferably through a double-opt-in system through a sign up form on your website. Having a secure database coupled with a template system will facilitate the procedure, especially with a large collection of details, and you can divide or create separate lists for particular campaigns or promotions.

Use marketing campaigns to collect customers’ details through the incentive system. Playing on the customers’ greed factor is an appropriate way of gathering contacts. But one thing that is not polite is to assume that after a networking meeting you can take advantage of ‘business card dumping’, which is uploading these details directly into your database, as not everybody would appreciate receiving your newsletter without their permission.

Newsletters should only be sent with a direct purpose which should be valid and appropriate. Don’t be compelled to send something out just because you said your newsletter will be bi-monthly or whatever. You want your readers to look forward to the next issue, and receive it with interest once it pops into their in-box. The last thing you want is for them to unsubscribe (a facility which should be available with every publication).

Using a template to make your newsletter ‘look pretty’ seems to be a specific requirement, but I would like to add that some businesses do very well without any special effects, as the success of a newsletter should depend mainly on the content. But if you think your readers ‘expect’ this treatment then there are plenty of templates available.

Don’t fall into the trap (myself included) of just sending out newsletters without a proper purpose or call to action.  Successful businesses always have an aim or reason for their messages, culminating in signing up for an event, publicising a promotion, highlighting a new concept that has become available, as well as increasing your expertise status. If you don’t have a call to action, ask your readers to send this newsletter to someone else who might be interested, which is another way of increasing your database of recipients, or allow them to reprint its content in another publication such as a blog or forum.

My call to action is, as well as passing this on to your friends and colleagues, if you are interested in setting up a newsletter and would like help in creating one, then I am writing a series of packages in ‘how to create marketing newsletters’ through systems such as ConstantContact.com. This will accompany a similar package called ‘How to beautify your blog’ of which details are now available through the link.

Remember: problem, solution and then product

Talking to a businesswoman who had trouble promoting her new product, I told her she needed to take a step back and view how she marketed from another viewpoint – that of the customer.

So many people bang on about themselves and their product – this is only natural, as humans think about the most important thing: ‘me’. Great if you’re a customer, not so if you’re the business.

Customers are naturally self-centred, but the business cannot afford to be so. The best way to market your product is within the perimetres of how your customer thinks, not to your perception of what they should be thinking. Your customers don’t give a tinker’s toot about you or your business, they only care for ‘what’s in it for me’, what tangible thing they can take away in their paw, how their lives will be improved, whether it’s good value for money…

Therefore you must think of the kind of questions your customers will ask when searching or asking for a solution to their problem. In other words, what is their problem, have you got the solution, and does your product match up? Let’s examine a well-known scenario from TV:

Problem: a really greasy and dirty cooker surface that won’t shift with ordinary cream cleaners: “How can I clean my cooker, it’s totally baked on?”

Solution: a spray that cuts through the grease and tackles the grime with the minimum of effort: “Great, my cooker’s really clean after only a couple of wipes!”

Product: (I bet you can guess, as it’s represented by a well-toned orange cartoon figure.) This uses something the customer can to latch onto, and provides a focal point for the customer when searching the supermarket shelves…

The method? Problem, solution, product – and note the order they come in. Your business’s contribution comes last, whereas your customer has top billing. That’s how you get their attention, show your empathy, maintain a memorable presence, win above your competitors, and achieve those sales.

Don’t just say it one way

If you look at the BBC website newsdesk, you’ll see lots of different links to their news items. It looks like there’s lots of news there, but in fact there isn’t. If you investigated further, you’d find that quite a lot of the links go to the same news article. Why is this?

People view the world in different ways. That’s why we’re all unique. Therefore if you want to reach a wider area of customers, you have to think more outside the box. Most of this can be accomplished with research, hence why there’s websites for finding out the most popular keywords for your website (and your marketing literature). As people think differently, you need to promote your business in a similar vein. Not everybody will respond to the same stimuli, as coaches trained in NLP will confirm.

That’s why there are many newslinks going to one source: to capture more of an audience. Each headline or link has been carefully sculptured to fit in with a certain type of person, in the hope that it will encourage more to respond favourably. They’re designed to work on many levels, in order to increase the success rate of getting their news out there (and this has proven to work).

How can you do this for your own business? If you were able to describe your company in many different ways, how many extra customers could you attract? How could you market your product or services through a variety of avenues to encourage a wider target market? Or even vary the product or service themselves perhaps? Hmmm.

I have said in the past that one way to promote your business is through your ‘perfect customer’. It is much easier to get your prospects to relate themselves to your ‘ideal’ than for you to adapt to their inexhaustible brain patterns. But I’m going to complicate things further by saying you should still promote your ‘ideal customer’, but in more ways. Allow your extremely varied customer base the chance to understand how you help Tom Jones, or whatever you’ve called your ‘ideal’, so that they all get a chance to relate to his predicament, and the solutions you provide for him. Even vary the solutions in which Tom is able to achieve his success; promote from different angles, view points, attitudes, methods, presentations, but all with the same role model.

And to find out these different ways? Don’t forget to use the power of questions, and the qualities of ‘test and measure’…

Up-selling pizza blogs

Up-selling is a concept I have been thinking a lot about lately. The book The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber explains how the idea of franchises combined with upselling have helped businesses become successful – but how do I transform this into my own business?

I want you to visualise a pizza base, which is an excellent medium for adding things onto. Not just tomato sauce and cheese, which adds value anyway in creating a Margerita, but all the extra toppings which make the pizza individual and appropriate for its consumer. You can add many different toppings to enhance the product, and its the combination of these when added together creates the final effect.

What if your blog was just a Margerita, serviceable on its own, but a bit boring? OK, it tastes nice, and it seems to do well, but do you think extra features would help?

Consider mushrooms as a link to other websites, peppers as a link to your newsletter signup page, chillis in the form of your picture, olives as RSS feed options, anchovies linking to your categories and tags, pepperoni as your social networking links, pineapple for your recent visitors and tuna to show past comments.

As long as all these ingredients are your favourites, it doesn’t matter if you put them all on at once! Although they all have an individual purpose, explore combining these tastes to see what effect they have. Test and measure the responses. Rearrange the positioning to highlight specific items. Work with your widgets!

But don’t forget the tomato and cheese, which should relate to the blog posts, as these are the mainstay of your pizza. Good quality and value should always be on the menu.

How does this relate to upselling? ‘How to beautify your blog’ offers a series of packages that can be added to the main staple, the blog itself. Investigate this concept and give me feedback – does this sort of thing appeal to you? More ingredients cooking away are advice on exiting posts and how to write them effectively, plus all the other marketing elements of blogs I am researching into. Should be the making of the most fantastic pizzas (sorry, blogs) ever!

Make-up an on-line impression

Guest blog by LisaMarie Dias, e-newsletter diva

I don’t wear much make-up, but I do use under-eye concealer almost every day. If you use this, you know how hard it is to find a shade and texture that matches your skin. Finding one that I liked was a challenge, so I was thrilled when the woman behind the make-up counter found one for me that seemed perfect.

I brought it home only to realize that the sleek metal tube was nearly impossible to open, especially with my slightly moisturized fingers. Even after I scrubbed clean both my hands and tube, I still had great difficulty. Days later, still struggling with the tube, I realized that if I twisted it, even slightly, while attempting to open it, large quantities of the product would gush out of the cap. Although the color matched and the tube design was attractive, I’d never buy this product again.

As I thought about it more, I realized that this experience has many parallels with my work creating online marketing materials for small businesses. As great as your product or service might be, if the end user cannot open your message, opens it but can’t read it, or if it creates a mess (think viruses – even the threat of one) they will NOT come back for more.

With this in mind, I have created a list of suggestions for making sure that your message is heard:

§    Do not use a regular email service, like Outlook or AOL to create and/or send your mailings:
•    There are limits to the number of recipients you can send to at any one time without being tagged as SPAM. Even if you send them in batches, there is a chance that your address will be tagged and blocked.
•    Regular email is designed for single-column, letter-format correspondence, not longer, more informative and multi-columned documents.

§    Use an online marketing tool to deliver your message:
•    Services like Constant Contact and others provide tools to create documents that are clear, clean, and easy to read across multiple platforms. They allow you to divide your text into columns and to add photos and images to make your message both more readable and more enjoyable
•    These services work to ensure that your message is not considered SPAM. While no one service can promise that every message will be accepted (there are personal, private, and corporate filters that can still be a barrier), these services increase your chances of getting through.

You put a tremendous amount of time, money and energy into your online marketing materials; make sure that you use a delivery method which ensures that they are easily opened and enjoyed!

LisaMarie Dias helps individuals and small businesses create customized online e-newsletters, e-zines, product announcements and more, using Constant Contact and other online delivery services.  If you are looking for an easy and affordable way to get your message online and into your client’s inbox or want to start an e-newsletter but just don’t know where to begin, LisaMarie Dias Designs can help!

Visit www.LisaMarieDiasDesigns.com to learn more about her services and to find links to Constant Contact where you can sign up for a f.ree 60 day trial!  Email LMD@LisaMarieDiasDesigns.com to set up a complimentary 15 minute phone consultation to see how she can help you get your message from your hands to your client’s inbox!
  Sign up here for LisaMarie’s monthly newsletter filled with tips and suggestions on how to design and create your own custom e-newsletter for your business, your child’s sports teams or volunteer efforts!

How to use autoresponders within marketing campaigns

When putting together an on-line marketing campaign it is vital to get the process automated. You cannot be sitting there 24/7 waiting for any responses, and then be able to process them immediately. Wouldn’t you rather it be done for you while you are elsewhere doing business, making money, asleep or even relaxing on holiday?

You can automate the gathering of contact details from interested customers into a safe and secure database. You can use that database to send out automated emails that are in response to their enquiries. You can automate the process of sending out on-line goods such as special reports and e-books, and if the customer needs to make a purchase, you can use shopping carts to automate receiving the money and organising the delivery process of these items, whether they are electronic/printed books or other goods.

Then, because you have created a database of your customers’ details, you are able to communicate with them about future promotions and products, made all the more successful because they have already bought from you and are more likely to be interested.  It’s much easier to deal with past customers than to coax the unknown into buying.

There are a variety of autoresponders available, depending on their function. If all you want to do is to communicate with your prospective customers on a regular basis, then an electronic newsletter system is appropriate like ConstantContact.com and iContact.com. These provide databases with a series of templates that can be adapted to suit your corporate image, and their self-editing system is very easy to use.

Alternatively you could use an autoresponder like Aweber.com which also provides multiple databases and allows automated email responses, newsletter templates and the delivery of non-paid-for e-goods. It can be used in conjunction with payment systems like Paypal for simple automated delivery of paid goods, but it’s not as functional as a shopping cart.

Shopping carts like 1shoppingcart.com and e-junkie.com tend to be quite complicated to set up, but once achieved make it much easier for the customers to complete the purchasing process, for you to collect what you need from them, such as their contact and payment details, and even organising the necessary information sent to other parties who are part of the processing system, such as distribution houses and manufacturers. They also include an e-newsletter system for regular communications, as well as other automated money-making facilities such as affiliates.

There are a huge number of factors that need to come into play to make any automated system functional, practical and successful. All the marketing ploys need to be applied: attraction, interest, desire, action; focus, minimalism, uncomplicated, persuasion; customer first, market research, validity, affordable; visible, compelling, obvious, proactive. And above all, planning; as Graham Jones the Internet Psychologist said, a lot of on-line marketing systems fail because they just haven’t been thought through properly.

Create a call to action on every webpage

I really don’t mind giving my opinion on website design. And it’s always so nice to comment on a really good one for a change.

A photographer friend of mine asked for my reaction to his new website design while it was being renovated. My first reaction was very positive, with its clean, clear, crisp lines providing a very professional layout. It was the grey words and logo on the white background that did it for me – how nice to see an uncluttered presentation with plenty of white space and light!

But I felt compelled to provide some comments to increase his website efficiency:

The index page should work to the three second rule. Three seconds to make up their minds that this is the right website and what they should then do. Getting the visitors to do something is paramount; they should be encouraged to go further into the site to learn more, or sign up to something with a suitable incentive (this is to gather their details for future communications). The last thing you want is for them to leave!

Also, don’t overload other pages with detailed content. My friend’s grey text may have looked elegant and contributed to the spatial atmosphere that was so pleasing, but it did make it very difficult to read in large quantities. Websites are not like books. People don’t find it easy to sit down and read through webpages with a cup of tea. Also if they are surfing they usually do not have the time to plough through densely packed paragraphs.

Your accompanying webpages should act like little landing pages for specific subjects. This means they should contain the same structure and marketing elements as the index page, because spiders direct surfers to the most relevant page to their search, and this may not be the index page of the website. Allow for drop-in visitors for that particular subject, and adapt the page for the three second rule too.

Design your webpages with the initial concept of getting your customers to make contact. Once you’ve got them across your threshold then you can give them all the necessary detail to seal your capture. Your content should be delivered quickly and concisely with poignant and relevant information. Separate each benefit with bullet points or paragraphs. This allows the eye to rapidly choose what it wants to read and then enables the reader to digest and take action.

But what is this advert really saying?

I’ve just finished an advert.

The process was that it needed to be made ready for print: the image at 300 dpi, changed from RGB to CMYK, collect the logo from the original and superimpose it onto the new one (using Photoshop to separate it from its original background), work out what font was used for the text and transform it to the right size for the magazine’s dimensions including bleed.

The effect is stunning, because the image used is stunning. But that is all it has going for it. Sure, it will fit in extremely well into the kind of magazine it is going into, as it will look like just the rest of the pages, beautiful. But the problem is, is it really an advert?

Why am I questioning this? Because it misses some vital points. OK, it has a logo, but that isn’t the be-and-end-all of an advert, not unless it is Coca-Cola which needs no explanation. Do you understand exactly what it is promoting? If you do, what makes it different from anything else? Also, the text (if you could read it because it is so small) is too cryptic to understand its message properly; there are no instructions for the reader to take action; and even if they did want to make contact, there’s only a webaddress which is miniscule and totally unnoticeable (can you find it?).

I suppose the owner wanted their promotion to be subtle, like their product, but unless you have managed to secure world-wide fame and a huge following, have made millions of pounds and have several well-placed outlets throughout the world, have all the fashion magazines falling over themselves to do a story on your product and the biggest celebrities showing off their latest version on the red carpet, then this kind of advertising is not going to work – at all!