Remember the old Yellow Pages ads that said, “Let your fingers do the walking?” (Yes, I just aged myself.) The phrase was clever slogan meant to encourage consumers to shop by browsing the yellow phone book page listings for a product or service. In other words, let's allow your customers to do the talking so client and customers do the walking to your website or business to give you the business. So in this blog I'm going to talk about how customers testimonials are very effective to your marketing plan so read on and enjoy!

Which would you rather be in your business: Efficient or Effective? If you're like most people, your gut-level response is BOTH of course! And you can be. But.... have you ever stopped to think which one needs to come first? Steven Covey in Seven Habits of Highly Effective People said:

It's incredibly easy to get caught up in an activity trap, in the busy-ness of life, to work harder and harder at efficiently climbing the ladder of success only to discover it's leaning against the wrong wall. It is possible to be busy - very busy - with being very effective"

This is especially true when it comes to marketing. When your busy working on your business most people often make the mistake of "doing something, even if it's wrong", mistaking activity for effectiveness. It's easy to do in the real-time world of social media where everyone is looking for instant gratification in the technology world we live in. They get busy placing adds, buying lead lists, building a web presence, sending out mailers, attending networking events, creating brochures, and so forth. In other words, they get busy doing something and in this blog I'm going to talk about how to be efficient and effective while using both strategic and tactical marketing to your advantage so read on and enjoy!

​In the world of marketing, controversy and contrarianism are often used to gain an audience’s attention or generate media exposure. Many people confuse these two methods as being the same thing. Yet, there is a marked difference between being controversial and being contrarian. And in this blog, I'm going to discuss the differences based on the current issue that has created headlines and a firestorm of emotions from people all across the country. So ready on and enjoy!

In this blog, we'll be talking about the The Rule of 1%  to increase your ultimate customer experience.  But, before you can do this there are two things you must strive for excellence in or it will never work.  If don't correctly, you experience a huge increase in business over time so read on and enjoy!

​In the last post we talked about how to figure out what your customers want out of a positive shopping experience. Today we’ll talk about the concept of Deliver +1 and how this concept can take your customer service to the next level. I've decided to split up this post so the next one will cover the 1% Rule.

In our blog this week we’ll take a look at how the BIG DAWGS of industry wine, dine and otherwise persuade prospects.
 
Most of successful professionals use a series of information based ads that build emotion and a call to action. These are much more effective than a standard company branding advertisements. The same principles that go into putting together a high impact (and, often, high priced) ad campaign can be adapted to fit your needs with similar results.

Here are some ways to put together and execute a professional, effective ad campaign: 

There are three key areas of public relations you can use to boost your advertising results ten-fold over your paid advertising.
The key to public relations lie in:

• Public relation or publicity
  
• Merchandising
  
• Promotions
  

With a solid plan in place that encompasses all these areas, you’ll have a great approach to use public relations in the best way possible.

Public relations include all that is the media. Don’t limit yourself. The attention of newspapers, television, radio, magazines, bloggers, ezines and more are all equally powerful. Online marketing is just as, if not more, important as conventional media.

Here are the steps to get noticed by the media:

Today you’ll learn how to use direct mail marketing and, yes, telemarketing to your full advantage. I know, the word “telemarketing” might as well be four letters, but there is a way to help customers feel like they are getting personal attention and keep them from blocking your number!


With the success direct mail marketing has had and the availability of computers, these can be used as a powerful marketing tool for your success. Telemarketing is best for high priced, high margin products/services.

Here are the key steps to putting together a highly effective direct mail marketing program:

1. List all benefits customers will get from the purchase of your products and services.
   
2. Pick the single most powerful benefit out of that list.
   
3. Build an attention-getting headline around that benefit. Remember to use emotion-fulfill the desire to be young, wealthy, desired, popular or successful.
   
4. Develop a sales letter using the headline you created to grab attention, provide information and motivate customers to act.
   
5. Put together supplementary items, such as a brochure, order form, reply envelope or note that encourages them to read the letter.
   
6. Rent or purchase a mailing list.
   
7. Compare cost of mailing vs. cost per order.
   
8. Continue to test and refine your direct mail marketing plan.
   

You can see how direct mail marketing can help you find a local or even country-wide target market to send letters or postcards to and draw in new clientele and customers. Fine-tuning your marketing campaign will bring better results and therefore lower the overall cost of the campaign. To be successful in telemarketing you need to:

• Put together a plan, so you know exactly what you want to accomplish during the call.
  
• Develop a list of topics to discuss and the questions you want to present around these topics.
  
• Input verbiage checking to see if you are calling at a good time.
  
• Include enough questions to keep the conversation interesting, but not too many to sound like you are interrogating.
  
• Start with broad questions and narrow your focus as the conversation continues.
  
• Offer feedback to show them you are paying attention and appreciate their time.
  
• Don’t insult their intelligence or manipulate them.
  
• Listen first, talk second.
  
• Be relaxed and conversational.
  

Telemarketing doesn’t have to be the trauma it’s made out to be. You can put together an honest, personal and effective telemarketing campaign that is endearing, informative and gets the job done. Think of how you would want to be treated on a marketing call. Ask your friends and family what they hate most about the telemarketing calls they get and work hard to craft your plan in a better way.

“When selling by telephone, you have approximately thirty seconds to convince the customer to listen to you. You need an opening statement that captures their attention, conveys who you are, what you want and why the prospect should listen.”  Jay Abraham

It’s easy to see how direct mail marketing and telemarketing can positively affect your business by bringing in new customers and increasing the level of awareness about your products, services and company branding. 

My complimentary business assessment gives you the resources and tools you need to work through these processes and put together the best marketing plan you can. Connect and let's talk about your business and the direction of your marketing. I promise to increase your leads and sales WITHOUT you spending extra marketing dollars.

There are 5 major components to good advertising copy: (The order of these is essential to success)

• Command Attention
  
• Showcase Value of Products/Services (End Result of Product or Service)
  
• Prove the Benefits  (Educate)
  
• Persuade People to Embrace the Value (What's In it for them to benefit their life)
  
• Call to Action
  

Advertising is sales in print. So, you need to think about the unique benefits your products/services offer and showcase that in a persuasive way. You need to emphasize results, not features.
Let’s take a minute to talk about each of these components:

1. Command Attention: This is usually accomplished with the headline. You need an attention-getter that makes people want to know more about your products/services. The best headlines give a vivid portrayal of the value or show how a problem can be avoided with your products/services. The headline is the advertisement for the advertisement.
   
2. Showcase Value: You have to showcase the value or the end results of your products and services and, more importantly, show how they will solve or prevent a problem. They need to know what’s in it for them. Include useful, factual and clear information to show precisely what the benefits are and how they are going to help the customer. 
   
3. Offer Proof: This is where you prove what the advertisement is offering. You need to establish you have a method to deliver. Consider information that establishes credibility and past performance.
   
4. Persuade: You need to add compelling reasons for your potential customers to purchase your products/services. Use a hard sell approach and create scarcity. This will enact your potential customers to feel like they have to act now. Which leads into the last component.
   
5. Call to Action: You need to compel your potential customers to DO something. They need to check out your site, sign up for your newsletter, purchase your products, contact you about services…something.  Offer a freebie-a booklet, sample, product, bonus, demo, consult, limited time price…the list goes on. There are lots of ways to get potential customers excited about ordering and help them feel like they are getting an amazing deal.
   

Good advertisements include all of these components and are not complete without any of them. You can sit down and think through any one of these components, then figure out how to best place them together for the most effectiveness, or I can help you with this. Connect with me for a complimentary business assessment and we'll look at your existing marketing material and put together great advertisements to command the attention you want for your business.  

I look forward to connecting with you.