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2 Small Business Marketing Tips to Increase Profit Fast
I was speaking to a group of small business-owners the other day about their local marketing.
Towards the end of the training after we spoke about a couple simple strategies for bypassing the resistance of local prospects using social media, I was asked a question by one of the business owners…..
“Whats the Fastest Way to Increase My Profit for my Small Business With My Local Marketing?”
Now to be candid, sometimes it’s hard to just keep my speaker hat on and not bring the audience member up on stage and start diving into their business from a consultative point of view.
But unfortunately, since we didn’t have time for me to learn all the ins and outs of their business and since I wanted to make sure everyone that was in the room got value from the talk, I gave an answer that I know you will get tangible, profitable value from if you apply this to your local marketing of your small business.
2 very fast, simple ways to increase The Profit of your Local Small Business Marketing
If you have an existing business with a strong USP and your existing business is closing sales, and you don’t want to go find new customers to buy from you.
one of the easiest ways to increase profits is to…
Add an up-sell at the time of purchase.
No risk in a new investment for local marketing, just a simple question that will increase your profit if you do it correctly.
If the product or service up-sell is complimentary to the product or service you’re selling as your lead purchase, and you offer the up-sell using the right words and your price of the up-sell isn’t more than 60% more than what your customer is purchasing, you should have around 20-37% of your customers buy the up-sell.
Hmmm… 30% of your customers buying something that is worth 60% more than what they’re already buying….That’s not a bad bump in profit! As a side note, this will work in the business-to-business local marketing world as well as the b-to-c marketing world.
Re-activating past local customers
Re-activating old local customers with a simple offer is another easy way to increase profits. Because if you do your job well (and I am sure you do) your customers already trust, know and like you.
Most customer re-activation programs I have seen average 16-30% buying response with something as simple as a few emails, a couple calls or some letters in the mail.
The best local media(s) to use to re-activate your old customers depends on your market.
But if you have been in business for any length of time, a 16-30% surge in purchases wouldn’t be bad, would it?
And if you tap on the up-sell we talked about earlier, you’re not only re-activating old customers to the tune of 16-30%.
But you’re also getting 20-37% of those old customers to purchase your up-sell at a 60% increase in price above your original offer.
There is always a way to get the result you want with your local marketing. It just takes finding a formula for growing your small business that has (recently) proven itself to be effective then thinking it though and testing it with your own local marketing until your business gets the results you want.
Anyway I wish you the best of luck. I hope you found this helpful. Feel free to leave any comment you think will add value to this topic.
Q & A on the How To’s: of Business to Business Marketing
How To: Network when You need to get more Referral’s for Life Step 3
How To: Network when You need to get more Referral’s for Life Step 2
How To: Network when You need to get more Referral’s for Life Step 1
2 Proven, Easy-to-Use Formulas for Getting More Profit Using Facebook
Tips to: Create a Small Business Marketing Plan with Big Profits
This short blog article I cut out all the fat and reveal exactly what you need for focused marketing plan.
Remember your product or service appeals to a particular definable type of person much more powerfully than it does to just anyone and everyone. But most business owners only find their ideal customer by accident or by throwing enough advertising out there something sticks.
This is why so many small business-owners think that marketing is expensive. Because it is expensive unless you are really investing your money with a targeted return.
Define who your product, business or service appeals to most and then target your message just to them. Choose your Ideal Customer by segmenting possible customers by
geography, demographics or affiliation.
• Demographic target marketing – Reach out to groups of people who share certain demographic characteristics, such as age, income or career.
Places that sell advertising like Television, Magazines, SEO, Pay Per Click, radio or newspapers – provide specific data about the type of people who view the publications.
You can use these medias to send your message to the ideal demographic group that is most likly to buy your product or service.
Another option is direct mail (one of my favorites). Think about renting a mailing list of prospects from your specific demographic audience.
• Geographic target marketing – Send your message into the area you serve. This works very well if part of the reason why your ideal customer would choose you is because of the convenience of your location such as drycleaners, banks, restaurants or the specialty knowledge you have of the area like real estate agencies, property and appraisers. Once you define your geographic area, get your message out as often and in as many ways as possible.
Send the right kind of direct mailings, purchase traceable advertising in local magazines and newspapers and become involved in the community.
• Target-marketing by “special interest groups or association” – create marketing messages to people who share your local group affiliations, such as religious groups, associations and civic groups.
Getting a Ton Of Profit for Your Small Business Using Twitter (Video Example)
getting local customers with twitter video blog
READ ME FIRST:
Ok, this video isn’t the most professional video I have ever done….
When I made this video I was in a quiet corner at the Atlanta airport. The funny thing ways, when I made this video so many people stopped to stare at the guy speaking into the microphone on his laptop…(that’s me) that I found myself distracted once or twice ; )
But either way, if you apply what I am teaching you here you will find a Free, Easy to Use Technique for getting a lot of new customers or clients by just using your twitter account correctly.
Of course I have to say for legal reasons that (results are not typical) but be aware this is so easy and the profit potential is so HUGE that some might not do it.
And over the last 6 months I have tested out what I am about to teach you here with 14 different clients in 14 different industries and the results where very impressive so don’t discount this just because its easy.
P.S. You have my permission to forward this video to your friends or associates if your in a business networking group, You’ll be a hero to anyone wanting more customers or clients but has a low or no marketing budget.
How to Create Personal Marketing Habits That Bring You Lots of Profit
All of my coaching members who have been really disciplined and have taken consistent action are telling me that they are seeing the greatest influx of new customers and referrals from their local marketing than they have in a long, long time. And of course, a lot of that has to do with developing a few key skills for attracting new customers.
But they still wouldn’t be getting those great results if they hadn’t capitalized on developing daily Personal Marketing Habits.
Personal Marketing Habits are daily activities that you perform to leverage the relationship and referral development process of your target market. In today’s economy, this is really the only way to get a geographical area or a specific group of people to think of you and only you when they or anyone they know needs the products or services you provide.
You might hear a lot of crap about the process of getting more profit for your business being easy. That’s just silly. Things might get simpler after you learn a few key business development skills but its not going to be easy at least not until those skills are developed.
In order to create the life you have always wanted with your business, you are going to have to work hard, you are going to have to work consistently, and you are going to have to always work to sharpen your skills.
You can wish, dream, and put pictures on the wall of what you have always wanted, but eventually the dream will fade away unless you work congruently on the activities that will give you the results you want for a long enough period of time.
And you are going to have to be willing to go through a learning curve to get there so that you can become a master at:
Setting up New Systems that Attract new customers and putting fences around them so they never, ever stray off.
The FREE Guaranteed Profit eClasses are some of the best tools to use and refer to over and over again when it comes to this topic, as you build a powerful recession-proof business
Creating Personal Marketing Habits that get Guaranteed Profit for your business means learning the best ways to Evaluate your process of getting and keeping new customers though their lifetime value and lifetime referral value. Then making the best, most calculated decisions you can, documenting those decisions and holding them responsible for profitable results over time by re-calculating, learning and taking more intelligent action
How to: Get More Small Business Profits By being Different Than Your Competitors
Start getting new customers and clients with the kind Communication that is sure to influence your prospects to buy from you for life.
The kind of communication that I’m talking about is the kind that is easy to promote, gets remembered above all the other marketing messages and truly describes what you have to offer.
When forming this communication with your prospects, take into consideration what the key benefits of your product or service are.
Some people call this the “SMA” (Strategic Market Advantage) or a “USP” (Unique Selling Proposition) or a hosts of other things. But for simplicity reasons, lets just choose “USP” since that seems to be the most commonly used.
When developing a powerful “USP,” Keep this question in the back of your mind:
What is it about me, my products or services that can create the perception that I am the only rational choice for the products and services I provide?
When developing your “USP” Make sure you include any special features that make your product stand out from the crowd, such as price, ingredients, color, size, location, customer service or even your own personality.
The reason this is so important is because there are just too many companies, too many products, too much advertising noise and to top it off, people haven’t been this cautious of where they spend their money since the Great Depression in the 1930’s.
And the only way to make sure the few who ARE spending their money spend it with you is by crafting a story that compels them to choose you over every other option they have.
EXAMPLE
Fed Ex’s slogan, “When it absolutely, positively has to be their overnight”
is a great USP. In fact, in 1980 no one got their packages overnight and no one realized they would ever need a package overnight. But four years later, Fed Ex became a giant because they separated themselves for a specific need that wasn’t being met with a specific market place.
Your USP must answer the question every consumer asks: Why should I spend my hard earned money with you rather than with someone else?
If you cannot answer this question, then you do not have a defined USP and you are vulnerable to the competition that is ready and willing to do what it takes to capture your local target markets attention.
Once you create a USP, add to its strength with guarantees, coupons, deferred payments, rebates or time-limited promotions or anything that will add the little extra that makes all the difference when influencing your target market to buy from you.
If you look hard enough, you will find what makes you and your business stand out in the crowd.
If you want to instantly, seriously juice up your “USP” do this:
1a. List out all the objections your prospects would have about buying from you and only you.
1b. List out all the negative stigma around your products, services or industry.
2. Pay close attention because this is where the power is…..Structure your marketing to answer all of the objections your prospects have and sell the fact that you are the opposite of the negative stigma around your industry (of course… be truthful).
If you find that these negative stigmas are in your business after you list them out, see what you can do to eliminate them and then follow step 2.
This isn’t just a concept or an idea. This tip has been proven to increase the amount of customers my elite coaching clients get every year.
The Common Uniqueness that creates Big Profits for your Small Business
So many people want to be unique, and uniqueness is good when it comes to positioning your company but when it comes to your marketing strategy it can be highly inefficient.
When you set out to take a trip across country you probably pull out a map and locate the shortest route. However, the shortest route may not necessarily be the most prudent route if it leads you off roading.
Roads and highways that are frequently-traveled…they may look at a glance that they take longer, but they are more predictable with numerous stops for aid if needed.
It never ceases to amaze me how many people start a business without first figuring out where they want to go, and then study the most predictable path to their destination.
Reverse engineering is powerful.
When you reverse engineer, you take what has already been done and simple study the components that created success. Then you imitate these components to get the same success. Let’s say I want to start a hamburger and fries shop. Well let’s see, that has been done a few thousand times, and done very well.
There is no need to spend countless years on business formulas when I can pull out the McDonald’s model and simply tweak it for my purposes. In other words, if you want to get results quickly travel the road already paved.
Successful businesses are based in consistency, consistently is based on systematic action, and systematic actions travel along pre-defined pathways. In other words, roads frequently-traveled.
Cutting through the woods may seem quicker, but you’ll probably get stuck in mud.
The truth is every result you want in your life and in your business…has left enough signals that you can find it.
It takes humility to concentrate on what someone else has already done; at least that is one perspective. Another perspective would say it takes uniqueness to be common because most people want to be different.
It would do well for business persons to take a look at their strategies and review whether they are trying to re-invent the wheel or if they are walking to the end of the trail before they start a new one.
Saying that….keep a look out over the next two months.
Because I am going to give you strategies for getting more customers that are PROVEN and TESTED for the best results possible in today’s economy and marketplace…..
I look forward to hearing the results you get by applying them to to your business.
What if You’re the Greatest Small Business Owner of All Time!
So I’m strolling down the mouthwash aisle at my local drug store minding my own business when suddenly done. done. done…what did my eyes see…every toothpaste was the #1 Dentist Recommended Brand.
Every one of them!!! I am not going to get into the logistics of how (every tooth past in the world can be the #1 Dentist Recommended Brand…. but when “customer getting” there is a level of flexibility in how you can form your message to your market place…that you might as well take advantage of or it will take advantage of you.
Muhammad Ali and You
The greatest marketer of all time may have been Muhammad Ali. He traveled the world claiming to be the “Greatest of All Time” before he’d won enough to even remotely make such a claim. This was pure genius. After years of hearing Ali’s marketing line, even those that hated him started calling him the greatest.
If you want to be the best you have to tell everyone you are the best.
So here is the deal…go ahead and make a bold clam about your product or service.
Boldness forces others to at least take a closer look at you, your products and services.
Boldness can even cause those who don’t believe you to repeat your marketing lines in order to explain their unbelief. It’s guerilla marketing at its finest.
Toothpaste
Back to the mouthwash aisle, by definition there can only be one #1 Dentist Recommended Brand, yet every company uses the line. This is classical fact creation. These tactics are not called lying because it it’s to general of a statement prove.
As I continued down other aisles I noticed how this theory of #1 is everywhere. Frozen pizza, coffee makers, televisions and even underwear companies all claim to be the best.
What is your big bold clam that will get attention?
When you use this in your customer getting strategy make sure you follow the WARNING:
When you find your bold claim you better give everything you have to backing it up. When done correctly this forces the evolution of your business.
Imagine how history would view the words of Ali if he’d never won a title. You gotta deliver!
Bold Claims in your Marketing
In essence, making wild claims gives you chances you otherwise may not get. For example, let’s say your business is making security door locks. Let’s now imagine your website tag line reads, “Our locks are sturdy and dependable”…as a consumer that just doesn’t make me pull out my credit card and order. If we change that line to, “Thieves Rate Our Locks #1 Most Difficulty to Crack”…now you got me thinking.
When you create quotes from the most relevant, respected party your reader immediately attaches credibility. Ironically, in the case of security locks, thieves have more credibility than police.
So what generic group is most credible in your industry? Use them to market your product. You may be surprised at how well it works.
If you don’t believe you’re the greatest, who will?
Leadership – The Cell Phone Theory
Throughout the day, your cell phone can jump from antenna to antenna multiple times. Odds are, you never notice. Why? Because your service remains the same, calls are still sent and received successfully.
In other words, you stay connected.
Your cellular company has spent countless dollars placing identical, adaptable and intuitive
communication towers across the country and even the world. This is so when a customer moves outside their “home” region, their service continues uninterrupted. As a result, communication is fluid, even in foreign territory.
This, in a nutshell, is a metaphor of leadership in the 21st century, the ability to remain equally influential no matter where you are. An ability to “connect” at the grass-roots level even though you are far away from your home base or natural comfort zone.
The face of leadership is changing. Old worn out theories are being bagged up and taken to the corner for trash pickup. New brighter and highly developed concepts of what leadership really means have emerged and taken hold.
It’s all about connecting.
Connecting isn’t a trite, simplistic concept. Leadership was once an exercise in charisma and political know how; today it’s is more about mastering the nuances of culture, taking groups of diverse individuals, and through multiple inter-personal connections, moving everyone towards one objective.
In many ways, great leaders simply nudge. Once people have been motivated or nudged to accomplish things they could, but didn’t do on their own, great influence is handed to the motivator.
Well known leaders from previous centuries may have been powerful, but the leaders of the 21st century are empowering. Why the change? As the world becomes increasingly connected, connecting has become the most admired characteristic. The ability to log in from Miami and talk to people online from the Ukraine has affected everybody’s perspective. People now want their leaders to “connect” offline just as they do online.
Connecting to those who follow is necessary for a leader to be influential. A trade mark of historical leaders has been their attempts to connect to their audience through sophisticated and inspiring speeches. However, connecting with people in our time is less about speaking and more about listening. It is in quality listening and not in well rehearsed words that we can affect the deepest changes in others.
The leaders’ ability to see potential in people separates her from her followers. Rather than feeling limited by her own experiences and views, she sees the world’s abundance of untapped possibilities.
She is capable of giving words to what is possible, making what was only an abstract thought, a tangible goal. This belief in potential is contagious.
When given the opportunity to lead others, accept the challenge as more than an exercise in charisma and political navigation. Take the opportunity to unearth untapped potential.
Michelangelo said it best when faced with a slab of rock “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”
That is leadership, using today’s communication mediums.
It’s Not Business, It’s Just Personal
Globalization has changed everything. There is no distance. Consumers are now willing to transact business sight unseen. This creates an interesting dilemma, one begging for counter-intuition.
Just as the world is becoming more transactional, the most profitable businesses will become more personal.
Let’s explore why.
Today, you can hire a guy in Russia to code your software, another professional in Los Angeles to design brochures, and a team in Kansas for SEO.
The pool of available talent is now an ocean.
Highly-skilled, and highly-educated professionals are available 24/7 in every time zone. This is great for the employer, but how has over saturation of products and services changed the perspective of your client or consumer?
Let’s begin with a little honesty; your company is probably not the best at what it does on the planet earth.
I know it stings to hear, but it’s most likely true. I’m going to go out on a limb and say your accounting firm, medical practice or widget manufacturer is probably not number #1 in its industry worldwide….it might be…and yes I know with the right positioning it can project that it’s the best and then become the best…but lets assume its not for the sake of the what you and I are discussing.
The good news is this, in a global economy; you don’t have to be the best to be wildly
successful. In fact, there is a little known advantage to being second, third or fifth…now that’s not something they tell you in b-school, but we’ll speak on the magic of second place in an upcoming blog.
So what really separates your products or services from someone else who is Bigger, Better Funded and has more Momentum in the Market than you?
It is your attentiveness, your intuition, your ability to communicate in a way that gains report and instigates a long term relationship that maximizes the LIFE TIME VALUE of your customers and clients,
Clients and consumers have more options now than ever before. They don’t have to settle, instead they select. They select those who can do the job well, but more importantly, they select those who make them feel comfortable, safe and like their best interest are kept into consideration.
In other words, it’s not business it’s just personal.
This is much more than making a sale. I’m talking about the art of listening to questions not asked, and offering substantive answers not sought.
This is more than up-selling, it is in-selling.
When you in-sell the customer feels a sense of loyalty in the absence of a long-term relationship.
In essence, it is a set up for long term business at the first transaction.
Yes, I know you have been told that business is supposed to be static and bottom line focused.
Kill that idea…or in today’s economy that idea will kill your business.
Consumers subconsciously want to find more in you than just delivery of the product or service.
Give them personal follow-up communications. Check to see if the work you completed for them 2 months earlier is working well.
Show interest in the results you give your customers beyond the transaction and it becomes a lot easier to find ways to increase your profit beyond that last transaction.
Think happy customers that have a relationship with you and get.
More Referrals
More Repeat Business
Larger Transactions down the road
When you communicate in this way, you are really establishing mental avenues of first call. This is how you overcome the bigger, better funded competition. You become the select business that has a steel cage around your customer mind when it comes to your product or service.
People talk to who they regular talk to….and the easiest person to sell something to is someone that already knows, trust and likes you.
Yes these are interesting times as far as business is concerned and the most profitable companies over the next 20 years will be those who create what I call the “intimate customer experience.”
I will reveal a few secrets on how to easily create the “intimate customer experience” without spending a bunch of extra time to do it in an upcoming blog post.
But for now…
Nudge your business processes towards a more personal touch, and the average dollar you invest in your marketing will compound 10 without having to apply anything extra to your business.
