Duct Tape Marketing: The World’s Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide – 2nd Edition.
The Referral Engine – Teaching Your Business to Market Itself – by John Jantsch.
So often we rush through client meetings aimed solely
on getting the order or getting through the agenda.
What we can miss with this approach is the opportunity
to bring real value or real change.
I suggest that at some point in a client relationship you
should be brave enough to ask your clients what their
most important personal goals are. And, then be prepared
to spend time understanding how you can help them
achieve those goals. Read More→
I�ve stumbled across yet another way to use testimonials.
If you, like many business owners, find the glowing, check
in hand, look what I made last week type of testimonials a
turn-off, then ignore the approach but understand the power
of the tool.
Get testimonials from happy clients, but get ones that support
your core marketing themes and messages, even if you have
to write them for your clients. (I only suggest this as a way
to facilitate the process.)
But, after you have an ample supply of testimonials, you
don�t need to view them only as a way to brag about yourself,
you can also use them as a marketing tool for your referral
network.
Here�s how to some more mileage from your testimonials
Compile your testimonials and send them to your existing
clients and inform them that they should use this tool as
a way to introduce you to potential clients if they wish.
Here is what I have found happens when you do this.
Your existing clients are resold on your value. Your
existing clients want to add their testimonial to the
list. You get to have a positive message about your
firm spread by someone else with an implied, third- party
endorsement attached.
Just another Duct Tape Marketing way to add power to
your Referral Program
Technorati Tags: referral+marketing
I know that way too much has been written about the already
Iconic IPOD, but I finally broke down a got my wife one for her
birthday and I now have a glimpse at what all the fuss is about.
(In case you’re thinking, like my kids, that buying it for my wife
was just a scam to get myself one, I got a pink mini)
I’ve discover that the popularity of this item goes way beyond
the cool factor. Cool factor is nice but, what makes this item
so popular from a marketing sense is this.
It does one thing and only one thing remarkably well. Its
marketing beauty is its marvelous simplicity.
So, the small business marketing lesson contained in the
amazing popularity of the IPOD is – Narrow your market focus
to serve a tightly defined market or niche, serve it like no one
ever imagined doing and communicate the benefits as simply
possible.
See Guy Clark’s – Stuff That Works for the music equvivalent
of this post.
Warning: I’ve read that Apple plans to take advantage of
the status of this device and add photo and video sharing –
surely a phone capability can’t be far behind – my advice, Steve,
please resist.
About once a week I get an email from someone who wants to know
how they should get started blogging. I used to launch into a discussion
about software and various options for hosting and driving traffic, but
lately I’ve come to the conclusion that you get started blogging like you
get started doing a lot things.
So, here’s my new answer.
To get started blogging I suggest you do the following 3 things.
1) Download an RSS reader or subscribe to a web based service.
Favorites for me are FeedDemon for RSS reader and Bloglines for
web based. [Here's my Business Blogging Resources Page too]
2) Go to Bloglines or some other Blog Directory and find blogs
that are somehow related to what you want to blog about.
[Bloglines make this pretty easy as it will suggest relevant
blogs and FeedDemon will seemlessly integrate the two]
3) Now, just read for about 30 days.
To me, that is the best way to get started on the right track.
Learn what other’s are doing and find out how you might do
a better job of it.
I am hosting part two of my 7 session teleseminars on Local
Online Marketing topics. Be sure to sign-up for next week’s
session on RSS.
Session #2 – Wednesday, Feb 23rd – Noon Central Time (GMT -6)
How to deliver your marketing message directly to your customer’s
computer desktop – The basics of marketing with RSS – Feb 23rd-
Noon Central Special Guest Expert – Rodney Rumford –
MyRSSCreator.com and Feedsyndicator.com
It’s getting harder and harder to cut through the clutter and be
heard. RSS technology allows you to develop a more personal
relationship with your clients and prospects and gives you another
tool to communicate. Again, this is still very new but by the end
of 2005 every small business owner will understand it’s power
– Get in now! Rodney Rumford has created several very
successful services that show anyone how to use RSS as a small
business marketing tool. This session will make what appears to
be a highly technical subject, very user friendly.
Building value and trust while proving how your small business is
different from every other small business that says it does what
you do, is pretty much the game.
I discovered long ago that there is a hidden tool in most small
businesses that can aid in this task.
The tool is so simple you may be tempted to ignore its value,
but read this post, look around and bit and give it a try. You
may find that it immediately adds impact to your marketing
efforts.
And the tool is. Give every customer based process you
engage in a name. Name every service, every add on and
every checklist no matter how utilitarian.
So now instead of just telling a potential client that you will do a
good job listing their home for sale, tell them that you have the
“Super Power Seller 18 point Home Listing Process†that guarantees
no stone is unturned when listing their home.
It may just be semantics but it makes the prospect come to the
conclusion that you really have it together. You probably have
just such a system anyway, you simply aren’t using its existence
as a marketing tool.
Your product/service names can help drive home your core
marketing messages too. I have a client that develops software
for organizations and they found that many of their engagements
came when another software developer couldn’t complete a
project. (a very common industry challenge)
So, they created a product named “Perfect Rescue†The product
is really little more than a formalized description of the various
types of rescues and the procedure the ensure a smooth transition
to their services, but the impact with prospects is significant.
The name goes in a family of solutions such as Perfect Coaching
and Perfect Vision.
Giving something a name makes it feel more important and more
valuable to your prospects. Packaging a service or process with
a name generally allows you to charge more too.
Create entire families of names for everything you do and watch
the value of your brand soar.
(Hey, readers, care to comment on some of the better applications
of this strategy you have seen?)
The title to today’s post you may recall comes from the theme song for
the Girl Scouts of America (I’ve got four daughters, I know a few things
about girls!)
But for the small business marketer it applies nicely. Many small
businesses feel like marketing is all about the hunt for new
customers (friends)
True enough, you’ve got to continue to build new customers, but the
gold in your business is finding ways to retain your existing ones and
find ways to do more and more business with them. For some
businesses, this simple strategy could become the most important
marketing strategy of all.
Amazon.com just launched what I think is one of the greatest
examples of this recently. They have a club type program (by itself
a good loyalty tool) that now has a killer innovation. The club is called
Prime Club Now you can get unlimited free express shipping for
everything you buy for an annual subscription price of $79. This is so
genius for two reasons. Anyone who buys any amount of books, records
or anything that Amazon sells will know that shipping is no big deal, but
(and here’s the big one) it automatically makes you think, “I’m gonna
get my money’s worth and buy all the stuff I can”
If you like Amazon like I do, I think you can learn a great lesson here
and find a way to start a club and give your clients an incentive to
buy more!
Bob Serling, a marketer that I have a lot of respect
for, came out today with his official position on
blogging in his newsletter today.
“So my official position on blogging at this time is, “wait
and see”. While blogging has shown potential promise, it
hasn’t yet delivered solid results. If and when it does, I’ll
revisit the issue, but always considering the real results,
not the hype and excitement.â€
Hey Bob,
Any time you want to talk to a blog marketer that can
attribute bottom line results just give me a ring.
Here’s the thing about any new (what 4 years old)
marketing thing – you don’t do it because it’s new, you
do it because it makes sense from an ROI stand point and
can give you yet another way to touch the prospects. Some
like snail mail, some like voice mail, some like RSS and
some like email. I know you know this.
Blogs are not a passing fancy, they are a legitimate
transformation of proven marketing techniques. The problem
is that there is also a lot of stupid hype about them too. You
just haven’t been able to visit with anyone who really knows
about how to use a blog. It’s “another” marketing tool not
THE marketing tool.
I have several clients who can attribute 6 figure revenue
directly to the blogs I helped them create. Oh, and the cost –
about $79 and an hour or so a week. It’s about proper
education.
My blog sells product, get me subscribers, gets me PR,
gets me clients, gets me traffic, gets me speaking
engagements, gets me requests to write articles all of which
turn into residual income. . . and (here’s the biggy) costs
me nothing but about an hour a week to publish.
ROI Bob, don’t forget, that’s the name of the marketing
game.
