In order to have a irresistible business you need to create rituals in your business in order to create an aura of value around your business. You also need to make sure you have processes in place. this makes client attraction a bliss.
Archive for the ‘Marketing for small Business’ Category
Client attraction: Creating rituals in business
Monday, July 26th, 2010 by shaharHow to choose a marketing consultant
Saturday, July 3rd, 2010 by shaharWith the internet and social media marketing along came a huge line of new marketing consultants. Unfortunately a big chunk still live in their mother’s basement and never made a penny online. Even worse, they have no business experience. Getting advice from these people can cause you a lot of headaches and take your business down.
Here are several tips for securing talent that will save your project time, mistakes and money when choosing a Marketing Consultant:
- Meet 1 on 1
- Look at their work product, PR, past strategies, designs
- Ask about the products they have launched themselves
- Check the Alexa Rank and Page rank of their websites.
- Check their presence online.
- Ask about their revenue models online and check examples given.
- Have they won or been nominated for industry awards?
- References are nice, but really, who gives bad references?
- What specific, off-the-cuff strategies does the consultant propose?
- Do the strategies proposed seem cogent, offer fresh perspective?
- Check if what he/she is offering are real strategies or just a bunch of tactics you could learn from a book.
- Do they have hands on experience in business?
- Don’t price shop. Good consultants are not cheap. Here the saying “you get what you pay for” really applies.
- Listen to your guts.
List of uses in mobile marketing for small business
Tuesday, June 15th, 2010 by shaharI’ve talked a lot about QR codes and the possibilities it has for business, so, let’s talk about something close to codes today. We will talk about mobile marketing for small businesses.
As you probably have noticed, almost every one carries a mobile phone. Some of us cannot imagine life without a cel phone anymore and many families are getting rid of land lines because they have no more use for them.
When you think about marketing a business, most of the time we think how to reach them in a specific place. For example when they are online in a search engine on a social network or we try to reach them with direct mail or phone when they are at home.
Up to a short time ago we had no way of reaching people wherever they are. Here comes mobile marketing and QR codes, geo-based games like FourSquare and text messaging. All very powerful ways to reach your audience and if used properly, a great way to increase sales and do follow-up
Here I want to provide you with a list of things you could use mobile marketing, more specifically, text messages to promote, sell and follow-up.
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You can send people a Today’s special
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Buy one get one free
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contests
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New items arrived
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Raffles
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birthday specials.
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Restaurants can text when a table is ready.
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Send basic info about an item
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Basic info about you
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Photos of products
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for Real Estate you may want to send the property description
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Property virtual tous.
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New property listing
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Link to websites
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Appointment remiders
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Meeting reminders
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Networking events
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Special promos
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Emergency alerts
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Events
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Fundraisings
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Time to refil your prescription
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Reminder to set next appointment
There are probably many more ways to use mobile marketing in your busienss. Remember that text messages are usually received within seconds of sending, which means it is a great delivery method and is more reliable than e-mail.. you don’t need a special phone to received messages, most phones have this capability.
Americans sent over 90 billion text messages just last month, that is a lot more than voice calls.
You might not be texting a lot but you are not your audience. Mobile marketing is simple, effective and very low cost so there is no reason to not use this as a way to keep in front of your audience.
Basically you choose some keywords that you display in other marketing amterials like flyers, car window etc. People dial a number and input the keyword. They will see a personalized message(ex coupon) and now you have access and permission to send that person other messages. Be careful not to over do it. Ideally not more than 2 messages a week.
Different uses for QR codes for small business owners
Friday, June 11th, 2010 by shaharWe get a lot of questions about our favorite social media tools. Well, most social media tools can be useful in one moment or another and when they help you convert prospects into customers or strengthen the relationship with existing customers, I tend to love them.
There is one social tool that I think is one of the best things out there for savvy business owners.
It is the QR code. This simple code does something that every small business owner should dream about every night. It creates a bridge between the printed or offline world to the online world.
How powerful is that?
I don’t know about you but when I started my business money was not easily available and every penny spent counted. One thing that annoyed me a lot was going to networking meetings and passing some flyers knowing most of them would end up in the trash really soon. If at that time QR codes were around things would be different.
QR codes stand for quick response codes. They store a lot of data- around 250 characters. Not enough? Well, it is a lot more than a tweet and people are doing just fine marketing themselves with tweets.
The QR codes can be scanned with any smart phone and will take the person to a web page, a coupon, a contest, whatever you can imagine. Just think of the possibilities. They are simple to create and very inexpensive. People can check right away and get the offer right away too.
Authors for example can have QR codes at the end of their book with an offer. Yes, I know you can add a web address to a page but let’s face it, how many times have you gotten a book or a flyer with a web adreesand took to your computer to check the URL? For me, most of the times I make a mental note to check the URL and then just forget.
I think QR codes can become huge allies for small business owners. Maybe what is missing is just some ideas on how to use the codes, so here is a list I compiled:
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linking to full text journals from print journals; making mobile friendly videos available at the point of need; embedding videos & links to extra help online in printed guides.
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QR Code on bus stations to allow you to purchase ticket without typing the message.
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At bus stations with the schedule
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Geo caching adventures
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Share presentations
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Music Downloads
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Apps downloads
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Self-branding
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Geo-based reviews
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Geo-based tours
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Green tickets
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Fashion
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Product details
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Offers
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Event details
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Contests
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Competition details
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Contact details- we use them in our business cards
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Coupons
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Random coupons- Starbucks does this very well, each time you scan you get a different offer.
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Social media Ids
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Links to your videos
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how to information in products
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How to information in printed materials
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Book offers
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Authors bio
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Use in Billboards
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Use in your shop window to entice reviews
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Maps
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Invitations
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Link to your blog
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Special offer on flayers
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On trade shows
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On trade shows where when you scan tells you to go to a specific booth for a freebie. (saw this one done by a company called Print concierge. Very clever!
Probably there are many more ways to use QR codes, just takes a little imagination and as usual, action.
Want to master marketing for small businesses? Try Small business marketing mastery program
A little bit on conversion marketing
Sunday, June 6th, 2010 by The BuzzBooster Team!Did you know that less than 2% of typical website visitors complete a transaction and also that the average website receives only ten visitors a day?
This is only 6 transactions a month!
That is not very exciting!
It is also clear that if you just put a site out there and don’t take very specific action to convert better, you will never see a good return in sales.
There are two things that you need to pay a lot of attention and work towards improving:
1- increase the traffic to your website. This can be done through SEO, Pay per click or social media. Hopefully you will use all of them.
2- Increase the rate of conversion from visitor to leads to buyers. so, you need to capture some of the visitors and conert them into leads and then into buyers.
In order to do that you might want to offer an ethical bribe that they give name and e-mail to get it. Those e-mails will go to an auto-responder program where you can do proper follow-up in order to get them to buy.
You will also make sure that your website is very clear in which path your visitors need to follow. what they need to click next, what they will get and how many clicks it will take them to get waht they want.
You want as fewer clicks as possible when asking them to buy something and you want to make the purchase process as simple as possible.
60% of sales are lost in the checkout process. This is a lot! Some of the resons why this happens are: asking for irrelevant or too much information in the checkout, too many screens before transaction is complete, name of product different than what was offered.
The next thing to improve conversion is to pay attention to your follow-up strategies.
Leads need to go to an auto-responder system where you have sequential messages increasing credibility and asking for the sale.
Remember that if people don’t buy from you, usually the main reason is that they don’t trust you. Use messages, newsletters, videos, video testimonials and direct mail to increase the level of trust.
From moment zero, when you think about your website, think how you will improve conversion into sales.
Sell more in this new Economy
Tuesday, April 13th, 2010 by The BuzzBooster Team!The new economy has changed the way we sell and the way people buy.
You might have felt this in your business, but do you know how to adapt to the new reality?
BuzzBoosters has just release a new flash program that will guide you step by step on how to sell more in the new economy.
I don’t want to brag but this program can change your life.
This program targets decisive business owners that want to take action and generate more sales.
We’ll not be offering this program in the same format in the future.
Check more about the Off-Road Sales Strategies for the New Economy
Local marketing and mobile marketing
Tuesday, April 6th, 2010 by The BuzzBooster Team!If you do business locally, I’m afraid to say the Yellow pages is not your best option. I really don’t know many people that use the phone books other than as a door stop or seat booster.
The search engines are the new phone books, where people go to get the information they want, when they want and wherever they are.
Local businesses need to wake up and start promoting their businesses online now more than ever and if they think that they just need to wait until things go back to normal, they will never wake up. They will die a slow painful death.
Due to the economy, people are more resistant to buy and they don’t buy from businesses they don’t know about or don’t trust.
It is your job to increase the level of trust, be in places they can easily find you, (like on their phones) and promote your business more than ever.
Today is naive to think one ad in one place will do the trick. You need to do more and on a constant basis and you need to be the marketer in your business like it or not.
We live in an age where the gold rush is to be found and to get attention and this is your main job.
You need to be found on search engines, social environments, phone applications if you want to be in business for the next five years.
You will need just a fraction of whatever you have been spending in advertising and some time.
You can outsource most tasks or you can learn how to use local marketing and mobile marketing in your business.
The only thing you cannot do is wait.
How to market a business in this new economy
Saturday, March 13th, 2010 by The BuzzBooster Team!I hope you understand that things are not going back to the way they were before. So, the longer you wait, the more disappointed you will be at the end.
Things have changed a lot, the way people buy has changed and the way we sell has changed and the sooner you understand that and change the way you have been marketing, the better. This is especially true if you are still using the same channels to market your business and see decreasing results every time. They will not go back to what used to be normal and most likely they will adapt to the new economy or they will just cease to exist.
There is a reason why last year there were 273 magazines going out of business and you hear all the time that newspapers are dying.
Here are a few things about the new economy and the way you should be marketing to prospects and clients:
- You need to focus on your prospects problems and not only on your company and products like before. Remember, people search for a solution to a problem.
- Define the top emotional reasons people purchase your products.
- Start a dialogue with prospects and clients. This is crucial today and not at all like before where you would just broadcast a message to them using TV, Radio etc.
- Look for quality of prospects other than the quantity. Everybody is not a prospect and some can bring a lot of headaches. Don’t forget that the gold mine lies in existing clients.
- Try ideas, fail fast and come back. You don’t need a business plan, you need an action plan.
- Master business storytelling and tell true stories that are compelling.
- Provide valuable information using social media tools. That is a lot more effective than spending a lot of money with advertising.
- The more education you provide, the more profit coming your way.
- Use an ethical bribe or a compelling offer to build a list of people interested in what you are talking about.
- Position yourself as the to-go expert.
- Use tools like teleseminars or online videos to get the word out and position yourself in the market.
- Make a sale to get a client. Don’t focus only on the first sale and create upsells.
- You need several products or different services. There is a lot of money in the back-end offers. Give buyers more chances to buy and they will spend more. Repeat sales can increase profits by 22%
- Create a continuity program
- Leverage technology. Stop giving excuses that you were not born in front of a computer, or you are too old and start using technology not only to attract prospects but to follow-up in an automated way. For example, using auto-responders.
Truffles and small business marketing
Thursday, October 29th, 2009 by The BuzzBooster Team!Truffle is one of the world’s most desirable culinary treasures? A pound of white truffles costs as much as $4,000. In order to find a truffle in nature you would have to dig some dirt.
It is like a little diamond that you have to find, dig the dirt to be able to enjoy. Marketing your business is not different. You need to do some digging in order to find precious opportunities. Truffle farmers use Beagles to sniff and find the truffles. Smart people have coaches to spot their diamonds.
List of continuity models
Saturday, October 24th, 2009 by The BuzzBooster Team!Every business should have a continuity program. A continuity program is what brings residual income every month and allows your business to grow exponentially. You can incorporate a continuity program in any kind of business or it can be a business in itself.
Some examples you find out there of continuity programs are: fruit of the month, mustard of the month, pizza loyalty programs, puzzles time share etc. Here is a list of some continuity models that are popular and use information on its base. There is room to create other models. Prices vary according to number of items members get every month and the perceived value. Prices also vary according to the industry you are in, so the best approach is always to test which price would attract buyers in your industry. Note that programs that have a component delivered by mail every month tend to have a better retention than the ones that are 100% online.
1. Cd of the month interview
2. Cd of the month + transcription
3. Cd + newsletter
4. Printed newsletter
5. Newsletter + CD + transcription
6. Dvd of the month
7. CD/DVd of the month
8. Newsletter + CD/DVD rom
9. Training lessons
10. Reviews and summaries
11. Mp3 of the month- delivered online only
12. Mp3 + transcription
13. Micro membership with videos
14. Micro membership with mp3
15. Micro membership (reports) – It is called micro-membership because it has a fixed term or a final date. This model tends to work well during bad economic times because people feel better knowing that there is a final date- anything that has a system works well in this model.
16. micro membership by e-mail
17. membership site- needs to be heavy in content and be constantly updated. Tends to have a high drop-out rate.
18. membership + physical product
19. Softwares
20. Done 4 you services. This one tends to have a good retention because there is a pain of disconnection.
21. Monthly Webinars
22. Private forum
23. Resell rights club
24. Membership association
25. Consumer products of the month
26. Tele seminar coaching
27. Tele seminar + CD
28. Teleseminar + live event
29. Big ticket item
30. Certification Program
31. Coaching- Mastermind groups- 1 to 1 coaching
No matter which model you choose, you will have to figure how much information your audience will be willing to consume every month, because if you send them too much, they will get overwhelmed and will drop out of the program. You also need to have systems in place to bring new members every month.
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