Tag Archives: Results

Free Stuff on National Coffee Day!

September 29, 2011

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Cappuccino with Sprinkles Photo: http://www.sxc.hu/profile/LotusHeadToday is National Coffee Day. I still haven’t figured out whose idea that was, but hey… I’m all for celebrating! Especially the beverage that I spend so much of my time with, and even attribute some of my business success to!

Why do I attribute some of my business success to it, you ask? Well… aside from keeping me awake so I can be productive, I frequently use an example from Starbucks when speaking to audiences and training small business leaders to get better results from their marketing.

With the Starbucks example, we are essentially trying to help business owners and those responsible for their marketing to understand this: people aren’t buying what you think you’re selling. Starbucks roasts coffee beans purchased from growers all over the world and sells them primarily by making drinks out of them in their local retail stores. What business is Starbucks in?

a. Coffee

b. Beverages

c. Legal Addictive Stimulants

d. Entertainment

Obviously, if Starbucks answered “A: Coffee” then they would probably have to sell for the lowest price possible. They would compete against anyone and everyone selling coffee. But Starbucks is most famously selling something more. There’s a full discussion of that over here.

Let’s Get to the Free Stuff

That illustration on coffee has helped a lot of business leaders grapple with and ultimately answer the question, “What are you really selling?” And when they realize that they’re selling something different than what their marketing has historically focused on, they realize they need help. That’s what has been great for me because that’s when they realize they need training on how to reach out and get new customers in the 21st Century.

That’s where the free stuff comes in. We’re launching a brand new training course that will begin next week. It’s called “The Secrets of Search Engine Rankings for CEOs, Owners & Executives.” If you’ve ever wondered why your business does or doesn’t show up at the top of page 1 in the Google search results, then this training is for you.

Here are some of the questions we’ll be answering:

  • How does Google decide which websites to show on top of page 1?
  • How can I find my website’s position if it’s not readily visible on a particular search?
  • Do I really have to pay someone to be on top of the search engines or can we get there ourselves?
  • What can I do to make sure that my site is moving up?
  • How can I make sure I’m not getting ripped off with Search Engine Optimization (“SEO”) services?

This training will happen over the course of 3 LIVE webinars. Each will last approximately 1 hour. Here’s the deal: we will be recording this to produce a brand new product that will sell for $97.

I’d like to give you the opportunity to be in on this product absolutely free. Here’s how it works: anyone who purchases our Ultimate Small Business Growth Kit by Friday at 5pm Eastern will automatically be registered to attend the 3 live training sessions absolutely free! This is a priceless bonus! By attending some (or all) of the webinars live, you’ll have the opportunity to get your questions answered live during the training. People who only catch the recordings after the fact will obviously not be able to do that. So this a huge added value!

Check out all the details for the Ultimate Small Business Growth Kit here.

What Others Are Saying About “The Ultimate Small Business Growth Kit”

Sonya ThompsonFrom December, 2010:
“A quick note to let you know how valuable your training has been to me! It has already helped me identify several key areas that need my attention to cause my business to flourish like I want it to. I am nowhere near finished the training but I have already identified and implemented some of the ‘techniques,’ as I interact with my customers. The results have been phenomenal! I have already made my money back with the orders I have captured as a result of your training.” (emphasis added)

From March, 2011:
“I wanted to thank you again for the services you provide through Epiphany. I have moved up to the first page of the Google search engine in as little as 3 months! One month ago I secured a $40,000+ contract with a vending manufacturer who found my company on Google. I was also recently contacted by another manufacturer who wants to send us all of his business … and yes he found us on the front page of Google. Don’t stop what you are doing. You are truly a blessing to the business community!” (emphasis added)

Sonya L. Thompson
First Choice Locators & Vending SVC LLC
Minneola, FL

I look forward to “seeing” you on next week’s training webinars! Be sure to purchase by tomorrow (Friday, September 30th) at 5pm Eastern in order to get in on “The Secrets of Search Engine Rankings for CEOs, Owners & Executives” absolutely free!

Happy Coffee Day!

Photo: LotusHead

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Help Boost Your Google Places Listing in Search Rankings

July 21, 2011

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Google Places Listings in Search Results

Google Places Listings in Search Results

While Google Places is most important if you’re serving one or more local markets, every business should have (and use!) at least one listing on Google Places. If you don’t have yours set up yet, these instructions will help you get started.

One you have your listing, however, how do you make sure it has good positioning in the search results?

Like any web property, your Google Places listing will improve in the search rankings when there are links to it. Any link will do, but an “anchor text” link will be even more effective. The secret of finding the URL (or address to link to) for your Google Places page is coming up in a minute. But first…

What is an “Anchor Text” Link?

Here’s a quick primer on the 2 basic types of links you can create (or receive) on the web. To illustrate, I’m going to refer to the product we recently released: The Ultimate Small Business Growth Kit in a Box …Without the Box!

I could send you to go look at this product on the web by providing a link directly to its address:

http://www.epiphanymarketing.com/the-ultimate-small-business-growth-kit-in-a-box-without-the-box/

Now… that’s an effective link (please feel free to share it with anyone & everyone!), but it’s a little lengthy and not very pretty… wouldn’t you agree?

A more appealing way to create the link is to use “anchor text.” Anchor text is the term for the word or phrase that is linked to content on the web. In the link above, there is no anchor text (OK… technically there is, but it’s identical to the URL so we won’t count it).

In the case of our product, a phrase that could be used to describe our kit might be:

incredibly valuable real-world marketing training

(Yes… I’m biased, but that doesn’t make me wrong!)

So here’s what a link might look like using anchor text: Please check out our incredibly valuable real-world marketing training for the 21st Century Small Business.

When you’re creating (or receiving) links on the web, the links will be of more value if they are anchor text links. The key is: the anchor text should be the phrase you’d like to see your content rank well on in the search results.

In other words, if I got more links just like the one above, I might expect the page containing our training program to rank well in Google search results for the phrase “incredibly valuable real-world marketing training.”

So… if you have a pest control business in Topeka, then you might want your Google Places page to rank well on the phrase “pest control Topeka.” In that case, you’d want other websites to link to your Google Places page using that phrase as the anchor text. Make sense?

How to Find the Real URL for Your Google Places Page

This is a little bit tricky. In most cases, when you visit your Google Places page, you’re actually going to be arriving on the page from a Google search. So… if you copy/paste the URL (or even use the “link” tool that Google provides you on the page), you’re going to have a really long URL that contains a whole bunch of data… including the specific search term you used. This won’t help you very much. So here’s the trick to it:

Search for your business on the map by going here.

Once you see the listing for your business… right-click on the link and choose “Open Link in New Window” or “Open Link in New Tab.” In most modern browsers, you should see one or both of those choices. The page that opens (in the new window or new tab) will have a URL that looks something like this:

Example: Google Places URL

In our case, http://maps.google.com/maps/place?cid=17650561483947767278&q=blablablablablablabla with a whole bunch of characters and stuff afterward.

The key is to highlight everything starting from the “http” on the left all the way through the series of numbers that comes after “cid” on the right. Stop when you see the ampersand (“&”) character. Like this:

Google Places URL - Highlighted

That means for us, I’m grabbing this: http://maps.google.com/maps/place?cid=17650561483947767278

If the anchor text for us is “small business marketing strategists,” then here’s what a link would look like: small business marketing strategists. In the case of one of our good friends here in town, it might be acupuncture Sarasota.

This little-known secret about the actual URL for your Google Places page can be incredibly helpful… we’ll talk more about this in a future update! Feel free to post your questions in the comments.

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Promoting Your Brick & Mortar Business Online

June 30, 2011

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According to Google:

97% of consumers search for local businesses online.

If you don’t have a solid plan for creating visibility for your business, those people looking for your products and services will find someone else instead of you.

So what can you do that doesn’t cost a fortune?

Many businesses that we work with are surprised to find out that a great many of the most effective tools you can use today to get visibility for your business are free! Some of the others are either relatively inexpensive or can be set up in a way that you’re only paying when you’re getting results.

Here’s a Great Example of Something You Can Do for Free

You have probably noticed by now that in the last year or so, Google began rolling out a change to the way local search results work. Instead of having a separate map showing up on the results page, the map listings have been merged with organic search results on many local searches.

Local Search with Merged ResultsFor example, in the picture here, I’ve run a search for a car wash in the city where we’re located. Google tries to show me relevant results from organic search as always.

What’s different now is that they are also giving me the locations of some of these businesses using the map on the right and “pins” with corresponding letters in the search results. We’ll refer to these as the “merged” listings, because the results are based on 2 things:

  • the natural organic position of the website corresponding to the business on the map (based on relevance to my search terms)
  • the rank of the map listing for the business based upon a variety of factors (including proximity, keywords, reviews, and more)

What makes this different is that you need to pay attention to your map listing because it is now affecting the rank of your website! Google may have already placed your business on the map using information they’ve gathered from other sources. If you haven’t already done so, it’s a good idea to claim your listing so that you can correct any inaccurate information and also provide additional details to help make the listing more relevant.

Here’s what to do:

1. Find your business listing on the map by searching for it at www.google.com/maps

Find Your Business on Google Maps

2. If you find it there, click on the name of your business in the list on the left side of the map view.

Click on Your Business Name

3. Click “Edit This Place” on the right-hand side above the map

Click 'Edit This Place'

If you don’t find your business already listed, then go here:

www.google.com/local/add

Either way, from there you’ll need to login to your Google account or create a Google account. Then you can follow the instructions to edit the information in your listing.

The steps above don’t cost you anything, take only a few minutes, and can make a big difference in your visibility.

The frustrating thing is that you don’t know what you don’t know. And where do you turn for good solid information about what you can be doing to gain visibility through:

  • search engine rankings
  • Facebook, Twitter & social media
  • mobile geo-targeted services like Foursquare, Facebook Places and even Google Maps
  • and other means?

Well… we’re here for you. In fact, that’s why we created this webinar taking place today at 1pm Eastern (replay available here). In fact, on the webinar we’ll be showing additional free options for promoting your business as well as some important strategy to increase your effectiveness! There are still a few spots left so you may still be able to get in if you register right away. Everyone who attends will be automatically entered into a drawing for $100 in free Google advertising!

This event is absolutely free. We do these from time to time because it’s a great way to introduce you to the small business marketing training programs we offer. There are no obligations and no strings attached, so register right now watch the replay so you don’t miss out on this valuable information!

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Free Webinar: The Latest Tools for Attracting Local Customers

June 27, 2011

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Free Webinar June 30th: The Latest Tools for Attracting Local Customers

Free Webinar June 30th: The Latest Tools for Attracting Local Customers

Do you sell your products & services to one or more specific local markets?

Have you convinced yourself that internet marketing doesn’t apply to your business because you serve a local audience?

Are you confused by all of the latest options available to get the word out?

Maybe you’ve wondered about:

  • How Google “Places” (map listings) affect your Search Engine Rankings
  • How to make Facebook work for your business
  • How “Check-ins” via geo-social networks like Foursquare and Facebook Places can help you get more business
  • How to deal with negative online reviews about your business

We’ve had so many business owners ask us these and other questions related to the unique challenges & opportunities available for getting more businesses in a local market, that we’ve put together a special free webinar this Thursday at 1pm Eastern replay here.

Who Should Attend?

If you own or manage one or more of these types of businesses:

  • retail businesses of any kind (with brick & mortar locations)
  • contractors & consumer services (plumbers, electricians, pest control etc.)
  • medical practices
  • even local B2B businesses

this event is for you. And best of all, we’re giving away this valuable information absolutely free!

In fact, we’ll have one of our existing clients live on the call so we can show you exactly what techniques you can use today to get results!

Space is extremely limited, so you’re going to want to RSVP early to make sure you have a spot check out the replay here.

All you need to attend is your computer (and a phone if your computer doesn’t have speakers). Reserve your spot right away! I’m looking forward to “seeing” you Thursday! 

The replay of this event will be available for a limited time. Be sure to watch it soon… we’ll be taking it down without notice. Hope you enjoy it!

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Marketing Strategy for Your Business

February 23, 2011

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Blueprint for BuildingLast week we talked about someone who got ripped off by an SEO provider. And while not all SEO companies are as unscrupulous as the offender we mentioned, typically SEO isn’t the first place to start when trying to improve your marketing results.

In fact… there’s a long list of places not to start:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Email
  • Yellow Pages
  • Direct Mail
  • Groupon
  • Radio/TV/Print Advertising
  • Foursquare, Google Places, Facebook Places and other GeoSocial opportunities
  • Google Adwords and other PPC networks
  • etc.

For the record, I’m not opposed to any of the above (including SEO). Quite the contrary, we teach the members of our small business marketing training programs specifically how to use these techniques and get results from them.

But when it comes to answering the question, “Where Do I Start?” the answer is very simple:

You need a clear, written, actionable and measurable marketing strategy that is focused on the right target market.

Very rarely do any of the businesses that approach us for marketing help already have a strategy like this in place. And this is why they can be smooth-talked by the salesperson (or sales process) for the marketing outlets above or sucked into spending hours and hours of time with very little to show for it (in the case of social media).

Without a clear strategy, we may gain successes in one area or another (such as top search engine rankings or large numbers of Facebook “likes”) but we will not be as effective at accomplishing the real point: sustainable new business coming in consistently. Building a business is not unlike building a physical building: you may be an expert at carpentry, concrete, electrical or some other element… but you won’t end up with the result you want without a set of blueprints!

Get Started Building Your Written Marketing Strategy

“OK, so I need a written marketing strategy. I get it. How do I start?”

Great question. Your marketing strategy begins and ends in one place: the customer. Who is your best prospect? How much can you possibly know about them?

In our marketing training programs, we ask our clients to think about their customer base as a target. Identify who is in your target… and then narrow down to the bullseye. As narrowly as possible, identify the common traits that your very best buyers share with one another.

Depending upon the size of your business, you may need to ask for help in answering this question. Talk to your bookkeeper or accountant. Who spends the most (or most often)? We typically know which products or services sell the best… but maybe your sales team needs to help you understand who the buyers are.

Take some time this week to understand as much as possible about your best customers. This is the essential starting point for all of your marketing efforts, and the most critical element in building an effective marketing strategy for your business.

Need some help getting started? Begin with an assessment. My team and I welcome the opportunity to be of service to you.

Also… watch your inbox for an invitation to our upcoming local marketing webinar. We’ll be talking specifically about the face of local marketing in 2011. If you are primarily selling products and services to people located near your physical location(s), then this event is for you. (We’ll have other events in the near future for those businesses that sell to non-localized markets as well).

In the meantime, get started building your written marketing strategy!

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Does Social Media Marketing Really Work?

March 18, 2010

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Hoping for Business

Hoping for Business?

Getting fans and followers is awfully trendy right now. But if you’re like many small business people, you’re probably saying, “Yeah… but does it increase sales?”

Our clients and trainees have known for some time that it’s possible to grow your business with social media because, when approached strategically, it comes in line with one of our cardinal principles in modern-day marketing:

“He or she who engages, wins.”

Thankfully, the folks at Harvard Business Review agree with the results our real-world clients are getting. (I always like it when the academics are there to validate my numbers, don’t you?) In all seriousness, I have great respect for real scientific testing. It’s why we use it and train people to use it.

To arrive at their conclusion, the good folks at Harvard set up a Facebook fan page for a Houston, Texas café and bakery known as Dessert Gallery. The popular chain did not have a Facebook presence prior to the study. The propeller-heads at Harvard did a good job of making sure their data would be statistically valid and emailed the company’s database of approximately 13,000 customers.

Here are the Cliff’s notes of the results after 3 months of updating the Facebook fan page several times weekly. (H/T: Dr. Jeff Cornwall) Of all the customers of Dessert Gallery (DG), those who became fans on Facebook:

  • Made 36 percent more visits to DG’s stores each month.
  • Spent 45 percent more of their eating-out dollars at DG.
  • Spent 33 percent more at DG’s stores.
  • Had 14 percent higher emotional attachment to the DG brand.
  • Had 41 percent greater psychological loyalty toward DG.

Clearly, if you’re in a small business that has any kind of retail presence like Dessert Gallery, you’ve got to be jumping up and down for joy.

Every business is different, of course. And… as I regularly point out to clients and students, having a fan page or Twitter account and using it strategically are 2 completely separate issues!

The bottom line: it’s time to engage with social media. We’ve been saying it for over a year now. We’ve been seeing significant ROI for even longer.

What is the True Cost?

Those who tell you that Facebook and Twitter are low cost marketing media are both right and and wrong at the same time. ROI from these activities is measured less in hard cash outlay and more in soft costs like employee time, learning curve, opportunity cost, etc.

But the fact of the matter is that in this day and age, the options for where to spend your marketing budget are quickly dwindling. And simultaneously, businesses in many industries (whether you sell to other businesses or to consumers) are facing a stronger-than-ever need to have sustainable marketing strategies that

  • consistently produce new leads and/or customers,
  • encourage stronger sell-through to existing customers (where applicable), and
  • can be started with minimal investment of time and money.

Our focus, as a marketing consultancy that also offers lower-cost training to businesses who may not be able to afford (or be willing to invest in) our services, has been to shorten the learning curve and help businesses ramp up quickly. The goal once everything’s in place? 10 minutes per day with the right social media and the right strategy.

Get started here.

Or… join us for our webinar Tuesday, March 23rd at 1PM Eastern. We’ll be telling the story of a business owner who is experiencing dramatic results right now. We’ll also dissect what she’s doing and show you how to do the same! There are still a few slots left at this late hour, so RSVP right away!

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Offline Marketing is Dead

March 11, 2010

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What can you do to sustainably reach out?

What can you do to sustainably reach out?

You know it… and I know it. Offline marketing the way you’ve always done it doesn’t work. (Stick with me for a video clip about what is working.)

Direct mail response is down. Your hometown newspaper is quickly becoming your hometown leaflet. I’m willing to wager that more copies of your local yellow pages hit the recycling bin the day they got delivered than ever before. (And the ones that didn’t get recycled that day are proudly being used as doorstops — if they’re heavy enough!)

Most trade shows are ghost towns… and the ones that aren’t have attendees instead of buyers. Magazines and other print media have a little life left in them — especially when they’re highly niched.

So you’re in a small business. Either you own the business, or you’re responsible for marketing. It seems like you’ve barely had time to catch your breath. (Maybe you haven’t!)

What the heck are you going to do to find new prospects and customers?

How To Get Sustainable Marketing Results in Your Small Business

Recently a small business owner approached me. Nearly 2 decades ago, Becki bought an already successful florist shop from its original owner. She’s hard-working, professional, and full of ingenuity. She was referred by her hometown web designer. They had built her a functional and visually-appealing website almost 10 years ago, which they’d overhauled once since then. Every day Becki and her crew get new orders from their website.

But like you, Becki wasn’t satisfied with her results.

She was nowhere to be found in Google for the most important searches. Actually, using one of the tools in our bag of tricks, I found her site on page 112. Needless to say: no traffic from Google.

But Becki had already figured out that while she needed to solve that problem quickly, even that wasn’t going to be enough. She was astute enough to know that customers demand interaction — something that is prohibitively difficult in offline media and nearly so in most traditional websites. She recognized that she needed a Facebook presence.

Since a substantial percentage (I’m not going to share the numbers here just to protect her private business information) of her business revolved around weddings, she recognized that brides — especially the twenty-somethings — are using Facebook.

In short, here were the problems she faced:

  • She needed to improve her Google rankings
  • She needed to put her business on Facebook
  • And perhaps most importantly… she needed a strategy and a plan to know what to do with everything to achieve sustainable ongoing results

After I met with Becki, I outlined a simple 3-step plan that would solve all of the above challenges and more. Within 2 weeks after we started working with her, her website was on page 2 of Google. We built out her Facebook presence, and she quickly began gathering fans.

Her ongoing maintenance strategy requires just minutes per week. Some weeks they even skip it completely (not something I recommend).

Just a few months later, Becki’s shop has 315 fans on Facebook. She’s received thousands of new visitors to her websites, and countless phone calls.

But Here’s the Kicker… Her Sales Have Multiplied

Becki told me yesterday that by the end of this month, she will have processed as many orders in the first 3 months of this year as she did in all of last year. Here’s what she had to say:

You can hear her whole story in a free webinar on Thursday, March 18th at 9PM US Eastern Time. Space is limited! Reserve your spot here right now. I’ll show you exactly how to do what she did!

Now… you may be saying, “I don’t sell products online.” No problem. At the very least, you can get your phone to ring (just like Becki did)… or whatever it is that you need people to do to get into your sales process.

Don’t wait! Register now even if you’re not sure you can make it. Talk to you soon!

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Increase Your Response: Pass the “So What!” Test

July 21, 2009

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Here’s the 4th of 5 Ways to Increase Your Response just by changing the words you use!

Bored Customer

Bored Customer

Pass The “So What!” Test

One of the biggest contributing factors to the dismal results that small business marketing tends to get has to do with the value and sequence of your content. Again… it doesn’t matter what medium you’re using (direct mail, e-mail, print, radio, TV, etc.), your customers simply don’t care until you catch their attention and answer their question, “What’s In It For Me?!”

So… to get practical right away: Put all your best benefits right up front. You managed to get their attention with a bold promise written directly to them about them in your headline. Now keep it up.

It’s your job to prove to them that they should continue to pay attention.

Some people think you should “save the best for last” and give ‘em some great stuff at the end of your ad. The only problem with this is that the vast majority of people will never make it to the end. They already said, “so what!” and moved on.

Pretend that the reader/listener/viewer of your ad is a 5th-grader with ADD/ADHD whose Mom forgot to give ‘em their Ritalin today. This forces you to keep their attention. I’m not saying you should treat them as though they’re ignorant (or worse: stupid!), but just assume they have as much to do today as you do.

But That Takes Work!

Yes it does. This means that you need to sit down and focus your efforts on knowing enough about your prospects and customers to really understand what they care about. (Hint: there’s most likely difference between what you think they care about and what they really do, in fact, care about.)

It also means that you need to invest the energy into categorizing, prioritizing, and re-phrasing the benefits of your product or service until you’ve found a way to push the top benefits out in front of your audience first and foremost.

Remember: marketing (even in the “conversation” of Web 2.0) is largely a “broadcast” art & science. This means that you can’t pretend to be a lawyer making an argument in front of a jury and try to finish with the big key point at the end. The lawyer has the advantage of seeing the whites of the eyes of the jury and gauging their reactions and adjusting accordingly. You must come right out and play your Ace right up front.

Bottom Line: Don’t be boring. You can’t afford it.

Up next in this series, we’ll be taking a lesson from Don Corleone. Subscribe right now so you’ll get it first… and get yourself a free gift!

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Increase Your Response: Write From “Me” to “You”

June 15, 2009

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Here’s the 3rd of 5 Ways to Increase Your Response just by changing the words you use!

Hey You!

Hey You!

3. Write From “Me” to “You”

I have a shocking revelation for you: Your future customers don’t care about you.

That’s right. I said it. I’ll say it again.

They don’t care about you.

Why, then, is so much of our marketing material all about us?

When we put it so bluntly as this, it seems so obvious. But somehow we get stupid when it’s time to create the ad, write the e-mail, or put the content together for the website. And we make a massive blunder: we make it all about us.

Your audience only cares about themselves. They’re incredibly selfish. But who can blame them? They’re busy. They have things to think about. Stuff to do. If you don’t answer the question right off the bat:

What’s in it for me?

…you’ll lose ‘em faster than a 2-year-old watching C-SPAN.

So… one way you do it is talk to them about them. Put a picture of your best customer in front of you (a person, not a company) and write to them as if he or she were the only human being on the planet.

This means you use a lot of words like

  • you,
  • your, and
  • yours,

and not much of

  • we,
  • us,
  • ours,
  • they,
  • them, or
  • theirs.

What About Writing in the 3rd Person?

If there’s a faster way to put an audience to sleep, I’m not sure what it is. So… just for the record: don’t do it.

Now of course there are exceptions to every rule. But remember: effective marketing is about starting or cultivating a relationship. This happens one person at a time. It happens one-on-one with your marketing–whether you’re speaking to an enormous crowd or sitting across your prospect’s desk. You would never talk about your company or yourself in the 3rd person while face to face, would you?

This might seem like a subtle nuance. But I guarantee you that if you keep in mind the end goal (the relationship) and you intentionally incorporate the “me to you” approach, you will get significantly better response.

Up next in this series: “So What?!”  Subscribe right now so you’ll get it first!

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Increase Your Response: Make A Bold Promise!

May 27, 2009

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Here’s the 2nd of 5 Ways to Increase Your Response just by changing the words you use!

2. Make a Bold Promise

Make a Bold Promise! (Perhaps Not This Exact One...)Ultimately, marketing is about promising something to your future customer (or your existing customer… if you’re working toward repeat business). What you promise and how you fulfill it is completely up to you, but nevertheless, you’re making a promise.

So… since you’re already making them a promise, why not make it boldly?

Why not grab their attention and shake ‘em up a little? (or a lot?!)

Be daring. Get creative. Let them know you are different from the competition.

Recently, I asked a member of our training program to read me the headline from his brochure. This brochure is the primary piece of advertising he uses. He sends it out via direct mail and gets it into the hands of prospects or “suspects” as often as possible. He and I were on the phone during one of our training sessions and so I said to him,

“Eddie, read me the biggest boldest thing on the front of your brochure.”

Can you guess what was there? It was the name of his company. Right up at the top.

Yawn.

That’s what readers do when they see it…

When you spend that valuable piece of real estate on the name of your business, it communicates 2 things to the reader:

  1. You’re only interested in yourself
  2. You’re boring

Never, ever, make your name, your logo and/or your photograph the first, most prominent thing the prospect sees. The only possible exception to this is if you already have enormous name recognition as an expert with the audience in question. And let’s be real about this. If you already had that kind of name recognition, would you be publishing said marketing piece? (The answer is… it depends. But chances are, you’re not Zig Ziglar, or President Barack Obama, or Gandhi. So don’t do it.)

By changing what he does with that valuable piece of print “real estate,” Eddie could multiply his results. What about you?

We’ve already talked about the importance of using a headline, since it serves to catch the reader’s attention. Making a bold promise is a great way to not only capture their attention, but get them thinking about doing business with you right away!

Up next: how to write your content… If you haven’t yet, subscribe right now so you don’t miss out!

And if you are President Barack Obama or Gandhi, let’s talk!  (Oh wait… Gandhi’s no longer with us… and Obama already won the election…)

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