Your Competition Wants Your Customers

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Competition is a part of business life. Some would argue that competition forces businesses to strive to get better at what they do for the fear of losing customers to rivals. Losing a few customers periodically is inevitable. However, losing too many (especially your best customers) must be avoided at all costs.

For most businesses, the top 20% of their customers account for 80% (or more) of their profits. While much thought and strategy typically go into bringing in new customers, not enough is spent on retaining existing customers. That’s where the real gold lies.

It may be a little uncomfortable to think that some of your best customers might be looking at making a change, but it’s something you must consider if you want to avoid having it become a reality. Everyone talks about taking care of their customers, but in many instances that’s a phrase not truly backed up with action. To build a fence around your customers and keep them far away from the prying arms of your competitors, you mus truly care, protect, and guide them.

Gather customer feedback on an ongoing basis.

Most businesses put a lot of hard work into getting a new customer. But after they become a customer, little effort is put into nurturing that relationship. A customer should never be taken for granted.

It’s easy to get wrapped up in the day-to-day operation of your business and lose touch with what’s happening outside your doors in the marketplace. Phone calls and emails to customers can be a great way to communicate and stay connected. But to do it on a large scale can be unrealistic. Informative company newsletters and surveys can help keep your customers up-to-date and give them a way to express their needs and concerns. These efforts can provide an early warning system to catch a customer jumping ship before it happens.

Tell them what you do.

Your competitors will do anything to steal your customers, including promising the moon. You know that some of these are false claims or teasers to get their foot in the door. Some of your customers may not know that. Your job is not only to provide a great product and service but also to continually remind customers about the value you provide that your competitors can’t match. If you don’t tell them, no one else will either.

Informing your customers through educational marketing content is a powerful way to keep them engaged while differentiating your company as one that truly cares about their success (not just your own).

Where are the weaknesses?

To help plug the holes in your business, start thinking about things from your competitors’ point of view. After all, they’re always looking for any weaknesses they can exploit, so you should, too. That way, you can shore up your weak spots before they get out of hand and, in the process, strengthen your position in the marketplace.

To discover your weaknesses, talk with your customers. Ask them about the areas you could improve. Stay up-to-date with industry trends that could create a possible gap in your defenses, too. You can’t buy every bit of technology as soon as it hits the market, but you can stay informed so you can address concerns with your customers when they arise. Sometimes the best defense is a good offense. Be proactive in your customer communication.

“There is only one boss: the customer. And he can fire everybody in the company, from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.” ~ Sam Walton, Wal-Mart

Customer retention starts with providing great service and value. Getting to the top is hard work, but staying there requires just as much effort. Being aware of the competition while shoring up the weak areas in your business can go a long way in helping keep your customers coming back.

Monopolies and the lack of competition aren’t in anyone’s best interest. Keeping your best customers satisfied is. Use competition as a motivating factor to continually improve your services. Communicating with and showing appreciation for your customers will give you an invisible force field to keep the competition out of your backyard.

Is Guerrilla Marketing Dead?

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You may think guerrilla marketing is dead, but really it’s evolved with the times. If you haven’t done the same, then you need to take a leap forward to get the most impact from your marketing dollars.
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<strong>What is Guerrilla Marketing?</strong>
Jay Conrad Levinson coined the term guerrilla marketing in 1984 with the release of his book, <em>Guerrilla Advertising.</em> In military terms, guerrilla refers to an unconventional form of warfare used by armed civilians, often against a force with superior numbers and weaponry. It relies on surprise, sabotage, and the ability to hide among a crowd. Guerrilla marketing is a take on advertising that uses similar tactics to gain attention.

The primary advantage of guerrilla marketing is its ability to increase a marketer’s impact using less costly resources than traditional advertising. It relies on high energy, imagination, and ingenuity. The idea is to take your customers by surprise, make a lasting impression, and create the kind of buzz that gets people talking.

The following two examples will help you wrap your mind around this strategy:

1) A new, locally based beverage company posted creative flyers on light poles and other public structures all around town. These flyers looked more like graffiti than advertising. Nobody even knew what it was all about, but the images stayed in their minds. After approximately three months of bombarding the public with these images, a billboard was displayed which used the same images, but also identified the company and the product. A brand was created before anyone knew what the brand was for. This is guerrilla marketing.

2) Compare this to a strategy used by a national research organization. They created billboards and took out full-page magazine ads that compared a neurological disorder with child abduction. These fundraising advertisements included the organization’s name and contact information. The shock factor backfired and complainants formed organized protests. This isn’t guerrilla marketing. It’s simply disrespectful and in poor taste. There is a difference.

<strong>How Has Guerrilla Marketing Evolved?</strong>
If you visit Jay’s site, you’ll see that guerrilla marketing is alive and well and evolving with the times. Guerrilla marketing is online — and you should be, too. Guerrilla marketing values permission-based marketing strategies — and you should, too. Guerrilla marketing uses popular culture to make an impression — and you should, too. Guerrilla marketing emphasizes ethical communications that are also creative and unique. And that’s exactly what you need!

When guerrilla marketing first became a hit, consumers were inundated with “professional” advertisements on television, radio, magazines, and newspapers. Now, it seems anywhere and everywhere we turn we encounter ads — they’re even in public restrooms! If we were numb before, we’re deadened now.

Advertising and “traditional” marketing just doesn’t have the impact it should for the dollars companies spend. And it’s no wonder when there’s so much advertising in so many places that it seems we never get a break from it. Guerrilla marketing breaks through all that clutter by being different. Not just different from your competitors, but different from its own past.

<strong>How Can You Use Guerrilla Marketing?</strong>
You can use guerrilla marketing to get the scattered attention of your target customers by becoming a bit more creative in the ways you reach out to them. Surprise them. Capture their interest. Offer something of real value.

Remember guerrilla warfare. You can’t rush success. Guerrillas knew that. Civilians battling a superior force with superior arms would spend years, decades, even generations fighting for what they believed in with whatever means they had. Take a lesson from them.

First, know that your business is worth fighting for. Second, you won’t win the success you want instantly. Third, you need to build your credibility with your target audience (i.e. the civilians you’re saving), not with your competitors (i.e. the superior force).

With these three things in mind, break out of the marketing box you’ve fallen into and prioritize communicating with your customers. Surprise them with how helpful, genuine, and trustworthy you can be. Sabotage the competition by offering a better value with better intentions. Don’t be afraid to blend in and mingle with your customers. After all, they are the only ones who really matter. Be one of them. Help them. Build a future with them.

This isn’t a battle for sovereignty or freedom. It’s a battle for the hearts and minds of your customers. The secret isn’t a parlor trick or a timely fad. You can’t take their trust. They have to give it to you. You have to earn your customers’ trust. If you can do that, then you can evolve into the future with them right by your side.

Direct Mail Is Alive and Well, Thank You

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Marketing fads come and go. Marketers today have a bewildering array of choices never seen before. Consequently, busy business owners don’t always know who to listen to in order to find what is working most effectively right now. Everyone can claim their systems and tools are the secret to a never-ending stream of prospects and customers.

Is Direct Mail Worth Exploring For Your Business?

Have you noticed that many of the Internet companies (like Google, among others) have been increasingly turning to direct mail to advertise their services? The reason is that old school direct mail worked long before the Internet and has been working for smart marketing in businesses all along. It just happened not to be the flavor of the day, thereby not getting much attention.

Now that the furor and publicity surrounding the “free” aspect of social media marketing has settled into the reality that free doesn’t necessarily equal real customers, smart marketers are looking for real campaigns that result in real customers.

Living Together in Harmony

Leveraging one proven marketing channel is great, but taking advantage of two or more is better. As effective as one channel may be, you limit the potential impact when using a single platform. With an integrated marketing strategy, you position yourself to maximize the real potential of your campaign.

The truth is that direct mail can still deliver real results when done correctly. In fact, direct mail works even better when coupled with email marketing and Internet marketing. When coupled with other channels, direct mail has the capacity to be even more targeted, personalized, and effective than when any of these channels are implemented alone.

To make this work and deliver results, it’s very important that the messaging and branding be consistent across all the channels you use. The logo, tag line, messaging, design, and colors used in one campaign should be reinforced across all media to generate stronger results and a more powerful impression. Consistency allows each campaign to feed off the other and deliver a bigger bang for the investment.

This is how big brands are able to leverage the power of multimedia messaging. Today, with the availability of affordable, short-run digital printing, you don’t need a large budget. It’s realistic and available for businesses of all sizes.

An example of a campaign that works extremely well is a new customer campaign. Nothing shows appreciation like a nicely designed, professional-looking direct mail piece delivered to your new customer soon after they become a client. People know that an email costs nothing to send but that a direct mail piece has a real cost.

Now you can follow that up with some informative emails to educate your new customer about how you can help them solve their problems. In the emails and direct mail pieces, ask your new customer to also connect with your brand on social media. Now you can further develop a bond with your new customer by sharing your values and core messages across all media.

Marketing success is about momentum. An integrated, multidimensional campaign, implemented consistently throughout the year, keeps the marketing ball rolling forward. This allows your business to be fresh on prospects’ minds when they’re ready to buy. The more consistent your brand, marketing message, and integrated approach, the better your results will be.

Your customers consume information in different ways. You can’t guess or assume one is better than another. Showing up in the physical mailbox, in their email inbox, and on the web assures that your brand is leaving no stone unturned. Having an integrated marketing strategy assures your business will be seen and heard. If just showing up is half the battle, then implementing this multidimensional approach is your call to action to make yourself ready for new customers on the business battlefield.

Be Your Business

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Every business would like to grow sales and profits. The future of the business and the livelihood of its employees depend on it. So, as business owners, we go to networking events, make phone calls, send out mailers, and even spend time on social media. Yet growing the business is never as easy or simple as that.

Making prospects aware of your products and services is important. If you don’t do it, no one else will. But that’s only one part of the equation. There’s something far more important that needs to be done first.

When a doctor goes into surgery, steps must be taken beforehand to prepare the patient. No patient would want the doctor to arrive on the day of surgery and begin poking holes and cutting skin at random to find the issue causing the problem. Yet many businesses go about prospecting and looking for new customers in the haphazard way of the unprepared surgeon.

To win more business, first you must isolate the pain points. What’s the problem your business can solve for your prospect? The more descriptive and specific you can describe the pain, the better. Yes, it takes a little effort to find specific problems for each type of potential customer, but you should notice trends and common traits you can use to attract a wider group of prospects.

After you’ve identified the major pain points, you can present the solution your business provides to solve the problem. Now it’s time to communicate this message.

Having a focused message before you market helps attract and retain the types of customers you want in the first place. The tighter the message, the better return you’ll get on your marketing spend.

Not many prospects care how many years you’ve been in business, how pretty the customer lobby is, or how incredibly innovative and cool your brochure or website look. Your prospects care about themselves. They worry about their problems. Outline what those issues are, and then tell them how you will make their problems disappear.

Oftentimes, your prospect may not even be aware of the problem. It’s your job to show them. Maybe you can save them time or money solving a problem they didn’t even know about. This is how you can make your print communication and all your other marketing messages more powerful. Identify the pain and show them how you can make their lives better by engaging your business.

It’s your knowledge and awareness of specific problems that will earn the trust of your prospect. Customers are attracted to businesses that best educate, communicate, and present expertise in the problems they want to solve. The best way you can do that is to not just represent your business but BE your business.

Being your business essentially means focusing on your brand and what it communicates to your marketplace. Your brand is more about your message than your logo. It’s more about content than design. Once you have your message finely tuned to what your audience is seeking from your business, only then will prospecting and growing your business feel like swimming with the current rather than against it.

5 Words That Can Change Your Business

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140259547Behind the scenes of your business, you make products or deliver services. But on the front lines, where interactions with customers occur, you have to deliver more than that in order to have a dynamically growing company. You must deliver a promise and hope.

The promise revolves around the benefits your actual products and services deliver. The hope is what can set your business apart from all the other companies that promise to deliver the same things you do.

People want to believe in your company and what you can deliver, but many have become jaded due to the culture of over-promising and under-delivering that is all too common in the marketplace. To get past this wall of skepticism, you have to deliver more.

Companies like Coca-Cola, Apple, Starbucks, and Disney World took off when they figured out they were selling much more than a soft drink, computer, coffee, and theme park rides. These businesses understood that in order to stand apart from their competitors, they had to tell their brand stories in a way that resonates with customers.

Coca-Cola sells refreshment, happiness, and harmony. Apple sells a delightful user experience to consumers in a hip, cool way. Starbucks sells the “third place experience” — a place to get away outside our home and business. Disney World sells memories that last a lifetime.

The common theme among the great brands of the world is that they have found a way to transcend beyond their products by asking this simple, yet powerful five-word question:

What are we really selling?

People aren’t really interested in what you sell, but they may be very interested in the benefits you can deliver. These benefits in turn must be told in a way that attracts and connects with your target audience.

How You Can Apply This in Your Business?

You’re probably thinking to yourself that this may do wonders for big brands, but how does it apply to my small business?

  • Take a step back from the day-to-day operations of the business, and think about what you’re really selling. Railroad companies thought they were in the rail business, when they were really in the transportation business. Think about the larger implications around the results you deliver to your customers.
  • Next think about this question: What do my customers really want from our products and services? Ask your best customers why they really do business with you. Look for common themes in the answers.
  • The final step is to take the concepts you’ve arrived at and focus on what would move your best prospects to buy what you sell. Put yourself in their shoes. Ask some friends and associates if your idea would move them to act. Then test your ideas by presenting them in your ad copy in print, on the web, and in all your other marketing channels. Test until you find the winners. The sales result will show which one is the winner.

Take these five words: “What are we really selling?” Print them out and put them in a prominent place you can see every day. Your answer to the question will form the core around which your business and your marketing should revolve. Answer this five-word question in a way that exceeds the experiences your target market is seeking, and you’ll see your business grow like magic.

Do You Have a Foot-In-The-Door Strategy?

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There’s an extremely powerful strategy to grow your business called the foot-in-the-door (FITD) strategy. FITD plays on psychology to get to the sale. This strategy works well because it gets past the prospect’s natural resistance to being sold.

The process starts with getting a person to agree to a small request that doesn’t take them outside their comfort zone. From there, you build up to larger requests and bigger yeses.

Savvy business owners, marketers, and salespeople have used FITD in one form or another for years, whether they have knowingly defined it that way or not. Some may refer to this strategy as a “loss leader.” The difference is that a loss leader typically involves selling something, often at a very low price or below cost. Retail businesses have used loss leaders successfully for many years. FITD works best when the first offer is for something free.

<strong>Examples of FITD</strong>
If you’ve ever been to the mall food court around lunch or dinnertime, you’ll often see savvy restaurant owners assign an employee to offer a small sample tasting of some of the food items on their menu. When passersby accept the sample and taste it, they’ve taken the first tiny step toward a possible yes.

One interesting side note with this example: Notice that the employees handing out the samples aren’t going all around the mall or outside in the parking lot at various hours of the day. They pass out the samples to people walking through the food court at lunch or dinnertime. The marketing takeaway: offer your services to people who are most likely to need what you sell when they need it the most.

FITD has been used for many years by door-to-door salespeople in many industries, from the person offering to clean a dirty spot on the carpet to the days of the encyclopedia salesperson (remember those?) who would offer a free three book starter set.

Perhaps the most notorious example is from the timeshare industry. In exchange for 90 minutes of your time, the FITD offer is a free resort stay or perhaps Disney World tickets. Does it work? Billions of dollars in timeshares sold would seem to indicate a big yes. These techniques are meant to persuade and work extremely well. The danger comes from unscrupulous sellers who abuse the power.

FITD has been used in the pharmaceutical industry with enormous success. Pharmaceutical sales representatives leave samples of the drugs their companies sell with the appropriate doctors. The physicians in turn give their patients a free sample along with a prescription that will lead them to become a customer of the pharmaceutical industry.

<strong>What kind of FITD should you offer?</strong>
Your best FITD strategy should probably be not to “sell” anything at all. Only 2% of prospects are ready to buy at any time and less than 1% will typically buy anything on the first contact. Put yourself in the shoes of your ideal customer and ask yourself: What would I need (if I were a customer) to choose this company over the competition? What service or product can you use to let prospects ‘test’ you out that will put your best foot forward and help you make the best first impression?

<strong>Conclusion</strong>
The FITD strategy is an extremely powerful technique. If you’re not currently using it or have used it in the past and forgotten about it, it’s time to visit it again. Put together a plan to utilize FITD in your favor.

Selling successfully for the long term requires building trust with your prospects and even existing customers. The FITD strategy allows you to begin building that trust. But be careful. If it’s done incorrectly or not done at all, then you may experience the door-in-the-face result which is what you want to avoid.

Educating Your Way to a Sale

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Your target audience is being bombarded by sales and marketing messages every day. Some estimates state that a person is exposed to more than 3,500 messages on average every single day! No wonder we develop strategies to filter out the hype and all the noise so we can get our work done. Otherwise our days would be consumed with sales presentations and various pitches to buy something.

This constant barrage of marketing has taken a toll on salespeople, too. Traditional sales methods that once worked well have been losing traction and are not effective anymore. But you still need to sell — and you need to get your message across to your prospects. How can you do that without alienating them at the same time? One way to do that is to educate and help your prospects instead of simply selling them.

Educating your audience with relevant and useful information that will help them make a more informed buying decision allows you to establish yourself and your company as an expert who provides value before ever asking for a sale.

Establishing trust in this manner brings respect. Trust and respect open the way for your prospects to listen. Listening gives you access to valuable time your prospects reserve for those they believe will not waste it with hype and useless pitches.

To decide what kind of information your prospects find useful, you need to put yourself in their shoes. Developing a buyer persona on your most ideal prospects lets you get insight into the information, ideas, and advice that could make a positive difference in their lives and actually help in their decision-making process.

Selling is not a bad thing. Short-term thinking while selling, however, is not sustainable selling. Long-term selling is about nurturing, gaining trust, and establishing rapport. Doing this will lead not only to a first sale but also to a relationship that will garner repeat sales and referrals.

Establishing a strategic sales funnel allows you to introduce your products and services as a solution to a prospect’s problem at the appropriate time. Nurturing relationships will lead to sales more naturally and organically, instead of taking a straight, forced path with a low chance of making a quick close.

One great example of this can be seen by walking into any Apple retail store. From the moment you walk in, the Apple employees are trained to educate you about the products in the store. No pushy salespeople. They actually want you to touch and test all the products on display.

In the back of the store, the “Genius Bar” provides technical help and in-depth training to encourage users to use Apple products. This in turn leads to more sales. Over 50,000 people visit the “Genius Bar” every day, and the majority who have used the services state that they are more likely to buy another Apple product as a result.

Educating your prospects and your customers is a long-term business sales strategy. It requires some time and resources. But if it is done well, the results will far outweigh the costs.

Finding Your Next Great Employee

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“To win in the marketplace you must first win in the workplace.” – Doug Conant, CEO of Campbell’s Soup

Great companies need outstanding employees in order to grow. The problem is finding and retaining that caliber employee. Most small businesses don’t fully understand the process of hiring top-notch employees.

“Effective organizational leadership is simple: 1. Have a vision of where you want to get to. 2. Clearly and persuasively communicate that vision to employees. 3. Be consistent in your behaviors as you strive to achieve that vision.” – from A Roadmap for Employee Engagement by Andy Parsley

Many make the mistake of hiring an employee without clearly thinking the process all the way through. They neglect to think about what they actually want from the new hire. Hiring in this way sets the new employee up for failure before they ever walk in for their first day of work. This turns out to be a waste of time and resources for everyone.

To help avoid this, you need to go through the interview process. The first and most critical step is to write an advertisement that attracts great people in the first place — one that encourages the kind of candidates who want to work for your company.

Thinking this through will also make you consider the short-term and long-term responsibilities and tasks required for this position.

The challenge of finding great job candidates starts with the ad itself. Mediocre job ads attract mediocre workers. To improve your placement ad, you should incorporate the following in the description.

  • Make your company sound innovative and interesting. This will help attract more dynamic applicants who want to work for a fascinating company.
  • Let the applicant know with whom they will most likely be working. Candidates will look forward to learning from someone who is the expert in their field.
  • If the location of your company is a plus for applicants, make sure to mention it. The more benefits you can mention in the ad, the more attractive your ad becomes.
  • Make sure to mention that the position offers growth for the right candidate. Everyone wants to know that they can grow with the company. This also implies that they will be able to make more money as they grow.
  • Include the total compensation and benefits in the offer. Paid holidays, flexible hours, and other perks can be very attractive.
  • Mention that the position requires hard work and dedication. This can help filter out the lazy applicants before time is wasted with the interview.
  • The ad should stand out from all the others. If you want creative, superstar applicants, the ad should be creative, too.

Finding and retaining top talent is one of the most important tasks for any growing company. A strong recruitment ad is just the start but one that can’t be overlooked. Include these tips in your next ad, and hopefully you will attract the type of superstar employee you desire.