Tag: marketing

By Stuart Ayling

It’s true. Failure to plan is planning to fail.

When I’m talking with business owners and marketing people I’m often asked,

“How do I plan my marketing? There are so many details.”

My answer is to keep it simple. But focus on the important stuff.

To make it easier, I’ve broken down the planning process into five key steps.

1. Identify the source/s of revenue.
I suggest you go back a step or two (in your thinking process) and consider the sources of revenue for your business. This helps you focus on who your potential clients are (such as demographics, psychographics, job description etc), and where they are located (such as size of business, geographic location etc).

2. Select suitable marketing tactics.
You need to consider which marketing tactics are really going to make an impression. And importantly, which ones can fit into your available marketing budget. These decisions also need to take into account the communication objectives for your business.

For example, if potential clients need to be educated about a new process or service you are offering, you might consider using a “staged” communication process. You could use email or direct mail as the first stage to get attention. Then follow it up with an offer of information (e.g. a white paper or case study) or a demonstration. The third stage would be to meet with all decision makers. This method moves prospects quickly into your sales process.

3. Plan your marketing tactics over the year.
No matter whether you plan by the financial year or by the calendar year, plan your marketing in 12-month blocks. This enables you to manage your budget so you have enough to cover peak periods. It also allows you to see any major overlaps that will stretch your capabilities. This is especially the case for service businesses where much of the “marketing” requires personal time to be spent by the service providers.

4. Create an action plan for each marketing tactic.
You must consider each tactic on your annual planner. For each tactic write down all the tasks needed to accomplish that goal, in chronological order. Estimate the time needed to do each task so you can plan ahead. Then decide who will do it, and when it is due. Voila! You’re nearly there.

5. Start doing it.
That’s right. No high-tech solutions required. Just start actioning all the tasks, in the priority needed to meet your timeframes. Remember to monitor completion dates and outcomes.

If you follow these 5 simple steps you’ll have a living, breathing marketing plan that will put you on the road to marketing success.

Source by Stuart Ayling

Successful Marketing Messages

In your consulting business, chances are you have spent a lot of time thinking about the specific services you can offer to clients. You’ve probably spent a great deal of time and effort working on processes, so that when clients come to you you’re able to offer them real solutions.

Unfortunately, many solo professionals don’t put the same kind of time and thought into their marketing message. They put up a website, perhaps, that goes into great detail about how it is they can solve their clients’ problems. Then, they can’t understand why no one is buying.

It’s because they haven’t developed a core marketing message. What, exactly, is your core marketing message? It’s the message you want to get across to your potential customers. It’s the thing that will convince potential customers that you have the answer to their problem. The success of your business will, ultimately, depend greatly on how clear and effective your core marketing message is.

Introducing Yourself

One of the reasons you’re marketing your business is so that people will choose to hire you. That sound’s rather basic, but it can be overlooked. Your marketing message needs to say who you are. Making sure your name, or your business name, is included in your marketing efforts will help insure that, even if the potential client doesn’t hire you right away, they’ll remember you for when they are ready to buy.

In the process of introducing yourself, don’t get carried away. Talking about yourself can distract your potential customers and, in many cases, push them away. They’re not interested as much in who you are as they are in what you can do for them.

In some niches, it can be useful to provide some biographical information. For example, you might say, “I am Dr. Rogers, and I am a physician at State Hospital” or “I am Jan Smith, a certified clinical psychologist.” If your niche has recognized certifications or associations, you can certainly include this information in your marketing. As a general rule, however, brevity is best.

Identifying Problems

The next thing you need to focus on in your core marketing message is a problem that needs to be solved. People buy things, and they pay consultants and coaches, to solve problems. This is true for just about any consulting business. If you’re a writing coach, your clients have a problem with their writing ability (or with selling their writing, perhaps.). If you’re a weight loss coach, your clients probably have a weight problem. If you’re a back pain coach, your clients have back pain.

It seems basic, but identifying the specific problems that your coaching solves is integral to your core marketing message. You want to reach people that have a need, and then say, “Hey! You there! I can fix that!” That is how you get clients’ attention. That’s how your potential clients know you’re talking to them, and how they know you have something that they just might want to listen to. Think about some of the most effective commercials and marketing campaigns you’ve seen.

Acne medications don’t start out their advertisements by talking about ingredients. Instead, they say, “Are you tired of not looking your best?”

They identify a problem right away: with acne, you don’t look your best. Your core marketing message should address a problem or problems of your target market. Make a list of the top problems in your target market – perhaps three to five problems – and decide which ones you can solve. Focus your marketing efforts on these.

Offering Outcomes

The natural thing to do, once you’ve identified a problem, is talk about solutions and processes. However, when it comes to your core marketing message, solutions and processes need to take a back seat.

You see, people out there who have a problem aren’t looking for methods. They aren’t looking for a process. They aren’t even looking for solutions.

What they want are outcomes.

The person with back pain doesn’t want medicine. They don’t want exercise, physical therapy or coaching. They want to be free from back pain. The person with acne doesn’t want hydrocortisone creams or UV treatments. They want to get rid of their acne. It’s not enough to identify problems; potential customers know they have problems. Identifying problems is just how you get their attention. You need to tell those potential customers exactly why they need you. You have to be able to identify specific outcomes. You need to know what your potential clients want to get out of the situation, decide if you can provide it, and then offer it to them

As the next step in the process of developing your core marketing message, you need to consider each of those problems you identified previously. For each problem, ask yourself, “What is the ideal outcome your potential customers are hoping for?” Once you’ve identified those outcomes, they become an amazing tool in your marketing efforts.

A note about Process

Just because the process of solving problems shouldn’t be included in your marketing message doesn’t mean you shouldn’t consider it. Before you attach a given outcome to a problem, you’d better be sure you have a process in place that will solve the problem and provide the desired outcome. If you can’t create the outcome, you have to strike it from your marketing message.

Putting it All Together

So, now that you have identified the various components of your core marketing message, it’s time to actually formulate and articulate that message. Your core marketing message says something along these lines:

“I am _____. I work with _____ who have this problem_____. I help them to _____.” So, you might say, “I am John Sebastian. I work with older men and women who have lower back pain. I help them to manage their pain effectively and lead normal, productive lives.”

Establishing a coherent core marketing message that identifies who you are, identifies the problem you can solve and gives the potential customer a look at what life looks like after their problem is solved is key to success in your consulting business.

There are 3 different techniques for a presentation call that you can use: 

1.  Content Presentation Call

On this presentation call you are going to educate your prospects and give them a whole lot of value and also show them the benefits of the products or services of your network marketing business. Make sure you leave out all the hype about the networking business opportunity and give them the facts about how you can help solve their problems, pain, time or whatever your network marketing company can provide them. This call may end up being about 30 minutes long and only speaks about how your prospects can purchase the products, services or join the network marketing business opportunity itself at the very end of the presentation call. Up until this point you are going to just be giving as much value, benefits and information to your prospects as you can. 

 2.   Sales Presentation Call

Using this technique for your presentation call you focus on selling your product and are not really concerned about educating your prospects. Tell your prospects right out front about your products, services and what your network marketing business is all about. Be up front with them how you can save them money, solve their pain, save them time or whatever your network marketing product or service can do for them. Since you are not taking the time at the first part of the presentation call to really educate them this call is normally shorter than a content call. 

3.  Blueprint Presentation Call

This type of call is the most comprehensive of the three presentation calls and you will be giving your prospects a lot of detail about your products, services or network marketing business opportunity. This call is going to take them step by step right from where they are right now to going through the process of using the product or service,  to actually seeing success when joining your network marketing business.   The prospect should walk away knowing that they have received a lot of value and benefit and know that they do not have to go anywhere else to solve their problem, pain, save themselves money, make money or whatever benefits your networking business offers them. Your prospects will be impressed that you have given them such valuable information and they will know that you are an expert in your field.  Chances are because people follow leaders and experts you will have increased the chances that they will also join you in your networking business. Since you are trying to give your prospect a huge amount of value this presentation call may be up to 1 hour long.   

In conclusion you will find any one of the three presentation calls effective for your network marketing business. Your prospecting script should lead them into the presentation call. Once they have heard the call get back to them and finish up with your closing script. Realize that you will probably have better success with either the content presentation call or the blueprint presentation call. People hear direct sales pitches all the time from the radio, T.V., Internet and newspapers etc. Your prospects will appreciate if you can educate them, give them value so that they can walk away with and knowledge of how your products, services or network marketing company can actually help them.

Source by Trudy Arnett

EAP (Employee Assistance Program) Marketing and Utilization: Channels of Communication

One of the secrets to promoting any product or service is becoming a pro at using multiple channels of communication for that product or service in delivering the marketing or promotional message to the customer.

In this sense, I am speaking about potential EAP clients (employees or work units) within the organization that can take advantage of your services.

Increasing your EAP utilization or marketing EAP services effectively requires analyzing and studying these channels of communication and keeping your eyes open for new ones as they pop up.

You may spot one at any moment as it produces an EAP client. That’s a signal to grab it, stick it in your marketing basket, and add it to your marketing mix. A focused discussion with your staff can produce more through a brainstorming process, but arriving at the point where your antenna go up with “Marketing Channel, Alert! Alert!”, is the place you need to eventually arrive.

If you worry about your EAP utilization, the answer to increasing it off the charts lies in examining, tracking, and exploiting these marketing channels.

Putting pen to paper to identify them and work them strategically can boost your utilization rate, reduce behavioral risk exposure in the organization, and provide evidence to prospective EAP corporate customers that expertise in your craft is going to return big bucks to them in cost-benefit if they go with your proposal. It may also prevent your EAP from closing its doors or getting farmed out to an 800 number in a cubicle on the 24th floor of an office building on the other side of the country. Understanding marketing channels is not only an art, but an essential strategic undertaking in the survival and growth of your EAP.

You are already very familiar with one or two channels of communication that apply to your employee assistance program. One no-brainer is the EAP brochure distributed in strategic locations within the organization. Another channel is your health and productivity, or work-life newsletter given to employees at a frequency decent enough that you are actually remembered. And still another is making short presentations on mental health or work-life topics. There may be 20 to 30, and even more marketing channels that escape your awareness, yet each may potentially contribute to a higher EAP utilization. You should identify these channels of communication so you can work them to your advantage. If you do not make a focused effort on doing this, you can easily miss half of them.

Channels of communication reinforce each other and each contributes to increasing or maintaining your EAP’s utilization. In the next few messages, I will begin discussing a few of these with the goal of helping you establish a 6th sense for spotting these gems and mining them for the benefit of your EAP, corporate customers, and most important troubled employees.

Source by Daniel Feerst, MSW, LISW-CP

When you’re trying to promote your business and its products or services, don’t overlook your marketing positioning. You’ve identified your target market, done your keyword homework, monitored and tweaked your various promotional strategies, so you’re off on the right foot.  But there are more things to consider to really promote your brand and see your company succeed. Positioning yourself within your market can make a huge difference in sales and your customer base. 

Many people new to marketing might not even know what marketing positioning is.  It’s simply how you are perceived by your customers and potential customers.  You might think this is something out of your hands.  While it’s true that each person sees things through his or her own filter and makes his or her own opinions, there’s a lot you can do to position your company in a more favorable light.  This is where marketing becomes less about your company specifically and a little more about the entire market in general.

Consider the environment in your particular market right now. What problems does your industry face at the moment? Is there a downturn industry wide, or is business booming? Are customers’ needs being met, or is there room for improvement in certain areas? Also think about how your competition uses marketing positioning to improve their business, and how costly and inconvenient it is for customers to switch from one company or one brand to another. If you find that a hindrance, make it easier for customer to come to you.

Now, focus on your business. Think about what sets you apart from your competitor and what advantages your company has over your competitors. Compare your prices, convenience, level of service and even company size.  Do you have excellent customer service that’s more personal and prompt that the bigger company in your field?  Are your prices lower, or your guarantees more iron clad?  How does the quality of your product or service compare with your competition?

When it comes to marketing positioning, you have a variety of choices in how you go about it.  You can focus on specific products or services and their qualities.  You can focus on how the customer benefits from them, or how and when the product or service can be used. Identify your target users and appeal directly to them.  You can also position yourself against one of your competitor’s in a comparison situation, or conversely, do everything you can to disassociate yourself from them to avoid comparisons.

Your marketing positioning strategy should focus on which of those options stands out to you as the best and obvious choice.  If your company is smaller than Corporation X, but you give better, faster, friendlier service that such a huge company could ever hope to give, focus on that.  Brand yourself as the small business with heart that listens to customers, and portray larger business as out of touch with customers and suffering under the burden of their own size. That’s an example of good marketing positioning.

Source by hardeep