How Good Are You at The Great Game of Marketing? Part 1

Power Tips from Give to Get Marketing

1. The Purpose of My Advertising -- Ads, Flyers, Letters, Etc. -- Should Be to Sell My Product or Service

Absolutely not true! Trying to sell your product or service in your advertising is like walking up to a stranger and saying, 'Will you marry me?'

If people don't know, like and trust you, they won't buy from you.

The real purpose of your advertising is to attract prospects -- people who have an interest in what you are selling -- to your business.

Your selling efforts are then directed specifically to those people who have the most interest in buying what you are offering.

2. Everyone is a Prospect for My Product or Service

Not true. If you try to get everyone's attention, you'll get no one's attention. Not everyone is going to be interested in what you are offering.

The more specifically you target your marketing efforts towards people who already have a genuine interest in what you are offering, the more attention and results you will get.

3. Marketing is About Tricking, Convincing, or Manipulating People into Buying My Product or Service

If you believe this, you won't be in business for long.

There's a name for people who do that -- they're called con-artists and snake-oil salesmen.

Marketing is about helping people get what they want. If they don't want what you are offering, move on and find someone who does -- or change what you are offering so that they do want it.

4. The Purpose of My Marketing Efforts Should Be to Create Awareness of My Business in the Marketplace

Big money-wasting myth!

You've probably heard it before from various media reps; 'You need to keep running your ads over and over again to gain marketplace recognition and awareness.'

Don't believe it. While Coca Cola, The Gap, and Disney can afford to spend millions of dollars to create mass market awareness and keep their names uppermost in the minds of the people in their marketplace, a small business can't.

Unless you have at least $100,000 to $200,000 a year to spend on awareness marketing in your local market, forget it. Mass awareness marketing is a game for the big guys, not for a small business.

Remember, the goal of media reps is to have you run your ads over and over and over again -- that's how they make their commissions. The concept of awareness marketing fits in very well with their goal, but not with yours.

You should be using what is called direct response marketing -- marketing that produces an immediate and direct response.


5. I Don't Need a Headline on My Marketing Pieces

False.

You need a headline on every marketing vehicle you use. That includes ads, flyers, letters, post cards, Web pages, e-mails, etc. Your headline for an in-person presentation, a telemarketing call, etc. would be your opening statement.

Your headline should attract your very best prospects and should tell them in an instant what you have for them.

Thank about how you read a newspaper. How do you decide which articles to read? By the headlines, of course.

Your headline will determine if your prospects will stop to read the rest of your message. If it doesn't grab your prospects and promise them something they want, they won't read the rest of your marketing piece. They're just too busy to waste their time trying to figure out if you have something of interest to them.

Eliminate your headlines, or use a bad one, and you have just wasted 90% of your marketing investment.

Keeping Customers With Good Customer Service

Source: melissadata

Successful companies provide proactive customer service. Proactive customers service leads to increased business and loyalty. Here are a few tips to keep in mind.

Be a double checker
Customers appreciate it when a sales representative takes a minute to check on an item they've asked for. It lets them know they're being listened to and cared for.

Do something extra
Average service is about meeting the customer’s expectations. Great customer service is exceeding it. Give your customers more than they expect, and they'll return to do business with you.

Take the initiative
Offer several solutions to the customer's predicament. If one doesn't work, make sure you have multiple avenues to resolve their problems. This way, the customer knows you are trying your best to help them, and in the future will not hesitate to buy from you, since they'll know whatever problem they have, you'll be able to fix it.

Search Queries Getting Longer

clipped from searchengineland.com

ListGrabber - Sales Leads Capture Tool

With the global economic downturn and shrunken marketing budgets in the backdrop, sales professionals have to be more aggressive and wiser than before to make the most of the available resources. Yes, despite the recession growing deeper and deeper, opportunities still exist. So, it is very important for a sales professional to always look for fresh leads and hot prospects even during a recession.

Where do you look for fresh leads? The unanimous answer is the internet, which is the major source of fresh leads that are available for free. Online Directories (yellowpages.com, superpages.com, whitepages.com, etc.), association websites, membership directories, MLS Listings, etc. are the few sources that offer free leads.

Now the main challenge is, how to get those hundreds of contacts into the database and build a prospect list? Manually entering each and every contact information on a daily basis is a tiresome and time-consuming task. As time is a very crucial factor in lead generation, particularly during tough times as this, an automation tool like ListGrabber can give you that winning edge over your competitors.

ListGrabber is a powerful lead capture tool that enables you to capture the name, address, email ID, phone number and other contact details of your prospects (multiple contacts) from any internet source in a single click and automatically transfer the contacts to your database. ListGrabber increases your productivity and offers more time for you to sell.

Download the fully functional trial version of ListGrabber today and reach more prospects before your competitor does!

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Yellow Pages Strategy - Daily Marketing Tips

Source: melissadata.com

Display ads in the Yellow Pages are different from those in most other publications since they are in customers' hands for a full year. For that reason, it's often prudent to start with relatively small display ad. If the ad proves cost effective, consider enlarging it next year. If it isn't, you can fine-tune the ad at a relatively modest cost. All successful display ads-and especially those in the phone book- should state clearly why the reader should do business with your company. List the main benefits of choosing your company, and always give them several ways to contact you...phone number, web site, e-mail, FAX.

Automate Lead Processing & Spend More Time Selling

Sales representatives typically prospect for, and obtain leads from a wide variety of sources. Today, in many industry segments such as Insurance, Loans, Real Estate and Automobile sales, agents and representatives routinely rely heavily on leads obtained online. This has to do with the fact that more and more Americans are going online. Consider the following facts:

• 68% of Americans or about 137 Million people use the Internet today
• As many as 97% of Internet users research products and services that they intend to buy online
  

Given the above data, companies have recognized the importance of prospecting online. As a result we have seen a marked rise in online presence and in online marketing campaigns.

The Flood of Leads Causes New Problems

This increased investment in online marketing has created a glut of email leads. While leads are plentiful, businesses are now faced with two major problems in converting these leads to sales. These are:

• Processing of leads
• Timely and effective follow up of leads
  

The eGrabber Solution

eGrabber’s eMail-Lead Grabber (ELG) is designed to address the two specific problems detailed above. ELG helps :

• Automate leads processing
• Enable and automate the sales leads follow up process

eMail-Lead Grabber is a lead processing automation solution that extracts lead data from your email messages and transfers them into your database.

When your prospect submits a form on your website, places an order, be it an order form, support/sales inquiry form - eMail-Lead Grabber intelligently reads the emails received in your inbox and transfers the data into your database such as ACT!, GoldMine, MS Outlook, MS Excel, MS Access and more.

You can also process the email leads(HTML/TEXT) purchased from lead vendors and transfer them to ACT!. It also sends auto response follow-up whenever a prospect fills up an inquiry form on your website.

For more info, Click Here

To download the fully functional trial version of the software, Click Here

Call (Toll Free) 1-888-227-9175 or email sam@egrabber.com a free 10-minute demo and streamline your lead processing today!

Why People Buy - Daily Marketing Tips

Source: melissadata.com

When you sell a product it's not only important to know who bought it, but also why they bought. What motivated them to buy your product, what motivated them to buy your product over your competitor's product, and what you can do to motivate them to into a repeat purchase in the future. Almost every significant purchase made involves either saving money or time. If you can include one, or better yet, both of these powerful motivators in your offer, you're success rate will likely increase. When people feel like they are saving money they are more inclined to make a purchase immediately rather than put it off and eventually forget about it. This is especially effective with limited time offers that initiate action within a certain time frame. Demonstrate that your product or service can save them time, make them more efficient, and allow them to get more business done during the day and you have a winner. Integrate these two buying motivators in the same offer and watch your direct marketing campaign soar.