INCREASING YOUR response to your marketing efforts is what it’s all about. Here are three ways to help you do that.

1. Use a headline

Don’t ever run a marketing piece without a headline. If you don’t use a headline your prospective customers won’t know that your message is for them. They won’t know why they should read your marketing piece.

Are you aware that most marketing pieces are never read? They are promptly put aside to be buried under a growing pile of other reading material that will never be looked at again, or they are immediately tossed.

A headline is your only chance of grabbing your prospect’s attention and saying to him, ‘Stop! Take the time to read this because it is vitally important to you!’

Look at the headline at the top of this tip. Didn’t it catch your attention and make you want to read on to find out how to increase your marketing response?

If you want people to actually read your marketing pieces, always use a headline.

2. Tell them what you can do for them

People only want to know one thing — ‘What can you do for me?’

So make sure you tell them from the start.

Explain what your product or service can do for them and why they should buy it from you. Tell them why they will be better off buying your product or service.

3. Use a clear Call to Action

Your Call to Action is where you tell your prospects exactly what they should do next.

Don’t ever assume that they will know what to do. If there is the slightest doubt in their minds, they will procrastinate, and procrastination is one of the biggest killers of sales.

If you want them to call you and place an order, then tell them to do that.

If you want them fill out your order form and mail it to you, tell them.

If you want them to click on your web site link and place their order on the next page, tell them.

Don’t ever leave doubt in your prospective customers’ minds about what to do next.

YOUR BUSINESS should have something unique about it that sets it apart from the competition.

If your business appears to be just like every other business in your industry, then there will be very little reason for customers to choose you as opposed to one of your many competitors.

When competing businesses have no distinguishing benefits to set them apart, when they all offer basically the same products or services, the same customer service, etc. then customers will tend to compare those businesses based on price alone–lowest price wins.

Here are some of the ways you can set yourself apart:

1. Focus on a Particular Niche.

Perhaps you are a photographer that specializes in food product pictures, or corporate photographs for annual reports.

If you are a fitness instructor, you could focus on helping keep business employees fit, or you could be the personal fitness instructor that focuses on high level business executives.

2. Become the Low-Price, or the High-Price Leader

Design your business to provide good products for an extremely economical price. Your company would be committed to providing excellent savings for your customers.

Or you could take the opposite route and become the high-price provider. Obviously you would have to target a completely different market segment than the low-price leader.

3. Offer Excellent Customer Service

Set your company apart by providing exceptional customer service. Make your customers say, ‘Wow!’ whenever they do business with you. This is one of the best ways to set your business apart from the rest.

4. Offer a Unique Advantage

If you are a dog groomer, perhaps your unique advantage is that you will come to your customers’ homes and groom their pets there.

If possible, a lawn care service could offer a special treatment to keep their customers’ lawns greener longer. If that service is unique to their company, they have set themselves apart from their competitors.

5. Offer an Incredible Guarantee

We once helped a travel company that specialised in motor coach vacation tours for senior travellers, rise head and shoulders above their competitors by offering a 100% money-back guarantee on any aspect of their trip that wasn’t delivered as promised.

Their sales immediately experienced a 20% increase, and very, very few people ever asked for a refund. We knew that would be the case, since this business owner always provided top-notch services and always delivered everything she promised.

Her associates and competitors thought she had lost her mind by offering such a powerful guarantee. They mistakenly believed that her customers would take advantage of her– but that is rarely the case.

The vast majority of customers are good, honest people who just want to know that they are going to get what they paid for. So make it clear that you will stand behind your promises. Guarantee them.

A great example (he said modestly!) is our own Guaranteed Webs guarantee. We’re probably the only web site developers in South-East Queensland and Northern NSW that offer a 100% money-back guarantee for web development services.

ONE OF OUR longest serving subscribers, Bob Menzies, (no relation!) sent in this list of small business promotional ideas. Some are obvious, but you’d be surprised how many small businesses haven’t yet tried some of the best ones.

Many won’t suit your own particular business or budget, but some will.

I’ve bolded the ones we can offer extra assistance for, and linked them to our handy contact form. That way, if something takes your fancy, you can let us know and we’ll get right back to you with some FREE ADVICE.

Remember that small business promotion is the activity of informing, persuading and influencing the customers’ purchase decisions. No business should rely on any one form of promotional activity for their success.

• Advertise in the classified advertising section of your community newspaper.
• Advertise on a shopping trolley.
• Approach your prospective customers over the phone (telemarketing).
• Approach your prospective customers in person.
• Approach your prospective customers through the mail.
• Be a guest speaker at seminars and deliver presentations on your area of expertise.
• Be a guest speaker on radio talk shows.
• Build and maintain a customer mailing and contact list on database software.
• Build your image with well-designed letterhead and business cards.
• Design a brochure that best explains the benefits of your services.
• Design a mail order campaign.
• Design a point of purchase display for your product.
• Design a telemarketing campaign.
• Design an image building logo for your company.
• Design and distribute a quarterly newsletter or an industry update announcement.
• Design and distribute company calendars, mugs, pens, note pads, or other advertising specialties displaying your company name and logo.
• Design and distribute a free “how to do it” hand-out related to your industry (e.g. Tips for conserving energy in your home).
• Design buttons, decals and bumper stickers or balloons with your company name, logo or slogan.
• Design T-shirts displaying your company name and logo.
• Explore cross promotion with a non-competing company selling to your target market.
• Hire an advertising agency or public relations firm.
• Hold a promotional contest.
• Hold a seminar on your service, product or industry.
• Include promotional material with your invoices.
• Look for prospective customers at trade shows related to your industry.
• Look for prospective customers in associations related to your industry.
• Look for prospective customers at seminars related to your industry.
• Look for prospective customers in magazines and newspapers related to your industry.
• Package your brochure, price lists and letter in a folder for your customers.
• Place a sidewalk sign outside your store or office.
• Place flyers on bulletin boards and car windshields.
• Place promotional notes on your envelopes, mailing labels.
• Place signs or paint logos on your company vehicle(s).
• Prepare a corporate video.
• Prepare a list of product features and benefits to help you plan your advertising and promotional campaigns.
• Prepare proposals offering solutions to your customers’ needs
• Provide free samples of your product or service.
• Provide public tours of your operation.
• Sponsor a charity event.
• Sponsor an amateur sports team.
• Sponsor a cultural event through a community arts organization.

THIS IS A COMMON mistake that can cost you a fortune if you make it.

Everyone is familiar with newspaper ads, door hangers, business cards, flyers, brochures, direct mail letters, Cable TV ads, billboards, the phone, e-mail, posters, post cards, package inserts, window displays, signs, etc.

The elements I just named and many more like them are called ‘Marketing Vehicles.’ They are called vehicles because their purpose is to ‘deliver’ your marketing message to your intended prospects–just as a messenger is used to deliver a message to an intended recipient.

Each of those marketing vehicles can be a positive part of your marketing strategy if used properly. But it’s important that you understand exactly what their purpose is so that you can use them effectively.

The mistake that many business owners make is in confusing these marketing vehicles–the messengers–with their
messages.

Whenever I hear statements like the following, I know instantly that the speaker is probably confusing the messenger with the message.

‘I tried newspaper ads once. They didn’t work for us.’

or

‘Direct Mail doesn’t work for our company.’

As long as you have selected a marketing vehicle that effectively and efficiently reaches your target prospects and they fail to respond, it is your ‘message’ that didn’t work, not the vehicle used to deliver that message.

If you try sending your prospects your marketing message via a direct mail post card and you get zero response, and you are certain that your postcards reached targeted prospects with a high potential for responding to your offer then the following is a more accurate response:

‘I tried using postcards as my Marketing Vehicle to deliver my ‘message’ to my targeted prospects, but got zero response.

‘Apparently, my ‘message’ wasn’t very effective. I will have to improve my message before using that marketing vehicle again.’

While it’s important that you select an effective marketing vehicle to deliver your message, it is even more important that you craft your message in a way that guarantees a successful response. That’s where your focus should be.

That is the critical area that far too many business owners neglect.

If you aren’t getting the kind of results you need from you marketing efforts, you need to focus on improving your marketing message. Then it’s a simple matter of selecting an effective and cost efficient marketing vehicle to deliver your message.

But if your marketing message is weak or otherwise ineffective, then it doesn’t matter which vehicle you choose — it will fail … every time.

Do you know how to create a marketing message that gets your best prospects to respond–to take the action you want them to — immediately?

Imagine how your business and your life would change for the better a simple and reliable system that guaranteed to attract your very best prospects to your business like a magnet.

IN VIRTUALLY every area of business, entrepreneurs find pitfalls along the way. Marketing is no exception. As the owner of a business that helps other businesses market themselves more effectively, I have spoken with hundreds of entrepreneurs about various promotional efforts.

Regardless of their industries, time and again I see owners of companies large and small making the same costly mistakes. Avoid these mistakes, and you’ll save energy, disappointment — and a substantial amount of money:

1. Putting all your eggs in one basket. If your entire marketing budget is used on just one method of promoting your business, you won’t realize the highest return on your investment. Diversifying your efforts will increase the frequency and reach of your messages and stretch your marketing dollars.

2. Not measuring results. Measuring the results of your marketing efforts allows you to reinvest in vehicles that are working — and ditch those that aren’t. Try tactics like surveys, coded coupons, in-store response cards or focus groups to find out how well your messages are being received.

3. Firing before you take aim. If you find yourself throwing money at every promotional opportunity, take a step back and realize the benefits of planning. Set objectives, define the audience you wish to reach and set your budget over the next six to 12 months. Once you have a plan, you’ll realize the value of multiple advertising insertions, elimination of vendor rush charges and prevention of unwise purchasing decisions — like those 15,000 imprinted kitchen magnets that seemed like such a good idea at the time.

4. Eliminating marketing efforts when things get tight. When cash flow slows, advertising, direct mail and other forms of marketing are the easiest expenses to reduce, right? But cut these, and you eliminate the very activities that will bring in new customers to turn your business around. Keep your communication going, even when times get tough.

5. Not getting help when you need it. If you find you’re too busy to handle your marketing efforts or that your materials aren’t looking as professional as they should, it’s time to call in the reinforcements. Hire a full- or part-time employee, a marketing or public relations agency, or an independent business consultant, but make sure you’re getting the message out in a manner that reflects your business.

6. Fixing programs that aren’t broken. If your advertising campaign or direct-mail program is producing results, don’t change it just for the sake of changing it. Once you see returns slow down, look for new approaches, but always test them before implementing changes on a full scale.

7. Allowing ego to get in the way of common sense. Ego tempts very bright people to do very dumb things. Your marketing decisions should be based on factors that will positively impact some area of your business — usually its bottom line. Hiring an expensive multinational agency for a small account, sacrificing valuable frequency for
full-page advertising and buying blanket mailing lists without matching criteria to your customer profile are all examples of an ego that’s sabotaging effectiveness.

8. Relying on hunches. It came to you in the shower: the Big Idea for promoting your business. So you put all your marketing dollars into, for instance, painting your delivery trucks with neon colors. Before you blow your money on hunches, however, you need to do your homework. Talk to your customers and others who may have done something similar.
Then test your theory by trying a small-scale version of the Big Idea. If the initial results are promising, go full-steam ahead. If not, you’ve saved yourself a big neon headache.