Hot new marketing ideas to attract new clients
and improve your cash flow.
Dear Business-Builder,
As with any type of marketing, you have to open your eyes and
ears to new ideas. When you hear an idea or technique being used
in an unrelated industry… PAY CLOSE ATTENTION. When you take a
proven marketing strategy from an unrelated industry and make it
fit your own – you will experience a breakthrough.
It’s always easier to look within your own industry for ideas –
but the real good, profitable ones will almost always come from
outside.
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Consider the following a start
to making this your best year yet:
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What are you doing to keep in touch with your clients and
prospects?
It always amazes me to watch how the typical business treats
their clients… after they become clients.
At first, it seems they would do anything to get you to buy from
them.
Run advertising, offer special deals, bundle things together,
new customer discounts... you name it, they do it.
BUT, as soon as they get you as a paying client – you get
dropped faster than a steaming hot iron.
Why?
After all the work you put into getting your first deal from a
client: earning their trust, showing them you are different,
getting them to pull out their wallet, and getting them to put
their cash on the table for the first time.
You do all of this – and then never communicate with them again.
It makes no sense if you think about it.
You know as well as I that it is MUCH easier to get a person to
buy from you if they have already bought before.
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Step #1: The biggest and most immediate returns you can see from
your marketing efforts involve your existing clients. Not in
finding a new army of eager first-time-buyers… which is where
most small business owners put their efforts.
Your existing clients are where the real money is.
Cultivate a solid relationship with them – and build in a
consistent communication stream with them – and you will see a
big difference in your revenue growth.
The easiest way to use Step #1 in your business?
A monthly print newsletter that shows up in their physical
mailbox. Email newsletters also work great – and still must be
used – but the real money is in adding print to your marketing
efforts.
For example:
Rita started her first print letter 5 months ago to promote her
automotive repair business. Her challenges before starting the
print newsletter:
- the automotive repair business operates out of their farm
- they have a number of employees
- they do not live near a town or city (no local nearby
population to draw from)
- they had never really kept much of a database
- people have to drive for miles to visit their shop and get
their car repaired
So, how do you find hot new buyers for a business that depends
on people physically visiting your location, yet they live many
miles away?
Rita bought a list of addresses surrounding her (quite a wide
circle out in the country). She bought 5,000 addresses to mail
to that were within reasonable driving distances (under one
hour).
She designed a 4-page print newsletter that gets mailed cold to
these names.
It costs her $0.10 to print each and $0.10 to mail each (bulk
mail)
So – her total outlay per month is $1,000 to mail to 5,000
homes. ($5,000 total to mail the newsletter each month for 5
months).
Her results:
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OVER $200,000 in new business
Over 250 new clients
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With a simple print newsletter.
Now, if Rita can do this with a completely COLD list – what can
you be doing with your own client database? Imagine what is
possible if you put this same investment out there every month.
$200,000 from a $5,000 investment.
For every $1 she invests, she gets $40 back into the business.
So, do I have your attention yet?
Do you see how powerful and profitable this is?
Her newsletter is simple, consisting of:
- Jokes
- Facts
- Trivia
- Cartoons
- Specials on repair work
- Articles on vehicle maintenance
Content you could easily put together once a month, or even
outsource the bulk of through services like Elance.com or
Rentacoder.com. Her first one took hours to put together – now
it takes her less than an hour a month to get it compiled and
ready for print.
If you commit to doing a print newsletter once a month to your
clients and prospects, you will see near immediate results (as
long as you stay consistent in sending it out).
You can find template designs – even template content to use in
your newsletter… but you must test it out in your business. And
yes, it will work in your business – no matter what your
industry is. Mix up the offers with some fun stuff (jokes,
trivia, strange facts, etc.) and people will look forward to
reading your next one.
Make sure there is always a solid offer or two in the
newsletter. And give them incentives that are not available
through any other means than through your newsletter (makes it
easier to track results that way).
Once you get them to start buying, and buying more often, then
you can build in other incentive campaigns as in step 2 (which
will be discussed next week).
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SOME IDEAS FOR YOUR PRINT NEWSLETTER
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- Unique human interest stories from team members (new births,
pets, hobbies, in the news) - make the team members a
significant part of your newsletter
- write ups on your clients successes with your products and
services (follow the case study format: what their life was like
before using you, how they found you, how they selected you,
their experiences using you, and the end results they attained)
- interesting trends that your target market would be interested
in (business trends, people trends, aging trends, spending
trends)
- strange facts or history - does not need to be related to your
business or industry - people will love this section as it keeps
them entertained and looking for more
- a full page Ad for one of your products or services – can be
used to test ads as well so have 1 regular ad and 1 test ad
running in same newsletter
- Endorse others (preferably clients) who run their own business
- Staff Memo – have your staff “write” the newsletter and/or
promotions
- Calendar – upcoming events – special days or promotions
- Jokes (keep them clean)
- Cartoons are always a hit. http://www.cashcartoons.com/ or
http://www.goofyfaces.com/ or http://www.cartoonstock.com/
- Happy customer pictures
- Pick on a common enemy (taxes, government, media, poor
customer service, reality shows, whatever you find your
customers commonly complain about)
- Questions for them to ponder
- Book reviews
- Product reviews
- Tips for use
- Advanced tips for use
- 27 Creative Ways To Use ( ___ your product or service ___)
To your marketing and profit breakthroughs!
Troy White
Turning Your Words Into Wealth
For more free tips on marketing and advertising to grow your business,
please sign up for his main newsletter at
http://www.smallbusinesscopywriter.com
This article was originally written for the Small Business Mastery Column,
which I write every Tuesday for the World's Highest Paid Copywriter,
Clayton Makepeace.
If you want to get more articles like these, please visit
http://www.smallbusinessmastery.com, part of The Total Package.
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