Tag Archives for " marketing "

Member Spotlight Steve Young

Steve Young
Body Solutions – Voorhees NJ

Body Solutions was established in 2002 sort of by accident! Yes, I stumbled onto the business owner path because the physical therapist I worked for needed to sublease space within his clinic. In 2002 I started Body Solutions and at the time, we only did personal training back then. I eventually took over the physical therapy business within the facility in Eagle Plaza. By 2005 I was running the entire clinic… Also around that time, I realized I knew NOTHING about business. I was a physical therapist and science geek looking to learn business. – Steve Young

Steve joined Marketing Automation Group (MAG) in 2012 after years of working 14 hours days with little to no time for family, friends and hobbies. His ‘aha’ moment when he realized he needed to change something within his business was when his daughter entered his home office and said “Daddy, you’re ALWAYS working……”

Like most of our members, when Steve joined MAG he didn’t have the budget for the program but he took a leap of faith!

• in his first 2 years he went from 11% growth rate to 24%
• he experienced 2x’s the growth while working 40% less
• he also started a second business where he made $219,860 working 110 hours, that’s $1,998/hour!
• that was 54% what he made in 2013

You can learn more about Body Solutions Here.

How Big Is Your Marketing Funnel?

Dear Business Owner,

My name is Bob Britton, a fellow small business owner and president of Marketing Automation Group.

Most business owners I have worked with when they began with me, have at most 3 methods to attract high quality prospects and still don’t have enough customers.

What do I mean?

Most business owners get their customers from a referral, from a walk-in, or maybe, if they are lucky, from their website.

There are TWO problems with this, the first is that they do NOT have nearly enough lead generating methods in place and the ones they do have in place are NOT working as well as they could be, if at all.. Let’s take a closer look at this.

There are at least 9 ways to get new customers for your business (actually I’ve identified and laid out dozens, but for the purposes of this article, lets go with 9) not only 3. Here they are.

1. Referrals from past customers (the way I show you how)
2. Walk-ins
3. Pay Per Click Marketing (the way I show you how)
4. New Mover Attraction Program
5. Cross selling with other business in your area
6. Open Houses
7. Inbound visits to your web site
8. Outbound email marketing
9. Direct mail to your ideal prospects (done the right way)

The more methods you use the MORE customers you will get and the more money you will make,

Its simple math.

It is very risky to only have a few methods because lets say you rely on walk-in and no one shows up. Or a direct mail campaign that worked in the past stopped working, again you’re in trouble. Wouldn’t you want as many methods working for you as you can? BUT if you have 7 to 9 methods bringing in customers and one or two falls apart you are still OK. You can STILL deposit a lot of money in your bank account.

Make sense?

The second biggest problem I see is the methods a business owner IS using are being done poorly. Let me explain by giving you a few examples.

1. Referrals- There is NO real system for getting referrals from current customers, there is no follow up. It just kinda happens in a hap-hazard way. As a result TONS of potential customers are falling through the cracks and not using the businesses services. They are letting thousands and thousands of dollars needlessly slip away.

2. No Unique Selling Proposition (USP – No businesses are distinguishing themselves from everyone else. How is a potential customer supposed to choose YOU when YOU “look” and say the same things as every other salon?

3. Pay Per Click Marketing – All the ads I see are missing the KEY elements (great headline, free information offer, 24-hour free recorded message, 800 number, compelling offer, etc.) to a successful ad. And you wonder why the results are so poor on the ads you run.

If you have any questions, need some immediate advice, or would like to get involved with my program please give me a call at 585-633-7563.

To your success,

Bob Britton

Are You Tracking Your Results?

Are You Tracking Your Results?

Hi Business Owner,

My name is Bob Britton, a fellow small business owner and President of Marketing Automation Group

Why you must track your results:

If you don’t know what’s working and what’s not, you’ll have no way to increase your business.

Things aren’t always as they seem. You can’t guess whether something is working or not. You must keep track of the numbers and let them tell you.

Ad A: This is a Val-Pak type ad. You advertised a “computer tune-up”. It costs $350.00 to run it. It goes to 10,000 prospects. You get 30 clients from it.

Ad B: This is a direct mail piece. It costs $400.00 to send it to 500 prospects. You get 11 new clients.

Which is better? At first it may seem that A is better, but look at the rest of the numbers.

Ad A: The 30 clients generated, had an average ticket of $59.00. Twenty four out of 30 complained that your prices were too high. Three of them rescheduled another service appointment in 6 months.

Ad B: The 11 clients generated had an average ticket of $137.00. Zero of them complained about the price. Nine of them rescheduled in 6 months. And 7 of them bought other products and services you offer. Eight of them referred at least one client to you within 1 month of their visit.

As you can see, you made $750.00 ($25.00 x 30) off the front end of A. Ad A cost you $350.00. That’s $400.00 left. The backend isn’t very big, two clients in 6 weeks. – another $50.00 if they keep appointments.

Ad B on the other hand generated $1,507.00 on the front end ($137.00 x 11). The back end is even bigger with all those referrals, pre-booked appointments, etc. The coast of ad B was $400.00, so that’s $1,107 left- that’s more than ad a generated after the costs of the ad!

We hope now you can see why you must keep close track of your numbers. Some methods may be misleading where you think you are doing great but really you aren’t.

Don’t have an ‘idea’ whether something is working well. Know your numbers and know for sure!

If you have any questions, need some immediate advice, or would like to get involved with my program please give me a call at 585-633-7563.

To your success,

Bob Britton

How To Get Your Yellow Page Ad To Your Target Market Without Paying The Yellow Page Company

How To Get Your Yellow Page Ad To Your Target Market Without Paying The Yellow Page Company

Hi Business Owner,

My name is Bob Britton, a fellow small business owner and President of Marketing Automation Group

There is a separate booklet that came with your program that covers all the things you should be doing to MAXIMIZE your response to your yellow page advertising.

BUT there is another, very effective way to get your yellow page to your target market WITHOUT giving the yellow page company a ton of money every month.

This strategy to this will SHOCK you.

Are you ready?

DON’T ADVERTISE IN THE YELLOW PAGES

Waite a minute Bob, how are local customers supposed to find me? All my competitors are in the yellow pages. Now I think you have totally lost your mind – it must be the heat! Right?

Wrong!

We are going to show you right now how to get in the book without paying. And multiply your response results up to 20 times all for a fraction of the cost of a yellow page ad.

By the way the last time we looked into yellow page advertising in our town it was $50,000 for a full page ad, FIFTY GRAND, that’s a lot of green backs.

Before we tell you this one little strategy that can transform your bank account I want to clear up some realities about yellow page advertising, OK?

Most yellow page advertising does NOT work because it is missing all the elements of a successful ad. An ad in the yellow pages is NO different than any type of print ad. The paper it is printed on is yellow, that’s it.
Yellow page ad reps don’t know squat about advertising. All they want you to do is buy the biggest ad because then their commissions are bigger.
Most “big” companies have their advertising agency’s design their yellow page ad. Advertising reps don’t know squat about effective track-able advertising. The first question and adverting company will ask you is “what is your advertising budget?” You tell them and they proceed to spent it all with little tangible results.

Here is the strategy.

Design your ad like we show you how in your “Reinventing Your Yellow Page Ad System” (a full page ad). Get it printed on yellow newspaper just like a full page ad in a yellow page book and MAIL it to your surrounding area with a letter like the one we give you.

If you have any questions, need some immediate advice, or would like to get involved with my program please give me a call at 585-633-7563.

To your success,

Bob Britton

Are you sending out a newsletter each month? If not, you’re losing big sales.

Are you sending out a newsletter each month? If not, you’re losing big sales.

Hi Business Owner,

My name is Bob Britton, a fellow small business owner and President of Marketing Automation Group.

Mailing a newsletter to your client base each month will always more than pay for itself in increased sales. We see a spike in business the week the newsletter hits our client’s mailbox. Emailing your newsletter is not as effective as mailing it in the regular mail but it is better than doing nothing.

It takes a lot of work to put together a decent newsletter and we are NOT suggesting that you research topics and write your own newsletter each month to your clients. It is not the best use of your time. We have a “Business Newsletter” service where we do everything for you for a small monthly fee.

The way this works is every month you will get from us an email with a 4-page newsletter on it. All you have to do is fill in your specific information in a certain sections we have set aside for you. Then you print and have the newsletter mailed to your client list. You can also have copies in your store to give your clients.

This is a great way to keep your name and business in front of your clients. It is also a great way to announce information you want them to know. They will think that you personally sat down and wrote the newsletter. They will think you spent a lot of time putting it together. They will thank you for all the neat information.

Please send an email to our office if you are interested in finding out the details of our newsletter program.

If you have any questions, need some immediate advice, or would like to get involved with my program please give me a call at 585-633-7563.

To your success,

Bob Britton

Is Your Marketing Diversified?

Is Your Marketing Diversified?

Hi Business Owner,

My name is Bob Britton, a fellow small business owner and President of Marketing Automation Group.

Diversity equals stability.

If you have one marketing strategy which is pulling in $10,000.00 a month (which is entirely possible), it can be tempting to not do anything else.

This is a mistake. This makes you very vulnerable.

It is like putting all your eggs in one basket.

If for some reason that strategy starts only pulling in half as much, only $5,000.00, you’re in trouble

Yes, yes, we keep telling you that these strategies are systems. That they get consistent results. This is all true but…There could always be some sort of change in one system. Over time these things are bound to happen.

If you have 10 different strategies to get new clients each month, that’s better than 1. The more reliable systems you have bringing in a steady flow of new clients, the more stable you will be.

For example if you have 10 different strategies bringing in $10,000.00 a month and one stops working, you’ll still be fine.

But if you only have one and it stops working, you have BIG trouble.

I’m telling you this because these strategies are extremely powerful. One strategy could easily bring in $20,000.00 or more a month. It’ll be tempting just to do that one but don’t.

Diversify.

Your business will be bigger, better and much more stable.

If you have any questions, need some immediate advice, or would like to get involved with my program please give me a call at 585-633-7563.

To your success,

Bob Britton

Headline Tips Guaranteed To Work

Headline Tips Guaranteed To Work

Hi Business Owner,

My name is Bob Britton, a fellow small business owner and President of Marketing Automation Group.


As we discussed in the past the headline is the most important part of your ad. Without a good headline, you will lose prospective clients instantly and your ads will bomb.



Here are 7 quick headline tips that can double or triple your response rates:  



1. “How To” is a tested and proven winning way to begin a headline.


2. Another “can’t go wrong” headline technique is to use the word FREE somewhere in your headline. It’s still one of the most powerful words in advertising.


3. ‘New’ is yet one more proven response boosting word that you can test in your headlines.


4. Try to use “You” in your headline whenever possible. Tests have shown that it alone can boost response.


5. Another surefire way to create a good headline is to ask a question that evokes a “Yes” answer.


6. Guarantee. Using a guarantee in your headline can double response or more. People don’t want to feel like their going to get stuck with a lemon, and they have been ripped off too many times.


7. Everyone wants to know a ‘Secret’. Use it in your headline and watch response rates soar!



Combine some or all of these like I did in the headline at the top of this page for a very powerful headline, and test different headlines. The difference between an average headline and a good one can be the difference between getting two or three clients and dozens of them calling you and driving across town to come to you store if you have one.

If you have any questions, need some immediate advice, or would like to get involved with my program please give me a call at 585-633-7563.

To your success,

Bob Britton

Your mail will never get opened… Unless you do this

Hi Business Owner,

My name is Bob Britton, a fellow small business owner and President of Marketing Automation Group.

When most people get their mail they divide it into 3 piles:

Pile A: Personal mail.

Pile B: Bills.

Pile C: Everything else, AKA junk mail.

And you know what happens to junk mail… It goes in the trash without ever being opened.

If you want your letter to get opened, then you can’t send out the same stuff most businesses do. Instead of going for a “professional, polished” look, you have to make your letter look like it’s personal mail; like it is coming from their little old grandmother.

You do this by hand writing the address, using a stamp, (not metered,) and using colors. More people will open your letter if it looks personal than if it looks like something automated and from a business.

Think about yourself when you open your own mail; wouldn’t you be more likely to open something that looks like a note from a friend rather than just another flyer for a local business? If you send a letter and nobody opens it, then your marketing effort, (and TIME, and MONEY,) was totally wasted!

If you have any questions, need some immediate advice, or are interested in talking about other ways to make the most of your marketing budget, please give me a call at 585-633-7563.

To your success,

Bob Britton

Did You Know That Direct Mail Is The Cheapest Methods To Get Customers?

Did You Know That Direct Mail Is The Cheapest Methods To Get Customers?

Hi Business Owner,

My name is Bob Britton, a fellow small business owner and President of Marketing Automation Group.

Direct mail is one of the most powerful ways to market your business that there is.

This year there will be $32.4 billion spent on direct mail. Barely $11 billion will be spent on cable TV advertising for the top 6 TV networks. These statistics are according to a study directed by McCann-Erickson.

There wouldn’t be that much money spent on direct mail if it didn’t work.

So why do most small businesses, especially businesses, think of direct mail as a waste?

They don’t know how to use it. They’ve never had any instruction on how to use it.

They send a flier- as you know by now, 99.9% of fliers don’t cut it
they send it to a ‘bad’ list. The list, the people who you send your letter to, is just as important as the letter itself.

Many people overlook this.

One business owner had written a sales letter. It was pretty good, not great but pretty good.

She was getting zero response, not low, not one but zero. Zilch. Nada.

Who was she sending her letters to?

She didn’t know. She had bought a zip code zone.

Finally she went to look at the houses in the zip code she purchased.

Let us describe it for you:

Run-down. Tiny houses with broken down porches- at least one plank of wood was missing. Junk strewn across the front yard. In the driveway there was a car on cement blocks with half the engine removed. Both the husband and the wife were wearing stained t-shirts.

Are these the types of people most likely to buy your services?

Do they even own a computer? If they do, would they pay to get it cleaned?

These people are not good prospects for you.

The List is very important.

To recap, here is why most It business owners fail at direct mail:

No direct mail expertise.
Bad sales letter
Bad list.

How To Do Successful Direct Mail

Have an irresistible offer. The more enticing your offer the better you will sell.

Attention getting headline. Your headline is really an ad for your sales letters.

Create Interest. The first paragraph should emphasize the benefit to the reader, this gets your prospect interested enough to read the rest of the letter.

Create desire. Make your prospect really want what you’re offering.

Call to action. You must have an irresistible offer.

You must tell the prospect to respond and have a deadline. If you don’t tell the person to call today and don’t have an expiration date creating a “sense of urgency” you don’t have a direct response.

In our program there are lots of ready to use direct mail letters. Use them as-is or modify them. Learn from them and start writing your own!

If you have any questions, need some immediate advice, or would like to get involved with my program please give me a call at 585-633-7563.

To your success,

Bob Britton

Does Your Message Match Your Market?

Does Your Message Match Your Market?

Hi Business Owner,

My name is Bob Britton, a fellow small business owner and President of Marketing Automation Group.

In the strategy before this we talked about how important and critical to your success it is to have a Unique Selling Points (USP). Your USP is your specific message.

Now we will talk about how important it is to make sure your message (your USP) matches your market. What I mean about this is that the greatest message in the world is useless if it goes to people who don’t care because they will not “hear it”. You have to be communicating to the right people. This is called “Message to Market Match.”

For example – If your market is homeowners you would NOT want a message like “If your computers go down we’ll get them up fast so you don’t loose any transactions”. That may be OK for small business owners but not for homeowners.

Who is your ideal client?_______________________________

What is their age?____________________________________

What is their income?__________________________________

Where do they live?___________________________________

What else do you know about them?______________________________

So you have to have a strong message and a good market match to be right on target in your marketing.

Now you have the two things that MOST business owners never even thinks about and that’s one of the reason they are struggling.

A USP
Your Message Matches your Market

If you have any questions, need some immediate advice, or would like to get involved with my program please give me a call at 585-633-7563.

To your success,

Bob Britton