Category Archives for Marketing
Have you done any simple market research?
Hi Business Owner,
My name is Bob Britton, a fellow small business owner and president of Marketing Automation Group.
This simple strategy will help you turn your business around and get it heading in a profitable direction almost overnight. It requires a little extra effort on your part, but if you take action, you will uncover marketing opportunities and rewards that you never knew existed.
Ok, Here’s How:
1. Take a few of your best clients to coffee/lunch and ask them what they like and dislike about your business. Make sure they know that you want the honest truth because you value their opinion; you want to keep them as a client; and you want more clients just like them.
After the meeting send a thank you letter. Make sure it’s personal. Anything less will weaken your sincerity.
2. Call up some of the clients that have not used you in a while and offer to take them to coffee or lunch. If they don’t want to meet in person, get information from them on the phone. Ask them why they haven’t used you lately; what you can do better; and what you do well. Then ask them if it’s OK for you to send them a ‘special thank you for your help gift’. Send a special offer, just for them. And make sure it has real value.
If you talk with 10 current and former clients and take good notes, you can use this information to improve your business and create marketing messages that target your potential clients more effectively. You’ll uncover many strengths and weaknesses. Some of them may shock you. Improve on your strengths, and fix your weaknesses. I guarantee you will get very valuable and useful information from this tip, and you will get a lot of satisfaction from the smart work you will accomplish. You might even get a few unexpected referrals, or win over a disgruntled client.
Asking for the honest, (and sometimes brutal,) truth is one of the hardest things a person or business owner can do. If you can find the inner strength of character to do this exercise, I promise: your life, (and cash flow), are going to start changing in BIG ways.
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
Do You Have A Marketing Plan?
Do You Have A Marketing Plan?
Hi Business Owner,
My name is Bob Britton, a fellow small business owner and President of Marketing Automation Group.
This is very important. It may seem obvious but less than 1% of all businesses actually do it. Even though it’s very simple, don’t underestimate its power!
The most important thing about marketing is to have a:
Marketing Plan
More businesses fail because they don’t have a plan or goals. You should have a detailed marketing plan of what you want to accomplish and how you are going to accomplish it.
Don’t be vague either. Things like ‘I want to make more money than I can ever spend’ or ‘I want to make $20,000.00 a month’ –these are not plans. They’re too vague and they won’t help you get there.
Be specific. As you go through this manual pick at least 5 ideas to start with. Write them down. Write how much you are going to make from each idea this week and this month. Then do a 3 month plan. And then do a 6 month plan.
Once you start using the first 5 ideas then add another 5. Then another. Soon you should be using almost all of the money making marketing strategies in this manual. (We say most because there might be one or two that just aren’t you. That’s OK. Use the ones that you are most excited about to begin with then branch out.)
Your plan should include money goals. Try to put your money goals in net (take home) to you, not gross. We know gross is what you are used to thinking in but net is obviously more important. One Business owner might do $250,000.00 in gross. It sounds impressive, right? But, after it’s all said and done if he only nets $50,000.00- that’s not very impressive at all.
First examine your current numbers. More than 80% of all businesses don’t know how many clients they get a month. That’s a deadly sin. You must know how you are currently doing.
You should know how many new clients you get each month, how much you make from each client and how much it costs you to acquire a new client.
Here’s an example:
Jake is a fictitious business owner. (The following scenario is full of numbers and figures chosen only for the sake of the illustration.) He’s been in business for 2 years. He gets most of his clients from walk-ins and from his yellow page’s ad.
He grosses $15,000 a month. His average ticket is $100.00
Therefore he gets 150 clients a month.
His net is 25% of gross or 3,750.
Jake wants to double his net income in 6 months, triple in 12 months. (We don’t blame him.)
Considering that Jake doesn’t know any of our marketing secrets (like how to charge more for his services), he will have to get twice as many clients to double his business.
Goal: 300 clients a month.
He currently gets 100 clients a month from his “store visits” and about 50 from his yellow pages ads. But he gets around 15 calls a month from his yellow pages and about 30 “store visits” a week that ask questions but don’t buy or schedule a service call. So he currently only ‘converts’ about 65% of all his prospects.
If he doesn’t learn any of our methods to improve his 65% conversion ratio, then he’ll have to get 405 prospects to get 300 clients.
His plan to get 405 prospects:
100 from his store visits
50 from his Yellow Pages
20 from his new mover letters
90 from his 3-step Letter
50 from repeat service contacts
30 from emailing current clients
30 from the internet
30 from her referral Program =
405 Prospects
You should have a weekly plan. Schedule 15 min. out of one day to make up your weekly plan and to see how you did the last week. Schedule this time and keep to it. Don’t see any clients during this time, keep it strictly for planning. If you do just this and not one more of our secrets, you will easily double your income in 12 months.
Of course, Jake didn’t know any of our secrets to double the profit from all his clients. If he did both- double his profits from each client and double the amount of clients, he’d quadruple his business in less than 6 months.
Your weekly plan should include the following:
Goal for total net income.
Goal for number of new clients.
Goal for number of repeat clients.
Goal for number of referrals.
Average net income from each client.
The number of prospects you’ll have to generate to reach your goal.
A detailed plan to generate the number of prospects you need.
Your plan doesn’t need to be typed or put into a computer. It can be handwritten on paper. The important part is that you do a plan every single week and keep on top of things.
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
“Relax – Help is Here”
“Relax – Help is Here”
Hi Business Owner,
My name is Bob Britton, a fellow small business owner and president of Marketing Automation Group.
Here is some advice I just gave to my 143 members who are Business owners just like you. I usually only give out strategies, methods and techniques to get new clients fast, easy, and for a low cost, BUT this is what I do and it works.
So here you go.
Take Time Off Every Week – First of all, work only five or six days per week, and rest completely on the seventh day. Every single study in this area shows that you will be far more productive in the five or six days that you work if you take one or two days off completely than you ever would be if you worked straight through for seven days. Get Your Mind Busy Elsewhere – During this time off, do not catch up on paperwork, or do anything else that requires mental effort. Simply let your mind relax completely, and get busy doing things with your family and friends. Maybe work around the house, go for a walk, watch television, go to a movie, or play with your children. Whatever you do, discipline yourself to shut your mental gears off completely for at least one 24-hour period every seven days. Get Away on Mini-Vacations – Second, take one three-day vacation every three months, and during that time, refrain from doing any work. Do not attempt to catch up on even a few small things. If you do, you keep your mental gears in motion, and you end up neither resting nor properly doing work of any quality.
Take Big Chunks of Down Time – Third, take at least two full weeks off each year during which you do nothing that is work-related. You can either work or relax; you cannot do both. If you attempt to do a little work while you are on vacation, you never give your mental and emotional batteries a chance to recharge. You’ll come back from your vacation just as tired as you were when you left. Give Yourself a Break Today – If you are involved in a difficult relationship, or situation at work that is emotionally draining, discipline yourself to take a complete break from it at least one day per week. Put the concern out of your mind. Refuse to think about it. Don’t continually discuss it, make telephone calls about it or mull it over in your mind. You cannot perform at your best mentally if you are emotionally preoccupied with a person or situation. You have to give yourself a break. Go For a Walk in Nature – Since a change is as good as a rest, going for a nice long walk is a wonderful way to relax emotionally and mentally. As you put your body into motion, your thoughts and feelings seem to relax all by themselves. Eat Lighter Foods – Also, remember that the process of digestion consumes an enormous amount of physical energy. Therefore, if you eat lighter foods, you will feel better and more refreshed afterward. If you eat more fruits, vegetables, and whole-grain products, your digestive system will require far less energy to process them. Be Good to Yourself – Since your diet has such an impact on your level of physical energy, and through it your levels of mental and emotional energy, the more fastidious you are about what you put into your mouth, the better you will feel and the more productive you will be. We know now that foods high in fat, sugar, or salt are not good for your body. The lighter the foods you eat, the more energy you have AND Relax, I am here to help.
IF the marketing you are doing now is NOT filling up your store with high quality customers or your phone is not ringing off the hook every week it because you are using OLD methods, OLD strategies and OLD marketing that just doesn’t work that well anymore
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 Happy With The Results Your Yellow Page Ad Is Getting?”
“Are You Happy With The Results Your Yellow Page Ad Is Getting?”
Hi Business Owner,
My name is Bob Britton, a fellow small business owner and President of Marketing Automation Group.
If you are NOT getting the results with your yellow page ad you want or hoped you would get when you signed on the dotted line, its because……
Are you really ready to hear this?
Your ad STINKS
Plain and simple, let me explain.
Until now maybe you thought the Yellow Pages were just a necessary evil. May be you said, “I’ve tried the Yellow Pages before they don’t work.” I don’t blame you. Really, how powerful is an ad that looks almost identical to the hundreds of other ads it’s buried between? How powerful is an ad shoved between your competitor’s with little setting it apart but slightly different graphics, and phone numbers?
Now, think about this. To make a sale you need the right message to the right market at the right time. When someone digs out the phone book and looks through the Yellow Pages for a company to fix their computer they are the right market, and they are looking for a company so it’s the right time. All you need is to furnish the right message
Huge Potential
The potential for this medium of advertising is huge. But, there is one small problem. Hardly anyone knows how to create an effective ad. See for yourself, open up your Yellow Pages right now and look through the ads. Copy cat ad, after copy cat ad, you’ll see the only difference in these name, rank & serial number ads is the name of the businesses.
What if YOU ran a Yellow Pages ad that was a real, honest to goodness, attention-getting, direct response-oriented ad?
What would be the results of doing this?
Why, people might actually be motivated to call your business and use your services!
See, the Yellow Pages are a directory for people who already want a service and are looking to see who delivers that service in their area.
But, just because they’re looking for a service, that doesn’t mean your advertising must be boring and “professional.” It doesn’t mean that you have to look like everyone else.
Don’t Listen To What Yellow Page Reps Tell You
They are not trained in emotional direct response marketing. In fact, you will be surprised to know, they don’t know very much about marketing at all, that’s why they tell everyone to run the same ads. And the only thing they really are concerned about is selling you the BIGGEST ad they can because the more money they suck out of you each and every month the bigger their commission check is. This may not seem fair or even ethical but this IS the reality of the yellow page business.
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 picking the low hanging fruit first?
Hi Business Owner,
My name is Bob Britton, a fellow small business owner and President of Marketing Automation Group.
This morning I am going to talk to you about how to increase your business’ income the easiest and fastest way I’ve found.
There are only two general categories where you can get new customers and they are:
1. From your current customers, past customers themselves, or from referrals
2. From marketing and advertising for new customers via the ways I show you.
It is much easier, faster, and cheaper to tap into your customers list for new customers.
Here is why: Birds of a feather flock together. What I mean is that your current customers picked YOU and YOU were attracted to them for reasons. The other people your customer’s know and hang around with are like them. That is WHY they hang around them. So they will most likely be comfortable with you as well.
You are eliminating the biggest resistance when someone buys something: The fear of the UNKNOWN. Your potential customer goes through a thought process something like this: “If my friend is happy with ABC Business and I usually agree with my friend, then I will like ABC Business, too.
It’s cheaper. There is NO cost or only a small referral fee to acquire the customer.
So if you start marketing to your customer list you are picking the “lowest hanging fruit,” which means you are working very
SMART and leveraging your greatest asset; Your customer List.
Now of course this assumes that your customer list is all put together. If you don’t have addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses, have your customers fill out a form when you go to them or they come to you. If your customer list is old you MUST get updated information. I cannot stress the importance of this.
I was told once that there are basically three types of people:
1. Those who MAKE things happen,
2. Those who WATCH what happens,
3. And those who don’t know WHAT the heck happened.
I know you are a “make things happen” kind of person, or you wouldn’t be reading blogs, interested in learning how to improve your business. 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
FREE Business Marketing Strategy – Thank-you letters
Hi Business Owner,
My name is Bob Britton, a fellow small business owner and President of Marketing Automation Group.
Here is another FREE Business Marketing Strategy.
Thank-you letters
Thank you letters are very important and often overlooked by business owners. Thank you letters create a positive feeling about your business and services.
When was the last time you received a thank-you from anyone you did business with? Most businesses just don’t bother. People will be so “wowed” they will talk highly of your business and return for more.
For 45 cents you create a good feeling about your business. This is one of the cheapest ways that you can build loyalty, trust and a chance to get more referrals.
You should use a form of ‘thank-you’ and send it out the day after a client visits your store or you visit them. This is very easy. You just put the form into your computer and then add the persons name and print. Simple. Cheap. Easy. And very effective. It has impact because the client feels special.
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
Zombification
Good Morning Business Owner,
My name is Bob Britton, a fellow small business owner and president of Marketing Automation Group.
I’m going to teach you how to raise the DEAD. It’s called Zombification.
Why are you laughing?
Hey we ALL have dead customers. Not Dead Dead – I mean customers that don’t come into your store or call you for an appointment anymore. It happens. Sometimes their needs change; sometimes their financial circumstance change, and sometimes, we change.
BUT the end result is a customer who stops coming in and buying from you. Which is awful because we all know the effort it takes to get a customer in the first place?
Now I don’t want you to feel bad about NOT doing this stuff, but… Guess how many business owners have an active “Customer Reactivation” plan?
1 in 100… maybe…
I’m going to show you exactly what to say to a dead customer so you can zombify them. Remember, Zombies are the living dead – Zombification helps them find their wallets again. By-the-way, How’s this analogy working for you?
You might not even KNOW your customers are dead because you haven’t established a standard for dead-ness. So, first things first – we need to make a list of who’s dead and who’s not.
Answer this question – How often do your customers come into your store or call for service on their computer? Is it every 2, 4, 5, or 6 months.
The amount of time I use to determine if a customer is dead is 12 months.
Why?
Because I have customers who come in every 3, every 4, every 5, AND every 6 months. So if a customer doesn’t come in my business in 12 months they have missed at least 1 visit if they usually come in every 6 months.
So we have established a “DEAD” customer if they have NOT come into your store or you did not service their computer in say 12 months. Or you may just know they are dead, just making sure that you would consider them DEAD.
Now, to that list of dead customers, I want you to send them a letter that says the following. If you have their email address, send them and email.
I almost forgot – I hope you have the ~Contact.FirstName~s and addresses of all your customers. If you don’t you can’t do this. So PLEASE for your own sake START getting the ~Contact.FirstName~s, address and email addresses of all your customers when they come in or you go to them. Just have them fill out a form.
Dear Client Name,
I want to sincerely thank you for all times you have (come into our store) or (allowed us to service your computers) and for all the business we’ve done together in the past.
However, (this is important, because “However” sound grave), I recently noticed that we haven’t seen you in quite a while. I was hoping to find out why.
Perhaps we’ve done something wrong – and if we have, I’d like to know what that is. This way, maybe we can fix it for you, but certainly I can make sure it won’t happen again to anyone else.
(Now this is IMPORTANT)
Also, I wanted to make you aware of a (New product, service, or upgrade) that we’ve just rolled out.
Because you’re an important client, I wanted to extend to you a (some kind of reward, discount, something extra) on this (new product, service, or upgrade)
Committed to your success,
Jane Doe
ABC Business
123 Any Street
Any City, 12345
P.S. Please give me a call anytime at 123-4567 and I hope to see you soon.
NOTE-You MUST make them an offer. Make it as good you’re reasonably able to do.
Now, let me tell you why you probably won’t do this. You’re thinking that you’re going to make them upset. You’re thinking that if YOU got a letter like this that you’d turn on the paper shredder.
Question – there are business owners and there are clients – which are you? Do you think you are normal? Uh HELLO! You RUN A BUSINESS. That makes you ABNORMAL.
Remember, we’re not like most people. We’re different. NEVER assume that you are a model of your client, because you are not, and you never will be. So you CAN”T draw an analogy between your thoughts, behaviors, and choices and theirs.
Please GET this; Even IF they turn on the paper shredder – they were dead ALREADY, You’re not in danger of ruing a relationship with a dead client.
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
FREE Business Marketing Strategy – Use Letters Not Brochures
Good Morning Business Owner,
My name is Bob Britton, a fellow small business owner and President of Marketing Automation Group.
Here is another FREE Business Marketing Strategy.
Use Letters Not Brochures
Fancy, 3-color brochures are very expensive. You have to get at least 1,000 printed at once. Then you have your money tied up in inventory.
Why Brochures Don’t Work
They immediately yell out ‘This is a sales message.’ Once someone thinks you are trying to sell them something, they are much less receptive.
Have you seen the cartoon with General Patton?
Patton is in the middle of a huge battle and a man comes up to him with a box full of guns. Patton says ‘I don’t have time for a salesman right now; I’m in the middle of a war’.
You see, even if you have exactly what a prospect needs if they think you are a “salesman” it will be difficult to get through to them.
It’s the same thing with your sales message. A brochure is immediately recognized as a sales message. It’s fancy but boring.
With brochures, you can’t cheaply and easily change your message. Things can change quickly. Maybe you decide to change an offer or worse discontinue a particular service. You can’t change your brochure so you either have inaccurate information or you have to spend a ton of money all over again to get it redone.
You can’t cheaply test it. You should always test, test, and test. With brochures you have to get a lot printed at once then if it doesn’t work, you have wasted a lot of money.
Why Letters Always Get Better Response:
Letters look and feel personal. People think of letters as personal and brochures as sales.
Letters are very inexpensive. You can get as few done at a time as you need. Your money won’t be tied up in ‘inventory’. All of your marketing dollars will be out there working for you
Letters are easily changed. If something about your business changed you can quickly, easily and inexpensively change your sales message.
If your letter didn’t work as well as you’d like, you can easily improve it. Letters have no waste.
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
Today I Will Face All Kinds Of Ups And Downs, Difficulties And Setbacks, But I Will NOT Let Them Get Me Down. Once I Start Toward My Goals, I Will Be UNSTOPPABLE.
Hi Business Owner,
My name is Bob Britton, a fellow small business owner and President of Marketing Automation Group.
Here to fill you in on something you may not be aware of.
Sometimes when you are in business going it alone it feels like war. The only difference is you are fighting for the survival of your business not your very own life.
There are days when we feel the odds are stacked against us and we feel like throwing in the towel – we all have them.
Sometimes a little boost from someone is all it takes to change your thinking and attitude around 180 degrees.
The above headline is my “little boost.”
Be sure to print it out, make several copies, and place them around your home, your office, and even your car.
This has helped me many times when my back was against the wall and I’m sure it will help you along the way as well.
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
“There Are No Hopeless Situations; There Are Only People Who Have Grown Hopeless About Them.”
Hi Business Owner,
My name is Bob Britton, a fellow small business owner and President of Marketing Automation Group.
I have no doubt that you are a great problem solver in your industry and a good ethical person. You may also have a fantastic location. You may have the best employees with the best personalities. You may also do everything humanly possible to make sure your customers get the best quality service possible.
But this alone does not completely fill up all your appointment time slot or fill your store with high paying customers week after week… Does it? Nope.
So being the best you can and providing the best service must NOT be the secret to getting tons of customers because some of your competitors are getting plenty of customers, even if their services aren’t as good as yours!!!!
Well the sad truth is that they are getting more and better customers because they do a better job at marketing their business…. not because they are better computer problem solvers or better people.
If you want to have plenty of clients the real truth is:
The Most Important Thing You Must Know Is Not About How To Solve Problems…
It’s About How to Market Your Business!!!!!
Because you can be the best damn troubleshooter and have the best damn people working for you but if you don’t have any customers what good is it?
I know this doesn’t sound right or even fair but that is the way it is and the way it will always be. In life you have to deal with the way things are to be successful. Don’t you?
It is NOT the best product or service that gets all the customers it’s the best-MARKETED product or service. Period!
Part of the problem here is that this is the exact opposite of what we are taught. You know you get really good at your profession and your phone will ring off the hook. You and I both know it doesn’t work that way does it?
So unfortunately, you will NEVER be able to get a constant stream of clients to come to your store or call you for an appointment until you lean how to…
Market Your Business
IF the marketing you are doing now is NOT filling up your store or making the phone ring off the hook every week with high paying clients it because you are using OLD methods, OLD strategies, and OLD marketing ideas that just don’t work anymore.
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
