The Seven
Secrets of Effective Marketing
by J. Michael
Farabe
(Short Version)
Imagine, you’re building a house. Could you build it without tools? How ‘bout just one tool? Say, a hammer? Might prove pretty difficult, next to impossible …
Okay, what if you had an entire tool chest of tools? Getting closer, right? Yet, there’s still the cost of all those tools plus the time and money required to become educated and skilled in using them. Not to mention, the time, money and knowledge it would take to learn how to build an entire house.
It’s this learning curve that I believe is the number one roadblock standing in the way of most small business owners taking the correct steps towards effectively marketing their businesses. I have been helping market the product and services of small businesses for over 25 years and I can tell you that about 97 percent of all small business advertising fails. I don’t care if it’s newspaper advertising or television or radio or billboard or direct mail or even the Internet. The results are the same. Switching from one media to another is like moving the deck chairs around on the Titanic.
What needs to be changed is the overall strategy!
In most cases, small business owners either try to build their marketing with a single tool or perhaps two or three marketing tools or more. They randomly use an entire suite of tools with no idea what those tools will really do if anything. Basically, they throw anything and everything at the wall, hoping something will stick.
The single tool approach or Silver Bullet method is like using an eye dropper to put out a raging forest fire. The average American is bombarded with hundreds of thousands of ad messages a day. Ninety-nine percent of these messages are filtered out -- basically, ignored -- allowing the mind to pay attention to about 200 messages. These remaining messages that miraculously made it through are then further diluted by all kinds of interruptions and distractions, i.e.: baby crying, traffic problems, an entire array of daily crisis. Sending out a single ad through a single advertising delivery vehicle is very risky.
The second approach or the Everything Plus the
Kitchen Sink method costs a fortune due to the sheer volume of
advertising you must purchase and if by some stroke of luck one of the
ads works you’ll never know it. You
won’t know if a particular ad worked or if it was the combination of
all the ads together that made the one you could measure produce
results. PLUS (and this is much worse), you won’t know why that
particular tool worked or how to repeat it in the future (except
to run the whole mess of ads again).
So, what’s the answer?
Knowledge, plain and simple.
Secret #1: Knowledge is Power
So, the first
and most important Secret of Effective Marketing is to educate yourself
in the science and art of Guerrilla Marketing.
What is guerrilla marketing? It’s similar to guerrilla warfare. Imagine your small business is a small rebel army going up against a Super Power. No matter how worthy your cause or firm your resolve, if you go toe to toe with a giant, you're gonna lose.
The answer is to work smarter, smaller niche markets (or specialty markets), instead of the big general markets. You can service a niche (or specialty) market better than the larger competitor. You can respond to the changing needs of that niche market quicker. It costs less money to advertise and service a niche market and as you make growing profits in the smaller niche market, you can use that money to finance growth into other niche markets.
Learn to Market a Small Business, Not
a Big Business …
The key is to learn everything you can about how to market a small business, not a large business. Virtually everything in marketing nowadays is designed for big business, not small. The smart guerrilla works the tide pools, the niches. It costs less money and you get bigger returns.
Secret #2: Technology is
Your Friend
Work the niches more effectively by tapping into the power of
technology.
With technology, you can run circles around your larger competitors. You can service your customers better and quicker. You can run your company leaner, more efficiently and with less people Remember, your greatest strength is that you’re the owner, not just a hired hand. Therefore, you care more. The trick is to show it, not just say it! Technology allows you to clone yourself.
Imagine providing an online question and answer center. You could do this with the help of NextStopOnline’s eMarketer’s toolkit (provided free when you signup). To find out how, click here.
Secret #3: Your
Greatest Strength is You
Remember,
your greatest strength is you, your concern, your knowledge.
That’s what your customers are buying.
Otherwise, they could just go to the bigger competitor and
purchase from one of their hired hands, right?
Yes, marketing on
the Internet does work. People
do buy stuff. You just have
to know how to do it. Rule
#1, throw everything you thought about selling online out the window,
because it’s a whole new game in cyberspace.
Again, back to Secret #1 “Knowledge is Power,” your first
step in succeeding at marketing on the Internet is to get to know your
customer: how do they use
the Internet and for what? Do they passively sit in front of the computer monitor like
the television screen or do they get involved and interact and make
decisions? Have they been
to college or are they high school dropouts?
Are they married with kids or single?
Are they male or female? Above
thirty or below? Do they
look at ads online or look for information to help make buying
decisions?
Instead of guessing, let’s find out for sure and look at some stats …
Discovery #1: Internet Users Spend Twice As Much Time Online than on TV
According to a study conducted by the Stanford Institute for the Quantitative Study of Society, researchers found the average Internet user spends 3 hours per day online, almost double the 1.7 hours the average respondent spends watching television. The study also found the more educated an individual, the more likely that person is to be online. Over 40 percent of respondents with the equivalent of a bachelor's degree said they'd used the Internet the day before.
Discovery #2: More Women Online than Men
Part of the reason for these
online growth figures is that there are more women online than in the
past. Women now account for
over half the U.S. web population and women make over 70 percent of the
household purchasing decisions.
Discovery #3: Faster Connection Speeds Means More Purchases Online
Also, Internet connection
speeds have dramatically improved, which means it’s easier to use the
web. Internet users don’t
have to wait around for pages to load.
Plus, the experience is more content rich, complete with video
and music (much like television).
The number of U.S. at-home broadband users increased 36 percent
in 2004, accounting for 55 percent of the total U.S. at-home users
by the end of December, according to the latest data from Nielsen/NetRatings.
If this robust
adoption rate continues, almost 70 percent of all U.S. home users will
have broadband connections by the end of 2005, according to forecasts
based on Nielsen data in the "January 2005 Bandwidth Report.”
So, the Mini-Van Mom is now online and making
decisions for her family and purchases!
There’s more …
Discovery #4: More Purchases, More Money Spent per Purchase, More Often
Broadband proliferation is already having a
quantifiable effect on online retail purchases. Nielsen's recently
unveiled MegaView Online Retail Service, which tracks online purchasing
behavior, reports 69 percent of all online retail purchases were
conducted over broadband connections in November 2004, averaging $158.21
spent per person. That dollar amount is 34 percent higher than the
$117.89 average spent per person via narrow band connections in
November.
Discovery #5: Over Half the Online Shoppers Research First Before Buying
So, what do
all these numbers mean? It
means, now that the Internet is becoming more convenient and easier to
use, consumers are spending more time on it and more money.
Okay, so all
we have to do is put one of those in-your-face-type-ads up online and
people will buy, right? Wrong. Remember, the Internet consumer is a well-educated,
intelligent individual and according to all the statistics, does his or
her homework before making
a buying decision.
Roughly, half of online shoppers conduct research online before making an online purchase, according to a study performed by DoubleClick in conjunction with comScore Networks. This research was based upon a panel of 1.5 million U.S. Internet users.
Discovery #6: Good Old-Fashioned Customer Service
The
bottom-line is that the Internet consumer is a well-educated, savvy
purchaser who is using the Internet as a research tool.
He or she is not looking at banner ads (in fact, click-thru rates
on banners has sunk to an all-time low of just 1 percent).
Internet consumers don’t have to click on banners.
They can ignore them and focus on what they’re really looking
for … information to make an informed decision.
What this
means for the average web site owner is that a greater emphasis should
be placed on providing valuable information for potential customers, a
greater emphasis should be placed on trying to help the potential
customer by answering their questions through powerful interactive tools
like online newsletters and workshops and discussion rooms, rather than
simply adding to the avalanche of advertising white noise and posting
yet another banner ad that will inevitably be ignored 99 percent of the
time.
What this means is that your greatest strength is
you … your knowledge, your expertise, your willingness to truly help
your potential customer by guiding them to the right answers.
The savvy Internet buyer is not responding to glitter and hype.
They are responding to helpful information, to good old-fashioned
customer service.
They will respond to you if you make yourself available.
Secret #4: Position Yourself as an Expert
By the time, we are 18 years of age, we will have seen over 140,000 TV commercials, states Jack Trout in his new book "The New Positioning." We are bombarded everyday with a blizzard of ad messages on TV, radio, billboards, T-shirts, banner ads, coffee mugs, coupon books, all shouting in glitz and glamour, trying to out-perform the other for all-powerful consumer’s valuable attention. You see, there’s only so much time in the day and not every ad is going to get seen or heard, most will be edited out.
Our job as consumers is to edit most of these messages out, leaving only
those that have actual value to us as individuals.
Our job as site owners is to provide valuable information to those individuals we can actually help.
The Goal is to Discover their Needs and to Qualify the Potential
Customer
The successful marketer must be more than a mere traffic magnet.
The smart marketer focuses first on serving the needs not
only of his/her customers, but potential customers, as well.
Qualify your potential customer first by determining their needs
and then by becoming the Expert who can fulfill those needs.
It’s by accomplishing this that trust and confidence is built with an actual qualified prospect.
The goal, therefore,
is to market one's site in specific ways so that it stays at the top of
their minds at all times.
In other words, since people no longer have the time to shop around,
when they do have a certain need they will go to the site that happens
to be at the top of their minds at that very moment.
Position yourself as an Expert and you will be at the top of
their minds. You will come to mind first because you have already proven
yourself of value to the consumer.
Sounds great, but how do I do that?
Free Newsletters or Reports
First on the list is provide visitors to your site
with a Free Newsletter, have them sign up for it and then email it to
them each month. This is
called an opt-in newsletter. You
can take this concept one step further by tapping into the traffic on
other sites or networks (like NextStopOnline) to sign-up for your
newsletter. Click here
to find out how you can do this.
Share Your Knowledge, Make Yourself Valuable
If you don’t have a newsletter yet, but do have
information to share, have visitors to your site sign-up for Free Info.
This can also be done with visitors to NextStopOnline.
Click here to find out how.
Position Yourself as an Expert
Another great way to position yourself as an expert
is by writing an article and submitting it to publications like Explore
Online (the official news magazine of the NextStopOnline
network) or by writing a column in NextStopOnline’s “Ask the
Experts” section. Both of these options offer levels of marketing that are free
or low-cost.
There are many ways to position yourself as an
expert. When you join
NextStopOnline for free by clicking here, you will be
given access to Knowledge Central, an invaluable treasure-chest of
marketing articles, tips and ideas.
The single biggest mistake that most small
businesses make when advertising, promoting or marketing their business
is that they try to make the sale too quickly.
Compare advertising to dating.
When you first meet someone, you don’t usually jump right away
from saying “Hi” to “Will you marry me?”
No, you usually court for awhile. Go out for coffee or a drink.
Maybe, go to a movie and dinner.
As you get to know one another better and trust is developed, the
relationship becomes more serious, the willingness to take a bigger and
bigger risk grows. Eventually,
the relationship is strong enough and there’s enough trust that the
question, “Will you marry me?” can be asked.
It’s no different in a business relationship.
Instead of asking a total stranger to make a big
commitment, why not start with a less risky option.
Don’t ask them to buy right off the bat! Why not start with a smaller risk? Ask them if they would like a Free Report or a Free
Newsletter.
everal things are accomplished by doing this.
1) you get their name, email address and the answers to a
few qualifying questions about them, their needs and interests
and 2) you get permission to contact them via the Free
Report or Newsletter, which gives you the ability to continue moving
them incrementally towards the sale.
At NextStopOnline.com, we implement this Courtship Method of selling in everything we do. Our Ask the Experts section is a beautiful example of this method in practice. Also, in our Pa$$Key – 2- Savings section, you can see the Free Newsletter tool in use.
If you don’t scientifically measure and track
your marketing, then you are flying blind. It’s that simple.
Without measurements, you won’t know what’s working and
what’s not. You could
dump something that is working, thinking that the results are coming
from something that is not. Or
vice versa.
The single most
powerful tool at your disposal is your fellow small business owners.
Therefore, make yourself dependent on them and they on you.
Together, you can form a powerful alliance of ideas, solutions,
talents, valuable traffic and more.
Compare for a moment an alliance of web sites to a
wagon train. Imagine a
single wagon taking off across the Old West and attempting to cross the
wild frontier alone, facing unimaginable hardships, treacherous terrain,
dangerous animals, extreme
weather and more. Their
chances of survival would be next to none.
Now, imagine that same wagon crossing the frontier
in a wagon train. Instantly,
their odds improve dramatically. Not
only is their power in numbers, but also talent, ideas, solutions and
fellowship.
The same is true of our alliance of web sites
called NextStopOnline.com. We’re
sort of a cyber wagon train or railway.
NextStopOnline is basically an automatic way to position yourself
to share traffic through a link exchange process with potentially
thousands of related sites.
Sounds great, but will this concept work?
Research shows that the most effective way to
market a web site is through exchanging links with other sites. This is a tried and proven method of Internet marketing. It’s
also until now been a very expensive and time consuming method.
The research recommends it as the method of choice but
conveniently leaves out the incredible amount of time it takes to
contact the literal thousands of sites required to make the link
exchange process work effectively.
That’s where NextStopOnline.com comes in.
By simply clicking a button, your site is automatically
positioned to cross-promote other sites through NextStopOnline.
You promote them. They
promote you.
You don’t have to email anybody.
You don’t have to pay any money, unless you want
to by upgrading to spotlight coverage.
You only have to exchange one link with
NextStopOnline.
It’s that simple.
Sign up for Free: click the signup button and within seconds you’re part of our network of quality family sites. You’re no longer an island, sitting out there by yourself, waiting for traffic, hoping visitors will find you. You’re part of a powerful network of quality sites with an arsenal of Internet marketing tools available to you, such as: Ask the Experts (position yourself as an expert), Explore! newsletter (targeted email marketing -- reach your target audience for less than a cup of coffee per day), Explore Online (tell your story to an affluent, educated audience of female buyers), the Pa$$Key - 2 - Savings lead generation program (pay only for qualified leads).
So, now you know the Seven Secrets of Effective
Marketing. You know, it
takes more than a hammer to build a house.
You know that knowledge is power and that technology is your
friend and that it’s not smart to go toe to toe with a giant.
You willingly accept that you are your greatest strength and if
you position yourself as an expert, they will come … looking for
answers. You’ve learned
that it’s not too bright to ask a total stranger to marry you –
it’s better to date first. Go
out for coffee. Maybe, a
movie. Then, ask the big
question – will you buy from me?
We’ve shown you how you can accomplish this for free or at a
very low cost utilizing NextStopOnline.com’s easy-to-use marketing
tools. You’ve discovered
the importance of measuring and tracking
everything. And finally,
you’ve found that being an island is not good. It’s better to be a
wagon train. Or perhaps,
even a train …
And the conductor shouts: “All aboard …”
Sounds
great!!! Let's get started ...
Count
me in. What do I have to do to get started? Just click
here.