Do you practice attraction-based marketing or interruption-based marketing?
What is the objective of your business?
When I ask this question to large and small audiences, most answer: “To make money.” E-Myth fans suggest that it is “To sell your business”. Many will quote your mission statements. The answer is analogous to an acorn; the entire tree is contained within. The objective of your business is:
To find and keep customers.
The way we find customers has changed significantly in the last few decades.
When we look at all of the methodology available today in the marketing mix, this can range from personal sales calls to print, radio, television, billboards, direct mail, Google AdWord and Facebook advertising to name just a few.
The best method has always been through customer references. We know that it costs 5 times more to find a new customer than to serve an existing one. We refer to this as “working at the back of the funnel.” The best prospects to buy from us in the future are often people and companies that have bought from us in the past.
What is your back-end marketing program like? Are you using today’s technology to search, communicate, preserve, and sell your current database? I have purchased from thousands of vendors at over a hundred trade shows over the past 25 years. I’m just amazed at how many companies never follow up! This is a huge misstep, tantamount to leaving money on the table. Can you afford to do this?
On your website, do you have an automated system to continually generate leads and an autoresponder to serve those leads? Once you get a lead, how do you follow up? How often do you follow up? One of the best tools of your online business (read: online business vs website) is the ability you have to acquire leads and serve them in a timely and ongoing manner.
Do you want more clients, clients and patients?
Entrepreneurs make profit by solving problems. What problem or pain in the marketplace does your product or service solve?
How are you communicating that you have the answer to my problem?
The biggest mistake you can make on the web (in ads – traditional and online) is telling people what you do. In attraction-based marketing, we tell our prospective customers what they’re getting: features versus benefits.
Your future client only wants to know three things:
1) Can I trust you?
2) Do you know what you are talking about?
3) What can you do for me?
It is about Trust, Credibility and Profit. If you can honestly and accurately build a relationship, establish trust, provide credibility through the endorsement of enthusiastic fans, and show how what you service or sell will directly benefit them. Then you’ll be on your way to closing the sale and acquiring a new customer or patient.
Fact: 86% of consumers trust peer recommendations, only 14% trust ads.
Short entrepreneurs look for a sale. The long-term vision is to ask:
“What is my client’s lifetime value?” How can I turn a satisfied customer into a reference to generate new business? How can I keep my customers satisfied?
Share relevant and applicable content on an ongoing basis; Tell compelling success stories of your enthusiastic fans who have been provided exceptional service by your exceptional business. And keep profit-driven solutions at the top of your mind.
The formula for success: stop thinking of your website as a website. Start and continue to think of your web presence as your online business, not unlike having a physical location, or maybe having both, which is even better…
Action plan:
• Make a video rich with relevant content, upload it to your YouTube channel, embed it on your site, and watch your organic rankings increase in Google. YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world.
• Embed a web form to collect names in exchange for something of real value.
• The web form should be directly related to any one of a dozen good e-marketing companies: iContact, Aweber, Mail Chimp, Constant Contact, Vertical Response, etc. Looking for an industrial-strength app that will walk the dog and tell you what someone on your list of 85,000 had for lunch? Email me!
• Do you want to use the most targeted marketing opportunity for a specific demographic? Facebook or LinkedIn.
• Make a plan to communicate with your customer base on a regular basis, use your database and send relevant content along with great offers. Showcase your expertise through quality articles, blogs, and cross-links from relevant websites. (Did you know that exchanging links with spammy sites that have no relevance to your product will actually lower your Google ranking?)
• Solicit endorsements, testimonials and success stories from your highly satisfied customers – post them on your site. The best method: Short videos.
• SEO (Search Engine Optimization) of your site correctly.
There is an old saying in Hollywood: “Movies are never finished, they are abandoned.” The same is true with your online business. It is never ending and requires constant attention, just like your valued employees and customers, clients and patients. Apply some of these tips and then share your success stories with me by emailing [email protected]
I’d like to know about you.
Jonathan Sabin is a director of Vortex Business Solutions, an Iowa City-based company
Business acceleration consultancy, web development company and visual communication company.