Putting Your Small Business on the Internet

Today I'm going to be talking about one of the most important system in my marketing arsenal.  

With all the technological advances available to us today, if you're in business and not on the Internet, you are in the DARK AGES!

And just to be clear before we go into this, I'm not suggesting that you should abandon all the other practices I stated talked before.  In fact, when using them all in conjunction, it will create a more powerful marketing system.  More about that in another post.  

Just remember,  it's not always a bad thing to lose money or break even on your first transaction with a new customer.  If you've structure your business properly and maintain good relationships with your customers, the lifetime value of that customer will far exceed the money you lost initially by at least 10 times!

Sorry for the tangent...just thought that was important because people see how cheap it is to advertise on the Internet but don't realize everyone isn't surfing or don't respond to ads on here.

Nowadays, your website can tell your customers all kinds of information about your company as well as provide you with credibility and show proof to potential customers that your provide a quality product or service.

Your website can be a fancy business card or can be an all out portal that allows your customers to connect with you in multiple ways.  No matter the route you choose to take with it, there are key elements that every "successful" website must incorporate in order to make it a key component of your overall marketing plan.

Now if you want your website to be able to grow your company, the main purpose of your site should be to capture the contact information of your potential customers.  

The most difficult and expensive part of business is to capture the attention of prospective qualified customers.  Once you have their attention, you want to be able to continue to market to them and that is why its important to do whatever it takes to get their contact information.

Yes it is important to tell people who you are and what you have to offer on your site, but what good is your site if you don't know who is visiting it?

So how do you capture their contact information?

At the top of your homepage, the 1st thing the customer should see is a form that attempts to capture the visitors name and email address.  To persuade them to fill out the form, you should offer a free newsletter, report, cd, discount, etc...  something that the customers will really want.  

For my restaurant I offered 20% off coupon and a chance to join our "EClub" (which was pretty much an email newsletter).

Now that you have your prospects' email, you now have the cheapest way of contacting them.

When they requested your FREE report, these people are giving you permission to contact them again.

And you should do so..again and again and again, without paying a dime.  Email is FREE.

Now once you have the contact information, you can share with the prospect all the information you want...who you are, what you have to offer and the benefits they will receive from your products and services.

Remember, just like in all other instances, you must stress the benefits they will receive from purchasing from you.  Tell them all the tangible and intangible benefits that you can offer THEM, don't focus on you or your product.

Finally, you want your prospects to TAKE ACTION.  Do you want them to pick up the phone and call you?  Do you want them to request more information?  Do you want them to come into your store?  

Depending on your purpose you will drive the customer to do diferent things.  If you want them to request information put a form up on your site.  What ever you decide, you must make the customer an enticing offer to take the actions that you want them to.  

Now not to make this post too long, I've included a little bullet list of additional tips to keep in mind when creating your website:

- Simple is more effective.  Leave all the flashing, spinning, blinking text, loud audio off the page.  

- Always have an attention grabbing benefit laden headline at the top of each page.

- Adding professional pictures in the correct manner can skyrocket you credibility and response.

- Include as many testimonials as you can.  People believe others 100x's more than they believe you the owner.

- Make your site simple to navigate.  Not everyone is an Internet pro.

Well, of course there is a lot more to the Internet than just this short little article but this should give you the gist of what its all about.

Remember, if you have any questions about any of this feel free to leave me a comment below.

As always the main thing is to take action today on what you are learning.

Here's to sky rocketing your business,

John Barry

Use Joint Ventures in Your Small Business to Create Sales

Today I'm going to share with you one of the quickest, most powerful ways to drive new customers to your small business with no money upfront.

I will give you the technique and also give you multiple ways that you can utilize them.

I'm sure if you've been reading, or you know from your own experience, attracting people of interest and that are qualified is the biggest and can be most expensive task we have as business owners. Now the key to really growing your business and to really dominate your target market is to create a system to attract qualified customers "relatively cheap".

So how do you go about setting up these lead generating systems? Well, the first thing you need to understand is who is your ideal customer? What are they like? Where do they live? Where do they shop? What other services do they already purchase?

Once you are able to answer these questions, make a list of businesses, or other services providers that are already servicing your ideal customer.

Next step... approach the other business and then ask them if they would be interested in a "joint venture". For those of you who don't know what that is...its just a partnership where you help each other get more customers (like a referral system between two businesses).

The type of system you create will depend on the type of business you are dealing with, your goals of the partnership and how much you are willing to spend.

There are pretty much endless possibilities but I will give you two examples here to get your mind running.

If you are dealing with a place that makes transactions at the cash register like a restaurant, hair/nail salon, car wash, etc., you can create a business size card that offers a free or discounted service.

Just approach the business owner and tell them that you would like to give them an opportunity to reward their customers with a FREE gift. Explain to them what your free or discounted offer is and let them know that all they need to do is place a stack of cards next to their register. As their customers are paying, they will notice the card, see that it's a 'gift for being a valued customer', and take one.

When I had my restaurant, I printed hundreds of these business cards on my printer, the other side was a regular business card with address, phone, website, etc...

Notice this contains the elements of a direct response ad.  It has a bold capitivating headline, an offer, a deadline.

Many people thought I was crazy for giving away a FREE meal but when looking at the "life time value" (LTV) of a customer.  We were making out great.  The cost of one meal was about $4.00 but the average customers were spending $23.50 after the discount.  That $23.50 I wouldn't have had without giving something away.

But the best part was I gained a new customer.  If they liked us, they dined say once a month (conservative estimate) with an average ticket of $28.00.  That's $336 per year and many customers stuck with us for 2 or more years!

What a ROI!

The card shown above was one of my earlier cards because it had the restrictions.  When I changed it to read FREE Meal (up to $10) No Strings Attached!  That raised the response rates but the funny thing is people ended up spending more!  

You definitely have to test and track when doing these types of promotions.  Track where they are coming fom, how much are they spending from each place, tweak the offer at different places.  If your  LTV is really high, you can afford to "reward" your new customers more.  

Well, what if your ideal customers aren't at those fast transaction places?  If you find your best clients frequent nicer businesses like chiropractors' offices, spas, or live at a particular apartment complex you can use a similar tactic with a twist.  Create a flyer, but make it look like it is a gift from the business.

Here's an example of what I did for an apartment complex.  This flye made the apartments look good so they wanted to hand these out to everyone that came in and it worked great for us because we got qualified customers and the customers loved it cause they got Great food and an awesome price.  Win/Win/Win . 

With offers like this, if you make the other business look good and make their customers happy, they will be begging you to keep allowing them to promote for you.  In the future I will show you how I was able to make money from businesses who wanted these so badly.

As I said the possibilities are endless to this.  In the future I will give many more examples.

Now, as the name Joint Venture suggests, this is a two way street.  In the 1st example, most businesses will  want you to do something for them as well.  So figure out how you can help them get more customers as well.  Most likely "reward" your customers with their services.  Your customers will be appreciative and make your new partner happy as well.

Finally, the hardest part of this whole "joint venture" is finding businesses who will actually agree to participate.   Well, in reality...it only takes one.  Once you are able to establish at least one of these relationships and things are going well, ask the business owner to write a testimonial explaining the relationship and how beneficial it's been for them.  Then bring that around to other businesses you have on your list.  

The way I got started was just by asking loyal customers of my restaurant that owned businesses to participate.  

Well I could really go on and on with these examples but for many, this could already be a lot to swallow.  The key here is to take immediate action.  Make your lists up and get going.  The cards or flyers don't have to be fancy at first, just test and modify if needed.

If you have any questions or comments leave them below.

Until next time,

Crush it,

John Barry

The Marketing Guy

Follow me on twitter http://twitter.com/realjohnbarry

Using Direct Mail "The Right Way"

Sorry its been a while since I posted.  I've been busy working on my business and haven't had a chance to get on here and write this post.  Hopefully you have taken my last two tips and IMPLEMENTED them; taken action.  It does you no good to just learn something and not take action on it.  Yes you may have the knowledge but what good is it if you do not use it.

Today, for my third tip I wanted to talk to you about the relatively low cost but highly effective (if done right) direct mail marketing.  When I say direct mail I'm talking about anything that you send through the postal system including postcards, letters, packages, etc...

Now many business owners moan and groan when people say use direct mail.  They like to say that Direct Mail doesn't work.  Well they are right, direct mail doesn't work if you do it wrong.  Keep reading and I will show you the steps to dramatically increasing your response rate to your direct mail campaigns.

Before creating a direct mail piece you have to decide what you want the receipt to do.  Are you trying to get them to purchase directly?  Are you trying to "raise their hand" to show they are interested in what you have to offer?  What action do you want the receipt to perform after reading your direct mail piece.

Once you decide the purpose, the MOST CRITICAL step (the part that can determine if your campaign is a success or failure) is the selection of your mailing list or your target market.  

You want to send your pieces to people who are most likely to respond to your mailing piece.  The best way to know this is by looking at your current customers and see what they have in common.  Do they all live in the same neighborhood, are they all 26-40 years of age, do they all drive Chevy's, do they own homes, how much are the homes worth?  These are all things you need to know about your current "ideal" customers.  You need to know the commonalities of your customers and the more specific the better.

Now armed with this information you can purchase mailing lists that match your "ideal customer".  Yes this may take a little work and the list may cost a little bit more but the response rates will more than justify these added costs.  

Now once you are confident that you have a list of your ideal prospects, it is time to start designing your actual direct mail piece.

An important thing to remember about your mail is what the marketing legend Gary Halbert calls A pile mail, B pile mail and C pile mail.  Most people sort their mail over a trash can and pieces that look like junk go straight into it.  The rest of the mail is then sorted into "mail to open later", i.e. bills and mail that is to be opened immediately, ie a letter from your friend.  It is your goal to at least get your mail opened and not trashed.  You can't get your message across if it never gets opened.  

The first step to getting it opened is by the design of your envelope.  You don't want your prospect to know its a sales letter unless they have previously requested the information from you.  

An easy way to achieve this is by handwriting their name and address on the envelope and just your return address.  You can put your name on the return address but never include a company name.  Write it just like you are writing a letter to grandma.

A cool tool I like to use that allows me to use my own handwriting on the computer is called www.fontifier.com .  It only cost $9 to make your handwriting into a font, then I just go into Word, make an enevelope and then print it out.  Looks just like I hand wrote it.  Its simple and fast especially when sending out hundreds.

Second step for the envelope is using a live first class stamp.  Using bulk rate postage screams junk mail and will most likely land your piece in the trash can.  Using the live envelope along with the hand addressing builds curiousity and normally leads to the ripping the envelope open immediately.  There are many other ways to get your letters open and I will include those in future messages or reports.

On to the letter...once your ideal prospect opens the envelope the 1st thing they should see is a large benefit driven headline that intrigues them to continue reading the letter.  

The body of the letter should be benefit laden.  Everybody listens to station WIIFM.  Everyone wants to know "What's In It For Me".  They don't care about you, they want to know the benefits THEY will get from your product/service/report and its your job in the body of the letter to let them know these.

Once you have spelled out the benefits, you must clearly tell your prospect directly and specificly what they must do next.   Now matter how well you think you wrote your offer, you must assume that they have no idea what to do next.  You must tell them and probably tell them again.  For example, say "Call 800-000-0000 between 8am-6pm to receive XXXX" Or "Log onto our website at www.XXXX.com 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week." I can't stress this point enough. Don't be shy about telling them what exactly you expect them 
to do.  

The other great direct mail piece out there is postcards.  All of the above principles apply to postcards but you have to be more consise and more attention grabbing.  Your headline will be the most important part of the postcard.  It will have to be so powerful and attention grabbing that they want to know more and will read the whole message.  Pictures are also very powerful when it comes to postcards.  It can help tell your story as well as capture the prospects attention.

Well, I think this tip has gone on long enough.  I hope these tips are helping you and as always leave me any questions or comments below.  Also be on the look out for a more through report I will have out on direct mail pieces.  Also stay tuned to my next tip of how to get more new prospects with little effort. 

John Barry

Ask Yourself Why Are You Doing This?

Tonight I wasn't going to write a blog. I am supposed to move on to tip #3 but I decided to write about something more important. Something that I was thinking about tonight.

The question is, why are we doing this? Why are you in business, why do you want to be in business? Is it because you want to be rich? Do you want to have the freedom to do as you please? Do you not want to work for other people? Do you want to make your own schedule and do as you please?

For me its because I love the learning process, working on my terms and hopefully will have the freedom to spend time with friends and family when I choose. I want the business to allow me to live the lifestyle I want. It is our job to create a business that fits into our lifestyle and not the other way around. Its important for you to stay true to what you believe in. To me I really believe its the PEOPLE (friends and family) that really matter most of all in life. Every once in a while, the lack of sleep and stress of everything going on around me gets to me and I don't realize it makes others around me suffer. Really, that's not who I am...that's not what I want out of life. I want my business to make our lives better, bring us closer and not further apart. When you notice things like that, you need to make a change...not down the road, but immediately. I know I am...your attitude needs to change before things can move forward.

Sorry I kind of got off subject, just needed to rant a little. The main thing I wanted you to get out of this is don't forget what is important to you and then build your business around that. Make it so you can spend your life with those things that you feel are the most important to you and if you do it for loved ones, don't let them get effected negatively.

Good night,
John Barry


PS I Love You Jellybean

Make Your Customers Refer You!

Welcome back! I hope everyone had a great weekend. I definitely did. If anyone knows how to make good sushi pllllease let me know. I made some with a friend and it didn't turn out that good, but it was a grrreat time. Its always good to spend quality time with people you care about ;)

Now back to our lessons. In the last lesson, I talked about your most valuable assests in your business is your current customer list. They truly are your life line in business and it is your job to continue to keep them happy and coming back.

Another way your existing customers benefits you and continues to feed you is by giving you referrals and its your job to "stimulate" those.

I'm sure you know about "word of mouth advertising" and that it is one of the most powerful forms of marketing. When you say talk about how your business or service is so great, people will always have their doubts, but if someone that doesn't have a vested interest in it says something positive, those comments go a long way towards motivating a prospect to action.

Don't you wish there was something you could do to motivate your customers to refer you and your business on a consistent basis to get you predictable results?

Well, hopefully you guessed there is and its really not difficult. Your first step if you aren't already is to ask! Simply ask, "Do you know of anyone else who would be interested in receiving the same great service or product I provided you?" Make sure to add in some benefits of doing business with you.

Not only should you ask for the referral but you should also create a system; a referral system.
One of the easiest ways is to create a rewards program for when customers refer you. For example, you can tell your customers that for every 5th referral, they will get a FREE service or bonus item or discount. I know, many of these ideas are basic but you would be surprised how great they work. Remember, you aren't here to reinvent the wheel. You need to IMPLEMENT what works.

There are many ways to keep your customers referring you, but a simple way is to write them a simple thank you note for the referral. This does a couple things for you, it reminds them you are there but at the same time let's them know you are keeping track and appreciate their efforts. Big dumb corporations would never be able to give the personal touches like you can.

Another simple way I used to spark referrals in my restaurant was to give customers a couple simple business cards that offered a free appetizer. They pretty much said "Here's a gift from a friend" and then had a spot for their name. This almost guaranteed the customer was at least going to tell someone about my business but also incentivize their friend to come in.

Again, I showed you how your existing customers can be those golden nuggets for your business and that if you take care of them, those nuggets will keep growing. Now remember, they are the most important and you should not neglect them, but your next tips will be about some powerful techniques on how to attract NEW customers.

And please leave any comments below on what you have been reading or any problems you are facing now with your current marketing.

I'm out,
John Barry
The Marketing Maniac
http://www.ontargetprofits.com
Follow me on twitter http://twitter.com/realjohnbarry

The Most Important Customer Part Deaux

Today I'm back in Houston "celebrating" my friends lay off from his company. It's definitely a time for many changes for many people. How's all this going to effect you? Many of these people are going to attempt to join the ranks of business ownership, giving us more competition. The other way is that many of your current customers will STOP BUYING cause they "can't afford it." Now both of these reasons are why its essential for you to start stepping up your marketing today.

Now let's continue our 1st lesson. To read the 1st part click here.

I left off telling you to create packages of your services or goods. Put them together in 3-4 different levels. Obviously starting with less in "entry level package" all the way up to your all inclusive premium package.

The next step with this is to always have something to offer your customer. Offer a followup product or service immediately and like I mentioned before, make sure its so good that they wouldn't go anywhere else.

Your goal is that once they buy from you one time, they will be off the market for your product/service from anyone else. No price shopping, no looking around forever.

The third thing you can do to maximize your relationships with your current customers is to deploy a customer loyalty program. Popularized by the airline industry, you reward customers for their purchases from you, helping you build a wall around your customers and preventing them from going anywhere else. Not only does a loyalty program give you the opportunity to "reward" your best customers but allows you to build a better realtionship with them also.

A loyalty program can be simple or as complicated as you want. To get started quickly and easily is do get small punch cards made like many restuarants do. After each purchase you stamp the card and after so many purchases, give the customer a premium that would motivate the customer to continue doing business with you until they get it.

This also gives you a great opportunity to continue to keep selling to them!

Remember, your goal as a business owner is to sell your service to others that want and need it. By taking advantage of your existing customers, you're doing just that, but at a cost that's considerably LESS than what it costs to sell to a brand new customer.

In order to grow you business, once you have created a process to continually sell to your existing customers, it is now time to turn your attention to finding new customers.

Now that I've shown you how you can IMMEDIATELY boost your business from the most important customer, in my following tip I will show you how to take find NEW customers effectively at low costs.

Until next time,
John Barry
The Marketing Dude
http://www.ontargetprofits.com

Follow me on twitter http://twitter.com/realjohnbarry

Who's THE Most Important Customer in Your Business?

As promised I'm back with the first installment of my seven part series on how to dominate your market place no matter what business you are in. Most of these tips aren't earth shattering new techniques. Hopefully you know all of them but as with most things you learn you must implement them in to your business, especially with the so called "Recession" upon us. All of these "tips" are easy to implement and have been proven time and time again. The best part is you can implement this immediately and see immediate results.

This first tip gets overlooked often by too many companies no matter the size, big and small. Luckily, this principle can have a HUGE return on the little time required to invest in it.

Maybe you know this already and have choosen to ignore it, but it costs you exponentially more money to attract a new customer than you would trying to convince someone that's already a customer to use your service again. In fact its 20x's more!

Wouldn't you say your existing customer base is the MOST IMPORTANT assest in your business?!!?

Its not your hard working staff, your newest high tech equipment, or anything else you have in your business. Its your list of people who have previously done business with you. NOTHING else is as important to you as that.

Regrettably, most businesses don't do nearly as well as they should because they focus all their resources on trying to entince new customers to try their services instead of trying to sell more to their existing customers.

Now, I'm not saying you should not be out looking for new customers, but that once they are your customer, you need to do ANYTHING you can to keep them as a customer and continue to sell to them again and again and again.

Well, what can you do to maximize your relationship with current customers?

First and foremost, you need to make sure you are providing good service or a good product. Undoubtedly, doing a poor job with both of these will have customers leaving you left and right. Not only are you losing them as a customer with future business but you are losing the valuable refferals you could have gained.

Second way to lock them in and to get more money is by creating packages of services or goods. Offering different levels of service or putting mutiple items together will create larger transactions but can also keep a customer for a longer period of time.

An easy way is to put your items or services into a good, better, best package obviously with prices to correspond.

Wow! I'm getting kind of hungry and I haven't even made it 3/4 of the way with this one tip! I'm going to go eat and shower and will try to wrap this up on Saturday. If you haven't already, make sure to subscribe to my blog because I will be giving away a lot more FREE content on how to Dominate Your Marketplace No Matter what Business you are in. Until next time.

John Barry
The Marketing Guy
http://www.ontargetprofits.com

Follow me on twitter : Click Here