Here are Top 100 Marketing tips for digital marketers in 2020. Marketing is a lot less complicated than you may have been led to believe.
Essentially, marketing is:
• Identifying your target market (those people who want your product or service, that you can reach easily, and who can afford your product/service)
• Discovering the needs and/or wants of your target audience
• Developing and then executing a plan to create a relevant and unique offering
• Creating and retaining loyal customers who actively engage with your brand
In other words, marketing is about creating a positive relationship with your target audience.
Most importantly, marketing is essential for your business. Without it, your business is going to struggle to stay afloat. Use the following tips to grow your business and increase your profits.
1.Understand the buying cycle
The buying cycle is the process prospects go through when they realise they’ve got a problem that needs fixing or a want that must be satisfied. It has five stages:
• Recognising there’s a problem/want
• Searching for solutions to the problem/want
• Creating a shortlist of solutions then picking one
• Finding vendors who provide the chosen solution. Selecting one vendor
• Making a purchase/hiring the service provider
2.Don’t create a product or service that suits you
If you want to make money, you need to sell your product or service to other people. What they like, want or need is more important than what you want, like, or need.
Design everything to suit your prospective customers, not yourself, your employees or your family/friends.
3.You can’t sell to everyone
Your product or service will only ever appeal to a subsection of any population. For that reason, it’s a huge mistake to try and appeal to an entire population.
To be successful, you should focus on the subsection and forget the rest.
4.Concentrate on your target market
Your target market consists of your ideal customers – those people who are looking for a product or service like yours to solve their problem.
5.You can have more than one target market
Sometimes you have more than one target market. Many companies create a primary and secondary target market.
The primary target market receives most of the focus and budget. However, these businesses recognise that there are other targets that require some attention if they are to be successful.
6.Make sure you can deliver what your target market wants
You must be able to deliver the product and service your target market really wants.
If there is a disconnect between what your target wants and what you can deliver, your marketing plan and ultimately, your business, will fail.
7.If you provide a service, understand how your prospective buyers choose providers
It’s crucial to understand how your potential buyers identify and learn about the service providers they hire.
You need to know this information so that you don’t waste time, money, and energy on marketing methods that won’t have any impact on your prospects’ buying decisions.
Generally, the seven most common ways decision- makers identify and learn about professional service providers are:
• Referrals from colleagues and others in their network
• Previous experience
• Research within their own organisation
• Advice from industry analysts
• Online research
• Business articles and trade reports
• Trade shows, exhibitions and conferences
8.Know what factors influence clients’ hiring decisions
Clients typically base their actual hiring decisions on the following:
• A professional service provider’s experience in the client’s industry or business
• Overall cost or fees
• Experience in the specific area where the client needs help
• Overall value the professional service provider can deliver
• The variety of services offered by the professional service provider
• Written proposal
• Proximity of the service provider to the client’s premises
• The quality of the service provider’s website
9.Identify your niche market
No matter what you sell – even if it’s a service that everybody can use – you will be much more successful if you learn niche marketing.
It is a multi-part process that includes locating unique markets with untapped profit potential, learning everything about them, and making irresistible offers to them.
The trick to niche marketing is that the message is specific and highly targeted. It’s extremely personal as in “I’m talking to YOU” personal and your content ‘speaks’ to the unique needs of your target. That’s what makes it compelling.
10.Sell in more than one niche
If you have the infrastructure to support multiple niches you can sell into many niches, but you must give each niche the feeling that this is all you do and that you do it “especially for them.”
When looking at markets to go after, you must make sure that there are ways to find out who the prospects are in that niche and whether the niche is profitable.
11.Don’t make your marketing message too general
If you get off-track and allow your marketing to become fuzzy or too general it becomes more and more difficult for prospects and clients to distinguish your service offering from any other.
Equally, if you’ve served somebody just like them, they will be more likely to try your business than the one that does not meet their specific needs.
Prospects want to believe that somebody can truly fill their needs. If they believe you understand them, you serve their needs.
12.Find under-served niches
To succeed in a big way, you need to find an underserved niche and provide information that is desperately wanted and needed.
13.Steer clear of being a generalist in any market
If you’re suffering from a knee injury, you’re more likely to look for a medical practitioner who specialises in treating that kind of injury than you are to turn to your local GP for help.
The same principle applies to your prospective clients. They want someone who can solve their specific problem.
The danger with being a generalist is that while it might give you a bigger market to aim your service at, it also brings with it greater competition.
Rather than being a generalist, become a specialist in one sector of the market and then when you’ve built up a client base there, consider adding another sector.
14.Narrowing your focus brings more success
When you identify a niche, you can become known in that niche, and then clients will begin to call you.
Contrary to popular opinion, narrowing your focus will actually result in more not less clients. A good niche will give you between three and 10 times more clients than general or unfocused marketing.
A good niche will provide you with a long-term, sustainable advantage in your marketing that will position you apart from all the competition and attract an endless stream of prospects.
15.Know how to pick the most profitable niche
The key elements for a profitable niche are:
• Size – the niche must be big enough to supply you with as many clients as you need.
• Money – the people in your niche must be able to afford your fees or prices.
For example, ‘marketing consultant for IT businesses in a specific region’ has a vastly greater potential for income than ‘marketing consultant for start-up companies’ (because start-up companies tend to have shoe-string budgets).
• Reach – you must be able to reach your clients easily through targeted promotions.
For instance, you can offer your services to an international audience via the internet so long as you have the ability to reach your prospects wherever they are in the world.
• Contactable – you must be able to contact your clients by telephone, the internet, or face to face.
• Burning need – is there an intense, perceived need for the niche in the minds of your prospects? Are they truly concerned with the issue you can help them solve with your service?
The more intense their pain or, conversely, the more attractive the benefit you help them realise, the more quickly the niche will respond to your efforts.
• Under-served – how many similar services are already being offered to the niche? Your business will grow faster in an under- served industry than in a highly developed one that has many providers trying to meet the given need.
• Precedent – are there already successful businesses operating in this niche?
If so, it suggests that people will pay to have a specific need addressed.
• Be the first – take a successful niche and narrow it further.
• Narrow focus – it’s much better to offer your service to a narrow professional industry (divorce lawyers) than to a broad group (all lawyers).
• Industry focus – are members of your niche from a single professional group or industry? If you focus on a subset of a specific professional group, the niche is much easier to penetrate.
You can email a specific newsletter to your target group. You can market the niche through its local, national, and even international professional organisations.
You can forge alliances with suppliers who serve the same niche.
• A coherent group – it’s a major advantage if members of your proposed niche feel they belong to a coherent group.
Members are more likely to forward your promotional material to others if they know who the others are.
• Improved financial or performance benefits – can you help your niche to make money or improve performance?
While they’re not essential criterion for being hired, it’s easier for clients to justify hiring you month after month if you’re helping them to make more money or perform better professionally.
16.Always research a niche before launching your business
Research your niche. Interview at least three prospects to identify what their needs are, how best to communicate with the niche, learn more about the competition, how to quickly position yourself as an expert within the niche, and how best to package your service as the solution to the niche’s greatest unmet, tangible needs that they are prepared to pay to resolve.
Test your solution. Conduct a mini service launch to test the interest in the market and to obtain testimonials.
17.Get known in your niche
Seek every opportunity to speak, write, or share your knowledge with your target audience to increase your exposure and solidify your position as an expert solution provider to this niche.
The greater the ‘expert’ profile you have with the group, the more responsive they will be to your invitation to do business with you.
18.Understand your market
Once you’ve narrowed down who you want to sell a particular product to, you should identify that market’s wants.
When you begin marketing to the most important wants and considerations your market has, you automatically become more effective, more efficient, and more profitable (and get more recognition as the expert!).
You’ll waste less time and get much more mileage for your marketing time and effort.
19.Create a profile of your ideal client
Compile a very detailed profile of the Ideal Client for your business. List both external factors (demographics) and internal factors (psychographics).
• What are all the issues, problems and challenges your prospects face? What keeps them up at night?
• What do they want? What do they need?
• What is the main outcome your prospects might want as a result of using your service?
• What benefits do they want to get from using a service like yours?
• What is your prospect’s main concern? (Price, delivery, performance, reliability, service maintenance, quality, efficiency?)
• What motivates your prospective buyer?
20.Know your competition
This is one of the most critical and yet most overlooked steps in marketing a business effectively.
Many business owners don’t have any idea who their real competition is, how long they’ve been in business, what they have to offer the marketplace, or the advantages or disadvantages of doing business with them.
Similarly, too many business owners think they know their competition but don’t research them often enough. This means they miss opportunities to fill gaps in the market left by their competitors.
What’s more, when prospective or existing clients want to know what their company does better than the competition, they are at a disadvantage because they don’t know.
It’s imperative that you constantly update the information you have about your top competitors. Gather as much objective and useful information as you can about your competition.
Make sure you can answer the following questions:
• What’s their product or service? (Are they in direct competition with you? Does their product or service address a problem in the same way your service does?)
• What is their revenue?
• How have they grown or shrunk over the past 12 months, and over the past five years?
• What is their market share? (This is often more relevant than their revenue. Some industries are tracked by analysts, which makes the information easier to find.)
• What do their clients think about them? How do they treat their clients? What do they do to keep their clients’ loyalty?
• Is your client service better than the competition? Do you give more value added service? Do you offer volume discount pricing? Do you have a longer-term relationship with your clients?
• Does your company make it easier in any way for a client to do business in any of the following areas: additional education, free consultations, bonuses, incentives, better sales terms, longer hours, better client service and after-sales service, returns policy, or a rewards club?
21.Become a prospective buyer for your competition
Contact your competition to determine how good (or bad) they are at establishing relationships with prospects.
• Do they try to get you to come to their office, shop, or set up an appointment for a salesperson to meet you?
• Do they ask when the service you’re using will expire or need renewing?
• Do they question you about your immediate and long-term needs and wants?
• Do they only provide quotes for the service you enquire about?
• Do they give you reasons for doing business with them rather than other companies?
• Do they attempt to capture your name, address, phone number, and email address so they can follow up with more information or send you samples?
• What’s their history? (Have they expanded their range of products or services? Have they moved out or into markets? Find out why they withdrew from or moved into a market and how that affected their profits.)
• What’s their position in the market? (This reflects their ‘core value’ – our product is the most reliable, for example.)
• What segments are they targeting?
• What distribution channels do they use? (Look at their distributors, sales reps, etc.)
• What is their marketing budget?
22.Find out what your competition is not delivering
Is it something that you could offer? What is something that you can do right now that will fill the gap or offer something that no one else in your industry or area offers?
What market category or niche is not being served by your industry?
Once you’ve completed your competitive surveys, begin comparing the data you’ve collected on your competition with your own operation and use it to identify potential profit-generating opportunities for your company.
23.Define your Unique Selling Proposition
Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) is the unique position that your company holds in the minds of your potential and existing clients.
That position determines whether or not your potential clients will choose to do business with you. A USP is not a catchy slogan – it’s crucial to your business success.
Without an effective USP, people will never know why they should do business with you.
24.Price is not always a determining factor in purchases
There’s a misconception among many business owners that people choose the company that offers the lowest price.
This isn’t the case – studies have shown that price is seldom the main factor in making a decision to make a purchase.
Sometimes offering the cheapest price can be detrimental because potential clients may view your product or service as somehow inferior to others.
There are various ways people define their USP. These can be based on:
• The specific service they provide
• The geographic area they serve
• The demographic group they serve
• The occupations they serve (e.g., marketing consulting for estate agents)
• The career levels of their clients (e.g. CEOs)
• The way they deliver their service (e.g., via the phone or personal meetings)
• The extras they provide
• Their unique qualifications, credentials or experience
25.Your USP must be specific and meaningful to your prospective clients
A USP is also a way of summarising and telegraphing one of the chief benefits of the service being marketed.
It’s not enough to say “We deliver the best service” or “We offer the best price”.
That won’t set your business apart from your competition. It’s not specific, it’s not different and consumers hear similar bland statements all the time – it won’t motivate them to do business with you.
So your USP must be specific. If you deliver the best service in your industry, what does that mean specifically? Quantify your statement. Describe what makes your service unique.
To be successful a company must have a sustainable competitive advantage, something that sets it apart from the competition or makes it unique.
What happens if you can’t think of anything that is sufficiently unique or different about your company? Then you need to find something that your competition does not offer that creates extra value or that gives clients additional reasons to buy your service.
It might even be something that every company in your industry or sector offers as a matter of course but which clients aren’t aware of.
The crucial characteristics of an effective USP
• You should be able to define your USP in less than 90 words. And it must describe why people should do business with you and not your competitors.
It should therefore capture and reflect the most important source of your competitive advantage.
• It should be memorable.
• It should be unique.
• It should describe the benefits of your service.
• It must be believable – not challenge people’s credence.
• It should be specific about your service quality, selection, etc.
• It should show how your service fills a gap in the market.
• It must be relevant and of importance to your prospects and clients.
• It must be able to evolve to meet your clients’ changing needs or wants.
• It must be true. You must be able to deliver what you promise. Never advertise or market a USP that you can’t deliver.
That will only dent your company’s credibility and harm your current and future custom.
26.Don’t wait for referrals – ask for them
A referral is someone else doing your sales and marketing for you at no cost and because they want to. Their experience of your service was so positive that they want to share it with other people.
Referrals are the single fastest and easiest way for any business owner to build deep relationships, earn more money, and enjoy the freedom they desire.
Before you ask for referrals ensure that the service you offer is regarded in a positive way by your existing clients. It should delight rather than merely please.
27.Put energy into building a referral programme.
Prospects who are referred are easier to close, make their buying decision faster, are more profitable because there’s no cost in acquiring them and they spend/invest more, and they’re more loyal
- they tend to stay with you longer.
28.Make sure your colleagues and clients know all aspects of your product/service
People talk most about your product/service when they really understand it. But, unfortunately, most clients or customers have usually only experienced the benefit of a few of your skills or one or two of your products.
Referrals come faster when clients recognise how you can improve their lives. They must be able to understand all your products/services.
They must be able to explain to others what you do. Focus on educating them about all areas of your service and all the products you offer.
29.Dedicate time at the end of each prospect or client meeting to discuss referrals
Many business owners aren’t comfortable with the idea of asking for referrals. Overcome this by realising most clients are thrilled that you think so highly of them that you’re requesting their help.
30.Continue to build a relationship with clients and colleagues by anticipating their needs
If you want to create top-of-mind awareness in your clients’ minds, provide value, and do it fast.
32.Reward referral-generating behavior
As with any behaviour you want to reinforce, pay attention to and reward referral- generating behaviour.
Referrals don’t happen just by accident. They are the product of a great client experience, a mix of sales, marketing and client-support efforts.
It’s too easy to forget to remind clients how great their experience was so that they will be more willing to make further referrals. Out of sight is definitely out of mind, in this case.
Identify the ‘ideal’ referral candidates, articulate your company’s USP and how it relates to their network, create the ideal environment for referrals, and thank the referrers.
33.Generate tons of referrals by doing something extraordinary
Give people a reason to talk about your business or service. Think of something positive you can do that makes it intrinsically conversation-worthy.
It has to be a reason that isn’t completely self-serving to you. People won’t mind helping you to build your business if they have had a good experience but they’re not going to go out of their way to do it. Why should they?
34.How you ask for referrals makes all the difference
The art of getting lots of referrals lies in the way you ask for them. If you say, “Do you know anyone else who might enjoy my service?” people will say they’ll have a think and let you know.
The chances are they will forget the question once they’ve left your premises, put down the phone or closed your email. So be specific and be direct.
Ask, ‘Who do you think will benefit from my service?’ When they tell you, ask them specifically where you can find those people (their company, industry, or within the organisations, clubs, groups or networks they belong to).
35.Become a preferred service provider
Contact various companies and organisations who deal with your kind of ideal clients and see if you can be set up as a preferred provider of your service.
Each company or organisation will recommend you to their employees or clients in exchange for a fee or a commission on every sale you make as a result of their recommendation.
36.Use public speaking to reach a bigger audience
One of the best ways to create a lasting impression on a decision- maker is to deliver your service to them.
Of course, you can’t normally do that until they’ve heard of you, so the next best way to demonstrate your expertise is to deliver content in a non-sales setting such as a conference speech, a seminar presentation or in a workshop environment.
By listening to your speech or presentation, the decision-maker is highly likely to form an impression about whether they want to work with you or not.
Public speaking – giving lectures, talks, papers, and presentations at public events, industry meetings, conventions, and conferences – is a PR technique that businesses use widely to promote their products or services.
37.Look for speaking opportunities
Unless you’re sponsoring your own seminar or other event, you need to find appropriate forums to which you can be invited to speak.
How? Check your mail and the trade publications you read for announcements of industry meetings and conventions.
Trade journals generally run preview articles and announcements of major shows, expos, and meetings months before the events.
Many trade publications also have columns that announce such meetings on both a national and a local level. Make sure to scan these columns in the publications aimed at your target market industries.
You should also receive preview announcements in the mail and via email. Professional societies and trade associations will send you direct-mail packages inviting your firm to exhibit at their shows.
Find out whether papers, talks, or seminars are being given at the show and, if so, get on the panel or signed up as a speaker.
Propose topics. Most conference managers welcome such proposals because they need speakers.
38.Recycle your talks
You can recycle your talks and deliver them to different groups in the same year or different years, tailoring them slightly to fit current market conditions, the theme of the meeting, or the group’s special interests.
When you create a description, outline, or proposal for a talk, keep it as a file on your computer.
Then when other speaking opportunities come your way, you can quickly edit the file and email a customised proposal or abstract to the person in charge of that meeting.
39.Organise any presentation for maximum impact
If your presentation is to be primarily informational, you can organise it along the following lines:
• An introduction that presents an overview of the topic
• The body of the talk, which presents the facts in detail
• A conclusion that sums up for the audience what they’ve heard
This repetition is beneficial because, unlike readers of an article, listeners of a spoken presentation can’t flip back to a previous page or paragraph to refresh their memory or study your material in more detail.
For this reason, you must repeat your main point at least three times to make sure that it’s understood and remembered.
40.Begin a talk with questions
One easy and proven technique to begin a talk or presentation is to get the audience involved by asking questions. Asking a question has two benefits:
• It provides a quick survey of audience concerns, interests, and levels of involvement, allowing you to tailor your talk to their needs on the spot.
• It forces the audience to become immediately involved. After all, when you’re in the audience and the speaker asks a question, you do one of two things: you either do or don’t raise your hand. Either way, you’re thinking, responding, and getting involved.
41.Don’t go over your allotted presentation time
Don’t exceed the allotted time for your speech. If you’re given 20 minutes with an additional 10 minutes for questions and answers, stop after 20 minutes.
People won’t mind if you finish a bit early, but they will become fidgety and start looking at their watches if your time limit is up and you don’t seem even near finished.
42.Offer a handout with your presentation
A handout can take one of several formats: hard copy of the presentation or slides, brochures, article reprints, or reprints of the narration (with visuals incorporated, if possible).
It can be the full text of your talk, an outline, just the visuals, or a report or article on a topic that is either related to the presentation topic or expands on one of the subtopics you touched on briefly in the talk.
Every handout should contain your company name, address, phone, fax, website address, email address, and, if possible, a full resource box with a brief summary of who you are and what you do – as should every marketing document you produce.
43.Offer a transcript of the speech after your talk, not before
Handouts such as transcripts of a speech, articles, reports, or other materials with lots of copy should be handed out after the talk, not before.
If you hand them out before you step to the podium, the audience will read the printed materials and ignore you.
You can hand out reproductions of visuals or pages with just a few bullet points in advance so that attendees can write notes directly on them.
44.Let your audience know you’ll be giving a handout
If the handout is the full text of your talk or a set of fairly comprehensive notes, tell the audience before you start, “There’s no need to take notes.
We have hard copies of this presentation for you to take home.” This relieves listeners of the burden of note taking, freeing them to concentrate on your talk.
45.Avoid boring your audience to death with PowerPoint or slides
Prepare visuals that you can show briefly and then put away. If you use slides or PowerPoint, turn off the projector and turn on the lights when the visuals are not in use.
If you do use slides, make them bold, bright, colourful, and easy to read. Use them to show, demonstrate, and create excitement. Don’t use them to transmit complex detail.
Too much detail in a slide or overhead makes it unclear.
46.Test the readability of a slide before your presentation
Hold the slide at arm’s length. If you can’t read the text, your audience won’t be able to either.
47.Capture attendee names for your prospect database
If the conference organiser won’t release a list of attendees or the people who go to your specific session, offer your handout or a free information guide as a bait piece instead of giving it out at the session.
At the conclusion of your talk, discuss your handout or information guide and what it covers and say, “So if you’d like a copy of this free report/information guide, just write on the back of your business card and hand it to me.
I’ll email a free copy to you as soon as I get back to the office.” The more enticing and relevant your bait piece, the more business cards you’ll collect.
48.Become a dynamic networker
Besides referrals, decision-makers tend to choose service providers they are aware of. That means you must raise your profile to become known to as many decision-makers in your market as possible.
One of the easiest ways to raise your profile is through networking.
People want to do business with people they like and trust. Use a networking event as an opportunity to get to know people better and find out how you can help them grow their business.
Your networking will be successful once you start looking at it as a way to help others.
49.Mentally rehearse your success at a future networking event
Each day before a networking event, take a few moments to imagine yourself there.
Think of it like a movie playing inside your mind: ‘see’ yourself looking confident, smiling and meeting lots of interesting people, and ‘hear’ yourself sounding confident and talking with ease.
Make the mental picture as vivid as possible. Keep doing it until you have a completely positive ‘movie’ in your mind.
50.Rehearse your ‘elevator pitch’
Your ‘elevator pitch’ is a one-sentence summary of what your business is about and how it can help your prospects.
It’s what you could say about your business in the time it would take to get from the ground floor to the top floor in a lift. It should break the ice and start a conversation flowing.
51.Decide on your goals for every networking event
What is your purpose for attending a particular event? Is it: to meet certain people, to find prospective clients, to find a resource you need, to make a new friend, or to nurture existing relationships?
52.Check your business cards before a networking event
Ensure your business card accurately describes what you do. People might not remember you, but your card might be enough to get them to phone you. Print on the back of cards. Make your cards memorable.
53.Pick the right event
If you need to meet plastics manufacturers, for example, find out where they meet and go along. Look up trade associations or check relevant trade media.
54.Research the people who’ll be at a networking event
Try to get hold of a list of people who will be at the networking event and look them up. Identify your targets so you can bring some focus to the event.
55.Arrive early to networking events
If you arrive early, the number of people will be smaller and more manageable.
56.Look positive at networking events
Enter the room with a smile. No matter how nervous you feel and however much you might be quaking inside, do your best to appear confident.
Breathe! When you meet someone, smile and shake hands firmly. Make lots of eye contact (but not in an unblinking, scary kind of way).
If you have a smile on your face, people will see you as approachable, enthusiastic and friendly.
57.Work the room at a networking event
It’s too easy to stay talking with friends or colleagues but make the effort to meet new people. Make sure you mingle. Move around. Spend no more than 5-6 minutes talking with any one person.
58.Ask your host to introduce you to people
If the networking event has a greeting committee or ambassadors, find out who they are and ask for help with introductions.
Reach out to people standing by themselves and introduce people to each other.
59.Ask open-ended questions
This means questions that ask who, what, where, when, and how rather than those that can be answered with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
This form of questioning opens up the discussion and shows listeners that you are interested in them.
60.Don’t hard sell at networking events
Forget trying to ‘sell’ your business or using the event as a hard- sell opportunity – it’s very off-putting.
There’s nothing worse than a pushy salesperson trying to sell you something at a networking event. Use the opportunity to sound out potential leads, not convert them.
61.Follow up with the people you meet at networking events
When you return to the office, be sure to write out information on the back of the card or a sheet of paper that can be stapled to the card.
This way you can maintain and build rapport for a future meeting, email, or phone call.
62.Drop an email to the four or five people you meet at events
Don’t blanket email everyone who was there – they won’t appreciate it! It’s also good to mention a detail you remember and suggest that they keep in touch with you.
If there’s an obvious win-win connection with someone you’ve met at an event, call them up and invite them to lunch to explore the connection further.
63.Write winning proposals
A great proposal can help you to win a contract while a poorly written one can undermine all the hard work you’ve put into forming a relationship with a prospective client.
What constitutes a poor proposal? One that’s filled with meaningless jargon, looks like a template, arrives late, or doesn’t address the client’s specific needs.
A great proposal should summarise the results you’ll provide over what time frame and at what cost.
When you write a proposal, exclude any empty phrases such as ‘seamless integration’. Use words, terms and phrases a prospective client will understand immediately.
Only agree to send a proposal when you understand what your prospective client wants and you know how to address those wants. Be aware (even if the client is not) of the underlying cause of the problem.
64.Keep your proposal as brief as possible
Clients tend to select the shortest proposal to read first. Your proposal must include the following:
• An executive summary.
This should demonstrate your understanding of the client’s issues and describe the results you will deliver.
• Background information
This should briefly describe why you have been asked to submit a proposal.
• Objectives
This is where you describe how you will deliver the results you are promising.
• Results
This is where you explain in detail the results you will deliver to your prospective client. Give specific outcomes, results, and time frames.
• Project approach
This explains how you will achieve the results you promise. Explain how the work will be carried out and include the responsibilities of both yourself and your prospective client. Include details of the activities involved as well as the tools and strategies you’ll use.
• The team
If you’re working with other people, provide details of who they are and how each will contribute to the results you’re promising to achieve.
• The schedule
This is where you provide details of how long each phase of the project will take. Do include details of how you will keep the project on time.
• Fees
This is where you provide details of your fees, perhaps even with a range of pricing options depending upon the results you’re being asked to deliver.
Specify how you expect to be paid (an upfront fee, periodic payments during the project and a project completion fee, for example).
• Qualifications
This is where you explain why a client should use your services. Explain how you’ve worked through similar challenges with other companies and how you resolved them.
Emphasise each of the unique qualities that you will bring to the project and how each will help ensure a successful outcome.
Provide case studies and testimonials that demonstrate your expertise at solving clients’ problems.
65.Offer prospective clients a huge incentive to make contact with you
Get clients coming to you by offering them a huge incentive to take action. What are the kinds of offers and promotions that would stimulate a list of prospects to get in touch with you?
• Time limited – phone today
• Claim something free
• Add in a bonus gift
• A special offer
• A buy one, get one free promotion
• Something that’s running out
What you’re looking for is a promotion that creates action NOW – rather than later.
66.Make your sales letters (both offline and online) work hard for you
To be effective, your sales letter must incorporate the following elements:
• An attention-grabbing headline
If you can’t grab your prospect’s attention you’ll lose before you even begin.
Use a subhead to introduce another big benefit or hint at the offer itself, assuming it’s especially compelling.
If the headline is an outrageous claim then you can use the subhead to validate your headline.
• The body
Identify the problem. Gain your prospect’s attention by identifying a problem that resonates with them. Once you’ve identified the pain, agitate it (rub salt in the wound).
Overcome their inertia: remind people of their pain over and over again if you want them to take action.
Use bullet points.
Use social proof.
• The Offer
Elements of effective offers
Open with a “reason why” you’re making the offer. Vividly show the value of each element of your offer. Use images.
Reveal the price but show how it pales in comparison to the overall value your product/ service delivers. Pile on bonuses they will want so the offer becomes truly irresistible.
Discuss the payment terms (i.e. split-pay, free-trial, etc.) if applicable
You must eliminate your prospect’s ability to procrastinate, because they will if left alone. Scarcity can be accomplished in three ways:
i) Limited Quantity
ii) Price increase (date or quantity driven)
iii) Loss of a valuable bonus
• Call to action
Don’t assume your prospect knows what to do next… you need to tell them! Be explicit and succinct in your instructions.
67.Test putting the call to action in multiple places in the sales letter
Don’t just place your call to action at the bottom of your sales letter. Some common places for the call to action include:
• Beneath testimonials
• After the bonuses
• In the P.S.
• At the top of the letter
68.Paint a vivid picture of what will happen if people don’t take action
Remind people of the dire consequences of not taking action – of how much more painful the problem will become.
69.Always include a P.S.
Every sales letter you write should include at least one P.S. (and most will include two or even three – the first being a warning of what will happen if they miss out, the second a recap of the offer and benefits, and the third a trust-building phrase or sentence).
The P.S. is the third most important element of most sales letters (behind the headline and first paragraph)…use it wisely!
Use it to:
• Restate the primary benefits
• Restate the scarcity component
• Make at least one additional call to action
70.Test your P.S.
If your prospects only read the headline and the P.S., would it give them enough information to make them want to buy? If not, rewrite it
71.Form strategic alliances
A strategic alliance is an easy way to explore new market opportunities, find new leads, attract new clients and really turbo- boost your sales BUT careful planning is imperative because they do involve time, resources and energy.
Why form a strategic alliance? They allow your business to gain a competitive edge through access to a partner’s resources – whether they are markets, technologies, capital or people.
With a strategic alliance, you increase your resources and capabilities which in turn boost your company’s growth and expansion.
You may gain access to more established channels of distribution, marketing or branding.
72.Consider forming a strategic alliance with your competitors to share your unconverted leads
People mistakenly assume that every other company in their industry is a competitor.
But they’re not. You can share similar client bases but just because someone hired you rather another service provider doesn’t mean they hate the other person and love you. It means that:
• The timing was right
• The price was right.
73.Define your outcome before forming a strategic alliance
Decide what you want from the relationship: access to a market, new clients, or ways to retain your existing clients.
74.Be aware of why strategic alliances fail
One of the biggest reasons for failure in strategic alliances is an incompatibility between company cultures.
The ideal partner in a strategic alliance is one that has resources, skills and assets that complement your own.
The strategic alliance has to work contractually, but there should also be a good fit between the cultures of the two organisations.
75.Define how the strategic alliance will operate
How will the partnership work? Will you or the other company help each other to become more efficient, will the other company bundle your product with their offering, or will they sell your product on a commission?
Ensure that the relationship works financially for both you and your partner. Unless you both gain from the partnership, one of you will lack motivation and feel resentful and the relationship will crumble.
76.Don’t tie the deal up with so many clauses that neither of you has room to move
Do have an exit strategy in place should either of you decide to dissolve the strategic alliance.
Strategic alliance partnerships may take time and energy to set up and run but they can also make a huge difference to your company’s bottom line.
77.Generate free publicity to get more leads
Public Relations (PR) means you and your business getting coverage (being written about in the media or being featured on the radio or TV).
PR is a very effective way of attracting new clients and reminding old clients of your existence, therefore rekindling their interest in your service. And it costs you virtually nothing.
Credibility makes publicity a very valuable tool. People know that advertising is paid for and that companies can buy space to say whatever they wish about their products and services.
And for this reason, people are more sceptical today than ever before. One way to get around this scepticism is via publicity – people know it can’t be bought; it appears to be endorsed by the medium that makes your announcement.
And since people tend to trust the media they watch, listen to, or read regularly, they accept your message as being completely credible.
That’s why publicity can win you many more sales than any form of paid advertising or promotion. Taking advantage of this credibility can result in a windfall for your company.
78.Offer press releases to generate publicity
The most common way of getting a story in the media is through a one or two page press release.
Media outlets always have their reader/audience in mind so your press release must be angled and written in a way that will appeal to them. You can also send a list of bullet points which cover the salient points of your story.
You could also try calling first to gauge their interest (but check their deadlines before you call – you’ll get a much better response if you make contact a long way before the deadline).
79.Offer media outlets news they’ll use
In general, information outlets are looking for:
• Topical news releases relating to timely issues. The media is particularly interested in certain trends and your services, no matter what they are, can tie into one of those trends.
• Community involvement releases sponsoring events or get- togethers.
• Industry-specific projections and surveys that predict where a niche market is headed.
Generating news and information that people and the press will be interested in is not as difficult as it may sound. All you have to do is ask, “What does my target audience care about?”
It will help to focus your thoughts and ideas. Conducting some research on a specific topic or question will help you get the answer.
80.Use your press releases to send prospects to your website
Place hyperlinks in your press releases that send prospects to the relevant page of your website (or to a specific landing page set up for the PR campaign).
81.Set up a ‘media’ section on your website
Upload all your press releases onto separate pages of your media section. Google prefers websites that are adding new content and gives them higher rankings in search results.
That means more visitors to your web pages.
82.Leverage your publicity
When you get media coverage, share it with everyone you do business with and include it in all your marketing material.
If potential clients see that your business is the one that the media is talking about, that’s going to give you a significant competitive advantage.
83.Collect and use testimonials
You can attract or ‘catch’ more clients by collecting testimonials from your clients and using them in your marketing materials (both online and offline).
It lets your clients do the talking and convincing for you and your business. If possible, include the client’s photograph, their real name, position within their company and location.
That way, prospects can see that the testimonials are genuine.
84.Ask clients to provide details in their testimonials
Some testimonials aren’t particularly useful: they’re the ones that say “Wow! Your company’s great!” Ask clients to go into detail about how your service has improved or benefited their company.
For example, someone might go on an investment training course and say: “When I first came on your investment training course I was £5,000 in debt. However, after using the advice I am now
£10,000 in credit after paying off all my credit cards. I now have a bright future ahead of me because I know that I’m in control of my financial destiny.”
Compare that with the run-of-the-mill testimonial that says, “Fantastic!” Which has more credibility?
85.Get a range of testimonials
Have a range of testimonials to endorse what you do from every single angle.
Think of it as a CAT scan providing clarity from every single angle and providing absolute transparency so there is no doubt in anyone’s mind.
The key is to get testimonials about different aspects of your product or service.
If you get a whole range of testimonials saying the same thing it reinforces the point, but ideally what you want to see is them coming from different angles. So have:
• One testimonial saying what great service you provide
• One testimonial saying how easy you are to do business with
• One testimonial talking about the value for money your service provides
• One testimonial talking about the outcome derived from using your service and how it exceeded your clients’ expectations
• One testimonial saying how much your clients have recommended your products or service to their friends and family members
• One testimonial saying, “I’ve tried other companies’ services and they don’t measure up to yours.”
86.Use telemarketing to bring in more business
Although it is often maligned and frequently misunderstood, telemarketing provides an opportunity to make one-to-one contact with the prospective client at a very low cost.
Telemarketing can be used to:
• Expand your current client base
• Improve the monetary amount per sale
• Improve your company’s client service image
• Provide an opportunity for follow-up sales
• Generate leads for outside salespeople
• Sell a service directly over the phone
• Provide an incoming service for people to request additional information
87.Use a three-step marketing approach
A one-step marketing approach is attempting to make an immediate sale with an advertisement, sales letter, or other promotion.
The prospective client must make an immediate buying decision. He or she must either purchase the product/service or not.
If the client decides not to buy and leaves, you have lost the opportunity to develop and nurture an ongoing relationship with them. You’ve in effect lost not just the first sale but future sales.
A more effective method is to use three steps in the selling process. Step one is to make contact with the prospect and offer valuable information for free in return for their contact details.
Step two is to build a relationship with your prospect through regular contact (sales letters and emails) that continue to offer value.
Step three is to nurture the relationship until the prospect is comfortable enough with you and your organisation to buy your product/service.
88.Encourage people to climb the marketing ladder
If you want people to buy your service, you must give something away first. Many business owners mistakenly assume that ‘window shopping’ prospects will be prepared to hire them or buy from them without any prior experience or knowledge of the service being offered but they need much, much more.
You must woo your prospects, offering them low or no cost samples, then something that is a little bit more expensive and so on until they are familiar enough with you and your company to consider your highest priced service.
Doing it this way makes purchase decisions easier.
As the relationship between you and your prospect develops, the objections he or she may have had initially begin to disappear.
To make the process easy, you need to have a range of services at different prices so prospects can gradually move toward the more expensive range at a pace that makes them comfortable.
89.Use back-end and front-end marketing
Once you’ve overcome your prospects’ resistance to buy from you, it’s crucial that you continue to nurture the relationship so they keep buying your services.
Keep providing them with useful, relevant information and occasionally offering them opportunities to buy more advanced services.
You can boost your sales by also offering up-sell, cross-sell, even down-sell opportunities (if they opt out of one of your more expensive services, you can offer them something cheaper).
90.Create additional products/services to offer first-time buyers
When you offer a better version or supplemental products/services that the client needs in order to benefit more fully from what you’re offering, you not only create more cash for yourself, you create a happier client who ultimately enjoys their purchase more.
91.Offer multiple payment methods
People have a strong resistance to buy and it doesn’t matter how good your product or service is, you still need to deal with their natural scepticism.
You have to overcome their resistance. The more you do to put prospective clients at ease, the more they will buy from you.
An effective way of lessening buyers’ resistance is offering multiple payment methods to make it easier to purchase your service.
These might include early bird discounts, PayPal, credit or debit cards, bank cheque, payment plans, etc.
Offer enticing bonuses
Any bonuses you offer should be of low cost to you but high perceived value to the client.
So, it’s important that you when you make the offer, you put a monetary value on the bonuses (for example, ‘You’ll also receive this special bonus report worth £97 absolutely free and it’s yours to keep – no matter what’).
92.Reward clients so they keep coming back
Finding first-time clients takes time, money and energy (think of the advertising, direct mail, telemarketing, email marketing, and overhead costs).
Each client you attract and sell can cost as much or more than the profit you make from each sale.
Therefore, it makes sense to make additional sales to each client you have already bought and paid for with your marketing efforts.
In the clamour to find new clients, many businesses forget their existing clients. This is a huge and costly mistake: if clients don’t feel they are appreciated, they’ll move on.
Ignore your existing clients and you miss not only the opportunity to show them how much you really do care about the relationship (and naturally, their purchase and their ongoing business with you) but also to ask for referrals and testimonials.
93.Maintain frequent contact with your clients
Unless clients know what you have to offer and the benefits to them, they simply won’t buy. Keep them informed by thanking them for existing business and telling them what you have to offer by letter, newsletter, ezine, phone, email or even personally.
A new service or product is an excellent excuse to contact them. A special thank you discount or exclusive offer to loyal clients is a great way to keep them buying from you.
Make a point of delivering more than clients expect. When you exceed clients’ expectations, they will be delighted and feel obligated to return the gesture. They’ll refer you to their friends, family and work colleagues and they’ll stay your client for longer.
94.Never ignore your existing customers
Don’t overlook the potential of current customers when considering where to focus for growth.
Your best prospect is very often your current customer, who knows your brand and would be most open to trying something new from it.
Besides, it’s cheaper to market to an existing customer than it is to get a new customer.
95.Only focus on markets with growth potential
One of the biggest mistakes marketers make is focusing on a target market that is too small and then setting sales and profit objectives that can’t possibly be reached.
Be careful about choosing a target market that is shrinking over time or that is too small to allow you to meet sales objectives.
- Set measurable marketing objectives
Don’t set objectives that are not measurable. Make your objectives specific and quantifiable. Marketing objectives fall into one of three categories:
• The retention of existing customers
• To increase the purchase amount from existing customers
• To increase the number of new customers
To effectively manage your marketing function, you will need to know whether you accomplished your objectives or not. If your objectives aren’t specific and quantifiable, this will not be possible.
Good objectives are SMART:
• Specific
• Measurable
• Actionable.
• Results-oriented
• Time-specific.
97.Make sure your prices are consistent with your product/ service positioning
High prices suggest premium products/services. Low prices suggest bargain products/services.
If you want your products or services to be considered high quality, your prices should reflect that. Make sure your sales come from higher price points than the industry or market you operate in.
98.Monitor your competitors’ pricing levels
Don’t ignore what your competitors are doing price-wise. Your pricing decisions should be based on real market analysis so keep an eye on what they’re selling their products or services for.
99.Price sensitivity is affected by brand relevance and brand differentiation
If the customers purchasing your brand do so because of superior attributes or some other more intangible connection that you’ve established over time, they will be far less price sensitive.
On the other hand, if you have an undifferentiated, parity brand, you will find more price sensitivity and elasticity.
In many instances, the more intangible or differentiated your brand, the less price sensitivity exists.
Service firms are very good examples of this – clients judge them on intangible factors such as reputation, etc.
100.Understand the demographic trends affecting your business
Demographics are things like:
• Age of consumers
• Income of consumers
• Education level of consumers
• Family composition of consumers, such as female-headed household, number of people per household, presence of children, and number of children
• Ethnicity of consumers.
Consumer trends provide another level of insight into consumer demand that can help you make smart decisions about whom to market to and what products your business should market.
- Understand your competition
Good marketers have a solid understanding of their competitors and their strengths and weaknesses. It would be foolhardy for a small company to take a well-entrenched, well-resourced competitor head on.
Monitor both your primary and secondary competitors. All businesses have a primary and secondary set of competitors.
It is helpful to define the key competitors with whom you compete– those that are most like you and serve the same customer profile, with the same shopping intent, with the same channel, with roughly the same price and product categories.
